That from the Lord proceed two universal spheres for the preservation of the universe in the state created, of which the one is the sphere of procreating, and the other the sphere of protecting the things procreated. The Divine proceeding from the Lord is called a sphere because it goes forth from Him, surrounds Him, fills both worlds, the spiritual and the natural, and brings into operation the effects of the ends which the Lord predestined at creation and for which He provides after it. All that flows out from a subject and encompasses and surrounds it, is called a sphere; as, for example, the sphere of light and heat from and around the sun; the sphere of life from and around a man; the sphere of the fragrance of a plant around it; the sphere of the attraction of a magnet around it, and so on. [2] But the universal spheres here treated of are from and around the Lord, and they proceed from the sun of the spiritual world in the midst of which He is. From the Lord through that sun proceeds a sphere of heat and light, or, what is the same thing, a sphere of love and wisdom, for the bringing into operation of ends which are uses. This sphere is designated by different names according to its uses. The Divine sphere looking to the preservation of the universe in its created state by means of successive generations, is called the Sphere of Procreating; and the Divine sphere looking to the preservation of the generations in their beginnings and afterwards in their progressions, is called the Sphere of Protecting what is procreated. Besides these two, there are many other Divine spheres and these are named according to their uses, thus differently, as can be seen above (no. 222). The operations of uses by means of those spheres are the Divine Providence. (Conjugial Love 386)

Now Amalek came and fought with Israel in Rephidim. And Moses said to Joshua, “Choose us some men and go out, fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in my hand.” So Joshua did as Moses said to him, and fought with Amalek. And Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. And so it was, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed; and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses’ hands became heavy; so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it. And Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. So Joshua defeated Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write this for a memorial in the book and recount it in the hearing of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.” And Moses built an altar and called its name, The-Lord-Is-My-Banner; for he said, “Because the Lord has sworn: the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.” (Exodus 17: 8- 16)

On the surface, this is a story about how the Lord protects us from those things that seek to harm us. It demonstrates how when we give priority to the things of the Lord, then spiritual struggles are overcome but when we turn away and look towards ourselves instead, then evil reigns. The name Amalek in the Hebrew means people gathered up and since Amalek is a descendant of Esau who represents the good of earthly truths (Arcana Coelestia 3300), here in the negative sense, we have a gathering of all those things that have descended from the evils of them. That is, from the loves that have been built up from the appearances of the senses. And hence in the Amalekites we have a gathering of all those things that support the love of self, the love that I am a self.

Now I’ve long struggled with the concept of the Lord protecting us from ourselves.  Not the principle that we should and need to be led out of our love of our self but more so because the idea of protection seemed to suggest that the Lord was working on the defensive. Like He was working reactively to a situation to accommodate for our inadequacies and to steer us away from what effectively is self-harm and harmful to others. Which on the surface, this story also portrays. And it’s not that this isn’t a good thing because obviously it is, but it had always made Him feel too finite for me, too self-conscious and self-aware. Too much like He was weighing up the situation and deciding just how much of His love and wisdom He was going to hand out in any moment. That He was limiting how much of Himself was able to be accessed. All of which contrasted with what I knew from the Word about the nature of Divine Love- that it is unchanging and therefore doesn’t accommodate. And that it doesn’t work on the defensive either but rather it is the form of our mind, of the structures and patterns of our thinking, feeling and beliefs that determine what we receive or don’t receive. 

It was only recently, from a situation which arose in my role as parent, that I was able to find an affectional ‘in’ to this concept of Divine protection, which didn’t feel finite, and which married with what I understood from the Word. The experience itself was something that a parent often finds themselves in – it was seeing that my child was engaging with thinking and feeling patterns which I judged were not of the Lord. My initial reaction was that these influences would do him harm and therefore this needed to be pointed out to him since he was now a teenager and thus of an age where he could self-reflect and make choices based on this.  And, that he needed to have the vessels which carried these influences removed from his environment. So externally, to all appearances, I was doing the very thing I had been struggling to understand regarding the Lord. I was seeking to protect him from further exposure and thus harm to himself and potentially to others. And I was responding on the defensive to what I considered an offensive move from the things that opposed the Lord.

But as I examined the state more deeply, I realised that the love of protection wasn’t the love that was driving the response.  The thing driving it was very simple at its core. I just had a desire for him to be in the Lord. To be in good. And so wanted to turn him to look towards where I deemed that to be. The effect however was that it then implied boundaries as to where the Lord wasn’t and for my young adult child, part of those boundaries would be determined by his willingness to accept and see what I was pointing to. The protection then became one of the by-products of the love – like one of the consequences of its existence, or like one of the things that was outflowing from the nature of what it was, its nature being, again very simply, to draw what is of itself to itself.

For love is receptive of each and all things that are in harmony with it; it longs for them, seeks them, and drinks them in as it were spontaneously, for it desires unceasingly to be enriched and perfected by them. (Heaven and Hell 18)

Because this is the nature of love, the consequential effect of its existence means that everything in creation is continually being drawn away from what love is not, away from what is evil. So, for a finite mind, for us, this means that Divine Love is seeking to continually draw us away from the idea that we are an autonomous self because this is the root of all evil. This idea forms a counter love to Divine Love and is generated from the appearances of the senses which would have us believe that we are able to function and exist independently from the Divine Life. And this is the very definition of what evil is.

Evil and sin are a separation and turning away from the Lord (The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine 170)

… evil itself consists in disunion. This is plain from good, for good is conjunction… The good of love to the Lord conjoins the man with the Lord, and consequently with all the good which proceeds from Him… But with evil the reverse is the case. … The evil of the love of self disjoins the man not only from the Lord, but also from heaven; for he loves no one but himself, others only so far as he regards them in himself, or so far as they make one with him. Hence, he diverts to himself the attention of all, and entirely averts it from others, most especially from the Lord (Arcana Coelestia 4997)

… if any man suffers himself to be so far misled as to think that he is not a recipient of life but is Life, he cannot be withheld from the thought that he is God. A man’s feeling as if he were life, and therefore believing himself to be so, arises from fallacy; for the principal cause is not perceived in the instrumental cause otherwise than as one with it. That the Lord is Life in Himself, He Himself teaches in John: As the Father hath life in Himself, so also hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself (5:26) He declares also that He is Life itself (John 11:25; 14:6). Now since life and love are one (as is apparent from what has been said above, n. 1, 2), it follows that the Lord, because He is Life itself, is Love itself. (Divine Love and Wisdom 4)

Love is perpetually working to elevate the sense of self up out of the closed, natural mind and to open into the reality that instead of being self-sustaining, it is sustained as a self – by the Divine. Love then continually seeks to awaken us to the existence of Itself and the self then alternatively, as a historically constructed concept of mind, continually resists this.

Whenever man looks to himself in the good that he does he is let into what is his own, that is, into his inherited evils for he then looks from good to himself and not from himself to good, and therefore he presents an image of himself in his good, and not an image of the Divine. (Heaven and Hell 558)

The resulting state of stasis or if you like, equilibrium, from these two opposing loves means that we are each held in any moment in a type of placement of mind and in this placement, mental and spiritual boundaries are created or come into existence for us. We may not be aware of them, but it is in that hovering point between where we are held in the continual drawing of Love to what is of Itself that is within us to Itself, and the counter of what resist this in the opposite direction – that these boundaries arise.

Good is from creation, both good in its greatest degree and good in its least; and when this least becomes nothing, then from the other side arises evil. There is therefore no relation between them, nor any progression of good to evil, but only a relation and progression of good to greater and less good, and of evil to greater and less evil, the two being opposites at each and every point. And since good and evil are opposites, there is an intermediate between them wherein is an equilibrium in which evil acts against good; but because it does not prevail, it stops in the endeavour (Conjugial Love 444)

The boundaries appear to then form a kind of protection in that they offer a sense of a hermetically sealed sphere in which the sense of being a self can exist as a something in our awareness. Without these boundaries which arise from the equilibrium, we would find that the self has no shape, no form, no sense of being anything, and if there is no sense of being anything – then we would have nothing in or through which we might experience conjunction with the Divine Love which of course would be contrary to its nature.

… as love viewed in itself seeks no other end than to become one with him whom it loves, so the Divine love seeks no other end than to unite itself to man and man to itself, even until It is in him and he in It. (True Christian Religion 838)

These boundaries aren’t impenetrable though, they are more like a cell membrane in a human body which acts as both a barrier and a filtering system, allowing some dissolved substances or solutes to pass, whilst blocking others. So, the boundary is semipermeable and contributes to the overall health of the cell and in its ability to maintain a state of homeostasis. The homeostasis is this case being brought about by the letting through of concepts of Divine Love that can be integrated into the sense of self without leading to a complete disintegration of its functioning. And so, this membrane of mental and spiritual concepts serves in the maintenance of our sense of being a self and hence of being a something in which we might experience reception of Divine Life.

Now the quality of this membrane-like-boundary determines the quality of the awareness of self that forms within it. And we can look to the illustration of the Lord’s protection as an example.

When a child is young the parent actively constructs and monitors the environment so that the child is kept safe and nourished in the things that it needs to be healthy and to grow. The parent is in a role of protector and nurturer.

When the child starts to develop self-awareness, the parent begins to educate and make the child aware of the factors that are involved in the construction, monitoring, and modification of the environment. The child starts to develop an awareness of why it needs protection and how this might be done. The parent is now in a role of both a protector and educator.

Once the child begins to demonstrate an ability to construct, monitor and modify its own environment the parent in parallel starts to action less of these. And so, the child is given increasing opportunity to practice an awareness of protection for itself.

This latter stage continues until such a time where the child, now an adult, takes responsibility for its own environment. The parent’s role as a protector ceases and they assume more of a role of a companion through the ups and downs of the grown child’s life.

Of course, this is the ideal development for the child and parent relationship but in practice, the role of relinquishing the responsibility of a protector can be a challenging one for a parent. It can require the constant reminder that this role for the child now needs to be let go of, so that it may continue to develop as an adult.  And that the parent does not have control nor ownership of the child’s life anymore and that in fact that were only ever a custodian.

So, we come back now to how this might illustrate the quality of the membrane boundary within which the sense of self comes into conscious awareness.

In the first stage of development the young child is viewed as something that needs protecting. It is largely unaware of its environment and the influences within it and so the parent is seen as something that exists to both protect and nourish it. Upon reflection, we can all see examples of this in our own relationship with the Lord as He who has protected and nourished us when we have been in states of ignorant innocence about spiritual things. We might look at the sense of self that had been active in these states as something that was completely dependent on the Lord’s hand in all that it led us through. We might see where it steered us away from things that could have been harmful to us and others and feel moved by His mercy in how He carried us through difficult situations. In this state, the sense of self is perceived as something that needs protecting.

In the second stage where the child is developing an awareness of the protection that the parent provides, the parent is seen as something that needs to educate the child. This might relate to those states in which we see the sense of self in the role of acquiring knowledge about the Divine Love, of its nature and the principles that govern its operation. In this state the Lord is seen still seen as a protector but increasingly also seen as the source of all wisdom and as that which can educate us about spiritual life. We might also liken this stage to those states when the Word starts to become something that is seen as an important source of knowledge in our life and increasingly something with which we must engage with and listen to and try to apply what it teaches.

In the third stage of development the parent begins to allow the child independence in their decision making. However, as this stage progresses there can be a lot of back-and-forth struggle because of resistances within both the child and the parent. States of regression are also part of this process. Slowly though, as the child becomes mature and more skilled in its ability to examine, judge, and respond to situations, the parent incrementally relinquishes the responsibility of being the child’s protector. The parent in this stage thus is seen as something that is moving towards a state of acceptance that there is no longer a child that needs protecting.

This last stage particularly seems to reflect the ongoing work of spiritual life. If the child represents the sense of self within the membrane boundary and the roles and responsibilities of the parent reflect the concepts that we carry about the nature of the Divine that make up this boundary – then we can see how this last stage illustrates the resistance of the self to accept that it actually has no self that needs to be protected. That instead the experience of the Lord protecting us is reflective of how we understand the nature of Him and the nature of the self.

For if there is a belief that the self is an independent autonomous thing, then it would follow that the Lord protects it so that it can subsist and experience life. The Lord in this state actively constructs the boundaries and looks after them so that we do not dissolve into nothingness. There is a beautiful child-like stare of innocence in this idea, but it is also based on the thinking that the self is a something and that we would be destroyed if it were to be removed.

With the corporeal and worldly man, his Own is his all, he knows of nothing else than his Own, and imagines, as before said, that if he were to lose this Own he would perish. (Arcana Coelestia 141)

On the other hand, if there is an acceptance that there is no self and that this is an experience that arises from the meeting of Divine Life with the belief that I am real then although there is still a feeling that I am independent and autonomous – there is a new way of being in relationship to it. And a realisation, at least intellectually, that there is actually no self to protect although there is still a struggle to live from this from this concept.

With the spiritual man also his Own has a similar appearance, for although he knows that the Lord is the life of all, and gives wisdom and understanding, and consequently the power to think and to act, yet this knowledge is rather the profession of his lips than the belief of his heart. (Arcana Coelestia 141)

And at the complete opposite end of the child that needs protecting is again something that appears as child-like innocence where there is a forgetting that there is a self at all. But this is not because it is unaware of the Lord’s presence – but quite the opposite. This state is only focused on what the Lord is asking of it and does this without even a thought presenting to question it because the active love is so at one with the Divine Love. The love that it receives is felt as what is the only self. We might see an example of this in those states where we forget our own existence for a moment or two because the focus is so at one with what is His, in the service of His love. There is effectively nothing that identifies as my self and so nothing which requires protection. There is just what IS. THE Self.

But the celestial man discerns that the Lord is the life of all and gives the power to think and to act, for he perceives that it is really so. He never desires his Own, nevertheless an Own is given him by the Lord, which is conjoined with all perception of what is good and true, and with all happiness. … for in their Own are those things which are the Lord’s, who governs their Own, or them by means of their Own. This Own is the veriest celestial itself, whereas that of the corporeal man is infernal. (Arcana Coelestia 141)

Sometimes an angel does not speak from himself, but from the Lord, and he then does not know but that he is the Lord; but then his externals are quiescent. It is otherwise when his externals are active. The reason is, that the internal man of the angels is the Lord’s possession; and so far then as there are no obstructions on the part of what is their own, it is the Lord’s, and even is the Lord. (Arcana Coelestia 1745)

If we return now to where we began with the story of the victory of the Amalekites, we may also see these three examples of self, and of the movement from protector to educator to the one and only self.

Moses in general represents the historical Word (Arcana Coelestia 6752), the Word as we interact with it in its literal sense of person, place, time, and space.  In fact, the name in the Hebrew relates to what is plucked or drawn out which points to its function in that the things of the historical knowledges serve as a basis from which more interior things can be accessed.  And we see this need to move more interiorly with the Word into higher things illustrated in the story both in the fact that Moses has gone up to a hilltop and when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed. For when the things of the Word that are able to hold and manipulate (i.e. the hand) are raised and drawn up out of what is lower towards heavenly things, then person, place, time and space are read as spiritual states. They are elevated into what is more interior where they can be applied to the life of our mind and spirit, and so have true agency to draw us away from the reign of self-love, which is a love grown from believing the appearances of the senses to be real, from believing that we are a self, independent from Divine Life. The power of this agency is also emphasised in the fact that in Moses’s hand was the rod of God, a rod representing an extension of this idea of the power of the Word when drawn into what is more interior (Arcana Coelestia 7026). But this is only the beginning of our development. For we might intellectually see how the practice of removing person, place, time, and space has the power to protect us from falling into negative states, but one truth is not enough to overthrow the Amalekites. Without regular practice of it in life so that it moves beyond the intellectual into the willingness of the heart, there is no way the sense of self will give up ownership of its life. And so, the inability to let go of the self is also reflected in the belief that there is a self that the Lord protects.

“If he were to lose this Own he would perish” and so “Moses’ hands became heavy”.

In order for a transformation in the sense of self to take place, regular engagement with the Word must occur.  A solid foundation upon which to rest and have connection with the lowest things of the earth, the things of the senses, is needed.  This can only be done through the accumulation of truths that have become known by the practice of them in our life. And this is the education that the Word as the Lord offers us whilst the sense of self still sits in a placement of mind where it believes it needs protection. And this education through practice, is the representative image of the stone that was provided to support the historical Word.

“so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it.”

The as-of-self effort to compel oneself to work and practice, to hold up the hands whilst resting on the rock as it makes contact with the earth beneath it, can be seen in the description of the spiritual man…

With the spiritual man … although he knows that the Lord is the life of all, …. this knowledge is rather the profession of his lips than the belief of his heart. (Arcana Coelestia 141)

It is said to be an as of self effort because whilst there is a recognition that the Lord is one’s life as a principal truth that the Word teaches, there is a struggle to actually live in this. And so, the as of self effort pays homage to the principle but also acknowledges the effort that the self feels as its own.

And just like the child that matures and becomes more skilled in its ability to discern and make decisions, so too does the mental and spiritual concepts that make up the boundaries of the membrane of the self-cell change as the Word is practiced.

Faith in God enters into man through a prior way, which is from the soul into the higher parts of the understanding; while knowledges about God enter through a posterior way, because they are drawn from the revealed Word by the understanding, through the bodily senses; and these inflowings meet midway in the understanding; and there natural faith, which is merely persuasion, becomes spiritual, which is real acknowledgment. Thus the human understanding is like a refining vessel, in which this transmutation is effected. (True Christian Religion 11[3])

And so, the quality of what is within the membrane boundary is also perceived differently as the quality of the membrane boundary changes. What seems telling in the final image of Moses up on the hill in his overseeing of the battle between the Amalekites and Israel is that he doesn’t seem to be doing anything at all by the end of it. What started out as his effort to raise his hand, moved from him getting tired and needing a rock to sit on, and now in this last image he also needs support to hold up his hands. 

And Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. So Joshua defeated Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword. (Exodus 17:12-13)

So, now both his feet and hands are supported.  His feet being the place where he, as the Word in us, might stand and have contact with the lower things and the hands being the place where it has the power to manipulate and have agency. Thus, conveying the idea that any power that we have to do anything is an illusion – that the effort that the sense of self feels is what flows through it as a vessel of reception of Divine Life.  Any effort that was perceived prior to this state seems to be dissipated by this last image like a final light being shed on the situation. And indeed, this is brought out by the root word of the Hebrew of the two names of the men holding up Moses’s hands; Aaron meaning bringing of light and Hur meaning white which both carry with them the idea of enlightenment.

The battle against the Israelites, who represent the spiritual church (See Arcana Coelestia 4286) culminates in Joshua which means Jehovah saves, being enabled to defeat the Amalekites, the things of the love of self, with the edge of the sword. The sword represents the power of Divine truth to assist in state of struggles and cut through falsities (Arcana Coelestia 2799) and so the lived truth about what Divine Life is resolves the battles of the spiritual church and moves the state into one that is celestial.

But the celestial man discerns that the Lord is the life of all and gives the power to think and to act, for he perceives that it is really so. (Arcana Coelestia 141)

… the internal man of the angels is the Lord’s possession; and so far then as there are no obstructions on the part of what is their own, it is the Lord’s, and even is the Lord. (Arcana Coelestia 1745)

He never desires his Own, nevertheless an Own is given him by the Lord, which is conjoined with all perception of what is good and true, and with all happiness. … for in their Own are those things which are the Lord’s, who governs their Own, or them by means of their Own. (Arcana Coelestia 141)

In this state, there is no self that needs protecting.  There is only the Lord’s self, felt as what is own.  In this state of mind, of spirit, there is no memory of Amalek.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write this for a memorial in the book and recount it in the hearing of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.” (Exodus 17:14)

But being finite, with a semipermeable cell membrane of self, states are always in flux.  And once this state passes there is a return once more to the as of self effort in the work and practice. However, the memory of the process serves as a reminder that the Word as the Lord is always fully present. That His Love is ever constant, perpetually drawing what is of itself towards it.

And Moses built an altar and called its name, The-Lord-Is-My-Banner; for he said, “Because the Lord has sworn: the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation. (Exodus 17:15-16)

References:

Esua represents the good of natural/earthly truth.

There are two things which constitute the natural, as there are two that constitute the rational, nay, that constitute the whole man, one of which is of life, and the other of doctrine. That which is of life belongs to the will, while that which is of doctrine belongs to the understanding. The former is called good, and the latter truth. This good is that which is represented by Esau, and the truth by Jacob; or what is the same, the good of life of the truth of the natural is that which is represented by Esau, and the doctrine of truth of the natural is that which is represented by Jacob. (Arcana Coelestia 3300)

Moses represents the historical Word.

There are two people primarily who represent the Lord with respect to the Word, namely Moses and Elijah. Moses represents the Lord with respect to the historical books, Elijah with respect to the Prophets. In addition to those two there is Elisha, and lastly John the Baptist, who is therefore the one who is meant by ‘the Elijah who is to come’, Matthew 17:10-13; Luke 1:17. But before one can show that Moses represents the law of God, one must say what the law of God is. In a broad sense God’s law means the whole Word; in a narrower sense it means the historical section of the Word; in a restricted sense it means what was written through Moses; and in a very restricted sense it means the Ten Commandments written upon Mount Sinai on tablets of stone. Moses represents the law in the narrower sense as well as in the restricted sense and also in the very restricted. (Arcana Coelestia 6752)

A rod is an extension of the idea of the hand representing power.

And Moses took the rod of God in his hand. That this signifies that these things were from Divine power, is evident from the signification of “rod,” as being power (n. 4013, 4015, 4876, 4936) thus “the rod of God” denotes Divine power. (That “rod” denotes the power of the natural, and “hand” the power of the spiritual, and that the natural has power from the spiritual, thus that by “rod” is signified power when it is in the hand, see n. 7011.) (Arcana Coelestia 7026)

Israel represents the spiritual church.

These things have been stated in order that it may be known what “Israel” denotes. But in the supreme sense “Israel” signifies the Lord as to the Divine celestial spiritual, and in the internal sense signifies the Lord’s spiritual kingdom in heaven and on earth. The Lord’s spiritual kingdom on earth is the church which is called the Spiritual Church. And because “Israel” denotes the Lord’s spiritual kingdom, “Israel” likewise denotes the spiritual man, for in every such man there is the Lord’s kingdom; for a man is a heaven, and is also a church, in the least form (n. 4279). (Arcana Coelestia 4286 [4])

A sword represents.

A “sword” in the internal sense signifies the truth of faith combating, and also the vastation of truth; and in the opposite sense falsity combating, and the punishment of falsity. (Arcana Coelestia 2799)

In this series we are going to look at the Lord’s temptations in the wilderness by the Devil, just after He was baptised by John in the Jordan. This can be found in the fourth chapter of Matthews’s Gospel. You will have noticed that the temptations are conveyed as a set of three. The first temptation the Devil incites is for Jesus to make stones into bread, the second is a temptation to cast Himself down from the height of the temple to see if God would undertake to preserve Him and the third is an offer of power and glory if He would worship the Devil.

These three temptations actually describe the nature of every form of temptation that a person can experience, so they are like a general overview of the kinds of things that come against us when we seek to live a life using spiritual principles to guide and direct us. With this in mind, we will look at these temptations as descriptions of our own process so that we can better understand how the Lord, as Truth from the Word in our minds, is tried and tested as our sense of self becomes more grounded in heavenly or genuine spiritual things through the removal of our attachments to the loves of self and the world.

The Lord hungers for our good and His hunger will only ever be satisfied with our free response to His call on our life. A call to resist our evils, our tendencies toward self centredness and embody angelic qualities so that we might know heaven. The struggle to do this opens up the way for doubts to enter in and these doubts are represented by the voice of the love of self or in the literal sense of the story the Devil, which is constantly asking us to settle for something less than the Lord has purposed for us.

1. How We Come To A Wilderness State

2. Speak, So That The Stones May Become Loaves

3. Throw Yourself Down

4. Worship Me

And straightway He compels His disciples to enter into the ship and to go before to the other side, to Bethsaida, while He sent away the crowd. And when He had ordered them away, He departed into a mountain to pray. And when evening had come, the ship was in the midst of the sea, and He alone on the land. And He saw them toiling in rowing, for the wind was contrary to them; and about the fourth watch of the night He comes to them, walking upon the sea, and would have passed by them. But when they saw Him walking on the sea, they thought it to be a phantom, and cried out; for they all saw Him, and were troubled. And straightway He spoke with them, and says to them, Have confidence; I am; be not afraid. And He went up to them into the ship; and the wind quieted; and they were exceedingly amazed in themselves, and marvelled; for they understood not the miracle of the loaves, for their heart was hardened. And when they had passed over, they came to the land of Gennesaret, and drew to the shore. (Mark 6:45-53)

When the influx of the Divine is intensified, which occurs when the evil are to be cast out, then lower down in the spiritual world a wind springs up that blows strongly like a storm or tempest; this wind is what is called in the Word “the east wind”. The casting down of the evil is described also in the Word by violent and impetuous winds, by storms, and by tempests. “The wind of Jehovah” has a similar signification as “the spirit of Jehovah,” for the wind of respiration is meant, which is also called spirit (or breath). On this account in the Hebrew and many other languages spirit is expressed by the same word as wind.

They that go down to the sea in ships, that do work in many waters. And He spake, and maketh the wind of the tempest to stand, and He raised up its waves on high. He made the tempest to stand still, that their waves might be hushed (Psalm 107:23, 25, 29).

This treats of temptations and of the deliverance from them. “The wind of the tempest,” and thus “the waves of the sea lifted up,” signify temptations; and as spiritual temptations come through falsities breaking into the thoughts, which is the source of remorse of conscience and grief of mind and spirit, these are signified by “the wind of the tempest stood, and He raised up its waves on high;” deliverance from them is signified by “He made the tempest to stand still, that the waves might be hushed.” (Apocalypse Explained 419 {2&23})

Our spiritual life is the life and activity of our mind. And what this story in Mark speaks to in relation to this life, is the unfolding process of coming to see a little more clearly how the Word is the Lord in His Divine Human. Our appreciation of this truth is limited to the degree that we are caught up in the appearances of the senses, for while we might be able to acknowledge this truth from the intellect, because doctrine teaches it, it will never be felt as personally real for us until we experience its power in our life first-hand. Knowing something through reading or listening to a description of it and then knowing something through experiencing it first-hand, are two very different ways of knowing. Both have their place, for to know something experientially we first have to know that it exists. Take the idea that:

the kingdom of God is within you. (Luke 17:21)

The Lord provides us with this truth, which we may have read or heard many times. Do we accept that this is a statement of truth? I think most of us would say yes, after all it’s a direct statement from the Word. So, the question now is, How is it true for you? Or to push things further, How has this truth changed your life? How do you feel the reality of this truth in your life today? Such questions, which can be applied to any truth we say we believe to be true, gets to the real heart of the matter so far as our relationship to it is concerned. The answers we give to such questions as these will reveal whether the truth we claim we believe in, is merely something we give intellectual assent to or is something known experientially.

So the question is, How do we come to feel, as a living experience, the reality of Divine truth in our life? There is really only one way to feel truth as something real; truth is only known through its practise. The struggle to come to feel the reality and power of truth in our experience is the essence of our story today. We work from the principle that all that is found in the Word is true, this is our intellectual starting point, but accepting this principle intellectually as true doesn’t remove the responsibility of the work that each of us has to do. This work is the implementation of truths from the Word into our life so that we might come to know it, as we are known by it. The Lord states that,

…if you abide in My Word, you are truly My disciples, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. (John 6:31-32)

The word know (the Greek is Ginosko) in this statement means to know through experience, as something felt. To come to feel the truth beyond an intellectual interest is what spiritual life is, it is a life of engaging with the Word through the practise of its truths as if our life depended on it, which it does. So let’s return to our story to see how this coming to know or feel the reality of truth is illustrated.

Having just completed the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand we are told that the Lord…

…compels His disciples to enter into the ship and to go before to the other side, to Bethsaida,…

The general principle expressed here is that when we experience the Word, or the power of Divine truth first-hand, as the disciples just had in the feeding of the five thousand, we are compelled by that experience to respond in some way. We can’t truly encounter the Lord as the Word and not be changed through that encounter. For when we truly experience the reality of a statement like, the kingdom of God is within you then everything changes, we will never be the same again.

Every truth realised experientially demands a reorganisation of our understanding of things and so we read that the disciples are compelled or constraine (the Greek word can be translated either way) to enter into the ship. A ship, being a vessel, corresponds to the teachings we’ve pulled together that contain our sense of the Lord and spiritual life. Our ship is our doctrine and our doctrine will be organised in accordance with what we believe, for it is our beliefs that serve as a filter through which we organise what comes into our awareness. Our beliefs govern how we understand what the Word teaches. For those whose understanding of the kingdom of heaven is of a place we go to after we die, everything said about heaven in the Word will all be framed to support the belief that heaven is a place. But when the truth of the idea that the Kingdom of God is a state of mind and not a place takes hold, everything changes. They begin to see that to enter heaven involves having their mind reorganised into a heavenly form which means a shift in their understanding of the Word to accommodate this new insight.

To go to the other side means to go from a more internal state to a more external one, or to bring the more internal experience of truth into the more external aspects of our mental life. Bethsaida literally means house of fish and corresponds to that level of life where the appearances of the senses and bodily things are strong. This is the level of life in which the proprium is immersed, and through which hellish influences are able to make themselves felt in our minds. It is the realm of sensual appearances. On the subject of fish we have this from the work the Apocalypse Explained…

The creatures of the sea” (or fishes) signify knowledges, because the “sea” signifies the natural man, and thus “fishes in the sea” signify the knowledges themselves that are in the natural man. This signification of “fishes” is from correspondence, for the spirits that are not in spiritual truths, but only in natural truths, which are knowledges, appear in the spiritual world in seas, and when viewed by those who are above, as fishes; for the thoughts that spring from the knowledges with such present that appearance. For all the ideas of the thought of angels and spirits are turned into various representatives outside of them ( 513{2})

…a “fish” signifies the natural man which is without spiritual good. (817{10})

At the sensual level of life, externals things appear more real than internal things and is represented in the story by the disciples being separated from the Lord. When we are drawn toward external life, internal things seem more remote and the way this is illustrated is for the Lord to depart into a high mountain to pray while the disciples are said to be on the sea in a ship toiling, in an effort to get to the other side. Of course the reality is that the Lord is never separated from anyone but that it is our own state of mind, when caught up in the concerns of external life that produces the appearance of a separation. It is due to the value we place on external things that the process of bringing truths into our life involves effort; it also means there will be times when we are going to feel like we are alone and working in the dark…

And when evening had come, the ship was in the midst of the sea, and He alone on the land.

To bring the truth we experience in those wonderful moments of insight, into external life, to make it something real and living for us so that it remains and is able to rule over the appearances of the senses and govern our perceptions – we have to make a conscious effort to examine the beliefs we are living from in its light. This is the disciples toiling away through the night in an effort to get to the other side. It describes the states of spiritual temptation that arise through the work of repentance. Spiritual, or inner work, involves learning to trust what the Word teaches over what our senses tell us is true. It involves having the appearances of the senses brought under the authority of what the Lord as the Word says is real. The nature of this struggle is captured in the Greek word translated as toiling which can just as readily be translated into English using the word torture. Yet the picture is not as bleak as it sounds. While it might be torture for the natural man to yield to the authority of the spiritual man, for the spiritual man this is the means by which the Kingdom (authority) of Heaven comes to be established in the earth or natural man.

The challenges involved in being set free from the fallacies of the senses, through making an effort to live from the Word, is the very means by which higher things can be established in our life. What is torture from the perspective of the the natural man is good, hard, productive work from the perspective of the spiritual man. Engaging in spiritual work builds a new will, but without the obstacles which the natural man puts up and the consequent difficulties involved in bringing truths into life, it is impossible for this new will to be established in us. This can be seen in the root word from which the word torture or toiling is derived. The word is basanos , and it means, a touchstone which is used to test the purity of gold. So in the spiritual life we can expect to experience times when we appear to be left to ourselves. In such times we are to compel ourselves to work spiritually, but recognise that our ability to do this is from the Lord or our understanding of the Word. Our willingness to hold and stay with the difficulties and challenges involved in temptations is the touchstone by which truths are tested and implanted into our life. As this occurs, so the false ideas that bind us up are weakened and dispersed.

In the Word this process is often described by a tempest or wind, in particular an east wind. While it’s not stated directly in the Word, the direction the disciples were heading to cross the sea to Bethsaida suggests that the wind that worked against them was actually coming from the east. From our earlier reading we had…

When the influx of the Divine is intensified, which occurs when the evil are to be cast out, then lower down in the spiritual world a wind springs up that blows strongly like a storm or tempest; this wind is what is called in the Word “the east wind”. The casting down of the evil is described also in the Word by violent and impetuous winds, by storms, and by tempests. (Apocalypse Explained 419 {2})

Such processes are governed by the Lord. We see from the story that despite the intensity of the disciples struggle, the Lord is fully aware and watching over every aspect of the process, as He does so for all our struggles. In His infinite Wisdom, He allows things to run their necessary course so that what is of His Word in us might be established as our life. The timing of His interventions is always perfect, for seeing…

…them toiling in rowing, for the wind was contrary to them; and about the fourth watch of the night He comes to them, walking upon the sea, and would have passed by them. But when they saw Him walking on the sea, they thought it to be a phantom, and cried out; for they all saw Him, and were troubled.

Confronted with the immediacy of external life matters, with all its pressing worries and anxieties, the things of the Word look almost “phantom” like, a mere apparition lacking substance. What we often fail to see is that many of the emotional difficulties we suffer and falsely attribute to external causes only have power because we have neglected to give serious consideration to the things that belong to our inner life. Everyone is confronted with difficulties in life, how we are affected by those difficulties, how they are viewed, how they impact on us, how we respond to them – will ultimately be a reflection of the strength of the place that spiritual principles have in our life. The question for all who have access to the Word is, Have we taken the opportunities afforded to us in life to freely engage and work with the Lord’s Word? The Lord is ever present before us as the Word and if we would but call out to Him, that is, if we would toil to examine our life so that what opposes the life of heaven can be removed, He will respond and draw near to us. He will to strengthen us with His presence within the Word, for in the disciples crying out it is said that He…

…went up to them into the ship; and the wind quieted.

All these are the beginning of sorrows. “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. “And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. “Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. “And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. “But he who endures to the end shall be saved. “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come. “Therefore when you see the ‘abomination of desolation,’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place” (whoever reads, let him understand), “then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. “Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything out of his house. “And let him who is in the field not go back to get his clothes. (Matthew 24:8-18)

The internal sense of these words is as follows:

When therefore you see the abomination of desolation means when the Church has undergone vastation, which is the situation when the Lord is acknowledged no longer, and therefore when there is no love of Him nor any belief in Him; also when there is no longer any charity towards the neighbour nor consequently any belief in what is good and true. When these conditions exist in the Church, or rather in the area where the Word is, that is to say, in the thoughts of the heart though not in the doctrine on the lips, it is a case of desolation, and the circumstances that have just been mentioned constitute ‘the abomination of that desolation’. Consequently ‘when you see the abomination of desolation’ means when anyone witnesses such conditions. And what he is to do when he does witness them follows in verses 16-18. (Arcana Coelestia 3652)

From a Logopraxis perspective, everything in the Word provides us with a description of the spiritual or mental processes that are involved in the Word’s regeneration of the human mind. Sacred Texts unfold the inner life of the Logos or Word within the context of the development of the human spirit. In Logopraxis work we read the Text with purpose. We read it with a view to having the Text read us, in the hope that in being read, we might be able to read the circumstances of our external life so as to see them from a spiritual rather than a natural perspective. In those moments when this occurs, our whole life becomes something much more integrated, which makes sense, for when life is viewed from the Word, and the Word is acknowledged to be the Lord, conjunction, integration and wholeness must be the result. It is to this world, the world of our minds, that we seek to apply the truths of the Word in Logopraxis work.

I was struck by this statement in Arcana Coelestia 3652(3)…

Let him who is reading this take note means that these matters are to be thoroughly understood by those within the Church, especially by those who have love and faith, to whom the present words refer.

The point being made here is that what’s offered through the Text in this reading is something that needs to be thoroughly understood by those within the Church and I would suggest that this is because the process being described as, when you see the abomination of desolation….standing in the holy place and the instructions as to what is to be done in response, describes a process that is unavoidable for those who choose to engage with the Word as the basis for inner work. One of the things that we find when we are working with the Word is that the very things we read of in the Text are brought into being when our focus is on the application of the Text to life. This is in keeping with the teaching found in the first chapter of John’s Gospel where the creative power of the Word or Logos is described as bringing all things into being. So having read of the abomination of desolation we find ourselves being brought face to face with it as an inner reality – if we choose to work with the Word in an effort to see what’s described there in our own life.

Seeing the abomination of desolation…standing in the holy place is a state of seeing the proprium active in our life where we had not seen it before. This seeing is from the Lord, for it is something that comes into view from our having read about it in the Word. So while it may be unsettling to see the abomination of desolation within us, it needs to be remembered that the whole process is being managed by the Lord as the Word. And if it is being managed by Him, we can be sure that what we are given to see through the work self examination is necessary so far as our eternal welfare is concerned. The Lord is interested in nothing else. What’s described in the Text is the process by which a change of state is effected in a church, and on the level of the individual, how we are moved on from an old church into a new church. By a church at the level of an individual is meant the understanding of the Word and the life that proceeds from this.

It is our understanding of the Word and the life from it that constitutes the holy place. This is regarded as a holy place while it is able to serve the Lord’s ends or the regeneration of the human mind. We know that our understanding of Word is, and will always be, something limited because we are finite beings. The result of this is that our understanding of the Word is constantly undergoing change as we move from a more obscure view of things toward a less obscure view. In the work the Arcana Coelestia we read that before the Lord the heavens are not pure (see below AC 633 & 7975) and that even the angels are being continually perfected to eternity (see below AC 2249.3). It follows that the state of everyone’s understanding of the Word is imperfect, being filled with appearances and even falsities – where appearances are not seen to be appearances but are believed to be truths. What’s remarkable is that the Lord is able to make these appearances and falsities to be as if they were “truths” for us so that good or innocence might be adjoined to them, thus enabling the regeneration of the human mind to occur (see below AC 3207.3).

The situation is this: No understanding of truth or will for good resides with anyone, not even with those who belonged to the Most Ancient Church. When people become celestial however, they do seem to have a will for good and an understanding of truth residing with them.

But in reality it is the Lord’s alone, a fact they also know, acknowledge, and perceive, as is the case also with angels. This is so true that a person who does not know, acknowledge, and perceive it has no understanding of truth and will for good whatever. With every man, and with every angel, even the most celestial, his proprium is nothing but falsity and evil, for it is well known that in the Lord’s eyes even the heavens are not pure,* and that all good and all truth are the Lord’s alone. But to the extent that any man or angel is capable of being perfected, he is in the Lord’s Divine mercy perfected, and receives so to speak an understanding of truth and a will for good. His own possession of them however is only the appearance. Everybody is capable of being perfected, and consequently of receiving this gift of the Lord’s mercy, in so far as the deeds he actually performs in life will allow, and in a manner consistent with the hereditary evil implanted within him from parents. (Arcana Coelestia 633)

‘And also a large mixed crowd’ means [truths and] forms of good that were not genuine. This is clear from the meaning of ‘a mixed crowd’ as non-genuine forms of good; for when ‘the children of Israel’ represents the genuine forms of good and truths that the spiritual Church possesses, 7957, ‘a mixed crowd’ going along with them means truths and forms of good that are not genuine. For the situation so far as those belonging to the spiritual Church are concerned is this: They possess forms of good and truths that are genuine, and they possess those that are not genuine. For a member of the spiritual Church has no intuitive perception of what is good and true; instead he acknowledges and believes that to be good and true which is taught by the teachings of his Church. This being so, he is in possession of a great number of truths that are not genuine, and also as a consequence desires forms of good of a similar nature since forms of good derive their specific quality from truths. For more about spiritual people, that a great number of truths in their possession are not genuine, see 2708, 2715, 2718, 2831, 2849, 2935, 2937, 3240, 3241, 3246, 3833, 4402, 4788, 5113, 7233; and that therefore the forms of good with them are not pure, 6427. Even so the Lord maintains in them forms of good which are as genuine as possible. He accomplishes this by flowing in through their interiors, 6499, at which point non-genuine truths and forms of good are separated from the genuine and cast to the sides. The latter are what ‘an extremely large mixed crowd’ means. (Arcana Coelestia 7975)

The position with heavenly arcana is that although they lie beyond all apprehension, everyone nevertheless formulates for himself some idea of them, for nothing can ever be retained in the memory, still less enter any thought whatever, except through some idea, however this came to be formed. And since angels’ ideas could not be formed except from those objects that exist in the world, or from objects analogous to those in the world; and since at that time illusions arising from things that were not understood entered in – illusions which in the next life alienate the then more interior ideas of thought from the truth and good of faith – therefore much is said in this chapter in its internal sense, to dispel such illusions, regarding the conjunction of the Lord’s Human with the Divine and regarding His perception and thought. And when men read the Word those matters enter at the same time into the perception of angels in such a way that previous ideas that had been formed from alien sources and from scruples easily arising out of these are gradually dispersed, and new ideas are instilled which are in keeping with the light of truth that angels possess. This happens more among spiritual angels than celestial, for it is in the measure that ideas are purified that spiritual angels are made more perfect for receiving celestial things. It is well known that even heaven is not pure in the sight of the Lord,* for it is indeed true that angels are constantly being made more perfect. (Arcana Coelestia 2249{3}

But it should be recognised that no truths with man, nor even with an angel, are ever pure, that is, free of appearances. Every single one is an appearance of the truth, but appearances are nevertheless accepted by the Lord as truths if they hold good within them. To the Lord alone do pure truths, being Divine truths, belong – for as the Lord is Good itself, so is He Truth itself. See however what has been stated already about truths and appearances of truth:

The coverings and the veils of the Tent of Meeting meant appearances of truth, 2576.
Truths with man are appearances steeped in illusions, 2053.
Rational concepts are appearances of truth, 2516.
Truths exist within appearances, 2196, 2203, 2209, 2242.
Divine good flows into appearances, and even into illusions, 2554.
Appearances of truth are adapted by the Lord as though they were truths, 1832.
In the Word things are expressed in accord with appearances, 1838.

What appearances are however becomes quite clear from those places in the Word where things are expressed according to appearances. But there are different degrees of appearances of truth. Natural appearances of truth are for the most part illusions, but when they reside with people who are governed by good they ought not in their case to be called illusions but appearances, and even in some respects truths, for good is held within them which holds the Divine within itself and causes them to be different in essence. Rational appearances of truth however are more and more interior. These occur in heaven, that is to say, they exist with angels who are in heaven; see 2576.

To have some idea of what the appearances of truth are let the following serve by way of illustration:

i Man supposes that he is reformed and regenerated by means of the truth of faith, but this is an appearance. He is reformed and regenerated by means of the good of faith, that is, by means of charity towards the neighbour and love to the Lord.

ii Man supposes that because truth teaches, truth enables him to perceive what is good; but this is an appearance. It is good that enables truth to perceive, for good is the soul or life of truth.

iii Man supposes that truth leads to good when he lives according to the truth he has learned; but it is good which flows into truth and leads truth towards itself.

iv To man it seems as though truth perfects good, when in fact good perfects truth.

v To man it seems as though the good actions of life are the fruits of faith, but they are the fruits of charity.

From these few illustrations one can know in some measure what appearances of truth are. Such appearances are countless.

(Arcana Coelestia 3207{3-4}

In Logopraxis we recognise that the regeneration of the human mind is directly related to the development of a person’s understanding of the Word. The process of development can be thought of as cyclic in the sense that our understandings of the Word cycle through a similar pattern as each phase of regeneration unfolds. The state of understanding that supports any given stage of spiritual development is finite and passes through a kind of “life cycle” and as such is in the end destined to pass away. This means that so long as a given understanding is able to support a given stage of regeneration it can be said to be holy but when a way of understanding can no longer support the processes of regeneration, then a point is reached when that state of understanding must be vastated in preparation for a new state of understanding so that the processes of regeneration can continue.

Every state of understanding over the course of a person’s regeneration will have something of the self (the proprium) present and active within it, this is unavoidable. While a state of the understanding of the Word is able to serve the Lord’s ends, it is clothed in the innocence that comes with ignorance. This renders the proprium’s influence such as to be barely detectable. But when the state of a specific understanding for a specific stage of development has advanced the processes of regeneration as far as it can, then a significant change in state is required. This significant change of state is facilitated through the exposing of the proprium’s presence in what we thought was a holy state. This exposing of the proprium is referred to in the reading as seeing the abomination of desolation….standing in the holy place. The question then is…

What can we do…?

We cannot avoid the vastation of the old if we are to enter into the new. Thankfully the Lord as the Word provides us with instructions as to how to respond when we see the abomination of desolation…standing in the holy place. We are told that those in Judea are to flee to the mountains, he who is on the rooftop is not go down to collect anything from the house, and he who is in the field is not turn back to get his clothing. In general terms the Word is saying that we are to remain in states of good or charity and avoid retreating into more exterior states belonging to intellectual things or doctrine. We might ask ourselves what this looks like in terms of the practical side of inner work. The key provided in the Text is a reference to Lot’s wife. In Arcana Coelestia 3653 we are asked to see what is said in AC 2454 regarding turning back and looking back behind oneself. In AC 2454(5) it says that turning back or looking back behind oneself involves truths being turned away from good toward doctrine.

This appears to suggest that doctrine is a bad thing, and good is, well, a good thing. But this is not what should be taken from this statement. All truths have a use and that use is to give form to good, so that what is good might be seen and practiced. But good is only seen when truths are applied. This kind of application involves using truths as the basis for self examination and repentance, which, to be a spiritual practice, needs to be directed toward the affections and thoughts arising in our awareness. By good or charity in Logopraxis work is understood the practise of shunning evils as sins against the Word (Apocalypse Explained 808(2) see also the little work Charity 1). Charity in this sense means the application of truths to the life of the mind. In order to be regenerated, truths drawn from the Word have to be being applied in an effort to discern the quality of what we experience as our thoughts and affections. And we are to do this with a view to practicing repentance where and when that is required. If this is not happening, i.e. if self examination and repentance as it relates to the life is the mind is not happening, then we do well to consider what we actually mean by the phrase, living a spiritual life.

When truths are orientated towards good or charity, they are being used to support a life focused on shunning evils as sins against the Word through an actual practise of self examination and repentance. The admonition the Word offers when the abomination of desolation is seen to be standing in the holy place is to seek to be in a state of good or charity. This is what is meant by, fleeing to the mountains, remaining on the rooftop, and being in the field. We do this by looking to the Lord or to good, which in Logopraxis terms, is to continue to practise the Word by applying its truths to remain in a state of self examination whenever we are given to see the proprium at work in our life. This is how our attachment to what has become detrimental to our spiritual welfare can be seen in order for it to be loosened and thereby opening the way for new insights, or for a new church, or understanding of the Word, to be received.

Any attempt to move away from a state of observing what’s arising in our awareness due to the light that truths provide for us, is to turn truths away from their application to the life of the mind and toward doctrine. Now this is not saying that doctrine isn’t important, it is. It is essential to spiritual life. However the kind of doctrine spoken of here is not the kind that is directed toward supporting a spiritual practice or good, but is the intellectualisation of spiritual things whereby they are separated from the real practical aspect of living spiritual life, this being the work of self examination and repentance. Doctrine that supports people to will truths into life through their practice directs truths toward good. But doctrine that doesn’t do this, sinks truths into intellectual speculations that are devoid of life applications. Such a state is described as, Lot’s wife being turned into a pillar of salt.

The sun had risen upon the earth when Lot entered Zoar. Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the Lord out of the heavens. So He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. But his wife looked back behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. (Genesis 19:23-26)

There is nothing pleasant in being confronted with how our own self interest has been active in what we believed to be spiritual. Anytime we see the proprium’s activity for what it is, there is a tendency to dismiss it, or justify it in some way. This is because in such moments mental tension is created between the picture of the self we are attached to or invested in and call our own, and the picture of that same self that is provided through insights arising out of our work with truths from the Word. Truths, when applied to life, invariably show us just how opposed to the life of heaven this ‘self’ is in terms of its attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours. The passage that we’ve read from Matthew’s Gospel points out that the way forward in those moments when we are acutely aware of the contradictions within ourselves, is to remain in the image of the proprium the Word provides and not to minimise this through allowing that false self-image born of the proprium to dominate our sense of who we are. The Word is well able to carry us through states of contradiction and discomfort so that we might come to see fully what it is we are being given to see, if we are willing to work with it. The Word lifts us out of the false proprial self by giving us truths to see it and to the degree that we can be in these truths so to that degree we experience a new sense of self. In Logopraxis we have a saying, the freeing is in the seeing. The Lord in the Gospels says,

You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. (John 8: 32)