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Dual Citizenship
Religious psychology is based on the Writings of
Emanuel Swedenborg (1668-1772). He is to be considered the founder of religious
psychology, though he himself used the term "rational psychology" -- which is
the title of one of many books he left behind in a long and distinguished career as a
Swedish scientist, philosopher, engineer, and legislator. Swedenborg wrote in the
international Latin of European educators and philosophers. Several dozen works have been
translated into modern English and other languages by Swedenborgian scholars. The New
Church was founded after his death; it is an international body of people who acknowledge
Swedenborg's Writings as the Word -- that is, as Divine Works revealing many truths about
the Bible. It is asserted in the New Church that these Writings are holy and Divine and
contain a rational revolution for humankind.
The rational revolution of civilization ushers in
a new era in man's relationship to God. This is called the long promised Second Advent of
Christ. It is revealed in the Writings of Swedenborg that the promise of Jesus Christ to
return and make available the benefit of a totally new age has occurred in the year 1757,
the year of the Great Day of Judgment foretold in Matthew (24) and Daniel (
), and many other places in both the Old Testament and the New Testament of the
Christian Bible. In fact, this topic of the imminent Second Coming of Christ is a common
belief of American Christians in general. What an astounding thing this is: what we've all
been waiting for has already happened! And we didn't even know it.
This fabulous claim of Swedenborg so unsettles
people that one refuses to receive this New Good News, the very best we could ever dream
of.
Each person's temptations uncover hosts of
affections in us -- hoardes of them -- that strenuously and vociferously oppose and resist
this New Good News. Nevertheless, after the temptations are over the person discovers a
remnant of rationality that calmly allows us to survey the whole detailed claim of the
Writings. The results of this survey is a confident feeling of reassurance; first, because
we are able to comprehend it, it isn't too technical for our intellect; second, because we
are able to explain this new understanding to anyone who is willing, with patience and
respect, to hear your explanation. This feeling of confidence is there because the Second
Advent of Jesus Christ is an arrival into the conscious rational of our self. The conscious
rational self gets born. A new experience is present in our life which could not be
there before, not even in the smallest degree. So it is a totally new sensing of life.
The individual who is willing to sincerely
receive the Second Advent of the Lord now may do so. This is the new age because from now
on civilization is changing in a profound and radical way. Humankind is undergoing an
organic change just as it did once before, eons ago, when we were social animals without
as yet the breath of God in us, what we call today our conscious self. The
acquisition of the conscious self, or human self-consciousness, thus marked a new age for
humankind on earth: it separated our race from the animal kingdom and we became the
self-conscious humanoids -- the race of Adam and Eve. Civilization then evolved on earth
into speech, the wheel, cities, science, and rapid population increase. Many scientists
believe that to permit the evolution of such a higher human consciousness of the self,
there had to be an accompanying change in the form of the human body, its limbs, brains,
and blood.
In the future it is quite probable that
scientists will find physical and neuroanatomical evidence for the Second Coming of Christ
in 1757: we predict that when the historical charts are compared across the centuries
since the eighteenth A.D., scientists will detect significant changes in biochemical
functioning and genetic format. What is really good about this New Good News for humankind
is, that the benefits are available right now to anyone willing to receive it in the
rational self. When this willingness, or state of un-prejudice, is extended, the
conditions are set for the birth of the conscious rational.
The Writings of Swedenborg thus announce the
birth of the conscious rational self. Imagine for a moment that the birth of the
conscious self that occurred eons of ages ago had occurred in one place of the globe only.
Then imagine that one of these inhabitants traveled to a neighboring tribe of humans still
in the pre-self-conscious state. After befriending the group he then attempts to show them
what is speech, what is writing, what is the wheel and other useful artifacts, and so on,
The natives are getting impatient; they do not understand. Those who understand, or have a
glimmer of it, do not believe. So the friendly stranger is banished for causing a raucous.
This imagined story can now be transplanted to
the era of the birth of the conscious rational self. This happened at the end of the 18th
century. Most of the scientists, professors, and bishops, to whom Swedenborg sent copies
of his books, ignored them, or in some cases, persecuted him and those who defended him.
Even today, near the end of the 20th century, the Writings of Swedenborg are unread,
unquoted, uncited in all the disciplines of the Library of Congress Subject Headings.
This, despite the fact that Swedenborg's books have been deposited by adherents in all the
major libraries, academic and public, of the English speaking world. (Some other
translations are also in circulation around the globe.)
It is clear from this evidence that the Second
Advent of Christ inaugurates a new age in slow motion terms. This is not surprising in
retrospect since this change occurs in the rational zone of the self-conscious mind we
inherited. In other words, we can call the self-consciousness change of old, the birth of
our "automatic self, while we can call the new birth of the self-conscious
rational, the birth of the "rational self." The "automatic self" and
the "rational self" are both conscious within us; the rational self can
see the automatic self but not the reverse, the automatic self being incapable of becoming
aware of the existence of the rational self.
This is then the reason why Swedenborg's Writings
are not received by all as the Second Advent of the Lord: whoever will insist that they
should be able to see the rational self with the automatic self, cannot receive the new
function. They are blocked from having the self-conscious rational, be born in their mind.
To better comprehend this new birth within our consciousness, one need to think of the
rational self as an organ, an inner organ we didn't suspect existed. It is not the
"inner eye" which mystics and healers make a claim for. This organ is a personal
gift from the Lord Jesus Christ in His Second Advent, a gift He offers to anyone
irrespective of their external religious affiliation or lack thereof. It is a
non-denominational relationship with God, one not available to anyone before, and now
available to anyone who is willing to receive it, in the rational.
The method of proof that satisfies the thinking
of the automatic self within us may be titled "the negative bias." This implies
that we will doubt the concrete existence of something until it appears to the senses. For
example, the history of science, technology, and medicine shows that all sorts of false
beliefs and superstitions could be successfully detected by this method: false theories
were discarded, charlatans were unmasked, harmful superstitions were shot to pieces. A new
era of cleaner thinking began for mankind, since the Greek philosophers of ancient
European history leading to the modern era of human history. Thus the negative bias is
deeply embedded within our way of looking at the world. This is indeed fortunate, that we
have an automatic self that has negative bias standards for itself. It protects us
from fraud, ignorance, and persuasive theories. We ought to strive to continue to
perfect the astuteness and ingenuity of the automatic self, as it is the very basis and
foundation of the other parts of the self that also inhabit the body and its mind.
So now, there is the announcement of the new
birth of the rational self. The automatic self wants natural proofs to believe it, to work
with it further. The automatic self is up against an insurmountable hurdle since no such
proof will be given it.
There is now a most crucial consideration to take
up. This is not a blind proposal. If it were, we would have no protection
whatsoever from quacks and cults. It is most prudent that we retain our self-conscious
attitude of objective Criticisms, so that we may judge regarding the validity and
possibility of all new claims. In this manner, we have examined a variety of claims by
countless people in the history of books, and today in person, over the media. Yet we are
able to stay free from these various persuasions no matter how sincere we feel the
adherents are. In a similar routine manner, our automatic self may sift the evidence
presented in the Writings of Swedenborg' and judge, as to its possibility, and validity.
What is then left over, is not anything that was found to be impossible, or illogical, or
inconsistent with what we already know from experience. These are the grounds upon which
we reject the persuasive creeds of others, and are thus protected from mistakes and
obsessions.
But now, with the Writings of Swedenborgone has
none of these grounds: it is a well contained wholistic system easily comprehended by
common sense, having complete answers for all our puzzles of life, with a scientifically
precise enumeration of principles, theories, and facts, yet with no contradictions, no
omissions, and no dark places of premise left unpresented with clarity. If in this
situation the automatic self still seems to resist we become aware that this
resistance does not come from ourselves but from prejudicial assumptions deeply embedded
in our thinking and feeling. From then on, it is an uphill battle in accordance with
each individual's fate, or spiritual needs.
Religious psychology is thus a response to the
new turn in civilization whereby the rational method is born in the human mind. Of course
we need at the outset to distinguish between the "rational self of the automatic
self" and the "rational self of the spiritual self." In other words, both
the automatic self> from the outside world and, the spiritual self, from the inside
world, produce a "rational self." But they are quite distinct in function and
substance. The lower rational from the automatic self, is composed of stuff and
pattern from the natural world, while the upper rational is composed of stuff and
pattern from the spiritual world, as in the following diagram:
In order to have this schema be logical, we must
posit or assume dual citizenship: we live in two universes, one natural the other
spiritual. The external world of physical matter and sensory reaction, seven into the
brain, is the natural world in which the automatic self lives. Our automatic self
is the natural mind: it retains sensory input in its memory, it processes sensory
information to several levels of logic or sequential hierarchies, and forms conclusions or
judgments on the basis of objective weighing of facts, and principles based on them. The
automatic self has thinking patterns that obey the laws of logic and biochemistry.
The automatic self cannot accomplish this
sophistication by itself. It uses the lower-rational to do all its more complex
reasoning, those that depend on language, symbolism, and mathematics. The lower-rational
is superior to the automatic self in capacity and is made of a different law of
organization than the purely natural. However, the lower-rational is a slave to the
automatic self. It is undisciplined from higher motives but, instead, is the butler who
acts for the sake of the automatic self. This is because the lower rational is filled with
only material ideas, which are ideas that contain only sensory facts, that is, facts
gathered through the five external senses. Thus, the lower-rational cannot argue for the
sake of the internal world, but only for the sake of the external world.
However, when the individual is willing to admit
into the rational, facts that are not only about the external world, then the
upper-rational is born, and our conscious awareness can be elevated into higher zones
of the mind. The first such higher fact, is the fact that we have dual citizenship;
that is, the fact that there are two worlds, and that they are interrelated.
Once this breakthrough is achieved, we are ready
to examine objectively and critically, whether the information we receive about the other
world, is believable to the automatic self. Good News about the other world still needs to
harmonize with the logic and prudence of our good old faithful automatic self. This is
where we have been able to reject many false claims about the other world. So now, with
this positive attitude to the possibility of the claim, we are examining the Writings
of Swedenborg while still retaining the dictates of logic and prudence.
And so after the examination is made there is not
left anything that is disharmonious with logic or prudence. This is where we discover that
we have deep lying affections against it, that are not our own, that are not developed
from us but rather they are affections that have been transmitted through culture and
family.
The personal resistance we experience to the idea
of dual citizenship, is a carbon copy, replication, of the historical resistance in the
modern era, scientists have had to spiritual duality. Their intellectual build up against
duality came from the strict logic of their methods: the negative bias in matters of
evidence and proof; that is, to assume some proposed phenomenon does not exist until
proven empirically that it does exist, or else, that is has a high probability of
existence. This methodological rigor has served well, and will continue in the indefinite
future, to serve well for the various engineering, industry, and educational goals of
society. It is possible to recognize, in this useful function to society, that capacity
which lies within each one of us, namely, the lower-rational pictured in the diagram.
According to this lower-rational the negative bias is to be maintained maintained at all
cost; that is, it should be criteria! for acceptability in all sciences.
This attitude of the lower-rational is
logical, but it is not rational. The "logic of the senses" can be in
opposition with its own internal-rational,that constitutes the essence of logic itself.
Logic cannot exist without the rational being in it, and making it up, holding it
together, strengthening it with new discoveries, and so on. The rational is a higher, and
more basic computer language in the mind, and to which every person has access through
internal organs, organs not of this world but of the other. Our dual citizenship involves
that we have duplicate and symmetrical organs and functions, one in the natural world and
the other in the spiritual world. Our organ of rationality is higher and inner,
hence it belongs to our internal self -- it is made of substances, forms, and functions
entirely from and in the spiritual world. But our organ of logic is in and from
this world only -it is made of the lower external substances of the earth or sun, and of
the natural functions of automata and animals. Hence we say that our automatic self can
memorize, think, be logical, and talk. This information processing ability is given to the
earthly substances through an inner program, or pattern, wired into the genetics
and atomics of the composing elements. This geneticcultural program is within every
sense impression we get and in every sequence of observation and experience we have.
It is wired in from heredity and learning.
So therefore, as adults we are conscious of a
permanent self or, individuality; part of this external self is role bound; that is, our
personality depends to some extent on our occupations in life. Another part, however, is
not externally identified; we feel there is a self that is unique, and therefore
unrelated to our occupations and reputations. This self-existent being is conscious
of its own existence: it shows this by being afraid' when it is threatened, and enjoying
itself, when feeling secure. We may call this adult human feeling, the
"rational self." This self-independent individual lives in the spiritual world,
yet it is hooked up to us in this world. By saying "us" we refer to the
automatic self, for this is the official "me" -- who walks around, is a citizen
of a nation, and is held responsible for all actions affecting other people. This
external "me" has an internal "I".
The rational was born in humankind at the end of
the 18th century. That century is identified in our history books and encyclopedias as
"The Age of Reason." According to the Writings of Swedenborg the year 1757 marks
the exact time when the Lord's Second Advent occurred. This long expected Second Coming of
Christ, could not be detected through the lower-rational, because it was restricted, by
the automatic self, to the negative bias methodology. When Swedenborg made known his
discovery of the Second Advent of Christ, the scientific college excluded him from the
mainstream of the citation literature, despite the presence of his books in most academic
and public libraries of the Christian world. This exclusion of admissible evidence may
however be limited, while still retaining its real function in science.
Swedenborg remains unread in science in general.
When, however, scientist or scholar is brought to reading the Writings anyway, perhaps out
of curiosity or search for the novel and original, there is an astounding experience that
takes place. We are brought from idea to idea, in sequential and logical steps, that
invoke our knowledges already accumulated. It offers no new technical field; no charts and
terminology; no prerequisite courses or readings; in other words, no intellectual
obstacles beyond common sense and, a serious scholarly attitude. The English edition of
the Writings amount to approximately 60 books -- there is a complication in figuring the
inclusion of his works before middle age. Obviously, this represents a major intellectual,
scientific, and scholarly endeavor. If we were to wait before decidinguntil we tackled
all these volumes in their entirety, it would surely take a lifetime or a career, and
there might not be anyone who would undertake such a task. Fortunately, by the very
nature of the process of the rational, we begin to witness immediately the birth of this
new conscious self within us, as we read page by page. This may sound like a
subjective exaggeration and enthusiastic hyperbolas -- just as we feel when someone is
describing to us a fantastic new type of pudding they were recently given to eat. To the
listener we may appear to exaggerate from excessive enthusiasm.
Consider however the enormity of the claim, and
if found to be true, the enormity of the instant consequences for the person upon its
discovery. Suddenly, a new familiar world unsuspected before: dual citizenship;
the one mortal, the other immortal. There is no exaggeration here, only disbelief in
advance, due to the enormity of the implications.
The scientist and scholar are well equipped,
through training and experience, to judge regarding the rationality of a scientific
proposal. Until the age of reason in the 18th century, scientists had no difficulty
excluding theology and religion from their own intellectual territory. This is due to the
fact that theological and religious proposals were not in any sense scientific proposals.
Emanuel Swedenborg's Writings constitute the first and only serious scientific proposal
for our dual citizenship status. His proposal is factual, empirical, systematic,
rational, logical, serious, traditional, solid. All of this was recognized by Swedenborg's
several biographers (see Appendix ).
The discovery of a self-conscious
"upper-rational" within us, is called by Swedenborgthe Second Advent of Jesus
Christ. Of this, the Lord warned that He comments as a Thief, in the night. By this
it was signified that the Second Coming of Christ was to be in a new mode of consciousness
in humankind, the consciousness of the rational, or upper-rational. This consciousness was
to be separate and distinct from the consciousness of the automatic, external self. The
latter was to remain in the darkness of night: that is, no direct vision into the other
world was to be possible, but only after death, when we come to live fully in the
other world. Our dual citizenship is only temporary: upon death we enter into the
rational-spiritual and remain immortal in eternal life.
Imagine a robot discovering a living self within
him or her, depending on its hardware. Or perhaps robots would not have gender in their
self-consciousness. Self-consciousness must thus depend on the hardware -- whether
physical-inert or, physical-biological. Nothing can exist in nothing, n the scientific
intellect: hence the Writings present a full detailed description of the anatomy,
physiology, physics, and geography of our dual citizenship. Swedenborg contributed about
one hundred significant articles and essays in these fields regarding our earth bound
citizenship. He was thus well prepared, as a noted scientist and legislator in Sweden, to
present a serious scientific proposal regarding our spirit bound citizenship. This he did,
in approximately 60 volumes now available in many languages. It is obvious, therefore,
that it looks as if the means are available at this point in our history for a major
scientific breakthrough: the advent in science of the positive bias methodology.
This new era in science is the acceptance of the fact
of our dual citizenship, followed immediately by plenty of proof as to the great
usefulness and concrete payoff of this new technical capacity. However, many
casualties are to be expected> especially at the beginning; that is, the next few
centuries. These casualties will be those who, having looked at the proposal wrongly,
decide that it is insufficient. The apparent insufficiency they will feel will be due to
their own state of contrary affections and not to any real weakness in the proposal.
Hopefully, such people will return to the proposal at some later date with expected
success. Once the positive bias in science filters down to universal education and its
inevitable textbooks or tapes, there will no longer be such an initial resistance to it,
just as the negative bias is so readily accepted today when yet it was once opposed in
religious Europe, Islam, and India.
The startling discovery of the birth of the
conscious rational soon becomes an everyday routine perspective. This discovery is made
within the first few hours of reading the Writings; but it needs continued reading and
study for its growth. The writings, and commentaries based on them, constitute the
only source of food for the growing rational within us. We can experience this quite
readily: nothing else we read seems to make it grow. We obtain all sorts of observations
and opinions of others, as we read their books and articles-- yet not a single one informs
us about our dual citizenship as it is in actuality. This is because the lower-rational
(who is the author of those articles and books) has only natural facts to work with; that
is, only those observations made by individuals through their own thinking effort
and experience. But the automatic self, and its lower-rational, are in the dark of
night regarding the spiritual world -no natural evidence can be given. The evidence
must be spiritual evidence, yet the lower-rational is not admitted to sensing any such
evidence. All spiritual phenomena and facts are beyond the sensing capacity of the
automatic self or external citizenship. Hence it is necessary to have the
conscious rational be born within us and, as this new organ of sensing matures and
develops, we can accumulate the facts and phenomena of the spiritual world. The rational
self is a self-conscious organ constituted of spiritual substances or "heavenly
chemicals" and through it we gain knowledge of our dual citizenship, one mortal and
temporary, the other eternal.
Yet a most important consideration still needs to
be invoked in order to make this proposal acceptable to us. This is the fact that this new
perspective must not be a totally strange or alien view. Or else it would lead to strange
new lifestyles and be a threat to our tradition and vested interests. In this way we can
be protected from disharmonious philosophies that create social strife and revolution in
our society. Fortunately, and due to the very nature of the rational, we experience
the new perspective through the old familiar self. It is not that we suddenly have a
dual personality, like disturbed schizophrenics; our personality remains singular and
healthier and more pronounced and integrated. The rational does not, and cannot, express
-itself by itself -- it can only be present in our consciousness through the external,
automatic self, as long as we live in this world with our physico-chemical bodies.
As the new spiritual-rational is born within us
through the study of the Writings of Swedenborgour external self or personality is empowered
with more extreme traits in the positive direction: we gradually learn to apply the
new rational to all the departments of life -- our jobs, our careers, our hobbies, our
families, our artistic and mechanical abilities, and our inner subjective feelings and
understandings. No doubt one of the first tasks of religious psychology will be to
document the increasing abilities of people who act with the newly acquired rational
from the Writings of Swedenborg. If such proof were not abundantly evident there could be
no real value to this new rational.
Because the rational works through the old
automatic self, Our new perspective will reinforce our external personality and expand our
conscious awareness. This change must be felt as familiar, or else it is not genuine and
valid. The new perspective will definitely be new, but as well, it will be consonant or
harmonious with what is already there, and will not require a change in lifestyle,
religion, profession, or marriage partner. On the contrary, this new rational will show
how all along, we were governed by the spiritual through our dual citizenship. It
is thus a self-discovery rather than a new creed.
The new rational is organic: it has structure or
form, it has function or qualities, and it develops and matures in regular, lawful steps.
Its structure is similar to the human body; its function is similar to the functions of
the human organs and processes; its growth or development is according to knowable
spiritual laws. This similarity is called correspondences in the Writings. The
reason this correspondence exists is that all things and laws of the natural world are effects
caused by corresponding things and laws in the spiritual world. This law of
correspondence insures that all things of our dual citizenship agree and cooperate with
the same goals and purposes of creation. An analogy is what we read in fiction or in
drama: the events, even those that are scientifically or practically impossible, are
patterned after the events that we know of, or else we would not read them. Similarly in
dreams: though all sorts of absurdities may be depicted in them, yet they remain patterned
after what we know, or else we could not recognize them and relate to them as we do. Since
the rational was in us all along (though not consciously, and not maturely developed) we
experience recognition rather than novelty as we become more conscious of it. If this
were not so, we would feel strange and alien to this new experience. Instead, the new
rational is like an uncovering of unsuspected sensations; it is like the feeling when we
relax and suddenly begin to notice the distinct background noises that were there all
along.
In terms of content, the new
spiritual-rational offers explanations and answers to all the conscious,automatic self,
puzzles and questions we ever head about our inner life, about the origin of our thoughts
and feelings, our fate upon death, the structure of our personality from the inner view,
the history of our race regarding inner life, the communication we have with spirits, the
existence of humans on other planets, and many more like these. The rational is thus given
historical and logical information from which to survey our reality in its entirety and
completion. We will now present a sketch of Swedenborg's proposal of the new rational
within us.
Before exposing oneself to the Writings of
Swedenborg' it may be well to pause and examine the real purpose we wish to read it.
With sufficient reflection and clarification, we may approach it with the positive bias on
the basis of the reactions of those who came to the Writings without prejudice. After all,
this is a most serious and serene subject: the actual proof to our curious minds that each
and every one of us, without any exception, lives as a dual citizen, the one
natural-mortal, the other spiritual-eternal, and that these two are in correspondence. In
other words, we have a double! The enormity of this proof instantly converts our
lower-rational, and from then on, the delights and uses of the upper-rational continue to
grow in us as new affections, new cognitions, and new personalities. This is a slow growth
with little external change; but the internal is enormously more active, more conscious.
From this new internal "me", each of us feels a new lease on life and happiness.
It is well therefore to prepare oneself to such
an extraordinary occasion by a little reflection and purging of old falsehoods we hold. We
all hold them. This is because, to become mature, we need to vest ourselves with a
"role personality" or "the automatic self." This place within the
self, is made of our accumulated experience, and manifest as our familiar memories,
knowledges from school and reading, affections built up from drama, TV, music stars,
biographies, and the innumerable tales we listen to in a decade of living. All this mass
of orderly experience is stored up in us and is available for use and reflection. Our
lower-rational is doing the reflection' using the content stored up in the natural mind,
or automatic self. This lower-rational is going to read the Writings of Swedenborg
and, if released from prejudice in our affections, it will be astounded to discover a
purer part of itself, a sort of fabulous ancestor. Our lower-rational released
suddenly finds its true freedom like the fish of the ocean that grew wings and became
birds of the sky. Suddenly the lower-rational senses its upper parts and, is is instantly
humbled.
How do we release the lower-rational into this
new existence? First, we need to receive the possibility of dual citizenship. As
long as we feel that this is impossible or ridiculous or demented, as we tend to feel due
to the climate of the intellectual world today, we cannot even begin the examination of
the proof. Still, when with some time and effort, we want to lay aside our prejudice, we
can release the lower- from its needless bondage to material ideas of the self.
Dual citizenship can be, and has been, conceptualized by scientists in material terms.
Since this knowledge is common> and taught in education, it is then necessary that we
examine our premises more objectively, and strictly in conformity to "cold"
logic.
As adolescent, and still immature adults, we have
imbibed material ideas of the self through courses of study, or through dramatic shows
where the self is portrayed as consisting only, or mostly, of material content: desire for
money, fame, power, acceptance, status, security, knowledge, adventure, beauty, or just
for the unknown of it. These purposes of life belong to the automatic self and involve
only the things of this life, of temporary value. In religion, we are offered
something more than temporary, the promise of immortal life to its richest and fullest,
far outpacing in value the life we have here and now. The lower-rational can see
this, though not the automatic self. Yet the automatic self can be made to release its
illogical bond over the lower- rational. Each of us can persuade our own
automatic self to do so for the sake of material benefits: if released, the lower-rational
amalgamates with the upper-rational, and this new conscious rational beams down to the
automatic self a host of material benefits such as more pleasures, more satisfactions,
more abilities, more security, more tangible and practical views, more inventiveness, more
ingenuity, more self-confidence --- you name it, all of that and more. Naturally, the
automatic self cannot resist such a fabulous shopping list. Truly we want all those
things, and surely we can have it all just by releasing the lower-rational.
But how do we release our lower-rational? Examine
your current views. What do you know of the dual citizenship issue. What are your views on
the self, the external versus the internal part. At first, we tend to think of the
internal self as in medicine: the internist takes care of the internal parts and the skin
doctor or eye doctor or dentist take care of the external parts. In this materialistic
thinking, the internal parts are still material parts. Now consider your thoughts
and your feelings: these include what your are conscious of and the countless experiences
you are not conscious of. These thoughts and feelings are internal and they are not in
this material world. This proposition is simple and true yet we argue against it at
first because of prejudice. We were taught by prejudice to approach things with the
negative bias: so, we respond automatically by thinking that thoughts and feelings could
still be in this world.
We have many arguments in support of this. The
non-material world has never been proven to exist: " if it were really real, would
people not be able to prove it? No one has ever come back from the dead to tell us about
it; or, why are there so many reports of spirits in history and in primitive tribes but
not over here in the modern city and the university? Could all of modern history and
civilization and science and philosophy be wrong? Isn't the agnostic view most logical to
hold: after all, if there is an after life, I'll find out about then. It is not good to
dwell on inner things while we are here. And so on. All these arguments rest on material
ideas, that is, ideas based only on external experience obtained from the senses and
confirmed through the lower-rational.
Still, the above doubts can be shown to be fakes.
They all ignore one very obvious thing: religions. Every child receives religion
from its culture. Later the adolescent and immature adult discards religion and, either is
non-observant or, is externally observant. But the childhood religion, called the Old
Church state within us, never dies; it only waits.
When the automatic self remembers religion from
childhood, it experiences a deep felt pang in our adult conscious self. We suddenly become
aware, first, that it has not died, and second, that it lies so deep, so deep within
us that we are amazed we have such depth in us. We are astounded because as adults we
remember our best times and deepest moments, and we think highly of them; yet they are
dwarfed by the mountain of feeling surging forth from this memory of childhood
religious feelings. So, with this new memory, and with the promises of great material
benefits, the automatic self is persuaded to release the lower-rational so that it may
sore up and into the inner world, and from there to bring back the information, the
perspective, the richness, immortality and eternal youth.
The lower-rational,once thus released, soars.
From a higher perspective, lower solutions appear quite clearly in their own light of
inadequacy and insufficiency and irrationality. The history of men and women of science
and literature is replete with brilliant lower-rational selves, working as blind
investigators. We think for instance of Sigmund Freud and B.F. Skinner as the two great
architects of this century's views on the self and how it matures. Freudian, and related
psychodynamic and psychoanalytic approaches, postulate inner mechanisms or psychic
apparatus, inner forces in conflict or in balance, inner habits and traits and networks--
in other words the psyche or mind. Yet all of this remains mere theoretical speculation: none
of it has ever led to a single piece of discovery from the inner world -- no
heaven, no angels, no spirits, no magic, no transcendence, nothing. Freud's approach leads
to nothing within us that is of another concrete world. Many claim that the non-Freudian
psychoanalist, Jung, does seem to have discovered something of the other world. However
Jung's description of the inner world is ephemeral and private. So is the inner world of
Aldous Huxley, Rudolph Steiner, Charles Tart, and the various cultish inner worlds of the
gurus and spiritualists. As proof that none of these activities ever turned up anything of
the other world, is the very fact that inner experiences were defined as private, unique,
and extremely difficult to reach. This is indistinguishable from what fantasy and dream
are: they are private, unique, and deep within. Carlos Castaneda, and the other works on
sorcery, are more advanced in this respect since they insist on power demonstrations;
these are hard come by through mere speculation and fantasy. Still, because sorcery is out
of our reach, or taste, we do not see it as a solution either.
So we are back to the fundamental
question: what about religion?
Here we need to lay aside adult versions
and justifications of religion:' whether we have it or not; whether there is a true
religion or not; whether God is personal, singular, or Trinitarian; whether there is going
to be an end to the world; whether spirits possess people; whether priests should run for
public office; whether giving 10% is necessary; and so on.
All of these questions, issues, and problems
about religion involve the material ideas of the automatic self; they are of course
important to the survival of external religious institutions. But beyond that, we also
want to inquire into the vital issues of the inner self; for this, we need to
backtrack to the period in our life, when we felt that religion was a matter of instant
life and death. This is our childhood religion, the Old within us.
In this state of the Old Church within us we are
brought to religion by our parents and teachers and caretakers while we are
intellectually innocent. Our lower-rational, in its childhood days, is a bird; not a
fishnor a creeping thing of the ground. The childhood intellect, though ignorant of
knowledges of the world, is yet still free of material ideas. take literally the
assertions they hear about God, His Omniscience and Omnipotence, good angels and bad
devils, sin, punishment, guilt, antirecessionary prayer, the power of holiness, and the
many other things of its own religious denomination. This literal belief and
acceptance of the dual citizenship can be regained as adults so that we may persuade
ourselves to release the lower-rational from its material bondage.
Once this is done by an act of sincere judgment,
out of one's aspirations for the real truth, and the love in it, we are well prepared for
success in our reading of the Writings of Swedenborg.
And now we come to a closer view of these
Writings. We begin with a review of the topics of one of the books of the Writings called Heaven
and Hell. This is one of the better known books of Swedenborg and was familiar to
many men of letters of the last two hundred years or sdin America: Blake, Huxley, Henry
James, Sr., William James, Emmerson, Helen Keller, Rudolf Steiner, Jung, Abraham Lincoln,
Henry Thoreau, Horace Mann, Elisabeth Browning, Balzac, B audelaire, and many others. This
relationship to Swedenborg has been documented by the Swedenborg Foundation of New York
(founded, 1850) and other independent biographers and historical researchers (see
Bibliography).
We present these topics in outline form,
selecting from the headings Swedenborg appended as footnotes throughout the books, in its
modern edition. These are not sufficient for a justification of the statements; for this
the reader will find a copy of the book in his or her nearest public library. But the
headings are informative of the range and completeness of the answers the Writings give.
When viewed without prejudice, these topical positions amount to a full revelation of
the geography and inhabitants of the other world. No other scientific or literary
figure in our history has ever given us a single real fact about our dual citizenship.
Here, in this book, we are given thousands of concrete facts from a spiritual eye witness,
a competent and renowned scientist, legislator, and journalist, who is not content in
merely giving what he saw, but presents all the facts in an integrated contextualized
explanation. The book appeals to the rational, not the blind faith; to the scientific, not
the sensational; to factual proof, not mere speculation; to public evidence, not private
vision. Let us then begin.
Continued in this glossary entry called Heaven and Hell
Articles on the Affective-Cognitive Connection:
The Will
and Understanding || The Heart and Lungs
|| Good
and Truth || Religious Behavorism
|| Religious
Psychology || Comprehensive Discourse Analysis
|| Driving
Behavior || Phases of
Development in Becoming Internet Literate || In Psychoterapy
|| The
Threefold Self || Symbols and
Drawings || Topical
Organization in Social Psychology || Titles of
Articles || Resistance to
Health Behaviors || Language Teaching
|| Song
Analysis || Genetic
Culture || Cross-cultural
Atals of Affective Meanings || Swedenborg's
Theory of Trisubstantivism
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