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
note: This page will take about 25 to 30 seconds to load. I’ve been working on
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By Leon
James
October
2002
(draft 17b)
Author
information appears at the end. This document is in the process of being
revised. Please note the draft version marked on top.
A “field” means doctrine (AC 368)
A "man" signifies faith
and truth (AC 427; 4823)
Because 'field' means doctrine
anyone receiving any seed of faith, whether the individual, the Church, or the
world, is called a field. (AC 368)
Volume 2
Enlightenment:
Extracting
The Spiritual Sense of the Writings
Table of Contents
Access other Chapters and Volumes here:
Theistic
Science Revelations in the Writings
2.
Swedenborg’s Scientific Dualism
3.
The Notion That The Writings Contain Outdated Science
4.
Dual Concepts in the Writings
5.
Scientific Revelations in the Writings.
6.
Sensuous And Rational Content In The Writings
7. A
Spiritual Sensuous Consciousness
8.
External And Interior Theistic Science.
9.
The Writings “Are Founded” On Theistic Science
10.
Diagram of “Scientifics” And “Doctrinal Matters”
11.
Literal And Spiritual Senses Are Both True And Accurate
12.
Spiritual Parallelism Between The Lord, The Writings, And Our Mind
13.
Enlightenment By Rational Consciousness of Spiritual Correspondences
14.
The Divine Rational Is Within The Divine Natural Of The Writings
15.
Why The Interior-Natural Is Called Spiritual-Natural
16.
Anatomy Of The External Natural Mind
17.
Individual Regeneration Recapitulates Spiritual History Of The Race
18.
The Use Of The Priesthood For Religious Life
19.
Swedenborg's Scientific Works
20.
Led By The Lord Since His Early Education
21. Principles For The True Science
22.
Overcoming Objections To Theistic Science
23.
The External Rational And The Interior Rational
24.
Theistic Science And Religion
25.
Theistic Science And Regeneration
26.
Regeneration By Sensuous Vs. Rational Consciousness
27.
Evolution Of Consciousness In The Human Race
28.
Diagram Of The Elevation Of Consciousness In The Human Race
29.
Spiritual Psychology and History
30.
Chart of Spiritual Psychology and History
32.
Enlightenment Is Not Sufficient For Salvation
33.
The Level Of Consciousness In Representatives And Significatives
34.
Scientific Observations Of Spiritual Facts
35.
The Science Of Spiritual Anatomy
Titles for the Abbreviated Citations in the Book
Full Text
Free Online Access to All Swedenborg’s Writings:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/nonduality.html
Every one has
intelligence according to his affection for the sciences (CL 207)
There are
many scientific revelations in the Writings. To mention a few:
This list
is enough to show that some scientific revelations are far ahead of scientific
knowledge in society today, and some appear to contradict the current
scientific knowledge. And most importantly, note from the list that it is
not possible in the Writings to separate what is scientific relating to natural
things and what is theological relating to spiritual things.
For
instance, is the Virgin Birth a scientific revelation or a spiritual one? What
about the proposition that physical phenomena are all effects whose causes lie
in the spiritual world? This is at the core of almost any other fact or
principle in the Writings and is called “the Science of Correspondences.” (AC
9407; SS 9; TCR 202) Is this a scientific or spiritual revelation? Clearly we
cannot separate scientific explanations from spiritual because one is actually
within the other, and they are mutually interdependent—what happens to one must
happen to the other in predetermined correspondential relation.
The
eye sees the universe, and the mind thinks about it, first that it was created
and afterwards by whom it was created. The mind that thinks from the eye thinks
that it was created by nature; but the mind that does not think from the eye
thinks that it is from God; while the mind that takes the middle path thinks
that it is from an Entity of which it has no idea, for it perceives that
something cannot exist from nothing. (D.
The
material monism of science is a nonduality that Swedenborg fought against in
all his works prior and subsequent to Arcana Coelestia. The science that
he practiced was always dualist or theistic, and the
From a
practical and political standpoint we may not have an overt choice since our
colleagues are dead set against dualism and our job performance may depend on
not mentioning anything from the Writings in our scientific work and teaching.
This I can understand. Note that this is a political issue about academic
freedom and the suppression of ideas in relation to survival and one’s career. It may not hurt us to hide or to remain
private in order to avoid persecution or rejection, but it does hurt the
2. Swedenborg’s
Scientific Dualism
Regarding
science and philosophy, Swedenborg gave this sad description to spirits who
were not familiar with our planet:
Spirits from another earth were with me for a considerable
time; and I described to them the wisdom of our globe, and told them that among
the sciences pursued by the learned is that of analytics, with which they busy
themselves in exploring what is of the mind and its thoughts, calling it
metaphysics and logic. But I said that men have advanced little beyond terms,
and certain shifting rules; and that they argue concerning these terms-as what
form is; what substance; what the mind; and what the soul; and that by means of
these general shifting rules they vehemently dispute about truths. I then
perceived from these spirits that when men inhere in such things as terms, and
think concerning these matters by artificial rules, they take away all sense
and understanding of a subject.
(…)
[3] Learned men of our earth were present, and could not in
the least comprehend these things, although in the life of the body they had
discoursed much on such subjects in a philosophical way; and when the spirits
just referred to in turn perceived their thoughts, in that they inhered in mere
terms, and were inclined to dispute on every point as to whether it is so, they
called such things feculent froth. (AC 3348)
In the New
Church mind there cannot be a nonduality in science just as Swedenborg found it
impossible to acknowledge or adopt materialist science from his earliest
education and onward. He took the natural facts and information available
through observation by scientists who worked within a materialistic
orientation. But he did not take their interpretations or theories cast in the
nonduality mode. He built up a theistic science to interpret their facts.
There is a
danger to the New Church mind when confirming scientific nonduality, something
that may occur when we think to ourselves that science is nondualist and is to
remain immersed in material monism, while the Heavenly Doctrine is dualist or
theistic, and is to remain separate from science. As long as we keep the two
from interacting, segregating them in our mind, we experience no conflict. And
yet we need to consider that the mind cannot contain opposing ideas without the
two warring against each other, so that nonduality eventually destroys all
duality (xx). Scientific nonduality denies the supernatural world that is
affirmed by the duality of the Heavenly Doctrines. In the duality of the
Writings there is no separation possible between science and theology just as
it is impossible to discover the causes of natural phenomena without invoking
spiritual correspondences since the spiritual is the cause of the natural (HH
567).
Swedenborg
has clearly modeled for us how to understand science and theology together
as one unit. He collected all facts that others obtained by scientific
observations. Empirical and experimental work can be carried out by anyone, a
materialist or a dualist, and the success of both are solely from Divine
Providence, not from the intelligence of the monist or dualist. Swedenborg the
scientist created scientific explanations for the facts obtained by other scientists.
These scientific explanations are rational and verifiable as consistent with
the facts or inconsistent. Also, as consistent internally or contradictory. His
scientific explanations were always within a theistic framework.
Being
introduced into the spiritual world, Swedenborg also presented new scientific
facts that were never available to any other scientist on this earth, monist or
dualist. Still, they were not subjective unverifiable facts like the religious
proposals of other theological systems. The empirical facts presented by
Swedenborg are actual observations he made during his spiritual “travels.” These
facts are objective and shared with thousands of other people who were present
and part of the experiment or interview. Swedenborg’s facts were public and
verifiable to all those who were present, including spirits, angels, and
devils. He also presents observational results of many experiments he was
allowed to witness as a participant and observer, so that he may have no doubt
as to the reality of this or that phenomenon. One type of experiment is the
removal of a belief system in a spirit or angel in order to see the result on
his reasoning and perception (CL 216, Mir 7).
Other
experimental procedures he describes include:
q resuscitation under controlled
conditions (xx)
q memory probes (xx)
q therapy for personality disorders
(xx)
q communicating from a distance (xx)
q translating between natural and
spiritual language (xx)
q creating special effects for the education
of children (xx)
q recreating special effects with
light and sound
q noting the conditional presence of
animals or objects in relation to topics being discussed on reflected on (xx)
q and many more.
Not all
facts in science are available to a single person which is why scientists use
each other’s facts for building explanations. Some facts are unique or
infrequent and cannot be observed except once. Others require elaborate
instruments to which some scientists have no access. Many facts reported by
Swedenborg are not available to other scientists on earth because the Lord
imposes restrictions on anyone accessing the spiritual world directly, Swedenborg
being a unique exception for the sake of his mission as revelator. But the facts become observable when the
scientist passes on and begins life in the spiritual world. These facts
were also observable by the early generations on earth (AE 739) and may be
observable once more in the future (HH 250).
The
3. The
Notion That The Writings Contain Outdated Science
The Word is not
understood except by a rational man (WH 7)
The
Writings provide scientists with empirical observations and data that are
beyond the natural senses. This is called the “interior science” and is a
systematic description of the character and quality of the spiritual world. There
is no rational justification for scientists to reject the facts and
observations presented in the Writings. The rejection is an automatic
expression of a learned historical tradition or prejudice. It Is not made on
the basis of rational justifications or objections. The benefits of
science to society would be immeasurably enhanced if the simplistic and self-contradictory
monist attitude were to be replaced by theistic science.
Among
You can see
that this type of thinking begins to carve up the Word into two parts: the part
that our self-intelligence designates as “Swedenborg’s outdated science” and
the part that we designate as “enlightened revelation for all times.”
But upon
more reflection one can see that the Writings cannot be divided into two parts
because it is the Word in full, not in part. The Writings say that the Word has
an internal series of truths arranged in an infinite Divine order (AC 6620) and
that not a single word or concept can be taken away from the literal without
breaking the series (AC 9163, AE 545[2]). As a result we accept the awkward
expressions and sometimes revolting images in the literal of the Old Testament.
We can see by correspondences what spiritual truths they refer to. Similarly,
with the Word of the Writings we have a fixed literal text that serves the
internal meaning. The Letter of the Writings cannot be divided any more than
the Lord’s garment, which were not allowed to be divided by the Roman soldiers
(AC 9093; John 19:23-24, Ps 22:18).
The literal of the Writings is the Lord’s Divine Rational laid down in
the Divine Natural that exists in our natural-rational mind. We behold the Lord
spiritually, when we read the Writings as the Word, for the Word is the Lord
Himself (LORD 2). But this spiritual is only apparent to us by correspondence,
since nothing spiritual can exist in the natural-rational mind. But the Lord
creates an interior-natural mind within our natural-rational
understanding. What is in this mind is the operation, or reaction by
correspondence, to the particular spiritual truths the Lord is implanting in
our unconscious spiritual mind.
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)
What is
called the “human rational” here is the natural-rational mind. It is to be
distinguished from the “spiritual-rational.” The “human rational” or natural-rational
is from self-intelligence and is the result of the as-of self effort to
understand and appropriate the truths of the Writings. The human rational of
the natural-rational consists of natural-rational correspondences which “is of
such a nature that it cannot understand what the Divine is.” But the spiritual-rational
correspondences in the interior-natural mind are not from self-intelligence.
They are from the Lord and heaven and they are capable of understanding the
Divine.
After
reformation we are granted this dual perception or consciousness of the
spiritual. In our natural-rational mind, we are conscious of spiritual truths
in a natural-rational way, but in our interior-natural mind, we are conscious
of these truths in a spiritual way. This spiritual understanding is also by
correspondence and not by direct sensuous perception, as is the case with
spirits and angels. Following reformation, we know that the sentences of the
Writings contain a literal meaning and a spiritual meaning, but we cannot
perceive this at the beginning. We know it because we read what the Writings
are saying about the Word, and we apply it to the Writings. But later when we
are regenerating, we are enlightened by the Lord and we can now for the first
time perceive that there is a spiritual sense.
Since we
know that the spiritual meaning is arranged in Divine Rational Series (xx), it
would be impossible to think that we could use our self-intelligence to break
up this Divine Series and to cut out portions of the Writings by calling it
“Swedenborg’s outdated science used only for illustration and not part of the
theology of the Heavenly Doctrine.”
Not a single word, nor even a single iota, in its original
language, can be taken from the sense of the letter of the Word, without an
interruption in the internal sense (WH 11)
Instead we
need to ask how we can intellectually repair the appearance that these are
outdated modes of science. We must consider whether materialistic science as
practiced today can really be credited for scientific and engineering
achievements. Or are these achievements
brought about by the Lord despite the reliance on materialistic thinking?
The Writings teach that the learned who are confirmed in rejecting dualism, and
rely their thinking only on material ideas, arrive handicapped in the spiritual
world and are more “stupid” than the unlearned (AC 4156). Their confirmed
materialism prevents them from receiving rational truths in the afterlife, as a
result of which they lead themselves into insanities and a tragic life in hell.
Clearly we
should be asking how to reform materialistic science into dualist science in
our mind. We need not wait for the rest of society but can already make the
changeover, if not professionally, then personally. In the light of this new
context in our mind, how are we to understand the scientific details that
appear outdated or in error from the earlier materialistic context? This kind
of inquiry will lead us to theistic science.
It is most
important therefore that we be prudent and withhold ourselves from breaking up
the Word. We must acknowledge every word, phrase and sentence as Divine Truth,
even the numbers of the paragraphs.
The ultimates of the Word are its props and supports;
indeed, each word is a prop and a support to its celestial and spiritual
truths. (SS 35)
A
Let me take a
more moderate view on this. I do believe that much of the science taught in the
Writings could be studied quite usefully and lead to some important
breakthroughs on the natural level. For example, olive oil corresponds to
celestial love, and we are discovering important medicinal uses for olive oil
today. Lowering meat intake, and eating fresh fruits and vegetables (like the
most ancients) also seems to improve the quality of our health. But these are
secondary. Our spiritual development, and the shunning of evils as sins against
God should always be primary. “Seek ye first the
I agree
that teaching correspondences from the Writings could be useful to secular
scientific enterprises, including psychology, medicine, biology, physics,
mathematics, history, art, and others. Swedenborg’s mind was prepared by the
Lord since his early childhood (see below). He was able to acquire scientific knowledge
in many fields and contribute to them his own theistic interpretation and
explanations. Swedenborg was guided in his theistic interpretations by the Lord
as much as he was guided in his theological books. When Swedenborg wrote out
the Writings he was fully under the guidance of the Lord. It is not possible to
think that some portions he wrote by himself, separate from the Lord, while
others he wrote from the Lord. So it makes sense to think that Swedenborg’s
theistic science was guided by the Lord since the beginning of his education.
Thus Swedenborg produced a theistic science that was suitable for being
included in portions of the Word he was to write later.
4. Dual
Concepts in the Writings
No doubt
you have noted two portions to the theistic science in the Writings: natural
scientifics and spiritual scientifics, as discussed below. The theistic science
about “natural truths” (ISB 20) are those facts and principles that were
imported into the Writings from the Scientific Works. The theistic science
about “spiritual and celestial truths” (DLW 237) are those facts and principles
that were gathered by Swedenborg from his systematic observations and
controlled experiments in the spiritual world. The spiritual and celestial
truths are within the natural truths in simultaneous order (TCR 360). It
follows from this that the literal of the Writings is composed of these two sub-types
of theistic science, and future research in theistic science might succeed in
extracting dual concepts, that is, integrated concepts that are natural
truths within which are spiritual-celestial truths.
An example
of this type of dual concept is illustrated in the following passage which also
shows the experimental or scientific character of Swedenborg’s observations in
the spiritual world:
As in the world it is quite unknown that there is a
correspondence of heaven or the Grand Man with all things of man, and that man
comes forth and subsists therefrom, so that what is said on the subject may
seem paradoxical and incredible, I may here relate the things that experience
has enabled me to know with certainty.
Once, when the interior heaven was opened to me, and I was
conversing with the angels there, I was permitted to observe the following
phenomena. Be it known that although I was in heaven, I was nevertheless not
out of myself, but in the body, for heaven is within man, wherever he may be,
so that when it pleases the Lord, a man may be in heaven and yet not be
withdrawn from the body.
In this way it was given me to perceive the general workings
of heaven as plainly as an object is perceived by any of the senses. Four
workings or operations were then perceived by me. The first was into the brain
at the left temple, and was a general operation as regards the organs of
reason; for the left side of the brain corresponds to rational or intellectual
things, but the right to the affections or things of the will.
[2] The second general operation that I perceived was into
the respiration of the lungs, and it led my respiration gently, but from
within, so that I had no need to draw breath or respire by any exertion of my
will. The very respiration of heaven was at the time plainly perceived by me.
It is internal, and for this reason is imperceptible to man; but by a wonderful
correspondence it inflows into man's respiration, which is external, or of the
body; and if man were deprived of this influx, he would instantly fall down
dead.
[3] The third operation that I perceived was into the
systole and diastole of the heart, which had then more of softness with me than
I had ever experienced at any other time. The intervals of the pulse were
regular, being about three within each period of respiration; yet such as to
terminate in and thus direct the things belonging to the lungs. How at the
close of each respiration the alternations of the heart insinuated themselves
into those of the lungs, I was in some measure enabled to observe. The
alternations of the pulse were so observable that I was able to count them;
they were distinct and soft.
[4] The fourth
general operation was into the kidneys, which also it was given me to perceive,
but obscurely. From these things it was made manifest that heaven or the Grand
Man has cardiac pulses, and that it has respirations; and that the cardiac
pulses of heaven or the Grand Man have a correspondence with the heart and with
its systolic and diastolic motions; and that the respirations of heaven or the
Grand Man have a correspondence with the lungs and their respirations; but that
they are both unobservable to man, being imperceptible, because internal. (AC
3884)
This
passage indicates the nature of Swedenborg’s experimental observations: “I may
here relate the things that experience has enabled me to know with certainty.”
Swedenborg sometimes refers to the fact that he can’t go further with a topic
since it is not allowed him to say more (SE 621), and at other times he
mentions that he is allowed to say something for the purpose of clearing up an
erroneous belief that is harmful or, uplifting our hope from pessimism (SE
228). In the above passage, he is allowed to describe his sensuous observations
in order to dissipate the feeling people have about the Grand Human that it is
“paradoxical and incredible.” The rational consciousness we have of the Grand
Human remains obscure until we are given the sensuous consciousness of it
through Swedenborg’s observations and sensations. The rational within the sensuous completes the idea of the Grand Human
so that it may be seen in clear light.
The
Memorable Relations have a similar function. They give us a sensuous
consciousness of the spiritual world within which our rational consciousness of
Doctrinal things can rest as an ultimate and be completed in our understanding.
Much research lies ahead in the future of theistic science, which extends to
the distant future of millennia! Cumulative theistic science research will
uncover the layers of meaning in the above passage, and others like it. It
stand to reason that these sensuous details are all infilled with rational principles
and truths that we can extract through appropriate methods that rely on
illustration from the Lord. This enlightenment is given to anyone who reads the
Writings as the Word, and to the extent that one is being regenerated through
it.
5. Scientific
Revelations in the Writings
Today, a
wicked and wily man can be equally a good scientist as a moral and sincere man.
The private lives and biographies of great scientists can be filled with good
and with evil. The Lord gives natural truths to the good and to the evil. These
natural truths are acquired as-of self by self-intelligence and effort so that
not the Lord’s Providential actions are seen in them, but our own prudence and
ingenuity. But it is entirely different with the acquisition of spiritual and
celestial truths, that is, with theistic science. These truths are revealed by
the Lord to each individual to the extent that the Lord is acknowledged as the
author and giver of the truths.
To the
extent that we ascribe to the Lord our understanding of spiritual truths, and
none of it to ourselves, to that extent the Lord can give us more spiritual
truths, and more interior celestial truths. With these more interior rational
truths we can clearly see that the earlier natural truths we acquired as-of self
were also given from the Lord and not from self-intelligence. We then attribute
the marvelous achievements of engineering and medicine not to the rationality
or wisdom of material science but to the Lord. The success of science cannot
therefore be extended to the usefulness of materialism. Abandoning materialism for dualism is not a loss to the power and
utility of science, but an immeasurable gain.
The next two passages reveal that the heart
beat of animals and people on earth is controlled by the cardiac pulsations of
the spiritual angels, which in turn are caused by the speech of celestial
angels:
I then seemed
to myself to be in heaven with my head, but not with my body. In this state it
was likewise given me to observe the general respiration of heaven, and what
was its nature; it was interior, easy, spontaneous, and corresponding to my
respiration as three to one. It was also given me to observe the reciprocations
of the pulsations of the heart; and I was then informed by angels that each and
every creature on the earth has pulsations of the heart and the consequent
respirations; and that the reason why they take place at dissimilar moments is
that both the cardiac pulsation and the pulmonary respiration which are in the
heavens pass off into something continuous, and thus into endeavor, which is of
such a nature as to excite these motions variously in accordance with the state
of every subject. (AC 3885)
But be it known
that the variations in the heavens in respect to pulsations and respirations are
manifold, being as many as are the societies; for they are according to the
states of thought and affection with the angels; and these are according to
their states of faith and love; but the general pulsation and respiration are
as above described. Once also it was given me to observe the cardiac pulsation
of those who were of the province of the hinder part of the head, and to note
one by one the pulsations of the celestial and those of the spiritual in that
province. The pulsations of the celestial were tacit and gentle; but those of
the spiritual were strong and vibratory. The intervals of the pulsation of the
spiritual were to those of the celestial as five to two; for the pulsation of
the celestial inflows into that of the spiritual, and thus goes forth and
passes into nature.
And wonderful to say the speech of the celestial angels is
not heard by the spiritual angels, but is perceived under the form of a
pulsation of the heart; and this because the speech of the celestial angels is
not intelligible to the spiritual angels, for it is produced by affections
which are of love; whereas that of the spiritual is produced by intellectual
ideas (see n. 1647, 1759, 2157, 3343); and the former belong to the province of
the heart, but the latter to the province of the lungs. (AC 3886)
These
passages illustrate Swedenborg’s scientific sensuous observations of which he
made a record in terms of empirical measurements, such as the 3 to 1 ratio of
“tacit breathing” between the natural and spiritual mind, and the 5 to 2 ratio
of intervals of vibratory cardiac pulsation between celestial and spiritual
levels of the mind. These theistic science facts are about spiritual-celestial
truths. These breathing rhythms and cardiac pulsations in the spiritual mind
were caused by the celestial mind. In other words, celestial speech causes
spiritual phenomena by correspondence, and these two “go forth and pass into
nature,” which means that they are the cause of all natural phenomena. To put it still another way, the phenomena
of nature on earth are created by the speech of angels in the celestial heaven
through the ideas of the angels in the spiritual heaven.
These facts
and considerations can be applied to natural truths since these are created by
the speech of celestial angels. What is created in a sequential order of
discrete degrees also exists in a simultaneous order in natural events or
“motions” (TCR 214). Knowing the causative sequence of action from celestial to
natural allows us to inspect and analyze natural phenomena in their
simultaneous order of structure and motion, or existence. Dr. Ian Thompson’s
articles discuss many details of this process and has created a taxonomy that
identifies the systematic of these causal sequences (see Note 12 at end).
6. Sensuous
And Rational Content In The Writings
Readers of
the Writings will notice two types of content in it. The accounts given from
his direct observations or interactions with others, serve for the opening of sensuous
consciousness in the spiritual mind. These include:
q the Memorable Relations
q the experiences Swedenborg had in
heaven and hell
q the travels in earths in the
universe
q his conversations in the spiritual
world with historical figures and acquaintances
q his observations of people being
resuscitated
q his visual perception of the form of
the Grand Human
q his view of the spiritual Sun and
the Lord appearing amidst it
q the organic structure of the mind,
its levels of thinking, and its parallelisms with the respiratory and
circulatory systems of the body
q his observation of correspondences
while reading the Word in the form of environmental representations
q his experiments in which he
systematically introduces or removes some element from a spirit and notes the
results
q his drawings of spiritual regions
q systematic interviews with spirits
and angels to determine their knowledge on some topic
q etc.
As is
evident, sensuous consciousness in the spiritual mind consists of facts and
data from the many observations and experiments Swedenborg made in the
spiritual world. These may be called spiritual scientifics in parallel to
natural scientifics. One is the scientific knowledge and research in the
spiritual world; the other the scientific knowledge and research in the natural
world. The
The
Sensuous
consciousness to the spiritual mind being eliminated, people had to develop a
rational vision of the spiritual world, of the Lord and of heaven. This new
rational consciousness is called the work of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is Divine truth, proceeding from the Lord,
which flows in with man, both immediately from the Lord Himself and mediately
through angels and spirits (AE 183)
The Holy Spirit signifies strictly the Divine truth (TCR
139)
The Divine truth which then proceeded from Him is called the
"Paraclete," or "Spirit of Truth."
I will ask the Father, and He will give you another
Paraclete,* that he may abide with you to eternity, the Spirit of truth; whom
the world cannot receive, for it seeth him not, neither knoweth him; but ye
know him, for he abideth with you, and is among you. I will not leave you
orphans; I will come unto you. These things have I spoken unto you while
abiding with you. But the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, he shall teach you all
things (John
(AC 9199)
By the "Comforter," the "Spirit of
Truth," and the "Holy Spirit," the Lord meant Himself … The
reason why the Lord breathed on the disciples and said, "Receive ye the
Holy Spirit," was that all the breathing of heaven is from the Lord. For
angels as well as men have breathing and beating of the heart; their breathing
being according to their reception of wisdom from the Lord … (LORD 51)
The word "spirit" is used in many passages in the
Word, and when said of man, by his "spirit" is signified the good and
truth that have been inscribed on his intellectual part, consequently there is
signified the life of this part. (AC 9818)
7. A
Spiritual Sensuous Consciousness
The Book
of the Writings that angels behold and read is a spiritual sensuous fact before
their eyes. This is through the sensuous spirit-body in which everyone awakens
in the afterlife. Swedenborg lived a dual life for 27 years so that he was able
to objectively describe for us the details of the spiritual sensuous life. These
facts about the spiritual world are called the “interior science” (or spiritual scientifics), and constitute the
sensuous consciousness of our spiritual mind. In this sensuous consciousness we
behold the Divine Human in the Writings, though only by correspondence in the
interior-natural mind. We behold the Divine Rational of the Divine Human when
we read the literal of the Writings, but only to the extent that we understand
it spiritually. We are not conscious of the spiritual mind while tied to the physical
body, but we are conscious of the interior-natural mind that the Lord forms
within the natural-rational understanding. We then perceive by higher correspondences,
which means that we perceive spiritual topics spiritually. Prior to reformation
we can only perceive spiritual topics naturally, since our interior-natural
mind isn’t opened until we undergo regeneration.
The
descriptions we study in the Writings serve for the opening of rational
consciousness of spiritual things.
These include:
q the correspondences in the Old and
New Testaments
q the Laws of Divine Providence and
Permissions by which the Lord manages all events
q the history and evolution of
Churches applied to the development of the individual’s mind
q identification of who the Lord is in
relation to His Threefold Aspect
q how infinite distinct things in the
Lord make a one
q the connected series of instrumental
causes from the spiritual Sun down to molecules
q discrete degrees in the universe and
in the human mind
q life disciplines needed to be reformed
and regenerated through temptations
q conjugial love in heaven and the
spiritual biology of men and women
q the vertical community and how the
Lord associates every individual to spirits
q explanations about infinity, chance,
vacuum, color, natural language, diseases, etc.
q the structure of all created objects
q inheritance of psychological and
spiritual traits
q what is uncreate
q Etc.
As a result
of our Second Education, these natural-rational things in the Letter become
spiritual-rational truths, as reflected in our new reasonings, understandings,
and levels of thinking. They are what infills the sensuous consciousness in our
spiritual mind, though this process is still unconscious. Both must be present
in the spiritual mind in order to be prepared for life in the New Heavens (TCR
1). The Writings provide both for the up building of our spiritual mind. From the
Writings we acquire both sensuous and rational consciousness of the spiritual
world. The sensuous consciousness is not accessible in this life, but will be in
the afterlife. Rational consciousness by itself would not be determined to
anything real if it did not have sensuous consciousness to settle in as an
ultimate (AC 1476). These two types of consciousness, or level of thinking, are
in discrete duality, the rational within the sensuous and interacting only by
correspondences (D. Wis. 2).
In Heaven and Hell we read:
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)
8. External
And Interior Theistic Science
When the Word is
opened the Lord appears
(AE 612)
Swedenborg’s
science published as his Scientific Works
was first written in his natural mind separated from the spiritual mind. But
afterwards, his science was written in dual mode, having been given direct
sensuous access to both worlds. The two versions of theistic science he wrote
are structurally related so that he first wrote the external theistic science
of the sensuous world on earth, and later, the interior science of the sensuous
aspects of the spiritual world.
The
Writings contain two visible types of subject matter in its literal sentences:
the external theistic science from Swedenborg’s Scientific Works, and the
interior theistic science of the spiritual world. The two are intermingled. The
external theistic science in the Writings are scientific revelations about the
natural world that were not known before. The interior theistic science
consists of revelations about the spiritual world, also not known before. Note
well: the external theistic science and the interior theistic science both
appear in the literal, and therefore only a natural understanding is possible
from these descriptions. A spiritual understanding of them is possible only by
enlightenment, as discussed in Chapter 1.
The science
written in the Writings, both external and interior, contains a sensuous and a
rational portion. Similarly, the natural version of science in the Scientific
Works contain a sensuous and a rational portion. Swedenborg uses the facts and
experiments of certain “gifted and talented” scientists to gather accurate data
of natural objects and phenomena. He then analyzes this factual database by means
of rational principles of reasoning, that he also describes (xx). This is the
rational consciousness of the natural world, or the natural-rational level of
thinking. This precise approach in the natural mind yields cumulative progress
and is without the errors of conjecture or bias (xx).
The
Scientific Works were composed through the natural-sensuous mind, which is the
middle portion of the external natural mind. The Writings on the other hand, were
composed through the natural-rational mind which is in the upper portion of the
external rational mind. The Writings were
written by the Lord through the conscious as-of self mind of Swedenborg. There is no other way that the Word can be
written. As a result of the Writings being written by the Lord, it has infinite
series of truths in its internal sense. The study and research of these
infinite series in the internal sense of the Writings is called the interior
theistic science.
Clearly
then, the Scientific Works used by the Lord in the Writings had to be created
by the Lord through Swedenborg’s unconscious mind in such a way that they later
could serve as contaminants of the infinite series of the Word.
The Lord would not have included
anything from the Scientific Works had these Works not also been prepared by
the Lord to be appropriate vessels for writing the Word of the Writings.
The natural
external scientifics of the Scientific Works are imported by the Lord and woven
into the literal framework or fabric of the Letter of the Writings. At the
level of the Letter of the Writings, or its literal meaning, the spiritual
interior scientifics of the Memorable Relations and of the Doctrinal expositions
are commingled by the Lord with the natural external scientifics of the
Scientific Works. The matrix and fabric of the Letter makes these two types of
scientifics an integral part of each other. One cannot subsist without the other.
It is not possible to take away the natural scientifics of the Writings since
it was woven by the Lord into the Letter of the Word.
It was
necessary therefore that Swedenborg’s Scientific Works, in their minutest
detail, be directed, selected, and actualized by the Lord independently of
Swedenborg’s own will and understanding. Swedenborg went through the
intellectual effort of as-of self organization and interpretation of data and
the creation of theory and rational explanatory accounts. But he attributed the
success of his findings or the merit of his explanations solely and entirely to
the Lord (xx). The Lord was responsible for the direction and fruitfulness of
his reasoning and thought sequences.
The two
types of scientifics (natural and spiritual) which make up the literal meaning
of the Writings are both Divine because every detail of the Word is Divine
(xx). The surface words, expressions, and sentences are arranged in a perfect
and infinite series so that nothing can be taken away without destroying the
series that is within (xx). It’s obvious that an infinite spiritual-rational series
must be present within the finite natural-rational expressions of the Letter.
The literal
of the Writings in heaven is not the same as the literal of the Writings on
earth. The difference is that which exists between natural languages and
spiritual language (xx). Still, the inner series within the literal of both is
the same because this is the Lord’s Divine Rational.
The external
and interior theistic science that is written in the literal of the Writings, contain
the spiritual-rational truths or correspondences that are in our spiritual
mind, but we are conscious of it by correspondence in our interior-natural mind
that the Lord creates within the natural-rational when we undergo and complete
our reformation.
The
They are called "drunkards" who believe nothing
but what they apprehend, and for this reason search into the mysteries of
faith. And because this is done by means of sensuous things, either of memory
or of philosophy, man being what he is, cannot but fall thereby into errors.
For man's thought is merely earthly, corporeal, and material, because it is
from earthly, corporeal, and material things, which cling constantly to it, and
in which the ideas of his thought are based and terminated.
To think and reason therefore from these concerning Divine
things, is to bring oneself into errors and perversions; and it is as
impossible to procure faith in this way as for a camel to go through the eye of
a needle. The error and insanity from this source are called in the Word
"drunkenness." Indeed the souls or spirits who in the other life
reason about the truths of faith and against them, become like drunken men and
act like them (AC 1072)
To investigate
the spiritual from the perspective of the natural is not permitted and leads
only to false and insane notions about the spiritual world and about the Lord. Instead, we must investigate the natural
from the spiritual. To understand the Scientific Works properly, which is
about the natural world, we must consider them from the spiritual-rational
perspective. This perspective is the internal sense of the Writings. In other
words, to investigate the meaning of the Scientific Works that forms portions
of the Letter of the Writings, we must treat them as having an interior meaning
since the Lord made them part of the Word. The extraction of the interior
meaning of the Scientific Works in the Letter is a major area of research for
theistic science. But this is true of all the portions of the Letter such as
the Memorable Relations and the Doctrinal expositions which are interior
scientifics. Theistic science research teaches the appropriate method of
extracting the Spiritual Doctrine from these Doctrinal expositions.
In other
words, sensuous consciousness of the natural world cannot be used to
investigate sensuous consciousness of the spiritual world (see also Volume 1 Chapter
4 Section 5 on “near death experiences”). Similarly, the rational principles
within the sensuous facts written in the Scientific Works cannot be properly
understood without first knowing about the rational principles of the spiritual
world written in the Writings and called the interior scientifics. Our first
education in childhood is the natural-sensuous knowledge of the two worlds that
we acquire through the school curriculum and religion. Our second education
begins when we start reasoning from ourselves about the two worlds, thus
developing our rational consciousness.
Sensuous
consciousness of the natural world is at first learned from materialistic
science in the school curriculum. At this point there is a clash in our mind
between this materialistic sensuous and the spiritual sensuous facts and truths
we learn from the Writings. We do not resolve this contradiction, we just lay
it aside or ignore it. But at some point the contradiction must be resolved in
order to enter heaven. There needs to be a changeover in the adult
Prior to
this, our sensuous and rational consciousness of the spiritual world from the
Writings is only in a natural form. It cannot be completed until the interior-rational
of the spiritual mind is opened. This opening activity is then consciously
experienced by correspondence in the interior-natural mind. Then for the first
time, we can behold the Divine Human in completion, even if only by
correspondence. This is the deeper meaning of the Second Coming, namely, the
infilling of the First Coming in the New Church mind by means of the Second
Coming in the New Church mind.
Swedenborg’s
Scientific Works can be called “theistic science,” but not in full. The
Scientific Works are the external portion of theistic science. The internal
portion is the interior science about the spiritual world, to which Swedenborg
had no access while he wrote the Scientific Works . Together they complete
theistic science in the same way as the First and Second Coming of the Lord
together constitute the completion of the human race. Now everything has been
given to the human race by which we can form theistic science as the genuine
and ultimate science. I predict that as theistic science grows in recognition
and participation, only those parts and aspects of the current materialistic
science will be retained which have the character identified by Swedenborg in
the Scientific Works (e.g., EAK Preface, xx).
Note that
the Scientific Works of Swedenborg cannot be classified together with the
science of any of his contemporaries.
Note that the
Lord allowed Swedenborg to carry his theistic science into every book of the Writings,
interweaving spiritual facts with natural facts, as for example when he
discusses the exact parallelisms between mental organic functioning and
physical, between how the will and the understanding interact and the parallel
interaction between the heart and lungs. This structural integration was not
merely an analogy, though they are used for “illustration” (xx). The particular
scientific details of how the circulatory interacts with the respiratory are
precisely parallel to the details of how the will and the understanding interact.
This strict methodological operational parallelism between spiritual and
natural phenomena is a structural integration in theistic science. The Science
of Correspondences is such an integration. The principle that individual
psychological development recapitulates racial history is also a strict
parallelism that is integrated into the fabric of the Word and its three layers
of internal meaning (AC 1024[2]). Also, that the regeneration of the individual
on earth affects the regeneration of the Grand Human and of people on other
earths—as discussed below under the Perizonius Thesis.
There was
no break in Swedenborg’s relationship to the science written in the Scientific
Works and the science given in the Writings. The first was the external portion
of the second, as discussed above. We can note that he continued to distribute
copies of The Economy of the Animal Kingdom (EAK) after his spiritual
enlightenment, and after he resigned his government office as senior mining
assessor on
But as I find
myself in duty bound to complete a work which I have commenced, therefore it is
my humble request that…
And thus, that
permission be graciously granted me to betake myself to a place abroad where I
can complete the important work which I have now in hand.
(The Letters and Memorials of Emanuel Swedenborg. Translated and Edited by Alfred Acton (
This was
three years after the Lord appeared to him and informed him of his mission as
revelator.
The manifestation of the Lord in Person, and the
introduction by the Lord into the spiritual world, both as to sight and as to
hearing and speech, surpasses all miracles; for we do not read anywhere in
history that such interaction with angels and spirits has been granted from the
creation of the world. For I am daily with angels there, even as I am in the
world with men; and now for twenty-seven years. (INV 43)
Swedenborg
had spent the intervening time, while still active in his government post, to
learn Hebrew and to prepare an extensive index of the Bible. Later Swedenborg
acknowledges that he had been led by the Lord in the Scientific Works (xx).
This makes complete sense because he was to incorporate this science into the
Word of the Second Coming. Swedenborg was the first human mind prepared by the
Lord since early childhood to become a
Since it is the Lord who composed
the Writings through Swedenborg’s mind, and since the Lord had prepared his
mind for this purpose since early childhood, therefore it is easy to see that
the inclusion of the Scientific Works in the Writings is not something we can
attribute to Swedenborg, any less than we can attribute to him the inclusion of
the Heavenly Doctrine. Every word and expression of the Letter of the Word contains infinite
series connected together so that nothing of the literal can be taken away
without destroying the inner series (xx). This insures that the Scientific
Works included in the Writings are scientific revelations in the Letter, within
which there are endless deeper scientific truths that can be extracted and will
be extracted in future theistic science. All truths that our mind on this earth
can grasp are scientific. Our rational consciousness develops and evolves
through our acquisition of ever more interior scientific truths about the Lord
and the Grand Human.
About his
preparation since childhood, Swedenborg wrote this:
I was once
asked how, from a philosopher, I became a theologian; and I answered, "In
the same manner that fishermen were made disciples and apostles by the Lord:
and that I also had from early youth been a spiritual fisherman." (ISB 20)
I will now give
you an account of my first youth: From my fourth to my tenth year I was
constantly engaged in thought upon God, salvation, and the spiritual affections
[passiones spirituales] of men; and several times I revealed things at which my
father and mother wondered, saying that angels must be speaking through me. (Letters
17)
From my sixth
to my twelfth year I used to delight in conversing with clergymen about faith,
saying that the life of faith is love, and that the love which imparts life is
love to the neighbor; also that God gives faith to everyone, but that those
only receive it who practice that love. I knew of no other faith at that time,
than that God is the Creator and Preserver of nature, that He imparts
understanding and a good disposition to men, and several other things that
follow thence. (Letters 17)
I knew nothing
at that time of that learned faith which teaches that God the Father imputes
the righteousness of His Son to whomsoever, and at such times, as He chooses
even to those who have not repented and have not reformed their lives. And had
I heard of such a faith, it would have been then, as it is now, above my
comprehension. (Letters 17)
9. The
Writings “Are Founded” On Theistic Science
The
theistic science Swedenborg was building was free of conjecture that leads to
error and fallacy. Its development was cumulative and relied on God for its
wisdom, as will be shown below. Theistic science contrasts discretely with
materialistic science in this respect. One is from God; the other is from the
fallacies of self-intelligence (AE 654[42]). The theistic science built up by
the
In the
Appendix to volume II of the Principia Swedenborg looks back on the
theistic science he was given to create:
If the
principles I have advanced have more of truth in them than those which are advocated
by others; … and … should I not gain the assent of those whose minds, being
prepossessed by other principles, can no longer exercise an impartial judgment,
still I should gain the assent of such as are able to distinguish what is true
from what is untrue, if not in the present, at least in some future age. (Principia, V.II, p.365-6)
Swedenborg knew therefore that his
science was to endure. Which makes sense since (a) it was Providentially
managed in its details, and (b) it was included by the Lord in the Letter of
the Word of the Writings.
Placing Swedenborg’s Scientific Works along a continuum with other
people’s books creates the idea of a nonduality between these two approaches—between
science by conjecture from self-intelligence versus theistic science
enlightened by the Lord.
Remember that Swedenborg was the first
I was once asked how, from a philosopher, I became a
theologian; and I answered, "In the same manner that fishermen were made
disciples and apostles by the Lord: and that I also had from early youth been a
spiritual fisherman." On this, my questioner asked, "What is a spiritual
fisherman?" I replied, "A fisherman, in the Word, in its spiritual
sense, signifies a man who investigates and teaches natural truths, and
afterwards spiritual truths, in a rational manner." [2] On his inquiring,
"How is this demonstrated?" I said, "From these passages of the
Word …
(…)
[4] On hearing this, my questioner raised his voice and
said, "Now I can understand why the Lord called and chose fishermen to be
His disciples; and therefore I do not wonder that He has also chosen you,
since, as you have observed, you were from early youth a fisherman in a
spiritual sense, that is, an investigator of natural truths: and the reason
that you are now become an investigator of spiritual truths is because these
are founded on the former." To this he added, being a man of reason, that
"the Lord alone knows who is the proper person to apprehend and teach
those things which belong to His New Church (ISB 20)
It
is said here that the Writings (spiritual truths) are “founded on” the earlier
Scientific Works (natural truths).
Note that that Swedenborg calls himself a
“fisherman” and defines it as investigating and teaching natural truths, “and
afterwards” spiritual truths. The two types of sciences are structured
together in the one idea of “fisherman.” His statement is fully justified by the idea that the Lord
prepared his mind from childhood and that it is the Lord Himself who did this
in order to establish His New Church. Swedenborg’s Scientific Works were
produced prior to his access to the spiritual world, prior to his ability to
enter the spiritual world. Hence the progress of his Scientific Works had to be
managed by the Lord in order for it to become perfectly suitable as the
external vessel for the spiritual rational revelations to be given later in the
Writings.
Swedenborg’s
mind was prepared not merely in the general sense pointed out by the man who
was questioning Swedenborg in the quote just above (ISB 20): “"What
Christian theologian does not study philosophy in the schools, before he
graduates as a theologian? From what other source has he intelligence?” This is
the acknowledgement of a general preparation of Swedenborg’s mind through
“natural” science (including history, biology, psychology, economics, etc.),
which allowed him to develop his intelligent capacities, like any other person.
But more deeply understood, his universal preparation as revelator rests on his
specific preparation in this or that scientific discipline (xx). This specific
preparation are effected through the Scientific Works and ideas that he produced
to create a theistic science entirely different form the science of those whose
observational and experimental facts he borrows and appreciates.
The
Scientific Works that Swedenborg produced from his
This
It follows
that there will never be another New Word given to the human race. The
evolution of the human race has at last flourished and come into its own. We
now have before us, revealed by the Lord, everything the human race will ever
need to know in order to attain to its highest possible level of existence and
being. The Second Coming thus marks the beginning of the last age in human
history. At last, the creation of the race is completed.
The mind of
Swedenborg was the human context by which this momentous event was accomplished
by the Lord. A traditional view in the
(1) The Writings are the Word of the Second Coming and the
(2) The Writings are the revelations of theistic science
Swedenborg’s
Scientific Works cannot be separated from the Writings because they have been
included by the Lord as part of the Letter of the Word of the Second Coming.
Such is the order in which those kinds of truths stand in
relation to one another in man. Until a person has become adult therefore, and
through sensory and factual truths possesses matters of doctrine, he is
incapable of being regenerated, for he cannot be confirmed in the truths
contained in matters of doctrine except through ideas based on factual and
sensory truths - for nothing is ever present in a person's thought, not even
the deepest arcanum of faith there, which does not involve some natural or
sensory idea, though generally a person is not aware of the essential nature of
such ideas. But in the next life the nature of them is revealed before his
understanding, if he so desires, and also a visual representation before his
sight, if he wants it; for in the next life such things can be presented before
one's eyes in a visual form. This seems unbelievable but it is nevertheless
what happens there. (AC 3310)
It is said
here that “the deepest arcanum of faith involves some natural or sensory idea.”
As indicated before, this is the same idea that spiritual truths “are founded”
on natural truths. This also denotes the relationship between rational and
sensuous consciousness, discussed elsewhere. It is the basis for understanding
correspondences.
The above
passage also refers to the relationship between external and internal
scientifics. When applied to the Writings, the external scientifics refer to
the literal text of the Word, which in itself, is natural (xx). The Writings
can be taught to anyone, such as a college course in psychology to students who
are not part of the
The same is
true about doctrines taught in sermons and classes. What is taught and learned
is the literal of the Heavenly Doctrine. This literal in itself is also
natural. Hence the reasoning that is used to understand what is in the Writings
and the Heavenly Doctrine is called natural-rational which is in the external
natural mind. When the Lord was growing up in the world He too started with
this natural-rational understanding of the literal of the Word He was studying,
and it is represented by Ishmael (AC 1893). And the Lord warned Himself from
the internal man who was Jehovah (AC 2083), that this natural-rational level of
thinking about the Word is not the true “inheritor” or possessor of the genuine
Doctrine, but Isaac is, who represents the spiritual-rational or interior
rational.
The Lord's first rational was represented and signified by
Ishmael, born of Hagar the handmaid treated of in the preceding chapter (16).
The second rational, treated of here, is represented and signified by Isaac who
was to be born from Sarah. The former, that is, the rational represented by
Ishmael, was the rational that was afterwards expelled from the house; but this
second rational, represented by Isaac, is that which remained in the house,
because it was Divine. But concerning this rational, of the Lord's Divine mercy
we shall speak in the following chapter, where Isaac is treated of. (AC 2066)
The genuine
Doctrine, or Spiritual Doctrine, is spiritual of celestial origin (xx) while
the understanding of the Writings from the natural external literal meaning is
not the genuine or spiritual Doctrine. The Spiritual Doctrine is the internal
of the literal, that is, its spiritual meaning arranged in a coherent system.
This spiritual meaning cannot be seen in the literal except by those who are
enlightened by the Lord, that is, by those who have undergone reformation and
are being regenerated. These can see the inner sense of the literal while they
are reading the Writings (xx). The spiritual meaning of the Writings are
conveyed by means of spiritual-rational correspondences. These operate in the interior-natural
mind and cannot be perceived in the natural-rational mind, which is external.
The interior-natural is opened and operated by the Lord in correspondence with
the opening of the spiritual mind, which is unconscious while we are on earth.
10. Diagram
of “Scientifics” And “Doctrinal Matters”
The
natural-rational level of thinking and reasoning about the literal of the
Heavenly Doctrine, is what’s called “scientifics” in the above passage (AC 3310
and elsewhere). In contrast, the spiritual-rational level of perceiving the
inner sense is called in this passage “doctrinal matters.” Note well that
“doctrinal matters” or the genuine Doctrine does not refer to the literal of
the Writings, but to its internal sense.
The internal sense is itself the genuine doctrine of the
church … They who understand the Word according to the internal sense, know the
true doctrine itself of the church, because the internal sense contains it (WH
11)
We have
therefore two phases of understanding the Writings. First we understand its
scientifics; then we perceive the genuine or Spiritual Doctrine.
These two
phases are separated in time until we undergo reformation as an adult. After
reformation, we can be enlightened in conjunction with our regeneration, which
can then begin. When regeneration begins it proceeds by continuous steps and
never ceases (xx). These steps can only
be made by enlightenment from the Lord. Each point of genuine Doctrine must
be revealed by the Lord to the individual undergoing regeneration by means of
the Word of the Writings. Once revealed, the individual perceives the inner
sense and has this perception within the interior-natural mind, not the external
natural mind. Therefore when the individual attempts to explain or write out
this inner perception, what comes out in natural language is nothing but the literal
that others can read and understand. But the inner sense it points to or
contains, cannot be seen in the literal meaning but only when the literal
expressions are read as correspondences.
At no time
therefore can genuine Doctrine appear in natural language. It can only be
perceived in the spiritual mind which does not use natural language (xx).
The Word is not understood, except by those who are
enlightened. The human rational faculty cannot comprehend Divine, nor even
spiritual things, unless it be enlightened ... Thus they only who are
enlightened comprehend the Word … Enlightenment is an actual opening of the
interiors of the mind, and also an elevation into the light of heaven (WH 7)
Spiritual
things cannot be seen by the natural mind, but only by the spiritual mind: “In
the Word interior things are expressed and signified by exterior things” (AC
2072). Natural ideas about spiritual things are of course possible because
“truth is the chief characteristic in man's rational” and the “rational is formed
by means of the knowledges of truth, for by no other means can anyone ever
become rational” (AC 2072). But at first this is a matter of reasoning
naturally, not perceiving spiritually. Which is why angels of the Third Heaven
do not ordinarily engage in thinking, but only have affections by which they
perceive. Thus, thinking is short-circuited in the celestial mind and does not
proceed as it does in the natural mind (xx). The spiritual angels in the Second
Heaven do reason and think, but they are unable to perceive anything whatsoever
that the angels of the Third Heaven perceive.
The things relating to the internal sense of the Word fall
into such things as are of the light of heaven, thus into angelic perception
(WH 10)
In the internal or spiritual sense of the Word there are
innumerable arcana. The Word in the internal sense contains innumerable things
which exceed human comprehension ... It also contains things ineffable and
inexplicable (n. 1965). Which are manifest only to angels, and are understood
by them (WH 11)
The passage
quoted earlier (AC 3310) also indicates that doctrinal matters, which are in
the spiritual and celestial mind, can be made visible to their external
spiritual senses. In other words, angels are surrounded by a sensuous environment
which is an outward representation of their affections. These affections
constitute their rational consciousness, while the things they experience
through the senses constitute their sensuous consciousness. The sensuous
consciousness of angels is called “perception” (xx) while their rational
consciousness is called “conjunction” (xx).
In the
natural mind there is also a sensuous and rational consciousness, both being
natural, wherefore they are called “scientifics” with reference to the
Writings. In the natural mind, sensuous consciousness is called “sensation”
while rational consciousness is called “reasoning” (xx). The two together, or,
rational within sensuous consciousness, is called “sensory factual truths” (AC
3310).
The above
considerations can be summarized in a diagram for clearer understanding:
As the Chart
shows, sensation and reasoning constitute the scientifics of the literal of the
Writings in the natural mind. Perception and conjunction constitute the
doctrines of the inner sense of the Writings in the spiritual mind.
The arrow
indicate the actual sequence, while the broken arrows indicate the apparent
sequence. When we study the literal of the Writings in the natural mind it
appears to us that we are focusing on the meaning of the sentences in the
literal text (“SENSATION”), which
gives us a sensuous consciousness of the outward form of the Divine Word. This
is how a child listens to the Memorable Relations in the Writings. This is how
we read the entire description of the spirit world, heaven, and hell. This is
also how we understand the Heavenly Doctrine and the explanations about the
correspondences in the Old and New Testaments. From a child we become a
scientist, and in both cases we remain in the literal language, which is
natural and sensuous. The angels who are with us while reading the Writings in
this way, do not see anything that we see, since they do not see the natural
things in the Word.
As we get
older we develop our external rational through education, observation, and
reasoning based on these. Now when we read the Writings we get past the mere
sensory content of the text and reason about its “message” with regards to the
Church, Doctrine, and regeneration (“REASONING”).
Following
these first two phases, called “SCENTIFICS,” reformation takes place in our
early adulthood or midlife. Reformation is the struggle to reorient everything
in the mind from “scientifics of the Writings” to “DOCTRINES of the Writings”.
This is a crossing point and a turning point. Now we enter the last two phases,
called “doctrines,” the first of which is called “perception” in reference to
the higher angels who are said to have perception of spiritual truths without
having to reason it out to prove to themselves that it is true (xx). The lower
angels do feel the need to reason about spiritual truths in the Writings, and
they are happier when they can do so. Therefore it is granted by the Lord. In
our spiritual development, we recapitulate these relations between the lower
and higher heavens.
The first state is represented in the life of every person
by his infancy and childhood, until he becomes a youth, adolescent and young
man. This state is marked by humility before his parents, obedience, and being
instructed by masters and underlings. The second state is represented by the
same person's state when he becomes his own master, can make his own decisions,
or follow his own will and his own understanding; at this stage he has control
in his own house. (TCR 106)
After
completing reformation in young adulthood or beyond, we begin our new life of
regeneration, which consists of applying the literal (“scientifics”) of the
Writings to ourselves. Our motive power is to consider the literal to be Divine
Commandments by which we must guide our life. Then, for the first time, the
Lord gives us enlightenment, and we can perceive beyond the natural sense into
the spiritual sense that lies within it (“PERCEPTION”).
This
conscious perception is the activity by the Lord of opening our interior spiritual
mind, of which we are totally unconscious while in the physical body. The
perception of spiritual meanings within the literal is a conscious perception,
therefore it occurs in the natural mind. The upper portion of the natural mind,
called the natural-rational, is where the “vessels” are located within which
this perception can occur. The perception is the operation of the
interior-natural mind by means of spiritual-rational correspondences. These
vessels are the scientifics of the Writings that we have taken up into our
conscious understanding. They are located in the natural-rational mind in the
form of natural-rational correspondences. Now the Lord animates and enlivens
these vessels from within so that we are not directly aware of his activity in
the spiritual mind, but sense the result of it in the animated vessel. We can
now clearly see by this resultant enlightenment, that there is a new way of
applying the literal. This is perception of the spiritual sense. This
perception is nothing but the perception of spiritual-rational correspondences within
the natural-rational correspondences from the Letter.
The
operations in our unconscious spiritual mind descend by correspondence into the
interior-natural mind where we become conscious of a new meaning we see in the
sentence we are reading or considering. This happens only to the extent that we
are applying our natural reasoning from the literal to ourselves, that is, to
our willing and thinking in a particular situation or at a particular time.
Once we have perception on some topic or sub-topic, we can reason about it in
our natural mind, write it out or discuss it with others. However, this new
literal produced by our thinking and discussing is not the spiritual content of
the perception but its natural correspondence.
Finally, as
we are given perception of the inner sense by enlightenment from the Lord we
are conjoined to Him to the extent that we love what we are perceiving in that
sense (“CONJUNCTION”).
This is the
apparent progression indicated by the broken arrows. But in reality, the
sequence is the reverse. In the natural mind sensation is the result of
reasoning activity (xx). If you take away reasoning, all of it, no sensation is
possible (xx). This is similar to the sequence in vision and the eye: vision is
what creates and empowers the eye because vision precedes the eye in creation
(xx). The eye was created for vision (dualism) not “vision arose as a function
from the eye” (materialism). And so there must be human rational reasoning
within our sensations, or else they are not meaningful sensations that we can
experience in the normal way we are used to doing. But this does not yet
complete the situation.
The natural
mind cannot function by itself, but every process in it is an effect produced
by correspondence from the spiritual mind. But since the spiritual mind is not
yet open for us, not yet available to our awareness, it is occupied or animated
by the angels through influx (xx). We are unconscious of all influx. And so
there is no other possibility but the illusion of the appearance that our
natural mind functions by itself in itself. However, once we are undergoing
regeneration and applying the literal to ourselves, the enlightenment we are
given by the Lord becomes clearly and wonderfully obvious to our awareness. The
Lord creates an interior-natural in our mind, which is spiritual not natural.
This new interior-natural is capable of reacting by correspondence to what is
going on in the spiritual mind. We are conscious of this reaction in our
interior-natural. Now we are able, more and more, to perceive consciously the
descent or exteriorization of the spiritual meaning into our natural mind. Now
we can see that the apparent sequence, which we thought until then was the
actual sequence, is not, but instead the reverse is the actual sequence. We
feel the conjunction with the Lord as He gives perception in the spiritual
mind, and then we are able to see and understand the literal in its fullness,
by vivid contrast between its outward form and its inward glory.
The entire
process depicted in the Table above from Firsts (the Lord) to lasts (natural
sensation and reasoning) can be represented in simultaneous order within
concentric circles. Conjunction is at the inmost or closest to the spiritual
Sun, or the Lord. First, conjunction is effected not by physical or sensuous
contact but by spiritual rational consciousness, that is, Divine Truth. Then,
perception is given, which is sensuous consciousness or the outward form of
spiritual rational consciousness in the spiritual mind. Third, reasoning is
given in the natural mind, that component of it called the understanding, which
is rational consciousness in the natural mind. And finally, at the outmost of
this process, sensations given, which is natural sensuous consciousness of the
literal or physical environment.
The first
two steps (perception of the inner sense and conjunction with the Lord) are in
the spiritual mind, while the last two are in the natural mind (sensation from
the physical body and reasoning with the external rational). You can see then
that the actual process is from the spiritual mind into the natural mind, but
the apparent order of learning and regeneration is the reverse. Initially we
learn the literal of the Writings and the Heavenly Doctrine in the natural mind
as scientifics, and after reformation, when regeneration begins, we perceive
the inner sense in the spiritual mind, and this in proportion to our progress
in regeneration. This perception is what’s called enlightenment from the Lord
while reading the Writings (xx).
During man's regeneration, the light of heaven is instilled
into natural light, and at the same time the heat of heaven; these two
constitute, as it were, the new soul, through which man is formed by the Lord.
This light and heat are instilled through the higher mind, which is called the
spiritual mind. By virtue of this instilling, or insertion, man becomes a new
creature, and becomes more enlightened and more intelligent in matters of the
church, and consequently in the reading of the Word. This also is the new
understanding and the new will. Afterwards the man is led by the Lord through
the above light and through the above heat, and from natural becomes
spiritual. (INV 2)
11. Literal And Spiritual Senses Are Both True And Accurate
Some in the
There are two things which ought to be in order with men,
namely, the things which are of heaven, and the things which are of the world.
The things which are of heaven are called ecclesiastical, and those which are of
the world are called civil. (NJHD 311)
In the
spiritual sense this passage teaches that the Writings contain two types of
“order” or reality that we must relate to. “The things of heaven” are the
doctrinal things of the Church, called “ecclesiastical,” and “the things of the
world” are the scientifics of the church, called “civil.” In the next number,
we are given further particulars:
Order cannot be maintained in the world without governors,
who are to observe all things which are done according to order, and which are
done contrary to order; and who are to reward those who live according to
order, and punish those who live contrary to order. (NJHD 312)
Seeing
through a deeper meaning, we are taught here that we are to obey our “governor”
in the natural mind, when we undergo reformation by means of the scientific of
the Writings. Our “civil governor” refers to the sensuous and the rational in
our natural mind. We are to punish ourselves when we “live contrary to order,”
contrary to the scientifics of the Writings in our mind. In other words, we
must realign everything in our external mind to conform to the order described
by the literal of the Writings. And the same applies to the doctrinal things
after reformation:
Governors over those things with men which relate to heaven,
or over ecclesiastical affairs, are called priests, and their office is called
the priesthood. (NJHD 314)
In a deeper
sense, this means that we are to obey our “priest” in the spiritual mind, when
we undergo regeneration by means of the doctrinal things in the Writings,
called “ecclesiastical affairs.” Putting the two together, we must obey the
external order in our natural mind in accordance with the scientifics of the
Writings, and we must obey the internal order in our spiritual mind in
accordance with the spiritual doctrines of the Writings. And further:
With respect to the priests, they ought to teach men the way
to heaven, and also to lead them; they ought to teach them according to the
doctrine of their church from the Word, and to lead them to live according to
it. Priests who teach truths, and thereby lead to the good of life, and so to
the Lord, are good shepherds of the sheep; but they who teach and do not lead
to the good of life, and so to the Lord, are evil shepherds. (NJHD 315)
Here it is
said that the way to heaven is taught by the doctrinal things in the mind from
the Writings. The doctrinal things are the spiritual things in the spiritual
sense, for only these lead to heaven, and are heaven. Our “priest,” as before,
refers to the doctrinal things in our spiritual mind that we have from
perception when we are enlightened by the Lord. This spiritual perception leads
to the “good of life” which is the work we do in our regeneration. When we do
not obey this doctrine, our doctrine is not called a “good shepherd” but an
“evil shepherd.” The enlightenment we had received now vanishes away, and we
are facing the darkness and delusions of our hell. Good doctrine is the true
doctrine that is applied to our willing and thinking, by which we learn to
reject evil affections and detest them instead of being delighted by them, as
before.
Dignity and honor ought to be paid to priests on account of
the holy things which they administer; but they who are wise give the honor to
the Lord, from whom the holy things are, and not to themselves; but they who
are not wise attribute the honor to themselves; these take it away from the
Lord. (NJHD 317)
This means
that the spiritual doctrine in our spiritual mind is the Lord Himself, also
stated in many other places (xx, xx). We can attribute the scientifics of the
Writings in our mind as something we have gathered ourselves, by expending
effort and diligence in whatever we choose on our own to study, this or that
portion of the Writings, as we freely decide. But the doctrinal or spiritual
things in our mind must not be called our own, but the Lord’s within us. We
contributed nothing in the gathering of the spiritual truths. These truths are
from the Lord, by enlightenment, who animates the vessels we gathered seemingly
by ourselves. To attribute these spiritual perceptions to ourselves would be to
“take away from the Lord.”
Priests ought to teach the people, and to lead them by
truths to the good of life, but still they ought to compel no one, since no one
can be compelled to believe contrary to what he thinks from his heart to be
true. He who believes otherwise than the priest, and makes no disturbance,
ought to be left in peace; but he who makes disturbance, ought to be separated;
for this also is of order, for the sake of which the priesthood is established.
(NJHD 318)
The
spiritual perceptions from the Lord, called doctrines in our spiritual mind,
ought not to compel us by external means but only by internal. To compel
ourselves by external means is to obey the doctrines in our life from a motive
of reward or merit. To compel ourselves by internal means is to obey the
doctrines in our life from a motive of love unto the Lord. The Lord must be recognized
as this Doctrine in our mind, because this Doctrine is from the Lord, and what
is from the Lord is Divine Truth with us. External obedience to spiritual
Doctrine is called a “disturbance.” It ought to be “separated” which means that
we must desist from performing this type of obedience. But if we do not feel
this love for the Lord, our external mind ought to be “left in peace,” which
means that we fall back on the earlier phase of regeneration, and are to
continue our struggle for reformation. The “priesthood is established” for the
sake of “separating” the “disturbance” with regard to the spiritual things in
our mind. This means that the spiritual doctrine the Lord gives us by
enlightenment, is for the sake of distinguishing in our mind between the literal
sense and the spiritual sense of the Writings. We obey the literal sense when
we undergo reformation, but the spiritual sense when we undergo regeneration.
From these
inner considerations of what the Word says about ecclesiastical and civil
government, one might be tempted to conclude that therefore it is not required
that the community establish a priesthood or a county government. This follows
from the notion that the literal is not to be attended to when perceiving the
inner sense. But this is a mistaken conclusion, for it is stated that “order
cannot be maintained in the world without governors” (NJHD 312) and the Church
cannot be maintained without a priesthood organized into an ecclesiastical
order—“priests are appointed to administer those things which relate to the
Divine law and worship” (NJHD 319). Clearly
then, the literal sense of the Writings is not less true or less real, just
because there is a spiritual sense within it. The two are independently
true and real. This principle is taught when we are told in the Writings that
everything in the Word of the Old and New Testaments are historically accurate,
by Divine Providence whom these historicals signify. The historicals of the Old
Testament are all accurate and true, notwithstanding that they contain a
spiritual meaning. The journeying of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob represent the
Lord’s glorification series in much detail, point by point, as is made clear in
Arcana Coelestia, and yet every
detail is historically real and accurate (xx).
It wouldn’t
be rational to believe that the Lord can’t manage to bring about those
historical events that represent and signify His Glorification Series as
described in Arcana Coelestia. Only
those details of those events were recorded in the Word that fit into a
rational series recorded by the Lord in a natural human language through men He
has chosen and prepared for receiving the unconscious dictation. This inner
Voice of the Lord appeared in their conscious mind in the form of natural
correspondences. They saw visions and heard things that were natural
correspondences of the Lord’s Words. The Lord’s Divine Truth is contained
within the sentences written down by the prophet or revelator. Obviously, the
literal of the Word is as important for the Lord to manage as the spiritual
meaning within it, for the internal and the external are held in an exact and
invariable position relative to each other. They make one construction as our
skeletal structure makes one with the voluntary muscles when we walk or work. Take
away the skeleton, and the muscles for walking are useless weight as we lie in
a heap on the floor. Take away the literal sentences written by Lord through
the revelator, and the spiritual truth we receive from the Lord pours out in a
heap, and vanishes. This is true both of the Written Word, and the Word taken
up in our understanding.
Think about
this Word that is taken up in our understanding. It is an awesome think to
behold. The Spiritual Doctrine within the Letter of the Writings is the Divine
Human Himself, as He presents Himself in His Divine Rational. He is the Divine
Truth that creates all things by Wisdom from Love. He is now in our mind, in
the place where we have the Spiritual Doctrine, whose outward correspondences
are the literal sentences in the Writings that we have taken up in our memory.
In other words, from our memory of the literal sentences, we apply them to
ourselves as we proceed in willing and thinking hour by hour. This results in a
flash of enlightenment during which we perceive the inner spiritual sense. This
sense is our spiritual understanding of the Writings and is called our
Spiritual Doctrine. It’s in this Doctrine that the Lord has come to visit us,
indeed, to dwell with us.
It makes
sense because the Lord visiting us means adjunction to Him by means of Divine
Truth in our Spiritual Doctrine (xx). His dwelling in us means conjunction with
Him by means of Divine Love which He plants into the Divine Truth (xx). Note
carefully that the Lord could implant Divine Love into us in anything that is
from us or self (xx). Therefore the Lord can dwell in us in only that which is
His in us (xx). He cannot implant Himself in us while we are looking away from
Him, towards hell. But when undergo reformation, we turn ourselves away from hell
and towards the Lord. This is the reformed life in our mind. Then as we suffer
ourselves to undergo temptations and regeneration, the Lord adds spiritual heat
to the truth we see in the literal of the Writings. This animates that truth
and makes it spiritual. This spiritual Doctrine is by enlightenment, just as
prophecies and revelations are by enlightenment. One cannot attain this by
oneself because the spiritual is beyond attainment by self.
This
spiritual Doctrine is from the Lord in us, and therefore is the Lord with us
since He is the all in all of spiritual Doctrine (xx). The Divine Truth in the
Spiritual Doctrine is the Lord with us. The Spiritual Doctrine is in us to the
extent that we undergo regeneration by means of the literal of the Writings. To
that extent also, we are adjoined and conjoined to the Lord. Now can we love
Him in ourselves, whereas before reformation and regeneration, we loved
ourselves in ourselves. This love we have for Him in us, is conjunction with
the Lord because in this love He enters with His Divine Love, and we become a
receptacle of His Proprium. This is the celestial human being He has created to
which He longs to bring every human being. To deny the spiritual sense of the
Writings is to deny entry of the Lord into the knowledges of the Writings in
our understanding. This is because the Lord dwells only in what is Divine, and
so He must have our cooperation in acquiring as-of self, by intellectual
effort, the sentences of the Writings, and striving studiously to understand
them. This is the effort required to put the literal of the Doctrine into our
rational mind.
Once it is
there, we only need to apply it to our willing and thinking. As soon as we
begin this discipline, we are enlightened by the flash and clearly perceive the
inner sense within the literal. This clear perception is from the Lord, and
therefore is the Lord. Now He has something of Himself in us, the spiritual
Doctrine which we have acquired by our as-of self effort, and with which we can
think and by which we choose to order our life. This spiritual Doctrine from
the Lord is nothing but the Divine Truth in us, placed in our mind by means of
the literal sentences of the Writings and its literal rational meanings, also
called “dualities” in Volume 1. This Divine Truth can now serve for containing
His Divine Love, and there is then a Divine Marriage within our mind that
fructifies into more and more interior truths, higher and higher heavens and
celestial bliss and power. This Divine Marriage is called the marriage of good
and truth (xx).
From these
considerations you can see that we need to have a right idea of the
relationship between the literal sentences of the Writings in our external
mind, and their spiritual sense in the interior mind.
It is
interesting to note that in 1930. Rev. Theodore Pitcairn wrote a paper in which
he discussed the spiritual sense of the last Chapter in NJHD dealing with
ecclesiastical and civil government. If you read his description of these
numbers along with what I present just above, you’ll see that they are not the
same, and yet they are compatible with each other. I would say that a single
passage in the Writings can be analyzed with regard to its internal sense in
numerous different way, but they will all agree with each other as long as
there is enlightenment from the Lord while working out the interpretation. This
makes sense since we know that in every sentence of the Word there are
innumerable spiritual things hidden within (xx). I should also note that Rev.
Pitcairn clearly saw that both the literal and the spiritual must be honored as
true:
“The position that have been set forth in this paper are not
meant to indicate that the literal sense of the Writings is not completely true
in itself. This chapter on the government of Church and State, in its literal
sense is truth, and we take it as our law of order for the organized Church.
But it has been shown how the internal government of the mind as to good and
truth, and the external government of Church and State, make a one by perfect
correspondence.”
(Theodore Pitcairn. “The Internal Sense Of The Chapter On
Ecclesiastical And Civil Government In The New Jerusalem And Its Heavenly
Doctrine, March 1930. Published in the restart issues of De Hemelse Leer, April 2002 issue, pp. 83-91. Dr. Rutger
Perizonius, Editor (Van der Heimstraat 5, 2582 RX,
Rev.
Pitcairn also saw that there are numerous possible descriptions of the
spiritual sense of any passage in the Writings, all of them genuine and Divine,
when from enlightenment rather than self-intelligence:
In the foregoing exposition expressions have been used such
as “this signifies,” this represents,” or “this is the spiritual sense of these
words,” and it is to be noted that such terms are used according to appearances.
The very spiritual sense of itself, of this chapter, is the Doctrine of the
Lord as it is received in heaven by angles, when such a chapter as this is
read. It therefore contains myriads of things which have never entered the
apprehension of man; and when we say “this is the spiritual sense of these
words,” we mean that is a step toward the spiritual or heavenly understanding
of the passage. (ibid, p. 90-91)
It should
also be understood that there is an inherent difficulty in writing down the
spiritual sense in a natural language. For when this is done, the writer can
see the spiritual sense that is discussed in the sentences he wrote down. But
his perception of the spiritual in his sentences is not in the literal of the
sentences but in their underlying sense. The reader cannot automatically detect
the underlying meaning the sentences contain and refer to. In order to have a
perception of spiritual things in a spiritual way, we must already be
enlightened by the Lord regarding the spiritual Doctrine within the Letter.
Before we are enlightened any discussion about the spiritual sense within the
Letter sounds vague and mystical. One cannot see what it is or that it is
different from the Literal. Therefore on doubts it or objects to such an idea.
But once
the Lord has formed an interior-natural within our natural-rational, everything
changes about our perception of the Letter. We first must take up the Letter of
the Writings in our memory and understand them in our natural-rational mind.
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)
This is
prior to reformation. Then, when we undergo reformation sometime in adulthood,
and begin regeneration, the Lord responds in two ways. He opens the spiritual
mind that is above the natural, and creates the interior-natural portion within
the natural-rational mind. Reformation is therefore a biological process in
both the natural mind and the spiritual mind. We have no consciousness of the
activity in our spiritual mind. The spiritual truths implanted there by the
Lord, as a seed in the field, will be of service to us in the afterlife. But
what He does in the interior-natural of our mind, is of immediate service to
us. We can actually perceive what is in the interior-natural mind, while we
cannot perceive what is in the spiritual mind.
We thus
gain a new spiritual consciousness when the interior-natural mind is created by
the Lord within our natural-rational mind. So we need to understand
anatomically, the structural relation between the unconscious activity of the
spiritual mind and the conscious activity of the interior-natural mind.
Remember
where the interior-natural mind is created, namely, WITHIN the
natural-rational. In other words, prior to reformation, we acquire ideas from
the Writings and build up our understanding in the natural-rational mind. This
understanding is a natural view of the spiritual topics in the Letter of the
Writings. It is necessarily a natural understanding because it is based on the
natural language of the sentences and their ideas. We continue to gather more
and more from studying the Letter of the Writings and have it available in our
conscious thinking all day long as we go about our activities. At this point
the Lord has not opened our spiritual mind, and neither has He created an
interior-natural component in the natural mind.
Later we
undergo reformation by means of our motive to regenerate and rearrange our
ideas and life in accordance with the Writings. We accomplish this reformation
by applying to our willing and thinking whatever we have acquired form the
Writings in our memory and understanding. To the extent we do this, the Lord
can now implant an interior-natural mind within our natural understanding. Now
we are a new man, a new birth, and we possess something we did not before. We
possess an interior mind within the conscious understanding. This is called the
interior-natural mind. The activation and animation of this interior-natural
mind gives us the ability to perceive the spiritual sense within the Letter.
The understanding that existed in our mind until then is suddenly illumined by
this new spiritual consciousness that we have in the interior-natural mind.
The
spiritual perception in the interior-natural mind is not the same as the
spiritual perception of the higher angels. They have perception from the
spiritual mind. The angelic spirits of the First Heaven have a spiritual
consciousness from their interior-natural mind. This is the highest spiritual
consciousness we are capable of while still in the natural world. But it is
enough in that it makes such a tremendous difference. The spiritual perception
from the interior-natural is conscious. The content we perceive from this
spiritual perception is a correspondence to the content implanted by the Lord
in our unconscious spiritual mind. There is therefore a structural relation
between the conscious interior-natural mind and the unconscious spiritual mind
which is a discrete degree above it. This unconscious spiritual mind has the
genuine spiritual content, which is called the spiritual-rational.
The
relation between the conscious interior-natural and the unconscious
spiritual-rational is one of correspondence.
Now we can
undergo regeneration by means of these tow minds being in correspondence. Each
time the Lord implants a new spiritual truth in our unconscious spiritual mind,
we become conscious of its correspondence in our interior-natural mind. Now
when we read the Letter of the Writings and apply it to our willing and
thinking, we perceive the spiritual sense within the Letter.
When we try
to write down the spiritual meaning in our perception, we can only do so in a
natural language. Others who then read these sentences only perceive them
naturally and are left wondering, Where is the spiritual? Or else, they read
the Letter discussing spiritual topics, and suppose that the meaning they
understand is spiritual. But after reformation, they can actually empirically
perceive the spiritual within the Letter. When they read the descriptions of
the spiritual Doctrine they can perceive and understand its spiritual things
spiritually, like the angelic spirits. But prior to reformation they only see
and understand the spiritual things in a natural way.
The Lord is the Word, and the Word is Divine Truth (DP 256)
The Lord is the
Writings, and the Writings is Divine Truth
12. Spiritual Parallelism Between The Lord, The Writings, And Our Mind
The First
Coming was the Incarnation. The Lord called Himself “the Son of Man’ to
represent the idea that He was the Word (xx). But the external natural mind cannot
understand this idea. How can a Person be a Book, even if both are called
Divine? Ask some children and young people in the
But when
you ask someone who thinks from the natural-rational level, the answer will be
rational, hence closer to the spiritual meaning: “The Word contains hidden
Divine Truths in every word and sentences. These spiritual truths are from the
Lord alone and remain the Lord’s wherever they are. Therefore when our mind
takes up spiritual truths from the Word, it is actually the Lord dwelling in
these truths that are now in our mind. Hence the Word is the Lord.” This is a
spiritual conception of the Lord and the Word. This spiritual conception is not
located in the external-rational mind but within it, the portion of it called
the interior-natural or the natural-spiritual mind. This is the interior mind
that the Lord creates within the individual during reformation. This
interior-natural mind is part of our conscious awareness and it mirrors the
unconscious activities going on in the spiritual mind during reformation and
regeneration.
The
spiritual mind is located a discrete degree above the natural mind and cannot
be accessed consciously while we are still attached to the physical body.
Therefore, to allow us to have a spiritual consciousness of spiritual truths
from the Writings, the Lord must create the interior-natural within the
external-natural. In the afterlife, angelic spirits in the First Heaven live
their conscious life in the interior-natural mind they obtained for themselves
during life on earth. But the angels of the Second and Third Heavens live their
life in the spiritual mind that was opened by the Lord without our
consciousness while we were being regenerated during our life in the body.
The word therefore is
written by mere correspondences (EU 119)
To
understand this issue in a fully rational way, we need to understand the
structural relation between the Lord’s First Coming in the New Testament and
His Second Coming in the Writings. Once understood, this structural relation
can be applied to understanding how the Letter of the Writings contains the
Spiritual Doctrine within it. We must draw a rational parallelism between the
Lord’s Coming and the Word’s two senses—outer natural and inner spiritual or
celestial. This parallelism can be confirmed from many places in the Writings,
and they ought to be confirmed by each individual personally as part of one’s
study of the Writings. Then it can be truly seen, and therefore, loved.
Remember that a description of the
parallelism in natural language and script, such as I give here, is actually a
natural-rational correspondence of the spiritual truths we are discussing. And, as discussed several times
before, the natural-rational understanding of the Writings is made of purely
natural correspondences by which spiritual and celestial things are represented
and signified:
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)
This natural correspondence serves
as a cognitive vessel, or mental containant, for receiving spiritual
enlightenment whenever we apply the correspondences to our willing and
thinking.
Unless we
build up as-of self these natural-rational correspondences, we cannot be
enlightened by the Lord. It’s crucial to remember that the discussion of the
parallelisms, as with all spiritual truths, is not identical with the spiritual
truths that are being discussed. The
actual spiritual truths are in the interior-natural mind, not the
external-rational mind that does the discussing of it!
What you
see on paper or computer screen is in natural language or text, hence the
spiritual truths are necessarily
expressed in natural correspondences. This is not a matter of opinion or
mystery, as some allege, according to what I have read. It’s a matter of
rational necessity, logic, and consistency. All things in the universe must
have a sensuous outward portion and a rational interior portion within it.
Similarly with the Word. The Writings have a Letter which represents the Divine
Corporeal of the Lord. thought we acknowledge the Divinity of the Divine
Corporeal, we do not worship it in itself, for this would be idolatry. Instead,
we worship the Lord in His Divine Rational which is within His Divine
Corporeal. The Letter in itself is dead (xx), but with the spiritual sense
within the literal sense, the Letter comes alive and is animated from within.
It is the spiritual sense of the Writings that gives us the spiritual-rational
truths we must have to regenerated. We
cannot find out these spiritual-rational truths by using our natural-rational
intelligence to figure out the literal meaning of the Writings.
This is
because such figuring or reasoning will remain figuring and reasoning about
natural correspondences. At no time can the figuring and the reasoning lead us
to the spiritual truths within these natural correspondences. This is more
difficult to believe about the Writings than about the Old and New Testaments.
We have no difficulty seeing that the Old and New Testaments are written in
pure correspondences. Our natural-rational level of thinking accepts this idea.
With the Writings, our natural-rational mind is bothered by the idea, disturbed
by what it might imply. One senses a threat from the vagueness of the idea. One
senses a rebellion against the Lord: Why did you mislead me? All along I
thought I was reading the real stuff, the rational stuff, and now it turns out
that it was all just natural correspondences for the real thing. Why wasn’t I
told this? What is this, a return to mystery and inspiration? And many such
things that are a stumbling block.
All these
objections cannot stand their way as we reflect rationally and with confidence,
knowing the Lord is leading every detail of our insight and analysis, as long
as we rely on Him. To the extent we stop relying on our self-intelligence to
figure it out, to that extent we rely on the Lord to enlighten us. Accept the
idea that enlightenment is something real, actual, and individual. Accept the
idea that enlightenment is nothing but a biological mechanism the Lord is using
for the spiritual surgery called regeneration of character. Regeneration of character is by means of the
enlightenment of the understanding as we begin to look upon the expressions of
the Letter as natural-rational correspondences for spiritual understandings.
What does
it mean to look upon the expressions of the Letter as natural-rational
correspondences?
It means
two things:
First, to say to oneself: This particular
word I’m considering, or this phrase, sentence, paragraph, or Number, is a
correspondence. The literal meaning of it that I understand with my
natural-rational mind, is a correspondence.
Second, to apply the Letter to the Letter
as a way of figuring the literal meaning of the correspondences. Applying the
Letter to the Letter means to search the Writings for passages that explain
what the correspondences are in an explicit literal definition. Now you
substitute the new segments for the old so that a new sentence or paragraph is
constructed. This new text is also the Word, also the Letter, and also laid
down in a natural-rational correspondence. Nevertheless, this new text is a
discrete degree above the original text. This cannot be seen unless enlightened
by the Lord. Otherwise the new text, also being a Letter, is seen as no
different from the original text.
Nevertheless,
our understanding of these new derived
sentences can be spiritual to the extent that our interior-natural mind has been
opened by the Lord. This is done at reformation. The interior-natural mind
responds from the Lord, not from self. The
interior-natural mind is animated by the new derived sentences, not by the old
original text.
This enlightenment is produced by
the Lord at the moment we apply the new derived sentences to our willing and
thinking.
If we try
to apply the old original text to our willing and thinking, we do not receive
enlightenment, and we do not perceive the spiritual sense. Instead, we continue
to believe that the natural-rational meaning is the spiritual sense. This appearance is due to the similarity
between the literal meaning of the Writings and the spiritual sense.
We do not
have this similarity with the Old and New Testaments. Their literal meaning is
far away from their spiritual content. Who would think that a fiery flying
serpent means a false belief based on the scientifics of the Word (xx)? But
when the Letter of the Writings discusses the human mind and the heavens in
discrete degrees, or a wedding ceremony in heaven witnessed by Swedenborg, it
appears logical to us to think of these as spiritual topics, not natural
correspondences, as in the Old and New Testaments. We object to the
implications. When we read about Abraham’s journeys in the Old Testament, we
can see that they represent the Lord’s glorification series while He was in His
childhood after His Incarnation. So Abraham represents the Lord. But what about
the Lord? Is He then a pure natural correspondence when He is discussed in the
Writings?
Therefore in order to remove all doubt as to such being the
character of the Word, the Lord has revealed to me the Word's internal sense.
In its essence this sense is spiritual, and in relation to the external sense,
which is natural, is as soul is to body. This sense is the spirit which gives
life to the letter; it can therefore bear witness to the divinity and holiness
of the Word, and convince even the natural man, if he is willing to be
convinced. (SS 4)
We must
face what the angel said in Swedenborg’s presence: The Word in its Letter is
dead (xx). The literal things that are said about the Lord are nothing but
natural correspondences about Him! For instance, it is said that in the Lord
infinite distinct things make one (xx). Each of these words are pure natural
correspondences. “The Lord” is a Holy Name only when spiritual meanings are
contained within this expression. Numerous people regularly use the Lord’s Holy
Name to cuss and blaspheme. But they cannot profane it because they are merely
using the natural correspondence in the cussing. Should they think about their
cussing, they still will only think about it in a natural way. Similarly with
the expression “distinct things” which is a natural correspondence for the
spiritual idea that no two created things can ever be the same on account of
the Lord’s infinity which is necessarily represented by the impossibility of
two things not being distinct to eternity.
Note
carefully that the spiritual sense of “distinct things” which is here specified,
is laid down, or expressed, in a natural language. The literal meaning of this description is about the spiritual sense
but it is not the spiritual sense itself!
But as
already explained, this description of the spiritual sense contains the idea of
the correspondences in the original expression. In fact, if you reread the
spiritual sense of “discrete degrees” it sounds like just a more elaborate way
of describing it. The original Letter and the spiritual sense of it, appear at
the same level of thinking. And yet they are not.
This is
because the new text containing the correspondences of the original text serves
a totally different use. The new text is for our enlightenment. The old text is
for our reformation and regeneration. The two are inseparable, yet must be
distinguished on account of their separate uses in regeneration.
Observe
what happens when you apply the Letter to the Letter. Consider these various
segments of the Letter in which the Lord is discussed in the literal sense:
Original passages:
(1) The Lord does not condemn anyone (AC 2335
(2) All order begins in Jehovah, that is, in the Lord (AC
2447)
(3) Light is Divine Truth going forth from the Lord (HH 180)
(4) The Lord also was taught like any other child (AC 1457)
(5) In the inmost sense of the Word the Lord alone and His
Kingdom are treated of (EU 119)
(6) It is from that correspondence that in the Word the Lord
is not only called a "Sun", but also "Fire" and
"Light". And by "Sun" is understood Himself as to Divine
Love and Wisdom together, by "Fire", Himself as to Divine Love, and
by "Light" Himself as to Divine Wisdom. (DLW 98)
(7) the Lord is the Word, and the Word is Divine Truth (DP
256)
Now let’s
apply the Letter to the Letter by making substitutions with correspondences.
This new Letter is called the extracted passage. Substitution by parallelisms
is illustrated in many places in the Writings and is recommended as a method of
lawful extraction of the Spiritual Doctrine from the Letter (xx).
Extracted passages:
(1) Divine Truth does not condemn anyone
(2) All order begins in Divine Love and Wisdom together
(3) Divine Wisdom is Divine Truth going forth from the
spiritual Sun
(4) The Lord also was taught like any other child
(5) In the inmost sense of the Word the Writings alone are
treated of
(6) It is from that correspondence that in the Writings the
Lord is not only called a "Sun", but also "Fire" and
"Light". And by "Sun" is understood Himself as to Divine
Love and Wisdom together, by "Fire", Himself as to Divine Love, and
by "Light" Himself as to Divine Wisdom.
(7) The Lord is the Writings, and the Writings is Divine
Truth
Following
my standard procedure, I have substituted “the Writings” where the original
says “the Word” (see Volume 2 for details). Consider the results when you apply
an original passage to something you’re willing and thinking. Let’s take
passage (6) and (7) and combine them into an extracted passage that will then
be called the Spiritual Doctrine:
(6) It is from that correspondence that in the Writings the
Lord is not only called a "Sun", but also "Fire" and
"Light". And by "Sun" is understood Himself as to Divine
Love and Wisdom together, by "Fire", Himself as to Divine Love, and
by "Light" Himself as to Divine Wisdom.
(7) The Lord is the Writings, and the Writings is Divine
Truth
We can
apply these two passages to our current discussion, by treating the expressions
as correspondences for what we are discussing.
“Fire” is the Lord Himself as to Divine Love. Since love is
celestial (xx), and since the Lord is the Word (xx), and the Writings are the
Word, therefore the inmost sense of the Writings treats of the Lord as love.
Similarly, the spiritual sense of the Writings treats of the Lord as wisdom. In
the Letter of the Writings, “Sun” represents the outmost sensuous or literal
meaning of the Writings. The Letter of the Writings represents the Lord as to
Divine Love and Wisdom together.
13. Enlightenment By Rational
Consciousness of Spiritual Correspondences
The Lord
called Himself “the Son of Man” when He was referring to His infirm human body
which He had put on Himself by hereditary birth from a virgin woman from among
the tribe of David, as foretold in the Old Testament (xx). He allowed this
merely human physical body to undergo growth from childhood, or be socialized
by means of religion and the Word of the Old Testament (xx). He allowed this
infirm body to be crucified so that He may fulfill the Word of the Old
Testament. The relationship His followers had with Him was natural-sensuous for
the most part, and to some extent it was also interior-natural or
natural-spiritual. Even His closest disciples, who acknowledge the Lord’s
Divinity, had an external relationship to Him, as represented by Peter’s denial
of knowing the Lord when he was in temptation, trying to save his own skin.
Peter repented later, and though this repentance was fully sincere, it was not
possible for Peter and the others to get closer to the Lord than His external,
infirm human body! Their acknowledgement of Him as the Messiah and Son of God
was in their natural consciousness, not yet genuinely spiritual, for the true
spiritual only begins in the spiritual-rational mind, and this mind in the
human race had not yet been opened by the Lord. Hence He said that He has to
come again to complete His Divine Work of Redemption.
Remember
that closeness to the Lord depends on love, which is why it’s called
“conjunction” with the Lord, as love is what conjoins (xx). The disciples were
able to love the Lord only from a distance, as it were. To love the Lord’s
Presence in a Physical Body, is to love only His outer parts, called the Divine
Natural. This is not yet loving and knowing the Divine Human who is within His
Divine Natural. They were incapable of forming an idea of the Divine Human since
the Lord had not yet provided a way. So the Lord’s First Coming served to build
up the race’s sensuous consciousness of His Divine Natural. The Second Coming
of the Lord revealed what is invisible inside His Divine Natural Body, namely,
His Divine Rational Mind.
You can see
why this second and final step was necessary and crucial, without which His
First Coming could not endure as a means of saving the human race. He had to
reveal to the race what was within His Divine Natural Body. How can we love a
body without its mind? Only in a distant way, without conjunction by love. To
love the Lord as to His Divine Natural is to love Him as to the Person—which we
are warned not to do (xx), and to keep expecting His physical arrival again,
after He has long arrived in His Divine Rational. He has arrived in His Second
Coming, which is in His Divine Rational, through the Writings. This is the
revelation of the invisible that lies inside His Divine Natural--invisible to
the sensuous consciousness, but visible to the rational consciousness of the
human race.
And now the
human race knows Him for all times because to know His Divine Rational is to
know Him as the human race was created to know Him in its perfection. Prior to
now this was not possible, but now the final completion of the human race has
taken place as the Second Coming. The way is now provided for the human race to
become a celestial mind and to live in eternal conjugial happiness in the New
Heavens made out of the Lord’s Divine Rational Truths given in the Writings.
The details have now been revealed about the Lord’s Divine Rational Mind, how
He governs the universe and the human mind through the Laws of Providence and
Permissions, and how He creates the universe through the Order of Discrete
Degrees, from Firsts to Lasts by means of His Divine Truth from His Divine
Love.
To know
this and to love it by living according to it, creates the new celestial mind,
the highest possible state of conjunction between the Lord and the individual
human being. All the angels who live in the New Heavens now exist in this new
perfection. And so shall we, when we arrive there.
Knowing
that the Letter of the Writings is written by rational correspondences is to look for the Lord’s Divine Rational
within the Letter. Believing that the Letter of the Writings is the spiritual
sense of the Old and New Testaments is to avoid acknowledging that the Writings
are the Word in the full sense, and therefore it must be written in
correspondences or it could not be the Word (xx). We may know correspondences
of the Old and New Testaments by studying the Letter of the Writings. It’s easy
to fall into the trap of thinking that therefore by knowing the Letter of the
Writings we know the spiritual of the Old and New Testaments. The only thing we
know are scientifics and memory-knowledges of the Letter. These are Divine, but
dead in themselves just as the Letter of the Word is dead without the spiritual
sense within it.
Clearly
then we must look for the spiritual sense behind the rational correspondences
of the Letter of the Writings. Then we can elevate our thinking and
understanding above the natural-rational by a discrete degree, and then for the
first time we think spiritually of these topics. Until then we think only
naturally of these spiritual topics. But the instant we acknowledge that the
Letter of the Writings are written in rational correspondences, we are
enlightened by the Lord. Only a little at first, but gradually growing in
intensity. Once this reformation has begun, we can look down on the
natural-rational level of thinking we do by being in the Letter of the
Writings. The level from which we look down is a higher level of thinking than
the level we achieve with the natural-rational level of the Letter. This higher
level is from the interior-natural (or spiritual-natural) that the Lord creates
within the natural-rational, a discrete degree above it.
The content
of this interior-natural is of spiritual origin, from heaven from the Lord.
This content consists of higher correspondences than the rational
correspondences of the Letter. They are called spiritual correspondences. The
consciousness of spiritual correspondences is called rational consciousness and
is the level of seeing that creates the celestial mind. The awareness of this
higher spiritual consciousness is called the Spiritual Doctrine in our mind.
This Doctrine is Divine because it is spiritual of celestial origin (xx).
Only those
can love the Divine Human who can receive His Love, and His Love can be
received only in the spiritual-rational truths that inflow into the spiritual
mind, and from there descend into consciousness as spiritual correspondences in
the interior-natural mind. Hence it is absolutely necessary that we develop
as-of self our rational understanding of the literal sentences of the Writings.
These rational vessels that we form as-of self by study and scholarship, are
then animated by the Lord and made alive. This enlivening, or new birth from
above, is the spiritual that is entering our conscious awareness.
Not carefully that the spiritual
enters our consciousness through interior-rational truths that are contained in
spiritual correspondences!
These
interior-rational truths are not accessible through rational correspondences in
the natural-rational mind. Only spiritual correspondences in the
interior-natural mind can give us this higher consciousness. This is why it’s
necessary that we look upon the Letter of the Writings as rational
correspondences, and that we search them out to extract the spiritual
correspondences. “Spiritual correspondences” are also referred to as “the
spiritual sense” of the natural-rational correspondences of the Letter. Also,
the “interior meaning” of the Writings.
As we
struggle in regeneration, trying to modify our willing and thinking according
to the Letter, the Lord implants spiritual truths in the unconscious spiritual
mind. This action has the result of appearing in correspondence in our
interior-natural mind, which is a discrete degree below the spiritual mind but
a discrete above the natural-rational mind. The interior-natural mind can react
by spiritual correspondence to what the Lord is implanting in the spiritual
mind.
Note well:
We can be consciously aware of the content of our interior-natural mind, though
we cannot write it down or describe it in natural language since this is
external from the natural world, not internal from the spiritual world. When we
attempt to write it out or describe it, what comes out is a correspondence in
the natural meanings of material ideas. We look at the sentence and it appears
vague, as if we need to supply something to it to make it meaningful and
coherent. What we supply is not the spiritual, but more of the
natural-rational. Thus we remain outside
the spiritual. The spiritual can only be accessed consciously in the
interior-natural mind, and the contents of this mind are expressible only in
spiritual language, such as every individual automatically possesses upon
awakening in the afterlife (xx). The Letter of the Writings on earth is written
by natural-rational correspondences, but the Letter of the Writing sin heaven
is written by spiritual correspondences. Even these spiritual correspondences,
as read by the angels, are relatively exterior compared to the deeper layers of
interior-rational truths. Angels continue daily to improve in wisdom by
perception of ever deeper interior-rational truths, and this, to eternity (xx).
As we read
the Writings we are first conscious of the literal sentence and words. We
memorize them textually or store them in memory through concepts and principles
we reflect on as we study. Then, the next day, or the next minute, we are doing
something or thinking about something within our daily routine of activities.
Now we recall the literal sentence or stored principle from the Writings and
apply it to what we are willing and thinking in that situation. If we do this
for the purpose of finding our evil affections and interests, the Lord gives us
instant enlightenment. He accomplishes this by simultaneous order. He places a
spiritual truth inside our unconscious spiritual mind, which is also called the
spiritual-rational mind. Truths are rational entities and can only live in a
rational substance and biological organ. This is the organ called the
understanding.
The
understanding can function at three discrete levels of thinking within the
external-rational mind, as indicated in the Table of Anatomy presented in this
chapter. The sentences of the Writings we have understood, memorized, or stored
as a principle, can only reside in the highest portion of the natural mind. As
we apply these rational principles from the Writings to our willing and
thinking, in that moment, we receive the enlightenment of what they mean
spiritually. We now perceive consciously a portion of our mind that was not
accessible before, while we were reading and studying the Writings. This new
perception is now spiritual-rational, though only by correspondence, and lives
in the interior-natural mind that the Lord forms for us. This interior-natural
mind is of spiritual origin and has nothing of ourselves, or the natural in it
(xx). Hence it is Divine Doctrine in our understanding. This perception in our
interior-natural is what’s meant by “the internal sense of the Word” and why it
is said that this sense “is written on the heart” (xx). It cannot be written on
paper, but only its outward correspondence.
14. The Divine Rational Is Within The Divine Natural Of The Writings
The Lord’s
Divine Rational Mind is within His Divine Natural Body, as already discussed.
They are in discrete degrees just as our mind lives in the spiritual world
while the physical body is animated by correspondence in the natural world. The
mind and the body influence each other by correspondence only, not by direct
continuous contact, which is not possible across discrete degrees (xx). The
Lord’s Divine Natural Body is not like our physical body, which is not
glorified, and therefore disintegrates at its death. But the Lord glorified His
infirm human body and re-created it into His Divine Natural Body. When He is
said to have “ascended to Heaven,” the process of glorification had been
completed (xx). Recall that the Lord referred to His Divine Natural Body as a
When we
acknowledge that the Writings are the Word of His Second Coming, we at first
acknowledge this only as to the Lord’s Divine Natural Body. This is a sensuous
idea of the Lord, not yet rational. The Literal of the Writings is Divine
because His Natural Body is Divine. This is as far as our mind is willing to
go. We are not willing to acknowledge that the Writings have an internal sense
which is the Lord’s Divine Rational Mind. We prefer to think that the Literal
of the Writings is the Lord’s Divine Rational. This is the phase of the First
Coming of the Lord to the
Prior to
reformation we think of the Word of the Writings only of its external literal
sentences and in terms of the understanding of those sentences. This is the
stage parallel to the Lord’s First Coming of making His Natural Body Divine. We
are willing to think that the Writings are the Lord’s Divine Natural, but not
yet that they are the Lord’s Divine Rational Mind. This is because we don’t see
anything except the literal of the Writings. It doesn’t matter if we believe
that the Writings are a Divine Rational Revelation. This acknowledgement and
belief does not give us the capacity to see the Divine Rational within the
Divine Natural. We suppose that what we acquired from the Writings are
spiritual truths on account of their subject. Indeed, the topics we read are
spiritual topics, which is why they are called “the Heavenly Doctrine now
revealed.” But we only understand these spiritual topics in a natural way
because they are written in a natural language.
But after
reformation, we perceive these spiritual topics in a spiritual way, and thus
from being natural people we become spiritual. At that point the Lord has
arrived in our mind in His Second Coming. Now when we read the Writings we know
from perception and experience that they have an internal sense, even if at
first, we can’t even describe it in our natural language. But our certitude
remains because it is a recurrent experience as we continue our regenerating,
and even, becomes a daily event. What a joy, what a peace, it brings to balance
our life, I can testify to that to some extent. Now at last we can see the Lord
face-to-face, though only in correspondence, in the interior-natural mind. But
this perception is clearly and consciously seen as not from self but from the
Lord. Its purity and spiritual heat is a distinct awareness, It enriches the
content of our thinking enabling to look around life and culture and to see
things spiritually in relation to self, others, the Lord, regeneration, and
conjugial love in heaven. This spiritual sight continues to improve with
regeneration and we become more and more interior people, activated by the
Lord’s Truth within which is His Love.
It is by
Divine Providence that we go through these two phases. We cannot jump to the
Lord’s Second Coming in His Divine Rational before we have lived a First Coming
of the Lord’s Divine Natural. The outside body must be formed first, and then
the mind. A toddler or young child has a well developed sensorimotor life and
skills, but no ability to think and reason beyond something vague and general.
The rational mind, which is above the sensuous, only develops gradually with
years of experience and education.
Similarly
with our understanding of the Lord’s revelations. We at first need to be
convinced that the Letter of the Writings is the Lord’s Divine Natural Body. In
this state we do not see the difference between “discussing spiritual
topics naturally” and “ discussing spiritual topics spiritually.” Therefore we
read about spiritual things called the Heavenly Secrets and Doctrines and we
take these descriptions to be spiritual. If we understand these descriptions,
we believe that we understand spiritual things. Later, during reformation, we
begin to pay more attention to things we neglected before. For instance, we
read that the Word is written by pure correspondences (xx) but we don’t say to
ourselves, “the Writings are written by pure correspondences.” But at
reformation, these statements about “the Word” catch our attention, so that we
begin to think “the Writings” when we read “the Word” (see Discussion in
Chapter 8 Section 4). This is a sign that the Lord is creating an
interior-natural mind within our external-rational thinking. We begin to
perceive obscurely at first, that there is a spiritual meaning. Thus, while the
literal says “the Word” we think “the Writings” and learn of something about
the Writings we didn’t know before. New we begin to see that everything the Writings
say about “the Word” applies to the Writings. We begin to see the Writings
spiritually. We can perceive that it’s really true that “the Word” is merely
the literal meaning, while the spiritual sense is “the Writings.”
Later in regeneration we begin to
see still more things, such as the parallelism between the Lord’s Divine
Natural Body and the Divine Rational Mind within it, on the one hand, and on
the other, the Divine Literal of the Writings and the Divine Rational meaning
within it.
This
parallelism mutually enhance each other in our understanding. Prior to
reformation we study the Writings as the Word. By this we acknowledge the
Divine Natural Body of the Lord. We take up these natural language sentences
and ideas into our rational understanding. By means of these scientifics of the
Word the Lord is present with us in the conscious external mind. This is the
beginning, the First Education, the First Coming of the Lord in the
In the
literal sentences of the Writings we can only love the Lord outwardly, by means
of His truth, from a distance as it were. It is like the comparison in
understanding between the angels of the spiritual heaven and the angels of the
celestial heaven. The light in the spiritual heaven is like the light of the
moon in comparison to the bright sunlight at
When we are
regenerating we are continually enlightened by the Lord when thinking from the
literal sentences and applying them to our willing and thinking life. Then for
the first time we can perceive the spiritual meaning within the letter. This
means that for the first time we can perceive the Divine Rational Mind of the
Lord within His Divine Natural Body. To perceive the Divinity in the Letter of
the Writings is to see the Lord’s Divine Natural Body in the understanding. To
perceive the Divinity within the letter, in its spiritual meaning, is to see
the Lord’s Divine Rational Mind in the understanding. Then for the first time
we can have a right idea of the Divine Human. Then we can begin to love the
Lord and be conjoined to Him, not from a distance as before, but close up. The
celestial angels think truths from this conjunction between the literal of the
Writings in their heaven and the infinite spiritual meanings hidden within
their script (xx). The spiritual angels do not perceive the spiritual within
the natural of the Writings, so they have to reason about it and be instructed.
They then know it from instruction, but not from perception. This is like the
light of the moon in comparison to the light of the sun. We are in this
relatively obscure spiritual light in the early stages of our regeneration.
The Second
Coming takes place in the
The Lord
opens our spiritual mind by means of the spiritual sense in our natural
conscious mind, which is perceived gradually in a more and more interior way as
regeneration progresses. But this perception does not come from our
external-rational thinking, but from the interior-natural organ that is created
by the Lord within this external-rational level of our mind. It’s important to view this process in a
scientific or process-oriented way, in order that we may understand it in
detail, not merely in general. The
15. Why The Interior-Natural Is Called Spiritual-Natural
Those who are
set within the materialistic orientation of the world cannot believe or
understand what such an interior-natural might be and why it is called
“spiritual.” It is a discrete degree above the natural. In other words, one
cannot go from the natural to the spiritual-natural. One cannot insert oneself
within the interior-natural by means of experience, discipline, mental effort,
intelligence, creativity, or power. All these things originate in the natural
world and natural mind. They are each a creation in the natural world. Once
created in the natural, it dies and vanishes in the natural since all natural
things are in time, therefore temporary. But everything created in the
spiritual is immortal and outside time and space. The human mind is created and
born in the world of spirits and remains attached by correspondence to its
physical body located on some earth.
When the
physical body is no longer able to function, the mind is freed from the
attachment, and our conscious awareness of self awakens suddenly in the world
of spirits. The outside of our mind is called the spirit-body, and the inside
is the threefold self at the three levels, as indicated in the Table of Anatomy
just below. The outside portion called the spirit-body appears visually to self
and others as a perfect human form, similar in size and looks to the physical
body we had at our best age, which is late adolescence or young adulthood. As
our life in the spirit-body progresses, its outward appearance reflects more
and more the content of the threefold self. Those who are oriented to heaven
become more and more beautiful, but those on their way to the hells become more
and more monstrous and deformed.
Those who
spend their lifetime with loves, beliefs, and habits that are in the “corporeal
mind” become fully corporeal in the afterlife. This is because, in the
spiritual world, the lowest affections of the mind is able to cast out every
other affection that is higher than itself. Our life on earth is more mixed
since the higher affections occupy the mind along with the lower, and they take
turn influencing our willing and thinking in different situations. But in the
spirit-body this commingling is not possible. The lower casts out the higher
because our attachment to it is stronger than our attachment to higher
affections. To live a life of corporeal consciousness while on earth is a
guaranteed ticket to hell in eternity. In the afterlife, all those who have a
corporeal spirituality live in hell (xx). Angelic spirits and angels do not
have an active corporeal mind. Their basis of life rests in the sensuous and
the rational, never going below that.
Reformation
begins in the sensuous mind where higher affections dwell. Regeneration begins
in the external-rational mind in which the Lord can create an interior-natural
mind that can contain by correspondence, the spiritual truths the Lord implants
in our spiritual mind as we are regenerating.
The breach
between the natural and the spiritual is an eternal and absolute duality (xx).
This is why our mind is born in the spiritual world and remains there as we
grow and mature physically (xx). Upon the death of the physical body, we
suddenly become conscious within a spirit-body in the world of spirits (xx).
The mind is this spirit-body and all its sub-structures. Angels can visually
see the mind’s organs and the activity of willing and thinking that proceed
within it (xx). To some extent all spirits have this ability to see into each
other, the highest angels seeing more deeply and in greater detail than others
(xx). People’s “aura” in the spiritual world is also visible and changes in
color and shape in accordance with the affections and thoughts of the spirit
(xx).
From all
this you can better see that the spiritual sense of the Writings we perceive
when enlightened by the Lord, is something from the Divine Rational of the Lord
in our interior-natural mind and consciousness. Nothing whatever of this
spiritual consciousness can be filtered through our own self-intelligence and
reasoning power. If this were done, we would instantly be catapulted out of the
interior-natural sphere into the external-natural. Whereupon the spiritual
consciousness would vanish from our awareness, leaving behind only a
descriptive memory of it. Eventually the description itself becomes obscure and
something vague or incorrect. Spiritual consciousness in our natural mind can
only exist in the interior-natural portion of it.
The
conclusion is clear: Everything in our interior-natural mind is of spiritual
origin, not natural. Therefore everything in the spiritual-natural portion of
the mind is holy from the Lord. It is never permitted to be tainted or
commingled with anything from the world or self-experience.
16. Anatomy Of The External Natural Mind
The
following Table is a description of the three levels of the natural mind. these
three levels represent the levels of the spiritual world—the three heavens, the
world of spirits, and hell. These spiritual levels are not in the natural mind,
but a discrete degree above it, in the spiritual mind. Nevertheless, the levels
of the spiritual world are reproduced in representative form in the natural
mind.
Please take
time to read and figure out the Table. Try to see and distinguish between the
three levels. Try to see in what way it is accurate or in agreement with what
you know of society and yourself. It helps to familiarize oneself with such an
organizational Table of the Anatomy of one’s external natural mind.
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Please read the Table by starting
from the bottom section (Level 1) |
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ANATOMY OF THE THREEFOLD SELF When Reformation Begins in early Adulthood |
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THE LIFE OF WILLING (our affections) |
THE LIFE OF THINKING (our ideas) |
THE LIFE OF ACTING OUT (our sensory and motor) |
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Level 3 NATURAL-RATIONAL (corresponds to spiritual and celestial heaven) |
motivated
to become intelligent and spiritual ----- motivated
to acquire virtues, to become a sincere and good person, ----- motivated
to be patriotic, to be prudent, hoping for conjugial love in heaven |
interested
in learning and scholarship ----- interested
in the Writings and Church instruction about it ----- interested
in theistic science and in applying correspondences to one’s life and
biography |
delights
in reading, conversing and affiliating with one’s like ----- delights
in studying the Writings ----- delights
in discovering spiritual things and insights ----- delights
in doctrinal classes, acknowledging that the Writings are the Word,
discussing the ideas from the Writings |
|
Level 2 NATURAL-SENSUOUS (corresponds to natural heaven) |
motivated
to know the environment and to gain control over it, including the people in
it, ----- motivated
to acquire wealth, ----- motivated
to pursue all forms of happiness, ----- hoping
for heavenly bliss in eternal life |
interested
in organized knowledge, scientific research, art and art criticism ----- interested in all the professions
----- interested
in new age philosophy, concepts of nonduality, knowledge of correspondences,
Swedenborg’s relation to other writers and thinkers |
delights
in discovering natural things, doing business, doing politics ----- delights
in conservation of nature, human achievements and their records, preservation
of culture, success ----- delights
in anti-aging and rejuvenation activities ----- delights
in religious worship and ceremonies, sermons, religious affirmations or
creeds, evangelization |
|
Level 1 CORPOREAL (corresponds to world of spirits and hell) |
motivated
to enjoy, to have fun, to be entertained, to get pleasures ----- motivated
to belong, to corrupt innocence ----- motivated
to reject the rational and the spiritual—or, to demode the spiritual by
making it emerge from the natural, thus of the same substance and world |
interested
in measurements, facts, names, records, symbols, awards, commemorations ----- interested
in fashions, popular icons, games, sports ----- interested
in predictions of the future, miracles, persuasive faith, holy relics,
salvation by membership or initiation, physical resurrection of the body on
earth, reincarnation |
delights
in recognition, popularity, vulgarity, promiscuity, pornography, high-risk
behavior ----- delights
in abusing others, favoring blood-relations ----- delights
in gossip, voyeurism, winning, defeating, being adulated, having more than
others of anything valued ----- delights
in psychic demonstrations, magic, UFO stories, ghosts, Halloween, cultist
activities, body piercing, portraying the deformed human form |
Our
conscious awareness and level of thinking takes place in the natural mind as
long as we are attached to the physical body. The external natural mind is the
mind we are allowed by the Lord to build up for ourselves as-of self, through
study, experience, and interests. Note that the highest level of the external
natural mind is the place where we have the understanding of the Writings and
our loyalty for them in the literal. This loyalty and understanding is natural
because in the external natural mind. This loyalty is for the literal meaning
of the Writings and our understanding of it. These are the necessary vessels we
must build in our natural mind in order for the Lord to be able to open our
spiritual mind. Our spiritual mind cannot
be opened in the absence of such rational vessels in our external natural mind,
vessels that we have acquired by studying the literal of the Writings.
But there
is also a secret part to the anatomy depicted above. It is the interior part,
which cannot be shown in the external natural. This interior part is called the
spiritual-natural because it is of spiritual origin. Everything in the external
natural mind has its origin from the world and self-experience through as-of
self effort. But everything in the interior-natural mind has its origin from
the spiritual world and heaven. This is truly amazing. It’s as if we are able
to become conscious of actual spiritual things in a direct way. But of course
we are not perceiving the spiritual in a direct way, but by correspondences. We
experience these correspondences in our interior-natural mind. We are aware of
them we understand them, we are delighted by them, and we can use them in our
daily life. The interior-natural responds to what’s happening in the
unconscious spiritual mind. There is much activity there from heaven and the
Lord as our spiritual mind is being opened, grown, and prepared for our life in
heaven.
All this
activity in the spiritual mind is detected by correspondence in our
interior-natural mind. This we are conscious of, if we want to be. Now our
consciousness is enlightened because the correspondences are within us, not
something outside in a sentence that we read somewhere and understand in our
external-rational mind. Now this new found consciousness continues to grow with
our regeneration, and we become consciously aware of the spiritual sense within
the natural. Now we can see that what we find in the Writings about “the Word,”
is about the Writings. We are conscious of this from the correspondences that
are activated in our spiritual mind, which is being gradually opened by the
Lord. Also, we have a new spiritual perception of Doctrine. Until now we only
have read and understood in our external-rational mind, from as-of self effort.
But now we are conscious of the correspondences animated and activated in our
interior-rational mind, which is of spiritual origin. The changeover occurs
with reformation. In other words, reformation is the opening of the
interior-rational mind. This is the same
as saying that, from being natural we have become spiritual.
Our
unconscious spiritual mind is now being gradually opened by the Lord, in a
fashion similar to the organic growth process of a plant or tree. The anatomy
of the spiritual mind is also given by the Writings in great detail. In brief,
we can recall that the spiritual mind corresponds to the Lord’s Two Kingdoms in
the Heavens, one spiritual and the other celestial. The celestial is more
interior or higher because it is based in our love for the Lord, and thence for truth. The spiritual is more
external because it is based on our love
for truth, and thence for the Lord (xx). We must remember that the
spiritual mind that is being grown by the Lord, is entirely inaccessible to our
awareness here on earth (xx). It remains an unconscious process as long as we
are attached to physical body.
Our
spiritual mind is being opened by the Lord as we apply what we have understood
from the literal of the Writings, to our daily willing and thinking. There are
thousands of such episodes in one day, though we manage to receive
enlightenment in only a few in any day, if that much! Nevertheless, as we
progress in our regeneration, and cope successfully with our many temptations,
the Lord opens our spiritual mind more and more interiorly. Every instance of such opening is
perceivable in the conscious natural mind, but only in the interior of it, and
only by correspondences. But it is
enough! It is like a flash of lightning, or a streak of heavenly light, in
which we perceive the spiritual sense of the literal understanding. The literal
is still true in our mind, but something new is also true, namely, the
spiritual understanding of Doctrine. This
spiritual understanding is conscious and is located in the interior-natural
mind. It does not originate from the world or the natural mind. This is
most important to understand.
Consider
what the Lord said to Peter when he confessed that the Lord is the Messiah:
When some had said that Jesus was John the Baptist, others
Elijah, others Jeremiah or another of the prophets, Jesus said to the
disciples, But whom say ye that I am? Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art
the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him,
Blessed art thou, Simon son of Jonah; for flesh and blood hath not revealed
this unto thee, but My Father who is in the heavens. And I say also unto thee,
Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church, and the gates of
hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the
kingdom of the heavens (AE 820).
The Lord
indicates that Peter’s conscious perception “Thou art the Christ, the Son of
the living God,” was not discovered by Peter in his external rational thinking.
For the Lord says, “flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee, but My
Father who is in the heavens.” This refers to conscious perceptions of
spiritual truths, which are located in the interior-natural mind, not the
external. The Lord is the Father in the Heavens (xx) and He puts those
spiritual truths into the interior-natural of the mind. when He can do this for
us, we are called “blessed” because these spiritual perceptions are the
foundation for our regeneration and heavenly life—“the keys of the kingdom of
the heavens.”
It appears
from this event, and some others like the giving of the Holy Spirit (xx), that
the Lord’s disciples were capable of receiving spiritual truths into the
interior-rational. Had the race then not falsified the Word again, it could
have been regenerated as to the natural-rational of the mind, not just the
natural-sensuous. But this possibility was extinguished by the falsified dogmas
of the Church in the ensuing centuries. this door being closed of the human
race, the Lord had to effect a new Coming, a new revelation capable of
regenerating the external-rational mind. Henceforth the Writings will be the
sole means by which the external-rational mind can be regenerated. To the
extent that we consciously cooperate with the Lord in our as-of self efforts in
the natural mind, to that extent He can open the spiritual mind to serve as the
basis for our willing and thinking. Whatever happens in the spiritual mind can
now be perceived by correspondence in the interior-natural mind. These
conscious spiritual perceptions are the means by which we are regenerated. It
is the spiritual Doctrine of Life in our mind.
This new
spiritual perception in the interior-natural mind, is called “perceiving the
spiritual sense within the letter of the Writings.” This perception is in
greater or lesser proportion in accordance with our regeneration. It is not
something we have discovered, for this is not possible for any human being on
earth. It is something spiritual and celestial in our interior-natural mind,
formed there by correspondence to the actual spiritual and celestial truths
implanted by the Lord in our unconscious spiritual mind.
This new
presence in our conscious awareness is the Divine Human in His Divine Rational,
as discussed above. It is the Second Coming in our
Note carefully that this natural
consciousness is from spiritual and celestial origin, therefore it is a holy
thing in our mind.
Our natural
consciousness of things in the natural mind is from the world, from self, and
experience. This is not holy because not from the Lord and heaven. But the
spiritual consciousness of the spiritual truths within the Writings, is not
from the world and self. It is from heaven and the Lord, hence holy. This is
amazing! It indicates that there is something in our natural mind and awareness
that is not from this world or from self, and is holy. This spiritual
consciousness in our natural awareness can only come from acknowledging the
literal of the Writings as the Lord’s Divine Truth, studying it, and being
loyal to it as we are loyal to the Lord Himself.
17. Individual Regeneration Recapitulates Spiritual History Of The Race
The anatomy
of the external natural mind corresponds to the history of the Threefold Word,
since individual biography recapitulates spiritual history (xx). The Word of
the Old Testament was historically given to regenerate the corporeal mind of
the human race which had fallen spiritually to its lowest possible level. This
bottoming out of the intellect at last completed the slide downward which
started when the
Every
individual today, regardless of religion or culture, has to be regenerated in
order to be prepared of heaven and angelic life. As the Table shows, the three
levels of the external rational mind are different, which means that they each
have to be regenerated by a different method. Since the means by which everyone
is regenerated is the Word, the Lord gave the human race a Threefold Word. Each
Testament was given in a style and content that was suitable to regenerate the
threefold self. The Word of the Old Testament was given historically to
regenerate the corporeal mind of the human race. When Moses established the
Jewish Church with the children of Jacob, the human race was in a corporeal
consciousness. Their idea of spirituality was corporeal, unable to raise their
understanding and belief in what was above the corporeal mind. You can see from
the Table what are the characteristics of the unregenerate corporeal mind. The
letter of the Old Testament is written in a view of God and religion that is
believable and suitable to the regeneration of the corporeal mind.
At the
Lord’s First Coming, the corporeal mind had been regenerated as shown by the
civilizations of the time. Though barbaric from modern standards, they were far
more sophisticated and civilized the savagery and idolatry of the Old Testament
days. The societies of the New Testament were more rational in their civil
government, science, education, city works, indicating that the external
sensuous mind was ready to be regenerated by means of a New Word. The New
Testament was given for the regeneration of the sensuous mind, whose character
you can see in the Table. The characterization in the Table is more suitable to
today’s cultural environments, but you can see how you could give a
characterization that is more historically suitable.
And of
course, we already know that the Writings were given for the regeneration of
the external rational mind. The Word is always given in a natural language. The
Writings were written by Swedenborg in Latin (or ”Neo-Latin”). The New Testament,
in Greek, and the Old Testament in Hebrew-Aramaic. It is always the literal
that is given, never the spiritual. The Literal of the Word refers to the
sentences, words, letters, and tittles. This literal is called the Divine
Natural Body of the Lord (xx). Within this external literal is the spiritual
sense, the spiritual truths, the spiritual Doctrine that is needed for
salvation.
Now the
question arises as to why the Lord doesn’t present the spiritual as well as the
literal? The answer is that the literal is presented in a physical book on
earth, and in heaven, in a visual script on pages that are made of spiritual
substance, not natural. We need spiritual truths to be regenerated, yet these
cannot be presented in a book, cannot be written out in a natural language.
Which is why that those who remain in the literal of the Word cannot be
regenerated (xx). How then do we obtain the spiritual truths we need for
You can see
form this that the Threefold Word was given to regenerate the human race in its
historical development. In each case the literal was given, not the spiritual.
The spiritual had to be achieved individually, by each person who was
undergoing regeneration by the Lord. The literal of the Word can be falsified,
but not the spiritual, since it does not exist for those who are regenerating.
Anyone can read the literal of the Word and draw anything they wish from it,
justifying it cleverly. But they are not profaning themselves in this way since
it never enter above their natural mind nor within. But if they could get hold
of the spiritual itself, when not hidden within the literal, they would be able
to profane it, and thereby make it impossible of them to regenerate. They would
then pass on this deadly persuasion to their offspring, and it would continue
corrupting the natural mind of the entire human race.
The
spiritual sense of the Writings cannot be profaned because it appears only in
the interior-natural consciousness. Whatever is in that mind is solely from the
Lord and heaven. It is holy. They are the
spiritual truths we can perceive consciously. The interior-natural reacts
by correspondence to the Lord’s gradual opening of our unconscious spiritual
mind. These gradual changes involve the accumulation of more and more interior
truths. Each interior truth is implanted by the Lord, one by one like a seed in
fertile ground. Every such act if implanting evokes by correspondence a
reaction in our interior-natural mind, which is spiritual solely form the Lord.
We are conscious of this correspondential reaction, and from it we can perceive
through the letter into the spiritual of the Writings.
You can now
see why the spiritual sense cannot be falsified, while the literal sense can,
and is.
The
regenerating
When we
reason about spiritual things, as in the context of this discussion, we are
able to form a better understanding of them in our external rational mind. This
is a necessary and gradual process. But remember that this gradual improvement
in the natural mind cannot become spiritual reasoning or spiritual perceiving
no matter how much it improves, because the natural and the spiritual cannot
run into each other as they are in discrete degrees. Therefore discussing and
reasoning about doctrinal things, about spiritual things, about the Lord and
the angels, can only improve our natural understanding of these matters or
truths.
18. The Use Of The Priesthood For Religious Life
Let us
review what the literal of the Writings tell us about the use of the priesthood
for our religious life and salvation:
There are in human beings two sets of things which need to be
well ordered: those of heaven and those of the world. Those of heaven are
called church affairs, those of the world affairs of state. (NJHD 311)
As for priests, their duty is to teach people the way to
heaven, and also to guide them. They must teach them in accordance with the
teaching their church derives from the Word, and guide them to live in
accordance with it. Priests who teach truths and by their means guide people to
lead good lives, and so bring them to the Lord, are good shepherds. Those, however,
who teach, but do not guide people to lead good lives, and so bring them to the
Lord, are bad shepherds. (NJHD 315)
Priests must be given status and honors because of their
sacred functions. But those of them who are wise ascribe the honors to the Lord
from whom what is holy comes, and not to themselves. Priests, however, who are
unwise attribute the honors to themselves, and so take them away from the Lord.
(NJHD 317)
Priests must teach the people and guide them to lead good
lives. But still they must compel no one, since no one can be forced to believe
what is contrary to what he thinks in his heart to be true. Anyone whose belief
is different from the priest's should be left in peace, provided he does not
make trouble. If he does make trouble, he should be expelled, for this too is
in accordance with order for which purpose the priesthood exists. (NJHD 318)
In the Word too priest and priesthood mean Divine good (TCR
114)
First let’s
acknowledge that these literal sentences have a literal meaning and a spiritual
meaning. The literal meaning is at the level of our external-rational, the
highest point in the natural mind. This means that the literal meaning of the
Writings applies to all our thinking below it, and governs it. If you recall
from the Table of Anatomy above, everything done in society is from a level of
consciousness below the top level. The top level governs all other levels in a
consistent and harmonious system of effects from top down. This is also the
case in any good organization. This is how the heavens are administered. So it
would make no sense to skip the literal meaning of the Writings and be
interested only in the spiritual content within it. We must honor the literal
of the Writings as much as we honor the spiritual of it--in the same way as we
must honor the Divine Natural Body of the Lord equally with the Divine Rational
within the Divine Natural. But note the following condition:
There is a necessary distinction we
must make between the literal meaning of the Writings and how it is applied in
any specific life situation.
If this
condition were always followed there would be no possibility of disagreement
and warfare in ecclesiastical or civil government.
Consider
part of the quoted passage just above:
Priests must teach the people and guide them to lead good
lives. But still they must compel no one, since no one can be forced to believe
what is contrary to what he thinks in his heart to be true (NJHD 318).
First,
let’s acknowledge that the literal meaning of this statement is to be applied
to the specific Church of which someone is a member. Second, let’s acknowledge
that the spiritual meaning is also true, namely, that the spiritual Doctrine in
our interior-natural consciousness must be used to guide and arrange our willing
and thinking every day. It says that we cannot compel our external natural mind
by means of this spiritual understanding. The reason is that our affections are
not yet purified and from these, we think false thoughts and falsified truths.
The spiritual consciousness from our interior-natural is not believable to the
external-rational. In other words, the external rational should not be
consulted in spiritual things that must be seen spiritually (xx). Instead, we
consult only the interior-rational consciousness, which is from the Lord alone.
The
sentences in the quote have therefore a natural meaning, and a spiritual
meaning with the natural. The natural meaning applies to the natural life,
whether or not the spiritual meaning is perceived. but note this: The natural
meaning of the Writings can be turned to support many different types of
government, and so disagreement and warfare arises in the organization because
each fails to distinguish between the natural meaning and the application of it
to life. By confusing these two one falls into the illusion that we are on the
correct side of an argument, and those who disagree are on the wrong side. This
illusion is so powerful because it is based on the literal meaning of the
Divine Word.
But this is
entirely prevented when the natural meaning and the spiritual meaning are both
considered simultaneously as part of the issue at contention. For example, some
members of the Church specific may raise the heretical issue that I discussed
in Volume 1 when reviewing the secular Christology that Henry James Sr. built
on the literal of the Writings (Chapter 4 Section 2). This group of members
disagree with the worship practice of reading from the Old Testament, the New
Testament, and the Writings, as part of introducing the Day’s sermon. Their
argument is that the Old and New Testaments are not the Word for the Second
Coming, but only the Writings. In reply, the other members of the Church could
say that this is true, nevertheless the Old and New Testaments remain the Word
for the
To this,
the smaller group could reply that precisely because so much is explained in
the Writings about the Bible, it is a clear indication that the Old and New
Testaments cannot be understood by the
And so on.
You can see from this illustration that there is a distinction that must be
made between the literal meaning of the Writings and its application to a
government procedure in life. You can see this from the fact that the
disagreement does not arise from the literal of the Writings. Each side, as
illustrated above, makes a point that can be confirmed in the literal of the
Writings. This proves that the points in the literal meaning of the Writings
are not in contention. It leads to the difficult situation where each side
believes its position is justified by the literal. But now look at where the
disagreement starts. It always starts when the point from the literal is
applied to the organizational behavior or procedure in a specific situation. In
this case the procedure is the reading of the day’s lesson in the Church.
It’s
obvious that the disagreement in the Church cannot be about the literal or from
the literal, but only in one’s departure form the literal, as it is being
applied to life. If the worship service procedure were specified in the
literal, there could not be a disagreement about in the Church. There is a
disagreement precisely because it is not something the literal language of the
Writings deals with or mentions or prescribes. Contrast this to worship
procedures that are commanded in the Writings, such as Baptism (xx), Holy
Supper (xx), and Weddings (xx). There may be differences in culture as to how
to enact these commandments, but there cannot be a disagreement anywhere in the
Church about whether or not there should be Baptisms, the Holy supper, or
religious weddings officiated by a priest (xx).
The conclusion is that the literal
meaning of the Writings must not be used to justify a government procedure that
is itself not mentioned in the literal.
This is
what it means in the quote above that the priest must not compel the members to
follow this or that procedure. To compel obviously means to establish by
authority of the office and by quoting the literal of the Writings. Neither
must be used to compel for they are not from the Writings, but from self under
the illusion that they are form the Writings. The illusion comes from not
making a distinction between what is in the literal and how it is applied to
the Church organization. The literal has Divine authority, but the application
of to life only has one’s own authority with nothing Divine in it.
What
practical solution is there? To me, it’s obvious that organizational warfare
and hostility can be totally avoided when we apply to the Church government the
principles we apply to ourselves in regeneration. This is the principle that the literal and internal sense must be put
together in the application to life. The organizational warfare is possible
only in a context where the literal is applied to a situation, while the
spiritual is not even mentioned, as in the illustration above regarding the
The side
that wants to stop others from reading from the Bible would reflect that
charity is primary in the Church (xx). If their disagreement is “causing a
disturbance in the Church” they ought to be “expelled” which means that they
should desist from consulting their external-rational in spiritual things. This
was explained above. If they cease consulting their external-rational they
instantly cease their motivation to disturb the Church. They focus on charity
being primary in the Church. They desist from making faith the primary thing in
the Church. They lose the desire to fight for the change in procedure.
Consider
the other side that wants to continue reading from the Bible at Church
services. They too can apply the spiritual sense along with the natural sense.
They can see in the combination that it is not any outward ritual that makes
the holiness of any detail of worship. The details of worship become important
only to the extent that they have a spiritual meaning. What then is the
spiritual meaning of reading from the Bible rather than from the Writings? If
they think, “Well, symbols are important in worship. Look at the details given
to Aaron and the children of
As a
result, it doesn’t matter how the issue is resolved. But the warfare is over.
One might
think: “But what if a faction suddenly suggests something outlandish to the
members, such as a rock band accompanying services, to mention one
illustration. If we learned from the prior illustration, we can easily see the
solution to this one. It’s not a spiritual decision, but a democratic one.
Every organization in our country has a legal status, including the Church
specific which must be registered with civil authorities. And the activates
within the Church must not violate the law of the land. Police can lawfully
enter a Church, interrupt the service, and arrest the priest for a crime. Every
democratic organization ought to be governed by democratic principles. And so
whatever is going on in the Church that is not something specified explicitly
in the literal of the Writings must be decided in the way that is appropriate
for making decisions in that organization.
Every
member should obey to the democratic procedures of due process. To be expelled
from the Church must therefore be a democratically followed process, not a
decision by the priesthood justified by doctrinal argument based on the
literal. A procedure that is not explicitly mentioned in the literal of the
Writings is automatically a decision by due process in the organization. A
Church organization that ignores democratic due process in all such cases, is
not a true Church, and the priests are “bad shepherds”:
Priests who teach truths and by their means guide people to
lead good lives, and so bring them to the Lord, are good shepherds. Those,
however, who teach, but do not guide people to lead good lives, and so bring
them to the Lord, are bad shepherds. (NJHD 315)
Priests, however, who are unwise attribute the honors to
themselves, and so take them away from the Lord. (NJHD 317)
Bad priests
are those who do not lead the good of life. The good of life is charity and the
works of charity (xx). To deny due process by exerting authority on any issue
is to make faith primary. Unwise priests are they who steal authority form the
Lord by making their own preference or understanding primary, and the literal
of the Writings secondary. They elevate their understanding to the level of the
Lord’s Word in the Literal, as the above quote indicates.
Finally:
Priests must teach the people and guide them to lead good
lives. But still they must compel no one, since no one can be forced to believe
what is contrary to what he thinks in his heart to be true. Anyone whose belief
is different from the priest's should be left in peace, provided he does not
make trouble. If he does make trouble, he should be expelled, for this too is
in accordance with order for which purpose the priesthood exists. (NJHD 318)
To compel
Church members is to quote from the literal of the Writings in order to exert
authority over them. Instead, priests ought to rely on teaching and
enlightenment of the members. The members must freely go along from their own
understanding of the literal. If they fail to go along, they “should be left in
peace.” This means there should be a ceaseless effort to teach and convince by
rational means, not by mere authority. If the thing in contention is written
explicitly in the letter, all members will freely go along. Those that wont’ go
along with something explicitly mentioned in the Literal are creating a
disturbance and must be expelled, as indicated in the passage. But when the
issue at contention is not explicitly state din the literal, the members who
don’t go along must not be compelled by quoting passages that support one side
or the other. “Support” means that it is not stated explicitly, for if it is,
there cannot be a disagreement.
19. Swedenborg's
Scientific Works
Odor or scent is nothing else than a sort of smoke,
consisting of minutest substances separated from the various matters. This
separation goes on continually, and the loss is made up by the addition of new
particles. The particles which are thus cast off become the volatile aura
[sphere] of their subject. This appears clearly from the magnet, and from the
dogs used in hunting, which pursue hares, stags, and game of different kinds by
their smell. (TCR Additions 9)
The inhabitants of the earth Jupiter have also a vocal
speech, but not as sonorous as ours. (EU 54)
With respect to the sun of that earth, which to us is a
star, they said that it appears to the inhabitants of the size of the human
head, of the color of flame; that their year is two hundred days long, and that
a day is equal to nine hours of our time, which they were able to infer from
the length of the days of our earth as perceived in me (AC 10834)
I have been informed by the angels that the first speech of
all in every earth was a speech by means of the face, and this from two origins
in the face-from the lips, and from the eyes. (AC 8249)
Humankind is viler than the beast, not knowing on their own
the laws of order and of society, but having to learn them, and even then, they
grasp at falsities as if they were truths, unlike beasts. For this reason, they
must be regenerated (SE 39)
Spirits and demons control a person's reasoning power
through feelings. (SE 48)
How are we to view the numerous passages in the Writings that provide
scientific facts of the natural world and the psychology of the natural mind—as
in the above passages? These are natural science facts since they are
observational or sensuous details about the natural world and the natural mind—things
such as what odors are made of, the relative size of the sun on some distant
planet, the relation between the face and speech, the sonorous speech of the
inhabitants of Jupiter, the difference between animals and humans, or how
feelings control reasonings. To this we may add things from other passages
about the structure of the natural world and its objects in discrete degrees,
the relation between the heart and the lungs and the causes of it, the
inheritance of mental traits, the micro-world is more perfect than the macro, etc. (see list
at the beginning of this section).
Swedenborg never repudiates his
general principles of creation even after the Divine philosophy was formulated
by his pen; although he restates the doctrine of degrees into a trinal system
and condemns some of the concepts which he had apparently accepted in the
earlier works, e.g. the mathematical point and simple substances. It must be pointed
out that the philosophy used in the Writings was Swedenborg's own philosophy in
its matured form ...
(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
)
The natural science facts are an inseparable part of the scientifics of
the Writings and they form the literal text equally with the doctrinal parts,
the two constituting the scientifics of the literal. Try to see if you can find
a single Number that does not contain some natural scientific elements—is this
even possible? Even a brief Number such as the following involves something
being said about how things are “today,” which is a historical fact:
This last state of the church of
today has been brought about by that faith, and this is what is meant in the
Word by 'the consummation of the age', and 'the abomination of desolation'.
(SPECIMEN 15)
Some facts appear well known to everyone, while others are new
scientific facts about the natural world or the natural mind, new revelations
about the world not known before. What is the relationship between the
scientific revelations in the Writings about the natural world, and
Swedenborg’s Scientific Works prior to his dual consciousness in both the
natural and spiritual worlds? He could not have engaged in the study of natural sciences in itself, as
a natural science, if his mind and thinking had had direct conscious contact
with the spiritual world. In his new state of “dual citizenship” Swedenborg had
access to direct sensuous observations from both the natural and spiritual
worlds. In his earlier state he only had access to natural sensuous
observations, that is, to the natural sciences. He called these natural
observations “facts” or “data” and attributed them to human observers that had
a love and talent for accuracy and precision (see above).
From these
observations he built up a system of rational explanations that constitute a
model or description of the universe. His Scientific Works are this rational
system of the universe that was built up from natural observations alone. He
relied on the facts and data observed by these talented scientists. His task
was to create the rational model that can be called theistic science.
Note that
Swedenborg’s theistic science cannot be considered part of natural science
today. When people compare Swedenborg’s science with modern science today it is
inevitable that one comes to the conclusion that, no matter how brilliant and
seminal, it is nevertheless outdated science from a previous century. But if we
put together the Scientific Works and the Writings as being united, we begin to
see that Swedenborg’s science is not outdated natural science but theistic
science, that is, science as it will be in the future. Swedenborg reaffirmed
his Scientific Works in the Writings by using it everywhere, though not all of
it. He was a keen student of the history of science and he knew that science
progresses, century by century.
He also
knew that the Writings are the Word of the Second Coming and called his work as
revelator “the greatest miracle” in human history (AC 1880). He also saw his
books of the Writings in the spiritual world, shining like only the Word does
there (xx). And he asserts that he wrote nothing in the Writings except from
the Lord Himself (TCR 779). And yet in this Divine mission he sprinkled
throughout the Writings the ideas, concepts, and thinking of his Scientific
Works. Dr. Ian Thompson, who has advised me on many topics in this book, wants
me to retain the possibility that some of Swedenborg’s extensive writings, from
his adolescence onward, may have been false starts or faulty notions.
The
conclusion is inevitable that the Word of the Lord that was given to all future
time henceforth must contain only those natural scientifics that are applicable
to all times and will never be outdated. Hence Swedenborg’s Scientific Works
must have a formal or structural relationship to the Writings—to the extent
these earlier works are reproduced or implied in the Writings. My view of this
structure is that the Writings are the internal scientifics of the external
scientifics that were written prior to his enlightenment, and then worked into
the fabric of what he wrote after his enlightenment.
Consider
what Rev. Theodore Pitcairn has written about this relationship:
Before passing on let us consider briefly the place of what
is called Swedenborg's scientific works. From what has been said it can be seen
that it is only in so far as these works are seen as spiritual scientifics that
they have a rightful place within the borders of the Church, that is in so far
as the corresponding spiritual scientifics are seen within the apparent worldly
scientifics of their letter. In
If viewed from within, the Writings and philosophic works
will indeed be seen to be in agreement with the true scientifics of the world,
but not if viewed from without, or from the scientific.
(Rev. Theodore Pitcairn, “The second
Education” De Hemelsche Leer, Third Fascicle, p.22)
Rev.
Pitcairn recognizes here that the Scientific Works and the Writings are
structurally related. The content of the Scientific Works are included in a
summary form within the Writings. The Scientific Works are to be seen in the
same light as their summary form in the Writings, that is, correspondentially:
Much is said in the Writings concerning science,
scientifics, and scientific truth. Scientific truth is the second degree of
truth, it is a discrete degree above sensual truth, and it is below the higher
forms of truth.
There are two kinds of scientifics, the scientifics of the
letter of the Word including the Writings, and the scientific of the world.
Scientifics when used in the Writings, usually refer to the scientifics of the
Word, or as they are called the scientifics of the Church. The scientifics of
the world are only useful as a scaffolding while the mind is being built up; as
they are beyond the borders of the Church they have no permanent place in the
human mind.
Nevertheless the scientifics of the world correspond to the
scientifics of the Church, as is evident from much that is said in the Writings
concerning them, especially in connection with the science of anatomy. The
scientifics of the world are mentioned in the letter of the Writings only for
the sake of the representation of interior things and have no part in the
internal natural sense of the Writings. To illustrate: when the Writings speak
of optics and mathematics as being useful sciences, the Angels of the natural
heaven can only think of the optics of the spiritual world, that is, the laws
governing spiritual light and the spiritual eye, that is, the laws of truth,
and how truth is accommodated to the understanding, by reflection and
refraction. Likewise when mathematics are mentioned they can have no idea of
number such as have the mathematicians of the world, but of the things that
correspond thereto.
The useful spiritual scientifics of the Church are the
spiritual science of astronomy, geometry, optics, chemistry, mechanics,
history, anatomy, medicine, civil law, and such things also as are called
philosophical (MEMORABILIA, CODEX MINOR, 4657), and above all the science of
correspondences, the science of sciences.
If we consider these sciences correspondentially, it is
clear that this is a description of the Writings in their letter: astronomy is
the science of cognitions, geometry the science of degrees, optics the science
of the influx of truth, chemistry the science of means, history, the science of
progression of state, medicine the science of repentance and reformation, civil
law the science of the government of truth, and philosophy the science of cause
and effect. (Rev. Pitcairn, Ibid, pp. 17-18)
It is
possible to take a very narrow definition for the “natural scientifics” in the
Writings, referring merely to a few things that strike us as outdated, such as
the description of plants as all male while earth is the female (TCR 585). Of
course this is not what is meant in these descriptions of plants, as Swedenborg
was a biologist and gardener and knew the elementary things that everyone else
knew. Theistic science in the future will be able to give a more meaningful
account of what was meant. But these details do not constitute the substance of
the natural scientifics in the Writings. In addition to these smaller details
we should also include as natural scientifics everything that is written in the
Writings about discrete degrees, marriage relations, animals, speech and
language, history of civilizations, human evolution, earths in the universe,
and correspondences. These things make up a substantial portion of the Writings
in terms of content, but even more significantly, they make up the outward
lattice or framework for the theology in the Writings. It is possible to
separate the theology form the natural scientifics.
The human
race has now been given the new idea of theistic science. It is a natural science within which there is a spiritual science.
In other words, natural truths within which are spiritual truths. Of course
this has always been the case, unrecognized and unrecognizable. All natural
science that has survived the progress of science is genuine and has had within
it spiritual truths. But now since the age of the Second Coming, there can be a
recognizable relation between the spiritual truths in the genuine natural
truths. This is the deeper meaning of Nunc Licet (TCR 508). This new attitude,
perception, and method is what we can call theistic science. The theories and
explanations we build within theistic science are always coupled in the
spiritual/natural structure. Theories that include only natural truths or
concepts are not part of theistic science but are part of the earlier phase of
the human rational.
We know
that the Word in its fullness is written in internal series that cannot be
broken and it is how the angels read the Writings. There is not a sentence or
idea in the Writings that is not part of this unbreakable inner series of
spiritual rational concepts. This conclusion follows if one acknowledges the
Writings as the Word, unless one thinks that what the Writings say about the
Word does not apply equally to itself as to the Old and New Testaments. But if
the Writings are the Word, they must be the Word in full. Our knowledge of the
character of the Word is from the Writings. From this we also know the
character of the Writings as the Word. Rev. Hugo Odhner expresses this idea as
follows:
Now we discern in these Writings, not only a body of Divine
Doctrine, but the story of a man's spiritual experiences, his narrative of
journeys into the world of spirits and into heaven. Signs are not wanting of
his growth in insight and depth during the progress of his twenty-six years of
instruction in the other world. He tells us of memorable things, of
conversations with angels and devils. Some of his friends thought this personal
feature of his books marred the whole, but he made it clear that the Lord, who
had revealed the doctrine, also inspired the narrative element. Both therefore
are equally the Lord's message. And coming from the Lord's mouth, this
revelation is written in a Divine style, with a meaning which reaches into
infinity.
In its complete
aspect, it becomes a spiritual epic of symbolic significance - a ,story
prophetic of the pilgrimage which all New Churchmen should make, and involving
at the same time the glorification of the Divine Truth in human thought. The
appearance in the Writings of a personal and narrative and scientific element
which forms a background for the abstract doctrine of the internal sense,
constitutes the "letter" of the new revelation.
By correspondential expressions the Divine Rational Truth is
presented in the rational "appearances of truth." The Writings, no
differently from any other revelation, ought therefore to be held superior to
any invalidating criticisms founded on references to superficial errors whether
textual or scientific. Such charges cannot invalidate our revelation; to think
that it would implies, to my mind, only an ignorance of the character of
revelation. (Hugo Odhner, ibid)
20. Led
By The Lord Since His Early Education
Some
biographical essays about Swedenborg imply that after his enlightenment he
“gave up his scientific quest for the soul” and devoted himself solely to his
mission as revelator of the Heavenly Doctrines. But Swedenborg states that he was led by the Lord to develop his mind since
his early education (TCR 850). From the letters Swedenborg wrote during
the period leading up to his transition phase, it is clear that he did not give
up his scientific undertakings as misguided or fruitless. As
In the middle
of April [1745], Swedenborg received his call as Revelator, and at once dropped
all plans which he had contemplated with respect to continuing his anatomical
and mineralogical works. Henceforth, he devoted himself entirely to the new
work to which he had been called. (
Through
this decision Swedenborg was obeying the Lord who was about to introduce him
sensually into the spiritual world. It was not on account of a failure of his
science. Swedenborg states explicitly that the science he has written prior to
enlightenment is to endure forever, and that the science he presents after his
enlightenment is the same science as he wrote before (xx).
Note
this statement:
To a knowledge
of the causes of things, -- in other words, to truths – nothing but experience
can guide us. (EAK 11)
A
“knowledge of the causes of things” refers to rational consciousness or
understanding, while “experience” refers to sensuous consciousness. The
rational always exists and operates within the sensuous (AC 5128). The Writings
are constructed on this reality, as discussed above. Note that there is no
Heavenly Doctrine without the rational and sensuous combined! Only a secular
Swedenborgiansim can excise the Memorable Relations and the Spiritual
Experiences from the Writings and dismiss them as the “dramatic imagination” of
the author (see Chapter 4). The
Note
further:
Particular experience, or that which strictly comprehends or immediately refers
to one and the same object, however rich in detail such experience may be, and
however enlarged by the accumulated observation of ages, can never be
sufficiently ample for the exploration of nature in the sphere of causes; but
if, on the other hand, in exploring each particular object, we avail ourselves
of the assistance of general experience, that is to say, of all that is
known in anatomy, medicine, chemistry, physics, and the other natural sciences,
then, even at the present day, we appear to be abundantly supplied with means
for the undertaking. (EAK 12) (Emphases in original)
“Particular
experience” refers to sensuous science and “general experience” refers to
rational science. This is made clear in the paragraphs that follow and
throughout the book. This passage tells us that genuine scientific advances
cannot be achieved by merely sensuous science no matter how much progress is
achieved into the far future. The materialistic nonduality of science today
(and in Swedenborg’s days) is merely sensuous science. To get to the
understanding of causes we need to contextualize sensuous knowledge within the
framework of dualism (spiritual rational understanding). This is called
“general experience.” Sensuous science refers to empiricism and experimentalism
(EAK 1-28 or throughout the Introduction). Empirical facts and experimental
results are always about particular conditions and objects of observation and
measurement. These particular facts must then be illumined by a rational
holistic framework called “general experience.” This higher mental activity
cannot be derived from the empirical facts but must be supplied by a spiritual
framework of rational sequences and relations from lasts to firsts, which is
the Lord.
Natural science or truths constitute the Lord’s Natural Sensuous
External Man, which was also made Divine (AC 2083), while spiritual scientifics
or truths constitute the Lord’s Rational Internal Man, or Divine Rational. “The Lord” refers here, as
elsewhere, to the Divine Human.
Just as the
rational internal man is within the natural external man, so is spiritual scientifics or truths within natural
science or truths. The two cannot in reality be separated. In Chapter 1 of Principia
I, Swedenborg connects rational analysis to empirical observations, and the
two together constitute a scientific explanation. Neither is able to yield
valid accounts without the other (p. 10-13). The theistic science Swedenborg
created takes valid observations and explains them in terms of valid
principles. These principles are from his
The
Writings were written from the perspective of the spiritual world as the causal
source of the events in the natural world. Swedenborg made direct sensuous
observations of the spiritual world and the outward conversations he carried on
with angels and spirits. This outward portion of the spiritual world was in
actuality the inward portion of the natural world. In the Writings therefore,
Swedenborg gave an interior account of the natural world and the natural mind. What’s
important to note is that the science in the Writings is the same science as in
his earlier works. Clearly therefore, the science of his earlier work is in
a discrete degree different from the science of all others. Swedenborg’s
Swedenborg
explains this in Chapter 1 of Principia I which is titled:
On the Means
Which conduce to True Philosophy, and on the True Philosopher
Notice the
idea of True Philosophy, that is, True Science. Later, the Writings will be
called True Religion (as in the last work The True Christian Religion).
Swedenborg was led by the Lord in all that he wrote and understood. Swedenborg
therefore had the Divine warrant to name the science he created “True Science”
and to name the theology he created as “True Religion.” In both cases, the
True Science and the True Religion are form the Lord, and are the Lord. In
the publication of the books of the Writings, every work contained both True
Science and True Religion. They cannot rightfully be separated, one as the
Word, the other as outdated works.
21. Principles For The True Science
Consider
some principles Swedenborg presents in Principia I for the True Science.
One is that all things exist from a prior thing and that the first elements are
more subtle than the later elements that are “successively more gross” (p.10).
Later, the principle is repeated in the Writings in many places:
But in what has been set forth in my works respecting
creation it has been shown that God first rendered His infinity finite by means
of substances emitted from Himself, from which His nearest surrounding sphere,
which constitutes the sun of the spiritual world, came into existence; and that
then through that sun He perfected the other surrounding spheres, even to the
outmost, which consists of passive materials; and in this manner, by means of
degrees, He rendered the world more and more finite. This much has been said to
satisfy human reason, which never rests until it perceives a cause. (TCR 33)
Yet although the heavens are so distinct that the angels of
one heaven cannot have association in their affairs with the angels of another,
still the Lord conjoins all the heavens by immediate and mediate influx-by
immediate influx from Himself into all the heavens, and by mediate influx from
one heaven into another.# He thus makes the three heavens to be one, and all to
be in such connection from the First to the last so that there is nothing that
is not connected. Whatever is not connected through intermediates with the
First does not continue in existence, but is dissipated and becomes nothing.##
# Influx
from the Lord is immediate from Himself, and also mediate through one heaven
into another; and the Lord's influx into the interiors of man is in similar
order …. Immediate influx of the Divine from the Lord …. Mediate influx through
the spiritual world into the natural world …
##
All things come into existence from things prior to themselves, thus from the
First, and in like manner they continue in existence-because continuing in
existence is perpetual coming into existence-and therefore there is nothing
unconnected …
(HH 37)
Another
principle in Principia I is that the more subtle is the medium of
transmission the more distinct the information perceived in it (p. 10). This
principle is reinforced in the Writings in numerous places:
At length
there in flowed more interiorly, from that height, such, or a similar
principle, still more subtle, so subtle that at first I did not perceive that
subtlety; so that it was within the former subtle [influx]; and when the
mediate spirits perceived it, they wished to seize hold of it, as is their
habit, and so admit it to injure me; but they could not be other than distinct
[from the subtle ones]; for they who are their subtlest, could not enter into
the exterior subtle ones, nor these into the interiorly subtle. (SE 3312)
Creation itself cannot be explained to human comprehension
unless one removes from his thinking any thought of space and time. But if
these are removed, it can be comprehended. Remove if you can, or as far as you
can, thought of space and time, and keep your mind intent on an idea abstracted
from these. You will then perceive there to be no difference between a large
interval of space and an infinitesimal one, and in that case you cannot but
have the same idea of the creation of the universe as of the creation of
particular elements in the universe. (AC 155)
One can
also see that the rational consciousness we obtain from the Heavenly Doctrines
is situated within the sensuous consciousness we obtain from the memorable
relations, the spiritual experiences, and the scientific illustrations and
revelations in the Writings.
[General experience] is experience in its
widest meaning, or in its whole course and compass.” Particular experience in itself leads to
obscurity and conjecture; general experience leads to “connection, communion,
and mutual relation of all things in the world and in nature, beginning from
the first substance and force; … it is only in succession that its clouds are
dissipated and its light emerges. … [we] must not tarry at the starting post,
but measure the entire course. Now if we proceed in this manner, we shall find
that at the present day we are possessed of a sufficient store of facts, and
that it will not be necessary to wander beyond experience into the field of
conjecture.” (EAK 13, 14).
This is the new dualist science introduced
by the
Swedenborg was especially faithful in
maintaining the principle of “the general within the particular” for which he
passionately argued and practiced in his pre-enlightenment works. His greatest
hope was to be able to put aside his own conjectures and “to view and
comprehend, as accurately that the subject required, the idea of universals in
individuals, and of individuals under universals.” (EAK 18) Also this:
We never have a distinct perception of
anything unless we either deduce it from, or refer it to, a common fountain and
universal principle. This mode of proceeding indeed accords with the original
and natural condition of the senses, and of the animal and rational mind. (EAK
8)
At last, through his newly given observation
post in the spiritual world, Swedenborg was able to give many previously
unsuspected particulars facts about reality and its causal framework. He
discovered the sensuous observational basis for the rational principle he
always knew about: that the Lord rules the universe “from firsts to lasts and
from lasts to first.” Prior to his intromission into the spiritual world
Swedenborg’s
Swedenborg also established the principle
that human development proceeds by stages from the sensuous to the rational.
We are born in dense ignorance and
insensibility. Our organs are opened only by degrees; the images and notions at
first received are obscure, and, if I may so speak, the whole universe is
represented to the eye as a single indistinct thing, a formless chaos. In the
course of time, however, its various parts become comparatively distinct, and
at length are presented to the tribunal of the rational mind; whence it is not
till late in life that we become rational beings. (EAK 8)
22. Overcoming
Objections To Theistic Science
The modern person may wonder: “How can
Swedenborg’s ideas from the 17th and 18th centuries be as
advanced as the scientific ideas today and those of tomorrow? Surely what he
didn’t know he must have been wrong about.” But Swedenborg’s science was not
like the science of others, full of conjecture destined to be labeled outdated
by the march of history and progress. You can see that
Being unable as
yet to deliver any other than generals and universals, I foresee that many of
the remarks I shall have to offer, will appear to be mere conjectures or
paradoxes. They will so appear, however, to none but those who have not gone
through a complete course of anatomy, physics, chemistry, and the other arts
and sciences; or to those with whom preconception and prejudice forestall their
judgment, and who make some one particular govern all the rest; or again, to
those who have no capacity for comprehending distinctly the series of
connection of the subject. …
The result,
then, must show, whether or not those statements, which at first perhaps appear
like obscure guesswork, are in the end so abundantly attested by effects, as to
prove that they are indeed the oracular responses of the truth. (EAK 9)
This passages gives a summary of the
categories of objections to dualist science, which in the passage are referred
to as “the remarks I shall have to offer”:
q
Dualism in science is rejected
outright (“conjectures or paradoxes”)
q
Opposition is formulated prior to
considering the entire proposal (“not gone through a complete course”)
q
Dualism is rejected from bias
rather than rationality (“preconception and prejudice forestall their
judgment”)
q
Being unwilling to let go of the
materialist paradigm (“make some one particular govern all the rest”)
q
Rejecting the rational principle
that all things in the universe form an interconnected chain of causes, from
God to ultimates and back (“comprehending distinctly the series of connection”)
Theistic
science will make use of many new facts and experiments that are accumulated by
every generation of scientists. Swedenborg made use of the facts and
experiments of talented scientists inspired by the Lord to follow valid
procedures. Eventually the theistic science will replace the current
materialistic or anti-spiritual framework that is being taught in schools and
in the training of scientists and engineers.
Swedenborg
saw that it is the Lord who conducts the progress of science. He saw that the
first phase of human science was the intelligence and integrity of the ancients
who
Surpassed us in
wisdom, in the art and perfection of distinguishing things, and in their
shrewdness of their conjectures respecting the occult. For with no instruction
save their own, they laid the foundations of numerous arts and sciences upon
which their posterity afterwards built; nay, from the resources of their own
genius, and without being under any intellectual obligations to the past, they
raised the superstructure to no inconsiderable height. (EAK 23)
Modern
science brought new particular experimental facts which confirmed and were
built into the more general framework of ancient science. The idea that modern
science has supplanted ancient science is a spurious idea of
self-aggrandizement of the moderns, “seduced probably by self-love” (EAK 18).
There is an orderly progression in science from its basic foundation or
nomenclature given to the ancients, to its increased experimental knowledge
given to the moderns. This experimental knowledge will never be outdated but
“will forever continue to be of practical use to posterity” (EAK 17). Progress
is the integration of modern science within ancient science to produce the
third and final step: dualist science, what Swedenborg calls “the wisdom that
is yet to come” (AEK 24).
Modern
science need not be materialistic. Nothing in dualism obviates the wide
accumulation of modern experimental knowledge. It is contrary to the rational
to argue that materialistic science is real in its own sphere of
application—the physical world and the body. This attitude works with the
specious rationale that the “spiritual realm” is for theology and is outside
its sphere of application, hence it’s fine for science to be monist—no clash
then ensues between science and theology. But this argument is rejected and
repeatedly shown to be false in the pages of every work of the Writings. What is noticeable to all of us is that
Swedenborg continued this theistic science in the Writings. This can
only be possible if this science is rational and true.
The
phenomena that are considered in the Writings are of central interest to
materialistic science also: the structure of natural objects, the causes of
physical phenomena, the formation of nations, atoms, cells, and galaxies. But
the explanations are discretely different. In the Writings they are dualist—the
spiritual cause within the natural effect. In materialist science the
explanations are monist—the natural contains all its own causes.
The
Some among
those who acknowledge the Writings as “divinely inspired” may yet have
reservations about some Memorable Relations and experiences, especially those Swedenborg
describes concerning spirits from other planets in our solar system (EU 1). In
some of these he was able to see actual planetary events through the physical
eyes of some of its inhabitants (xx). Reluctance to accept these descriptions
as real events stems from the idea we have from materialistic science that the
natural world everywhere has but one kind of biological reality, that which we
know on this earth. And so, according to this view, if Swedenborg says he was
talking to spirits who were inhabitants of the moon, he must have been misled,
mistaken, or deliberately using a provocative literary device to put across a
difficult spiritual distinction. Others however who acknowledge the Writings as
the Lord in His Word see clearly that everything said in it is true literally,
historically, scientifically, as well as containing the infinite Divine
Rational of the Lord. They see this because it is so stated in the Writings
about the character of the Word (xx).
Every
Whenever man is in his corporeal and worldly
things, there is then no faith and charity, that is, there is "cold"
for then corporeal and worldly things, consequently those which are his own,
are at work, and so long as the man is in these, he is absent or remote from
faith and charity, so that he does not even think about heavenly and spiritual
things. The reason of this is that heavenly and corporeal things can never be
together in a man, for man's will has been utterly ruined. But when the things
of man's body and will are not at work, but are quiescent, then the Lord works through
his internal man, and then he is in faith and charity, which is here called
"heat." When he again returns into the body he is again in cold; and
when the body, or what is of the body, is quiescent, and as nothing, he is then
in heat, and so on in alternation. (AC 933)
Various
considerations can help debunk a “lukewarm” attitude towards the Writings in
its totality as the Word. First, is it consistent with the Writings to allow us
to edit the Word? In other words, to allow us to use our natural mind (external
rational) to pick portions here and there and designate them as incorrect? The
answer is, No. The Writings explain that we must refrain from doing this or it
will destroy everything in our faith. For instance:
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;
see also: AC 4760)
Note well: The “rational” mentioned here is the external rational, which is the
upper portion of the natural mind, hence not yet spiritual (AC
978, 4286; AE 355:14).
It obviously does not refer to the interior-rational or spiritual-rational. It
says that we should not consult the external rational as to whether something
in the Writings is correct or incorrect. Instead, the external rational must be
in an affirmative set when reading anything in the Writings (AC 1072).
Everything in the Writings is true, Divine Truth, but we only understand some
of it at any one time, in proportion to progress in our regeneration. When we
come across something in the Writings we do not understand, we must go on and
beg the Lord that eventually we will understand it:
The Word, therefore, by means of doctrine is understood, and
is like a lamp stand with its lamp lit. Man then sees more things than he had
seen before, and he also understands those things which he had not understood
before. Things obscure and out of agreement he either does not notice and
passes over, or he sees and explains them as in agreement with doctrine. (SS
54)
Being Divine the Word contains within itself things that are
infinite which come from its first source, and as a consequence contains things
beyond description such as constitute angelic wisdom; but in its lowest form it
contains only such things as those that man is able to grasp. … Entering into
scientifics from the truths of faith, is agreeable to order; but, conversely,
entering into the truths of faith from scientifics, is contrary to order …
Whoever is in a principle of negative doubt, which in itself
is negative, and who says that he will not believe until he is persuaded
through scientifics, will never believe.
(AC 4383)
The starting-point ought to be made from truths of doctrine
which are from the Word, and they ought first to be acknowledged; it is
permitted afterwards to consult scientifics in order to confirm these truths,
which are corroborated in this manner (NJHD 51)
23. The
External Rational And The Interior Rational
An
absolute duality applies between the external rational and the interior
rational. Therefore also an absolute duality applies to any theory or author
and the Writings, because the Writings are the Word and anything else is not.
Enlightenment
is the influx, perception, and instruction people receive from the Lord when
they read the Word. (AC 10215)
There is
no spiritual enlightenment possible when we read other writings since the
Writings is the only source of spiritual truth for the
One
tends to reason this way: “The Old and New Testaments have been given as
spiritual revelation not as a science text. We would not want to rely on the
Bible for our science. God allows these two things to be separate. Besides,
it’s obvious that since the Word is inspired and given through men, there are
limitations imposed on their knowledge and understanding. That’s why we should
look for the spiritual meaning in the natural events or explanations.” This is
our external rational thinking about the Word. And going one more step in this
direction is to find “errors” and “outdated” things in the Writings. These passages
with “errors” in them, are therefore not considered Divine Truth equally with
the other passages. In this way self-intelligence ends up deciding what is
Divine and what is not in the Letter of the Word.
Nevertheless,
despite what our external rational wants to say about errors in the Writings,
we are warned that we must not allow this activity in the
The Word,
therefore, by means of doctrine is understood, and is like a lamp stand with
its lamp lit. Man then sees more things than he had seen before, and he also
understands those things which he had not understood before. Things obscure and
out of agreement he either does not notice and passes over, or he sees and
explains them as in agreement with doctrine. (SS 54)
24. Theistic
Science And Religion
Swedenborg’s
mind represents the reformation of the human race by means of rational consciousness,
thus the reformation of the mind of each individual thereafter. Everything that
Swedenborg wrote was written by this new “
The
Writings say that the Lord is establishing a
The
expressions “New church” and “the Word” are usually taken to indicate the
Christian religion. The last Work of the Writings, published in 1771, is called
“The True Christian Religion” (TCR) and marks the historical completion of the
Second Coming. This Work presents a summary of the
Nevertheless
the
Church in
the Writings refers to both the historical
As already
discussed elsewhere, the human race on this earth could not be regenerated
except by sciences (SE 4663). Hence a written revelation of science had to be
given in the Writings as the Word of the Second Coming. That God is discussed
does not mean that religion is therefore being discussed. The Writings can be
taken by some as a religious text, and by others as a theistic science text. In
materialistic science, God is excluded, let alone the name of God as a historical
figure. In such a system, talk of God means the exit from scientific talk. This
is why Swedenborg’s works have been off the science list for every generation of
scientists since the publication of the Writings. I am an exception to this
near universal rule! I have considered the Writings as theistic science since
the very first time when I started reading them. Later, I discovered the
existence of the
Theistic
science is implied in the expression the “
This
outside framework or appearance is supported by and dependent on what lies
within it, namely, the angels’ rational consciousness, which is their wisdom.
The Writings as the Lord’s Divine Rational cannot exist except within something
sensuous, which is its literal content. This literal content is about sensuous
things that can be observed in the natural and spiritual worlds—lands, people,
places, events, geography, migrations of peoples, sayings, beliefs, tents and
sacrifices, rain and shine, famine and abundance, oceans and stars. This is the
sensuous content of the literal of the Writings. Within this spiritual sensuous
is the spiritual rational which gives it life from above (or from within), and
competes it.
The literal content of the Writings
is the theistic science of the Word of the Second Coming. This theistic science contains two
portions, as already pointed out. The sensuous portion which is its natural
scientifics, and within this, the spiritual rational portion, which is spiritual
scientifics. In theistic science a reference to the Lord or to heaven and hell
is not a reference to religion. It is a reference to reality, as the angels
know it, for they have a
Of course
the reality of theistic science from the Writings identifies the Lord rather
than some other God. The last book that completes the Second Coming is titled True Christian Religion, and we know
that the end of something encapsulates all of it (LJ 9). But this is not
choosing one religion over another. The Christian religions was specifically
rejected (TCR 108) as were all others. The Second Coming gives humankind the
“true Christian religion” but not in the sense of “Christian” vs. “Muslim” vs.
“Jewish” for these religions refer to the development of the regenerating mind
regardless of religious background (see also Chapter xx Section xx for the
discussion on anti-semitism in the Writings). “Christian” in the Writings is
used in relation to history, the birth in time of Jesus of Nazareth as the
foretold Messiah God. This has a historical and religious significance
outwardly, which disappears however, when considered inwardly. The “true
Christian religion” inwardly is the Divine Human. And this new revelation of
the Divine Human is for the entire human race and for all religions on all
planets.
The reality
in theistic science challenges the ideas of one’s religion. This is inevitable
as well as helpful because only that religion which we understand rationally
can be of service to us in the afterlife
(TCR 719). Ideas of religion that one accepts as a mystery by authority
is called “persuasive faith” and is of no effect in the afterlife since it is
merely corporeal and natural, not rational (NJHD 118). I predict that as
theistic science grows in practice and education throughout the world, it will
create a realignment of all religions so that they may become truly genuine and
consistent with theistic science. A variety of religions will continue to exist
on this earth because religion is a cultural mechanism that serves to train the
mind of children for the love and worship of God.
Without the
scientific revelations in the Writings dualist science would not be possible
because we cannot make observations with our senses regarding what is outside
the natural discrete degree. This has
to do with the limitations of the natural senses and must not be imposed on the
scientific description of the universe and reality.
25. Theistic Science And Regeneration
The
Writings characterize the human race from this earth in relation to the race
from other planets. We represent the skin of the Grand Human while the race
from other planets and solar systems represent the remaining parts of the human
body (xx). The skin represents the external sensuous of life (xx). It includes
the sensory involvement of the skin with the natural environment by means of
the sensory organs. It also involves the respiratory functions of the skin, and
its digestive functions in incorporating particles from the air. The skin also
includes the external portion of internal organs. In a more remote sense, the
skin represents the surface of objects in contrast to their interior. In the
most general sense, the skin and its sensory represent the natural world while
the spiritual world is represented by the interior of the body and of organs.
Due to this specialized focus of our genius this planet is the only one among
the numerous inhabited earths in the universe, to have a writing system:
Since they wondered that such things can be described in
writing, I spoke with them concerning our earth: that such things are known in
our earth; and that, so far as is yet known, it is not so in other earths;
also, that in this earth are sciences, which are increased by being capable of
inscription in writings, and so left to others and to posterity, and that hence
are many arts in this earth, as for example, the art of constructing ships, and
many other things.
It was granted me to tell them the reason; [namely], that,
from the earliest times, those in this earth wished to be wise in such things,
and that this was represented by the tree of knowledge in paradise; and that,
because they had eaten thereof, therefore they cannot be made healthy
[spiritually] by other means than by sciences, thus by the scientifics which
are of faith.) (SE 4663)
From this
we know that our earth is the only one in the universe that has an advanced
civilization by means of technology and culture. This is marked by the fact
that in no other earth is there a writing system, and therefore a culture of
knowledge that is cumulative over the generations. Here it is revealed that we
inherit this character by birth. It is part of our hereditary constitution. As
a result we cannot be regenerated by sensuous consciousness, as is the rest of
the human race. It is said:
therefore they cannot be made healthy [spiritually] by other
means than by sciences, thus by the scientifics which are of faith
which is a
reference to regeneration, since regeneration is to be made healthy in spirit.
This is indeed an amazing revelation about our race on this earth!
The only way we can be regenerated
is by means of science!
You can see
why the Writings could not have been written prior to the modern age of rationality
and science. Also, you can now see why the Writings are called “the scientifics
of faith.” Another expression for “scientifics of faith” is “theistic science.”
You can also see why the Writings are a scientific revelation. Also, why the
revelator had to be a scientist rather than a priest. Every expression of the
Writings is an expression from science, or theistic science. These expressions
are nothing else than natural-rational correspondences of Divine Truth.
We are
given further particulars about our race on this planet:
(In this earth, more than in other earths, there are
sciences and arts quite unknown elsewhere: [the following] sciences, to wit,
the physical sciences in general, chemistry, medicine, optics, astronomy,
geometry, and philosophy, whereof they know nothing at all elsewhere; [the
following] arts, for example, the smelting of metals, the art of sculpture, of
painting, music, the art of constructing ships, carriages, magnificent
buildings and palaces out of stone and marble, and mirrors; besides very many
arts, which are for use and pleasure. Not only are they [in this earth] skilful
in these, but they also have communication, by means of ships, with distant
regions; and the gains of different regions are distributed to others.
Similarly with the arts, and also with the sciences. These,
when invented and known by one person, are communicated, by means of books and
writings, to all others; and the things which are known in one region are
likewise communicated to those who are in another; and those things which the
ancients knew, are also known to posterity; for writings remain.
For which reason also, and especially, the Word and the
truths of faith, could be given in this earth, because [they could be known] in
many [places] at the same time, and successively through the ages; and so could
be multiplied, which could not happen elsewhere.) (SE 4663)
Here it is
revealed that the culture of science on this earth was the very reason why the
Word exists here and on no other planet, though we know it exists in the
heavens where a spiritual script is used for the Letter of the Word (xx). But
in the natural world, this is the only planet where there is a written Word.
Further particulars are given:
(It was then told me, by the angels, that the Lord willed to
be born in this earth, where divine truths are handed down by means of writings
even from the earliest times, because, in this manner, the truths of faith
could here be multiplied and preserved better than with others: but, with
others, these truths are only learnt from parents, and so retained in the
memory, and then very many things perish in the lapse of time; but, here, it is
not so.
Thus, also, the angels of heaven are able not only to be
perfected from the Word, but also to perceive blessedness and happiness of
life: for the Word, read in this earth, passes, by correspondences, even into
heaven, as was shown. Thus, also, can the truths of faith be communicated to the
angels of other earths. This is the reason that the Lord willed to be born
here, and to become, while he was in the world, the Divine truth, that is, the
Word, and afterwards the Divine Good, that is, Jehovah.) (SE 4663)
“From the
earliest times” divine truths in the form of science have been handed down to
the civilizations on this earth. Faith itself had to be revealed, presented,
and practiced as a science. The Threefold Word is written in scientific
correspondences at progressively higher levels. The Old Testament is written in
natural-corporeal correspondences, The New Testament is written in
natural-sensuous correspondences. The Third Testament is written in natural-rational
correspondences. The Word is given for the regeneration of the people of each
Church and its language and ideas are adjusted to be appropriate to each era or
civilization. The Last Testament, which is called the Crown of Churches, is
written in natural-rational correspondences. This level of thinking was
attained by the human race when it reached the modern era of science and
technology in the 17the century. The revelations of the Writings then became
possible because understandable by the modern mind.
Revelation, science, and
regeneration are therefore inextricably tied.
You can see
the relationship between science and regeneration through the idea of rational
consciousness of the Lord. The passage discussed above (SE 4663) reveals that a
duality between those of the human race on this earth and all the other earths
in the universe. This distinction is permanent and absolute for all creation
and unchangeable, as seen by the historical fact that the Lord chose this earth
for His Incarnation and that this is the only earth that possesses a written
Word. The New Heavens which the Lord created out of the truths of the Second
Coming are interior rational loves never before available to angels or the
human race. The angels have these celestial rational loves from the Third
Testament, which is the source of all their wisdom (xx).
The new
rational loves out of which the new heavens are created are the highest form of
conscious spirituality the human race is capable of. The race was created to be
in this highest celestial state. Regeneration is the means by which the race is
brought into that state. The process of regeneration consists of a duality:
those of the human race who are from this earth vs. those from other earths.
These two varieties of regeneration form a discrete duality. Future research
will no doubt reveal more details about this duality and what it means for the evolution
of the human race.
26. Regeneration By Sensuous Vs.
Rational Consciousness
Science is
a mental discipline and involves a rational type of thinking and reasoning. Science
relies on observations or experimental data, and this empirical approach sometimes
leads to the incorrect notion that science is sensual. But science sees not by its data but its theories! The Greek root
of the word theory means to inspect or to see better. Science sees by its
theories while the data are merely the objects it sees. The seeing is done by
the theory, which is also called the explanation for the behavior of the data.
So, while data are sensuous
“givens,” theory is rational seeing, or rational consciousness.
Clearly
then, data and theory make a duality like the natural world and the spiritual
world. Data is a sensuous consciousness, while theory is a rational
consciousness. The human race on the other planets communicate with heaven
sensuously, by observation and data, while the human race on this earth
communicate with heaven rationally, by ideas and interconnections.
But what
does it mean to see the Divine by ideas and interconnections?
The answer
is: CORRESPONDENCES!
We know
that correspondences are appearances of truth (xx). We know that truth descends
from the Lord in successive degrees, each degree being a type of correspondence
or appearance of truth.
We see the
Divine, that is, communicate with heaven, by means of rational consciousness.
Our regeneration consists of the development and evolution of our rational
consciousness. Science is rational. Hence we regenerated by science, that is,
by the scientifics of faith, which is theistic science. Theistic science is the
process of extracting scientific knowledge from the Writings. In the Writings
this process of extraction is described and commanded. The result of this
extraction process is called the Spiritual Doctrine. The Spiritual Doctrine is
a coherent arrangement of the spiritual meaning we extract from the Letter of
the Writings. Hence the Spiritual Doctrine is theistic science by which we are
to be regenerated.
The higher
the form of theistic science practiced by a
Rational
consciousness on this earth is protected by the Lord since it is necessary for
regeneration. Sensuous communication with the spiritual world is not allowed,
as it is on other planets. Miracles in the Age of the Second Coming are no
longer allowed by the Lord because they encourage sensuous consciousness of the
spiritual and close down rational consciousness. The Lord will not come in the
clouds and no voice from heaven will sound, for these would destroy our rational
consciousness, the only means for the race on this earth to be regenerated into
a celestial mind.
The
salvation of the human race on other planets is dependent on us on this planet.
This is another amazing revelation! They can continue in integrity to evolve
and exist in sensuous consciousness of the spiritual world, but their progress
depends on our progress in rational consciousness by means of the written Word.
Quoting again a piece of the passage discussed above:
Thus, also, the angels of heaven are able not only to be
perfected from the Word, but also to perceive blessedness and happiness of
life: for the Word, read in this earth, passes, by correspondences, even into
heaven, as was shown. Thus, also, can the truths of faith be communicated to
the angels of other earths. This is the reason that the Lord willed to be born
here, and to become, while he was in the world, the Divine truth, that is, the
Word, and afterwards the Divine Good, that is, Jehovah.) (SE 4663)
It is
revealed here that “the Writings, read in this earth, passes, by
correspondences, even into heaven. Thus, also, can the truths of faith be
communicated to the angels of other earths.” The “truths of faith” are the
results of theistic science research on this earth. These are the truths that
are multiplied by the cumulative generations, as the passage about our earth
indicates earlier: “divine truths are handed down by means of writings even
from the earliest times, because, in this manner, the truths of faith could
here be multiplied and preserved better than with others.” The multiplication
and preservation of truths refers to theistic science research cumulated over
the generations. These are the truths that are “communicated to the angels of
other earths.” Since angels communicate with the people on their planet of
origin, you can see that advances in our regeneration and science on this earth
are communicated and shared with the people on all planets.
Consequently, rational consciousness
on this planet feeds the sensuous consciousness of people on other planets. The entire human race, on the
numberless earths in the universe and in the numberless heavens, is like a perfectly
matched and integrated system, like the intricate root system that sustains of
crawling plant expanding in a field or garden. But its shape is not that of a
crawling plant or tree. It is the noblest of all shapes—the form of the human
body. This is the shape of the entire human race viewed from genuine
perspective, seen by the highest angels and confirmed by Swedenborg. Hence the
human race is called the Grand Human (or Grand Man). The spiritual and
psychological character of the human race is integrated but variable, matching
the integration and specialization of function of the body’s organs and systems
of interaction and exchange. Every shape, structure, and process in the human
body, in its least detail, is a representative of the correspondential component
or detail in the mind. This is obvious when you consider that NO DETAIL of
physical form or operation in the body can operate or exist from another
physical detail or form in the body. Every physical detail in the physical body
is nothing but a physical effect caused or produced by the action of a
spiritual or mental detail.
Clearly, the spiritual or mental detail
must occur PRIOR to the physical detail since the latter is the product of the
former.
Everything
about the physical body, and everything about the physical world, is nothing by
itself, unable to come into existence or to maintain its existence once
created. This is just like a log that cannot become a chair by itself and from
itself. An external physical force, guided by someone’s motive, combined with
know how, is required to make a chair out of that log. Similarly every structure and function in the physical or natural world
can only come into existence, and be maintained in that existence, by something
outside the natural world, something that must be higher than it, in order to
create it or be the cause of it.
Regeneration
represents the process of spiritual evolution of the human race. Everything in
the universe takes its shape, quality, and direction from this human process of
regeneration since every detail of creation is for the sake of a human race in
heaven, and this Divine goal of creation is managed and brought about by
regeneration.
27. Evolution Of Consciousness In
The Human Race
The
regeneration of the human race proceeds through a duality between this earth
and the other earths in the physical universe, as explained in the prior
sub-section. The Written Word was given only on this earth and the Lord’s
Divine Natural Body was born and raised on this earth. The Letter of the
Writings contains the revelations of the Second Coming, which is the final
completion of the creation of the human race. The Word of the Writings serves
for the regeneration of humankind.
All three
portions of the Word were given on this earth. Each portion of the Word marked
a new evolutionary step in the consciousness of the human race. The Hebrew Word
marked the elevation of the race’s consciousness from superstition and savagery
to rational faith and civilization. This is the beginning of human civilization.
Before then it is potentially human, but not yet human. The beginning of human
is the rational (see Volume 1). This elevation from savagery into humanity was
accomplished by the Letter of the Old Testament. This portion of the Word is
written in corporeal correspondences.
New
rational truths now became available to the human consciousness. Through these
truths, the human race was conjoined to the Lord to a closer degree than was
possible before. This closer relationship allowed new good to be received from
the Lord, not possible before. Thus the human race evolved further with new
powers, new understandings, new motives, new virtues. The development and
multiplication of truths given through the Old Testament was communicated to
the angels, and through them it was passed along to the human race on the other
planets. This reception by the race on the other planets was different than our
reception, which is rational and scientific, while theirs is sensuous. In this
way, both the sensuous consciousness of the Lord and the rational consciousness
of the Lord was growing and evolving in the human race.
The second
evolutionary step in the consciousness of the human race, came with the Letter
of the New Testament which is written in sensuous correspondences. People who
started thinking with sensuous correspondences had a discrete degree higher
consciousness than people still thinking with corporeal correspondences. The
new thinking of the New Testament was a higher form of thinking than the old.
It was more rational. The corporeal correspondences of the Old Testament allowed
people to have representative ideas of God and heaven, not rational ideas. Animal
sacrifices and Divine acts of miracle were required to allow people to maintain
faith—such was their thinking and vision—immersed in corporeal correspondences
of the Divine. This allowed a vision of heaven as another earth.
The
religions immersed in corporeal correspondences have an outward worship, but
not yet an internal. Internal worship cannot be based on corporeal
correspondences, but only on rational correspondences. Not even the New
Testament could bring a genuine vision of the Lord, but only of the Sensuous or
Natural portion of the Lord called the Divine Corporeal and Natural. Sensuous
correspondences are far superior to corporeal correspondences. Thinking in
sensuous correspondences allows a form of representative rationality far more
powerful than the form of representative rationality when thinking with corporeal
correspondences.
For
instance, the idea of sin and regeneration expressed in corporeal
correspondences locks up their meaning at the sensorimotor level of ideas. Sin
is something you act out that offends God and forgiveness is obtained by
appropriate behavioral rituals such as prayers and sacrifices. At this level of
consciousness, the willing and thinking is not part of the religious equation.
This also shows how thinking in corporeal correspondences cannot lead to rational
ideas and explanations but only to superstition and delusions. Only the crudest
form of science is possible at this level of reasoning.
But when
the race started thinking in sensuous correspondences from the New Testament
the meaning of sin and regeneration was elevated to a more rational form,
closer to the genuine rational and human. Now people could think about sin as
something in their willing and thinking, and they could think of regeneration
in terms of metaphors like plant growth. People could think of spiritual faith
as something alike to plant growth, and so they could think of regeneration as
a gradual process, not an instantaneous process of being forgiven by sacrifice
or holy sprinkling by the priest. Further, they could think that God, as the
Holy Spirit, was actually within their spirit, operating there, being active
there in their unconscious, just as the nutrition and the heat of the sun, is
operative within the plant and makes it grow and develop its powers and
virtues. This was the level of thinking possible by means of sensuous
correspondences.
Further,
this level of thinking allowed the development of a rational science. Sensuous
correspondences fall into discoverable shapes and arrangements by means of the
inner operation of spirits and angels that are in communication with the individual.
Science could grow gradually by cumulative little steps on the part of many
generations of scientists. The discovery process itself remained a mystery at
this level of thinking. It was the action of the angels within the unconscious
spiritual mind that allowed the natural mind, immersed in sensuous
correspondences, to formulate rational theories of science. It was not yet the rationality itself of the
scientists that led to successful discoveries, theories, and applications.
Scientists
and theologians, thinking in sensuous correspondences advanced until the 17th century,
after which they could advance no longer. Their rationality had already taken a
down turn, with a tendency for science, art, culture, and lifestyles to become atheistic,
consequently irrational, delusional, fallacious, and cut off from the source of
rationality and good. At this point the human race was taken to its next
highest level of thinking—rational correspondences.
This was
accomplished through the modern mind of Swedenborg, whose thinking was immersed
in the natural-rational correspondences of his culture, history, science, and
society. Swedenborg’s mind was the first of the new race called the
Swedenborg’s direct sensuous vision
or presence in the spiritual world was possible only by means of his natural-rational
concepts, ideas, and understanding.
Swedenborg
therefore, in miniature, recapitulates the duality of the state of the human
race. Rational correspondences of the Divine are multiplied in the
consciousness of the race on this earth. This is then communicated to the race
on the other earths, as discussed above, infilling their sensuous
correspondences with our rational correspondences. This universal process is
called the
His dual
citizenship means that his prior natural-rational correspondences, acquired
from his efforts in science and theology, were infilled and animated by
spiritual-rational correspondences when his eyes were opened to both worlds
simultaneously. Swedenborg’s scientific natural-rational correspondences became
suddenly infilled with spiritual-rational correspondences which was the level
of his thinking when being consciously present in the spiritual world. What he
saw and felt from experience, as reported in the Writings, are sensuous confirmations
of rational ideas. This is the feature of the Second Coming that makes it a
theistic science.
Science is
the rational explanation of sensuous observations called data. The sensuous
facts are therefore connected to the rational explanations. The rational explanations in the Writings
could not have been a science without Swedenborg’s direct sensuous observations
in the spiritual world.
Without a
science, the Writings could not have been the “scientifics of faith” that is
required for regeneration on this earth (as already discussed above). And
without theistic science on this earth, the rest of the human race could not
receive the rational truths it needs to animate people’s sensuous consciousness
of the Divine. Regeneration of the entire human race has now been insured by
the Lord by means of natural-rational correspondences. These are the new rational
loves in which the race needs to immerse its thinking from now on, so that it
can continue to elevate its rational consciousness of the Divine Human.
28. Diagram Of The Elevation Of
Consciousness In The Human Race
The
evolution of consciousness in the human race is by means of rational truths
which are given in progressively more interior degrees. On this planet, truths
are given by means of a written scientific revelation of God and the spiritual
world. Regeneration is by means of rational consciousness of the Divine. On
other planets, regeneration is by means of sensuous consciousness. There is no
written scientific revelations. However, their sensuous consciousness is not
sufficient in itself to regenerate them. They depend on the rational
consciousness evolved on this earth.
There is
also an effect on us from the sensuous consciousness of the other planets. This
is not shown in the diagram. Future research in theistic science may uncover
the details that have been revealed for the mechanism of this interaction.
These details are still to be uncovered, extracted, realized by the
The diagram also reinforces the idea
that we regenerate not just for ourselves but for others as well.
The
spiritual-rational correspondences revealed to each
We receive
truths not just for ourselves but for others as well. The genuine truths each
individual loves are communicated to the others throughout the universe.
Truth is
not static. The written Word is not static. The truths form the Writings evolve
and cumulate over the generations. The truths of the Letter are multiplied over
time and history. Truth is evolutionary, meaning that it continues to elevate
to ever higher levels of consciousness and thinking. Truth is compared to a
seed by the Lord because He implants something from himself into our mind where
it grows and is appropriated to ourself along with its benefits of life,
consciousness, and feeling.
The truth
that is implanted by the Lord in our mind is Divine Truth accommodated to each individual
in a totally unique way. The consciousness of this truth in our mind is
expressed by means of the content of our thinking. The content of our thinking
is called meaning. There are three discrete levels of meaning. Each level of
meaning is made of correspondences—that is, of appearances of truth accommodated.
The Word is a composition in language whose content is made of expressions that
are descriptions or references to correspondences.
The three
levels of correspondences, or appearances of truth, are called corporeal,
sensuous, and rational. As already discussed, the Threefold Word is made of
these three discrete levels of
correspondences, or appearances of Divine Truth from the Lord.
Correspondences
in the mind provide content and organization. The
This is why
the spiritual meaning only exists in the understanding (xx). As discussed in
this Chapter, the anatomical locus of the spiritual-rational correspondences is
in the interior-rational mind, which is a discrete degree above the natural-rational
mind. What is from above cannot exist in what is below, but it can exist within
it, that is, interact functionally by correspondence relations. When you compare
the content of spiritual-rational correspondences with the content of natural-rational
correspondences, you are looking at the contrast between the natural and
spiritual meaning. Many illustrations are given in this Volume to show what the
Writings teach regarding the method of translation between natural
correspondences and spiritual correspondences. It is the task of theistic science research to uncover more and more of
this relation.
29. Spiritual Psychology and
History
The achievement and significance of
the Second Coming is the elevation of consciousness of the human race to the
celestial level.
This is the final completion of the creation of humankind. From now on the
human race can be consciously present in heaven as on earth. This was indeed
the state of life of the
This
celestial mind had its integrity of creation and was filled with the innocence
of good from inheritance and childhood. They loved the neighbor, they lived in
conjugial love with one wife, they loved their children, and they admired and
worshipped the Lord as a Man, seeing Him in the correspondences of nature and
in the intimate events of every moment of their life. It was a grand life,
happy, peaceful, wise, without the influence of any hells from hereditary evil.
Their knowledge was connected to their love since the will and the
understanding were united as one in their celestial mind. This means that
whatever curiosity or intellectual desire came to them, they received an
answer, vision, or comprehension in an instant, as it were, though not without
some slight intellectual effort, which however was always successful, always
coming up with the solution. Such was the life surrounding the celestial societies
on earth.
The Lord
maintained this environment for them as a foretaste of heaven where all things
surrounding them are created instantaneously by the correspondences of the
thoughts and affections of the spirits and angels at any instant in their life.
Life on earth was a paradise and the Church on earth was a true containant of
heaven. The Word of Divine Truth was not written down since they had no
technological civilization, but a rustic one, surviving innocently from the
produce of the earth that loved them as a mother.
But then it
all ended with the Fall of the
People were now able to think of one
God of Creation, who was invisible to the eye, yet someone with whom an
individual can have a personal relationship, like Abraham and Moses and David
and Isaiah.
Suddenly a
new giant step was taken in the consciousness of the human race, that is, in
its level of rationality. This level of rationality is determined by the level
of meaning an individual has of the Divine. That is, the level of meaning an
individual receives and as it is accommodated uniquely to the individual’s
genius. Truth in one individual can never be identical with truth in another
individual (xx). Yet all genuine truths are only from the Lord in whom infinite
discrete truths make a one. Clearly then, the uniqueness of Divine Truth with
each person is such that it is integrated with the truths with all other people
in the human race. This is the meaning of the
The new
split-brain race started with the generations of the
How are people
going to compel themselves to give up what they delight in and love?
The Lord
provided for a way to our voluntary cooperation in regeneration. The sensuous
consciousness of heaven available to the celestial mind was cut off with the
human race so that split-brain generations were incapable of any sensuous consciousness
of the spiritual world. All conscious contact and communication with spirits
was cut off by the Lord. The human race was plunged into spiritual darkness.
This is why it is called The Fall of Humankind.
Upon the
ashes of the old, a new human race emerged to inherit this earth. Every
individual of this race is born in total spiritual darkness. Only the physical
universe is tangible. The spiritual world, heaven, God, life after death, sin—become
rational ideas. These ideas can be discounted and disproved by
self-intelligence. Freedom to act is now placed in the individual. The
individual becomes as a little god, knowing what it needs to know, or being
able to discover what it needs to know. Generations after generations of total
darkness ensued, and the human race descended into a life and existence
barbarism and savagery, ignorance and superstition, filled with atrocious
worship rituals to idols, incapable of understanding anything rational or
spiritual.
The Old
Testament Word was then given to raise the level of the human race to corporeal
correspondences. This established the idea of one God with whom any individual
can have a personal relationship. It established a level of thinking about sin
and regeneration that was acceptable to the generations, and thus understood
and loved. These were the animal sacrifices and other physical and behavioral
rituals prescribed in the Old Testament. As long as people obeyed these rituals
and procedures because they were Divine commanded, they were able to immerse
their consciousness in corporeal correspondences. By this they were able to be
regenerated.
The rational
consciousness of the new human race had climbed to its first evolutionary
plateau. It made a civilization possible, made of cities and nations, governed
by the laws of the Land and the rituals of the Church founded on the Word. The
human race was now on the comeback. The fallen darkened spiritual mind now
received a new glimmer of light, able to reflect on God as real, though invisible
to the senses.
Something real that is invisible to
the senses!
This was
the great breakthrough to a higher discrete level of thinking and
consciousness. Being able to believe, know, and understand that something can
exist that is not visible in this world. It was the birth of the spiritual
world in the mind of the human race on earth. It was the beginning of
rationality once more in the fallen race. A glimmer of true reality was now
visible to the human race on earth. The era of darkness and barbarism had
ended.
When this
phase was fully consummated, a new step became possible for the human race. The
Word of the New Testament was given. This Word was written in natural-sensuous
correspondences. They are a discrete degree above natural-corporeal
correspondences. The light that shines in the mind of the human race on earth
had suddenly been inundated like a bright golden shower on a glorious spring
morning. Now for the first time a consciousness of the Divine was available in
sensuous correspondences. The human race after the fall had no other way to be
regenerated than by rationality and the sciences. Sensuous consciousness could
no longer serve for preparing the mind for heaven. Instead, sensuous
consciousness of the spiritual had been utterly perverted by the love of self
and megalomania. Children born in that state could no longer be prepared for
heaven. Hence sensuous consciousness of the spiritual had to be cut off and
another way provided by the Lord. This other way is regeneration by rational
consciousness of the Divine.
This is
accomplished gradually. First, elevation of the human consciousness to corporeal
correspondences of the Divine. This was a giant step up from the earlier phase
of darkness immersed in superstition and falsities. Second, elevation of the
human consciousness to sensuous correspondences of the Divine. This
necessitated the absolutely unique event in creation called the Incarnation. On
this earth, in recorded history, the Lord was born a member of the race. This
was a new creation of the Divine within the natural human body. This sensuous
correspondence was a living proof and demonstration of the infinite God in a
visible body on earth. This was the final proof needed by the human race on
earth that God existed, that there was a reality in the afterlife, in heaven
and in hell. Spiritual sight had completely returned to the human race. God and
heaven were now part of official history and science.
The level
of thinking of the human race when immersed in natural-sensuous correspondences
was a new plateau, bringing the spiritual mind closer and closer to the
celestial mind. Science became possible and cumulative. The Word of the New
Testament was published and spread, being the foundation of the Church.
Eventually however, men of renown came along called philosophers, scientists,
and educators who started denying the new light of consciousness. Historical
facts became hypotheses, and the Word became outdated religion from old. The
human race was on its way to darkness again. Materialistic science and secular
humanism became culturally acceptable substitutes or alternatives to sensuous
understanding of spiritual truths. Since there was no sensuous perception or
consciousness of the spiritual in the human race, it was only the sensuous
correspondences of the New Testament that held people back from sliding into atheistic
humanism and materialism.
The Lord
did not however permit the human race to slide back. He effected His Second
Coming by which He completed the work started at His First Coming. The Lord now
provided the race with a new Word, this time a scientific Word, one written in
natural-rational correspondences. This level of thinking is the level of
thinking reached by modern science in the 17th century. This level of thinking
is the highest possible for the natural mind. In other words, the race’s
consciousness of the Divine reaches its pinnacle in natural-rational
correspondences. No future revelation can be given that is higher. This is why
the revelations of the Writings are called the Crown of Churches.
The Divine
can now be understood by the human race in a scientific way, in a fully rational
way.
All the
vision that was lost through the fall, had now been regained. The new rational
consciousness of the Divine allowed the next evolutionary step in the elevation
of the human race to its final plateau. These historical facts are represented
in the following chart.
30. Chart of Spiritual Psychology
and History
|
NAME |
LEVEL OF THINKING AND SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS |
METHOD OF PREPARATION FOR HEAVEN |
|
Most |
no
written Word |
preparation
by direct sensuous consciousness of spiritual world and heaven |
|
Fall of the race; descent into
darkness; loss of direct sensuous consciousness of spiritual world |
||
|
|
Ancient
Word written in spiritual-rational correspondences |
regeneration
by enlightenment through internal worship and charity |
|
|
Word of
the Old Testament written in natural-corporeal correspondences |
regeneration
by performing Divinely prescribed rituals taught by religion (sacrifices,
prayers, places of worship, sacred objects) |
|
First Christian Church |
Word of
the New Testament written in natural-sensuous correspondences |
regeneration
by love of the Lord and neighbor, and by acknowledgment and knowledge of the
New Testament Doctrine. |
|
New Church |
Word of
the Writings written in natural-rational correspondences (Theistic Science) |
regeneration
by daily willing and thinking from enlightenment through spiritual-rational
correspondences received within the natural-rational correspondences of the
Letter |
Rutger
Perizonius has made a useful study of how the regeneration of the
The human
race on this earth is in a special position with regards to the other earths in
the universe. I have already referred to the duality between this earth and the
other earths in terms of the skin of the Grand Human, which represents the
regenerated human race on this earth. In other words, the skin of the Grand
Human is the
There is
therefore an interesting paradox to be resolved by theistic science, which I
think is fully answered by Perizonius’ Thesis. The paradox is that on the one
hand, we are the most exterior of all spirits in the human race, hence
we are said to be the skin of the Grand Human; and on the other hand, we are
the Crown of the Churches, and the Word of the Writings we have contains the inmost
truths that the human race can receive from the Divine?. How can the inmost of
all the successive Churches in human evolution, be at the same time constituted
out of the portion of the human race that is the most external?
The paradox is nothing but a
reflection of the principle that the last phase in external development, which
is the highest phase, contains the inmost of internal things.
A fruit is
the last phase of the external development of a tree, and this is its highest
use. The highest use is tied to the last ultimate of development just as the
ultimate goal that motivates an act contains its delight. In successive order,
the last of the developing Churches is the
You can see
this relationship by considering the functions of the skin in the physical
body, which it has from the functions of the skin in the Grand Human. The skin
is not only an external covering and ultimate for the rest of the body, but
much more. The skin enters into the inmost parts of every organ by forming its
interior lining (xx). It is the skin that holds an organ in its shape and
integrity. All organs are held together by the skin, which offers not only the
conveniences of enclosure, protection, and shape, but also modulates and
manages the highly significant exchanges that must take place between the interior
parts of an organ and the exterior, exchanges necessary for the well being of
the organ and its continued development. Clearly
then, the spiritual function which the race on this earth provides for the rest,
is that of interior truths in the
The race on
this earth is regenerated by the sciences and the sciences of faith, as
discussed in the previous section. The regeneration on this earth must be by
means of science because we are of the genius by which we are unwilling to
believe and love what we do not understand with our natural mind. This is what
makes us the most exterior of all the spirits in the race. The spirits not of
this earth have not experienced a Fall such as the human race on this earth.
They are still a one-minded race like the
But the
race on earth that was like that, ceased with the most
The giving
of the Letter of the Writings to the race on this earth makes it possible for
the entire Grand Human to see the Lord. This was not possible prior to the
completion of the Second Coming when the Lord sent out the Twelve Disciples
that had followed Him in the world, but this time, in the spiritual world, with
a copy of the True Christian Religion in their hand (xx). The Writings were
thus promulgated throughout the Grand Human.
The human
mind on this earth reached a pinnacle of intellectual development in its
scientific and cultural developments leading up to the 17th century. The modern
mind developed on this earth was the only human mind in the universe capable of
understanding and loving the natural-rational correspondences that compose the
Letter of the Writings.
As the
The
Hence it is
that the paradox mentioned first, is resolved. The ultimates of the Grand Human
contain the inmost conjunction with the Lord, just as the Letter of the
Writings contain the inmost celestial truths about the Divine Human and from
Him. Hence it is said that the Last shall be First.
Perizonius
presents a number of citations to confirm his thesis regarding the regeneration
of the Grand Human by means of the interior truths of the Spiritual Doctrine in
the
First there
is the idea that the history of successive Churches on this earth represents
the successive steps of regeneration for every individual on this earth. This
idea was developed by H.D.G. Groeneveld, with full confirmation from the
Writings, in a series of important articles published in the original magazine
of De Hemelsche Leer in the 1930s and
reproduced in the restart issues by Rutger Perizonius. The regeneration of the
successive Churches on earth, culminating with the
But
conjunction with the Lord is by means of the spiritual sense only. Hence the
inmost conjunction of the human race with the Lord is possible only through the
spiritual sense of the Letter of the Writings. This spiritual sense is now
available to anyone from anywhere anytime who is willing to form the New Church
mind in themselves by means of the Writings exclusively. This formation of the
1) Sensuous consciousness of the spiritual world (
2) Rational consciousness of the spiritual world through spiritual-rational
correspondences (
(the Fall. Closing down of sensuous consciousness of the
spirit. Human race (on this earth only) is plunged into darkness as to the
spirit and the afterlife. Creation of the split-brain race.)
3) Rational consciousness of the spiritual world through natural-corporeal
correspondences (Word of the Old Testament)
4) Rational consciousness of the spiritual world through natural-sensuous
correspondences (Word of the New Testament)
6) Rational consciousness of the spiritual world through natural-rational
correspondences (Word of the Writings)
The last
plateau is also the final elevation of human consciousness provided for by
creation. This level is the celestial mind immersed in spiritual-rational
correspondences. Note that the sixth item in the listing above is the level
thinking of the
Yet, it is
not this intellectual process itself that yields the actual spiritual meaning.
These intellectual
procedures merely get us to the entry grounds of heaven, while the entrance
gates are somewhere else. The actual spiritual meaning cannot be written down
in natural language. This is why the Threefold Word is written in pure
correspondences: corporeal (OT), sensuous (NT), rational (TT). These
correspondences form a progression in the successive history of the Churches
and match exactly the progression of successive levels of thinking of the
Prior to
our reformation in adult life, we are in the state of consciousness that can be
called the Old Testament level of thinking about the Writings. Our
thinking is then immersed in corporeal correspondences in our daily life and we
simply apply that level of thinking to what we read in the Writings. For
instance, as children we are at first most involved with the Memorable
Relations rather than with Doctrine. Why? Because Doctrine is meaningless when
viewed from the perspective of corporeal correspondences. But the Memorable
Relations are like wonderful stories from a far away place, one to which we are
traveling and will eventually get there. Our level of thinking is then immersed
in corporeal correspondences of the Lord, heaven, sin, forgiveness, and the
afterlife. We read about the “as-of self” but can see it only as “the self.” We
are committed to loving the Lord, but only as an omnipotent external God who
rules the universe we are in. In this state we worship the Divine Corporeal of
the Lord because we see the appearances of Divine Truth in corporeal
correspondences.
When we
begin our reformation we are in a state of fervor and new enthusiasm for the
Writings. We are struck by a new realization of their sacredness, holiness, and
Divinity. We begin to allow the idea in our mind that the Writings are not just
merely the Word but that they are the Word principally and mainly for the
This new
phase of consciousness may be called the New Testament level of thinking
about the Writings. As our reformation proceeds we clean up our mental
concepts, our belief systems, our principles—everything in the conscious adult
mind must be deconstructed and laid aside. Only new formations from the
Writings are now allowed in. Nonduality is replaced by duality, without a
single exception. During this process the Lord floods our mind with a conscious
awareness of the many things that lurk in the corners, in the background
assumptions, in the unquestioned
beliefs, the unreasoned stances, the illogical justifications, the
self-serving biases—everything is revealed by the Lord to our eyes like the
morning sun reveals the rooftops of the houses that lay hidden during the
night.
Now we no
longer worship the dead Letter of the Writings. We stop looking for the Lord in
the tomb. The Lord is no longer this external omnipotent God who has inspired
Swedenborg’s mind to compose the Writings. The Lord is right here within. He is
the Holy Spirit. Our task is to conjoin with Him. The Letter of the Writings is
now alive. We begin to apply it to ourselves! What a wonderful and awesome
experience when this begins! It ends the state of reformation by bringing on
the morning light that breaks the darkness and splashes its mighty colors all
over the sky, between the clouds, above them, and beneath them, inundating the
roof tops and the high flying birds carried with wings spread and carried by
the breeze. This is our new consciousness of spiritual things. It is not a view
that is filled with content and detail. It is a grandiose view of Divine Truth
in terms of self or the individual.
When this
phase is also consummated, we enter the phase of regeneration proper. This is
the last phase and may be called the Third Testament level of thinking about
the Writings. Our level of thinking is now immersed in the natural-rational
correspondences of the Writings. We are now occupying a higher plateau of
vision than before on the same mountain. Now we are aware of a third village we
could not see before, and several more villages beyond that can be seen very
faintly. We can also see the ledge upon which we were standing before, while
our thinking was immersed in natural-sensuous correspondences. The Lord is no
longer simply the omnipotent God ruling the universe we live in (Old Testament
phase of the
Regeneration is therefore the
progressive immersion of our level of thinking about the spiritual, through
corporeal, sensuous, and rational correspondences, or appearances of Divine
Truth uniquely accommodated to each individual.
Yet,
spiritual consciousness itself is not possible by means of the natural-rational
correspondences in which our thinking is immersed in this state. There must be
enlightenment given by the Lord. This means that the Lord must create a
spiritual organ within our mind that is capable of giving us a new perception
that is not possible with our external natural mind. As I have explained above
by means of anatomical diagrams, this new physiological formation is called the
interior-natural mind that the Lord creates within the natural mind. This is
the first time that the
This
operation functions to give us a conscious awareness and perception of
something new called spiritual-rational correspondences. These spiritual-rational
correspondences are now seen within the natural-rational correspondences of the
Letter of the Writings. Now for the First time the human race on this earth can
perceive the spiritual sense within the literal meaning of the Third Testament.
This brand new perception is the new vision of the Lord by the human race in
the Grand Human. Now for the first time the Grand Human can have a conscious
sensuous vision of the Lord as the Divine Human. Therefore it is that our regeneration is not just for ourselves, but
for its beneficial effects on the Grand Human.
The
regeneration of the Grand Human is the greatest of all uses, and it is the
Grand Human that we are commanded to love as the neighbor in the highest degree
(TCR 416), in a higher degree than the Church (AC 6823). Every single thing
created is therefore ultimately created for the sake of the Grand Human (SE
3420). By regenerating and forming the
We are part
of the Grand Human, specifically, the skin to the external body and the
interior organs.
The Grand
Human is the Lord’s likeness and image, and all its parts and details
correspond to the human body. Therefore, we exist from the Grand Human (AC
3883). We die and resurrect as the Grand Human dies and resurrects (TCR 762).
The Grand Human is the whole of which we are the part, along with the rest of
our vast humanity (AC 6807). The nature of the inter-communication between the
segments of the human race varies. Conscious communication or “consociation”
between spirits from different planets is possible only between angels in the
highest heaven, that is, human minds whose thinking is immersed in higher order
interior truths within their spiritual-rational correspondences (AC 6701,
7078). The angels in the two lower heavens are separated according to their
earths of origin. The thinking of these angels and angelic spirits are immersed
in lower order spiritual-rational correspondences, and at this level of
resolution they are not directly compatible with each other, and so do not
afford a means for communication.
It is a
historical irony that the Copernican revolution that started the new intellect
of modern science, removed from the race the idea that earth was the center of
the universe for the sake of which the world was created. This new era of
science was the beginning of the long haul back to enlightenment for the human
race. What I find ironical is that the end goal of regeneration or
enlightenment is to restore the special position that earth occupies relative
to the rest of the created universe. I already discussed the duality of this
earth and the other earths as the duality between rational consciousness of
spiritual things and sensuous consciousness of spiritual things.
[2] And the spirits were told, further, that when plain
experience declares a fact, they ought not to doubt, and still less deny it, on
the ground that it does not so appear to the senses, and that they do not perceive
it. For even within the realm of nature there are many things that are contrary
to the fallacies of the senses, but are believed because visible experience
teaches them. For example, the sailing of a ship around the globe: they who
suffer themselves to be carried away by the fallacies of the senses, might
believe that ship and sailors would fall off when they came to the opposite
side, and that the people at the antipodes could never stand upon their feet.
Such also is the case with the subject before us, and with many things in the
other life that are contrary to the fallacies of the senses, and yet are
true-as that man has no life of himself, but from the Lord; and very many other
things.
By these and other considerations, incredulous spirits could
be brought to believe that the case is as we have stated it. (AC 1378)
Our role in
the Grand Human is for our regenerated ideas from the Writings to infill the
sensuous consciousness of the rest of humanity. Only this earth has fallen and
therefore the regeneration of its people is by the evolution of a new rational
consciousness by means of correspondences that progress to more interior
perceptions of Divine Truth. It is within these more interior perceptions that
the good from the Lord can be inserted. The Grand Human needs to be fed by the interior
truths of the Writings in order to maintain its integrity of vision and life.
The
The rest of
human kind in the Grand Human and on the other earths, knows that the Lord is
Man and worship Him as Man, but they do not know that He was born a Man on this
planet, and do not know that the interior truths of this Divine Human are transmitted
generationally to the people on this earth by means of a written Word which is
a book of science. Thus science and history on this earth proves that God
became a
Now all future theistic science
research will be self-consciously aware that its results are to be used not
only by our institutions on this earth, but also by the immense human race
spread out on the numberless earths in the universe.
Every
The Divine
Corporeal of the Writings is fixed and material. But everything above it is
spiritual and alive. The literal meaning of this Divine Corporeal is conveyed
to our mind by means of natural-rational correspondences. Our modern educated
mind is immersed in natural-rational correspondences from science and
education. Therefore when we read the Writings and figure out the literal
meaning of its sentences, our everyday thinking from science and education
matches perfectly the level of thinking in which Swedenborg composed those
sentences. The Writings are written in natural-rational correspondences because
they are to convey the Divine Rational of the Lord as a ferry boat conveys its
passengers across a river. The vehicle of conveyance must be suitable for its
passengers or type of cargo. Only natural-rational correspondences could convey
spiritual-rational correspondences, and it is the latter by which the Writings
effect regeneration.
It is by spiritual-rational correspondences
that the Lord regenerates the
Heaven is
created out of spiritual-rational correspondences. We must have these in our
mind to enter heaven. The purpose and mechanism of regeneration is to equip our
mind with spiritual-rational correspondences. These are implanted, operated,
and activated solely by the Lord. It is a Divine operation within our
interior-rational mind. It is the greatest contribution the
Henceforth
into the endless future, the evolution of rational consciousness will continue
with the human race on this earth by means of the cumulative never ending intellectual
mining of the Writings, which will remain as an endless source of scientific
revelations. From this ever evolving theistic research in the
The Perizonius Thesis multiplies our
motivation and desire for regeneration.
When we acknowledge the Perizonius
Thesis we are enlightened in a new way. We then have a distinct rational
consciousness of the Grand Human in relation to ourselves.
Prior to
our acknowledgement of the Perizonius Thesis, our ideas about the Grand Human
are immersed in natural-rational correspondences from the Letter of the
Writings. We see the Grand Human as something external to ourselves. We see it
as a home around us, since we know that our heaven is situated somewhere in the
Grand Human. But the instant we acknowledge the Perizonius Thesis we are
enlightened in a new way, being able to rationally perceive the
spiritual-rational correspondences within the meanings we had before for the
Grand Human. Now the Grand Human is no longer something outside of us, like a
home. We now see the Grand Human
interiorly.
This new
internal vision of the Grand Human comes from the acknowledgment that our
willing and thinking while we are regenerating here on earth, is part of a
larger process called by Perizonius “the regeneration of the Grand Human.” The
thousands of private and intimate acts of our willing and thinking, hour by
hour, day by day, week by week, creates a permanent universal record or trail
that is conveyed to all of the human race in the heavens and on the earths.
How awesome it is for the
Suddenly
our new enlightenment shows us rationally what actually is the mechanism of our
regeneration. Our individual regeneration has a higher use to serve than the
use for ourselves. This one idea is redeeming, can you see it? The regeneration
of the Grand Human is the greatest of all uses. All other uses are subordinate
to it. Hence the use of our individual regeneration for ourselves becomes
subordinate to its use for the regeneration of the Grand Human. By this
relationship, the fallen race on this earth is redeemed.
There is
now a new order established by the Lord which will remain forever. This
permanent order is stabilized by the mutual dependency forged in the duality of
this earth versus all the others, that is, the duality of sensuous vs. rational
consciousness in the human race. The new consciousness of the Second Coming is
the
With the
giving of the Writings to the modern scientific mind on this earth, the Lord
has created a rational vehicle for conveying the rest of the new Divine truths
about Himself, for which He created the human race. Only be receiving and
understanding these new Divine truths was it possible to effect a closer
conjunction with the human race. The closer this conjunction the higher the
form of good that the Lord can bestow on the race. Henceforth to unending time,
theistic science research will insure an endless source of new Gifts from the
Lord to the individual Churches on this earth.
Rutger
Perizonius restarted the publication of De
Hemelsche Leer, a Dutch magazine in the 1930s, that brought into this world
a new living portion of the Divine Doctrine that is with the human race on this
earth. That Doctrine was the new enlightenment available to the
The
redemption of the human race on this earth is to continue and endure as the
Perizonius
therefore reminds us of the double function or use that our regeneration
serves. First, it serves the regeneration of the Grand Human, bringing interior
rational truths from our regenerated mind, conveying them to the rest of the
heavens and the earths that are in sensuous consciousness. They depend on this
reception for their continued progress and integrity. Second, our regeneration
serves for our own individual redemption, by which we can receive conjugial
love through being united to our wife (see Volume 3).
Everyone thinks from
affection, and no one without affection (AC 2480)
32. Enlightenment Is Not Sufficient
For Salvation
The Lord
enlightens the
This method
is provided by the Lord for the sake of regeneration. Our split-brain race
arose after the Fall of the race on this earth. Whereas our ancestors were
celestial minds, our race was a spiritual mind. They were prepared for heavenly
life by direct sensuous consciousness of spiritual things—their departed
relatives, angelic teachers, visions of the spiritual world, seeing
spiritual-correspondences within the natural objects and events around them.
For our race, a new method of preparation had to be provided since we lost the
power of sensuous consciousness or perception of the spiritual world.
The Lord
provided a method of regeneration by which we can form a new mind that is fit
to live in heaven. This new mind is created within rational consciousness which
is a state of mind that can see correspondences by rational scientific
perception. Our race can only be regenerated by means of the sciences, as shown
above, since our genius is immersed in material ideas. But rational
consciousness is capable of sensing interior truths by means of
correspondences. By developing and evolving the rational consciousness of the
race on this earth, we are able to sense ever more interior truths. As a
result, our race can multiply truths of the Writings endlessly and be a source
for more elevated sensuous consciousness for the other part of the race that
has never experienced the Fall. They depend on the development of rational
consciousness in our race on this earth. And we depend on them in ways that
will be uncovered from the Word by future research in theistic science.
The
elevation of the
We need to
understand the reason for this in a scientific way.
Recall that
we are the split-brain race. In other words, we are born with a divided mind.
Our will and our understanding are no longer united, as they still are with the
rest of the human race. The separation
was provided by the Lord so that we can be enlightened with the understanding,
even though we are still in hell as to our affections in the will.
The Lord
provides us with new good within the truths we see in enlightenment. This new
good is what creates our new self, our regenerated mind that can be prepared
for heaven. It is in this new good that we will exist in heaven. Whatever is
provided within this new good will be the state of our life in heaven. All the
affections and delights that we need to be in angelic bliss come from this new
good and are located in it. Clearly, then, if we receive this new good through
enlightenment, but then do not learn to love it, it cannot remain.
The new good we receive into our
mind from the Lord by enlightenment cannot remain or become operative unless we
appropriate it, care for it, live it, use it, apply it.
This is why
it is said that enlightenment is not sufficient for the individual to be saved.
It is necessary but not sufficient. A second step is necessary to make it
sufficient. This is to bake it of one’s life, that is, to apply this new good
to our willing and thinking.
But the use and application of this
new good is not possible as long as the old affections in the old will hold
sway in our natural mind.
This is
then what sets up the battle for our eternal fate in heaven or in hell:
Will we lay
aside the old affections in the old will? Will we compel ourselves to monitor
our willing and thinking by the hour, and desist from willing and thinking what
is contrary to our enlightenment? This is the grand battle for our soul, to be fought
every day, every hour and minute that the Lord keeps us tied to the physical
body.
Regeneration
is the daily systematic step by step procedural filtering of our moments of
willing and thinking. Every item we can catch from sudden memory is a fish to
be looked at and examined in heavenly light. Does it appear dark or light? Is
this act of willing from heaven or from hell? There’s is no in between—this we
know from enlightenment. So the judgment is simple—Yeah, Yeah or Nay, Nay. Thousands
of acts of willing and thinking every day are accumulated in our book of life,
in the permanent spiritual grooves of our will and understanding. Nothing
whatever, no thought or desire or satisfaction, is ever unrecorded in those
permanent grooves and coils that constitute the organic shape and structure of
the organs that operate everything in the mind.
Once judged
by the light of the truth of Doctrine in our understanding, the act of willing
and thinking must be marked, isolated, watched every minute like a fanatic terrorist
ready to spring out of restraints to cause mischief and mayhem. They are there
in our will, but we keep them in shackles. They are there tempting us with
their soothing familiarity, satisfaction, and pleasure. Regeneration is the
process of keeping these hereditary affections in restraint by consciously
judging them, rejecting them, and desisting from doing them again. To the
extent that we do this, to that extent the Lord closes down the effective
operation of the old affections, one by one. The old will is laid to rest like
an old computer whose plug has been pulled permanently. The new will contains
the new good we receive from the Lord within the truths we perceive,
understand, and apply.
Note that
for regeneration to continue and progress we must continue to feed the
And
especially it is to be remembered that our regeneration leads to conjugial love
as its central goal.
Conjugial
love is the highest of all loves for the sake of which all other loves exist
(xx). Angelic perfection is not possible as a single individual, which is why
the heavens in the Grand Human are populated only by married couples. The
married couple is the unit of life in the celestial mind. The unity between the
will and the and the understanding within an individual represents the unity
between the wife and the husband in an angelic couple. There are thus two types
of unity, one, within the individual’s mind, and the other, within the
interpersonal couple. Both form a unity, but in different ways. This unity is
called the “marriage of good and truth” and is the basis of the creation of
every distinct object in the universe. Conjugial love signifies this unity between
good and truth, which is present infinitely in the Lord, and streams out of the
spiritual Sun to create and maintain the universe.
Regeneration
is therefore the integration of the individual into the Grand Human, just as
the body integrates food substances into itself by digestion.
The
Doctrine of the Wife is a collection of insights regarding the process of
achieving internal unity with the wife (see Volume 3). The model of integration
is described by the joint and reciprocal action of the heart and the lungs in
the body. In the conjoint couple, the regenerating husband strives to think and
act from his wife rather than acting from self, as in the unregenerate state.
When the husband loves to act from the wife, then her will makes the everything
in him, even as his wisdom makes the everything in her understanding. In this
way they are united and make a conjoint couple even as their bodies were
surgically connected so that her heart doubles in function as also his heart,
and his lungs doubles in function as also her lungs. This conjoint spirit is
the unit of human life. The angelic couple is the genuine celestial mind which
humans were created to become after birth on an earth.
33. The Level Of Consciousness In
Representatives And Significatives
Representatives
convey rational consciousness of spiritual things, while significatives convey
sensuous consciousness of spiritual things. Thinking at the level of representatives
is natural and by itself has no information about spiritual things. But
thinking at the level of significatives is spiritual and carries information
about spiritual things. The spirits from this earth are born split-minded and
are regenerated by material ideas from science. Our genius is to think by means
of representatives, while the spirits of other planets think by means of
significatives, as did the
Representatives
can serve for regeneration and conjunction because they form a series by means
of correspondences.
The
elevation of the human race by means of the Threefold Word was discussed above.
The progression involved corporeal correspondences (OT), sensuous
correspondences (NT), and rational correspondences (TT). At last, the human
race was capable of understanding natural-rational correspondences, at which
time the Writings could be given. The Writings are written in natural-rational
correspondences. When this Letter is taken up in the understanding and forms
the level of our thinking, we are then immersed in natural-rational
correspondences. We now have the appropriate cognitive and semantic framework
to receive enlightenment, which is the reception and conscious perception of
spiritual-rational correspondences within the natural-rational correspondences we
have from the Letter of the Writings. This method of enlightenment is provided for
the Lord for our regeneration.
We have
also discussed how the sensuous consciousness of the rest of humanity interacts
and makes use of the elevation of rational consciousness on this earth, and
that the interaction is reciprocal, like the systolic and diastolic movement of
the heart and circulation.
Regeneration
of the race on this earth is by means of the elevation of rational
consciousness of spiritual things. Rational consciousness is built up by the
sciences and the “scientifics of faith” from the Word (xx). This build up is a
psychophysiological process fed and maintained by our level of thinking.
Rational consciousness evolves when our level of thinking is raised to a higher
discrete degree of operation. The Threefold Word was given in a written form
for the regeneration of our race on this earth. Each Word elevated the rational
consciousness to a higher discrete degree by means of the correspondences in which
its Letter was written. The rational consciousness of the human race on this
earth was gradually elevated as people progressed in level of thinking from
being immersed in corporeal correspondences (OT), to sensuous correspondences
(NT), and rational correspondences (TT), as frequently mentioned in prior
discussions.
That the
Word is written in this style may be seen from this and similar passages:
Again:
Fruitful trees and all cedars, the wild animal and every
beast, creeping things and flying fowl, let them praise the name of Jehovah
(Ps. 148:9-10, 13).
The "fruitful tree" denotes the celestial man; the
"cedar" the spiritual man. The "wild animal" and
"beast" and "creeping thing" are their goods, as in the
history before us; the "flying fowl" is their truths; from all of
which they can "praise the name of Jehovah." By no means can the wild
animal, the beast, the creeping thing, and the bird do this. In profane
writings such things may be said by hyperbolism, but there are no hyperbolisms
in the Word of the Lord, but things significative and representative. (AC 776)
“Things
significatives” and “things representative” are the correspondences in which
the Word is written. By immersing their thinking in the correspondences of
their Word, the successive generations were able to cumulate and develop a
scientifics of faith by which they were conjoined with heaven and could be
thereby regenerated. The rational consciousness of the race reaches its highest
discrete degree of development or elevation, when we immerse our thinking in
the natural-rational correspondences of the Third Testament. We thereby prepare
our mind with appropriate external rational containants that can receive within
themselves more interior or higher correspondences from heaven. These are
called spiritual-rational correspondences and are capable of being interiorized
and perfected to eternity. Hence it is that the Writings are of a character to
contain interior truths in an endless Divine series.
But
rational consciousness of spiritual things is not perfected by the
natural-rational correspondences of the Letter of the Writings. We are
therefore commanded in the Writings that we extract the Spiritual Doctrine from
the Letter, and then apply this new interior understanding to our willing and
thinking. This process of extracting the
spiritual sense from the Letter of the Writings is the vehicle itself of
regeneration for the
This
process of rational consciousness begins by acknowledging that the literal
meaning of the expressions in the Writings are representatives and
significatives. This acknowledgment is to be based on confirmation in the
Letter of the Writings. One illustration is given above in the sentence “there
are no hyperbolisms in the Word of the Lord, but things significative and
representative.” And also that “All the historicals of the Word are significative
and representative” (AC 1189). In other words, all the Writings contain only
things representative and significative. And further: “In the internal sense of
the Word, are signified spiritual things, which are truths” (AC 1678). In other
words, the spiritual truths in the Writings are expressed in the internal sense
of its expressions and sentences. And again: “All things in the sense of the
letter of the Word are representative and significative of what is in the
internal sense” (AC 3349).
Clearly, then, the elevation of
rational consciousness of the race on this earth is henceforth going to be
effected solely by means of the spiritual sense of the Letter of the Writings.
The Most Ancient Church, which was celestial, looked upon
all earthly and worldly, and also bodily things, which were in any wise objects
of the senses, as being dead things; but as each and all things in the world
present some idea of the Lord's kingdom, consequently of things celestial and
spiritual, when they saw them or apprehended them by any sense, they thought
not of them, but of the celestial and spiritual things; indeed they thought not
from the worldly things, but by means of them; and thus with them things that
were dead became living. (AC 1409)
This is the
perception we lost with the Fall of the human race on this earth. The new
split-brain spiritual mind was no longer capable of seeing the celestial things
within the natural objects around us. The only thing we can do is to have a
rational understanding of interior truths, but not a direct seeing of spiritual
things. Our level of conscious thinking cannot escape the natural mind which is
fallen, that is, which is not capable of perceiving the spiritual world and the
things in it. They could directly perceive, with sensuous consciousness, the
celestial and spiritual things within the natural so that “with them things
that were dead became living.” But we can only achieve this state of spiritual
awareness or consciousness by means of progressively more interior
correspondences. These progressively more interior correspondences are conveyed
to our understanding by means of representatives and significatives by which
the Writings are written.
[2] The things thus signified were collected from their lips
by their posterity and were formed by them into doctrinals, which were the Word
of the
After the
Fall, the remnants of the old and the forerunners of the new race were called
the
The
“posterity of Jacob” received the Word of the Old Testament through Moses and
the prophets, a process that took several centuries of history and evolution.
From this it may be known that representatives had their
rise from the significatives of the
[3] The nature of representatives may be manifest from the
historicals of the Word, in which all the acts of the fathers, Abram, Isaac,
and Jacob, and afterwards those of Moses, and of the judges and kings of
[4] But with representatives the character of the person is
not considered at all, but the thing which he represents; for all the kings of
Note the
sentence: “Because they are representative, it follows that all the words of
the Word are significative, that is, that they have a different signification
in the internal sense from that which they bear in the sense of the letter.” (AC
1409) From this we can know that the Word of the Writings are written in
natural representatives within which are spiritual significatives. We cannot
see the spiritual things in the significatives except by rationally extracting
them from the natural representatives.
The natural representatives in the
Writings are called its Divine Corporeal and Sensuous. The significatives
within them are called its Divine Rational.
Enlightenment
refers to perceiving the significatives within the representatives. This
perception is a rational perception, a rational consciousness. The level of
this rational consciousness matches the level of the interior truths we
perceive. The level of our enlightenment is determined by the degree of our
progress in regeneration, which is gradual from reformation as an adult, all
the way to the end of our life in the body, but with a difference after we
reach old age (see Volume 4).
The vehicle
for the elevation of rational consciousness is therefore our thinking with
correspondences that are progressively higher in the series that lead to Divine
Truth.
As in the world it is quite unknown that there is a
correspondence of heaven or the Grand Man with all things of man, and that man
comes forth and subsists therefrom, so that what is said on the subject may
seem paradoxical and incredible, I may here relate the things that experience
has enabled me to know with certainty. (AC 3884)
It is said
here that it is “experience that enables us to know with certainty.” Experience
here refers to direct sensuous observation of facts for the purpose of
understanding their causes. This confirms
that the split-brain race on this earth can only be regenerated by the sciences
of the spiritual, or theistic science.
Swedenborg’s
direct sensuous consciousness of spiritual phenomena constitutes the scientific
observations by the senses that we require in order to be able to believe,
understand, accept, and appropriate by love, all the spiritual things that our
mind needs in order to be prepared successfully for life in heaven.
The
rational consciousness by which we are regenerated is based in its foundation
and interior origin in sensuous consciousness of the rest of the human race
that has not fallen. Swedenborg’s dual citizenship was necessary if our race
was to get hold of scientific sensuous evidence of the existence of heaven and
hell. It is not necessary, possible, or healthy for each of us, or even many of
us, to have access to the sensuous consciousness of the spiritual world that
Swedenborg enjoyed. This would weaken and dissolve the development of rational
consciousness which we must have in order to receive the interior truths out of
which our heaven is constructed. Hence the Lord does not permit this kind of
weakening effect that would be spiritually injurious.
It is the
same with the Lord’s birth on this earth. It is a historical, scientific, and
legal event—yet unique that cannot repeat itself. It is not necessary that it
be repeatable for us to know it with certainty because it is a scientific and
historical event. We do not require that the Second World War repeat itself in
order to accept it as a scientific and historical event. In fact, all events
are unique, so that science is the understanding of unique events. Repeatable
events are actually abstractions of unique events when the distinguishing
features are deliberately omitted or ignored in grouping together a class of
events. Science is the rational organization of unique events and involves the
construction of explanatory accounts for those events.
The various
facts of an event are located in the external memory, while the rational
account of their interrelations is located in the upper portions of the natural
mind. The lower portion of the mind is called external while the upper portion
is called internal. This is a relative usage since what is internal in the
natural mind is more external than what is in its interior. This is like the
function of the skin in the body. The external skin on the surface of the body
has an internal lining. This internal lining is still external relative to the
skin lining around the organs. But the outer covering of the liver is different
from the covering that wraps around the internal cells of the liver. And of
course, the inmost lining of the skin in all the organs or cells is still
physical, and therefore external relative to the skin and organs of the
spirit-body within the physical.
It is not
necessary for us to have lived in the times of the Lord’s presence on earth, in
order to believe with certainty that He had come. All that is necessary is that
we believe rationally in the evidence of history and science. Similarly, we
need to believe or acknowledge rationally that Swedenborg did indeed have the experiences
and observations that he describes in the Writings.
This acknowledgement allows us to
have certainty as long as we see the Writings as theistic science.
Once, when the interior heaven was opened to me, and I was
conversing with the angels there, I was permitted to observe the following
phenomena. Be it known that although I was in heaven, I was nevertheless not
out of myself, but in the body, for heaven is within man, wherever he may be,
so that when it pleases the Lord, a man may be in heaven and yet not be
withdrawn from the body. In this way it was given me to perceive the general
workings of heaven as plainly as an object is perceived by any of the senses. .
(AC 3884)
Again, note
that what establishes the certainty of the scientific evidence Swedenborg
presents is his ability “to perceive the general workings of heaven as plainly
as an object is perceived by any of the senses.” But scientific evidence exists
at different levels of rational consciousness and thinking. When the mind is
immersed in sensuous correspondences of the Divine, scientific evidence or proof
consists in sensory measurements or observations. This is why the Lord tells us
through Thomas, that we
A sensual man finds it impossible to believe that such is
the state of man after death, because he cannot comprehend it; for a sensual
man must needs think naturally even about spiritual things; therefore, anything
that does not appeal to his senses, that is, that he does not see with his
bodily eyes and touch with his hands (as is said of Thomas, John 20: 25, 27,
29) he denies that it is. (HH 461)
The surface
content of the sciences remain in the external memory. It is the corresponding
activity of the internal memory that stays with us in the afterlife.
Seeing that men after death are in the interior memory
(which has belonged to their rational) therefore those who in the world have
been preeminently skilled in languages, cannot call forth even one syllable of
them; and they who have been preeminently versed in the sciences cannot call up
anything of their knowledges, and are sometimes more stupid than others. But
whatever they have imbibed by means of the languages, or of the sciences, this
they bring forth into use, because it has formed their rational. The rational
they had so procured is that from which they think and speak. He who has imbibed
falsities by means of the languages and sciences, and has confirmed himself in
them, reasons from nothing but falsities; but he who has imbibed and confirmed
truths, speaks from the truths. (AC 2480)
The literal
content of the knowledges we have from culture and the sciences are no longer
with us—we “cannot call up anything of our knowledges.” But the rational mind
that we formed by means of these knowledges is present and operative in the spirit-body.
This is the rational that we have “procured from which we think and speak.” This
level of thinking is called the natural-rational and is the upper portion of
the natural mind we bring with us into the afterlife. It is the level of
thinking when our consciousness is immersed in natural-rational correspondences
of truth. It is the level at which the literal of the Writings is composed.
Those who
have knowledges of the sciences in an abstract sense that does not involve
their use for a noble purpose, have not developed their rational mind and are
“stupid” in the afterlife because their rational is inoperative. Only the
rational is capable of containing genuine spiritual and celestial, consequently
human, ideas. Spirits who are “stupid” are therefore unable to be instructed in
spiritual things, which alone can support heavenly life.
34. Scientific Observations Of
Spiritual Facts
The
Writings are a source for scientific facts about spiritual phenomena. They are
therefore a theistic science source book in which we find scientific
revelations. One of many illustrations can be given, as in the following
passage about the relation between our respiration and heartbeat and that of
the Grand Human:
Four workings or operations were then perceived by me. The
first was into the brain at the left temple, and was a general operation as
regards the organs of reason; for the left side of the brain corresponds to
rational or intellectual things, but the right to the affections or things of the
will.
[2] The second general operation that I perceived was into
the respiration of the lungs, and it led my respiration gently, but from
within, so that I had no need to draw breath or respire by any exertion of my
will. The very respiration of heaven was at the time plainly perceived by me.
It is internal, and for this reason is imperceptible to man; but by a wonderful
correspondence it inflows into man's respiration, which is external, or of the
body; and if man were deprived of this influx, he would instantly fall down
dead.
[3] The third operation that I perceived was into the systole
and diastole of the heart, which had then more of softness with me than I had
ever experienced at any other time. The intervals of the pulse were regular,
being about three within each period of respiration; yet such as to terminate
in and thus direct the things belonging to the lungs. How at the close of each
respiration the alternations of the heart insinuated themselves into those of
the lungs, I was in some measure enabled to observe. The alternations of the
pulse were so observable that I was able to count them; they were distinct and
soft.
[4] The fourth general operation was into the kidneys, which
also it was given me to perceive, but obscurely. From these things it was made
manifest that heaven or the Grand Man has cardiac pulses, and that it has
respirations; and that the cardiac pulses of heaven or the Grand Man have a
correspondence with the heart and with its systolic and diastolic motions; and
that the respirations of heaven or the Grand Man have a correspondence with the
lungs and their respirations; but that they are both unobservable to man, being
imperceptible, because internal.
(AC 3884)
These
scientific revelations are rational accounts that expand the understanding of
the human race of spiritual truths about the universe and its foundations.
Future theistic science research will be able to build on this account and make
use of it for science and culture on this earth. This evolving theistic science
will elevate the consciousness of the race on this earth, and this will be communicated
to the other earths and throughout the numberless societies of the Grand Human.
35. The Science Of Spiritual
Anatomy
THE CONJUNCTION OF THE BODY AND THE SPIRIT IN MAN IS THROUGH
THE MOTIONS OF HIS HEART AND LUNGS, AND A SEPARATION
That this may be comprehended it is necessary for some
things to be premised which may as it were bear a torch in advance. The truth
will appear from the following propositions:
1. The spirit of man is equally a man.
2. It has equally a heart and pulsation therefrom, and lungs
and respiration therefrom.
3. The pulsation of its heart and the respiration of its
lungs flow into the pulsation of the heart and the respiration of the lungs
with man in the world.
4. The life of the body, which is natural, exists and
subsists through that influx, and ceases by its removal, thus by the
separation.
5. Man then from natural becomes spiritual.
1. The spirit of man is equally a man.
Of this you will find many proofs in the work on Heaven and
Hell (n. 73-77, 311-316, 445-452, 461-469); also that every man as to his
interiors is a spirit (n. 432-444).
To this it may be added, that everything spiritual is in its
essence man, thus everything of love and wisdom that proceeds from the Lord,
for this is spiritual. Everything spiritual, or everything that proceeds from
the Lord, is man because the Lord Himself, who is the God of the universe, is
Man, and from Him nothing can proceed except what is like, for the Divine is
not changeable in itself and is not extended, and that which is not extended,
wherever it may be, is such as it is. From this is the Divine omnipresence.
Man's conception of an angel, of a spirit, and of himself
after death, as something like ether or air without a human body, comes from
the conception of the sensual learned, which is derived from the term spirit,
as meaning the breath of the mouth, also from their being invisible, and never
evident to the sense of sight; for the sensual think solely from the
sensual-corporeal and from what is material, and also from certain passages of
the Word not spiritually understood. Yet they know from the Word that although
the Lord was a man as to flesh and bones, still He became invisible to the
disciples, and passed through closed doors. They know also from the Word that
angels have been seen by many as men, who did not assume a human form, but they
manifested themselves in their own form before the eyes of their spirits which
were then opened.
That man, therefore, may no longer remain in a fallacious
idea respecting spirits and angels and his own soul after death, it, has
pleased the Lord to open the sight of my spirit, and to permit me to converse
face to face with angels and men that have died, and to observe them and touch
them, and to say many things about the unbelief and fallacies of men who are
still living. With these I have had daily association from the year 1744 to the
present time, a period of nineteen years. From all this it can be seen that the
spirit of man is equally a man.
[2] 2. The spirit of man has equally a heart and pulsation
therefrom, and lungs and respiration therefrom.
This shall first be confirmed by experience, and afterwards
by reason.
By experience:-The angelic heaven is divided into two
kingdoms, one called celestial and the other called spiritual. The celestial
kingdom is in love to the Lord, and the spiritual kingdom is in wisdom from
that love. Heaven is thus divided because love and wisdom in the Lord and from
the Lord are two distinct things, and yet are united; for they are distinct as
heat and light from the sun are, as has been said above.
The angels of the celestial kingdom, because they are in
love to the Lord, have relation to the heart of heaven; and the spiritual
angels, because they are in wisdom from that love have relation to the lungs of
heaven; for the whole heaven, as has been said above, is in the Lord's sight as
one man. Moreover, the influx of the celestial kingdom into the spiritual
kingdom is like the influx in man of the heart into the lungs. Thus there is a
universal correspondence of heaven with these two motions, that of the heart
and that of the lungs, in every one. I have also been permitted to learn from
the angels that their arteries have a pulsation from the heart, and that they
breathe the same as men in the world do; also that with them the pulsations
vary with the states of love, and the respiration with the states of wisdom.
They themselves have touched their wrists, and have told me so, and I have
often perceived the respiration of their mouth.
[[2]] As the entire heaven is divided into societies
according to the affections which belong to love, and as all wisdom and
intelligence is according to these affections, so each society has its peculiar
respiration distinct from the respiration of any other society, likewise its
peculiar and distinct pulsation of the heart; therefore no one can enter from
one society into another that is separated from it, nor can any one descend
from a higher heaven into a lower, or ascend from a lower into a higher,
without causing the heart to labor and the lungs to be oppressed; least of all
can any one ascend from hell into heaven; if he ventures to ascend he pants
like one in the agony of death, or like a fish lifted from the water into the air.
[[3]] The most general difference in respiration and
pulsation is according to the idea of God, for from that idea the differences
of love and of wisdom therefrom spring; and for this reason a nation of one
religion cannot approach nations of another religion. I have seen that
Christians could not approach Mohammedans on account of the respiration. The
most easy and gentle breathing is enjoyed by those who have the idea that God
is Man; and from the Christian world those who have the idea that the Lord is
the God of heaven; while those who deny His Divinity, as the Socinians and
Arians do, have a hard and rough breathing. As the pulsation makes one with the
love of the will, and the respiration makes one with the wisdom of the
understanding, therefore those who are about to come into heaven are introduced
into angelic life by harmonious respirations; and this is effected in various
ways; and from this they come into interior perceptions and into heavenly
freedom.
[[4]] By reason:-The spirit of a man is not a substance that
is separate from his viscera, organs, and members, but it cleaves to them in
close conjunction; for the spiritual goes along with every fiber of these from
outermosts to inmosts; and thus with every fiber and filament of the heart and
lungs; consequently, when the bond between man's body and spirit is loosed the
spirit is in a form like that in which the man was before; there is only a
separation of spiritual substance from material. For this reason the spirit has
a heart and lungs the same as the man in the world, and for the same reason it
has like senses and like motions, and also speech; and there can be no senses
or motions or speech without heart and lungs. Spirits also have atmospheres,
but spiritual. How greatly, then, are those deceived who assign to the soul a
special seat somewhere in the brain or in the heart, for the soul of man, which
is to live after death, is his spirit.
[3] 3. This pulsation of its heart and the respiration of
its lungs flow into the pulsation of the heart and the respiration of the lungs
with man in the world.
This, too, must be confirmed by experience and afterwards by
reason.
By experience:-It is not known that during his life in the
world man has a double respiration of the lungs, and a double pulsation of the
heart; because it is not known that man in regard to his interiors is a spirit,
and that a spirit is equally a man. But it has been granted to perceive
sensibly that these two motions exist continually in man, and that these two
motions of the spirit flow into the two motions of the body.
I was once admitted into these motions when certain spirits
were with me, who from a strong power of persuasion were able to deprive the
understanding of the faculty of thinking and at the same time to take away the
ability of breathing. That this might do me no harm I was brought into the
respiration of my spirit, which I then plainly felt to be harmonious with the
respiration of the angels of heaven. And from this it was clear that heaven in
general and every angel there in particular breathes; also that so far as the
understanding suffers, the respiration also suffers; for the power to persuade
that is possessed by some evil spirits in the spiritual world at the same time
suffocates, consequently this power is called suffocative in reference to the
body, and destructive in reference to the mind.
On one occasion it was also granted to the angels to control
my respiration, and to diminish and gradually withdraw the respiration of my
body until only the respiration of my spirit remained, which I then sensibly
perceived. Moreover, I have been in the respiration of my spirit whenever I
have been in a state like that of spirits and angels, and whenever I have been
raised up into heaven; and oftentimes I have been in the spirit and not in the
body, at other times both in the body and in the spirit. See the work on Heaven
and Hell (n. 449) for an account of the removal of the animation of the lungs
and of the body, while the animation of my spirit remained.
[[2]] By reason:-From these living experiences it can be
seen that since every man enjoys a double respiration, one within the other, he
has the power to think rationally and also spiritually from his understanding,
and by this is distinguished from the beasts; also that as to his understanding
he can be enlightened, raised up into heaven, and respire with the angels, and
thus be reformed and regenerated. Moreover, where there is an external there
must be an internal, and the internal must be in every action and in every
sensation; the external supplies the general and the internal the particular,
and where there is no general there is no particular.
For this reason there is in man both an external and an
internal systolic and animative motion, and external which is natural an
internal which is spiritual. And thus the will together with the understanding
can produce bodily motions, and the understanding with the will can produce
bodily sensations. General and particular pulsations and respirations exist also
in beasts but with them both the external and internal are natural, while with
man the external is natural and the internal is spiritual. In a word, such as
the understanding is such is the respiration, because such is the spirit of
man; and the spirit is what thinks from the understanding and wills from the
will.
That these spiritual operations may flow into the body and
enable man to think and will naturally, the respiration and pulsation of the
spirit must be conjoined to the respiration and pulsation of the body, and
there must be an influx of one into the other; otherwise no transfer is
effected.
[4] 4. The life of the body, which is natural, exists and
subsists through that influx, and ceases by its removal, thus by the
separation.
A man after death is just as much a man as before death,
except that after death he becomes a spirit-man, for the reason that his
spiritual is adjoined to his natural, or the substantial of the spirit to the
material of the body, so fitly and unitedly that there is not a filament or
fiber or smallest thread of them in which the human of the spirit is not in
union with the human body. And as the life of the whole and the life of the
parts depend solely on these two most general motions, the systolic motion of
the heart and the respiratory motion of the lungs, it follows that when these
motions in the body cease, natural things, which are material, are separated
from the spiritual things, which are substantial, because they are no longer
able to do the same work together; and in consequence the spiritual which is
the essential active withdraws from the particulars acted upon, which are
natural, and thus the man becomes another man. This, therefore, is the death of
man and this is his resurrection, about which some things from living
experience may be seen in the work on Heaven and Hell (n. 445-452, 453-460,
461-469).
[[2]] It is known that when respiration ceases man seems to
be dead, and yet man is not dead until the motion of the heart also ceases, and
this commonly takes place later. That until this the man is not dead is shown
by the life of infants in the womb, and by the life of adults in swoon or
suffocation, in which the heart maintains its contractions and dilations, while
the lungs are at rest, and yet they live, although without sensation and
motion, thus without any consciousness of life. The reason of this is that the
respiration of the spirit then continues, but there is no corresponding
respiration of the body, and thus no reciprocation between the two vital
motions, that of the heart and that of the lungs; and without correspondence
and reciprocation there is no sensitive life, neither is there any action.
What is true of the natural life of man's body is true also
of the spiritual life of his mind. If the will and understanding, or love and
wisdom, do not act conjointly, no rational operation can take place. If the
understanding or wisdom withdraws, the will with its love becomes as it were
dead; nevertheless, it continues to live, though with no consciousness of
itself, so long as the understanding only ceases to act, as takes place when
memory fails. But it is otherwise when the will or love recedes; then all is
over with the mind of man, as all is over with him when the heart stops
beating. That the separation of the spirit from the body generally takes place
on the second day after the last struggle I have been permitted to know from
the fact that I have talked with some deceased persons on the third day after
their decease, and they were then spirits.
[5] 5. Man then from natural becomes spiritual.
A natural man is wholly different from a spiritual man, and
a spiritual man from a natural man; the difference is so great that they cannot
be given together. One who does not know what the spiritual is in its essence
may believe that the spiritual is only a purer natural, which in man is called
the rational; but the spiritual is above the natural, and as distinct from it
as the light of
From this privilege, which has been granted to me, I have
learned what the natural man is and what the spiritual man is who is a spirit.
That this may be known it shall be described briefly.
In all things of his thought and speech, and in all things
of his will and action, the natural man has as his subject matter, space, time
and quantity; with him these are fixed and permanent, and without them he can
have no idea of thought and speech from it, and no affection of the will and
action from it. The spiritual man or the spirit does not have these as
subjects, but only as objects.
[[2]] The reason is that in the spiritual world the objects
are altogether similar to those in the natural world; there are lands, plains,
fields, gardens and forests, houses containing rooms, and in them all useful
things; moreover, there are garments for women and for men, such as are in the
world; there are tables, food, and drinks, such as are in the world; there are
also animals both gentle and destructive; there are spaces and times, and numbers
and measures. All these things have such a resemblance to the things that are
in the world that to the eye they cannot be distinguished, and yet all these
are appearances of the wisdom belonging to the understanding of angels, and
perceptions of loves belonging to their wills; for these objects are created in
a moment by the Lord, and in a moment are dissipated.
They are permanent or not permanent according to the
constancy or inconstancy of the spirits or angels in the things of which they
are the appearances. This is why these things are merely objects of their
thoughts and affections, while their subjects are those things of which these
are the appearances, which, as has been said, are such things as relate to
wisdom and love, thus spiritual things. For example, when they see spaces they
do not think of them from space; when they see gardens containing trees,
fruits, shrubs, flowers, and seeds, they do not think of these from their
appearance but according to the things from which these appearances spring; and
so in all other cases.
[[3]] In consequence of this the thoughts of the spiritual,
and their affections also, are wholly different from the thoughts and
affections of the natural, and so different that they transcend natural ideas
and do not fall into them except in some measure into the interior rational
sight, and this in no other way than by withdrawals or removals of quantities
from qualities. This shows clearly that the angels have a wisdom that is
incomprehensible and also ineffable to the natural man. As their thoughts are
such so their speech is such, and so different from the speech of men that they
do not agree in a single expression. The same is true of their writing;
although as to its letters this resembles the writing of men in the world, no
man in the world can understand it. Every consonant in their writing expresses
a distinct meaning, every vowel a distinct affection. The vowels are not
written, but pointed. Their manual employments, which are innumerable, and the
duties of their callings, likewise differ from the employments and duties of
natural men in the world, and cannot therefore be described in the terms of
human language.
[[4]] From these few instances it can be seen that the
natural and the spiritual differ from each other like shadow and light.
Nevertheless, there are, various differences; there are some who are
sensual-spiritual, some who are rational-spiritual, and some
celestial-spiritual, also there are the spiritual evil and the spiritual good.
The differences are according to the affections and the thoughts therefrom, and
the appearances are according to the affections. From all this it is clear that
man from natural becomes spiritual as soon as the. lungs and heart of the body
cease to be moved, and by this means the material body is separated from the
spiritual body.
(D.
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)
Rutger
Perizonius. “The Regeneration of the Grand
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
)
Rev.
Theodore Pitcairn, “The Internal Sense of the Chapter on Ecclesiastical and
Civil government in “The New Jerusalem And Its Heavenly Doctrine. (March 1930)”
Discovered recently and published in the
restart issues of De Hemelse Leer,
April 2002 issue, pp. 83-91. Dr. Rutger Perizonius, Editor (Van der Heimstraat
5, 2582 RX,
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)
Note 24
Articles
by Leon James involving the use of the ennead matrix:
The
Genes of Consciousness:
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/harmonizing4.htm
The
Dimensions of the Mind According to Emanuel Swedenborg:
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499f99/dimensions/dimensions.html
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/409as97/atakahas/499/atakahashome.html
Theistic
Science: Introduction and Overview
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/theistic.html
The
Ennead Matrix of the Threefold Self:
Affective, Cognitive, Sensorimotor:
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499ss99/man/citizenship.html
Overcoming
Objections to Swedenborg's Writings Through the Development of Scientific
Dualism:
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/np98.html
A
Conceptual Framework for Explaining Information Behavior
http://www.utpjournals.com/jour.ihtml?lp=simile/issue2/nahl1.html
The Will
and Understanding:
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/wu.html
The Heart
and Lungs:
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/np98.html#Heading12
Good and
Truth
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/marriage/
Religious
Behaviorism:
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499ss99/man/religious.html
Religious
Psychology:
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499ss99/man/religious.html
Comprehensive
Discourse Analysis and Its Applications:
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/cda.html
Driving
Behavior:
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/driving1.html
Phases of
Development in Becoming Internet Literate:
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/compedutext.html
The Ennead
Matrix In Psychotherapy:
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/hpa82.html
The
Threefold Self:
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/409as97/atakahas/499/atakahashome.html
Symbols and
Drawings:
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499f98/libed/affect/titlepage.html
Topical
Organization in Social Psychology:
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499s98/travisa/130-137.htm
Titles: Psychological
Characteristics And Document Retrievability :
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/titles2.html
Resistance
to Health Behaviors:
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/health1.html
Language
Teaching :
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499s98/travisa/171-179.htm
Song
Analysis
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/student3/amyl/public_html/499/songls.html
Genetic
Culture:
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/already.html
Cross-cultural
Atlas of Affective Meanings:
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499s99/yamauchi/crosscultural.htm
Swedenborg's
Theory of Trisubstantivism:
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/relbehaviorism.html
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 in an exchange of
correspondence 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