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ContentsI last revised this article in April 2002.
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| From Swedenborg's 12-volume work titled Arcana
Coelestia (Latin for "Heavenly Secrets") AC 6474. It was shown me by experience during the space of an hour, how all the thoughts are ruled by the Lord. There was an influx like a most gentle and almost imperceptible stream, the current of which does not appear, but still leads and draws. This, which flowed in from the Lord, led in this manner all the series of my thoughts into the consequent things, and although gently, powerfully, so that I could not possibly wander into other thoughts, which also I was allowed to attempt, but in vain. |
Swedenborg's Writings mark a new beginning in the history of evolution of the human race and our relationship to God. Every educated person can read and understand the Writings of Swedenborg. It is not esoteric, technical, or difficult to understand. It required no prerequisites of specialized knowledge.
If you exclude the possibility of substantive dualism, then you are compelled by your logic to exclude from reality God and the spiritual world, or, which amounts to the same, to wait for proof by the natural senses, something which will never arrive in science (for reasons to be discussed below).
The scientists who created and developed science saw this quite simply and clearly. The great minds who left us the rich literature read by the generations on this planet also saw it clearly and obviously. God exists, God is real, God is Omniscient and Omnipotent and Infinite, God is the First Cause and the permanent cause of all events. And to deny this is not rational but foolish. The builders of science did not see God as material but spiritual. And so they clearly saw the rationality and reality of dualism. There must be two separate universes or levels of existence. They called this difference by the constitutive "substance" or sphere of the two realities. The physical reality or universe with its space-time-matter continuum had its own constitutive substance called "matter" which includes energy fields in time-space. The spiritual reality or universe had its constitutive substance called "spirit" which includes God, love, and truth. This "substantive dualism" was rational, was reality to them.
When Einstein talked of God, he saw that it is not rational to say that the natural universe created itself. From Aristotle to Einstein the scientists saw this simple rational truth: Something temporary or natural cannot create itself. Rather, the natural must be created by that which is not natural and temporary, that which is permanent or eternal, and is thus outside time and space acting to create the natural in time and space. This rational truth has been cut out of science by irrational prejudice, crippling its ability to understand reality. There must be a return to this truth through a scientific paradigm shift that ends this hurtful prejudice.
Of course, there was no common theory or explanation in science regarding the mechanism by which a rational God manages and operates a material world by means of the spiritual world.
Religion, philosophy, and theology did not offer scientific explanations of Divine Providence. At any rate, new theoretical and methodological developments in science must occur within science itself, not in some outside area or forum. All work in science is from itself and through itself. Scientists within science must bring forth Swedenborg's concepts and methods of proof if these dualist concepts are going to become part of science as a whole. My work in defining and establishing dualist concepts illustrates this possibility since I am creating scientific and theoretical justifications for substantive dualism within the science of psychology, which is my area of training. Another instance of applying Swedenborgian concepts to current science is the work of physicist Ian Thompson found on his Theistic Science Web site.
Anyone reading Swedenborg can immediately see that he writes and does normal science because he was a great scientist motivated intellectually all his life to bring forth rational explanations for understanding the operation of Divine Providence, that is, the rational description of the mechanisms God creates and uses to operate the two universes. God is infinite, Human, rational, and loving. Therefore He has a plan, a goal, a method--all of which are rational and good. This is the rational description that Swedenborg gives in his Writings. He also supports it extensively with empirical and sensual observations he makes in the dual mode, given that he had conscious dual perception. His notes and observations were gathered from careful note taking over a period of 25 years of daily "visits" to the spiritual world. His theoretical integration of all this data amounts to a stupendous edifice of scientific rationality.
The conclusion to this Introduction is this:
First, it can be shown that substantive dualism (spiritual-natural) is a rational concept in science. Second, that spiritual is defined as that which is God or in God. Third, that God is therefore a rational concept. Finally, that science is prejudiced and irrational when it excludes God from itself.
The implication is that science will not continue for long in this prejudiced and negative state. Once it is accepted and taught in science that God is a rational concept and is at the very foundations of reality, then we shall see the flourishing of theistic science.
The claim of materialistic science to rationality is remindful of the non-existent emperor's clothes in the well known children's story. The end of the mass delusion came when an innocent child with simplistic thinking cried out that the emperor had no clothes on. Implicit in the story is the fact that everyone had to accept the child's conclusion. It's the acceptance of truth or reality that puts an end to delusion. In the science I was raised in and prepared for in my professional career, there was not the fundamental idea of substantive dualism. Materialism is monistic. Rationality and intelligence are obviously not materialistic and so it was necessary to deny their real existence. Thus the real existence of the human mind as an immortal spirit was wrongfully denied. Our loves, feelings, or affections, along with the human consciousness they give us, were thrown into a conceptual garbage bin called "pseudophenomena." or sometimes "epiphenemena" and "emergent realities." This collection of unreal items includes God, conscience, consciousness, heaven, hell, afterlife, revelation, spiritual wisdom, Divine Love, and absolute truth. And yet these spiritual concepts are the human things that sets us apart from the physical world. We are born dual citizens in a dual world, part of us temporary, part eternal. It is the spiritual part within the temporary physical that is actually the conscious and immortal spirit or self. Swedenborg has described the scientific process by which this dual existence is carried out from birth onward.
Materialistic science that denies this dual status robs us of our true human-ness, which is to be a rational being acting from loving purposes. This is how God is rational--He acts from loving purposes to create a rational reality for immortal human beings. The removal of our human-ness from the universe, which science today has falsely forced on us, goes hand in hand with the removal of the Divine from our conscience, consciousness, and worship or loyalty. Swedenborg shows how the human and the Divine are rationally and structurally interconnected.
The atheism of materialistic science is also the removal of rationality from human intelligence. The idea that a physical non-intelligent dead universe could give birth to itself and evolve to produce life and society is absolutely irrational and anti-rational, and yet it is the basis of all contemporary science. This anti-rational, anti-human idea has hijacked science. Up to the end of the 19th century scientists clearly saw and understood that the universe is rational not from itself but from God. This is substantive dualism. Only an intelligent person who is not part of or, who is not in the physical universe, could create it and oversee the numberless details of its evolution. The lawful order of the physical universe is a rationality that is imposed on it from outside, and is not part of it or in it.
The Big Bang Myth and the Evolution Myth freeze up our human intelligence, making it appear that the anti-rational is rational, and that the rational is irrational. What a tragedy for humankind as long as this inversion lasts. Science is upside down and needs quickly to turn itself right side up again. Then at last will science be truly of service to humankind without injury or prejudice.
The intelligent super being that pre-exists the universe and creates it, must rationally be (1) infinitely intelligent and (2) infinitely powerful. This person is God who has revealed Himself as loving, indeed, as Love Itself. That God is Human is obvious since rationality and love define humanness, as Swedenborg argues. Therefore God is appropriately called by Swedenborg "the Divine Human."
The word "dualism" is used in different ways that do not agree with each other. Materialistic scientists cite dualism in the context of the history of scientific ideas. In my field of psychology, several versions of dualism are kept track of, beginning with the Greek philosophers. However, since materialism does not allow two types of existence, the idea of dualism has been stripped by them of all reality and rationality. Dualism has been turned into a "pseudo-phenomenon" (pseudo=non-existent or not real) and lumped together with consciousness, awareness, intuition, and mind, all of which are considered 'pseudo' or unreal. There is even the idea of "emerging" awareness, that is, a consciousness formed out of matter and space--brain cell activity patterned by experiential input, becomes so complex that it gives rise to a new phenomenon called consciousness. This consciousness is no longer material in substance but "emergent."
But this notion is not a rational idea since out of matter can only come matter, and the majority of scientists reject the emergent consciousness idea. To say that something emerges from matter that is no longer matter itself, is not rational. The only idea that fits with rationality is to say that two types of stuff exist, and a separate universe is made out each type of stuff. The physical world is made out of the material stuff while the spiritual world is made out of the spiritual stuff. Material stuff includes atoms, space (or "ether-filled space"), energy, and time. Spiritual stuff includes life, love, truth, rationality, and freedom.
We are brought up in materialistic thinking so much that we sense some resistance to the idea that love or truth is made of spiritual substance or stuff in the sense that a rock or our brain is made of physical matter or stuff. We think of love as a feeling and of truth as a type of idea or logic. Feelings and ideas are ordinarily thought of materialistically. People say that the brain is made of atoms, electrons, cells, and protein fibers. But of the mind they know not what it is made of. They think that it's just something the brain does when it is activated. This is like the "emergent" awareness idea mentioned above.
Not having a rational idea
or definition of the mind, most people--scientists and non-scientists alike, equate the
brain and the mind. This pressure to equate them is reinforced by contingency observations
or correlations between chemicals introduced into the body (brain) followed by mental
changes. The mental changes are attributed to the chemicals in the brain.
But this is only an
observational correlation, not a cause-effect relation.
The dual universe was known to the early generations living in the most ancient times on this earth. Swedenborg met these people in the spiritual world where every person awakens when the physical body turns into a corpse and the connection to the mind or spirit is no longer functional. Materialist science automatically laughs, mocks, and discounts Swedenborg's Writings. And yet he offers evidential and observational proof that there is God, that there is a spiritual world, that humans are immortal and continue life in the so-called "hereafter." His careful observations in thousands of deaths or "transitions" show that the period of transition takes about 36 hours. Once this becomes known and understood, it is easy to see the obvious, like the child in the emperor's story, that science has no rationality since it denies the reality of the spiritual world. Neither can science take the position that the spiritual is spiritual, and the natural is natural, and science is about the natural. For part of the idea of the spiritual is that it causes the natural. Science cannot ignore the causes of the natural. Both the natural and the spiritual form one reality, and science is about the description and understanding of reality.
If God and the afterlife are real entities and states, then they must be part of a rational science.
It is incorrect to say that since God is a religious matter it is therefore not part of science. If God is part of reality then God is a scientific issue. If the afterlife is real then it is a scientific issue. All events and states of reality are issues for science. There is a contradictory attitude many scientists show when they say that they are materialists in their writings, lectures, offices, classrooms, and labs, but dualists when studying the Bible or worshipping in a congregation or teaching their child to say a bed time prayer. This contradictory attitude is not rational. To say that these two issues can be logically separated is not a rational statement. All reality must be part of science if science is to be rational.
One intriguing question remains:
Why does science seem rational if it isn't, and how can it create a complex technological civilization with its irrational views?
The answer is given by Swedenborg: The wonderful inventions of science, the marvels of engineering, the achievements of economics and jurisprudence, the victories of medicine, and the complicated aesthetics of art are not to be attributed to the intelligence of humans but to the intelligence of God. These wonderful achievements of civilization cannot be attributed to the rationality of the builders, inventors, and managers. Rather, these achievements were accomplished despite the people's irrationality. God brings out creation's Human purposes of love and truth and nothing can stand in the total and complete omnipotence of God's activity in the universe. But there has been one great awesome failure on the part of the human race: the irrationality that people won't give up is robbing them from eternal life in the true human state called celestial inhabitations. Swedenborg reports a sad statistics about the thousands that pass on every day into the spiritual world from this planet. He was given the opportunity to monitor the passing on process in the case of thousands of individuals over a 25-year period of daily observation. The period of preparation in the spiritual world can last anywhere from one day to several months, as measured by the alternating day-night periodicity that recent arrivals experience in that state. When the preparation period is completed, the individual ends up in a celestial human state or in an infernal sub-human state. This is called the "second death" and is a permanent state. The sad part is that more individuals from this earth end up in the infernal state than in the heavenly state, and this is true of all religions and races.
While God exerts complete and full control over every event or detail in existence, the process of developing an individual born on an earth from pre-human to human, inherently involves the individual's freedom of choice in ordinary matters of living. God created humans in this way because the true human state called celestial or angelic, cannot be created directly solely from God. If this had been possible in God's scheme, humans would have been created ready for heaven and the natural world would not have been necessary. But since this was not possible, given the inherent requirements of being celestial, God created a nursery for heaven called Earths in the Universe--the title of one of Swedenborg's Writings. A physical body suitable for life on some natural earth is provided for each human spirit (or soul) born there. This spirit has a spirit-body which lives in the spiritual world but is tied by correspondence to the physical body. The shape and form of the spirit-body is the same as the physical body, but it is constructed of stuff from the spiritual sun, and the physical body is constructed of stuff from the natural sun. God then breaks the connection when the physical body ceases its functions, and the spirit now awakens to full consciousness into the spiritual world where it continues its life to eternity, either as an angel or as a devil.
God strives actively and mightily with each individual's development, minute by minute, and second by second, guiding and bending and providing all that is necessary in terms of experiences, events, and environments. You can see why God continues to evolve civilization, taking care of the needs of the generations, in a direction of health and growth, despite the lack of rationality of the people. If it were left up to the people, hell would instantly break loose on the entire earth in the first hours and days of being abandoned by the Divine Providence. Such is the irrationality and selfishness of humans from natural heredity, inborn tendency, and corporeal preference. It is only through the process of regeneration that pre-humans born on earth can turn into eternal angels in heaven. When this process of regeneration is resisted by an individual, the pre-human turns into a sub-human which is an infernal devil incapable of reason, self-control, or goodness of any kind. Swedenborg reports details about life in "the hells" and it is indeed horrible and terrifying. Organized in levels of badness, from top to bottom, the societies of hell are inhabited by people who share common delusions and ferocities or savageries. The horrible part is how they take turn torturing each other with their fantasies and preferred ferocities. And when some of these get into the idea that they would like to visit the celestial cities, the guards (who are all angels and good spirits) arrange for it.
This process of visitation is accomplished by a change of mental state, as all "travel" takes place that way in the spiritual world where space, place, and time are merely external sensual projections or appearances of the inner mental state. As soon as they are brought near the celestial level of human existence in their mind--a capacity which can never be destroyed or lost, they begin to experience interior agony that drives them back instantly, or as Swedenborg describes it, they "cast themselves down." Hell and heaven are both self-imposed states of life. The way we live, how much we honor our conscience, how open we are to truth for the sake of love--these choices we make on a minute by minute basis as we grow and live, these are the determinants of the form of our spirit-body. When we pass on, this form then appears to other spirits as angelic or infernal. Swedenborg describes the beauty and handsomeness of people's spirit-body when in an angelic state, and the monstrosities and ugliness of the spirit-body when in an infernal state. The appearance of the spirit-body always reflects precisely the type of feelings and thoughts the spirit has.
The Divine Human imposes a rationality on the dual universe and manages its details continuously, instant by instant, forever. This Divine Providence is exercised in every detail of the physical and spiritual (or mental) worlds. Its reality is kept outside the view of materialistic thinking or observation so that no materialistic sensual proof is possible of God's omnipresent actions and how every detail (without exception) is fully and totally controlled by Him. This provision or Divine Providence, is maintained by God out of love for the human race. The materialist philosophy or persuasion strives to reject this rational concept. The aversion is due to a false or delusional sense of the self. When we think with materialist thoughts only, we do not want to believe that God manages every moment and detail of our inner and outer life and the world. This thought is threatening to the materialist level of self-consciousness. We imagine that we would lose all motivation for life and would turn into hapless zombies having no pleasure or delight, if God is the real-time cause of each thought, feeling, or act we perform.
But when we become a dualist thinker it is quite safe and necessary to see rationally and empirically that God intervenes and is present in all details of one's feeling, thinking, doing, and existing. This difference is discussed in another article under the contrast of sensual vs. rational consciousness--see here.
There is a long standing idea in human history which says that the individual is a micro-cosmos. Some of the drawings of ancient authors preserved today show their conception of the world drawn in the shape of the human body. This idea fell in disrepute with the rise of modern science which showed that the physical universe is round and made of balls of matter arranged in orbits and clumps, not at all like the shape of the human body.
Some diehards continued to picture human bodies in the sky, on the theory that star formations arrange themselves in human form and the objects humans use, such as a sword or shield. Animal shapes were also seen such as a crab or the head of a steer. However this theory also became disreputable since the forces that shaped planetary clumps and orbits were believed to be non-human, non-spiritual, non-historical, but just chemical, thermodynamic, and gravitational. In order to allow for human-related star formations, materialistic scientists would first have to change their basic assumption about the dual universe, which they are not ready to do.
There was however one notable exception, namely, a reputed scientist who was willing to practice his science in a dualist mode. Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) left behind about 50 books which he wrote in Neo-Latin and in which he systematically, and with exceptional coherence, wrote out a completely consistent, rational account of a dualist science, using for this purpose two sources of data: the totality of modern science as known in the 18th century, and his own unique and extraordinary perceptual capacities in the dualist mode of perception.
It is important to realize that Swedenborg CONFIRMED ALL HIS THEORIES WITH OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE. This feature is what makes him unique in the annals of the planet's authors on the spiritual. Swedenborg combines rationality, science, and spiritual perception. Nothing of science is wanted in his explanations of the universe and God. Nothing of rationality is wanted, not a single error of thinking can be found in his 50 volumes of writings. No speculation or hypothetical theory can be found in any of his books, articles, and letters. Every detail is an accurate description of his perceptions, his observations, his note taking, his interviews with thousands of individuals "in the spiritual world" all of whom had formerly lived on this or some other planet.
An additional unique feature of Swedenborg is that he shows the precise connection between his observations and the Bible. He painstakingly analyzes hundreds of chapters throughout the Old and New Testaments, verse by verse, stopping on every phrase and word, and even letter or punctuation. He gives rational scientific meanings to much of the Bible that is entirely obscure, meaningless, and even gross and offensive to the gentle and polite spirit. He fully demonstrates that the Bible is a textbook of spiritual psychology written in the style of the ancients by means of correspondences. Every name, place, object, number, or historical detail has a dual significance: one natural or historical, the other spiritual or celestial.
Of course, the Bible is many things to many people. Swedenborg reaffirms and proves that the Bible is also an accurate historical record, wherever it deals with people, places, and events, but not the visionary or prophetic portions which are correspondential rather than historical. But what's amazing beyond bounds is that these historical details are also unsuspected scientific details about the human mind and its development or regeneration. The two do not contradict each other but lay close to each other, one sense within the other. That is, within every historical detail found in the Bible--time, number, place, person, animal, object, event, and so on, there is a scientific detail which he calls "the underlying spiritual sense." When you consider that the books of the Bible were written independently by dozens of writers (or prophets) over more than 20 centuries, it is astonishing to be shown beyond doubt that the historical details as they unfold from Abraham to Jesus, all hang together in their underlying spiritual sense into a rational developmental taxonomy of the human mind, and especially, the steps we must go through to be regenerated. This is the science of the Bible, unknown to all except those who learn the laws of correspondence from Swedenborg. (For an interesting account of this feature, see the little work by John Bigelow, the founder of the New York Public Library, which he titled "The Bible That Was Lost & Is Found"-- still listed by bookstores today--see for example amazon.com's listing here. For online articles giving a contemporary perspective on many Swedenborg topics and issues--see the New Church Issues Database.)
No one in the history of books has ever suspected or imagined that the Bible is a scientific textbook of spiritual psychology. Swedenborg did not discover this himself--it was revealed to him. But the revelation he received was vastly superior to any of the previous revelations given to the writers or prophets of the Bible books. Their revelations were Divine and perfect, but their understanding of what was revealed was far from rational, far from scientific. They had their visions, they observed the events in total obscurity of understanding, they wrote down the words that came into their mind, but without understanding the visionary language. In amazing contrast Swedenborg was fully conscious and fully rational all the time during his spiritual experiences. This is why I call it his "travels" rather than his visions. Besides this, Swedenborg's daily visits to the spiritual world extended over a continuous non-stop period of 25 years. Also, Swedenborg was a modern man, a scientist steeped in the rational and the empirical method, a respected scientist and inventor, who could not write a single thing that was merely hypothetical from his imagination but always had to be guided by empirical reality, scientific rationality, and intellectual understanding. He was thus uniquely qualified to remain a man of science even though he worshipped devoutly the God of the Bible and considered every letter and tittle of God's Word as most holy.
Though little known in the general public, Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1771) has had a deep, underlying influence on many key authors and thinkers in the 19th and 20th centuries. This influence has been documented by many studies on such key figures as Kant, Blake, Coleridge, Henry James Sr., Helen Keller, Suzuki, Milosz, and so on, the list is amazingly impressive for a name that is totally excluded from academic textbooks in my generation. (See some of my entries on spiritual psychology and science in the Swedenborg Glossary. Web sites offering biographies, critical evaluations, and contemporary articles on Swedenborg are linked on my Swedenborg Home Page Hawaii. An article I wrote and published recently in New Philosophy deals with the objections people have raised to Swedenborg and how we can answer them--see a copy of it here.)
Swedenborg's books systematically cover all aspects and fields of science of his day. He starts with physics and astronomy, where he is credited as the first modern statement of the nebular hypothesis of planetary formation. Swedenborg's Principia differs from Newton's, some of whose public lectures he attended at one time, in that Newton, like Leibniz or Einstein or Darwin, was happy to begin his treatise with a pious declaration of his admiration for God's grand work which he had the privilege of partially unraveling. God however never reappeared as part of the theory. Swedenborg was unique among reputable scientists in retaining God as an explanatory concept not merely in creation but in every event, phenomenon, or dynamic relationship. No scientist has ever attempted such a feat. And Swedenborg was fully successful in his work.
Today, many scientists still continue the old tradition of separating their science from their spiritual worship and beliefs in God. On Saturdays or Sundays, God is there, as in the Preface or the Introduction of the scientific works of previous centuries. But during the week, or in the body of the scientific work, God makes no direct, conscious appearance. The assumption is that "God is watching us....from a distance" as one popular song of the 1990s puts it so explicitly.
Swedenborg had an amazing spread and depth of knowledge as a general scientist and literary figure, and he was a voluminous author whose writings brought him fame and recognition in many fields of science and engineering throughout Europe. Documentation by Swedenborgian scholars include specific and novel contributions he made in metallurgy, crystallography, naval engineering, anatomy, psychology, philosophy, science education, monetary legislation, and Bible exegesis, to name but a few.
Why then has he been excluded from the standard academic history of these fields?
Because he refused to tow the line of materialistic science and engineering. He did not content himself to merely acknowledge God in the Preface and in the Epilogue, but created a place for God in science. His style would not be of deep scientific interest if he had merely contented himself with pious declarations of God's work or God's omnipotence and omniscience, or even, God's intervention in history and the miraculous acts of Divine Providence. This was done by some writers, and can still be seen today by some scientists or doctors. But Swedenborg went far beyond this.
His physics and astronomy, his chemistry and theology, his anatomy and psychology, his history and anthropology, are all written from a consistent dualist position. He never fails to follow these three cardinal empirical principles of dualist science:
1. All natural phenomena are effects, while their causes are spiritual
2. Every function or property must have a substance within which to operate
3. There must be no breaks in scientific accounts at any level of the cause-effect chain of phenomena, beginning with the Divine and ending with the ultimates of events--atomic, historic, or mental
The first principle says that natural events such as the formation of planets, building of a road, winning a war, getting sick from a virus, or speaking a sentence, are all consequences of spiritual events. Spiritual events have their own laws of occurrence governed by Divine Providence. But spiritual events are properties of the human mind. Therefore, the causes of all natural phenomena are related to human qualities. This is the ultimate and true humanism--the idea that everything that exists is for the sake of or on account of the human race and its development. Also, since God is the only true Human (as we are images of Him) anything that God creates must be related to His Humanness, and therefore to ours. Swedenborg defines the human as that which acts rationally from love. When individuals act irrationally from lust (self-love), they are not yet human but only have the potential to become human.
The second principle says that there must be a spiritual world, as counterpart to the natural world in order for cause-effect relations to exist between spiritual events and natural events. Similarly, the mind and its functions of thinking rationally and feeling motives for action, cannot be carried out without anatomical organs. Swedenborg referred to the will and the understanding as the two lives humans have. The understanding or cognitive life is carried out by the cognitive organ in the mind just as respiration in the body is carried out by the lungs. The will or affective life is carried out by the affective organ in the mind just as the blood circulation in the body is carried out by the heart and blood vessels.
The third principle says that scientific theories must be rational, in addition to being empirical, so that scientific explanations should not have unexplained gaps. Scientists as a rule have ignored this principle, but not Swedenborg. His scientific explanations always looked to the entire context of the chain of being, from the observed phenomenon all the way to God. To give a rational account of why phosphorous burns, the scientist must show how chemical reactions are governed by spiritual laws of correspondence as revealed by God and how the burning of the phosphorous contributes to God's Human purposes.
Quoting from Swedenborg's DIVINE LOVE AND WISDOM (DLW)
290. THE LORD FROM ETERNITY, THAT IS, JEHOVAH, BROUGHT FORTH FROM HIMSELF THE SUN OF THE SPIRITUAL WORLD, AND FROM THAT CREATED THE UNIVERSE AND ALL THINGS THEREOF.
290. The sun of the spiritual world was treated of in Part Second of this work, and the following propositions were there established:--Divine Love and Divine Wisdom appear in the spiritual world as a sun (n. 83--88). Spiritual heat and spiritual light go forth from that sun (n. 89-92). That sun is not God, but is a Proceeding from the Divine Love and Divine Wisdom of God-Man; so also are the heat and light from that sun (n. 93--98). The sun of the spiritual world is at a middle altitude, and appears far off from the angels like the sun of the natural world from men (n. 103-107).
In the spiritual world the east is where the Lord appears as a sun, and from that the other quarters are determined (n. 119-123, 125--1-28). Angels turn their faces constantly to the Lord as a sum (n. 129-134, 135-139). The Lord created the universe and all things thereof by means of the sun, which is the first proceeding of Divine Love and Divine Wisdom (n. 151-156). The sun of the natural world is mere fire, and nature, which derives its origin from that sun, is consequently dead; and the sun of the natural world was created in order that the work of creation might completed and finished (n. 157-162). Without a double sun, one living and the other dead, no creation is possible (n. 163--166).
321. It should be known that the spiritual world is in external appearance, wholly like the natural world. Lands, mountains, hills, Valleys, plains, fields, lakes, rivers, springs of water are to be seen there, as in the natural world; thus all things belonging to the mineral kingdom. Paradises, gardens, groves, woods, and in them trees and shrubs of all kinds bearing fruit and seeds; also plants, flowers, herbs, and grasses are to be seen there; thus all things pertaining to the vegetable kingdom. There are also to be seen there, beasts, birds, and fishes of every kind-; thus all things pertaining to the animal kingdom. Man there is an angel or spirit. This is premised that it may be known that the universe of the spiritual world is wholly like the universe of the natural world, with this difference only, that things in the spiritual world are not fixed and settled like those in the natural world, because in the spiritual world nothing is natural but every thing is spiritual.
340. (3) There is unceasing influx out of the spiritual world into the natural world. He who does not know that there is a spiritual world, or that it is distinct from the natural world, as what is prior is distinct from what is subsequent, or as cause from the thing caused, can have no knowledge of this influx. This is the reason why those who have written on the origin of plants and animals could not do otherwise than ascribe that origin to nature; or if to God, then in the sense that God had implanted in nature from the beginning a power to produce such things, --not knowing that no power has been implanted in nature, since nature, in herself, is dead, and contributes no more to the production of these things than a tool does, for instance, to the work of a mechanic, the tool acting only as it is continually moved. It is the spiritual, deriving its origin from the sun where the Lord is, and proceeding to the outmosts of nature that produces the forms of plants and animals, exhibiting the marvels that exist in both, and filling the forms with matters from the earth, that they may become fixed and enduring.
But because it is now known that there is a spiritual world, and that the spiritual is from the spiritual sun, in which the Lord is and which is from the Lord, and that the spiritual is what impels nature to act, as what is living impels what is dead, also that like things exist in the spiritual world as in the natural world, it can now be seen that plants have had their existence only from the Lord though that world, and through that world they have perpetual existence. Thus there is unceasing influx from the spiritual world into the natural. That this is so will be abundantly corroborated in the next chapter. Noxious things are produced on earth through influx from hell, by the same law of permission whereby evils themselves from hell flow into men. This law will be set forth in the Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Providence.
These principles show Swedenborg's empiricism and honesty. He was not content to merely make affirmations that spiritual forces can influence natural events. His physics and astronomy have no gaps and are connected to his physiology, neurology, and theology. His scientific dualism is complete and total, empirical and rational, spiritual and natural. Substances emanate from the Divine through the sun of the spiritual world -- Swedenborg describes the spiritual elements as Divine Good and Divine Truth -- and by a process of externalization, the light (or truth) and heat (or love) streaming from the spiritual sun transform themselves into "atmospheres" or substances of various degrees of condensation of spiritual matter (that is, love and truth), until it becomes visible to our experience as ether-filled space, gravity, and atomic particles. Within this chain of events is placed the human race for whose sake or purpose, all the rest is. Every person is born a dual citizen, with a physical body which is connected by correspondence to a mental or spiritual body called spirit or mind. The relation of good and truth as building blocks is discussed in this article.
The mind-body (or spirit) and the physical body have the same shape or form but they are made of different substance. The physical body is made of matter but the mind-body (or spirit) is made of spiritual substance. The physical body located in the natural world is tied correspondentially to the spirit-body located in the spiritual world. When the physical body loses its ability to function, the spirit-body is released from correspondential attachment to it. At that instant it appears to us that we "awaken" from some sleep state and find ourselves conscious in the spiritual body and carry on our biographies in that world. This is the world in which Swedenborg was able to be conscious while still being attached to his physical body and conscious in it. This fully awakened dual consciousness is what's absolutely unique about Swedenborg. What a boon this was to the human race! Here is an individual who was able to bring to our attention the facts of our full reality. Never before has such a vision been given by God to the human race.
Human growth can now be understood in minute detail, including thinking and feeling, and the various personality struggles we live through, their etiology and character being determined by spiritual events relating to each person's biography or destiny.
Swedenborg is the scientist's scientist! In unique and amazingly consistent and elegant accounts, he outlines the human forces that create crystals in the matrix of the earth as well as the forces of human heredity that create character weaknesses or strengths in individuals. You can see from this brief description that there is not yet a place for Swedenborg's writings in today's science. But in my view, a new dualist paradigm is now being born in science.
There is a second aspect to Swedenborg which is even more ostracized in the halls of materialistic science today, namely his claims to the extraordinary ability to perceive in a dualist mode, that is, being conscious simultaneously in both the natural and the spiritual world. This ability allowed him to fill volumes of daily observations over a 25-year period, from age 57 to 83, the time of his passing on. These diaries represent his cumulative eyewitness accounts of his geographic exploration of the spiritual world which he had theorized about in his earlier scientific works before he acquired dual perception or consciousness.
You can see why Swedenborg's science is excluded from today's materialistic, unimodal science. No one who claims to be able to talk to God and Aristotle, the Virgin Mary and Newton, as Swedenborg claims in all his works written after age 57, can expect to get a hearing in academic textbooks or at scientific conferences. Swedenborg predicted that his later works on the spiritual world would be ostracized for quite some time by scientists, along with his earlier scientific works, which he felt were entirely consistent and in agreement with his new source of empirical data input. He saw his earlier theoretical works confirmed in his new empirical data, not available to him before age 57. More than that, Swedenborg was now able to elaborate and expand the details of his accounts, so that we today, as we read his entire account, are able to be hugely impressed by its consistency, rationality, and agreement with both science and theology as known in universal human experience.
Returning to the idea of the human individual being a micro-cosmos, Swedenborg's eyewitness accounts actually confirm that the shape of the spiritual world is that of the human anatomy. Spiritual world, not natural. The ancient, pre-modern mind did indeed represent the physical universe as human, as does today, the so-called postmodern movement , which assumes for instance, that earth is alive! The most ancient view was possibly more correct in this sense than the postmodern view, because the ancients represented the spiritual through the natural. I don't think the postmodern movement does that, as it seems to take the view that material things are spiritually alive. This view devolved in history when the Golden Age of spiritual perception ended with the most ancients, and was replaced by more and more materialistic views. Eventually it came to be believed that the physical universe is of a human shape, but this pre-modern view became untenable under the march of modern science. It was clear that the physical universe was not in the shape of the human body. But what about the spiritual world?
Swedenborg was given the ability to perceive the shape of the spiritual world, confirming that it is human in every anatomical detail. This makes rational sense since the spiritual world in Swedenborg's writings is defined as the world of humanity's communal mind. At birth, a unique spirit or mind is Divinely created within the communal mind of the race, that is, in the spiritual world. This spirit or mind is immortal and, as a person, grows forever in accordance with spiritual laws that can be discovered through rational and observational analysis. The mind grows in correspondential attachment to the physical body through experiences that result from two simultaneous sources, one inner from the spiritual world into the mind, the other external, from the physical world into the senses and brain. Lecture notes by a contemporary Swedenborg scholar, Hugo Lj. Odhner, summarizing Swedenborg's focus on the human mind as organic, is available in these notes of his lectures.
In my field of scientific (materialistic or "monist") psychology today there is an official declaration of denial of the very basis of human experience and growth: namely, the denial of the substantiality or organic character of cognitive and affective activities. In other words, the basis of humanness which is to feel and think with conscious awareness, is not recognized as a reality of its own. Instead, their reality is secondary or emergent from the physical brain's activity. Thoughts do not have an existence of their own but are derived from the brain. Evidence for this belief is given by pointing the correlation between brain and thinking. When the brain is impaired or injured, thinking is impaired or made impossible in coma patients for instance. Or if chemical imbalance in the brain is corrected for, or if an injury is surgically repaired, thinking was impaired before, now is restored to normalcy. Further, if we ingest alcohol or psychotropic drug our thinking quickly changes in response to the altering of the brain's chemistry. And so on. These correlational observations are then taken to support the cause-effect theory by which the brain causes the thinking or its thoughts.
A similar correlational argumentation process can be made for the brain-body complex and their effects on our feelings, moods, and mental needs. These arguments clearly violate a well known and respected principle in science: Correlational evidence cannot prove a causative relation. There is therefore NO EVIDENCE for the theory that brain causes the mind. Instead there is rational proof and observational evidence given by Swedenborg for the substantive organic character of our cognitive and affective "organs" that make up the mind. Thoughts and feelings are not from the brain but from the mind and in the mind. Thoughts and feelings are never from the brain or in the brain. It is impossible for thoughts to be in the brain because the brain is physical in time-space, while thoughts are spiritual and not in time-space. Thoughts and feelings are mental realities, and for reality to be reality, they MUST have an organic form or substance. The alternative is that thoughts are not real on their own but emergent from the brain, in which case they are pseudo-phenomena wholly caused by and dependent on the brain. But as Swedenborg shows, one can rationally describe the correlational activity of the mind and brain through the scientific laws of correspondence between all natural and spiritual events. The rationality of this explanation is evident when you consider that the same explanation is used for the mind-brain connectivity as for all natural events, whether it's the activity in the sun or that of a sperm impregnating an ovum.
The mind cannot rationally be considered only a pseudo-phenomenon of the actions of the brain. Thoughts cannot merely be electro-physiological activity of neural cells. Thoughts and feelings cannot be built up by nothing but the cumulative action of physico-chemical organs. Swedenborg laid aside this unrealistic view and argued systematically and rationally against it, for years prior to his direct perceptual entry into the spiritual world, as evidenced in his books on physics, chemistry, and biology. His rationally derived explanations were eventually confirmed by his direct observations when he acquired dual perception at age 57. He was thus able to confirm by much systematic observation and experiment that physical sensory input from the natural environment was met in the brain's tiny corpuscles (or "little brains") by simultaneous interior input from the spiritual world into the mind's organs. The human mind is called "spirit" because its constituent organs are made of spiritual substances from the sun of the spiritual world. There is nothing in the mind that can be constructed of physical matter. The function or activity of the mind is carried out by two biological receptor organs called the will (affective) and the understanding (cognitive).
The mind in the spiritual world appears as a person in a spirit-body of which the physical body is a replication constructed with physical matter. The spirit-body (or mind) is connected to the physical by the principles of correspondence that govern all natural-spiritual connections. The laws of correspondence dictate what action in the brain will co-occur with what action in the mind. The two have independent origins acting together according to rational laws. They are conditionally necessary for each other while the physical body is alive. Information from and about the physical world is called afflux, and it is met by information from the spiritual world, called influx. Together they produce conscious experience and personality growth in the human mind from birth to the death of the physical body. Swedenborg observed thousands of individuals passing on at the death of the physical body, a process that is completed in about 36 hours following the death of the brain. The individual then awakens in a spiritual body which is permanent, and which appears in all respects to be like the physical model now laid aside as a mere decomposing corpse. This spiritual body is youthful looking and healthy, and is capable of functioning far better than the physical body. Swedenborg was able to confirm this from direct experience and by interviews from "recent arrivals" in the spiritual world. He reports that the sensations, discriminations, language, and thoughts of the spirit-body are far superior in efficiency, intensity, purity, and excellence to what we experience while still bound to the physical body. What a wonderful prospect! However, this excellence does not last long--seldom more than just a few weeks or months, for those who are downward bound. Those who become infernal or sub-human quickly lose this excellence as they sink more and more into their fantasies and delusional lusts. Their spirit-body then takes on deformed appearances and functions as a reflection of the character of thoughts and feelings they hang on to no matter what. For without these dysfunctional thoughts and feelings it appears to them that they are disappearing from existence. They cannot tolerate the reality of healthy thoughts and feelings as they feel tortured by them from their inmost being.
The Divine works ceaselessly to regenerate every individual born on some earth. Divine laws govern the individual's mental or spiritual development through correspondential interactions. Events in the physical environment are arranged and controlled by Divine activity and so are the events in the spiritual environment of the individual. The two are brought together by the Divine laws so they can co-act and produce a rationally cumulative plan or goal. This Divine goal is the regeneration of the individual's mind which is born abnormal due to heredity.
The regenerated mind, spirit, or human character, is the spirit-body that lives to eternity in the celestial state of human perfection. Swedenborg gives detailed travelogues of the happy and fulfilling life that exists in the many heavenly societies he visited. But the unregenerated mind or spirit has a distorted character built on fantasy and delusion and lives as an infernal individual in the lowest state of human life. Swedenborg's travelogues in the numerous hellish societies are both captivating and horrifying. An individual's biography or cumulative experiences are therefore marked by an intense focus and control by the Divine so as to maximize the individual's opportunity to be regenerated. And yet omnipotence cannot be used to compel or force regeneration. If the Divine were to render the inherited diseased character dysfunctional and were to impose a new character by omnipotence, the individual would no longer feel like a person but like a zombie being controlled externally by force. This requirement of human happiness for as-of self freedom (see below) prevents God from forcefully regenerating those who resist the Divine Psychotherapy. Even life in hell is closer to being human than being a zombie. Hence the sad statistics Swedenborg reports that people born on this earth enter the spiritual world and are unprepared and unable to live in the celestial state of their mind.
The complex and rational progress of this Divine psychotherapy is fully described in the Bible when its correspondential language is "decoded." Swedenborg's great and unique mission from God was to receive, understand, and explain this code known to the ancients as the "Science of Correspondences." Correspondences were known to the earliest civilizations on this earth called by Swedenborg the Most Ancient Church or the Adamic Church. In the course of time this civilization corrupted itself and began misusing the knowledge and power of correspondences, thereby making it impossible for them to be regenerated. Divine Providence then brought about a gradual loss of the knowledge of correspondence, and eventually a total loss. No one had suspected that such a science had existed. No one suspected that this knowledge was contained in the language of revelations and prophetic visions. When the course of millennia and centuries brought about new and differently prepared civilizations, the time came when God once again gave back this spiritual knowledge through the experiences and consequent Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg. Now that God once again has revealed the Science of Correspondences, permission has been granted for the people born on this earth to "enter with the understanding into the mysteries of faith":
| From Swedenborg's last work True
Christian Religion (1771) 508. The sixth experience. One day a magnificent church building appeared to me; it was square in plan with a roof like a crown, with arches above and a raised parapet running around. Its walls were all windows made of crystal, its door of a pearly substance. Inside on the south side towards the west there was a platform, on which the open Word lay at the right surrounded by a blaze of light, so bright as to spread round and light up the whole platform. In the middle of the church was a shrine with a curtain in front of it; but this was now raised and there stood a golden cherub with a sword which he brandished in all directions in his hand. [2] When I caught sight of all this, as I meditated, the meaning of each of the details came flooding into my mind. The church meant the new church; the door of a pearly substance, entry into it; the windows of crystal the truths which enlighten it; the platform the priesthood and their preaching; the Word on it, open and lighting up the top of the platform, the revelation of its internal, or spiritual, sense; the shrine in the middle of the church the link of that church with the heaven of angels; the golden cherub there the Word in its literal sense; the sword brandished in his hand meant that this sense can be twisted in different ways, so long as it is made to refer to some truth. The lifting of the curtain in front of the cherub meant that now the Word was laid open. [3] Later, when I got closer, I saw there was an inscription over the door: NOW IT IS PERMITTED. This meant that now it is permitted to enter with the understanding into the mysteries of faith. Seeing this inscription led me to think that it is extremely dangerous to enter with the understanding into the dogmas of faith which have been put together out of one's own intelligence and the falsities it produces, and even more so to seek to support them by quoting the Word. This has the effect of shutting off the understanding at the top and little by little also at the bottom, to such an extent that theology is not only disliked but actually wiped out, like the writing on a paper being destroyed by book-worms, or the wool of a piece of cloth by grubs. His understanding then concerns itself only with political affairs which affect his life in the country where he lives, and with civil affairs relating to his official duties, and with domestic affairs of his household; and in all of these he constantly embraces nature, being led by the enticement of its pleasures to love it, as an idolater does the golden image in his lap. [4] Now since the dogmas of present-day Christian churches are put together not from the Word, but from people's own intelligence and the false ideas that come from that, and also by means of some ideas supported from the Word, for this reason the Lord's Divine providence has seen to it that among Roman Catholics the Word has been taken away from laymen, while among Protestants it remains open, though shut off by their frequent saying that the understanding must be kept in obedience to their faith. [5] But in the new church the opposite happens; here it is permitted with the understanding to approach and penetrate all its secrets, and also to support them from the Word. The reason is that its doctrines are a series of truths revealed by the Lord through the Word; and proving them by rational argument causes the understanding to be opened up above more and more. This lifts it into the light enjoyed by the angels of heaven; and that light is in essence truth, and it makes the acknowledgment of the Lord as the God of heaven and earth shine out in all its glory. This is what the inscription 'NOW IT IS PERMITTED' over the door means; and the removal of the curtain of the shrine in front of the cherub has the same meaning. It is a rule in the new church that falsities shut off the understanding, and truths open it up. [6] After this I saw what looked like a child overhead, holding a paper in his hand. As he approached me, he grew in size until he was a man of average height. He was an angel from the third heaven; all there look at a distance like children. When he reached me, he held the paper out to me. But since it was written in the rounded script customary in that heaven, I gave it back and asked them to expound the meaning of what was written on it in words I could comprehend in my thinking. 'What is written here,' he replied, 'is: FROM NOW ON ENTER INTO THE MYSTERIES OF THE WORD WHICH HAVE SO FAR BEEN HIDDEN: FOR EACH ONE OF ITS TRUTHS IS A MIRROR IN WHICH WE SEE THE LORD.' |
God's purpose in revealing the scientific knowledge by which He manages every detail of the universe is consistent with the very purpose of creation: namely, to multiply the nurseries of the planets that are the source of the heavenly populations. The more heaven's population grows the more perfect eternal life is for its inhabitants. This multiplication and aggrandizement of human happiness is God's loving plan and work of wisdom. The dualist science of the future, now in the making, receives its spiritual data from a knowledge of these revealed correspondences. The knowledge of correspondences is necessary for the regeneration of the human race.
It is most important for science to describe and understand the regeneration process. All the discoveries and inventions of science combined are hardly worth anything in comparison to the discovery and understanding of the laws of correspondences by which our mind is regenerated by God in proportion to our cooperation. The revealed or inspired Word of God was given to many human societies on this earth over the course of its history and development. The purpose of these "Scriptural" revelations is to give science the information it needs to describe and understand dualist reality and the laws of correspondence. Only in this way can individuals effectively be regenerated and be prepared for happiness in eternal life. This obviously ought to be the central purpose of research, education, and socialization practices. Nothing can be more important when you consider the stakes: eternal happiness as a true and beautiful human being living with those who are alike ("heaven") vs. endless unhappiness and deformities in a sub-human state living with others who are alike ("hell").
Can you think of
something more important than a focus on this ultimate outcome?
email Leon James: leon@aloha.net
Existence in the spiritual world is made sensual as experience through the laws of correspondences that model the natural appearances of our earlier temporary existence in the physical body. In other words, at "death" one assumes a life in a virtual reality environment in the spiritual world. Swedenborg's eyewitness reports over 27 years of daily dualist observations catalog this new immortal existence that we enjoy as "a spirit". When he was in a dual mode of consciousness, Swedenborg seemed to himself sensually walking around in a spirit-body, recognizably similar in appearance to his physical body, and being able to see and talk to others whom he met in that state, some of whom he had known as family or acquaintances in his native Sweden and travels, and some he knew of from history books. Quite understandably these people were amazed to see Swedenborg whom they perceived to be in an abnormal state, partly in the spiritual world and partly not. Swedenborg thus appeared to them as distinctly different from the others who had already departed from the physical body. He was in fact able to have dinner in company with others in Sweden even as he was simultaneously in company with spirits in the spiritual world. Such was his unique dualist state, never before allowed by Divine Providence.
Swedenborg was aware that he had been prepared by God since his early childhood to assume this role of modern science revelator, though he did not become sensually (observationally) conscious of the spiritual world until age 57. Until that time he had spent much intellectual effort in acquiring the entire heritage of philosophy and science up to his day. He developed a reputation in the literate world of Europe as a science writer who was able to succinctly summarize and integrate the knowledge and perspective of several fields of interest in those days--metallurgy, mining, crystallography, naval engineering, anatomy, physiology, theology, math education, economic legislation, and Bible exegesis. When he acquired dual consciousness he was able to extend his scientific contributions to areas that today are known as historical linguistics, archeology, anthropology, cognitive science, psycholinguistics, extra-terrestrial exploration, spiritual psychology, theistic science, medicine, religion, psychotherapy, human evolution, and others.
There is a question that poses itself quite obviously: Why was Swedenborg the only man in history who was allowed to acquire dual consciousness, and can others gain this ability?
Swedenborg explains that direct conscious communication with those who are in the spiritual world (sometimes called "spirit possession") is not allowed by God--not since the days of the New Testament events during which Jesus "cast out" evil spirits. At that time the human race was on the brink of total corruption so that no one could have been regenerated and prepared for heavenly life. People's motives were selfish, egotistical, cruel, and unwilling to have a change of character towards the revealed good and true from God in His Word. Instead falsities of religion and life kept individuals from being regenerated through truths they did not wish to receive. The fell into "dire persuasions" from which they were unwilling to depart. As a result, a new method of regeneration had to be provided by God. This was accomplished in two stages of mental evolution of the human race on earth. The first which lasted until the eighteenth century (1757 precisely), and the second after that now going on. Civilization on earth is in this second phase which is marked by the new revelation of the Science of Correspondences in the Writings of Swedenborg. Theistic science is now becoming the new method of regenerating the human race. Swedenborg's Writings contain the data and rationale for theistic science--see this article. Swedenborg was given the unique privilege for dualist consciousness that he may sensually and experimentally gather the evidence that constitutes the basis for a new theistic science.
During Swedenborg's travels through the spiritual world or state, he oriented himself in relation to his knowledge of anatomy of the physical body. He might say for instance that he was going through "the region of the eye" or "the province of the liver" or "in the region above the head" and so on, for example:
| From Swedenborg's 12-volume work titled Arcana
Coelestia (Heavenly Secrets) 5392. Who they are that constitute the province of the intestines in the Grand Man, may be seen to some extent from those who relate to the stomach; for the intestines are continued from the stomach, and the functions of the stomach become there more vigorous and harsh down to the last intestines, which are the colon and rectum; for which reason they who are in these are near the hells which are called excremental. In the region of the stomach and intestines are they who are in the earth of lower things, who, because they have brought with them from the world unclean things that cling to their thoughts and affections, are kept there for some time, until such things have been wiped away, that is, cast to the sides; after this is done, they can be taken up into heaven. They who are there are not as yet in the Grand Man; for they are like food taken into the stomach, which is not admitted into the blood, and thus into the body, until it has been cleared of dregs. They who have been defiled with more earthly dregs are under these in the region of the intestines; but the excrements themselves that are discharged correspond to the hells called the excremental hells. |
The entire form or geography of the lands or regions in the spiritual world is in the shape and contour of the human body's organs and structure. Swedenborg called it therefore the Grand Man (Homo Maximus), sometimes translated as the Greatest Man or the Grand Human. Each "place" he visited was in reality a virtual state representing mental states in their specific affections and thoughts. Those whom he encountered in each anatomical region of the Grand Human were in a mental state or character that Swedenborg was able to relate functionally to the property or characteristic of the corresponding anatomical or physiological part. This idea is fully discussed with physiological details in two collateral works: The Third Source by Christen Blom-Dahl (see below) and Physiological Correspondences by John Worcester, as in this example:
| From Physiological Correspondences (1931) by John Worcester Swedenborg speaks of the teeth as corresponding to the “sensuals of the understanding” (A. R. 435), or to truth held merely naturally and obediently, without interior understanding. And the work of those who are in the teeth of the Greatest Man is not the work of intelligence, or of interior perception ; it consists in strong compulsion, and is performed by those who hold Divine Truth firmly and uncompromisingly, but not intelligently. They who are in tender states cannot do this work ; but leave it to those whose life it is to insist upon submission to the rules. They are simple, honest doorkeepers, who admit all who present themselves for admission, on the one condition that there shall be no concealment of who they are, or what they have done ; but their lives shall be open for judgment. Swedenborg often speaks of the disputes of the evil as sounding like gnashing of teeth ; because they hold literal truths or falsities in the memory, and clash them together in a kind of clamorous argumentation (H. H. 575). The teeth in the hells seem to be related especially to the cruel, tearing teeth of the carnivora ; and their purpose is to injure others, and to claim all things that can minister to self-love and love of the world. The gnashing of the teeth is the angry clashing of assertions of fact, or of literal statements, by which they urge such claims against one another and against the Lord and the heavens. |
Time-bound (natural level) vs. State-bound (spiritual level)
How do we dis-place ourselves in time? For instance, we walk to the kitchen from our bedroom. This is accomplished by moving within a course that ends up at a desired destination. The course between starting place and arrival specifies the direction of the displacement movements necessary to accomplish the task. Movements of displacement obeying a sufficient course--that's how we accomplish going somewhere. This task requires time, place, directionality, and desire. Time and place are natural things; directionality and desire are spiritual things.
Directionality is of the understanding, thus it is a process that is going on in the cognitive organ, while desire is of the will, thus it is going on in the affective organ. The cognitive and affective organs are of the mind, thus take place in the spiritual world. Displacement in time takes place in the natural world, which also includes the physical body, hence also the sensory organs that participate in the body's activity of walking. Thus, all our daily activities are occurring at these two levels: natural in the physical body and spiritual in the mind or its spirit-body. The natural and the spiritual co-act perfectly through the laws of correspondence. These laws are rational and are part of theistic science. The Writings of Swedenborg contain a full exposition of these laws. He was able to accomplish this through his dualist consciousness which allowed him to make direct observations simultaneously of natural events and their corresponding spiritual event. Once he learned and understood these laws he was able to demonstrate that the language of Old and New Testaments were written in a dual reference mode. The natural historical sequence of events from Abraham to Jesus are described in the natural sense of each verse, phrase, word, number, and name. Simultaneously each of these language elements also carry a spiritual sense. This spiritual sense is perceived when one learns the laws of correspondences. Here is an example:
| From Swedenborg's work Apocalypse
Explained Number 175. AE 175. I will give him power over the nations, signifies over the evils within him, which will then be scattered by the Lord. This is evident from the signification of "nations," as being evils (of which presently); and from the signification of "giving power over them," as being that these (the evils) will then be dispersed by the Lord. "To have power," in reference to "over the nations," means to scatter in reference to evils; thus there is an adaptation of words to their subjects. It is said that evils will be scattered by the Lord, for the Lord scatters evils by means of truths. He first discovers them to man by means of truths, and when man acknowledges the evils, the Lord scatters them. (That the Lord alone does this, see The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem, n. 200.) "Nations and peoples" are often mentioned in the Word, and those who know nothing of the spiritual or internal sense of the Word, believe that peoples and nations are to be understood. But "peoples" mean those who are in truths, or in the contrary sense those who are in falsities, and "nations" those who are in goods, or in the contrary sense, those who are in evils. And as such are meant by "peoples" and by "nations," so abstractly from persons "peoples" mean truths or falsities, and "nations" goods and evils; for the true spiritual sense is abstracted from persons, spaces, times, and like things, that are proper to nature. [2] With these the natural sense of the Word, which is the sense of its letter, is at one; and the sense that is at one with these serves as a basis to the sense that is apart from them. For all things that are in nature are ultimates of Divine order, and the Divine does not rest in the middle, but flows down even to its ultimates, and there subsists. From this it is that the Word in the letter is such as it is, and unless it were such it would not serve as a basis for the wisdom of angels who are spiritual. It can be seen from this how mistaken those are who despise the Word on account of its style. "Nations" signify those who are in good, and in the abstract, goods, because men who lived in ancient times were divided into nations, families, and houses; and they then loved each other mutually; and the father of a nation loved the whole nation which was from him; thus the good of love reigned among them. For this reason "nations" signified goods. But when men came into the opposite state, which took place in the following ages when empires were established, then "nations" signified evils. (See further on this subject in The small work on The Earths in the Universe, n. 49, 90, 173, 174.) [3] That "nations" in the Word signify either goods or evils, and "people" either truths or falsities, can be seen from the following passages. In Isaiah:
Here the Lord is treated of; and by "nations" all who are in the good of love to Him are meant, and by "kings" all who are in the truths of faith in Him. From this it is manifest who are meant by the "nations" that "shall walk to Thy light;" and by "the army of the nations that shall be brought;" also, who are meant by "the kings" that "shall walk to the brightness of Thy rising;" and by "the kings of the nations" that "shall be brought;" also, what is meant by "Thou shalt suck the milk of nations and the breasts of kings" ("milk" is the delight of the good of love, likewise "breasts," for milk is from them). The multiplication of truth and the fructification of good are described by the "little one shall become a thousand, and the few a numerous nation." But by "the nations that shall be wasted" are meant all that are in evils, and also the evils themselves. (...) [13] In Matthew:
These things also were said by the Lord respecting the last time of the church; and by "nation shall rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom" is signified that there will be conflicts of evils and falsities among themselves; by "famines and pestilences" are signified the failure and wasting of truths; by "earthquakes" the perversion of the church; by "being hated of all nations" is signified to be hated by all who are in evil; "the name of the Lord," for the sake of which they shall be hated, signifies all things of love and faith whereby the Lord is worshipped (see above, n. 102, 135). |
What determines the content of activity?
Divine Providence, its goal and inexorable law, creates, governs, and directs the least detail through the laws of correspondences which are applications of the Laws of divine Providence, these being Divine Wisdom from Divine Love. In other words, the smallest and most local or particular property or change (phenomenon), occurs only as filtered through that which agrees with the goal and law of Divine Providence. Whatever is contrary cannot exist. But since evil exists people have wondered why God allows it to exist, that is, does not filter it out of reality. Swedenborg's Writings provide the rational explanation to this age-old puzzle of philosophers and thinking people. The Laws of Divine Providence are of two categories: the phenomena that are from Divine Will and those that are from Divine Permission. Whatever is good and orderly in the universe originates from the Divine Will (or Love), but whatever occurs that is evil and contrary to order originates from people by means of Divine Permissions or Allowances.
God allows certain types of evils to come into existence, hatched by fantasies in the minds of people. Only that evil phenomenon or event is allowed that God can turn into good, that is, can insure that it will benefit the victims of the evil that is allowed. All other evil is not given Divine Permission, and thus cannot come into existence. thus all good and truth comes from the Divine Will, while all evil and falsity comes from the corruption of good and truth in people's mind, to the extent this is allowed by God. Obviously, God is an active participant in what goes on in our mind, what thoughts come into us when, and what we end up doing about it. And what is stupendously amazing, this close therapeutic mind-control by the Divine is carried out both directly or immediately from Him, as well as indirectly through the mediation of thousands of others arranged in a vertical community of interactive unconscious communication--see this article. The vertical community is a top-down hierarchy of interaction uniting the entire human race, past and present.
Similar top-down relations are familiar to us because we create them. For instance a mechanical sequence executed by a computer called a "program" is a top-down synthetic micro-world. The engineer creates the program by writing lines of machine instruction that coalesce and eventuate into a usable function by the program user (like the word processor I'm using to type this). Can something be done that the program doesn't provide for? No, for I cannot type in two colors, the top of each letter being red while the bottom being blue. Can anything occur that the program doesn't create and provide for? No. Everything that occurs, even so called "errors" or "bugs" occurs because the program makes it possible and provides for it. The program has this rational top-down property from Divine Providence, as a corresponding replicate of the Divine quality. Thus, no event or quality can occur or exist except from Divine Providence, from its goal and laws. And since Divine Providence is God's conscious and voluntary activity, it's evident that this is also what's called Omniscience and Omnipotence.
What determines the details of one's biography?
I'm watching Manna, our boy cat. I can predict what he's going to do. It's 7:45 AM and he's ready to go to bed, which is actually under my bed, where he'll be in narcoleptic states until 5 PM when he'll show up at my leg, waiting for me to act according to his expected ritual. But now, he's slowly approaching the bedroom, stopping, waiting for me to catch up. Then he circles the bed counterclockwise, as always, stops at the open screen door, as always, hesitating--out or in, as always. Now he walks along the baseboard, makes a forced right-angled turn at the corner, sniffs the heating pad on the carpet, sniffs the air wafting from under the bed, then finally, he slowly and deliberately slinks his thin body under the low bed, whereupon I say good bye and wish him happy dreams. The content of Manna's activities is directed by programs of various types. Some are time-bound programs created by Divine Providence in chemical/genetic and physiological media. These run their course as programmed and initiate activity, creating content, drama, unpredictability, biography or the uniqueness of individuality built by unique experiences.
Take for instance Manna's hesitating at the screen door. He always does it when he gets there on his way to the wall behind the bed. The hesitation involves a switch in focus from the desire to settle down under the bed. The screen door offers a different sensory input from the rest of the room. The sounds, movements, and smells Manna reacts to, begin to compete and interfere with the ongoing desire of bedding down. This is drama, unpredictability, biography, unique individuality. On some rare occasion it has happened that he went out instead of going under the bed. Every day this possibility repeats itself, and Manna's decision-making at that point of hesitation, creates drama and unique history.
How do we move up or down in the spiritual world which has no space?
The spiritual world is the same as the mind-world. The mind of every person is in the spiritual world, which has no space but only apparent spaces that come and go, as in our dreams. In the natural world, objects remain unique individuals distinguished from other unique objects, by occupying a unique position or place in time or history. No matter how much objects displace themselves, from here to there and there, they cannot occupy or reoccupy the same space or position. This insures individual uniqueness. In the spiritual world, that is in the mind, individuals remain unique by occupying a unique state (mental state or spiritual state), different from the state of all other minds. An individuals mind is a conglomeration of affective and cognitive states that are completely personal and forever distinguishable from any other conglomeration belonging to another individual. There is an infinity of unique mental states. An individual's life creates a biography that consists of a conglomeration of cognitive and affective states that make up the individual. Nothing about the individual can exist that is not part of this unique conglomeration of cognitive-affective states called the self.
The mind of every individual starts in a unique state and continues forever in unique states. There is no confusion or overlap in the spiritual world between different individuals because their minds are always in a unique state, even
