Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 5182

Previous Number Next Number Next Translation See Latin 

5182. There are spirallings into which spirits who are recent arrivals in the next life have to be introduced, for the purpose of enabling them to live in the company of other spirits and of enabling them both to speak and to think in unison with these. In the next life all must exist in accord and harmony with one another if they are to be a unified whole, even as all the individual parts of the human being, which are varied throughout the body, are nevertheless in harmony with one another and so make a unified whole. The same applies to the Grand Man, in which one person's thought and speech must accord with the thought and speech of all the others if they are to achieve the same end. It is absolutely essential that the thought and speech of each member in a community should accord with the rest, otherwise discord is detected, which sounds in the minds of the others like a harsh grating noise. Furthermore everything discordant is destructive of unity; it is an imperfection that must be cast out. This imperfection resulting from discord is represented by impurity residing with and present within the blood, from which it must be expelled. The expulsion of this impurity is effected by harrying processes, which are nothing else than various kinds of temptations, and after this by means of introductions into spirallings. The purpose of a first introduction into spirallings is to enable spirits to become adjusted to one another; the purpose of a second is that their thought may accord with their speech; the purpose of a third is that they may all agree with one another in thought and affection; and the purpose of a fourth is that they may agree in truth and good.


This page is part of the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg

© 2000-2001 The Academy of the New Church