He Came as a Thief in the Night

"And We have placed in it gardens of palm trees and grapevines, and caused springs to gush forth in it" (Ya-Sin 36:34). In the Latin Testament, where correspondences built into the universe are taught, a garden is a human. Gardens of palm trees and grape vines are humans with divine truths, and the springs which gush forth in them are enlightenment concerning these by God; as by rivers of divine truth flowing through and nourishing the Eden of the inner human. "These quotations indicate that in comparing humans (or what humans have inside them) to a garden, the earliest people included the idea of the water or rivers that watered the garden. It is also apparent that they took the water and rivers to mean the things that would stimulate growth" (Arcana Coelestia 108). The water is to stimulate growth in the garden of palm trees and grape vines and divine truths and holy practices; as water is to clean the flesh in the rite of baptism and as the blood of the Lamb of H...

 One will put a number of verses side by side so that the correspondences and Heavenly marriages, upright and reversed, may be seen clearly and as equivalent to one another: Nahum 3:5  Nahum 3:5 - King James Version (KJV) <5> Behold, I am against thee, saith the Lord of hosts; and I will discover thy skirts upon thy face, and I will shew the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame. Face means interior, where the real extent of people's love and truth supportive of love lies. To discover someone's skirts involves revealing what they are really like on the inside. To show the nations thy nakedness -- since the correspondence nations reversed is evils and those who are evil -- involves revealing the extent of sin. To show the kingdoms thy shame -- since the correspondence kingdoms reversed involves falsehoods and those who subscribe to them -- involves revealing the extent of error. Here is the same thing in Jeremiah, with other words used to describe the sin and ...

Periodically one suggests engaging in motionless breath meditation in a posture comfortable to you and for perhaps ten to twenty minutes before praying and reading the Word. Certain heart and mind thoughtforms will recur in you habitually. These will arise amid the breath meditation out of the corner of the mind's eye while not immersing one in naive identification with the mental voice as being oneself; as would otherwise more easily obtain.  This feeling is not me. This thought is not me. Is this a love and wisdom thoughtform? Or a sin and error thoughtform? Is this nurturing or cruel, and is it supportive ideation of nurturance or cruelty? Does the Word identify this thought or feeling as evil or good true or false? Is Hell on the line or Heaven? If it is evil and ideation supportive of evil, bread of wickedness and wine of violence, it is to go out in the draught. If it is not shunned, relegating it to the draught or periphery, then it will defile the human.  For the human...