Arcana Coelestia (Potts) n. 5563

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5563. Pains are sometimes felt in the skull, now in one part, now in another; and nuclei seem to be perceived there which are separate from the other bones, and which thus are in pain. It has been given me to know by experience that such pains come from falsities originating in cupidities; and wonderful to say the genera and species of falsities have fixed places in the skull, as has also been made known to me by much experience. Such nuclei, which are indurations, are broken up and made soft in those who are being reformed; and this is done in various ways, in general by instructions in good and truth, by harsh influxes of truths which cause inward pain, and by actual rendings which cause outward pain. Falsities from cupidities are of such a nature that they produce hardness; for they are contrary to truths, which because they are determined according to the form of heaven, flow as it were spontaneously, freely, gently, and softly, while falsities, being of a contrary tendency, have opposite determinations, so that the flow which is of the form of heaven is stopped; hence the indurations. From this cause they who have been in deadly hatred and in the revengefulness of such hatred, and from these in falsities, have skulls completely indurated, and some have skulls like ebony, through which no rays of light, which are truths, penetrate, but are wholly reflected.


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