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A Man of the Field Forming The New Church Mind In Today’s World
Volume 1: Reformation The Struggle Against Nonduality
Volume 2: Enlightenment The Spiritual Sense of the Writings
Volume 3: Regeneration Spiritual Disciplines For Daily Life
Volume 4: Uses The New Church Mind In Old Age
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By Leon James October 2002 (draft 17a)
Author information appears at the end. This document is in the process of being revised. Please note the draft version marked on top. To print this document, see Printing Note at the end.
A “field” means doctrine (AC 368) A "man" signifies faith and truth (AC 427; 4823)
Volume 1 Reformation The Struggle Against Nonduality
Chapters 4 and 5
Table of Contents
Access to other Chapters and Volumes here: 1. Inspired Works Vs. The Word 2. No Overlap Possible Between The Writings and Other Works 2. The Secular Spirituality of Gurdijeff 1. Debunking Concepts That Have Nonduality Within Them 2. Commingling Secular Psychology With New Church Dualism 3. The secular Swedenborgianism of Henry James, Sr. 1. Nondualities In Henry James 4. Spiritual Christianity of Charles Augustus Tulk 5. Duality between good and truth 1. When Good And Truth Are Disunited 2. The Duality Or Distinctness Of All Things 6. Psychological Nonduality: Near Death Experiences 2. The Unregenerate Natural Mind Is Entirely Nondualist 3. Increase In The Number Of NDE Reports. 4. NDE As A Medical Phenomenon 5. Theistic Science Research Is Needed 6. The Rational Nature Of Genuine Spiritual Experience 7. Shamanism And Technologies Of The Sacred 1. The New Age And The New Church Overcoming Intellectual Impediments to Reformation and Regeneration 2. The Rational Is The Entry Way To The Spiritual 2. The External and Internal Understanding of Spiritual Ideas 3. Sin And Spiritual Punishment 3. Deconstructing Nonduality In Our Mind 1. Acquiring Rational Truths From the Literal Language of the Writings 4. Development From Sensuous Rational Consciousness 2. To Love God We Must Understand Him Rationally 3. The Rational Is The Entry Point To The Spiritual 4. The Spiritual Power Of Rational Concepts 5. The New Church Mind And Other Religions 1. No Continuity Between Truths And Falsities 6. The Nonduality Of Persuasive Faith 7. The Doctrine Of Discrete Degrees 1. Knowing About Correspondences 8. The Formation Of The Internal Marriage 2. Religious Justification For Dominion Over One’s Wife 3. The Wife Is The Will Of Her Husband’s Understanding 5. Facing One’s Wife Instead of Turning Away Titles for the Abbreviated Citations in the Book Full Text Free Online Access to All Swedenborg’s Writings:
Access to other Chapters and Volumes here:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/nonduality.html
Chapter 4.New Church Nonduality
Man cannot discover a single Divine truth, except by approaching the Lord immediately (INV 22)
Chapter 4, Introduction
1. Introduction
1. Inspired Works Vs. The Word
In the collateral literature of the New Church, it is common to find this type of statement:: “The Writings of Swedenborg are divinely inspired works.” On the other hand, in the literature specifically of the General Church, one commonly finds the statement: “The Writings are the Word.” What is the difference? The difference in these two statements regarding the Writings reflects the non-reconcilable doctrines between the General Church and Convention. Of course this categorical intellectual difference between the two Church organizations is also replicated and reflected in the minds of individual adherents, and to various degrees within each category, no doubt. It is important for the New Church mind to be able to rationally and clearly distinguish these two statements and the intellectual interpretations that are behind them. They represent a basic duality that can never be reconciled, and since nonduality opposes duality, carefully distinguishing between the two positions is essential for the formation of the New Church mind.
Recall that the New Church mind is defined as the individuals who are willing to be regenerated by applying the internal sense of the Writings to their daily willing and thinking. In Volume 2, which treats of Enlightenment, you’ll find the justification that the New Church mind is regenerated by means of the spiritual sense of the Writings. I therefore present methods or exercises by which we can extract the spiritual sense from the literal. These methods are taught in the Writings. In Volume 2, I discuss it under the sub-title “Applying the Letter to the Letter.” It involves substituting phrases from one part of the Writings into sentences from another part. The allowable substitutions are determined by correspondences explicitly designated or described in the Writings. Today, with NewSearch and other computer applications it is fairly easy to find such matching correspondences in the text Writings. I give several such illustrations and demonstrations.
THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH IS TO BE DRAWN FROM THE SENSE OF THE LETTER OF TH WORD, AND IS TO BE CONFIRMED THEREBY
It has been shown in the preceding chapter that the Word in the sense of the letter is in its fullness, in its holiness, and in its power; and as the Lord is the Word (for He is the all of the Word), it follows that He is most of all present in the sense of the letter, and that from it He teaches and enlightens man. But these things shall be set forth in the following order: 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)
The Word is not understood except by those who are enlightened. … They who read the Word from the love of truth and good, are enlightened from it, but not they who read it from the love of fame, gain, or honor, thus from the love of self … They who are led by the Lord are enlightened, and see truths in the Word, but not they who are led by self (NJHD 256).
You can see that those who are unwilling to acknowledge the Writings as the Word cannot have access to the inner sense of the Writings.
The Lord cannot enlighten such a state of mind for an idea that is not acknowledged cannot be perceived. Here then is the absolute, categorical, and permanent (eternal) distinction that separates the two intellectual states that acknowledge the sentence “The Writings are the Word” vs. “The Writings are divinely inspired.” The first mental says that the Writings have an inner sense since the Word does. In that state of mind the Word is called the “Threefold Word” and whatever the Writings teach about the character of the Word, therefore applies to the OT, the NT, and the Writings. And the Writings teach that the Word is of such a character that it is written in pure correspondences (xx), and that nothing spiritual about the Word can be understood without Doctrine (xx). Doctrine is not the literal meaning. Doctrine is to be extracted from the literal meaning (SS 50). Specific rules of extraction are taught in the Writings (see Volume 2).
The statement “The Writings of Swedenborg are divinely inspired works” contains a presupposition or intellectual belief system that is rooted in nonduality. The assumption one maintains in the background is that there exists a rational continuum which permits us to compare Swedenborg, the author, with other authors who have produced “inspired works.” This view admits the idea that there are other authors who are “divinely inspired,” even if it is granted that Swedenborg was more so than others before him. This view also admits the idea that there might be future authors who are also “divinely inspired” in the sense that the Swedenborg’s works are divinely inspired. This view also admits that there are valid comparisons one can make between some of “Swedenborg’s ideas” and the ideas of other writers. There is therefore the assumption of a rational continuum between all writers in the history of humankind. This is clearly a nonduality.
In contrast to this, is the duality that assigns permanent and categorical distinctions between the Word and all other human writings. This duality is fundamental and absolute, taught in the Writings everywhere (xx, xx). The statement “The Writings are the Word” acknowledges an intellectual context that is global, scientific, and rational. It is able to prove from the Writings that the natural and spiritual worlds are mutually interdependent and distinguishable into a discrete duality (xx). Reading and understanding the Threefold Word is the psycho-physical connection mechanism between the angels and earthlings (xx). Upon that connection the entire universe depends (xx). But the Writings establish that in order to understand the Threefold Word, we must extract its internal sense (xx).
The Writings therefore specify and teach the methods by which the internal sense ought to be extracted, and the result of this extraction process is called “enlightenment” (see Volume 2). Unless the Writings are acknowledged as the Word, and unless one applies to the Writings what it teaches about the Word, one cannot extract the spiritual sense of it, and one cannot understand the Writings. Consequently one cannot undergo reformation in adult life, hence one cannot be regenerated and saved for heavenly life.
The Writings establish an absolute duality between the Threefold Word and any other human writing (AC 10215). There is no possibility of comparison because they are not on the same continuum of discrete degrees. For the formation of the individual into the New Church mind this duality must replace the nonduality that allows comparisons. It is the duality “human book” and “Divine Book.” Human books can be “divinely inspired” but Divine Books are Divine. Who is the author of the Word? The state of mind that is immersed in nonduality, says that there were many authors, all of them divinely inspired. The state of mind that is immersed in the duality of the Writings, says that the Threefold Word has only one Author, namely the Lord. The Writings say that the Lord is to be considered the actual Author of the Threefold Word (xx).
This Divine authorship is the only intelligence capable of arranging the infinite series contained in the literal expressions that the human author has written out. It is not necessary at all that the prophets who have composed the Bible be inspired nor enlightened. Whatever they consciously saw themselves as doing while writing, was in no way responsible for the word by word composition of the sentences. They were not “inspired” and neither were they zombified or automated, or taken over by spirits, or by the Holy Spirit. Rather, we need to see the rational mechanism or scientific process by which the Lord “created” the Word. He acted as always from Firsts to Lasts through the full scale of intermediaries and being in total charge from beginning to end. The end or ultimate is the Letter of the Word. This is what the Lord created. It is a Divine intellectual edifice given to the human race as an infinite source of scientific knowledge about the Lord, heaven, the spiritual world, the natural universe, and above all, the psychobiology and of regeneration.
The New Church mind must be established on this fundamental duality: “The Writings are the Word, therefore not a human work but purely Divine” (AC 10215)This is a duality because no other work authored by anyone can be the Word. The Word has an internal sense of infinite proportions and is the Lord Himself as absolute Divine Truth. No other book has an infinite internal sense arranged in infinite rational series. All other books or human statements or ideas are in a human discrete degree while the Word is in a Divine discrete degree. There is no possibility of comparison for comparison would destroy the absolute duality which must be in our mind.
(For more discussion on how the Writings are the Word, see Chapter 8).
The nonduality view of the Writings flattens its core fundamental duality, and opens up the New Church mind to all sorts of impediments to one’s regeneration. A common idea from nonduality is that other authors also have genuine spiritual truths to reveal through their insights and experiences. Therefore their ideas and methods of spiritual development can be relevant and useful for the “spiritual growth” of the New Church mind. But if you admit this idea it could fight against all the discrete dualities taught in the Writings that we need to take up in our mind for regeneration, hence salvation. All dualities are unique permanent distinctions that never cease to eternity (DLW 226; CL 355). We want to be vigilant with respect to monitoring imported ideas that hide nondualities. The categorical and absolute distinction between the Word and all other books and insights protects the New Church mind from numerous fallacies and mental traps that destroy the rational coherence of the Writings, hence of the representational fabric of reality in our mind, leaving a delusional world of irrealities and the inevitable evil to which all delusions are connected from within.
I use the expression “secular Swedenborgianism” to designate the mind of those who are familiar with the Writings but do not acknowledge it as the Word (see the other Sections in this Chapter). This nondualist orientation sees in the Writings numerous “mistakes” or “outdated scientific facts” or “limitations due to Swedenborg’s human mind.” As a result, the entire scientific and theological foundation of the Writings lose their absolute and special Divine Authority. From then on, self-intelligence and individual experience take over our intellectual life and regeneration is completely impeded (NJHD 256).
Even the Lord had to learn the lesson that His external rational understanding of the Old Testament is not a spiritual understanding, but a natural-rational one. The spiritual sense of the Word had to be revealed by His “internal man” to His “external man.”
That "Sarai," as a wife, is the truth that was adjoined to the celestial things which were in the Lord, is evident from what has just been said concerning the signification of Sarai his wife. It is said, "the truth that was adjoined to celestial things," because the Lord possessed all truth previous to His instruction. What is celestial has truth with it, the one being inseparable from the other, as light is from flame; but this truth was stored up in the Lord's internal man, which was Divine. The knowledges [scientifica et cognitiones] that He learned are not truths [vera seu veritates], but are only recipient vessels; just as whatever is in man's memory is by no means truth, although it is so called; but the truth is therein, as in vessels. These vessels were to be formed, or rather to be opened, by the Lord, through instruction in knowledges from the Word; not only that celestial things might be insinuated into them, but also that the celestial things might in this way be made Divine; for the Lord conjoined the Divine Essence with the Human Essence in order that His Human things might likewise be made Divine. (AC 1469)
2. No Overlap Possible Between The Writings and Other Works
It is not surprising therefore that scholars can seriously study the Writings for years and arrive at the conclusion that they contain or advocate some form of nonduality or partial-nonduality. The Writings say that the Word is written in a literal style that people can use to support any idea or theory no matter how false and irrational (TCR 260). In the quotation mentioned earlier (see Chapter 3), Schoonheim sees in the New Testament verses, confirmation of his belief in nonduality. Wilson Van Dusen says: “The highest revelation of Hinduism is also in Swedenborg's revelations even though the two traditions had no contact.” The inside cover of the New Church Journal Arcana says in part:
Hinduism, the oldest surviving religious tradition, teaches that there are three paths to self-realization: jnana, the path of knowledge; bhakti, the path of love; and karma, the path of action. Is there a Western religious tradition that combines these three paths into one, in order to teach the goal of conjunction with the Divine? To all these questions the response is yes: that tradition is to be found in the theological writings (sic) of Emanuel Swedenborg.
The idea that revelations given in Hinduism many centuries before the Second Coming, are in some sense comparable or “similar” to the revelations given to Swedenborg, is not a possibility for many reasons that are explicated in the Writings (TCR 772). Swedenborg’s revelations are the Word of the Lord’s Second Coming. He qualifies these revelations as the greatest miracle the Lord has granted the human race since the beginning of creation (INV 43). The Writings explain that the Word is unique in style and no human writing can be compared to it (xx). Further, the Writings detail the history and development of the human mind from the Most Ancient Church to the New Church (NJHD 247, 1-7). Each civilization or era received revelations appropriate to the times and genius of its peoples. The revelations of the Writings could not have been given prior to the Last Judgment, which took place around the middle of the eighteenth century (or the year 1757, see LJ 45, TCR 115, 818).
Clearly then a distinct duality exists between the revelations given to Swedenborg and the knowledges found in Hinduism centuries or millennia before the Second Coming. Truths given to prior “religious traditions” can only be shown to be different, not similar, to the truths of the Writings. The activity of trying to show that they are in some sense similar, could admit into the New Church mind opposing ideas that the Writings refer to as an “impediment” to one’s regeneration (SE 2041). It’s extremely important therefore to be able to show and understand that no comparison can be made between the Writings and any other work. Consequently, no similarity can exist between any concept in the Writings with any concept from some other work. This is because the fundamental orientation, or background assumptions, in any work or writing enters into every sub-part of it (xx).
Take for instance the concept of “God.” This concept is used by disparate religions with different meanings. Those who are in the Jewish faith do not pray to the same God as Christians because Jews see the God of the OT in different terms from the Trinitarian perspective of the NT. The God of traditional Christianity based on the Bible cannot be similar to the God of the Writings, there being no spiritual overlap between the Old and New Christianity (TCR 647). The same is true for any concept you may consider—sin, hell, Satan, angel, Holy Spirit, Communion, love of neighbor, adultery, Church, creation, Adam, Noah, crucifixion, etc. etc.—none of these can be spiritually and rationally similar between the Christian Church mentality (First Coming) and the New Church mentality (Second Coming). And if this is true for two intellectual systems so closely tied by history and the Bible, it is even more so for Eastern religions and Christian. There can be no overlap between the two traditions since one is immersed in nonduality while the other is immersed in duality.
The Writings teach that nothing whatsoever of a higher state can appear as a revelation in a lower state (HH 269, SE 6084). The only relation there is between a higher heaven and a lower one is that of pure correspondence. For instance not a single idea of a spiritual angel of the Second Heaven can be seen or understood by a natural angel of the First Heaven (HH 209). Similarly, not a single idea of the Second Coming was perceivable by the Lord’s disciples, such as the identity of Personhood between Jesus and the Father, despite His oft repeated literal statements asserting it as He stood before them (John 10:30, AR 222). In the New Church mind, there can be no comparison between “the highest revelation of Hinduism “ and “Swedenborg's revelations.”
Chapter 4, Section 2
2. The Secular Spirituality of Gurdijeff
Gurdijeff’s system of "esoteric Christianity" includes mental exercises that are believed to develop one’s spirituality. One example is the activity of "sensing" which consists of sitting quietly and listening to the surrounds. The purpose of this exercise is to increase awareness of one's sensory environment as a means of focusing on the present and flushing out the myriad of thoughts and impressions that lurk in the mind's background all day long. It seems to help people to break away from their constant interior dialog which the conscious mind carries on during waking hours. Another exercise is to try to disengage from one's continuous stream of negative emotions (anger, dissatisfaction, jealousy, conflict, anxiety, etc.). This distancing activity appears to break their hold over us, freeing us to focus on and recognize good emotions. These in turn occasion wiser and more creative or original modes of thinking. These exercises may indeed be helpful psychologically though they are not spiritual as defined by the New Church mind. It is always the motive that creates the spirituality of an activity. Religious motives for mental disciplines are described in Volume 3.
No matter how advanced we get at psychological activities they can never turn into spiritual ones. This is because psychological activities or states are in the natural mind, while spiritual activities or states are in the spiritual mind. Only interior rational content can exist in the spiritual mind and its content originates from heaven, not the natural mind. Whatever originates from the natural mind remains natural and cannot turn into spiritual by becoming more advanced. The natural mind and the spiritual mind are separated permanently by discrete degrees (see Chapter 5). In the New Church mind spiritual truths come only from the Writings since the spiritual truths in the Writings are from the Lord. The Writings are the sole source of spiritual truths for the New Church mind since no other revelation or writing contains the truths of the Lord’s Second Coming. Spiritual growth in the New Church mind is achieved through reformation and regeneration achieved solely by means of the Writings. No other method or mechanism has been given by the Lord (NJHD 173).
Some people who attend “spiritual growth groups” may develop the notion that psychological methods are spiritual activities. But for the New Church mind spiritual is defined by the Writings, and the Writings teach that spiritual growth is only by reformation and regeneration, and this involves altering our daily willing and thinking using the Writings as the evaluation guide. Let us say that the psychological exercises are explicitly related to studying the concepts in the Writings that are applicable to these exercises. When reformation and regeneration are made the primary thing or motive, and the psychological exercises are made secondary, to fit the primary motive, then the psychological exercises could be useful tools in regeneration. In that case the group activity is spiritual for it is required for reformation to debunk all our concepts in the light of the rational principles in the Writings.
The psychological exercises in themselves, are not spiritual and cannot lead to the opening of the spiritual mind. Numerous psychological, mental, or physical exercises or disciplines can be turned into “spiritual growth” tools if done for the primary purpose of cooperating with the Lord in our regeneration. Before our reformation in adult life we are in an unregenerate state, surviving in a culture of nonduality and secularism. Our relationship to the Writings is lukewarm and unenthusiastic since what we see in it is the loss of our selfhood and freedom. We are afraid that if we lose our selfhood and freedom we will never be happy and will have wasted our life. We are also filled with dissatisfaction, rage, and rebellion. Our personality is filled with contradictions and our motives are ego-oriented from inheritance.
In this state we are not yet forming the New Church mind in ourselves. Our struggles in that state of life are psychological and moral, not yet spiritual. “Growth groups,” physical disciplines, meditation, performative arts, achieving professional expertise, and like activities then serve useful purposes in perfecting our moral strength and developing our natural rational mind. These activities are not yet spiritual. In this unregenerate state New Church people should retain loyalty to the Writings as the Word of their religion. If this idea from childhood is not tampered with but left in place, the later struggle during reformation in adulthood will be so much lighter and more efficient.
1. Debunking Concepts That Have Nonduality Within Them
We need to learn how to interpret concepts whose source is not the Writings and how to relate to them in our mind. In today’s modern world of media and general information flow, New Church people cannot escape exposure to concepts not from the Writings. Initially the concepts that attract our interest appear similar and compatible to things we know from the Writings. They may even seem useful for our spiritual life, from which it would seem that the New Church mind should adopt them in the limited sense of their usefulness, as long as one leaves off the portions that are from a different context and not compatible with the Writings. But this appearance is not real but spurious and inauthentic. For instance, Gurdijeff's "negative emotions" might seem similar to the idea of "evil spirits" entering our thoughts through the will of "our natural man." But it’s important to remember that all Gurdijeff's concepts have nonduality within them. What matters when comparing concepts is not their outward similarity but their inward compatibility. When New Church people approach Gurdijeff's idea of “negative emotions” it should first be debunked before giving assent to it.
To debunk a concept is to look for what is within, that is, to identify its assumptions, premises, and presuppositions, for these are the things that are “within” the concept. When we analyze the background assumptions or context, we can instantly see that Gurdijeff does not have compatible assumptions with the Writings. The model of Gurdijeff rejects the most basic dualities in the Writings. Not a single concept that Gurdijeff's mind could produce would be compatible with the Writings when viewed from within. In this case, we can talk about evil spirits in connection with our negative emotions, but if Gurdijeff were present, he would laugh at us, would he not? So it cannot be that his idea of “negative emotions” could be like our idea of evil spirits.
Similarly, Gurdijeff’s analogy of the mind as a house with a basement and upper floor has been related by some New Church people to spiritual correspondences in the Writings, where the three stories analogy is used to designate the natural, the rational, and the celestial in our mind. Once again, we can be certain that Gurdijeff would reject our idea of three discrete degrees in our mind that connect only by correspondences. Therefore his analogy of the mind as a house is inwardly antagonistic to our rational idea of the mind in three discrete degrees. This points up again the utmost importance to know the fundamental dualities in the Writings. If the New Church person doesn’t know about discrete degrees, one remains exposed and vulnerable to intellectual hijacking by antagonistic systems of thought. Our reformation will then be so much more agonizing.
A comparison has also been made between Swedenborg and Gurdijeff’s attitude towards the Lord, namely Gurdijeff’s admonition that his system of mental development would not work at all if the practitioners are motivated by self-aggrandizement or belief in one's own powers. We have from the Writings the idea that self-intelligence and self-love lead to hell regardless of our religion or knowledge of the Word. But what can we make of Gurdijeff's idea of a “belief in one’s own power”? Gurdijeff's relation to the Lord is a distant one in comparison to New Church Christians who occupy the center of the region around the spiritual Sun (D.Love 11, LJ 58). The Writings gives us the closest relation possible to the Lord, hence it is not possible that someone who is more distant could give us a like spiritual understanding.
It is prudent to recognize the potential danger to the New Church mind of applying outside psychological explanations to the workings of one’s mind. The Writings present a theistic psychology and this alone should be the psychology applied to the New Church mind. Otherwise portions of the New Church mind would be formed by ideas not from the Writings. But we know from the Writings that all our willing and thinking should be from the Word in our understanding and according to it (NJHD 255). Forming the New Church mind is the preparation for becoming an angel.
But could there not be some overlap so that some concepts from science and research are like some concepts from the Writings? The answer must be, No, in the light of what the Writings say. There may appear an outward similarity but there can never be an inward similarity, because the concepts from the Writings are the Word of the Lord, and therefore they have endless spiritual ideas contained in each truth (SE 2085). No concept, idea, or reasoning that is not from the Word can therefore be interiorly similar to the Word. It is clear therefore that the New Church mind must not import a single idea that is not from the Writings. The danger of importing outside concepts is that they clash on the inside with the concepts from the Writings. This is because a concept that does not have heaven within it, has hell in it—there is no in-between. And so the hell inside the imported concepts battle against the heaven in the concepts from the Writings. Therefore we should strive to avoid importing them.
It is useful to remind ourselves many times that all things that exist are distinctly one in the eyes of the Lord, and that this principle applies as a duality. All things that are good from within constitute one Church on earth and one Grand Human in the spiritual world. All things that are not good within constitute one infernal deformed man (DP 204). The two are antagonistic and cannot co-exist. This same principle applies to all concepts and types of reasoning. In the New Church mind all concepts that are from the Writings have heaven in them; all others have hell in them. But on the surface, this is not readily apparent (SS 95). To accept a concept from another source is to trust the outward similarity, but after proper examination and critical deconstruction, it becomes clear that it would be creating a nonduality between what is from the Word and what is from elsewhere.
Further, the motivation for introducing explanations and practices that are not from the Writings is that they would be useful for our life. For our spiritual life? Everything useful for the spiritual life of the New Church mind must come solely from the Word, that is, from the Writings. Once we are committed to this truth as a commandment, we have completed our reformation, and not until then. Then at last we can begin our regeneration, which alone leads to our salvation. Is it possible to think that the Lord has not provided in His Second Coming what is sufficient and ample for our reformation and regeneration? Do we need to borrow outside things not provided in the Writings? The answer is, We do not and we must not. This is not a judgment on these outside concepts! It is not for us to make such a judgment since these concepts are not provided for us, and what do we know about what the Lord provides for others who are not of the Church? Therefore we can only discuss here that which the Writings say that anyone ought to do when motivated to form the New Church mind within themselves.
2. Commingling Secular Psychology With New Church Dualism
What about the potential usefulness of extraneous practices that are not spiritual?
Here my answer would be, Yes, it’s possible that some might be useful for regeneration. This is because physical behavior by itself is not spiritual, but it can become spiritual when we perform it from a spiritual or religious motivation. Many such practices and disciplines are described in Volume 3. I believe that some of the practices encouraged by Peter Rhodes may be of this type. For instance, as was said above, he recommends the activity of "sensing" which consists of sitting quietly and listening to the surrounds. The purpose of this exercise is to increase awareness of one's sensory environment as a means of focusing on the present and flushing out the myriad of thoughts and impressions that lurk in the mind's background all day long. It seems to help people to break away from their constant interior dialog which the conscious mind carries on during waking hours. This is not a spiritual exercise but a mental one, below the spiritual level which begins only with the rational ideas in the Writings. Religious disciplines are an essential tool for regeneration. The activity of “sensing” and other such exercises of “meditation” are turned into religious disciplines or tools when we do them for the purpose of our regeneration. This subject is treated of in Volume 3.
Gurdijeff’s secular psychotherapy has a nondualist foundation. On the other hand, spiritual psychotherapy in the Writings is always religious and dualist through and through. Every mental step, from emotional slavery to regenerated freedom, is taken by the individual with the Lord's hand and face in view. In what might I might call “true Swedenborgian therapy” it is not sufficient to confess the True Christian faith (TCR 1), and thereafter proceed with a secular psychology and a materialistic science. Every daily activity and routine must be suffused with the Lord's presence and leading in our thoughts, perceptions, and inclinations. I don't think it is the case that the New Church needs to borrow from other systems of mental development because Swedenborg was allegedly unable to specify life exercises in sufficient detail, or had a lack of time in his busy publications schedule, as implied by Wilson Van Dusen. (See Note 6 at end). Volume 3 gives many specific examples that show how innumerable religious disciplines can be extracted from the Writings.
Moral life may be lived either for the sake of the Divine or for the sake of men in the world; and a moral life that is lived for the sake of the Divine is a spiritual life. In outward form the two appear alike, but in inward form they are entirely different; the one saves a man, the other does not. For he who lives a moral life for the sake of the Divine is led by the Divine; while he who leads a moral life for the sake of men in the world is led by himself. (HH 319)
Participants in New Church “spiritual growth groups” sometimes seem to commingle what is secular psychology with New Church dualism. For example, a Letter to the Editor published in New Church Life (August and October issues of 1993) says regarding reading Gurdijeff’s:
"I find it difficult to understand what there is to be afraid of from collateral reading and experience. ... I feel I have a new understanding of what the Writings mean when I read them." Another letter defends Peter Rhodes' book: “Aim does not proselytize Gurdijeffian thinking; it gives credit to Gurdijeff’s for an effective approach to self-examination. ... Aim gives help by mapping the strategies of the hells. ... Aim has nothing to do with following Gurdijeff’s. It has everything to do with a sincere effort to follow the Lord through His Word."
On the same page, a letter poses the opposite view:
"it is difficult to understand why New Church people should be attracted to Gurdijeff’s" and several others voice strong opposition, for example: "His aims seem 100% personal and material ... [it is] blasphemy--the mixing of good and evil. Those who give any credence to his guidance are in grave risk of blasphemy too … How can we reconcile the clear, translucent and inspired works of Swedenborg with teachings [from Gurdijeff’s] such as: "Everything in the Universe is material"; "It is not God that is omnipotent but the Universal Will. ... I am thankful to Mr. Fox that he exposed Gurdijeff’s disorderly conceptions that are absolutely contrary to what we are taught in the Writings." It is clear from the reply by Rev. Fox that his opposition is to Gurdijeff’s, not to collateral readings in general, and indeed he presents a list of books that he considers worthwhile "for those in the New Church who feel the need to look outside the Writings for means of enriching their spiritual lives."
Yet another contributor cites 25 passages in Swedenborg which have one clear message, namely that "the Word is the only doctrine which teaches how man must live in the world in order to be happy to eternity" (AC 8939:3e). Mr. Odhner warns against the dangers of "following the various theories of finite minds" and urges that "the Divine authority of the Writings" is an affirmation that "we must renew each generation" inasmuch as "our constitution is the Writings" (p.181).
Despite differences expressed in the heat of zeal for good and truth, I note a general agreement in this polemic, that Swedenborg's Writings are the Word, hence the ultimate authority on the ways and means of regeneration.
The Word is the only doctrine which teaches how a man must live in the world in order to be happy to eternity. (AC 8939)
Enlightenment is the influx, perception, and instruction people receive from the Lord when they read the Word. (AC 10215)
I believe that “growth groups” and special mental exercises, when viewed as secular studies and experience, are compatible with the Writings when these secular ideas have no authority in our mind regarding spiritual truths. The title "spiritual growth groups" and the method of "esoteric Christianity" are neither spiritual nor esoteric (that is, belonging to the internal spiritual man). Perhaps if they had been called "social growth groups," there may be more tolerance or acceptance of them in the New Church community. But in my view, social growth groups should focus primarily on the theistic psychology of the Writings, and secondarily on other concepts, if at all. This would indicate a need for New Church scholars and teachers to prepare readings and instruction materials extracted from the Writings from passages that deal with psychology, development, reformation, and regeneration. For examples of such studies from my work, see the Notes at end.
The unregenerate natural mind is, in and of itself, composed of material ideas based on the physical senses. The highest portion of the natural mind is the external rational (AC 978, 4286; AE 355:14). Its constitution is natural-spiritual built up with material ideas. The course of regeneration as described in the Writings consists in opening the interior rational mind and to allow it to receive genuine spiritual ideas from the Writings. By this method, the spiritual mind is opened, and the things that come into it form heaven dispose the things in the natural mind in a corresponding order. Prior to this opening, the motives and thoughts in the natural mind are not really good or really true. After the process of regeneration has begun, a renewal occurs and life is gradually and noticeably transformed, day by day. New motives, new thoughts, and new acts now translate into renewed life, psychological growth, mental health, personal strength, individual ability and happiness. These are the outward benefits of the growing spiritual life within.
Chapter 4, Section 3
3. The secular Swedenborgianism of Henry James, Sr.
Henry James, Sr. was a staunch defender and promoter of the Writings. The famous father of Henry and William, believed in a form of secular Swedenborgiansim that was strangely muddled with nondualities. He was known for lambasting the New Church of his day for adopting an ecclesiastic form of administration similar to the Old Christian Church that had been vastated as a result of nondualist heresies introduced by its clergy--such as the irrational idea of a “Trinity of Divine Persons in One Godhead.” Henry James, Sr. agreed that the Church “witnesses to God’s creative presence in humanity, but of course does not constitute it, as it sometimes insolently pretends to” (quoted in Ray Silverman’s review in Arcana 1996 v.2 n.4 p.56). While the Church, according to Henry James, Sr., plays a vital role in educating the human mind, it should never take upon itself the power to dictate how Scripture should be interpreted. Doctrine, he said, should be left to each individual to figure out. He called this practice “the rubbish of ritual righteousness” and “the spiritual tyranny of dogmatism” and argued that it removes individual freedom
His attitude towards the priesthood as an institution is difficult to understand since without the priesthood there is no Church, therefore no religion (TCR 415). The Doctrine of the Church taught by the priesthood must be based on and drawn from the Word, and the Word is thereby known to many (NJHD 315). The vehement anti-sectarianism of Henry James, Sr. could be the result of a nonduality in his mind between the priesthood of the First Coming and the New Church priesthood of the Second Coming. There is also a duality between the priest’s individual character and his ecclesiastical function. An evil priest can fulfill the sacred rituals equally with a good priest (AC 1361[4] ). The good priest is good because his internal thoughts and his external words agree; the evil priest is evil because his internal thoughts are set against what he preaches externally (CHARITY 160). In either case, the ecclesiastical function is carried out as necessary for the existence of the external Church. It is the same with the other members of the Church, some of whom are hypocrites and some sincere (TCR 381).
Several other forms of nonduality plague Henry James’ secular Swedenborgiansim.
Rev. Silverman is very generous in his assessment of William and Henry in terms of what they took from their father’s Swedenborgian outlook and carried it forward in their own work. It may be, as Rev. Silverman points out, that Henry James, Sr., would have rejoiced in whatever influence of his ideas he could see in his two erudite and famous sons. This would be consistent with his anti-sectarian orientation towards the New Church. He apparently did not share the point of view of many religious parents in the New Church who are pained when their grown children act like they’re rejecting the Writings and its ideas about the Lord, about regeneration, about heaven and hell, about conjugial love. Their belief is that the children’s salvation is at stake. Henry James Sr. vehemently rejects this orientation as sectarian and abominable. And so, he would have approved of his sons going their way and inventing for themselves their brand of philosophy and theology.
It is amazing to me that William James, in all his books and essays, spends no more than two or three sentences, vaguely mentioning “Swedenborgian circles,” never entering into a single idea of his father based on the Writings. And this, despite the fact that William edited his father’s last work about Swedenborg and published it posthumously. This is especially significant since William James was a prolific writer and well admired for his expertise on the human mind and on religion. Yet, not a single concept of his father from Swedenborg ever enters his writing, or the many speeches and lectures he delivered over his long academic life. It stands to reason therefore that he rejected and despised everything about the Writings, not reading any of it himself, and not taking seriously a single idea of his father in relation to Swedenborg.
William’s book titled Varieties of Religious Experience (1929) has been very influential in making it respectable for modern psychologists to consider religion as a legitimate area for scientific research. It is filled with content about the human mind and its relation to the Divine through various methods of mental discipline, ritual, and introspective experiences of one’s consciousness. Surely this would be an excellent opportunity to make his father’s Swedenborgian ideas part of the varieties of religious experiences! His total silence on it proves to me that he had an aversion for Swedenborg’s ideas, so great that he could not bring himself to mention it in a serious and comprehensive work on the subject.
The same may be said about Henry James, the Son, since his many academic biographers find nothing substantive to mention save his father’s social reputation as a defender of Swedenborg and his polemical or controversial reputation regarding that subject. Swedenborgian concepts are never let into his poems, essays, and novels that are considered incisive and greatly admired.
From the secular perspective it’s not crucial that Swedenborgian ideas be directly referred to in their work. It’s enough that traces can be found in their work showing the father’s influence in terms of their special focus on the mind and their recognition of deeper levels of consciousness. But from a religious perspective this is not enough because it always comes down to the bottom line: Do they acknowledge the Lord and come to Him in His Word for salvation and regeneration? It stands to reason that if they do, they’re going to write about it and even make it a central focus in their writing. And if they don’t, then they are acting like they have rejected those ideas as unworthy for their recognition.
The intellectual mind of Henry James Sr. was a sophisticated creation of Christian and Western philosophic and literary traditions. He was led to the Writings in midlife by a psychological crisis that left him depressed and incapable of continuing his active life of letters and as head of a prominent family. He recognized his symptoms when he read about the idea of vastations in the Writings. He reinterpreted his psychological incapacity into a spiritual evolution and he boldly went ahead reading the Writings and extirpating himself from his psychological state into a new state of animated and passionate defense of Swedenborg to his polemical friends, that included Emerson (see Chapter 4 Section 6 and Chapter 7 Section 5). He fought against the New Church establishment of his day as an abominable replication of the disastrous ecclesiasticism of the Old Christian Church. He formed the opinion that Swedenborg’s revelations were meant for the entire human race and everyone ought to be allowed to take from it whatever they wanted, for in the eyes of God, revealed in the Divine Humanity of Christ, every human being is welcomed and no one is rejected. Thus he remained outside the Church and did not take up in his mind the Doctrine of the Church. This fundamental nonduality is characteristic of secular Swedenborgianism.
Religious Swedenborgiansim is the acknowledgement of the Writings as the Lord in His Word and extracts from it the Doctrine of the Church. This Doctrine is spiritual from celestial origin and has nothing whatsoever from the natural mind and human self-intelligence. It is this Doctrine in our understanding that is called the Heavenly Doctrine and our regeneration is according to the our understanding of the Doctrine and in proportion to our daily willing and thinking in accordance with it (HH 473). This Doctrine is from the Writings and therefore has only dualities in it. In contrast, secular Swedenborgianism commingles dualities from the Writings with nondualities from self-intelligence in the natural mind. The result is that all dualities are invaded and destroyed by the avalanche of nondualities. Thus one remains without Doctrine for regeneration.
1. Nondualities In Henry James
It’s instructive to trace some of the numerous nondualities that emerge in the profuse intellectual reasonings that Henry James, Sr., produced in his unstoppable enthusiasm for Swedenborg’s works. First, his anti-ecclesiastical stance. Here he created a nonduality between the priesthood of the First Coming and the priesthood of the New Church. He imagined that the Church can be laid out on a continuum and measured along it from “consummated” to “alive.” He then decided that the Old Church and the New Church were both on the consummated end on account of their being sectarian. He used the word “sectarian” to designate what we would call “religious.” This is characteristic of secular Swedenborgiansim where either one throws off all priesthood, as in the case of Henry James, or one joins them all as equivalencies and in the spirit of equity, as in the case of Wilson Van Dusen (see Note xx at end). This nonduality makes no sense to religious Swedenborgianism which has exactly two categories for salvation and all spiritual growth: those who are regenerated and those who are not (TCR 574). This is not a continuum but an absolute distinction and permanent separation, as wide and permanent as heaven and hell are separated.
The conditions for regeneration have been laid down in the Writings in most specific terms. We must acknowledge our infernal status through and through, repent, reform, shun our evils as sins, refrain from doing them, holding them in aversion, and cooperating as-of self in our regeneration by taking up Doctrine from the Writings and willing and thinking accordingly in our daily and hourly activities. No other way is provided. One’s self-intelligence must not be consulted or the Doctrine is falsified and no regeneration is possible (TCR 48[18] ). Secular Swedenborgianism does not see all this and disputes it. Yet it is revealed that
Every one with whom the Church exists, is saved; but every one with whom the Church does not exist, is damned. (NJHD 245)
A subtle example of nonduality is the idea Henry James has of freedom. He takes up the well known and beautiful revelation from the Writings that no one is born for self, but everyone is born for others:
Man is born not for the sake of himself but for the sake of others; that is, he is born not to live for himself alone but for others; otherwise there could be no cohesive society, nor any good therein. (TCR 406)
The only freedom we have is therefore to cooperate and will in accordance with this reality of creation. He considers what kind of society would result from holding this principle in every activity and institution, and calls it “Christology.” What justifies this method of living in his mind is that it leads to a pure life of serving others, and the final outcome of this Christology is “becoming one” with God, which is the Divine Humanity Itself. This way we reach our deepest and highest reality and bliss. Clearly this entire notion is based on a nonduality between the “humanity of the individual” and the “Divine Humanity of Christ.”
In contrast, the Doctrine of the Church we have from the Writings illuminates our understanding to clearly see that the there is a fundamental and absolute duality between our humanity and the Lord’s Humanity. Ours is an image of His. We are so created that our celestial mind is capable of receiving the Lord’s Proprium in our regenerated will. The Lord therefore is the all in all in heaven, and we are in the Lord and the Lord is in us (John 14:20; TCR 111). Never will this mean that therefore there is fudging of distinctiveness and separation between the Lord’s Proprium or Humanity, and the celestial Will in which it dwells, or, which the Lord conjoins to Himself. Our humanity will always remain such as it is created in an image, and the Lord’s Humanity has always been and will always be uncreate. There can never be a mixing or a transference or a oneness other than a conjunction, adjunction, communication by influx, accommodation, correspondence, and appearance.
It is significant to note that Henry James prefers the expression “Divine Humanity” while we use “Divine Human” as in the Writings. The difference is that the New Church mind is focused entirely on the Person of the Lord as the Divine Human born on this earth, and as an historical Personage, interacted with many human beings as-if one of them. He then glorified His Natural Human conceived by Himself in the body of a designated virgin, and appears to the angels amidst the spiritual Sun through which He maintains the universe in existence and in His Order from Firsts to lasts and back. This Divine Human presented Himself one last time in the natural world at His Second Coming, which was the presentation of His Divine Rational as the Word of the Second Coming in the Writings of Swedenborg. This is the Person whom the New Church mind loves, not an abstract idea of a “Divine Humanity” within us.
The First Commandment is that we love Him more than anything else (TCR 291). This is possible only if God is the Divine Human for to love a “Humanity” as an abstraction is not possible. Loving the abstract or the invisible Divine is not possible because it is indeterminate in the mind, and this cannot be loved (DL 13; HH 15). Love is the desire and intention to conjoin, and one cannot be conjoined to something abstract but only to another human being or to the Divine Human. Loving the Divine Human is possible. When we love the “Divine Humanity” within ourselves we are still secular nondualists, but when we love the Divine Human outside of ourselves we have become religious dualists (see Volume 1 throughout). This is the intellectual orientation of the New Church mind because it is the intellectual framework of the Writings, therefore of reality and the Lord.
Henry James describes the Coming of the Lord as a universal “message” of salvation to all humankind. If we would listen to this message, says Henry James, we would abandon all forms of sectarian affiliation and devote ourselves to love others as Christ loved us. Christ was the model of Divine Humanity that we all have in us as human beings. We can become Christ-like by loving all humanity and serving others by working for their salvation as Christ did for ours. Henry James refers to Jesus as the “most lustrous in history” of all prior models of humanity. He further says that “God is manifested in the life of Christ” while the New Church mind would think that “God is manifested as Jesus Christ.” The difference is plain. Manifestation in the “life of Christ” is abstract and natural, and fits nondualism, while manifestation “as Christ” is particular to the Person or Divine Identity. The Lord did not say that the Father is manifest through His life but through Him (John 1:18). To love the Lord means that we desire to be conjoined to Him by means of His Love and Wisdom, or Good and Truth. Therefore we love the Good and Truth that is in Him and desire to receive this within our thoughts and affections. Without this reception there cannot be conjunction.
The Coming of the Lord fundamentally alters the mental condition of the human race and provides a new Church through a new Word (TCR 647). The purpose of this new revelation is to teach how we need to cooperate with Him in our regeneration, for without this there is no redemption and salvation (TCR 576). To the extent that we struggle and live the Doctrine we understand from the new Word, to that extent He regenerates us. The new mind formed by the new Doctrine becomes the dwelling place or entry point for the Lord’s Proprium, and in this we have the new spiritual life that continues to eternity (AC 5354; CL 355).
There is much that is admirable about Henry James’ passion for many beautiful central ideas in the Writings. Nothing that I said about his ideas should diminish their interest and good intentions. Rev. Silverman’s review of this man’s Swedenborgiansim is favorable and appreciative of his noble sentiments. He shows that Henry James was against the anti-sectarian portion of organized religion and that he favored the support of all Churches and religions, seeing them together as the Lord’s Universal Church, and requiring only two conditions for acceptance of anyone into it: Acknowledging the Lord’s Divinity and shunning evils as sins. Indeed, these two conditions for salvation are taught in the Writings. (TCR 389[4] )
As we read about the ideas of Henry James regarding the Writings, we need to note the nondualities that crop up in his thinking. Examples were given above in this section. Another example may be given. Henry James states that “the new heavens, as Swedenborg reports them, are made up of Gentiles and Christians alike” (quoted in Silverman, ibid, p. 68). Henry James’ fervor for the nonduality in universalism is so strong that he removes from his mind the discrete degrees into which the new heavens are cast:
[The New Heaven] consists of Christians as well as of Gentiles, but for the most part of the children of all in the whole world, who have departed this life since the Lord's time: for these have all been received by the Lord, educated in heaven, and instructed by the angels, and afterwards preserved, so that together with the rest, they might constitute the New Heaven. (NJHD 3)
Those who are outside the Church, and acknowledge one God, and live according to their religion in some charity towards the neighbour, are in communion with those who are of the Church; for no one who believes in God and leads a good life, is damned. From this it is evident, that the Lord's Church is everywhere throughout the world; although specifically it is, where the Lord is acknowledged, and where the Word exists. (NJHD 244)
The whole Church on earth, before the Lord, is as one man, nos. 7396, 9276; in like manner heaven, because the Church is heaven, that is, the Lord's kingdom on earth, nos. 2853, 2996, 2998, 3624-3629, 3636-3643, 3741-3745, 4625. But the Church, where the Lord is known and where the Word exists, is like the heart and lungs in a man in respect to the rest of the body, which lives therefrom, as from the fountains of its life, nos. 637, 931, 2054, 2853. Hence it is, that unless there were a Church where the Word exists, and where by means of it the Lord is known, the human race would not be saved, nos. 468, 637, 931, 4545, 10452. The Church is the foundation of heaven, no. 4060. (NJHD 246)
If you explore these Arcana Coelestia references you will discover that there is a discrete degree of separation, thus no direct contact whatsoever, between Christians and Gentiles or other religions. In order to be in the heaven that is visibly and directly in the Lord there must be an acknowledgement that He is the only God of Heaven and earth. This is only with those who accept the teachings as they are in the Writings. The nonduality of universalism and unconditional acceptance is not the reality. Heavens differ in the degree of interiorness of loves, consequently of truths. Loves that do not have the truth of the Lord’s revealed identity are more distant and less central than loves that admit the identity of Jesus Christ as the only God. Therefore though we must be tolerant of others’ creeds here and the hereafter, and respectful of them when heavenly, yet we must not remove the discreteness and eternal permanence of their loves and ours, such as we are commanded to have in the Writings and nowhere else.
The highest level of achievement in the human mind according to the universal Christology of Henry James, Sr., is what he calls the “saint of the new church” who “engages in useful, selfless service to others.” This is an admirable sentiment, and I applaud it. But I do not automatically identify with it without first inquiring what it contains conceptually. I especially want to know what’s behind this:
The most intelligible expression for God’s own perfection is USE … which … is that which he derives … from his own frank and cordial and complete adjustment of himself to the various uses, domestic, civil, religious, which society devolves upon him. This is man’s spiritual form, and it endures to all eternity, growing evermore instinct with God’s own power…” (Henry James, quoted in Silverman, ibid, p.70)
I note in this train of thought the absence of the idea that regeneration as prescribed in the Writings, is the only method by which we can engage in genuine uses. Henry James acknowledges that uses are performed “with God’s own power” but he allocates something to the individual, namely, deriving the uses from one’s “own adjustment” to them. Not only is God’s power in our “saintly” performances of uses, but also in our adjustment to them, that is, our progress in regeneration. This is not from ourselves but is also from the Lord. The focus of the New Church mind must be not so much on the good we do but on our obedience to the commandments. Then, it will follow automatically from the Lord, that our uses are good and bring goods to others. We must be vigilant in maintaining the dualities in explicit and particular terms all the time. All dualities are unique permanent distinctions that never cease to eternity (DLW 226).
The central thought in Henry James is, as Rev. Silverman describes it, that “ the key [to spiritual development] is “to become completely immersed in the life of society, to find oneself through losing oneself in unselfish service to others” (ibid, p. 71). The New Church mind would rather say that spiritual development (or regeneration) is immerse our mind in the life of the Writings, meaning, that we see our task as extracting Doctrine for ourselves and willing and thinking according to our understanding of it.
Chapter 4, Section 4
4. Spiritual Christianity of Charles Augustus Tulk
Tulk was a 19th century New Church man whose book Spiritual Christianity was published in 1846, two years prior to his passing on. He had been a prominent promulgator of the Writings though some of his ideas aroused strong criticism from New Church circles, as mentioned in Rev. Ray Silverman’s assessment of Tulk’s work (Ray Silverman, Arcana 1995 v.I n.4 51-69). The controversial issue regarded the Lord’s “dual or divided awareness” in the two states that He underwent while on earth. Rev. Silverman summarizes the issue in a sub-heading: “If Jesus is God, Why does He Pray to Himself?” The answer is given in the Writings:
HIS PROGRESS TOWARDS UNION WAS HIS STATE OF EXINANITION, AND THE UNION ITSELF IS HIS STATE OF GLORIFICATION. (…) The Lord had to undergo these two states of exinanition and glorification because progress towards union is not possible by any other way, since it is in accordance with Divine order, and this is immutable. Divine order requires that a person should adjust himself to receive God, and prepare himself as a receiver and dwelling-place for God to enter into and live as in His temple. This a person must do of himself while still acknowledging that it is from God. He must make this acknowledgment, because he does not feel the presence and working of God, although it is God who by His intimate presence performs all the good of love and all the truth of faith in a person.
Every person must and will advance in accordance with this order, if he is to become spiritual instead of natural. The Lord advanced in the same way in order to make His natural human Divine; it was for this reason that He prayed to the Father, did His will, attributed to Him all that He did and said, and on the cross uttered the words 'My God, my God, why are you abandoning me?' For in that state God appears to be absent.
But after this state comes another, which is a state of being linked with God. In this state a man behaves in the same way, but then does so from God; nor does he then need, as he did previously, to attribute to God all the good which he wills and does, and all the truth which he thinks and speaks, because this acknowledgment is written on his heart, and consequently is inwardly in every action he does and every word he utters.
In the same way the Lord united Himself with His Father, and the Father united Himself with Him; in short, the Lord glorified His Human, that is, made it Divine, in just the same way as He regenerates a person, that is, makes him spiritual. (TCR 104-105)
We have here (along with continuing passages) the clear explanation of what the two states of regeneration are and why the Lord had to undergo them. It doesn’t say that the Lord “forgot” that He was God. When He was in a state of exinanition He was to Himself in the appearance that He was separate from the Father in Him. Nowhere do the Writings say that He was ever ignorant of who He was or what His mission was. Just as we ourselves are not ignorant of the Lord’s close presence with us when we are in temptations (AC 227). We know it, we read it in the Writings, we can write it out, we can say it—and despite this, we do not feel the Lord’s Presence. We know it, but we don’t feel it. The appearance to us is that the Lord has abandoned us, even as we know that He has not. As we progress in our regeneration we recognize this appearance, we understand its mechanism, and it has less of stronghold on the feeling of abandonment. At no time have we forgotten that God exists or that the Writings are the Word or that He is managing every single detail. Therefore we can be sure that Jesus on earth did not forget the purpose of His Coming from the moment He became conscious of it as an infant (Can 30).
August Tulk created a nonduality in his mind that would make it impossible for him to understand the duality of state spoken of in the above Number, and elsewhere. He took the idea of God’s perfection and changelessness to mean that God cannot have dual awareness, one lower and the other higher as appears from the explanation in the Writings. This nonduality is the result of consulting his own intelligence and applying it to reinterpret the literal of the Writings. This is sure to mislead. We are commanded not to consult our own intelligence regarding the Doctrine of the Church, but that this must be drawn from the literal of the Word (TCR 229). We saw this same problem with Henry James, Sr., whose universalism led him to deny the duality of the priesthood and other things about the Church (see Chapter 4 Section 2). Tulk came up with the idea that the Jesus and the Father remained One in awareness since Divinity cannot be divided.
[in the Word] they are called "drunkards" who believe nothing but what they apprehend, and for this reason search into the mysteries of faith. And because this is done by means of sensuous things, either of memory or of philosophy, man being what he is, cannot but fall thereby into errors. For man's thought is merely earthly, corporeal, and material, because it is from earthly, corporeal, and material things, which cling constantly to it, and in which the ideas of his thought are based and terminated.
To think and reason therefore from these concerning Divine things, is to bring oneself into errors and perversions; and it is as impossible to procure faith in this way as for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. The error and insanity from this source are called in the Word "drunkenness." (AC 1072)
That the rational would be made Divine, is signified by the "son" whom Sarah was to bear (verse 10). That the human rational truth that was with the Lord did not perceive this, and thus did not believe it, is signified by Sarah's "laughing" at the door of the tent that was behind him (verses 10-13, 15). It is confirmed that the Lord would put off this also, and would put on in its place truth Divine (verse 14). (AC 2139)
Man's regeneration is an image of the Lord's glorification (AC 4353)
Even the Lord went through states in which His “human rational” “did not believe the truth” because He could not perceive it in that state. Tulk seems to have denied the actuality of the Lord’s two states of perception. This aroused the vehement ire of New Church men in Tulk’s surround. They instantly sensed that Tulk was destroying the truth in himself by taking this position. And it seems to me they were automatically right in so far as it plainly states that the Lord underwent two states, and in one of them, He had the appearance or experience that He was separate from the Father. Not that He forgot, as discussed above. But that He was in a state of mind where this appearance of separation is what He experienced, despite his knowledge of everything about it. And this makes sense.
These recurrent states of exinanition were required so that the natural human he acquired from Mary, may face the hoards of hell and all the sordid depraved humanity. To face them without destroying them, which they would be if He had faced them in his other state called glorification. It was an act of Divine Mercy for the hells as well as an act of humility for the natural human that He was in the process of making One with His Divine. It’s instructive to see how Tulk made himself incapable of seeing this.
Tulk knew that the Divine doesn’t change in Itself. In the Lord infinite distinct things make a one that is perfect (DLW 17). To admit change into this understanding of God is to destroy the understanding. Therefore, God is changeless because infinite. But the Writings reveal that God is the life and all of each thing, and of each mind or soul (DLW 4). But because each thing is unique (DLW 226), therefore God’s indwelling of each mind is different and adapted according to appearances. Tulk took this idea and applied it to his cherished idea of nonduality of states of awareness of the Lord on earth. He came up with the notion that the Lord created the appearance of exinanition but that in reality He could not so divide His awareness. So His suffering was an appearance He gave. Also, His attributing all good to the Father not to Himself (TCR 104).
These elaborated notions infuriated some of the New Church men mentioned above, but Tulk defended his stance till the end. Tulk thought that the Divine could not possibly contain that which was contrary to the Divine, as Jehovah could not be thought of as being angry and vengeful; nor that the Lord could be angry or sweating blood from feeling weak in the heart as He anticipated the crucifixion. These appearances are not in the Lord but in the human beings to whom these appearances are manifested, each according to one’s unique reception. (4206). Tulk thought it was the most “extravagant” of ideas to believe that God Jehovah limited His infinite awareness in Jesus who had to gradually discover that He was Jehovah, and then vacillated back and forth, sometimes knowing who He was, sometimes not. He labeled this description as “impious fiction at which the heart sickens” (Quoted in Silverman, ibid, p.54).
From this position Tulk is compelled by his logic to call into question the veridicality of the literal of the Writings where this description is asserted. He saw this as equivalent to how the Writings discard the literal in the Old Testament where Jehovah is described as limited and tyrannical. The Writings also give descriptions of the Lord’s infirm Humanity while in the world, calling it His states of exinanition. Tulk would not accept these literal descriptions and saw them as referring, not to the Lord, but to the appearances of the Lord in the mind of the disciples. The Lord was not in reality going through those states since He is changeless, but the dis |
