AR 312 - The Third Seal & a Black Horse; also AR 314, 315

AR 312

So I looked, and behold, a black horse.
(Revelation 6:7)

We showed above that a horse symbolizes
an understanding of the Word.
Blackness symbolizes a lack of truth, thus falsity,
because blackness is the opposite of whiteness,
and whiteness is predicated of truth.
Whiteness is also the result of light,
while blackness results from darkness,
thus from the absence of light,
and light means truth.

In the spiritual world, however,
blackness has a double origin,
one resulting from the absence of a flaming light,
the light possessed by inhabitants
of the Lord's celestial kingdom,
and the other resulting from
the absence of a bright white light,
the light possessed by inhabitants
of the Lord's spiritual kingdom.
The first kind of blackness has
the same symbolism as a thick darkness,
the second the same as a gloomy darkness.
The two kinds differ from each other.
One is dreadful, the other not so dreadful.
It is the same with the falsities that they symbolize.
The spirits who appear in a terrible darkness
are called devils.
They also abhor truth as owls do the light of the sun.
In contrast, the spirits who appear in a darkness
that is not so dreadful are called satanic spirits.
They do not abhor truth,
though they are still averse to it,
and therefore they may be likened to barn owls,
but the first to eagle owls.

It was the third living creature
that displayed the black horse
because it had a face like a human being,
which symbolized the Divine truth of the Word
in respect to its wisdom.
Consequently it was this living creature
that displayed the fact
that there was no longer any truth of wisdom
in the people who were third in order.

AR 314

. . . people who know goods and truths
can violate them,
indeed profane them,
but not people who are ignorant of them.

AR 315

Oil symbolizes the goodness of love,
and wine the truth springing from that goodness.
Thus the oil here symbolizes sacred goodness,
and the wine sacred truth.
The Lord's provision
that these not be violated and profaned
is symbolized by
the people's being told not to harm them.

. . . Whatever the Lord says
He also provides.