Heavenly Doctrine (Tafel) n. 50

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50. The Sensual Man, who is natural in the lowest degree (see concerning him in the Doctrine above, no. 45). The Sensual is the ultimate of man's life, and adheres to, and is inherent in, his Corporeal, nos. 5077, 5767, 9212, 9216, 9331, 9730. He is called a sensual man, who judges of everything and draws conclusions concerning it, from the bodily senses, and who believes nothing but what he can see with the eyes and touch with the hands, saying that these things are something, and rejecting the rest, nos. 5094, 7693. Such a man thinks in the outermost [parts], and not interiorly in himself, nos. 5089, 5094, 6564, 7693. His interiors have been closed, so that he sees nothing of the truth in them, nos. 6564, 6844, 6845. In a word, he is in a gross natural lumen, and therefore perceives nothing which comes from the light of heaven, nos. 6201, 6310, 6564, 6844, 6845, 6598, 6612, 6614, 6622, 6624. Wherefore, interiorly he is against the things which belong to Heaven and the Church, nos. 6201, 6316, 6844, 6845, 6948, 6949. The learned who have confirmed themselves against the truths of the Church, are sensual, no. 6316. Sensual men reason sharply and shrewdly, because their thought is so near to speech as to be almost in it, and because, they place all intelligence in speaking from the memory alone, nos. 195, 196, 5700, 10236. But they reason from fallacies of the senses, by which the common people are captivated, nos. 5084, 6948, 6949, 7693. Sensual men are more crafty and malicious than others, nos. 7693, 10236. Misers, adulterers, voluptuaries, and the deceitful, are chiefly sensual, no. 6310. Their interiors are foul and filthy, no. 6201. Through them they communicate with the hells no. 6311. Those who are in the hells are sensual, and the more sensual the more deeply they are in them, nos. 4623, 6311. The sphere of the infernal spirits conjoins itself With the Sensual of man from behind, no. 6312. They who reasoned from the Sensual, and therefore in opposition to the truths of faith, were called by the ancients "serpents of the tree of knowledge," nos. 195, 196, 197, 6398, 6949, 10313. Further particulars concerning man's Sensual, and the sensual man, no. 10236; and concerning the extension of the Sensual with man, no. 9731. The things of the senses ought to be in the last, and not in the first, place; with a wise and intelligent man they are in the last place, and are subjected to interior things; but with an unwise man they are in the first place, and exercise dominion; it is the latter who are properly called sensual, nos. 5077, 5125, 5128, 7645. If the things of the senses are in the last place, and are subjected to interior things, a way is opened through them to the understanding, and truths are eliminated from them by a kind of extraction, no. 5580. Those things which belong to a man's senses are situated nearest to the world, and admit those things which come from the world, and as it were sift them, no. 9726. Through the things of the senses the external or natural man communicates with the world, and through rational things with heaven, no. 4009. The things of the senses thus furnish such things as are of use to the interiors of man, nos. 5077, 5081. There are things of the senses which minister to the intellectual part; and those which minister to the voluntary part, no. 50717. Unless thought is raised above the things of the senses, a man possesses but little wisdom, no. 5089. A wise man thinks above the Sensual, nos. 5089, 5094. When a man's thought is raised above the things of the senses, he comes into a clearer lumen, and at length into heavenly light, nos. 6183, 6313, 6315, 9407, 9730, 9922. An elevation above the things of the senses, and a withdrawal from them, was known to the ancients, no. 6313. If a man can be withdrawn from the sensual things which are from the body, and if he can be raised by the Lord into the light of heaven, he can see with his spirit the things which are in the spiritual world, no. 4622; the reason is, that it is not the body that sensates, but the spirit of man in the body; and that so far as it sensates in the body, the sensation is gross and obscure, and consequently is in darkness; but that so far as it does not sensate in the body, so far the sensation is clear and in light, nos. 4622, 6614, 6622. The ultimate of the understanding is the sensual Scientific, and the ultimate of the will sensual delight, concerning which see no. 9996. What difference there is between the things of the senses which a man has in common with the animals, and those which he has not in common with them, no. 10236. There are sensual men who are not evil, because their interiors have not been in this wise closed; concerning their state in the other life, no. 6311.


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