Abide in Me - Episode 5

Jesus went to Capernaum, and on the Sabbath He taught in the synagogue. The people were amazed, for He taught with authority unlike the teachers of the law. A man possessed by an evil spirit cried out, but Jesus commanded the spirit to be silent and come out. The spirit left after a convulsion, and the crowd marvelled, saying even evil spirits obey Him. News about Jesus spread quickly throughout Galilee. Mark 1:21-28‘Demons’ mean evil lusts produced by the love of the world. And people with the same lusts are connected with spirits emotionally, even so that they are a unit. Such is a person who does not search out any evil in themselves which they call a sin, and consequently is not desirous of removing it by repentance. And as every evil is composed of lusts, being nothing but a bundle of lusts, it follows, that the person who does not search out any evil in themselves, and shun it as a sin against God, which can only be done by repentance, becomes a demon after death. From Swedenborg, Apocalypse Revealed §458Someone asked: “Is it bad, the dark side?” You must understand that everything you do not acknowledge appears at first sight bad. It is the devil because the devil is always what is unknown, unacknowledged or not understood. If someone had invented the radio a few centuries ago they would have been burned as an agent of the devil. The dark side does not mean anything evil in itself. It means simply that it is evil to you, with your present estimation of yourself. It is evil to you, because when you admit it into your consciousness your present estimation of yourself will change. The result will be that you will be much better than you were before. You will be much better because your present estimation of yourself kept up by imagination, and by buffers, and by pictures, and by continual lying, has been  weakened, and you have entered a larger world of consciousness. You should not think of the dark side as evil except to your Imaginary “I” which is one’s worst evil. If your Imaginary “I” is full of imagination about what you are, and if this imagination becomes destroyed by admitting what is antagonistic to you, you will begin to lose this wrong, sensitive Imaginary “I”, and your consciousness will broaden out and you will cease to be what you imagine yourself to be and move a step towards Real “I”. All the Work is against Imaginary “I” with which each one of us faces life so inadequately. The teaching of the Work sets out to destroy the power of Imaginary “I” but at first everything that threatens Imaginary “I” seems to be very evil – in fact, the devil. That is why I think it was once said in the Work: “The devil is also necessary.” So many people identify themselves with God without any justification and even imagine that they have intercourse with God continually. All this belongs to Imaginary “I” and in such cases God has indeed to take the aspect of the devil and destroy this imagination, these pictures, these fantasies, this self-merit, and all this nonsense that the Work attacks so strongly in each of us. Nicoll, Commentary III, pgs. 835-36CREDITSDr. Sue Johnson, “Love Sense” ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@DrSueJohnson⁠Emanuel Swedenborg, ⁠www.swedenborg.com⁠John Clark Echols, ⁠www.clarkechols.com⁠Solomon Keal “Affection for Truth” ⁠www.solomonkeal.net⁠Podcast Host: John Clark EcholsMusic Credit: Solomon KealShow Your Support: ⁠⁠PayPal⁠⁠ - https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/X2NREDETDV6WCYouTube: ⁠⁠@Abide_In_Me⁠⁠Substack: ⁠⁠@clarkechols⁠⁠I invite you to continue to listen to the next episode. Be well.