Logopraxis The Third Round

And now behold the cry of the sons of Israel is come unto Me, and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them. And now go, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, and do thou bring forth My people the sons of Israel out of Egypt. And Moses said unto God, Who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the sons of Israel out of Egypt? And he said, Because I will be with thee; and this shall be the sign to thee that I have sent thee: when thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall worship God near this mountain. And Moses said unto God, Behold I come unto the sons of Israel, and say to them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they say to me, What is His name? What shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I AM WHO I AM; and He said, Thus shalt thou say to the sons of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. And God said further unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the sons of Israel, Jehovah the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you; this is My name forever, and this is My memorial unto generation and generation.



(Exodus 3: 9-15)



And now, behold, the cry of the sons of Israel has come to Me, and indeed, I have seen the oppression with which Egypt has been oppressing them. Now go, I am sending you to Pharaoh. Bring forth My People, the sons of Israel, from Egypt. Yet Moses said to the One, Elohim: Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring forth the sons of Israel from Egypt?  Then He said: I shall come to be with you. And this will be the sign for you that I have sent you: when you bring the people forth from Egypt you shall serve the One, Elohim, on this mountain. Now Moses said to the One, Elohim: Behold! When I am coming to the sons of Israel, and I say to them, The Elohim of your fathers sends me to you, then they will say to me, What about His name? What shall I say to them? Then Elohim spoke to Moses: I shall come to be just as I am coming to be. And He said: Thus shall you say to the sons of Israel, I-Shall-Come-to-Be has sent me to you. And Elohim said further to Moses: Thus shall you say to the sons of Israel, Yahweh, the Elohim of your fathers, the Elohim of Abraham, the Elohim of Isaac and the Elohim of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is My name for the eon, and this the remembrance of Me for generation after generation.



(Concordant Literal Version)



 

Third Round posts are short audio clips taken from Round 3 comments offered in the online Logopraxis Life Group meetings. The aim is to keep the focus on understanding the Text in terms of its application to the inner life along with reinforcing any key LP principles that have been highlighted in the exchanges.

The Lord appears according to the reception of influx



Arcana Coelestia 6832.[2] That the Lord appears to everyone according to his quality, is evident from the fact that the Lord appears to those who are in the inmost or third heaven as a sun, from which proceeds ineffable light, because those who are there are in the good of love to the Lord; and that He appears to those who are in the middle or second heaven as a moon, because those who are there are more remotely and obscurely in love to the Lord, being in love toward the neighbor; but in the lowest or first heaven, the Lord does not appear as a sun nor yet as a moon, but only as a light which far surpasses the light of the world. And as the Lord appears to everyone according to his quality, therefore also He cannot appear to those who are in hell except as a dusky cloud and thick darkness; for as soon as the light of heaven which is from the Lord sinks down into any hell, shades and darkness are produced there. From all this it can now be seen that the Lord appears to everyone according to his quality, because according to his reception; and as the descendants of Jacob were in externals only, therefore the Lord appeared unto Moses in the bramble, and also in a cloud, when he entered in unto the Lord upon Mount Sinai.



The mind as a mirror



Apocalypse Revealed 938(2)... Divine truths of the Word make the light which proceeds from the Lord as a sun, in which the angels are; and as they make the light, they are like mirrors in which the Lord's face is seen



True Christian Religion 6(2) Nevertheless, the Divine, which forms the inmost and is draped by things adapted to the perceptions of angels and men, beams forth like light through crystalline forms, although variously in accordance with the state of mind that man has formed for himself; either from God or from himself. Before everyone who has formed the state of his mind from God the Holy Scripture stands like a mirror wherein he sees God; but everyone in his own way. This mirror is made up of those truths that man learns from the Word, and that he appropriates by living in accordance with them.



The Lord appeared as an angel prior to incarnation



AC 6831 ... the reason why the Divine Human is called the “angel of Jehovah,” is that before the coming of the Lord, when Jehovah passed through heaven, He appeared in a human form as an angel. For the whole angelic heaven bears relation to a man, which is called the Grand Man, and which has been treated of at the end of many chapters. Therefore when the Divine Itself passed through the angelic heaven, it appeared in human form as an angel before those with whom He spoke: this was the Divine Human of Jehovah before the coming of the Lord. The Lord’s Human when made Divine is the same, for the Lord is Jehovah Himself in the Divine Human.



Heaven' perfection  increases as the collective does



6819. But not only is man in the singular the neighbor, but also man in the plural. For a society, smaller or greater, is the neighbor; our country is the neighbor; the church is the neighbor; the Lord’s kingdom is the neighbor; and so above all is the Lord.







6823. The Lord’s kingdom is the neighbor in a higher degree than the church in which one is born; for the Lord’s kingdom consists of all who are in good, both on earth and in the heavens; thus the Lord’s kingdom is good with every quality of it in the complex; and when this good is loved, everyone who is in good is loved. Thus the whole, which is all good in the complex, is the neighbor in the first degree, and is that Grand Man which has been treated of at the end of many chapters, which Man is a representative image of the Lord Himself. This Man, that is, the Lord’s kingdom, is loved, when from inmost affection those are benefited who are men through that Man from the Lord,

Arcana Coelestia 6806. [3] “To know” involves conjunction, and man is said to be “known” by the Lord insofar as he is conjoined with Him. The Lord also knows those who are not conjoined, nay, the very smallest particulars in every such man (John 2:24-25); but these men, being in evil, are in a different kind of presence, which is as it were absence; although the Lord is not absent, but the man and the spirit who is in evil is he who is absent; and then it is said that the Lord “does not know” them. An image of this condition appears among angels and spirits; they who are alike as to states of life appear near each other, and thus mutually know each other; but they who are unlike as to states of life, appear to each other to be far away, nor do they know each other in the same way. In a word, in the other life likeness of state causes people to appear present, and to be known; and unlikeness of state causes them to appear absent, and not to be known.



Divine Providence 218. (3) Temporal things and eternal things are separated by man, but are conjoined by the Lord. This is true because all things pertaining to man are temporal, and for this reason man may be called temporal; while all things pertaining to the Lord are eternal, and for this reason the Lord is called Eternal. Temporal things are those that have an end and perish; while eternal things are those that have no end and do not perish. Any one can see that the two can be conjoined only through the Lord's infinite wisdom, and thus can be conjoined by the Lord, but not by man. But to make known that the two are separated by man and are conjoined by the Lord it must be shown in this order:



(1) What temporal things are, and what eternal things are.



(2) Man is in himself temporal and the Lord is in Himself eternal; and therefore only what is temporal can proceed from man, and only what is eternal from the Lord.



(3) Temporal things separate eternal things from themselves, and eternal things conjoin temporal things to themselves.



(4) The Lord conjoins man with Himself by means of appearances.



(5) Also by means of correspondences.

Divine Providence 220. (4) The conjoining of temporal and eternal ends in a person is the Lord's Divine providence. As it is not possible, however, for this to fall within the immediate perception of the intellect unless the subject is first reduced into an organized form and developed and demonstrated accordingly, therefore it must be organized as follows:

1. It is of Divine providence that a person by death puts off natural and temporal things and puts on spiritual and eternal ones.



2. Through His Divine providence the Lord conjoins Himself with natural things by means of spiritual ones, and with temporal things by means of eternal ones, in accordance with their applications.



3. The Lord conjoins Himself with their applications through correspondences, and so through appearances according to a person's affirmations of those appearances.



4. This conjunction of temporal and eternal things is Divine providence.



Third Round posts are short audio clips taken from Round 3 comments offered in the online Logopraxis Life Group meetings. The aim is to keep the focus on understanding the Text in terms of its application to the inner life along with reinforcing any key LP principles that have been highlighted in the exchanges.



 

And Jehovah saw that he went aside to see, and God called unto him out of the midst of the bramble, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Behold me! And He said, Draw not nigh hither; pull off thy shoes from upon thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest a ground of holiness is this. And He said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses covered his faces, because he was afraid to look upon God. And Jehovah said, Seeing I have seen the affliction of My people, which is in Egypt, and I have heard their cry from before their taskmasters; for I have known their sorrows; and I am come down to liberate them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to make them come up out of that land unto a land good and broad, unto a land flowing with milk and honey, unto the place of the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Amorite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite.



Exodus 3: 4-8

The saving of the spiritual states in us...



Arcana Coelestia 6858... Before the coming of the Lord into the world, evil genii and spirits occupied all that region of heaven to which the spiritual were afterward taken up; for before the coming of the Lord many such roamed at large and infested the good, especially the spiritual who were in the lower earth; but after the coming of the Lord they were all thrust down into their hells, and that region was set free, and was given for an inheritance to those who were of the spiritual church. It has been frequently observed that as soon as any place is left by good spirits it is occupied by evil ones; and that the evil are driven out of it, and as soon as this is done it again passes to those who are in good.



AC 6854(2)...They who are called “the spiritual” (who are such as can be regenerated only as to the intellectual part, but not as to the will part, and in whose intellectual part therefore a new will is implanted by the Lord, which will is according to the doctrinal things of faith pertaining to their church); these, namely such spiritual men, were saved only by the Lord’s coming into the world. The reason is that the Divine passing through heaven, which was the Divine Human before the Lord’s coming, could not reach them, because the doctrinal things of their church were for the most part not true, and consequently the good which is of the will was not good (see n. 6427). As these could be saved only by the coming of the Lord, and thus could not before be raised into heaven, therefore they were meanwhile kept in the lower earth, in places there which in the Word are called “pits;” which earth was beset about by the hells where are falsities, by which they were then much infested, and yet were guarded by the Lord. But after the Lord came into the world, and made the Human in Himself Divine, then He delivered those who were there in “pits,” and raised them to heaven; and out of them He also formed the spiritual heaven, which is the second heaven. This is meant by the descent of the Lord to the lower regions, and by the deliverance of those who were bound.



AC 6826... “and the angel of Jehovah was seen by him,” signifies the Lord as to the Divine Human; “in a flame of fire out of the midst of the bramble,” signifies love Divine in the truth of memory-knowledge; “and he saw, and behold the bramble burned with fire,” signifies a noticing that the truth of memory-knowledge was full of the good of love Divine; “and the bramble was in no wise consumed,” signifies Divine truth united to Divine good in the natural



6816. The spirits of Mercury are quite different from the spirits of our earth, for the spirits of our earth care not so much for real things as for material, worldly, bodily, and earthly things. Therefore the spirits of Mercury cannot be together with the spirits of our earth, and so whenever they meet them they flee away; for the spiritual spheres which exhale from ...

Arcana Coelestia 6804. And God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. That this signifies by reason of conjunction with the church through the Lord’s Divine Human, is evident from the signification of “covenant,” as being conjunction (of which in what follows); and from the representation of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with whom a covenant was made, as being the Lord’s Divine Human. (.. Abraham represents the Lord as to the Divine Itself, Isaac as to the Divine rational, and Jacob as to the Divine natural.



Divine Providence 218-220 (PDF)



Third Round posts are short audio clips taken from Round 3 comments offered in the online Logopraxis Life Group meetings. The aim is to keep the focus on understanding the Text in terms of its application to the inner life along with reinforcing any key LP principles that have been highlighted in the exchanges.

They love real things



Arcana Coelestia 6809... I wondered at this character of the spirits of Mercury, and I therefore asked why they passed by the magnificent features of the places, and only searched out the facts and doings there? They said they have no delight in looking at material, bodily, and earthly things, but only at real ones. From this it at once appeared that the spirits of that earth relate in the Grand Man to the memory of real things when abstracted from things material and earthly.



The husk or sheath



AC 6816. The spirits of Mercury are quite different from the spirits of our earth, for the spirits of our earth care not so much for real things as for material, worldly, bodily, and earthly things. Therefore the spirits of Mercury cannot be together with the spirits of our earth, and so whenever they meet them they flee away; for the spiritual spheres which exhale from the two are almost opposite. The spirits of Mercury have a saying, that they love what is drawn out from things material, and that they do not desire to look at the sheath, but at things stripped of their sheath, thus at interior things.

What are real things?

AC 1025. The material, worldly, and bodily ideas man has when reading the Word become with angels spiritual and celestial ideas. While man is reading about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for example, the angels do not have Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob in mind at all but those real things which are represented and so meant by them.

AC 3485. The representations that come forth in the other life are appearances, but living ones, because they are from the light of life. The light of life is the Divine wisdom, which is from the Lord alone. Hence all things that come forth from this light are real; and are not like those things that come forth from the light of the world. Wherefore they who are in the other life have sometimes said that the things they see there are real things, and the things which man sees are in comparison not real; because the former things live, and thus immediately affect their life, while the latter things do not live, thus do not immediately affect the life, except insofar and in such a manner as the things in their minds which are of this world’s light conjoin themselves fitly and correspondently with the things of the light of heaven.



AC 5075. That nothing in the universe is anything, that is, a real thing, unless it is from Divine good by Divine truth, that is, by the “Word,” is plain in John: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made (John 1:1, 3).



Tendency to love their own intelligence and not apply their knowledge



AC 6813...By reason of their knowledges the spirits of Mercury are more conceited than others, and they were therefore told that although they know innumerable things, still there are infinite things which they do not know; and that if their knowledges should increase to eternity, they would not attain even to a knowledge of generals. They were told also of their conceit and elation of mind, and how unbecoming this is; but they answered that it is not conceit, but only a glorying in their faculty of memory. In this way they can excuse their faults.



AC 6815. I was allowed to insinuate the question whether they did not desire to perform some use by virtue of their knowledges; because it is not sufficient to be delighted with knowledges, seeing that knowledges look to uses, and uses must be the ends. From knowledges alone, I told them, there is no use to them, but only to others to whom they may desire to communicate their knowledges; and it is by no means proper for a man who desires to be wise, to halt in knowledges alone, because these are only instrumental causes, intended to serve in the search for uses,