277. Influx. Concerning the influx of heaven into the world, and the influx of the soul into all things of the body; from experience, Arcana Coelestia 6053-6058, 6189-6215, 6307-6327, 6466-6495, 6598-6626. Nothing exists from itself, but from something prior to itself; thus all things from a First, Arcana Coelestia 4523, 4524, 6040, 6056. All things even as they have existed, so also they subsist, because subsistence is perpetual existence, Arcana Coelestia 2886, 2888, 3627, 3628, 3648, 4523, 4524, 6040, 6056. Influx takes place according to that order, Arcana Coelestia 7270. From this it is evident that all things perpetually subsist from a first Esse, because they have had their existence therefrom, Arcana Coelestia 4523, 4524, 6040, 6056. The all of life flows in from a First, because it is from it - thus from the Lord, Arcana Coelestia 3001, 3318, 3337, 3338, 3344, 3484, 3628, 3741-3743, 4318-4320, 4417, 4524, 4882, 5847, 5986, 6325, 6468-6470, 6479, 9276, 10196. All Existere is from Esse, and nothing can exist unless its own Esse is in it, Arcana Coelestia 4523, 4524, 6040, 6056.

All things which a man thinks and wills enter by influx; from experience, Arcana Coelestia 904, 2886-2888, 4151, 4319, 4320, 5846, 5848, 6189, 6191, 6194, 6197-6199, 6213, 7147, 10219. A man's ability of beholding things, of thinking, and of drawing analytical conclusions, is from influx, Arcana Coelestia 2888, 4319, 4320. If the influx from the spiritual world were taken away from a man he could not live for a moment; but the man is still in freedom; from experience, Arcana Coelestia 2887, 5849, 5854, 6321. The life which flows in from the Lord is varied according to a man's state, and according to reception, Arcana Coelestia 2069, 5986, 6472, 7343. The good which flows in from the Lord is with the wicked turned into evil, and truth into falsity; from experience, Arcana Coelestia 3643, 4632. So far as the good and truth, which constantly flow in from the Lord, are received, so far evil and falsity do not obstruct, Arcana Coelestia 2411, 3142, 3147, 5828.

All good flows in from the Lord, and all evil from hell, Arcana Coelestia 904, 4151. A man at the present day believes that all things are in himself and from himself, when nevertheless they enter by influx, and he knows from a doctrinal of the Church that all good is from heaven, and all evil from hell, Arcana Coelestia 4249, 6193, 6206. But if he would believe as the case really is, he would not appropriate evil to himself: for he would cast it away from himself into hell; neither would he account good to be his own, and thus would not claim any merit from it, Arcana Coelestia 6206, 6324, 6325. How happy the state of a man would then be, because from the interior he would then see from the Lord both good and evil, Arcana Coelestia 6325. Those who deny heaven, or know nothing about it, are ignorant of the fact that there is any influx from it, Arcana Coelestia 4322, 5649, 6193, 6479. What influx is; illustrated by comparisons, Arcana Coelestia 6128, 6190, 9407.

Influx is spiritual and not physical; consequently, there is an influx from the spiritual world into the natural, and not from the natural world into the spiritual, Arcana Coelestia 3219, 5119, 5259, 5427, 5428, 5477, 6322, 9109, 9110. Spiritual influx takes place through the internal into the external man, and not conversely, Arcana Coelestia 1702, 1707, 1940, 1954, 5119, 5259, 5779, 6322, 9380: because the internal man is in the spiritual world, and the external in the natural world, Arcana Coelestia 978, 1015, 3628, 4459, 4523, 4524, 6057, 6309, 9701-9709, 10156, 10472. The appearance is as though influx passed from external into internal things, but this is a fallacy, Arcana Coelestia 3721. Influx with a man takes place into his rational, and through them into his scientific things, and not conversely, Arcana Coelestia 1495, 1707, 1940. The nature of the order of influx, Arcana Coelestia 775, 880, 1096, 1495, 7270.

There is an immediate influx from the Lord, and also a mediate influx through the spiritual world, that is, through heaven, Arcana Coelestia 6063, 6307, 6472, 9682, 9683. The Lord's immediate influx takes place into the minutest singulars, Arcana Coelestia 6058, 6474-6478, 8717, 8728. Concerning the Lord's mediate influx through heaven, Arcana Coelestia 4067, 6982, 6985, 6996; it takes place through the spirits and angels who are adjoined to the man, Arcana Coelestia 697, 5846-5866. Through angels the Lord flows into the ends from which, and for the sake of which, a man thinks, wills, and acts, Arcana Coelestia 1317, 1645, 5846, 5854; and thus He flows into those things which belong to conscience with a man, Arcana Coelestia 6207, 6213. Through spirits however He flows into the thoughts, and from them into the things of the memory, Arcana Coelestia 4186, 5854, 5858, 6192, 6193, 6198, 6199, 6319. It is difficult for man to believe this, Arcana Coelestia 6214. The Lord flows into first, and at the same time into last, things, that is, He flows into inmost, and at the same time into outermost, things, and in what manner, Arcana Coelestia 5147, 5150, 6473, 7004, 7007, 7270. The Lord's influx with a man is into good, and through good into truth, and not conversely, Arcana Coelestia 5482, 5649, 6027, 8685, 8701, 10153. Good imparts the faculty of receiving influx from the Lord, but not truth apart from good, Arcana Coelestia 8321. Nothing is hurtful that enters into the thought, but that which enters into the will, because this is appropriated to the man, Arcana Coelestia 6308. The Divine in the highest parts is tacit and peaceful; but in proportion as it descends with a man towards the lower parts, it becomes unpeaceful and noisy, on account of the things therein being without order,Arcana Coelestia 8823. The quality of the Lord's influx with the prophets, Arcana Coelestia 6212.

There is a general influx; which is described, Arcana Coelestia 5850. It consists in a constant effort of acting according to order, Arcana Coelestia 6211. This influx takes place into the lives of animals, Arcana Coelestia 5850. And also into the subjects of the vegetable kingdom, Arcana Coelestia 3648. Thought also in accordance with general influx descends with man into speech, and will into gestures, Arcana Coelestia 5862, 5990, 6192, 6211.

904. That 'God spoke to Noah' means the Lord's presence with the member of the Church becomes clear from the internal sense of the Word. The Lord speaks to everybody, for whatever good and truth a person wills and thinks comes from the Lord. With everyone there are at least two evil spirits and two angels. The former activate his evils whereas the latter instill goods and truths. Every good or truth that angels instill is the Lord's; in this way the Lord is constantly speaking to man, though quite differently from one person to the next. To people who allow themselves to be carried away by evil spirits the Lord speaks as though He were not present, or so far away that He can hardly be said to be speaking. But to those who are being led by the Lord, the Lord speaks as one who is quite present. This becomes clear enough from the fact that nobody can possibly think of anything good and true except from the Lord.

[2] The Lord's presence is relative to the state of love towards the neighbour and of faith present in a person. It is in love towards the neighbour that the Lord is present, for He is present in all good, and not so much in so-called faith that is devoid of love. Faith devoid of love and charity is something severed or disjoined. Wherever conjunction exists there has to be a conjoining agency, which is exclusively love and charity. This may become clear to anyone from the fact that the Lord has compassion on everybody, loves everyone, and wishes to make everyone eternally happy. A person therefore who is devoid of the kind of love that leads him to have compassion on others, to love them, and to wish to make them happy, cannot be joined to the Lord because he is not at all like Him, and is in no sense the image of Him. Looking to the Lord by means of that which goes by the name of faith while hating the neighbour amounts not only to standing a long way off, but also to having between himself and the Lord a hell-like chasm into which the person would fall if he wished to go any nearer. For it is hatred towards the neighbour that constitutes that intervening hell-like chasm.

[3] The Lord is present with a person the moment he starts to love the neighbour. It is in love that the Lord is present, and to the extent that a person has love the Lord is present. And to the extent that the Lord is present He speaks to man. No one knows anything other than that he thinks from himself. Yet he possesses not one single idea of thought, not even the shred of an idea, from himself. Rather that which is evil and false he possesses through evil spirits from hell, and that which is good and true through angels from the Lord. Such is influx, the channel by which a person's life comes and by which consequently his soul interacts with the body. All these considerations make clear what 'God spoke to Noah' means. 'Saying to someone' means one thing, as in Genesis 1:29; 3:13-14, 17; 4:6, 9, 15; 6:13; 7:1, while 'speaking to someone' means another. Here speaking to Noah' means His being present, for the subject now is the regenerate person, who has had charity conferred on him.

9407. 'There was so to speak a work of sapphire [stone]' means that it is translucent with inner truths on that level, and that all things in it are translucent from the Lord. This is clear from the meaning of 'a work of sapphire' as the character of the literal sense of the Word when the internal sense is discerned within it, that is, when Divine Truth emanating from the Lord, as it is in heaven, shines through it. For the Word is Divine Truth emanating from the Lord. In origin it is Divine, but as it passes through the heavens it is celestial in the inmost heaven, spiritual in the second or middle heaven, spiritual-natural in the first or lowest heaven, and natural and worldly in the world; this last is its character in the sense of the letter intended for people there. From this it is evident that the sense of the letter, which is the lowest in order, contains a spiritual and a celestial level of meaning, and inmostly the Divine Himself. And since these inner levels are contained in the lowest or literal sense and are seen by those who understand the Word in a spiritual manner, that sense is represented by 'a work of sapphire', which lets rays of heavenly light through, that is, which is translucent.

[2] To give some idea of that translucence, let human speech serve to illustrate it. Such speech has its origin in the end a person has in view which he wishes to make known through speech. This end is his love; for a person has what he loves as his end in view. From that end arises the person's thought, and finally his speech. Anyone who stops to think properly about this can see and discern the truth of it. The fact that the end is the primary component of speech is clear from the general rule that all intelligence has an end within it, and devoid of the end it is not intelligence. And everyone knows that thought is a secondary component arising from the first, for nobody can speak without thinking or think without having an end in view. The fact that spoken words ensue from this, and that these are the final component, which is properly called speech, is also well known. All this being so, when a person pays attention to what another utters he pays attention not to the words the speaker uses but to the meaning conveyed by them which is present in the speaker's thought. And one who is wise pays attention to the end in view that has given rise to the thought expressed in speech, that is, he pays attention to what the speaker's aims are and what it is he loves. These three components are present in human speech, in which the spoken words serve as the outward form.

[3] This comparison enables one to gain some idea regarding the Word in the letter. For those in heaven pay attention to the Word in the letter and perceive things there in exactly the same way as anyone is accustomed to perceive a person's thought as it presents itself in spoken words, or in the inmost heaven as anyone is accustomed to perceive a person's aims or end in view. But the difference is that when someone reads the sense of the letter of the Word this is not heard or understood in heaven, only the internal sense, because in heaven they perceive solely the spiritual and celestial levels of the Word, not the natural level of it. The one sense accordingly passes over into the other, for they correspond to each other and only things which have a correspondence have been used in the writing of the Word. All this shows what to understand when reference is made to the translucent nature of the Word, meant by 'a work of sapphire'.

[4] But a person who is unable to think on a higher level of understanding, that is, on a level altogether above material things, cannot grasp any of this, not even the idea that it is possible for a sense to exist in the Word other than the one perceived in the letter. If that person is told that the letter holds within itself a spiritual sense which has to do with truth, and that this in turn holds within itself a celestial sense which has to do with good, and also that these senses shine through the literal sense, he will be taken aback at first, then dismiss the idea as nonsense, and finally ridicule it. Actual experience has shown me that this is what people are like in the Christian world at the present day, especially the learned, and that those who reason against that truth boast of being wiser than those who uphold it. Yet the learning in earliest times, which were called golden and silver ages, had consisted in speaking and in writing in ways in which no attention was be paid to the literal meaning other than to enable hidden wisdom to shine through it, as becomes perfectly clear from the oldest books, including those by gentile authors, as well as from fragments in their languages. For their knowledge was primarily the knowledge of correspondences and the knowledge of representations, which forms of knowledge at the present day are some of those which have been lost.

[5] The reason why there appeared under the Lord's feet 'so to speak a work of sapphire' and why this means the translucence of the Word in the sense of the letter is that 'stone' in general means truth, and 'precious stone' truth shining through from what is Divine and the Lord's. For the meaning of 'stone' in general as truth, see 643, 1298, 3720, 3769, 3771, 3773, 3789, 3798, 6426, 8609, 8940-8942. As for 'precious stone' being truth shining through from what is Divine and the Lord's, this was meant by the twelve precious stones in Aaron's breastplate, which was called the Urim and Thummim, 3862, 6335, 6640.

[6] Something similar occurs in Ezekiel,

Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty, you were in Eden, the garden of God. Every precious stone was your covering - ruby, topaz, diamond, tarshish, shoham, and jasper, sapphire, chrysoprase, emerald, and gold. The workmanship of your timbrels and your pipes was within you; on the day you were created they were prepared. You were perfect in your ways on the day you were created. Ezekiel 28:12-13, 15.

This refers to Tyre, by which the Church in respect of interior cognitions or knowledge of truth and good is meant, 1201. Its intelligence and wisdom as these had been in its infancy or earliest period are described by those precious stones. 'The day you were created' means the first state when they were regenerated, for 'creation' in the Word means the regeneration or new creation of a person, 16, 88.

[7] Similar things are meant by 'the precious stones' in John,

The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third chalcedony, the fourth emerald, the fifth sardonyx, the sixth sardius, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst. Revelation 21:19-20.

This refers to the holy Jerusalem coming down from heaven, by which a new Church among gentile nations is meant, after the present-day Church in our European world has been laid waste. 'The precious stones that are its foundations' are God's truths shining through on the lowest level of order.

[8] God's truth shining through on the lowest level of order, which is the Word in the letter, is meant by 'sapphire' in particular, as in Isaiah,

O afflicted one and storm-tossed, and receiving no comfort! Behold, I am arranging your stones with antimony, and will lay your foundations in sapphires. Isaiah 54:11.

This too refers to the Church which will take the place of the former one, meant in verse 1 of that chapter by 'her that is desolate who is going to have more sons than the previously married one'. 'Arranging stones' stands for the Church's truths, 'foundations in sapphires' for truths shining through on lowest levels.

[9] 'Sapphire' is used with a similar meaning in Jeremiah,

Her Nazirites were brighter than snow, they were whiter than milk. Their bones ¹ were ruddier than pearls, ² polished like sapphire. ³ Lamentations 4:7.

'Nazirites' in the representative sense meant the Lord in respect of the Divine Natural, 3301, 6437, and therefore also Divine Truth emanating from Him as it exists on its lowest levels, that is, the Word in the sense of the letter. For 'the hair', which is implied by 'Nazirites' here, and is said to be 'brighter than snow and whiter than milk', means truth on its lowest levels, 3301, 5247, 5570, 'brightness' and 'whiteness' having reference to truth, 3301, 5319. 'Bones that were ruddy' means factual knowledge of truth, or truth on its lowest level, which acts as servant to all other levels, 6592, 8005, 'ruddiness' having reference to the good of love present in truths, 3300. From all this it is evident that 'sapphire' means truth on the lowest levels which is translucent with inner truths.

[10] In Ezekiel,

Above the expanse that was above the heads of the cherubs, in appearance like a sapphire stone, there was the likeness of a throne, and above the likeness of a throne there was the appearance of a man (homo) sitting upon it. Ezekiel 1:26; 10:1.

'The cherubs' are the Lord's protection and providence, guarding against access to Him except through good, 9277 (end). 'A throne over which there was the appearance of a man' is Divine Truth emanating from the Lord's Divine Good, 5313, 6397, 9039. From this it is evident that 'a sapphire stone' means truth translucent with inner truths; that is to say, 'a stone' means truth, and 'sapphire' translucence.

[11] The reason why all things of the Word are translucent with the Lord is that Divine Truth emanating from the Lord is the one and only source of everything there. For what is primary is the one and only vital element present in the things which follow and are derived from it, because they have their being in it and come into being from it; and the Divine Truth is the Lord. Here also lies the reason why the subject in the highest sense of the Word is the Lord alone, His love, providence, kingdom in heaven and on earth, and especially the glorification of His Human.

[12] The fact that the Divine Truth is the Lord Himself is evident from the consideration that whatever emanates from someone is the someone himself. What emanates for instance from a person when he speaks or acts originates in his will and understanding; and will and understanding constitute a person's life, thus the person himself. For the human being is not a human being by virtue of the shape of face and body but by virtue of an understanding that sees what is true and a will that intends what is good. From this it becomes clear that what emanates from the Lord is the Lord; and the fact that this is Divine Truth has been shown often in what has gone before.

[13] But anyone unacquainted with the arcana of heaven may suppose that the nature of Divine Truth which emanates from the Lord is no different from that of spoken words emanating from a human being. It is not spoken words however; rather It is the Divine filling the heavens, like light and heat from the sun filling the world. This may be illustrated by means of the spheres which emanate from the angels in heaven, dealt with in 1048, 1053, 1316, 1504-1520, 1695, 2401, 4464, 5179, 6206 (end), 6598-6613, 7454, 8063, 8630, 8794, 8797. In these places it has been shown and may be seen that they are spheres of the truth of faith and the good of love received from the Lord. But the Divine sphere which emanates from the Lord and is called Divine Truth spreads everywhere; as has been stated, it fills the whole of heaven and composes all of the life there. It appears before the eyes there as light, which enlightens not only angels' sight but also their minds. That same light is in addition what composes a person's understanding in the world. This is the meaning in John,

In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. He was the true light which enlightens every person coming into the world. And the world was made by Him. John 1:4, 9-10.

These words refer to Divine Truth, which in this chapter is called 'the Word'; and Divine Truth or 'the Word' - it says - is the Lord Himself.

[14] That light, which is Divine Truth emanating from the Lord, was described by the ancients as radiating rings of golden hue around the head and body of God represented as a human being. For the ancients had no thought of God except of Him in human form.

[15] When a person is governed by good, and because of good is guided by truths, this person is raised to that Divine light, and - according to the amount and essential nature of the good - to interior light. This provides him with a general enlightenment in which the Lord enables him to see countless truths and to perceive them from good. At this time that person is led by the Lord to discern and absorb those which are suitable to him. He is led to do so as regards the most specific things, in keeping with order, so far as it contributes to his eternal life. The words 'as regards the most specific things' are used because the Lord's providence reigns universally, and it does so because it is present in the most specific things. For specific things are at the same called what is universal, 1919 (end), 6159, 6338, 6482, 6483, 8864, 8865.

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