Talking With Your Divine
Psychologist
Report 6
By: Praew
O’Connell
Co-author: Noah
Purington, Charyse
Iseri, and
Jarrett Ku
Psychology 459, Spring 2008, Generation 27
Dr. Leon James
Instructor, University of Hawaii
Link to Class Home Page
Section 1: Lecture Content
By: Charyse
Iseri
Lecture Content- Section IV, V, VI
Free Will, Heaven and Hell in the Levels of Our Mind
According to Swedenborg’s writings, so long as a person lives in the world, he is kept between heaven and hell, and he is there in spiritual equilibrium—this is known as free will. Free will originates from the spiritual world, where a person’s mind is also kept by the Lord. A person’s mind is his spirit, which lives after death; and his spirit is constantly in company with spirits in that world who are like himself, while his spirit is equally by means of the material body surrounding it in company with people in the natural world. The reason a person does not know his mind 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. Spiritual thought and speech cannot be understood or heard by the natural man, and vice versa; this is also why spirits cannot be seen either. When a person’s spirit associates with spirits in their world though, he joins them in spiritual thought and speech because his mind is inwardly spiritual, but outwardly natural. So, its interior permits him to communicate with those spirits, and its exterior with men; it is this communication that allows a person to perceive things and to think about them analytically.
The spiritual world consists of heaven and hell. Heaven is overhead and hell is beneath the feet; not in the middle of the globe which men live on though, but beneath the lands of the spiritual world. Between heaven in hell there is a wide gap, which to those in it looks like a whole world. Into this gap there rise from hell exhalations of evil in boundless profusion, and from heaven there flows in good in boundless profusion. Everyone is as regards his spirit in the middle of this gap, for the sole purpose of allowing him to have freewill.
From childhood to old age, everyone changes his place or location in the world of spirits. Everyone in the spiritual world has his dwelling place determined by compass points. The east is inhabited by those who have good from the Lord. The north is inhabited by those who lack knowledge, the south by those who are intelligent, and the west by those who are wicked. The person himself is not kept bodily in this gap or mid-region, but in his spirit. As his spirit changes its state, approaching good or evil, it is moved to places or locations in one or the other quarter and comes into company of those who live there.
Chart B- The Vertical Community and Heaven and Hell
Chart B gives a general account of the vertical community and its function in creating heaven and hell in the human mind. The spiritual mind is the organ in which the human heavens (layers 4, 5, 6) are located. While we are attached to a physical body on earth, our spiritual mind is unconscious. Our awareness and conscious knowledge is located in the natural mind (layers 9, 8, 7) which is built up by ideas and experiences we have through the physical body (layer 12). It is not suspected that this mental life in our natural mind could not be built up without the unconscious spiritual interactions we have with the vertical community through our spiritual mind (layers 6, 5, 4) within our spiritual body (layer 10).
This chart shows that human beings have two distinctly different levels of operation. The lower level is the natural mind and the upper level is the spiritual mind. When we are born, we come equipped with both these levels within our affective and cognitive organs. There are levels of operation in our mind, specifically in our affective and cognitive organs, that make up the spiritual body. There is also a sensorimotor organ; and all three of these organs (systems) correspond to systems in the physical body, namely the circulatory, respiratory and nervous/skeletal systems. The three systems of the mind and spiritual body are spiritual in construction, while the three systems of the physical body are natural in construction. When the physical body dies, the three physical systems no longer operate; however, the three mental systems do and continue on in eternity (outside time and space). The spiritual mind develops along with the natural mind, but each distinctly in their sphere. The natural mind is conscious and develops from sensory and cultural input through the physical senses, which the corporeal (layer 9) can monitor and react to by correspondence. The spiritual mind is unconscious while we are tied to earth, but it becomes conscious after resuscitation. So, after resuscitation we are conscious in our spiritual mind, but we still have all of our memories and cultural personality from the natural mind. We eventually undergo a second death, and it is a this point that we are compelled to choose between our two ruling loves: a hellish ruling love or a heavenly ruling love. Chart B shows how these two ruling loves are built up in us while conscious in the natural mind during our life on earth through the temporary physical body.
We are born with heredity and a culture that predisposes us to willing do evil. Modern life of mass society and competition make it so easy for us to maintain a life of negativity and selfishness; however, we live daily trying to find a balance, alternating between our hells and heavens in our natural mind. We are in the natural heavens of our conscious awareness (layers 8, 7 having been regenerated) when we feel good, energized, enthusiastic, hopeful, confident, altruistic, honest, sincere, prudent, wise, and motivated to be creative and useful to others, society, humanity and God. But our consciousness is in our natural hells (layers 8, 7 not having been regenerated) when we feel sad, depressed, fearful, tired out, exploited, displeased, angry, vengeful, mean, insensitive, cruel, dissatisfied, unmotivated, destructive, selfish, egotistical, tyrannical, violent, murderous, deceitful, hypocritical and/or foolish.
It is important to note that it is not heredity and culture that make our hell. What creates the natural hells is the justification of the evil tendencies that we make, so that we no longer thing they are evil or hellish. Whether it is a hell or a heaven though, it is created by the conjunction or coordination of the affective and the cognitive organs acting together as one disorder. The intention or tendency in the affective organ cannot actualize itself in our mind until it is justified, and then confirmed by action. Having either a hellish or heavenly mindset is not determined by one’s philosophy or self-intelligence (which may vary endlessly from person to person and time to time); but by the Divine Psychologist through Divine revelations given to the human mind through Divine Speech or Sacred Scripture. So, we need to manage our character reformation by first knowing what the heavenly character is (enlightenment), and then struggling to intend and thinks only that which is according to heavenly order (regeneration). This process of progressive character reformation and regeneration is managed and created by the Divine Psychologist through his presentation to us of spiritual temptations at different levels and intensities.
The Divine Psychologist and Our Character Reformation
Divine Love is the motive of the Divine Psychologist in interacting with each individual mind. The Divine Psychologist reveals spiritual truths to each mind so that people can use that truth in their rational understanding to fight their false ideas, fantasies and evils. When we struggle to apply spiritual truths to our thoughts and feelings in daily life, we undergo spiritual enlightenment. Reformation of the cognitive mind and regeneration of the affective mind begins in early adulthood. This is followed by the lifelong process of the regeneration, during which we create a new character by daily self-witnessing and self-modification disciplines.
The method by which the Divine Psychologist creates or builds up the heavens in our spiritual mind has been revealed in the writings of Sacred Scripture. The literal of Sacred Scripture uses the word “remains” to refer to all the heavenly moments of happiness and innocence that we may experience on some days in our natural mind. As infants and children we go through mental states of innocence in which the Divine Psychologist manages our focus to and motivation to go in a heavenly direction. It is in these heavenly states of mind that the inherited evils can be kept from becoming active. The Divine Psychologist stores up these “remains” of heaven in the spiritual mind (layers 6, 5, 4) where they will be waiting for us after resuscitation. So, it is important to remember that as we go through life that we do not destroy our remains—either by systematically and cumulatively ignoring the voice of our conscience or by building a philosophy of life that denies the existence of a heaven and a hell in the afterlife. When we experience an impulse to help someone in need, this feeling is a heavenly feeling and it is stored by the Divine Psychologist as remains in our spiritual mind.
Every time we do something good, in each of those moments there is a feeling of heaven that the Divine Psychologist deposits for us in our spiritual minds. And these feelings are our very own feelings, so that when we feel them again in eternity we will accept them as familiar and as our own. It is not feasible for the Divine Psychologist to fill our spiritual minds with heavenly remains that are not the feelings we ourselves have had or experienced; for if He did this, we would wake up at resuscitation and have no heaven to be in since our heaven must be what we create. And the same idea goes for our hell. All of our evil intentions, justifications and actions are deposited into our natural mind and keep it fixed in the hellish order that is opposite to the spiritual mind. Our daily life moments are alternated from a hellish order in our natural minds to a heavenly order in our spiritual minds, between evil feelings and intentions and heavenly feelings and intentions. This alternation is accomplished through being alternately connected and disconnected to either the hells or heavens in our vertical community. When we experience an evil impulse, we are being activated by the evil intentions and cravings of those who already live in the hells of their afterlife and who are in our vertical community by virtue of the similarity of our thoughts and feelings. If we give in to that impulse, those in our vertical community in the hells experience a fulfillment or consummation of their desires. If we can stand to let go of every single hellish trait and enjoyment accumulated in our natural mind, then the Divine Psychologist will put these hellish traits to sleep, along with the entire natural mind. However, if we cannot stand to let go of our ruling love and sub-loves that are hellish, then all the heavenly order and remains that we accumulated will be put to sleep, along with the spiritual mind.
Chart C- The Organization of Heaven and Hell in the Human Mind
The influx of spiritual good and truth from the Divine Psychologist through the Spiritual Sun enters the spiritual mind and activates it. The affective organ is activated by spiritual heat (good), while the cognitive organ is activated by spiritual light that surrounds the spiritual heat (truth). These two immortal substances in the mental world of eternity are from God in infinite variety. As the stream into the mental world they are received by the affective and cognitive organs at each layer, but in a different way. The mental organs have been created by God to be able to function as receptors for spiritual heat and light. The organ of the eye in the physical body is the receptor for spiritual light, and the organs on the skin are the receptors for spiritual heat. The eye and vision correspond to the cognitive organ and understanding, while the skin and heat correspond to the affective organ and the will. When spiritual light is received by the cognitive organ, the person is given the ability to rationalize; in which they are then given the ability to think and reason in the natural mind in different ways in each layer. When spiritual heat is received by the affective organ, the person is given the ability to choose, have free will and voluntary action.
There is a powerful dynamic tendency for the affective and cognitive organs to act in coordination with each other. The spiritual mind is in heavenly order because it is being built up by the Divine Psychologist through the remains of good that we freely will to do. Our remains of innocence cannot be destroyed; but as previously mentioned, they can be shut down by our unwillingness to regenerate and refusal to love them. The spiritual heavens are created within our unconscious spiritual mind by the Divine Psychologist, but only to the extent that it can act as one—that the affective and cognitive organs are fully coordinated. The truth we love and want for the sake of regeneration can be built up by the Divine Psychologist into heaven in our mind, if we also love the good that goes with that truth. To love the good of that truth means to receive the good in the affective organ (to intend and will it), to plan and then do it.
Section 2: Presentation on Reading
By: Jarrett Ku
Presenters: Charyse Iseri, Jeremy Haire
Components of Chart
B:
The responsibility of presenters was to review Chart B and its levels. As discussed in class, this cart depicts the passage into the higher (or lower if grand human) levels from the first death. When we “die” (or moving to the spirit world) we pass into an enlightenment period where we are taught the truth of the afterlife. At this time, the soul goes through regeneration toward its pure form determined by ruling love. However, this pure form may be damned or destined for the grand monster as this plane is granted though humans freedom of choice.
I believe that I should mention at this time that the class had covered that we are connected to people of the grand human and the grand monster. Reformation is when our soul chooses its true love, and therefore guided to its place in eternity. In relation to the chart, our natural minds need to be filtered in order to process in the ways of the spiritual seen in the transition to the second death.
Influx:
Influx is the act of Divine Psychologist regulating souls, people, everything and anything in the physical or mental world of eternity. The influx is made of love and truth, this makes logical sense as our motives are driven by what we want (love to a degree).
The group covered the Divine Psychologist’s immediate influx and regulation of our passing into the spiritual world. We accept the fact that God regulates our lives on the physical plane, but we need to consider his power in the spiritual world. The spirit is allowed to decide its loves all the way until the second death, and thus is reactive toward the Divine Psychologist.
On a personal level, I believe in a regulation of the physical world with the mental as there have been coincidences in my life that made me question the probability of such an event happening. Aside from how illogical the conclusion, I believe that it would be equally obtuse to ignore such occurrences.
Levels of the
Mind:
Chart B shows two discrete levels of mentality, the spiritual and natural. In class, we discovered that we are born with both of these “minds” or attitudes and their corresponding affective/cognitive processes. An interesting correspondence is seen in the brain itself as the brain has two parts, namely the cerebellum (natural) and the neocortex (complex/emotions or thoughts).
Discussed in class, the spiritual mind becomes developed as the natural mind progressing through spiritual combat. Our progression through these layers depends upon the individual’s ability to move towards betterment thereby allowing the Divine Psychologist to rid us of influences of the grand monster. This leads onto the discussion of reformation-
Reformation:
From our childhood, the Divine Psychologist stores our purity for when we become conscious in the spiritual world. The question, then, is of those who move toward the grand monster. Dr. James describes the phenomena; the people whom are connected with the grand human force the Divine Psychologist to put their spiritual mind to sleep.
Our purification is broken down by our ruling love established in the spiritual world of the grand human/monster. If we are destined for the grand human, the Divine Psychologist puts our hellish traits to sleep. Additionally, all of our good deeds are stored in these regions of our heaven (hence “our”). Our class discussed that heavenly traits may not coexist with hellish ones in the same, purified soul. This said, our second death may be considered our final judgment where we have to side with what we truly love.
Chart
C & Variables:
The group covered correspondence of societies on this planet and trends to heavenly/hellish traits. As there is a contrast between sociology and psychology, we see parallel affects upon good and bad traits of collective or individual efforts. In the discussion, we had covered that our mentality is the root of good or evil. An example of this is the classic story of robbing a bank. A man, who loves his wife dearly, can’t afford her life saving medications. If the motivation was for the wife to survive for herself (opposed to he wants to save her to cook for him) then the deed may be deemed as a heavenly act (or at least not as bad as robbing a bank for crack).
Following this stream of consciousness, most societies promote the idea of acting for the sake of others. Laws, schools, and families provide many opportunities for an individual to naturally, thus spiritually grow. The next thought that comes to mind is that not all people are provided equal opportunities on this plane (prove as we do not choose when or where we are born). Most people, however, are balanced between good and bad (discussed in spiritual economics).
Section
3: Presentation on Exercise
By: Praew
O’Connell
(a) Summarize the
main ideas presented by the team.
The main idea of this exercise is
to find out about the meaning of
“Divine Psychologist” that have been used on the internet and how it
similar or different from the meaning that we have learned in class and how
other people think about the Divine Psychologist and also be able to relate the
term with our lecture note. The exercise term for lecture 12 was presented by
Praew O’Connell, Brilliant Gomaz and Paula MacCormac. The exercise was based on
the concepts and idea from the Section
V: The Divine Psychologist and Our Character Reformation. They have to
google the expression “Divine Psychologist” (in quotes) and look at the page
that relates to the lecture content in Section V. First, they have to Google the expression “Divine Psychologist”
(in quotes). For the first 50 to 60 results, they have to type out summarizing
how this phrase is being used in other sources beside the one from our class
content. After that they have to 200 more results and summarize these
additional pages. They have to focus especially on pages that relate to Section
V that discuss the process of interacting with the Divine Psychologist and type
out the summary.
(b) Describe what they did and how they interpreted
it.
The exercise term have to
present the presentation by using the interview format with one student
introducing and asking questions. Each student has to create his or her own
questions and answer. One has to be the interviewer and the other two students
giving answer from the information you gathered and then take turn so that each
student plays both roles.
First,
Gomaz was responsible for interviewing both of the teammates. I was the first
one answering the questions. On my part I was responsible on finding the
“Divine Psychologist” on google that related to the idea on the Section
V. The things I found that seems to relate to the process of interacting
with Divine Psychologist was on the student report for this class. This student
interpreted in Theistic Psychology, we know that when we talk about Divine
Psychologist we mean God. In Theistic Psychology, we view the Divine
Psychologist or God as an omnipotent and omnipresent. He is seen as the creator
of all because he creates everything in the Universe including us human beings.
The process of interacting with the Divine Psychologist begins when we are
prepared and ready to start character reformation. We cooperate with the Divine
Psychologist by the daily practicing of self-witnessing, which is
self-observing our feelings, intentions, thoughts and actions.
For MacCormac turn, she was
reporting on the information that she found on outside source and how they
interpreted the meaning of the “Divine Psychologists” differently from what we
have learned in class. She found the news article on the widow named “Mrs. May
J. Bennett”. She claimed that “Divine Psychologist” dominated her to steal the
money from the church. She also reported about other sources. She said that
some of them unlike the Theistic Psychology, that view Divine Psychologist as
omnipotence, they viewed Divine Psychologist as a person or all the clergies
are Divine Psychologist.
(c) Describe some of the ideas that needed a
better justification or greater amplification.
Overall I think the presentation went pretty well
but it could be better if the term has more preparation. Since, I was the one
who had to present this exercise, I could see it clearly that we need some more
preparation. On my presentation, I did not do really well because I was not
quite understand the instruction and I did not spend much time spend much time
to prepare and practice. I think that the idea that needed a better
justification was on how other people interpret the meaning and how they use
the “Divine Psychologist” phrase. I did not look much on the outside source in
which the instruction wants us to do. If I spent more time looking at other
results and read them carefully I think I could get a lots of information from
these sources and I could have a better presentation.
(d) What was the success of the approach they
used?
I think
that the success of the approach they used was the interview format because in
this exercise it was difficult to arrange the information they gathered into
interview format because there was not much clarification what they should do
to create the questions but the term still tried to follow the instruction and
handle it very well. I think that MacCormac did very well on gathering the
information and created to the interview format. She did very well creating the
questions that easy to follow and interesting because it divided the
information into smaller section rather than presented the whole information at
once.
(e) What improvements are needed in the
procedures or in the instructions?
I found it is difficult to do
this exercise presentation because we have to do it in interview format. The
instruction only mentions that we need to create our own questions and answer
them. I think that the instructions could be improve if the instruction gives
clearer detail or guideline what kind of questions we should ask. Other
alternative ways is not to present the information in interview format.
Instead, we can present the information based on everyone in the term opinion
or reaction.
For example, one can do find the
information about the Divine Psychologist from outside source and give the
opinion and idea about things that found interesting and how it is difference
from the definition that we learned in class. Then another student can focus on
the page that related to Section V.
(f) What are the limitations of these types of
exercises?
There are some the
limitation of these types of exercise. Although there are a lot of result came
up when I tried to google the “Divine Psychologist”, most the result are from
the our class lecture note from Dr. James and previous student reports from
this class. It seems that the Divine Psychologist does not use much widely
outside our class. So the most information that I could gather was based from
our class lecture note rather than outside source. Also, since the instructions
only mention that we have to find only “Divine Psychologist” phrase and there
is not much to find beside from the class content, it was hard to make the
presentation more varieties and interesting because most of information we have
already learned in class about what is “Divine Psychologist”.
(g)
Describe what happened when you did some of the steps of the exercises
I was the one who had to
present this exercise. When I tried to google the “Divine Psychologist” phase,
my first impression was that most of the result was from our class lecture
note. Therefore, I did not know what kind of information I should gather from
the results because we already learned from these lecture notes. I also feel overwhelming to find look at all
the results so I just looked the one that seems interesting to me.
Section 4: Annotated Web links
By: Noah
Purington
Neurotheology: Which
came first, God or the brain?
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/biology/b103/f01/web3/ford.html
This website explains research on the limbic system during spiritual experiences. A helmet is put on the patient’s head and it records brain activity during spiritual meditation. When the patient felt a spiritual connection they tugged on a string to alert the researchers, who then injected a radioactive tracer into the intravenous line. The tracer bound to the brain regions where blood flow was highest. A scanner then made a snapshot showing the regions with the most blood flow, which indicates neuronal activity.
The premise of the God Part book
http://www.godpart.com/html/the_premise.html
The premise of the God Part book is similar to Swedenborg’s writings in the sense that God is the giver of truth and love, and since he created us he also created a section of our computer like brain to harbor and distribute the truth and love that God feeds us through the spiritual sun. It is easier to understand and believe in God when there is an actual region in the brain that responds neurologically with spiritual awareness and experiences instead of assuming that God is a hypothetical construct with no sanctuary in processing only mind.
Why can’t we see God?
http://www.web-books.com/GoodPost/Articles/SeeGod.htm
This article is a simple summary of the potential answer to the question; why can’t we see God? The dimensions we live in are 3, but there is a string theory that suggests that there are 10 dimensions on the planet. God and other spiritual beings could be dwelling in such dimensions and still around us. In the Bible it refers to God, the Devil, angels and demons in our world but rarely in our sight (or dimension). This is a interesting article to read.
Explanation to Teen
Christians of Dawkins’s assertions
http://christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c038.html
This website is interesting due to the inserts of Dawkins’s quotes and the complex details of God’s existence with cartoons! It look likes its targeted to teens that could even understand both arguments and how to understand that the God theory is true. I could barely understand it but I thought it was god for Christians to even acknowledge the influence of Dawkins and the defense of Behe (Christian Chemist).
Vertical Community
This is a paper on the research of Youth and drugs which uses the term horizontal and vertical communities to describe levels of influence to the individual. These terms have no correlation to the terms used in our class but I thought it be worth looking into to see what non-theistic literature would define them as.
Literal or
metaphorically?
http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2005/hahn_mitch_ss_aug05.asp
This website addresses the literal understanding of the Bible with connection of God in human form, Jesus. The article can be summed up by: what we believe about the Bible will inevitably influence the way we read the Bible. The way we read the Bible, in turn, will determine what we "get out" of its sacred pages.
http://www.nd.edu/~afreddos/papers/Taqandss.htm
This website is a history about
All scripture is the
same?
http://violetsun.wordpress.com/2008/03/05/is-holy-scripture-the-inerrant-word-of-god/
This website is very articulate in describing the Bible, Koran, and Torah as a scaffolding to God and merely that. It suggests that throughout history, people from all faiths in every corner of the world have climbed it for only two reasons: to get closer to the Divine or to control those still on the ground.
J N Darby’s
experience with the Holy Bible
http://www.bible-study.us/bible.htm
This personal testimony of what the Bible means to J N Darby is what I consider the classic Christian relationship to the Sacred Scripture. He takes it with literal and non-literal senses. This can be understood in theistic psychology as the tangible spring well of spiritual substances when reading as it’s the door to the Divine Psychologists’ truth and light.
Divine Origins
http://www.the-highway.com/articleOct04.html
This article talks about the origins of the Bible and the relevance of it. Many people don’t believe or trust God in a Judeo Christian philosophy due to the mistrust of the authors and revisers of it. There are some good points in this article but the validity of this article is still in question as is the Bible itself.