From:
Theistic Psychology: The Scientific Knowledge of God Extracted from the Correspondential Sense of Sacred Scripture, Volume 15 by Leon James

15.0  Sacred Scripture:
The Sole Source of Scientific Knowledge About God

There are two different approaches to knowing God that have been practiced by humanity over the generations. In theistic psychology these two spiritual disciplines are called sensuous spirituality and rational spirituality (see Section xx).

The discipline of sensuous spirituality involves experiencing the "divine" through various methods -- meditation, yoga, fasting, trance, self-flagellation, sexual abstinence, visions, animal sacrifices, making miracles happen, hearing living voices, ingesting psychotropic chemicals, and others. These methods involve the idea that the "divine" can be experienced by human beings. In theistic psychology this is known as the philosophy of nonduality (see Section xx). Non-duality is the opposite of dualism (see Section xx). Nonduality asserts that God and human beings are of one continuous substance, which implies that we can climb high enough to actually realize that all along we were God.

In contrast, rational spirituality is the spiritual discipline of getting closer to God through Sacred Scripture. In theistic psychology it is known that the spiritual mind in which our heaven of eternity lies, is formed by the spiritual-rational and celestial-rational correspondences of Divine Speech hidden within Sacred Scripture. This makes sense when you consider the fact that God is Divine Love (or Good) covered over with Divine Truth (or Rationality) (see Section xx). Good can only conjoin with its own truth (see Section xx). The higher the level of Divine truth that we can consciously understand rationally, the closer we come to God's Divine Truth and Rationality. Truth is the spiritual-rational and celestial-rational substance that forms the rationality in the mind of every human being (see Section xx).

Rational spirituality is the discipline of extracting the rational doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture using the method of correspondences that is revealed in Sacred Scripture, and then applying this doctrine of truth to one's daily willing, thinking, and doing (see Section xx).

It is not yet known in our modern times that the heaven of our eternity is located within spiritual-rational and celestial-rational correspondences of Sacred Scripture. When we understand and love these rational correspondences of Divine Speech, which means living and thinking according to them, then we are preparing our spiritual mind to be a conjugial heaven in which we know God directly and receive from Him all that we are willing and able to take in terms of human potential and happiness.

It is clear that knowledge about eternity and God is not possible to be discovered through the sensations from our physical body and the reasoning power of our natural mind. The proof of this is that traditional science, with its amazing history of inventions and explanations, knows zero about eternity and God, so that all it can do is to deny that such things exist or are part of scientific reality. Another proof is that the enormous scholarship and effort invested over the centuries in the literature on religion, God, and spirituality, has brought zero knowledge about God and eternity, and only wild speculations and disagreements among them.

All this proves that scientific and scholarly knowledge of God cannot be discovered and invented, but only received from God through the correspondences of Divine Speech in Sacred Scripture -- not the literal sense of Sacred Scripture (which is sectarian religion), but the revealed correspondential sense that lies hidden within (see Section xx). The diagram below portrays the distinct difference between religion and theistic psychology, even though they are both closely related to Sacred Scripture.

Sacred Scripture is the expression of Divine Speech in a natural language, transformed through the laws of correspondences that God used to create the layers of mind and existence (see Section xx).

Although the sentences of Sacred Scripture are written out by a an individual in a particular language and culture, they are not the individual's own sentences, but sentences that have been transformed by correspondences as Divine Speech descends into that individual's mind from its unconscious spiritual level to its conscious natural level (see Section xx). First, Divine Speech enters the celestial-rational mind of the individual. This is unconscious while we are still connected to the physical world. Second, Divine Speech descends into the spiritual-rational layer of the individual's mind, which is also unconscious until our resuscitation (see Section xx). Third, Divine Speech descends by correspondential meaning into the natural mind of the individual, where it becomes conscious and the person is able to write it down. The "prophet" or "revelator" does not himself know what layers of correspondential meanings lie hidden with the sentences they write down. They and others are only aware of the literal meaning.

The descent of Divine Speech through the layers of the human mind takes place by correspondences (see Section xx). Those who are conscious in their celestial-rational mind after their resuscitation (see Section xx), are conscious of Divine Speech in terms of celestial-rational correspondences (see Section xx). These celestial-rational meanings or truths give human beings the highest possible consciousness, knowledge, worship, and love of God.

Those who, after resuscitation, are conscious in their spiritual-rational mind, are conscious of Divine Speech in terms of spiritual-rational correspondences (see Section xx). These meanings of Sacred Scripture give human beings the next lowest possible consciousness, knowledge, worship, and love of God. Those who are conscious in their natural mind, namely, us while we are still connected to earth, are conscious of Divine Speech in terms of natural correspondences of Divine Speech (see Section xx). These natural meanings of Sacred Scripture give human beings the next lowest possible consciousness, knowledge, worship, and love of God.

We are connected to earth by the laws of correspondences which functionally link together our mental body in eternity and our physical body in time-space. Our conscious natural mind is capable of entering virtually, as a training ground, into the various layers of worship and love of God. We begin with natural worship and love of God which is based on our ethnic membership in a particular religion and our historical ties to the literal meaning of Sacred Scripture recognized in that religion. If we do not try to live by the truths of Sacred Scripture as we understand them, then we are not preparing ourselves adequately for immortality in eternity (see Section xx). Instead of being or existing in a heaven within our spiritual-rational mind, our consciousness then sinks into the bottom of our natural mind, which is called the corporeal-sensuous mind, as opposed to the natural-rational mind (see Section xx).

At this level of feeling and thinking, the correspondences of Sacred Scripture cannot be comprehended rationally. All truth of Sacred Scripture is inverted and perverted through irrational thoughts and feelings, which taken together as a whole, are called the human hells in the mind (see Section xx). It is our choice, but the choice is to be made prior to death, while we still can reform our character from inherited hellish traits to freely acquired heavenly traits (see Section xx).

To the extent that we try to live by the truths of Sacred Scripture that we understand, to that extent God can elevate our consciousness from the natural-sensuous thinking and feeling, to the natural-rational thinking and feeling (see Section xx). When God thus elevates and enlightens our understanding of Him, we become capable of a higher spiritual-rational worship and love of God, as a result of which God can further elevate our consciousness from natural-rational, to spiritual-rational, and finally to celestial-rational meanings of Sacred Scripture.

 This process of elevation of the individual by God takes place through

(1) the individual's rational study and understanding of Sacred Scripture as Divine Truth, and
(2) in proportion to the individual's efforts at applying this understanding to one's daily willing, thinking, and doing.

Knowledge of Divine truth cannot change our hellish character, but can only give us an understanding of how God's truth is to dictate our willing, thinking, and doing. Conjunction with God occurs afterward, and only to the extent that we are willing to give up our hellish and selfish enjoyments, and replace them with heavenly and altruistic enjoyments. In proportion as we do this, to that extent we are conjoined to God in rational understanding, worship, and love. Conjunction with God gives us an eternal conjugial heaven with a maximum of human love, altruism, enjoyment, and happiness (in the affective organ), along with their consequent rationality, wisdom. intelligence, knowledge, and inventiveness (in the cognitive organ).

We vary in sincerity and consistency. We must be willing to undergo the temptations that God puts in our way in our mind. This requires spiritual combat. Our understanding of Divine truth from Sacred Scripture provides the weapons for the combat against our hellish enjoyments (see Section xx). Once we engage in combat, as if of our own, then God immediately manages the victory for us. We can have no victory if we believe that we are fighting our evils with our own power and intelligence. God can provide victory only if we acknowledge in our mind and understand rationally, that by ourselves we have zero power since God is omnipotent and has all the power.

Under some conditions we fall into the persuasion that to fight our temptations as if on our own, would be to think that the power to fight is ours -- which is a hellish thought against the reality of truth. As a result of this kind of thinking, we fall into a passive mode and wait for God to liberate us in our trial. But this strategy cannot work and it prevents character reformation. In that case God cannot bring spiritual temptations for us to fight, but only natural temptations (see Sections xx). Natural temptations build our external personality, appearance, and overt conduct. This is necessary for acquiring morality according to one's conscience. But the inner character cannot be altered by natural temptations. It requires spiritual temptations. God brings spiritual temptations to our mind to the extent of our rational understanding of truth from Sacred Scripture (see Section xx).

Without the truth of Sacred Scripture in our rational understanding, God cannot bring spiritual temptations to our mind, and as a result, we cannot be regenerated. We die in the character that we inherited, which is a hell (see Section xx). Only the truth of Sacred Scripture, applied to spiritual temptations, can give us the new heavenly character we need to live in the heavens of our eternity (see Section xx). God can bring spiritual temptations to us only when we have acquired as-of self, truths from Sacred Scripture in our mind. These truths in our mind must be present before God can bring spiritual temptations to us, and thus regenerate us (see Section xx).

Hence it is necessary for us to have in our understanding Divine rational truth in order for us to be prepared for heaven by temptations through regeneration or daily efforts at character reformation. The higher the rationality in our understanding of truth from Sacred Scripture,  the more we can be regenerated by God to higher and higher heavenly potentials, in proportion to our daily efforts in applying the truth to our daily willing, thinking, and doing.

It makes sense therefore to think that God has provided a method by which we can acquire higher and higher meanings, or more and more rational meanings, so that we can apply it to our daily willing and thinking, and thereby become celestial beings in our heavenly eternity (see Section xx).

The diagram above shows that theistic psychology, and theistic science generally, is the scientific knowledge that is extracted from Sacred Scripture, when we apply the method of correspondences with enlightenment (see Section xx). There are two ideas to understand here: correspondences and enlightenment.

When Divine Speech, or Divine Truth, descends by correspondences through the layers of the human mind, we are conscious of it differently at each successive layer. That is, Divine Speech forms our consciousness at each level of the mind, through meanings of Sacred Scripture.

Quoting from the Writings Sacred Scripture:

AC 5614. Surely we had now returned these two times. [Genesis 43:10]
That this signifies that there would have been spiritual life both exterior and interior, is evident from the signification of "going," as being to live (of which above, n. 5605); and therefore "returning" is living therefrom, for they went thither to procure corn, and by "corn" is signified the good of truth from which is spiritual life; and from the signification of "these two times," which, as it relates to life, denotes life exterior and interior, for by the "produce" they got the first time was signified life that is exterior or in the natural, for the reason that they were without an intermediate (as explained in the preceding chapter); while by the "corn" they get this time is signified interior life, because they were now with Benjamin, who is the intermediate, as explained in this and in the following chapter.

Hence it is that by "surely we had now returned these two times," is signified spiritual life both exterior and interior.

[2] That this is the signification cannot but seem strange, especially to one who knows nothing about what is spiritual; for it seems as if "returning these two times" has nothing in common with the spiritual life that is signified; but still this is the internal sense of the words. If you will believe it, the interior thought itself of the man who is in good apprehends this, because this thought is in the internal sense, although while in the body the man is deeply ignorant of it; for unknown to him the internal sense, that is, the spiritual sense, which is of the interior thought, falls into material and sensuous ideas that partake of time and space and of such things as are in the world, and therefore it does not appear that his interior thought is of such a nature; for his interior thought is like that of the angels, his spirit being in company with them.

[3] That the thought of the man who is in good is according to the internal sense, may be seen from the fact that when after death he comes into heaven, he at once without any information is in the internal sense, and this could not be unless as to his interior thought he had been in this sense while in the world. The reason of his being in this internal sense is that there is a correspondence between spiritual and natural things so complete that there is not the smallest thing that has not its correspondence; and therefore because the interior or rational mind of the man who is in good is in the spiritual world, and his exterior or natural mind in the natural world, it must needs be that both minds think (the interior mind spiritually, and the exterior naturally), and that the spiritual falls into the natural, and they act as a one by correspondence.

[4] That man's interior mind, the ideas of thought of which are called intellectual and are said to be immaterial, does not think from the words of any language, nor consequently from natural forms, can be seen by him who is able to reflect on these things, for he can think in a moment what he can scarcely utter in an hour, and he does so by universals which comprise in them very many particulars. These ideas of thought are spiritual, and when the Word is being read are no other than as the internal sense is; although the man does not know this, because as before said these spiritual ideas, by influx into what is natural, present natural ideas, so that the spiritual ideas do not appear; insomuch that unless he has been instructed the man believes that there is no spiritual unless it is like the natural, and even that he does not think otherwise in spirit than as he speaks in the body. In such a manner does the natural cast a shade over the spiritual. (AC 5614)

In order to understand rationally what is Divine Speech and how it manages our thoughts and the universe, we need to remember the idea of "substantive dualism" in the positive bias (see Section xx). The word "substantive" in the mental world of eternity corresponds to the word "material" in the physical world of time. The physical sun in time-space provides all the matter needed on the planets -- air, earth, minerals, plant protein, brain tissue, electricity -- it all comes originally from a piece of the sun. All planets in a solar system are offshoots of the star that cool down and become planets. Hence everything on a planet comes from the sun. These things are so in the physical world because they are correspondences or effects produced by things in the mental world to which they correspond by creation and since creation (see Section xx).

The mental things to which they correspond include the Spiritual Sun, which corresponds to the physical sun, that is, to each star and to their totality of endless stars with endless planets. The material light with its heat that streams from the physical sun crosses instantly the space between it and the planets, and activates the things on the planet. This is so because substantive light with its heat streams out from the Spiritual Sun and crosses instantly the mental world of humanity tat God created in eternity. In other words, God created a dual universe, one materila in time-space, the other substantive in eternity. What is not known generally is that the substantive world of eternity is the mental world of the human race.

In order to create the human race, God had to create a mental world in  eternity and a physical world in time. The mental world of eternity is known as the afterlife. What is not known that human beings are born simultaneously in both universes. The material body in time-space, which is temporary, and the substantive body in eternity. The substantive body is also known as the spiritual body or the mental body. The shape and form of the physical body is caused by the shape and form of the spiritual body to which it corresponds in every part and detail. When the physical body "dies", we continue life in our spiritual body, with the only difference, that now we are no longer aware of the physical world. Since we are born into eternity, we are immortal.

The reason this must be so is because our consciousness, our sensations, our thoughts, and our feelings are not made of material things from the physical sun, as our brain is. Our brain and physical body is material and temporary, but our mental life in the spiritual body is eternal. Hence it is that our personality or self, as we know ourselves, is immortal. Whatever is constructed out of substances from the Spiritual Sun,  must necessarily be immortal or eternal. Our mental life is constructed out of the light and heat from the Spiritual Sun that streams into the mental world of the human race. Every spiritual body, containing our mental organs of willing (affective), thinking (cognitive), and sensing-moving (sensorimotor) is constructed, then activated, by the spiritual light streaming into the cognitive organ, and the spiritual heat streaming into the affective organ (see diagrams in Section xx).

So with that explanation as a background context, you can understand rationally how Divine Speech manages both universes. First the universes are constructed out of the substances of spiritual light and heat which stream out in infinite variety and quantity form the Spiritual Sun. Divine Speech is nothing else than this stream of spiritual light and heat creating the two universes and continuing to create them and manage them by a continuous and endless stream of spiritual light and heat.

The inmost structural framework of any created thing in the two universes is therefore this spiritual light and heat that streams out in infinite variety. Then, in successive discrete layers, this stream of substantive light and heat creates the mental world out of rational ether, with succeeding mental layers that become more and more specialized or limited in property. The upper layers of the mental world are called heavenly experiences, the middle layers are called natural experiences, and the lowest layers are called hellish experiences. Your experience as an individual is determined by which layer your consciousness is bottoming out. You can be in heavenly layers today and in hellish layers tomorrow, and then again in heavenly layers sometimes later.

While we are connected to a physical body, we can alternate across all the layers. This is because we need training and preparation for conscious life in eternity. During this training period we accumulate experiences, traits, habits, and above all, loves. Every love we accumulate is immortal and stays in our mental world forever. Hence it becomes extremely critical for us to manage our loves. We inherit strong tendencies to love and enjoy hellish traits. Unless we learn to detach ourselves from these inherited loves, they remain attached to us in our mental world. After we are resuscitated, a few hours following our "death", we have various experiences that force us to look at all our loves, both heavenly and hellish. Then after exploring them, we are forced to select what we are willing to give up. This is called the vastation (see Section xx).

If we are unwilling to give up even one of our hellish loves, then all our heavenly loves and traits are put to sleep biologically, and rendered inoperative. This is called "damnation" or "second death." Your personality in hell, that is, when all your heavenly traits are removed, is crude, gross, beastly, evil, infernal, monstrous, irrational, delusional, constantly enraged, stupid, and with the deepest hatred for God, innocence, infants, and conjugial marriage. Further, Swedenborg reports that our mental states in hell do not allow any sexuality that can satisfy us, but only compulsions and fetishes that are inherently acerbating and tormenting our mind endlessly.

Bit if we are willing to give up all hellish loves, then they are biologically put to sleep, rendered inoperative. This allows our consciousness to rise to our heavenly loves, and to remain in them forever (see Section xx). Your heavenly personality is celestial, conjugial, rational, wise, intelligent, peaceful, and loving God, innocence, infants, and conjugial marriage. Further, Swedenborg reports that our mental states in heaven allow true human sexuality that can satisfy us with joy and conjugial bliss that is inherently expanding and enriching our mind endlessly.

Throughout the generations of communities over the millennia, God has provided information on the two universes, how He manages them, and how we are to prepare for our immortal life in eternity. This information is obtained from the correspondential sense of Sacred Scripture, which has been provided in some form in every culture.

Divine Speech issuing from the Spiritual Sun and spreading into the two universes, becomes conscious to human beings through the meanings of Sacred Scripture, and these meanings are different throughout the layers of the mind. Sacred Scripture exists in every layer of the mind so that people who live in that layer can have conscious access to Divine Speech. After you are resuscitated you will be able to see copies of Sacred Scripture. Swedenborg saw these on a regular basis and reports that a very intense light shines forth from the book, and this is on account of the Spiritual Sun which is in its inmost layer of meaning (see Section).

Divine Speech comes to us as meaning. This meaning is our consciousness itself. The mental world of the human race is constructed out of meaning or rational ether. There is only one mental world of eternity, just as there is only physical world of space. Every spiritual body is in this one mental world. So the source of your sensations, thoughts, and feelings is the same as the source of my sensations, thoughts, and feelings. This is true for every individual and the entire human race (see Vertical Community, Section xx).

The meaning of Sacred Scripture in the highest layer of our mental world is at the level of consciousness called celestial-rational. Anyone whose loves are heavenly, and has given up loves that are hellish, resides and exists in this celestial mental layer of the human race. Sacred Scripture is available at any layer to allow us to climb up in consciousness to the celestial-rational meanings and thinking. At this level of existence we are Angels of great power and knowledge, existing in conjugial bliss that increases to eternity (see Section xx).

The next layer of consciousness is to think in terms of spiritual-rational correspondences of Divine Speech in Sacred Scripture. In a lower layer we can exist in spiritual-natural correspondences of Divine Speech in Sacred Scripture. Below that we can exist in the natural correspondences of Divine Speech in Sacred Scripture. This is the level the people are typically conscious of. They read Sacred Scripture in a natural language and they see that it contains information about God's interactions with certain people at certain times. All religions are based on this natural interpretation of their Sacred Scripture.

This is why there needs to be as many religions as there are groupings of cultures, and each religion must have its own original revelation or Sacred Scripture, given to a prophet by God. This is done with people who are willing to be the trustworthy guardians and protectors of that Sacred Scripture. In other words these people were "chosen" by God because He could activate their loves as loyal keepers of the sacred text. You can see how important it was for the text to be preserved exactly as dictated by God through the prophet's mind. The text starts as celestial-rational ideas of God's words, then changes to spiritual ideas of God's words, then to natural ideas of God's words. That's when the prophet becomes conscious of the words and writes them down.

You can see that it's not possible for the prophet to know or exspress God's words in either celestial or spiritual meanings. The prophet thinks and writes in a natural language, not spiritual, not celestial. So the text of God's words in a natural language looks like....what? Well, we know this from the Sacred Scripture familiar to us from our socialization or education. God talks about His relationship to a particular people and tells stories about their lives on earth. God also talks about commandments were must do. Also, that He loves us and provides for us. And also, that if we love Him, He can reward us with heaven. But if we oppose Him, we will suffer the torments of hell.

What do you think? Is this all? Is it all that God is talking about to human beings? No insights? No solved puzzles? No description of the afterlife? Of the future? Of how God manages it all? Why isn't God talking about that? Wouldn't it be more believable if God talked about these higher things instead of ordinary things that ordinary people and children can understand?

The answer is that these higher things are the very things God is talking to us about, but by the time it gets translated from celestial, to spiritual, to natural, what's left are the things understood by ordinary people and children. God also provides a way for people who want more. He makes sure that all sacred text written out by a prophet is sequenced and selected so that the inner and inmost layers of meaning in it, are maintained.

The result is that all Sacred Scripture serves two purposes. One for letting ordinary people and children know that there is God, that He loves them, that He wants to take them to heaven, but that they must cooperate by following the commandments in the sacred text. The second source of Sacred Scripture is for scientists, scholars, and students who want to climb up the layers of meaning hidden with. Every single word of Sacred Scripture is sacred, holy, and Divine, and every sequence of words is Divine Truth. This fact cannot be known or understood unless one knows that there are layers of Divine meaning hidden within, and to some extent, what they are (celestial, spiritual, natural, see Section xx).

People entrusted with the sacred task of being keepers and protectors of some Sacred Scripture ought to be honored for their efforts over the centuries and generations. Even if they do not accept the ideas of theistic psychology, that there are hidden layers of meaning, they still are ready to defend and protect the text itself. With this they are performing a universal service for all humanity, past, present and future. Every Sacred Scripture represents a unique link God has created between Him and humanity. Through this link flows a never ending and continuous stream of consciousness raising meanings that equip us with heavenly truths that we can use to empower our heavenly loves to defeat the hellish ones.

So the purpose of all Sacred Scripture is to give human beings heavenly truths that we can use to defeat our hellish loves and their falsities. Without these truths, we are pulled down inexorably into the psychobiology of existence in eternal hell.

All this has been arranged by God as a method for our spiritual growth, which is achieved by climbing up the layers of meaning hidden in Sacred Scripture. All Sacred Scripture at any particular layer of the mental world, contains all the layers that are above it. Hence whatever layer people are at in their thinking and feeling, they can use their Sacred Scripture to climb up to the celestial-rational level of thinking and loving. The climbing of meaning in all Sacred Scripture is different outwardly between different sacred texts, but the same inwardly in all of them.

This is because there is only one God and He manages every person regardless of their culture, beliefs or knowledge. Theistic psychology is the knowledge we acquire through which we can make this climb successful with any Sacred Scripture. Success is guaranteed because it is prescribed by God in the hidden layers of meaning of Sacred Scripture.

God's meanings or Divine Rationality is adapted or accommodated to the individual's mind by means of the layers of meanings that there are in correspondences. The change in meaning of Sacred Scripture across the layers of the human mental world, is managed by God through successive levels of correspondences to His Divine Speech or Rational Ideas. God wants us to know what these correspondences are that He uses to manage the created universe through Divine Speech or truth (see Section xx). God has therefore revealed through Sacred Scripture what these correspondences are. But subsequently these correspondences were corrupted and used for magic so that God managed to have them forgotten until this desire to corrupt correspondences died out. God then gave new sacred text in which he revealed once more what correspondences are (see Section xx). Illustrations and demonstrations will be given in the following Sections (see also Section xx). The new revelations about correspondences in the Writings Sacred Scripture given through Swedenborg in the 18th century, now provides modern science access to this powerful knowledge.

One must therefore study and understand the laws of correspondences by which Divine Speech becomes Sacred Scripture at various levels of human thinking and feeling. These laws are Divine and cannot be discovered. We must not invent them or construct them from human intelligence. In the Writings Sacred Scripture, God has revealed to the modern scientific mind what these correspondences are. The same correspondences apply to all Sacred Scripture since there is only one Divine Speech that filters through the various natural language versions of Sacred Scripture in all the genuine religions that God has created on this earth.

But note this important phenomenon:

You can read a dictionary of correspondences (see Section xx) and try to understand the spiritual meaning of natural expressions in Sacred Scripture -- but this will only allow you to perceive the natural meaning of these correspondences. For instance we can read in the dictionary of correspondences that when Sacred Scripture mentions "water" in some sense (rain, ocean, river, flood, fountain) it is actually discussing cognitive operations in the natural layer of our mind, which involves meanings paraphrased from the literal sense of the sacred text. When the sacred text contrasts "water" with "wine" in some way, it is referring to cognitive operations in the spiritual layer of our mind, which involves meanings we derive by correspondences of the literal text of Sacred Scripture.

Spiritual meanings of God and eternity (wine) and natural meanings of God and eternity (water) are at different layers of understanding or consciousness in our mind. The sacred text is striving to bring our focus on its spiritual meanings because these are the meanings that raise our consciousness above the natural world. These spiritual meanings are needed for our preparation for eternity. This is why theistic psychology can be so beneficial to all humanity.

Theistic psychology is the scientific knowledge that we accumulate through the method of correspondences with enlightenment. The reason we say "with enlightenment" is that all spiritual meanings must be perceived by enlightenment from God. God constantly and ceaselessly works in our individual mind to enlighten it with spiritual light from the Spiritual Sun. This results in the elevation of our consciousness from the natural world to the spiritual world of eternity.

You can see the result of this effort as you read throughout the 18 volumes of this work. If your purpose for studying theistic psychology is to acquire correspondential truths from Sacred Scripture ("wine"), with a view to applying them to your daily willing, thinking, and doing, then God will enlighten you, raise your consciousness to the highest levels, and empower you with wisdom and conjugial love (see Section xx). If your purpose is not that of applying the knowledge to your character reformation, then it is impossible for God to enlighten you and to raise your consciousness. This is because enlightenment is the process of using spiritual truths to fight our hellish enjoyments (temptations, see Section xx).

The following diagram depicts the evolutionary steps of humankind on this earth created by Divine Speech exteriorized as Sacred Scripture. It presents a historical sequence extracted from the Writings Sacred Scripture.

The above diagram presents evolution in a successive order (see Section xx). The diagram below presents it in simultaneous order. It shows that what has been produced by successive steps in development exists in real time in simultaneous order. That is, what was first is now inmost, and what was last is now outmost.

See also the following diagram which explains the relationship between successive and simultaneous order.

God creates all things by means of truth within which is good (see Section xx). These two substances are living and infinite as they are part of God's own infinite substance. It follows therefore that the inmost framework of an object is the substance of good and truth arranged in a particular and unique order to produce existence of that object. Divine truth within which is good is therefore the basic infrastructure upon which all creation rests, and from which all objects get their unique form and properties. Remember that God is omnipresent. Now you can begin to see how that is scientifically true.

God is omnipresent not in space but apart from space (see Section xx). The words "apart" and "within" are used in theistic psychology to refer to the discrete layers of all created objects. God is present in every object, molecule, or property, in a discrete degree "apart" or "within" the object itself. Since good and truth are substances in God and of God, they remain of God when they are "apart" or "within" any object. Hence it is that God is omnipresent -- through his own substance that lies within every object, maintaining it in existence, thus giving it subsistence (see Section xx).

It is the same whether you say truth within which is good, or whether you say Divine Truth within which is Divine Good, and also, whether you say Divine Speech within which is Divine Love. Hence you can see that we can also say that God creates and maintains all things in existence through Divine Speech. As Divine Speech descends from God it first enters into the mental world of the human race (see Section xx). From the top layer called celestial mind, it then descends or exteriorizes into the next layer  called the spiritual mind, then the rational mind, then the natural mind, then the physical body and the rest of the physical world of matter in time space. This is at the bottom or the most exterior level of existence.

Divine Speech enters each layer of creation by the power of correspondences that is built into good and truth. In other words, the substances of good and truth can exist at different spiritual distance from that which first proceeds from the Divine Human through the Spiritual Sun (see Section xx). The celestial arrangement of good and truth is as perfect an image and likeness of God's mind as is possible to achieve for created and finite human beings. The Sacred Scripture that exists in the celestial layer of the mental world was seen by Swedenborg, and may be seen by all whose consciousness rests on celestial-rational correspondences of Divine Speech (see Section xx).

Swedenborg was able to compare the written version of the Old and New Testament Sacred Scriptures across the four layers of the human mind: celestial or third heaven, spiritual or second heaven, interior-natural or first heaven (spiritual-natural), and finally exterior-natural, which is the version that is known here on earth in a natural language and script.

Quoting from the Writings Sacred Scripture:

AC 3737. Such an order has been instituted by the Lord that higher things inflow into lower ones, and therein present an image of themselves in general, and consequently are together therein in a certain general form, and thus are in order from the Highest, that is, from the Lord; from this it is that the proximate image of the Lord is the inmost heaven, which is the heaven of innocence and peace, where those who are celestial dwell; which heaven, because nearest to the Lord, is called His "likeness." The next heaven, namely, that which succeeds and is in a lower degree, is an "image" of the Lord, because in this heaven, as in something general, there are simultaneously presented the things which are in the higher heaven. The ultimate heaven, which succeeds this again, is similarly circumstanced, for the particulars and singulars of the heaven next higher inflow into this heaven, and are therein presented in general, and in a correspondent form.

[2] The case is similar with man, for he has been created and formed to be an image of the three heavens. In man that which is inmost inflows in like manner into that which is lower; and this in like manner into that which is lowest or last. The natural and corporeal consists of such an influx and concourse into those things which are beneath, and finally into those which are last. In this way there is a connection of the last or ultimate things with the first, without which connection that which is last in order would not subsist a single moment. Thus it is manifest what is meant by higher things being in the ultimate of order as in their house. Whether we speak of things higher and lower, or interior and exterior, it is the same; for to man's view things interior appear as higher; and for this reason man places heaven on high, when yet it is in what is internal. (AC 3737)

It is revealed in Sacred Scripture that the physical world is created for the sake of our physical body which allows us to develop a natural mind that contains an operational affective organ for feelings, a cognitive organ operating our thoughts, and a sensorimotor organ that acts as an intermediary between the interior mental and the exterior mental (see Section xx). The question immediately arises as to why there is evil in the human mind and things in the world that are noxious to the life and happiness of human beings. Evil in the mind, like selfishness and cruelty, and noxious things in the world, like poisons and draughts, were not present with the earliest generations that lived on this earth. They were "celestial" people, peace loving and in mutual respect and love to each other (see Section xx). Their natural mind grew and was formed into a natural heaven that corresponded to their spiritual and celestial mind or heaven. Earth was then a paradise in outward form. When the inhabitants reached their third decade of life they were regenerated sufficiently so that they could transition from their natural mind to their spiritual mind in eternity.

Swedenborg interviewed some of them  in their celestial heavens and they appeared to him to live in an heavenly paradise similar in appearance to what they had on earth many thousands of years ago, by earth time. They were not at all conscious of time and appeared in age to be around 20. They lived as conjugial couples in eternal bliss. They possessed, worshipped, and cherished God as the Divine Human, whom they could not see or talk to directly until after the Incarnation Event. They were able to talk to the Divine Human through an intermediary celestial person who was then put into a trance like mental state, speaking only what God spoke through the intermediary person (see Section xx). They had with them the Sacred Scripture of the Most Ancient Church called the Most Ancient Word (see Section xx). Their religions were celestial rational, as the diagram above shows. Their Oral Sacred Scripture was the source of all their knowledge about God and reality. When they left their physical body they were resuscitated directly into the heaven of their celestial mind. Hell did not yet exist in the human mind.

But subsequent generations did not do as well. They started exploring what it would feel like to disobey their conscience and their teachers from heaven who communicated with them. God allowed this to occur and provided for it as well, always moderating their tendency to precipitate themselves into greater and greater profanation of the truth of their Oral Sacred Scripture which they had in their understanding and memory. When these people were resuscitated they were unable to raise their consciousness and life to the level of their heavens. Their feelings and emotions could not stand the obedient, altruistic, and virtuous spheres of their heavens. Hence God provided for them a portion of the mental world where a sphere of hell can exist and support their life of evil loves, delusional beliefs, and bestial lifestyle. After this, all people who were born on this earth inherited this hell in their mind. Life on earth then became a struggle to regenerate, to alter fundamentally one's inherited character traits, from a love of hellish traits, to a love of heavenly traits (see Section xx).

You can see therefore that the generations that were born after the human hells had been created are different from the generations that were before. The earliest generations, called the celestial human race, does not have a hell in their affective organ of the natural mind. Subsequent generations, called the spiritual race, were born with hell in their mind. This essential anatomical difference in mental structure necessitates the separation in spiritual geography, of the two races, celestial and spiritual. The people of the celestial race that live in the hells are separated from the rest of the celestial race that does not have a hell in the mind.

The spiritual race has therefore a different evolutionary history. The early generations of the spiritual race, called the Ancient Church, derived their rationality and knowledge from the Ancient Sacred Scripture which they had with them. This was the first time that a written Sacred Scripture became available to the human race. Their religions were spiritual-rational, as shown in the diagram above. Swedenborg was able to read this version in the spiritual world as it is still with the people in heaven who had received it while on earth. A few passages from this Ancient  Word are quoted in the Old Testament Sacred Scripture (see Section xx). This is an indication that the evolution of Sacred Scriptures on this earth took place not by replacement of each other but by incorporation. The later version always incorporates the earlier version, making it a basis for itself, and then expanding on it by new revelations that take the human race further in its evolution, that is, in its relationship to God.

The spiritual-rational religions also evolved in the course of time until the original understanding was gradually lost. Subsequent versions of Sacred Scripture were given which incorporated the previous versions, and took them to new revelations and new relationships to God. First among these natural-rational religions was the Old Testament Sacred Scripture, then the New Testament Sacred Scripture, then the Qu'ran Sacred Scripture.

The next evolutionary step came when the human race was brought to modern times and science and a new ability to understand Sacred Scripture rationally. The Writings Sacred Scripture were given in the 18th century as a spiritual-rational revelation in modern scientific terms, and they incorporate, confirm, and strengthen the Divine truths that have been revealed in all of Sacred Scripture until then, but now, in a scientific way which was not possible before. This has given birth to theistic psychology, which may be called a celestial-rational science.

It is clear therefore that Sacred Scripture plays a principal and essential role in the evolution of the human race both on earth and in eternity.

This presentation continues in Sections
1.1.4.3.1    Conceptual Charts of the Physiology of God and the Human Mind
1.1.4.3.2    Extracting the Content of Divine Speech Through Correspondences   
and related Sections. (see Section xx).

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