Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Armageddon

Armageddon" signifies the love of honor, of rule, and of supereminence. This love is also signified by "Megiddo" in the old Hebrew tongue, as is evident from the meaning of that word in Arabic. The love of honor, of rule, and of supereminence is the last state, when falsities are about to fight against truths, because that love is about to rule in the last times. When that love rules, falsity from evil rules also, and this overcomes truth; for that love more than all other loves extinguishes the light and induces darkness. Because that love is man's very own love of self, no force can drawn the person away from it. When man is wholly immersed by that love, it is nothing but mere falsities. This does not appear to the person who is in it, because according to the brilliancy of the natural light in them spiritual light is extinguished.This brilliancy is from a delusive light , for it is a light kindled from the love of glory, thus from the love of self-intelligence; and that intelligence is insanity and folly. It is all over; for no one has any longer any understanding of truth or any will of good; since honor, rule, and supereminence constitute the highest pleasure. Felt as the highest good, and the highest pleasure, the end for the sake of which all other things are regarded; all goods and truths, civil, moral, and spiritual, serve as means, which are loved only from the end and to the extent that they serve the end. When they do not so serve they are utterly despised and rejected. This is true of all uses, civil, moral, or spiritual. It is otherwise when uses are made the end, and man does not attribute glory and honor to his own person, but to the uses themselves according to their excellence. Then honor, rule, and supereminence are the means, and are esteemed only to the extent that they serve uses as means. From all this it can in some measure be seen what "Armageddon" means. ~Swedenborg.

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