§488 how our pleasures change 289
b. In the Word, rocky crevices and fi ssures mean what is dim and false in faith: 10582 ; because
rocks mean faith from the Lord: 8581 , 10580 ; and stone means truth of faith: 114 , 643 , 1298 , 3720 ,
6426 , 8608 [ 8609 ], 10376.
c. [Swedenborg’s note at this point refers the reader back to the note in § 487 : 2 .]
d. Defi lement of truth corresponds to urine: 5390.
since this is not common knowledge, I should like to shed some light on
the matter from experience.
People who are caught up in evil and who have formed fi xed false
convictions against the truths of the church, especially people who have
rejected the Word, fl ee from heaven’s light. They plunge into cellars
that look murky through their openings and into crevices in the rocks
and hide themselves there. This is because they have loved their false
notions and hated true ones. Cellars like this, and crevices in the rocks
as well,b and false things, correspond to darkness;c and light corresponds
to things that are true. They fi nd it pleasant to live there, and painful to
live out in the open.
[ 2 ] People who took delight in covert plotting and in manufacturing
deceptive schemes in secret also live in these cellars and move into rooms
so dark that people can barely see each other. They whisper in each oth-
er’s ears in the corners. This is what becomes of the pleasures of their love.
If people have loved the academic disciplines only in order to sound
learned, without using them to develop their ability to reason, taking
delight in their pride at the contents of their memories, they love sandy
areas and prefer them to meadows and gardens because sandy areas cor-
respond to these kinds of study.
[ 3 ] People who are wrapped up in knowing the doctrines of churches,
their own and others’, without applying them to life, love stony areas
and live among rock piles. They avoid cultivated land because it is repul-
sive to them.
If people have given nature—and their own prudence—credit for
everything and have used various devices to gain high offi ce and a great
deal of wealth, in the other life they study magical arts that are misuses
of the divine design, and fi nd in them the greatest pleasure of their life.
[ 4 ] People who have adapted divine truths to their own loves and
have therefore falsifi ed them love urinary things because urinary things
correspond to the pleasures of this kind of love.d
People who were fi lthy misers live in cubicles and love the fi lth of
pigs and the foul odors they breathe out from half-digested food in their
stomachs.