7975. 'And also a large mixed crowd' means [truths and] forms of good that were not genuine. This is clear from the meaning of 'a mixed crowd' as non-genuine forms of good; for when 'the children of Israel' represents the genuine forms of good and truths that the spiritual Church possesses, 7957, 'a mixed crowd' going along with them means truths and forms of good that are not genuine. For the situation so far as those belonging to the spiritual Church are concerned is this: They possess forms of good and truths that are genuine, and they possess those that are not genuine. For a member of the spiritual Church has no intuitive perception of what is good and true; instead he acknowledges and believes that to be good and true which is taught by the teachings of his Church. This being so, he is in possession of a great number of truths that are not genuine, and also as a consequence desires forms of good of a similar nature since forms of good derive their specific quality from truths. For more about spiritual people, that a great number of truths in their possession are not genuine, see 2708, 2715, 2718, 2831, 2849, 2935, 2937, 3240, 3241, 3246, 3833, 4402, 4788, 5113, 7233; and that therefore the forms of good with them are not pure, 6427. Even so the Lord maintains in them forms of good which are as genuine as possible. He accomplishes this by flowing in through their interiors, 6499, at which point non-genuine truths and forms of good are separated from the genuine and cast to the sides. The latter are what 'an extremely large mixed crowd' means.

[2] Such a crowd in a similar way means those who belong to the Church, yet are not within it, like gentiles who live in obedience and in charity with one another. They are not in possession of genuine truths either, because they do not have the Word. These people too, as well as the non-genuine truths, are meant by 'a large crowd' in John,

I heard the number of the sealed, a hundred and forty-four thousand, sealed out of every tribe of Israel. After these things I saw, and behold, a large crowd which no one could number, out of every nation and tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes, and palm branches in their hands. Revelation 7:4, 9.

3833. 'And so it was in the evening' means when the state was still obscure. This is clear from the meaning of 'the evening' as an obscure state, dealt with in 3056. Furthermore feasts held in the evening, that is, suppers, meant nothing else among the ancients who had appropriate religious observances than the introductory state which comes before an actual joining together, which is obscure compared with that state when the joining together has taken place. Indeed when a person is being introduced into truth and from this into good, everything he learns at that time is obscure. But once good is joined to him and he regards truth from the standpoint of good, everything he learns becomes clear to him, gradually and increasingly so. For he is now no longer in doubt about whether something exists or whether it is true but knows that it exists and is true.

[2] Once a person has reached this state he starts to know countless things, for he now proceeds from the good and truth which he believes and perceives. He proceeds so to speak from the central point out to the peripheral regions; and in the measure that he proceeds from such good and truth, he sees in the same measure the things round about, and gradually more and more widely since he is constantly pushing out and extending the boundaries. Thereafter he also begins from each subject situated in the space within those boundaries, and from those subjects as new centres he pushes out new peripheral regions; and so on in the spaces within these. Consequently the light of truth radiating from good increases enormously and becomes one expanse of light, for he is now bathed in the light of heaven which shines from the Lord. But to people who are prone to doubt and who question whether something exists and is true, those countless, indeed limitless things are not visible at all. To them every single one is totally obscure. Those things are scarcely seen by them as a single whole which definitely exists, only as a single whole whose very existence they are uncertain of. Such is the condition into which human wisdom and intelligence has fallen at the present day. Being able to reason cleverly whether something exists is now the mark of a wise man, and being able to reason that it does not exist is the mark of one wiser still.

[3] Take for example the question whether in the Word an internal sense exists which such people call the mystical sense. Until they believe in the existence of it they cannot know a single one of the countless things existing within that sense, so many that they fill the whole of heaven in unending variety. Take as another example one who reasons about whether Divine Providence is merely universal and does not extend to specific details. That person cannot know the countless arcana which have to do with Providence, as many in number as the occurrences in everyone's life from start to finish and in the world from its creation to its end, and even for ever. Take as yet another example one who reasons whether good can exist in anyone, seeing that the will of man is fundamentally depraved. He cannot possibly be aware of all the arcana that have to do with regeneration, nor even that a new will is implanted by the Lord and the arcana concerning this. And the same is so with everything else. From this one may recognize what obscurity surrounds such people and that they do not even see, let alone reach, the outskirts of wisdom.