402. 6. People who are merely earthly and sense-oriented.
Only a few know what "sense-oriented people" are and what they are like, even though it is an important thing to know. Therefore I will describe them.
(a) "Sense-oriented people" are people who judge everything on the basis of their physical senses - people who will not believe anything unless they can see it with their eyes and touch it with their hands. What they can see and touch they call "something. " Everything else they reject. Sense-oriented people, then, are earthly in the lowest way.
[2] (b) The inner levels of their mind, levels that see in heaven's light, are closed inside people like this to the point where they see nothing true related to heaven or the church. This is because their thinking occurs on an outermost level and not inside, where the light is spiritual.
[3] (c) Since the light they have is dense and earthly, people like this are inwardly opposed to things related to heaven and the church, although they are outwardly able to speak in favor of them. If things related to heaven and the church give these people ruling power, they are even capable of speaking ardently in favor of them.
[4] (d) Sense-oriented people are able to reason sharply and skillfully, because their thinking is so close to their speech as to be practically in it - almost inside their lips; and because they attribute all intelligence solely to the ability to speak from memory.
[5] (e) Some of them can defend whatever they want. They have great skill at defending things that are false. After they have defended falsities convincingly, they themselves believe those falsities are true. They base their reasoning and defense on mistaken impressions from the senses that the public finds captivating and convincing.
[6] (f) Sense-oriented people are more deceptive and ill-intentioned than others.
[7] (g) The inner areas of their mind are foul and filthy because they use them to communicate with the hells.
[8] (h) The inhabitants of hell are sense-oriented. The deeper in hell they are, the more sense-oriented they are. The sphere of hellish spirits is connected to our sense impressions through a kind of back door.
[9] (i) Sense-oriented people do not see anything that is genuinely true in the light. Instead, on every topic they debate and argue whether it is so. From a distance their arguments sound like the grinding of teeth. The sounds of teeth grinding are actually the result of falsities colliding with each other, and falsity and truth in collision as well. This makes it clear what "the grinding" or "gnashing of teeth" means in the Word. Teeth correspond to reasoning based on mistaken impressions from our senses.
[10] (j) The educated and the scholarly who are deeply convinced of falsities - especially people who oppose the truths in the Word - are more sense-oriented than others, although that is not how they seem to the world. People who are sense-oriented are the foremost developers of heresies.
[11] (k) For the most part, hypocrites, deceitful people, hedonists, adulterers, and misers are sense-oriented.
[12] (l) The ancients had a term for people who debate on the basis of sense impressions alone and speak against genuine truths in the Word and the church: they called them serpents of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Sense impressions mean things that impinge on our physical senses and are experienced by those senses. This point leads to a number of others:
[13] (m) We are in touch with the world by means of sense impressions and with heaven by means of impressions on our rationality, which transcend sense impressions.
[14] (n) Sense impressions supply things from the physical world that serve the inner realms of the mind in the spiritual world.
[15] (o) There are sense impressions that feed the intellect: they are various earthly objects that are labeled "material. " There are sense impressions that feed the will: they are called the pleasures of the senses and the body.
[16] (p) Unless our thought is lifted above the level of our sense impressions, we have very little wisdom. Wise people think above the level of sense impressions. When our thinking rises above sense impressions, it enters a clearer light and eventually comes into the light of heaven. From this light we get the awareness of truth that constitutes real intelligence.
[17] (q) The ancients knew how to lift their minds above sense impressions and take their minds away from them.
[18] (r) If sense impressions have the lowest priority, they help open a pathway for the intellect. We then extrapolate truths by a method of extraction. On the other hand, if sense impressions have the highest priority, that pathway is closed and truths are not visible to us except as if they were in a fog or in the dark of night.
[19] (s) For wise people, sense impressions have the lowest priority and are subservient to things that are deep inside. For unwise people, sense impressions have the highest priority and are in control. This type of person can truly be called sense-oriented.
[20] (t) There are sense impressions that we have in common with animals and sense impressions that we do not have in common with animals. The more we lift our thinking above sense impressions, the more human we are. Without acknowledging God and living by his commandments, however, none of us can lift our thinking above sense impressions and see the truths that relate to the church. It is God who lifts and enlightens us.
