Arcana Coelestia volume 7 - Swedenborg Foundation

ARCANA COELESTIA 3655the natural man is also signified thereby, because all memoryknowledgeis the truth of the natural man (4967): the good itself ofthe natural man is signified by “lord” (n. 4973).That a new state of the natural man is here signified is because inthe preceding chapter there was described the making new of theinteriors of the natural, and in the supreme sense, which relates tothe Lord, that they were glorified; but the subject here treated of isthe exteriors of the natural, which were to be reduced to harmonyor correspondence with the interiors. Those interiors of the naturalwhich were new, or what is the same thing, the new state of thenatural man, is what is signified by “their lord the king of Egypt”;and the exteriors which were not reduced into order, and hencewere contrary to order, are what are signified by “the butler and thebaker.”[2] There are interiors and there are exteriors of the natural, theinteriors of the natural being memory-knowledges and theaffections of them, while its exteriors are the sensuous things ofboth kinds, spoken of above (n. 5077). When a man dies he leavesbehind him these exteriors of the natural, but carries with him intothe other life the interiors of the natural, where they serve as a planefor things spiritual and celestial. For when a man dies he losesnothing except his bones and flesh; he has with him the memory ofall that he had done, spoken, or thought, and he has with him allhis natural affections and desires, thus all the interiors of thenatural. Of its exteriors he has no need; for he does not see, norhear, nor smell, nor taste, nor touch, what is in this world, but onlysuch things as are in the other life, which indeed look for the mostpart like those which are in this world; but still are not like them,for they have in them what is living, which those things whichproperly belong to the natural world have not. For all and each ofthe things in the other life come forth and subsist from the sunthere, which is the Lord, whence they have in them what is living;whereas all and each of the things in the natural world come forthand subsist from its sun, which is elementary fire, and hence havenot in them what is living. What appears living in them is from no