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 "doctrine." Doctrine is a rational and coherent expression of our understanding of Sacred Scripture. As we form doctrine in our mind we begin to understand verses of Sacred Scripture in a more interior or correspondential sense. In this case, as we practice the literal rest period commanded, we are also motivated to be instructed further in God and heaven, and especially, in realizing all that God commands us to do.

Once we understand the spiritual-rational correspondence of "Sabbath" as instruction in religion, we can go even deeper to reconstruct the spiritual-rational correspondences in the verse. When this is understood our rational mind is elevated to the Second Heaven. Regarding the Sabbath commandment, we now can see what the Writings are discussing about this verse:

Sabbath in the language of the original means rest. Among the Children of Israel the Sabbath was the holiest of observances, because it represented the Lord. The six days represented the Lord's toils and battles against the hells, the seventh His victory over them, and so rest. Since that day represented the completion of the Lord's whole act of redemption, it was for that reason the height of holiness.

When, however, the Lord came into the world, so that representations of Him ceased, that day became a day for instruction in Divine matters, and also a day of rest from work, for meditation about matters conducive to salvation and everlasting life, and a day for love towards the neighbor. (...) (TCR 301)

Note that we are told something new here that is information from the spiritual world and not from the natural world. There is nothing in the commandment to keep the day of rest about spiritual temptations, and yet the expression "rest from labor" in the correspondential sense means the period of peace following the labor of temptation. When this verse is reconstructed at the level of spiritual-rational correspondences (Second Heaven consciousness), we can see that Divine Speech is discussing here the state of mind in regeneration when we undergo temptations, resist them by means of Divine truths, and win freedom from the evil spirits to which we were previously tied (see Section xx). After a victory in temptation we feel the close presence of God, and we bask in a mental state of freedom from slavishness to our emotions and obsessions. This is the spiritual Sabbath.

The Commandment to keep the Sabbath refers therefore to the absolute requirement that we acknowledge God's operational presence in our thoughts and feelings as we struggle to obey God's Commandments in our efforts at character reformation or regeneration. To disobey this Commandment is to reject the idea in our mind that God is operating our mental activity, and to adopt instead the point of view that we alone are operating our mental activity. This rejection is death or eternal hell because the denial of God in our mental operations neutralizes God's efforts to save us. It is like driving a car without wearing seat belts. We thereby neutralize the safety feature that will save us from injury and death in case of a collision. When we are in the state of mind called the Sabbath rest, we are in heavenly peace on earth, that is, we are experiencing a correspondence of our true heaven. In this mental state, there is rational consciousness of the spiritual kind, and this is called eternity.

There is also a deeper peace at the level of our Third Heaven when we advance in our regeneration enough so that we can face celestial temptations. We can then understand the verse in its celestial-rational correspondence. This level of meaning of Sacred Scripture always discusses details about how God creates new and higher mental states for humankind (see Section xx).

An analysis of the higher meanings of the Ten Commandments will be found in Chapter xx.

The next Section examines the character of Divine Speech by analyzing the text of a chapter in Genesis in the Old Testament that contains the Abraham story of the binding of his son Isaac. I will make a running commentary as we go through each selected passage.

5.0.3  The Binding of Isaac on the Altar

Genesis Chapter 22, Verses 1 to 19:

1. And it came to pass after these words, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham; and he said, Here am I.

     2. And He said, Take I pray thy son, thine only one, whom thou lovest, even Isaac, and get thee to the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.

     3. And Abraham rose early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his boys with him, and Isaac his son; and he clave the wood for the burnt-offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God told him.

     4. On the third day, and Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off.

     5. And Abraham said unto his boys, Abide ye here with the ass, and I and the boy will go yonder, and we will bow ourselves down, and will come again to you.

     6. And Abraham took the wood of the burnt-offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took in his hand the fire and the knife; and they went both of them together.

     7. And Isaac said unto Abraham his father; and he said, My father; and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood; and where is the lamb for a burnt-offering?

     8. And Abraham said, God will see for Himself the lamb for a burnt-offering, my son: and they went both of them together.

     9. And they came to the place which God told him of; and Abraham built there the altar, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.

     10. And Abraham put forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.

     11. And the angel of Jehovah called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham; and he said, Here am I.

     12. And He said, Put not forth thine hand upon the boy, and do not anything unto him; for now I know that thou fearest God, and thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only one, from Me.

     13. And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw, and behold a ram behind, caught in a thicket by his horns; and Abraham went, and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt-offering in the stead of his son.

     14. And Abraham called the name of that place, Jehovah-will-see, as it is said to this day, In the mountain Jehovah will see.

     15. And the angel of Jehovah called unto Abraham a second time out of heaven.

     16. And said, By Myself have I sworn, saith Jehovah, because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only one,

     17. That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed, as the stars of the heavens, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall inherit the gate of thine enemies.

     18. And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast harkened to My voice.

     19. And Abraham returned unto his boys; and they rose up, and went together to Beersheba; and Abraham dwelt in Beersheba. (…) (AC 2763)

 

In this chapter in the internal sense the Divine-Human's most grievous and inmost temptations are treated of, by which He united His Human Essence to His Divine Essence; and also the salvation by this union of those who constitute the Divine-Human's spiritual church. (AC 2764)

 

The Divine-Human's most grievous and inmost temptations are treated of (verses 1, 3-6, 9-11). Concerning the unition of His Human Essence with His Divine Essence, or His glorification, by means of them (verses 2, 11, 12, 16). Concerning the salvation by the Divine-Human's Divine-Human of the spiritual, of those who are in charity and faith, within the church (verses 2, 7, 8, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19). And concerning the salvation of those who are in good, outside the church (verses 20, 21, 22, 23, 24).(AC 2765)    (..)

My commentary:

Note the overall summary of the Chapter given here, namely, that Genesis 22 deals with the “most grievous” temptations Jesus had to undergo. Other chapters deal with other temptations. Keep in mind that the purpose of God’s Incarnation was to produce a situation in which the ordinary human mind of Jesus, His natural mind, was to face the false ideas of the hells by which they were keeping the people on earth from developing their heavenly character. Meanwhile, the natural mind of Jesus would be fed information about spiritual truths from His Divine Spiritual Mind, and with these new spiritual truths, Jesus could defeat the arguments and persuasions of the people in hell. The God-Man on earth had to face the same hells we face, the same false belief systems that justified holding on to hellish traits. No human being was able to come up with these new truths that were needed to defeat the arguments, persuasions, and influence of the hells upon the Fallen inherited natural mind.

Jesus allowed His inherited human natural mind to be exposed gradually to the falsities and persuasions of the hells, defeating them one by one by means of the new spiritual truths. In this way, He made steady progress towards His final goal, which was to completely neutralize the hells and contain them within their habitations in the “lower earths” of the spiritual world. Jesus had to enlighten and regenerate His inherited natural mind. This could be accomplished only by means of temptations. Why?

Because this natural mind He inherited could not be compelled from above, without being destroyed. Jesus could have compelled His natural mind to obey, but this would only have driven its attachment to the hells even more, making it impossible for this natural mind to be regenerated and glorified or made one with the Divine, just as our natural mind makes a one with our spiritual mind and celestial mind. Since the natural mind could not be compelled from above, there was only rational or scientific method Jesus could use to remove all the evil attachments that was in this rational mind from heredity through Mary. This method was the same that we must use to regenerate our natural mind, namely, undergoing a series of temptations.

What happens when our natural mind faces temptation? For instance, for years we may have gotten used to driving aggressively. Almost everybody does it at some times. It’s part of our culture. You see your parents doing it, characters on TV, in video games, all your friends. And so you continue to accept your behavior. This acceptance is a tie to certain hells that you’ve inherited and reinforced in yourself by maintaining it as a habit. Say you realize one blessed day that aggressive driving is a hellish trait. You suddenly realize in horror that you’ve been breaking Divine Commandments since aggressive driving puts others in danger and upsets them, adding to their stress.

Clearly a habit that results in endangering and upsetting others cannot be a heavenly trait. You try to tell yourself to stop being aggressive behind the wheel, yet your corporeal and sensuous mind are doing the driving and reacting, not your enlightened natural-rational mind. Yet the natural-rational mind cannot compel the lower natural mind to obey. The lower natural mind is out of your control because some hell society is in control, by an inherited built in connection. The only way you can free yourself is by enlightening the lower rational mind so that it voluntarily from its own self, breaks the connection by rejecting it as something you reject because it is from hell. This takes re-training or self-modification efforts which consist of self-witnessing your feelings, thoughts, and actions, keeping track of them, evaluating them, then rejecting them and acquiring new habits that are opposite, until one gradually ceases to be an aggressive and impatient driver and starts to be a supportive and peaceful driver.

What allows your lower natural to reject the hellish trait it has gotten used to and finds satisfying?

Only the process of temptation. For instance, you may hurt someone badly one day as a result of the way you drove. Suddenly you are face to face with your own evil. If you then take it  to heart you will feel shocked that you are this way, that you engage in this evil. If you don’t try to explain your evil away, and if you believe in God and heaven, then you will feel like rejecting your long term habit and its satisfaction. The temptation is the desire and enjoyment of doing something that you know now is opposed to your beliefs. You injured someone due to your impatience and you now can either justify it and be damned, or recoil from it and be saved. Every temptation provides a fine line balancing point between choosing evil or good. This apparent equality is carefully maintained by God for every individual for it is the only method of salvation available to the human race. No temptation is permitted by our Divine Psychologist to face us unless He can provide this fine line balance for us. A temptation that is overwhelming, preventing free choice, is never permitted, as has been revealed in the Writings.

And so the only way the inherited human natural mind of Jesus could be regenerated and made Divine is by subjugating it with temptations during which He had the choice of accepting or rejecting His old belief system. The Writings reveal that Jesus went through all the temptations human beings go through so that He could conquer all the hells, not just some of them. Each hell had a particular persuasive hold on the unregenerate inherited natural mind of everyone on earth. Jesus had to face them each in turn and conquer them by fabricating new truths they could not oppose. These new truths came down into His natural conscious mind from His unconscious Divine Mind, until at last all the hells were conquered with all the new truths that were needed. Only the Divine Mind could defeat all the hells in their enormous entirety and cleverness. This is the same Divine Mind that maintains the faculty of fabricating persuasive falsities about God, which people in their hells have cumulatively fabricated over the generations.

There is here a most astonishing image that is worthwhile holding up for reflection. God was doing two things simultaneously. One was to maintain the hells in the ability of fabricating falsities about Him. The other was to give Jesus new truths by which the hell falsities about Him could be defeated in the natural human mind.

The result was the salvation of the human mind throughout its levels of operation -- hell, earth or world of spirits, and heaven. All three portions had to be saved if the human mind was to survive. The hells were saved from destruction by having them subdued by the natural portion of the human mind in Jesus. Had Jesus used His Spiritual Divine Mind, the hellish level of the human mind would be destroyed. If any portion of the human mind is destroyed, all of it perishes. So the human mind was saved by saving the hells from destruction.

The heavenly portion of the human mind was saved by transforming the old sensuous celestial region of the human mind into the new rational consciousness of the Divine Human called "the Holy Spirit." This new rational heaven in every human mind is opened to any individual who is willing to undergo spiritual temptations and to fight them with the new spiritual truths of theistic psychology. The new heavenly level of the human mind was created by the Incarnation event and the temptations in the natural mind of Jesus. Hence the Incarnation was the most significant step in the evolution of human consciousness since the Fall of the race (see Section xx).

When the work of temptations of Jesus was accomplished, His ordinary natural mind died in the crucifixion (the last of the temptations), and He then resurrected with a Divine Natural Mind and Divine Natural Body. I present these details here as a context for understanding the passage about the Binding of Isaac that we are analyzing. These details are given in other passages not presented here, but see the many references to other Numbered Paragraphs within the passages below.

The Divine Natural Mind and Body is called the Glorified Human. In the passage above (AC 2765) it is said that “He united His Human Essence to His Divine Essence.” This means that He Glorified His Human. From now on God was to be called the Divine-Human, and anyone on earth or in the spiritual world, can be aware of Him, communicate with Him, be led by Him, and thus be saved for eternal life in heaven. In the passages below we shall see more details about these struggles and how they took place. The reason we must acknowledge and communicate with the Divine-Human is that this is the only way we have access to the new truths He created while on earth.

Our heavenly life is inside these truths. Unless we appropriate these new truths as our own by understanding and love, we have no heaven to go to or to dwell in. Our heaven exists inside these new truths. Heaven is a property of rational consciousness. Our only entry point to our heaven is through the development of our rational consciousness. This must be accomplished through gradual regeneration by temptation.

Those who have no access to these new truths while on earth are exposed to them immediately after resuscitation (see Section xx). Access to these truths on earth comes from Sacred Scripture and theistic psychology. After resuscitation in the world of spirits access to these truths is through instruction of the novitiate spirits by those who are in their heavens and love to share these truths. Swedenborg has seen vast libraries in the world of spirits where one can examine any book published on earth. I imagine that for our generation these libraries would include electronic databases, such as this one you are reading.

5.0.4  The Mental Struggles of the Divine-Human on Earth

Continuing with the presentation:

Verse 2. “And He said, Take I pray thy son, thine only one, whom thou lovest, even Isaac, and get thee to the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.” "He said, Take I pray thy son," signifies the Divine rational begotten by Him; "thine only one, whom thou lovest," signifies the sole one in the universe by which He was to save the human race; "even Isaac," signifies its quality; "and get thee to the land of Moriah," signifies a place and state of temptation; "and offer him there for a burnt- offering," signifies that He should sanctify Himself to the Divine; "upon one of the mountains," signifies the Divine Love; "which I will tell thee of," signifies as He should perceive. (AC 2771).

My Commentary:

The paragraph above is awesome to contemplate. Isaac was a real person and Moriah was a real mountain in the Holy Land. And Jehovah did indeed talk to Abraham telling him the things listed above. These events occurred a thousand years before Jesus struggled to form new mental pathways for human beings. These struggles are described in detail in the Abraham biography written a thousand years earlier. This is awesome! Imagine that you find a book one day in some bookstore for old used books, and as you browse through it, it is the story of your life. Feverishly you turn the pages and you see all the details are true, even what you thought and how you felt when you were 6 or 12. You turn to the date when the book was published and you see 1899—decades before you were born. What would you think?

Let’s look at how the passage extracts the details of Jesus’ mental struggles and development, by applying the code of correspondences. Recall that Divine Speech is written in this code because the code is determined by the laws of correspondences that scientifically define the interconnectivity between the natural and spiritual worlds. God creates through scientific laws because all things are created by means of spiritual light and heat from the Spiritual Sun, and spiritual light is the same as truth. Hence truth is a substance by which God creates all things. Things cannot be created out of nothing, as some erroneously believe. Things must be created out of something, namely, the spiritual substance of truth. Rationality is the application and derivation of truth in the mind. This is why heaven is constructed out of our rational consciousness.

Continuing with the passage:

He said, Take I pray thy son. That this signifies the Divine rational begotten by Him, is evident from the signification of a "son," as being the rational (see n. 2623); here the Divine rational, because by the son is meant Isaac; and that he represents the Divine-Human's Divine rational has been shown above (n. 1893, 2066, 2083, 2630). And as the Divine-Human made His rational Divine by His own power, as has been often said, by "thy son" is also signified that it was begotten by Him (see n. 1893, 2093, 2625). (AC 2772) (…)

My Commentary:

Note the many references to other Numbered Paragraphs in the same Work called Arcana Coelestia (=Heavenly Secrets in Latin), which runs for 12 volumes in English translation. Swedenborg painstakingly proves every little detail of every assertion he makes about correspondences in the Old and New Testaments. The paragraph above is from Number (AC 2772). You can see from the progression of the Numbers in the references (numbers in parentheses) that he keeps track of all the single proofs he gives earlier, to make sure the reader can retrace the development of any one sub-topic and proof. You will also note in the subsequent passages below, that the Writings are rooted in the verses of the Old and New Testaments, and also, that the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Writings make up one unit called the Threefold Word.

The paragraph above reviews these prior proofs of correspondence in Sacred Scripture:

(a) whenever “son” is mentioned, the scientific reference is to our rational mind (not the sensuous mind, not the spiritual mind).

(b) whenever “Isaac” is mentioned, the scientific reference is to the Rational Mind of the Divine-Human.

(c) whenever “thy son” is mentioned, the scientific reference is to the origin or formative state of the rational mind.

At one level of meaning, the scientific reference in “thy son” is to the Divine-Human’s Rational Mind. At another level of meaning, the reference is to our regenerated mind or heavenly traits. “Thy son” is a natural correspondence for what mentally we think of as the “originating idea.” The originating idea of a plan or formula is also referred to as the “father” clause. We also use the term “fathering” a concept or trend in fashions, etc.

These connections exist because our language contains built in correspondences between physical events or qualities and mental or spiritual qualities and references. As pointed out elsewhere, the ancient civilizations had a knowledge of correspondences, which had been passed down the generations from the most ancient celestial race (see Section xx). In modern times the knowledge was forgotten or turned into myths and fables. To some extent the science of aesthetics is aware of correspondences. Emerson took the idea of correspondences from the Writings and turned it into something different, namely, poetic and artistic vision or feeling.

Note:  For a deeper analysis of how the Incarnate God glorified His Human and made it Divine, explained with lucid diagrams, see the excellent study by N. C. Burnham at:  www.theisticscience.org/books/burnham/index.htm

5.0.5  The Meaning of Sacrifices in Worship

Continuing with the Chapter being analyzed:

“And offer him there for a burnt-offering.” That this signifies that He should sanctify Himself to the Divine, is evident from the representation of a burnt-offering among the Hebrew nation and in the Jewish church, as being the most holy thing of their worship. There were burnt-offerings and there were sacrifices, and what these represented may be seen above (n. 922, 923, 1823, 2180). Their sanctifications were made by means of them, and hence it is that by "offering up for a burnt-offering" is here signified to be sanctified to the Divine, for the Divine-Human Himself sanctified Himself to the Divine, that is, united His Human to His Divine by the combats and victories of temptations (see n. 1663, 1690, 1691 at the end, 1692, 1737, 1787, 1812, 1813, 1820). 

[2] It is a common belief at this day that the burnt-offerings and sacrifices signified the Divine-Human's passion, and that by this the Divine-Human made expiation for the iniquities of all; indeed, that He took them upon Himself, and thus bore them; and that those who believe are in this manner justified and saved, provided they think, even though it were in the last hour before death, that the Divine-Human suffered for them, no matter how they may have lived during the whole course of their life. 

But the case is not really so: the passion of the cross was the extremity of the Divine-Human's temptation, by which He fully united His Human to His Divine and His Divine to His Human, and thus glorified Himself. This very union is the means by which those who have the faith in Him which is the faith of charity, can be saved. For the supreme Divine Itself could no longer reach to the human race, which had removed itself so far from the celestial things of love and the spiritual things of faith, that men no longer even acknowledged them, and still less perceived them. In order therefore that the supreme Divine might be able to come down to man in such a state, the Divine-Human came into the world and united His Human to the Divine in Himself; which union could not be effected otherwise than by the most grievous combats of temptations and by victories, and at length by the last, which was that of the cross. (AC 2776)

The above passage discusses the meaning of “sacrifices” in the Old and New Testaments. References are given to earlier Numbered Paragraphs where the details are first proven, one by one. Here, in summary form, it is recalled to the reader that sacrifices in the Old Testament were commanded because they represented, or symbolically stood for, the Incarnation event. Recall that the Incarnation event was the greatest evolutionary step in the creation of the human race. It began a new age for humankind, an elevation of the human consciousness to God. The Incarnation event created a visible Divine-Human in the external world. This became necessary when the human race on earth had falsified and distorted Sacred Scripture available to them. This distancing from Divine Speech destroyed their spiritual rationality.

They were unable to love God except externally, for personal benefit, reward, or power. People born on earth were at the edge of doom, invaded and controlled by evil spirits from hell, who held on to them by these falsities and their evil loves. A God visible on earth was not yet a possibility, not yet part of the evolution of the race’s consciousness of the Divine and of their future in eternity. God had foreseen this from creation, and when the time was ripe, God Incarnated as a Divine Child born of a virgin in the Holy Land where He had been worshipped in Name as Jehovah.

Jehovah, the infinite Human Divine God, came out into the external world to create a visible God out of Himself. For reasons already discussed above, this task of “glorifying His Human begotten in the world” had to involve treacherous and disturbing temptations He had to suffer Himself to undergo with that portion of Himself that was not yet regenerated.

Once the task was accomplished, the Glorified Divine-Human was visible in our rational consciousness. Every person since then has been given the capacity to picture the visible Divine-Human, to read the Divine Speech of the Divine-Human in Sacred Scripture, and to love the Divine-Human with such intensity that we can strive to arrange every detail of our daily life for His sake, for the sake of our love for Him. By acting, thinking, and feeling for His sake in accordance with His Word, we are able to elevate our consciousness to heaven and to abide in heavenly life to eternity.

God’s commandment that we love Him more than anything, is for this reason only, that if we follow that commandment, He is then able to give us what He longs to give us—life in eternity in heaven in the maximum conjugial bliss and happiness possible, endlessly increasing. This is what He commands us to love Him more than anything. The Divine Commandment a scientific built in process for mental development, not something that God desires for being worshipped or glorified by humans. In the passage below, more details are given on how this scientific mechanism works.

Continuing with the analysis of the Chapter:

 [3] Hence it is that the Divine-Human can from His Divine-Human illumine minds, even those far removed from the celestial things of love, provided they are in the faith of charity. For the Divine-Human in the other life appears to the celestial angels as a Sun, and to the spiritual as a Moon (n. 1053, 1521, 1529, 1530, 2441, 2495), whence comes all the light of heaven. This light of heaven is of such a nature that when it illumines the sight of spirits and angels, it also illumines their understanding at the same time.

This is inherent in that light, so that in heaven so much as anyone has of external light, so much has he of internal light, that is, so much of understanding; which shows wherein the light of heaven differs from the light of the world. It is the Divine-Human's Divine-Human which illuminates both the sight and the understanding of the spiritual; which would not take place if the Divine-Human had not united His Human Essence to His Divine Essence; and if He had not united them, man in the world would no longer have had any capacity of understanding and perceiving what is good and true, nor indeed would a spiritual angel in heaven have had any; so that they would have had nothing of blessedness and happiness, consequently nothing of salvation. From this we can see that the human race could not have been saved unless the Divine-Human had assumed the Human and glorified it. .) (AC 2776)

My Commentary:

Here again in this passage it is repeated that the Divine Light or Truth, and the Divine Heat or Love, were inverted into their opposites by the time it reached our conscious level in the natural mind here on earth. There was an inability of the human race on earth to be moved by this process of filtering down, which had worked before, but no longer. Therefore it was necessary for the Visible Divine-Human to be created in the consciousness of the race.

The above passage gives us this amazing scientific revelation: that spiritual light from the Spiritual Sun is actually an event of enlightenment of our consciousness by means of the clear vision of full understanding. Spiritual light is received differently by people in accordance with their ability or willingness to understand scientific truths about God and human development.

The highest angels are the top consciousness people in the universe, being closest in apparent location to the Spiritual Sun. Those of us who get there, or reach that inner state of consciousness, are called “celestial angels” and we live in the Third Heaven to eternity. We are the first human contingent to receive the Divine Light and Heat, that is the Divine Wisdom and the Divine Love from the Spiritual Sun. From the minds of the celestial angels, it filters down to the minds of the angelic spirits in the Second Heaven, and finally to the angelic spirits of the First Heaven. From them the Divine Light and Heat are transmitted to the internal-natural of those who are undergoing regeneration on earth.

This means that they are enlightened in their natural mind and conscious awareness. They are able to receive interior confirmation of truth when they read it. It is not possible to misguide them with a wrong scientific theory or belief system. They are able to see through falsities and to recognize what is from heaven and what from hell, that is, what is good and what is not good, what is true and what is not true. They are liberated from the daily emotional spin cycle (see Section xx). The live in conjugial love and feel blessed in what they possess from the Divine-Human, whom they keep before their focus of attention every day and every hour of the day. They look forward to their conjugial life in heaven. They progress in wisdom and love throughout the days of their life on earth, and thereafter, in heaven to eternity.

The rational mind is regenerated from top down. First, the natural-rational mind, through one’s knowledge and love for Sacred Scripture. Second, the sensuous mind, through self-witnessing one’s threefold self (see Section xx). Finally, the corporeal mind, through physical disciplines performed for the sake of regeneration or character reformation (see Volume 3 of A Man of the Field:  www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/volume3-nonduality.html

When the natural mind is being regenerated at these three levels, there is a new physiological formation within the natural mind that becomes operational. This new portion is more interior than the natural-rational operations of the mind, which means that it is capable of higher consciousness available to our awareness. This superior interior portion of the natural mind is called the “spiritual-natural” and also the “interior-natural.” These refer to the level of our consciousness or ability to understand and see scientific facts about God and human development. This superior understanding requires an enlightened state, which is a mental state resulting from our reception of spiritual light in the interior-natural organ of the natural mind. IN this state of enlightenment we become capable of communicating with the angelic spirits of the First Heaven. We have spiritual perception while still on earth.

With this new organ developing in the interior of our natural mind, we become capable of perceiving ever more interior degrees of meaning within Divine Speech. The deeper we can understand Sacred Scripture the higher our perception of scientific truths about our mental development or regeneration. The higher our conscious awareness of these interior truths, the more we can be regenerated, and the higher the state of life that we enter and develop further in eternity.

There is an orderly and lawful process by which this new spiritual organ develops within our natural mind and conscious awareness. First, we acquire understanding and perception similar to the level of thinking and feeling of the angelic spirits in the First Heaven. Their consciousness is within the spiritual-natural degree of operation, and this is the level we can first become conscious of.

As we progress in regeneration or character reformation, the interior-natural organ develops a more interior level of operation equivalent to the angelic spirits of the Second Heaven. This level of our understanding is far above that of our first phase of enlightenment, called the First Heaven. Now we use in our thinking spiritual-rational correspondences, not merely natural-rational as before.

Finally, we progress to the third degree of spiritual consciousness, equivalent to that of the Third Heaven. The interior-natural organ is now fully developed and we are able to perceive and understand celestial-rational correspondences of Divine Speech. We have the wisdom and power of perception of angels on earth.

It is this kind of developmental facts that this passage refer to, along with their earlier references, the content of which I am filling with my commentaries.

5.0.6  The Passion of Christ Movie and What It Portrays

Continuing with the Chapter analysis:

 [4] Hence then anyone may infer what truth there is in the idea that men are saved if they only think from a kind of interior emotion that the Divine-Human suffered for them, and took away their sins, however they may have lived; whereas the light of heaven from the Divine-Human's Divine-Human cannot reach to any but those who live in the good of faith, that is, in charity; or what is the same, those who have conscience. The very plane into which that light can operate, or the receptacle of that light, is the good of faith, or charity, and thus conscience. (That the spiritual have salvation from the Divine-Human's Divine-Human, may be seen above, n. 1043, 2661, 2716, 2718.) (AC 2776). (…)

This passage illumines the current (2004) controversy and popularity of Mel Gibson’s move The Passion which, according to commentators, is a faithful rendition of the last 12 hours of the life of Jesus according to the Gospels of the New Testament. The movie has broken all attendance records in the history of movies, both in the U.S. and in other countries where it is shown with subscripts. Movements have arisen to encourage people to see it and a lore is beginning to develop that people are experiencing renewal of faith and conversions after seeing the movie, even some who confess they had murdered people.

All of this emotion and religious fervor is based on the belief that it is Jesus’ extreme suffering and sacrifice on the cross to which they owe their salvation and future life in heaven. It is thought that Jesus takes away their sins through His sacrifice for them and the whole human race. And the more they can identify and empathize with the pain Jesus endured, the more they feel that their faith strengthened and renewed. The movie of Jesus’ crucifixion plays up the gory violent details of blood and bone breaking. It’s as if the director wanted to express his strong faith by using his best talents to show up the blood and gore, to make sure the audience can sufficiently identify with it or be moved by it. This emotional response is what people interpret as their faith being strengthened.

The above passage (written around 1745), refers to this belief system as “the idea that men are saved if they only think from a kind of interior emotion that the Divine-Human suffered for them, and took away their sins, however they may have lived.” This belief system was common among the Lutherans in Sweden, but it has become near universal among Christians today. The idea originates with Paul’s Epistles which forms the backbone of the philosophy of sacrifice as salvation. The Writings discusses all the details of this belief system, where and when it originated in the Christian Church, and why it is an outdated perspective, not grounded in Sacred Scripture itself.

The passage above states that we cannot be saved vicariously by Jesus “however they may have lived.” If this were possible, the Divine-Human would instantly save every human being. Why would He not? If there are unsaved people, that is, people who sink into hell in the afterlife, it’s because God could not prevent such a terrible fate for them. The passage explains what constitutes being saved. They are saved “who live in the good of faith, that is, in charity; or what is the same, those who have conscience “ It explains that heaven in eternity is located within that state of conscience.

The merit of Jesus cannot be attributed to anyone—unless the individual lives a life of conscience. This is why Jesus says so often in the New Testament “Follow Me,” by which He means “Do my Commandments,” which He specified globally as “Love Me” and “Love your neighbor,” by which He means, lead a life of conscience and develop your skills so that you can be useful to others and society. This is what saves. And to accomplish this, the individual must be helped by Jesus, the Divine-Human, must appeal to Him, for no one has power on their own, not even to overcome a single temptation.

Left to our power and our own devices we would not regenerate from within but only from without, so that within we remain with our evil tendencies and affections. Upon the second death, these hellish loves and falsities finally come out, and pull us down to the hell in our mind. The only way to be saved is to be change one’s character through conscience and reliance on the truths of Sacred Scripture.

Recently I received a group email message with an anonymous poem that illustrates the mental processes associated with a view of The Passion movie that hinges on identifying with Christ's suffering and His willingness to suffer for us:

STILL HE WALKED
He could hear the crowds screaming "crucify, crucify"
He could hear the hatred in their voices,
These were his chosen people.
He loved them,
And they were going to crucify him.

He was beaten, bleeding and weakened.
His heart was broken,
But still He walked.
He could see the crowd
as he came from the palace.

He knew each of the faces so well.
He had created them.
He knew every smile, laugh, and shed tear,
But they were contorted with rage and anger.
His heart broken,
But still He walked.
(...)
He looked back at the crowd,
at the people who were spitting at Him,
throwing rocks at Him and mocking Him
And He knew that because of Him,
they would never be alone.
So for them, He walked.

The sounds of the hammer striking the spikes
echoed through the crowd.
The sounds of his cries echoed even louder,
the cheers of the crowd,
as His hands and feet were nailed to the cross,
intensified with each blow.
(...)
Jesus could have asked God to end his suffering,
but instead He asked God to forgive.
Not to forgive Him,
but to forgive the ones
who were persecuting Him
as He hung on that cross,
dying an unimaginable death.
(...)
When I forget how much My God loves me,
I remember His walk.
When I wonder if I can be forgiven,
I remember His walk.
When I need reminding of how to live like Christ,
I think of His walk.
And to show him how much I love him,
I wake up each morning, turn my eyes to Him,
And I Walk.

Author: Unknown

The thought processes portrayed in this poem are based on a belief that it is the suffering of Christ that saves us from hell. Christ was innocent of all sins and thus qualified for being offered up as a human sacrifice, as in the days of the Old Testament when God ordered animal sacrifices for the forgiveness of sins. The Epistles of Paul present a theology for the Christian religion that is based on this belief system in sacrifices. God is appeased by sacrifices. God forgives our sins when we give the proper sacrifice. The Christ was the proper sacrifice because He was without sin and He was willing to offer Himself up for the forgiveness of sins, not His own, but that of the people.

The poem above, written two thousand years after Paul's Epistles, echoes this theme, and resending the poem to email groups, is an act of agreement with Paul's theology and its affirmation in the mental processes of many Christians today.

Note the sentiment in the poem "When I need reminding of how to live like Christ, I think of His walk." Why think of His walk? Presumably because it once more reawakens with new strength our faith in Him. And this faith in Him is that He saved us by His willingness to sacrifice Himself for us. He was willing to lay down His life for those He loved, which was all of us. These thoughts provide an occasion for strong emotions to invade our affective mind. But as Swedenborg found by observation, these emotions do not go beyond our natural mind. These emotions of faith by empathy with Christ's suffering, look for a sensuous consciousness of the Divine, an identification with Jesus, the human, who was immolating Himself to appease the Divine Father.

Faith based on identification with the human suffering of Jesus is a mystical faith that is blind and persuasive. Perhaps it is an entry point for a more rational development of one's faith, and in that case it is positive to begin with. But if this is the end of the road in one's faith, then it remains in the surface of our personality and character. In order for it to penetrate to the spiritual levels of our character we need to move to a more rational understanding of what "the walk" really was and how it contributes to our salvation today.

First, we need to see the rational contradictions in the sacrifice version. It is a contradiction to think of God as angry and demanding a sacrifice to appease His anger. This doesn't sound like the omnipotent God of pure love and wisdom. It sounds more like a human king or petty tyrant whose anger is appeased by the punishments and sacrifices of his people. The Writings reveal that God agreed to a worship of sacrifices during the Moses religion because the people insisted on it. Had God denied them a worship of Him through animal sacrifices, they would have abandoned God altogether and pursue idol worship and human sacrifices, as was the practice of the nations around them. But later, God reveals in the Old Testament that He does not want sacrifices. Quoting from the Writings of Swedenborg:

That sacrifices were by no means acceptable to Jehovah, thus were merely permitted and tolerated for the reason just stated, is very evident in the Prophets, as we read in Jeremiah:

Thus saith Jehovah Zebaoth the God of Israel, Add your burnt-offerings to your sacrifices, and eat flesh. I spoke not unto your fathers, and I commanded them not in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt-offering and sacrifice; but this word I commanded them, saying, Obey My voice, and I will be your God (Jer. 7:21-23).

In David:

O Jehovah, sacrifice and offering Thou hast not willed, burnt-offering and sin-offering Thou hast not required. I have desired to do Thy will, O my God (Ps. 40:6, 8).

In the same:

Thou delightest not in sacrifice, that I should give it; burnt-offering Thou dost not accept. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit (Ps. 51:16-17).

(...)
[7] From all this it is now evident that sacrifices were not commanded, but permitted; also that nothing else was regarded in the sacrifices than what is internal; and that it was the internal, not the external, that was acceptable. On this account also, the Divine-Human abrogated them, as was likewise foretold by Daniel in these words:

In the midst of the week shall He cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease (Dan. 9:27),

where the Divine-Human's advent is treated of.(...) (AC 2180)

How can God be angry or hate something, and then how can God be "propitiated" or calmed down by an animal sacrifice? The Writings reveal that Divine Speech appears in this mode when filtered into the natural mind where a natural psychology governs our perceptions. In other words, the Divine appears to us in a natural form according to our natural ideas of an earthly king or despot. God keeps this appearance going in our minds when in that lower state of worship. God keeps this appearance to keep open the possibility of our progression to a more interior form of worship, which consists of more rational concepts of God and of His management principles and style. From a rational consciousness of God we can know that anger is from hell and therefore cannot be with God. We must know therefore that when Sacred Scripture say something that is not rationally acceptable about God, we are to look for the underlying spiritual message. In the case of anger, it is this: That God appears angry to us when we are evil. Swedenborg saw evil spirits scamper to hide under rocks and in caverns when a ray of light from heaven entered their domain. This ray of light corresponds to Divine Truth, and so when evil spirits are faced with Divine Truth they experience such terror that they think they are being punished by a vengeful God.

Remember that anger and hate are affective operations in the natural minds of people. Negative emotions originate from the people in the hells of their mind. These emotions are hellish and are produced by the inversion of heavenly affections flowing in from God through the heavens. It is rationally impossible for anger and hate to travel upward from the natural mind into the spiritual mind, and then into the celestial mind and then into the Spiritual Sun and into God's Mind. This upward progression of hellish affections is impossible by the structure of the universe as created. Instead, all affections and truths flow down from God through the layers, and they are inverted in the hells of people's minds. This explains rationally why Sacred Scripture describes God as angry and hating sin. It is how God appears to us when we are lodged in the hells of our mind. Sacred Scripture was given to people everywhere, the majority of whom are born in the hells of their mind and must be willing to climb higher by means of revealed truths from God.

As revealed in the Writings, the Incarnate God used His mere human inherited from Mary to face the hells with new truths He fashioned in His mind as an infirm human. Within this infirm human was His Human Divine, for He was "the Divine-Human from Eternity" come down from heaven. For that purpose God entered the natural world in time and history. Prior to that moment God was omnipresent apart from space and time. God was not present in space and time (see Section xx). When God Incarnated as a mere human He for the very first time became present both apart from time and space and in time and space.

It is obvious that it was God who empowered people to have the idea, the desire, and the act of crucifying His mere human body. He only appeared helpless to those who carried it out and witnessed it. He is the one who gave them the power to do it to Him. He permitted this in His Divine Providence because this is what He had planned all along since creation. God's love burns with the ceaseless desire to bring every human being to the heavens in their minds. God is with every individual in the midst of sin. What is sin? It is to think, feel, and act from the hell in us. Who maintains this hell in every mind? There is no other power in existence than God's power.

Hence we must understand rationally how God actually manages the universe and people. These laws of Divine management or Providence have been revealed in the Writings of Swedenborg. All good events and qualities are provided by God, while all evil events and qualities are allowed by God. He has the power to stop any of it and all of it, but He will not use this power to stop the evil because it would destroy the as-of self independence and freedom of the individual to choose. Without this free choice, we cannot be elevated to heaven. Hence God will not stop people from turning good into evil, but He will moderated people's evils constantly so that more evil than is necessary shall not come into existence.

The suffering of the Divine-Human on the cross was the last temptation or passion He made Himself endure. By this act He was able to face the worst of all the hells in the human race, and defeat them by means of the thought processes and feelings He created for that occasion. Since then every human being can similarly face their own hells by means of the mental operations the Divine-Human created in overcoming every temptation. Everyone can now be regenerated by character reformation through temptations that the Divine-Human arranges at the right time and in the right proportion of intensity and quality--just what is needed for each unique person to gain victory and self-change.

Continuing with the Chapter analysis:

“And went unto the place of which God told him.” That this signifies His state at that time according to perception, is evident from the signification of "place," as being state (see n. 1273-1277, 1376-1381, 2625); and from the signification of "God saying," as being to perceive from the Divine (n. 2769, 2778). As regards the state itself, it is described in this verse, that is, the state which the Divine-Human assumed when He underwent temptations, and here that which He assumed when He underwent the most grievous and inmost temptations. His first preparation for that state was that He entered into a state of peace and innocence, and that He prepared the natural man in Himself, as also the rational, so that they should serve the Divine rational, and that He adjoined the merit of righteousness, and in this manner elevated Himself.

These things cannot be explained at all to the comprehension, or be presented to the idea, of anyone who does not know that many states exist together, and these distinct from one another; and who does not also know what a state of peace and innocence is, what the natural man is, what the rational man, and also what the merit of righteousness is; for he must first have a distinct idea of all these, and must also know that the Divine-Human from His Divine could induce upon Himself whatever states He pleased, and that He prepared Himself for temptations by inducing many states. Although these things are in obscurity as of night with men, they are nevertheless in clearness as of day with the angels, who being in the light of heaven from the Divine-Human, see in these and similar things innumerable things distinctly, and from the affection flowing in at the time perceive ineffable joy. Hence it is evident how far human understanding and perception fall short of angelic understanding and perception. (AC 2786).

My Commentary:

Note the scientific meaning of “place” in Divine Speech, namely mental state. Sacred Scripture frequently mentions a place in the historical narrative and in poetic visions. This shows that God is frequently discussing the topic of mental states, and this is because the purpose of Sacred Scripture is to elevate our understanding from the natural to the spiritual, so that from the spiritual we could reorder the natural mind from its inherited state of disorder to a new arrangement of order as defined for us by our Creator for the sake of our salvation. Salvation refers to the acquisition of a heavenly character that God can keep in maximum happiness to eternity.

The passage above says that “He prepared the natural man in Himself, as also the rational, so that they should serve the Divine rational.” In other words, God Himself was in charge of the mental development of the Divine Child, God’s own Incarnation or appearance in the physical world. God is present everywhere, as is well known, but it is not widely known yet that God is present everywhere in space but apart from space. The infinite God cannot be limited to physical space, which is His creation. Neither can the infinite be divided but is always the same as one. The only rational scientific answer is that God is present equally in all space but apart from space. God is one, and there is no pluralism about His Presence and Identity as the Divine Supreme Person. God does not appear in multiple places to many people, for this would be a division of Himself into many parts, and that is not rationally possible for the infinite Being. Instead, God is present equally with every created object or mind, not in the created structure itself, but apart from it, or underlying its inmost framework.

This underlying inmost framework is not in space because it is spiritual, and the spiritual is not in space. Nor is the mental in space since the mental and the spiritual form a one. For the same reason God cannot in the minds or souls of people in the sense that this is accepted in some Eastern philosophies and belief systems. We cannot rightly say, “the God in me greets the God in you,” since God is not in me and not in you. No part of me is part of God. Instead God is said to “dwell” in me, or to dwell in the soul of every human being. This means that God dwells in me but apart from me. In other words, God and I can be co-present. Or, God and I can be adjoined to each other, but never “conjoined,” meaning an overlap or sharing of parts.

In the entire explication of Genesis Chapter 22 it is being shown how God-Man as a Child on this earth, made Himself go through developmental mental states as He transformed his inherited and evil natural mind by struggling with the falsities of the hells that kept people captive to them. Having created these new mental pathways or truths, the Incarnate God-Man brought salvation to the human race, meaning, that any individuals who wanted to could now transform their inherited evil natural mind into a heavenly mind that can live there to eternity. In this passage we are told that it is God who prepares us for the temptations we must undergo in order to become aware of our falsities and evils, so that seeing them in us, we may reject them as no longer of us.

We need the right kind of thoughts and feelings to accomplish this. God supplies the right kind of temptation at the right time when we are in a state of mind in which we can accept His fighting for us against the hells. We cannot fight on our own for we cannot resist the hells. We must therefore acknowledge that the Divine-Human fights for us just as He fought for Himself when He subdued the hells by the new mental truths He revealed to Himself from His Divine.

Every human being anywhere can now obtain salvation for heaven by mentally stepping through the pathways established by the Incarnate God during His life on this earth. These pathways have been revealed in scientific terms through the revelations in the Writings of Swedenborg. We are analyzing here portions a few Numbers in Arcana Coelestia, one of the works of the Writings, a portion that extracts the scientific sense of Chapter 22 of Genesis in the Old Testament. The passage above that “many states exist together, and these distinct from one another” and that we need to know “what a state of peace and innocence is, what the natural man is, what the rational man, and also … that the Divine-Human from His Divine could induce upon Himself whatever states He pleased, and that He prepared Himself for temptations by inducing many states.”

Continuing with the analysis:

“On the third day.” That this signifies completeness, and the beginning of sanctification, is evident from the signification of the "third day." "Day" in the Word signifies state (n. 23, 487, 488, 493, 893); as also does "year," and in general all periods of time; as an "hour," a "day," a "week," a "month," a "year," an "age;" as also "morning," "noon," "evening," and "night;" and "spring," "summer," "autumn," and "winter;" and when "third" is added to these, they signify the end of that state, and at the same time the beginning of the following state. As the Divine-Human's sanctification is here treated of, which was effected by temptations, the "third day" signifies completeness, and at the same time the beginning of sanctification, as also follows from what has been already said.

The reason of this signification is that when the Divine-Human had fulfilled all things He would rise again on the third day; for the things that were done, or that would be done by the Divine-Human when He lived in the world, were in the representatives of the church as if already done (as also they were in the internal sense of the Word); for in God to be and to become are the same; indeed all eternity is present to Him. (AC 2788)

My Commentary:

Here we find out that when considering their scientific meaning, words in Sacred Scripture relating to time and period, like day, year, age, winter, morning, night, etc., refer to the variety of specific mental states we undergo in regeneration or spiritual development. “On the third day” refers to a mental state that completes a particular phase of development, given that the number 3 in the Word always refers to that which is complete or completed.

The passage reveals that when God-Man suffered Himself to be crucified, He did this on account of its spiritual correspondence, in accord with what was written about Him in various Old Testament passages. And also, because everything God does is for the entire human race for all times. His Speech is therefore by correspondences, as explained above, and also His specific actions, like arranging for His Own Crucifixion and suffering Himself to carry it through. It was after all He Himself who gave the idea and the power to those men to do this to Him. Hence the act of Resurrection on the third day after His burial.

The Glorified Physical Body that He made to arise from the tomb was completely pure and untainted by the former inherited deficiencies and tendencies to evil. IN fact, we are told that the risen Natural Body was made one with the Divine so that it could now be called the Divine Natural Body of the Divine-Human. This Divine Natural Body can be seen in the Spiritual Sun, which is a hot aura of Love and Wisdom around this Body and emanating from it in infinite quantity.

Continuing with the Chapter, here, regarding the scientific meaning of the number 3 throughout samples of Holy Scripture:

[2] Hence the number "three" was representative, not only in the Ancient Church and in the Jewish, but also among various nations. (See what is said concerning this number above, n. 720, 901, 1825.) That this was the origin of the signification of "three," is evident in Hosea:

Let us return unto Jehovah, for He hath wounded, and He will heal us; He hath smitten, and He will bind us up; after two days He will revive us, on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live before Him (Hos. 6:1-2);

(…)

Jesus said to the Jews, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. He spake of the temple of His body (John 2:19-21; Matt. 26:61; Mark 14:58; 15:29).

(…)

 [6] When they came into the land of Canaan the fruit was to be uncircumcised three years, and was not to be eaten (Lev. 19:23).

At the end of three years they were to bring all the tithes of their increase in that year and lay it up in their gates, that the Levite, the sojourner, the orphan, and the widow might eat (Deut. 14:28-29; 24:12).

(…)

David was to choose one of three things: seven years of famine in the land; or that he should flee before his enemies three months; or a pestilence in the land three days (2 Sam. 24:12-13).

(…)

So in the following passages:

Peter denied Jesus thrice (Matt. 26:34, 69 and following verses).

The Divine-Human said to Peter three times, "Lovest thou Me?" (John 21:17).

Also in the parable, the man who planted the vineyard sent servants three times, and at length his son (Luke 20:12; Mark 12:2, 4-6).

They who labored in the vineyard were hired at the third hour, the sixth hour, the ninth hour, and the eleventh hour (Matt. 20:1-17).

Because the fig tree did not bear fruit for three years, it was to be cut down (Luke 13:6, 7). (…) (AC 2788)

I’m only presenting a small sample here to indicate that Swedenborg was painstakingly careful in proving the scientific sense of some word by showing how it had the same sense in all other passages in Sacred Scripture, even though they were written by different people at vastly different epochs.

5.0.7  Evolutionary Footsteps for the Human Race

Continuing with the Chapter analysis, we are given a lot more details about the progressive development of His mental states, the same mental states we must go through, by “following Him” or stepping through the footsteps and pathways He created.

“And will come again to you.” That this signifies conjunction afterwards, is also evident without explication. As the Divine-Human's most grievous and inmost temptations are treated of in this chapter, all the states that He assumed when He underwent these temptations are described. The first state is described in the third verse, the second state in this verse, the third state in the verse next following, and the rest afterwards.

But these states cannot be expounded to the common apprehension unless many things are first known, not only respecting the Divine-Human's Divine, as here represented by Abraham, but also respecting His Divine-Human as represented by Isaac, and respecting the state of this rational when He engaged in and underwent the combats of temptation (this being the "boy"); and also what and of what quality the former rational was, and also the natural which it had; and likewise what the state was when the one was adjoined to the other, and what the state was when they were more or less separated.

Moreover many things concerning temptations must be known, as what exterior and interior temptations are, and hence what were the inmost and most grievous temptations the Divine-Human had, and which are treated of in this chapter. So long as these things are unknown, the things contained in this verse cannot possibly be described to the comprehension; and if they should be described, even most clearly, they would still appear obscure. To the angels, who are in the light of heaven from the Divine-Human, all these things are manifest and clear, indeed blessed, because they are most heavenly. 

[2] Here we will merely say that the Divine-Human could not be tempted at all when He was in the Divine Itself, for the Divine is infinitely above all temptation; but He could be tempted as to His human. This is the reason why when He was to undergo the most grievous and inmost temptations, He adjoined to Himself the prior human, that is, the rational and the natural of it, as described in verse 3; and why He afterwards separated Himself from these, as is said in this verse; but nevertheless retaining something by means of which He could be tempted; which is the reason why it is not here said, "Isaac my son," but "the boy," by whom is meant the Divine rational in such a state, namely, in a state of truth, prepared for the most grievous and inmost combats of temptations (see n. 2793).

That neither the Divine Itself nor the Divine-Human could be tempted, must be evident to everyone simply from the fact that not even the angels can approach the Divine, much less the spirits who induce temptations, and still less the hells. Hence it is manifest why the Divine-Human came into the world, and put on the human state itself with its infirmity; for thus He could be tempted as to the human, and by means of the temptations subjugate the hells, and reduce each and all things to obedience and into order, and save the human race which had removed itself so far away from the supreme Divine. (AC 2795)

My Commentary:

The passage above explains further what I have already discussed in my commentaries above.

Continuing with the next selection (remember that I’m skipping and sampling):

As regards the putting on of the various states by the Divine-Human which is here treated of, they cannot but be unknown to man, because he never reflects on his changes of state; which are nevertheless going on continually, both as to what is of the understanding or the thoughts, and as to what is of the will or the affections. The reason of his not reflecting upon them is that he believes that all things in him follow in natural order, and that there is nothing higher which directs; whereas the case is that all things are disposed by means of the spirits and angels with him; and all his states and changes of states are therefrom, and are thus to eternity directed by the Divine-Human to ends which the Divine-Human alone foresees.

That the reality is so, has become most fully known to me now by the experience of many years. It has also been given to know and observe what spirits and angels were with me, and what states they induced; and this I can solemnly assert-that all states, even to the least particulars, come from this source and are thereby directed by the Divine-Human. It has also been given to know and observe that in every state there are a great many others, which do not appear, and which together appear as one general state; and that these states are disposed in relation to the states which follow in order in their series. With a man these things are done by the Divine-Human; but with the Divine-Human Himself, when He lived in the world, they were done by Himself; because He was Divine, and the very being of His life was Jehovah. (AC 2796)

My Commentary:

In the above passage are stated in summary form many amazing scientific revelations about the operation and development of the human mind. You can see in this passage several key principles in theistic psychology discussed frequently in this book. Let’s list them in the order they appear in the passage above:

1. As individuals grow their mind goes through a series of phases, just as the physical body goes through visible maturation steps. Each phase consists of a series of developmental mental states and there is never a time when this flow of states ceases.

2. God is in charge of the operation of this series with every individual from the moment of birth to eternity. The series could not proceed without God’s immediate involvement, moderating one step and preparing the next step in advance by adjusting the current step, and so on.

3. The series of developmental steps brought on by God moment by moment can be monitored by the individual through “reflection” or spiritual self-witnessing (see Section xx). People don’t do this ordinarily because they are in the negative bias mode of living their daily lives, even if they have an active religious life in the community. Spiritual self-witnessing is to monitor and evaluate the sequence of mental states in any specific situation or task activity. It is thus a spiritual discipline in the service of our regeneration efforts (see Volume 3 of A Man of the Field www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/volume3-nonduality.html

4. The negative bias mode of living is to operate on the assumption that “there is nothing higher which directs.” Theistic psychology is based on the positive bias assumption, which is that “all things are disposed by means of the spirits and angels with him; and all his states and changes of states are therefrom.” This is discussed in theistic psychology under the topic of the “vertical community” (see Section xx).

5. The vertical community refers to the fact that, as stated in points 3 and 4, every developmental step in our mental operations is managed closely by God, not immediately, but immediately, “by means of the spirits and angels with him.” This is the vertical community to which every human mind on earth is connected and without which we would have absolutely no mental activity. God always follows this principle of mediate action, which is His method for maintaining the total networking of the human race, so that whatever happens to one individual anywhere affects in some way every other individual anywhere. What a stupendous concept! And how grand! It has been revealed that to God the entire human race appears as one (see Section xx).

6. But the operation of the vertical community is more specific than this universal networking effect. God connects us and reconnects us, moment by moment, to different “spirits and angels” that make up our vertical community at any one moment. God uses these more direct and specific influences as a Divine Psychologist who lovingly and wisely manages our regeneration needs—what things we need to become aware of when, or, what kind of experience we need to be prepared for the next phase.

7. Swedenborg confirms these revelations about the vertical community by careful scientific observations extended over a period of several years on a daily basis. Through his unique dual consciousness, he was able to see the spirits and angels in his own vertical community, who they were, what their character was, and how often they were exchanged for different spirits and angels. “Spirits” is the name used for people who pass into the afterlife and are resuscitated a few hours later in the world of spirits. “Angels” is the name used for people who enter the afterlife, and shortly thereafter, are elevated to their heavens.

8. The character of the spirits and angels in our vertical community determines our mental state. Our mental states are “induced” by our vertical community. For instance, suppose you are standing in your bathroom flossing your teeth. God has to bring certain spirits and angels into your vertical community to allow you to perform the flossing activity. Our freedom of choice is maintained in every detail by balancing the vertical community to include good spirits and evil spirits. For instance, when I floss, I experience many kinds of celestial temptations that challenge my love for doing a good job at flossing. I have to overcome the impulse to hurry and skip parts. Many issues like this arise during the daily routine that takes about three minutes. How to hold the floss for most effectiveness. How to curl it and uncurl it so the circulation in the finger isn’t cut off. How to be efficient and not use up more floss than is necessary. And other temptations and resolutions (see Section xx). God manages every little detail of my mental states during flossing. And the management method involves the vertical community.

9. The organization of mental states is hierarchical (“in order in their series”), like the top down syntactic construction of a sentence when we talk. During self-witnessing we can confirm this organization or “series.” At first many mental operations appear as one undifferentiated whole, as when we try to describe flossing prior to self-witnessing. We can hardly mention a few things about it. But after some self-witnessing effort we can mention hundreds of things about it. The passage tells us that “in every state there are a great many others, which do not appear, and which together appear as one general state.”

Continuing with the next paragraph of the passage:

 [2] The changes of state with man as to what is of the understanding and as to what is of the will, and the order in which they follow on, as also the series through which they pass, and thus how they are bent by the Divine-Human as far as possible to good, it belongs to the angels to know.

The wisdom of the angels is such that they perceive all these things most minutely. Hence it is that these things which are revealed in the internal sense concerning the changes of state with the Divine-Human, are clearly and distinctly perceivable by the angels, because they are in the light of heaven from the Divine-Human; and they are also in some degree intelligible to a man who lives in simple good; but they are merely obscure and as nothing to those who are in evil, and also to those who are in the deliriums of wisdom; for these have obscured and extinguished their natural and rational light by many things which have induced darkness, however much they may believe that they are preeminently in light. (AC 2796)

The above passage reveals an important and special feature of theistic psychology. It is stated that when our consciousness and character is raised to the celestial level of our mind (“the wisdom of angels”), we gain the capacity to observe our mental operations in great detail. It is like the people who train themselves in linguistic analysis and are able to recognize in their mind the syntactic hierarchy that generates the sentence they are hearing. Or it is like expert chess players who are able to look at a position on the board and recognize in it a pattern of relations with which they are very familiar and can instantly reproduce from memory. In our angelic mind we can recognize the details of where we are in a series of our mental operations.

Even more startling is the revelation here that the clarity with which we can be aware of our mental operations depends on the progress we’ve made in our regeneration. While we are undergoing mental states that are evil in thoughts and feelings, we are unable to accurately observe ourselves. As we move on to heavenly or good traits, we become progressively more conscious of the details of our thoughts and feelings. This serves our spiritual development, since regeneration involves becoming more and more aware of the details of our thoughts and feelings, so that we may modify them appropriately.

5.0.8 The Scientific Meaning of Sin and Sacrifices

Continuing with the next selection:

“To slay his son.” That this signifies until whatever was from the merely human was dead, is evident from the internal sense of these words; for they signify the Divine-Human's most grievous and inmost temptations, the last of which was that of the cross, in which it is evident that what was merely human also died. This could not be represented by Abraham's son or Isaac, because to sacrifice sons was an abomination; but it was represented so far as it could be, namely, even to the attempt, but not to the act. Hence it is evident that by these words, "Abraham took the knife to slay his son," is signified until all that was merely human was dead. ). (AC 2819)

My Commentary:

Note the assertion that human sacrifice is an abomination, and yet Abraham was planning to sacrifice his son because it seemed to him that God was commanding him to do so. The fact is that God abhors all sacrifices, as indicated in several places in the Old Testament as for instance:

Thou delightest not in sacrifice, that I should give it; burnt-offering Thou dost not accept. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit (Ps. 51:16-17).(see AC 2180)

The Writings reveal that sacrifices were not commanded but permitted by God because the people of the Old Testament insisted on a worship based in animal sacrifices, and had God not permitted this, they would not have accepted the religion from Moses. In consequence, God gave them strict rules on the procedures and rituals for carrying out sacrifices, as we can read in the book of Leviticus in the Old Testament. The dimensions and construction materials of the Temple in Jerusalem where the sacrifices were going to take place were specified in strict detail. Highly specific details and exact measurements for the Temple construction were given, and numerous details were specified regarding animal sacrifices--what species for what sin, and how to dispose of the blood and the carcasses.

Every single detail of size, material, color, or ritual act, was commanded because they were all natural correspondences to spiritual meanings or realities. The inhabitants of the heavens were closely involved with these details since Sacred Scripture or Divine Speech originates from God and then filters down through the three heavens to the natural mind and hence to a written record in a natural language.

All sacrifices were natural events or rituals that represented by correspondence some detail about the Divine-Man’s life and work on earth. These representations were endowed with Divine power. The Divine power within the representative acts and meanings caused a “conjunction” to occur between “heaven and earth.” In other words, the minds of the people who worshiped with these representatives were affected, and so were the physical events around them, like the weather, the crops, the fertility, the national unity, the international peace. Had these representative worship rituals not been permitted to them the connection between heaven and earth would have been disturbed and rendered less effective and beneficial. The worship rituals had to be spiritually representative otherwise they would not have involved the people in the spiritual world and thus the contact between heaven and earth would be broken.

In the scientific sense “to slay his son” (in the passage above) refers to the slaying of the Lamb of God or Jesus on the Cross. By this Divine act—dying on the cross—“ what was merely human also died.” To the disciples and angels who did not want Jesus to die, Jesus said that He must die. Why must He? Is He not the omnipotent God? The answer is that He is the omnipotent and He could have not done this to Himself, but He chose to do it because this is what was foretold in Divine Speech for many centuries. Jesus said that He came to fulfill the Word of the Old Testament, referring thereby to the fact, not known to anyone on earth, that every detail of the sacrifices represented something about the Work He came to earth to accomplish, and this Work was to struggle with the hells and subdue them by means of the new truths His natural mind fashioned, as discussed several times above. “Hence it is evident that by these words, ‘Abraham took the knife to slay his son,’ is signified until all that was merely human was dead.” ). (AC 2819)

Continuing with the next passage:

[2] That it was known from the most ancient time that the Divine-Human was to come into the world, and was to suffer death, is evident from the fact that the custom prevailed among the Gentiles of sacrificing their sons, believing that they were thus purified, and propitiated to God; in which abominable custom they could not have placed their most important religious observance, unless they had learned from the ancients that the Son of God was to come, who would, as they believed, be made a sacrifice. To this abomination even the sons of Israel were inclined, and Abraham also; for no one is tempted except by that to which he is inclined. That the sons of Jacob were so inclined is evident in the Prophets; but lest they should rush into that abomination, it was permitted to institute burnt-offerings and sacrifices (see n. 922, 1128, 1241, 1343, 2180). (AC 2818)

My Commentary:

Once again it is stated in the passage above that sacrifices were not God’s choice but the people’s choice to which God agreed under strict conditions. The idea that we are saved by the sacrifice of the Son of God on the cross is an idea that has remained intense and rooted in for many centuries in the Catholic and Protestant religions. It is not surprising therefore that this topic is treated of so often and in such detail in the Writings, which are the revelations of the Second Coming, and thus revealing all the hidden secrets about the representative nature of the Jewish sacrifices.

As pointed above, the current intense reaction to the movie The Passion (of Christ) demonstrates that this idea is still operational in the psyche of Christians as a whole. If you listen to Sunday sermons in Church or on TV from any Christian denomination you will note once again that the death of Jesus on the cross is made the centerpiece of the religion and worship. Hence it is extremely important for people to discover what the Writings reveal regarding sacrifices and salvation.

Continuing with the next sample, which lists references to prior Numbers where these points were demonstrated in detail:

That the evils and falsities in a man who is being regenerated are subdued by temptations, not abolished (n. 868): That truth has the first place in combat (n. 1685): That man combats from the goods and truths which he has acquired by knowledges, though they be not in themselves goods and truths (n. 1661): That evil spirits and genii excite the falsities and evils in a man, and hence come temptations (n. 741, 751, 761).

That in temptations man thinks that the Divine-Human is absent, whereas He is then more present (n. 840): That man can by no means sustain the combats of temptations of himself, because they are against all the hells (n. 1692 at the end): That the Divine-Human alone combats in man (n. 1661, 1692): That by means of temptations evil genii and spirits are deprived of the power of doing evil and inspiring falsity in man (n. 1695, 1717): That temptations come with those who have conscience, and more acute ones with those who have perception (n. 1668): That temptations rarely exist at this day, but in their place anxieties, which are of another character and from another source (n. 762):  (AC 2819)

My Commentary:

Sacrifices represent atonement of sins, meaning that God forgives us, that we are therefore purified of the sins, and now continue life in peace and safety. When God-Man incarnated, He taught the people that sacrifices represent Him, and that now that He has incarnated, no more sacrifices are to be performed. Instead, a new method for the forgiveness of sins has been initiated for the human race. This new method is internal, not external. In other words, it is mental or spiritual, not natural and physical. The human race now is able to be liberated from the grip of the hells that make us sin. This new method consists in character reformation, which to be successful, requires that we step through the mental paths created by Jesus when alive on earth. This means thinking the new truths and feeling the new feelings that the God-Man created for the human race.

You can see rationally that the new method is the only method, and that the prior method of sacrificing did not work except for the earthly benefits. The people arriving into the afterlife were not able to enter heaven no matter how much they sacrificed and were benefited by it on earth. This is because they merely expected their hellish traits to be forgiven, not to be taken away. People kept sinning after the sacrifices, necessitating the continue practice of sacrifices all one’s life on earth. But thereafter, the sacrificing was of no use because in the afterlife the inner character takes over by necessity of spiritual law. They were then instructed about what they really need to do, but to no avail. They were unwilling, for the most part, to undergo character reformation in the spiritual world. Hence they sunk down into the hells of their minds, regardless of the sacrifices they performed.

In the passage above we are informed once more that the only way one can be saved is by character change, and the only way we can reject our hellish traits is by temptations. As indicated in earlier discussion, temptations are brought on by specific experiences arranged and timed for every person by God. God fights for the person and overcomes, not the person through one’s own power. We cannot glory in the victory of overcoming temptations because it is accomplished By the Divine-Human, not by us. Yet we must agree and cooperate. Temptations are not brought to anyone who will not agree and cooperate with God, which we do either through our knowledge of Sacred Scripture, or through our conscience, or both.

Temptations are mental struggles or “combats from the goods and truths which one has acquired by knowledges.” We cannot undergo temptations until we either know some Divine truth from revelation, or we have a direct intuitive perception from our inborn conscience that something is evil or good. The knowledge or perception of what is good or evil must precede the temptation. For instance, in natural temptations, we must have knowledge of the physical dangers we run if we do not overcome and do the right thing, like flossing regularly or staying honest on the job. In spiritual temptations, we must have knowledge of heaven and hell, of God’s Commandments, and the danger we run if we do not overcome and cling to the truths of our faith or theistic science. In celestial temptations, we must have knowledge of our loves, of how they affect others as well as ourselves, and the dangers we run if we do not overcome and cling to the love of God and the love others.

Continuing with the next passage, which lists more references where temptations were discussed in earlier Numbers:

That men spiritually dead cannot sustain the combats of temptations (n. 270): That all temptations are attended with despair respecting the end (n. 1787, 1820): That after temptations there is fluctuation (n. 848, 857): That the good learn by temptations that they are nothing but evil, and that all things are of mercy (n. 2334): That by temptations goods are conjoined more closely with truths (n. 2272): That men are not saved by temptations if they yield in them, nor if they think that they have merited by them (n. 2273): That in every temptation there is freedom, and stronger than out of temptations (n. 1937). (AC 2819)

My Commentary:

Note that undergoing temptations is an orderly and scientific process that goes through specific steps to which we must adapt appropriately or else the temptation is rendered ineffective for spiritual development or character reformation. One of the consequences of temptations is to discover that we “are nothing but evil.” In other words, by inheritance we acquire such a vast number of evil traits and tendencies, that we are filled with evil impulses all the time, even when on the surface we appear to be good and decent. But this is only a surface put on as the temptation demonstrates to us.

The above passage explains that “by temptations goods are conjoined more closely with truths.” This is why temptations require that we already have some knowledge about physical dangers of risk, spiritual dangers of truth, and celestial dangers of love. We have spiritual truths, but instead of spiritual goods we have spiritual evils. The temptation process contains and restricts the evil and replaces it with good, which is conjoined to the truth we already have. Regeneration is therefore the process by which God attaches goods to the truths we have acquired from moral teachings and Sacred Scripture. Now we can act from love by means of truth, which is what constitutes heaven.

Continuing with the next sample:

“Behind, caught in a thicket.” That this signifies entangled in natural knowledge, is evident from the signification of being "caught," as here being entangled; and from the signification of a "thicket" or "tangle" as being memory-knowledge-explained in what follows. That the spiritual are held entangled in natural knowledge in regard to the truths of faith, is as follows. The spiritual have not perception of good and truth, as the celestial have, but instead of it conscience formed from the goods and truths of faith which they have imbibed from infancy from their parents and masters, and afterwards from the doctrine of faith into which they were born. They who have no perception of good and truth have to be confirmed by knowledges.

Everyone forms for himself some idea respecting the things he has learned, and also respecting the goods and truths of faith; for without an idea, nothing remains in the memory otherwise than as an empty thing. Confirmatory things are added thereto, and fill up the idea of the thing, from other knowledges, even from memory-knowledges. The confirmation of the idea itself by many things causes not only that it sticks in the memory, so that it can be called forth into the thought, but also that faith can be insinuated into it. (AC 2831)

My Commentary:

This passage gives us the scientific meaning of “tangled” and “thicket” which refer to plants, bushes, and vines. Throughout the text of Sacred Scripture references to vegetation signify things about the cognitive organ of the mind, while animals signify things about the affective organ of the mind. The thickets, and tangles of vines and branches are natural correspondences to conceptual hierarchies and taxonomies.

For example, if you’re familiar with the logical classification system known as Roget’s Thesaurus you will recognize how the meaning relations reach across semantic categories, like intertwining branches. The reason branches and vines grow in this fashion is because they correspond to mental properties, in this case cognitive structures that overlap in meaning. Few people knew of this connection between plants and the cognitive mind until it was revealed in the Writings of Swedenborg.

Different types of branches or vines correspond to different features of the cognitive networks we all have in the mind and memory structures. “Thicket” represents “memory-knowledge” which designates whatever we have acquired externally by experience and are stored representatively in the cognitive organ. The reason this is being discussed here is that our Fallen race is materialistic and monist in terms of memory-knowledges we acquire in our daily life on earth. All our memories come from what we experience through the senses in the external physical world.

It is stated in the above passage that “the spiritual have not perception of good and truth, as the celestial have, but instead of it conscience formed from the goods and truths of faith which they have imbibed from infancy from their parents and masters.” We are being referred to as “the spiritual” in contrast to the “celestial” race that existed prior to the Fall. The split-brain race that came into existence after that original race, did not have dual consciousness. The only source for their knowledge of good and evil came from a “conscience” formed by “the goods and truths of faith” we acquire through our socialization process. As a result, we are “held entangled in natural knowledge in regard to the truths of faith.” In other words, our semantic categories about the world and reality, and specifically our ideas about God and the afterlife (“truths of faith”), are “entangled” in natural categories that ignore the spiritual categories from which they originate and to which they are connected by the laws correspondence. We need to know and recognize this prior to opting for the positive bias perspective on science and reality.

5.0.9  Three Types of Spiritual Perception

Continuing with the passage, which will give us further details about the anatomy of our mind and how it functions, specifically regarding the three types of perception through which we raise our consciousness and develop spiritually:

[2] As regards perception in general, since few know what perception is, this must be declared. There is perception of what is good and true in celestial and spiritual things; there is perception of what is just and equitable in civil life; and there is perception of what is honorable in moral life. As regards the perception of what is good and true in celestial and spiritual things, the interior angels have this perception from the Divine-Human, the men of the Most Ancient Church had it, and the celestial, who are in love to the Divine-Human, have it. These know at once, from a kind of internal observation, whether a thing is good and whether it is true; for this is insinuated by the Divine-Human, because they are conjoined with Him by love.

Spiritual men, however, have no such perception of good and truth in celestial and spiritual things, but instead of it have conscience which dictates; but as before said, this conscience is formed from the knowledges of good and truth which they have imbibed from their parents and masters, and afterwards from their own study in doctrine and in the Word; and in these, even though not entirely good and true, they put their faith. Hence it is that men can have conscience from any doctrine whatever; even the Gentiles have something not unlike conscience from their religion. 

My Commentary:

According to this passage, the three types of perceptual operations are as follows:

(a) perception of what is good and true spiritually

(b) perception of what is just and equitable in public behavior

(c) perception of what is honorable and moral in personal behavior

The perception what is good and true spiritually is a capacity of our celestial mind. The most earliest generations on this earth had that kind of perception since they were conscious in both worlds, as Swedenborg was. When we enter our heaven following the second death, we are in our celestial mind, either the highest portion of it called the “Third Heaven” or the lowest called the “First Heaven.” However, note carefully that it says that those of us “who are in love to the Divine-Human, have it.” This is very encouraging indeed. It means that there is a special organ within the natural mind that can give us this celestial perception.

As explained above in one of my comments, the natural mind has the capacity of containing a spiritual organ that can replicate in a representative way the higher order mental operations taking place in the unconscious spiritual and celestial mind. This spiritual-natural organ gives us full conscious awareness of spiritual truths and goods by means of higher order correspondences (see Volume 2 of A Man of the Field:  www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/volume2-nonduality.html

The development and operationalization of the spiritual-natural organ is dependent on our regeneration or character reformation efforts. These efforts must be motivated by love for the Divine-Human and the knowledge that our heaven is within the Divine-Human’s Rational Mind. To the extent that we can align our rational mind to the Divine Rational Mind, to that extent we gain perception of spiritual truths and celestial goods, right here on earth, in full consciousness and awareness. We are then in a state of spiritual enlightenment.

The passage above also informs us that conscience gives us intuitive perception of what is good and true spiritually, though this is imperfect in comparison to the rational perception of spiritual truths in our new spiritual-rational organ, just discussed. The imperfect nature of conscience comes from the fact that its content is mixed through socialization practices and religious belief systems, many of which are not spiritually true but can lead one to spiritual truths. These are called “mediate truths and goods.”

For example, the worship by sacrifice which was discussed above, was not in itself true and good, not something that actually prepared their character for life in heaven. But when the sacrificial worship, even if pagan, was taken sincerely, it contained the fear and worship of God. This was sufficient to establish for them a life of conscience. When they arrived in the afterlife, this life of conscience now formed the basis for their instruction in actual truths and goods, which they were then willing to accept. Thus they entered their heavens.

Here is what we are further told about conscience and the importance of spiritual self-witnessing:

[3] That the spiritual have no perception of the good and truth of faith, but say and believe that to be true which they have learned and apprehended, is sufficiently evident from the fact that everyone says that his own dogma is true, heretics more than others; and that they are not able to see the truth itself, still less to acknowledge it, although thousands of things should declare it.

Let everyone explore himself and see if he is able to perceive from any other source whether a thing is true; and if when a thing most true is made manifest to him he still does not fail to acknowledge it. As for example, one who makes faith the essential of salvation, and not love: even if all should be read before him which the Divine-Human spoke concerning love and charity (see n. 2373), and if he should know from the Word that all the Law and the Prophets hang upon love to the Divine-Human and charity toward the neighbor, he will nevertheless remain in the idea of faith, and will say that this alone saves. It is otherwise with those who are in celestial and spiritual perception.  (AC 2831)

Evidence is mentioned here showing that our spiritual race living by conscience evolves all sorts of belief systems (“faith”) that are contradictory to each other and fall into “dogma,” which refers to unscientific conclusions based on no evidence yet enforced on others. These contradictory and dogmatic variations of human conscience shows that conscience is not pure, like spiritual perception, but mixed up with socialized and ethnic belief systems. At this level of mental operations “they are not able to see the truth itself, still less to acknowledge it, although thousands of things should declare it.”

An example given elsewhere in the Writings is the dogma of “faith alone saves,” which is erroneously based on some things Paul says in the Epistles and which Luther elaborated on when establishing the intellectual basis of Protestantism. This dogma declares that since no one is capable of fulfilling “the Law” in Sacred Scripture, we cannot be saved by our actions, but must rely on blind faith in the saving power of the Blood of Christ who died for us. As a result, preachers and teachers tell the people that they are saved by this blind faith, even if they do not reform their character. This is because God no longer looks upon their sin, now that they are saved by the sacrifice of the Son of God on the cross.

The Writings show the many places in both the Old and New Testaments where it is declared, even by Paul, that we are not saved by a faith of rituals and declarations, but only by ceasing to sin and living a charitable life according the commandments, both in their letter and in their spirit. Hence it is said above that “they are not able to see the truth itself, still less to acknowledge it, although thousands of things should declare it.” The thousands of things that declare the truth are the many references in Sacred Scripture that warn us that only when we stop our evil thoughts and feelings can we enter heaven.

The passage above refers to those who “who make faith the essential of salvation, and not love,” which is another dogma frequently rejected in Sacred Scripture, including Paul in his Epistles. Even though the relevant passages in Holy Scripture are shown to them, they “nevertheless remain in the idea of faith, and will say that this alone saves,” and that “when a thing most true is made manifest to him they still do not fail to acknowledge it.” Such are the disadvantages of a conscience based on blind faith that ignores the sayings of Sacred Scripture in one place, and pick only those places that support the dogmatic beliefs.

Continuing with the passage, we receive more explanations on the nature of perception and its evolutionary origin:

[4] As regards the perception of what is just and equitable in civil life, however, those in the world who are rational have this, and also the perception of what is honorable in moral life. These two perceptions distinguish one man from another, but by no means do such men for this reason have the perception of the good and truth of faith, because this perception is higher or more internal, and flows in from the Divine-Human through the inmost of the rational. 

[5] The reason also why the spiritual have no perception of the good and truth of faith, is that good and truth are not implanted in their will part, as with celestial men, but in their intellectual part (see n. 863, 875, 927, 1023, 1043, 1044, 2256). Hence it is that the spiritual cannot arrive at the first degree of the light in which the celestial are (n. 2718), but have what is obscure in comparison (n. 1043, 2708 at the beginning, 2715). That the spiritual are entangled in natural memory-knowledge in respect to the truths of faith, follows from this.  (AC 2831)

My Commentary:

The perception of what is good and true in public and personal life comes from the development of the natural-rational mind. One does not have to belong to a religion in order to be a useful law abiding citizen and a moral neighbor. We learn to act rationally on the natural plane of life and society by suppressing our irrational and evil impulses. This suppression is not possible to maintain once the person is regenerating because these evils are brought out by the experiences of temptations. But those who do not suffer themselves to undergo regeneration arrive in the afterlife, as Swedenborg talked to some of them, and demand that be admitted to heaven since they had lived a useful and moral life. But when they are taken to their second death, which means that they are immersed in all their internal loves, the evil that was suppressed now feels liberated like a genie in a bottle, and they trot off to their hells.

This must be taken very seriously if you care about your eternal future. The Writings explain that we are able to be aware of our suppressed evils except by temptations, and these are brought to us only if we are prepared to fight and overcome, that is, are prepared to undergo a series of temptations for the sake of character reformation. As further explained in the following passage:

 [10] The reason why in the Word memory-knowledges are called "thickets," is that they are comparatively of such a character, especially when the cupidities of the love of self and of the world, and the principles of falsity, seek for them. Celestial and spiritual love is that which disposes into order the knowledges which are of the exterior memory; and the love of self and of the world is that which perverts the order, and disturbs all things in it. These things the man does not take notice of, because he places order in perverted order, good in evil, and truth in falsity. On this account these things are in entanglement; and also on this, that the things of the exterior memory, where these knowledges are, compared with those in the interior memory, where rational things are, are as in a thicket, or as in a dark forest.

How shady, opaque, and dark it is there in comparison, a man cannot know so long as he is living in the body; for he then supposes that all wisdom and intelligence are from this source; but he will know in the other life, when he comes into the things of his interior memory. That in the exterior memory, which is proper to man while he is living in the world, nothing is less to be found than the light of intelligence and wisdom; but that all is relatively dark, disorderly, and entangled there, may be seen above (n. 2469-2494). (AC 2831)

My Commentary:

A “thicket” represents the way our thinking gets entangled when we rely on our own self-made ideas about God and regeneration. We start with a love for evil and a resistance to character reformation that forces us to give up our evil delights and pet ideas. This is called the “cupidities of the love of self and of the world, and the principles of falsity” that support these evil loves. When we are in such a lost state, whatever we experience as delightful is called good and true. We completely lose the ability to distinguish between actual good and truth and actual evil and falsity that masquerades in our own eyes as good and truth.

The only way out of this terrible and dangerous life dilemma is to compel ourselves to learn spiritual truths from revelation and to order our natural mind so that it agrees with the revealed spiritual order. As soon as we are committed to doing this, God brings new knowledge by which we can fight our temptations and progress steadily in this regeneration path. The more we acquire rational consciousness from scientific revelations, the more we can disentangle the spider webs of false beliefs that keep our evils in place.

Continuing with the next passage, which gives us more detail about how we get entangled in the exclusively natural perspective, ignoring spiritual revelations:

“By his horns.” That this signifies with all power in regard to the truths of faith, is evident from the signification of "horns." "Horns" are mentioned in many places in the Word; and there signify the power of truth from good; and in the opposite sense the power of falsity from evil; here the meaning is that the spiritual who are signified by the "ram" are entangled in natural memory-knowledge with all their might in regard to truth, and hence that they are deprived of the power of perceiving truths. For the more anyone consults natural memory-knowledges, and sticks fast in them in his animus and mind in regard to the things which are truths of faith, the more does he lose the light of truth, and with the light, the life of truth.

Everyone may know this from experience, if he attends and reflects, from those who say that they can believe nothing unless they comprehend that it is so by means of the things of sense, or of memory-knowledge. If you explore their quality, you will find that they believe nothing; and moreover that nothing seems to them more wise than to ascribe everything to nature. There are many also who say that they believe although they do not comprehend; when nevertheless, in secret with themselves, they reason equally as others do from the things of sense and memory-knowledge concerning the truths of faith, as to whether a thing is so. These either have a kind of persuasion breathed in from the love of self and the world, or they do not believe at all. Their quality is manifest from their life. Both classes are indeed in the Divine-Human's spiritual church, but they are not of the church.

They who are of the church are in a life of good, and have faith in truths; but the spiritual have faith in other truths besides those which have been impressed on them from infancy, and which they have afterwards confirmed to themselves from doctrine or from some other source. Such is the state of the spiritual, which state is here described by the "ram caught in the thicket by his horns" (see just above, n. 2831).  (AC 2832)

My Commentary:

In the passage above we find out that the scientific sense of “horns” refers to “the power of truth that is in faith.” In the Writings “faith” is used in two ways—blind faith and rational faith. Blind faith characterizes religion while rational faith characterizes theistic psychology. Both truths and falsified truths are referred to in Sacred Scripture by the horns of animals because horns represent the animals power to fight and defeat its enemies. Truths have power to defeat evils but falsities also have power to defeat goods. It all depends on how the person uses the truths or the falsities.

A ram’s horns represent the power of false beliefs to entangle us in the thicket of a natural life devoid of spiritual development. As it is said above, “The more anyone consults natural memory-knowledges, and sticks fast in them in his animus and mind in regard to the things which are truths of faith, the more does he lose the light of truth, and with the light, the life of truth.” Here, blind faith is being referred to, not rational faith which is based on an enlightened understanding from Divine scientific revelations.

The negative bias perspective is referred to in the above passage as “those who say that they can believe nothing unless they comprehend that it is so by means of the things of sense.” Materialism denies the spiritual because the spiritual is not perceivable by the physical senses. About those who think this way it is said that “nothing seems to them more wise than to ascribe everything to nature.” Thinking this way keeps them in irreality. But it is not only the materialist who falls into this mental trap. Those who have a religion of blind faith do not examine the logic of their belief system. They say they believe because it is faith and they do not have to understand its mysteries. They may belong to a religion but “they are not of the Church. Their quality is manifest from their life.”

For spiritual development we must go beyond the religious truths “which have been impressed on us from infancy.” We must examine the teachings of our religion and belief systems in the light of rationality and science, not non-theistic science which denies Sacred Scripture, but theistic science which examines and scrutinizes Sacred Scripture for its scientific revelations.

Continuing with the next selection that discusses the role of faith and charity in our spiritual development, that is, the role of truth and love:

“In the mountain Jehovah will see.” That this signifies charity, by means of which it is provided by the Divine-Human that they should be saved, namely, the spiritual, is evident from the signification of a "mountain," as being love and charity (see n. 795, 796, 1430). That "Jehovah will see" denotes the Divine-Human's providence, or what is provided by the Divine-Human, was said just above (n. 2837). Here charity is spoken of, and not love, on account of the difference between charity and love (see n. 2023). That the spiritual are saved by charity, and not by faith separate from charity, is evident from many passages in the Word. With charity and with faith the case is this: charity without faith is not genuine charity, and faith without charity is not faith.

That there may be charity, there must be faith; and that there may be faith, there must be charity; but the essential itself is charity; for in no other ground can the seed which is faith be implanted. From the conjunction of the two mutually and reciprocally is the heavenly marriage, that is, the Divine-Human's kingdom. Unless faith is implanted in charity it is mere memory-knowledge; for it goes no further than the memory; there is no affection of the heart which receives it; but when it is implanted in charity, that is, in the life, it becomes intelligence and wisdom. Charity without faith, such as is with children and with upright Gentiles, is only ground in which faith is implanted-if not in the life of the body, still in the other life (see n. 1802, 2280, 2290-2309, 2419, 2589-2604). (AC 2839).

My Commentary:

In the above passage it is stated that we (‘the spiritual”) are regenerated for heaven “by charity, and not by faith separate from charity.” This is known to everyone who is familiar with the teachings of the Old and New Testaments, namely that “charity without faith is not genuine charity, and faith without charity is not faith.” I hear this issue debated frequently on Christian radio broadcasts. People would call in the talk show presentation and ask about how do they know they are saved since they still feel like living in their old habits, and do. So they want to know if they are saved or not? The standard answer given is that they are saved as long as they were sincere in confessing their faith in Jesus, that He died to save them form their sins. Then they are told that there is a process called “sanctification” by which the Holy Spirit leads them to show their faith in their life. Then they are told that that to live a life of faith means to go to Church, to seek fellowship with other Christians, and to confess their faith in Christ publicly to anyone who will listen. But is this really true?

The Writings show that it is not true. The life of true faith is not fellowship, Church attendance, and confession of religion, but charity, which is defined as changing how we think and act so that we do things for the sake of others, not just for the sake of self. As long as we are mean to people, or care more about our own comfort zone, we do not live a life of charity. For instance, in our work, we need to be honest and sincere, considering the uses we serve and for which we are paid. Doing a good job and being useful to neighbors, family, and society for the sake of God and heaven—this is the life of charity that leads to salvation. Faith without this charity is useless for salvation, as witnessed by Swedenborg when he monitored what happens to people who arrive in the afterlife with a strong faith not based on a life of use and caring for others. They have no faith they can hold on to in the afterlife because it is not based on altruism. They sink down into their hells where many profess faith but don’t mean it. They continue to love themselves more than others, and often, they love themselves alone, and others they love only for the sake of self. It is not possible for the "blood of Christ" or the "Merit of Christ" to turn a person who is a wolf into a sheep. Only a life of character reformation for the sake of God and heaven, can do this.

The New Testament frequently warns us that faith can only be “implanted” in charity since “in no other ground can the seed which is faith be implanted.” Salvation consists of the “heavenly marriage” which refers to the conjunction between our faith and our charity, that is, our understanding of the doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture, and then the doing of it in daily life. In the Writings the word "faith" refers to rational faith or theistic psychology. "Faith implanted in charity" means that we are motivated to live the truth we know from Sacred Scripture, and when we proceed in this way, our faith “becomes intelligence and wisdom.” To "live the truth" means to apply doctrine from Sacred Scripture to our willing and thinking in daily activities.

Quoting from the Writings Sacred Scripture:

NJHD 140. Concerning Perception.

Perception consists in seeing by influx from the Lord what is true and good, nos. 202, 895, 7680, 9128 [all Numbers here refer to AC]. Perception exists only with those who are in the good of love from the Lord to the Lord, nos. 202, 371, 1442, 5228. Perception exists in heaven with those, by whom, while they lived as men in the world, the doctrinals of the Church which are from the Word, were applied immediately to the life, and were not first committed to the memory; the interiors of their minds were thus formed for the reception of the influx of the Divine; and for this reason their understandings are in a continual state of enlightenment in heaven, nos. 104, 495, 503, 521, 536, 1616, 1791, 5145. They know innumerable things, and their wisdom is unbounded, nos. 2718, 9543.

Those who are in perception, do not reason concerning the truths of faith, and should they reason their perception would perish, nos. 586, 1398, 5897. Those who believe that they know and are wise from themselves, cannot have any perception, no. 1386. The learned are unable to comprehend what this perception is; from experience, no. 1387.

Those who are in the Lord's celestial kingdom, have perception; but those who are in the spiritual kingdom, have no perception, but conscience instead, nos. 805, 2144, 2145, 8081. Those who are in the Lord's celestial kingdom do not think from faith, like those who are in the Lord's spiritual kingdom, because those who are in the celestial kingdom are in the perception from the Lord of all things of faith, nos. 202, 597, 607, 784, 1121, 1387, 1398, 1442, 1919, 7680, 7877, 8780.

Wherefore the celestial angels say concerning the truths of faith, only Yea, yea, or Nay, nay, because they perceive and see them; but the spiritual angels reason concerning the truths of faith, whether they are so, or not, nos. 2715, 3246, 4448, 9166, 10786; where the words of the Lord are explained (Matt. v. 37), "Let your communication be Yea, yea, Nay, nay: what is more than these, cometh from evil." Because the celestial angels know the truths of faith from perception, they are not even willing to mention faith, nos. 202, 337. The distinction between the celestial and the spiritual angels, nos. 2088, 2669, 2708, 2715, 3235, 3240, 4788, 7068, 8521, 9277, 10295.

Concerning the perception of those who belonged to the Most Ancient Church, which was a celestial Church, nos. 125, 597, 607, 784, 895, 1121, 5121.

There is interior and exterior perception, nos. 2145, 2171, 2831, 5920. In the world there is a perception of what is just and fair, but rarely a perception of spiritual truth and good, nos. 2831, 5937, 7977. The light of perception is altogether different from the light of confirmation; and is not like it, although to some it may appear as if it were, nos. 8521, 8780.
(NJHD 140)
 

5.0.10  The Elevation of Consciousness

Continuing with the next selected portion (skipping in between Numbers):

“As the stars of the heavens.” That this signifies the multitude of the knowledges of good and truth, is evident from the signification of the "stars," as being the knowledges of good and truth (see n. 1808, 2495). The spiritual are they who in the Word are in various places compared to the stars, and this owing to the knowledges of good and truth which they have; but the celestial are not so compared, because they have not knowledges but perceptions; moreover the stars illumine the night, and the spiritual have a light of night (as from the moon and stars) in comparison with the light of day in which the celestial are. (That the spiritual have comparative obscurity may be seen above, 1043, 2708 at the beginning, 2715.) (AC 2849)

My Commentary:

When Sacred Scripture or Divine Speech filters down to the word “stars” in a natural language, earlier scientific meanings can be derived from this word if we know what it is a correspondence to in the spiritual world. In the passage above it is revealed that the spiritual or mental correspondence to stars are the knowledges of good and truth. God refers to the mentality of the split-brain race on earth as stars that are both countless and providing light at night. Our mentality is spiritual, that is, intermediate between natural and celestial. Our celestial mind is as far above our spiritual mind as the light of the noon sun is far more brilliant than the light of the moon and stars at night.

God-Man on earth has prepared the mental pathway we can take to reach our celestial mind. The pathway that leads from the spiritual to the celestial is called love. When we love to do something we notice that we have an insight into it that others do not. We comprehend more at a glance that they can and we can fix it and improve it. This is the case with some physical activity like a hobby or specialty. It is even more true in the spiritual world where love is far more powerful than the entire nature with its cataclysmic energies. If, when we arrive in the afterlife, we are willing to love the Divine-Human, this love instantly illuminates our surround and fills it with heavenly sights, sounds, and odors. Such is the creative power of love in the spiritual world.

If we are willing to love the Divine-Human, our consciousness is immediately elevated to its highest potential in whichever developmental phase we are going through. When we are reading Sacred Scripture with the same love, acknowledging the Sacred Scripture as the Speech of the Divine-Human, we are enlightened to our highest potential of understanding within the phase of regeneration that we are in. We perceive ever more detailed scientific meanings within the Divine Speech, meanings which are infinite in number and fitting together in endless series and spirals expressing ineffable heavenly forms that cannot be expressed in a natural language.

The more we continue progressing in our heavenly character development the more we penetrate into the endless semantic space of God’s Rational Mind. The more we are willing to receive Divine love from the Divine-Human, the more we can love the Divine-Human, and the more we love the Divine-Human, the deeper and deeper we are capable of penetrating into the Divine Rational Mind, along with its celestial delights and blessedness. It is not necessary to postpone this mental state until “we get there.” The celestial state is available to us now through the spiritual-natural organ within the natural mind, discussed above.

We need to understand the what is at stake here and its mechanism. Does it make a difference to you if you end up in the First Heaven rather the Second, or the Third? It is stated in the Writings that once you undergo your second death and enter heaven, your position of entrance remains fixed to eternity. In other words, your basic foundational mental state does not change to eternity. Within this basic mental identity state, you can experience an endless series of progressions of new states to eternity. But you cannot ascend to a higher foundational state or identity. So the people who enter the First Heaven stay there forever, and the same with the Spiritual and Celestial Heavens.

In the mental states of our First Heaven our consciousness is called interior-natural or spiritual-natural. In other words it is similar to the consciousness we have here on earth after we have been regenerating progressively. I say similar because in actual comparison the inhabitants of the First Heaven are more purely enlightened than what our enlightenment is in the spiritual-natural organ discussed above. Our enlightenment is representative but not actual, as long as we are in this world tied to a physical body.

Because of this representativeness of higher states within our interior-natural organ, if operational, we are able to know and understand the difference between the mental states of the three heavens. You will spend your day very differently if you dwell in the First Heaven of your mind vs. the Second or Third. Swedenborg describes the occupations and cities of all three heavens. People in the First Heaven have thoughts and feelings that project a daily life that is similar to what it was like for them on earth, but cleaned up of any evil or degradation and disorder. Swedenborg saw shops, shoppers, carpenters, civil officials, games and sports, Churches, beautiful houses and palaces. These outward appearances, like a beautiful dream, were instantaneous creations of their loves and wisdom, endlessly varied and involving their creativity, so that the people felt fully blessed.

Life in the Second Heaven involved the people there less in sensorimotor activities and more in verbal and intellectual exchanges and studies. They loved to debate and hold conferences on various issues of interest, which varied endlessly to their great delight. Their habitations, clothes, and art were distinctly superior to what Swedenborg was able to see in the First Heaven. Their thoughts and understandings filtered down to the First Heaven where they were transformed in the minds of people there, to the subjects and knowledges they were interested in, all having to do with the trades, commerce, sports, and government.

Life in the Third Heaven is so superior to that in the Second Heaven that the subjects forming the thoughts and perceptions of the people there are incomprehensible to the people of the Second Heaven. When people in the Third Heaven speak to one another or reflect to themselves, the celestial meanings filter through to the minds of the people in the Second Heaven. They then experience an internal enlightenment and excitement at the new thoughts and insights they are able to have. These thoughts and insights are the spiritual correspondences of the celestial subjects that filtered down.

In summary, the differences between the three heavens in our mind are vast. The thoughts, insights, and feelings we have at these three levels are vastly different in excellence and power. When we love sensorimotor activities and involvements the most, we are in our First Heaven. When we love cognitive activities and involvements the most, we are in our Second Heaven. When we love affective activities and involvements the most, we are in our Third Heaven.

Continuing with the next sample:

“And as the sand which is upon the sea shore.” That this signifies the multitude of corresponding memory-knowledges, is evident from the signification of the "sea," as being memory-knowledges in general, or a gathering of them (see n. 28, 2120); and from the signification of "sand," as being memory- knowledges specifically or in particular. Memory-knowledges are compared to "sand," because the little stones of which sand is made, in the internal sense signify memory-knowledges (n. 643, 1298).

It is here said that they shall be multiplied "as the stars of the heavens," and also "as the sand of the sea shore," because the stars or knowledges have relation to the rational, but the sand of the sea shore or memory-knowledges to the natural. When the things of the rational man, namely, the goods and truths of knowledges, agree with those of the natural man, namely, with memory-knowledges, so that they make a one, or mutually confirm each other, they then correspond. To this correspondence the Divine-Human reduces the rational and natural things of man when he regenerates him, or makes him spiritual. From this cause it is that both the stars of the heavens and the sand of the sea shore are here mentioned; otherwise one would have been sufficient. (AC 2850)

My Commentary:

The passage above discusses the all important topic of the difference between our natural-sensuous mind and our natural-rational mind. The natural-sensuous mind is called “sand” and “ocean or sea,” while the natural-rational mind is called “stars.” Rational mental operations are called stars while observational data from sensory input is called “sand.” Our thinking and reasoning process when sticking to the input data is lower in insight or understanding to that of more abstract and rational thinking about the data. We call this higher operation an explanation or a theory of the data. As stars are far above the sand, so are rational explanations far above mere sensory observation of phenomena.

The passage above says that “When the things of the rational man, namely, the goods and truths of knowledges, agree with those of the natural man, namely, with memory-knowledges, so that they make a one, or mutually confirm each other, they then correspond.” This is something God accomplishes in our mind as we are being regenerated by Him, to the extent of our willingness to cooperate. Our natural-rational mind or understanding is reformed first by means of Sacred Scripture, if we study it with love. Then our natural-sensuous and natural-corporeal are brought into agreement with the rational so that we become an enlightened heavenly person here on earth.

5.0.11  Thy Seed Shall Inherit the Gate of Thine Enemies

Continuing with the next Number:

“And thy seed shall inherit the gate of thine enemies.” That this signifies that charity and faith shall succeed in the place where evil and falsity were before, is evident from the signification of "inheriting," as being to receive the Divine-Human's life (see n. 2658); here, to succeed in the place, because when charity and faith are in the place where evil and falsity were before, then the Divine-Human's life succeeds there; from the signification of "seed," as being charity and faith (see n. 1025, 1447, 1610, 1941); from the signification of a "gate" (explained in what follows); and from the signification of "enemies," as being evils and falsities, or what is the same, those who are in evil and falsity: in the internal sense of the Word these are signified by "enemies" and "foes."  (AC 2851)

My Commentary:

The historical event in the Bible of God blessing a person’s descendants used to intrigue me prior to starting to read the Writings. Similarly, when a patriarch or prophet blessed somebody it was often in the form of blessing their offspring, that they should be numerous as the stars or the sand. I tried, but failed, to be impressed by such an event. To me it was not such a big deal whether my descendants were very numerous, or even frankly, extinct. I did not have the same feeling for a continuation of my line. Why did some others care so much, I wondered. I came up with the idea of “blood lust,” which later I found discussed in the Writings.

It turns out that blood lines do not count in the afterlife. When we ascend to the heavens of our mind we find there others in their heaven. It seems that we are sharing the same heaven in the spiritual world. Swedenborg observed that when people first get there, they are welcomed by others. When the newcomers see the people there they have the amazing strong feeling that they are coming back after a long absence. Everyone is so inexplicably familiar and everyone looks like they belong to one family.

This external appearance is instantiated by correspondence to their ruling love. At their second death, people seem to themselves to arrive in a city that feels familiar, where others who feel like old friends, welcome them as neighbors. Everyone ends up in the city or society where others already dwell who share the same category of ruling love. There is an endless variety of ruling loves, and an endless variety of the affections controlled by a ruling love. As a result, there are endless cities and societies that make up the overall Heaven called the Grand Human (see Section xx).

When we dwell in the consciousness of our heaven in the company of “affectional similitudes” of one another, we do not recognize or know the natural origin of any of the people there. Remember that the process of the second death quiets the natural mind so that in our heaven we have no memories of earth, therefore no memories of children and parents on earth. Swedenborg observed the plight of parents who never fully gave up the blood lust attachments. They had been parents who accepted their children’s faults because nothing their children did could be wrong in the parents’ eyes.

As a result, when they passed on and entered heaven, they were fine, but when their children passed on, they had the strong desire to descend to their natural mind so that they could meet the children in the world of spirits. All desires in heaven are automatically instantiated, so that they were suddenly out of their heaven and back into the world of spirits where they greeted the children, now grown up, with great affection and joy.

The children, now adults, progressed toward their second death by displaying the hellish traits they brought with them. The parents were horrified but they could not break the contact of affection they felt for them. They were forced to witness all the horrendous evil of their children coming out in far greater intensity and proportion than what they knew them as on earth where they merely looked upon these as cute quirks or forgivable weaknesses of character. They suffered much and for many sequences of negative mental states, until at last they were so devastated that they were able to desire to be cut off from their children. The instant they felt this desire, it automatically brought them back to their ranking love, and hence, back to their familiar and beloved heaven and friends there.

We find the same warning in the Writings about forming an inner friendship with a friend who is of an opposite genius. Inner friendships are permanent, crossing over into the afterlife, and are difficult to break there, involving much suffering. External friendships with anyone cannot hurt us because nothing that is external remains operational at the second death.

The passage above is about the scientific sense of “And thy seed shall inherit the gate of thine enemies.” Why does God care about such things? Or why does God go along with Abraham’s blood lust? There are two parts to the answer. First, God does not care about such things but God permits them for the sake of the salvation of the people who insist on it from their free choice. God’s mechanism for giving His Divine Speech to humankind was to filter it through all the layers of the human mind, starting with the highest heaven there. By the time it reaches the lowest portion of the mind, known as the natural mind, the words of Divine Speech seem natural, referring to trees, animals, peoples, events in cities and countries that still exist today.

But God’s Speech did not start that way! Instead God said something about how we can cooperate with Him in our regeneration for heaven. But these words automatically get transformed by the universal laws of correspondence as they descend from high consciousness to low consciousness in the human mind. Now, through the Writings of Swedenborg, the code of correspondences has been once again revealed to the people on earth. Swedenborg shows us how to apply this code to get back what was there originally before it filtered down into the natural mind. This Section is an example of how this is done for Genesis Chapter 22.

When we apply the code of correspondences to Sacred Scripture we derive immensely more from it than the prophets who received it in his natural mind as it descended from heaven, and then wrote it down. Often the Old Testament verse begins with God instructing the prophet to write something down, as in this passage:

Jehovah said, Son of man, take a stick and write on it, For Judah and for the children of Israel, his companions. And take another stick and write on it, For Joseph - the stick of Ephraim and of the whole house of Israel, his companions and join them together, one to the other into one stick for you, that both may be one in your hand. Thus said the Divine-Human Jehovih, I, behold, I am taking the stick of Joseph which is in the hand of Ephraim and of the tribes of Israel his companions, and I will add them to the stick of Judah, and make them into one stick, and they will be one in My hand. And I will make them into one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king will be king to them all, and they will no longer be two nations, nor will they ever be divided into two nations again. Ezek. 37:16, 17, 19, 22. (AC 3969)

This passage would be quite puzzling about God’s seemingly odd ways. But now we know that the natural meanings can be decoded by spiritual-natural correspondences to obtain the scientific sense contained in Divine Speech when it is in our celestial and spiritual minds. The Numbered Paragraph section in the Writings where this passage from Ezekiel is discussed (AC 3969) is in connection with explaining the meaning of Judah and why he was called by that name. Judah, in its scientific sense, refers to our celestial mind wherever this name is mentioned in the Old and New Testaments.

But as yet scarcely anyone knows that these things are meant in the Word when the name Judah is mentioned, the reason being that the historical descriptions of the Word are thought to be simply historical descriptions, and the prophetical utterances to belong among such things as have fallen into oblivion, except for some of them from which doctrinal inferences may be drawn out. No belief exists that those descriptions and utterances have a correspondential sense within them, because at the present day no knowledge exists of what the correspondential sense is, or indeed of what the spiritual is.

And the chief reason for this is that the life which people lead is the natural life. This is such that when they have that life as their end in view or it is the only life they desire, it blots out both spiritual knowledge and faith - so much so that when spiritual life and a correspondential sense are spoken of, these are like something that does not really exist or else are something unpleasant and depressing which, because it does not accord with natural life, they find distasteful.

Such being the condition of the human race at the present day it neither understands nor wishes to understand by the names mentioned in the Word anything else than the nations, peoples, individual persons, regions, cities, mountains, or rivers, which those names denote. Yet in the correspondential sense names mean real things.

[2] That 'Judah' in the internal sense means the Divine-Human's celestial Church, in the universal sense His celestial kingdom, and in the highest sense the Divine-Human Himself may be seen from many places in the Old Testament where Judah is mentioned, for example, from the following: In Moses…(AC 3969)

There then follows different passages from various parts of the Old Testament and in each case the scientific sense of Judah is the celestial portion of the human mind where heaven is. This is truly amazing and cannot be explained except as Divine Speech. Recall that these Old Testament books were written independently by dozens of prophets over many centuries. How could it be that what they wrote down in visions and voices and historical events contain the same scientific sense hidden within it and transformed into historical events and their details. How could this be? The only rational explanation is that it is Divine Speech which has this characteristic of always containing the same scientific sense hidden, or filtered down and transformed, in the words of historical narratives and poetic expressions.

Continuing with the next selection:

[2] As regards the signification of a "gate," there are in general two gates with every man; the one opens toward hell, and is opened to the evils and falsities therefrom; in this gate are infernal genii and spirits; the other gate opens toward heaven, and is opened to good and the truths therefrom; in this gate are angels. There is thus a gate which leads to hell, and a gate which leads to heaven. The gate of hell is opened to those who are in evil and falsity, and only through chinks round about above does anything of the light from heaven enter, by means of which they are able to think and reason; but the gate of heaven is opened to those who are in good and the truth therefrom. 

[3] For there are two ways which lead into man's rational mind-a higher or internal one, through which good and truth from the Divine-Human enter, and a lower or external one, through which evil and falsity come up from hell. The rational mind itself is in the middle, and to it these ways tend. That mind, from the goods and truths which are in it, is compared in the Word to a city, and is called a "city." And because it is compared to a city, and is called a "city," gates are attributed to it, and it is often described as being besieged and stormed by enemies, that is, by evil genii and spirits; and as being defended by angels from the Divine-Human, that is by the Divine-Human. (AC 2851)

My Commentary:

This passage is packed with anatomical facts about the human mind, facts which are used in theistic psychology to build our rational understanding and spiritual consciousness and to apply it to the daily needs of people in society. The scientific sense of “gate” and related concepts like “city” ,“street”, “pavement” and so on, refer to the structural parts of the rational mind, at all three levels (see Section xx). Here we are given anatomical facts about how information enters our cognitive operations.

There are two paths of information sources to our conscious mind here on earth, one from above, namely the spiritual world, called the “gate of heaven,” and one from below the natural mind, called the “gate of hell.” Our hellish habits develop and mature by using the information from the hells in our mind, coming up from below into our corporeal and sensuous mind (see Section xx). The rational mind is in between. The lower or external portion of the rational mind is called natural-rational. The upper or inner portion of the rational mind is called spiritual-rational and celestial-rational.

The rational function of our mind therefore is the key to our salvation or life in heaven to eternity. Our lower natural knows evil from hell. Our higher natural knows good from heaven. As long as we are still on earth, God keeps a perfect balance between these two rational operations in every individual. In this way, we are always free to choose which we reject. Only such free choices, rejecting the evil information and delight, can permanently separate us from them, leaving behind only the good delights and truths, which are from heaven.

5.0.12  Invasion of the Hells

Continuing with the text we are analyzing:

The infernal genii and spirits, with their evils and falsities, cannot come further than to the lower or outer gate, and in no case into the city. If they could get into the city, or into the rational mind, all would be over with the man. But when they come so far as to seem to themselves to have taken that city by storm, it is then closed, so that good and truth no longer flow into it from heaven except as was said some little through chinks round about. From this it is that such persons no longer have anything of charity or anything of faith, but make good consist in evil, and truth in falsity.

From this also it is that they are no longer truly rational, although they seem to themselves to be so (n. 1914, 1944). And it is from this that they are called dead men, although they believe that they are more alive than others (n. 81, 290 at the end). These things are so because the gate of heaven is closed to them. That it is closed to them manifestly appears and is perceived in the other life; as also on the other hand that the gate of heaven is open to those who are in good and truth.  (AC 2851)

My Commentary:

Note the scary part: “If they could get into the city, or into the rational mind, all would be over with the man.” By “all would be over with the man” means you and me. We are the split-brain spiritual race. Our immortality depends on our rationality. The “infernal genii and spirits” come to the entrance “gate” of our rational mind when they enter the corporeal, climb to the sensuous, and are seeking to have the rational justify their presence. They are then seeking to take the “city” by storm, the scientific sense of which is that that our “doctrine” of life, our principles of living, our morality and rationality, are in danger of concocting and fabricating a justification for what is happening in our sensuous and corporeal minds.

Our natural conscience and moral principles are at stake, and if we have religion, our spiritual conscience and salvation are at stake. This is mental process that people need to self-witness in themselves so that they may be prepared to undergo temptations whereby God delivers them by removing these particular hells at our gates, containing them forever from coming to these particular gates again. There are numerous particular hells at our gates every day and they must be removed one by one through spiritual self-witnessing and temptations. In this way we may go on with our spiritual development and not be stuck before a seemingly insurmountable barrier.

What happens to us when we fail this test and go ahead and develop rationalized justifications for actual evils in our corporeal and sensuous minds?

In other words, what are the consequences in our mental operations when we justify a hellish habit we witness in ourselves?

The passage above gives the answer in these terms: “But when they come so far as to seem to themselves to have taken that city by storm, it is then closed, so that good and truth no longer flow into it from heaven except as was said some little through chinks round about. From this it is that such persons no longer have anything of charity or anything of faith, but make good consist in evil, and truth in falsity.” How devastating to discover this! The consequence of justifying our hellish habits in thoughts and in feelings is to stop the flow of good and truth into our celestial mind!

This is devastating to the individual. I say that it is scary because if there is no good and truth flowing into our mind, there is nothing to stop the hellish habits to multiply in my personality. I have no protection from this or that desire, this or that fanciful attraction, this or that pleasure I can experience. Without protection, I give in to them, all of them, and my fate is sealed. I now am a devil in company of devils. The instant I pass on and become a spirit, I precipitate myself into the hell of my mind and there I find all my friends, all the genii and infernal spirits I had been with in my pleasures and cupidities on earth. We embrace each other like long lost friends. We recognize each other’s faces and emotions.

But after the delirious welcoming exchanges, conditions change. They are much further into the insanity than I am, perhaps than I will ever be. But now I have to live with them. So I become their victim and I suffer endlessly to eternity, except when it’s my turn, and my desperation is so great that I become the torturer and my they become my victims. O what pleasure and infernal glory I then feel, -- for a little while, because soon they take over again, which never fails. So this is the life that awaits me if I let them storm my city, meaning, if I justify my corporeality and sensuality regardless of their being hellish rather than heavenly.

The picture I draw above is not a fantasy created by fear. It is the very thing Swedenborg had observed many times. It is also the very same process of events he observed in heaven, when we are willing to undergo character reformation by means of spiritual self-witnessing and temptations in which we call upon the Divine-Human to fight the hells on our behalf.

Note that when we justify a hellish enjoyment or habit we “make good consist in evil, and truth in falsity.” This is a process of thinking that requires rational operations, though applied to an irrational goal. Some of the sub-elements of the mental reasoning sequence are rational in themselves, but when they are placed together with irrational sub-components, the end-goal of the sequence will be irrational. But to us in that mental state, we ‘”make good consist in evil, and truth in falsity.” This is Divine scientific revelation. It becomes a key principle in theistic psychology.

Using our rational syntax to justify evil is equivalent to introducing a virus into your mental components. It is an actual damaging physiological operation in the spiritual neuronal fibers of the natural mind. Popular wisdom says, Misuse it and you lose it. You can see this spiritual principle operating in the destruction of our rational mind through its misuse. What happens if you use a sharp knife to cut a brass handle? The knife utility is reduced, perhaps destroyed so you need to sharpen it again. Our rational syntax misoperates when used to justify a hellish idea because our heaven is in our rational, the upper portion of the rational called the spiritual-rational mind and the celestial-rational mind. These upper portions of our mind cannot remain operational unless the natural-rational retains its integrity of operation, without a virus.

It is like gangrene or cancer that spreads to all portions of the physical body unless surgically or chemically removed before it starts spreading from the point where it entered the body. In fact, the aggressive and invasive injurious operation of gangrene and cancer possesses this property from the invasive and injurious operations of the hells in our mind. The enter through our lowest and weakest point—our corporeal and sensuous mind. These are the weakest or most susceptible to the hells because the inherited traits and tendencies are very strong in the lower portion of the natural mind.

As the passage above says, when we begin to justify evil interests and goals we “are no longer truly rational, although we seem to ourselves to be so.” We become inured, uninfluenciable by reason and rational discourse. We have become a god to ourselves, recognizing ourselves as the highest executive officer of our choices. “And it is from this that they are called dead men, although they believe that they are more alive than others.” This is the built-in self-destructiveness of using our intelligence to defend the hells in us. We believe we are alive, better off, free, at the very moment that we are chained to awful things to come.

“These things are so because the gate of heaven is closed to them.” This means that the source of our rational syntax, which must remain online to operate, is cut off. We pull out the plug on ourselves when we rationalize one of our evil habits or enjoyments. It is not the evil enjoyment that destroys us, as sometimes believed from a religious perspective. More scientifically, we can see that it is the justification of evil enjoyment that destroys our rational syntax, which eliminates the heaven in our mind. Yet it is this rational heaven, or “rational faith,” that we must have to live in eternity in conjugial bliss.

Continuing with the following portion of the selection:

[4] As regards the "gate of enemies" in particular, which is treated of in this verse, it is with man in his natural mind. When man is wholly natural, or not regenerate, evils and falsities occupy the gate; or what is the same, evil genii and spirits flow into it with cupidities of evil and persuasions of falsity (see n. 687, 697, 1692); but when man becomes spiritual, or is being regenerated, then the evils and falsities, or what is the same, the evil genii and spirits, are driven away from the gate, or from the mind; then goods and truths, or charity and faith, take their place; which things are signified by its being said, "thy seed shall inherit the gate of thine enemies." This takes place in particular with every man when he is being regenerated; and in like manner in the other life with those who come into the Divine-Human's kingdom; and it also takes place in the general body, or in the church, which is composed of many.  (AC 2851)

My Commentary:

You may notice that when we are trying to give an example of evil and hell we think of Hitler, serial killers, and terrorists. Sometimes I think that this serves to hide from ourselves how close and ordinary hell and evil are. For instance, when we think of evil and hell we do not think of our playing the music too loud or tailgating somebody while driving home. We do not think of the “f” word that constantly drips from our lips, nor of leaving our dirty dishes in a sink used by others. Yet these are evil and hellish traits that will provide an entrance for the entire hells. If we justify these ‘little’ hellish things because we don’t do the big ones, we are introducing a virus into our natural-rational operations. As sure as hell, the virus will spread and infect the entire rational mind until we are a dead man. These operations are scientifically described in theistic psychology.

The passage above says that “When man is wholly natural, or not regenerate, evils and falsities occupy the gate; or what is the same, evil genii and spirits flow into it with cupidities of evil and persuasions of falsity.” This is discussing the vertical community (see Section xx). Prior to character reformation, or regeneration, our rational is wholly natural, which is why it is called the natural-rational mind. We receive no input from above, that is from the spiritual mind, because it is not yet operational in our consciousness. We do not as yet have a spiritual organ built up within the natural mind. Character reformation is a built in skill that every individual can perform by means of rational principles, either from moral teachings or directly from Sacred Scripture. When we begin this intentional and conscious process, it becomes our goal. We are motivated to proceed with it. As a result neuronal fibers and networks are being built up in the spiritual organ within the natural mind. This has been discussed above.

The more this spiritual organ grows within the natural mind, the more rational we become spiritually. Our consciousness or ability to understand spiritual-rational ideas, is elevated and enlightened by spiritual light from the Spiritual Sun that is within Sacred Scripture or Divine Speech. When reading Sacred Scripture we are then given perception of its scientific sense by applying the knowledge of correspondences and discourse analysis (see Section xx). This scientific sense is the rational thinking we need to elevate our consciousness into reality and truth. This is what our heaven is made of, and hence, our salvation and eternal life in conjugial bliss.

The passage above indicates what the scientific sense is of the verse of Sacred Scripture we’ve already referred to above, "thy seed shall inherit the gate of thine enemies." The scientific sense applies to every human being. “To inherit” refers to regeneration for heavenly life, not only while we are still on earth, but also in the afterlife, and not just for individuals but for society and civilization.

Continuing with the next selection:

[5] This was represented by the sons of Israel expelling the nations from the land of Canaan. The latter is meant in the literal sense where it is said, "thy seed shall inherit the gate of thine enemies;" but in the internal sense are signified the things which have been told. Hence in ancient times it became customary to speak thus when blessing those who were entering into marriage; as is also manifest from the benediction of Laban to his sister Rebekah, when she was going away betrothed to Isaac:

Our sister, be thou thousands of ten thousands, and let thy seed inherit the gate of those that hate thee (Gen. 24:60).

[6] That such things are signified in the Word by the "gate of enemies" or of "those that hate," may be seen from the following passages. In Isaiah:

I will kill thy root with famine, and I will slay them that remain of thee. Howl, O gate; cry, O city; thou art melted away, O Philistia, all of thee, for there cometh a smoke out of the north (Isa. 14:30-31);

to "kill the root with famine, and to slay them that remain," denotes to take away the goods and truths which had been stored up interiorly by the Divine-Human. (…)

 [12] In David:

They that dwell in the gate plot against me, they that drink strong drink sing songs (Ps. 69:12);

"they that dwell in the gate" denotes evils and falsities, and also the infernals. (…)

[14] It may be seen from these passages what is signified by the "gate of enemies," namely, that it is hell, or infernal spirits, who are continually attacking goods and truths. Their seat with man as before said is in his natural mind. But when a man is of such a character as to admit goods and truths, and thus angels, the infernal spirits are then driven away by the Divine-Human from that seat; and on their being driven away, the gate of heaven or heaven itself is opened. This gate is also mentioned in the Word in various places; as in Isaiah:

A song in the land of Judah. We have a strong city, salvation will He appoint for walls and bulwarks; open ye the gates, and the righteous nation that keepeth fidelities shall enter in (Isa. 26:1-2).

 (…)

 [15] From these passages it is manifest that the "gate of heaven" is where angels are with man, that is, where there is an influx of good and truth from the Divine-Human; and thus that as before said there are two gates. Concerning these two gates the Divine-Human speaks thus in Matthew:

Enter ye in by the strait gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be that go in thereat; because strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it (Matt. 7:12-14; Luke 13:23-24).

Moreover the gates to the New Jerusalem and the gates to the new temple are much treated of in Ezekiel, and also by John in Revelation, by which nothing else is meant than the entrances to heaven (see Ezek. 40:6-49; 43:1-2, 4; 44:1-3; 46:1-9, 12; 48:31-34; Rev. 21:12-13, 21, 25; 22:14; Isa. 54:11-12). Hence Jerusalem is called the "gate of the people" (Micah 1:9; Obad. verse 13). (AC 2851)

My Commentary:

I presented these detailed selections to demonstrate that the vastly spread out books of the Old and New Testament all share this thing in common, namely, that they are written in a natural language that follows the code of correspondences, even though the prophets who wrote them had absolutely no idea of this property of the Divine Speech they were writing down. The Divinity of the Bible is asserted and firmly believed among most Christians today, as indicated by polls and popular commentators. This is a religious blind faith based on sincerity and tradition. They feel this way even though they cannot prove that the Old and New Testaments are Divine Books, and even though they have doubts here and there about some parts that appear bizarre and incomprehensible.

But now we have entered the Age of the Second Coming initiated as a spiritual-rational revolution through the Writings of Swedenborg. The laws of correspondences that govern the interconnectivity between the natural and spiritual worlds have been revealed to the human race at a period or age when science and rationality have entered public schools and all institutions of society. Now we can extract the scientific sense of Divine Speech given to humanity. There is no more need to turn away from bizarre text in the Holy Book. Knowledge of correspondences allows us to reconstruct the spiritual-rational message in Divine Speech. This is the level of meaning and consciousness that we need to develop spiritually as an individual and as a generation. This is the level of meaning we need to be willing to suffer ourselves to undergo character reformation.

5.0.13  Universal Salvation of Everyone

Continuing with the next selection:

“In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” That this signifies the salvation of all who are in good, is evident from the signification of "being blessed," as being to be enriched with celestial and spiritual good (see n. 981, 1096, 1420, 1422); here, to be saved, because spoken of those who are saved (that "to be blessed" has a comprehensive meaning is well known); from the signification of "seed," as being the faith of charity (see n. 1025, 1447, 1610); and from the signification of the "nations of the earth," as being those who are in good (see n. 1159, 1258-1260, 1416, 1849). 

[2] Moreover in these words there is contained the following arcanum: that through the church (which is here the "earth," n. 662, 1066, 1067, 1262) those are saved who are out of the church; for as just stated, "thy seed" denotes the faith of charity; and no others are in the faith of charity than those within the church, for the faith of charity is truth of doctrine adjoined to good of life. The case is this: The Divine-Human's kingdom on earth consists of all those who are in good, who though scattered over the whole earth, are still one, and as members constitute one body.

Such is the Divine-Human's kingdom in the heavens, where the whole heaven represents one man, which is therefore also called the Grand Man (n. 684, 1276); and what is wonderful and hitherto unknown, all parts of the human body correspond to societies in heaven. And therefore it is sometimes said that some societies belong to the province of the head, some to the province of the eye, others to that of the chest, and so on, which correspondence will of the Divine-Human's Divine mercy be spoken of by itself.  (AC 2853)

My Commentary:

The passage above answers the troublesome issue of whether or not only those are saved who are “in the Church.” It is traditional for religions to believe this, which shows that religions are cultural rather than universal and cross-cultural. I saw an exchange on TV the other day that illustrates this ingrained belief and how it creates conflict in society which is always more diverse than one religion. Two people were being interviewed on a news show. The topic was the current smash hit movie The Passion (of Christ). One interviewee was a Jewish rabbi whom I have seen on several other shows over the past couple of years. He displays an aggressive style and frequently interrupts others while they are talking, not letting them go on, talking over them, raising his voice. I found him annoying every time I’ve seen him. The other interviewee was a woman Christian activist who had started a Web site promoting the idea that Christians should go see the movie because it strengthens their faith.

The rabbi was arguing that the movie was anti-Semitic because it presents Jews in a negative light and because it inflames bigots to hate the Jews. The woman was arguing that it is an accurate portrayal of the New Testament’s descriptions of the Crucifixion. The rabbi was incensed that society is forced to be exposed to the New Testament which is prejudicial to him and to Jews and other religions. The woman said she cannot back off the Gospels which declare that Jesus is the way, the truth and eternal life for all humanity. The rabbi screamed that she is forcing her heaven on him and taking away his heaven. He confronted her: Yes or No, are you saying I cannot have my heaven without Jesus? She repeated that she cannot back away from what the Gospels declare. The host then put an end to the debate.

The revelation of the scientific sense within the Old and New Testaments puts an end to this kind of religious warfare. From the perspective of religion, the rabbi can keep his ideas from the Old Testament and the Christian woman can keep her ideas from the New Testament. But both can now investigate and learn that the Old and New Testaments contain the same scientific meaning, which is for both of them, and for all religions. In the passage above, and many others in the Writings, it is revealed that “through the church those are saved who are out of the church.” The scientific sense of the word “church” in Sacred Scripture is the rational mind that is to be regenerated from being merely natural to being spiritual-natural. Hence the church is the method of character reformation in all religions through the commandments that the members are to follow in daily life.

“Those within the church” refers to the state of mind we are in when undergoing character reformation through Sacred Scripture or morality based on it. This is referred to as those who “are in faith and charity” which means when we are rejecting some evil habit for the sake of our spiritual development or the heaven of our eternity. Those who are outside the church refers to our state of rebellion when we are justifying our evil traits so that we can continue to practice them. The passage asserts that our rebellious mental states during regeneration (“out of the church’) are overcome by our states of obedience (“within the church”).

But in addition, the passage applies to the meaning of Church as an institution of religion. When read from a religious perspective, those who are “within the Church” designate practicing Christians while those “out of the Church” designates non-Christians. That everyone is saved means that we can give up religious conflict. The Christian woman on the news show discussed above could free herself from social conflict if she could have answered the rabbi that he too is saved by Jesus, even if he doesn’t wish to acknowledge the New Testament as Divine.

Of course he has to be a man of sincerity and conscience because even Christians are not saved if they are not sincere and do not live like their religion dictates. But anyone anywhere is saved if they arrive into the afterlife and are willing to receive instruction about the scientific sense of the Sacred Scripture they had been worshipping. If they were sincere in their religion and conscience, they gladly receive the new scientific truths that are universal and apply to all. If they are not willing to let go of their sectarian views, and if they reject the scientific sense which they are taught, they remain in the state of mind they came with and cannot become rational, cannot enter the rational heavens of eternity. These universal laws apply equally to Christians and all others. No one enters heaven by declarations of faith of any kind.

Swedenborg witnessed numerous heavens, each adjusted to the peculiar genius of the inhabitants there. Once in heaven there are no Christians vs. non-Christians and there are no religions in the natural sense they exist on earth. Everyone in all the heavens know and study the scientific sense the Sacred Scripture of their recognition. Divine revelations have been given various times to various peoples in the history of earth, a history that is traced and explained in the Writings.

5.0.13.1   Extracting Theistic Psychology From Sacred Scripture -- an Illustration

In the following passage the literal sense discusses a historical event, a conversational exchange that took place at a well in Palestine between one of the patriarchs called Jacob and a few "droves" who were about to water their sheep. The snippet under analysis is recorded in the Old Testament Sacred Scripture: "And he said unto them, Know ye Laban, the son of Nahor? [Gen. 29:5]

We will do a twofold analysis and examine the layers of hidden content of Divine Speech as it enters our conscious natural mind through the external senses when we read the written sentences of Sacred Scripture. The most external or bottom layer of Divine Speech as laid down in the Old Testament Sacred Scripture, in this instance, consists of a question a man addresses to other men waiting at a well in a desert of Palestine where the sheep are watered: And he said unto them, Know ye Laban, the son of Nahor? Jacob is asking about his father's cousin and uncle who are from that area, and possibly known by the men at the well. All these details are historical facts and there appears to be nothing holy or Divine in them, in and of themselves. But this is only a surface appearance, not the objective reality of what is actually there, hidden in this snippet of Divine Speech laid down in the literal sentences of the Old Testament Sacred Scripture.

Why do we call this snippet "Divine Speech"?

First, because of the principle that every word, sentence, and feature of Sacred Scripture is Divine Speech laid down in a natural language, and is describing or explaining something for the natural mind in which we are aware and think. God wants us to know some principles that will assist us in character reformation. Everything God says to the human race has to do with that general subject, namely, the principles of character reformation. Why? Because that's what we are here for on earth tied by correspondence to a physical body. We cannot change our character after we are resuscitated and begin our life in eternity (see Section xx). So you can see why it is so desperately important that God get through to us with Divine Speech so that we may know how to succeed in our character reformation.

It is therefore a deep puzzle to all of us, why God is talking about ordinary historical events and conversations that happened thousands of years ago. Why is God not talking to us about theistic psychology -- the mind's anatomy and how it develops, and how it works, and what we can do to influence and manage our mental operations every day throughout our childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age. Why is God not talking to us like a Divine Psychologist, which He is (see Section xx). The answer is that He is talking to us about theistic psychology subjects! In order to see this, we need to analyze the sentences of Sacred Scripture and access the various layers of meaning that are hidden within it.

These inner layers are clearly discussing theistic psychology and reveal the facts and principles people need to know in order to effect a successful program of character reformation. This will then allow them to abandon the character they inherited and practiced in culture and society, and to start living, feeling, willing, thinking, reasoning, and behaving from a new character, an reformed character, a new self. Whereas the old self is hellish, the new self is heavenly (see Section xx). When we are resuscitated and begin our life of immortality, we choose for our consciousness to dwell in the upper parts of our mind called the heavens, or the lower parts called the hells of our mind. This free choice is dictated by our ruling love or highest ranked affections and delights (see Section xx).

To obtain this vital information from Divine Speech we must enter into the spiritual layers of the literal sentences in Sacred Scripture. The Writings Sacred Scripture reveal and demonstrate the method of analysis that must be used in order for it to yield genuine information as opposed to bogus information. The Writings Sacred Scripture state that  this method must be used exactly as prescribed in the Writings Sacred Scripture, or else the results cannot be genuine.

This method will now be illustrated in two steps. First, we look at the literal explanations given by the Writings Sacred Scripture of this passage in the Old Testament (about Jacob's question), which will illustrate how the Writings follow the method when analyzing Old Testament sentences. Second, we will apply this same method of analysis ourselves to the sentences of the Writings. This is why it's called a double unfolding of Divine speech laid down in Sacred Scripture. The first unfolding is to see what lies underneath the sentence in the Old Testament ("And he said unto them, Know ye Laban, the son of Nahor?"), and the second unfolding is to see what lies underneath the explication sentences in the Writings (see Section xx).

Quoting from the Writings Sacred Scripture:

AC 3778. And he said unto them, Know ye Laban, the son of Nahor? [Gen. 29:5]

That this signifies, Have they the good of this stock? is evident from the representation of Laban, as being the collateral good of a common stock (see n. 3612, 3665); and from the representation of Nahor, as being that common stock from which is the good represented by Laban; that "to know," in the internal sense signifies to be therefrom, is manifest from the series.

How the case is with the representation of collateral good by Nahor, Bethuel, and Laban, shall be briefly stated. Terah, who was the father of three sons-Abram, Nahor, and Haran (Gen. 11:27), represents the common stock from which come churches. Terah himself was indeed an idolater, but representatives do not regard the person but the thing (n. 1361). And because the representative Jewish Church commenced in Abraham, and was renewed among his descendants from Jacob, therefore Terah and his three sons put on the representation of churches-Abram the representation of a genuine church, such as exists with those who have the Word; but Nahor his brother the representation of a church such as exists among the Gentiles who have not the Word.

That the Lord's church is scattered throughout the universal earth, and that it exists among those Gentiles also who live in charity, is manifest from what has been shown here and there concerning the Gentiles.
 

[2] This therefore is the reason why by Nahor, his son Bethuel, and Bethuel's son Laban, there is represented the collateral good of a common stock, that is, the good in which they are who are of the Lord's church among the Gentiles.

This good differs from the good of a common stock in the direct line of descent, in this respect-that the truths which are conjoined with their good are not genuine, but most of them are external appearances which are called fallacies of the senses; for these Gentiles have not the Word whereby they can be enlightened. In its essence indeed good is only one, but it receives its quality from the truths implanted in it, and thereby becomes various. The truths that to the Gentiles appear as truths are in general that they should worship some God from whom they seek their good and to whom they attribute it, and so long as they live in the world they do not know that this God is the Lord; also that they should adore their God under images, which they account holy; besides many other things.

Nevertheless these things are no hindrance to their being saved equally with Christians, provided they live in love to their God and in love toward the neighbor; for thus in the other life they have a capacity to receive interior truths (see n. 932, 1032, 1059, 2049, 2051, 2284, 2589-2604, 2861, 2863, 3263).

This shows what is here meant by the collateral good of a common stock. That by Nahor are represented those out of the church who are in brotherhood by virtue of good, may be seen above (n. 2863, 2866, 2868); that by Bethuel is represented the good of the Gentiles of the first class (n. 2865, 3665); and by Laban the affection of external or corporeal good, and properly the collateral good of a common stock (n. 3612, 3665).

[3] With this good the case is that first of all it serves man as a means of procuring for himself spiritual good, for it is external corporeal, and is grounded in external appearances which in themselves are fallacies of the senses. In childhood man acknowledges nothing else as truth and good, and although he is taught what internal good and truth are, still he has no other idea concerning them than a corporeal one; and because such is the first idea, therefore such good and truth are the first means by which interior truths and goods are introduced. This is the arcanum which is here represented by Jacob and Laban. (AC 3778)

I will now analyze the elements of the passage (underlined above):

(1) there is a common stock from which come churches signifies there is a shared universal character ("common stock") to every human mind that acknowledges the existence of God  ("churches")

(2) belief in God can be based in either of two sources:

(I) a genuine church, such as exists with those who have the Word signifies belief in God ("church") that operates with the Doctrine of Truth from Sacred Scripture ("genuine church")

(II) a church such as exists among the Gentiles who have not the Word signifies belief in God ("church") that operates from self-intelligence without the Doctrine of Truth from Sacred Scripture ("church of the Gentiles")

(3) the Lord's church is scattered throughout the universal earth, and exists among those Gentiles also who live in charity signifies that the acknowledgement that God exists ("the Lord's church") is implanted in every human being ("is scattered throughout the universal earth"), by which every individual has the motivation to refrain from hurting others and to do them good ("Gentiles who live in charity")

(4) people whose mind operates from self-intelligence ("Gentiles") continue to hurt others whenever they are able to justify it to themselves ("the truths which are conjoined with their good are not genuine") due to false principles of morality and culture ("external appearances which are called fallacies of the senses") which do not come from the Doctrine of Truth from Sacred Scripture ("these Gentiles have not the Word whereby they can be enlightened ").

(5) The belief in God produced by self-intelligence ("truths that to the Gentiles appear as truths ") motivates people to practice a cultural religion ("should worship some God from whom they seek their good and to whom they attribute it") in which they do not realize that God is the Divine Human within their mind ("they do not know that this God is the Lord") but believe God to be outside of them ("adore their God under images").

(6) When people are resuscitated upon death they are given the opportunity to enter their eternal heavens regardless of their religious background ("no hindrance to their being saved equally with Christians") as long as they refrained from hurting others on account of their beliefs ("provided they live in love to their God and in love toward the neighbor"), since then they are able to receive the Doctrine of Truth from Sacred Scripture ("in the other life they have a capacity to receive interior truths").

(7) What gives people the capacity to acquire a heavenly character even without knowledge of Sacred Scripture  ("those out of the church")? It is the motivation not to harm others because it is against God to do so ("who are in brotherhood by virtue of good").

(8) Where do we obtain this motivation? ("it serves man as a means of procuring for himself spiritual good") From our own self-intelligence and character ("external corporeal, grounded in external appearances, which are fallacies of the senses"). We can acknowledge God without knowing Sacred Scripture ("In childhood man acknowledges nothing else as truth and good"), but our level of understanding of God is then only natural and sensuous or materialistic, not rational ("no other idea concerning them than a corporeal one'), even if we are taught the rational and spiritual ideas of theistic psychology ("although he is taught what internal good and truth are").

(9) Although this motivation for character reformation is not yet genuine, rational, and spiritual, it is given by God as a temporary means by which the person can begin to make progress in character reformation ("such good and truth are the first means by which interior truths and goods are introduced"). 

The nine elements of the passage we analyzed above can now be placed together to show the difference in meaning between the literal, and the unfolded layers of meaning in Divine Speech.

First unfolding of the Old Testament Scripture: And he said unto them, Know ye Laban, the son of Nahor? [Gen. 29:5], as taken from the Writings Sacred Scripture's explication of that verse:

There is a common stock from which come churches. A genuine church, such as exists with those who have the Word, and a church such as exists among the Gentiles who have not the Word. The Lord's church is scattered throughout the universal earth, and exists among those Gentiles also who live in charity. The truths which are conjoined with their good are not genuine, but external appearances which are called fallacies of the senses. For these Gentiles have not the Word whereby they can be enlightened, but only truths that appear to them as truths. They do not know that God is the Lord, and adore their God under images.

These things are no hindrance to their being saved equally with Christians, provided they live in love to their God and in love toward the neighbor, and in the other life they have a capacity to receive interior truths. Those out of the church are in brotherhood by virtue of good. This [intermediate state] serves man as a means of procuring for himself spiritual good. [These intermediate states] are external corporeal, grounded in external appearances, which are fallacies of the senses. In childhood, although he is taught what internal good and truth are, man acknowledges nothing else as truth and good, [having] no other idea concerning them than a corporeal one. Such good and truth are the first means by which interior truths and goods are introduced. (From AC 3778)

Second unfolding constructed by analyzing the above paragraph, as explained in the analysis:

There is a shared universal character to every human mind that acknowledges the existence of God. Belief in God can be based in either of two sources: Belief in God that operates with the Doctrine of Truth from Sacred Scripture, and belief in God that operates from self-intelligence without the Doctrine of Truth from Sacred Scripture. The acknowledgement that God exists is implanted in every human being, by which every individual has the motivation to refrain from hurting others and to do them good.

People whose mind operates from self-intelligence, continue to hurt others whenever they are able to justify it to themselves  due to false principles of morality and culture which do not come from the Doctrine of Truth from Sacred Scripture.

The belief in God produced by self-intelligence motivates people to practice a cultural religion in which they do not realize that God is the Divine Psychologist within their mind, but believe God to be outside of them. When people are resuscitated upon death they are given the opportunity to enter their eternal heavens regardless of their religious background, as long as they refrained from hurting others on account of their beliefs, since then they are able to receive the Doctrine of Truth from Sacred Scripture.

What gives people the capacity to acquire a heavenly character even without knowledge of Sacred Scripture? It is the motivation not to harm others because it is against God to do so. Where do we obtain this motivation?  From our own self-intelligence and character. We can acknowledge God without knowing Sacred Scripture, but our level of understanding of God is then only natural and sensuous or materialistic, not rational, even if we are taught the rational and spiritual ideas of theistic psychology. Although this motivation for character reformation is not yet genuine, rational, and spiritual, it is given by God as a temporary means by which the person can begin to make progress in character reformation.

From this parallel layout of the double unfolding it is easy to see how the content of Divine Speech changes as we extract the inner layers of the sentences of Sacred Scripture. You can see that as the unfolding proceeds, the explication gets longer. The Old Testament verse contains 12 words, while the explication of it in the Writings takes 228 words, and its explication in theistic psychology takes 324 words. You can also see that the content of Divine Speech as we move closer to it towards God, is strictly about how our mind works and how we should apply this knowledge to our character reformation, by which we prepare our mind for heavenly life in eternity.

5.0.13.2   The Stages of Doctrinal Acquisition From the Writings Sacred Scripture

The more one unravels the inner correspondential sense of Sacred Scripture the more the entire account of Divine Speech becomes rationally visible in clear light. A recurrent theme in the inner sense of Sacred Scripture is the step-by-step account of mental development and regeneration of one's character. Everything depends on the success of this regeneration process (see Section xx). The ultimate result for every human being is life in eternity in either the heavenly states of our mind, or the hellish states of our mind (see Section xx). The step-by-step process of mental development and regeneration is therefore the central theme of Divine Speech since the beginning of creation (see Section xx). The more rationally and scientifically that we understand these steps, the more effectively we can cooperate with the Divine Psychologist in our regeneration process (see Section xx).

By understanding these developmental steps, we can manage them appropriately. Our future in eternity depends on it. Perhaps some people can figure out the general details on their own, but many people need a more rational perspective on their mental development. Most educated people already have a non-theistic perspective on mental development from school courses, textbooks, and popular articles and books on psychology. Gaining a theistic psychology perspective on mental development is therefore beneficial as it restores some balance in your thinking about the subject.

The topic of mental development is discussed throughout theistic psychology (see Section xx). Here we will focus on a general account that, after a little study, can help you form a conceptual diagram in your mind. Once this conceptual diagram is in your mind you will be able to use it to extract more spiritual secrets from Sacred Scripture (see Section xx). As a general context, keep pin mind that the series we discover in the inner sense of Sacred Scripture are recursive at all levels. At the macro level, the developmental series applies to historical epochs and civilizations on earth (see the evolution or history of Churches in Section xx). At the micro-level, the developmental series applies to every individual's biography of daily events. At the mini-micro level, the developmental series applies to every unit of event or activity throughout the course of any day (see the genes of consciousness in Section xx).

The following conceptual diagram of mental development will apply at all macro or mini-micro levels. Study the diagram through the explanations given below. Try to memorize it so that you can reproduce it from memory. This is very helpful and beneficial. At first you will hardly understand anything about what your are memorizing. Next, you will understand what each element means. Then you will understand how the elements hold together in a series or dynamic flow of interaction. The diagram is discussed with a slightly different focus in several other places in theistic psychology (see Section). Here the focus is on the topic of the stages of doctrinal acquisition, which means the developmental steps we go through as we extract the correspondential sense from Sacred Scripture (see Section xx).

This diagram is discussed in further detail here:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/harmonizing4.htm#diagram1

For now, practice reading the map. First note that there are three stages of descending sequence: Infancy, Childhood, and Adolescence. Then there is an inversion, and the final three stages of ascending sequence: Young Adulthood, Adulthood, Old Age. The descending sequence applies to the development of our sensuous conscious mind. This mental growth is called sensuous consciousness ("external mind"). After the Inversion, the three steps of the ascending sequence applies to the development of our rational consciousness ("internal mind"). All this applies to the individual. The diagram also depicts the influence upon the individual of the three heavens of the human mind (see Section xx). No human being can have a mental life of thinking and feeling without being 'online' with the vertical community (see Section xx). The entire human race is interconnected, every mind influencing every other existing mind (see Section xx). When we lose connection with our physical body, we are resuscitated in our mental or spiritual body and begin our life immorality in eternity (see Section xx).

The quality of our eternal life, whether it is in the heavens of our mind, or whether it is in the hells of our mind, is determined by our loves and thoughts, that is, by our willing and thinking this or that moment by moment. There are three layers of heavens and three layers of hells in every human mind. Whatever mental state of consciousness that we are in, we continue to communicate with or be in unconscious contact with, the others around us, as well as the others whose minds are still connected to the physical body. So when you and I think and feel things, we are able to be conscious of these thoughts and feelings because we are connected to this or that individual in this or that mental state somewhere in the heavens and the hells of the universal human mind. So the diagram above attempts to take into account this influence, though it portrays only the connections we have with the heavens, not the hells (but see Section xx).

The diagram shows that the three heavenly layers of the human mind exert a distinct and special influence on those who are still "on earth" and connected to their physical body (hence unconscious of the spiritual world of eternity in their mind). The highest or third heaven is called celestial, the second heaven is called spiritual, and the lowest or first heaven is called natural. Each heaven inflows into a different part of the mind when we study Sacred Scripture and acquire the Doctrine of Truth for ourselves, with the express motivation of applying it to our daily willing and thinking (see Section xx).

Practicing reading the diagram again, we can say that the highest celestial angels inflow into the sensorimotor organ during the infancy stage of acquiring a particular Doctrine from Sacred Scripture. More will be said further on what this means. But for now, to continue practicing reading the chart, we can say further that spiritual angels inflow into the cognitive organ during the next phase of doctrinal understanding called the childhood phase. This is followed by the last of the descending steps, when the natural angels inflow into our affective organ as we strive to acquire the Doctrine. Now there is an inversion because until now our attempt to acquire the Doctrine proceeded through sensuous consciousness, which is limited in how far it can lead us. It must at some point be superseded by a rational consciousness of the Doctrine. The sensuous consciousness steps of Doctrine acquisition are immediate and obscure, while the rational consciousness steps of acquiring Doctrine are mediate and in clarity.

To continue reading the chart, you can say that the organ into which the heavenly influences inflow is distinct, but that once the inflow takes place, it affects the remaining two organs of the mind. But this effect is indirect, while the inflow effect is direct. This is why in the diagram the organ into which the inflow takes place is enclosed into a box. You can also say, as you read the chart, that the descending and ascending sequence of acquiring Doctrine are in inverse order relative to each other regarding where the organ of reception is. stance, the celestial angels inflow into the sensorimotor organ during infancy (zone marked 3), but in old age they inflow into the affective organ (zone marked 16). Eventually you will be be able to understand more clearly what this means in terms of your own life of regeneration. So you need to continue studying and investigating.

Now that you have memorized the basic developmental diagram above, here is a shorthand version of it, that will be explained. It contains some additional information that is not presented in the diagram above. It's good to have a short hand version of the conceptual diagram. This short hand version, considered as one idea, is actually a spiritual idea. All spiritual ideas can be expressed in a natural language, but it is not possible to understand that account without a context such as the mental development diagram you just studied above. So here is a visual expression of the spiritual idea of the stages we go through when we acquire doctrine from the Writings Sacred Scripture:

Remember what each abbreviation means. These are explained in the main figure above. To recapitulate:

CEL     =  celestial-rational influx from the third heaven in our mind
SPIR    =  spiritual-rational influx from the second heaven in our mind
NAT     =  spiritual-natural influx from the first heaven in our mind

SM       =  the sensorimotor organ in our mind
COG    =  the cognitive organ in our mind
AFF      =  the affective organ in our mind

incrptg. / inf.   =  during infancy, sensorimotor incorporating of the celestial influx
absrbg. / ch.   =  during childhood, cognitive absorbing of the spiritual influx
belong. / adol..   =  during adolescence, affective belonging of the natural influx

acknw. / y.ad.   =  during young adulthood, sensorimotor incorporating of the natural influx
conj. / ad.   =  during adulthood, cognitive absorbing of the spiritual influx
love / o.age.   =  during old age, affective incorporating of the celestial influx

3 = during infancy, sensuous incorporating of truths from celestial-rational influx into the sensorimotor organ
5 = during childhood, sensuous absorbing of truths from spiritual-rational influx into the cognitive organ
7 = during adolescence, sensuous belonging of truths from spiritual-natural influx into the sensorimotor organ

12 = during young adulthood, rational acknowledgment of truths from spiritual-natural influx into the sensorimotor organ
14 = during adulthood, rational adjunction of truths from spiritual-rational influx into the cognitive organ
16 = during old age, rational conjunction of truths from celestial-rational influx into the affective organ

The in between numbers that are not shown are explained in the article on the genes of consciousness:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/harmonizing4.htm#diagram1 

The diagram above portrays the spiritual idea of developmental steps in theistic psychology. You have to put the whole diagram together into one rational unit in order to see that spiritual idea. You cannot see it in the parts alone. You must put the parts together into a rational whole, and that is the spiritual idea. When you have this spiritual idea you will then understand the steps you go through when studying Sacred Scripture in the effort of extracting its correspondential sense (see Section xx).

The six stages of acquiring a spiritual doctrina are therefore marked above as three stages in the external sensuous mind (3, 5, 7) and three stages in the interior rational mind (12, 14, 16). These stages are recurrent with each new Doctrine or spiritual truth that we come to understand spiritually. Once the spiritual truth is understood spiritually, it is then deepened further and further by successive recurrence of the same six stages at a more interior level.

Our acquisition of spiritual Doctrine from Sacred Scripture begins with the infancy phase during which we are given a direct sensuous apperception of the celestial-rational truth involved. This may be called the incorporation of spiritual truth. The celestial angels from the third heaven in our mind, inflow into the sensorimotor organ of our natural mind (zone 3), and this influx gives an immediate perception of what it is, allowing us to incorporate the truth. This is not yet rational, hence it is an obscure perception. And yet it is like the first flash of light of spiritual vision through rational understanding. The Divine Psychologist manages the details of our doctrinal acquisition by extracting it from His Divine Speech that is hidden in the literal sense of Sacred Scripture (see Section xx).

The second phase of sensuous understanding of a particular spiritual truth is the childhood phase of sensuous absorbing of truths from spiritual-rational influx into the cognitive organ (zone 5). The angelic spirits from the second heaven in our mind, inflow into the cognitive organ of our natural mind, and this influx allows the absorbing of a spiritual truth. In the childhood phase, our conscious awareness is more focused or centered on reasoning issues and making sense of things symbolically through language. We learn a tremendous amount of vocabulary, each word representing and mapping the conscious awareness of what these words represent and mean. And we also acquire cognitive reasoning abilities that foreshadow and pertain of the powers that we'll have in the adult phase of Doctrine acquisition. In infancy, our conscious awareness is less cognitive and more sensory and motor. In adolescence there is a shift of conscious focus to our feelings and emotions. This is the result of the furtherance activities of the natural angels inflowing into our affective mind (zone 7).

The third phase of understanding a particular spiritual truth is the adolescent state of sensuous belonging of truths from spiritual-natural influx into the affective organ. The good spirits from the first heaven in our mind, inflow into the affective organ of our natural mind, and this influx allows the belonging of a spiritual truth. The natural angels inflow into the affective mind before the inversion, but into the sensorimotor mind after the inversion. On the other hand, the spiritual angels inflow into the cognitive mind before the inversion, and as well after the inversion. The celestial angels inflow into the sensorimotor mind before the inversion but into the affective mind after. The consequences of these different influx patterns create the conditions for our development of rational [S/C/A] units of Doctrine.

This may be better understood if it is considered that celestial angels have their conscious focus in the affective mind, spiritual angels have theirs in the cognitive, and natural angels have their focus of conscious awareness in the sensorimotor mind. In sensuous consciousness our conscious awareness is lower, while in rational consciousness our conscious awareness is higher. Note that in rational consciousness there is a greater congruence in the influx pattern between what is higher and what is lower. Natural angels, whose conscious awareness is centered on "uses" have the sensorimotor mind most keenly developed, and it is with this mind that they inflow into our sensorimotor mind (zone 12). But spiritual angels have their conscious awareness most keenly developed for "trues" in the cognitive mind, and it is with this mind that they inflow into our cognitive mind (zone 14). But celestial angels have their conscious awareness most keenly developed for "loves" in their affective mind, and it is with this mind that they inflow into our affective mind (zone 16). As a result of this greater harmony in the influx we are able to develop our own higher consciousness by building up the rational [S/C/A] units of Doctrine in our comprehension.

This process of growth in our understanding of the Doctrine is not complete until the old age phase of doctrinal acquisition (zones 16, 16, 18), after which we are prepared for separation from the merely natural understanding of the literal meaning of Sacred Scripture ("death") and resuscitation in our rational consciousness (Inversion). At that point we begin a life of understanding Doctrine in a celestial-rational consciousness, which now serves as the arena of our daily life. The process then repeats itself with the next point of Doctrine we are striving to acquire.

This discussion continues here:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/harmonizing4.htm#hexagram

5.1  Anatomy of the Mind: illustration of Applied Research

Quoting from the Writings:

AC 61.

Verse 12. "And I turned to see the voice which spoke with me" signifies the understanding illustrated. This is evident in some degree from what was said above (n. 55), in the explanation of what is signified by John's hearing a voice behind him. It is clear that in these words there is an arcanum that cannot be known unless it is known how the Divine flows in out of heaven with man; for it was from influx that John heard the voice behind him, and that afterwards, having turned to see the voice, he saw the things that follow. Divine influx out of heaven is into man's will, and through that, into his understanding. Influx into the will is into the occipital region, because into the cerebellum, and from this it passes towards the foreparts into the cerebrum, where the understanding is; and when it comes by that way into the understanding, then it comes also into the sight; for man sees from the understanding.

That there is such influx it has been granted me to know by much experience. It is the same whether we say influx into the will, or into the love, since the will is the receptacle of love; and it is also the same whether we say influx into the understanding or into faith, since the understanding is the receptacle of faith (see what is adduced in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem, n. 28-35). But it is not permitted to adduce more on these subjects at present, because up to this time they have been unknown: only these few things have been said that it may be known what is involved in John's hearing a voice behind him, and his turning to see it; and why it is that this signifies the understanding illustrated; it is because what enters through the will into the understanding, or through love into faith, comes into illustration, since what man wills or loves, that he clearly perceives. It is otherwise if it enters by the way of the understanding alone. It is said "to see the voice," because by "seeing," when predicated of spiritual things, is signified understanding from illustration (as was shown above, n. 11); and unless "seeing" signified understanding it could not have been said "to see the voice."

5.1.1  The Mind's Three Discrete Degrees --- Burnham's Charts

Quoting from the Writings Sacred Scripture:

AC 5145. Man's interiors are distinguished into degrees, and in each degree the interiors are terminated, and by termination are separated from the degree next below; it is thus from the inmost to the outermost. (AC 5145)

SE 856. CONCERNING A CERTAIN PLANE IN MAN IN RESPECT TO HIS AFFECTIONS There is in man a certain plane, as it were, which is thus represented as a soft body which lies beneath that exterior callosity induced by corporeal and worldly things. When this superinduced exterior is removed, that underlying plane or body comes to view. In what way this exterior is removed I am wholly unable to say, but it is so represented that when it is cast off, there is presented, as it were, this soft round body or brain. When, later, man acts from this, he acts according to his interior disposition and from this he rules his exteriors. But the exteriors, being congeries of particulars, cannot be so ruled by the interior soft body, that the latter may shine forth, except by continual reflection upon one's actions and life. It is from this that prudent men are wont to judge a man's character. I cannot doubt, however, but that there is underneath this a similar body which is still softer, because therein are the Remains which are preserved by the Lord, which the Lord alone knows. 1748, Feb. 18. (SE 856)

SE 4545. (CONCERNING ORDER, AS FAR AS CONSCIENCE IS CONCERNED.
The first plane is the inmost of the rational, and pertains to perception; thus to love to the Lord; consequently, to good and the truth of good. The second plane is the middle of the rational, and pertains to the conscience of good and truth, thus to piety, and is of the Church and the Lord's kingdom. The third plane pertains to the conscience of justice and right; thus to employment in civil life, consequently to society and the common good: it belongs to the inferior rational. The fourth plane pertains to propriety and decorum; thus to interaction; consequently, [to the relations] amongst friends and acquaintances: it belongs to the corporeal faculty. These planes can be conjoined, and the interior inflow into the exterior; and, then, the last plane, namely, that of propriety and decorum, is good, because it inflows from a good origin. (SE 4545)

In 1887 Rev. N. C. Burnham, a devoted Swedenborg scholar, published a careful study of the anatomy of the mind, summarizing the information given in the Writings of Swedenborg. Included in his study were several schematic diagrams that help us visualize the mind's anatomy. Dr. Ian Thompson did a superb job scanning the diagrams and the text of the 19th century book, making it available on the Web at:  www.theisticscience.org/books/burnham/index.htm

Dr. Ian Thompson has redrawn the Charts for Web use and reformatted the original:

DISCRETE DEGREES IN SUCCESSIVE AND SIMULTANEOUS ORDER   ILLUSTRATED BY DIAGRAMS  

BY THE REV. N.C. BURNHAM   PHILADELPHIA THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH 1821 WALLACE STREET 1887 = 118   Internet edition © 2001, I.J. Thompson  

Table of Contents
Colour in the Diagrams.

PART I. The Regeneration of Man.

• Chapter I. The Spiritual and the Natural.
• Chapter Il. The Spirit Two-fold, Mind and Spiritual Body.
• Chapter III. The Inmost or the Soul Proper.
• Chapter IV. The Mind: - Its Two Faculties, Will and Understanding.
• Chapter V. Will and Understanding. - Another View.
• Chapter VI. The Internal and the External Mind.
• Chapter VII. Internal Will and Understanding, and External Will and Understanding.
• Chapter VIII. The Mind in Three Degrees.
• Chapter IX. The Mind in Three Degrees. - Another View.
• Chapter X. The Spiritual or Internal Mind in Three Degrees.
• Chapter XI. Illustration of Passages.
• Chapter XII. The Mind as the Two Kingdoms.
• Chapter XIII. Relation of the Degrees of the Natural Mind to those of the Spiritual.
• Chapter XIV. Each Degree of the Spiritual Mind in Three Planes.
• Chapter XV. The Limbus.
• Chapter XVI. The Limbus Retained After Death.
• Chapter XVII. All the Degrees in Trines.
• Chapter XVIII. Man at Birth.
• Supplement.
• Chapter XIX. Growth During Infancy.
• Chapter XX. Growth During Childhood.
• Chapter XXI. Growth During Youth.
• Chapter XXII. Adult Life. - First Degree of Regeneration.
• Chapter XXIII. The Second Degree of Regeneration.
• Chapter XXIV. The Third Degree of Regeneration.
• Chapter XXV. The Wicked.

PART II. Assumption and Glorification of the Human by the Lord.

• Chapter XXVI. The Human of the LORD before the Incarnation.
• Chapter XXVII. The Degrees of the Human, and whence taken.
• Chapter XXVIII. State of the Human at Birth.
• Chapter XXIX. The Glorification; Its First Stage-Infancy.
• Chapter XXX. The Glorification; Its Second Stage-Childhood.
• Chapter XXXI. The Glorification; Its Third Stage-Youth.
• Chapter XXXII. The Glorification; Its Fourth Stage-The First Period of Adult Life.
• Chapter XXXIII. The Glorification; Its Fifth Stage-The Second Period of Adult Age.
• Chapter XXXIV. The Glorification; Its Sixth Stage-The Third Period of Adult Life.
• Chapter XXXV. The Glorification Complete; Its Seventh and Last Stage, Accomplished during the Fourth Period of Adult Age.
• Addendum.

  ---

I will reproduce some of the diagrams to help you with the details of my discussion.

Diagram III portrays the major components of the human mind. These are arranged in successive and simultaneous degrees. If we take a successive order or developmental view, the highest is also the earliest in growth. First comes the "soul proper" (A--green) which is closest to the Divine Order in creation. Next comes the mind, which is also called the "spirit" (B--white). Below this is the "spiritual body" that encases the mind or spirit (C--pink). Finally, the natural or physical body (D--black). You should remember that what is highest is inmost or most interior, and what is lowest is most outward or external.

Now when we take a slice of the mature mind we can see it in simultaneous order of degrees. What is highest or inmost--the soul, is now in the center of the slice. The next ring is the mind or spirit, around that comes the spiritual body, and finally the outside is the physical body.

From this you can see that human beings are born as dual citizens in two different but interconnected worlds. We possess a physical body within which is encased the spiritual body containing the mind and the soul. You should know that the "within" discussed here is a discrete degree within. There are three discrete degrees in the created universe called celestial, spiritual, and natural. The degrees are distinct in the sense that there is no direct connection between them. The physical body is in the natural degree but the mind or spirit is in the spiritual degree. Within each degree there are many sub-layers but there are no layers touching each other between the degrees. There is no way of starting with the natural degree and, climbing its layers, until you touch the spiritual degree. In other words, nothing from the physical body can enter directly into the spiritual mind. And vice versa--nothing from the spiritual mind can enter into the physical body.

This is very different from sub-layers within a degree. For instance, the planet is made of layers arranged in concentric circles. We can start from the outermost layer of earth and rock, and start digging deeper and deeper until we reach the inmost layer of the planet which is believed to be molten rocks and chemicals from the sun that have not yet cooled down. This progression is an instance of continuous degrees. The layers touch each other so you can enter form one into the other in a physical manner.

Similarly for the layers within the mind or spirit. As we shall see below, the mind has three discrete layers, replicating the three discrete layers of the universe--celestial, spiritual, natural. We can progress continuously within each layer, but not across layers. The natural layer or degree of the mind is composes of three sub-layers that are in continuous degree--corporeal, sensuous, rational, so that it is possible for our thinking  to progress from the corporeal to the rational by acquiring literacy skills in education. But no matter how much you progress into the natural-rational, you will not be able to have a single spiritual thought or feeling. You will always remain in the natural degree. Similarly for the other degrees.

Swedenborg confirmed this separation of degrees by speaking with those who dwell in their celestial degree of the mind and those in the spiritual and those in the natural. These are called the three heavens in the spiritual world. Those who operate at the celestial level of mind are called "angels of the celestial heaven," and there wasn't a single idea or word that could be understood by those who dwelt in the next lower degree called "angelic spirits in the spiritual heaven." And their concepts and words could not be translated into the language and thinking of the "good spirits in the natural heaven."

This geography of the spiritual world matches and overlaps with the anatomy of the human mind (see Section xx).

So when it is said that we are "spirits within a physical body" remember that "within" is discontinuous or in a discrete degree within. It is not the same "within" as the organs are "within" the physical body. You can dissect the physical body endlessly and you will never get to the mind or spirit since they are in discrete degrees.

But then how does it all work together in coordination?

The answer is that the three discrete degrees are locked into each other by "the laws of correspondences." There is a one to one relation between an event in the natural world and an event in the spiritual and celestial worlds. No event can occur solely in just one degree. All events that exist must exist simultaneously in all three degrees. An event is really three events called source, cause, and effect. These three are in discrete degrees.

For instance, I scratch an itch on my face. This event is in the natural degree, hence it is called the effect. Simultaneously to this event there must take place a cause which is in the spiritual degree. This event is my plan to relieve the itch by scratching it. A plan is a spiritual cause, while scratching is a natural effect. The third component is in the celestial degree, which is the source--my intention or desire to relieve the itch. The simple act of scratching my face comes into existence in a successive order. First, there is an event in the celestial degree or source--I have a desire to relive the itch. Second, there is an event in the spiritual degree or cause--I know how to relieve that itch. Third, there is an event in the natural world or effect--I use my hand in a certain way to scratch my face.

Whatever God created was done using this order of successive and simultaneous degrees. First, God had a desire or love (celestial source) to share eternal happiness and immortality with created human beings. Divine Love is therefore the source event in the celestial degree. Second, God had the wisdom and intelligence (spiritual cause) to create human beings with whom He could share His qualities of immortality and happiness. Third, God created the natural world to provide events of uses (natural effect) that satisfied or fulfilled the originating desire.

These three degrees enter into all the analyses we do in theistic psychology.

5.1.1.1  The Mind's Two Organs--Will and Understanding

Diagram IV portrays the two "faculties" called the "will," which is an affective organ (or "the voluntary"), and the "understanding" which is a cognitive organ (or "the intellectual"). The soul (A--green) is still the inmost degree. The mind is now show split (B--red and C--white) to represent the affective and cognitive organs of the mind or spirit. The spiritual body (D) and the natural body (E) remain as before, but now they are shown in a double layer, an external and an internal portion. These two portions of each body reflect the two portions of the mind. The will, or affective organ, is reflected by the circulatory system, while the understanding, or cognitive organ, is reflected by the respiratory system. This twofold structure is reflected throughout all the sub-structures of the body's organs, namely right brain (affective) vs. left brain (cognitive), or right lung vs. left lung, or right hand vs. left hand, etc.

An important principle to keep in mind is that lower things always correspond and reflect higher things. This is the meaning of "successive degrees" like the following:

• source---->cause---->effect
• affective---->cognitive---->sensorimotor
• will---->understanding---->outward act
• motive---->plan---->execution
• love---->wisdom,---->uses
• soul---->mind---->body
• celestial---->spiritual---->natural
• feelings---->thoughts---->sensations
• etc.

You need to see these triadic sequences as discrete degrees. At first the elements of each triad appear to belong to the same degree. People think of feelings and thoughts as related to each other on a continuous basis, rather than discrete. Similarly with "cause" and "effect." They just seem parallel, belonging to the same type of concept. But in reality they are in discrete degrees, not continuous. A cause can never become an effect and vice versa. The affective organ contains only feelings and no thoughts, while the cognitive organ contains no feelings but only thoughts. Feelings and thoughts are in discrete degrees relative to each other.

You can see from the arrows (---->) that the triadic components are in successive order. Each element is from a different discrete degree. The three elements are correspondences of each other.

Here are some triads that are not in discrete degrees. They are in continuous degrees with each other: They are not correspondences.

• table====chair====carpet
• husband====man====tall
• feelings====intentions====desires
• heart====blood====plasma
• hell====devil====bad
• etc.

You need to see why these are in continuous degrees. For instance, table and chair and carpet all three physical objects. They are natural--which is only one degree. Hell and devil and bad belong to the same degree called spiritual. They are in only one degree. Similarly with feelings and intentions and desires--they are all affective, thus the same discrete degree.

Thinking from the concept of discrete degrees, you can see that knowing the code of correspondences between the three discrete degrees creates a new powerful methodology in theistic psychology for the study of the human mind. We can consult anatomical charts of the human body and predict the correspondential chart for the human mind. For instance, structural and functional details about the heart, gives us information about the structural and functional details of the affective organ. The process works the other way as well according to Christen Blom-Dahl intriguing study (see Reading List) of Swedenborg's observations of evil spirits in the world of spirits. The world of spirits overlaps or is equivalent to the mental world. Blom-Dahl took Swedenborg's descriptions of the mental world and showed that they match correspondentially certain diseases of the body that had not yet been identified in Swedenborg's century (1688-1772).

In other words, we can do research in both directions using correspondences--from the body to the mind, and from the mind to the body. I predict that in the future it will be possible to discover new medical cures based on what's known about the mind or the spiritual world.

The next diagram presents a distinction that is fundamental in understanding human consciousness--the internal vs. the external mind.

Diagram VI shows the layers of simultaneous degrees arranged in successive order from highest to lowest, that is, from inmost to outmost relative to the Spiritual Sun (see Section xx). The soul again is the inmost and highest organ of our mind. It is completely inaccessible to human consciousness at any time from birth to eternity. It is called the abode of God with the human race. The soul is the inmost control mechanism God has created for human beings. It is not part of our human potential and remains inaccessible to knowledge or consciousness. From the soul God controls all the lower parts of the mind in a chain called "from firsts to lasts."

The diagram shows that below the soul is the "spiritual mind" (B--white, "mens" in Latin), and below that is the "natural mind" (C--hashed, "animus" in Latin). Again, the spiritual body is the outside of the mind, and the natural body is the outside of the mind. The two minds identified here are in discrete degrees to each other. The natural mind is called external while the spiritual mind is called internal. What is the difference?

The content of the spiritual mind is not conscious while we are on earth, but becomes conscious after resuscitation (see Section xx). The content of the natural mind is conscious. The content of the spiritual mind originates from incoming stimuli from the heavenly layers and the Spiritual Sun. The content of the natural mind originates from incoming stimuli from earth and the natural sun. The content of the natural mind is materialistic and based on self-intelligence. As a result it forms a plane of influx for the hellish layers because these make a one with falsified truths while the heavenly layers make a one with genuine truths.

The external mind contains hellish traits while the interior mind contains heavenly traits. The problem for our race on this earth is to learn how we engineer a switch in content so that the external natural mind is voided of materialistic concepts and principles, and is "infilled" with concepts that correspond to heaven (see Section 5.1.1.9.1).

This next diagram (VII) shows a sketch of the internal and external mind divided into its affective and cognitive components:

 You can see from the above that the external and internal minds portrayed in the previous diagram, are now shown dissected with the will (affective organ) and the understanding (cognitive organ). The internal spiritual mind has a spiritual will (B--red) and a spiritual understanding (C--white). The external natural mind has a natural will (D--red) and a natural understanding (E--pink). Note that Burnham shows the will and the understanding for both the spiritual body and the physical body. He explains why: "The spiritual body F and the natural body H are only more ultimate forms and instruments of the will and understanding. (D.L.W. 362. See Chap. IV. page 21). In other words, following the principle of successive degrees discussed above, the natural body is correspondence of the spiritual body which is a correspondence of the external and internal minds, and soul. This means that the body is an image or representative form of the mind.

I was amazed when I first read this idea in the Writings of Swedenborg. I was educated to believe that the body has a shape but the mind does not. What is the shape of the soul? I read that scientists debated this issue over the centuries, some saying that the soul is in the brain or parts of the brain, others saying that the soul is like a ghost or an empty "spirit" or puff of ether. Swedenborg himself, prior to the beginning of his dual consciousness (see Section xx), had the best hypothesis of all, I thought, namely, that the soul is in every portion of the body. Later he confirmed that the human spirit seen in the rational ether of the spiritual world, is shaped like a perfect human being.

In other words, the shape of the body is caused by the shape of the mind or spirit, which is caused by the shape of the soul, which is caused by the shape of the Divine Human or God.

It is only here in the physical world that we have to wonder about the shape of the mind or spirit (these two words mean the same thing). When we think about this shape in terms of materialistic concepts, we are thrown into the mental picture of vagueness or shapelessness, like a cloud of gas. People who call themselves "psychics" (see Section xx) say that they can see the shape of the spirit as an "astral aura" around the head. Others produce "phlogiston" threads and branches that come out of their nose or eyes--they claim, and then they say that this is the shape of the spirit. Some people present photographs claiming to be that of this super-physical material. But the reality is that a spirit is in the perfect shape of the body, and that the body is constructed by God through the soul and spirit to reflect the exact shape of the mind. This is the Human shape. Hence God is called the Divine Human (see Section xx).

See also:
Bell, Reuben, Rev. Dr. (1996). Soul-Body Interaction in Human Conception and Development. The Clothing of the Inmost in the Image3 of Heaven. New Church Life. Online at:
highermeaning.org/Authors/RPB/Soul-Body%20in%20conception.pdf

You can see from this that the spiritual body we have in our immortality is a human body in perfect shape, possessing the same members and organs--a brain, a liver, genitals, hands, feet, hair, teeth. Swedenborg has spent 27 years living in both worlds on a daily basis, and he confirms that spirits in the world of the afterlife appear as ordinary human beings on earth. When the physical body dies, we are resuscitated in the world of spirits a few hours later, and we begin our life of immortality in our spiritual body in the world of spirits, which is nothing but the mental world of the human race where you and I do our thinking and feeling. We are called "spirits" as soon as we are resuscitated. At first we appear similar to how we were when the body died, but within hours and days, the spiritual body begins to change its appearance in reaction to the contents of the external mind--the external will and the external understanding (see D and E in Diagram VII immediately above).

You can see why this would happen when you consider what the world of spirits is made of, namely, rational ether. This is not a term found in the Writings but it seems necessary to have such a concept in theistic psychology. Its existence is implied in the Writings and can be extracted from various passages where it is explained that the Spiritual Sun originates the universe by means of the spiritual heat and spiritual light that radiate outward from itself. A correspondence to this activity is familiar to us in terms of the natural sun and how it creates a gravitational field around itself and fills it with materials from itself--ether space, air, planets. We can understand that materials from the natural sun make up the foundation or fabric of every object on the planet, its molecules, and atomic space at its core, which is a gravitational field maintained in place by the sun. Remove the sun, or make it go cool, and the planet and its objects lose their inner fabric, disintegrate, and become space debris absorbed by other galaxies and suns.

Similarly, you can see how it works with the Spiritual Sun since what the natural sun does is only a correspondence and reflection of what the Spiritual Sun does. The human mind is created by substances from the Spiritual Sun and is activated by these substances pouring into our mind from the Spiritual Sun instant by instant from birth to eternity. When we are earthlings, we are spirits who are temporarily tied to a physical body. Our soul produces the spiritual mind in its own human shape, and the spiritual mind produces the natural mind in that same shape, which produces the spiritual body. Up to this point, the sequence of successive degrees are operations in the spiritual world involving organs made of spiritual substances. The chain of production is perfect, so that the spiritual body is in the perfect human shape and health or functioning.

But now the chain of production moves out into the physical world where the construction material is inert relative to the rational ether of the spiritual world. A sculptor working with hard rock cannot produce a human face as fine and perfect as a dummy made of plastic fiber that can be softly shaped and painted. This is why the physical body is imperfect while the spiritual body is perfect.

When we become spirits, our mind assumes full control over the appearance of the spiritual body which is made of rational ether substance, like the mind and soul. Hence it is that our appearance as spirits may be similar at first to our appearance on earth, but soon changes to reflect the content of our will and understanding. This content is determined by our character, and whether it was regenerated on earth or not. Some people come with feelings and thoughts in the external mind that are produced by the inherited inclinations and uncensored cultural content. Their character is then a collection of hellish traits--materialistic philosophy, self-centered intentions, dislike for altruism and innocence, denigration of religious worship and of God. This hellish mind now produces a new appearance on the spiritual body. Swedenborg describes the ugly, monstrous, repulsive appearance of those who dwell in the hells of their mind.

In contrast, if your spirit contains a reformed will and understanding, the mind induces upon a the spiritual body an appearance that is angelic, beautiful, and wise.

Hence, everything about our immortality depends on the thoughts and feelings in our mind.

Quiz question for you: What is the shape of the three mental organs of which our mental world is made of?

Answer: The affective organ is in the shape of the circulatory system of the body. The cognitive organ is in the shape of the respiratory system of the body. The sensorimotor organ is in the shape of the nervous system of the body. Together the three mental organs are in the shape of the three systems in the body.

You no doubt have seen medical drawings of the human body showing the internal organs, or transparent models of the body that you can see through. Usually the heart and the entire circulatory system is in red. If you trace the entire circulatory system, with arteries, veins, and capillaries, the red shape has the same shape as the entire body. Why? Because the circulatory system has a network that enters into every inch of the body in order to supply nutrients to the cells. The shape of the circulatory system of the body is nothing but a copy of the original shape, which is the affective organ. So the affective organ is in the shape of the human body. In other words, our feelings and intentions, or the loves of our will, enter into every part of the mental world, just as the capillaries do. There is no part of our mind that is not "nourished" or activated by our feelings and intentions.

Now consider the shape of the cognitive organ in the mental world by looking at the shape of the respiratory system in the physical world of the body. The latter is a copy of the former. Every body organ -- brain, heart, liver, uterus, hair, etc. -- is a physical copy of its corresponding mental organ in the mental world. The original is the mental organ, and the copy is the physical organ. The copy is temporary in time and space, the original is in eternity in the mental world, also called, the spiritual world of the afterlife. But as you can see from the various diagrams in this Section, the spiritual world of heaven and hell are in the mental world, and this world is eternity or non-material. The cognitive organ not only has the shape you see of the respiratory system in the body, but it also has all the corresponding functions.

By studying the properties of the physical organs which we can measure, we can discover the properties of the mental organs which we cannot measure while we are still conscious in the natural mind (see Section xx). In this way we can discover new knowledge about both the physical and the spiritual world of the afterlife (see Section xx).  The respiratory system interacts with the circulatory system in a symbiotic relationship, as is known in biology and medicine. If your lungs are burned or damaged by chemically noxious inhalation, the circulatory system is immediately affected as well. The lungs function to clear blue blood from the heart and to supply it with new oxygen, without which the heart fails and physical death ensues. This shows as how corresponding events can occur in the mental organs.

For instance, suppose we are exposed to false spiritual theories and we imbibe it through our cognitive organ by confirming it in our mind through our own reasoning process, convincing ourselves it is true, when actually it is not. This corresponds to the the inhaling noxious fumes into the lungs. Now our cognitive ability to be rational is being burned and damaged by his false idea living or existing in our conscious belief system. This diminished capacity to think rationally now affects our feelings and motivations. How? It's like the blue blood that cannot be purified by the damaged lungs. Since we have the entire human hells in our sensual mind (see Diagram below), what is it that allows to fight the evil hoards that are after us so that we can become part of them?

This diagram titled Born Into Eternity is discussed in Section 6.3.1.1.1. Notice where the hells are located: in the sensual mind, which is the main portion of the natural mind, which is formed from the experiences we have through our physical body and sense organs. We can call this portion of our mind sub-conscious, because its traits are inherited and normally remain in the background of our awareness, from where they determine our needs and wants. So our inherited mind contains both the heavens and the hells of the entire humankind. There is only one mental world for the entire human race (see Section xx). This is rationally necessary and understandable since the mental world is outside time and space, in eternity, where there is no spatial expanse or temporal operations. Nevertheless, the laws of correspondences create the appearance of space and time in the mental world, as we experience it in dreams or imagination.

The purpose of our being born into eternity as mental bodies connected to time-space bodies, is to have the opportunity and experience by which we can develop a natural mind, and thus a personality put together by our own loves and choices. In other words the Divine Psychologist works with each human being so we each may free ourselves from spiritual slavery to the race's sensuous mind, and to freely love and adopt the rational spirituality called our heaven. Once we have the new affective organ, or new will, that we acquired through fighting spiritual temptations (see Section xx), we no longer need our natural mind, nor our physical bodies, which die off, leaving us at resuscitation, in the mental body of eternity (see Section xx).

To free ourselves from our inherited hellish enjoyments or loves in the sensuous mind, we must be willing to fight in spiritual temptations (see Section xx). For these all important battles in which we fight for our eternity in heaven, the Divine Psychologist gives us spiritual weapons in our cognitive organ or understanding and rational thinking.  These spiritual weapons are rational truths obtained from Sacred Scripture.

The hellish loves cannot withstand spiritual truth in our understanding or cognitive organ. Their influence is through our inherited sub-conscious sensuous organ of the mind (see diagram above). But the spiritual truths in our rational understanding are higher in our rational mind, and a universal law of dualism is that what is in a higher degree of the mind controls what is in a lower degree, and never the other way (see Section xx). Hence, in order that we may give birth to, or operationalize, the new heavenly will of our spiritual mind (see diagram above), we must extirpate through spiritual temptations, all the loves in our hells, holding sway over our natural mind, over our personality and character.

The sensorimotor organ plays a crucial role as the mental interface between mental body and physical body. What is the shape of the sensorimotor organ? If you kept in mind what was said above, you would answer that the sensorimotor organ has the shape of the physical body! If you look at the details in the visible human model, you will see that the split brain has its right and left hemispherical portions, and that the spinal cord is the brains extension of itself downward, including the network of afferent and efferent nerves that go to every single region of the body and its organs. Hence the nervous system as a whole is the shape of the entire body, and this is so because the sensorimotor mental organ has this form.

As indicated before, the detailed study of the nervous system, as is done in neuroscience, is therefore a method for discovering the details of the sensorimotor organ in the mental body. I expect that this will become a major area of research in theistic psychology.

You can see from this that the spiritual body we have in our immortality is a human body in perfect shape, possessing the same members and organs--a brain, a liver, genitals, hands, feet, hair, teeth. Swedenborg has spent 27 years living in both worlds on a daily basis, and he confirms that spirits appear as ordinary human beings on earth. When the physical body dies and we are resuscitated in the world of spirits and we begin our life of immortality in our spiritual body. We are then called "spirits." At first we appear similar to how we were when the body died, but within hours and days the spiritual body begins to change its appearance in reaction to the contents of the external mind--the external will and the external understanding (see D and E in Diagram VII immediately above).

You can see why this would happen when you consider what the world of spirits is made of, namely, rational ether. This is not a term found in the Writings but it seems necessary to have such a concept in theistic psychology. Its existence is implied in the Writings and can be extracted from various passages where it is explained that the Spiritual Sun originates the universe by means of the spiritual heat and spiritual light that radiate outward from itself. A correspondence to this activity is familiar to us in terms of the natural sun and how it creates a gravitational field around itself and fills it with materials from itself--ether space, air, planets. We can understand that materials from the natural sun make up the foundation or fabric of every object on the planet, its molecules, and atomic space at its core, which is a gravitational field maintained in place by the sun. Remove the sun, or make it go cool, and the planet and its objects lose their inner fabric, disintegrate, and become space debris absorbed by other galaxies and suns.

Similarly, you can see how it works with the Spiritual Sun since what the natural sun does is only a correspondence and reflection of what the Spiritual Sun does. The human mind is created by substances from the Spiritual Sun and is activated by these substances pouring into our mind from the Spiritual Sun instant by instant from birth to eternity. When we are earthlings, we are spirits who are temporarily tied to a physical body. Our soul produces the spiritual mind in its own human shape, and the spiritual mind produces the natural mind in that same shape, which produces the spiritual body. Up to this point, the sequence of successive degrees are operations in the spiritual world involving organs made of spiritual substances. The chain of production is perfect, so that the spiritual body is in the perfect human shape and health or functioning.

But now the chain of production moves out into the physical world where the construction material is inert relative to the rational ether of the spiritual world. A sculptor working with hard rock cannot produce a human face as fine and perfect as a dummy made of plastic fiber that can be softly shaped and painted. This is why the physical body is imperfect while the spiritual body is perfect.

When we become spirits, our mind assumes full control over the appearance of the spiritual body which is made of rational ether substance, like the mind and soul. Hence it is that our appearance as spirits may be similar at first to our appearance on earth, but soon changes to reflect the content of our will and understanding. This content is determined by our character, and whether it was regenerated on earth or not. Some people come with feelings and thoughts in the external mind that are produced by the inherited inclinations and uncensored cultural content. Their character is then a collection of hellish traits--materialistic philosophy, self-centered intentions, dislike for altruism and innocence, denigration of religious worship and of God. This hellish mind now produces a new appearance on the spiritual body. Swedenborg describes the ugly, monstrous, repulsive appearance of those who dwell in the hells of their mind.

In contrast, if your spirit contains a reformed will and understanding, the mind induces upon a the spiritual body an appearance that is angelic, beautiful, and wise.

Hence, everything about our immortality depends on the thoughts and feelings in our mind.

5.1.1.2  Three Degrees of the Mind--Celestial, Spiritual, Natural

In this diagram (VIII) you can see the successive order of the parts of a human being, from the soul (inmost) to the natural body (outmost). The celestial degree contains the celestial mind. The spiritual degree contains the spiritual mind. The natural degree contains the natural mind. The three minds (B, C, D) are "constituted of spiritual substances" from the Spiritual Sun. The celestial and spiritual minds receive input from the heavens while the natural mind receives input from the hells through the world of spirits.

The spiritual world has three portions--the heavens, the world of spirits, and the hells. When human beings are born, they have a physical body in the natural world and a spiritual body in the world of spirits. Our mind is neither in heaven nor in hell while we are tied to earth through a physical body. But in order that our mind may survive and grow we need input or "influx" from both heaven and hell (see Section xx). The influx from hell is into the inherited natural mind, but the influx from heaven is into the celestial-spiritual minds. Thus, heaven and hell do not inflow into the same parts of the mind for this would destroy it.

For many years Swedenborg visited the spiritual world where the heavens are found. He describes the geography of that region of the spiritual world in the same terms as the mind is described in Sacred Scripture. The Third Heaven is the highest or inmost and the mind of its inhabitants, called celestial angels, functions at the celestial degree of the spiritual mind, as shown in the diagram above (VIII). Swedenborg found a heaven below this one which he called the Second Heaven or Intermediate Heaven, which was inhabited by people whose spiritual mind operated in the spiritual degree. This overlaps with the spiritual mind depicted above. And he also found yet another heaven below that which he called the First Heaven or the Natural Heaven. The minds of its inhabitants, called angelic spirits, function at the spiritual-natural degree. The three heavens in the spiritual world are also the three minds in the mental world. This is why Sacred Scripture says that heaven is within each person. Quoting from the Writings:

It was said above that the loves of self and of the world make hell with man; and now the quality of these loves is to be told, in order that a man may know whether he is in them, and consequently whether hell or heaven is in him; for in man himself is either hell or heaven. That the kingdom of God is within man, the Lord teaches in Luke 17:21; consequently hell also is within him. (AC 7366)

You can see from these anatomical descriptions of the mind that the spiritual world and the mental world overlap completely so that when you speak of the anatomy of the mind it is the same as the geography of the spiritual world (see Section xx). In other words:

geography of spiritual world = anatomy of the human mind

What is amazing is that we seem to ourselves to be alone in the mind--we do not see other people in our mind. Everybody is in their own mind. Yet when Swedenborg became conscious of his spiritual mind, he saw all the other people who are also in their spiritual mind. This is another way in which you can see the overlap between mind and spirit world. But in that case why aren't we seeing others in our mind now?

The reason is that our consciousness is locked into the natural world through the natural mind. We are completely unconscious of our spiritual or celestial mind. But when we become spirits at resuscitation, we awaken in the spiritual mind, and then we can see everybody else there. Swedenborg was given the unique opportunity to be conscious in the spiritual mind while he was still conscious on earth. The purpose of this Divine permission was so that he could write the books of the Writings as a first hand observer. In the eighteenth century time had come in the evolution of human understanding to be able to receive these scientific revelations without turning them into mysticism, magic, or superstition (see Section xx). The eighteenth century was the beginning of the modern age of reason and science. It was possible for God to complete the giving of the Threefold Sacred Scripture which contains all the revelations that human beings need in order to prepare for a life of immortality in the heavens (see Section xx).

5.1.1.3  Internal and External Within Each Degree of Mind

Diagram XI shows the internal spiritual mind distinguished into three degrees--celestial (red), spiritual (white), and spiritual-natural (green). As explained above, these degrees of the spiritual mind overlap with the three heavens (Third, Second, and First). Below the First Heaven is the world of spirits where our own mind is born and grows while we are earth bound. The spiritual mind that overlaps with the three heavens is not conscious to us while we are tied to the natural body. This is why no one can see or communicate with those who already dwell in any of the three heavens. Swedenborg was able to see and communicate with them because he was conscious in the spiritual mind while still on earth so that he could author the Writings.

The diagram shows the natural mind (C--white and D--brown) below the spiritual-natural heaven (green) because our conscious natural mind is located since birth in the world of spirits while it is tied to the natural body on earth. The external natural mind is distinguished into an internal-natural portion (C--white) and external-natural portion (D--brown). These two components of the natural mind support different affective and cognitive operations. The external-natural mind operates with sensuous correspondences of Sacred Scripture. This is the level at which most people understand the Old and New Testaments, namely, as historical documents of a Divine origin.

But as discussed elsewhere (see Section xx), one can apply the method of correspondences to extract higher order meanings from the historical. There are three degrees of correspondences for reconstructing Divine Speech from Sacred Scripture --spiritual-natural correspondences, spiritual-rational correspondences, and celestial-rational correspondences (see Section xx). These three orders of meanings for understanding Sacred Scripture can all be present within the internal-natural portion of the natural mind (C--white). They cannot operate in the external-natural mind.

In other words, if our conscious understanding is restricted to the external-natural mind, we can only think with material concepts, as in non-theistic science or philosophy. But if our consciousness is elevated to the internal-natural mind, we are able to comprehend Divine Speech in all its degrees--spiritual-natural, spiritual, and celestial. This is most useful for our regeneration and allows us to understand truths from Sacred Scripture that matches in relative terms, the understanding of those who are already in the three heavens. The internal-natural mind is therefore spiritual in content and order while the external-natural mind is natural in content and order.

When we are resuscitated from our first death, we appear in the world of spirits where we undergo rapid changes. In the beginning, the content of our conscious memories is based solely on the external-natural mind. This is why the spiritual body appearance similar to the physical body prior to death, giving us the same looks or appearance. As we undergo these rapid changes, these memories begin to fade until they become unavailable. Instead, the content of the internal-natural mind now becomes the basis for our conscious awareness. This is called the second death and the process prepares us for entering our permanent state of life in immortality, either heaven or hell.

Quoting from the Writings Sacred Scripture:

AC 5935. VASTATION. After a spirit has completed his time in the world of spirits, he at length arrives at the last [period], which is his vastation. He then appears, for the most part, such as he was in the world, and is set at liberty to go whither he pleases; and thus he reaches a place where all conjunction with anything spiritual is taken away. He thus becomes, as it were, silly, and casts himself into hell. (AC 5935)

If we arrive with a new will, the old will having been regenerated, the content of the internal-natural mind is heavenly and we enter heaven. But if we arrive with the old will that has not been regenerated, with the character we inherited, we enter hell. People can be regenerated to three degrees of operation. Those who are regenerated to the first degree, enter the First or Natural Heaven. In other words, the lowest degree of the spiritual mind is "opened" or made operational, and they dwell at this level of life to eternity. Those who are regenerated to the second degree, enter the Second or Spiritual Heaven. In other words, the intermediate degree of the spiritual mind is "opened" or made operational, and they dwell at this level of life to eternity. Those who are regenerated to the third degree, enter the Third or Celestial Heaven. In other words, the highest degree of the spiritual mind is "opened" or made operational, and they dwell at this level of life to eternity

You can see that the internal-natural mind plays a key role in our immortality. Its content determines which of the three heavens will be rendered operational for our eternal life. The process operates by means of the level of correspondences with which we study Sacred Scripture. If we extract the truth of doctrine by means of spiritual-natural correspondences, and live accordingly, then we are regenerated for the first heaven in our mind. If we extract the truth of doctrine by means of spiritual-rational correspondences, and live accordingly, then we are regenerated for the second heaven in our mind. If we extract the truth of doctrine by means of celestial-rational correspondences, and live accordingly, then we are regenerated for the third heaven in our mind. (See Section xx).

 

Diagram XII shows two functions of the internal and external mind. For the internal spiritual mind there is a higher celestial function that operates with the affective organ (red), which is called "the Celestial Kingdom." This operation is known as "perception" of Divine Speech. When we become conscious of this organ we are able to perceive directly the Divine Speech by means of celestial-rational correspondences of Sacred Scripture, called the "celestial sense" of "the Word". In that state of mind we are called celestial angels, and this represents the highest human potential possible called the Third Heaven.

The lower potion of the internal spiritual mind is called "the Spiritual Kingdom" and those who dwell in that state of mind are called spiritual angels in the Second Heaven. They have an understanding based on spiritual-rational correspondences of Sacred Scripture. This understanding is sometimes called "conscience."

The difference between the celestial and spiritual angels is measured in terms of degrees, so there is no overlap in the understanding between them. The lowest state of the celestial angels is higher than the highest state of the spiritual angels and they are unable to communicate with each other except through correspondences. In terms of their understanding of Sacred Scripture, the celestial angels do not have to study and reflect on the truths they extract from it because they receive a direct perception of truths from the Divine Proprium of the Divine Human whom they can see amidst the Spiritual Sun. The spiritual angels on the other hand have to study and reflect upon the truths of Sacred Scripture in order for them to have a rational understanding of it.

The diagram also shows the external natural mind with its two portions. The higher portion (D--red) corresponds to the mind of the celestial angels (B--red) or Third Heaven, and the lower portion (E--white) corresponds to the mind of the spiritual angels (C--white) or Second Heaven. Our conscious awareness while we are tied to the natural body on earth resides with the operations in the natural mind. The higher conscious operations (D--red) are called spiritual-natural (corresponding to the First Heaven) while the lower conscious operations (E--white) are called natural (either natural-sensuous or natural-rational) (see Diagram XI).

5.1.1.4  Corresponding Degrees Between Natural and Spiritual Minds

Diagram XIII shows how the external natural mind (d, e, f), in which we are conscious while on earth,  can mirror or represent the three degrees of the internal spiritual mind (a, b, c). Since the geography of the spiritual world = the anatomy of the mind, the threefold layer of the natural mind overlaps with the threefold layer of the world of spirits, which is the area in between heaven and hell. Our natural mind functions in the world of spirits from birth until our second death when we permanently enter either the heaven or hell (see Section xx).

Looking at the external natural mind, you see the three operational layers arranged one on top of the other (f, e, d). The highest layer of the external natural mind is called "rational" (d). Because the internal spiritual mind is also natural, we need to keep track which level of the rational applies to each portion. In terms of the rational operations of the human mind, there are the following layers, arranged from highest to lowest, in relation to the rational understanding of  Divine Speech:

a. celestial-rational correspondences (Third Heaven)
b. spiritual-rational correspondences (Second Heaven)
c. spiritual-natural correspondences (also called "interior-natural" level)--First Heaven
d. natural-rational correspondences (natural mind)
e. natural-scientific correspondences (natural mind)
f. natural-sensual correspondences (natural mind)

There are slight variations in terminology that you can figure out later, once you gain familiarity with the system. The natural-sensual layer (f) is sometimes called "natural-corporeal," and the natural-scientific layer (e) is sometimes called "natural-sensuous." Also, the spiritual-rational layer (b) is sometimes called the "external rational" while the celestial-rational  layer (a) is sometimes called the "internal rational." The spiritual-natural layer (c) is sometimes called the "interior-natural" layer.

Note that the colors represent special relationships between the layers of the internal spiritual mind and the layers of the external natural mind. They are in inverse relationship so that the highest degree of the internal mind (a--red--celestial-rational layer) corresponds with the lowest degree of the external mind (f--dark red--natural-sensual layer). Similarly, b (white--spiritual-rational layer) corresponds with e (grey--natural-scientific layer), and c (green--spiritual-natural layer) corresponds with d (natural-rational layer). I explore the significance of these relationships in another article called the Genes of Consciousness, available at:  www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/harmonizing4.htm

The very top of the diagram is the soul, which called the inmost, as in the previous diagrams. The very bottom of the diagram is the natural body in the natural world that falls off at death when we become conscious of ourselves as spirits in the world of spirits. Note that the spiritual body, which encases the external and internal minds, has two layers--spiritual-sensual (g--pink) and spiritual-corporeal (h--black).

This is how the Writings describe the anatomical relationships portrayed in this and the other diagrams:

The human mind from which and according to which man is man, is formed into three regions, according to three degrees; in the first degree it is celestial, in which also are the angels of the highest heaven; in the second degree it is spiritual, in which also are the angels of the middle heaven; and in the third degree it is natural, in which also are the angels of the lowest heaven.

The human mind, organized according to these three degrees, is a receptacle of Divine influx; but still the Divine flows in no farther than man prepares the way, or opens the door; if he does this even to the highest or celestial degree, then man becomes truly an image of God, and after death he becomes an angel of the highest heaven; but if he prepares the way, or opens the door, only to the middle or spiritual degree, then indeed, man becomes an image of God, but not in that perfection, and after death he becomes an angel of the middle heaven ; but if he prepares the way, or opens the door, only to the lowest or natural degree, then man, if he acknowledges God and worships Him with actual piety, becomes an image of God in the lowest degree, and after death he becomes an angel of the lowest heaven.

But if he does not acknowledge God and does not worship Him with actual piety, he puts off the image of God, and becomes like some animal, except that he enjoys the faculty of understanding and thence of speech. If he then closes up the highest natural degree, which corresponds to the highest celestial, he becomes as to love, like a beast of the earth; but if he closes the middle natural degree which corresponds to the middle spiritual, he becomes as to love like a fox, and as to sight of the understanding like a bird of the evening; but if he also closes the lowest natural degree as to its spiritual, he becomes as to love like a wild beast, and as to the understanding of truth like a fish." (TCR 34)

In other words, it is the process of character reformation or regeneration that determines our level of life in immortality. Depending on our effort and willingness, we can regenerate only the lower portions of the inherited mind, in which case we can live our immortality in the state called First Heaven. At this level we think in terms of spiritual-natural correspondences of Sacred Scripture and it is this that forms the basis of our understanding Divine Speech. Thinking from spiritual-natural correspondences or concepts allow us to overcome lower level temptations called "natural temptations." By this means we can acquire the virtues of morality and live immortality in the First Heaven along with others who are also reformed to this degree. 

But if we are willing to go further with our character up-building or spiritual growth, we can be regenerated to the second degree and we can live our immortality in the Second Heaven. In this mental state, we think from spiritual-rational correspondences, whose concepts allow us to overcome spiritual temptations. This allows us to go beyond natural morality into genuine rational spirituality. Our understanding of Sacred Scripture is vastly greater or higher. Finally, we may be willing to be regenerated all the way to the celestial degree, living out our immortality in the Third Heaven. Our thinking is based in celestial-rational correspondences, which gives us concepts that can overcome celestial temptations. For further details on the levels of temptations and their consequences, see Section xx.

5.1.1.5  Anatomy of the Mind at Birth 

Diagram XVIII portrays the mind's anatomy at birth. The inmost portion is the soul (A--green) as in all the previous diagrams.    Below this is the internal spiritual mind in an undeveloped state, but capable of being developed (B--white). Note that this consists of three layers, as already discussed in Diagram XIII just above. Below this are the three corresponding layers of the external natural mind (C--brown). Below this is the spiritual body (D--black). Below the spiritual body is the natural body, which is portrayed with two major components. The internal layer is the "limbus" with its three sub-degrees (E--black), while the external layer is the physical body called "gross body" (F--black).

The limbus is portrayed in other diagrams by Burnham which I'm not showing, so you might like to check the original book at www.theisticscience.org/books/burnham/index.htm  along with his explanations. "Limbus" is a Latin word meaning "border" and Swedenborg uses it to refer to a skin or covering for the external natural mind. This border is made of "the finest of natural materials" which refers to matter that has not yet been recognized by contemporary scientists in physics and chemistry, given the kind of measurement tools available so far. The external portions of the limbus fall of the natural mind at death, but the internal portion remains and becomes an integral part of the spiritual body. This means that we take some very small quantity of physical matter with us, but not the elements that are now recognized in science, namely those that follow the principle of conservation of mass and energy in the physical universe. How the "finest" elements of physical matter can be part of both worlds, is not yet explained by science but will be in the future, I have no doubt. I believe that these finer natural materials correspond to the qualities of the rational which can form part of the natural mind and part of the spiritual mind (see discussion of Diagram XIII just above.

Burnham notes that the retention of the limbus in immortality allows us to be connected to the natural world and never lose this connection. I think this may be related to the fact that every human being in the spiritual world had to be born on some natural planet, and in consequence, we arrive into the afterlife with thoughts and feelings that are adapted to an earthly environment. Swedenborg visited many cities in the heavens and hells of the spiritual world. He always found there something he recognized as an appearance from earth. People seemed to be living in houses, tents, or caves. In heaven they lived in beautiful architectural buildings and palaces filled with wonderful gardens, lavish furniture, amazing art, light, and jewelry. In hell he saw caves, deserts, dangerous animals, monsters, dark places, dungeons, prison cells, lakes of sulphur, smoke, dead trees. Clearly these appearances in our life of immortality reflect the natural experiences we all have from life on earth,  and they projected communally by the people who find themselves together on account of their ruling loves. The afterlife is a life in rational ether called the spiritual world (see Section xx). Whatever thoughts and feelings we have automatically project themselves into the surrounding appearances.

Note also in the current Diagram (XVIII) that the internal spiritual mind, the external natural mind, and the spiritual body are organs inherited from the father, while the limbus and the physical body are inherited from the mother. Of course this is not yet known in science today since nothing at all is known about the anatomy, physiology, and inheritance of the human mind. This means that both boys and girls obtain all their spiritual or mental traits from their father. The inheritance of mental traits is cumulative, which means that the entire previous line of males carry and pass on the entire cumulative spiritual package to the offspring, both boys and girls.

Since the Fall of the race there have been many generations to the current spiritual split-brain race. Therefore the inherited spiritual package from each line of the male parent is so filled with numerous hellish traits that every individual grows up with a character that is hellish. Unless this character is rebuilt, reformed, and regenerated into a heavenly one, we condemn ourselves to a life of endless hell in immortality (see Section xx). This is because our life in immortality is such as our character is--hellish or heavenly. At the second death, which occurs a short time after we are resuscitated in the world of spirits, we are compelled physiologically to drop either the hellish or the heavenly traits (see Section xx). We cannot keep a mixture of both traits, as we had while still on earth. If you remember this you will be more motivated to cooperate with God in your regeneration while still on this earth!

Quoting from Swedenborg:

There is a difference between what man receives from his father and what he receives from his mother. Man receives from his father all that is internal, his very soul or life is from the father; but he receives from his mother, all that is external. In a word, the interior man or the spirit is from the father but the exterior man or the body is from the mother. (AC 1815)

That the inmost of life, which is from the father, is continually flowing in and operating upon the external which is from the mother and endeavoring to make this like itself, even in the womb, may be manifest from sons in that they are born with the inclinations of the father, and sometimes grandchildren and great grandchildren with the inclinations of the grandfather, and the great grandfather; this is because the soul which is from the father continually wills to make the external which is from the mother like itself and an image of itself."  (AC 6716)

Man is born into evils of every kind from his parents and these reside in his natural man which of itself is diametrically opposed to the spiritual man." (TCR 574)

Hereditary evil inherited from the male parental line is lodged in the external natural mind. In contrast, the internal spiritual mind contains no evil from heredity. To indicate this, Burnham draws the spiritual mind in white strips for purity from contamination, while he portrays the natural mind in dark strips to indicate the presence of evil tendencies. As a result of this difference there is an innate opposition or resistance between the natural mind and the spiritual mind right from birth. The traits in the natural mind give rise to selfish and anti-social feelings and thoughts. These must be stopped and removed by character rebuilding efforts, as discussed in other places (see Section xx). Even if we build up what appear to be good traits, it is not going to make the final difference at our second death when we are compelled to keep our hellish traits or our heavenly traits. The Writings report that people at their second death are unwilling to give up their hellish traits while they are willing to give up their heavenly traits. Why?

Because the hellish traits are first, and what is first in development is inmost in comparison to what is later in development. This is a necessary consequence of the laws of successive and simultaneous order of discrete degrees, as discussed above. The inmost traits are organized into a collection by our inherited ruling love, which is always hellish since the Fall of the human race (see Section xx). The hellish ruling love is usually the love of self and the world, and simultaneously, the hatred of altruism and heaven. Love of self refers to the innate operation in the mind by which the self is always put ahead of others. You can see this in children. They always want to put themselves ahead of the others. And if they choose someone to share with, or to put ahead of oneself, it is always on the condition that they get what they want out of it. For example, a boy may stand up for a friend and act supportive and loyal. But suppose he later has a disagreement with his friend because his friend won't go along with something. Instantly he feels disdain for the former friend and desires to hurt him.

Consider another example with an adult business man who is always respectful of the rights of his employees. Until one day one of the employees decides to quit and start his own competing business. This gals him and he now begins a campaign of vilification of his former employee's reputation. Both examples show the general principle that we cannot acquire genuine heavenly traits while we are maintaining our hereditary ruling love. Instead, what happens is that the heavenly traits we acquire become manipulated agents in the hands of the ruling love of self. Everything we then do that appears altruistic, loyal, fair, compassionate--are only put-ons by the ruling love of self which is always intent on meeting its own satisfactions, and these are always selfish. They do not take into account the good of others.

In contrast, altruistic traits consist of the desire to benefit others as much as oneself, simultaneously with the desire to never benefit self at the expense of others.

Can you pass this test right now? Make a list of when you are motivated by love of self and when you are being motivated by love of others. Examine your desire. You can do this by letting your imagination go regarding a particular event, decision, or possibility. What outcome would be the best? What would give you the most satisfaction? Try to be critical about the answers that occur to you. Ask yourself if you're being bottom line honest, or just trying to cover up the actual truth with yourself. Put yourself mentally in various situations. Would you be mad at an employee who quits and uses his knowledge to compete with you on the market? In the privacy of your mind, would you be able to sincerely wish him success? Etc.

It takes dedicated self-witnessing on a daily basis to really find out how complete is the reign of the love self in one's mind. And as pointed out before (see Section xx), it cannot be done except through the doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture. Without this guide and measuring instrument we fall into the inexorable law revealed in the Writings--evil appears good, good appears evil, truth appears false, and falsified truth appears as genuine truth.

5.1.1.5.1 The Incarnation Event and Regeneration

The scientific meaning of Genesis 24 (see Section xx) gives the details about the process of regenerating our natural mind so that it is set into correspondence with our spiritual mind. This is the central issue in theistic psychology. The quality of life in our immortality is determined by how successful we are in regenerating the natural mind with which we are born. Anatomically, the organic mind has several organs layered into discrete levels of operation. This can be rendered schematically as follows:

 

In the chart above, the conscious natural mind covers layers 1 to 4. Layers 5 to 7 constitute the unconscious spiritual mind. Layers 8 and 9 are uncreate, infinite, and Divine, referring to the Divine Human's Mind or Spirit. Upon the death of our body and subsequent resuscitation of our "spirit," our natural mind (layers 1, 2, 3, 4) becomes sub-conscious, and our conscious awareness is thenceforth located forever in the spiritual mind (layers 5, 6, 7).

The eight layers of human consciousness (0 to 7 in the chart), are created by the correspondences of Divine Speech in Sacred Scripture (see Section xx). Here, individual development recapitulates history and evolution. Each level that succeeds is a discrete degree higher or more interior and rational. The Old Testament mentality or level of thinking (1) is our first concept of God, heaven, and hell (see Section xx). The New Testament mentality or level of thinking (2) is our next understanding of God, heaven, and hell (see Section xx). The Writings mentality or level of thinking (3) is our third concept of God, heaven, and hell (see Section xx). Our fourth concept of God, heaven, and hell is theistic psychology, which is a level 4 mentality or thinking, and is extracted from the Writings Sacred Scripture according to prescribed methods specified in the Writings (see Section xx).

Level 4 becomes operational when we undergo conscious character reformation in adult life and begin our regeneration by applying the doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture to our daily willing and thinking (see Section xx). Level 4 thinking is called "enlightenment" because its information base is from the spiritual-natural mind, and its reasoning quality is genuinely rational. This genuinely rational thinking is only the first layer of understanding genuine truth. Layer 3 is natural-rational, which is a rationality whose concepts are bounded by materialism, time and place. On the other hand, layer 4 reasoning is interior-natural, which also means spiritual-natural reasoning. Layer 4 is a new organ created within the natural mind by the Incarnation Event and is called the interior-natural organ (see Section xx).

The scientific analysis by correspondences of Genesis 24, 25, and 26 yields a complete anatomical and developmental description of level 4 thinking (see Section xx). The natural mind cannot be regenerated solely through layers 1, 2, and 3, which constitute the literal meaning of Sacred Scripture (see Section xx). The Writings explain that every person who wants to regenerate must first extract doctrinal principles from the literal meaning of Sacred Scripture (see below). The Divine Psychologist enlightens the person in the effort of extraction. This enlightenment allows us to comprehend the “naked truths” in a spiritual way, not merely natural.

Until young adulthood when reformation and regeneration can begin, we only understand the Writings Sacred Scripture naturally, that is, in their literal meaning. But when we receive enlightenment, we can begin to understand them spiritually. Then the truths we extract as doctrine for ourselves, constitute our spiritual doctrine, or spiritual understanding, of spiritual topics. With this in our conscious understanding, we can face spiritual temptations and engage in the process of regeneration, spiritual growth, mental healing, and the capacity to be in conjugial union, thus, to be prepared for heavenly life and bliss.

The Incarnation Event was the process by which the Divine Human created the interior-natural organ within the natural mind of the human race (layer 4). This took two steps. First, the Divine Child created this new layer of thinking in Himself by extracting theistic psychology from the literal meaning of the Hebrew Old Testament, which He studied in His earliest years of conscious awareness as an infant (see Section xx). This took several rational steps, as described in Genesis 24, 25, and 26 (see Section xx). When the process was completed in Himself, the second step was to create this new mental organ within the mind of every human being who was already in the afterlife, then every human being who was alive in the natural universe, and finally, every human being that is being born since then, and to the endless future of new humanity.

The interior-natural organ that makes possible conscious level 4 meanings, which may be called a virtual heaven with three discrete layers of correspondences. This is because layers 5, 6, and 7 of the unconscious spiritual mind are virtually represented in our conscious interior-natural mind (see Section xx). This is accomplished by virtual higher-order correspondences of Sacred Scripture that can be operational in the interior-natural organ, while they cannot be operational in the external natural organ (layers 1, 2, 3). The thinking level of people in their First Heaven is at layer 5 by means of spiritual-natural correspondences. This meaning level is virtually represented in our conscious natural mind through our understanding of spiritual-natural correspondences of Sacred Scripture. We are similarly conscious of layers 6 and 7 by means of spiritual-rational and celestial-rational correspondences of Sacred Scripture in their virtual form (see Section xx).

Regeneration cannot occur at the natural level of thinking (1, 2, 3) about Sacred Scripture because the literal meaning is always bound up in materialistic thinking that includes historical names of places or people, time and number and, matter and motion. This is true of all Sacred Scripture because it is always expressed in a natural language -- Hebrew, Greek, Latin. Theistic psychology is a level of thinking that goes into the interior of the literal meaning of Sacred Scripture (level 4). At this level we learn to think and reason only from the universal concepts contained in Divine Speech. Sacred Scripture is only a window to Divine Speech, and the window is opened or made transparent when we apply the method of correspondences with enlightenment, as prescribed in the literal meaning of the Writings Sacred Scripture (see Section xx).

Nevertheless, there are different discrete levels at which correspondences can be applied to one's thinking and willing. One's degree of enlightenment or consciousness of higher meanings in theistic psychology is proportional to one's degree of regeneration, a process that goes on throughout life and never ceases to eternity. Theistic psychology would be useful to teach children and young people, even though they cannot begin their own regeneration until adulthood. But it would be useful to them to learn the literacy skills involved in many aspects of theistic psychology – diagrams, charts, and vocabulary lists arranged in rational sets, as illustrated below.

They would understand these spiritual topics naturally, which builds up their external rational thinking abilities. Later when they are ready to start reformation, these natural-rational concepts serve as “vessels” that are enlightened during the extraction of doctrine and application to life.

Genesis 24 describes the process by which the natural mind is set to order by means of the higher correspondences in the interior-natural organ. Setting in order the natural mind means to make it correspond with the spiritual mind. When we are born, everyone inherits an external natural mind that is in disorder, and in fact, in an order that is dead set against the spiritual order. The symptoms of this include a civilization of materialism, the negative bias in science, numerous societal problems, violent conflict between people, and individual inadequacies (depression, addiction, deception, cynicism, intolerance, hatred). The natural correspondences of Sacred Scripture in the human mind are ineffective to overcome this inbred negativity because they are unable to face spiritual temptations – the actual cause of their negativity.

Despite what people can read in Sacred Scripture, and the religious doctrines that are justified through them, people seem incapable of reforming themselves through these ideas and concepts. They endlessly fall back to their inherited enjoyments and inclinations, unwilling to give them up. Their concept of heaven and hell (levels 1, 2, 3), isn't powerful enough in their mind to effect character change until they are more willing to understand spiritual truths in a spiritual way. This requires enlightenment, which requires willingness to change our willing and thinking in daily activities so that they are lined up with spiritual truths.

This is why "salvation" of the human race was necessary in order to rescue the human mind from hellish attachments people are unwilling to give up, consequently condemning themselves to an eternity of hellish life. New and more powerful mental tools had to be created, concepts and truths that could overcome the hellish attachments with which we are born. Only God could do that. But now consider the task of communicating these new mental reasoning tools to the human race. God could not implant the new concepts into the conscious natural mind of every individual. That would have felt like some unknown power taking over our mind. It is not possible to acquire concepts without wanting to, without some motivation or love for them.

The method this required involved these nine steps.

(1) God willing Himself to be born on earth as an ordinary human being.

(2) This Divine Child, though the Divine from within Himself, had to be ordinary and natural from without, thus had to be socialized and schooled.

(3) The Divine Child had to discover His Divinity and mission by extracting the knowledge of theistic psychology from the Old Testament Sacred Scripture.

(4) The Divine Child had to apply this knowledge to His own thinking and willing in daily life where He was a citizen, member of a religious group, and earning a living at a job.

(5) He had to recognize and deal with the hellish attachments His natural mind inherited from natural birth.

(6) He had to invent new concepts and new ways of reasoning in order to vanquish these hellish attachments in Himself.

(7) At last, He brought His inherited disorderly natural mind into order according to His spiritual mind, making all of Himself Divine at all levels, thus, "glorifying" His human acquired from this earth, and uniting it perfectly with His Human Divine from eternity. The result was the new Divine Human, which completes the creation of the human race.

(8) He had to pass on these new ways of thinking to the human race by creating a new capacity in the human mind. He did this by creating a new organic entity within the natural mind called the "interior-natural" organ.

(9) He can now activate this newly created evolutionary mental organ and fill it with the operations of spiritual correspondences. This new higher order knowledge is called theistic psychology and is extracted from the correspondences of Divine Speech embodied in the literal meaning of the Writings Sacred Scripture.

These nine steps collectively constitute the Incarnation Event (see Section xx). It created a way out for "fallen" humanity (see Section xx). A new interior-natural organ was created within the conscious natural mind. Now at last, the human race was complete. Every individual through personal effort, can now acquire the capacity to become rationally conscious of spiritual things. This new rational consciousness gives us the experience of the presence of God and His co-participation in our willing and thinking in daily activities. This is called “heaven on earth” and prepares our spiritual mind for celestial life as conjugial angels in eternity.

5.1.1.5.2  Thinking With Angels: Our Virtual Heavens

The descent of Divine Speech – or, Divine Truth -- from the Spiritual Sun takes place throughout the mental world of humanity simultaneously. Every human being is born with the same discrete layers of the organic mind. Spiritual heat and light enters and fills every mind equally, simultaneously, and totally.

In the highest layers of everyone’s mind called “the Third Heaven,” Divine Speech takes the form of Sacred Scripture written in celestial-rational correspondences. Divine Speech then enters the spiritual layer of our mind called “the Second Heaven” where it appears as Sacred Scripture written in spiritual-rational correspondences. Next, Divine Speech enters the interior-natural layer of our mind called “the First Heaven” where it appears as Sacred Scripture written in spiritual-natural correspondences. At last, Divine Speech enters the external natural mind called “earth” where it appears as Sacred Scripture written in natural correspondences – the Writings Sacred Scripture written in natural-rational correspondences; the New Testament Sacred Scripture written in natural-sensuous correspondences; and the Old Testament Sacred Scripture written in natural-corporeal correspondences of Divine Speech.

The meaning of correspondences is the mechanism that the Divine Human uses to form the level of mental operations in every human mind. Each discrete layer of the mind is activated by its own degree of correspondences of Divine Speech. At each of these levels, Divine Speech appears as Sacred Scripture written in correspondences suitable and expressible for each level. Swedenborg has observed that these forms of Sacred Scripture are present in the three heavens.

Theistic psychology extracts the details of this universal process from the literal meaning of the natural-rational correspondences of the Writings Sacred Scripture.

The systematic and cumulative extraction of these scientific details facilitates our ability to cooperate with the Divine Psychologist in our regeneration. The details of regeneration give us charts and diagrams that allow us to commit to memory and understanding the information contained within the Writings Sacred Scripture. It is very useful to have in our conscious mind as much of the Writings as possible. It is not the Writings that effect our regeneration, but the understanding of the Writings in our conscious mind.

Extraction procedures are illustrated in various ways below. For now, an example of extraction can be given through the following passage. In the extraction process, “the Church” can be taken as a reference to the General Church and “the Word” as a reference to the Writings Sacred Scripture.

SS 76

VIII THE CHURCH IS FROM THE WORD, AND IS SUCH AS IS ITS UNDERSTANDING OF THE WORD

That the church is from the Word does not admit of doubt, for the Word is Divine truth itself (n. 1-4); the doctrine of the church is from the Word (n. 50-61) and through the Word there is conjunction with the Lord (n. 62-69). But doubt may arise as to whether the understanding of the Word is what makes the church, for there are those who believe that they are of the church because they have the Word, read it or hear it from a preacher, and know something of its sense of the letter, yet how this or that in the Word is to be understood they do not know, and some of them little care. It shall therefore be proved that it is not the Word that makes the church, but the understanding of it, and that such as is the understanding of the Word among those who are in the church, such is the church itself. The proof of this is as follows. (SS 76)

“The Church is from the Word” means that the General Church is from the Writings Sacred Scripture. The General Church is “such as its understanding of the Writings Sacred Scripture.” But we know that “church” also refers in a universal sense to the regenerating natural mind (AC 4439). In theistic psychology, which deals with the universal meaning of the Writings, the mind of any regenerating individual regardless of religion and background, is called a “church.” And if this person acknowledges the Writings as the sole source of their spiritual knowledge, then such a person may be called a “General Church.” Also, the knowledge, understanding, and reasoning process in theistic psychology, that is in the person’s mind, is called the “church.” Everything therefore that the Writings Sacred Scripture tell us about the “church,” will also apply in a universal sense, to theistic psychology as well as to the General Church.

The Writings instruct us on how we are to regenerate. In order to cooperate in our regeneration in an effective way, we need to have the Letter of the Writings in our conscious understanding. When we then organize this knowledge into a coherent rational system on some issue, it is called doctrine, or “doctrine of truth.”

The doctrine of truth we make for ourselves from the Writings Sacred Scripture must then be applied to our daily willing and thinking, moment by moment in every activity. This is the work of regeneration, the struggle against temptation, and “picking up the cross” and “walking in the way of truth.” The Divine Psychologist is present in our mind and manages the whole show, even as He managed Isaac’s Binding by Abraham, and as He managed the emotions David had when he wrote them down in the Psalms, so that they may represent and describe His own mental states when, hundreds of years later, He would be a Divine Child on earth struggling to remake the human mind and save it from itself (see Section xx).

An inspiring and accurate summary of the Divine Child’s mental states will be found in Rev. Geoffrey S. Childs’ book The Path: The Inner Life of Jesus Christ. (Fountain Publishing: Rochester, Michigan, 2002). It is one of the astonishing facts of theistic psychology that the historical details we are given in the Old Testament Sacred Scripture are not merely historically true, but describe the mental states of the Divine Child who would be born a thousand years later. This scientific knowledge is extracted from the stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph by using the method of correspondences with enlightenment.

Swedenborg was a great theistic psychologist because he was fully enlightened and he wrote from the spiritual doctrine that had been revealed to him through this enlightenment. Our task as theistic psychologists is to climb Jacob’s ladder by reconstructing the spiritual doctrine from which he wrote the Letter of the Writings Sacred Scripture. It was not possible for him to write out the spiritual doctrine directly. The reasons are discussed in section 9 below titled Why the Writings Sacred Scripture are Written in Correspondences.

The result of applying doctrine in our conscious mind to an episode of our own willing or thinking in some activity, is enlightenment. The moment that we apply the doctrine of truth in our mind to thinking or willing this or that detail, hundreds of times a day, in that instant the Divine Psychologist enlightens us.

That means that our consciousness is elevated in the level of meaning that we are able to perceive or comprehend. Our rational consciousness of the Divine Human is now reformed by correspondences that are higher than those before enlightenment (see charts above). These higher spiritual correspondences are embodied or hidden within the Letter of the Writings Sacred Scripture. Our new spiritual consciousness is actually raised to the operations taking place in our First Heaven – not in the same actual degree but in its virtual image of a discrete degree. We perceive the spiritual-natural correspondences in the Writings, just as the people already dwelling in their First Heaven perceive their Sacred Scripture. Quoting 

THE NATURAL DEGREE OF THE HUMAN MIND REGARDED IN ITSELF IS CONTINUOUS, BUT BY CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE TWO HIGHER DEGREES, WHEN IT IS ELEVATED, IT APPEARS AS IF IT WERE DISCRETE (DLW 256)

This process of progressive continuous illumination or illustration goes on in proportion to the level of temptations that we are willing to face in our character reformation and regeneration. The higher the correspondences of Divine Speech in our conscious understanding, the further we can be regenerated, all the way to the top portion of our organic mind, which operates with celestial-rational correspondences of Divine Speech. The level of correspondences we can consciously understand determines the genes of our consciousness, or the mentality level at which we live life.

During the Incarnation Event the Divine Child created a spiritual heaven within his natural mind grown on earth, by glorifying it or making it one with His internal Human Divine. This created the existence of the Divine Human which initiated an entirely new relationship between God and the human race. What the Divine Child created in His Own Mind He also recreates in the mind of every human being. The human race had entered a new advanced evolutionary state based on the consciousness of the Divine Human in our mind (called “Holy Spirit” in religion).

This new human ability had to be organically created in some anatomical mechanism since, in human beings, there can be no function or ability without an organic basis. In theistic psychology this new organ is called the interior-natural organ or virtual heaven. This new organ is a discrete degree more interior than the conscious natural-rational mind. It is not possible for any information or stimulus to enter this organ by means of the external natural mind that receives information through the physical body. All information or stimulus that enters the interior-natural organ is from the spiritual mind. But the spiritual mind is unconscious while we are still conscious in the natural mind, thus, until resuscitation.

Hence it is that the interior-natural organ is a virtual heaven while we are in the natural mind and still connected to the physical body. Through this new spiritual organ we can become conscious, when enlightened, of higher order correspondences which our external natural-rational mind cannot comprehend. When we read the Writings Sacred Scripture we are thinking with natural-rational correspondences of Divine Speech. This is below the thinking we do in our first heaven where we perceive the Writings Sacred Scripture with spiritual-natural correspondences of Divine Speech.

Our virtual heaven allows us to be enlightened through the higher-order spiritual correspondences by which we comprehend Sacred Scripture in each of our three heavens. Though we are not able to be conscious directly of our spiritual and celestial heaven, we are able to be conscious of a spiritual replica or image of those correspondences, and these are sufficient for obtaining progressive or continuous enlightenment and spiritual growth through regeneration.

Quoting:

DLW 257. 1.  The natural mind can be elevated up to the light of heaven in which angels dwell, and can perceive naturally, thus not so fully, what angels perceive spiritually. But the mind of the natural person still cannot be elevated into angelic light itself.

2.  By elevating his natural mind to the light of heaven a person can think, even speak, with angels (...)

3.  This takes place by a spiritual influx into natural light, and not by any natural influx into spiritual light.

4.  Human wisdom, which is natural so long as a person lives in the natural world, can in no measure be elevated into angelic wisdom, but can be elevated only into a kind of image of it. The reason is that the elevation of the natural mind takes place by a continuous ascent, like the progression from dark to light or from cruder to purer. (DLW 257)

This passage describes the organic process of enlightenment as the “elevation of the natural mind.” The natural mind is elevated by influx from the spiritual mind. This influx cannot take place directly into the external natural mind because nothing spiritual can exist there. However, when the Divine Child was growing up on earth during the Incarnation Event, He created a new organic mind within His external natural mind. This is called the interior-natural organ. This is the entry point or reception point for the influx. Quoting:

With people however who allow themselves to be regenerated the opposite takes place; for gradually, that is, in consecutive stages, their rational is opened up, the interior natural then becoming ranged in order beneath it, and the exterior natural beneath that. This occurs especially in the period from late youth to adulthood; it also continues in progressive stages to the final period of those regenerating people's lives, and after that in heaven for ever. From all this one may know what constitutes a person's interior natural and what his exterior natural. (AC 5126)

The interior-natural organ is built to react to the spiritual correspondences that operate in the spiritual mind. This mind is a discrete degree above the natural mind. The organic operation of the interior-natural organ is the mechanism of elevation, enlightenment, or illustration while reading the Writings Sacred Scripture. We experience it as a new wonderful ability to “think, even speak, with angels.” To think with angels is to perceive spiritual correspondences within the literal meaning of the Writings Sacred Scripture. This perception is the experience of enlightenment.

The passage above (DLW 257) indicates that in this state of enlightenment, we can understand spiritual and celestial correspondences in a ”kind of image of angelic wisdom.” This phrase may be rendered in theistic psychology as a virtual image of higher order correspondences -- celestial-rational correspondences of the Writings Sacred Scripture in our third heaven, spiritual-rational correspondences of the Writings in our second heaven, and spiritual-natural correspondences of the Writings Sacred Scripture in our first heaven.

In other words, the interior-natural organ may be called a virtual heaven in the conscious natural mind.

The accompanying diagram depicts mental anatomy in relation to spiritual geography. If you familiarize yourself with this schema, enough to reproduce it from memory, you will be forming an essential concept in theistic psychology. The elements of the diagram need to make a rational whole in our understanding. Within this integration, enlightenment will reveal its spiritual reality.

 

The spiritual meanings we are conscious of through this new organ, serve to make our regeneration effective to the extent that we “love it,” that is, use it to guide our willing and thinking. The interior-natural organ gives us the ability to be conscious of spiritual correspondences of Divine speech in Sacred Scripture, even though we still remain conscious in the natural mind. Our conscious rational understanding is called “natural wisdom” and only an “image of angelic wisdom.” Nevertheless, because it is a real image of it, it gives us the new power of thinking with angels, that is, of reasoning about spiritual topics with spiritual understanding. We can now consciously think in spiritual correspondences that are not merely “deeper” than the natural-rational, but a discrete degree above it. This new rational perception gives us access to the three heavens in virtual form.

All heavens in the human mind are created by correspondences of Divine Speech in Sacred Scripture. Correspondences refer to discrete levels of meanings of Divine Truth. The heavens of the human race since the Advent of the Writings Sacred Scripture are in rational meanings of Divine Truth. Rational consciousness of God is the only path available to the new heavens in our mind of eternity. Quoting from the Writings Sacred Scripture:

The interior natural is that which communicates with the rational and into which the rational flows, and the exterior natural is that which communicates with the senses, or through them with the world, thus into which the world flows. As regards influx, it is continuous from the Lord through the rational into the interior natural, and through this into the exterior (AC 5118)

The phrase “through the rational” in this passage refers to the spiritual-rational (second heaven), not the natural-rational (external natural mind). In other words, the content of the interior-natural organ is from spiritual origin while that of the natural-rational mind is from natural origin. Hence when we read the Writings Sacred Scripture and focus on the literal meaning, our reasoning operations are in the natural-rational mind. But when we make the literal meaning “vanish” and focus on the extracted scientific meaning (AC 1405; 3776), our reasoning process is in the interior-natural organ, which has a spiritual origin. It is then that our “natural wisdom” is an image of “angelic wisdom.” It is then that we can understand the doctrine of truth and theistic psychology spiritually. It is then that we are ready to face spiritual temptations and proceed with our regeneration.

Quoting further:

The interior natural is that which receives ideas of truth and good from the rational, and stores them up for use, consequently which communicates immediately with the rational; but the exterior natural is that which receives images and thence ideas of things from the world through the senses.

[2] These ideas, unless enlightened by those which are in the interior natural, present fallacies, which are called the fallacies of the senses. (AC 5133) (See Note 9)

It is important to see that the word “rational” here refers to the rational of the spiritual mind known as spiritual-rational correspondences of Divine Speech (our second heaven). If we read the Writings Sacred Scripture with the “exterior natural” mind the meanings we comprehend (“images, ideas”) “present fallacies of the senses” which distort the literal meaning.

The interior-natural organ develops from “putting truths into practice,” hence in proportion to regeneration and character reformation. It is said that the “rational is opened up” which means that higher order correspondences can be perceived and consciously understood. But if the literal meaning “is enlightened in the interior natural” organ, we are thinking and willing virtually as-if from our first and second heaven, and even third.

Quoting:

It can be seen from this that a person's rationality is in appearance as though of three degrees-a rationality from the celestial degree, a rationality from the spiritual degree, and a rationality from the natural degree. It can be seen, too, that whether a person's rationality is elevated or not, still it remains in the person as a faculty that can be elevated. (DLW 258)

The phrase “is in appearance as though of three degrees” refers to the virtual heaven of the interior-natural organ. Our rationality in this interior-natural organ is spiritual-rational while our rationality in the external-natural mind is natural-rational. Theistic psychology cannot be based on the natural-rational correspondences of the Writings Sacred Scripture, which would mean to focus on its literal meaning. It must be based on the extraction process that yields spiritual meanings and makes the literal meaning “vanish.” This extraction process is described in the Writings as the method of correspondences with enlightenment.

This gives us a virtual spiritual rationality “as though” of the celestial-rational degree, the spiritual-rational degree, and the spiritual-natural degree.

Quoting:

because heavenly matters cannot be joined to natural matters so as to operate in harmony with them, they therefore separate themselves, and heavenly matters in merely natural people place themselves round about in the periphery surrounding the natural matters that lie within. It is owing to this that a merely natural person can speak and preach heavenly things, and also make a pretense of them in his actions, even though he inwardly thinks in opposition to them. He does the latter when he is alone, but the former whe