214. "'And to anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see.'" This symbolically means, so as to heal their understanding, to keep them from profaning and falsifying genuine truths of wisdom.

Eyes symbolize the intellect, and the sight of the eyes intelligence and wisdom, as may be seen in no. 48. And since eye salve symbolizes medicine for it, it follows that to anoint the eyes with eye salve means, symbolically, to heal the intellect, so that it may see truths and become wise. Otherwise the genuine truths of the Word are profaned and adulterated.

187. Crises of the Spirit

Only people who are being regenerated experience spiritual crises, because spiritual crises are times of mental anguish for people whose lives are devoted to goodness and truth. These crises are brought about by evil spirits. When they stir up the evils in us, an anxiety wells up inside that is a symptom of our spiritual crisis. We are not aware, however, of where the anxiety is coming from because we do not realize that a spiritual crisis is its source.