Arcana Coelestia (Potts) n. 6310

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6310. The interiors of man are distinct according to degrees by means of derivations, and according to these degrees are also the lights. The internal sensuous, which is nearest the sensuous things of the body, has the most gross light. This light it has been given me to discern by much experience, and I have noticed that whenever I sank into this light, falsities and evils of many kinds presented themselves, and even things scandalous against heavenly and Divine things, besides things filthy and foul. The reason is that this light rules in the hells, and by means of it chiefly do the hells flow into man. When a man is in this light, his thought is in nearly the same light as that in which is his external sight, and is then almost in the body. Men who are in this light are to be called the Sensuous, for they do not think beyond the sensuous things of the body. What is beyond these they neither perceive nor believe, believing only that which they see and touch. In this light are they who have not at all cultivated things interior, living in neglect and contempt of all things rational and spiritual; and in this light are especially the avaricious and adulterers, and they who have lived in mere pleasures and in disgraceful idleness, and who consequently think what is filthy, and often what is scandalous, about the holy things of the church.


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