Shirley A. Leman

PSY 499

Theistic Psychology

12/10/04

Emmanuel Swedenborg

An Independent Study

Who is Emmanuel Swedenborg?

Emmanuel Swedenborg was an accomplished intellectual, a respected and notable scientist and engineer and a devout Christian, that made many contributions to his native country of Sweden, in legislation and regulation in the advances, research, and application of metallurgy useful in Sweden’s industry of mines. Dates, and reference point. This honorable scientist of the 18^th century made additional contributions to society that preceded his time in the advancement of man and science.

Swedenborg was a pious man of honest and through intelligence, honored for the integrity and reliability of his work. Swedenborg served in government on the Swedish Board of Mines as an honorable and ennobled servant. Swedenborg was of a deeply religious upbringing, society conscious, educated in the best schools, and taught by the most influential minds of his time. Name his instructors with reference. Many of Swedenborg’s ideas and discoveries were ahead of his time. Not until the more recent technological advancements of modern science, were Swedenborg’s highly intelligent theories and finding fully understood.

Prior to Einstein, science had not yet been able to equal the level of Swedenborg’s intellectual scope. Swedenborg had many notable associates and colleagues in science and trade who were leaders in their field. Name leaders and reference. Swedenborg had a wide range of personal pursuits in astronomy, chemistry, physics, anatomy, engineering and language to name just a few of his areas of research and application. Swedenborg had several scientific journals already published, to his credit.

At the age of 57, Swedenborg maintained his prominence and authority in his secular position on the board of mines, and began research of a higher intelligence. By a divine appointment to a much higher realm, Swedenborg was granted access to the domains of heaven. Swedenborg became a dual citizen of both heaven and earth. Reference. Swedenborg’s through investigation of the realms of science were in pursuit of truth and the understanding of the function and mechanisms of the physical world. This truth seeking, and the high level of Swedenborg’s intelligence, allowed him to approach the truths of the spiritual realm with the same scientific vigor. Swedenborg documented the laws of correspondence that united the spiritual and physical world. These correspondences were revealed to Swedenborg by the divine, so that these truths could be understood and revealed to the whole of mankind, just as the word of God has been previously revealed to man as describe in the biblical scriptures. The origin of the heavens, earth, and the creation of man had been revealed in two prior chapters, as they were written in the biblical scriptures of the Old and New testaments.

Swedenborg studied the Hebrew language at depth and discovered a correspondence of terms in the text, to spiritual significance repeated throughout both of the biblical doctrines. The spiritual significance written in the divine language of the creator, are descriptions of higher consciousness. Reference Swedenborg, himself a man of higher consciousness, recognized the writings on this higher level. And so, it was allowed by Divine power that Swedenborg view the spiritual realm as a dual citizen.

With access to spiritual eternity Swedenborg was able to scientifically observe and detail his finding of the dual nature of our being. Swedenborg explained we of spiritual substance from the spiritual sun as well as physical substance from the physical sun. Swedenborg described our spiritual realm as our mental consciousness, made of a spiritual substance that is separate from our physical body and connected to the past and present consciousness or all men and their creator, and by which all things come forth and continue. Reference point

Both physical substance and spiritual substance of mankind have an anatomy of functional structure and systemology. The physical anatomy of our body contained our neural, pulmonary and vasculatory systems. These are mechanisms of our sensory experience. The spiritual anatomy of our spiritual substance is arranged in three layers, or levels of consciousness.

The Three-Fold Word

The Three-Fold Word is divine speech written in scriptures that correspond to the three levels of human consciousness. The three-fold Word is the will of God proclaimed to all inhabitants of his domain, for the plan and execution of all creation; the heavens, planets and all beings. The three-fold word is the written Word of the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Writings of Swedenborg. The scriptures written in each of the three sacred doctrines in the Three-Fold Word corresponds to the three-fold levels of consciousness. Reference 3-fold word. The Old Testament corresponds to the corporeal understanding of human experience. The words of the Old Testament are seen and understood in a literal sense. Divine speech to earthly beings, was dictated to the ancient world as they perceived it in the corporeal experience.

The New Testament corresponds to the cognitive level of human understanding. The scriptures of the New Testament corresponds to the middle level of consciousness is an integration of the physical and spiritual experience of divine order. Divine speech, written in the New Testament was communication to the spiritual consciousness, higher than the corporeal literal sense of the word as the new world began to perceive it through cognitive understanding of the physical world in relation to God and his realm.

The Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg corresponds to the affective, or emotional level of consciousness, which is highest in spiritual correspondence to divine speech in the conscious mind. The third and final scriptures of divine speech dictated the experience of eternal life. The divine open the eternal realm of the heavens to Swedenborg’s consciousness so the truth of this realm could be revealed to man. The truth of our highest consciousness lives on in spiritual substance beyond the physical death of our earthly being.

Swedenborg was a man of both scientific and spiritual devotion, who was able to perceive the whole truth of what was revealed to him. There by Swedenborg was allowed to observe the realm of God in the spiritual and eternal realm.

Are the Writings of Swedenborg Religion or Science?

Swedenborg was a distinguished scientific leader of the 18^th century who never separated his knowledge of God from his scientific knowledge as modern science has. Swedenborg was of the conscious mind that all universal truths are revealed by the divine. Truth in physical science is manifested from spiritual truth. The origin of all things great and small are manifestations of spiritual substance, which has no limits to time or space. Infinite truth is spiritual love from which all universal realities are maintained. Love is the conjunction of the physical and spiritual realm. Love is the truth by which all creation comes into being. reference

Swedenborg was granted access to the spiritual realm by the divine creator. All truth is revealed by the Divine Creator. As the truth is sought out, the Truth is reveal, which is ultimately the Divine order of the universe. As we open ourselves to the truth of divine order, and live this truth as it is to be believed, our consciousness of truth is elevated.

The correspondences of the Divine order, examined and described by Swedenborg, is a rational explanation of the universal truths of the nature and spirit of our human existence. The belief in one Divine Creator is not a mechanism of control but a logical explanation of the condition of free will. Free will is the mechanism for endless potential. When our mind is elevated to the consciousness of the divine, we are open to infinite greatness and truth that comes from divine order.

The level of thinking that God is a punisher of our sins is a mentality that resides in the lower levels of our mind. This lower sensory consciousness looks to the external, corporal understanding of our sense experience. This is the first level of consciousness in the human mind. Consciousness that remains at this level fails to recognize the spirit within us that is greater that what we see in the physical world. This first level of conscious understanding was the level at which the Old Testament of the Bible was interpreted by people of the ancient world.

The whole of society is affected by the lower level mentality, because we limit our potential to the level of our knowing. Our personal knowledge is less then our collective knowledge, and blind to the infinite powers of creation. We are connected by our consciousness of others, and elevated in understanding with truthful intent to do the will of the divine creator. The creator controls all things and maintains a balance of good and evil through free will. Salvation from our inherent sinful self is available to each and every man by the freedom and conscious choice to turn toward goodness and truth and away from evil. Salvation sounds like a religious term but it the mechanism of free will. Good and evil are not created by us, but they are maintained through us by our free will to choose our loves, and the societies that influence us through our loves.

The correspondences described by Swedenborg are nondenominational. They are universal correspondences between the spiritual and the physical realms. There is a hierarchy of societies in spiritual form according to a hierarchy order of loves. Love of God, love of others and the world, and love of self. Love of God is the highest order of our love; love for self is the lowest order. Heaven and hell is in our mind according to the correspondence of our loves.

Our physical self is a temporary form to house our spiritual form during its development. Development of our conscious mind is in a progression of conscious awareness of the correspondences of our physical, natural and self-serving self, to a higher consciousness of our celestial spirituality. The intrinsic self is of goodness and truth and connected to all beings into eternity. Our highest love is to one other. One other is the creator in the spiritual sense. One other in the physical is one other person, other than our self, to love as we are to love god, above our self.

Through a spiritual devotion to one other, a unity or wholeness is created by which every other love is created. Uniting god’s love and will for eternal wisdom and truth, is eternal happiness or eternal love, in which neither side of the pair dominates but lives in perfect and peaceful union of two opposites creating one whole. Reference. These two are alike in no way, but conjoined in eternal purpose.

Modern Science

Modern science is atheistic; it denies the existence of a supreme being. Swedenborg was a man of science. Science: 1. a branch of knowledge or study dealing with the body of facts and truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws. Webster’s College Dictionary 1991. Swedenborg presented “a systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation.” Webster’s college Dictionary. Swedenborg presented these “facts and principles through systematic study” and “precise application of facts and principles.” Webster’s College Dictionary. Swedenborg’s work is a science. His work is recognized by many great men and women of scientific knowledge. His writings became the doctrines of theistic science.

Everything corresponds with the spirit world; the lord’s kingdom, the whole and its parts are ultimate celestial state of goodness and truth. The effect cannot subsist unless the cause is in operation. “With out order nothing can be effected” Swedenborg (Arcana Coelectria) 5711 Divine purpose.”

A wise man once said, “Idiot is the man who does not know the hand extended to him by an acquaintance was intended as a salutation or a blow.” Modern science remains on this same level of ignorance if it does not recognized the hand of God. “To know and name all the letters on the page of nature attempt without translate higher and understanding the wisdoms page intended to each.”

Swedenborg’s Spiritual Science

Swedenborg explained the correspondences of the spiritual and physical realms. Heaven and hell are in our conscious existence. These states of consciousness are in constant influx with all spiritual substance deriving from the spiritual sun. The body and mind function in unison through correspondences. The body is of physical substance deriving from the physical sun. The physical substance of the planets are in corresponds to the spiritual substance of the heavens. The duality of the spiritual and physical are two halves of our whole being. If science is to reveal the truth of our being, it cannot deny half of who we are, and be an accurate account of the complete human. Modern science and modern society, medicine, education, government and industry fail to address the whole body of truths that is the system of our spiritual and physical being.

What is the significance of this?

The exterior, physical construct of the human being is the superficial and limited element of the human. The interior spiritual construct of the human being is at the center of the universe. At the interior of our conscious we are connected to the infinite and we are not limited to time and space. Swedenborg was a theistic scientist. He studied the systems of the physical earth and the systems of the planets, and he studied the systems of the mind and explored the spiritual realm with a belief in one creator. He documented the facts of his observations so all men could know the results of his findings. It was for the benefit of all men that Swedenborg explored the truth. It was in his consciousness of our physical and spiritual duality that truth of our human existence was revealed to him. His theistic approach to science allowed him access to the greatest source of knowledge, the infinite of the creator and ruler of the universe, and with that he was granted the discovery of the laws of correspondence.

His observations are meticulously documented in a scientific system of notation to preciously articulate the rational order of the divine. These documents have been studied by many great minds of the past and present. Those who take the theistic approach to the examination of his documentation exalt his vast endeavor and awe in his accomplishments. Those who take the atheistic approach to the studied of Swedenborg's works may be similarly awed by his intelligence and monumental endeavors but are unable to exam the truth in the details because they do not hold a belief in the divine creator and so they discount his work. This is referred to as a negative bias. The theistic approach is referred to as a positive bias. Because we can not physically manipulate and demonstrate the laws of correspondence in a simple scientific demonstration we must approach the evidence in one of these two mind sets, but the atheistic scientist will automatically reject the notion of Divine order.

Why are we not more concerned with the part of us that is without end? Is it because the infinite is too overwhelming and we’re already having trouble with the here and now? If we explored the infinite further we would understand the rational order of all things, and in it the purpose of our physical being in the here and now in relation to the infinite, and be able to incorporate the two for a better, more meaningful and harmonious here and now, and eternity.

Swedenborg’s work is enlightening. Being of a positive bias mind set, I see so much confirmation of what I know from my own truth seeking and human experience. Those of the negative bias refuse these explanations and struggle for deeper meaning in their lives, when their atheistic thinking fails them. The theistic approach to truth does not fail us. We are forever seeking answers and being confirmed.

Our spiritual experience is manifested in our physical experience. Who we become is a manifestation of our thinking. These philosophies have been speculated by ancient societies through time.

If your present mental (spiritual) reality continued into eternity, what would that eternity be? Endless aching? Endless striving with alternating triumph and failure? Endless struggle and frustration, or endless compassion and grace? Endless greed or endless giving? What we cultivate in our mind within the physical presences of our bodies, we will cultivate for all eternity after the physical death.

If we devote our exploration only to the physical realm, we limit our understanding to the finite, and the infinite remains a mystery. We’ve put a cap on possibilities that exceed our physical realities, we stop before we get started; we give up before we’ve begun. We die before we are born.

Our physical self is not all that we are. We do not just take up physical space without an experience in the spiritual realm. Dualism is the unity of our spiritual and physical self by which we are one person, united in spirit with other humans. Unities of citizens make a society and a nation. The strength of the unity is based on the strength of its members in unison. Each member is joined in mental and physical intention to achieve the same end. Each member must share responsibility to meet the desired goal, or the parts of the whole are divisions. A nation state is united or divided by mental states. These spiritual states are among us.

Our spiritual (mental) states unite with others to form a vertical community that is united in thought, or divided in opposition, just as similar natural communities divide and unite in the physical world. We join with those who support our thinking. We unite with those who are like-minded. We feel a connection to those who understand the things we hold dear.

Those who look for the truth of our human nature seek understanding that explains the whole of human experience; we seek to understand our species, the independent components, and the conjunction of the whole. We seek to understand the variety of its parts in relation to the whole. We’re concerned with human potential and the communities they create. There is an understanding of the human experience that is yet to be. Our experience is connected to the past, present and future. There is spiritual substance of our human experience that exists outside of time and physical space.

Those who seek the advancement of themselves without regard for others maintain a selective knowledge that does not contain the whole truth. Without the whole truth, human study is not a science but a self-interest or self-indulgence, and the interest is in what we can possess. Concern with ones possessions is limiting our focus. We begin tendencies that justify our personal interests, and see them separated from the concern for others.

In layman’s terms:

Businesses hire employees that support their philosophy. A company product is designed and supported by the idea that product represents. The idea is in their mental or spiritual realm. A company philosophy is a spiritual state. The spiritual state of the company is the spiritual or mental states of the representatives in union with the idea they want to present and maintain. We are in harmony if we are in agreement with the company philosophy, or we are in discontent if we are not in agreement and the philosophy is imposed upon us. I

Here’s another analogy to explain what I mean. A football is an object that represents an objective. The objective is obtained by a philosophy to possess the ball. There’s a plan, a system of organization, and a theory about how the components will work together and what will occur, and there is a shared interest among the players. When a football fan screams he, “loves football”, it is not the football he loves; it’s the elements of the game and the engagement in the mind that a football fan loves. It’s entertainment, excitement, strategy, prediction, competition, winning, pride, satisfaction, camaraderie, victory or dominance, and so on, all of which are in the minds of the players, the fans, the coaches, the commentators, the cheerleaders, the advertisers and the sponsors.

A whole industry is generated and supported by the ideals in our minds that the football comes to represents. But it is the mental constructs not the ball itself that excites us. It is the spirit of the game that is the reality above the physical aspects of game. “The spirit” is our desire to unite with others for a common purpose, a purpose that goes beyond this moment in time. Our spirit elevates us above the here and now.

Back to Spiritual Science

Hope, faith, love, desire are all mental states that propel us to higher levels of consciousness. Without these spiritual states that extend beyond our physical self, and lift us up to places of higher consciousness, we descend into lower mental states of self-absorption and despair and ultimately destruction of the self and unity with others. There is something innate in all of us to be inspired to join with others, lift up ourselves in spirit, in voice and in action and move ourselves toward a better place and a better future for ourselves and generations to come.

If we let go of those spiritual states that lift us, we fall into lower spiritual states that eventual destroy us. The opposite of unity, is selfishness and isolation and lower levels of selfish loves and evil deeds. What mental states do we want to continue into our personal, societal and universal eternity? Wherever you are, you are in your spiritual state with like minded spirits. What’s inside your mind? What is inside of us collectively? Who are we really?

When you speak do you speak the truth? Do you speak the truth to your boss, your friends and your loved ones? Or do you say what you think you should say to be popular, important or loved. Are your actions in response to the truth of the greater good, that elevates us all, or do your actions elevate you in self importance above others? We all have a part in truth. We are in alignment with it or in opposition of it. Truth is the ultimate good which is divine truth, and universal truth. Seek the truth as it is for all men and live according to it. As we open our mind to the possibility of divine creation and seek the true we come into alignment with the divine order and understand our purpose in it and our consciousness is connected to the influx of that greatness.

In our daily living, if we give attention only to the physical experience, we’re living a half-life. We were created in love. Love is all of creation. We continue for love. We are blinded by love. We will die for our love. We are compelled by our love. We could not accurately understand the dynamics of love if we only saw it in term of physical experience. If we examined a marriage by only explaining the work of the husband and did not acknowledge the work of the wife, we would have a biased, half hearted, and half attempt of understanding the whole truth of a marriage between a man and his wife. And this is what modern society, science and education continues to do by not acknowledging the duality of our lives.

Our human experience is three-fold. We have within us three levels of conscious understanding; the affective, cognitive and sensory-motor. These are feelings, thinking and actions that correspond to physical and spiritual influx of our human experience. Our affective, or emotional state, is the highest region of our conscious mind, and highest in the spiritual heaven of our mind. There we are closest to God and the spiritual influx of his divine order. Reference

Heaven and hell is in our mind corresponds to the level of our greatest affection. Love of God is in the highest region in our spiritual heaven. Everything that maintains and supports this love of the divine maintains our spiritual heaven. Love for one other as we would love our creator is our highest level of affection. Love of self is the lowest level of consciousness and resides in the lowest region of our mind. These regions are our spiritual levels of heaven and hell. We live in the heaven or hell of our mind by our level of love for God and others in our spiritual heaven, or love for self-alone, which is hell.

Love for self is necessary and appropriate for our well being, as long as it is in a rational proportion of affections for others and Divine order; the divine being highest in our mind, followed by love for the world, and love for self. If self love is highest in our mind and love of others and God is below our love for self, we’ve flipped the rational of Divine order upside down and we create an irrational mental construct of the order of things. In this kind of irrational thinking, we are in chaos, confusion and falsehood, and in direct opposition to goodness and truth, which is Divine order.

What’s the take home message here?

From the Divine, all things are created and maintained in a rational order, which is life for all eternity. If our level of consciousness is limited to the lowest portion of our mind, of corporal sensory motor experience, we unaware of our spiritual duality, and we live in the hell of our mind, possibly for all eternity after death of the physical body. What we see, hear, smell, taste and touch will be the only elements available to us to determine truths about the world. We then seek explanations that support this limited perception, and reject explanations of a higher truth. The corporeal sense experience is without spirit. It is a corpse without life; it is dead without the spirit to sustain it. “Like the literal text, it is only ink on paper without meaning.” The spiritual sense of the word is life and purpose.

With our greatest affections being our self, we only concern ourselves with experiences that are self-gratifying and sensory, immediate, external and temporary. This order of affection is self serving and therefore irrational to divine order. If we have a rational order of affections, we love God above all else for it is by God that we are given life and everything in it. By God’s will we experience everything of the spiritual and physical world through the laws of correspondences, which is the system of cause and effect between the two.

Love for others and our self, needs to be in a rational order. We love others as we love ourselves, uniting all love and sustaining eternal life. Unity is the highest order of love. The unity of heaven and earth is maintained in the same system of conjoint parts as is the body, and marriage, as God intended.

The human body is a system of divine order. The physical body is made of parts with pairs of opposites working in unison according to the order defined by one, the heart. The heart, like God, is at the helm of this system of life. The system of creation is a system similar to the system of homeostasis in the human body. The universe is made of individual parts working in conjunction to the order of one creator. Heaven and earth work in conjunction in a system that sustains the homeostasis of the universe. The earth and planets sustain the spiritual world. The spiritual world sustains the planets. The planets were created for that purpose. New loves create new planets into infinity. This is a system of free will that supports eternity. The dualism of the spiritual sun and all that derives from it, and the physical sun and all that derives from it, are connected by correspondences between the two. This dualism is by free will, which is the sustaining state of all creation.

Through the spiritual and physical correspondences created by free will we live in heaven or hell of our mind. Our physical body houses the conscious mind in its infancy, through childhood and adult life. Our spiritual consciousness develops through the correspondences of the physical and mental states. Upon the death of the body the spirit is resuscitated into the spiritual world.

The spirit is guided and protected by angels through the resuscitation process after the death of the body, until the spirit is united with the spiritual society that sustains that spirit in a community of spirits, where it will reside into eternity. When separated from our body, by death of the body, our spirit ascends or descends to the heaven or hell we lived in our mind. The heaven or hell of our mind is free to join the whole of all others residing in the heavens and hells through all eternity. The spirit will be in unison or opposition of the flow of other spirits in each community, and will reside with the spiritual flow that is of the same construct as that spirit’s love. The influx of heaven is in the opposite direction of the flow of evil.

Our affections are united with other others with the same affections. The highest affection is two opposites in spiritual union. One man united with one woman in harmony of consciousness is our spiritual heaven. The two opposites conjoin together and operate as one. Swedenborg said Heaven is a society of married pairs, of one man and with one woman, that at a distance look like one person with wings. Love of God, the creator, above all else is the highest most rational order of love. The union of married pairs created in the physical, and reunited in the spiritual, dwell in perfect harmony for all eternity. Love of self is irrational and disordered and we descend to the lowest level of hellish existence where domination of others is their greatest affection and they live in a perpetual state of domination altering between dominating and being dominated by others for all eternity.

The consciousness levels of the three-fold self as explained by Swedenborg indicates that our emotions serve a function, they are guiding communications from the divine human and his society of angles, which are human spirits, living in his spiritual society. The divine speaks to us in our affective mind and the emotions descend to our cognitive mind where we analysis our thoughts. If the logical we derived from our thinking is with out believed in the divine creator, our human experience descends to the level of corporal experience.

The Divine order of the creator is written in the scared scriptures of Old and New Testaments, and in the writings of Swedenborg. There is a correspondence in the text of all three scared scriptures that corresponds to the levels of conscious awareness the human mind. Our consciousness evolves as our relationship to the divine human grows in our understanding. With this evolution of our conscious mind we capable of great love and wisdom through our relationship with the divine.

The design of our human body is in his likeness, in physical anatomy and the anatomy of understanding, and purposeful according to the will of God. It is by his design that we are to carry out his will. Our body and mind are designed to unite the physical and spiritual here on earth according to the correspondences the divine created.

Dualism

Dualism is consisting of two parts. Dualism is the spiritual and physical construct of our human. Dualism is heaven and hell, woman and man, light and dark, collective and individual, peace and conflict and many other forces that sustain the life of each other. Dualism is repeatedly represented in the human body. Two eyes unite in vision. The duality of our vision is that we seek with the physical and we see (understand) in the spiritual. Two lips unite to speak. Sound is in the physical and expression is in spiritual. Two ears unite to hear. We hear physical sound and listen for spiritual meaning. We hear in sound and caring. Two of every limb and organ except the heart, is a reflection of the dual nature in man, in relation to one God. One heart represents one God that gives life. Human duality is the correspondence of spiritual and physical functioning according to creation. Our physical body is a manifestation of spiritual conscious. Each one a manifestation of divine intention.

Negative and Positive Bias

A positive bias is maintained by the notion of the possibility of a divine order. The negative bias is a reject of the notion of divine order, and therefore the rejection of the research and writings of Swedenborg as scientific explanation. Modern science and research does not recognize the divine as a causal agent, and so psychology and other areas of science are atheistic. The positive bias is only taking the position that the existence of God is possible. With the possibility of God in mind, we are able to examine the evidence that Swedenborg presents in the laws of the correspondence. A positive bias is required to scientifically and critically examine the causal relationships Swedenborg documented of the correspondence between the spiritual and physical of our human duality.

Emanuel Swedenborg studied the ancient language of the scared scriptures and saw the laws of correspondence written in the biblical text. Divine speech in the doctrines of the Old and New Testaments maintained a duality of physical and spiritual meaning. These testaments were of divine speech to mortal man. The Old Testament, the New Testament and the Writings of Swedenborg are referred to as the Three-Fold Word, word meaning divine speech, which corresponds to the Three Fold Self, which are the three fold levels of conscious understanding.

Theistic science is based on the laws of correspondences documented in the writings of Swedenborg. Theistic science is of the positive bias that the laws of correspondences contained in the scared writings are the rational explanation for the order and function of all things. The logic and rational order of the correspondence explained in these documents are consistent and the content of these writings has not been disproved.

The correspondences are the relationships between the spiritual and physical realms. The Divine is love, the substance and origin of all things and therefore, the cause of all things. We were created in love, we are sustained in love, and we respond to our environment, have perceptions, understanding, feel, think and act according to our loves. There is a hierarchy of rational order in the universe that is in accordance with our loves. Love for God, or heavenly love is highest and most good and true. Love for our self above all others is the lowest form of love and it is hellish and full of falsities and the opposite of good and truth. In between these two levels is an earthly level of love for God and self that is greater love than selfish love but lower love that selfless love.

It is in the balance of good and evil maintain by the Divine by which we are allowed to make a conscious choice. By conscious choice, or free will, we choose to turn away from evil and live according to truth which is the divine, or ultimate good that is the divine which is love. By conscious choice we elevate our level of consciousness to the possibilities presented by God. By turning away from God and his rational order, we descend in consciousness and become hellish and illogical, and in opposition to divine wisdom which is good and truth.

Reformation

Reformation is the process by which human beings reform the hellish traits they were born with in the natural world, by rejecting them, and following their conscious awareness of the divine. Knowledge of the divine is written in the scared scriptures. The whole of divine speech to man is written in the Three-Fold Word, of the Old Testament and New Testament of the bible and the writings of Swedenborg.

The reformation process is the process by which we achieve higher levels of consciousness and open ourselves to the greater wisdom of the divine. By this progression in understanding of his nature, his will and the execution of his divine order is revealed. To love others is to honor him and do his will on earth, and the way by which we will live for eternity in a heavenly existence. Conjugal Love is the perfect union of love of one other. One man conjoined in love by the reciprocal of one woman forms a unity.

This unity is the conjunction of love with truth. Love is the perfect reciprocal of truth and vise versa. This unity is the ultimate state of consciousness and the substance of eternity.

Conjugal Love

One man and one woman joined to form a unity that is heaven. For the husband to “abandon the mother and father and cleave to the wife” as it is written in scripture, is to leave the will of your self and conjoin with the will of the wife. Man is of the earth, and physical external knowledge, woman is of the celestial, inner, spiritual loves which is higher wisdom than external wisdom. These two minds joined together, make a complete whole. This dualism is representative of our duality. Congicol loves is our highest love. All men, before this kind of union, are not yet a husband and not yet complete. All women, before this union, are not yet wives and not yet complete. Although women love in a spiritual sense, wholeness is achieved when man loves woman above him and joins her in spiritual love.

Developmental levels of thinking

We think on three levels. The first being the natural, physical, external and corporeal level in response to what we see, feel, hear, taste and touch, being the perception of reality. The second level of thinking is the spiritual, mental, and cognitive. Our thinking and understanding has a reality separate from the physical. The third level is celestial; it is our affective, emotional experience, our feelings, and our loves that have a reality outside of our awareness.

This celestial, affective self is our loves. This celestial thinking is separate from the physical reality; separate from the cognitive in that it is higher in order, then our natural understanding. If we understand what is God’s will, if we place God’s will above our own, we open our thinking to the influx of God’s will in us. Our affective, feeling state, which is acknowledgement of God, will be a level of thinking that is higher that the cognitive, and higher than the sensory motor in reality. This reality is the origin and the continuation of all realities, spiritual and physical in conjunction. If we live in a negative bias we never open ourselves to this level of reality. It is by acknowledgement or conscious thought and understanding of our spiritual reality, that God’s divine light shines through us. It is by this celestial awareness that we sense, receive, acknowledge, and act in accordance to divine law.

Resurrection

At the death of the physical body, the spiritual body continues to live for all eternity and resides in the spiritual community that corresponds to the ascending or descending level of his loves in the physical world. Heaven is the spiritual and eternal state of love and truth in our conscious mind in accordance to God’s will and testament. The Spiritual-Natural Heaven of the Natural Mind, the lowest heaven residing in the natural world through sense experience. The Spiritual Heaven of the Spiritual Mind is the middle heaven in the spiritual world developed through rational cognitive experience.

The Celestial Heaven of the celestial mind, is the highest heaven and closest to God. Influx of God, which is all that is Good and Truth by the joining of man who is good and woman who is truth through affective experience. Hell is the spiritual state of selfish love and the lowest, most evil state of spiritual and mental existence. Evil and falsity are in opposition to God, love and truth. The Word is infinite with profound depths of wisdom that can not be expressed in the language of men. The Divine is infinite in meaning and relevant to each and every man, and translated according to his wisdom.

Correspondences

The external body without innermost is word without meaning.

Creation is successive stages of man’s regeneration. Blindness is absence of divine light. Beginning infancy, is before regeneration. Vacuity, emptiness and darkness, is the beginning which receives life, new creation shall praise the Lord Psalm 18. Bread is nourishment, or higher enduring life, spiritual food. Grain corresponds to the affection of all good supports – life, or that which supports life more that other things. When we reject sin and evil we release our connection to it. If we do not acknowledge it, it has no power over us. This awareness is tested every day, every hour, and every minute. Leaving ourselves available to sin, it then has power over us and we are connected to it. A virtual community is a community of good or evil spirits who try to influence us. We are receptive to the influence of either good or evil societies. Through that influence we are residing in that virtual community. We may dwell in these societies temporarily for their influence may be stronger than our knowledge of them. And by our acknowledgements and adherence to these societies we are more permanently joined in them. Evil societies love the self above all else and all doing and knowing and loving is of and for the self. Love of others, there by love of God, or love of God there by love of others as we honor God is just that love of others and love of God and this is infinite and we are forever advancing in our thinking, knowing and loving.