This is Volume 2
A Man of the Field
Forming
The
Volume 2:
Enlightenment
The
Spiritual Sense of the Writings
Volume 1: Reformation
The Struggle Against
Nonduality
Volume 3: Regeneration
Spiritual Disciplines For Daily Life
Volume 4: Uses
The New Church Mind In Old Age
By Leon
James
October
2002
(draft 18)
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A “field” means doctrine (AC 368)
A "man" signifies faith
and truth (AC 427; 4823)
Because 'field' means doctrine
anyone receiving any seed of faith, whether the individual, the Church, or the
world, is called a field. (AC 368)
Volume 2
Enlightenment
Extracting
The Spiritual Sense of the Writings
Table of Contents
The
Spiritual Sense Of The Writings Demystified
2. A
Diagram Showing The Formation Of The New Church Mind
3.
The Operation Of Reformation, Enlightenment, Regeneration
4.
The Nine Installation Steps
5.
Doctrine Is The Reception Of Spiritual Information Packets
6.
Biology Of The Spiritual Doctrine
7.
Diagram Of The Discrete Levels In The Mind and the Writings
8.
The Spiritual Doctrine is Heaven and the Lord In Us
9.
Why The Spiritual Doctrine In Our Mind Must Be A Divine Doctrine
10.
Objections To The Divine Doctrine In Our Mind
11.
The Spiritual Doctrine In The Mind Must Be Proven By The Letter
12.
Man Enters Heaven Through The Church
13.
Demystifying The Divinity Of The Spiritual Doctrine
14.
The Divine Rational Cannot Be Approached In The Letter
15.
Examples Of Enlightenment In Everyday Circumstances
16.
Surface Meaning And Underlying Meaning Of Sentences
17.
The Divinity Of The Spiritual Sense We Extract From The Letter
18.
The Spiritual Sense Of Ecclesiastical And Civil Government
19.
Anatomy Diagram Of The Spiritual Doctrine in the Mind
20.
The Difference Between The Spiritual Sense And The Spiritual Doctrine
21.
The Physiology Of Spiritual Enlightenment
22.
Enlightenment Is Not A Mysterious Process
23.
Spiritual-Rational Meditations
24.
The Internal Meaning Of Music And Art
25.
The Difference Between Natural And Spiritual Language
26.
The Spiritual Doctrine Cannot Be Used For Politics And Morality
27.
“Within The Natural” Vs. “In The Natural.”
28.
Spiritual Topics Vs. Spiritual Meanings
29.
Diagram Of Natural Vs. Spiritual Understanding Of The Writings
30.
The Divinity Of The Spiritual Doctrine.
31.
The Substitution Technique For Teaching The Spiritual Doctrine
32.
The Correspondence Technique For Teaching The Spiritual Doctrine
33.
The Dangers Of Remaining In The Letter OF the Writings
34.
The Doctrinals Taught In The Church Are In a Natural Language
35.
The Fear of the Divinity of Doctrine in Our Understanding
36.
The Lord Is Divine Doctrine
37.
Human Understanding Is Not Divine Doctrine
38.
Human Statements Are Not Divine
39.
The Spiritual Sense Of The Writings Must Not Be Denied
40.
Protecting The Church From False Doctrines And Heresies
41.
The Infinite is Contained Within The Finite
42.
The Spiritual Sense Explained By Rational Correspondences
43.
The Secret Of Extracting The Spiritual Sense Of The Writings
44.
Regeneration Is By The Spiritual Sense.
45.
The Spiritual Sense Is Also A Correspondence
46.
Enlightenment Is The Only Way To See The Spiritual Sense
47.
Lower And Higher Correspondences
48.
Newcomers To The World Of Spirits
49.
The Divine Doctrine is Unique With Each Individual
50.
“Nunc Licet” The Flagpole Of The New Church Mind
51.
The Three Steps Of Deriving Doctrine From The Writings
52.
Without Doctrine The Writings Is Not Understood
53.
Conjunction With The Lord By Means Of The Internal Sense
54.
Why Be Concerned With The Internal Sense Of The Writings
55.
Summary Of The Doctrine That The Writings Have A Spiritual Sense
2. OT
And NT Through The Perspective Of The Writings
3.
The Daily Study Of The Writings Is Necessary For Regeneration
4.
Without The Spiritual Sense We Fall Into New Church Idolatries
5.
The Substitution Technique For Dualities In The Writings
7.
Cross/Parallels And Within-Parallels
8.
Reading The Writings As The Word
9.
Rational Understanding Of Spiritual Things
10.
Enhancing The Base Of Knowledge About The Writings
11.
The Letter Of The Writings Has Been Preserved
12.
An Example Of Spiritual Mathematics In The Writings
Theistic
Science Revelations in the Writings
2.
Swedenborg’s Scientific Dualism
3.
The Notion That The Writings Contain Outdated Science
4.
Dual Concepts in the Writings
5.
Scientific Revelations in the Writings.
6.
Sensuous And Rational Content In The Writings
7. A
Spiritual Sensuous Consciousness
8.
External And Interior Theistic Science.
9.
The Writings “Are Founded” On Theistic Science
10.
Diagram of “Scientifics” And “Doctrinal Matters”
11.
Literal And Spiritual Senses Are Both True And Accurate
12.
Spiritual Parallelism Between The Lord, The Writings, And Our Mind
13.
Enlightenment By Rational Consciousness of Spiritual Correspondences
14.
The Divine Rational Is Within The Divine Natural Of The Writings
15.
Why The Interior-Natural Is Called Spiritual-Natural
16.
Anatomy Of The External Natural Mind
17.
Individual Regeneration Recapitulates Spiritual History Of The Race
18.
The Use Of The Priesthood For Religious Life
19.
Swedenborg's Scientific Works
20.
Led By The Lord Since His Early Education
21. Principles For The True Science
22.
Overcoming Objections To Theistic Science
23.
The External Rational And The Interior Rational
24.
Theistic Science And Religion
25.
Theistic Science And Regeneration
26.
Regeneration By Sensuous Vs. Rational Consciousness
27.
Evolution Of Consciousness In The Human Race
28.
Diagram Of The Elevation Of Consciousness In The Human Race
29.
Spiritual Psychology and History
30.
Chart of Spiritual Psychology and History
32.
Enlightenment Is Not Sufficient For Salvation
33.
The Level Of Consciousness In Representatives And Significatives
34.
Scientific Observations Of Spiritual Facts
35.
The Science Of Spiritual Anatomy
1.
The Writings Are A Divine Scientific Revelation
2.
The Writings Are The Lord’s Second Coming
3.
Heaven Is Created From Rational Love
4. A
Divine Revelation That Surpasses All Others
5.
Swedenborg’s Scientific Experiments In The Spiritual World
6.
Swedenborg’s Dual Citizenship—Natural And Spiritual
7.
This Book Is About Regeneration
Titles for the Abbreviated Citations in the Book
Full Text
Free Online Access to All Swedenborg’s Writings:
Printing Note: Access the .doc format files here:
Uses: The
Innocence of Old Age
Volume 1 is
located at this address:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/nonduality.html
Volume 2 is
located at this address:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/nonduality3.html
Every
spiritual truth in the Writings
is a Divine Commandment
The Preface
to Volume 1 may be consulted in addition to the following (please see Table of
Contents).
This Volume
is called Enlightenment to
distinguish it from Volume 1 called Reformation
and Volume 3 called Regeneration.
Each volume addresses itself to one of the three essential steps of full
regeneration. Reformation is a process of realigning all concepts in our
understanding to concord with the dualities taught in the Writings. Reformation
is therefore a struggle against the concepts of nonduality that are already
established in our mind, inasmuch as reformation only begins sometime in adult
life.
Following
reformation which takes a few months, regeneration can begin. Why do we then
need to be concerned with Volume 2 called “Enlightenment”? The answer is that regeneration cannot proceed by the same truths that
we have for effecting reformation.
When we
first read the Writings we are in an unregenerate state, which is the state we
are in prior to undergoing reformation. In the unregenerate state we read and
study the Writings in its literal meaning. As will be shown in this volume, this
literal meaning is expressed in natural-rational correspondences, that is, in natural
appearances of truths. Correspondences are called “real appearances” (AC 9927)
The Lord conjoins Himself to uses by means of
correspondences, and thus by means of appearances in accordance with the
confirmations of these by man. (DP 220)
Correspondences are in great part appearances of truth
enclosed within which, nevertheless, genuine truths lie
concealed (DP 256)
The Word is written throughout wholly by correspondences (DP
256)
The literal sense of the Word was composed out of what are
called appearances and correspondences. (TCR 650)
Since the
Clearly therefore, the Second Coming
of the Lord is the conjunction of the New Church mind with the Divine Human
through the natural-rational correspondences of the Letter of the Writings.
Reformation
begins when we decide as an adult that we are going to worship the Letter
of the Writings as the Divine Word, which is Divine Truth, which is the Lord
Himself in His Second Coming as the Divine Rational. These points are
established in this Volume.
In the Letter
of the Writings, the human race now has possession of the truths and the
reasoning process an individual needs to eliminate all nonduality in the mind, and
to substitute only the dualities of the Writings as the basis for all thinking
and reasoning. In the new civilization of the Second Coming, this is the
definition of how anyone in the world may form the
The power
of the Letter of the Writings is Divine. This power lies in its being written
in natural-rational correspondences. The literal sense of each expression in
the Writings is a natural-rational correspondence, as will be shown and
illustrated in this Volume. Within this, as in a cognitive vessel or
containant, lies infinite things in infinite series,
since this is the character of the Word (AC 2619, 6620). The living power of
the Letter of the Writings comes from what lies within the Letter. The Letter
itself is dead (xx). Hence it is a Divine commandment that the
We do our
conscious rational thinking and reasoning in the portion of the mind called the
natural-rational understanding. This level of thinking and reasoning is
constituted out of natural-rational correspondences, that is, spiritual-rational
truths accommodated to the intellect of the natural mind. The Word of the Old
Testament is written in natural-corporeal
correspondences, while the Word of the New Testament is written in natural-sensuous correspondences. The Word
of the Writings is written in natural-rational
correspondences.
The
natural-rational correspondences of the Letter of the Writings are therefore a
discrete degree above the New Testament correspondences, which in turn are a
discrete degree above the Old Testament correspondences.
The Threefold
Word has been given to the human race in three portions, each part suitable to
the intellectual level of the civilization which received its portion. The natural-rational correspondences of the
Writings required that they be written after modern science and the rational
age had matured. Swedenborg’s prepared mind, immersed in this modern
climate, served as the mechanism for delivering the Latin Word.
This
indicates that Swedenborg’s level of conscious thinking and reasoning was
immersed in natural-rational correspondences. His thoughts, concepts, ideas
were constituted out of natural-rational correspondences. As a result, he was
able to compose sentences and paragraphs in Latin that were made wholly of
expressions that denote natural-rational correspondences. Many illustrations
and demonstrations of this fact are given in this Volume. Undoubtedly
Swedenborg also operated at a higher degree of thinking and perceiving when he
was in the company of angels, especially higher angels. His thinking was then
immersed in and was operating by means of spiritual-rational correspondences. But when it came to composing Latin sentences, which are laid down
in a natural language, Swedenborg’s thinking and reasoning operated at a
natural level, not spiritual. Hence it is that the Letter of the
Writings, that is, the literal meaning of the expressions, refers to
natural-rational correspondences. By this
process the Lord was able to reveal His Divine Rational laid down in the
natural.
The natural-rational
correspondences of the Letter of the Writings give us the new rational ability
to build up in our natural mind, a representation of this Letter in our
knowledge, understanding, and perception. This representation of the Letter in
our natural mind is constituted of natural-rational correspondences. These
natural-rational correspondences are located in the natural-rational mind. This
is the highest portion of the natural mind, as will be illustrated in diagrams.
These natural-rational correspondences in
the natural-rational mind serve for reformation.
But in
order for regeneration to begin the natural-rational correspondences of the
Letter in our mind, must be applied to life, that is, to our daily willing and
thinking. The moment we begin this
activity, which is to be a daily activity for many years, the Lord enlightens
us.
Enlightenment
in the
The Word is
written in correspondences, as already mentioned. The natural-rational
correspondences of the Letter of the Writings are appearances of Divine Truth
regarding the Divine Rational of the Lord. These natural-rational
correspondences contain an interior spiritual meaning which is constituted of
spiritual-rational appearances of truth. In
other words, the spiritual sense of the Writings is nothing else than the
spiritual-rational correspondences that are within the natural-rational
correspondences of its Letter.
You can see
the all important difference between natural-rational
correspondences of the Letter, on the one hand, and on the other, spiritual-rational correspondences of
the internal sense of the Letter. The relationship is like that between earth
and heaven, or that between what is dead in itself as an ultimate, and what is alive
within it as Divine. Swedenborg’s thinking and perception was immersed in
spiritual-rational correspondences when in the company of angels, but in
natural-rational correspondences when writing in Latin or Swedish. Since the
two correspond, we are able to extract from the natural-rational
correspondences, the spiritual-rational correspondences which lie within. The
Writings have provided detailed instructions on how to apply this method of
extraction to the Letter, as is shown in this Volume.
For
reformation we use natural-rational correspondences; for regeneration, we use
spiritual-rational correspondences. One is a more interior appearance of truth.
This more interior appearance of truth is
itself an appearance or correspondence, but it is a higher appearance, or
higher correspondence, and what is higher is superior.
This Volume
explains the process of enlightenment needed for regeneration.
It warns
against the dangers of remaining in the Letter.
It collects
many passages from the Writings to show what enlightenment is and how it works
in our regeneration.
It debunks
and demystifies the various notions and fears that we may have when thinking
about the idea of an internal sense to the Writings.
It explains
what is the Spiritual Doctrine we are commanded to extract
from the Letter of the Writings. It gives various methods of extraction
and many illustrations.
I have
tried to make only arguments from the Writings and I cite relevant passages.
The (xx) citations are still to be inserted. If you know any of these, please
email them to me at leon@hawaii.edu. If
you find anything that seems like a doctrinal error, please write.
For the
Preface to Volume 1, please consult the Table of Contents above.
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)
Only from doctrine
can there be a church
(AE 1088)
The interior angels do not even perceive the church, but the
faith of that church (AC 1025)
Everyone who is
regenerate is a temple of the Lord (AC 40)
'A field' means doctrine, and so everything constituting
doctrine concerning faith and charity. (AC 368)
We have to
be willing to study the rational truths conveyed by the literal language of the
Writings, every day for many years, in order to be able to create for ourselves
a rational Doctrine of life out of them, to guide our willing and thinking
every conscious moment. The Lord commands us to follow a spiritual discipline
by which we compel ourselves to live by in our daily willing and thinking acts.
And step by step, the Lord approaches closer and closer in proportion to our
sincerity and persistence in this lifelong discipline. We receive from the Lord
the conscious light of spiritual understanding by means of the application of Doctrine
in our natural mind. This is a conscious light in our natural mind, easily seen
from great distance in the spiritual world on account of its spiritual content
within the interior-natural mind. The interior-natural is also called the
spiritual-natural and is the level of thinking in which the angelic spirits are
in the First Heaven (xx).
This
spiritual light is the light in which we perceive and think when our thinking
is immersed in spiritual-rational correspondences. This light is what provides
enlightenment for the
When we see
in this spiritual light those things about our willing and thinking all day
long, and when we see in this spiritual light those things that surround us in
the natural and cultural environments, we experience delight and bliss that
cannot be described.
But this
delight and bliss is nothing but the consequence of the spiritual heat we sense
in response to our willing the good and thinking the true.
This hot
light of consciousness shines brightly in the spiritual world. All such light
issues from the spiritual Sun (DLW 89). We cannot see this light directly in a natural-sensuous
way, but we can see it in a rational way by its correspondences to the natural or
external things in our mind and in society. The happiness we feel is not
something we can grasp for as a goal. Neither would we be satisfied with this
happiness as a goal in itself, rather than as a consequence. The happiness is
only a by product of the use, which is the willing and thinking as of-self to
harmonize with the Doctrine we take up in our mind.
The Doctrine in our mind is first
natural from the Letter of the Writings, then spiritual from enlightenment as
we apply the literal sentences to our daily willing and thinking.
When the
Doctrine is understood literally, consequently naturally, we consider it the
same as the Letter of the Writings. In other words the expressions “the
Heavenly Doctrine” and “the Letter of the Writings” are taken to be the same. But
when Doctrine is understood spiritually, it is as remote from the Letter as the
light of the moon is in comparison to the light of the sun (xx). The Heavenly
Doctrine understood spiritually is called the Spiritual Doctrine. This is the
Doctrine we must form for ourselves for making progress in our regeneration. Spiritual
Doctrine understood spiritually has light and power like the noonday sun in the
summer in relation to a garden or field. We begin reformation through a natural
understanding of Doctrine in its literal sentences, but by the time we complete
reformation, and begin regeneration, more and more of
Doctrine is now seen spiritually. In other words, our enlightenment grows in
proportion to our regeneration.
The Spiritual Doctrine is the
Writings understood spiritually.
To
understand the Writings literally and naturally is to put up an effort as-of
self in our natural-rational mind. The literal understanding of the Writings is
the understanding immersed in natural-rational correspondences. This is a far
higher level of thinking and understanding than the natural-sensuous
correspondences in which the New Testament is written. Seventeen centuries of
intellectual and scientific development intervene between the natural-sensuous
correspondences of the New Testament and the natural-rational correspondences
of the Writings. The natural-rational
correspondences of the Letter of the Writings elevate the mind of the human
race to a new level of conscious understanding and functioning. This level
is the highest possible level of thinking and understanding with the natural
mind. Yet it is only like the light of the moon at night when compared to the
portions of the mind above the natural which are in the bright and intense light
of the spiritual Sun. The spiritual topics of the Writings can be understood
naturally or spiritually, and one gives us the light of the moon at night, the
other gives us the light of the summer sun at
At first we
see the Heavenly Doctrine as something outside of ourselves, something in the
Letter. We take up the literal sentences into our memory and into our
natural-rational understanding. Note that we do this by dint of intellectual
effort and reasoning. Now that a form of the Heavenly Doctrine is in our
natural-rational mind, we feel it as our own, to the extent that we also love
it, not merely understand it. Once we have this natural understanding of the Heavenly Doctrine, it stays with us as
we go about our daily willing and thinking, and not merely when we read the
Writings. It’s as if the Writings are written in our memory and heart, rather
than in a book or computer file.
We can now
use the Heavenly Doctrine we have appropriated by applying it to guide our
daily willing and thinking. This is part of the process of regeneration,
namely, taking up a natural understanding of the Heavenly Doctrine and then
applying it to guide our daily willing and thinking. This natural understanding
of the Heavenly Doctrine is nothing else than the understanding of the
natural-rational correspondences in which its words and expressions are written.
But the natural understanding of
Doctrine does not have the power to regenerate because the natural cannot enter
the spiritual, and we must be regenerated by what is spiritual entering the
natural (xx).
Hence the
Lord gives us enlightenment to the extent that we apply our natural
understanding of Doctrine to daily willing and thinking. The spiritual entering
the natural consists of applying natural-rational correspondences to our
willing and thinking, an act or operation that the Lord uses to enlighten us. This
effect is obtained because our willing and thinking constitute the interior
level of the particular in creation, while the Doctrine in our mind constitute general principles and relations. The particular
is a discrete degree above the general, as will be shown in the diagram that
follows.
Only after this enlightenment has
occurred, do we have a conscious perception of the Spiritual Doctrine.
This means
that we have a conscious perception of spiritual-rational correspondences. It
is shown later in the Chapter how this process takes place and in which anatomical
portion of the mind.
As this
process of enlightenment and regeneration goes on, we appropriate more and more
of the Spiritual Doctrine, feeling it within us and as being ours. It will be shown below that this Spiritual
Doctrine in our mind is Divine Doctrine. This is important to prevent us
from appropriating the Divine. The Spiritual Doctrine is felt to be our own
from intellectual effort in penetrating the Letter of the Writings. That it
feels like our own, means that we are consciously conjoined to the Divine. Our
love and worship of the Spiritual Doctrine is the condition the Lord waits for
to effect conjunction with the individual
The Divine
Doctrine in one
Whenever a new view arises about the Letter that does not agree with the
existing views in a Church, the members with the new view will form a separate Church
so as not to experience opposition. In this way, the Church proliferates according to its
cultural views and selections and interpretations of the Letter of the
Writings. Every Church specific, if charity is the primary in it and faith its secondary, receives from the Lord Divine Doctrine by
means of enlightenment of its members, in accordance with each member’s
progress in the regeneration series they each must undergo.
The
location of this new spiritual understanding of Doctrine is not in our
natural-rational mind, for the spiritual cannot be in the natural, but only
above it or within it, in a discrete degree higher than the natural. It is necessary therefore that the Lord
create a new mind within the natural-rational.
This new
mind is called the interior-natural mind and its operation is nothing
else than spiritual-rational correspondences. This is the level of
understanding and thinking of the angelic spirits have
who live in the First Heaven. The new interior-natural mind now gives us the
capacity to have a spiritual consciousness that was not possible before. Spiritual consciousness is the conscious perception
of spiritual-rational correspondences. The spiritual understanding of the Heavenly Doctrine is located not in
the external natural mind but in the interior-natural mind. This is the
level of thinking and reasoning that serves for our regeneration.
We cannot
be regenerated by natural-rational correspondences.
Hence it is
that the Letter kills but the spiritual sense gives life. The spiritual sense
is nothing else than the perception of spiritual-rational correspondences. This
perception is called enlightenment. This Chapter presents methods for
extracting spiritual-rational correspondences from natural-rational
correspondences.
The study of
the Letter of the Writings and the consequent natural understanding of the Heavenly Doctrine,
is our First Education, or reformation. The application of the Letter in our
mind to our daily willing and thinking, leads to the spiritual understanding of the Heavenly Doctrine, and is our Second
Education, or enlightenment. But there is one more step: We must then confirm
this spiritual understanding of the Heavenly Doctrine by means of the Letter of
the Writings, and this can be called our Third Education, which is regeneration
itself. Thus, starting from the Letter, we end with the Letter. These three
steps are required for every regenerating
The
interior-natural mind responds to three discrete levels of Doctrine. These
three levels mirror by correspondence the Doctrine that is in the three
heavens.
As we
regenerate, the Lord opens the unconscious spiritual mind more and more, with
more and more interior truths of Doctrine that He implants as a Divine Seed in
a
Our unconscious
spiritual mind being built up by the Lord during regeneration is the mind that
lives and is conscious in heaven in the afterlife. The discrete level to which
our unconscious spiritual mind is opened determines which of the three heavens
we enter for eternal life. This depends on our regeneration. Those who suffer
themselves to be regenerated to the celestial level, enter the highest or Third
Heaven.
The
interior-natural mind is therefore the organ of consciousness for the
understanding of Spiritual Doctrine. It is the organ that contains
spiritual-rational correspondences and gives us conscious perception of them.
Note that the content of the interior-natural mind originates from the
unconscious spiritual mind, which is spiritual of celestial origin, hence from
the Divine.
Both the unconscious spiritual mind
and the conscious interior-natural mind are from celestial origin. Therefore everything in them is
Divine, just as everything in the Garden of Eden is Divine, and everything in
heaven is Divine (xx).
There is nothing
in them from self or the world. This is in contrast with the content of the
natural-rational mind which originates from as-of self effort and intelligence.
This is why the natural understanding of the Heavenly Doctrine is from
self-intelligence, but its spiritual understanding is from heaven and the Lord.
The Spiritual Doctrine in our mind is nothing but the spiritual-rational
correspondences in our perception from the interior-natural mind. Consequently,
the Spiritual Doctrine in our mind is Divine Doctrine.
The First
Education is for reformation. The interior-natural mind is not yet opened in
this phase because our understanding of Doctrine is not yet spiritual. We
undergo reformation by means of the truths of the Letter understood naturally.
When we begin our regeneration, then for the first time the Lord enlightens us
with a more interior perception of Doctrine. This is the beginning of our
Second Education. The Lord now creates an interior-natural mind within our
natural-rational mind. At first, only the lowest discrete level is built up in
the new interior-natural mind. This corresponds to the spiritual understanding
of Doctrine by the natural angels in the First Heaven. Then, as we confirm the
spiritual understanding in the Letter of the Writings, we obtain our Third
Education. Now the interior-natural mind is opened to its second degree that
corresponds to the understanding of Doctrine possessed by the spiritual angels
of the Second Heaven.
In old age,
the
2. A Diagram Showing The
Formation Of The New Church Mind

The diagram
shows the topical organization of this book. It represents the operations of
regeneration by means of the Writings. The formation of the
The diagram
depicts nine categories of dualities arranged in an ennead matrix of nine cells
(3x3). There are three levels (I, II, III) within each of the three operations,
or class of activity, described as Volume 1, 2, and 3 (Reformation,
Enlightenment, Regeneration).
Thus,
Reformation operates at three levels of thinking: Knowledge (I), Understanding
(II), and Perception (III). So does Enlightenment, and also Regeneration.
These nine
dualities represent nine steps we go through to install the
3. The Operation Of
Reformation, Enlightenment, Regeneration
Reformation (Volume 1) is the struggle against
nonduality in the
Enlightenment (Volume 2) is the opening by the
Lord of the interior-natural mind. Level I thinking is
represented in the diagram by a class of dualities represented by the idea of
the “spiritual sense existing within the natural sense.” At the second level of
enlightenment or thinking (II), we install the class of dualities represented
by the distinction between natural-rational correspondences of the Letter and
spiritual-rational correspondences extracted from the Letter. At the third
level of enlightenment (III) we install the class of dualities represented by
the Spiritual Doctrine that is extracted from the literal and built into a
coherent rational system of principles. Please refer again to the diagram
above.
Regeneration (Volume 3) is the application of
enlightenment to reveal our willing and thinking and to compel ourselves into
proper alignment with the Spiritual Doctrine in our mind. At level I,
regeneration is merely the knowledge from the Letter that we must undergo
reformation in adult life, followed by regeneration until the end. At level II,
regeneration is the understanding that the church in our mind must be a heaven
in miniature. No willing and thinking must be left standing that is not in
obedience and conformity with the Heavenly Doctrine understood spiritually. At
level III, regeneration is the development of conjugial love. And example is
the Doctrine of the Wife, discussed in Volume 3. Please refer again to the
diagram above.
So far we
discussed the diagram vertically by
operation (reformation, enlightenment, regeneration). Now if you look at the
diagram horizontally you will get a
picture of the overall operation for each level. The three “levels” refer to the
three levels of thinking and reasoning: the level of knowledge (I), the level
of understanding (II) and the level of perception (III), as described in the
Writings (xx). But reading the diagram horizontally gives us a specific
perspective on the role of these three levels within each operation.
For example: What is
the difference between the knowledge level of thinking between reformation and
enlightenment?
The diagram
answers this question with a contrast between, on the one hand, “internal
man/external man” duality (reformation level I), and on the other hand, the
“spiritual sense/natural sense” duality (enlightenment level I). In other
words, the idea that the spiritual sense is to be extracted from the natural
sense is an enlightenment step, while the idea that the internal man rules the
external man from an invisible world that is a discrete degree above it, is a
reformation step. This notion is discussed further below when the nine
installation steps are described individually.
Take a second example: “What
do spiritual-rational correspondences correspond to?”
The diagram
answers this question with a contrast between, on the one hand, “spiritual-rational
correspondences,” and on the other, the “Spiritual Doctrine.” Both are
operations of enlightenment. The diagram shows that understanding the duality
“spiritual-rational” within natural-rational” is the foundation for level III,
namely perceiving the Spiritual Doctrine. This duality is further discussed
below in the installation steps. But for now, you can see that
spiritual-rational correspondences are at a lower level of thinking (II) than
the Spiritual Doctrine (III). This means that the spiritual-rational
correspondences in the understanding point to, or refer to, that which is above
themselves. And this is the Spiritual Doctrine. In the same way you can see
that the Letter of the Writings is the external portion of the Spiritual
Doctrine and the two cannot be equated since they form a duality.
Take a third example: “What
is the essential difference between the natural-rational mind and the
interior-natural mind?”
The diagram
answers this question with a contrast between, on the one hand, “interior-natural
mind” and on the other, the “natural-rational mind.” This contrast is installed
in the operation of reformation at level II. The diagram shows that the
interior-natural mind is a discrete degree above the natural-rational mind. Above
or within in terms of discrete degrees always means superior (xx). The way in
which the interior-natural mind is superior to the natural-rational mind is
shown by adjacent dualities. For instance, going horizontally on the matrix,
the interior-natural mind in reformation (level II) becomes the containant for
spiritual-rational correspondences in enlightenment (II). This indicates that
the opening of the interior-natural mind during reformation paves the way for
understanding the duality between interior-natural correspondences and natural-rational
correspondences. Upon understanding this duality depends
the ability to perceive the Spiritual Doctrine (level III). There is therefore
an indirect but determinative relationship between understanding the
interior-natural mind and perceiving the Spiritual Doctrine. These matters are
discussed in more detail later in the Chapter.
Take a fourth example: “What
is the relationship between perceiving the Spiritual Doctrine and understanding
what is heaven?”
This
question contrasts “enlightenment level III” with “regeneration level II.” The
diagram answers this question with a contrast between, on the one hand, the
“Spiritual Doctrine” and on the hand, “Heaven.” The diagram shows that both are
interior elements of their duality.
Their external elements relate to each other as “Letter of the Writings”
relates to “Church on earth.” To express these relations verbally we would say
that the Church on earth is the external natural vessel for heaven, when all is
in order from creation. Similarly, the Letter of the Writings is a natural
vessel for the Spiritual Doctrine. However, these relations vary for each
operation.
In the
operation of enlightenment, the relation between the spiritual and the
natural is by means of the perception (level III) that the natural-rational
correspondences of the Writings have a spiritual-rational correspondence to
which they refer from within. Consequently, it is the perception that the
Spiritual Doctrine is not in the Letter but within it, and must be extracted
from the Letter by appropriate methods.
In the
operation of regeneration, the relationship between the interior and
external is defined by a perception (level III) of conjugial love within the
marriage of regenerating couples. Therefore our understanding (level II) of
heaven is the result of this perception since understanding (level II) is
always the result of perception (level III) (xx).
As you can
see the ennead diagram has powerful abilities to organize a lot of ideas from
the Writings. You can practice deriving questions by picking a contrast, as I
have done above in the four examples. Then, giving an answer
by invoking the neighbor dualities. You can move around vertically,
horizontally, and diagonally, each movement defining the type of question being
asked and its answer.
See Note 24
for more information on the amazing properties of enneads that I have
discovered over the years.
4. The Nine Installation Steps
Starting
with level I at the bottom, you can see the duality external
man / internal man. This is the first installation step. Notice the two arrows.
The arrow on the right pointing downward represents the order of creation.
In this case the internal man was created to rule the external man, and gradually
does so, as we are regenerated. The reverse arrow on the left pointing upward
represents the order of appearances. In the appearances of our biography
it seems that the internal man is discovered by the external man. For instance
we might read this in the Writings at which time we say to ourselves: “OK, I
have an internal man of which I’m unconscious. This internal part of myself is called a heaven in miniature (xx) because that
portion of my spirit or mind is actually in heaven with angels” (cf. xx).
From this
we live the appearance that the external man discovers the existence of the
internal man. When this appearance is taken for reality, the internal man
cannot descend into the external man and heaven remains unattainable and
distant as long as we remain in that state of mind.
The two arrows must work together to
achieve functionality of the Divine operation.
The
downward arrow represents the dominion of the internal over the external.
Heaven then rules that person, and the individual is then in heaven already. The
upward arrow represents the resistance we put up to obeying the Doctrine in our
mind. It is our unregenerate state. Understanding this duality moves us into
level II of reformation. It is the first step up in our reformation, which
begins at some point in adulthood with the knowledge from the Writings that we
must undergo reformation by subduing the external man and place him in
obedience to the internal man. Acknowledging this process allows us to begin
reformation but in order to progress we must take the second installation step.
The first
installation step that begins reformation (Volume 1), is
our acknowledgement from the Letter of the Writings that the internal man is
superior even though invisible to the external man. Until reformation we were
in our unregenerate state and we believed the internal/external contrast in a
natural way. The contrast in our mind was a nonduality created by the idea of a
continuum that stretches between the internal and the external of our mind. We
thought of it like we think about the internal wall of the heart and its
external wall. They are different along a continuum of muscle-cartilage
combinations. Both the external wall and the internal wall of the heart belong
to the same specialty in medicine, and the same techniques are used for managing
both during surgery and after. This is a nonduality because the internal and
external portions of the heart are made of similar fibers and protein
molecules. They are at the same discrete level.
But not so
for the internal man and the external man—they are at discrete levels relative
to each other. The internal man can see the external man, but the external man
cannot see the internal man (xx). Their relationship and interaction is by
correspondence only since they are in two separate realms of existence.
Reformation begins when we acknowledge that the relation is a discrete duality.
Then for the first time we can accept the idea that the external man did not
discover the internal man, but it is the internal man that revealed himself to the
internal man. This new acknowledgment completes the paths of the two arrows and
renders the duality functional, allowing the second step up.
Prior to
the beginning of reformation sometime in adult life, we have the Letter of the
Writings in our understanding and we take the literal meaning to be the
spiritual meaning, especially when we had to work hard to finally understand
some passage or see a relation between a collection of
passages. We equate “hard to understand” with “deeper meaning,” and then we
equate “deeper meaning” with “spiritual meaning.” Meanwhile, our thinking is
immersed in the natural-rational correspondences of the Letter. We worship the Letter
as one worships the Lord’s Body buried in a tomb hewn out of rocks.
But when we
acknowledge that the internal man reveals himself to the external man, we can
begin to understand this as a scientific or medical process of the growth of the
human mind. This new understanding is the second installation step, as the
diagram indicates. The third installation step is above understanding into
perception. We are in this final phase of reformation we can perceive the
particular within the general. This means: when we apply the Letter to our
willing and thinking. Our willing and thinking is the particular out of which
the general is constructed. Another way to say this is that our reformation is
complete when we perceive the duality of the particular within the general. The
general refers to the general principles and laws of Doctrine that we have in
our mind from the Letter. When our reformation is completed (installation step
III), our mind is then operating differently from before. We were not able to
perceive how the Letter applied to our willing and thinking. We were not able
to see the particular within the Letter, only its general on the exterior. Yet
the general is for the sake of the particular, just as the external is for the
sake of the interior.
Looking at
the diagram again:

Installation
step 4 begins the operation of enlightenment (Volume 2).
This step
is the acknowledgement of the duality between the spiritual sense and the
natural sense. Until this first step of enlightenment we had believed that the
natural sense of the Letter of the Writings is the same as the spiritual sense
of the Old and New Testaments. This point of view cannot see a duality between
them in discrete degrees, but only as a nonduality contrast, or continuum within
the same degree. The first step of enlightenment therefore comes when we acknowledge
that the Writings are written in pure correspondences.
The second
step of enlightenment is installation step 5. The diagram shows that this
involves understanding the duality of spiritual-rational correspondences within
natural-rational correspondences. We obtain this understanding when we practice
reading the Letter of the Writings with substitutions for parts from another
part of the Writings. This technique and its enlightening consequences are
described later in the Chapter.
The final
step in enlightenment is installation step 6.
The diagram
shows that this is the perception (III) of the duality Spiritual Doctrine
within the Letter of the Writings. This is the highest step of enlightenment
when our perception is elevated to heavenly light and we perceive spiritually
like the angels do, though by means of natural correspondences, ever higher and
more discretely representative. When we are fully enlightened and can perceive
the Spiritual Doctrine within the Letter, we are at last fully prepared for the
operation of regeneration (Volume 3).
Note the
two arrows again in installation step 6, or the final phase of enlightenment
(III). From the order of creation, the Spiritual Doctrine creates a suitable
natural vessel for itself called the Word. This creative cause-effect relation
is represented by the right arrow pointing downward. But in biographical
appearance, the order is reversed. It appears that the Letter comes to us
first, and that we study it for many years, believing that our increasing
understanding is the spiritual sense that we penetrate. This is represented by
the left arrow pointing upward. But as soon as both arrows become functional,
the process is completed. In this case, the Spiritual Doctrine is no longer
seen as something we infer and figure out, but something we derive or extract
from the Letter because it is located within the Letter. It is a mining
operation rather than a discovery and invention operation. And there are
definite rules and techniques to be applied for the mining operation to be
effective. This Chapter describes these methods of orderly an
legitimate extraction of the Spiritual Doctrine from the Letter.
Installation
step 7 is the first step of regeneration.
As the
diagram shows, it is the acknowledgement of a discrete duality between
reformation and regeneration. Prior to this first step, we believe that we have
already been regenerating since childhood or adolescence. This is a nonduality
notion of the unregenerate mind. We knew before that there was a distinction
between reformation and regeneration. But we did not understand this
relationship spiritually, only naturally. But now, we acknowledge it as a
discrete duality, so that we can recognize the task that lies ahead. The task
of regeneration has not begun until the tasks of reformation and enlightenment
have been completed. Only when we perceive the Spiritual Doctrine within the
Letter can we acknowledge the discrete duality between reformation and
regeneration. We acknowledge reformation to be the external part of our work,
while regeneration is the internal part. The external part has to do with the
understanding and the dualities therein, while the internal part has to do with
the will and our infernal delights.
The second
step of regeneration is installation step 8.
The diagram
shows this is the understanding (II) of the duality of heaven within the Church
on earth. You can see from the diagram that this understanding depends on the
duality between spiritual-rational correspondences and natural-rational
correspondences established earlier (panning left to enlightenment, level II). We
know from the Writings that heaven is the Grand Human and that nothing can be
inducted into that Divine Form but what is genuinely Human,
that is, what is from the Lord. There is a purification process that we must
undergo if our mind is to be a Church that is tied to heaven, thus a Church in
which there is an internal worship. Regeneration is the process of purification
by which the Lord brings our awareness to evil delights we cleave to, thus
giving us the opportunity to reject them by turning our face toward Him. Thus
we can desist from the evil delights, and at last hold
them in aversion and detest them. Then the Lord can admit us into the innocence
of wisdom in old age (see Volume 4). This is the celestial mind, the Church on
earth.
The final
step of regeneration is installation step 9.
The diagram
shows that this is the perception (III) of the duality conjugial love within
marriage. Prior to this final phase of our regeneration we could not perceive a
discrete degree between the external of our marriage an its
internal, which is conjugial love. Volume 3 discusses the Doctrine of the Wife
which is the central method for entering the last phase of one’s regeneration.
After
completion of the nine installation steps, the
5. Doctrine Is The Reception Of Spiritual Information Packets
Prior to
regeneration we equate “spiritual Doctrine of the Word” with “the Letter of the
Writings.” After reformation, the Lords creates an
interior-natural mind within our external rational understanding where we have
stored up the Letter of the Doctrine from studying the Writings. IN this interior-natural
mind we con consciously see the correspondences of the Doctrine in a spiritual
way. This is our spiritual understanding of the spiritual Doctrine located in
our interior natural mind. Now we can see the difference between the Doctrine
in the Letter and the spiritual Doctrine laid down within the Letter in our
mind. Now we can see that there is an inexhaustible source of interior
spiritual truths within the Writings. We can understand that the Letter of the
Writings is a finite set of Numbers and sentences. They have been indexed and
translated many times. There is a definite and finite number, even if we go
down to the letters of each word. How then can there be an endless collection
of spiritual truths in the Writings, to serve the entire humanity of the entire
future ahead to eternity?
We can see
the answer as soon as we have established for ourselves the idea that the
spiritual Doctrine is spiritual, made of a collection of spiritual truths. And
right away we can see that there is no limit to the number of spiritual truths.
Hence we can see that the endless collection o few truths for the human race
form the Letter of the Writings will come by enlightenment as the Letter is
known and honored and applied to one’s life situation.
6. Biology Of The Spiritual Doctrine
The
development of Doctrine can be thought of objectively and scientifically in
terms of spiritual psychobiology, spiritual neurology, or spiritual
agriculture. The mind is an organ made of spiritual fibers that must be grown
into a bulk and into a gyration or coiling process, similar to the brain’s
fissures with its billions of synapses coiled in coherent networks called “cell
assemblies” in modern physiology. But instead of physical food and caloric
energy, the mind uses spiritual packets called “truths” and “truths falsified.”
These two kinds of information packets are coiled opposite to one another, and
have opposite consequences on our life.
Spiritual
freedom refers to our self-controlled access to these information packets.
Whichever type we love, that we access, that is, streams into us from heaven or
hell, which builds up the fibers of the mind into clusters of coherent coiled
shapes. In order to distinguish between the two types that enter externally
into our rational mind, we must filter them through our reasoning process. The
accuracy of our reasoning process depends on our motive. We can perform the
rational analysis between true and false information packets, in order to keep
our inherited delights. In this case, our reasoning process will be necessarily
biased and false, leading us to take falses for truths, and truths for falses.
This is a disastrous course that leads all the way to hell because only truth
leads away from hell. Or, we can perform the rational analysis between true and
false information packets, in order to shed our inherited delights. This leads
to heaven because all inherited delights are ties to hell and shunning them
turns us toward heaven.
But what
would lead us to shed our inherited delights?
The
Writings teach that there is only one thing that can convince us to freely give
up our inherited and acquired evils. And that is the Doctrine in our mind from
the Writings (xx). If we love the Doctrine because it is from the Lord and is
the Lord (xx), we will work daily to acquire it into our mind. And if we
continue to love it in our mind, we will hold it up in the air as a brass
serpent (xx), and guide our steps in its light. Every moment we take a step in
our mind, we are advancing the spiritual fibers further into hell,
or further into heaven. Every act of willing or desiring, every idea and
conclusion of our thinking, is each a spiritual act that coils the fibers of
our mind into heaps tending to hell, or beautiful networks of coherence and
rationality that reach toward heaven, and touch it, thus becoming part of it.
In one day there are 1440 minutes and 86,400 seconds. Think of every second as
involving at least one spiritual act, but usually many more,
if one thinks about it from sudden memory (see Chapter 8 Section 1). Clearly
then, every day builds a considerable amount of spiritual fibers in our mind,
and these are permanent installations!
It’s
obvious that we must therefore have a way of filtering and monitoring these
thousands of spiritual acts we perform by the hour every day! Every single one
is formed by an information packet that comes to our natural mind either from
hell or from heaven. And since all these billions and trillions of fibers that
we inherit are from hell, we’ve got a big job on our hands if we are going to
get to heaven! Of course we could not even begin to do this from our own power
and intelligence, since we are born spiritually insane, and power we have none (xx). So the Lord has made a way for us. He
will supply the motive power, moment by moment, and He will supply the sanity
of thinking moment by moment. The Lord cannot do this directly, like we do
agriculture on earth, but only spiritually, through our own willing and
thinking acts. To the extent that we compel ourselves to do our willing and
thinking acts in accordance with His Divine Truth, to that extent we can be
reformed and regenerated. He has given us this Divine Truth in information
packets called Doctrine in their aggregate, and He has placed them in the Word
of His Second Coming. This is the Word of the Writings, which we must love as
we love Him, for Divine Truth is Him (xx).
By loving
these packets of truth in the Letter of the Writings, we imbibe them from the
literal language into our external mind, called the natural-rational, and then
simultaneously, the Lord, from within, puts the spiritual content into our
spiritual mind, and by correspondence into our interior-natural mind. Now we
have the living truth of Doctrine in us. Its external part is in the literal
meaning of it in our natural-rational mind. This conscious understanding of
truth from the Writings comes to us from the external natural world in the form
of a book. Within this conscious truth, the Lord implants spiritual truths from
within. This takes place in the spiritual mind in an unconscious way. But the
unconscious activity becomes conscious by correspondence in our conscious
interior-natural mind, as explained.
7. Diagram Of The Discrete Levels In The Mind and the Writings

The mind is
created into discrete degrees or levels. Each upper level interacts with the
level below itself by means of correspondences. The bottom level of the natural
mind is corporeal and it is not active with angels in heaven (xx). But while we
are in the physical body, the corporeal mind provides us with the ability to
memorize the Letter. Children are very good at this and can be taught to recite
large chunks of the Word, and to learn it by song and play. But this level of
thinking does not allow them to understand a single sentence or rational
concept. Above this is the natural-sensuous mind which allows us to interpret
the surface layer or meaning of the Letter. Anyone with education can
paraphrase many sentences in the Writings, or translate them into another language.
However this sensuous level of thinking and understanding does not allow one to
see general applications or see the equivalence between different passages, or
how they relate to one another and build on a theme or principle. These
activities can only go on in the natural-rational mind. You can see form the
diagram that it is the highest portion of the external natural mind. Above this
is no longer the external natural mind but its interior, called the
interior-natural mind.
Note this important fact: While the
natural-rational mind is built up by our own studious effort at figuring out
the Writings, the interior-natural mind is activated solely by the Lord.
This means
that the interior-natural mind is the consciousness of the Holy Spirit with us.
It is the physiological organ of the mind that provides for the dwelling of the
Divine within our conscious awareness.
Note from
the diagram that the interior-natural mind is activated by the Lord
simultaneously with our mental activity of rationally figuring out a sentence
in the Writings. This is the process of enlightenment from the Lord as one
reads or reflects upon the Letter. It is provided by the Lord for the sake of
our regeneration, for without this enlightenment we could not perceive the
spiritual sense, and without perceiving the spiritual sense no one can be
regenerated. This is the physiological process the Lord provides and there is
no other method by which to be regenerated and saved.
The
spiritual meaning that is in our interior mind is from the Lord. The
natural-rational meaning that is in our external mind comes from our
intellectual effort to understand the literal of the Writings. Together the
external truth springs into life and becomes a living truth. Living truths is
what heaven is made of, therefore we need them to
enter eternal life in heaven (xx). The living spiritual truths which form
heaven in our mind is called the City, the New
Jerusalem, the Heavenly Doctrine (xx). This is the spiritual truths we must
have in our mind in order to filter the packets and arrange them in the
heavenly order, until at last, our mind is a heaven in
miniature (xx). Without this spiritual Doctrine in our mind, nothing can happen
but the inevitable slide down to hell. Our spiritual acts of willing and thinking
all day long will not be filtered by truth, and in the absence of truth there
is only hell forever (xx).
Keep in
mind that in order to perceive the spiritual sense of the Letter of the
Writings, two activities must go on simultaneously. One is located in the
interior-natural mind and the other in the natural-rational mind. Prior to
reformation our interior-natural mind was not activated by the Lord. Our
consciousness of the spiritual topics discussed by the Letter was non-existent.
We only had a natural understanding of the spiritual topics discussed in the
literal sensed of the Writings. But after reformation the Lord is able to
activate our interior-natural mind. Now when our natural-rational reflects on
the meaning of a sentence in the Letter, our interior-natural is also
activated, giving us a spiritual consciousness of the topics in the sentence.
Now we can perceive the spiritual sense within the Letter of the Writings. The activation of the interior-natural mind
is called enlightenment.
When we study
the Writings in order to form spiritual Doctrine in the mind, we do so from a
desire to be obedient to the Lord’s order and to reject all the order we
naturally prefer. This as of-self self-compulsion is the discipline and
effort into which the Lord can infuse spiritual-rational light, which is the
understanding of interior truths. But it’s an unending process (AC
9334). So we must
continue the daily discipline by modifying the Doctrine of life day by day, to
reflect the new more interior light we receive from the Lord. Now in this new
light, we must modify our willing and thinking to agree with the new light, which
gives a higher and purer perception. This is a cumulative process so that we
grow spiritually every day., This regimen or
discipline requires that we turn to the Lord for power to overcome the old way
of willing and thinking. Now even more interior light can be given by the Lord,
and this continues to eternity (AC 9410). For unless we
improved every day to eternity, we could not be truly human and truly happy
(xx).
Note that
the ever spiraling light to higher or more interior consciousness is not a sensation
of ecstasy but a rational consciousness. It is a new rationality in the
understanding. No truths reside in the will but only in the understanding (AE
724). So it is the
understanding that receives higher and higher consciousness to eternity.
Charity cannot be exercised without Doctrine (xx). It is Doctrine that leads to
charity, and from this charity, we receive new, more interior Doctrine. Charity
does not save unless it is from Doctrine (xx). Charity is the primary, and
Doctrine the secondary. Doctrine without charity cannot save (xx). Doctrine as
primary and charity as secondary, cannot save. But
Doctrine that leads to charity, from which new Doctrine is obtained, does save.
It is not charity that saves by means of Doctrine, but Doctrine from charity
saves (xx).
8. The Spiritual Doctrine is Heaven and the Lord In Us
Everything that proceeds from the Lord is called spiritual.
And since these truths and goods cannot be received by man unless he believes
them and does them, it is added, which are of faith and life from the Word. To
live from the Word is to live from the Lord, for the Lord is in the Word, yea,
He is the Word.
This
The
Heaven is
in our understanding by means of the spiritual understanding of Doctrine. The Lord’s good inflows into this understanding. It is
called the Heavenly Doctrine because heaven is in the Doctrine, as the Lord Himself
is the Doctrine (xx). And the all of heaven is the Lord (xx). The true human
begins in heaven in the celestial mind, and this mind is made out of spiritual
truths gathered together in the Doctrine that we have appropriated for
ourselves in our understanding. The truths of the Second
Coming creates the New Heavens in our mind. This is a rational heaven
made of spiritual-rational truths. Only by acquiring spiritual-rational truths
from the Writings, can heaven be formed in our mind, and in no other way.
Note
carefully that it is not the literal language of the Writings that makes the
heavenly Doctrine in our mind, but its spiritual content available from within,
in the spiritual mind:
Natural truths, which are the truths of the sense of the
letter of the Word, are not the very truths of heaven, but are appearances of
them; and appearances of truth encompass, enclose, and contain the truths of
heaven, which are genuine truths, and cause them to be in connection and order
and to act together, like the cardiac and pulmonary organs with their coverings
and ribs, as has been said above; and when these truths are held in connection
and in order they are holy, and not till then. This the sense of the letter of
our Word does by means of the appearances of truth of which its ultimate
consists; and this is why that sense is the holy Divine Itself and the
sanctuary. (AE 1088:[4])
When we
learn the truths of the Writings, we first have to put them into our external
rational mind, which is natural, not spiritual. But once they are there, they
can be elevated into spiritual truths when the Lord enlightens us to perceive
these spiritual truths. And the Lord enlightens us only when we struggle to
arrange our willing and thinking to conform to this literal understanding in
the natural mind. In that struggle to
apply the truths to our acts all day long, is the enlightenment that
constitutes the spiritual Doctrine in our mind. This is what saves since
this is what we must acquire to live in heaven. Here is the Lord’s warning:
But he is greatly mistaken who separates appearances of
truth from genuine truths and calls these appearances holy by themselves and
from themselves, and not the sense of the letter holy
by genuine truths and from them and together with them. He separates these who
sees only the sense of the letter and does not explore its meaning, as those do
who do not read the Word from doctrine. The "cherubim" mean in the
Word a guard and protection that the holy things of heaven be not violated, and
that the Lord be approached only through love; consequently these signify the
sense of the letter of the Word, because that is what guards and protects. It
guards and protects in this manner that man can think and speak according to
the appearances of truth so long as he is well-disposed, simple, and as it were
an infant; but he must take heed not to so confirm appearances as to destroy
the genuine truths in the heavens. (AE 1088:[5])
Note in
this passage something is said about those who do not read the Writings from
Doctrine. Doctrine here refers to the spiritual understanding of the literal
sentences. The Doctrine understood naturally is called “appearances” of truth.
When we are in that state, which is at the start of our reformation in adult
life, we read the Writings and try to make sense of it by means of our own
intelligence and reasoning. In this state, we “see only the sense of the letter
and do not explore its meaning.” This refers to the spiritual meaning within
the natural meaning. We do not explore
the spiritual meaning in what we read because we do not believe there is a
spiritual meaning in the Writings before we begin to regenerate.
The idea
that the Writings contain a spiritual meaning beneath the letter can only come
to us when we acknowledge it as the Word, just like the Word of the Old and New
Testaments. Once we acknowledge this fully, without hedging, we begin to
substitute in our mind “the Writings” wherever we see “the Word” as we read the
Writings. The minute we start doing this, we begin to see some of the spiritual
meaning within the letter. This is the result of enlightenment from the Lord.
The Lord works with our motive for doing this substitution. To the extent that
we do the substitution because we love the idea that the Writings are the primary Word for the New Church mind, to
that extent the Lord intensifies the enlightenment and allows us to see more
interior truths. The more interior the truths we see within the letter, the
more there is enlightenment, and the closer we are to the celestial angels who
live in the spiritual truths of the Writings. But, as explained frequently,
this enlightenment is proportional to the extent to which we apply our
understanding of Doctrine to our life.
It is very
important to realize that striving to be a good man and doing good to the neighbor and country, are not sufficient to
effect reformation and regeneration (xx). Only through Doctrine can we be
reformed and regenerated. This is how the Lord created the New Heavens out of
the old, by means of new spiritual truths He brought to the angels in the Word
of His Second Coming. As the angels accepted and loved these new truths about
the Divine Human, they appropriated them to themselves, and in these higher
truths they entered the New Heavens. The New Heavens were built by the Lord out
of these new spiritual truths that were in the angels from the Writings. The
Lord does everything by means of Divine Truth from His Divine Love. Divine
Truth is the same as the spiritual Doctrine, as accommodated to each individual’s
unique understanding. When the spiritual Doctrine is in our understanding, it
is the Lord who put it there. It is not possible to perceive the spiritual
Doctrine except from the Lord’s immediate enlightenment. Clearly then, the
spiritual Doctrine is only from the Lord, and therefore is the Lord with us,
dwelling in our understanding of His Divine Truth.
As we
ponder these things there is a certain fear or hesitation: What is someone
claims to have enlightenment from the Lord and promulgates a spiritual Doctrine
that is from himself, hence false. How would we distinguish between the false
and the true Doctrine? The answer is that the spiritual Doctrine is only from
enlightenment in the understanding, and as soon as you try to write down or
describe it in natural language, all you get is a natural view of it. The
spiritual Doctrine cannot be expressed in a natural language,
hence there is never the danger that someone’s claim to enlightenment would
influence our own thinking. We can read or reflect on the literal statements of
the spiritual Doctrine this man claims to have from the Lord. But the literal
and natural sentences do not give a spiritual view of the spiritual Doctrine,
only a natural view.
You can see
that this is also the case with the Heavenly Doctrine. In Arcana Coelestia (AC) we read numerous descriptions of the
spiritual sense of words and sentences in the Old Testament. We can be told
that woman in the Word means Church, or that man means faith or truth, or that
Jacob represents the external mind, or that blood signifies spiritual truth or
the falsification of spiritual truth, and so on. These correspondences are explained and these explanations are about
spiritual truths, but only as seen from a natural perspective. A spiritual
perspective on these spiritual truths cannot be obtained from the literal
descriptions. This spiritual perspective on spiritual truths cannot reside in
the natural mind, and we are not conscious of what is in our interior or
spiritual mind (xx). The only way we can
see the spiritual truths is not form the literal, but within the literal.
And this perception within the literal is only there when we are enlightened by
the Lord as we read the Writings. Let us try to write down the content of this
enlightenment, and we have nothing left in the sentences but a natural
perspective.
Note
carefully that this enlightenment can only take place with the literal of the
Writings and in no other way. The Lord cannot enlighten us with spiritual
truths from any other work, but only from His Word. Only the Word contains
spiritual truths (xx). For the
The Lord is
able to regenerate us by means o the spiritual Doctrine in our understanding.
By methods unbeknownst to us, He adjoins good to the
spiritual truths we acquired as-of self into our understanding by studying the
literal of the Word. Therefore gathering the spiritual Doctrine in our mind is
the primary means by which we are regenerated. But this applies only to the
extent that we shun evils in our willing and falsities in our thinking. If we
fail to do this, the enlightened understanding falls back to the level of the
unregenerate will, where it dies, and becomes purely natural, which in itself
is dead (xx). It is a stillborn spiritual Doctrine, never getting a breath of life.
This breath of life is our shunning evils because they are sins against the
Divine Truth. When good is adjoined by the Lord, we become a genuine human
being, a celestial mind, seeing the spiritual within the natural and willing
and thinking accordingly.
9. Why The Spiritual Doctrine In Our Mind Must Be A Divine Doctrine
Everything that proceeds from the Lord is called spiritual.
And since these truths and goods cannot be received by man unless he believes
them and does them, it is added, which are of faith and life from the Word. To
live from the Word is to live from the Lord, for the Lord is in the Word, yea,
He is the Word. (AE 754)
This
clearly says that to live from the Writings is to live from the Lord and that
He is the Writings. The Writings teach
that they cannot be understood without Doctrine drawn from its Letter (xx). Note that Doctrine has to be drawn
out, which means that Doctrine is not the same as the Letter. Recall that the
Letter of the Writings in a book or computer file is not what’s meant when
regeneration is discussed in the Writings. The Letter of the Writings referred
to is the literal meaning of the sentences that we have studied and understood
in a rational way. Therefore the Letter of the Divine Truth now exists laid
down in our natural mind. At first it is laid down in our sensuous mind, but
then as we grow more in intellectual ability, the Literal is laid down in our
natural-rational mind. This is the Letter we must think of when discussing
regeneration, for only when it is in the understanding can the Letter serve for
our regeneration and salvation.
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)
These three
commandments must be kept in mind when thinking about Doctrine and
regeneration. First, the Letter of the Writings is not the Doctrine and cannot
be understood without Doctrine. Second, Doctrine must be drawn or rationally
extracted form the Letter of the Writings. Third, the spiritual Doctrine is of
Divine origin and can be seen only by those who are enlightened by the Lord.
Clearly, our regeneration and salvation goes through orderly stages, and one is
the imbibing of the Letter of the Writings and figuring out their meaning in a
rational way. This is our First Education in spiritual development or
regeneration.
The second
phase is to “draw from the sense of the letter of the Writings.” This drawing
out process is a rational process of reasoning with our conscious natural mind.
It is orderly and objective since others in the Church must be able to also
understand the extraction process. Genuine faith cannot be by persuasion or
authority (xx). So every regenerating individual must extract Doctrine from the
Letter. But this cannot be done prior to studying and figuring out the meaning
of the Letter in a rational way. By performing this intellectual discipline we
are insured that there will be rational vessels in our natural mind that can
serve for enlightenment by the Lord.
You can see
that the Lord desires to enlightens everyone, and
would instantly do so, if this were according to Order. But it is not possible
to do this according to Order, for rational and spiritual reasons that are
explained in the Writings. Therefore the Lord commands us to follow the precise
condition by which He can enlighten us, and this is the taking up of the Letter
of the Writings into our rational mind. As we apply this natural understanding
to our daily willing and thinking, the understanding become spiritual. This is
done by the Lord who animates the external rational understanding from within,
as explained in several places in this book. So the Second Education we must
undergo is this drawing out of Doctrine from the Letter. Here not the external
physical book is meant, neither the memorized sentences. What is meant is the
Letter in our understanding. In other words, the intellectual effort we made in
trying to understand the Letter we read in the book. This understanding of the
Letter is the Letter within our understanding, and it is the Letter that is
called a “vessel” within which the Lord can infuse spiritual truths.
The third
step is to confirm the spiritual Doctrine extracted by means of the Letter in
the book. Without this the entire process is not genuine but falsified. All
three steps are necessary. The Third Education is the development of our skill
in confirming spiritual Doctrine in the Letter of the Writings. This activity
multiplies the consequences of the spiritual Doctrine and the spread throughout
our conscious rational mind, from which we have wisdom to defeat our evil
affections.
The Third
Education allows us to prove the correctness and purity of the spiritual
Doctrine and to disprove the false natural doctrinal theories that many in the
Church might put forth at one time or another. The essential human is rational
and since Doctrine is a rational entity, it is Doctrine that makes us more and
more human. We are not fully human, genuinely human, until we have confirmed
the spiritual Doctrine which we received by enlightenment. Because the fully
human is the celestial mind, and this is what the celestial mind does, and this
is whereby the celestial mind is created by the Lord.
You can see from all this that two
things make the all and all of the
The process
of spiritual development, or regeneration, is gradual and by means (xx). It
describes the process in numerous places in the Letter, as a computer search on
“regeneration” will instantly demonstrate. The first general step is to study
the Letter of the Writings as the Word itself and to gather into our rational
mind the Literal form of the Spiritual Doctrine. The form of the Spiritual
Doctrine lies within every sentence of the Writings. Even every single word of
the Writings must be so honored, being aware of the rational idea that the
Divine spiritual Doctrine is laid down in this or that translation. But
faithful translations will insure the transmission of the Literal in a genuine
rational form that allows it to respond by correspondence to the details of the
spiritual Doctrine. There is no doubt that the Lord preserves the Letter of the
Writings as He preserves the Letter of the Old and New Testaments.
The spiritual Doctrine is the
understanding we have of the Letter in our mind when enlightened. This is a new
spiritual understanding not available to us before the enlightenment. It can be read and learned in
descriptions given by others, but only a natural understanding can be had in
this by this external mechanism. Only a direct internal mechanism allows us to
access the spiritual understanding of Doctrine, namely, what the Lord calls
enlightenment or illustration (xx). Once enlightened, try to write down the
spiritual understanding, and you end up with correspondences for it in the
natural-rational system of thinking. You can read the sentence “
Note well:
the Letter of the Writings must be in our mind for this to happen. Further,
this happens only to the extent that our motive for taking up the Literal in
our mind, is a spiritual motive in relation to
regeneration. In other words, we read in the Writings that we must take up
spiritual Doctrine from the Letter in order to cooperate in our regeneration.
This is the right motive, and other motives will not allow the Lord to
enlighten us from the Letter we have in our mind. I have discussed this issue
throughout Volume 2 and in many places in Volume 1.
Enlightenment
in the Letter from the Lord means that He creates a new interior-natural mind
within the external-rational mind that is in the upper portion of the natural mind,
above the sensuous. This new creation admits nothing whatsoever from self and
the world. This is most important to keep in mind in order to be able to see
the Divine origin of the Doctrine we bring forth as-of self in the Church. The
events in the interior-natural mind are nothing else but correspondences. These
correspondences are nothing else but representations in our conscious rational
mind of the events going on in the spiritual mind. These events are totally
unconscious and of which cannot become aware in this life. So the activity in
the spiritual mind is purely a Divine Work. These activities involve the
implantations of spiritual seeds and their nurturing and development by the
angels from the Lord.
As this
Divine procedure is achieved, the exact and full correspondence is recorded in
the interior-natural mind. You can see that these correspondences are also Divine since only the Lord deposits spiritual truths and
their correspondences. Now e have a new thing
entirely. We have an interior-natural mind which gives us conscious awareness
of spiritual truths seen through spiritual correspondences that are Divine. In
effect, we become conscious of Divine Truth in a spiritual way. Prior to this
we only understood spiritual truths in a natural way through our external
rational mind. In other words, our First Education,
was to implant the Letter into our rational by as-of self voluntary
intellectual effort. The Second Education is to become consciously aware of the
spiritual correspondences of Divine origin in our interior-natural mind. This
new spiritual consciousness is purely of Divine origin, and there is nothing in
it from self and the Letter.
Again
remember that the conscious awareness of the spiritual Doctrine in the
interior-natural mind is there in exact proportion to the motive we have for
putting the Letter into our rational mind.
It follows
from all this that the Doctrine of the Church placed in the interior-natural by
the Lord through correspondences, is a Divine Doctrine that has nothing from
self or the world in it. This Divine Doctrine is not man-made but man-received.
All those who will honor it can receive it, see it, and consciously understand
it to the extent they are undergoing regeneration.
10. Objections To The Divine Doctrine In Our Mind
Prior to
our ability to enjoy enlightenment from the Lord, we are immersed in the
Letter. Our understanding of the revelations of the Second Coming is an
individual struggle. We grasp to understand more and more and we go through
various stages of confusion, and even doubt. One sign is that we can readily
believe on sentence of the Letter, but not so readily some other sentences.
When the literal meaning runs contrary to our beliefs systems and education, we
experience some doubt as to the Divine origin of those sentences. Similarly,
when we read that there is a Doctrine of the Church, and then read its
description in the Letter, we merely believe that these explanations are the
Doctrine discussed.
As we
undergo reformation in adult life, early or late, we begin to see that the Lord
works in every detail of our regeneration, in our thinking especially. He
decides what we read when and tries to bend our thinking so that we may receive
the spiritual meaning that this within the Letter. We begin to trust that the
Lord is supervising these details. A wrong motive for doing this will only
yield self-made doctrine, which is neither Divine nor true or valid. But a
right motive for doing it will only yield Divine Doctrine. This duality must be
fully accepted by being fully convinced o fits truth. The wrong motive cannot
yield the Divine Doctrine and the right motive must. It is an inevitable
process the Lord has created for the regeneration of the old mind and the
formation of the
An example
of the Spiritual Doctrine given by the Lord to this generation is the Academy Movement
of the
To say that
the sole authority of the Church is the plain teachings of the Writings is to
say that the Spiritual Doctrine cannot form the Church since it is in the
interior-natural mind. The Church must be formed by that which is external,
hence the Letter of the Writings and ecclesiastical administrations (xx).
Clearly no other possibility exists since the Church specific is a natural
organization in society with a legal status and responsibilities. It must have
a literal constitution and a literal Sacred Scripture. So the Letter of the
Writings must be the only and final authority on all things concerning the Church
administration and instruction.
It’s very
important to understand why the Writings do not specify in greater detail what
the Church administration and rituals should be. The Old Testament gave the
Jewish Church very precise and detailed procedural steps, rules, and principles
to follow under penalty of death and misery. But the New Testament abrogated
those details and the new Christian dispensation was almost devoid of Church
and worship specifications, leaving only these: Baptism, Holy Supper, the
Lord’s Day, the Lord’s Prayer, the entire Word, Weddings, Charity.
Clearly this was done to allow cultural differences in religious worship of the
Lord. The same is the case with the
For the same reason as before, to allow the endless proliferation of
organizations in the
Dissent in
the Church organization will develop but the Letter of the Writings must not be
used to support one side of the argument as against another. To do this would
lead the Church into fundamentalism and from a celestial Church it becomes a
We may fear
the social and political implications of saying that the Doctrine in our mind
can be Divine. We immediately start imagining that a
But the
Lord guides our thinking in this all important area, as He does all areas of
lesser importance to our salvation. We cannot really become convinced of the
Divinity of some Doctrine brought forth by someone in the Church unless we are
fully confident that the Lord will also bring clear vision to all sincere men
so that they may distinguish between bogus doctrine and spiritual Doctrine of
purely celestial origin. If we fail to allow this certainty and confidence in
the process, we are not yet acting from the Lord but from ourselves.
When
proposals are brought forth about new spiritual insights form the Lord, those
who read them may not see that what has been brought forward are genuine
spiritual truths of Doctrine, even thought hey may be. This is why all
proposals of Spiritual Doctrine must be confirmed by the Letter in many ways,
not just here and there. All members of the Church must obey the Lord’s
commandment to bring forth the Spiritual Doctrine through the Letter of the
Writings. So when someone in the Church brings forth such a proposal, and
confirms it by the Letter, the others in the Church must try do
likewise. They must search the Letter to see if they can build their own case
for the new proposals. Only the case you can build yourself can be of value to
your understanding and regeneration. It’s useless for your own regeneration to
merely accept a new Doctrinal proposal merely by someone’s authority or
intellectual ability to instruct and write.
All
proposals of Doctrine must therefore be left to everyone’s conscience and
effort. But all proposals of ecclesiastical governance must be left to the
organization’s normal due process procedures. Whatever is not specifically in
the Letter of the Writings in terms of governance and worship procedure must be
handled by the organization’s democratic due process procedures and written
constitution. In this way there will be no disturbance in the Church and the
priesthood can lead the flock to the good of life by means of instruction. I
believe that the written constitution or charter of every Church organization
should contain an explicit policy that the Literal must not be used to support
or impose any rule or procedure, with the only exception being what is
explicitly stated about the Word, Baptism, Weddings, Holy Supper, and the
Lord’s Day.
11. The Spiritual Doctrine In The Mind Must Be Proven By The Letter
The Letter
of the Writings protects the Church from false proposals of Doctrine since all
Doctrine must be confirmed by the Letter (xx). It is impossible to prove rationally that a false Doctrine is from the
Letter. Note well: Many such attempts have been made in the Old Christian
Church and in the New Church, and this will no doubt continue for a long time,
if not permanently. The unregenerate mind born in the
It’s very
important to understand the difference between proof and correlated arguments.
An analogy
from science may make this easier to understand rationally. Our culture makes
us familiar with medical research reported in the news and magazines. correlations are established between some behavior habit and
the occurrence of a particular disease. For example, smoker
have a higher rate of lung cancer than non-smokers, even when other
lifestyle factors are held common such as diet and exercise. For many years
this finding served to fuel the campaign against smoking, and indeed it dropped
as behavioral habit. The associated illnesses also dropped in frequency. This
is an example of relying on correlation argument. When this is done, sometimes
the argument turns out to be wrong. Some other unknown correlated factor was
present, and it is that actually produces the illness. If this factor is not
present, the behavior habits do not lead to the sickness. In the case of
smoking, causative proof was also obtained to some extent by means of causative
procedures that involve control groups and medically created groups that
receive certain treatment.
It is
similar with the attempt to distinguish between man-made false doctrine and
Divine Doctrine from heaven. Note that we have no choice to make this
distinction since we cannot fall back on the earlier idea that the Divine
Doctrine is the Letter of the Writings. Now we know that it is within the
Letter, hence cannot be written down except by descriptions that are correspondences.
This is why it was necessary for the Writings to say that all derived Doctrine
must be confirmed by the Letter in an endless process of verification,
confirmation, and instruction, by every generation of the Church. This is the
endless process of growth of the Church to the entire future to come. The Lord
has an endless number of Divine truths He desires to give to the Church from
now to eternity. These Divine truths are placed in the spiritual mind, where
they induce correspondences in the interior –natural mind, where we become
conscious of the spiritual Doctrine, and we know from the Letter, that it is
from Divine origin.
This system
of Doctrinal evolution in the human race works only to the extent that the
individuals of the Church are undergoing lawful regeneration in accordance with
the Letter of the Writings.
Since each
individual is undergoing regeneration at different rates and with different
character, the process of confirming and establishing the Divine Doctrine in
the Church is not smooth and agreeable. People will disagree and the gnashing
of teeth will be heard in the halls of the Church (xx). Nevertheless, the
process will work, since bringing froth genuine Doctrine is a Divine Work the
Lord accomplishes through the human race, and this, on an evolutionary scale of
permanent increase.
You can see
that the Lord gives the Letter and the spiritual Doctrine and that both are
tied to each other, one cannot live without the other. The spiritual Doctrine
cannot be given in the Letter, but only a natural description of it by means of
correspondences. Therefore what we read in the Letter about Doctrine is not the
spiritual Doctrine but the Letter of the spiritual Doctrine. The Lord alone can
provide us with the spiritual Doctrine within our interior-natural mind.
Add to these most manifest evidences, that the spiritual
sense of the Word has been disclosed by the Lord through me, which has never
before been revealed since the Word was written among the sons of Israel; and
this sense is the very sanctuary of the Word: the Lord Himself is in this sense
with His Divine, and in the natural sense with His Human. Not a single iota in
this sense can be opened except by the Lord alone. This surpasses all the
revelations that have hitherto been made from the creation of the world. By
means of this revelation a communication has been opened between men and the
angels of heaven, and conjunction of the two worlds has been effected;
since when man is in the natural sense, the angels are in the spiritual sense.
See what has been written concerning this sense in the chapter on the Sacred
Scripture [in THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION]. (INV 44)
We read in
this passage that Swedenborg was enlightened by the Lord who disclosed through
him the “spiritual sense of the Word.” In our First Education phase, we think
that “the Word” refers to the Old and New Testament. We think this because this
is the plain appearance when Swedenborg quotes from these Two Testaments verse
by verse, and phrase by phrase, and explicates their spiritual sense by means
of correspondences. In this passage, for instance, it says that the spiritual
sense of the Word “has never before been revealed since the Word was written
among the sons of
But in our
Second Education phase, we are willing to accept the idea that “the Word” here
refers to the Writings. In other words, the passage says that “the spiritual
sense of the Writings has been disclosed by the Lord through me.” We can accept
the idea that since the Writings have an inner sense, there must be something
internal signified by the expression “the sons of
The spiritual sense of the Writings has been disclosed by
the Lord through me, which has never before been revealed since the Writings
was written among the New Church; and this sense is the very sanctuary of the Writings:
the Lord Himself is in this sense with His Divine, and in the natural sense
with His Human (INV 44) (“the Writings” substituted for “the Word”)
“By me” in the natural sense refers to Swedenborg, but in the
spiritual sense it refers to every
12. Man Enters Heaven Through The Church
Consider
the sentence in the sub-title above, quoting TCR 773. Its literal meaning is
clear to the natural-rational understanding. It discusses how the
In the
spiritual sense, which we can consider by applying correspondences to the
literal, “man” signifies “one who is intelligent and wise” (AC 158), or “the
affection of truth” (AE 280); and also, “faith and truth” (AC 427; 4823).
“Heaven” “signifies the internal man,” which designates our spiritual mind.
Therefore, the phrase “man enters heaven,” in its spiritual sense discusses the
physiology whereby our spiritual mind is opened and activated. Since “man”
signifies the “affection for truth” the sentence asserts that it is the
affection for truth that opens the spiritual mind. This opening process is
accomplished “through the Church.” The “Church,” when applied to our mind,
signifies conjunction with the Lord.
The Lord is indeed present with a man through the reading of
the Word, but he is conjoined with him through the understanding of truth from
the Word, and according thereto; and in proportion as the Lord has been
conjoined with a man, in the same proportion the church is in him. The church
is within man; the church that is outside of him is the church with a number of
men who have the church within them. This is meant by the Lord's words to the
Pharisees who asked when the
The
Here the "
(SS 78) (see also AC 9305)
From this
related passage we can see from the literal meaning that the church within us
is the forming of the
“Man Enters
Heaven Through The Church,” we can now elaborate its
spiritual topic by rationally expanding on it. To form the spiritual mind we
need to start with an affection for truth and becoming wise, which means a love
of the Writings and its daily study. To the extent that we then apply these
truths to our daily willing and thinking, to that extent the spiritual mind is
opened, and to that extent we are conjoined to the Lord. This elaboration is
elevated into a Spiritual Doctrine by confirming all its elements in the Letter.
The correspondences have been confirmed above, but the thesis as a whole also
must be confirmed by the Letter. Searching the Writings, we find this:
[2] With the regeneration of the spiritual man the case is
this. He is first instructed in the truths of faith, and then he is held by the
Lord in the affection of truth. The good of faith, which is charity toward the
neighbor, is at the same time insinuated into him, but in such a way that he is
scarcely aware of it; for it lies hidden in the affection of truth, and this to
the end that the truth which is of faith may be conjoined with the good which
is of charity.
As time goes on, the affection of truth which is of faith increases, and truth is regarded for the sake of its end,
that is, for the sake of good, or what is the same, for the sake of the life,
and this more and more. Thus is truth insinuated into good, and when this takes
place the man imbues himself with the good of life according to the truth that
has been insinuated; and so he acts or seems to himself to act from good.
Previous to this time, the truth of faith was principal, but afterwards the
good of life becomes so.
[3] When this is the case the man is regenerate; but he is
regenerate according to the quality and the amount of the truth that has been
insinuated in good; and when truth and good act as one, he is regenerate
according to the quality and the amount of the good: such is the case with all
regeneration. Regeneration is effected to the end that man may be received into
heaven. Heaven is nothing else than the marriage of truth and good, and of good
and truth (see n. 2508, 2618, 2728, 2729); and if the marriage of truth and
good be not formed with a man, he cannot be in the heavenly marriage, that is,
in heaven. (AC 2979)
You can see
that this passage discusses in the Letter something about the “regeneration of
the spiritual man.” This refers to the opening of the spiritual mind since we
are not regenerated unless the spiritual mind is opened by the Lord (xx). It
describes several stages of this process.
(1) First,
we are “instructed in the truths of faith” by means of the Letter of the
Writings.
(2) Second,
we are “held by the Lord in the affection of truth.”
(3) Third,
we apply the truth we obtain to our willing and thinking all day long. This is
called “charity toward the neighbor.”
(4) Fourth,
to the extent that we do the third step. the Lord
conjoins the truth with good in our spiritual mind, an unconscious process of
which we are “scarcely aware of it; for it lies hidden in the affection of
truth.” The affection of truth from the Letter of the Writings applied to our life, is the mind within which the Lord implants the good of
charity. This good of charity is implanted in two places, one totally
unconscious, in the spiritual mind, the other consciously, in the
interior-natural-mind.
This new
conscious awareness of spiritual good and truth is a correspondence of the
actual activity of the Lord in the spiritual mind. This relationship by
correspondence between the spiritual mind and the interior-natural mind, is described in the passage as “scarcely aware” and “lies
hidden.” The hidden part is the interior-rational truths implanted in the
spiritual mind. The partial awareness of these truths refers to our awareness
of the correspondences in the interior-natural mind. Perceiving interior truths
by correspondences in a lower degree is to have partial awareness of those
interior truths.
(5) Fifth,
“As time goes on, the affection of truth ... increases, and truth is regarded
for the sake of ... life, and this more and more.” To the extent that we apply
the truths of the Letter to our daily willing and thinking, to that extent we
are being regenerated and conjoined to the Lord by means of the opening of the
spiritual mind. By continuing this steady process, “the man imbues himself with
the good of life ... and so he acts or seems to himself to act from good.
Previous to this time, the truth of faith was principal, but afterwards the
good of life becomes so.“ This is the mark of the
celestial mind that lives in heaven, namely, that it loves truth from a motive
to have it govern their willing and thinking. The celestial mind is called here
“the man who is regenerate.” This is the mind that is “received into heaven.”
The mind so
prepared acts from the “marriage of good and truth” in it. This marriage is
called the church in man: ”truth conjoined to good, is
the ultimate of the church in man” (AE 449).
In summary,
you can see that the three steps we took were as follows: First, we applied
correspondences to the original sentence “Man enters heaven through the Church”
(TCR 773). Second, we expanded the spiritual sense into a Spiritual Doctrine.
Third, we confirmed the Spiritual Doctrine by means of the Letter.
13. Demystifying The Divinity Of The Spiritual Doctrine
The
This new
capability of the natural mind on earth is the ability to perceive spiritual
truths, also called, spiritual-rational truths. The Lord re-created all the
Heavens at His Second Coming, just as He re-created the Heavens at His First
Coming (xx). The New Heavens of the Second Coming are created out of the new
spiritual-rational truths revealed by the Divine Human concerning Himself and the universe. These spiritual and celestial
revelations are contained within the Letter of the Writings. This is why the
Letter of the Writings is called the Body of the Divine Natural of the Divine
Human. You can see that the Divine Human has a Divine Proprium or Self, and has
a history of Divine Birth on this earth. Inside this Divine Human is the Lord
from Eternity, Unchanging, Unfathomable. The names
“Jehovah” and “Divine Father” represent the Lord in His Esse. Human beings
cannot relate in any way to the Lord in His Esse. The only relation we can have
with this Divine Esse is a mere universal and simplistic idea, namely, that the
Lord in His inmost is this Esse, and that this infinite substance is called
Divine Love. Our relation to the Divine is therefore possible only with the
Lord in His Divine Human.
The Letter
of the Writings is the Divine Human in His Divine Natural. Clearly, we want to
know the Lord in His Divine Rational, not just in His Divine Natural. By
studying and understanding the Writings we are acquiring a view of the Lord
that is His Divine Rational laid down in His Divine Natural. Note this
expression: “His Divine Rational laid
down in His Divine Natural.”
The Lord’s
Second Coming was to reveal Himself in His Divine Rational. Ask yourself this:
How can the Lord deliver to us a revelation about His Divine Rational?
You no
doubt thought: “Through a man whose mind was prepared for receiving it, and
then writing it down.” This is correct. But we also need to understand the
particulars of this Divine Work if we are going to overcome the great anxiety
of losing the Body of the Lord by death. For the Writings say that the Letter
must as it were die or vanish, in order for the spiritual sense within to be
perceived (xx), as one perceives a bright flashing jewel through a window that
was suddenly made clear and spotless. This sudden illumination is called
“enlightenment” in the Writings (xx). From
this you can see that there is a structural relationship between the natural
language sentences of the Word and the spiritual truths contained within.
The Letter or Divine Body of the Lord contains His Divine Rational, that new
Rational that the Lord has bestowed upon the human race in His Second Coming.
The Lord
has provided an infallible Two-Step Method by which He can regenerate every
individual for entry into the New Heavens where He reigns as the Divine Human,
visible to the angels, and to Swedenborg (xx). This Two-Step Method is to first
approach Him as He is in His Divine Natural called the Letter of the Writings,
and second, to prepare our mind by reformation to be enlightened by Him when we
approach Him in the Divine Letter. This enlightenment is the second step and in
this step we receive the spiritual sense. This spiritual sense is the Spiritual
Doctrine, which is His Divine Rational with the human race. When one completes
this Two-Step Method, the Lord has successfully recreated the Second Coming in
an individual. In this way, He recreates His Second Coming into the endless
future of the race, insuring that anyone henceforth
who wants to live in the New Heavens, can.
14. The Divine Rational Cannot Be Approached In The Letter
To ease our
anxiety about the “vanishing” of the Letter we need to think that it is not possible to approach the Divine
Rational of the Lord by means of natural-rational ideas. These ideas make
up the understanding we have of the Letter of the Writings prior to
reformation. Until reformation we have been studying the Divine Natural in the
Letter and accumulating natural-rational cognitions, or “vessels” in our
natural-rational mind. This is the only mind we control as-of self and are
conscious of. Putting the Writings into our rational understanding is an
awesome task that requires much study and scholarly effort. We must maintain
consistency and be able to see the relations between many parts, and not merely
maintaining the original sequential view. The relations
between the Numbers constitutes an underlying semantic network in the
Writings, a system of cross-references for comparison between them. This
cognitive or semantic network can be mapped out by scholarly effort, which
brings a superior understanding of the Letter. It requires love for the Lord in
His Divine Natural to be able to succeed at this task, done on a daily basis
for years!
The more we
love the Letter of the Writings, the more we construct and collect suitable
rational ideas in our natural-rational mind. This as-of self effort is
commanded by the Lord (xx). The Lord commands us to love Him in His Divine
Natural. For the
This
rebirth and reformation process is a requirement for everyone regardless of
background or birth because the entire human race has fallen spiritually. By
heredity everyone now has embedded in the mind spiritual ties to the hells that
cannot be repaired by the Lord and must be given up voluntarily by every
individual regardless of religion or philosophy. The Lord then recreates new
ties to heaven and our mind can now be regenerated. This process goes on until
the end.
What allows
us to perceive the new interior-truths that the Heavens are now made of?
The answer
is the same for us on earth and for the angels in those Heavens: We can
perceive the new interior-rational truths when the Lord enlightens us. We can
then perceive them in our mind as we are peering through the Letter of the
Writings. This peering applies to their reading, but also to our reflection of
them in our conscious memory.
The angels
have a celestial script in which they read the Writings (xx). The Spiritual
Doctrine is within this script of the Letter. It is not in the script of the
Letter, but in their understanding of the sense within it. This spiritual
understanding is in their spiritual and celestial mind. The Lord’s Divine
Rational is this Spiritual Doctrine in their understanding. This is called their
Doctrine and all their wisdom is from that source (xx). The Doctrine they draw
out of the Letter of the Writings when they are enlightened by the Lord, is the Lord’s Divine Rational of the New Heavens. This
is the sense of the Writings in which they dwell. And the richness and power of
this sense creates the marvelous habitations in heaven and all of life there.
You can see
that the structural relation between the Letter and the spiritual sense within it, is a necessary two-step method for both men on earth and
angels in heaven. The spiritual and celestial ideas or truths cannot be laid
down in a “naked” form in the Letter. This is because the Letter is laid down
in a sensuous script, and this external sensuous appearance is nothing but a
correspondence of the spiritual sense. Whatever
explanations and ideas are laid down in a script or in an external language,
are automatically nothing but correspondences. Nothing but correspondences
can result from the action of the spiritual being laid down in the natural
sensuous or in the spiritual sensuous.
The Lord
enlightens us in a similar way now and when we are angels—through the Letter of
the Word.
Form these
considerations it is clear that we have nothing to lose by letting go of the
Letter as an opaque glass, and allowing the Lord to clarify it spotlessly, so
that we can see the spiritual-rational truths He wants us to have of Him.
Note also
that this Two-Step Method is not a once and for all deal. It is endlessly to be
repeated hour by hour, every day. This is the cyclical process of regeneration,
by which the Lord gives us new truths by which we can guide our willing and
thinking. By the light of these new truths we can improve our willing and
thinking still more, and thereby receive more new truths. And so on, until the
end. Therefore we are not going to let go of the Letter, thinking that is dead
and unimportant. This would be spiritual suicide and an act of crucifying the
Word. We must increase our love for the Letter of the Writings because it is the
containant of the holy spiritual truths the Lord wants to give us. And this
increase in love shows itself by what I have called Step 3 elsewhere in the
book (See Chapter 8 Section 3).
This step is the confirmation in the
Letter of the spiritual sense we receive by enlightenment from the Lord.
This
requires dedicated scholarly effort and love for the Letter of the Writings as
the Lord’s Divine Natural within which is His Divine Rational. Rather than
being dead, the Letter of the Writings becomes even more Holy and beloved, as
we begin to fathom the magnitude of the truths being opened to us by the Lord.
We begin to love every sentence in the Writings, and revere it. And this
reverence is not external as it was prior to our regeneration, but is our
internal worship within which is the external reverence for the Letter.
Besides all
of the above considerations, there is also this scientific one: That the
structural relation between the Letter of the Writings and the Spiritual
Doctrine within, is reproduced everywhere in our mind and in the world, though
in a different way because one involves the Divine only, and the other involves
created human beings. The Writings point out the analogy of the sentences we
write and speak in everyday discourse (xx). For example, if a stranger
approaches me on the street and says, “Do you have a light?” I need to bypass
the literal meaning, and perceive that he wants me to provide him with a flame
for his cigarette. But if he says, “Do you have a quarter?” I perceive that he is
begging for some money. When I was in graduate school in the late 1950s we used
to study these relationships and called that type of research
“psycholinguistics” because it was a focus on relating sentences to thinking. A
similar phenomenon obtains when reading children’s stories, which can be
understood sensuously or rationally. The child listens to them sensuously, with
imagination, while the adult reads it with a conscious focus on the moral
lessons that the stories exemplify. The moral understanding is a perception of
the interior of the letter of the story.
Similarly when we read the Old and New Testament as we continue to
advance in our study of the Writings. We can no longer read them except from the perspective of
the Writings, seeing the sentences as correspondences, and being able to
perceive what spiritual truths they stand for. Now here we need to take a giant
step: For years prior to our reformation we had not acquired this distinction:
“understanding spiritual truths naturally” vs. “understanding spiritual truths
spiritually.” We merely went along with the automatic assumption that because
the topic and subject matter of the Letter was about spiritual truths,
therefore we were understanding them spiritually, when
actually, we were understanding them naturally. Only by enlightenment can we
understand them spiritually, and the Lord does not enlighten until after we
complete our reformation sometime in adult life.
After
reformation we can make the distinction and we can acknowledge that until now we
had not made the distinction. Once we make this distinction we lose our fear of
letting go of the Letter in order that we may be enlightened with the spiritual
sense.
[2] Falsity within factual knowledge is what most of all
molests those who belong to the spiritual Church. The reason for this is that
they do not have a perception of truth that springs from good, only a knowledge of truth derived from religious teaching. People
like these are subject very much to molestation from factual knowledge, for known
facts serve as very general vessels, and until truths have been introduced into
them to make them translucent, so that one no longer notices them, they may
sometimes appear to be contrary to truths. Furthermore factual knowledge is
full of the illusions of the senses which cannot be dispelled by those who have
only a knowledge of things derived from religious
teaching and no perception of truth that springs from good. The main reason for
this is that the light of the world holds sway with these people, a light which
seems to be clear light as long as the light of heaven does not flow into it
but which turns from light into obscurity the moment that the light of heaven
penetrates it. This explains why these people are enlightened and clever in
worldly matters but dull and obtuse in heavenly ones. (6865)
We belong
to the “spiritual Church” when we have acquired knowledges from the Letter of
the Writings and suppose that this understanding is a spiritual understanding.
We are vulnerable in this state to heresies and persuasions, and because we
sense our vulnerability, we vehemently oppose the idea that someone else can
extract a spiritual meaning where we only see the natural. Thus we are led to
doubt or deny that the Letter of the Writings are
written in pure correspondences. When we are in that state, it is said of us: “This
explains why these people are enlightened and clever in worldly matters but
dull and obtuse in heavenly ones. .” To be “clever in
worldly matters” refers to knowledges about the Letter of the Writings separate
from their internal. To “be dull and obtuse in heavenly matters” means to doubt
or deny that the Writings as the Word are written in correspondences in the
same way as the Old Testament and New Testament are written in pure correspondences.
Not to be able to apply to itself what the Writings say about the Word, makes
us “dull and obtuse in heavenly matters.” The spiritual sense of the Writings
is called “heavenly matters.”
15. Examples Of Enlightenment In Everyday Circumstances
One of the
stumbling blocks to understanding enlightenment through the Letter of the
Writings, is the impression that it is something mystical, hence the opposite
of the Nunc Licet Doctrine of explaining away all mystery in spiritual things.
Enlightenment when seen from below appears a mystical thing. The
In this
mode of reasoning we do not think that the Letter of the Writings is written in
pure correspondences. When we come across passages saying that the Letter of
the Word is written in pure correspondences (xx), we do not think about the
Writings. We think about the Old and New Testament. Somehow in this mentality,
we are able to neutralize the force of the Letter by restricting what it says
about the Word, so as to exclude it from applying to the Writings. Later, as we
think back on this former mentality, we can be amazed that we could neutralize
the force of rationality whenever it fits a preconception we do not want to
lose.
But at last
we are able to be strictly fair and logical in the application of the Doctrine
of Sacred Scripture, which is that the Writings in its letter is written in pure correspondences.
Once we
accept this, and understand it, a whole new field of vision is opened up to our
understanding. Now we can see what enlightenment refers to, namely a new
perception that is a discrete degree above the natural-rational understanding.
Deepening this natural understanding of the Letter is what we thought
enlightenment to be, in the earlier mentality. But we begin to understand the
scientific mechanism of enlightenment, and look for it in the Letter. Now we
begin to put things together in the Letter in a way we didn’t before. This new
putting together follows a logic we didn’t have before enlightenment. But now
we have the perception called enlightenment, we can objectively know what it is
within us, we can pinpoint the activity in our mind that is this new perception
called enlightenment. The Letter clearly confirms this new perception, but we
can see how it is not the literal meaning of the Letter that gives this new
perception.
If you
don’t want to bother making these finer distinctions, enlightenment will
continue to appear as something either mystical or natural. But when you are
willing to put up the mental effort to understand it scientifically, the
mechanism is clear and logical, not mystical and vague.
Such was the man of the Most Ancient Church; who, if he were
living and read the Word at the present day, would not cleave at all to the
sense of the letter; but would be as if he did not see it, but only the
internal sense abstractly from the letter; and indeed as if the letter had no
existence. Thus he would be in the life or soul of the Word. It is the same
everywhere in the Word, even in its historical parts, which were just such as
are narrated, and yet there is not so much as one little word therein that does
not, in the internal sense, enfold within it deep secrets which never appear to
those who hold the mind in the historical connection. Thus in this chapter by
the names, in the literal or historical sense, are meant the peoples that
constituted the Ancient Church, but in the internal sense their doctrinals are
signified. (AC 1143)
This
passage discusses the
Remember
that the Letter has two distinct uses. First, to present the
literal meaning so that we may apply them as commandments in our daily living.
Second, to enfold the spiritual sense so that we can extract from it the
Spiritual Doctrine we need for our regeneration. These are the two Divine
functions of the Letter of the Writings. Neither must be taken away. To take
away one of these is to rob from the Lord—a deathly sin.
16. Surface Meaning And Underlying Meaning Of Sentences
Cloud ... denotes
Divine Truth in the ultimates, consequently the Word in the sense of the letter (AE 594)
An analogy
may help you see that the structural mechanism between the sense of the letter
of the Writings and its spiritual meaning are inseparable. Think about learning
to speak a language. You first of all need to be exposed to sample sentences,
spoken or written. The sound and the script are the external corporeal part of
the language structure. These sounds and letters have no meaning of their own.
They are held together in the appropriate pattern not by themselves, but by
some directing component within it. This directing component is called syntax
in the modern science of linguistics. Syntax is not visible or audible. It is
not a sensuous component of language or speech.
Syntax,
formerly known as grammar, assembles meaningless elements of sound or script,
putting them together in a pattern that fits the language as known by its
speakers and users. Syntactic rules of assembling sound and script patterns
have been precisely described in terms of mathematical and logical systems.
This was the proof that meaningless sound and script elements are held together
and put together by rationally identifiable rules and principles. When we hear
a sentence or read it, the individual elements of the sounds and letters
suddenly have a meaning.
Where is
the meaning conveyed? It is not in the external corporeal form of the sounds
and letters. Proof thereof is obtained when you talk gibberish as a game. We
then put together the meaningless elements of sound not according to the
syntactic rules of our language. The result is that the meaningless outward
elements remain meaningless. Clearly then, the meaning is not in the letters or
sounds, but in something within them, in another dimension altogether, not
related to sensuous perception by means of the eye or ear. This inner dimension
of the letters and groupings of letters, is the syntax
that puts them together and holds them together as appropriate forms and
patterns.
The
sub-forms that make up words can be interpreted by rules of meaning extraction.
For example, when you see the word “didn’t,” you can infer form the rules you
know that it can be expanded as “did not” and refers to some action in the past
performed by humans or animals, or an activity by an inanimate object. This
expansion of the original word constitutes a “doctrine” since it brings
together into a rational system a number disparate elements: humans, animals,
inanimate objects, past, present, action, activity, reference, names, number,
quantity. This “doctrine” was extracted from the word “didn’t” in its literal
meaning. Doctrine can be extracted from the literal because the literal is
contextualized by science and culture. The literal could not have been produced
without this contexts. And what came
form the context is embodied in the literal. Therefore it can also be extracted
from it. What went into it now can come out of it.
But note
that the method of extraction is not continuous but discrete. The corporeal of
the letters, or sounds, can be studied endlessly but they will not yield any
information about the meaning. There is no continuous improvement of vision
regarding the corporeal that will ever yield the sensuous. The two relate to
each other by correspondences. In ordinary language, there are no actual
correspondences, as there were in the language of the ancients,
and in the Writings today. But the corporeal and the sensuous in natural
language relate to each other in a way that represents actual correspondences.
This is why we say that the meaning of a sentence is in a different “dimension”
than the corporeal or physical letters and sound patterns. The meaning is in a dissension
of rationality while the letter itself is in a dimension of physicality, these
being in actual discrete degrees.
Note a
possible source of confusion. When we speak of the Letter regarding the
Writings we do not mean the corporeal only but the corporeal joined to the
sensuous. This is because we are thinking of the literal meaning of the
sentences when we discuss the Letter of the Writings. The physical letters of
the Writings in the original Latin in which Swedenborg wrote, represent the
Lord’s glorified Physical Body that ascended to Heaven. But the Lord’s Divine
Natural includes the Divine Corporeal and the Divine Sensuous. Hence when we
say the Letter of the Writings, we mean the literal meaning of the sentences
that are made up by physical letters and spaces.
The human
mind is a structure of organs arranged in a hierarchical level from highest to
lowest. It’s therefore no surprise that the rational analysis of syntax in
linguistics and philosophy reveals many sub-components of a sentence arranged
in hierarchical levels, with different types of rules at each level. These
levels within a sentence each represent a different discrete degree in the
human mind. One of the levels of a sentence is called semantics. This is a
mental system similar to a searchable dictionary, glossary, and encyclopedia.
The content of the semantics is a social doctrine or agreement among the
speakers of a language. This means that in order to create or understand an
appropriate sentence, we need to acquire a precise knowledge about the
conventions used by the speakers. This
common knowledge is the source of the meaning of a sentence.
In other
words, the things to which a sentence refers to and discusses, are things that
have a fixed location in the categories and cells of this common knowledge
carried around in the minds of the speakers. Typically all sentences we create
in a conversation or essay, are unique or different in
some way from similar sentences spoken or heard before. There are a few
recurrent sentence patterns or “formulaic expressions” that we use in
greetings, apologies, etc., but for the most part each sentence is unique. This
reflects the doctrine that no two things in the universe can be the same, since
in the Lord infinite things make a one (xx) and infinite variety is represented
in every created thing.
How then do
we know the meaning of a sentence if it is unique and we’ve never heard it
before? The meaning of a sentence is something we extract from the letters and
their groupings. The meaning is not available in the letters of the sentence.
There are two different ways we extract meaning from the letters that make up a
sentence.
The first
method is to extract the literal meaning of the sentence. This is done by
interpreting the words, matching them to our semantic dictionary, and using the
syntactic rules that we learned, to home in on one specific literal meaning. The combination of words that have a known meaning, and the
syntactic rules of logic by which they’ve been assembled, allows this extraction
of the literal meaning of the sentence. The result of this process is
conjunction between writer and reader, or speaker and hearer. One type of
conjunction is called communication in which one individual’s affection becomes
known to another individual, whereupon the second individual makes know his
affection to the first, and the loop repeats itself. In this way individuals
who are conjoined become a source of affectional influence to each other.
The second
method is used after the first has been applied. Once we understand the literal
meaning of the sentence, we can extract another meaning from that. It is called
a “deeper” meaning because it is nowhere visible from the literal meaning
itself. Take for instance, the sentence “Do you know that it’s dangerous to
stick something in that plug?” The literal meaning states that it is dangerous
to stick something in that plug, and asks whether the hearer knows it. The
deeper meaning states that the hearer should stop sticking something into the
plug, or else something bad will happen and the hearer will be in trouble, and
regret it.
This
underlying expanded statement reflects the true purpose of the speaker in
creating that particular sentence for that situation. Now the hearer has to
recapture the speaker’s purpose. First the hearer extracts the literal meaning.
Second, the hearer extracts the deeper meaning that reveals the purpose of the
speaker. The third step consists of a reaction and decision by the hearer about
what to do next (e.g., to stop, to continue, to argue, to explain, etc.). The
literal meaning carried within the combination of sounds or letters, is called
the outside of the sentence, but the deeper meaning extracted from the literal
meaning, is called the inside.
Insofar as they are in light, so far they are also in
intelligence and wisdom; but insofar as they are not in light, thus insofar as
they are in shade, so far they are not in intelligence and wisdom (AC n. 2776,
3190, 3337). It is for this reason that in common speech "light" is
predicated of the things of the understanding. Man is not aware of this reason,
and therefore believes that these terms are used merely by way of comparison.
Men use many other forms of expression that flow from a perception of such
things as exist in the other life, in which they are as to their spirits, and
that have been received in conversation because they are interiorly
acknowledged, but are blotted out of notice by the things of the body, which
are of such a nature as to extinguish the things of perception in which man's
interior man is. (AC 3693)
From this
passage we can see that people speak with correspondences though they are not
aware of it. We speak this way because the source of our speech is in the
interior mind, which is spiritual. We use “many forms of expression” in our
everyday speech “that flow from a perception of such things as exist in the
other life.” Our spiritual mind sees spiritual light, which upon entering,
enlightens its understanding. In the natural mind, these correspondences are “blotted
out of notice.” Nevertheless, they can be noticed by explanations of it laid
down in the Letter, and in this passage.
You can see
from all this, and many other examples you can make up yourself, that there is
always from creation in every object or sentence, a structural relation between
an outside something, and its inside. The universal aspects
of this relation has been revealed in the Writings (xx). The Writings
have an outermost portion as the corporeal script and numbers arranged in fixed
paragraphs and sentences. This is called the Corporeal of the Lord, His
Physical Body in His new revelation of the Second Coming. This corporeal is
dead in itself, and meaningless, with no rationality or truth whatsoever. To
worship this Divine Corporeal in itself, is a cult similar to the worship of
the Lord’s earthly relics, such as His robe, tunic, place of burial, stones He
walked on, things He touched, as well as the simulacrums of them such as
paintings and crosses. This corporeal spirituality is infernal (xx).
Clearly
then, when we worship the Lord in His Word of the Second Coming, we begin our
worship with the literal meaning within the dead letters. We call this outward
meaning the “Letter of the Writings,” which is to say, not the physical
letters, but their literal meaning in grammatical sentences. The literal
meaning is one discrete degree above the corporeal letters, and is called the
natural-sensuous mind. There are two ways of extracting the literal meaning
from the physical letters. The first is to interpret the words as put together
by the syntax. For instance, we read:
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” (DLW 231).
The surface
meaning of the literal states that all angels were first people on earth and
that people’s interior portion of the mind is a heaven in miniature.
Besides
this surface meaning, the literal meaning also contains a general application
because the meaning of this sentence is related to the meaning of other
sentences in the Writings. Extracting this deeper meaning of the literal
sentence requires that we know some of those other sentences that this one
relates to in meaning. By putting various sentences together, and applying them
to this sentence, we are able to extract a deeper layer of the literal meaning.
This is not yet a spiritual meaning, but
a deeper natural meaning.
In this
case we can recall that the “interior elements” of the mind exist and live in
the spiritual world and are in connection with angels in heaven (xx). We also
recall that angels inflow into our interior mind
through interior meanings called spiritual truths (xx). From these related
sentences or knowledges, we perceive that the sentence we are considering,
discusses where heaven is in relation to our mind and how individuals are
connected to each other outwardly to make up a heaven. People’s connection to each other involving their interior mind are
in a heaven together. Though they are located physically apart, they are
together in the interior portion of the mind.
This deeper
meaning is not a spiritual meaning. No matter how deeply we study and know the
Letter of the Writings, we cannot attain to a knowledge
of its spiritual meaning by going deeper and deeper in our investigations of
parallel paragraphs in the books of the Writings. Such scholarship is indeed
required as a first step, but it does not lead to a spiritual understanding of
these deeper sentences and doctrines.
There is no continuity of
development from the Letter to the Spirit by means of the Letter.
They are a
discrete degree apart, which means that their connection is achieved solely by
pure correspondences. In order to be able to extract the spiritual meaning from
the literal, we must use the science of correspondences (xx). Let’s look at the sentence again:
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” (DLW 231).
In this
case we may know, or search and discover in the Letter of the Writings, that “angels” correspond to intelligence and wisdom from
Divine Truth (HH 179).The “interior mind” is also called the internal
man, and it corresponds to heaven (AC 911). Heaven itself represents and
corresponds to the Lord in His Divine Human. The “form” of heaven represents
the Grand Human (AC 684, 1276). From these correspondences we can extract a
spiritual meaning for the sentence. This spiritual meaning is within the
literal but is not visible in the literal. It must be extracted by the science
of correspondences. In this case the
spiritual sense discusses the internal of the human race and its connection to
the Lord.
To confirm
this in the Letter, look at the other sentences to which it is related:
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)
We can see
that the Letter confirms the spiritual sense that was extracted from the
sentence. You can see that our “likeness to God” is mentioned and since God is
heaven, we have heaven within us in that likeness.
17. The Divinity Of The Spiritual Sense We Extract From The Letter
Now take
another example, this time from a Memorable Relations:
I once saw an angel flying beneath the eastern heaven,
holding in his hand and at his lips a trumpet, which he sounded towards the
north, towards the west, and towards the south. (CL 2)
By finding
other sentences in the Writings that relate to this one, we can extract a
spiritual sense by applying the correspondences.
|
The Letter in the original sentence |
Correspondences from other parts of the Letter |
Citation |
|
Angel |
wisdom
from the Lord |
HH 179 |
|
trumpet |
celestial
goods and celestial things of faith |
AR 276;
AC 420 |
|
eastern
heaven |
those who
are in love to the Lord |
AR 875 |
|
lips |
Doctrine
from the Lord |
AC 1288 |
|
hand |
the power
which is of truth |
AC 8910 |
|
north |
exteriors
in which truth is in obscurity |
AC 3708 |
|
south |
a state
of truth in its light |
AC 9648 |
|
west |
a state
of good declining |
AC 9648 |
|
I once saw an angel flying beneath the eastern heaven,
holding in his hand and at his lips a trumpet, which he sounded towards the
north, towards the west, and towards the south. (CL 2) |
||
Note that
when correspondences are applied to the Writings we are applying one part of
the Letter to another part of itself. This is extremely important to
understand. There is no self-intelligence that can enter into this process, or
else its spiritual significance vanishes. This is actually a faithful process
of ritual worship wherein the self is effaced, and to the extent that this
effacement is genuine, to that extent the application of correspondences is a
Divine work. One need not fear creating popes in the
If it is a
genuine Divine Seed, the Lord will enlighten every one who examines it from an
appropriate emotive and perspective, as explicitly stated in the Letter of the
Writings. This is not a matter of merit, of position, or of representation by
the individual who is describing the Divine Seed he received by enlightenment.
It is solely a scientific matter of checking A with B. Because
the Spiritual Doctrine that a man receives from the Lord by enlightenment is a
Divine Doctrine given to the Church that it may spread it to the human race.
It is not something mystical and hard to understand, or it would be useless.
The embodiment of the Divine Seed in literal language is clear and simple to
understand since it is given to the natural-rational mind, a level of thinking
that all educated persons use in daily life. Extracting the spiritual sense
from the literal cannot be a mystical affair that confuses or persuades others.
It is like extracting meaning from something someone says to us. It is normally
automatic, though at times it arouses puzzlement and problem-solving. Anyone
with loving practice, can teach themselves to extract
the spiritual meaning of the majority of sentences on any page in the Writings.
To return to our example:
Applying
these correspondences to the sentence in this Memorable Relation, we can
extract a spiritual sense that lets us see that it is actually discussing the
various states of our mind in relation to the Lord. It is telling a story about
what an Angel did as Swedenborg watched from a distance. This event did occur.
But the reason these details are told is on account of their correspondences.
Wisdom from
the Lord (“angel flying”) is available to us in our love to the Lord (“I once
saw in the eastern heaven”). The Spiritual Doctrine (“celestial things of
faith”), is appropriated to us as the power of truth
(“holding in his hand”). The greatest wisdom and power is received in our love
to the Lord (“eastern heaven”). Less wisdom and intelligence is received in
lower forms of the Doctrine in accordance with our love (“towards the south,
west, north”). Exterior truths (“north”) are less
enlightening than truths seen in light from the Lord (“east” and “south”).
If we now
put together the two sentences, they look like this:
original sentence in the Letter:
I once saw an angel flying beneath the eastern heaven,
holding in his hand and at his lips a trumpet, which he sounded towards the
north, towards the west, and towards the south. (CL 2)
spiritual sense extracted by the application
of correspondences:
Wisdom from the Lord is available to us in our love to the
Lord. The spiritual is appropriated to us as the power of truth. The greatest
wisdom and power is received in our love to the Lord. Less wisdom and
intelligence is received in external forms of the spiritual in accordance with
our love. Exterior truths are less enlightening than truths seen in light from the
Lord.
Note at the
outset that the “spiritual sense” is always discussed in a natural-rational
way. A spiritual understanding of what is “the spiritual sense” cannot be
obtained directly from understanding the extracted sentence. Nevertheless, we
must engage in this process for it is a commandment (xx). At some point we
begin to understand the physiology of regeneration and then it becomes clear
that we must create natural-rational vessels for the Lord to enlighten us so
that we can have a spiritual understanding of those vessels. We then proceed
with the natural-rational description of extracting the Spiritual Doctrine from
the Letter.
Note also
at the outset that the extracted sentence is as much the Word as the original,
to the extent that appropriate procedures were followed, as explicitly
instructed in the Letter of the Writings (xx). If therefore truly appropriate
procedures were followed, you can see that the extracted sentence is also Divine since you have not introduced anything from
self-intelligence and the world. This is why we say that we are applying the
Letter to the Letter, when extracting the spiritual sense that is contained
within it. In other words, we are applying the Divine (in the form of passages
from the Letter) to the Divine (in the form of the original sentence), and the
result is Divine (in the form of the extracted sentence).
But in
order to generalize the extracted sentence and relate it to ourselves, we need
to expand it into an argument, or a series of connected sentences that amount
to a thesis called the Spiritual Doctrine. Compare the original with the
extracted. The original is one sentence, the
extraction from it is five sentences. In other words a sentence of the Letter
was expanded by extraction into a paragraph that constitutes a Spiritual
Doctrine laid down in the natural-rational language. This Spiritual Doctrine is
also Divine Doctrine in the Church (xx). This is true to the extent that the
expansion was done following appropriate rules given in the Letter of the Writings
regarding how the Spiritual Doctrine must be extracted by the man of the Church
(xx).
Once the
Spiritual Doctrine is formulated and written down it becomes as holy as the
Letter, for the Spiritual Doctrine in the Church is Divine Truth, and is the
Lord with the Church (xx). This is true to the extent that genuine appropriate
procedures were applied, as already indicated. Now it is required that we
confirm the Spiritual Doctrine with the Letter of the Writings. This
confirmation is necessary as part of the process of applying the Letter to the
Letter, for the Lord reveals truths to us from Firsts to Lasts and from Lasts
to Firsts (xx). The Letter is called “Lasts” while the Spiritual Doctrine is
called “Firsts.”
Let us then
confirm the Spiritual Doctrine we extracted. This can be done with some
research. Automated computer research programs of the Writings such as
NewSearch, makes this process efficient. In this case we can confirm the
Spiritual Doctrine we extracted by many other passages that relate to it, as
for instance: xx, and many others.
original sentence in the Letter:
I once saw an angel flying beneath the eastern heaven,
holding in his hand and at his lips a trumpet, which he sounded towards the
north, towards the west, and towards the south. (CL 2)
spiritual sense extracted by the application
of correspondences:
Wisdom from the Lord is available to us in our love to the
Lord. The spiritual is appropriated to us as the power of truth. The greatest
wisdom and power is received in our love to the Lord. Less wisdom and
intelligence is received in external forms of the spiritual in accordance with
our love. Exterior truths are less enlightening than truths seen in light from
the Lord.
confirming passages:
All things of the man who is in the good of celestial love,
both interior and exterior, ... receive the influx of
Divine truth from the Lord and from this are in enlightenment (AC 10331)
[4] With those who are in the good of love to the Lord,
wisdom, intelligence, knowledge, and work, follow together in order from inmost
to outermost. With such men, wisdom is inmost, for it is to will well from
love; intelligence is second, for it is to understand well from willing well.
These two are of the internal man. Knowledge consists in knowing well, and work in doing well, both from willing well. These two are of
the external man. (AC 10331)
They who are of the church are in a life of good, and have
faith in truths (AC 2832)
The interior power of truth, is the power of the interior man acting into the exterior, or of the spirit