AE 559, 560 - Thought From the Eye Closes the Understanding

 

AE 559 [1, 2-3, 6]

And they had tails like scorpions,
(Revelation 9:10)
means sensual knowledges which are persuasive.

All who are in the love of self
and have confirmed themselves against
Divine and spiritual things
are sensual people,
and when they are left to themselves
and think in their spirit,
they think about Divine and spiritual things
from sensual knowledges,
and consequently they reject
Divine and spiritual things as not to be believed,
because they do not see them
with their eyes or touch them with their hands;
and they apply their knowledges,
which they have made sensual and material,
to the destruction of these.
For example,
people who are learned in this kind of knowledge,
who are skilled in physics, anatomy, botany,
and other branches of human learning,
when they see the wonderful things
in the animal and vegetable kingdoms
say in their hearts that all these things are from nature,
and not from the Divine,
and this because they believe in nothing
that they do not see with their eyes
and touch with their hands;
for they are unable to elevate their minds upward
so as to see these things from the light of heaven . . ..
But as every person has the faculty
to understand truths and perceive goods,
such people are able from that faculty to talk about
these things like those who are spiritual-rational,
although in respect to their spirit they are sensual;
for when such people speak before others
they do not speak from the spirit
but from the bodily memory.

All this has been said
to make known what sensual knowledges are.
These are what especially persuade,
or are especially persuasive,
because they are the ultimates of the understanding;
for into these
as into its ultimates
the understanding closes,
and these captivate the common people
because they are appearances drawn from such things
as they see in the world with their eyes;
and so long as the thought clings to these
it is impossible to dispose the mind to think interiorly
or above them until they are put away;
for the interior things of the mind all close into ultimates
and rest upon them, as a house upon its foundation;
consequently these are especially persuasive,
but only with those
whose minds cannot be elevated above sensual things;
and the mind is elevated above them
with those who are in the light of heaven from the Lord,
for the light of heaven dissipates them.
For this reason
spiritual people rarely think from things sensual,
for they think from things rational and intellectual;
but sensual people,
who have confirmed themselves in falsities
against Divine and spiritual things,
when they are left to themselves
think only from sensual things.

. . . a person by self looks only to the world.
For a person's interiors
which belong to his thought and affection
are elevated to heaven by the Lord
when a person is in the good of life
and from that in the truths of doctrine;
but when he is in the evil of life and then in falsities,
his lower things look downward,
thus only to his body
and to such things as are in the world,
and thus to hell.

AE 560

It is to be known that sensual people are
more crafty and shrewd than others,
and thus in acutely deceiving;
for as spiritual people possess intelligence and prudence,
so those who are sensual and in falsities
possess malice and craftiness,
for all malice has its seat in evil,
as all intelligence has its seat in good.