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

5.0  Extractive, Predictive, and Applied Research

Theistic psychology is based on three empirical methodologies, which will be illustrated in this chapter.

1. Extractive research-- systematic and cumulative analysis of Sacred Scripture as Divine Speech containing a universal and scientific meaning that is hidden within its historical and literal sentences and expressions

2. Predictive research-- constructing theories and principles of theistic psychology that are to be confirmed by extractive research

3. Applied research--discovering applications of theistic psychology knowledge to character self-improvement in daily life as a preparation for conjugial life in heavenly eternity

These are the three distinct methodologies that exist in theistic psychology. Extractive research is the basis and beginning of all other methodologies. An illustration of this technique is given in the next section immediately below which extracts the universal scientific meaning of Genesis Chapter 22 (for other examples see Section xx). This meaning is also called the correspondential meaning of Sacred Scripture. Human consciousness is to the awareness of meaning. Meaning is therefore the basis and content of our consciousness. What is the origin and source of meaning? Few people know the answer. It is given in theistic psychology as it was extracted from the scientific correspondences of Divine Speech (see Section xx).

The source of meaning, or consciousness, is Divine Truth, which is a spiritual substance that streams forth from the Spiritual Sun, and radiates simultaneously into the mind of every human being (see Section xx). There is no other source of truth of any kind except God's Divine Truth radiating from the Spiritual Sun as spiritual light. This immortal living substance enters the mind of every human being at its highest level called the third Heaven (see Section xx). From there the living spiritual substance descends through the various discrete layers of the human mental organs, giving the cognitive organ the ability and energy to operate our thinking, reasoning, understanding, and imagining (see Section xx).

This transfer of Divine truth into human minds, called "Divine influx," is accomplished through the rational ether or "sphere" that surrounds our mind in the spiritual world (see Section xx). Remember that the mental world is the spiritual world of eternity where people live in the afterlife (see Section xx). We are not directly conscious of our presence in the spiritual world of eternity as long as we are connected by correspondence to a physical body (see Section xx). The influx of spiritual light and heat from the Spiritual Sun is what keeps us alive and immortal (see Section xx).

Swedenborg at age 57 was enabled by God to be conscious in his spiritual mind while he was still conscious of his natural mind. As a result he was able to be sensuously present in the world of eternity, interview people who had passed into the afterlife, both recent arrivals and those who had lived on earth thousands of years ago. For 27 years he lived as a dual citizen, conscious in both time and eternity. Swedenborg was able to see the Spiritual Sun along with all the people who inhabit the heavens of their mind. After you are resuscitated, which is about 30 hours after the physical body is no longer responsive in any way, you awaken in conscious awareness in your spiritual mind and are able to interact with everyone else who is already conscious in their spiritual mind. Then you can see the Spiritual Sun of that world of eternity. You will be able to see the spiritual substance of living light stream into you, and you will experience its effects by what you can see, think, and feel.

Truth is therefore the very basis and substance of consciousness, or spiritual life in immortality. And the origin of all truth is Divine Speech ( = Divine Truth), which comes forth through the Spiritual Sun from the Divine Human whose Head can be seen in the midst of it, as Swedenborg often observed, and as anyone can observe who dwells in the heaven of their mind, which it the mind's highest region of consciousness and is called the celestial state of a human being (see Section xx). Divine Truth or Divine Speech creates and forms meaning in human minds, thus consciousness and immortality. Our consciousness, awareness, understanding, and thinking is nothing but our reaction or accommodation to the spiritual light entering our cognitive organ at the celestial level, then descending. Sacred Scripture is what Divine speech becomes through this descent (see Section xx). Now we can climb back up this Divine descent through extracting the scientific meaning that lies hidden within Sacred Scripture. The extracted knowledge is close in subject matter to Divine Speech and Divine Truth, while the literal sentences have a more distant relationship to what God is actually talking to us about (see Section xx).

You can see then why it is that extractive research is the very foundation for theistic psychology. Through this activity we can extract new meaning from Divine Speech coming down to our conscious awareness through the layers of our mind -- celestial, spiritual, natural (see Section xx). Extractive research is the process of becoming conscious of higher spiritual meaning or truth. The extraction process refers to the systematic and scientific derivation of higher-order correspondences from Sacred Scripture, when it is read as correspondences of Divine Speech. The systematic methods that theistic psychology follows are prescribed in precise detail in the Writings of Swedenborg (see Section xx). This makes sense since many people can invent all sorts of methods for "interpreting" Sacred Scripture, and this inventive self-intelligence has produced a bewildering collection of contradictory interpretations over the centuries of recorded Bible exegesis literature, doctrine, speculation, propaganda, and nonsense. (For illustrations see Volume 1 of my book A Man of the Field available online at:  www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/volume1-nonduality.html )

Any student, scholar, or researcher can generate, and communicate or share, new findings in extractive research by keeping a record of the process by which they are being enlightened when studying the letter of Sacred Scripture through the prescribed method of correspondences with enlightenment (see Section xx).

 To be "enlightened" means to become consciously or explicitly aware of genuine spiritual and celestial correspondences in Sacred Scripture. This process is produced and managed by God in His particular relationship with every unique human individual. People cannot enlighten themselves. Being able to perceive higher meanings in Sacred Scripture occurs when God activates the person's rational mind through influx of spiritual light into its cognitive organ. This takes place only as part of the process of being regenerated (see Section xx).

The higher your conscious awareness of meaning or spiritual truth contained in Divine Speech, the closer is your conscious awareness to Divine Truth. Divine Speech as Sacred Scripture hides or contains infinite new meanings or truths for the human race to extract and become conscious of. Sacred Scripture is the evolutionary mechanism managed by God by which human beings progressively grow in rational consciousness in their endless immortality.

These are the two fundamental principles for extractive research that are revealed and prescribed in the Writings of Swedenborg:

1. No other genuine source of consciousness, meaning, rationality, or truth is possible than Divine Speech as Sacred Scripture, which is the sole and infinite source of all truth and reality forever.
    

2. No other method of extraction is possible for theistic psychology than what is specified in the Writings Sacred Scripture. This is called the method of correspondences with enlightenment.

These two principles are specified in the Writings Sacred Scripture in many places where it deals with the issue of how to extract the "inner correspondential sense of the Word" [Sacred Scripture].

Approximately half of the text the Writings Sacred Scripture is devoted to this topic. Clearly, how to extract scientific correspondential meaning from Sacred Scripture ("the Word"), is the major topic in the Writings of Swedenborg. It is obvious therefore that these principles must be learned, followed, and applied in all extractive research in theistic psychology. Any research which does not follow the appropriate methods of extraction is therefore not part of theistic psychology.

You can see why this research rule is critical for the validity of theistic psychology. People over the centuries have offered numerous hypotheses, theories, and interpretations of many parts of Sacred Scripture. Why should anyone follow these interpretations, except from persuasion, blind faith, or authority--none of which are rationally and scientifically acceptable. And so theistic psychology would be just like all the other fields of philosophy, science, and social debate. This is the reason that God has created a rational mind in human beings, capable of becoming conscious of Divine Truth through the descending meanings of Divine Speech. Consciousness, or rational understanding of Divine Truth, is the very foundation of our immortality, rationality, and goodness as human beings.

God is the only true Human, and He creates human beings as an image of His own humanness. In fact, every single thing God creates must be an expression of His Human form. This is more difficult to see in inanimate things and in living individuals. But every object has an external part and an internal part, regardless of its size or composition. This reflects the human form as containing an external mind and internal mind. Plant and animal growth exhibit the Divine Human form in many ways, as in the struggle to survive and perpetrate its species through offspring. These abilities and tendencies are in God and they inflow each object, giving that object its unique qualities and properties. God's Humanness is most visible in human beings who have God's external form in the body and His internal form in the mind -- love, rationality, creativity. Our humanness as human beings is from God's Humanness, which is eternal, and was always, even prior to all creation. Hence God is called the Divine Human (see Section xx).

Divine Speech is the endless source of meaning or higher and higher consciousness of human potential. Divine speech is also the source of the methodology we are to follow for extracting meaning from it. We cannot use just any method that our intelligence dictates, and if we try, only chaotic and delusional meanings are obtained--not from Divine Speech, but from self-intelligence. Evidence of this is how religious ideas and harmful and irrational dogmas, have arisen throughout the centuries. In every instance, the extraction process was faulty. It wasn't until the 18th century that the human race on earth was ready for understanding and receiving this new rational methodology. Civilization had to first enter the modern age of rationality and science before the method of correspondences could be revealed to science. Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) was chosen and prepared by God to be the human mind through whom the Divine Speech of the modern age would descend first, and from him, to others through the Writings Sacred Scripture.

Through the Writings of Swedenborg God reveals new scientific facts and how these phenomena are produced by spiritual and natural laws of correspondences. Humankind now knows that God maintains a very close and strict control over what people do in their mind when they approach Sacred Scripture as Divine Speech. If you approach Sacred Scripture as not Divine Speech, but some individual's inspired genius, then God shuts down completely the extraction process. You will then not be able to extract any meaning or truth from it. Everything you come up with will be your own theory, not an extraction from Divine Speech. The reason for this is to protect you from injuring yourself through what is called "profanation" and "the sin against the Holy Spirit that cannot be forgiven." This refers to the psychobiological fibers in the mind where the interpretation or meaning is permanently stored. In other words, if you distort the meaning of Divine Speech and attribute the source of that falsity to Divine Speech, you are creating two permanent forces in yourself that battle each other to death--except that they are immortal. You are then locked into an endless life of mental agony to eternity. To avoid this horrible fate, God will protect all those who approach Sacred Scripture.

Evidence of this is the fact that many people read Sacred Scripture and look at it as a story or as part of great literature--not as Divine Speech. They point to how it's written in an old fashioned way, how it is ignorant of all science, how it contradicts itself in many places, how it presents an inconsistent picture of God, how it is written for one ethnic group, how portions are often written by ignorant people, how many parts are poetic and visionary and don't make rational sense, etc. In other words, it is not possible to prove that what is designated as Sacred Scripture from Divine Speech, is different from other texts and books.

This inability to prove that Sacred Scripture is Divine Speech is the result of the strict rule God follows in preventing anyone from extracting any spiritual truth when the person is going to profane it, that is, reject it. This first line of protection against extractive research is called the "Cherubim," which refers to a Holy Animal described in the Old Testament as protecting the "throne or seat of God." The Cherubim symbolically represent God's action of preventing people from recognizing or perceiving Sacred Scripture as Divine Speech -- when they are later going to reject that truth after they perceived its reality.

The second line of protection against the self-injury of profanation, is that God controls the exact pace and progression of the new meanings we can extract. There are two general rules for genuine extraction in theistic psychology:

First Principle: Correspondences

Learning and using the correspondences solely as defined in the Writings Sacred Scripture. Avoiding any self-defined correspondences from logic or other sources. Confirming one's interpretation of a correspondence by multiple passages.

Second Principle: Enlightenment

Enlightenment by God of new meaning must take place in each instance of an extracted truth. Enlightenment is given only to the extent that the new truth is applied to one's daily willing and thinking. Only in this effort of character reformation or regeneration can God provide enlightenment for new meaning of Divine Speech, and this endlessly to eternity.

You can see why this called the method of correspondences with enlightenment (see Section xx).

This two-part cycle defines the extraction process now and into our eternal heaven, where the process continues on the same basis. Swedenborg reports that the people he interviewed in their highest heaven acknowledged that all their intelligence, wisdom, and knowledge comes from the celestial-rational Sacred Scripture they read every day and have implanted in their memory. Swedenborg reports that when we are conscious in our spiritual mind we have such an amazing knowledge of correspondences that we can answer any complicated question about the human body -- its anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, genetics and other things that are unknown to science on earth (which is the natural mind). The knowledge and meaning comes to them automatically as we think of some topic. This is because we internalize the celestial-rational text of Sacred Scripture, so that Divine Speech can come to our conscious awareness as an infinite database of knowledge instantly accessible. This makes us quasi-omniscient human beings when we are in the celestial mind (see Section xx).

From all this you can now see that theistic psychology is not like non-theistic science in which many people become experts regardless of their character. It is not necessary to be a struggling regenerating person in order to be an expert scientist in today's world. You can be a great mathematician and at the same time have a terrible personality that bullies others and cares only for self -- beside also being overweight with high blood pressure, or other cause related to lack of self-control. You can have a hellish character and yet be a genius for making money or inventing new managerial methods and ideas. You can be a popular philosopher or writer and yet be an alcoholic or sex addict, hurting those that love and trust you. You can be a great doctor and a terrible husband and father. But you cannot extract any truth from Sacred Scripture except in exact proportion to your struggles for regeneration and character reformation. This is the very reason Divine Speech is given to humankind. It is not available for any other use.

The two-step process starts with the study of correspondences as defined in the Writings of Swedenborg. If our motive for studying is in the positive bias (see Section xx), then God gives us enlightenment of spiritual truth so that we can become conscious of higher order correspondences--natural-rational correspondences, spiritual-rational correspondences, celestial-rational correspondences (see Section xx). We must collect these new meanings into a coherent statement or system called "the doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture." The final step is to apply this new meaning to our choice making in the course of the day, every day. This applied feature involves the experience of temptations at various levels--natural, spiritual, celestial (see Section xx).

This three-step process of extractive research is therefore an individual and independent effort that every person must put out in the course of character reformation or regeneration. This is the normal process that has been provided by God for the salvation of every individual, that is, of the preparation of our heavenly proprium or "new will" (see Section xx).

From all this it is clear that one of the main objectives of theistic psychology is to teach people the spiritual literacy skills of extracting new meanings from Sacred Scripture as Divine Speech.

Predictive Research

Predictive research is represented by the many theories, models, and principles that I present in this book in all four volumes. In theistic psychology all theories and interpretations are called "predictive" because they predict that the principle or theory will be confirmable by Sacred Scripture.

Any theory or principle that has not been confirmed is not part of theistic psychology. It has an ambiguous status since it is not known whether it is a true representation of reality or a false one. But when the proposed interpretation or theory is confirmed by Sacred Scripture, it takes on a new status. It is now known that it is a true representation of reality and has the equivalent status to extractive research. This is the creative feature that we must have as independent researchers of Divine Speech. We can never rely on someone else's authority or understanding, for this would be useless to us spiritually at the second death (see Section xx).

The doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture that we extract as-of self by means of our mental effort and desire, is a true doctrine created by the Divine Human in our very own proprium. This is the Divine Human's conscious presence in our very own rationality and freedom. This is the optimal condition for our loving the Divine Human because the infinite God is then present in our very own conscious mind. This is the highest potential reachable by human beings. It is a state of mind called "the Third Heaven" in the spiritual world. Swedenborg often visited with those who dwell in that state and has described their characteristics. This is the character of our very own mind at its highest level of operation. Every person can attain to this height in their mind through the spiritual techniques made available by God to every person living in the world today.

Applied research in theistic psychology centers around the "self-witnessing" method. This is a term I created before I started reading Swedenborg and reflects the kind of empirical approach I was interested in for several decades. Imagine my delight in discovering in the Writings of Swedenborg that the self-witnessing method is the key technique for regeneration, character reformation, and spiritual development. Volume 3 discusses applications of theistic psychology in several major areas of daily life.

Examples of predictive research include several concepts, terms, principles, and methodologies that I have introduced into theistic psychology--

1. being an audience to yourself (see Section xx)

2. biography recapitulates evolution of consciousness (see Section xx)

3. biological theology  (see Section xx)

4. cognitive atlas (see Section 5.4.2)

5. color wisdom (see Section xx)

6. community cataloguing practices (see Section xx)

7. doctrine of the wife (see Section xx)

8. dual citizenship  (see Section xx)

9. emotional spin cycle (see Section xx)

10. ennead matrix (see Section xx)

11. extractive and predictive research (see Section xx)

12. implicative meaning (see Section xx)

13. genes of consciousness  (see Section xx)

14. genetic culture  (see Section xx)

15. geography of spiritual world = anatomy of mind  (see Section xx)

16. graphic differential  (see Section xx)

17. height and breadth of discourse (see Section xx)

18. hexagram of development (see Section xx)

19. macro-behaviors and micro-Behaviors (see Section 5.4.1.8)

20. no function without structure (see Section xx)

21. positive and negative bias in science (see Section xx)

22. professionalizing the self (see Section xx)

23. rational vs. mystical spirituality (see Section xx)

24. religious behaviorism (see Section xx)

25. scientific meaning of Sacred Scripture (see Section xx)

26. scientific revelations in Sacred Scripture  (see Section xx)

27. self-regulatory sentences (see Section xx)

28. self-witnessing method (see Section xx)

29. spiritual anatomy (see Section xx)

30. spiritual geography (see Section xx)

31. spiritual linguistics = mental anatomy

32. spiritual literacy skills (see Section xx)

33. spiritual numerology (see Section xx)

34. spiritual psychobiology (see Section xx)

35. standardized imaginings (see Section xx)

36. substantive dualism  (see Section xx)

37. substitution technique for extractive research (see Section xx)

38. sudden memory (see Section 5.4.1.7)

39. synecdoche (see Section xx)

40. theistic psychology (see Section xx)

41. threefold self (see Section xx)

42. trigram of meaning (see Section xx)

43. vertical community (see Section xx)

44. and some others (see Section xx)

 

The diagram above shows applied theistic psychology with a lateral arrow because its focus goes outside research with Sacred Scripture. Extractive research is pictured with a vertical arrow upward because knowledge and information is being extracted from the scientific meaning of Sacred Scripture as Divine Speech. Predictive research is pictured with a vertical arrow downward because it projects ahead what we have not confirmed in Sacred Scripture. Additional comments about the diagram are given in the Preface.

The analysis presented in the next section is an illustration of the extractive methodology. It clearly shows that the scientific sense of the Old and New Testaments is entirely independent of their historical and poetic sense which serves for the Jewish and Christian religions. People from other religions can read these Sacred Books of Divine origin, but they may not see them as universal, of equal relevance to all peoples. They may have their own religious literature which is more relevant to their cultural group. And even if they appreciate the universal significance of the Bible and the Writings of Swedenborg, these remain in their eyes as belonging to a particular historical ethnic tradition to which they may not belong. Their absolute universality cannot be acknowledged when evaluated from the point of view of their literal meaning.

Few people know about the details of the scientific revelations in the Writings of Swedenborg. One of the main revelations is the unveiling of the code of correspondences in which all Sacred Scripture is written in a natural language. The section below shows how this is done by Swedenborg. When we consider the decoded meaning, it turns out that it is about the anatomy of the human mind and how every person can develop spiritually as a way of preparing for immortal life in the spiritual world. This is obviously a universal topic that has nothing to do with the ethnic-historical narrative in the literal meaning of Sacred Scripture.

Swedenborg demonstrated that the literal-historical meaning of all Sacred Scripture has nothing to do with the universal meaning of Divine Speech which lies hidden within the literal text. Thus, while all Sacred Scripture is a cultural document tied to an ethnic group and religion, its internal scientific meaning, when reconstructed through correspondences, is universal for the entire human race. The universal scientific knowledge is the Divine Speech that is contained or hidden within the literal-historical text. The Writings of Swedenborg have revealed the precise method of this reconstruction process from Sacred Scripture to Divine Speech. The central feature of this reconstructive method is called the code or laws of correspondences. Whether you say "reconstructive research" or "predictive research" it is equivalent, but the image of it is contrastive in the two cases. "Reconstructive" implies upward movement from a lower to a higher consciousness of God or Divine Truth. "Extractive" implies a downward movement from higher to a lower correspondences. Both perspectives are valid and simultaneous.

With regard to correspondences, God has rendered it impossible to figure out this hidden universal scientific meaning without the code of correspondences being revealed. All other codes made by human beings are automatically inaccurate and invalid, leading to the wrong conclusions. This is a protection for researchers and believers against committing profanation with Sacred Scripture, as explained above (see also Section xx). The Christian Bible is the most published book in the world and if you check the library shelves you will see that more books have been written about the Bible than any other topic. Despite this amazing intellectual effort, not one author has ever even suspected that the Bible is written in a code, which when decoded, yields a textbook of theistic psychology. All sorts of other ideas have been fabricated, but not the actual reality, as revealed in the Writings of Swedenborg, and as everyone can confirm in theistic psychology.

So the books of Sacred Scripture in the Western tradition turn out to be science books of universal relevance to every person, regardless of religion, culture, century of birth, or planet.

No religion or ethnic group can claim primary ownership or reception of Sacred Scripture, or the "Threefold Word,"  when considered from the perspective of their hidden scientific meaning revealed in the Writings of Swedenborg. They are Divine scientific revelations given to humanity independently of religion, culture, or century. This was not known about the Old and New Testaments until the Writings of Swedenborg made the revelation in the eighteenth century.

So now every religion can claim the Old and New Testaments for its own, since the purpose of religion everywhere is to prepare the individual for immortality. In that basic sense religion has been more scientific than science, given that science has become non-theistic and ridicules the idea of preparation for immortality. Religion is far closer to being scientific since it teaches that there is one God and that our souls or spirits are immortal. But now we have something far more scientific than religion, namely theistic psychology extracted from Sacred Scripture.

It’s important to understand that nothing can take away the connection people feel towards the Old and New Testaments as the source and center of their religion—Jews, Christians, and New Church Christians ("Swedenborgians"). The fact that these books of Sacred Scripture also have a scientific sense hidden within, in no way weakens their holy function as books of religion for Judaism, Christianity, and the New Church. In reality, the scientific sense within the literal only strengthens the importance of the literal. The Writings explain that the literal meaning is the "most holy" because it contains all the levels of meanings that Divine Speech embodies.

The literal religious sense of these sacred writings are not affected in any way by the fact that there is also a universal scientific sense hidden within. This too was intended by God to bring untold benefits to humankind.

This intimate connection between Sacred Scripture and theistic psychology is easy to understand when you consider what is the content of this scientific meaning when it is reconstructed through the method of correspondences.  The laws of correspondences govern not only the style of Divine Speech but also the causal relationship between natural phenomena as effects and the spiritual phenomena as their causes. Obviously, this kind of science supports religion because without religion there is no Sacred Scripture and without Sacred Scripture there is no theistic psychology .

As the extractive research in the next sections demonstrates, the universal scientific content or subject matter of Chapter 22 in the Book of Genesis, is the anatomy of the human mind and the steps of spiritual development every person undergoes, though some individuals are willing to go further than others. The purpose of these Divine scientific revelations in Sacred Scripture is to give human beings everywhere the ability to change their inherited character and to prepare it for life in heaven to eternity. No scientific knowledge can be more important than this when we consider what's at stake.

It is clear therefore that the purposes of religion and theistic psychology overlap with each other, namely, to prepare people for their life in eternity. The approach each uses is however different. Religion tries to universalize the literal of Sacred Scripture. Evangelism is therefore the main objective for both the education of their children and for finding converts outside their community. Theistic science eliminates the literal and extracts the universal from it using the prescribed methods that the literal specifies.

Note that the literal of Sacred Scripture remains all important, even in universal theistic psychology. This is demonstrated in several ways. First, it is the literal that tells us what correspondences are and how they must be applied. Second, all predictive research or new doctrines must be confirmed by the literal meaning of Sacred Scripture. Third, the historical and scientific facts revealed in Sacred Scripture are completely and fully accurate. These three criteria are explicitly specified in the literal text of the Writings.

Obviously then, there are parts in the text of the Writings that are universal in their literal meaning. These portions of the text of Sacred Scripture are called "naked truths." In other words, they are spiritual truths that anyone can recognize, even without the knowledge of correspondences or advanced literacy skills in text analysis. There is therefore an overlap between religion based on the Writings and theistic psychology, at those portions called "naked truths."

Religion and science use different methods and different concepts. Both are needed for improving life on earth and preparing it for life in the spiritual world. Religion is needed because all Sacred Scripture has been given to establish a religion. Without religion on this earth we would not have Sacred Scripture and there would be no way in which Divine Speech could reach our mind. The Writings say that without a rational and systematic system of explanation, religion cannot succeed because the modern minds will not believe what they cannot understand rationally. And so theistic psychology based on the universal sense of Sacred Scripture is needed. The two support one another like a cup supports the liquid inside. People of all religions can study and accept the methods of theistic psychology, while they could not do this with religion without abandoning their own.

The diagram above shows that literacy comes first in mental development. Then religion, which cannot be understood without literacy since genuine spiritual ideas are rational and require rational understanding. Without rational understanding only a mystical or persuasive belief system is possible. The Writings show that only a rational belief system allows the development of a regenerated character capable of living in heaven. Once religion is established in the mind through a connection with Sacred Scripture, we can elevate our understanding of God by studying Sacred Scripture as Divine Speech--which is the scientific knowledge that is hidden within Sacred Scripture. This new knowledge reinforces and solidifies our connection to religion since it explains the detailed mechanisms by which God operates the universe, details that are not available in the literal sense of Sacred Scripture. As the Writings explain, what we can understand rationally about God, we can accept permanently to eternity because we can then love it in freedom.

The more we develop our rational consciousness of God the more God enlightens us and the more we can explain the details of God's activities and how we fit into it.

We are going to review how the Writings extract the scientific sense of the Old and New Testaments using the code of correspondences. This code is like a DNA code because it consists of the scientific laws that describe the exact relationship between natural events as effects and spiritual events as causes. Note that Swedenborg did not invent this code. Nor does it represent his attempt to interpret the Bible figuratively, as some have done. Rather, Swedenborg observed in the spiritual world what happens when he reads Bible verses in the natural world. Since he had dual consciousness he was able to see what spiritual events were happening when particular natural events were occurring on earth, namely, his reading a particular verse or phrase.

Note also that this code is the spiritual DNA of natural events, so that it is not restricted to the Old and New Testaments. This is what makes it scientific. The code is about the scientific laws that interconnect the two worlds. The reason that the Old and New Testaments are written in this code is that these books of Sacred Scripture are Divine Speech. The words and verses spoken by God through the mind of earthly prophets, were heard as well by the inhabitants of the spiritual world. Everything God imparts to the human race follows this sequence of descent from God. It first goes through the three heavens and only then into the minds of people who are still living on earth  (see Section xx).

The books of the Old and New Testaments therefore exist in heaven, as witnessed by Swedenborg, but in their spiritual language. Swedenborg also saw the Writings that he himself had authored. Although he wrote every line himself, from his own thinking and understanding, he wrote only what he was requested to write by the Divine-Human Himself from whom he received this communication while writing. The Writings complete what the Old and New Testaments had begun, so that the entire revelation took these three sets to complete. Hence they are called the “Threefold Word,” because Divine Speech is called "the Word" in Western tradition.

You can see from this that the Sacred Scripture we possess here on earth has a relation to the Sacred Scripture in the spiritual world. This relationship is that of external to internal. Divine Speech starts in its inmost form as received in the celestial language of the highest heaven. This level of meaning is carried by "celestial-rational correspondences" of Divine Speech.  From there it filters down to the spiritual language of the intermediate heaven by means of "spiritual-rational correspondences" of Divine Speech. From there it is filtered down to the spiritual-natural language of the lowest heaven by means of "spiritual-natural correspondences" of Divine Speech. From there it filters down to the world of spirits where are the natural minds of the people still on earth. This now is the level Divine Speech that we are familiar with, namely, the literal text of the Threefold Word in a natural language, and then translated, into different natural languages.

It’s crucial to realize that the celestial meaning (Third Heaven) is contained within the spiritual meaning (Second Heaven), and both are contained in the spiritual-natural meaning (First Heaven), and all three are contained in the natural-historical meaning (the versions known on earth). Once you realize this, you can also see that all four levels of meaning are also in our mind since the anatomy of the mind is the same as the geography of the spiritual world (see Section xx).

Since we are conscious only in the natural mind, while still on earth, the only way we can know what the three inner meanings are is by using the code of correspondences to reconstruct, or extract, each of the three inner meanings. This is what Swedenborg has done. He has applied the code of correspondences to the verse by verse, and word by word analysis, of the entire books of Genesis and Exodus, in the Old Testament, and the Book of Revelation in the New Testament. In addition he adds numerous samples of verses from the other books of the Old and New Testaments to demonstrate that they too use the same code of correspondences as in these three books.

For further exploration, see what is presented here:

Thompson, Ian. (2004). Spiritual Meaning of Words in the Bible Based on Swedenborg's Correspondences, Compiled by Dr. Thompson at www.biblemeanings.info/Words/index.html

Thompson, Ian. (2004). Spiritual Meaning of Parables in the Bible, Based on Swedenborg's Correspondences, Compiled by Dr. Thompson at www.biblemeanings.info/Parables/index.html

5.0.1  The Unique Properties of Sacred Scripture

I will illustrate in some detail how the Writings achieve this amazing result. You will note two types of proofs that we are dealing with regarding Divine Speech, which is totally unlike the speech authored by human beings. Ordinary books do not have these three sets of inner meanings that one can extract from the literal using the universal code of correspondences.

The first type of proof is that the same code of correspondences applies to all the books of Sacred Scripture, even though they had dozens of different authors over thousands of years, and none of them knew anything about a hidden code in what they were writing.

The second type of proof is that the inner content of major portions of these books refer to events that were to happen hundreds of years later. This is known to some extent from the literal sense in the case of visions and prophecies. It is believed that prophets were given visions and voices that they wrote down and that the content of what they wrote, at the literal level of meaning, refers explicitly to events to come, like famines and plagues, or wars of captivity and liberation, or God’s Incarnation event. But it was unknown, until the Writings, that hidden in the literal meaning of the visions and prophecies, and of the histories and poetry, there were three other rational meanings of a spiritual and celestial content.

For instance, as in the passages to be examined below, it is shown that the Abraham story of the Binding of Isaac to be sacrificed on the altar (Genesis Chapter 22 in the Old Testament), contains in its hidden meaning the mental struggles experienced by Jesus when a Divine Child growing up among the Jewish nation thousands of years after Abraham’s biography. The events of Abraham's life as told in Genesis are written down in exactly the right fashion to represent the mental struggles of the Incarnate God when still a Child. The Writings declare that every detail in the historical narrative of the patriarchs is accurate. So, particular events happened thousands of years before the Incarnation event. Then these events were written down in a historical narrative. Then the code of correspondences was revealed thousands of years later, and lo and behold, we can demonstrate that the sequence of events written down in the narrative matches exactly the sequence of the mental struggles of the Divine Child on earth--when we use the code to get at the inner meaning hidden within the text. These mental struggles by the Incarnate Divine Human are of evolutionary significance for the human race and need to be studied scientifically.

How could this be possible unless the Abraham story is Divine Speech dictated to Moses?

This secret lay hidden in the Old Testament story for all these centuries without a single human being on this earth suspecting its existence. Of course the inhabitants of the three heavens knew some of it because to them the Old Testament appears in its celestial and spiritual meanings. To us on earth, it is only now that our natural mind is allowed to know it. This new revelation to humankind is called "the Second Coming" and ushers in a new age for religion and science.

All this is crucial for theistic psychology given the fact that the struggles undergone by the Divine Child and later Divine Adult, are of evolutionary significance to the human race. These mental struggles of God Incarnate on earth are actually new mental pathways that God-Man created for all human beings. These mental pathways did not exist before; they had not yet been created so that no human being could have those thoughts and feelings. And yet, without those thoughts and feelings it is impossible for human beings born on earth to regenerate, that is, to develop a spiritual character, and without this, no one can enter eternal life in heaven. The entire human race, past, present, and future, was thus in danger of becoming one enormous hell to eternity.

This terrible situation evolved because the people in the hells had evolved to such an extent that they were able to fabricate false ideas that kept everyone prisoner to them and allowed hellish traits to become their normal way of operating and living. This influence of the hells over the human race had to be broken by God but without destroying the human race. God could not destroy human beings that He had created to be immortal. He had to save them, first by delivering them from the grip of the hells, and second, by giving them the mental means of resisting and rejecting the hells. These rational mental pathways or techniques did not exist and could not be created except in one way, long foreseen and provided for by God as part of creation and evolution. This was to be God’s Incarnation as an ordinary human being--in the external mind, but the infinite Divine-Human in the inner spiritual mind. The struggle to unite these two parts marks the purpose of the Incarnation event.

The growth and development of the merely human part of the Divine-Human was different from the way human beings develop. Humans have a human father, and a human soul from him. But the Divine Child had a human mother, but His Own Divine as the soul. Jesus was therefore God Himself appearing as an ordinary human. This is what "Incarnation" refers to. This ordinary human had to be educated and informed from the Divine soul within Himself, who He really was and what He came to accomplish. The passage below gives us details about what Jesus accomplished in his mind in relation to the hells, how he fought and ordered the hells by creating new meanings, or new spiritual truths, by which the hells were subdued and contained within their sphere, no longer able to threaten the spiritual survival of every human being on earth and in the world of spirits.

Remember that "the hells" is just another word for a portion of the human mind in every individual. Hence the universal scientific and evolutionary significance of these details.

Once Jesus went through these struggles or “temptations,” He had created the means by which all human beings could henceforth struggle with the hells in their mind, using the new truths He had created. These new truths were promulgated through Divine Speech, written down as Sacred Scripture by specially prepared individuals.

This is what makes these revelations scientific. The developmental steps Jesus went through are the developmental steps every human being can go through and achieve liberation from hellish traits. Theistic psychology describes and studies these new mental techniques for character reformation or spiritual development. Hence we can call the source of this new knowledge Divine “scientific revelations.”

A crucial aspect of this revelation which makes it scientific, is that it is verifiable by anyone who is willing to use appropriate and effective empirical verification procedures. The developmental steps and anatomy of the mind that is revealed here apply to the sequential events that every individual must go through. Anyone who is willing to step through the full sequence of regeneration can observe and monitor each step along the way through the method of spiritual self-witnessing (see xx).

5.0.1.1  Correspondences, Representatives, and Significatives

 

Quoting from the Writings Sacred Scripture:

AC 2763. From all this it is now manifest whence come the representatives and significatives in the Word, namely, from the representatives that exist in the other life. From this source they came to the men of the Most Ancient Church, who were celestial, and were in company with spirits and angels while living on earth. From them the representatives passed to their posterity, and at length to those who merely knew that they had such a signification; but because the representatives came from the most ancient times, and were in their Divine worship, they were venerated and held sacred.

[2] Besides representatives, there are also correspondences which suggest and also signify something altogether different in the spiritual world from what they do in the natural world; as the heart, the affection of good; the eyes, the understanding; the ears, obedience; the hands, power; besides innumerable other correspondences. These are not represented in this way in the world of spirits; but they correspond, as what is natural to what is spiritual.

Hence it is that every word, even to the smallest iota of all, in the Word, involves spiritual and heavenly things; and that the Word is in this manner inspired, so that when it is read by man, spirits and angels immediately perceive it spiritually according to the representations and correspondences. But this knowledge, which was so much cultivated and esteemed by the ancients after the flood, and by means of which they were able to think with spirits and angels, is at this day altogether obliterated, so much so that scarcely anyone is willing to believe that it exists; and they who believe in it merely call it a kind of mystical thing, of no use; and this for the reason that man has become altogether worldly and corporeal; to such a degree that when what is spiritual and heavenly is mentioned, he feels a repugnance, and sometimes a loathing, or even nausea. What then will he do in the other life, which lasts forever, and where there is nothing worldly and corporeal, but only what is spiritual and heavenly, which makes the life in heaven? (AC 2763)

AC 3349. From what has been said thus far it may be seen what correspondences are, and what representatives; but in addition to what has been said and shown at the end of the preceding chapters (n. 2987-3003, and n. 3213-3227), see also what is said of them elsewhere; namely,

That all things in the sense of the letter of the Word are representative and significative of what is in the internal sense (n. 1404, 1408, 1409, 2763):

That the Word through Moses and the prophets was written by means of representatives and significatives, and that in order to possess an internal sense by which there might be communication of heaven and earth it could not be written in any other style (n. 2899):

That the Lord Himself for this reason spoke by representatives, as well as for the reason that He spoke from the Divine Itself (n. 2900): What has been the source of the representatives and significatives in the Word and in rituals (n. 2179):

That representatives originated from the significatives of the Ancient Church, and these from the things perceived by the Most Ancient Church (n. 920, 1409, 2896,2897):

That the most ancient people had their representatives from dreams also (n. 1977):

That Enoch denotes those who collected the perceptive matters of the most ancient people (n. 2896):

That continually in heaven there are representatives of the Lord and His kingdom (n. 1619):

That the heavens are full of representatives (n. 1521, 1532):

That the ideas of the angels are changed in the world of spirits into various representatives (n. 1971, 1980, 1981): Representatives by means of which children are introduced into intelligence (n. 2299):

That the representatives in nature are from the Lord's influx (n. 1632, 1881):

That in universal nature there are representatives of the Lord's kingdom (n. 2758):

That in the external man there are things which correspond to what is internal, and things which do not correspond (n. 1563, 1568). (AC 3349)

AC 4280. That in the internal historical sense, by his "touching the hollow of Jacob's thigh," is signified where conjugial love is conjoined with natural good, is evident from the signification of the "hollow of the thigh," as being where there is the conjunction of conjugial love (see above, n. 4277). That conjunction there with natural good is signified, is because the thigh is there conjoined to the feet. In the internal sense the "feet" signify natural good, as may be seen above (n. 2162, 3147, 3761, 3986).

[2] That the "thigh" denotes conjugial love, and the "feet" natural good, is among the things that are now obsolete and lost. The Ancient Church, which was in representatives and significatives, knew these things very well. The knowledge of such things was their intelligence and wisdom, and this not only of those who were of the church, but also of those who were out of the church, as is evident from the oldest books of the Gentiles, and from the things which at this day are called fables; for significatives and representatives were derived to them from the Ancient Church. With them also the thighs and the loins signified what is conjugial, and the feet what is natural.

The thighs and the feet have this signification from the correspondences of all man's members, organs, and viscera with the Grand Man, which correspondences are now being treated of at the end of the chapters. Of the correspondences with the thigh and the feet more will be said in what follows, where it will be confirmed by living experience that such is their signification.

[3] At the present day these things cannot but appear paradoxical, because, as before said, this knowledge is altogether obsolete and lost. And yet how much this knowledge surpasses other knowledges, may be seen from the fact that without it the Word cannot possibly be known as to its internal sense; and because the angels who are with man perceive the Word according to this sense; and also because by means of this knowledge communication is given to man with heaven.

And (what is incredible) the internal man itself thinks in no other way; for when the external man apprehends the Word according to the letter, the internal man apprehends it at the same time according to the internal sense, although the man while living in the body is not aware of this. Especially may this be seen from the fact that when a man comes into the other life and becomes an angel, he knows the internal sense as of himself without instruction.

[4] What conjugial love is, which is signified by the thighs and also by the loins, may be seen above (n. 995, 1123, 2727-2759); and that conjugial love is the fundamental of all loves (n. 686, 3021); and hence it is that those who are in genuine conjugial love are also in celestial love (that is, in love to the Lord), and in spiritual love (that is, in charity toward the neighbor); and therefore by conjugial love not only is this love itself meant, but also all celestial and spiritual love. These loves are said to be conjoined with natural good when the internal man is conjoined with the external, or the spiritual man with the natural. This conjunction is that which is signified by the "hollow of the thigh." That with Jacob and his posterity in general there was no such conjunction, will appear from what follows; for this is the subject here treated of in the internal historical sense. (AC 4280)

DLW 321. It should be known that in outward appearance the spiritual world is just like the natural world. One sees there lands, mountains, hills, valleys, plains, fields, lakes, rivers, and springs, just as in the natural world, thus all the phenomena belonging to the mineral kingdom. One sees also parks, gardens, groves, and forests, in which are found trees and bushes of every kind, with fruits and seeds, and plants, flowers, herbs, and grasses, thus all the phenomena belonging to the plant kingdom. One sees animals, birds, and fish of every kind, thus all the phenomena belonging to the animal kingdom. A person there is an angel or spirit. This much is premised in order to make it known that the universe of the spiritual world is just like the universe of the natural world, the only difference being that the phenomena which exist there are not fixed and set like phenomena in the natural world, because nothing there is natural, but everything spiritual.” (DLW, 321)

HH 109. How the things in the vegetable kingdom correspond can be seen from many instances, as that little seeds grow into trees, put forth leaves, produce flowers, and then fruit, in which again they deposit seed, these things taking place in succession and existing together in an order so wonderful as to be indescribable in a few words. Volumes might be filled, and yet there would be still deeper arcana, relating more closely to their uses, which science would be unable to exhaust. Since these things, too, are from the spiritual world, that is, from heaven, which is in the human form (as has been shown above in its own chapter), so all the particulars in this kingdom have a certain relation to such things as are in man, as some in the learned world know. That all things in this kingdom also are correspondences has been made clear to me by much experience. Often when I have been in gardens and have been looking at the trees, fruits, flowers, and plants there, I have recognized their correspondences in heaven, and have spoken with those with whom these were, and have been taught whence and what they were.” (HH, 109).

DLW 374. Consequently they have not known what correspondence is, either; for there is a correspondence of spiritual phenomena with natural ones, and through it a conjunction of them” (DLW 374).

DLW 203. Since the interior regions in a person, which are those of his will and intellect, are like the heavens in their degrees-because a person is, in respect to the interior elements which are those of his mind, a heaven in miniature form-therefore the perfections of these are also like those of the heavens” (DLW 203).

AC 4223. But the true position with correspondence is that although the heavens mentioned above do certainly correspond to the organic forms themselves of the human body - on account of which these communities or those angels have been spoken of as belonging to the province of the brain, or to the province of the heart, or to the province of the lungs, or to the province of the eye, and so on - they correspond primarily to the functions belonging to those viscera or organs. The position really is that, like the organs or viscera themselves, their functions make one with their organic forms… It is the functions therefore to which heavenly communities correspond primarily, and then because they correspond to the functions they correspond to the organic forms too; for the one is indivisible from the other and inseparable, so much so that it makes no difference whether you speak about the function or about the organic form through which and from which that function exists. Consequently there is a correspondence with organs, members, and viscera because there is such with the functions. And therefore when the function is brought into action the organ also is stimulated... (AC 4223)

 

For a useful summary of correspondences in Sacred Scripture consult this source online:

Berridge, Norman J. (2001) The Natural Basis of Spiritual Reality. With Anatomical Drawings by Linda Simonetti Odhner .(Swedenborg Scientific Association Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania 2001). Available at:
highermeaning.org/Authors/Berridge/Prepages.shtml#Table%20of%20Contents

 5.0.2  Analyzing Divine Speech: The Scientific Sense of Genesis 22

The existence of "Divine Speech" and its character are discussed in this passage of the Arcana Coelestia (AC 6996):

Send I pray by the hand of him whom Thou wilt send. That this signifies that the Divine truth proceeding from the Divine-Human will be mediately uttered, is evident from the representation of Moses, who says this, as being the Lord as to the Word, that is, as to Divine truth (see n. 6752); from the signification of "sending," when said of the Lord, as being to proceed (n. 2397, 4710); and from the signification of "sending by the hand," as being by another to whom power will be given, namely, the power of uttering the Divine truth proceeding from the Divine-Human of the Lord; and as it denotes by another to whom power is given, it denotes mediately. It was shown above (n. 6982, 6985), that the Divine truth proceeding immediately from the Lord's Divine-Human cannot be heard and perceived by any man, nor even by an angel. Therefore in order that it may be heard and perceived, there must be mediation, which mediation is effected through heaven, and afterward through the angels and spirits with the man.

[2] This can be plainly known from the fact that man cannot even hear the spirits who are with him speaking with one another; and if he heard he could not perceive, because the speech of spirits is without human words, and is the universal speech of all languages. Moreover spirits cannot hear angels; and if they heard they could not perceive, because the angelic speech is still more universal. Nay, the angels of the inmost heaven can be still less heard and perceived, because their speech is not a speech of ideas, but of affections which are of celestial love. Seeing that since these kinds of speech are so far away from man, that they cannot possibly be heard and perceived by him, what then, so to speak, must be the Divine speech, which is infinitely above all the kinds of speech in the heavens! It is said "the Divine speech," but the Divine truth proceeding from the Divine-Human of the Lord is meant. This being so, it can be seen that the Divine truth proceeding from the Lord, in order to be heard and perceived, must pass to man through mediations. The last mediation is through the spirit who is with the man, who inflows either into his thought, or by means of a living voice.

[3] That the Divine truth proceeding immediately from the Lord cannot be heard or perceived, is also evident from the correspondences and derivative representatives; namely, that the things a man speaks are presented quite differently with spirits; and the things spirits speak, quite differently with the angels. This can be seen from the correspondential sense of the Word and its literal sense, in that the literal sense, which is adapted to man, is significative and representative of the things which are in the correspondential sense; while this latter sense is not perceptible to man except insofar as it can be presented and expressed by such things as are of the world and of nature; and still less the angelic sense. What then must be the case with the Divine truth proceeding immediately from the Divine of the Lord, which is infinitely above the angelic understanding, and which is not perceptible in heaven except insofar as it passes through heaven, and so puts on a form adapted and suited to the perception of those who are there, which is effected by means of a wonderful influx, not at all comprehensible to anyone! These things have been said in order that it may be known that the Divine truth proceeding from the Lord cannot be heard or perceived by anyone, except through mediations. (AC 6996).

In other words, "Divine Speech" refers to Divine Truth issuing from the Divine-Human in the Spiritual Sun. The spiritual light proceeding from the Spiritual Sun is Divine Truth and Divine Speech. It is Divine Truth adapted to the human mind since in itself Divine Truth is infinite and this cannot enter into human understanding. Spiritual light issuing from the Spiritual Sun permeates the spiritual world with the expanse of rational ether. It is in this substantive ether constructed from truth that the human mind is born and develops to eternity. The spiritual light enters into the human mind located in the world of spirits, where it is born, and is encased in a spiritual or mental body also made of the substance of truth conjoined with the substance of love. Love or spiritual heat, and truth, or spiritual light, are thus the construction substances out of which all things that exist have been created. Love and truth are the inmost framework of every created object, whether the mind or a rock on earth.

Love and truth from the Spiritual Sun are combined more and more as they descend into the two worlds. At its purest and simplest, love and truth are infinite substances, but as they begin to be combined more and more, the substance becomes less pure and less and less similar to the original Divine state of purity and infinity. The descent of Divine Truth or Divine Speech into the human mind takes places by stages or degrees that do not overlap with each other. The first entry of Divine Speech into human consciousness is at the uppermost region of the mind called "heaven." People who are willing to be elevated by God all the way to the top of their conscious mind are in heaven and are able to perceive Divine Speech at the level of celestial meaning ("Third Haven"). Next the Divine Meaning descends by correspondence into its next degree in the mind called the "spiritual mind" or "Second Heaven." At this level of rational consciousness we are able to understand spiritual correspondences of Divine Speech.

The rational understanding we have at the spiritual level is far below that we have at the celestial level. The spiritual mind cannot comprehend the celestial mind so far apart they are. Below this is the "natural heaven" or "First Heaven" which is within the natural mind after it has been regenerated. At last, in its final degree of descent, Divine Speech appears in natural correspondences in which Sacred Scripture is written.

The Writings of Swedenborg have revealed the laws of correspondences which govern the relationship between celestial correspondences, spiritual correspondences, and natural correspondences. Without knowing these laws no one is capable of reconstructing Divine Speech up the ladder of correspondences. But now anyone can who is willing to follow the steps indicated in the Writings regarding how to reconstruct Divine Speech or the Word in its various "inner senses" or meanings.

At the level of natural correspondences there are two platforms of understanding or rationality by which we can comprehend them. They are called the natural-rational mind and the spiritual-natural mind. One is within the other in terms of an interior degree. The spiritual-natural organ of the mind is created or implanted by God in the interior degree within the natural-rational mind. The natural-rational mind grows and develops through the rational content of natural order as we detect it through our physical senses. To begin with this natural-rational level of thinking is non-theistic and materialistic. non-theistic science as we know it today is at the level of the natural-rational thinking. At this level we are unable to comprehend rationally anything that is not an abstraction based on the physical universe. We can be religious, but this is called "faith" and this is ordinarily viewed as more mystical than rational.

But as we begin our reformation and regeneration in adult life (see Section xx), God activates this dormant spiritual organ of consciousness within our conscious natural mind. The organ grows and develops to the extent of our cooperation with God in our regeneration through temptations (see Section xx). As the spiritual-natural organ develops it gives us conscious awareness of meaning that are conveyed in spiritual- correspondences and celestial-correspondences. The Writings call this growth process as the "elevation of the mind into heaven." It is also called spiritual "enlightenment."

Thus, as we progress in our regeneration or character rebuilding, we are able to comprehend higher level rational correspondences or meaning of Divine Speech. At first we are only able to comprehend the interior meaning of natural correspondences. This is called the interior-natural consciousness or "First Heaven." When we can become conscious of the interior meaning natural correspondences our consciousness is in effect in the First Heaven with all those who are also there forming a universal community. This can be illustrated by considering the meaning of Divine Speech when Sacred Scripture gives us the Commandments (see Section xx). Let us consider the Third Commandment.

Remember to keep the Sabbath day holy; for six days you are to labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath for Jehovah your God. (Exod. 20:8-10; Deut. 5:12, 13 in the Old Testament of the Bible).

This is an example of Divine Speech as Sacred Scripture in a natural language. It is written in historical and natural style called "natural correspondences" to Divine Speech. At this level of literal thinking God is telling us to reserve the seventh day of the week as a religious holiday. IN other words, we are to shift focus from our week day work and activities to special "holy" day of rest from work and dedicated to God. At this level of rational thinking there appears nothing else in Divine Speech but instructions on the external conduct of our life. But when we apply the verse of Sacred Scripture to our life because it is from God, we are given a deeper rational understanding of what is in the verse. Our rational consciousness is elevated to our First Heaven and in that mental state we are able to comprehend the interior meaning of the verse. Instead of the external natural-rational understanding of the verse, we now are able to see a spiritual-natural meaning within it.

The comprehension of the interior-natural correspondences of the verse gives an entirely new and higher rationality for understanding the verse of Sacred Scripture. Here, the spiritual-natural meaning of "Sabbath" is "instruction in holy things about God and heaven." The Hebrew word "Sabbath" literally means "rest from work." So in the literal natural sense the verse commands us to take a day of rest, but in the spiritual-natural meaning the verse commands us to instruct ourselves in spiritual truths about God and heaven. These two meanings are far apart and one cannot be deduced from the other. People can obey the commandment at the literal level of resting from work, and yet not obey the commandment of instructing themselves in the holy things of God. Fundamentalist practices tend to focus almost exclusively on the literal natural meaning of Sacred Scripture.

However, when we reflect upon our religion rationally we can compare one verse with others and thereby construct new understandings that can coalesce into a cognitive system or philosophy of God called "