102.  The inhabitants and spirits of the planet Saturn have relation, in the Grand Man, to the MIDDLE SENSE BETWEEN THE SPIRITUAL AND THE NATURAL MAN, but to that which recedes from the natural and accedes to the spiritual.  Hence it is that those spirits appear to be carried away or caught up into heaven, and soon afterwards let down again; for whatever belongs to spiritual sense is in heaven, but whatever belongs to natural sense is beneath heaven.  Inasmuch as the spirits of our Earth, in the Grand Man, have relation to natural and corporeal sense, it has been given me to know from manifest experience how the spiritual and the natural man, when the latter is not in faith and charity, fight and contend with each other.  Some spirits of the earth Saturn came into view from afar, and then a living communication was opened between them and spirits of our Earth who were of this character.  These latter, on thus perceiving the spirits of Saturn, became as if insane, and began to infest them, infusing unworthy ideas concerning faith, and also concerning the Lord.  While uttering invective and abuse, they also cast themselves into the midst of them, and, from the insanity in which they were, endeavoured to do them injury.  The spirits of Saturn, however, were not at all afraid, because they were secure and in tranquillity; but those spirits of our Earth, when in the midst of them, began to be tortured, and to breathe with difficulty, and so rushed out, one in this direction, another in that, and disappeared.  Those who were present apperceived from this what is the character of the natural man, separate from the spiritual, when he comes into a spiritual sphere, namely, that he is insane; for the natural man separate from the spiritual is wise only from the world, and not at all from heaven; and he who is wise only from the world, believes nothing but what the senses apprehend, and what he believes he believes from the fallacies of the senses, which, unless they are removed by the influx from the spiritual world, produce falsities.  Hence it is that spiritual things are nothing to him, insomuch that he can hardly bear to hear the word spiritual mentioned; wherefore such become insane when they are kept in a spiritual sphere.  It is different while they live in the world; then they either think naturally about spiritual things, or avert their ears, that is, hear and do not attend.  It was also manifest from this experience, that the natural man cannot introduce himself into the spiritual, that is, ascend; but that, when man is in faith, and thus in spiritual life, the spiritual man inflows into the natural, and thinks therein; for there is spiritual influx, that is, influx from the spiritual world into the natural, but not contrariwise[mm].

[Footnote mm:  There is spiritual influx, and not physical or natural influx, consequently influx is from the spiritual world into the natural, and not from the natural into the spiritual, nos. 3219, 5119, 5259, 5427, 5428, 5477, 6322.  It appears as if influx were from externals into man’s internals, but this is a fallacy, no. 3721.]