657. The symbolism of the lowest, second-level, and third-level [compartments] as matters of fact, reason, and understanding also follows.

There are three levels to the contents of the human intellect. ¹ The lowest has to do with factual knowledge, the middle with reason, and the highest with understanding. These levels are so clearly distinguished from each other that they never blur, but people are unaware of the distinction because they place life exclusively in what they can sense and learn about. Since they fixate on that level, they cannot see even that their ability to reason is different from their knowledge, still less that their ability to understand is different from it. The reality is that the Lord exerts an influence on our rational thinking through the things we truly understand, and on the data in our memory through our rational thinking, giving life to the senses of sight and hearing. This is true influx; this is the true connection between the soul and the body. ²

Life could never exist in us if it did not flow from the Lord into the things we truly understand, and through these into the contents of our rational mind, and through these into the facts stored in our memory. Or to be more accurate, it first has to flow into the contents of our will and through these into the things we understand, and so on.

Even though we are enmeshed in falsity and evil, the Lord's life still enters in through the things we will and understand; but our rational mind absorbs those influences according to its form. This makes it possible for us to reason about, to reflect on, and to understand what is true and good. But more on these subjects below [§§6053-6058, 6189-6215, 6307-6327, 6466-6496, 6598-6626], with the Lord's divine mercy; and also something on the way life operates in animals [§§1902:1, 3646, 4776:4-5, 5850, 6323].

Footnotes:

603. What I have been saying in this book about heaven, the world of spirits, and hell, will be obscure to people who find no delight in knowing about spiritual truths; but it will be clear to people who do have this delight, especially to people involved in an affection for truth for its own sake - that is, people who love truth because it is true. Anything that is loved enters into the concepts of our minds with light, especially when what is loved is true, because all truth is in the light.

[2] References to Passages in Secrets of Heaven Concerning Our Freedom, Inflow, and the Spirits Who Are the Means of Communication.

On Freedom. All freedom is a matter of love or affection, because whatever we love, we do freely: 2870, 3158, 8907 [8987?], 8990, 9585, 9591. Since freedom is a matter of love, it is the life of every individual: 2873. Nothing seems to be part of us unless it comes from freedom: 2880. There is a heavenly freedom and a hellish freedom: 2870, 2873-2874, 9589-9590.

Heavenly freedom comes from heavenly love, or a love of what is good and true: 1947, 2870, 2872, and since a love of what is good and true comes from the Lord, we are truly free only when we are led by the Lord: 892, 905, 2872, 2886, 2890-2892, 9096, 9586-9587, 9589-9591. The Lord brings us into heavenly freedom through regeneration: 2874-2875, 2882, 2892. We need freedom in order to be regenerated: 1937, 1947, 2876, 2881, 3145-3146, 3158, 4031, 8700. Otherwise the love of what is good and true could not be sown in us and become so much a part of us as to seem to be our own: 2877, 2879-2880, 2888. Nothing is united to us that happens under compulsion: 8700, 2875. If we could be forcibly reformed, everyone would be saved: 2881. Compulsion in matters of reformation is destructive: 4031. All worship offered in freedom is worship, but not what is offered under compulsion: 1947, 2880, 7349, 10097. Repentance needs to happen in a state of freedom, and if it happens in a state of compulsion, it does not work: 8392. Just what a state of compulsion is: 8392.

[3] We are allowed to act from the freedom we have as rational beings, so that good may be provided to us; we therefore have a freedom of thinking and intending evil as well, and even of doing it to the extent that the laws do not prevent it: 10777. The Lord holds us between heaven and hell and therefore in a balance so that we can be in freedom for the sake of our reformation: 5982, 6477, 8209, 8907 [8987?]. What is sown in freedom stays with us, but not what is sown under compulsion: 9588. So freedom is never taken away from anyone: 2876, 2881. The Lord does not compel anyone: 1937, 1947.

To compel oneself stems from freedom, but being compelled does not: 1937, 1947. We ought to compel ourselves to resist evil: 1937, 1947, 7914; and to do good as well, apparently on our own, but still recognizing that it comes from the Lord: 2883, 2891-2892, 7914. We become more solidly free in those temptation struggles in which we win, because then we are inwardly compelling ourselves to resist, even though it does not seem that way: 1937, 1947, 2881.

[4] Hellish freedom is being led by love for oneself and love for the world and by their cravings: 2870, 2873. This is the only freedom people in hell know: 2871. Heavenly freedom is as remote from hellish freedom as heaven is from hell: 2873-2874. Hellish freedom, which is being led by love for oneself and love for the world, is not freedom but slavery: 2884, 2890. So slavery is being led by hell: 9586, 9589-9591.

[5] On Inflow. Everything we think and intend flows in; [learned] from experience: 904, 2886-2888, 4151, 4319-4320, 5846, 5848, 6189, 6191, 6194, 6197-6199, 6213, 7147, 10219. Our ability to look into things, think, and draw analytic conclusions comes from inflow: 1288 [1285?], 4319-4320. We could not live for a moment if we were deprived of the inflow from the spiritual world, [from] experience: 2887, 5849, 5854, 6321. The life that flows in from the Lord varies depending on our state and our openness to it: 2069, 5986, 6472, 7343. In evil people, the good that flows in from the Lord is turned into evil, and the truth into falsity; from experience: 3643 [3642 or 3743], 4632. We accept the good and true things that flow in from the Lord to the extent that what is evil and false does not bar the way: 2411, 3142, 3147, 5828.

[6] Everything good flows in from the Lord and everything evil from hell: 904, 4151. Nowadays people believe that everything is in themselves and from themselves, when actually everything is flowing in, as they might learn from the doctrine of the church, which teaches that everything good comes from the Lord and everything evil from the devil: 4249, 6193, 6206. If our belief were in accord with doctrine, we would not claim evil as our own or make good our own: 6206, 6324-6325. How happy our state would be if we believed that everything good flows in from the Lord and everything evil from hell: 6325. People who deny heaven or know nothing about it do not realize that there is any inflow from it: 4322, 5649, 6193, 6479. What inflow is, illustrated by comparisons: 6428 [6128?], 6480 [6190?], 9407.

[7] All of life flows in from the first wellspring of life because this is its source; and it is constantly flowing in, so it comes from the Lord: 3001, 3318, 3237 [3337?], 3338, 3344, 3484, 3619, 3741-3743, 4318-4320, 4417, 4524, 4882, 5847, 5986, 6325, 6468-6470, 6479, 9276, 10196. The inflow is spiritual and not physical, which means that the inflow is from the spiritual world into the natural and not from the natural into the spiritual: 3219, 5119, 5259, 5427-5428, 5477, 6322, 9110-9111 [9109?]. The inflow comes through the inner person into the outer, or through the spirit into the body, and not the other way around, because our spirit is in the spiritual world and our body in the natural world: 1702, 1707, 1940, 1954, 5119, 5259, 5779, 6322, 9380 [9110?]. The inner person is in the spiritual world and the outer in the natural world: 978, 1015, 3628, 4459, 4523-4524, 6057, 6309, 9701-9709, 10156, 10472. It seems as though there were an inflow from our outer natures into our inner, but this is an illusion: 3721. There is an inflow into our rational workings and through these into our information processing, and not the other way around: 1495, 1707, 1940. What the pattern of inflow is like: 775, 880, 1096, 1495, 7270. The inflow comes directly from the Lord and indirectly through the spiritual world or heaven: 6063, 6307, 6472, 9682-9683. The inflow from the Lord comes into what is good in us and through that good into what is true, but not the other way around: 5483 [5482?], 5649, 6027, 8685, 8701, 10153. What is good enables us to accept the inflow from the Lord, but not what is true apart from that good: 8321. Nothing that flows into our thought harms us, only what flows into our volition, because this becomes part of us: 6308.

[8] There is a general inflow: 5850. This is a constant energy favoring action in keeping with the design: 6211. This is what flows into the lives of animals: 5850; and also into the members of the vegetable kingdom: 3648. Further, our thought descends into speech and our intentions into actions and modes of behavior according to this general inflow: 5862, 5990, 6192, 6211.

[9] On Agents. The spirits who are sent out from communities of spirits to other communities or to individual spirits are called "agents": 4403, 5856. Communications in the other life take place by means of emissary spirits like these: 4403, 5856, 5983. Spirits who are sent out to act as emissaries do not think for themselves but think from the spirits who commissioned them: 5985-5987. More about these spirits: 5988-5989.

The End

4151. 'And Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen them' means that they belonged to the affection for interior truth. This is clear from the representation of 'Rachel' as the affection for interior truth, dealt with in 3758, 3782, 3793, 3819, and from the meaning of 'stealing' as taking away that which is cherished and holy, dealt with in 4112, 4113, 4133. It was stated above that Rachel's stealing the teraphim or Laban's gods meant a change as regards truth of the state represented by 'Laban', see 4111. That change of state is described further still in this verse and in those immediately following; for the change came about when the good represented by 'Laban' had been separated from the good meant by 'Jacob' and so through that separation passed into a different state. For the truths that had appeared to him to be his own when the two kinds of good were joined together were regarded in such a way that it seemed as though they had been taken away. This is the reason why Laban complained bitterly about the teraphim, and why he searched the tents for them, though he did not find them. For the truths which in the good sense are meant by 'the teraphim', 4111, were not his but belonged to the affection for truth meant by 'Rachel'.

[2] These matters cannot be made plain except from things that take place in the next life. For things taking place in the next life near a person in this life seem to him to occur within him. And virtually the same is so with spirits in the next life. When communities of spirits which are governed by intermediate good are in association with angels it seems to them, altogether so, as though they possessed as their own the truths and goods which are the angels'; indeed those spirits are not aware of them being anything other than their own. But when they are separated they then realize that this is not true. They too therefore complain bitterly, believing that those goods and truths have been taken away from them by the angels with whom they have been in association. These are the considerations that are meant in the internal sense by 'teraphim' in this verse and those immediately following.

[3] In general the situation is that no one ever possesses good or truth that is his own but that all good and truth flow in from the Lord, doing so both immediately and through angelic communities serving as intermediaries. Nevertheless it seems as though that good or truth is his own, and the reason for this is that these may be made over to him as his own until the time when he enters that state in which he may know, then acknowledge, and at length believe that they are not his but the Lord's. It is also well known from the Word and thereby in the Christian world that all good and all truth are derived from the Lord and nothing good at all from man. Indeed the teachings of the Church which are drawn from the Word declare that of himself man cannot even strive after good and so cannot will it, and as a consequence cannot do it, since the doing of good springs from the willing of it. They also declare that the whole of faith is received from the Lord, so that man cannot have the smallest measure of belief unless it flows in from the Lord.

[4] These ideas are declared in the teachings of the Church and are taught in sermons. But few, indeed very few people, really believe them, as is proven by their presumption that life in its entirety exists inherently within themselves, and by the fact that scarcely any believe that life is something inflowing. Man's life in its entirety consists in being able to think and being able to will, for if that ability to think and to will is taken away no life remains at all. And the very essence of life consists in his thinking what is good and willing what is good, and also in his thinking what is true and willing that which he thinks is true. Since these abilities, according to teachings from the Word, are not man's but the Lord's and they flow in from the Lord by way of heaven, people who have any power of judgement and who are capable of reflecting could from this fact deduce that life in its entirety is something which inflows.

[5] The same applies to evil and falsity. According to teachings drawn from the Word the devil is constantly trying to lead man astray and constantly breathing evil into him. This also is why, when anyone has committed a serious crime, it is said that he has allowed the devil to lead him astray. This again is the truth and yet few if any believe it. For just as all good and truth come from the Lord, so all evil and falsity come from hell, that is, from the devil - hell being the devil. This also shows that just as all good and truth are things that flow in, so too are all evil and falsity, and as a consequence every thought of evil or willing of it flows in too. Since these too are things that flow in, those who have any power of judgement and reflection may deduce that life is something which flows in, though it seems to exist inherently in man.

[6] The truth of this has been demonstrated on many occasions to spirits who had recently arrived in the next life from the world. But some of them have said, If all evil or falsity too is something that flows in, then no evil or falsity at all can be attributed to them and they are free from blame since such evil or falsity comes from somewhere else. But they were told in reply that they had made that evil and falsity their own through their belief that when they had thought or willed anything they had acted independently, by themselves. Yet if that which is truly so had been believed by them they would not then have made that evil and falsity their own. For in that case they would have believed also that all good and truth come from the Lord; and if they had believed this, they would have allowed themselves to be led by the Lord and so their state would have been different. In that case also the evil which had entered their thought and will would have had no effect on them; that is to say, evil would not have come out of them but good, since, according to the Lord's words in Mark 7:15, it is not the things going in which affect a person but those coming out of him.

[7] Many are able to know this but few believe it. Even those who are evil can do so, but they still do not believe it since they prefer their own ideas, which they love to such an extent that when it is demonstrated to them that everything is such that it flows in they become worried and demand fiercely that they be allowed to live according to their own ideas, saying that if these are taken away from them they could not go on living. Such is the belief even of people who do know. These matters have been stated so that people might know what it is like with those communities of spirits which are governed by intermediate good, both when they are joined to others and when they are separated from them. That is to say, when joined to others they are not aware of the goods and truths being anything other than their own, when in fact they are not theirs.