4728. CONCERNING THE LIGHT AND UNDERSTANDING WHICH ARE FROM PROPRIUM, AND THOSE WHICH ARE FROM THE LORD; THUS, CONCERNING SELF-PRUDENCE AND WISDOM. (((((There was a spirit with me, who was in self-intelligence and wisdom, and therefore, of such a nature, that he believed he knew and saw all things, and, consequently that he ruled all things. He was then sent by a certain society to serve as a subject, because he was troublesome, and took away the power of seeing truth and good. I told him he had better take himself off; but, since he was in self-intelligence, he was unwilling to go. At length the nature of intelligence from the proprium, and the nature of intelligence from the Lord was shown to him by means of lights, which were represented to the life - as can occur in the other life; to wit, that light from proprium is round about, like what comes from an ignis fatuus, or coal-fire, of narrow extension or sphere - round about, is darkness - and, that the light of heaven, or through heaven from the Lord, cannot enter, neither can it be received, because of the darkness round about and within such a fire, which at once extinguishes, or suffocates, or perverts, the heavenly light. But intelligence from the Divine is represented by light which is extended into the universe heaven and enters from every side, and causes man to understand. It was a bright light of very great extension, which man could receive if he should confide, not in himself, but in the Lord. For the Lord acts through the universal heaven, and into man, according to its quality and extension [derived] from the fact that he trusts not in himself, but in the Lord; and, especially, if he entirely believes, from the heart, that nothing of intelligence is from the proprium, or that comparatively it [what is from the proprium] is altogether of no moment. That he seems to himself to exist of himself, is in order that he may live and be able to be regenerated, and, by little and little, to receive Divine light, so that the delusive light may be dispersed. This commences by his being kept in the knowledge that it is so, and afterwards in the will [that it be so].)))))