DOCTRINE OF THE WIFE

Date: 1985-2004
by Leon James

Part 3--Definitions From Sacred Scriptures

Part 1 ||  Part 2  ||  Part 3

Doctrinal Propositions

1. That in celestial man and woman the Divine Truth is received in the form of the celestial Divine, which form is received in our within which is our affection for the genuine good and true.
2. That the aim of all our efforts in the celestial state is solely to bring to our conscious awareness the arcana laid down in our idea of the Divine Human.
3. That our idea of the Divine Human in born in the Divine Good of our remains, which idea contains infinite arcana to be laid out by the Lord gradually in our conscious awareness; this idea is represented by the expression "The Writings of Swedenborg as the Third Testament."
4. That our idea of the Divine Human is being laid out as Spiritual and Celestial Doctrines which bear names such as "The Doctrine of Faith", "The Doctrine of Life", "The Doctrine of De Hemelsche Leer", "The Doctrine of the Wife", and so on; these Doctrines are represented by the expression "The Third Testament."
5. That the First Five chapters of the Arcana Coelestia signify the celestial degree of the Doctrine of the Wife; that the Fifth Chapter of the Gospel of John signifies the spiritual degree of the Doctrine of the Wife; and that the Twenty-first Chapter of Genesis signifies the natural degree of the Doctrine of the Wife.
6. That the Four Gospels, in their order, signifies the orderly steps we undergo in our understanding and perception of the Doctrine of the Wife.
7. That the study explication, and teaching of "The Third Testament", are required daily activities and the scientifics or products thus accumulated constitute useful documents for the development of the Doctrine of the Church and Theistic Science.

Correspondences in the Word Relating to the Doctrine of the Wife

• The very marriage itself of good and truth, the Lord’s Kingdom from which is Conjugal Love. (AC 2618)
• Birth of Isaac: When the Lord’s rational was made Divine (AC 2637)
• Weaning of Isaac: when the merely human rational was separated. (AC 2649)

Order (AC 2649:1):

V.1: The presence of the Divine in the Human for the sake of unition;

V.2: The presence of the Human in the Divine, and thus a reciprocal unition;

V.3: From this unition the Human was made Divine;

V.4: And this successively and continuously while the Lord lived in the world;

V.5: And this commenced when the rational was in a state to receive;

V.6-7: The state of unition, its qualities;

V.8-12: Separation of the maternal human

Notes on Verses

V.1: Chapter 1 Topic: Unition of the Lords Divine with his Human

"What further arcane are enfolded in these words that "Jehovah visited Sarah as He had said," and that "Jehovah did unto Sarah as He had spoken," cannot be declared, because thy are inexpressible; for thy comprise the very state itself of the unition of the Lord’s Divine with His Human."

See also: Commentary on John 5 for examination of same topic (interior rational)

V.9: AND SARAH SAW = The Lord’s insight into Divine Truth (AC 2651)

The wife’s sincere affections are the Lord’s insight.

THE SON OF HAGAR THE EGYPTIAN= the merely human rational which was separated after the birth of the Divine rational (because its affections are contrary) (AC 2652) (=Ishmael)

MOCKING= that which does not favor the self and hence is contrary to one’s affections = a contrary affection (AC 2654)

ISHMAEL MOCKING (Negative Bias in Science): "The human rational that namely which has its birth form worldly things through impressions of sense and afterwards from analogues of worldly things by means of knowledge’s is ready to laugh and mock if told that it does not live of itself, but only appears to live so; and that one lives the more, that is the wisely and intelligently, and the more blissfully and happily, the less he believes that the lives of himself." AC 2654: 3

This is the the origin of the negative bias viz., why the Writings are excluded by scientists: the latter’s empiricism leads to a first rational built up by analogy using natural cognitions based on sense impressions (natural reasoning or philosophy and, science and humanism) (=appearances of truths)

REGENERATION = POSITIVE BIAS (AC 2657:2,3)

In relation to AC 2654:3-7, see also:  POSITIVE BIAS and RADICALIST REGISTER

Examples of radicalist assertions:

- We do not live of ourselves but only appear so

- We live best the more we accept this

- We have nothing of our own

- The less we think we have our own the more we have

- Whatever we do from our own is evil

- We are organs of life only (merely human)

- We are not were until we think that all good is from God and perceive that all evil in from hell

- All our wisdom is from angels who are within our true beliefs and right perceptions

- Wisdom is to believe one self to be the least wise

- Greatness is to desire to be least

- Happiness is to desire others to be most happy and oneself the least so

- Heaven is to with to be below all

- Hell is to wish to be above all

- Real truths ("glory of heaven") are pure opposites to appearances of truths ("glory of the world") (2654:5)

- The afterlife if life without space and time but with states which create appearance, of space and time

- Life is the more heavenly when eternal (i.e. apart from space and time)

- The eternal is apart from space and time and cannot be comprehended with concepts based by analogy on space and time

- Life in space/time/matter is less real and blissful than apart from it

V.10: "She said unto Abraham"

= Perception from the Divine = Internal perception

CAST OUT= Banish (the first rational) = REGENERATION: first rational (before regeneration)

Second rational (after regeneration) (AC 2657:2)

The second rational is built up by the Lord through selective vivification (AC 2657:3) of those Ishmael trues which "are in agreement and which favor" hence we have this picture:

Note: the new Isaac rational has a heavenly Own (i.e. it is Divine) (the human own was removed by selective vivification)

(2658:2) The Lord made the Human in Himself from conception Life Itself, by separating the maternal human altogether (not just removing it to the circumference), and then united this to His Divine. So the Human also was Life Itself, right from conception. This is the meaning of John 5:26.

(AC 2658:3) To Love the Lord’s life = Life in Itself = To have the Father’s life. (The Divine Itself (infinite))

vs.

To receive life from the Lord in the merely human organ we have from creation (Love and Faith). (Heirs and sons) The Divine that dwells with us (finited)

INHERIT: = Eternal life to all men = To have possession by inheritance (AC 2658:4)

Possession= 1. "To possess by in inheritance" (celestial love) (good) (heirs) ([Yerisha])

"To inherit" (truth) (sons) ([Nachal]) (Spirit love)

"The Lord’s Divine rational, or His Divine Human, represented by Isaac." (AC 2658:4)

"…The Lord’s Divine Human is the role heir- possessor; as He declares in several places that all things of the Father are His."[(Jehovah Yerisha Jeshu)] (AC 2658: 4)

[See also Comments to John 5]

"He that putteth his trust in Me shall inherit the land, and shall possess by inheritance the mountain of My holiness." Isaiah 57:13

"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." (Matt 5:5)

The husband’s resistance:	ON ACCOUNT OF HIS SON

V.11: "And the word was evil exceedingly in the eyes of Abraham, on account of his son." (Genesis 21:10) (AC 2659, 2661) (Greeting out of love for the merely human, first rational)

Note: The Lord gave Sarah and not Abraham, to perceive that Ishmael must be made second and Isaac first. This means that through Divine Doctrine there is perception of the Divine Human. It is through the wife that the husband perceives the Conjugial. Apart from the wife, the husband has no perception of celestial trues. The internal sense of the word is given by the Lord to the husband through his wife. God told Abraham to act according to Sarah’s word. This means that the Lord united His Human to His Divine by acting according Divine Truth or the Human Divine, i.e. His Own power. In order for the human race to be saved Abraham had to hearken to Sarah, that is, celestial temptations are won by the husband acting in accordance with his wife’s voice, which is the Doctrine of the Wife. "Voice" signifies the trues in her affections.

Then her trues, which are inmost and inexpressible, are externalized in his trues, which are expressible. Then she too can express them. So the Doctrine of the Church is born from the Lord through the wife in the husband and becomes visible in the natural of the husband’s expressions and writings.

V.12: (AC 2665) "all that Sarah sayeth unto thee, hearken unto her voice." (Genesis 21:12)

The Doctrine of the Wife is the title chosen for the internal sense of Genesis 21 as outlined in AC 2610-2726.

This diagram summarizes some of he contents of these numbers in the Word of the Third Testament.

The Doctrine of the Wife in defined by the first verse of the Chapter, i.e. it deals with the details of how the Lord united His Human to His Divine through the Divine spiritual, i.e. through Sarah. The Wife is thus the means through which the husband overcomes in celestial temptations and thereby receives the Conjugal in himself from within and which appears (is externalized) as wisdom, perception of Doctrine.

"And Jehovah did unto Sarah" (V.1) signifies the state of unition of "the Lord’s Divine spiritual in His Divine celestial" which in "the marriage itself of good, from which comes the heavenly marriage" and from whose union is born the Divine Rational, that is, the Divine Human (AC 2618). The Divine Human is thus perceivable when the Conjugal enters the wife internally, into her sincere affections, which are seen by the husband and received by him externally; they constitute for him celestial temptations which he overcomes by hearkening to his wife’s voice, i.e. shunning their violation as a sin against the Lord’s Divine Human. The Divine makes this process visible, and it is confirmed in Genesis 21, John 5, and AC 2610-2726

Perception from Divine celestial VS. Perception from the Divine spiritual

"With man the case is this: it is good from which he perceives, but it is truth by means of which he thinks." (AC 2679)

TRANSLATION:  WITH THE CONJUGIAL COUPLE, IT IS THE HUSBAND FROM WHICH PERCEPTION ORIGINATES (FROM THE LORD) BUT IT IS THE WIFE BY MEANS OF WHICH THOUGHT IS GIVEN.

Reasons

1. Truth= Sarah; good= Abraham
2. Good= perception; truth= thought
3. Wife= source of affection to make truth of life (conjugial)
4. Doctrine= Divine Truth= Church= Sarah= affection to make truth of life= wife
5. Affection= perception, hence wife perceives through truth while husband does not perceive apart from truth.

A son/rational = Isaac = Abraham Divine Itself (celestial)

+ Sarah unition = conceives (Divine Essence)

+ Human Divine (Spiritual) (Human Essence)

ABRAHAM + SARAH = ISAAC (GENESIS 21)

FATHER AND SON = JESUS (JOHN 5)

In the Word = GOOD AND TRUTH = Doctrine of Life (Swedenborg)

Isaac= The Divine Human (Old Testament)

Jesus= The God of Heaven and earth (New Testament)

Doctrine of Life= Regeneration through temptations (Third Testament)

Old Testament = natural temptations

New Testament = spiritual temptations

Third Testament = celestial temptations

Celestial temptations are overcome when:

1. The husband receives the wife’s trues in his affections by obedience and harmonizing in his will
2. In understanding, by transforming her trues in the affections into his trues from his affections.

1. conjugial enters wife’s affections from which she has PERCEPTION (INTUITION within)
2. Wife’s affections are internalized as inexpressible wisdom (Divine Truth), (Human Divine)
3. Husband’s affections (celestial temptations) receive wife’s inexpressible wisdom (Divine Truth), (Human Divine)
4. Doctrine is born in his thoughts as a result of (3) (Divine Human). This is Isaac, the Divine Rational the Divine Human, the Divine Doctrine of the Church with us, with our new will and understanding therefrom.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE WIFE CHART

The wife’s superiority (i.e. priority) lies in her deeper vision of the husband’s celestial temptations. This deeper vision gives her infallible judgment over matters involving her husband’s celestial temptations. The Doctrine of the Wife makes visible that the domain of the wife’s superiority is in the husband’s celestial temptations. As well, it makes visible that she is not in a superior position regarding matters involving spiritual and natural temptations.

Unless it is known what kind of temptation one is in--celestial, spiritual, or natural – one world not know when the wife’s has infallible judgment. Every regenerating husband has areas of celestial temptations and these become increasingly visible as he overcomes natural and spiritual temptations apart from the wife.

The content of celestial temptations in general deals with natural things from the rational, i.e., PSYCHO-POLITICS OF USES IN EVERYDAY LIFE. In this battle the first rational (Ishmael) is favored by the husband’s natural inclinations and opposes ("mocks") the second rational (Isaac) conceived within the wife’s affections and judgment (Sarah) and to be received by the husband (Abraham). When the husband overcomes as of self his inmost resistance to his wife’s vision/perception of truth (judgment) [=Abraham hearkens unto Sarah’s voice] then, and only then, can he form DOCTRINE (Jacob bowing to Esau as Lord).

To a spiritual man there is great delight in the Doctrine of the Church he forms along with other men of the Church. His delight in Doctrine is greater than his delight in his wife. Adam was more delighted in his proprium (Eve) than in the Lord’s leading (celestial Adam). It is of the Lord’s Mercy to will that the spiritual man discover the presence of this Doctrine within his wife so that his wife may be as delightful as the Doctrine to him, yeah, more delightful. Thus he becomes celestial, for to the husband of the celestial Church, the wife is the greatest delight of all. At last, she becomes for him the sole genuine doorway to the Lord Himself. As he thus takes on more and more splendiferous aspects, she radiates more and more with an even deeper light of wisdom.

On the meaning of UNITION--CONJUNCTION--MARRIAGE--RELIGION--Concepts necessary to explain the Doctrine of the Wife

1. Eve is our won proprium, our natural self or self-conscious existence, the essential of which is the feeling of as-of self, i.e. "it is I who thinks, it is I who feels, it is I who decides, it is I who wishes, etc." Prior to the state of Eve, human beings lived in an earthly paradise, directly led by angels and spirits, of whom they were consciously aware. However, at one stage people began to experience the desire to be led by their own self so as to be able to plan their future and explore in unknown areas, and less by inner instinct. The making of Eve is that delight we have when this desire for independence is satisfied by the Lord. A certain spiritual darkness is necessary for this; human beings would no longer possess infallible judgment by instinct – as animals do also.
   But a new danger is now present: the Snake.
   
2. The darkening of the spiritual world to human beings on earth (called the Fall), brought on both natural freedom and spiritual slavery. This was not a necessary outcome. The spiritual decline occurred only when people began to doubt the Word of God as preserved is Sacred Scriptures given to every culture, society, and tribe in the form of religious traditions or church. With the decline of the church came false beliefs, which led to a lack of wisdom in practical life. Social life then became "a problem" and required historical characteristics such as wars, famine, sickness, competition, injustice, deceit, conflict, discord, unhappiness, and hate.
   

However a means of salvation was provided in advance by the Lord: regeneration through temptations. All men and women who want to compel their natural self to a life in obedience to their religion, gradually receive a new conscious rational perception of spiritual realities.

3. Regeneration is effected through temptations. As temptations are overcome in spiritual battles of conscience vs. desire, we begin to construct a new conscious self, one composed of rational elements only. Rational elements are within and above natural elements (by Creation). Rational ideas are abstracted from space-time concepts; or, space-time concepts are external elements within which there is a controlling agency called the spiritual. Our innate rational cognitions are capable of conjoining to the spiritual elements so that we can feel them as part of our self from within. This felling from within constitutes a new experience, a new inner sense, a new birth, a regeneration of an old sense that human beings possessed prior to the Fall. The formation of this new rational self which can sense eternal trues as a self-conscious ability is called the formation of the Church within us.
   For further explanations on the sensuous vs. rational consciousness, see this article.

Spiritual Physiology of Marriage

Step 1) the wife’s external mind, which is outer love, conjoins and appropriates the husband’s external mind, which is wisdom.

Step 2) the husband’s internal mind, which is inner love, conjoins and appropriates the wife’s internal mind, which is inner wisdom.

ADAM and EVE=MAN and WOMAN= HUSBAND and WIFE

RIB= Man’s own wisdom from natural truth.

BUILT RIB INTO A WOMAN= When woman becomes wife, the husband’s own wisdom from natural truth is "transcribed into" her, through which she senses his affections of the will which she "moderates" unbeknownst to him and "appropriates" to herself through loving it, and which then is in her as an "image" of his inmost.

Stage 1: {MAN--BOY}= "receptacle" (masculine mind) (organ) for wisdom, from influx.

{WOMAN--GIRL}= "receptacle" (organ) for love of that wisdom, from influx (feminine mind)

Step 2: (HUSBAND & WIFE) = TWAIN SHALL BE ONE FLESH

= Act, think, feel as one person = CONJUGIAL LOVE = Fruition of all inner potentials to eternity

Stage 1:  MAN--BOY: C3, S3, A2, C2, S2, A1, C1, S1

WOMAN--GIRL:  A3, S3, A2, C2, S2, A1, C1, S1

Stage 2 MARRIAGE

HUSBAND:  A3, C3, S3, A2, C2, S2, A1, C1, S1

WIFE:   A3, C3, S3, A2, C2, S2, A1, C1, S1

*A III= Husband appropriates wife’s love of husband’s wisdom

*CIII= Wife appropriates husband’s wisdom

*S III= Fruition of higher inner potentials

1. NOT GOOD FOR MAN TO BE ALONE

= Not good for man to love his own wisdom hence himself.

2. THEREFORE ? WIFE FROM HIS RIB WHILE HE’S ASLEEP

= He, as husband, can now love his wife’s love of his wisdom as he appropriates her love of his wisdom though he cannot discern this since she hides it.

3. Instead he thinks he woos her and that his love in her while in fact her love is in him and she manages to have him believe she is obedient and receptive when yet she is active and volitional.
4. From this exchange of appropriation the two become one and come into all the potentials not otherwise available ("conjugal love" and its "heavenly felicity").

   ---

Correspondences from Genesis

MAN LEAVING FATHER AND MOTHER

= Stop loving his own loves (father = will) and his won wisdom (mother = understanding), born evil inclination.

---

CLEAVING TO HIS WIFE

= Devotion to her = Loving her = Receiving her love of him (his affections and wisdom), which love she has from birth (influx).

---

MARRIAGE

= Spiritual reunion of man and woman’s interiors = Becoming one flesh or one person or one angel.

---

The Lord’s Kingdom

Masculine and Feminine Receptacle:  Wisdom=Masculine while Love=Feminine

Counterclockwise= HISTORICAL DECLINE OF AGES

Clockwise= INDIVIDUAL PROCESS OF REGENERATION

PSYCHOLINGUISTIC DEVELOPMENT & MATURITY

(From imagination to truth to goodness—the epic history of every man’s autobiography)

a) The rational Determines, Experiential force, Valuates, confirms Significance cathexis

(e.g. chooses which child experiences are elevated to importance vs. relegated to oblivion and inaction – see Freud; and Tomkins on "scripting")

b) Which is therefore to eternity (see "confirmed character" when inherited evil is turned into acquired evil) (see GENETIC CULTURE/LIFESTYLE/ETHNICITY)

c) Through the use the person makes of it (see: TEN COMMANDMENTS/NEW WILL/REFORMATION) (e.g. first vs. second rational: truth vs. charity)

- Confirming false hoods that serve cupidities (e.g. Ellis and Perls and EST vs. Mowrer and Jung and Swedenborg)

- Disconfirming falsehoods through reception of revealed truths and resultant self-control of the inherited sensual will or inclinations.

- Curbing one’s evils (see TWO-EDGED SWORD =)

- Assenting to one’s cupidities and insanities closes or degenerates the rational so that person is deprived of the ability for judgment ( "sensual" a "corporeal" man)

d) Misuse of the rational deprives the person of the ability to reason with abstract thoughts ("materialism", "humanism", "relativity", "nihilism", "psychopathic", "atheism")

R*D= [correlate Abstract Reasoning scores with Moral Behaviors and/or Moral Intelligence and/or Lifestyle Index][see: Recidivism/Decline in scat Psychotherapy/Materialism]

Diagram= [evil-people-can’t-reason-hypothesis]

e) Deceit and profanation being the two worst misuses that kill remains (e.g. fantasies taken for realities; 87)

(H. Odhner, p. 84)

(Hagar Ishmael ? Isaac= the evolution of the Rational – see AC)(Jacob’s Ladder on the bridge between Heaven and Earth in confirmations of good)

= Love of truth rules over love of sensual EXPLORING ONES INTERIORS

RATIONAL REFLECTION--ISHMAEL WITHIN US (prior to TRUTH joining to GOOD)

FIRST RATIONAL (WILD-ASS) PRIOR TO SYMPATHY AND LOVE OF NEIGHBORS PRIOR TO ISAAC WHO IS PEACE WITHIN US

Correspondence {= Helping the first rational or Ishmael to transform into the second rational or Ishmael}

Elevation and Full Maturity {= Conjoining truth to good = Adding sympathy to understanding and letting}

Objectives and Symptoms in SAT {= Avoiding the abuses of the rational}

A C S

A/C/S breadth = A priori = (Synthetic) = From ends to effects

A/C/S breadth = Abstracting out time/space = 3-D to 2-D to 1-D

(A posteriori) from first principles to effects

Induction and Analysis (angelic wisdom a priori)

I Clothed Appres. Ultimate (Y/G ground) Deduction and Synthesis

II Level height I Covered up truths (Y/G ground)

III Naked Truths first (Black/White origin) ultimate (this includes "preconceived principles" (dogmas)

From Effects to Causes and First Principles confirmed in ultimate through biased (This includes scientific rational though selection of ultimate development)

EDUCATION OF THE WILL (DIRECTION OF DEPTH)

*= Removal (or "separation" of quantity (math, time, space, person, quality

**= "D"= Dimensions of constraint or limitations.

SPIRITUAL IDEAS (good)

REVEALED TRUTHS (tree)

INTUITIVE PERCEPTIVE

MEMORY OF ABSOLUTIONS (truths)

TRUE – FALSE

FREE – UNFREE

LOVE – HATE

(Correspondence)

LEVEL III

RATIONAL MIND

(MIXED SPIRITUAL/CELESTIAL)

NON-MATERIAL IDEAS

CONSCIENCE/JUSTICE

EQUITY/REASONING

SELECTION IN LAWFULNESS

MEMORY OF THINGS THOUGHT

FAIR – UNFAIR

PROPER – IMPROPER

APPROPRIATE – INAPPROPRIATE

(Thought Relations)

LEVEL II

MORAL MIND

(MIXED RATIONAL/NATURAL)

KNOWLEDGE

SCIENCE

INFORMATION

MEMORY OF THINGS SENSED

SELECTION IN NECESSITY

IMAGERY

CORRECT – INCORRECT

COMPLETE – INCOMPLETE

SAME – DIFFERENT

(Sense Attributes) (Time and Space)

LEVEL I

NATURAL MIND

(SENSORY ORIGIN ONLY)

(A & B = spiritual substance)

BLACK

Pure intelligence (perception of spiritual truths)

Spiritual Origin: Process only Sensitive to inner relational patterns in interior of

(content in natural) natural but now sensed by the natural itself

Higher conscience/innate/connate/ideas/love/

Wisdom/remains/pure intellect*/innate intuitions

of truths/absolutes/universals/rational templates or

concordant harmonies that correspond with

axiomatic or prime natural verities and laws (un-

conscious archetype) (transpersonal) (intentional-

structures)(collective mind)

BROWN

Natural Origin Thinking/reasoning/transforming/creating/

(content process) imagination/imagery/exterior memory/sensation/

B perception/impression

GREEN

YELLOW

*Pure intellect considers all thing by an absolute true/false judgment that is intuitively apperceived , thus sees simultaneously (outside time/space) what the natural mind sees and experiences successively (in time/space). (no successive steps of building up, as in analysis or derivation or generalization, or abstracted – instead it is synthetic and synecdochic and teleological)

Pure intellectual things ("wisdom") can be expressed indirectly by analogy as parable.

The organic substance of the pure intellect is the highest (thinnest) if natural substances (their essence or inmost) and is located in the inmost of the cortical gland "cortex" – matter. Within this highest natural, and giving it life and function, is spiritual substance which is of a higher degree and unconnected except by corresponding harmony. Hence this is a plane of interaction between spiritual and natural in the human mind/body system.

A C S

Development of Psycholinguistics

CELESTIAL MIND

PHASE: SABBATH REST (NEW: WILL AND WISDOM)

Low midnight Hi noon summer

LOVE OF WORLD/SELF LOVE OF TRUTH

Unregenerate people; Imaginative Selfhood Phase: Regeneration; Interior Morality

(world ills and problems) Fig. 1 (spirituality)

BLUE BROWN

NATURAL MIND SPIRITUAL MIND

Phase: Reformation; External Morality

Religious and Cults (faith separate)

(Psychotopical phases graphically indexed) Swedenborg, in Heaven and Hell (17), describes the pr4ocess of Christian rebirth as "turning". People are born facing North, spiritually (see: "inherited evil" of selfishness in natural mind’). Phase Alpha, or "reformation", is completed when the person is turned "W" i.e. "shuns evils" as barbarian (see: MORALITY). Phase Beta, is completed when the person faces "S", i.e. "shuns evils as sins". (see: spirituality). Phase gamma is completed after death in other world.

Innate Spiritual Strivings ? {Gestalt Organizational} Preferences and Inclination

Perception of Higher Conscience ? Love and Compassion and Collective Conjoining Impulse

Impulses from Pure Rational Innate Universals ? Intuition and Striving for Rationality and Love of Innate Universal Order

Socio-Moral Impulse

Self-Love and Hate of Universal Innate Order

Perception of Consonance and Dissonance Reasoning Aptitude and Tendencies

Pressure for Consonance

Socio-Moral

The accompanying graphic representation summarizes the description of the threefold self as given in Swedenborg’s writings. After studying it for a few minutes, and committing it to memory (to some extent), you may consider the following points regarding the concept of "influx".

The universal influx of life’s operation is God’s own will, intellect, and power with which all life’s motion and states are created, maintained, and altered in accordance with His ineffable purposes.

God’s purposes, to some extent have been revealed to the human race on our natural earth through religious revelations to individuals who then told others and thus established religious and is educated by others. Afterwards, the adhere to family religion or rejects it and espouses other views and rules of living.

III. In Heavenly or ? Heavenly or ? Organic Functions

Infernal World Infernal body and Societies

inmost influx (celestial) (infernal) (influx)

II In Spiritual ? Spiritual body ? Organic Functions

World or Societies

intermediate

influx (spiritual)

(influx)

I Natural World ? Natural body ? Organic Functions and Societies

There is thus individual freedom along with influx. However the area of freedom is different in each of the three worlds. In the natural world, the area of freedom is in the organic functions of the natural self (memory-knowledges from sensory input and material reasoning with them). There is no other freedom in the natural world, though we have the hallucinate that the thoughts and abstract reasoning we’re aware of are our very own. We would indeed be surprised to learn (and might incline to disbelieve) that we are indeed conscious of some abstract thoughts but these are not thought by the "me" we know! Instead, these abstract thoughts that our consciousness is aware of enters by influx into our imagination. In other words, others in the spirit world are thinking those thoughts, which them enter into our imagination where we can perceive their natural analogy or "image".

The Three Freedoms