3726. 'And placed it as a pillar' means a holy boundary. This is clear from the meaning of 'a pillar', dealt with in the next paragraph. The meaning here becomes clear from what has gone before, that is to say, the subject is the order by which the Lord made Divine His Natural, and in the representative sense how the Lord makes new or regenerates man's natural. The nature of that order has been stated and shown above in various places, that is to say, order is inverted while a person is being regenerated, and truth is placed first; but proper order is restored once that person has been regenerated, and good is in first place and truth in the last; see 3325, 3330, 3332, 3336, 3539, 3548, 3556, 3563, 3570, 3576, 3603, 3688. This was represented by the stairway by which angels were going up and coming down, where first it is said that they were going up, and then that they were coming down, 3701. This going up is the subject at present, that is to say, a going up from the ultimate degree of order, which is referred to just above in 3720, 3721. Here therefore truth as it exists in the ultimate degree of order is meant. This ultimate degree is called a holy boundary, and is meant by the stone which Jacob took and placed as a pillar. The existence of truth as the ultimate degree of order becomes clear from the consideration that good cannot be encompassed by good, only by truth, for truth is the recipient of good, 2261, 2434, 3049, 3068, 3180, 3318, 3387, 3470, 3570.

[2] Good with a person which is devoid of truth, that is, which is not joined to any truth, is like the good which exists with young children, with whom as yet no wisdom at all is present because no intelligence at all is there. But as a young child grows older so he receives truth stemming from good, that is, as in his case truth is joined to good, so he becomes more truly human. From this it is evident that good is the primary degree of order and truth the ultimate. Consequently from facts which are the truths of the natural man, and then from matters of doctrine which are the truths of the spiritual man within its natural, a person must start to be introduced into the intelligence that leads to wisdom, that is, he must start to enter into spiritual life which makes a person human, 3504. For example, to be able to love the neighbour as a spiritual man does, a person must first learn what spiritual love or charity is, and who the neighbour is. Until he knows these things, he is indeed able to love the neighbour, but only as a natural man, not as a spiritual man does; that is, his love towards the neighbour is a product of natural good, not of spiritual good, see 3470, 3471. But once he does know those things spiritual good from the Lord may be implanted within cognitions concerning love towards the neighbour. The same applies to all other things that are called cognitions, matters of doctrine, or truths in general.

[3] Reference is being made here to good from the Lord that may be implanted within cognitions, and also to truth that is the recipient of good. But people who have no other conception of cognitions, and also of truths, than that these exist as mere abstractions - which is most people's conception too of thoughts - cannot possibly grasp what is meant by good implanted within cognitions or by truth that is the recipient of good. But it should be recognized that cognitions and truths no more exist in isolation from the purest substances belonging to the interior man or man's spirit than sight exists in isolation from its own organ, which is the eye, or hearing from its own organ, which is the ear. There are purer substances, which have real existence, and it is from these that cognitions and truths are brought into actual being. The variations in form taken by those substances are such that they give life to and modify those cognitions through the influx of life from the Lord and enable them to be apprehended. And it is the agreements and harmonious relationships of those substances, whether these exist consecutively or simultaneously, that stir people's affections and constitute that which is called beautiful, pleasant, and delightful.

[4] Spirits themselves are forms, that is, they consist, as much as men do, of a whole combination of forms. But those forms consist of purer substances not visible to the sight of the body, that is, of the eye. Now because those forms or substances are not visible to the eye of the body mankind today inevitably conceives of cognitions and thoughts as mere abstractions. This is also the reason for the insanity of our times, in that people do not believe that they have a spirit within them which will live after the body has died - yet the spirit is a substance far more real than the material substance constituting the body. Indeed, if you can believe it, following its release from bodily things the spirit is the purified body itself, which many say they will possess at the time of the last judgement when, they believe, they will first be resurrected. The fact that spirits, or what amounts to the same, souls, are endowed with a body, see one another in broad daylight, talk to one another, hear one another, and actually have far keener senses than when they were in the body or the world, becomes quite clear from what I have told so abundantly from experience.

1900. 'Go in now to my servant-girl' means a joining to the more exterior man. This too is clear from what has been stated already - that the rational part of man's mind is conceived and begotten from the internal man as its father and from the exterior as its mother. Man's very life springs from the internal man, which cannot have any communication with the external, other than a very obscure communication, until the formation of recipient vessels belonging to the memory has been effected by means of cognitions and knowledge.

[2] The influx of the internal man occurs as an influx into the cognitions and factual knowledge that are present in the exterior man - affection being the means. Meanwhile, before they are present, a communication does indeed exist, but solely through those affections that control the external man; so that not more than very general stirrings and certain appetites occur there, and also certain blind inclinations such as reveal themselves in small children. But this life grows by degrees more definite as vessels are formed in the memory by means of cognitions and in the inner memory by rational concepts. As these vessels are formed and arranged into a sequence - into such a sequence in fact that they stand mutually related to one another like blood relatives and relatives by marriage, or like communities and families - so the correspondence is perfected of the external man with the internal man, and even better so through rational concepts, which are intermediate.

[3] But if the cognitions by means of which those vessels are formed are not truths, a lack of congruity still exists, for the celestial and spiritual things belonging to the internal man do not discover any correspondence for themselves except within truths. Such truths constituting the organic forms of the two memories ¹ are the genuine vessels into which the celestial things of love and the spiritual things of faith may be introduced fittingly; for when they are so introduced they are arranged by the Lord according to the pattern and image of the communities of heaven, that is, of the Lord's kingdom - insomuch that the person becomes, in miniature, heaven or the Lord's kingdom, as also in the Word the minds of those people are called in whom the celestial things of love and the spiritual things of faith are present. But these matters have been stated for the benefit of those minds that like to go more deeply.

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