The Sayings and Aphorisms of
Leon James,
Emmanuel Swedenborg,
and
Jesus of Nazareth
by Leon James
First posted: 2003
Last update:
2006
The link for each name goes to a slide show of each Saying.
Preface
Putting my sayings in a tandem next to those of Emanuel Swedenborg and Jesus of Nazareth may appear outwardly as a vain thing on my part, or plain silly. Therefore a brief note of explanation is in order.
Collocating the three collections of Sayings in this way actually constitutes an intellectual path available to people today who want to do research on the scientific knowledge of God through the correspondential sense of Sacred Scripture, as I have described in my 18-volume online work Theistic Psychology: www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/theistic
The Sayings of Leon James is a work that outlines in modern scientific perspective the reports and findings of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) regarding the spiritual world of the afterlife in eternity. At age 57, in the midst of an active life as a science publisher, engineer, and legislator in Sweden, he suddenly began to become conscious in his spiritual mind as well as in his natural mind. This dual consciousness lasted until his death at age 84. This makes him the first modern scientist who had direct observational access to what happens to human beings when their body dies. His reports on the spiritual world amount to about 30 volumes of writings which have been translated and researched by hundreds of scholars (see the Readings in my Theistic Psychology).
The Sayings of Emanuel Swedenborg is a work made up of selections I took from the Writings of Swedenborg, which describe and demonstrate how to extract the correspondential sense of the Old and New Testament Sacred Scriptures.
The Writings of Swedenborg are available online and searchable at either of
these three Web locations:
www.theheavenlydoctrines.org
www.smallcanonsearch.com/
www.swedenborgdigitallibrary.org/index1a.html
The Sayings of Jesus of Nazareth is a work made up of selections I took from the New Testament Sacred Scripture. The words of Divine Speech are recorded by a prophet or revelator in a natural language and published as a written work that is the basis of religion. However, Swedenborg demonstrates that these natural expressions and sentences are actually written in correspondences of natural events (effects) to spiritual events (causes). When we analyze the sentences of Jesus of Nazareth using the method of correspondences defined in the Writings of Swedenborg, we obtain a scientific description of God and the methods He uses to create and manage the universe through the rational laws of correspondences.
The Sayings of Leon James provide a modern translation of the method of correspondences and its results in the form of theistic psychology. The Sayings of Swedenborg provide a description and demonstration of the method of correspondences. The Sayings of Jesus of Nazareth provide an overview of the scientific knowledge of God, which is included in the Old and New Testament Sacred Scriptures.
The reason I call this work Sayings... is that the selections are held short, in the style of traditional “sayings” or “quotable quotes” that are pithy or concatenated, containing layers of meaning that can be explored by delightful reflections that can lead to enlightenment and the desire for further study by going to the three sources for further research.
( 1) Religion
is our love affair with God.
( 2)
Heaven is the top of our mind and hell is the bottom.
( 3) The
goal of life is to become a married couple in heaven united to eternity as one.
( 4) The
true husband makes his wife’s will to be as-if his own.
( 5) The
highest bravery there is for a man is to listen to his wife.
( 6)
True freedom is to be obedient to God’s Law, while slavery is to follow
one’s inclinations.
( 7)
Love for their pets introduces people into the joyful sphere of heaven.
( 8)
Every boy is born a husband to be, every girl, somebody’s wife.
( 9)
True Christianity is the Science of God.
(10) Rational faith is the love of truth for the
sake of good.
(11) Everything in the human mind is either from heaven
or hell – there is no other possibility.
(12) Feeling old is to take appearances for
reality.
(13) The greatest event of human history is the
appearance of God on this earth as a Divine Human Person.
(14) The greatest of all joys is to love your
spouse more than yourself.
(15) The greatest honor you can give the Lord’s
Name is to obey His Commandments because He gave them to us.
(16) Love is the invisible portion of truth. Truth
is the visible portion of love.
(17) The Word of God contains scientific
revelations about God, the human mind, and the spiritual world of heaven and
hell.
(18) The Old Testament, the New Testament, and the
Writings of Swedenborg constitute the Threefold Word. These three collections
of Divine scientific revelations constitute True
Science, the Science of God (i.e., the Science God gives to humanity).
(19) Scientific dualism is theistic science when
based on True Science. Science that excludes God and the spiritual world is
atheistic. With the completion of the Threefold Word, a new era now begins for
the human race.
(20) Doubt is not like an avalanche that buries
you in snow, but like a river carrying you to a dangerous waterfall -- you've
got to struggle to swim upstream to get away.
(21) Religion is a cultural vehicle for knowing
God, and such as is the culture, such is
the religion.
(22) A man can rise to heaven on
the elevator of his rational understanding but he cannot stay there without a
woman who loves him, no more than his lungs can breathe for long without a
beating heart being attached to it.
(23) Becoming adult is learning
how to wait.
(24) Growing up is weaning
oneself from uncomfortable dependencies.
(25) To follow God is wise, rational,
and prudent. To follow self is foolish, illogical, and foolhardy.
(26) Live truth by loving it.
(27) Those who love God, love
their country.
(28) To love what is not true
leads to love for what is not good, and that is hell.
(29) You are where your love is.
In heaven, if your love is for good; in hell, if your love is for what is bad.
(30) The perfection of heaven
comes from the unity of its diverse inhabitants, each a unique individual to
eternity.
(31) The human mind is spirit.
Since spirit is outside time, the mind is immortal.
(32) Your mind is in the
spiritual world – not in time and space. Your brain is in the natural world of
time and space. When your brain dies, your mind then continues life in the
spiritual world to eternity.
(33) Thoughts and feelings are
in the spirit, not in time and space. Your mind is made of your thoughts and
feelings. Therefore, the mind is not in time and space, but is immortal.
(34) Rational thoughts are
truth’s vehicles that carry our love for others. Falsified truths in our
thinking are vehicles for self-love.
(35) False ideas are the
ensnarements of evil.
(36) Freedom lies in obeying
God’s truth; slavery, in obeying self.
(37) Reaching for perfection
requires ceaseless progress.
(38) Denying God is a ticket to
hell.
(39) Every planet is created a
nursery for angels in heaven.
(40) What is the mechanism for
raising a man’s spiritual consciousness to heavenly light? Surrendering
voluntarily to his wife.
(41) What makes the unity between
husband and wife more perfect than
anything else in the universe? The fact that nothing in him is like anything in
her, and vice versa.
(42) Perfection comes from the
unity of diverse unique elements.
(43) The infinite is larger than
you think. Think some more. You are still way under the mark.
(44) Truth fashions the mind’s
anatomy; falsified truth, distorts it.
(45) God is True Science.
(46) Love is truth’s inner
power.
(47) Truth is love’s outward
shield.
(48) Truth is visible to awareness
while its love is hidden within it.
(49) If truth is the chair, then
love is its wood. If love is the flower, then truth is its stalk.
(50) If truth is water, love is
its steam.
(51) If love is heat, truth is
its light.
(52) The Letter of the Threefold
Word is Divine Truth. Its inner sense is Divine Love.
(53) To conjugial husbands, the
Lord is to the wife what the wife is to the husband.
(54) Faith is love’s sword; love
is faith’s purpose.
(55) Wisdom is rationality. Rationality
is to think from God’s revealed truth. Hence, spirituality is to think wisely
and rationally.
(56) The wife sees clearly what
the husband is blind to. This is why a man cannot find his way to heaven
without following his wife.
(57) The restorative well being
of worship lies in sensing God’s sweetness when tasting His Word.
(58) Tasting God’s Word is to
love it in innocence.
(59) Innocence is obedience to
God’s Word because it is God’s wish.
(60) Saying thanks to God while
we are enjoying our food is as important as saying thanks prior to eating.
(61) We are born already
attached to evil. We are born already in hell with our will. The amount that we
contribute to our evil ourselves is as nothing when you compare it to the evil
we already have (= are tied to). This is why we must have a "new
will" not a reformed will.
(62) God prods each of us through our conscience. By disregarding this prodding, we become responsible for the evil we already have. The prodding is done through conscience so that it feels like our own prodding (guilt, shame, regret, empathy, charity, sympathy, tolerance, forgiveness etc. -- these are the positive and negative emotions ("reinforcements") we receive through conscience). We are responsible for how we react to or manage this socio-moral prodding from within that God performs for each individual ceaselessly.
(63) What makes us most human? Thinking. When are we most human? When our thinking serves a rational love.
(64) Rationality is our highest spirituality.
(65)
(66) I am most loving to my cat Mama when I want my joy to be in him.
(67) When I frown or say something negative, I want my displeasure to be in you. When I smile or say something nice, I want my joy to be in you. The first is devilish, while the second is angelic.
(68) When you look at a person up close, you see others.
(69) First we think of the mind as a generator or originator of thoughts and feelings within our individual private minds. But later we find out from revelation that the mind is a receiver of the thoughts and feelings of others, just like a radio is a receiver of the sounds broadcast by the radio station. The broadcasting for our thoughts and feelings originates from those who are now in heaven and hell. No one can go off line and therefore no one can ever be alone. The human race is tied into an online spiritual network or "vertical" community that is independent of time and space, is eternal, and is forever growing and evolving.
(70) Let a tall apartment building represent rational spirituality. Then, God is the roof and the revealed Word is the elevator. The penthouse is Genuine Doctrine in our understanding. Living and enjoying the penthouse is thinking and willing according to Genuine Doctrine.
(71)
If you hate something, there is something about
it you like. When you no
longer like that thing, you stop hating it and start avoiding it.
Avoidance is separation; hate is connection.
(72) If you love something, you are connected to it forever. Even if you now hate it, you are still connected to it. Nevertheless, God can selectively separate you from what you have become connected to - so long as you are willing.
(73) Those in hell are unwilling to be disconnected from their various lusts. This enormously stubborn unwillingness is what keeps them in that sorry state forever. Friend, take heed to avoid placing your life of enjoyment into what is incompatible with heavenly life.
(74) God has made Himself available as the Divine Human, whose Character we can receive and borrow to live as-if our own. This Divine Human Character, lived as if our own, adapts itself differently with each unique human being, filling each individual with the maximum happiness that person can endure. All this - because God loves each person with infinite love and wisdom to eternity.
(75) The purpose which keeps an individual alive on this planet is to learn to love what is good. When that lesson can no longer proceed further, death is precipitated and the
person begins life in heaven or hell. Some learn the lesson immediately, and pass on as infants to be raised in heaven. Others refuse to learn the lesson after eight or nine decades, finally run out of time and let themselves down into hell. When do you figure on learning that lesson?
(76) Stop. Repent. And try to change. God will then give you victory
(77) To be a safe and happy driver, cultivate an attitude of gratitude.
(78) I once thought that a number sufficiently large would be able to digitally reproduce the human body and the entire natural world. Today I realize that no number however large could reproduce a tiny speck of the spiritual world and the mind.
(79) Atheism is a temper tantrum against reality.
(80) Water dissolves everything. In other words, everything yields to truth.
(81)
We are judged by truth. Thereby we receive
good. Therefore love truth so
you may receive good. Heaven is in good.
(82) All the semantics of rational spirituality lies in these two sets: Set 1: love, heart, desire, interest, motive, purpose, intention, will, right brain, etc. Set 2: truth, lungs, thought, imagination, knowledge, belief, problem-solving, plan, guide, understanding, left brain, etc. Knowing the difference between these two sets opens a window into the highest consciousness of reality.
(83)
Every day I catch myself in a silent rage.
Against whom? I discovered that
there are only three possibilities: rage against others and the world,
rage against self, and rage against God (or "fate").
(84) Truth is the syntax of reasoning that lights up our consciousness, making us immortal.
(85) The light of truth and the heat of love make heaven and earth.
(86)
Within all truth there is love.
(87) Christianity is God's love affair with the human race. In its highest form it is also rational faith and theistic science.
(88) The Writings of Swedenborg constitute Christianity demystified-rational faith of the Second Coming.
(89) Who we will be is who we are since to God the future is as present as the past or the present.
(90) Love is a resource--for happiness, fun, and fulfillment.
(91) Nothing exists except relationship, and its reverberating consequences. All relationship is a spiritual tie or co-presence due to the expression of love for the other. Love expresses itself in multiple ways-communicating with others, sharing what one possesses, serving people's needs, supporting worthy causes, assuming responsibility, preferring orderliness, loving truth, behaving honestly, and leading a life of usefulness to society and the world. These are the expressions of love that create relationship. All things in the universe are for the sake of this.
(92) God is our highest relationship, our deepest love. Our closest bond with God is within our loving relationships with others, and not with God directly. All the love we express comes from God and this love urges us to love Him by loving others. This is the First of all Commandments. "You Must Love God" means that we must love Him through others. By loving them we love Him, and not by loving Him Apart from them, for then, we do not love Him and the love we then have for Him is not from Him but from the devil.
(93) Our immortality depends on our rationality.
(94) Swedenborg's record is an exceptional case that becomes evident when his reports are analyzed. It is totally without precedent in the history of humankind where a well known scientist and noted community member, declares in his published Writings that he was given by the Divine the special and unique ability to be conscious in both worlds.
(95) There are two positions one can take about the proposal of introducing God into science. According to one position--the negative bias, scientists automatically exclude God from scientific explanations. This may be called the negative bias in science since there is no way of proving empirically that God does not exist. The other approach may be called the positive bias in science since it accepts the possibility of God's existence without being able to prove it first. But while the negative bias continues unproven as a permanent position, the positive bias allows us to examine the evidence. Once the evidence is examined, and seen as valid, the positive bias is no longer a bias but a proof. The negative bias remains a bias.
(96) According to the assumptions of theistic psychology, scientific revelations have been given by God in the Writings of Swedenborg (1688-1772) and that these revelations make up the basic assumptions and premises for theistic science. Without these scientific revelations it would be impossible to have access to these details about God's management methods, since they cannot be discovered in any other way. Whatever other authors have written in the past necessarily represent their guesses or visions, which remain limited. By definition it is impossible for any of them to see beyond the human level. But scientific revelations are Divine and come from the level of the Divine Omniscience. They make accessible to science a database of knowledge about God and the afterlife which can never be discovered or invented by humans living in the natural world.
(97) According to rational spirituality we can be "conjoined" with God in a reciprocal duality where the parts always and forever remain distinct from each other, and there is never a "melding" or other "oneness" possible. Conjunction with God brings salvation and eternal life in heaven, which is the highest state of life for human beings. But the delusion of "oneness" with God brings falsities in one's life instead of truth, and the eventual result is the corruption of the mind so that the self sinks into the lowest state of human life called hell forever.
(98) The great news about substantive dualism is that the geography of the spiritual world is identical to the anatomy of the mind. With this astonishing discovery Swedenborg was able to describe the anatomy of the mind by means of the objective observation of the geographic features of the spiritual world.
(99) Another great news of substantive dualism is that our life of eternity in the spiritual body can be and must be prepared for. Our lot or level of life in eternity is completely determined by the content of the personality and character we have developed while living on earth. Hence any individual can make the conscious choices now that will lead to eternal happiness and super-natural abilities.
(100) It appears then that I am a forerunner of the future of science in that I clearly see and understand that the Writings of Swedenborg are scientific revelations.
(101) Every individual's mind functions in conjunction with numerous other individuals through a chain of unconscious interconnections with other individuals, from those whose state of consciousness is in the highest regions of the human mind called the “Third Heaven," to those who are in the lowest state called the hells. I call these unconscious interconnections the vertical community to distinguish it from the horizontal community of our neighborhood or country.
(102) Swedenborg observed that our thoughts and feelings are influenced by those who are in communication with our spiritual body that houses the thoughts and feelings. The character of the influence was determined by the character of the individuals or "spirits" who were in communication with our spiritual body. Swedenborg also realized that there is a purpose and mechanism involved in these spiritual interactions. The purpose had to do with regeneration or character reformation. Every individual is put into the position of undergoing regeneration since this is necessary for ascending to the celestial regions of life.
(103) Every planet is created for carrying human life and numerous planets are now inhabited and new ones are constantly being created--all in a grand Divine plan to create immortal human beings that live in eternal bliss in the heavenly regions of the mind.
(104) Character is our spiritual body and is formed of spiritual substances that are immortal and permanently part of our self. We are kept in spiritual freedom continuously. This is effected by being associated with spiritual societies on both sides of a decision-making process. Every time we make a decision, a substantive engram is formed in the spiritual body or character. This is indelible, though it can be covered up and moved to the side during the regeneration process.
(105) A man's character is constructed on a reciprocal basis to a woman's character so that the two may become one united person in the uppermost regions of the human mind. For this unity to be effected to potential perfection, it is necessary that not a single component of the man's character be like any component of the woman's character.
(106) On the other hand theistic psychology is not a religion but a science. Theistic psychology contrasts with atheistic psychology which automatically excludes God as an explanatory concept. Theistic psychology automatically includes God as a concept in all explanations about human behavior and dynamics. While religion depends on creed and faith, theistic psychology depends on rational and scientific explanations of the laws and mechanisms by which God causes every event and behavior to occur. Therefore theistic psychology advances by cumulative research and critical analysis of all models, theories, and data.
(107) The Divine scientific revelations in the Writings of Swedenborg are not opposed to the religious perspective. In fact, the scientific approach confirms the religious one, and goes further in explicating the reality of God.
(108) Irrational and selfish thinking and feeling in the external conscious natural mind prevents the interior spiritual mind from developing within the conscious natural mind. On the other hand, rational and altruistic thinking and feeling in the external conscious natural mind allows for the full development of the interior spiritual-natural mind. When we "awaken" to our immortal life in the spiritual body, it is the quality of this spiritual interior mind that determines our fate forever.
(109) The geography of the spiritual world = the anatomy of the human mind. There is a perfect overlap between them. This means that in the afterlife we live forever in our mind since the mind of everyone is immortal. What’s amazing is that though we are each in our own mental world, we all can see each other!
(110) Unless an object has a spiritual substance within it, or tied to it correspondentially, it cannot come into existence nor continue in existence or subsist. The brain therefore has a spiritual substance within it and it is this spiritual substance that produces sensations, thoughts, and feelings.
(111) It is important to distinguish the science of theistic psychology from other endeavors that fall outside of rational science. An effective way of distinguishing rational spirituality from mysticism and spiritism is to determine whether the spiritual information being provided is based on direct sensory input from the spiritual world. If yes, then it cannot be scientific. This is because, theistic psychology is based exclusively on the Writings of Swedenborg which is the only original source of scientific information on the spiritual world.
(112) Spiritism is harmful because it inhibits the development of rational spirituality in an individual. Swedenborg observed that individuals who first awaken in the spiritual world ("novitiate spirits") are unable to continue believing anything they do not understand rationally. Their science and religion are rejected unless that which has been understood rationally. This is because the spiritual world is a rational world, being the world of the mind.
(113) The basic tenet of theistic psychology can be seen when you consider this definitional and methodological formula:
mental = rational = spiritual = immortal and eternal
(114) The “expanse” of the spiritual world may be called rational ether which is also the expanse in our mind. It is like the grammar of the language you speak. The grammar is made up of an integrated collection of rational rules called "syntax." Linguists have given precise mathematical descriptions to these psycho-linguistic units in language. We think in terms of rational categories imposed by the structure of the mental organs in which thinking takes place. Now if you arrive into the spiritual world you must be able to function rationally, or else you are an irrational person living in a rational world. And that produces a hell in the mind.
(115) There is a spiritual or mental mechanism by which we rise to our heaven or fall into our hell. It is a predetermined and unchangeable universal law for all humans, just like pregnancy and birth are. While we are still in this world we can alternate between rational and irrational states, which means also, that we can alternate between good loves and bad. But this alternation is impossible in the afterlife state where opposites destroy each other if brought together.
(116) Theistic psychology investigates the overlap between the mental world and the spiritual world by means of the laws of correspondences revealed in the Writings of Swedenborg. These scientific revelations indicate that we are born dual citizens in the natural and spiritual world, living in both worlds simultaneously.
(117) Selfishness is slavery. Altruism is freedom.
(118) You don’t get to notice what you don’t value.
(119) All is well within the turbulent waters The churning stops when the yearning goes Then the thought picks up a higher scent And the vitality of enthusiasm rushes in.
(120) Blood coursing through tubes supplies the energy for protein cells, as spiritual heat from God activates our loves in the mind’s affective organ. Air containing oxygen is aspirated by the lungs as inflowing spiritual truth from God, and is received into our rational understanding. The body needs and thirsts for the molecules of uncontaminated water as the mind needs and longs for the substance of spiritual truth. The sensory organs in the nose filter the air, detecting its chemical properties as the cognitive organ in the mind receives and detects the rational quality of the inflowing spiritual light from God.
(121) The more scientific and rational people become, the more they are attached to God. The more scientific people become, without also becoming rational, the more they avoid the idea of God. This is because all rationality is from God and starts and ends with God.
(122) The Two Great Commandments of the Judaeo-Christian Religion – Love God and Love your neighbor – Means to Love God in yourself and in others. To love God in ourselves is to acknowledge His loving and omnipotent co-participation in our feelings, thoughts, and acts. To love God in our neighbor is to acknowledge that how we treat the neighbor, is how we treat God in the neighbor.
(1) Everything not connected with
something prior to itself falls into nothing (Arcana Coelestia 5084)
(2) Angels have all their blessedness
through truths from good. (Apocalypse
Explained 484)
(3) An inclination to love one of the
opposite sex, and with it a capacity for receiving that love, has been
implanted in Christians from birth, for the reason that this love comes from
the Lord alone (Conjugial Love 466).
(4) Wives are by birth forms of love, so
that it is innate in them to wish to be one with their husbands But it is
different with husbands; since they are not by birth forms of love, but
designed to receive that love from
their wives (Conjugial Love 216)
(5) The Word is the only doctrine which
teaches how a man must live in the world in order to be happy to eternity.
(Arcana Coelestia 8939)
(6) How important it is to have a right
idea of God can be seen from the fact that the idea of God forms the inmost element
of thought in all who have any religion, for all constituents of religion and
all constituents of
worship relate to God. And because God is universally and specifically involved
in all constituents of religion and worship, therefore without a right idea of
God no communication with the heavens is possible. So it is
that every nation in the spiritual world is allotted its location in accordance
with its idea of God as a person; for in this idea and in no other lies an idea
of the Lord. (Divine Love and Wisdom 13)
(7) The existence of writings in the
heavens is a provision of the Lord for the sake of the Word; for the Word in
its essence is Divine truth, and from it is all heavenly wisdom, both with men
and with angels; for the
Word was dictated by the Lord, and what is dictated by the Lord passes through
all the heavens in order and terminates with man. Thereby it is adapted both to
the wisdom of angels and the intelligence of men. Thereby,
too, the angels have a Word, and read it the same as men do on the earth, and
also draw from it their doctrinals, and preach from it. It is the same Word;
but its natural sense, which is the sense of the letter with us,
does not exist in heaven, but only the spiritual sense, which is its internal
sense. What this sense is can be seen in the small treatise on The White Horse
spoken of in the Apocalypse. (Heaven and Hell 259)
(8) A human being is created for
everlasting life, and any person can inherit that life, so long as he lives in
accordance with the means of salvation prescribed in the Word; every Christian,
as well as every non-Christian
who possesses a religion and sound reason, assents to this proposition. (The True Christian Religion 340)
(9) Without the Word there is no
rational conception of the Lord, and thus no salvation (Sacred Scriptures
111)
(10) As to the formation of faith: it is
effected by man's going to the Lord, learning truths from the Word, and living
according to them. (The True Christian Religion 347)
(11) Those things which are from one's
own intelligence have no life in them, since nothing good proceeds from man's proprium
(New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine 256).
(12) [in the Word] they are called
"drunkards" who believe nothing but what they apprehend, and for this
reason search into the mysteries of faith.
And because this is done by means of sensuous things, either of memory
or
of philosophy, man being what he is, cannot but fall thereby into errors. For man's thought is merely earthly, corporeal,
and material, because it is from earthly, corporeal, and material things, which
cling constantly to
it, and in which the ideas of his thought are based and terminated. (Arcana Coelestia 1072)
(13) Spiritual self-destruction means
that people in the afterlife refuse to let go of their self-imposed spiritual
insanity, thereby keeping themselves in the hells that exist in every human
mind (New Jerusalem and
Its Heavenly Doctrine 256).
(14) The intelligence of women is by
nature modest, gracious, peaceable, compliant, soft and gentle, while the intelligence
of men is by nature critical, rough, resistant, argumentative, and given to
intemperance.
Evidence that this is the nature of women and the nature of men is clearly apparent
from the body, face, tone of voice, speech, bearing and behavior of each sex.
() From this I could clearly see that a man is born a form of
the intellect, and a woman a form of love. I could also see what the nature
of the intellect is and what the nature of love is in their beginnings, and
thus what a man's intellect in its development would be
like without conjunction with feminine love and eventually conjugial love. (Conjugial Love 218)
(15) The manifestation of the Lord, and
intromission into the spiritual world, surpass all miracles. This has not been
granted to anyone since the creation, as it has been to me. (INVITATION 52)
(16) Affections, which belong to the
will, are nothing but changes of state of the purely organic substances of the
mind, and that thoughts, which belong to the understanding, are nothing but changes
and variations in the form of these substances, and that memory is a permanent
state of these changes
and variations. (Divine
(17) It is the essential of love not to
love self, but to love others, and to be conjoined with others by love. It is the
essential of love, moreover, to be loved by others, for thus conjunction is
effected. The essence of
all love consists in conjunction; this, in fact, is its life, which is called
enjoyment, pleasantness, delight, sweetness, bliss, happiness, and felicity.
Love consists in this, that its own should be another's; to feel
the joy of another as joy in oneself, that is loving. But to feel one's own joy
in another and not the other's joy in oneself is not loving; for this is loving
self, while the former is loving the neighbor. These two
kinds of love are diametrically opposed to each other. Either, it is true, conjoins;
and to love one's own, that is, oneself, in another does not seem to divide;
but it does so effectually divide that so far as any one
has loved another in this manner, so far he afterwards hates him. For such conjunction
is by its own action gradually loosened, and then, in like measure, love is
turned to hate. (Divine Love and Wisdom 47)
(18) The Word teaches that a person is alive
after death, for example where it says that God is not the God of the dead but
of the living, Matt. 22:32; that Lazarus was taken up after death to heaven,
but the rich man was cast down to hell, Luke 16:22,23ff; that Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob are there, Matt. 8:11; 22:32; Luke 16:23-25,29; that Jesus told the
robber, Today you will be with Me in paradise, Luke 23:43; and in other
statements
elsewhere." (Arcana Coelestia 10597)
(19) The Word is the Divine Truth which
is in the Lord and from the Lord Divine Truth has power in itself, and such
power that, by means of it, heaven was created and the world with all things
therein. (Heaven and Hell
137).
(20) Without the Lord's coming into the
world no one could have been saved. It is the same today; and therefore without
the Lord's coming again into the world in Divine truth, which is the Word, no
one can be saved. (The True Christian Religion 3)
(21) The belly corresponds to the way
toward hell, and the draught or privy corresponds to hell; hell is also so
called in the Word. (Arcana Coelestia 8910)
(22) A man cannot stand apart from
thinking evil, but from doing it. (Arcana Coelestia 8910)
(23) As affections and thoughts are
simply changes in the state of the forms of the mind, it follows that memory is
nothing else than a permanent state of these changes. For all changes and
variations of state in organic
substances are such that once they have become habitual they are permanent.
Thus the lungs are habituated to produce various sounds in the trachea, to vary
them in the glottis, to articulate them in the tongue,
and to modify them in the mouth; and when once these organic activities have
become habitual such sounds are in the organs and can be reproduced. (Divine
(24) It shall first be explained what a
spirit is, and what an angel is. All persons after death come, in the first place,
into the world of spirits, which is midway between heaven and hell, and there
pass through their own
times, that is, their own states, and become prepared, according to their life,
either for heaven or for hell. So long as people stay in that world they are
called spirits. They who have been raised out of that world into
heaven are called angels; but those who have been cast down into hell are called
either satans or devils. So long as these continue in the world of spirits,
those who are preparing for heaven are called angelic spirits;
and those who are preparing for hell, infernal spirits; meanwhile angelic
spirits are conjoined with heaven, and infernal spirits with hell. All
spirits in the world of spirits are adjoined to people still on
earth; because people still on earth, in respect to the interiors of their minds,
are in like manner between heaven and hell, and through these spirits they communicate
with heaven or with hell according to their life.
It is to be observed that the world of spirits is one thing, and the spiritual
world another; the world of spirits is that which has just been spoken of; but
the spiritual world includes that world, and heaven and
hell. (Divine Love and Wisdom 140)
(25) These are the general principles of
all religions by which everyone can be saved. To acknowledge God and to refrain
from doing evil because it is against God are the two things which make
religion to be religion. If one of them is wanting it cannot be called
religion, since to acknowledge God
and to do evil is a contradiction; so also is to do good and yet not acknowledge
God, for one is not possible without the other. It has been provided by the Lord
that almost everywhere there should be some form of
religion, and that in every religion there should be these two principles; and
it has also been provided by the Lord that everyone who acknowledges God and
refrains from doing evil because it is against God should have a place in
heaven. For heaven in the complex resembles one Man whose life or soul is the
Lord. In that heavenly Man there are all things which are in a natural man with
that difference which exists between things heavenly and things natural.
(Divine
(26) I anticipate that many who read the
following descriptions and the accounts at the ends of the succeeding chapters
will believe they are figments of my imagination. I swear in truth, however,
that they are not
inventions, but actual occurrences to which I was witness. Nor were they witnessed
in any condition of unconsciousness but in a state of full wakefulness. For it
has pleased the Lord to manifest Himself to me and
send me to teach the doctrines that will be doctrines of the New Church, the
church meant by the New Jerusalem in the book of Revelation. To this end He has
opened the inner faculties of my mind and spirit. As a result, it has been made
possible for me to be in the spiritual world with angels
and at the same time in the natural world with men, and this now for twenty-five
years. (Conjugial Love 1)
(27) Love, therefore, is the warmth in a
person's life or his vital heat. The warmth of the blood, and also its redness,
have no other origin. The fire of the angelic sun, which is pure love, causes
it. (Conjugial Love 34)
(28) The operation of the Divine
Providence for the salvation of man is said to begin at his birth and to
continue right on to the end of his life. In order to understand this it should
be known that the Lord sees what the
nature of a man is, and foresees what he desires to be, and thus what he will
be; and in order that he may be a man and therefore immortal, the freedom of
his will cannot be taken away, as has been shown above in many
places. Therefore the Lord foresees man's state after death and provides for it
from his birth right on to the end of his life. With the wicked the Lord
provides by permitting and continually withdrawing them from evils;
while with the good He provides by leading them to good. Thus the Divine Providence
is unceasing in the work of saving man. (Divine
(29) In the chapter on the Sacred
Scripture I showed that the literal sense of the Word is written by appearances
and correspondences. Each of its details therefore contains a spiritual sense
in which truth is illuminated by its own light, and the literal sense is in
shadow. So to prevent the
people of the new church, like those of the old church, going astray in the
shadows obscuring the literal sense of the Word, especially as regards heaven
and hell, how they will live after death, and on the present
occasion about the Lord's coming, the Lord has been pleased to open the sight
of my spirit, thus admitting me to the spiritual world. I have been allowed not
only to talk with spirits and angels, with relations and
friends, even with kings and princes, who have met their end in the natural
world, but also to see the astonishing sights of heaven, and the pitiful sights
of hell. So I have seen how people do not pass their time in some pu deep in
the earth, nor flit around blind and dumb in the air or in empty space, but
live as human beings in a substantial body, in a much more perfect state, if
they come among the blessed, than they experienced
previously when living in material bodies. (The True Christian Religion 771).
(30) SO LONG AS MAN LIVES IN THE WORLD,
HE IS KEPT MIDWAY BETWEEN HEAVEN AND
HELL, AND IS THERE IN SPIRITUAL EQUILIBRIUM, WHICH IS FREEDOM OF CHOICE.
In order to know what freedom of choice is and the nature of it, it is necessary
to know its origin. Especially from a recognition of its origin it can be
known, not only that there is such a thing as freedom of choice,
but also what it is. Its origin is in the spiritual world, where man's mind is
kept by the Lord. Man's mind is his spirit, which lives after death; and his
spirit is constantly in company with its like in the
spiritual world, and at the same time by means of the material body with which
it is enveloped, it is with men in the natural world. Man does not know that in
respect to his mind he is in the midst of spirits, for the
reason that the spirits with whom he is in company in the spiritual world, think
and speak spiritually, while his own spirit thinks and speaks naturally so long
as he is in the material body; and the natural man
cannot understand or perceive spiritual thought and speech, nor the reverse.
This is why spirits cannot be seen. (The True Christian Religion 475).
(31) Nothing is permitted to happen that has not been foreseen, for otherwise, it cannot happen. (Spiritual Experiences 1088)
(32) The thoughts of the spiritual man are incomprehensible and inexpressible to the natural man, and they cannot be transferred to another script and another language (The True Christian Religion 280)
(33) The wisdom of wives is superior to that of men. (Conjugial Love 208:2)
(34) All the moments of life have a series of consequences to eternity. (Arcana Coelestia 6490)
(35) True Christianity consists in this: that men ought to live in charity towards the neighbor, that is, to be sincere, to be just, to be upright; thus, to practice sincerity, justice and goodness for the sake of those things, and to esteem them and venerate them as Divine. (Spiritual Experiences 5063)
(36) The spiritual world is where man is, and is by no means remote from him. In a world, every man, as to the interiors of his mind, is in that world, in the midst of the spirits and angels there; and he thinks from the light of it, and loves from the heat of it. (Divine Love and Wisdom 92)
(37) All who come into the other life are vastated. Those who have been in good, in the world, are vastated as to evils and the thence arising; and they are, then, in their own good and in the truth then arising. But those who have been in evil, are vastated as to truths and goods, if they have any; and they are, then, in their own evil and in the falsity arising from it. Hence, the good become images of their own good, and the evil, images of their own evil. The latter are, thus, cast down into hell; the former are raised up to heaven. (Spiritual Experiences 5071)
(38) To think from truth is the human and consequently the angelic principle itself; and it is a truth that man does not think from himself, but that it is granted him by the Lord to think, to all appearance as from himself. (Divine Providence 321)
(39) Everyone knows, or may know, that evil originates from hell and that good is from heaven. Consequently, everyone may know that so far as man shuns evil and turns away from it so far he shuns and turns away from hell. So, too, he may know that so far as anyone shuns evil and turns away from it so far he wills and loves good; and consequently so far is he brought out of hell by the Lord and led to heaven. These things every rational man may see, provided he knows that there is a heaven and a hell and that evil and good are from their own respective sources. Now if a man reflects upon the evils in himself, which is the same thing as examining himself, and shuns them, he then frees himself from hell and casts it behind him, and introduces himself into heaven where he sees the Lord face to face. It is stated that man does this, but he does it as of himself, and then from the Lord. When a man from a good heart and a pious faith acknowledges this truth, it lies inwardly concealed in everything that he afterwards thinks and does as from himself. (Divine Providence 321)
(40) The Word is the only doctrine which teaches how a man must live in the world in order to be happy to eternity. (Arcana Coelestia 8939)
(41) In respect of the interiors of his mind man is by creation like an angel, having a like will and a like understanding. Consequently, if a man has lived in accordance with the Divine order he becomes after death an angel, with the same wisdom as an angel. (Heaven and Hell 304)
(42) The human race apart from heaven would be like a chain without a hook; and heaven without the human race would be like a house without a foundation. (Heaven and Hell 304)
(43) All the speech of spirits and of angels is also effected by means of representatives; for by wonderful variations of light and shade they vividly present before the internal and at the same time before the external sight of him with whom they speak, all they are thinking about, and insinuate it by suitable changes of the state of the affections. The representations that come forth in such speech are not like those before described, but are quick and instantaneous, being simultaneous with the ideas that belong to their speech. They are like something that is described in a long series, while at the same time it is exhibited in an image before the eyes, for, wonderful to say, all spiritual things themselves whatever can be representatively exhibited by forms of imagery that are incomprehensible to man, within which are things of the perception of truth, and still more interiorly those of the perception of good. Such things are also in man (for man is a spirit clothed with a body); as is evident from the fact that all speech perceived by the ear, on ascending toward the interiors, passes into forms [ideas] not unlike those of sight, and from these into intellectual forms or ideas, and thus becomes a perception of the sense of the expressions. Whoever rightly reflects upon these things may know from them that there is in himself a spirit which is his internal man, and also that after the separation of the body he will possess such a speech, because he is in the very same during his life in the world, although it does not appear to him that he is in it, by reason of the obscurity and darkness which earthly, bodily, and worldly things induce. (Arcana Coelestia 3342)
(44) From all this the truth is seen that the end of creation was an angelic heaven from the human race, and consequently man, in whom God can dwell as in His receptacle; and this is the reason why man was created a form of Divine order. (The True Christian Religion 66)
(45) The Lord does indeed require humility, adoration, thanksgivings, and many other things from man, which appear like repaying, and thus not free; but the Lord does not require these things for His own sake, for the Divine has no glory from man's humility , adoration, and thanksgiving. In the Divine, anything of the love of self is utterly inconceivable that such things should be done for His own sake. Rather, they are for the sake of the man himself; for, when a man is in humility he can receive good from the Lord, because he has then been separated from the love of self and its evils, which oppose (such good). Therefore the Lord wills a state of humility in man for his own sake; because when he is in this state the Lord can flow in with heavenly good. The case is similar with adoration and with thanksgiving. (Arcana Coelestia 5957)
(46) Faith in its essence is truth, and that everyone is able to acquire truths from the Word, and that so far as anyone does acquire them for himself, and loves them, he implants in himself the beginnings of faith. (The True Christian Religion 356)
(47) A faith of the sense of the letter alone is a persuasive faith, which is of no avail. (Spiritual Experiences 5084)
(48) But amongst these are not to be reckoned those, who, owing to immaturity or simplicity, believe the sense of the letter of the Word, and still live according to the doctrine of the Church; but they are those who study the Word, despising the whole of the doctrine from the Word. (Spiritual Experiences 5087)
(49) The reason why they are dangerous, is, because they are able to persuade almost any of the simple and the upright, that is or that is to be believed, merely from the external sense of the Word, and without explanation; and the simple have not exerted themselves, and learned, in the world, that the external sense of the Word is according to the apprehension of the sensual man - for the first apprehension of man is sensual; and that this must be the lowest level of the Word, because in the position of a foundation, or in the position of the soles of the feet, whereo