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 15 to 20 seconds to load. I’ve been working on
the problem but haven’t found the solution yet. Sorry for the delay!
By Leon
James
October
2002
(draft 17a)
Author
information appears at the end. This document is in the process of being
revised. Please note the draft version marked on top. To print this document,
see Printing Note at the end.
A “field” means doctrine (AC 368)
A "man" signifies faith
and truth (AC 427; 4823)
Volume 3
Regeneration
Spiritual Disciplines For Daily Life
Chapter 1
Self-Witnessing Your
Life
Table of Contents
Access other Chapters and Volumes here:
1. Introduction: The
Spiritual Dimension Within The Natural
1. The
Inherited Self Vs. The Innate Idea Of God
2. What Is
Being Regenerated? – The Proprium
3. No Yoga
In The Church Hall?
4. How The
Spiritual Can Be Approached.
5.
Regeneration Requires Rational Consciousness
6. The Two
Phases Of Regeneration
7. Turning
A Moral Discipline Into Spiritual
8. If I’m A
Good Man, Why Do I Need To Be Regenerated?
9. The
Physical Body Hides The Spiritual Devil Within
10.
Spiritual Insanity Chains Us To Hell
11.
Spiritual Sanity Is To Return To God And To The Word
12.
Macro-Behaviors Are Regenerated By Means Of Micro-Behaviors
13.
Self-Witnessing Our Micro-Behaviors
14. Overlap
Between The Mind And The Spiritual World
18.
Enlightenment From The Letter Of The Writings
19.
Regeneration Disciplines Are Spiritual
20.
Innumerable Things In Every Evil
21.
Relationship Between Interior Evils And Exterior
22. Do We
Need To Confess Our Sins?
23. Without
Self-Monitoring Our Evils They Cannot Be Removed
24. Six-Phased
Process of Removing Evils
25.
Conditions That Prevent Removing Evils
26. “To
Give No Thoughts To Sins”
27. “What
Have I To Do With This”
28. Five
Summary Steps In Regeneration
2. Snatching Things From
Sudden Memory
1. What
Makes Our Life Moments Spiritual
2. The Most
Ancients Prior To The Split-Brain Evolution
3.
Self-Witnessing Sudden Memory As A Spiritual Discipline
4. Filled
With Blasphemous Thoughts And Curiosities
5. The
Natural Mind Must Be Compelled To Realign Itself
3. Conscience And
Temptations Are The Methods Of Regeneration
1. Creating
More And More Angels
2. External
And Internal Methods Of Cooperation
4.The remains of good and
truth in the afterlife
5.The Regeneration Of The
Threefold Self: Willing, Thinking, And Acting Out
1.
Self-Examination: Monitoring The Threefold Self
2. Keeping
Track Of The Motives We Have
3. The
Agony And Ecstasy Of Regeneration
4. Head In Heaven,
Feet In Hell
5. Seeing
The Ugly Scary Proprium
6.
Regeneration Is By Spiritual-Rational Correspondences
7.
Teachings Regarding Doctrine And The Spiritual Sense
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/nonduality.html
Every
spiritual truth in the Writings
is a Divine Commandment
You may
want to read the Preface to Volume 1 and Volume 2 along with this. See Table of
Contents for the location of the Preface to Volume 1.
This Volume
is called Regeneration. Volume 1 is called Reformation, and Volume 2,
Enlightenment. These three represent the three steps that the
When we
read the Writings as a Divine Scientific Revelation we are undergoing reformation.
It can take just a few months, or longer, depending on how intense our study of
the Writings is. For my part, I could not read anything else since I started
reading the Writings. Whenever I read other books I soon begin to feel that I’m
wasting my time, and with relief and joy, I reach for a book of the Writings. I
make sure that I’m always surrounded by the Sacred Volumes. It is with joy and
interest that we take up the truths, the new information, the new science, the
new insights, the new concepts and the new reasoning from them. We become
erudite and intelligent and rational in our ability to think, to distinguish,
to trace, analyze, evaluate. With our rational-mind formed from the Writings we
complete our reformation, a new man, looking in everything towards heaven,
instructed by the Lord Himself, walking out into life with new powers to wage
war against our inherited character or proprium.
The truths
of the Letter of the Writings give us this new power. Volume 2 explains the
process by which we are enlightened from the Lord when we apply these truths to
our daily willing and thinking, hour by hour, minute by minute, and second by
second. The Writings gives us a scientific understanding of regeneration. It is
a process of rewiring millions of bundles of fibers in our inherited will.
These spiritual fibers have grown and matured into degenerate organs that coil
in the opposite direction of the heavenly will. Consequently our will is a
receptor of evil affections from hell and we have these affections in us. They
make our life, and were the Lord to remove them, we would have no life left.
Hence regeneration is the gradual process of replacing these degenerate fibers,
one by one, and replacing it with a heavenly affection that coils in the
heavenly direction. This new will then becomes a receptor for heavenly
affections, and it is being regenerated or purified more and more. As the
heavenly affections are instilled, the Lord removes the infernal ones. In this
way we do not feel that we are losing life, but gaining it. Our new affections
are far superior to the old, giving us new perceptions and understandings, new
powers to act and execute.
To be
enlightened is to acquire the spiritual consciousness or conscious awareness of
spiritual-rational correspondences. These are appearances of Divine Truth accommodated
to the individual’s intellect by discrete degrees. Volume 2 explains how we can
extract a spiritual sense from the Letter of the Writings. This spiritual sense
cannot be described in natural language except by means of correspondences. In
the initial phases of reformation, the
To see the
spiritual sense we need to look at the literal expressions as natural-rational
correspondences. Once this is acknowledged, we are prepared for enlightenment.
This happens the moment we apply some doctrine or principle to our willing and
thinking. We are then enlightened as to this one thing we were applying. It may
not seem much at first, but the new perception of this one thing is so
powerful, so real, that it is enough to be proof that we are capable of
spiritual consciousness in the physical body. Applying the natural-rational
correspondences of the Writings to the stream of willing and thinking, has a
built in mechanism of enlightenment. The Lord enlightens every time this is
done by anyone. Thus it functions as a new psycho-physiological mechanism for
the human race. Hence we may call it a scientific mechanism, knowing as always,
that every mechanism is maintained in place by the Lord on a continuous basis
by influx of good from within.
Enlightenment of this or that truth
builds and cumulates so that it becomes a permanent background to our
personality.
Rational
consciousness is the method the Lord has provided for the new human race to be
conjoined with Him. He has now revealed Himself as the Divine Human within whom
there is the Divine Rational. Henceforth the new celestial mind of the human
race is to dwell in new heavens built out of these new rational truths. Our enlightenment
continues to grow in regeneration. It is a gradual process of using higher
correspondences as the basis of our thinking, as explained in Volume 2.
But
regeneration is not an automatic process. Nor is it easy. It is a commandment
of the Letter that we cooperate with the Lord in the process of His removing
the degenerate fibers in the will. He cannot create new heavenly fibers without
us letting go of the old infernal fibers. It cannot be done like the weight
control surgery popular today, of mechanical suction or aspiration of the
surface layers of fat under the skin. Regeneration is more like a heart
transplant. The new heart has to fit the genius and life of the old individual,
or else it cannot survive. The new heavenly affections that the Lord implants
must be loved, or else we feel that we don’t have our life back. But they
cannot be loved without first detesting or rejecting those in place now,
to which we are committed and by which we are delighted.
This is
where the hard part comes in: How do you
learn to hate what you love?
This
difficult struggle is regeneration. This Volume is about regeneration
disciplines for husbands. A discipline is a method of procedure we use when the
outcome is of great importance to us. Nothing is more important to us than
regeneration, for it is the only path available to salvation and heaven. First
it is necessary to focus on the Letter of the Writings from a perspective of
enlightenment, as explained in Volume 2. This builds up the Spiritual Doctrine
in our understanding. The level of thinking by which we operate when thinking
about the Spiritual Doctrine is called interior-natural, or spiritual-natural. This
is effective in proportion to our gradually increasing enlightenment. This
basis of thinking is called spiritual-rational correspondences and is a
discrete degree above the Letter of natural-rational correspondences.
Physiologically,
natural-rational correspondences operate in the upper portion of the natural
mind, but spiritual-rational correspondences operate in the interior-natural
mind, which is within the natural-rational mind. This is why thinking with
spiritual-rational correspondences is called enlightenment while thinking in
natural-rational correspondences is not.
It is the
Spiritual Doctrine we need in our mind to lead us through regeneration. The
angels are doing the leading and we must understand them in a
spiritual-rational way, not merely in a natural-rational way. When we understand
the angels’ leading us at the level of natural-rational correspondences we are
not yet being regenerated because we are not yet willing to look upon the evil
delights we are to give up. Spiritual-rational correspondences in our thinking
are for more powerful in fighting against the evil delights we want to hang on
to. We need interior spiritual truths to be able to fight interior spiritual
evils. There is always a balance between heavenly and infernal loves. The
highest heaven must have the lowest hell, the lowest heaven must have the
highest hell. There is an exact correspondence so that one supports the other.
The formation of the Spiritual Doctrine in our mind is a Divine operation, as
explained in Volume 2.
Without
regeneration disciplines can we cooperate with the Lord?
I give many
illustrations from my own regeneration journey. It’s obvious after studying
regeneration that it is a general process of spiritual biology. It has to do
with willing and thinking moment by moment. This is our human life. Without it
we are no longer human. We never go to hell for the sins we’ve inherited, nor
even for the sins we’ve committed. We only go to hell for the sins we are
committing in the world of spirits. In the afterlife, we bring with us a
psychological disposition that defines our preferred relationship styles with
others. All our preferences in the
spirit-body now become intense loves that cannot be resisted.
We are then at the complete mercy of
our preferences, loves, affections, delights, motives.
This is why
regeneration is so crucial. It is the only biological process available for getting
rid of the infernal affections, replacing them at the same time with heavenly
affections.
This must
be done while we still are tied to the physical body. It cannot be done after
we wake up in our spirit-body.
Since we
express a preference or delight, moment by moment, every day in our willing and
thinking, you can see that there are thousands of individual distinct items of
willing and thinking chained together as an act or decision. There is no time
to waste if we are seriously engaged in cooperating with the Lord regarding our
regeneration. We are not going to be regenerated by floundering or relaxing or going
slower or using any of the many tactics men use to oppose their regeneration.
This is a serious matter of life and death, of eternal misery versus eternal
conjugial bliss. Nothing can be more important!
You will
see that I emphasize the wife’s role in the regeneration of the husband. The
regeneration discipline of the Doctrine of the Wife presented here is that the
husband needs to learn to love to act from his wife’s will, more than he loves
to act from his own will. I have discovered the great efficacy of this
spiritual method.
There is no
area of life that does not need to be regenerated. The illustrations I present
are only points on a map. The map is your ego. It is the ego that needs to be
regenerated. And the ego starts with being the all in all in our self. Thus,
the ego must be dethroned and the Writings enthroned as a Divine King. This is
done my the daily study of the Writings and applying it to life.
To my wife
It is
her internal wisdom that led me to write this book as-of myself. She brought
into our marriage the conjugial love she has in her from the Lord, inborn from
nativity
An inclination to love one of the opposite sex, and with it
a capacity for receiving that love, has been implanted in Christians from
birth, for the reason that this love comes from the Lord alone
(CL 466).
Wives are by birth forms of love, so
that it is innate in them to wish to be one with their husbands … But it is
different with husbands; since they are not by birth forms of love, but
designed to receive that love from their wives (CL 216)
The intelligence of women is by
nature modest, gracious, peaceable, compliant, soft and gentle, while the
intelligence of men is by nature critical, rough, resistant, argumentative, and
given to intemperance. Evidence that
this is the nature of women and the nature of men is clearly apparent from the
body, face, tone of voice, speech, bearing and behavior of each sex.
(…)
From this I could clearly see that a
man is born a form of the intellect, and a woman a form of love. I could also see what the nature of the
intellect is and what the nature of love is in their beginnings, and thus what
a man's intellect in its development would be like without conjunction with
feminine love and eventually conjugial love.
(CL 218)
The man of the field is
the living husband
A person's mind is
his spirit, or the surviving personality which lives on after leaving the
material body. (TCR
816)
A man who examines himself for the purpose of practicing
repentance, should explore his thoughts, and the intentions of his will; and
there he ought to examine what he would do, if he were at liberty; that is, if
he were not afraid of the laws, and the loss of reputation, honor, and gain. A
man's evils are in his thoughts and intentions; and the evils which he does
with the body are all from thence. Those persons who do not explore the evils
of their thoughts and of their will cannot practice repentance; for afterwards
they think and will just as they did before; and yet willing evils means doing
them. This is meant by self-examination. (NJHD 164)
Chapter 1, Section 1
Today on
the car radio on my way home, I heard an interview with a famous lawyer known
to millions from his TV appearances, books, and the famous cases he had
successfully pleaded. At one point he was asked to give his definition of what
is “right.” He said that would be a very difficult thing to define, that it
would be impossible for him to do so, since he didn’t know what is right. He
said the world knows what’s wrong, what’s evil, when we see it, like the Nazis
and what they did. But no one knows what is right, he said. Who is going to
decide what is right? “No one to my knowledge,” he said has ever heard God say
to them what is right. I do not believe that for a moment. A human being is
always looking to know what is right, and the answer evolves. Anyone who says
that he knows what is right, I feel sorry for him, because he has lost one of
the chief reasons we are human, which is to look for what is right, but never
actually find it, though his understanding of it gets better.”
This is an
approximate rendition, as I can recall it. You can see that this philosophy of
what is right, is a nonduality because it denies the absolute duality between
human beings and God. Those who accept this duality, know what is right because
God reveals it to them in the Word or in teachings based on the Word, and in
their conscience—for the idea or concept of God’s existence is “inscribed” on
the mind of every human being, and along with it, an innate cognitive ability
to distinguish between good and evil, and consequently between right and wrong
(xx). This famous lawyer no doubt had both, besides being literate in history
and literature, having written book and articles on this subject. He also has a
conscience by which he could know that there is God (xx). He thus had to work
actively to neutralize and eliminate these sources of knowledge of God and what
is right in a Divine absolute sense.
Note how we
all accomplish the same thing while we are in our unregenerate state. Prior to our conscious free choice of
reformation in adulthood, the
The idea of
God that everyone has through conscience from within, is something we own. It
feels like our own idea because it comes to every human being from within (xx).
We already know it as children when we first hear the idea of God from an adult
or a TV show. Children instantly accept it, acting as if they already knew
about God. They may have questions about God, but not ignorance of Him. This
“implanted” idea of God (xx) is necessary to guarantee that no human being
under any circumstance of time and place, will have the free choice of living
life in accordance with God’s wishes or in accordance with the wishes of the
self. This is the fundamental innate absolute duality of human life upon which
every right and rational idea is based. It therefore enters into every concept
of right living, regeneration, and heaven. It is the only means of salvation the
Lord has provided for the human race. The result of every individual’s choice
in this fundamental duality is the final outcome of their destiny: eternal
bliss in heaven with a conjugial spouse vs. insane and cruel misery forever in
hell. Could anything possibly be as important as this?
1. The
Inherited Self Vs. The Innate Idea Of God
And yet the
unregenerate mind, whether a New Church mind-to-be, or a famous popular lawyer
in America, defender of individual rights, willfully sets aside the God in our
conscience, calling it a mere self-produced concept, and leading a life guided
by the search for what’s right, rather than by a knowledge of what’s right.
While we do so, our understanding and intellectual scholarship are drawn more
and more into the stream of unregenerate affections, which are infernal.
Rejecting the fundamental duality of God’s definition of right vs. ours, is a
self-condemnation to eternal misery in an infernal mind that would scare us to
death, could we see it as the angels see it, in its true nature. The Writings
reveal that the self, called our very own or “proprium” in Latin, appears in
the afterlife as a bony skeleton-head charred black, sometimes “grayish-white
like a plastered wall” (SE 5464). In either case it is ugly and inhuman.
When we
willfully silence and turn away form the inborn living idea of God, we turn
ourselves to the proprium. We are then led by the hells, as detailed in this
horrendous description of what we are in ourselves from birth and
self-guidance, and what to destiny it leads us:
(1) They place themselves at the back, below and above, and
there they thrust in their thoughts; they turn the thoughts of another spirit,
and thus of a man, to himself, to his own power, to his own praise, in a word,
to the proprium. Almost all infernals know how to do this.
(2) Others gaze upon various parts of the body and upon the
head and, where they see anything black, they know the proprium still rules
there - for the proprium is black, because it is of the love of self - and,
then, they seek to learn what of self is there, and, when they find out, they
infuse their own thoughts there, and lead [their victim] whithersoever they
will.
(3) Some look into the forehead; and, if it appears black,
they then lead him; likewise, if it is grayish-white like a plastered wall,
inasmuch as this indicates simulated external sincerity; but from him in whom
they see human flesh they withdraw, and him they do not lead.
(4) Some cast a black veil over his face and also over his
breast, and thus they magically take away his thoughts of the neighbor, and
oblige and compel him to think of himself; and so they lead him, but not like
they do others who are black of themselves: the former return immediately.
(5) Some enshroud another in darkness and convey [him] into
the dark, and so compel him to think of self.
(6) From the color around a spirit or man - black, white,
flesh-color, or yellow - they conclude
something about the man's state as to his proprium, or self-love. Where it is
black, there is self-love: such a one is led; and it is according to the
intensity of the black.
(7) Some only perceive by means of the thoughts of another -
for there is a general law of thoughts - and these insinuate themselves into
them and turn them to [the victim's] proprium and love of self, in all ways -
by phantasies, by magic; and by the aid of many of the hells; and, so, they
drive him to thinking about himself; and, when it comes to that, he is in their
power.
(8) Sirens know how to insinuate themselves into the various
affections which are the ruling love of a man; and so they take him with them.
Also, they know how to reduce the thoughts of another, magically, even to the
sensual, which is the extreme external; and, when he is reduced to that, they induce
various phantasies and lead him whithersoever they wish. It is the sensual of
man where his self-love, or proprium, resides: so far as he can be drawn up, or
elevated, out of that, as to the thoughts, towards interiors, so far he can be
led away from his proprium. Man's sensual, at this day, is, with most people,
wholly corporeal, and has not anything spiritual.
(9) It was granted me to perceive when I was in the
proprium, and when not in the proprium. When in the proprium, I was fit for
nothing; wherefore, I was led out of it by the Lord, as far as that could be
done. Hence is manifest what the love of self, and the love of the world for
the sake of self, is. When [any] are led in the proprium and borne away, they
appear to be led down through the surrounding places; which is according to the
changes of the state of the thoughts. There were some such of the Swedish
nation, whose desire it had been thus to reduce the thoughts of other spirits
to subjection, and so to lead them whithersoever they would; but they did not
know how, save one or two of them. They were in the western quarter. (SE 5464)
When I read
this, I am scared! What scares me the most is the idea that I was headed to
this destiny as a result of my willful rejection of God. I didn’t know the
magnitude of the consequences, though I could have known had I wanted to. It’s
scary to think how close I came to having that destiny of passing to the next
life with an unregenerate proprium.
Whether we
say self or love-of self, it is the same in the unregenerate state prior to
reformation. We are born with the inherited tendency to love our self more than
God. This is called the Fallen human race. It is the proprium or self that is
our god from birth so that it kills off the other innate tendency which is to
obey God. As children, every unregenerate person goes through a state of
innocence in which the Lord walls of the inherited love-self and its related
infernal affections. The child’s unconscious spiritual mind is surrounded and
infilled by angles, an activity which results in an outward natural behavior
that is innocent and full of the love to obey and be close to others. This is
the period of life when the idea of God becomes conscious, and the child’s
natural mind gets trained to know consciously what is right and wrong.
But soon
the Lord can no longer continue walling off the inherited loves because this
would take away the individual’s inner freedom to choose. We could then choose
heaven, but not from our free will, and therefore, we could not love that
choice. And whatever we do not love is not appropriated to our being, hence it
is not there in the afterlife. Therefore the Lord is compelled to free the
inner dams of infernal loves, whereupon the angels are forced to withdraw, and
the individual is then led by the infernals. But after adolescence, when we
enter young adulthood, we once again are given the desire and power to turn
ourselves away from the proprium by turning ourselves to God, and this gradual
turning is called reformation. Upon completion of reformation, which can last
months or years, we are ready to begin regeneration and undergo the spiritual
rigors of temptations.
By means of
these temptations, carefully managed in a sequence and timed by the Lord, we
become aware of our infernal delights, and are forced to face them, and do
battle against them. In these battles the Lord draws near the individual, very
close, and the angels are present ready to battle the hells. For when one
individual on earth fights with a temptation, the entire hells are united in
that battle. No one could withstand this unimaginable line up! In the quote
above (SE 5464) it is said: “these insinuate themselves into them and turn them
to [the victim's] proprium and love of self, in all ways - by phantasies, by
magic; and by the aid of many of the hells.” Note the phrase “by the aid of
many of the hells” which tells us that the infernals use each other’s “magical”
powers to fight battles against us in any temptation. This is the awesome work
of regeneration that lies ahead of us in forming the
2. What Is
Being Regenerated? – The Proprium
You can see
that “regeneration” refers to the self or proprium. It is the proprium that
needs to be regenerated. And it is revealed that the proprium cannot be “fixed”
but is lost forever. One can only be saved by the proprium being reborn, the
old being laid to rest, the new being an image of the Lord’s Proprium or
Personality. The Lord is the only actual Human! This is a physiological or genetic
fact about the human race existing on this earth. The proprium, being a
spiritual organ, cannot die. If it is “fallen” or degenerate, it cannot be
fixed. But the Lord loves the human race for the sake of which the universe
exists, and the Lord is omniscient and omnipotent. To Him the entire human race
appears as one, and He evolves this race in the image of His Own Proprium. This
is an inexorable evolution for there is no other power in the universe than the
Lord’s power within each and all things. The Lord can withdraw His power from
anywhere anytime and the “it” falls into an inanimate thing, or vanishes
altogether from existence (xx). There is no want of power in the Lord to do
anything.
It would be a grave error to believe
that the revolting degenerate proprium we are born with, has evolved because of
a want of power in the Lord to prevent it.
The
Writings explain this fully in a rational way by means of the Doctrine of
Permissions, and why the Lord has allowed this sorry evolution. And yet when
the Lord’s work of evolution and creation is viewed from a spiritual
perspective, it is seen as Divine and perfect work. It would be an imperfect
creation if people were condemned to hell on account of their birth, would it
not? Similarly, condemning people on account of how they behaved, as a means of
punishment, would also be imperfect, when viewed spiritually. The Lord does
neither. He does not condemn anyone to
hell, for whatever reason, no matter how evil and cruel a person’s deeds were.
(xx)
The truth
is that the Lord instructs everyone who arrives in the afterlife. They are
given instruction, therapy, real-world experiences recreated on a kind of
spiritual holo-deck (xx). They are taken for visits to heaven. They are given
anything they need and want, and then they are required to make a choice: to
enter heavenly life or life in hell. This
proves that the system and the process are perfect, since both heaven and hell
can only exist in a free choice!
Note also
this statement in sub-paragraph (8) of the quote above (SE 5464):
It is the sensual of man where his self-love, or proprium,
resides: so far as he can be drawn up, or elevated, out of that, as to the
thoughts, towards interiors, so far he can be led away from his proprium. Man's
sensual, at this day, is, with most people, wholly corporeal, and has not
anything spiritual.
The only
method we have of accessing the spiritual is by means of thoughts, that is, by
means of the truths we think about and with which we reason and draw
conclusions. These truths in our conscious mind are not spiritual truths but
representatives and correspondences of spiritual truths. These are the truths
that save us because they are our own and feel like our own. Therefore our
freedom of choice is maintained even though we obey these truths against our
preference.
The truths
we understand give us the power to align ourselves with new powerful
affections, higher powerful loves implanted in our interior-natural mind by the
Lord. Therefore, even though we compel ourselves, we do so in freedom. These
spiritual truths, in their natural correspondences, are rational truths, not
sensuous experiences. They are in our natural-rational mind or understanding.
These truths cannot be discovered when we are in the state turned to the proprium.
Self-intelligence, natural science,
mental disciplines, physical initiations—not of these things can discover a
single spiritual truth no matter how advanced they become.
Spiritual
truths in correspondence are available only from the revelations the Lord gives
the human race in His Word, and for the new age of the Second Coming, His Word
is the Writings, which will endure forever (xx).
Note this
statement in sub-paragraph (9) of the quote above (SE 5464):
It was granted me to perceive when I was in the proprium,
and when not in the proprium. When in the proprium, I was fit for nothing;
wherefore, I was led out of it by the Lord, as far as that could be done. Hence
is manifest what the love of self, and the love of the world for the sake of
self, is. When [any] are led in the proprium and borne away, they appear to be
led down through the surrounding places; which is according to the changes of
the state of the thoughts. “
Swedenborg
was given to see what we cannot, namely a conscious perception of his proprium
and of being in and out of it. But all we need is his description, if we take
it as the Divine Truth the Lord wants us to know for our regeneration. “When in
the proprium, I was fit for nothing”—what a devastating confession by the man
whose mind was prepared by the Lord from his early childhood to develop into
the first of the new race called the
About two
years before I discovered the Writings I had a disturbing vision. I believe I
was just falling asleep, when I saw from a distance a person wrapped in a black
robe. It was coming closer to me but I could not see legs or feet. I then saw
the head in bright light. It looked like a mummy that had been unwrapped, with
a bony head that was extremely emaciated with hardly any flesh. It had no hair.
I couldn’t tell its gender but I thought it might be a female. Then as it got
close to me it seemed that it projected something at me with extreme power and
violence. It felt that my personality or self was shattered, imploded from
within, annihilated. I woke up from the terror of it. I thought about this
vision over the years. First I decided it could’ve been a male, not a female.
Second I couldn’t decide whether it was benign or hostile. It sure didn’t feel
good to be shattered like that, but I thought maybe that’s how earthlings feel
when they are visited by a higher power, like those who saw angels in the Bible
and fell on their face as dead. But eventually I decided it was inimical to me
otherwise I wouldn’t have felt so terrified. I did not think about again until
just recently as I was rereading the passage quoted above about the proprium
(SE 5464). After discussing it with my wife, I became convinced that what I saw
was my proprium!
When I
interpret my vision this way, it all makes sense. The appearance of the image
was that of the proprium as described in this passage. The amazing hostility
and violence it expressed against me makes sense when I consider that the
proprium has an insane murderous love to destroy the individual. The proprium
fears and hates the
This idea
also helps me to understand a long-standing insight my wife has had for years
as she tried to help me in my regeneration. She saw that I had a streak in me
for self-destruction. To her this was plain to see by how I behaved, what I
considered more important than something else, how I buried myself in my own
unhappiness, how I kept myself from knowing what I needed to know, and so on.
To me this was a big mystery. How is it possible that I should wish for my own
destruction? It didn’t sound logical to me. The self is animated by
self-preservation not self-destruction, or else the race could not survive—I
thought. Also, it didn’t seem to me that I was bent on destroying myself and I
was a student of the self, practicing self-monitoring techniques, analyzing my
life, and so on. Surely I would be aware if I was so aberrant in my tendency—I
told myself. So I would never believe it and my poor wife had to patiently and
without letting up, remind me of her perceptions.
All this
makes sense when I consider what in fact my proprium is—this infernal
monstrosity filled with insane hatred against anything from heaven. Definitely
my proprium would be happy to destroy me, to take over, to pull me into hell,
to make me its vile slave or zombie. This is quite a paradox to resolve, isn’t?
The proprium whom I identify with and love is a monster that desires to destroy
me!
All this
should tell us that we are to take charge of our regeneration in a conscious
and disciplined manner, using whatever methods of discipline we can invent to
carry out our expected and required side of the regeneration equation: the Lord
does everything but we must do just one thing, namely, to face our proprium, to
monitor our willing and thinking in the light of Doctrine in our understanding,
and to make a free choice of rejecting the evil delights, one by one, daily,
hourly, and by the minute. This alone is the real and actual work of
regeneration.
3. No Yoga
In The Church Hall?
It’s likely
that some of the attractiveness Americans feel toward nonduality and
non-Western spiritual disciplines is due to our deep rooted desire for
self-improvement and the quest towards ever greater achievements and victories.
The interest in attaining greater control over one’s body is widespread in the
Western world, as indicated by lifestyles that feature body-building workouts,
muscle man contests, beauty pageants, and the varieties of physical disciplines
imported from the East such as the many martial arts, Tai Chi, Tae Bo, and
Yoga, which are sweeping the country today. My wife and I have attended Iangar
Yoga classes in a Church hall for several years now. In this connection, a
reader of this book sent me this clipping about a Church hall in
The Guardian
Adopting the lotus position may seem harmless but be warned
it could well be the first step on a slippery slope to damnation - especially
if it follows the cobra or the lion. For those who believe they can combine the
pursuit of yoga with the practice of Christianity it is time to roll up the
yoga mat and think again, according to the Rev Derek Smith. Having banned
classes from his church hall at St Michael's church in Melksham, Wiltshire, the
vicar has called upon Christians who indulge in the activity to "examine
their consciences".
Yoga, he believes, is "incompatible" with
Christianity because of its associations with the Hindu faith. Even if
followers in the west use yoga purely for fitness purposes, spiritual leaders
in the east insist it is inseparable from Hindu devotional practice, Mr. Smith
said yesterday. "I would ask people
who do yoga to think about whether they believe they were in breach of their
faith or not. If they genuinely believe what they are doing is acceptable - and
I know people that do - of course, I would ask them to follow their
consciences."
(...)
The Church of England defended Mr. Smith's decision, backing
the right of clergymen to take a stand against any practices which "do not
square with Christian teachings". "Yoga is used as a kind of generic
term for exercise and stretching, but there are many different types of yoga.
But some have a more spiritual basis as handed down from eastern
religions," a spokesman said. "It's reasonably understandable that
someone can say so if they don't want something with a spiritual basis taught
in their church hall." The church
was keen to promote good relations with other religions, he added, but that did
not involve being "wish-washy or mealy-mouthed" about distinctions in
faith.
Our Yoga
teacher ends each class in the Church hall with prayerful hands extended before
the chest and the greeting “Namaste.” Once in a while she explains to newcomers
that it means “The God in me greets the God in you.” She never said anything
else about it and there are no other signs of Eastern nonduality. For me, it’s
just a convenient place for an excellent physical discipline. I thought about
discussing with her the idea of how God can be in each of us, but my wife nixed
the idea—and rightly so, as I immediately saw it. What would be the point of
such a discussion? How could it possibly have a useful ending? But it never
occurred to me that I should stop attending classes because she ends each class
with Namaste.
I discussed
in Volume 1 how we are to deal with nonduality—not by confronting those who
think from it. Our job in forming the
4. How The
Spiritual Can Be Approached
Regarding physical
disciplines, many serve a good use under appropriate conditions, but not under
others. The difference is to be understood by considering things the Writings
say in relation to the natural mind and spiritual mind. The management or
planning function of the mind is called the natural-rational or “external rational” (AC 2657). This is not the
“interior-natural” mind nor the “spiritual-rational” mind, which are in
discrete degrees above the natural-rational mind and develop in adulthood in
proportion to our progress in regeneration (AC 4038). The interior rational (or spiritual-rational) is of
spiritual and celestial origin, but the external rational (or natural-rational)
is of hereditary and cultural origin (AC 978, 4286; AE 355:14). There is
nothing spiritual about the natural-rational mind and there is only
spiritual/celestial things in the interior rational mind. This absolute dualism
in the levels of the mind corresponds to the discrete degrees in which the
heavens are in relation to each other:
The existence of these three degrees in people can be seen
from the elevation of a person's mind even to the degrees of love and wisdom
possessed by angels of the second and third heavens. For all angels were born
people, and a person is, in respect to the interior elements which are those of
his mind, a heaven in miniature form. Consequently there are from creation as
many degrees of height in a person as there are heavens. The human being is
furthermore an image and likeness of God, and these three degrees are therefore
engraved on a person because they exist in the human God, which is to say, in
the Lord. (DLW 231)
The things
in our natural mind are corporeal, sensuous, and rational. Whatever we do in
this plane of life has nothing spiritual in it because the spiritual cannot
exist in the natural plane. Rather, the spiritual can exist in the natural
plane indirectly, by correspondences. We can look at anything we do that is
merely natural, like eating, talking to a friend, or driving a car. In order to
communicate with the spiritual dimension we must look upon these natural acts
as correspondences. When looked at this way, we are communicating with the
spiritual dimensions that are associated with those natural acts. Every natural
act has a spiritual dimension associated with it (xx). But we do not know or
reflect upon the spiritual dimensions of our everyday acts. We may reflect on
their legal and moral dimension, so that we think, “This is legal, this is
illegal” or, “This is moral, this is immoral.” But if someone said, “This is
spiritual, this is not,” we would not know what they meant, and in fact, no one
would. Knowing what is spiritual is possible only from the Lord’s new
revelations of the Word of the Writings (xx).
The
Writings reveal that the celestial human mind, such as angels have, and such as
the most ancient peoples had on this earth, can have a sensuous consciousness
of the spiritual within the natural (xx). Their brain and respiratory
physiology were different from ours—they had internal breathing instead of
external, they spoke by lip movements instead of vocal cords, and their brain
was not split into two halves (xx). They looked at every object around them and
saw within each the spiritual dimension. A natural object was nothing to them
but a correspondence to a spiritual event, which was taking place in the
spiritual world. This is the “spiritual dimension” of any natural object, quality,
or event. It is nothing but the spiritual event or quality that causes the
natural event to occur. The natural event is nothing but an ultimate effect
brought about by a spiritual cause.
For
example, when they saw horses, their mind perceived the idea of intelligence
from the Doctrine of their Church. Or if they saw rain, they perceived of
truths in their various forms that correspond to the spring rain, the autumn
rain, the river, the ocean, the lake, the putrid waters—which are
falsifications of truths. The sun and the mountains represented to them the
Divine Human whom they expected to arrive into the world. Being compassionate
to a stranger represented to them charity from the Lord. When they saw a
disorderly act by someone they were horrified because to them it represented
rejection of the Lord. all day long, as they lived their lives on earth, they
could think of nothing but what each thing in their environment represented in
spiritual reality.
In forming
the
You can see therefore that we must
approach the spiritual through the rational, not through the sensuous.
To approach
the spiritual through the rational means that we use correspondences, that we
see each natural event as a correspondence for a spiritual event which is
primary, that is, the cause of the natural event. Physical disciplines like
Yoga are natural activities. To the
A choir at a distance was heard one morning. From the
choir's representations I was permitted to know that they were Chinese, for
they exhibited a kind of woolly goat, then a cake of millet, and an ebony
spoon, also the idea of a floating city. They desired to come nearer to me, and
when they had joined me they said that they wished to be alone with me, that
they might disclose their thoughts. But they were told that they were not
alone, and that some were displeased at their wishing to be alone, although
they were guests.
When they perceived this displeasure they began to think
whether they had transgressed against the neighbour, and whether they had
claimed anything to themselves that belonged to others. All thought in the
other life being communicated, I was permitted to perceive the agitation of
their minds. It consisted of a recognition that possibly they had injured those
who were displeased, of shame on that account, together with other worthy
affections; and it was thus known that they were endowed with charity. (AC
2596)
'The spoon-bill', 'the duck', 'the owl', 'the raven' stand
for varieties of falsity which arise when Divine truths in the Word are
rendered valueless. (AC 5044)
I was once allowed to perceive the nature of conjugial love
among polygamists. ... After conversing with me for a while at a distance, the
substitute sent me an ivory spoon and other tokens that they came from him. At
the same time a passage was opened up to transmit the heat of conjugial love
experienced there. It was perceived by me as resembling the fetid warmth of a
bath-house; on feeling it I turned away, and the passage by which it was transmitted
was closed off. (CL 344)
In other
words, the spiritual dimension of the spoon I brought home represented
something about foreigners and their innocent as well as perverted affections
and beliefs.
When we
discuss physical disciplines, we must also include mental disciplines like
meditation, shamanism, and asceticism. Many people consider mental disciplines
to be spiritual in contrast to physical disciplines. But to the
Finally I talked with the spirits of that world about the
belief of the inhabitants of our world concerning their resurrection.
I said they were unable to conceive of people coming into
the next life immediately after death, and then looking like people in face,
body, arms and feet, having all their outward and inward senses. Even less could they believe that they would
then wear clothes and have houses and places to live.
This was entirely due to the fact that most people here base
their thinking on bodily sense-impressions, so that they do not believe in the
existence of what they cannot see and touch.
Few of them can be withdrawn from outward sense-impressions towards
inward ones, and so be lifted into the light of heaven in which inward
impressions can be received.
It is for this reason that they cannot have any concept of
their soul or spirit as being a person, but think of it as wind, air or some
formless breath, which yet contains some vitality. This is the reason that they
believe they will only be resurrected at the end of the world, which they call
the Last Judgment, thinking that their body, though collapsed into dust and
scattered to all the winds, must then be brought back and reunited with their
soul or spirit.
[2] I added that they
are allowed to hold this belief, because there is no other way that those who,
as I said, base their thinking on outward sense-impressions, could think of
their soul or spirit living as a person in human form, except by re-entering
the body they carried around with them in the world. Unless therefore the body were said to be
resurrected, they would at heart reject the teaching on resurrection and
everlasting life as incomprehensible.
(...)
[4] For they are
unaware that each person is inwardly a spirit, and the life of the body and all
its parts comes from the spirit, not from the body by itself. They do not know that it is the spirit which
is the real person, sharing its form, but invisible to the body's eyes, being
visible only to the eyes of spirits.
Hence it is too that, when a person's spirit has its sight opened, which
is the result of the withdrawal of the body's sight, angels can be seen as
people. So it was that angels appeared
to the ancients, as related in the Word.
I have had several conversations with spirits whom I knew
when they were people living in the world, and asked whether they wanted to be
clothed again with their earthly bodies, as they had previously imagined. On hearing this they ran off to a distance at
the mere idea of being reunited, in astonishment at having been led in the
world to think so by blind faith without any understanding. (EU 165)
The
afterlife is existence in the spiritual world. The spiritual world is a
rational world while the natural world is a physical world. If we arrive in the
afterlife with nothing but a corporeal idea of the afterlife, our mind does not
contain natural-rational ideas, but only natural-corporeal and natural-sensuous
ideas. The existence we have in the spiritual world is completely determined by
the ideas we bring with us. Ideas based on sensuous impressions from the
physical senses contain within them evil affections and delights. But ideas
based on rational truths from revelation contain within them good affections
and delights. Good affections and delights are incorporated into the heavens
while evil affections and delights are incorporated into the hells. Good
affections can only exist within rational truths; evil affections can only
exist in sensuous fallacies. What is called spiritual in a genuine sense is
related to rational truths within which are good affections. But sensuous and
corporeal ideas are not rational and contain evil affections.
Meditation
is a mental activity but the cognitive level of this activity remains natural,
not yet spiritual. All mental activity in the natural mind is not yet
spiritual, only natural. For mental activity to be spiritual, it must exist in
the interior-natural mind, which is a discrete degree above the
natural-rational mind. The interior-natural mind is purely rational, therefore
genuinely spiritual. This mental activity is not from self, as is the activity
in our natural-rational and natural-sensuous. The activity in the
interior-natural mind is nothing but the reaction by correspondence to what’s
going on in the interior unconscious spiritual mind that is occupied by the
angels. Therefore the activity in the interior-natural mind allows us to be
rationally conscious of the spiritual world, its events, heaven, and the Lord.
This is no speechless ecstasy or religious swooning, but only rational understanding
of interior truths. These interior truths are genuine spiritual and conjoin us
to the Lord and heaven. The expression “higher consciousness” properly refers
to this consciousness of the activity in our interior-natural mind.
How the
this mind is opened by the Lord is discussed in Chapter 7 Sections 8 and 9.
5. Regeneration
Requires Rational Consciousness
Referring
to the New Church mind, there is no way that we can ‘break through’ to higher
consciousness by meditating on the Lord or on the Writings, or by inhibiting
content to one’s thinking while sitting in meditation or some posture of
repentance. The only way for the New Church mind to draw near to the Lord and
to the higher consciousness angels are in, is through rational
consciousness, not natural (xx). This is because all the concepts of the Second
Coming are rational, and all the ideas of the angels are rational, not natural.
This is necessary since the New Heavens of the Lord’s Second Coming have
replaced all the old heavens, so that the angels had to acquire the rational
truths of the Divine Human revealed in the Writings. All those who now enter
heaven must do so through these “interior rational” truths, also called
“spiritual-rational” truths, and also “celestial truths.” The spiritual sense
of the Writings is called the Heavenly Doctrines, and all the ideas of this
Divine Doctrine are spiritual-rational and celestial.
Meditation
and other specialized cognitive activities cannot contain any
spiritual-rational concepts, but only natural-corporeal and natural-sensuous ideas,
visions, or realizations. In Eastern practice of these specialized cognitive
activities it is expected that such cosmic breakthroughs to God do occur. But
the
For us
there cannot be a supreme moment of achievement in meditation whereby the Lord
breaks through from within and presents Himself to us sensuously, as He
did to Swedenborg, and others before him in visions, as the Bible testifies. In
the new era of the Second Coming the Lord can only come to us in the interior-natural,
after He opens it (AE 708[2]). And this opening can occur only to the extent
that our natural-rational has been appropriately prepared by a life of
discipline and virtue (reformation and regeneration). Meditation and Yoga, and
etc., can be useful as lessons in discipline to the external man, but not as
sensuous breakthroughs to the Lord in the internal man, or of reaching higher
spiritual consciousness.
Those who receive the light of intelligence from the Lord as
a sun are those with whom the intellectual and its rational have been opened,
and who have, in consequence, thought rationally about what should be believed
from the spiritual affection of truth; while those who receive light from the
Lord as a moon are those in whom the intellectual and interior rational have
not been opened, but only the natural, and who in consequence have thought from
the memory about what should be believed; and to think about this from the
memory is to think only from such things as have been heard from a teacher or
preacher, which they call truths and believe to be truths although they may be
falsities, since they are not seen beyond the memory.
If such while in the world were also in the faith of
charity, they are in the heavens under the Lord as a moon, for the lumen, from
which is their intelligence, is like the moon's lumen in the nighttime, while
the light from which is the intelligence of those who are in the heavens under
the Lord as a sun is like the light of day.
(...)
Their affection of knowing truth and doing good is, like
themselves, natural, thus deriving more or less from the glory of being
learned, and from reputation that looks to honors and gain as rewards,
differing in this from such spiritual affection of knowing truth and doing good
as those have who are in heaven under the Lord as a sun, for with these this
affection is so separated from natural affection that the natural affection is
under the feet.
(...)
To this is to be added, that there are three heavens that
are under the Lord as a moon, a higher, a middle, and a lower; or what is the
same, an interior, a middle, and an exterior, but yet all who are in these
heavens are natural. These heavens are interior, middle, and exterior, because
the natural like the spiritual is divided into three degrees; the
exterior-natural communicates with the world, the interior with heaven, and the
middle conjoins.
Nevertheless, those who are in the heavens under the Lord as
a moon cannot enter into the heavens that are under the Lord as a sun, because
their interior sight or understanding has been formed to receive the lunar
light there, and not to receive the solar light. They are comparatively not
unlike those birds that see in the night and not in the daytime, consequently
when they come into the sunlight that those have who are under the Lord as a
sun their sight is darkened. Those who are in these heavens are those who have
been in charity according to their religious principle, or according to their
faith; but such as are natural and are not in the faith of charity are in the
hells under these heavens. (AE 708)
Note the
statement in the next to the last paragraph in the quote: “the natural like the
spiritual is divided into three degrees; the exterior-natural communicates with
the world, the interior with heaven, and the middle conjoins.” Here the
“exterior-natural” refers to the three levels in the natural mind: corporeal,
sensuous, and rational. these are called external in contrast to the “internal
man” which refers to the spiritual mind, here called the “interior degree that
communicates with heaven.” And in between the internal man and the external man
is “the middle that conjoins” the two. This middle portion is called the
interior-natural mind.
Fore
greater clarity of conceptualization, please consult the diagrams in Chapter 7
Sections 8 and 9.
6. The Two
Phases Of Regeneration
The
But in fact
disciplines are implied in the Writings where regeneration is discussed—which
is indeed almost everywhere. The rational concepts of the Writings easily lead
us to formulate any number of disciplines suitable for our regeneration, as
illustrated in this volume. We shall call them “regeneration disciplines.” They
are spiritual disciplines as well as religious disciplines because of the
purpose that motivates us to perform the discipline repeatedly in daily
activities, hour by hour, and minute by minute. Regeneration refers to the
biological process of growing new spiritual fibers in huge quantities. A fiber
is an organic part of the will and the understanding, which are the two organs
that make up the human mind.
To grow a
new spiritual fiber we must reconnect an old spiritual fiber. This is because
the old fibers are coiled the wrong way in a permanent organic structure that
is an image or model of hell, thus infernal, monstrous, and opposed to heaven.
This mass of ossified, dehumanized, blob is connected to the hells,
communicates with the hells, is influenced by the hells, and with irresistible
force pulls the individual to hell in the afterlife. It is called “man’s
proprium” (xx). This is the Fall of the human race. Now when any infant is born
on earth its proprium irresistibly leads it to hell in the afterlife. In order
to alter this biology, the Lord has provided the process of regeneration. This
involves a rebirth phase called reformation of the understanding, and a
regeneration phase of the will. The regenerated mind is new mind, not a
repaired or fixed up old mind. The entire old mind must be put to sleep, and
the entire new mind must be grown into a new understanding and a new will.
Any
individual is regenerated who is willing. The process involves two phases.
Phase 1:
Reformation of the understanding or cognitive mind.
This
involves studying the Writings and having its literal sentences available in
the mind in order to evaluate the concepts and ideas we have. The cognitive
mind is made of our concepts and ideas, and the reasoning process we use to
make decisions in all things of life. These life strategies run our daily and
hourly decisions and dictate our attitudes. Thinking is involved in everything
we do—getting dressed, driving to work, having a conversation, daydreaming,
reading the Writings, etc. Every second of life occupies at least one thinking
act, and possibly more, so that on any day we have a potential of performing
more than 86,000 thinking acts. This is daily. Now we must examine as many of
them as possible in the light of what we know from the Writings. Do they fit or do they not? It will be
seen more and more THAT NONE FIT! The reason for this is fully explained in
Volume 1. Reformation takes months, sometimes years, in order to rearrange
everything in the mind. But sooner or later, enough things in the mind are
rearranged that we can begin phase 2, even as we continue working on phase 1.
The Lord provides for an overlap for the sake of maximum progress in our
regeneration.
Phase 2:
Regeneration of the will or affective mind.
The
understanding is reformed from without, using the Letter of the Writings which
we have taken up in our natural-rational mind (see phase 1). The will is
regenerated from within, when we apply the Doctrine of the Letter in our
understanding to our motives. This is called from within, while the
understanding is called from without, because the organ to the will is a
discrete degree above the organ of the understanding. This is why we say that
the motive is within the act, “within” referring to a discrete degree above. Every act of thinking is performed FROM THE
WILL. No act of thinking can take place on its own for it has no power,
just as my electric toaster could not operate when I don’t plug it in. The will
provides the power and the on/off timing of every act of thinking. The organ of
the will is made of spiritual fibers that are tied to either hell or heaven.
The will cannot live or exist when not so tied to either heaven or hell.
The
unregenerate will is called the proprium or self. Human beings are nothing but
affections that exteriorize as thinking acts, which in turn exteriorize as
sensory and motor acts of the physical body. Human actions are therefore
produced by a threefold self: the will, the understanding, and the sensorimotor
or corporeal mind. This threefold self is the person, the body being nothing
but an inanimate chemical plant under the control of the threefold self.
Disciplines
are systematic methods we learn to carry out our share of the regeneration
task. The Lord activates and animates everything in our will, understanding,
and body. And yet, He provides that some of this activity be appropriated to
our regenerated self, to the extent that we are willing to suffer ourselves to
perform the task of conscious self-monitoring of our acts of willing and
thinking. Since we perform many thousands of such acts every day, you can see
why regeneration takes the entire life on earth. It also continues in heaven,
but in a different form.
Physical
and mental disciplines cannot add to our salvation but moral disciplines can.
This is because the moral level of willing and thinking is in the natural-rational
mind, a discrete degree above the natural-sensuous and corporeal where mental
disciplines exist. Yet not all moral disciplines of life are spiritual and
contributors to our salvation. The moral level of thinking that is located in
the natural-rational mind is a natural way of thinking, not yet spiritual. The
spiritual level begins in the interior rational, also called the
spiritual-rational. This is located in the spiritual mind, a discrete degree
above the natural mind. But the spiritual mind is unconscious while we are tied
to the physical body. Therefore the Lord provides for another way we can be
conscious of the spiritual. He creates the interior-natural mind within the
natural-rational mind, as frequently explained in this book (see especially Chapter
7 Sections 8 and 9).
The moral
decisions we make can be animated to have a spiritual within them if we are
motivated by the desire to regenerate in accordance with the instructions in
the Letter of the Writings. Fro example, we refrain from cheating on an exam or
a declaration form. Why? First, because we don’t want to get into trouble
later. This is a natural motive. Later, we refrain because we value integrity
of character. This is a higher motive, yet it is still natural because in the
natural mind. At reformation, we refrain because it is contrary to the
commandments in the Writings. During regeneration, the Lord brings deep seated
hidden motives to our awareness so that we may be tempted to go ahead and cheat
and make false declarations when we can justify it to ourself. Now if we
refrain because to cheat or be deceitful would be preventing our old will from
being put to sleep. Any active affection we permit, remains and cannot be put
to sleep by the Lord. Note then, that the spiritual doesn’t begin until
regeneration of the will begins. Reformation of the understanding is not yet
spiritual if it is not carried out into the will (xx).
7. Turning
A Moral Discipline Into Spiritual
Moral life may
be lived either for the sake of the Divine or for the sake of men in the world;
and a moral life that is lived for the sake of the Divine is a spiritual life.
In outward form the two appear alike, but in inward form they are entirely
different; the one saves a man, the other does not. For he who lives a moral life
for the sake of the Divine is led by the Divine; while he who leads a moral
life for the sake of men in the world is led by himself. (HH 319)
Clearly,
then, our moral behavior or conduct is not sufficient to form the
This is a
matter of our heaven or hell! To enter our inner mind and to observe the
affections behind our thinking and behavior is the regeneration discipline
called self-witnessing. This is a spiritual discipline to the extent it
is done for the purpose of our salvation—meaning that we are motivated to form a
new mind in accordance with Divine Commandments which we have taken up for
ourselves from the Letter of the Writings. In
the Writings every truth we understand is a Divine Commandment that we must
obey, or else we cannot complete the formation of the
At this point something will now be said on how the internal
man is reformed and how the external man is reformed -by means of it. The
internal man is not reformed merely by knowing, understanding and being wise,
and consequently merely by thinking; but by willing what knowledge,
understanding and wisdom teach.
When a man knows, understands and has wisdom to see that
there is a heaven and a hell, and that all evil is from hell and all good is
from heaven; and if he then does not will evil because it is from hell, but
wills good because it is from heaven, he is in the first stage of reformation,
and is at the threshold out of hell into heaven.
When he progresses further, and wills to desist from evils
he is in the second stage of reformation, and is now outside hell but not yet
in heaven, which he sees above him. A man must have such an internal in order
that he may be reformed; but he is not reformed unless the external as well as
the internal is reformed.
The external is reformed by means of the internal when the
external desists from the evils which the internal does not will because they
are infernal, and still more when the external for this reason shuns them and
fights against them. Thus willing is the part of the internal and doing of the
external. For unless a man does that which he wills there is within him the
failure to will which eventually becomes want of will.
[2] From these few considerations it can be seen how the
external man is reformed by means of the internal. This also is what is meant
by the Lord's words to Peter:
Jesus said: If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.
[Simon] Peter saith unto Him: Lord, not my feet only, but
also my hands and my head.
Jesus saith to him: He that is washed needeth not save to
wash his feet, but is clean every whit. John xiii. 8, 9, 10.
By washing is meant spiritual washing, which is purification
from evils; by washing the head and hands is meant purifying the internal man;
and by washing the feet is meant purifying the external man. That the external
man must be purified when the internal has been purified is meant by this,
"He that is washed, needeth not save to wash his feet." That all
purification from evils is from the Lord is meant by this, "If I wash thee
not, thou hast no part with me." It has been shown in many places in the
ARCANA CAELESTIA that washing among the Jews represented purification from
evils, and that this is signified in the Word by washing; and that by washing
the feet is signified the purification of the natural or external man. (DP 151)
The
“external man” referred to here is not the physical body since the mind is
being discussed. The external man refers to the lower regions in the natural
mind called the corporeal and sensuous mind. The “internal man” here is not
referring to the spiritual mind, as elsewhere in the Writings (xx). Here the
internal man refers to the upper portions of the natural mind called the
natural-rational mind. It is said that the external man is reformed by means of
the internal man. This means that the lower natural mind (sensuous) is reformed
by means to the higher natural mind (rational). It is the natural-rational mind
that holds the motives and concepts of regeneration from the study of the
Writings as the Divine Word. This is the mind that must compel the sensuous and
corporeal mind to obey.
This Number
makes it clear that reformation and regeneration is about our willing and
thinking, moment by moment, all day long, every day. It is necessary therefore
that we acquire means or techniques by which we can become aware of the willing
and the thinking we do all day long. This technique is therefore a
self-witnessing activity, that is, a self-monitoring activity in which we keep
track of what affections and thoughts occupy our mind.
The state of a
person's mind in the natural world determines its state in the spiritual world. (TCR 816)
8. If I’m A
Good Man, Why Do I Need To Be Regenerated?
I received
this email message from a man who read a few portions of this book:
If we throw God away, we are still left with our neighbour. Whether
one believes in God or not, one is still left with how one will deal with one's
fellow man.
Only one course is open to man. Basic human decency. Whether
we believe God to be a very personal divine human or a very impersonal force,
there can only be one option: to treat other people well and kindly.
It is impossible for one who has treated (on the whole) his
fellow-man kindly and fairly, not to end up in heaven. It is similar to a piece
of cork that cannot be submerged under the water. The kind man will jump his
way into heaven! Even the loudest atheist will eventually find himself in
heaven, IF he has been kind to his fellow man.
From the
perspective of the Writings, we can recognize this argument as sadly wrong. It
draws a nonduality between having no faith, having little faith, having much
faith. It puts the idea of having faith in God on a continuum, and that it is
not of a fundamental importance where on the scale of faith people locate
themselves, as long as they are good people who were kind to the neighbor—they
will all end up in heaven. And the implication usually is that, therefore let
us not argue much about religion, and let everyone believe whatever they want
as long as they are good to the neighbor. This implication makes a nonduality
out of having a true religion and having a false religion. It puts all
religions people practice on a continuum from “whatever religion” to what is
true religion, should there be such a thing. It also makes a nonduality out of
heaven and hell, supposing that people are lined up on a continuum of being
good, from saintliness to average, to mischievous, and on to less and less
good.
Instead of
these nondualities about religion, faith, and heaven, there only absolute
dualities in the
Why does
this happen? How can it happen? The Writings explain it rationally and
scientifically. We are born a dual citizen—a spirit attached to a physical
body. The spirit, which is our organic mind or self, is born in the world of spirits
and remains there while the physical body and natural mind are built up on some
earth surrounded by nature and our sensory-motor experience of it. Upon the
death of the physical body, our mind suddenly awakens in our spirit-body where
it had been since birth. But now the rules of reality are different, and we can
no longer be a divided person, such as a hypocrite or a
wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing. Since the physical body is gone our sprit-body is
totally free and cannot but express the quality of the loves we have built up
in our natural mind. With the physical body gone, we remain such as we arrive
(xx).
9. The
Physical Body Hides The Spiritual Devil Within
While we
are attached to the physical body, it absorbs the organic life of our loves in
the will. People can train themselves to totally hide what they’re actually
feeling, thinking, or desiring. But with the physical body gone, there is no
absorption and covering up of one’s desires, attractions, and motives. These
feelings in the will plainly show to the other spirits and angels who can see
from some distance whether they are good or evil.
Furthermore,
and most important to know, is that it is not possible to change these desires
and attractions, once the physical body is cut off from our spirit. Shortly
after arrival in the afterlife, our spirit-body undergoes a separation or
homogenization process. Those who will be entering heaven may have evil loves
to which they are attached, which they were unwilling to give up in the life of
the physical body. So now they must undergo a purification process by which
they are given the choice to at last cast out these evil loves. This is a very
painful process because it is much more conflictual to give up evil loves when
we already are in the spirit-body. Having completed purification, they can
enter heavenly life with all the good loves they developed in life.
Those who
will be entering hell must be prepared for life there. Nothing good can remain
attached to them from whatever good affections they acquired prior to the
separation of the physical body. For example a kind man who felt a private
arrogance and disdain for others, nevertheless loved his country, his children,
his animals, his parents, and a few sincere friends. He was willing to be kind
and generous with them. But inwardly this kindness and generosity was attached
to what is his own in others. His children were his own. His country is his
own. His parents and friends are his own. So he loved his own in them. But as
soon as his own is removed from them, he hates them. And this hate comes out in
the spirit-body which compels him to pounce and devour and destroy. He now
hates children and goes into a violent fury when seeing an infant (xx).
Similarly with loving a woman or wife. Inwardly this love is a love of one’s
own, and as soon as the wife ceases to favor him, he pounces on her. Now, upon
entering hell, he must give up any of the good traits he had even if it was
only for what is his own in others. When nothing of good is left, even apparent
good, he enters hell and lives the life of sub-human insanity filled only with
terrible fantasies.
10. Spiritual
Insanity Chains Us To Hell
How do we
make sure that we avoid such a terrible fate? We lead a busy life, we take care
of our family, we pay our taxes, we’re decent neighbors, we go to war for our
country, we work and produce something useful, we support the community
organizations—WHAT MORE DOES IT TAKE TO BE A GOOD PERSON??
From the
perspective of the Writings we can see clearly what the answer is, and we can
explain it rationally. What it takes to be a good person is to look to God and
expect Him to tell us, to lead us, to empower us. This is what it takes to be a
good man. There is no other way to be a good person. Why? Because good exists
only from God (xx). If we don’t get it from God, we don’t have any. And God gives every person good according to
this person’s free choice for accepting. Some people are willing to accept
a lot of good from God, and they are good people, very good people, heavenly
people. Others are willing to accept just a few goods from God, and reject all
the rest He desires to give them. What is the reason that we do not accept most
of the goods God wants to give us? The answer from the Writings is explained
rationally and scientifically.
The reason
is that we are born with a spirit that is deformed and monstrous, like those
who dwell in the hells. This inherited deformation consists of our spiritual
fibers in the organs of the will and understanding: they are twisted around in
a horrible looking mess. This is because they are attached to the hells and
reflect the appearance of hell. Everyone’s spirit is malformed from heredity.
The entire human race has this hereditary infirmity. We are born with evil
affections in the will. Every baby and infant has it, but it is kept suppressed
by the angels who are guarding the spirit of that child in the world of
spirits. But after some months have elapsed from birth, it is more and more
difficult for the angels to stay around as guards because the child is
unwilling to stay in that state of mind. Evil affections are so attractive and
so delightful that they engage in much bad behavior, contrary to order,
breaking the peace, being cruel and selfish, obeying foolishness instead of the
wisdom of parents and caretakers.
As a
growing infant or child we turn away from the angels because we love the evil
delights more than the good. The evil delights are from hell and fit the
twisted coils of our will an understanding. Bad things give us more pleasure
and enthusiasm, more happiness, than good things. Good things flow through the
twisted coils in our will and we feel tortured, obsessed, in a rage. We fly off
the handle because good feels like torture to evil. Good affections from the
angels flow into our mind—like being nice instead of rude, or being responsible
instead of irresponsible. When affections flow in from the angels they are
coiled in the shape of heaven. But the shape of the coils in the will run in
the opposite direction! They are modeled according to the shape of hell.
Therefore a huge battle arises as to which shape is going to prevail.
As it is desirable that the origin of perception, internal
dictate, and conscience, should be known, and as at the present day it is
altogether unknown, I may relate something on the subject. It is a great truth
that man is governed by the Lord by means of spirits and angels. When evil
spirits begin to rule, the angels labor to avert evils and falsities, and hence
arises a combat. It is this combat of which the man is rendered sensible by
perception, dictate, and conscience. By these, and also by temptations, a man
might clearly see that spirits and angels are with him, were he not so deeply
immersed in corporeal things as to believe nothing that is said about spirits
and angels. Such persons, even if they were to feel these combats hundreds of
times, would still say that they are imaginary, and the effect of a disordered
mind. I have been permitted to feel such combats, and to have a vivid sense of
them, thousands and thousands of times, and this almost constantly for several
years, as well as to know who, what, and where they were that caused them, when
they came, and when they departed; and I have conversed with them. (AC 227)
This
spiritual combat is felt in the conscious natural mind by the action of
correspondence. Whatever happens in our
unconscious spiritual mind has a corresponding effect in our conscious natural
mind. This is felt more clearly and definitely as we focus in on our habits
of willing and thinking.
The Lord grants every individual a
free and crucial choice for our fate and future: Will we compel ourselves to
keep our focus on this constant activity going on in the mind, or will we
largely ignore it, relying on outward deeds and occasional self-examination. This is where we begin to realize
that a self-witnessing discipline is necessary if we are going to keep the
focus and monitor the thousands of acts of willing and thinking every day and
hour of our allotted time on earth. According to life expectancy in the Western
countries today, the average man has approximately two-and-a-half billion
seconds (2.5 billion) on this earth. If we remove one-third for unconscious
sleep, we will make a little over one-and-a-half billion acts in our willing
and thinking during conscious waking time. So that’s the average man has in
terms of opportunity to examine, repent, and modify more than a billion times
while we are still attached to the physical body. Once we make the transition
and awaken in our spirit-body, we are in a radically new situation. Without the
physical body to absorb the affections in our will, and without the fear of
punishment and death, we lose all restraint in controlling our impulses.
Whatever
loves we left deposited in our will now become our master and we cannot
restrain them. If these impulses in the will are contrary to Divine Order, the
spirit must be restrained by separation from others to prevent their
victimization. This separation is actually an incarceration in eternal hell.
Why eternal? Because the spirit refuses to let go of the evil impulses despite
repeated invitations by the guardian angels to come up to heaven. But this is
not possible without giving up the evil impulses, and this the spirit is never
going to agree to, not to an eternity—such is its amazing tenacity and love for
insanity. And it must be remembered that we are born inverted in our spirit so
that our evil affections and impulses appear to us as good, since they are so
delightful. And due to this, we judge falsities as spiritual truths, and we
judge spiritual truths as falsities. This prevents us from knowing the reality
that all our acts are from evil affections until we are willing to undergo
reformation by means of spiritual truths obtained from the Writings. For the
Writings is the only source of spiritual truths in the new era of the Second
Coming (xx). All those on earth who do not know about the Writings,
nevertheless will be taught its concepts when arriving in the afterlife (xx).
Those will
then accept the truths who have lived their life sincerely in accordance with
the Word and Doctrine available to them from conscience, religion or faith. But
those who did not submit themselves in life to conscience, religion, or faith
for the sake of God, will reject the truths, and thus reject heavenly life
where obedience to the Doctrine from the Writings is life itself. All those who
are unwilling to live their life in such obedience to God’s Word, are then
prepared for life in hell. All their good traits are isolated in the will and
rendered inanimate. This is done by angels from the Lord who gives them
perception into the spirit’s interior will. It’s a kind of spiritual surgery,
as I imagine it. At last, without any good and true functioning, the spirit is
ready to enter hell where it maintains itself at a sub-human life made of
insanity and revolting fantasies. There they choose to remain forever no mater
how many times they are offered entry to heaven. They hate heavenly obedience
more than the misery of hell. That’s why they are sub-human and appear to
angles looking down as monstrous devils, insane satans, obsessed genii,
repulsive sirens, and the like, these sorry outward appearance being
reflections of their love for self and hatred for God.
To focus on
the thousands of acts of willing and thinking every day, means to monitor and
keep track of them. Note that normal
social life does not require this kind of self-knowing. Society requires
that we know things outside of ourselves, like the history of our country, or
the multiplication table, or how to read instructions and write messages. But
there is no requirement that we monitor our feelings, motives, thoughts, and
interior dialog with ourselves. Once in awhile, if get called on the witness
stand, we might have to report on some of our willing and thinking. We are
asked, Why did you do this? Or, What did you decide then? Or, Were you in love
with her at that time? Etc. It is required by law that we answer honestly, but
knowing the answer is not a requirement. In that case we reply, I don’t
remember, and the court accepts it. But the court does hold us responsible for
knowing things outside of ourselves, such as, Did you see him or not? and, Were
you ever contacted by this person” etc.
And yet,
for our eternal fate in the afterlife, this external knowledge is not at all
crucial, and will only last us as long as we are attached to the physical body,
while the usefulness of the interior
knowledge will last us to eternity. Clearly the interior knowledge is
immeasurably more important than the external knowledge, and yet, prior to our
reformation, everyone favors the external knowledge, and pursues it, hardly
paying attention to the far more crucial interior knowledge, which is knowledge
about the character of our willing and thinking all day long.
This sad
and terrible situation is the result of rejecting the goods God desires to give
us, and instead, leading our life by self-intelligence and self-reliance in
spiritual matters. When we declare that we are an atheist, agnostic, secular
humanist, materialist, cynic, realist, etc., we are making the free choice of
leading ourselves in spiritual matters. The Writings say that this is spiritual
insanity (xx). Spiritual insanity is the
state of our spirit when we replace truth with falsified truth in our
understanding. This is inevitable when we lead ourselves in spiritual
matters since we are born spiritually insane, and what is insane cannot be made
sane except by receiving truths from God. To receive truths from God, one must
acknowledge Him and His Word. Those who do not have the Word or knowledge
derived from it, then must acknowledge their conscience as the inner Voice of
God in them.
Note well:
If they obey conscience without acknowledging that is the Voice of God, they
cannot be reformed and all their good behavior and good intentions are only
exterior, and within this nice interior, there remains their secret loves of
evil delights. In the afterlife they are never willing to let go of a single
one, and so their life is in hell. But if we acknowledge the voice of
conscience as God operating within them and guiding what they must do to go to
heaven, then they arrive in the afterlife prepared to obey God’s Order in the
truths taught to them at that time by the welcoming angels.
God gives us the ability or power to
obey our conscience because it is essential that we make free choices, without
which we can have no sense of self, no sense of human happiness.
Since we
are born with the fibers coiled and modeled after the shapes of hell, we are
filled with evil delights that we are unwilling by free choice to let go of,
and to detest. These evil affections motivate our thinking to reason in a
certain way that the conclusion will be favored by the evil affection.
Therefore God must give us a conscience that has the power to resist evil
delights. In addition to conscience, God reveals reality and truth in His Word.
This knowledge about Himself and the spiritual world, spreads throughout
society through religion, theology, education, reading, art, entertainment.
Almost no one of the human race is raised without finding out about God’s
existence and about life after death. We freely make the choice to reject the
idea of God. After that we are on the road down to hell since no other source
of truths is available to the human race. And we must have these truths from
God to guide our conscience and decisions. Without these truths, not God guides
us, but devils in hell to which our spirit is attached by birth.
Our spiritual
insanity doesn’t show in our social relations and work. The strong motive for
self-preservation drives us to hide and moderate the insanity that wants to
break out into the open and enjoy the delights of mayhem and violence, of
seduction and corruption, of theft and deception, of vulgarity and obscenity.
These awful affections in our will are kept in moderation and suppression by
the stronger motive of self-preservation, for in all societies it is forbidden
to do these things unchecked, and doles out punishment to those who go beyond
the accepted limits. Societies do this for their own self-preservation since no
society can survive without punishing behaviors that have no limits of
self-restrain (xx).
The motive
for self-preservation has many components and enters into other motives that
seem like altruism rather than self-preservation. But this is a false
appearance that must be detected when we examine our habitual willing and
thinking. During reformation, and throughout the long years of regeneration, we
can become conscious, to the extent that we care to, of habits of willing and
thinking that are clearly selfish when we look at them. The external act of the
physical body may be consistently kind and responsible, to such an extent that
spouse, family, friends, and coworkers would rate this individual very highly
on a scale of kindness and good will.
But heaven
cannot be obtained by merit because it has to do with fibers and coils in the
will. Self-preservation, desire for success and power, and many secret passions
within our will, drive us to exert control over our appearance, visible acts,
reputation, language, style. The outward acts are forced, not preferred. If
others were able to access a man’s feelings and thoughts, would they still
think of him as kind and decent when they can see he wishes them ill, despises
them in comparison to himself, and cares nothing for their suffering. They
would recoil from him like he is a monster and wicked devil, which he is, since
tied to the devils in hell by heredity. We are each like this prior to
reformation.
And what is required for
reformation? The return to God and to the Word by which He reveals Himself and
reality, that is, spiritual truth.
11. Spiritual
Sanity Is To Return To God And To The Word
Keeping all
of the above in mind, let us get back to the email message that started the
discussion in this section:
If we throw God away, we are still left with our neighbour. Whether
one believes in God or not, one is still left with how one will deal with one's
fellow man.
Only one course is open to man. Basic human decency. Whether
we believe God to be a very personal divine human or a very impersonal force,
there can only be one option: to treat other people well and kindly.
It is impossible for one who has treated (on the whole) his
fellow-man kindly and fairly, not to end up in heaven. It is similar to a piece
of cork that cannot be submerged under the water. The kind man will jump his
way into heaven! Even the loudest atheist will eventually find himself in
heaven, IF he has been kind to his fellow man.
And so the
answer to this point of view is that there is no “basic human decency” except
in humans who have been reformed and regenerated (xx). This biological activity
in the will cannot occur except by means of understanding revealed truth, which
is spiritual reality. The truths of the Word and the Doctrine of our religion
or faith, must be taken up in our mind by means of reading the Word as a Divine
Book, Holy because it is God speaking to our mind. Once our understanding is
reformed, we can undergo the required regeneration by using our understanding
to compel ourselves to reject what we prefer, and to choose what we know is
from God and heaven.
The notion
that “It is impossible for one who has treated (on the whole) his fellow-man
kindly and fairly, not to end up in heaven” is a spiritual insanity. What matters for living in heaven is not how
we treated others, but how we loved them. All loves from self are from
hell. Therefore, our only way to heaven is to abandon all our own loves and to
start loving only the things that are from heaven and God. We cannot decide on
our own what is from heaven and God because we are spiritually insane. this
will always drive us to reject the loves of heaven, to enter the loves of hell,
and then to remain there by calling them loves of heaven. This is the insanity.
And this: “Even the loudest atheist will eventually find himself in heaven, IF
he has been kind to his fellow man.” This is also spiritual insanity because
heaven is from God, not from self. Hell is from self. One cannot deny God and
accept heaven. Denial of God leaves us facing the hell with which our spirit
was born.
From all
this you can see that knowing your willing and thinking in detail reveals the
evils that you delight in and partake in, and are unwilling to give up. But
only when they are held up to the truths of reality in the Word. Rejecting the
Word is death of the spirit. But since the spirit is immortal, death refers to
hell because life there is sub-human misery in eternal insanity. It is not a
punishment by God, for God constantly sends angels to hell to beg all the
inhabitants to repent, reform, and enter heavenly happiness. But none are
willing to listen to what to them seems false and a worse choice than the
misery in which they obstinately keep themselves in forever. Such is the
amazing stubbornness of self-willing when allowed to grow to its own level of
thinking and enjoyment.
For the
The Lord
commands us that we compel ourselves to reform as-of self by means of the
understanding we pick up from studying the Writings as Divine Truth in every
detail. Only this kind of study will put the Writings into our natural-rational
mind. Then, possessed by more and more spiritual truths, we can progress in our
regeneration. This progress depends on how much we are motivated to apply the
truths from the Writings to our daily willing and thinking. This is the
filtering process, the healing process, by which we become spiritually sane and
prepared for a life in heaven. From being born hellish and sub-human, we are
thus reborn human and angelic.
The
12. Macro-Behaviors
Are Regenerated By Means Of Micro-Behaviors
All acts we
do occur in a sequence and a setting. For example I awake at dawn, drive to the
beach with my wife, drive back and fix breakfast, and clean up the kitchen.
This is a morning routine that takes up a small portion of every day. As I
describe this to you, I use expressions that refer to macro-behaviors, or
behavior units that are fairly general. You can see that each detail mentioned,
has sub-components that I do not mention. For instance, I spend about one hour
at the beach walk but I didn’t even mention that, nor did I mention what
sub-routines my beach walk consist of. One for instance, has to do with saying
good morning to the other beach walkers. This has many details to be considered
since it varies with each stranger we say good morning to.
And I don’t
even mention many things that I do while walking on the beach, such as admiring
the sunrise, listening to waves, watching the frigate birds high in the sky
looking for favorable air currents, and numerous other things. When I get down
to mentioning even more detail, I enter the micro-behavior world. Most people
do not describe things at this level for it would be too boring and even
meaningless, thus interfering with normal communication. For example, I could
describe what I do with my cell phone, not wanting to leave it in the car,
fearing another break in as we had twice before. When I enter the car I place
the tiny little phone on the tray, then when I arrive at the beach, I pick it
up and put in my right back pocket. I have my wallet in my left back pocket. I
have my keys in my left side pocket. I avoid putting the cell phone with the
keys for it makes a noise as I walk.
Who could
stand endlessly discussing such details on our daily round of routines? So we
don’t. And even each of these sub-details has sub-sub-details, like how I put
the phone in my back pocket as I exit the car. My back pocket seals with a
Velcro strip so I have to manage to open the flap held tight by the Velcro, as
I hold the cell phone in the hand. This takes some practice to do effectively.
And then
there are finer details to each of these little movements, as when I have a cut
healing on my finger and try to avoid opening the wound by putting pressure on
it at a certain angle. In each of these micro-behavior details there is a
threefold stepwise execution. First, I have a motive, like protecting my cut
finger from being injured as I open the Velcro flap. Second, I have a thought,
like monitoring the angle of pressure on the cut on my finger and judging at
which point I should no longer put pressure. Third, I have a sensorimotor
execution of the hand rotation, force exerted, and finger movement You can see then that willing and thinking is
performed in numerous sequence of micro-behaviors built into macro-behaviors.
The macro-behaviors cannot be modified unless the micro-behaviors are modified
first.
In fact
self-modification of macro-behaviors is achieved in two steps. First, there
must be a general motive or goal, such as going to the beach at dawn. All the
sub-behaviors and their micro-behaviors depend on this one macro-behavior
motive. The morning I decide to sleep in, all the micro-behaviors at the beach
do not occur. In regeneration, the motivation to modify macro-behaviors must
therefore come first. For example, I may decide that it is my citizen’s duty to
pick up sharp pieces of glasses I see as I walk, so as to prevent injury to
those who walk barefoot. In the past I did not do this. Now I’m motivated to be
a better beach citizen and to stop acting with indifference towards the danger.
This begins my regeneration effort with regard to this one area. It starts with
a macro-motivation.
Now I need
to struggle to regenerate all the micro-behaviors. For example, I see something
a few feet away that might be a piece of glass. I should go over there and
examine it, but I don’t want to break my aerobic pace, so I keep walking. I
feel bothered. Now I can continue to walk or I can turn back. I’m in a
struggle. And so on. You can see that the micro-behaviors confront the actual
issues involved in carrying out the macro-behavior. Motives are set within
motives in a complex hierarchy and we cannot regenerate the macro-behavior
unless we tackle and modify the lower issues attendant to the micro-behaviors.
This applies to all regeneration.
13. Self-Witnessing
Our Micro-Behaviors
Self-witnessing
is a term I’ve been using for decades to refer to my long standing penchant for
metanoid self-monitoring. This is a dual focus—one on the mental activity going
on, and one on its monitoring and evaluation. I became consciously aware of my
metanoid focus in my early twenties, though it felt so familiar that I always
seem to have had it, but not by conscious reflection, until my twenties. The
Writings speak of this double focus in connection with self-examination,
repentance, and regeneration (e.g., DP 114).
[A person] can from wisdom above view the love that is
below, and in this way can view his thoughts, intentions, affections, and
therefore the evils and falsities as well as the goods and truths of his life
and doctrine; and without a knowledge and acknowledgment of these in himself he
cannot be reformed. (DP 16)
Without self-examination, recognition, acknowledgment,
confession and rejection of sins, thus without repentance, there is no
forgiveness of them, thus no salvation, but eternal condemnation (DP 114)
IV. EVILS IN THE EXTERNAL, MAN CANNOT BE REMOVED BY THE LORD
EXCEPT THROUGH MAN'S INSTRUMENTALITY
It is only religion which renews and regenerates a person.
Religion is allotted the highest place in the human mind, and sees below it the
social matters which concern the world. Religion too climbs up through these as
the pure sap rises in a tree to its top, and from that lofty position it has a
view of natural matters, just as someone on a tower or a mountain has a view of
the plains beneath. (TCR 601)
The will inclines from birth towards evils, even to those
which are enormous; hence, unless it were restrained by means of the
understanding, a man would rush into acts of wickedness, indeed, from his
inherent savage nature, he would destroy and slaughter, for the sake of
himself, all who do not favor and indulge him. (ISB 14)
From these
and many other passages in the Writings we acquire the idea that constant
self-witnessing is a method that allows us to carry out the cooperation with
the Lord that He commands us to perform because it is necessary for our
regeneration. When you begin self-witnessing one striking aspect of it is to
become conscious of the macro and micro-integration of human willing and
thinking. For example, I think about taking in the car for servicing. This is a
macro-topic in my day’s schedule, to be integrated with many other macro-topics
like sending email to someone, grooming the cat, shopping for groceries,
reading the Writings, vacuuming the pool, and so on. Every macro-topic is kept
in place by priorities of motives or affections in the will. But every
macro-topic is constructed of a integrated series of micro-topics, each of
these being maintained by a hierarch of sub-motives, affections, and
preferences in the will.
For
example, vacuuming the pool is made of sub-tasks (1) getting the pole from its
place behind the plants without injuring the plants; (2) taking off the brush
attached to it and affixing the hose nuzzle extension on wheels; (3) curling or
snaking the long hose into the water to fill it with water and empty it of air;
and at least a dozen other sub-tasks. Each sub-task has a series or hierarch of
affections that determine the style, rate, and effectiveness of my willing,
thinking, and acting out the movements of hands, head, and body. Each sub-task
offers plenty of opportunity for inherited and acquired evils to break out and
take over, producing errors, ineffectiveness, damage, injuries, anger,
affectational styles, neglect, laziness, carelessness, and many others.
Self-witnessing
reveals the astounding complexity of the ordinary behaviors we perform mentally
and physically. Every micro-act or detail is managed by the Lord through good
and evil spirits with which He connects us, moment by moment as we perform our
willing prompted by affections, our thinking prompted by knowledge and beliefs,
and our sensory and motor activities that are in credence with our mental
activities. But self-witnessing in itself is not a spiritual or religious
activity. What makes it spiritual is the motive we have in doing it. A
spiritual motive for self-witnessing makes it into a spiritual or religious
discipline. From the Writings we have the commandment to know our willing and
thinking so that we may evaluate each mental act in the eight of Doctrine in
our mind from the Writings. This is the spiritual motive for self-witnessing in
the
Physical
and mental disciplines are in the external
natural mind and have nothing in it from the spiritual and celestial mind (AC
978, 4286; AE 355:14). From the natural nothing else but natural things can
come out. There is no possibility of “emergence” of the spiritual from the
physical, as proposed by some neuroscientists today. No matter how evolved the
brain becomes it will never be able to give rise to the sensation. The brain
remains a dead physical compound just like the natural sun. Everything from the
physical universe comes from this or that sun or galactic cluster. No materials
that are from this source, no matter how chemically evoluted, can reach across
the discrete degree that eternally divides the natural substance from the
spiritual substance (DLW 185).
Brain
activity is the patterned electrical and chemical motions of physical
substances. Sensations are neither electrical nor chemical. Therefore
sensations cannot exist through the brain and in the brain (ISB 1[2]). They
exist in the mind and through the mind. The mind is spiritual organ, that is,
an organ made of spiritual substances. When we are born as human beings, we
have a physical body in the natural world to which is connected by
correspondence, a spirit-body in the spiritual world.
Our
spirit-body can be seen by the spirits from a distance (AC 4527).
It should be known that every man as to his spirit is in the
spiritual world in some society there, a wicked man in an infernal society and
a good man in a heavenly society; and sometimes he also appears there when in
deep meditation. (DP 296:[6])
Physical
eyes, sensors, cameras, instruments, and other detection devices invented on
earth are incapable of seeing or recording the spirit-body. This is because
there is no crossing of the discrete barrier between natural and spiritual
things. Their relationship is not by crossing, contacting, developing into, or
emerging from—these being phenomena in continuous degree, not discrete (see
Chapter 5 Section 6). Their only connection is by correspondence (DLW 374).
In other
words, at any moment the spirit-body receives or detects a pattern of influx in
its spiritual world environment where untold numbers of spirits live in their
spirit-bodies. Spirits is the name used for human beings who live in the
spiritual world after having died in the natural world from which all humans
originate. The spirit-body of spirits is able to detect influx from other
spirits at any distance no matter where the others are located in the spiritual
world (HH 198). What determines the strength of the influx are the specific
affections each spirit has in their organ called the will.
Spirits who
have compatible affections in their will are in close presence, can interact
directly, can speak to each other, touch each other, feel each other, and
experience all the sensations we have in the physical body but to a far more
sensitive degree than possible on earth (AC 4760[2]). Spirits who have
antagonistic affections in their will cannot be together because they strive to
annihilate each other (HH 194). These rules or laws of the spiritual world are fixed
and maintained by the Lord who is very closely involved in the management of
all these people’s affections, and the thoughts that are created by these
affections in another part of the spirit-body and which is called the
understanding.
14. Overlap
Between The Mind And The Spiritual World
Spirits who
have similar concepts and ideas in their understanding are able to congregate
and live together in a city governed by representatives appointed by the Lord,
or, by the Lord through angels who reside in a discrete degree above that city.
In this way the hierarchical discrete levels of the human mind are identical
with the hierarchical discrete levels of the spiritual world. It is organized
from top to bottom:
1) The spiritual Sun in which the Lord can be seen
2) The Third Heaven of Celestial Angels
3) The Second Heaven of Spiritual Angels
4) The First Heaven of Natural Angels (or Angelic Spirits)
5) The world of spirits where the new arrivals congregate. This
is also where our spirit-body is while we are connected to the physical body
6) The region of the first hells, which are the mildest
7) The region of the second hells, which are intermediate in
insanity and wickedness.
8) The region
of the deepest hells, where those are isolated whose abominable fantasies have
the persuasive power to turn other spirits into zombies
When you
look at this alignment it is the same whether you are looking at the level of
organization of the human mind or the spiritual world. There is a perfect
overlap between the two. This is why it is said by the Lord that the Kingdom of
Heaven is within you, though the people He said it to could not yet understand
how this was possible (AC 9305). Seventeen centuries later the Lord has made
His Second Coming, having sufficiently prepared the human rational faculties to
be able to receive the new interior truths of the Heavenly Doctrines in the
Writings. He was able to create New Heavens as well as a new interior portion
of the human mind. What made this possible was our ability in these higher
levels to understand by correspondence, interior-natural truths about the Lord
and His Divine Laws of managing the universe. Infinite such truths are
contained in the Writings, enough that only a small portion of them can be
uncovered by the generations to eternity (NJHD 260).
Most people
who hear this assertion about the Writings instantly reject it as foolish
nonsense or naive exaggeration. But it is the truth, both because it so
asserted in the Writings (xx) and because it is rationally explained why and
how this marvel is real. Nothing whatsoever is left to dogma or mystery.
Nothing. All of the assertions in the Writings are fully and completely
explained and justified rationally so that anyone can verify that this is so by
studying all of the Writings with the purpose of finding in it the Divine
Truth. Not a single dogma can exist in the Writings since dogma is from
hell and every single thing in the Writings is from heaven (TCR 779).
Those who
are offended by this assertion raise this objection: Is it not obvious that it
is a dogma to say, either you accept all of the Writings as Divine Truth or you
cannot see the spiritual things in it when you read it. But this objection is
not valid. One must first grant that there is Divine Truth or else the assertion
is not being investigated. If you accept that there is Divine Truth then you
must accept that it is possible that only Divine Truth is contained in
the Writings. One follows the other logically. Now if you admit that it is
possible for the Writings to contain only Divine Truth then you can read the
Writings and see spiritual truths in them. And if you also rearrange your life,
your daily willing and thinking, all your concepts, with no exceptions, to be
compatible with your understanding of these spiritual truths, then you will
also be close to heaven and the Lord, and you will see and perceive with
certitude that the Writings are the Divine Truth, that is, the Word of the
Second.
From all
these considerations and facts you can see that everything about your salvation
depends on rearranging your daily willing and thinking. Why everything? Does
not my faith count? It only counts to the extent that our faith acts together
with our charity (TCR 336-393). Knowing, understanding, agreeing with, and teaching
the Writings is not enough. Add to it religious faith and call it the Word, and
it is not enough. But do your daily willing and thinking according to your
understanding of it, and that is enough to prepare your spirit-body for
heavenly life. Salvation is not by religious membership and sincere worship.
Salvation is only by charity directed by faith. By charity. Not by faith. Note
well: we are not saying “by charity alone” for this does not lead to salvation
since charity without faith is not genuine charity from the Lord (TCR 336-393).
Only that is from the Lord in our spirit-body which is from charity combined
with its own faith.
Now since faith in its essence is truth, it follows that in
proportion to the volume and coherence of truths faith becomes more and more
perfectly spiritual, and so less and less natural-sensual. For it is raised
into the higher region of the mind, from where it sees below itself rank upon
rank of proofs of itself in the natural world. A great volume of truths
cohering as it were in a bundle makes true faith more enlightened, more easily
perceived, more outstanding and clear. It also becomes more easily linked to
the various kinds of good belonging to charity, and consequently more easily
freed from evils, and by stages less subject to the enticements of the eye and
the longings of the flesh, thus becoming essentially happier. In particular its
resistance to evils and falsities is increased, and so it becomes more and more
alive and conducive to salvation. (TCR 352)
Charity
from the Lord cannot be adjoined with faith that is spurious or false, and thus
reformation must be completed in the afterlife. Those who exercised charity of
religion without confirming it by the falsities of their religion can compete
reformation in the afterlife, and then continue with their regeneration to
eternity. But those exercised the charity of their religion and adjoined to it
by confirmation the falsities of their religion cannot complete their
reformation in the afterlife, for they resist and are unwilling.
The
How do
we cooperate with Him? This becomes the spiritual bottom line for every New
Church husband who is willing to begin his reformation sometime in adult life (AE 803; AC 8780; AC 3518:[2]).
Cooperation
requires conscious continuous action and reaction. The Lord is very closely and
intimately involved in this process. First, he implants spiritual truths in the
upper levels of the mind, as discussed above. We are totally unconscious of
this process, just as we are unconscious of how the brain calibrates and
manages the thousands of hormones and chemical substances every second to
produce adequate electrical patterns or footprints to make possible sensation in
the spirit-body. At some point the brain activity matches a certain
predetermined rational pattern or footprint. This pattern of activity in the
brain is now ready for being acted upon by correspondence. The spirit-body then
becomes conscious of a sensation and thought. Note well: the brain pattern of
activity does not cause the corresponding sensation in the spirit-body, that
is, in our conscious awareness. This sensory awareness in the spirit-body is
not caused by the physical sensory input to the brain—which is impossible
(TCR 336-393).
Rather, the
relationship is more like a resonance which occurs in the physical world for
things that are in continuous (not discrete) degree with other. For example the
sound of a car horn enters the brain and produces an identifiable pattern of
electro-chemical activity. The brain activity is an informational
representation of the specific qualities of the sound. While the brain is thus
engaged in the patterned activity, the spirit-body resonates to this pattern,
and when there is a match, we experience the sensation and we hear the horn.
Then we can react to it through a similar process. Second by second, our
spirit-body is thus active and growing by cumulating sensations, thoughts, and
affections. This growth process in the organs of the spirit-body is deformed,
injured, corrupt by inheritance. Our spirit-body is created when the physical
body is born and the child takes its first breath, filling the lungs (D.Wis
6[9]). This opening of the lungs permits or occasions the start the life of
sensation and thought, and therefore, the start of the spirit-body and its
development.
In short, all affections for good and truth reach out into
heaven, and there is thus connexion and linking with those there who have
similar affections. All affections for evil and falsity reach out into hell,
and there is thus connexion and linking with those there who have similar
affections. Affections reach out into the spiritual world, almost as the range
of sight reaches out into the natural world. The connexions in either place are
much alike, the difference being that in the natural world they are with
things, in the spiritual world with communities of angels. (LJ 9)
Our moment
to moment willing and thinking is what causes the growth of the spirit-body.
Such as the willing is, with its companion thinking, such is the growth of the
spirit-body because such is our connection to heaven or to hell. When we are
thinking this or that in the course of the day we are becoming a part of the
affections that motivate the thinking and reasoning. These affections either
reach out to heaven or they reach down to hell, as indicated in the quoted
passage. The Lord is revealing this fundamental duality to us: Either we are in
heaven or in hell with every moment of willing and thinking. And thus our
affections continually reach up to heaven or down to hell. And we are at the
helm, we are responsible by rational choice or choice guided by the voice of
conscience. And such as our choices are, such is our spiritual fate (xx).
But note
well: This is not an equity model but an all or nothing model! The millions of
choices you’ve made in a few decades on earth will not be put on a scale,
weighed, and the preponderance of frequency wins. There is no way of entering
heavenly life with an equity model! It’s all or nothing at the gates of heaven.
If you enter with a few affections that reach down to hell, can you enter? You
would be suffocated by the sphere of Good there.
Will you be
able to leave your evil affections behind when you arrive at the gates of
heaven, so that then you can enter? You might reason this way: Does it not say
that the highest angels admit that if they were left to themselves they would
be plunging into hell with their affections of old that they once had? (see xx)
And so not even the angels are perfect. But this is not a correct argument. The
angels are perfect because they have left all their affections, left them for
the Lord to be in a disanimated state. True, we are told that they can be revived
once again by the Lord, if this were for a Divine purpose, which proves that
they are still with the angels and will always be (see xx). But it’s clear that
they do not have a single affection that is active that does not reach to
heaven. This is why angels are called perfect (xx).
And so,
when you arrive at the gates of heaven, will you be able to voluntarily give up
every one of your affections that reach down to hell? You will not be able to
because you will not be willing. What an amazing fact! (xx)
You can
understand why this is so. You have these
affections still with you because you have not been willing to give them up in
all of your regeneration on earth.
You might
think that when you get there and everything is all over, then you would be willing
to let go of them, especially when you realize that they prevent your entry
into heavenly life. But you’re only dreaming or lulling yourself to sleep with
this vain hope. The Writings clearly
explain that the affections you hold on to until death are the affections you
remain with to eternity! (xx, xx). The basic reason for this is that
affections are immortal spiritual fibers within which you feel the love of your
life. Take away those fibers, and you no longer feel the love of your life,
hence you cannot be happy or motivated to do anything.
In the
unregenerate state into which we are born, our spirit-body is an offshoot of
the fibers of the parents (CL 206). Such as is their spirit-body such is the
spirit-body of their children. All the evil affections and unconscious
preferences and tendencies are in the things inherited by the spirit-body. If
we then lead a life motivated by these inherited tendencies in the spirit-body,
we will develop a permanent infirm spirit-body that is not capable of living in
the heavenly regions of the mind.
Everything
therefore depends on monitoring our willing and thinking every hour of the day
so that we can identify every particular evil affection and all the falsities
of life that these evil affections create in our understanding and philosophy
of living.
The state of the case with the evil in the other life is
that they are not punished until their evils have reached their height, and
this both in general and in particular. For such is the equilibrium in the
other life that evil punishes itself, that is to say those who are evil run
into the punishment of their evil, but only when it has reached its height.
Every evil has its limit that varies in each individual case, beyond which it
is not allowable to pass. When an evil person passes beyond this limit he
precipitates himself into the penalty, and this is so in every particular (AC
1857)
This
passage discusses what happens in the afterlife to those who are unwilling to
eliminate their evil affections and falsities in this life.
Every
Inherited
evils refer not to evils but to ties to evils. The evils are not inherited but
their terminations in us fro0m the hells. We inherit the organic connectivity
to an array of hells that characterize one’s family and culture. It’s like the
address we appropriate when we buy a house. The house comes tied to an address
determined by the city or county government. We are born into a particular
family, in a geographic jurisdiction at a particular time. This gives us origin
and identity. Our mind is an inherited organ and organic connectivity to
particular hells is part of the constitution of the mind. In other words, our
mind is born in hell and has an address there that give it character and
quality. This is what is inherited.
The evil
itself is not inherited because it exists and subsists by flowing in a
continuous stream, like electricity flowing into your toaster oven and keeping
its elements red hot. The instant that the timer is out and trips the switch,
the electricity stops flowing in and the elements quickly cool down to room
temperature. Evils flow into our mind like electricity flows into the toaster
oven. The quality of evil inflowing is determined by our inherited connectivity
to specific hells, just as the quality of heating of the toaster oven is
determined by its built in wiring that includes an extension wire ending in a
wall plug.
We are born
with a mind that has built in wiring to specific hell societies. Upon this
wiring network flows in evils of a specific quality in endless numbers since
all the hells are interconnected into a single immense network of an evil
spiritual wiring system (xx). Our mind’s connection to specific hells is our
inherited spiritual address.
The Lord
maintains this entire system in its integrity and service for regeneration of
the human race. A key element of this system is that the Lord gives us power
over the on-off switch of influx.
It is
crucial that we acquire conscious control over the on-off switch of influx.
Progress in
our regeneration depends on the conscious control we are willing to assume over
the on-off switch of influx.
Before we
begin regeneration, the switch of influx remains steadily in the On position.
We may study the Writings so that the understanding portion of the mind is
elevated and enlightened, but the will portion of the mind remains in hell. The
understanding then falls back to its will in hell, and we have nothing left of
our high moment of enlightenment. Then once more we study the Writings and our
understanding is raised into heaven. But pretty soon, even the next minute, our
understanding lies down with its infernal concubine and we are plunged again
into darkness. Thus we see saw to no avail, until we undergo and complete
reformation, then begin regeneration sometime in adult life. Then the
And to the
extent that we nurture this new will, to that extent we progress in
regeneration. And we cannot nurture this new will except by turning the switch
of influx into the Off position.
We must
pull the plug on our hell.
This is
called “shunning evils as sins against the Lord.” This process consists of
examining our willing and thinking, recognizing which ones are from hell, and
desisting, that is, stopping ourselves from continuing to will those evils and
think them.
This is the
driving motive power of regeneration--stopping ourselves from continuing to
will those evils and to think them.
We need to
build a scientific understanding of the process by which we can stop ourselves
from continuing to will inherited evils and to think them.
I have
discovered that metanoid self-witnessing
is an effective method for identifying the content of our willing and thinking
in daily life. Therefore if becomes a useful spiritual discipline by which
husbands can cooperate with the Lord in their reformation and regeneration.
Only by performing this cooperation hour by hour, minute by minute, can the
husband become a conjugial husband. Without becoming conjugial, the husband
cannot regenerate because his regeneration must involve his wife in a specific
way as discussed throughout Chapter 9.
The interior can perceive what takes place in the exterior,
or what is the same, that the higher can see what is in the lower; but not the
reverse. Moreover they who have conscience can do this and are accustomed to do
it, for when anything contrary to the truth of conscience flows into the
thought, or into the endeavor of the will, they not only perceive it, but also
find fault with it; and it even grieves them to be of such a character. (AC
1914)
As our
regeneration proceeds day by day, the interior rational (or
spiritual-rational) which is in the spiritual mind, is progressively opened by
the Lord through the influx of the angels into those concepts in our mind that
are suitably formed for their influx. This opening process is a
psychobiological formation of spiritual fibers growing in the upper levels of
the mind (or spirit-body)—for “a person's spirit is his mind, and whatever
comes from it” (TCR 138). The activity and influence of the interior rational
mind is proportional to the extent to which it can “descend” into (or within)
the concepts and ideas of the interior-natural mind (AC 5150). When the
interior-natural is active within the natural-rational, the mind is properly
aligned to function as a genuine human being, which is the celestial person (or
angel) (AC 1940[2]).
In order
for the interior-rational to be active within the external-rational mind, there
must be an interior-natural portion formed by the Lord within the
natural-rational. Then the interior-natural can resonate by correspondence to
the spiritual mind and reveal to our conscious awareness what those spiritual
truths are with which the angels flowed in.
This
mutually beneficial interaction between angels and earthlings takes place by
correspondence in discrete degrees, not by continuous degree or direct contact.
I have spoken
with spirits about the changes of state of man's life, that it is inconstant,
and that he is borne upward and downward, now toward heaven and now toward
hell. But they who suffer themselves to be regenerated are being borne
continually upward, and thus always into more interior heavenly societies.
Extension of sphere into these societies is given by the Lord to those who are
being regenerated, especially to those who are being regenerated by means of
temptations, in which resistance is made to evils and falsities; for the Lord
then fights through angels against the evils and falsities; and in this way the
man is introduced into the societies of these angels, which are more interior
societies; and into whatever societies he has once been introduced, he there
remains; and from this he also receives a more extended and elevated capacity
of perception. (AC 6611)
Every
earthling who is thus regenerated becomes an angel in the afterlife and
continues to participate in this ever expanding activity of unity involving the
ever expanding human race. This union of humanity into one is visible in the
spiritual world as the Grand Human, visible to Swedenborg and the angels (HH
59). Religious or spiritual disciplines are necessary tools of regeneration, a
process that progresses only to the extent that we consciously and actively
cooperate in it. The religious discipline is a method of practice for
increasing the cooperation we are required to perform.
IV. EVILS IN THE EXTERNAL, MAN CANNOT BE REMOVED BY THE LORD
EXCEPT THROUGH MAN'S INSTRUMENTALITY. In all
It is
important to understand what makes a discipline religious or spiritual. Those
who approach the Writings from a perspective or motive that is secular, not
religious, do not see much in the Writings that teaches physical and mental
disciplines. For instance, Wilson Van Dusen, a well known authority on
Swedenborg, once complained that “the Writings themselves barely touch on how
to regenerate, how to make it of the life, how to practice"
("Spiritual Practice That Makes Religion of the Life: Open Letter to the
A similar
form of this idea is suggested by Alfred Acton (“Emanuel Swedenborg’s Concept
of Creation and the Human Mind” Arcana 1994 v1 n2 45-54)
The human is similarly layered [as the spiritual world]. Inmostly,
there is the soul on the plane of human internals, below which are the three
spiritual levels, which are unopened here on earth. Still lower is the interior
rational, which is on a plane with the world of spirits and can be opened
somewhat here on earth when a person is in deep meditation or reflection. Below
this level is the natural mind proper with its rational, imaginative, and
sensual levels. (p. 52)
The
Writings do not specify under what conditions the interior-natural can be
consciously “accessed” as it were by meditation or reflection. I think that the
attempt to direct access by means of reflection could merely yield content from
the lower “sensuous” and “imaginative” mind or higher up from the
natural-rational, but not anything from the interior rational and
interior-natural, which is spiritual. The interior-natural reacts by
correspondence to the unconscious interior-rational, thus giving us the ability
for a spiritual consciousness. The interior-rational in the spiritual mind and
the interior-natural within the natural mind are both created and operated by
the Lord with no contribution from self or world. Only the external-rational is
constructed by means of things from self and the world.
There is
this danger to look out for:
A mind removed from the world thinks indeed concerning God,
but not from God (DP 142)
This is
said about our state of mind when we are physically sick and scared. The reason
given is that when “ a man is in sickness, and is thinking about death and the
state of his soul after death, he is not then in the world but is withdrawn in
spirit; and when in this state only, no one can be reformed” (DP 142). If
meditation succeeds in withdrawing us from the world it would have a similar
effect. Perhaps Rev. Acton’s reference to meditation or deep reflection denote intense
focus on the dualities in the Writings as we read and study. This intense
focus is what I would call the work of reformation, which is, to comprehend
dualities from the Writings and to gather them in the conscious mind as
Doctrine for life.
This in
itself is not yet enlightenment. No matter how deep the reflection and
complicated the scholarship, its substance is tied to the literal of the text.
Thus it Is not yet seen in the light of heaven. But when we consciously apply
the Doctrine in our mind to guide our daily willing and thinking, then the Lord
can give enlightenment while we are engaged in the activity or use. Enlightenment
therefore does not come with reflection or study, but with applying what we
comprehend so that it guides our willing and thinking while we are engaged in
an activity or use.
With those
who believe these things, and love it to be so, all evil and falsity are
removed while they are reading the Word, because the Lord then enlightens them
and leads them. And then they do not think from themselves, nor are they
affected by the Word from themselves, but from the Lord; consequently no evil
and falsity of evil enter, because the Lord removes these. These are they who
understand the Word, and are affected by the truths from it, and also love to
live according to them. (AC 10638)
Note well:
The more we are studious with the Writings, the better is the Doctrine that we
build up in our rational mind. The better the Doctrine, the greater the
enlightenment when we apply it to our willing and thinking. A form of Doctrine
in our mind is better than another to the extent that it is developed rationally
and consistently. A serviceable Doctrine is one that integrates all conceptual
elements in our mind. There must be nothing of nonduality left and everything
must be aligned in terms of discrete degrees. For instance when we think of
“sin” we must also think of “inherited evils,” “regeneration,” and
“temptations.” Without connecting concepts in this way, no rational account of
operations is possible. Yet all spiritual operations are rational.
Or, to give
another example, when we think of “conjugial love” we must also think of
“scortatory love,” “chastity,” and how the “spiritual mind” of men and women
differ. Doctrine refers to not just memory and comprehension of passages in the
Writings. It also means figuring out the assumptions and implications of every
sentence and phrase. The context must be kept in mind in which the phrase and
sentence is embedded, which means collecting together what’s being said about
that subject from different places in the Writings.
This
approach to reading and studying the Writings is necessary to build up our
natural-rational ideas and reasoning process. Into this will then flow the
interior truths from the Lord during enlightenment. Note that these interior
truths are not the Doctrine in our mind. They are the new meaning we see in
them during the state of enlightenment. When we write these down, or recall
them later, we only comprehend them externally, in the natural light of the
natural-rational. Then when a state of enlightenment is given again, new
meaning is perceived in sentences and phrases that we are very familiar with
already, but in which only the old meaning was seen. Such is enlightenment from
the Lord through Doctrine in our mind. Periods of enlightenment alternate with
periods of self-initiated light, or obscurity. Only when we arrive in heaven do
we remain in a permanent state of enlightenment.
18. Enlightenment
From The Letter Of The Writings
Enlightenment
is from the Lord while we are reading the Writings for the purpose of knowing
the Divine Truth.
'With which
you shall do the signs' means consequent enlightenment and corroboration of
truths. This is clear from the meaning of 'sign as the corroboration of truths,
dealt with in AC 6870 The reason why enlightenment is also meant is that the
corroboration of truths comes about through enlightenment received from the
Lord when a person focuses his attention on the Word to the end that he may
have a knowledge of truths. (AC 7012)
As we focus
our attention on the Letter of the Writings so that we may know truth, the Lord
enlightens us. To have the purpose of knowing the Divine Truth is the same as
to have the purpose of living that truth, whereas the purpose of obtaining a
mere memory knowledge of Divine Truth does not result in enlightenment.
As regards enlightenment and a resulting corroboration of
truths, it should be recognized that no enlightenment nor thus any
corroboration of truths is possible with those who are interested, as the Jews
and Israelites were, only in things of an external nature and not in anything
internal. But when those who are interested in external things and at the same
time in internal ones read the Word they receive enlightenment, and with that
enlightenment they see truths, which after that are corroborated for them over
and over again. (AC 7012)
And what is so amazing, the nature of each person's
enlightenment is determined by the nature of his affection for truth, and the
nature of his affection for truth is determined by the good present in his
life. This also goes to explain why those who have no affection for truth for
its own sake, only for the sake of gain, receive no enlightenment at all when
they read the Word. Instead they merely corroborate for themselves matters of
doctrine whatever they may be, whether they are false, as heretical teachings
are, or entirely contrary to truths, as the teachings of the Jews are, since
they do not seek the Lord's kingdom but the world, not faith but renown, thus
not heavenly riches but merely earthly ones. Or if a desire to know truths from
the Word does perhaps descend on them, falsities present themselves instead of
truths, and at length denial of all truths. These matters have been stated in
order that people may know what enlightenment is, and a resulting corroboration
of truth. (AC 7012)
Enlightenment
is a gradual and cumulative process like the growth of plants or the body of an
infant. In the case of enlightenment, it is the growth of the interior-natural
mind from which we have enlightenment. This organic development proceeds at a variable
rate according to “each person’s...affection for truth.” This means “by the
good present in his life.” And the good present in our life is the quality of
the willing and thinking we perform all day long, every day, hour by hour, and
minute by minute. Prior to enlightenment we are unwilling to be reformed,
unwilling to rearrange everything in our mind in accordance with the truths of
the Writings. Even if we are persistent students of the Writings prior to
enlightenment, we are told that “falsities present themselves instead of
truths.” All we do is “merely corroborate ... matters of doctrine whatever they
may be.” We cannot tell whether these doctrines be true or false for we are not
enlightened.
But
enlightenment spoken of here is not the same as the enlightenment we have as
angels. This enlightenment is that which is given in the spiritual mind, but we
are unconscious of this mind while tied to the body. Instead, the Lord gives us
enlightenment by correspondence so that we are now conscious of higher
cognitions which are animated from within in the interior-natural mind.
Nothing
from the influx into our spiritual-rational mind by the Lord through the angels
can be perceived while we are in a natural body (with the one exception in the
case of Swedenborg). The correspondential effects of that influx are felt and
consciously seen in the interior-natural that the Lord builds within the
natural-rational level of the natural mind (see diagrams and charts, especially
in Chapter 7 Sections 8 and 9). Now when we reflect upon what we see happening
in the natural-rational mind, we can become conscious of new understandings
that represent more interior truths than before. This is called enlightenment
(AC 10215).
Note that
the enlightenment cannot come from or through meditation because the highest
content possible content in mediation is below the natural-rational level o
understanding. But it may come somewhat, as Rev. Acton suggests, from
reflection when the content is rational and spiritual. This content cannot be
imagined or discovered but must be consciously received from reading the
Writings as the Lord in His Word for the New Church mind by which the
interior-natural degree is opened in us.
19. Regeneration
Disciplines Are Spiritual
They hold a false opinion who call the mere memory-knowledge
of things celestial and spiritual, separated from charity, faith. For sometimes
the worst of men have this knowledge more than others-as those who live in
continual hatred and vindictiveness, and in adultery, and are therefore
infernal, and after the life of the body become devils. (AC 1162)
A central
thesis that runs through the Writings is that the primary thing of religion is
charity. All genuine faith and worship comes from charity. Therefore, where
there is no charity, there is no faith and only corrupted worship that leads to
hell. Prior to our reformation in adult life, we are unregenerate and immersed
in all the evils from the hells to which we have ties by heredity and culture.
Until our reformation, our faith and our worship is not genuine or true faith
and worship. And even in adulthood, we may become expert at the knowledges in
the Writings, and teach it to others, but this ability is not a sign of true
faith or true worship, since this depends only on regeneration. And
regeneration depends on charity as the prime mover.
Charity
refers to the motivation within our faith. Charity is in the will while faith
is in the understanding. Until reformation in adult life we have external faith
in the understanding but it is not alive with charity in the will. During
reformation we become motivated to put charity into our faith. This is what
starts reformation and keeps it going until all our concepts in the
understanding are rearranged and redefined to conform to our faith, which is
our knowledge of Doctrine from the Writings.
But what is
charity in the will? How do we put it there? The answer is that we put charity
in our will by compelling ourselves to cooperate with the Lord in our
regeneration and salvation. We already know of the need for our cooperation, as
it is taught in many places in the Writings. When we are ready to live this
requirement, we put charity into the will. Charity is a motive discipline. By
this motive we examine what is in our will, and evaluate it according to the
Doctrine in our understanding from the Writings. Everything in our will is
either form hell or from heaven, so it’s a categorical duality of choosing one
versus the other.
Not
choosing, and letting it lie there by default, amounts to the same as choosing
hell. The Lord cannot remove the hell in our interior mind unless we cooperate
by struggling against the hells in our awareness. These hells are revealed to
us from within by conscience and by the Doctrine. It stands to reason therefore
that we must deal with our daily willing and thinking in terms of a spiritual
or religious discipline, by which we are motivated to shun those that are evils
and hold them in aversion, that is, detesting them. This is not easy because we
are born with a deep seated delight in these evil affections from hell. This is
why I call it “the struggle” for reformation.
From the life of everyone it may be known what his
acknowledgment is. All they are called "sons of Ham" who have a
memory-knowledge of the knowledges of faith, and have not charity, whether it
be a memory-knowledge of the interior knowledges of the Word, and of its
veriest mysteries, or a memory-knowledge of all things in the literal sense of
the Word, or a memory-knowledge of other truths, whatever their name, from
which these may be regarded, or a knowledge of all the rituals of external
worship-if they have not charity, they are "sons of Ham." (AC 1162)
To the
extent that we function in our daily tasks from the interior activity of
charity, to that extent our physical and mental disciplines will have become
spiritual. The focus therefore needs to be on how the inside world of
charity in the will, can be within the outside world of thinking and action.
As we perform our routine acts outwardly, what is happening inwardly to our
external or lower mind?
What are we
enjoying or hating about what’s going on?
What are we
thinking that we do not show?
[2] For every general is derived from all the component
items, as from its own particulars; in no other way can any general come into
existence, for it is called a general because it comes forth from particulars.
Therefore such as is a man's life in general, such is it in the most minute
atoms of his effort and intention-that is, of his will-and in the most minute
atoms of his thought; so that there cannot be the smallest bit of an idea in
which the life is not the same.
As for example with a haughty man; in every single effort of
his will and in every single idea of his thought there is haughtiness; with him
who is covetous there is in like manner covetousness, and so with him who hates
his neighbor; just as with the stupid man there is stupidity in everything of
his will and everything of his thought, and with him who is insane there is
insanity. Since this is the nature of man, in the other life his quality is
known from a single idea of his thought.
[3] When a man has been regenerated, then all things in him,
both in general and in particular, have also been regenerated, that is, have
life, and the life they have bears an exact proportion to the degree in which
his own will-which is foul and dead-could be separated from the new will and
intellectual that he has received from the Lord. (AC 1040)
The
separation of the “old will” from the “new will” refers to the activity of
willing and thinking in our daily activities. Since we are required to
modify our current willing and thinking in every detail of life, it stands to
reason that this cannot be done without monitoring our willing and thinking all
day long! Continuous self-witnessing is a total
discipline for the
It should be known, moreover, that, so long as man is in
knowledges only, and not in any life according to them, he is in his proprium and
led by self; but, when he is in a life according to them - and to the same
extent - he is elevated out of his proprium, and is led by the Lord. This man
does not perceive, but still it is so; and so far as man is led by the Lord, so
far is there good in him, or good is what he wills and thinks. But it should be
thoroughly known, that nobody can live according to the knowledges from the
Word, except from them he reflect upon his thoughts, intentions and deeds, that
is, examine himself, and abstain from evils and do good as from himself:
otherwise, there is no reception by man; and if there is no reception, there is
no conjunction with the Lord; therefore, neither can he be led by the Lord. (SE
5945)
It’s a
rational question we may ask ourselves: “I know it is required that I cooperate
with the Lord in my regeneration (AE 911[17]); Now then, how do I know when I’m
cooperating?” The discipline of self-witnessing becomes a religious discipline
under such a motivation. Within such a motivation the Lord infuses interior
rational truths that cannot come into our awareness from the natural-rational
mind and the outside world. These interior rational truths have a
correspondential effect on the interior-natural mind, which constitutes our
conscious spiritual awareness. This effect is to produce enlightenment which is
the mental state angels are in. Through enlightenment we receive the
experiences of wisdom, endless progress, bliss, full confidence, and charity.
What a boon to humankind!
Learning to
cooperate with the Lord in our regeneration is required for two reasons. First,
what we do as-of self out of love is appropriated to us. The
Any freedom coming from the Lord is real freedom; but any
that comes from hell and makes itself at home with a person is slavery. Still
spiritual freedom must inevitably seem like slavery to anyone who enjoys the
freedom of hell, since they are opposites. Yet all who enjoy spiritual freedom not
only know but feel that the freedom of hell is slavery. The angels therefore
shun it like the stench of a corpse, though those in hell sniff it as if it
were a perfume. (TCR 495)
This
ability to love acting from the Lord is possible for those who train themselves
to love acting according to the Doctrine they have from the Writings. This
is because acting according to Doctrine from the Writings is the same as acting
from the Lord. Through self-witnessing disciplines we train ourselves to
will and think from Doctrine in our mind. (For more on self-witnessing methods
see Note 20 at end).
Further,
through self-witnessing we are given illustration in life of what the doctrine
means at more interior levels than we can think when reading and studying the
Writings. This is what it means that the angels have Doctrine written on their
heart (AE 15). Our sequence of willing and thinking makes a stream of actuality
which is an ultimate for interior truths. To witness this stream of Providence
is similar to read the literal of the Writings. Into this ultimate stream of
expression there is a discretely higher interior which is its cause. This
higher interior is revealed by the Lord to the witness just as the higher
interior truth contained in the literal of the Writings is revealed when we are
enlightened. Self-witnessing one’s willing and thinking according to
Doctrine from the Writings is a new method available to humankind for spiritual
renewal and higher evolution. It is an everlasting gift and miracle from
the Lord that He brings with His Second Coming.
As deeds and
works are from the will and thought, so are they from the love and faith,
consequently they are such as the love and faith are; for it is the same thing
whether you say one's love or his will, and it is the same thing whether you
say one's faith or his established thought; for that which a man loves he
wills, and that which a man believes he thinks; and when a man loves what he
believes he also wills it and as far as possible does it. Everyone may know that
love and faith are within man's will and thought, and not outside of them, for
love is what kindles the will, and the thought is what it enlightens in matters
of faith; therefore only those that are able to think wisely are enlightened,
and in the measure of their enlightenment they think what is true and will it,
or what is the same, they believe what is true and love it. (HH 473)
The
Writings reveal that it’s common for people to arrive into the afterlife not
knowing who they are, that is, what affections and ideas are in their
subconscious mind. For instance, husbands do not at first recognize their wives
in the afterlife while wives always recognize their husbands (xx). This is
because men are less aware of what fills their subconscious while wives have an
inner perception of their husbands subconscious mind (CL 166). But it’s
otherwise with men who are prepared for conjugial love since they strive by
discipline to uncover their subconscious (see Section 1 below).
20. Innumerable
Things In Every Evil
What is in
our subconscious? The Lord says: “innumerable things” of evil!
There are innumerable things in every evil. In man's sight
every evil appears as one single thing. This is the case with hatred and
revenge, theft and fraud, adultery and whoredom, arrogance and high-mindedness,
and with every other evil; and it is not known that in every evil there are
innumerable things, exceeding in number the fibers and vessels in a man's body.
For a wicked man is a hell in its least form; and hell consists of myriads of
myriads of spirits, and every one there is in form like a man, although a
monstrous one, in which all the fibers and vessels are inverted. The spirit
himself is an evil which appears to himself as a "one"; but there are
innumerable things in it as many as the lusts of that evil, for every man is
his own evil, or his own good, from the head to the sole of his foot.
Since then a wicked man is such, it is evident that he is
one evil composed of innumerable different evils each of which is a distinct
evil, and they are called lusts of evil. Hence it follows that all these in
their order must be restored and changed by the Lord in order that the man may
be reformed; and this cannot be effected unless by the Divine Providence of the
Lord, step by step from the earliest period of man's life to the last. (DP 296)
Who is the
wicked man spoken of here? It is everyone prior to being regenerated. Since
there are innumerable things in every one of our evil affections it is clear
that we must rely on the Lord to clear them and remove them from us. The very
least we can do is to keep track of the major ones in the major categories as
we become conscious of them through self-witnessing. You can see that that a
general type of confession and self-examination once or twice a year or month,
is not going to achieve regeneration. Monitoring our willing and thinking hour
by hour every day is necessary and essential for us to become aware of our
general evils. And when we shun our general evils, the Lord is able to remove
the innumerable evils that are attached to every general evil.
For
example, there are innumerable evils attached to being overweight from
overeating and under-exercising. We must take charge of it in our willing and
thinking, day by day, so as to shun the evil delights that cause us to overeat
and under-exercise. To the extent that we struggle under this yoke, trying to
subdue and control ourselves, to that extent the Lord can remove the
innumerable evils that are attached to this general one.
The same
goes for all our daily habits and routines that are from evil affections, such
as our anger, impatience, swearing and cussing, adulterous thoughts, enjoyments
of vulgar entertainment, our bending the rules of honesty and fairness to our
favor, our neglect of duties and promises, and many such things. These are the
things in which are hidden from our consciousness the innumerable evils that
are spiritual fibers tying us to the hells and that are broken by the Lord to
the extent we do our share.
In hell every lust of evil when visually represented appears
like a noxious creature, as a dragon, or a cockatrice, or a viper, or a bird of
night, or an owl, and so on; and similarly do the lusts of evil appear in a
wicked man when he is viewed by angels.
All these forms of lusts must be changed one by one; and the
man himself, who with respect to his spirit appears as a human monster or
devil, must be changed to become like a beautiful angel; and every lust of evil
must be changed to appear like a lamb, or a sheep, or a pigeon, or a turtle
dove, as the affections of good in the angels appear in heaven when visually
represented; and to change a dragon into a lamb, a cockatrice into a sheep, and
an owl into a dove can only be effected step by step, by rooting out evil from
its very seed and implanting good seed in its stead.
This, however, can only be done as is done, for example, in
the grafting of trees. When their roots with some of the trunk remain, the
engrafted branch draws sap through the old root and turns it into sap that
makes good fruit. The branch that is to be engrafted can only be taken from the
Lord, who is the Tree of Life. This, moreover, is in accordance with the words
of the Lord (John xv. 1-7). (DP 296:[2])
Who is the
“wicked man” discussed here? It is us, prior to our reformation and
regeneration. When we are viewed by angels prior to our regeneration, they see
“a human monster or devil,” a dragon, cockatrice , or owl. These are the actual
forms of our lusts or evil affections and delights. Note also that the makeover
from devil to angel, from cockatrice to sheep, can only be effected like it is
done with “the grafting of trees.” We must become physiologically attached to
the Tree of Life, as the Lord calls Himself. We become an “engrafted branch”
that “draws sap through the old root and turns it into sap that makes good
fruit.”
In other
words, the Lord gives us new spiritual affections to replace the old, and
thereby we can live in eternal happiness. The sap we draw is by means of
spiritual fibers in our new will. The old fibers must be uprooted by the Lord,
and we would have no life remaining in us if He did this without our
cooperation. This cooperation must be specific and particular, day by day and
hour by hour, as our willing and thinking is witnessed, analyzed in the light
of Doctrine, condemned in that light, and shunned and detested. When we reach
the point of detesting the old affections and delights, one by one, then we
have a new life from the Lord.
This is a
piecemeal process. Detesting one evil doesn’t make us detest another,
especially when the other is hidden in our subconscious because we care not to
monitor and find it.
A wicked man from himself continually leads himself more and
more deeply into his evils. It is said, from himself, because all evil is from
man, for man turns good that originates from the Lord into evil, as was said
above. The real reason why the wicked man immerses himself more deeply in evil
is that as he wills and commits evil he advances into infernal societies more
and more interiorly and also more and more deeply. Hence also the delight of
evil increases, and so occupies his thoughts that at last he feels nothing more
pleasant. He who has advanced more interiorly and deeply into infernal
societies becomes as if he were bound with chains. So long as he lives in the
world, however, he does not feel his chains, for they are as if made from soft
wool or from fine threads of silk, and he loves them as they give him pleasure;
but after death, instead of being soft they become hard, and instead of being
pleasant they become galling. (DP 296:[3])
Here we are
told that before we are reformed (“a wicked man”) we tend to lead ourselves
more and more deeply into our evil affections, loving them more and more,
feeling them delightful and pleasant like nothing else, by which we are tied
more and more to the hells. As we advance more and more interiorly into
infernal societies, the delight of our evil increases until we become obsessed
with it, thinking of nothing else. Then we are chained to those infernal
societies, though we do not feel the chains until the afterlife. Then these
chains, “instead of being soft they become hard, and instead of being pleasant
they become galling.” Thus is our inevitable perdition and damnation, unless we
undergo reformation, then are willing to suffer ourselves to undergo
regeneration.
It is not known, however, that this increase of delight
comes from a man's penetrating into infernal societies more and more interiorly
and more and more deeply as he commits the evils from will and at the same time
from thought. If the evils are only in thought and not in the will, the man is
not yet in an infernal society with the evil, but he enters it when the evils
are also in the will. If he then also thinks that the evil is contrary to the
precepts of the Decalogue, and considers these precepts as Divine, he commits
the evil of set purpose, and thereby plunges to a depth from which he can be
led out only by actual repentance. (DP 296:[5])
At first we
think about our evil affections, turning them over in our mind as we consider
whether we should do them or not. If we given in and do them, we advance more
deeply into associations with the infernals. Then, if we continue to will them
despite our conscience, we “plunge ourselves to a depth from which we can be
led out only by actual repentance.” Will such repentance come to us? Not
without reformation, and the deeper we are in hell, the less we want to repent
and reform.
The withdrawal from evil is effected by the Lord in a
thousand ways that are most secret. Of these only some have been disclosed to
me, and none but the most general, as, that the delights of lusts of which man
knows nothing are admitted by companies and groups into the interior thoughts
of man's spirit and from these into his exterior thoughts in which they make
their appearance under a certain sense of satisfaction, pleasure, or longing;
and there they mingle with his natural and sensual delights. Here are the means
of separation and purification, and also the ways of withdrawal and removal.
The means are chiefly the delights of meditation, thought
and reflection for the attainment of certain ends which are uses; and ends that
are uses are as many in number as the particular and individual matters of
one's business and office. They are also as many as the delights of reflection
for the attainment of certain ends, as that he may appear to be a civil and a
moral man and also a spiritual man, besides the undelightful things which
interpose. These delights, because they belong to his love in the external man,
are the means of separation, purification, rejection and withdrawal of the
delights pertaining to the lusts of evil that belong to the internal man. (DP
296:[10])
Here we are
given just a few general details about how the Lord removes our evil
affections, which He does “in a thousand ways that are most secret.” The Lord
supervises this process very closely since it will determine whether we end up
in heaven or in hell. First He admits some particular delights of lust into our
interior mind of which we know nothing. This is done through the intermediary
of evil societies. From there they are admitted into our exterior mind where we
become conscious of them, feeling them as “a certain sense of satisfaction,
pleasure, or longing.” There they mingle with our natural delights and sensual
pleasures. At that point we can voluntarily deny them and reject them because
they are contrary to our conscience or the Doctrine we have from the Writings.
In this way, to the extent that we shun them in our external mind, the Lord can
remove them in our interior mind.
The separation of
profane and holy ideas when thus conjoined cannot be effected except by means
of such infernal torment that if a man were aware of it he would as carefully
avoid profanation as he would avoid hell itself. (AC 301)
21. Relationship
Between Interior Evils And Exterior
The
difference, as well as relationship, between the interior evils and exterior,
are described next:
Take, for example, an unjust judge who regards gains or
friendship as the ends or uses of his office. Inwardly he is continually
engrossed in these, but outwardly his object is to act as a skilled lawyer and
a just man. He continually delights in meditating, thinking, reflecting and
framing intentions that he may bend, turn, adapt and adjust the right so that
it may still appear to conform to the laws and bear a semblance to justice. He
does not know that his internal delight consists of cunning, fraud, deceit,
clandestine theft and many other evils; and that this delight, composed of so
many delights of the lusts of evil, rules in every detail of his external
thought, where he harbors the delights of appearing to be a just and sincere
man. Internal delights are let down* into these external delights and they are
mingled like food in the stomach; and there they are separated, purified and
drawn away. This, however, is done only with the more grievous delights of the
lusts of evil. (DP 296:[11])
“An unjust
judge” refers to our constant desire to criticize others in our own mind. We do
not show this on the outside because our goal is to gain friends and influence
through the relationship. Inwardly, we are continually preoccupied with this
goal, but outwardly we strive to appear sincere and altruistic. We continually
delight in “meditating, thinking, reflecting and framing intentions.” We do
this by “bending, turning, adapting and adjusting” every little move so that
our secret goal may not be discovered. What is amazing is that we “do not know
that our internal delight consists of cunning, fraud, deceit, clandestine theft
and many other evils; and that this delight, composed of so many delights of
the lusts of evil, rules in every detail of our external thought, where we harbor
the delights of appearing to be a just and sincere man.”
This is our
undoing. We look away from ourselves that we may not see the delights of our
evil intentions in our interior mind. We are content to go by our reputation,
and believe that, or pretend to. So at the conscious plane (“outward
thought”)we think of ourselves as sincere and good, but at the subconscious
plane (interior mind), we seek out the delights of our evils such as
selfishness, egotism, arrogance, insincerity, manipulation, dominion.
Now when we
are regenerating, the Lord “lets down” the interior delights of evils into the
outward consciousness where they commingle with the delights of appearing of
sincere and altruistic. They mix “like food in the stomach, and there they are
separated, purified and drawn away.” In this way our interior delights of evils
are removed by the Lord to the extent that we are willing to give up the outer
delights of evil. Our cooperation is necessary because before the Lord can draw
them away we must become aware of them and repent by desisting.
But this is
done differently before and after reformation. In the next portion, “a wicked
man,” as before, refers to our state prior to reformation, while “a good man”
refers to our state after reformation when we are being regenerated.
With a wicked man no separation, purification and removal is
possible other than of the more grievous from the less grievous evils. With a
good man, however, there can be the separation, purification and removal not
only of the more grievous but also of the less grievous evils. This is effected
by the delights of the affections of the good and the true, of the just and of
the sincere, into which he comes so far as he regards evils as sins, and so
shuns and turns away from them, and still more if he fights against them. These
are the means by which the Lord cleanses all who are saved. (DP 296[12])
In other
words, prior to our reformation, removal of interior evil delights cannot take
place. But after reformation, the Lord can remove all our evil delights to the
extent that we cooperate. This means loving to be sincere and good, regarding
evil delights as sins, desisting from engaging in them, and fighting against
them until our delight in them turns into detestation. This the mechanism by
which the Lord saves everyone. It’s clear from this that our primary task in
regeneration is to cooperate with the Lord in this mechanism, and this
cooperation must be in all the details of our conscious willing and thinking,
not just in their general.
22. Do We
Need To Confess Our Sins?
An article
in the July 2002 issue of New Church Life
by Rev. Erik Sandstrom examines the question of how “we tackle our spiritual
life or regeneration” (p. 284). His short answer is, “By finding our hereditary
evils!” (p. 284). He cites AC 4317, which I’m citing below in context:
[Hereditary evil] consists in willing and hence thinking
evil; hereditary evil being in the will itself and in the thought thence
derived; and being the very conatus or endeavor that is therein, and which
adjoins itself even when the man is doing what is good.
It is known by the delight that is felt when evil befalls
another. This root lies deeply hidden, for the very inward form that receives
from heaven (that is, through heaven from the Lord) what is good and true, is
depraved, and so to speak, distorted; so that when good and truth flow in from
the Lord, they are either reflected, or perverted, or suffocated.
It is from this cause that no perception of good and truth
exists at this day, but in place of it, with the regenerate, conscience, which
acknowledges as good and true what is learned from parents and masters.
It is from hereditary evil to love self more than others, to
will evil to others if they do not honor us, to perceive delight in revenge,
and also to love the world more than heaven; and from the same source come all
the derivative cupidities or evil affections.
Man is ignorant that such things are in hereditary evil, and
still more that they are opposite to heavenly affections; and yet it is
manifestly shown in the other life how much of evil from what is hereditary
each one has drawn to himself by actual life, and also how far he has removed
himself from heaven by evil affections from this source. (AC 4317)
Let’s list
the point in each sub-section in the quoted passage:
(1) Every
individual is born with hereditary evil which lies in the will. These evils in
the will are the source of falsities in our mind, the two always going
together.
(2) The
carrier of this hereditary evil is the “very inward form” of the will, which is
the source of all our motives, interests, and delights. As a result of this
spiritual deformity, the good and truth inflowing into our mind from the Lord
through heaven, “are either reflected, or perverted, or suffocated.”
(3) The
result of this physiological malfunctioning is that “no perception of good and
truth exists at this day.” In place of perception we have dictates from the
conscience inwardly, an outwardly from parents and teachers. Following these
dictates is called spiritual obedience. Note that it is not a rational
understanding that produces the obedience but fear of punishment and desire for
reward. This is an external obedience rather than a free choice from love and
rationality.
(4) We inherit
the love of self in the will so that we love others less than ourselves, and
only when they “honor” us or agree with us. this love of self is the source
that leads to all the “derivative cupidities or evil affections” in our
character.
(5) When we
arrive in the afterlife it becomes manifest that we love self alone, and others
only to the extent that they honor us or agree with us. Otherwise we hate them
and desire to cheat them, to dominate them, to abuse them, or to destroy them.
These hatreds and monstrosities are hidden from our conscious awareness while
we are still tied to the physical body. And yet everyone is able to become
aware of them by self-monitoring their thoughts and feelings.
Knowing
that we are all this way, for there are no exceptions (xx), we ought to be
strongly motivated to monitor our willing and thinking all day long, so that we
may become aware of our actual evils in operation. We must witness ourselves in
order to discover when and where we wish for something bad to happen to
someone, or when we feel envious of someone’s good fortune, and how we use our
imagination to delight ourselves with denigrating others and ignoring their
expectations, needs, or requests to us.
Those who
are still in an external state of religion sometimes need or desire external
absolution rituals for their sins by someone trusted or in authority. They are
encouraged to make lists of their sins and to confess them one by one,
receiving absolution for each. But you can see that no one can take away sins,
not even the Lord. If the Lord could, He would take away everyone’s sins and
would admit each to heavenly bliss to eternity. Such is His Divine Love. Such
is His ardent desire for the human race. But He is prevented for the sake of
the individual. Should He try to remove evils, He would damage us far worse
that the evils do. We would be left without life at all (xx). This is because
our evils are our life, since humans are inmostly nothing but their loves and
affections (xx). Therefore the Lord cannot remove sins or evils from any
individual.
This is why
the Lord has provided a way that is feasible, practical, and fully effective
for every human being who wishes to use it. This is called regeneration.
In
regeneration we cooperate as-of self with the Lord by choosing to reject a
particular evil that delights us or fulfills our needs. This is what makes it
possible: our choosing to reject it. Whatever we do in freedom is done from
love (xx) and therefore it is a higher rational love that makes us reject lower
evil loves. As a result, in the afterlife, we arrive with a mind filled with
rational loves, within which we can live as a heaven, because the Lord’s good
and truth flows in from within these rational loves.
It’s clear
from these considerations that the
(a) by
performing uses in everyday work situations (NJHD 126)
(b) in
every office, in every business, and in every work (NJHD 123, 126)
(c)
according to one’s occupation (TCR 580; AC 2364; AE 1180)
(d) by
reflecting on the goals we are reaching for (DP 296)
(e) by
dealing with unpleasant things which interrupt (DP 296)
Rev.
Sandstrom emphasizes those Numbers that teach that it is not what we say in
public to others that determines what we actually are inside. It is not our
reputation with others that determines our spiritual fate in the afterlife, but
how we thought to ourself privately. These private reactions and thoughts
correspond to our actual affections, those that we have with us in the
afterlife and determine out spiritual fate.
When we
operate in the company of others, we tend to think in our external personality.
We want to be consistent in what we show to others, and we want to hide those
things in us that would draw their condemnation or rejection. The people we
don’t care about because they have no power over us, are sometimes made targets
of our hatred and arrogance. But we hide these insanities from those whose
reactions would affect our situation. We also show some of our evils and
negativity, but carefully selecting only those that we can get away with
without excessive cost or punishment.
If we act
in a decent or compassionate manner towards others, we derive social benefits,
but to derive spiritual benefits as well, we must be acting from a rational
love. For example, we might refrain from doing evil to someone out of fear or
for the sake of some reward. This is an outside or natural motive, and does not
constitute a spiritual renunciation of evil. Hence the evil remains, and in the
afterlife it asserts itself, and we become that evil. But if at the same time
we also refrain from doing evil on account of God, we derive full spiritual
benefit. In the afterlife, this love of not doing evil to others on account of
God, can be infilled with heavenly good and truth, so that that individual
enters heaven and lives there.
We are
privately confessing to the Lord our sins against Him, by self-monitoring our
willing and thinking all day long for the sake of our regeneration. It is the
Lord who manages the timing and content of our awareness and insight into our
sins or evils. If we started telling Him about them, it would be pretending
that He doesn’t know them, or that He is not in charge of managing them. This
would be a foolish pretense. What the Lord wants us to do is to monitor the
evil affections and delights, and their false thoughts and attitudes. He brings
them to our conscious awareness to the extent that we are willing to desist
from them because they are sins against Him. He keeps out of our awareness
those evils we are not ready to give up willingly.
But note carefully: We do need to
make lists of our sins, not for the priest, not for the Lord, but for
ourselves!
It’s very
important to have a scientific or medical perspective on regeneration, for this
knowledge helps us to cooperate more with the Lord. The slow down is not on the
Lord’s side. He would go more rapidly. But we are holding Him back like a
toddler at a street crossing—you end up picking up the child and carrying it
across. But the Lord cannot pick us up and carry us to heaven, or else He
would, do not doubt that! So He has revealed to us in a scientific way what the
process entails and how we are to cooperate for maximum pace. For instance, He
has revealed that He cannot remove sins clinging to us by our love, so He wants
us to voluntarily desist from it and to detest it. Then He can remove it. So
this is rule number one. Rule number two has to do with the direction of our
progression. We cannot move from the general sins and evils to the particular,
but only from the particular to the general (xx).
In other
words, if we confess and repent of a general evil in us, the Lord cannot remove
it. This is because the particulars are still in place. But if we desist from
willing a particular evil, the Lord can remove it. And if we desist from a
group of particular evils that cluster together into a general evil, then the
Lord can remove the general evil after all the particulars had been removed. If
the Lord could remove a general evil directly, then all our sins could be
removed instantaneously merely by saying, “Lord I repent of all my sins and
from now on I will refrain from all my evils.” But this is a useless prayer
(xx). It effects nothing toward our regeneration. Obviously, since the Lord
cannot remove the particular evils we hold on by mere pronouncement of a
formula, even if it is meant sincerely at the moment of the prayer. Remember
that removing evils has to do with replacing an evil love with a rational love.
And love is what we freely do, if nothing prevented (xx).
I have
observed the truth of this in myself. When it comes to conjugial affairs, my
wife brings to my attention things in my behavior or attitude by which she
feels my opposition to conjugial union. For example, I have postponed reading
some financial papers she wants me to read so we can discuss certain matters of
investment, insurance, and retirement pension. Each time she brings the matter
up I feel repentant and promise to do it at last. In the morning I think to
myself that I’ll do it in the afternoon. IN the afternoon I tell myself I’ll do
it in the morning. How pathetic! It’s obvious as I think about it that what I
need to do is to monitor the particulars of this general evil in my character.
As long as I don’t locate the particulars that allow me to play this foolish
game, I will not be able to lay away the general. which means that the bad behavior
continues even now. (I’ll definitely do it tomorrow, I mean it. Help Lord!)
23. Without
Self-Monitoring Our Evils They Cannot Be Removed
Regeneration
involves freely rejecting our evils even though they delight us tremendously.
It is not possible to reject our own evils by the group or collectively, as
just discussed. It is only possible to reject them one by one. Therefore if we
don’t make lists, how are we going to keep track of them so we may reject them?
This is a practical issue. If we run a department store without an inventory,
can we succeed? We must identify something before we can sell it or reject it.
Therefore we should use the method of making lists and inventories of our evils
and falsities just as we make lists of things to do on a busy day.
No one can shun that
of which he is ignorant
(DP 278)
Regarding
confession, Rev. Sandstrom cites DP 278, to support the idea that “confessing
ourselves guilty of all kinds of evils can have a potentially disastrous
consequence” (New Church Life, p.
287). I’d like to quote that Number in a larger context, while I summarize each
point in numbered items:
II. EVILS CANNOT BE REMOVED UNLESS THEY APPEAR.
**(1) The title of the Number asserts that the Lord
cannot remove our evils in secret or unconsciously. Removal of evils is a
conscious and cooperative process, more like lifting a heavy furniture by two
men, than surgery performed while being put to sleep by drugs. This is what’s
meant by the expression “unless they appear.” To continue the quote:
This does not mean that man is to do evils in order that
they may appear, but that he is to examine himself, not his actions only, but
also his thoughts, and what he would do if he were not afraid of the laws and
disgrace; especially what evils he holds in his spirit to be allowable and does
not regard as sins; for these he still commits. (DP 278)
**(2) The cooperative process is between the Lord and
the individual. First, we ought to “examine ourselves.” It is specified that
the self-examination focus must be threefold: (a) our feelings or motives in
the will; (b) our thoughts and beliefs; and (c) our public acts as regulated by
society (“the laws and disgrace”). In other words, we are commanded to examine
our minute by minute willing, thinking, and acting out. It is stressed
(“especially”) that we monitor the “evils we hold in the spirit to be allowable
and do not regard as sins.”
What are
these particular types of evils? The evils we “do not regard as sins.” For
example, we may have long standing habits of thinking about others in a
derogatory way. We never bring this out to the surface and would not want
others to know about it. We see it as merely an inward habit that you won’t
allow to have overt consequences. Just a kind of quirk—we might think. But this
is fooling ourselves. We should use the definition of the Word for it, not our
own, namely, “evils he holds in his spirit to be allowable and does not regard
as sins.”
To continue
with the Number:
In order that man may examine himself an understanding has
been given him, and this separate from the will, that he may know, understand
and acknowledge what is good and what is evil; and also that he may see the
quality of his will, or what it is he loves and desires. In order that he may
see this his understanding has been furnished with higher and lower thought, or
interior and exterior thought, to enable him to see from higher or interior
thought what his will is doing in the lower or exterior thought. This he sees
as a man sees his face in a mirror; and when he sees it and knows what sin is,
he is able, if he implores the help of the Lord, not to will it, but to shun it
and afterwards to act against it; if not wholeheartedly, still he can exercise
constraint upon it by combat, and at length turn away from it and hate it. (DP
278)
**(3) Here the Lord is revealing the method He has
provided for the human race to be regenerated for a life in heaven. From being
born infernal, every individual can be regenerated into an angel by the time
one passes on. The method is a psycho-physiological one and involves two phases
or movements repeated numerous times daily during regeneration. The human race
received a split-brain to reflect this two-phased process regeneration (xx). I
call it metanoid self-witnessing. The passage here describes it as “higher and
lower thought, or interior and exterior thought.”
The higher
thought can see the lower thought “as a man sees his face in a mirror.” The
higher thought refers to the level of thinking in our natural-rational understanding.
The lower thought refers to the sensuous and corporeal mind, which are discrete
degrees below the natural-rational region of the natural mind. Higher level
thinking is accomplished by means of higher correspondences, also called more
interior truths. Lower level of correspondences are sensuous and corporeal, not
rational. Therefore the lower self, called the external man, is filled with
evils from its inherited ties to the hells. It cannot regenerate itself for to
the lower self, whatever feels good is good. Pleasure rules and the proof is
always in the pudding.
But the
higher self, meaning the natural-rational, takes up cognitive constructs and
representations for life, for heaven, for regeneration. Most of all, the Letter
of the Writings, which the natural-rational takes up in its memory, concepts,
and principles. The dictates and distinctions of conscience, and the knowledge
of the Letter of the Writings, create a higher natural understanding that can
look down on the lower natural understanding, and evaluate it, judge it,
condemn it; and then, repent from it, compel the lower to desist from it, and
at last detest it. This is the process of regeneration the Lord has provided
for the salvation of the human race.
24. Six-Phased Process of Removing Evils
Note how
the entire process of regeneration is recapitulated at the end of the quote
above that we are now discussing:
when he sees it and knows what sin is, he is able, if he
implores the help of the Lord, not to will it, but to shun it and afterwards to
act against it; if not wholeheartedly, still he can exercise constraint upon it
by combat, and at length turn away from it and hate it. (DP 278)
(a) with
self-monitoring from the higher to the lower, “he sees it.”
(b) from
knowledge of the Letter of the Writings, he “knows what sin is.”
(c) by
imploring the Lord for help, he is given the power “not to will it, but to shun
it .”
(d) after
being able to shun it, he gains the power “to act against it.”
(e) by
acting against it, “he can exercise constraint upon it by combat” from
conscience
(f) by
repeating these steps many times, we “at length turn away from it and hate it.”
This
six-phased process is cumulatively particular to an evil, and then its
consummated and ends. For example, men have a pornographic interest in women
who enter their sphere of vision, either in reality or by medium of photography
or movie. Even after undergoing reformation, and as I’m undergoing regeneration
at age 64, I have not yet gained control over my roving eyes. Movie producers
and magazines editors take advantage of this general interest men have in
voyeuristic and scortatory interests. It is also a primary mode for marketing
many products to men such as automobiles, clothes, weight loss programs, and
financial investments, etc. Year after year, week by week, I have worked to
decondition my roving eyes, and I’m still failing in the attempt. I know I will
have victory. I’ve been stuck on step (e), namely, I exercise “constraint upon
it by combat” form conscience and from the Doctrine from the Writings I have in
my upper mind. But I have learned the last step to “at length turn away from it
and hate it.”
But at the
end, when I get to hate scortatory interests and delights, I will have peace IN
THAT LIMITED AREA OF REGENERATION. I will not have to fight the battle again,
once I hate scortatory involvements.
This is the
case with all our evils. Regeneration is therefore a geographic process like
the growth of plants and populations, spreading in different areas at different
rates and with various effectiveness, force, or virulence..
To continue
with the Number:
Now, and not before, he first perceives and also feels that
evil is evil and that good is good. This then is what is involved in examining
oneself, seeing one's evils and recognizing them, confessing them and
afterwards desisting from them. (DP 278)
**(4) When we reach vastation of a particular evil,
have fought against it, and no longer do it, then, “and not before, we first
perceive and also feel that evil is evil and that good is good.” This is a
momentous event! For the first time our eyes are opened to spiritual
consciousness. From a merely natural animal-human, we turn into a genuine
human, a celestial mind. We no longer choose to do that particular thing because
it is evil. This is true freedom (xx). We can see the contrast.
Before, we
were slave to the evil. It made us do the evil even while we were trying not to
do it. Thus we were in an infernal freedom to do it, which is a slavery of it.
To perceive that “evil is evil and that good is good” is the mark of the
celestial regenerate mind. The unregenerate mind perceives evil as good and
perceives good as evil (xx). This momentous event marks the birth in our mind
of the Divine Human in His Divine Rational. This birth repeats itself endlessly
with each particular evil that is vastated and removed. In place of the former
evil is good from the Lord that comes to us through our Spiritual Doctrine.
Note that the Spiritual Doctrine likewise has to be particular and geographic,
for there has to be a Spiritual Doctrine for each area and sub-region of our
personality.
To continue
with the Number:
[2] As, however, there are few who know that this is the
Christian religion itself, for only they have charity and faith, and they alone
are led by the Lord and do good from Him, therefore something will be said of
those who do not do so and yet think they have religion in them. They are:
1. Those who
confess themselves guilty of sins of all kinds, and do not search out any one
sin in themselves;
2. Those who from
religious principles omit such inquiry;
3. Those who on
account of worldly matters give no thought to sins, and consequently do not
know them;
4. Those who
favor sins and therefore cannot know them.
5. In all these
persons sins do not appear, and therefore cannot be removed.
6. Lastly, the
reason hitherto unknown will be made manifest why evils cannot be removed
without this search, appearance, acknowledgment, confession and resistance. (DP
278)
25. Conditions That Prevent Removing Evils
**(5) This portion of the Number we are discussing
states the conditions we must remove from our mind or else we cannot be
regenerated because evils in us cannot be recognized. There are four such conditions
preventing regeneration:
(a) relying
on a ritualistic and general confession of sins rather than on self-monitoring
and judging particular sins we actually commit
(b) using a
principle, doctrine, or dogma to reject the necessity of constant self-monitoring
and condemning of each sin in particular
(c)
rejecting the central importance of religion in life, and thus neglecting to
examine oneself
(d)
favoring sins as allowable or as not damning
Continuing
with the Number:
These points, however, must be examined one by one because
they are fundamentals of the Christian religion on man's part.
First: Concerning those who confess themselves guilty of
sins of all kind and do not search out any one sin in themselves. Such a one
says, "I am a sinner; I was born in sin; there is nothing sound in me from
head to foot; I am nothing but evil. Good God, be gracious to me, pardon me,
cleanse me, save me, make me to walk in purity and in the way of
righteousness"; and so on. Yet he does not examine himself, and consequently
is ignorant of any evil; and no one can shun that of which he is ignorant, much
less fight against it. After his confession he also believes himself clean and
washed, when nevertheless he is unclean and unwashed from the head to the sole
of the foot; for the confession of all sins is the lulling to sleep of all, and
at length blindness. It is like a universal lacking every individual, and this
has no existence. (DP 278)
**(6) the fundamental or governing principle in the
Continuing
with the Number:
Second: Concerning those who from religious principles omit
such inquiry. They are especially those who separate charity from faith; for
such a one says to himself, "Why should I search out whether there is evil
or good? Why should I search out whether there is evil when evil does not
condemn me; and whether there is good, when good does not save me? It is faith
alone, thought of and declared with assurance and confidence, that justifies
and purifies from all sin; and when once I am justified I am whole in the sight
of God. I am indeed in evil; but God wipes it away as soon as it is committed,
and so it appears no more"; besides other things of a like nature. Who
does not see, if he but opens his eyes, that such are empty words in which
there is no reality, because there is no good in them? (...) (DP 278)
**(7) Note the sentence: “Who does not see, if he but
opens his eyes, that such are empty words in which there is no reality, because
there is no good in them?” We can recognize it easily, that when we never wash
our clothes, they will remain dirty and foul smelling. Similarly we ought to
reason that ritual washings or incantations will not clean the clothes,
therefore will not regenerate our character from being born infernal. We are
not rational when we believe that our sins are forgiven, washed away, taken
away from us by mere declaration of faith, no matter how sincere and well
meaning. Sins are evil habits we delight in, that tie us to the hells. Those
ties must be broken by free choice and combat, or else they remain regardless
of piety and sincerity. No more can sins be taken away by sincerity of faith, than
a fever can be taken away by bogus aspirin. That which is truly sincere, shuns
evils and does not do them.
To continue
with the Number:
Third: Concerning those who on account of worldly matters
give no thought to sins, and consequently do not know them. These are they who
love the world above all things, and admit no truth that would lead them away
from any falsity of their religion. They say to themselves, "What have I
to do with this? It does not enter into my thought." Thus they reject the
truth as soon as they hear it, and if they listen to it they stifle it. They do
much the same when they hear preaching: they retain nothing of it save some few
phrases, but not any of the substance. As they deal thus with truths they do
not know what good is, for truth and good act as one; and from that good which
does not spring from truth there is no knowledge of evil unless it is also
called good; and this is effected by reasoning from falsities. These are they
who are meant by the seed which fell among thorns, of whom the Lord says:
Other seeds fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up and
choked them....
These are they who hear the Word, but the cares of this
world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the Word, so that it becomes
unfruitful. Matt. xiii. 7, 22; Mark iv. 7 [18, 19];** Luke viii. 7, 14.
(DP 278)
26. “To Give No Thoughts To Sins”
**(8) The literal of this passage appears to talk about
others, not ourselves as “the
Leaving
this attitude and orientation behind, we can accept the idea that it applies to
us, and therefore that we should use correspondences to discover how it applies
to us. The Writings assert that the Word cannot be understood without doctrine
(xx). In that case we can ask ourselves: What doctrine do we have in our mind?
And how did we use this doctrine to understand the Writings? And now we can
further as to the logical implications: And if we did not create Doctrine for
ourselves, and used it to understand the Writings, then what did we understand?
Searching the Writings we find the teaching that the Letter of the Word is dead
(xx) and leads to any falsification we desire in support of our evil
affections, thus all sorts of idolatries.
Now we can
perceive a deeper spiritual sense in the original sentence: “those who on
account of worldly matters give no thought to sins.” Now we can perceive that
the expression “worldly matters” is a correspondence for “our understanding of
the Letter prior to reformation.” Also, that the expression to “give no thought
to sins” is a correspondence that signifies the
We can
confirm the spiritual sense we have extracted by correspondence. Consider this
passage in the Letter of the Writings:
In the Word evils are sometimes called sins, sometimes
iniquities, and sometimes transgressions; but what the specific meaning of each
of them is, is not evident except from the internal sense. The word
transgressions is used for deeds contrary to the truths of faith, the word
iniquities for deeds contrary to the good of faith, and the word sins for deeds
contrary to the good of charity and love. The first two kinds of deeds spring
from a perverted understanding, the last from a wicked will (AC 9156)
This
confirms the idea that the expression of “giving thought to sins” is a
correspondence that signifies self-monitoring our evils for the sake of
amendment and regeneration. The Letter of this passage explicitly defines
“sins” as “iniquities and transgressions.” It is therefore permissible to use
substitution of one for the other since they are in parallel relationship (xx).
“To give thought” is a correspondence for self-monitoring since it requires
focus and awareness for the higher mind to look down on the lower, and judge
its acts on the basis of conscience and the doctrine in our mind from the
Letter of the Writings (xx).
** (9) Note again the portion of the passage discussed
in above:
Concerning those who on account of worldly matters give no
thought to sins, and consequently do not know them. These are they who love the
world above all things, and admit no truth that would lead them away from any
falsity of their religion. They say to themselves, "What have I to do with
this? It does not enter into my thought." Thus they reject the truth as
soon as they hear it, and if they listen to it they stifle it. (DP 278)
Note that
prior to reformation, we “love the world above all things.” When applied to
ourselves, this expression is a correspondence for loving the Letter above
loving the spirit within the Letter. “The world” represents the dead Letter of
the Word (xx). “To love it above all things” signifies that we are in an
idolatrous worship within which there is no internal (xx). The
Prior to
reformation, immersed in the idolatries of the Letter, the
27. “What Have I To Do With This”
The truth
that “leads away” from the falsity of the dead Letter is the truth that the
spiritual sense is to be extracted from the Letter of the Writings.
They say to themselves, "What have I to do with this?
It does not enter into my thought." Thus they reject the truth as soon as
they hear it, and if they listen to it they stifle it. (DP 278)
This refers
to our initial opposition to the idea that the Writings are written by pure
correspondences. This new spiritual Doctrine breaks the idols of our worship.
As long as salvation lies in the Letter, we feel comfortable in our
unregenerate state. We don’t have to face the reality that every sentence of
the Writings is about our regeneration, since salvation is by regeneration, and
everything in the Writings is for the salvation of the human race. By
acknowledging and accepting the idea that the Writings are written in pure
correspondences, we suddenly have the awesome responsibility of searching out
the literal of every sentence, figuring out its correspondences, making a
coherent thesis or doctrine from it, search the Writings again to confirm this
spiritual Doctrine, be enlightened by the Lord, and reapply the new perceptions
to our daily and hourly self-monitoring.
This is an
awesome task and we resist committing to it the more we find out its details.
We “reject the truth as soon as we hear it” signifies our opposition to the
idea that the Word of the Writings is also written in pure correspondences like
the Old and New Testaments. We are unwilling to get near to the idea, enough to
see that the correspondences of the Old and New Testaments are corporeal and natural-sensuous,
while the correspondences in the Writings are natural-rational. When we hear
these facts we “listen to them and stifle them.” In other words, we reject
them.
To continue
with the discussion on the Number:
Fourth: Concerning those who favor sins and therefore cannot
know them. These are they who acknowledge God and worship Him according to the
customary ceremonials, and who convince themselves that any evil which is a sin
is not a sin; for they disguise it by fallacies and appearances, and so hide
its Enormity. When they have done this they favor it, making it their familiar
friend. It is said that those who acknowledge God do this, because others do
not regard any evil as a sin, whereas every sin is an offence against God. But
examples may illustrate this. A man does not regard evil as a sin who in his
desire for wealth makes certain forms of fraud allowable, by reasons which he
devises. The same is true of the man who justifies in himself the spirit of
revenge against his private enemies, or who in time of war justifies plundering
those who are not his country's enemies.
**(10) This passage, when considered through
correspondences applied to our regeneration, discusses our merely natural life
when it is not infilled with the spiritual sense of the Writings, which is the
only sense that is serviceable for our regeneration, and consequently for our
salvation. By remaining in the Letter of the Writings, our understanding of
spiritual topics is called “customary ceremonials” which is a correspondence
for outward worship within which there is no internal, called the Jewish state
of the
The word transgressions is used for deeds contrary to the
truths of faith, the word iniquities for deeds contrary to the good of faith,
and the word sins for deeds contrary to the good of charity and love. The first
two kinds of deeds spring from a perverted understanding, the last from a
wicked will (AC 9156
“Deeds that
are contrary to the truths of faith” signifies that the Letter of the Writings
teach that we must extract the spiritual sense form the Word in order to be
regenerated (xx). This is the “truth of faith” defined in the Letter. Our daily
willing and thinking remain transgressions that are contrary to our
Continuing
with the Number:
Fifth: In these persons sins do not appear, and therefore
cannot be removed. Every evil that does not become manifest nourishes itself
being like fire in wood under the ashes, and like matter in a wound that is not
opened; for every evil that is denied an outlet increases and does not abate
until the whole has been destroyed. Therefore, lest any evil should be shut in,
everyone is permitted to think in favor of God or against God, and in favor of
the holy things of the Church or against them, and is not punished for it in
the world. (DP 278)
**(11) “These persons” refers to the New Church
mind-to-be prior to reformation when we have fallen into New Church idolatries
due to our being immersed in the dead Letter, as just explained. that “sins do
not appear” in this state signifies that our willing and thinking are
transgressions and iniquities, ad explained just above. When we are in this
purely natural understanding and worship, it dos not appear to us that our
willing and thinking are so many sins. Therefore the mind remains infernal and
the
The Lord
has provided for the reformation of the
Note this
life-saving revelation: “Every evil that is denied an outlet increases and does
not abate until the whole has been destroyed” (DP 278). What does “every evil”
mean in the literal? It means that there is no particular evil, weighty or
light, that does not DESTROY THE WHOLE MIND, when left remaining by denial. The
physiology of evil is that it is a defective organic fiber constituting a
portion of the organ of the will, in the same way that the muscles in the wall
of a malfunctioning heart constitute a portion of the heart itself. If there is
a genetic defect causing heart muscle failure, the body will die. But with
evils, we need also to think about a deadly virus or bacteria that kills the
body when receiving a foothold. Even though the virus initially remains in a
single cell, when the time is consummated, and the infected cell has changed
sufficiently, the virus population breaks out and infects more and more cells
until death.
For
instance, at age 64 I’m still overweight by about seven percent or 10 lbs. I’ve
been struggling for decades to monitor the evil affections that lure me into
overeating every day a little bit. In my 20s I was 40 lbs overweight. I
struggled from natural good and conscience to keep the issue of overweight as a
moral issue as well as a health issue fro myself. I could convince myself to go
on a weight loss diet from time to time, losing most of the extra lbs., but
they slowly crept back within a shorter or a longer time. I’m still struggling
with this evil in my character.
Despite my
long standing focus and interest in metanoid self-witnessing I haven’t
sufficiently become aware of the hidden impulses that lure me to eat and punish
me with depression if I refuse to feed my face. So I keep on struggling,
imploring the Lord for help. I receive the answer from within: “You have soap
and water. Go wash your hands and face, and you’ll be clean.”
Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings
from before mine eyes, cease to do evil; Learn to do well.... Though your sins
be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson,
they shall be as wool.... But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with
the sword. Isa. i. 6, 16 [17], 18, 20. To be devoured with the sword signifies
to perish by the falsity of evil. (DP 278)
The Lord is
waiting for me to face the evil of overeating from its particulars, not
generals.
28. Five Summary Steps In Regeneration
To continue
with the Number:
Sixth: The reason, hitherto unknown, why evils cannot be
removed without this search, appearance, acknowledgment, confession and
resistance. In the preceding pages it has been mentioned that the universal
heaven is arranged in societies according to [the affections of good and the
entire hell according to] the lusts of evil opposite to the affections of good.
Every man as to his spirit is in some society - in a heavenly society if he is
in the affection of good, but in an infernal society if he is in the lust of
evil. Man does not know this while he is living in the world, but nevertheless
as to his spirit he is in some society; otherwise he cannot live, and because
of it he is governed by the Lord. If he is in an infernal society he can only
be led out of it by the Lord according to the laws of His Divine Providence,
one of which is that he must see that he is there, must desire to go out and
must himself endeavor to do this of himself. This he can do while he is in the
world, but not after death; for then he remains to eternity in the society in
which he has placed himself while in the world. This is the reason why man is
to examine himself, see and acknowledge his sins and repent, and afterwards
persevere right on to the end of his life. That this is the case I could
establish from much experience even to complete belief; but this is not the
place to set forth proofs of my experience. (DP 278)
(12) Again
the Number summarizes the necessary conditions for our regeneration.
Regeneration is called here the “removal of evils.” The summary of regeneration
is specified now in five steps:
q search
q appearance
q acknowledgment
q confession
q resistance
“Search”
corresponds to performing constant self-monitoring of our willing and thinking.
“Appearance” signifies to locate and identify a particular evil as we perform
it, that is, catching ourselves in the act. “Acknowledgment” refers to
critically examining the particular willing or thinking in the light of our
doctrine that we have in our understanding from the Letter of the Writings.
“confession” means that we are to condemn ourselves on account of this evil,
for performing it over and over again, for loving it, for hanging on to it,
keeping it in our bosom like a cherished monstrosity. Finally, “resistance”
refers to desisting, that is, compelling our lower mind not to continue willing
the evil, thinking it, and loving it.
Note the
sentence: “Every man as to his spirit is in some society - in a heavenly
society if he is in the affection of good, but in an infernal society if he is
in the lust of evil.” This awesome revelation about the vertical community
gives the human race an entirely chained view of itself. This revelation is no
less revolutionary about the human mind than the Copernican revolution was
about the universe. We are dual citizens, and have always been since the
beginning of creation. Upon birth, we have a physical body in some society on
earth, and tied to this physical body, a spiritual mind that is in some society
in the spiritual world.
The
spirit-mind has to grow up and mature like the physical body to which it is
attached by correspondence. The natural portion of the spirit-mind, or its
external form, is built up by sensory input from the environment of the
physical body. Simultaneously, the spiritual portion of the spirit-mind, or its
interior form, is built up by sensory input from the environment of the
spirit-body in the spiritual world. These two sensory input sources are
coordinated by the Lord so that there is no chaos of independent development
and functioning. The spiritual mind develops and receives input from the
spiritual world, to the extent that the natural mind develops and receives
input from the Letter of the Writings, or from instruction based on it.
The mind of
every human being is “governed by the Lord” through the intermediary of the
vertical community (xx). The passage above says
Every man as to his spirit is in some society - in a
heavenly society if he is in the affection of good, but in an infernal society
if he is in the lust of evil. Man does not know this while he is living in the
world, but nevertheless as to his spirit he is in some society; otherwise he
cannot live, and because of it he is governed by the Lord. If he is in an
infernal society he can only be led out of it by the Lord according to the laws
of His Divine Providence, one of which is that he must see that he is there,
must desire to go out and must himself endeavor to do this of himself (DP 278)
There is
only one alternative provided by the Lord, only two states are open to the
human mind, one choice: “Every man as to his spirit is in some society - in a
heavenly society if he is in the affection of good, but in an infernal society
if he is in the lust of evil.” Our heredity predominates us to “the lust of
evil” so that each one of us is “in an infernal society” prior to reformation,
regardless of religion, intelligence, and lifestyle. There are times when we
appear to be animated by some good intention, which we also delight in from
heredity. While we are in this externally good state, we are led by the Lord
through the heavens. The rest of the time we are led by the Lord through the
hells. The Lord cannot prevail upon us to stop loving our evils. He waits and
works in the unconscious background keeping things from getting worse. It’s up
to each of us to begin our reformation by means of the Letter of the Writings
applied to our life.
Rev. Erik
Sandstrom cites DP 278, discussed above in some detail, to warn that
“confessing ourselves guilty of all kinds of evils...may promote them instead,
and blind us to them, to boot.” (Ibid, New
Church Life, p. 287). This refers to “confessing all our problems to
others” and since the Lord already knows all our problems, we don’t need to
confess them to Him either. But we must be careful not to draw the wrong
conclusions! We went over the entire Number, looking for its literal meaning as
well as applying correspondences to it to see how it applies to the
regeneration of our willing and thinking. the point is that confessing every
sin is necessary in order that it may “appear,” that is, in order that we may
become aware of it. Confessing our evils to others and to the Lord is
permissible, but we must know that this has no power to regenerate.
What has
power to regenerate and save is self-witnessing, self-monitoring, and
self-examining every evil the Lord brings to our awareness. And once it
appears, to condemn it and to compel our lower mind not to will it.
Chapter 1, Section 2
A man's mind is his
spirit (DP 296)
As I
practiced the self-witnessing discipline for more than three decades I’m able
to say various things about it that may be useful to others (see Note 20 at
end). My most amazing discovery was the existence of “sudden memory” by which
I’m referring to the stream of thought that is our actual mental life in the
natural mind. This stream of thought is the outward form of our affections (see
Note 19 at end). The quality of our affections is the result of which spiritual
societies we are in contact as the sequence of thoughts proceeds. Through
self-witnessing practice I was striving to “tune in” to the stream while I was
carrying out my tasks all day long. This is not like meditation or deep
reflection which occurs when we stop our tasks and sit doing nothing, thus
disengaged from the surrounding pace.
The stream
of thinking accompanies every act and is a characteristic of human life. I was
able to tune in and listen to some extent, I suppose, for the stream goes fast
and if you try to catch it, it begins to tumble and roll like an avalanche.
It’s as if the conscious filter can hold only so much of it and the rest spills
and dissipates as more keeps coming.
What I
found amazing is that the instant I tried to reflect on what I snatched form
the stream, it would be gone. I could not remember what it was. It’s quite
unsettling. How do I get hold of it or some of it long enough so I can examine
in greater detail? You may be familiar with this experience when, upon
awakening, you are still affectively filled the sphere of your vivid dream, but
the instant you try to reflect on what it is so you can put it in words, it
remains unavailable to the conscious mind, staying just out of its reach—like
the “tip-of-the-tongue” phenomenon researched in psycholinguistics when I was
in graduate school in the 1960s. We were taught that there are two types of
memory: short term and long term. The first lasts for several seconds—like the
phone number we look up and then dial. If we wait more than a few seconds to
dial we have to look it up again. We move things from short term to long term
memory by repetition and rehearsal with the motive to recall it later. Sudden
memory seems to work for a second or two.
I
discovered that I can make myself think in words or sentences as I carry out my
tasks. This is somewhat like giving a “blow by blow” description to an
imaginary tape recorder of what one is thinking. It seems to slow the stream
down for awhile, enough so that my short term memory retains more of it and I’m
able to get a fix on what the topic is and its direction. In short term memory
we can be aware and evaluative, and put anything we want into long term memory
by mentally rehearsing or making a physical record of it. In this way the
mental discipline pays off because it gives access to our normal everyday
affections.
Slowly I
began to exert rational and religious control over my interior dialog, my
daydreams, and my emotional reactions to things moment by moment all day long.
Also, my attitudes and interests. I would stop myself from continuing a line of
thinking: “Stop it. Why are you wasting time thinking these useless things?”
Or: “That’s not a nice thing to think.” Or: “How low can I get to be so
fascinated by that sort of thing?” Etc. This gave me greater conscious
control over my mental life allowing me to clean out the mental pollution
that reigned in it from birth and culture. It is not possible for humans to do
anything without the accompanying thinking stream. By controlling this, we
control a portion of our natural mind. Control of the lower natural mind
(corporeal and sensual) by the higher natural mind (natural-rational) is
necessary for regeneration. To the extent that we do this, to that extent the
Lord can open our interior-natural mind (DLW 248).
This is the
genuine human or celestial mind. It is where our life in heaven is. It is where
the Lord’s Proprium dwells. The highest angels have a direct perception of how
this Proprium comes into them by influx, followed by their as-of-self acting
from it spontaneously and as if from self in full liberty (AC 47, 233, 1712,
2877, 5664, 10299; NJHD 148; DP 102; CL 82; SE 5958; LJ 299; AE 864). This
process is inhibited and destroyed when we do not remove the mental pollution
by our own daily efforts, as-of-self but looking to the Lord for strength.
The
celestial regions have walls and guards (xx) that keep out mental pollution
(strangers and evil spirits) from entering that lofty region or level of
consciousness. Therefore we need to erect such walls and establish guards in
our mind to prevent unholy things from entering and lodging in our mind. Our
culture of entertainment and social cynicism specialize in manufacturing large
quantities of polluted ideas, pictures, and situations. Without vigilance
exercised every hour of our waking time our mind gets inundated by pollutants,
poisons, viruses, and all sorts of unpleasant, sleazy, scortatory, and idiotic
suggestions. The mind is weighted down by them, even sinking into the
corporeal.
Woe to
those who make this their abode for in the afterlife they are captured and
tortured by those who have these same things in them. And the omnipotence of a
loving God cannot deliver them from this miserable lot for to remove them from
it would leave nothing behind for any life by them (AC 5854[3]). Best therefore
that we be diligent and sincere in our efforts at self-witnessing while there
is still time and opportunity.
Have you
listened in on yourself lately? We cannot trust the reputation or opinion we
have of ourselves, for this is subjective, biased, and self-serving. The check
mark we place on rating scales are inflated or deflated in accordance with our
vanities: How good am I? How often do I get mad? Am I ever unkind or gross?
What kind of mistakes do I make? How happy are the people around me with my
conduct? Etc. To answer objectively and accurately we must witness our life.
When I
first discovered sudden memory I was so delighted and felt powerful for the
first time (see Note 19 at end). I really had found something that is universal
yet unknown. A secret of understanding. I immediately felt superior. I was
brave in situations I had been timid. Etc. Until at last I thought I was a god.
I used the concept of avatar I read about and applied to myself. So this is
what it means to be an avatar. I am it. Etc. I started making discoveries and
this was proof that I was a god—see Note 3 for list of discoveries. But the
Writings saved me.
You have to
snatch things from sudden memory into short term memory, and from there you can
write it down or dictate it as a record. You have to put it into sentences,
what you get to see. The sphere of sudden memory is not linguistic but
thought-representations, like spirits think. It’s faster since they think
faster than us. Material brain slows it down. We need this slow down to train
our conscious awareness, which starts slow cause based on sensory input in
natural min d. This is not like a spirit thinks (HH 239). Which means at any
moment we’re but a few hours away from speaking in this thought-language and
thinking faster and more powerfully, yet totally spontaneously. We enjoy being
a spirit, especially at the beginning while we’re still a little in both worlds
and sense the contrast keenly.
I snatched
from sudden memory sphere the sentence “It’s the purpose.” I kept making myself
repeat the sentence with the intentionality of “How is this?” And it kept not
coming to me so I kept repeating it for a whole minute or longer as I went
about cleaning up the kitchen and having a loose dialog with my wife who was
opening amazon.com boxes and reading me the e Ta of C from each. I told myself
I must try to think about it again later. So here I am. What was it all about?
I know it was deep, it was enlightening. In sudden memory I am more consciously
at the level of how the interior-natural mind thinks in the brain of the
spirit-body, not how the natural-rational mind thinks in the brain of my
physical body. Knowing this is pretty good. How many people know this, or can
believe it when they hear it? Only those who are willing to think in dualisms.
And further, they must be dualisms that are not adulterated or modified by
consulting the natural mind. They must be dualisms from the Writings because it
is our only source for genuine spiritual dualities. All dualities are unique permanent
distinctions that never cease to eternity (DLW 226). (see Volume 1)
1. What
Makes Our Life Moments Spiritual
Back to
“It’s the purpose.” I was thinking about what makes our life moments spiritual?
And I perceived in the sphere of sudden memory that everything is interrelated
so that one has an effect on all and all has an effect on one—which is the
sphere of heaven (HH 49). What makes something I do heavenly is the region or
sphere of heaven—when I’m in it and when I’m not. In which case I am in the
infernal spheres, to a smaller or greater distance depending on …here it
comes…the purpose that animates or motivates each and every micro-act I
perform. If my purpose or goal-intentionality is in the heavenly sphere, my act
is spiritual. If not, my act is natural. Some natural intentionalities are
motivated by mild infernal affections that the Lord is able to bend into the
shape of fibers that can contain the heavenly sphere. But other more grave
forms of infernal affections refuse to be re-shaped in that way, and thus we
remain in them.
And still
further, my purpose has to fit the Lord’s purpose. Does it? How? Etc.
So I
understood. It’s the purpose that makes my discipline spiritual and religious.
Didn’t I already know this? Yes, it’s all over the Writings and I’ve been
reading them daily for years. And yet the heavenly secret enclosed in the idea
I take up from the literal remains a secret to the natural consciousness. As a
secret it can only work generally in my character, from a distance, less
effectively. But when the interior of the literal in our memory is opened, the
secret enters into conscious awareness through sudden memory. Then we see
clearly, but until then only in obscurity like the sight in a thick fog whereby
we bump into tress and fall into ditches. This is how our natural mind works,
before it is turned around towards the spiritual mind.
The
spiritual mind is in rational and good order, but the inherited natural mind
and the natural mind instructed by sensory input alone, is not a rational mind
but the opposite. To itself the unregenerate natural mind appears logical and
supremely rational:
With many in the world this does not take place, because
they love the first degree of their life, called the natural, and have no
desire to withdraw from it and become spiritual. The natural degree of life
regarded in itself loves only self and the world, for it clings to the bodily
senses and these occupy a prominent place in the world; but the spiritual
degree of life regarded in itself loves the Lord and heaven, and also itself
and the world, but God and heaven as higher, principal and ruling, and itself
and the world as lower, instrumental and serving. (DP 324:10)
I noticed
things in sudden memory that show how angels are at work in the unfolding of
our moment to moment biography. Their thought and intention descends by
correspondence into the sphere of sudden memory. I snatch something, it’s a
flash, it’s a warning, and my thought becomes conscious of “Careful, easy, keep
your finger away.” Or: “The Lord wants me to be forthcoming and compassionate.
I must overcome this reluctance.” The connectivity between what the angels
think and what I think is specific but correspondential. The thoughts I become
conscious of must feel like my own characteristic or recognizable thoughts. It
would destroy a person’s sanity to experience that one’s thoughts come from
another source (xx). Mystical voyeurism, shamanism, and voodoo spirit
possession rituals relate to non-normal states that in prior dispensations were
normal, but are no longer allowed by the Lord on this planet (HH 249; EU 155).
Direct
communication with spirits and angels used to be routine with the people of the
most ancient Church prior to the evolutionary splitting of the human brain into
two hemispheres (xx). And it has been revealed that this type of communication
may be routine on certain other planets:
The preacher who was with me had no belief at all in the
existence of planets other than our own, because in the world he had thought
that the Lord was born solely on this planet and that without the Lord there
was no salvation. He was therefore brought into a state like the one spirits
enter when they appear on their planet as people - the one described above -
and was then sent to that planet, not only to see it but also to talk to the
inhabitants there. When this had been done, communication from there was
granted to me as well in order that I might in a similar way behold those
inhabitants and also some things on that planet. Spirits and angels can talk to
people, whatever language they speak, because their thought passes into the
ideas in people's minds and so into the words they speak. (AC 10752)
Notice the
sentence, “He was therefore brought into a state like the one spirits enter
when they appear on their planet as people - the one described above - and was
then sent to that planet, not only to see it but also to talk to the
inhabitants there.” It is said here that earthlings can talk to spirits, but
note that the preacher, who was from our earth, was taken to “that planet”
thus, not to this earth. There is no evidence that the Lord ever allows people
on this earth to have a conscious dialog exchange with spirits. Dr. Ian
Thompson (see Acknowledgment and Note 12 at end), while reviewing a draft of
this book, commented in an email exchange:
It is clear that verbal communication with spirits is
possible according to the general laws of order, but that these may be
overruled by the consideration of specific groups of people, such as those on
our earth.
However, it appears that the 'abnormal' people on our earth
can still arrive at mental states in which communication is possible. These are
generally not rational states - so they
do not learn anything of genuine truth - but are altered or upset states of
consciousness - such as with the mentally ill (schizophrenia), or with
those who particularly desire and
cultivate them.
The manner of interaction with spirits in these altered
states is not different in principle from our normal influx from the spiritual
world: In particular, inputs from e.g. hellish spirits with novel contents are
indeed flowing into what you call 'sudden memory', and have to be fought
against in exactly the usual way as above.
What is different about influx in altered/schizophrenic
states are in particular three features:
1) attributed:
the source is attributed to specific spirits. These spirits
are those associated spirits that Swedenborg describes, with (normally)
inactive memory of their own. They are self-motivated, but rely on the person
in the world for memory and sensory input: they talk on the basis of these
memory and sensations. Hence they are very suggestible to ideas about what they
own life is, and will readily agree to being called e.g. Napoleon.
2) into sensory mind:
influx is not only into thoughts (as usual), but also into
the sensory mind. This gives visual and
auditory (etc) hallucinations. (Note: not into the brain or into bodily
organs, but into the sensorimotor mind).
3) more forceful/harder to resist:
the influx in these states is more obviously persistent,
hellish and harder to resist. The Lord
now ensures that resistance is not futile, so these people end up with really
dramatic temptations almost every minute of their lives! This is quantitatively
different from our normal temptations, but is essentially the same process.
Actually, it is not clear whether the hellish influx in
these states is harder to resist than 'normal', because we do not really know
how hard it is for 'normal hellish people' to resist their temptations. Quite
difficult, I should think, if they have no truths to fight with.
None of the above is permitted with those who are on the way
of rational reformation and regeneration, as they are too similar to miracles.
(
Dr.
Thompson suggests here the idea that spirits may inflow into sudden memory. We
can think of sudden memory as an intermediary zone between the conscious and
the subconscious. The affections of spirits are brought into connection with
the sensuous content of sudden memory. The spirits are not specifically aware
that this stream of sensuous consciousness issues from the earthling with whom
they are coupled at any one moment. It may even be that several individuals
contribute to the content from their own sudden memory, somewhat like what you
would get if you read random paragraphs from several books in alternating
sequence. It would not be easy for you to figure out the plot of any of the
books! Similarly with the spirits who are kept in rapid alternating contact
with the sudden memory of several earthlings. They would not be able to figure
out with whom they are!
No doubt
the laws of
2. The Most
Ancients Prior To The Split-Brain Evolution
The other
model, therefore, is that conscious dialog is not allowed ever on this earth at
the present time. Under what conditions it would be allowed, I do not know. The
most ancients prior to the split-brain evolution, did have dialog, though
mostly in dreams rather than in the awake state (AC 597[2]). In the episode
quoted just above (AC 10752), the preacher got enthused about an earthling
woman and grabbed her by the hand, which she withdrew when she realized he was
a spirit.
While the preacher was with those who were clothed, there
appeared a woman of a very beautiful countenance, clothed in a simple garment,
a tunic that hung behind in a becoming way, and was also drawn over the arms;
she also wore a beautiful head covering in the form of a garland of flowers.
Upon seeing this virgin, the preacher was very much delighted, and spoke to
her, and also took hold of her hand; but as she perceived that he was a spirit,
and was not from that earth, she betook herself away from him. (AC 10754)
How is this
possible on a physical earth? Perhaps in the sense that during these
encounters, the spiritual eyes of the earthling is opened, like the shepherds
who saw the Angels at the Annunciation (xx). If the spirits are seen, they are
also heard and sensed in touch. But the seeing and sensing is not of the
physical body but the spiritual body, though the earthling person may not know
this--as in the OT scenes when Angels visited certain individuals:
A CONTINUATION ABOUT THE FIFTH EARTH IN THE STARRY HEAVEN.
It was afterward granted me to speak with these spirits
about their own earth, for all spirits know about this when their natural or
external memory is opened by the Lord, because they bring this memory with them
from the world; but it is not opened except with the Lord's good pleasure. With
regard to the earth from which they were, the spirits then said that when leave
is granted they appear to the inhabitants of their earth and speak with them as
men, and that this is effected by their being let into their natural or
external memory, and consequently into thought such as they had when they lived
in the world; and that at the same time the interior sight of the inhabitants,
that is, the sight of their spirit, is opened, and in this way the spirits
appear to them. They added that the inhabitants know not but that they are men
of their earth, and only notice that this is not the case when the spirits are
suddenly taken away from their eyes.
I told them that in ancient times it was the same on our
earth, as with Abraham, Sarah, Lot, the inhabitants of Sodom, Manoah and his
wife, Joshua, Mary, Elizabeth, and the prophets in general; and that the Lord
appeared in the same way, and that until He revealed Himself those who saw Him
knew not but that He was a man of the earth; but that now this rarely happens,
lest such things should compel men to believe; for a compulsory faith, such as
enters by means of miracles, does not cleave to the man, and also might be an
injury to those with whom faith could be implanted through the Word in a state
that is not compulsory. (AC 10751)
Thus, the reason that conscious rapport with spirits is
never allowed on this earth any more is that such direct awareness takes away
one’s rational, hence one’s spiritual freedom to choose. In the past the
rational did not play that role in regeneration. The result is corporeal
spirituality in the natural mind, while the spiritual mind remains closed. All
who are in this state are infernal (AC 141). Since the dispensation of the
Second coming has now begun only the rational can support spiritual life.
Either the rational must be opened here, or hereafter. When arriving in the
afterlife our mind (spirit-body) must have been grown into a form that can
receive spiritual-rational truths which are more interior than the natural
mind. But the natural mind must have suitable conceptual vessels to contain the
spiritual-rational truths we receive by being instructed when we arrive in the
afterlife (NJHD 51).
Hence the
awesome importance that we take charge of our goals and purposes, and of our
thoughts and reasonings, every day, hour, minute, and second. It has got to go
down to the particular, for the general cannot change unless all its
particulars are changed. We cannot regenerate and prepare the vessels we
need for heavenly life unless we take care of these particulars. Hence the all
importance of self-witnessing disciplines. We must not avoid them.
One of the
great experiences I have several times a day (on some days) is to snatch from
sudden memory the work of the angels who are with me, as with every individual
regardless of religion or belief (xx). Of course today angels cannot be
perceived in the natural world by means of the physical senses of the body—see
the discussion in Chapter 4 Section 5). Sensuous consciousness of spirits and
angels, such as Swedenborg had, would be injurious and therefore is not allowed
by the Lord (HH 249). But rational consciousness of the work of the angels with
us is allowed and encouraged because it is of the Laws of Divine Providence in
the new civilization of the Second Coming (see the discussion in Chapter 4
Section 5).
Rational
consciousness is the level for genuine spiritual truths and celestial Doctrine
in our mind. The Lord’s giving of the Holy Spirit to the disciples represents
the new consciousness of Him that He is creating in the human race. This
rational consciousness replaces the earlier sensuous consciousness of Him. The
New Heavens are in this rational consciousness of the Lord and the workings out
of His Divine Providence.
From this it is evident that by "Moses said, Make me
see I pray Thy glory" is signified the noticing of the internal in the
external of the Word, of the church, and of worship. … To receive the internal
of the church is to receive Divine truth from heaven, and thereby heavenly
love.
(…)
And I will show grace to whom I show grace, and I will show
mercy to whom I show mercy. That this signifies that Divine truth and good
shall be revealed to those who receive, is evident from the signification of
"showing grace," as being to endow with spiritual truth and good,
here to reveal it, because the subject treated of is the internal and the
external of the church, of worship, and of the Word …
(…)
Those who are in external things not separate from what is
internal, can all see the interior things of the Word, of the church, and of
worship, thus they can "see the faces of Jehovah."
(AC 10574)
10581. And it shall be when My glory passeth by. That this
signifies the interior things of the Word, of the church, and of worship, is
evident from the signification of the "glory of Jehovah," as being
the interior Divine things of the Word, of the church, and of worship…. (AC
10522).
Those are said to "see the back parts of Jehovah and
not the faces," who believe and adore the Word; but only its external,
which is the sense of the letter, and do not penetrate more interiorly, as do
those who have been enlightened, and who make for themselves doctrine from the
Word, by which they may see its genuine sense, thus its interior sense. (AC
10584)
We can
apply these passages to the stream of consciousness as we proceed in our daily
willing and thinking. The most immediate awareness of this stream is sudden
memory. But because of the extreme brevity of this awareness, most of us most
of the time cannot capture, cannot paraphrase or describe it, hence, cannot
know it. But with practice, as I have indicated, we can snatch portions of the
script of existence, or book of life. When we do this we become aware of the
internal spiritual meaning within the natural stream of perception and
behavior. This is revealed to us by the Lord, as indicated in the passages
above referring to Moses. It is said that
Those who are in external things not separate from what is
internal, can all see the interior things of the Word, of the church, and of
worship, thus they can "see the faces of Jehovah. (AC 10574)
To see the
“Faces of Jehovah” is to see the Divine Providence in action, or, to see the
internal spiritual things in the sequence of willing and thinking, from which
is doing. This is possible when we apply the Doctrine in our mind that we have
taken up from the Writings. Our willing and thinking is then seen without the
natural cloud and obscurity that is the normal mode of perception and thinking.
When we
snatch a view of the Faces of Jehovah we are seeing the angels at work in our
life. I have noticed this numerous times but it goes by so fast that it’s hard
to hold on to it and make a record of it. This is why I follow the
self-witnessing principle “If you think it, ink it.” For instance, I’m about to
go inside the house and notice a leaf floating in the pool. I bend over and try
to reach it, but it floats out of my reach. I pick up the net stick and reach
for the leaf with it. The leaf is headed to the other side of pool so I walk
around to reach it and do. But then I see the chlorine container which reminds
me to take a look to see how much is left. It’s completely empty. That shocks
me since I thought I had another two days before I need to add more chlorine.
Still, I feel happy that I was reminded through the leaf. Then I thank the
Lord’s Divine Providence for making it happen. Then I realize the angels served
as intermediaries. And I thank the Lord for that.
Over the
years I noticed that I can hear the warning of angels just before I commit a
mistake but choose to ignore it. A second later I can no longer remember the
warning. Then I make the mistake and become aware of it later, when facing the
consequences of forgetting something, or putting something back, or not writing
it down as a reminder, or not setting the timer properly, or eating something I
shouldn’t have, etc. Numerous times a day we come across a warning from the
angels that we ignore and then pay for. I learned to respect these warnings,
the majority of times. I make myself do it, do it properly, or do it rightly. I
then reap the benefits of staying out of trouble and enjoying predictable routines
and events. In addition to these benefits there is also the closeness I feel to
the Lord knowing the details He takes care of with every individual every
moment to eternity.
Be it known that the Divine Providence is universal, that
is, in things the most minute; and that they who are in the stream of
Providence are all the time carried along toward everything that is happy,
whatever may be the appearance of the means; and that those are in the stream
of Providence who put their trust in the Divine and attribute all things to
Him; and that those are not in the stream of Providence who trust in themselves
alone and attribute all things to themselves, because they are in the opposite,
for they take away providence from the Divine, and claim it for themselves.
Be it known also that insofar as anyone is in the stream of
Providence, so far he is in a state of peace; also that insofar as anyone is in
a state of peace from the good of faith, so far he is in the Divine Providence.
These alone know and believe that the Divine Providence of the Lord is in
everything both in general and in particular, nay, is in the most minute things
of all … and that the Divine Providence regards what is eternal …
[5] But they who are in the opposite are scarcely willing to
hear Providence mentioned, for they ascribe everything to their own sagacity;
and what they do not ascribe to this they ascribe to fortune or chance; some to
fate, which they do not educe from the Divine, but from nature. They call those
simple who do not attribute all things to themselves or to nature. From all
this again it can be seen what is the quality of those who have care for the
morrow, and what the quality of those who have no care for the morrow. (AC
8478)
To
acknowledge the Lord’s Omnipotence from religion is to be “in the stream of
Providence” in a general way. To witness the sequence of events in which
we participate through the awareness of sudden memory is to be in “in the
stream of Providence” in a particular way. This witnessing of the Lord’s
3. Self-Witnessing
Sudden Memory As A Spiritual Discipline
When you
begin to practice self-witnessing sudden memory as a regeneration discipline
you come face to face with inherited ties to evil spirits. It’s not a visual
“face-to-face” communication but a mental one involving the organs of the will.
Neither the spirits nor you are aware of each other consciously so that the
contact is by correspondence only. If anyone tells you about having actual
direct communication with spirits, the
It is
required for our regeneration that we react to what we observe about the
ceaseless stream of our willing and thinking.
It is the rational in fact that coordinates everything in
the natural, and in accordance with that coordination fittingly regards the
things that are there. Indeed the rational is like a higher faculty of seeing
which, when it looks at facts belonging to the natural man, is like someone
looking down on to a plain below him. The light of that faculty of seeing is
the light of truth, but the origin of that light rests with the good present in
the rational. (AC 3283)
It is said
here that the rational self can monitor what the sensuous and corporeal self is
thinking or willing. This is the essential method of regeneration that the Lord
has provided to the human race after the most ancient peoples destroyed
themselves through “dreadful” idolatries (xx). The new human race after that
received a split mind so that the understanding could be elevated to heavenly
light even though the will remained unregenerate and infernal (xx). By this
means, we can learn the heavenly truths from the Word, understand them in an
enlightened state, and make a choice to compel our sensuous and corporeal self
to obey and to desist from committing evils and thinking falsities. This has
become the means of regeneration for the
Anyone can know that thoughts are led or tend in accord with
the intentions, that is, in the direction that the man intends; for thought is
man's internal sight, and resembles the external sight in this, that to
whatever point it is directed or aimed, thither it turns and there it rests.
Therefore if the internal sight or the thought is turned towards the world and
rests there, it follows that the thought becomes worldly; if it turns to self
and self-honor it becomes corporeal; but if it is turned heavenwards it becomes
heavenly.
So, too, if turned heaven-wards it is elevated; but if
turned selfward it is drawn down from heaven and immersed in what is corporeal;
and if turned towards the world it is also turned downwards from heaven, and is
diffused upon the objects that are before the eyes. (HH 532)
This passage
shows that anyone can perform self-witnessing or self-monitoring of the thoughts
and the intended outcomes we desire with our affections. The stream of thinking
of the sensuous self is automatic and proceeds spontaneously as we cope with
the moment by moment demands of living and doing. We can examine this
spontaneous stream by directing our focus on it in a metanoid stance, looking
down upon the stream of thinking like on a plain below. IN this way we inform
ourselves of the content and quality of our thinking and willing all day long. Willing
is an act. Thinking is an act. We are responsible for all our acts. Therefore
we are responsible for our willing and thinking acts, each one of them,
thousands of them by the hour, every day. We
are nothing but the cumulative collection of those acts. Such as these acts
are, such are we, when we arrive in the afterlife.
Man's love is what makes his intention and determines the
sight of the internal man or the thought to its objects; thus the love of self
fixes it upon self and its objects, the love of the world upon worldly objects,
and the love of heaven upon heavenly objects.
So when the love is known, the state of the interiors which
are of the mind can be known, that is, the interiors of one who loves heaven
are raised towards heaven and are opened above; while the interiors of one who
loves the world or who loves himself are closed above and are opened outwardly.
From this the conclusion follows that if the higher regions
of the mind are closed above, man can no longer see the objects pertaining to
heaven and the Church, but those objects are in thick darkness to him; and the
things in thick darkness are either denied or not understood. This is why those
who love themselves and the world above all things, since the higher regions of
their minds are closed, in heart deny Divine truths; and if from their memory
they say anything about them they nevertheless do not understand them.
Moreover, they regard them in the same way as they regard
worldly and corporeal things. And being such, they are able to direct the mind
to those things only that enter through the senses of the body, and in these
alone do they find delight. Among these are also many things that are filthy,
obscene, profane and criminal; and these cannot be removed, because into the
minds of such no influx from heaven is possible, since their minds, as just now
said, are closed above. (HH 532)
You can see
from this that our consciousness, or life orientation, is such as the content
is of our willing and thinking hour by hour all day long. This content can
originate solely from the sensuous and corporeal self, in which case the
willing and thinking is purely natural, having no spiritual dimension that we
can appropriate. Or, the content of our willing and thinking can be based on
the rational self that has taken up the scientifics of the Letter. The scientifics
of the Writings contain all the spiritual topics of the Heavenly Doctrines.
Even though we understand them naturally, at first, even this natural way of
understanding them is rational, and therefore a discrete degree above the sensuous
thinking an dwelling. Unless we modify our sensuous thinking by means of these rational
concepts, we cannot be regenerated. Those who arrive in that state in the
afterlife can receive nothing of heavenly light, and have a lot with the
infernals.
[3] Man's intention, by which his internal sight or thought
is determined, is his will; for what a man wills he intends, and what he
intends he thinks. Therefore if his intention is heavenward his thought is
determined heavenward, and with it his whole mind, which is thus in heaven; and
from heaven he beholds the things of the world beneath him like one looking
down from the roof of a house.
So the man who has the interiors of his mind open can see
the evils and falsities that are with him, for these are below the spiritual
mind. On the other hand, the man with whom the interiors have not been opened
is unable to see his evils and falsities, because he is not above them but in
them.
From these things it can be concluded whence man has wisdom
and whence insanity, also what a man will be after death when he is left to
will and think and to act and speak in accordance with his interiors. All these
things also have been said that it may be known what the quality of a man is
interiorly, however he may seem outwardly to resemble others. (HH 532)
These
sentences show how essential it is for the
We first
need to face heavenward by taking up the sentences of the Writings into the rational
understanding. This is facing heavenward because the Writings are the Lord, and
heaven is where the Lord is. Then we must look down upon our lower natural mind
“like one looking down from the roof of a house.” From that perspective and
light, we “can see the evils and falsities that are with us.” These evils are
the evils that we are willing, and these falsities are the falsities that we
are thinking. Without the Letter of the Writings in our rational mind we cannot
evaluate the stream of our thinking and willing because “because we are not
above them but in them.” What allows us to be “above them” is the heavenly
light, which refers to the sentences of the Writings in our natural-rational
understanding.
4. Filled With Blasphemous Thoughts And Curiosities
To react to
what we observe is to make an evaluation of our willing and thinking. This evaluation
is from a rational level, looking down, while the stream of thinking we are
observing, is from a sensuous or corporeal level. An analogy might be standing
on a bridge and looking down on the flow of a semi-transparent river and
inspecting its contents—stones, fish, plants, debris. These things represent
the content of our mind—knowledges, truths, and falsifications of truths. The
flow of the river is the sequencing of the thoughts, their reasoning and
coherence.
THAT CRUEL SPIRITS AND ADULTERERS LOVE NOTHING MORE THAN
FILTH AND EXCREMENTS.
(((((I have
spoken) previously of this [fact] that to such spirits, filth and excrements
are very pleasant, so that they prefer the pleasantness of beholding such
things to all other pleasantnesses, and not only filth and excrements, but also
foul, loathsome, and horrid intestines of animals, to that degree, that when
they act through man they snatch away all his interior sense, as also [his]
sight, to such things, because they, are delighted therewith.
This also was
shown me by manifest experience; when I walked in the street, they carried away
my eyes to all such things; wherever there was filth, excrement and intestines,
thither they directed my eyes, although I was ignorant where were such things
in the street, because not observed by me. Still they saw these, whilst I was
wholly unobservant, and thither directed my eyes, either to [my] side, or about
[my] feet, or near and farther from thence; and the did not turn my eyes to
anything else. (SE 2843)
Monitor
your eyes as you walk on the street or as you read a magazine or watch TV. The
eyes respond to our interest, to our affections, to what we find delightful. As
your eyes roam they settle on this or that object, body part, detail. The eyes
are quick. You have to catch yourself and become conscious of where they settle
for how long, and where they keep coming back to. These eye movements will
reveal interests and delights that we do not wish to publicize because they are
filthy and scortatory, as the passage above describes. As Swedenborg walked in
the street, the spirits with him “carried away my eyes to all such things;
wherever there was filth, excrement and intestines, thither they directed my
eyes, although I was ignorant where were such things in the street, because not
observed by me.” Monitoring our eyes will reveal to us what filthy things are
of interest to us form heredity. These filthy interests are not our own
affections, they are the affections of the filthy spirits. But we are tied to those
spirits by heredity and the filth remains with us unless consciously removed.
Since spirits take possession in that way of all that forms
a person's thought and will, and angels take possession of what is even more
interior, so that he is joined very closely to them, the person cannot avoid
the perception and sensation that he himself is the one who thinks and wills. .
(AC 6193)
Our
inherited connections with evils spirits cause our minds to be filled with
blasphemous thoughts and curiosities.
Anyone who is
governed by bodily and worldly love, and not at the same time by spiritual or
by celestial love, does not have any but evil spirits with him, even when
external holiness exists with him. Good spirits cannot in any way be present
with such a person, for they perceive in an instant the kind of love which
governs a person. There is a sphere emanating from the interior parts of him
which the spirits perceive as plainly as man by his sense of smell perceives
offensive and foul odors floating around him in the air. (AC 4311)
I remember
that I was only six years old when I first became aware of blasphemous thoughts.
I recall part of the episode since it was so dramatic: I was walking home from school
and I couldn’t stop thinking blasphemies about God. I became very agitated and
started running as a way of making it stop. That is all I can remember. In
adolescence I put religion away from myself and whatever blasphemy I performed
was hidden and restricted to cussing in imitation of the people around me.
Since I was living in French Canada I was surrounded with people who cussed
using words from the sacred worship of their Catholic religion. Also, Jewish
people cussed using the Lord’s Name in vain, and I adopted this habit as a way
of feeling like an adult. It is ironic that for years I would say the word
“Christ” perhaps a dozen times a day and not think anything about what it
means.
There are with
every man at least two evil spirits and two angels. The evil spirits excite his
evils, and the angels inspire things that are good and true. (AC 904)
For the nature
of all communication in the next life is this: In a community in which people
are alike, each thinks that what is another's is his own. When therefore people
who are good go into a heavenly community they instantly enter into all the
intelligence and wisdom of that community, entering into it so fully that they
know no other than that such things exist within themselves. This is also how
it is with man and a spirit present with him. The things that flow in from
spirits from hell are evil and false, but those which flow in from angels from
heaven are good and true; and through these opposite kinds of influx a person
is held in the middle, thus in freedom.
(…)
Evil spirits …
are angry if they are told that their thoughts and desires do not begin in
themselves, because that idea is contrary to what their loves lead them to be
delighted with. And they are all the more angry when they are told that life
does not exist independently in them but flows into them. (AC 6193).
When I
became a Christian in my forties, I was filled with terror on occasions when I
forgot myself and used the Holy Names of the Lord in vain. I punished myself
with guilt and remorse until at last I stopped all cussing, either with the
Holy Names or with vulgar expressions that demean women and conjugial love. I
then also started practicing self-witnessing sudden memory and I was shocked
and horrified to observe sequences of blasphemy in my thinking. This was before
I was led to the Writings and so, I did not know that we are with evil spirits
through our inherited connections.
Anger is a
general affection resulting from whatever is opposed to self-love and its
cupidities. This is plainly perceived in the world of evil spirits, for there
exists there a general anger against the Lord, in consequence of evil spirits
being in no charity, but in hatred, and whatever does not favor self-love
[amori proprio] and the love of the world, excites opposition, which is
manifested by anger. (AC 357)
Even after
I knew about the vertical community from the Writings (see Chapter 7 Section
6), I experienced my blasphemous thoughts with shudder and panic. The
unpleasant experience receded as soon as I began to have a better understanding
of the purpose why the Lord allows them in my mind. I saw that they are
spiritual temptations brought to my awareness so that I can reject them
voluntarily in my reformed mind. My childhood was a period of absorption of the
verbal blasphemy performed by the adults in my family and cultural environment.
It was part of growing up and becoming like others in the community.
This
conduct reinforced and confirmed the anti-God orientation of the evil spirits.
People showed much inventiveness in how efficiently they can chain together
long strings of blasphemies of all kinds, and usually relating to God, one’s
mother, and sexual or scortatory activity of the most vulgar and perverse kind.
These confirmed blasphemies in our mind then come to haunt us when we approach
heaven through the Writings. The spirits who are kept by the Lord in
communication with our interior mind react vehemently and with much blasphemy,
as witnessed by Swedenborg:
Unless they
[evil spirits] are given the opportunity to revile the truth, and indeed to
blaspheme it, they cannot live (AC 1695)
Evil … spirits
rush into insanities both from the hatred they bear against the Lord, and from
their infernal suffering, and catch at such phantasies. (SE 458)
THAT EVIL
SPIRITS ESPECIALLY HOLD INFANTS IN HATRED.
… The reason
is, because they hold in hatred the Lord, who alone is Innocence. - 1748, June
10. (SE 2284)
It is
important to realize that what comes into the mind from the evil spirit
societies is not damning or a sin. I was able to stop blaming myself by no
longer identifying with those awful snatches of thoughts. These were not my
ideas, but theirs! I was not the one with affections for blasphemy; it was
them! But at the same time I was led to understand that it is my responsibility
as to how I react to them. My reaction is what comes out of the mind, and for
this I am responsible. Do I just continue being a host to them and letting them
use my house, or do I boot them out?
The spirits
with man, however, are changed in accordance with the changes of his
affections; thus, there are some spirits with him in infancy, others in
boyhood, others in youth and manhood, and others in old age. (HH 295).
If they are
lovers of self or lovers of gain, or lovers of revenge, or lovers of adultery,
similar spirits are present, and dwell, as it were, in their evil affections,
and man is incited by these, except so far as he can be kept from evil by good
spirits, and they cling to him, and do not withdraw, so far as the evil
affection prevails. (HH 295)
Those who are
not led by the Lord not only act in partnership with evil spirits, but even
arouse the evil spirits to action, because they believe their desires and
thoughts are their very own; while those who are led by the Lord are aroused by
the evil spirits, and the Lord acts to keep them from consenting. This too is
the belief of those who are led by the Lord. (SE 1591)
And so I’ve
found metanoid self-witnessing to be very useful in becoming aware of thoughts
in my mind that were correspondences to the evils of the spirits who were
connected to me. The instant the blasphemous content starts flowing, I judge
and condemn it. Thus judged, they flee back into their caves, and the Lord can
break the spiritual connections, replacing them with better ones. Thus we make
progress in our regeneration.
Evil spirits cannot be with those who believe in the Lord
It has been shown before that evil spirits are distressed
and tormented when angels look into them ... It is almost the same when a
person on earth has faith, or is kept in a state of faith by the Lord. Then
evil spirits cannot approach, but likewise begin to feel distress, and want to
flee away. Several times I have heard them complaining and lamenting, when they
were in the presence of faith. 1748, 16 May. (SE 1966)
In the conflicts brought about by temptations evil spirits
are permitted to draw forth all the evil and falsity residing in a person, and
to fight from that person's evil and falsity. But once they have been overcome
they are no longer allowed to do so, for, being within that person, they
instantly perceive that good and truth have been confirmed. Such perception
exists more completely with spirits than with men. From the very sphere of a
person confirmed in truth and good they recognize in an instant what the
situation is, what response they will get, and much else. This is quite clear
in the case of a spiritual and regenerate person, with whom evil spirits are
present just as much as they are with one who is not regenerate; but with the
regenerate person they have been subdued and are subservient. (AC 1695)
For more
discussion on our association with evil spirits see the vertical community in
Chapter 7 Section 6.
5. The
Natural Mind Must Be Compelled To Realign Itself
The life of
regeneration is a never ending struggle against the inherent opposition between
the natural and spiritual mind (AC 8961). Regeneration progresses to the extent
that the natural mind is compelled to realign itself to be congruent with the natural-rational
concepts we take up from the Writings. The natural mind’s nondualities are
turned into categorical dualities that are suitable for containing spiritual
truths from influx. Spiritual truths have no other source. They come into our
conscious life by correspondence to the extent that the external concepts from
the Writings are loved and willed in daily life. Disciplines of self-witnessing
allows us to monitor our daily life which is constructed out of sequences of
feelings, thoughts, and acts. The content of our threefold self can be
witnessed, sampled, recorded, examined, and used as objective information on
where we need to make the changes for regeneration (see Note 20 at end).
The
The
directionality of our thinking is constrained by the affections living in our
will. The Lord cannot hook us up to good spirits whose influence would cause
our thinking to end up in a place that we reject as strange and not of our own.
We only accept as our own the thoughts we can love. Therefore the Lord is
constrained by our loves, and can only exert so much influence before it is
detected by our inherent opposition. Should we detect the Lord’s forceful
operation in our mind we would instantly be infuriated against Him and reject
Him creating a much worse situation for ourselves. Hence the Lord’s infinite
love for us compels Him to restrict what societies He can hook us up with
moment by moment, bending the affections and thoughts towards good, but never
forcing:
The Lord never forces anyone, for nothing to which anyone is
forced appears as his own; and what does not appear to be his own cannot be his
love's, and so be appropriated to him as his own. Therefore man is led by the
Lord continually in freedom, and is also reformed and regenerated in freedom.
(DP 43; see also: AC 3348, 1079; AE 151; SE 2012).
Whatever is
done for the sake of the end, namely, salvation, is according to the laws of
the Divine Providence. For, as was said before, the Divine Providence, keeping
this end continually in view, is constantly moving in ways different from and
contrary to man's will. Therefore, at every moment of its operation or at every
step of its progress, when it perceives man to deviate from this end, it
directs, bends and disposes him in accordance with its laws by withdrawing him
from evil and leading him to good.
There are
thousands and thousands of arcana, of which scarcely a single one is known to
man, whereby a man is led by the Lord out of the life of hell into the life of
heaven. (AC 9336)
It will be seen in what follows that this cannot be done
without permitting evil. Moreover, nothing can be permitted without a cause,
and such a cause is only to be found in some law of the Divine Providence which
explains why it is permitted. (DP 234)
Self-witnessing
disciplines become religious and spiritual when we turn to the Lord for
strength and capacity out of a motive for cooperating in our regeneration. It
becomes a holy discipline. Therein lies the holiness of the religious life. As
I have practiced self-witnessing disciplines for years I can present some of
the observations I was able to make about myself. You will see that what
applies to one individual also applies to others since we share heredity and
culture.
As I
monitor my threefold self in the stream of behavior I notice many things that
are in place in my habit routines and mental scripts. One large area to witness
is food behavior. What are my thoughts? What procedures do I follow? Do I
follow rules or merely cravings? How do I decide when to start, when to stop?
How fast do I put things in my mouth and in what sizes? Do I swallow what’s
there before I put more in it? Do I chew adequately? Do I dislike exerting
control over how fast I eat and how much? Do I exert a veto power over my
cravings? Etc. The monitoring of these sequences is equivalent to a mapping of
the spiritual societies we are connected to. For instance if we stuff and
swallow repeatedly we are with different spirits than if we moderate size and
rate. If we deny ourselves another portion we are with different spirits than
if we give in to our appetite and overeat. Affections for unhealthy foods come
from different spiritual societies than affections for healthy food.
One arouses
spirits of the same character and feeling as oneself.
That a person's
states are changing day by day, every hour, even every minute, is obvious.
Therefore, there are very many states of understanding, and states of feeling.
Now there is something dominant in each person, and no matter what state a
person slips or comes into, there are spirits who had had the same ruling
passion in their life interacting and cooperating. So they are not always the
same, but many different ones, and all of them think they are the person; in my
case, only that they were with me. (SE 1928)
Another
large area of daily self-witnessing is the behavioral sequences we chain when
doing something physically. As I get dressed I observe when I decide what to
wear, how I take off what I’m wearing in the house, and how I put the clothes
on. I had a habit of taking my shirt off by pulling it off my head in one rapid
motion. When the shirt was tight or had buttons I would often rub my eye in the
process. My eye eventually started having an unpredictable twitch that would
last for a few minutes at a time. My wife heard about it and urged me to
moderate myself and be more rational about it. I must not use brute force. I
must do it in two stages, head first, then shoulders and arms. I resisted this
for a long time and kept injuring my eye. Today I have a little more control
over the process and my eye sopped twitching. But it continue to be a conscious
discipline and I remind myself that I have to get rid of the affections that
keep me hooked to the bad spirits that enjoy my distress.
While doing
repair and cleaning tasks around the house I observed myself with numerous
illogical and stupid ways of doing many details. I would try to work on
something that was located at the extreme point of my reaching, doing it
inefficiently, resisting the logic of getting the step ladder. Many such
details occur in the course of an hour of work. I seem to follow the principle
of “least effort” as the standing operational procedure for all my movements. I
also take risks that are foolish and cause trouble. I would throw something,
and miss, instead of walking it over. I would try to pick up a leaf on our pool
deck, bend down as I walk, miss it, try to grab it again, miss it again, and
finally stop and pick it up. A similar illogic animates my behavior routines
when I vacuum the carpets. When I’m being with good spirits I take care to get
things off the carpet that are going to be in my way. When I’m being with bad
spirits I try to move the things with one had as I keep pushing the vacuum with
the other, an ineffective and dangerous procedure that interferes with the
cleaning and gives me muscle stress or injury.
I also
witness myself doing what I had seen my father do for years—get mad at objects
while manipulating them. At some point of trying to screw something or unscrew,
or fit into something else, he would swear and kick and smash as if some
frenzied spirits had suddenly invaded his mind. Now this insane script repeats
itself through me. But I put a stop to it. I make myself stay with the good
spirits who inspire deliberate caution, prudence, and rationality in the
sequence of my thoughts, and motions.
When I
stand waiting for someone to finish talking, I automatically lean against the
wall or some furniture in a slouching position. Now I have trained myself to
stand up straight, chest up, stomach in, breathing regularly. It took years of
daily strengthening disciplines like brisk walking, working resistance bands,
Yoga, and Somatics. Now when I stand, I stand straight with the affections that
bring good spirits around. I also monitor my face, that it may be appear
pleasant to the onlooker. I watch my face in the mirror as I go by and find my
expression compressed downward as if I’m worried or tired. So I reset it out of
a motive to be in the company of better spirits. Whatever these affections are
that create a hardship expression on my face, are affections that I cannot
bring with me to heaven. Therefore I must practice now to get rid of them.
I believe
that physical and mental disciplines, when the motive is spiritual, are
excellent methods of preparation for our regeneration because they foster the
growth of a suitable natural-rational area in our
To many
people it smacks as un-American not to want to be first in any contest one is
in. Psychotherapists and counselors present the view that we should be rational
about it, as expressed in this type of attitude: “I would like very much to
win, but if I don’t, I’m not going to cry over it.” This intelligent principle
of the natural-rational mind is not yet a spiritual motivation, though many
people have trouble doing even this much. How many people have you encountered
who are sore losers, or else, depressed ones? Many indeed.
Conquering
and discarding the irresistible desire to be first is a useful mental
discipline for the
All who have had
conscience are saved; but they who have had no conscience cannot be saved. (AC 5145)
Chapter 1, Section 3
As it is desirable that the origin of perception, internal
dictate, and conscience, should be known, and as at the present day it is
altogether unknown, I may relate something on the subject. It is a great truth
that man is governed by the Lord by means of spirits and angels. When evil
spirits begin to rule, the angels labor to avert evils and falsities, and hence
arises a combat. It is this combat of which the man is rendered sensible by
perception, dictate, and conscience. By these, and also by temptations, a man
might clearly see that spirits and angels are with him, were he not so deeply
immersed in corporeal things as to believe nothing that is said about spirits
and angels. Such persons, even if they were to feel these combats hundreds of
times, would still say that they are imaginary, and the effect of a disordered
mind. I have been permitted to feel such combats, and to have a vivid sense of
them, thousands and thousands of times, and this almost constantly for several
years, as well as to know who, what, and where they were that caused them, when
they came, and when they departed; and I have conversed with them. (AC 227)
Every human
being is equipped with “perception, internal dictate, and conscience” (AC
1043[2]). These functions of the inner mind are produced by our
correspondential interaction with spirits and angels. We can be consciously
aware of the effects of these interactions on our thinking and willing moment
by moment in our daily activities. It’s important to know the psycho-physiology
of these interactions and the more details we learn the better we can manage
them. The human mind is not a static repository of memories and drives or
needs. A better model would be to think of the “online mind” as when we are
“being online” with the computer, surfing the Internet. In order for you to be
connected to the World Wide Web your computer must be networked or hooked up to
another computer called a “server” owned and run by an “online service
provider.” These companies charge you for keeping your computer connected to
the network.
There are
many networks connected together by this industry so that it is global.
Millions of computers around the world are thus interconnected into one grand
network, able to interact by text, by images, by voice, by video. Some of the
images, text, voice and video recordings, are on your computer. You can view or
hear them when you’re not online since they are permanently stored on your personal
computer, and you can access them at any time any number of times. But most of
the text and recordings in the global network are not on your personal
computer—they are on other people’s computers. In order to access or view them,
you must be online.
The lower
part of your mind is called the natural mind. It is below the spiritual mind.
These two portions of the mind are discretely different: they operate
differently, on different principles, made of different materials. They can
interact through the laws of correspondences. But within each portion of the
mind, the interaction is not by correspondences, but by direct contact and
communication. The natural mind is similar to the online computer with global
network connectivity. Its connection to the natural world is by direct contact,
but its connection to the spiritual world is by indirect correspondence. We are
therefore dual citizens. A horizontal
or direct connection to everything in the physical world, and a vertical connection to everything in the
spiritual world. Therefore what is going on in our mind is not static from what
is deposited there, but dynamic from our constant interactions with the
horizontal network and the vertical network.
The mind is
never inactive, even during sleep. The two organs of the mind—will and
understanding-- are always active, just like the right and left hemispheres of
the brain. The brain’s activity is electro-chemical, that is, physical, but the
mind’s activity is sensory and rational, that is, spiritual. The mind is also
called the spirit-body (DLW 391).
The
spirit-body of every human being is created along with the physical body, and
is connected to it. The Lord is the Manager of these connections (HH 112). He
makes sure that the connections don’t get mixed up! The same spirit-body, or
mind, must be connected to the same physical body as long as the person still
lives on earth. But in the afterlife, the spirit-body is no longer connected to
the physical world. The Lord also manages the universal network of human beings,
past and present, all of whom live in the spiritual world. Those who are still
connected to a physical body are also in the spiritual world since the mind, or
spirit-body, cannot descend into the physical universe. It is born in the
spiritual world, and never leaves it.
The Lord
manages the countless numbers of people who have ever been born on the
countless earths in the universe. He interconnects them so that in His eyes
this entire network is joined together into the shape and form of a human being.
This universal network is called the Grand Human (or Grand Man), and Swedenborg
has been given to see it also so that he may describe it for us and be a
witness that it does indeed exist (EU 9; AC 684, 1276).
Theistic
science will in the future be able to describe many of these details by
extracting them from the Writings. Some of the details we can read in the
literal of the Writings, but most of the rest is hidden and must be extracted
by appropriate analytic procedures of rational thinking as specified in the
Writings. Since the Writings are the Word, they are written in a style that
accommodates the infinite Divine Truth of the Lord. There are more truths hidden in the Writings than can ever be extracted
by the cumulative human race forever (xx). Clearly, Swedenborg could not
know or understand most of what lies hidden in the sentences that He composed
under the guidance of the Lord. This is also true of the sentences composed by
the prophets and writers of the Old and New Testaments. The writers could not
know what was hidden or located inside those sentences. Only the Lord could
know and knows, for He is the infinite Divine Truth by which everything created
is made of.
The purpose
of being born on earth is that we can develop our natural mind which then
allows our spiritual mind to also develop. These two minds must be formed
together in order for us to be able to live as angels in heaven. This is the
Lord’s purpose in creating the universe, namely, to have the earths be
incubators for angles in the heavens. The heavens are so formed and arranged
that its inhabitants can live a perfect life to eternity. The Lord’s Divine
Love is the motive for this purpose. The Lord desires with infinite power and
intensity to create angels whom He can make perfectly happy. For in this
activity His Love finds fulfillment.
1. Creating
More And More Angels
The whole angelic
heaven consists solely of the Divine Truth which proceeds from the Lord, the
reception of which makes angels (AE 594)
How does
the Lord achieve His purpose of creating more and more angels? Why does He not
create every human being full fledged, an angel in heaven? Why does He first
make human beings divided, physical body on earth, spirit-body in the spiritual
world? The general answer is that He does everything in accordance with His
Order, which is rational and consistent. We need to understand why this idea
just mentioned is a human idea that is not fully rational. An angel in heaven
who is created full fledged is not a rational idea. Perhaps a robotic angel
could be created this way, but not a human being who has a sense of total
freedom and selfhood.
All
happiness of life can exist only in an angel who has a sense of freedom and
selfhood, of identity and purpose different from another angel. An angel must
have a history, a biography, unique experiences, in order to feel free and a
self. Thus, every angel is unique due to this cumulative experience of
selfhood, and this to eternity (DP 334).
This sense
of self-generated freedom and cumulative identity or personality requires
therefore social life, birth into a family or society, an environment that
provides variable sensory input, and a mind that is self-conscious of itself,
willing and thinking moment by moment, and thus accumulating experiences and a
biography. This life cannot be created in one fell swoop, by fiat, by
pronouncing a Divine Word. It must develop from beginning to eternity. By
deeper studies of the Writings you will be able to understand why this
individual life cannot be produced solely in heaven, and thus why there must be
a dual universe: natural and spiritual. We are thus born on some earth in the
universe, are connected to a physical body for awhile, then we are cut off from
the physical universe at death and then live eternally in the spiritual world.
This is
also the reason why the spiritual world has the outside appearance of the
natural world. Our spirit-body is developing all along through our sensory and
rational experiences while connected to the physical body. It would be mighty
strange and impossible to then all of a sudden lose everything that is
contained in the spirit-body! What is our sense of selfhood and freedom if by
death the spirit-body is thrown into a coma of unconsciousness? There is not
selfhood other than the biography we have accumulated since birth and through
our physical activities on earth. The people we have known and loved, the
activities we have learned to do and desire, our set of unique preferences and
thoughts—these have all come into existence through the physical body and our
social life on earth. They cannot be taken away altogether, for then nothing is
left.
And so it
is inevitable and rational that the appearance of the spiritual world and
spirit-body be like the appearance of the natural world and physical body.
Heavenly inhabitations are therefore like earthy ones, but more magnificent by
many orders of difference. The environment of heaven is kept in perfect order
by the Lord since it is a spiritual environment, but the environment on earth
is not. Hence there is disorder in the physical universe.
The Lord
creates the physical universe and body to allow the possibility of disorder,
and He also maintains the disorder that does develop in strict bounds or
limits. These limits are called the Laws of Permissions (DP 234). No disorder
can come into existence except that which is allowed by these Laws of
Permissions. If you study the Writings you will learn about these laws through
the history of civilizations or “Churches.” These historical developmental
details are also applicable to the individual biographical details of every
human being. In order to become an angel, our spirit-body must develop and go
through these various stages or phases which are described in the historical
developments of the human race. The development of the individual’s mind
recapitulates the evolution of civilizations (AC 10225).
The early
generations on this earth belonged to the civilization of the
Today we
are part of the fallen generations and the Lord has provided new ways by which
we can live our life on earth in preparation for heaven. In this fallen state
our physical and spirit body must develop in a an environment of disorder. From
heredity our two bodies are filled with disorder that is maintained by our
connectivity to evil spirits as well as angels. Upon death of the physical
body, the spirit-body starts conscious life in the spiritual world. All sorts
of disorder have formed this spirit-body, thus there are both good and evil
spirits. Good spirits are those whose spirit-body can be regenerated, which
means that the disorder can be removed by the Lord without destroying the individual’s
sense of selfhood. Evil spirits are those whose spirit-body cannot be
regenerated, which means that the disorder cannot be removed by the Lord
without destroying the individual’s sense of selfhood.
Good
spirits can be prepared for life in heaven by further experiences in the world
of sprits, located midway between heaven and hell. Evil spirits can be prepared
for life in hell. Hell is the environment the Lord creates through His Laws of
Permissions. Various sorts of disorder are allowed in order to create an
environment that would accommodate the many varieties of evil lusts and insane
fantasies. In this way, the evil spirits can continue to have a sense of
selfhood and freedom. They live in the hells forever since they are immortal
and since they are unable to give up the disorder that makes up their
spirit-body. In hell they are called devils, satans, genii, sirens, and many
other names depending on the disorder of their character.
While our
spirit-body is still connected to the physical body we are able to undergo
regeneration if we agree to cooperate with the Lord in this healing and
purification process. The Lord cannot remove disorder in us unless we agree to
it. If He removed them without our agreement we would lose our sense of freedom
and selfhood, hence our happiness of life as human beings. The Lord therefore
labors with every person to achieve cooperation. The more cooperation we give,
the more He can regenerate us, that is, remove the inherited and acquired
disorder. Nothing is more crucial
therefore than learning how to cooperate with the Lord in our regeneration!
The confession of the
Lord and the acknowledgment of His Divine in His Human is the life of all
truth, both in the Word and in doctrine from the Word. (AE 392)
2. External
And Internal Methods Of Cooperation
The Lord
provides two methods for this cooperation, one external, the other internal.
The external method is through learning truths from revelation called “the
Word.” The internal method is through perception, internal dictate and
conscience, as described in the passage quoted above. By acquiring Doctrine of
Life in our understanding from the Word, we can be reformed so that we can lay
aside the false ideas in our mind from culture and self-intelligence. By
compelling ourselves to obey the inner dictate of conscience, we can be
regenerated gradually until all disorder is removed from our active
personality. By these two methods our spirit-body develops a new constitution,
one that can live in heaven where only order can exist. Any disorder left in
the active personality makes it impossible for us to live in the environment of
heaven. It is crucial therefore that we use every moment of life on earth,
every day and every minute of the hour, to continue this process of reformation
and regeneration.
The Lord gives us awareness of the
disorder in us bit by bit. He very carefully manages this process so that we
never feel like we are forced or compelled by Him, but only by our self. Our reformation and regenerating
proceeds day by day seemingly through our own effort and choices. Of course
there is no power in the universe except the power of the Lord. And so we must
keep in mind that our efforts as-of self are required but that it is the Lord
who supplies all the power for the effort and the change. If we forget this we
are going to assume that the power is ours, and this is a disorder of insanity
or fantasy, hence we cannot be reformed and regenerated. Neither can we say to
the Lord, “You go ahead and do it for me or to me.” This would also be a
disorder of insanity. So there is no
other way but to compel ourselves to act in accordance with conscience and the
truths we derive from the Word.
To act
means to will and to think. Our physical body merely does what we are willing
and thinking moment by moment. And so the focus of regeneration must be on
willing and thinking. You can see that
there is no reformation and regeneration without self-witnessing, that is,
without monitoring your stream of willing and thinking moment by moment.
When you are monitoring the moment by moment stream of willing and thinking,
the Lord makes sure that you become aware of a particular disorder in you. This
conscious awareness is brought about by temptations. There are natural
temptations, spiritual temptations, and celestial temptations (AC 847[2]). We
must learn what they are from the Word. The way we must handle these three
types is different. Each requires its own healing procedure.
[2] There are many kinds of temptations, which are in
general the celestial, the spiritual, and the natural; and these ought never to
be confounded. Celestial temptations can exist only with those who are in love
to the Lord, and spiritual ones with those only who are in charity toward the
neighbor. Natural temptations are altogether distinct from these, and indeed
are not temptations, but merely anxieties arising from natural loves being
assailed by misfortunes, diseases, or a depraved condition of the blood and
other fluids of the body. From this brief account it may in some degree be
known what temptation is, namely, anguish and anxiety occasioned by whatever
opposes one's loves. Thus with those who are in love to the Lord, whatever
assails this love produces an inmost torture, which is celestial temptation;
with those who are in love toward the neighbor, or charity, whatever assails
this love occasions torment of conscience, and this is spiritual temptation.
[3] But with those who are natural, what they frequently
call temptations and the pangs of conscience, are not temptations, but only
anxieties arising from their loves being assailed, as when they foresee and are
sensible of the loss of honor, of the good things of the world, of reputation,
pleasures, bodily life, and the like; nevertheless these troubles are wont to
be productive of some good. Temptations are moreover experienced by those who
are in natural charity, and consequently by all kinds of heretics, Gentiles,
and idolaters, arising from assaults on the life of their faith which they
cherish. But these are distresses that merely emulate spiritual temptations.
(AC 847)
You can see
from this that a temptation is a warning or distress signal we receive when the
Lord brings us into conscious awareness of a disorder in our willing and
thinking. To acquire a moral character we must remove the immoral within us.
This we must do as-of self by experiencing a conflict in our mind. This
conflict is the result of an actual battle that surrounds our spirit-body in
the spiritual world. Evil spirits approach our spirit-body and infuse into it
evil desires and insane thoughts. This infusion process is quite common when
spirits congregate together or come near to each other. As a result of this
infusion or influence, our mind becomes active with the particular disorder that
characterizes those spirits. The Lord connects and disconnects our association
with evil spirits, moment by moment, bringing near certain evils spirits at
certain times, and keeping others away.
The Lord
decides at which point we are ready and willing to deal with a particular
disorder. He then brings around the evil spirits whose character relates to
this particular disorder in us. We are then conscious of this disorder. We feel
it as a desire or need or motive or purpose. It is in our will and we have the
strong desire to engage in it, to follow it, to identify ourselves with it, to
become it. Simultaneously, the Lord brings around good spirits or angels, and
they engage the evils spirits in combat. They use truths of the Word in our
understanding to fight this struggle.
You can see
from this description what a temptation is. Our mind, or spirit-body, is
surrounded by evil and good spirits engaged in a fight. The weapons of combat
are the truths and falsities in our spirit-body from experience and inheritance.
The Lord carefully manages the combat so that we have the maximum chance of
winning. We can still lose if we insist on identifying with the falsities
activated by the evil spirits. For example, I suddenly feel an impulse to get
up from this typing and go to the kitchen and eat some more chocolate. I
already had some chocolate just a few minutes ago, but now I want some more.
This is the sign that the Lord has approached certain evils spirits that excite
my mind to eat more than I want to. This is a disorder in me from childhood,
very familiar. I would be obese by now if I gave in to it. Certainly it has
caused me to be overweight for many years. Being obese or overweight is a
disorder. If I arrive in heaven with this disorder, I cannot enter it and my
eternal happiness.
So I must
rid my character of this disorder. I think about denying myself for the sake of
my diet, rationally chosen, and for the sake of maintaining order. This is a
sign that the Lord has approached good spirits. And now the combat of
temptation is on. I am in it. Whether I win or lose depends on my free choice.
Consider
another example. As I’m typing this one of my cats enters the room (the other
two are already asleep). He does the usual thing, trying to engage me in his
ritual. He makes a characteristic sound behind me. That is his demand. Now my
temptation begins. I don’t want to stop writing and go ritualize with him. I
ignore him, hoping he will go away. This is a disorder of my willing which is
activated by the evil spirits the Lord has approached to my spirit-body in the
spiritual world. I feel a pang of guilt. I love my cat and I don’t want him to
feel rejected and unhappy. He depends on me for services like feeding,
scratching, grooming, and playing. This is his life, his happiness, and I’m
denying it for him. What kind of love is this? These thoughts and feelings are
signs that the Lord has brought certain good spirits to the vicinity of my
spirit-body. The combat is on.
Now Mana
escalates. He jumps on the table where the computer is and looks at me four
inches away. I have the impulse of picking him up and putting him out so he
stops bothering me. I’m afraid that he is going to jump on the keyboard or on
the zip drive or behind the table where the wires are. I’m thinking what a
little pest he is. I’m gritting my teeth with anger. I feel like slapping him
off. Etc. All these thoughts and feelings are activated by the particular
spirits the Lord has brought near. Simultaneously I feel guilt, regret,
compassion. How can I be so cruel and selfish to this little creature of God
whom I love? Tears come to my eyes when I see the monster I am. I am shocked at
myself, at the feelings of violence and cruelty. These thoughts and emotions
are a signal that the Lord has brought certain good spirits around who are
infusing and activating the ideas and attitudes that I have developed in the
past. I am surrounded by warring combatants. Who will I let win? Therein lies
my fate and my future.
I look at
the beautiful little creature’s face and I’m ashamed of myself. I get up. He
follows me. We go to the kitchen. I feed him. He doesn’t want it. I give him
some cold mild on a plate. He smells it and walks away. He goes to the spot
where the catnip box is kept and looks up. I give him some on a tray. He revels
in it, lying on it, putting it all over his body, licking it. He lies on his
side and looks at me expectantly. Throughout these activities I’m experiencing
the conflict. I want to go back to the typing. I want to spend the minimum
time. I want to cheat him out of some of the things he demands and wants. I
make myself stay and postpone leaving, moment by moment. I give him grooming, I
play with him with his string. At last I am able to say, OK, enough is enough.
I walk away. I close the door so he can’t come back to interrupt me. I feel
guilty about that. I resume my typing, relieved. Etc.
You can see
from this description what temptation combats are and how they involve the
second by second stream of willing and thinking of our behavior all day long.
This is what our regeneration is made of. This is how the Lord can prepare our
mind for heavenly life, by removing disorder that He brings to our attention,
if only we are willing to focus on the details. Every day brings temptations,
every hour and every minute. There are many temptations in a single minute. No
topic is left out, large or small, for our life is nothing but a collection of
these topics, our feelings and thoughts running themselves off. When the Lord
judges that we are no longer willing or able to handle more temptations, our
time has come and we make the transition to the spiritual world.
From then
on we are absolutely unwilling to undergo more temptations. Such as we then
are, such we remain. To the extent that we are willing to deal with remaining
disorders, the Lord can continue to regenerate us. But we are only willing to
do this if we have arrived imbued with a love for the Lord, for the Doctrine
that we have acquired from the Word or from our religion and conscience.
Conscience is twofold, interior and exterior; interior
conscience is that of spiritual good and truth, exterior conscience is that of
what is just and equitable. Conscience itself is an interior plane in which the
influx of the Divine good terminates. But they who have no conscience have not
any interior plane to receive this influx; and with these persons good flows
through down to the exterior natural or natural-sensuous; and as before said is
there turned into foul delights. Sometimes these persons seem to feel a pain as
of conscience, but it is not conscience; it is a pain arising from the loss of
their delight, such as that of honor, gain, reputation, life, pleasures, or the
friendship of people like themselves; and this is because the terminations are
in delights like these. (AC 5145)
Heaven is
within, in the highest portion of our mind. This spiritual-celestial mind must
be opened or animated by means of temptations and regeneration. When it is
opened, it then acts as a “termination” of resting place for the influx of
spiritual truths. When these spiritual truths are in our mind, we are in heaven
since heaven is in the spiritual truths. Spiritual truths are from the Lord,
hence they are Divine. This is why it is said that the Lord dwells within us,
that is, His divine Truth rests in our spiritual mind, and He is Divine Truth.
Note that conscience exists in two forms, external in the natural mind, and
interior in the spiritual mind.
External
conscience strives to protect the natural goods and truths that we have
accumulated such as the delights of honor, gain, reputation, life, pleasures,
and friendships. The pain of external conscience is not spiritual conscience
but the fear of losing natural delights and the things of the self and the
world to which we are attached. Internal conscience strives to protect
spiritual goods and truths such as our delights in being saved, loving uses,
the neighbor, the Lord, and the Doctrine from His Word. Without this interior
conscience, the spiritual mind cannot be opened and there is no termination or
resting place for heaven in us.
Chapter 1, Section 4
What remains are, has been stated and shown above (AC n.
468, 530, 560, 561, 661, 798, 1050), namely, that they are all the states of
the affection of good and truth with which a man is gifted by the Lord, from
earliest infancy even to the end of life; which states are stored up for him
for the use of his life after death; for in the other life all the states of
his life return in succession, and are then tempered by the states of good and
truth with which he has been gifted by the Lord.
The more remains therefore that a man has received in the
life of the body, that is, the more of good and truth, the more delightful and
beautiful do the rest of his states appear when they return.
That this is really so may be evident to everyone, if he
will consider. When a man is born he has not a particle of good of himself, but
is wholly defiled throughout with hereditary evil, and all that is good flows
in, such as his love for his parents, his nurses, his companions; and this from
innocence. Such are the things that flow in from the Lord through the heaven of
innocence and peace, which is the inmost heaven, and thus is man imbued with them
in his infancy.
[2] Afterwards, when he grows up, this good, innocent, and
peaceful state of infancy recedes little by little; and so far as he is
introduced into the world, he comes into its pleasures, and into cupidities,
and thus into evils; and so far the celestial or good things of the age of
infancy begin to disappear; but still they remain, and the states which the man
afterwards puts on or acquires are tempered by them. Without them a man can
never be a man, for the states of the cupidities, or of evil, if not tempered
by states of the affection of good, would be more atrocious than those of any
animal. These states of good are what are called remains, given by the Lord and
implanted in one's natural disposition, and this when the man is not aware of
it.
[3] In after life he is also gifted with new states; but
these are not so much states of good as states of truth, for as he is growing
up he is imbued with truths, and these are in like manner stored up in him in
his interior man. By these remains, which are those of truth, born of the
influx of spiritual things from the Lord, man has the ability to think, and
also to understand what the good and the truth of civic and moral life are, and
also to receive spiritual truth or faith; but he cannot do this except by means
of the remains of good that he had received in infancy.
That there are remains, and that they are stored up in a man
in his interior rational, is wholly unknown to man; and this because he
supposes that nothing flows in, but that everything is natural to him, and born
with him, thus that it is all in him when an infant, when yet the real case is
altogether different. Remains are treated of in many parts of the Word, and by
them are signified those states by which man becomes a man, and this from the
Lord alone. (AC 1906)
This
passage says a number of things about remains that can be summarized in the
following points:
(1) Remains
are “states of the affection of good and truth.” These states are in the
interior mind and unconscious.
(2) The
Lord implants these states throughout our life on earth, from infancy to the
end. The are called “gifts of life.”
(3) All
states of affection we acquire in this life, “return in succession” in the
other life, the evil affections as well as the remains of good affections
implanted by the Lord unbeknownst to us.
(4) The
remains of good affections “temper” the injurious effects of the evil
affections we brought with us into the afterlife.
(5) The
more remains the Lord has been able to implant in our interior mind, “the more
delightful and beautiful do the rest of our states appear when they return.”
The Lord implants remains in our unconscious interior mind to the extent that
we shun evils as sins consciously in our external mind (xx).
(6) The innocence
of infants, expressed as “love for parents, nurses, companions,” is not in the
infant or from the infant, but from the Lord through the influx of good. These
flow in “from the Lord through the heaven of innocence and peace, which is the
inmost heaven.” The states of good that flow in from the “heaven of innocence
and peace” temper the infant’s evil states from inheritance so much so that the
evil is hardly noticeable in the infant, and what shows instead is innocence
and delight that make babies appear so cute and adorable to their parents and
grown ups. These states of innocence remain for the afterlife, along with other
remains implanted throughout life.
(7) But
then, as the child grows up, “this good, innocent, and peaceful state of
infancy recedes little by little; and so far as he is introduced into the
world, he comes into its pleasures, and into cupidities, and thus into evils;
and so far the celestial or good things of the age of infancy begin to
disappear; but still they remain.” The innocence of childhood is succeeded
developmentally by the corruption of evil delights and cupidities from the
world and from inheritance. But the remains of innocence are stored up by the
Lord in our interior mind for use in the afterlife, and this not only in our
childhood, but throughout life, in proportion to our cooperation in reformation
and regeneration.
(8) In the
afterlife, we receive new states in proportion to our affection for truth: “these
are not so much states of good as states of truth, for as he is growing up he
is imbued with truths, and these are in like manner stored up in him in his
interior man.” Without learning truths by means of education and experience,
our afterlife cannot be rational, and yet heavenly life is in the truths we
bring with us. These remains of truth are “born of the influx of spiritual
things from the Lord.” Note that these are not the natural truths we also
acquire, but the spiritual truths from the Lord through His Word. From these
spiritual truths “man has the ability to think, and also to understand what the
good and the truth of civic and moral life are, and also to receive spiritual
truth or faith; but he cannot do this except by means of the remains of good
that he had received in infancy.” Our natural intelligence of “civic and moral
life” are enabled by the spiritual truths from the Lord without which civic and
moral motives and decisions would not be present. Survival of society therefore
depends on spiritual ideas from the Lord implanted in our unconscious interior
mind.
(9) The
civic and moral life, animated from within by the spiritual truths from the
Lord, as well as the external religious life, can be animated by the Lord only
“by means of the remains of good that we received in infancy.” These remains
include the affection for good and truth. This is a celestial affection, not
natural, for in the natural we do not love good and truth, and if it appears
that we do, it is because of a motive for reward and merit—which are natural
motives, not celestial.
At some point
in adult life we must desire to return to the states of innocence in order to
be motivated to undergo reformation, and then regeneration. These affections
for good and truth are stored up by the Lord in our interior spiritual mind.
Now as an adult independent thinker, we take up the Writings to gather the
spiritual Doctrine by which we reorder our mind and struggle against the
nonduality by which it is filled and in which it is immersed. First we read and
study the literal of the Writings and take up its meaning into our
natural-rational mind.
Once these
rational truths are in our understanding, we can use them in our willing and
thinking all day long. We analyze our concepts, assumptions, beliefs, and
decisions, debunking their hidden and assumptive nonduality, reforming them
into new shapes, new meanings, new assumptions, all of which are from the Lord
through the rational truths we pick up from the Writings. The Lord then adjoins
and conjoins the unconscious remains of good, and this action animates our
truths, gives them power to guide our willing and thinking. In this way we are
reformed and prepared for heavenly life.
Chapter 1, Section 5
Man's interiors are distinguished into degrees, and in each
degree the interiors are terminated, and by termination are separated from the
degree next below; it is thus from the inmost to the outermost.
The interior rational constitutes the first degree; in this
are the celestial angels, or in this is the inmost or third heaven. The
exterior rational makes the second degree; in this are the spiritual angels, or
in this is the middle or second heaven. The interior natural makes the third
degree; in this are good spirits, or the ultimate or first heaven. The exterior
natural, or the sensuous, makes the fourth degree; and in this is man. These
degrees in man are most distinct.
[3] Thence it is that if he lives in good, a man is as to
his interiors a heaven in the least form, or that his interiors correspond to
the three heavens; and hence it is that if a man has lived a life of charity
and love, he can be carried after death even into the third heaven. But that he
may be of this character, it is necessary that all the degrees in him should be
well terminated, and thus by means of terminations be distinct from one
another; and when they are terminated, or by means of terminations are made
distinct from one another, each degree is a plane in which the good which flows
in from the Lord rests, and where it is received.
Without these degrees as planes, good is not received, but
flows through, as through a sieve or a basket that has holes in it, down to the
sensuous, and then, being without any direction in the way, it is turned into a
foulness which appears to those who are in it as good, namely, into the delight
of the love of self and of the world, consequently into the delight of hatred,
revenge, cruelty, adultery, and avarice, or into mere voluptuousness and
luxury. (AC 5145)
Regeneration
is to be understood as a psychobiological process of the mind. The mind is a
spiritual organ, not natural, because it is constructed out of spiritual
substances from the spiritual Sun. The essence of these substances is Divine
Truth within which is Divine Love. Clearly, then, the mind is a rational
construction because it is constructed out of truth. The substance of truth is
a spiritual substance, immortal and permanent. The spiritual fibers that
constitute the organ of the mind are laid down and coiled in particular
directions. In this mode the mind is able to function as a receptor organ for
spiritual truths flowing in from the Lord through heaven.
The mind
develops by means of truths we learn or acquire through instruction and
experience. The lower portions of the mind are called the external natural mind
because it serves for a resting place or “vessel” for the natural goods and
truths that enter through the senses of the physical body in the natural world.
This external mind cannot receive any goods and truths from the spiritual
world. Spiritual goods and truths can only be received by the upper portion of
the mind, also called the interior or spiritual mind. This inner portion of the
mind can only be built up by regeneration, and especially by our struggle
against spiritual temptations. This struggle is what the Lord calls our
cooperation in regeneration. The Lord opens the spiritual mind to the extent
that we suffer ourselves to undergo regeneration by means of spiritual
temptations.
The
spiritual mind has three levels or discrete degrees: natural-spiritual,
rational-spiritual, and celestial-spiritual. These three degrees in the
spiritual mind correspond to the three heavens. If we suffer ourselves to
undergo spiritual and celestial temptations, the spiritual mind can be opened
all the way to the highest or inmost. Those who have this highest level opened
can receive interior-rational truths, also called celestial truths. Within
these inmost truths is the Third Heaven and those whose mind has been opened to
this level become angels of the Third Heaven. But those who can receive only
spiritual-rational truths, enter the Second Heaven. Those who can only receive
natural-spiritual truths live in the First Heaven as angelic spirits. Those who
can only receive external natural truths have their spiritual mind closed. When
they arrive in the afterlife they sink down into hell because their mind has
remained such as it was when they were born, namely, filled with “the delight
of hatred, revenge, cruelty, adultery, and avarice, or ... mere voluptuousness
and luxury.” Since this is their total functioning mind, they are unwilling to
let go of its content and remain in them forever.
Regeneration
is therefore the task of building up the spiritual mind.
This growth
process consists of two steps in sequence. The first step is to let go of the
evil affections in the natural mind. The second step is to compel yourself to
will what is good from what you know is true. What is true refers to what the
Writings teach. These principles of good and true are called the Doctrine of
the Church in the mind. In other words, we study the Writings and formulate
Doctrine in our understanding. This Doctrine teaches how we should will and
think.
Since
willing and thinking is made of thousands of particular items every hour and
day, you can see that we must be able to monitor our willing and thinking
sequences all day long to make sure that they agree with the Doctrine we have
in our understanding of the Writings. There is no general way of being
regenerated, by confessing, by repenting of all our sins during prayer, by
giving charity or doing good to others. These things may be helpful and
desirable but they do not accomplish regeneration. The only thing that will
accomplish it is to become aware of all the items in our willing and thinking,
judging them in the light of our Doctrine, and desisting from doing and
thinking them because they are sins against the Lord and they prevent our
spiritual mind from being opened. The Lord opens our spiritual mind to the
extent that we are willing to clean out the natural mind as-of self.
A man's evils are in
his thoughts and intentions (NJHD 164)
1. Self-Examination:
Monitoring The Threefold Self
A man who examines himself for the purpose of practicing
repentance, should explore his thoughts, and the intentions of his will; and
there he ought to examine what he would do, if he were at liberty; that is, if
he were not afraid of the laws, and the loss of reputation, honor, and gain. A
man's evils are in his thoughts and intentions; and the evils which he does
with the body are all from thence. Those persons who do not explore the evils
of their thoughts and of their will cannot practice repentance; for afterwards
they think and will just as they did before; and yet willing evils means doing
them. This is meant by self-examination. (NJHD 164)
Self-examination
is therefore a process of self-monitoring. This involves monitoring and
note-keeping of our mental life in daily tasks and interactions with others. It
is similar to self-witnessing but more limited in focus and duration. Each
exercise involves keeping track in the three “domains” or organs of the mind:
affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor.
Affective Organ (will):
“What feelings do I have in this situation?” Or: “What do I
feel like doing right now?”
Cognitive Organ :(understanding):
“What thoughts do I have right now?” Or: “What are the words
and sentences I’m thinking right now?”
Sensorimotor Organ (acting out and sensations):
“What sensations am I experiencing right now?” And: “What is
my body doing and how does it appear to others—my face, my hands, my position,
my rhythm, my voice, my breathing, etc.”
Keeping
cumulative notes in a journal or diary is necessary. Dictating notes with a
recorder is also useful. Part of the discipline is to review or analyze the
data collected over many samples of one’s interactions and behaviors and to
evaluate them as indicators of one’s dedication and progress in regeneration.
(See Note 20 at end, for additional articles on the self-witnessing
techniques.)
Another
area is the entertainment content we enjoy on TV, comics, novels, and music.
The
We can make
a free choice to shun these fallen things for inner spiritual reasons rather
than for mere obedience to authority such as parents or teachers. The
The “small”
choices regarding our lifestyle—are we noisy neighbors or aggressive drivers,
etc.—carry equal weight or greater weight than the large things of our
biography—degrees, income, awards, recognition, important achievements. The
little things carry more weight because they are far more numerous given that
they are the constituents of the larger things. And the more frequently we
perform non-charitable acts, thoughts, or feelings, the more they fix our
character habits, and the less we can change in the afterlife. Our lot there is
what we bring along.
Knowing this, and keeping it in mind
through spiritual discipline, gives us the motive to persist and the courage to
suffer through it.
Even
ordinary and relatively mild things ought to be resisted and held in aversion.
For instance when someone says to me “That was lucky” I feel prudent in
thinking “Amen” to acknowledge that, in my mind, luck is something the Lord
produces, not blind chance. Or if a student thanks me for a course they found
valuable, I immediately make my mind dwell on the idea that it is the Lord who
decides who gets what when. The Lord uses my skills to advance the development
of others that He brings around to my sphere of communication. I had nothing to
do with the actual success of it and its effects on others. I was allowed to
participate in something the Lord had arranged and brought about. For example,
when I get to the parking lot on campus and can’t find a space I inhibit an old
habit of saying “Oh, no, how annoying!” and instead I say “Lord, you made this
decision for me. Thy will be done, not mine” and when I find a space for my car
I acknowledge it by saying “Thank you Lord.” And it’s been many years since
I’ve been vigilant in breaking the verbal habit of saying “Darn!” “Shoot!” and
“Gosh!” and of course, the Lord’s Name said in vain. These appear little things
in the scheme of things and yet they are the most important in fixing our fate
in the afterlife.
Those who have conscience do not swear in vain
(AC
2842.)
It’s worth
cautioning here that swearing acts can be subtle and subconscious. I noticed
that I can swear merely with the body without words, like
q rolling the eyes in protest
q kicking an object in disgust
q whistling under the breath
q smirking as a comment
q slapping the thigh in disapproval
q snapping the fingers in condemnation
q and so on.
In the
To fight
this built-in habit we need to remind ourselves constantly that every detail is
either from Divine Providence or Permissions (DP 234, 249, 251, SE 1088). This
is a rational attitude. I try to remind myself of this frequently in the course
of a day or hour: “This is the Lord’s doing.” I say to myself. Or: “The Lord
did this to me.” I say these things when I’m under stress: When I trip and
fall; when I can’t find a parking space; when I get a hernia; when I get into
an accident; when I reflect on 9/11 and all things of our biography and
history. It’s easier to attribute to
This means
that we can’t back off from our rational certitude of the Lord’s omnipotence;
we can’t think that when a tragedy happens that the Lord’s power somehow failed
the prevent it. Every detail of that tragedy is under the Lord’s purview and
power, including the skills that the attackers have to carry out their misdeed.
We need to understand why the Lord gives ability to a child rapist to carry out
his foul deed. It’s not because the Lord
lacks power to prevent it. It’s not because the Lord was the source of the
evil intent. Why then? The Lord rules and manages by means of His Divine Wisdom
from His Divine Love, which has infinite power. This is where we must base our
understanding of why the Lord gives His power to the evil doer. The Lord manages the hells no less than the
heavens, but not in the same way. He prevents innumerable evils from being
performed moment by moment. He keeps Himself in full control all the time of
everything. And so His Divine Wisdom from His Divine Love creates and maintains
a Divine order for all things and events.
The Laws of
Permissions are part of this Divine order. It is a perfect order that allows only
good to be the permanent outcome of every single thing. And the evil deeds of
the rapist, or thief, or deceiver, also must have a permanent good outcome or
else the deed cannot come into existence. This general idea can be deepened
more and more with further study of the Writings, and it will then be very
evident that the Lord is always in charge from His Love through His Wisdom. In
short, this is a perfect world. The
2. Keeping
Track Of The Motives We Have
My
self-witnessing discipline also applies to the repeated choices I make in
compelling myself to go through routine tasks in preparing for lectures without
allowing myself to slack off because I’ve already reached the top of my career.
And especially, the motives I have for sustaining my preparation and performing
each detail of my tasks as instructor and mental coach. In the early years I
would do my work conscientiously for external motives—reputation, awards,
recognition, remuneration, fear, anxiety, enjoyment of dominion, etc. These
good works will not help me in the afterlife and they will be put to sleep by
the Lord and exiled to the far reaches of my spirit. Only those will help me that
I did for interior motives, such as, that
q the Lord wants me to
q the angels are looking on
q I must perform compassion
q I must be fair
q I must set a good example
q I must be a good leader
q a sincere teacher
q a helpful coach.
Why must I
have these motives? Because otherwise I act from hell and I am hating uses and
the Lord, loving myself only.
As is a person's life in general therefore, so is his life
in every individual part, indeed in the smallest individual parts of his
motives and intentions - that is, of his will - and in the smallest individual
parts of his thinking; so that not the least part of an idea can exist in which
the same life is not present.
Take someone who is arrogant: arrogance is present in every
individual endeavor of his will and in every individual idea of his thought.
With someone who is avaricious avarice is in a similar way present, as is
hatred with one who hates the neighbour. Or take someone who is stupid:
stupidity is present in every individual part of his will and also of his
thought, as is insanity with one who is insane. Such being the nature of man,
his character is recognized in the next life from one single idea of his
thought. (AC 1040)
In other
words our general behavior is created out of particular details. Another way of
saying this is that our macro-behaviors are made of our micro-behaviors. Also,
every act of thinking is motivated just as every act of doing. The motive
enters into every micro-behavior or else the behavior would not occur. A
particular thought would not occur were it not motivated by some intention,
affection, or goal. The expressions “someone who is arrogant” or “someone who
is avaricious” or “someone who is stupid” signify the
God is unceasingly
present, and continually striving and acting in man (TCR 74)
When one acts honestly and justly with a companion, one
person may do it for the purpose of appearing to be honest and just out of
regard for himself and his own honor; another on account of the world and gain;
a third with a view to reward and merit; a fourth out of regard for friendship;
a fifth from fear of the law and the loss of reputation or employment; a sixth
that he may draw someone to his own side, even when he is in the wrong; a
seventh that he may deceive; and others from other motives. In all these
instances, although the deeds are good in appearance, since it is a good thing
to act honestly and justly with a companion, they are nevertheless evil,
because they are done, not out of regard for honesty and justice and for the
love of these, but out of regard for love of self and the world which the man
loves; and honesty and justice are made to serve that love as servants who
serve a lord, and whom the lord despises and dismisses when they fail to serve
him. (HH 472)
This
absolutist thinking is precisely what secular psychologists uniformly declare
as unhealthy and counsel people that they cannot be happy and adjusted
individuals as long as they do this kind of absolutist thinking that involves
“I must” (I must be honest; I must be sincere; I must be a good role model,
etc.). This is how Dr. Albert Ellis refers to this kind of thinking (Feeling
Better, Getting Better, Staying Better: Profound Self-Help Therapy for Your
Emotions. Impact Publishers, Inc). He is one of the best known scientific
psychologists and a popular author and trainer of “rational-emotive therapy.”
For decades
now, the theme of the mental health outlook being generally advocated by
American psychologists has been to “learn to accept yourself as you are, free
of any demands that you be different. Do not attempt to measure yourself or set
some kind of value on yourself.” An icy cold atmosphere of nondualism surrounds
the therapist’s client in the form of non-judgmentalism: “If you accept
imperfection in yourself, you are less likely to engage in dangerous behavior such
as striving for the unattainable.” The nondualist philosophy of unconditional self-acceptance
teaches that maladjustment and neurotic anxiety stems from an excessively
severe and watchful conscience. This theme was introduced more than 100 years
ago by Sigmund Freud who, like Karl Marx, had no use for religion and sin. And
yet God has revealed that the opposite is the reality: that sin is real, that
the dictates of conscience are given by God as the means by which we are able
to avoid the unending misery of hell. The
The Lord
provides a tremendously rich social and physical context for every individual’s
daily life on earth. There is so much to do to survive or thrive. Our
personality is made up of thousands of distinct habit routines we acquire in
childhood, and onward to the end. Any one of these can be selected as a
discipline that is fashioned into an excellence or expertise by dint of
persistent techniques applied in daily rehearsals. For instance, for many years
I have taken upon myself the discipline of washing dishes. I insist, without
much opposition from others, that I wash the dishes for every meal. I beg
people to just put their used dishes any time they wish on the counter by the
sink and I will take care of it with pleasure. When I come around the kitchen
and see any dishes I quickly wash them. Even today after years of discipline, I
experience temptations of leaving them lying around when I don’t feel like
doing dishes. What a joy there is in overcoming the temptations and doing the
dishes. Also, I inspect the items to make sure I do a proper job. If my wife
finds some ill washed dish or fork, I feel guilt and regret.
All of this
relationship I am having with washing dishes makes it into a regeneration discipline
because my motive is spiritual—that is, wishing to cooperate with the Lord as
He strives with me to regenerate my character and make it fit for heavenly
life. Only with this religious motive can the
3. The Agony And Ecstasy Of Regeneration
True order is
connected with decorum, beauty, elegance, perfection (TCR Additions 3)
Regeneration
can only take place in the conscious aware mind!
The Lord is
operating from within while we operate from without. This joint action defines
regeneration. It is not something we can do on our own. It is not something the
Lord can do for us unconsciously, without our conscious cooperation.
Regeneration
begins after reformation. Reformation lasts months (see Volume 1) while
regeneration lasts decades. Regeneration begins when we are enlightened, that
is, immerse our thinking in spiritual-rational correspondences. These are a
discrete degree above the natural-rational correspondences of the Letter of the
Writings. Enlightenment depends on two steps. First, acquiring the Letter of
the Writings as Divine Truth in our understanding. This refers to the literal
meaning of the sentences and their inter-relationships noted by regular study.
Second, applying this Divine Doctrine in our mind to our daily willing and
thinking. The moment we begin this second step, we are enlightened by the Lord.
We continue to be enlightened more and more as we continue to apply the Divine
Doctrine in our understanding.
The enlightenment consists in a new
perception of higher correspondences. This is the first time that the
This new
spiritual consciousness is the ecstasy of regeneration.
We are now
conscious as a new birth. Before enlightenment we were immersed in
natural-rational correspondences, which is the Letter of the Writings. This
immersion of our thinking in natural-rational correspondences prevented like a
veil, our seeing through it, which means, our seeing a more interior degree of
it, which has been there all along but we cannot see it until we remove the
veils.
We put the
veils there, and maintain it up and dark to the vision.
The Lord
permits it because it is our first state in regeneration, and we must be in
this first phase in order to get on with it. The end is the celestial mind and
personality we long for. We long for it from within, from the Lord, from
creation, because the celestial mind is the final creation, the completion of
the evolution of the human race. It is such as is the celestial mind of the
angels in heaven who are wise far above anyone on earth. This wisdom can belong to the
Enlightenment
is given to anyone, man or woman, at any age, from any religion or belief
system, country, or planet. The Lord is with every human being in the universe,
participating and co-managing every detail conscious to the individual, and
managing by Himself every detail of which the individual is unconscious. Human
life itself depends on the Lord being with that individual in this
co-managerial process. Since the Lord manages these details in the mind of
every individual, you can see that He can also give enlightenment to every
individual. And He does, using the same condition or rule for everyone who
wants His spiritual light. This condition is that the individual undergo
regeneration. The Lord has therefore made a scientific revelation of Himself
and His Divine Rational mind.
This Second Coming of the Lord takes
place to each individual in enlightenment.
Although we
worship the Letter of the Writings during reformation, our level of thinking
and reasoning about regeneration and the Word, is immersed in the
natural-rational correspondences of the literal meaning in the Letter of the
Writings.
But enlightenment cannot be given by
the Lord in the Letter!
Enlightenment
refers to spiritual light from the spiritual Sun. Enlightenment is experienced
as perception of spiritual-rational correspondences within the natural-rational
correspondences of the Letter. This is not a mysterious process, as is fully explained
in Volume 2. It is a mechanism of regeneration over which we have rational
control. Enlightenment is an organic process going on in the internal portion
of the natural-rational mind (consult diagrams in Volume 2). As we are
struggling and progressing in our regeneration, the Lord is creating a new mind
within the natural-rational mind. This is a biological new growth of spiritual
fibers at a discrete degree above the spiritual fibers of natural-rational
correspondences in the external natural-rational mind. Now, in this new organic
receptor within our rational, we are capable of perceiving consciously with
direct sensuous awareness, interior truths which from the Lord only and are
called spiritual-rational correspondences.
Spiritual-rational
correspondences are within natural-rational correspondences. This is because
the new interior-rational mind the Lord is creating within the individual, is a
discrete degree above the individual’s self-intelligence from the Letter. When
our thinking is immersed in and reasons from the Letter, it is called
self-intelligence because it must be the first phase of regeneration. We must
be led by self-intelligence to being regenerated, otherwise we feel coerced,
and lose our life should the Lord continue to coerce us. And then we’ll never
regenerate and be blissful conjugial husbands in heaven to eternity! That ecstasy must be bought by our agony.
Why?
Because we are born infernal, and to extirpate the infernal fibers in our will,
while new heavenly fibers are implanted, is to experience agony. Regeneration
is therefore both ecstasy and agony. At first, more of the agony than the
ecstasy. But in old age, the
4. Head In Heaven, Feet In Hell
We
experience enlightenment as ecstasy. It is the conscious perception of
spiritual-rational correspondences. This enlightenment is given to anyone.
Volume 2 describes the mechanism by which the Lord gives this enlightenment to
any individual. You’ll find there methods which the regenerating
Once we
perceive consciously these spiritual-rational correspondences, we are enlightened.
There is no mystery to it, only a rational mechanism in human consciousness
operated by the Lord for the sake of our regeneration.
By means of
enlightenment, the Lord can elevate our conscious awareness to heavenly light.
This conscious awareness is not corporeal or natural-sensuous. It is rational. Enlightenment
refers to the consciousness of the celestial mind. This mind responds and
reacts to spiritual correspondences, while the natural mind responds and reacts
to natural correspondences. The Letter of the Writings on earth is necessarily
written in natural-rational correspondences, but in heaven it is written in
spiritual-rational correspondences.
By allowing that the Letter of the
Writings is written in natural-rational correspondences, we receive
enlightenment and we can begin our regeneration.
Now we
begin regeneration in earnest. Our head is in heaven while our feet are in
hell!
Our head
was not in heaven until enlightenment. The Letter of the Writings cannot give enlightenment
because it is necessarily written in natural-rational correspondences. All
spiritual things written down in a natural language must be natural-rational
correspondences. There is no other possibility. The topic itself may be
spiritual, such as the Lord, the Word, regeneration. But the understanding of
the spiritual topics is at the level of natural-rational correspondences. Spiritual
topics can be understood at the level of corporeal
correspondences, in which case we have an Old Testament perspective on God
and religious behavior. Further, spiritual topics can be understood at the
level of sensuous correspondences, in
which case we have an New Testament perspective on God and religious behavior. Finally,
spiritual topics can be understood at the level of rational correspondences, in which case we have a Third Testament perspective
on God and religious behavior.
None of these correspondences in
which the Threefold Word is written can give enlightenment.
For the
Being
enlightened means that the
Can the
enlightenment be taken away? Easily. In a moment. What causes it to be taken
away by the Lord? The Lord doesn’t take it away, but we do by erecting a cloud,
dark and false, between the natural and the spiritual correspondences. An
example of erecting a dark cloud is the convinced belief that the literal
meaning of the Writings is the spiritual meaning of the Word (see Volume 2).
Another example is the belief that one can be regenerated by the casual study
of the Writings, or its familiarity by collateral literature. This is a
stumbling block to regeneration because it prevents the individual from being
enlightened. Enlightened is possible only after the individual has acquired in
the understanding, passages from the Letter of the Writings. As these
natural-rational correspondences are applied to our willing and thinking, we
achieve enlightenment, in proportion to our application. And this is the agony.
The head is
in heaven, but the feet are in hell. through the head we have ecstasy; through
the feet we have agony. That our feet are in hell means that our will is still
infernal and will remain with infernal portions for many years and decades as
regeneration proceeds. Why are we in agony when our feet are in hell and our
head is in heaven? Because from our head in heaven we perceive Divine truths in
the form of spiritual-rational correspondences. This is called light from
heaven. It is the light by which the angels see in heaven. It is the light
which is within spiritual-rational correspondences. Without spiritual-rational
correspondences our mind is in infernal light because there are only two possibilities.
To see solely by the light of the literal meaning of the Word is to see only by
the light of self-intelligence, and this is from the natural world because from
the natural mind.
5. Seeing The Ugly Scary Proprium
Enlightenment
leads to agony because heavenly light illumines things that are in our will,
which is in hell, that is, which is infernal by heredity. The agony is the
torture we experience when Divine light shines on our infernal affections and
delights. This searing torturing light is something that the evil spirits and societies
are experiencing as divine light is brought near them (xx). When we look upon
our affections and delights from the light of spiritual-rational
correspondences, we are shining Divine Truth on the infernals tied to us. They
experience this as torture and agony. They are trapped by us keeping them tied
to us. As long as we love the infernal delights, we are tied to the devils and
satans in hell. They cannot escape because they are tied to us as we are tied
to them.
As long as we believe that these infernal
affections and delights are our own, the tie cannot be broken by the infernals
or by the individual.
They are
with our lower self represented by our feet, but the angels are with our higher
self represented by our head. Now there is a battle. This battle is called
“combat” in the Writings which make many new scientific revelations about the rules
of this combat, and its fateful outcome for the individual. IN general this
topic is discussed in the Writings under the subject of “temptations” (e.g.,
xx, xx).
The Lord supervises
this fateful combat between the hells and the heavens. In spiritual and
celestial temptations, which are the most severe and crucial, the power of the
angels enters our mind from within the spiritual-rational correspondences we
have acquired from the spiritual sense of the Writings. These
spiritual-rational correspondences are collected in our mind into a coherent
principle and system of reasoning called by the Writings “the Spiritual
Doctrine” (see Volume 2 for details).
The
Spiritual Doctrine is the source by which the Lord gives enlightenment.
i The Word cannot be understood without doctrine.
ii. Doctrine must be drawn from the sense of the letter of
the Word.
iii. But the Divine truth which must be of doctrine appears
to none but those who are in enlightenment from the Lord. (SS 50)
We
therefore do battle with the infernal delights by means of the Divine Doctrine
in our mind called the Spiritual Doctrine (AC 2496, 2517). This means to have
the head in heaven. The Spiritual Doctrine exists and is immersed in
spiritual-rational correspondences. It cannot be written in a natural language
but it can be written in a celestial language, as shown by the fact that the
Writings in heaven are written in this script of spiritual-rational
correspondences (xx).
The
Writings discuss a variety of agonies during regeneration. They are called
variously “idolatries,” “backsliding” (AC 4815), “hardening of the heart or
making it stubborn” (AC 7412), “obstinacy or making heavy the heart” (AC 7473),
“making it unyielding” (AC 7632), “turning from the East” (AC 279; DLW 144), “to
teach and to seduce” (AR 134), and others (AC 1250, xx).
As the heart corresponds to the affections belonging to the
love, and thus to the will, the wise men of old ascribed affections to the
heart, and some placed there the abode of affections. This is the source of the
common expressions, " a magnanimous heart," "a timid
heart," "a joyful heart," "a sad heart," a soft
heart," "a hard heart," "a great heart," "a
little heart," "a whole heart," "a broken heart,"
"a heart of flesh," "a stony heart," "fat, soft, or
vile in heart," "having no heart," " giving the heart to
do," "giving a single heart," "giving a new heart,"
"laying up in the heart," "receiving in the heart,"
"not reaching the heart," "hardening one's heart,"
"lifted up in heart," "a friend in heart," also the terms
"concord," "discord," "madness"
("vecordia"), and many other like expressions. And in the Word, the
"heart" everywhere signifies the will or love, for the reason that
the Word was written throughout by means of correspondences. (D.
Regeneration
agonies are the automatic consequence of the head in heaven looking upon the
feet in hell.
Looking upon means shining the light
of Divine Truth upon the infernal affections of the will which we are unwilling
to let go.
When I look
at myself in the mirror I am shocked. I am in agony. From heavenly light I can
see the family evils on my face. I try not to make an expression, but the
unregenerate proprium is still there, in command. The face reflects the affections
(xx), consequently the unregenerate proprium. It is an ugly charred bony figure
(xx). This infernal proprium is inherited; it cannot be saved or modified or
regenerated. Regeneration is by a new proprium, the old is laid aside, and all
its life is removed by the Lord. Angels still have their old proprium, but it
is no longer animated or operational (xx).
I see
haughtiness in my face. Arrogance. Nastiness. Cruelty. Corporeal sensuality.
Selfishness. Madness. Also: cleverness, fear, insincerity, grossness.
When I see
the delights I have by monitoring my willing, I am shocked. I am in agony. From
heavenly light I can see that what I enjoy is sleazy, scortatory, engrossing,
animalistic. I eat a snack when I don’t want to because of weight control issues.
Between doing or eating something healthy vs. unhealthy, I’m attracted more to
the unhealthy and the nonproductive.
When I see
the thoughts I have by monitoring my thinking, I am shocked. I am in agony.
From heavenly light I can see that what I’m thinking is illogical. Even as I’m
eating the extra piece I don’t want to, I’m thinking something illogical, like
“It won’t matter. My weight won’t go up. I can just absorb it.” Or else” “I’ll
start all over again tomorrow.” Or, in another arena of the day, I see myself
think derogatory thoughts about my neighbor. Somebody I pass by on the highway
or the shopping mall, somebody I see on TV, somebody I see across the room,
somebody I think about—these are all occasions for me to think negative and derogatory
thoughts about them. I observe this and I’m in agony.
When I see
the acts I execute by monitoring my acting out, I am shocked. I am in agony.
From heavenly light I can see that what I’m doing is not from heaven, which
means it is from hell. Why then don’t I stop? Because I love that sleazy
illogical infernal delight. This is agony. On some days I feel abulia—the
psychological state of feeling like we can’t do anything. I have the Writings!
I think to myself “Later, not now.” Or, I might think: “I’m enlightened. I’m
activated by spiritual-rational correspondences in my interior-natural mind.”
And my response is: “Yeah. Good. I need to eat something now. Then I need to
sleep some more. then I must rest from my rest.” I am in agony.
I make
myself smile to my wife. I hear complaining about me. I nod. I’m in agony. I
want to protest and disagree. I want to explain to her why she is wrong. But I
force myself not to talk, not to interrupt, not to give her a hard time. I
remind myself of Rule 1 of the Doctrine of the Wife. I simulate agreeableness.
I confess and I promise. I’m in agony. But also in ecstasy as I see myself do
the right thing, as I see the power of enlightenment acting against the hoards of
the hells.
6. Regeneration Is By Spiritual-Rational Correspondences
The
regenerating
For food in the cities. That this signifies such things in
the interiors of the natural mind, is evident from the signification of
"food," as being all things that are of use, thus truths and goods
(of which just above, n. 5293); and from the signification of
"cities," as being the interiors of the natural mind. In the
universal sense "cities" signify the doctrinal things of the church
(see n. 402, 2268, 2449, 2451, 2712, 2943, 3216, 4492, 4493); but in an
individual sense they signify the interiors of man where doctrinal things are,
or rather where are truths conjoined with good. That the truths and goods in
man form as it were a city, may be seen above (n. 3584); and hence that man
himself in whom is the church is called the "city of
The interiors of the natural mind are signified by
"cities" in Isaiah (...) and the goods and truths in the interiors
are signified by the "cities" in the Lord's parable in Luke (...) Here
therefore by "heaping up food in the cities and guarding it," is
signified that truths conjoined with good were to be stored up in the interiors
of the natural mind; and when these truths and goods have been stored up there,
they are called "remains," in which the veriest spiritual life of man
consists, and from which he is spiritually nourished in every case of need and
want, that is, in every spiritual famine. (AC 5297)
That truths adjoined to good are stored up in the interiors
of the natural mind, and there preserved for use in after life, especially for
use in temptations during man's regeneration, is a secret known to few at this
day; and therefore something must be said about this. For by the "seven
years of abundance of produce" are signified the truths first multiplied,
and by the corn being "put in the cities" and "in the
midst" is signified that these truths adjoined to good are stored up in
man's interiors: and by the "seven years of famine," and by the
sustenance at that time from the gatherings, is signified a state of
regeneration through truths adjoined to good, stored up in the interiors.
[2] The secret is this: from earliest infancy even to the
first of childhood, man is being introduced by the Lord into heaven, and indeed
among celestial angels, by whom he is kept in a state of innocence; a state in
which (as is known) infants are up to the first of childhood. When the age of
childhood begins, the child gradually puts off the state of innocence, though
he is still kept in a state of charity by means of the affection of mutual
charity toward those like himself, which state with many continues up to youth,
and meanwhile he is among spiritual angels. Then, because he begins to think
from himself and to act accordingly, he can no longer be kept in charity as
before; for he then calls forth inherited evils, by which he suffers himself to
be led. When this state comes, the goods of charity and innocence that he had
previously received, are banished according to the degree in which he thinks
evils and confirms them by act; and yet they are not banished, but are
withdrawn by the Lord toward the interiors and there stored up.
[3] But as he does not yet know truths, the goods of
innocence and charity he had received in the two preceding states have not yet
been qualified, for truths give quality to good, and good gives essence to
truths; wherefore from this age he is imbued with truths by instruction, and
especially by means of his own thoughts and confirmations from them. Insofar
therefore as he is then in the affection of good, so far truths are conjoined
with good in him by the Lord (see n. 5340), and are stored up for use. This
state is what is signified by the "seven years of abundance of
produce." It is these truths adjoined to good that in the proper sense are
called "remains."
Insofar therefore as the man suffers himself to be
regenerated, so far the remains serve for use; for so far a supply from them is
drawn forth by the Lord, and is sent back into the natural, in order to produce
a correspondence of the exteriors with the interiors, or of what is natural
with what is spiritual; and this is effected in the state signified by the
"seven years of famine." Such is the secret.
[4] The man of the church at this day believes that no
matter what anyone's life is, he may of mercy be received into heaven, and
there enjoy eternal bliss; for he supposes admission to be all that is
necessary. But he is much mistaken, for no one can be admitted and received
into heaven unless he has received spiritual life, and no one can receive
spiritual life unless he is being regenerated, and no one can be regenerated
except through the good of life conjoined with the truth of doctrine: from this
he has spiritual life. That no one can come into heaven unless he has received
spiritual life through regeneration, the Lord plainly declares in John:
Verily, verily I say unto thee, Except a man be born anew,
he cannot see the
and then He says:
Verily, verily I say to thee, Except a man be born of water
and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the
"water" is the truth of doctrine ..., and
"spirit" is the good of life. No one enters by baptism; but baptism
is significative of that regeneration which the man of the church ought to keep
in mind. (AC 5342)
Note
especially this sentence:
Insofar therefore as the man suffers himself to be
regenerated, so far the remains serve for use; for so far a supply from them is
drawn forth by the Lord, and is sent back into the natural, in order to produce
a correspondence of the exteriors with the interiors, or of what is natural
with what is spiritual; and this is effected in the state signified by the
"seven years of famine." Such is the secret. (AC 5342)
Here it is
revealed the spiritual-rational correspondences are called “remains” and that
the Lord uses remains in our mind by sending them “back into the natural, in
order to produce a correspondence of the exteriors with the interiors.” The
earlier passage said that the regenerating mind is called a “city of
Truths conjoined with good were to be stored up in the
interiors of the natural mind; and when these truths and goods have been stored
up there, they are called "remains," in which the veriest spiritual
life of man consists, and from which he is spiritually nourished in every case
of need and want, that is, in every spiritual famine. (AC 5297)
The
interior-natural mind is formed by the Lord within the natural-rational mind.
In other words, the spiritual-rational correspondences are within the
natural-rational correspondences we have from the Letter. Spiritual-rational
correspondences are called the remains of truth conjoined to good by which we
are regenerated. “The Lord sends back these remains” to the external, which
means that we become conscious of the remains in the form of spiritual-rational
correspondences. This is enlightenment.
It is said
that “the interiors of man where doctrinal things are, or rather where are
truths conjoined with good.” “Doctrinal things” refers to the Spiritual
Doctrine to be extracted from the Letter of the Writings. The Spiritual
Doctrine is located in the interior-natural mind. “Truths conjoined with good”
are from states of celestial innocence granted by the Lord. Celestial innocence
refers to enlightenment because then we think from the Lord and not from self.
Spiritual-rational correspondences in the interior-natural mind are called
remains, and they are what the Lord uses to regenerate us. This cannot be done
from natural-rational correspondences, which is the literal meaning, because
these are not remains but from self-intelligence. In other words, our study of
the Writings adds itself to our self-intelligence, not to our regeneration. But
it is necessary step in our regeneration. They are truths not yet conjoined to
good because they are not from innocence but from self-intelligence. Genuine
truth that is adjoined to good appears to the human race in the form
spiritual-rational correspondences.
Note this
warning:
The man of the church at this day believes that no matter
what anyone's life is, he may of mercy be received into heaven, and there enjoy
eternal bliss; for he supposes admission to be all that is necessary. But he is
much mistaken, for no one can be admitted and received into heaven unless he
has received spiritual life, and no one can receive spiritual life unless he is
being regenerated, and no one can be regenerated except through the good of
life conjoined with the truth of doctrine: from this he has spiritual life. (AC
5342)
“The man of
the church at this day” refers to the regenerating
In other
words, the process of regeneration involves applying the “truth of doctrine” to
“the good of life.” The “truth of doctrine” refers to the spiritual sense of
the Writings which we have gathered together into a coherent principle of life.
Thus, the “truth of doctrine” is the Spiritual Doctrine in our mind. the ”good
of life” refers to our daily willing and thinking. In other words, we are to
apply the Spiritual Doctrine to our daily willing and thinking. This brings
enlightenment. This is regeneration. Consequently, it is salvation.
7. Teachings Regarding Doctrine And The Spiritual
Sense
All the instruction there is done from the doctrine drawn
from the Word, and not from the Word apart from doctrine. Christians are
instructed from the heavenly doctrine that is in entire agreement with the
internal sense of the Word. The rest, as the Mohammedans and heathen, are
taught from doctrines suited to their apprehension, which differ from the
heavenly doctrine only in this, that spiritual life is taught by means of moral
life in harmony with the good tenets of their religion from which they had
derived their life in the world. (HH 516)
Although the doctrine of faith is in itself Divine, and
therefore above all human and even angelic comprehension, it has nevertheless
been dictated in the Word according to man's comprehension, in a rational
manner. (AC 2533)
As the Lord is the Word, He is also doctrine; for there is
no other doctrine which is itself Divine.
(AC 2533)
In regard to doctrine the case is this: Insofar as there is
what is human (that is, what is of sense, of memory-knowledge, and of the
rational) as the ground of belief, so far the doctrine is null and void. But
insofar as what is of sense, of memory-knowledge, and of the rational is
removed, that is, insofar as doctrine is believed without these things, so far
doctrine lives; for so far the Divine flows in (AC 2538)
The Lord is doctrine itself, for everything of doctrine
proceeds from Him, and everything of doctrine treats of Him; for all doctrine
treats of the good of love and of the truth of faith. These are from the Lord,
and therefore the Lord is not only in them, but also is both. From this it is
evident that the doctrine that treats of good and truth, treats of the Lord
only; and that it proceeds from His Divine Human. (AC 5321)
Doctrinal things are nothing but the means of arriving at
good as the end (AC 5997)
The case being so with the spiritual church, it is not to be
wondered at that with most persons faith is the essential of the church, and
not charity, and also that they have no doctrine of charity. Their doctrinal
things being from the Word does not make them Divine truths, for from the sense
of the letter of the Word any doctrinal thing whatever can be hatched, and that
which favors the concupiscences can be readily learned; thus also what is false
can be taken for what is true, as is the case with the doctrinal things of the
Jews, of the Socinians, and of many others; but not so if doctrine is formed
from the internal sense.
The internal sense is not only that sense which lies
concealed in the external sense, as has heretofore been shown, but is also that
which results from a number of passages of the sense of the letter rightly
collated, and which is discerned by those who are enlightened by the Lord in
respect to their intellectual. For the enlightened intellectual discriminates
between apparent truths and real truths, especially between falsities and
truths, although it does not judge about real truths in themselves. But the
intellectual cannot be enlightened unless it is believed that love to the Lord and
charity toward the neighbor are the principal and essential things of the
church. He who proceeds from the acknowledgment of these, provided he himself
is in them, sees innumerable truths; nay, he sees very many secrets disclosed
to him, and this from interior acknowledgment, according to the degree of the
enlightenment from the Lord. (AC 7233)
No one can enter
heaven unless he has acquired spiritual life through regeneration (AC 5342)
Note 1
A directory
of all my publications, with full text access to most of them, is available on
the Web at
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/leonpublish.html
Leon James.
“Substantive Dualism: Swedenborg's Integration of Biological Theology and
Rational Psychology”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/dualism.html
Leon James.
“Scientific Dualism.”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/dualism.html
Leon James.
“Religious Psychology or Theistic Science: A Guide to Spiritual
Self-examination”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499ss99/man/religious.html
Leon James.
“Swedenborg Glossary of Theistic Science”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss.html
Leon James.
“Do the Writings Contain Scientific Revelations?” New Church Life , July
1995, 115(7), 325-330.
Also
available on the Web at www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409ss99/nfile2.htm
Leon James.
“Dualist Science and the Writings of Swedenborg” New Church Life , June
1995, 115(6), 264-270.
Leon James.
“Overcoming Objections to Swedenborg's Writings Through the Development of
Scientific Dualism” New Philosophy 2001 v.CIV n.3 & 4 pp. 153-217.
Available online at:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/np98.html
Leon James.
“The Fourteen Scientific Fallacies in AC5084: Implications for Science
Education.” New Philosophy, July-December, 1996, XCIX(3 & 4),
439-450
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/fallacies.html
Examples
of promoting dualism in science in
Gregory L.
Baker, Religion and Science: From Swedenborg to Chaotic Dynamics (New
York: The Solomon Press, 1992)
Linda
Simonetti Odhner, The Bread of Life With Honey From the Rock: A Chaste Union of
religion and science New Church Life March 1989, pp. 117-122
Leon James,
Swedenborg's Religious Psychology: The Marriage of Good and Truth as Mental
Health Studia Swedenborgiana December 1993, Vol.8, No-3, pp. 13-42
Ian
Thompson, Foundations of the Theory of Spirit, Mind and Nature from Theism www.TheisticScience.org
Note 2
W. F.
Pendleton Topics From the Writings (Academy, 1928)
Note 3
Leon James.
“My Pre-Swedenborgian Discoveries and Inventions (1960-1980)”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/dhl3.html
Note 4
Mark
Carlson. “Evolution, the Limbus, and Hereditary Evil (Part 2)” New Church
Life June 1990, pp.259-275.
Note 5
Barry C.
Halterman. “Swedenborg's Influence on Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1883)”
www.swedenborg.ca/swedenborg/r_w_emerson.html
Jane K.
Williams-Hogan. Swedenborg: A Biography
Available online here:
www.glencairnmuseum.org/jkwh.html
Leon James
“Swedenborg Revolution in the Social Sciences”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499s98/shintani/logos.html
Leon James
“Spiritual Psychology”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/spirpsy.html
Note 6
Wilson Van
Dusen, The Distinctiveness of the Church of the New Jerusalem New Church
Life March 1994, 112-114.
Peter
Rhodes, Gurdijeff’s and Swedenborg General Church Sound Recording Library,
Bryn Athyn, 1976.
Leonard
Fox, Gurdijeff’s: Guide to Heaven or Hell? New Church Life June 1993;
(see also his reply in the October 1993 issue.)
Note 7
Leon James
“Moses, Paul, and Swedenborg, or Ritual, Faith, and Theistic Science: The Three
Phases of Religious Behavior”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/moses.html
Leon James
“Religious Behaviorism”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/relbehaviorism.html
Note 8
Leon James
“De Hemelsche Leer--Part 1--Degrees of Consciousness”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/dhl.html
Leon James
“Spiritual Geography--Graphic Maps of Consciousness for Regeneration”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/geography.html
Note 9
Leon James
“Overcoming Objections to Swedenborg's Writings Through the Development of
Scientific Dualism” New Philosophy 2001 v.CIV n.3 & 4 pp.
153-217. Available online here:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/np98.html
Note 10
Dr. James’
Student Reports on Swedenborg are listed in this directory:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/swedenborg.html
Note 11
Leon James,
“Genes of Consciousness: Spiritual Genetics for Regeneration”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/harmonizing4.htm
Note 12
Ian
Thompson, Foundations of Theistic Science The Theory of Spirit, Mind and Nature
from Theism (containing several articles)
Note 13
Leon James,
“Vertical Community”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/vertical.html
Note 14
Leon James,
“The Will and the Understanding or The Affective and the Cognitive or Good and
Faith or Heart and Lungs or Internal and External Mind”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/wu.html
Note 15
Leon James,
“Affective and Cognitive Resistance to a More Healthy Lifestyle
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/health1.html
Note 16
Leon James,
“Notes on the Doctrine of the Wife:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/dow1.html
Note 17
See our Web
site at www.DrDriving.org
List of
Media Interviews with Leon James and Diane Nahl
Articles on
Driving Psychology by Leon James and Diane Nahl
Leon James
and Diane Nahl. Road Rage and Aggressive Driving: Steering Clear of Highway
Warfare (Prometheus Books:
Leon James
and Diane Nahl. Heaven on Wheels:
Principles of Christian Driving Psychology www.aloha.net/~dyc/articles/christ.htm
Leon James.
“Drivers Behaving Badly: DBB Ratings”
www.aloha.net/~dyc/articles/dbb.htm
Note 18
Hatfield,
E., & Rapson, R. (1996). Love and sex: Cross-cultural perspectives.
Hatfield,
E., Cacioppo, J., & Rapson, R. L. (1994). Emotional contagion.
Note 19
Leon James
“The Universal Modes of Enactment in Human Experience: A Self-Witnessing
Account of the Discovery of Sudden Memory and My Interpretation of Its
Significance for the Human Race”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499ss99/man/enactment.html
Leon James
“Autobiography: Sudden Memory as the Integrating Mechanism on the Daily Round”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/ethnos/es0.html
Leon James
“Objective Autobiography: Sudden Memory”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499ss99/pederson/TOC.html
Leon James
“Radicalist Empiricism. The Universal Modes of Enactment in Human Experience. A
Self-Witnessing Account of the Discovery of Sudden Memory and My Interpretation
of Its Significance for the Human Race”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499ss99/man/enactment.html
Leon James
“The Hexagram of Sudden Memory “
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/updates/lee/section8.1.2.html
Leon James
“Discoveries and Inventions--Sudden Memory”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/discoveries.html
Leon James
“The Hexagram of Sudden Memory” (excerpts)
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/qqlj2.html
Leon James
“Pre-Swedenborgian Discoveries and Inventions (1960-1980)”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/dhl3.html
Leon James
and Diane Nahl “Workbook for the Study of Social Psychology”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/updates/lee/Section8.1.5.html
Leon James
“The Analysis of Transactional Engineering Competence” www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/tec.html
Leon James
“Community Archives in Social Psychology”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/updates/lee/Section5.2.3.html
Leon James
“Understanding Discourse: From Ethnosemantics to Transactional Engineering”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499ss99/pederson/discourse.html
Leon James
“Genetic Culture: Primacy of the Affective over the Cognitive”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/already.html
Leon James
“Lectures in Social Psychology (directory of chapters)”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/updates/lee/
Leon James
“Lecture Notes on The Psychology of Knowledge: The Discovery of Sudden Memory“
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499ss99/pun/knowledge2.html
Note 20
Leon James
“The Method of Self-Witnessing”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/self-witnessing.html
Leon James
“Religious Psychology or Theistic Science: A Guide to Spiritual
Self-examination”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499ss99/man/religious.html
Leon James
“Self-witnessing our emotions in daily life”
www.aloha.net/~dyc/articles/red-blue.htm
Leon James
“General Instructions for Your Research Project: The Four Options--Customizing
My Daily Emotional Spin Cycle”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy16/g16reports-instructions.html
Leon James
“Temptations entry in the Swedenborg Glossary” www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/temptations.html
Leon James
“Self-Witnessing the Threefold Self”
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/409as97/atakahas/499/atakahashome.html
Note 21
Rev. Ray
Silverman teaches at the
Note 22
Harrie G.D.
Groeneveld “The Second Coming of the Lord in the Doctrine of the Church” De Hemelsche Leer, First Fascicle,
38-43, 1930 (quoted above in Chapter 7 Section 8) Available online at www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409ss99/thompson/mscan1.html
See also its reprint version in the restart issues of De Hemelse Leer, April 2002 issue, Dr. Rutger Perizonius, Editor
(Van der Heimstraat 5, 2582 RX, The Hague)
Rev. Ernst
Pfeiffer “Elucidation of Mr. Groeneveld's Address” De Hemelsche Leer, First Fascicle, p.82-95; 127-131, 1930 (quoted
above in Chapter 7 Section 8) Available online at www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409ss99/thompson/mscan2.html
See also its reprint version in the restart issues of De Hemelse Leer, April 2002 issue, Dr. Rutger Perizonius, Editor
(Van der Heimstraat 5, 2582 RX, The Hague)
Rev.
Theodore Pitcairn, “The second Education” De
Hemelsche Leer, Third Fascicle, p.22. 1935 (quoted above in Chapter 7
Section 8; Chapter 8 Section 3) (Available online at www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409ss99/thompson/mscan8.html
)
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; Introduction to Chapter 8)
Rev. Mark
Carlson. “Evolution, the Limbus, and Hereditary Evil (Part 2)” New Church
Life June 1990, pp.259-275. (quoted above in Chapter 3 Section 7).
Rev. Dr.
Ray Silverman’s review of Henry James, Sr. in Arcana 1996 v.2 n.4 p.56
(quoted above in Chapter 4 Section 2 and Section 3)
Rev. Grant
R. Schnarr “Swedenborg And The Near Death Experience” on the Web at
www.newchurch.org/faq/indepthfaq/swedenbNearDeathExperience.html Accessed June
2002 (quoted above in Chapter 4 Section 5)
Rev.
Douglas M. Taylor “Self-Esteem” New Church Life March 2002 v.CXXII No.3
pp. 99-105 (quoted above in Chapter 6 Section 7)
Rev. Edward
S. Hyatt, Sermons on the Word. Swedenborg Genootschap, 1935 (quoted
above in Chapter 7 Section 8)
Rev. Hugo
Lj. Odhner, “The Transition from Human to Divine Philosophy” Written in 1921.
Published in The New Philosophy 1974;
77:43-71. Available online at: http://www.newchurchissues.org/SR/hlo74.htm
)
(quoted in
Chapter 7 Section 8)
Rev.
Theodore Pitcairn, “The second Education” De
Hemelsche Leer, Third Fascicle, p.22. 1935 (quoted above in Chapter 7
Section 8; Chapter 8 Section 3) (Available online at www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409ss99/thompson/mscan8.html
)
The
Letters and Memorials of Emanuel Swedenborg. Translated and Edited by Rev. Alfred Acton (
Rev.
Geoffrey H. Howard titled "The Transformation of a Man into a Husband and
a Woman into a Wife through Marriage" appeared in New Church Life,
June 2001 issue, pages 243-248. (quoted above in Chapter 9 Section 1)
Rev. Ernst
Pfeiffer “Elucidation of Mr. Groeneveld's Address” De Hemelsche Leer, First Fascicle, p.82-95; 127-131, 1930 (quoted
above in Chapter 7 Section 8)
I wish to
thank Dr. Ian Thompson for his invaluable editorial assistance with several
drafts and for supplying many of the citations to the Writings (see Note 12
above ). I also wish to thank Rev./Dr. Ray Silverman who spent much appreciated
effort reading and critiquing an earlier draft (see Note 21 above). Rev. Robert
Junge made critical comments on several key issues 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
Titles for the Abbreviated Citations in the
Book
|
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 |
Full text
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The first
of them was at that point taken back to a state he had passed through when he
lived in the world; for anyone can easily be taken back to a state of his life
when in the world because every state of his life is present within him. (AC
4658)
On the
knowledge of the angels
To speak
only of the knowledge of the angels of the inward heaven, let just a single
example suffice-their knowledge of the structures and forms of the body. For
when one or another internal organ of the body is under consideration, they are
able to find out not only that organ's whole structure and operation, but also
whether any least answer that anatomical science has been able to detect experimentally
is really true. They are also able to find out in an instant whether anything
asserted regarding the individual internal organs, besides many other interior
parts, is true-things which no one of the human race could ever possibly know,
as I have experienced several times. They also know to which spiritual elements
all these parts correspond. (SE 1625)
I was
afterwards remitted into the company of those of this character, from whence
respiration flowed in, that I might know their quality; the respiration was
then separated from the pectoral region, and removed to the abdominal about the
naval, nor did it extend itself any further; and this signifies a life
separated from good and truth. There were then shown to me certain species of
respirations, concerning which much conversation also was had, as, for
instance, that there is conjoined with the usual respirations an external one,
which is common to the world of spirits; then an internal with an insensible
external, which is sufficiently good; then an internal without an external,
which is better; and finally an insensible one that was to me scarcely
perceptible, which is angelic. But these in general; there are still other
genera, and an indefinite number of species, pertaining to different regions of
the body and the determinations thence, concerning which, by the favor of the
Lord, I shall speak elsewhere. I was first accustomed thus to respire in my
early childhood, when saying my morning and evening prayers, and occasionally
afterwards, when exploring the harmonies of the lungs and heart, and especially
when deeply engaged in writing the works that have been published. For a course
of years I continually observed that there was a tacit respiration, scarcely
perceptible, concerning which it was subsequently given me to reflect, and then
to write. I was thus during many years, from the period of childhood,
introduced into such respirations, especially by means of absorbing
speculations, in which the breathing seems to become quiescent, as otherwise
the intense study of truth is scarcely possible. Afterwards, when heaven was
opened to me, and I was enabled to converse with spirits, I sometimes scarcely
breathed by inspiration at all for the space of a short hour, and merely drew
in enough of air to keep up the process of thinking. Thus I was introduced by
the Lord into interior respirations. I have also again and again observed, that
when I was passing into a state of sleep, my respiration was almost taken away,
so that I would awake and catch my breath. When I observe nothing of the kind,
I continue to write and think, and am not aware of my respiration being
arrested, unless I reflect upon it. This I may say has happened in instances
innumerable. Nor was I at such times able to observe the various changes,
because I did not reflect upon them. The design of all this was, that every
kind of state, every kind of sphere, and every kind of society, particularly
the more interior, might find in my own a fit respiration, which should come
into play without any reflection on my part, and that thus a medium of
interaction might be afforded with spirits and angels. (SE 3464)
The ability
to confirm whatever one pleases is not an indication of understanding; but the
ability to see that truth is truth, and that falsehood is falsehood, and to
confirm it is an indication of understanding. (TCR 334)