Logopraxis

The Third Round
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Seeking to make the Lord God Jesus Christ visible in our midst... "Where two or three are gathered together in My name there am I in the midst of them." (Matt. 18:20)

  1. 1 DAY AGO

    The Word births a new sense of self, but also exposes what has habitually remained hidden (3 mins).

    Heaven and Hell 99. Even though we completely correspond physically to all of heaven, we are still not images of heaven in outward form, but only in inward form. Our deeper reaches are receptive of heaven, while our more outward ones are receptive of this world. To the extent, then, that those deeper reaches do accept heaven we are heavens in least form, in the image of the greatest; but to the extent that our deeper reaches are not receptive, we are not heavens or images of the greatest. Nevertheless, our more outward aspects, which are receptive of the world, may be in some form that is determined by the world, and therefore in more or less beauty. Outward, physical beauty has its origins in our parents and from our formation in the womb, and thereafter is maintained by a general inflow from the world. This is why our natural form differs markedly from our spiritual form. I have been shown at times what a spiritual person is like in form, and I have seen that in some people who were lovely and attractive in physical appearance that inner form was misshapen, black, and grotesque — what you would call an image of hell rather than of heaven; while in some who were not beautiful, the inner form was graceful, radiant, and angelic. After death, our spirit looks the way it actually did within the body while we were living in it in this world. Luke 12: 1 -3. Beware principally of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. And there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, neither secret that shall not be known. Therefore whatever things you have said in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which you have spoken in the ear in bedrooms shall be preached on the housetops. Third Round posts are short audio clips taken from Round 3 comments in online Logopraxis Life Group meetings. The aim is to maintain a focus on understanding the Text’s application to the inner life while reinforcing key LP principles highlighted in the exchanges.

    3 min

  2. 4 DAYS AGO

    The 3 fold pattern: external world > thought and affection > the collective (4 mins)

    Heaven and Hell 89. First, I need to state what correspondence is. The whole natural world is responsive to the spiritual world — the natural world not just in general, but in detail. So whatever arises in the natural world out of the spiritual one is called “something that corresponds.” It needs to be realized that the natural world arises from and is sustained in being by the spiritual world, exactly the way an effect relates to its efficient cause. By “the natural world,” I mean all that extended reality that is under our sun and that receives its light and warmth from it. All the things that are sustained in being from that source belong to that world. The spiritual world, in contrast, is heaven, and to that world belong all the things that are in the heavens. HH 90. Since a human being is a heaven and a world in least form in the image of the greatest (see 57 above), there is a spiritual world and a natural world within each of us. The deeper elements, which belong to our minds and relate to our intelligence and volition, constitute our spiritual world, while the outer elements, which belong to our bodies and relate to our senses and actions, constitute our natural world. Anything that occurs in our natural world (that is, in our bodies and their senses and actions) because of our spiritual world (that is, because of our minds and their intelligence and volition) is called something that corresponds. HH 95. The differentiation of heaven into two kingdoms, one called the heavenly kingdom and the other the spiritual kingdom, has been presented in its proper chapter above. The heavenly kingdom in general corresponds to the heart and to all the extensions of the heart throughout the body. The spiritual kingdom corresponds to the lungs and to all their extension throughout the body. Further, the heart and the lungs form two kingdoms in us, the heart governing through the arteries and veins and the lungs through the nerve and motor fibers, each involved in every effort and action. Within each one of us, in the spiritual world of ours that is called our spiritual person, there are also two kingdoms. One is volitional and the other is cognitive, the volitional governing through affections for what is good and the cognitive through affections for what is true. These kingdoms also correspond to the kingdoms of the heart and lungs in the body. The same holds true in the heavens. The heavenly kingdom is heaven’s volitional side, where the good that flows from love rules. The spiritual kingdom is heaven’s cognitive side, where truth rules. These are what correspond to the functions of the heart and the lungs in us. It is because of this correspondence that “the heart” in the Word means volition and the good of love, while “the breath of the spirit” means understanding and the truth of faith. This is also why we ascribe feelings to the heart, even though they do not reside or originate there. 1 Third Round posts are short audio clips taken from Round 3 comments in online Logopraxis Life Group meetings. The aim is to maintain a focus on understanding the Text’s application to the inner life while reinforcing key LP principles highlighted in the exchanges.

    4 min

  3. 25 MAR

    The battleground of inner work & the Man on the white horse (5 mins)

    Jehovah Zebaoth will visit His flock, the house of Judah, and will place them as His glorious horse in battle. From Him comes the corner-stone, from Him the tent-peg, from Him the battle-bow. Zechariah 10:3-4. Make ye ready the shield and buckler, and draw near to battle. Harness the horses, and go up, ye horsemen, and stand forth in helmets, furbish the lances, put on the coats of mail (Jeremiah 46:3-4). Arcana Coelestia 3448 [4]. In John: I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse, and he that sat upon him was called faithful and true. He was clothed in a garment dipped in blood. And his armies in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen white and clean. And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to make war against him that sat upon the horse, and against his army (Revelation 19:11, 13-14, 19); “he that sat upon the white horse” denotes the Lord’s Word, or the Lord as to the Word (n. 2760-2762); “his armies in heaven that followed him” denote the truths therefrom, consequently those in heaven who are in truths; the “beast” denotes the evils of the love of self; the “kings of the earth and their armies” denote falsities. The combats of falsity with truth are what are here described. AC 6657. ‘That they also will join themselves to our enemies and fight against us’ means that in that way allied forces who inflict harm will be made stronger. This is clear from the meaning of ‘joining themselves to’ as being made stronger, for when enemies are joined by a very large number they are made stronger; from the meaning of ‘enemies’ as allied forces who fight alongside one another; and from the meaning of ‘fighting against us’ as inflicting harm, for when a battle is fought against someone, harm is done to him to the extent that he cannot counteract it. The implications of all this are that surrounding every person in the world and also surrounding every good spirit there is a general sphere of endeavours from hell and a general sphere of endeavours from heaven. The sphere from hell is a sphere of endeavours to do harm and destroy, that from heaven is a sphere of endeavours to do good and to save, see 6477. These spheres are general ones, and there are likewise particular spheres surrounding every person, for there are spirits from hell present with him and there are angels from heaven, who are dealt with in 5846-5866, 5976-5993. By these spheres a person is kept in a state of equilibrium and has the freedom to think and will what is evil or to think and will what is good. AC 1695…In the combats of temptations the evil spirits are permitted to draw forth all the evil and falsity that are in the man, and to battle from the evil and falsity of the man; but when they have been overcome, they are no longer permitted to do so, for they instantly perceive in the man that good and truth have been confirmed. Spirits, more than men, are gifted with such perception; from the very sphere of a man who has been confirmed in truth and good, they know at once how the case is, what answer they will get, and more besides. This is plainly evident with the spiritual regenerate man, with whom there are evil spirits equally as well as with the non-regenerate, but they are subjugated and serve. This is what is meant by their being deprived of the power of doing evil and of thinking falsity. [2] When therefore a member of the Church enters into temptation, which happens when he is let into his own evil, conflict takes place around him between the spirits from hell and the angels from heaven, 3927, 4249, 5036; and the conflict lasts for as long as the person is kept in his own evil. Sometimes in that conflict it seems to the spirits from hell that they are going to win, in which case they surge up. At other times it seems to them that they are going to be beaten, in which case they fall back, fearing that more angels from heaven will join up against them and so they themselves will be cast down into hell, never to emerge again, which is exactly what happens when they have been beaten. These are the things that are meant by superior strength if they increase and by the statement that allied forces who inflict harm will be made stronger. [3] Spirits from hell, when they fight against angels, are in the world of spirits, where they are in a state of freedom, 5852. From all this one may now see what is meant in the internal sense when it says that the children of Israel were molested and oppressed in such ways by the Egyptians, but that the more they were molested, the more they multiplied, and that Jehovah, who is the Lord, fought for them, kept the Egyptians in check by means of plagues, and at length drowned all the Egyptians in the Sea Suph. AC 5036. Scarcely anyone in the Christian world at this day knows whence temptations come. He who undergoes them has no other belief than that they are torments arising from the evils which are within man, and which at first make him uneasy, then anxious, and finally torment him; but he is altogether ignorant that they are effected by the evil spirits who are with him. The reason why he is ignorant of this, is that he does not believe that he is in company with spirits while he lives in the world, and scarcely believes that there is any spirit with him; when yet as to his interiors man is continually in the society of spirits and angels. [2] As regards temptations, they take place when the man is in the act of regeneration; for no one can be regenerated unless he undergoes temptations, and they then arise from evil spirits who are about him. For the man is then let into the state of evil in which he is, that is, in which is that very [life] which is his own; and when he comes into this state, evil or infernal spirits encompass him, and when they perceive that he is inwardly protected by angels, the evil spirits excite the falsities which he has thought, and the evils which he has done, but the angels defend him from within. It is this combat which is perceived in the man as temptation, but so obscurely that he scarcely knows otherwise than that it is merely an anxiety; for man-especially if he believes nothing about influx-is in a state that is wholly obscure, and he perceives scarcely a thousandth part of the things about which the evil spirits and angels are contending. And yet the battle is then being fought for the man and his eternal salvation, and it is fought from the man himself; for they fight from those things which are in man, and concerning them. That this is the case has been given me to know with the utmost certainty. I have heard the combat, I have perceived the influx, I have seen the spirits and angels, and at the time and afterward have conversed with them on the subject. [3] As before said, temptations take place chiefly at the time when the man is becoming spiritual; for he then apprehends spiritually the truths of doctrine. The man is often unaware of this, but still the angels with him see in his natural things the spiritual; for his interiors are then open toward heaven. For this reason also the man who has been regenerated is among angels after his life in the world, and there both sees and perceives the spiritual things which before appeared to him as natural. When therefore a man has come into such a state, then in temptation, when assaulted by evil spirits, he can be defended by angels, who then have a plane into which they can operate; for they flow into what is spiritual with him, and through this into what is natural. [4] But when ultimate truth has been withdrawn, and therefore the man has nothing by which to defend himself against those who are natural (see n. 5006, 5008, 5009, 5022, 5028), he then comes into temptations, and by evil spirits-who are all merely natural-he is accused especially of speaking falsely against good; as for example of having thought and said that the neighbor ought to be benefited, and having also approved this in act, and yet now meaning by the neighbor only those who are in good and truth, and not those who are in evil and falsity and cannot be amended; and consequently, because he is no longer willing to benefit the evil, or if he will benefit them, he desires them to be punished for the sake of their amendment, and for the purpose of averting evil from his neighbor, they charge him with thinking and speaking what is false, and with not thinking as he speaks. [5] Take another example. Because when a man becomes spiritual, he no longer believes it holy and for pious use to give to monasteries, or even to churches which abound in wealth; and because before he became spiritual he had thought that such giving was holy and pious, they charge him with falsehood, and stir up all his thoughts which he had before cherished as to its being holy and pious, and also the works which he had done from such thought. And so they do in numberless other cases, but let these few examples serve by way of illustration. These spirits enter principally into the affections which the man had before, and excite them, and also the false and evil things which he had thought and done; and thus they bring him into anxiety, and often into doubt even to despair. [6] Such then is the source of spiritual anxieties, and of the torments which are called torments of conscience. By influx and communication these things appear to the man as if they were in himself. One who knows and believes this may be compared to a man who sees himself in a mirror, and knows that it is not himself that appears in it, or on the other side of it, but only his image; whereas one who does not know and believe this, may be compared to a person who sees himself in a mirror, and supposes it is himself that appears there, and not his image. Third Round posts are short audio clips taken from Round 3 comments in online Logopraxis Life Group meetings. The aim is to

    6 min

  4. 22 MAR

    Listening for spiritual principles is a practise of correspondence (4 mins)

    Transcipt The theme for this particular session was correspondences. So you’ve done the reading and what you see there is that there is what presents on the surface, and there is what sits behind. And so in this spiritual practice (of LP) we look to try to remove personal details in our own work but also when we’re listening to others. So where personal details are concerned that is a useful external to convey what’s happening internally. And so what we try to do is remove ideas related to personality, so person, place, time and space, and just listen for what the principle being expressed is and how that’s being illustrated. That’s the idea here – and it takes practice. It’s not something we easily pick up on and over time we can get a better sense of this but it’s good to be aware of what we’re trying to do. So in presenting what we have as a submission, the idea is to remove personal details as much as possible but that’s not fully possible (so it’s acknowledged in that sense), and also when listening to try and remove personal details. So if somebody is saying something where I try to sit is that this is not something to do with this individual, but rather what they are bringing forth or maybe clothed in their experience, underneath sits what is of the Lord. So if I become too focused on the person then I don’t hear what the Lord is saying. I’m hearing it as this particular individual’s experience whereas in Logopraxis the idea is that the experience is given by the Lord for the group to reinforce and illustrate spiritual realities not people’s personal lives. So that’s the distinction that we seek to draw. Your work is personal of course, you are engaged in doing your work and your reflection and all of that. So it’s not about removing that because that has to be done but when we come to share, we don’t have to spill all the detail of what we’ve experienced. We can frame that in terms of ‘this is the principle I worked with and this is how that played out so far as my inner life is concerned’, the life of my thoughts and affections. Example: So when I heard that, for me the principle is – it is the Lord that provides, into states of innocence, nowledge of himself. Now that was through your father playing with you in that kind of father daughter sort of fun way but the importance of getting to the principle is that if I reflect back now in Round 2 – that principle that I’ve heard is applicable to us all. So this is the idea that we’re trying to think spiritually in the midst of our natural experiences. And I think that captures the function and use of what presents in our sensory world. What’s happening as I listen to the experience is that it’s grounding what is within. So the feeling state is being grounded in the sensory state. So this is correspondence. There’s a multitude of different external garments or possible garments but the principle is consistent. If it’s a spiritual principle its consistent. Regardless, you know of the eight billion people on the surface of the planet, the underlying principles that direct and guide things are the same but the external expressions are different. And then within the Word itself, that is, the letter of the text of the Word, they are perfectly correspondential. So they hold what is of the Lord much closer to the surface than our lives do. Third Round posts are short audio clips taken from Round 3 comments in online Logopraxis Life Group meetings. The aim is to maintain a focus on understanding the Text’s application to the inner life while reinforcing key LP principles highlighted in the exchanges.

    5 min

  5. 19 MAR

    S2 -Correspondence – when the Word uses my external life to reflect back my inner life of my feelings and thoughts to me (9 mins)

    Heaven and Hell (Dole) 89. First, I need to state what correspondence is. The whole natural world is responsive to the spiritual world — the natural world not just in general, but in detail. So whatever arises in the natural world out of the spiritual one is called “something that corresponds.” It needs to be realized that the natural world arises from and is sustained in being by the spiritual world, exactly the way an effect relates to its efficient cause. By “the natural world,” I mean all that extended reality that is under our sun and that receives its light and warmth from it. All the things that are sustained in being from that source belong to that world. The spiritual world, in contrast, is heaven, and to that world belong all the things that are in the heavens. HH 90. Since a human being is a heaven and a world in least form in the image of the greatest (see 57 above), there is a spiritual world and a natural world within each of us. The deeper elements, which belong to our minds and relate to our intelligence and volition, constitute our spiritual world, while the outer elements, which belong to our bodies and relate to our senses and actions, constitute our natural world. Anything that occurs in our natural world (that is, in our bodies and their senses and actions) because of our spiritual world (that is, because of our minds and their intelligence and volition) is called something that corresponds. Mental Objects True Christian Religion (Dick) 420 VII. The mind itself, however, is divided into two regions, namely, the spiritual region, which is higher and interior, and the natural region, which is lower and exterior. The spiritual mind looks principally to the spiritual world, and has for its objects the things of that world, whether they are in heaven or in hell; for both these are in the spiritual world. The natural mind, however, looks principally to the natural world, and has for its objects the things of that world, whether good or evil. All man’s action and speech proceed directly from the lower region of the mind, and indirectly from the higher region, since the lower region of the mind is nearer to the bodily senses, and the higher region more remote from them. Man’s mind is thus divided, because he was created to be both spiritual and natural, and thus a man and not a beast. Divine Love and Wisdom (Harley and Harley) 70. The objects of their thought, which as just noted are truths, are not at all dependent on space and time. While the objects of their sight do seem to be in space and in time, angels do not use them as the basis for their thinking. The reason is that in the spiritual world intervals of space and time are not fixed the way they are in our physical world, but are changeable in response to their states of life. This means that states of life take the place of space and time in the concepts of their thinking. Issues related to states of love are in place of spatial intervals and issues related to states of wisdom are in place of temporal intervals.  Arcana Coelestia (Elliot) 2275. The internal sense of the Word consists of two distinct elements – the spiritual and the celestial. The spiritual involves a discernment – abstractedly, apart from the letter – of subject matter or real things, the literal sense serving these as an object, in the same way as things seen with the eye may serve as objects of thought regarding more exalted matters. The celestial involves pure perception of the affection present within the real things which belong to the internal sense. That discernment of real things exists with spiritual angels, whereas this pure perception of that affection exists with celestial angels. The latter, that is, those who are percipients of the affection, perceive immediately, purely from the affection there, what the letter embodies within itself when this is being read by man. And from this they form celestial ideas for themselves, doing so with unending variety and in an indescribable fashion in accordance with the sequence and harmony of the celestial things of love comprising the affection.  Third Round posts are short audio clips taken from Round 3 comments in the online Logopraxis Life Group meetings. The aim is to maintain focus on understanding the Text’s application to the inner life while reinforcing key LP principles highlighted in the exchanges.

    9 min

  6. 17 MAR

    The native proprium lives in states of spiritual sleep and feeds on fear and anxiety (2 mins)

    Heaven and Hell 276. What innocence is and its nature, few in the world know, and those who are in evil know nothing at all about it. It is, indeed, visible to the eyes, as seen in the face, speech and movements, particularly of little children. Yet it is not known what innocence is, and still less that it is that in which heaven is stored up in man.  Arcana Ceolestia 7210… in the spiritual sense “sleep” is nothing else, just as “wakefulness” is nothing else than a clear state; for there is spiritual sleep when truths are in obscurity, and spiritual wakefulness when truths are in clearness. Conjugial Love 194. We read in the Book of Creation that Jehovah God made a deep sleep to fall upon Adam so that he slept; and then took one of his ribs and built it into a woman (Genesis 2:21-22). By the man’s profound slumber is signified his entire ignorance that the wife is formed and as it were created from him. … Therefore, in order that this shall be rightly done it is enjoined upon the man that he shall leave father and mother and cleave unto his wife (Genesis 2:24; Matthew 19:4-5). …That by sleeping is signified being in ignorance or unconcern; that by father and mother are signified the two propriums of man(homo), that of his will and that of his understanding; and that by cleaving is signified devoting one’s self to the love of some one, can be abundantly confirmed by passages from other parts of the Word, but this is not the place. Third Round posts are short audio clips taken from Round 3 comments in the online Logopraxis Life Group meetings. The aim is to maintain focus on understanding the Text’s application to the inner life while reinforcing key LP principles highlighted in the exchanges.

    2 min

  7. 14 MAR

    We need the Word to turn our minds around, to govern the illusions of the appearances of the senses (7 mins)

    The Word is what opens the spiritual mind/ sense of being Apocalypse Explained (Whitehead) 790 {3-4}. Every man has two minds, one natural and the other spiritual; and as it is the mind that wills and thinks, every man has also natural will and thought and spiritual will and thought. The natural mind wills and thinks like a man in the world, and the spiritual mind wills and thinks like an angel in heaven. From this it follows that as faith is in man, it, too, is natural or spiritual; and that natural faith is according to man’s will and thought in the world, and spiritual faith is according to his will and thought in heaven. It is said the will and thought, because all things from which man is a man have relation to these two, for from the will he acts, and from the thought he speaks. And as a man acts and speaks either from self or from God, so he wills and thinks either from self or from God. From this it is clear, in the first place, that there is natural faith and spiritual faith; and that natural faith apart from spiritual faith is to think such things as are in the Word from self, while natural faith from spiritual faith is to think such things as are in the Word from God; although this also seems to the man to be from himself. As every man has two minds, a natural and a spiritual, and the natural mind is opened and formed by such things as are in the world, while the spiritual mind is opened and formed by such things as are in heaven, and as the things that are in heaven are all spiritual, so a man’s spiritual mind must needs be opened and formed by such things as are in the Word, in which all things are spiritual because they are Divine. In the Word there are truths that are to be known and thought, and goods that must be willed and done; therefore it is by these goods and these truths that man’s spiritual mind is opened and formed. From this it follows, that unless the spiritual mind is opened and formed by truths and goods from the Word it remains closed; and when this is closed the natural mind only is opened and formed by such things as are in the world, from which man, indeed, derives a natural lumen, but such as has in it no wisdom from heaven. From this it is clear, in the second place, that faith is not faith so long as the natural mind only is opened, but that if the thought that a thing is so is called faith it is historical faith, which is nothing but knowledge from which the natural man thinks.  The illusions of the senses/natural mind – the mind that thinks from the senses Arcana Coelestia (Potts) 3483​… From this it is evident how gross, nay, how earthly and also inverted is that human intelligence which ascribes everything to nature separate or exempt from an influx prior to itself, or from an efficient cause. Moreover they who so think and speak seem to themselves to be wiser than others; that is, in attributing all things to nature, when yet on the contrary angelic intelligence consists in ascribing nothing to nature, but all and everything to the Divine of the Lord, thus to life, and not to anything dead. The learned know that subsistence is a perpetual coming forth; but still it is contrary to the affection of falsity and thence to a reputation for learning to say that nature continually subsists, as it originally came into existence, from the Divine of the Lord. Inasmuch therefore as each and all things subsist, that is, continually come forth, from the Divine, and as each and all things thence derived must needs be representative of those things whereby they came into existence, it follows that the visible universe is nothing else than a theater representative of the Lord’s kingdom; and that this kingdom is a theater representative of the Lord Himself.  Arcana Coelestia (Elliot) 5084{1-2}. Sensory impressions are said to be cast aside when the things that are first and foremost in explanations place no reliance on them; for they are indeed sensory impressions, and impressions received by the mind directly through the senses are illusions. The senses are the source of all the illusions that reign in a person, and they are the reason why few have any belief in the truths of faith and why the natural man is opposed to the spiritual man, that is, the external man to the internal. Consequently if the natural or external man starts to have dominion over the spiritual or internal man, no belief at all in matters of faith exists any longer, for illusions cast a shadow over them and evil desires smother them. 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. 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. Arcana Coelestia (Elliot) 6322. To all outward appearance the external senses, such as sight and hearing, flow into thought and initiate mental images there. For the appearance is that external objects activate the senses, first the external senses, then the internal ones, and speech too. But no matter how convincing that appearance may be, it is nevertheless a misconception. For what is external, being gross and material, cannot flow in and activate what is internal, which is pure and spiritual; that would be contrary to the nature of things. It is the power of the inward senses, a power belonging to the spirit itself, that perceives things, and it does so by means of the power of the outward senses. It is also the power of the inward senses that disposes an outward sensory organ to receive impressions of objects at its bidding. So it is that outward sensory organs – such as that of sight, which is the eye – instantly adapt themselves to all the objects of the senses. Nothing of this could happen in sensory organs without the inflow they receive from within; for all the fibres and small appendages, which are very many around each sensory organ, are instantly attuned to the nature of the object. Indeed the organ itself is also immediately conditioned to conform.  Third Round posts are short audio clips taken from Round 3 comments in the online Logopraxis Life Group meetings. The aim is to maintain focus on understanding the Text’s application to the inner life while reinforcing key LP principles highlighted in the exchanges.

    7 min

  8. 11 MAR

    Remains – The Awakening of What Has Been Forgotten (3 mins)

    AC 561. To explain what a remnant is: It is not just the good and true things that we learn out of the Lord’s Word from the time we are small and that become stamped on our memory. It is also all the states that rise out of those things, such as a state of innocence from babyhood, a state of love for our parents, siblings, teachers, and friends, a state of charity toward our neighbor and compassion toward the poverty-stricken and needy. In short, it is all states of goodness or truth. These states, along with the good and true things imprinted on our memory, are called a remnant. The Lord preserves them in us, hiding them away in our inner being without our slightest awareness and carefully separating them from the things that are our own — in other words, from evil and falsity. The Lord preserves all these states in us in such a way that not even the least significant of them is lost. This I learned from the fact that every one of our states from infancy to extreme old age not only remains in the other life but even returns. When we relive them, they are identical to the experience we first lived through in the world. This happens not only with the good and true things etched on our memory but also with any state of innocence or charity we have experienced. In addition, each and every one of our states of evil and falsity (or malice and delusion) remains and returns as well, in all its minutest detail. And when the latter states come back to us, the Lord tempers them by means of the former. All of which shows that if we had no remnant, we could not help being damned for eternity (see above at §468). Arcana Coelestia 1738. For what remnants are however, see 468, 530, 560, 561, 661, 1050, where it is shown that they are all the states of love and charity, and all the states of innocence and peace, with which a person is endowed. He is endowed with these states from earliest childhood, though that endowment gradually diminishes as he advances into adult life. But while a person is being regenerated he receives, in addition to those he has already, new remnants, and thus new life; for it is from, or by means of, remnants that a person is enabled to be human. In fact, if devoid of the state of love and charity, and if devoid of the state of innocence — states that instill themselves into all the other states of his life-a person is no longer human, but worse than any wild animal.  AC 560… a remnant, as noted earlier [§530], is what lifts human life above animal life. A remnant, or rather the Lord working by means of a remnant, is what allows a person to seem human, to learn what is good and true, to reflect on particular instances of it, and so to think and reason. This remnant alone has spiritual and heavenly life in it. AC 1050. The symbolism of and every living soul within all flesh as the entire human race can be seen from the symbolism of the living soul within all flesh. Each of us is called a living soul from a living quality in us. Not one of us can live — still less live as a human being — if we do not have something living inside us. In other words, we need to have a measure of innocence, charity, and mercy, or at least something that resembles or approximates it. This measure of innocence, charity, and mercy is something we receive from the Lord in childhood and adolescence, as can be seen from the state of children and the state of adolescents. What we receive at those ages is preserved in us. What is preserved in us is what the Word calls a remnant, or survivors, and it is the Lord’s alone in us. These preserved traces are what makes it possible for us to be human when we arrive at adulthood. For more on the remnant, or remaining traces, see §§468, 530, 560, 561, 562, 563, 576. [2] The fact that the states of innocence, charity, and mercy that we experienced in early childhood and in the years when we were growing up make it possible for us to be human is plainly evident from this: We are not born into any life skills, the way brute animals are, but must learn each and every one of them, and what we learn is then turned into habit and second nature by our practicing it. Unless we learn how, we cannot even walk, or talk, or do anything else. When we practice these activities, they become almost instinctive to us. The case is the same with a state of innocence, charity, and mercy — virtues that we likewise absorb from early childhood on; if those states were not present inside us, we would be much lower than animals. But they are not acquired by education. We receive them as gifts from the Lord, who preserves them in us. These states, along with religious truth, are what are called a remnant, and are the Lord’s alone. To the extent that we suffocate them during adulthood, we become dead. When we are being reborn, these states are the starting points of the process, and we are led into them, because the Lord works through the remnant, as noted before [§§635, 711, 737:1, 857, 977:2]. Third Round posts are short audio clips taken from Round 3 comments in the online Logopraxis Life Group meetings. The aim is to maintain focus on understanding the Text’s application to the inner life while reinforcing key LP principles highlighted in the exchanges.

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Seeking to make the Lord God Jesus Christ visible in our midst... "Where two or three are gathered together in My name there am I in the midst of them." (Matt. 18:20)

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  • Creator
    The Third Round
  • Years Active
    2016 - 2026
  • Episodes
    499
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Show Website
    Logopraxis