Instagram: Jacob and Esau, or Ego and Instinct

For #SwedenborgSaturday, here's a quote by #Swedenborg where he's explaining what it means when Rebekah tells her son Jacob that Esau is coming to kill him. Jacob is "natural truth," the part of your mind that plans, thinks in words, knows facts. "Jacob" is what knows the scripture mastery verses word-for-word, what can win arguments by appealing to the manual. Finally, Esau is "natural good," the part of you that acts spontaneously, dances with a fury, and lets you speak in a testimony meeting without thinking about what you're going to say. Swedenborg says that natural good is supposed to have the priority over natural truth, just like Esau had the birthright. But just as Jacob tricked Esau out of his birthright, natural truth always tricks its way to the top. Whenever you try to think your way through a situation (Jacob), don't trust your instincts (Esau), and put your foot in your mouth, Esau loses his birthright. Jacob is a thinker, but thinking should take the back seat to dancing, running, and hunting (like Esau does in the story). But Esau wants his revenge. Visceral, dense, hairy goodness wants to dethrone clean, clever, yuppie-ish truth. So he plots his revenge. That's what the passage in question means: "good" (Esau) has a continual purpose to "invert the priority" that truth (Jacob) has over it. Instinct can overthrow thought, the #Jungian #Shadow can swamp the ego, and it *will* unless you come to terms with it. The solution? Leah and Rachel, what Swedenborg call the affection of exterior and interior truth, respectively, but might more succinctly be called "adaptation." Of what? Of instinct to thought, of shadow to ego. You need to see the instinct you've rejected through the perspective of the thought that rejected it. "Wait, so sports *are* fun?" or "Oh, I actually *do* like being angry?" Etc. Only after these little "affections of truth" have taken place can the big union take place: of instinct with thought, where the shadow comes and falls upon the ego's neck, weeping with joy. #LDS #Mormon #spiritual #spirituality #spirit #Jung #CarlJung #ShadowWork #Bible #scripture #BookofMormon #faith #hope #love #faithhopelove #inspiratiom

A post shared by Christian Swenson (@swensonthechristian) on Jul 1, 2017 at 8:23pm PDT