SCORPION >> Deadly Persuasive Principle

The scorpions belong to the class Arachnida, and have much the appearance of a small lobster, whence they were formerly classed with the Crustacea. Their palpi, or claws,   are of the proportionate shape and size of those of the lobster, and are employed for seizing their prey, which they then dispatch by striking it with the powerful curved claw at the end of their tail, which secretes an acrid poison. The tail is jointed and of great length, and, in running, the animal holds it over its back in a threatening attitude, and in this position it always strikes with it, and thus in efforts to escape will sometimes strike its own head, and mortally wound itself.  Scorpions are carnivorous, feeding chiefly on beetles and locusts. They swarm in every part of Palestine, and are found in houses, in chinks of walls, among ruins, and under stones, whether in dry or moist situations. . . .  

The sting of the scorpion is very painful, much more so than that of the hornet, and our muleteers were several times stung; but suction and the application of ammonia and sweet oil reduced the swelling and pain in two or three hours. I have known an instance of a man dying from the effects of a scorpion sting, which he received in the throat when leaning against a wall in which the creature was secreted. (Tristram, Natural History of the Bible)    

Swedenborg speaks of the scorpion as: . . . denoting a persuasive principle which is of an infatuating and suffocating character. . . . The nature and quality of the persuasive principle signified by the scorpion,” he says, “are as yet scarcely known to anyone in the world, because it is the persuasive principle of the spirit of a sensual man, in which he is when he becomes a spirit, but not while he lives as a man in the world. The reason is, that a man in the world rarely speaks out what his spirit thinks and inmostly loves; for he is taught from infancy to converse about such things as pertain to civil and moral life, although his spirit, which thinks and wills inwardly, is differently inclined; the spirit of man, whilst it resides in the body, makes a show of such things before the world, because otherwise he cannot receive favor, so as to obtain the ends which his spirit aims at, which are principally honors and gains, and a name and fame on account of them. This is the reason that the nature and quality of the infatuating and suffocating persuasive principle which is signified by the scorpion is not known in the world; such, however, is its nature with the spirits in whom it is operative, that it infuses itself into the soul and spirit of another, and lays asleep, and almost extinguishes, his rational and intellectual faculties, whence he cannot possibly know otherwise than that what is spoken is the truth, although it should be most false. (Apocalypse Explained #544)  

Author: JOHN WORCESTER 1875