He Came as a Thief in the Night

People who pay attention to their faces, their interiors, while God orchestrates their several regenerations will notice the recurrence of troughs; when one uses the word "trough", one means the nastiest 'visitors' -- thoughts and feelings -- which arrive in the inside of the cup, the mind, and the inside of the platter, the heart.  If you are genuinely being regenerated, then you will certainly notice that the troughs become milder over time. Utterly vile feelings and thoughts become gradually and perceptibly milder, in such a way that the process is obvious.  For instance, someone whose head regularly filled up with sexual fantasies involving violence, death, cannibalism, absence of consent, multiplicity of partners, etc, will perceptibly notice that the worst sexual scenarios become obviously milder to the mind's eye. It is the same with other classes of sin and error. If someone was extremely contemptuous of others or bitter about the past, they should -- if G...

When in the Sermon on Evil Thoughts Jesus distinguishes between what goes out in the draught and what defiles the human, He touches in passing on the waste products solid and liquid of human beings. That they are mentioned by name in the menaces of Rabshakeh against Jerusalem involves the denial of divine good and divine truth and of the Lord's capacity to save. It is like when the Pharisees and Sadducees referred to Jesus as having a devil, ie being possessed. The meaning is very similar to the menaces of Goliath to David, whose flesh he promised to feed to the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air. It is in both cases like calling God the devil, or the Church heretic, or good desires (beasts) evil or true ideation (fowls) false.  This has been related in order to give you a handle on how to understand these various references to the draught, dung, no one being left alive to piss against the wall etc. which occur in the Word.  The most important significance of dung an...

 " And the golden mice, according to the number of all the cities of the Philistines belonging to the five lords, both of fenced cities, and of country villages, even unto the great stone of Abel, whereon they set down the ark of the Lord: which stone remaineth unto this day in the field of Joshua, the Bethshemite" (1 Samuel 6:18). We've already seen this great stone Abel as the great spiritual truth that charity is the first thing in the Church. In this connexion the leitmotif of Abel, charity, continues in 2 Samuel: "She said, “Long ago people used to say, ‘If you want good advice, go to the town of Abel to get it.’ The answers they got here were all that was needed to settle any problem" (2 Samuel 20:18). If you have any questions about the Word or spiritual life, then all that is needed to settle any problem is to relate the text or experience to love of God and the neighbor and to charity. In the New Testament, the Lord communicates the same point when noti...

 Judges 7:25 - King James Version (KJV) <25> And they took two princes of the Midianites, Oreb and Zeeb; and they slew Oreb upon the rock Oreb, and Zeeb they slew at the winepress of Zeeb, and pursued Midian, and brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon on the other side Jordan. We often make the claim that the old testament histories encode spiritual information into narrative form, and examples of this have often been shown. In this case, it should be obvious to everyone that the verse is not important in a historical sense, where it sounds ridiculous. Do we slay so and so at the rock so and so? Do we slay Gaddafi at the winepress Gaddafi? We do not, in general! What then matters? What matters is the array of the correspondences; which weave together predicates of heart and mind, will and understanding. The rock and wine are both predicates of divine truth, and princes are subordinate truths. The correspondences are in the reversed or tails position; and as such indicat...

 One continues to read the Old Testament histories particularly at the moment, because they have become more pellucid; more like jasper walls of New Jerusalem are supposed to be.  See this for instance from the episode in 1 Samuel when the Philistines -- who represent faith separate from charity -- return the ark of the Lord: 1 Samuel 6:11-18 - King James Version (KJV) <11> And they laid the ark of the Lord upon the cart, and the coffer with the mice of gold and the images of their emerods. <12> And the kine took the straight way to the way of Bethshemesh, and went along the highway, lowing as they went, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left; and the lords of the Philistines went after them unto the border of Bethshemesh. <13> And they of Bethshemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley: and they lifted up their eyes, and saw the ark, and rejoiced to see it. <14> And the cart came into the field of Joshua, a Bethshemite, and st...

While watching the inside of one's platter and cup a specific sin and error thoughtform entered them: the impulse to sterilize someone in the family and their children accompanied by justification ideation, error thought supportive of the sin impulse.  I answered the enemies in the gate with the truths, the sons in my quiver, that identified the impulse as unloving and the ideation as in addition false; it being a denial of the free will of the children and of their children after them. Thus we in watching and praying learn to see love and hate and their associated ideation in the vessels of feeling and thought. We answer the enemies in the gate with the opposing impulses compassion and enlightenment; which you will find stored neatly on the shelf to your right at crunch time, if so be you have stored the Word in your heart. Psalm 127:4-5 - King James Version (KJV) <4> As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. <5> Happy is the man that hat...

The Writings refer to history as one of the "useful sciences" which are "nothing else but means for becoming wise, or for forming one's rational mind" (SE4578). The cultivation of useful sciences such as history, in this broader sense of the term science, may serve to assist with confirming truths and doctrines from the Word. There is even a proper procedure and order for this confirmation, namely that useful sciences may be used to confirm the Word but should not be used as the starting point for arriving at spiritual truth. Someone may, for instance, see in the zinc spark at human conception a confirmation in natural life or science of the Word's being "the light that lighteth every man" (John 1:9); but someone should not start out from the incidence of such a minute event and therefrom arrive at spiritual truths.  With history having thus been subordinated to the higher and internal development of the human, let's follow the Church procedure...