Heaven and Hell (Ager) n. 110

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110. But at the present day no one can know the spiritual things in heaven to which the natural things in the world correspond except from heaven, since the knowledge of correspondences is now wholly lost. But the nature of the correspondence of spiritual things with natural I shall be glad to illustrate by some examples. The animals of the earth correspond in general to affection, mild and useful animals to good affections, fierce and useless ones to evil affections. In particular, cattle and their young correspond to the affections of the natural mind, sheep and lambs to the affections of the spiritual mind; while birds correspond, according to their species, to the intellectual things of the natural or the spiritual mind.# For this reason various animals, as cattle and their young, rams, sheep, he-goats, and she-goats, he-lambs and she-lambs, also pigeons and turtledoves, were devoted to a sacred use in the Israelitish Church, which was a representative church, and sacrifices and burnt offerings were made of them. For they correspond in that use to spiritual things, and in heaven these were understood in accordance with the correspondences. Moreover, animals according to their kinds and species, because they have life, are affections; and the life of each one is solely from affection and in accordance with affection; consequently every animal has an innate knowledge that is in accord with its life's affection. Man is like an animal so far as his natural man is concerned, and is therefore likened to animals in common speech; for example, if he is gentle he is called a sheep or lamb, if fierce a bear or wolf, if cunning a fox or serpent, and so on. # From correspondence animals signify affections; mild and useful animals good affections, fierce and useless ones evil affections (n. 41, 45, 46, 142, 143, 246, 714, 716, 719, 2179, 2180, 3519, 9280); illustrated by experience from the spiritual world (n. 3218, 5198, 9090). Influx of the spiritual world into the lives of animals in. 1633, 3646). Cattle and their young from correspondence signify affections of the natural mind (n. 2180, 2566, 9391, 10132, 10407). What sheep signify (n. 4169, 4809); and lambs (n. 3994, 10132). Flying creatures signify intellectual things (n. 40, 745, 776, 778, 866, 988, 991, 5149, 7441); with a difference according to their genera and species, from experience in the spiritual world (n. 3219).


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