Accessing the spiritual meaning of alien civilizations in the Latin Word

 People sometimes find it wacky that the Latin Word mentions aliens on other planets, even those of our solar system. But the point of the beasts with four faces in Ezekiel is not to convey a naturalistic anatomy; and the point of Earths in the Universe is not to provide us with an anthropology of alien civilizations.

The very title, in its inclusion of "Earths", will immediately strike one instructed in correspondences as potentially having to do with Churches; whence one can pretty much expect to encounter spiritual meanings akin to those of the 7 angels of the 7 Churches. For the correspondence of "Earth" is with Church. 

In Earths in the Universe we read of certain spirits from Mercury interacting with a man named Christian Wolf the following:

"[They then desisted from asking him further questions, inquiring only, how this is called, and how that; and because he answered these inquiries also by material ideas, and by no spiritual ones, they retired from him. For every one, in the other life, speaks spiritually, or by spiritual ideas, so far as he had believed in God, and materially, so far as he had not believed" (Earths in the Universe 38).

The inner meanings retire from us as we approach the Latin Word purely in the literal sense. But as we approach the Latin Word in the spiritual sense, they enter into closer relation with us. Besides which, we read in White Horse the following: " If a man of the Most Ancient Church had read the Word, he would have seen those things clearly which are in the internal sense, but obscurely those which are in the external sense" (White Horse 12). 

Let us then look at Earths in the Universe in the face and take the Latin Word at its word. For starters, the faces mentioned bear relation to Paul's usage of the term:

"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known" (1 Corinthians 13:12).

Here it is particularly evident that the face in question is not the material one; but rather we will see face to face, quality to quality, interior to interior in the next life; where the externals which we call faces in this life have been removed. 

If you apply the meanings of these correspondences like "face" to a passage like this, for instance, then it becomes more translucent:

"I was shown what the faces of the inhabitants of Jupiter look like. I did not actually see inhabitants themselves, but I saw spirits whose faces were like the ones they had had when they lived on their planet. Before I saw them, though, one of their angels appeared behind a bright cloud and gave permission. I was then shown two faces. They were glowing and beautiful like the faces of people of our own planet. Honesty and modesty radiated from them" (Earths in the Universe 52).

He makes it explicit that he did not see them themselves, physically, but saw the "faces" of their spirits. This gives context into why merely looking at those faces with spiritual sight would detect the honesty and modesty radiating from them, because he is not looking at them with physical eyes that see through a glass darkly; but through spiritual eyes that see face to face.

While I encourage people to explore what our Writings have to say about aliens, and to explore exobiology in natural life as well, it's important to remember that the Word of all three Testaments uses mentions of natural phenomena not for their own sakes, generally, but in order to express spiritual phenomena; with each mention of a natural phenomenon being like the plinth and each of a spiritual phenomenon being like the statue proper.

We are humanly drawn by nature to misread passages that are spiritual in nature as though they only involved natural things. This happened to the disciples, who often thought Jesus meant something natural when in fact He meant something spiritual, and it happens even with us today in the Church who are well aware that our Writings contain spiritual senses of natural mentions. Here is how it occurred with the disciples:

"And when Jesus knew it, he saith unto them, Why reason ye, because ye have no bread? perceive ye not yet, neither understand? have ye your heart yet hardened?" (Mark 8:17).

He had told them to beware the leaven of the Pharisees, in other words to beware their doctrine, and they thought He was referring to their not having brought bread for the crossing of the body of water. So He took them to task for seeing only the natural there and not the spiritual that was meant. 

The same thing happened when Nicodemus visited Jesus by night and was told by Him that he must be born again; whereupon he was confused, having heard about spiritual birth, and thought that he would materially have to go back into his mother's womb.

When dealing with these "Earths in the Universe", ideally, we should approach them from a standpoint of knowing the spiritual meaning of the terms involved. It is just like the supposed creation of the earth in Genesis, which is actually about the new creation in Christ of someone being regenerated organized into 7 days or stages of the same.

It would be best if people approached the more unusual parts of our Writings, in sum, on a sound foundation of knowing about what we call correspondences -- "bread", "name", "face", "world", "7", "Ephraim", "cup" -- and how to extract the spiritual sense of this.  But far be it from me to stand in people's way if they are intrigued by a section of our Writings so long as they know that it should not necessarily be taken at face value.

Speaking of faces again, here is a bit more of the article already mentioned:

"[4] They also believe that after death they will sense a fire that will warm their faces from within. They get this notion because the wiser of them know that, spiritually understood, fire means love, that love is the fire of life, and that for angels this fire is the source itself of their life. 1 If they have led lives devoted to heavenly love their dream comes true [after death] and they feel their face grow warm and the deeper levels of their mind catch fire with love.

[5] Because of this, the inhabitants of that planet frequently wash and cleanse their faces and carefully protect them from the heat of the sun" (Earths in the Universe 52). 

What does it mean to wash and cleanse one's face? It means to apply the truths of faith, water, to the cleansing of one's interiors, or face; that is, identifying and shunning sin in one's interiors. What does it mean to carefully protect one's face from the heat of the sun? It means to carefully protect one's interior from the heat of love of self and the world, the filth washed off in the course of the aforementioned cleansing.

Finally, let us look at the usage of the term "human" in the Latin Word in general and in Earths in the Universe:

"As for the worship of God by the inhabitants of other planets, generally speaking any who are not idolaters acknowledge the Lord as the only God. 1 That is, they worship the Divine not as a God who cannot be seen but as a God who can be seen, because the Divine, when appearing to them, appears in a human form, a form like that seen long ago by Abraham and others on this planet; 2 , 3 and everyone who worships the Divine in human form is accepted by the Lord" (Earths in the Universe 7).

The correspondence human does not signify the species homo sapiens but the capacity to receive the love and wisdom of God, which would encompass beings with as many graceful tentacles as you like, or only a stately eight, or so benighted as to have none at all:

"Any will that is truly human is receptive to goodness, and any understanding that is truly human is open to truth" (Heavenly Doctrine 33).

Any alien capable of receiving love and wisdom from God ticks the human box and has the capacity to have a broad face or a narrow face, a face that may radiate modesty and humility from Him!

I hope that these explanations of how you use correspondences to better understand why the Latin Words talks about aliens have been helpful. For we must inquire at Abel town like the ancients were said to do by the wise woman who arranged for Sheba's head to be thrown over the wall. We must, that is, inquire what a given part of the Word means in its relation to keeping the royal law to love God and the neighbor; which involves frequently washing and cleansing our faces. 
Robert Lowell wrote:

"The Fisher's sons must cast about when shallow waters peter out" (The Drunken Fisherman).

The way forward is now clear. There must be ever more preaching on a foundation of the spiritual sense of the Latin Word, the "bright cloud" mentioned in Earths in the Universe 52.

For the angel behind the "bright cloud" there is the glory in the cloud, the spiritual sense in the literal sense.

The Latin Word is to open like one of those pop-up books so that the horses and the horsemen may ride out of it in bright white robes and clean.

Godspeed on the Way.


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