Arcana Coelestia volume 7 - Swedenborg Foundation

ARCANA COELESTIA 3663man, and of its state in the natural when the interior natural isbeing made new, and afterward, when it has been made new andthe exterior natural is rejected. But of these and similar things anidea may be formed from the things in heaven, which idea is suchthat it does not fall into any idea formed from the things in thisworld, except with those who while in thought can be withdrawnfrom sensuous things.[2] Unless man’s thought can be elevated above sensuous things,so that these are seen as below him, he cannot understand anyinterior thing in the Word, still less such things as are of heavenabstracted from those which are of the world; for sensuous thingsabsorb and suffocate them. It is for this reason that those who aresensuous and have zealously devoted themselves to gettingknowledges, rarely apprehend anything of the things of heaven; forthey have immersed their thoughts in such things as are of theworld, that is, in terms and distinctions drawn from these, thus insensuous things, from which they can no longer be elevated andthus kept in a point of view above them; thus neither can theirthought be any longer freely extended over the whole field of thethings of the memory, so as to select what agrees and reject what isin opposition, and apply whatever is in connection; for as alreadysaid their thought is kept closed and immersed in terms, and thusin sensuous things, so that it cannot look around. This is the reasonwhy the learned believe less than the simple, and are even less wisein heavenly things; for the simple can look at a thing above termsand above mere knowledges, thus above sensuous things; whereasthe learned cannot do so, but look at everything from terms andknowledges, their mind being fixed in these things, and thus boundas in jail or in prison.5090. Verses 5–8. And they dreamed a dream both of them, eachhis dream in one night, each according to the interpretation of hisdream, the butler and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were boundin the prison house. And Joseph came unto them in the morning, andsaw them, and behold they were troubled. And he asked Pharaoh’scourt ministers that were with him in the custody of his lord’s house,saying, Wherefore are your faces evil today? And they said unto him, we