Report
6
Psychology
459, Spring 2008, Generation 27
Instructor:
Dr. Leon
James
By:
Paula
MacCormac, Brilliant
Gomez, Yuko
Ono, Yuriko
Watanabe
Section 1: Lecture Content
Free Will, Heaven and Hell in
the Levels of Our Mind
According to Swedenborg, living
here in this natural world represents spiritual equilibrium, which is free
will. Our spirit is said to be our mind, and this spirit lives on even after
our natural death. From there, we can either move on to our heaven or hell.
That being said, during the time that we are alive (naturally), our spirit
exists in the gap between heaven and hell (where we have free will). In this
gap we receive exhalations of evil and goodness, which gives us the option of
becoming more like one or the other.
Within this gap, there are compass
points where oneÕs spirit can reside in. Towards the north reside the spirits
who lack knowledge, towards the south are those that are intelligent. Towards
the east are those who are receiving good from the Lord (for that is where the
spiritual sun is), and those towards the west are deemed wicked. The spirit can
still move from place to place in these regions, but it is up to the person to
move himself in different ways. For example, if he chooses evil, he will be
moving his spirit more towards the west, whereas if he chooses good, then he
will be moving closer to the east and closer to the Lord.
Chart B
Within the lecture notes consists a
chart, known as Chart B, which shows what is known as the vertical community
and its function in creating heaven and hell in the human mind. The chart is
presented below.
The chart shows the two levels of
operation, that is, the natural mind (the lower level) and the spiritual mind
(the upper level). Within each of the levels of operation exist our affective
and cognitive organs that make up the spiritual body.
When we are born we are predisposed
to evil, which makes it easy for us to be drawn more towards hellish
lifestyles, which consists maintaining selfish motives. Failure to pull away
from this tendency, to fight it and attempt to rid ourselves of hellish traits
will ultimately lead us to an eternity in our mental hells. However,
what makes our natural hells in our
mind is not heredity and culture, but rather our own actions. Should we justify
our evil tendencies, so that we no longer think that they are bad or hellish,
then we have created the natural hells in our mind. In the same way, what makes
our natural heavens is not just by harboring our good intentions and motives,
but by practicing it, which is when the cognitive organ acts in coordination
with our heavenly intentions and motives.
This section of notes helps me to
understand how our mental heavens and hells are formed, as well as where our
spiritÕs place/location is within the gap between heaven and hell. Since a lot
of theistic psychology focuses on concepts that are not so easy to picture as
drawings or images, it helped to know about the compass points and how our
spiritÕs location within those four points can show whether we are closer to
God or to hell, as well as whether we are lacking knowledge or are intelligent
(with regards to religion, theistic psychology, understanding of Sacred
Scripture, etc.). I also find that I can understand how the vertical community
works, and how we ourselves define our heavens and hells. Clearly, just because
we have the intent and motivation to do good, does not mean that we are being
heavenly. We need to act upon in and practice it, and know that we are being heavenly in order to truly create
our natural heaven in our mind. On the other hand, should we do bad things and know that it is bad, we may still be able to change and
become more heavenly. But should we justify our hellish actions to make
ourselves truly believe that it is not hellish, then we have created our hells.
The Divine Psychologist and Our
Character Reformation
The Divine Psychologist interacts
with each and every one of us in order to reveal spiritual truths that we can
use in our rational understanding to fight our false ideas, fantasies, and
evils. When we are armed with our rational understanding of spiritual truths,
we can undergo spiritual enlightenment, which will lead to later reformation and
eventually regeneration.
The Divine Psychologist also builds
up the heavens in our spiritual mind. Every time we do something good, such as
deciding to go to class instead of sleeping in, we experience a heavenly moment
of happiness or innocence. In theistic psychology, this is referred to as
ÒremainsÓ. The Divine Psychologist stores these remains of heaven into our
spiritual mind, where we can then have access to them after resuscitation. This
becomes our spiritual heaven, and it is important to understand that you can
only have these remains through feelings that you yourself have experienced, so
that after resuscitation you will recognize them as familiar. It is your job to
face spiritual combat and resist our inherited hells, so that you can go through
experiences that will add up to your remains in your spiritual heaven.
Should we decide to instead give in
to our inherited hells, we become more connected to our spiritual hell each and
every time we do. Also, by ignoring your conscience and by justifying the evil
or hellish things we do, you are destroying your remains, so we must take care
not to do so or else we would have no feelings of heavenly moments of happiness
after resuscitation.
I found this section of the notes
to be truly wholesome and meaningful, mainly because so much of it is easy to
relate to with regards to our everyday actions and feelings. It makes so much
sense that every time we feel that ÒheavenlyÓ feeling (for example, of doing
something good for someone), it is stored by the Divine Psychologist for us in
our spiritual heaven after resuscitation, multiplied by a thousand. When trying
to imagine heaven, IÕm sure that we all think different things, all which focus
of something good and beautiful. However, upon reading this, I can see
perfectly how all those good experiences we have can be our heaven! Also, I can
understand how failing to do those good things or ignoring our conscience when
faced with a decision to do something good or bad, can destroy those remains.
Should we have no remains at all, that would then truly be a hell. I do wonder
though – is there also a mechanism that works the other way? For example,
do our hellish feelings and experiences get stored up too, where we later
experience them a thousand fold after resuscitation? That is surely a thought
that would strike fear into people, and which might make them want to revert to
trying to resist our inherited evils.
Societal Consequences of
Individual Effort
Chart C in this section of the
notes presents a diagram in which one can see the heaven and hell on earth (as
a collective effort), as well as the heavens and hells based on individual
effort. Basically, it is a chart that shows the organization of heaven and hell
in the human mind. As stated in the previous sections, our hells in our natural
mind are built up when we justify our evil actions or motivations, to make us
believe that it is all right to do or that it is not really evil.
Also, the heavens in our natural
mind are built up every time we practice good and truths according to
correspondences and rational understanding from Sacred Scripture. Our affective
and cognitive organs receive spiritual heat and light, respectively, from the
spiritual sun. We can receive it in a heavenly order, or turn it into a hellish
one by distorting it or inverting the light/heat into its opposite hellish
order.
On an individual level, we can
exert effort in our daily experiences to involve heavenly or hellish traits.
When we become enlightened and understand that we are born dual citizens in the
natural and spiritual world, we can incorporate such ides into our daily life,
which can become positive or negative. These eventually can then be transformed
into the societies of heaven or hell. As Swedenborg describes from his visits,
both societies were very distinct, however both mental collectivities were
inhabited by individuals that had common hierarchies of loves and the truths
that they understand which form their external reality – some of which
were heavenly, as in the heavenly societies, and the others were hellish.
Section 2: Presentation on
Readings
(1) Explain the components of
Chart B in Section IV
Jeremy Haire explained Chart B, which represents a
vertical community and its function in creating heaven and hell in the human
mind. The spiritual mind locates as an organ in the human heavens (layers 4, 5,
6), which is unconscious while we are still attached to a physical body on
earth. We are conscious in the natural mind (layers 9, 8, 7) and built the
conscious knowledge with ideas and experiences through socialization. Jeremy
said that our natural mind and spiritual mind are corresponding and interacting
each other. The abilities we have through our affective and cognitive organs in
our natural mind cannot be functioned without the mediate influx from both
heaven and hell into our natural mind.
As chart B show, we are born with
both natural mind and spiritual mind within our affective and cognitive organs.
Three mental organs, which are affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor organs,
make up the spiritual body and correspond to the three physical organs,
circulatory, respiratory, and the nervous and skeletal systems, which
also make up the physical body. Mental organs and spiritual body are spiritual
construction while the three systems of the physical body are natural
construction. After resuscitation, we leave the physical organs and body but
these three mental organs continue to live in a spiritual world in eternity.
Though spiritual and natural mind
are two distinct minds, the spiritual mind develops along with the natural
mind. We will be conscious of the spiritual mind after resuscitation (the first
death) and at the second death, when all the memories and cultural
personality from the natural mind are removed, we will choose only one ruling
love, either hellish or heavenly. Chart B represents the
formation of these two ruling loves while we are in the physical world with
physical body and conscious in the natural mind.
As Jeremy explained, our value vary
depend on where we live, socializations and cultures. Human are born with a
hellish love to be selfish and act for the sake of oneself only. In the natural
mind, we are staying between hell and heavens where we are free to choose to
act either hellish or heavenly. We are experiencing our natural heavens
(regenerated layer 8 and 7) when we feel good, while we are in our
natural hells (layer 8 and 7, not regenerated) when we feel bad.
It is important to remember that
neither heredity nor culture makes our hell in our mind. Our justifications for
the hellish trait, which make us feel it is okay to do the hellish deeds,
creates the natural hells in our mind. On the other hand, we also can make our
natural heavens in our mind as well. It needs the actualization in practice
(sensorimotor), which requires the coordination of our will (affective) following
by the thinking of doctrine of truth (cognitive).
What is right (heaven) and wrong
(hell) have to be determined by the Doctrine of Truth, that we can acquire from
Sacred Scripture with the help of the Divine Psychologist. We need to know the
heavenly characters and intend and think heavenly manner. Character reformation
and regeneration can be done with spiritual temptation, which are produced and
managed by the Divine Psychologist.
Personal opinion:
It was not hard to understand the Chart B because it clearly
shows how our havens and hells are created. We are in the between spiritual
heavens connected to Grand Human and natural hells connected to Grand Monster.
We are always receiving the influx of spiritual good and truth from Spiritual
Sun. However, our connection to the Grand Monster is so strong and we often
enjoy our hellish deeds. Most of the time, I think we know if the activities
are hellish. This is why we justify these behaviors to make us feel okay to
keep doing it or even as if it is good things. Once we justify and keep doing
it, it becomes our routine, and once it became our habit, it will be harder to
stop it. Therefore, I think it is very important to give up and stop doing it
with rational thinking before starting to do it.
(2) Explain the process of
interacting with the Divine Psychologist as discussed in Section V
Charyse Iseri presented how the
Divine Psychologist interacts with each individual. Divine Psychologist brings
each of us the spiritual truth, which allows us to think rationally and to win
the spiritual combat. He does this because He is motivated by Divine Love.
Spiritual mind will open up through reformation and regeneration, which let us
have heavenly life in eternity.
Divine Psychologist creates the
heavens in our spiritual mind as it is described in the Writings Sacred
Scripture. The word "remains" used in Sacred Scripture means all the
heavenly moments we experiences in our natural mind. Divine Psychologist keeps
and stores these remains of each of us for our life in eternity. Charyse gave
us an example. A person in front of you dropped everything like books and
notebook, would you pick up and help the stranger when you are in hurry? If you
felt to help the person, the Divine Psychologist will store the heavenly
feeling for your eternity.
She also explained the important
point that we have to ÒownÓ the heavenly feelings. We are responsible to the
heavenly remains only if you ÒownedÓ them in the physical world. The feeling
has to be oneÕs own, not created by anyone else so that after resuscitation one
will find these heavenly remains stored by Divine Psychologist something
familiar and can accept it as own. Each individual uniquely creates his or her
heaven because these are the feelings and impulses one has actually experienced
and stored by Divine Psychologist for that person. However, your remains will
be shut down if you are not willing to face spiritual combat or ignore the
voice of the conscience in the physical world.
Reformation of the cognitive mind
and regeneration of affective mind starts in early adulthood and continues
lifelong process of regeneration. Divine Psychologist arranges all social
events. If you deliberate evils, which means justify and stay in the hellish
order, which is connected to the society of the Grand Monster, you will create
your hell in your mind. However, if you give up all the hellish enjoyments and
traits, which have been accumulated in your natural mind, Divine Psychologist
will put these evils to sleep. You will have new natural mind and your
spiritual mind opens. He always provides the opportunity for us to become
regenerated and live in the heavenly order.
Layer 7 is the interior-natural
mind, which was created by the Divine Child during the Incarnation Event. Since
He made it in Himself, all human beings are born with this mind. This mind is
more interior than other two natural mind, layer 8 and 9, which are connected
to inherited natural hells. It is very important to grow this interior-natural
mind through spiritual combat for your character reformation and regeneration
with the help by Divine Psychologist. Layer 7 thinking and willing allows Him
to regenerate layer 8 thinking and feeling, and the regeneration of layer 8
does this for layer 9. Now, oneÕs natural mind has become a heaven in physical
world, which will be a heaven in eternity after resuscitation.
If oneÕs natural mind remains a
hell in physical world, then natural heaven cannot open and develop. OneÕs
spiritual mind remains closed and spiritual heaven will not be formed. After
the resuscitation, one will wake up in the hells in eternity since one has been
conscious in the natural hells while living in the physical world. The hell in
eternity will be far worse than the natural hells.
Personal opinion:
It is good to know that Divine
Psychologist keeps our heavenly traits for our life in eternity. I felt that He
really works for each of us and help us to have heavenly life in eternity
because He loves us. What I need to do is to own heavenly thoughts and feelings
as much as I can in everyday. Through self-witnessing and self-monitoring, I am
willing to face the spiritual temptation because I never want my remains in
eternity to be shut down from me! Divine Psychologist will help me and put my
hellish traits sleep only if I am willing to give up the hellish enjoyments.
(3) Explain the components of Chart C as discussed in Section VI
Jeremy described the components of Chart C. It represents the
process and the organization of heaven and hell in the human mind, both
collective and individual level. It shows how Spiritual Sun divided into
spiritual heat and light, and received by the two mental organs as receptors.
Spiritual Sun provides the spiritual good and truth to the spiritual mind.
Spiritual organs in the spiritual mind are activated by these good and truths.
These good are called spiritual heat and these truths are called spiritual
light.
Jeremy explained that we all
receive the Spiritual Sun but we can choose our own heaven and hell. It depends
on our will, thought, and the action. When we love the truth, it works to
promote our regeneration and heaven. However, just knowing and understanding
the truth in an abstract manner does not work for regeneration. We are
receiving the good of the truth in the affective organ when we love it. Then,
we intend and plan in the cognitive organ, and finally, we actually act it in
the sensorimotor organ.
Though spiritual ideas in layers 6
or 5 are unconscious to us in a direct way while we are still connected to our
physical bodies, they elevate our understanding in the conscious natural mind
(7C). When we are conscious of this process, we feel the delight. Now, we use
the new perspective with the ideas or issues, which we are consciously involved
with in daily life (layer 8, 9). These issues can be both positive and negative
as Chart C shows.
Heavenly and hellish traits locate
separately and isolated in our natural mind. At the individual level, each of
us stands in between heavenly and hellish traits, and experiencing both
everyday. Good and truth are received as a collectivity at the collective
level, which are all managed and maintained by the Divine Psychologist for the
human experience and their mental development.
Since the mind can develop and grow
endlessly in eternal future, there will be more and more variation of the human
race. There are diversity in the heaven because human are so diverse. Varieties
of spiritual collectives receive their own influx from Spiritual Sun. They are
maintained in development and growth as a collectivity. According to Swedenborg, heavenly habitations or
collectivities are called as Òsocieties of heaven.Ó Each society is unique and
has its own identity, and the individuals who inhabit in same society are all
unique as well. However, they have a common hierarchy of loves and they all
understand same truths and form their external reality such as government,
cities, or daily routines.
Personal opinion:
As Charyse explained for section V
that we need to ÒownÓ the heavenly feelings, we need to love the spiritual
truth for our regeneration. I thought this is very important point. Everyone
can know the truths as one of the ideas even though he or she does not agree
with it. However, when we are free to choose, we choose what we love. If we
only know the truth but love the hellish enjoyments, we end up choosing the
hellish traits and therefore, our mind will not be regenerated. It was
interesting to see the process of heaven and hell both collective and
individual level as Chart C shows. It really makes
sense that there are diversity in heaven just like human are diverse. We
learned that each Òsocieties of heavenÓ has unique identity, but the people in
the same society have a common hierarchy of love and understand the same truth
but I thought it works in this physical world as well. Each of us has unique
personality but we tend to be close and form the group with the people who have
similar values and ideas.
Section 3: Team Presentation on Exercises
(a) Summarize the main
ideas presented by the team.
Being part of the group that presented the exercises
portion of this section. I had great trouble trying to grasp the concepts
that were in the lecture notes. The main ideas that were suppose to be
presented were the ideas of the ÒFree WillÓ and its origins, the concepts of
Character Reformation and Societal Consequences of Individual Effort.
Free Will originates in the spiritual realm and is
GodÕs way of exercising his omnipotence. We are unaware of its existence
because as Swedenborg claims:
Òas regards his mind he is surrounded by spirits, is
that the spirits, in whose company he is in the spiritual world, think and talk
spiritually, while so long as a person is in the material body, his spirit
thinks and talks naturally.Ó
We are also introduced to Character Reformation this
is what happens in our early adulthood. As Dr. James says ÒWhen we
struggle to apply spiritual truths to our thoughts and feelings in daily life,
we undergo spiritual enlightenment.Ó
Lastly, Societal Consequences of Individual Effort.
Dr. James says, ÒThis refers to the realization and understanding that we are
born dual citizens in the natural and spiritual worlds, and that heaven and
hell are in our mind from birth to eternity.Ó Also claiming that, ÒWe can
then make use of the new perspective by incorporating it into the ideas or
issues that we are consciously involved with in daily life (layer 8, 9). As the
Chart above (C) shows, these issues can be positive or negative.Ó
(b) Describe what they did and how they interpreted
it.
The Following was the
instructions to the assignment:
(1) Goggle the expression
"Divine Psychologist" (in quotes). You will get about 50 to 60
results. Type out notes summarizing how this phrase is being used.
Now go to the end of the
results and click on
In order to show you
the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 52
already displayed. If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included.
(2) Now you are shown 200
more results. Summarize these additional pages. Focus especially on pages that
relate to Section V that discusses the process of interacting with the Divine
Psychologist. Type out notes.
And this is what was
required of us to do:
Present your information to class. Use the interview
format with one student introducing and asking questions, as in an interview,
and the other two students giving answers from the information you gathered.
Then take turns so that each student plays both roles.
(c) Describe some of the ideas that needed a better
justification or greater amplification.
The concept of ÒFree Will,Ó I still need for myself
to find clarity in this concept. I still feel like a puppet on a string
knowing that my choices and will is ÒmanagedÓ by the Divine Psychologist.
(d) What was the success of the approach they used?
Paula did a really good job with the exercise.
Showing the different types of scenarios where the Divine Psychologist was
portrayed on the internet and how others had claimed to be under his spell.
(e) What improvements are needed in the procedures or
in the instructions?
For myself, it was difficult for me to incorporate
the exercise with the lecture notes. The instructions really did not give
a clear understanding of the objectives. With the multitude of content on
the internet it is quite difficult to sift through the mostly irrelevant pages –
it is like the proverbial Òneedle in the haystackÓ problem.
(f) What are the limitations of these types of
exercises?
Again, as I stated above, it is sifting through the
garbage to find the treasure. It takes too much time – we are the
instant gratification generation – to sift through over 200 results to
find the few that are relevant to the topic.
(g) Describe what happened when you did some of the
steps of the exercises.
I was overwhelmed with
information. I did not know where to begin reading to find the relevant
content on the internet that I needed to do this exercise. Basically, I
just gave up and was willing to take a zero for the assignment. Was I
lazy? Perhaps. Did I want to spend time looking for the needle in
the haystack? Heck no! I had much rather play with my son.
That was my logic.
Section 4: Weblinks
1.
http://www.gotquestions.org/levels-heaven.html
Are there
different levels of Heaven?
2.
http://harvardmagazine.com/2004/09/heaven-hell-and-profits.html
3.
http://mars.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/wc2/lectures/enlightenment.html
This website refers to the intellectual movement of The
Enlightenment, which advocated reason as the primary basis of authority. It
mentions that the enlightenment spiritualized the principle of religious
authority, humanized theological systems, and emancipated individuals from
physical coercion. It was an age of reason based on faith, not an age of
faith based on reason.
4.
http://www.apuritansmind.com/William%20Ames/WilliamAmes%20TheEssenceOfGod.htm
The Essence of God
This website mentions about the accommodating language of the Bible by Dr.
William Ames who was known and quoted in the colonies of the New World for his
theology more than Calvin and Luther combined. It is talking about the
essence of god to see the nature of God.
Purify Our Mind
I found out this website is interesting because it tells us that the most
important thing in our life should be gto
purify our mindh.
It tells us the way how to purify our mind, we need to first broaden ourselves
with activities of compassion, full our mind with beautiful thoughts and so on.
Also, it mentions that the good and bad: the good or bad is all depended on our
mind.
6.
http://thebeautifulthoughtsofgod.com/
The Beautiful Thoughts of God
The message which is this website says that the bible which is gthe good bookh is truly good because
it contains within its pages the Beautiful thoughts of God. The author
makes sense that we say what God meant and that God meant what we said.
7. http://www.newmantoronto.com/031102prayingforthosewhodied.htm
Paying For Those Who Have Died
This website mentions that life
can be so complicated that it is not clear exactly how we should love or even
what love means in a particular situation. There is a tremendous consolation in
knowing that in heaven all the old hurts are healed and the limitations are
removed.
8.
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro01/web2/Costello.html
Altruism: Selfless or Selfish?
This website tells about the issue of altruism who are here to help others.
It talks about Hamiltonfs
rule, altruistic behavior, self-destructive behavior performed for the benefit
of others, and self-sacrificing behavior with the expectation that the favor
will be returned eventually.
9.
http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Life_and_Death/id/218253
Life and Death: Prevent the Influx of Karma Particles
This website mentions that the word Jain which means conqueror, implying one
who has overcome all human passions. It likes a summary about Jainism has
its own unique theory of conduct and Karma.
10. http://india.indymedia.org/en/2003/03/3603.shtml
The Forbidden Truths of the Insane God Myth
This website talks about the insane god myth which is the most toxic plague to
have ever infected and affected the human species. It mentions about the
origin and genesis of the insane god myth. The essay starts that there is
no such entity as god, belief in the existence of god is the manifestation of a
toxic, mental disease, a plague if you will, that societies overtly and
deliberately infect all of their citizen-slaves with, most specially and
outrageously targeting all children for this malevolent infection.