Swedenborg Encyclopedia of Theistic Psychology

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

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The Swedenborg Encyclopedia of Theistic Psychology is a collection of my articles, lecture notes, and books on topics generated from my study of the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), a Swedish scientist who left behind a collection of some 30 volumes on what I consider to be Theistic Psychology. Neither Swedenborg nor his commentators and followers used this expression, but as a psychologist I felt it was appropriate to describe the psychological content of his work in that way. "Theistic" means that it assumes the positive bias regarding God.

Theistic psychology contrasts with atheistic or nontheistic psychology which assumes the negative bias regarding God. In the negative bias psychology (nontheistic) any explanatory account that relies on God as cause is defined as unscientific. In the positive bias psychology (theistic) any explanatory account that does not rely on God as cause is defined as unscientific. For example, nontheistic psychology explains the human growth process and its developmental anatomy without ever mentioning God in the account. In contrast theistic psychology obtains all its information, data, and principles from God's Speech, also known as Sacred Scripture -- not Sacred Scripture in its literal historical sense, but Sacred Scripture in its correspondential sense.

Swedenborg's greatest accomplishment in my view is the rediscovery of the Divine laws of correspondences that are imparted to humanity through Sacred Scripture given at various times in time and place in history. The literal sense of each Sacred Scripture is clearly geographic, ethnic, and historical, so that when you compare the literal meaning of the various Sacred Scripture we know of, there is a clash, an antipathy, a contradiction, even hatred and racism. This state of affairs would hardly become a great potentate on earth, let alone the all powerful universal God! There must be a rational explanation for the intellectual diversity and mutual aversion that God has created between these different versions of "His Word."

Swedenborg gives the rational solution to this awesome historical and scientific puzzle.

All genuine Sacred Scripture is indeed Divine Speech itself -- not in the literal sense of the expressions and words, but in their correspondential sense that needs to be accessed through translation rules presented in the Writings of Swedenborg.

In the positive bias of theistic psychology the Writings of Swedenborg are Divine revelations ordinarily called Sacred Scripture. Other Sacred Scripture known today include the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Koran (Qu'ran), the Hindu Scriptures, the Baha'i' Scriptures, and some others. The identification of whether some work is Sacred Scripture involves the attempt to access its correspondential sense as known from other Sacred Scripture already identified.

Swedenborg is the only known scientist in history who had empirical observational access to the correspondential sense of Sacred Scripture by direct sensuous consciousness. At age 57 the well known European scientist and publisher, Baron Emanuel Swedenborg of Sweden, suddenly found himself conscious and awake in a dual universe, one natural through his physical body, the other spiritual through his mental body which he called "spirit body." He lived the next 27 years as a dual citizen, interacting socially in this world of time, where he was a busy government mining engineer; and simultaneously also being conscious in the spiritual world of the afterlife and eternity, where he interacted with all the people he had known before their death, and all the authors and historical personalities he had known from the world's literature.

No credible scientist before Swedenborg, or since, exists who has provided a rational and fully integrated scientific account of the correspondential sense of Sacred Scripture . Due to his dual awareness Swedenborg was able to read his Bible in Hebrew and Greek with his natural mind, and simultaneously with his spiritual mind. As he came upon each word and each expression in the natural sense, he observed directly their correspondential sense by looking around him and observing what was happening. He documents what he saw with each expression and word including numbers, days of the week, names of people and places, and double expressions that appear mere synonyms or hyperbole, as well the mythical animals and battles and visionary events. Through these empirical observations Swedenborg produces a dictionary of correspondences contextually presented in series of volumes that give a word by word analysis of the major portions of the Bible.

Anyone reading and studying these semantic demonstrations can acquire the rational logic that governs the laws of correspondences. Every human being has an intrinsic understanding of correspondences, though only some people are aware of it while living in this world. But anyone can rationally study the correspondences that govern their own mind-body connections. These are familiar to us as similes and metaphors when we talk about mental things as if they were physical (e.g., "he is a brain" (hi is intelligent); "let's hake on it" (agreeing), "he was deeply wounded" (hurt pride), etc.).

If you apply the laws of correspondences to Sacred Scripture the literal sense completely vanishes from semantic focus. Instead of "Jacob" we read "the natural mind"; instead of "Jerusalem" we read "theistic science"; and "Rachel" becomes "rational truth" while her "handmaiden" becomes "natural truth"; all numbers involving 4 (like "forty days in the desert") signify "mental states of temptation during regeneration"; and "flood" refers to "inability to resist temptations and hence becoming wicked and evil." And so on. Swedenborg shows that reading the Bible through the correspondential sense gives access to a textbook of theistic psychology or science.

Divine Speech is Divine Truth, absolute and infinite. To communicate this truth to the human race the elements of Divine Speech are transformed into semantic correspondences. These Divine thoughts or meanings descend in rational and scientific series into the highest layers of the human mind called the celestial heavens. Swedenborg was able to compare the language and script of Sacred Scripture that was given to the celestial and spiritual societies in eternity. When people die they are resuscitated within 30 hours and awaken in the afterlife of eternity. They discover that this world is a mental world. Things and people around them can come and go, appear and disappear, and so is their house, or any object or animal. The afterlife of eternity behaves like dreams, It's all very familiar. It is the mental world into which we we born to begin with but somehow had our consciousness restricted to the physical world of time and matter.

On earth things are solid and remain put. You can't wish a person out of your sight. You can't walk out of a closed room. You can't see someone not present. But it's different in your dreams. If your wedding reception room is too small you dream up a bigger one to accommodate thousands of guests and you create more food up to your will. It is the same in the mental world of eternity, once you are detached from the physical world. Swedenborg was a unique case in that he was able to interact in the afterlife of eternity while he was still attached to his physical body and natural life. He called this state "the greatest miracle the Lord has given since creation." Without a person having these experiences our knowledge of eternity would be restricted to the literal sense of Sacred Scripture, and this provides almost no details whatsoever regarding what the afterlife is like.

Historically the work of Swedenborg has been treated as theology and religion, which explains why he is not mentioned in the history of psychology. But this was my insight, or new perspective, as I studied Swedenborg's work and discovered in it a complete scientific and empirical account of the human mind.

The theistic psychology in Swedenborg's Writings is so hidden that experts and admirers of his work for the past 200 years of active Swedenborgian literature, have failed to see it, or have seen in it something psychological, but never a systematic empirical science of psychology. It is important to understand why this has occurred. For the first few years of my study of Swedenborg's multi-volume works I could recognize the importance of his observations to psychology but did not see that it presented a complete scientific account of the human mind. Instead, I saw it as "spiritual psychology" that is relevant and useful for psychology.

The long evolution of my understanding of Swedenborg's Writings was assisted by what others have written and charted regarding his ideas. This collateral literature is given credit and reference in many of the articles and books in this Encyclopedia. I saw my unique function as presenting Swedenborg's work through concepts and theoretical accounts that are comprehensible to college students taking a course in Advanced Psychology. This means that I needed to address the issue of scientific rigor and method. I had to present Swedenborg's work as a full fledged empirical science of psychology having the defining characteristics of a scientific discipline -- namely, presence of empirical data, repeatability and stability of observations, and rational coherence and consistency in theoretical explanations involving cause-effect chains of phenomena.

The issue of scientific rigor and definition is repeatedly addressed in various ways throughout several volumes, and especially Volume 1, Introduction to Theistic Psychology where it is discussed as The Negative and Positive Bias in Science (Section 1.0.6). Psychology as it is known today aligns itself with a categorical non-theistic perspective, denying that God is part of the reality that science needs to address. There is also the denial of the afterlife and the world of eternity. These denials are rightly called the "negative bias in science" since there is no proof given or even attempted to show that God is not part of reality and the cause-effect phenomena of the universe. In this non-theistic perspective there is no room for Swedenborg's theistic science. Hence it is understandable that he is not mentioned in the history of psychology. It is important to understand that non-theistic psychology maintains a negative bias against theism despite the lack of any evidence for such a denial. This is why it is called a bias.

It is also the case that the acceptance of God's existence in theistic psychology is also a bias for which proof is not given. Theistic psychology takes up the positive bias position that God exists, and then examines the evidence to see if it makes rational sense to maintain this bias in science. Scientists must now examine this perspective rationally and scientifically to see if it is methodologically feasible and useful in increasing scientific knowledge and understanding of the human mind. The positive bias perspective in psychology allows scientists and students to examine the evidence and rationale for theistic psychology. The negative bias in psychology denies this evidence in advance, hence cannot objectively examine the evidence that Swedenborg presents.

It makes rational sense therefore to adopt the positive bias in order to have the opportunity to examine the evidence Swedenborg is presenting. The purpose of the Swedenborg Encyclopedia of Theistic Psychology is to present the evidence for the scientific knowledge of God extracted from the correspondential sense of the Writings of Swedenborg.

I discovered this unique collection in 1981 in our university library and was truly amazed that it is not cited and known in the scientific literature, and in particular, Psychology, a field that I had been teaching for twenty years at that time (Ph.D., 1962, McGill University). I started writing about what I was reading in the Writings of Swedenborg, and in 1995, when I created my Web site on Swedenborg, I sought a way of integrating my notes and articles for public presentation, and the result was this Swedenborg Encyclopedia of Theistic Psychology. Its prior name was the Swedenborg Glossary.

The main themes in this Encyclopedia are God, spirituality, rationality, afterlife, the mind's anatomy, scientific dualism, heaven and hell, regeneration. These are topics that Swedenborg discusses from first hand observation. I try to reference my discussions by citing Swedenborg throughout the text of every entry article. I try to be specific about the citation, using the standard citation style used by Swedenborgian scholars that refers the reader to the original Book and Paragraph Number. Swedenborg numbered all his paragraphs, which actually consisted of several sub-paragraphs, so that very specific citations are possible. Further, most of the 30 volume set of his "theological" Writings can be accessed and searched by the public at: www.theheavenlydoctrines.org/

Swedenborg was the only scientist in history who had the gift of dual consciousness. This refers to his ability to be awake simultaneously in his physical body, as the rest of us are, and in his "spirit-body," which normally does not occur until our resuscitation or awakening from the dying process which, as observed by Swedenborg numerous times, lasts for about thirty hours relative to this world. He reported that this conscious awareness of the "spirit-body" while still alive in the physical body, was given to him by God, who appeared to him and sent him off to his Divine writing and publishing mission, which was, that he shall write up as a scientist what information he could gather by this special observation technique. He was 57 at the time and he passed on at 83. This Divine process of "intromission" of his consciousness into the spirit-body in the spiritual world is according to Swedenborg, the "greatest miracle the Lord has granted since creation." And this new gift to humanity was for the sake of the development of rational spirituality.

The advantage of assuming the positive bias in psychology is that it opens up a new source of knowledge that is unavailable to the negative bias non-theistic psychology. This new resource is known to people in all cultures since the beginning of human history as Sacred Scripture. There is a long and active tradition of research and study of Sacred Scripture in every culture. Theology and religion are always based on the literal meaning of Sacred Scripture, each religion and ethnic group having their own Sacred Scripture given to them by Divine revelation through a prophet or revelator. In Western Christian literature there have been made many attempts to use the Bible to justify a religious belief or rule of life. The specific case of Creationism is discussed in Section 1.8.9 Theistic Science: The Scientific Alternative to Creationism and Intelligent Design. Theistic psychology is not based on the literal meaning of Sacred Scripture, as religions are, but on its correspondential sense (Section 1.0.5.5.5).

The topic of correspondences is the central focus of all of theistic psychology as science, e.g. in these Sections of the Theistic Psychology Volumes:

1.1.4.3.2 Extracting the Content of Divine Speech Through Correspondences

1.6.5 The Method of Psycho-Biological Correspondence

1.8.1 The "Bible Code" vs. the Method of Correspondences With Enlightenment

1.8.8.1 The Secret Presence of Correspondences in Sacred Scripture

3.7.1 The Nature and Character of God: A Scientific Perspective: The Science of Correspondences

3.15 The Universal Laws of Correspondences

4.0 Why the Writings Sacred Scripture Are Written in Correspondences

5.1.1.4 The Mind's Three Discrete Degrees: Corresponding Degrees--Natural and Spiritual Minds

6.3.1.1.1( IX) Correspondences to Divine Speech in Sacred Scripture

8.10.2.3 Principles of Theistic Psychology Education: Correspondences

9.1.1.1 Models of Spiritual Development Based on Sacred Scripture: The Literal Meaning and the Extracted Meaning

10.0 Physiological Correspondences

12.0.7.1 The Geography of the Spiritual World: First Heaven--Spiritual-Natural Correspondences

13.0.4 Religious Psychology: Levels of Correspondences in Sacred Scripture

What was unknown and unsuspected until the revelations of the Writings of Swedenborg in the 18th century, is that the Old and New Testaments are written in a language that expresses psychological facts not directly, but in "correspondences." Further, every genuine Sacred Scripture in all cultures and traditions is written in the same scientific language of correspondences in which spiritual realities are expressed in words and meanings that are the natural correspondences to these spiritual ideas. In other words, every idea stemming from natural observation is a correspondence for an idea stemming from spiritual facts. This is equally true of objects: every physical object or operation is the effect, whose cause is a spiritual object or operation, the two cause-effect being linked by the law of correspondences that governs the relation between the natural world and the spiritual world.

The self-evident discovery I made while researching these topics in Swedenborg's Writings is the greatest piece of news science has ever received: and it is this: that the spiritual world of the afterlife in eternity = the mental world. (see Section 1.0.1). Every human being is born into a dual universe tied by correspondence. At birth we acquire a physical body that is tied by correspondence to a mental body (or "spirit-body"). All mental operations occur not in the brain but in the mind, that is, in the anatomical organs that make up the mind in the mental body. The mental body is immortal. Upon the death of the physical body the mental body continues conscious life in the mental world of eternity known as the afterlife of heaven and hell -- see Section 1.1.4 (F) Sixth Conclusion: The Eternity of the Afterlife is Our Mental World Now.

Correspondences occur in Sacred Scripture because Divine Speech originates them -- see Section 15.0.1.1 The Scientific Meaning of Genesis, as an illustration of the method of extracting psychological knowledge from Sacred Scrioture. As Divine Speech descends from God and enters the mental world of humanity and thus of every individual, it descends across the layers of the human mind until it reaches the external layer of natural culture and history. Throughout this descent Divine Speech is transformed at each layer so that each lower layer is a correspondence of the prior upper layer. Correspondences govern mental phenomena in the mental world of eternity and they also govern physical phenomena in time and place.

The action of correspondences is the scientific mechanism that governs the interaction between every natural phenomenon as an effect, with its corresponding spiritual phenomenon as its cause. For example, the names of the people and places mentioned in all Sacred Scripture are symbolic references to mental states, and so are numbers, objects, actions, and events. Swedenborg verified with his dual consciousness the observational fact that whenever he read the Bible in the physical body he was able to see the correspondence of each word and phrase appear before him in the spirit body.

The process is fully confirmed scientifically by the reversal effect, namely, that whenever he was discussing psychological topics about mental states while he was conscious in his spirit-body, he observed the sensory effects of the discussion all around him in the world of spirits. For example, when he was talking to people there who are mentally in evil states, the environment around them became darker, the sky was filled with dark clouds, the surroundings showed caverns, stinking marshes, and screeching poisonous animals and insects. But when he was speaking with the inhabitants of heaven, the surrounding environment showed beautiful houses and gardens on bright and sunny streets, with wonderful fragrances, melodious sounds, and friendly animals.

What is amazing is that there was a one to one relationship or mechanism between particular objects in the environment and specific topics of discussion, to such an extent, that the people there, who all live in a marvelous spirit-body, are able to tell from a distance what a person is thinking and feeling, merely by looking at the surround that gets instantiated wherever people are in the spiritual world.

The mechanism that produces these natural looking environments in the spiritual world of the afterlife is exactly the same mechanism that is in the natural language in which all Sacred Scriptures were written. Of course the existence of the secret language of correspondences was not known to the authors of the Old and New Testaments, but the visions and events they wrote down were inspired into them by God so that only those details were written down that will make a scientific series of linked concepts and explanations when translating the natural into its correspondential sense. What is extraordinary and amazing is that the correspondential sense of the Old and New Testament books form an uninterrupted rational series of meanings and explanations about the human mind -- a textbook or encyclopedia of the mind's anatomy and immortal development. Swedenborg demonstrated this for the Old and New Testament Sacred Scriptures.

This alone proves that the Old and New Testaments is Divine, for how could dozens of uneducated pre-scientific authors, writing about their inspired visions, come up with a literal sequence of sentences that then form a meaningful rational unit together, in the whole of the Old and New Testament. Can you imagine another rational explanation?

Theistic psychology shows that this also applies to the Writings Sacred Scripture, and to other Sacred Scripture (see Section 15.0.4 Ancient Forms of Sacred Scripture and Their Derivatives. And see Section 1.0.1.3 Revelation: Divine Speech Exteriorizing as Sacred Scripture).

Today anyone regardless of background can read these Divine scientific revelations and have a complete rational understanding of God and how we are to prepare for our afterlife, which begins in the spirit-body just a few hours after death of the physical body, as observed thousands of times by Swedenborg, and described by him in scientific detail. This is what the Swedenborg Encyclopedia of Theistic Psychology is about -- my attempt to be of service to others by describing them in the modern terms of scientific psychology in which I was trained and have functioned now for over four decades.

This is not a difficult task for me, but a joyous one that has changed my life and brought me enlightenment and love. Now everyone can examine in a scientific way the mysteries of their faith and philosophy. The One God of the universe who takes care of every person, moment by moment to eternity, has now given humanity this most precious of all revelations that completes the creation of the human mind into an angelic person with supernatural powers and virtues of love and wisdom. The lot of such a person is heavenly bliss to eternity. Take charge of your eternity! It makes sense to do so! What can be more important than that? And the entry point to heaven is by means of rational spirituality in the mind.

See here a continuation of this introduction.
See also: Scientific Proof that the Threefold Word is Divine

For an Introduction and Overview article on Theistic Psychology, please click here

See also Dr. Ian Thompson's Site TheisticScience.org

The Swedenborg Encyclopedia of Theistic Psychology

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