Contrasting Mystical versus
Rational Spirituality
By Tyrone Clark II
1. Preface
In my previous report, I discussed the Lord’s plan
for our spiritual development and presented some insightful discoveries about
my faith as described on the Diagnostic Test of Rational Spirituality. Report 2. After writing this report I found myself on
the brink of some sort of spiritual discovery; a discovery that will probably
take the rest of my life to understand.
I also found myself looking at the world in a way that makes me question
the many societal norms and acceptable means of behavior. Report two also helped me voice some of my
beliefs about the hypocritical nature of our society. In this report I will attempt to analyze “Testimony to the
Invisible” and “Spirituality That Makes Sense”, the textbooks for this course,
in an attempt to contrast the two. I
will also discuss some interesting points from the lecture notes, and a few of
the oral presentations of my fellow classmates.
2. Introduction
When talking about rational spirituality and
ritualistic mysticism it is important to have good sources to clearly
demonstrate these ideas in a way that facilitates the understanding of their
differences, and “Spirituality that makes sense” and “Testimony to the
invisible” are just the books that make this compassion possible. Both books deal with the Writings of
Swedenborg, but one views it from a mystical standpoint while the other clearly
relates the ideals in a rational manner.
In Testimony we see a collection of writers putting their spin on
Swedenborg and taking the science out of his revelations, but in Spirituality,
Douglas Taylor looks at personal morality in Swedenborgian terms making the
rationality and science of Swedenborg’s teachings quite clear.
One of the biggest shortcomings of Testimony is the
fact that many of the writers discussed, destroy the science of the Writings by
only taking what they like about the Writings and disregarding the rest. For example, Eugene Taylor, who wrote about
Ralph Emerson in his piece entitled, “Emerson: The Swedenborgian and
Transcendentalist Connection”, described how Emerson did not attempt to
translate the Writings of Swedenborg literally because he rejected Swedenborg’s
definitions of correspondences as being too absolute. “…the so-called
Swedenborgian dictionary of correspondences, which required the reader to
accept as gospel the exact spiritual meaning Swedenborg himself had placed on
each object in nature. Rather, Emerson
preferred to adopt the general law to his personal purposes; and, as later
commentators have shown, he never tired of collecting specific instances of his
own.” (153)
Now here in lies one of the many follies of man…not
accepting the writing of Swedenborg as revelations from God, and this lends to
the labeling of Testimony as a mystical approach to Swedenborg. In viewing Swedenborg as a mystic, many of
the writers in Testimony stripped away the validity of Swedenborg’s
revelations, and with this validity went the rationality. The revelations of Swedenborg were not like
the previous revelations, which were considered mystical. These were scientific revelations because
they were not revealed while Swedenborg was in a trance or asleep. He was wide-awake in the sense that he was
given the unique capacity to be conscious simultaneously, in the natural and
the spiritual worlds.
For 27 years, and on a daily basis, he accessed the
spiritual world mentally and kept daily notes that comprise his data, his
observations, his experiences, his experiments, and his explanations. He
therefore was able to compile a unique record of how the spiritual and natural
worlds interact and depend on each other. He was able to interview those who
had lived on earth from thousands of years ago, and are now living in heaven and
hell. Swedenborg handled these issues as would any scientist that was
introduced to new data on a scientific topic, and the fact that Testimony
ignores this point further lends to its’ scientific downfall.
On the other hand, “Spirituality
That Makes Sense” by Douglas Taylor, facilitates
the understanding of the Writings as Divine revelation, and with this
understanding comes the rational explanations of the spirit world. In the bible there is only one story that
takes place in the spirit world and it comes from Luke 16:19-31, “…and he cried out and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me,
and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger and cool my tongue; for
I am tormented in this flame. But
Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that you in your
lifetime received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now
he is comforted, and you are tormented.
And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed; so
that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those who want to
come from there pass to us.” The only
other knowledge we have of the actual structure of the spirit world comes from
Swedenborg and is supported by Taylor.
In
“Spirituality that makes sense”, Taylor gives us an understanding of hell as
described by Swedenborg, and it is this depiction that demonstrates that his
book is the more rational of the two.
In the bible, hell is depicted as a place of burning heat with lakes of
fire where the inhabitants suffer for all eternity. The truth as revealed by Swedenborg tells us that there is no
actual fire burning from the outside, but a fire that burns within each soul
caused by their own insanity. Passion,
love, lust, and greed are all emotions that many have speculated or written to
have a burning or fiery type of effect on humans, and since we take these
traits with us into the afterlife, it stands to reason that these emotions
would be the source of those so-called lakes of fire. The lakes reside within each person; burning them from the inside
out… forever.
“Wickedness
does indeed burn like a fire. Surely all the evils condemned by the Lord in the
Ten Commandments are hot and burning and insatiable. What other hellfire need there be? What else is it but our burning, all-consuming selfishness that
results when we have completely and deliberately rejected the Lord; our fiery
passions and ambitions, our burning lust, our heated arguments our hot anger
and fiery tempers, our smoldering resentment as we burn for revenge? These are the fires of self-love burning
within---the fires of hell…The punishment of hell, then is self-inflicted. The
Lord casts no one into hell, but many people find their eternal abode there, of
their own free choice.”(Spirituality that makes sense p.35-37). The suffering in hell is self-inflicted
because evil brings upon itself suffering as its punishment, and it is this
rational concept that supports the labeling of Taylor’s book as a work of
rational spirituality and not ritualistic mysticism.
3. Class Discussions
and Lecture Notes
Many of the revelations of Swedenborg defy human
understanding and beg the question: Why Emanuel Swedenborg? On March 11th, Lee Ann Jones,
asked just that, in her presentation of “Children in Heaven”, by Chauncey
Giles. “… Swedenborg was selected for
the office of making known to man the nature of the spiritual world and of man
as a spiritual being, because he was one of the greatest and wisest and best
men who ever lived in the world. The
history of mankind gives us no example of a more unselfish and devoted lover of
the truth than he was.” Swedenborg was
a scientist and engineer in practice and his scientific approach to the Divine
revelations made the execution of his job of presenting these revelations to
the world that much easier. In a sense
one could say that Swedenborg was groomed for the position of Divine Revealer.
One of the most fascinating experiences of Swedenborg
in the spirit world was his encounter with children in the afterlife. The death of a child is a very hard issue for
a lot of us in this life, so the ideal of children being raised in heaven is
soothing to many. Ms. Jones’
presentation of Giles’ work tells us that we must not look at the loss of a
child as a death but as entrance into eternal life. “All children go to heaven. ‘What appears to us as failure and
defeat of the Lord’s purpose is seen to be carrying it out to successful
completion. They teach us that all who leave this life in infancy and childhood
are saved.’” The life of a child in the
spirit world is far more fulfilling than here in the physical realm because the
depth and tenderness of the love bestowed upon a child in heaven far exceeds
the love they might receive in the natural world.
The
concept of children in heaven was discussed by, Takashi Nakamura on March 4,
2004. In his presentation, Mr. Nakamura
explained some of the experiences of children in the afterlife as written by,
Chauncey Giles. One point I found of interest
was the concept of heavenly education for children. When I first heard that there was school in heaven I was a bit
surprised and a little put off, because I instantly thought of my childhood and
how unpleasant school was for me. The
thought of being teased and ridiculed by other children for all eternity scared
me. However, upon further inspection it
was found that the schooling in heaven is nothing like it is on earth, in fact
children are taught to love their companions and teachers while exercising the
other truths taught. The first truth
that the children are introduced to is the fact that God is the ultimate Lord
and Father, and that every good thing comes from Him and is His gift to them.
Children in heaven are also taught to be useful;
carrying their love of God and the neighbors into practical effect does this,
by doing whatever they can to produce the ultimate level of good. Of course this is no easy lesson and takes
some time for the children to learn and master, fortunately the children have
the best possible teachers to instruct them.
Mr. Nakamura describes the education of the children as “perfect”,
meaning that the teachers and their methods are perfect for the education of
each child. In heaven each child is
instructed by angels whose teaching styles and methods are a perfect match for
the child’s learning needs. In
addition, the learning environment is more of a holiday excursion than a
classroom setting; learning is achieved through real world experience, and the
children are not restrained or restricted in any fashion. Life is the educator
of the children and this experience is most enjoyable. Of course the life
mentioned here is one of a spiritual nature since these individuals would have
died in their youth.
Speaking of youth, it could be questioned that dying
young is better than living through some of the difficult trials of the natural
world, but Giles tells us otherwise. Giles suggests that infants will always
remain infants in the sense that they would never be able to teach, lead, or
become pioneers of truthful investigation; exploring new realms of thought or
attaining new varieties of good would be impossible for an infant educated and
raised in heaven. Another question is whether or not infants lose out on the
knowledge and wisdom gained through suffering and hard labor, and is their
spiritual development partially incomplete because of this? I do not believe that this is the case at
all because the fact that a child’s education is perfect would lead me to
believe that their spiritual development would be perfect as well, after all
most children and infants go to the highest heaven which means that they would
probably be useful in teaching and leading others, even if this means teaching
and leading other children who arrive after them.
Since
I am discussing children in the afterlife it is important to note that on April
15th, Leticia Valle, who also presented Chauncey Giles’ “Children in
Heaven”, asked the question: Who is a child?
Children are subject to a different type of experience in the afterlife
than that afforded to adults, so it is necessary to differentiate between the
two. Ms. Valle proclaims that: “a child
is anyone, under ‘normal conditions,’ who has not developed a mental state
where they are capable of identifying the difference between good and evil.
They are children because they have not developed a conscience.” A person, who acts out of instinct or from a
learned response, is not held responsible for the action; these people are
ignorant of the truth and not truly grown no matter what their age. In our society we say that a person is an
adult at a specifi age and treat them as such, but in the spiritual world no
such age exists. Adulthood is based on
a person’s cognitive understanding of right and wrong, and this understanding
happens at a different age for each individual.
With
all this talk of children in heaven it is important to point out that children
in heaven, like children in the natural world need someone to care for them,
and to this end we see the introduction of motherly angels. Ms. Valle writes that, “Just as here on
earth, children that live in the spiritual world also need a mother. ‘They need
instruction and parental care…” These angels are very special angels and don’t
have to be from the highest spiritual heaven.
They are simply angels that had a very strong love for children in the
natural world.” These motherly angels are women who loved all children in life
and who want nothing more than to give a child love and care. It is also believed that these motherly
angels would have been female family members of the child in the natural world;
a grandmother or aunt, if you will, caring for a relative in the absence of
their real mothers. Each of these
motherly angels would take on the responsibility of raising as many children as
she felt happy caring for, and nothing but the purest love would be lavished
upon each child.
Ms.
Valle asks, “What can we make of unborn babies?” An unborn fetus, or embryo, is a completely different story
because an embryo has no mind or personality.
Every person has a soul which is created at conception, but only at
birth, or with the inhalation of air, is the mind or spirit of a person
born. The action of taking in air
through the lungs gives raise to the individual mind of each soul; a fetus that
does not take this breath never gains spiritual consciousness or personality,
both of which are vital to life in the spirit world. However the soul of the embryo is returned to heaven where it
becomes holier than the angels themselves.
Giles tells us that these souls act as a filter between the highest
heaven and the spiritual Sun, filtering the Lord’s influx before it passes on
to the celestial angels.
I
found the presentations of Jones, Nakamura, and Valle to be very insightful,
but there were a few points that I disagreed with. For one, it is important to make the distinction between “all
children go to heaven” and “all children choose to go to heaven”. Without this distinction it could be
misconstrued that a child has no choice in the matter, on the contrary, a child
like an adult must choose whether they will spend eternity in heaven or
hell. While it is true that all
children go to heaven, it is not true that children couldn’t choose hell if
they wanted to. The fact of the matter
is, children, like their adult counterparts, must experience the second death
an make their eternal choices.
The
next problem that I had with the Giles piece and with the revelations
themselves was; what role do male angels play in the caring for heavenly
children? If the motherly angels are
from different parts of heaven and bring these children into their homes, where
are the fatherly angels or the soul mates of the motherly angels? As a man, I love kids too and I think it
would be great to care for and love these children, but there is no mention of
daddy angels. If there are nothing but
couples in heaven then there must be some interaction of male angels with these
kids. Are they the teachers or do they
wrestle around with the kids like fathers in the natural world are so fond of doing?
The
concept of couples in heaven is one of extreme interest to me. The revelations of Swedenborg tell us that
only couples are allowed to live in heaven.
Of course this is in direct conflict with the Christian belief that in
heaven there is no marriage other than a marriage to God. However, Dr. James
writes that, “ Marriage is something sanctified and Divine since it is the
vehicle of the seminary for heaven, and this is the highest purpose or use for
creation. Unity is the conjoint operation of two things together so that the
result is a new conjoint object that is superior to the composing parts.” This helps us to understand why there are
couples in heaven and more interestingly, why there is sex. Surprisingly, when a man and a woman have
sex in heaven, this sex serves to foster the creation of new ideas and
revelations of truth, which are called spiritual children. It is important to
note that sexual intercourse in heaven is an expression of conjugal love.
“You
can see the perfection of conjugal love when you consider from the Writings,
what happens when a man meets a woman and they fall in love and get married.
The woman takes within herself the man’s thinking style and reasoning process.
This is the same way as she takes his seed through her birth canal and gives it
life in her womb. That child born of her represents the husband’s intelligence
in the wife. She is now no longer an individual woman but a married woman,
which means that she has within her, his seed, his intelligence, his ideas, and
his manner of thinking. She has a replica of her husband’s mind within herself
so that she always know what he is thinking!”
Now,
with all this talk of death and the afterlife I think it is a good idea to
discuss how a spirit is resuscitated after death. We should also note that no other scientific data about the
resuscitation existed before Swedenborg discussed it, and his experience was
perceived as a person who died would perceive it, but his interior life and
thought remained unimpaired. First, he
experienced a change of his heart rate as it was tuned to the heavenly
kingdom. Once all affection was gone
the spirits withdraw due to an aromatic smell similar to embalming fluid; this
was due to the presence of the celestial angels. This smell also prevents evil spirits from interfering with the
resuscitation. Two celestial angels at
Swedenborg’s head shared their thoughts with him. For a dead man, an angel’s perception of the fact that the man is
seeing their face and hearing their thoughts is proof of the man’s death and
his readiness to be fully resuscitated, but Swedenborg of course was not dead.
“Resuscitation is therefore a process of "extracting the spirit" from
the physical body”.
The
resuscitation takes several hours, and one thing of interest is the celestial
angel’s desire to keep the dying man’s mind on eternal life. “It was insinuated to me that man is kept
engaged by the angels in the pious and holy thoughts which he entertained at
the point of death; and it was also insinuated that those who are dying usually
think about eternal life, and seldom of salvation and happiness, and therefore
the angels keep them in the thought of eternal life. (AC 177) In this thought they are kept for a
considerable time by the celestial angels before these angels depart, and those
who are being resuscitated are then left to the spiritual angels, with whom
they are next associated. Meanwhile they have a dim idea that they are living
in the body. (AC 178)”.
After
the resuscitation comes the second death, and for me this is by far the most interesting
point of this lecture. The reason I
find this concept so fascinating is because of what it says about our
choices. I had long heard that God
blessed every person with free will and the ability to choose, but I had no
idea that this blessing extended to the afterlife. I was taught that you got to choose on earth but when you died
God decided whether you went to heaven or hell. So imagine my surprise when I learned that even in death the
choice is yours. God in his infinite
love for us created a world where every soul has a home, be it heaven or
hell.
Douglas
Taylor, author of “Spirituality that makes Sense”, writes: “It would surely be
the height of cruelty to make people on opposite sides of that great gulf live
together to eternity. What more refined
kind of torture could there be than to make angelic people endure those
devilish people, and to make those devilish people endure the angelic
people? The pain would be about equal
on both sides. It would simply be
intolerable. So it is really an act of Divine mercy that hell is provided by
the Lord for those who do not want to be in heaven. It is the inevitable consequence of the very real freedom of
choice that the Lord has given us all.
The Lord never interferes with that freedom of choice. If we choose hell, the Lord respects that
choice, but He never abandons us. To
eternity, He strives to save us from a lower hell, from worse and worse evils.”
(38-39)
4. Conclusion
My spiritual development is constantly evolving, and
this evolution continually brings me closer to what I believe to be universal
truth. In completing this assignment
and the class as a whole, I have found the concept of truth only verifiable
after death, quite plausible. I have
found myself wondering about the choices I will make for my eternal soul, and
whether or not those choices will lead to salvation or damnation. In trying to understand the Writings of
Swedenborg, I have re-evaluated the way in which I live my life. I ask myself if my motivations are of noble
intentions or of selfish greed, and whether or not I can tell the
difference. Is it possible I have been
duped by this class and will end up more confused than I started? I don’t know, but I do know that the
Writings have a certain ring to them; a ring of truth. Of course, there is the fact that Swedenborg
appeals to rational/scientific part of my mind; the part of my mind that
doubted the ritualistic mysticism of my earlier religious beliefs.
The rantings of my sometime fanatical relatives
always made me question the validity of some of the religious practices of my
childhood church; this was mainly due to the mystical observance of the
faith. With the Writings, all the
mysticism is replaced with scientific observation and data, and this is far
more appealing than running around and dancing well being possessed with the
Holy Ghost. The scientist within me
respects the methods that Swedenborg employed in his sharing of the Divine
Revelations, and this respect will keep me interested in the Writings and
re-evaluating my spiritual growth for many years to come. I don’t know what the future may hold, but I
am sure that I will continue to explore this newfound love of religion as a
science.
5. Future Generations
My spiritual
journey has been one of wonder and discovery, a journey full of excitement and
controversy. The writings of Swedenborg
and the topics discussed in this class have added greatly to my spiritual and
developmental growth. The topics
covered in this course are very controversial, so my only advice would be to
keep an open mind. Try to approach the
subject with a positive bias, because only a positive bias will allow you to
truly analyze the information in a helpful and creative way, and ask yourself
this simple question: If a theory
cannot be proved until after death, does that make it untrue?