Swedenborg Arcana Caelestia Vol. V (1750)

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE.

This is also evident regarding revelations from the Magi, who came from eastern lands to Jerusalem, asking "where is the one born King of the Jews?" and saying they "had seen His star in the East, and had come to worship Him" (Matthew 2:1-2). It is also clear from the case of Daniel, who is called the "chief of the magicians" (Daniel 4:6). Elsewhere, it says: "The queen said to king Belshazzar: 'There is a man in your kingdom in whom is the spirit of the holy gods; and in the days of your father, light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, was found in him. Therefore, king Nebuchadnezzar your father appointed him chief of the magicians, diviners, Chaldeans, and soothsayers'" (Daniel 5:11). And further: "None were found among them all like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah; for when they stood before the king, in every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and diviners who were in his kingdom" (Daniel 1:19-20).

It is well known that "Magi" is used in an opposite sense to mean those who perverted spiritual things and practiced magic as a result, such as those mentioned in Exodus (Exodus 7:9-12; 8:3, 5; 9:11). For magic was nothing other than the perversion and the perverse application of things that belong to the order of the spiritual world. Magic descended from this perversion; but today, such magic is called "natural" because people no longer acknowledge anything spiritual above or beyond nature. Unless it is understood as something internal within nature, the spiritual is denied.

5224. And Pharaoh told them the dream. This follows from the meaning of a "dream" as foresight, prediction, or an event (discussed in notes 5091, 5092, 5104), and thus refers to future events. How this works in the inner meaning is clear from the sequence of the subject. This verse deals with a new state of the Natural plane term: "the Natural"; the outer level of the human mind that deals with the world and the senses when it is in obscurity because truths have been driven out of it. In such a state, there is a confused crowd of facts original: "scientifica"; refers to items of knowledge or data stored in the memory consulting about the future. When such obscurity happens, the thought immediately occurs: "What is going to happen?" Because this is a common experience in every such state when a person is being reborn term: "regenerated"; the process of spiritual rebirth or transformation, that state is described here in the inner meaning.

However, such states are unknown today, both because few people are being reborn and because those who are being reborn do not reflect on such things. Today, people do not care about what goes on deep within themselves because external things occupy everything. To a person whose life is entirely focused on external things—that is, where external things are the goals of life—internal things are worth nothing. Regarding that spiritual obscurity, they would say: "What do I care about those things? There is no profit or honor in them. Why should I think about the state of my soul, or the state of my internal man? Does it matter if it is in darkness because truths are gone, or in light because truths are stored there? What is the use of knowing that? Is there even an 'internal man'? Is the state of the soul any different from the state of the body? I have my doubts. In fact, is there even a soul that lives after death? Who has ever returned from the dead to tell us?"

This is how a person of the Church speaks to themselves today, and this is how they think when they hear or read anything about the state of the internal man. From this, it is clear why the things occurring deep within a person are hidden today and completely unknown. Such obscurity of the intellect was never found among the Ancients. Their wisdom consisted of cultivating their internal lives, and thus perfecting both their intellectual and voluntary term: "voluntary"; the faculty of the will or the heart faculties, and through this, looking out for the welfare of their souls. That the Ancients cared about such things is clear from their writings, which still exist today, and also from the universal desire for listening...