- People who are merely earthly and sense-oriented. 402
Only a few know what “sense-oriented people” are and what they are
like, even though it is an important thing to know. Therefore I will
describe them.
(a) “Sense-oriented people” are people who judge everything on the
basis of their physical senses—people who will not believe anything
unless they can see it with their eyes and touch it with their hands. What
they can see and touch they call “something.” Everything else they reject.
Sense-oriented people, then, are earthly in the lowest way.
[ 2 ] (b) The inner levels of their mind, levels that see in heaven’s light,
are closed inside people like this to the point where they see nothing true
related to heaven or the church. This is because their thinking occurs on
an outermost level and not inside, where the light is spiritual.
[ 3 ] (c) Since the light they have is dense and earthly, people like this
are inwardly opposed to things related to heaven and the church, although
they are outwardly able to speak in favor of them. If things related to
heaven and the church give these people ruling power, they are even capa-
ble of speaking ardently in favor of them.
[ 4 ] (d) Sense-oriented people are able to reason sharply and skillfully,
because their thinking is so close to their speech as to be practically in
it—almost inside their lips; and because they attribute all intelligence
solely to the ability to speak from memory.
[ 5 ] (e) Some of them can defend whatever they want. They have great
skill at defending things that are false. After they have defended falsities
convincingly, they themselves believe those falsities are true. They base
their reasoning and defense on mistaken impressions from the senses that
the public finds captivating and convincing.
[ 6 ] (f ) Sense-oriented people are more deceptive and ill-intentioned
than others.
[ 7 ] (g) The inner areas of their mind are foul and filthy because they
use them to communicate with the hells.
[ 8 ] (h) The inhabitants of hell are sense-oriented. The deeper in hell
they are, the more sense-oriented they are. The sphere of hellish spirits is
connected to our sense impressions through a kind of back door.
[ 9 ] (i) Sense-oriented people do not see anything that is genuinely true
in the light. Instead, on every topic they debate and argue whether it is so.
From a distance their arguments sound like the grinding of teeth. The
sounds of teeth grinding are actually the result of falsities colliding with
§402 goodwill & good actions 497