AC 9394 - The Fields of Our Memory-knowledges

AC 9394 [1-2, 3]

All things learned and stored up in the memory,
and that can be called forth from it
to the intellectual sight,
are called memory-knowledges,
and in themselves are the things that constitute
the understanding of the natural or external person.
Being knowledges,
these memory-knowledges are of service
to the sight of the internal or rational person
as a kind of mirror in which to see such things
as are of service to itself.
For these fall under the view of the internal person
just as fields full of grass, flowers,
various kinds of crops, and of trees;
or as gardens adorned with
various useful and delightful objects,
fall under the view
of the external person in the material world.
Yet the internal sight, which is the understanding,
sees nothing else in the fields or gardens
of the things of its memory
than such as agree with the loves
in which the person is,
and also favor the principles he loves.

Wherefore those who are in
the loves of self and of the world
see only such things as favor these loves,
and they call them truths,
and by means of fallacies and appearances
they also make them appear like truths;
and afterward they see such things
as agree with the principles they have adopted,
which they love because they are from themselves.
From this it is plain
that the knowledges which are things of memory,
are of service to those who are in the aforesaid loves
as means of confirming falsities against truths,
and evils against goods,
and thus of destroying
the truths and goods of the church.
So it is that the learned who are of this character
are more insane than the simple,
and when by themselves deny the Divine,
Providence, heaven, hell, the life after death,
and the truths of faith.

But it is very different with those
who think from the delights of heavenly loves,
which are love to the Lord and love toward the neighbor.
As the thought of these persons
is led by the Lord through heaven,
they see and choose nothing else
in the fields and gardens of the things of their memory
than those which agree with
the delights of their loves
and with the doctrinal things of their church,
and which they love.
To them the things of the memory
are like heavenly paradises,
and in the Word
they are also represented and signified by paradises.