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Course: Psychology 459, Fall 2006, Generation 25
Instructor: Dr. Leon James
Introduction to Theistic Psychology www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/theistic/ch1.htm
My Home Page: http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leon/459f2006/suzuki/suzuki-home.htm

Class Home Page: www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy25/classhome-g25.htm
Instructions for this Report: www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy25/459-g25-weekly.htm

Relationships to God and People in Theistic Psychology

By Hanako Suzuki

Report 2 :Section 1.0.1.3 to 1.0.5.4

Question 1. Describe the psychobiology of "conjunction" with God? You need to include the concept of how thoughts and feelings are substances. How do you see this concept as applying to you?

Answer 1.

The meaning of “Conjunction” with God

The psychobiology of “conjunction” with God means that God does not give our lives but we continue to receive the Spiritual Substances; spiritual heat and light or good and truth, from God and we have activated to receive the substances inherently. When we are born, we automatically receive and operate these substances to survive and keep us alive.

The textbook from James Leon stated a formula;

"To be able to react" = being affected = being conjoined.

What does this mean? It is our physical body is operated by the spiritual substances and the substances come from Spiritual Sun. Then, the Spiritual Sun outflows these substances and it affects our mind; then, our physical body is operated by the substances. In this sense, our mind and physical body are corresponded from Spiritual Substances. Before we die, we are dual citizen, so we have the physical world and mental world. Once the physical body dies, the mind still receives these substances and these substances keep our mind is alive eternity. When our physical body dies, we have only spiritual world and our mind goes into the spiritual world.　Once the physical body dies, the mind is recreated by these substances which Spiritual Sun inflow instant by instant and our mind live forever receiving the substances endlessly. This is because of the God’s love. The text gave me a good example of this God’s love. You will make effort to make someone who you love happy and if you make happy to the person, you can also satisfy your feeling and it is benefit for you to make the person happy. God loves us, so He loves to live us as as-ourselves forever.

The Concept of How Thoughts and Feelings are Substance

Our feelings and thoughts are operated by Spiritual Substances which are called Spiritual Good and Spiritual Truth. The Spiritual Substances are from Spiritual Sun as I mentioned before. We are not directly related to God but the Spiritual Sun is directly related to God and the Sun inflow substances which relate to God indirectly but affectively.

How God Relates to Us?

According to the textbook and my view of theistic psychology, God is not a part of us but He affects us indirectly. God relates to us with discrete degree. We have physical body, mental world, receive Spiritual Substances from Spiritual Sun, and then above the Spiritual Sun, God or Divine Human are there. We are unconscious about these discrete degrees but human beings are created by these discrete degrees. Following the textbook by Dr. Leon, James, when you look into a mirror, you can see yourself, but it is like an x-ray vision that external “temple of God.”

Dr. Leon James stated that “we are in symbiotic relationship to God. This relationship has two modes of depth; (Leon, James. Section 1.0.3.1)

If you receive more Spiritual Substances or good and truth from God, you can be closer and deeper to God. However, if people are in the negative bias and have hellish thinking, God gave them to chance, choice, and freedom to change their minds from birth to eternity. God gave us equal birthright and love and He allow everyone to receive Spiritual Substances whichever they are in positive mode or negative mode. They will get some effects unconsciously from God to turn into the positive bias mode. The Spiritual Substances inflow into our unconscious mind in mental world and trough into our rational mind, then, natural mind. The natural mind directly relates to our physical body consciously.

My Opinion

According to the concept, I understand the relationship between God, Substances, and our mental and physical worlds deeply. God indirectly relate to our mind, but He definitely affects our mind. We are receptive organ of Spiritual Substances which operates our feeling and thought. When we think something, it is all related into our spiritual world. I want to be able to think rationally because I am learning more about theistic psychology and it is very fascinate ideas for me and the ideas are very powerful with validity. I am sure that I do not perfectly in the positive bias mode because I do not know much about theistic psychology yet. However, this concept gave me some ideas to understand rationally.

Question 2. Describe the infrastructure of physical things from the perspective of substantive dualism. Show that the inmost of any object is the mental world of humanity. How does this change the way you look at objects around you?

Answer 2.

Relation between Physical World and Spiritual World

According to the textbook, the spiritual world=mental world for human race shows that the human mind is infrastructure for the physical universe. What does it mean? Human being has two sides; physical which is outside in time-space and mental which is inside in eternity. The physical world is where our body is and the spiritual world is where our mind is. These two worlds are corresponded by the laws of correspondence. The Spiritual Sun outflow the Spiritual Substances and our mind inflow these substances. These substances build out our mind and these substances are origin of our feelings and thoughts. Every action, motivation, imagination, and feelings are from our mind which is in the mental world rather than physical world. Our physical body moves because of the reactions to the Spiritual Substances in our mind.

Origin of Physical Objects

Physical objects are what we can touch and see on the earth. These are made of atoms from the natural sun. However, the objects are not only made from natural sun, but the origin of the objects is from Spiritual Sun. What does this mean is that the Spiritual Sun outflow the Spiritual Substances to Spiritual World and these substances are operates into our mind. In addition, the substances operate the natural sun. And the natural sun made any objects in the physical world include human. Our human mind is the infrastructure to our natural Sun for the physical universe. The chart in the section 1.0.3.1 shows that the relations or structures of relationship through Spiritual Sun to physical body. The chart shows clearly our physical body relates to the Spiritual Sun.

My opinion

I did not notice that any physical objects are made by Spiritual Sun originally. It was very new idea for me. Until I learned the concept, I understood the dual worlds and it is corresponded. And I knew our mind is made by the Spiritual Substances which is from the Spiritual Sun. However, I did not know the Spiritual Sun has also influence our environment, planets, and physical geography. I was surprised when I read this section because of the huge new view. In addition, our mind is affected by the Spiritual Substances, and when we create something, we have to think the purpose, design, image, materials etc before we create the thing. And all of these are in our mind which means when we create something, we are in the Spiritual World at first. In this sense, I want to say that all objects which human created are based on our mind in the Spiritual World. This is very interesting because our surrounding world which is physical objects are created by the Spiritual Sun and what we create are also created by the Spiritual World. In the other word, everything in the physical body is created in the Spiritual World from the Spiritual Sun. We have to appreciate to the Spiritual Sun to create everything!

Question 3. Explain why God hides from people. What would happen if God showed Himself to your friends? Include the concept of how Divine Speech descends through the layers of meaning through the human mind, reaching its lowest as the literal meaning of Sacred Scripture.

Answer 3

If God Appears in this Physical World

If God appears in this physical world, what will you react? Do you think you can believe it? If your best friend who you completely trust person introduces you a person as God, you will not believe even He shows some miracle to you. If my best friend introduces me Him as God, I will not believe it of course. But why? I am sure I will not believe it but I had never thought about the reason. One possible reason is I might not believe the existence of God; however, I am becoming to understand the existence of God thought learning theistic psychology, so I will not answer this question in the negative bias. Then, why? I stated the reasons below this paragraph.

The Reasons Why God Does Not Appear in Front of Us

Reason 1

First, we are not directly related with God. God affects us but not directly. As we learned before, God is not a part of ourselves and God is in the spiritual world, not in the physical world. These two worlds are never mixed. In our physical body, we are unconscious about the spiritual world in our mind. God and we relate inmost part, not exterior of our part such as physical body. If God appears in the physical world, it is just exterior sense. We can never conscious about God in the natural sense of body in the physical world.

Reason 2

Second reason is that it is impossible to hear the thoughts and feelings of God in the natural language as we use daily. The Divine Speech is Divine Truth which equals to God’s thinking. Divine Speech pass through the order of our mind. It first enters into the Third heaven which is the highest part of the spiritual mind which is called Third Heaven. On this stage, you become aware of the meanings of Divine Speech and you can understand the existence of God and God relates us in our spiritual mind. It is called “celestial-rational” correspondence. Then, the Divine Speech is progressed into the Second Heaven which is called “spiritual-rational” correspondence. Then, it moves into the First Heaven which is called “corporal correspondence” in the spiritual mind.

It is Impossible to Appear God in the Physical World!

According to the two reasons, it is impossible that God appears in the physical world. We relate to God in the spiritual world in our mind and God does not operate anything directly in the physical world. We can not hear the voice of God because we can not sense the existence of God through physical senses. In addition, the relation with Divine Speech and our minds has to follow the order of progress that Divine Speech or Truth, Third Heaven, Second Heaven, and First Heaven. This means that our physical sense is the lowest level of sense of Divine Speech or Truth, and we need to take step by step to conscious about the thinking of God. Therefore, we can not conscious about God directly in the physical world.

Question 4. Describe how Divine Speech operates our mental life. How does this change your view of God and His relationship to people?

Answer 4.

Divine speech is what God’s thinking. Divine Speech was translated in the natural language and it is called Sacred Scripture. Sacred Scripture only stated based on facts, knowledge, and principles about afterlife and Spiritual World. There are three heavens; Third Heaven, Second Heaven, and First Heaven, in our mind. The First Heaven in the Spiritual World related to our natural mind and rational mind which are the lowest and closest heaven to the physical world. The First Heaven is operated by the Second Heaven in the Spiritual World. And the Second Heaven is operated by the Third Heaven in the Spiritual World and it is called rational correspondence. And the Third Heaven is correlated to the Divine Speech. In this level, it is the closest portion of the Divine Speech. Divine Speech goes through into the order of Third, Second, and First Heavens and then, our physical body.

We Can Grow Our Rational Mind through Growing

When we are born, our rational mind does not ready to understand the meaning of Divine Speech because it is not automatically or inherited substances in our mind. When people are baby, they learned the meaning of Divine Speech naturally as we learned language or songs. Through they grow, they are getting ability to read the Sacred Scripture which the Divine Speech translated in the natural language gradually, and then, they mature to think rationally about the Sacred Scripture when they read the Sacred Scripture. Even they read and try to understand the Sacred Scripture; they can not mature to the spiritual notion in the physical world. While they become aware of the Sacred Scripture rationally, they have to mature their voice of conscience also in the rational mind. When you try to understand Sacred Scripture or Divine Speech, you will get conflicts and contradiction about it between your conscience and your thinking. When you have the gap, you need to consider between them. Then, you think rationally what the gap is and the reason of the conflict, you will think over and over. Finally even if you have hellish thought, it helps you to take away the hellish traits because you can have the rational mind truly. You can be conscious about Divine Speech in the spiritual world.

My Opinion

According to the process of our understanding of Divine Speech, I thought I am maturing my rational thinking right now. I feel and think a lot from many happening through my daily life. And I am searching what rational thinking is and what hellish traits are in my mind. Honestly, I have many hellish traits still because I have many conflicts about Divine Speech or Sacred Scripture through learning theistic psychology, and I do not have confident everything what I do is right ways or things to do. However, as I learned this topic, I can mature my spiritual mind gradually and I am aware of that I have to mature myself step by step. Therefore, I thought I need to experience many things and feel and think a lot about anything for maturing my spiritual mind. Even I learned a lot about theistic psychology and Divine Speech; I might not fully mature my conscience in the physical world. Therefore, I will try to prepare entering the spiritual world and maturing my inside of conscience in this physical world.

Question 5. Where is heaven and hell? Describe its anatomy. Why do they both exist in everybody's mind?

Answer 5.

The Concept of Heave and Hell in General.

Most of the religions teach that Heaven and Hell are where God is living and where you will go either heaven or hell after you die. For instance, the Christ taught that either you go heaven or hell depend on how you acted and behaved while you are alive. If you follow the rules and beliefs of the Christian Bible, you will be able to enter into heaven, and if you do not, you will go to hell for atoning for your sins.

When I was young, my mom always said, “Don’t tell a lie. If you tell a lie, you have to go to hell.” It was very scary for me because I did not know what hell was but it must be super horrible. My mom does not have any religious belief, but she used the expression as normal. I think the general concept of Hell and Heaven is established to people as natural.

What is the Theistic View of Heaven and Hell?

In the theistic psychology, Heaven and Hell are “in our mind.” According to the text and class discussion, "The kingdom of God is within you" and “when the kingdom of God would come” showed how God and Heaven are established in our mind. “The kingdom God” means that What God is in the Divine Psychologist, and knowledge of theistic psychology from God. And “within you” means in your mind. “The kingdom of God is within you” means that the God and knowledge of theistic psychology is in your mind.

In the view of theistic psychology, we are living in the heaven or hell in the physical world related to the spiritual world. There are heavenly traits and hellish traits. If you have positive bias mode of theistic psychology and you understand rationally about concepts of theistic psychology, you might live in the heaven with heavenly traits. On the other hand, if you have negative bias mode, you might live in Hell with hellish traits.

Anatomical Facts of Heaven and Hell in Our Mind

Both Heaven and Hell are in our mind as I mentioned before. All human beings are receiving Spiritual Good and Truth from Spiritual Sun whichever they are negative or positive bias mode. Anatomically, people are receptors of these spiritual substances. When people receive these substances, they transformed or changed the meaning or purpose of the substances whether positively or negatively. Once they receive them positively, they will be able to have heavenly traits and live in the Heaven. On the other hand, if they transformed oppositely to the substances with hellish traits, they will be in the Hell. Whichever they live in the Hell or Heaven are depended on how they receive the Spiritual Substances.

Inherited Heavenly Traits and Hellish Traits

All human beings, they are born with inherited hellish traits. Many people chose to live in the hell in the physical world. The God allows having hellish traits such as illness, criminal, or poverty in this world because he gave chances to overcome the hellish traits to change heavenly traits. When people are in the hellish traits, people try to make effort to avoid them. That is what God expected to do for the human being in the physical world. In the spiritual world, people can not change their characters, so only in the physical world, people can have a chance to change their character.

If people who denied God, God gave them equal opportunity to choose which they want to live in heaven or hell. If people do not understand rationally how the God affects their lives in the negative bias mode, they might have many hellish traits and do awful things. God expected to it as a hellish traits and God has a power of changing their character, hellish to heavenly. Once their characters were set up afterlife, it is unchangeable in the spiritual world. In the other words, if people who live in the Hell whole physical life and they did not change their hellish character, they have to live in the Hell eternity.

Question 6. Describe the two methods God uses to conjoin or communicate with people. In what way have you experienced these two avenues of relationship with God?

Answer 6

Where Our Minds Come From

How we are react when the spirituals substances from God enter our mental organ following the Law of Correspondence? Our sensations, thoughts, and feelings are based on how react our mind from the Spiritual truth and good from God or Spiritual Sun. When we receive these substances, our mind reacts to them as the way of experiences thinking and feeling. According to the text by Dr. Leon James, the “Mental Operation” is not what God gave us like Spiritual Substances, but the reaction to these substances.

One of Two Methods God Uses to Conjoin with People: Sacred Scripture

Sacred Scripture is written in our natural language by Swedenborg who had an ability to see both in the physical world and spiritual world. The Sacred Scripture explained about what the theistic psychology, afterlife, God, our minds, etc. in the literal meaning and the purpose of it is helping to build out the rationally thinking in our mind. However, most people can not achieve to get rational mind only by reading of the Sacred Scripture. It is easy to understand with the literal meaning of Sacred Scripture, but if people understand the true or deeper meaning of it, they can not acquire the rational meaning of it by the literal meaning. Before Swedenborg published the books about Sacred Scripture, people could not learn or know the relationship with God and us. Therefore, He showed miracle to people for proof the existence of God. After Swedenborg published about God, He did not have to show miracles to people because the books by Swedenborg mentioned the God’s existence, effects, and relationship to human being　and rational and natural minds.

When Swedenborg published the Writing Sacred Scripture, everyone could become to know the concepts of theistic psychology and God. Because of this fact, the human race was changed as everyone could become to have the rational heavens inherently at the moment and in the future lives. The structure of rational heaven was changed by the Swedenborg’s Writing Sacred Scripture.

Another way of Two Methods God Uses to Conjoin with People: Conscience

When I was young, my mom asked me, “What did you do?” when I did something bad thing, then, I answered “I don’t know, mom. I did not do anything. It was just happened!” Then, mom said “listen to your conscience. Maybe it knows what you did.” Conscience is what our inmost natural and rational mind. It is in our cognitive and affective organ, so when you do something wrong, your conscience reacts and tries to avoid or be aware of the hellish traits.

According to the Leon James in the Section 1.0.3.2., He stated that there are four stages to establish our conscience in the conscious natural mind.

“Stage 0. Conscious Disjunction With God through the negative bias thinking

Stage 1. Natural, External Conjunction With God
through natural-sensuous thinking and feeling about Sacred Scripture

Stage 2. Spiritual, Mediate Conjunction With God
through natural-rational thinking and feeling about Sacred Scripture

Stage 3. Celestial, Interior Conjunction With God
through spiritual-natural thinking and feeling about Sacred Scripture”

These four stages showd our reformation of character through the natural, rational, and conscious thinking. The stage 1, people understand the literal meaning of Sacred Scripture in the natural way. The stage 2, people understand it more abstractly and symbolically than just the literal meaning. The stage 3, people can aware of the spiritual-rational and celestial-rational correspondences which is hidden in the natural meaning of the Sacred Scripture. Stage 0 is different from other stages. People go and back to these stages in their mind and sometimes people are in the stage 0 even they were just in the stage 3. We, human beings are not perfect and we have emotions, so sometimes our minds have bad things and use bad words. At that moment, our mind goes back into the stage 0.

Character Reformation

The character reformations only occur in adult life. This is because that people need to mature their thinking by themselves and establish their character. When people are young, they have a lot of affection by parents, school, and environment. Through that, people concrete their character. Character reformations need to mature their characters. In the adult life, people have free choice to think and behave and it needs to aware their conscience in their inmost mind. If they can not choose their desire or love as children, it may not be based on their decision and responsibility. People spend the character reformation through their lives and establish their characters gradually.

Question 7. Explain why this is a perfect world despite the appearances of imperfection.

Answer 7.

God Created the Perfect Formation of the Society

God created the perfect formation of the society. He gave equal opportunity to maintain their character reformation following perfect order of four stages of creating or reformatting of our character. God is omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. If every human being has no evil or hellish traits, the society can be perfect because God created the society based on the perfect formation. God could make the society with no hellish traits if he wanted; however, if he created a perfect society, it seems like he forced to live in the perfect society to people immediately. And if someone could not live in the perfect society, they have to live in the hell eternity.

A Purpose of the Reason Why the Society is Imperfect

The reason why this society has many hellish traits or evil things is that God gave us to chance and opportunities to maintain people’s mind rationally by their own. God wants us to make efforts to avoid the hellish traits by our own effort, not automatically avoid them from God. The society has many hellish traits and our mind grow and mature through avoiding them in our natural world. It is important for the process of character reformation. If God does not have a power to maintain the hellish traits and character reformation, people do whatever they want as selfish and horrible things.　And the society will be getting worse and worse. However, it does not happen because God can control it and He gave us opportunity to prepare entering into Spiritual Heaven. Remember, the hellish traits are not always only bad things because we have them inherently. This means that everything we have is based on the God’s purpose. We have to practice avoiding these hellish traits through our life and bring out the Spiritual Good from our inmost part of mind. And also remember we can do it! Nothing is impossible if God expected and gave us to do so.

My Opinion

The concept of imperfect society is very meaningful for me. I know this is not a religious belief, but I remained a story when I learned this concept. The story is that one of my friends became a member of a religious group one day. At that time, he had a depression. Once he joined the religious group, he seemed to become happier than before at first. However, about three months later, his depression became more serious. When I noticed it, I asked him, “why?” because I was wondering that he really believed the belief and he prayed everyday seriously, but he became unhappier day by day. Then, he answered me that if he did not join the group, he might have more depression. I did not understand because I thought any religion is for helping the members I think.

When I learned this topic why the society is imperfect, I regretted to ask my friend that why he was not happier than before he joined the religious group because he was proceeding and maturing his mind at that time. I did not touch him now, but I hope he found right way for his mind and I wish he is becoming happier than before.

Question 8. Why does spirituality, or relationship to God, have to be rational? What happens with "sensuous spirituality" -- discuss what happens in the afterlife.

Answer 8.

We Have to Be Rational

We can not be conscious about God and His thinking in the physical senses. We can only be conscious about it in our mind. When we are born, we potentially have an organ of the rational portion in our mind, and it is called “Heaven.” We can not relate with God external or outside of world but internal or inside of our mind. And we develop our rationality and truth in our mind, so we are possible to relate to God in our mind.

The way of relation with God in the Physical World

The only way to relate with God in the physical world is reading the Sacred Scripture which is Divine Speech or God’s thoughts translated in the natural language. When you read the Sacred Scripture, you need to read with the rational thinking because it is not only the literal meaning but also the hidden meaning what God really wanted to tell us. When you are conscious about the hidden meaning of Sacred Scripture, you might be able to become closer to the God. However, even you read the Sacred Scripture and you understand rationally about the meaning, you still can not stay directly close to God.

What is Sensuous Spirituality?

The Sensuous Spirituality is visible miracles from the God. Some people experienced to see God or His miracles and they believe their religious God according to the event. Sensuous Spirituality does not directly relate to God because it is not what he wants to show. He is omnipotent, so he can do whatever he wants to see to us. However, according to the Sacred Scripture, we can relate to God only in heaven where in our mind. Therefore, if they really understand the Sacred Scripture rationally, they can meet him only in their mind.

What Happened in the Afterlife?

Swedenborg interviewed people who were just resuscitated and had the experienced of sensuous spirituality in the afterlife. When they resuscitated, they have to go to God’s court and heaven where they allow entering the heaven. They said that God is only in our rational understanding of Sacred Scripture. When people understand the truths in the Sacred Scripture and do that, they can acquire the rational understanding of Sacred Scripture and they are conscious that God is in the rational understanding of Sacred Scripture. They heard once people who seems experienced the sensuous spirituality, once they went to the God’s Court, they have to avoid their hellish traits as the charlatans and phonies who pretend to show miracles. Finally, they can allow to liberate the hell when they understand the existence of God rationally.

Question 9. Explain the formula "mental world = spiritual world = afterlife = eternity" and write it down. Read it and edit it until it makes sense. Now try to explain the proof to a friend or two. How well did you succeed? What is your conclusion or future plan?

Answer 9.

Swedenborg’s Discovery

Since Swedenborg became conscious about both spiritual world and physical world at the same time, he discovered that we are living in the two worlds which are called Spiritual World and Physical World. He stated that everyone has the only one mental world and the mental world is in our mind. The mental world is equal to the physical world because the spiritual world is based on our mind and the mental world is as same as spiritual world. After our physical body dies, our mind will enter into the afterlife. When our physical body dies, our mind is still alive out of time-space. Our mind becomes unconscious about what happened in the physical world. Then, our mind becomes conscious about the spiritual mind only. And our mind is alive in the afterlife forever or eternity. These concepts are based on the facts what Swedenborg saw in the Spiritual World and he wrote about it in the Written Sacred Scripture.

Discuss about Spiritual World and Basic Concepts about Theistic Psychology

When I talked and explained about it to one of my friends, he struggled into the fact that Swedenborg actually saw what is going on in the Spiritual World. It is normal reaction when people heard about the theistic psychology first time. I had to explain the reliability of the facts to my friend. Swedenborg was a great scientist and he wrote a lot about scientific reviews before he acquired to see both worlds. After he became aware of the two worlds, he only wrote about Sacred Scripture and he changed or revised nothing once he wrote. This is because it is all facts what he saw in the Spiritual World.

Then, I asked him what he thinks what happen us after they die. He answered that our soul will go into a Heaven and clean all the sins what we did while we live on the earth. Then, our soul will reborn as innocent. He is Japanese and he does not have any religion, but he learned naturally in this thought through Japanese culture which is based on Buddhism. I understand what he said because I believe in the same way before I learned theistic psychology. I explained we are dual citizens and we live in two worlds; physical world and mental world. He could make sense of it. He believes the feeling and thinking were not only the movements of chemical elements but something unknown. Then, I explained the afterlife as I mentioned before, he disagreed. “If there is afterlife, can’t we reborn into the next generation!” he said. I answered “Yes.” because our mind lives in spiritual world eternity. We can not reborn into the next generation in the physical world because we need to precede living in the spiritual world.

Discuss about the Most Difficult Parts; Spiritual Sun, Spiritual Substances and God

I explained that if we do not have mental world, we can not think and feel anything because our mind are only in the mental world and every moment we are receiving Spiritual Substances from Spiritual Sun and these substances became the energy us to alive. Every movement we do is reaction to the substances. He did not understand because he could not understand the existence of Spiritual Sun and Spiritual Substances. He asked me where the Spiritual Sun comes from. When I said it is from God. Then he said where and what God is. God is in the celestial heaven and He is controlling or affecting everything. This is the most difficult part of explanation because he does not have any background of God as religious God and I do not too. The biggest problem for us as non-religious people is we do not know how and why God is so powerful. Now I am turning into the positive bias through learning the theistic psychology, but I also understand what my friend expressed about the existence of God. However, he understood most of the concept of this formula because it is clearly explained and he could clear in his mind what he was not sure about like where the feeling and thinking came from.

The Importance of Sacred Scripture

Section 1.0.6 to 1.0.7

Question 1. Explain the Swedenborg reports in relation to the positive bias in science. What happened to him? What did he discover? Describe how you manage to take on the positive bias regarding the Swedenborg reports.

Answer 1

Preparation before Reading the Sacred Scripture

When you try to understand the Sacred Scripture, you should accept the possibilities that Swedenborg’s report is based on valid, accurate, and scientific facts at the beginning. It is the first step to read the Sacred Scripture in the positive bias. The positive bias is including the acceptance of existing God. If you read in the negative bias which you leave out the fact of existence of God automatically, the Sacred Scripture does not have any meaning to you.

What Happened to Swedenborg

When Swedenborg was age 57, he suddenly became conscious about the Spiritual World. He could see both the Spiritual World and Physical World simultaneously. Since then, he wrote 30 volumes of notes what he saw in the Spiritual World for 27 years until he died. He was only one who conscious about the dual world on the earth and he was the first person to write about the Spiritual World.

He discovered the existence of the Spiritual World and the existence of God, and also all human being has mental world in our mind. The mind is created by the Spiritual Substances which outflow from Spiritual Sun. The Spiritual Sun is related to the Divine Speech which is what God thinks. He discovered the structures of our mind and spiritual world including the afterlife.

How to Manage to Take Positive Bias

As I said at the beginning, we should grant that the existence of God. When I learned theistic psychology first time, this was the hardest thing in the theistic psychology. Actually, I am managing to take positive bias now. At first, I just thought “this is a new religious thinking!” and I could not understand any concept scientifically. At that time, I was totally and completely in the negative bias mode. While I started learning about theistic psychology more, my first impression was changing. I am granting the existence of God gradually because it can make sense to me what I was wondering since now like where my feeling and thought come from. This section shows a lot of possibilities that the Swedenborg’s reports are accurate and validity. For example, he is a genius as a scientist and he wrote a lot about scientific reviews until he became conscious about dual worlds. But once he became conscious about it, he only wrote about Spiritual World. Also his writings were consistent and he never changed what he wrote because what he wrote was what he saw. All of them were based on his observations and facts in the Spiritual World, so he did not have to change anything. These are powerful evidences to support his reports are no doubt. When I read these things, I convinced the reason why people call theistic psychology as a science. Also I learned how important to take positive bias. If I am not in the positive bias, I can not learn anything about theistic psychology. I still struggle through the new theistic or rational ideas, but I am sure I am reaching to the positive bias gradually.

Question 2. What is the purpose of Sacred Scripture? How is it meant to be used?

Answer 2

Purpose of Sacred Scripture

Sacred Scripture is the guidelines and definitions of what are hellish and heavenly traits. The purpose of Sacred Scripture is to lead people turning into the positive bias. Swedenborg tried to diffuse the existence of God and the concept of theistic psychology what really happened in our mind. If he did not write about Spiritual World, God had to show some miracles to prove His existence to people and it was limited. Once people read the Sacred Scripture, they might think about it whether they accept or not. It is the first step of the purposes of Sacred Scripture because if no body knows what the Spiritual World is, they might not think about it at all. It is free to take whether negative or positive bias unless they notice or know the facts of Spiritual World and the existence of God. The next step is to take the position of positive or negative bias. If people take the negative bias, they might live in the hell with hellish traits on the earth. However, Hell is not eternity, so people can have chances to go Heaven if they understand the heavenly traits rationallt. They have to make effort to notice the hellish traits and heavenly traits. When they read or learn more about Sacred Scripture, it helps to understand more about God’s existence and Spiritual World. If people take the positive bias mode, they will also notice about Heavenly Traits and it will be satisfied their lives. Once they have positive bias, they will learn more about Sacred Scripture and they will be able to think rationally.

Even people take the positive bias based on the literal meanings of Sacred Scripture, they can not understand perfectly about it because the literal meaning does not have a power as much as the rational thinking. They have to notice the hidden meaning of Sacred Scripture when they read it. Once they acquire to think the hidden meaning of Sacred Scripture, their mind will be satisfied. But the most important purpose of Sacred Scripture is to diffuse the concept of Spiritual World and existence of God.

Spread Out of the Idea of Theistic Psychology

As I mentioned, the Sacred Scripture gave us to think possibility the existence of God, afterlife, and Spiritual World. It is just a possibility because we can not prove and disprove it with today’s technology. Swedenborg examined the possibility but no one except him can be conscious about Spiritual World and Physical World at the same time. Therefore, it is called bias and also it can not be proven with today’s technology, many people have negative bias. It is normal reaction to take negative bias at first when people read the Sacred Scripture first time, but people examine the facts in the book and they will become to think rationally what the Sacred Scripture said through many experiences in their lives. Then, they will turn into positive bias little by little. The biggest purpose of Sacred Scripture is get used to know about the idea of theistic psychology such as afterlife, existence of God, and Spiritual World.

Question 3. Explain the two senses we can find in Sacred Scripture. Give several illustrations from this Section.

Answer 3.

Two Senses in Sacred Scripture

There are two senses in the Sacred Scripture; literal sense and scientific rational sense. The original Sacred Scripture was not written in the natural language as we use daily. There are no natural language in the Spiritual World. In the Spiritual World, people become unconscious about the identity of Physical World including their language. Therefore, Swedenborg translated in the natural language based on what he saw in the Spiritual World since he became conscious about it and it is called Writings Sacred Scripture. It is easy to know what Sacred Scripture because we can read in the natural language literally. However, it is not just literal meanings but also rational meaning. If you read Writing Sacred Scripture, you have to conscious about the hidden meaning of it.

Literal Meaning of Sacred Scripture

The literal meaning of Sacred Scripture gives us the definitions and explanations about good and evil, true and false, and heavenly and hellish. In the literal meaning, the content is based on religious and historical. The Old Testament of Sacred Scripture is like a bible; the reward and punishment, where the God or religious beliefs came from historically, how our ancients related to the beliefs historically and so on. This is literal-historical level of meaning of the Sacred Scripture. The natural meaning or external meaning of Sacred Scripture is that read the Sacred Scripture as the literal meaning and know what it said, then, accept or avoid parts what they like or dislike. It is not rational thinking about Sacred Scripture.

Hidden Meaning of Sacred Scripture

When people read the Sacred Scripture with literal meaning, they need to find out the hidden meaning of Sacred Scripture. When people take three steps to read the Sacred Scripture, they will be able to know the hidden meaning of Sacred Scripture.

1) People need to accept when they read Sacred Scripture; they have to read it with the spiritual sense from God.

2) People have to recognize the Sacred Scripture rationally and consistently. They can not avoid any parts of them even they do not like any parts because it is not one’s thinking but God’s thinking. When they have contradiction against the Sacred Scripture, they will find the answer of it in the Sacred Scripture if they read it rationally.

3) People have to apply the ideas of Sacred Scripture in daily life. When we choose something, it is all from our mind. And all the choices are part of hellish or heavenly traits.

When people could take these three steps, they will be notice the hidden meaning of Sacred Scripture and avoid hellish traits.

Rational Thinking of Hidden Meaning of Sacred Scripture

When you took these three steps through reading Sacred Scripture, you might notice that there are more than literal meanings in the Sacred Scripture. Go through reading the Sacred Scripture and thinking deeply about it, you might notice that the physical world is temporary and not eternity but the mental world and our mind are eternity and more real than physical world. The Sacred Scripture is based on what God tells us and His thinking. Also God operates to Spiritual Sun to outflow the Spiritual Substances into our mind. The Spiritual Substances is inflow to our mind eternity, so our mind is conscious eternity. Once you understand the concept, your mind becomes more rational, and you will be able to know what hellish and heavenly traits are.

Question 4. Give two illustrations not found in this Section, so you will need to search for this in Volume 18. Make sure you indicate which Section(s) you took your two examples from. How do you react to being told that there is a hidden scientific sense in Sacred Scripture, that is unsuspected to most scholars?

Answer 4

4.2 The Grand Human in Volume 4

I chose this section because I had no idea what Grand Human was. Grand Human has two sides of thinking. One side is Good and Divine Human. He is like a beautiful man with Divine Love and Divine Wisdom as a Divine Human. He knows Love to his neighbors and Conscience what is Good. Those are outside of the Grand Man. Another side is Devil. He concerns only about their own Good and Honor, he fights against his neighbor if he does not like. And he loves himself with only own benefits. The outside of Grand Human seems to be allowed entering into the Heaven, but he can not because he has also the devil side. Disease and misfortune are also corresponded by the Devil that is not directly related to him but the devil side causes the bad happens. Grand Human has both sides of Devil and Divine Human. However, he can be close to the Heaven when he is in Love. There are many levels of heaven distinguished by the amount and quality of Love he has. He can fall into the hell and heaven.

Section 2.5: Is it possible that Swedenborg made it all up or was delusional at times?

There are three criteria to show the validity of a theory scientifically. The first criterion is scientists or psychologists must understand the conclusions and explanations what author said. The second one is the theory must be reasonable and consistent. In addition, the each part has to support and agree with what is already known and accepted. The last one is the theory must be true and confirm based on the human behavior.

According to Dr. Leon James, he showed Swedenborg’s reports were achieved to these criteria. First, he is a psychologist and he could understand the explanations and conclusions. Second, the reports were coherent all parts each other. And lastly, Swedenborg’s conclusions did not deny what already discovered about the human nature and his conclusion disagreed with the invalid theories in materialistic psychology.

The reason why God gave an ability to see dual world to only Swedenborg is that God wanted to entrust Swedenborg to show people about the God’s existence and Spiritual World scientifically. And Swedenborg discovered what happened in the Spiritual World based on interviewing to people who were in the Spiritual World. Swedenborg’s reports are consistent each part because he wrote step by step.

To agree of disagree to the Writing of Swedenborg depends on how people think scientifically about the validity. Some people agree it has a scientific validity according to the criteria. On the other hand, some people disagree because of the limitation that the Writing of Swedenborg is based on only the observation from Swedenborg.

Question 5. What is rational spirituality in relation to God? Explain how we can comprehend higher spiritual ideas by means of the new mental organ called spiritual-natural or interior-natural organ. How did it come into existence? Describe its role in the evolution of human consciousness. How do you react to these ideas that apply to your own mind?

Answer 5.

Rational Spirituality to Relation to God

God operates on the Spiritual Sun to outflow the Spiritual Substances into the Spiritual World. These substances create our mind. If there are no substances, we can not exist anymore because our physical body is made from the substances as energy. These physical and mental worlds are always connected and it is called “Laws of Correspondences.” God created everything indirectly but certainly have a power to control us.

Here is very interesting way of thinking about relation to God and our physical objects. There are two portions; outward portion and inward portion. Outward portion is visible physical objects. Inward portion or underlying portion builds up from the spiritual substances from Spiritual Sun to give a purpose of creating objects. Every object contains the two portions because when people create something, they need to purpose or motive to create it. And the motivation and purpose come from inward portion from the Spiritual Sun.

Concept of Spiritual-Natural Sequence

Our physical body is temporary but our mind is eternity even after our physical body dies, our mind is still alive. According to this basic idea, every object is temporary but it is connect to physical and mental worlds. Even a novel relates to this idea. The author of a novel creates a story in her mind and writes it down on a paper physically. Then, once it was published, people read it physically like turn over the page, read the sentences through eyes, but they imagine and understand the story in their mind. If the book is not read by anybody, the book has no meaning of existence. The book is just a physical matter which we can see. Everything is cause and effect and it is called “Spiritual-Natural Sequence” based on the laws of correspondence. This concept is all same as our physical body and mental body.

My Opinion

When I read about the relationship of any object between physical and mental worlds, the new idea penetrates to me because it is very interesting. I learned in the other psychology class that everything is cause-effect but I could not understand the reason why at that time. Then, I noticed the cause of cause. I only learned the physical cause in the class.

Question 6. Explain why substantive dualism is called substantive.

Answer 6.

Old Scientists View of Dualism

As we learned before, the dualism is we are living in the two worlds, one is physical world and another is mental world. Before Swedenborg declared that human is “substantive dualism”, people had different views about our mental and physical structure. The monist has totally negative bias because the monist believes that everything operates only in the physical time-space, and matter. A famous philosopher, Aristotle mentioned “dualism” in different meaning. He mentioned that human beings are dualism and we are contains two “stuffs”; the physical world is made of “matter” which contains time-space and mass and it is material. On the other hand, mental world is made of “substance” which not contains mass, time-space, and non-material. In addition, some dualist scientists learned about dreams which did not contain time-space, and mass. They taught if there was no physical body and brain, where the feelings and thoughts come from. They did not support any observational and rational explanation.

Swedenborg’s New Idea of Dualism: Substantive Dualism

Swedenborg could explain rationally about the dualism. He created a new idea of “dualism” which called “substantive dualism.” He declared that our mind comes from Spiritual Sun and it contains spiritual substances which is spiritual heat and light. These substances operate feelings and thoughts in our mind. The Spiritual Sun creates everything just like the natural sun. The natural sun creates water, nature, and air. The Spiritual Sun creates these substances and these substances are necessity to human minds. Moreover, the Spiritual substances surround Spiritual Sun, and the atmosphere is called “rational ether.” Our inner part is the mental world and it is invisible, but the existence must be accepted because it is impossible that all our feelings and thoughts are created only in the physical brain. Our mind operates from Spiritual Substances which outflow from Spiritual Sun and the Substances operates our feelings and thoughts in mind, then; our physical body operates from the mind.

There Are Two Corresponded World!

According to the text book, the word, “substance” came from Latin that “stance” means “to stand” and “substance” means “stands below or is underlying.” (Dr. James. 1.0.7. vol.1) Everything in physical world is cause and effect. And all cause comes from spiritual world, and the effects operate from the spiritual world. These two worlds seem separate if you focus on only time-space. However, the laws of correspondence state that the two worlds should connect functionally. In the other words, if you try to do something, your physical body moves to achieve it. However, where the motivation of something to do comes from? It comes from Spiritual world always become cause of anything in the physical world. If the Spiritual world and physical world are separated, human beings will no longer exist because people can not think, feel, motive, and anything in the physical world. In addition, the Spiritual world and Physical world are corresponded because if the Spiritual world does not operate our physical body, we can not express from the Spiritual world and operations of Spiritual Substances in the Physical world. If we can not express anything from Spiritual Substances in this world, the existence of Physical world does not have any meaning anymore. Therefore, the Physical world and Spiritual world have to be corresponded.

Answer 7. What is the most exciting piece of news you have hears so far in theistic psychology?

Answer 7.

The Most Exciting Piece of News I had Hears; Conjudial Couple

The most exiting part what I learned in the theistic psychological idea was about conjudial Heaven. It was very important for me to find my life partner. Conjudial Heaven is a heaven which people enter with their right husband in the afterlife. People have to make effort to understand the mind of husband or wife because the mental structures of men and women are different as our physical bodies are different between men and women. Men and women receive the Spiritual Substances in the different parts of mind and react differently. Therefore, if a man and a woman hear same word, they might think different meaning. Once a husband and a wife conjoint completely, they create a new mental mind which is called conjoint self. They are no longer individual and they stay together eternity in the Conjudial Heaven. This is very romantic fact because once people love someone and get married; they can stay forever with them as a part of themselves. And also this shows me the importance to get married with someone who loves and who is loved me. There is no doubt to create conjoint self with no love. Husband and wife have to understand, accept, be intimate, and think their partner as a part of self. I like this concept!

Dream

The theistic psychological meaning of Dream is completely new to me and it was very interesting. When we sleep and see a dream, the dream is in the Mental World and the Mental World is only one for everybody. What does this mean? It means we share our dream in the Mental World and we can meet anybody in there. Dream is not time-space and not physical matter. When I learned it, I was thinking about the dream fortune which a fortuneteller tells us the meaning of our dreams. Is this possible that they can analyze and explain the meaning of dream? If the fortuneteller has rational thoughts about dual worlds, it could be true but if they are not, it is impossible because if they do not accept the idea of dual worlds, how they can understand our dreams which in the spiritual world. Sometimes I meet unknown people in my dream, and I was wondering who they are. But it makes sense to me if we have only one mental world, I can see unknown people in my dream. It is fantastic!

God Controls Us

It is very interesting that everything is cause and effect and the cause and effect are controlling from God. We think and feel something because we are receiving the Spiritual Substances from Spiritual Sun which are operated by God. This concept tells me that everything has meaning and every happening has necessity. Everything, every moment, God affects us continuously and we reflect the God’s thinking. If anything bad happens to me, God might challenge me to choose whether heavenly or hellish traits for improving my mind. There are a lot of difficulties through people’s lives, but when they choose heavenly traits, they will mature their minds and become close to the heavenly traits. This is very positive thinking to success my life. In addition, people can choose whether living in hell and heaven, and everyone has hellish traits inherently, so we can live in heaven or hell depend on what we do and think. It is all depending upon our decision and responsibility; therefore, we have to choose correct way. Otherwise it is easy to live in hell. This is very important to know to mature my mind.

Question 8. List some objections you or your friends can come up with against the Swedenborg reports, against the positive bias in science, against the inclusion of God in science, and similar issues. Be sure you comment on each issue you list -- (a) what the doubt is and (b) what your current position is on it.

Answer 8.

The Conflict between the Facts or Religious Belief

When I talk about the theistic psychology, all of my friends said “it is just a new religious belief!” When I told them about what happened to Swedenborg, they do not believe he suddenly became conscious about the dual worlds because no one can prove how Swedenborg became conscious about it. One of my friends who is a Christian did not accept what happened to Swedenborg and said, “I need more scientific proof to accept it because he could create a story as a novel.” When she said that, I asked her “why can you believe the taught of Christianity?” and she said “I’m reading a bible and it is based on all facts what happened to Christ and people in the past.” How did she know it is fact or not. It can be a fiction. I think this is the same way to accept the concept of theistic psychology. If she could understand and accept the Christianity, she might be able to understand the concept of theistic psychology because the idea of theistic psychology has more evidences as a science rather than religious belief. I personally do not have any religious belief, but I am accepting the idea of theistic psychology through leaning. And I noticed theistic psychology is not a new religious belief because it is more than just someone’s taught but facts.

God Railed Our Lives as Destiny?

When I talked my friend about God is controlling our lives, he asked me “does it mean we are along with what God thought?” It was very difficult to answer because God does not affect our lives directly and he gave us the choices how we live in the Physical World. However, we definitely receive the effects from God as Spiritual Substances. Before I take this class, I believe that my life is not controlled by anyone but me. When I start learning the theistic psychology, I realized what I believe was narrow view. The idea of God affects our lives opened my view of life. It is true that controlling my life is based on my choices through life in the Physical World. However, the opportunities to choose something are always caused by the God’s thinking. God gave us free choices to take whether heavenly or hellish traits. And the choices are creating our lives basically. Now, I believe my life is controlling my choices based on the God’s thinking. When I told my conclusion, my friend could understand the effects of God to our lives.

Question 9. Make up a dialogue between you and a hypothetical friend in a situation where you are telling your friend about this course. No length is specified. It depends on how you write the dialog. You can add lines of explanations, like a stage play, if you want.

Answer 9.

Friend: Hello, Hanako. How are you? Is this your last semester?

Hanako: I’m fine. Yes, this is my last semester and I’m only taking one class.

Friend: That’s good. Which class are you taking?

Hanako: Psychology 459, theistic psychology.

Friend: What is it about?

Hanako: The class is about psychology of God. It talks a lot about the existence of God, what happened after we die, and the structure of our mind.

Friend: Are you taking a religious class?

Hanako: No. It is scientific thoughts rather than religious belief.

Friend: What does it mean?

Hanako: Theistic psychology explains the existence of God and Spiritual World based on scientific evidences and facts.

Friend: What is Spiritual World?

Hanako: It is very complicated. When we are born, we have physical world and mental world. Physical World is conscious, visible, and time-space world on the earth. On the other hand, the Spiritual World is not time-space, invisible world in our mind. When you dream, day-dream, think, and feel, these are in your mental world, not in physical world. And our mind is still alive after our physical body dies. It is called afterlife and our mind exist eternity in the Spiritual World.

Friend: mmm…So I’m thinking what you say now and my thinking is in the mental world even now? What about my body? I’m here.

Hanako: Yes, your body is in front of me now but your mind is in the mental world. And your thinking and feeling are based on Spiritual Substances which is from Spiritual Sun correlated to the God.

Friend: What? Are you talking about my feeling and thinking are related to the God? I can not believe it.

Hanako: Yes, all human mind is related to God indirectly though. The Spiritual Substances inflow our mind and these substances are as energy to think and feel something in our mind. And also you do not have to believe the concept but you need to accept it.

Friend: Oh…I do not understand what you say. Your class sounds really difficult for me. Good Luck* Bye.

Hanako: I know it is very difficult! I’ll call you later. Bye bye**