4804. There are very many communities in the next life which are called friendship-communities. They consist of those who during their lifetime preferred the delight of association with others to any other delight and who loved those with whom they associated, without any interest at all in whether these were good or evil people, provided they gave them delight. Thus they were not ones who befriended what was good and true. Those who have been like this during their lifetime remain the same in the next life; they attach themselves to one another solely because of their delight of association with others. Many such communities have been present with me, though kept at a distance, visible for the most part overhead, slightly to the right. I was made aware of their presence by a dull and sluggish feeling, and by a loss of my own feeling of delight; for the presence of communities such as these leads to this. Indeed when they arrive on the scene they remove others' feeling of delight, and what is remarkable they make it their own. For they turn away the spirits present with others and direct them towards themselves, thereby transferring another's delight to themselves. And because such communities are for this reason dangerous and harmful to those governed by good, the Lord therefore holds them back to prevent them going near heavenly communities. From this I was enabled to know how much harm friendship does to someone's spiritual life if he pays attention to the person but not to what is good. Anyone can indeed befriend another; but most of all he ought to befriend what is good.

10029. 'And you shall take all the fat' means the accommodated good. This is clear from the meaning of 'the fat' as good, dealt with in 5943. The good is described as being accommodated because the subject here is the purifying of the external or natural man, also the implanting of truth and good and so the joining together of the two there; for these things are what are meant by sacrifices and burnt offerings. Here therefore the fat from the young bull serves to mean good which has been accommodated to the natural or external man and is able to be joined to the truth there. For truth must be accommodated to its good and good to its truth, the reason being that they must exist as one. It should also be remembered that truth and good in the natural or external man are different from truth and good in the internal man, just as outer and inner are different, or lower and higher, or - what amounts to the same thing - posterior and prior. Truth as it exists in the natural man is factual knowledge, and good as it exists there is the accompanying delight. Both of these are perceptible to a person while in the world, for when he gives thought to them they are immediately apparent. Truth in the internal man however is not like factual knowledge immediately making itself apparent; rather it is truth implanted in the understanding part of the internal man. The good too implanted in the internal man is not perceptible, for it is implanted in the will part there. Both belong to the person's inner life, in which the truth is the truth of faith and the good is the good of love. Such is the difference between the truth and good in the internal or spiritual man and the truth and good in the external or natural man. The implantation and joining together of the truth and good in the external man is meant by the sacrifice of the young bull, but the implantation and joining together of the two in the internal man is meant by the burnt offering of the ram, described further on in this chapter. From all this it is evident what should be understood by the accommodated good, meant by 'the fat' from the young bull.