The Web address of this document is: www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/making.htm
 

Note: This article was submitted for publication to New Philosophy in 2005. It was not accepted. The reason given was that theistic psychology was an unfinished project and could not be adequately evaluated at this time.

 

 The Textbook of Theistic Psychology in 18 Volumes is available here:  www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/theistic

 

The Making of Theistic Psychology

 

By Dr. Leon James

Professor of Psychology

University of Hawaii
2005

(see Note 1)

 

Contents

 

  1.       Clarifying the Title of the Article

  2.       The Social Context for Teaching Theistic Psychology

  3.       The Style in Which Theistic Psychology is Written

            3.1       Methodology in Theistic Psychology

  4.       The Negative and Positive Bias in Science

  5.       Correspondences of Divine Speech in Sacred Scripture

  6.       Levels of Descent of Divine Speech

  7.       The Incarnation Event and Regeneration

  8.       Thinking With Angels: Our Virtual Heavens

  9.       Why the Writings Sacred Scripture are Written in Correspondences

            9.1       Methodological Issues About Enlightenment

            9.2       Why Spiritual Meanings Cannot be Conveyed by Natural Expressions

            9.3       The Method of Correspondences With Enlightenment

            9.4       Methods of Extraction

                        9.4.1    The Method of Substitution

                        9.4.2    The Method of Rational Series

                        9.4.3    The Method of Mapping

10.       Spiritual Geography = Mental Anatomy

11.       Sensuous vs. Rational Spirituality

12.       The Benefits of Theistic Psychology

13.       The Central Theme of Theistic Psychology

14.       Theistic Psychology for the New Church Mind

15.       Current Research in Theistic Psychology

            15.1     Self-witnessing Disciplines

            15.2     Phases of Mental Development

            15.3     Genes of Consciousness

                        15.3.1    Duality Gene Structures

                        15.3.2    Trigrammatic Gene Structures

                        15.3.3    Graphic Concepts for Trigrammatic Genes

                        15.3.4    Rational Sets of Trigrammatic Concepts

                        15.3.5    Enneadic Gene Structures

                        15.3.6    Mapping the Divine Child's Mental States

            15.4     Unity Model of Marriage

16.       The Future Outlook for Theistic Psychology

Appendix: The Current Outline for Volume 5

End Notes

 

 

This article describes how the work Theistic Psychology is being written and what it is based on. Several key themes are summarized, exhibiting the style and reasoning process of theistic psychology. Several selections are included showing how the relevant scientific information is extracted from the Writings.

 

Dr. Leon James has been Professor of Psychology at the University of Hawaii since 1971. In 1981 he and his wife were browsing in the campus library, looking for Bible commentaries. They found the Writings of Swedenborg and they have been studiously reading them ever since. Since 1996 he has maintained a Web site of his articles and books on Swedenborg (see Note 2). Since the spring semester of 2004 he has been teaching the scientific content of the Writings to Psychology majors enrolled in his research seminars. The title of the course is Theistic Psychology: The Science of Immortality, Based on the Writings of Swedenborg. His Lecture Notes on Theistic Psychology comprise 18 volumes and are available on the Web (see Note 2).

 

Dr. James is also known to news reporters as “Dr. Driving” and has given over one thousand interviews and media appearances in the past five years. Known as the world’s foremost expert on road rage, he maintains a Web site on driving psychology at DrDriving.org and with his wife Dr. Diane Nahl, has authored a book titled Road Rage and Aggressive Driving: Steering Clear of Highway Warfare. They have written a video course titled Roadrageous which is the first national aggressive driving course used for achieving affective objectives for violators by some court systems, as well as in police training, and military bases.

 

1.  Clarifying the Title of the Article

 

The making of theistic psychology refers to every regenerating person’s effort to gather the “scientifics” of our immortality. I use the term “theistic psychology” to refer to the knowledge that any person derives from the Writings of Swedenborg by means of the method of correspondences with enlightenment, as prescribed in the Writings. Swedenborg himself applied this method to extract new knowledge from the Old and New Testament. He therefore wrote his analyses in Arcana Coelestia from this rational knowledge of theistic psychology.

 

But when we read what he wrote, we do not automatically obtain the theistic psychology he understood and from which he wrote as an expert. In order to reconstruct in our own mind the theistic psychology Swedenborg had in his mind, we need to do to the Writings Sacred Scripture something similar to what he did to the Old and New Testament Sacred Scripture. We cannot understand theistic psychology from the same spiritual level that he did through his dual citizenship and immediate leading from the Divine Human.

 

But the Divine Human has given every human being on earth the ability to understand spiritual ideas spiritually. The Writings call this spiritual understanding “enlightenment,” as will be shown in the article. But in order to be enlightened we must go to the effort of extracting, or “drawing out,” more interior meanings that are encapsulated within the literal meaning. The Writings command us to do this and teach us how to do it properly, as will be shown in the article.

 

The Divine Child during the Incarnation Event was the first to apply this method by extracting the hidden meanings in the Hebrew Old Testament Sacred Scripture, and then, enlightening His natural mind from the Human Divine within Himself. It is then that He realized who He was and what His mission needed to be. No one else applied this method to Sacred Scripture until Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), who illustrates and describes this method in very great detail. In the past 150 years many scholars from the General Church tradition have applied this method to the Writings Sacred Scripture, though they did not do so explicitly and did not call the result “theistic psychology.”

 

The theistic psychology that you can read in this work of 18 volumes is an instance of what happens when one applies this method in the context of the modern science of psychology.

 

Theistic psychology is not a New Church religion, but it is scientifically compatible with it because both the General Church and theistic psychology are based on the Writings Sacred Scripture exclusively. But the General Church is based on the literal meaning of the Writings Sacred Scripture, while theistic psychology is based on information extracted from the literal meaning by applying the prescribed method of correspondences with enlightenment. How and why this is done will be illustrated and explained in the article.

 

2.  The Social Context
for Teaching Theistic Psychology

 

I teach psychology courses as part of an undergraduate program that prepares majors for graduate school in psychology. The department has a reputation for maintaining strict scientific standards within the behavioral and clinical fields. Its program is accredited by the American Psychological Association. I mention these details to indicate the context in which I teach courses, and thus what faced me when I decided to teach the scientific content of the Writings as a regular course in the department. The principle of academic freedom allows instructors to select the specific content of courses. Nevertheless there is a strong expectation that instructors will cover the standard material for that course topic and level as defined by the leading college textbooks for each area.

 

Courses are tied into each other as prerequisites, a system that tends to restrict topics to a common denominator across most colleges and universities that prepare students for graduate school. In the early years I was able to add Swedenborg to courses in social psychology and history of psychology, as long as the expected list of authors was also covered. In this context I was able to do little more than mention a few ideas Swedenborg had written about, along with the other “requisite” historical figures like Aristotle, Plato, Leibniz, Descartes, Malherbes, Rousseau, Wundt, W. James. These receive mention in most History of Psychology textbooks. Not one of them includes Swedenborg. However, in this context, just about anyone can be mentioned in lectures because it is a historical lineup, and is not directly related to the contemporary status of psychology as a science.

 

My first attempt to teach the Writings as an entire course came in the Spring 2004 semester. The course was in the form of a seminar for psychology majors in their last semester. The content of the course is not defined as a prerequisite and varies with the instructor teaching it. This format gave me the opportunity to determine the entire content of the course. I used two sources for the assigned readings: Testimony to the Invisible (Swedenborg Foundation.) and Spirituality that Makes Sense (Rev. Douglas Taylor) (see Note 3). The first book is made of brief essays on Swedenborg by various well known authors. The second book presents the General Church perspective on the Writings. The first book is secular and presents Swedenborg as a “visionary” and “mystic” who is so deep that few people fully understand him. The second book presents Swedenborg as the “revelator,” chosen and prepared by Jesus Christ as God, to repair the theological irrationalities into which the Christian Church had fallen.

 

By selecting these two books I was intending to present a ‘balanced’ discussion in the tradition of academia. On one side of the views on Swedenborg, there is the secular perspective and assessment of him as one of the great geniuses of literature. On the other side there is the General Church religious view and assessment of the Writings of Swedenborg as Sacred Scripture. In our class discussions I presented my own research position which was that the Writings of Swedenborg are scientific reports about the spiritual world. Interestingly, the students showed a preference for the Douglas Taylor book, an outcome that took me by surprise. Students wrote several reports and they are posted on the Web (see Note 2).

 

My conclusion after the first semester was that I did not spend enough time and effort in presenting the scientific content of the Writings in a systematic way that would allow them to enter into a serious study of its ideas. My focus had been for the most part on history of science issues: (1) Is it possible to have God as a concept in psychology and still have it remain a science?; (2) What would it take to evaluate Swedenborg’s reports from a methodological assessment? (3) What content is actually in the Swedenborg reports? These meta-issues are now covered in Volume 1 only. In class discussions I found that students showed an intense interest in the details of the afterlife – the resuscitation process, soul mates meeting in heaven, conjugial love, children who die, and who goes to hell. So these topics are covered in a Q&A style and make up Volume 2. The discussion is general and broad. Subsequent Volumes enter into the details and particulars of these topics.

 

For the Fall 2004 semester I decided not to use collateral works and to focus exclusively on an organized presentation of the major scientific concepts of the Writings. I was able to organize my extensive notes from the past twenty years, turning them into a new updated and systematic presentation under the title of Theistic Psychology. Students are always surprised that these topics are being discussed in a psychology course. No science teacher in their experience since grade school has ever discussed God and heaven and hell.

 

Most students select my course because of the time schedule, given that there is a requirement to take at least one such seminar from choices offered by at least three faculty members every semester. Therefore they don’t get to find out what the topic specifically is until they sit in class. The title of my seminar is Theistic Psychology and the one line description varies somewhat from semester to semester, but it always includes the phrases “based on the Writings of Swedenborg” and “rational spirituality.” Some students are attracted to the topic of “spirituality,” which ordinarily refers to “new age” perspectives. The word “rational” gives people pause as the two words aren’t normally seen together.

 

By the third semester (Spring 2005), my Theistic Psychology Lecture Notes on the Web grew to four volumes. I had more material than students could read and process in a 16-week semester for one course. My strategy was to assign selected parts for their reading and class presentations. This strategy will continue into the coming semesters for the near future.

 

In the meantime I formed the idea that I should continue the process of presenting the scientific content of the Writings of Swedenborg in the form of theistic psychology, so that it may serve a general academic-scientific audience, not merely my students. Today the material has grown to 18 volumes and I am slowly adding new material to each of them. I project a completion date for 2010. The organization of the volumes is as follows:

 

Volume  1        Introduction to Theistic Psychology

Volume  2        Q&A on Theistic Psychology

Volume  3        Levels of Thinking About Theistic Psychology

Volume  4        Derivation and Function of Scientific Revelations

Volume  5        Research Methods in Theistic Psychology

Volume  6        Personality Theory

Volume  7        Character Reformation

Volume  8        Learning and Cognition

Volume  9        Spiritual Development

Volume 10       Health Behaviors

Volume 11       The Marriage Relationship

Volume 12       The Heavenly and Hellish Traits

Volume 13       Religious Behaviorism

Volume 14       Prayer as Revelation from God

Volume 15       Rational Faith and Charity

Volume 16       Religious Mysticism

Volume 17       Religious Movements

Volume 18       Index to All Sections, Subject Index, and Readings

 

 

3.  The Style in Which Theistic Psychology is Written

 

The style may appear to some readers as painfully elaborate and repetitive. One will find discussion of the same issue in more than one Section within the same Volume and across the Volumes. In each case, the discussion is somewhat different, though there is recognizable overlap. This recursive style is the result of the way the work is building itself. For example, the topic of correspondences appears in many Sections but in each case it is discussed in relation to the topic being covered there. The discussions are cross-referenced so that the reader may consult earlier and later Sections throughout the volumes in order to obtain a more complete treatment of it.

 

At the moment the cross-references are merely a promise (“see Section xx”). When my students are currently writing about an assigned topic in theistic psychology they have to go through the elaborate procedure of opening each of the 18 volume-files on the Web and do a search for that topic. They are instructed to keep track of the Section numbers where the information came from, and this will eventually assist me in the daunting cross-reference job. I have an unbounded admiration for Swedenborg’s ability and labor involved in the construction of his Indexes -- without computer online access to the Writings, as I have, including their searchability.

 

Some of my more advanced students have happily agreed to start constructing a Subject Index or concordance. This is different from the Index of All Sections. Keying topics to Section numbers is not sufficiently precise because a Section is typically several pages long and may contain a dozen subjects for indexing. Hence reference by Section number is not exact enough to locate the specific topic without further searching. I considered numbering the paragraphs in each Section, and making the Subject Index refer to paragraph numbers within Sections. But I discarded this method for now because the paragraph numbers within a Section would change many times as I expand the text from within Sections, invalidating the Subject Index that already exists.

 

The current solution I’m working on is for the Subject Index to list the Section along with a two or three-word phrase by which the paragraph begins. In this way a searcher can find the Section from the Index of All Sections (in Volume 18), then once at the top of the Section one can do a document Find search for the phrase listed. This will exactly locate the paragraph for the reader, and will also allow me to later add paragraphs within any Section without affecting the accuracy of the topical index already prepared.

 

The reason I feel compelled to recreate arguments in multiple places is that my aim is to help make available a new scientific thinking register, not merely a compendium of knowledge about the scientific information in the Writings. Such a new scientific thinking register is needed as a reasoning tool for every person who wants to be able to think in the new spiritual-rational mode that has been created by the Writings Sacred Scripture. As a trained professional researcher in the field of behavioral psychology I have evolved this register in my mind over years of effort (since 1981) in processing the information in the Writings.

 

First I had to find the right vocabulary to substitute for phrases in the Writings that are aversive to people from different religions and philosophies. The many details the Writings give about the major religions on earth is objectionable to the people of that religion. Quite a bit of the Writings appear to people today as sexist, favoring the traditional male dominance model of gender relationships. This is a stumbling block that needs to be neutralized by making the religions and the sexism “vanish” from the reader’s focus by extracting the universal scientific meaning that is hidden in Sacred Scripture (AC 1405; 3776). This meaning has nothing whatsoever to do with religions or traditions, and so removes the stumbling block that makes the Writings unacceptable today to most people in the world.

 

Various current translations of the Writings attempt to “update” the language to fit a modern perspective and attitude, eliminating sexist language and modernizing expressions. I much prefer the older translations from the 19th century or the current translations by General Church scholars, both of which maintain a more literal rendering of the Latin into English. The modernization of the language of the Writings tends to depart from the original phrasing so that the extraction process becomes less accurate. It is the extraction process that modernizes the Writings, while the translation should be literal and faithful for all the generations yet to come. Each generation will extract its own information that is needed for their regeneration.

 

I am grateful to the General Church institution for having taken upon itself to guard the sanctity of the Writings Sacred Scripture. Their passionate attachment and loyalty to what they call the “Letter of the Writings as the Word,” protects the absolute integrity of the original Latin Sacred Scripture, and provides translations in English and other languages that are faithful to the original wording, grammar, and style. This faithfulness to the literal meaning protects the methodology of doctrinal extraction, which is given as a commandment in the Writings Sacred Scripture (see below).

 

I also had to find existing and traditional concepts in psychology that are connected to the discussion of an issue in the Writings. Since I am writing a scientific book I have to discuss a topic in a fully justified context. I could not just borrow a concept from the Writings without also showing how it can be fully justified scientifically. The scientific justification process is also from the Writings. No mystery or incomplete examination was allowable, no allusion or unspecified assumption, because these would leave a feeling of obscurity and the enterprise would not be believable as a scientific proposal.

 

There is a significant difference in use between a scientific thinking register and commentaries on Swedenborg’s Writings. When people learn a new thinking register they have acquired more than mere knowledge. They can be considered “experts” or “specialists” because they are able to reason with the knowledge in a new way, and with more useful results. Many people become experts in various areas of their normal activities – computers, sports, fashions, mountain climbing, poetry, cooking, singing.

 

This means that they can do something others cannot perform with the same degree of adeptness. They are able to talk about their expertise productively, and perhaps endlessly. They are able to analyze certain situations relating to their expertise and they can offer explanations for why certain things happen that puzzle others. In other words, experts have acquired a thinking register which is endlessly productive or generative.

 

It is similar with theistic psychology and the Writings Sacred Scripture. My aim is to help people learn a scientific thinking register that gives them the ability to reason rationally and empirically about God, immortality, salvation, heaven, hell, regeneration, conjugial love, Spiritual Sun. To do this I had to illustrate and model this thinking register for others to see, study, evaluate, and imitate. I had to present everything within a scientific framework that is genuine, not imitative or bogus. For instance when I discuss the operation of the Spiritual Sun I have to establish repeatedly in the mind of the reader that this is not a poetic phrase based on analogy with the natural sun. Each time the concept is mentioned I have to weave into the argument certain features that are connected logically in the overall explanatory structure. As for instance in the following paragraph:

 

What streams out of the Spiritual Sun must be a substance, or “spiritual matter” specified as “spiritual heat” and “spiritual light.” It is this substance that propagates itself across and through the mental world of humanity. The substance then enters the layers of the mental organs of every human being simultaneously. At each layer of the mind it activates correspondences of Divine Speech that are appropriate for that degree of thinking. This meaning, or truth, creates the person’s consciousness at each discrete level of thinking and willing.

 

You can see from the previous paragraph how elaborate it is to speak and write in this style where implications have to be justified and hidden presuppositions have to be explicated. I think it is an issue of making sure that the scientific justification process is never removed from anything said in theistic psychology.

 

The style of theistic psychology is not only recursive, repetitive, and elaborated, but also formative. Paragraphs are often based on the systematicities of a chart or listing of series, so that the same sentence is repeated in a series, with each iteration changing only the critical contrast – as illustrated in the following paragraph.

 

The Third Heaven in every person’s mind is constructed out of celestial-rational correspondences of Divine Speech. The Second Heaven in every person’s mind is constructed out of spiritual-rational correspondences of Divine Speech The First Heaven in every person’s mind is constructed out of spiritual-natural correspondences of Divine Speech

 

To make sure that the sentences don’t deviate, I like to copy the first series then paste it two more times, going back to edit only the contrastive elements of the three series. Stylistically one would opt to use the phrase “in every person’s mind” only in the first mention, omitting it in the second and third iteration. Mentioning it three times in the paragraph is motivated by the formative use of getting the reader’s mind used to the idea that heaven is in every person’s mind. It is not “a place out there.” Repetition allows the formation of new cognitive circuits that can become automated and therefore become included in the web of presuppositions that create one’s reasoning process.

 

I use an embedded style of numbering main Sections and sub-sections. This allows me to insert any number of sub-sections and sub-sub-sections without affecting the overall numbering system for the volumes and chapters. Currently I maintain 18 files, one for each volume, and insert material wherever the coherence of the text warrants further elaboration. In this way the volumes expand from within the Sections each time I work on one of them. New topics constantly present themselves as I systematically consult and go through my extensive notes on the Writings and on General Church literature. I then look at the cumulative Index of All Sections to find an appropriate location for each new topic. Opening that file, I insert the new sub-section.

 

This method of writing produces an embedded recursive structure that is several steps deep, as illustrated by the Section contents of Volume 5 reproduced in the Appendix to this article.

 

Every time I edit or expand a file, I change its version number, indicated below the title. At the time of this writing, the version number for Chapter 9 from which selections are quoted below, was version “47h.” This means that 47 major changes of this file were uploaded or published to the Web so far. Minor changes are noted by the letter. After closing the file I just worked on, I immediately upload it to the Web site, thus replacing the earlier version of that document. In this way my students throughout the semester, and other World Wide Web readers, have available the latest versions of any Volume. Interestingly, the various versions of a document on the World Wide Web, are actually saved for historical records by a facility called The WayBack Machine, which can be searched: web.archive.org/collections/web.html

 

Volume 18 contains the cumulative Index of All Sections, the Subject Index, and the Readings-Citations. The current index lists over 400 Sections and their sub-sections. The embedded numbering system helps a reader get to the desired section. By way of illustration, the Appendix at the end of this article reproduces the Index of Sections for Volume 5, Research Methods in Theistic Psychology. Each entry is a link that takes the reader to the beginning of that Section.

 

The Readings and Citations lists the work of others on the Writings. I have limited this listing to literature produced almost exclusively from the tradition of the General Church. This is because it is the only intellectual tradition that comes from those who acknowledge the Writings as Sacred Scripture. Almost everything that I have read from the General Church tradition, going back more than one hundred years, has qualified in my estimation, to be considered as part of theistic psychology as an academic and scientific field.

 

Of course the phrase “theistic psychology” was coined in my mind only in the year 2000. Nevertheless, this General Church literature does belong to theistic psychology because of its content, which almost always consists of some extraction process from the Letter of the Writings. For instance, the course Syllabus for the current semester lists these sources for the assigned readings and for the oral presentations in class:

 

Theistic Psychology. By Leon James (2005). Online book at:: www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/theistic
Life in the Spiritual World. By Hugo Lj. Odhner (1968). Available online at: www.swedenborgdigitallibrary.org/hh/index2.htm
Before Marriage and After Marriage by Peter M. Buss (1985). Available online at: www.swedenborgdigitallibrary.org/marr/marrint.htm

 

Other sections of Theistic Psychology describe and expand upon the work of:

 

Burnham, Rev. N.C. (1887) Discrete Degrees in Successive and Simultaneous Order Illustrated by Diagrams. Available at:  www.theisticscience.org/books/burnham/index.htm

 

Carlson, Mark. (1990) Evolution, the Limbus, and Hereditary Evil (Part 2). New Church Life, June 1990, 259-275.

 

Childs, Geoffrey S. (2002) The Path: The Inner Life of Jesus Christ. (Fountain Publishing: Rochester, Michigan).

 

De Charms, George. (1972) Imagination and Rationality. (Swedenborg Scientific Association: Bryn Athyn. Originally published in New Philosophy 1972).

 

Groeneveld,  H.D.G. (1947). Address to the Assembly. Sunday, April 13th, 1947. Available at: novahierosolyma.org/papers/19470413.htm

 

Hyatt, Rev. Edward S. (1896) Sermons on the Word. (Swedenborg Genootschaft, Nassauplein 29). Available online:  www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/hyatt/hyatt1.htm

 

Pendleton, William Frederic. (1915) The Science of Exposition: As Drawn from the Writings of the New Church (The Academy of the New Church Press: Bryn Athyn, PA).

 

Pitcairn, Rev. Theodore. (1935) The second Education De Hemelsche Leer, Third Fascicle, p.22. 1935. Available at:  www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409ss99/thompson/mscan8.html

 

The Human Organic (Various articles on Swedenborg related concepts in embryology, education, physics, theology, psychology, correspondences, precious stones, and more. Available at:  www.humanorganic.org/HO/titles.shtml

 

3.1  Methodology in Theistic Psychology

 

Theistic psychology defines itself as the scientific knowledge extracted from the Writings of Swedenborg exclusively.

 

The process of extraction is called the method of correspondences with enlightenment. This method is prescribed and illustrated in the Writings, especially throughout Arcana Coelestia and Apocalypse Explained, but it is also a central feature in the rest of the Writings. A few well known passages may be cited: Quoting:

 

Only those who are enlightened can understand the true sense of the Word, and the only people enlightened are those who have love to and faith in the Lord. For their internals are lifted up by the Lord into the light of heaven. (NJHD 253)

 

Information about heavenly things, or about those of eternal life, is effected solely by means of the Word. Thereby man has influx and enlightenment; for the Word has been written by means of mere correspondences (AC 10355)

 

The Word is written solely by correspondences, and for this reason each thing and all things in it have a spiritual meaning (n. 1404, 1408, 1409, 1540, 1619, 1659, 1709, 1783, 2900, 9086). (HH1)

 

From all this it is clear that the Lord spoke solely by correspondences, and this because He spoke from the Divine that was in Him and was His. (TCR 199)

 

Theistic psychology is based on three types of research:

• extractive
• predictive
• applied

 

Extractive research makes use of the method of correspondences with enlightenment. When this is performed, the historical and religious references in the Writings “vanish,” in order to reveal the pan-human scientific facts about mental states that apply universally regardless of religion, culture, or times. Quoting from the Writings:

 

AC 1405

But the internal sense, as has already been clearly shown, is of such a nature that all things in general and in particular are to be understood abstractly from the letter, just as if the letter did not exist; for in the internal sense is the Word's soul and life, which does not become manifest unless the sense of the letter as it were vanishes. (AC 1405)

 

Selections from Volumes 3, 5, and 9 are given below. Their content illustrates several different ways in which the extraction process is performed. A key feature of the extraction process is to produce lists, charts, diagrams, contrasts, and parallelisms – all of which have been used in the General Church literature, though not as extensively and explicitly as in the science of theistic psychology.

 

Predictive research is the creation of charts and explanations that are inspired by one’s knowledge of the Writings but not extracted according to the method of correspondences with enlightenment. These collateral concepts and models must then be shown to be compatible with the literal or plain meaning of the Writings. Until such proof is presented or found, the predictive research is not part of theistic psychology itself, which can only be that which is extracted from the Writings following the prescribed method.

 

Applied research is the application of extracted and predictive research to everyday social, community, and personal issues and concerns. This must also be shown to be compatible with the literal meaning of the Writings. My research efforts of all three types are presented throughout the volumes of Theistic Psychology and some are reproduced in this article.

 

The method of extractive research makes theistic psychology possible. In my classes at a public state university, students are enrolled from various religious backgrounds. Last semester and this, students volunteered to discuss their religious background and upbringing, which turns out to include: Buddhist, Catholic, Protestant, atheist, Hindu, and Jewish. It was a necessity that I develop a new type of scientific register to discuss legitimately the Writings of Swedenborg in an academic context. It had to be a specialized language, that is universal, pan-human, scientific, and devoid of religion, history, culture. And it had to be clear and rational so that literate people anywhere could comprehend it, accept it, and love it.

 

I discovered that having students give several oral presentations in a semester is an effective method for motivating them to put up the effort of comprehending the approximately ten pages that are assigned for each presentation in class. This intense preparation gives them the occasion for really trying to understand it, instead of just memorizing it – they are not allowed to quote or use the original sentences, and they must define all terms in their own language. Students who make themselves go through this procedure are delighted to discover that they are able to understand it. They then express a love and enthusiasm for theistic psychology. This surprises me, and is a source of delight and thankfulness every semester.

 

4.  The Negative and Positive Bias in Science

 

The new register of psychology had to be theistic, and thus contrastive with the current language and attitude, which is that of atheistic psychology. Not just a vocabulary was needed, but a total overhaul of materialistic assumptions which constitute a negative bias against dualism, God, and eternal life. This negative bias is contained as a presupposition in every theory and method of approach in atheistic psychology and materialistic science. In contrast to this, theistic psychology starts with the positive bias towards Swedenborg’s reports, as reflected in my explanations to the students on the first day of class, which go something like the following.

 

“You have been taught the negative bias in all your prior courses and readings. In this course you are asked to assume the positive bias towards the possibility that -- God, Divine Sacred Scripture, heaven, sin, immortal life -- can be discussed as scientific concepts, and imported into psychology without destroying it as a science. The positive bias doesn’t require you to believe anything or to accept anything. It only asks you to switch your current negative bias to the positive bias.

 

“In other words, when thinking about importing God into science, your first reaction might come from the negative bias, which we are all taught in science courses. This bias tells us not to investigate God as part of science because it is unscientific to include God in science. You will note that it is called a bias because there is no proof for it. No scientist is allowed to come forward with any new evidence of God’s existence – it is automatically excluded. We are not to investigate it, only reject it, because it is unscientific. No proof is given, nor is one possible. As a result of years of such exposure you have accepted the idea that God and Sacred Scripture, cannot be treated scientifically and should be kept separate.

 

“Adopting the positive bias in this course will empower you to critically examine the evidence. I will present the Swedenborg reports as evidence. Those who have examined the Writings of Swedenborg with the usual negative bias, have found nothing of value in them, and concluded that Swedenborg was a mad genius with delusional religious fantasies. But those who have read him with a positive bias have called him one of the greatest geniuses of all time, and also, a revelator of Divine truths.

 

“When I started reading the Writings more than twenty years ago, I saw it as a new scientific revelation from God. I had to come to understand rationally how such a thing is possible. Eventually, I was able to integrate what I learned from the Writings of Swedenborg into a new filed called theistic psychology, which you are going to study and evaluate in this course. Remember this: The positive bias only says “Yes, the Swedenborg reports could be real, true, and scientific. I shall examine them to see if they are.” The negative bias does not allow you to examine the Swedenborg reports objectively, rationally, and scientifically. It decides in advance that the they cannot be real and true and scientific.

 

“You will see by your own evidence that there is nothing in theistic psychology that is contrary to your religion and culture. It can only strengthen your beliefs about God by showing that they have a scientific meaning and reality.”

 

The last paragraph in my introductory remarks to students is crucial, without which the enterprise would surely fail and arouse complaints. This is why the literal untransformed sentences of the Writings cannot form a universal science. The literal meaning of the Writings Sacred Scripture form a new universal religion called the New Church and the characteristics of this Church are described in detail. A Church by that name has become a historical fact beginning with the end of the eighteenth century in England and the United States.

 

When my students read the literal meaning of the Writings they have a tendency to turn away and lay it down because it reads like it is written for a new sect of Christians immersed in Western culture and history. The Asiatic and Jewish students are somewhat averse to such expressions as “Jesus Christ” and “Son of God” and “Blood of Christ,” which abound in the Writings. Nor do they see any interest in knowing about the history of “the Church” or about the religious “doctrine of truth.” It seems at first a hopeless situation for universalizing the Writings through science. The alternative model is evangelization, but this is an entirely different process, different dynamic, different future. It is not discussed in this article.

 

One may wonder why it was necessary that the Writings Sacred Scripture be written in this dual mode – the Letter for the New Church religion, and the extracted details from the Letter, for universal science.

 

5.  Correspondences of
Divine Speech in Sacred Scripture

 

The following is a selection from Volume 3, Section 3.7.2

Recall that all details of reality and events are produced by God. This is the dictionary meaning of the word "omnipotence" which is attributed to God by definition. Since nothing exists before God creates it, all things that exist must be created out of the infinite and immortal spiritual substances that are in God.

 

These spiritual substances are called "uncreate" to distinguish them from created objects. We are familiar with many of these uncreate substances, calling them by such names as life, love, good, truth, intelligence, and freedom, along with all their sub-varieties like different kinds of loves, different types of truths, different variety of sensations and mental delights. These uncreate substances are infinite and alive in themselves. When we receive them in our mental organs by inflow, these spiritual uncreate substances set in motion mental operations that we subjectively experience as loves and attractions we feel, the truths we think and understand, the delights and pleasures we experience, the will and determination we exercise when pursuing a goal, and so on. These operations in our mind are created by the inflow of the uncreate spiritual substances.

 

In what sense are we then different from a television, a computer, or a robot?

 

The scientific answer is revealed in the Writings Sacred Scripture. It is one of the most astonishing ideas in theistic psychology. It's called the "as-of self" (see Section xx). In other words, God has created our mental organs not only to be able to receive the inflow of the uncreate spiritual substances, but also to make us feel that these living operations in our mind are our own, not something that comes into us from outside ourselves.

 

We don't want to be TV sets. We don't want to be computers and robots. We want to have a mind of our own, our own thoughts, our very own feelings. This human sentiment is discussed in the story of Adam and Eve in the Old Testament Sacred Scripture (see Section xx). The explanations are laid out in the scientific sense of the story once it is determined what the words in the literal meaning tell us by correspondence between the natural events and the mental operations. The natural event is about Adam, who is presented there as the first created human being, who complained to God about being alone. God responded by taking one of Adam's ribs while he was asleep, and creating a woman out of it, and the two became a married couple. This is the natural event or story line. It is written in a special Divine language where every detail mentioned hides some universal fact about mental states and about their proper preparation for immortality.

 

The mental operations to which it corresponds involve the "as-of self" in the evolution of the human race (see Section xx). Adam stands for the self. Eve represents the "as-of self." The self of a human being could not be happy without feeling that our willing and thinking are our very own and that we can act in freedom in accordance with our desire. That refers to the feeling of inner freedom and privacy, but since it was revealed to our rational mind that God is omnipotent, we can reason that the rationality of our mental operations in our willing and thinking cannot really be our own. Both of these must be present in our mind – the feeling of freedom to act and the understanding that God is actually the only animating power and rationality.

 

On the one hand, we understand rationally that the life and intelligence in us is not our own. On the other hand, we would be inhuman unless we had the sensation and feeling that our willing and thinking are our very own. This is why we need the "as-of self" concept. It is one of the most productive and beneficial ideas in theistic psychology. It is the as-of self that makes us human and fundamentally different from other receptors -- TVs, radios, computers, robots. Animals do not reflect rationally on the world and themselves. They do not have an as-of self, which is a purely human operation of the rational organ of the mind.

 

God rules all created things by means of the uncreate spiritual substances that stream forth from the infinite Spiritual Sun and enter every created object from within. These living immortal substances create different operational effects depending on the structure or form of the receiving object. Rocks and atoms are physical receptors that receive the uncreate substances within themselves from within, and this makes up the basis or infrastructure of their existence. Plants and animals receive the inflow of uncreate spiritual substances still differently, and clearly in a higher level of function. This is why plant and animal species can adapt, survive, and propagate, while structures of rocks and atoms fall apart in time. Human minds receive the inflow of uncreate spiritual substances at the highest possible level, which is called rationality. This is the level that creates the operation of the as-of self.

 

The above discussion was about how God creates and manages things through their inner reception of the uncreate substances. Recall that the uncreate substances are living in themselves as part of God's life. There are two main categories of uncreate substances -- good and truth. Divine Good is also called Divine Love, while Divine Truth is also called Divine Wisdom. You can see from the above discussion that good and truth are spiritual substances that form the basis of every object and quality in the created universe. This is difficult to grasp at first because we think of good and truth in materialistic ideas, not spiritual or rational. But you can see why and in what way theistic psychology uses the concept Divine Speech. God's "speech" refers to God's love and truth, since that's what God is -- infinite Divine Love and Truth.

 

God creates and manages the universe by means of love and truth. Divine Speech is always about love and truth, the very source and structure of all reality, including worlds, atoms, and minds. The good and truth we receive form the basis of our mind, our immortality, our conjugial happiness, and our ability to make others happy from ourselves. God gives the human race love and truth in many different ways. One of the ways involves our conscious rationality as human beings. This is the "as-of self" spoken of above. God uses Divine Speech to elevate the consciousness of human beings. Divine Truth in Divine Speech is the primary and most powerful agent of creation. The Divine Truth in Divine Speech is expressed in meanings called correspondences -- the same correspondences that governs the laws between natural events and spiritual events, as discussed above. This is understandable when you consider that God manages the natural world as a world of effects whose causes are in the spiritual world.

 

The cause-effect relation is achieved by means of correspondences. If X in the natural world corresponds to Y in the spiritual world, then Y is the cause of X.

 

In the following passage from Arcana Coelestia ("Heavenly Secrets"), Swedenborg is analyzing the phrase "When it is well with thee" which appears in Genesis 40, Verse 14. In its inner scientific sense, this phrase refers to a developmental phase of character reformation involving the sensuous or empirical level of thinking and feeling. Swedenborg takes the opportunity here to say something more about correspondences, a subject that he discusses progressively throughout the 12-volume set of Arcana Coelestia.

 

AC 5131

"When it is well with thee." [Gen. 40:14]

That this signifies when there is correspondence, is evident from the signification of its "being well with thee," when the rebirth or regeneration of the exterior natural or sensuous is treated of, as being correspondence; for it is not well with it until it corresponds. At the end of the different chapters it may be seen what correspondence is. There is a correspondence of sensuous with natural things, a correspondence of natural with spiritual things, a correspondence of spiritual with celestial things, and finally a correspondence of celestial things with the Divine of the Lord; thus there is a succession of correspondences from the Divine down to the ultimate natural.

 

[2] But as an idea of the nature of correspondences can with difficulty be formed by those who have never thought about them before, it may be well to say a few words on the subject. It is known from philosophy that the end is the first of the cause, and that the cause is the first of the effect. That the end, the cause, and the effect may follow in order, and act as a one, it is needful that the effect should correspond to the cause, and the cause to the end. But still the end does not appear as the cause, nor the cause as the effect; for in order that the end may produce the cause, it must take to itself administrant means from the region where the cause is, by which means the end may produce the cause; and in order that the cause may produce the effect, it also must take to itself administrant means from the region where the effect is, by which means the cause may produce the effect.

 

These administrant means are what correspond; and because they correspond, the end can be in the cause and can actuate the cause, and the cause can be in the effect and can actuate the effect; consequently the end through the cause can actuate the effect. It is otherwise when there is no correspondence; for then the end has no cause in which it may be, still less an effect in which it may be, but is changed and varied in the cause, and finally in the effect, according to the form made by the administrant means.

 

[3] All things in general and in particular in man, nay, all things in general and in particular in nature, succeed one another as end, cause, and effect; and when they thus correspond to one another, they act as a one; for then the end is the all in all things of the cause, and through the cause is the all in all things of the effect. As for example, when heavenly love is the end, the will the cause, and action the effect, if there is correspondence, then heavenly love flows into the will, and the will into the action, and they so act as a one that by means of the correspondence the action is as it were the love; or as when the faith of charity is the end, thought the cause, and speech the effect, then if there is correspondence, faith from charity flows into the thought, and this into the speech, and they so act as a one, that by means of the correspondence the speech is as it were the end.

 

In order however that the end, which is love and faith, may produce the cause, which is will and thought, it must take to itself administrant means in the rational mind that will correspond; for without administrant means that correspond, the end, which is love or faith, cannot be received, however much it may flow in from the Lord through heaven. From this it is plain that the interiors and the exteriors of man, that is, what is rational, natural, and sensuous in him must be brought into correspondence, in order that he may receive the Divine influx, and consequently that he may be born again; and that it is not well with him till then. This is the reason why here by "when it is well with thee" is signified correspondence. (AC 5131)

 

We can highlight the above passage by summarizing some of the assertions contained in it. This will give us a more rational understanding of correspondences and the key role they have in our lives.

 

(1) There is a succession of correspondences produced by Divine Speech, from the Spiritual Sun down and out to the ultimate physical plane of reality.

 

(2) The end, the cause, and the effect follow in order, and act as a one because the effect corresponds to the cause, and the cause to the end. Hence correspondences are the means by which all phenomena (natural effects) are produced (spiritual causes).

 

(3) The end is in the cause and actuates the cause. The cause is in the effect and actuates the effect. Consequently the end through the cause actuates the effect. The “end” refers to God’s goal of adequately preparing human beings for their life in immortality. This is Divine Love. The “cause” refers to the exteriorization of God’s goal by means of Divine Truth within which Divine Love is contained and hidden. Thus truth is nothing but the outward visible appearance of love, which itself remains invisible within it.

 

(4) In order that the end may produce the cause, it must take to itself administrant means from the region where the cause is, by which means the end may produce the cause; and in order that the cause may produce the effect, it also must take to itself administrant means from the region where the effect is, by which means the cause may produce the effect. These “administrant means” are what correspond. This means that there is no direct contact across degrees between the spiritual and the natural realities. There is only a correspondential function that automatically ties them together in the position of cause and effect. The impossibility of direct contact between the natural and the spiritual, or between the effect and its cause, is because the effect and the cause are each in separate substances or realities that can never appear to each other. But they do appear to each other by correspondence, which is a functional connection, not direct and continuous.

 

(5) All things in general and in particular in the human mind and in nature, succeed one another as end, cause, and effect; and when they thus correspond to one another, they act as a one. This is the basis of reality. Correspondences are the laws that hold all things in the right position, structure, and action.

 

(6) In human action, the mental organ of “the will” operates our motivated affective goal states. This is experienced as a striving to achieve a particular “end” or purpose. The mental organ of the “understanding” operates our cognitive thinking sequences. These cognitive operations are motivated, initiated, and directed by the will to produce a plan to reach the desired goal state. A particular action is the ultimate result of the three-step process. In this behavioral series, the “will,” or the operations of the affective organ, defines and selects the “end” or particular motivated goal state. The “understanding,” or the operations of the cognitive organ, provides the “cause” or particular reasoning and plan. The action is the “effect” and it is executed or performed by the sensorimotor organ of the mind. Once the sequence affective-cognitive-sensorimotor is complete in the mind, the physical body reacts by correspondence and produces appropriate movement, action, perception, and sensation.

 

These four things correspond to each other --

• the feelings of the will or operations in the affective organ
• the thoughts of the understanding or operations in the cognitive organ
• the sensations of the sensory or operations in the sensorimotor organ
• the reactions of the physical body which correspond one-to-one with the operations in the sensorimotor organ

 

(7) The Divine Human's love in the form of spiritual heat, inflows into the affective organ, and the Divine Human's truth in the form of spiritual light, inflows into the cognitive. No matter how much love and truth flow into our mind from God, they remain inactive on their own, until we consciously decide to make our willing and thinking to correspond to the inflowing love and truth. Divine Speech in Sacred Scripture instructs us on how to achieve this correspondence.

 

Our willing and intending, or motivational goal states, must be made consciously to correspond to the inflowing Divine love, and our thinking and reasoning processes, must be made consciously to correspond to the inflowing Divine truth. Thus can we be “reborn” as an individual with new character. This new and superior spiritual character makes it possible for us to live in the heavens of our mind, when we pass into the immortality of the afterlife.

 

(8) The love and truth to which our intending and reasoning have been made to correspond, is nothing else than the Divine Love and the Divine Truth activating and operating by correspondence the new willing mind. We must continuously keep in mind that this love and truth are both infinite and uncreate, hence they cannot belong to us. When we fail to keep this in mind, we are spiritually insane and irrational. We must think rational thoughts, namely, that God wills that His Divine Love and Truth entering our mind, appear to us as-if our very own. In other words, it feels to us that we are free to think or do as we choose.

 

This is a real feeling based on our actual reality. It is not an illusion or delusion. It is God who creates this reality. He makes it such that His love and truth, which operate our willing and thinking, feel to us like our own love and truth, our own willing what we like, and our own thinking what we want. We can forget, or we can deny, that it is God’s power and God’s rationality that activates our willing and thinking. God allows people to forget or deny reality.

 

If God did not allow people to deny reality, and forced them to think only rationally, we would not have freedom, hence we would not be human. We could not reciprocate God’s love, for which He longs, and for which He created the universe. Hence it is absolutely essential that God give people actual freedom, not bogus freedom as an appearance to fool us. To give people actual freedom means that He must compel Himself to make things happen that He would not choose to on His Own, because they are evil things that make human beings suffer, instead of the good things that He Himself wills for them, which make them eternally happy. The revelation of this Divine Law of Permissions, as it is called in the Writings Sacred Scripture, proves that human freedom is actual, not a mere appearance or illusion, despite God’s omnipotence (see Section xx).

 

Without the reality of this as-if appearance, we could not be maximally happy, hence we could not dwell in our heaven. But we must constantly acknowledge to ourselves that they are only as-if our own, and not actually our own. The moment we think they are truly our own, they turn instantly into their opposites -- negative love (hatred, fear, anger, dissatisfaction) and negative truth (invalid conclusions, false assumptions, delusional explanations). It’s like a car you are allowed to own for free given to you by a wizard. You are told that the moment you think that the car is actually yours, it will disappear.

 

Our rationality is an ability or power that gives us the ability to reason truthfully. It feels like it’s our own rationality. But we are told in the Writings Sacred Scripture that if we assume that our intelligence is actually our own, not God’s, we lose it. Our rationality vanishes. We now start thinking and reasoning with flaws. Our conclusions are no longer accurate and real. Our assumptions are false. Our motivational states slip into negative zones. We have lost the status of humanity. We can regain it, but only by giving up how we think and feel.

 

(9) The anatomy of the mind shows three discrete layers in the natural mind, from top to bottom-- rational, natural, and sensuous. Another way of saying this is natural-rational, natural-sensuous, and natural-corporeal (see Section xx). Love and truth inflowing from the Divine Human cannot activate anything in our will and understanding unless we ourselves consciously create rational concepts in our understanding. These rational concepts are called "administrant means" in the passage above. Elsewhere they are called rational "vessels" that can “contain spiritual truths.”

 

Theistic psychology is the knowledge that consists of these rational concepts and principles organized into a science (“scientifics of doctrine”). Divine Love and Truth can inflow into these rational concepts. The more interior these rational concepts are, the higher the form of the Divine Love and Truth that we can receive into our consciousness. In other words, the thoughts and feelings are at a level of consciousness or mentality that correspond to Divine Love and Truth. It is Divine Speech in Sacred Scripture that forms the content of consciousness at each discrete level of the mind.

 

You can see from this discussion that the revelation of the existence of correspondences and what they are, will be a great boon to the evolution of human civilization on this earth.

 

The Table below shows how Divine Speech expressed in Sacred Scripture gradually raised the evolution of consciousness of the human race.