Outline for Week 8

I. Spiritual Consequences within our Natural Actions (L.N. 6.3.1.1.1XIII)

A. Level 3 Thinking

1. No separation between spiritual and natural because of cause and effect relationship.

2. Various examples

a. Eating too and exercise too little (<cause) will lead someone to become overweight (<effect)

b. Drinking too much alcohol leads to a state of impairment while behind the while may then in effect cause an accident to occur and someone ends up getting seriously injured.

B. Cause and Effect relationship--cause always present within the effect making it happen.

1. Example: If you are running a marathon and feel as if your legs are about to give out, but you don’t want to stop running because you have trained too hard to quit now, your cause is your training which in effect will motivate you to push yourself harder and deal with the pain knowing that such a pain is only temporary and the finish is near. If however you make the decision to stop running before you get to the finish you have gotten rid of the cause and the effect is a feeling of disappointment in yourself for the cause has disappeared with the effect when you decided to quit running for whatever reason.

C. The Term “within”

1. Cause remains within the effect

2. God is present within everything

3. refers to discrete degrees within not in physical space or time.

4. Cause are discrete degrees higher or within effects and also in correspondence with the laws of correspondence

5. All natural events exist as effects of spiritual events

6. God manages things through Divine Speech starting with spiritual events

D. Level 1 and 2 thinking

1. We tend to focus on external behaviors (only effects)

2. Natural not spiritual

3. Example: Murder

a. Bank robber killing vs. security officer killing bank robber

-we must always reflect upon the intention of hurting another human being for the sake of our own benefit versus killing another human being for the sake of good and order or to prevent others from harm.

E. Economics of Immortality

1. Second Death: compelled to choose giving up hellish enjoyments if going to our eternal spiritual heaven

2. Level 3: Understand that hell is not a punishment because God doesn’t punish.

3. Rather hell is a choice.

4. Vertical community: The DP will attempt to direct person away from anti-truth and anti-good through the intermediary of those who are already in their heavens.