You are the crust and the glass. Jesus is the bread and the wine.

"And all the birds were satiated with their flesh" (Revelation 19:21) signifies that from their lusts of evil, which are their proprium, the infernal genii are as it were nourished" (Apocalypse Revealed 802). In other words, evil spirits harvest loosh when you appropriate, for instance, wrath, accepting it as your own and writing it on your inner man. Your assent to and your delight in their winding you up is even the extent of your culpability, since thoughts are not your own but your assent thereto. 

The insinuation of fantasies into a human being's train of thought by an evil spirit invites you to "be led away and enticed by your lusts", as James would have it, or to appropriate evil as the Writings term it. Intrusive thoughts, the spat of the enemies, indicate that another mind has some objective in relation to us. It could be, for instance, that that mind is enticing us to resent an authority figure and in association with this to commit breakages of "Thou shalt not kill" such as depreciation, contempt, or reviling.

Romans 7:7 - King James Version (KJV)<7> What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.

One should add that the wilful resentment of an authority figure -- we're assuming someone perhaps imperfect but reasonably decent in authority here -- would break not only "Thou shalt not kill" but also "Honour thy Father and Mother", which concerns respect for God and the Church, all authority figures invested with offices, and so forth down the chain of less and less spiritual, more and more institutional-natural.

1 John 3:15 - King James Version (KJV)<15> Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.

The congruence of the New Church doctrine that the 10 commandments have an inner and an outer meaning to this reference to murder is unmistakable. What else will evil spirits do? Well, we have just read that someone can kill off their eternal happiness by hating a brother. So, if you are these invisible Caligulas, what you would do would be to entice someone's mind with a fantasy, an intrusive thought-form, which specifically carried out the task of tripping them up on precisely that matter.

One has noticed intrusive thoughts, designed fantasies, enticing me to hate people in the Church, as well as people in positions of natural authority. In any such case, I have a choice to pour gasoline on that thought or not, which is "being carried away and enticed by our lusts" or appropriating evil, which is what "defileth a man" (Mark 7:15) as God tells us in His Sermon on Evil Thoughts in Mark ch.7.

The New Church doctrine of human freewill may be likened to a senior citizen wearing a powered exoskeleton which responds to their feather-soft movements by lifting tons.God is very much your "will" and your "mind", as we are informed by Paul. But you do get to provide a feather-soft movement here, by way of freewill. Everyone knows you can back away, for instance, from anger. You can cause it to cease to flare, for it is apparent as a sort of dirty plume and you know it when you see it. You do this as if of yourself but of the Lord. You are the glass, He is the wine. You are the crust, He is the bread.

Now, mention was made earlier about the intrusive thoughts being designed to cause the breakage of a commandment by malicious minds. There are two extremely important elements here, the assent that someone may give to these attack fantasies and the resulting imaginations associated with that assent. We pour gasoline on a given evil which cannot but be in association with its companion falsity. Fortunately, we can also feed, for instance, the habit of making excuses for others. And this will in its turn, being a good, have an associated truth.

Psalm 111:10 - King James Version (KJV)<10> The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever.

The pairing of a "good understanding" with "do His commandments" shines clearly, and is precisely congruent to our doctrine. Now, as to that fear of the Lord, the mainline Church would tend to emphasise actual fear; and to be fair, we should certainly be wary of doing anything that the Word refers to as an abomination.

But in the New Church, the fear of the Lord is less that of punishment than firstly of not obeying Jesus' commandments and secondly of not being loving enough. People who fear not being loving enough, the Bible says, have better understanding associated with this. I like this, this is a Good News. This is not the fear which demons "fear, and tremble"! It is the fear of the Lord, and God's fear is not our fear. His ways are not our ways. For us, "Ignorance of the law is no excuse", despite the fact that no human could not be ignorant of the enormous amount of human law, which a human could not read in a lifetime... But God has a different way here:

Luke 23:34 - King James Version (KJV)<34> Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.

While we're on the subject of man's ways not being God's ways, the Writings make mention of human "humiliation" in the presence of Jesus. Of course, we have already seen that man's fear is not God's fear, for man's fear is panic and God's fear is liberation from the bondage of not being loving. Everyone knows that being humiliated before human beings hurts. But let me tell you something, when you are "humiliated" near Jesus, you don't feel at all hurt like that. You never feel so small, and it never could matter less to you. That is how you tell it's the living God. Here are some verses concerning the "dawn", as the Writings refer to it, of the Living God in a human being.

2 Peter 1:19 - King James Version (KJV)<19> We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:

1 Peter 1:8 - King James Version (KJV)<8> Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

When that day dawns, when there is joy unspeakable and full of glory, everything is different. Much of it will not be expressible in human language. Neighbour, have you experienced strange joy? Do you wonder about that joy? That joy is alive.

1 John 1:4 - King James Version (KJV)<4> And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.

May you meet and grow in conjunction with Jesus Christ, our nurturing Father and one Lord, our next-door-neighbour and our mind, our will, our work. Amen.

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Preached at Discord New Church, a Swedenborgian chat server