7. The first state is the state which precedes, both the state existing from earliest childhood onwards and that existing immediately before regeneration; and it is called a void, emptiness, and thick darkness. And the first movement, which is the Lord's mercy, is 'the Spirit of God hovering over the face ¹ of the waters'.

Footnotes:

10229. 'And you shall take the silver of expiations from the children of Israel' means the purifying truths springing from good that are the Church's. This is clear from the meaning of 'the silver' as truth springing from good, dealt with in 1551, 2954, 5658, 6112, 6914, 6917, 8932; from the meaning of 'expiations' as purification from evils, dealt with above in 10218, so that 'the silver of expiations' is truth that purifies; and from the representation of 'the children of Israel' as the Church, dealt with in the places referred to in 9340. The words 'truth that purifies' are used because all purification from evils is effected by means of truths, see 2799, 5954, 7044, 7918, 9089. The implications of all this are that by himself a person thinks nothing but evil; for by himself he does not think about God nor about good and just behaviour towards his neighbour, unless it is to his own advantage. Nor indeed does he think about heaven and eternal life, only about the world and life there. As long as this is a person's state of mind his thought springs from what is below him and not from what is above him, thus from hell and not from heaven. To think what is good therefore a person's thought must spring from heaven, so that his mind must be raised in that direction. This is accomplished solely by means of truths such as exist within the Church, derived from the Word; for those truths teach about the nature of God, who the neighbour is, the existence of heaven, the reality of eternal life, and in particular what evil and good are. When these truths pass into the mind its inner levels are raised above the self, and are accordingly drawn away from those things below the self, thus away from evils. From this it may be recognized that all purification or removal from evils is effected by means of truths, which are therefore called purifying truths.