Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 2492

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2492. The nature of the interior memory and of the exterior is sometimes presented visually in the next life in forms seen in that world only. (In that world many things are presented visually which with men fall into ideas only.) The exterior memory is presented in this manner as thick skin, while the interior memory is presented as a medullary substance like that in the human brain. This is the way in which one is enabled to know the nature of each. In the case of people who during their lifetime have been occupied with the memory only and have not in the same way cultivated their rational, the thick skin looks to be hard, with deep cracks in it. With those who have filled their memory with falsities it looks rough and hairy, on account of the disordered mess things are in. In the case of those who have been occupied with the memory solely for reasons of self-love and love of the world it looks matted and hardened. Among those who wished to penetrate Divine arcana by means of facts, especially by means of philosophical speculations, and refused to believe until they were persuaded by means of these, it looks like something dark which is of such a nature that it absorbs rays of light and converts them into darkness. With people who have been deceitful and hypocritical it looks like something bony and made of ebony reflecting rays of light. But with those with whom the good of love and the truth of faith have been present, no such thick skin is seen because their interior memory is emitting rays of light into the exterior, within whose objects or ideas as their own foundation, or as their own ground, the rays terminate and there find delightful vessels to contain them. For the exterior memory is the final limit of order, within which spiritual and celestial things are gently terminated and rest when goods and truths are present there.


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