Scientific discovery of Spiritual Laws given in Rational
Scientific Revelations
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Series: |
Main Concepts: Mental Psychology || Mental Anatomy || Mental Physiology || Mental Biology || Biology of Immortality || Biochemistry of Consciousness || Spiritual Psychology || Theistic Psychology || Rational Psychology || Body-Mind Correspondences || Regeneration and Spiritual Combat || Dying and Resuscitation || Medical View on Heaven and Hell || Rational Consciousness of God || Eternal Conjugial Love of Soul Mates || Second Death || Omniproprium and human quasi-omniscience || As-of-Self Freedom || Divine Psychologist || Vertical Community || Grand Human and Grand Monster ||
The Organic Mind Discovering the Mental World of Eternity Dr. Leon James
Go to: Part 1 || Part 2 Part 1 begins here Table of Contents Discovering of the Mental World of Eternity Chart of the Anatomical Layers of the Mind The Mental World of Eternity Viewed in Successive Order The Mental World of Eternity Viewed in Simultaneous Order Relationships Between Mental Layers Mental Anatomy Notation System Chart of Body-Mind Relationships for the Mental Body and Physical Body Chart of Mental Layers Grouped By Threes Intersubjectivity in Virtual World and in Mental World Mental Anatomy of the Individual's Threefold Self Exercise Homework: The Visible Body: The ACS Sequence of Execution in Behavior Personality Development and Spiritual Growth Mental Physiology of the Threefold Self The Biochemistry of Consciousness. AWM Method of Consciousness Raising Consciousness Raising From the Divine Psychologist Exercise for Self-witnessing the Threefold Self on the Daily Round Self-witnessing Inventory for the Natural Mind. Body-Mind Correspondences in Popular Symbolisms Exercise on Mind-Body Correspondences Taxonomy of Unregenerate and Regenerate Loves in the Natural Mind The Anatomy of Spiritual Combat in Temptation. The Basic Psychodynamics of Living
What is Mental Psychology
Mental psychology is an everyday self-help tool for modifying our inherited hellish traits and acquiring heavenly traits.
Human beings are born with a temporary physical body and an immortal mental body. Our mind or mental organs are located in the mental body because mental events such as our sensations, our thoughts, and our feelings, are objects than can exist only in the mental world through our mental body (or “mind”). When we undergo the dying and resuscitation process, which takes about 33 hours to complete, we are separated from the physical world and are resuscitated in the mental world with our mental body. We then continue our immortal life in that world of eternity. It is then that we have to face our endless future, which consists of entering either of two worlds of existence, one called heaven, the other hell. No other option exists. It makes good sense therefore that each of us seriously examine the proposal of mental psychology in order to find out how we control this awesome outcome.
Mental psychology is a rational description and explanation of the biology of our immortality. In order to control our eternal outcome we need to understand that this outcome is not a judgment, reward or punishment, that is imposed on each of us by stronger forces. The outcome is a medical necessity because it is a biological process. Just as the outcome of having a ripe fruit to pick, is determined by a large number of prior biochemical and physiological procedures performed by the cells and fibers of the plant. The outcome of heaven or hell after our resuscitation is determined by the loves we have acquired, and especially the ruling love that controls all other loves underneath itself. After resuscitation every individual goes through mental experiences by which one comes to recognize our ruling love, which often lays hidden beneath the view of our daily conscious mind. This ruling love determines our choice for heaven or for hell. No one chooses for us or judges our past deeds and life connected to a physical body. We choose, or more precisely, our ruling love chooses.
We are unwilling to do anything else but what conforms to our ruling love, choosing heaven if it is a heavenly love, or choosing hell, if it is a hellish love. There are no in-between loves. Every human love is sourced either in our mental heaven or in our mental hell. We choose where we want our consciousness to be, which is always according to our ruling love. Loves are biological operations of our mental organs. We need to understand the mental physiology of love and the biochemistry that creates our consciousness. We need to understand what role God plays in this process and how that affects the outcome. We need to understand that we are born with inherited mental traits that predispose us toward the enjoyment of hellish traits and the aversion of heavenly traits. This universal imbalance creates easy pathways towards hellish loves and requires greater motivation to maintain heavenly loves. Mental psychology provides the knowledge by which each of us can manage this process to our ultimate and eternal advantage, avoiding being stuck forever in the atrocities of our hells.
Traditional and universal mental health sciences, programs and policies end at the death of the individual. The most important and critical phase following death is not dealt with. Hence the knowledge is lacking in both the professionals and the population. Mental psychology can restore this unfortunate attrition, providing a medical and psychological description and explanation of heaven and hell. Mental health knowledge can enlarge its scope by including mental psychology in its practice. Every individual needs mental health literacy that covers the period from birth to death, and from resuscitation to immortality when entering heaven or hell, which is called the second death.
Gaining a knowledge of how our mind works gives us the ability of rebuilding our character. Everyone possesses inherited mental traits that are positive, creative, and heavenly, as well as mental traits that are negative, destructive, and hellish. In their daily lives people uncontrollably oscillate between heavenly and hellish mental states. Observe some portions of your daily life and see how your mood changes from heavenly to hellish in an instant. For example, you’re relaxing, feeling in a good mood, thinking that everything is working out for you now. The phone rings at that moment and brings bad news. You react by going into shock, at first, then you start venting, then you start feeling bad, scared, confused as to what to do next. Your stomach starts spasming. Sweat breaks out all over your body. Etc. You went from heaven to hell in your mind from one moment to the next. This is typical, normal, and occurs throughout the life process for an adult.
Other examples of character weaknesses that people are routinely unable to control includes widespread symptoms of · Depression · Divorce · Unhappiness · being overweight and under-exercised · feeling little enthusiasm for work · worrying about the future · feeling guilty about the past · procrastinating and being late as habits · inability to feel enthusiasm and the zest of life · feeling pessimistic in general · getting angry and taking it out on others · neglecting duties and responsibilities · acting ineffectively or irrationally · feeling limitations · feeling conflictual without resolution · acting cruel to others · feeling hatred, desiring retaliation and vengeance · living at our lowest mental capacity · being misled by others, · etc. These are common mental habits of most people, indicating that there is a general absence of knowledge of mental psychology.
One of the reasons that this knowledge has not been available is due to the scientific practices of the mental health sciences such as psychology and medicine. They employ a negative bias methodology that excludes from study anything that does not stop at death. The afterlife is excluded. God is excluded. If however the afterlife and God exist, this exclusion process is a bias that prevents mental psychology knowledge from becoming part of the explanations of human growth and development. Mental psychology is in the positive bias methodology, which assumes that God and the afterlife exist. Once this assumption is granted as a possibility, a wealth of new mental health knowledge becomes available to help people manage those character weaknesses that produce the list of everyday problems for the majority of people anywhere.
Mental psychology is based on mental anatomy and mental physiology. In the negative bias mode of scientific thinking the expression “mental anatomy” is viewed as a metaphor based on the anatomy of the body. But in the positive bias mode of scientific thinking, the word “mental” is a dualist concept that contrasts with “physical.” Those who think of “mental” in materialistic terms that are proper to the negative bias science, define it in relation to the physical brain. In other words, sensations, thoughts, and feelings are effects produced by the physical brain. In the positive bias mode, however, the “mental=brain” formula is called materialistic reductionism, and substitutes for it, substantive dualism, which refers to the existence two separate worlds, one physical, the other, mental.
The two-world perspective of dualism (this life and the afterlife), has been held by every human generations from the beginning to now. The development of mental psychology as a science is restoring dualism to the discourse of scientists. This is made possible by the fact that mental psychology brings forth for the first time a concrete proposal on mental anatomy and physiology, not as metaphors, but as actual structures of the mental organs. Knowledge of this anatomy gives us an entirely new collection of psychological principles and tools for dealing with human problems and development.
Mental psychology requires a theistic perspective because human anatomy and physiology follow spiritual cause-effect laws called correspondences. Once we allow for the possibility of God’s existence (positive bias science), we are bound by scientific thinking to specify in mechanistic detail the cause-effect operations by which an “omnipotent, omnipresent” God manages every detail in our mental organs, which give us the ability of integrating our sensing, thinking, and feeling into human consciousness and life. Mental psychology will have to specify the details of this relationship between God and every person. The idea of God’s omnipotence and omnipresence requires us to think about how God operates our mental life, and what is the specific purpose for which this is done. The concept of “self” and “human freedom” must be specified explicitly and rationally within the attributes that are given to God as omnipotent and omnipresent.
As a science, mental psychology is separate and independent of any other enterprise such as religion, philosophy, culture, belief system, etc. God is an accepted working idea in many places in society and culture, but mental psychology as science, cannot rely on or be associated with any of these non-scientific enterprises. Hence it is necessary in mental psychology to give a scientific meaning to God in both the physical and in the mental worlds.
Mental psychology is still a developing field, but its basis and foundation are now available to anyone who wishes to study it. At this point of development, mental psychology can give definitive and fairly precise answers to the following questions and issues. 1. The anatomy of mental organs, their structure, their operations, their integrated interactions to produce activity in the physical body 2. The relationship of correspondence between the anatomical systems in the physical body and the anatomical systems of the mental body that contains the mental organs 3. The fairly precise description of the mental world of eternity that contains the mental body, how our life in it is immortal, and begins in conscious awareness immediately following our separation from the physical body by the dying and resuscitation process, which takes about 33 hours to complete 4. A fairly precise description of the development of the natural mind, and how the spiritual mind is dependent for maturation upon this development 5. A precise explanation of how God is involved in the process of regeneration, which is a lifelong process of facing daily temptations that involve us in choice-making between hellish and heavenly motives and enjoyments. Because God arranges the physical and social events for these temptations, God is known in mental psychology as the Divine Psychologist. 6. A fairly precise description of how we experience life and consciousness in the mental world of eternity following death, including the mental state of unity called the conjoint self, which is the immortal life of heaven between soul mates in love with each other 7. A fairly precise description of the vertical community, which shows how the entire human race is integrated, and specifically, how people already in eternity influence the mental development of people still connected to the physical world 8. A research methodology called self-witnessing, which involves people in the daily practice of cooperating with the Divine Psychologist as they undergo regeneration of the three layers of the natural mind in sequence: first, the rational mind, next, the materialistic mind, and finally, the corporeal mind. We experience each of these three consciousness levels uncontrollably. Mental psychology gives us management control over this operation. The result is the gradual and progressive elimination of our hellish traits, and their replacement with heavenly traits. This allows us to live with less personal problems, and to achieve higher levels of human consciousness, productivity and usefulness to society, a more encompassing and fulfilling happiness, and a deeper capacity to love in relationships.
As you study this subject, I recommend that you share your cumulating thoughts and discoveries with your friends and acquaintances. Practice telling them what you understand. This will deepen your understanding and allow you to go on more easily with your study. Note what they are objecting to and what basis they have for the objections. See if you can come up with rational answers to their objections or confusions.
I strongly recommend that you print out the various diagrams, charts, and tables that you can find by scrolling through the pages (Select the diagram, give the Print command under the File menu, indicate “Selection” – this will print the diagram only. Do this for all the diagrams.) As you read through the text you will need to refer to the diagrams. This will make the study much easier, perhaps from a difficulty level of 12, for reading the text without the diagrams present for inspection, versus a difficulty level of 3, for reading the text with the diagram present for your inspection. This is a four to one ratio in difficulty. Make it easier on yourself. You will note that mental psychology uses a Mental Anatomy Notation System, and that the anatomical layer being discussed, is always indicated in parenthesis throughout the text. First, become familiar with the notation system and the anatomical layers. Commit them to memory and explain them to friends. Second, read the text and be sure to inspect the chart of layers, or the diagram being discussed, as you try to make sense of what is being explained. Always try to visualize the layers when one is being referred to.
By following these consistent study practices you will be rewarded with a clear, scientific, and practical knowledge of how your mind works, what you need to do to manage it, and how you prepare it to be a mind suitable for heavenly life in eternity.
Discovering of the Mental World of Eternity
Consciousness is the awareness of sensorimotor appearances in the mental world of eternity.
These appearances are instantiated by correspondence in our sensorimotor organ (S). These environmental appearances or phenomena come into objective existence as a result of the conjoint operation of the affective (A) and cognitive (C) organs. The formula is: A + C = S. For instance, consider some of your dreams in which something is happening to you and around you. You are the dreamer, so you are making up the details in the dream episode. You are conscious of your dream, of how you feel, and what is around you. This is shown by the fact that when you wake up, you sometimes can remember and describe the events and how you felt. Even when you can’t remember your dream, it does not mean you were not conscious of the dream, just that you can’t remember it. Most of the thousands of little details that we are conscious of while awake all day, we cannot remember.
Since you are conscious of your dream, we can call that your dream consciousness. It is a dream world of environmental appearances, and to the dreamer, real appearances. These appearances are instantiated by correspondence in the mental world of eternity, where your sensorimotor organ is located. Your dream consciousness actually sees the dream, and is actually in that dream world. This is common in the mental world of eternity. After the dying and resuscitation process, which together take about 30 hours, we become conscious of the actual environment of our spiritual body. Some people have called it the “spiritual world of the afterlife.” It is interesting to note that people who write about and discuss the “spiritual world” do not note the fact that the “spiritual world” is the mental world of eternity. And people who discuss the “mental” world, do not note that that the mental world is the world of eternity.
The reason is that this secret has not yet been assimilated. But now, recognition of this astounding discovery is likely to grow. You are among the first to hear about it. Something led you to find this document, and leading you to continue reading it. Some people are totally uninterested in our immortality in eternity. It doesn’t seem real to them. But to others, this constitutes fascinating information. You will understand why this difference exists, as you continue to read about The Organic Mind.
The discovery that the mental world we all know so familiarly and intimately, is the world of eternity, or the spiritual world of the afterlife, surely must rank with the greatest discoveries in the history of science. It is equal in significance to the discovery that the earth is but a relatively small planet around the sun, which is a star among the numberless galaxies in the physical universe. This idea attributed to Copernicus in the 15th century is considered as the beginning of the modern scientific view. Today, 600 years later, an equally world changing idea is coming to the intellectual consciousness of humanity. It is the idea that we are born into eternity, and we are in it forever. Dying is merely the separation from the physical body which is totally empty of any mental element such as our memories, our loves, our intentions, and our pleasures. From the moment of birth our mental organs are located in the spiritual body, and we awaken to their consciousness at resuscitation, which is the process of being separated from connection to the physical body.
The knowledge of human immortality has always existed among the evolving generations. Human consciousness of immortality was present since the beginning, the first generation of human beings on this earth. The founder of our educational philosophy and system in the Western World goes back 3,000 years to Aristotle. He wrote about our immortality as part of the scientific knowledge of the day. But it was not modern science. We cannot go back to Aristotle, Plato, or Pythagoras, and obtain from them a mental psychology for the modern mind today. They did not provide us with a modern scientific account of immortality, God, or the ultimate good and truth. As a result the modern march of science has ignored their knowledge, and in the course of time, that science became thoroughly materialistic. The negative bias of materialism or monism, denies a world of eternity outside time that can be the place or basis for our mental organs and consequently, our immortality. Now in the new mental psychology for the modern scientific mind, the appropriate rationale is given for immortality, God, and eternity.
The soul is a living spiritual bar code or spiritual DNA. It has the ability to use materials from the mental world of eternity in order to fashion them into mental organs capable of receiving the radiation of altruism love substance and rationality truth substance streaming out of the Spiritual Sun and permeating everything. Our spiritual body, which we have at birth, is a mental body and is immortal or eternal. Its organic structure and its function or quality is uniquely constructed by each soul. The operation of these mental organs constitutes our consciousness and our immortal life. The genes of consciousness are unique to infinity. The uniqueness of each spiritual bar code forms an endless procession to infinity. God’s Divine Love and Omniscience work out the individual’s moments of consciousness from birth to endless immortality. Every detail is not only foreseen by Divine Omniscience, but provided for and blessed with a mental path traced from our first conscious sensation with our first breath of air that opens our lungs and allows the blood to be oxygenated from itself. The immortal human being then begins the unique life, the unique sequence of moments of consciousness, endlessly lived, enjoyed, and appreciated by every human being.
This unique progression of moments of consciousness belongs to the individual. It is mine, my own. Without it I am not. I cease to exist, without it. We are aware from rationality and science that a unique infinite progression for each human being ever born, requires an infinite Divine Mind to figure it out, and the omnipotence to carry it out, and keep it moving in the direction of ever greater perfection of human consciousness. Think of the moments of consciousness you had in the past few minutes. You had purposeful sensations, thoughts that were coherent or meaningful, and emotions or feelings that express your love or motive – what it is you’re trying to make happen, or what it is you are hoping for when you say something to someone. These moments of your consciousness required a past context that had to be set up – they were not random. God has to manage what exists. Creating things is not enough for the world to follow a progression towards the perfection of human consciousness. God must manage every detail of every event, or else it cannot work out, but can only tend more and more toward anarchy, corruption, destruction, chaos, and meaninglessness – and after that cessation of reality.
When human consciousness is immersed in meaninglessness, it ceases to exist. Consciousness is meaning. Meaninglessness is the annihilation of human consciousness. Human life is consciousness itself.
Built into this existential organic managerial framework is human freedom. Without freedom, there is no consciousness, consequently no human life. Human freedom is acting upon consciousness by means of meaning constructed by love.
Love is therefore the heart of consciousness. Everything of meaning, hence everything of human consciousness, belongs to love, is love’s own, and even is love itself garbed with thoughts, plans, and interpretations. Freedom is to think and do what we love. This is what we call good – to think, speak, and act according to our love, which is then satisfied, and we feel content and peaceful. It does not last because we have contradictory loves.
God’s management of an individual’s unique progression of consciousness requires a mental co-presence that is intimate and loving. God manages the train our thoughts, what comes into our consciousness, and what is blocked from coming into our conscious awareness. God manages each detail, like an author of novel must manage each detail of the setting and the progression of events, including the thoughts and loves or motives of the characters. Every detail that is written down or mentioned, must be coherently worked into the fabric or network of other events and characters. You can see that the author is co-present in the character’s mind. The author must know what the character is thinking, in order to write it down. The author makes it up. Makes it to fit with the context and the other pieces that have been progressing.
Because of this intimate co-presence of God in our mind I have coined the expression “the Divine Psychologist,” which reflects the role or function of that co-presence between God and the person. The Divine Psychologist is continuously managing both the stream of our consciousness and the stream of physical and social events that must go along with our living reality.
Chart of the Anatomical Layers of the Mind
The mental world of eternity, also called the spiritual world of the afterlife, is arranged in human anatomical layers, or “discrete degrees” or levels of functioning. Each layer provides its own level of sensorimotor (S), cognitive (C), and affective (A) operations. The Mental World of Eternity Viewed in Successive Order
The Mental World of Eternity Viewed in Simultaneous Order
You can see that the highest layer in successive order is the inmost layer in simultaneous order. The inmost of every human being is the Spiritual Sun, and the outermost is the physical body.
Note: I recommend that you print out the two charts above so that you have them in front of you and refer to them as you read what follows. Having the two charts available to you as a printout will also allow you to practice memorizing the layers by carrying it around with you and looking at it for a few times every day. It always helps when you try to explain the chart to your friends, especially if you can reproduce the chart from memory. Ultimately you want to be able to reproduce the whole chart from memory. Then you will be able to think and reflect and reason with it as you would use a road map in unknown territory through which you decided to pass through. Be sure to look at the chart whenever any of the layers are mentioned in a sentence (e.g., 7C or 9A, etc.). If you do this persistently, you will soon be able to visualize each layer. As you continue reading mental psychology, you will be able to cumulate the information presented by organizing everything into its proper layer. Then you can think of these layers in your mind as you perform your daily activities. If you do this you will be enlightened, being able to be a dual citizen, a new state that provides incalculable benefits to you and those who are affected by what you do.
Relationships Between Mental Layers
Note that layers are grouped in four sequences of three: layers 1, 2, 3 pertain to God layers 4, 5, 6 pertain to our spiritual mind in eternity (unconscious until resuscitation) layers 7, 8, 9 pertain to our natural mind in eternity (unconscious after death) layers 10, 11, 12 pertain to three bodily containers of the layers above
Notice the sub-layers of the natural and spiritual mind. Layers 7, 8, and 9 combined make up the natural mind, and is also called the “external mind” when it is contrasted with the spiritual mind (layers 4, 5, and 6 combined), which is then called the “internal mind.” In other words, when we contrast the natural vs. the spiritual layers of the mind, we call the natural mind our “external mind” and we call the spiritual mind our “internal mind.” This is because the mental world of eternity is internal to the physical world of the body, which is external. The internal is said to be “within” the external, and “within” is the same as “above.” Thus, what is internal or within is also higher or superior in quality of operation. In the mental world of eternity the top three layers (1, 2, 3) belong to God. The bottom three layers (10, 11, 12) are mere coverings and support for all the rest. The middle six layers constitute our mind, also called our “spirit.” Since mind is called spirit, the mental world of the mind is also called the spiritual world of eternity. Our mind and its organs (layers 4 through 9) are located outside time in eternity. Our physical body and limbus are located in time and place. Layers 7,8,9 constitute our natural mind, while 4,5,6 constitute our spiritual mind. Our natural mind is built up by sensory input from the physical body (layer 12). Hence layers 9 and 8 contain ideas and experiences based on the physical body and world. Layer 7 however is capable of containing spiritual content from Sacred Scripture, from conscience, from enlightenment and insight. At layer 8C we think and reason on the basis of content from the physical world, but at layer 7C we think and reason on the basis of content from the mental world of eternity. This distinction is the very basis for our regeneration and consequent attainment of a heavenly conjugial life in eternity. Layer 7 is called the “interior” sub-layer of the natural mind, and layer 8 is called the “exterior” sub-layer of the natural mind. There is a world of difference between what is exterior and what is interior. For example, think of some physical examples. You wouldn't pay for the chicken you ordered if they give you cleaned up chicken bones. Nor would you pay for TV that has no inner components and is just an empty box. No one can survive on banana peels and coconut shells that have been cleaned of all their interiors. So you can see from this that the exterior is necessary for a protective covering, and that the interior is actually giving you what you want or need. Our exterior mind (layer 8) is what we know ourselves as, the "me" or the "I" or the "self." This self-concept is based on materialistic content from the sensory organs.
We do not know, or believe, that we have an upper layer, a more interior layer, in which we can become conscious of a different "me," a self that is far more important to me since it forms the basis of my immortal life in eternity. The exterior layer 8 thinking and reasoning can be rearranged or corrected with reformation (see Section xx). After reformation, which can take a few weeks or a few months, or longer, we become consciously aware of the existence of the interior layer in our natural mind (7). We recognize for instance, that our familiar voice of conscience and moral reasoning about right and wrong, resides in this interior layer, not in the exterior layer. This is an important mental discovery. Look for it. Examine rationally what it is you are feeling when you just know that something is right or wrong. You will gradually come to realize what is involved in the mental state of "I just know this is wrong (or is right)." It is not something global or undifferentiated. For instance, you definitely know that it is wrong to have the habit of deceiving people. If you think about it rationally, within the positive bias, you will see that there must be a connection between your conscience and heaven, or the layers that are above your natural mind. These are the layers of your heavenly life in eternity and they influence your natural mind in a way to make it possible for you to attain there after resuscitation. So your conscience operations in layer 7C are connected by correspondence to the unconscious operations of layer 6C in your mind. This is what makes possible the "voice of conscience" since the "voice" speaks in natural words the spiritual operations in layer 6. Spiritual operations or thinking and reasoning (layers 6, 5, 4), are based entirely on the information we acquire from the correspondences in Sacred Scripture, from conscience, and from insight or enlightenment. Exterior-natural operations (layer 8) are based entirely on sensuous information from the corporeal consciousness (layer 9) that is closest to the physical body (layer 12). For instance, at the corporeal-natural level of understanding the meaning of Sacred Scripture (layers 9), we read "blood of the sacrifice" and we think of gruesome physical things. If we read "blood" with a sensual understanding of Sacred Scripture, we abstract it into a symbol of God's forgiveness of our sins, which have been transferred to the sacrificial animal. But if we read it through the rational level of understanding Sacred Scripture (layer 7), we see that "blood" discussed in Sacred Scripture is an exterior representative of something interior or spiritual in layer 6 or above. Once we realize this, or discover it, we begin to read Sacred Scripture from this layer (7C), so that reformation of the lower layers can take place through the spiritual truths. Your conscious awareness in layer 7C is being constantly enlightened while you study Sacred Scripture from this interior layer. This applies to the study of theistic psychology since it is the knowledge extracted from Sacred Scripture through the methodology of correspondences. Layer 9 is the lowest or most external portion of the natural mind, and is closest to the physical body (layer 12), hence it is most like the physical body. Layer 4 is called the “inmost” or highest layer of the spiritual mind, layer 5 the “middle” layer of the spiritual mind, and layer 6 the "exterior" or lowest portion of the spiritual mind. This is the closest to the natural mind. Layers that are next to each other are more like each other than layers further away. They play an important transition function since what is intermediate contains something that pertains to the other two layers. Layer 7 (interior-natural) corresponds to layer 4 (interior-spiritual). Layer 8 (exterior-natural) corresponds to layer 5 (exterior-spiritual). Layer 9 (natural corporeal) corresponds to layer 6 (spiritual-natural). Layers that correspond to each other, influence each other more. There is also a correspondence between layers 4A, 5A, 6A 4C, 5C, 6C 4S, 5S, 6S Our afterlife of immortality is consciously experienced in layers 6, 5, and 4. We enter one of these layers permanently at our “second death,” which occurs shortly after resuscitation.
Layers 10, 9, 8, 7 constitute the “world of spirits” where we are resuscitated. Layers 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 constitute the “spiritual world,” which is the mental world of the afterlife in eternity. Layers 3 through 9 are inherited from the biological father; layers 10 and 11 from the mother. Each layer of the mind contains three receptor organs: affective (A), cognitive (C), and sensorimotor (S). The affective organ is called “celestial” because it is a receptor of spiritual heat or good, which come out of layer 1 in infinite variety and quality. The cognitive organ is called “spiritual” because it is a receptor of spiritual light or truth, which come out of layer 1 in infinite variety and quality. The sensorimotor organ is called “natural” because it is a receptor of the combination of the affective (A) and cognitive (C) organs, expressing that joint operation in the external plane of that layer (S). The external plane of each layer (S) produces the sensuous appearances of the environment. For instance, our conscious layer 7 contains a celestial feature in its affective organ (layer 7A); a spiritual feature in its cognitive organ (layer 7C); and a natural feature in its sensorimotor organ (layer 7S). The affective organ of our natural mind (what we intend and love every day) is therefore called a “celestial-natural” operation. Similarly, the cognitive organ of our natural mind (what we think and understand) is therefore called a “spiritual-natural” operation. And similarly, the sensorimotor organ of our natural mind (what we sensate and can move) is therefore called a “natural-corporeal” operation. Again: when we are spiritual angels in the second heaven our mind operates at layers 5A, 5B, and 5C. The things we intend and love are spiritual-celestial operations (5A). The things we think and understand are spiritual-spiritual operations (5C). The things we sensate and move are spiritual-natural operations (5S). Again, at layers 7C and 8C we can have “natural understanding,” i.e., understanding of “natural- rational truths.” We can also have at layer 7C (but not at layer 8C) “spiritual understanding,” i.e., understanding of “spiritual-rational truths” and “celestial-rational truths.” It is also the case that the affective operations at all layers are relatively a celestial operation because it involves the reception of good or spiritual heat (love), and this is always celestial (layers 4A, 5A, 6A, 7A, 8A, 9A). The cognitive operations in all layers are a spiritual operation because it involves the reception of truth or spiritual light (wisdom), and this is always spiritual (layers 4C, 5C, 6C, 7C, 8C, 9C). The sensorimotor operations in all layers are a natural operation because it involves the expression of the affective and cognitive jointly in the lowest sub-layer, which is always natural (layers 4S, 5S, 6S, 7S, 8S, 9S). Here are some further examples with which you can practice reading, understanding, and memorizing the anatomy chart: 4A = love or good (spiritual heat) in the celestial (upper) layer of the spiritual mind (celestial love or good) 5A = love or good (spiritual heat) in the spiritual (middle) layer of the spiritual mind (spiritual love or good) 6A = love or good (spiritual heat) in the natural (lower) layer of the spiritual mind (spiritual-natural love or good) 7A = love or good (spiritual heat) in the celestial (upper) layer of the natural mind (natural love or good)
4C = truth (or rationality) in the celestial (upper) layer of the spiritual mind (celestial-rational truth) 6C = truth (or rationality) in the natural (lower) layer of the spiritual mind (spiritual-natural truth) 7C = truth (or rationality) in the rational (upper) layer of the natural mind (natural-rational truth)
5S = outward appearances in the spiritual (middle) layer of the spiritual mind (spiritual appearances) 6S = outward appearances in the natural (lower) layer of the spiritual mind (spiritual-natural appearances) 8S = outward appearances in the natural (middle) layer of the natural mind (natural appearances) 9S = outward appearances in the natural (lower) layer of the natural mind (corporeal appearances) Etc. You can practice with the rest of the sub-layers in the chart.
The immortal mental body with which we are born, contains our mind, that is, our mental organs, which are called the affective organ (A), the cognitive organ (C), and the sensorimotor organ (S). These three mental organs are in the spiritual-mental body in the same way that the physical body contains the circulatory system, the respiratory system, and the nervous-skeletal system. The circulatory system in the physical body corresponds to the affective organ in the spiritual body, whose operations give us the subjective experience of feeling and willing. Feelings in the mental body correspond to the circulatory system in the physical body, because feelings nourish the life of experience. Feeling and willing give us
The respiratory system corresponds to the cognitive organ whose operations give us the subjective life of thinking, reasoning, and intelligence. Thoughts in the spiritual body, that is, the operations of the cognitive organ, correspond to the respiratory system in the physical body, because thoughts guide our feelings and clarifies them, just as oxygen cleans and purifies the blood. Thoughts give us
The nervous-skeletal system corresponds to the sensorimotor organ whose operations give us the subjective life of sensing the environment outside the body and of acting upon that environment through motor determinations. Sensations and motor determinations in the mental body correspond to the nervous system in the physical body, because sensations give us the life of experiencing the world outside of us and motor determinations give us the ability to make our bodies move and interact with the environment. Sensations and motor determinations give us
Here is then a summary of the exact correspondence between mental anatomy and physical anatomy (try to memorize this after you studied the details given above):
The affective life of feelings cohere together as a cumulative whole called the affective self. The cognitive life of thoughts cohere together as a cumulative whole called the cognitive self. The sensorimotor life of sensations and motor determinations cohere together as a cumulative whole called the sensorimotor self. Every person can therefore be studied, described, and understood as a threefold self.
Mental Anatomy Notation System
Where are the Layers of the Mind? The layers of the mind are layers of functioning of the affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor operations. These mental operations occur in the spiritual body, not the physical body. When we are born the two bodies act together by correspondence but they are each located in their own world. The physical body is born and dies in the physical world. The mental body is born in the mental world of eternity and is immortal. At the death of the physical body, we continue our mental life in the spiritual body, but now detached from the physical connection. The mental body (layer 9) is a mental body constructed out of spiritual substances from the Spiritual Sun (layer 1).
These three spiritual organs function at six distinct levels. For instance, the heart in the mental body is the center of the circulatory system. The heart is therefore known as one's ruling love. This is the chief love and controls all the sub-loves. Our loves or affections are arranged in a hierarchy (like an army or government) with the chief love or ruling love at the center, and controlling all other loves from the center to the periphery. The heart controls the system of arteries and capillaries reaching to every portion of the body. Similarly, the ruling love controls all the sub-loves to make sure that they are not opposed to the ruling love. The smallest capillaries in the extremities of the mental body are the operations of the variety of little affections that we all have, such as preferences, choices, attractions, aversions, etc. These sub-loves are expressed as the operations of arteries, capillaries, blood, lymph, gall bladder, liver, and other functions of the body relating to nutrition. The spiritual heart is the center of this affective circulatory control in the spiritual body. The operation of the spiritual heart is our ruling love. The activity of the spiritual lungs in the mental body are the operations of our cognitive organ which we experience as thinking and consciousness. The respiratory system encompasses the lungs as the center and extends all around and throughout the body through the veins that carry used blood to the lungs for purification. The respiratory system thus extends to the organs that purify blood such as the kidneys and bladder. The respiratory system also encompasses the esophagus, mouth, and nose which are involved in carrying air to the lungs. Our level of cognitive operation depends on which respiratory and purificatory organ carries out the operations that are most consistent with our ruling love. We may prefer to immerse our consciousness in the mental functions of the spiritual kidney, for instance. This means that our ruling love desires to use the reasoning process as a way to face reality or to solve its problems. Or we may prefer to immerse our mentality in the spiritual operations of the vocal chords and tongue which are closer to the center of the lungs. The vocal chords, tongue, and lips in the mental body perform the mental functions of rationality, the positive bias in science, abstract reasoning, and taxonomic structures. You can see from these few details that mental anatomy is a complex subject, just matching in complexity the physical anatomy and its biochemistry and genetics. Remember this rule: Every detail of anatomy and functioning in the physical body is matched one for one by a detail in the anatomy and functioning of the spiritual body. This is the basic mind-body issue that has been debated in psychology and philosophy for centuries. In the history of this controversy, the physical body is referred to as "the body" and our thoughts and feelings are referred to as "the mind." In theistic psychology "the mind" is the mental body which contains the three mental organs: the affective organ of feelings as the operation of the circulatory system; the cognitive organ of thoughts as the operation of the respiratory system. The sensorimotor organ of sensations and motor acts as the operation of the neuro-skeletal system While we need to distinguish the three systems in the mental body we also need to remember that neither system can work alone or separately from the other two systems. This means that we cannot do any thinking (respiratory system) unless the lungs are involved and engaged with the heart (affective loves). In order for us to interpret something, make sense out of it, plan something for it (cognitive respiration) we must have a motive or intention that initiates and controls the thinking. In the absence of all motives we are asleep or comatose. Our thinking is driven by our feeling or intending. The desire to stay alive (feeling heart) is necessary to think about anything. Thinking (cognitive) is driven by the desire to survive (affective). The spiritual lungs (cognitive thinking) cannot function unless the spiritual heart (affective ruling love) is connected to it and pumping blood into it and out of it. The operation of pumping spiritual blood in the mental body is the operation of our ruling love, as for instance, the desire to survive. This central motive (heart) controls all other sub-motives (capillaries, liver) in directing one's thinking and planning (lungs, kidneys, tongue). When the heart (ruling love) and the lungs (rational thinking) act together and are engaged, they trigger the sensorimotor action. If the heart and the lungs, or the motivating goal and the plan, are disengaged, then no sensorimotor act follows and we are helpless. Another area where you can see this united action is by realizing that air and water belongs to respiration and purification, while nutrients in the blood belong to circulation and the provision of nutrients. The nutrients of the blood are constructed of nitrogen and oxygen, which are key components along with carbon, of all organic nutrients. So nutrients in the blood (ruling love and sub-loves) use air and water in the lungs and kidneys (interpreting and planning thoughts) to perform their function, individually as well as globally. After resuscitation we begin our life of immortality in the spiritual body. Our consciousness is then in the celestial-rational mentality of layer 4 (third heaven) when our ruling love is focused on conjugial love, which is the love of a husband and wife conjoining their feelings and motives, or spiritual heart. When our ruling love is focused on understanding spiritual truths more and more purely or interiorly, our consciousness is in the spiritual-rational mentality of layer 5. When our ruling love is focused on the spiritual environment of external appearances and community organization, our consciousness is in the spiritual-natural mentality of layer 6. Swedenborg describes in detail what life is like in these three layers of eternity. Prior to resuscitation our conscious mentality operates at the three layers called corporeal (9), sensuous-abstract or materialistic (8), and rational (layer 7). The inherited corporeal mentality (layer 9) is held up by a ruling love that is focused on domination of others, whose sub-loves include cruelty, arrogance, hypocrisy, deceitfulness, risk taking, pride, prejudice, avarice, selfishness, egotism, grossness. When the corporeal mentality is regenerated by a spiritual love it becomes purified and clean, as for instance the enjoyment of pleasure and comfort, the disciplining of one's body for health, strength and skill, the motive of craftsmanship, or the desire for glory in patriotic service. Layer 9 is less active after resuscitation than before because the environment of the mental body is created by the ruling love, while the physical environment is independent of our loves.
The diagram above shows how each society in the Grand Human and Grand Monster regions is an image of the whole and of the individual part. This may be called an instance of the principle of synecdoche. The ancients wrote that an individual person is a microcosm of the entire universe. The shape of the mental world of eternity is in the image of God as the Divine Human. From a logical perspective everything God creates must be in the shape of God since nothing that is God’s, can be given to created things, but always remains God’s. Hence since we have the human shape, and since we are created by God, it follows that God must have the Human shape. We can therefore use the expression “the Divine Human” to refer to God as God exists for human beings. This is to be distinguished from God-as-God outside creation, about which nothing specific can be known or understood as it is infinite in all ways, and the infin te cannot be known or comprehended by the finite.
For the same logical reasons everything about us, in general and in detail, is in the image of that corresponding part in the Divine Human, or the Divine Psychologist who is co-present in each mental organ as living altruism love substance (A) and living rationality truth substance (C), and from these two, living sensorimotor substance or consciousness (S). Consciousness produces the environment by built-in correspondences. First the mental environment around us is produced, then the physical environment around us is produced, though in different ways. The mental environment is produced instantaneously out of mental ether, and lasts as long as the love (A) and truth (C) are united and operating. The environment in the Grand Human is produced by our ruling heavenly love and its hierarchy of heavenly sub-loves (A).
The celestial cities in our eternity are magnificent in architecture and art, as grand as the ruling love wants to make the palaces, gardens, flora and fauna, as well as the personal and unique things in each house, the clothes, jewelry, art, design, and so on. Similarly, the infernal cities of our Grand Monster societies look horrid, cavernous, foul-smelling, and filled with hostile and poisonous flora and fauna. These things in the mental environment are automatically produced as the consciousness (S) engendered by the marriage of the ruling love (A) with thoughts and images (C) that correspond to it, beautiful and friendly if the loves are from altruism love substance uncorrupted and undistorted, but ugly and hostile if the loves are from altruism love substance corrupted and distorted.
The diagram above also shows that each society of individuals collects together somewhere in the regions of the Grand Human and Grand Monster. This is determined by the ruling love (A) and its hierarchy of sub-loves (A) that are operating in the affective organ. For instance, the couples who are in conjugial love congregate in the region of the heart and the reproductive organs of the Grand Human since these organs correspond to conjugial love. This love is the highest of all possible loves in the human race because so it is in the Divine Human. Conjugial love is the undistorted reception of altruism love or spiritual heat, and this operation takes place in layer 4. Our consciousness in this layer is called “celestial rational” and is the product of the wife’s loves united to the husband’s thoughts, and the reciprocal love of the husband united to the wife’s thoughts. The circulatory system of each is conjoined with respiratory system of the other.
This conjoint self, produced by the reception of conjugial love, is the highest form of life that human beings can enjoy. In that state we are celestial avatars for the Omniproprium. We are completely willing to give up all loves that belong to our self, and operate solely with the loves flowing in from the personality of the Divine Human. In this mental consciousness we are quasi-omniscient, instantly knowing everything there is to know about anything that we think about. There is also an endless progression of one’s happiness as a conjoint self, in social company with other conjoint selves, in one of the societies and cities of the Grand Human of eternity.
Studying mental psychology helps us in the process of preparing ourselves for the second death, which is the point where we enter either the Grand Human or the Grand Monster, as shown in the diagram below.
The diagram above shows the key markers of the journey from birth to endless eternity that every human being must take, compelled by the anatomy and physiology of immortal living. The physical world is the world on the outside of everything. Within the physical world, apart from any space, time, or size, is the mental world of eternity. This follow the rational principle that the finite cannot be in the infinite (as one would expect), but the infinite can be in the finite. But the meaning of “in” and “within” is not physical but correspondential in terms of discrete degrees.
The first “within” is the resuscitation zone of the mental world where people awaken at the completion of the dying-resuscitation process, an activity that takes about 33 earth hours to complete itself. We then awaken in our mental body. At birth a physical body is attached by correspondence to the mental body, and the two mature together. The living sensations, thoughts, and feelings occur only in the mental body organs, and not at all in the physical body. Hence upon resuscitation, we awaken in the same mental body we had since birth, and which contains our mental organs. The real “me” is the mental body within the physical body. There is nothing of “me” in the physical body, which is merely a temporary attachment encasing the mental body. This attachment allows us to see through the eyes of the physical body, and to be aware of all the sensory input. Our physical brain and body participate by correspondence to our sensing, thinking, and feeling in the mental body.
The diagram shows these markers: (1) Our birth with a temporary physical body in the physical world, and a permanent, or immortal, mental body in the mental world of eternity. (2) Upon dying we undergo separation procedures that take about 33 hours. This takes place in the resuscitation zones of the mental world. (3) We undergo various experiences by which we come to recognize our ruling love and its sub-loves. When we acknowledge our ruling love, and recognize it as our own, we allow it to take complete charge of our mind. The ruling love (A) now separates out, or filters out, any love or sub-love that is incompatible with it. The ruling love tolerates the presence of only sub-loves that further its goals. Now the ruling love ejects all thoughts in the cognitive organ (C) that oppose it, leaving a totally adapted thinking and reasoning, that always goes along and justifies this ruling love. When this process is completed, the individual is ready to undergo the second death. (4) This is the process of free choice. For the final phase of life, which will endure to eternity, the individual must enter one of the societies of the Grand Human or Grand Monster. This is completely determined by the ruling love. All ruling loves are sourced either in the Grand Human, being called heavenly loves, or sourced in the Grand Monster, being called hellish loves. The specific quality of the ruling love and its sub-loves determines the specific location or society. When people enter into one or the other, they have a sense of ‘homecoming.’ Everything looks and feels familiar. Love recognizes similar love, and they cheer each other. (5) Those who are willing to live only in the Grand Human form the societies of sanity, reason, humanity, altruism love, truth, and all virtue and power. (6) Those who are willing to live only in the Grand Monster form the societies of insanity, irrationality, degraded humanity, hatred of any altruism love, hatred of all truth, and devoid of all positive virtue and power.
Heaven and hell, good and evil, are therefore anatomical phenomena. Prior to dying and resuscitation, our natural mind is filled with both heavenly and hellish loves. If we have undergone regeneration these two types of loves have been separated, and the spiritual mind was matured. Now at our second death we are prepared to enter layers 6, 5, or 4 in our mental consciousness (Grand Human). Those who were unwilling to undergo regeneration do not have the spiritual layers opened or activated. Hence upon resuscitation, their consciousness is compelled to remain in the natural mind (layers 9, 8, 7). Now they have experiences by which the Divine Psychologist brings them to the recognition of what is their ruling love. Since this love is such as it was from birth, it is a hellish love bound to selfism. In consequence, all opposing loves, which are heavenly, are removed or made inoperative fro consciousness. Now their mental body takes on a new appearance, one that reflects the monstrous loves that are hidden and active within their mind.
Chart of Body-Mind Relationships for the Mental Body and Physical Body
The following preliminary chart is an attempt to show the relationship between the six mental layers (4 to 9) and the organs of the spiritual body. The same correspondences exist in the physical body in relation to the mind, and in the body of the Grand Human. This is the collection of all mental states in the human race. When all human mental states are described from a bird's eye view, they arrange themselves in the anatomical structure and form of the human body. This is the basis of all mind-body correspondences.
The Grand Human contains all the organs of the body, both male and female. Swedenborg was given this bird's eye view of the mental world of eternity so that he may describe it objectively. Furthermore, he was allowed to travel spiritually throughout the regions or organs of the Grand Human visiting a society located in the "right eye" on one occasion, or a society located in the kidney region, on another occasion. He describes what he saw in most of the organs, showing how the mentality of the people in that society match the physiological functions of the organs in which they are located.
When we are resuscitated a few hours after death and separation from our physical body, we begin a journey through the regions of the Grand Human, experiencing a different mentality in each region, until we arrive in a region that perfectly matches our ruling love. That becomes our eternal location from then on. We have arrived home. The people in that society share the same ruling love, which is why we arrive feeling as if it is our home and as if we have known the people there all our lives. There is then a continuous and permanent exchange of thoughts and feelings between all with all in that society. This principle can be rendered by the following formula: spiritual geography = mental anatomy
The diagram above shows that the mental body is within the physical body, and that they are connected by correspondence. Barring physical malformations due to inheritance or injury, the physical body is a point-by-point replica or copy of the mental body, but constructed out of different substances. At birth we are two bodies, one temporary and material, the other mental or immaterial, also called “spiritual.” The mental body (or “spirit body”) contains the mental organs. There are absolutely no mental operations possible in the physical body. This is because mental objects are not physical material objects, but immaterial. All objects, physical or mental, must be constructed out of something. The mental organs are constructed by God at our birth using the eternal substances streaming through the entire mental world of eternity, which is an expanse of rational ether around the eternal Spiritual Sun, which is the first entry point of the infinite God into the realm of the created. The Spiritual Sun is not created, and is called uncreate. All the substances in it are uncreate, living, Divine, eternal, infinite.
So it is the infinite that creates the finite by transforming Itself into an externalized form that can participate in the operation of created finite objects such as mental organs and the mental body. A human being is therefore a mental body equipped with mental organs. The mental organs operate to provide us with the subjective consciousness of sensations, thoughts, and feelings. We are mental beings temporarily trapped, or contained, with a physical “shell.” The circulatory system of the physical body corresponds to the affective system in the mental body. The respiratory system of the physical body corresponds to the cognitive system in the mental body. The neuro-muscular-skeletal system of the physical body corresponds to the sensorimotor system in the mental body. The dying process is the physiological or surgical separation of the two bodies. It lasts about 30 hours, after which we awaken in full conscious awareness in our mental body. We appear the same as before, as you can see from the diagram. At first our mental body reflects our physical body such as it was at death, but very quickly there is a transformation in appearance to reflect who we are in our natural mind. Former family or friends who have preceded us in the dying and resuscitation process, can now see us and recognize us.
It is the mental body that sensates through the physical body. What you see around you is what you are seeing in your mental body, not your physical body. There are no sensations in the physical body as it is inert, made of inert matter and only electrical and chemical operations can take place in it. No sensations, thoughts, and feelings can exist or operate in physical matter. Hence we sense in the mental body through the physical body like a pilot senses the environment through instruments by which they can see. Our physical instruments in the body transfer by correspondence the information from the physical sensory organs to the sensorimotor organ in the mental body. Then it is that we can have the sensations of seeing, touching, hearing, tasting, smelling, moving. These are felt in the sensorimotor organ of the mental body, not in the physical body or its brain, which only contains electrical and chemical operations, never mental.
Prior to resuscitation all our sensations are therefore filtered through the physical body. If the physical body malfunctions, the sensations in our mental body are diminished. Even when the physical body operates perfectly, the sensations we have from it is “gross” or filtered, not pure. As a result, upon resuscitation we experience an amazing increase in the intensity and clarity of our sensations that we not possible before while we were still attached by correspondence to the physical body. All the modalities of the sensorimotor system are now affording us a new and higher level of intensity in sensitivity and intensity. We get a sense of this greater intensity and purity of sensations when we remember a vivid dream in which we experienced pleasure or pain. The pleasures are far more intense, and the pains far more terrifying.
The following chart helps you locate the body-mind correspondences that unite the physical and mental bodies.
Prior to resuscitation (before death) we operate in our conscious natural mind (layers 9, 8, 7) while the unconscious spiritual mind is being developed (layers 6, 5, 4). After resuscitation we are conscious in both minds, for awhile, but then we lose consciousness of the natural mind as we are immersed in the spiritual mind forever (6, 5, 5). But this occurs only of we have undergone regeneration of the natural mind through lifelong spiritual combats. We then continue our immortality in either layer 6 (called First Heaven), layer 5 (called Second Heaven), or layer 4 (called Third and Highest Heaven).
Something totally different happens when we are resuscitated and we did not undergo regeneration. In this case we cannot continue life in the spiritual mind, which is our conjugial heaven. Our spiritual layers (6, 5, 4) have been gradually shut down and paralyzed during our life in the natural mind where we made daily choices to turn our natural mind into the opposite order of the heavenly mentality.
During our life when we are still attached to the physical body, we make daily choices and acquire habits of life in both the heavenly and hellish mentality. You can observe this yourself if you monitor your emotions and thoughts for an hour or two during the day. One minute you feel enraged or vengeful against someone you don't like, or you are pretending to be busy on your job to give an impression, but you are not really accomplishing anything. These are choices and habits of your hellish mentality. A little later you get a call from a friend who needs comforting and support, and you give it out of caring, or you decide to clean up your room because you realize it's not good to be lazy. These are choices and habits of your heavenly mentality. Every day we operate either from a heavenly or from a hellish mentality in layers 9, 8, 7. Study the two mentalities so you can do some effective self-monitoring.
After resuscitation, those who have not been regenerated abandon their heavenly mentality in all three natural layers. Since their spiritual layers (6, 5, 4) have not been activated by spiritual combat in regeneration, they have only their natural mind to continue their life in the mental world of eternity. Now as they undergo further change called "the second death" their heavenly mentality in layers 9, 8, 7 are rejected and as it were expelled from their mind. Their consciousness will now forever be restricted to one of the three natural layers in the hellish mentality or disorder (-7, -8, -9).
Chart of Mental Layers Grouped By Threes
Today we too are familiar with life in the mental world of eternity because that is the only life we know or can know. Try this exercise. Where you are sitting close your eyes and stay quiet for about one minute. Two minutes might be even more effective. When we close our eyes and not much is happening around us, the usual dominance of sensory input lessens in our consciousness or awareness. This also happens in the quiet of the few minutes before we fall asleep. Our sensorimotor focus greatly lessens as we almost forget about the physical body. Where are we then? Our consciousness is then focusing more on the mental world of eternity -- the inner world, than on the outer world of time and physical place. The purpose of the exercise is to remind us through immediate experience that our sensations (S), thoughts (C), and feelings (A) do not exist in the outer world of the physical body, but in the inner world of the spiritual body.
The experience of becoming aware of our thoughts and feelings is itself the consciousness and awareness of the mental world of eternity. We live in the mental world of eternity as mental beings because we are mental beings. We are not physical beings. You can see that we are much closer to the mental body than to the physical body. Our "self" as a human being, as a unique immortal individual, is the spiritual body, and not at all the physical body. This is because our sensations, thoughts, and feelings -- our very life and experience, are in the mental body as mental organs. The heart (our ruling love) and circulatory system (affections, loves, motives, intentions, desires, needs) constitute our affective organ (A). The lungs (our governing principle or truth) and the respiratory system (thinking, rationality, reasoning, planning, organizing) constitute our cognitive organ (C). The brain (sensory and motor coordination) and neuro-skeletal system (sensations, movements, regulation, integration, emotions) constitute our sensorimotor organ (S). Prior to resuscitation our consciousness is located in the natural mind (layers 9, 8, 7), but after resuscitation our consciousness is located in the spiritual mind (layers 6, 5, 4). As a result of this anatomical condition our mental life and experience in the natural mind is constructed as an adaptation to the sensorimotor input. This input is physical in the form of neuro-chemical operations in the brain and neural system. Hence it is that the content of our corporeal consciousness (layer 9) is follows the structure of physical laws and "natural" reality. Our layer 9 thinking (9C) knows nothing about the layers above itself (8 or 7). Hence it is that when our consciousness is in layer 9 our mentality is uncivilized. The laws that govern the animal world also governs our corporeal mind. In layer 9 thinking (9C) the law of the jungle appears as the only smart and safe way of behaving. We see it as reasonable to use force to dominate others, to get our way regardless of the "niceties" of "civilized" fair play. Layer 8 thinking (8C) is more civilized because it thinks in abstractions from the physical input. We can see and understand that we must have law and order in order for the community to survive and thrive. We also admire and value victory or success acquired through hard work, discipline, planning, and postponement of immediate gratification for the sake of greater goals. Still, at this level of thinking (8C), our abstractions of the layer 9 input remain consistent with the reality of the physical world. When we begin the study of mental psychology and anatomy, most of us are thinking in layer 8C. This means that the ideas we form about concepts such as the Divine Psychologist, or the mental world of eternity, are natural ideas. The spiritual idea is then reduced to a natural idea. Even though we think about God or even talk to God, we still have a natural idea of God, like children do. Many adults think of God in terms that are like those of children. It is not until our consciousness is raised to layer 7C that we begin to think of God in a spiritual way, rather than a natural way. The corporeal and materialistic way (layers 9C, 8C) of thinking about the mental world of eternity is that it is not really a mental world but a physical world. The afterlife then begins not at death, but at some later date when the natural world is remade by God, and all those who had died are now "resurrected" and given new physical bodies that will be immortal. This is called "corporeal-sensual" because it thinks of the mental world as being reduced to the physical world. It is similar to materialism or "monism" in philosophy and science. But when we begin thinking in layer 7iC by undergoing reformation to dualism, we can begin thinking about the mental world in a rational-scientific way. This reformation of our thinking substitutes spiritual ideas for the natural ideas. Another illustration is the expression living luxuriously (physical activity) which corresponds to taking pleasure (mental activity). You can see that people who live in luxury (physical) do it because they value the pleasures it provides (mental).
The Vertical Community
The diagram above shows the arrangement of the vertical community. The word “vertical” is in contrast to “horizontal” community, such as we have through the physical body on earth. Societies on earth spread out horizontally on the available lands forming a physical geography for populations and cultures succeeding in time and history. But societies in the mental world of eternity spread out vertically, that is, mentally, and not physically. The mental world is a vertical world while the physical world is a horizontal world. Our contact or communication in horizontal communities depend on physical distance. We have to travel to other geographic locations to contact the people there, or else, have some other ways to contact – e.g., signals, messengers, mail, telegraph, telephone, radio, wireless, instant messaging, etc. It is quite different regarding our contacts or communication in the mental world of eternity after our resuscitation. There is no physical distance, no fixed space, in the mental world. In our mind, imagination, and dreams we create whatever space we need or want at the moment to satisfy some love or desire.
After resuscitation our loves have the power to instantiate around us anything imaginable. Anyone from anywhere in the mental world of eternity, who shares that same general desire with all its specific details, is co-present. All who share that specific desire find themselves automatically co-present. There is no fixed distance. The specifics of the loves and sub-loves localize the person in some particular region of the mental world. All who share that specific love hierarchy find themselves as if collected into a mental society in some region of the Grand Human or Grand Monster. This is then what we need to know and expect for ourselves after resuscitation. The loves we possess at resuscitation determine our location and co-presence with some mental community of citizens – either in the Grand Human or the Grand Monster.
The diagram above shows what happens to us from birth onward and how we are connected to the vertical community. The following is a description of the ideas in the diagram:
1 If you run your eyes up and down the middle of the diagram you can see three bodies. The larger middle body represents the shape and form of our natural mind – mental layers 9, 8, 7. The smaller body at the top represents the shape and form of the Grand Human – mental layers 6, 5, 4. These are the layers of our spiritual mind. The smaller dark body at the bottom represents the Grand Monster – layers -7, -8, -9. Note the minus sign indicates the order of hell. The unregenerate natural mind at resuscitation changes from 7, 8, 9 to -7, -8, -9. This occurs when all the heavenly loves are removed by the hellish ruling love the person is willing to keep or hold on to. Prior to this, the natural mind is marked 7, 8, 9 to indicate that prior to resuscitation the unregenerate natural mind possesses both hellish and heavenly traits, making a balance of freedom for people’s daily choices.
2 If you run your eyes on the left hand side from the bottom up you can see the upward pointing arrow marking the sequence of birth, infancy and childhood, adolescence, young adulthood. Then there is an inversion and development continues on a downward arrow from mature adulthood, to old age, to death and resuscitation.
3 The upward development is marked as the unregenerate natural mind. The downward development is marked the regenerating mind. Note that the upward development starts in layer 9e. This is the external (e) portion of the corporeal mind (9). Similarly, layer 8e refers to the materialistic mind, and layer 7e to the rational mind. Note that the upward development from infancy to young adulthood, operate by means of their connection to geographic locations in the Grand Monster regions. The development of the external portion of the corporeal mind (9e) is influenced by a connection to layer -9. This explains how cute little babies and toddlers can act like little monsters at certain times, as all challenged parents and care takers know full well. They also have their connections to the Grand Human, which can be seen at other times in the angelic faces of babies and loving cuteness of infants and toddlers.
But there is a difference in that the hellish loves from the Grand Monster are more conscious and in-rooted, as indicated by the fact that so many children and adolescents are beset with character problems and weaknesses. This means that the inherited hellish loves are more dominant than the heavenly loves. Most heavenly loves are actually held in aversion by most people prior to regeneration, while most hellish loves are adored and enjoyed so much that people are unwilling to let go of them, even if it hurts others and themselves. That’s a price they are willing to pay, which is irrational, ultimately leading to spiritual insanity when good is seen as bad, and bad is seen as good.
4 The downward development is marked as the regenerating natural mind: layers 7i, 8i, 9i. The letter (i) indicates that it is “interior” in contrast to the unregenerate external (e) development. When we are willing to cross the inversion point we do so from a love of our future heavenly life in eternity. First we must have the rational knowledge and understanding (7iC) of God and the regeneration process. Then we must desire (7iA) to re-arrange our thinking to fit with this love for God and heavenly immortality. The two together then create a new interior-natural consciousness (7iA + 7iC = 7iS), that is more inward and higher than the prior consciousness created by our own rational self-intelligence (7eA + 7eC = 7eS). This “reformation” of the rational mind is the inversion from unregenerate to regenerating. Once the rational mind is regenerating (7i), it gives us the ability to regenerate layer 8 and layer 9.
Note that the regeneration of the natural mind is takes place through a connection with the societies of the Grand Human. The interior-natural mind (7i) of the regenerating rational mind (7), is connected to the societies in layer 6 (sometimes called “the Lowest or First Heaven”). The regenerating materialistic mind (8i) is connected to the societies in layer 5 (sometimes called “the Middle or Second Heaven”). The regenerating corporeal mind (9i) is connected to the societies in layer 4 (sometimes called “the Highest or Third Heaven”). We are born with our spiritual mind (layers 6, 5, 4) located in one of the Grand Human societies, but it does not become our own unless we regenerate the natural mind (layers 7, 8, 9). To the extent that our natural mind is regenerated, to that extent our spiritual mind is operationalized and becomes our own at resuscitation.
If we regenerate only layer 7, we then enter layer 6 at our second death. If we regenerate layers 7 and 8, we enter layer 5 at our second death. If we regenerate layers 7, 8, and 9, we enter layer 4 at our second death. The expression “to enter” means that our consciousness is co-present with the consciousness of those who are in that layer. This occurs when there is a similarity or compatibility of loves.
5 The timing of the first death is determined by the Divine Psychologist. It occurs when the individual is such that no further regeneration is possible. The only purpose for our connection to the physical body is to allow us to regenerate the natural mind, which causes our spiritual mind to become active at resuscitation, so that we can assume our consciousness in that region of the mental world. By inheritance and situation some people are so restricted in their regeneration capacity that they must be disconnected from the physical body and its surrounding earthly horizontal community of influences. This may occur very early, even a few seconds or minutes after birth. The moment of birth is determined by the opening of the lungs to breathing. If the lungs are not opened, the fetus is stillborn. It is the same when the fetus does not survive advanced pregnancy. The souls of unborn fetuses are also immortal and they are gathered in layer 2. The souls that are born are gathered in layer 3. Our conscious life begins in layer 4.
The Divine Psychologist can work with them right after resuscitation so these early death individuals can have the experiences necessary to achieve an adult mental age. This is done through the instruction and supervision of people in layer 4 of the Grand Human who especially love children and parenting. When these people attain an adult mental age in the mental world of eternity, they meet their soul mate, fall in love, and together enter some society in the Grand Human where they are both welcomed as old friends.
The period between the first death and second death may vary from person to person after resuscitation. This is determined by the degree of change they must undergo in order to discover their ruling love (A) hidden within. If this ruling love is sourced in the Grand Monster (-9A, -8A, -7A), from prior connection to the unregenerated natural mind, then the person enters one of the societies in the Grand Monster. One’s loves determine one’s mental geography in eternity. If we are willing to undergo regeneration of all, or portions, of the natural mind prior to resuscitation, then the ruling love we discover in ourselves is sourced in the Grand Human, and our spiritual mind (6, 5, 4) is functional for our life there.
All humanity is connected and networked. No individual human being can exist alone. If our connection in the humanity network were to be broken we would cease to have mental states, thus becoming a plant. Every breath depends on air and oxygen. There is no breathing in empty space, hence no living. Without loves we have no thoughts, and without thoughts we have no conscious sensation or perception, consequently no human life. Since everything about us depends on having loves, what would be left of us if we were deprived of the source of loves? The vertical community is the mental network of eternity that connects all individuals who have ever been born, and will include all those still to be born in the future endless chain of human generations. The human matrix of interconnectedness forms an entity that is in the shape of the human body and mind. Throughout this endlessly expanding mental humanity there reverberates and circulates human loves. This affective circulation in the Grand Human is the source of our loves.
There are no loves we can have, except from this affective circulation of the Grand Human.
The source of loves in this Grand Human is the Spiritual Sun of eternity. From this Source, which is a mentally visible aura that marks the presence of the Divine Human in creation, in the mental world of eternity, which is in the shape and anatomical structure of the Grand Human. From the Spiritual Sun flows out spiritual heat and spiritual light in endless variety and quality, inundating every part of the Grand Human, entering its circulation, and producing new human loves on a continuous basis to endless eternity and immortality of human beings. The source of all our loves is therefore the spiritual Sun through the Grand Human. Each of us has our own vertical community to which we belong from birth. It is marked on our spiritual bar code. Our soul (layer 3) is networked and wired in with the souls of the communities that belong to our own network. Through this vertical community comes down to our natural mind, the loves in our rational, materialistic, and corporeal mind (7A, 8A, 9A).
In order to preserve our individual freedom to choose the loves we want, the Divine Psychologist gives us the ability to modify, adjust, and change the loves that are circulating in our vertical community. This corresponds to the action of cells in our physical body that are bathed in blood and lymphatic fluid filled with all sorts of proteins and enzymes. Each cell takes in only what it wants, and then transforms the compound chemicals into totally different compounds and elements, some of which attach each other if present at the same time. This type of biochemical operation in our physical cells corresponds to the operations in our affective organ that is bathed in the mental stream of circulation of loves in our vertical community. We take in these loves, which are actually spiritual heat substance, and we transform them to our liking. Thus it is that the mental world of eternity contains not only the Grand Human, but also the Grand Monster. The two constitute perfect opposites between a hierarchy of undistorted loves in the Grand Human, and is opposite hierarchy of distorted loves in the Grand Monster. One is called eternal heaven, the other eternal hell.
There is a mental zone or ‘space’ between the Grand Human and the Grand Monster. It is the zone of birth and resuscitation. But at our second death we enter into our permanent location, either in the Grand Human if our ruling love is undistorted (for others as well as self), or in the Grand Monster, if our ruling love is distorted (for self alone). After the first death and resuscitation we go through a period of disentanglement between our opposite loves. Prior to dying and resuscitation we have the ability to undergo regeneration. This is the process by which the Divine Psychologist begins to disentangle our affective organ from the mess of opposite loves strangling each other. In this process we use our rational mind (7C) to monitor and control our materialistic mind, and through that, our corporeal mind and finally our physical body. This character reformation and regeneration involves the temptation-filled effort on a daily basis, of saying No to our selfism, and saying Yes to our altruism. By doing this over the course of our lifetime we cumulate more and more altruistic loves, and detach our enjoyment or attachment to more and more loves of selfism. By the time we resuscitate we have a regenerated natural mind (7, 8, 9) and fully operational spiritual mind (6, 5, 4). We are willing and eager to enter our Grand Human society and we ascend to our highest state of happiness and intelligence in conjugial love. Without this spiritual combat over a lifetime, we arrive after resuscitation with a dysfunctional spiritual mind that cannot operate. Our distorted ruling love in selfism opposes them. We are willing and eager to enter our vertical community in the Grand Monster, as we descend to our lowest mental state of insanity, cruelty, and bestiality.
Intersubjectivity in Virtual World and in Mental World
Consider the physical world. It is constructed by putting together time, space, and matter (which includes energy and force fields). There is only one mass of matter distributed in various quantities in time-space, such as galaxies, stars, space (or time-fields), planets, molecules, atoms, and sub-atomic particles. Note that there is only one space, and only one time dimension (running forward). When we talk about inter-galactic space, or about the space around a proton where the electrons whirl around rapidly, or about the space between one side of your room to the other – we are talking about the same space. There is only one and the same space in the physical world regardless of what matter is in it.
The above considerations hold for physical space because they are correspondences to how it is with mental space. Consider the mental world. There is only one mental world. Before I came to realize this I was under the false idea that we are each in our own mental world. I had thought that mental states such as feelings, thoughts, and sensations belong to the person, and each person is alone in their own private mental world. This idea is standard for both scientists and others. It is the common sense impression we all have, and therefore this is what our opinion is based on. But just as there is only one physical world, there is only one mental world. And just as there is only one and the same space in the physical world, there is only one and the same ‘space’ in the mental world. The two meanings of space correspond exactly and perfectly to each other, as the mental world is the cause of the physical world in every detail, point for point.
What is mental space? From a rational perspective space cannot be “nothing” or “emptiness.” This applies to both physical space and mental space. Physical and mental objects cannot exist and function in nothing. Parts must be separated and paths must exist between them to form composites and wholes such as objects that have a form or structure, and have function and use of some sort due to their quality or property in relation to space and motion. Physical space and mental space are both made of ether, which is a substance. So the idea of “emptiness” or “nothing” is replaced by the idea of substance, which is something, which has extension, so that objects can be constructed and exist in it.
The space of the mental world may be called mental ether. It is composed of rationality truth substance that continually flows out of the Spiritual Sun of eternity in the form of spiritual light within which is spiritual heat. This spiritual substance fills and inundates the mental world, creating mental space and creating building blocks for mental objects and their operations or activities. Human beings come into existence in the mental world. They start mental life in a mental body that contains mental organs. The mental body and its organs are constructed out of the building blocks that fill mental ether. This mental body is immortal because nothing in it can die, and everything in it is made of living immortal substances form the Spiritual Sun of eternity. Our individual unique mental body and its organs are constructed out of spiritual light and heat that abounds in the mental ether of eternity. Hence it is that human beings are born into eternity and immortality. We live in the mental world of eternity from birth onward to endless immortal life.
At our birth we find ourselves attached to a temporary physical body. We find ourselves trapped inside time-space and matter, even though nothing about us is physical. Nor can anything about us live in the physical world. Thoughts, dreams, feelings, memories, guilt pangs, pleasures – this is us, our life, our mental life, and absolutely none of it can exist in physical space or matter. It appears to our common sense that we see through our eyes, touch with our skin, hear with our ear, taste with our mouth. This is a subjective phenomenon. We need to find out what causes this subjective appearance. It is easier to see the actuality when we picture ourselves, our mind, our mental body and organs, as seeing through the eyes, hearing through the ears, sensing through the skin. In other words, think first about the mental body and the sensations it contains that we feel and experience. Second, think about the physical body as an instrument we use to detect (sensory) the physical environment and to act upon it (motor). Third, think about a mechanism that would allow us in the mental body to see, touch, and hear through the physical body.
This mechanism is called the laws of correspondences. This is a universal law of creation that establishes and connects the mental and physical worlds into cause-effect relations. Objects and their interactions in the physical world come into existence as effects of causes that are located in the mental world. Events and phenomena in the physical world of time correspond one-to-one to events and phenomena in the mental world of eternity. We can observe these laws of correspondences in action when we examine some familiar daily phenomena. Consider our facial expressions, and especially in infants and children who have not yet learned to simulate and control impressions given off. The face moves, changes, expresses specific emotions and feelings. You can recognize the emotion (e.g., happiness or pleasure) by the expression on the physical face. The muscles of the face act by correspondence with the feelings and emotions in the mental body. When we reach for bottle and bring it to our lips the physical movements of the arms, hands, and eyes, are moved by correspondence from our feeling of wanting to drink what’s in the bottle in front of us. When our car accelerates on the road, the cause of our going faster is not the extra gas from pushing the gas pedal with our foot. The cause is in the mental world, namely, a feeling of wanting to go faster. The foot pressing on the gas pedal is the corresponding effect of our feeling of wanting to go faster. The mental is the cause, while the physical is the effect.
Similarly, our ability to see with the physical eyes (and the associated neural pathways), is the effect, while the cause of the eye’s ability or function, is our feeling of wanting to see. If some people suddenly lost the feeling of wanting to see, they would be in effect blind. The desire to live and explore through the physical body must be constant, or else we lose those physical abilities. When we are deprived of food and drink, we experience pain, discomfort, and lower energy. These mental events are not produced by the physical food deprivation. When we burn our finger, the mental pain appears to common sense to be caused by the physical burn. When we ingest alcohol, the mental effects appear to be caused by the chemical. We need a better explanation, one that is in agreement with the laws of correspondences, by which we know that physical events cannot cause mental events, and that the actual order is the reverse of that. (to be completed)
Mental Anatomy of the Individual's Threefold Self
The circulatory system in the physical body corresponds to the affective organ in the spiritual body, whose operations give us the subjective experience of feeling and willing. Feelings in the mental body correspond to the circulatory system in the physical body, because feelings nourish the life of experience. Feeling and willing give us
The respiratory system corresponds to the cognitive organ whose operations give us the subjective life of thinking, reasoning, and intelligence. Thoughts in the spiritual body, that is, the operations of the cognitive organ, correspond to the respiratory system in the physical body, because thoughts guide our feelings and clarifies them, just as oxygen cleans and purifies the blood. Thoughts give us
The nervous-skeletal system corresponds to the sensorimotor organ whose operations give us the subjective life of sensing the environment outside the body and of acting upon that environment through motor determinations. Sensations and motor determinations in the mental body correspond to the nervous system in the physical body, because sensations give us the life of experiencing the world outside of us and motor determinations give us the ability to make our bodies move and interact with the environment. Sensations and motor determinations give us
Here is then a summary of the exact correspondence between mental anatomy and physical anatomy (try to memorize this after you studied the details given above):
The affective life of feelings cohere together as a cumulative whole called the affective self. The cognitive life of thoughts cohere together as a cumulative whole called the cognitive self. The sensorimotor life of sensations and motor determinations cohere together as a cumulative whole called the sensorimotor self. Every person can therefore be studied, described, and understood as a threefold self.
Our mental life is an organic process that begins at birth and continues endlessly in eternity. Life must have an organic basis. Mental life is carried out by mental organs. These organs are made of the substances from the Spiritual Sun. At birth, every human being lives in two bodies simultaneously that are connected together by correspondence. We have a physical body that is temporary and is made of natural substances from the physical sun. And we have a mental body that is permanent and is made of spiritual substances from the Spiritual Sun. Our mental body contains our mental organs. We have three systems of mental organs, corresponding to the three systems of physical organs.
The above is a general classification of mind-body correspondences. The above indicates that the circulatory system in the mental body is nothing but the affective organ. Further, the respiratory system in the mental body is nothing but the cognitive organ. Finally, the neural-skeletal system in the mental body is nothing but the sensorimotor organ. This relationship of correspondence is an important research method for discovering and charting mental anatomy. The physical body is the window to the mind. The body is the visible mind. The temporary physical body is a perfect copy or model in physical matter, of the mental body which is permanent and eternal. By studying the anatomy of the physical body we are enabled to chart the development and evolution of the mind and its consciousness.
Male and Female Human Anatomy
The mental body (layer 10) is created by each unique soul (layer 3) that carries the immortal spiritual DNA of every unique individual. A female soul creates female mental organs in this arrangement: cognitive organ (C) within, affective organ (A) on the outside. A male soul creates male mental organs: affective organ within (A), cognitive organ (C) on the outside.
Every sensation (S), thought (C), and feeling (A) in a male anatomy must be different than any sensation, thought, or feeling in a female anatomy. All human sensations (S), thoughts (C), and feelings (A) are either female in origin or male. Male sensations (S) and consciousness of the environment are produced by masculine thoughts (C), while female sensations (S) and consciousness of the environment are produced by feminine loves (A). A woman’s world is dominated by loves (A), while a man’s world is dominated by thoughts (C).
This difference in mental operations of the mental body corresponds to the difference in physical operations in the physical body. Medical theory and practice is far enough advanced today to recognize that the research done on men is not a precise indication of how the drug will affect women. It is known that the blood of women contains hormones that men ordinarily do not carry. Certain diseases affect mostly men, others mostly women. All this suggests that the physical body and physiology of women is not like the physical body and physiology of men. This is even more true of the mental body and the sensations (S), thoughts (C), and loves (A) that occur there. These mental events must occur in the mental world of eternity. They cannot occur in the physical world because they are not physical, and only physical things can exist in the physical world. Hence the human self and mind, with its sensations (S), thoughts (C), and feelings (A), cannot exist in the physical body or brain, but must exist in the spiritual body, which is a mental body, made of mental substances from the Spiritual Sun (layer 1).
A woman’s consciousness of the world and her environment (S) is created by feminine loves (A) and feminine intelligence (C). A man’s consciousness of the world and his environment (S) is created by masculine loves (A) and masculine intelligence (C).
Exercise Homework: The Visible Body:
Go to http://www.visiblebody.com/ and register. Then learn to use the Visible Body application. It takes several hours to explore all that it can do. While learning the anatomy of the body, keep thinking that these anatomical structures and interrelations are the visible mind. Explore the circulatory system (Hide Others). See how it is in the shape of the body. You are seeing the affective organ, whose operations are the source of your feelings, loves, and motives -- hence our very life. Our very life is nothing but our loves, and your loves are the operations of the affective organ, which is the circulatory system of the spiritual body. The circulatory system or affective organ, is the central lifeline of everything human and living. The other systems of the mind are derivative of this and dependent on this for mental nourishment and consciousness. Explore the heart. You are seeing the ruling loves of a person, or of humanity as a whole. The ruling love disposes all other loves, and the loves together dispose all thinking and intelligence that belong to the cognitive organ or respiratory system. Explore the respiratory system by itself (Hide Others). You are seeing the cognitive organ of thinking and reasoning, imagining and knowing. Explore how the heart and the lungs are connected and how they act together. You are seeing the interdependence between the affective (A) and cognitive organs (C), between how our thinking and reasoning (C) are influenced or determined by our motives and needs (A). Note that the heart in the mental body (our loves) could not live or survive on their own. If the blood is prevented from flowing through the lungs it cannot be oxygenated, and in that case all its nutrients are useless to the cells and everything dies. This is in exact correspondence to the interdependence between our loves (A) and our thoughts (C). Our loves (A) act upon our thoughts (C) in order to produce our sensations and motor determinations (S). The circulatory system acts upon the respiratory system to produce or enable sensory perception and motor action. Moving your finger in the physical body (layer 12), requires a determination from your sensorimotor system (9S) in the mental body (layer 10). This sensorimotor determination to move your finger (layer 9S) is produced by the conjunction or co-action of your affective organ (9A) with your cognitive organ (9C). This may be expressed as: 9A --> 9C --> 9S --> 12 (finger moves) There must first be a motive (A) in the circulatory system of the mental body in layer 9. For instance, you are typing at the keyboard and coming to the end of your sentence. Now your finger moves over to the period key and presses it. You had to have a motivation (A) to press that particular key. Your motivation was to end the sentence you were typing. This connects with the love (A) you have of communicating with someone or finishing writing something. This love you have is nothing else than the operation of your affective organ, which is the circulatory system of your spiritual body. The love of communicating or completing your sentence, cannot exist on its own, cannot be anything on its own. In order for this love to have an existence in your affective organ, it must connect with thinks in your memory or knowledge that are in your cognitive organ (C). In the Swedenborg Reports this is called the connection between "the will and the understanding." or, the connection between "good and truth." This connection or conjunction is called the "spiritual marriage." It is the spiritual force in eternity that corresponds to the natural force of gravity in time. All movement and relative position in the physical world is ultimately determined by gravity. This corresponds to the mental world of eternity where the quality and level of all human consciousness is given by people's relative position in the Grand Human (S), which is the product of their love (A) conjoined with their understanding (C). The AC connection, or spiritual marriage, engenders the totality of our living (S). What we call "heaven" (Grand Human) or "hell" (Grand Monster) are the externalized sensorimotor (S) appearances produced by the internal marriage between our loves (A) and our thoughts (C). Love produces everything in eternity; in eternity everything is produced by our loves.
The ACS Sequence of Execution in Behavior
It helps to contrast clearly the differences between the affective (A) and sensorimotor (S) parts of the threefold self. Often people use the word "feeling" when they mean thinking (C), and vice versa. For example, people say, "I feel that we should wait longer" when they are discussing what they think (C). Sometimes feelings (A) are confused with sensations (S). For example, "I feel hot flashes coming on" or "I feel so tired." In both cases it is not the feelings (A) that are discussed but the sensations (S). When we say "It feels so good" we are talking about a sensation (S). When we say "I feel good today" we are talking about an affective experience (A). The expression "I can't stand it" refers either to a sensation (e.g., being tickled) (S), or to a feeling (A) (e.g., feeling bad about the situation). The sensorimotor area of the threefold self includes these primary features of our everyday life:
The affective area of the threefold self includes these primary features of our everyday life:
Do you get the difference? Note that the affective always comes first in the sequence of our behavior. We do something because we are motivated to do it or we have a desire to do it (affective). We are motivated to do something to achieve a particular goal (affective). Every goal is defined by what we want or desire or prefer to happen (affective). Therefore all human action starts from a feeling -- what we want or intend to happen, together with a goal that satisfies what we want.
The sequence of execution in behavior is always ACS: A ---> C ---> S
(A) affective (wanting to do something) ----> (C) cognitive (planning) ----> (S) sensorimotor (executing or performing)
Once we have a feeling, motive, or particular goal that we desire to happen (affective), the next behavior in sequence is the cognitive self. Our thinking operations (C) suddenly begin to figure out a plan or method of proceeding that will bring about the desired goal (A), and thereby satisfy the feeling (A). It is the feeling (A) that motivates, guides, and directs (A) the thinking and planning (C). It is the feeling-intention or striving for the goal (A) that keeps the sequence of mental operations (C) focused in a coherent way so it may lead to the desired goal (A). For example, you become aware that you are thinking (C) about the candy bar in your pocket or purse. What made your thoughts go in that direction? It had to be some kind of feeling (A). When we sense hunger in the stomach (S), the sensation becomes the occasion for a new motive (A), namely, the desire to satisfy the hunger (A). This desire or feeling (A) then awakens our thoughts and memories (C) to think about the candy bar (C). Another feeling or motive (A) can take over, namely, the desire (A) to control one's weight. This new feeling (A) now directs the cognitive to plan (C) a substitute for eating, or a way not to ingest certain foods (S), and the sensorimotor then carries out (S) the motivated (A) plan (C) (e.g., inhibits the hands from reaching for the candy bar). Either way, the sequence of execution is always the same (ACS): affective, cognitive, sensorimotor.
It is the reverse with the sequence of reception which is always SCA: A <--- C <--- S <---- environment
noticing or sensing something in the environment (sensorimotor) ----> appraising it (cognitive) ----> evaluating it (affective)
Once the feeling or desire (A) and the thinking about the candy bar in pocket or purse (C), are placed together or conjoined, the hand starts reaching (S) for the candy bar or the legs start waking (S) to the kitchen.
But then you stop the hand or the legs from going further (ACS). "Wait. I'm on a diet and I want to lose weight. Remember?" What's happening here? It's another feeling (desire, motive) (A) that takes over and this new feeling (A) now directs the thinking (C) and the moving in another direction (S). So whatever we do all day long minute by minute, has to do with sequences and loops of feelings, thoughts, and sensorimotor executions of them (ACS). Note that the SCA sequence happens along with the ACS sequence in alternating cycles. We notice something (S), we think about it (C), and we react to it (A) (happy or sad, attractive or repelling, etc.). This is the SCA cycle. Then we form the intention (A) of holding it, so we see a way of grabbing it (C), and we reach for it (S) or inhibit reaching (S). This is the ACS cycle. Note that the SCA cycle is called "reception" while the ACS cycle is called "optimizing." Reception (SCA) is passive (feminine, left hand and side), while optimizing (ACS) is active (masculine, right hand and side). Thus both men and women have a feminine side (receiving, satisficing, valuing) and a masculine side (optimizing, giving, engaging).
Personality Development and Spiritual Growth
Note:
As schematized in the above diagram:
The diagram above shows the ascending phase during infancy, there is the development of our corporeal thinking (9C), which allows the development of the motivation to acquire civic principles of life (9A). In the ascending phase during childhood, there is the development of our materialistic thinking (8C), which allows the development of the motivation to acquire moral principles of life (8A). In the ascending phase during adolescence, there is the development of our rational thinking (7C), which allows the development of the motivation to acquire rational and spiritual principles of life (7A). (Inversion) In the descending phase during young adulthood, there is the development of our motive to live by rational or spiritual principles of life, that is, to undergo reformation and regeneration (7A). In the descending phase during mature adulthood, there is the development of our motive to live by moral principles of life (8A) that agree with spiritual principles (7C). In the descending phase during old age, there is the development of our motive to live by civic principles of life (9A) that agree with spiritual (7C) and moral (8C) principles.
Mental Physiology
The study of mental psychology involves not only memorizing anatomical charts and developmental sequences. The second component involves the application of this anatomical knowledge to the daily practice of self-witnessing. Each of us is our own mental psychologist. Society expects individuals to manage their own mental world. No laws exist in any democracy around the world that make it illegal to love something, or to think about something. All laws of a country or community cover people’s physical body, and never their mind. It is recognized by all that the events of our mental world fall outside the jurisdiction of government and the law. This is also true of institutions like schools, the armed forces, businesses, and even casual friendships and co-workers.
But it is different with most parents, many teachers, spiritual guides, closed private groups, and best friends. In these situations people care about what the others think (C) and feel (A), as well as what they do or say out loud (S). In intimate relationships the mutual and reciprocal engagement of the entire threefold-self is involved – to the extent that it is sincere and not merely a “put-on” relationship. When we are motivated to undergo regeneration, self-witnessing our threefold-self helps us navigate through our experiencing, similarly to the way an accurate map helps you get to a destination. The destination in regeneration is eternal happiness with your soul mate in the mental world of eternity where you can construct your surrounding by means of your loves and thoughts.
If we don’t take charge of our mental world through regeneration, we are letting our spiritual mind to decay and lose its essential function. This is to allow your consciousness to exist in layers 6, 5, or 4, in the mental world of eternity. This is the rational consciousness that can receive altruism love substance and rationality that together, create the heavenly consciousness (S) and living in the eternity of our immortality. If we allow our spiritual mind to decay it will not function for us at our resuscitation, which occurs barely a few hours after our dying to this world. Now, awakened in our spiritual body, we cannot raise our consciousness to the spiritual mind. It is dead to us. We have therefore no other choice but to remain in the consciousness of our natural mind (7, 8, 9), such as it was before our resuscitation. But now we are no longer living in a physical environment with a physical body, through which our natural consciousness was formed. Our unregenerate natural mind is a material mind. It works only by correspondence to the material world. Now, after resuscitation, and conscious in the unregenerate natural mind, we look at the world around us, and it is an insane world, but we deny it, or won’t believe it. We want to keep pretending that we are still on earth somewhere, and all this mystery will somehow clear up soon.
But the mystery only deepens. Now we are experiencing emotions of incredible power. They feel irresistible. We are being pushed and pulled by loves that conflict with each other. This was possible in the natural mind while it was still attached by correspondence to the physical body, prior to resuscitation. But not any more -- once the attachment is cut off by the dying process. Our spiritual mind is perfectly suited for life in the mental world of eternity, but not our natural mind. The insanity of the conflictual emotions after resuscitation in the natural mind eventually dies down. The price: we have to give up any love that conflicts with our “ruling love.” All our loves in the affective organ at all six layers are arranged in a value hierarchy, so that each love has a rank relative to the other loves. A first rank love trumps a lower valued love. At the top of the love hierarchy is the ruling love.
The Second Death
The process of regeneration involves self-witnessing our loves in daily life. The Divine Psychologist prevents us in our unregenerate mind to have consciousness of our actual love hierarchy. When we are resuscitated in an unregenerate natural mind we begin to undergo a physiological change that separates out the intertwining neural networks of the two love hierarchies every person possesses from birth. Our affective organ is the circulatory system of the spiritual body. The two types of nourishment for hellish loves and heavenly loves require different foods, different environments, different social life in eternity. In the mental world, conflictual loves destroy each other when co-present, and consequently they automatically separate, like oil and water in the physical world, or like fish swim away from an oil spill on the surface, or like a snake wriggles away from a burning bush. Opposite loves separate. But there is only one circulatory system in the spiritual body. The dominant love automatically does its work, and weeds out all the sub-loves that do not belong to its hierarchy. The loves that are weeded out are loves that draw in on themselves, contract, separate, and are as-if they had never existed as part of that individual.
This process of separation is called the second death.
The Divine Psychologist now activates the individual’s ruling love to come out into the open consciousness of the person. This new consciousness changes the appearance of the person. If the result of the separation process was a heavenly ruling love, all the hellish loves remaining after the person’s regeneration, are finally separated out from the personality. Because we are no longer “mixed good and bad,” but now all good, our appearance takes on the correspondence of an all good person with no bad inside. Altruism (A) and rationality (C), when conjoined, produce beauty and nobility of appearance (S) that we could easily call perfection in the human race. This is the beauty and appearance of the spiritual bodies that live in the Grand Human societies (layers 6, 5, 4 of the mental world of eternity, called the spiritual mind -- see diagram).
If the result of the separation process was a hellish ruling love, all the heavenly loves remaining in the person’s unregenerate natural mind, are now separated out from the personality. The appearance reflects this separation. A human being with only hellish traits and no heavenly traits, is a caricature of a human being. It is a beast of a human being. It is a human being sunk to the level of a wild animal. Such a person is insane and cannot be trusted. Such a person has no compassion and is filled with hatred and rage against anything that is good, like the innocence of children, or loyalty in marriage. The hellish mind is marked as -7, -8, -9 on the anatomical charts. These three layers of the mental world coalesce together in outward appearance and consciousness that is described by the title The Grand Monster.
That region of the mental world of eternity exists in every person’s mind. There is only one mental world of eternity, and every human being is in it since birth, and stays in it to endless eternity. Your mental world is the same as my mental world and the same as any person’s mental world. Our thoughts (C) and feelings (A), and our resultant consciousness (s), are all in the same mental world of eternity. The Grand Human (layers 6, 5, 4) and the Grand Monster (-7, -8, -9) are therefore in every person’s mind. Our consciousness travels across this endless mental landscape in accordance with the laws of correspondence. Our ruling love is our destination ticket. Regeneration is the mental work that we must do now and here in daily life, so that we may determine our future in eternity by acquiring a ruling love whose origin is rooted in the Grand Human regions.
The ruling love in the Grand Human is the love of others more than the love of self. We have this love from the reception of altruism love substance without distorting it or mixing selfism with it. Selfism is the love of self for the sake of self alone. It is the ruling love in the Grand Monster. Since we are born with this ruling love which we inherit from the parental line, it is medically of the utmost importance to get rid of this love pest, to eradicate it from the things we enjoy and take delight in. The Divine Psychologist does not give us consciousness of the devastating extent to which this hellish love rules our mental development and daily lifestyle choices as adults. It would be so devastating that we would have not motive to fight against it, and we would immediately plunge ourselves into the pleasures, enjoyments, and delights of the many sub-loves that the ruling love supports, fosters, and assists in our daily choices and activities.
The process of realizing how wicked and evil we can be in the apparent privacy of our mind, must be introduced only gradually by the Divine Psychologist. Self-knowledge is limited by self-love. When we undergo the second death in our unregenerate natural mind (-9, -8, -7) we abandon all limits of human compassion and reason. Nothing can stop the love of self for the sake of self alone, to gather around itself all sorts of sub-human and horrid loves. All of hell acts together as the Grand Monster, just as all of heaven acts together as the Grand Human. If you hang on to some hellish sub-love because it is “small and inconsequential in the larger scheme of things,” you are hanging on to all of hell, since all of hell is unified into one. This does not show here, in our natural mind while it is attached to the physical body. The Divine Psychologist prevents us from seeing this about our actual nature. We can hear and learn from teachers and authors that we have hell in us, but we don’t believe it, and can’t believe it. This is because hell feels good and is enjoyable, and what we love, that we call good and heaven.
But after the second death we come face to face with others around us who share the same hellish sub-loves. This looks like some real good fun for a short while, but like children at play, it soon turns into disagreements, and with bad children into fights, brawls, and the savage desire to tear each other apart limb by limb. Hell is love, but it is no pleasure or fun. The pleasure and fun we know here on earth is possible because we have both hellish and heavenly loves. Our desire to burn down an annoying neighbor’s house is held in check by our desire to stay out of jail. Our desire to deny someone’s rights is held in check by our desire to be an upright citizen. But take away this balance, as it is done after the second death, and you have no stopping point or limit to your nasty or selfish desires.
Mental Nutrition
It helps if we fully realize that living is an organic process and that regeneration, which is part of living, is an organic process.
Think about how a plant grows as an organic process. Day by day, hour by hour, and second by second, the cells of the plant are active physiologically, exchanging their chemical waste for new food particles that reach them through the circulation within the plant cells, and between the plant structures, like the filaments of the roots that take in dissolved chemical nutrients, or the stalks and branches that carry the circulation upward to all the cells. Minute by minute the cells are reproducing and excreting from themselves more cells, that grow in size, which make the whole plant grow larger, and more mature, so it can deliver its flowers and fruit, which contains the seeds of the future plants. And thus the species evolves through many generations. All these operations are activated by sunlight, which provides the heat and energy for the motion of the exchanges within and between the cells. We all learn about these organic procedures in biology classes and in books. We are not told that these physiological details and procedures are, each and every one, an effect, caused by correspondence with the physiological details and procedures of our mental organs in the spiritual body. In other words, the mental world of eternity is the source and cause of the physical world of time. We can observe many details in the short term growth of a plant, or in the long term volcanic formation of an island chain in the ocean. These physical events are all effects. The causes are in the mental world.
This is the result of the fact that mental substances in eternity are durable and permanent (“eternal”), while physical substances in time are temporal or impermanent. The permanent must be the cause of the impermanent. You can see the same rational relationship with infinity and what is finite. God is infinite, and since there can be only one infinite, God is the only infinite. The infinite is therefore the cause of the finite. It is impossible and irrational for the finite to be the cause of the infinite. Mental substances are in the mental world of eternity, and hence they are the “permanent” things that cause the “impermanent” things to exist, and to form and grow. Mental anatomy is the cause of physical anatomy. Mental physiology is the cause of physical physiology. The two are in one-to-one, cause-effect correspondence, so that we can study our mental world by studying the physical body. This body-mind relationship of correspondence is the foundation of mental psychology.
The function of nutrition in the physical body comes about from its correspondence with the function of reception in the affective organ of our spiritual body. Our affective organ receives (“ingests”) and assimilates (“digests”) the inflow of altruism love substance from the Spiritual Sun in the mental world of eternity.
Mental self-witnessing is like the study of biology or medical students who are witnessing the cellular events of physical organs. Some medical study and knowledge is necessary as part of the modern educated person’s life style. Mental self-witnessing benefits from such medical knowledge since the procedures in the two worlds correspond and coincide, detail by detail. Future researchers in mental psychology will no doubt discover these correspondences, so that they may become part of everyone’s literacy. The ability to cooperate effectively in our mental regeneration process is at least as important and critical as the ability to maintain our physical body in working order.
When we study the activity of cells in the physical body we realize that this activity depends on the intake by all cells of two different categories of substances, namely, liquid and solid. For cell nourishment in your plant to be effective you have to find a way of getting these two substances to the plant for intake or feeding. These two substances must be able to unite. The large pieces of the solids have to be “dissolved” in water, so that they are small solids distributed throughout the water. Now the plant roots can take this liquid-solid mixture into its structure as food. If you give the plant only one of these, it will die. When the roots are laying in soil, you need only to add water on a regular basis, which then dissolves the solids in the soil into the mixture that the roots can take in.
These two categories of substances exist with life giving nutrition because they correspond to the two categories of substances that give life to our organs in the mental world of eternity. Altruism love substance corresponds to solids in the nourishment of physical cells, while rationality truth substance corresponds to the water or liquids. Rationality truth substance, or spiritual light, flows into our cognitive organ, while altruism love substance, or spiritual heat, flows into our affective organ. The two categories of substances are assimilated by each organ. Once they’ve been assimilated or incorporated by the organ, there results a strong tendency for these substances to unite. The affective operations, or feelings (A), seek to conjoin and unite with the cognitive operations, or thoughts (C). Let’s consider an illustration.
Mental Popcorn
You can do self-witnessing to find out what happens in your corner of the mental world when you take a snack with the physical body while you’re doing homework, or watching a program on TV. At one moment you’re conscious of a feeling in the corporeal consciousness (9A) that you identify (9C) as “I want some popcorn.” The consciousness of this feeling is activated or initiated by altruism love substance flowing into the affective organ of the corporeal consciousness (9A). Each layer of the mind is affected differently by the inflow of the same altruism love substance, and each person is affected uniquely at each layer. It is the Divine Psychologist who manages the physiology of your stomach and blood composition so that it can react by correspondence to the mental events in your affective organ. Your desire for having popcorn comes from a conglomerate or bundle of loves, such as · the love of eating · the love of the pleasure of eating · the love of the happiness that comes with eating · the love of sharing food with others · the love of feeling independent by having popcorn when we want to · the love of planning and stocking up on popcorn · the love of paying taxes on popcorn as a worthwhile way of supporting the community · the love of thinking about the history of popcorn and reading about it on the label · the love of feeling full · the love of getting thirsty with a lot of popcorn · the love of chewing on popcorn · the love of smelling the “theater butter” flavor on the popcorn · the love of eating more popcorn than the others · the love of hiding popcorn from others · the love of throwing popcorn at someone · the love of lying about having eaten popcorn · etc. (add a few more you can think of) You can see from this list that a single activity in the course of our day can have endless loves attached to it. Each of these loves are operations in your affective organ stirred to activation by the reception and assimilation of altruism love substance from the Spiritual Sun. Note that the same altruism love substance flows into all three layers of your natural mind (9A, 8A, 7A), and at each layer, activates a different love, different thinking, different consciousness and mentality. Unregenerate corporeal popcorn eating loves (9eA) are selfish and involve popcorn eating loves for the sake of self only (e.g., the love of not sharing the popcorn with others). Regenerating popcorn eating loves (9iA) involve popcorn-sharing loves attached to popcorn-eating loves. You can raise your popcorn-eating consciousness by thinking about 8S and 7S consciousness that can be attached to popcorn eating, like the love of planning for popcorn shopping and stocking up on it (8A), or the love of paying taxes on popcorn (7A).
There are natural, spiritual, and celestial popcorn eating temptations. For instance, suppose you’re eating popcorn with a friend while watching a movie. The bowl is between the two of you. You take a handful, get through with it, then you dip into the bowl communal bowl again. Your consciousness can be stuck in your unregenerate corporeal “dominance mode” (9eS), thinking constantly about sticking a bunch of popcorn at a time into your mouth, and eating faster, so you can get more popcorn into your stomach, than your companion does. Or, your consciousness may be on the “equity mode” (8eS), making sure you don’t take more than your share of half. Or, your consciousness might be in the interior portion of the rational consciousness (7iS), wanting to be careful that your companion gets as much as he or she wants, and feeling the regenerated interior delight of giving up some of the self for the sake of others (7iA and 7iAv6A).
Mental Physiology of the Threefold Self
The diagram shows the physiology of interaction between the three anatomical systems of the spiritual body. The affective organ is most prominent and covers the entire area of the spiritual body. No mental zone is left out as every zone must be nourished, and this is accomplished through the continuous circulation of interactions between the three systems of mental organs.
The Biochemistry of Consciousness.
Rationality truth substance, also called “truth” or “genuine truth”, is spiritual light within which is spiritual heat from the Spiritual Sun. We see the correspondence to this in the physical world. What we call “sunlight” flowing in from the sun millions of miles away, contains within itself heat. Light is on the outside, while heat is within it. When sunlight flows into a plant, there is a transfer of heat below the surface of the plant structures. This heat is necessary for cell operations, hence is a condition for life to continue. These physical organic operations correspond to the mental organic operations, for which spiritual heat is required.
Our mental anatomy and biochemistry is constructed out of the substances of spiritual heat and light form the Spiritual Sun. Our affective organ (A) is constructed specifically to be a receptor organ that admits into itself spiritual heat. Our cognitive organ (C) is the receptor that admits spiritual light. Together, our affective and cognitive organs (AC) are able to reunite the spiritual heat and the spiritual light substances that they each received separately. In the Spiritual Sun, hence in God, spiritual heat is called Divine Altruism love substance, and spiritual light is called Divine Rationality truth substance. In God these two Divine substances are fully united into one. When these two living infinite uncreate substances in God enter into the finite creation of the mental world of eternity, they separate, and separately enter our mental organs. Now they struggle to reunite in our mind. This occurs when our affective organ in the form of a feeling or intention (A), that is activated by the incoming spiritual heat, conjoins with a concept or idea (C), that is activated by the incoming spiritual light. This conjunction is called the spiritual marriage, and produces a spiritual child or “neo baby” that forms a unit of consciousness in our sensorimotor organ (S).
Consciousness is the flow of such units in our awareness. We construct our consciousness unit by unity into this flow of living or experiencing awareness that we call “my conscious living self.” It is the conjoint action of loves (A) and thoughts (C) that produce our consciousness (S). This subjectively appears to us as outside of our self, outside of our mental body as an environment. For instance, in our dreams we see things produced by our mind. This environment appears to our dream consciousness as outside of ourselves and includes space, objects, people, and events – all happening outside of our self, in the dream consciousness. After resuscitation we come into the consciousness of our spiritual mind (layers 6, 5, 4). Now we have our consciousness of the mental environment (S) that is produced by our loves (A) and thoughts (C) in the spiritual mind.
The mental world of eternity is filled with such units of consciousness, producing the appearance of objects, houses, gardens, cities, communities. This entire conglomeration is called the Grand Human. People are congregated according to the similarity or connection in their loves and thoughts, which allows them to produce a stable sensorimotor environment that coherently hangs together as individual and community life in eternity.
AWM Method of Consciousness Raising
Admit its possibility (affective) Witness its meaning (cognitive) Modify something in accordance with it (sensorimotor) This applies to all concepts, ideas, and principles that have not been distorted by the filter of selfism. When spiritual heat (or altruism love substance) flows into the affective organ (A), it is filtered, transformed, adapted, digested, and assimilated to all the loves that are already operational in the organ. There is a specific process of affective growth in the hierarchy of our loves as we grow and mature. This filtering or adaptation process in the affective organ is uniquely carried out in each unique individual from birth to eternity. Although it is the same spiritual heat that flows into every human being, the adaptation process insures that a unique reaction will occur in each person. The compatibility between these unique filtering procedures determines the location of our spiritual community or dwelling place in eternity. Soul mates evolve reciprocal filtering procedures so the conjugial couple can form into one mental unity. Our immediate neighbors in our heavenly estates are closest to us in loves and thoughts.
The biochemistry of consciousness involves three general steps or phases.
First, we hear or see something that is meaningful, like a new idea, principle, or demonstration. This new perception, idea, or meaning comes from the activation of our cognitive organ (C) by the inflow of rationality truth substance (spiritual light). During the adaptation process there may be distortion by selfism and false beliefs or meanings in the cognitive organ (C). If this distortion is mild then we begin the process of consciousness raising by admitting the possibility of the new idea as genuine and true. This is an affective process. It is our love that admits the new idea, and if our loves are contrary to the new idea, it will not be admitted, and it will not raise our consciousness.
Second, we witness that meaning, which means that we make it fit into the meanings that are already there. We can just leave it there, hanging, or on a shelf so to speak, in which case it will not be raising our consciousness. To integrate the new idea is to link it to the ideas already there in such a way that the entirety retains coherence or integrated meanings.
Third, we modify something in our sensorimotor environment by acting on it through determination. For instance, if the new idea is about the benefits of exercising, we want to perform an action that corresponds to learning about the beneficial uses of exercising. The instant we perform the modification, our consciousness is raised. This means that we are operating from a higher perspective, more powerful ability, and more altruistic motivation. This positive consciousness involves experiencing heavenly mental states and capacities.
Consciousness Raising From the Divine Psychologist
Consciousness is the face of truth in our awareness. When we are beholding the face of un-truth we are not in consciousness, but are lacking of consciousness. Un-truth destroys truth in our mind, and since consciousness is the face of truth, we no longer have consciousness when we no longer face truth. Consciousness and reality are one in rationality or truth. What then do we have when we don’t have consciousness?
We have the life of the Grand Monster. This is the life of hell in the human mind. Hell is un-reality because it is anti-reality. A mad person takes a stand against the surrounding reality. By standers who are in reality can plainly perceive those who are in un-reality. They may speak with some coherence, especially if they have trained themselves to feign the behavior of sanity. Since insane people are able to train themselves to appear normal, it indicates that they are able to come in and out of reality, according to the love they are having. If they are having a love for escaping detection, they will be motivated to think thoughts and perform acts that they know are considered sane by society. This ability to think coherently and plan accordingly, indicates that they are able to come back into reality, long enough to carry out their insane purposes.
Mental states we have that are sourced in the Grand Monster plunge us into unreality. For instance, consider when people will swear. Often it has to do with expressing a negative emotion. Screaming and throwing things are additional forms of this explosive behavior that plunges us momentarily – for a second or two, into the rage and insanity of un-reality. When people allow it to build up over additional seconds or minutes, it becomes the insanity of rage which annihilates all semblance of humanity left in us, turning us into wild beasts that literally strive to tear their victim apart. Most of us in our unregenerate states prior to the inversion in layer 7i tolerate such anti-human states, and even enjoy the sensations and feelings we can get from it.
The un-reality of our consciousness sourced in the loves of selfism is not something any of us can get out of – by ourselves.
We would remain in the un-reality of the human hells forever. We would experience our birth and death in a hellish earth, much worse than now, and we would resuscitate in an unregenerate natural mind, thus in the Grand Monster (-7, -8, -9). Our spiritual mind would be forever undeveloped, non-functioning. The entire human race would be condemned to this awful state of born in hell and staying there forever. What saves us from this sorry and un-merciful fate is the co-presence of the Divine Psychologist in the interior layer of our rational consciousness (7i). This is the organ that gives us the ability to escape the materialism of the natural mind. It is here that the Divine Psychologist is co-present in our very consciousness. We share co-presence, which means conscious co-awareness. It is similar to meeting God face to face in an airplane and sitting together for a few hours, talking, exchanging ideas and emotions. The person next to you on the airplane is co-present with you for the duration of the flight. What happens around you in the cockpit you can both witness in your awareness. What you reciprocally say to one another, you can witness and report. This is co-presence.
Since the reality is that the Divine Psychologist is co-present in consciousness in the interior-natural mind (7iS) we can raise our consciousness to that level by admitting the possibility of this co-presence, witnessing it by reflecting on this in a rational way, and finally, modifying our behavior to agree with this possibility as a reality. Since we spend much of our daily regular consciousness in layers 9eS and 8eS, we are not able to experience the co-presence in layer 7iS – directly. But we can experience the co-presence indirectly by cognitive mysticism. For instance, it is common for people to pray on specific occasions of trouble or celebration. If is done from layer 8eC, it is only a social practice called “paying lip service.” If it is done from layer 8iC, it is a personal involvement in the consciousness that God is everywhere and that He can hear your prayer or hope. This is a mystical involvement that brings co-presence at the materialistic level of consciousness that is regenerating and interior (8iS).
There is a step up in consciousness from denying God and ridiculing prayer (8eC) (cognitive materialism), to mystically affirming God as everywhere and listening (8iC). There is another step up in consciousness from mystical ideas of God (8iC) to rational ideas of God based on mental anatomy and biochemistry (7iC). At this level we can empirically confirm the co-presence of God as the “Divine Psychologist” who is co-managing our mind for the purpose of effecting its regeneration, thus, to prepare every mind for eternal conjugial life in heaven (layers 6, 5, 4). The Divine Psychologist manages to insure that we are always in balance between hellish and heavenly loves, so that our choices can cumulate to weaken and abandon our hellish enjoyments. This is a lifelong medical process of disengaging and disentangling the neurons of our loves, some which are from selfism, and some from altruism. It is a surgical procedure that requires Divine omnipotence. Upon our willingness to cooperate hangs our fate, whether the Divine Psychologist manages to disentangle us before it is too late. Upon resuscitation all the tangles that have not been straightened, remain forever – only because at that point we no longer willing to part with them. They are sourced in the deranged layers of the natural mind (-7, -8, -9), which is the Grand Monster. Our loves always swim towards and end up in their roots.
Acknowledging the co-presence of the Divine Psychologist is therefore the main method of consciousness raising.
This acknowledging must take the form indicated above: AWM. First, we admit the possibility. This means we must love that possibility. We cannot admit it until we love it. Second, we witness the meaning of that co-presence by thinking about anatomically. Third, we modify our behavior to correspond to our idea of co-presence. This third step has many forms that we can experiment with. For instance, aving a mental dialogue with the Divine Psychologist. The topic does not matter. We need to want to express something to the Divine Psychologist, and we need to want to have an answer or response from the Divine Psychologist. The mental dialogue is not necessarily in a regular alternating turn format, as we do in face to face conversation with each other. Often new ideas or meanings spring into consciousness, and we realize that this was an answer because we can see that it is. We have the perspective or understanding on the topic that we wanted to know.
An additional form of acknowledging co-presence, is to mentally express thanks and gratitude to the Divine Psychologist for this or that in the course of the day. It is a way of recognizing the reality that every detail of your day is managed by the Divine Psychologist. Did you find the last parking spot this morning? Thank the Divine Psychologist for it. Remind yourself that it was not luck or chance. This afternoon you did not find a parking spot at the shopping market where you stopped. Thank the Divine Psychologist for providing spots for others. After all, you can think, if you had gotten the last parking slot, someone else would not have it right now. You can also talk to the Divine Psychologist so you can understand why you were not allowed to find a parking spot this time. In this way you are involving yourself in reality and your consciousness is raised.
Mental Self-witnessing
The practice of daily self-witnessing is done for the purpose of regeneration. Specifically, self-witnessing gives us the empirical facts about our mental life. Everyone has opinions and beliefs about themselves, and how they are. We can call this the “reputation you have of yourself.” Our reputation of our self may be accurate, but usually it is not. We often exaggerate our altruistic love and minimize our selfish love. When a wife or girl friend says to her husband or boyfriend, “You need to be more punctual and more neat around the house,” the man often denies being not neat or not punctual. The wife or girlfriend might say “You are angry with me,” and the man might say “No, I am not,” when he actually is. The self is no expert on the self. This is why we need objective views on our selves, and this is provided by others, how they see us, and experience us.
Self-witnessing data replaces reputation claims about our self. We need accurate data on the events that take place in our mental world. Prior to resuscitation, our mental world does not show to others who are also prior to resuscitation. Each individual is the sole source of empirical information on their own thoughts and feelings. Self-witnessing literacy refers to skills we can acquire to keep track of our threefold self in daily life. As this information comes to our consciousness and awareness, we are prompted by the Divine Psychologist to optimize it, to do something about it and with it. The purpose of self-witnessing is to give us the facts about our self so that we may exercise free choice about keeping them around as part of our mental world, or break company with them, and putting them on a regeneration list. We need to collect such self-witnessing facts on our self and organize them into categories of medical intervention and rescue.
It is the Divine Psychologist who rescues us, one by one, to the extent that each of us is willing to cooperate in the lifelong medical process of regeneration. This cooperation consists of exercising our judgment of right and wrong, or good and bad, with respect to every love that the Divine Psychologist brings to our attention through daily self-witnessing. We are not capable of doing this on our own. All we can do is to just go along with our loves, as if blown by a strong wind, or pulled by a strong current. It is the current of the Grand Monster to which each of us is attached from birth by our spiritual bar code. We would be long lost to that sorry fate were it not for the Divine Psychologist constantly pulling back on us, mitigating and reducing the intensity of the push and pull of our inherited ruling love of selfism. The love (A) and the thought (C) that we observe in our corner of the mental world (S), is a cleaned up and protected world, kept that way by the loving management of the Divine Psychologist. This protection can no longer be extended after our second death, when a new protection relationship begins, in which the Divine Psychologist is a hated figure and must keep in the unconscious regions of the person. This requires that all rationality and altruism be removed from the person. To leave some of this with the person would mean mental torture for that person to a degree that is not humanly possible to experience, and not be destroyed from all existence.
You will discover various methods of self-witnessing as your practice becomes a regular part of your day.
Exercise for Self-witnessing the Threefold Self on the Daily Round
A realistic way of keeping track of your threefold self on the daily round is to isolate them conceptually and focus in on one of the three during an observation period. The length of an observation period may be as short as a few seconds, or may last several minutes. Longer periods are possible with various recording techniques and systematic note taking and record keeping. When you just begin this mental practice I recommend that your observation periods be kept short. You can make a brief record of your observations immediately after, or review it in your mind and take notes about it later when you are in the mood for that kind of review.
Self-witnessing Inventory for the Natural Mind
The following annotated list or, Self-witnessing Inventory, can be used as a self-witnessing navigation chart. They allow you to disentangle the complicated knot of the many things that are going on in any typical social situation or realistic scene of life. Try to focus only, or mostly, on the specific item you select in advance for each observation situation.
(1) Affective Observations
What am I trying to do here What motivates me to be here, am I doing this for the sake of self only Am I hurting someone by doing this and do I care Why am I not stopping or leaving What kind of enjoyment am I getting out of this, and how do I feel about enjoying this How do I feel about myself wanting to engage in this activity or way of interacting and speaking Etc.
(2) Cognitive Observations
Is this good, what I am doing Is it positive or negative, is it heavenly or hellish Will I be sorry later for doing this What’s wrong with what I am doing, who does it hurt How long am I going to keep doing this How can I stop doing this, put an end to it Where did I learn to do this Is what I am doing illegal, immoral, anti-social, psychotic Would I do or say this if various others could see or hear it Who else is doing this and what could be the effect on them Etc.
(3) Sensorimotor Observations
What did I just say How did I express myself How else could I have expressed myself What did I just do What else could I have done instead How did the others react to what I said or did Etc.
Stupidifiers
These are learned and acquired attitudes or habits of thinking and feeling. Our unique socialization and biography may lead us to emphasize particular categories, but all the categories are common for most people. Witness yourself performing these stupidifier practices. They are based on selfism and its irrational thoughts and reasoning patterns. Try to get a sense of how deeply you are involved in engaging in this type of stupidifying process every day.
ArroganceOne version of arrogance is shown when we decide to disregard authority and law because we are sure “we can get away with it.” This is a stupidifier, as shown by the fact that people who think this make foolish mistakes and get caught. Disregard for legitimate authority leads to the love of selfism in oneself. When this develops into a habit of life, it becomes a ruling love sourced in the Grand Monster. After resuscitation we are drawn by our ruling love to enter that “home” where our love lives. When we get there in conscious awareness we have a sense of reaching final home. All along we were living in this love of selfism, and now we have reached the roots of it. Now our life eternal hell begins in layers -7, -8, -9. Another version of arrogance is to act like something doesn’t apply to us, when it applies to everybody. For example, allowing ourselves to eat unhealthy foods, or to practice binge drinking, or to have risky sex, etc., because we foolishly think it won’t apply to us.
NarcissismSeeing things from our own perspective alone. Not letting the perspective of others to influence us, even when our perspective is wrong, incorrect, inappropriate, cruel, unfair. This makes us stupid, blind, and insensitive to the feelings and needs of others. The loves of selfism lead us to narcissism, self-centeredness, and the unwillingness to feel responsible for hurting others or inconveniencing them. For example: often being late for things promising to call, and then forgetting to not hearing what another is saying not caring what another wants or needs willing to inconvenience others on a habitual basis complaining about everything as a habit etc.
PessimismExpecting things to turn out negatively as a habit Focusing on the bad, ignoring the good Interpreting what people are doing as insincere, even when they may be sincere Compulsively thinking about all the things that can go wrong Worrying as a habit Disliking giving positive evaluation or ratings to almost anything or anyone Denigrating or ridiculing the view of others when they are being optimistic Being suspicious of people when there is no need for that, thinking the worse about them Etc.
EntitlementFeeling above the rules, above the fray, being owed special treatment, and resenting it if not Wanting or insisting on special treatment that others are not getting Etc.
BelligerenceBeing feisty, making others feel bad or uncomfortable Aggressive verbal manners (loud voice, angry face, rigid posture, threatening hand movements) Accusatory in speech and tone of voice Feeling criticized or attacked, even when not Acting defensive, with a hostile attitude Etc.
Inventory of States in Layer 9 Consciousness
Focused on what is corporeal, biological, and sensorimotor for the sake of physical usefulness to the whole individual (heavenly), or else for the sake of self without regard to social morality (hellish)
Heavenly traits are sourced in the Grand Human (GH) and connect us to specific societies there Hellish traits are sourced in the Grand Monster (GM) and connect us to specific societies there Our particular love and enjoyment for these activities keep us connected to each society specifically. This location or connection is indicated by the correspondence between the operation of our ruling love and the organ or structure of the body.
Exercise: Now add a dozen or so additional items you can think of, either about you, or about others you know, or what is portrayed on TV, movies, and novels:
Inventory of States in Layer 8 Consciousness
Focused on what is materialistic, based on evidence from the senses, and attached to morality grounded in equity and legitimate authority (heavenly), or else, attached to immorality grounded in selfism and racism (hellish)
Exercise: Now add a dozen or so additional items you can think of, either about you, or about others you know, or what is portrayed on TV, movies, and novels:
Inventory of States in Layer 7 Consciousness
focused on what is rational and spiritual, objectively without distorting the inflow of altruism love substance and rationality truth substance (heavenly), or else distorting it into what is self-serving and irrational (hellish)
Exercise: Now add a dozen or so additional items you can think of, either about you, or about others you know, or what is portrayed on TV, movies, and novels. It takes a long time to generate lists such as the above! You might have to do on more than one sitting. Try to follow this rule I've followed for many years: If you think it, ink it. Write down the items that pop into your awareness as you go about your daily activities. When you have time add them to the list. This kind of procedure is effective in generating large inventories of items. Suppose you had to write down from memory all the things in your apartment. You will think of more and more items to add to the list as they pop into your awareness over several days. It is the same with inventories of your thoughts and feelings on the daily round. I once made an inventory of the things we need to do when driving a car, including our feelings, thoughts, and actions. See The Nine Zones of Your Driving Personality here: www.drdriving.org/articles/9zones-inventory.htm . There is great value in making lists. It allows your rational consciousness (layer 7) to examine and inspect many things that are going on in your own mind in layers 8 and 9, things that you do not normally reflect on. What we don't reflect on disappears from our conscious awareness. What is not present to our awareness cannot be assessed and judged, hence we are stuck with them forever. They will never go away on their own because we love our habits, and what we love stays with us forever because love is an immortal substance organically engrained or embedded in our immortal mind. Making inventories of our traits is a necessary activity in the process of regeneration. You will notice that as children we start out with a corporeal mentality (layer 9). As we get older we adopt the ways of thinking of our parents and peers. If the adults and peers around the children are immersed in the corporeal mentality, the children will grow up as adolescents and young adults being similar to their parents. Some adults continue in that corporeal mentality, passing it on to their children, but others change as they are motivated to upgrade themselves to a higher mode of thinking and feeling (layer 8). Note also that all three layers of the natural mind contain both heavenly and hellish traits. This does not mean that they are in the same sub-layer since these two oppose and annihilate each other. This means that the hellish traits in any layer are separated from the heavenly traits in that layer. This separation within each layer of what is heavenly or hellish insures that they can exist in the same individual as we are preparing for our life after resuscitation. When we are resuscitated, a separation then takes place with the individual's mind so that all heavenly traits remaining in layers 8 and 7 are put to sleep, leaving the person free to join eternal life in the hells of the natural mind (layer 8, 7). In this case the spiritual layers (6 and above) have never been opened during life on earth. But if they have been operationalized through the process of regeneration, then the individual continues life in the spiritual layers of heaven (6, 5, 4), while everything in the natural mind is put to sleep. Notice also this important feature: Exercise: Fill out the following inventory. Check it with the original above. Which ones did you get wrong? Why did you get them wrong -- what was your thinking?
Unregenerate Layer 8 Consciousness
Justifying unfair practices when it benefits self or one’s own
Unregenerate Layer 7 Consciousness
Body-Mind Correspondences in Popular Symbolisms
Beating the chest = feeling sorry, repenting or: being proud of oneself Bitter, sour = unpleasant, not good, bad ("The relationship soured, and they became bitter enemies") Burning, boiling = feeling angry, passionate Clothes, vesture, linen = varieties of meanings Covered = secret, having a plan to deal with it ("I've got it covered") Darkness = lack of comprehension Deaf = lack of cooperation, obedience ("He plays a deaf ear to it") Deaf = not understanding or obeying ("Are you deaf?") Death, to die = entering hell in the mind Digest = to appropriate, to make one's own ("This story is too much for me to digest") Dirty = morally corrupt ("He is a dirty cop") Eating together = to get in touch with and communicate, to be conjoined, to consociate Eating, drinking = to accept, to go along with, to apply or appropriate to oneself, to learn Eyes = wisdom, perceptions, cognitive organ of thinking and understanding ("I see what you mean") Face = the affections or emotions Finger = power Hand = proceeding power ("He's ruling with a strong head") Head = what is inmost or highest in the mental world, life itself ("It's my head that is at stake") Mouth = spokesperson Nose = perception, intelligence, expertise ("she's got a good nose for it") Reproductive organs = life in the highest heaven of our mind Resurrection = resuscitation of the mind after death of the physical body Right hand = having all the power ("He's the boss's right hand man") Shoes, sandals, shoe laces = the lowest part of the natural mind called corporeal Smell = to investigate ("I smell something fishy going on here") Teeth = power ("that amendment has no teeth in it") Tongue = religion, culture Washing the body = repenting, cleansing or purifying the mind from selfism Water = knowledge; also: Sacred Scripture ("living water" or spiritual truths))
Another illustration is the expression “living luxuriously” (body activity) which corresponds to having pleasure (mental activity). You can see that people who live in luxury (physical body) do it because they value the pleasures it provides (mental).
For more information and explanation on correspondences, see Correspondences in Our Thinking and Language.
By studying these correspondences you can realize two important things. First, that all your daily ordinary thinking is done through correspondences. Second, that correspondences are wired in relationships between your physical body operations and your mental operations. For instance, head (physical) corresponds to inmost and highest (mental). You can see that the head is the highest part of the body and so it corresponds to the highest part of the mind (which is called "inmost"). Another illustration: face (physical) corresponds to emotions (mental). You can see that when people are emotionally involved or aroused their facial appearance changes in accordance with (or correspondent to) the quality of the emotion (happy, angry, sad).
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞ Exercise on Mind-Body Correspondences
Part 1 Consider these examples of mind-body correspondences in everyday speech. See if you can confirm the mental correspondence given by what you know from daily life:
Part 2 Practice describing the mental correspondence of the following physical acts: 1. He had a hand in it 2. He’s got a finger in every pie 3. He is straight as a bucket 4. He is a wolf 5. He is very cheeky 6. He’s a pain in the butt 7. He is a dirty cop 8. He came apart at the seams 9. He smelled a rat 10. Something fishy is going on here 11. He always goes round and round 12. Work with me on this 13. It’s the furthest thing in my mind 14. He bulldozes his way in 15. He puts up a lot of barriers 16. It’s a hot item for teenagers 17. You can’t hide behind your daddy all the time 18. They won’t know what hit them 19. I’m this much away from blowing it 20. He shrugged his shoulder 21. He pointed a finger at the previous owner 22. He was mesmerized by her 23. I like to bump heads with him 24. The two of us are hand and glove 25. He toyed with her 26. He swallowed it up and now we can leave 27. Things are churning in my brain
In contrast, note that some figurative speech is not an instance of mind-body correspondences, as in the following examples:
He fingered the man who did it He double crossed his partner His business partners stabbed him in the back He flew away from the coop He thrashed her The General used the pincer movement
Note that these types of figurative speech refer to one physical act by mentioning another physical act. For instance, the statement, that “the general used the pincer movement”, refers to “attacking the enemy” (physical act) by mentioning the “pincer movement” (physical act). Or, for instance, the statement, “He thrashed her” refers to a man beating a woman (physical act) by mentioning the “flailing movement of the hands” (physical act). The speech act, “He fingered the man who did it.”, uses one physical act (pointing the finger at someone) in order to refer another physical act (reporting someone as the guilty person). In contrast, the statement “Things are churning in my brain”, mentions a physical act (the brain churning) to actually refer to a mental act (the mind busy with ideas).
Part 3 Make up a Table of mind-body correspondences with entries that you made up, either by yourself or with a little help from friends. These are called “neologistic mind-body correspondences” (“neo” = new), in contrast to the “communal mind-body correspondences” that we acquire by socialization and group practices. Once you have your full Table, print out a list of just the expressions (body activity), and ask friends to figure out their mental correspondence. Describe how each expression was viewed by others, and give your explanation why that occurred. ∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
Three Ways of Knowing God
If God exists, people must be able to know this without any doubt. There are three ways in which this certainty of God’s existence is acquired by people, namely, conscience, proof, and Sacred Scripture. The following table describes these three ways of knowing God within each of the three layers of the natural mind.
You can inspect the ennead chart above by starting with the Conscience column from the bottom up. Our conscience is a mental organ within the affective organ (A). It receives direct and continuous inflow of spiritual heat from birth to endless immortality. The spiritual heat form the Spiritual Sun activates the affective organ and its sub-structures. Every human being’s loves are activated in this manner. Conscience is an affective reaction to this automatic Divine inflow. We are consciously aware of this affective reaction in our conscience organ. Hence this may also be called affective perception. It is the perception of a feeling and its quality. At each of the three layers of the natural mind the sub-organ of conscience operates differently, reflecting how each layer reacts by its own correspondence to the inflow of spiritual heat.
The corporeal mind (layer 9) knows God only as an ethnic God tied to our ancestors and racial blood line. This establishes a bond or conjunction between God and our corporeal consciousness. God is seen as tied to the physical body and our historical-cultural biography. God relates to our racial or ethnic “group” or “nationality.” God is partial to a certain group by virtue of ancestral history and inheritance. God is seen as directly intervening in the physical world around us, causing natural disasters, famines, and sicknesses as a form of punishing believers for their “sins” or “transgressions” of Divine Commandments and Order. God also delivers sharp guilt pangs and the dread of being punished. These punishments are physical, and they end at death. Not much is thought about or known what happens after that. One can also relate to God, and discover more about God, through “holy” objects such as talismans, or through divination of signs and omens. There is a tendency to believe in visions of God or God’s realm, and a desire to expiate guilt by means of sacrifices of animals and other traditional rituals. There is also a tendency to believe ghost stories and psychics. The corporeal mind relates to Sacred Scripture as coming from God and containing details about the physical comforts of life that God provides as reward, or the removal of these as punishment.
The materialistic mind (layer 8) knows God as personal rather than ethnic or racial. God relates not only to the community of believers and worshippers as a group, but also with each individual. Conscience in layer 8 evokes affective reactions in relation to human dignity and responsibility to each other. God is seen as commanding each of us to lead a life of sympathy and charity towards others, hence of altruism and mutual love. The focus of God’s commandments in Sacred Scripture is not merely related to physical acts, but also mental acts on an equal basis. To “sin in one’s mind” is as serious as to sin in one’s physical body. In the earlier consciousness of layer 9, sinning concerned the physical body specifically and primarily. But now sinning is seen in more abstract meanings, relating to our thoughts, intentions, and desires. Our presence with God is experienced as mystical and incomprehensible, but definitely real. God is seen as managing historical events for the goal of bringing about a physical world that is in accord with God’s order of love and truth. God is seen as having the human and the Divine intertwined in Himself, though it is not understood how this is.
The rational mind (layer 7) responds to the inflow of spiritual heat by operations in our conscience that tend to universalize God into spiritual heat and light, or, goodness and wisdom, or, love and truth. Although we see God externally as the Supreme Being and Divine-Human Person, we also see God interiorly and more intimately as Divine-Human Substance that is present from within our mental organs as good and truth, or spiritual heat and light. We love others conditionally upon the goodness and truth they have within themselves. We love the good and truth in a person, but we do not love the selfism and irrationality that are also within the person. We see God anatomically. We are intertwined with God through God’s Own eternal substances which He causes to operate within our mental organs, and thus our life from within. God manages all things from without in our community environment, and also from within in our loves and thoughts.
Divine Psychotherapy
In layer 9S consciousness prior to regeneration (9e) we identify the self as being essentially corporeal or sensory-bound, which is felt as being above, or more central and important, than the cognitive or the mental, which are seen as less real because less concrete. The expression “bottom line” expresses this idea, and also the expression “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.” But in layer 8S consciousness the idea we have of our self is less concrete, less material, more abstract, more complex. We recognize that the mental world is not as limited as the physical world, and we are inventive in abstract material ideas that expand the mental field and pushes back “the frontier of the unknown.” But we still insist that self and the mental world are not “as real” as the physical world, just as a story is “not as real” as an event that actually happened.
Hence, the abstractions in layer 8eS consciousness remain rooted in, or based on, the rock bottom corporeality of 9eS consciousness. This is no longer the case as we raise our consciousness to the rational consciousness of layer 7eS. Here we can reflect on ideas that are more independent or distant to the senses and their materialism, and we can experience enjoyments, that are no longer rooted in, but have escaped from the corporeality and concrete materialism of the two lower layers in our unregenerate natural mind (8e, 9e). These higher meanings in the unregenerate rational mind (7eC) are called rational ideas in the cognitive organ (7C), to contrast them with material ideas at the lower level of meanings (8C). Now we are capable of acknowledging the central feature of mental psychology, namely, that the “self” is not just one thing, but a number of layers, each with its own level or quality of loves, ideas, and consciousness. This anatomical or medical approach to the self (7C) overcomes the material appearances that we experience in our daily living.
We do not ordinarily experience ourselves as divided into three entirely different sets of loves and ways of thinking (9, 8, 7). When we first start studying the chart of layers in mental psychology, we see it in symbolic terms as the technical language of science. Our cognitivism is materialistic (8eC). In the external portion of the rational consciousness (7eC) our focus is primarily on the philosophy of affective humanism (7eC). The rational ideas of the affective humanism perspective (7eC) are constructed into a rational network of ideas and explanations. This is how the rational consciousness works. Humanism is not merely a theory; it is a subjective reality. Affective humanism is “affective” (7eA) because it is sourced in the love of a humanity that can exist in its own right, and not “merely” as dependent “children” of God. Humanism is the belief that human beings are responsible for their own evolution, at the center of which is nature or its natural laws, not God. In humanism, God, if acknowledged, does not intervene directly in every detail of the world and of life. In this external self-based philosophy of life, it is assumed that God, “if He exists”, lets the natural laws take care of the details. When natural laws are thought to determine events, it is called humanism or naturalism, but not theism.
The consciousness of our external rational consciousness (7eS) rejects a mental anatomy that cannot function on its own, but needs God’s intervention and management every moment. In our external rational reflections we prefer to think that God, “if there is a God,” is “watching us from a distance.” Scientists who worship and pray with family, put aside their “theistic” perspective on the grounds that God created the universe and its laws, and now science shows that things are happening because of these laws, not God. Affective humanism is selfism under the appearance of humanism. We do not claim to be God or Divine, but we claim to be independent of God in our self. Hence we reject the idea of an as-of self to replace the self. We also reject the idea that our mental organs are made of altruism love substance (A) and rationality truth substance (C), and nothing of our own. We hate the idea that we must regenerate and give up many of the things we love and enjoy. We prefer to follow a “humanistic” love that takes us back to the self, and lets us view the self as the central and only focus for our direct reality. But all this changes with the inversion point at reformation when we go from the first rational (7eC) based on self, to the second rational (7i) based on the omnipotent God alone.
After the inversion we rise above the self-grounded consciousness of layer 7eS, seeing a new vista or world view, a new reality that includes and explains all the previous ones. Now mental psychology becomes useful knowledge to help us navigate through the difficult adventures of regeneration. We are now willing to receive altruism love substance without inverting it into the heat of selfism. This new love in layer 7iA feels delight in learning about the anatomical layers of the mind. It is orderly and neat. There is no mystery. All the pieces and bits fit together like a pleasant puzzle, or a useful chart in unknown territory that can be treacherous and deadly without a chart. The as-of self is welcomed in this new interior-natural view (7iC) because it frees us of the burden of living life as an independent ‘stand alone’ self that we in fact are not. It is merely an illusion that God creates to allows us to exert our free will. This exertion of our few will is necessary for our love. Without it we would not feel that the love is ours, hence we would not feel satisfied and be in a heavenly state of mind. The illusion of as-of self keeps us in freedom of choice, which is necessary for the survival of our loves. The freedom of choice is real, but the appearance that we do it of our own self power, is not real. God uses omnipotence to manage things in our mind so that this freedom of choice is never taken away or lost, from our birth to endless immortality.
The freedom of choice is maintained by the balance that God creates in our mind between hellish and heavenly loves, and between falsities and truths. As long as the Divine Psychologist maintains the presence of hellish and heavenly loves in perfect balance in our mind, we can progress and regenerate, by choosing freely according to our heavenly loves and rejecting our hellish loves. This as-of self choice in balance, provides us with the medical process of regeneration, hence our eternal salvation in a heavenly eternity. This is the Grand Human consciousness in our spiritual mind, or layers 6, 5, 4.
In our regenerating rational mind (7iC) we begin to understand our consciousness as being layered by anatomy. We love the idea that we can experience our consciousness at any of these anatomical levels, not just one or two. We are intrigued by the idea that our loves and thoughts are managed by the Divine Psychologist through the process of bringing us into contact with various people and societies in the mental world of eternity, which is our vertical community. All people end up there sooner or later, or immediately after the dying and resuscitation process. We love to learn the details of this medical procedure. It makes us feel reassured to know that medical assistants, already on the other side of death, are assisting the process out of their love for people, as they are moved by altruism love substance in their affective organ.
The inversion from external sensuous consciousness (7eS), at around age 30, to interior rational consciousness (7iS), is called affective theism, as shown on the diagram. What is this great paradigm shift of human consciousness from sensuous rationality (first rational, 7eC) to spiritual rationality (second rational, 7iC)?. Mental anatomy shows that everything in the mental and physical worlds are initiated and sourced in the joint action of altruism love substance and rationality truth substance. Since this is the beginning of the sequence that initiates all else (layer 1), it will also be at the center of the actual event in simultaneous order. To be at the center in terms of discrete degrees means to be the central determinant of all the aspects of the object or event. Hence God is at the central determinant of all that happens in our mind. God is the manager and psychotherapist to every individual, the Divine Psychologist. This is affective theism. It depends on having the love for theism, or the a love for the idea that God manages every detail. If we oppose this love, we fall back into the external layer of the rational consciousness (affective humanism, 7eS).
Note from the diagram on regenerating the natural mind shown in simultaneous order above, that prior to inversion, the external rational mind (7e affective humanism) has cognitive materialism within it (8e), and sensorimotor corporeality (9e) within that. What is within a degree rules over the degree outside of it. Hence the inmost of the unregenerate rational mind (7e) is concrete and abstract materialism, thus materialism. But after the inversion and during regeneration, affective theism (7i) is within cognitive mysticism (8i), which is within sensorimotor innocence (9i). The unregenerate rational mind (7e) is humanistic and is called “the first rational.” Our idea of God is then based on self, and self is actually our god or “idol” that we love and serve. The unregenerate materialistic mind (8e) is atheistic, not admitting God as controlling every event. If we take away from God the idea of omnipotence (or controlling every event), then we no longer have a “theistic” God, but a “humanistic” god, which takes its authority on self and self-intelligence. The unregenerate corporeal mind (9e) is sense-bound and naturalistic, not capable of understanding higher abstractions and explanations. The regenerated rational mind (7i) is theistic and is called “the second rational.” The regenerated materialistic mind (8i) is mystical. The regenerated corporeal mind is innocent, which means that it has theism in its inmost or 7i. When theism is in the inmost (7i) then the corporeal mind (9i) is obedient to God and is in the heavenly order (or “innocent”).
Divine psychotherapy refers to the process of our regeneration.
The idea that “God is a healer” is something we are already familiar with in our cognitive materialism (7eC). Now with our new interior meanings (7iC), we have a new consciousness of some of the specifics of God’s continuous medical operation in our mind. In mental psychology we become aware of the existence of mental physiology, and how God is intertwined with this functioning through altruism love substance in the affective organ, and rationality truth substance in the cognitive organ, both types of substances streaming in from the Spiritual Sun. This new perspective allows us to rise above the idea that we are being controlled by God (8eC), and above the materialistic idea (8eC) that God is making decisions about the spiritual fate of each of us, as a Divine Judge might do, from the external record of our biography. This is an external view of God (8eC). But our interior view of God’s management (7iC) is to see the anatomical mechanisms that God has put in place for the all critical process of our regeneration, which allows us to attain the heavenly consciousness in eternity (6S, 5S, 4S) (see diagram).
The medical or interior view of our future in eternity is that it depends on each person’s mental physiology, rather than on God’s judgment of their past deeds. Each person’s mental physiology is determined by their loves. So it is our ruling love that determines our future in eternity.
Once we understand in an interior way (7iC) some of the details of God’s management of the anatomical layers, we are rationally empowered to take on the spiritual combats that will allow us to regenerate our inborn hellish loves enjoyments. Gradually, through a process of lifelong regeneration, our selfism substance in the mental layers is replaced by God’s altruism love substance. In this way we are being prepared for the capability of receiving and loving the Omniproprium. This is God’s Own Divine Human Consciousness resulting from Divine altruism love substance (spiritual heat), in conjunction with Divine rationality truth substance (spiritual light). This Omniproprium is God’s Divine Human personality made available to each human being in the Grand Human of the mental world of eternity. Every person whose consciousness lives in layers 6, 5, and 4 of the spiritual mind, receives and lives this Omniproprium in a unique way. The result is that all individuals whose consciousness is in those layers, are immersed every moment in the maximum possible happiness and joy that the person can endure. This heavenly joy is attained through the conjugial love between soul mates.
The rising of our interior consciousness in the interior-natural mind (7i) proceeds in three steps. First, we receive the higher meanings of the Omniproprium in virtual form in our interior-natural layer (7iAv6A, 7iAv5A, 7iAv4A,). See notation system. The consciousness of affective theism (7iA) (see diagram), is arranged at three discrete layers. We start with virtual access to the First Heaven (our layer 6 in the spiritual mind). The altruism love substance in that layer (6A) acts by correspondence upon the altruism love substance in layer 7iAv6A. This is a “virtual” access to the affective organ in our first heaven (6A). This access allows us to regenerate the external portion of the affective organ in our rational consciousness (layer 7eA). When this layer is regenerated, affective humanism is altogether replaced in our consciousness by affective theism (7iA). Second, we access in virtual form layer 7iAv5A, which is called the Second Heaven. This access allows us to regenerate the material mind, from cognitive materialism (8eS) to cognitive mysticism (8iS). Third, we access in virtual form the highest layer of the mental world of eternity (7iAv4A), which is called the Third Heaven. This allows us to regenerate the corporeal consciousness from sensorimotor corporeality (9eS) to sensorimotor innocence (9iS). At this point our natural mind is mostly regenerated, which means that our spiritual mind is fully matured and grown. Upon resuscitation we will be able to live in any of the layers we choose (6, 5, 4 – or the three heavens or regions in the Grand Human).
In the course of our daily activities, our thinking (C) oscillates (or vacillates) between the three external layers of the unregenerate conscious natural mind (layers 9eC, 8eC and 7eC). For example, think about a routine task you have to do on a regular basis, like running errands for someone to whom you feel obligated. As you are thinking about the schedule for the day, while brushing your teeth or preparing breakfast, you feel flooded by a feeling of resentment: “I hate having to do this.” For a few more seconds, or minutes, your thoughts are compulsively addressed to this topic. It pushes other things out, for awhile. You are in the mode of mental venting. The Divine Psychologist has connected you with some spiritual society in the Grand Monster whose inhabitants specialize in the ruling love of feeling resentful (-9A). They adore and live for this negative sentiment, feeling, and emotion. They love feeling resentful. They love being in negative emotions, which in their insanity they call positive. When we feel this emotion and attach value to it by venting and reactivating it in our mind, then they are in hellish ecstasy. During these few seconds, or minutes, and with some people hours and even days, our consciousness or mentality is situated (captured) in layer 9C. This layer is called concrete materialism, and sometimes sensual-corporeal (layer 9). The people in the Grand Monster who operate permanently in this mental state, feed on such spiritual connections between them (in the Grand Monster in eternity), and us (on earth in the unregenerate natural mind). When we are connected to a spiritual society there is an organic mutual influence taking place through the laws of correspondences. This means that our feelings and emotions react by correspondence to their feelings and emotions. We experience this connection as if the feeling or emotion is our very own. We do not sense that the emotion we are feeling is not our own, but theirs. Even if we know this, we still do not sense it. Direct sensing or awareness of such connection is not permitted by the Divine Psychologist, as this would harm our regeneration efforts.
Why does the Divine Psychologist connect you specifically to that particular society while you are brushing your teeth or preparing breakfast and thinking about the chores you have ahead of you?
It’s because of your love. All day long, moment by moment, the Divine Psychologist connects and reconnects your mind to societies in the Grand Human and Grand Monster. This is the source of our inherited traits and abilities, some of which are hellish traits (when connected to the Grand Monster societies), and some of which are heavenly traits (when connected to the Grand Human societies). The Divine Psychologist manages our regeneration through these on and off connections, keeping us in freedom through the balance of opposing tendencies. As a result, we are able to follow our free choices based on our loves. The Divine Psychologist manages things in our mind to make sure that we can choose life from love. Whatever we chose from love becomes an organic part of our mental organs. After resuscitation the choices we made from our own loves determine whether we will choose to join a society in the Grand Monster, or the Grand Human. This occurs at our second death, which is takes place a little after our resuscitation and first death.
The purpose of studying the organic basis of mental psychology is to acquire systematic, rational, and practical knowledge about the lifelong organic process of regeneration, which each of us must undergo prior to our dying and resuscitation, if we want to live in the Grand Human. Otherwise, if we are unwilling to undergo regeneration, we will choose to give up all our heavenly traits remaining, and become like those who live in the Grand Monster societies. Either way, the choice is ours. We need to realize that the choice we will make at that critical junction of life is determined by the loves that we have with us at dying and resuscitation. It is not something that you choose one way or another, or something you can change your mind about. Your choice after resuscitation is a choice made by your loves (A), rather than by your thoughts or ideals (C). You cannot choose the Grand Human if your loves are in the Grand Monster, and vice versa. This needs to be well understood because everything depends on it.
The success of this organic lifelong process of regeneration determines our immortal life in eternity, which begins immediately after death. There is no end to that life. Therefore there is no comparison in choice between the value to us, of safeguarding our eternal happiness, versus the value to us of experiencing a few hellish enjoyments during a tiny fraction of our life while we are here on earth. We regenerate by daily struggling to give up our inherited hellish enjoyments, and replacing them with heavenly enjoyments. This takes a lifetime of struggle on a daily basis. If we do not regenerate we are permanently acquiring the hellish loves that we now have as unregenerate persons. These are not our loves, really, they are the loves of the people in the Grand Monster to whom we are connected and reconnected, in accordance with the situation that we are in, while performing our daily activities. They become our permanent loves after resuscitation, when we enter the society that specializes in resentfulness, and immediately feel at home in that mental state of resentfulness. The same thing happens with other loves and enjoyments we have, such as the love of procrastinating, the enjoyment of teasing or ridiculing others, or the love of getting away with things instead of facing up to our responsibility. There are innumerable loves in our mind, and each love connects us to some society in the Grand Monster or Grand Human.
The Divine Psychologist manages the process of regeneration in every little detail. This is necessary since mental states in our natural mind in daily life are always associated to corresponding physical events. These physical events must be arranged so that they happen to you. This requires omnipotence and omniscience, and Divine Love and caring for each human being. So all day long, the Divine Psychologist connects and reconnects each of us to the societies of the Grand Human and Grand Monster, meanwhile, making things happen in our physical and social environment that correspond to our mental states.
As you are venting your resentful thoughts to yourself in layer 9C, you are also conjoining these thoughts to your love of feeling resentful about the obligation you feel and the things it requires of you. This love is in layer 9A. It is a corporeal love joining up with a concrete materialistic thinking in layer 9C. This conjoining together of an unregenerate or hellish love (9A) with distorted reasoning (9C) is called the “infernal marriage.” This contrasts with the “spiritual marriage” which is the conjunction of a regenerate altruistic love (A) with regenerate rational thinking (C).
As you are wallowing in the infernal marriage in layer 9, hating what’s going on, hating having to do chores for other people, experiencing hellish feelings that torture you, like wanting to run away, wanting to tell the person off, wanting to destroy something, wanting to scream as if in agony, etc. These are hellish loves creating hellish feelings. As long as your consciousness is captured in that unregenerate mental layer, you are going to be in hell with your feelings (A), with corresponding negative thoughts (C), and with the negative sensorimotor behaviors and consciousness (9S) that the infernal marriage produces – as for instance, pressing too hard on your toothbrush causing injury to your gums, or burning your toast, or cutting your finger, or banging drawers and doors, or driving off and practicing the emotional use of the gas pedal, etc. These series of little and big disasters go on and on – until your mentality, consciousness, and meaning of what’s happening, is liberated by some regenerated loves of rationality and control.
What is the mechanism by which we can change our mental state and raise our consciousness and mentality?
We can change loves by changing our thoughts, and then loving these new thoughts as opposed to the old thoughts that go with the old loves.
9A loves, like the love of feeling resentful, “materialize” into your actuality or life because you are willing to think the thoughts and perform the reasoning procedures of “venting to yourself” about the obligations you hate. If you inhibit or suppress these thoughts and justifications, then the love of feeling resentful cannot be consummated or live in your mind. That is when the Divine Psychologist disconnects you from that society, and reconnects you to some other society. Now which one? That again depends on your loves, as the Divine Psychologist cooperates with your love, to give you the spiritual freedom to choose that love, whether it is hellish or heavenly.
As you are still brushing your teeth, or waiting for the microwave oven to deliver your meal, your love of getting out of hell is activated by the Divine Psychologist. Now comes the critical choice you have to make in full spiritual freedom to choose your loves. The love of getting out of hellish mental states (like feeling resentful, angry, and trapped), originates with some society in the Grand Human. It is a heavenly love that’s being offered to you. They don’t know who you are or what you are, and they don’t know your circumstances. They are just absolutely moved by the love of assisting people in getting out of hellish states. This love is used by the Divine Psychologist to make it available to you by connecting your consciousness to them. All you need to do is to cleave to that love being offered to you, namely, the love of getting away from hellish feelings and thoughts.
You are aware of this love “in the back of your mind.” You need to use a deliberate technique to bring that love to the fore of your mind, so that you can actually be in that state of love, which is heavenly and which brings peace, being focused, feeling enthusiasm and happiness for the coming day – the first day of the rest of your immortal life, one day closer to eternal conjugial happiness with your soul mate. These are the thoughts in layer 7C that you can dwell on as you finish brushing your teeth, or when the microwave oven beeps. As you develop these rational and heavenly thoughts about reality and your wonderful future, new loves can become active in your affective organ in layer 7A and 8A. The Divine Psychologist now connects you to societies that are immersed in the loves of scheduling and completing tasks. You feel imbued with new strength and enthusiasm.
As you are locking up the apartment and proceeding to your car or moped, you are back in layer 9, sequencing the sensorimotor activities that will take you to school or work. You are now far away from the place in the Grand Monster that hates the feeling of having these obligations to meet. Gone is the love of feeling resentful. It is replaced with the love of completing your tasks in as efficient way as possible, and still stay within the bounds of your standard of accomplishing things, all of which involve a bunch of heavenly loves – the love to stay out of trouble, the love to enjoy friends, songs, and movies, the love to strive for success and prepare for a career or project, the love to be rewarded for work done, the love to be recognized and acknowledged for our skills and intentions, etc. etc. These useful heavenly loves allow us to progress to our ultimate destination, which is to become a mature adult who is committed to regeneration progress on a daily basis.
This is then the personal challenge facing each of us – the challenge of regeneration. And this is assisted by knowledge of how the process of regeneration works. This is a difficult and confusing concept to understand from layer 8C, but it is clearly understandable in layer 7eC. Our mental organs are constructed out of the mental substances of spiritual heat and spiritual light. These are mental substances, Divine substances, living, infinite, and eternal. Spiritual heat is nothing else than altruism love substance, or Divine Love, and spiritual light is nothing else than rationality truth substance, or Divine Truth. The problem of comprehension is resolved as soon as you allow in your mind the entrance of a layer 7iC idea. This is an interior-natural concept, not an external-natural concept. It is the idea that what is physical is made of temporary appearances representing reality, and what is mental is permanent, eternal reality located in our mind, which is the mental world of eternity. There is only one mental world and all human beings are born into it on a permanent basis. All human beings live in the same and only mental world of eternity.
Note that the abstractions and scientific explanations in layer 8C are above or within layer 9C, which involves constructing concepts and explanations based only on the appearances of reality which we see in data. Clearly, the rational and scientific explanations must be at a level higher in thinking and consciousness than the level of the data which are appearances of the senses and the physical instruments. Scientific explanation is at level 8C, which is why that mental layer is called “abstract materialism,” while the layer below is called “concrete materialism.” Data and measurements are concrete, while explanations are abstractions of the concrete. Abstractions of data are much closer to actuality and truth than the appearances of those data, which hide or cover up the actual reality or truth.
One of the exercises that I found useful involves the activity of spiritual garfinkeling. I constructed this sensorimotor neo by considering the exercise in Garfinkel’s 1967 book. He gave his students the exercise of going home and acting like they are guests. This would allow them to observe two useful things. First, other people’s reactions. Second, what is normal and ordinary is an arrangement or order managed by the participants who coordinate their actions to each other. When the students acted like a guest would act, they broke up this coordinated arrangement, and the ordinary was no longer in force. The social world of the participants was turned upside down. “May I use the bathroom?” You can see that the normal ordinary exchanges were disrupted by such questions and stances. The exercise I am recommending uses a similar approach in a spiritual area, so I call it spiritual garfinkeling. I’m not sure if I should use a capital “G” or if Professor Garfinkel’s followers today would see my point for extending to theistic psychology what Harold Garfinkel did in non-theistic ethnomethodology. I see the neo I constructed as honoring the scientific value of his instructional assignment. Spiritual garfinkeling consists of carrying out a regular activity while acting as if you are operating from layer 7, when actually you might be in layer 8 or 9. To act as if one’s consciousness is in a higher layer than it is – that’s the process that can help us raise our actual consciousness level to that higher layer. In this higher layer we have access to mental states that are sourced in the Grand Human (layers 6, 5, 4). This higher way of thinking (layer 7C) is rational rather than materialistic (layer 8C). For instance, when you analyze your feeling of hating your obligations, you can do it from layer 9C thinking (“I just hate it. I don’t want to do it. I resent having to.”). Or, you can do it from layer 8C thinking (“I can’t just walk away from the situation. I want to honor my obligations in this case. I am being a good person.”). Or, you can do it from your layer 7eC thinking (“Everything I do fits into a Divine plan for my future. It would be folly for me to ignore this central fact about it. Striving to be good will bring me the motivation, freedom, and happiness I crave for.”) Once you begin to elaborate a higher form of thinking, you create the thoughts that your higher loves need in order to become actual in you, and to give you the mental states that you want for yourself. If you are in layer -9A facing concrete appearances (9S) that make you unhappy (-9A), the way out of the situation is to raise your level of thinking to 8C by the abstracted materialism to which we have access in that layer. We can construct abstracted explanations of our situation. Our situation appears bad (“I hate having to do this.”) (layer -9C). Our negative emotions (marked by the – sign), are supported by false thinking (“It’s not fair.”). The two form an infernal alliance to produce our disturbing environment (-9S) (feeling trapped, braking things, taking it out on innocent others, being in a bad mood, putting on a sad or mean face, etc.). An effective method to gain control over the situation is to move right on up to layer 7eC thinking. You can do this if you are a student of theistic psychology, or, if you study Sacred Scripture and understand it in its deeper spiritual meanings. Layer 7eC thinking consists of paraphrases and applications of your knowledge and understanding of theistic psychology, or equivalent. It works most effectively when you are willing to think in the interior-rational layer (7iC), obtaining your information from the correspondential or spiritual meanings within Sacred Scripture. We need to be aware that when Sacred Scripture is applied in the literal sense, our thinking is restricted to the level at which the holy text is written. Sacred Scripture text that is written for concrete materialistic thinking (9C), allows you to hate some people and to ignore their human rights. Sacred Scripture text that is written for abstract materialistic thinking (8C), does not allow you to hate some people and to ignore their human rights. You are commanded to love all people and to benefit them, not hurt them. Sacred Scripture text that is written for natural-rational thinking (7C), also does not allow you to hate some people and to ignore their human rights, but in addition, shows you what is actually going on with you when you hate some people versus when you love the good in all people, and only the good in them. We cannot love anyone unconditionally for that would mean that we love the good and the bad in the person. But we must never love the bad in oneself or in another. To do so is irrational and gives more power to people with bad intentions to harm others, including innocent others. At level 7iC thinking you are adding a critical missing component that is not present in 7eC thinking. This is the process of undergoing regeneration. Once you begin this process you are given access to 7iA loves and motives. Interior-natural loves (7iA) are sourced in your higher layers (6, 5, 4). These loves are spiritual and celestial, while the loves in 7eA, 8eA, and 9eA are natural loves, possessing negative natural powers and weaknesses. Loves that are available in layer 7eA can conjoin only with 7eC thoughts (external loves with external thoughts). These are based on the materialism of the natural world, either concrete (layer 9) or abstracted (layer 8). There is a direct dependency between the content of 9C, 8C, and 7eC. To move the content to spiritual and celestial layers (6, 5, 4) it is necessary to operate in layer 7i, the interior-natural layer. You move on from layer 7e to layer 7i when you activate the love of regenerating (7iA). This is called reformation. You change your world around by moving everything in it under the rule and command of your love of regenerating. You can elevate this love above all other loves you have, above the loves of what is concrete (9A), above the loves of what is abstract (8A), and above the loves of knowing and understanding rational truths (7eA). You enthrone a new love in the interior portion of your natural-rational consciousness , within the love that is in the external portion of your rational consciousness (7eA). This highest love in the natural mind is the love of regenerating. When you cleave to this love, holding on to it as dear life, you are given access by the Divine Psychologist to your spiritual and celestial layers. When you practice spiritual garfinkeling you are acting as if you are in layer 7e or 7i, depending on your actual loves. For instance, when you are immersed in the negative feelings and thoughts of hating your obligation and lack of freedom, as discussed above, you can start acting as if you moved out of layer 9A, out of layer 8A, and into layer 7A. All you need to do is to figure out rationally within your understanding of the positive bias, how your regeneration motive applies to this one instance of feeling disturbed by your obligation, feeling rebellious, feeling enslaved. For example: “What is my main task here. What am I trying to accomplish. Where am I trying to go. I want to be free of these negative feelings. I want to be free, really free. I cannot feel free through my natural loves. I need to access my spiritual and celestial loves. The Divine Psychologist can give me new loves that will overcome the feelings of dissatisfaction and loss of emotional control. These new loves are spiritual and celestial, from my eternity, from my own heaven. I am moving towards that state. I must let the Divine Psychologist bring me these temptations of hating and rebelling. I accepted this obligation out of a feeling of loyalty and caring. These are heavenly loves and I’m going to reject the hellish loves of trying to escape my obligation, then regretting it later, feeling the pain of guilt and self-hatred.” Etc. You can see from the above discussion what is involved in spiritual garfinkeling. It’s like a mental bootstrap operation, lifting yourself out of the states you are in. Knowing about the details of regeneration and the work of the Divine Psychologist in your mind, allows you to access new loves, new powers, new satisfactions, new self-confidence, new skills and abilities. The availability to us of this progressive level of abilities, is the result of the organic anatomy of our mental operations. As you know from prior discussions, we have the built in anatomical ability to operate our three mental organ systems at three levels of operation – layer 9, 8, and 7 (7e and 7i). These three levels of mental operations are in sequential discrete degrees, as discussed. This means that the highest possible progress in one level cannot reach the lowest operations of the next level. You also know that our consciousness or mentality level oscillates between these three, although as you can expect, the rate of oscillation will vary with the extent of our regeneration. The process of regeneration starts in layer 7, when we abandon our thinking loyalty in layer 7eC to layer 8 and 9. Instead, we adopt a new loyalty in layer 7iC, which is filled with spiritual content from the correspondential sense of Sacred Scripture. From this interior-natural layer, we can raise our consciousness to the highest levels by extracting higher correspondences from Sacred Scripture. The regeneration of our layer 7 turns our natural-rational consciousness from a little hell into a little heaven. This transformation is achieved through the influx of correspondences from layer 6 into layer 7i. The result is that layer 6 is made fully functional. This insures that we will be able to live in first heaven after resuscitation. Following the regeneration of our natural-rational consciousness (layer 7), the really hard work then begins – the regeneration of the external-natural mind, layer 8. Our rational consciousness can be a little heaven while our materialistic consciousness can still be a little hell. Our regenerated rational consciousness (layer 7) cannot impose a new heavenly order on the materialistic consciousness below (layer 8). Our feelings and thoughts in layer 8 prior to its regeneration, are abstractions of mere appearances (layer 9). The abstractions from the physical cannot get rid of the physical. Every scientific theory and concept in the negative bias approach, will exclude the non-physical, the non-temporal or eternal, and the spiritual or mental. These are excluded. But if this turns out to be the real reality, then science in the negative bias excludes the true reality. This is then the reason why our layer 8 is called a little hell – because our thoughts about reality are inverted. The result is that what is true, we call false; and what is false, we call true. This is the meaning of “hellish order” or “little hell.” The rational consciousness (layer 7) has to be regenerated first because layer 8 and layer 9 resist all efforts at regeneration. However, things are different once layer 7 is regenerated. When we read the Swedenborg Reports, or study genuine theistic psychology based on it, we can make the effort of studying every paragraph until we can understand it. As we build paragraphs that we can understand, our rational consciousness is formed by the Divine Psychologist, regardless of our awareness, and regardless of our ideas about God and the afterlife. This paragraph by paragraph cumulation of rational ideas and explanations results in the gradual regeneration of the rational consciousness (layer 7). It is accompanied by much activity in the affective organ. Our rational loves (layer 7A) seize upon our new rational ideas (7C) and they reciprocally conjoin into one – the spiritual marriage in layer 7. Now we look down upon our feelings and thoughts in layer 8C below, and what do we see? We see a little hell. We see negative loves and false principles and attitudes. We see habits that we cannot condone. We see enjoyments that are selfish and cruel. We see thinking that is often stupid, reasoning that doesn’t conform to rationality. We see a life of weakness and neglect, addiction and powerlessness, a disorder of the mind that translates into a disorder of society. This is the unregenerate layer 8. But we also see some brilliance there, feats of engineering and medical achievements, large institutions and huge armies operating in an orderly and efficient manner. Layer 8 is not only a little hell, it is also a little heaven. But the heavenly order and abilities cannot remain because the hellish order destroys them. Regeneration of layer 8 must take place before the heavenly portion in it is destroyed. This is accomplished through the influx of our layer 5. When layer 8 is regenerated, our layer 5 is fully opened and functional. After resuscitation we will be able to exist in the second heaven. After layer 8 is regenerated, layer 9 can be regenerated. This is achieved through the influx of layer 4. When layer 9 is regenerated, layer 4 is fully open and functional. After resuscitation we will be able to exist in the third and highest heaven.
Taxonomy of Unregenerate and Regenerate Loves in the Natural Mind
Reasonings under the three levels of human consciousness:
Layer 7: Positive bias rationality: Reasoning based on rational-spiritual correspondences Layer 8: Negative bias materialism: Reasoning based on abstractions from sensory appearances Layer 9: Concrete materialism: Reasoning based on sensory or corporeal appearances
When we are beginning our process of regenerating we are motivated by a rational love in layer 7A. Loves are named according to the organic layer of our mind at which they operate: Organic layer 9A supports corporeal loves, attached to the appearances of the sensorimotor world around it (9S). Corporeal loves (9A) encourage concrete materialistic thinking (9C), and together they produce the sensorimotor appearances of our meanings and consciousness in the corporeal consciousness (layer 9). Organic layer 8A supports sensuous loves that encourage abstract materialistic thinking (8C), and together they produce the sensorimotor appearances of our meanings and consciousness in the sensuous materialistic consciousness (layer 8S). The difference in consciousness between layer 8 and 9 is of a discrete degree. No matter how advanced we get in layer 9, we can never reach layer 8 by using corporeal consciousness and meanings. In layer 9 the meanings reflect the appearances. For example, you are driving and another car has been following closer than you think that one car should follow another. You are conscious that you are feeling annoyed. All of a sudden things around your corporeal consciousness (9S) are no longer OK. You are not conscious of the hellish love (-9A) that gives you the feeling of annoyance (-9A). Your corporeal cognitive operations (9C) fall in line to support this love. But you don’t know what this love is, or even that it is operating in your affective organ, triggering the thoughts. You are thinking that the driver behind you is annoyed with you and wants you to speed up. This conclusion is entirely based on the appearances in your rear view mirror. That’s all you are going by to make this conclusion. What is this love? It is the love of self for the sake of self as it operates at the corporeal level of appearances (layer -9A). The car behind you is invading your territory. There is pressure and threat to such behavior from one motorist to another. You resent that. They should respect you by being more considerate. You hate people who…Wait! Quick! Start doing some spiritual garfinkeling. You’re thinking: “OK, I need to calm down. I’m just going to act like it’s the other’s driver’s inattention. It’s not a personal message to me that he is annoyed with me and is pressuring me to go faster. Not necessarily so! Maybe he is distracted. Maybe he has the habit of following too close. Maybe he is busy multitasking and isn’t even aware of me.” This new thinking is in your layer 8C. Your consciousness, rationality, and meanings have jumper from the corporeal level of appearances (9C), to a more realistic interpretations of the situation based on emotional intelligence (layer 8C). This is the skill of knowing how to use spiritual garfinkeling procedures to allow your consciousness to escape from the reasoning that is based on appearances (“He is annoyed at me”) in layer 9C, to the reasoning based on an abstract interpretation of these appearances (“Not necessarily so!”) in layer 8C. There is a discrete difference in the two loves that support these two layers. Corporeal loves are for the most part unregenerate (9-A). The love of self for the sake of self and the love of the world for the sake of self are the two ruling loves in layer 9-A before regeneration. So until the regeneration process reaches layer 9 we need to use spiritual garfinkeling to escape that inherited love in our natural mind. We suddenly just start acting as if we are operating in layer 8. We don’t try to reason our way out of it. We just jump. Our consciousness just takes off to a higher zone of existence. When we act this way, the Divine Psychologist is right there to support us. He provides the power and the effectiveness for whatever is supposed to happen in that situation. Our job is simply to act as if we are doing it ourselves, as if we are jumping from a corporeal love (9-A) to a sensuous love (8+A). The laws of operation for consciousness in the mental world of eternity allow us to “look down” from one mental layer to that immediately below. When we are thinking with meanings that operate in layer 8C, we can use these meanings to show us what is happening in the meanings that is just external or below. Remember that in the mental world, what is “below” is the same as what is “external.” The three sequential mental layers of the natural mind – 9, 8, 7 – are together in simultaneous order, so that layer 7 is within (or above) layer 8, which is within (or above) layer 9. Think of three concentric circles with 7 at the center, 8 in the middle, and 9 on the outside. This is the organic arrangement of our natural mind, the mind in which we are conscious prior to resuscitation. Similarly, the spiritual mind in which we are conscious after resuscitation, has three sequential and simultaneous layers – 6, 5, 4. Our conscious awareness is created by the meanings we are using in our thinking. These meanings are nothing else than the operations of the cognitive organ. Hence our consciousness level at any one moment in our daily activities is determined by which of the three cognitive organs it is attached to by a love. Loves in the natural mind exist at three levels, since loves are nothing but the operations of our affective organ. Our natural mind contains an affective organ at three anatomical layers – 9A, 8A, 7A. The 9A loves in the affective organ will generate 9C meanings in the cognitive organ. Similarly, 8A loves will generate 8C meanings, while 7A loves will generate 7C meanings. Consequently, such as our love is, such are our meanings, and such is our consciousness. In our daily life, the level of human consciousness in our sensorimotor organ (S) is determined by the marriage between our affective loves (A) with our cognitive thoughts (C). This is the spiritual marriage (S) between our will (A) and our understanding (C).
You can see from this mental anatomy and physiology that our daily life consciousness operates at three levels: 7S: rational consciousness from correspondences 8S: materialistic consciousness from abstracted appearances 9S: corporeal consciousness of concrete appearances
In terms of mental development, In infancy: corporeal consciousness (9S) In childhood materialistic consciousness (8S) In adolescence: rational consciousness (7S) As young adults: rational consciousness (7S) As mature adults: materialistic consciousness (8S) In old age: corporeal consciousness (9S)
Remember that S (sensorimotor system of the mind) is the spiritual child or offspring – neo baby – of the spiritual marriage between the affective organ (A) and the cognitive organ (C). This is a feature of mental physiology in the organic layers of the mental world of eternity. What you see around you, outside of you, and coming into you through your senses (S), are the actual appearances (S) created instantaneously by the spiritual marriage in your own mind between your loves (A) and your thoughts (C).
The taxonomy of natural loves is arranged in three levels (9A, 8A, 7A). Examples: Unregenerate 7A loves:
Unregenerate 8A loves:
Unregenerate 9A loves:
Regenerate 7A loves:
Regenerate 8A loves:
Regenerate 9A loves:
The Anatomy of Spiritual Combat in Temptation
We can influence where are consciousness is moment by moment, by deliberately thinking about thoughts and meanings that are attractive to a higher love within us. This is the spiritual garfinkeling technique. For instance, you are brushing your teeth and thinking that you need to floss next. You are experiencing a feeling of distaste, reluctance, sadness. You are aware of your thinking: “I hate flossing. I think I’ll just skip today. Nobody is perfect. I’ve got more important things to take care of.” What level of consciousness is this cognitive operation going on? It’s level 9C. It’s a corporeal consciousness rooted in infancy, and as well in old age, when it is unregenerate. Having identified the level of thinking, you can conclude that the love in this marriage is in the affective organ layer 9A. Now you can consult a mental dictionary of loves that you need to acquire by study, observation, and systematic reflection. It is useful to study and memorize taxonomies and diagrams in theistic psychology. Each taxonomy, matrix, and diagram constitutes a complex cognitive object made of pieces of meaning put together into a rational entity. These are cognitions, concepts, ideas, principles, relationships, rational accounts and explanations. We need to commit them to memory so that we can access them when they become relevant to an event, situation, or observation. We prepare ourselves for spiritual combat by “packing” these spiritual weapons in our long term memory, where we can access them when we face a spiritual temptation. The Divine Psychologist needs for us to be ready to face combat when an event is brought to us (which takes Divine omnipotence), while at the same time sets our focus and our memory to deliver to our consciousness, the idea or principle of truth that we have previously acquired. Now with this information or idea in our conscious focus, we face the temptation, and we fight emotionally as of self, knowing rationally that it is the Divine Psychologist who is actually managing the details and the outcome. But if we are not prepared with concepts and understandings in our memory, we cannot face spiritual combat, and win. And in that case, the Divine Psychologist postpones the contest for another time in the future. And if we do not prepare at all, because we are not regenerating and don’t believe in regeneration, then there will be no spiritual temptations brought to us. We will then enter resuscitation without being regenerated. Our spiritual mind (layers 6, 5, 4) cannot be operationalized. Our consciousness must remain living in an unregenerate natural mind (-9, -8, -7), and this constitutes “spiritual insanity” or the Grand Monster. When we face spiritual combat we are experiencing it as temptation. This is the conflict between opposing loves. For instance, you’re walking on the beach, keeping up a steady pace for your daily workout. Your eye catches a sharp piece of glass sticking out of the packed sand. You’re thinking: “Could give someone a nasty cut on the foot!” This is the event that the Divine Psychologist has brought to you, including managing your eye movements to locate the sharp glass. Now the combat is set up in the resuscitation zone of the mental world of eternity where your mental body is lying, quietly, not moving, as if asleep. A delegation of thrill seekers from a society in the Grand Monster arrives simultaneously with a delegation of volunteers from a society in the Grand Human. Everyone on both sides was summoned by the Divine Psychologist. They were spending a normal day in their society when they received the Divine summons. They responded with opposing loves. The people from the Grand Monster society responded from an infernal love to the chance of being able to suffocate compassion in some natural mind. That’s all they know. They have no identity or idea of who this person is, or even that this is a person on earth. They just sense that they have been given an opportunity to exercise their infernal love. They can see it too, since they are brought into a visual presence of your spiritual body, lying there, waiting for the resuscitation process to begin -- which may not happen for decades, depending on how long you are to live on earth. But in the meantime, while your mental body is in this semi-conscious state, it affords your natural mind to undergo the physiology of temptations. As the Grand Monster people are brought near your spiritual body, on its left side, the Grand Human volunteers are also brought near, on the right side. They face each other. Your natural mind, which is also housed in the mental body (along with your spiritual mind), is now spiritually “flooded” and “immersed” in the hellish loves with their “falsities” or un-neos. Neos fight un-neos, and the what is at stake, is your life in heaven or hell in eternity. Nothing can be more important to you than this battle, and all the others like it, that you will have to go through. There is no other way of raising your consciousness level in eternity to your heavenly happiness (layers 6, 5, 4). The reason there is no other way is that love sticks. When you attach yourself to a love, it will stick to you. Your mind cannot get rid of it – voluntarily. The Divine Psychologist cannot cut it out for you, which would be like cutting off the wick of a burning candle. The flame cannot live without the wick. You cannot live without your love. You are your love. Cut out the love, and you are gone. What then is the Divine Psychologist going to do when you inherit evil loves and you make them your own loves when you are an infant, a child, an adolescent, a young adult, a mature adult? The Divine Psychologist provided a way during the Incarnation Event. By forming a new mental layer in His mind as God-Man in the physical world, He achieved a new creation in the universe. He formed a new layer in the mental world of eternity that did not exist until then. He divided layer 7 into an external (7e) and interior (7i) portion. The external portion was already there and remained the same (layer 7e). Inside this external portion He formed a new interior portion called the interior-natural mind (layer 7i). We now have the new ability of being conscious of the presence of the Divine Psychologist in our mind. This new ability may be called the regeneration ability. Layer 7iC thinking is a discrete degree higher than layer 7eC thinking. We may read the Swedenborg Reports for instance, and understand it rationally by figuring out the literal sense, which is written in natural-rational correspondences of Divine Speech. This forms our layer 7eC with concepts and ideas from the Swedenborg Reports. Your own study of theistic psychology concepts is also done at this external-rational level of thinking about God and eternity (layer 7eC). This knowledge prepares you for spiritual combat. Loves from hell and loves from heaven now surround you, flood you with temptations. You consider picking up the dangerous glass. The temptation begins. You slow down your pace, you hesitate. You turn your head and look at the glass again. Now the Grand Monster people are allowed by the Divine Psychologist to come closer to your spiritual body. You become aware you are feeling resentful, angry. This hellish love constructs a bunch of thoughts in your cognitive organ, thoughts that support the love of resentment and anger against people. Now the delegation of the Grand Human are allowed to come closer. Suddenly you feel compassion for the beach runner who is going to get cut up by the sharp glass. You can prevent that by being civilized and caring. You feel the love of community and patriotism and thoughts are formed to support this noble sentiment. What happens next depends on what love you decide to hold on to – the love of being compassionate and civilized vs. the love of resentment and anger. All sorts of assisting loves may come into play here. More delegates from the heavenly and hellish societies are summoned by the Divine Psychologist. In a few seconds there may be dozens or hundreds of people involved on both sides of your spiritual body. What a tremendous drama. Talk about entertainment fiction. This is real, more involving than fiction. You swivel, turn around, and walk back. You decide to pick up the glass. But the hellish hoards who are summoned to your side, have not given up the battle. Not by a long shot. They wiggle themselves into your love of performing your workout routine in an effective manner. You’ve trained yourself not to slow down in your fast pace. It’s the aerobic benefit you need. This love is an intermediate love, neither clearly heavenly, nor clearly hellish. We have many intermediate loves that serve as a transitional function. We love to exercise our body for various sub-loves, some of which are not heavenly. For instance, it flatters our vanity, and if relevant others don’t notice your healthy looks, you feel disappointment, and lose some of the motivation for keeping your workout up. The love of pushing yourself as far as possible in workout routines, leads to many injuries for millions of people every year. I see people running on the beach who have their knees bandaged. This can’t be good for them. I see overweight people who run, and this can’t be good (one of them told me she keeps injuring her knees because she is too heavy). Before you reach the broken piece of glass in the packed sand, you swivel again and start your fast pace away from the tempting object. “I’m not getting involved. Let someone else pick it up. I’m keeping up my pace. That’s what I am here for.” But now a delegation of the Grand Human draws nearer to your spiritual body. They call out a love you have that is from their society, which you have had for years. You did not know this, and they did not know this. But now, as they are brought near you, that love of theirs is aroused in you again. It is the love of feeling clean and wholesome when you do the right thing. The thoughts tumble in your consciousness: “I can’t just leave it there and pretend I didn’t see it. I’ll just do it quickly and it won’t affect my pace too much.” You swivel once more, and this time you make to the glass, and pick it up, hardly losing a beat, as you continue your fast walk. You know feel the relief of victory in spiritual combat. The Grand Monster delegation withdraws in fear and disgust. The Grand Human delegation now surrounds your mental body on all sides. Wonderful warm heavenly sensations surround you. You are basking in the glow of the aftermath of a spiritual temptation in victory. The people nearby who watched you swivel twice, then pick up something, have no idea of the momentous battle that just took place in four seconds. The Divine Psychologist is especially near and watchful during all our temptations. It is our lifeline to eternal happiness or unhappiness. Much is at stake. Now reread this entire Section, and prepare yourself for your next combat! See how many loves you can add to the list where it says "etc." Observe what happens when you talk to your friends about theistic psychology. You are presenting concepts from layer 7C. Quite probably, your friends will be in layer 8C or 9C as they listen to you. If in layer 9C, they might be annoyed, and might start ridiculing what you say or making fun with it, possibly tease you about it. If they are in layer 8C, they will ask you questions. They will try to prove how silly the ideas are. But if they are in layer 7C, you will experience a conversation about it in layer 7, which could be a surprising and pleasing exchange. Now ask yourself why 7C thinking arouses the ire and ridicule of 8C and 9C thinking. The answer is that the loves of the rational consciousness (7A) that produce the ideas of the rational consciousness (7C) are opposed to the loves of the materialistic consciousness (9A, 8A) that produce the materialistic ideas (9C, 8C) that ridicule rational ideas (7C). Loves across the mental layers are discretely different and cannot be reconciled to each other (until regeneration takes place). So there is a built in opposition to consciousness-raising in the natural mind. When a lower layer “looks up” to see what there is at a higher layer from itself, it sees nothing but darkness. Consider your own initial reactions to reading theistic psychology concepts and principles such as the “mental world of eternity,” or “anatomical layer 8eC,” or “the Grand Human and the Grand Monster,” or “the Divine Psychologist,” etc. You were reading and considering the meanings of these new concepts, with your usual layer 8eC thinking that you use in getting through other “technical” books or courses. You were trying to make sense of a statement like, “Love is spiritual heat substance, and truth is spiritual light substance, both streaming from the Spiritual Sun into the mental world of eternity and immersing our mental organs in it.” What meaning did such a statement have when you first heard it and tried to make sense of it? When we are thinking with layer 8C meanings we are immersed in materialistic ideas originating and rooted in sensory input from the physical body and the natural world of time-space. So when you are constructing some meaning to “truth” as being “spiritual light substance” you are thinking of “spiritual substance” like you are thinking of “physical matter.” And you confirm this notion in your mind by considering that our eyes can see when they are immersed in physical light from the natural sun, or else, some artificial light like electricity, which is also physical light from the sun. This 8C thinking equates the meaning of the expression (a) “physical light as being physical matter or energy from the natural sun,” with the meaning of the expression (b) “spiritual light as being spiritual substance from the Spiritual Sun.” To equate the meaning of (a) with the meaning of (b) is 8C level thinking. This equalizing of the two meanings form different discrete levels, is called “reductionism in science.” All 7C concepts from the rational consciousness will be reduced to 8C concepts form the materialistic consciousness . The result is that layer 7C is totally dark or non-existent to layer 8C. Nothing form our rational consciousness (layer 7) can exist in our materialistic mental layers (8 and 9). The only solution to this situation is to accept the new idea that we can think at different layers of the mind. These different layers are actually “discrete degrees” which means that no matter how high you get in your 8C thinking, you can never attain the lowest level of 7C thinking. You can confirm this principle in yourself when you monitor and analyze your thinking in layer 9C (concrete corporeal mind) vs. your thinking in layer 8C (abstract materialistic consciousness ). This you can do because you alternate between these discrete ways of thinking in the course of your daily activities and situations. For instance, when you have the impulse and love to tell somebody off, you are engaged in venting your anger in your mind, thinking in layer 9C (e.g., “I wish I could make them suffer like I am now. I should burn this place down to show them, etc.”). But instead of proceeding with the awful action (9S), your consciousness jumps to layer 8C due to a bunch of 8A loves that motivate you to exercise self-preservation by looking to the consequences of your actions. This 8A love of self-preservation and self-protection constructs new thoughts, new meanings in your consciousness regarding the situation and what’s going on: “No, I can’t do that. Don’t want to go to jail. I’ll find another way to get even. This place sucks!” etc. You can see that two discrete sets of different loves and thoughts are involved as your consciousness of the meaning of the situation flip flops between layers 9 and 8. The concrete materialism of the corporeal consciousness (layer 9) is based on the direct sensory input of the physical body and situation. We rely on the abstract power of layer 8C thinking to get us out of mere physical appearances. We can’t just act on what it looks like. We must figure out what’s actually going on. We are more intelligent in abstract thinking about appearances (layer 8C) than in thinking that is based directly on the senses (layer 9C). So now with theistic psychology concepts, you are trying to understand them by constructing new types of meanings that are based in a rational universe, not physical universe. To raise our thinking level from the materialistic (8C) to the rational (layer 7C) we have to create a new world in our idea of the universe. We have to accept the positive bias in science and think: “It is possible that there are two worlds, one physical in time, the other mental in eternity.” The positive bias in science says: “This is a possibility” while the negative bias in science says “This is not a possibility.” If you adopt the negative bias in science you are keeping your thinking in layer 8C and 9C. If you adopt the positive bias in science you are changing your thinking level to 7C. One thinking level is appropriate for the physical world, and the other is appropriate for the rational world. Now if you can extirpate yourself from the negative bias in science, during the time that you are studying theistic psychology concepts, then it is possible for you to attach meanings to rational ideas that are based in the mental world of eternity. You will be able to avoid reductionism, which takes away your ability to understand the reality of the mental world in eternity. If you allow the possibility of two worlds, you empower yourself with the ability to understand theistic psychology and how it is a knowledge that you can apply in critical areas of your daily life that need greater effectiveness and control. Knowledge provides power to adapt, control, and modify. Assuming that our mind is real, and exists in its own real world, what are the consequences to me and my future? This is the beginning of level 7C thinking.
Altruism and Selfism
The most fundamental fact of the human race on earth is that each of us is born with a built in penchant for many hellish traits, and a built in resistance to many heavenly traits. We like, enjoy, and love much of hell, while we resist, dislike, and hate much of heaven. This is the stupendous double weakness with which we begin consciousness and face life. This organic imbalance is registered and implanted in the spiritual genes of our natural mind (mental layers 9, 8, 7). It is a killer when allowed to do its destructive work. Our primary, principal, and ruling job that we have to do as a human individual on this planet, is to redress this negative imbalance into a positive one. Only this organic regeneration can save the individual from a hellish consciousness in the immortal life that begins immediately following the dying and resuscitation process.
The collection of hellish traits that we are born to love and enjoy is arranged in an affective hierarchy of loves. Higher ranked loves rule and control the lower ranked loves. There is such a built in managerial hierarchy of power and control in order to insure the unity of self and consciousness. At the very top of the motivational hierarchy sits the ruling love of the person. The ruling love manages, controls, and determines the entire hierarchy of loves of the person. Every person has a unique ruling love that is stamped on the “soul,” which functions as an organic spiritual bar code for our uniqueness from birth to endless eternity. In the current line of inheritance in the human race on earth, each of us inherit two ruling loves, one hellish, the other heavenly.
The hellish ruling love that we all inherit is selfism, or the love of doing things for the sake of self alone. The heavenly ruling love that we all inherit is altruism, or the love of doing things for the sake of self and others.
This is the fundamental condition of human consciousness today. This is the human condition that evolution has determined. Although it may appear from a negative pessimistic view that this is a sorry degraded state for the human race, the opposite is in fact the case. The evolution of consciousness has brought the human race to this perfect state of balance and clarity into self and reality. Now that people are born with a built in dislike for altruism, and a built in enjoyment of selfism, they can be maximally aware, maximally conscious of their spiritual reality. Prior to this final state of perfection in consciousness, the human race was in relative darkness, unable to discern its true spiritual state, direction, and destination. Consciousness evolves to higher states of human life when the Divine Psychologist maintains freedom in our mind.
In the perspective of the negative bias in science, the philosophy of materialism excludes the idea of heavenly and hellish human traits. Good and evil are defined in reductionist terms. The distinction between good and bad is seen as situational, and restricted to physical adaptation. It sees nothing mental, moral, or spiritual involved. The natural process of the evolution of the physical race does not require assumptions about a world outside time and nature, which in the positive bias science is called the mental world of eternity, or the spiritual world of the afterlife of immortality. Scientists who operate within this reductionist materialistic philosophy and outlook, do not necessarily carry over this intellectual bias to their private life as citizen and family member. Polls indicate that nearly half of all scientists today believe in the existence of God, and the majority of them also believe in heaven and hell. The result is a schizoid consciousness that alternates between reductionist thinking when writing and teaching science, and dualist thinking when reading Sacred Scripture or worshipping and praying.
Love is a Substance
When can we relax, feel peaceful and happy? It is when we are in our loves (A). In other words, we are happy when we are doing what we love. When you play games you are unhappy when you never win, and ecstatic when you win against all odds or predictions. When people are free they do what they love. While we are doing (S) what we love (A) we feel free and content. People have different loves. Some people are ecstatic when they succeed in climbing a difficult mountain. Others are exhilarated when they jump out of an airplane with a group of others strapped to parachutes. There are also loves sourced in the Grand Monster that are cruel and selfish, like feeling overjoyed when someone we don’t like loses or gets punished. Some people enjoy controlling, dominating, humiliating, and tormenting whoever happens to be around them. People love practicing their hobbies and interests. Human beings love to acquire skills and explore the physical and mental environments.
Every love is sourced either in the Grand Human or the Grand Monster. This is a neuro-biological reality. Loves are spiritual fire balls, or energy bars, or batteries and generators. These physical sources of energy exist by correspondence to how loves operate in the mental world of eternity. A love is born in our affective organ when spiritual heat (or altruism love substance), flows into the organ receptors. This inflow of spiritual heat affects each unique organ uniquely. The affective operation is a reaction to the inflowing spiritual heat, which is a correspondence for how the plant’s receptor organs called chlorophyll, reacts to the bombardment of photons from sunlight, by producing organic containers of energy that carry the heat and nutrients to each cell below the surface. The spiritual heat from the Spiritual Sun enters every affective organ in existence in the mental world of eternity. From birth to endless immortality, our affective organ is saturated with the spiritual heat of the Spiritual Sun.
What is spiritual heat? It is altruism love substance. This is not a dead substance like a chemical, or a temporary matter like a pencil, computer, building, mountain, or forest – all of which disappear eventually with the demise of the planet, or sooner. But loves are immortal, permanent, and eternal because they are constructed out of living Divine immortal substances. Spiritual heat is Divine, living, immortal, infinite. Altruism love substance is this spiritual heat. It is also called Divine Love. This idea can only be grasped from layer 7iC, which contains interior-natural meanings. These meanings are interior to the rational, hence an interior rational that gives us the highest consciousness we can have in the natural mind, prior to our resuscitation.
When you are thinking with layer 8eC meanings, you are tied to materialism within every idea. There are no exceptions. When we think about art, philosophy, God, love – in layer 8, we think about each of them in materialistic terms or presuppositions. Every single thought or idea has not only meanings, but presuppositions (or “background assumptions”). Tests show that most people are not aware of many presuppositions they hold, and yet, these background assumptions control the outcome of their reasoning, conclusion, and attitude. For example, the idea of “government legislation” divides people on political lines. Organized groups compete and fight against each other, sometimes vehemently or even violently. Why do some people support one proposal while others oppose it? Why can’t they agree on a law they can all support, as they do in rare instances on issues that arouse unanimity. The cause of the division and disagreement is located in the background assumptions each group holds. Since these are not explicit, they are not discussed. And yet, they control and maintain the division. In the cases where the presuppositions can be made explicit, and come to the conscious awareness of the participants, compromise solutions can be reached.
When we think about God and mental psychology, including our future or fate in eternity, we start our thinking in layer 8eC. In this discussion on what is love, and examining the proposal that love is a spiritual substance that belongs to God, we are quite a bit puzzled as to what to make of this idea. Love viewed materialistically is a feeling that is located in the limbic system of the brain where all emotions “come from.” In this reductionism view of love there is no need for asking the question, What happens to this love when we don’t have that feeling? The answer is seen materialistically as what happens to the area of the brain where the love is. So if the brain operation changes, the love or feeling is gone. It no longer exists. Next time the brain structures are in such a state again, we will feel that love again. So the idea that love is a “substance” that flows into the affective organ, is a puzzling idea, and does not have definiteness, or existence. But as soon as you decide to elevate your consciousness to layer 7i, you can go through the AWM process of Admit, Witness, and Modify, which will give you more interior rational ideas or meanings by which to understand the idea that love is a substance.
Loves create conjunction between people who have similar loves, but division and competition between people who have incompatible loves. For instance, a nation is united when its citizens share a love for that country, its traditions, and its constitution. The same love activates the affective organ of every citizen. The object of that love is “our country” and what it stands for. But people have innumerable loves, each having its own object of love. One love that most citizens may also have is selfism, which is a love whose object is hostile to each other. This divides the nation and opposes the bonding forces of patriotism. You might for instance have a love of “listening to loud music even if it bothers others who are around.” This is a selfish love sourced in the Grand Monster. Contrast this love with the love of “listening to music in a way that does not bother others who are around.” See the difference contrasted: The love of listening to loud music even if it bothers others who are around The love of listening to music in a way that does not bother others who are around The difference is that the first love is from selfism, while the second love is from altruism. Selfism is to love something for the sake of self alone, while altruism is to love something for the sake of others as well as self. The same altruism love substance enters the affective organ in both loves, but in one instance it is converted into selfism, but not in the other instance. The transformation of altruism love substance in the affective organ is effected by the existing love hierarchy. From birth our natural mind is filled with hellish loves. As we grow up the hellish hierarchy of loves becomes more and more visible as it dictates our attitudes and interaction styles.
Intermediate States of Love
There are intermediate states in this transformation process. For instance, the inherited selfism hierarchy of loves and motives is compatible with intermediate states such as the love of being popular among friends. This love manages our interaction style so that we appear to be loyal and conforming to what the others approve or admire. The love of appearing loyal for the sake of popularity is a selfish love because it makes loyalty dependent on popularity, when it should be independent. Nevertheless, the love of appearing loyal is an intermediate state that is compatible with the love of loyalty for the sake of others and not just for the sake of self. This love is a heavenly love. So we are led from hellish to heavenly loves by means of intermediate loves that are somewhat compatible with both.
The Biophysics of Creation
Logic tells us that the creator or designer of something must be what is outside the creation or constructed object. The engineer must be outside and separate from the bridge, in order for the bridge to be constructed. The novel writer must be outside the novel or story in order for the book to be imagined and written. God the Creator must be outside and separate from whatever is created. There are two categories of eternity. One is the Divine itself as infinite love and truth, uncreate, without beginning, unending, changeless, in whom all the past, present, and future of all things is present simultaneously. Uncreate Divine things like love, life, truth, wisdom, good, have no beginning point, nor an ending point, and so they can be called eternal. But created things as well can be eternal, even though they have a beginning point in existence. The human mind is eternal, our loves are eternal, our thoughts and sensations are eternal. Thoughts and sensations are loves in outward form, and all loves are eternal since they are forms of Divine Love substance in reception by our affective organ.
The Spiritual Sun is the beginning of the created universe. It is the first entity of created existence and of reality. God-as-He-Is or “Divine Esse”, is infinite Divine Love Substance, and this in itself is incomprehensible to finite beings, except in some way through rational representations. The rational marks the beginning of the true human. Its origin is the spiritual mind (layers 6, 5, 4), and its source is the Spiritual Sun (layer 1). God’s Divine Love Substance puts on the form of Divine Truth Substance, and they make a unity. This unity is called the Divine Marriage within God. The Spiritual Sun is the entry point into created eternity, which is the mental world of humanity.
Creation is God’s method for externalizing the Divine Love from infinite Divine Essence to infinite Divine Existence (or “Divine Existere”). This externalization process of the Divine into creation (or Existence) is initiated as the Spiritual Sun. God creates all things through the Spiritual Sun. The physical sun in time, or star, is a natural representative of the Spiritual Sun in the mental world of eternity. The natural sun forms a physical space-field around itself, which it then populates with detached clumps from itself that gradually cool down and are formed into planets, that provide matter and atmosphere from the sun, for material objects to be formed into animate and inanimate receptors of the sun’s heat and light streaming in and inundating every part of the planet. Everything on the planet comes from the sun and is activated by the sun externally (sunlight and heat), as well as internally, since the energy within the atom and sub-atomic particles likewise originate from the heat and light of the physical sun (star). Physical heat and physical light from the natural sun originate and manage all things in the physical world, providing matter, energy, space, and motion.
This activity of the natural sun is a correspondence and representative of the activity of the Spiritual Sun which creates a vast mental expanse around itself that it populates with love-truth units. Each such unit is the conjoint form of spiritual heat and spiritual light, in both masculine and feminine arrangements. Love-truth units are feminine, while truth-love units are masculine. A love-truth unit is inner truth covered over with outer love, and this is the feminine shape. A truth-love unit is inner love covered over with outer truth, and this is the masculine shape. These male female conjoint units are the building blocks for all mental objects such as loves, ideas, and sensations – either masculine or feminine. These gender marked human mental objects cannot exist in the physical world of time and matter, since they are eternal spiritual substances in form and substance, Each of these mental units has a connection to the physical world by the law of correspondence whose action connects the physical and mental worlds on a one to one basis, physical object or quality with mental object or quality.
The vast expanse around the Spiritual Sun is called the mental world of eternity. It is constructed out of mental ether that provides the spiritual substance for building mental objects and properties. The mental organs that make up the human mind are constructed out of the substances of mental ether, which are, spiritual heat and light units that are endlessly flowing out of the Spiritual Sun. The Spiritual Sun is a point of contact between God and the created human mind. There is only one expanse of mental ether, as there is only one physical space for galaxies and atoms alike. Hence every human mind exists in the same mental world. The Spiritual Sun shines forth in every human being’s mind, inundating it with spiritual heat and light, that is, with love and truth substance. Two distinct anatomical organs in the mind have been created, one constructed to receive spiritual love substance – the affective organ (A), and the other, to receive spiritual truth substance – the cognitive organ (C). These two are also called the will (A) and the understanding (C). The operations of the affective organ constitute our loves and intentions, while the operations of the cognitive organ constitute our thoughts and reasoning.
Spiritual substance in its essence or origin is Divine Love, which is also called Divine Good. This infinite Divine Human substance surrounds itself with spiritual light, and the two make a unity or one. This unity is called the Divine Marriage. Spiritual light is also called Divine Truth. The marriage of Divine Love and Divine Truth in God creates an exit point from Itself to the entry point of creation, which is thus outside of God Itself. As the spiritual substance creates and enters the mental world of eternity, there are two types of units created in the mental ether. One unit of life is spiritual heat surrounded by spiritual light, or in other words, love surrounded by rationality (or truth). This is the masculine unit of life. The other type of unit is spiritual light surrounded by spiritual heat, or in other words, rationality surrounded by love. This is the feminine unit of life.
The soul and mind of a man is constructed out masculine units only, while the soul and mind of a woman is constructed out of feminine units only. Rationality-from-love units are male, while love-from-rationality units are female. In other words, truth from love is the masculine anatomical arrangement, while love from truth is the feminine anatomical arrangement.
Sensations, thoughts, and loves in the masculine mind are male mental objects constructed with units arranged as rationality-from-love (heat surrounded by light). Masculine intelligence and masculine loves operate solely with male units of mental ether. Feminine intelligence and feminine loves operate solely with female units. Given this distinct reciprocal anatomical construction, the male and female mind are able to conjoin into a perfect unit. This is called the conjoint self of the conjugial couple, and is achieved through the spiritual marriage between a husband and a wife prior to resuscitation.
The contrast between men and women, girls and boys, female and male, is visible in individual and social behavior. The social world in the physical world requires a physical body that is connected to our mental body, or the mind. The physical body has three interdependent systems known as the circulatory system (including lymphatic, digestive and endocrine), the respiratory system (including speech organs), and the neuro-muscular and skeletal system (including the skin that enters into the components of every organ and of every cell). These three systems in the physical body correspond to the three systems in the mental body. Human beings are born with a temporary physical body and a permanent mental body that contains our sensations, thoughts, and loves, thus, our self and personality. The self is immortal because the mental body is a permanent construction in eternity. We are therefore born into eternity and remain there forever. In the dying process the physical body is surgically removed from its connection to the mental body and we awaken in the consciousness of the mental world of eternity. The mental body then serves us as a method of interacting with the mental environment of eternity and the vast humanity of people that has undergone resuscitation. The dying-resuscitation process takes about 33 hours, considering earth time.
The circulatory system in the physical body corresponds to the affective system (A) in the mental body (feelings, intentions of the will). The respiratory system in the physical body corresponds to the cognitive system (C) in the mental body (thoughts, knowledge, reasoning). The neuro-muscular-skeletal system in the physical body corresponds to the sensorimotor system in the mental body (sensations, receptivity, awareness, consciousness, motor readinesses).
Although the Spiritual Sun is an externalization from God’s Essence, nevertheless it is also infinite. The Spiritual Sun is infinite God Essence in the process of externalizing as infinite God Existence. The God Essence is then within the externalizing God Existence. Together they make One infinite Divine who everywhere is called God. The infinite God Existence appears in the first of creation as the Spiritual Sun. This appearance is in the Human form. The second of appearance in God’s externalization (or “descent”) is the mental world of eternity. The third of appearance in God’s descent is the physical world of time. All cause-effect sequences in creation follow this three-phase maturation process. The three discrete modalities of existence or reality are fixed relative to each other. They form a synergy, so that no phase or layer of reality can be removed. The physical in time is the external basis or foundation for the interior in mental eternity, and the two together form the basis for the creative operations of God through the Spiritual Sun.
The cause-effect relationship is established by the laws of correspondence that are built into all things in creation. A higher or earlier phase is always the cause of a later phase, which is called the effect. When the highest phase reaches the lowest in discrete sequence, it becomes full or complete in simultaneous order. The first phase in the sequence is now the inmost component of the object or quality. The second phase is now its intermediate. The third phase is the most external phase and always contains the entire sequence of phases that precede. The word “contains” here refers to the sequence of discrete degrees related to each other by correspondences and not by continuous substance or transformation.
The heat of the Spiritual Sun is God’s Divine Love substance, while the light of the Spiritual Sun is God’s Divine Truth substance. These two distinct types of Divine substance flow out of the Spiritual Sun in conjoined units that are arranged in the masculine and feminine formations. The masculine formation is heat substance surrounded by truth substance. The feminine formation is truth substance surrounded by heat substance. Masculine and feminine formations can conjoin in reciprocal bonds, constructing conjoint units or pairs. Collections of such paired units make up the spiritual genes of human life called the soul, and from that, the mind or spirit. The mind is the unit of created consciousness. Every soul is unique and provides the gene code for each human being, The soul itself (layer 2 or 3) is never conscious, but it is the venue by which God produces the sequence of phased descent or externalization in layers 4 to 10 (human consciousness), and then without consciousness in layers 11 and 12.
The conjoined units from the Spiritual Sun are expanding continuously into the mental world of eternity, and create its vast expanse of mental ether that surrounds the Spiritual Sun. This expanse of mental ether is called the mental world of eternity. It is within this expanse that each soul is formed out of the conjoined units endlessly streaming out of the Spiritual Sun. Male souls are arrangements of masculine units, that is, spiritual heat encased in spiritual light. Female souls are arrangements of feminine units, that is, spiritual light encased in spiritual heat. Since conjoint units are Divine organic living substances, the masculine and feminine souls out of which they are made up, are also organic living units, immortal and eternal. Souls are an “abode” for the Divine in the sense that only God acts on the soul, and nothing of ourselves as humans can act on it. In discrete cause-effect sequences, the lower or later phase cannot act on the earlier phase. The effect cannot act on the cause. The soul (layer 2 or 3) can only be acted upon by the Spiritual Sun (layer 1).
Human souls are therefore either masculine or feminine, depending on the arrangement of the conjoint units with which they are put together. The masculine formation is truth substance (spiritual light) within which is love substance (spiritual heat). The feminine formation is love substance within which is truth substance.
No operation in the feminine soul and mind can be the same as any operation in the masculine soul and mind, and vice versa. All loves of a man are masculine loves. All thoughts of a man are by masculine intelligence or rationality. All sensations of a man are masculine sensations. The reciprocal is true of a woman. Feminine intelligence and thoughts are reciprocal to masculine intelligence and thoughts (and vice versa). Unless they were reciprocals of each other as conjoined units in the masculine and feminine arrangement, they would not be able to conjoin as persons into a total and perfect unity. The conjugial couples in their layer 4 eternity live as conjoined selves, the two partners operating interdependently and synergistically as one. From a distance they appear as one person walking; from close up, they appear as soul mates in the male and female form joined together.
The conjunction of husband and wife into a conjoint unit requires two anatomical procedures. First, the external portion of each conjoin with each other. That is, the woman’s affective organ (Ae) (external) conjoins herself with the man’s cognitive organ (Ce) (external). This first step is an external conjunction of outward mental components of man and woman. This external conjunction is called the natural marriage. The second phase is the spiritual marriage. This is the interior conjunction of the husband’s interior love (Ai) with the wife’s interior truth (Ci). The spiritual marriage is permanent and eternal. Partners are temporarily separated by the dying process, but they are reunited when the second partner also resuscitates. Their conjugial love in the united mental body is lived in heavenly bliss that is ever increasing and expanding to eternity.
The Basic Psychodynamics of Living
The quality of life or being alive and living, is uncreate, eternal, and belonging to God. Whatever belongs to God cannot belong to a created object. God cannot give or bestow uncreate properties to created things. Hence when human beings think and say “I am alive”, the life that is in this aliveness is God’s life in us. What we call “I myself”, “me”, or “us”, is a vehicle or organic mechanism for receiving and carrying, or containing, uncreate properties of God in our organic organs. A representative of this relationship dynamic in the physical world, is the physical sun or star, representing the Spiritual Sun or God, creating and sustaining our planet and its objects, which represent human beings.
Our eternal mental body is created or assembled to form receptor organs for uncreate Divine properties, including life or love (affective organ), and truth or rationality (cognitive organ). The constituent structures or substance of our “self” or “personhood”, consists of mental objects, including sensations, thoughts, and loves. These mental objects have the property of living, thinking, self-consciousness, sensing, and moving. These are uncreate properties that belong to God, and since these cannot be “given away” to us, they never can belong to us. This is the meaning of the expression “God is within me” and “I am within God.” The foundation blocks of our mental world and life is God through the Spiritual Sun and its substance of love and truth streaming into the mental world of eternity, and from there, into the physical world of time.
The basic dynamic of human living is that we are experiencing in our consciousness that life, love, thinking, sensation, and motion are our very own, our own private world, the me that is the rock bottom of my experiencing and being. This is the natural appearance. It is the appearance to our natural mind (layers 9, 8, 7e). Our conscious rational mind based on our own thinking (layer 7e) confirms by logical and scientific reasoning that human beings are autonomous individuals and act, move, think, and intend voluntarily, through their free will. This rock bottom corporeal materialistic thinking (7eC based on 8eC based on 9eC) is a natural appearance to the natural mind left to itself. But this is not the reality and the context, not the actuality and what is. It is materialistic reductionism in which we philosophically squish the two worlds of reality into just one, the physical in time.
At some point in young or later adulthood we begin our reformation and regeneration when we are willing to love God and dualism, that is, our dual citizenship, one in time “on earth”, and the other in the afterlife or “in eternity.” At this point the Divine Psychologist enters our consciousness and we begin a new living arrangement, a new consciousness. This spiritual enlightenment opens a channel of communication with God. This new channel of relationship begins and maintains the lifelong process of regeneration. Through this Divine-human interactional process, the Divine Psychologist manages external events around us to fit interior events or mental states that are called “spiritual temptations.” In this spiritual combat we face an intense and disturbing conflict between a hellish love for a particular evil enjoyment or emotion, and a heavenly love for regeneration and victory in spiritual combat. This love consists of clinging to God and the ideas and truths about God that we have collected and loved. These ideas are called “truths of faith” or mental anatomy truths or facts, as we study them in mental psychology.
The process of regeneration involves reversing the dynamic of the autonomous self to the interdependent as-of-self.
This is the movement we make from the first rational mind (7e) to the second rational mind (7i).
The first rational (7e) is the head of the unregenerate natural mind. We live the materialistic reality of the autonomous self. We take credit for our own achievements, brought forth from our own efforts, and based on our own talents and learnings. This is the appearance. But in the second rational (7i) we are willing to hear about and think about the new dualist idea that an omnipotent God manages every detail because life or autonomy of self is a created appearance. God manages this appearance. God grows, evolves, and manages the growth steps of our natural consciousness to make sure that this appearance remains the center being of our mental and physical life. The appearance of an autonomous self is created, maintained, and managed by God for us.
In the new rational (7i) we are willing to receive and love the new truth, that the self is an appearance managed by God for our sake, and that the actual reality is that it is not an autonomous self we have, but an as-of-self. This as-of-self lives the appearance of an autonomous self until adulthood, when our external rational mind (7e) is matured. Then we are able to continue the rest of our natural life in the process of regeneration. This is a medical and biochemical procedure by which the Divine Psychologist surgically detaches us from our inherited connections to the societies of the Grand Monster, and connects us to the societies of the Grand Human. Without this surgical procedure or intervention, our inherited loves become welded to us permanently, and upon resuscitation, our ruling love precipitates our consciousness into the Grand Monster society to which it belonged since birth in the natural world. Regeneration is the only medical procedure available for us to have ourselves detached from the Grand Monster, and re-attached to the Grand Human. This medical dynamic requires our cooperation, and cannot go on without it.
Clearly, if our cooperation were not needed, God would immediately perform this procedure on every human being, since God is motivated by pure love for all created souls and minds that He manages from birth to eternity.
The fact that God does not perform regeneration surgery with everyone is rational proof that it cannot be done except by means of the cooperation of each individual. There is a good reason why God arranged the situation in this way so that the individual’s cooperation is required. It has to do with the mental state of happiness, and its related states of bliss, enjoyment, delight, enthusiasm, and other heavenly states. We cannot enter an eternal happy mental state called “heaven,” unless we love the qualities or properties of that mental state. Our clinging to them from our love is what gets us into that state. God cannot teleport a person’s mind into that mental state. Without the person clinging and loving it, being there by teleport would constitute a most cruel punishment in which we experience the torments of hell. Hence it is that our cooperation is necessary in regeneration, since we must supply the clinging and loving for the truths and loves that inflow from the Spiritual Sun. These loves and truths constitute the mental state called eternal heaven.
The purpose of life on earth connected to a temporary physical body is to give us the opportunity to acquire a love for heavenly happiness through acquiring a love for heavenly properties and traits. This opportunity is the lifelong process of regeneration, of becoming a better person, of rejecting our evil or selfish loves, and of acting as-if of our own free will, when battling our temptations in daily life. The study of mental psychology can be useful in this personal effort each of us must be engaged in.
References
The following major works provide the context and origin of mental psychology and anatomy as outlined in this book. Theistic Psychology Series and Other Online Books by Leon James The Organic Mind: Discovering the Mental World of Eternity (2008) || The Spiritual Function of Neologisms (2008) || Lecture Notes on Mental Anatomy (3 volumes) (2007) || Principles of Theistic Psychology (18 volumes) (2004) || A Man of the Field: Forming the New Church Mind (3 volumes) (2002) || The Unity Model of Marriage (2001-2007) || Moses, Paul, and Swedenborg (1999) || Swedenborg Encyclopedia of Theistic Psychology (1996) || De Hemelsche Leer Commentary (1996) || The Doctrine of the Wife (1985) || See also: Scientific Neologisms Coined by Leon James in Psychology For the Period 1958-2008 || Collection of Driving Psychology Articles (2000) || Road Rage and Aggressive Driving (2000) || Songs About Driving Cars on Roads and Highways Spiritually Understood (2007) Directory of Full Text Articles and Books Online (1960-2008) || Leon James Home
If you are looking for explanations about specific words or expressions, you can search for it in this alphabetical list of over 2,000 expressions I coined in my academic career: Scientific Neologisms Coined by Leon James. Each entry is linked to an online article in which it is being used. You can also use a Web search engine. Enter the expression in quotes, and add “Leon James.” This will give you links to several different articles where I use the expression.
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