Contrasting Mystical versus Rational
Spirituality
by Leticia Valle
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/theistic-psychology.htm#Instructions-report3
1. Preface
My
previous report, titled The Cognitive Organization of Rational Spirituality,
allowed me to asses my own level of rational thinking on a variety of spiritual
topics. I was able to do this by taking
The Diagnostic Test of Rational Spirituality, which was compiled of 100
questions that included topics on theistic psychology, such as God, the
afterlife, heaven, hell, scientific revelation, and the Threefold World.
Report
two also consisted of observing and evaluating the cognitive organization of
people in my community. This evaluation
of our own rational consciousness is relevant to every person because our level
of rational thinking determines the degree of happiness we will acquire in the
afterlife. By acknowledging our
thinking, and that of the people around us, we can better understand at what
level of our rational spirituality we operate from. If we are aware of this level we can determine what we need to
work on in order to develop and accept rational truths that will take us the
highest heaven in our minds.
Report
two was extremely helpful in identifying my own views on God, science, and
rational spirituality. It helped me
understand how it is that God influences my emotions through the spiritual
world. This previous report forced me
to understand God rationally and it helped me understand God in a scientific
manner. It is very useful to know what
level I operate from and that made it possible to reflect on my actions and
improve my character. It allowed me to
realize what it is I need to better my character and prepare myself for the
heavens in the spiritual world. After
completing report two, I felt extremely inspired to work at functioning at
phase three of rational spirituality in order to reach my highest level of consciousness.
Report
two can be found at:
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/459s2004/valle/report2.htm
The
purpose of report three is to examine the two main textbooks required for this
class, Testimony to the Invisible and Spirituality That Makes Sense. I will compare and contrast the approach in
both books, using passages that support my observations. I will also select and discuss some class
presentations given by students in my class as well as some ideas that appealed
to me in the Lecture Notes. This
assignment will help me identify my own views on spirituality.
2. Introduction
For
this class we were required to read two textbooks. The first textbook we examined was Testimony to the Invisible
written by; Jorge Luis Borges, Czeslaw Milosz, Kathleen Raine, D.T. Suzuki,
Eugene Taylor, Wilson Van Dusen, and Colin Wilson. Our second book was Spirituality That Makes Sense by
Douglas Taylor.
Testimony
to the Invisible was a book
written by scholars who credited Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) as a great
scientist and engineer but I can say that all of these authors took the
revelations of Swedenborg as mystical.
They chose to discredit Swedenborg by interpreting his writings as
mystical. This means that none of them
took the writings from Swedenborg in their literal sense, they described them
as being parables or poetic stanzas they completely denied his writings as
actual, rational observations. I felt
that the author that proved these beliefs of Swedenborg the best was Colin
Wilson and I chose to focus on him to illustrate my point.
The
idea that Swedenborg was mystical rather than rational is found on page 103
where Colin Wilson states that “Yet no one who has read Swedenborg can doubt
that it was the mystic, not the psychologist, who ventured furthest into the
depths of this alien world that lies inside us. Colin Wilson goes on to assume
that Swedenborg was losing his rationality when he wrote, “At a time when
rationalism is dying on us, a teacher of the reality of the Will is relevant as
never before.” This statement that
I
found the comments of these authors unreliable and irrational. Many of these authors agreed with some
points that Emanuel Swedenborg made but rejected others. They all agreed that he was a respectable
scientist but turned around and said that he was delusional and had encountered
a religious crisis. A very clear
statement of this accusation is found on page 102 where Wilson says
“Swedenborg’s crises had brought him close to insanity, this is undoubtedly why
he possesses such extraordinary power to bring peace to tormented souls…” I feel that
But
why would a successful scientist need to make up these things about God and
life after death? Scholars tried to
discredit him by saying it was in his nature to include God in his life because
“He lived in a religious age; his father was a bishop; he had studied the bible
since childhood. It was, therefore,
natural that his visions expressed themselves in terms of the Bible.” I see this statement as a weak attempt to
find an excuse to Swedenborg’s writings, this way they can credit him with
being a great scientist while dismissing anything that he wrote about the Bible
and God.
Many
of the points made by these authors could be very convincing if they had proof,
but their arguments were merely assumptions and what I see as an excuse to
relieve them from understanding the writings by Swedenborg. It is important to consider what scholars
have to say about the writings of Swedenborg, and I believe that this was the
point in reading this book for this class, this way we can decide weather they
had sufficient evidence or rational points to discredit Swedenborg. I came to the conclusion that although these
authors were scholars, they were not rational enough to understand the writings
of Swedenborg and they chose the easy way out by claiming that he wrote these
things while in a spiritual crisis and in a delusional state. Another thing that I observed while reading
this book was that all of the authors in the book failed to approach Swedenborg
with a positive bias. Therefore they
did not completely examine the data provided to them in order to make a strong
point.
Spirituality
That Makes Sense, by Douglas
Taylor, is a book that truly makes sense!
I enjoyed reading this book very much because it cleared up many major
misunderstanding that different religions have over the same phenomenon. This book was easy to understand and, in
contrast to Testimony to the Invisible, the author was not trying to be
persuasive. I was really impressed with
this book because it introduced its points by first realizing and explaining
why it is that passages from the Bible can be so confusing and
misunderstood. Then Taylor went on to
prove that in order to make a clear translation of the passages in the Bible we
need to examine all of the passages on a subject not just one or two. Taylor went on to do this and in his
conclusion he was very successful in proving that all the passages in a subject
have one meaning that is apparent if all the passages are examined. An example of this is found on page 78 where
Taylor discusses the argument that Jesus and God are two different Devine
Beings:
Jesus
said: “I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He
sent Me.” (John 8:42)
“The Father is greater than I.” (John 14:28)
“This is my beloved Son in whom I am well
pleased.” (Mathew 3:17)
Taylor
goes on to say: “If we were to consult only passages like these and ignore all
the others that seem to conflict with them, we might come to the conclusion
that there are three persons in God.
This is extremely puzzling to people of a reflective turn of mind,
because their common sense tell s them that there simply cannot be three Divine
Persons or Beings, because that is the same as saying that there can be three
infinites, or three gods.”
Taylor proceeds to show that God and Jesus are one Divine Being. This is described in a physical and spiritual way. Jesus is simply the physical body in which God, the soul, resides in so that he can come and encounter the human race. In the second passage above we can all agree that a person’s soul is greater than their physical body. If we understand this then the second quote doesn’t contradict the idea that God and Jesus are one Devine Person.
Taylor goes on to provide a lot more proof to the conclusion that Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit is one Devine Person. This book is so great because it provides many examples so that we can examine the passages from all angles.
I am a fan of this book and recommend it to anyone who is seeking rationality in religion, spirituality, or passages from the Bible.
3. Class
Discussions and Lecture Notes
Oral
Presentation #1: The Bibliography of Emanuel Swedenborg
The
Bibliography of Emanuel Swedenborg, given on January 22 of 2004, was the first
oral presentation I chose to discuss. I
chose this oral first because I think that it is important to know a little
about the person who introduced Theistic Psychology.
Emanuel
Swedenborg was born on January 29, 1688 in Stockholm, Sweden. His father was Jesper Swedberg who was a
theology professor at the University of Uppsala and was also the Dean and
Rector of the Church. His mother was
Sarah Behm Swedberg who was very religious.
Swedenborg’s mother died in 1696 and his father remarried, one year
later, to Sarah Bergia who was a wealthy mining widow.
Swedenborg
grew up in a religious community and stated that from his fourth to his tenth
year of age, he was constantly engaged in thoughts about God and
salvation. From his sixth to twelfth
year his enjoyment was to converse with men concerning faith and love of the
neighbor. Swedenborg grew up and became
a well-educated man. He studied
mathematics and astronomy in
Later
he published the journal Daedalus Hyperboreus.
This journal was dedicated to practical scientific inquiry. In 1716 Charles XII appointed him
Extraordinary Assessor of the Board of Mines.
After that, Swedenborg pursued a career as an independent scholar after
the death of his stepmother in early 1720.
Swedenborg had many publications, some on chemistry, science and mining,
theological and philosophical publications, and lastly the Writings.
The
presenter did a good job of providing us with the Swedenborg’s earlier life but
I felt that they should have included how it was that he was chosen to explore
the spiritual world and how long he spent recording his observations. So I included the following:
At
the age of 57 Emanuel Swedenborg was chosen to explore the spiritual world and
reveal its contents to people on earth.
A quote that supports this states, “…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 I the world. The history of
mankind gives us no example of a more unselfish and devoted lover of the truth
than he was.” Swedenborg dedicated 27
years to writing about his observations, experiences, and experiments from the
spiritual world. Swedenborg’s physical
body died on March 29, 1772, at the age of 84.
Swedenborg
had a difficult time publishing his writings on the spiritual world as
scientific. It was actually made a
scientific standard to not include any spiritual aspect. This struggle resulted in Swedenborg having
to pay for the publications of the Third Testament. Swedenborg went through great struggles to get his publishing’s
out to the public, I am very grateful for his accomplishments.
Oral
Presentation #2: A Vision of Marriage
The
second oral presentation that I chose to discuss is one that caught the class’s
attention as a whole. The topic of this
presentation was A Vision of Marriage.
It was presented on
This
topic was, personally, very appealing to me because I am in a serious,
long-term, relationship, with plans for marriage. I believe that this topic plays a big role when it comes to our
goals in life.
The
presenter begins with introducing Swedenborg’s definition of marriage; “As
marriage has its human origin in the first principles and most interior forms
of man’s nature, it consists essentially in the union of two minds or
souls. The human spirit is the subject
and theatre of its operation. It is,
therefore, spiritual in its nature. It
is not in itself a civil or legal contract; it is not affected by
ecclesiastical sanction. It is as
impossible for the state or the church to marry a man and a woman, in the
essential meaning of the word.” I
completely agree with this definition that Swedenborg provides. This definition of marriage was described by
the presenter when she shared that when she first met her now husband, they
immediately felt that they would make each other complete, and she shared that
they have two anniversaries, one for the anniversary when they met and knew
they were meant to be together, and the second when they married by a minister
and the sanction of the church.
The
problem with the topic of marriage in today’s society is that it seems to be
strictly a legal contract or commitment, rather than the union of two
souls. It is important to understand
that the idea of a legal contract can be broken, because it is nothing more
than a piece of paper with the signed consent of the couple. A true union of two loving souls or minds
forms a more excellent whole; this “other half” might be better recognized as a
soul mate.
A
question that arose during the presentation was how to find your other
half. In order to figure this out we
first have to figure out what type of person we are, and then think of who will
“fit” us. God cannot unite incompatible
natures together. But sameness of both
characters is not sufficient enough for this union, as many tend to
believe. Here I provide a quote that I
felt was true for this supposition: “It is the union of the will of the one
with the understanding of the other, of affection with thought, and thought
with affection.”
Many
people in class were wondering if there is a soul mate for every person. The answer to that question is answered in
another quote provided in the presentation outline: “Beings that are the
complements of one another cannot be kept apart…They may never meet in this
world, but congenial souls cannot fail to find each other when all natural
obstructions are removed.” I think that
this is a beautiful thought that makes sense, because I don’t believe any
person can be complete without a partner, better yet their soul mate.
Before
this topic was introduced I had felt that marriage had to be a lot more than
just a civil, legal contract. I knew
that a successful marriage would take a lot of work and it would demand
understanding of the other, affection, and thought. It felt really good to see these thought on paper. It makes perfect sense and it is very
encouraging to know that everyone will, someday, be united with his or her soul
mate.
Oral
Presentation #3: Do the Writings Contain Scientific Revelations?
The
next oral presentation I chose to talk about was titled “Do the Writings
Contain Scientific Revelations?” This
oral made me nod my head in agreement throughout the entire presentation.
The
first point made is that the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg are scientific
because all the data was obtained empirically.
The data is coherent, logical, rational, and most importantly,
understandable. A very amazing thing
about Swedenborg’s Writings is that it never contradicts itself. I truly agree that any person will find this
to be true in the Writings by Swedenborg.
Many
people get “stuck” on the idea that God granted Swedenborg to be aware of both
the natural and spiritual worlds. I
feel very strongly that if people can get past that part, and study the revelations
from Swedenborg they will agree that his data is completely rational and
understandable.
Another
interesting point in this presentation was the connection between the natural
and the spiritual. We can refer to the
spiritual as the mind and the natural and the body or the brain. These two have a cause-effect
relationship. What occurs in the
spiritual world is the cause of the effects here in the natural world. In other words, the effects of our body or
brain are cause by the actions in our mind.
The brain and the body are our natural organs. They are just the physical, material substances that the mind
works through in the natural world.
We
know that the mind is our spiritual organ that cannot be fully understood from
the natural world so in order to understand the mind we need revelation. First we need to understand that the primary
cause of all things, spiritual and natural, is from God. God provides the spiritual substances of
love (good) and wisdom (truth). These
substances are what make up the spiritual world. These substances are radiate through the spiritual sun in such a
way that the good is spiritual heat and truth is spiritual light. In the spiritual world, the good or
spiritual heat and truth or spiritual light, give life to all things in the
spiritual world. This process is the
same here in the natural world; the natural sun gives life to all things in the
natural world by providing light and heat.
These
Goods and Truths flow into our mind through a process called influx. Good enters into our affective and Truth
enters into our cognitive. The
acceptance, or rejection, of these spiritual substances determines the state
and quality of our spiritual mind. We
are higher in our minds if we permit these Goods and Truths to enter our
thoughts, feelings, reasoning, emotions, and understanding, which are reflected
in our behavior, speech, emotions, and actions.
The
thought that the mind is spiritual and not natural makes complete sense. If this is not understood then, as we see in
science, the study of the mind becomes the study of the brain. The brain is natural, material, physical
substance that the mind works through in the natural world. I also agree that the process of acceptance
or rejecting of spiritual substances, through influx, determines our level of
rationality and spirituality. This
level of rational spirituality that we operate from is expressed in our daily
behavior.
Oral
Presentation #4: Children in Heaven
The
fourth oral presentation was given on April 15, 2004. This presentation discussed many aspects of children in Heaven
but the most appealing to me were: who is considered a child, the death of a
child, motherly Angels, and the death of an embryo.
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. This
definition does not limit a child to age.
We can think of children as those who have been kept in ignorance, those
subjected to the corruption of evil influences, and those stimulated to do evil
by example. These children are innocent
of wrong against the Lord or man.
The
death of a child is only a physical death.
When any person dies they only lose their physical body because it is of
no use in the spiritual world. When a
child dies it has not been lost, it has been saved. Truths and love are taught to the child. Evil is also revealed to the child in order
for them to reject it. These children
understand good and truth and chose to live in heaven.
The
next topic of this presentation was Motherly Angels. Motherly Angles are needed because just as here on earth,
children that live in the spiritual world also need a mother. These angels are very special angels that
had a very strong love for children in the natural world. These Angles receive the children as their
own, and the infants also receive their Angels as their own mothers. The love from these Angel’s to the children
is completely free of selfishness and worldly affections.
The
death of an unborn child was an issue that concerned many people in class. We learned that a fertilized egg, an embryo,
has a soul that is alive, but not a spirit or mind. If the baby is born without taking a breath of air, and opening
the lungs, then the spirit is not alive or opened because it is the action of
the lungs that allows the spirit or mind to be born. If the embryo dies its soul continues to live on in heaven. These fetuses are unconscious and have no
personality or human experiences. The
soul of these fetuses goes to the Heaven of Human Internals, which is located
between the highest heaven and the Spiritual Sun. The embryos are more holy than angels and they serve a special
function of filtering the Lord’s influx before it passes onto the highest
angels. These embryos remain the same,
never becoming adults, because they never developed a spirit or mind.
When
learning about children in heaven it made me happy to think that all children
who die are given a great mother, they live in the best environment, with the
best teachers. It is very comforting to
know that they are very well taken care of and that they don’t have to suffer
any evils.
Lecture
Notes #1: Q&A on Theistic Psychology
In
order to explore Theistic Psychology I think it is important to understand the
difference between religion and theistic psychology. This topic is found in chapter two of the lecture notes.
The
difference between religion and mystical psychology is that religion is
mystical and psychology is rational.
Mystical systems, religion, depend on blind faith therefore we see many
different religions that have developed over time. I also see that religion is more culturally and historically
bound. I feel that religion and culture
can almost be exchanged as the same word.
We can see this because even in the same religion, there are many
different and contradictory explanations for the same phenomenon.
Theistic
psychology is not a religion but a science.
Theistic psychology includes God as an explanatory concept in all
explanation of human behavior and dynamics.
As opposed to religion, there is only one theistic science. The amazing thing about theistic psychology
is that it never contradicts itself and the Writings of Swedenborg can be
understood rationally. Theistic
psychology is a science and therefore cannot depend on belief, faith, or
personal preference. As theistic psychology
is studied it is important to understand in rationally so that nothing based by
persuasion, fear, or authority.
There
is a very distinct difference between religion and Theistic psychology that
needs to be defined because I have seen many cases where uncertainty and
irrational thoughts in religion have driven people away from God. God needs to be recognized as the creator of
all things and Theistic psychology will help us understand how he affects us
daily and for eternity.
Lecture
Notes #2: Swedenborg’s Writings about Marriage
The
topic I chose from the Lecture Notes can be found in chapter 11. This chapter explores the three levels of
unity in gender relationships. The
first level of unity is the External Level, or the Sensorimotor Self. This level can be shown as a couple that
enjoys doing things together, but the two don’t essentially have to be in
agreement. A couple at this level has
not developed respect for one another.
The second level is the Cognitive Self and includes similarities in
values, reasoning, and ways of thinking.
This level allows their love to grow stronger and more fulfilling. The third level is the Affective Self. This level includes similar desires,
motivations, and a need for one another.
Couples in this relationship feel and provide protection and support for
one another.
I
think it is important to recognize and understand these three levels of unity
in relationships because it helps identify the quality and purity of the
relationship.
Lecture
Notes #3: Character Reformation
The
topic of Character Reformation can be found in chapter seven of the lecture
notes. I chose to discuss this topic
because out purpose in life is to work at reforming our character in order to
reach the highest level of spirituality.
First
we need to understand that feelings are real substances that can be seen by the
spiritual body. Second, feelings are
active and operational only when the fibers are stimulated by the efflux of
substances from the Spiritual Sun streaming in to the spiritual body. Our mind receives input from both natural
and spiritual sources. Knowing these
things we can better manage our feelings and emotions to improve our character.
The
topic that I was most interested in for this chapter was the struggle between
the Natural and the Spiritual Mind. I
am going to refer to Swedenborg for this explanation.
The
“natural man,” who is also called the “external man,” refers to the natural
mind while the “spiritual man,” who is also called the “internal man,” refers
to the spiritual mind. The conscious
natural mind is filled with self love and love of the world. The unconscious spiritual mind is filled
with the love of good and truth streaming in from the Spiritual Sun. In order to be “saved” fro a heavenly life
in eternity it is absolutely necessary for the natural mind to give up its
loves and beliefs acquired from heredity and experience. The only way we can live in heaven is for
our loves to be heavenly, that is, that we love good and truth.
It
is very important to know that, in order to reach salvation we need to give up
those evil, worldly loves. This is the
process of reformation. I believe that,
to some extent, we all feel the difference between good and evil because we all
have a conscience and I agree that we need to give up those evils to reach our
highest heaven.
4. Conclusion
This assignment helped me reassure my views on spirituality. In report two I confessed that I am not usually so easily influenced in believing different ideas of the spiritual world but I found myself so easily drawn to the revelations by Emanuel Swedenborg. I think this is so because God and the spiritual world are explained rationally, making it simple to understand. This assignment helped me understand why it is that there are so many conflicts between religions that use the same source (the Bible) for their teachings. I feel relieved to understand that many religions don’t examine all of the passages on a subject and as expected they come up with many different meanings and teachings.
This
assignment helped me realize that religion is more culturally and historically
oriented but I also see that all religions have the same underlying meaning in
them. That is to be a good loving
person, who works at conquering their evil loves. They teach that we should love and respect the neighbor, our
community. I believe we can all agree
that God did a good job on making this point clear to us all.
Lastly,
I can say that I feel that my purpose on life is clear and that I understand
how the spiritual world functions and influences my emotions. I feel inspired by those people around me
who function at phase three of rational spirituality and I will continue to
work in hopes to reach my highest level of consciousness.
5. Future
Generations
I
want to encourage all following generations to read these reports in order to
gain knowledge on theistic psychology.
It might have more of an impact for a student to read a report on
theistic psychology from someone who also is only beginning to understand the
writings. We might be able to relate
more than from professors. I also very
highly recommend reading Spirituality That Makes Sense, by Douglas
Taylor. This book is very helpful in
understanding the bible’s scriptures, it helps clear up many major
misunderstandings that different religions have in response to the same
phenomenon.
I
believe that it is very helpful to understand God rather than to believe in
Him. If this report is confusing in any
way please refer to any of Dr. Leon James’ lecture notes and articles. Everyone should consider this topic because
it directly affects everyone and their life in the spiritual world for
eternity. I encourage all who address
this topic to come into it with an open mind and if this is so then hopefully
everything will fall into place.
Have
fun!