[2] Few know what the illusions of the senses are and few believe that these cast a shadow over rational insights and most of all over spiritual matters of faith - a shadow so dark that it blots them out. This happens especially when at the same time what a person delights in is the result of desires bred by a selfish and worldly love. But let examples be used to shed some light on this matter, first some examples of illusions of the senses which are purely natural ones, that is, illusions about things within the natural creation, then some examples of such illusions in spiritual things.

i It is an illusion of the senses - a purely natural one, or an illusion about the natural creation - to believe that the sun is borne round this globe once a day, and that the sky too and all the stars are borne round at the same time. People may be told that it is impossible and therefore inconceivable that so vast an ocean of fire as the sun, and not only the sun but also the countless stars, should revolve once a day without undergoing any changes of position in relation to one another. They may be told in addition that one can see from the planetary system that our own globe performs a daily movement and an annual one, by rotations on its axis and by revolutions. This can be recognized from the fact that the planets are globes like ours, some of which have moons around them and all of which, as observation shows, perform daily and annual movements like ours. But for all that they are told, the illusion the senses prevails with very many people - that things really are as the eye sees them.

[3] ii It is an illusion of the senses - a purely natural one, or an illusion about the natural creation - that the atmosphere is a single entity, except that it becomes gradually and increasingly rarified until a vacuum exists where the atmosphere comes to an end. A person's external senses tell him nothing else than this when their evidence alone is relied on.

iii It is an illusion of the senses, a purely natural one, that the power which seeds have to grow into trees and flowers and to reproduce themselves was conferred on them when creation first began, and that that initial conferment is what causes everything to come into being and remain in being. People may be told that nothing can remain in being unless it is constantly being brought into being, in keeping with the law that continuance in being involves a constant coming into being, and with another law that anything that has no connection with something prior to itself ceases to have any existence. But though they are told all this, their bodily senses and their thought that is reliant on their senses, cannot take it in. Nor can they see that every single thing is kept in being, even as it was brought into being, through an influx from the spiritual world, that is, from the Divine coming through the spiritual world.

[4] iv This gives rise to another illusion of the senses, a purely natural one, that single entities exist called monads and atoms. For the natural man believes that anything comprehended by his external senses is a single entity or else nothing at all.

v It is an illusion of the senses, a purely natural one, that everything is part of and begins in the natural creation, though there are indeed purer and more inward aspects of the natural creation that are beyond the range of human understanding. But if anyone says that a spiritual or celestial dimension exists within or above the natural creation, this idea is rejected; for the belief is that unless a thing is natural it has no existence.

vi It is an illusion of the senses that only the body possesses life and that when it dies that life perishes. The senses have no conception at all of an internal man present within each part of the external man, nor any conception that this internal man resides in the inward dimension of the natural creation, in the spiritual world. Nor consequently, since they have no conception of it, do the senses believe that a person will live after death, apart from being clothed with the body once again, 5078, 5079.

[5] vii This gives rise to the further illusion of the senses that no human being can have a life after death any more than animals do, for the reason that the life of an animal is much the same as that of a human being, the only difference being that man is a more perfect kind of living creature. The senses - that is, the person who relies on his senses to think with and form conclusions - have no conception of the human being as one who is superior to animals or who possesses a life superior to theirs because of his ability to think not only about the causes of things but also about what is Divine. The human being also has the ability to be joined through faith and love to the Divine, as well as to receive an influx from Him and to make what flows in his own. Thus because of his response to such influx from the Divine it is possible for the human being to receive it, which is not at all the case with animals.

[6] viii This gives rise to yet another illusion, which is that what is actually living in the human being - what is called the soul - is merely something air-like or flame-like which is dispersed when the person dies. Added to this is the illusion that the soul is situated either in the heart, or in the brain, or in some other part of him, from where it controls the body as if this were a machine. One who relies on his senses has no conception of an internal man present in every part of his external man, no conception that the eye sees not of its own accord, and that the ear hears not of its own accord, but under the direction of the internal man.

ix It is an illusion of the senses that no other source of light is possible than the sun or else material fire, and that no other source of heat than these is possible. The senses have no conception of the existence of a light that holds intelligence within it, or of a heat that holds heavenly love within it, or that all angels are bathed in that light and heat.

x It is an illusion of the senses when a person believes that he lives independently, that is, that an underived life is present within him; for this is what the situation seems to be to the senses. The senses have no conception at all that the Divine alone is one whose life is underived, thus that there is but one actual life, and that anything in the world that has life is merely a form receiving it, see 1954, 2706, 2886-2889, 2893, 3001, 3318, 3337, 3338, 3484, 3742, 3743, 4151, 4249, 4318-4310, 4417, 4523, 4524, 4882.

[7] xi The person who relies on his senses can be misled into a belief that adulterous relationships are allowable; for his senses lead him to think that marriages exist merely for the sake of order which the upbringing of children necessitates, and that provided this order is not destroyed it makes no difference who fathers the children. He can also be misled into thinking that the married state is no different from having sex with someone, except that it is allowable. That being so, he also believes that it would not be contrary to order for him to many several wives if the Christian world, basing its ideas on the Sacred Scriptures, did not forbid it. If told that a correspondence exists between the heavenly marriage and marriages on earth, and that no one can have anything of marriage within him unless spiritual good and truth are present there, also that a genuinely conjugial relationship cannot possibly exist between one man and several wives, and consequently that marriages are intrinsically holy, the person who relies on his senses rejects all this as worthless.

[8] xii It is an illusion of the senses that the Lord's kingdom, or heaven, is like an earthly kingdom, that joy and happiness there consist in one person holding a higher position than another and as a consequence possessing more glory than another. For the senses have no conception at all of what is implied by the idea that the least is the greatest and the last is the first. If such people are told that joy in heaven or among angels consists in serving the welfare of others without any thought of merit or reward, it strikes them as a sorrowful existence.

xiii It is an illusion of the senses that good works earn merit and that to do good to someone even for a selfish reason is a good work.

xiv It is also an illusion of the senses that a person is saved by faith alone, and that faith may exist with someone who has no charity, as well as that faith, not life, is what remains after death. One could go on with very many other illusions of the senses; for when a person is governed by his senses the rational degree within him, which is enlightened by the Divine, does not see anything. It dwells in thickest darkness, in which case every conclusion based on sensory evidence is thought to be a rational one.