likewise the mouth and everything belonging to it, and the action of thought into speech and into the organs of speech is influx.  The perception of the mind corresponds to the smell of the nostrils.  The smell and the nostrils are correspondences, and the action is influx.  For this reason a man who has interior perception is said to have a keen nose, and perceiving a thing is called scenting it out.  Hearkening, which means obedience, corresponds to the hearing of the ears; consequently both the hearing and the ears are correspondences, and the action of obedience into the hearing, that a man may raise his ears and attend, is influx; therefore hearkening and hearing are both significative, hearkening and giving ear to anyone meaning to obey, and hearkening and hearing anyone meaning to hear with the ears.  The action of the body corresponds to the will, the action of the heart corresponds to the life of the love, the action of the lungs, which is called respiration, corresponds to the life of the faith, and the whole body in respect to all its members, viscera, and organs, corresponds to the soul in respect to all the functions and powers of its life.

From these few examples it can be seen what correspondence is and what influx is; and that when the spiritual, which belongs to the life of man’s understanding and will, flows into the acts which belong to his body, it exhibits itself in a natural effigy, and there is correspondence; also that thus the spiritual and the natural act as one by correspondences, like interior and exterior, or like prior and posterior, or like the effecting cause and the effect, or like the principal cause which belongs to man’s thought and will, and the instrumental cause which belongs to his speech and action.  There is such a correspondence of natural things and spiritual not only in each and every thing of man, but also in each every thing of the world; and the correspondences are produced by an influx of the spiritual world and all things of it into the natural world and all things of it.  From all this it can be seen in some measure how our Word, as to the sense of the letter, which is natural, makes one by influx and correspondences with the Words in the heavens, the senses of which are spiritual. (A.E., n. 1080.)

What the Word is in respect to influx and correspondences can now be shown.  It is said in John: 

“He hath blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they should see with their eyes and understand with their heart, and should turn themselves and I should heal them” (xii. 40).

The “eyes” that are blinded signify the understanding of truth and belief in it; the “heart” that is hardened signifies the will and love of good; and “to be healed” signifies to be reformed.  They were not permitted “to turn themselves and be healed” lest they should commit profanation; for a wicked man who is healed and who returns to his evil and falsity commits profanation; and so it would have been with the Jewish nation.  In Matthew: