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Series:
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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 6 and 7
Table of Contents
Access to other Chapters and Volumes here: Disconfirming Nondualist Propositions In The New Church Mind 1. Only The Writings Have Spiritual Truth. 2. The Notion That “Self Is An Illusion” 3.The Notion That ”All Great Religions Are Equivalent” 1. The Lord’s New Revelation Regarding All Religions 4. The Notion That “Meditation Is Spiritual” 6. The Notion That “We Are Already Perfect” 7. The Notion That “Being One With Nature Is Spiritual” 8. The Notion Of “Unconditional Love” 1. Spiritual Events In The Inner Mind 2. Everyone Is Born Into The Slavery Of An Addiction 3. Good Loves And Genuine Truths 4. What’s Wrong With Unconditional Self-acceptance 5. Spiritual Dualities From the Writings Are To Be Loved And Lived 7. What Is Loving The Neighbor? 9. A Poisonous Serpent And Cockatrice 9. The New Church View On Forgiveness. 1. Forgiveness Is Always Granted Immediately by the Lord 10. The Secular View On Forgiveness. 11. The Christian View On Forgiveness 2. Willing And Thinking According To The Letter Introduction: Key Concepts In the New Church Mind 2. Teaching Integrated Concepts 3. A Few Key Concepts From The Writings 2. Discrete Degrees In Successive And Simultaneous Order Ghosts, Vampires, Aliens, “Energies” And “Vibrations” 1. “After The Completion Of This Book” 4. The Idea of “Salvation is by Means Only” 5. The Idea of “Conjugial Love” 1. Achieving An Internal Union 2. Discrete and Reciprocal Relationship Between Man And Woman 3. Conjugial Love Vs. Pornography And Adultery 6. The Mind Is In The Spiritual World 1. The Corporeal Sensuous Mind Tends Toward Hell 2. Only Rational Loves Exist In Heaven 3. Revelation Of Interior Rational Truths. 5. Genuine Images and Maps Of The Spiritual World 7. The Vertical Community: Spiritual Influx From Heaven And Hell 1. We Are Created Dual Citizens In Two Worlds 2. A More Effective Self-Management Technique 3. Spirituality Is Not Visible In The Letter 4. Spirituality Reenters The Human Race 5. Hearing But Not Understanding 6. Spiritual Meaning Of Parables 7. Building Up Spiritual Doctrine In Our Mind 8. The Idea of “Earths in the Universe” 1. The Lord Would Not Want To Mislead Us. 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:
Volume 2 is located at this address: www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/nonduality.html
Chapter 6.Disconfirming Nondualist Propositions In The New Church Mind
The New Church, which is the crown of all the churches, … will endure forever(INV 39)
Chapter 6, Introduction
1. Introduction
Our spiritual inheritance (from the father line), our natural inclinations inherited from both parents, our cultural upbringing (socialization and education), and the socio-political milieu in North America conspire together to resist the rearrangement of our mind in accordance with the Writings. This resistance is easy to witness in others when we try to interest them with what we know from the Writings. The resistance takes different forms: polite noncommittal, obvious disinterest, vehement ridicule, total rejection—all in place of: deep interest, gratitude, amazement, excitement. People don’t care to hear the revelations of the Heavenly Doctrines. It’s too inconvenient to hear all that and to take it seriously. Better it be a joke or exaggeration or the opinions of this particular genius. There are many geniuses. Besides, show me the leaders and authorities and the important people of our society who go for this stuff. Is everybody wrong and you’re right? Besides, show me the proof. Where is the proof? Why should you believe what he says? These people can really take advantage of you. Go home and lie down. Etc. This has been my experience, but it’s obvious that the Writings are not going to hit the best seller charts for a long time, maybe a very long time.
All around us substitute explanations and opinions are constantly created by the intellectual fervor of the day. We are exposed to all sorts of ideas and propositions of life that are contrary to the rational order of the New Church mind. We know that regeneration of character is our only way and hope for salvation, and yet the Lord’s Laws of Permissions (DP 234) give us the power to resist regeneration if we insist on it, thus to damn ourselves. Our regeneration goes as far as we allow it; as far as we suffer ourselves to be led in our daily lives by the ideas of the Writings, thus by the Lord. It makes good sense to become adept at disconfirming contrary ideas that come to us from our culture, tradition, or some author’s or speaker’s persuasions. The chief and most important strategy in this vigilance is this truth from the Writings that we must keep in the forefront of our conscious mind:
The defining proposition that creates the New Church mind: Only that which is directly from the Writings can be the spiritual truth in our mind on this earth; and all that is not from the Writings is not the spiritual truth.
Educated people who are also fair-minded feel an inner resistance to this type of absolutist propositions. No, that can’t be. It’s too extreme. What about the people who never hear about the Writings? What about other valid religions that form the Lord’s Universal Church? What about scientific knowledge? What about the Bible? This activity of resistance is like troubled waters in the New Church mind. We need to witness these objections to hard sayings and analyze them. The objection of not being fair to other religions is balanced by the spiritual truth that all can be saved who live a life in accordance with their religion or their conscience (HH 506). But for the New Church mind the Writings are the only revelations given for the Lord’s Second Coming. The objection regarding the Bible is balanced by saying that the truths of the Bible is actually revealed for the first time in the Writings and that the Holiness of the Old Testament and New Testament is immeasurably strengthened by the Writings. And yet the Bible, which is the Word for the First Coming is not the Book of Salvation for the Second Coming. The Divine Human cannot reveal Himself through the Bible. Humankind had to wait 18 centuries after the Lord’s Resurrection before the Divine Human could reveal Himself to those who acknowledge the Writings as the Lord in His Word of the Second Coming.
What about science and the accumulating knowledge of the human intellect? Should we then throw away all books like religious fanatics do? The Writings answer this by revealing two things: first, it pleases the Lord to unconsciously direct the minds of scientists to bring out rational thinking; second, the products of this type of Divine tutelage is not truth but knowledges or “scientifics” (AC 5477). Truth starts in the human mind above scientifics and their only source is the interior rational which receives the truth from the Lord through the communicating heavens. There is no other source for truth. Truth descending into our conscious mind cannot be accomplished when reading any author or doing any self-discovery activity. It cannot be accomplished by reading the Bible, unless we read it from the perspective of the Writings.
1. Only The Writings Have Spiritual Truth
The Word is Divine Truth emanating from the Lord (AC 9407)
But do we not reject others if we say that only the Writings have spiritual truth? No, it is not a rejection of others to define our own mind. But we are rejecting “their truth”? No, we are only defining what the truth is for us. Can we be friends then? Yes, because people with diverse ideas and convictions can agree to share the outside world with each other in accordance with morality, the law, and an inalienable respect for every human being. However, in marriage relations, inmost friendship cannot be formed with a spouse who does not acknowledge the Writings as the Lord in His Word since then their religion is not the same (CL 241).
But what about partial truths? Can’t some author or system have some truth even if it doesn’t have the entire truth? No, because there are no partial truths or half-truths. The Writings reveal that there are only truths and falsified truths or falsities (AE 519). There may be both truths and falsities in the same mind (AC 4551) but not half-truths or half-falsities. And so we need to learn to deconstruct concepts found outside the Writings in the light of the truths in the Writings. Some of the outside concepts may give us the impression that they are similar to truths in the Writings. For example we may read in a book that there is God or that we should love the neighbor. But when you analyze the two ideas in terms of their larger context from which they take meaning, you can see that God doesn’t mean the Divine Human, hence the Lord, and that loving the neighbor doesn’t mean that our love is to be in accordance with the good in the neighbor (AC 5008).
Or we can read in a book that children respond better to rewards than to punishment. We need to see that this is not a truth but a scientific, similar to saying that intelligence facilitates success, or using fertilizers make this plant grow faster, or lowering the prime lending rate will heat up the economy. These are facts and they are either correct or incorrect. A truth or falsity would be saying that the universe has created itself, or that conscience should be suppressed, or that children do not need a caring parent, or that premarital promiscuity is not injurious to our future married life. What then is the difference between correct/incorrect (facts or scientifics), and truth/falsity (rational propositions)? The difference is that facts are about the outward world and truths are about the inner world’s relation to the outward world. The Writings present truths in every word and sentence (SS 35) and are the only source for genuine intelligence:
Read the Word,' the angels said to this, 'and believe in the Lord, and you will see truths which will be your guides to faith and life. All Christian people draw their doctrines from the Word as being their one and only source.' (TCR 621)
The only source of wisdom is from Divine truths analytically arranged by means of the light which falls on them, coming from the Lord. Nor is there any other source of human intelligence, if it is truly intelligence. (TCR 350) (See also: NJHD 257; AC 8939; TCR 340, 347; SS 111; SE 5961).
After debunking all this, we come back to the defining proposition of the New Church mind: Only that which is directly from the Writings can be the spiritual truth in our mind; and all that is not from the Writings is not the spiritual truth. Only the New Church mind can see spiritual truths in the Writings. Others who read the Writings see only natural things in it:
Even if these matters were described they would not be understood except by those who see with heavenly perception; nothing at all would be understood by those who see with merely natural perception. For those who see with heavenly perception dwell in the light of heaven which comes from the Lord, a light that holds intelligence and wisdom within it. But those who dwell in natural light do not possess any intelligence or wisdom except insofar as the light of heaven flows into that natural light and uses it in such a way that things belonging to heaven may be seen - as in a mirror or in some representative image - within things belonging to natural light. For natural light does not render any spiritual truth visible unless the light of heaven is flowing into it. (AC 4302)
Every proposition of life is a spiritual truth or falsity. We are exposed to many propositions of life through culture, the media, and personal communication. Nothing that is about the spiritual must be admitted into the mind except from the Writings. Sometimes we admit ideas that lie in our memory, unexamined and unstamped, which can then become like leaven that gradually spreads through the entire dough. Mental pollution or spiritual contamination is real. Here is a cognitive rule that governs our mental reasoning:
If we admit a concept, we also admit all its presuppositions and implications.
If we do not examine carefully what we admit, the assumptions that are necessarily tied to all concepts, secretly exert dynamic influences on our reasoning and our readiness to undergo regeneration.
Since the Second Coming is a rational faith and science, this activity of deconstructing incoming concepts and propositions is entirely different from the sectarian notion that this or that object or idea is to be banned or suppressed. Dogmatic censorship and intolerance are not from the Writings. Instead, by deconstructing incoming concepts and attitudes we are putting them through the filter of rationality as this is revealed and defined in the Writings. We are not intolerant of or prejudiced against other people’s ideas, traditions, or values. We give all others the freedom we claim for ourselves. And this freedom is to examine in the light of one’s rational faith and science every single concept and attitude that one is exposed to. We encourage and approve of this universal freedom for all, not just for the New Church individual.
The following is a sample of nondualist propositions that can creep into the New Church mind. As a matter of mental discipline (see Volume 3), we should prudently examine the content of our memory and become adept at marking and isolating ideas and attitudes that are contrary to our chief daily task on this earth: namely, to cooperate with the Lord in rearranging our mind to become a fit abode for the genuine good and truth He gives us solely and exclusively through the Writings.
Chapter 6, Section 2
2. The Notion That “Self Is An Illusion”
This is an impediment to regeneration because it weakens our resolve to change ourselves. We know that we must change or be regenerated because we are all born infernal with only the liberty or possibility of becoming human and celestial (DP 87, AC 3928[2]). The opposing view formulated in the David Loy quote above is: “the sense of a within apart from the world is the self-delusion that needs to be overcome.” If self is an illusion and heaven and hell are within us, then heaven and hell are an illusion. Further, good and evil are then somewhat similar, and as a consequence, we don’t have to give up all our loves, only some. Yet the reality is that there is zero similarity or overlap between heaven and hell. And the fact is that if we allow a single overlap, we are doomed, for falsity and truth in the same mind, when commingled, destroy all truth and good (AE 519). Self is real because it is the unique proprium that the Lord creates for each individual. All that the Lord creates is real and remains unique as itself forever (DLW 226). We must not let ourselves doubt the reality of self. This is not a matter of individual preference or a matter of tolerance towards other traditions. It is a matter of rationality and reality in our own mind.
Every person, as long as he lives in the world, treads a path mid-way between heaven and hell; and he is in equilibrium, that is, he has free will to look up to God or down to hell. If he looks up to God, he acknowledges that all wisdom comes from God, and his spirit is really present among the angels in heaven. The person who looks down, as everyone does whose evil puts him under the power of falsities, is in his spirit really among the devils in hell. (TCR 69)
Chapter 6, Section 3
3.The Notion That ”All Great Religions Are Equivalent”
THE STATE AND CONDITION IN THE NEXT LIFE OF NATIONS AND PEOPLES BORN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH It is commonly supposed that those born outside the Church, who are called heathens and gentiles, cannot be saved for the reason that they do not possess the Word and so do not know the Lord, without whom there is no salvation. But that gentiles too are saved may be known from the single consideration that the Lord's mercy is universal - that is, it reaches out to every individual human being. For gentiles are born human beings the same as those within the Church, who are a relative minority; and they are not to blame because they do not know the Lord. Consequently the nature of their state and condition in the next life has in the Lord's Divine mercy been shown to me. (AC 2589)
The Lord in the Word of His Second Coming has now revealed His relationship to all religions. This relationship is determined not by religious membership or affiliation but by the genuineness or purity of the spiritual truths anyone has of Him from Him.
Good is in essence a single entity, but it acquires a specific character from the truths implanted in it and in this way is made various. The truths that are seen by gentiles as truths are in general the idea that they should worship some God from whom they seek their own good and to whom they attribute it - though they do not know so long as they live in this world that that God is the Lord; also the idea that they should adore their God under images which they hold sacred; besides many other ideas. But these ideas do not make it any less possible for them to be saved than for Christians, provided that they lead lives in which love to their God and love towards the neighbour are present. For by leading such lives they have the ability to receive interior truths in the next life … (AC 3778)
This passage, along with many others, teach that people’s relationship to the Lord is fixed to a position of closeness that depends on the idea they have of Him. All good or love is from the Lord for He alone is Love itself (AC 2500, AR 58). Clearly then, anyone anywhere on any planet at any time, has love or good from the Lord and belongs to the Lord. But people’s relationship to the Lord can be distant or close. That is, the amount and purity of the good or love an individual can receive from Him is proportional to the idea one has of Him. The more interior is the idea of the Lord we have, the more good and love we can receive from Him. This is indicated by the fact that people’s habitations or societies in which they live in the afterlife, are arranged at various distances from the spiritual Sun, in which the Lord is, and from which He Proceeds into the universe and the minds of people.
THE FORMOFHEAVEN WHICH DETERMINES AFFILIATIONS AND COMMUNICATIONS THERE. What the formofheaven is can be seen in some measure from what has been shown in the preceding chapters; as that heaven is like itself both in its greatest and in its least divisions (n. 72); that consequently each society is a heaven in a lesser form, and each angel in the least form (n. 51-58); that as the entire heaven reflects a single man, so each society ofheaven reflects a man in a lesser form, and each angel in the least form (n. 59-77); that the wisest are at the center, and the less wise are round about even to the borders, and the like is true of each society (n. 43); and that those who are in the good of love dwell from the east to the west in heaven, and those who are in truths from good from the south to the north; and the same is true of each society (n. 148, 149). All this is in accord with the formofheaven; consequently it may be concluded from this what this form is in general. (HH 200)
This passage shows that people’s relationship to the Lord is variable, and consequently religions are not equivalent since they each form a different idea of the Lord. Such as this idea is, such is their relationship to the Lord. It is said that “the wisest are at the center, and the less wise are round about even to the borders.” There is thus a spiritual geography of the inhabitations in the afterlife (see LJ 48), and the closest to the spiritual Sun are called wise, but not the others. Since spiritual truths cannot be discovered or invented by people, it is necessary that the Lord provide revelations of Himself in order that people may have a true idea of Him. The Lord effects this communication process through the Word. Those who are willing and able to draw spiritual truths from the Word, and live accordingly in their daily willing and thinking, they are called the wise, and they are the closest to Him. That is, they are capable of receiving more love and good from the Lord than others.
But man has severed this connection with heaven by turning his interiors away from heaven, and turning them to the world and to self by means of his love of self and of the world, thereby so withdrawing himself that he no longer serves as a basis and foundation for heaven; therefore the Lord has provided a medium to serve in place of this basis and foundation for heaven, and also for the conjunction of heaven with man. This medium is the Word. How the Word serves as such a medium has been shown in many places in ARCANA CAELESTIA, all of which may be seen gathered up in the little work on THE WHITE HORSE mentioned in Revelation; also in the APPENDIX TO THE NEW JERUSALEM AND ITS HEAVENLY DOCTRINE, from which some notes are here appended.
And it [the Word] is accommodated both to men and to angels at the same … And it is a means of uniting heaven and earth … The conjunction of the Lord with man is through the Word, by means of the internal sense … There is conjunction by means of all things and each particular thing of the Word, and in consequence the Word is wonderful above all other writing … Since the Word was written the Lord speaks with men by means of it …
The Church where the Word is and the Lord is known by means of it, in relation to those outside the Church where there is no Word and the Lord is unknown is like the heart and lungs in man in comparison with the other parts of the body, which live from them as from the fountains of their life … Before the Lord the universal Church on the earth is as one Man … Consequently unless there were on this earth a Church where the Word is, and where the Lord is known by means of it, the human race here would perish. (HH 305)
1. The Lord’s New Revelation Regarding All Religions
It has now been revealed regarding all religions that closeness or conjunction with the Lord does not depend on religious membership or on religious behavior and piousness. It only depends on the purity and genuineness of the idea we have of Him regardless of one’s religious or other background. And since no spiritual idea of Him can ever be discovered from society or self, there is no other way provided by which anyone can have a genuine idea of Him except through the Word.
The Word in the heavens. The Word exists in all the heavens, and it is read there as it is in the world, and sermons are based on it. For it is the Divine Truth which is the source of the angels' intelligence and wisdom. For without the Word no one knows anything about the Lord, love and faith, redemption, and all the other secrets of heavenly wisdom. In fact without the Word heaven would not exist, just as without the Word there would be no church in the world, so that there would be no linking with the Lord. I demonstrated above that natural theology is impossible without revelation, and in the Christian world without the Word. If it is not granted in the world, neither would it be granted after death. For the nature of a person's religious belief in the world dictates its nature after death, when he becomes a spirit. (De Verbo 14. XIV)
The Lord has now provided a New Word in His Second Coming. This new revelation is the Writings. An entirely new history has now begun for the human race, past, present, and future. The Writings are on this earth in a natural language, but in the spiritual world they are in a spiritual language. In the Number quoted from above (HH 305), it is said about the Word that
it is accommodated both to men and to angels at the same time (n. 1769-1772, 1887, 2143, 2157, 2275, 2333, 2395, 2540, 2541, 2547, 2553, 7381, 8862, 10322). (These Numbers refer to AC)
No other means of conjunction is possible for the human race but through the Writings. In the Writings the Lord has revealed Himself in a way not previously possible in the history of the human race. The conjunction with Him is not by owning the books of Swedenborg but by the spiritual truths and concepts we form in our mind about what is written therein.
Truths drawn from the Word have to be marshaled into doctrine in order that they may be put to use. The marshalling must be done by those who see things in light received from the Lord; and those so enlightened when they read the Word are people who desire truth for its own sake and for the sake of goodness of life, not those who desire it for the sake of self-glorification, reputation, or gain. Doctrine drawn from the Word is wholly essential for understanding the Word, see 9025, 9409, 9410, 9424, 9430; and those who gather doctrine from the Word must see things in light received from the Lord … (AC 10105 [2] )
In what is internal there are thousands and thousands of things that appear in what is external as one general thing … Consequently as thought and perception are more interior they are clearer (HH 267)
In the New Age and henceforth to all times, conjunction with the Lord takes place through spiritual truths in our mind from the Writings. The more interior these truths we can form for ourselves, the closer we can be conjoined to the Lord. This is why the inhabitations and societies in the afterlife are arranged in a spiritual geography that has a center and a direction marked by the spiritual Sun, as discussed above (LJ 48). Those who have acquired for themselves more external ideas of the Lord are further from the center and away from the direction of the spiritual Sun. This is because reception of the Lord’s love and wisdom is obscured to various extents depending on departures from genuine ideas of Him. The Writings henceforth are the only source of genuine ideas of Him, supplanting all previous ideas given to the human race:
Revelations have succeeded one another from the most ancient ages to the present time; and that at this day revelation is given solely through the Word … The Lord is the Word itself, because the Word is Divine truth, and Divine truth is the Lord in heaven, because it is from the Lord. (AC 10355)
Knowledge and consequent acknowledgment of God are not possible without revelation; nor are a knowledge of the Lord … It is by the revelation given to man that he is able to approach God and to receive influx, and thereby from being natural to become spiritual. … A man's knowledge of God is his mirror of God, and … those who know nothing about God do not see God in a mirror with its face toward them, but in a mirror with its back toward them; and as this is covered with quicksilver, or some dark paste, it does not reflect the image but extinguishes it. (TCR 11)
This new church is the crown of all the churches which have up to now existed upon earth (TCR 786)
This New Church is the crown of all the churches that have hitherto existed on the earth, because it is to worship one visible God in whom is the invisible like the soul in the body. Thus, and not otherwise, is a conjunction of God with man possible (TCR 787)
The New Church … is the crown of all the churches, and … will endure forever (INV 39)
Chapter 6, Section 4
4. The Notion That “Meditation Is Spiritual”
It is believed by some that raising spiritual consciousness can be achieved by performing prescribed physical or mental acts such as sitting in meditation or undergoing spiritual imitation acts of the following types:
The Writings teach that nothing can contribute to our salvation except regeneration through temptations (AC 227). The practice of meditation involves a particular use of inner sensations one can have. According to the Ching Hai quote above: “when we meditate, we use the technique to tune into the Kingdom of God.” If meditating contributes to our salvation then temptations are not the only means by which we can be regenerated and saved. This falsity allows another false idea to creep in: that we don’t have to fight so hard with all our temptations since there is an alternative. Even if I fail to fight this or that temptation, according to my choice or inclination, I can still be saved by compensating for them with meditation or other physical or mental practice.
At first it appears to the uncritical New Church mind that meditation could be claimed to be a spiritual activity since it involves focusing on the mental world in oneself. And “mental” in the Writings is used with a similar meaning to “spiritual.” After all, one might suppose, the mental world is the mind, and one’s mind is the spirit in the spiritual world. But this connection between meditation and mental/spiritual is in fact limited to the lowest spiritual state there is in the human mind—the corporeal state (SE 2829). In the spiritual world all who are in corporeal spirituality are in hell (HH 481). To be able to exist above the hells the spirit or mind must contain rational truths. These rational truths in the mind give the spirit the power of consciousness to exist in genuine human states associated with the three Heavens (De Verbo 3). This is the meaning of higher consciousness to the New Church mind. And in order to acquire the power of higher consciousness one must take in and assimilate rational truths. These are found only in the Writings (HH 455).
The Lord's Kingdom is within you (Luke 17:21; see AC 9305). The New Age agrees! So can we reach it by meditation? Can we close our eyes and thread a mental labyrinth to a great inner light? Can we see God in ourselves, in others?
It is through the Word that the Lord is present with a man and is conjoined with him, for the Lord is the Word, and speaks with the man in it. The Lord is also Divine truth itself, as likewise is the Word. The Lord is indeed present with a man through reading of the Word, but He is conjoined with him through the understanding of truth from the Word; and in the same proportion the church is within man. This is what is meant by the Lord's words, "The kingdom of God is within you" (SS 78).
So the kingdom of God is only within you if the Word of the Lord is. If someone wants to be closer to God, the method Is not meditation, but a greater understanding of the Word. There is no oneness with God without it. If a euphoric oneness is felt, it can just as easily be with one's proprium, the golden idol. It cleverly represents itself to our desires. We therefore hoodwink ourselves if we think having spiritual experiences is superior to the Word: Evil people can have spiritual experiences as well as good people, since they leave our evils untouched! (cf. De Verbo 29) Good people shudder at the mere thought of any divinity within oneself demonstrated by supernatural experiences. Conversely, only good people can see more deeply into Scripture, since it alone has the power to remove evil. (…) The Lord's Kingdom is within us when the truth of the word is lived. A growth group activity is a useful exercise of the as of self in our salvation. But it is not by self that evil is removed. It is by truth. … Only from the Writings can heaven, the Lord's kingdom, come on earth. (Rev. Erik E. Sandstrom, The New Age and the New Church (Part Two). New Church Life, June 2002, 251-260)
In the new era of the Second Coming there is only one source for rational truths—the Writings of Swedenborg. And we appropriate these rational truths from the Writings to the extent we love them, that is, live daily according to them and suffer ourselves to undergo temptations (AC 227). It is impossible for the New Church mind to obtain celestial consciousness by any physical act such as sitting in meditation or being initiated by a special person. The same applies to physical and mental disciplines, diets, or initiations. The only way to raise consciousness for the New Church mind is to perform our regular daily duties and roles with a spiritual affection:
But affection of use in general is of two kinds; there is the spiritual affection of use and there is the natural affection of use. In external form the two are alike, but in internal wholly unlike; for this reason they are not known the one from the other by men in the world, but are readily known by angels in heaven; for they are wholly opposite, since the spiritual affection of use gives heaven to man, while natural affection of use, without the spiritual, gives hell; for the natural affection of use looks only to honors and gains, thus to self and the world as ends, while spiritual affection of use looks to the glory of God and to uses themselves, thus to the Lord and the neighbor as ends. (D. Love 17:2)
The process of character regeneration involves our motives or affections in the will, our thoughts or ideas in the understanding, and our actions or uses to others (works of charity). The Lord takes charge of this process by allowing us to fall into those kinds of temptations that challenge the beliefs and ideas we hold dear. We then fight as-of-self against our character, winning only when we call upon the Lord to give us the power to overcome, realizing that by ourselves we have zero power to fight any temptation (AC 47, 233, 1712, 2877, 5664, 10299; NJHD 148; DP 102; CL 82; SE 5958; LJ 299; AE 864).
Regeneration of one’s inherited spiritual character is a psychobiological process of spiritual growth, consequently the only way to salvation and heaven for the New Church mind. For those on this planet who do not have a New Church mind the process is entirely different (AC 3812[6]).
Consider the statement in the above quote by Dr. Miller : “Experiencing nonduality is the path of welcoming all that is.” In the New Church mind this proposition runs contrary to the idea in the Writings that our salvation depends on learning to hate the evil and to love the good (DLW 270). We are commanded to treat the neighbor with a difference in proportion to the good we can see in an individual or cause (AC 6023). We must not welcome “all that is” for this would be perdition. Altruistic tolerance and respect for all races and creeds must not be turned into ”welcoming” their ideas into our mind. We must grant to anyone the liberty of “experiencing nonduality” (Miller quote above) if they so wish, by “welcoming all that is” (Miller’s words)—but we cannot ourselves desire to do this once we understand the implications of nonduality. And this is our liberty to do.
Chapter 6, Section 5
5. (to be completed)
Chapter 6, Section 6
6. The Notion That “We Are Already Perfect”
Consider the assertion in the Miller quote above: “We are already perfect as we are.” This notion may be taken in through a variant form that sounds more acceptable to Westerners: Everyone is basically good. This idea is opposite to every truth we gather from the Writings where it is revealed that everyone is born infernal and with only the potential of becoming human (AC 3928). The human spirit is heavenly or spiritual but the spirit we’re born as is infernal. One must therefore allow the Lord to surgically remove the infernal character and to create in us a new spirit that is heavenly. This process of new creation is called regeneration and is achieved only through undergoing temptations throughout our life in the body (AC 227).
To admit into the New Church mind that we are already perfect becomes a fatal impediment to the necessary regeneration we must undergo. Similarly with admitting the idea that everyone is basically good, for then regeneration becomes a falling off of the external evil and leaving behind the good interior. But the opposite is the case. Evil remains in the internal even if good covers it over in the external (AC 8932). First, evil must be removed as-of-self in temptations, and then good can be implanted by the Lord (AC 227).
Chapter 6, Section 7
7. The Notion That “Being One With Nature Is Spiritual”
“Relating to nature in a respectful and loving way, and to its mountains, plants, and all its creatures, is a spiritual act that raises one’s consciousness to divinity.” This feature of nonduality is very attractive to many Americans (see the Jerry Katz quote above). The New Church mind may be tempted to admit this idea since the Writings teach that all natural events or objects are correspondences to spiritual things and that these spiritual things are within the natural things as the cause is within its effect (AC 6275). This is true. But it doesn’t follow that loving nature and being respectful to its plants and creatures, is a spiritual act. Rather, the spiritual act is performed ONLY when we rationally (not sensually) identify the natural event or object as a physical consequence representing a spiritual truth. There is no spiritual value to nature in itself, only to nature as a vessel or containant of spiritual things. It is the same with the Word. There is no sacredness in the literal of the Word, but only in the literal of the Word within which lies the spiritual, and that is what makes the literal holy. When the literal is rationally taken as the vessel, and what is contained within it as the holy, THEN the literal is holy (TCR 200). But not the literal by itself. Similarly with the Communion Bread and Wine.
Conservation and nature-loving is eminently laudable, but it is not a spiritual act in itself. The spiritual must be added rationally through knowledge of the spiritual within. This can be done not merely with the pleasant things of nature but all things of nature including natural disasters, plant diseases, and destructive animals (AC 1632, DLW 338).
All things of nature are like sheaths around spiritual things (TCR Additions 1)
Chapter 6, Section 8
8. The Notion Of “Unconditional Love”
A potentially harmful form of nonduality has swept across America through pop psychology though it originated with health professionals and is widely practiced by therapists and counselors. People are chanting the theme of unconditional love: “Love me for who I am.” Variations include: Love me, not what I can do for you. Or: Love me unconditionally, whether I’m good or bad. Or: Don’t try to change me—accept me as I am. Health professionals echo the call for unconditional love and acceptance of self and others as signs of psychological maturity and personality adjustment. It is a life philosophy that promulgates an attitude of acceptance for lifestyle differences and choices even when they are clearly harmful things. Since they have the right to choose what they want, therefore we should not disapprove but accept their choices. This attitude is advocated for self and self-acceptance is the equivalent of unconditional love for others.
But there are critics of this popular approach who see in it a mere convenient excuse for rejecting traditional values of good and bad and legitimizing a philosophy of convenience over self-improvement.
“Vile Suggestion, Vain Imagination, and Strong Delusion” (1999) (Accessed on the Web in May 2000 at www.geocities.com/Heartland/Ranch/7510/recovery.html)
We keep on deceiving ourselves in regard to our faults, until we at last, come to look upon them as virtues. (Heine)
The recovery movement rather than a path to healing is a sham and actually promotes "victim mentality" and chronic dysfunction. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people, attend emotional support groups for all types of behavioral problems such as: overeating, gambling, codependency, sexual addiction, alcoholism, incest survival, manic depression, adult children, etc.
The idea of supporting one another is not a bad one, but the basis on which they relate their conduct to the disease model rather to lack of self control is misleading and destructive. Furthermore, there is a lot of blaming of others, especially parents, within these groups, even those with so-called Christian perspectives.
Necessary rebukes, in love, go unsaid. False idols are allowed to be worshiped without any call for necessary repentance. Bad advice, however, is allowed to filter through to the group. One hears, "Divorce him! You deserve better! You must be a codependent. Don't speak to your parents anymore. They are evil. You should always trust your feelings."
Unconditional love as put forth by psychologists and therapists and espoused by all 12 step recovery groups is a deceptive and destructive concept. What passes for unconditional love is not real love. It is flattery and cruel when what is really needed is a rebuke from a friend who does not mince words.
Only God has unconditional love.
Even God does not accept people unconditionally. He loves all men but he does not accept them without condition. He points out their sins and demands they come into line with his standards. He tells them to go and sin no more. Recovery groups which discard godly standards for right behavior and thought are more in line with Satan than they are with God.
The anonymous author of this remarkable insight also points out that health professionals continue to practice a medical model of mental malfunctioning: “Psychiatrists Thomas Szasz and E. Fuller Torrey have discussed these wrong uses of the medical model in depth.”
The New Church mind has a higher vantage point on any psychological issue because of our knowledge of regeneration from the Writings. We not only read the theory in the Writings but we are witnesses to the process to the extent that we apply the knowledge to our daily and hourly behaviors and thoughts. This gives us an objective point of view since it is based on observed facts in ourselves. From this rational perspective the medical model of mental functioning rests on a nonduality model of the mind and is therefore fundamentally opposed to all the dualities of the Writings. The medical model recognizes only a continuous degree between the body and the mind. Psychosomatics refers to this continuity. One obvious error in this is the notion that the body influences mind and mind influences the body. We know that this bi-directional influence operates only in continuous degree. It is impossible for it to cross the discrete degree. Therefore influx is always unidirectional: from the higher or spiritual to the lower or natural (AC 9110). Or: from events in the mind outward (or down) into the events of the body. At the same time the higher is affected by the lower in that the higher finds itself fulfilled when the lower acts in correspondence with it, but not otherwise.
1. Spiritual Events In The Inner Mind
Body diseases such as alcoholism and other physiological addictions or sensitivities are the effects of inner spiritual events in the mind. The mind is not an isolated or independently functioning entity. Our mind is among other minds in the spiritual world. Those who are already there can see the spirit-body of those who are still on an earth, though there is no conscious and direct interaction (TCR 475).
THAT A MAN'S SPIRIT APPEARS IN THE OTHER LIFE. Sometimes man appears as to his spirit among others there. They said that they sometimes see them, and nevertheless know that it is not a spirit as yet after decease from the world, from certain signs. But it happens only with those who think inwardly in themselves more deeply than the rest. At the time, with him, his thought is withdrawn from the sensual of the body, and he appears thus. They, however, who think only in their sensual, and do not raise their thoughts above it, never appear. Nor do spirits know anything about man, where he is; inasmuch as the corporeal does not appear before their eyes, as spirits do not appear before men's eyes. (SE 5645)
The sphere of the other spirits all around and closest to our spirit-body exert a strong influence on us through their proximity. The Lord determines instant by instant which spirits and spirit societies are in spiritual proximity to our mind. The Lord’s purpose and procedures in this ceaseless process have been revealed through the Writings and they are detailed throughout under the general topic of regeneration (NJHD 183-6). The principal purpose of all revelations is to give us the knowledge by which we can cooperate with the Divine in our regeneration. No other method has been created for regeneration, a process whose outcome determines our eternal place in heaven or in hell. Therefore nothing can be more important to know than this.
CONCERNING THE STATE OF HELL. During a whole night, while I was asleep, I was tormented in hell, in order that I might know the nature of the state [of those] there; for they fell upon me, inasmuch as they were then able to torture the spirit; but, still, I had no consciousness of a dream. It was a continual torture, one [of them] after another. [Persons] are there placed upon tables, and are miserably torn asunder, and their lust of ruling is called forth, and, as long as that cupidity lasts, they are tortured until it abates. [They are treated] thus, by one devil after another, as [they pass] from one part of hell to another, upon the tables. When the lust abates, then a little respite is given, so that they may be able to be in some cupidity of their own. Thus is the head of the serpent trampled under foot. (SE 4698)
We are unconscious of all this activity and it is not possible to discover it by any method known to science: introspection, cat scans, psychiatric profiles, medications, meditation, imagination, delusion, psychic “powers,” reasoning, luck. The reality of spiritual societies can be known in only one way—revelations from the Lord. We know therefore that the main outward problems that plague our society are caused by inward mental or spiritual states of mind: alcoholism, wife abuse, road rage, pedophilia, criminality, drug addiction, high divorce rate, chronic depression, racial prejudice, absence of compassion, avarice, scortation, poverty, maladjustment, ignorance, incompetence, and mistakes and blunders. All of the negativity that fills our day is caused by the spiritual societies with which we are in communication. (DLW 343, NJHD 277)
This is equally true of all the good things, which come to us through good spirits and angelic societies with which the Lord puts us in correspondential connection. (HH 304)
As a first reaction we might cry out in innocence: Why doesn’t the Lord keep us connected to the angelic societies all the time—surely that would be so much better.
Of course! Yes it would be very convenient for us—if only He could. It would be the Lord’s greatest desire to instantly regenerate every person and keep everyone in connection with angels from birth on earth until arrival in one of the heavenly societies (DP 329). The Writings explain that indeed this is how the Lord creates the earths in the universe, and our earth was no exception. The life of the early generations on this planet, called the Most Ancient Church (EU 87), is described, and their mental disposition was such that they were conscious of the angels they were connected to. Their regeneration was mild and brief, and their societies were free of disease and maladjustment. But eventually they declined and lost this pristine innocence by misusing the inherent liberty every person is given by the Lord, which is the liberty to resist and oppose Divine law and order. The Lord cannot take away this liberty without voiding human happiness and rationality.
This liberty is part of creation and of what is human-ness. It is always there to eternity (AC 5354). The angels have it and the instant they stop cleaving to the Lord’s Proprium, their old proprium from earth is resuscitated from the outer limits of their personality and they cast themselves out of heaven down into the spiritual world or lower into hell (DLW 25, SE 2555). Clearly then, regeneration is always necessary for the human race. Regeneration cannot start once the spirit is no longer connected to the physical body, but once it starts before we pass on, it will then continue to eternity as we are continuously perfected by the Lord to eternity (AC 5354). You can see therefore that nothing is more important for us to know than how we must regenerate before it is too late.
And the knowledge of regeneration is what is needed to repair society from its mental malfunctioning. From it will also come liberating society from its plagues and the body from its diseases, for this comes from that. This knowledge cannot be invented by science or the professions. Revelation in the Writings is the only source for it (NJHD 257; AC 8939; TCR 340, 347, 350; SS 111; SE 5961). . This is why the Writings are called the greatest miracle the Lord has granted since the beginning of the world (INV 43).
2. Everyone Is Born Into The Slavery Of An Addiction
CONCERNING DISEASES. All the infernals induce diseases, but with a difference according to the part to which they are attached, so that they may act from the opposite, to wit, in opposition to those in heaven, to whom the parts of the body correspond - for there are opposites to every society in heaven; for, as angels or angelic societies preserve in connection and soundness all things in man, so infernals, from the opposite [side], divide them. But it is only permitted them to inflow into the cupidities and falsities pertaining to man - not into man's organs. Only when man falls into disease, then they inflow also into those [organs] in man where the disease is; for nothing ever exists with man, save by a cause from the spiritual world.
Man supposes that such things exist in him, and that there is nothing outside him that acts; when, yet, every natural has its cause from a spiritual, otherwise it would be without a cause; but, still, this does not interfere with the fact that they can be, and also ought to be, cured, or made sound, by natural means. The Lord's providence then concurs with such means: and thus, also, man is kept the longer away from faith concerning a providence in the minutest particulars; for, if he should believe this, and afterwards deny it, he would profane a sacred truth, which is itself a most dreadful hell. (SD 4585)
First, note that the activities of the disease process in the body are caused by the evil spirits whom the Lord allows to inflow by correspondence, which is a dualist concept. This is not at all like demon possession or voodoo magic which are nondualist concepts. The inflow is not into the body directly but into the “cupidities and falsities pertaining to man.” Second, note that medical and natural remedies heal the disease, or stop the action of the evil spirits, when the Lord heals the disease. The action of healing is initiated and remains in the natural world (by the Lord) and there is no direct influence on the spirits since the two are in discrete duality. This is not at all like the nonduality of Christian Science that puts the healing directly into the spiritual realm. They have this notion from the idea that matter is not real and only Spirit is real (nonduality). (See discussion in Chapter 3 Section 5.)
It’s important to avoid a wrong conclusion that inevitably occurs to the mind, namely that people who are more sick than others are more wicked—this is an error in thinking. The societies the Lord connects us to are those that make our inherited life. Until we become an adult and are ready to begin our regeneration we are in the life of what we inherit and what is all around us. The Lord attempts to disconnect us whenever we allow it to allow us to grow some new life that is spiritual, rational, and in Divine order. Were He to disconnect us from many or most of our hereditary connections to spiritual societies, the result for us would be to feel like we are dying and the ebb of life is flowing out of us. Obviously we cannot make progress in our regeneration if we are in this lifeless state. So the Lord must wisely manage the rate at which He can disconnect us from evil societies and connect us to good spirits and angelic societies. The more we consciously cooperate with Him, the faster, shorter, less painful, and more thorough regeneration is.
It’s important to avoid the pitfall in the idea that because something like alcoholism or drug addiction is a disease therefore the individual is not responsible for failing to control it. A Eulogy given at the memorial service for a neighbor’s young adult son said in part:
He suffered through this life battle the same as his uncle and cousin. He was not alone. Ten percent of Americans are alcoholics. For years people with alcohol problems were perceived as morally defective. He struggled with this disease that is treatable but not curable. He struggled with this demon since high school. This demon took his youth, his future, his health. He fought the demon and lost. It took destroying himself to destroy the demon. Thus he gave his family peace. Accept his gift of peace.
All of us are born into the slavery of an addiction, character malfunctioning, or personality and behavior disorder. There are no exceptions (AC 5280). There is an immense diversity of these disorders due to the inherited accumulation of countless disabilities in our spiritual genetic line. Every generation adds to this pool as they acquire and develop new disabilities and pass them on to their offspring on top of what was passed on to them (CL 202). In this way all the growing population of the hells and evil spiritual societies experience their “pleasures” or infernal delights. This is their life. Without their being connected by the Lord to our disabilities and bad luck, which they cause, they would have no life of their own:
(((There are also spirits, not far from thence, who infuse cold, and, thereby, paroxysms of cold fever:))) ((which it was also given me to know by living and sensible experience. In that region are the most malicious, the most skilful of all in the art of destroying others and the human race:)) (they study nothing else; they continually seek after new things of such a character whereby they can injure; and they put them into act amongst themselves, so that they may know - for they can induce infirmities; they can [effect] such things as disturb the mind, and deprive man of his external vitality:) hence he is as if inclined to fall, just as in sickness, when he begins to come near [them], etc. In a word, they are most malicious:
They separate interiors and exteriors, in various modes, and fill up the exteriors with offensive things, injurious to man: hence, when interiors fall into [exteriors] of such a kind, they are turned into shocking and deplorable things; for, if the recipient forms are perverted, whatever falls therein is perverted also. In such a manner, also, are interiors disunited from exteriors; and, when this is done, man is no longer of a sound mind - as, also, is the case in fevers. [Their] operation is principally into the stomach, and also into the biles, both of the pancreas and the liver; and, from thence, arise such effects [as have been described] and also vomitings, whereto they excite an endeavor. They are indescribably obstinate; they never desist unless they are driven away.
((There are in hell very hot places, which it was also granted me to feel, for the sake of knowing [where are] such as induce fevers. They know almost everything; and from those places they throw forth that impure and merely corporeal heat, separate from vitality; for, in the other life, [evil spirits] know how to transfer such things skillfully, and they likewise know by what shifts they can determine them into the body. Such [spirits] are of the most pernicious character, so obstinate as never to desist unless driven away by the Lord; and when they are driven away, immediately the febrile heat ceases. Wherefore, they also speak truly who have been sick when they ascribe their recovery of health to God, and give thanks to Him; although very many do this only from a custom derived from infancy, and, when left to themselves, ascribe it to nature.)) (SE 4572)
3. Good Loves And Genuine Truths
Regeneration is the slow process by which we acquire good loves and genuine truths and apply them to our daily activities. The Lord always maintains in equilibrium: He arranges that we always have a good choice or an evil one, second by second, all day long. The good spirits surrounding our mind in the spiritual world come nearer and drive away the evil spirits as we choose good; the evil spirits come nearer and the good spirits retreat, as we choose bad. The good spirits choose to retreat not from weakness but from loving fear that they might not deprive us of “pleasures” which make our current life. Thus when we choose evil, they look away, and patiently wait until we are ready to make a good choice.
This process of equilibrium is described as follows:
Good exists from creation, and it varies in degree from the highest to the lowest. When its lowest degree reaches zero, evil arises on the other side. So there is no relationship or progress of good to evil, but it relates and progresses to what is more or less good. Evil relates and progresses to what is more or is less evil, because these are opposites in every single detail. Since evil and good are opposites, there must be a mean point distinguished by equilibrium, where evil acts against good; but because it is not stronger, it cannot advance beyond making the effort.
'Everyone is brought up in this state of equilibrium; and since this is between good and evil, or what is the same thing, between heaven and hell, it is a spiritual equilibrium, and this confers freedom on those who enjoy it. As the result of this equilibrium the Lord draws all to Himself; and if a person freely follows Him, He leads him out of evil into good, and so to heaven. (CL 444)
This is the process of regeneration, and progress depends on our cooperation. (DP 114) Cooperation means that we (a) acknowledge some truth from the Divine and (b) strive to live according to it. To live it means to think and will accordingly (AC 10638). This is painful in the beginning our reformation because the feeling one experiences when avoiding the bad that we enjoy, is that we are giving up our life. This is done with regrets, doubts, and relapses. The drug addict, pedophile, rapist, or habitual criminal experience the feeling of loss of life when they contemplate giving up what they are used to and what forms the basis of their current living. Similarly with personality and behavior disorders. The angry man, the abusive husband, the promiscuou |
