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

Subject Index, Selections from the Writings, Readings, and List of Abbreviations are at the end of Volume 18

Section 1.0 The Psychology of God -- Overview of Basic Topics

Theistic psychology is the scientific study of God as revealed in the correspondential sense of Sacred Scripture.

Sacred Scripture is Divine Speech that descends through the discrete layers of the human mind -- spiritual mind, rational mind, and natural mind. (See the Layers Diagram). The content or meaning of Divine Speech itself is infinite and incomprehensible to human beings who have finite minds. However, the human mind is constructed as a biological receptor organ for receiving spiritual heat and spiritual light substances that exist eternally in the mental world of the human race. These spiritual substances are not material in nature, like matter or energy in time and space, or like natural light and heat from the physical sun or star. Instead, spiritual heat and light substances stream out from the Spiritual Sun, which is not in the physical world of time but in the spiritual world of eternity.

The spiritual world of eternity is the world that is not in time and space. It cannot be detected by physical measuring instruments designed to detect physical matter or energy only, and nothing else.

If you hold off with the negative bias in science, which requires physical measurement, you can use your mental observation ability to empirically observe the existence and reality of the world of eternity. Eternity is always, so it must also be now, right? Our observational experience of eternity now is through our mental life -- which is very very familiar to every human being! Hence eternity is already familiar to everybody. It is not something new or unknown. It is even more familiar to us than the world of time and physical matter.

Most people and scientists today believe that our mental life is in the brain, which is physical in time. Hence this would mean that our mental life is physical. This theory or principle is known as reductionism in science. In other words, the mental of eternity gets reduced to the chemical world of neurons in the physical brain. According to this theoretical reductionism, mental life or consciousness of self and world, is said not to really exist. Only the electro-chemical action of the brain is really real. But this hypothesis is incorrect, as is fully proven in theistic psychology.

The reality is that our mental life is not in this world but in the mental world. Our sensations, thoughts, and feelings are not physical operations but mental. Mental operations are not measurable physically since they are not in the physical world. When we are born we are born into eternity and each of us is immortal. For awhile we are dual citizens, living in two worlds simultaneously that are precisely interconnected by cause-effect laws of correspondences (to be explained later). We have temporary membership in a horizontal community in time on earth through a physical body. We also have permanent membership in a vertical community in eternity in the mental world of humanity. 

We live our temporary existence in the physical body on earth, and this is tied to our immortal existence in the spiritual body in eternity. For instance, as you are reading this, your physical senses and brain, control your eye movements, as well as the analysis of the linguistic information in each word, sentence, and paragraph. So now the brain has translated the visual information into a neural pattern of electro-chemical firings. That's it. That's as far as the brain can go. The brain is physical in time-space, but the meaning of the sentences is not physical, but mental.

This is worth repeating: the words on the screen or page are physical, but their meaning is mental. Nothing of the mental can exist in the physical. These two are separate in existence, but tied in function. Your physical body in time-space is tied by function to your mental body in eternity. The two must work together until your death. This means separation from the physical world of time and space. Without a physical body, the mental body now is free in its own existence. This is the afterlife of eternity. It never ends. What life is like in eternity will be discussed.

The conscious mental life we now have is only a potion of our mental life. This portion is called the natural mind. But we also have a spiritual mind. We become conscious in this spiritual mind when we die. Once we are conscious in the spiritual mind we can see everybody else who is already in that mental state. This is how people can meet friends and family that had passed on before them. The process of dying is actually called resuscitation. Approximately 30 hours after death of the physical body, we awaken in full consciousness in our spiritual mind, and this continues forever. These facts were observed many times in detail by Swedenborg who is the first and only modern scientist in the history of science who was able to be conscious in his spiritual mind several years prior to his death. Theistic psychology is based on the laws of correspondences that Swedenborg observed by living in both worlds simultaneously for 27 years. These are the same correspondences in which Sacred Scripture is written.

For a brief biography of Swedenborg and his place in the world today, see this interview:
Williams-Hogan, Jane K. (2006). From Swedenborg to the New Church: Interview. Religioscope. Available at: http://religion.info/english/interviews/article_247.shtml 

So if our science is going to be logical and rational we are going to acknowledge the full and independent existence of the mental world of humanity, which is outside the physical world of time-space-matter, and not part of it. This other world that is not in time or space is called the mental world of eternity. You are extremely familiar with the mental world of eternity. You are in it every minute of the day. You are in it right now. And so am I. And so is everyone you know, and every human being -- by definition. But our conscious awareness only extends to the natural part of the mental world. We are conscious of whatever comes to us through the senses and the brain. So we appear to ourselves subjectively to live entirely in that world which is made of ideas based on the physical senses. So all of our conscious mental life is filled with ideas from the natural world -- tastes, smells, objects, environment, cities, ocean, sky, moon, etc. Our ideas based on these objects make up our conscious meanings and understandings, so much so, that we are able to deny that there is a mental world that is not made of these natural objects.

But once we are resuscitated, a few hours after death, we are conscious in our spiritual mind which has sensory organs of its own that are capable of detecting spiritual things, mental things. So we can actually see others who are also in the spiritual mind, and we can talk and have relationships just like we do now. In order to interact with each other in the mental world of eternity people project what they have with them from the natural mind. People's thoughts and feelings create the surrounding environment, just as they do in dreams. What you dream about and what happens depends on your feelings, emotions, and memories. This is what also happens in the afterlife of eternity, which is the mental world of which we are unconscious while we are still tied to the physical body.

The moment we are born we start our immortal life through the spiritual or mental body in eternity. Whatever we do all day long we have sensations, thoughts, and feelings. These are actual operations in our mental organs located in our spiritual body in eternity. In theistic psychology the spiritual body is called the mental body, and the spiritual world is called the mental world of eternity. Note also that the spiritual world is called by many people the afterlife. They do not realize that the afterlife is the mental world of eternity. How? Because our spiritual or mental body grows from birth to adulthood along with our physical body. But then our physical body begins to age while the mental body does not age. How? Because the mental body is made of spiritual substances from the Spiritual Sun (heat and light), as stated above, and the physical body is made of the material substances from the physical sun. All things physical are temporary and subject to aging laws, while all things spiritual or mental are permanent, immortal.

So in order to understand how there can be a science of God, or a science of immortality and eternity, you need to construct in your understanding the concept of "substantive dualism," as will be explained. Substantive dualism contrasts with materialistic monism, which denies -- without proving -- the existence or reality of God, eternity, or the mental world. Since no scientific proof is given for this denial, it is called the negative bias in science. The reason it is called a "bias" is because it does not prove the denial, just makes the assertion. And the reason it is called "negative" is because its methodology consists of denying the existence of a phenomenon that cannot been proven by physical measurement.

So you can see that it is not rational to want to prove the reality of phenomena in eternity through physical measurements. This is irrational and contrary to logic.

Physical measurements apply only to physical phenomena, never to mental phenomena. It is irrational to think that sensations, thoughts, and feelings can be measured by physical measurements. Only brain activity can be measured by physical measures. Mental activity cannot be measured by physical measures. As a result materialistic psychology finds itself denying the reality of people's sensations, thoughts and feelings. Since you have been schooled in the negative bias in science, you are probably thinking right now that your thoughts and feelings are your brain neurons firing electrical and chemical matter. Right?

Historically this view is called reductionism in psychology. It reduces the existence of mental operations -- sensations, thoughts and feelings -- to electrical and chemical robotonics. Neuroscience of the brain has therefore become biological robotonics. The human part, which is the mental part, has been eliminated. Here is how reductionism is practiced today in science and technology presentations:

From:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_article_id=434968&in_page_id=1766&ito=1490

What's on your mind? A machine can tell us

by Fiona Macrae - 9th February 2007

It is the stuff of science fiction - a gizmo capable of reading people's minds, revealing their most private thoughts.

Now, that fiction has become reality with scientists devising a way to accurately predict what someone is going to do.

Using sophisticated scanners and computer programmes, they have worked out how the brain lights up when making different plans - a breakthrough that effectively allows the reading of people's minds.

Still in its infancy, the technique could one day be used to ease the lives of the paralysed by giving them better control over the movement of prosthetic limbs.

It could also be used to enable people to operate computers and PlayStations by thought alone and, echoing the plot of the film Minority Report, even allow police to arrest criminals before they break the law.

Professor John-Dylan Haynes (CORR), who started the research while working at University College London, said: "Until now, no one has been able to show whether it might be possible to read a persons' intentions from their brain activity.

"We wanted to know if you could read intentions while they were still covert - known only to the subject."

To find out if this was possible, the scientists asked a group of volunteers to prepare to do some mental arithmetic.

The eight men and women were told to choose to perform an addition or subtraction - but not to tell the scientists their choice.

While they were thinking about whether to add or subtract, but had not started to do any sums, their brains were scanned using a high-tech version of the MRI scanners used every day in our hospitals to detect brain tumours.

After a few seconds, the volunteers were the numbers needed for the calculations and their brains were scanned again while they added or subtracted and came up with an answer.

Comparison of the scans revealed that different clusters of brain cells are involved in thinking about doing something and actually doing it.

When we think about something, cells towards the very front of the brain light up.

However, when we actually start to act on our plans - for instance by doing a mental calculation - the activity shifts slightly further back.

Crucially, the scans also showed that different brain cells are involved in thinking about doing different things.

With the help of a complex computer programme, the scientists were able to pinpoint the pattern of brain cells that light up when we're thinking about adding up and cells that come to life when we're planning to subtract.

Using these patterns, they were able to work out whether the person would add or subtract the numbers - and get it right more than 70 per cent of the time, the journal Current Biology reports.

Prof Haynes, who completed the research after moving to the Max Planck Institute in Germany says the breakthrough could one day lead to the creation of a mind-reading machine small enough to fit inside a baseball cap.

He said: "We know that information is there and now we have to find novel, smaller, cheaper devices.

"It is imperative we develop these machines because we know there is something in the brain we can really put to use.

"A brain scanner in a baseball cap would be the perfect version."

Such technology would, however, bring with it a host of ethical issues, with people being concerned about their deepest secrets being made public.

7 people have commented on this story so far. Tell us what you think below.

Here's a sample of the latest comments published. You can click view all to read all comments that readers have sent in.

From here its just a small step to be able implant thoughts of your choosing. At last British scientists might be able to get some research funding out of Nu Labour.- N. Glew, Luton

My wife can read my mind anytime! Why do they need a machine?
- George Fairweather, Seaham County Durham

Oh dear, political correctness controls our speech and, indirectly, our thoughts. In the, not too distant, future our thoughts can be read - and woe betide those who are 'wrong-thinking'. Best to get into the habit of politically correct thinking, or perhaps, not thinking at all. Our education system and dumbed-down media are beginning to facilitate that for the up and coming generation. - Gc, Harrogate, UK

From:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_article_id=434968&in_page_id=1766&ito=1490

Exercise:
Reread the science news story and see if you can find the reductionistic fallacy in it.
Hint:
Contrast what actually is measured (brain waves) and what thoughts the person is thinking (general inference about readiness to act vs. specific information on thoughts or feelings). Note also how the comments of the readers involve the reductionist fallacy.

The scientific thinking on dualism is now changing through theistic psychology. The dual world of physical time and mental eternity is being introduced in psychology through the positive bias in science. It is called "bias" because it does not prove by physical measurement the existence of God and the afterlife. Let's face it: neither the negative bias in science (i.e., denying God's scientific reality), nor the positive bias in science (i.e., affirming the scientific reality of God) , can be proven by physical measurements.

Once we enter the approach in psychology called substantive dualism in science, we begin to employ the techniques and methodology developed in the positive bias science. God is assumed to be real and so is Sacred Scripture as Divine Speech. From these two -- God's reality and Sacred Scripture as Divine Speech -- we derive an effective and valid methodology for the scientific investigation of God. Divine Speech issues from God's thoughts and feelings in a similar way that human speech issues from our thoughts and feelings. Remember that in this methodology all mental phenomena are also real, but not in time, and not involving physical matter. What then?

Spiritual substances from the Spiritual Sun. Or: Mental substances from the Spiritual Sun. Sensations, thoughts, and feelings are operations of our sensorimotor, cognitive, and affective organs in the spiritual body. Right now, in this very instant, your visual sensations from reading this are not in the brain but in your sensorimotor organ located in your mental body, which is located in eternity, since your birth. You do all your sensing, thinking, and feeling in that mental body or spiritual body born in eternity and connected by correspondence to your physical body. God, being the Divine Human from eternity, in whom infinite things make one, employs His affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor organs to create the dual universe from the substances in Himself.

What are these substances (raw materials) that come out of God's affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor organs?

You already know the answer: when Swedenborg be became conscious of his highest affective organ (called the celestial mind), he saw other people who were also there, living as immortals in a spiritual or mental paradise in eternity. You too, every human being, can raise your existence to higher and higher levels in your mind, until you exist in your celestial mind in eternity. Everyone there, including Swedenborg, was able to see visually the Spiritual Sun shining in the mental sky oh eternal conjugial heaven. And amidst the Spiritual Sun -- which was exceedingly bright yet did not blind the eye -- we can see the Divine Human Himself. This is the final proof that a rational person needs in order to be one hundred percent certain of God's reality.

In our highest mental organs we can visually see spiritual light and heat pouring out of the Spiritual Sun. These spiritual substances streaming out of the Spiritual Sun create an atmosphere we can call mental ether. We know this about the natural sun from which this planet originates, which is a middle sized star among billions of other stars in our galaxy. Each star creates a gravitational field or space of physical ether, in a way that corresponds to the Spiritual Sun, which creates a mental ether out of the substances issuing from God's affective and cognitive organs.

But what is spiritual heat?

The word "heat" is commonly used in materialistic science, as you know from physics, chemistry, or meteorology. And in medicine the word "temperature" is used for measuring body heat. In this natural sense "heat" is physical, as is temperature and motion. But "spiritual heat" is not physical. It is mental. Since God is omnipotent and loving, whatever issues from His affective organ is called Divine Good or Divine Love (these two mean the same spiritually). So spiritual heat is love substance (or good as substance), and spiritual light is truth substance (or rationality as substance).

Reread the last bolded sentence: it is the central key to unlock your comprehension of theistic psychology and substantive dualism in science.

Spiritual substance in the mental world of eternity refers to the spiritual light and heat streaming from the Spiritual Sun and permeating the totality of the mental world, just as physical substance or matter refers to the light and heat streaming from the physical sun and permeating all space and planets. Every object in the physical world is made of physical substances (chemical elements) from the natural sun, just as every object in the mental world is made of spiritual substances (good and truth in infinite variety) from the Spiritual Sun. The Spiritual Sun is the visible aura that appears brightly around the head of God Divine Human. This Spiritual Sun surrounding God's head was seen many times by Swedenborg when he was made conscious in the upper heavenly layers of his mind (see the Layers Diagram).  All the people who lived in that layer of the mental world were also able to see God and the surrounding Spiritual Sun. So the spiritual goods and truths that issue from God's Mind appear to human beings visually as a Spiritual Sun. You too will see this Spiritual Sun that surrounds God the Divine Human, when you ascend to your heavenly layers after the second death (see Section xx).

You can see now that God the Divine Human did not create the dual universe out of nothing (a non-scientific notion), but out of Divine Speech, that is, out of substances of good and substances of truth issuing from God's affective and cognitive organs of His Divine Human Mind..

As you already know we are born into eternity with our spiritual body or mind. The substances out of which our mental organs are constructed are the substances that issue from the Spiritual Sun in endless variety. Every newborn is unique even though it is constructed out of spiritual heat and light from the Spiritual Sun. Every newborn's mental body (or "spiritual body") contains a sensorimotor organ, a cognitive organ, and an affective organ (see Section xx). These organs are arranged in several levels called discrete degrees (see Section xx). The highest level of operation of our affective and cognitive organs is called the celestial-rational mind. A discrete degree below this we have affective and cognitive organs at an intermediate level of excellence called the spiritual-rational mind. And at the lowest discrete level of operations of the affective and cognitive organs, we have the natural-rational and natural-sensuous mind. Every human being possesses these same three levels and organs.

Note this very important observation: it seems to us that we are in a private world by ourselves when we are thinking and experiencing feelings. Right? But this is an appearance or illusion. Theistic psychology shows that the human race has only one mental world, only one spiritual world of the afterlife. Everyone is born into the same mental world of eternity that is created around the Spiritual Sun by the substances of good and truth. And everyone wakes up after death in the same afterlife of eternity. Thus there is only one mental world.

Once a human being is born into the immortality of eternity, the mental organs function as receptor organs for the spiritual heat -- into the affective organ, and for spiritual light -- into the cognitive organ. In other words, spiritual heat or good in substance, constructs the affective organ at birth, and then keeps it alive and operating by the continuous or ceaseless inflow of spiritual heat or good in substance. The same for the cognitive organ and spiritual light or truth substance.

Now you can see that Divine Speech from God's mind issues into the mental world of humanity and enters every mental organ of every human being, at the top of the mind called the celestial level of affective and cognitive organs.

Of course we are not conscious of the celestial and spiritual mind while we are conscious in our natural mind, and tied to the physical body by correspondence. However, even though we are not conscious of these mental operations triggered by the inflow of good and truth substances into our celestial-spiritual mind, nevertheless we are influenced by it in our conscious natural mind through the laws of correspondences, as will be made clear later.

When Divine Speech, containing good and truth substances, descends to the natural mind of a chosen prophet prepared by God for this purpose, he is able to write it down in a natural language, and what he writes down is called Sacred Scripture. Note carefully that other people are not conscious of this Divine Speech, though it is also present in their mind, not just in the mind of the prophet. It's just that the prophet is given limited temporary consciousness in the spiritual mind and in the natural mind, long enough to be able to write it down in a natural language. Note also that the prophet is not aware that the sentences he writes down are only correspondences to Divine Speech in his mind.

It's only since the Writings Sacred Scripture were provided through Swedenborg that science can now know about the hidden correspondences in Sacred Scripture.

Sacred Scripture is the method used in theistic psychology to discover the hidden layers of information contained in Divine Speech. These hidden layers were not available to scientific study until the 18th century author Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) discovered the laws of correspondences that govern the joint operation of natural phenomena in time (Sacred Scripture written down in a natural language), and spiritual phenomena in eternity (Divine Speech entering the celestial mind). This relationship in theistic psychology is called substantive dualism in science. Swedenborg discovered that there is only one mental world for the human race, and this human mental world is the afterlife of eternity.

We are born into eternity as dual citizens, the physical body being in the natural world and the mental body, or mind, being in the afterlife world of eternity. Swedenborg discovered that every person undergoes a mental resuscitation process about 30 hours after separation from the physical connection through death. We then exist consciously in our spiritual mind, which until resuscitation, was operative but unconscious. Shortly after resuscitation, the natural mind becomes unconscious.

Swedenborg also discovered that there was a functional connection between every verse in Sacred Scripture with a particular type of mental state in the human race. He was thus able to empirically map out the correspondences between the words and phrases of Sacred Scripture with mental states. By using the functional connection between the body organs and the mental organs, Swedenborg demonstrated that Sacred Scripture has layers of meaning expressed in correspondences. Knowledge of these correspondences allows us to extract the scientific facts and principles about God that are hidden within the literal sense of Sacred Scripture. See the Layers Diagram.

When the hidden layers of meaning in Sacred Scripture are accessed through the correspondences that have been revealed, we discover what God wants to talk to us about, what information God wants us to know. The results so far, amply demonstrated in the Writings of Swedenborg, show that God wants to talk to humanity about Himself in relation to us. God wants to instruct us concerning mental anatomy, theistic psychology, and how He manages the universe and why.

Theistic psychology is the psychology of God.

As psychologists we have two approaches to investigating the psychology of God. One way is to define God as a belief, and then investigating what people believe in. In non-theistic negative bias psychology this methodology is known as the "psychology of religion." You can see logically that this is not an investigation of God but an investigation of what people believe. Since God is not a scientific concept or reality in non-theistic psychology, it is only possible to investigate people's beliefs and attitudes and behaviors, but not God. The other approach is to define God as a reality in itself, not just a belief or fantasy. Investigating God is logically possible only if you assume that God could be a reality. Then you can investigate it is, or is not.

But if you deny that God exists (the negative bias in science), then you can only investigate what people say and believe and do. Hence not God Himself. The only way that God can be investigated scientifically is (a) to grant that God might exist (positive bias in science), and (b) to use the method of correspondences in Sacred Scripture (not physical measurement).

 

In relation to God, theistic psychology takes the positive bias interpretation in science. This is the same as saying that God is a significant and traceable influence on human behavior.

The psychology of God is the study of how all human behavior is an outcome of how people react to God, both consciously and unconsciously. Since God is omnipotent and manages all phenomena, He also manages the minds of people, both of the positive bias in science and of the negative bias in science. Nevertheless there is an enormous difference in the quality of life in eternity of those who are resuscitated into the positive bias mentality vs. those who are resuscitated in the negative bias mentality. Swedenborg empirically determined this by observation of thousands of cases he could observe in his dual consciousness, natural and spiritual.

Until age 57 Swedenborg, then a well known personality in Sweden, had consciousness only in his natural mind, like all of us. Then suddenly he gained consciousness in his spiritual mind as well. For the next 27 years until his death, he was leading a life of dual citizenship, being able to interact with those already in the afterlife and conscious in their spiritual mind, as well as those in the physical world where he kept up his busy schedule as government mining engineer, publisher of scientific journals, and member of the Swedish legislative body. He published his observations and findings, which amount to about 30 volumes in English translation. They are called collectively "the Writings of Swedenborg." In theistic psychology they are called "the Writings Sacred Scripture."

In the course of studying theistic psychology you will learn about the psychobiology of God which describes the anatomy and physiology of the mental organs. This is a necessary methodological focus for theistic psychology that describes the details of how God is a significant and traceable influence on human behavior. From the scientific perspective it is not sufficient to merely believe that God affects people's lives. As a science, theistic psychology has to rationally demonstrate and empirically illustrate the mechanisms that God uses to influence human behavior. In the positive bias approach in science, God is real, and therefore there must be a scientific answer to how God exerts influence upon human behavior. This answer needs to be investigated. It cannot be investigated in non-theistic psychology, which continues to remain in the negative bias mentality of science, denying that God, revelation, and Divine Speech as Sacred Scripture have a scientific reality. When God and Sacred Scripture are denied as real phenomena, then research on God is not allowed either. As already indicated, research about people's beliefs and attitudes about God is not research about God.

The psychology of God provides answers regarding where God is in our mind, how He gets there, why we don't see Him, what He is doing there, how we are best to handle this situation, what potential benefits are there, and related issues and puzzles.

The following discussion provides an overview of theistic psychology. You will notice that the same sub-topic appears in different places more than once or twice. The reason is that this is such a new topic for most people that it helps to have the same issue handled more than once and in a different context. In this way you will be learning more than facts, but also a thinking register. For instance if you are very good at something, whatever it is, you are an "expert" at that thing relative to many other people. When two "experts" get together they can talk "shop" with each other, and others may get the feeling that they don't understand what's being discussed. In addition, experts can solve problems others cannot. This is because they are able to reason things out from experience and reflection.

This more powerful (expert) way of thinking about something is called a specialized thinking register. You will learn to think rationally and scientifically about God. You will practice applying scientific and rational thinking to God.  Hence the apparent repetitions of topics throughout theistic psychology is not redundant information to be skipped, but opportunities to build facts into principles, and these into an expert thinking register about God.

Every human being has God in the mind. This reality is the rational and empirical basis of defining God as a scientific concept. Since God is immortal, our conjunction with God from birth, makes us also immortal. Since God intervenes and interacts with everything we intend, reason, and do, it is for scientific research to investigate how this interaction takes place in every human being.

Every human being has heaven and hell in the mind, from birth, as part of the inherited human mental anatomy.  Heaven is a mental state in eternity that is operational within the affective organ of our spiritual mind (see Section xx). This operation exists within the human virtues. All individuals who operate within the consciousness, intention, effort, and love of virtues, develop this affective organ so that after separation from the physical world, they exist in that state of eternity called heaven (see Section xx).

Every human being has hell in the mind, from birth and inherited mental anatomy of the natural mind. Hell is a state in eternity that is operational within the affective organ of our natural-sensuous mind (see Section xx). This operation exists within the human vices. All individuals who operate within the consciousness, intention, effort, and love of vices, develop this affective organ so that after separation from the physical world, they exist in that state of eternity called hell (see Section xx).

From the religious perspective, based on the plain literal meaning of Sacred Scripture, heaven is being with God in eternity as a reward we earned for being faithful in our religion while we were on earth. And hell, is a Divine punishment or an inevitable negative consequence, of living a life of "sin", which is contrary to religion.

From the scientific perspective of theistic psychology, based on the hidden correspondential meaning of Sacred Scripture, both heaven and hell are mental states that are operational within our mental organs, and these are already in eternity from birth (see Section xx). As observed by Swedenborg, people make their own choices regarding where they exist in the conscious afterlife of eternity (see Section xx). The choices they make are according to their loves -- what they like most, what they are most enchanted with, what they are unwilling to give up no matter what. This is what pulls them to live their immortal existence either within human virtues (heaven), or within human vices (hell). In terms of Swedenborg's observations of samples of human beings entering the afterlife in the eighteenth century, more people from this earth chose to be in their vices, than in their virtues!

Unfortunately, the people who choose hell become progressively worse and live a sub-human life devoid of orderliness, intelligence and happiness. This is a built in endless degradation of the operations of the natural-sensuous mind that is unwilling to be governed by the rational mind. In contrast, people who choose to live in their virtues are happy, married to their soul mate, intelligent, decent, and beautiful, and they grow in these traits endlessly to eternity. This is a built in elevation of the operations of the spiritual-rational mind (see Section xx).

Topic 1. The Negative Bias in Science vs. the Positive Bias in Science

Science exists in two different orientations called the negative bias in science and the positive bias in science (see Section xx). The negative bias in science denies that anything exists except that which is natural, and constructed out of physical matter in time and space. For instance, thoughts and feelings are defined as nothing more than electrical and chemical activity in the brain cells and their "emergent" properties. The negative bias in science denies the existence of God, of life after death, of Divine revelation, of consciousness as real, of a spiritual world in eternity outside time and space, of the possibility that anyone can communicate with people who have already departed from this world through death of the physical body. The denial of all of this by materialistic science follows automatically from the denial of anything outside time, space, and energy. This denial is called the negative bias orientation or paradigm in science.

It is called a bias because this position has never been proven by science. It is a mutually chosen premise, an unproven assumption, an agreement by scientists among each other to exclude anything from science that isn't material in time and space. This methodological position is sometimes called "materialism" or "materialistic monism." This is the attitude and orientation that you have been exposed to in your science and psychology courses throughout education. "God and science don't mix" -- we were told and taught. "It's unscientific to talk about God in science" is another popular persuasion. So we were not told that denying God in science is a negative bias in science. We were told that denying God in science is scientific.

It makes a big difference whether school children are told one or whether they are told the other. Telling us that God in science is unscientific goes deeper into our persuasion than telling us that God in science is denied by assumption and agreement not by proof. More resistance to the idea of God in science is created in our mind when we are told it is unscientific, rather than there is an unproven agreement in science to exclude God. Clearly there is an element of ideology in science rather than rationality. The negative bias in science agreement methodologically excludes the writings of any scientist who includes God in their theoretical explanation.

An example of systematic exclusion from science is the work of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), whose writings have been excluded from being even mentioned in history of psychology textbooks and handbooks, despite the fact that Swedenborg wrote the first textbook of psychology called Rational Psychology (1742) in which you can find the major topics of psychology in the 20th century, including the focus on the brain and its functions. For instance, Swedenborg was the first scientist to propose that the anatomical and physiological evidence indicates that the left brain specializes in cognitive operations, while the right brain in affective operations (see Section xx). Swedenborg was the first known modern scientist whose theories were explicitly theistic.

The positive bias orientation in science -- also unproven, hence a bias --  is that God exists, that reality consists of two worlds, one natural in physical time and space, the other spiritual or mental, outside time and space. The spiritual world of eternity is also called the afterlife. What is critically different in this orientation is the recognition that thoughts and feelings are not electro-chemical operations in the neurons of the brain since thoughts and feelings are non-material substances, while the brain contains only material substances or matter. Material substances of the physical brain are in the time-space world, while mental substances and operations -- thoughts and feelings --  are in the mind or in the world of eternity (not in the time-space world ). This is the fundamental difference that you must try to understand right from the start of your study of theistic psychology.

Why is the spiritual world of eternity and afterlife = the mental world?

Isn't the mental world right here and now in my mind? The mental world of my thoughts and feelings are alive in me right now. So why are you calling thoughts and feelings as operations in eternity? How can the spiritual world be the same as my mental world? If our eternity is in the mental world, is it really an objective place we can go to after we die? Etc. Etc. These are all the questions that may be crowding your mind. All of them will be answered in your mind when you begin to form a cumulative and coherent account of its various pieces and how they are integrated with each other. Diagrams will be given to help you in this task.

Until the 19th century, most scientists accepted the positive bias in science, including the founders of modern science -- Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Einstein. By the end of the 19th century and onward with the 20th, the negative bias in science became prevalent. Nevertheless the positive bias in science continued strong with scientists who were familiar with the Writings of the Swedish scientist Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). In contemporary psychology the positive bias in science based on Swedenborg's Writings continues with the new field of theistic psychology, created by Dr. Leon James, Professor of Psychology at the University of Hawaii (see the online work Theistic Psychology at www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/theistic )

The American Psychological Association (APA) oversees and sets standards for doctoral training programs in all accredited clinical psychology departments and schools in the United States. In the past few years there has been a greater recognition that "theistic psychotherapy" is a desirable and necessary development in clinical psychology. An example is the APA Psychotherapy Training Videos program intended for mental health professionals. One training video for clinical psychologists approved by the APA is the following:

The information below is displayed at:  http://www.apa.org/videos/4310716.html

Theistic Integrative Psychology shows an approach for incorporating belief in God into therapy. An important aspect of this therapy is the assumption that spirituality and faith are central to many people's lives, and therefore therapists should be open to including religious beliefs in their work with clients.

In this session, Dr. P. Scott Richards works with a 60-year-old African American woman who was recently diagnosed with diabetes. He first seeks to understand how she is handling this news and the accompanying thoughts about her mortality and then looks at how her spiritual beliefs are both helping and hindering her process of coping.

This approach is distinguished from most therapeutic models in that its primary worldview is that God and spirituality often play an important role in people's lives: The starting point for Dr. Richard's theistic integrative approach is theistic, as opposed to the naturalistic or atheistic starting point for other models in psychotherapy.

This approach is distinguished from most therapeutic models in that its primary worldview is that God and spirituality often play an important role in people's lives: The starting point for Dr. Richard's theistic integrative approach is theistic, as opposed to the naturalistic or atheistic starting point for other models in psychotherapy.

This is an integrative approach in which many psychotherapeutic approaches may be incorporated, including person-centered and cognitive approaches, depending on which may be most suitable for the client. Tailoring the therapy to the individual client while also being open to the role of God in the client's life will result in more effective therapy. Assessment includes questions about religious beliefs and affiliations as well as more typical questions to assess mood and psychological traits.

To use this approach, a psychologist need not adhere to traditional religious beliefs, although having respect for and some understanding of spiritual worldviews is helpful. A therapist who is not a believer might look at this approach as a way to treat religious clients in a culturally sensitive way. Whether the therapist believes in God or not, the most important thing to remember when allowing religious belief to enter therapy is that the therapist must never impose his or her own beliefs on the client. The goal of this therapy is to look for how the client's beliefs might help (or hinder) the journey to psychological healing.

To learn more about this approach, Dr. Richards recommends continuing education classes as well as reading literature on theistic integrative psychology.

P. Scott Richards received his PhD in counseling psychology in 1988 from the University of Minnesota. He has been a faculty member at Brigham Young University since 1990 and is a professor in the Department of Counseling Psychology and Special Education.

He is coauthor of the first and second editions of A Spiritual Strategy for Counseling and Psychotherapy (American Psychological Association [APA], 2005); coeditor of the Handbook of Psychotherapy and Religious Diversity (APA, 2000), and the Casebook for a Spiritual Strategy in Counseling and Psychotherapy (APA, 2004).

He was given the Dissertation of the Year Award in 1990 from APA Division 5 (Evaluation, Measurement, and Statistics). In 1999, he was awarded the William C. Bier Award from APA Division 36 (Psychology of Religion). He is a fellow of Division 36, served as secretary of the division from 2000 to 2003, and is currently president of the division. Dr. Richards is a licensed psychologist and maintains a small private psychotherapy practice at the Center for Change in Orem, Utah.

Richards, P. S. (2005). Theistic integrative psychotherapy. In L. Sperry & E. P. Shafranske (Eds.), Spiritually oriented psychotherapy (pp. 259–286). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Richards, P. S., & Bergin, A. E. (Eds.). (2000). Handbook of psychotherapy and religious diversity. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Richards, P. S., & Bergin, A. E. (Eds.). (2004). Casebook for a spiritual strategy in counseling and psychotherapy. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Richards, P. S., & Bergin, A. E. (2005). A spiritual strategy for counseling and psychotherapy (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

APA Videos

• Addressing Issues of Spirituality and Religion in Psychotherapy
  Edward P. Shafranske

• Christian Counseling
  Mark R. McMinn

• Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression
  Zindel V. Segal

• Mindfulness for Addiction Problems
  G. Alan Marlatt

• Spiritual Awareness Psychotherapy
  Lisa J. Miller

APA Books

• Casebook for a Spiritual Strategy in Counseling and Psychotherapy
  Edited by P. Scott Richards and Allen E. Bergin

• Handbook of Psychotherapy and Religious Diversity
  Edited by P. Scott Richards and Allen E. Bergin

• Integrating Spirituality Into Treatment: Resources for Practitioners
  Edited by William R. Miller

• Judeo-Christian Perspectives on Psychology: Human Nature, Motivation, and Change
  Edited by William R. Miller and Harold D. Delaney

• Religion and Clinical Practice of Psychotherapy
  Edited by Edward P. Shafranske

• A Spiritual Strategy for Counseling and Psychotherapy, Second Edition
  P. Scott Richards and Allen E. Bergin

• Spiritually Oriented Psychotherapy
  Edited by Len Sperry and Edward P. Shafranske

© 2007 American Psychological Association

The above information is displayed at:  http://www.apa.org/videos/4310716.html

I am presenting this information to show that the science of psychology is moving in a new direction which allows it to discuss God as a real person with whom the individual has a real relationship. This is not the same as saying that the therapist is to accept God as scientific reality, but only that the client is allowed to discuss God with the therapist as a legitimate, even healthy relationship in daily life. Before this we have a contrastive attitude for more than 100 years in psychology during which God was categorized as a non-existent entity people invented as a crutch (Freud) and to whom they prayed by superstition or delusion (Skinner). This new attitude by the scientifically conscious American Psychological Association is remarkable whose importance has not yet been fully grasped by the profession.

It is easy to falsely dismiss the significance of this new perspective for the reason that the therapist does not have to believe in God, but only to accept the legitimacy of the client's relationship to God. Hence nothing has really changed in the science of psychology. However this is missing something important. Even if licensed therapists don't have to accept the reality of God, nevertheless they must act like and talk like God is a real person!

I repeat this most important new perspective in the science of psychology: Henceforth licensed therapists in the United States must acquire the ability to administer mental health services that address God as a real person.

This fundamentally changes the monolithic atheistic supremacy that has dictated the negative bias materialism in psychology for the past 100 years.

Freud and Skinner are no longer around to fight against this new direction in psychology. Even so, theistic psychology still remains outside the boundaries even for the new direction in theistic psychotherapy. The reason is that the Swedenborg Reports are not considered relevant or necessary, and hence absolutely nothing is known empirically about the mental world of eternity and afterlife. Theistic psychology accepts these reports as scientifically valid. The rational and methodological justification for this orientation follows.

Here is the foundation principle for the existence of theistic psychology, as stated in the Writings of Swedenborg:

AC 2568. It has been said above in this chapter that doctrine would become null and void if the rational were consulted (n. 2516, 2538); and that it was not consulted (n. 2519, 2531). But here it is said that the doctrine of faith was enriched with goods and truths both rational and natural. At first view these statements appear as if they were adverse and contrary to each other; and yet are not so. How the case was with the Lord, has been stated; but how it is with man, remains to be told.

[2] As regards man it is one thing to regard the doctrine of faith from rational things, and altogether another to regard rational things from the doctrine of faith. To regard the doctrine of faith from rational things is not to believe in the Word, or in the doctrine thence derived, until one is persuaded from rational things that it is so; whereas to regard rational things from the doctrine of faith is first to believe in the Word, or in the doctrine therefrom, and then to confirm the same by rational things. The former is inverted order, and results in nothing being believed; whereas the latter is genuine order, and causes the man to believe the better. It is the former that is here meant by its being said that Abimelech should die because of the woman; by which is signified that the doctrine of faith would become null and void if the rational were consulted (n. 2516, 2538); but the latter is meant by its being said that Abimelech gave flock and herd, and menservants and maidservants; by which is signified that the doctrine of faith was enriched with rational and natural goods and truths.

[3] These things are much treated of in the Word in its internal sense, especially where Asshur and Egypt are spoken of; for the reason that while the doctrine of faith is regarded from rational things, that is, while a man does not believe until he is persuaded from them that it is so, it then not only becomes null and void, but whatever is contained in it is also denied; whereas when rational things are regarded from the doctrine of faith, that is, when a man believes the Word, and afterwards the same things are confirmed by rational things, the doctrine is then living and whatever is contained in it is affirmed.

[4] There are therefore two principles; one of which leads to all folly and insanity, and the other to all intelligence and wisdom. The former principle is to deny all things, or to say in the heart that we cannot believe them until we are convinced by what we can apprehend, or perceive by the senses; this is the principle that leads to all folly and insanity, and is to be called the negative principle. The other principle is to affirm the things which are of doctrine from the Word, or to think and believe within ourselves that they are true because the Lord has said them: this is the principle that leads to all intelligence and wisdom, and is to be called the affirmative principle.

[5] The more they who think from the negative principle consult things rational, the more they consult memory-knowledges, and the more they consult things philosophical, the more do they cast and precipitate themselves into darkness, until at last they deny all things. The causes of this are, that no one can apprehend higher things from lower ones, that is, spiritual and celestial things, still less Divine things, from lower ones, because they transcend all understanding, and moreover everything is then involved in negatives from that principle. On the other hand, they who think from an affirmative principle can confirm themselves by whatever things rational, by whatever memory-knowledges, and whatever things philosophic they have at command; for all these are to them things confirmatory, and give them a fuller idea of the matter.

[6] Moreover there are some who are in doubt before they deny, and there are some who are in doubt before they affirm. They who are in doubt before they deny are they who incline to a life of evil; and when this life carries them away, then insofar as they think of the matters in question they deny them. But they who are in doubt before they affirm are they who incline to a life of good; and when they suffer themselves to be bent to this by the Lord, then insofar as they think about those things so far they affirm. As this subject is further treated of in the verses which follow,. it is permitted of the Lord's Divine mercy to illustrate them more fully there (see n. 2588).
(AC 2568)

In other words, we can assume the negative bias in science when we examine the proposal that God exists and that upon death we enter the afterlife of eternity. Since the negative bias proof requires physical measurement it is not possible to apply this method to God or the afterlife. Therefore to exclude God or the afterlife as real requires a bias. This negative bias says that what is not physical is not real. The reason it is called a bias is that non-physical things could exist or be real, yet the negative bias would deny it, hence deny what is true and real. But there is an important tradition in science that recognizes that science has two components, one called empirical, the other called rational.

In non-theistic psychology empirical refers to physical measurement. In theistic psychology empirical means sensory observation, which can be either physical or mental. In all science theory and explanation goes beyond empirical data. This is why scientific theories are almost always wrong, even though they appear correct when proposed. Later research however, and further developments in science, eventually abandon all the old theories and propose new ones, which a little later, will also be abandoned. So science proceeds by scientific theories that are continually abandoned as wrong when they were at first accepted as correct. How can this process proceed and have a good outcome?

The answer is that all theories and all data in science must be structured to be logical, consistent, and rational. In non-theistic psychology this has been achieved so far only in ideal and not yet in reality. For the most part, scientific theories in non-theistic psychology do not agree with each other regarding what the facts, how they ought to be explained, and what to do about it. In general research in non-theistic psychology proceeds within highly specialized fields and only a few psychologists acknowledge and are part of that field and its research. Others reject much of the research that one group considers real. This confusing state of non-theistic psychology will continue until the entire field becomes fully rational, which means integrated into a whole, instead of into parts that do not recognize each other. In theistic psychology research and knowledge development start with the positive bias regarding God and Sacred Scripture. So it is a top down science, departing from Sacred Scripture understood in correspondences, and deducing all the principles from it through the positive bias in science. Each principle is then empirically applied and verified through observation. Hence theistic psychology is a fully integrated and rational science.

I have been teaching theistic psychology to college students who are majoring in psychology and are being prepared for professional and graduate school. The most difficult issue in their mind regarding the scientific status of the Swedenborg Reports is that his observations are not replicable by other scientists.  They were taught that science means proof that can be replicated by other scientists. The students also report that the friends and family with whom they discuss the Swedenborg Reports, also are bothered by this one issue, saying, Why should you believe this man from the 18th century who says he talked to the dead? And how many others have also claimed this? Etc.

But the fact is that no one in the history of science, philosophy, psychology, theology, literature has ever claimed to have been dual citizens for decades, and no one in the history of literature has discussed or described what Swedenborg observed and explained. So the dismissive idea of Why should I believe him -- does not apply here at all. Here we have a unique situation in science and history and it deserves its own rational and impartial assessment.

The replicability issue is actually not a critical one in this case. Everyone will be able to replicate and verify what Swedenborg describes. This occurs 30 hours after death, when we are awakened through the process of resuscitation and begin our life of eternity in our spiritual mind (see Section xx). At that point everyone can verify the accuracy of the Swedenborg Reports. The fact that no one can so until after resuscitation is not critical in this case as long as the following eight scientific and rational assessment criteria are applied.

Can it be demonstrated to scientists and students that the Swedenborg Reports contain observation and theory fully characterized by:

1. consistency

2. completeness

3. rationality

4. abstract or mechanistic explanatory mechanisms

5. ability to account for more of the known possibilities

6. ability to generate verifiable predictions

7. ability to provide greater control of self and environment

8. consistency with universal human values.

The answer is Yes for all eight assessment criteria. For this reason, the issue of delayed replicability is not critical. There are other examples in science that are accepted as one time events that cannot be replicated, and there are also examples in science where replication is even theoretically impossible. There are no other books, theories, systems, or records in human history and literature that meet the above eight assessment criteria.

Exercise:

If you are interested in pursuing the logical issue of introducing God in science, study the following electronic discussion on the logic of proving the negative in science, at:
http://archive.internalspace.co.uk/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b=cc,v=display,m=1098071640,s=all
Summarize the various points that are made. Review them and see what you agree with. Does this give you a better idea of what proof in science really is? What is your conclusion regarding the positive bias in science, as proposed in theistic psychology?

    1.0.1.1   Substantive Dualism: We Are Born Dual Citizens

The basic premises of the positive bias in science are

• substantive dualism (see Section xx)

• theism or the acknowledgment of God as Creator and Manager (see Section xx)

• revelations of scientific knowledge through Sacred Scripture (see Section xx)

Science studies all of reality. If anything is part of reality, science tries to investigate it and to understand it rationally. The positive bias in science says that God is part of reality, and therefore, science is going to try to investigate God as a scientific concept.

The negative bias in science says that God is not part of reality, hence there is no point even trying to investigate something that does not exist, or does not actually influence the outcome of events and phenomena.

Sometimes people try to take up an in between position, saying that God does exist, but this cannot be investigated by science. God is just a matter of personal faith or belief. This idea arbitrarily, with no proof or evidence, limits what science is. The alternative view is to say that science tries to investigate all reality. So, if God is actually part of reality, science should try to investigate God as a possible scientific fact.

This is similar to the situation where scientists have proposed the idea that there are other intelligent beings on the planets in vast space who might be trying to communicate with us by radio waves from outer space. So these scientists acquired research funds from the federal government to build large radio telescopes and transmitters that can receive possible messages from outer space by an alien civilization. Other scientists ridiculed the idea, saying that there is no evidence whatsoever that intelligent  beings exist elsewhere but on earth, and there is much evidence to suggest that the evolution of life cannot repeat itself in more than one place. There is a negative bias in science towards the idea of aliens, and scientists holding that bias would not investigate the existence of aliens in outer space. They cite many scientific reasons to show that this idea is a pipe dream, not a scientific hypothesis. You can see the positive and negative bias clashing in science regarding life on other planets.

But you need to realize that the positive bias in science for the existence of life on other planets is also a materialistic idea and does not require dualism. The positive bias in science for unknown phenomena is something fairly common and normal in science. What is unusual is to have the positive bias in science extend to God. Why is this?

There are hundreds of thousands of scientists alive today who are firm believers in the existence of God, as shown by the fact that they talk to God in prayer, worship Him, and study Sacred Scripture as the Word of God. These scientists know that God is omnipotent and that nothing happens without God allowing it to happen because of some rational end or purpose. These religious scientists acknowledge that God intervenes in the experiments they run in their laboratories, and also, in their effort and ability to write the results as a published scientific report. And yet, note this: God does not appear anywhere in their report!

I did the same thing for many years as a trained scientist in the field of psychology. At one point in my career as a professor and researcher, I adopted the positive bias in science regarding God's existence (see Section xx). I tried in different ways to write a journal article about the reality of God and how we need to take God into account in our principles of psychology when we describe learning, human development, personality change, or sports psychology. If God is a reality, and actually influences how people learn, develop, change, or acquire skills, then clearly we should investigate that causal relationship between God and human behavior. Is this not obvious?

Since we all have been educated to think from the orientation of the negative bias against God in a materialistic science, we can expect that certain standard objections will come to our mind when we hear the proposal that God should be part of science.

For instance, we might think that "God may be a reality in the ultimate sense, but God is not participating as something apart from the natural laws that science investigates. God may have originally created these natural laws, along the natural world of time and space, but there is no scientific reason to suppose that God is now intervening in the normal course of these natural laws and conditions."

This line of  reasoning shifts the issue away from

(1) "Is God a reality or not"

to another issue, namely,

(2) "God does not intervene in reality."

Do you see this? But this shift is not logical because the second issue logically comes only after the first issue has been settled, and cannot come before it.

In other words, we cannot decide on whether God "intervenes in reality" or not (2), unless we first decide whether "God is a reality" or not (1). Can you see this?

So we must come back to the first and most fundamental issue in science regarding God, namely, God exists, or not.

If you are going to enjoy studying theistic psychology, you may consider adopting the positive bias in science on a limited basis to begin with. This means that you are going to say to yourself: "I am going to take on the role of someone who says that it is possible that God could become a scientific concept."

That's all. You don't actually have to believe it, if you don't want to.

In the past, all students were able to enact this role while reading, writing, and discussing theistic psychology. Some students were actually glad that there is such a thing as a positive bias of God in science. Others stated that it was fun, but that they are going to go back to the negative bias in science. You can read their generational reports in theistic psychology listed in the Readings in Volume 18, Part 2.

Remember:

the positive bias in science does not mean that you are required to accept, or pretend to accept, that God is a scientific concept. Instead, adopting the positive bias in science is to say that you accept the possibility that God can be a scientific concept, and therefore you are ready to investigate what the evidence for it is that this course offers.

Most educated people like us have acquired the negative bias belief against the idea that God should be included as part of science. So it's not easy to now all of a sudden to adopt the positive bias in science by saying to ourselves, "Let me investigate what theistic psychology is saying. I cannot logically do this unless I first accept the possibility that this could be real, not just a pretend game."

Think of the non-theistic psychology courses you took in high school and college. When did you ask yourself the question, "Can this materialistic view of the mind be valid and real?" Probably never. This is because you were still young and you were still not thinking for yourself from yourself (see Section xx). But as people enter their third decade of life they begin to ask questions in their own mind about ideas and principles they imbibed and never examined. God in science is one of them. Does God really exist in a scientific way of intervening with phenomena that scientists are studying -- in which case God is actually part of the chain of causation they are looking for? Do I really want to deny God's existence in science because after all,  what if the scientists are wrong about that? What kind of methodology would be needed to provide proof of God as a causative factor in phenomena?

When you begin to ask yourself these kinds of questions, you are beginning to think from yourself, rather than from acquired socialization habits of thinking. This thinking from self is a sign of maturation as an adult. In this sense, some people never become mature adults since they are unwilling to acquire the habit of thinking from self regarding God.

Theistic psychology will show you why one should acquire the habit of thinking from oneself (see Section xx). Swedenborg reports that when people are resuscitated, a few hours after death (see Section xx), they quickly give up their belief in God, when it is based on persuasive teachings that had been uncritically accepted, without reasoning from self whether they are true or not according to their own rational comprehension. But it is different with hose whose idea of God was based on their own reflection and thinking, and made God part of their reality. They continue to reflect upon God along their rational understanding, which Swedenborg reports is far greater after resuscitation than before -- for everyone. In other words, when our natural mind becomes dormant and we live in our spiritual mind in eternity, our rational thinking ability is a discrete level higher than the highest we are capable in our natural mind. Our everyday level of thinking now is from the natural mind, but after death and resuscitation, our life of immortality takes place in our spiritual mind (see Section xx). The spiritual mind functions at a discrete degree higher than the natural mind. We are more intelligent after death than before, far more so, as frequently observed by Swedenborg in the afterlife of our spiritual mind (see Section xx).

And so now, since you have become a student of theistic psychology, you are receiving the unusual opportunity of examining critically, rationally, and scientifically, whether or not God can be part of scientific reality and investigation.

If you are not willing to say, "Maybe yes", then how can you enjoy the study of theistic psychology? If you think "No way. It's not possible" can you go through the objective evaluation process of examining the idea as a scientist would? Theistic psychology has brought together many rational considerations that you can examine. The Swedenborg reports, upon  which theistic psychology is based, are a unique collection of writings in the history of modern science. They allow you to examine the empirical observations and rational explanations of a notable historical figure who has influenced many brilliant writers and scientists  (see Section xx). Since theistic psychology is a scientific field, its methodology and reasoning process are rational, empirical, behavioral, anatomical, and neurophysiological (see Section xx).

In theistic psychology the brain in the physical body and the mind in the mental body are connected by the laws of correspondences (see Section xx). When we are born, we acquire a physical body in time-space and a mental body in eternity, that is, in the mental world of the human race. In the physical body we have organs like the brain and the heart that make up the physical body in time-space.

In the mental body located in eternity from birth onward, we have organs like the

• affective organ (which corresponds to the heart and circulatory system in the physical body)

• cognitive organ (which corresponds to the lungs and respiratory in the physical body)

• sensorimotor organ (which corresponds to the brain and neurons throughout the physical body)

 As you can see the mental body contains the organs that give rise to feelings, thoughts, and sensations. Consider that right now, you are reading this and thinking about it, and having various feelings or emotions about it. These thoughts and feelings are non-material -- not in time-space-matter. Thoughts and feelings and sensations are mental things, not physical. Mental things are in the mental world and this has no space or matter. think about your dreams and daydreams. They take place in the mental world of the human race. There is only one mental world and we are all having our thoughts in this mental world where our mental body was born and will continue living forever (see Section xx).

Note also that every physiological detail of the physical body is mirrored in the mental body so that when your physical body dies and you are resuscitated in the mental world of humanity, your appearance is unchanged even though you are then in your mental body. This shows that the temporary physical body in time-space is a copy of the permanent mental body in eternity. It is not generally known that eternity = mental world, so do not be surprised if this appears odd to you at first, and to the friends with whom you discuss it.

Our mind, like our brain and sense organs, is an organic structure made of sub-components, like the heart which has a left and a right portion, each doing their own work or function. The mind's organic anatomy has been revealed in the Writings. There are three major levels of mental operations or states to keep track of in order to understand how our mind works and how we can control its direction and development.

Anatomical levels or states of the mind:

• (3) The celestial state or level of operation (= the "celestial mind")

• (2) The spiritual state or level of operation (= the "spiritual mind")

• (1) The natural state or level of operation (= the "natural mind")

You also need to keep track of the type of operation in the mind of which there are three.

Types of operations or functions of the mind:

• (i) The affective operations in the affective organ of the mind (= the "will")

• (ii) The cognitive operations in the cognitive organ of the mind (= the "understanding")

• (iii) The sensorimotor operations in the sensorimotor organ of the mind (= the "sensations")

Affective operations are feelings, motivations, impulses, tendencies, affections, loves. Cognitive operations are thoughts, ideas, concepts, images, and  reasonings. Sensorimotor operations are sensations, attentional focus, and motor determinations or behavioral sets.

If you keep track of the three types of operations at the three levels, you will have a chart in your understanding by which you can comprehend or research almost anything about the human mind. This chart would look this:

LEVELS OF OPERATION	TYPES OF MENTAL OPERATIONS
III celestial  mind	celestial affective (9)	celestial  cognitive (8)	celestial  sensorimotor (7)
II spiritual  mind	spiritual affective (6)	spiritual cognitive (5)	spiritual sensorimotor (4)
I natural  mind	natural affective (3)	natural cognitive (2)	natural sensorimotor (1)

I call this type of chart an "ennead matrix" which the dictionary defines as a structure of nine. In this case the mind's operations can be tracked by an ennead matrix that displays nine categories of operations to keep track of in describing the mind's operations:

• (9) the celestial feelings (affective level 3)

• (8) the celestial thoughts (cognitive level 3)

• (7) the celestial sensations (sensorimotor 3)

• (6) the spiritual feelings (affective level 2)

• (5) the spiritual thoughts (cognitive level 2)

• (4) the spiritual sensations (sensorimotor 2)

• (3) the natural feelings (affective level 1)

• (2) the natural thoughts (cognitive level 1)

• (1) the natural sensations (sensorimotor 1)

It helps a lot in deepening your understanding of this universal spiritual human structure if you can reproduce it yourself on a piece of paper and if you can then explain it to someone.

Here is the way I explain it. We have feelings, thoughts, and sensations. I call this the "threefold self." These operations define what the mind is. We can have these operations at different levels of consciousness and rationality. For instance, we can have celestial feelings--like compassion for someone's need, so that we reach out to help. Having or experiencing that celestial feeling is what initiates our action of helping out. The feeling is not enough because we need also to know what would help and how we can provide it. These are thoughts, not feelings. In order to act on anything whatsoever we need to have an initiating feeling or motive or need--these are equivalent in that they are affective operations. Once this initiating feeling is felt or experienced, it starts selecting from our cognitive mind those operations that result in a cognitive plan for help that is assessed as adequate and workable. So the affective operation begins the behavior, the cognitive operation directs it, and the sensorimotor operation executes it. This way of  talking about behavior is called the "threefold self" (see Section xx).

• The celestial self is the third or highest level of operation of the mind (9 ==>8==>7)

• The spiritual self is the second or intermediate level of operation of the mind (6==>5==>4)

• The natural self is the first or lowest level of operation of the mind (3==>2==>1)

The numbers refer to the ennead matrix above. Note that the sequence of behavior is always:

affective==>cognitive==>sensorimotor

The mind always operates by means of the affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor operations working together. The natural mind (cells 3,2,1) is what we are very familiar with because it is our daily conscious self while we live on earth. We are unconscious of the operations that are always going on in the spiritual mind (cells 6,5,4) and in the celestial mind (cells 9,8,7).

In order for the conscious natural mind to operate it is necessary that the other two unconscious levels of the mind be operative. The reason is that all operations of the mind are by correspondence reacting to the influx of the Spiritual Sun. In other words, once the mind becomes operational at birth, not only is it being built up by the spiritual heat and light of the Spiritual Sun, but the portions that are built up have the capacity to receive more spiritual heat and light, which initiates all the operations in the mind. The mind is built out of the same substances that also activate it and keep it functioning in perfect order to eternity. The mind is therefore not only an immortal spiritual organ, but it is also constantly 'online' like an electric stove that is plugged in and is thereby able to do its work of heat. Unplug it, and the stove cannot do its work. It has to be 'online' and you know it from the electricity bill at the end of the month!

The mind's operations are therefore dependent on the inflow or "influx" of spiritual heat (or love) and spiritual light (or truth). This is truly remarkable. The mind is made of love and truth and it is activated by love and truth flowing in. At the same time, the mind has the capacity to invert the incoming love and truth into their opposites. This inversion process requires rational ability.

You need to remember that mental = spiritual = eternity. While we are in the natural mind, we are not conscious of how everyone is in the same mental world. We have total blindness in our spiritual mind. We have the illusion that my mental world is private, and your mental world is private. And yet this is not true in the spiritual mind, and Swedenborg proves it by his reports, written from age 57 to 84 while he was conscious in both the natural mind and in the spiritual mind. This means that he was able to see everything we do in our natural mind, but in addition, he was conscious in the spiritual mind, which does not happen to everyone else until resuscitation immediately after our death (see Section xx).

So it's not a question of speculating about what happens after death. Theistic psychology could not be a science if it is based on various people's speculations about it. All evidence in the Swedenborg reports must be examined, and this is done in theistic psychology from the positive bias perspective. Swedenborg is the only scientist in the history of science who was able to have direct observational access to the world of the afterlife, where he interviewed those who had died recently, as well as a long time ago (see Section xx).

Remember that in order for us to have real thoughts and feelings we must have mental organs like the affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor organs that make up the mental body in eternity from birth onward. In order to understand this explanation scientifically it is necessary to consider that sensations, thoughts and feelings cannot exist in the physical brain. Without coming to grips with this idea, it is not possible to see clearly that we are born dual citizens, with a temporary physical body made of physical substances in time-space, and a permanent mental body made of non-physical substances in eternity (not in time-space). The two bodies are connected by the laws of correspondence so that every single detail in the physical body is reflected by a corresponding detail in the mental body. When we die, the physical body disintegrates, but the mental body is immortal and continues life in the world of eternity. We have all our thoughts and feelings with us, our self and personality, since these are in the mental body to begin with, and were never located in the physical body that dies.

This requires some thinking through before you can see it clearly enough to be able to explain it logically to your friends.

Since our thinking is persuasively immersed within the negative bias in science, it is harder to let go of its negative principles regarding the reality of something that is not physical in time-space. The idea of something that is not physical and not in time-space, sounds like something obscure and thinly existent, instead of fully existent. You might for instance point out that your thoughts and feelings don't have the same rock bottom existence as the house, the car, or our salary raise. We can be rich and famous in our imagination, but what is this but bubbles in the air that burst into nothing as we are forced to live in poverty. If we did not get hired for a job we applied for, hopes about their changing their mind will remain just that, thoughts and visions, not actual reality. And so on. We can go on thinking like this because we have been trained to reason this way following negative bias rules of logic that exclude the possibility that your thoughts, hopes, and imagination are more rock bottom real than the chocolate bar you could be eating while reading this.

Question: Which is more real, the chocolate bar you are thinking about while reading this, or the chocolate bar in the store across the street?

What about this: Which is more real, the chocolate bar you are eating, or the enjoyment you are feeling?

Since we are born with a temporary physical body, whatever that body eats is also temporary. And since we are born with a permanent mental body, whatever that body eats is for eternity. We know what our physical body eats; what does our mental body eat? Can you guess? Our mental body eats mental food. You are familiar with the expression "food for thought." What does it refer to? The mental organs in our mental body when we are born are undeveloped. We are unable to think, to reason, to observe, to remember, to know what we feel. The mind at birth is void of meaning and cultural content. A newborn infant has a mental body that includes a sensorimotor organ, a cognitive organ, and an affective organ, all ready to operate and activate the natural mind (see Section xx). The natural mind grows and matures with daily development and accumulation of experiences through the physical senses.

The spiritual mind also grows, but is unconscious to us while we are still attached to the physical body in time. It grows not from input from the physical world, but from input from the mental world. If you became conscious right now in your spiritual mind, you would see what Swedenborg was able to see -- namely, that everyone else was there since this is the common place for all humanity right from birth. From his spiritual mind, Swedenborg was able to see the mental body of everyone. This is how we know that the mental body looks the same as the physical body since Swedenborg was able to recognize his friends and family who had passed on.

The three mental organs are recognized in non-theistic psychology as well, and you probably came across these concepts in your courses or readings. But there is a fundamental difference, which is that non-theistic psychology does not call them "organs" but "functions." This is like the difference between "negative bias materialistic monism" and "positive bias substantive dualism" (see Section xx). In the negative bias in science, cognitive operations are equated with neural activity in the physical brain. In the positive bias in science, cognitive operations are equated with the activity or change of state in the mental organ. Similarly, emotions are equated with neural activity in localized portions of the physical brain (e.g., amygdala), while in the positive bias in science, emotions and feelings are equated with the changes of state in the affective organ of the mental body.

You can see that if you deny that there is a mental organ in eternity outside this physical world, then you are compelled to think that thoughts and feelings exist in this world, and so you are then compelled to think that they are merely subjective experiences of what the physical brain is doing. Once you crossed this line you are completely immersed in materialistic monism. But you can step away and outside of it now that you are involved in the study of theistic psychology. You can consider rationally and scientifically what's involved in the positive bias in science mode of thinking about time vs. eternity -- the fundamental dualism of reality.

Once you realize that the negative bias in science is not a proven fact but a chosen and voluntary bias, and once you realize that you have been taught the negative bias in science without being told that is a bias, it might then be easier for you to step out of the negative bias in science and step into the positive bias in science.

Once you've chosen the conscious jump into the reality of dualism,  you can begin looking at your thoughts and feelings in a totally different light, with a new meaning that is powerful and logical. Here is your first theistic psychology concept rendered visually:

This visual concept is dualist. It has no meaning in non-theistic psychology. But it does have meaning if you grant the positive bias that it is scientifically possible that we are dual citizens. If this is possible then we need a scientific account that is systematic, consistent, and cumulative or holistic. All rational systems must have these properties and a science is a rational system. This visual concept uses the method of visually representing discrete dualist levels as one figure within another, or one form within another, or one structure within another. The meaning of "within" is fundamentally different within the the negative and positive bias in science. In non-theistic psychology "within" refers to that which is deeper in a continuous sense. So you would start from the surface of something and then go deeper and deeper within it. An example is the use of "internal" in medicine to refer to the organs we have within the body, in contrast with the organs we have on the surface of the body, like the skin or the mouth cavity which are "external."

So "external vs. internal" are both still time-space concepts when you are thinking in the negative bias mode. Can you explain that? But in the positive bias mode there is a duality of discrete degrees or zones that are not continuous with each other. This property is visually represented by the concentric forms. One cannot go from our physical body to our mental body, or vice versa because there is a built in barrier from creation. Every object that exists is created into one of the zones or discrete degrees of reality. For instance, your shoes exist from matter in time-space. This is called the natural world. Our physical body is born into the natural world. But your mental body exists in the spiritual world, which in theistic psychology, is called the mental world of the human race, which is in eternity, no tin time-space (see Section xx).

 The natural world cannot exist without the mental world and vice versa, because the two worlds are locked into each other by the laws of correspondences governing cause-effect relations. Here is a further expansion of the concept of dual citizenship:

The "world of effects" is familiar to us from every day life since birth. It is what goes on around us. While our thinking pattern is restricted to materialistic logic, we think and talk an as-if language regarding reality. For instance, we continue to use the expressions "sunrise" and "sunset" even though we know rationally that the sun does not rise or set. A sign of our sub-conscious materialism and monism is given off when we say "My brain is telling me to ..." or, "There is a brain drain in England to the migration of scientists to the U.S.", or, "This book will show you how to develop your brain power." etc.

In other words we talk as-if we believe that our mental life of thinking and feeling is in the operations of the brain. This is illogical when you examine it rationally since thoughts and feelings are not electrical operations in neuron cells. Mental operations exist in the mental world, which is apart or independent of the time-space zone of the natural world. Our sensations, thoughts, and feelings are not "on this earth" or "in this physical brain." To say so is to commit the reductionist fallacy (see Section xx). Instead, we rationally construct a dualist world, one in time-space, the other in eternity, with the two locked into each other by the laws of correspondences on a one to one and cause-effect basis (see Section xx).

Similarly, in our everyday situations we continue talking as if the effects we see around us are caused by other things around us, instead of them being correlations -- events that co-occur. For instance, if we are asked to explain what causes the car to accelerate when we drive and want to go faster, we say that pushing down the gas pedal causes the car to go faster. But in the positive bias perspective of dualism all causes are in the mental world of eternity, while all effects are in the physical world of time-space, the two worlds being connected by the laws of correspondences. So it is our goal or desire to go faster that is the cause of why the car is going faster. The pedal being pressed is not the cause but a correlated effect of the cause, the cause being the feeling that we want to go faster. In the positive bias mode of science, events in the mental world of eternity are the causes of events in the physical world of time-space. The mental world of eternity is also called the spiritual world (see Section xx).

So the causes of events in the physical world are located in the mental world. This may be obvious with the driving example, but it is equally true of the weather and earthquakes, though the explanation is more involved. It will be made clearer as you study theistic psychology (see Section xx).

For instance, when it rains here, it is an effect whose cause is in the spiritual world of eternity. When we lose our connection to the physical body through its death, we are immediately resuscitated in our mental body in the spiritual world of eternity where we continue our mental life of immortality (see Section xx). The sensorimotor, cognitive and affective states of the human race are the causes of all phenomena in the physical world -- climactic, geological, vegetarian, and animal evolution and physiology. This makes rational sense when you consider that God created the physical universe of time for the sake of the human race in eternity (see Section xx). Since we are used to think from the negative bias in science, we normally reason that the physical world came first, and then human beings developed from it, somehow, unspecified. But in the positive bias mode we are not so restricted in our thinking.

From the perspective of dualism, that form of it that is revealed in Sacred Scripture, God's purpose for creation is to populate a human heaven in eternity, endlessly evolving in a positive direction. To accomplish this purpose God created a physical world in time and space, and made every phenomenon in it, be dependent on a mental cause connected to His purpose. Hence it is that the physical world is created out of the mental world, namely, the substances of good and truth, as an infrastructure for its existence. The external portion of the physical world and its objects, is in time-space, but its internal infrastructure a discrete degree within and apart from time-space, is in eternity. What is in eternity is the cause of what is time-space.

So it's not surprising that the evolution of animal species and plants on earth reflect the mental states of the human race in eternity, since eternity is the world of causes and time-space is the world of effects. Generally speaking, you can see for instance that "paradisal" gardens and tame animal species are the results of heavenly mental states in the human mind of eternity. And hence you can also see that deserts, poisonous plants, and dangerous animal species evolved in correspondence to the development of the hells in the human race -- ferocious feelings of rage and vengeance give you an idea of how these mental states connect to the ferocity and killing power of some species of animals and plants (see Section xx). This connection can be understood rationally if you consider the laws of cause-effect correspondences between phenomena in time-space (effects) and mental states in eternity (causes).

Note that this connection is complex and involves the mental world of the entire human race. It would not be logical to think that the people who live in deserts and jungles, surrounded by wild animals and poisonous plants, are more negative in their thinking and feeling than people who live on tropical islands. There is no such connection. It would be obviously unscientific to make such claims. Rather, you need to see that there is an overall explanation given here for the connection between the two worlds, on a one to one basis, and since God created time-space to serve the human race, it's clear that the control mechanism God created and is maintaining in order, goes from mental to physical, not the other way round, from eternity to time, not the other way round.

Later we will study why God could not create the human race directly in eternity. Why do we have to be born dual citizens, die in the physical body, then continue life in eternity with the mental body? (see Section xx). Why could we not be born in eternity directly with our mental body? A general answer has to do with the essence of what it is to be human, namely to freely choose according to our reasoning (see Section xx). If we had been born directly into eternity, we would be angelic robots, hence not truly human. We need to have both heaven and hell in our mind so that we can freely choose between them. God's law of spiritual freedom is that every human being freely choose the lifestyle of heaven or that of hell. If we had been born directly into our heaven, we would not be able to choose between heaven and hell. And what we don't choose, we cannot love as-if it were our own (see Section xx). We would then be in a heaven that we do not consider our own -- which is really not a heaven at all. Hence it was necessary for human beings to have a physical body for awhile, while developing the natural mind in time-space. Meanwhile, the spiritual mind remains unconscious, even though it continues to grow along with the natural mind of which we are conscious in our daily life.

So in order to make things work, God created us dual citizens in such a way that every single detail in the world of time is tied by correspondence to its cause in the world of eternity. In this way the two worlds -- physical time and mental eternity -- make a one by the laws of correspondence. Without the world of eternity, the world of time could not exist. So it's not too difficult for you to picture and comprehend this whole process of creation, God, and the two worlds acting together by the laws of correspondences to bring about God's purpose of an eternal heaven populated by the human race.

As discussed, every species of animals corresponds to some human emotion and reasoning process. In general, selfish and harmful motives and emotions cause ferocious and dangerous animal species to come into existence and to thrive, while heavenly traits cause the peaceful and non-dangerous species to come into existence. The evolution of species of animals and plants is caused by the biography of humanity's mental world in eternity. Your thoughts and feelings right now, in this very moment, are not here on earth! This would not be possible since thoughts and feelings are not in time and space. So what you are thinking and feeling, along with the other people of the human race, are events in eternity, not in time, not on earth.

The mental life of the human race is in eternity, and it is the cause of all the details of the physical world -- animals, plants, geological formations, earthquakes, sun spots, galaxies expanding, molecules hurtling in your cells, etc. All physical phenomena are created and directed by God through the mental life of the human race, which is in eternity. God's omnipotence extends to every detail, but it is according to His Divine Love and Wisdom to use the mental world of humanity as the trigger that causes the physical events on earth. In this way the two worlds might be united as one, functioning in interdependent symbiosis and synchrony.

These details are presented to you now so that you can become aware that theistic psychology is one consistent rational account in which all parts are fully integrated and consistent with each other. All the details presented here so far will have to be followed by other details that fit consistently as they are cumulated. Not one single lack of fit is allowed in a rational science. This is quite contrastive with non-theistic materialistic psychology where people propose a variety of different theories that are not consistent with each other (see Section xx). You will need to reread theistic psychology Sections and paragraphs several times on different days so that you can learn to cumulate your knowledge in a rational and consistent manner. Only in this way can you actually see that theistic psychology is fully rational, consistent, cumulative, empirical, and scientific.

We don't ordinarily think of the mental world as "real" in terms of being constructed of something, like we think of the brain as "real," constructed out of protein matter, which is ultimately from the natural sun in time-space. But the mind is also real, being a spiritual mental body whose organs are constructed of eternal substances from the Spiritual Sun in eternity (see Section xx). These eternal spiritual substances are mental and are real, more permanent than the physical brain, which is only temporary, and eventually dies or disintegrates. But the mind in the mental body is permanent or immortal, and cannot die, once it is born. Hence our self and personality is immortal and at death we continue life uninterrupted since the self is not in the physical brain or body that dies.

Approximately 30 hours after the physical body dies, we are awakened or "resuscitated" in our spiritual mind which is the upper zone of the mental body in the world of eternity. We appear to ourselves and to others there, as exactly the same as we were in the physical body. But the mental body is a spiritual body, a permanent body, an eternal or immortal body made of eternal substances. It is sometimes called a "spiritual body" because the mental world of eternity is also referred to as the "spiritual world" (see Section xx).

For further Discussion see Section 12.0.5 in Volume 12

1.0.1.2  Theism in Theistic Science: Universe Created and Managed by God

Theism in theistic science is the premise that the universe is created and maintained in order by God according to laws and procedures that God has revealed in Sacred Scripture. The following conceptual chart is also discussed in more detail elsewhere (see Section xx). For now, try to memorize it enough so that you can reproduce it on a piece of paper as you are explaining it to a friend. I recommend that you print the chart so you can look at it as you follow the explanations below (select it, copy it, go to your word processor, paste it, print it).

1.0.1.2.1  Born Into Eternity  

The above theistic psychology concept, expressed in a schematic chart, is arranged vertically with God on top and an ordered sequence of discrete (discontinuous) layers downward. It is both a map of spiritual geography and a schematic of mental anatomy. See the Layers Diagram.

In theistic psychology the word spiritual has the same meaning as mental. The chart is called "born into eternity" to indicate our dual citizenship (see Section xx). You need to remember that in all theistic psychology charts and diagrams, what is on top is a discrete degree more interior or "higher" than what is below. "Discrete" is the opposite of "continuous." For instance, if you have a car and want to travel to Europe or Japan with it, you can go all the way to the edge of the ocean, even if it is thousands of miles away. But once you get there you cannot continue your journey to Europe or Japan. You've gone as far as it is possible to go on a continuous basis, getting closer and closer to the edge of the ocean. Now you need to jump a discrete degree in means of transportation. You need a different vehicle that operates in a totally different medium of transportation, like a ship, airplane, rocket, or so called 'transport beams'. Cars and ships are in discrete degree from each other as transportation venues. Cars and trains are in continuous degrees with each other. Ships and airplanes are in discrete degree with each other. Etc. (see Section xx).

So all charts and concepts in theistic psychology are arranged vertically, with all the elements being in discrete degrees with each other and connected by the laws of correspondence.

So as you inspect the chart of yourself "born into eternity," viewed schematically in the positive bias mode of theistic psychology, what do you see? What reactions do you have? This is no doubt the first time that such hidden knowledge about yourself is being revealed in a psychology course! Look at what you are from a global anatomical perspective. See how you are specifically connected to God, regardless of what your beliefs are, or what your socialization and cultural origins are. This chart is not about culture or religion: it's about the anatomy and physiology of the human mind. There is only one human mind for the whole human race. Every person's mental world is in that one common mental world of humanity, and overlaps with it. We can see each other only through the spiritual mind, which remains unconscious until resuscitation (see Section xx). But Swedenborg had his spiritual mind become conscious while he was still attached to the physical body. This is how he was able to write the Writings Sacred Scripture, upon which theistic psychology is based.

As human beings we possess an immortal mental body born into eternity and a temporary physical body attached to it. The two are tied to each other by the laws of correspondence so that the operations in the two bodies are completely integrated and acting symbiotically as one organism. The physical body is shown at the bottom of the chart because it is located in time-space and constructed out of physical world substances from the natural sun. "Bottom" means "most external" or "lowest." "Top" means inmost and highest. The physical body is external in time-space-matter, while the mental body (mind), is internal in the world of eternity, and constructed out of the substances of the Spiritual Sun.

If you ask people what is the world of eternity and how they picture it, you get almost nothing. No one can have any idea of it, except from Sacred Scripture. From this Divine source we know many rational and scientific facts such as theistic psychology and theistic science. The simplest way you can tell people what the world of eternity is like, is to tell them to think about their own mental world -- their thoughts, their dreams, their day dreams, their imagination, their logic and reasoning, etc. Everybody is very familiar with their own mental world. But they don't know these two things about it:

• there is only one mental world for all of the human race

• this mental world is the same as the afterlife of eternity

The only reason we cannot see each other in our own mental world is that the natural mind is developed from the information we have through the physical senses. Consequently all our concepts and logic in the natural mind is time-bound and space-bound and matter-bound. It's only if you abstract out these elements from your thinking, that you can then think rationally with concepts that are not time-bound and space-bound. What is not time-bound and space-bound is called eternity. With rational concepts we can think scientifically about eternity, but not with sensory concepts based on sensory input through physical senses. The spiritual mind, on the other hand, does not receive anything through the physical senses of the physical world, but only through the mental body whose senses receive input from the mental world alone. Consequently, all the ideas we have in the spiritual mind have nothing in common with the ideas we have in the natural mind. On the chart born into eternity, you can see that the natural mind (containing time-space concepts and logic), is separated from the spiritual mind (containing only spiritual concepts and logic), by the rational mind.

The rational mind plays an intermediate role between mental states patterned after time-space (natural mind), and mental states patterned after eternity (spiritual mind). Later we will also see how these three discrete zones of the mental world are reproduced in the history and evolution of civilization, and as well, in the history of Sacred Scripture, which was cumulatively written over thousands of years (see Section xx). All this may sound intellectually intimidating to you, perhaps even grandiose. This is a normal reaction when we are thi8nking from the negative bias mode of materialism. Throughout our study of psychology courses we have come to realize that non-theistic psychology is not unified, is not rational, is not cumulative, and is only partially helpful in solving real life problems like depression, rage, racial conflict, relationship problems, abuse, crime, etc. etc. One explanation for this lack of power to solve problems is to say that these problems are too complex to be solved. But another explanation is that the knowledge and principles we have for solving them are not very powerful, not very accurate, not realistic of actuality. The negative bias monism is surely to blame for this lack of power since it contradicts what a human being actually is.

Note that in the chart Sacred Scripture is placed in the bottom zone of the natural world, along with our physical body. Why? Because it is a physical book written by people in some natural language in some society on earth at some period of time, and republished with every generation. All books are placed in that bottom zone. But of course, the meaning of the printed sentences is not part of the physical world. That is part of the mental world of eternity where Divine Speech exists. When Divine Speech in eternity descends to the bottom of the human mind, it is embodied in the sentences of Sacred Scripture written in natural languages. Divine Speech Itself is in a spiritual language, not natural language. When we are resuscitated a few hours after we lose the physical body, we are conscious in our spiritual mind in the mental body. In that state we talk to each other in a universal, built in human language that is not related in any way to the natural language we spoke. Rather, Swedenborg describes it as a rational thought-language that is more powerful by a discrete degree than the natural mind in which you are now reading this. This is something nice to look forward to!

Knowing this would weaken our absolutist ties and loyalty to this or that culture or ethnic group since we know that our ethnic or racial identity is not permanent. What is more permanent is the quality of our feelings and what we can understand rationally. All people, regardless of race, ethnicity, and religion, have the same mental physiology, the same mental organs, the same substances that flow in from the Spiritual Sun and activating the operations in the mind -- sensations, thoughts, and feelings. No individual in the human race has something different than this. So the idea that we lose our ethnic identity, culture, and language makes sense rationally since these are part of the natural mind, as the chart shows. But after resuscitation, the natural mind quickly fades into inactivity and unconsciousness. Hence all our identity and cultural memories are shut down.

During the course of 27 years while he was living with both minds being conscious at the same time, Swedenborg interviewed many people after their resuscitation (see Section xx). In the initial stages of our resuscitation, we are still partially conscious in the natural mind, so that we may have a continuity. Otherwise we might think that we have been kidnapped and deposited in some mental asylum. So we have to have our own memories of who we are and where we come from. This is the reason that the visual appearance that others have of us in that mental state, is similar enough to our physical body that they can recognize us if we knew each other in the physical body.

But very soon we come to realize that we are now in an immortal mental world of eternity. We no longer have a country, family, or place of residence. Whatever is around us is an expression of our thoughts and feelings. The consequence of this is that the only people we see are those who are in the same mental state as we are, having thoughts and feelings that are compatible. We cannot see anyone whose thoughts and feelings are not compatible with ours since our environment must express what our mental states are like.

And if I want to see someone who is not present, all I have to do is to put myself in a mental state that is compatible with that person, and there is the person in front of me, and we can interact. You can see from this, and what you will learn later, that the laws of living are completely different in the spiritual mind, and hence, people who wish to remain in the natural mind experience a kind of spiritual insanity that splits their mind and prevents them from adjusting to the new laws of life in eternity. The result is that they begin to sink into that portion of the natural mind that remains open and active for those who keep their consciousness in that mental zone. The chart identifies the inherited human hells as located in the sensuous-natural zone of the mind.

But people who have developed their rational mind can make a successful transition to the spiritual mind because the rational mind can contain concepts from the spiritual mind. In order to develop the rational mind we had to rely on the knowledges that arrived to us through Sacred Scripture, either directly or indirectly (see Section xx). You can see from these considerations that the materialistic monism of non-theistic science does not prepare people adequately for migrating from the natural mind to the spiritual mind. But theistic science and theistic psychology does prepare our rational mind if we allow it to be formed solely by Sacred Scripture (see Section xx).

When we read the books of Sacred Scripture in their literal historical meaning it is our natural mind that perceives the literal meaning and comprehends it from intelligence and education. So the printed sentences are part of the physical world but our comprehension of their meaning is part of the mental world. There is therefore a discrete degree of separation between the printed sentence of Sacred Scripture in the physical world, and the meaning of the sentence in the mental world. This discrete separation between the two worlds of time and eternity is indicated on the chart with the double arrows. Between them is marked the line of eternity or mind-body dualism arranged by correspondence.

The chart indicates that the mental body (or mind) is anatomically constructed in three discrete degrees or layers of organs and their states and operations. These three mental organs of the natural mind are shown above the line of eternity to indicate that our mental life is immortal right from birth, even in our natural mind. The three discrete or discontinuous levels of the human mind are called natural, rational, and spiritual. Each of these has quasi-discrete sub-levels, as we will study elsewhere (see Section xx). Our conscious everyday mental world is the natural mind with its sub-levels (e.g., the sensuous mind). Notice what the chart mentions about our natural mind operations: conscious memory, personality, and intelligence. But there is also a discrete sub-level that is marked on the chart as the "inherited subconscious" and the "human hells." See the Layers Diagram.

If someone had asked you before you read this, where is hell, what would you have been able to say? Probably not something very specific because this knowledge is not known to people in the negative bias mode of thinking. However those who read Sacred Scripture and can derive a rational coherent account from it, know that heaven and hell are in the human mind. This is plainly revealed in the literal meaning of the New Testament Sacred Scripture and in the Writings Sacred Scripture. Note that the subconscious level of the mind, and the human hells level, are both inherited. We are already familiar with the idea in non-theistic psychology that many traits of the physical body are inherited from parents, as well as from a long series of generations, with inherited recessive genes that come out unpredictably in later generations.

The reason that the physical body genetically behaves this way is that it is caused to behave this way by the mental body to which the physical body is connected by one to one correspondence of every part from organ level to biochemical and genetic levels. Every genetic characteristic of the physical body is caused by a corresponding characteristic in the mental body (see Section xx).

So our natural mind has sub-conscious portions that are inherited, as well as conscious portions that are acquired by experience. Feeling the "impulse to avoid our obligations" is an example of an inherited hellish trait. Liking to take revenge and enjoying being cruel against an enemy, is another example of an inherited hellish trait. Surely you know many of them from observing your own thoughts and impulses. Some of these thoughts shock you. Some don't shock you and you find it difficult to get rid of, like not keeping promises to your friends or family, or enjoying thinking unflattering things about somebody you don't like, or cheating and stealing, or driving after drinking, etc. etc. By the time we are young adults, and begin to be conscious of what we're like inside of our own mind, we discover a huge number of hellish traits that we have kept around for many years and are now practicing as habits (see Section xx).

The sub-title for Theistic Psychology is "The Science of Immortality." People in the negative bias mode scoff at such an idea for two reasons. First, in the past many unscientific proposals were called by their authors as "scientific" so that the claim became empty, not something scientists would pay attention to. The second reason is that scientists in the negative bias mode of thinking are not capable of thinking logically about dualism and God, as long as they deny their existence and reality. This is obvious. So in order to investigate whether or not dualism and God exist, they will have to adopt the positive bias in science and allow for the possibility that God and dualism are scientific concepts. After the investigation they may conclude that God and dualism are not scientific concepts, but if they conclude this before the examination, it is correct to call it their negative bias in science, not their rational judgment.

 So now, from the perspective of the positive bias in science, the idea of a "science of immortality" makes rational sense since (a) we are born immortal, and (b) God reveals scientific facts by means of Sacred Scripture (see Section xx).

Now if you go back to the schematic anatomy of the mental body on the chart of born to eternity discussed above, you can see that the discrete level above the sensuous-natural mind is called the rational mind. Theistic psychology shows that animals do not possess a rational mind. They possess a natural-sensuous mind with which they inherit wired in instinctive knowledge and perception, but they can also learn and adapt to changes in the environment through memory and new habits. They can also be taught to communicate with purpose and even use sign language and other signaling systems (google these topics for interesting literature on this). However they cannot be taught to reason like human beings. By the time a human child reaches age 3 or 4, it far surpasses in reasoning ability anything any animal can do at its best. So you can imagine the difference at age 7 or 17 or 35.

All this is because animals do not have a mental organ called the rational mind. Hence what makes us human is not the natural mind, which we share with animals, but the rational mind, which only human beings have. We are born like animals with our natural mind fully functioning and developing, containing both inherited traits and acquired traits. But we are not fully human until our rational mind begins operating and influencing our natural mind. Note the arrow in the chart between the rational mind and the natural mind. The fact that it points downwards means that operations in our rational mind influence operations in the natural mind, but not the other way around. It is extremely important to understand this anatomical feature of our mental body.

To understand this, notice the components listed in the rational mind: sociality, motivation, love, rationality. These are not normally conscious to our awareness. You are reading these sentences and what you are thinking has to do with its meaning, not its grammar. You may or may not know that grammar (or "syntax") is a set of rules that cause you to select certain words in a certain order that others can then understand. People who have not been educated and have never heard of grammar, are able to speak and understand just like the people who know a lot about grammar. So it's not necessary to be conscious of the grammar we acquire spontaneously by experience when we learn to a speak a language. You can see therefore that the operations of the rational mind (higher level), such as human syntax and human rationality, operate without our awareness in order to make possible the operations we perform at a lower level (natural mind) and of which we are fully conscious. We can think logically and rationally in our natural mind only because our rational mind is controlling it by correspondence. Animals cannot think logically and rationally in their natural mind because they do not have a rational mind to control its performance.

Now notice what is above the rational mind. This is the highest level of mental operation and consciousness possible for human beings. It is called the spiritual mind and itself has several discrete sub-levels. The main levels are the spiritual mind itself, and the celestial mind which is within the spiritual, or above it. The human heavens are located in that portion of the mental body called the spiritual and the celestial mind. The human heavens in the spiritual mind is called the Second Heaven which operates with spiritual-rational consciousness. The human heavens in the celestial mind is called the Third Heaven which operates with celestial-rational consciousness (see Section xx).

Now notice what is above the spiritual-celestial mind, thus above the human heavens: Good and Truth from Divine Speech proceeding from the Spiritual Sun, which is the visible aura that surrounds God the Divine Human, as seen several times by Swedenborg when he ascended to that region of the human mind (see Section xx). He reports that the Spiritual Sun and the Divine Human appear visually to every person who consciously dwells in the highest region of their mind. Amazingly, whichever way they turn in their heavenly environment the vision of the Spiritual Sun and the Divine Human  remains in front of them! (see Section xx) This will become understandable to you when you begin to examine how our mental body moves around in eternity (see Section xx).

So now we have reviewed together the components of the chart from top to bottom. We need to point out some its overall characteristics. Note this most important fact about the chart: The very top of it, or its Firsts, creates, causes, directs, and rules every step below it through intermediate steps, and the last step at the bottom is the physical world, which may therefore be called its Lasts. So God creates and manages the universe from Firsts through Lasts, in corresponding discrete degrees. Nothing is left out, all of it determined by God from start to finish.

Note also that the mental body is constructed out of mental organs arranged in discrete levels, the level above controlling the level below by correspondence.  Since God creates and manages all things in the universe by means of the laws of correspondences, the revelation of what these correspondences are now gives science the ability for the first time in history, to understand how mental things control physical things in the entire universe at all levels (see Section xx). You can see this clearly form the chart. The physical world and its phenomena are at the bottom of the chain of correspondences from God to the natural mind. God creates and maintains the phenomena in the physical world through the human mind and its layers from top down. (See the Layers Diagram.) This may seem fantastic to you! And yet it is true, and the study of theistic psychology can  proves it to your rational understanding.

Theism in science tries to show through a rational and scientific account, how God manages the universe through the mental world of eternity and by means of the laws of correspondences between the physical and the mental (see Section xx). These laws constitute built-in relationships from creation and cannot be altered. Now they have been revealed to humanity through the Writings Sacred Scripture written by Swedenborg (see Section xx). The laws of correspondences discovered by Swedenborg forms the scientific basis for theistic psychology and all of theistic science (see Section xx).

Keep studying the diagram called "born into eternity" discussed in this Section. Start thinking of people and of yourself in those terms and from that perspective. Give yourself the opportunity to see something new that you can understand rationally. Try thinking of the up-down direction of the chart as arranged in concentric figures:

This diagram portrays the anatomy of  a human being viewed in simultaneous order of discrete degrees, while the first chart called "born into eternity" and discussed above, portrays the successive order of discrete degrees that make up a human being. The successive order is usually portrayed as a top-down chart, while the simultaneous order is portrayed as concentric circles. What is at the top, or beginning, in the successive series,  becomes the inmost in the simultaneous series, and what was at the bottom of the successive series, now becomes the external of the entire construct.

Picturing this diagram in your understanding will help you have theistic x-ray vision, so to speak, when you are looking at your friend or any stranger, or looking at yourself in the mirror. You can say: This is me. I am immortal. I am looking at my external parts, which is my temporary physical body in time-space. But with my theistic psychology x-ray vision, as shown in this diagram, I can see rationally within myself. Within my physical body is my natural mind -- not physically within, but a discrete degree within. My natural mind corresponds to the input from my physical body. But my natural mind would not be human and rational unless it is made to operate in correspondence with my rational mind, which is a discrete degree within my natural mind. The correspondence action of the my rational mind upon my natural mind, keeps my natural mind operating rationally so that I don't have to be limited in my thinking to what I see sensuously through my senses. I can think abstractly about the sensuous mind, constructing rational accounts that order the sensuous mind into a rational logic. All this is accomplished by the fact that the natural mind is created to be in correspondence with the rational mind.

The diagram also tells me that my rational mind operates with a rational logic because it corresponds to the spiritual mind, which remains unconscious to our awareness until after my physical body dies. My spiritual mind is the mental organ that contains the human heavens in eternity.  And the only reason my spiritual mind can contain the human heavens is that the spiritual mind is created to correspond to good and truth flowing in from the Spiritual Sun that appears around God the Divine Human (see Section xx).

There you have it. You can now look into a human being from the external portion to the inmost portion. Later, as you begin to learn more and more about how each of these levels operate in your mind, you will realize how everything is integrated into a rational order that our mind can understand. God wants us to understand rationally the reality He has created for our sake, and is maintaining for our evolution into eternity. The true human life is in the spiritual mind, which is why all the portions of the mind below it are put to sleep and rendered inoperative. Once we are in eternity, all we need is the organ that contains heaven.

But sadly perhaps, a substantial portion of the human race in eternity -- which is of course immense by now -- does not dwell in their spiritual mind where heaven is, but in their natural-sensuous mind where hell is. There is nothing rational whatsoever in the thoughts and feelings we have in the hells of our mind. We are spiritually insane in our immortality if we maintain ourselves in that mental state out of our free choice (see Section xx). God always honors our free choices, so that if we prefer hellish feelings we can have that too in our immortality. So the spiritual mind which is the highest rational mind we can have, is shut down for them, and they dwell in the interior portions of their natural mind, living insanely, pitifully, and inhumanly (see Section xx).

Quoting from the Writings Sacred Scripture:

Note: The following transformation Table will help you understand the quoted paragraphs in terms of theistic psychology concepts. It will also illustrate for you the relationship between the literal sense of Sacred Scripture, which is intended for religion, and the spiritual scientific meaning that is hidden within it, but can be extracted from it by appropriate methods of extraction (see Section xx). Study both sides of the conversion table until you are able to reproduce them by memory.

 

LITERAL SENSE OF THE WRITINGS SACRED SCRIPTURE (for religion)	EXTRACTED SPIRITUAL SCIENTIFIC SENSE (for theistic psychology and science)
the Lord	God, the Divine Psychologist present in the mind of every human being (see Section xx)
** the Word; ** whatever stands in the literal or natural sense of the Word, enfolds and stands for something spiritual; ** every detail of the literal sense of the Word contains a correspondential sense.	** Sacred Scripture, Divine Speech, Doctrine of Truth, Scientific Revelations; ** theistic psychology as the spiritual scientific sense of Sacred Scripture that is extracted by the method prescribed in the Writings Sacred Scripture (see Section xx)
his body, natural, material	physical body in time and space (see Section xx)
his soul, spirit, spiritual, spiritual body, his internal man	our mental organs and mental body or mind, which is born in eternity (see Section xx)
** to correspond; ** natural-spiritual correspondences; ** permanent correspondence between the natural and spiritual events in a person's life ** the spiritual body has to be formed in the material one **  there is something more interior which thinks and wills of which the body is the instrumental or material organ	cause-effect relationship between mental or spiritual events in eternity (cause) vs. natural or physical events in time-space (effect) (see Section xx); ** our mental body is born in eternity while the physical body is born in time, and the two until our death, are temporarily connected by the laws of correspondence (see Section xx) ** the mental body is "within" the physical body, not in terms of space, but in terms of discrete degrees ** the mental body causes the physical body to operate the way it does, including its anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, and genetics
** process of regeneration; ** regeneration is on the model of a person's conception, gestation in the womb, birth ** a truth which is to be instilled into good	** character reformation efforts in daily willing (affective organ) and thinking (cognitive organ) ** to make our willing and thinking conform to our rational understanding of theistic psychology; ** this prepares and enables our highest or heavenly mental organs to operate our immortal life in eternity ** without this lifelong preparation or character reformation, our life of immortality is restricted to our lowest mental organs called the hells (see Section xx)
** material body laid aside; ** the world where all things are spiritual; ** separation from the body ** the angels in heaven are from the human race	** death or separation from our physical body in time-space, which is followed a few hours later by conscious resuscitation in the mental world of eternity where we are co-present with all other human beings that were ever born anywhere (see Section xx) ** when we start our conscious life in the immortality of our rational mental organs, we receive the tile of heavenly spirits or angels, or conjugial angel couples (see Section xx) ** or else, we start our immortality in our corporeal mental organs, and we are then called devils, satans, dragons, sirens, and genii, depending on our evil or rationally insane character (see Section xx)
a process accomplished by the inflow of truths and various kinds of good from the Lord through the spiritual world	from the Spiritual Sun in eternity there inflow into every human being's mental organs two immortal substances called spiritual light -- or Divine Truth, inflowing into our cognitive organ, and spiritual heat -- or Divine Good, inflowing into our affective organ (see Section xx)
this is not evident to him in his lifetime because of the obscurity, indeed the thick darkness brought about by earthly, physical, and worldly things	** while we are still connected to the physical body we are conscious in the natural mind which takes all its content from the physical environment through the sensory organs ** at death and resuscitation, our natural mind gradually becomes unconscious and we then live our conscious immortality in our spiritual mind, which until death remains unconscious (except for Swedenborg from age 57 to 84) (see Section xx)
the man cares nothing for heaven, for he then thinks of himself as he does of the brute animals	our natural mind is in the negative bias mode of thinking until we allow it to acquire and develop rational concepts in the positive bias mode of thinking, such as the study of theistic psychology for the purpose of character reformation (see Section xx)

Now here are sections from several Numbers:

TCR 583. IV The process of regeneration is on the model of a person's conception, gestation in the womb, birth and upbringing.

The natural and spiritual events in a person's life, that is, what happens to his body and what to his spirit, are so ordered as permanently to correspond. The reason is that a person is by birth spiritual as regards his soul, and he is clothed with a natural form which is constituted by his material body. When therefore this is laid aside, his soul, clothed in his spiritual body, comes into the world where all things are spiritual, and there associates with people like him.

Now the spiritual body has to be formed in the material one, a process accomplished by the inflow of truths and various kinds of good from the Lord through the spiritual world. These are inwardly received by the person in such things belonging to the natural world as are called civil and moral; so it is evident how the process of formation takes place. Because, as already said, there is a permanent correspondence between the natural and spiritual events in a person's life, it follows that this process must resemble his conception, gestation in the womb, birth and upbringing.

That is why natural births in the Word mean spiritual births, that is, the birth of good and truth. For whatever stands in the literal or natural sense of the Word, enfolds and stands for something spiritual. I demonstrated fully in the chapter on the Sacred Scripture that every detail of the literal sense of the Word contains a correspondential sense. (TCR 583)

AC 3342 Such things also exist within man - for man is a spirit clothed with the body - as becomes clear from the fact that when anything spoken that is perceived by the ear rises up towards the more interior parts, it passes into mental images not unlike those of visual objects, and from these into conceptual ideas, and in this way one comes to perceive the sense of the words. Anyone who reflects on these matters properly may recognize from them that within him there is his spirit, which is his internal man, and also that he has this kind of ability to communicate following his separation from the body, for the same ability exists with him though this is not evident to him in his lifetime because of the obscurity, indeed the thick darkness brought about by earthly, physical, and worldly things. (AC 3342)

AC 1970. By genuine visions are meant visions or sights of such things in the other life as have real existence, and are nothing but actual things that can be seen by the eyes of the spirit and not by the eyes of the body, and that appear to a man when his interior sight is opened by the Lord (that is, the sight which his spirit has), and into which he comes when, separated from the body, he passes into the other life; for a man is a spirit clothed with a body. Such were the visions of the prophets. When this sight is opened, then those things which have actual existence with spirits are seen in clearer day than that of noon in this world, not only the representatives, but also the spirits themselves, together with a perception of who they are, also what they are, where they are, whence they come, whither they are going; also of what affection, what persuasion, nay of what faith they are (n. 1388, 1394), all confirmed by living speech, exactly as if it were human speech, and this free from all fallacy. (AC 1970)

AC 4364. Take as another example the truth that man is a spirit, and that he is clothed with a body while he lives in the world. This also is a truth which is to be instilled into good; for unless it has been so instilled, the man cares nothing for heaven, for he then thinks of himself as he does of the brute animals.

But this truth cannot be instilled except by means of special things, as by these-that the body which he carries about serves for uses in this world, namely, that he may see the things that are in the world with material eyes, and may act by material muscles, thereby having powers that are adapted to the heavy things in the world; and that nevertheless there is something more interior which thinks and wills of which the body is the instrumental or material organ; and that a man's spirit is himself, or the man himself, who acts and feels through these organic forms; and that he can confirm this by many of his own experiences if he is once in the belief that the case is so.  (AC 4364)

HH 453. MAN AFTER DEATH IS IN A COMPLETE HUMAN FORM
It can be confirmed from things already shown in several previous sections that the form of the spirit of man is the human form, that is, that the spirit is a man even in form, especially where it is shown that every angel is in a complete human form (n. 73-77); that in respect of his interiors every man is a spirit (n. 432-444); and that the angels in heaven are from the human race (n. 311-317).

[2] This can be seen still more clearly from the fact that it is by virtue of his spirit, and not by virtue of his body, that man is a man, and that the corporeal form is added to the spirit in accordance with the spirit's form, and not the reverse, for it is in accordance with its own form that the spirit is clothed with a body. Consequently, the spirit of man acts into every part of the body, even the minutest, insomuch that if any part is not actuated by the spirit, or the spirit is not active in it, it does not live. Anyone can know that this is true from this fact alone, that thought and will actuate all things and each thing of the body with such entire command that everything concurs, and anything that does not concur is not a part of the body, but is cast out as something without life; and thought and will belong, not to the body, but to the spirit of man.

[3] A spirit is not visible in the human form to man after it has been loosed from the body, nor does he see the spirit in another man, because the body's organ of sight, or its eye, so far as it sees in the world, is a material organ, and what is material can see only what is material, while what is spiritual sees what is spiritual. When, therefore, the material part of the eye becomes darkened and is deprived of its co-operation with the spiritual, then the spirits appear in their own form, which is the human form, not only the spirits who are in the spiritual world, but also the spirit of another man while it is yet in its body. (HH 453)

Study Questions: 1.0 to 1.0.1.2.2  (Report 1)

Week 3 Readings: Section 1.0 to 1.0.1.2.1

• Student 1:    1, 4, 7

• Student 2:    2, 5, 8

• Student 3:    3, 6, 9

3.1.
(a) Describe your educational experience regarding the positive and negative bias in science.
(b) Describe your reaction to what this week's readings say about science education.

3.2.
(a) Describe your reaction to discovering that you are a dual citizen.
(b) Is this difficult for you to go along with as part of the positive bias in science?
(c) Describe the reaction of your friends or family with whom you discussed the course.

3.3.
(a) Give a description of the anatomy of a human being viewed in the positive bias in science as a dual citizen.
(b) How is this anatomy different from the anatomy you learned before?
(c) Describe your reaction to this new knowledge.

3.4.
(a) Explain the idea that there is only one mental world in the human race.
(b) How was this proven by Swedenborg?
(c) What are the potential consequences of this discovery for you and society once it becomes known?

3.5.
(a) What does it mean that we are "born into eternity"?
(b) How does this relate to God and the afterlife?
(c) How does it relate to the anatomy of our mental world?

3.6.
(a) Describe the correspondential relationship between the physical body and the mental body.
(b) How do they work together?
(c) How do you react to learning these facts about yourself?

3.7.
(a) Explain the relationship between Divine Speech and human minds. You'll need to include the concepts of "Spiritual Sun" and "spiritual substances."
(b) How do your friends react to the existence of a Spiritual Sun in eternity?

3.8.
(a) Explain the answer to "Where are you?" as viewed from the perspective of "substantive dualism."
(b) Try to teach this idea to your friends. What success did you have?

3.9.
(a) How would you prove that you are immortal? Think about it by reflecting on the new concepts in this week's readings. Make a list. Be sure you can define them to your own rational comprehension.
(b) Now present the proof to a friend or two.
(c) Describe their reactions and arguments.
(d) How do you interpret what happened?

---

 

1.0.1.2.2   Male Mind, Female Mind, and Conjoint Mind

Quoting from the Writings Sacred Scripture:

CL 193. (8) A woman is actually transformed into a wife according to the description in the book of creation. We are told in this book that woman was created from the rib of a man, and that when she was brought to him, the man said,

She...is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'Ishshah (Woman) because she was taken from 'Ish (Man). (Genesis 2:22-24)

In the Word, a rib from the breast symbolically means, in its spiritual sense, not a rib but natural truth. This is the symbolism of the ribs which the bear carried between its teeth in Daniel 7:5; for bears symbolize people who read the Word in its natural sense and see truths there without understanding. The breast of a man symbolizes that essential and distinctive quality which makes it different in character from the breast of a woman. This quality is wisdom, as may be seen above in no. 187; for truth supports wisdom, as a rib supports the breast. These distinctive qualities are symbolized, because the breast is where all the qualities of a person are, so to speak, at their center.

[2] It follows from this that woman was created from man by a transmission and replication of his distinctive wisdom, which is formed from natural truth, and that man's love for this wisdom was transferred to woman so as to become conjugial love; moreover, that the purpose of this was to replace love of self in man with love for his wife, who, from a nature innate in her, cannot help but turn the love of self in man to his love for her. I have been told, too, that this comes about as a result of the wife's love, without either the man or the wife being conscious of it. It is because of this that no one is ever able to love his partner with a truly conjugial love so long as he is possessed of a conceit in his own intelligence from a love of self.

[3] Once this secret of the creation of woman from man has been understood, it can be seen that in marriage a woman is similarly created or formed, so to speak, from her husband, and that this transformation is brought about by the wife - or rather, through the wife by the Lord, who infuses into women the inclination to achieve it. For a wife receives into her an image of her husband by assimilating his affections into her (see above, no. 173); by uniting the internal will of her husband with hers (concerning which below); and also by incorporating into her the propagations of his soul (of which also below).

It is apparent from this that a woman is transformed into a wife according to the description in the book of creation understood in respect to its inner meaning, and that she is transformed through the qualities she takes from her husband and his "breast" and implants in herself. (CL 193)

CL 194. (9) This transformation is accomplished by the wife in secret ways, which is what is meant by woman's having been created while the man slept. We read in the book of creation that Jehovah God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam so that he slept, and that He then took one of the man's ribs and fashioned it into a woman (Genesis 2:21,22). This sleep and the man's sleeping symbolize a man's complete ignorance that his wife is transformed and, so to speak, created from him. This is apparent from observations made in the preceding chapter, and also in this one, respecting wives' innate discretion and prudence not to divulge anything of their love, not even of their adopting their husband's life's affections and of their thus transfusing his wisdom into them.

It is clear from what we presented before in nos. 166-168ff that a wife does this without her husband's knowing and while he is, so to speak, asleep, thus that she does it in secret ways. We also showed in the same numbers that the prudence needed to accomplish it is instinctive in women from creation, thus from birth, for reasons that are necessary in building conjugial love, friendship and trust, so that the two may have bliss in living together and happiness of life.

In order that this may come about as it should, therefore, it was enjoined on man that he leave father and mother and cling to his wife (Genesis 2:24, Matthew 19:4,5). [Old and New Testament Sacred Scripture]

[2] The father and mother a man is to leave mean, in a spiritual sense, the inherent nature of his will and the inherent nature of his intellect (the inherent nature of a person's will being to love itself, and the inherent nature of a person's intellect being to love its own wisdom). And to cling means to commit himself to love of his wife. These two inherent natures are evil and deadly to a man if they remain in him, but the love arising from the two is turned into conjugial love as a man clings to his wife, that is, as he acquires a love for her, as may be seen just above in no. 193, and elsewhere.

(It can be amply demonstrated from passages elsewhere in the Word that to be asleep symbolically means to be unaware or oblivious; that father and mother symbolically mean the two inherent natures of a person, one of the will and one of the intellect; and that to cling symbolically means to commit oneself to love for something. But it would be out of place to do it here.)

CL 195. (10) This transformation is accomplished by the wife by a union of her will with the inner will of her husband. It may be seen above in nos. 163-165 that a man has an intellectual wisdom and a moral wisdom, and that a wife unites herself with those qualities in her husband that have to do with his moral wisdom. Qualities that are matters of intellectual wisdom form a man's understanding, and qualities that are matters of moral wisdom form his will. A wife unites herself with those qualities which form her husband's will. (Whether one says that a wife unites herself, or that she unites her will, with the will of her husband, it amounts to the same thing, because a wife is born will-oriented, and therefore she does what she does in accord with her will.)

We say that it is a union with her husband's inner will, because a man's will has its seat in his intellect, and the intellectual quality of man is the inmost quality in woman, in accordance with observations we have made before, in no. 32 and several times since, regarding the formation of woman from man. Men also have an outward will, but this very frequently comes of pretense or concealment. A wife sees it, but she does not unite herself with it, except perhaps in a feigned or playful way. (CL 195)

CL 196. (11) This to the end that the will of the one and the will of the other may become one will, and the two partners thus one person. This is the goal, for anyone who joins the will of another to himself also joins to himself the other's intellect. Indeed, regarded in itself, the intellect is only a servant and agent of the will. The fact of this is clearly apparent from the way an affection arising from love impels the intellect to think as it bids. Every affection arising from love is a property of the will, for what a person loves, this he also wills.

It follows from this that anyone who joins the will of another person to himself, joins to himself the whole person. That is why it is instinctive in a wife's love to unite her husband's will to her own, for in this way the wife becomes one who belongs to her husband, and the husband one who belongs to his wife. Thus the two become one person. (CL 196)

CL 197. (12) This transformation is accomplished by an adoption of the husband's affections. This point goes along with the two preceding discussions, since affections are matters of the will. For affections are simply the offspring of love, and they form the will, molding it and composing it. In men, however, these affections reside in the intellect, whereas in women they reside in the will. (CL 197)

CL 198. (13) This transformation is accomplished by the wife by her reception of the propagations of her husband's soul with delight - a delight arising from her willing to be an embodiment of love for her husband's wisdom. Since this accords with points already explained before in nos. 172, 173, further explanation is omitted here.

In wives, conjugial delights take their rise from no other source than their willing to be united with their husbands, as good is united with truth in a marriage of these on the plane of the spirit. We separately showed in its own chapter that conjugial love descends from this marriage.* It can be seen in consequence, as though in a mirror, that a wife joins her husband to her as good joins truth to it; also that a husband joins himself to his wife in return according to his reception of her love in him, as truth joins itself to good in return, according to its reception of good in it. Thus it can be seen that a wife's love takes form through the wisdom of her husband, as good takes form through truth; for truth is what gives form to good.

It is apparent from this as well, then, that conjugial delights in a wife come principally from her willing to be united with her husband, consequently from her willing to be an embodiment of love for her husband's wisdom. For she then feels the delights of her warmth in the light of her husband, as explained under heading (4), nos. 188, 189. (CL 198)

CL 199 (14) A maiden is thus transformed into a wife, and a youth into a husband. This follows as a consequence from what we have already said in this and the previous chapter respecting the union of married partners into one flesh.

A maiden turns or is turned into a wife because a wife has elements in her taken from her husband, thus elements acquired which did not exist in her before as an unmarried woman. A youth turns or is turned into a husband because a husband has elements in him taken from his wife, which heighten the capacity in him for receiving love and wisdom, elements which did not exist in him before as an unmarried man. However, this is the case with people who are in a state of truly conjugial love. Among them are some who feel as though they are a united person and virtually one flesh (as may be seen in the preceding chapter, no. 178).

It is apparent from this that a maidenly state is transformed into a wifely one in women, and a youthful state into a husbandly one in men.

[2] I was convinced of the fact of this from the following experience in the spiritual world:

Some men said that the relationship a man has with a woman before marriage and the relationship he has with his wife after marriage are similar. When they heard this, their wives became very offended and said, "They are not at all alike! The difference is as the difference between fantasy and reality."

To this the men retorted, "Are you not women as before?" To which their wives responded with rising voice, "We are not 'women' but wives! The love you feel is a fantasy love and not a real one; therefore you speak in fantasy terms."

The men then said, "If you are not 'women,' still you are married women." But they replied, "In the early days of marriage we were married women; now, however, we are wives." (CL 199)

CL 200. (15) In a marriage of one man with one wife, in which there is a truly conjugial love between them, the wife becomes more and more a wife, and the husband more and more a husband. It may be seen above in nos. 177, 178, that truly conjugial love joins two partners more and more into one person. So, because a wife becomes a wife by union with her husband and according to that union, likewise a husband a husband by union with his wife and according to it, and because truly conjugial love lasts to eternity, it follows that a wife becomes more and more a wife, and a husband more and more a husband.

The fundamental reason for this is that in a marriage of truly conjugial love, each partner becomes more and more deeply human, for that love opens the deeper aspects of their minds, and as these are opened, a person becomes more and more human. To become more human is, on the part of a wife, to become more a wife; and on the part of a husband, to become more a husband.

I have heard from angels that a wife becomes more and more a wife as her husband becomes more and more a husband; however, not so much the reverse. The reason, they said, is that a chaste wife rarely if ever fails to love her husband, but what fails is her being loved by her husband in return. They also said that this failure is attributable to a lack of elevation in his wisdom, which alone receives the love of a wife. (Respecting this wisdom, see nos. 130, 163-165.) But this they said in reference to marriages on earth. (CL 200)

CL 201. (16) Their forms are also thus progressively perfected and ennobled from within. The human form is most perfect and most noble when by marriage two forms become one form, thus when the flesh of two becomes one flesh, in accordance with the story of their creation. The husband's mind is then elevated into a higher light, and the wife's mind into a higher warmth, and they then burgeon, blossom and bear fruit, like trees in springtime (as may be seen above in nos. 188, 189).

We will see in the discussion that follows next that the ennobling of this form results in the birth of noble fruits - spiritual fruits in heaven, natural fruits on earth. (CL 201)

Study the following anatomical charts of single and married men and women. Try to memorize them. It's a good idea to print the charts so you can have in front of you as you read the discussion that follows the charts. Look at the charts frequently as you read the paragraphs. This will make it it meaningful and satisfying. You will be able to avoid confusion or obscurity and vagueness in your mind. All this should be crystal clear, which is why the charts are provided to you.

A man's mind is the converse of a woman's mind. The human mind contains affective and cognitive organs at various levels and relative functions (see Section xx). In a man's natural mind the affective organ is located inwardly relative to the cognitive organ, but the converse is the case with a woman's natural mind -- her affective organ is located outwardly relative to her cognitive organ. This is portrayed in the diagram below. But note that with the spiritual mind, man's affective organ is inmost relative to his cognitive organ, and the converse is the case with a woman's spiritual mind -- the cognitive organ is inmost relative to the affective organ. Make sure you locate this difference on the chart so you can memorize it.

Now what happens when a man and a woman are conjoined mentally by the acceptance of marriage as a spiritual or eternal union (see Section 11.4.10.1). When husband and wife live their married life according to this principle of eternal union, their thoughts and feelings become interdependent or conjoined. A new mental organ is created out of the husband and wife, which is called the conjoint self (see Section 11.4.11). The following chart shows this process of conjoining in two stages. Start from the bottom:

The first stage is called the external marriage. The conjoint self is built up from the husband's external cognitive organ in the natural mind, which receives the substance of external truth from his unconscious spiritual mind. His reception of external truth is conjoined with the wife's external affective organ in her natural mind, which receives the substance of external good. This shows that a wife and a husband are totally different in the physiological composition of the conscious natural mind. Nothing in a man's mind can be like anything in a woman's mind, and vice versa. The logical consequence of this is that nothing in a man's physical body can be like anything in a woman's physical body, and vice versa. Why? because there is a correspondence between the mental body and the physical body (see Section xx). Modern medicine is slowly coming to the realization that drug and health research on men are not directly applicable to women, hence more and more research effort is allocated to woman's medicine, reversing the earlier trend of exclusive male medicine.

Unless the mental body of a man and a woman were completely reciprocals of each other, full and total conjunction between them would not be possible, hence the human heavens would not be possible because these are built within the conjoint self of a married couple.

This is worth repeating, so important it is for you to know it and take into account when you are thinking about yourself and your relationships in the positive bias in science mode. Full and total conjunction, or unity marriage, is possible between the husband and the wife because their mental bodies are constructed as anatomical reciprocal of each other. This is the principle of unity through differentiation and reciprocity (see Section 11.3.2). The consequence of this physiological difference is that a man and a woman may think of the same thing, and yet not have the same meaning -- which may lead to issues in communication (see Section xx). It is the same with emotions like fear, pleasure, anger, loyalty, etc. -- each is different in a man's mind as compared to a woman's mind. They may use the same dictionary definition and pass the same SAT exams -- yet women and men will have reciprocal meanings for words and things. They overlap enough for external communication, but not enough for internal communication, which is called mental intimacy (see Section xx). The husband achieves mental intimacy with his wife in proportion his willingness to align his thinking operations in the cognitive organ, with the wife's willing operations or states in the affective organ -- as you can see portrayed from the chart above, Stage 1.

The second stage is called the internal marriage. The internal conjoint self is built up from the wife's internal cognitive organ (thinking operations), which receives the substance of internal truth from her spiritual mind -- conjoined with the husband's internal cognitive organ, which receives the substance of internal truth from his spiritual mind (see chart).

To summarize (try memorizing this):

Mental conjunction between a husband and a wife always involves an affective and a cognitive organ. In the external marriage, this conjunction involves the natural mind (Stage 1) by means of external truth in the husband's cognitive organ and external good in the wife's affective organ. In the internal marriage, this conjunction involves the spiritual mind (Stage 2) by means of internal truth in the wife's cognitive organ and internal good in the husband's affective organ. When the internal marriage is functional and operative, the external marriage is an external correspondence of the internal marriage. The couple is then in the unity model of marriage (see Section 11.3).

What is external truth and good in the natural mind vs. internal good and truth in the spiritual mind?

Remember that good and truth are spiritual substances streaming out from the Spiritual sun around the God the Divine Human (see Section xx). Remember also that the mental organs are constructed to function as receptors of spiritual light (cognitive organ) and spiritual heat (affective organ). These substances then inflow and are received differently by a man ad a woman since their mental body physiology is reciprocal and differentiated (see Section xx). This is like sunlight from our sun entering different sorts of plants. It is the same sunlight, and heat within it, but each plant does something different with it, according to its genetic species. This occurs because the operations in the physical body are correspondences of their causes in the mental body.

Since women receive spiritual heat and light differently relative to each other, and in a reciprocal or converse manner relative to men, you can see that the consequence of this physiology is that a woman's mental operations will be differentiated from a man's mental operations.

The realization of these anatomical differences between the mental body of men and women will help couples to understand rationally what they must be willing to do in order to achieve a conjoint self in an internal marriage that will last to eternity or never end. Both the husband and the woman must be willing to grow into new selves that are no longer independent mentally. This is the conjoint self. The heaven of eternity is constructed out of this conjoint self. That is, the conjugial human heavens are built within this conjoint self, just as your heart and lungs are built within your physical body. This would be equivalent to being joined twins, as with some unusual births. Imagine they have only one circulatory system and only one respiratory system.

In the mental body of the celestial couple in a unity marriage, the husband's affective organ is conjoined with the wife's cognitive organ.  This unity shows both here on earth through the conscious natural mind and in eternity through the spiritual mind. Here on earth, the internal marriage shows externally by the observable harmony, agreement, and inmost friendship that the two married lovers and soul mates have for each other, with never an exception. Swedenborg reports that in the world of the afterlife, this harmony between a wife and her husband shows itself by a beautiful visual phenomenon: When a husband and wife are seen from a distance, only one angel walking is seen, but when they draw near, a husband and a wife angel couple are seen.

Also, when Swedenborg was having a conversation with some angel husbands in their conjugial heavens, they showed him that the wife of each was present, though not visible to Swedenborg's eyes. When the wife of one of the husbands became visible to him, Swedenborg saw on her facial expression whatever the husband was taking about, so intimate was their mental union. In that state of conjugial heaven, it is not possible for a man to think of something without his wife's willing also be involved. Hence he could not think anything that is disagreeable to the wife. When a couple here on earth is committed to reaching a unity relationship, the husband can think less and less that which his wife would disapprove of.

Women inherit a mental body that is powerfully oriented toward external conjunction with a man they select for that purpose through affections and love for him. As the chart shows in Stage 1, the woman wills to conjoin her willing (affective organ) with the husband's thinking (cognitive organ).  In this process (Stage 1), the woman leads and prompts and urges. She learns this as a girl, socialized to become a man's "helper" and "mate." She learns the skills of taking care of men -- father, brother, boyfriend, boss, children. A girl friend quickly learns and acquires her boyfriend's way of thinking about many things they share together. During Stage 1, the man cruises in the relationship, almost taking a passive role and enjoying all his male prerogatives like being served and taken care of in many ways he enjoys. Now in order for the marriage to become mentally intimate and move on to Stage 2, the husband has to take the lead by willing himself to conjoin his wife's internal truth, rationality, and wisdom, to his internal love or good. It is out of this union that the conjugial heavens are built for their eternal happiness and bliss (see Section xx). If the man is unwilling to do this, the marriage cannot go on to Stage 2. As a result, they will not be together in the afterlife.

Swedenborg reports that women who remain in an external marriage here on earth because their husband is unwilling, are given to meet a suitable man after resuscitation.

Quoting from the Writings Sacred Scripture:

CL 56. The Second Memorable Relation:
Once, while talking with angels in the world of spirits, I was inspired with a pleasant desire to see the Temple of Wisdom which I had seen once before;* and I asked them the way. They said, "Follow the light and you will find it." I said, "What do you mean by "Follow the light"?" and they said: "Our light shines more and more brightly as we draw nearer to that temple. Therefore, follow the light according to the increase of its brightness; for our light proceeds from the Lord as a Sun, and hence, considered in itself, is wisdom."

Then, walking in company with two angels, I followed the increasing brightness of the light and ascended by a steep path to the summit of a hill which lay in the southern quarter. There was a magnificent gate there. Seeing the angels with me, the keeper opened it and, lo, there was seen an avenue of palm trees and laurels, and along this we walked. It was a winding avenue and terminated in a garden in the midst of which was the TEMPLE OF WISDOM. As I looked around me, I saw also small buildings, similar to the temple, and in them were wise men. We approached one of these buildings and, at the entrance, spoke to the host there and told him the reason of our coming and the manner of our approach. He then said, "Welcome; come in; be seated and let us join together in discourse on wisdom.:

[2] Within the house, I saw that it was divided into two and yet was one. It was divided into two by a transparent partition; and it seemed to be one because of the transparency of the partition which was as though of purest crystal. I asked why this was the case. He said, "I am not alone. My wife is with me; and we are two and yet not two but one flesh."

I then said, "I know that you are a wise man, but what has a wise man or wisdom to do with woman?" At this our host, with some indignation, changed countenance. He then stretched out his hand and, lo, from neighboring houses other wise men were present. To these, he said jestingly, "Our new-comer here, for the purpose of learning, asks what a wise man or wisdom has to do with woman?" At this they all laughed and said, "What is a wise man or wisdom without woman, that is, without love? The wife is the love of a wise man's wisdom."

[3] Our host then said, "Let us now join together in some discourse on wisdom. Let the discourse be concerning causes, and for the present concerning the cause of the beauty of the female sex." They then spoke in turn. The first gave this as the cause: "Women were created, by the Lord, affections of the wisdom of men; and the affection of wisdom is beauty itself." A second gave this: "Woman was created by the Lord through the wisdom of man because from man. Hence, being a form of wisdom inspired with the affection of love, and the affection of love being life itself, woman is the life of wisdom. The male is wisdom, and the life of wisdom is beauty." A third gave this: "To women is given a perception of the delights of conjugial love; and because their whole body is an organ of that perception, it cannot be otherwise than that the abode of the delights of conjugial love with its perception is beauty."

[4] A fourth gave this: "The Lord has taken the beauty and grace of life from man and transcribed them into woman. Hence, without reunion with his beauty and grace in woman, a man is stern, austere, dry, and unlovely; nor is he wise save for himself alone, and then he is stupid. But when man is united with his beauty and grace of life in his wife, he becomes agreeable, pleasant, animated, and lovely, and thus wise." A fifth gave this: "Women are created beauties for the sake not of themselves but of men, that men, of themselves hard, may be softened; that their minds, of themselves severe, may become mild, and their hearts, of themselves cold, warm; and they do become such when they become one flesh with their wives."

[5] A sixth gave this: "The universe was created by the Lord a most perfect work; but in that universe nothing was created more perfect than woman, beautiful in face and graceful in manners; and this to the end that man may render thanks to the Lord for this bounty, and may repay it by the reception of wisdom from Him.

After these and many like sentiments had been expressed, the wife appeared through the crystal partition and said to her husband, "Speak, if you please." And when he spoke, the life of wisdom from his wife was perceived in his speech; for her love was in the tone of his voice. Thus experience bore witness to truth.

After this we examined the Temple of wisdom, and also its paradisal surroundings, and then, filled thereby with joy, we departed, and, passing through the avenue to the gate, went down by the way we had come.
* See APOCALYPSE REVEALED (published in 1766), n. 875; the present work was published in 1768. (CL 56)

CL 57. LOVE TRULY CONJUGIAL
Conjugial love is of infinite variety, not being the same with one person as with another. With many it does indeed appear to be the same, but it appears so only before the judgment of the body, and from this judgment, seeing that it is gross and dull, man has little discernment of such things. By the judgment of the body is meant the judgment of the mind from the external senses. Before those who see from the judgment of the spirit, the differences are apparent; and more distinctly apparent before those who can elevate the sight of this judgment still higher, which is done by its withdrawal from the senses and its exaltation into higher light. Such men can then confirm themselves by the understanding and so can see that conjugial love is not the same with one person as with another.

Yet no one can see the infinite varieties of that love in any light of the understanding, even though elevated, unless he first know the nature of the love itself in its essence and integrity; thus its nature when together with life it was implanted in man by God. Unless its state then be known, a state which was most perfect, its differences cannot be discovered by any inquiry, there being no stable point from which, as a commencement, those differences can be deduced, and to which, by keeping it in view, they can refer themselves and so be seen truly and not fallaciously.

This is the reason why we have set out to describe this love in its genuine essence; and, since it was in this essence when together with life it was infused into man by God, to describe it as it was in its primeval state. In this state it was truly conjugial, and therefore this chapter is entitled LOVE TRULY CONJUGIAL. The description shall be given in the following order:

I. That there is a love truly conjugial, which is so rare at this day that it is not known what it is and scarcely that it is.

II. That the origin of this love is from the marriage of good and truth.

III. That the correspondence of this love is with the marriage of the Lord and the Church.

IV. That, regarded from its origin and correspondence, this love is celestial, spiritual, holy, pure, and clean, above every love which is from the Lord with the angels of heaven and the men of the Church.
V. That it is also the fundamental love of all celestial and spiritual loves, and thence of all natural loves.

VI. And that into this love are gathered all joys and delights from their first to their last.

VII. But that no others come into this love and can be in it save those who approach the Lord, love the truths of the Church and do its goods.

VIII. That this love was the love of loves with the ancients who lived in the Golden, Silver, and Copper Ages, but that afterwards it gradually departed.
The explanation of these points now follows: (CL 57)

CL 58. I. THAT THERE IS A LOVE TRULY CONJUGIAL, WHICH IS SO RARE AT THIS DAY THAT IT IS NOT KNOWN WHAT IT IS AND SCARCELY THAT IT IS. That there is a conjugial love such as is described in the following pages, can indeed be acknowledged from the first state of that love when it is insinuating itself and entering into the heart of a young man and woman; thus as it is with those who begin to love one only of the sex and to desire her as their bride; and still more during the time of betrothal and during the continuance of this time as it progresses towards the nuptials, and then in the nuptial ceremony and during the first days that follow. Who does not then give acknowledgment and consent to the following: That this love is the fundamental of all loves, and that into it are gathered all joys and all delights from their first to their last.

And who does not know, that after this happy time these states of gladness successively decline and pass away till at last the married pair become scarcely sensible of them? If it be said to them then, as before, that this love is the fundamental of all loves and that into it is gathered every joy and gladness, they neither assent to it nor acknowledge it, and perhaps they will say that these are idle words or that they are transcendental mysteries. It is evident from this, that the primitive love of marriage emulates love truly conjugial and presents it to view in an image; and this because love of the sex, which is unchaste, is then cast out and, implanted in its place, resides love of one of the sex, which is love truly conjugial and is chaste. Who does not then look upon other women with a loveless nod and upon his own with a loving? (CL 58)

CL 59. The reason why love truly conjugial is so rare that it is not known what it is and scarcely that it is, is because the state of pleasure before the nuptials is afterwards changed into a state of indifference arising from insensibility to that pleasure. The causes of this change of state are more than can here be adduced, but they will be adduced in the following pages when the causes of colds, separations, and divorces are disclosed in their order. There it will be seen that with most men at this day, the image and with it the knowledge of conjugial love is so far effaced that it is not known what it is and scarcely that it is.
It is known that every man when born is merely corporeal, and that from being corporeal he becomes natural, more and more interior, and then rational, and finally spiritual. The reason why this takes place progressively, is because the corporeal is as the ground wherein, in their due order, are implanted things natural, rational, and spiritual; thus the man becomes more and more a man.

[2] It is almost the same when he enters into marriage; the man then becomes a fuller man because conjoined with a consort with whom he acts as one man. In the first state, spoken of above, this is effected in an image; then in like manner he commences from the corporeal and advances into the natural, but now as to the conjugial life and hence as to conjunction into a one. They who then love corporeal natural things, and only from them love things rational, cannot be conjoined with a consort as into a one except as to those externals. And when the externals fail, cold invades the internals and dispels the delights of that love, first expelling them from the mind and so from the body, and then from the body and so from the mind, and this until nothing is left of the remembrance of the early state of their marriage, and consequently no knowledge concerning it.

Now since this is the case with most men at the present day, it is clear that it is not known what love truly conjugial is and scarcely that it is. Not so with those who are spiritual. With them, the first state is an initiation into perpetual states of happiness; and these states are promoted in the degree that the spiritual rational of the mind of the one, and from this the sensual natural of the body, conjoins and unites itself with that of the other. But such men are rare. (CL 59)

CL 60. II. THAT THE ORIGIN OF THIS LOVE IS FROM THE MARRIAGE OF GOOD AND TRUTH. Being a universal truth, it is acknowledged by every intelligent man that all things in the universe have relation to good and truth. It must also be acknowledged that in each and everything of the universe, good is conjoined with truth and truth with good, for this also is a universal truth cohering with the other. The reason why all things in the universe have relation to good and truth, and why good is conjoined with truth and truth with good, is because both proceed from the Lord, and proceed from Him as a one. The two things which proceed from the Lord are love and wisdom, for these are Himself and are therefore from Him; and all things pertaining to love are called goods, and all pertaining to wisdom are called truths. And since these two proceed from Him as the Creator, it follows that these two are in the things created. This can be illustrated by the heat and light which proceed from the sun. From these are all things on the earth, it being according to their presence and according to their conjunction that things germinate; and natural heat corresponds to spiritual heat which is love, and natural light to spiritual light which is wisdom. (CL 60)

CL 61. That conjugial love proceeds from the marriage of good and truth will be shown in the treatise or chapter that follows. It is mentioned here merely that it may be seen that this love is celestial, spiritual, and holy, because from a celestial, spiritual, and holy origin. That it may be seen that the origin of conjugial love is from the marriage of good and truth, it is important that here something concerning it be presented in a brief summary. It was said just above, that there is a conjunction of good and truth in each and every created thing, and conjunction is not possible unless it be reciprocal, for conjunction from the one side and not in turn from the other is dissolved of itself. Now since there is a conjunction of good and truth, and since it is reciprocal, it follows that there is a truth of good or truth from good and a good of truth or good from truth. That the truth of good or truth from good is in the male and is the masculine itself, and that the good of truth or good from truth is in the female and is the feminine itself, and that there is a conjugial union between these two, will be shown in the chapter that next follows. It is mentioned here that some preliminary idea may be had concerning it. (CL 61)

        1.0.1.2.2.1   The Mental Origin of Semen

The origin of every single thing in the natural world of time-space is a thing in the spiritual world of eternity. The spiritual thing is the cause and the natural thing that corresponds to it is the effect. Nothing can exist in the natural world that is not an effect of something in the spiritual world. So the cause must occur first in the mental world of eternity before any effect can exist in the natural world of time-space. This is the law of correspondences that God created to maintain control over the various layers of things in both worlds (see Section xx).

Here we are considering the cause or origin of human semen in particular, but also all seeds that germinate and reproduce in the plant world. The spiritual cause of the power to inseminate and reproduce in the natural world is a truth in the mental world. If human beings lost the ability to comprehend and love truths revealed by God in Sacred Scripture, truths would disappear from the mental world of eternity. At the same time, all seed and semen, all biological reproduction, would cease on earth. Put the truths back in the mental world, and the power to produce semen or seed, returns to earth.

The ancient people on this planet, before industrialization and civilization began as we know it, possessed the science of correspondences and applied it to draw out information from the correspondential sense. This is how they knew that the semen and seed are produced by correspondence from truths in the mind of humanity. All truths in the mind originate and inflow from God through the Spiritual Sun (see Section xx).

Quoting from the Writings Sacred Scripture: [explanations in square brackets are not in the original] [ ]

CL 220. (11) The sexual abundance men have is according to their love of propagating the truths of their wisdom and according to their love of performing useful services.

[This says that a man's physical semen is produced in the testicles by the dualist laws of cause-effect correspondence. The cause is the man's love of transmitting truths to others and his love of making use of truths to improve things;. the effect is the "abundant" production of semen in the testicles.]

That this is the case is one of the secrets known to people of ancient times and which today have been lost. In ancient times people knew that each and every activity that takes place in the body does so from a spiritual origin.

They knew, for example, that actions flow from the will [affective organ], which in itself is spiritual [mental]; that speech flows from thought [cognitive organ], which likewise is spiritual; also that natural sight [sensorimotor organ] results from spiritual sight [cognitive organ], which is one of the intellect; that natural hearing [sensorimotor organ] results from spiritual hearing [affective with cognitive organ], which is an attention of the intellect [cognitive organ] and at the same time a conformity of the will [affective organ]; and that the natural sense of smell [sensorimotor organ] results from a spiritual [mental] one, which is perception [affective organ]; and so on.

In similar manner the ancients saw that a man's power of insemination [semen] stems from a spiritual [mental] origin; and from many evidences of both reason [science] and experience [empirical observation] they concluded that it [semen] results from the truths of which the intellect consists [cognitive organ].

Moreover, they said that from the spiritual marriage [conjunction, synergy] that exists between goodness [spiritual heat] and truth [spiritual light], which flows into each and every thing in the universe [from the Spiritual Sun], nothing else is received by members of the male sex but truth [spiritual light received in the cognitive organ] and what relates to truth [science, rationality]; and that this, in its descent into the body [correspondence from spiritual substance to natural matter], is formed into seed or sperm (which is why seeds, spiritually interpreted, mean truths) [wherever the word "seed" in the literal sense appears in Sacred Scripture, God is actually discussing "truths" in the mental world]

[2] Regarding the process, they said that the male soul, being intellectual  in nature [cognitive organ predominates] is therefore truth [inflowing spiritual light]; for anything intellectual in nature is nothing else. Consequently as the soul descends, truth also descends. This is so, they said, because the soul is the inmost element in man and in every animal, and in its essence is spiritual [mental]; and from an inherent effort towards its propagation, in its descent it seeks and endeavors to reproduce itself.

Then, when this happens, the whole soul [inmost anatomy of the mind]  forms itself and clothes itself [achieves a correspondence in the natural world]  and becomes [physical] seed or sperm.

Moreover, this can take place thousands and thousands of times, they said, because the soul [mental genes of an individual]  is a spiritual essence [mental substance, spiritual heat and light] , which does not have dimension but repleteness [completion, unity], and from which there is no taking away a part, but instead a reproducing of the whole without any loss to it [like making a digital copy] . As a result, the soul is as fully present in its tiniest vessels, which are the seeds or sperm, as it is in its largest one, which is the body [just as there is a full set of genes in every cell] .

[3] So then, since truth in the soul [spiritual light from the Spiritual Sun in the mental world] is the origin of the seed or sperm [in the physical world], it follows that the sexual abundance [physical semen] men have is according to their love [mental] of propagating the truths of their wisdom [cognitive organ] .

It is also according to their love of performing useful services, because useful services are the good effects which truths produce. Some people know in the world as well that the diligent have an abundance, and not the lazy.

I once asked how something female can be generated from the soul of a man [spiritual genes are transmitted by the father only]. The answer I received was that it originates from good [spiritual heat in the affective organ] in the intellect [cognitive organ], because this in its essence is truth [spiritual light substance]; for the intellect [cognitive organ] can think that something is good, thus thinking as true that this something is good. It is different with the will [affective organ]. This does not think about goodness and truth but loves them and does them.

Therefore, in the Word, sons symbolize truths, and daughters, qualities of goodness (as may be seen above in no. 120); and when seed is mentioned in the Word, it symbolizes truth. (CL 220)

Anatomically from the female soul they have, women predominantly receive spiritual heat substance into their affective organ, while men predominantly receive spiritual light substance into their cognitive organ. Semen corresponds to truths or spiritual light. Hence it is that men, having a predominant cognitive organ, have semen, while women, having a predominant affective organ, do not have semen, but instead, have the capacity to receive semen, which men do not. Receiving semen and using it as a blueprint for conception and pregnancy, is a power women have because of they receive spiritual heat into their predominant affective organ. Thus, men and women each have their reciprocal spiritual function in order to achieve reproduction of new life. The source of this ability is spiritual light and spiritual heat from the Spiritual Sun, thus from God (see Section xx).

It is the good and truth in God's affective and cognitive organs that constitute the infinite source of the Spiritual Sun. From God's affective organ, infinite good and love flows out and into the mental world of humanity in the form of spiritual heat and light entering the affective and cognitive organs respectively, but in different or reciprocal order of predominance for men and women, thus creating gender and reproduction.

Conjugial couples who are in their spiritual mind in eternity (or "heaven"), do not have physical semen or physical reproduction of children. Physical semen or seed must be present for reproduction on earth to take place. This is not possible in the mental world of eternity where there is no physical anything. Hence physical birth and reproduction is not possible in the mental world of eternity. Instead, mental births occur, that is, the birth of mental things like new ideas, now insights, new truths. These are the mental children couples have in heaven. And as couples in their heavens produce more and more new ideas of truth and insights or realizations (spiritual offspring), the more physical semen and reproduction can occur on earth, and all the inhabited earths in the physical universe, which is endless.

Week 4  Readings: Section 1.0.1.2.2  (Report 1)

• Student 1:    1, 4, 7

• Student 2:    2, 5, 6

• Student 3:    3, 6, 7

4.1.
(a) Describe the mental physiology of men and women.
(b) How do you relate to this anatomical difference? Will it make a difference to your life in any way?

4.2.
(a) Describe the physiology involved in the two stages of marriage. Consult Volume 11, Section 11.4.5 "Conjunction Dynamics in Marriage" at:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/theistic/ch11.htm#conjunction-dynamics
Write out your own explanations and draw your own diagrams.
(b) When you are ready, explain it to one or two friends. What difficulty did you run into?
(c) What is your conclusion?

4.3.
(a) Explain why the mental body of men and women have to be reciprocals of each other in order to achieve conjugial unity.
(b) How do you assimilate this piece of knowledge in the positive bias in science mode?

4.4.
(a) Read  the book Flatland at:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/theistic/flatland.pdf
Do you see similarities between its ideas and what you know of the mental world of eternity?

4.5.
(a) Do a google search on marriage. What impressions do you get from this? Summarize the trends and ideas that seem to dominate this topic.
(b) How would theistic psychology fit into this?

4.6.
(a) Describe the the mental physiology of men and women.
(b) Discuss it with a friend or two. What difficulties do you encounter when explaining this to them?
(c) What is your conclusion?

4.7.
(a) Read at least five of the student reports on marriage listed at:
        www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy26/409b-g26-lecture-notes.htm#readings
and discuss your overall impression of them.

Study Questions:  1.0.1.3 to 1.0.7  (Report 2)

5.1.
(a) Describe the psychobiology of "conjunction" with God from the perspective of the positive bias in science. You need to include the concept of how thoughts and feelings are spiritual substances operating inside mental organs.
(b) Explain why this is called psychobiology. Explain the degrees of conjunction.
(c) What happens to this psychobiology when we are in the negative bias in science?
(b) How do you see this concept as applying to you?

5.2.
(a) Describe the infrastructure of physical things from the perspective of substantive dualism.
(b) Show that the inmost of any object is the mental world of humanity.
(c) How does this change the way you look at objects around you?
(d) Are you able to explain this to a friend and be heard?

5.3.
(a) Explain why God hides from people. Include the concept of sensuous vs. rational spirituality.
(b) What would happen if God showed Himself to your friends?

5.4.
(a) Describe how Divine Speech operates our mental life.
(b) Why does God not operate the minds of psychologists towards the positive bias in science?
(b) How does this change your view of God and His relationship to people?

5.5.
(a) Where is heaven and hell?
(b) Describe its anatomy.
(c) Why do they both exist in everybody's mind?
(d) If you came to accept this, how would it affect your lifestyle or character?

5.6.
(a) Describe the two methods God uses to conjoin or communicate with people.
(b) In what way have you experienced these two avenues of relationship with God?
(c) Why does God not speak with people in their mind, like a dialog or conversation?

5.7.
(a) Explain why this is a perfect world despite the appearances of imperfection. Define what is perfection in the created world. Include the idea that the world was created for human beings to help them evolve to their eternal heavens.
(b)  How do you answer some of the arguments people make when they insist that this is far from being a perfect world today. How do you counter their facts?

5.8.
(a) Why does spirituality, or relationship to God, have to be rational?
(b) What happens with "sensuous spirituality" -- discuss what happens in the afterlife.
(c) How do you react to or assimilate these ideas about your own future?

5.9.
(a) Explain the formula "mental world = spiritual world = afterlife = eternity". Write out your proof after reading the assigned Section. Read it and edit it until it makes sense to you. Make sure each = link is rationally justified in your proof.
(b) Now try to explain the proof to a friend or two. How well did you succeed?
(c) What is your conclusion.

---

Week 6 Readings: Section 1.0.6 to 1.0.7

• Student 1:    1, 4, 7

• Student 2:    2, 5, 8

• Student 3:    3, 6, 9

6.1.
(a) Explain the Swedenborg reports in relation to the positive bias in science.
(b) Describe what happened to him? What did he discover?
(c) Describe how you manage to take on the positive bias in science regarding the Swedenborg reports. Are you succeeding? What conflicts are you having to contend with in your mind?
(d) Compare your adaptation efforts at the positive bias in science with those of your friends with whom you discussed it so far.

6.2.
(a) What is the purpose of Sacred Scripture? What would happen without it?
(b) How does God want it to be used?
(c) How has it been used (today and before)?
(d) What might be a solution? (e.g., theistic psychology or...)

6.3.
(a) Explain the two senses we can find in Sacred Scripture.
(b) Give several illustrations from this Section.

6.4.
(a) Give two illustrations not found in this Section, so you will need to search for this in Volume 18. Make sure you indicate which Sections you took your two illustrations from.
(b) How do you react to finding out that there is a hidden scientific sense in Sacred Scripture that is still unsuspected by most scholars even today?

6.5.
(a) What is rational spirituality in relation to God?
(b) Explain how we can comprehend higher spiritual ideas by means of the new mental organ called spiritual-natural or interior-natural organ.
(c) How did it come into existence?
(d) Describe its role in the evolution of human consciousness.
(e) How do you react to these ideas that apply to your own mind?

6.6.
(a) Explain why substantive dualism is called substantive.
(b) How does substance differ from matter?
(c) Search google for "dualism" and explain how what you found is different from substantive dualism in theistic psychology.

6.7.
(a) What is the most exciting piece of news or fact you have heard so far in theistic psychology?
(b) Share this exciting fact with your friends and family. What do you conclude form their reaction?

6.8.
(a) List some objections you or your friends can come up with against the Swedenborg reports
(b) against the positive bias in science
(c) against the inclusion of God in science, and
(d) against one other issue of your choice.

Be sure you comment for each issue you list -- (i) what the doubt is and (ii) what your current position is on it.

6.9.
(a) Make up a dialogue between you and a hypothetical friend in a situation where you are telling your friend about this course. No length is specified. It depends on how you write the dialog. You can add lines of explanations, like a stage play, if you want.
(b) Show the dialog to a couple of people. Describe their reaction and your discussion.

    1.0.1.3 Revelation: Divine Speech Exteriorizing as Sacred Scripture

The two diagrams discussed in the previous Section clearly indicate that the Divine Human's Divine Speech is nothing else than the spiritual substances of good and truth flowing out from the Spiritual Sun in infinite variety, and creating the mental world of eternity. Then, going beyond that, exteriorizing still further, as shown in the diagram on simultaneous order above, Divine Speech creates then enters the spiritual mind, where it forms the human heavens in every individual from birth onward. But whether the individual will be able to live in that mental state in immortality depends on developing the rational mind so that it comes into correspondence with our spiritual mind. Once we start thinking and willing every day in conformity with our rational understanding of Sacred Scripture, we are regenerating our mind (see Section xx), so that it may become a "little heaven" or a "heaven in miniature." We then start living the rest of our lives on earth in a mental heaven in our natural mind, instead of the mental hells so many people live in most of the time (see Section xx).

Divine Speech appearing outwardly as Sacred Scripture is the only source of facts, knowledge, and principles about the spiritual world of eternity and the afterlife. In other words, all forms of rationality and truth that human beings exhibit, originate from Divine Speech, and Sacred Scripture is the only containant of Divine Speech. Hence, there can be no other source of truth or knowledge of reality than Sacred Scripture. This assertion must be understood differently than usual, when we examine the hidden layers of information that lie beneath the literal sentences of Sacred Scripture (see Section xx).

How do we know what is Sacred Scripture? Whose opinion are we to follow? And what if they are wrong?

The definition of Sacred Scripture in theistic psychology is any collection of writings in a natural language that is produced by God through the mind of a particular individual on earth.

In other words, Sacred Scripture = Divine Speech transformed into a natural language written by an individual.

Note that since it is written by an individual, Sacred Scripture is necessarily a historically produced ethnic document written and published in some country where the document serves as the creation and foundation of a particular religion.

Note that it is not the belief or faith of people that makes a particular document to be Sacred Scripture.

Billions of people could believe that document X is Sacred Scripture, but this would not make it Sacred Scripture.

Sacred Scripture is only that which is Divine Speech authored through the mind of an individual, regardless of who believes or does not believe it, or who understands or does not understand it.

To test whether any document meets this definition, we must investigate whether there are hidden layers of meaning underneath the natural, historical, or religious meaning that is obvious to everyone who reads the document under investigation. What are these hidden layers of meaning?

Swedenborg's Writings demonstrate with historical, rational, and empirical proofs of various kinds, that the Old Testament and the New Testament collections of documents are Sacred Scripture in accordance with the above definition. How amazing!

He does not examine other documents or collections of the world's "sacred literature," focusing exclusively on the Old and New Testament books, of which he was an expert from childhood onward (see Section xx). To my knowledge, no one since Swedenborg has attempted to prove that other documents exist that are also Sacred Scripture, using the above definition. This definition is given in Swedenborg's Writings., which he uses to demonstrate that the words, phrases, and verses of the Old and New Testaments hide an internal spiritual meaning whose content is theistic psychology. The Writings do not use this phrase "theistic psychology" but it is an appropriate title for the knowledge that is extracted from Sacred Scripture, when a valid scientific methodology is used to extract the hidden knowledge that resides in Sacred Scripture (see Section xx). This extraction process will be illustrated, demonstrated, and studied in various detail throughout theistic psychology (see Section xx).

People sometimes imagine that they are hearing Divine Speech which they refer to as "the Voice of God came to me, and He said..." However, from the scientific perspective of theistic psychology, it is necessary to describe the actual psychobiology of how Divine Speech enters the human mind, just as biology describes the process of how sunlight enters the human eye and producing vision. These details are known to no one as they involve the spiritual mind, of which we are totally unconscious, its operations being unavailable for observation under any circumstances. Therefore it makes sense to think rationally, within the positive bias way of reasoning, that God must have a way of making His messages conscious to us. Indeed, this is the content of the hidden scientific layers of information that is contained in the historical or literal sentences of Sacred Scripture.

In other words, we can recover the original meaning of Divine Speech, prior to its being transformed and cast into a historical, ethnic, religious format or meaning.

This is the best news humankind has heard in many hundreds of years! Certainly the best news in science since its beginning. This news is first announced in the Writings of Swedenborg written and published in the second half of the eighteenth century, between 1743 and 1771 (see Section xx).

Why is this such good news for science and humankind? Because now for the first time we are given a valid methodology for interpreting Sacred Scripture.

Look what has happened without this knowledge. The Old Testament Sacred Scripture was written at the level of mentality and culture that was prevalent in the Middle-East approximately from 1000 BC to 400 BC. Anyone can see today that the literal meaning of the Old Testament Sacred Scripture reflects a barbaric civilization that is totally racist and totally patriarchal with women being officially treated in a slavish and cruel role. This barbaric era of human civilization produced a version of Divine Speech that is totally alien to God's true nature and personality (see Section xx). Today, from a perspective of democracy and modernism, we are horrified that they had such a perspective on God that God Himself had to enact a role to them historically that is alien and abhorrent to His very nature and personality (see Section xx).

For in the literal meaning of the Old Testament sentences, God is a God of fury and vengeance, who gets angry like a super-potentate against His subjects, and take it out on them from vengeance, bringing on the destructive forces of nature to punish and decimate what He created. And on top of that, God has to order them to make sacrifices by doing to animals things that we would be horrified today to do.

Worst of all, in my opinion, is the almost total absence of discussion, description, and explanation of what happens when we die. A few mysterious hints are given, but they are so little, that many people and scholars who know very well the literal meaning of the Old Testament Sacred Scripture, are totally ignorant of what happens at death, and they have had to make up their own imaginative stories of what happens or might happen.

In other words, the literal religious meaning of the Old Testament Sacred Scripture does not reveal any knowledge of theistic psychology, which is the science of immortality and afterlife, extracted from the hidden layers of meaning of the Old Testament Sacred Scripture, along with the New Testament Sacred Scripture, and the Writings Sacred Scripture (see Section xx).

The New Testament Sacred Scripture was written in a more advanced era of human civilization around the first century AD, also in the Middle East. In its literal meaning, the New Testament Sacred Scripture presents a more universal and inclusive philosophy of life and God, and contains many important theistic psychology facts. To my mind, the most important of these is the revelation that "the kingdom of God is within you, among you, in the midst of you" (depending on the translation of Luke 17:21 -- see: http://bible.cc/luke/17-21.htm ). Few people have understood that the "within you" is not used metaphorically, but literally!

Yes, that's right. The heaven of eternity is in our affective organ of the spiritual mind (see Section xx).

In other words, our mind is already in eternity -- see the Section Born Into Eternity above.

The Writings Sacred Scripture were written and published by Emanuel Swedenborg and published in the eighteenth century, which was the era of the New Enlightenment of the modern age. The literal sense of the Writings are a mixture of theology, science, and religion.

From the perspective of theistic psychology, the literal meaning of Sacred Scripture is suitable for religion and theology, but not for science. Although the Writings Sacred Scripture are written by a modern scientist with a rational and empirical orientation, the literal language of presentation is immersed in history and religion surrounding Swedenborg's European cultural context. The Old and New Testament Sacred Scriptures in their literal sense are even less suitable for science, as they are from an earlier civilization and historical mentality.

But when you make the literal sense of Sacred Scripture "vanish" from focus by translating the natural historical correspondences in which they are written, into their spiritual, universal and scientific meaning that is hidden within the literal sentences. This scientific spiritual meaning is the content of Divine Speech when regarded in the spiritual mind rather than the natural mind.

It is extremely important for you to remember that while the literal meaning of all Sacred Scripture is historical, ethnic, and religious, in contrast, the hidden layers of scientific meaning within it, are non-sectarian, non-historical, non-cultural. They are scientific, universal, spiritual, eternal, rational.

Political movements based on the literal meaning of Sacred Scripture are called fundamentalist. Fundamentalism is sectarian, intolerant, sometimes violent, and not based on rationality or science.

But the hidden layers of information within the literal meaning of all Sacred Scripture are universal and scientific because that is the very content of Divine Speech (see Section xx). When we decode what is within Sacred Scripture we find a theistic psychology manual and handbook. How amazing!

But why? Why in this way? For what purpose?

As you will discover when studying the anatomy of the mind and the afterlife of eternity, God creates the human mind into discrete or discontinuous layers, that interact or influence each other by the laws of correspondences (see Section xx). As Divine Speech descends it enters into our spiritual mind where it activates certain rational operations, of which we are unconscious. We can however describe what happens there when we use representative ideas (see Section xx). A few hours after death, we are resuscitated or awakened through our spiritual mind, which until then was unconscious, but now, not any more, and so we begin our life of immortality in the afterlife by means of this spiritual mind. Swedenborg became conscious in his spiritual mind at age 57, and for the next 27 years was able to see simultaneously what was happening in the physical world in Sweden and Europe, and what was happening in the world of the afterlife (see Section xx). See the Layers Diagram.

This is how he was able to empirically discover and describe the laws of correspondences between the layers of the mind. These are the correspondences that allow us to climb up the ladder of Divine Speech across the layers of the human mind, from Sacred Scripture, which is the bottom, to the highest potential in our mind called "heaven" (see Section xx).

Why Swedenborg?

No one has the capacity to be conscious in their spiritual mind. Swedenborg was a unique exception, accomplished by the God Divine Human to allow him to write the Writings Sacred Scripture. He was given to do this differently than the prophets of old in the Old and New Testament Scriptures. They received mental dictation into the natural mind, so that the thoughts merely appeared in their consciousness, and they wrote them down. They had no rational understanding whatsoever of what scientific knowledge was hidden within the sentences they wrote down. But Swedenborg was a scientist in the modern world of the 18th century. He was made fully conscious in the spiritual mind to enable him to make empirical observations and conduct spiritual experiments, according to his scientific mind and evaluation.

The result of this difference in how the Writings Sacred Scripture were produced is that the literal meaning of the Writings can be read rationally, and most of it can be read scientifically as well (see Section xx). But in addition, endless scientific knowledge lies hidden within the literal meaning that Swedenborg constructed. Swedenborg knew that what he wrote was "under the guidance" of the Divine Psychologist, and hence was Divine Speech expressed in Sacred Scripture in a modern scientific mode. Swedenborg understood that he himself had almost no access to this infinite storehouse of scientific knowledge hidden within the sentences he wrote down. And if Swedenborg is now in the heavens of his spiritual mind, he can read the Sacred Scripture that is there, without realizing or knowing, that he himself authored it when he was on earth (see Section xx).

Sacred Scripture is the sole source of rational knowledge about God (repeated from Section 15.0).

There are two different approaches to knowing God that have been practiced by humanity over the generations. In theistic psychology these two spiritual disciplines are called sensuous spirituality and rational spirituality (see Section xx).

The discipline of sensuous spirituality involves the attempt to experience the "divine" through various physical methods -- meditation, yoga, fasting, trance, self-flagellation, sexual abstinence, visions, animal sacrifices, making miracles happen, hearing living voices, ingesting psychotropic chemicals, and others. These methods involve the idea that the "divine" can be experienced by human beings through these physical techniques of sensing the body. In theistic psychology this is known as the philosophy of nonduality (see Section xx). Non-duality is the opposite of dualism (see Section xx). Nonduality asserts that God and human beings are of one continuous substance, which implies that we can climb high enough to actually realize that all along we each were God.

In contrast, rational spirituality is the spiritual discipline of getting closer to God through Sacred Scripture. In theistic psychology it is known that the spiritual mind in which our heaven of eternity lies, is formed by the spiritual-rational and celestial-rational correspondences of Divine Speech hidden within Sacred Scripture. This makes sense when you consider the fact that God is Divine Truth covered over with Divine Love (or good) (see Section xx). Good can only conjoin with its own truth (see Section xx). The higher the level of Divine truth that we can consciously understand rationally, the closer we come to God's Divine Truth and Rationality. Truth is the spiritual-rational and celestial-rational substance that forms the rationality in the mind of every human being (see Section xx).

Rational spirituality is the discipline of extracting the rational doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture using the method of correspondences that is revealed in Sacred Scripture, and then applying this doctrine of truth to one's daily willing, thinking, and doing (see Section xx).

It is not yet known in our modern times that the heaven of our eternity is located within spiritual-rational and celestial-rational correspondences of Sacred Scripture. When we understand and love these rational correspondences of Divine Speech, which means living and thinking according to them, then we are preparing our spiritual mind to be a conjugial heaven in which we know God directly and receive from Him all that we are willing and able to take in terms of human potential and happiness.

It is clear that knowledge about eternity and God is not possible to be discovered through the sensations from our physical body and the reasoning power of our natural mind. The proof of this is that traditional science, with its amazing history of inventions and explanations, knows zero about eternity and God, so that all it can do is to deny that such things exist or are part of scientific reality. Another proof is that the enormous scholarship and effort invested over the centuries in the literature on religion, God, and spirituality, has brought zero knowledge about God and eternity, and only wild speculations and disagreements among them.

All this proves that scientific and scholarly knowledge of God cannot be discovered and invented, but only received from God through the correspondences of Divine Speech in Sacred Scripture -- not the literal sense of Sacred Scripture (which is sectarian religion), but the revealed correspondential sense that lies hidden within (see Section xx). The diagram below portrays the distinct difference between religion and theistic psychology, even though they are both closely related to Sacred Scripture.

Sacred Scripture is the expression of Divine Speech in a natural language, transformed through the laws of correspondences that God used to create the layers of mind and existence (see Section xx). See the Layers Diagram.

Although the sentences of Sacred Scripture are written out by a an individual in a particular language and culture, they are not the individual's own sentences, but sentences that have been transformed by correspondences as Divine Speech descends into that individual's mind from its unconscious spiritual level to its conscious natural level (see Section xx). First, Divine Speech enters the celestial-rational mind of the individual. This is unconscious while we are still connected to the physical world. Second, Divine Speech descends into the spiritual-rational layer of the individual's mind, which is also unconscious until our resuscitation (see Section xx). Third, Divine Speech descends by correspondential meaning into the natural mind of the individual, where it becomes conscious and the person is able to write it down. The "prophet" or "revelator" does not himself know what layers of correspondential meanings lie hidden with the sentences they write down. They and others are only aware of the literal meaning.

The descent of Divine Speech through the layers of the human mind takes place by correspondences (see Section xx). Those who are conscious in their celestial-rational mind after their resuscitation (see Section xx), are conscious of Divine Speech in terms of celestial-rational correspondences (see Section xx). These celestial-rational meanings or truths give human beings the highest possible consciousness, knowledge, worship, and love of God.

Those who, after resuscitation, are conscious in their spiritual-rational mind, are conscious of Divine Speech in terms of spiritual-rational correspondences (see Section xx). These meanings of Sacred Scripture give human beings the next lowest possible consciousness, knowledge, worship, and love of God. Those who are conscious in their natural mind, namely, us while we are still connected to earth, are conscious of Divine Speech in terms of natural correspondences of Divine Speech (see Section xx). These natural meanings of Sacred Scripture give human beings the next lowest possible consciousness, knowledge, worship, and love of God.

We are connected to earth by the laws of correspondences which functionally link together our mental body in eternity and our physical body in time-space. Our conscious natural mind is capable of entering virtually, as a training ground, into the various layers of worship and love of God. We begin with natural worship and love of God which is based on our ethnic membership in a particular religion and our historical ties to the literal meaning of Sacred Scripture recognized in that religion. If we do not try to live by the truths of Sacred Scripture as we understand them, then we are not preparing ourselves adequately for immortality in eternity (see Section xx). Instead of being or existing in a heaven within our spiritual-rational mind, our consciousness then sinks into the bottom of our natural mind, which is called the corporeal-sensuous mind, as opposed to the natural-rational mind (see Section xx). See the Layers Diagram.

At this level of feeling and thinking, the correspondences of Sacred Scripture cannot be comprehended rationally. All truth of Sacred Scripture is inverted and perverted through irrational thoughts and feelings, which taken together as a whole, are called the human hells in the mind (see Section xx). It is our choice, but the choice is to be made prior to death, while we still can reform our character from inherited hellish traits to freely acquired heavenly traits (see Section xx).

To the extent that we try to live by the truths of Sacred Scripture that we understand, to that extent God can elevate our consciousness from the natural-sensuous thinking and feeling, to the natural-rational thinking and feeling (see Section xx). When God thus elevates and enlightens our understanding of Him, we become capable of a higher spiritual-rational worship and love of God, as a result of which God can further elevate our consciousness from natural-rational, to spiritual-rational, and finally to celestial-rational meanings of Sacred Scripture.

 This process of elevation of the individual by God takes place through

(1) the individual's rational study and understanding of Sacred Scripture as Divine Truth, and
(2) in proportion to the individual's efforts at applying this understanding to one's daily willing, thinking, and doing. This means undergoing spiritual temptations.

        1.0.1.3.1   What are Spiritual Temptations

Knowledge of Divine truth cannot change our hellish character, but can only give us an understanding of how God's truth is to dictate our willing, thinking, and doing. Conjunction with God occurs afterward, and only to the extent that we are willing to give up our hellish and selfish enjoyments, and replace them with heavenly and altruistic enjoyments. In proportion as we do this, to that extent we are conjoined to God in rational understanding, worship, and love. Conjunction with God gives us an eternal conjugial heaven with a maximum of human love, altruism, enjoyment, and happiness (in the affective organ), along with their consequent rationality, wisdom. intelligence, knowledge, and inventiveness (in the cognitive organ).

We vary in sincerity and consistency. We must be willing to undergo the temptations that God puts in our way in our mind. This requires spiritual combat. Our understanding of Divine truth from Sacred Scripture provides the weapons for the combat against our hellish enjoyments (see Section xx). Once we engage in combat, as if of our own, then God immediately manages the victory for us. We can have no victory if we believe that we are fighting our evils with our own power and intelligence. God can provide victory only if we acknowledge in our mind and understand rationally, that by ourselves we have zero power since God is omnipotent and has all the power.

Remember this:
Spiritual temptations are within the natural temptations. It is not possible simply to have a spiritual temptation, but only a natural temptation within which lies deeply hidden a spiritual temptation. We can have natural temptations alone, without spiritual temptations in them. This phase is needed so that we can build a virtuous character to counterbalance our inherited preference for selfishness. In the selfish phase we are irrational because we are convinced that selfishness is better than altruism. If we continue in this mode of thinking all our lives, then when we are resuscitated, we automatically and gleefully choose selfishness for our eternal life, and this is in the hells of our mind (see Section xx). So it is in our best interest to use our conscience and our common sense to oppose selfish traits and to become a responsible ethical citizen. We do this by fighting our natural temptations like procrastination, laziness, deception for convenience and gain, revenge, rage, putting others at risk, being inconsiderate to neighbors or room mates, out of control gambling, drugs, promiscuity, etc. etc. These are character flaws and weaknesses that the Divine Psychologist brings to our attention through events in our environment, like who we meet when, what we remember or forget, what someone says or does, what emotions come to us, etc. etc. God manages these mental events so that our focus of attention may come to our temptation. In this way we can choose to give in and continue, or to resist and stop.

This is God's purpose, as revealed in Sacred Scripture regarding the process of regeneration (see Section xx). This is also called the process of becoming a spiritual person (see Section xx). It means that the phase of the natural temptations is going well with you so that you can enter the next phase, the one that really matters. This phase begins when you begin to think about the spiritual meaning and significance of your natural temptations. For example, let's say you've been working on yourself to be more considerate to people around you. So you turn down the volume on your radio or TV, avoid leaving dishes in the kitchen sink, and continue flossing your teeth every day. You are motivated to do this because you want to become a better, nicer, more rational person. You are experiencing natural temptations that bring thoughts to your mind in which you are trying to explain away your selfish actions, e.g., "Everybody else leaves dishes in the sink, so I will too." or, "I don't mind annoying my neighbors with my TV so I can retaliate against their partying late at night and keeping me awake." Etc. These are natural temptations because you have to use natural reasons to fight these thoughts and defeat them. For instance, you can say to yourself: "I've got to rise above it and be a better person they are. Their gad behavior does not justify my bad behavior. Treat them like you want them to treat you, not like they are treating you." Etc. These are natural-rational reasonings.

Once you begin to win these natural temptations on a regular basis and reliably, you are prepared for the spiritual temptations. In order to overcome spiritual temptations you must have spiritual truths to fight with. Prior to your possessing spiritual truths, God does not bring you into spiritual temptation, that is, God does not allow your mind to experience such thoughts. The reason is that if you did experience such temptations, you would give in to them. And once you give in to spiritual temptations your mental conditions is worse than before, much worse. Hence God is very careful to prevent you from having spiritual temptations until you have equipped yourself with spiritual truths that can fight these reasonings. For instance, you now avoid leaving dishes in the sink. Every time you are tempted to leave the dishes or postpone cleaning up, you reason it out with yourself, thinking that it's not fair for the other people, and you want to be a fair person instead of a hypocrite. You are successfully overcoming your natural temptation with your natural-rational reasoning. But now what if you were to think: "I don't need to be totally fair as long as I can get away with it. It's not good to be too good in a competitive world. Too much fairness is a weakness. Let the do-gooders who believe in truth and decency be fair. Me I rather be a winner and unfair, than fair and a loser in life."

You might have read some philosophy or self-help book that leads you to such thinking. If now, all of a sudden,  you begin to wonder whether such selfism is right or wrong, good or evil, in God's order or against it, then you are experiencing a spiritual temptation within the natural temptation.

People can read and adopt such philosophies of selfism and cynicism but they may do so without critically evaluating it. This means that the ideas of selfism are just on the surface of one's memory, having read it, and even saying that one likes it or adopts it, but without actually doing so in daily events. For instance, you turn down the radio volume because it bothers you that the sound bothers others. This is not selfism but the opposite. And when you have an opportunity to cheat without getting caught, and you decide not to because it's wrong and you don't want to be that type of person, then you are acting against the philosophy of selfism. But this is still a natural temptation and a natural victory. It leaves you connected to inherited character flaws related to selfism. In other words, though you reject selfish acts on the outside of your public life, you retain selfish emotions and intentions that are within, not so conscious. For example, you might prefer to avoid being inconsiderate for the purpose of gaining acceptance by others, which allows you to practice selfish traits without others knowing about it. This is sometimes called "having ulterior motives" and being "manipulative."

But now you started thinking more seriously about your afterlife and God. You are wondering whether it is right for you to be considerate for selfish reasons. You are now aware that God knows when you are selfish and pretending to be considerate for the purpose of gain, manipulation, or reputation. This is a spiritual temptation. God is bringing this spiritual temptation to you at this time because you have already acquired some spiritual truths from Sacred Scripture or from your conscience, or from some other person who already possesses spiritual truths. The natural temptation you are having is: "It's all right for me to look out for myself since no one else will. The strong win, the weak deserve to lose." The spiritual temptation you are having simultaneously is: "Only God is strong. Evil may appear to pay off, but in the end, evil return to evil. I don't want to be in evil. God gives me the power to make the right choices, to be good." This is a spiritual temptation, spiritual battle, spiritual victory. Spiritual enlightenment is experienced the moment one makes the decision against evil in oneself. Then comes spiritual ecstasy and peace (see below).

So spiritual temptations are always given within natural temptations and the two cannot be separated.

To understand this process in detail you need to know the difference between:
(a) being considerate for the sake of self 
(b) being considerate for the sake of others
(c) being considerate for the sake of God 
For explanations, see Sections 6.4 to 6.7

Under some conditions we fall into the persuasion that to fight our temptations as if on our own, would be to think that the power to fight is ours -- which is a hellish thought against the reality of truth. As a result of this kind of thinking, we fall into a passive mode and wait for God to liberate us in our trial. But this strategy cannot work and it prevents character reformation. In that case God cannot bring spiritual temptations for us to fight, but only natural temptations (see Sections xx). Natural temptations build our external personality, appearance, and overt conduct. This is necessary for acquiring morality according to one's conscience (See Section 7.0.4.1). But the inner character cannot be altered by natural temptations. It requires spiritual temptations. God brings spiritual temptations to our mind to the extent of our rational understanding of truth from Sacred Scripture (see Section xx).

Without the truth of Sacred Scripture in our rational understanding, God cannot bring spiritual temptations to our mind, and as a result, we cannot be regenerated. We die in the character that we inherited, which is a hell (see Section xx). Only the truth of Sacred Scripture, applied to spiritual temptations, can give us the new heavenly character we need to live in the heavens of our eternity (see Section xx).

Hence it is necessary for us to have in our understanding Divine rational truth in order for us to be prepared for heaven by temptations through regeneration or daily efforts at character reformation. The higher the rationality in our understanding of truth from Sacred Scripture,  the more we can be regenerated by God to higher and higher heavenly potentials, in proportion to our daily efforts in applying the truth to our daily willing, thinking, and doing.

It makes sense therefore to think that God has provided a method by which we can acquire higher and higher meanings, or more and more rational meanings, so that we can apply it to our daily willing and thinking, and thereby become celestial beings in our heavenly eternity (see Section xx).

The diagram above shows that theistic psychology, and theistic science generally, is the scientific knowledge that is extracted from Sacred Scripture, when we apply the method of correspondences with enlightenment (see Section xx). There are two ideas to understand here: correspondences and enlightenment.

When Divine Speech, or Divine Truth, descends by correspondences through the layers of the human mind, we are conscious of it differently at each successive layer. That is, Divine Speech forms our consciousness at each level of the mind, through meanings of Sacred Scripture. See the Layers Diagram.

Divine Speech becomes conscious to human beings through the meanings of Sacred Scripture, and these meanings in the layers of the mind vary from highest (celestial-rational) to lowest (natural-sensuous), that is, from most rational to less and less rational. Divine Speech is Divine Truth hidden in layers of Sacred Scripture, and therefore it is pure and absolute rationality. This Divine rationality is adapted or accommodated to the individual's mind by means of the layers of meanings in correspondences. When we ask, What does this sentence of Sacred Scripture mean? And then when we give a paraphrase of it, then our thinking is operating at some level across the layers of meanings possible in our mind, from highest to lowest (see Section xx).

The change in meaning of Sacred Scripture is managed by God through successive levels of correspondences. God wants us to know what these laws of correspondences are that He uses to manage the created universe through Divine Speech (see Section xx). God has therefore revealed through the Writings Sacred Scripture what these correspondences are (see Section xx). Illustrations and demonstrations will be given in the following Sections (see also Section xx). See the Layers Diagram.

One must therefore study and understand the laws of correspondences by which Divine Speech becomes Sacred Scripture at various levels of human thinking and feeling. These laws are Divine and cannot be discovered. Nor must we invent them or construct them from human intelligence. In the Writings Sacred Scripture, God has revealed what these correspondences are. The same correspondences apply to all Sacred Scripture since there is only one Divine Speech that filters through the various natural language versions of Sacred Scripture in all the genuine religions that God has created on this earth.

Important to note the following:
It is taught in the Writings Sacred Scripture that knowing correspondences is useless unless God enlightens the individual's mind to perceive their spiritual-rational correspondences, and later, their celestial-rational correspondences (see Section xx).

You can read a dictionary of correspondences (see Section xx) and try to understand the spiritual meaning of natural expressions in Sacred Scripture -- but this will only allow you to perceive the natural meaning of these correspondences. For instance we can read in the dictionary of correspondences that when Sacred Scripture mentions "water" (rain, ocean, river, flood) it is actually discussing natural truths in our understanding. But when Sacred Scripture is mentioning "wine" it is actually discussing spiritual truths. This is easy to translate mechanically, but what does it mean? What is spiritual truth vs. natural truth? In order to know this, we need to study other passages of Sacred Scripture while God is opening our rational understanding of it. And God does this with any person who is studying for the sake of applying the truth to daily life.

Theistic psychology is the scientific knowledge that we accumulate through the method of correspondences with enlightenment. You can see the result of this effort as you read throughout the 18 volumes of this work. If your purpose for studying theistic psychology is to acquire correspondential truths from Sacred Scripture, with a view to applying them to your daily willing, thinking, and doing, then God will enlighten you, raise your consciousness to the highest levels, and empower you with wisdom and conjugial love (see Section xx).

Divine Speech emanates from God the Divine Human and permeates the universe, creating the mental world, and the physical world in successive order, and maintaining everything in a simultaneous order order that serves God's purpose of love for humanity (see Section xx). Divine Speech enters the human mind at the highest level of consciousness that humans are created into called the Third Heaven in the spiritual mind. Then it descends and exteriorizes to the Second Heaven in our spiritual mind. From there, to the First Heaven in our spiritual mind. From there into the rational and the natural mind, which is where we become conscious of our mental operations.

We first become conscious of Divine Speech in our natural mind when we read Sacred Scripture, or are exposed to derivative forms of it such as prayers, songs, stories, lessons, instructions. At this point we understand Divine Speech in a natural way, in the way we understand the instructions or explanations of teachers and parents. As we grow older and we are able to read Sacred Scripture on our own, we begin to form more abstract notions of God, though not yet spiritual notions. As we become more mature we also become conscious of the voice of conscience in our rational mind (See Section 7.0.4.1). This is a second way in which we become conscious of Divine Speech. We have the liberty to reject what we hear from Sacred Scripture and from our conscience. If we do this repeatedly until it becomes a habit, then we cannot regenerate our character, and after resuscitation we insist on living in the hellish thoughts and feelings we have acquired and loved.

Focusing our attention on Sacred Scripture brings us into direct contact with God because the content of Sacred Scripture is Divine Speech expressed in a natural language for the natural mind of humanity. You can see from the two anatomical diagrams discussed that before Divine Speech reaches the conscious natural mind, it has passed through the spiritual mind and the rational mind without our knowing it at the time. In fact, the spiritual substances of good and truth from the Spiritual Sun must continuously inflow into the mind, or else the mind collapses or is extinguished. But this is not possible. After we are resuscitated, a few hours following the death of the physical body, we become conscious in our spiritual mind. Then for the first time, as experienced by Swedenborg, we begin to see rational things in Sacred Scripture which before were hidden from our conscious awareness.

Swedenborg reports that he often was able to see and inspect the books of Sacred Scripture in the mental world of eternity. In fact, he saw libraries of books there, that stood visible as long as the person in it was interested. But when the person is in a different mental state, no libraries are seen. Further, when a person sees a library there, only those books are seen which the person has an interest in, and can understand the content. So the book in the mental world of eternity are not like books in the physical world which are read and held through the physical body. Obviously, every book that has ever been written is merely a physical containant of mental ideas rendered through sentences. There is an exact correspondence between physical sentences and mental events that create meaning for them to the reader or hearer. So it's logical to expect that every physical book on earth is just a copy of a mental book in the world of eternity. Swedenborg reports that books of Sacred Scripture in the spiritual mind of eternity appear to glow with an intense light that blinds anyone from approaching, unless the person's mind has been prepared for reception of Divine Speech.

Without this preparation, the person's mind would go through a melt down. Once Swedenborg saw a man recently resuscitated, approach the book of Sacred Scripture, ignoring the warning given him by a by-stander. The instant he reached out his hand to touch it, he was thrown at a great distance away, where he lay unconscious for awhile, before coming to, and going away.

Saying that Divine Speech is proceeding from God is exactly the same as saying that Divine Truth is proceeding from God.

Divine Truth is a spiritual substance called spiritual light that is streaming forth from the Spiritual Sun that Swedenborg was able to see in the world of eternity that was in his spiritual mind (see Section xx). At age 57 he suddenly found himself with the unique ability of being conscious in his spiritual mind, which is unconscious to us until the afterlife. When we are resuscitated a few hours after death, we awaken in full conscious awareness of our spiritual mind, which until then was unconscious. Now it is the natural mind that becomes unconscious, and the spiritual mind becomes conscious. As a result, we can no longer see or hear anything in the physical world through our physical body, to which we are no longer connected by correspondence. The physical body dies when it can no longer be in correspondence with the mental body, due to illness or other causes. Becoming conscious in our spiritual mind means that we can now hear, see, and feel everything in the world of eternity called the spiritual world.

Swedenborg discovered that this world of eternity outside time-space, which is known to people from Sacred Scripture, is nothing else than the mental world of humanity which existed since creation. This fact is not known outside theistic psychology and Swedenborgian theology. No one today knows this "heavenly secret"  and when you tell your friends, it will be big news! Just remember this formula and learn to explain it from the discussions above:

 spiritual world of afterlife in eternity = mental world we are already in now

(see "born into eternity" as "dual citizens").

Since Swedenborg was the only scientist in history whose spiritual mind was conscious, he is the only scientist in history who can give us an objective and empirical description of the spiritual world of eternity. Everything that he wrote down and published, called the Writings of Swedenborg (published between 1747-1771), is part of Divine Speech as Sacred Scripture in a natural language. God opened or made conscious Swedenborg's spiritual mind so that he could objectively report to the world of science what the conditions are in the afterlife of eternity. To study Swedenborg's Writings as Sacred Scripture is the positive bias in science, as discussed.

From all this you can see what are the three basic premises upon which theistic psychology is founded, namely

• dualism of substances in time vs. eternity

• theism of Divine influx controlling all phenomena

• revelation from the hidden scientific meaning of Sacred Scripture

Practice talking about these concepts after taking notes from the discussion on Topic 1.

1.0.2  Topic 2: The Spiritual World of Eternity

When Swedenborg's spiritual mind became conscious at age 57 his amazing discovery was that the spiritual world of eternity in the afterlife was nothing else than what we call the mental world!

In other words:

spiritual world = mental world = rational substances = afterlife = eternity

This equation brings it home to us. We are very familiar with the mental world. We are in it. It is our life. Take away our sensations, thoughts, and feelings, and what have we got left? Nothing but a biological shell, like a tree or rock. Human beings are alive in the sense that their sensations, thoughts, and feelings are alive. This is the mental world. So the mental world is alive, unlike the physical world which is dead.

Note carefully the rational answer to: Where are you now?

You are not in this physical room. Your physical body is in this room. You are not your physical body just like the banana peel is not the banana. Your mind or mental body is in the mental world. What is so familiar to us from minute by minute experience and life, is actually the spiritual world of the afterlife in eternity known to people from Sacred Scripture. We don't know this directly or by observation because we have no awareness of our spiritual mind, like we do of our natural mind. As long as our spiritual mind remains unconscious, we have the illusion or compelling sensation that we are in the room, with the physical body, and that what we are sensing through the body is the room and its environment.

But in fact we are not sensing the room, nor the stimulus from the room to the sensory organs and the brain. We are sensing the sensations in our mind, the thoughts in our mind, the feelings in our mind. We are sensing the mental world, not the physical world. The two are of course in correspondence (see Topic 1), so that my sensations in the mental world correspond to the neuronal activity in the brain. These physical neural operations in the brain correspond to the physical details of the room and its environment.

Once you realize this -- that your natural mind exists in the spiritual world, not in this physical world -- you can begin to understand that we are immortal human beings. Your personality, your memories and identity, your feelings, emotions, and thoughts -- these are not physical and temporal materials; they are immortal, eternal, spiritual substances constructed out of spiritual heat and light from the Spiritual Sun (see Section xx). Hence you can see that sensations, thoughts and feelings must be immortal and eternal, because they are not existent in time and space. As a mental being it is not possible for you to be in a physical room.

Swedenborg discovered that when he was conscious in his spiritual mind he was able to be in company with people he had known who had died, and people he read about in history and literature. This proved that everyone who dies is resuscitated in the spiritual world and continues life there forever. Swedenborg observed thousands of people die and be resuscitated about 36 hours later in the spiritual world. Most of these people he said are pretty surprised to see themselves up and running after dying.

Swedenborg's discovery that the spiritual world of the afterlife, being eternity, is nothing else than what we call the mental world, is surely the greatest scientific discovery of all times.

This amazing discovery changes our most fundamental concepts of the universe and life.

Substantive dualism is not a theoretical supposition. It is an absolute fact that is familiar to every human being. Nothing can be more familiar to us than the mental world of our sensations, thoughts, and feelings in which our conscious awareness is immersed every moment of our life. Who would have suspected this amazing fact that Swedenborg discovered, namely, that this familiar mental world is the world of eternity!!

Sensations, thoughts, and feelings are operations or states of mental organs that are made of spiritual substances, and not at all like physical objects made of physical matter, like the brain. Physical objects are in time and space, hence they must be temporary. Everything temporary is in time-space, and everything in time-space is temporary, that is, has a temporary existence, not permanent. But mental objects like thoughts and feelings are not in time and space. Thoughts have no mass, no physical energy, and cannot be measured or detected by anything physical. Only the brain's activity can be measured. Thoughts and feelings cannot be measured because they take up no space, they have no weight, no mass, and no time dimension. It is the same with sensations and feelings.

Mental objects are spiritual objects, and everything spiritual is outside time and space, and this is called eternity. Our sensations, thoughts and feelings are in eternity. They can never leave eternity and enter time-space. They cannot stop existing because they are made of eternal living substances (see Section xx). Your personality, which is nothing but your sensations, thoughts and feelings, is therefore eternal or immortal. Your self is immortal. You are immortal! We are born into eternity and our self exists only in the world of eternity outside time and space. This is the mental world, which is also called the spiritual world.

You are immortal. Wait till you tell the good news to your friends! You can say: "I bear good news. You were born immortal. Only your physical body is in time and space, and when it dies, your conscious awareness awakens in the spiritual mind, which until then remained unconscious." See if they are willing for you to explain it rationally. But if they don't take it seriously, do not despair. Continue studying theistic psychology and soon you will understand enough to really prove it to them -- anyone who believes in you enough to hear you out all the way with a positive bias.

Swedenborg's reports are hardly known today after being published and republished for more than 200 years now. And yet these reports present and prove his amazing discovery that there is only one mental world called the spiritual world of eternity. Every human being is born into this one mental world, which has been called the spiritual world of eternity. When we are born we are dual citizens for awhile. Our physical body and organs are born in the natural world while our mental body and organs are born into the spiritual world. The two are connected until the physical body dies. When the separation occurs, we are resuscitated or awakened in our spiritual mind which was unconscious until then. We were conscious in our natural mind only. Hence we could not see or be aware of the other people who were also there in the spiritual world. Now that our natural mind is made unconscious, our awareness is brought to our spiritual mind. Now we are able to see and interact with the people who are also there. Swedenborg interviewed thousands of people, some of whom he knew while they were alive in Sweden, others he knew only from history books, and yet he was able to see them as they are now and to talk to them.

At the end of his last book published in 1771, Swedenborg gives an Index of his spiritual travelogues which he calls "Memorable Relations" -- things he saw and heard in the spiritual world of the afterlife, outside time and space. You can read all his Writings and Memorable Relations online at:
www.theheavenlydoctrines.org  and at  www.smallcanonsearch.com/ 

Use the following conversion Table to help you translate the religious literal content to its universal scientific meaning.
 

Religious Literal content of the Writings Sacred Scripture	Conversion to Universal Scientific Content in Theistic Psychology
the Lord	God the Divine Psychologist
His New Church, the New Jerusalem	theistic psychology
He has opened the interiors of my mind or spirit	God activated my conscious awareness in the spiritual mind
angels	people in the afterlife with a heavenly personality
evil spirits, satans	people in the afterlife with a hellish personality
men	people
Who in the Christian world	Who among believers of all religions that worship one God
spiritual world, the heavens	the mental world of eternity or afterlife
the Word	Sacred Scripture

Note: underlined words are theistic psychology renditions of the original, as indicated in the conversion Table above. The number where the Memorable Relation can be found is marked in parenthesis at the end of each paragraph below.

TCR 851. I foresee that many who read the Memorable Relations annexed to the chapters in this work will believe them to be inventions of the imagination. But I affirm in truth that they are not inventions, but were truly seen and heard; not seen and heard in any sleeping state of mind, but in a state of full wakefulness. For it has pleased God to manifest Himself to me, and to send me to teach those things which will belong to theistic psychology, which is meant by "the New Jerusalem" in the Apocalypse. For this purpose God activated my conscious awareness in the spiritual mind, whereby I have been permitted to be in the spiritual world with people in the afterlife with a heavenly personality, and at the same time in the natural world with people, and this now during twenty-seven years.

Who among the religious believers of all faith that worship one God could have known anything about Heaven and Hell, had it not pleased God the Divine Psychologist to open the sight of someone's spirit, and show and teach him? That such things as are described in the Memorable Relations do appear in the mental world of eternity or afterlife, is made clear by the like things seen and described by John in the Apocalypse, also in the Sacred Scripture of the Old Testament by the prophets.

 This topic is dealt with in more detail in several places in theistic psychology (see Section xx).

1.0.3   Topic 3: Divine Speech, Sacred Scripture, and Conjunction With God

Sacred Scripture is Divine Speech transformed by correspondence into a natural language (see Section xx). All genuine Sacred Scripture has therefore two levels of meaning. The clearly visible literal sense is historical and cultural, leading to particular religions. The hidden correspondential sense is universal and culture-free. Hence although the literal sense of the various collections of Sacred Scripture is necessarily cultural and ethnic, also divisive against each other, the hidden correspondential sense of all Sacred Scripture is unified and consistent, relating to the rationality and love of Divine Speech as One God for all.

(See also Section 15.0 for additional discussion)

1.0.3.1  Part 3A: The Psychobiology of Conjunction with the Divine Human

Our life of immortality is not something that belongs to us. It is not inherent in us. We are human "vessels" or receptor organs, created to receive life from God by reacting to God's influx with good and truth substances. In other words, God cannot give life to us in the sense that we then possess life from ourselves as we go about our daily life. For example, when you fill your car's gas tank and drive off (after paying for it), you have that gas in the car. It is yours and the car's. God cannot give life to us like the gas station gives gas to the car. Think instead of your electric stove at home. When you turn it on and it gives out heat, that operation of giving heat is totally dependent on the inflowing electricity into the elements that consequently heat up. As soon as the flow of electricity is cut off, the heat stops. So the heat element is capable of reacting to the inflow of electricity in such a way as to generate heat.

This is similar by analogy to the situation with God's life inflowing into the mental organs which were constructed by God out of the spiritual substances of good and truth, so that they may be able to react to new inflow of good and truth from God.

"To be able to react" = being affected = being conjoined.

The ear drums of our physical body are constructed out of physical substances to have the property of reacting to the inflow of air waves produced by sounds in endless variety. The cognitive organ of our mental body is constructed out of spiritual substances to have the property of reacting to the inflow of truth substances in endless variety. What is amazing is that these two operations -- in the ear drum and in the cognitive organ -- must go on together, synchronously, in simultaneous order, if we are going to hear sounds and interpret their meaning.

 Our mind has existential continuity because it is re-created, re-born, every instant from birth to eternity. This is literally true, not an exaggeration. God has revealed this astonishing fact about the universe! The mental world and the physical world are created by the inflow of good and truth, and they live in a moment of time. Then they die. But here comes the next inflow of good and truth, and recreates the mind, exactly such as it was the instant before. Then the universe dies. God recreates it once more the next instant, exactly such as it was before. And this goes on to endless time and eternity.

So if we know this, then we cannot rationally attribute any power, any life, or any intelligence to ourselves. From ourselves we are dead organic receptors, being revived from instant to instant by inflow of new life into our mental organs. We also would want to realize that the Divine Human does all this out of love for us, so He wills that we not feel the death-recreation cycle instant by instant. In this way we have a sensation of subjective continuity of life from ourselves, as-of self, forever, endlessly. This is the result of God's love for us. The Writings Sacred Scripture reveal that the essence of love is to desire to make another happy from ourselves. For instance, most pet owners love their pets, and when you observe them with their pets you can see how they are always trying to make their pet happy.

It is the same with parents who are always striving to benefit their child from what they own -- their house, their money, their services, their attention, their promises, their contacts. In short, if you love someone you try to make them happy or benefit them out of what you own yourself. God the Divine Human has good and truth in infinite variety that He wishes, desires, and intends to benefit us with. If we believe that these goods and truths are from ourselves, instead of from God, we interrupt the inflow of good and truth, and what we end up with are their filtered opposites manufactured in our mind -- corrupted goods called evil, and falsified truths called falsities. God communicates scientific facts to the human race through Sacred Scripture, but not directly in the literal meaning, for this would not be understood by most people who rely on Sacred Scripture for their religion.

The scientific revelations laid hidden in Sacred Scripture for thousands of years before God could prepare the human race for their rational understanding. This required the modern mind of science. Swedenborg (1688-1772), a noted and respected scientist in his era, was among the first to achieve a modern scientific mind in the mode of theism. Until then the topic and study of God remained in the exclusive prerogative of religious people and theology experts. But now, with theistic psychology having arrived on the scene of science, God is entering the realm of modern science. This is possible only because of the Swedenborg reports, which are called the Writings Sacred Scripture (see Section xx).

When you are thinking about how God's Divine Human life inflows into us and does not belong to us, you can give your friends this analogy. Think of the TV we watch. It is designed to receive electronic signals that are displayed on the screen and loudspeaker. The TV does not possess the content of those images and sounds. It just receives them. Similarly, we do not possess life, intelligence, rationality, power, or freedom of our own. These are spiritual things belonging to God. But God constructed our mental organs out of spiritual eternal substances called good and truth, and designed the organs to function as as receptors of good and truth substances that issue from God and belong to God even when these substances are in our mental organs and are operating our thoughts and feelings!

Even then, the good and truth remain belonging to God since God cannot give away anything Divine, hence cannot separate anything Divine from Himself. But He can extend Himself to exist outside of Himself (see Section xx). This is the meaning of "Divine influx" which refers to how God extends Himself to exist in created things. This extending is accomplished by means of the spiritual substances of good and truth proceeding from Himself to outside of Himself into creation ("influx").  And whatever has proceeded to be outside of Himself still remains Himself, though now in a different relationship to humanity than before (see Section xx).

So there is God in Himself (unreachable to human beings), and there is God as He extends Himself outside of Himself in the created world (reachable by human beings). Human beings can be conjoined to God outside of Himself, but not to God as He is within Himself. The expression "Divine Proceeding" or "Holy Spirit" is often used to refer to the part of God we can be adjoined to and conjoined with, namely the good and truth from Him as Him in our mental organs. It is not logical to think that the Divine good and truth within our mental organs is ours, and those who think in this way, might even say that human beings are God. A lesser version of this belief is that human beings are pieces of God. Another belief is that we are unreal images as we know ourselves, and there in reality we are God. And so on. These various accounts of how we are related to God are not based on Sacred Scripture, hence they are not part of theistic psychology.

We need to make a distinction between

(1)     "our afterlife in eternity" -- which is created and has a beginning in the creation of the human race; and

(2)     "the uncreated eternity of the Divine Itself"

Only the second is infinite, not the first. “Infinite” is defined as having no beginning and no end. Only God and His attributes – love, good, truth, life, rationality – are infinite and have no beginning. Hence the created dual universe is finite for it has a beginning even if it will have no end. So it’s rational to think that the infra-structure or building blocks of the finite created dual universe has to be the uncreate things of good and truth – since there is nothing else created out of which then created universe can come from or be built out of. Something cannot be built out of nothing. So the only rational conclusion is that the infrastructure or building blocks of creation are uncreate, infinite, with no beginning.

Theistic psychology refers to the afterlife as “the mental world of eternity" because the mental world of the human race is constructed out of spiritual heat (or love) and light (or truth) from the Spiritual Sun (the Aura around God), and these two substances are uncreate and infinite in the Divine eternity of love and truth that has no beginning. Hence the eternity of the human afterlife has a beginning even though it can be endless. Because of this mixed nature, the mental world of eternity can interact with an infinite God since then mental world is constructed out of the uncreate substances of this infinite God.

Hence it is that we must make a distinction between "God as He is in Himself" from infinite eternity without beginning vs. "God as He is Outside of Himself in Creation" such as

• Divine Speech

• the correspondential sense of Sacred Scripture

• the Doctrine of Truth from Sacred Scripture

• the voice of conscience

• the soul

• the Divine Psychologist (“Holy Spirit”)

• Divine Providence

• The Divine Child or the Natural Divine Human

 These are various manifestations or appearances of "God as He is Outside of Himself." Note carefully that it is irrational to think that God can create a universe without Himself being in it, for He would then not be omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. But at the same time rationality dictates that these two cannot be the same. Hence the infrastructure of creation is God as He is in Himself, but the creation itself is not God, but manifestations of God as He is Outside of Himself. The manifestations appear finite and therefore can relate to finite things like human beings.

Note also that the finite Divine manifestations of God in the created dual universe are part of an evolutionary process by which God shapes, guides, and pulls the development of human consciousness and potential generation after generation.

Note also that this rational conception of God and creation is not at all like some theories or philosophies that say that we ourselves are God but don't realize it until we evolve our individual mind towards higher and higher consciousness through reincarnated lives. This view is contrary to scientific dualism in theistic psychology. God as He is in Himself is a Person who always was, in whom infinite love and truth make one. This Divine Person Creator could not be somebody else, like a human being He created with a beginning.

You can see from the two charts in the previous section that when you look at your physical body in the mirror, and you do it with theistic psychology x-ray vision, you are looking at an external "temple of God" inasmuch as your mind is a discrete degree within your physical body, your heaven in eternity is in your spiritual mind, and God the Divine Human is a discrete degree within that heaven. Clearly then, God exists as the inmost of your physical body in terms of discrete degrees. You cannot logically think that this portion is yours! If it were yours, you would be God. But you are not God. So it is not logical to think this way.

But at the same time you can see from this biological account that we are in symbiotic relationship to God. This relationship has two modes of depth --

• (1) adjunction to God

• (2) conjunction with God

The closer or deeper we are conjoined with God the more good and truth we can receive from Him. This shows itself as greater intelligence, inventiveness, skillfulness, love, happiness, and zest of life. These are the substances of good and truth in infinite variety operating in our sensorimotor, cognitive, and affective organs (see Section xx). Those who deny God in the negative bias mode are nevertheless equally dependent on conjunction as those who love God. Every human being by birthright, is entitled to receive things from God. This is granted by God to everyone, even those who ridicule Him and construct magical rites and belief systems to pervert His good and truth. Even they are entitled to inalienable rights they have for being born human beings.

One such human right is immortality. It is awful to think of ourselves as temporary and mortal. It hurts our true humanity to believe such an illogical idea. It perverts our conscience and leads us to a hellish personality (See Section 7.0.4.1). So God effects unconscious conjunction in the mind of those who deny Him or pervert Him. He protects their right to spiritual freedom, so that at any moment in their life from birth to eternity, they have the endless opportunity to change their mind, to turn toward reality, hence to God Himself who is the center of their reality and the origin of everything they own and desire.

The purpose of religion over the millennia on this planet has been to conjoin human beings to God. According to the dictionary, the word "religion" comes from the Latin "religare" meaning to connect or to bond  with God. So God uses religion for conjoining human beings to Himself, so that He may bestow upon them ever more good and truth, and thereby to make them happy from Himself. So human happiness and ability are the outward operations of the Divine Human substances of good and truth inflowing instant by instant, into our mental body. First, into the unconscious spiritual mind, where our heaven is. Second, into our rational mind, and thence into our natural mind. Our physical body is consciously operated by our natural mind. this is the mechanism of living as a human being.

It is clear that our biological immortality belongs to God, not to us, and we have it only as long as we are conjoined to God by unconscious influx and reception, and by conscious communication through rational ideas from Sacred Scripture. The instant we should go "offline" so to speak, and stop receiving the spiritual input signal of life, power, love, and intelligence, that instant we disintegrate into something incoherent that dissipates and disappears from existence as a human being.

To understand how we are alive and what it means to be alive, we need to know what God has revealed about Himself to humanity. These revelations are known as Sacred Scripture. The literal meaning of Sacred Scripture in a natural language was given to serve as the basis of religion. The scientific meaning hidden within the literal, was given to serve as the basis for theistic science and theistic psychology (see Section xx).

Quoting from the Writings Sacred Scripture:

SS 78. Further, it is through Sacred Scripture that God the Divine Psychologist is present with us and is conjoined with us, for God the Divine Psychologist is Sacred Scripture, and as it were speaks with us in it. God the Divine Psychologist is also Divine truth itself, as likewise is Sacred Scripture. From this it is evident that God the Divine Psychologist is present with us and is at the same time conjoined with us, according to our understanding of Sacred Scripture, for according to this we have truth and the derivative rational knowledge in our cognitive organ, and also pro-social motivation in our affective organ. God the Divine Psychologist is indeed present with us through the reading of Sacred Scripture, but we are conjoined with Him through the understanding of truth from Sacred Scripture, and according thereto; and in proportion as God the Divine Psychologist has been conjoined with us, in the same proportion theistic psychology is active in our mind. Theistic psychology is within us; theistic psychology that is outside of us is the institutionalized scientific discipline with a number of us who have theistic psychology within them. This is meant by the words of the Incarnated Divine Human to those who study theistic psychology without applying it to their daily willing and thinking who want to know how heaven is established in our mind:
        "The kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:21).
Here the "kingdom of God" means God the Divine Psychologist, and from Him, knowledge of theistic psychology. (SS 78) (see Note below)

 Note: The following substitutions were made in the above paragraph indicated by italics:
 

Original Literal Expression in the Writings Sacred Scripture (for religion)	Equivalent Translated Concept into Theistic Psychology (for science)
the Word	Sacred Scripture
the Lord	God the Divine Psychologist, Incarnated Divine Human
a man, him, his, he is	us, our, we are
faith	rational knowledge in our cognitive organ
love and the derivative life	pro-social motivation in our affective organ
the church is in man; with man; within him; outside of man	the knowledge of theistic psychology is active in our mind; outside of us is the institutionalized scientific discipline of theistic psychology
the Pharisees	those who study theistic psychology without applying it to their daily willing and thinking
who asked	who want to know
when the kingdom of God would come	how heaven is established in our mind
within you	in our mind

The conversion Table above illustrates the way in which theistic psychology is extracted from the literal meaning of Sacred Scripture. As you can see, all traces of the original historical or ethnic references vanish, and what remains is universal science applying to all human beings. Many more illustrations will be given in what follows (see also Section xx).

Let us recapitulate a few propositions that you need to remember and keep in mind as a context for what you are reading as you go on:

(a) God creates and manages the universe through the infinite mental substance of Divine Speech, which is Rational, Human, and Divine. Divine Speech proceeding from God is Divine Truth, which is the substance of spiritual light streaming from the Spiritual Sun. Spiritual light substance, or Truth substance (also called Wisdom), contains within it, spiritual heat substance, or Love substance (also called Good).

(b) Physical objects on earth are made of atoms from the natural sun that are whirling in sub-atomic space, which forms the object's infrastructure in time and space. Every physical object is constructed of these atoms from the sun. The sun is actually still part of these atoms. But physical matter, atoms and space, are themselves made of something at a discrete level higher, or within, that is not physical matter in time, but spiritual substance in eternity, which originates from the Spiritual Sun in infinite variety. The spiritual infrastructure at a discrete degree within the atoms and within space, keeps the atoms and the space in existence. Rationally viewed a thin cannot give origin to itself. Hence when you see a thing rationally, you are thinking of that which causes it to exist and to maintain itself in existence. That cause or infrastructure is the spiritual substances of the Spiritual Sun.

From this you can see that Divine Love (or Good),  and Divine Truth (or Rationality), are the spiritual eternal substances that make up the infrastructure of the spiritual world, also called the mental world in eternity, and this makes up the infrastructure of the physical world, which is in time and space. To say that God creates the world out of and by means of Divine Speech, means that God's mental substances of good and truth, pouring out of Him, create the world of eternity, which is the environment in which exists the mental world of humanity. Your sensations, thoughts, and feelings, moment by moment endlessly operating in your mental body, all exist in the world of eternity. They cannot exist anywhere else. And since that world is made of spiritual substances, you can see that our sensations, thoughts, and feelings must be also made of spiritual substances. Our mental world is a real world of immortal substances. Our thoughts and feelings, coalescing into a coherent self or person, exist as substances operating in our immortal mental body, which we acquire at birth (see Section xx).

(c) In other words, eternity is the infrastructure for time and space.

This chart depicts any object's infrastructure of existence.  It applies to whatever unit you are looking at in the physical world -- galactic, planetary, object, sub-atomic particle -- you are looking at the world of time-space-matter, whose infrastructure in simultaneous order is the world of eternity. This is true globally as well as at any size or level of physical abstraction. Question: What is inside your pocket or purse? If you take "inside" in terms of discrete degrees, then the answer would be, "The world of eternity made of the substances of the Spiritual Sun is inside my pocket or purse." What about your tooth brush? The answer is the same. What about your brain? Same answer. Try to explain this magnificently rational secret to your friends. they will jump for joy -- if they are willing to hear you out long enough so they can understand rationally what you can understand from studying theistic psychology.

Since the spiritual world of eternity = the mental world of the human race (Swedenborg's great discovery), therefore the human mind is the infrastructure for the physical universe, as shown in the chart above. (See Section xx)

The physical world is the outside of the universe, while the spiritual world, or mental world, is the inside of the universe. When we are born, our temporary physical body is in the outside world of time and space, while our mental body is in the inside world of eternity. When the physical body dies, our consciousness of the outside world ceases, and we become conscious of the world of eternity. For 27 years (from age 57 to 84), Swedenborg lived consciously present in both the world of eternity and the world of time-space in Sweden in the 17th and 18th centuries. When you are resuscitated, a few hours after your physical body dies, you awaken in your spiritual mind, and the world of eternity becomes conscious to you. You can see everybody else who is there, where they live, how they live, and you can join any society that you choose. Swedenborg talked to people like Aristotle, whom he knew from the history books, and many other persons, some who had lived on other planets than earth (see Section xx).

Our first reaction to hearing such stories is that they are fantastic visions of a strange person. But this is an external perspective on Swedenborg in the negative bias mode. Remember that Swedenborg was not some kind of a strange person whose mind was somewhat deranged and living on the streets or in an asylum. During the 27 years while he was conscious in both worlds and wrote the reports we are studying, he did the following things on a daily basis:

• held a demanding job as a government engineer and administrator of mining

• was a member of the Swedish House of Lords and authored several bills on finance reform

• was a publisher of science magazines and reports

• traveled throughout Europe visiting with the labs of famous scientists

• collected books for his brother-in-law's bookstore

• frequently attended dinners at the palace by invitation from the royal family

• wrote and published respected scientific books on metallurgy, chemistry, physics, astronomy, anatomy of the brain

All of Swedenborg's biographers agree that he was one of the greatest geniuses the world has ever seen. So now this famous scientist at age 57 suddenly becomes conscious in the spiritual mind! He applied his genius and enthusiastic motivation to this new area of investigation that he was uniquely given to explore. He left behind 30 volumes that are an entire integrated series of all that he was able to observe and rationally explain. And now we have come to realize that these reports are actually the Writings Sacred Scripture. As soon as I made this discovery, based on the insights of a few others (see Section xx), I was able to apply to it the systematic method of extraction specified in the Writings themselves (see Section xx). The result was the new science called theistic psychology, which you are now studying. This new discipline is not yet known to other psychologists, so you are still among the first people in the world who are exposed to theistic psychology. You can access the student reports by earlier generations through the list in Volume 18, Readings, Part 2.

To me one of the most significant of Swedenborg's scientific discoveries is that when we die, we are actually not dying, but awakening in our spiritual mind, where we live our immortality in eternity. This is traditionally called the "spiritual world" by many people who know about it from Sacred Scripture. Swedenborg direct confirmation of this process by observation and experimentation for 27 years, is new evidence that has not been available to science before. Theistic psychology is based on this new evidence, when read with the positive bias in science. Further, all or most of Swedenborg's discoveries can be confirmed by each one of us, either by rational proof or by self-witnessing observations of one's own daily life (see Section xx).

Our mental world, the one we are in already now, is the spiritual world of eternity. The entire human race, regardless of their physical earth location, is resuscitated into the same mental world of eternity, so that you too will have access to people not born on earth -- should you desire that. Everything one desires in the mental world of eternity, one can have. Everything in that world is instantaneously created when you want it, and disappears from existence when you don't want it any more (see Section xx). Wait till you tell your friends about this! Reality is better than what they could have imagined.

God is not a mysterious force that is inaccessible or difficult to access. Theistic psychology shows how God is actually an intimate participant, enabler, and manager of our mental world, every single detail of it, and much more of it that we know nothing about. So it is extremely important that this knowledge be placed at the disposal of all people. God is a Divine Human Person with whom we can have a conscious relationship. God desires that we reciprocate our relationship because when we do, He can empower us with new intelligence, skills, and happiness. This is God's sole motivation for being involved in every human being's thoughts and feelings from birth to endless immortality.

But God will not appear in front of you and talk to you in a physical way. God will not send you a letter or a taped message. God will not speak to you with a physical voice you can record. The only way God will communicate with us physically or externally is through Sacred Scripture. When we read Sacred Scripture we are hearing God's Divine speech come down into the sphere of the natural mind. This has lasted for many generations. It has been the basis of all religions. But since the Writings Sacred Scripture have been written and published (1747-1772) by Swedenborg, God has revealed to modern science, for the very first time, that all Sacred Scripture is sacred because it is Divine Speech, which means that there is a hidden scientific and universal meaning that cannot be seen when reading the sentences of Sacred Scripture.

The reason the correspondential sense of Divine Speech is hidden within the literal meaning, is a physiological one. As you already know from the anatomical charts you studied up to now, and more later on, a human being is human because of the physiology of the mental body that contains our mental organs whose operations provide us with sensations, thoughts, and feelings at various discrete levels (see Section xx). Divine Speech is already in our spiritual mind, which is built to receive it directly in its correspondential sense. But then Divine Speech has to descend into the rational mind, and the natural mind, and in that descent or exteriorization, Divine Speech changes from spiritual meaning to natural meaning.

So what we read in Sacred Scripture is the literal meaning not the spiritual meaning. Remember also that what is in successive order, appears in simultaneous order when the successive phase is complete (see Section xx). At that point what was First or Highest, now becomes inmost. So the spiritual meaning of Divine Speech is inmost within the literal historical meaning. This secret was unknown until the Writings Sacred Scripture described and demonstrated the appropriate method of extraction by which we identify the spiritual meaning that is hidden in its inmost. Theistic psychology is the knowledge we obtain when we apply this prescribed technique to analyzing Sacred Scripture (see Section xx).

You can see therefore that theistic psychology cannot be made up of theories people invent, like non-theistic psychology and the rest of materialistic science. New-age spirituality, transpersonal psychology, paranormal research -- are all collections of theories by numerous people. This is not at all the method by which theistic psychology can be developed and grow in your mind, or as a cumulative science for future generations. The only way theistic psychology can cumulate in a genuine or valid direction, is the flawless application of the methods of extraction prescribed and demonstrated in the Writings Sacred Scripture (see Section xx).

(d) Our consciousness, our understanding, and our feelings are all initiated and governed by Divine Speech proceeding from God into the universe and propagating itself simultaneously through all human minds. There are no specially privileged minds that receive more than others of the substances of God's Divine Truth and Divine Good. They inflow simultaneously into every human mind since all human minds overlap in the world of eternity (where there is no physical space). When Divine Speech enters the rational mind, we become conscious of its effects in the natural mind such as the ability to think logically, or the ability to experience human feelings and emotions.

Everything we do, sense, think, or feel are operations of our mental organs while they are activated and operationalized by Divine Speech entering the mind in the form of good and truth substances -- the substance of good into our affective organ giving rise to feelings and motives, and the substance of truth into our cognitive organ giving rise to cognitions and thoughts. The substance of good is spiritual heat, and the substance of truth is spiritual light, the two flowing out of the Spiritual Sun in infinite variety, providing our ability to have new and unique human thoughts and feelings for every human being from birth to endless immortality, continuously.

(e) Divine Speech conjoins our mind with God, and it is this conjunction that gives humans the ability to be immortal and rational beings. The mechanism of conjunction is presented in the next Section. There are gradations of conjunction or closeness with God. This determines the quality of our feelings, thinking, and sensating. Closer conjunction with God results in a higher quality of feeling, thinking, and sensating. Swedenborg observed and compared the life and personality of people in their Third Heaven, Second Heaven, First Heaven, as well as people in the hells of their mind (see Section xx). He found that the level of available human potential goes up or down depending on closeness to God. Any human being can choose to be either close or distant from God, who enables whatever a person chooses from freedom or preference.

Those who freely maintain themselves in the hells of their mental eternity think irrationally, are under the spell of illusions and delusions, and their social environment is miserable, vicious, and uncivilized. They are the furthest they can be from conjunction with God, and as a result, what they receive from good in terms of good they pervert into its opposite or evil, and what they receive from God in terms of truth, they convert into its opposite, or falsified truth. This is how they willingly maintain themselves in the hells of their mind. They could ascend at any time from the hells to the heavens in their mind. Swedenborg talked to many of them about God and the heaven in their own mind, which they hated and irrationally denied. Whenever Swedenborg mentioned to them anything good and true, they became enraged with hatred and turned the idea into its opposite of evil and false.

The people who dwelt in the First Heaven of their mind, were extremely skilled in all daily activities such as business, sports, art, education, architecture, government -- far superior to the best skills they had while living on earth. But remember that these expert activities in the mental world of eternity are not at all like they were on earth where time and space determine what happens (see Section xx). The people who dwelt in the Second Heaven of their mind were a discrete degree superior to those in the First Heaven, and similarly those in the Third Heaven of their mind were a discrete degree superior to them. Closeness of conjunction with God therefore physiologically determines the level and quality of human life from birth to eternity.

While we are still attached to the body on earth, the quality and level of our life also depends on closeness to God, but in a less obvious way compared to the afterlife. This is because God hides His Sensuous Presence in the natural and rational mind. The reason for this is that on earth we are undergoing character change, reformation, and regeneration, while this is not possible in the afterlife (see Section xx). In order to undergo character reformation that is permanent we must do it as-if on our own, with as-of self effort and the willingness to resist temptations (see Section xx). Only in this manner of voluntary and free choice is the new character something we can love, something we can accept as our eternal heaven (see Section xx).

Due to the necessity of this freedom of choice and as-of self effort, God hides His Sensuous Presence in our natural mind so that we may feel free to reject Him if that is our choice (see Section xx). If God suddenly spoke in your natural mind, you would hear voices like the prophets of old before the modern era. But today this kind of direct sensuous communication would be harmful to our modern mind, and you would be diagnosed as delusional or schizophrenic -- a very serious mental disease. Hence it is that God would never speak to you in the natural mind with a physical voice, or would not appear to you visually to your physical eyes. Our understanding of reality and God, to be valid and effective, must be based on the rational understanding of God as He describes Himself in Sacred Scripture.

To see God with the "inner eyes" is possible for people on earth, and this inner sight is called rational understanding. You know this from our popular expression "I see what you mean." To understand rationally = to see with the inner senses. This refers to the sensorimotor organ of the spiritual mind (see Section xx).

Once we have a rational basis for a relationship with God, we become capable of seeing God's Presence rationally in our mind, that is, in terms of the good and truth substances that operate our thoughts and feeling (see Section xx).

If we do not identify all the good and all the truth we have as being God's good and truth in our mental organs, then we attribute our intelligence and abilities to our self. When we do this, we physiologically alter the operations of good and truth in our mental organs, transforming them into their opposites. Then our consciousness resides in the hells of our mind, which is the furthest distance from the rationality of God that forms our heavens far above the hells (see anatomical charts throughout).

Even though we consciously choose to reject God we cannot get rid of God in our physical and mental environment. God continues to run our mind and our environment regardless of our acknowledgement of Him. This is God's omnipotence and omnipresence by which he controls every detail of the universe -- the thoughts and feelings in our mind, the events of biography and history, the motion of molecules in objects, stars, and galaxies. God controls and manages every detail according of His order of truth and his purpose of good (or love).

(f) Summary formulaic expression:

gradations of voluntarily chosen closeness of conjunction with God

=    quality of human intelligence and abilities that God can give us
=    level of our rational understanding of Divine Speech within Sacred Scripture
=    consistency of our effort in applying doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture
         to our daily willing and thinking

Note the bottom line in this equation. Closeness to God and quality of human potential depends entirely on our daily effort of changing the way we think and what we enjoy from our inherited hellish traits. The doctrine of truth we properly extract from Sacred Scripture tells us how to think and what to enjoy in order to get closer to God and thereby be able to increase our human potential.

Sacred Scripture reveals that we are born with an inherited character that contains numerous hellish traits. We also have numerous good traits by virtue of the influx of good and truth into our mind (see Section xx). The hellish traits we inherit in our natural mind tend to corrupt and invert the heavenly traits that flow in moment by moment from our spiritual mind. Every individual must therefore be willing to freely put up the voluntary effort of resisting the old hellish traits and enjoyments, until eventually we come to loath them and avoid them like the plague (see Section xx). As the hellish traits are gradually rejected are extinguished, a new way of thinking and feeling in our natural mind replaces the old. Now our natural mind is in an orderly state that corresponds to and is in accordance with the heavenly order in our spiritual mind. Then we can have the good life that surpasses everything we could hope for or imagine.

Denial of God through materialist philosophy and cynicism, is the negative bias in science that puts us at a distance from  God. In this orientation we cannot receive directly anything good and true from Divine Speech as Sacred Scripture. But we still receive things indirectly, such as the ability to think with common sense, and the instinct of preservation and social cooperation. However this indirect association with God is not powerful enough to overcome our inherited hellish tendencies. God keeps control just as much as ever, but in this situation of irrational denial or the love of disobedience, He allows the occurrence of evils in order to preserve people's sense of freedom of choice (see Section xx). As long as people retain this freedom to choose, they can change their mind and become human again. If God took away this choice from people, they would no longer be human. Hence God goes along and supports the irrational and evil plans and deeds of people, even if this is not what He desires for them. Even so, God allows only those evil thoughts and acts to occur, which He can turn into good for the victims of the evil, including the perpetrator (see Section xx). All other thoughts or plans or deeds of evil, God does not allow to occur or happen.

It appears that many people are unwilling to put up the mental and emotional effort to change their inherited character traits and weaknesses. As a result, God allows much evil and false ideas to run amuck in society, making the lives of people a hell on earth, as is indicated by the symptoms of crime, prejudice, injustice, abuse, depression, ill health, ugliness, unhappiness, divorces, poverty, lack of education, etc. All these evils are allowed by God in order to preserve the freedom of all individuals to chose voluntarily to reform and to prepare for a life of heaven in eternity -- or not. Those who fail to do so, can only experience a life of hell in eternity (see Section xx). Swedenborg reports that once people are settled in their hells of immortality, no one, or almost no one chooses to leave those mental states. Better not get stuck there!

1.0.3.2  Part B: Degrees of Conjunction with God

God provides two methods for the natural mind to be conjoined with Him, and thereby to receive intelligence, love, and energy in greater and higher degree, in proportion to our willingness to conjoin with God the Divine Human. It is obviously important for us to understand the mental procedure that allows us to conjoin more and more closely to God, and gain access to all the benefits which God desires to bestow on every human being.

God provides two methods for approaching Him. Another way of saying this is that good and truth substances from the Spiritual Sun enter our mental organs automatically, by God's laws of correspondences, but what matters to us is how our organ reacts to it. We do not experience the good and truth itself, which remains God's alone (see Section xx). What we experience as sensation, thought, and feeling is the reaction of our organ to God's good and truth inflowing into them. Our mental organs react physiologically to the incoming spiritual heat (good) and spiritual light (truth). This reaction is our experiencing of sensations, thoughts, and feelings.

So what is ours, our immortal self, our permanent unique identity and personality, is not God's inflowing substances of good and truth, but our organ's unique way of reacting to them. These are called the operations of our mental organs. "Mental operations" = states of mental organs and their phases, occurring in reaction to inflowing spiritual substances. These operations are ours, but not the substances that activate them and maintain them in receptive form for receiving spiritual heat and light inflowing from the Spiritual Sun.

The two methods of conjunction with God the Divine Human are both rational.

This fact is not widely known today except to those who study theistic psychology. Many people today are led by the materialistic persuasion that God wants to manifest Himself in the physical world and by sensuous experience of Him in the form of witnessing a healing miracle and other acts of Divine grace like touching sacred relics or carrying a talisman for luck. But these ideas are not taught in Sacred Scripture.

In fact, the Writings Sacred Scripture give an explanation of this in the literal sense, so it is easy to understand it. It has been mentioned before in earlier Sections, and is mentioned throughout theistic psychology under the topic of "sensuous vs. rational spirituality" (see Section xx). Prior to the modern scientific civilization starting in the 18th century, most people could not approach God by means of rational concepts. Therefore it was necessary for God to perform miracles as a visible proof of His power and Presence. But this limited the degree of conjunction possible between God and the conscious rational and natural mind. Quoting from the Writings Sacred Scripture:

DP 131. From these considerations it may be evident that faith [=knowledge of God] induced by miracles is not faith but persuasion; for there is nothing rational in it, still less anything spiritual, as it is only external [=natural-rational ideas] without an internal [=spiritual-rational ideas]. It is the same with all that a man does from this persuasive faith, whether he acknowledges God, or worships Him at home or at church, or performs good deeds. When a miracle alone leads a man to the acknowledgment of God, to worship, and to piety, he acts from the natural man and not from the spiritual. For a miracle infuses faith [=knowledge about God] by an external and not by an internal way, thus from the world and not from heaven. Now the Lord does not enter [=reception of spiritual-rational truths] by any other way with man than the internal way [understanding the correspondential sense], which is by the Word [=Sacred Scripture], by doctrine and by preaching from it [=theistic psychology]; and as miracles close up this way[=rational or scientific knowledge of God], at this day [=prior to our regeneration] no miracles are wrought. (DP 131)

Now in the modern world of democracies almost everyone on the planet receives an education that includes science and rational thinking about abstract concepts like everyday management and business. All this was gradually brought about by God through the advance of science, engineering, and rational thinking in society and government. Since 1772, when Swedenborg published the last book of the collection known as the Writings Sacred Scripture. From that moment on in the history of the race, the rational heavens were created in every human being already born, and will be in every human being to be born in the future.

Swedenborg witnessed the momentous changeover in the mental world of humanity, when the old sensuous human heavens were transformed and replaced by the new rational heavens. This event marks the final and total completion of the creation of the human race (see Section xx) From then on the approach to God, conjunction with Him, and consequent benefits of heavenly immortality as conjugial couples, is possible only by the approach of rational spirituality, not sensuous (see Section xx).

Now God is providing two methods of rational spirituality for conjunction with Him -- conscience and Sacred Scripture.

Every individual is born with a conscience. There is an organ of conscience within the cognitive and affective organs of the natural mind, from where its operations originate in our conscious awareness (See Section 7.0.4.1). You know the popular expression "Listen to the voice of your conscience." But this is not a sensuous, auditory voice. It is a rational voice or realization and insight. Conscience is a human organ, not possessed by animals, that is based in the natural-rational mind (see Section xx). From the rational mind we are able to see and monitor what our sensuous mind is doing, a discrete degree below the rational. When the sensuous mind is about to do something that is contrary to good and truth, the rational mind is able to recognize the danger from a rational perspective. Conscience reacts to that by correspondence, and we immediately experience a cognitive and affective reaction. This is the "voice of conscience" because we are consciously aware that we are thinking of doing something that is contrary to good and truth (See Section 7.0.4.1). God then maintains our mental state in freedom, so that we may freely choose to listen or to ignore the voice of conscience. This voice is heard by all human beings, regardless of education or culture, because all human beings possess this mental organ.

Besides conscience, the other method of conjunction God provides is Sacred Scripture. It requires rational thinking and understanding to be able to relate to the meaning we get when reading or hearing about Sacred Scripture. People who memorize Sacred Scripture but do not figure out what it means logically and rationally, cannot derive benefits from it because all benefits come from the meaning of it, and this is a rational activity. The physical book of Sacred Scripture is not sacred at all and has no power to conjoin to God; but only the meaning of its words and sentences in the minds of people who think rationally of God and their relationship to Him.

The degree of conjunction with God through Sacred Scripture and through conscience, develops in the conscious natural mind in three stages -- natural, spiritual, and celestial as follows:

Stage 0.    Conscious Disjunction With God through the negative bias thinking

Based on hypothesis arising from sensory experience and measurement
Based on non-theistic persuasive teachings (e.g., science education, socialization)
Based on unwillingness to subordinate the human self to a higher power (e.g., non-theistic humanism)

Stage 1.    Natural, External Conjunction With God
                        through natural-sensuous thinking and feeling about Sacred Scripture

Stage 2.    Spiritual, Mediate Conjunction With God
                        through natural-rational thinking and feeling about Sacred Scripture

Stage 3.    Celestial, Interior Conjunction With God
                        through spiritual-natural thinking and feeling about Sacred Scripture

The four stages described above are stages of evolution in our thinking, in our rationality, in our consciousness. It is the journey closer to God, and to our supreme human potentials. In the early external stage of conjunction with God (stage 1), our thinking about God and the things mentioned in Sacred Scripture is a natural way of understanding the sentences -- their literal meaning in a historical, cultural, and religious context. At stage 2, mediate conjunction is achieved through understanding the ideas of Sacred Scripture less literally, more abstractly and symbolically, hence more universally and less historically, culturally, and theologically.  Finally at stage 3, inmost conjunction with God is achieved through the understanding of Sacred Scripture spiritually, which refers to the recognition of spiritual-rational and celestial-rational correspondences hidden within the natural meaning (see Section xx).

What about stage 0 or disjunction with God? Actually, all four stages may be going on within the same individual, but not at the same time of course. For instance, John and Mary may be two students of theistic psychology who are studying the spiritual concepts extracted from the Writings Sacred Scripture. Their purpose is to gather the spiritual knowledge they need to undergo character reformation so that they may become prepared for heavenly life in eternity. Because they are cooperating with the Divine Psychologist they experience enlightenment and are given an interior understanding, so that they may see the concepts rationally. They are at stage 3 conjunction with God. After studying, John and Mary decide to go out and have some fun. They end up at a bar where they drink too much and got into fighting words with another couple that started annoying them. They leave the bar and drive home. Along the way they get into heavy traffic and they both end up swearing at another driver. Etc. You can see from this type of common scenario that people typically vary the degree of conjunction with God as they pursue their normal daily activities.

Character reformation can only begin in adult life when we are mature enough to think for ourselves. Until then we usually think from our undigested socialization and education habits. We ingest our culture and knowledge but we do not digest it. To ingest knowledge and attitudes is to acquire them as habits and to do them routinely out of habit. To digest knowledge and attitudes is to appropriate them, to make them our own. This process of appropriation to self only happens when we freely choose something after thinking about what it is we prefer or like. When we reach adult life and some financial and political independence, the future that lies ahead of us is ours -- which means that we are more free to choose what we want, what we desire, what we love. Without being able to choose what we love, we don't feel free. Until we feel free, we cannot freely choose our life style, the things we believe within ourselves, the things we support in our mind.

When we reach this state of freedom to think in adulthood, we are capable of beginning character reformation. This takes a lifetime of cooperation with the Divine Psychologist (see Section xx). We undergo regeneration by means of battles with the temptations that the Divine Psychologist brings to us by arranging the environment appropriately and by managing our thinking and feelings to face the temptations. This we do by fighting against the hells we inherited using the weapons of the doctrine of truth we acquire from Sacred Scripture or from conscience and education. Gradually through this procedure, God builds a new character in our mind, one that is fit to live happily to eternity in conjugial heaven (see Section xx).

1.0.3.3  Part C: Why This Is a Perfect World Despite Evil

But what happens when we give in to temptations, throw in the towel in the fight of good vs. evil, declare ourselves free from God's commandments, religious rules, or the dictates of our conscience? Note that this non-theistic or negative attitude (Stage 0) could be temporary or permanent in any one individual. Note also that people who practice a religion may do so spiritually or naturally. To practice religion naturally means that you only let it affect your outward behavior and not what you are thinking and feeling. This makes it impossible for the Divine Psychologist to bring spiritual temptations to you because you would not resist them -- which would harm your spiritual future (see Section xx). The only way we can change our inherited hellish traits is to reject them freely because they are contrary to conscience and Sacred Scripture. No other motivation can succeed in altering how we think and feel inwardly, but only how we act and talk outwardly.

Swedenborg observed thousands of people who were recently resuscitated after the death of their physical body (see Section xx). He interviewed many of them concerning their knowledge and beliefs about God. They all were still able to recall clearly their memories from earth, which we can do for awhile after resuscitation, and before settling into our true personality, who we really are (see "second death" Section xx). This evidence indicates that people after resuscitation, thus in eternity, cannot hold on to their rules of conscience and their religious beliefs when these were merely outward norms of conduct that they followed by habit, without independent examination.

Because they now rejected all rules of religion, conscience, morality, and respectability they felt completely free to feel, think, and do whatever they felt like spontaneously, uncritically (See Section 7.0.4.1). And because they had not undergone temptations and character reformation, their inherited tendencies and loves for evil and cruel things now took over completely, and they turned into an immortal life of hellish pursuits, delights, and sufferings.

On the other hand, Swedenborg observed some people after their resuscitation, who had no religion of any kind, but had had a strong sense of conscience and natural morality and respect for others, for animals, and for nature. When they were told and taught about God and Sacred Scripture, they were instantly able to understand it rationally, and were able to enter the life of conjugial heaven to eternity.

 If we consider the state of our civilization and society today it is obvious that there is more disjunction with God than conjunction. God has created a perfect system and is maintaining it in perfect order. This is His omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence (see Section xx). People look at crime, social disorder, human unhappiness everywhere, and they conclude that either there is no God, or that God is not omnipotent, or that God is both good and evil. These are all false conclusions. In fact, society is perfect for its spiritual purpose or goal, and God is maintaining it in perfect order for that purpose, since God is omnipotent to carry out what He wants and plans. The difficulty has been for people to see rationally that society and life on earth has a higher purpose related to our immortality. Crime and disasters cannot reduce or take away from this purpose. Crime and human selfishness do make our experience on earth more ghastly, But this experience does not interfere with why we are here. God will not allow anything to interfere with this purpose.

The perfection of society as maintained and controlled by God, is that it gives people a life in which at any moment they can begin their character reformation and preparation for eternal happiness in heaven. No one is excluded. Everyone has an equal opportunity.

God maintains our ability to do and think evil things just as he maintains our ability to think and do good things. If God reduced our ability to think and do evil things, this would not be a perfect world because we could not regenerate our inherited character and we would be compelled to a life of eternal hell.

At any moment of our daily willing and thinking, the Divine Psychologist puts us up to a choice between choosing evil or good. The cumulative moment by moment choices we make every hour, day by day, over the decades of our life on earth -- millions of choices -- constitute our character. This is the vehicle of our immortality. After our resuscitation we are immersed by the Divine Psychologist into an intense life of recapitulation and self-discovery. All societal shackles are cast off in absolute liberty when we fully realize that we are now immortal, in a world where we are free to exercise our desires and loves whatever they are.  Now at last, without social pressure, responsibility, expectations, and rules of conscience, we can be whatever our feelings and thinking prompt us to be -- purely selfish, totally egocentric, wild and mad, cruel and obsessive, prompt to extremes and excesses of any kind whatsoever. These feelings and imaginings now create a hellish environment around us, where we continue our life with others who are similar to us (see Section xx).

When we think about it now, it is clear that we should avoid at all cost from ending our life on earth with a hellish personality on the inside, even if we have a civilized personality on the outside.

This is God's purpose in providing revelation of spiritual truths in the form of Sacred Scripture, namely, to allow us to see rationally that we must undergo regeneration of character in order to have a heavenly life in eternity. And as well, to teach us the techniques that are effective in this regeneration effort -- how we are to cooperate with the Divine Psychologist to reciprocate, and thus to conjoin with Him. By acknowledging God, by studying Divine Speech as Sacred Scripture, we become enlightened so that we can acquire doctrine of truth with which to resist temptations and consequently to be conjoined with God through willing what is good and thinking in accordance with our rational understanding of truth.

1.0.4  Topic 4: Forms of Divine Speech in Our Conscious Natural Mind

Divine Speech proceeds from God's Mind and propagates itself instantaneously across the entire universe in the form of spiritual light and heat, which enters every human mind from its third heaven, and descends by discrete degrees (see Section xx) into all the regions of the mind. The following is a listing of the levels or degrees of the action of Divine Speech in human minds, starting with the most universal and least conscious, and increasing in consciousness and effectiveness, all the way to the highest level of the mind, which is the closest potentially to God.

I    human instincts of mutual empathy, sympathy, cooperation, affiliation, curiosity, inventiveness

II    daily moods of high and low, clear and foggy, receptive and resistive, peaceful and conflictual

III    character, personality, norms of conduct, ethics, and lifestyle developed through
            socialization, enculturation, education, training, experience

IV    inner voice of conscience, civilized morality, allowed vs. taboo, right vs. wrong

V    the Letter of Sacred Scripture as religion, history, culture -- often distorted
            and corrupted, leading to sectarianism and conflict

VI    interior sense extracted from Sacred Scripture as theistic science or
            theistic psychology, which is universal and not historical, cultural, or religious

As you can see from the above listing, Divine Speech is present with every human being at different levels of closeness and conjunction. It is not until we reach level IV that we are conscious of God as a force that is higher than our own. At level V we are introduced to a personal and conscious relationship with God, but it's not until level VI that we form a genuine and uncorrupted awareness and relationship with God on a daily basis.

1.0.5  Topic 5: Sensuous vs. Rational Spirituality

1.0.5.1   Part A:  Why Doesn't God Make an Appearance at the United Nations?

Swedenborg was able to observe the character and life of every generation of people that had lived on earth, and then passed on to their life of immortality in eternity, either in their heavens or their hells, where Swedenborg was able to observe them. Since in this way Swedenborg had access to a cross section of all the people that had lived on earth, he was able to describe objectively and empirically the evolution of human consciousness across time. He discovered that the earliest generations, or the "Most Ancient" civilization on earth, was made of a celestial human race that now dwelt separately in their own human heavens, which are different from the heavens Swedenborg visited that belonged to the generations that came after the celestial race (see Section xx).

The celestial race eventually had died out on earth due to their inability to continue in their type of mind called celestial. Their brain was whole, while the spiritual race that succeeded them had split-brains, left and right portions, as we know it from our own race today. The switch over in evolution occurred sometime near the beginning of recorded history, possibly around 10,000 BC (though Swedenborg does not give precise dates).

The whole-brained celestial race had a united will (affective organ) and understanding (cognitive organ), unlike us who have the will and the understanding capable of acting independently. We, the split-brained spiritual race, are capable of thinking one thing (corresponding to the left brain) and willing its opposite (right brain correspondence). We can learn with our understanding what is the right way to think and act, and we can ignore this with our will and do the opposite. The celestial whole-brained race was not capable of this. They were unable to lie or simulate, hence unable to deceive others and do them evil. Swedenborg talked to them in their ancient heavens and was able to confirm their character as different from ours, completely innocent and ignorant of all evil (except for a few among them who are in their hells.)

The celestial race people were able to talk to their departed family members and teachers, who spoke to them from their heaven, instructed the people on earth, and sometimes imposed punishment on them to chastise them from any tendency to do or think evil. In other words, the celestial people on earth were dual citizens consciously. Like Swedenborg's unique experience (see Section xx) the celestial race had their spiritual mind activated and conscious, whereas the spiritual race that came afterwards, had their spiritual mind completely unconscious. From then on, the only source of knowledge of the afterlife of eternity was through revelation in Sacred Scripture. Swedenborg was able to read in the spiritual world the various versions of Sacred Scripture that the subsequent generations had received from God.

The conscious ability to communicate with God or the people in the afterlife is called sensuous spirituality, whereas the knowledge of God through the revelation of Sacred Scripture is called rational spirituality. It is crucial that we understand the difference because it is not possible today for the spiritual split-brain race to have direct sensuous spiritual awareness or communication with God or the people in the afterlife. There may be some exceptions to this rule (see Section xx).

An example of direct sensuous awareness of God or of spiritual things would be if God appeared today in physical space and time. For instance, God might appear at the United Nations or on the world TV stations, introduce Himself, give a speech, make some miracles, and even stay around so people can interview Him and make movies and recordings. This never happened and will never happen. Why not? There are two fundamental reasons you need to know about.

First, our relationship to God necessarily involves our rational mind, which is also called the spiritual mind (see Section xx). Everyone is born with an organ in the rational portion of the mind called heaven. Hence our relationship to God develops through truths and rationality from within our mind, not sensuous evidence or interaction on the exterior of our mind. God appearing in the streets or at the United Nations would be only an external relationship through the bodily senses and natural mind. This cannot remain in the afterlife, which is a world of rational ether, of truths, hence in the interior of the human mind, not in the exterior senses.

The second fundamental reason why God does not appear at the United Nations or on the streets meeting people, is that whatever God would say would be expressed in natural languages by correspondences, just like Sacred Scripture is the natural language correspondence of Divine Speech. Divine Speech is nothing but Divine Truth, and this is nothing but God's thoughts and reasoning, or Divine Wisdom, which is infinite and omniscient (see Section xx). Whatever God thinks is Divine Truth. This is spiritual light proceeding from the Spiritual Sun and permeating the mental world of the human race, that is, the mental organs of every individual. Divine Speech first enters the highest portion of the spiritual mind where those who dwell in their Third Heaven in eternity, become conscious of the proceeding. This conscious awareness of Divine Speech is the closest meaning or understanding the human race can have of God. This meaning is conveyed by means of "celestial-rational" correspondences (see Section xx).

Then Divine Speech or Truth, descends into the next layer of the human mind where those who dwell in their Second Heaven in eternity, become conscious of it in the form of "spiritual-rational" correspondences. Then Divine Speech continues to descend and exteriorize throughout the human mind, where it becomes conscious to those who dwell in the First Heaven of their mind in eternity, through "spiritual-natural" correspondences. From there Divine Speech or Truth exteriorizes still further, and becomes conscious to the natural mind through its levels of operation -- natural-rational correspondences,  natural-sensuous and corporeal correspondences. This is where most people first become aware of God --through the natural correspondences and meanings in Sacred Scripture expressed in a natural language (see Section xx). See the Layers Diagram.

So what would happen if God met you on the streets or gave an interview to journalists and scientists at the United Nations, or came to the University of Hawaii and taught this course in Theistic Psychology?

God would speak from His Own Mind and Divine Speech would flow down from His Divine Mind, through the human heavens, and finally would be heard by you in your natural language. The meaning of His sentences would be constructed of natural meanings, words, and concepts. People might be terribly disappointed! All they would hear, over and over again, is what Divine Speech has been telling the human mind since the beginning of creation. It would sound to them that God is not talking to them, but just quoting Sacred Scripture, again and again. People would hear different things, each in their own language and thought level. Some people who are regenerating by means of Divine Speech from Sacred Scripture, will hear more interior ideas in what God is saying, but those who are in the negative bias mode of thinking about God, will hear nothing but what they already believe.

So you can see that God cannot just burst unto the scene and give proof of His existence, and command people to do this or that. For He has already been doing this in Sacred Scripture, and those who are unwilling to acknowledge Sacred Scripture as Divine Speech in correspondences, will not change their mind when God appears in their living room and talks to them.

God wants us to know the rational methods by which He creates and manages the details of our lives and the universe. God wants us to know the anatomy and physiology of our mental organs so that we can take care of them appropriately. God has created our mind in such a way as to be capable of being conjoined with His Mind, and thereby we might be alive forever and never die. This amazing feat is accomplished through the spiritual substances of heat and light streaming forth from God (see Section xx), and permeating the mind of every human being, from the top of its anatomy, to the bottom.

This spiritual heat is called "Divine Love," and our affective mental organ called the will, was designed by God to be able to react to it, so that we have the subjective conscious life experience of willing something, like willing to lift our hand, or touch this or that, or ignore this or that. This free will as subjective experience is what gives us the living sensation of being conscious and alive. And it is activated in us by spiritual heat flowing in from the top of our mind. Should this flow of spiritual heat stop for an instant, we would experience the sensation of dying, and we would actually disappear from existence. It is this inflowing spiritual heat that makes us alive, keeps us alive, instant by instant, from birth to endless immortality and eternity.

In the same way spiritual light flows into our cognitive organ, activates it, the result being our subjective experience of self-conscious thinking, reasoning, understanding, talking about it, etc. This is the subjective experience that gives us content, meaning, culture, hence rational human beings capable of intelligent planning and imagining.

You can see from this physiological description that we are human beings from the inflow of Divine Love and Divine Truth, which activate our mind and give us the moment by moment continuity of our consciousness of self as a unique individual or person.

The split-brained spiritual race has two brains (left and right) because the physical structure reflects and corresponds to the mental structure, namely the split-mind in the form of the affective and cognitive organs having independent function. It was necessary that the race following the whole-minded celestials be split-minded, as the spiritual human race now is, so that people could learn spiritual truth through written Sacred Scripture, even though their inherited tendency was to rebel against that truth and to want to ignore it or reject it.

This is how we are today. We hear about God's commandments and we sense our conscience (See Section 7.0.4.1). In this way we learn about spiritual truth -- what our fate is to be in the the endless eternity of our afterlife. How we should be preparing for it to make sure it is a heavenly life instead of hellish. We take this into our knowledge and our understanding. We don't feel like following it, and we don't for the most part. Yet we know the truth as it has been revealed by God to us. This is the essence of the spiritual race: to have this choice. To know the revealed truth of God and to follow it or not. This is the freedom that God maintains in every human mind from birth to eternity. It is the perfection and the guarantee, that at any instant that we wish or choose, we can join our will to the understanding of truth -- which means to will the things that our understanding knows is good and right.

We do not have the power to do anything at all since all power is in God's omnipotence, which cannot be given away to a human being or to nature (see Section xx). But God wills to have things happen according to how we consciously will or choose. This shows you how close God is to the individual, how intimate our relationship is, much more so than any two human beings can have with each other.

               1.0.5.2 Part b (ii)   What About the Paranormal, Miracles, Telepathy, Magic?

Various people and traditions have attempted to prove the existence of the afterlife relying on paranormal data and research. An example is the book titled An Amazing Experiment  (1961) by Charles Drayton Thomas and available online at:  www.survivalafterdeath.org/books/thomas/contents.htm To me it is quite obvious that no such proof is scientifically believable because the data are so scant, impoverished, and practically non-existent. And of course, it is irrational and illogical to try to give physical proof for what is not physical. All paranormal phenomena are measured and explained in terms of energy of various kinds, and these are based on quantity, time, and space. Rational ideas are based on mental sates in eternity, outside time, without space, extension, quantity, number, or shape. Such are our feelings, emotions, ideas, thoughts, sensations -- they are all mental, spiritual, timeless, eternal states and operations (see Section xx).

It is the same with "medical miracles." One can never prove that God exists by classifying an observed physical event as evidence for a spiritual reality. Some people may be persuaded of God's existence by witnessing an event that cannot be explained medically, but this kind of persuasive belief is rejected by people after resuscitation, when they discover that they are now living in the eternity of the afterlife, in all its sensuous living experience (see Section xx). However they cannot hold on to rationality and sanity because their belief is based on a sensuous idea of God, not rational and spiritual. In the afterlife, sensuous ideas act like gravity objects in air or water -- they sink to the lowest bottom. The bottom of the human mind is called our hellish traits. We sink into our hellish traits, and we get rid of all of their heavenly traits, for which they have no use, and to which they react with fear and hate.

It is the same with magic, sorcery, ghosts, science fiction, etc. -- they are all natural ideas about physical energy, time, space, place. They are not spiritual because they are sensuous rather than rational ideas. All spiritual ideas must be rational ideas, for the two are the same (see Section xx).

 The Swedenborg Reports on the other hand are rational ideas, rational explanations, and rational observations. From age 57 to 84 Swedenborg was conscious in his natural mind as well as his spiritual mind, which is also called the rational mind (see Section xx).  Note that we could not have accepted these reports if Swedenborg had claimed that he had seen visions on earth, or interacted at a distance with people on earth or in the world of spirits through his natural mind. If this had been Swedenborg's claim, then he would have been diagnosed with psychotic or delusional disorders. But this was not his claim. Rather, Swedenborg claimed that his spiritual mind was opened or operationalized prior to his death. He continued to maintain that it was impossible for the natural mind to have any information about the spiritual world.

It is rational to think that Swedenborg could observe the afterlife of eternity with his spiritual mind, but sensuous to think that he could do this with his natural mind. The latter is impossible. The former is possible.

Part B:  Sensuous Consciousness of God Does Not Remain in the Afterlife

This amazing closeness is hidden from our direct sensuous awareness. We cannot show any direct evidence of it to someone else or even to ourselves. Anyone can deny God's presence, so hidden is it from our sensuous awareness. God will not appear at the United Nations, will not give an interview, will not appear to anyone on the street or a building, will not cause you to hear a sonorous voice your physical ears could hear, etc. God will not allow you to have a sensuous awareness of Him through your physical body and senses.

Instead, God wants us to rationally acknowledge His Presence in our mind and life.

This becomes clear when you consider the physiological fact that heaven is inside our rational mind (see Section xx). This was different for the celestial race, who now dwell in their celestial heavens, which Swedenborg was allowed to visit. Their celestial race heaven, which are separate and inaccessible to our heavens, is built physiologically within their sensuous mind, which is governed by the affective organ (the will) in conjunction with the cognitive organ (understanding). But the physiology of the human race was drastically evolved or altered when the spiritual race came into being. The heavens of the human race were now built up differently, inside the cognitive organ (understanding). The affective organ, which was hellish by inheritance since the Fall (see Sections xx), had to be regenerated or recreated through the battles of temptations, in which we fight for our life with the truth in our understanding (see Section xx). We must win this battle in order to be "saved" for heavenly life in eternity. It is the only way we can acquire heavenly traits, that is, by giving up voluntarily and getting rid freely of the hellish traits that we were born to enjoy and hang on to as dear life itself.

When we are regenerating, the Divine Psychologist is constructing our heavenly eternity within our cognitive organ (our understanding), and creates a new affective organ (our will) within that.

Thus, our life of eternity is now actuated by a rational conjunction with God through Sacred Scripture. God's presence in our mind is something we learn rationally, by constructing rational and scientific concepts that we acquire through study of Sacred Scripture and reflection upon it. It would destroy our ability to think of God's presence rationally if we had sensuous evidence of His Presence. The sensuous and the rational oppose each other in our mind.

As proof of this inherent opposition, Swedenborg interviewed people in the world of spirits shortly after their resuscitation, and discovered that some people had acquired a "persuasive" belief of religion based on a sensuous or physical presence of God. They acquired this persuasive belief through observing demonstrations of what appeared to them to be miracles performed by healers and "holy men."  Or else, they experienced visions of God or angels, as in Near Death Experiences (NDEs) (see Section xx). These "miraculous" events were seen as proof of God's physical presence in the world, and from this they believed in God.

Note that this physical demonstration of God's Presence is a sensuous spirituality, while rational spirituality is to look around and to see the splendor and intelligence of nature, and seeing that as a miracle, because it is from God's omnipotence and not from itself. Rational spirituality conjoins with God, but sensuous spirituality disjoins us from God.

The freshly resuscitated people that Swedenborg interviewed, mentioned above, demanded to be taken to heaven and to God's Court. But they were told by wise bystanders that God is nowhere to be found but in Sacred Scripture, or more precisely, in the rational understanding we acquire from Sacred Scripture. God is in that rational understanding that we form of the revelation of Divine Speech, but only to the extent that we intend and do that truth, that is, to the extent that we live according to the truth that we understand.

Those newly resuscitated people walked away in dismay when they heard the above. They kept their search up for God and heaven until finally they were led away by clever charlatans who prey upon such people in the world of spirits, meet them, pose to them as holy men who can do miracles, and promise to lead them to God and the Kingly Throne. At last they are led away into the entrapments of the hells where they become slaves to manipulating charlatans, and thereby experience a miserable existence.

Amazingly, Swedenborg discovered that they were unwilling to give up that life in the hells of their evil persuasions and insane fantasies. Isn't that amazing? They were not kept there as punishment for their misdeeds or false beliefs. They themselves, out of the free will God never removes from anyone, keep themselves in their hells. When they are exposed to the slightest rational suggestion or good intention, they become so enraged and insane that their miserable situation actually worsens. This is because nothing is as strong in their mind as their hatred for God, their disgust for heaven, their aversion for what is good, innocent, altruistic, loyal, wise. Hating these things so much, they are unwilling to exit from the hells of their mind since the only alternative is the heavens in their mind. There is no other existence in eternity, only heaven or hell. People have both in their mind, so it is their choice that keeps them in one or the other state of eternity.

With this type of evidence it is clear now why God won't appear to you in a vision, or on TV, or at the United Nations making a speech to the people of earth! It is also clear that real miracles are only those that run things as they are. For instance, it is a miracle when I get home every day after a half hour drive in traffic. It is a miracle of God that keeps those cars from hitting each other a thousand times more than actually happens. It is a miracle that God speaks to us in our rational understanding when we read Sacred Scripture as Divine Speech. It is a miracle when we resist a temptation, strengthen our resolve, feel closer to God as a result. It is a miracle that each one of us is going to be resuscitated and carry on a life of immortality.

We have to discover ourselves as organic human beings belonging to an organic race. We are like a single vine that, over the ages, has populated an entire rocky island. It is just one vine, from one seed dropped by a bird, that fell into a crack in the rock, survived, and eventually covered the entire available area. You can walk around the island and you will see that each part of this vine is different in appearance, having had to adapt to different climatic conditions. And even a single leaf or flower that you may examine, is unique in form, shape, texture, size, biochemical condition, and even genetic, molecular, and sun-atomic structure. Each is unique.

In the Writings Sacred Scripture, Divine Speech has revealed to humankind that no two created things of any size of comparison, can be the same. And it is explained that this is because God is infinite. Whatever God creates from Himself through the infinite substances of the Spiritual Sun, must retain the infinity of God within itself. This is the source and cause for every created thing coming into being, existing, and subsisting over time and activity.

This is why every object, of any size, is unique.

The vine that populated the entire surface of the island is actually composed of myriads of unique individual elements. All these unique elements are differentiated from each other. Each element or individual particle possesses its unique identity. Even though there is only one vine, all its elements are uniquely differentiated to make up this one vine.

This vine is the human race.

1.0.5.3    Part C:  We are Dual Citizens in Discrete Layers

A complete human being is created by conception and birth, according to the Writings Sacred Scripture. The unique individual or person who is created by conception and birth, is created simultaneously into two worlds. One world is temporary, the other is permanent. The temporary physical body created into a natural world in time and space, and the permanent spiritual body created into the mental world of eternity, outside time and space.

The spiritual body, also called the mental body, is organic, like the physical body. Both bodies are made of the sun in their world. Our physical body is made of matter from the natural sun of this earth. Our mental body is made of mental substances from the Spiritual Sun, which is the entry point from infinite God into finite creation. From the Spiritual Sun there is constant and ceaseless streams proceeding into the finited universe, creating the spiritual world. This is the inner world, the mental world, the human mind and its organs. Then, as the proceeding spiritual substances descend and continue to externalize away from the central Spiritual Sun, the natural universe is created through the sun in each galactic zone or space. So when we are born our physical body is attached by correspondence or functional bond, to our mental body.

The physiology of this mind-body attachment has been revealed to us in Divine Speech, as we can read in the Writings Sacred Scripture. The mental body has three organs called affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor. These mental organs are constructed out of the rational and immortal substances proceeding from the Spiritual Sun. This is why we are born immortal beings. What we call our mind or self as a person, is nothing else physiologically, than the operations of these three organs in the mental body. Our feelings are subjective experiences we have when the affective organ is stimulated by incoming streams from the Spiritual Sun. In other words, as the spiritual heat and light from the Spiritual Sun stream out into the created universe, they permeate the mental world of the human race. The affective organ is built to react to incoming spiritual heat, while the cognitive organ is built to react to incoming spiritual light.

The operations of the affective organ cause us to have the mental experience of feelings, intentions, preferences. The operations of the cognitive organ cause us to have the mental experience of thinking and being conscious. The operations of the affective organ cause us to have the mental experience of afferent sensations and efferent determinations to act in the physical body.

Note that the physical body is in an external world of time, while the mental body is in a timeless and spaceless, or eternal, world. The sensory organs and brain in our physical body react to electro-chemical activities of physical particles or cells reflecting our physical surrounding as it impinges upon the body. Every tiny action of every tiny particle in this physical process, is a correspondential “copy” of a parallel tiny action in the spiritual world or the mind. The proceeding control system from the Spiritual Sun determines every co-action between something in the spiritual world and its parallel in the natural world. The two worlds are bonded, connected, co-determined by the stream proceeding from the Spiritual Sun and permeating the entire created universe, spiritual-mental in spaceless eternity, and natural-physical in time-space.

We are dual citizens, living in both worlds from birth until the death of the physical body. At that point the connection between our individual mind and the physical world, is broken or terminated forever. From then on all the proceeding input is spiritual, whereas before, it was spiritual and natural.

There is no possible connection between the two worlds except by functional correspondence. It is not possible for something to go from world into the other world. Everything created in its own world stays in that world. There is no transfer between the two worlds. When our connection to the physical universe is broken, the natural mind that was active prior to death, is now inactivated or becomes unconscious, though this takes a lengthy process and is not instantaneous, as Swedenborg reports from his multiple observations (see Section xx). Prior to death, our spiritual mind was active from the proceeding stream, as explained above, but it was unconscious. None of its activity was available to our conscious awareness.

But when the spiritual mind activates the natural mind, we become conscious of feelings, thoughts, and sensations. The memories we have of our life on earth are recorded in every single detail, in the natural mind where are located the affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor organs of the natural mind. These three organs in the natural mind cannot operate on their own. They cannot communicate with the sensory input form the physical body. They are dead, unless they are activated by the spiritual stream coming from the unconscious spiritual mind. When the natural mind responds to this influx, we have the subjective experience of being conscious, having thoughts we are aware of, and having feelings, intentions, motives. The experience we have is that these thoughts and feelings are “our very own” and that they originate in our conscious life in the natural mind. And when we think about analytically and abstractly, we may come to the conclusion that the natural mind originates from the sensory experience in the physical body.

But as Divine Speech describes our created mental anatomy and physiology, the human mind is constructed in discrete layers, or levels, like an office building without stairs or elevators. The people on the various floors can communicate with each other, but they cannot mingle. The levels of our mental operations are bonded together in action. They cannot act on their own. They always are compelled to act in unison. God does the compelling, and the surveying, and managing of every detail. Nothing can work or operate without this permanent and continuous immediate management by God.

When we are disconnected from our physical body, we have the experience of being “resuscitated,” which means being consciously awakened, as if from a dream. Swedenborg observed this resuscitation process thousands of time during his daily life in both worlds for 27 years (see Section xx). When people are “resuscitated,” they awaken in the memory and activity of their natural mind. This is for rational continuity so what is happening to us can make sense. Swedenborg talked to many people who have been just resuscitated. He calls them “novitiate spirits.” The majority of those in his era (spanning the 17th and 18th century) were apparently “astonished” that they were now alive in the spiritual world, and that they had their entire body as before. Quickly they discover that it is now an immortal body of spiritual substances.

This mental body has vastly more powers and abilities than our physical body. This makes sense when you think that the spiritual or mental body exists in rational ether from the Spiritual Sun; while the natural or physical body exists in physical space and matter from the natural sun. For instance, we may want to switch weather when it is raining, to fit with our afternoon plans. But we cannot wish the rain away. The rain is physical and the wish is mental. The mental has power over the physical by correspondence only, never directly. So the only way we can act upon the physical world is by mentally doing that which corresponds physically. We can move our hand or our body parts when we so desire and think. This is because there are built in correspondences between intentions in the affective organ, thoughts in the cognitive organ, and efferent motor determinations in the sensorimotor organ.

1.0.5.4   Part D:  There is Only One Mental World in the Human Race

But the correspondences that determine the weather are not available to our mental operations. Only God changes the weather in correspondence with planned purposes, ecologies, histories, and biographies. All of it is panned in advance by God and the plan becomes reality when God activates the built in correspondences. But in the mental world of eternity there is no physical weather system, no geological layout or land mass created by physical forces. Everything in the mental world is created by the mind!

You can easily understand this when you think about your dreams, fantasies, imaginations, and made up stories. You are in full control of events, including the weather. Why? Because these events are mentally constructed in mental world of imagination and invention. Our dreams can be strikingly vivid and detailed. Our feelings and thoughts create dramatic scenes that look and feel normal. We make up characters that talk to us. We can make them scare us, or embrace us, leave us, or come back. Everything in the mental world is controlled by our feelings and thoughts – what it is that we want happening.

But there are rules of correspondences in both worlds. Swedenborg observed that when people are resuscitated, they attract other people who are like them, who come around and have interactions. This tendency is so forceful that people gather together in cities that are mental recreations from memory, like in a dream. The difference is that in a dream you appear to be the only one making up the events and characters. But what would happen if people’s dreams started getting mixed up so that everybody’s dream took place in the same dream world. It would be frightening. I am in your dream, you are in my dream, we are in other people’s dreams – we no longer have control over the dream world, but only a tiny portion of it, that portion that we are making up.

That’s exactly how Swedenborg described the spiritual world, which is the objective mental world in which everybody’s thoughts and feelings played themselves out. It is the world of eternity because dreams, thoughts, and feelings are operations of our mental organs, which exist not in space, not in time, not in physical matter, but in spaceless, timeless, rational ether forming eternity.

The spiritual heat and light proceeding from the Spiritual Sun into the mental world of humanity, jointly create the objective spiritual world of the human mind. In other words, every person’s mental organs are in the same mental world. In fact, there is only one mental world! What an amazing revelation. You are in my mental world when you are in your mental world, and I am in your mental world when I am in my mental world. This is exactly what we are used to with the physical body. You are in this restaurant and I am in this restaurant and a down other people are in this restaurant. There is only one restaurant in which these people now are.

We can understand that. The restaurant has space for all these people, so all these people can be in this restaurant at the same time. It would be the same if people could merge their dreams into one dream world where all the dreams take place. Then I can dream of a restaurant, and you and a dozen other dreamers can be in it because my dream and their dream are in the same dream world. We can meet each other there. Every human being who is dreaming a dream, can meet with every other human being who is also dreaming – as long as there is only one dream world where people can do their dreaming and create events and objects in the dream.

This is what Swedenborg discovered: that there is only one mental world for humankind.

Furthermore, he discovered that this mental world is the world of the afterlife and eternity!

It’s hard to imagine anything more stupendous than this reality!

We can memorize these ideas with a formula:

mental world = spiritual world = afterlife = eternity

You can clearly see now that you are born to be immortal. Your mental world begins when you take your first breath (see Section xx). That’s when you become conscious of sensations. A few weeks later, we become conscious of thoughts and feelings. We are beginning to form a self, a personhood. We are becoming part of the human race. Our mental world appears private. We are alone in it, in comparison to our physical world where we see and interact with social others. So we grow up with the natural mind forming the idea or hypothesis that we are alone in our mental world. We follow the sensuous principle of “Out of sight, out of mind.” In other words, no one seems to be in our own private mental world, hence there is no one there. But this may only be an appearance or illusion.

Swedenborg became conscious in his spiritual mind at age 57, as already explained. We become conscious of our spiritual mind only when we are resuscitated, at the death of the physical body. But he was given this special mission by God which was, to reveal the scientific and rational facts about the human mind and God. Until this time, no one could know anything about the afterlife, the spiritual world, or the anatomy and physiology of the mind (see Section xx). How could God reveal these scientific facts to the modern person? Not by direct entry into the physical world and creating a university where God writes the curriculum and teaches to people. This would only encourage a sensuous relationship with God here on earth. It would be temporary. When people pass into the spiritual world, whatever they believed or conceptualized about God sensuously, disappears.

As explained in several locations in Theistic Psychology (see Section xx), sensuous rationality tied to the corporeal mind and physical body, does not survive because it is located in the natural mind, and these mental organs are de-activated or put to sleep and are no longer functioning in our life of immortality. We awaken in our spiritual mind, which is a discrete degree or level above the natural mind. Nothing whatsoever of the natural can enter there or exist there. This is why God does not make an appearance at the United Nations or on the streets of the cities, as He did during the Incarnation Event (see see Sections 1.6.8 and 1.8.4.2  and 1.8.6  and 2.19 and 3.7.2.2 and 3.10.1 and 4.4.5 and 4.4.6.1  and 5.0.6  and 5.1.1.5.1 and 13.0.11.1.1). That event was an evolutionary change in the spiritual mind of the human race (see Section xx).

Specifically, the Divine Human was embodied in a Physical Body, which God rendered suitable for His Human Divine Spiritual Body, which He always possessed from eternity. By rendering this Divine Physical Body suitable for the Divine Spiritual Body, God thereby brought about an evolutionary change in the levels of the human race. He created the new Rational Heavens in every human mind then alive in either world, and in every human mind that is born after that. Hence the human race was altered in a most significant way. We might say that God finally completed the creation of the human race. Until then we were not complete. Since then, the human race contains a rational heaven in the affective organ at the highest level of the mind.

It is absolutely necessary that we develop this potential in us before we pass into the afterlife. When we are resuscitated, the kind of life we have is determined by the idea we have of God, for all other ideas depend on this chief idea. If we can tolerate and acquire rational ideas of God, we can find a way to our heaven, and exist there forever. If we cannot tolerate rational ideas of God, our consciousness automatically sinks down into the lower levels where the natural mind is, with its sensuous concepts and corporeal images obtained through the physical body. Instead of being able to let go of all ideas based on time, space, number, quantity, we hang to them, and we reject the rational ideas.

The result is spiritual insanity. This involves a distorted mental physiology. When the spiritual heat and light from the Spiritual Sun, immerses them in its stream, their affective organ reacts hysterically and explosively, with extreme avoidance and compulsive rage. Swedenborg was able to observe this many times over the 27 years of his daily consciousness in the spiritual world. Sensuous ideas are opposed to rational ideas. Hence their ideas were opposed to heaven and God in their mind. When they were told some truth about God, they instantly denied it, and turned it around into its opposite – which of course was false. Swedenborg performed this experiment many times in different ways to make sure it is scientifically valid (see Section xx).

So you may be sure that God will not appear on the streets for the modern mind. Prior to the Incarnation Event, the human race had a sensuous heaven only, which was suitable to the original celestial race on earth (see see Sections 1.6.8 and 1.8.4.2  and 1.8.6  and 2.19 and 3.7.2.2 and 3.10.1 and 4.4.5 and 4.4.6.1  and 5.0.6  and 5.1.1.5.1 and 13.0.11.1.1). After the whole-brained celestial race had died out due to spiritual abuses of the science of correspondences, God created a new race called the split-brained spiritual race, of which we are members. This race had a new heaven in their mind, which is why the old race and the new race are segregated in eternity. Swedenborg however, was allowed to visit both races.

The need for the human race to create rational concepts of God and heaven led to the development of modern science. Today any modern person is educated in science and analytical thinking. These scientific concepts and attitudes make possible today the development of theistic science. Now God can be taught in school, not as religion, but as science (see Section xx). This would not have been possible before the Writings Sacred Scripture, the last volume of which was published by Swedenborg in 1771.

Now that God can be a scientific and rational concept for the basis of human thinking, every human being has the opportunity and ability to develop their rational heavens while they are still living in a physical body, and while still conscious in the natural mind. Every individual is exposed to the rational ideas in the Writings Sacred Scripture so that they may form their rational heavens through their idea of the Divine Human. People either receive this instruction on earth in society, or in the world of spirits, after their resuscitation. Every one is then instructed in the rational concepts revealed in the Writings Sacred Scripture. Those who are willing to abandon their hellish loves with its false ideas of God, are able to open up their heavens and dwell there. But those who are unwilling, then abandon their heavenly loves and rational ideas of God. They open up the hells in their mind, into which they sink and immerse themselves with delight, as witnessed by Swedenborg many times.

You now have the unusual opportunity to discover the scientific concepts of God which God has revealed to humankind, barely 235 years ago through a Swedish scientist whose mind God had prepared for this special mission (see Section xx).

For more on sensuous vs. rational spirituality see Section xx.

1.0.5.5   The Daily Discipline of Rational Spirituality 

 

1.0.5.5.1   Recognizing Our Dual Existence

Quoting from the Writings Sacred Scripture:

HH 434. A man cannot think and will without there being a subject that is a substance out of which and in which he can think and will. Anything that is supposed to come into existence apart from a substantial subject is nothing. This can be known from the fact that a man is unable to see without an organ which is the subject of his sight, or to hear without an organ which is the subject of his hearing. Apart from these organs, sight and hearing are nothing and are not given existence.

The same is true of thought, which is an internal sight, and of perception, which is an internal hearing; unless these were in substances and from substances which are organic forms and subjects, they would have no existence at all. From these things it can be confirmed that man's spirit as well as his body is in a form, and that it is in a human form, and enjoys sensories and senses when separated from the body, the same as when it was in it, and that all the life of the eye and all the life of the ear in a word, all the life of sense that man has, belongs not to his body but to his spirit, which dwells in these organs and in their minutest particulars.

This is why spirits see, hear, and feel, as well as men. But after being loosed from the body, they do this not in the natural world, but in the spiritual world. The natural sensation that the spirit had, when it was in the body, it had by means of the material part that was added to it; but even then it also felt spiritually in thinking and willing. (HH 434)

We are mental beings existing simultaneously in time and in eternity outside time.

We exist in time through the physical body and in eternity through the mental body.

Our birth involves the coming into existence of a physical body in time and a mental body outside time or in eternity. The physical body and mental body are functionally connected through the universal laws of correspondences. These Divinely created laws connect the two worlds of creation – the world of time and the world of eternity.

The physical world is in time and space. Its matter originates from stars that create gravitational fields or energies that operate by fixed laws. The stars are also the source of matter, heat, light, and through these, of planets and its weather systems. This arrangement of things in the physical world of time is brought about and managed by the arrangement of things in the mental world of eternity. Every single physical phenomenon, object, or property, is nothing but the effect of some corresponding mental source and cause. Everything that happens in the physical world of time is a corresponding result to something that first happens in the mental world of eternity.

For instance stars exist in the physical world of time because the Spiritual Sun exists in the mental world of eternity. You will be able to see the Spiritual Sun when your consciousness is no longer connected to the physical body. This happens at death. Following that, we are resuscitated, which occurs about thirty hours after the physical body is no longer able to remain connected to the mental body. After resuscitation our conscious awareness is entirely in the mental body. Now we begin our life of immortality in eternity.

Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), a Swedish scientist and engineer, was prepared from childhood to develop a mind and character to be able to receive, write, and publish new scientific revelations about the two worlds and how they are interconnected by the laws of correspondences. At age 57 God appeared to Swedenborg and informed him of his Divinely appointed mission as modern scientific revelator.

Swedenborg was then given the unique and unprecedented ability of being conscious simultaneously in both worlds. No scientist in human history has ever been given such an experimental laboratory which allowed him to do experiments and view it simultaneously in its effects in time and its prior cause in eternity. For the next 27 years, until his death at age 84, he kept daily records, in Swedish and Latin, of his dualist experiments. All his works were published and translated, and the English translation today contains about 30 volumes of his reports on the world of eternity.

Swedenborg observed thousands of people being resuscitated shortly after the death of their physical body. He was able to talk to all the people he had known and had passed into the afterlife. Furthermore, he was able to talk to dozens of famous names he knew from literature going back to thousands of years (e.g., Aristotle). He interviewed people who had lived on this earth when human life first began, and despite their ancient age their mental body appeared like the body they had on earth in their adolescence.

Swedenborg discovered that the world of the afterlife is in eternity, not in time. People often imagine their afterlife as coming back on a new reconstructed earth in which they will live forever. They thus imagine heaven to be on a physical planet in an immortal physical body. Swedenborg proved that the afterlife is in eternity, outside the physical world of time and space.

 1.0.5.5.2  The Mental World is the World of Eternity

When people hear about their immortal life in “eternity” and  the “spiritual world,” they think of something obscure and without content. They think it is something difficult to understand or be clear about. But all this changes when you realize that eternity is something you are more familiar with than you are with your kitchen or back yard. Eternity is nothing else than the mental world, and what is more familiar to you than your mental world of thoughts and feelings?

People are taught from the negative bias of science that thoughts and feelings are in the brain. Few people go on to examine and observe how irrational and unscientific this idea is. In order to see it and to be able to prove that eternity is our familiar mental world, all you need to do is to consider your dreams. Where are your dreams? Where is the space and the objects in the restaurant you are dreaming eating in?

The space is instantiated by your imagination! In the mental world we have the power to create instantly as much space we want, as much wealth we want, as much fun we want – or, strangely enough, their opposites – how frightened we can get, or miserable, or powerless. We can create a heaven or a hell in our mind both while we are dreaming and while we are awake. All this is familiar to you. What you did not know is that this mental world is the same as the afterlife of eternity!

When we are born we exist as two connected bodies, one in time, the other in eternity. Only the brain and its operations can be in time and space. The sensations we have from our sensory organs are not in the brain, not in the physical body, but in the mental body. Our thoughts and feelings must exist in a non-material world that is outside space, time, matter, energy, quantity, etc. Our sensations, thoughts, and feelings are not material, not physical, not in space, not in time, not in matter. They are spiritual, outside time and space, in a mental world that is eternal, because not in time. Our mental life cannot exist in our physical body.

From birth onward, our physical body transmits neuro-chemical and electro-physical signals to our brain, and there they remain. The mental body is connected by correspondence to these physical signals. We experience the sensation of an ice cube in the mouth after the physical signal went from the mouth to the brain. The mental sensation occurs simultaneously with the physical brain signal. If the brain malfunctions due to disease or injury, the mental sensation will not be experienced. Once the brain is dead however, and we are resuscitated in our mental body, we can experience sensations far more intensely because the sensory environment in the mental world is far more distinct than in the physical world – as you can tell from vivid dreams and nightmares.

So our life of immortality begins when the physical body is dead and the mental body now can experience the mental environment exclusively. This environment differs greatly from the physical environment we are familiar with here. On the surface the two worlds look alike because of our ideas of the environment we must have to live. For instance, the environment in your dreams may be normal or odd, but still it is made of things we are familiar with – people, houses, books, beaches, horses, running, eating, etc. The things in our dreams mostly make sense because they are the things in our daily lives.

1.0.5.5.3   Our Life in Eternity

It is easy to understand therefore that our mental world does not change much in appearance after death. Swedenborg reports that when people are resuscitated they appear to themselves to be in the same place that they died in – at home in bed, or a hospital, or battle zone. But this appearance quickly begins to change and we realize that we are no longer in a physical world. People seem to appear and disappear, houses and roads appear, clothes seem to change automatically on our body, we mostly never think of eating, and in any case, we soon realize we do not need to eat or drink to live, for we are immortal. But if we do think about eating, food we want suddenly appears on the table or in our hand, and it tastes very delicious.

Our life in the afterlife of eternity is social life with others who are like us. People live in groups and societies made of individuals who are similar in attitude and interest. It is the harmony and similarity of thoughts and feelings that causes people to appear with each other in groups and societies. This is completely an automatic sorting out process that starts at resuscitation. There are two separate groupings or collections of people in the afterlife, those who have heavenly thoughts and feelings and those who have hellish thoughts and feelings. The heaven or hell we live in is nothing else than the life we have inside our thoughts – a life in mental heaven if our thoughts and feelings are heavenly, and a life in mental hell if our thoughts and feelings are hellish.

While we are connected to the physical body it is possible for us to build up our heavenly thoughts and feelings and their hellish counterparts. At some point in our adult life we must start making choices that are either heavenly or hellish. Every choice we make remains with us into the afterlife. After resuscitation we go through a period of discovering which choices we made and which ones we are willing to give up or to keep. If we are willing to give up every single hellish choice, we enter immortal life in heaven. If we are not willing to give up a single hellish trait, we cannot enter heavenly life. Swedenborg reports that many people he observed after their resuscitation, were unwilling to give up this or that cherished attitude or pleasure, even if these were hellish. And so they gave up all their heavenly traits to enter life in hell forever.

How do we know which traits are heavenly or hellish?

When we make a choice on the basis of what we love our reasoning process immediately justifies the choice as good – even if it is evil. For instance, when people enjoy listening to loud music or TV they want to ignore how others are disturbed by it. They convince themselves that what they are doing is right since it’s their home, or since it’s still not late in the evening, or some other reason. Men can rape their dates and think that they didn’t do anything wrong because the girl encouraged them. People can drive drunk, kill someone, and convince themselves it’s not their fault. People betray each other and think they have the right to do that.

There are so many contradictory religions and philosophies because people want to call good that which they love, want, or enjoy. And so how do we know which of our traits are heavenly and which hellish? If we are wrong about this, it can costs us heaven or hell forever!

1.0.5.5.4   Why We Need Sacred Scripture

This is why it is absolutely necessary that God give people guidelines and definitions of what is heavenly and what hellish. We cannot rely on our own judgment. Hence it is that God gives Sacred Scripture to the human race. This is the Divinely given definition and criterion for what is good vs. evil, true vs. false, heavenly vs. hellish.

In Sacred Scripture God gives us several distinct layers of meanings and definitions. Our first encounter with Divine Speech through Sacred Scripture is the literal sense of the sentences that make up the books of Sacred Scripture. These sentences can be read by anyone and be understood in the literal sense. What are the topics of Sacred Scripture at this literal level of meaning? What is God talking to us about?

At the literal level Sacred Scripture has a historical and religious content. For instance, the Old Testament Sacred Scripture reads like the history of an ancient people, and contains poetry about God, visions and dreams by prophets, various prophecies of future history, numerous commandments and rituals that must be performed, and punishments and rewards are received accordingly. This literal-historical level of meaning of Sacred Scripture forms the basis for religion and its various denominations and varieties.

What happens when people form religions and belief systems based on the literal sense of Sacred Scripture? People interpret this literal content to suit themselves and what they love. People focus on the parts they like and ignore the parts of Sacred Scripture they don’t like. There is no consistency, no rational responsibility for being consistent. It is necessary therefore for people to go to the next layer of meaning in Sacred Scripture. This is called the spiritual meaning or the interior meaning, whereas the literal sense is called the natural meaning or the external meaning.

People are able to penetrate to the hidden correspondential sense of Sacred Scripture by making these steps:

(1) Acknowledging that the correspondential sense of Sacred Scripture can only be understood by being received from God. No one can do this on their own or from their own. Those who try come up with much improvable fantasy rather than truth and reality.

(2) Studying Sacred Scripture by rational and scientific methods. One must be completely consistent, explain apparent contradictions, and ignore no parts. This is called forming for oneself the Doctrine of Truth from Sacred Scripture. Theistic psychology is an instance of this approach.

(3) Applying each truth and idea to our daily willing and thinking. We must monitor the hundreds of choices we make every day. Every choice must be distinguished in our mind as either heavenly or hellish, as defined by the spiritual meaning of Sacred Scripture that God reveals to us on a daily basis.

If we practice these three steps on a daily basis, we are slowly building up our heaven and cutting our ties with hell. After resuscitation we happily and easily let go of whatever hellish traits remain, and we enter our heaven.

The correspondential sense of the Old and New Testament Sacred Scriptures are revealed in the Writings of Swedenborg Sacred Scripture. The Writings Sacred Scripture teach us how to extract the correspondential sense of all Sacred Scripture. The literal sense of the Writings Sacred Scripture are the Swedenborg Reports in about 30 volumes that describe his experiments, observations, and rationale. It is revealed there that life in eternal heaven is a conjugial life, that is, everyone there is married. Swedenborg interviewed many married couples who live in their heavens. A husband and wife are soul mates and live out their immortal life in happiness and blessedness in company with other similar couples with who they form a society or city. Swedenborg describes the details of life in heaven and hell.

Why risk going to hell? Take charge of your immortality. Start studying theistic psychology and read the Writings Sacred Scripture. Gain knowledge of how to be successful in your character reformation and personality makeover. Everything depends on it!

1.0.5.5.5   The Hidden correspondential sense of Sacred Scripture

What is God talking to us about in the hidden correspondential sense of Sacred Scripture? And why is it hidden?

The idea of “God talking” is the same as the idea of “Divine Truth” because God thinks and speaks Divine Truth and nothing else. Remember that the mental world of eternity is the world created by God’s thoughts and purposes. God has no beginning and no end, and therefore God’s thoughts are eternal, which is the same as saying that God’s thoughts, or Divine Truth, forms the world of eternity. Remember also that the physical world of time and space is an effect or consequence of a mental cause. This mental cause of the physical world is Divine Truth, which is God’s thinking.

We at first think that the physical world is concrete and solid while the mental world is ephemeral, almost non-existent in concrete reality. We have sayings in popular culture like “It’s only in his imagination. It’s not real.” A popular song about an island the singer is dreaming of ends with “But there is no island at all, Just a picture on my wall.” So we grow up with the idea that the mental world is less real than the physical world.

But as we progress in our rational thinking we discover from the hidden correspondential sense of Sacred Scripture that the mental world is more real than the physical world. Everything in the physical world is temporary and breaks down with time. Nothing is permanent. But in the mental world created by God’s thoughts every single thing is permanent. We are immortal because our mental world is created by the thoughts of God, that is, by Divine Truth. A human mind constructed out of God’s thoughts and feelings is an immortal being because nothing in it can die, everything in it is permanent in eternity. Animals do not have the same mental body we have.

While we have a natural mind and a spiritual mind, animals only have a natural mind. Upon the death of the animal the mental body containing the animal’s natural mind cannot remain itself, cannot survive, and dissipates. It is our spiritual mind that makes us different from all animals. Our spiritual mind is constructed as a receptor organ for God’s thoughts and feelings, while animals do not have such an organ. The natural mind animals have are similar to our natural mind in that its content is constructed through the sensory signals of the physical body. In contrast to this, the spiritual mind does not receive any input whatsoever from the physical body and the natural world. All the input into our spiritual mind comes from the spiritual world, that is, the mental world of eternity.

The input or inflow of God’s thoughts and feelings into our spiritual mind is unconscious and automatic. This is the source of rationality, that is, our ability to think and reason rationally in our natural mind. We are not conscious of the inflow of God’s rational thoughts. We are only conscious of the rational thoughts as we are thinking about something or solving a problem.

Why then are we not perfectly rational all the time? Why is the Divine Truth hidden in Sacred Scripture as its correspondential sense? Why not reveal the truth to everybody?

To understand the answer you need to recall that God’s thoughts and feelings flow out into the created mental world of eternity where the minds of human beings exist and live. God’s thoughts and feelings spread out into the mental world of humanity like sunlight and heat spread out into physical space and into the planets. Divine Truth as Divine Speech, spreads into the unconscious spiritual mind of every human being, insuring the rationality and immortality of every member of the human race. But where does Divine Truth go from there? How does it go from the unconscious spiritual mind to the conscious natural mind where we do our thinking 

The answer is that the natural mind and the spiritual mind are connected by the laws of correspondences. These laws govern the functional connection between the layers of reality, starting with the spiritual mind and its layers, spreading outward to the natural mind, and finally being written down as sentences in a book. At each level of descent there is a corresponding reaction so that the upper level causes the lower level to react in correspondence with itself. When Divine Speech, or Divine Truth, reaches the bottom of the natural mind, the meaning of the ideas are natural, not spiritual. The literal sense that the prophet writes down in sentences is not what God said or thought, but a correspondence to what God thought and said. See the Layers Diagram.

For instance the literal sense of the Old Testament Sacred Scripture often speaks of water, different forms of it, like rain, ocean, storm, flood, river, spring waters, etc. When Swedenborg read the Sacred Scripture people use in the heavens of their eternity, there was no mention of water anywhere. Instead, when Swedenborg compared the specific passages and phrases where the Old Testament Sacred Scripture mentions water, there was mention of various forms of truth, like external vs. internal truth, or mediate truth vs. genuine truth, or truth of doctrine, truth of religion, natural truth vs. spiritual truth, falsified truth, etc. In other words, Divine Speech discusses the varieties of truth in human minds, not the weather or bodies of water on earth.

Another example is the frequent mention and description of wars conducted by the children of Israel in the Holy Land. All sorts of sordid details are given, some quite revolting. In several passages God is quoted as saying that He orders the children of Israel to invade the land that was promised them, wage holy war against the inhabitants, and destroy their cities, and decimate their population. God orders that no one should be spared the sword, -- women, children, and cattle. Many people today are puzzled or offended by such a barbaric treatment commanded by God. But you can understand it if you look for the hidden spiritual meaning of these events. Every detail of war mentioned in the Old Testament Sacred Scripture can be analyzed and seen to deal with the details of the psychology of regeneration.

Swedenborg was conscious in both the natural mind, as we are now, and in his spiritual mind, as we will be after resuscitation, which is the process of awakening in the spiritual mind a few hours after the death of the physical body (see Section xx). Because Swedenborg was conscious in both minds simultaneously he was in a position of making direct empirical observations of how natural and spiritual phenomena are interrelated. He was able to read the literal meaning of the Bible in Hebrew and Greek so that he was conscious of its meaning in the natural mind, as we are, but also of its meaning in the spiritual mind, since the two are interrelated. This is how he empirically discovered the natural-spiritual correspondences in t