'Wilderness' signifies something with little life in it, as described in the internal sense in Luke 1:80 'Wilderness' signifies somewhere there is no good because there is no truth. 'Wilderness,' as in Jeremiah 23:10, signifies the Word when it is adulterated.

(Riferimenti: Arcana Coelestia 1927)

68. ANY ONE SOCIETY IN THE HEAVENS RESEMBLES ONE MAN

I have frequently been permitted to see that each society of heaven resembles one man and is in the likeness of a man. There was a society into which many who knew how to feign themselves angels of light had insinuated themselves. They were hypocrites. When these were being separated from the angels, I saw that the entire society appeared at first like a single indistinct body, then by degrees in a human form but still indistinctly, and at last, clearly as a man. Those who were in that man and made up the man were such as were in the good of that society. The others who were not in the man and did not make up the man were hypocrites. The latter were cast out, the former retained. Thus a separation was effected. Hypocrites are those who talk well and do well but regard themselves in everything. They talk as do the angels about the Lord, about heaven, love and heavenly life, and they also act rightly that they may appear to be such as they are in speech, but they think otherwise, believe nothing and wish good to none but themselves. Their doing good is for the sake of self, or if for the sake of others, it is in order to be seen and thus still for the sake of self.