A Man of the Field
Forming
The
Volume 1: Reformation
The
Struggle Against Nonduality
Volume 2: Enlightenment
The
Spiritual Sense of the Writings
Volume 3: Regeneration
Spiritual
Disciplines For Daily Life
Volume 4: Uses
The New
Church Mind In Old Age
Please
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By Leon
James
October
2002
(draft 17a)
Author
information appears at the end. This document is in the process of being
revised. Please note the draft version marked on top. To print this document,
see Printing Note at the end.
A “field” means doctrine (AC 368)
A "man" signifies faith and
truth (AC 427; 4823)
Volume 1
Reformation
The
Struggle Against Nonduality
Chapters 6 and 7
Table of Contents
Access to other Chapters
and Volumes here:
Disconfirming Nondualist
Propositions In The New Church Mind
1.
Only The Writings Have Spiritual Truth.
2. The Notion That “Self Is
An Illusion”
3.The Notion That ”All Great Religions Are Equivalent”
1.
The Lord’s New Revelation Regarding All Religions
4. The Notion That “Meditation Is Spiritual”
6. The Notion That “We Are Already Perfect”
7. The Notion That “Being
One With Nature Is Spiritual”
8. The Notion Of
“Unconditional Love”
1.
Spiritual Events In The Inner Mind
2.
Everyone Is Born Into The Slavery Of An Addiction
3.
Good Loves And Genuine Truths
4.
What’s Wrong With Unconditional Self-acceptance
5.
Spiritual Dualities From the Writings Are To Be Loved And Lived
7.
What Is Loving The Neighbor?
9. A
Poisonous Serpent And Cockatrice
9. The New
Church View On Forgiveness.
1.
Forgiveness Is Always Granted Immediately by the Lord
10. The
Secular View On Forgiveness.
11. The
Christian View On Forgiveness
2.
Willing And Thinking According To The Letter
Introduction: Key Concepts
In the New Church Mind
2.
Teaching Integrated Concepts
3. A
Few Key Concepts From The Writings
2. Discrete Degrees In Successive
And Simultaneous Order
Ghosts,
Vampires, Aliens, “Energies” And “Vibrations”
1.
“After The Completion Of This Book”
4. The Idea of “Salvation is by Means Only”
5. The Idea of “Conjugial Love”
1.
Achieving An Internal Union
2.
Discrete and Reciprocal Relationship Between Man And Woman
3.
Conjugial Love Vs. Pornography And Adultery
6. The Mind Is In The Spiritual World
1.
The Corporeal Sensuous Mind Tends Toward Hell
2.
Only Rational Loves Exist In Heaven
3.
Revelation Of Interior Rational Truths.
5.
Genuine Images and Maps Of The Spiritual World
7. The Vertical Community: Spiritual Influx From Heaven And Hell
1. We
Are Created Dual Citizens In Two Worlds
2. A
More Effective Self-Management Technique
3.
Spirituality Is Not Visible In The Letter
4.
Spirituality Reenters The Human Race
5.
Hearing But Not Understanding
6.
Spiritual Meaning Of Parables
7.
Building Up Spiritual Doctrine In Our Mind
8. The Idea of “Earths in the Universe”
1.
The Lord Would Not Want To Mislead Us.
Titles for the Abbreviated
Citations in the Book
Full Text Free Online Access to All Swedenborg’s
Writings:
Volume 2 is
located at this address:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/nonduality.html
The
Chapter 6, Introduction
Our
spiritual inheritance (from the father line), our natural inclinations
inherited from both parents, our cultural upbringing (socialization and
education), and the socio-political milieu in
All around
us substitute explanations and opinions are constantly created by the
intellectual fervor of the day. We are exposed to all sorts of ideas and
propositions of life that are contrary to the rational order of the
The
defining proposition that creates the
Only
that which is directly from the Writings can be the spiritual truth in our mind
on this earth; and all that is not from the Writings is not the spiritual
truth.
Educated
people who are also fair-minded feel an inner resistance to this type of
absolutist propositions. No, that can’t be. It’s too extreme. What about the
people who never hear about the Writings? What about other valid religions that
form the Lord’s
What about
science and the accumulating knowledge of the human intellect? Should we then
throw away all books like religious fanatics do? The Writings answer this by
revealing two things: first, it pleases the Lord to unconsciously direct the
minds of scientists to bring out rational thinking; second, the products of
this type of Divine tutelage is not truth but knowledges or “scientifics” (AC
5477). Truth starts in the human mind above scientifics and their only source
is the interior rational which receives the truth from the Lord through the
communicating heavens. There is no other source for truth. Truth descending
into our conscious mind cannot be accomplished when reading any author or doing
any self-discovery activity. It cannot be accomplished by reading the Bible,
unless we read it from the perspective of the Writings.
1. Only The Writings Have Spiritual Truth
The Word is Divine
Truth emanating from the Lord (AC 9407)
But do we
not reject others if we say that only the Writings have spiritual truth? No, it
is not a rejection of others to define our own mind. But we are rejecting
“their truth”? No, we are only defining what the truth is for us. Can we be
friends then? Yes, because people with diverse ideas and convictions can agree
to share the outside world with each other in accordance with morality, the
law, and an inalienable respect for every human being. However, in marriage
relations, inmost friendship cannot be formed with a spouse who does not
acknowledge the Writings as the Lord in His Word since then their religion is
not the same (CL 241).
But what
about partial truths? Can’t some author or system have some truth even if it
doesn’t have the entire truth? No, because there are no partial truths or
half-truths. The Writings reveal that there are only truths and falsified
truths or falsities (AE 519). There may be both truths and falsities in the
same mind (AC 4551) but not half-truths or half-falsities. And so we need to
learn to deconstruct concepts found outside the Writings in the light of the
truths in the Writings. Some of the outside concepts may give us the impression
that they are similar to truths in the Writings. For example we may read in a
book that there is God or that we should love the neighbor. But when you
analyze the two ideas in terms of their larger context from which they take
meaning, you can see that God doesn’t mean the Divine Human, hence the Lord,
and that loving the neighbor doesn’t mean that our love is to be in accordance
with the good in the neighbor (AC 5008).
Or we can
read in a book that children respond better to rewards than to punishment. We
need to see that this is not a truth but a scientific, similar to saying that
intelligence facilitates success, or using fertilizers make this plant grow
faster, or lowering the prime lending rate will heat up the economy. These are
facts and they are either correct or incorrect. A truth or falsity would be
saying that the universe has created itself, or that conscience should be
suppressed, or that children do not need a caring parent, or that premarital
promiscuity is not injurious to our future married life. What then is the
difference between correct/incorrect (facts or scientifics), and truth/falsity
(rational propositions)? The difference is that facts are about the outward
world and truths are about the inner world’s relation to the outward world. The
Writings present truths in every word and sentence (SS 35) and are the only
source for genuine intelligence:
Read
the Word,' the angels said to this, 'and believe in the Lord, and you will see
truths which will be your guides to faith and life. All Christian people draw
their doctrines from the Word as being their one and only source.' (TCR 621)
The
only source of wisdom is from Divine truths analytically arranged by means of
the light which falls on them, coming from the Lord. Nor is there any other
source of human intelligence, if it is truly intelligence. (TCR 350) (See also:
NJHD 257; AC 8939; TCR 340, 347; SS 111; SE 5961).
After
debunking all this, we come back to the defining proposition of the
Even if
these matters were described they would not be understood except by those who
see with heavenly perception; nothing at all would be understood by those who
see with merely natural perception. For those who see with heavenly perception
dwell in the light of heaven which comes from the Lord, a light that holds
intelligence and wisdom within it. But those who dwell in natural light do not
possess any intelligence or wisdom except insofar as the light of heaven flows
into that natural light and uses it in such a way that things belonging to
heaven may be seen - as in a mirror or in some representative image - within
things belonging to natural light. For natural light does not render any
spiritual truth visible unless the light of heaven is flowing into it. (AC
4302)
Every
proposition of life is a spiritual truth or falsity. We are exposed to many
propositions of life through culture, the media, and personal communication.
Nothing that is about the spiritual must be admitted into the mind
except from the Writings. Sometimes we admit ideas that lie in our memory,
unexamined and unstamped, which can then become like leaven that gradually
spreads through the entire dough. Mental pollution or spiritual contamination
is real. Here is a cognitive rule that governs our mental reasoning:
If
we admit a concept, we also admit all its presuppositions and implications.
If we do
not examine carefully what we admit, the assumptions that are necessarily tied
to all concepts, secretly exert dynamic influences on our reasoning and our
readiness to undergo regeneration.
Since the
Second Coming is a rational faith and science, this activity of deconstructing
incoming concepts and propositions is entirely different from the sectarian
notion that this or that object or idea is to be banned or suppressed. Dogmatic
censorship and intolerance are not from the Writings. Instead, by
deconstructing incoming concepts and attitudes we are putting them through the
filter of rationality as this is revealed and defined in the Writings. We
are not intolerant of or prejudiced against other people’s ideas, traditions,
or values. We give all others the freedom we claim for ourselves. And this
freedom is to examine in the light of one’s rational faith and science every
single concept and attitude that one is exposed to. We encourage and approve of
this universal freedom for all, not just for the
The
following is a sample of nondualist propositions that can creep into the
Chapter 6, Section 2
This is an
impediment to regeneration because it weakens our resolve to change ourselves.
We know that we must change or be regenerated because we are all born infernal
with only the liberty or possibility of becoming human and celestial (DP 87, AC
3928[2]). The opposing view formulated in the David Loy quote above is: “the
sense of a within apart from the world is the self-delusion that needs to be
overcome.” If self is an illusion and heaven and hell are within us, then
heaven and hell are an illusion. Further, good and evil are then somewhat
similar, and as a consequence, we don’t have to give up all our loves, only
some. Yet the reality is that there is zero similarity or overlap between
heaven and hell. And the fact is that if we allow a single overlap, we are
doomed, for falsity and truth in the same mind, when commingled, destroy all
truth and good (AE 519). Self is real because it is the unique proprium that
the Lord creates for each individual. All that the Lord creates is real and remains
unique as itself forever (DLW 226). We must not let ourselves doubt the reality
of self. This is not a matter of individual preference or a matter of tolerance
towards other traditions. It is a matter of rationality and reality in our own
mind.
Every person, as long as he lives in the world, treads a
path mid-way between heaven and hell; and he is in equilibrium, that is, he has
free will to look up to God or down to hell. If he looks up to God, he
acknowledges that all wisdom comes from God, and his spirit is really present
among the angels in heaven. The person who looks down, as everyone does whose
evil puts him under the power of falsities, is in his spirit really among the
devils in hell. (TCR 69)
Chapter 6, Section 3
THE STATE AND CONDITION IN THE NEXT LIFE OF NATIONS AND
PEOPLES BORN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH
It is commonly supposed that those born outside the Church,
who are called heathens and gentiles, cannot be saved for the reason that they
do not possess the Word and so do not know the Lord, without whom there is no
salvation. But that gentiles too are saved may be known from the single
consideration that the Lord's mercy is universal - that is, it reaches out to
every individual human being. For gentiles are born human beings the same as
those within the Church, who are a relative minority; and they are not to blame
because they do not know the Lord. Consequently the nature of their state and
condition in the next life has in the Lord's Divine mercy been shown to me. (AC
2589)
The Lord in
the Word of His Second Coming has now revealed His relationship to all
religions. This relationship is determined not by religious membership or
affiliation but by the genuineness or purity of the spiritual truths anyone has
of Him from Him.
Good is in essence a single entity, but it acquires a
specific character from the truths implanted in it and in this way is made
various. The truths that are seen by gentiles as truths are in general the idea
that they should worship some God from whom they seek their own good and to
whom they attribute it - though they do not know so long as they live in this
world that that God is the Lord; also the idea that they should adore their God
under images which they hold sacred; besides many other ideas. But these ideas
do not make it any less possible for them to be saved than for Christians,
provided that they lead lives in which love to their God and love towards the
neighbour are present. For by leading such lives they have the ability to
receive interior truths in the next life … (AC 3778)
This
passage, along with many others, teach that people’s relationship to the Lord
is fixed to a position of closeness that depends on the idea they have of Him.
All good or love is from the Lord for He alone is Love itself (AC 2500, AR 58).
Clearly then, anyone anywhere on any planet at any time, has love or good from
the Lord and belongs to the Lord. But people’s relationship to the Lord can be
distant or close. That is, the amount and purity of the good or love an
individual can receive from Him is proportional to the idea one has of Him. The
more interior is the idea of the Lord
we have, the more good and love we can receive from Him. This is indicated by
the fact that people’s habitations or societies in which they live in the
afterlife, are arranged at various distances from the spiritual Sun, in which
the Lord is, and from which He Proceeds into the universe and the minds of
people.
THE FORM OF HEAVEN WHICH DETERMINES AFFILIATIONS AND COMMUNICATIONS THERE.
What the form
of heaven is can be seen in some measure from what has been shown in
the preceding chapters; as that heaven
is like itself both in its greatest and in its least divisions (n. 72); that
consequently each society is a heaven
in a lesser form, and each angel
in the least form (n. 51-58);
that as the entire heaven
reflects a single man, so each society of
heaven reflects a man in a
lesser form, and each angel in
the least form (n. 59-77); that
the wisest are at the center,
and the less wise are round about even to the borders, and the like is true of each society (n. 43); and that
those who are in the good of
love dwell from the east to the west in heaven,
and those who are in truths from good from the south to the north; and the same
is true of each society (n. 148,
149). All this is in accord with the form
of heaven; consequently it may be concluded from this what this form is in general. (HH 200)
This
passage shows that people’s relationship to the Lord is variable, and
consequently religions are not equivalent since they each form a different idea
of the Lord. Such as this idea is, such is their relationship to the Lord. It
is said that “the wisest are at the center,
and the less wise are round about even to the borders.” There is thus a
spiritual geography of the inhabitations in the afterlife (see LJ 48), and the
closest to the spiritual Sun are called wise, but not the others. Since
spiritual truths cannot be discovered or invented by people, it is necessary
that the Lord provide revelations of Himself in order that people may have a true
idea of Him. The Lord effects this communication process through the Word.
Those who are willing and able to draw spiritual truths from the Word, and live
accordingly in their daily willing and thinking, they are called the wise, and
they are the closest to Him. That is, they are capable of receiving more love
and good from the Lord than others.
But man has severed this connection with heaven by turning
his interiors away from heaven, and turning them to the world and to self by
means of his love of self and of the world, thereby so withdrawing himself that
he no longer serves as a basis and foundation for heaven; therefore the Lord
has provided a medium to serve in place of this basis and foundation for
heaven, and also for the conjunction of heaven with man. This medium is the
Word. How the Word serves as such a medium has been shown in many places in
ARCANA CAELESTIA, all of which may be seen gathered up in the little work on THE
WHITE HORSE mentioned in Revelation; also in the APPENDIX TO THE NEW JERUSALEM
AND ITS HEAVENLY DOCTRINE, from which some notes are here appended.
And it [the Word] is accommodated both to men and to angels
at the same … And it is a means of
uniting heaven and earth … The
conjunction of the Lord with man is through the Word, by means of the internal
sense … There is conjunction by means of all things and each particular thing
of the Word, and in consequence the Word is wonderful above all other writing …
Since the Word was written the Lord speaks with men by means of it …
The Church where the Word is and the Lord is known by means
of it, in relation to those outside the Church where there is no Word and the
Lord is unknown is like the heart and lungs in man in comparison with the other
parts of the body, which live from them as from the fountains of their life … Before
the Lord the universal Church on the earth is as one Man … Consequently unless
there were on this earth a Church where the Word is, and where the Lord is
known by means of it, the human race here would perish. (HH 305)
1. The Lord’s New Revelation Regarding All
Religions
It has now
been revealed regarding all religions that closeness or conjunction with the
Lord does not depend on religious membership or on religious behavior and
piousness. It only depends on the purity and genuineness of the idea we have of
Him regardless of one’s religious or other background. And since no spiritual
idea of Him can ever be discovered from society or self, there is no other way provided by which anyone can have a genuine idea
of Him except through the Word.
The Word in the heavens.
The Word exists in all the heavens, and it is read there as
it is in the world, and sermons are based on it. For it is the Divine Truth
which is the source of the angels' intelligence and wisdom. For without the
Word no one knows anything about the Lord, love and faith, redemption, and all
the other secrets of heavenly wisdom. In fact without the Word heaven would not
exist, just as without the Word there would be no church in the world, so that
there would be no linking with the Lord. I demonstrated above that natural
theology is impossible without revelation, and in the Christian world without
the Word. If it is not granted in the world, neither would it be granted after
death. For the nature of a person's religious belief in the world dictates its
nature after death, when he becomes a spirit. (De Verbo 14. XIV)
The Lord
has now provided a New Word in His Second Coming. This new revelation is the
Writings. An entirely new history has now begun for the human race, past,
present, and future. The Writings are on this earth in a natural language, but
in the spiritual world they are in a spiritual language. In the Number quoted from
above (HH 305), it is said about the Word that
it is accommodated both to men and to angels at the same
time (n. 1769-1772, 1887, 2143, 2157, 2275, 2333, 2395, 2540, 2541, 2547, 2553,
7381, 8862, 10322). (These Numbers refer to AC)
No other
means of conjunction is possible for the human race but through the Writings.
In the Writings the Lord has revealed Himself in a way not previously possible
in the history of the human race. The conjunction with Him is not by owning the
books of Swedenborg but by the spiritual truths and concepts we form in our
mind about what is written therein.
Truths drawn from the Word have to be marshaled into
doctrine in order that they may be put to use. The marshalling must be done by
those who see things in light received from the Lord; and those so enlightened
when they read the Word are people who desire truth for its own sake and for
the sake of goodness of life, not those who desire it for the sake of
self-glorification, reputation, or gain. Doctrine drawn from the Word is wholly
essential for understanding the Word, see 9025, 9409, 9410, 9424, 9430; and
those who gather doctrine from the Word must see things in light received from
the Lord … (AC 10105 [2] )
In what is internal there are thousands and thousands of things
that appear in what is external as one general thing … Consequently as thought
and perception are more interior they are clearer (HH 267)
In the New
Age and henceforth to all times, conjunction with the Lord takes place through
spiritual truths in our mind from the Writings. The more interior these truths
we can form for ourselves, the closer we can be conjoined to the Lord. This is
why the inhabitations and societies in the afterlife are arranged in a spiritual
geography that has a center and a direction marked by the spiritual Sun, as
discussed above (LJ 48). Those who have acquired for themselves more external
ideas of the Lord are further from the center and away from the direction of
the spiritual Sun. This is because reception of the Lord’s love and wisdom is
obscured to various extents depending on departures from genuine ideas of Him.
The Writings henceforth are the only source of genuine ideas of Him,
supplanting all previous ideas given to the human race:
Revelations have succeeded one another from the most ancient
ages to the present time; and that at this day revelation is given solely
through the Word … The Lord is the Word itself, because the Word is Divine
truth, and Divine truth is the Lord in heaven, because it is from the Lord. (AC
10355)
Knowledge and consequent acknowledgment of God are not
possible without revelation; nor are a knowledge of the Lord … It is by the
revelation given to man that he is able to approach God and to receive influx,
and thereby from being natural to become spiritual. … A man's knowledge of God
is his mirror of God, and … those who know nothing about God do not see God in
a mirror with its face toward them, but in a mirror with its back toward them;
and as this is covered with quicksilver, or some dark paste, it does not
reflect the image but extinguishes it. (TCR 11)
This new church is the crown of all the churches which have
up to now existed upon earth (TCR 786)
This
The
Chapter 6, Section 4
It is believed by some that raising spiritual
consciousness can be achieved by performing prescribed physical or mental acts
such as sitting in meditation or undergoing spiritual imitation acts of the
following types:
|
q
being touched |
q
having visions |
|
q
being anointed with oil |
q
going through vibrational levels |
|
q
performing a visible miracle feat |
q
feeling energies |
|
q
verbalizing a secret mantra |
q
predicting of events through divination |
|
q
chanting ritually |
q
possessing special energy that perform psychic powers |
|
q
walking on hot coals |
q
omnipresence in physical space |
|
q
bathing in a special river |
q
practicing certain sexual acts |
|
q
burning incense |
q
sticking to a prescribed diet |
|
q
lighting candles q
going into a trance |
q
enduring pain |
The
Writings teach that nothing can contribute to our salvation except regeneration
through temptations (AC 227). The practice of meditation involves a particular
use of inner sensations one can have. According to the Ching Hai quote above:
“when we meditate, we use the technique to tune into the
At first it
appears to the uncritical
The Lord's Kingdom is within you (Luke
It is through the Word that the Lord is present with a man
and is conjoined with him, for the Lord is the Word, and speaks with the man in
it. The Lord is also Divine truth itself, as likewise is the Word. The Lord is
indeed present with a man through reading of the Word, but He is conjoined with
him through the understanding of truth from the Word; and in the same
proportion the church is within man. This is what is meant by the Lord's words,
"The
So the
(…)
The Lord's Kingdom is within us when the truth of the word
is lived. A growth group activity is a useful exercise of the as of self in our
salvation. But it is not by self that evil is removed. It is by truth. … Only
from the Writings can heaven, the Lord's kingdom, come on earth.
(Rev. Erik E. Sandstrom, The New Age and the New Church
(Part Two). New Church Life, June 2002, 251-260)
In the new
era of the Second Coming there is only one source for rational truths—the
Writings of Swedenborg. And we appropriate these rational truths from the
Writings to the extent we love them, that is, live daily according to them and
suffer ourselves to undergo temptations (AC 227). It is impossible for the
But affection
of use in general is of two kinds; there is the spiritual affection of use and
there is the natural affection of use. In external form the two are alike, but
in internal wholly unlike; for this reason they are not known the one from the
other by men in the world, but are readily known by angels in heaven; for they
are wholly opposite, since the spiritual affection of use gives heaven to man,
while natural affection of use, without the spiritual, gives hell; for the
natural affection of use looks only to honors and gains, thus to self and the
world as ends, while spiritual affection of use looks to the glory of God and
to uses themselves, thus to the Lord and the neighbor as ends. (D. Love 17:2)
The process
of character regeneration involves our motives or affections in the will, our
thoughts or ideas in the understanding, and our actions or uses to others
(works of charity). The Lord takes charge of this process by allowing us to
fall into those kinds of temptations that challenge the beliefs and ideas we
hold dear. We then fight as-of-self against our character, winning only when we
call upon the Lord to give us the power to overcome, realizing that by
ourselves we have zero power to fight any temptation (AC 47, 233, 1712, 2877,
5664, 10299; NJHD 148; DP 102; CL 82; SE 5958; LJ 299; AE 864).
Regeneration
of one’s inherited spiritual character is a psychobiological process of
spiritual growth, consequently the only way to salvation and heaven for the
Consider
the statement in the above quote by Dr. Miller : “Experiencing nonduality is
the path of welcoming all that is.” In the New Church mind this proposition
runs contrary to the idea in the Writings that our salvation depends on
learning to hate the evil and to love the good (DLW 270). We are commanded to
treat the neighbor with a difference in proportion to the good we can see in an
individual or cause (AC 6023). We must not welcome “all that is” for this would
be perdition. Altruistic tolerance and respect for all races and creeds must
not be turned into ”welcoming” their ideas into our mind. We must grant to
anyone the liberty of “experiencing nonduality” (Miller quote above) if they so
wish, by “welcoming all that is” (Miller’s words)—but we cannot ourselves
desire to do this once we understand the implications of nonduality. And this
is our liberty to do.
Chapter 6,
Section 5
Chapter 6, Section 6
Consider
the assertion in the Miller quote above: “We are already perfect as we are.”
This notion may be taken in through a variant form that sounds more acceptable
to Westerners: Everyone is basically good. This idea is opposite to every truth
we gather from the Writings where it is revealed that everyone is born infernal
and with only the potential of becoming human (AC 3928). The human spirit is
heavenly or spiritual but the spirit we’re born as is infernal. One must
therefore allow the Lord to surgically remove the infernal character and to
create in us a new spirit that is heavenly. This process of new creation is
called regeneration and is achieved only through undergoing temptations
throughout our life in the body (AC 227).
To admit
into the
Chapter 6, Section 7
“Relating to nature in a respectful and loving way, and to
its mountains, plants, and all its creatures, is a spiritual act that raises
one’s consciousness to divinity.” This feature of nonduality is very attractive
to many Americans (see the Jerry Katz quote above). The New Church mind may be
tempted to admit this idea since the Writings teach that all natural events or
objects are correspondences to spiritual things and that these spiritual things
are within the natural things as the cause is within its effect (AC 6275). This
is true. But it doesn’t follow that loving nature and being respectful to its
plants and creatures, is a spiritual act. Rather, the spiritual act is
performed ONLY when we rationally (not sensually) identify the natural event or
object as a physical consequence representing a spiritual truth. There is no
spiritual value to nature in itself, only to nature as a vessel or containant
of spiritual things. It is the same with the Word. There is no sacredness in
the literal of the Word, but only in the literal of the Word within which lies
the spiritual, and that is what makes the literal holy. When the literal is
rationally taken as the vessel, and what is contained within it as the holy,
THEN the literal is holy (TCR 200). But not the literal by itself. Similarly
with the Communion Bread and Wine.
Conservation
and nature-loving is eminently laudable, but it is not a spiritual act in
itself. The spiritual must be added rationally through knowledge of the
spiritual within. This can be done not merely with the pleasant things of nature
but all things of nature including natural disasters, plant diseases, and
destructive animals (AC 1632, DLW 338).
All things of nature are like sheaths around spiritual
things (TCR Additions 1)
Chapter 6, Section 8
A
potentially harmful form of nonduality has swept across
But there
are critics of this popular approach who see in it a mere convenient excuse for
rejecting traditional values of good and bad and legitimizing a philosophy of
convenience over self-improvement.
“Vile
Suggestion, Vain Imagination, and Strong Delusion” (1999) (Accessed on the Web
in May 2000 at www.geocities.com/Heartland/Ranch/7510/recovery.html)
We
keep on deceiving ourselves in regard to our faults, until we at last, come to
look upon them as virtues. (Heine)
The
recovery movement rather than a path to healing is a sham and actually promotes
"victim mentality" and chronic dysfunction. Hundreds of thousands,
perhaps millions of people, attend emotional support groups for all types of
behavioral problems such as: overeating, gambling, codependency, sexual
addiction, alcoholism, incest survival, manic depression, adult children, etc.
The
idea of supporting one another is not a bad one, but the basis on which they
relate their conduct to the disease model rather to lack of self control is
misleading and destructive. Furthermore, there is a lot of blaming of others,
especially parents, within these groups, even those with so-called Christian
perspectives.
Necessary
rebukes, in love, go unsaid. False idols are allowed to be worshiped without
any call for necessary repentance. Bad advice, however, is allowed to filter through
to the group. One hears, "Divorce him! You deserve better! You must be a
codependent. Don't speak to your parents anymore. They are evil. You should
always trust your feelings."
Unconditional
love as put forth by psychologists and therapists and espoused by all 12 step
recovery groups is a deceptive and destructive concept. What passes for
unconditional love is not real love. It is flattery and cruel when what is
really needed is a rebuke from a friend who does not mince words.
Only
God has unconditional love.
Even
God does not accept people unconditionally. He loves all men but he does not
accept them without condition. He points out their sins and demands they come
into line with his standards. He tells them to go and sin no more. Recovery
groups which discard godly standards for right behavior and thought are more in
line with Satan than they are with God.
The
anonymous author of this remarkable insight also points out that health
professionals continue to practice a medical model of mental malfunctioning:
“Psychiatrists Thomas Szasz and E. Fuller Torrey have discussed these wrong
uses of the medical model in depth.”
The
1. Spiritual Events In The Inner Mind
Body
diseases such as alcoholism and other physiological addictions or sensitivities
are the effects of inner spiritual events in the mind. The mind is not an
isolated or independently functioning entity. Our mind is among other minds in
the spiritual world. Those who are already there can see the spirit-body of
those who are still on an earth, though there is no conscious and direct
interaction (TCR 475).
THAT A MAN'S SPIRIT APPEARS IN THE OTHER LIFE.
Sometimes man appears as to his spirit among others there.
They said that they sometimes see them, and nevertheless know that it is not a
spirit as yet after decease from the world, from certain signs. But it happens
only with those who think inwardly in themselves more deeply than the rest. At
the time, with him, his thought is withdrawn from the sensual of the body, and
he appears thus. They, however, who think only in their sensual, and do not
raise their thoughts above it, never appear. Nor do spirits know anything about
man, where he is; inasmuch as the corporeal does not appear before their eyes,
as spirits do not appear before men's eyes. (SE 5645)
The sphere
of the other spirits all around and closest to our spirit-body exert a strong
influence on us through their proximity. The Lord determines instant by instant
which spirits and spirit societies are in spiritual proximity to our mind. The
Lord’s purpose and procedures in this ceaseless process have been revealed
through the Writings and they are detailed throughout under the general topic
of regeneration (NJHD 183-6). The principal purpose of all revelations is to
give us the knowledge by which we can cooperate with the Divine in our
regeneration. No other method has been created for regeneration, a process
whose outcome determines our eternal place in heaven or in hell. Therefore
nothing can be more important to know than this.
CONCERNING THE STATE OF
During a whole
night, while I was asleep, I was tormented in hell, in order that I might know
the nature of the state [of those] there; for they fell upon me, inasmuch as
they were then able to torture the spirit; but, still, I had no consciousness
of a dream. It was a continual torture, one [of them] after another. [Persons]
are there placed upon tables, and are miserably torn asunder, and their lust of
ruling is called forth, and, as long as that cupidity lasts, they are tortured
until it abates. [They are treated] thus, by one devil after another, as [they
pass] from one part of hell to another, upon the tables. When the lust abates,
then a little respite is given, so that they may be able to be in some cupidity
of their own. Thus is the head of the serpent trampled under foot. (SE 4698)
We are
unconscious of all this activity and it is not possible to discover it by any
method known to science: introspection, cat scans, psychiatric profiles,
medications, meditation, imagination, delusion, psychic “powers,” reasoning,
luck. The reality of spiritual societies can be known in only one
way—revelations from the Lord. We know therefore that the main outward problems
that plague our society are caused by inward mental or spiritual states of
mind: alcoholism, wife abuse, road rage, pedophilia, criminality, drug
addiction, high divorce rate, chronic depression, racial prejudice, absence of
compassion, avarice, scortation, poverty, maladjustment, ignorance,
incompetence, and mistakes and blunders. All of the negativity that fills
our day is caused by the spiritual societies with which we are in
communication. (DLW 343, NJHD 277)
This is
equally true of all the good things, which come to us through good spirits and
angelic societies with which the Lord puts us in correspondential connection.
(HH 304)
As a first
reaction we might cry out in innocence: Why doesn’t the Lord keep us connected
to the angelic societies all the time—surely that would be so much better.
Of course!
Yes it would be very convenient for us—if only He could. It would be the Lord’s
greatest desire to instantly regenerate every person and keep everyone in
connection with angels from birth on earth until arrival in one of the heavenly
societies (DP 329). The Writings explain that indeed this is how the Lord
creates the earths in the universe, and our earth was no exception. The life of
the early generations on this planet, called the
This
liberty is part of creation and of what is human-ness. It is always there to
eternity (AC 5354). The angels have it and the instant they stop cleaving to
the Lord’s Proprium, their old proprium from earth is resuscitated from the
outer limits of their personality and they cast themselves out of heaven down
into the spiritual world or lower into hell (DLW 25, SE 2555). Clearly then,
regeneration is always necessary for the human race. Regeneration cannot start
once the spirit is no longer connected to the physical body, but once it starts
before we pass on, it will then continue to eternity as we are continuously
perfected by the Lord to eternity (AC 5354). You can see therefore that nothing
is more important for us to know than how we must regenerate before it is too
late.
And the
knowledge of regeneration is what is needed to repair society from its
mental malfunctioning. From it will also come liberating society from its
plagues and the body from its diseases, for this comes from that. This
knowledge cannot be invented by science or the professions. Revelation in the Writings
is the only source for it (NJHD 257; AC 8939; TCR 340, 347, 350; SS 111; SE
5961). . This is why the Writings are called the greatest miracle the Lord has
granted since the beginning of the world (INV 43).
2. Everyone Is Born Into The Slavery Of An Addiction
CONCERNING DISEASES.
All the infernals induce diseases, but with a difference
according to the part to which they are attached, so that they may act from the
opposite, to wit, in opposition to those in heaven, to whom the parts of the
body correspond - for there are opposites to every society in heaven; for, as
angels or angelic societies preserve in connection and soundness all things in
man, so infernals, from the opposite [side], divide them. But it is only
permitted them to inflow into the cupidities and falsities pertaining to man -
not into man's organs. Only when man falls into disease, then they inflow also
into those [organs] in man where the disease is; for nothing ever exists with
man, save by a cause from the spiritual world.
Man supposes that such things exist in him, and that there
is nothing outside him that acts; when, yet, every natural has its cause from a
spiritual, otherwise it would be without a cause; but, still, this does not
interfere with the fact that they can be, and also ought to be, cured, or made
sound, by natural means. The Lord's providence then concurs with such means:
and thus, also, man is kept the longer away from faith concerning a providence
in the minutest particulars; for, if he should believe this, and afterwards
deny it, he would profane a sacred truth, which is itself a most dreadful hell.
(SD 4585)
First, note
that the activities of the disease process in the body are caused by the evil
spirits whom the Lord allows to inflow by correspondence, which is a dualist
concept. This is not at all like demon possession or voodoo magic which are
nondualist concepts. The inflow is not into the body directly but into the
“cupidities and falsities pertaining to man.” Second, note that medical and
natural remedies heal the disease, or stop the action of the evil spirits, when
the Lord heals the disease. The action of healing is initiated and remains in
the natural world (by the Lord) and there is no direct influence on the spirits
since the two are in discrete duality. This is not at all like the nonduality
of Christian Science that puts the healing directly into the spiritual realm.
They have this notion from the idea that matter is not real and only Spirit is
real (nonduality). (See discussion in Chapter 3 Section 5.)
It’s
important to avoid a wrong conclusion that inevitably occurs to the mind,
namely that people who are more sick than others are more wicked—this is an
error in thinking. The societies the Lord connects us to are those that make
our inherited life. Until we become an adult and are ready to begin our
regeneration we are in the life of what we inherit and what is all around us.
The Lord attempts to disconnect us whenever we allow it to allow us to grow
some new life that is spiritual, rational, and in Divine order. Were He to
disconnect us from many or most of our hereditary connections to spiritual
societies, the result for us would be to feel like we are dying and the ebb of
life is flowing out of us. Obviously we cannot make progress in our regeneration
if we are in this lifeless state. So the Lord must wisely manage the rate at
which He can disconnect us from evil societies and connect us to good spirits
and angelic societies. The more we consciously cooperate with Him, the faster,
shorter, less painful, and more thorough regeneration is.
It’s
important to avoid the pitfall in the idea that because something like
alcoholism or drug addiction is a disease therefore the individual is not
responsible for failing to control it. A Eulogy given at the memorial service
for a neighbor’s young adult son said in part:
He
suffered through this life battle the same as his uncle and cousin. He was not
alone. Ten percent of Americans are alcoholics. For years people with alcohol
problems were perceived as morally defective. He struggled with this disease
that is treatable but not curable. He struggled with this demon since high
school. This demon took his youth, his future, his health. He fought the demon
and lost. It took destroying himself to destroy the demon. Thus he gave his
family peace. Accept his gift of peace.
All of us
are born into the slavery of an addiction, character malfunctioning, or
personality and behavior disorder. There are no exceptions (AC 5280). There is
an immense diversity of these disorders due to the inherited accumulation of
countless disabilities in our spiritual genetic line. Every generation adds to
this pool as they acquire and develop new disabilities and pass them on to
their offspring on top of what was passed on to them (CL 202). In this way all
the growing population of the hells and evil spiritual societies experience
their “pleasures” or infernal delights. This is their life. Without their being
connected by the Lord to our disabilities and bad luck, which they cause, they
would have no life of their own:
(((There are also spirits, not far from thence, who infuse
cold, and, thereby, paroxysms of cold fever:))) ((which it was also given me to
know by living and sensible experience. In that region are the most malicious,
the most skilful of all in the art of destroying others and the human race:))
(they study nothing else; they continually seek after new things of such a
character whereby they can injure; and they put them into act amongst
themselves, so that they may know - for they can induce infirmities; they can
[effect] such things as disturb the mind, and deprive man of his external
vitality:) hence he is as if inclined to fall, just as in sickness, when he
begins to come near [them], etc. In a word, they are most malicious:
They separate interiors and exteriors, in various modes, and
fill up the exteriors with offensive things, injurious to man: hence, when
interiors fall into [exteriors] of such a kind, they are turned into shocking
and deplorable things; for, if the recipient forms are perverted, whatever
falls therein is perverted also. In such a manner, also, are interiors
disunited from exteriors; and, when this is done, man is no longer of a sound
mind - as, also, is the case in fevers. [Their] operation is principally into
the stomach, and also into the biles, both of the pancreas and the liver; and,
from thence, arise such effects [as have been described] and also vomitings,
whereto they excite an endeavor. They are indescribably obstinate; they never
desist unless they are driven away.
((There are in hell very hot places, which it was also
granted me to feel, for the sake of knowing [where are] such as induce fevers.
They know almost everything; and from those places they throw forth that impure
and merely corporeal heat, separate from vitality; for, in the other life,
[evil spirits] know how to transfer such things skillfully, and they likewise
know by what shifts they can determine them into the body. Such [spirits] are
of the most pernicious character, so obstinate as never to desist unless driven
away by the Lord; and when they are driven away, immediately the febrile heat
ceases. Wherefore, they also speak truly who have been sick when they ascribe
their recovery of health to God, and give thanks to Him; although very many do
this only from a custom derived from infancy, and, when left to themselves,
ascribe it to nature.)) (SE 4572)
3. Good Loves And Genuine Truths
Regeneration
is the slow process by which we acquire good loves and genuine truths and apply
them to our daily activities. The Lord always maintains in equilibrium: He
arranges that we always have a good choice or an evil one, second by second,
all day long. The good spirits surrounding our mind in the spiritual world come
nearer and drive away the evil spirits as we choose good; the evil spirits come
nearer and the good spirits retreat, as we choose bad. The good spirits choose
to retreat not from weakness but from loving fear that they might not deprive
us of “pleasures” which make our current life. Thus when we choose evil, they
look away, and patiently wait until we are ready to make a good choice.
This
process of equilibrium is described as follows:
Good exists
from creation, and it varies in degree from the highest to the lowest. When its
lowest degree reaches zero, evil arises on the other side. So there is no
relationship or progress of good to evil, but it relates and progresses to what
is more or less good. Evil relates and progresses to what is more or is less
evil, because these are opposites in every single detail. Since evil and good
are opposites, there must be a mean point distinguished by equilibrium, where
evil acts against good; but because it is not stronger, it cannot advance
beyond making the effort.
'Everyone is
brought up in this state of equilibrium; and since this is between good and
evil, or what is the same thing, between heaven and hell, it is a spiritual
equilibrium, and this confers freedom on those who enjoy it. As the result of
this equilibrium the Lord draws all to Himself; and if a person freely follows
Him, He leads him out of evil into good, and so to heaven. (CL 444)
This is the
process of regeneration, and progress depends on our cooperation. (DP 114)
Cooperation means that we (a) acknowledge some truth from the Divine and (b)
strive to live according to it. To live it means to think and will accordingly
(AC 10638). This is painful in the beginning our reformation because the
feeling one experiences when avoiding the bad that we enjoy, is that we are
giving up our life. This is done with regrets, doubts, and relapses. The drug
addict, pedophile, rapist, or habitual criminal experience the feeling of loss
of life when they contemplate giving up what they are used to and what forms
the basis of their current living. Similarly with personality and behavior
disorders. The angry man, the abusive husband, the promiscuous teenager, the
depressed neighbor, the annoying practical joker, the negligent worker, the
intolerant sectarian, the secular atheist, thus all of us--find ourselves in
malfunctioning mental states because we remain connected to evil societies,
each having their own brand of disorder they inflict on us and enjoy.
Those of us
who seem to have more problems than others are not sicker or more wicked. It
only means that the character of the disorder we inherited are more prominent
in visible directions (CL 202). When you consider the dyadic relations in our
society, like doctor and patient, psychologist and client, judge and convict,
victim and abuser, it appears that one is better off than the other in terms of
good and bad, truth and delusion. But this only an appearance related to what
is visible and what is beneath the surface of behavior and mental state. When
this spiritual content is looked at, there are no exceptions according to role,
status, or success. Everyone is connected to evil societies upon which their
unregenerated life depends for happiness and normalcy. Each one must undergo
the same process of regeneration.
The
question then arises: Who then gets to regenerate and how?
The answers
are given in the Writings (NJHD 186). Those who are not in the
For the
The
nonduality of unconditional love assails the
Faking for
the sake of selfish gain and manipulating others against their good is
hypocritical and evil. It destroys the person who does this by habit and
justifies it by philosophy or reasoning. But put-ons and simulations motivated
by the desire to keep the peace and to protect others from needless distress,
is good and is the love of neighbor and God.
4. What’s Wrong With Unconditional Self-acceptance
Unconditional
love is not part of the good put-on for the sake of peace because it is
promoted as an inward process, outlook, or state of mind, not outward.
Psychologists, counselors, and teachers promote the idea that unconditional
love is the result of unconditional acceptance. This is defined as an
absolute legitimization of one’s own self and the self of all others. From the
The culture
of unconditional love and self-acceptance is an ideal that is not practiced, as
it is obvious from the many plagues that beseech our society, as already
discussed. National surveys and polls show that the majority of people hate
their neighbors, disapprove of many things about them, hate their co-workers
and complain about many of their traits, and can make a long list of what they
would change about their partners if they could. Nevertheless acknowledging the
culture of unconditional love as a creed or orientation makes it easier to open
the door for other concepts of nonduality. Acceptance unguided by categorical
dualities gradually erodes the power of one’s conscience, making it weak and
hardly audible. One then leads life in slavery attracted by this, impressed by
that, pulled in contradictory directions so that one’s moral integrity breaks
up and one loses the way.
Consider
the people around you, the successful business men, the famous lawyers, the
political leadership, the admired artists, the experts who have a reputation of
being brilliant at what they do, in short the most competent and intelligent
people of our society. Despite their goodness in their area of operation they
show many weaknesses and evils in private life. They get into rage and
depression, alcoholism and drug addiction. They are overweight and unhealthy.
They engage in fraud and they lie. They make promises they don’t intend to
keep. They get divorced, abuse their wives, are active in secret lusts, and
love themselves more than others. Their intelligence and superiority in many
traits do not lead them to avoid these hereditary evils we all have. Nonduality
legitimizes this commingling of good and bad loves as natural or human rather
than as abnormal and animal. Unconditional love and self-acceptance are similar
mechanisms for legitimizing the commingling of good and evil loves.
Clearly the
The interiors of man are distinct according to degrees by
means of derivations, and according to these degrees are also the lights. The
internal sensuous, which is nearest the sensuous things of the body, has the
most gross light. This light it has been given me to discern by much
experience, and I have noticed that whenever I sank into this light, falsities
and evils of many kinds presented themselves, and even things scandalous
against heavenly and Divine things, besides things filthy and foul. The reason
is that this light rules in the hells, and by means of it chiefly do the hells
flow into man. When a man is in this light, his thought is in nearly the same
light as that in which is his external sight, and is then almost in the body.
(AC 6310)
Thus the
love of self must be completely put to sleep if we are going to love the
neighbor instead. We are where our love is, and when we love the neighbor we
are in the celestial regions of our mind because love of neighbor and the Lord
is only there and cannot descend below. It is stuck in its discrete degree. The
idea of “love yourself” is a nonduality allied to self-acceptance and
unconditional love. The Writings teach the opposite in the form of interrelated
dualities:
Love of
self is the opposite of love of neighbor (AC 6023, HH 558b). We are born into
the love of self and must remove that love or go to hell (DP 102). We remove
the love of self by non-acceptance of its traits (AC 3147). We must
examine ourselves, find our sins, judge them, repent from them, refrain from
them, and finally, hold them in deep aversion (AE 1164). Everyone who does this
is an angel; no one who fails to do this can be an angel, in which case one is
a devil with nothing in between. (AE 971[4])
5. Spiritual Dualities From the Writings Are To
Be Loved And Lived
These
absolute dualities are in the
Nearly all people in the natural world can be associated
together in respect to their outward affections, but not in respect to their
inner affections if these differ and become apparent. The reason is that in the
world a person is invested with a material body, and this is filled with urges,
which in it are like dregs that settle to the bottom when newly fermented wine
is being clarified.
From such elements come the materials of which the bodies of
people in the world are composed. As a
result, inward affections that belong to the mind do not appear, and in many
cases scarcely a trace of them is visible. For either the body swallows them up
and immerses them in its dregs, or from a habit of dissembling learned from
early childhood, it hides them deep within and conceals them from the sight of
others.
This also
enables it to enter into the state of some affection which it observes in
someone else, and to attract the other's affection to it, so that they form a
relationship. They form a relationship,
because every affection has its delight, and delights are what join hearts
together.
It would be different, however, if inward affections were
like outward ones, visible in the expression of the face and gesture and
audible in the sound of the speech, or if their delights were noticeable to the
nose and smelled, as is the case in the spiritual world. If these affections
were then dissimilar to the point of friction and conflict, they would separate
their hearts from each other and part, removing themselves to a distance
commensurate with their perception of antipathy.
It is apparent
from this that nearly all people in the natural world can be associated together
in respect to outward affections, but not in respect to their inner affections,
if these differ and become apparent.
(CL 272)
The
first duality we
need to hold up to ourselves is the separation between the outer self and inner
self, as explained in the quote above (CL 272; see also AC 5354). The outer
self is what we appear to be to others by means of our personality traits and
habits. The inner self is private and we alone have access to knowing what is
there. When we are being sincere and feel secure, our external visible self
reflects what is in our private inner self. We sit loose and let it all hang
out, as the saying goes. But when we are insincere or fear persecution our
outer self no longer reflects our private life, but is only a convenient put-on
designed to cover up what is in our private inner self. Note that both the
inner and outer self are in the natural mind. Above this natural mind is the
spiritual-rational mind which is in a discrete degree higher. It too has an
inner and an outer self (AC 5354). It’s important not to confuse the private
inner self of the natural mind with the spiritual mind. Meditation, for
instance, take place in the private inner self of the natural mind, and
therefore it is not spiritual in and of itself. But all that takes place in the
spiritual-rational mind is spiritual in and of itself.
Now
consider the relationship between two married partners, two close friends, two
co-workers who get along well together, people who share entertainment and
recreation activities and enjoy each other’s company. All these relationships
may be based on the external self of each getting along with the external self
of the others. This is what creates law and order in a community. But what
happens when they suddenly slide into interacting from the inward self, as it
sometimes happens due to circumstances and Divine laws in action. Internecine
warfare—that’s what happens. I looked up the definition of “internecine” and it
is composed of these words: destroy, slaughter, kill, conflict, violent death,
mutual destruction. That describes accurately how these friends, co-workers,
and amusement partners feel toward one another in the inward self. There is
never any unconditional love or neighborly love or charity and compassion in
the inner self when this is still unregenerate (AC 977). It is against our
nature to love the neighbor before we are reformed and are undergoing
regeneration (Charity 210).
The
unregenerate man has no conscience, or if any, it is not a conscience of doing
good from charity, and of thinking truth from faith, but is based on some love
that regards himself or the world, wherefore it is a spurious or false
conscience. (AC 977)
In addition
to the distinctiveness of the outer and inner self, the second duality
we need to hold up is the discrete categories of neighbor whom we are to love
(AC 6023, 2425). Consider the Second of the Two Great Commandments: Love your
neighbor at least as much as yourself or more than yourself (Luke
Anyone,
from the principle that it is Christian not to do evil to the neighbor, also
does not do it. He, however, who from that principle only does not do evil to
the neighbor and does good to him, still does not love him. It is from
obedience to the Divine laws that he does not do evil to him, and not from an
affection of love towards the neighbor. No one knows anything of this affection
but he who shuns evils as sins, that is, who does not love evils. Such a man
comes into the affection of that love.
For it is one
thing not to do evil but good from obedience, and another not to do evil but
good to him from an affection of love towards the neighbor. (Charity 210).
Scientists
cannot discover this striking principle on their own since it is spiritual and
must be revealed to be known. The principle is that love of neighbor cannot
exist in the mind that still loves mixed affections, some good, some bad. If we
allow ourselves a few bad feelings or intentions towards the neighbor we love
evil, sometimes. The natural mind filled with nonduality wants equity and
balance in judging a person. It’s common for people to say: He is a good man.
He’s got a few bad traits, but in the balance he is among the good. Etc. This
idea involves the model by which “being a good man” is something that you
measure on a continuum, figuring out the balance between good and bad, and
their seriousness. This approach works only in terms of the external person’s
behavior and performance. It is suitable and practical for running society or a
business but not for assessing spiritual content.
The
Writings reveal that the good we do when we allow both good and bad in
ourselves, is not good to begin with and can never become genuine good (DP 14).
It is only an appearance of the outward behavior. Society could not survive
without this appearance which compels people to withhold themselves from doing
more evil and to put-on good behavior most of the time. But this outward good
that keeps society running is not spiritually good because as soon as the
individual arrives in the afterlife, all pretense of good is thrown off, and
only the evil inside remains (AC 7790, HH 499).
Therefore
love of neighbor is genuine good love only when one is being regenerated. This
happens to the extent that we shun evils and thereafter do good (Charity 210).
Reformation consists of self-examining our thoughts and feelings, finding the
selfish and evil ones, judging them, repenting of them, and struggling
constantly not to repeat them. This struggle sets up the process of starting
our regeneration. To the extent that we shun denigrating thoughts and hurtful
motives toward others, to that extent we can start doing good that is genuine
good, or spiritual good. It must be an absolute duality in our mind. Not a
single evil can be allowed, once detected to our awareness. The process of
uncovering evils to our awareness is carefully managed by the Lord who brings
those evils to our attention that we are willing to shun at any one time (DP
278).
We have
discussed two dualities: the separation between outer an inner self, and the
degrees of love for the neighbor. The third duality is needed to connect to
these two relates to regeneration: a person is either regenerating or unregenerate.
We are in an unregenerate state prior to beginning of our regeneration, a state
called reformation (TCR 571). Until we begin our reformation we are in a
discrete degree separate from the spiritual mind which begins with
regeneration.
Putting the
three dualities together we have this thesis about unconditional love and
self-acceptance:
When we are in
an unregenerate state our outer self is in its loves within “the dregs” of the
body and the corporeal-sensuous mind. Though we declare unconditional love as
our operating system, this is nothing but the love of self. Our inner self is
in the hatred of all people except a few who favor us and whom we can exploit
for our needs. But the moment they stop favoring us or serving our needs, our
inner self holds them in hatred. What lies inside unconditional love is
therefore unconditional hatred, one in the outer self, the other in the inner
self (SEM 4717; SE 409; HH 377; CL 365; AE 624).
When we
undergo repentance and reformation of life and turn ourselves sincerely to
regeneration, the inner self is first modified so that the hatred which reigns
in it is suppressed, judged, and exiled to the far reaches of one’s character.
This is called “crucifying the flesh” by Paul (Gal.
A remaining
issue is the kind of love that we must show to the neighbor.
7. What Is Loving The Neighbor?
Every
man is indeed the neighbor, but each one with a difference; that he is most the
neighbor who is in good, and this also with a difference according to the
quality of the good; that the origin of the neighbor is from the Lord Himself,
so that the nearer any are to Him, that is, the more they are in good, the more
they are the neighbor; and the more remote they are from Him, the less; and
also that a society is more the neighbor than an individual man, and a kingdom
in general more than a society, but our own country more than other kingdoms;
that the church is still more the neighbor than our country, and the Lord's
kingdom still more; and also that the neighbor is loved when anyone discharges
his office aright for the good of others, or of his country, or of the church;
and so on. (AC 6023)
From these doctrinal things they also knew what charity is,
namely, the affection of being of service to others without any end of
recompense; and also what is the neighbor toward whom there should be charity,
namely, all in the universe, but still each with discrimination. (AC 3419)
The quality of
the love determines who is the neighbor. (AC 6711)
The origin of the neighbor must be drawn from the Lord,
therefore the distinguishing differences of the neighbor are according to the
Lord's presence in good, thus according to the quality of the good. (AC 6707)
They who are in evil are indeed the neighbor, but in quite a
different respect; and for this reason they are to be benefited in a different
way. (AC 6708)
The idea
that we must show the same love to everyone is a nonduality. Henry James, Sr.
made this idea a cornerstone of his “Christology” (see Chapter 4 Section 2).
Christians tend to interpret the Lord’s Commandment of “Love your neighbor” as
loving everyone equally. This too is a nonduality. Jews interpret this
Commandment from the Old Testament as meaning that they should love all Jews,
not just one’s family or tribe. Secular Christians or humanists often quote
Jesus to support their view that all human beings must be loved and treated
equally on account of their being human. But the Writings teach a more
differentiated and distinct idea of who the neighbor is, as in the quotes
above, and this one:
Those who
are in the love of self … acknowledge as the neighbor those who love them the
most; that is, insofar as they are theirs; thus are in themselves. These they
embrace, these they kiss, these they benefit, and these they call brethren;
nay, because they are evil, they say that these are the neighbor more than
others. (AC 6710)
To love the
neighbor does not consist in loving his person, but in loving that with him
from which he is, consequently good and truth (n. 5028, 10336). They who love
the person, and not that which is with him from which he is, love evil as well
as good (n. 3820). And they do good to the evil as well as to the good, when
nevertheless doing good to the evil is doing evil to the good, which is not
loving the neighbor (n. 3820, 6703, 8120). (NJHD 106)
From these
and many other passages it is made clear to the
It’s a
practical matter as well. Everyone understands that the homeless person to whom
we serve a meal cannot expect to move in with the benefactor. The Salvation
Army truck driver who comes to pick up give away clothes doesn’t expect you to
give them your new clothes but only the discards. An acquaintance who goes
bankrupt in his business cannot expect you to support him but must find some
other permanent arrangement. Your wife and children come before your uncles and
cousins when it comes to allocate your budget. A neighbor who won’t curb his
aggressive dog will get sued by the other neighbors. Likewise with a client who
received services or goods for a fee and will not pay up. The judge who
“punishes the evil that they may be amended, and that the good may not be
contaminated by them, loves the neighbor” (NJHD 106). A friend who turns out to
engage in criminal activity must not be treated in the same way as other
friends who are law abiding. An employee who is devoted and responsible is
loved more than one who is insincere and irresponsible. People who are found to
have special talents are to be encouraged and helped in developing them, for
all talents are goods from the Lord and it is the good in people from the Lord
that we must love, not their person.
We conclude
therefore that unconditional love for all is neither rational nor good, but
conditional love according to the situation is rational and good.
A
well-liked sermon by Rev. Douglas Taylor on the subject of self-esteem explores
the conflict in the
The idea of
self-esteem is a difficult one for many
(…) If we have
nothing but such evils, how can we possibly have any self-esteem, any feeling
of self-worth? How can we love those qualities in ourselves? They are directly
opposite to the heavenly qualities that we wish for.
(“Self-Esteem—A
Sermon by Rev. Douglas M. Taylor” New Church Life March 2002 v.CXXII No.3 pp.
99-105)
Rev. Taylor
draws a valid distinction between the inherited qualities we have in the
unregenerate state, on the one hand. And on the other, the qualities of good
that we receive from the Lord as we are regenerating. We cannot have a
legitimate love for the evil affections we inherit and acquire ourselves in
daily living. But we are commanded to love those heavenly qualities we have
from the Lord because it is to love the Lord. These good affections are not
from our proprium, and neither are they ours. They are the Lord’s since
whatever is from the Lord remains the Lord’s and can never be ours. If we
angels would forget for one instant they are the Lord’s in them, they would
immediately cast themselves out of their heaven. For to attribute anything that
is the Lord’s to our self is meritoriousness, which is damnation itself (AC
4174).
The good
affections in us that are the Lord’s are unconsciously implanted by the Lord
starting in infancy and beyond. These
Divine implants in us are called “remains.”
What remains are, has been stated and shown above …, namely,
that they are all the states of the affection of good and truth with which a
man is gifted by the Lord, from earliest infancy even to the end of life; which
states are stored up for him for the use of his life after death; for in the
other life all the states of his life return in succession, and are then
tempered by the states of good and truth with which he has been gifted by the
Lord. The more remains therefore that a man has received in the life of the
body, that is, the more of good and truth, the more delightful and beautiful do
the rest of his states appear when they return.
That
this is really so may be evident to everyone, if he will consider. When a man
is born he has not a particle of good of himself, but is wholly defiled
throughout with hereditary evil, and all that is good flows in, such as his
love for his parents, his nurses, his companions; and this from innocence. Such
are the things that flow in from the Lord through the heaven of innocence and
peace, which is the inmost heaven, and thus is man imbued with them in his
infancy.
[2]
Afterwards, when he grows up, this good, innocent, and peaceful state of
infancy recedes little by little; and so far as he is introduced into the
world, he comes into its pleasures, and into cupidities, and thus into evils;
and so far the celestial or good things of the age of infancy begin to
disappear; but still they remain, and the states which the man afterwards puts
on or acquires are tempered by them. (AC 1906)
As the
Everyone who heareth these words of Mine, and doeth
them, shall be likened to a wise man who built his house upon the rock; and
everyone that heareth these words of Mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened
unto a foolish man who built his house upon the sand ([Matt.] verses 24, 26).
(Life 2)
However,
very few can apprehend with the understanding that the acknowledgment of the
Lord, and the acknowledgment that all that is good and true is from Him, are
what cause a man to be reformed and regenerated.
But
he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built
an house upon the earth. Luke vi 46-49.
(DP 91)
The
9. A Poisonous Serpent And Cockatrice
Self-esteem
in the
The
reason why the "serpent" means all evil in general, and specifically
the love of self, is that all evil has had its rise from that sensuous part of
the mind, and also from that memory-knowledge [scientifica], which at first
were signified by the "serpent;" and therefore it here denotes evil
of every kind, and specifically the love of self, or hatred against the
neighbor and the Lord, which is the same thing. As this evil or hatred was
various, consisting of numerous genera and still more numerous species, it is
described in the Word by various kinds of serpents, as "snakes"
"cockatrices" "asps" "adders" "fiery
serpents" "serpents that fly" and "that creep" and
"vipers" according to the differences of the poison, which is hatred.
(AC 251; see also TCR 487)
The
self-esteem we derive from knowing about remains and loving them as from the
Lord also applies to the love we have for our employment and country. Our
employment and other uses we perform daily such as parenting and being a
spouse, are also a source of legitimate self-esteem and a feeling of self-worth
because all uses are also from the Lord and our performing them sincerely
constitutes love of neighbor and the Lord (TCR 744). Patriotism can be merely a
natural love or spiritual. The patriotism of the unregenerate mind is natural
without any spiritual in it. The love and loyalty for country is like
unconditional love discussed above in this section. One loves the country
merely because it is our country of birth or naturalization. This love is to
love what is one’s own regardless of the good that is in it or absent—“My
country right or wrong.”
Spiritual
love of country is the love of the good that is in the country. This good is
from the Lord. We can love the civil good that is in the practice of its laws
and judiciary. We can also love the moral good which is in the virtues in its
values and institutions. We can also love its spiritual good which is in its
life of religion and freedom of worship that it safeguards for all its
citizens. To love the different kinds of good in the country—civil, moral,
spiritual—is a spiritual love. This love has within it the love of the Lord and
the idea that it is He that governs the country, and from this alone can its
citizens have genuine self-esteem with regard to self and their country.
Chapter 6 Section 9
The Lord …
said that people were to forgive their brother not seven times but seventy
times seven, Matt. 18:21, 22. By this He meant that they were to forgive as
often as he sinned. Their forgiveness was to know no limits, that is, was to be
eternal and timeless, which is holy. (AC 433)
I have heard from heaven that the Lord forgives to everyone
his sins, and never takes vengeance nor even imputes sin, because He is love
itself and good itself; nevertheless, sins are not thereby washed away, for
this can be done only by repentance. For when He told Peter to forgive until
seventy times seven, what will not the Lord do? (TCR 409)
In the exercise of charity man should see clearly whether he
is acting from justice, and this he sees from judgment. For a man may do evil
by deeds of beneficence; and by what appear to be evil deeds he may do good.
For example: One who gives to a needy robber the means wherewith to buy a
sword, by a beneficent act is doing evil; although the robber in begging the
money did not tell what he would do with it. So again, if one rescues a robber
from prison and shows him the way to a forest, saying to himself, It is not my
fault that he commits robbery; I have given succor to the man.
(…)
[15] On the other hand, a man may do good through what
appear to be evil deeds. Take as an example a judge who acquits an evil-doer
because he sheds tears, pours out words of piety, and begs the judge to pardon
him because he is his neighbor. But in fact a judge performs a work of charity
when he decrees the man's punishment according to the law; for he thus guards
against the man's doing further evil and being a pest to society, which is the
neighbor in a higher degree, and he prevents also the scandal of an unjust
judgment. Who does not know also, that it is good for servants to be chastised
by their masters, or children by their parents, when they do wrong? The same is
true of those in hell, all of whom are in the love of doing evil. They are kept
shut up in prisons, and when they do evil are punished, which the Lord permits
for the sake of their amendment. (TCR 459)
The New
Church mind seeks the Writings for the Doctrine which we are to extract from
the Writings so that it resides in our understanding and from there directs our
willing and thinking in daily activities. Forgiveness is discussed in many
places with the related ideas of love of neighbor and charity. Here are some
summary points of passages in the Writings about forgiveness:
q The Lord always forgives anyone, no
matter what
q There are no limits to
forgiveness--always forgive, no matter what
q To forgive people does not mean that
we should do nothing when we are victimized by them or that they are not
required to face responsibility for their actions
q To forgive ourselves does not mean
that we are not required to shun our evils and weaknesses
In the
prior discussion on unconditional self-acceptance it was pointed out that such
an attitude would be disastrous to the
The
inherited mind, strengthened even more by our life choices, is formed by
spiritual fibers called affections and thoughts. These fibers can be seen in the
spiritual world. Swedenborg reports that the unregenerate mind is twisted into
coils that spiral in the opposite direction of the spirals in the regenerate
mind (DLW 275). In the spiritual world the coils remain such as they were on
arrival in the afterlife (xx). To start one’s regeneration is possible only on
earth because in that state, while attached to the physical body, it is
possible for the mind to grow a new shoot engrafted in the spiritual portion of
it that is tilled and implanted by the Lord. This implanting, or opening of
function, is achieved only to the extent that we voluntarily and consciously
change how we think and what we intend all day long. The new spiritual mind is
not tinted in any way by heredity or personal sin. It is the Lord’s dwelling
through Divine Truth implanted in accommodation to our unique individuality.
This Divine Truth must come to us from the external rational mind, that is,
through the senses, by reading and hearing the Writings and its Doctrines as
being Divine Truth.
The
opening of the spiritual mind is within the Doctrine from the Writings that we
took up into the conscious rational mind (external rational).
1. Forgiveness Is Always Granted Immediately by
the Lord
When you
reflect on this process of regeneration and spiritual growth you can see that
the issue in salvation is not to get the Lord to forgive us our sins. His
forgiveness is granted immediately to everyone without having to ask (TCR 539).
Yet this does not remove the sin! Similarly, you can forgive yourself
for the things you willed and thought, yet you still are required to reform
from those things. Sin is evil willing and false thinking. Therefore, neither
the Lord’s forgiveness of our sins, nor our own forgiving ourselves, removes
the sins. In a state of corporeal spirituality prior to our reformation we hang
on to the idea that being forgiven removes sin. This is really convenient. But
it’s false. Sin remains after forgiveness.
Sin is to
will evil, in other words to accept evil affections such as selfishness and its
corrupting derivatives, and the love of dominion, and its cruel derivatives. To
accept these affections is to love them. Not to love them is to shun them (AE
971[2]). So the only way sin is removed is to shun these affections of evil in
us (LJP 350). Shunning them means to resist them and to strive to put them
aside with the help of the Lord’s power given to us for that purpose. Once
we shun evil affections, the Lord puts them aside, and gives us new affections
by putting us in communication with good spirits.
Sin is a
state of connection to evil spirits. The Lord cannot forcibly remove these
connections, for if He did, we would feel like our immortal spirit is quickly
dying. And so we would because our aliveness is nothing else then our
affections (DP 279). Hence the Lord cannot remove our evil affections forcibly
for that would be removing our life with nothing left to replace it. But if we
shun these affections, then He can remove the spiritual connections. Why?
Because we as-of self shun them, reject them, don’t want them around any more.
So, as the
evil affections are being removed, we can accept the new life that flows in
through the new spirits. Our spiritual life doesn’t feel like it is dying, but
growing, through the new good affections which give us far more intense and
elevated life than the evil affections ever did. But we don’t get to find this
out until we’ve made the switch. This is why we must trust and love the Lord,
or else we are unable to make the big jump into the unknown.
Now you can
see why unconditional self-acceptance is so deadly to the
Thus what
animates the fibers is the opposite of the truth that came in. The unregenerate
mind in the afterlife is like an anti-truth machine. It transforms every truth
into its opposite. Swedenborg reports numerous conversations he had with such
people and they appear normal when taken out of their madness by the action of
good spirits, But very soon they precipitate themselves forcefully back into
the madness of their hell states. And this over and over, forever. It is
organic. There is no possibility for learning except in limited ways by extreme
punishments carried on for a long time (TCR 796). But there never is any real
progress because their inherent madness pulls them back into themselves.
The
idea of forgiveness as spiritual psychobiology is an interior or spiritual
view. People recognize two venues for forgiveness—outward and inward. Outward
forgiveness refers to behavior and conduct. For example, if you forgive someone
something bad they did to you, you will be expected not to mention it again
(except maybe in good humor), and you will be expected to act like it never
happen. People often say, “Forget it. It’s OK. I forgive you.” But everyone
knows that inwardly there may or may not be forgiveness, and instead, there may
be resentment, ill will, and the desire for revenge. This inward forgiveness is
more difficult to achieve than outward behavioral forgiveness. And yet there is
another level, even more inward, which is spiritual. This level is more rational
and involves justification and confirmation of our forgiveness or resentment.
This more
interior level can look down upon the natural inward or private level, and
assess it, whether it is from hell or from heaven. It can see that the motive
for forgiveness is equity, fairness, or self-esteem. This is from self,
therefore from hell. Or, it can see that the motive for forgiveness is the
understanding that resentment or revenge are corrupting motives and lead us to
hell. This is a spiritual motive, not social or moral or psychological.
Spiritual motives are a discrete degree higher in rationality than the others
because spiritual motives involves the idea of God while the others involve the
idea of nature, evolution, culture, humanism, and the like (xx). These are
natural-rational, while the idea of God is spiritual-rational, and what is
spiritual is more rational (TCR 369[3]).
Further
aspects to the
Chapter 6 Section 10
A
contemporary version of secular forgiveness may be examined in the following
statements:
Forgiveness is completely letting go of the past, its pain,
anger, and grief. Forgiveness is operating in the here and now - where this
event is no longer occurring.
Forgiveness
focuses you on the reality of what happens and asks you to accept it as karma
to engender your evolution to a higher level. You need to learn from your bad
karma and begin to understand how your actions helped bring this change to your
world. If you hold onto it, seek revenge, or refuse to let go, you are ADDING
your current strength and power to this negative memory.
As long as you
hold on to the anger, victimization, and pain, you will have this negative
energy locked inside you making you ill - mentally, spiritually, and
physically.
What is
forgiveness?
It starts in
your heart with understanding, a heaping measure of love, acceptance of the
truth, the truth of the light of consciousness, God's grace - or whatever you
wish to call it - and is followed by healing actions. Any ongoing conflicts,
such as lawsuits, arguments, or refusals to communicate must be resolved. Words
of resolution should be communicated either in person (preferably), by phone,
or with a nice letter. It must be heart-felt, not mechanical, not just an act
of going through the motions. Fake it until you make it - that's a start. It
can lead to a transformational experience if repeated often enough, but the
results will be slow until it is truly from your heart. The more you focus your
attention on this healing, the faster your pain and the chaos you cause in
everything around you, will dissipate.
(“The Power
of Forgiveness” by Brian Sheen on the Web at www.innerself.com/Magazine/Behavior_Modification/Power_of_Forgiveness.htm
Accessed June 2002)
Forgiveness is
not Condemnation. Forgiveness does not mean you agree with what the other
person did to you. It does not mean you can change what happened or erase what
they did. What’s done is done. All you can do is release yourself.
Forgiveness is
Not for Them, It’s for You. Forgiveness is not something you do for someone
else, but to free YOURSELF from the continuation of pain and anger. It is a
gift to your peace of mind, your self esteem, your relationships with others,
your future.
Why
forgiveness?
(“Why
Forgiveness? Forgiveness is a way of releasing ourselves from the pain we have
experienced at the hands of others...” By Kenneth Cloke on the Web at
makinglemonade.com/newcreative/creative_forgiveness.htm
Accessed June 2002)
Summarizing
the secular view of forgiveness, we can make the following list of items:
Chapter 6 Section 11
The first step in forgiveness is to recognize your
resentment against an enemy. You must understand who the enemy is and what he
has done to hurt you. Then you must consciously say, "I forgive that
person for the following wrongs against me." Then repent of your feelings
against your enemy and ask God to forgive you, even as "we also forgive
everyone who is indebted to us" (Luke 11:4).
After that, begin to pray actively for your enemy's good.
Jesus told us to pray for our enemies and that doing this will help to fill us
with love for them.
When you pray for your enemies, asking God to meet their
needs and manifest Himself to them, you are overcoming evil with good. Instead
of fighting negative thoughts in your mind, you are filling your mind with
positive thoughts. You are now on the side of your enemy; you have a spiritual
stake in his well-being. If God answers your prayer, which you want Him to do,
the person prayed for will be blessed, and you will learn about redemption--the
ultimate form of forgiveness.
Keep in mind that if you ask God to bless somebody, God will
bring that person to a condition where blessing is possible. God will not bless
an evildoer until he or she repents of sin, provides restitution where
necessary, and gets right with God. So if you ask God to bless someone who has
wronged you, the result may well be a repentant sinner and a new brother or
sister in the Lord!
Pat Robertson. “Ethics: A Christian Viewpoint Commandments,
virtues, vices, employees and more” on the web at
www.cbnindia.org/200Questions/article.php?topic=17
Accessed June 2002)
The
Christian view of forgiveness as seen today in the light of the Lord’s Word of
the First Coming, or New Testament, can be summarized in these points based on
the interpretation by Pat Robertson, a well known and intellectually
influential Christian TV broadcaster:
(1) “The
first step in forgiveness is to recognize your resentment against an enemy.”
This requires that we monitor our thoughts every day to discover when and how
we have resentful feelings and thoughts. Without self-witnessing the many
particulars of the feelings and thoughts we have every day, the step of
repentance cannot be taken, hence forgiveness is put out of the mind and
doesn’t show itself.
(2) “Then
you must consciously say, "I forgive that person for the following wrongs
against me.” This act conforms to the Lord’s Commandment to Peter, who had
asked Him, how many times he should forgive his enemies. This exchange during
the Lord’s First Advent, is interpreted in the Lord’s Second Advent, as
follows:
And when Peter asked Him how many times he should forgive
one who sinned against him, whether it should be as many as seven times, He
replied:
Not up to seven times, I tell you, but up to seventy times
seven times. Matt. 18:21, 22.
I have been told from heaven that the Lord forgives everyone
his sins, and never punishes him for them, or even imputes them to him, because
He is love itself and good itself. Nevertheless the sins are not wiped away by
this, for it is only by repentance that they can be wiped away. For if he told
Peter to forgive up to seventy times seven times, is there anything that the
Lord Himself would not do? (TCR 409)
To forgive
our enemies is a Commandment. By declaring that we forgive means that we can
fight against the temptations to come, by which we fall back on the desire for
revenge and punishment. In that evil state we can focus on the fact that we
pronounced forgiveness, and thus no longer have a just claim for retaliation.
But note that even this declaration will not stand in future temptations,
unless it is accompanied by repentance. We must repent since we broke the
Commandment prior to our declaration of forgiveness. During the days, hours, minutes,
or seconds prior to the our declaration of forgiveness, what we were we doing
in our willing and thinking about the enemy who did us wrong? We were breaking
the Commandment. Not until the moment of declaring forgiveness, and not yet
until we feel repentance, can we say that we have at last compelled ourselves
to follow the Lord’s Commandment.
The Lord
forgives immediately when we sin against Him. There is no intervening moment of
anger, and then repentance for Him, despite what the Old Testament says about
Jehovah, that He was angry, did evil to the people, then repented Himself. This
is written by correspondences, and the literal only reflects the perspective of
the unregenerate mind (xx). Neither do angels wait an instant to forgive, so
that they would then have to repent, but they avert their eyes and their focus
from the evils in the spirit for whom they provide services. But while we are
regenerating on earth our inherited and acquired evils are full of revenge, hatred,
and rage against the enemy, whom we define as anyone who doesn’t favor us and accept
what we do or think. In that unregenerate state we will be raging and hating,
so that we must compel ourselves to forgive, which comes as soon as we repent
of our raging and hating because it is a sin against the Lord.
(3) “After
that, begin to pray actively for your enemy's good. Jesus told us to pray for
our enemies and that doing this will help to fill us with love for them.” This
is most difficult to do, and cannot be done on our own, hence we must begin to
pray. By praying, we acknowledge that we have no power and all power is the
Lord’s. So we beg Him to give us the power to be sincere about wishing the
enemy well. why did the Lord command us to pray for our enemies?
Before the Lord came into the world hardly anyone knew what
the internal man was or what charity was. This is why in many places He taught
loving care, which is charity; and this is a difference between the Old and New
Testaments (or Covenants). The Lord taught that kindness should be done out of
charity to an opponent or enemy in this passage of Matthew:
You have heard that the men of old were told, You are to
love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies,
bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those
who hurt and persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father in the
heavens. Matt. 5:43-45.
(TCR 409)
How does
praying for our enemies fill us with love? Some might think that when we pray
for our enemies, we must also love them, as we love our countrymen, neighbors
and friends. But this is not the case, as anyone may know who has prayed for
the enemy who is a murderer, a rapist, or a terrorist. No love for them fills
our heart like the pity we feel for the victims. Nevertheless we must pray for
our enemy because the Lord commands it. And when we obey the Lord’s commandment
He fills us with His Love, and it is this Love that we feel. This love in us
chases away the evil spirits who urge us to hate the enemy. This love protects
us from hating the enemy even as if we kill them in a battle. For to kill them
may be necessary to protect our country and neighbor, and not to kill them, is
to hate our country and neighbor whom we should protect and not leave
defenseless. Similarly with bringing the criminal to justice—the Lord wants us
to pray for them, even as we administer due process. And this also means that
in this process of executing justice or waging defensive war, we must not be
cruel and arrogant. To pray for the enemy will prevent us from falling into the
evils of cruelty and arrogance.
(4) To
quote Robertson again:
“Keep in mind that if you ask God to bless somebody, God
will bring that person to a condition where blessing is possible. God will not
bless an evildoer until he or she repents of sin, provides restitution where
necessary, and gets right with God. So if you ask God to bless someone who has
wronged you, the result may well be a repentant sinner and a new brother or
sister in the Lord!“
This
reminds me of what angels do. They have the strong desire to share their love
and their truths with everyone. Nothing makes them happier than to bring
another human being into their heaven where they can share its goods and truths
(xx). They also know that those who reject the heavenly goods and truths are
taken care of by the Laws of Divine Providence and Permissions. Nothing in the
universe is loose, but everything is tied inexorably by these Laws. Evil
returns to the evil and no one gets off with anything (xx). Hence it is not up
to people on earth or angels in heaven to insure the spiritual punishment of
the evil, for the Lord takes care of that.
Then thou shalt give soul for soul. That this signifies the
law of order that thou shalt do to thy neighbor as thou wouldest have another
do to thee, consequently that what thou doest to another shall be done to thee,
is evident from the fact that "to give soul for soul, eye for eye, tooth
for tooth," and so forth, denotes that as thou hast done to another so
shall it be done to thee.
The reason why this law was given to the sons of
That this is so, it has been given me to know from much
experience. The case herein is this. With him who does good from the heart,
there inflows from heaven on every side, good into the heart and soul of him
who does it, and by inspiring inspires it; and then at the same time the
affection of love for the neighbor to whom he does good is increased, and with
this affection a delight which is heavenly and unutterable. The cause of this
is that in heaven the good of love from the Lord reigns universally, and
constantly flows in according to the degree in which it is practiced toward
another.
The case is similar in respect to evil. With him who from
the heart does evil to another, there inflows from hell on every side evil into
the heart of him who does it, and by exciting excites it; and then at the same
time the affection of the love of self is increased, and with it the delight of
hatred and revenge against those who do not submit themselves. The cause of
this is that in hell the evil of the love of self reigns universally, and
constantly flows in according to the degree in which it is practiced toward
another. When this occurs, the punishers are at once present, who ill-treat the
offender; and thereby the evil with its delight is restrained.
[2] These things are so for the reason that the laws of
order in the other life are not learned from books, and stored up therefrom in
the memory, as with men in the world, but are written on hearts, the laws of
evil on the heart of the evil, and the laws of good on the heart of the good.
For every man carries with him into the other life that which by his life in
the world he had set in his heart; namely, evil with the evil; and good with
the good.
[3] The law of order from which these things flow is that
which the Lord taught in Matthew:
All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do
ye even so to them; this is the law and the prophets (Matt.
Order is from the Divine truth which proceeds from the Lord.
The laws of order in heaven are truths from good, and in hell are truths
separated from good. They are said to be separated, not by reason of the Lord,
but by reason of man. Good is separated by the nonreception of it.
[4] The law which is called "the law of retaliation,"
is thus described in Leviticus:
He that smiteth the soul of a beast shall restore it, soul
for soul; if a man shall cause a blemish in his neighbor; as he hath done, so
shall it be done to him; breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; as he
shall cause a blemish in a man, so shall it be rendered unto him. He that
smiteth a beast shall restore it; and he that smiteth a man shall be killed
(Lev. 24:18-21).
As evil carries with it its penalty, it is therefore said by
the Lord that "evil must not be resisted," and at the same time in
the following words in Matthew it is explained how the case is with this law in
the spiritual world, with those who are in good, relatively to those who are in
evil:
Ye have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye, and a
tooth for a tooth; but I say unto you, Resist not evil; but whosoever shall
strike thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man
would drag thee to law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.
And whosoever shall compel thee to go one mile, go with him twain. Give to
everyone that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou
away (Matt.
[5] Who cannot see
that these words are not to be understood according to the sense of the letter?
For who will turn the left cheek to him who deals a blow on the right cheek?
And who will give his cloak to him who would take away his coat? And who will
give his property to all who ask? And who will not resist evil? (emphases added)
But no one can understand these words who does not know what
is signified by "the right cheek" and "the left cheek,"
what by "a coat" and "a cloak," also what by "a
mile," and likewise by "borrowing," and so on. The subject there
treated of is spiritual life, or the life of faith; not natural life, which is
the life of the world. The Lord there opens, and also in this chapter, and the
following, the interior things that belong to heaven, but by means of such
things as are in the world.
The reason why He did so by such things, was that not
worldly men, but only heavenly men, should understand. The reason why worldly
men were not to understand, was lest they should profane the interior things of
the Word, for by so doing they would cast themselves into the most frightful
hell of all, which is the hell of the profaners of the Word. Therefore it is
said by the Lord in Luke:
Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the
And in John:
Isaiah said, He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their
heart; that they may not see with their eyes, and understand with their heart,
and should convert themselves, and I should heal them (John 12:39, 40).
It is said "lest I should heal them," because they
who are healed and return again to falsities and evils, commit profanation.
These are they who are meant in Matthew 12:43-45.
[6] But it shall now
be told what is meant in the internal sense by the words of the Lord above
quoted. (emphases added)
In this sense it there treats of those who wish to destroy
by means of falsities the truths of faith, thus the spiritual life with a man
when he is in temptations, and in persecutions; and in good spirits when they
are in infestations by evil spirits. By "the cheek" is signified the
affection of interior truth, by "the right cheek" the affection of
truth from good; by "dealing a blow" is signified the act of injuring
this affection; by "coat" and "cloak" is signified truth in
the external form (AC n. 4677, 4741, 4742); by "dragging to law" is
signified the endeavor to destroy; by "a mile" is signified that
which leads to truth, for the like is signified by "a mile" as by
"a way" (that "a way" denotes that which leads to truth,
see AC n. 627, 2333, 3477); by "lending" is signified to instruct.
From this it is plain what is signified by "giving to all who ask,"
namely, to confess all things of one's faith in the Lord.
The reason therefore
why evil ought not to be resisted, is that evil does no harm to those who are
in truth and good, for they are protected by the Lord. (emphases
added)
[7] These are the things which have been hidden under the
above words of the Lord; and this being the case, the Lord only says, "Ye
have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,"
but says no more; because by "an eye" is signified the interior truth
of faith; and by "a tooth," the exterior truth of faith, as will be
seen in what follows.
From all this it is evident in what manner the Lord spoke
when He was in the world, namely, that He spoke, as everywhere in the Word of
the Old Testament, at the same time for the angels in heaven, and for men in
the world; for His speech was in itself Divine and heavenly, because it was
from the Divine, and through heaven. But the things which He spoke were
presented by means of such things as corresponded in the world. What they
correspond to, the internal sense teaches ... (AC 9049)
2. Willing And Thinking According To The Letter
Throughout
this Volume I use the expression “willing and thinking in accordance with the
Letter of the Writings,” and related phraseology. How to accomplish this is the
subject of Volume 3 where I discuss specific techniques for monitoring one’s
motives and thoughts and holding them up to the light of the understanding we
have of the Letter of the Writings.
The
discussion on the spiritual sense of the Writings continues in Volume 2.
The spiritual sense
of the Word has been disclosed by the Lord through me (INV 44)
Chapter 7, Introduction
The Lord
confers these benefits, which are meant by the sending of the Holy Spirit, on
those who believe in Him. That is to say, He reforms them, regenerates them,
renews, quickens, justifies and cleanses them from evils, and so eventually
saves them. (TCR 149)
Those who
believe in the Lord Jesus Christ are to receive those spiritual benefits,
because He Himself is salvation and everlasting life. He is salvation, because
He is the Savior, for this is the meaning of His name Jesus; He is everlasting
life, because those in whom He is, and who are in Him, have everlasting life.
This is why He is called everlasting life in 1 John 5:20. Now since He is
salvation and everlasting life, it follows that He is also every means which
leads to salvation and everlasting life. Thus He is the whole of reformation,
regeneration, renewal, quickening, sanctification and justification, cleansing
from evils, and finally salvation. In the case of every single person the Lord
confers these benefits, or rather, He attempts to impart them; and when a
person makes himself ready and suitable to receive them, He does impart them.
The activity of readying and making oneself suitable comes from the Lord too,
but if the person does not receive them with spontaneity of spirit, then the
Lord cannot go beyond the attempt to introduce them, and this attempt is
constantly kept up. (TCR 150)
A person
acquires faith by approaching the Lord, learning truths from the Word, and
living by them. (TCR 343)
The Writings are the Crown of all revelations, the Word of
the Second Coming, never to replaced by a future revelation (TCR 787, INV 39).
This
The
Writings make up the last portion of the Word of God to be given to humankind.
They therefore contain all the particulars the human race needs to know in
order to become celestial minds to eternity. One can count the number of pages,
sentences, words, and characters in the Writings, and this is not an
astronomical number! It is revealed that the Writings is of such an infinite
Divine structure that each idea and word in it has infinite things contained
within it that cannot be discovered to eternity by the entire human race on all
the earths and in all the heavens (AC 6620). This is infinity!
This surpasses all the revelations that have hitherto been
made since the creation of the world. (INV 44)
For the
It is clear therefore that the
Writings contain infinite knowledge for the future of humankind.
How
amazing! For more discussion on this issue see Chapter 8 Section 4.
A special
advantage for children who can attend
All of the
faculty like to think that they incorporate Swedenborgian ideas where they deem
appropriate. Some do it more than others. Some areas lend themselves to this
treatment more than others. However, we are also mindful that many of our
students transfer and we do need to prepare them for whatever the next step is.
However, I think if you did a survey of our students you would find that most
think the faculty does bring ES ideas into their course. (June 2002)
In my
opinion,
The quote
above points to the concern that “many of our students transfer and we do need
to prepare them for whatever the next step is.” As an educator and a scientist
myself, in my role as a long time college professor, I do believe that is quite
feasible to integrate the Writings into every course of the curriculum, and not
impair in any way the capacity of the students, most of whom complete their
education in a public or secular facility. Further, they will be able to do
their job and be successful in their career without the slightest disadvantage
or weakness in the eyes of co-workers, clients, and supervisors. Integrating
every course into the framework of the Writings gives the
This
process of integrating courses should not wait for education generally to catch
up with the Second Coming, for this will take many generations. Rather, the
integration should proceed as far as the instructor is capable of doing it.
This requires some training, on one’s own or more formally by the preparation
and certification process. Right now this is not done because it is not
considered crucial. What is considered crucial is that (1) the students retain
their commitment to the
To
apprehend this more clearly the instructor needs to think of the content or
concepts in every course in relation to their “subordination” to the
intellectual order of the Writings in the mind:
In a man who is in the Lord's kingdom, or who is the Lord's
kingdom, there are celestial things, spiritual things, rational things,
memory-knowledges, and things of sense; and these are in subordination to one
another.
Celestial and spiritual things hold the first place, and are
the Lord's; to these rational things are subordinate, and are subservient; to
these again memory-knowledges are subordinate and subservient; and lastly the
things of sense are subordinate and subservient to these, that is to
memory-knowledges.
The things which are subservient, or which serve, are
relatively servants, and in the Word are called "servants." That
there is such a subordination, the man who thinks only from sense and
memory-knowledge is ignorant; and he who knows anything of them nevertheless
has a most obscure idea, because he is still in corporeal things. (AC 2541)
When a
concept is introduced in a course, the instructor needs to place it in front of
the students on a subordination line up or hierarchical embedding. First, is
this concept from sensory or empirical observation? What precisely is the
observation and what was the purpose of making this observation? Second, how is
this observation or factual knowledge to be subordinated to higher order
concepts? What are these higher order concepts? The instructor needs to
identify what these higher order concepts are. In secular and materialist
education these higher order concepts are often specified as Principles or
Explanatory Theories. The
Through
this integrated instructional process, young persons develop an orderly
rational mind which is in the highest portion of their natural mind. These
become suitable cognitive “vessels” for receiving spiritual and celestial
things from the Lord through the angels inflowing. It is not necessary nor
practical for
When man is
being instructed, there is a progression from memory-knowledges to rational
truths; further, to intellectual truths; and finally, to celestial truths,
which are here signified by the "wife." If the progression is made
from memory knowledges and rational truths to celestial truths without
intellectual truths as media, the celestial suffers violence, because there can
be no connection of rational truths-which are obtained by means of
memory-knowledges-with celestial truths, except by means of intellectual truths,
which are the media. (AC 1495)
By “media”
is here meant intermediary concepts or truths. Only some natural-rational
concepts can be elevated to the spiritual-intellectual level of thinking. They
are the concepts that are subordinated to the dualities in the Writings from
the celestial top to the sensory bottom. The instructional approach matters.
Appropriate conceptual intermediaries need to be spelled out and provided in
the course. This is what I mean by the integrated approach.
Some
principles may be considered regarding how the integrated model is to be
presented by the instructor.
[2] That it may be known how these things stand, something
shall be said respecting order. The order is for the celestial to inflow into
the spiritual and adapt it to itself; for the spiritual thus to inflow into the
rational and adapt it to itself; and for the rational thus to inflow into the
memory-knowledge and adapt it to itself.
But when a man is being instructed in his earliest
childhood, the order is indeed the same, but it appears otherwise, namely, that
he advances from memory-knowledges to rational things, from these to spiritual
things, and so at last to celestial things.
The reason it so appears is that a way must thus be opened
to celestial things, which are the inmost. All instruction is simply an opening
of the way; and as the way is opened, or what is the same, as the vessels are
opened, there thus flow in, as before said, in their order, rational things
that are from celestial spiritual things; into these flow the celestial
spiritual things; and into these, celestial things.
These celestial and spiritual things are continually
presenting themselves, and are also preparing and forming for themselves the
vessels which are being opened; which may also be seen from the fact that in
themselves the memory-knowledge and rational are dead, and that it is from the
inflowing interior life that they seem to be alive. This can become manifest to
anyone from the thought, and the faculty of judgment.
[3] In these
lie hidden all the arcana of analytical art and science, which are so many that
they can never explored even as to the ten-thousandth part; and this not with
the adult man only, but also with children, whose every thought and derivative
expression of speech is most full of them (although man, even the most learned,
is not aware of this), and this could not possibly be the case unless the
celestial and spiritual things within were coming forth, flowing in, and
producing all these things.
(AC 1495)
Children
need to be taught the meta-order of their own learning process. They need to
gain an understanding of the outwardly appearing order of learning and the
actual order that enlivens it from within. These two orders can be labeled
inductive and deductive. Inductive learning is the appearance from bottom up.
This order yields concepts that are in themselves dead or, without any
spiritual in them. The spiritual inflows within them, in a discrete degree by
correspondence, so long as they are suitable cognitive vessels. This refers to
the dualities from the Writings. If nonduality concepts are taught from secular
textbooks without proving that they are false in orientation, the resultant
external rational cognitions will not be suitable for reception, and will remain
dead and useless for life and regeneration—yea, they will be impediments (see
Chapter 5).
2. Teaching
Integrated Concepts
Instructors
can gauge whether they are teaching integrated concepts (suitable cognitive
vessels) or separated concepts (unsuitable cognitions) by keeping track of
their verbal stream in the classroom (a recording would greatly help in this
assessment). Are the concepts linked from top down, where the top is the Lord
in His Laws of Divine Providence, and the bottom is the empirical fact or
observation being discussed? Intermediaries need to be introduced at the right
age level. It is easy to simply discuss the concept from the textbook and to go
on to the next concept, and so on. But this won’t take care of the integration.
It is not sufficient to mention the integration at the beginning of the course,
in the middle, at the end, and once in awhile in between, here and there. The
integration must be spoken of in all instances where the concept is discussed.
This models for the students what their
It helps
for teachers to think of certain criteria to help assist them in constructing integrated concepts. For
example, consider these five criterial dualities that have universal
application to all subject areas in school:
(1) external and interior portions
(2) uses
(3) successive and simultaneous discrete degrees
(4) natural-spiritual parallelisms or correspondences
(5) top down integration from firsts to lasts through a
network of intermediaries
(1) External
and interior portions:
When
introducing a concept or phenomenon, the teacher needs to be specify what is
its external portion and what is its interior portion. For example, when
instructing about a mineral sample or stone, the idea of rock formation at a
slow pace is mentioned. This is to be labeled its external portion, whose parts
include the outward shape and touch at the macro level, and at the micro level,
the outward chemical compounds held together by the atomic forces between its
constituent particles. Now the internal portion of the mineral sample should be
taught. What are those atomic forces? How are they maintained in place so that
the object continues to subsist in its hard form and shape? The interior
portion of the mineral sample is the cause that maintains the rock in its
continued subsistence. Every object has an interior portion that is not visible
or measurable by outward measuring instruments.
Instruments
that measure the outward portion of the rock sample include sizing, weighing,
compressing, photographing, crushing into a powder and analyzing how the powder
reacts to heat and chemicals, and other such measures, all of which are
instruments for measuring the outward portion and construction of the rock.
Instruments that measure the interior portion of the rock sample include uses,
discrete degrees, correspondences, and intermediaries.
(2) Uses:
Determining
the uses of an object is to measure or identify its interior portions. It is
the use of the rock sample that brings into existence. An object is maintained
in existence as long as it continues to make uses of itself available. If an
object ceases to make uses available with itself, it ceases to subsist and
disintegrates, unable to maintain itself in existence.
Uses create
objects because the created universe has a use that enters into every created
object. Unless there were a use for something, it could not come into
existence. The Law of Creation For Uses is a Divine Law.
All uses
are human uses because the creator of uses is the Divine Human. Everything the
Divine Human creates must necessarily be an image of Itself, therefore be an
image of the Human. The idea of Human is the idea of truth acting from love. In
other words, the idea of our understanding (truth) acting from our will (love).
The Divine Human creates something from a purpose. No human creates anything
without a purpose. The purpose defines the use in advance. Once this purpose or
motive exists in the will, the understanding then produces the object in such a
way that it has the uses that serve the purpose. This is why all objects exist
or are caused by their uses. And if the uses are removed, there is no purpose
that maintains the object in existence.
Every
object has multiple uses, and new uses or applications are found by discovery
and experimentation. For instance a rock sample can be used for these purposes:
a source of its minerals, a paper weight, a missile or weapon, a carving, a
block for building, ballast in a balloon, a gift to a friend, and many other
uses.
(3) Discrete
degrees:
The rock
sample is an object of use with an outward and an inward portion. The outward
portion is described by physical
measures, and the inward portion is described by rational measures. An example of a rational measure of the rock sample
is the specific relation its uses have to the uses of other objects. For
example, rock samples of many sizes and shapes are produced by geological and
weather conditions and events. There is therefore a relationship between the
uses of geological and meteorological events and the uses of rocks of various
shapes and sizes. These relationships between uses are rational measures.
Similarly,
successive and simultaneous degrees are rational measures of the interior
portion of an object. The rock sample exists and is maintained in existence by
its properties at two levels of existence called spiritual and natural. There
are also sub-levels within these two main discrete degrees. The spiritual
portion that forms the interior of the rock is made of substances from the
spiritual Sun. The rays streaming out of the spiritual Sun go out into the
entire spiritual world and make up the objects there. The spiritual portion of
the rock sample is located in the spiritual world. Therefore this portion is
made of elements that originated in the spiritual Sun.
We need to
apply rational measurement to the rock sample in two ways called successive and
simultaneous. When the rock sample came into existence, it first popped into
existence in the spiritual world, formed and created to make available specific
uses. Once the interior portion of the rock was created and existed in the
spiritual world, it caused the geological and meteorological events that
created the formation of the physical rock. This is called successive degrees
of creation because the physical rock follows after the spiritual rock is
created. In addition to the spiritual portion of the rock, the spiritual
portion of the geological and meteorological events, also had to co-act in
order for the physical rock to be created.
Once the
physical rock is created, the outward portion and inward portion exist as one
within the other. The interior portion of the rock that existed prior to the
external portion is now within the external portion. This relationship of “within”
is by discrete degrees, not by physical location. When we look at this rock we
therefore think about its external portion and its interior portion. Without
rationally knowing the interior portion, we cannot explain the external
portion. But knowing both, we can explain why this rock has been formed, how,
and what maintains it in existence.
(4) Correspondences:
Another
rational measure of an object is to determine its correspondence. The measure
of correspondence gives us information about the relation between the external
portion of the rock and its interior portion. Its interior portion is spiritual
and determines the uses which create the spiritual rock. The external portion
of the rock therefore points to, or is an image of, the spiritual uses which
keep it in existence. For instance, if you look up in the Writings the
correspondence for a rock you will find things like this:
As the truth of faith is signified by "stone" and
"rock," it is the Lord's spiritual kingdom that is also signified,
for this is in the truth of faith, and from this in good. (AC 6426)
"A rock" denotes the Lord as to the truth of
faith, is because by "a rock" is also meant a bulwark against
falsities; the bulwark itself is the truth of faith, for combat is waged from
this truth both against falsities and against evils. (AC 8581)
From these
passages, and many others that can be cited and examined, you can see that the
interior portion of a rock relates closely to the uses of truth and faith in
the Lord. Rock corresponds to the power of the truths that we have in our
understanding. Wits truths in our understanding we can do battle against
falsities and against evils that are tied to us by heredity. The interior
portion of a rock is rationally related to the interior portion of water,
because water also corresponds to truths of various kind—natural truths,
rational truths, spiritual truths, and so on. A mountain is a giant rock
formation, therefore mountains correspond to the Lord since He is the source of
all truth.
(5) Top
down integration through intermediaries:
A rock’s
external portion and interior portion are held in place by means of the
intermediary spheres that constitute each level, one above the other, or, one
within the other. What is within is also called above when thinking in terms of
discrete degrees.
Nothing can
exist by itself. Everything created is created into an order in relation to
other created things. There is a chain of creation that starts from the rays of
the spiritual Sun streaming out into the universe, first the spiritual world,
then the natural world. The chain of creation from the spiritual Sun to the
rock is called in the Writings “From Firsts to Lasts:”
From the fact that greatest and least things are forms of
both kinds of degrees, there is connection between them from firsts to lasts,
for likeness conjoins them. But yet there can be no least thing which is the
same as any other. Consequently, there is a distinction of all the singulars
and of the veriest singulars. There can be no least thing in any form or among
any forms the same as another for the reason that there are like degrees in
greatest things, and greatest things consist of least things. When there are
such degrees in greatest things, and in accordance with those degrees,
perpetual distinctions from top to bottom, and from centre to circumference, it
follows that there cannot be any lesser or least of these, in which are like
degrees, which are the same as any other. (DLW 226)
God is omnipresent from the firsts to the lasts of His
order. God is omnipresent from the firsts to the lasts of His order by means of
the heat and light of the spiritual sun, in the midst of which He is. It was by
means of that sun that order was produced; and from it He sends forth a heat
and a light which pervade the universe from firsts to lasts, and produce the
life that is in man and in every animal, and also the vegetative soul that is
in every germ upon the earth (TCR 63)
These
passages, and many others like it, teach that there is a chain of being from
the Lord to the rock sample, and this chain cannot have any broken links, or
else the rock sample cannot come into existence. The rock sample is an object
that came into existence as result of this chain of formation, starting form
the rays streaming out of the spiritual Sun, and descending successively by
discrete degrees, until at last, the geological and meteorological events that
shaped and formed the rock sample. The inmost portion of the rock sample is
therefore the spiritual Sun, or its rays made of the substance of love
exteriorized as truth. This spiritual substance, descends successively through
the highest or celestial heaven, then through the second or spiritual heaven,
then through the first or natural heaven, then through the world of spirits, then
through the physical sun, then through the atmospheres and the planets, then
through the geological and meteorological events, to large rock formations,
then to the rock sample, and finally to the classroom where the rock sample is
being used for instruction. This chain of being holds the sample rock that you
can see on this table and hold in your hand and use in various ways.
This
example of teaching the integrated idea of a rock sample in the classroom, can
be applied equally to every concept in all subjects. For example, if you teach
about the branches of the government, you can consider the president or the
head of state in terms of its external social portions and in terms of its
interior spiritual portion. A head of state or governor is discussed in the
Writings under the idea of “king” and “governors.”
"Kings," "kingdoms," and
"peoples," in the historical and the prophetical parts of the Word,
signify truths and the things which are of truths (AC 1672)
When I informed them that on our earth He is named Christ
Jesus, and that Christ signifies Anointed or King, and Jesus, Savior, they said
that they do not worship Him as a King, because royalty savors of what is
worldly, but that they worship Him as the Savior. (EU 65)
"The king" signifies the truth of the church (TCR
219)
The reason why "governors" signify generals, is
that it is generals in which and under which are particulars ...; by
"princes" however are signified primary things (AC 5290)
"Governors and rulers" signify principal truths,
and "those riding upon horses" signify the intelligent. (AE 576)
These and
similar passages reveal that the interior portion of “the President of the
United States” consists of uses that relate to governing a country by means of
principles of truth. Every act of government represents and flows from the head
of the government, as indicated by a well known saying by a
And many
such things can be developed by the teacher in presenting lessons about rocks,
government, art objects, or football rules and training for playing under them.
For further
discussion on how to integrate monist and dualist science, see Chapter 4,
Sections 7.
3. A
Few Key Concepts From The Writings
I selected
seven key concepts from the Writings that are fundamental and enter into our
daily choices in all the areas of our life—relationships, occupation, science,
aesthetics, philosophy, politics, recreation, lifestyle, physical and mental
disciplines. Thus everything of our life on this earth. These key concepts are
rational and dualist. They hang together as a unit because they are central
issues discussed in every work of the Writings where every concept is
reciprocally tied to every other concept in a fully rational system of
thinking. There are no exceptions or contradictions, an insight understood only
by those who see the Writings as the Lord in His Word of the Second Coming,
thus a Divine Work.
The
concepts to be described are:
1. The Idea of “Discrete Degrees” in
Successive and Simultaneous Order (keeps nonduality out)
2. The Idea of “As-of-Self” (keeps
depression and meritoriousness away)
3. The Idea of “Salvation by Means Only”
(protects from the idea that we are saved without having to accomplish the works
of regeneration)
4. The Idea of “Conjugial Love” (orders
our life in preparation for heavenly bliss)
5. The Idea That The Mind Is In The
Spiritual World (gives us a scientific understanding of dying, the afterlife,
and the unity of the human race)
6. The Idea of The Vertical Community
(giving us knowledge of spiritual influx from heaven and hell)
7. The Idea of “Earths in the Universe”
(giving us a true perspective on the starry universe that puzzles everyone
else)
8. The Idea of “Theistic Science
Revelations” in the Writings (protects us from the nonduality of materialistic
science)
9. The Idea of the “Spiritual Sense” of
the Writings Demystified (avoiding
Chapter 7, Section 2
THE ANGELIC IDEA OF THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE BY THE
LORD.
The angelic
idea of the universe created by the Lord is as follows. God is the center, and
He is Man; and if God were not Man creation would not have been possible; and
the Lord from eternity is that God. Of creation: The Lord from eternity, that
is, God, by His Divine proceeding created the universe and all things in it;
and as the Divine proceeding is life itself, all things have been created from
life and by means of life. The Divine proceeding that is nearest to the Lord
appears before the angels as a sun; this appears to their sight fiery and
flaming; this is so because the Divine proceeding is the Divine love and the
Divine wisdom, and these so appear at a distance.
(The angels
add that the Divine proceeding is what the ancients represented by golden or
shining and pure circles about the head of God, which modern painters still
retain from the ancient idea.) They said that from that sun as a great center
proceed circles, one after another and one from another even to the last where
their end is subsisting in rest. These circles, of which one is from another
and one after another, appearing as spread out in breadth and length, are spiritual
atmospheres, which are filled with the light and heat from their sun, and
through which the light and heat extend themselves to the last circle; and in
this last circle by means of these atmospheres, and afterwards by means of the
natural atmospheres from the sun of this world, the creation of the earth and
all things on it which are for use was accomplished, and this creation is
afterwards continued by generations from seeds in wombs or in eggs.
The angels who
knew that the universe so created was a continuous work from the Creator even
to ultimates, and that being a continuous work it depends upon the Lord, who is
its common center and is moved and governed by Him as a single continuous
chain, said that the First which proceeds is continued even to ultimates
through discrete degrees, just as an end is continued through causes into
effects; or like a producing agent and its products in a continued series; also
that the continuation is not only in but also around from the First, and so
from everything prior into everything posterior, even to the postreme; and thus
that the First and the posterior from it exist together in their order in the
postreme or ultimate.
From this
continuity as a one they have their idea of the Lord, that He is the All in
all, that He is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient, that He is infinite and
eternal; and also their idea of the order according to which the Lord, through
His Divine love and Divine wisdom, arranges, provides, and governs all things.
(D.
Scientists
have tried to solve the problem of how the universe came into being and what
keeps it going. After centuries of research and theory no one claims to know
the answer, and multiple contradictory and incomplete hypotheses have been
advanced. Only the
Every
object or event is brought into existence through three successive discrete
degrees that correspond to
originating
source à instrumental cause à ultimate effect
These three
also correspond to three heavens in the spiritual world (De Verbo 3). Further,
the three successive degrees are present simultaneously in the object or event
so that its subsistence (or continued existence) is maintained by the three
successive degrees. In short, existence is perpetual recreation moment by
moment.
This
rational concept in the New Church mind prevents any concept of nonduality from
commingling because nonduality’s core principle is that there are no
discrete degrees, but only one continuous degree (as reviewed above). But
according to theistic science from the Writings, the natural and the spiritual
are in discrete degrees and communicate only by correspondence. Matter or
energy (natural) and spirit or rationality (spiritual) can never become one
substance or one reality. Self is an object created and held in existence by
three degrees. Self can never become one homogeneous substance or
consciousness. Self cannot vanish as an illusion or appearance for even these
are real objects produced and maintained in discrete degrees.
1. Ghosts, Vampires, Aliens, “Energies” And “Vibrations”
If we see
any claim that involves a spiritual force acting directly and physically on
someone’s body or house, we know automatically that is not to believed. This
applies equally to ghosts, vampires, aliens, or “energies” and “vibrations.”
Similarly with those who try to prove that they have psychic powers by moving
physical objects from a distance, or seeing what happens in another location.
The
It is rarely
granted at the present day, however, to talk with spirits, because it is
dangerous. For then the spirits know, what otherwise they do not know, that
they are with man, and evil spirits are such that they hold man in deadly
hatred, and desire nothing more than to destroy him both soul and body, which
indeed happens with those who have so indulged themselves in fantasies as to
have separated from themselves the enjoyments proper to the natural man. (HH
249)
Man can speak
with spirits and angels, and the ancients on our earth frequently spoke with
them (n. 67-69, 784, 1634, 1636, 7802). But at this day it is dangerous to
speak with them, unless man is in true faith, and led by the Lord (n. 784,
9438, 10751). (EU 1)
Nowadays
when people say they saw a ghost they usually do not mean that they spoke to a
spirit. It is a visual impression that feels real. Further, the concept of
discrete degrees gives the
Since that is
what the speech of angels is like, and what the speech of people is like,
therefore their forms of speech are so different that they have nothing in
common. They are so different that a person cannot understand any word an angel
says, nor an angel any word a person says.
(…)
It can be seen from this what a difference there is between
natural, spiritual and celestial things-that the difference is such that they
have no accordance at all except by correspondences. This, too, is the reason
that people do not know they have an association with spirits, and spirits that
they have an association with people, when in fact there is a constant
association. For a person could not live one minute without being in the midst
of spirits in respect to his thoughts and affections, nor could spirits and
angels live a moment without being with people. The reason is that there is a
continual connection extending from first things to last things, thus from the
Lord to mankind; and from creation the connection was established by
correspondences, one that flows in through angels and spirits. Everything
celestial flows into something spiritual, and everything spiritual into
something natural, and it terminates in the last of this, which is physical and
material, and there abides. Without such a final abode for intermediates to
flow into, there would be no other permanence than that of a house built in the
air. The human race is therefore the base and foundation of the heavens.
(De Verbo 7)
It was
allowed to Swedenborg to communicate directly with spirits and angels, but he
was a unique exception, described in the Writings as the “greatest” of all miracles
ever granted by the Lord on any planet since the beginning. Unbeknownst to
Swedenborg, his mind was prepared for his mission since his earliest childhood
(TCR 850). Here is what he wrote at the beginning of Heaven and Hell:
The arcana
revealed in the following pages relate to heaven and hell, and also to the life
of man after death. The man of the church at this date knows scarcely anything
about heaven and hell or about his life after death, although all these matters
are set forth and described in the Word; and yet many of those born within the
church refuse to believe in them, saying in their hearts, "Who has come
from that world and told us?" Lest, therefore, such a spirit of denial,
which especially prevails with those who have much worldly wisdom, should also
infect and corrupt the simple in heart and the simple in faith, it has been
granted me to associate with angels and to talk with them as man with man, also
to see what is in the heavens and what is in the hells, and this for thirteen
years; so now from what I have seen and heard it has been granted me to
describe these, in the hope that ignorance may thus be enlightened and unbelief
dissipated. Such immediate revelation is granted at this day because this is
what is meant by the Coming of the Lord. (HH 1)
Note that
this is called an “immediate revelation” which refers to Swedenborg’s ability
given him to be present with his senses in the spiritual world, heaven, and
hell. This was only possible as the Lord intervened moment by moment to allow
his natural mind to use his mother tongue of Swedish. The spirits and angels
responded in Swedenborg’s own language. Spirits do not know Swedish or any
other natural language, so for the conversation to be meaningful, the Lord had
to translate as it were what each said to the other. The Lord did this in such
a manner that they each spoke as usual, but the other heard it in their own
language. All spirits speak a universal human thought-language that we
automatically know when we awaken in the afterlife (HH 236).
That
Swedenborg’s authorship of the Writings was brought about by the greatest
miracle in history--past present and future, may sound at first unjustifiable
since we are so close to it in history-- we live no more than 231 years and
three thousand miles from this unique and momentous event in the history of the
universe—when Swedenborg had completed his task of publishing the last work of
the Writings (True Christian Religion, 1771).
The
manifestation of the Lord in person, and introduction by the Lord into the
spiritual world, both as to sight and as to hearing and speech, surpasses all
miracles; for nowhere in history do we read that such an intercourse with
angels and spirits has been granted from the creation of the world. For I am
there with the angels daily, even as I am in the world with men, and now for
twenty-seven years. Evidences of this intercourse are the books published by me
concerning Heaven and Hell, and also the memorable relations in the last work,
entitled THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION; further, what has been there related
concerning Luther, Melanchthon, Calvin, and concerning the inhabitants of a
number of kingdoms; besides the various evidences which are known in the world,
and, in addition, many others which are not known. Say, who has ever before
known anything concerning heaven and hell? Who has known anything concerning
man's state after death? Who, anything concerning spirits and angels? etc.,
etc. (INV 43)
2. “After
The Completion Of This Book”
Swedenborg
was the first individual in human history to have formed a
The
Through
this activity we become spiritual to the extent that we arrange our choices
every day in accordance with what we know from the Writings. In this way we are
cooperating with the Lord in our regeneration and our celestial mind (called
“interior rational”) is gradually opened for influx from the Lord through the
angels (HH 430). This process continues until we pass on, and then it continues
to eternity as a conjugial couple (AC 5354).
'I am an angel in heaven, and I have now been living with my
wife for a thousand years, and all that time I have been in the prime of life,
just as you see me now. This is the result of the conjugial love I share with
my wife. I can assure you that I have had, and still have, perpetual ability.
(CL 355)
For more
discussion on how the Writings are the Word and how to study it systematically,
see Chapter 8, Sections 3 and 4.
A few
months after finishing TCR, Swedenborg entered the spiritual world never to
return again. He had been granted that unique privilege for 27 years. His
mission had been accomplished. This is the note he appended to that work:
NOTE
After the completion of this book, the Lord called together
His twelve disciples, who had followed Him in the world; and a day later He
sent them all forth throughout the spiritual world to preach the Gospel, that
the Lord God Jesus Christ is king, and His kingdom shall be for ever and ever,
as foretold by Daniel (7:13, 14) and in Revelation (11:15):
Blessed
are they who come to the wedding supper of the Lamb Rev. 19:9.
This happened on the nineteenth of June in the year 1770.
This was meant by the Lord's saying:
He will send his angels, and they
will gather together His chosen people from the bounds of the heavens on one
side as far as the bounds of the heavens on the other. Matt. 24:31.
(TCR 791)
It is
understandable that it was the greatest of all miracles since it ushered in the
last
No prior
generation before Swedenborg could have understood this knowledge hence there
was no way they could be revealed until Swedenborg and the beginning of the
modern age. Why not? Because the human mind is created with three discrete
degrees arranged from bottom up: natural (corporeal, sensual, external
rational), spiritual (interior rational), and celestial (inmost
rational). It took untold thousands of generations on this planet to reach the
highest point of development of the natural mind, which his the external
rational level of consciousness and reasoning. This completion of the natural
mind ushered in the Age of Reason and Swedenborg’s intellectual environment.
Now for the first time human beings were able to consciously understand
interior rational truths. These are purely spiritual and the natural mind is
not capable of receiving it because it is of a lower discrete degree than the
spiritual truth. But now the next discrete degree of the human mind could be
opened by these interior rational truths from the Lord. Hence the final
revelations could be at last given to humankind. These are the Writings.
He [Swedenborg] wrote from the Lord while he was reading the
Word (TCR 779). He found that everything in heaven which he himself found
impossible to express, could nonetheless be expressed to the rational
comprehension, in natural language. Angels cannot inspire such writings; but
the Lord can! (De Verbo 4-6: 3.2-3.4)
(Rev. Erik E. Sandstrom, The New Age and the New Church
(Part Two). New Church Life, June 2002, 251-260)
For
additional discussion on discrete degrees see Chapter 5, Section 6.
Chapter 7, Section 3
Clinical
depression affects one in five Americans and if you add ordinary depression,
unhappiness and anxiety, you will have included four out of five, and more
likely five out of five. Our culture and society, our science and education,
has not shielded its population from unhappiness, depression, and rage. This
sorry psychological state of affairs has one cause or mental virus: the ego or
“proprium.” The proprium (or corporeal self) is incapable of rationality and is
born tied to a feeding pipeline from hell (AC 1049). Swedenborg was given to
see what the proprium looks like—like burned black bone, deformed and ugly,
without any spiritual life, thus appearing dead (SE 2250). The proprium or ego
cannot be saved and is under eternal damnation. This is a psychobiological fact
of human evolution, not a Divine punishment for sins (DP 287). There were other
races before this one and they died out (AC 765, 4519). Those who base their
salvation on improving the ego or making it stronger are doomed since they
develop the delusion that a dead thing can be made alive by mental medicine.
Thus they produce delusions that they take for reality. For the dead proprium
can only produce delusions.
The
[11]
There are two things which make life, love and wisdom; or what is the same, the
good of love and the truth of wisdom. These flow in from God, and are received
by man, and are felt in the man as in him; and because they are felt by him as in
him, they also proceed as from him. It is given by the Lord, that they should
be thus felt by the man, in order that what flows in may affect him, and so be
received and remain. (AR 875)
The Lord alone possesses Proprium. By His Proprium He has
redeemed man and by His Proprium saves him. The Lord's Proprium is Life, and
from His Proprium man's proprium, which in itself is dead, is given life. (AC
149)
The Lord’s
Proprium within the as-of-self activates it so that it feels, thinks, and acts
no different from the self of the natural mind. We are actually feeling,
thinking, and acting from the Lord yet it appears to us that we are feeling,
thinking, and acting entirely from ourselves. Thus we have celestial loves,
celestial wisdom, and celestial sensations that are from the Lord (as uniquely
adapted to each individual angel). The perception of the influx and the
sensation of acting as-of-self is heavenly bliss itself and the purpose of
human evolution.
In the
arena of religion the as-of-self concept is as far above the ego concept as the
Second Coming is from the First. The Writings reveal that the Christian Church
established by the Lord when He was on earth was well on its way to
consummation and vastation by the year 325 AD when the Nicene Council of bishops
manufactured the idea of a “Son from eternity” rather than the concept that the
Apostolic Church had had, which is a “Son born in time” (TCR 137). The result
of this false idea was the Church was hijacked by a new heresy called “Three
Divine Persons in One Godhead.” The Writings reveal that this idea completely
destroys the idea of One God, One Lord. One of the tragic consequences of this
abnormal growth is the implantation and strengthening of the idea that
salvation is not by works but by faith alone (TCR 391). This falsity
immeasurably strengthens the ego so that the individual cannot acquire the
motivation to regenerate. Since salvation is guaranteed by faith alone, sins
and lusts are said to be forgiven, and though it’s better to be good and not to
sin, it’s not possible to achieve this. Hence one remains damned without any
faith in the other world (LJP 170, 202).
In my
discussions with Christians today I observed that they have a vigorous passion
for isolating and killing the idea taught in the Writings that one is saved
through works of faith. Their strong aversion comes from their deep phobia of
meritoriousness which is warned against as damning in both Old and New
Testaments. To them salvation by works of faith inevitably involves
appropriating to oneself the merit of Christ, a most damning thing to do. And
indeed their implanted instinct is correct in that meritoriousness is most
damning:
A
person looks below himself when he channels towards himself truth and good
flowing in from the Lord. And one who channels towards himself the goodness and
truth flowing from the Lord sees self and the world in front of him. He does
not see the Lord or His goodness and truth because these are behind his range
of vision and come to be so indistinct that he pays no attention to them and
eventually denies their existence (AC 7817).
But the
revelation regarding the as-of-self makes all the difference. The
When I
discuss the as-of-self with others the reaction I get is negative or
nonplussed. People cannot get excited by the idea that our ego is dead and
monstrous and that the ultimate human state is to be activated by God in our
thoughts, feelings, and actions. This reluctance and aversion is understandable
to the
But
all such persons are incensed, indeed they are repelled, when told that they do
not live of themselves. Self-love is what causes this. (AC 3743)
The concept
of as-of-self gives us the benefits of a superior psychology that we can apply
to manage our life here on earth. The
As it is
desirable that the origin of perception, internal dictate, and conscience,
should be known, and as at the present day it is altogether unknown, I may
relate something on the subject. It is a great truth that man is governed by
the Lord by means of spirits and angels. When evil spirits begin to rule, the
angels labor to avert evils and falsities, and hence arises a combat. It is
this combat of which the man is rendered sensible by perception, dictate, and
conscience. By these, and also by temptations, a man might clearly see that
spirits and angels are with him, were he not so deeply immersed in corporeal
things as to believe nothing that is said about spirits and angels. Such
persons, even if they were to feel these combats hundreds of times, would still
say that they are imaginary, and the effect of a disordered mind. I have been
permitted to feel such combats, and to have a vivid sense of them, thousands
and thousands of times, and this almost constantly for several years, as well
as to know who, what, and where they were that caused them, when they came, and
when they departed; and I have conversed with them. (AC 227)
Therefore
the
can
from wisdom above view the love that is below, and in this way can view his
thoughts, intentions, affections, and therefore the evils and falsities as well
as the goods and truths of his life and doctrine; and without a knowledge and
acknowledgment of these in himself he cannot be reformed. (DP 16)
The
as-of-self as reinforced by daily things from the Writings has no use for
depression for it is in bliss and joy. It has no use for anxiety for the
Omnipotent Lord is in it. It sees no disappointment and feels no envy for it is
filled with appreciation and love. Negativity of the ego cannot rise and cross
the discrete barrier of the interior rational. As we grow in age and
regeneration the as-of-self becomes more and more active. Our personality shows
it outwardly in the form of gentleness, compassion, creativity, responsibility,
intelligence, prudence. Whereas the ego is a ferocious beast and wolf,
oftentimes a wolf in sheep’s clothing, the as-of-self is a lamb for the Lamb
Himself activates it and is in it (AC 3994).
The as-of
self can also be the source of evil!
However, I replied, "Man was so created that
everything he wills, thinks and does appears to him as being in him and thus
from him. Without this appearance a person would not be a human being, for he
would be unable to receive anything of good and truth or of love and wisdom,
retain it, and seemingly adopt it as his own.
Consequently it follows that without this, as it were, living appearance,
man would not have any conjunction with God, and so neither any eternal
life. But if as a result of this
appearance he persuades himself to the belief that he wills, thinks, and thus
does good of himself, and not from the Lord (even though to all appearance as
though of himself), he turns good into evil in him, and so creates in him the
origin of evil. This was Adam's sin. (CL
444)
Looking to the Lord and attributing all good to Him protects
us from falling into Adam’s sin, and this, the more so as we remain conscious
of this attribution in all our willing and thinking all day long. A general
declaration that all good is the Lord’s is necessary but not sufficient. We
must make that declaration to ourselves in our mind many times in a single hour!
The angels do so second by second so to speak (AC 1038).
Chapter 7, Section 4
A man may
know, think, and understand much; but what does not agree with his love, he
casts away from himself, when meditating alone by himself. Hence also he casts
off these things after the life of the body, when he is in the spirit: for that
alone which has entered into a man's love, remains in his spirit; the rest is
looked upon, after death, as foreign, and because it does not belong to a man's
love, it is cast out of the house. It is said "in the spirit,"
because after death, a man lives as a spirit. (NJHD 113)
Christianity,
Judaism, and Islam take the point of view that God must forgive our sins before
we can be saved. In the mind of the Jewish people of old, being corporeal and
sensuous, forgiveness of sins was accomplished by rituals, sacrifices, and
disciplines of repentance (fasting, putting ash on the head, not washing,
etc.). Sacrifices are not sanctioned for Jews today but they are in the hope
that sacrifices in the
This is a
totally rational idea that is consistent with the concept of discrete degrees.
First we allow that the Lord forgives everyone even as they sin or remain in a
state of sin. This we attribute to His infinite mercy and love of the human
race. We cannot think that the Lord would withhold His forgiveness on account
of not making some ritual sacrifice and we turn away from the idea that the
Creator of heaven and earth is angry with the human race and needs to be
propitiated by the sacrifice on the cross of His innocent Son (xx). Or that on
account of Christ’s blood our own sins are washed clean and God no longer sees
them as long as we declare our faith in the Son who then intercedes on our
behalf. Instead of these notions the Writings give us the scientific
description that the Lord operates from firsts to lasts through intermediaries
or means (DLW 304; TCR 63).
Forgiveness
of sins is automatic. Next is repentance of sins and reformation of life. There
is no salvation without reformation no matter how much we believe we have
faith. Regeneration is a psychobiological process of new growth to replace the
dead ego. Day by day, year by year, the Lord makes our new as-of-self grow and
develop in proportion that we cooperate, compel ourselves in repeated
temptations, and gain victory by aligning our corporeal self to be obedient to
our rational from the Writings.
This idea
of salvation by means also protects us from pessimism as we look around and see
how few there are who have a
Chapter 7, Section 5
What an
amazing relief to know the following—and what extraordinary spiritual benefits
we derive from knowing it!
MARRIAGES IN HEAVEN.
As heaven is from the human race, and angels therefore are
of both sexes, and from creation woman is for man and man is for woman, thus
the one belongs to the other, and this love is innate in both, it follows that
there are marriages in heaven as well as on the earth. But marriages in heaven
differ widely from marriages on the earth. Therefore what marriages in heaven
are, and how they differ from marriages on the earth and wherein they are like
them, shall now be told. (HH 366)
Especially does a love for the opposite sex remain, and in
the case of people coming into heaven, namely, people who become spiritual on
earth, conjugial love. A love for the
opposite sex remains in a person after death for the reason that a male is then
still a male, and a female still a female, and masculinity in the male is
masculine in the whole and every part of him, likewise femininity in the
female, and there is a capacity for conjunction in every detail - indeed, in every
least detail - of the two sexes. (CL 37:4)
The angelic spirits replied with a smile, 'Sexual love among
the angels, the kind of love there is in heaven, is still full of the most
intimate delights. It is an extremely pleasant feeling, as if every part of the
mind were expanded. This affects all parts of the chest, and inside it is as if
the heart were playing games with the lungs; and this play gives rise to
breathing, sound and speech. These make contact between the sexes, that is,
between young men and girls, the very model of heavenly sweetness, because it
is pure.
Since in heaven the husband is wisdom and the wife is the
love of wisdom, both being spiritual, they cannot have any but spiritual
children conceived and born there. This is why these delights do not leave
angels depressed, as some on earth are, but cheerful; this is due to the
constant inflow of fresh strength to replace the former, at once renewing and
enlightening it. For all who reach heaven return to the springtime of their
youth, recovering the strength of that age, and keeping this for ever.' (CL 44)
No one
knows this heavenly secret but the
Our
cultural milieu is profoundly antagonistic to the Christian idea of marriage
for life. Though people marry in the Church and take the vow of “until death do
us part” more marriages are ended by divorce than marriages that last for life.
Modern ideas of individual freedom and the psychology of love yourself are
factors that fuel failed marriages. The
The
Writings reveal that conjugial love is the chief of all the loves in the
universe (CL 64, 222). In other words, conjugial love is the goal of creation
and all things are created to be in support of this love. Conjugial love is the
love that creates a conjugial couple, which is an angel (CL 42[2]). A conjugial
couple is united from within. This united status is brought about by means. It
requires adequate preparation and gradual development. The Lord gives
permission for the husband and the wife to experience a long sequence of
temptations in which the natural love they have for one another is transformed
into a spiritual and a celestial love. When we marry we are in our external
state. External marriages can be outwardly harmonious or disharmonious. The
couple can be friends or intimate enemies. But as we take up daily things from
the Writings we have the internal union more and more at heart. Everything that
is motivated by this interior idea of growing into an angel couple, is blessed
and forms the internal union. Without this motivation for an internal union
they remain in an external relationship, which is dissolved in the other life:
All,
as soon as they come into the other life, are recognized by their friends,
their relatives, and those in any way known to them; and they talk with one
another, and afterwards associate in accordance with their friendships in the
world. I have often heard that those who have come from the world were rejoiced
at seeing their friends again, and that their friends in turn were rejoiced
that they had come. Very commonly husband and wife come together and
congratulate each other, and continue together, and this for a longer or
shorter time according to their delight in living together in the world. But if
they had not been united by a truly conjugial love, which is a conjunction of
minds by heavenly love, after remaining together for a while they separate. Or
if their minds had been discordant and were inwardly adverse, they break forth
into open enmity, and sometimes into combat; nevertheless they are not separated
until they enter the second state, which will be treated of presently. (HH 494)
1. Achieving
An Internal
To achieve
an internal union that lasts the husband must have the conscious motive for
rearranging his mind and modifying his behavior in such a way as to be capable
of being united to his wife in eternity. There is special spiritual
power in this motive. With it we can resist the things that otherwise would
make us fail. Conjugial love motivates us to put the partner ahead of oneself for
the sake of interior union. This is the key-- for the sake of interior
union. Without it there is no power and we succumb to the usual forces of
darkness: anger, male chauvinism, dominion, ego, opposing loyalties, adultery,
gender politics, arrogance, selfishness, foolishness, meritoriousness,
self-pity, cowardice, cruelty, and so on. No other motive but heaven or
eternity can be high enough in the mind to trump all other motives. If a
husband has this motive he can overcome all the plagues in him from birth and
culture. Therefore he can suffer himself to be regenerated by the Lord. He can
stick out and not quit.
The
enduring motive for conjugial love vanquishes all natural resistance for it is
the highest love in the universe since creation (CL 64, 222). All other loves
are beneath it, under its command. So if a man hears of this love and develops
a rational understanding of it, he puts it at the very top of his motivational
hierarchy, right there with the Lord Himself. For the Lord is Conjugial Love in
Itself from which all conjugial love exists and has its being. If a man puts
conjugial love as high as the Lord because the Lord is Conjugial Love in
Itself, then the Lord can empower the man to win victory over all his
temptations. Only through victory over temptations can a husband let go of his
ego and culture. He cannot avoid the
suffering and the pain that comes with voluntarily giving up and shunning the
hereditary loves (or affections of lust). But the idea of conjugial love
renewed daily by the study and application of the Writings remains a steadfast
goal within which there already is some anticipatory feeling of heavenly
elation and bliss. For the Lord shows us our progression and this gives us full
confidence in the process that He supervises and oversees in far greater detail
than we ourselves can operate from.
New Church
men are specially situated today to make an especially important contribution
to society, culture, and religion, not just for the current generation, but all
future ones. We are only the sixth generation of the Second Coming (since 1771
with say 39 years per generation). Remember that this is the start of a never
ending civilization (xx). The Writings have been given as the last of all
revelations to all the generations to come with no end (xx). Do you not see
that this makes our responsibility special? The next generation will inherit
the ideas we take up from the Writings, and the Doctrine of the Church will get
passed on to the generations after that (CL 202). We are part of the transition
generation that functions as intermediary between natural marriages and
conjugial love. The ultimate transition of the generations from natural
external to celestial internal depends on us achieving victory in our mind
against the forces that want to prevent conjugial love from entering the human
race.
When man is
being instructed, there is a progression from memory-knowledges to rational
truths; further, to intellectual truths; and finally, to celestial truths,
which are here signified by the "wife." (AC 1495)
The highest
rational-spiritual level we can attain is called “celestial truths” and these
are represented in the Word as “wife,” not husband! The struggle is in our mind
as we compel ourselves to shun male prerogatives and the love of dominion in
every interaction we have with our wife all day long. This is not something
that depends on our image and impression management techniques. Every thought
we have, every preference and intention, fights against internal union because this
union means that the husband compels himself to act from the wife and not from
himself (see Chapter 9). Some men are willing to give up their external
independence for the sake of something they want more. But no man is willing to
give up his internal independence except for eternal union rationally
understood.
New Church
husbands today have available spiritual disciplines to win their battle for
conjugial love and change the line of inheritance for the male human race from
scortatory to chaste. Conjugial love is a boon to young people whom I think of
as “pre-marrieds” since the deep seated idea of conjugial love comes implanted
in Christian girls from nativity (CL 216, 457). Single men who have the
A young man becomes or is made a husband, because a husband
possesses elements taken from his wife, which increase his ability to receive
love and wisdom; these he did not have as a young man. These effects take place
in the case of those who enjoy truly conjugial love. (…)
I was convinced of the fact of this from the following
experience in the spiritual world:
Some men said that the relationship a man has with a woman
before marriage and the relationship he has with his wife after marriage are
similar. When they heard this, their wives became very offended and said,
"They are not at all alike! The difference is as the difference between
fantasy and reality."
To this the men retorted, "Are you not women as
before?" To which their wives responded with rising voice, "We are
not 'women' but wives! The love you feel
is a fantasy love and not a real one; therefore you speak in fantasy terms."
The men then said, "If you are not 'women,' still you
are married women." But they
replied, "In the early days of marriage we were married women; now,
however, we are wives." (CL 199)
Note that
three expressions are used in this quote to refer to women: (1) women, (2)
married women, and (3) wives. The husbands had to learn these distinctions from
their wives. “Woman” is a general term like “female” and “girl.” But “married
woman” is a more interior reference to women and therefore is of a higher
status. “Wife” is the most interior reference to a woman and therefore is the
highest status she desires from the inmost psychobiology within her. This is
because “wife” is used for her conjugial state in heaven, the highest state her
desire can support. A young man ought to look at all women as undergoing these
three states. When he sees a young unmarried girl he ought to say to himself,
She is someone’s wife in the future, therefore she is a wife even now, in her
inmost, for what is our future is in our inmost now since what is successive is
also simultaneous (see Chapter 5, Section 6). A “married woman” is the state of
a woman who is married and her husband is not in love with the conjugial. The
marriage is an external union without an internal with it. But later, when the
husband is regenerating and is preparing for conjugial love, she is called
“wife” which denotes their internal conjunction that is growing within their
external marriage. Knowing these secrets gives a young man a great advantage
since it gives him a stronger motivation to avoid scortations that prevent the
conjugial from developing within him.
I sometimes
wondered how it came about that the ultimate textbook on the marriage
relationship was written by a man who was never married while on earth.
Swedenborg did desire to marry but the woman he chose had another marriage
proposal she chose to accept (xx). There is no record I know of that he
thereafter ever tried to marry again. And yet it was his Divinely appointed
mission to write the ultimate textbook on the subject of marriage. One relevant
idea that came to me about it was when I read what Swedenborg wrote about
objectivity in his scientific approach:
I found, when intently occupied in exploring the
secrets of the human body, that as soon as I discovered anything that had not
been observed before, I began (seduced probably by self-love) to grow blind to
the most acute lucubrations and researches of others, and to originate the
whole series of inductive arguments from my particular discovery alone; and
consequently to be incapacitated to view and comprehend, as accurately as the
subject required, the idea of universals in individuals, and of individuals
under universals. …
I therefore laid aside my instruments, and
restraining my desire for making observations, determined rather to rely on the
researches of others that to trust my own. (EAK 18)
Swedenborg’s
mind was organized to be objective rather than following his own biases. He
realized that everyone has self-love and this leads the scientist to love his
own centrality through the centrality of his explanations, beliefs, and
persuasions. Rather than following objectively what is required for rational
analysis, one falls into the distortions of one’s own interpretations. I can
apply this to a partial explanation for why Swedenborg never got to be married
on earth when he had to compose that portion of the Word titled in full Delights
of Wisdom Relating to Conjugial Love Followed By Pleasures of Insanity
Relating to Licentious Love (First published 1768). Other translations use
Scortatory for Licentious.
2. Discrete and Reciprocal Relationship Between Man And Woman
This is a
book about the human mind as divided into two discrete races—male and female.
There is nothing in one that is the same as in the other (CL 46). The book
presents not his own observations, but his careful reports about angel couples
and the men and women in infernal co-habitations. These two types of
coupling between a male human and a female human are both present in our mind
while on earth. Swedenborg would have missed the relevant facts had he
studied the behavior of couples on earth as many researchers have done since.
He would not have had access to the internal life of the couple where the
affections are and the causes of union and disunion. The only objective and
scientific access possible to these inner facts about coupling is to observe
and interview angels and spirits of both sexes. This is what Swedenborg was
given access to by the Lord.
Studying
the book Conjugial Love gives us access to amazing information about
ourselves as men or women, and about how one can establish an internal union
with each other. If we succeed in this attempt we are guaranteed eternal
happiness and peace with our spouse. If we fail in this attempt we are
guaranteed endless misery forever. What a choice! And believe it or not, the
majority choose “guaranteed endless misery forever”! This amazing and sad
result is due to our ability before reformation to deny and ignore the reality
of this choice. Friend, give it much thought: When will you begin your
reformation? Why not now?
See the
related discussion on the Doctrine of the Wife in Chapter 9, Section 1.
3. Conjugial
Love Vs. Pornography And Adultery
Lascivious and
obscene thoughts are adulteries (AE 803)
Woman is the
life of wisdom. … To women is given a perception of the delights of conjugial
love; and because their whole body is an organ of that perception (CL 56)
Love of the married partner does not result from the sexual
embrace, as with adulterers, but the sexual embrace from the love of the
partner; so that the love of the partner does not depend on the fire of that
organ, but the reverse. The love of the partner is full of delights,
irrespective of sexual intercourse, and is a delightful dwelling together.
Between that love apart from the sexual embrace, and the sexual embrace itself,
there is a determination, just as there is between that which a man thinks from
the will, which is intention, and act, or speech. Between these, intervenes
determination, which is as it were the opening of the mind to doing a thing,
like the opening of a door. (SE 6110)
The
If
a man concentrates his love upon his wife, by shunning adultery as sin, then
love with its potency increases daily; but if men take from that love and
consume it with harlots, conjugial love becomes like chaff, and dies. (SE 6110)
The
Writings warn that we must guard ourselves from the influx of sexual feelings
from anyone not our spouse (AE 1004[5]). Obviously this will also lead young
people to want to avoid the many forms of “unchaste love” (CL 147):
pornography, sexually explicit entertainment, lyrics of promiscuity, and acting
in a sexually provocative manner in public. Besides the lyrics the social
context of pop culture is to lock the mind into corporeal consciousness. Mass
gatherings, swaying together, screaming, identifying with performers, admiring
their gross conduct, being a fan, participating in crowd behavior, dressing in
a certain way, wearing icons, making them the topic of discussion and focus, everything
done as participant in this sub-culture closes down the rational, freezes out
the conjugial, erodes morality, justifies permissiveness. And with this comes
impotence in men and their aversion for sex in particular and women in general.
There are some
in excrementitious hells who are addicted to variety [in sex], and by it have
extinguished the conjugial; and at the same time are voluptuous; they are in
the province of the intestines, under the former, where are everywhere sinks
and a foul odor; and everywhere there are caverns from which such an odor
exhales. (De Conj 94)
In recent
years there has been a tremendous demand by millions of men for a new drug that
helps restore what the Writings call “the fire of that organ” (quoted just
above SE 6110). But this is only a temporary slow down of the inevitable
permanent impotence and aversion for women that lies hidden within (CL 247).
The rise of the impotence drug is matched by a corresponding rise in the
production and marketing of pornography on the Web. I do not think this is
merely an accidental correlation. The causes of both phenomena are interrelated
spiritually. One has to do with hatred for innocence and the other with hatred
for conjugial love, which is also a hatred for chastity (CL 304[2]). This
inherited inner aversion for women can be laid aside in reformation and gradual
regeneration. The
Scortatory
love makes a person less and less human and virile, and conjugial love makes
him more and more human and virile. (CL 432)
Consider
that participating in sexually provocative situations will result in something
sexual entering the mind from a third person, thus not from the wife. The Lord
in the Writings warns us against this (AE 1004[5]). This is a matter of
cause-effect. Sexual activity is always spiritually caused. Allowing oneself
to be aroused by a sexual affection that is not from the wife is a spiritual act
with psychobiological consequences. Those who know that this is hurtful to
the development of their conjoint self (see Chapter 9, Section 9), will not
want to engage in such activities. Their aversion will come from within, out of
their freedom of choice and prudence in protecting their conjugial remains.
At first we
may be motivated to be chaste from an outward motivation to obey the wishes of
parents and authority figures. This outward social motive is in conflict with
another cultural motive, which is to experiment with and explore one’s
sexuality. The conflict frequently is won by the side that leads to scortatory
sexuality. This love is in agreement with inheritance, culture, and the
popularization of the unchaste. But the studious
(5) All the delights of truly conjugial love, even the end
delights, are chaste. This follows from
the foregoing considerations explaining that truly conjugial love is the
essence of chastity. And delights make
the life of this love.
I have indicated earlier how the delights of this love
ascend and enter heaven, and on the way permeate the joys of heavenly loves
experienced by angels of heaven. I have
also recounted how these delights ally themselves with the delights of
conjugial love in angels. Moreover, I have heard from angels that they perceive
these delights to be heightened in them and to become fuller as they ascend
from chaste married partners on earth.
And in response to some bystanders, who were unchaste - in reply to
their question whether they also experienced the end delights - the angels
nodded and quietly said, "What else?
Are they not delights of conjugial love in their fullest
expression?"
(Regarding the
source of the delights of this love and what they are like, see no. 69 above
and what is said in the narrative accounts, especially in those that follow.)
(CL 144)
Chastity in marriage does not come about through
renunciation of licentious relationships unless this is done in accordance with
religion. The reason is that a person without religion does not become
spiritual, but remains natural. And if a natural person renounces licentious
relationships, still his spirit does not renounce them. Consequently, even
though it seems to him that by renouncing them he is chaste, nevertheless
unchasteness still lies hidden within, like putrefaction in a wound only
superficially healed.
As seen above in
no. 130, conjugial love depends on the state of the church in a person. More on this subject may be seen in the
exposition of point (11) which follows below. (CL 149)
We say that fornication is a product of sexual love because
it is not sexual love, but arises from it. Sexual love is like a spring from
which both conjugial love and scortatory love can be drawn; and they can be
drawn by fornication, or without it. For everyone has sexual love in him, and
it either emerges or it does not. If it emerges before marriage in relations
with a woman of loose morals, it is called fornication; but if it does not emerge
until he has a wife, it is called marriage. If it occurs with another woman
after marriage, it is called adultery. Therefore, as stated, sexual love is
like a spring from which a rivulet of chaste as well as unchaste love can flow.
But it will be revealed in the following pages how much caution and how much
prudence is needed for chaste love to develop through fornication, and how much
imprudence for unchaste or scortatory love to develop through it. Can anyone
draw this conclusion, that a person who has fornicated cannot be more chaste
when he is married? (CL 445)
Web
pornographic sites have proliferated by the thousands to such an extent that
government and industry had to introduce filtering software for parents, schools,
and libraries, to reduce the facile access to pornography on the Web. The
overwhelming majority of these millions who access online pornography are men.
They look at photographs, watch videos, engage in scortatory chat room
discussions, pay to be allowed to watch “live cams” in the apartments of women
who sadly have been persuaded by men to earn a living in this way. The word
“sex” is by far the most frequent word entered into Web search engines.
Deliberate
adulterers are those who do so at the pleasure of the will. Confirmed
adulterers are those who do so through a wrong intellectual belief. Adulterers
on purpose are those who do so by being entrapped by the senses. Adulterers
with no purpose are those who have not the ability or freedom to consult their
intellect. It is the first two types of adulterers who become less and less
human; the second two types become human, as they renounce their errors and
then behave wisely. (CL 432)
Women are
forced by husbands and boyfriends to accept pornography as a normal thing for
men to do. Women are made to feel guilty and are punished by their partners
when the women express disapproval of their husband’s or boyfriend’s
consumerism of pornography. Society has put into place a culture of pornography
designed for women—movies, videos, nightclubs, magazines, TV shows that depict
and encourage, and try to normalize the idea of gender equity in pornography.
These are examples of how widespread and intense is the fight against the
conjugial in the culture around us. The
Conjugial love
cools as soon as it becomes divided, and the growing coldness causes it to die,
it being the heat of unchaste love that kills it. For two opposing feelings of
warmth cannot exist together at the same time without the one casting out the
other and depriving it of its vitality. (CL 147)
The casting
out of unchaste love must be a categorical and absolute stricture, at least in
our commitment and ideal, and the Lord will see to it that eventually nothing
of it is left. But if we allow it as “exceptions” from time to time, here and
there, the purity of the goal is compromised and injured. We cannot hide it
under the carpet or behind the cabinet for it will be found out in the
afterlife and shouted on the rooftop, to the embarrassment and shame of the
couple. Even if the couple is angelic otherwise, they are both ejected
from heaven each time the husband’s unchaste love returns to the forefront of
his mind. The Lord works to exile it to the far recesses of his mind but this
takes a lengthy and painful course. (xx)
It’s
important to keep in mind consciously and never forget what happens when we
allow ourselves to develop a taste for the lascivious and scortatory:
They who in the life of the body think lasciviously, and
give a lascivious turn to whatever others say, even to holy things, and this
even in adult and old age when nothing of natural lasciviousness incites, do
not desist or think and speak differently in the other life; and as there their
thoughts are communicated, and sometimes come forth into obscene
representations before other spirits, they give offense.
Their punishment is, that in the presence of the spirits
whom they have offended they are thrown prostrate and rapidly rolled over and
over like a roller from left to right, and then transversely in another
position, and so in another-naked before all, or half naked, according to the
nature of their lasciviousness, and at the same time they are inspired with
shame. Then they are whirled about by the head and feet, horizontally, as upon
an axis. Resistance is induced, and at the same time pain; for there are two
forces acting, one whirling around, the other backward, so that the punishment
is attended with the pain of being torn asunder.
After undergoing these penalties, an opportunity is afforded
the miserable sufferer of withdrawing himself from the sight of other spirits,
and a sense of shame is instilled into him. Yet there are those who try him to
see whether he still persists in such things; but so long as he is in a state
of shame and distress he is on his guard. Thus he seems to himself to be
hidden, although they know where he is. This punishment appeared in front, at
some distance.
There are also boys, youths, and young men who from the
madness and hot desire of their age have conceived abominable principles: as
that wives, especially those that are young and beautiful, ought not to be for
a husband, but for themselves and their like, the husband remaining only head
of the household and educator of the children. These are distinguished in the
other life by the boyish sound of their speech. They are behind at some height
there. Those of them who have confirmed themselves in such principles, and in
actual life conformable thereto, are grievously punished in the other life, by
having their joints put out of place and back again, or twisted one way and the
other, by spirits who can by their art induce upon them the fantasy of being in
the body, and at the same time make them feel bodily pain. By these violent
alternations, together with their struggles in resistance, they are so rent
that they seem to themselves as if dismembered and torn to bits, with frightful
pain; and this time after time, until being struck with horror at such
principles of life they cease to think in that way. (AC 829)
Better not
to attach ourselves to what is adulterous, pornographic, scortatory, or
lascivious. Since we feel attraction and delight at these things, we must
constantly identify these delights and condemn them, thus not allow ourselves
to accept them as allowed, legitimate, or harmless. It’s interesting to note
how common one hears the declaration that prostitution is a victimless crime.
Pornography and salacious entertainment are usually considered mild sins by
most Church going people. But you can see that they lead to a terrible fate.
Adulterers
progressively become less and less human, as the witness of my own eyes has
proved most clearly to me, having seen them in hell. There they are demons, and
when seen in the light of heaven, their faces are like boils, their bodies
hunchbacked, their conversation coarse, and their gestures theatrical. (CL 432)
Accepting
in ourselves the delight of pornography is adultery. In the young who are not yet
married it can be called pre-adultery. The latter leads to the former.
LOVE TRULY CONJUGIAL IS NAKED.
The angels of the third heaven are those who are in
celestial marriage more than others, for they are in love to the Lord, and
thence in the marriage of good and truth; whence also they are in conjugial
love more than other angels, and in innocence and chastity. These walk with a
cincture around the loins when abroad, and without the cincture when at home;
and yet in their nakedness, they look upon the consort as a consort, nor is
there anything lascivious therein. They say that to look at a consort clothed
detracts from the idea of marriage, and what is wonderful, nakedness does not
excite or stimulate; it is, however, as an internal bond of conjugial love.
In bed they lie conjoined as they were created, and sleep
so. They say that they cannot do otherwise, because conjugial love itself,
which is perpetual, conjoins; thus also the life of the one is communicated
with the life of the other, and the life of the husband becomes appropriated to
the wife; that it may be as we read of Adam when he saw Eve his wife: "Behold
my bone and my flesh," and also that "they were naked and not
ashamed," that is not lascivious; but as soon as Adam through his wife
receded from love to the Lord, which is meant by "the tree of life"
in Paradise (of which there, and Rev. 2:7), which happened because they acted
from themselves and their own proprium, namely, from the science and delight of
the natural man, then the marriage of good and truth perished, then nakedness
became lascivious, and the chastity of marriage failing, they were ashamed of
nakedness, and were clothed with fig-leaves, and afterwards with woolen
garments; thence by nakedness in the Word is meant lasciviousness, like that of
adultery. (De Conj. 66)
For more
discussion on this subject see all of Chapter 9, and especially Sections 1
through 11.
Chapter 7, Section 6
Every man as to his
spirit is in the spiritual world in some society there (DP 296)
The world of spirits, which is in the midst between heaven
and hell, and into which every man first comes after death, and is there
prepared, corresponds to the stomach, in which all the things put in are
prepared either to become blood and flesh, or to become excrement and urine,
the latter having a correspondence with hell, but the former with heaven. (AR
204)
“Every man
as to his spirit is in the spiritual world in some society there” (DP 296) What
a tremendous revelation to the human race! “Every man” refers to all those who
are born on some earth in the universe. The entire human race on the numberless
earths in the universe is of a dual constitution at birth: a spirit born in the
spiritual world in some spiritual society there, tied to a physical body born
in the natural world in some earthly society there. This dual citizenship is
the first phase of the life of a spirit. When the tie to the physical body is
broken, the spirit awakens in a spirit-body in the spiritual society they have
been all along. The spirit grows up along with the physical body. Children who
pass on prior to maturity, wake up in a child’s version of a spirit-body and go
through the experience of growing into mature adults under the care of angel
parents and teachers (xx). The spirit is
nothing else than the mind.
Whether you
say “my spirit” or “my mind” it is the same (xx). The spirit, or mind, is an
organic body constituted of spiritual substances. The shape and anatomy of the
spirit-body is identical to that of the physical body, so much so, that newly
awakened spirits at their arrival in the afterlife, cannot at first see a
difference, except that it is healthy and functional beyond what the physical
body was. The mind’s anatomy and physiology can be studied scientifically by
studying the anatomy of the physical body and considering each detail of
structure and function as a correspondence for organic components of the
spirit, or mind. For example, the mind’s two organs called the will and the
understanding, can be studied by applying correspondences to the interaction
between the heart and lungs, and supporting systems, considered in their
integration (xx).
The Lord
has now revealed to the human race that our mind is born and lives in the
spiritual world and is called a spirit. We are told that the purpose of this
revelation, known to the most ancients but long forgotten by the later
generations, is that we may be able to take charge of how the mind matures
while tied to the physical body. We live our eternal life in the spiritual
world by means of the spirit-body, which houses our mind and its organs and
leveled portions within that. This means
that the content of our understanding and loves determine the quality of our
life in eternity!
And
furthermore, as the following passage instructs, the content of the spirit
cannot be changed once it breaks the tie to the physical body.
The
state of man's spirit that immediately follows his life in the world being
such, he is then recognized by his friends and by those he had known in the
world; for this is something that spirits perceive not only from one's face and
speech but also from the sphere of his life when they draw near. Whenever
anyone in the other life thinks about another he brings his face before him in
thought, and at the same time many things of his life; and when he does this
the other becomes present, as if he had been sent for or called. This is so in
the spiritual world because thoughts there are shared, and there is no such
space there as in the natural world (see above, n. 191-199). (SS 494)
That
in respect to his interiors man is a spirit can be seen from the fact that
after his separation from the body, which takes place when he dies, man goes on
living as a man just as before. That I might be convinced of this I have been
permitted to talk with nearly everyone I had ever known in their life in the
body; with some for hours, with some for weeks and months, and with some for
years, and this chiefly that I might be sure of it and might testify to it. (HH
437)
New
arrivals in the world of spirits are called “novitiate spirits” (CL 461). They
are of two kind. Those who can acquire at least the first degree of spiritual-natural
concepts (or interior-natural)—they can enter one of the three heavens,
depending on the interiorness of their rational concepts. The second kind of
spirits that awaken in the afterlife, are not capable of acquiring any interior
concepts of rationality. It is said that they are not capable, but not because
they lack something, but because they are unwilling. They will enter one of the
many hell societies, depending on the corporeality of their material ideas.
Corporeal concepts are below the moral level of thinking, hence it is animal
rather than human. The moral level of thinking is intermediate between the
corporeal-sensuous and the natural-rational. Civil life requires that we think
at the moral level, though many individuals can get by in society by faking
moral behaviors purely by imitation, rather than conviction. In that case, they
are operating below the moral level.
Above the
moral level is the external rational level called the natural-rational. this is
not yet spiritual.
The human rational as to truth is of such a nature that it
cannot understand what the Divine is, for the reason that that truth is in
appearances; and therefore that which it cannot understand, it does not believe;
and by that which it does not believe it is not affected. (AC 2203)
Above the
natural-rational is the interior-natural—this is purely spiritual and can live
in heaven. Above the interior-natural (or spiritual-natural) is the
spiritual-rational also called the interior rational. This is the spiritual
mind. This is where the genuine human begins (xx). The spiritual and celestial
angels in the second and third heaven, live in this genuine human consciousness
and life.
The
interior-natural level of thinking is based on spiritual ideas only, and
nothing from natural-rational ideas, which are based on self-intelligence and
the world. But the interior-natural mind is filled with content by the laws of
correspondences, thus giving us a spiritual consciousness by correspondence,
of heavenly light and ideas. This level can think spiritually of
spiritual topics such as the Divine Human, spiritual love for the neighbor,
conjugial union, discrete degrees of correspondences, the Divine Laws of
Permissions, and many more. Until the interior-natural level is reached in our
thinking, we can only think naturally of spiritual topics such as
heaven, the Divine Human, or discrete degrees. Thinking of heavenly and
religious topics naturally leads to a worship without any spiritual interior,
so that in the afterlife the individual is unwilling to continue such worship,
rejects the religious topics altogether as false or delusionary. The
consequence for them is that they keep themselves forever in the spheres of
hell. Hence it is necessary for the mind to be regenerated while tied to the
physical body.
This regeneration involves learning
to detest our old sensuous loves and leaning to love new rational loves. For hell is within sensuous loves
and heaven is within rational loves. Sensuous loves in themselves are
sub-human. They become human when they are animated, or infilled, by rational
loves. In the unregenerate spirit, sensuous loves rule from themselves and
resist all attempts to be infilled by rational loves. Thus, inherited sensuous
loves want to remain infernal at all cost, since this is their only life from
themselves. They are not willing to be “subordinated” to rational loves, even
though by creation, they are intended to be subordinated, or else, we turn into
sub-human life called “infernal” or the level of life called “the hells.”
1. The Corporeal Sensuous Mind Tends Toward Hell
God gives
every unregenerate individual the power to compel sensuous loves to be
subordinated to rational loves. This power is exercised and centered in our
conscience. When we are willing to compel our sensuous loves to become
subordinated to rational loves, we are regenerate and begin life as a genuine
human being called the celestial state. There are three discrete degrees of the
heavens, corresponding to the three discrete degree in the human mind. Each
degree of heaven in the human mind is constructed out of rational truths we are
willing to believe and accept as the basis of our thinking. The source of every
rational truths is the Writings (xx). The three heavens are constructed out of
the ideas of angels there, as they study and understand the Writings (xx).
Heaven in the outward form in which Swedenborg visited them, is a rich sensuous
place of celestial beauty and delight far greater than its natural
representatives on earths, which are gross in comparison, and far less intense
and pleasurable than the heavenly sensuous life.
The
heavenly sensuous life is a spiritual sensuousness, while the infernal sensuous
life is a corporeal sensuousness. The latter is infernal, the former is
celestial. Giving up corporeal sensuousness for the sake of heavenly
sensuousness is a rational thing to do. Trying to hold on to corporeal
sensuousness reduces the consciousness of our spirit to the infernal level,
condemning ourselves to a life in hell to eternity. Regeneration is the process
by which we reject the corporeal sensuous dominion, by which it wants to rule
the entire spirit, turning our life into the sub-human level. This corporeal
self is an usurper. It has hijacked our entire mind, taken over the navigation
of our soul, and leading it down the road to hell and eternal misery.
The
corporeal mind takes over the entire spirit, allowing in only that kind of
rational concepts that foster its dominion, and spits out all rational ideas
that would compel it to give up dominion, and accept a status of obedience to
rational loves.
Rational
loves can only live or exist in us when given an outward body or “vessel” in
our understanding. Consider for example, the love of not wanting to injure the
neighbor. This love can exist in our will only if it has a support in the
understanding. We might for instance realize a truth of spiritual reality by
reflecting on what our conscience directs. We might think that it is the voice
of God that we can hear through our conscience; or we might think that it is an
angel or higher spirit in company with us and speaking through our conscience.
Or we might know the Writings and read that conscience is the Lord speaking
with us (xx). In all these instances, the love of not hurting others can have
an outward form of existence in life. This outward form is the ideas we have
about conscience, or the Divine commandment not to hurt others selfishly. These
are rational ideas because true, and only truths are part of reality. Falsified
truths create an unreality of delusional life, which is infernal.
2. Only Rational Loves Exist In Heaven
Rational
loves are in accordance with reality since reality is created by means of
Divine truths within which is Divine Love (xx). When we desire to be rational
enough to live in accordance with revealed truths, we are being regenerated for
heavenly life. Our reward is a sensuousness far superior in quality and
quantity to the meager pleasures and delights of corporeal sensuality that is
not yet subordinated to rational loves. This is quite obvious when you consider
that everyone who wants to be a first class athlete has to worked hard for
hours every day, at conditioning the physical body and sensuous mind. Exactly this logic applies to the mind, and
in order to become a first class human mind, we must think it worthwhile to
spend hours a day working for its development.
These
concepts about the spirit or mind, and the subordination of sensuous loves to
rational loves, are completely incomprehensible at the level of thinking called
corporeal or natural-sensuous. When these spiritual topics are defined for them
they deny that such things exist, or they reinterpret them in strictly
corporeal terms. Heaven cannot exist inside our sub-rational ideas, hence they who
remain in these corporeal and sensuous ideas, cannot approach any of the three
heavens when they arrive in the afterlife. The lowest heaven is created out of
interior-natural ideas, also called spiritual-natural ideas (xx). Any concept
in our interior-natural mind is spiritual, whereas any concept in the
natural-rational mind, is natural. The
natural-rational idea we have of spiritual topics is entirely a natural
conception. It is nothing but a pure correspondence of the spiritual idea.
The human rational as to truth is of such a nature that it
cannot understand what the Divine is, for the reason that that truth is in
appearances; and therefore that which it cannot understand, it does not
believe; and by that which it does not believe it is not affected. (AC 2203)
The
spiritual idea cannot be derived from the natural idea (xx).
In the same
way, the ideas based on sensuous experience from the world are “material ideas”
(xx). Those who are in these ideas when they arrive in the afterlife, cannot
support any other sphere of life but that which exhales form the hells (xx).
All things above the hells in the spiritual world are rational. The natural
heavens are created out of the interiors of the material ideas of those who
arrive in the afterlife with habits of good behavior out of conscience or
religion (xx). These interiors are called interior-natural thoughts, or the
spiritual-natural level of consciousness. But those who do not come with habits
of good behavior out of conscience or religion, are not capable of receiving
interior-natural ideas.
For them
heaven does not exist (AC 4622). Should they be brought there, they see
nothing, hear nothing, and then are quickly seized by dread and agony, and they
feel that life is draining out of them (AC 4416). Thus they immediately cast
themselves down, that is, down into their corporeal concepts, where they feel
revived. You can see how important it is therefore to acquire and hold on to
rational concepts of conscience, religion, and theistic science.
Those who are immersed in material ideas as a profession or life
philosophy are called in the Writings “the learned.” They more than others
suffer from the tyranny of their material ideas. Their life consists of trying
to cope in a spiritual world with ideas that apply only to the natural world.
They are therefore insane, even though they have all the knowledges and
expertise they brought with them in their memory. They are seen riding horses
backwards and trying to guide them in futility by pulling on the horse’s tail
(xx). They are seen walking on their hands with feet up in the air like
gymnasts (xx). The are able to make a logical argument to prove what is false,
like the statement that white is black and black is white (xx). Under the
weightiness of their material ideas and consciousness, they gradually sink down
into their own hells from which they refuse to emerge to eternity, such is the
self-hatred that the unregenerate proprium has. No one can be regenerated by
material ideas (xx).
All humans
are born in a society where they are socialized. It has been revealed that the
Lord sees to it that every child is exposed to rational ideas of religion, God,
heaven, morality, conscience, love, truth (AC 3494). These ideas are “remains”
in the interior mind that the Lord isolates, protects, and preserves for life
in heaven. As they grow up many reject the rational dualities they received as
children. They confirm themselves in their rejection of God by willing and thinking
daily without acknowledging God. They silence the voice of conscience within.
They avoid and hold in aversion rational dualities. When they arrive in the
world of spirits they are instructed in rational dualities, but they are
unwilling to accept them. They are therefore prepared for the “second death”
(AC 853) by which they enter one of the hell societies.
All this
process would not make sense unless we kept in mind this all important fact:
Every concept or truth is the external form of some affection to which it is
coupled. No concept exists in the mind unless it is so coupled to an affection.
It is the affection (or love) that animates the concept and makes it alive in
our understanding. So when we consider the spirits who reject and avoid rational
concepts (or rational truths) we must focus on the “avoid” part. This is the
affection. It’s the hatred for truths, or the love for falsities, by which
spirits send themselves to hell, and keep themselves there to eternity. For any
time they stop hating the truth, they can rise, even to heaven (AC 8945[4]).
Hell is not a punishment for past sins, but a state of mind that hates truths.
And heaven is within truths. Hence hating truths means hating heaven. And to be
in heaven, one must love truths, for
heaven is the state of mind when in truths, that is, in the affection for
truths.
The
spiritual world refers to heaven, hell, and the world of spirits where we first
arrive upon death of the physical body. The Lord insures that everyone who
arrives has some rational remains. Even those who killed their conscience and
acquired an aversion for God and truths, still have trust and affections of
innocence in their remains. Furthermore, all socialized ideas and education
have some rational concepts in them. Natural language has a syntax that is
based on rational rules so that when we learn to talk we also acquire rational
concepts. Those who deny truths are still able to become scientists, doctors,
and leaders in society. This is possible because they retain the rational
concepts in their external mind so that they may appear normal and be
successful. But in their interior mind, they reject these rational truths and
love to think insanely (HH 482). When they arrive in the world of spirits they
discard the external mind, and what is left, is their affection for falsity and
evil. They cannot approach heaven, and they sink down into the lower regions of
the mind called the hells. There they meet others with who they live in a
society of misery and insanity together.
Since the
spirit is the mind (TCR 156), the spiritual world is in accordance with the
mind, or if you prefer, the mind is in accordance with the spiritual world. All
the degrees of the spiritual world are also the degrees of the mind. Therefore
rational concepts (or spiritual truths) become the power of navigation in the
afterlife. Higher levels of mind require more interior rational concepts of the
Lord and His Laws. We are conjoined to the Lord through rational truths or
concepts, and the more interior these concepts we understand and live by, the
closer is the conjunction, that is, the closer we can get to the spiritual Sun
where the Lord is (xx).
3. Revelation
Of Interior Rational Truths
In the
Second Coming the Lord has revealed interior rational truths that He could not
yet reveal to His disciples (AE 815[7]).).The human barely begins with the
external rational level, as this is only the outer court yard of the human mind
(AC 978, 4286; AE 355:14). The genuine human doesn’t begin until we reach a
state higher than the external rational:
The human commences in the inmost of the rational … (AC
2666)
The Divine Human … begins in the rational … (AC 2827)
The
external rational contains things from the natural mind and the spiritual mind,
but the interior rational contains only things from the spiritual world. This
is the spirit that can function in the afterlife, not loaded down by natural
things which adhere to the external rational mind. Every truth in the Writings
is from the perspective of the spiritual world not from the natural. This is
why it abhors all nonduality whose ideas and concepts are from the natural
mind. When the natural mind adheres to the spiritual mind (or interior
rational), the spirit in the afterlife sinks to the lower regions of the spiritual
world and cannot support the atmospheres at higher levels. Therefore nothing
can be taken up from the Writings by the
It
is only suggested here how the Lord thought concerning the appearances that had
engaged the attention of His first rational, namely, that they were not to be
trusted, but Divine truths themselves, however incredible these might appear in
the view of that rational. For such is the case with all truths Divine; if the
rational be consulted respecting them, they cannot possibly be believed, for
they surpass all its comprehension. For example: that no man, spirit, or angel,
lives from himself, but the Lord only; and that the life of a man, spirit, or
angel is an appearance of life in him; this is repugnant to the rational, which
judges from fallacies, but still it is to be believed because it is the truth.
(AC 1936)
But when
others read the Writings the appearance to them is that much of it is natural
and sensuous (AC 3310). For instance the many Memorable Relations that appear
and reappear in most of the works are seen by the natural mind as natural—like
a movie about Shangri-La or 20,000 leagues below the ocean, perhaps as science
fiction or fiction and philosophical allegory. But in the
Consider
another example. Some may read in the Writings various details presented about
Swedenborg’s spiritual encounters in the spiritual world, meeting various
spirits from various planets and galaxies (EU 1). The natural mind takes this
up in a similar way to a movie like Star Trek or Star Wars or the newspaper
articles about aliens and flying saucers. But the
Another
example is the description of a frequent event in the spiritual world: debating
conferences where certain particular spirits are invited or appear together.
The natural mind only sees men of various backgrounds and beliefs arguing
against each other, every one from his convictions. Further, what they argue
about is banal and obvious. But the
The same
applies to the abstract theology in the rest of the Writings. The natural mind
is bored, disinterested, repelled by these complications of our reality. Why
try to figure out how God is in us and we are in God and still we are not God
or near God. Why break the head with figuring out all those thousands of
correspondences about little insignificant things like what Aaron the High
Priest of the ancient Hebrews wore on his robe, on his chest, on his head, and
the sizes of this or that stone or wall in an ancient temple in Jerusalem that
no longer exists.
'There was so to speak a work of sapphire [stone]' means
that it is translucent with inner truths on that level, and that all things in
it are translucent from the Lord. This is clear from the meaning of 'a work of
sapphire' as the character of the literal sense of the Word when the internal
sense is discerned within it, that is, when Divine Truth emanating from the
Lord, as it is in heaven, shines through it.
For the Word is Divine Truth emanating from the Lord. In
origin it is Divine, but as it passes through the heavens it is celestial in
the inmost heaven, spiritual in the second or middle heaven, spiritual-natural
in the first or lowest heaven, and natural and worldly in the world; this last
is its character in the sense of the letter intended for people there. From
this it is evident that the sense of the letter, which is the lowest in order,
contains a spiritual and a celestial level of meaning, and inmostly the Divine
Himself. And since these inner levels are contained in the lowest or literal
sense and are seen by those who understand the Word in a spiritual manner, that
sense is represented by 'a work of sapphire', which lets rays of heavenly light
through, that is, which is translucent. (AC 9407)
This
passage clearly teaches that the Word of the Second Coming “is Divine Truth
emanating from the Lord.” Divine Truth coming down from the Lord must pass
through several stages of perception and understanding in our mind. This Divine
Truth is contained in the inmost of the sentences of the Writings. As the
passage above says, “the sense of the letter, which is the lowest in order,
contains a spiritual and a celestial level of meaning, and inmostly the Divine
Himself.” The inner spiritual and celestial levels within the literal “are seen
by those who understand the Word in a spiritual manner.” Prior to our
reformation in adult life, we understand the Writings in a natural manner, but
after reformation, in a spiritual manner.
The
Writings explain how we can perceive the inner sense contained in its literal
language by means of a comparison:
[2] To give some idea of that translucence, let human speech
serve to illustrate it. Such speech has its origin in the end a person has in
view which he wishes to make known through speech. This end is his love; for a
person has what he loves as his end in view. From that end arises the person's
thought, and finally his speech. Anyone who stops to think properly about this
can see and discern the truth of it.
The fact that the end is the primary component of speech is
clear from the general rule that all intelligence has an end within it, and
devoid of the end it is not intelligence. And everyone knows that thought is a
secondary component arising from the first, for nobody can speak without
thinking or think without having an end in view. The fact that spoken words
ensue from this, and that these are the final component, which is properly
called speech, is also well known.
All this being so, when a person pays attention to what
another utters he pays attention not to the words the speaker uses but to the
meaning conveyed by them which is present in the speaker's thought. And one who
is wise pays attention to the end in view that has given rise to the thought
expressed in speech, that is, he pays attention to what the speaker's aims are
and what it is he loves. These three components are present in human speech, in
which the spoken words serve as the outward form.
In other
words, if someone says to me, “I need to talk to you right away,” my
interpretation is not that the person needs to talk to me, but rather, that the
person needs to solve some problem and thinks that I can be of help. I must
extract a different sentence from the original in order to understand the individual’s
goal or motivation: “He has a problem I can help with.” this extracted sentence
is more interior than the external literal: “I need to talk to you right away.”
In a similar manner, the literal of the Writings might say, “Woman is the life
of wisdom” (CL 56). A more interior perception of this sentence is obtained
when we think that “woman” represents the Church (xx) and “wisdom” represents a
man who is being regenerated by the Lord (xx). And so “Woman is the life of
wisdom” means spiritually that the Church is what makes the intelligence of a
regenerated man. And “the Church” refers to the spiritual Doctrine in our
understanding (xx). Wisdom refers to our spiritual understanding. Hence, the
sentence “Woman is the life of wisdom” means that our spiritual intelligence
comes from the spiritual Doctrine in our understanding.
Continuing
with the Number quoted above:
[3] This comparison enables one to gain some idea regarding
the Word in the letter. For those in heaven pay attention to the Word in the
letter and perceive things there in exactly the same way as anyone is
accustomed to perceive a person's thought as it presents itself in spoken
words, or in the inmost heaven as anyone is accustomed to perceive a person's
aims or end in view. But the difference is that when someone reads the sense of
the letter of the Word this is not heard or understood in heaven, only the
internal sense, because in heaven they perceive solely the spiritual and
celestial levels of the Word, not the natural level of it. The one sense
accordingly passes over into the other, for they correspond to each other and
only things which have a correspondence have been used in the writing of the
Word. (AC 9407)
Thus, as we
read the sentence “Woman is the life of wisdom” in Conjugial Love 56, the angels with us are not thinking of a woman
but of the Church, or, of the spiritual Doctrine that is from the Word. In
heaven they do not at all perceive the literal of the Writings, but only its
spiritual sense, even though the Word in heaven is written down in a script.
The angels read the Word and enlightened by the Lord as to the inner sense
contained in the letter. They do not attend to the literal of the Word they
have, but to the meaning contained within. This is where their love is, in
spiritual meanings that cannot be expressed in the letter of either a natural
or a spiritual language. As we are being regenerated by the Lord, the spiritual
sense of the Writings are more and more revealed to us by enlightenment, so
that we perceive like the angels, and not like the unregenerate natural man who
reads the Writings. Prior to our reformation in adult life we are unregenerate
and cannot believe that the Writings have an internal sense:
But a person who is unable to think on a higher level of
understanding, that is, on a level altogether above material things, cannot
grasp any of this, not even the idea that it is possible for a sense to exist
in the Word other than the one perceived in the letter. If that person is told
that the letter holds within itself a spiritual sense which has to do with
truth, and that this in turn holds within itself a celestial sense which has to
do with good, and also that these senses shine through the literal sense, he
will be taken aback at first, then dismiss the idea as nonsense, and finally
ridicule it. Actual experience has shown me that this is what people are like
in the Christian world at the present day, especially the learned, and that
those who reason against that truth boast of being wiser than those who uphold
it. (AC 9407:[4])
The
reference here to “the Christian world” is to our unregenerate state,
regardless of our religious background. Prior to reformation we are called
“Christian” but after reformation we are called “true Christians” (AC 1141; TCR
342; BE 5). In our unregenerate state we are also called “the learned” who
reason against the spiritual sense of the Writings. “If that person is told
that the letter holds within itself a spiritual sense, ... he will be taken
aback at first, then dismiss the idea as nonsense, and finally ridicule it.”
But note well this warning:
Henceforth the spiritual sense of the Word will be imparted
solely to him who from the Lord is in genuine truths. The reason of this is
that no one can see the spiritual sense except from the Lord alone, nor unless
from Him he is in genuine truths. For the spiritual sense of the Word treats
solely of the Lord and His kingdom; and this is the sense in which are His
angels in heaven, for it is His Divine truth there. To this sense a man can do
violence if he has a knowledge of correspondences, and wishes by means of it
and from self-intelligence to investigate the spiritual sense of the Word. For
through some correspondences with which he is acquainted he may pervert the
meaning of it, and may even force it to confirm what is false, and this would
be doing violence to Divine truth, and also to heaven. And therefore if anyone
purposes to open that sense from himself and not from the Lord, heaven is
closed; and then the man either sees nothing, or else becomes spiritually
insane. (SS 26)
We cannot
see the spiritual sense of the Writings merely by applying correspondences we
have learned in the literal, because “the spiritual sense of the Word will be
imparted solely to him who from the Lord is in genuine truths.” This a
protection the Lord provides to insure that the spiritual sense be not
“violated” and “perverted” by those who proceed form self-intelligence, and we
proceed by self-intelligence when we are not yet reformed.
When the
Writings are read by the natural mind, one does not see where the spirit is.
The natural mind wants to make up a different spirituality than the rational,
and invents for itself a different route to heaven, that is, to imaginary heavens.
R. Waldo Emerson, was the founder or promoter of transcendentalism and author
of many profound Christian sermons that are still being read by many people
today. In his well known book Representative Men he chose Swedenborg as
the greatest mystical philosopher of all times. But even Emerson could not see
any use for these detailed explanations about the temple, the sacrifices, the
rituals, etc. that fill the pages of the 12-volume Arcana Coelestia. He
just couldn’t see the spiritual in it, just a very elaborate semantic scheme
called correspondences, somewhat like poetry.
Even
if these matters were described they would not be understood except by those
who see with heavenly perception; nothing at all would be understood by those
who see with merely natural perception. … For natural light does not render any
spiritual truth visible unless the light of heaven is flowing into it. (AC
4302)
When
anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil
one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown
along the path. (Matthew 13:19)
He
told them, "The secret of the
Looking
at his disciples, he said: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the
He
said, "The knowledge of the secrets of the
To be the
Lord’s disciple means to believe in His Word. This is the beginning of all
wisdom and sanity. When reading the Writings not as the Word, it appears
devoid of spirituality. For instance, Emerson remained unimpressed by
Swedenborg’s Memorable Relations about his encounters with the angelic and
hellish societies. The angels sounded too much like Swedenborg himself, he
said. It was a literary device, or trick, to discuss his theological ideas.
Concerning
this, Bishop W. F. Pendleton in his book “Topics From the Writings”
(Academy, 1928), mentions that it is on account of this that Emerson cast doubt
on the entire works of Swedenborg as genuine revelation. Pendleton also refers
to Swedenborg’s reply to those who urged him not to publish the Memorable
Relations included in his doctrinal writings for fear that readers would
discount the rest for dismissing this as imaginative fantasies. Swedenborg
wrote to Count Hopken that he was commanded by the Lord to publish them
(Documents, I: p.66; II: 409, 416). Pendleton points out that the Memorable
Relations are the “historicals of the literal sense, which are the first
introduction to the spiritual truth of the Word. It may be said that the
Memorabilia are the historicals of the spiritual world.” (p. 1).
The
Memorable Relations give us a spiritual-geographic description of the human
mind as well as the spiritual world. In addition to their amazing content they
function as heavenly gate keepers or Cherubim (TCR 260) to all those who end up
rejecting the Divinity of every word and sentence (SS 35). The Lord foresees
this and provides for them that they may not be spiritually injured through
profanation, a fate worse than any other evil (AC 8882). Children are admitted
because they believe everything and the Memorable Relations helps them form an
attraction to the Writings. For the
CONCERNING
[MY] REVELATIONS.
There
are spirits who are averse to anything being said concerning the things
revealed [to me], but it was replied that they are instead of miracles, and
that without them men would not know the character of the book, nor would they
buy it, or read it, or understand it, or be affected by it, or believe it - in a
word, that they would remain in ignorance [of the whole subject] nor would wish
to hear anything respecting the interiors of the Word, which they regard as
mere phantasies. Such as are simply men of learning will for the most reject
them. - 1748, December 9. (SE 4123)
The style
of the language of angels in the Memorable Relations does sound like Swedenborg
talking and thinking. Pendleton asks: “Does Swedenborg reproduce the language
of the angels in relating the arcana of the spiritual world?” He points that
angels and spirits make use of the language of the individual to whom they
speak (AC 1637, HH 255, DLW 275, SD 3157, etc.). And so the transcript of the
dialog between Swedenborg and the inhabitants of the world of spirits is through
the natural mind of Swedenborg. In
one place he says, “I collected into a summary these things from their
discourse” (CL 183), making it clear that a natural transcript of a spiritual
dialog is going to sound like the individual who records it.
The
important focus for the
5. Genuine
Images and Maps Of The Spiritual World
Bishop Pendleton
refers to Apocalypse Explained 410
where we read that only those can understand the internal sense of the Word who
have formed for themselves genuine images of the spiritual world. Only in this
way can one understand rationally what the Word teaches concerning the required
sequence of stages in the regeneration of the human mind. The mountains, the
caves, the dragons, the lakes, the scorpions, the heavenly mansions,
resuscitation, the enemies of God, the spiritual species and sub-species of the
human race, and many more things are mentioned and discussed in the Old
Testament and New. Outside the
These are
the things that are to be found in the spiritual world. The Old Testament and
New give many details about the spiritual world and the human mind. We would
not be able to know this or to imagine it from the doctrinal parts of the
Writings alone, without the Memorable Relations.
A few years
ago I made a one time semester-long attempt to teach about the inner sense of
the Bible as a college course in a State institution of higher learning, thus
in a non-religious context. Students had to learn to read a book from the
Writings and write a report on it from the perspective of psychology and human
behavior (see Note 10 at end). No one was willing to take the Memorable
Relations in their literal sense and presentation as actual events Swedenborg
participated in. Only the New Church mind is capable, because willing, to see
that the Memorable Relations are real events equivalent to the historicals in
the Word about which the Writings say that they fully accurate by the Lord’s
Providence (AC 2135). The
And
he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little
children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 18:3)
Jesus
said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the
kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." (Matthew 19:14)
A wonderful
little book titled “The Bible That Was Lost, Now Found” started out as a long
letter to his family written by John Bigelow (xx). He tells about being held up
by a storm in a hotel on a trip during
which time a man showed him a copy of Arcana Coelestia, which he read with
intense interest and amazement. The result was that he suddenly regained his
respect and love of the Bible which he had given up over the years. He was a
scholar, the founder of the New York Public Library, which has a superlative
reputation among historians of early librarianship (xx). He was troubled by
numerous passages in the Holy Book that portrayed God like a petulant human
king and the passages that made no sense or were repulsive and dogmatic.
Besides, were not most of the Ten Commandments invented by societies long
before Moses brought them down from
The
Writings give a tremendous advantage in understanding the Bible. The literal of
the Old and New Testaments are such that they cannot survive the blow of
modernism in the mind. One can eject modernism from the Sunday mind on the
basis of conviction and persuasion. This is done by Christians today. But we
know from the Writings that persuasive faith is useless in the other life for
it drops off as it is unattached to our inner loves (NJHD 118). And so without
the Writings the Bible may indeed be lost. The
The
For
additional discussion on the Writings as the Word, see Chapter 8, Section 4.b.
Chapter 7, Section 7
So it is that the dwellings of angels are in heaven, to all
appearance separate from the places where people on earth live; but the angels
are still present with human beings in their affections for good and truth.
Their being seen to be apart is an appearance, as can be established from the
section in HEAVEN AND HELL dealing with space in heaven ... (LJ 9:[4])
Consider
this fundamental duality of the
ALL PEOPLE WHO HAVE EVER BEEN BORN SINCE THE BEGINNING OF
CREATION AND HAVE DIED ARE IN HEAVEN OR IN HELL (LJ 23)
Nonduality
of various types assail and oppose this simple duality. One opposition thinks
that it’s not simple but simple-minded to think in either/or categories and
always advocates shades of good and shades of evil, shades of truth and shades
of fantasy. The absoluteness of the duality is beyond belief to the natural
mind informed by the sensuous data of the physical world. Another opposition is
that it’s dogmatic to place one’s beliefs in the heaven category and other
people’s beliefs in the hell category. Actually, what the Writings do is to
specify that all belief systems are from hell except those of genuine religion
in which revelations were given through Sacred Scripture. This is on account of
the fact that the human race has turned away from revelation and turned to
people made reality based on materialism.
This
insanity led to the appropriation of evil to the individual by doing the
opposite of the good that flows in from the Lord into every human being. This
influx from the Lord by heaven is turned into its opposite and the result is
willing evil and thinking falsities that go with those evils. The way evil is
appropriated is by loving it. Our loves constitute the mind just like wood
constitutes the table. Take away the wood (substance), and there is no table
(form). Thus the wood cannot be taken away from the table. Similarly with the
mind: love is the substance in it; thoughts are the many forms it takes. Take
away the substance (love) and there are no forms (thoughts). But without
thoughts there is no life in the mind for our thoughts make our conscious self
and the comprehension of our reality. Without thoughts there is no human life
(xx).
So the evil
loves cannot be taken away from the human race without destroying it. Culture
and heredity transmits these evil loves across the generations. All new evil
loves acquired by an individual is added to the transmission. You can see that
after thousands of generations on this planet the evil loves have so permeated
the human race that it cannot be saved for heaven except by rebirth and
regeneration. Those who do not suffer themselves to be reborn and regenerated
remain with their evil loves. When they reach the afterlife these evil loves
causes them to sink lower and lower in their mind until they settle in states
of mind called hell. The Writings describe these states in great detail. The
Lord obviously wants the
So we don’t
keep any of the dilemmas we struggle with before we are reformed and
regenerating. These struggles prior to reformation are entirely different from
the struggles of regeneration. The natural struggles prior to reformation are
the struggles of insanity and myths while the struggles after the reformation
are the struggles of wisdom. This is a discrete duality—before and after
reformation. Nothing is the same. The struggles of wisdom are those we have
when we think from knowledge and principles we take up from the Writings. Then
we fight from rational truth against the insane beliefs of nonduality in the
natural mind. This battle is from heaven. But in the struggles of insanity we
fight false beliefs by means of other false beliefs, thus never getting to
sanity and truth. Because sanity and truth cannot go with evil loves—a Law of
Divine Providence, hence reality.
And so it
simplifies things for the
Everything
celestial flows into something spiritual, and everything spiritual into
something natural, and it terminates in the last of this, which is physical and
material, and there abides. Without such a final abode for intermediates to
flow into, there would be no other permanence than that of a house built in the
air. The human race is therefore the base and foundation of the heavens. (De
Verbo 3, LJ 10)
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. But when the
spirit of man is in company with spirits in their world, he is also in
spiritual thought and speech with them, because his mind is interiorly
spiritual but exteriorly natural; therefore by means of his interiors he
communicates with spirits, while by means of his exteriors he communicates with
men. By such communication man has a perception of things, and thinks about
them analytically. If it were not for such communication, man would have no
more thought or other thought than a beast, and if all connection with spirits
were taken away from him, he would instantly die. (TCR 475)
1. We
Are Created Dual Citizens In Two
Worlds
The
The presence of angels and spirits with human beings and in
their affections has been granted me to see a thousand times from their
presence and dwelling with me. But angels and spirits do not know with which
human beings they are, neither do human beings know with which angels and spirits
they live; the Lord alone knows and arranges this. (LJ 9)
Everyone is in his spirit associated with people like
himself in the spiritual world, and is so to speak one with them. I have often
been allowed to see the spirits of people still alive, some of them in
communities of angels there, and others in communities of hell. I have been
allowed to talk with them for days, and I was astonished to find that the
person, who was still alive in the body, knew nothing at all of it. (TCR 14)
People
understand horizontal communities because it fits a nonduality or continuum
from closer regions to farther regions of interaction between communities and
nations. But only dualism gives one a knowledge of the vertical community
connecting the minds of those in the spiritual world and the minds of those
still in this world. The Lord manages these connections through the Laws of
Correspondence and from an absolute and total perspective that has all events
in view in their repercussions to eternity.
The Lord
uses these interconnections between minds to animate them and give them life
for no mind has life in it but only flowing into it, as an organ of reception.
Hence the principle that no one is born for self only, but everyone is born for
others as well. Every individual’s unique contribution to the perfecting of
humankind is thus foreseen by the Lord. Through these endless interconnections
of each mind with all other minds, the Lord gradually creates and builds up the
Grand Human, which is all of humankind seen as one created Individual, united
into a perfection of integration. As this perfection of the Grand Human
increases the bliss, happiness, goodness, wisdom, and humanity of it increases.
And this means that the bliss, happiness, goodness, wisdom, and humanity of every
individual in the Grand Human also increases to the same degree. This is what’s
at stake in our daily choices for regeneration while we are on earth. We either
join the Grand Human and see our bliss and humanity increase in perfection to
eternity; or we do not. And that means joining the Grand Monster which is
outside the Grand Human and incapable of becoming part of it. The Grand Human
is made of all the societies of heaven; the Grand Monster is made of all the
societies of hell. The Lord gave Swedenborg the ability to observe and see both
(INV 52).
Does this
not simplify everything for the
The
The
IV.
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.
(…)
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. (…) (TCR 475)
Every man from infancy even to old age is changing his
locality or situation in that world. When an infant he is kept in the eastern
quarter towards the northern part; when a child, as he learns the first lessons
of religion, he moves gradually from the north towards the south; when a youth,
as he begins to exercise his own thoughts, he is borne southward; and
afterwards when he judges for himself and becomes his own master, he is borne
into the southern quarter towards the east, according to his growth in such
things as have regard interiorly to God and love to the neighbor. But if he
inclines to evil and imbibes it, he advances towards the west. (TCR 476)
But it must be understood that the Lord does not transfer
man to this or that place, but man transfers himself in different ways. If he
chooses good, he together with the Lord, or rather the Lord together with him,
transfers his spirit towards the east. But if man chooses evil, he together
with the devil, or rather the devil together with him, transfers his spirit
towards the west. It must be noticed that where the term heaven is here used,
the Lord also is meant, because the Lord is the all in all things of heaven;
and where the term devil is used, hell also is meant, because all who are there
are devils. (TCR 476)
If every thing
that a man thinks flows into him from others the fault seems to rest with those
from whom it comes. Nevertheless, the fault is in him who receives, because he
receives it as his own; and he neither knows nor desires to know otherwise. For
everyone desires to be his own, and to be led by himself, and especially to
think and to will from himself; this is freedom itself and it appears as his
proprium in which every man is. Therefore, if he knew that what he thinks and
wills flows in from another he would seem to himself to be bound and captive
and no longer master of himself; and thus all the delight of his life, and at
length his human itself, would perish.
[3] That this is so I have often seen proved. It was granted
to some spirits to perceive and to feel that they were being led by others.
Thereupon they were so enraged that they became as it were demented; and they
said they would rather be kept bound in hell than not be allowed to think in
accordance with their will and to will in accordance with their thought. Not to
be allowed to do so they called being bound as to life itself, which was harder
and more intolerable than being bound as to their body. Not to be allowed to
speak and act in accordance with their thought and will they did not call being
bound; because the delight of civil and moral life, which consists in speaking
and doing, acts as the restraining influence and, at the same time, mitigates
the restraint. (DP 294)
The wicked,
while still in the world, the Lord governs in hell. This is because man as to
his spirit is in the spiritual world and in some society there, in an infernal
society if he is wicked, and in a heavenly society if he is good; for man's
mind, which in itself is spiritual, cannot be anywhere but among the spiritual,
into whose company he also comes after death. (DP 307)
2. A
More Effective Self-Management Technique
Knowledge
that the Lord associates us with a vertical community moment by moment (AC
4329, 227; TCR 14; DP 288, 290) bestows upon the
Thus we
must read the Writings daily to discover what are the truths we must apply to
each of these things that enter us by the thousands every hour. The unexamined
life cannot be saved. The Lord strives constantly to subtly bend or influence
our thoughts through switching around the societies from which we receive
influx moment by moment (AC 8794, AE 1164). But the Lord can speak to our
conscious mind only through the Writings (xx). Hence our mind needs His
Divine Dialogue like our body needs water every few hours.
The Lord is
continually speaking with man, but quite differently with one man than with
another. With those who suffer themselves to be led away by evil spirits, the
Lord speaks as if absent, or from afar, so that it can scarcely be said that He
is speaking; but with those who are being led by the Lord, He speaks as more
nearly present; which may be sufficiently evident from the fact that no one can
ever think anything good and true except from the Lord. (AC 904)
As it is
desirable that the origin of perception, internal dictate, and conscience,
should be known, and as at the present day it is altogether unknown, I may
relate something on the subject. It is a great truth that man is governed by
the Lord by means of spirits and angels. When evil spirits begin to rule, the
angels labor to avert evils and falsities, and hence arises a combat. It is
this combat of which the man is rendered sensible by perception, dictate, and
conscience. By these, and also by temptations, a man might clearly see that
spirits and angels are with him, were he not so deeply immersed in corporeal
things as to believe nothing that is said about spirits and angels. Such
persons, even if they were to feel these combats hundreds of times, would still
say that they are imaginary, and the effect of a disordered mind. I have been
permitted to feel such combats, and to have a vivid sense of them, thousands
and thousands of times, and this almost constantly for several years, as well
as to know who, what, and where they were that caused them, when they came, and
when they departed; and I have conversed with them. (AC 227)
For
additional discussion on the vertical community see Note 13 at end. See also
the discussion in Chapter 8 Section 1.
3. Spirituality
Is Not Visible In The Letter
In the
Writings the spiritual refers to what is in heaven and the Church on earth. For
instance:
It is well
known that the Word is spiritual, but this spirituality is not visible in the
letter, for the content of the letter is worldly, especially in the historical
sections. But when it is read by man the worldly content in it becomes spiritual
in the spiritual world, that is, among the angels. For the angels are unable to
think except in a spiritual way about anything whatever, and so cannot think of
'dwelling in the land' except in a spiritual way. Thinking in a spiritual way
is thinking about the things that belong to the Lord's kingdom, and so about
those that belong to the Church. (AC 4480).
An acceptance of and belief in what is true, together with a
life of goodness, since these two come from the Divine, constitute true
spirituality within rationality, whereas an acceptance of and belief in what is
false, together with a life of evil, are the opposite. For the fact that wholly
sensory- and bodily-minded people are like this, see 6844, 6845, 6948, 6949.
(AC 6971)
The meaning
of spirituality in the Writings is similar to the use of the word “holy.”
Everything that is from the Lord is holy, while anything from self is false and
not spiritual. Whatever is called “spiritual” in nonduality is therefore a
misuse of the idea. I coined the phrase “corporeal spirituality” to refer to
the use of spirituality in nonduality systems. This phrase would be a
contradiction in terms in the
No such
descriptions are given in the Writings about the spiritual and spirituality. As
it clear from the quote above “An acceptance of and belief in what is true,
together with a life of goodness, since these two come from the Divine,
constitute true spirituality within rationality” (AC 6971). Spirituality is
within rationality, not corporeality or sensory experience. Knowing and believing
truth from revelation—this is spirituality. And within this true spirituality
there are degrees of interiorness or closeness to the Lord. The most external
form of spirituality (the lowest) is that within the external rational. This is
in the natural mind and the only spirituality possible there is what is called
“a representative of the Church.” (AC 4288) When the Jewish Church was
established through Moses and Aaron, a “representative of a Church” was created
by the Lord with that people.
Their level
of thinking could not rise above the sensual and before they could believe in a
God they needed to be shown sensuous proof of the Divine power in the
commandments of their conduct and the in Church rituals. Their idea of
spirituality was this physical demonstration of power in relation to
themselves. The Lord had to appear visibly to Moses as a burning bush and on
But when
the natural mind is elevated to its highest portion called the external
rational, the level of thinking is at a more abstract and universal level. When
the Lord came to establish the Christian Church he taught the Jews of the day
that they must think more spiritually if they’re going to be saved. And He taught
them what the spiritual is: rational thinking about Him. Even His closest
disciples, who were closest because they understood the most, were unable to
comprehend his plain words about Himself, as for example, that He and the
Father are One and that seeing Him was the same as seeing the Father.
He also
taught them rational things by simple parables that were easy to understand
literally, but had a rational message to be extracted. He also taught that the
spiritual world or heaven is not a place but a state of mind. And when He
taught them that He would return, they were not look for Him outwardly or
sensuously, but within them, thus within their spiritual mind, which is
rational. Similarly with the giving of the Holy Spirit as Himself, thus as His
Presence within every individual’s mind.
The shift
from the Jewish to the Christian level of thinking is a discrete degree more
rational. The early Christians were not yet able to make this shift complete
and they retained a mixture of the external rational in the natural mind, and
the internal rational in the spiritual mind. That which they retained from the
external rational was of sensuous origin—they saw the Lord, they touched Him,
they touched His wounds after the Resurrection, they heard the Voice from Heaven,
they saw the miracles of Jesus. But they also had with them what the Lord gave
them by opening their spiritual mind, represented by the Dove and the knowledge
of the Holy Spirit within their mind.
4. Spirituality
Reenters The Human Race
This mixture
elevated the level of their thinking to spirituality. For the first time in
human history since the Fall, spirituality had reentered the human race. Now
the level of thinking was capable of believing and understanding spiritual
revelations from the Lord and about the Lord. There was nothing of natural
origin in these new ideas.
To be specific about the teaching which will now follow,
that too comes from heaven, because it is from the spiritual sense of the Word,
and that sense is the same as the teaching which exists in heaven. For there is
a church in heaven just as much as on earth. There the Word is to be found, and
teaching from the Word; there are church buildings there, and sermons are
preached in them. There too are to be found church and secular systems of
government. In short, the only difference between things in the heavens and
those on earth is that everything in the heavens is in a higher state of
perfection, because all the people there are spiritual, and what is spiritual
is immeasurably more perfect than what is natural.
These facts can make it clear what is meant by the holy
city, New Jerusalem, being seen to come down from God out of heaven. But I
shall now proceed to the actual teaching intended for the new church. Since
this has been revealed to me from heaven, it is called heaven's teaching; for
it is the aim of this book to convey this. (NJHD 7)
These new
ideas originated from heaven, not from earth. This is what made them spiritual.
The earlier level of thinking that relied on the demonstration of visible
material power, was reduced and eventually eliminated. The Lord was reluctant
to perform miracles to those who had “little faith,” because their level of
thinking needed to be elevated from the sensuous to the rational. From now on
faith had to be built on rational revelation, rational ideas. Genuine
spiritual-rational ideas exist only in the spiritual mind, which is a discrete
degree above the natural mind and its external rational. These true spiritual
ideas can be represented at the natural level, but only by correspondences. Rational
thinking is required to see the spiritual things within correspondences.
The
parables the Lord taught, like the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13),
represented spiritual things—and He could explain what they are in words:
10 The disciples came to him and asked, "Why do you
speak to the people in parables?"
11 He replied, "The knowledge of the secrets of the
kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. 12 Whoever has will
be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what
he has will be taken from him. 13 This is why I speak to them in parables:
"Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or
understand. 14 In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: " 'You will be
ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never
perceiving.
(…)
18 "Listen then to what the parable of the sower means:
19 When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it,
the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the
seed sown along the path. 20 The one who received the seed that fell on rocky
places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. 21 But
since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution
comes because of the word, he quickly falls away. 22 The one who received the
seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries
of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful. 23
But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears
the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or
thirty times what was sown." (Matthew 13)
The
Lord refers to “the secrets of the kingdom” which are spiritual truths from
heaven, not from earth. For instance, He revealed to His disciples that He was
the Word and He came to fulfill the Old Testament, so that a New one can be
given. And many other such rational things that He revealed to them, like His
Oneness with the Father or that heaven and hell are in the mind not in a place.
The knowledge of these heavenly secrets “has been given to you, but not to
them” which means that the understanding of these revelations do not make any
sense to the external rational mind (“them”). These new knowledges can only be
understood in our spiritual-rational mind, which is where the “seed” (heavenly
truth) is implanted by the “sower” (the Lord). It must be implanted by the
Lord, not by the individual. The individual cannot invent or discover any of
these spiritual truths. We must therefore bow to the Lord, acknowledge Him,
look to Him, and then He can implant the seed. Not otherwise.
5. Hearing
But Not Understanding
The Lord
says, “14 In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: " 'You will be ever
hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.”
He is referring to the knowledge in our external rational mind, which is
natural. At that level of thinking we can read the message but we cannot see or
perceive the spiritual meaning in it. We allow the Lord to elevate our level of
thinking when we see Him as the Divine Truth in His Word. He can then proceed
and open the spiritual mind, which is a celestial garden, and implant in it the
individual truths. These truths are in our conscious mind as correspondences,
not as direct awareness. But because they are animated from within by the Lord,
the conscious meanings are infilled with perception of the spiritual within the
correspondences (D. Wis. 2).
It makes a
discrete difference whether we read revelation in the Writings by ourselves or with
the Lord.
The
Religion,
or the Church, is created by the Word and in no other way (AE 195). This is not
my idea, hence it is not dogmatism. The
There is
liberty to anyone to call whatever they wish as religion. This book discusses
the religion that is defined in the Writings. From this religion, the
Spiritual
truths can be represented in natural language with explications, as the Lord
did in the many parables He taught. But only when we read them as the Lord
Himself in Divine Truth can our spiritual mind perceive the truth and animate
our conscious understanding of the representations. In the parable of the
sower, the spiritual meaning of “seed“ is “truth as the Lord.” Seed is natural,
“truth as the Lord” is spiritual. The natural level of thinking about a seed
can be corporeal-sensuous such as in commerce where seeds are produced, sold,
and bought. Or, at a higher natural level called the external rational, seeds
can be described scientifically, economically, and symbolically. But it
doesn’t start to be spiritual thinking until “the seed” disappears in your mind
and you see instead the idea of
“truth as the
Lord from the Lord descending from the spiritual mind into the natural mind,
and fructifying it by multiplying the external rational truths that lie therein
which can be extracted therefrom.”
This level
of thinking is animated from the spiritual mind, not the natural. One can read
this statement at the natural level of thinking—what will it mean when viewed
from that level? Only obscurity or imaginative elaborations, similar to
philosophy, poetry, or art criticism. For instance the affirmation “truth as
the Lord from the Lord” has no natural meaning. It sounds like a line in a poem
we’re supposed to make something of, each of us according to how the Muse
strikes us. Correct? There is no determination of meaning, only fluid
interpretation of excess meaning. Another example is the affirmation of truths
“fructifying.” The natural mind can only see this as a figure of speech or
analogy. But in actuality, it is not a figure of speech but a literal
description of the organic substance within truth, of which truth is the
external form. The idea of truth as made of love-substance within, has no
meaning to the external rational mind.
6. Spiritual
Meaning Of Parables
How many of
the Lord’s listeners were able to give a spiritual meaning to His parables?
Even when He explained them in natural language? Similarly today, as we grow up
and acquire an adult mind, we go through stages of levels of thinking, starting
with the corporeal-sensuous, like the picture books of Jesus or the movie of
Moses. Later in childhood and adolescence we are capable of more rational
levels of thinking, though they remain mixed for awhile. Then in adult life we
freely decide to undergo reformation and this process involves the opening of
the spiritual mind, closed until then (AE 803; AC 8780; AC 3518:[2]). For the
first time in our life we begin to think at a genuine spiritual level in the
process of applying truths from the Word to our willing and thinking. This is
the process of spiritual discipline for the
As we read
the Writings from childhood on, or as an adult, during the initial phase, we
operate at the level of thinking of the literal of the Writings. This is the
external rational scientifics of the Word (AE 560, NJHD 51). It is not yet
spiritual, thought it is an abstract idea of the spiritual. This abstract
understanding is similar to one’s understanding of academic subjects like
engineering, philosophy, physics, and biology. But later, as we complete our
reformation and begin our regeneration, the Lord opens our spiritual mind so
that we can recognize the interior meaning that is purely spiritual in the
events of our willing and thinking. Now we read the Writings not merely in
their external rational but also in their celestial or interior rational, such
as the thinking of the angels with whom Swedenborg talked to.
Rev. Edward
Hyatt (1854-1906) discussed this idea in detail in his many sermons on the
topic:
In the
Writings as well as other forms of the Word truths are clothed in appearances,
though in rational appearances which agree with the truth itself if only they
are understood in their own light. But if men accept those appearances only
according to the light of the natural they will only serve to confirm their
natural rational states, and where those are thus confirmed by the Word
spiritual adultery is committed. (p. 196)
Therefore if a
man regard the truths of the Word as given in the Writings only from their
external, he will but confirm himself thereby in a state of subservience to his
natural rational. Natural rational confirmed by the Word is thus a distinctive
evil infesting the
Thus to
acquire knowledges of truth even from the Writings and to acquire the spiritual
sense are two distinct things. As has been shown before, the spiritual sense is
not given to any but those who are in enlightenment from the Lord, and this
notwithstanding that knowledges of truth are open to all. (p.229)
(Rev.
Edward S. Hyatt, Sermons on the Word. Swedenborg Genootschap, 1935)
It makes
sense to think that the Writings are written at the external rational level
because that is the highest level of thinking in the rational mind. Everyone
reads and studies the Writings by using the external rational intelligence we
apply to academic studies and science. Nothing of science or literature or art
can be understood at the sensuous level of thinking. All art criticism or
engineering applications of science involves abstract reasoning that is above
the sensuous observations and measurements of data. Laws, principles,
explanations, hypotheses—these require external rational thinking and the
motivation which gives rise to it and drives it along. So the Writings by
necessity had to be written in the external rational language and reasoning. Interior
rational things cannot be expressed directly in natural languages.
The meaning
of spiritual truths cannot be obtained by reading explanations of them. This is
obvious when you consider that words may be used at all levels of thinking. The
word God has been used by many to mean the self--as discussed in this book.
Others use it to denote the “Spiritual in the Universe” and even “the
Universe.” Similarly with the use of words like truth, sin, salvation, trinity,
natural, spiritual, angel, etc. People can pass a test about correspondences
and they may know that seed corresponds to truth, or the number 12 to all
things in a complex, or that Abraham represents the Lord in His Childhood, and
many such things from the Writings. The level of thinking that reveals
spiritual meanings about these relations is unavailable to that person. One can
teach a course on the Writings, or on particular Numbers, and the instructor
will only understand the content at the level of thinking he or she has reached
in regeneration.
Those who
are enlightened may try to write about the meaning they see. But the natural
language so written will not be able to enlighten a reader who reads these
explanations. This is because the explanations are in natural language. Readers
will only understand at the level of their thinking at the time. Further, we
can be enlightened about one passage and not at all about other passages, even
if they are side by side. Finally, we can be enlightened about some passage in
one state of mind, but minutes or hours later, one can no longer see the
interior meaning seen before. Even if you read your own explanations, or listen
to your own verbal recordings, you will not be able to see the meaning you saw
while writing the explanations. Our level of thinking vacillates in accordance
with our level of willing, that is, the good or evil of our affections that are
active at any one time. As regeneration progresses there is more and more
stability of enlightenment, and also, spread.
7. Building
Up Spiritual Doctrine In Our Mind
What in
particular concerns the doctrine that now follows, is that it also is out of
heaven, because it is from the spiritual sense of the Word; and the spiritual
sense of the Word is identical with the doctrine which is in heaven. (NJHD 7)
In this
kind of spiritual development it is helpful to read what others have written
from enlightenment. It helps to build up Doctrine in our mind, which is in the
natural language of the external rational. Doctrine refers to the reasoning we
do in accordance with spiritual principles from the Writings and from
commentators of the Writings who write things from enlightenment.
Rev. Hyatt
quotes TCR 277 to confirm the idea that the spiritual sense is always about
one’s willing and thinking, about our evils, first, and then the truths that we
need to fight those evils. This is how the Lord gives enlightenment, even as we
apply what we understand from the Writings to our willing and thinking. First
we observe what we are willing and what we are thinking in each situation all
day. Second we match it up with relevant Doctrine in our understanding and we
see suddenly see the meaning of the Doctrine or sentence from the Writings.
This meaning is new, not seen before when that sentence was read or that Doctrine
reflected on. This new meaning is more interior than what we could understand
before. It is called enlightenment or illustration to refer to the new light
from heaven that illumines the meaning so that more things are seen in it than
before. And this process never stops, so that as regeneration progresses, our
willing and thinking is illumined with progressively more interior light. Now
our willing and thinking is matched to the new more interior Doctrine we have
from the illumination. This is followed by still more interior revelation. The
angels of the third heaven are far more along on this progression than the
angels of the second heaven, so much so that not a single idea of the higher
angels can be understood by the lower angels.
As we
advance in our regeneration our level of thinking in our willing and reasoning
becomes more and more interior, meaning, more and more spiritual. This is the
same as saying, closer and closer to the Lord. The celestial angels of the
third heaven who dwell in the center of their societies and are their governors
are the closest to the Lord. This closeness is due to the their capacity to
understand more interior truths from the Lord and since the Lord Himself is in
these truths they can then see Him outwardly before them in the midst of the
spiritual Sun. This Sun is the origin of all the truths that come into the mind
and elevate the level of thinking and reasoning.
That that sun has been seen by me, and also the Lord in it,
may be seen in the work on Heaven and Hell (HH n. 116-140); and in the work on
The Planets and Earths in the Universe (EU n. 40-42). (D. WIS. 12)
You can see
then the religion or spirituality we begin with is our Jewish state of mind,
which is a representative of spiritual truths. Later in adolescence and early
adulthood we enter a level of thinking that may be called Christian. This is a
natural-spiritual level sometimes called the interior spiritual. Later in
adulthood as we undergo reformation we enter the level of thinking that is the
level of the external rational which is the literal of Writings. Then, as we
progress with regeneration we enter the genuine spiritual level of thinking
called the interior rational or the spiritual-rational. Spirituality is
therefore a reference to one’s level of thinking with regards to the rational.
Corporeal
spirituality is not genuine spirituality. It is not even a representative of
spirituality, as in the Jewish phase of forming our mind. It is only a
spirituality in the fantasy, as in the many forms of nonduality reviewed in
this and other chapters. One should keep in mind that this way of understanding
spirituality is not a condemnation or ridicule of those who see their
philosophies and experiences as their spirituality. To them, perhaps this is
the beginning of a less materialistic way of thinking about life, the universe,
and themselves. If they are given the Writings to read, they do not see
anything in it except a few things here and there that agree with their beliefs
and ideas. Thus they deny any real value to the Writings. The
For more
discussion on stages of religious thinking within the
The sun of
heaven, in which is the Lord, is the common center of the universe; all things
of the universe are circumferences beyond circumferences even to the last;
these He rules from Himself alone as one continuous thing, but the
intermediates He rules from the ultimates; these He perpetually animates and
makes active, as easily as a man from his understanding and will animates and
makes active his body; influx takes place into uses, and from uses into their
forms. (D.
Chapter 7, Section 8
Where the Lord is, there is heaven
(LJ 9)
Surely one
of the most astonishing of the scientific revelations in the Writings is that
planets are created solely for the purpose of raising human beings for life in
heaven after they depart from this world. Therefore innumerable planets in the
galaxies are inhabited with human beings:
By
the Lord's Divine mercy I have had my interior faculties, which belong to my
spirit, opened, so that I have been enabled to talk with spirits and angels,
not only those in the vicinity of our earth, but also with those near other
worlds. Since therefore I was desirous
of knowing whether there were other inhabited worlds, and what they and their
inhabitants were like, I was allowed by the Lord to talk and mix with spirits
and angels from other worlds. (EU 1)
For the
Afterwards
I talked to spirits who had come from that planet. I told them a number of
things about our planet, for example, the existence here of branches of
knowledge that are not found anywhere else, such as those of astronomy,
geometry, mechanics, physics, chemistry, medicine, optics, and philosophy; and
in addition to these, the existence of skills unknown anywhere else, such as
those of ship-building, metal-casting, writing things on sheets of paper,
printing and publishing these things, and in this way communicating them to all
throughout the planet, as well as preserving them for thousands of years to
come. I told them that by these skills the Word received from the Lord has been
so published and preserved, and that the revealed Word is therefore going to
remain forever on this planet, see 9350-9360. (AC 9793)
It is on
account of our industrialized societies that the Lord created the succession of
revelations in the written Word, followed by His Incarnation on this earth. Now
the Writings are spread across the planet by means of the production and trade
of translated volumes and the Internet has now greatly magnified its
availability to millions. The books of the Writings are also made available in
the spiritual world in the form of spiritual writing, as witnessed by
Swedenborg:
But as I withdrew I saw under a green olive tree around
which a vine had entwined itself, a cedar table on which there was a book. I
looked and lo, it was a book written by me, entitled Arcana Coelestia
and I said that it was fully shown in that book that man is not life but an
organ receptive of life; also that life cannot be created and when so created
be in man, any more than light in the eye. (TCR 461)
The
Writings give details about the character and appearance of people on other
planets. There is a fascination in reading them and all sorts of questions are
raised in one’s mind when we read about the people on the moon and other
planets around our sun. What are we to make of these things? It provides us
with profound intellectual challenges in the face of what we know from modern
astronomy and space travel. This issue is discussed by several
Wilson Van
Dusen suggests that the passages relating to earths in the universe in Arcana
Coelestia are intended to convey a spiritual meaning and that the literal
details described by Swedenborg in his encounters with spirits are to be taken
naturally by those who are in the natural and spiritually by those who look for
that (Studia Swedenborgiana January 1976 v.2 n.1 pp.7-33). By looking
for the spiritual meaning the more sophisticated reader can merely ignore the
details as not necessarily meant in the literal. This would then solve the awful
problem of how can Swedenborg think he talked to spirits from the moon which
has never been inhabited and can’t be.
Similarly
with what is being said about the spirits who come form Mars, Mercury, Venus,
and the others in our solar system. Bishop Philip Odhner of the Lord’s
1. The
Lord Would Not Want To Mislead Us
We cannot
think, as Van Dusen and others have suggested, that Swedenborg used some or all
of the stories about his interactions with spirits as a sort of literary device
to pass on spiritual knowledge that is difficult to be described directly. This
implies that he is the perpetrator of a great hoax at the expense of humankind.
Why would the Lord want to mislead us by having Swedenborg write it as true
events:
Since
therefore I was desirous of knowing whether there were other inhabited worlds,
and what they and their inhabitants were like, I was allowed by the Lord to
talk and mix with spirits and angels from other worlds. (EU 1)
Consider
the Word of the First Coming which consists of the New Testament that includes
many historicals. The Writings say that they are all accurate (xx) and yet the
Four Gospels do not present exactly the same history. How can they all be
accurate and still be different? This is similar to asking about the Writings:
How can they be fully and entirely accurate if they run against known science?
These are things we must resolve in our mind in a rational way, but without
consulting the external rational (AC 2519). At no time can natural science invalidate
scientific revelations since whatever is true in science comes not from us but
from the Lord, and that which comes from the Lord never contradicts the Word.
Search the Old Testament and the New Testament and see if you can find a single
wrong fact that contradicts what is known. The same is true for the Writings.
Those who find “errors” in Swedenborg’s science in the Writings need to think
of how known science can be altered so that these are no longer to be
considered “errors.”
Some have
pointed to Creationism as an example of what can go wrong if we take what the
Bible says about the natural world as science. But the Writings clarify this
fully by showing how the first 11 chapters of Genesis are not historicals but
propheticals Moses copied form the Ancient Word which was written purely in
correspondences, thus not as historicals. Creationism is absurd because the
creation story is mistakenly taken for historicals.
I do not
think we need to worry about such things that might happen to the reputation of
the Writings in the world, but is there a concern for the
All sorts
of scientific revelations have been made in the Writings about how the world
came into being, about planets, about hereditary transmission, about discrete
degrees, about the causes of natural phenomena, about the brain, about
diseases, and numerous others. It is easy to understand how the Lord made sure
that only those events occur to Swedenborg that are scientifically correct. Our
rational response must be to work to develop a theistic science that is
congruent with the literal of the Writings. (See Chapter 4, Section 7)
Swedenborg
mentions that the moon has no atmosphere and therefore the moon spirits have a
different way of breathing and verbalizing than we do and do not expel air from
the lungs (EU 111, 87). Some have suggested that Swedenborg was not aware that
the moon is uninhabitable. Of course he knew that it is uninhabitable by people
with our physical properties since we depend on air. Some of the planetary
inhabitants have only an internal respiration and converse with each other by
an internal speech that to us would appear as psychic powers (AC 10587). Some
live in an environment where they do not build houses but live in trees that
the Lord makes grow into suitable habitations for them (xx).
Everyone
knows that science does not have knowledge about where humans can exist except
those who are built physically like us (EU 87). I would say to scientists: Use
the Writings as clues for what life is possible where, and create theories that
incorporate these revelations; then test them out by whatever research is
available at that time. This more rational approach would yield a great
improvement in the ability of science to help humankind throughout the range of
reality—from natural to spiritual to celestial. (For other discussion on this
issue see Note 1 at end).
It is not
possible for the
As
I came to describe the meanings of the earths in the starry heavens I found
myself more and more reluctant to describe all the meanings apparent there. …
It was as though affective, sacred religious experience was being elaborated. I
didn’t want to reduce it to a simple formula. ... I too left out much of what
is apparent in these planets. Swedenborg, writing two centuries ago in an age
much less practiced in describing inner states, may have felt the same
reluctance for all the planets, but especially for the later ones….But I warn,
just as he did with the first earth in the starry heaven, that these are
matters to be entered into, experienced, and not simply for cognition. (Van
Dusen, 1976, Studia, ibid, p.28).
He sees a
similarity of process between his writing about inner states and Swedenborg’s
authoring the Writings. We know that this is quite impossible since Swedenborg
had to have his eyes opened in a unique way unavailable to anyone. The result
was that what Swedenborg wrote down was the Word of the Lord, not Swedenborg’s
word. He was the revelator through whom the Lord gave the Word in its infinite
internals. No human authorship can accomplish this (AC 5). It is a devastating
nonduality for the
Finally,
Van Dusen’s suggestion that “these are matters to be entered into, experienced,
and not simply for cognition” is a nonduality between Swedenborg’s experiences
as author-revelator and ours, as readers. We know that there is an absolute
duality between the two that can never be crossed. Swedenborg’s spiritual
experiences were sensuous and in his conscious mind. His rational was within
the spiritual sensuous. He actually was there in spirit (or spirit-body). He
didn’t try to imagine it, for he could not, and no one can. The only access to
the spiritual that the Lord provides for the
This is why
today the Lord does not allow miracles or communication with spirits (AC 7290).
Neither will the Lord appear to our senses but only as the “Holy Spirit” which
refers to His opening of our rational mind and His presence there within the
rational concepts we take up from the Writings. Meditation or “experiencing the
Dharma” etc., is not a legal or possible entrance to rational spirituality, the
only spirituality that exists with the angels (xx). For the
Note 1
A directory
of all my publications, with full text access to most of them, is available on
the Web at
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/leonpublish.html
Leon James.
“Substantive Dualism: Swedenborg's Integration of Biological Theology and
Rational Psychology”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/dualism.html
Leon James.
“Scientific Dualism.”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/dualism.html
Leon
James. “Religious Psychology or Theistic Science: A Guide to Spiritual
Self-examination”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499ss99/man/religious.html
Leon
James. “Swedenborg Glossary of Theistic Science”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss.html
Leon James.
“Do the Writings Contain Scientific Revelations?” New Church Life , July
1995, 115(7), 325-330.
Also
available on the Web at www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409ss99/nfile2.htm
Leon James.
“Dualist Science and the Writings of Swedenborg” New Church Life , June
1995, 115(6), 264-270.
Leon James.
“Overcoming Objections to Swedenborg's Writings Through the Development of
Scientific Dualism” New Philosophy 2001 v.CIV n.3 & 4 pp. 153-217.
Available online at:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/np98.html
Leon James.
“The Fourteen Scientific Fallacies in AC5084: Implications for Science
Education.” New Philosophy, July-December, 1996, XCIX(3 & 4),
439-450
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/fallacies.html
Examples
of promoting dualism in science in
Gregory L.
Baker, Religion and Science: From Swedenborg to Chaotic Dynamics (New
York: The Solomon Press, 1992)
Linda
Simonetti Odhner, The Bread of Life With Honey From the Rock: A Chaste Union of
religion and science New Church Life March 1989, pp. 117-122
Leon James,
Swedenborg's Religious Psychology: The Marriage of Good and Truth as Mental
Health Studia Swedenborgiana December 1993, Vol.8, No-3, pp. 13-42
Ian
Thompson, Foundations of the Theory of Spirit, Mind and Nature from Theism www.TheisticScience.org
Note 2
W. F.
Pendleton Topics From the Writings (Academy, 1928)
Note 3
Leon James.
“My Pre-Swedenborgian Discoveries and Inventions (1960-1980)”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/dhl3.html
Note 4
Mark
Carlson. “Evolution, the Limbus, and Hereditary Evil (Part 2)” New Church
Life June 1990, pp.259-275.
Note 5
Barry C.
Halterman. “Swedenborg's Influence on Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1883)”
www.swedenborg.ca/swedenborg/r_w_emerson.html
Jane K.
Williams-Hogan. Swedenborg: A Biography
Available online here:
www.glencairnmuseum.org/jkwh.html
Leon James
“Swedenborg Revolution in the Social Sciences”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499s98/shintani/logos.html
Leon James
“Spiritual Psychology”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/spirpsy.html
Note 6
Wilson
Van Dusen, The Distinctiveness of the Church of the New Jerusalem New Church
Life March 1994, 112-114.
Peter
Rhodes, Gurdijeff’s and Swedenborg General Church Sound Recording Library,
Bryn Athyn, 1976.
Leonard
Fox, Gurdijeff’s: Guide to Heaven or Hell? New Church Life June 1993;
(see also his reply in the October 1993 issue.)
Note 7
Leon James
“Moses, Paul, and Swedenborg, or Ritual, Faith, and Theistic Science: The Three
Phases of Religious Behavior”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/moses.html
Leon James
“Religious Behaviorism”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/relbehaviorism.html
Note 8
Leon James
“De Hemelsche Leer--Part 1--Degrees of Consciousness”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/dhl.html
Leon James
“Spiritual Geography--Graphic Maps of Consciousness for Regeneration”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/geography.html
Note 9
Leon James
“Overcoming Objections to Swedenborg's Writings Through the Development of
Scientific Dualism” New Philosophy 2001 v.CIV n.3 & 4 pp. 153-217. Available online here:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/np98.html
Note 10
Dr. James’
Student Reports on Swedenborg are listed in this directory:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/swedenborg.html
Note 11
Leon
James, “Genes of Consciousness: Spiritual Genetics for Regeneration”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/harmonizing4.htm
Note 12
Ian
Thompson, Foundations of Theistic Science The Theory of Spirit, Mind and Nature
from Theism (containing several articles)
Note 13
Leon
James, “Vertical Community”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/vertical.html
Note 14
Leon
James, “The Will and the Understanding or The Affective and the Cognitive or
Good and Faith or Heart and Lungs or Internal and External Mind”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/wu.html
Note 15
Leon
James, “Affective and Cognitive Resistance to a More Healthy Lifestyle
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/health1.html
Note 16
Leon
James, “Notes on the Doctrine of the Wife:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/dow1.html
Note 17
See our
Web site at www.DrDriving.org
List of Media
Interviews with Leon James and Diane Nahl
Articles
on Driving Psychology by Leon James and Diane Nahl
Leon
James and Diane Nahl. Road Rage and Aggressive Driving: Steering Clear of
Highway Warfare (Prometheus Books:
Leon
James and Diane Nahl. Heaven on Wheels:
Principles of Christian Driving Psychology www.aloha.net/~dyc/articles/christ.htm
Leon
James. “Drivers Behaving Badly: DBB Ratings”
www.aloha.net/~dyc/articles/dbb.htm
Note 18
Hatfield,
E., & Rapson, R. (1996). Love and sex: Cross-cultural perspectives.
Hatfield,
E., Cacioppo, J., & Rapson, R. L. (1994). Emotional contagion.
Note 19
Leon James
“The Universal Modes of Enactment in Human Experience: A Self-Witnessing
Account of the Discovery of Sudden Memory and My Interpretation of Its Significance
for the Human Race”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499ss99/man/enactment.html
Leon James
“Autobiography: Sudden Memory as the Integrating Mechanism on the Daily Round”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/ethnos/es0.html
Leon
James “Objective Autobiography: Sudden Memory”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499ss99/pederson/TOC.html
Leon James
“Radicalist Empiricism. The Universal Modes of Enactment in Human Experience. A
Self-Witnessing Account of the Discovery of Sudden Memory and My Interpretation
of Its Significance for the Human Race”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499ss99/man/enactment.html
Leon James
“The Hexagram of Sudden Memory “
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/updates/lee/section8.1.2.html
Leon James
“Discoveries and Inventions--Sudden Memory”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/discoveries.html
Leon James
“The Hexagram of Sudden Memory” (excerpts)
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/qqlj2.html
Leon James
“Pre-Swedenborgian Discoveries and Inventions (1960-1980)”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/dhl3.html
Leon James
and Diane Nahl “Workbook for the Study of Social Psychology”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/updates/lee/Section8.1.5.html
Leon James
“The Analysis of Transactional Engineering Competence” www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/tec.html
Leon James
“Community Archives in Social Psychology”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/updates/lee/Section5.2.3.html
Leon James
“Understanding Discourse: From Ethnosemantics to Transactional Engineering”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499ss99/pederson/discourse.html
Leon James
“Genetic Culture: Primacy of the Affective over the Cognitive”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/already.html
Leon James
“Lectures in Social Psychology (directory of chapters)”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/updates/lee/
Leon James
“Lecture Notes on The Psychology of Knowledge: The Discovery of Sudden Memory“
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499ss99/pun/knowledge2.html
Note 20
Leon
James “The Method of Self-Witnessing”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/self-witnessing.html
Leon
James “Religious Psychology or Theistic Science: A Guide to Spiritual
Self-examination”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499ss99/man/religious.html
Leon
James “Self-witnessing our emotions in daily life”
www.aloha.net/~dyc/articles/red-blue.htm
Leon
James “General Instructions for Your Research Project: The Four
Options--Customizing My Daily Emotional Spin Cycle”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy16/g16reports-instructions.html
Leon
James “Temptations entry in the Swedenborg Glossary” www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/temptations.html
Leon
James “Self-Witnessing the Threefold Self”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/409as97/atakahas/499/atakahashome.html
Note 21
Rev. Ray
Silverman teaches at the
Note 22
Harrie
G.D. Groeneveld “The Second Coming of the Lord in the Doctrine of the Church” De Hemelsche Leer, First Fascicle,
38-43, 1930 (quoted above in Chapter 7 Section 8) Available online at www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409ss99/thompson/mscan1.html
See also its reprint version in the restart issues of De Hemelse Leer, April 2002 issue, Dr. Rutger Perizonius, Editor
(Van der Heimstraat 5, 2582 RX, The Hague)
Rev.
Ernst Pfeiffer “Elucidation of Mr. Groeneveld's Address” De Hemelsche Leer, First Fascicle, p.82-95; 127-131, 1930 (quoted
above in Chapter 7 Section 8) Available online at www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409ss99/thompson/mscan2.html
See also its reprint version in the restart issues of De Hemelse Leer, April 2002 issue, Dr. Rutger Perizonius, Editor
(Van der Heimstraat 5, 2582 RX, The Hague)
Rev.
Theodore Pitcairn, “The second Education” De
Hemelsche Leer, Third Fascicle, p.22. 1935 (quoted above in Chapter 7
Section 8; Chapter 8 Section 3) (Available online at www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409ss99/thompson/mscan8.html
)
Note 23
The
following
Rev.
Donald L. Rose, Sermon titled “The Colt Loosed For the Lord’s Service”
Rev.
Erik E. Sandstrom, The New Age and the New Church (Part Two). New Church
Life, June 2002, 251-260 (quoted above in the Introduction to Volume 1;
Introduction to Chapter 2; Chapter 4 Section 6; Chapter 6 Section 3; Chapter 7
Section 2)
Rev.
Mark Carlson. “Evolution, the Limbus, and Hereditary Evil (Part 2)” New
Church Life June 1990, pp.259-275. (quoted above in Chapter 3 Section 7).
Rev. Dr.
Ray Silverman’s review of Henry James, Sr. in Arcana 1996 v.2 n.4 p.56 (quoted
above in Chapter 4 Section 2 and Section 3)
Rev.
Grant R. Schnarr “Swedenborg And The Near Death Experience” on the Web at
www.newchurch.org/faq/indepthfaq/swedenbNearDeathExperience.html Accessed June
2002 (quoted above in Chapter 4 Section 5)
Rev.
Douglas M. Taylor “Self-Esteem” New Church Life March 2002 v.CXXII No.3
pp. 99-105 (quoted above in Chapter 6 Section 7)
Rev.
Edward S. Hyatt, Sermons on the Word. Swedenborg Genootschap, 1935 (quoted
above in Chapter 7 Section 8)
Rev.
Hugo Lj. Odhner, “The Transition from Human to Divine Philosophy” Written in
1921. Published in The New Philosophy
1974; 77:43-71. Available online at: http://www.newchurchissues.org/SR/hlo74.htm
)
(quoted
in Chapter 7 Section 8)
Rev.
Theodore Pitcairn, “The second Education” De
Hemelsche Leer, Third Fascicle, p.22. 1935 (quoted above in Chapter 7
Section 8; Chapter 8 Section 3) (Available online at www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409ss99/thompson/mscan8.html
)
The
Letters and Memorials of Emanuel Swedenborg. Translated and Edited by Rev. Alfred Acton (
Rev.
Geoffrey H. Howard titled "The Transformation of a Man into a Husband and
a Woman into a Wife through Marriage" appeared in New Church Life,
June 2001 issue, pages 243-248. (quoted above in Chapter 9 Section 1)
Rev.
Ernst Pfeiffer “Elucidation of Mr. Groeneveld's Address” De Hemelsche Leer, First Fascicle, p.82-95; 127-131, 1930 (quoted
above in Chapter 7 Section 8)
I wish
to thank Dr. Ian Thompson for his invaluable editorial assistance with several
drafts and for supplying many of the citations to the Writings (see Note 12
above ). I also wish to thank Rev./Dr. Ray Silverman who spent much appreciated
effort reading and critiquing an earlier draft (see Note 21 above). Rev. Robert
Junge made critical comments on several key issues that greatly improved my
discussion of them. I am very grateful for their contribution. Their astute
observations helped me to avoid critical errors and to strengthen the
presentation in numerous places.
The author, Dr. Leon James,
is Professor of Psychology at the
A directory of articles and books by Leon James,
with full text access is available here: www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/leonarticles.html
For comments and questions, I welcome your
email: leon@hawaii.edu
The Web address of the latest version of this
document is:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/nonduality.html
|
AC |
Arcana Coelestia |
|
AE |
Apocalypse Explained |
|
AR |
Apocalypse Revealed |
|
BE |
Brief Exposition |
|
CL |
Conjugial Love |
|
|
Coronis |
|
DE VERBO |
De Verbo |
|
DLW |
Divine Love and Wisdom |
|
DP |
Divine |
|
D. WIS. |
Divine Wisdom |
|
EU |
Earths in the Universe |
|
FAITH |
Doctrine of Faith |
|
HH |
Heaven and Hell |
|
INV |
Invitation to the New
Church |
|
LETT |
Letters |
|
LIFE |
Doctrine of Life |
|
LJ |
Last Judgment |
|
LJP |
Last Judgment (Posthumous) |
|
LORD |
Doctrine of the Lord |
|
NJHD |
New Jerusalem and Its
Heavenly Doctrine |
|
SE |
Spiritual Experiences |
|
SPECIMEN |
Specimen and Sketch |
|
TCR |
True Christian Religion |
|
TCR
Additions |
True Christian Religion
(Additions) |
|
WH |
White Horse |
|
9Q |
Nine Questions |
The Web
site includes a search engine and a key to the Bible. It also carries many
articles on Swedenborg and the
http://www.theheavenlydoctrines.org