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: 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
New Tools and Ideas for Improving Our Mental
Levels by Swedenborg
by Hanako
Suzuki
Report 5 For Section 1.5.1
to 2.3
Section 1: 1.5.1 to 1.6.2
Question 1. Summarize Section 1.5.1 "Students Speak
Out on Swedenborg." Give your impressions and
conclusions.
Introduction
There are many questions about general religious beliefs and many people
who have certain religious belief might not understand other religious beliefs.
However, when you read the Sacred Scripture or Writing of Swedenborg,
you might understand all of your questions which come up into your mind about
many religious beliefs and you can get most of answers only if you understand
the concept of theistic psychology.
The Writing of Swedenborg is based on his
observations in the physical and spiritual or mental worlds and because it is
based on the observation, it can be all facts.
Should Swedenborg Be
Included in the History of Scientific Psychology?
More than half of students answered it is the history of scientific
psychology and 10 out of 23 students said no. The students who answered “No”
and reject the idea of Swedenborg was not as a
scientific psychology, the summary of their opinions are Swedenborg
was only the person who could see the Spiritual World and Physical World at the
same time, so it is not enough to prove them as facts. He needed more experiment
as other scientific experiments.
His basic idea, mind and spiritual are not include as the scientific
facts. We can not prove and measure it, so we can not accept it as a science.
On the other hand, the students who answered “Yes” about his idea, they said he
needed more work on to prove his perspective, but he also gave us important and
valuable information as Freud did. He stated clearly the functions and
interactions about the body, mind, and spirit. And it is the first
psychological idea in the psychological field, therefore, whether it is true or
not, we can accept the ideas of Swedenborg as
science. His ideas lead better understanding of human spiritual functions.
We can not prove or measure his idea, but we can not ignore his idea either because it had never disproved and it is more than a
religious belief because his idea has consistency and it can be based on his
observation. We can not ignore his idea because his writings are too important
to ignore about our human bodies and minds.
My Opinion
According to their impression, I would agree with the students who said
“No” in this question when I started to learn theistic psychology. However, I
can answer “Yes” in this question now because I agree the Swedenborg’s
idea is too important to ignore and also his idea lead me better understanding
about human bodies, minds, and spirits.
I think I can say his perspective can be as scientific facts because even
it is not measurable, it is understandable because the reason why we can not measure
it is we can not measure anything in the spiritual world because the physical
world and spiritual world are completely separate. It does not matter whether
it is measurable or observable for anyone, Swedenborg
explained and proved enough these are not measurable and observable. He stated
enough details to prove these are facts and these can be as scientific facts.
Question 2. Section 1.5.1.2 "The Negative Bias in
Science" presents an extensive quote by a negative bias mode psychologist
(Bering). Analyze what he says. Make a conclusion in the light of what you
already know from the positive bias.
Analysis of What Bering Said
Death means…: Are you afraid to die?
Have you ever think you want to suicide or want to die? When you think
about death, do you scare to death? I had thought I want to give up my life.
When I thought that, the first thing comes up was my parents would be really
sad. I also thought if I die, I seemed as I ran away from the cause, and I
would be loser. But I did not scare about death. I would say it depends on the
situation how I die.
I think why I did not scare to death is I did not think so serious about
the desire to suicide, but also I thought whenever my physical body dies, I am
die and it is the end of my life.
Now, if I have hard time and want to run away from the bad cause, I will
not reject it because I know rejecting something does not mean cure, but loose
and if I do not reject the hard thing and overcome my mind definitely becomes
stronger than before. Now I know the structure of mind and the strategy to
fight against the hard thing.
Eternity Equals Cognitive Default?
People have many different ways and reactions of thinking about death. The
textbook shows the Bering’s way of thinking about theistic psychology with
negative bias mode and he denied about the concept of our mind lives in the
mental world eternity. People are too afraid to die and this concept helps
reducing their anxiety about death.
He focused more on the natural things or physical things. He refused any
concepts about theistic psychology flatly and his view of theistic psychology
was just a new religious idea. The reason why religious idea wants to involve
the cognitive templates is because these act as flypaper for salient “counterintuitive
cases”.
My Opinion
I understand why he took the negative bias because I took completely
negative bias at the beginning of class and he would not have any religious
background, so he might not be able to think naturally about the existence of
God I guess. This is very difficult if people are not familiar to think about
the God, they have to spend more time to understand what God is. I think the
only way to understand the existence of God is to believe. I know this might
not theistic psychological idea but people can not understand the existence of
God at first, so they have to believe as pretending there is a God.
Let’s think about this way, if a person who does not involve any society,
group, religion such as a werewolf, when you talk to him about the existence of
God, he might never ever understand if you just want to understand the
existence to him. Therefore, you have to give him a hypothesis of existence of
God at first. If he has an ability to see the spiritual world and physical
world, you do not have to explain it to him though.
Therefore, if people who take negative bias have some reasons and own
perspective. When you say theistic psychology is not a religion and people
should not force to understand or believe it, I think it is acceptable to have
this view.
Question 3. Select a few concepts from Section
1.5.1.3 "Outline of Swedenborg's
Spiritual Psychology" and discuss them with a friend or two. What
observations did you make from this exchange. which concepts are most interesting to you?
(2)(3) Life
After Death: Heaven and Hell
These parts are what I like in the theistic psychology because this
concept is totally new for me and it is relevant to our daily lives. I talked
about what heaven and hell in our minds to my friends. Both heaven and hell are
already in our mind and we can choose to live in whether heaven or hell by our
daily decisions. In addition, we can be coming and going into heaven and hell
by moment to moment based on our decision.
After our physical body dies, our minds are still alive with the
experiences or decisions of hell and heaven. If people still live in the hell
after they resuscitated, they will live in hell if they can not turn into
heavenly traits rather than hellish traits.
On the other hands, there are many levels of heavens in the spiritual
world and people can proceed step by step. In the conjoint heaven, people can
live their certain partner and they build up a new celestial mind called
conjoint self.
This fact is amazing because conjoint self can not create by oneself but
with their truly certain only one partner in the conjoint heaven and their mind
live eternity.
Discuss with my friend.
I explained these concepts to my friend, and they could not understand. She
does not have any religious belief and she has never thought about the existence
of God seriously. Sometimes she prays for God when she has really hard time to
solve a problem but it is not like Christian prays for God, it is more casual
as fortune.
And she told me here is no God. So I asked her what she thinks about hell.
She told me that all spirits will end up when the physical body dies. However,
if there is no heaven and hell after the physical body dies, it might be great
idea there is heaven and hell in our mind since we are born. And also she can
not have any picture about hell and heaven, and only she can do is just imagine
what heaven and hell look like. Therefore, if she can see both physical and
spiritual worlds as Swedenborg, she will change her
mind and can realize more about heaven and hell.
(5) Negative
and Positive Bias in Science
People who have negative bias tend to say that they can not accept the
existence of God because we can not prove it with the current technology. They
can not any concept in the theistic psychology because all of it is based on
the Swedenborg’s observation in the spiritual world
and all of his concepts relate to the existence of God. In the negative bias,
scientists say they are monism or materialism, so if they can not see the fact
visually or experimentally, they can not accept it.
On the other hand, people who take positive bias, they can understand the
concept of dualists what people are born in two worlds, physical and negative,
and our feelings and thoughts are in spiritual world, then, every our behaviors
and actions are from spiritual world. They accept or understand the existence
of God and He affect everything in the physical world
and spiritual world. Then, they advanced to prove what Swedenborg
said scientifically or reliably.
Discuss with My friend
Through this class, I discussed many times about theistic psychological
view, but no one has positive bias unfortunately. It is because of their lack
of knowledge about theistic psychology and also lack of my explanation about
concepts of theistic psychology.
However, their fundamental position of negative bias is based on monism or
materialism. Most of my friends said if Swedenborg
saw what happens in the spiritual world, he had to prove why he could acquire
the ability. He could not say just when he was 57 years old, he became to see
and experience both spiritual and physical worlds at the same time. If he
proved it experimentally or scientifically, more people can be able to believe
and understand what he said because if people can not understand and believe
why he acquired the skill, people might just think he made up a story.
I agree what my friends said, yet I also could say the Writing of Swedenborg might be true because it is consistent and
valuable for each person’s life.
Question 4. Section 1.5.1.3 also contains a "narrative
account" in which there is a discussion with angels about what people on
earth know about heaven and hell. What is your impression of this? Give an
interpretation as best you can at this point in your study of theistic
psychology.
Summary of Narrative Account
The angel and Swedenborg talked about different
concepts about spiritual world and natural world. In this narrative account
section, Dr. James shows conversations with angels and Swedenborg.
The conversation mentioned the Word from Load translated into the natural
language from spiritual world and people of church are conjoined with the God
and joined with angels. There are some cute conversations because the angels
did not know what happens in the physical world and how people who live in
natural world think about afterlife and God.
Swedenborg talked about afterlife as people do not
understand what actually happens in the spiritual world but people might think
that they left their soul after their physical body died. People have some
issues about afterlife but no one experienced except Swedenborg,
so people do not know what exactly happened.
They talked about the concepts of heaven and hell and Swedenborg
told angels that the God mentioned to people the nature of hell and heaven and disclosure
of nature of the world in which angels and spirits live. Also he mentioned the
differences of natural and spiritual sun in the worlds. In addition, he told
angels about the discrete degrees of mental levels and the three levels of
heavens. He talked a lot about the level of knowledge and realizations about
the spiritual world and God in the natural world.
My Impression
The conversations were very easy to read and understand because there are
clearly stated the questions and answers. The conversations pointed out the
basic important things about recognitions of God and spiritual things in the
natural world. Angels are separated from physical world because they became
unconscious about physical world after resuscitated. The point of view is
opposite from other sections because most of the parts took the views in the
physical world.
Interpretation As
Best I Could
1) Every word is containing the spiritual world in the natural language
and church of people are allowed to reveal the secrets
about God.
2) People who live on the Earth had never known about the correspondence
between Spiritual and Physical worlds through thousands years. People had
evolutions of their structures of minds a lot and now God allowed revealing the
correspondences because He thought people minds are matured enough to know it.
3) Angels do not understand why people do not know about afterlife because
afterlife or spiritual world is natural for angels but not physical world.
People who live in the Earth have own perspective about the afterlife, but no
one can experience what happens exactly after death. Therefore, it is no
wondering why people think this way.
4) People did not know anything about hell and heaven and spiritual world
on the Earth. However, the God disclosed about what hell and heaven are in our
natural mind, so people are getting know what hell and heaven is.
5) God told people about the existence of Spiritual Sun which is just like
a Physical Sun. There are similar affections and functions to each world but
outflow different substances and operates into different organs.
6) Unlike angels know naturally, people do not know about the discrete
degrees of minds and levels of heaven and angels were surprised that people do
not know this. In the spiritual world, these facts are very important, as
angels said.
7) Finally, angels asked him about what else He disclosed in the natural
world. Swedenborg told them that anything is
disclosed because God has a purpose to do so. There are several more things
that God disclosed to people who live on the Earth.
Question 5. Summarize what is said in Section 1.6
"Spiritual Psychobiology." How does this relate to what you already
know about the field of psychology?
Summary of the Section 1.6 “Spiritual
Psychology”
Swedenborg wrote many volumes about theistic psychology
and his books translated many different languages among the entire world. And
some scholars analyzed his books and wrote many articles about it.
His powerful approach to psychology is behaviorism, functionalism and organicity. His perspective of organicity
is human mind build up by not physical brain but the mental organ and the mind
correspond to human brain. Then, the human brain gets certain functions. Our
mind is receptive organ of Spiritual Substances which operates our mind from
Spiritual Sun. Following the facts, we are dual citizens since we are born and
our mind lives forever in the spiritual world.
When Swedenborg was 57 years old, he became
conscious about spiritual world. The Divine Human gave him a potential of the
skill when he was born and Swedenborg’s mind matured
enough to observe the both worlds when he was 57 years old. The purpose of Swedenborg’s special skill is God noticed it was time to
spread the facts what happened afterlife and the basic laws of correspondences
scientifically. Since he got the ability, he started to write what he observed
in the spiritual world until the age 84.
He showed many facts in the spiritual world such as what happened after
our physical body dies, how operates the spiritual substances into our mind,
there are laws of correspondences between physical or natural world and
spiritual world. There are three organs in our mind which is cognitive organ
and the function is cause of behavior or plan. Another one is affective organ
which is based on the will and the function is origin of behavior or
motivation.
Lastly, the sensorimotor organ leads us the
effect of behavior from both cognitive and affective organs and these organs
operates into sensorimotor organ as action. Before he
died, he wrote a letter with more details about what happened to him, what he
discovered, and what he observed.
My Reaction
This section was like the summary of what we learned so far and
autobiography of Swedenborg. This section reconfirms
me what theistic psychology is and what important facts in the theistic
psychological field are. I think theistic psychology is very different from the
psychological field because there is no class I took talked about the God or
Heaven.
However, I understand why people call the theistic psychology as
psychology because it talks about all human mental stages and levels which
similar to other psychological field. I can say theistic psychology is deeper
concept than any other psychological field because no one except Swedenborg can prove the facts visually or sensuously in
the physical world. Therefore, we have to take steps to understand the concept.
It means we have to create new ideas and understand correctly about our minds.
When we understand the basic concepts of theistic psychology, we can know
more about ourselves and our minds. Also the concept of theistic psychology
gives better understanding of what we are wondering about everything especially
in our functions of mind. The concepts of theistic psychology are all new for
me and I enjoy learning the new concepts and I think I have better
understanding of myself than before.
Question 6. Study Section 1.6.1 "Three Levels of
Behavior." Based on that discussion, and your own limited knowledge of the
field, explain the major differences between non-theistic psychology and
theistic psychology. You can also consult other Sections, e.g., Section 2.3
"Is theistic psychology really science?" at www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/theistic/ch2.htm#Q2
Non-Theistic Psychology Classes I took and in
the Textbook
I took cognitive psychology, personal psychology, psychobiology and all of
these are close topic of this section. I learned most of the famous
psychologists who the textbook showed in this section and I have little
knowledge about most of their theories. All famous psychologists showed what
happened or how functioned in our mind at certain point or certain situation.
They prove their theories based on many experiences to actual people. These
theories seem very different from theistic psychology, yet in the deeper view,
all of the theories talked about the basic theistic psychological views which
are cognitive, affective, and sensorimotor organs.
Examples
In the psychobiology class, I learned a lot about the parts of brain names
and how the brain reacts against the feelings. When people feel stress, the
synapse does not work as well as normal and make depression, nervousness,
anxiety or aggression. If it is in the theistic psychological view, the cause
is not only the malfunction of synapses but also how people choose something
and how people cause the stress in the mental level.
Another example is Skinner’s reinforcement behavioral theory. He
discovered how people recognize or understand themselves and surrounded
environment. His famous experiment was a dog dribbled away which called
response when the dog heard a bell ring because he knew he could get a meal
after the bell ring which called stimulation. Skinner repeated the experiment
again and again, then the dog became automatically dribbling when he heard the
bell.
This is same as human behavior. People get used to something and their
behaviors become automatically. This experiment obviously proved the reaction of
certain stimulation over and over and become automatic response from the
stimulation visually. In the mental level, how can I relate to the theistic
psychological view and this Skinner’s experiment? In the mental level, people
desire to certain stimulation, but when people desire to something, the hidden
meaning is God has a purpose of the reaction or behavior.
The Biggest Differences of Non-Theistic
Psychology and Theistic Psychology
All of these theories are based on the physical facts of proofs according
to each theory.
All of these theories are based on the sensorimotor
organ or behavior in the physical level, not in the mental level. Some theories
talked about the functions of brain but not mind. In the other words, the
functions of brain and how people react against certain points are all based on
the chemical movement and molecule level in our brain. They do not think it is
not only the physical world or physical level but also there is spiritual world
and our mind is built up by the spiritual substances.
In addition, all causes are correlated to God and every happenings are
what He wants or He thoughts the happen if it is necessary. The textbook showed
many terms relating to the cognitive behavior in some branches. I had heard
most of terms in other classes and these terms showed most of human behaviors
are in the level of affective organ and the affective organ correlate to the
cognitive organ. Freud discovered the emotion and thinking pattern based on the
visible experiments in the cognitive and affective organ, and these organs
affected the sensorimotor organ. However, he did not
talk about anything where the emotions and cognitive or affective organ
functioned because he could not prove it if he could not be conscious about
these mental levels.
Question 7. Discuss your answer of question 6 with a
friend or two. What is your conclusion?
Discuss with My Friend
Some of my friends are majoring in psychology and when I talked about
these things to my friends in the psychology major, they mocked me. They
learned a lot about the psychological theories and they have own perspective or
view in each theory. Therefore, my answer of question 6 was totally illogical
for them. I talked about theistic psychology a lot to them and every time they
could not understand most of the parts.
Then, I said to them that most of the theories of psychology relate to the
theistic psychology and I think theistic psychology has deeper view of all
theories. People try to avoid when they heard totally different view of thinking
from own perspective, so my friends deny my thinking because it is totally
different from their view. Yet I think if they open their mind in the cognitive
level, their way of understanding will become widely not only the answer of
this question but also their way of thinking.
Moreover, I finally realized my friends do not understand the theistic
psychological view because they have no drive to understand or know the concept
of theistic psychology. They think I am talking stupid things against the psychological
view. I gave up to talk about theistic psychology to them any more because it
is no meaning to talk about it if they have no interest and if they are already
negative bias before I started talking something about theistic psychology. Therefore,
I have to answer this question based on what I thought and felt.
My Opinion
I think the theories of psychology are based on the same principle of
thinking.
We can not determine which psychological perspective is and which is not
because all of them are proved as psychological theories. I might be able to
say all theories could be supporting theory of theistic psychology because
theistic psychology is deeper view of psychology as I said at the beginning. I
bet if these famous psychologists knew the theistic psychological view, they
would use the view with their theories if the Writings of Swedenborg
were published before they discovered their theory. In my view, the theistic
psychological view has that much power and effect into the field of psychology.
In addition, why people do not use theistic psychology often is because
all psychology classes are based on someone’s theory and if the theory does not
contain the theistic psychological view, they do not use it. I think this is
one of cause and effect.
Through studying theistic psychology, I desired if Swedenborg
could experiment in the physical world beside the interviews people in the
spiritual world. I could understand what he said and I think it is true, but if
he could experiment in the physical world, it might be more powerful evidence
and unstable facts to anyone.
I really wanted to show a visible proof of theistic psychology to my
friends. I know it is impossible because people are unconscious about the
spiritual world until our physical body dies. However, I thought if my friends
have better understanding of theistic psychology, they will be able to get
better thinking of their lives and their minds. And I realized why many people
have negative bias or why they try to avoid the theistic psychological view.
Question 8. Discuss the "transmissive model" (or
"transmission theory") of the mind by William James in Section 2.3.
He was familiar with Swedenborg's Writings from his
father, who wrote a book about him. Do you see a connection between substantive
dualism and the model of William James?
Transmissive Model by William James
The other words of transmissive
model is called cause-effect relation between brain and mind with the
dualism approach. What is the productive model in the neuroscience is “brain causes
the “epiphenomenon” of mind and consciousness.” (Section
1.6.2 Leon, James.) This idea is very different from theistic psychology
because the productive model is based on materialism and monist. The productive
model shows that the brain and mind is same level and the function of mind is
caused by the chemical movements in brain only in the physical matter.
On the other hand, transmissive model follows
the theistic psychological view that the mind is corresponded to the brain and
the mind is built up by the spiritual substances. In the transmissive
model, human being is dual citizen and when physical bodies die, their mind
enters into the spiritual world and their mind live forever in the spiritual
world.
In the section 1.6.2, William James stated about transmissive
model as “the dictum in physiological psychology that
"thought is a function of the brain.” William James argued that
human mind is not in the brain with some evidences. Human mind does not die
when the brain is destroyed or died. The mid is same concept as radio wave as
Skinner discovered but the biggest difference between Skinner’s discovery and
James’s discovery is in the physical or in the spiritual world. The radio wave
functions whenever it corresponds to the operation and the consequence.
Similarly, James claimed that the operation is spiritual substances to the
mind and the consequence is feelings and thoughts. If there is no spiritual
substance, the mind does not have any function. In the other words, whenever
the substances operate to the mind, the mind should keep alive even the
physical brain is died.
My Opinion
I thought it was very interesting and reliable discovery in the William
James because it is true if everything is cause and effect or operation and
consequence, as we learned so far, our mind is constantly receiving the
spiritual substances even the physical brain dies if we are born in the dual
worlds. If people understand the concept of dual citizens, they can not avoid
the fact otherwise they do not understand the concept of dual citizenship.
The radio wave example was very interesting because we can not see the
wave visually but almost all people accept the concept or fact of the radio
waves as a common sense.
Why? Because we learned a lot about the fact and we should accept the
concept because people used the concept over and over for improving or
developing the technology since Skinner discovered the fact. If people avoid
this discovery, I think the whole world would change.
Following this fact, it shows even people do not experience directly about
something; they can understand the concept naturally as common sense. Why the
theistic psychological view did not become as a common sense of the human mind
and body? It was because people did not accept any religious beliefs as
scientific evidence including the existence of God in the past. Therefore, the
new idea, theistic psychology, does not become as a common sense. However, I
think it might become as a common sense because it is very important to know
and to understand for us as human and as dual citizen.
Question 9. Discuss your perceptions of how other
students in this class (G25) are adjusting intellectually to the positive bias
perspective. Read some of their reports and include that with what you observe
in class.
G25 Other Students’ Views
According to the class discussion and their reports, some of them believe
own religion and I could see they have conflicts between own belief and the
view of theistic psychology. Some parts of the textbook tend to criticize the religious
beliefs.
For example, people who believe a religious belief understand the literal
meaning of bible in the literal sense, and religion forces to believe the
concepts to people. When the weekly reading reached the part, some students who
have religion could not accept the idea because they believe the religious
believe since they are in early childhood and the idea of their belief is
natural for them. Therefore, once someone criticizes what they believe, it is uncomfortable
for them.
I do not have any religious
belief and I have never thought deeply about God since I took this class, so
the concepts of this class are all new for me. I could not understand anything
at the beginning because I had no knowledge about God, but I think no religious
people can understand the concepts of theistic psychology more easily than
people who have own religion. This is because I can learn anything in the
theistic psychology without any concept and once I understand the concepts, I
can understand as new materials.
My Reaction from Students’ Report
I looked up some students’ reports and I found they have similar
expressions that the most important things to believe the God is lead
improvements of own conscience, right and wrong, and give happy lives to
people.
A student mentioned his parents always told him to distinguish what right
and wrong and the consequences of what he did. I thought conscience does not
have any relationship between God and people because conscience is not inherent
part. As he mentioned, the conscience is developed by parents, teachers, and
other environments. However, I realized that the conscience is not just an
acquired skill but contains the purpose to choose right things by God.
A student mentioned how God affects us and what God does to us is not so
important, the important things are people live better and happier lives depend
on their right choices. This is a brilliant idea for me. If people learn a lot
about the existence of God and understand every details and concepts about God
in either theistic psychological or religious, can they reach happy lives? If
the God affects us and everything is depending upon the purpose by God, people
who understand completely about Him should be happy. Otherwise the existence of
God has no meaning and no affection to us.
What I Could not Understand Before
and What I Understand Now
As I mentioned several times, the basic concepts of theistic psychology
were super hard for me. For example, the existence of God as a scientific fact,
afterlife, mental levels, etc were unfamiliar to me before. Dr. James said in
class once that all science should follow the theistic psychological views.
When he said, my reaction was “WHAT!?” because I thought what he meant was we
have to think everything based on the God. At that time, I still kept thinking
that the theistic psychology is kind of a religious belief. Now, I understand
that every feelings and thoughts are in our mind and these are correlated to
the God. Also the science proves natural objects or phenomena by the physical
tools. However, we have to be conscious that the idea and motivation of the
experiments and proofs are from your mind in the spiritual world. And the
spiritual world correlates to the God with some discrete degrees.
Section 1.6.3 to 1.6.8.1
Question 1. List between 3 and 5 criteria that theistic
psychology should have if it is going to make it as a science in the future. Briefly explain each and then give your assessment as to how theistic
psychology as you know it, stacks up.
Abstract of Each Criterion： What is Your View of Theistic Psychology as a
Science.
There are five criteria that theistic psychology should have in this
section.
The first one is organicity. Organicity
is the theory must insist that if there is no structure, medium, and substance,
there is no function.
Today’s psychological theories are based on the biological. Swedenborg reached this criterion as mental functions have
an organic operation. Not only in the theistic psychology but in all fields of
psychology, the definitions of feeling, sensation, and thought have to operate
or correspond each other with certain functions.
There are two sides about the organicity in the
science which is monism and dualism. The monism people are majority in the
science nowadays and the monism thinking is kind of a common sense. Therefore,
when someone asks where the mind comes from to monism, she/he will answer that
mind is a part of brain and the chemical firing creates people feeling and
thoughts.
The mind itself has any function is not real. Mind is produced by brain.
On the other hand, people who are dualism will answer the same question in the
different view of thinking. The basic dualism thinking is that people are born
in dual world physical and mental worlds and physical body and mind never mix
up together but they are always correspondence. Therefore, they do not say the
human mind is not a part of brain. Moreover, they will explain that the mind
operates to brain function, so mind is affecting to brain for making every
action.
According to these two sides of views, if theistic psychologists want to
permit the theistic psychology is a science; they have to argue against the
common sense or common conscious of science nowadays. And I think this fact is
why theistic psychology is not so popular into people. They have enough
evidences to support the theistic psychology as a science. If people could
understand the dualism concept, they will be able to understand theistic
psychology easily and they will turn into the positive bias mode.
Second Criterion: Objective Reality
I think this criterion is the hardest part to prove or accept theistic
psychology as a science. Swedenborg has only a person
who has special skills that experiencing to observe both spiritual and natural
world at the same time. Therefore, he could not share his observation with no
one because no one has the same ability as him.
As the result, many people think his observation might not be true because
it was too weak to confirm the truth in the natural world. However, we have to
think about this. Even only Swedenborg could see both
worlds and only he noted about the facts, if he made up a story of his
observation, it is too famous and stated too specific details.
I think many people understand and accept it is not just a made up story
by Swedenborg because if people think that way, his
theory might never become this much famous. And also we can not avoid the sense
of law of correspondences because it is too important concept to avoid for
human lives even we can not be conscious about it, we might know naturally
about the correspondence.
Fifth Criterion: Usefulness
The textbook showed this as a criterion with short sentences but I thought
this is very important to know and remember. Theory must be useful and
beneficial for human lives and theistic psychology is enough to be useful for
human lives. Swedenborg’s writing showed a lot of
important facts and he showed many facts what we always wonder such as where
the mind come from and where the mind stays in. Also his writing clearly stated
how the existence of God is important and how He affects our lives.
Question 2: What is the method of
psychobiological correspondence and how can it be applied in theistic
psychology.
The Method of Psychobiological Correspondence
In this section, the textbook showed many quotations by the Writings of Swedenborg. How do you describe you are alive now in the
physical world? You may answer that because I am breathing and my heart is
beating, or I have temperature. This is anatomical or physiological facts to
show we are alive. In the theistic psychology, the anatomy of physical body is
corresponded to the will and understanding, and love and wisdom.
As we explain the anatomical method of physical body, we have also the
issues of the biology of spiritual body. The physical body movements and
actions are consequences of movements and actions by the cognitive and
affective organs in the spiritual body. Swedenborg
gave the specific details about the correspondences between physical and
spiritual bodies. We receive love and truth as spiritual substances from God
and we are living by receiving these substances continuously.
What Love is and What
Will is
The love and will are not known well among people and people commonly take
the perspective of physical anatomy as human being is living because of the
functions of heart, brain, and lungs basically. However, we can not live
without love and will or love and truth from God. It is important relation of
the reciprocal conjunctions of will with understanding and the conjunctions of
love with wisdom. The love and will are closely related each other and these
causes operate to everything.
According to the quotation by Swedenborg, he
said the heart and lungs function because of the correspondences of will and
understanding and these will and understanding is the conjunction of the spirit
with the physical body. We can say in the theistic psychology, the spirit is
the will and understanding and these are unknown; therefore, the spirit is
unknown. If people be aware of what will and
understanding is, it means the spirit becomes known among people and people can
also understand the concept of reciprocal with the spirit and physical body.
My Opinion
This question was very tough to me because the quotation was very complex
and it seems going round in circles. The quotations showed the conjunctions of
will, understanding, love, wisdom, spirit, and
physical body.
However, the origin of these is only God and these are of course
correlated because the origin is same. In addition, this method applies to
everybody because our mental and physical bodies are basically same. We are
human being! When your mind feels happy, what will you do? You may sing, dance,
or jump. These actions are all from your mind. If these are separated, your
physical body can not move or act anything because there is no operation and
motivation to move your physical body.
The will conjunction with understanding and love conjunction with wisdom,
then these facts are equal to the soul of man. Therefore, when people are known
the soul of man, it means the love, understanding,
will, and wisdom are known among people. This is how the method of
psychobiological correspondences applies to the theistic psychology. We have to
remember everything is correlated each other in both spiritual and physical
worlds.
Question 3. What is the organic basis of human thoughts, emotions, and feelings?
Supporting Evidence that People are Born with
Dual Citizens
Before I talk about the organic basis of human thoughts, emotions, and
feelings, I have to mention about the basic concepts of dual citizens which Swedenborg emphasized about it evidently.
Swedenborg stated that the human beings are born into
two worlds; natural and spiritual worlds and people grow simultaneously in both
worlds. However, the human mind is in the spiritual world and the mind does not
die even when the physical body dies. When the physical body dies, it means the
natural body stops functions and gives up operating from spiritual substances.
We are living in the two worlds and the two worlds are separated but
corresponded before physical body dies. Then, the mind or spirit becomes center
of the human’s life after the physical body dies. The mind is conscious about
what experienced in the physical world after the physical body dies, but few
days after, the new mental organ is awake. People give up or forget what
happens in the physical world, and they become conscious about what is going on
in the spiritual world.
Even people forget what they experienced in the natural world; the
experiences ever wasted because people’s mental states and mental levels are
all depending upon what they experienced during the physical body lived.
The Organic Basis in Human Mind
According to the textbook, James Lange and Shachter
who are the famous behaviorists today mentioned that the human emotions are
just the physiological reactions in human brain. As I said above, the theory of
Swedenborg about human feelings and thoughts are
completely different from the behaviorists’ idea. The feeling and thought are
all from the spiritual substances.
The human mind has two organs which are cognitive and affective and these
two organs create or operate human feelings and thoughts Swedenborg
claimed. The spiritual substances are streamed out from the spiritual sun and
come into these two organs. As Dr. James repeated many times, the physical
world and spiritual world are not separated. The emotions do not occurred in
the physical world and these two organs operate to the physical world how
people should react to the emotion.
The organic basis of human feelings, thoughts, and emotions are all
depending on the spiritual substances and receiving these substances in the
affective and cognitive organ. These substances are same structures of heat and
light in the natural world. Everything in the physical world is based on the
natural sun and the sun creates everything including light and heat and we can
not live without the light and heat. In the spiritual world, it is exactly same
concept yet the natural sun is instead of spiritual sun and the heat and light
are instead of the heat and light.
This is very easy way of understanding this concept. Our physical body
receives the heat and light constantly and naturally even we notice or are
conscious about them. As we have heart, brain, lungs, etc. as physical organs
and have each function, our feeling, thoughts, and emotions are functions of
cognitive and affective organs. This is our organic basis of the feelings,
emotions, and thoughts.
Question 4. Study Section 1.6.7, which describes some
features of what life is like in the afterlife of
eternity. Discuss them. How do you react? How do your friends react? Is this
something to look forward to?
Thought of Ponder: Why Do People Have So Many
Different Way of Thinking?
Physical life and afterlife are not so different. What do you think about
death? What do you think about the view that the spirit is gone into when the
physical body died? Why cannot you accept and understand the existence of
afterlife and the concept of spiritual mind? In theistic psychology, people do
not talk about any new creatures but us, human. Why human beings are so
complicated and cannot people agree with one simple concept about the way of
thinking in the physiological field?
We are all same structure in our physical body, so do as spiritual body.
The gender differences and age differences in our body structures are
different, but most of our body structures must be similar if you call a person
is a human being. The reason why people have so much different ways of thinking
about human itself is because the cultural difference, social difference, and
religious difference. However, I think people have to be aware that everybody
contains same structures and functions both natural body and spiritual body. If
you understand this concept, you may understand more about the concepts of
theistic psychology.
In the Theistic Psychological Views of
Afterlife of Eternity in Section 1.6.7
Swedenborg listed some features of what life is like in
the afterlife of eternity. Let’s discuss about the 8 features.
1) People in the afterlife are not individual. It
means they can not think for own benefit, reputation, or selfish idea but for
general or in groups.
2) In the afterlife, everything is depending on
what you think and feel because the feature of existence is now turning to the
mind or spirit, so no one can lie.
3) Everything is cause and effect, and every
cause is by God. In the afterlife, every external environment is based on the
internal cognitive and affective status.
4) People who have similar affective status, it
brings interpersonal co-presence.
5) The person who is intelligence and had power
in the physical world has higher level of “good uses” which means the person
acts for people not for self.
6) There is no physical damage as disease or
injury but instead of it, there are deformations and nonfunctioning in their
mind if people have negative or wrong thoughts and feelings.
7) In the spiritual world, what you feel and
thoughts expressed immediately and other people can see what your motivations
are. Therefore, people tend to make effort to have “ruling love”, and match
every movements and actions with your motivation.
8) People in the spiritual world can not exist
separate from some group, and the other world is characterized by disparate
group evolution.
My Reaction
This section showed the difference between spiritual and physical world.
It was very interesting that people express their feelings and thoughts immediately
and other people notice if the person has bad one. I had a picture in my mind
about this situation as in the physical world. A guy wants to hang out with a
girl who is attractive to him, and he asks her to have a dinner. If people can
see his thoughts and feelings as in the spiritual world, people would see how
much he likes to her and people will warn him if he has bad motivation to have
a dinner with her. This is very peaceful because there should not exist any
cheating, lying, and deceiving.
Question 5. How do you react to the idea in Section 1.6.8 that "Sacred Scripture
Is the Source of Scientific Revelations"? Be sure to make a distinction
between the literal sense of Sacred Scripture (religion) and its spiritual
sense (theistic psychology).
Summary in Section 1.6.8: Sacred Scripture is
the Source of Scientific Revelations
The role of sacred scripture is that the God talk to us into our rational
minds through the sacred scripture. So many people since thousands years ago
are trying to discover new piece or meaning of Old and New Testament, but
people do not know these testaments are written with the Divine Style and
people might be able to understand rationally about it and discover the new or
hidden meaning of “Divine Speech.”
The Old and New Testaments are not only just a Christianity book but also
Sacred Scripture from the Divine Speech or from God. When you just read through
the Sacred Scripture, it means just a story or a novel. When you read the
Sacred Scripture, you have to have some motivation to understand or discover
the hidden meaning of the literal sense. If you have the motivation, you can
understand the concept rationally and you can see all of the words are quoted
by God. On the other hand, the New and Old Testaments are written about the
quotation from God in the most of parts; therefore, people would know what God
said just read through the Testaments.
Distinguish between Religious or Literal Sense
and Spiritual Sense of Sacred Scripture
Have you ever read bible or any other writing about certain religious
belief? Let’s say the bible states directly about what God said to us.
Therefore, people can read and understand what He said and what He wanted us to
know just read through the bible. Also the bible showed the historical events
and facts what happened in the physical world and the relationships between God
and us thousands years ago.
In addition, it was written
what right and wrong, what we should, and how we must be like. People can find
out what they should do in certain times and occupations if they believe deeply
into a religious belief according to the bible. On the other hand, the Sacred
Scripture contains not only the literal sense as bible but it contains deeper
or hidden meaning of God. People can not understand just read through the
Sacred Scripture and they need to think and understand rationally about the
real meaning of what it said. We have to take steps to understand rationally
about Sacred Scripture. The biggest difference between literal and spiritual
senses is beliefs of literal sense vs understanding
and accepting of spiritual sense.
The Relationships between Sacred Scripture and
Levels of Mind
The origin of Sacred Scripture is clearly what Divine Speech said. The
Divine Human created the worlds of physical and mental worlds and created human
beings. According to the textbook, it repeated several times that there are
some levels of mind. It starts from celestial (highest), spiritual, rational,
and finally corporeal minds.
Through these levels, we have specific capability to understand the Sacred
Scripture in certain levels. In the highest level of mind, people can receive
directly to the Divine meanings. There is also limitation that people can not
skip any level of mind, so they have to proceeding or improving their minds
levels. People are born with these levels of mind inherently. Therefore, all
people have potential abilities of rational understandings of Sacred Scripture.
They activate the potential or not is all depending
upon what they feel and think through their minds.
Question 6. Section 1.6.8 discusses how Divine Speech inflows into the mental world
by levels, and each level is lower in rationality than the level above it,
until it reaches the natural level of Sacred Scripture in a natural language.
Describe this process in your own words, as if you were giving a speech about
it to people interested in spirituality.
What is Your View of Spirituality?
Before I start to talk about the levels of the mental world, I have to ask
you what your understanding of spirituality is. When you are interested in the
spirituality, you must accept and understand the concept of dual citizen. We
are born into two worlds; physical world and spiritual world. The physical
world is which we can physically and consciously experience in this world. Look
at your next person. You can see the person’s face, right? It is one of basic
experience in the physical world.
On the other hand, the spiritual world is our feeling and thoughts. What
did you think when you look at your next person’s face? Did you think she or he
is cute? Did you feel he or she is a good person? These thoughts are in your
mind in the spiritual world. The spiritual mind grows up as our physical body
through many experiences through life. Even the physical body dies, our mind
goes into the spiritual world and live in there eternity. If you do not
understand your mind is in the spiritual world, you can not accept the concept
of spirituality.
Levels of Our Natural Mind in the Physical World
According to the textbook, there are several levels in our mind. Let’s
talk about the conscious level of mind which is the bottom level called natural
mind. We can only conscious about this level in the physical world and there
are three levels; natural-corporeal correspondences, natural-sensuous
correspondences, and natural-rational correspondences ordering bottom up.
The Old Testament is written with the natural-corporeal correspondences
which is the lowest level of natural mind and materialistic thinking. The New
Testament is written with the natural-sensuous. People who are in this level
understand the literal meaning of Sacred Scripture, God, society including
family and marriage, and heaven and hell. The Writing of Swedenborg
is written with the natural-rational correspondences. People can understand and
accept the hidden meaning of Sacred Scripture rather than the literal sense.
The human minds developed historically with these orders. When people are
born, we start out from the natural corporeal correspondences and develop
through the natural-sensuous level, then, achieve to the natural-rational
level. They can accept and understand rationally about God, society, marriage,
family, and the afterlife.
Levels of Our Mind in the Spiritual World
The highest natural mind, natural-rational level corresponds to the next
level of mind which are spiritual-natural and spiritual-rational correspondences
in the spiritual world. People who reach the natural-rational correspondences
have prepared to enlightenment or illumination from inner influx. After we
resuscitated, we become unconscious about the natural mind and spiritual mind
becomes conscious.
The spiritual-natural correspondences are equal to the first heaven which
our mind goes into there after resuscitation, then, the mind moves into the
second heaven with the spiritual-rational correspondences. The highest level of
our mind is celestial mind. In this level, the mind receives directly the
Divine Speech but it does not mean that the mind becomes God. No one can be God
because God is Divine Human but the closest level to God is in this level.
There are much more details about the levels of human minds, yet these
concepts are important basic concepts you should understand if you are
interested in the spirituality. The structures of our minds are very
complicated as our physical body but you can understand naturally as you
understand the structure of physical body because these are what we are.
Question 7. Discuss the 6 "Levels of Rational Mentality" in Section 1.6.8.
Can you comprehend these levels of thinking about God?
The textbook mentioned many details in each levels of mind but I could not
write about every specific detail so I discuss more details in this question.
My Opinion about Natural Mind
In our natural mind, our mind is already activated into two worlds since
we were born. This is amazing fact because we can live eternity since we were
born. When we were born, we do not realize the existence of God because we are
in the natural-corporeal level. In the natural-corporeal level, we can only
focus on the physical or material things in the world even when we think about
God or heaven the thinking is based on the corporeal thinking with five senses.
In this level, people think God as a harsh potentate or king who leads bad and
good things to them and they do not have any knowledge about afterlife.
The next level,
natural-sensuous correspondence in natural mind is people can be conscious
about the literal sense of Sacred Scripture including God, heaven and hell. In
this level, they understand the resuscitation and the mind live in the
spiritual world eternity. The Sacred Scripture is translated in the natural
language which we use daily, so people do not understand the hidden meaning but
they understand as natural language as other books. The highest level in the
natural mind is called natural-rational correspondences. In this level, we can
understand and accept that the existence of God and heaven is rational and
scientific. People realize what good and bad are, what conscience is, and what
rationality is. In this level, people can understand the hidden rational
meaning of Sacred Scripture. In my opinion, our physical body develops
naturally but we have to make effort and take steps to grow up our mental
levels. The mental levels are quite important and affective for our lives
because each level has capacity the way of understanding and thinking.
My Opinion
According to the textbook in this section, I realized when people are in
lowest level of natural minds; they do not think and respect how God affects us
and how He is important to us. They neglect the existence of God because they
do not have enough knowledge about God. In this level of people who believe the
existence of God might lead the idea that God created everything include bad
things such as disease, unlucky, war, and natural disaster.
However, it is not true because He is an omnipotent and He gives us love
and truth continuously. People who have this sense, they blame on Him to reduce
their sad, anger or depressed feelings. In the next level which is called
natural-sensuous correspondences, people can be better understanding about the
existence of God and afterlife, but they can only take the literal meaning of
Sacred Scripture which means it is not enough to understand the meanings of
Sacred Scripture. They become close to the rational thinking but there are
higher potential to improve their mind still.
I think I am in this level because I do not accept every part of theistic
psychology but I can understand the basic concepts. They become seeing and
observing what their minds are and what spiritual world is. I could get basic
knowledge about them and this is definitely acquired skills because if I did
not take this course, I would never think this way.
The highest level of natural mind is called natural-rational
correspondences. In this level, people can understand Sacred Scripture more
than the literal meaning. They can accept the ideas of theistic psychology and
they understand rationally about the hidden meaning of Sacred Scripture. When
people reaches to this level, they live in heaven inevitably because they
understand what conscience or good or bad are rationally and they accept the
existence of God which He affects our mind. I think people who reach this level
are few because so many people complain about society, nature, religion, etc.
No one acts like they know what conscience and what good and bad are
rationally. If everyone reaches this levels except
children, the society and the world on the Earth must be much better situation
than now.
Question 8. Section 1.8.9 discusses theistic science as an alternative to Bible-based
accounts of God and creation, which look only at the literal meaning. What is
your assessment of where this topic is going in the future?
Court Decision and My Reaction
The textbook showed that the discrete court decided to ban that teaching
religion in the public school because it is not science and it is supernatural
intervention. Government can not force children to believe religious belief, so
people should not teach at public school classroom.
According to the web-site, Intelligence Design referred as “ID appears to
think that God has arbitrary power, and can create any design that he likes,
and populate the world according to any chosen plan, but in reality it is not
this simple, or this arbitrary.” The ID takes positive view of theism but
theism is not enough to prove as a science. There are three supporting ideas.
The first one is the created beings by God needs concrete forms of
receives, digests and acts for living. It is not only the bio-engineering but
also supernatural power from God with love and wisdom. Second, God created
progressively to created beings. Therefore, growing processes deeply relates to
God but also the created beings evolution by themselves too. God did not create
human immediately and human beings evolution many times to create our shapes now.
God gave us the origin and chance to become human beings and human beings
repeated evolutions by themselves. I was surprise this decision because I
thought to teach religion was allowed in
Bible-Based Accounts
I looked up the web-site which Dr. James posted in the textbook and I read
the article; however, I could not understand the differences between theism and
theistic psychology. Because I do not have any knowledge about theism and he
talked about the substances and mental world too. Also Dr. James does not
reject his idea clearly, so the concepts seemed similar to theistic psychology.
Moreover, the ID does not deeply relate to theistic psychology I thought. It is
more focused on the social things but not theistic psychology.
Honestly I could not understand this question and the contents of this
section. Certainly, when I compare to the Sacred Scripture and bible, the bible
is more emphasize to meaning of literal sense but the Sacred Scripture tends to
emphasize the rational understanding more than bible. I felt when I remained
some sentences in the bible, I felt the sentences seemed force to believe what
the bible said because it was based on “what Christ did” and “What Christ said”
to people or for people.
I attended some bible study when I was child, I liked the contents of
bible because it was like a story about God, but nothing came into my mind
because I did not believe and understand what the existence of God is. When I
remained it, I felt funny because I rejected the existence of God since I gave
up to attend the bible study, but now, I am learning about God in different way
and thinking and I got many new knowledge about Him. I felt the theistic
psychological idea comes into my mind more powerful than the bible because I do
not read this textbook not just as a story but think deeper in the literal
sense.
P3, red.
Question 9. Now that you are nearing completion of the course, what has been the
effect of studying theistic psychology this semester? What is your prognosis
for continuing the study and its mode of thinking?
My Reaction about Theistic Psychology at the
Beginning of This Semester
As I said previous report, I do not have any religious belief and I had no
idea what “the existence of God as a science” means because I did not even
understand what God is. I had never thought about it seriously because I did
not have any opportunity to think about it. Therefore, I spent hard time to
figure out what God is and how God is important to people. I could not
understand why people seek the salvation to God even they can not actually see
and touch or can not prove even He has a power to help them. I could not
understand any piece of concept at the beginning. However, even I did not
understand anything this course gave me opportunities to think about what God
is.
My Reaction about Theistic Psychology Now
I can not say I completely understand everything about theistic psychology
we learned so far, but I am always trying to think about the concept with my
daily life. For example, when I learned that our feelings and thoughts are not
the movements of chemical molecules in our brain but in the spiritual world.
Then, I tried to figure out what spiritual world is. When I thought about it, I
recognized this thought is in my mind. I felt wow! Then, I recognized the
feeling “wow” was in my mind or spiritual world…mm… It was very interesting for
me because every my thoughts and feelings brought and seemed new discovery in
my mind.
I learned a lot about theistic psychology based on the textbook by Dr.
James and some other web pages and I got much knowledge about theistic
psychology now. I realized that I can apply this knowledge in my daily life
because everything is in my mind which is in the spiritual world. Through this
course, I think theistic psychology contains all answers of questions what I
carried about human beings such as why we have emotion and how we control or
react it. The emotion is in the spiritual world and the reaction or controlling
depends upon the choice of how we react in our mind and the physical body moves
following the decision. I think the physical and spiritual bodies are
corresponded and the origin of the spiritual world is God makes sense to me. I
think I can think about myself deeper and I could realize the existence of God
is really important for human being through this course.
Continue to Study Theistic Psychology
I turned into positive bias mode from completely negative bias mode now.
This is because I could get much knowledge about theistic psychology and I
could improve my understanding of theistic psychology. However, I do not
understand as the rational understanding and ability to persuade people turning
to positive bias from negative bias. I want to continue studying theistic
psychology because I feel I can figure out my existence and purpose of human
life through this study. As I learned, people need to improve their mental
levels for preparing the happy lives eternity in the heaven.
Section 1.8.1 to 1.8.8, and 2.3
Question 1. What are people talking about on the Web or in the media when they say
the "Bible Code"? Explain it, then show how
it differs in method and purpose from theistic psychology. Why is the Bible code called blind in relation to theistic
psychology?
What is “Bible Code”?
I had never heard the phrase “Bible Code”, then I searched what bible code
is on the Web. Many Web posted on this topic. They said that we can find hidden
words and meaning about our futures when we picked up equidistant letters in
the bible which is called “equidistant letter sequences (ELS)”. People found
some important events in the world for instance the assassination of
Also people criticized the idea of Bible Code because it might be too
subjective to find the meaning and the discoveries are following what happened
already, and no one can not prove what happens will occur in the future.
Therefore, people might try to match events which already happened and bible
code. This is not theistic psychological view.
Differences from Bible Code and Sacred
Scripture
As I mentioned above, the bible code might involve the researchers’
subjective views and different ways of translations of the bible. On the other
hand, Sacred Scripture does not matter whatever people translated differently
in the different language because people do not just read the Sacred Scripture
as a Holly book and they do not read just what the word said but in their mind
how they understand and think rationally about what the Sacred Scripture said.
There are “Correspondences of enlightenment” which means people improve
their understanding of spirituality. The understanding of Sacred Scripture is
not natural world or natural language which we use daily but the spiritual and
rational thinking in our mind. In the theistic psychology, people can not
understand and conscious about the concept of theistic psychology and Sacred
Scripture but people can learn and develop their enlightenment through required
steps. If people do not think enlightenment, they can not understand rationally
and spiritually the concepts of theistic psychology. We must study theistic
psychology and take certain or required steps to improve our enlightenment and
rational understanding.
My Opinion
I enjoyed learning this section because I had never heard about bible
code. Also this section shows me how we understand Sacred Scripture and
learning theistic psychology is so beneficial experiences for me. I understand
why people love talking about Bible Code because people love to know what will
happen in future and what a supernatural person as God prophesied what will
happen even thousands years ago.
The Bible Code seems to prove the Old Testament is real holly bible and
God knew or expected everything what will happen in this physical world.
However, let’s think about this way. Do you like puzzle? I thought the Bible
Code is very similar to complete a puzzle because the puzzle creates and
achieves a goal from so many different pieces. Or like mathematics because people try to find out one
systematical formula to lead one meaning. There might be more ways or it might
be found just accidentally.
The concept of bible code is very interesting to me but I can not take it
seriously. On the other hand, the Sacred Scripture applies into our mind
rationally and it is very beneficial for us because it leads and improves our
minds and enlightenments rationally.
Question 2. Explain the relationship between layers of
meaning hidden within Sacred Scripture and the levels of human mentality or
mind.
The Relationship between Layers
Every individual has four levels of mind and we can understand the hidden
meaning of Sacred Scripture in certain capacities of each layer. The levels of
unconscious mind are called “heaven” and the conscious mind is called natural
mind which we can be conscious about what happens in surround and what we think
and feel. When human beings are born, they already have these structures of
minds but we can only be conscious about the natural mind.
However, the Divine Speech descends through these levels and comes down
into natural mind. In addition, we have certain limitation of understanding
Divine Speech in each level and the capacities creates like a layers of meaning
hidden within Sacred Scripture.
Top-Down Order of Heaven
The highest level of mind understands the concepts of Heaven rationally.
The Heaven contains three levels which are third, second, and first heavens and
the bottom of first heaven is called natural mind which we can conscious about
in the physical world. The Divine Speech enters into the third heaven first. In
this level, the mind can understand the hidden meaning of Divine Speech with
celestial-rational correspondences. They can clearly understand what the
meaning of heaven the Divine Speech. In this level, the mind does not
understand the meaning of Divine Speech with natural language but in their
mind. The Divine Speech descends into the second heaven after the third heaven.
The Second Heaven, the level of our mind is called Spiritual-Rational
level. In this level, the mind is not completely but improving to understand
the spiritual level of rational understanding of Divine Speech. We are conscious
about the love and truth in this level. Then, the Divine Speech descends into
the first heaven. This is the lowest level of the heaven contains with the
“good spirit”. This level relates to the heaven and hell from the personal
choices in the physical world.
The Divine Speech emphasizes
the meaning of what heaven and hell is in this level, so people can understand
the meaning of these. I t is not only what heaven and hell is but also the
reason of existing the hell and heaven and the purpose of Divine Speech. The
purpose of Divine Speech is that God used it as a tool of scientific revelation
about the method of choosing heaven or hell. And when people know this fact, it
will help the process of their regeneration In this
level, people become conscious about what spiritual world is.
Natural Mind-Lowest
The lowest level of mind is called natural mind and we can understand only
based on the consciousness. The Spiritual Sun is only an object in the
Spiritual World and people understand this as the Spiritual Sun is shining as
the Natural Sun in the Spiritual World. In the natural mind, people can only
imagine the picture of Spiritual Sun in their mind and the proceedings concepts
of three levels of heaven are just like mathematic.
Dreaming is easy to understand what the Spiritual World is look like.
Let’s assume this way. When you are dreaming, you feel you are physically
walking across the street, but your physical body does not actually walk. So
how did you feel as you are walking? Where did the feeling come from? Dreaming
is one of the experiencing of Spiritual World I think. The mental world is only
one as we learned before, so we can meet anyone who is close to us in the
mental world.
Therefore, when you are dreaming, you would experience to meet unknown
people, right? It is because the mental world is only one and you see the
unknown person in the mental world. We can only read and think about the
literal meaning of Sacred Scripture but we can not achieve to find completely
hidden meaning.
Question 3. Explain the difference between material and spiritual ideas or concepts.
Explain this difference to a friend. What is your conclusion?
Materialistic Ideas and Concepts
As we discussed many times about the materialistic ideas, the basic
concepts of this idea is that any existence is only based on the physical and
material things. There is no existence if we can not prove or experience it.
According to the dictionary, the definition of materialism is “the belief that
only physical things really exist.” The criteria of prove something based on
materialism is people can be conscious about something based on the physical
five senses, can run experiments, and everything is existing by physical
substances.
Spiritual Ideas and Concepts
The ideas and concepts of theistic psychology are clearly not
materialistic. The basic concepts of theistic idea are our mind is in the
spiritual world which can not be conscious physically by five senses. Theistic
psychology is focus on not the physical things but spiritual and mental things.
It is very difficult to prove scientifically if Swedenborg
did not have ability of consciousness about the spiritual world and physical
world at the same time because if he could not observe it, we can never see
what is going on in the spiritual world. The origin of scientific proof of the
theistic psychology and the concepts are based on the observations and notes by
Swedenborg.
The Differences between Materialism and
Spiritualism
I discussed about this with my friend. We argued a lot about Swedenborg’s observation is powerful and reliable enough to
prove theistic psychology or not. My friend said if she can become conscious
about the Spiritual World as Swedenborg, she could
understand the concepts of theistic psychology even any specific details.
However, no one but Swedenborg could observe it and
she thinks it is not powerful enough to support and prove the spiritual world
scientifically. Also she is materialism because she can perceive what happens
or happened something by five senses.
If someone proves something materialistically, it means everyone can be prove it by physical sense, but if it is spiritualistic,
people can imagine what happens or happened but everyone can not prove it. Only
people who are spiritualism or who have special ability
relating to the proof. It is not reliable. The biggest difference between
materialism and spiritualism is where our feeling and thought come from.
Materialism says it is based on the movement and transfers the chemical
substances in the brain. On the other hand, spiritualism says it is based on
spiritual substances in our mind and the substances operate to the physical
brain.
My Opinion
I talked about this topic a lot through this course and I still can not
find the answer. However, if everything in the world is only physical
substances, there are too much unproven things which people could never prove
them.
When I discussed with my friend about materialism vs
spiritualism, my friend said “I am materialism side!” but when I asked her “But
you are afraid about ghost, right?” then she said yes. It was very funny
because ghost does not prove any scientific revelation, and if she is
completely spiritualism, she does not have to worry about ghost. I think
materialisms want to prove anything by physical sense because there are too
many things they can not prove. It is challenging and no scared if scary or
mysterious things was proved scientifically. However, I think the world is not
so simple as materialistically, so I take spiritualism side.
Question 4. Explain the assertions that "there is only one mental world and we
are all in it". How do you understand this? What difficulties did you
encounter when trying to explain this assertion to another person? What is your
conclusion? What are the consequences in your mind of this assertion?
Meaning of “there is only one mental world”
According to the textbook and class discussion, the mental world is only
one and we are all in it. Let’s think about this way. The physical world
contains time-space matter, and we are born and die physically or life span. So
how do you describe the natural or physical world? Do you think there is more
than one world in this physical world?
As we learned several times, the shapes of our spiritual minds are look
like the physical body and the spiritual world is also similar structure. What
this means of only one mental world is there is no time-space matter and people
live in the spiritual world without lifespan; therefore, people live in one
world as physical world eternity. It does not matter when or where they died in
the physical world so thousands millions spirits live in the spiritual world.
Remember, the concept of one world is just like the physical world is only one
on the Earth. This is my understanding about only one mental world.
Difficulties to Explain about This
I understand that people can not understand this concept when they hear
first time because I had no idea why Dr. James and the textbook said there is
only one mental world. The difficulties of explaining are how much people
understand the spiritual world. Let’s assume I explain about this concept to my
friend who does not have any knowledge about afterlife and spiritual world.
When I explain this to her, she will not understand the basic concept of what
spiritual world is. Many people are materialisms and they think when people die
physically, it is the end of their lives. Therefore, my friend will reject any
concepts of spiritual world even I explain many times with details.
Let’s assume this way, my friend is Christian instead of materialistic
idea, she will be able to understand the concept based on the Christianity
thinking way of heaven. However, it is totally different from Christianity
heaven and theistic psychological heaven or spiritual world. Christians believe
that people will enter into heaven after the physical body dies. Then, the
spirit will be cured by God and they will spend happy lives in there. In the
theistic psychological view, the heaven is already in our mind and there are
levels of heaven, so people have to improve their levels of minds after their
physical bodies die. Heaven is not a goal of human life,
it is just a starting line of their lives I could say.
My Conclusion
I have no religious belief, so I can understand and assert this concept
that the mental world is only one. However, I think if people who have
religious belief will hard to understand this concept because they have already
their strong perspective about afterlife, heaven, or spiritual world. It is
true that the mental world does not contain any time-space and our minds enter
into the spiritual world after our physical bodies die, we can live in there
eternity. The meaning of eternity is very important for this concept because no
one will disappear from spiritual world because their minds live forever even
the shapes or levels are changing. As the physical world, I am no wonder why it
is only one mental world. I have very clear view about this concept.
Question 5. What is regeneration? How do you relate to the idea of character
reformation in your own life? How do you imagine yourself as a "reborn
self"? Would your friends like you better? Would you be a better citizen
or student?
Regeneration
According to the theistic psychological view, we have heaven and hell in
our mind and we are living in heaven or hell. We choose so many choices through
life for surviving, eating, socializing, own benefits or selfishness, etc. And
all choice relates to live in heaven or hell. Every choice contains hellish or
heavenly traits and it is based on whether we live in hell or heaven in our
mind. The character reformation is very important necessity process for purpose
of Divine Speech in the physical world. The character reformation is a tool of
our happy lives in the spiritual world immortality. The biological regeneration
is equal to the process of preparation for heaven. Character reformation leads
our enlightenment and it means we can get the ticket to live in the heavenly
life after we resuscitate.
The Examples of Character Reformation in My
Life
When you choose something, what is your factor of your decision? The
factor might contain our own benefits, selfishness, supremacy, hellish or our
future plan, kindness, good, love, and truth. Always
your choices depend on the situation, emotion, and purpose. When I learned the
concept of living in the heaven or hell in my mind, I measured my hellish and
heavenly traits based on daily choices.
One example is I was depressed two weeks ago and I ate a lot and threw up
every day. At that time, I had a rough skin, gained weight, always felt tired,
and unhappy. Then, I thought the cause. I knew a certain cause of the
depression but even I have a certain cause, my depression might be brought by
my choices. When the cause is occur, I was really sad and I tried to reduce my
stress by eating, and I was gaining weight. Then, I started throw up for
reducing weight. As a result, I had a rough skin, lassitude, stressful and
unhappy.
Let’s think about what the cause of my hellish traits. The first hellish
choice was I could not confront the cause. I think there are no “if” in
anyone’s life if it is already happened. But “if” I confront against the cause
of my depression, the coincidences would not happen. And I could realize that
only one hellish choice lead a lot of negative coincidences. Now I am ok and I
realized this fact! I think the heavenly choice was I chose to take this class
because if I do not know the theistic psychology, I could not know everything
is heavenly and hellish traits and always cause and effect. If I do not realize
this concept, my situation might be worse. To improve my consciousness about
theistic psychology leads me to heavenly choices and develop my enlightenment I
think.
Reborn Self
Before I took this class, I believed that we are reborn into later
generations after we die. This thinking is based on the Buddhism or Shintoism. God gives us a chance to have better life than
before if people did good, and if people did bad in present, they will reborn
into worse status or world in later generation.
However, I think the reborn self is all depending on my thought and
feeling. We can actually reborn our selves because once we are born, we hold
our spirit and mind forever. Therefore, the meaning of reborn self is improving
our mind and step up into upper levels of our mind. If someone says “You can
reborn”, I want to keep myself because I am learning and improving right now. I
had many hard experiences through my life but I decided to live in this world
and I want to improve more and more. Therefore, I think to reborn self means
improve own mind.
Question 6. Describe the three methodologies used in
theistic psychology. Explain the levels of extractive research. How are these
levels related to our mental anatomy or organs? How do you understand all this?
What is the potential significance of this method for generating new scientific
knowledge?
“Extractive research is applied to the natural-rational correspondences of
the literal meaning of the Writings Sacred Scripture.” (Leon, James. Section 1.8.4)
The First Level: Natural Correspondences
The Sacred Scripture contains “naked truth” which is higher order
correspondences intermixed among the natural correspondences. The researchers
are exposure the literal meaning of the words in the Writing of Swedenborg as the scientific revelation. Students and
Scholars have not focused on the naked truth, so conflictions
of meaning occurs and it forced people as a dogma or faith blind. The
first level of extractive research is find the meaning
of naked truth in the literal sense in the Writing of Sacred Scripture. In this
level, people research and focus on the word in the Writing of Swedenborg with natural-rational correspondences not like
other researches which are based on the religious belief of Church or Bible.
Second Level: Spiritual Correspondences
This level is higher discrete level than natural correspondences called
spiritual correspondences. We have to figure out the deeper understanding of
literal sentences of Sacred Scripture in the natural correspondences by the
spiritual correspondences. People who study extractive research can lead to
bring out the enlightenment and receiving the spiritual correspondences from
the natural correspondences. We have to advance our enlightenment through
certain processes. The first step is you have to motivate about the character
reformation that rearrange and match your all thoughts and principle and your
doctrine.
My Opinion
Honestly, I do not understand this concept. I read this section several
times but I could not understand because I have no idea what this is talking
about. The extractive research has three levels and the first one apply into our natural correspondences and the second level,
it apply the literal meaning of Writing of Swedenborn
into the spiritual correspondences. We can develop our enlightenment by
learning and proceeding certain steps. Once our
enlightenment is improved by learning, our views of Sacred Scripture can get
close to more rational thinking.
Question 7. How do you understand the expression
"style of Divine Speech"? How do you understand the assertion that
"Divine Speech exteriorizes to the next layer of the mental world"?
How does this affect you as a unique individual today? Give the "specific
content of Divine Speech". How do you react to the fact that this is what
God wants to talk to us about or teach us? Why are these
things called spiritual? How important are these things to society and
the human race?
The Style of Divine Speech
The Style of Divine Speech is the speech contains several different
discrete of meanings and people can understand the discrete meaning depending
upon the person’s mind level. The Divine Speech exteriorizes come down to the
natural mind and the correspondences lead to operate following the discrete levels
at the certain level of mind.
“Divine Speech exteriorizes to the next layers
of the mental world”
First Heaven
According to the textbook, after our physical body die, our mind
resuscitates and enters into the first heaven which we still conscious some
parts of self-identifications in the physical world and this is called the
first heaven. This is lower and next layer of the second heaven. In this level
of mind, the mind is based on the spiritual-natural correspondences. Their way
of thinking is based on their identifications among their own community. Their
mind in this level is called “good spirit.” In this level, the good spirits
need to practice and improve many types of social activities which are unknown
on the Earth except ideal. The good spirit is based on the preference and
activities in the physical world still.
Second Heaven
Our mind becomes unconscious about anything about the physical world and
becomes conscious about the spiritual world. In this heaven, we become
conscious about that every thought relates to the Truth and Rationality of the
Divine Human. Swedenborg talked people who are in
this level and the spirits are called angelic spirits. When he talked to them,
their thinking in the spiritual-rational correspondences of Divine Speech was
like unknown as the structure of science on the Earth.
Effects the Individual Unique Individual
Following these facts of the levels of heaven, our physical or conscious
life on the Earth corresponds and affects to the status and existence into these
heavens. If the physical world and mental world are totally different and if we
give up everything about what happened in the physical world, we do not need to
live in the physical world. However, our mind is based on what experiences we
got in the physical world and our mental state is all depending upon our
self-identification.
Specific Contents of Divine Speech and My
Reaction
According to the textbook, the abstractions of contents of Divine Speech
is a scientific and rational explanations of laws of correspondences following
the Divine Order, anatomy of the human mind, vertical community, afterlife
including heaven and hell, and other details about our individual and mental
consequences. When I saw the lists of the contents, I think the Divine Speech
leads to give ideas about what human being is, how human being was structured,
and the levels of minds including many specific details in each level.
Through many class discussions, the Divine Speech and the Writings of Swedenborg do not only show the scientific facts about our
mind, spiritual world, and structure and anatomy of our spirit, but also these
give us an opportunities to think about oneself and lead us how we improve our
mind level with certain processes. You would think about these concepts even
you understand only literal meaning of Sacred Scripture, and I think it is
better than nothing if you got an opportunity to think about these things. Also
the Divine Speech leads the purpose of our existences with scientific
revelations. I think these are very important for us and we should explore more
about these.
Question 8. How does theistic psychology stack up as a
science, according to its own criteria and definition?
The List of Criteria and Evaluation of Sacred
Scripture
The textbook shows 13 criteria to evaluate the Writing. Let’s answer each
one.
1. Is it rational?
I think the Writings of Swedenborg is rational.
The Writings are completely new to scientific perspective because I think no
scientists tried to prove the existence of God based on their observation. Swedenborg’s writings are based on his observation and
consistence; also he showed lots of experiments he run. This is completely new
idea for me and I was confused about this new idea at first, but I got much
knowledge about Sacred Scripture and told me what I was wondering about my
minds.
2. Is it comprehensive?
If he just said “I got an ability to observe two worlds and the spiritual
world is like something something.” It is not
powerful enough because he might create the story about spiritual world, but he
showed many correlations between physical and mental worlds with specific
details scientifically. In addition, I felt that the Writings did not only
focus on our mind but also our physical bodies and he proved these were corresponded
by the laws of correspondences. It was clear explanation and understandable to
me.
3. Is it integrated?
I think it is because he had never talked about human being as unity. He
had never talked like the discrimination against ethnicity, race, status,
religion, etc. He only mentioned what our mind and physical bodies are
structured and the relationships between human being and God.
4. Are the concepts and phenomena presented
rationally and empirically?
I believe what Swedeborg experienced is true, so
I think his Writing is enough as rationally and empirically but I understand
many people can not accept his experiences because no one can prove it
physically. If you understand the mental world, you might be able to understand
his writings rationally. In addition, if there are more than one person who
could have an ability to observe both Spiritual and Physical world at the same
time would be more powerful to support his perspective strongly.
5. Are there experiments in which controlled
conditions are used?
I think if Swedenborg could experiments anything
in the physical world, it would more powerful because people tend to believe
and accept easier and stronger something based on the physical sense than their
thoughts and feelings. However, he showed what he talked people in the
spiritual world and comparisons about New/Old Testaments and his observation. I
think he did not control any consequence, so his experiments are reliable.
6. Are there actual interviews with real
people?
Yes, I think so. I can say people who are in the spiritual world can be
called real people because they keep living even their physical bodies died.
And one of his strong evidence to prove his observation is what he interviewed
people who were in the spiritual world. If he did not show any interviews with
these people, these concepts are weaker.
7. Under what conditions can the reports be confirmed by others?
He gave very specific details about what he saw and what he experienced in
his report. There is no contradiction and he never changed or corrected what he
said about spiritual world.
8. How useful and important are the facts and
information presented?
He showed how God affects our lives and how we have to do in this physical
world and also in the spiritual world. He gave us the motivation of living in
heaven in our mind and it is based on our happy eternity life in the spiritual
world. He gave us a lot of information about why we are living and how God
affects us. Nothing is waste and we have to be aware everything relates to God.
When we learn about theistic psychology and develop our rational thinking, it
is short-cut to live in the happy life.
9. Are there inconsistencies in the data, in
the definitions, or in the explanations?
As I said above, there is no inconsistency and this is why his report is
reliable and powerful. He had never changed his report because what he observed
were facts and could never change.
10. Do the explanations fit together in a
comprehensive theory or rationale?
I think the explanations are comprehensive theory and rationale because he
stated rational order of what happened and contained the relationships with
historical events and factors. He explained clearly what he experienced and
what he understood rationally. He explained the facts with examples and his
experiences, so it helps more powerful evidences.
(avoid two questions which do not relate with
this topic)
11. Is there any reason to doubt any part or
portion of the reports?
I had many discussions about theistic psychology and Swedenborg
with my friends and I realized even there is no part of doubt, people can not
understand any of them because of their own beliefs. The theistic psychology is
not a religious belief, so people do not have to force to accept the concepts,
so we can not say “this is a fact about spiritual world and you should believe
this as a fact” as religious beliefs. Therefore, people who do not have any
motivation to understand the concept of his writing will not change their mind
because they can not reach to discover the hidden meaning of Sacred Scripture
and they can never understand the observations and experiments by Swedenborg are facts.
Question 9. Who was Swedenborg? Give a brief
description of what you know so far. Should one believe Swedenborg?
Does it depend on belief or rational understanding and proof? What benefits are
there in studying Swedenborg's theistic psychology,
which is hidden within the literal sentences of the Writings Sacred
Scripture that he authored. Do you think he knew that
his sentences were Divine Speech and contained infinite knowledge that the
human race could never exhaust?
What I Know So Far about Swedenborg
We learned a lot about Swedenborg and in this
section; Leon James gave more details and bibliography of his life. Emanuel Swedenborg is the first and only person who had ability to
see the spiritual world and the physical world at the same time. He was born in
Then, he worked for the Swedish government and he traveled widely as a international reputation. He studied as a bible scholar
and he became one of famous genius scientists. He interpreted it the most
rational and scientific way. He created a hypothesis through studying the bible
that God must have created spiritual and physical worlds. This is the origin of
his theistic psychological view of dual citizen. Then, he started to write
books about the mind-body connection.
When he was 57 years old, he wrote that Jesus Christ appeared to him and
told him that he was mature enough to have an ability to see both spiritual and
physical world at the same time. It was the Divine mission. He started to write
science books about what he observed and experimented in the spiritual world.
This was totally new and unique way of thinking as scientific facts. He
describes the mysteries of God, and replaced by the rational explanations of
science.
Do You Believe What Swedenborg
Said?
I can not say people should or should not believe what he said because
this is not religious belief, and if people accept his books as scientific
books, I think it is freedom to accept or not. However, I think if people know
the idea of Swedenborg, it is very beneficial for
their lives. I know it is difficult to believe the fact that he could have an
ability to observe the spiritual world but once you read the Sacred Scripture
and think rationally about what he wrote, you might not care about how he
discovered only if you understand it rationally. And also if you think the
concepts are very affective for your life, you will accept the concept for your
beneficial life.
As other scientific facts, everybody does not have to agree the concept. I
think all scientific facts have both negative and positive bias, and this is
why scientists experiment a lot for proving the fact. Once the fact become as a
common sense, people will not take negative bias mode any more, so if the
theistic psychology interpenetrates into people’s mind as common sense, they
will not argue any more and they will accept just naturally.
My Opinion
I think the Writing of Swedenborg is very
beneficial for human life. Through this course, I get many opportunities to
think about myself and my mental state. Moreover, I get knowledge about what
the purpose of human lives. At the beginning, I can say I was in the bottom
line knowledge about the existence of God and human mind or I could say I even
had no time to think about them.
Now, I feel like I matched my physical body and mental body together. I
know it is correspondences but the concept of spiritual and physical bodies
make sense to me. On the other hand, I understand many people can not
understand or accept the Sacred Scripture and the existence of God. It depends
on what they believe, so it is free to choose they accept this concept or not.
And I do not say if your choice is to reject this knowledge, I do not think it
is hellish traits because if you say it is hellish, it means you force them to
believe or accept this concept. And I do not think God wants to do that way.
If you really understand the concept and if you believe this is really
beneficial to everyone, this theistic psychological view will spread and come
into society in the future without any force. I want to learn more about
theistic psychology and I want to improve my mental level for my happy life!