753. The symbolism of seven days as the start of their trials was demonstrated above at verse 4 [§728]. The words also suggest the same ideas discussed above — that this struggle, involving the thoughts in their intellect, was the start of their trials, or the first struggle [§§641, 652-654, 670, 734]. And the expression provides a conclusion to the passage.

Because this first trial involved the contents of the intellect, the words waters of the flood are used to describe it, as they were before at verse 7, and as a flood of water was in verse 6. In the strict sense, the term symbolizes just such a trial, which was shown there [§739].

641. The people of this church had to reform. The side of a person called the intellect had to reform first, before it was possible for the other side, referred to as the will, to do the same. So the present passage tells how the contents of the will were separated from those of the intellect and how they were concealed and stored away, so to speak, in order to block off any stimulus to the will. Had the appetites of the will been stirred up, it would have destroyed people, as will become clear from later explanations [§§660-661, 751, 760, 927], with the Lord's divine mercy.

These two sides, the intellect and will, are as clearly distinguished in us as they could possibly be. I was able to learn this unmistakably from the fact that intellectual information coming from spirits and angels enters the left side of the head or brain but impulses of the will enter the right side. ¹ They affect the face in a similar way. When angelic spirits exert an influence, they waft in like the gentlest possible breezes. When evil spirits arrive, they essentially flood the left side of the brain with dreadful hallucinations and delusions and the right side with cravings. Their influence is like a deluge of fantasies and appetites.

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