Developmental Levels of Thinking Volume 3 Theistic Psychology: The Scientific Knowledge of God Extracted From the Spiritual Sense of Sacred Scripture by Dr. Leon James, Professor of Psychology, University of Hawaii

Scientific discovery of Spiritual Laws given in Rational Scientific Revelations. TheisticPsychology.org

Home • Glossary • Swedenborg's Writings • Articles • Resources • Rationality • Man of the Field • Theistic Psychology

Theistic Psychology:
The Scientific Knowledge of God
Extracted from the correspondential sense
of Sacred Scripture

by Dr. Leon James
Professor of Psychology
University of Hawaii
Published on the Web in 2004
Last Update: 2006

For Permissions Note and Conditions of Use see Volume 18

The Topical Index to Sections and Reading List is in Volume 18

This is Volume 3

Developmental Levels of Thinking
About Theistic Psychology

(version 47a)

The Topical Index to Sections and Reading List is in Volume 18

Developmental Levels of Thinking About Theistic Psychology

3.0 There are two levels of thinking about the human mind, hence there are two levels of reasoning in the science of psychology.

First Level: Non-theistic Psychology (Negative Bias in Science)
There is no dualism of matter and spirit, no dualism of this life and the afterlife. There is only one life from birth to death. The mental world is not an actual world like the physical world. Thoughts, feelings, emotions, and sensations are operations of the brain. When the brain is damaged, thoughts and feelings are affected. When the brain dies, mental life ceases. There is no God who manages all the details of the world. All phenomena occur according to fixed laws and properties of matter, time, and forms of energy. Non-theistic psychology is the scientific study of human behavior apart from God and eternity. It investigates what people do outwardly and socially, how they can make rational decisions and solve problems, how they carry out their roles like parent or soldier, how they develop over the lifespan, etc.

This level of thinking about human beings may be called non-theistic psychology to contrast it with the next two levels. It attempts to construct concepts and theories that are based exclusively on physical material things. It denies the reality of the mental world that we know subjectively and which forms our own self-conscious awareness as a person. Non-theistic psychology considers praying and talking to God as a form of superstition or irrationality or a form of abnormal behavior. Non-theistic research on the "psychology of religion" is therefore methodologically reductionist (materialistic), not empirical, rational, and actual (assuming God does exist). It has no way of dealing scientifically or conceptually with God, praying, salvation, sin, repentance, regeneration, Sacred Scripture as the sole source of all truth, etc. Hence it cannot investigate this kind phenomenon. It can only investigate them as what people believe to be true, but not what is true. For instance, when they investigate what is true about a runner's motor skill, they don't just look at what the athlete believes to be true. Hence it cannot be a science that can discover anything about the actual life that people have with God.

Second Level: Theistic Psychology (Positive Bias in Science)
There is God who reveals truth through Sacred Scripture. God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. God created the physical world so that human beings could be born and become prepared for a life of joy and happiness in the eternity of the afterlife. But if people refuse to cooperate with God, following their own ideas instead of Sacred Scripture, they cannot be prepared for heavenly life, and consequently, out of their own choosing, they live a life of hell in eternity. God cannot give away power to people or to created things, and therefore God must actually operate everything that moves or requires power to operate. For instance, molecules in the body require power for its chemical reactions, hence God must supply the power and direction for each single chemical reaction in the universe. But as well, God must manage the operations of our mind since thinking, sensing, and feeling requires power.

Thus far, the above paragraph does not provide sufficient justification for calling theistic psychology a scientific discipline. Ideas about God and the afterlife of eternity have been discussed in the literature as part of philosophy and science for many centuries. However, as science was developing more and more into a paradigm of materialistic monism, the idea of God as an explanatory concept was seen less and less, until it was totally excluded by the negative bias attitude. This intellectual orientation denies that God and the afterlife are directly relevant to science. At this point, all of science became non-theistic, including the science of psychology, starting in the nineteenth century. All the science courses you were exposed to, in both secular and religious schools, was presented to you in the negative bias mode. You were not told that this is a negative bias. You were told that this is science. So you grew up with the idea that God is religion or philosophy or culture, but never science.

But now, since you happen to be studying theistic psychology, perhaps unexpectedly, you are being told for the first time that God may be after all a scientific concept. And furthermore that there is a whole filed of psychology in the positive bias which treats God and eternity as a scientific concept and explanation.

Theistic psychology would not be possible without Sacred Scripture. Without Sacred Scripture non-theistic scientists have no way whatsoever of breaking through the physical observation barrier between the two worlds. When we are born we born with two bodies, each in its own world. This is not known in modern science, though it was known in the science of the ancients (see Section xx). We are born into time with a temporary physical body. We are born into eternity with a permanent mental body.

The two bodies are tied together by the relational laws of correspondences (see Section xx). All our thoughts, sensations, feelings, emotions, memories, conscious awareness, etc. -- whatever is of our mind -- are actual organic operations in the organs of the mental body. The shape and form of the physical body and all its internal organs and skeleton, are material copies modeled after the shape and form of the mental organs in the mental body. For instance the affective organ in the mental body is in the shape and form of the circulatory system (see Section xx). The shape of the cognitive organ is shown by the respiratory system in the physical body. The shape of the sensorimotor organ gives the shape to the nervous system in the physical body.

And so you can see from the dualist perspective of theistic psychology that it recognizes the logical impossibility of thoughts and feelings being located in the physical brain. In non-theistic psychology the only option is the negative bias, namely, to deny that there is eternity, to deny that there is a mental body, and to deny that thoughts and feelings are real things. Instead, these are viewed as either "epiphenomena" or "emerging phenomena." These two expressions mean that while the brain is real, the thoughts and feelings we have are just subjectively real, not physically real, except in the form of electrical and chemical operations of the brain.

However this restrictive conclusion can be avoided in theistic psychology since it adopts the positive bias, namely, that it is possible for God and eternity to enter scientific theorizing and explanation. This would actually strengthen, not weaken, psychology's usefulness and power as a research and applied discipline. Ultimately you are to decide which way it seems most rational and useful to you, and whether you want to go back to the negative bias after studying some of theistic psychology in the positive bias.

In what way is theistic psychology scientific?

Theistic psychology has two scientific components -- empirical and rational. Empirical means that it is based on actual observation by a scientist, both field observation and experimental research. Further, the scientist should rely on a series of observations and experiments, not just one event. Finally, the measurements or observations must be given a theoretical explanation that is consistent with other theoretical explanations already given. So there must be a cumulative and organized development of method and theory by other scientists who can form an academic community in which contributions can be made by anyone, and be evaluated as to their validity by the others in the group. This is called normal science.

Theistic psychology meets all the requirements of normal science. Its empirical component consists of observations of mental development over the lifespan of the individual (see Section xx), as well as mental self-monitoring techniques of one's thinking and willing in daily situations (see Section xx). Its rational component consists of systematic extraction methods applied to Sacred Scripture in order to recover the scientific revelations that are hidden within its literal meaning (see Section xx). Any researcher can choose to apply this method of knowledge engineering from a Divine Source. The method itself is described in the Writings Sacred Scripture and has been demonstrated to work equally well with the Old and New Testament Sacred Scriptures (see Section xx).

Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1774) was a Swedish scientist and publisher of engineering books and articles. He was a religious man and this was reflected in his well known scientific writings on metallurgy, mineralogy, mechanics, and human anatomy (see Section xx). He not only put together the latest findings by other scientists, but provided a theistic theory which always included God and God's purposes revealed in Sacred Scripture. In the seventeenth and eighteenth century, this theistic approach was not yet unusual, but today, it is entirely unique. All of science is now cast in the negative bias materialistic paradigm. But there is a new trend that is beginning, and it is marked by theistic psychology.

At age 57 Swedenborg had a vision in which God appeared to him as a Divine Man and informed him that he had been chosen to be the first and only scientist in human history to become conscious at the same time in both worlds of time and eternity. It took some time for Swedenborg to figure out what this meant and what was happening to him. But soon he started hearing voices and eventually he started seeing people that were no longer in this world. He eventually became quite familiar with the experience which lasted 27 years until age 84, when he passed on. During these 27 of his dual citizenship in reality, years Swedenborg wrote and published nearly 30 volumes of reports of his observations, experiments, and interviews with those who had lived in this world and were now living in the afterlife of eternity.

The Swedenborg reports are completely unique. No scientist before him has ever been given the opportunity to study the world of eternity, to travel in it, to interview thousands of people, and to then write a rational account of the whole thing that is tied to Sacred Scripture.

As a result of his dual consciousness, Swedenborg was able to discover and prove that Sacred Scripture was actually Divine Speech translated into a natural language. Hence it was necessary to know the laws of correspondences before the hidden sense can be recovered from the literal meaning of Sacred Scripture (see Section xx). Swedenborg described the laws of correspondences and proved beyond a shadow of a doubt, that all Sacred Scripture is written in a natural and historical language that veils over and hides the scientific facts and theories that God is revealing to the human race.

Theistic psychology is the systematic cumulative scientific knowledge that is extracted from Sacred Scripture by applying the methods described in Sacred Scripture regarding how to do the extraction process. This method will be fully explained, demonstrated, and applied in what you will be studying in theistic psychology.

It helps to understand theistic psychology if we consider three steps of understanding to be made, or three levels of thinking to be achieved as one progresses in the rational understanding of theistic psychology.

3.1 The First Level of Comprehension--Paraphrasing and Summarizing

The three levels of thinking about theistic psychology reflect the anatomy and operation of the mind which has three organic functioning parts arranged in a vertical order of rationality. The first or lowest level of thinking rationally is the comprehension of the literal meaning of the sentences in theistic psychology, as for instance, what you are reading in this book. The first phase of rational understanding is to succeed in deciphering the literal meaning of each sentence. This requires a minimum of reading and writing literacy such as the skills of high school graduates or college students. A certain background in science is necessary as well as having skills in critical thinking and literary analysis. With such standard literacy skills and with the motivation to put up the effort, we are able to comprehend the literal meaning of the sentences in theistic psychology. We are able to paraphrase or summarize, answer quiz questions, and translate the sentences into another language.

Obviously performing these tasks requires a certain degree of understanding but only on the surface level. We may not be able to answer questions about the original if the answer requires putting different parts together. We may also not fully understand what the sentence is really talking about except in a vague or doubtful manner. And we would not be able to critically analyze the original text to show that it is valid or not. This is then the first level of rational thinking about theistic psychology.

3.2 The Second Level of Comprehension--Critical Analysis

The second level of thinking goes beyond the surface meaning of the sentences. For example, consider this sentence: "Applied theistic psychology can therefore be of great usefulness to every individual in preparing for that crucial separation of our heavenly and hellish states of mind." We can paraphrase it without understanding it, for we can say: "Applied theistic psychology helps us to prepare for the inevitable separation of our heavenly and hellish nature." Yet, we may not be able to explain what is the "inevitable separation of our heavenly and hellish nature" or even, what is our "heavenly and hellish nature." In order to explain this we need to step up to the second level of thinking rationally.

The second level requires critical and abstract thinking about the original sentence or meaning. In this example we need to explain (i) what is our heavenly and hellish nature, (ii) how we acquired them, and (iii) why they need to be separated.

This level of explanation requires putting various parts of theistic psychology together and identifying the new implications which are visible in this new arrangement. This level of explanation is more abstract and universal and is called "theory" in science, and "doctrine" in philosophy and theology. Theory and doctrine are rational models capable of explaining or integrating many different parts of what is already known or available to be known. In this example, we are to explain what is our heavenly and hellish natures. To do this we can distinguish between being still tied to the physical body vs. being conscious in our spiritual body without the physical body around any more. In this "afterlife" state we are living in the spiritual world where it is impossible to have heavenly and hellish traits together in one person's mind on a permanent basis. Every individual in that state of life automatically undergoes character changes that require us to choose between letting go of the hellish traits, or letting go of the heavenly traits. This is why it is referred to above as "the inevitable separation." This separation is also called the "second death" in other places. And finally, we need to explain how the heavenly and hellish traits are in us, and for this, we need to explain how traits are inherited from parents but can be modified by character reformation.

Swedenborg observed that every individual in the spiritual world whose consciousness operates at the celestial level of the mind has only good qualities and no bad qualities. In the heavenly state of our mind we are altruistic, rational, wise, decent, caring, conjugial, fair minded, loving cleanliness and being useful to others. Swedenborg also observed that every individual in the spiritual world whose consciousness operates at the lowest or hellish level of human life, has evil qualities only, with no good qualities -- irrationality, foolishness, hatred, selfishness, egotism, stupidity, rebellious, hating order and loving cruelty, mayhem, savagery, darkness, and the like.

Compared to the first level of thinking, this second level of thinking about the "inevitable separation of our heavenly and hellish nature" is higher or more abstract and universal, and also more coherent and consistent.

3.3 The Third Level of Comprehension--Spiritual Enlightenment

But the mind has a third level of rational operation which goes far beyond the second level. The third level of thinking takes what is abstract and universal (level 2) and makes it particular by applying it to oneself, one's state and condition in the universe, in reality.

This third level of thinking requires a different motivation than what we needed for acquiring level 2 thinking. We can be mature thinkers in our field, understanding theory or doctrine in a rational and universal manner, yet we might be unable to show how these theoretical and doctrinal explanations apply specifically to our life, our every day behavior, our relationships, our politics, our strengths and weaknesses, etc. This third level cannot be reached merely by improving ourselves in the second level and keeping on thinking more and more abstractly and universally. This method will not take us to the third level of thinking called "enlightenment." It will only make us better and better thinkers and level 2.

Historically the concept of enlightenment has been used in many areas in philosophy, theology, and religion, but not in science -- until now. Enlightenment refers to the rational perception that operates at the third or highest level of thinking called the interior mind. Enlightenment is the product of spiritual light flowing into the celestial mind. It is the celestial mind that is enlightened. But we are not conscious of this while we are still tied to our physical body. And yet, when we are motivated to acquire heavenly traits in our natural personality, the motivational effort creates a new and enlightened consciousness. We become aware of our enlightened consciousness when we suddenly "see" how some universal principle from level 2 thinking applies to ourselves--our thinking and feeling, or our understanding and perception.

This conscious awareness of understanding how the universal applies to the self, is called spiritual enlightenment. It brings peace of mind, full confidence, and wisdom or the ability to see whether something is true or a distortion of truth. From this you can see that spiritual enlightenment depends on the rational understanding of truths and how they apply to self.

Enlightenment is not a sensation or a mystical experience, but a rational consciousness of truth.

Under the "influx" or influence of the Spiritual Sun (see below), our interior mind acts as a receptor of this streaming light from the Spiritual Sun. As witnessed by Swedenborg, the spiritual world has only one sun called the Spiritual Sun. It appears everywhere in the spiritual world just like the light of the physical sun appears everywhere on earth. The light of the physical sun streams into the cells of plants and animals, and within the light, there is heat. This heat raises the temperature of the cells and produces activity proper to each cell's structure, besides other effects it has.

You need to think of this more abstractly in order to understand it rationally. The sun's effect on cells on earth is not merely by external light and heat. This is obvious because only the surface cells would be so affected, and cells that were beneath would not, except to the extent that heat is transmitted across cells. But more deeply considered, you can see that the cell is made of atoms and other particles whirling around in an energy field inside a space volume that is vast in comparison to the whirling particles. To one of these atomic particles or energy waves, the space in and around the cell is like the space around our earth when we look up in the sky on a clear day or night. This space in the interior of the atom is the same space that is between the planets and stars. Scientists in Swedenborg's time (17th and 18th centuries) called this space "ether," a word that has been used in the history of science for centuries, up until Newton who promoted the idea of empty space rather than ether, which is not emptiness but an energy field or atmosphere different from air and much less dense. Later, when Newton got to the spiritual world, he changed his mind about vacuum--see Section xx above).

Swedenborg insists that it is not rational to think of space as nothing since nothing cannot exist, In order for space to exist, it cannot be nothing. Following the physics of Newton, twentieth century physicists were able to show that what was called empty space is actually filled with many small particles of very short life spans and of various energy fields, to such an extent that in some regions of the universe, space has a curvature due to the bending effect of these energy fields. this was first proven by Einstein around 1900.

Energy fields make an atmosphere that may be called ether, which is a thin atmosphere, much thinner than air. The ether atmosphere carries light and energy fields across the universe, between planets, and in the atomic space of a cell. It is all one unified field or atmosphere called ether. Ether is therefore the very physical framework for the physical universe. In recent times scientists have discovered several new particles in ether. These very small particles sometimes have a very short life span measured in millions or billions of a second. It is now believed that an endless number of such particles may exist in ether, indicating that space or ether is not empty but densely filled.

The above explanation is at level two thinking about space and the sun. Every subatomic particle within a cell originates from the sun, including ether. You can see that everything in the physical universe comes from the sun, each sun or star in its own region giving birth to that region of space and planets. Everything on the planet is therefore from the sun. The sun is everywhere and in everything. You can see this rationally at level two thinking in abstract and universal terms.

3.4 The Spiritual Sun

Now apply this same rational perspective to the spiritual world, remembering that whatever is said about the spiritual world is also said about the mind since there is an overlap between the two--this idea is more fully developed in Section 2.16 (Chapter 2, Volume 1). All the laws of the spiritual world are the laws of the mind. You can see this relation when you consider your dreams. Where are your dreams? They are not nowhere. People say that dreams are nothing, just imagination, not reality. But this is a negative bias that denies the reality of dreams. It is just like a novel. The characters in the novel are fictitious, not real. They only exist in the story. But the book is real. It has a legal identity and is protected by the law as private property (or "copyright"). The book is the venue for the characters. The characters are not real but the venue is real. The same is true about dreams. The characters and places in the dream are created by the mind, projected into imagination or visions. What are these visions made of? They must be made of something real or else they could not be produced by the mind. The mind is able to produce visions by means of the laws of correspondences that govern everything in the universe, whether physical atoms or mental images.

To proceed rationally within a positive bias you can begin to see that the spiritual world and the mind are the same world. In order for feelings and thoughts to exist in our mind, the mind must have some mechanism and venue to produce these feelings and thoughts. This is rational. Just like the physical light from the sun must have physical ether-atmospheres to travel, in the same way the light from the Spiritual Sun must have rational ether-atmospheres to be carried into our mind. Our mind is a receptor of this spiritual light.

This spiritual light enters our spiritual body which is in the world of spirits and is exposed there to the Spiritual Sun. Our physical body is born on earth and simultaneously our spiritual body is born in the world of spirits . Our mind grows and develops, not on earth, but in the world of spirits .The mind cannot exist in physical ether-atmospheres but only in rational ether-atmospheres. The physical sun produces the physical matter and space on the planet and in our physical brain. The Spiritual Sun produces the rational ether-expanse in the world of spirits. The physical sun is made of physical matter but the Spiritual Sun is made of spiritual substances called love and truth. Truth is spiritual light; love is spiritual heat. Both of these substances make up the Spiritual Sun in infinite quantity. The Spiritual Sun is an aura emanating from the Divine-Human who can be seen in the midst of it by those who dwell in the highest heavens in their mind. Thus, the Spiritual Sun is the method God uses to accommodate His presence with the human race and the created universe.

It's difficult to think of truth and love as substances. At level 1 and 2 thinking we see truth and love as mental operations in our mind. Truth is something we can think. Love is something we can feel. How can there be a Sun from which streams forth truth and love? But at level 3 thinking we can expand or deepen our idea of truth and love as the universal source and origin of our thoughts and feelings.

It helps to remember that the mental world of thinking and feeling = the spiritual world where are the minds of every human being. All minds are in the same rational ether fed by the Spiritual Sun. The only reason we can't see everybody else in our mind is that we are sensually tied to physical space and time. But as soon as we are separated from the physical body and its sensation of space and time, we become fully conscious in the spiritual world and we can see everybody else in our mind for we are then in a mental world, also called spiritual world, though few realize that these two are the same.

This spiritual light (or truth substance) is first received into the interior mind, which is what we called "heaven" in previous discussion. Upon receiving this spiritual light our interior mind is instantly activated just as the physical cell is activated when the physical sunlight hits it, including something indirectly from the sunlight and heat, like electricity.. The sunlight is received by each cell or plant according to the DNA of the plant and the condition of its structure and material. Different plants receive the same sunlight yet each produces something different with it, according to its genetic code and form. Similarly, the spiritual light of the Spiritual Sun streams into the interior mind and activates it according to the individual unique form and quality of a person. The same spiritual light produces different and unique effects on each human being, though there is a similarity and compatibility between all of them.

The reaction of our interior mind, which is of course not available to our conscious awareness, has a corresponding effect on the lower spiritual-rational mind, and this has a corresponding effect on the lower natural-rational mind. Now at last we are conscious of its operation since the feelings and ideas of the natural mind are available to our awareness. You can see that there is a rational progression from the Spiritual Sun to the conscious natural mind. This chain of correspondences is present with every feeling and thought we have, and with the sensorimotor life we have through correspondence to the physical body.

The mind is therefore a multi-level organic receptor of the spiritual light and heat from the Spiritual Sun. The spiritual light is a substance that is alive and organic, unlike the light of the physical sun which is not alive and not organic. The mind as a receptor contains spiritual fibers constructed out of the spiritual substances streaming forth from the Spiritual Sun. The more the influx or input of spiritual light and heat into the interior mind, and its downward spiral of correspondences, the more our mind grows and matures into its full human potential. But of course the process cannot be automatic for then we would be organic spiritual robots rather than human beings. To be a human being we must have the feeling that we are free and that we have our own mind to make choices in life, whether our career, or dinner tonight or, where we step next in our walking. This process of freedom is maintained by the spiritual light and heat that enters the interior mind and causes the lower mind to correspond with it.

3.5 Consciousness as Substance

The spiritual light and heat produce consciousness in our mind. Our conscious awareness as selves and unique individuals is the operation of the spiritual light and heat in our unique individual mind. Every individual's uniqueness is achieved by means of the unique collection of memories, thoughts, and feelings that one's daily life produces in our mind and experience. We start life with conscious awareness while we are attached to the physical body. Therefore our uniqueness as an individual depends on having this build up of experiences in daily life called our "biography." Once we develop a biography, personality, and a mind filled with knowledge, memories, and understanding, we are ready to transition to the full human phase of life in the spiritual world. Our mind is now conscious not in the natural mind as before, but in the spiritual-rational and celestial-rational mind. We now live in the spiritual world forever, never returning to the physical body. But the laws of development and behavior are different in that new state of life.

The most important difference to understand is that we can no longer continue with a mind that contains both heavenly and hellish traits. When awakened in our spiritual consciousness a few hours after the "death" of the physical body, we undergo psychological experiences in which it becomes very clear to us who we really are in the totality of our mind. We are compelled to choose between our heavenly and our hellish traits. We now must give up being selfish and adopt an orientation of altruism. Or else, we give up altruism and become completely, totally, and purely selfish. The same with all other character traits. Not a single mixed feeling or motive can remain. This separation process is called the "second death" and occurs sometime after we arrive into the world of spirits (see Section xx).

3.6 Choosing the Heaven or the Hell in Our Mind

It is natural to think that we would choose heavenly life in eternity because that's pleasant and safe while hellish life is awful and scary. Yet Swedenborg has made careful observations of large samples of people awakening in their spiritual body for the first time. They are called "novitiate spirits" or minds. Some people were immediately ready to choose, either a hellish state of life or heavenly. But the majority were not. They needed a brief period or phase in which they were exposed to conditions and experiences that faced them with the all important choice. Swedenborg discovered that the chief motive always wins. He called that a person's "ruling love." All feelings in the mind are arranged in a hierarchy of rank or importance. You can discover what your ruling love is by self-witnessing your life choices, what activates you spend a lot of effort and time, what styles of interacting you enjoy most, what kind of thoughts you entertain in your own privacy, and so on. By self-witnessing your daily life you can discover your hierarchy of loves and which one is at the very top. This is the love that wins out in the spiritual world and seals your fate forever.

Swedenborg reports that part of this controlled experience that is made available to "novitiate spirits" includes the ability to "travel" with one's consciousness up and down the mind's levels. He once saw a group of people who had just awakened in the spiritual world and taken together into the heavenly regions of their mind where they appeared to themselves to be visiting a heavenly city where people welcomed them. But in a little while they started feeling anxious and they could not enjoy themselves. Soon the anxiety turned into terror, and that into agony, so that they were seen crawling on the floor like snakes exposed to a burning camp fire. They were then released and taken down in consciousness to their natural mind where they revived and felt fine. Swedenborg explains that the physiology of the mind we are conscious with, must be compatible with the spiritual environment, and if not, internal agony is felt and ultimately total unconsciousness. As a result of this spiritual law, there is a permanent separation between the hellish mind and the heavenly mind in every individual who becomes a "spirit" after separation from the physical body.

If all this is valid you can see the benefits that are produced by dualist and theistic ideas and explanations of the world. They make it easier for people to be motivated to undergo character reformation for the sake of their eternal life and happiness. If theistic psychology succeeds, people everywhere will be able to prepare themselves better for their afterlife in the spiritual world and thus control their final destiny.

Is it valid? This is something that can only be decided by examining all the evidence brought forward in the Writings of Swedenborg. These Lecture Notes and the Readings provide some of this evidence but this represents only a fraction of what should be looked at for a rational assessment. I can state that I have examined all the evidence as a scientist and found it valid. Other scientists and scholars have done likewise since the publication of the 27 books of the Writings (1745-1772) and have come to a similar judgment of validity. The Reading List and our two textbooks will allow you to explore what others have said about Swedenborg's Writings.

The third level of thinking takes the universal and general at level 2 and steps it up to the particular and personal, which is level 3 thinking called enlightenment. As explained above, spiritual light and heat from the Spiritual Sun enters the interior mind and activates its operations. These operations make up the unconscious syntax that lies behind rationality. The interior mind is constructed organically to receive and react to spiritual light and heat. Then, when our rational mind reacts by correspondence to the operations triggered in the interior mind, we become conscious of the effects of the spiritual influx. This consciousness is experienced as light or understanding. Just prior to the moment of enlightenment the understanding of a sentence from the Writings is opaque in that we can understand the universal in it, but not the particular. We do not see clearly how it applies to our own lives, our own state of mind, and our own fate.

Enlightenment is therefore nothing else than a higher level of thinking about some spiritual topic and a deeper level of understanding some sentence from scientific revelations. It is this clearer operation of understanding that constitutes the rational proof that the evidence presented in the Writings of Swedenborg are valid. Some readers will allow themselves to go along with the Writings not from this enlightenment of the understanding, but instead from being impressed or persuaded or convinced by Swedenborg's authority or honesty, or being persuaded by some religion or philosophy based on the Writings. Obviously this does not constitute proof of the validity of Swedenborg's evidence and explanation which can only be validated rationally by going over all the evidence and how it is integrated with the explanations. This is not an easy thing to do and so many people will be dependent on secondary sources and collateral literature. While this does not constitute proof of validity, it can nevertheless be very useful to many people in bringing more rational clarity to what they consider the mysteries of the universe.

One afternoon at age 66, I looked at my face in the mirror for several minutes, with a rare feeling of "Who is this man I am looking at?" It was not the first time that I was shown this inside view, so to speak, but it was one that I have had before, I am sure of it. I realized that I had been given a new insight. I verbalized out loud to the enantiomorph of myself in the mirror: "You are going to die. You are not immortal."

My enantiomorph acquiesced with a silent nod. That surprised me. I had expected rebellion or depression or whining. Instead, I got an agreement.

Then I had a deeper insight still. It's the "Who is minding the store? issue. Who was talking to whom in the above exchange? My new insight was spoken out loud to the enantiomorph: I am you. I am just you. all along I thought I was the higher self talking to my lower self. The "I" and the "my higher self" were the same -- so I fancied under an illusion,. But I said to the enantiomorph "I am you." This was my deepest insight for the year. Conclusion: I was going to die!

I realized that I would now have to think about my second phase of consciousness development within theistic psychology. From 1981 (when I first started reading the Writings of Swedenborg) to now at the end of 2004, I had thought that I am immortal. But the new concept I received by enlightenment from the spiritual mind, is that I was going to die. I received this enlightenment when my conscious natural-mind reacted in correspondence with a concept that was operational, trhough influx, in the unconscious spiritual mind.

This new self-witnessing data allows a more advanced scientific explanation of the mind's operatonal layers that our conscious awareness in real time can access.

Influx from the Spiritual Sun into the unconscious spiritual mind activates by correspondence more than one layer of conscious ideas we can access.

In other words, we can be conscious of our corporeal self and its mentality or style of reasoning and seeking self-fulfillment. We can also be consciously aware of our sensuous mentality and its way of thinking and willing. We can also access the rational level of our natural mind when we are directly enlightened by the divine Psychologist (see Section xx).

When I was saying to my proxy image in the mirror that he is going to die, I realized that it was really I who is going to die. The first realization occurred when I started building my knowledge of theistic psychology in 1981, namely that I am immortal, even though my external memory itself is going to be put into permanent hibernation, no longer accessible to our normal focus in heaven or hell (see Section xx). But after some progress with this idea I was no longer depressed or concerned with the idea that I will not have my socio-legal and ethnic identity from earth, once I pass into immortality. My rational self was able to look down upon my sensuous self and place it in correspondence with itself. My sensuous self was not pleased with losing identity, but my rational self did not mind. This is because the rational self already understood that we are born immortal. The new insight with the enantiomorph is not at this same level.

The earlier insight is at the natural-rational level while the new mirror image insight is at the spiritual-natural level (also called the "interior-natural level and First heaven in our mind -- see Section xx).

We thus have six broad layers or discrete developmental levels of consciousness raising awareness in human evolution which is simultaneously operational or replicated in individual self-witnessing --

corporeal
sensuous
natural-rational
spiritual-natural or interior-natural (First Heaven)
spiritual-rational or external-rational (Second Heaven)
celestial-rational or interior-rational (Third Heaven)

A more advanced mental state (higher rank order above) can look down on a lower mental state and be aware of it, and especially, the character of the operations that are going on in the threefold self -- the affective organ, the cognitive organ, and the sensorimotor organ (see Section xx).

This layered structure of conscious access to mental operations or states, forms the organic basis for regeneration of the mind. This makes sense when you recall that character reformation must be self-motivated out of love for the truth one receives through enlightenment while studying Sacred Scripture as Divine Speech (see Section xx).

When I had the new insight of the enantiomorph self described above, I had a grave choice to make. that choice was going to affect my entire immortality. It would have repercussions for me to eternity. This spiritual temptation was for me to rebel or to accept the insight that I am going to die.

zzz

3.7 The Nature and Character of God: A Scientific Perspective

The history of literature informs us that the subject of God has been one of the oldest and most discussed. This ranking of importance has not changed with the advent of modern civilization as we know it today. A Web search on God yields 61 million hits--one of the highest, and the Bible is still the most published book in the history of printing. Polls indicate that the vast majority of people believe in God as the supreme reality. In modern science however, there has been a strong tendency to reduce discussion on God to zero. This is understandable when you consider that nothing scientific can be known about God except through Divine revelations. Until now Divine revelations have been relegated to religion and to nut cases, thus nothing for science to hang on to in terms of method and theory.

This situation has suddenly changed through the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). Now for the first time in history a reputable and highly regarded scientist has written 27 volumes of empirical and observational reports about God and the spiritual world. Many key and famous people in the19th and 20th centuries wrote about Swedenborg and how they were strongly influenced by his Writings. There has never been a precedent in human experience for what Swedenborg did. He was the only individual in human history to be given the ability to be conscious and fully aware in both the spiritual and natural worlds simultaneously and uninterruptedly for three decades. This special ability was given to him for a specific purpose, as a Divine commission, so that he could be the architect of the ultimate scientific paradigm in the modern world. I have called this paradigm "substantive dualism," and also, "theistic science," "scientific dualism," and "theistic psychology."

While browsing in our university library in 1981, I came upon the Writings of Swedenborg and have studied them ever since. I was astounded by their content and by the fact that he was unknown in all of the history of psychology and almost unknown in all of modern science. I understood why, having been a professional scientist and researcher since my Ph.D. in Psychology in 1962 from McGill University. I set out to incorporate the scientific data in the Writings into modern psychology. After several years of study and research, including articles and books I published on the Web, I have made an initial attempt in this book to pull it all together into a somewhat formal and systematic presentation. I hope that this attempt will encourage others to extend and solidify this new revolutionary paradigm in science.

The scientific study of God is different from the religious approach even though both are based on the same Divine revelations. Prior attempts to show the common basis for religion and science have not been generally successful because the literal meaning of revelation is not written in a scientific style and is foreign to the way scientists are trained to think. In the middle ages religious leaders exercised a dogmatic despotism on scientific thinking by trying to politically impose the literal meaning of revelation as scientific fact, punishing scientists who took a course independent of Sacred Scripture. A modern example is the case of "Creationism" which is the politicized attempt to impose upon science teaching the literal story of creation found in the first eleven chapters of the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament of the Bible.

Now we know from the scientific revelations in the Writings of Swedenborg that the style of writing in these eleven chapters is not historical but figurative or symbolic, written in the language of correspondences. The Old and New Testaments, also called "Sacred Scripture," are written in a style that contains multiple levels of meaning extractable by systematically applying the code of correspondences in which all Divine Speech has been given in the history of the human race. This code is not an arbitrary or some subjective inference or supposition someone may arrive at. There are many prior attempts to penetrate the figurative speech of the Bible, but none of these attempts can be scientifically adequate as long as they use subjective, inductive, and speculative approaches known as "Bible exegesis."

3.7.1 The Science of Correspondence

It is important to distinguish between the code of correspondences in Swedenborg and the current interest and research in "Bible codes" --reviewed extensively on this Web page: www.meru.org/Codes/biblcode.html

The "Bible code" reveals absolutely nothing about the content of revelation. It focuses exclusively on the statistical and mathematical proof that the text of the Old Testament in the original Hebrew and Aramaic contains systematic patterns when letters are counted in certain ways that have been explored by computer analysis. It is not the idea of interpreting or discovering the information that is contained in the meaning of the text. No help there. It doesn't go even as far as exegesis or systematic literary analysis of content and subject matter.

In contrast, the code of correspondences Swedenborg discovered provides us with a systematic, rational, and replicable method of extracting meaning and data about the spiritual world and God. It is like hiding ordinary text by substituting every word in the original with a new word according to a dictionary list, as in this made up example: "By the way any time rain stops." If you know the dictionary code you can decipher the content using this arbitrary dictionary:

by the way = the

any time = attack

rain = will begin

stops = at daybreak

which yields the message: "The attack will begin at daybreak."

But this example relies on an arbitrary dictionary, which of course makes it impossible or difficult to crack without the dictionary, just like the Nazis in World War 2 were unable to crack the coded military messages based on such arbitrary language substitutions agreed upon in advance by the people involved. On the other hand, the code of correspondences in which Divine Speech is written is not arbitrary but in conformity to scientific laws. These scientific laws are called "correspondences" or "the laws of spiritual-natural correspondences." In other words, within the context of substantive dualism and the positive bias, every phenomenon or event we can observe in the natural world, is an effect whose cause is a phenomenon or event in the spiritual world.

Therefore another way of thinking about correspondences is to think of how spiritual events cause natural events. Correspondences specify which spiritual events cause which natural events. You can see why this could not have been discovered by anyone since spiritual causes were unknown. No one before Swedenborg had lived simultaneously in both worlds. He was therefore the only one who could discover what spiritual events caused which natural events by observing both worlds at the same time. But once he discovered these relationships of correspondence, he could codify the relations and explain it to everyone else. In fact, I know of at leas one book that presents correspondences in a dictionary form so that one can look up a natural object like "water" and it will give its spiritual correspondence "truth." Whenever "water" is mentioned in Divine Speech or Sacred Scripture we are to think of "truth." The word "water" disappears and the word "truth" is substituted for it. In this way you can read all of Sacred Scripture and understand what it is saying about the spiritual topics.

The relationship of correspondence is not something Swedenborg or anyone else can invent. Emerson wrote that he was very impressed by the genius of Swedenborg and he was especially delighted by the notion of correspondences. But Emerson did not read much of the Writings and relied on secondary sources and lectures by his contemporaries. As a result he never discovered the empirical basis of correspondences, complaining instead, that he did not like the absolutist way in which Swedenborg identified the correspondences in the Bible. Emerson preferred to go by his own subjective interpretations, which fit better in his non-religious transcendental interpretations of Bible.

But in fact the laws of correspondences are objective laws by which the universe has been created and is being managed by God today.

Scientific correspondences in Sacred Scripture are neither figurative nor interpretive. The code of correspondences is not unlike the DNA code which determines the growth pattern of every living cell, including the ability of the coded matter to reproduce itself in new cells. The breaking of the DNA code was not a matter of interpretation but involved accurate observation from chemical analysis of the physical imprints and its specific shape and biochemical function. A similar procedure must be used to discover the specific laws of correspondences that govern the functional relation between a natural event and a spiritual event. Every time X happens on earth, X' happens in the spiritual world. The relationship between X' and X must be uncovered so that no X on earth can occur without X' occurring in the spiritual world. This cannot be done unless one has reliable and accurate access to the spiritual world so that we may observe the occurrence of X'. Swedenborg was given this unique ability by being conscious in both worlds simultaneously for 27 years every day.

So the question about correspondences is not whether Swedenborg was right in his interpretations of the Bible verses, but only whether he was accurate in objectively reporting the phenomena he was able to observe in the spiritual world.

For a scientific study, the laws of correspondences must be shown to be universal, rational, systematic, and internally consistent without exceptions. In addition, the code must have an explanation of where it comes from, why it was hidden, and how it can be confirmed, tested, and furthered through normal and cumulative scientific research. This is what Swedenborg has accomplished by virtue of the fact that, at age 57, the respected Swedish scientist and engineer, suddenly developed the special ability to be conscious and fully aware in both the natural world and the spiritual world simultaneously, and this, until his death at age 82. For 27 years Swedenborg explored the spiritual world and kept daily records that were published by him in Neo-Latin. The modern English edition of his Writings during those 27 years amount to nearly 30 volumes, now also available online (see this Web site: www.theheavenlydoctrines.org ).

Modern science is about to undergo its greatest revolution in history. All that is needed is to exit from the negative bias and enter the positive bias. This means to examine the observations, experiments, and explanations presented in the Writings of Swedenborg. This book can serve as an introduction to those who want solid rational explanations about what the positive bias can bring to psychology.

3.7.2 Correspondences in Sacred Scripture and Divine Speech

Quoting from the Writings Sacred Scripture:

66. There are in the Word, in general, four different styles. The first is that of the Most Ancient Church. Their mode of expression was such that when they mentioned terrestrial and worldly things they thought of the spiritual and celestial things which these represented. They therefore not only expressed themselves by representatives, but also formed these into a kind of historical series, in order to give them more life; and this was to them delightful in the very highest degree. This is the style of which Hannah prophesied, saying:

Speak what is high! high! Let what is ancient come out of your mouth (1 Sam. 2:3).

Such representatives are called in David, "Dark sayings of old" (Ps. 78:2-4). These particulars concerning the creation, the garden of Eden, etc., down to the time of Abram, Moses had from the descendants of the Most Ancient Church.

[2] The second style is historical, which is found in the books of Moses from the time of Abram onward, and in those of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and the Kings. In these books the historical facts are just as they appear in the sense of the letter; and yet they all contain, in both general and particular, quite other things in the internal sense, of which, by the Lord's Divine mercy, in their order in the following pages.

The third style is the prophetical one, which was born of that which was so highly venerated in the Most Ancient Church. This style however is not in connected and historical form like the most ancient style, but is broken, and is scarcely ever intelligible except in the internal sense, wherein are deepest arcana, which follow in beautiful connected order, and relate to the external and the internal man; to the many states of the church; to heaven itself; and in the inmost sense to the Lord. The fourth style is that of the Psalms of David, which is intermediate between the prophetical style and that of common speech. The Lord is there treated of in the internal sense, under the person of David as a king. (AC 66)

Recall that all details of reality and events are produced by God. This is the dictionary meaning of the word "omnipotence" which is attributed to God by definition. Since nothing exists before God creates it, all things that exist must be created out of the infinite and immortal spiritual substances that are in God.

These spiritual substances are called "uncreate" to distinguish them from created objects. We are familiar with many of these uncreate substances, calling them by such names as life, love, good, truth, intelligence, and freedom, along with all their sub-varieties like different kinds of loves, different types of truths, different variety of sensations and mental delights. These uncreate substances are infinite and alive in themselves. When we receive them in our mental organs by inflow, these spiritual uncreate substances set in motion mental operations that we subjectively experience as loves and attractions we feel, the truths we think and understand, the delights and pleasures we experience, the will and determination we exercise when pursuing a goal, and so on. These operations in our mind are created by the inflow of the uncreate spiritual substances.

In what sense are we then different from a television, a computer, or a robot?

The scientific answer is revealed in the Writings Sacred Scripture. It is one of the most astonishing ideas in theistic psychology. It's called the "as-of self" (see Section xx). In other words, God has created our mental organs not only to be able to receive the inflow of the uncreate spiritual substances, but also to make us feel that these living operations in our mind are our own, not something that comes into us from outside ourselves.

We don't want to be TV sets. We don't want to be computers and robots. We want to have a mind of our own, our own thoughts, our very own feelings. This human sentiment is discussed in the story of Adam and Eve in the Old Testament Sacred Scripture (see Section xx). The explanations are laid out in the scientific sense of the story once it is determined what the words in the literal meaning tell us by correspondence between the natural events and the mental operations. The natural event is about Adam, who is presented there as the first created human being, who complained to God about being alone. God responded by taking one of Adam's ribs while he was asleep, and creating a woman out of it, and the two became a married couple. This is the natural event or story line. It is written in a special Divine language where every detail mentioned hides some universal fact about mental states and about their proper preparation for immortality.

The mental operations to which it corresponds involve the "as-of self" in the evolution of the human race (see Section xx). Adam stands for the self. Eve represents the "as-of self." The self of a human being could not be happy without feeling that our willing and thinking are our very own and that we can act in freedom in accordance with our desire. That refers to the feeling of inner freedom and privacy, but since it was revealed to our rational mind that God is omnipotent, we can reason that the rationality of our mental operations in our willing and thinking cannot really be our own. Both of these must be present in our mind – the feeling of freedom to act and the understanding that God is actually the only animating power and rationality.

On the one hand, we understand rationally that the life and intelligence in us is not our own. On the other hand, we would be inhuman unless we had the sensation and feeling that our willing and thinking are our very own. This is why we need the "as-of self" concept. It is one of the most productive and beneficial ideas in theistic psychology. It is the as-of self that makes us human and fundamentally different from other receptors -- TVs, radios, computers, robots. Animals do not reflect rationally on the world and themselves. They do not have an as-of self, which is a purely human operation of the rational organ of the mind.

God rules all created things by means of the uncreate spiritual substances that stream forth from the infinite Spiritual Sun and enter every created object from within. These living immortal substances create different operational effects depending on the structure or form of the receiving object. Rocks and atoms are physical receptors that receive the uncreate substances within themselves from within, and this makes up the basis or infrastructure of their existence. Plants and animals receive the inflow of uncreate spiritual substances still differently, and clearly in a higher level of function. This is why plant and animal species can adapt, survive, and propagate, while structures of rocks and atoms fall apart in time. Human minds receive the inflow of uncreate spiritual substances at the highest possible level, which is called rationality. This is the level that creates the operation of the as-of self.

The above discussion was about how God creates and manages things through their inner reception of the uncreate substances. Recall that the uncreate substances are living in themselves as part of God's life. There are two main categories of uncreate substances -- good and truth. Divine Good is also called Divine Love, while Divine Truth is also called Divine Wisdom. You can see from the above discussion that good and truth are spiritual substances that form the basis of every object and quality in the created universe. This is difficult to grasp at first because we think of good and truth in materialistic ideas, not spiritual or rational. But you can see why and in what way theistic psychology uses the concept Divine Speech. God's "speech" refers to God's love and truth, since that's what God is -- infinite Divine Love and Truth.

God creates and manages the universe by means of love and truth. Divine Speech is always about love and truth, the very source and structure of all reality, including worlds, atoms, and minds. The good and truth we receive form the basis of our mind, our immortality, our conjugial happiness, and our ability to make others happy from ourselves. God gives the human race love and truth in many different ways. One of the ways involves our conscious rationality as human beings. This is the "as-of self" spoken of above. God uses Divine Speech to elevate the consciousness of human beings. Divine Truth in Divine Speech is the primary and most powerful agent of creation. The Divine Truth in Divine Speech is expressed in meanings called correspondences -- the same correspondences that governs the laws between natural events and spiritual events, as discussed above. This is understandable when you consider that God manages the natural world as a world of effects whose causes are in the spiritual world.

The cause-effect relation is achieved by means of correspondences. If X in the natural world corresponds to Y in the spiritual world, then Y is the cause of X.

In the following passage from Arcana Coelestia ("Heavenly Secrets"), Swedenborg is analyzing the phrase "When it is well with thee" which appears in Genesis 40, Verse 14. In its inner scientific sense, this phrase refers to a developmental phase of character reformation involving the sensuous or empirical level of thinking and feeling. Swedenborg takes the opportunity here to say something more about correspondences, a subject that he discusses progressively throughout the 12-volume set of Arcana Coelestia.

AC 5131

"When it is well with thee." [Gen. 40:14]

That this signifies when there is correspondence, is evident from the signification of its "being well with thee," when the rebirth or regeneration of the exterior natural or sensuous is treated of, as being correspondence; for it is not well with it until it corresponds. At the end of the different chapters it may be seen what correspondence is. There is a correspondence of sensuous with natural things, a correspondence of natural with spiritual things, a correspondence of spiritual with celestial things, and finally a correspondence of celestial things with the Divine of the Lord; thus there is a succession of correspondences from the Divine down to the ultimate natural.

[2] But as an idea of the nature of correspondences can with difficulty be formed by those who have never thought about them before, it may be well to say a few words on the subject. It is known from philosophy that the end is the first of the cause, and that the cause is the first of the effect. That the end, the cause, and the effect may follow in order, and act as a one, it is needful that the effect should correspond to the cause, and the cause to the end. But still the end does not appear as the cause, nor the cause as the effect; for in order that the end may produce the cause, it must take to itself administrant means from the region where the cause is, by which means the end may produce the cause; and in order that the cause may produce the effect, it also must take to itself administrant means from the region where the effect is, by which means the cause may produce the effect.

These administrant means are what correspond; and because they correspond, the end can be in the cause and can actuate the cause, and the cause can be in the effect and can actuate the effect; consequently the end through the cause can actuate the effect. It is otherwise when there is no correspondence; for then the end has no cause in which it may be, still less an effect in which it may be, but is changed and varied in the cause, and finally in the effect, according to the form made by the administrant means.

[3] All things in general and in particular in man, nay, all things in general and in particular in nature, succeed one another as end, cause, and effect; and when they thus correspond to one another, they act as a one; for then the end is the all in all things of the cause, and through the cause is the all in all things of the effect. As for example, when heavenly love is the end, the will the cause, and action the effect, if there is correspondence, then heavenly love flows into the will, and the will into the action, and they so act as a one that by means of the correspondence the action is as it were the love; or as when the faith of charity is the end, thought the cause, and speech the effect, then if there is correspondence, faith from charity flows into the thought, and this into the speech, and they so act as a one, that by means of the correspondence the speech is as it were the end.

In order however that the end, which is love and faith, may produce the cause, which is will and thought, it must take to itself administrant means in the rational mind that will correspond; for without administrant means that correspond, the end, which is love or faith, cannot be received, however much it may flow in from the Lord through heaven. From this it is plain that the interiors and the exteriors of man, that is, what is rational, natural, and sensuous in him must be brought into correspondence, in order that he may receive the Divine influx, and consequently that he may be born again; and that it is not well with him till then. This is the reason why here by "when it is well with thee" is signified correspondence. (AC 5131)

We can highlight the above passage by summarizing some of the assertions contained in it. This will give us a more rational understanding of correspondences and the key role they have in our lives.

(1) There is a succession of correspondences produced by Divine Speech, from the Spiritual Sun down and out to the ultimate physical plane of reality.

(2) The end, the cause, and the effect follow in order, and act as a one because the effect corresponds to the cause, and the cause to the end. Hence correspondences are the means by which all phenomena (natural effects) are produced (spiritual causes).

(3) The end is in the cause and actuates the cause. The cause is in the effect and actuates the effect. Consequently the end through the cause actuates the effect. The “end” refers to God’s goal of adequately preparing human beings for their life in immortality. This is Divine Love. The “cause” refers to the exteriorization of God’s goal by means of Divine Truth within which Divine Love is contained and hidden. Thus truth is nothing but the outward visible appearance of love, which itself remains invisible within it.

(4) In order that the end may produce the cause, it must take to itself administrant means from the region where the cause is, by which means the end may produce the cause; and in order that the cause may produce the effect, it also must take to itself administrant means from the region where the effect is, by which means the cause may produce the effect. These “administrant means” are what correspond. This means that there is no direct contact across degrees between the spiritual and the natural realities. There is only a correspondential function that automatically ties them together in the position of cause and effect. The impossibility of direct contact between the natural and the spiritual, or between the effect and its cause, is because the effect and the cause are each in separate substances or realities that can never appear to each other. But they do appear to each other by correspondence, which is a functional connection, not direct and continuous.

(5) All things in general and in particular in the human mind and in nature, succeed one another as end, cause, and effect; and when they thus correspond to one another, they act as a one. This is the basis of reality. Correspondences are the laws that hold all things in the right position, structure, and action.

(6) In human action, the mental organ of “the will” operates our motivated affective goal states. This is experienced as a striving to achieve a particular “end” or purpose. The mental organ of the “understanding” operates our cognitive thinking sequences. These cognitive operations are motivated, initiated, and directed by the will to produce a plan to reach the desired goal state. A particular action is the ultimate result of the three-step process. In this behavioral series, the “will,” or the operations of the affective organ, defines and selects the “end” or particular motivated goal state. The “understanding,” or the operations of the cognitive organ, provides the “cause” or particular reasoning and plan. The action is the “effect” and it is executed or performed by the sensorimotor organ of the mind. Once the sequence affective-cognitive-sensorimotor is complete in the mind, the physical body reacts by correspondence and produces appropriate movement, action, perception, and sensation.

These four things correspond to each other --

the feelings of the will or operations in the affective organ
the thoughts of the understanding or operations in the cognitive organ
the sensations of the sensory or operations in the sensorimotor organ
the reactions of the physical body which correspond one-to-one with the operations in the sensorimotor organ

(7) The Divine Human's love in the form of spiritual heat, inflows into the affective organ, and the Divine Human's truth in the form of spiritual light, inflows into the cognitive. No matter how much love and truth flow into our mind from God, they remain inactive on their own, until we consciously decide to make our willing and thinking to correspond to the inflowing love and truth. Divine Speech in Sacred Scripture instructs us on how to achieve this correspondence.

Our willing and intending, or motivational goal states, must be made consciously to correspond to the inflowing Divine love, and our thinking and reasoning processes, must be made consciously to correspond to the inflowing Divine truth. Thus can we be “reborn” as an individual with new character. This new and superior spiritual character makes it possible for us to live in the heavens of our mind, when we pass into the immortality of the afterlife.

(8) The love and truth to which our intending and reasoning have been made to correspond, is nothing else than the Divine Love and the Divine Truth activating and operating by correspondence the new willing mind. We must continuously keep in mind that this love and truth are both infinite and uncreate, hence they cannot belong to us. When we fail to keep this in mind, we are spiritually insane and irrational. We must think rational thoughts, namely, that God wills that His Divine Love and Truth entering our mind, appear to us as-if our very own. In other words, it feels to us that we are free to think or do as we choose.

This is a real feeling based on our actual reality. It is not an illusion or delusion. It is God who creates this reality. He makes it such that His love and truth, which operate our willing and thinking, feel to us like our own love and truth, our own willing what we like, and our own thinking what we want. We can forget, or we can deny, that it is God’s power and God’s rationality that activates our willing and thinking. God allows people to forget or deny reality.

If God did not allow people to deny reality, and forced them to think only rationally, we would not have freedom, hence we would not be human. We could not reciprocate God’s love, for which He longs, and for which He created the universe. Hence it is absolutely essential that God give people actual freedom, not bogus freedom as an appearance to fool us. To give people actual freedom means that He must compel Himself to make things happen that He would not choose to on His Own, because they are evil things that make human beings suffer, instead of the good things that He Himself wills for them, which make them eternally happy. The revelation of this Divine Law of Permissions, as it is called in the Writings Sacred Scripture, proves that human freedom is actual, not a mere appearance or illusion, despite God’s omnipotence (see Section xx).

Without the reality of this as-if appearance, we could not be maximally happy, hence we could not dwell in our heaven. But we must constantly acknowledge to ourselves that they are only as-if our own, and not actually our own. The moment we think they are truly our own, they turn instantly into their opposites -- negative love (hatred, fear, anger, dissatisfaction) and negative truth (invalid conclusions, false assumptions, delusional explanations). It’s like a car you are allowed to own for free given to you by a wizard. You are told that the moment you think that the car is actually yours, it will disappear.

Our rationality is an ability or power that gives us the ability to reason truthfully. It feels like it’s our own rationality. But we are told in the Writings Sacred Scripture that if we assume that our intelligence is actually our own, not God’s, we lose it. Our rationality vanishes. We now start thinking and reasoning with flaws. Our conclusions are no longer accurate and real. Our assumptions are false. Our motivational states slip into negative zones. We have lost the status of hu

Theistic Psychology: The Scientific Knowledge of God Extracted from the correspondential sense of Sacred Scripture

Developmental Levels of Thinking About Theistic Psychology

Theistic Psychology:
The Scientific Knowledge of God
Extracted from the correspondential sense
of Sacred Scripture

Developmental Levels of Thinking
About Theistic Psychology