TCR 215 - the Word and Its Truths

TCR 215 [1,5]

The truths in the literal sense of the Word
are in part not bare truths,
but appearances of truth.
They are like similes and comparative analogies
taken from appearances in the natural world.
Thus they are adapted and brought down
to the level at which they may be understood
by simple people and even children.
But because they are at the same time correspondences,
they serve to receive and make a home for genuine truth.
They are containers in the sense
that a crystal cup is a container of vintage wine,
a silver salver of tempting foods;
or like the clothes which we wear,
whether a baby's shawls or the pretty dresses of a girl.
They are also like the facts
stored in the memory of the natural man,
which include his perception of and affections for spiritual truth.
The bare truths themselves which are wrapped,
contained, clothed and grasped,
exist in the spiritual sense of the Word;
the bare forms of good exist in its celestial sense.


The Word being like this in the literal sense,
it follows that those who possess Divine truths,
and believe that the Word inwardly in its depths
is something holy and Divine,
and more so those who believe
that the Word is like this
because of its spiritual and celestial senses,
these people, when they read the Word
and receive enlightenment from the Lord,
see Divine truths by natural light.
For the light of heaven,
which illuminates the spiritual sense of the Word,
exerts an influence on the natural light
which illuminates its literal sense,
and enlightens man's intellectual faculty,
also called rational,
enabling it to see and recognize Divine truths,
whether plain to view or hidden.
The light of heaven has this effect upon people,
sometimes even without their knowing it.