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

Chapter 6

Personality Theory

6.0  Personality theory in theistic psychology has an organic basis. Every individual is born with a unique mind or spiritual body. The mind is a spiritual organ constructed out of the substances streaming forth from the Spiritual Sun in the spiritual world. Swedenborg was able to see this Sun every day for the 27 years of his unique conscious life in both worlds simultaneously. The substances of the mind and the substances of the Spiritual Sun are the same, though adapted to each unique mind. It is similar with the brain which is constructed out of material elements from the natural sun, or star,  that originated the planet. Every object on the planet is made of matter from its star. Swedenborg became very familiar with the surface appearances of the spiritual world, just as we are very familiar with the environment around us--trees, houses, beaches, mountains, animals, clouds, rivers. The environment in the spiritual world is a mental or rational environment constructed from the quality of the feelings and thoughts in the mind.

The outflow of the Spiritual Sun creates a space of rationality or what I would like to call rational ether. An analogous idea is the physical sun creating an energy sphere or gravitational field around itself in which the planets are deposited by separation from the sun, and then cooling off. The Spiritual Sun, by its efflux or outflow, creates a volume or sphere around itself made of rational ether called the spiritual world.

When human beings are born each individual's physical body is made of matter from the natural sun, and the individual's spiritual body is made of substance from the rational ether. We are thus born dual citizens belonging simultaneously to both worlds. One body is formed and dies in the natural world; the other body is formed in the spiritual world and never dies, since whatever is made of spiritual substance is eternal and impossible to destroy. Every feeling, every thought, and every sensation we ever had was an actual operation in the spiritual fibers of the mind and thus established a spiritual synapse that is indestructible. Swedenborg has proven that this is the case in the following manner.

In the spiritual world people who operate in the highest possible level of their mind are called "higher angels." They have the ability to review the content of people's memories in the world of spirits and to effect temporary changes. These therapeutic interventions are helpful when they instruct new arrivals about the laws of the spiritual world which must be understood rationally for good mental health there. These higher angels sometimes intervened with their special mental powers in order to help Swedenborg gather empirical observations. In this case they intervened in such a way as to bring the individuals back into the state of consciousness they were in when they first arrived. People from heaven and hell were temporarily brought back into the world of spirits which is the state of mind they had when they arrived from earth many years ago. Swedenborg then questioned them concerning their life on earth. They had with them all their memories. Nothing was missing or obscured proving that every operation in the mind is stored cumulatively in the memory of the natural mind. In the spiritual world it is known as the "Book of Life."

While we still have the physical body our natural mind is being built up from sensory input and rational abstraction. The natural mind is where we have our normal daily conscious awareness of self and the world. When the natural mind is completed, the physical body disintegrates ("dies"), and we begin a new consciousness in our spiritual body. We are then called "spirits," "angels," and "devils" depending on what is on our natural mind.

In order for the natural mind to develop and become prepared for conscious life in the spiritual world it is necessary for the spiritual mind to be operationalized and active simultaneously. The spiritual mind does not develop, like the natural mind, out of interaction with the physical body, but out of interaction with the spiritual body. The spiritual mind is also built from the substances of rational ether that is created by the Spiritual Sun around itself. The content of the spiritual mind is organized and ordered by the continuous influx of the Spiritual Sun. This operation is unconscious while we are tied to the physical body, but becomes conscious when the physical body disintegrates and we begin our immortal life as "spirits." Swedenborg was given the special ability to be conscious in the spiritual mind while he was still tied to the physical body. This was necessary in his unique case in order to allow him to write the scientific reports in the Writings (27 volumes in English translation). People would be spiritually damaged or destroyed were they allowed to be conscious simultaneously in both worlds.

Swedenborg was protected from injury by the "higher angels" who were always with him as guides and guards. He was able to talk to them in his native Swedish while they talked to him in the innate spiritual language we all have when we become spirits. Swedenborg was not yet a spirit since he still had his physical body. The difference was observable to the spirits whom he interacted with. They could see that he was still living on earth, to their great surprise, this being a unique case in their experience or knowledge. But when they interacted it was not at all apparent to them that he was speaking a natural language while they were speaking a spiritual language. This means that there must be a universal mental mechanism that can translate natural language into spiritual language and vice versa.

6.0.1  The Conscious Self and the Development of the As-of Self

The "self" or "ego" has been the subject of much discussion in literature. Even today "self" is a word that appears on the Web among the top 10 of all time topics--about 65 million Web sites mention this word (April 2004). "Self" and "God" have the same high frequency ranking, both among the top ten. The Writings of Swedenborg present a unique and previously unknown explanation of the self. It gives us an internal view as scientific revelation, a view that would be impossible without Swedenborg's observations of people as they are resuscitated immediately after the physical body turns into a corpse. In the world of spirits were the resuscitation process takes place people are in their spiritual body, and in this state they can see each other's mental disposition, mood, state, and to some extent specific content.

Swedenborg was also able to monitor the rapid mental changes that occur between resuscitation and the "second death," which refers to the final mental state we acquire to eternity. This is a general mental state that has infinite variety, guaranteeing the uniqueness of each human being to eternity. During these rapid mental changes people undergo various Divinely arranged therapeutic experiences and interventions designed to put everyone in touch with their deeper loves and motives. The outward personality traits and put-ons dissolve like a chocolate mask in the sun, and there emerges the real self.

The real self refers to the "ruling love" of every person.

It is known in psychology that all loves and motives are arranged in a hierarchy, like the organization of command in the military or a large company. In the United States the President is called "Chief Commander" who gives orders to generals to order their troops into battle. People who maintain antisocial ruling loves commit crimes, violence, destruction, theft, etc. Their ruling love is constantly challenged by their conscience or their knowledge of the Ten Commandments. God creates a conscience within every human self. The self and its components, like conscience and self-awareness, are functions and operations which must therefore take place in some mental organ. In fact, the mind is a mental organ constructed out of the spiritual substances streaming out of the Spiritual Sun, to which our mind is exposed in the world of spirits, where the mind is born along with the physical body in earth.

People who listen and obey the voice of their conscience, or who obey the Ten Commandments because they are from God, are given the power to inhibit and suppress their antisocial ruling love. Since the ruling love controls all the loves below it in the motivational hierarchy, suppressing it also inhibits the loves below it. As the antisocial ruling love is gradually suppressed and suffocated, a new altruistic ruling love seats itself in the command function. The new ruling love maintains a hierarchy of loves below itself, so that the entire motivational dynamics of the person is changed from hellish to heavenly.

This transformation process is called regeneration and involves temptations (see Section xx). Temptations bring our ruling love out of the background command into the foreground executor. We cannot deny it or ignore it. It's in our face and putting tremendous pressure on us to act in accordance with its satisfaction. This mental stress or conflict can sometimes be experienced as extreme and devastating. The deeper the hellish love that comes out in the temptation experience, the more we are shocked and challenged to approve or disapprove, and to go along or to fight like hell to resist it. This is a subjective experience. In fact, as revealed in the Writings, we have zero power to oppose the furious hells attacking us, grabbing hold of us, wanting desperately to make us part of them. They succeed if we give in, stop resisting, and let ourselves enjoy the evil, and finally loving it so that we look for it again, anticipate it, and are willing to abuse self and others in order to keep getting it. But when we resist in the Name of God, we are given as-if our own power to resist, and desist, and finally to hold the experience in aversion and disgust.

God's interventions are less effective when we are unwilling to call upon God to give us the as-if power to resist. This is a consequence, not of God's lesser desire or love, but our free choice to deny conscious communication with God. The conscious self is aware. This is a purely human trait and depends on the rational ether of the world of spirits in which our mind is located. Awareness or consciousness is a property of the rational mind. Animals do not have a rational mind hence they lack the spiritual anatomy for conscious awareness. The voice of our conscience, with which each of us is born, cannot be heard except in conscious awareness. Hence animals do not have a conscience.

Animals share a natural mind with humans, but only the bottom half (corporeal-sensuous). They do not have the anatomy of an upper half (natural-rational and spiritual-rational). Immortality is the result of being conjoined to God by rational consciousness. This requires the natural-rational mind (first), followed by the spiritual mind. Hence animals cannot be conjoined to God as they have no idea of God. Conjunction must be reciprocal, and animals cannot reciprocate as this requires the rational-spiritual ideas of God.

Animals and humans can both learn new habits at the corporeal-sensuous level. This is called conditioning and it occurs according to laws that have been discovered by psychologists (e.g., reinforcement law, frequency law, recency law, similarity law, generalization law, etc.). These laws of conditioning (or learning) are natural, not rational. They are below the
rational mind. We are not humans because we can form sensuous habits since animals can do that too. We are human because of our rational and spiritual mind.

Animals can be conditioned to talk in a simplistic way, and to solve  cognitive problems of choices between this or that figure or color. But  none of this is rational. The proof is that animals, when taught sign  language (chimpanzees) or other signaling system (dolphins), actually have nothing to say! They do not topicalize (rational), but they can
communicate by signaling this or that object or activity. Young children when they learn to talk immediately topicalize, showing that they are human, not animal. Consciousness (conscious self) and conscience (sense of right or wrong) are rational phenomena unavailable to animals. Animals cannot be held spiritually responsible for their actions, as humans are. Animals do not have a spiritual future or life of immortality after death (see Section xx). Human motives (or loves) are conscious and spiritually significant.

The conscious self is surrounded by the ruling love and its hierarchy of motives. Each motive is a love or an affection operating in the affective organ. All operations in the affective organ have a connection to operations in the cognitive organ. Every motive or affection selects and maintains specific cognitive operations that are consistent with it and assist in devising plans and methods for carrying out what the love wants, desires, and by which it is satisfied and lives. When a love is not satisfied one experiences sadness and depression, alternating with anger and destructive behavior.

The Writings reveal many facts about the psychology of the self--its structure, development, and quality.

A useful study for theistic psychology is The Doctrine of the Propirum (1962) by George De Charms (The General Church Publication committee,  Bryn Athyn, PA), in which he summarizes in developmental context many things said in the Writings of Swedenborg concerning the human and the Divine "proprium," a Latin word meaning "one's very own" as in English "proprietary" rights, or one's "proper" name, or one's "property," etc. In psychology we call the proprium the "conscious self."

The Writings confirm the fact that mental traits are inherited as well as learned. All inherited mental traits can be changed by self-modification. The earliest generations on this earth inherited heavenly or altruistic traits until aberrant individuals introduced negative loves by inverting their inherited positive traits. When they passed into the world of spirits they were segregated from the others in their heavenly mental states. The hells were thus created. After many generations and succeeding civilizations the negative traits became so predominant that a life of hell on earth was established--crimes, wars, sicknesses, famines, abuse of women and children, deception, discrimination, injustice, and so on, all of which are familiar to us today. Character reformation has become essential before we can get rid of our "inherited proprium"  and acquire a heavenly proprium from God. With the cultivation and love of heavenly traits we set up a mind that is capable of living in conjugial love in heaven to eternity. If we arrive into the afterlife with the old unregenerate proprium, we automatically sink into the hells of the mind where we live forever with others in a sorry state (see Section xx).

The essence of the inversion from a heavenly to a hellish proprium is that we are unwilling to be guided by God and prefer to be guided by self. There is therefore an opposition between our self and God. This perspective is a turn around from how the human race was created and lived prior to this event in history and evolution. In Sacred Scripture it is described in the scientific meaning of the Adam and Eve story in Genesis. As long as people were well disposed toward God they were able to have a sane and healthy proprium. They lived every day with the feeling of an as-of self so that they could arrange their lives and activates as they saw fit, consistent with God's Commandments. They knew rationally from revelation that it is God who has the power to move their loves and thoughts, but were content to experience as-if they had that power from themselves and in themselves.

But when people began pursuing loves and imaginations that were not consistent with conscience and Divine Commandment, the proprium or as-of self, turned itself away from God and good, inverting truth into falsity, and pursuing corrupted forms of love, thus creating hell in the human mind. This is called the Fall of the race.

Quoting from the Writings of Swedenborg:

Verse 18 And Jehovah God said, It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make for him a help suitable for him. 'Alone' means that he was not content to be guided by the Lord but desired to have self and the world as his guide. 'A help suitable for him' means the proprium, which, further on, is also called 'the rib which was built into a woman'. (AC 138)

Countless things can be said about the proprium - about what the proprium is like in the case of the bodily-minded and worldly man, what it is like in the case of the spiritual man, and what in the case of the celestial man. With the bodily-minded and worldly man the proprium is his all. He is unaware of anything else but the proprium. And, as has been stated, if he were to lose his proprium he would think that he was dying.

With the spiritual man the proprium takes on a similar appearance, for although he knows that the Lord is the life of all, and that He confers wisdom and intelligence, and consequently the ability to think and to act, it is more a matter of something he says and not so much something he believes.

The celestial man however acknowledges that the Lord is the life of all, who confers the ability to think and act, because he perceives that this is so. Nor does he ever desire the proprium. Nevertheless even though he does not desire it the Lord grants him a proprium which is joined to him with a complete perception of what is good and true, and with complete happiness.

Angels possess a proprium such as this, and at the same time utmost peace and tranquility, for their proprium has within it things that are the Lord's, who is governing their proprium, that is, governing them by means of their proprium. This proprium is utterly heavenly, whereas the proprium of the bodily-minded man is hellish. But more about the proprium further on. (AC 141)

Here we are told that there are three levels our proprium. The lowest is called "bodily-minded and worldly," then the spiritual proprium, and the highest, which is the celestial proprium. When our conscious awareness is immersed in the corporeal proprium ("bodily-minded"), we reject the idea that our self is not real, being only an "as-of self." When we elevate our conscious awareness to the rational or spiritual level, we know from revelation that God is omnipotent, hence the only power, and therefore the self has no power of its own. It is only an as-of self. But although we know and understand this at a certain level of rationality, we are unwilling to love it and make it into a ruling love. We prefer to forget it and continue acting as-if of our own power and struggle. With progress in our regeneration or spiritual development, we can elevate our rationality to the celestial proprium.

When we are in the celestial proprium of our mind we are called angels. It is said above that angels do not desire a proprium of their own. Their happiness comes from receiving  the Proprium of the Divine-Human. Since they then act still with the as-of self feeling, they are maximally happy, never being led into anything negative or disturbing.

6.0.2  Woman Built From the Man's Rib

Continuing to quote from the Writings where we find the analysis by correspondences of the Genesis story:

Verse 21 "And Jehovah God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he fell asleep; and He took one of his ribs, and He closed up the flesh in its place."

'A rib', which is a breast bone, is used to mean man's proprium when it contains very little life, a proprium indeed that he cherishes. 'The flesh in place of the rib Is used to mean the proprium when it does contain some life. 'A deep sleep' is used to mean that state into which he was brought so that he might seem to himself to have a proprium. This state resembles sleep because a person in that state is conscious only of living, thinking, speaking, and acting from himself. But when he starts to realize that this is false, he is aroused from sleep so to speak and wakes up. (AC 147)

What a remarkable revelation to discover that we are asleep in our conscious awareness when being immersed in our inherited proprium or self. Our inherited proprium is represented by a bony lifeless rib and we are described as being in a "deep sleep" when in that proprium. Our consciousness is asleep to true reality. We live a delusion thinking that we have a self separate from God's management of it. We consciously live this delusion by being convinced that we are acting from ourselves. We are thus persuaded of a delusion by rejecting the revelation that we only have an as-of self in a universe where God is the only power. When we undergo character reformation we no longer refuse to accept God's revelations. We are then said to be "aroused from sleep" or delusion, and we awaken to reality.

Continuing with the quotations:

The state of a person when caught up in the proprium, that is, when he imagines that he lives from himself, is compared to a deep sleep. Indeed the ancients actually called it 'a deep sleep' while the Word speaks of people having 'the spirit of deep sleep poured out on them [Isaiah 29:10], and of their sleeping a perpetual sleep [Jeremiah 51:57].

The fact that man's proprium is in itself dead, that is, that nobody possesses any life from himself, has been demonstrated in the world of spirits so completely that evil spirits who love nothing except the proprium, and insist stubbornly that they do live from themselves, have been convinced by means of living experience, and have admitted that they do not live from themselves.

With regard to the human proprium I have for several years now been given a unique opportunity to know about it - in particular that not a trace of my thinking began in myself. I have also been allowed to perceive clearly that every idea constituting my thought flowed in [from somewhere], and sometimes how it flowed in, and where from. Consequently anyone who imagines that he lives from himself is in error. And in believing that he does live from himself he takes to himself everything evil and false, which he would never do if what he believed and what is actually the case were in agreement. (AC 150)

Note that Swedenborg's description of the human unregenerate proprium is not a theory he is proposing but demonstrated fact. As usual he presents two kinds of proof--one from objective observation of others, and one from self-witnessing observations on himself. In his unique dual consciousness, Swedenborg was able to perceive directly the incoming source of his thoughts and feelings. The delusion of the unregenerate inherited proprium is that our thoughts and feelings originate in our self and are our own. This is certainly the conscious experience we have here on earth. But in the afterlife, having been disconnected from the physical world and body, we have the ability to perceive our interactions with the vertical community (see Section xx).

Continuing:

Verse 22 And Jehovah God built the rib which He took from the man into a woman, and brought her to the man.

'Building means reconstructing that which has fallen down, 'rib' the proprium that has not been given life, 'woman the proprium that has been given life by the Lord, 'bringing her to the man' that a proprium was granted to him. Since the descendants of this Church, unlike their ancestors, did not wish to be the celestial man, but to be their own guides and so set their heart on the proprium, they were allowed to have one. It was however a proprium given life by the Lord, which is why it is called 'a woman', and after that 'a wife'. (AC 151)

Anyone paying the matter only scant attention may see that woman was not formed out of the rib of a man, and that the arcana embodied here are deeper than anybody has ever been aware of up to now. And that the proprium is meant by 'the woman may be seen from the consideration that the woman was the one who was deceived, for nothing but the proprium - or what amounts to the same, self-love and love of the world - ever deceives a person. (AC 152)

The scientific meaning of Divine Speech is about the theistic psychology we need to awaken from the delusion of sleep in which we consciously believe that we are alone in our mind and we think and feel from ourselves. We are to awaken to this spiritual reality prior to entering the spiritual world. We cannot awaken afterwards if we do not awaken here. Swedenborg confirms by many interviews in the world of spirits that those arrived with a denial of God's omnipotence in all details, are unwilling no matter what, to change their mind. They continue in their delusions, which take them to hell and keep them there forever, being still unwilling no matter what.

The well known Genesis story in the Old Testament of Eve being built out of Adam's rib refers in its scientific sense to the proprium, specifically, that the proprium which is a dead delusion in itself, was enlivened by God. "Woman" and "wife" refer to the enlivened proprium in all human beings.

Continuing:

Nothing evil or false can possibly exist that is not the proprium or derived from the proprium. For man's proprium is evil itself, which means that man is nothing but evil and falsity. This has become clear to me from the fact that when the contents of the proprium are presented to view in the world of spirits they look so ugly that nobody can paint any uglier picture. (Those contents vary however according to the nature of the proprium.) As a result when anyone is offered a glimpse of the contents of his proprium he is horrified at himself and wishes to run as though from the devil.

On the other hand contents of the proprium which have been given life by the Lord look beautiful and attractive, varying according to the life to which a celestial quality that is the Lord's can be added. Indeed people who have received charity, that is, been made alive by it, look like boys and girls with very attractive faces. And people who have received innocence look like naked small children adorned in different ways with garlands of flowers twined around their breasts, and precious stones in their hair, living and playing in brightest light, with a sense of happiness stemming from the depths of their being. (AC 154)

Swedenborg reports what he saw when he looked at the unregenerate proprium of people in the world of spirits. In that state of mind everyone can see the proprium of others. And in Swedenborg's estimation the contents of the unregenerate proprium "look so ugly that nobody can paint any uglier picture." In other passages he describes it as bony and black like a burned skull upon which no flesh is left. When someone is allowed to see their own proprium "he is horrified at himself and wishes to run as though from the devil."

On the other hand the regenerate proprium that has been made alive by God, called the heavenly proprium, contains thoughts and feelings that "look beautiful and attractive." When we are in our heavenly mental state our proprium from a distance to others looks like attractive boys and girls adorned in flowers and precious stones with a happy expression reflecting their inner innocence. Innocence is the willingness to be guided by God rather than self.

6.0.3  The Rebirth of the Fallen Proprium or Self

Continuing:

Verse 23 And the man said, By this change, it is bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh; for this she will be called Wife, because she was taken out of man (vir).

'Bone from bones and flesh from flesh' means the proprium belonging to the external man, 'bone' the proprium that has been given not much life, 'flesh' the proprium that has been given life. 'The man' (vir) however means the internal man. And because, as is said in the next verse, the internal man was so coupled to the external man, this proprium previously called 'woman' is now called 'Wife'. 'By this change' means that it happened now, because there had been a change of state. (AC 156)

The man (Adam) called the woman his wife (Eve). The woman was made out of his rib. This is the style of writing of the ancients when discussing theistic psychology. In this case they were writing about the birth and development of the human proprium or self conscious awareness. This style of writing made sense to them because they were celestial minds before the Fall. In other words, people in those days still had direct perception into the spiritual world where all things of the mind are represented outwardly in these imageries called correspondences. The external self, or "the proprium belonging to the external man," was referred to as "'Bone from bones and flesh from flesh." They were thinking of the natural mind whose content and organization is from the physical world, rather than the "internal man" or internal self, which has undergone regeneration and is called "wise" or spiritually developed. A distinction is introduced here between two portions of the external self--one dead ("bone"), the other vivified ("flesh").

Continuing:

It is not easy to perceive however how these matters can be so unless the nature of the state of the celestial man is known. The state of the celestial man is such that the internal man is quite distinct from the external, so distinct in fact that he perceives what belongs to the internal man and what to the external man, and how the external man is governed by the Lord through the internal. But because his descendants desired the proprium, which belongs to the external man, their state became so altered that they no longer perceived any distinction between the internal man and the external. Instead they perceived the internal man as being one with the external, for this is what perception comes to be once man desires the proprium. (AC 159)

Here, the phrase "the state of the celestial man" refers to the portion of the human mind that is called heaven (see Section xx). The earliest generations on this planet were celestial people because their celestial mind was fully conscious on earth. They were therefore able to perceive the heavens in which their parents and family were after departing this world. The wrote in a style of correspondences since they were able to see directly, or visualize directly, the mental references in natural vocabulary. But in a later stage of evolution called the Fall, this dual consciousness was lost to protect the human race from being taken over by the Fallen proprium, which was evil. In other words, the thoughts and feelings that make up the external self, were evil--injurious, selfish, irrational, cruel, destructive, etc. Just as now, our motives are selfish and our thinking is less than rational most of the time. This mentality creates a hell on earth in which we are unsafe and experience suffering despite an omnipotent God who only wants our conjugial happiness in an eternal heaven.

God cannot change what our proprium has become without destroying us, which God cannot do as it would be against His Love. By "destroying us" I mean have every human being live in hell from now to eternity. God made a rational and loving choice: Instead of changing our Fallen proprium He can give us a new one that can live in heaven. In other words, we are born with the inherited Fallen "proprial" tendencies towards evil and denial of God. This is the Fallen proprium, ugly, bony, dead. Now God has created a mechanism by which we can start living a new life with a new proprium that has been "vivified" or made receptive of God and heavenly life. This is called "rebirth" and the process goes on a lifetime and is called "regeneration." This is an active process of character building that is very challenging and filled with suffering. This is caused by our having to Inhibit, suppress, and loathe all the loves and enjoyments of the Fallen proprium to which we are attached by egotistical loves.

We don't want to give them up voluntarily, one by one. It seems to us that we are being deprived of all our enjoyments and interests. What good is heaven to us if we cannot have our enjoyments? A neighbor to whom I was talking about Swedenborg asked me to describe life in heaven and in hell. At the end he said he is going to hell. Shocked, I asked why. He explained that all his friends would be there, and all his enjoyments. While in heaven, well, he didn't see himself living there. Later I thought about it and I realized that people don't believe in hell when they say they rather go there. It's just a kind of bravado talk. There must be few people who can read and accept Swedenborg's descriptions of hell, and still say they want to go there. So most people who don't seem to be afraid of hell don't actually believe that there is one.

The rebirth of the human proprium is called "salvation" of the human race. Through the process of temptations we can anesthetize forever our hellish proprium. Each temptation is timed by our Divine Psychologist to allow us to voluntarily lay aside one proprial love. We cannot do this on our own, for our motivation is to give in. But we can overcome this deadly built in motivation by acknowledging God's presence and involvement in the temptation. God then anesthetizes the proprial love, and starts the operation of a new heavenly love in its place. Gradually, through many temptations daily over a lifetime, the "reborn" proprium becomes our conscious awareness. Our thoughts and motives are altruistic and loving to be obedient to God's will or the Proprium of the Divine-Human (see next sub-section).

Continuing:

Verse 24 Therefore a man (vir) will leave his father and his mother and will cling to his wife, and they will be one flesh.

'Leaving father and mother' is leaving the internal man, for the internal is that which conceives and gives birth to the external. 'Clinging to his wife' is in order that the internal man may be within the external. 'Being one flesh' means that they are there together. Previously the internal man, and the external man deriving from the internal, were spirit, but now they have become flesh. In this way celestial and spiritual life was joined on to the proprium in order that they might seemingly be one. (AC 160)

In the style of writing with correspondences "the man clinging to his wife" refers to the heavenly self becoming active within the external self. The thoughts and motives of the external self are transformed from hellish to heavenly when the new reborn proprium becomes active. The lower external self cannot do this on its own, but it can be vivified or operationalized by the higher self acting within the lower self. The higher self which is heavenly cannot be seen in the lower self since the lower self is natural and the natural mind cannot see the celestial mind. The celestial mind active and influencing the natural mind is referred to as "'Leaving father and mother."

These relationships may not be fully clear because only a sample of the overall argument is presented. Please consult the Writings for the detailed study. But enough is given here to demonstrate to you that Sacred Scripture in its extracted scientific meaning is about theistic psychology, or the science of immortality. God uses this form of communicating with the human race because it serves primarily to elevate our rational consciousness of God and the methods by which God manages our immortal mind and the universe.

6.0.4  Innocence and the Choice of Salvation

Continuing:

As has been stated, man's proprium is nothing but evil, and when presented to view is terribly ugly; but when charity and innocence are instilled into the proprium by the Lord it looks fine and attractive, as stated in 154. The charity and innocence not only excuse the proprium, that is, a person's evil and falsity, but also virtually do away with it, as anyone may see in the case of young children. When they love one another and their parents, and at the same time a childlike innocence is evident, evil and false traits at such times not only go unnoticed but are even pleasing. From this it can be seen that nobody is allowed into heaven unless he has some measure of innocence in him, as the Lord said,

Let the young children come to Me and do not hinder them; of such is the kingdom of God. Truly I say to you, Whoever has not received the kingdom of God like a young child will not enter into it. Taking them up therefore into His arms, He laid His hands upon them, and blessed them. Mark 10:14-16.

(AC 164)

A popular saying is that "the child is father to the man." Every child inherits an evil proprium connected to hell. But a child also inherits heavenly traits called "remains." The chief of the remains is called "innocence" which is the tendency to willingly obey parents and authority figures. Without this inborn innocence, or willingness to learn, no child could acquire a civilized personality. AS parents and teachers know well, children oscillate between showing their heavenly traits and their hellish traits. They are thus held in balance by God to give them the opportunity to resist evil traits when conscience forbids them. The trait of innocence is necessary for the new reborn proprium since we cannot live in heaven without loving to conform all our thoughts and motives to God's order.

Innocence, or the willingness and love to obey God, is the ruling love of all who abide in the highest portion of their mind called heaven. Eternal happiness in conjugial love is heaven, and its living context is innocence. It is in the willingness to obey God in which heaven is located. This is because we elevate our consciousness to the heavenly state of mind by willing to be led by God rather than by self. We lay down every desire and interest we have from ourselves, and we put on only that which belongs to the Divine-Human. In effect, we superimpose the Proprium of the Divine-Human upon the former place where we acted on behalf of our self. The agent that carried out our feelings, motives, and values has been fired or anesthetized and neutralized, put into a coma and rendered non-operational. If we still want x which is from self, we deny ourselves. If we still think Y which is from self, we reject it. Instead, we think thoughts that are from Sacred Scripture which is the Speech of the Divine-Human communicating with our rational consciousness.

In this way we cooperate with the Divine-Human working on us as a Divine Loving and All-Knowing Therapist, daily, hourly, and second by second. When we have a conflict between self and God through conscience or doctrine of life, we immediately know that the Divine Psychologist is bringing us to face something deep within ourselves that is still lurking, hiding, poisoning the atmosphere around itself, injuring our innocence, or willingness to obey God rule and order. We experience the temptation as a deep conflict, an agony of choice. We want X badly, but we hear God's voice, Don't do it, Don't have it. Turn away from it.  Break the cycle. I'm here to give you the power. Just make the choice now.

Wonderful Divine words coming into our mind from within where God's influx enters through the Spiritual Sun--through its spiritual heat and spiritual light flowing into the receptors of the mind. The spiritual light entering the top of the mind now descends through the levels of the mind--celestial, spiritual, natural-rational. At each descent, lower correspondences are created at that level of mental operation. When the wave of correspondences arrives into the natural-rational mind it has been transformed by correspondences into a natural language in which we think and through which we are conscious and rational, able to reason and make choices on the basis of our understanding of Sacred Scripture.

Slowly, progressively, after many daily temptation-situations we have experienced for years, we at last come into the "Peace of Sabbath" which is a reference to the Genesis Creation story where God rested after His six days of labor. The Third Commandment orders us to keep the Sabbath day holy (see Chapter 5 Section 5.7). The scientific meaning of the "Sabbath rest" refers to the mental state we reach after every spiritual temptation. The Divine Psychologist brings to us only those temptations at the right time, and in the right form, that we can resist. By knowing all of the future, and by holding our mental operations in perfect control, God is able to keep from us any temptation that we cannot resist. After the deeply disturbing conflict of the spiritual temptation, which is called a "battle" against devils, God defeats the devils and puts them back into hell, no longer capable of infesting this individual. God could not have done this earlier, prior to the temptation and the voluntary and rational choice of rejecting the cherished enticement. The purpose of the temptation is precisely to give us the moment of choice, by which God can then remove the evil connection.

This choice of salvation must be repeated over and over again daily for years--because we have a multitude of evil connections, both those that we have inherited and those we have acquired ourselves by practicing and loving them.

The critical feature of the choice of salvation is innocence or the willingness to say No to self and Yes to the Divine-Human. There is no in between. Every thought or motive is either from heaven or from hell, either from the Divine-Human's Proprium or our own.

The Divine-Human's Proprium is innocence itself and is the source of all innocence. We would never be willing to deny ourselves totally by following self, and since the self always leads to hell because it is from hell, and is hell, therefore we are lost in advance unless we are willing to put on innocence, that is, the Lord's Proprium. This means wanting only what the Lord wants, loving only what the Lord loves, thinking only what the Lord thinks, intending only what the Lord intends, doing only what the Lord does.

When we are in this state of innocence we are in our heaven and we are called angels. Swedenborg interviewed many angels for 27 years. The described their happiness to him as being this innocence. They said that the instant they hesitate going with the flow of the Divine-Human, they fall out of their heaven, tumbling down into the lower levels of their mind where they start experiencing conflicts and temptations. So the essence of eternal happiness in conjugial love is the complete and total suppression of anything belonging to our own proprium or self.

This total reliance on the Divine-Human is a permanent Sabbath rest from all labors of temptations. No feeling or thought from the hells can reach into that place. Nothing stops our unbounded blessedness, our unbounded love and wisdom. We are capable of truly amazing and wonderful powers, forming an environment within us and around us that surpasses all imagination and desire.

Theistic psychology is the knowledge brought to us by Divine Speech about how we can suppress ourselves totally and become "children of God," that is, living God's Proprium as-if our own, thereby having immortality and endless mental expansion.

The Writings reveal that Proprium in the good sense exists only in the Divine-Human. This is because all good is the spiritual heat streaming forth from the Spiritual Sun which is the hot sphere of passion surrounding the Divine-Human in the highest region of the created human mind. The Spiritual Sun is the source of all good streaming into the created universe from its inmost parts.

Think about any object or all objects that exist. Each object has an external part that struts out into the physical plane or degree. This physical external has to have a mental or spiritual internal framework that holds the object into existence. This internal spiritual framework is made of the spiritual heat and light form the Spiritual Sun. It is in this sense that we can say that the spiritual world is "within" the natural world, or that every natural event is an effect of a prior spiritual cause.

What happens when you remove the internal framework of the object by shutting down the influx or inflow of spiritual heat and light from the Spiritual Sun?

The object is removed from existence. Or, the operation ceases, whatever it is.  We are familiar with what happens when we unplug the electric stove, or if the electric company has a power failure. Every electric appliance goes dead. In a similar way, if you remove the spiritual heat and light from within an object, the object ceases to be online in existence, it goes dead, disintegrates, and disappears.

The human mind is an organ of reception of spiritual heat and light. We receive spiritual heat in the affective organ and spiritual light in the cognitive organ (see Section xx). God gives us the ability or power to make a free choice regarding the incoming spiritual light or truth, and the incoming spiritual heat or love. We can love them or reject them. If we reject them, they are turned into their opposites or inversion: incoming good becomes evil in our will (affective organ), and incoming truth becomes falsified truth in our understanding (cognitive organ). In one case our consciousness and character is from heaven, and in the other case, it is from hell. There is no in between.

Our own self or proprium is therefore an inversion or opposition of God's Proprium. Our own self takes us to eternal hell while adopting as-if our own the Proprium of the Divine-Human takes us to eternal heaven. It's our choice. We need therefore to inquire into how our inverted proprium develops and how we can arrest its development and put it to sleep forever.

Our own proprium or self is actually dead, not alive, because it consists of the denial of life through the denial of what is good and true--the only life there is. Swedenborg went through many hells and sure enough, the people there appeared alive and doing all sorts of atrocious and horrible things to each other. But from the perspective of true life, of heavenly life, the life in hell is indeed dead because it is devoid of all good and truth. Those who maintain themselves in the hells of their mind are unwilling to rise above it, They receive life moment by moment, and they invert it into something dead as soon as it enters their conscious mind. They are said to be dead because they live in a false appearance rather than in reality. They cannot die because all humans are born immortal, but they can remove themselves from life by living in horrible delusions and fantasies, shared mutually with others. They reject all rational things and they hate God and innocence with the utmost rage.

When we put on God's Proprium and obey in innocence without self-interference, we enter true reality and heavenly life, or everything that is good and true.

Quoting from the Writings Sacred Scripture:

DP 224. Who cannot see that the external derives its existence from the internal and consequently has its essence from the internal? And everyone knows from experience that the external can appear otherwise than in accordance with the essence it has from the internal. For there is manifestly such an appearance with hypocrites, flatterers and dissemblers; and that a man can outwardly personate characters not his own is manifest from actors and mimics; for they know how to represent kings, emperors and even angels, in tone of voice, speech, face and gesture, as though they were really such, when yet they are but players. Moreover, this has been stated because man can in similar manner act the deceiver both in civil and moral affairs and in spiritual matters; and it is well known that many do so.

[2] When the internal in its essence is infernal, and the external in its form appears spiritual, and yet, as has been said, the external derives its essence from the internal, it may be asked where in the external that essence lies concealed. It does not appear in the gesture, in the tone of voice, in the speech, or in the face, and yet it is interiorly hidden in all four of these. That it is interiorly hidden in these is clearly manifest from these same things in the spiritual world. For when a man comes from the natural world into the spiritual world, as he does at death, he leaves behind his externals with the body, and retains his internals which he had stored up in his spirit. Then if his internal was infernal he appears as a devil, even such as he was as to his spirit while he lived in the world. Who does not acknowledge that every man leaves behind external things with the body, and enters into internal things when he becomes a spirit?

[3] To this I will add that in the spiritual world there is a communication of affections and of thoughts derived from these; and consequently no one can speak otherwise than as he thinks; and, moreover, everyone there changes his countenance and resembles his own affection so that his character is apparent from his countenance. Hypocrites are sometimes permitted to speak otherwise than as they think; but the tone of their voice is quite out of harmony with their interior thoughts; and by this discordance they are recognised. Hence it may be evident that the internal lies concealed interiorly in the tone of the voice, the speech, the face and the gesture of the external; but it is not perceived by men in the natural world although it is clearly perceived by angels in the spiritual world. (DP 224)


DP 225. From these considerations it is now clear that while man lives in the natural world he can be admitted into the wisdom of spiritual things and also into the love of them; and that this happens and can happen both with those who are wholly natural and with those who are spiritual; but with this difference, that the spiritual are thereby reformed but the natural by the same means are not reformed. It may even appear as if the natural loved wisdom; but they only love it as an adulterer loves an honourable woman, that is, as if she were a courtesan, speaking to her fair words, and giving her beautiful garments, yet saying of her privately to himself She is only a vile harlot whom I will make believe that I love her because she gratifies my lust; but if she did not, I would cast her off. The internal man of such a one is this adulterer, and his external man is this woman. (DP 225)

DP 227. These are the causes which give rise to such an enormity; but as they are in obscurity because of ignorance respecting them they must be so explained as to make them clear to the understanding.

First: Whatever a man thinks, speaks and does from his will, whether good or evil, is appropriated to him, and remains. This was shown above (n. 78-81). For man has an external or natural memory, and an internal or spiritual memory. Upon this internal memory is inscribed everything in general and in particular that he has thought, spoken and done in the world from his will, and that so completely and particularly that no detail is lacking. This memory is man's book of life, which is opened after death and according to which he is judged. Regarding this memory much more has been recorded from actual experience in the work HEAVEN AND HELL (n. 461-465).

[2] Second: The Lord by His Divine Providence continually , foresees and disposes, that evil may be by itself and good by itself, and thus that they may be separated. Every man is both in evil and in good, in evil from himself, and in good from the Lord; and he cannot live unless he is in both. For if he were in himself alone, and thus in evil alone, he would not have any life; nor if he were in the Lord alone and thus in good alone, would he have any life; for a man in the latter state of life would be as if he were being suffocated, continually gasping for breath, or like one dying in agony; while in the former state of life he would become devoid of life; for evil without any good is in itself dead.

Therefore every man is in both, the difference being that in the one case man is interiorly in the Lord and exteriorly as if in himself and in the other case he is interiorly in himself but exteriorly as if in the Lord. In the latter case the man is in evil and in the former in good; and yet in each case the man is both in good and in evil. The wicked man is in both because he is in the good of civil and moral life, and also outwardly in some measure of the good of spiritual life, besides being kept by the Lord in rationality and liberty, in order that it may be possible for him to be in good. This is the good by means of which every man, even a wicked man, is led by the Lord. From these considerations it may be seen that the Lord separates evil and good, so that one may be interior and the other exterior, and thus provides that they may not be mingled together. (DP 227)

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6.0.5  Spiritual Growth: How the New Will is formed

The "will" refers to the operation of the affective organ. These operations vary by categories which we are all familiar with--intentions, motivations, goals, purposes, impulses, propensities, inborn preferences, enjoyments, satisfactions, affections, loves. All these sub-categories of the affective operations are referred to globally in Sacred Scripture as "love" and the "will." In theistic psychology we use the term "character" to refer to the hierarchy of our loves in every day life. We discussed above the word "propirum" which means "our own self" or that which we feel is our own. In order for something to feel our own we must choose it in freedom. If we choose it by necessity or threat we are not choosing it in freedom and therefore it is not our love, and finally, it is not our own. It remains outside of our own loves. Our immortality consists only of those things that our own. Other things that belong to our personality or appearance and reputation, do not transfer across our second death (see Section xx). Our eternal state of mind can be composed only of our loves, and anything that our loves want around, which means thoughts of a certain kind.

The will is the actual human being, while the personality, knowledge, and memory is outside the actual human being, something that our will loves to keep around for enjoyment and can change at will!

The will, dominant love, or character is therefore our proprium, our self, our very own--what we are in reality rather than appearance.

Quoting from the Writings Sacred Scripture:

TCR 658

One's thoughts are not imputed to anyone, only one's will.

Every educated person knows that the mind contains two parts or faculties, the will and the understanding. But few people know how to make a proper distinction between them, to enumerate their properties individually and then to combine them. Those who are unable to do this inevitably acquire only the dimmest notion about the mind. So unless the properties of each taken by itself are first described, the meaning of this statement, that one's thoughts are not imputed to anyone, only one's will, cannot be grasped.

The properties of each are in summary form the following:

1. Love itself, and things to do with love, are lodged in the will; knowledge, intelligence and wisdom are lodged in the understanding. The will breathes its love into these, and brings about their favour and assent. As a result, what one's love and so one's intelligence are like determine what one is like oneself.

[2] 2. It follows from this that all good and also all evil belong to the will. For whatever arises from love is called good, even though it might be evil, for this is the result of the pleasure which makes up the will's life. By means of this pleasure the will enters into the understanding and gains its consent.

[3] 3. The will then is the being (esse) or essence of a person's life, but the understanding is the coming-into-being (existere) or arising from this. Since an essence has no reality unless it is endowed with a form, so the will has no reality unless it is in the understanding. The will therefore takes a form upon itself in the understanding, so that it may come to light.

[4] 4. The love in the will is the end in view, and in the understanding it seeks and finds causes, through which it may advance to its realization. Since the end in view is an aim and this is what it seeks, it is also the aim of the will, by means of which it enters into the understanding, and impels it to consider and turn over the means, and to determine upon such means as aim at producing the effect.

[5] 5. All of a person's self (proprium) is in the will. It is from his first birth evil, and becomes good as the result of his second birth. One's first birth is from one's parents, the second from the Lord.

[6] 6. These few remarks will enable it to be seen that the will and the understanding have different properties, which from creation have been linked in the same relation as Being and Coming-into-being. Consequently it is primarily the will that makes a person a human being, only secondarily is it the understanding. Hence it is that one's will is imputed to one, but not one's thought; and likewise evil and good, since these, as I have said, are lodged in the will and only from there enter into the thought process of the understanding.

Upon our first death, the physical body drops off and we are resuscitated in the world of spirits. Surprisingly to most people, as observed by Swedenborg, we appear to ourselves to be in a solid body whose youth, sensitivity, and health is far greater than what we people remember from their material earth body. Swedenborg himself was able to confirm this while living simultaneously in in his physical body and "in spirit" as he sometimes refers to it. We are in a mental state in which we experience rapid change. The first few weeks all our earth memories are intact. This is when we appear to be meeting with "dead relatives" and former friends or spouses. We also seem to be living in a city and a house similar to what we left behind on earth. Through a series of intense and rapid experiences we are led more and more into our real character, our real loves that pulled the strings behind our personality habits and appearances.

We discover ourselves truly for the first time. We cannot resist the intense urges of loves that have been held cooped up by social personality, reputation, or the law. Like a genie out of the bottle, we rush into all sorts of frantic behavior and new conduct of great passion and intensity. Now is your eternal destiny sealed. Your second death is quickly approaching and  you are compelled from within, by your ruling dominant supreme love, to act to please that love, to satisfy yourself, to enjoy life in its most. This is the moment of destiny for which we all must prepare. If the ruling love is the "old will" we were born with, we are compelled at this point to immerse our consciousness completely and fully into the loves of the old will. This is called descending into the hell of your mind.

If you have a "new will" you are quite pleased at this point to give up altogether any love that is in the old will. Giving up any love and every love in it, without exception, like--selfishness, pride, unfaithfulness in marriage, love of disobedience, hatred of innocence, etc. etc. (see Section xx). With the new will we are happy to give every one of the loves in our old will, so that now, upon our second death, we are resuscitated into the heaven in our mind.

Which is our immortality, whether in heaven or in hell, is determined completely by our daily choices. Theistic psychology gives us a scientific understanding of how God creates the new will in an individual. It is a process that requires our cooperation, which involves the willingness to resist temptations brought to us by the Divine Psychologist as our character is being rebuilt, day by day, and hour by hour.

6.0.5.1  The Role of Divine Speech in Building Up the New Will

In the Writings God reveals the rational methods of management He uses. There are many aspects to this, some of which are discussed elsewhere (see Section xx). A basic concept is "influx" which refers to the mechanism of control God uses to manage the endless details of keeping the universe running in the intended manner and purpose. We can distinguish between "immediate influx" and "mediate influx." Sometimes they are referred to as "general influx" and "particular influx." God maintains a line of control from Firsts to Lasts in the universe. It is a series of control mechanisms based on the "laws of correspondences" between what is higher and lower, that is, between what is earlier and what is later in the series. The First in the series of control and causation is the Spiritual Sun (see Section xx).

In order to maintain omnipotence and omnipresence it is necessary that God inflow with power, or "be present." in every created object that exists. The existing object is therefore "online" with God and continues to exist only because it is being continuously recreated, instant by instant, from its inmost structure. This is immediate or general influx and never ceases from creation to the endless future. It is part of the rational idea of the "created universe." It is not rational to think that God can create the universe and then can withdraw Himself, totally or in part, so that the world runs by the laws He has also created (see Section xx).

But if immediate influx were the only mechanism of control and causation, there would not exist any "consciousness" and therefore any human beings. To be human we must have consciousness. This is a property of rationality and intelligence  which only God, the Divine Human, possess. God had to create an organic form that is capable of being online with His consciousness and rationality. Rocks, trees, galaxies, or atoms are created in a structural form or anatomy that is capable of being online for immediate influx. The human mind is an organic form or anatomy that is capable of being online fro mediate influx, as well as immediate influx. This is what makes human beings unique in the created universe. Only the human mind has a spiritual organ capable of receiving mediate influx from the Divine Human. Mediate influx is the cause of human consciousness.

This phenomenon is very familiar to every person. Sometimes we use the phrase "conscious awareness" to refer to the experience of consciousness.

Consciousness is not something we possess but something that we receive online in the sense that a radio receives online broadcasts. Mediate influx is a kind of "broadcasting" phenomenon where the mind receives consciousness beamed from the Spiritual Sun.

We go online with mediate influx at birth, and never go off to eternity--since we are born immortal.

At this level of thinking, influx is a kind of power or force issuing from God and entering every human mind. By viewing mediate influx from a scientific perspective, we can examine it as a mechanism or process that can be described and researched. The concept of "Divine Speech," which we have discussed in several places, is a way of describing and understanding how mediate influx works (see Section xx). Consciousness always involves some rational content or meaning. That's part of what it is. The rational content of Divine Speech proceeds from the Spiritual Sun down into the layers of receptors in the human mind. Just like human speech has content and is carried by words, Divine Speech has a content that is carried by words at different level of rationality. The highest level of understanding Divine Speech is the Sacred Scripture Swedenborg saw in the highest or Third Heaven. This was written in "celestial correspondences."

From there, Sacred Scripture gets transformed into a lower form of rational content called "spiritual correspondences" of Divine Speech. From there it descends into "spiritual-natural" correspondences in the lowest heaven of the human mind. Finally, Divine Speech descends into the physical world into a natural language through "natural correspondences." This is the Sacred Scripture that we are familiar with here on earth.

The consciousness and rationality that human beings have from mediate influx is therefore embodied or carried in linguistic correspondences that are arranged in a series from lowest (natural) to highest (celestial).

In most ancient times on this earth the human race was celestial so that Divine Speech was not written down in Sacred Scripture, but was received directly and sensuously. The people were in inner conversation and contact with God through the angels who had been their parents and ancestors. There was dual consciousness similar to Swedenborg's. But at one point this race started misusing their understanding of Divine Speech, using the knowledge and power of correspondences to invent magic and cults or fantasies about the afterlife. Eventually everyone born in that race inherited this tendency and involvement with cults and all sorts of false obsessions. This celestial race was therefore extinguished and a new evolution of consciousness began with a new race which was spiritual, not celestial. That's us.

The celestial race had a unitary mind so that the affective and cognitive organs could not operate separately. This was reflected by correspondence in the structure of their brain which was unitary, while our race has split-brain--right and left. This physical structure reflects the new split in function between the affective and cognitive organs of the mind. People born with the old inherited racial will now were required to undergo a process called "regeneration." Through this process God slowly and progressively builds a "new will" by means of temptations in which we battle against old loves by using the weapons of the understanding. God gives us a conscience, which is an inner voice in our consciousness that flows in from Divine Speech.

Along with the inner oral voice of Divine Speech through conscience, God also gives an external written voice of Divine Speech through Sacred Scripture in a natural language.

Note carefully: God does not speak to us directly, either in an inner voice or an external voice, as took place with the celestial race. With our spiritual race direct communication with God is shut down, except in the case of a few people, as recorded in the Old and New Testaments, and in the case of Swedenborg. The reason has been discussed in several places in relation to sensuous vs. rational consciousness (see Section xx). To summarize: If God were to talk to us in our mind directly, we would no longer be able to maintain the as-of self appearance and we would lose all spiritual freedom, hence all salvation and all heaven. Instead, the only road upward to our heaven is a rational consciousness because heaven is a rational destination or state of mind. Sometimes pious or evangelical people say that God spoke to them and said this or that. We are not to interpret this as God speaking to them directly and saying words that you can quote.

For this would be Divine Speech, which is not given personally to anyone but only to the prophet who is writing Sacred Scripture. And we know from the Writings that Sacred Scripture has been completed in a rational series called the Threefold Word--the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Writings--so that there is not going to be any new Sacred Scripture given in the future of human spiritual evolution (see Section xx).

 

 6.0.5.1.1  The Psychology of Cooperation  

 

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6.0.5.2  Flow Chart of How the New Will is Created by Divine Speech

The left side of the chart shows how heavenly life was achieved through the "Adamic" will of the early civilizations on this earth. Direct sensuous consciousness of God and those already in heaven created a "living voice" in the conscious awareness of the celestial mind on earth. The right side of the chart shows how heaven is created in the current spiritual race on earth through a "new will." This new evolutionary creation of the human mind is achieved through rational consciousness of God and heaven. One portion of this rational consciousness is created by the inner voice of conscience, which is not direct, like it had been for the celestial race, but indirect. The inner voice appears like our own voice, not God's voice.

The second portion of rational consciousness involves written Sacred Scripture. As this is read or studied our knowledge and beliefs change from materialistic to spiritual or dualist. This is called "undergoing reformation" of the understanding or cognitive mind. Then as this understanding becomes "the doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture," it is applied as principles of living in daily choices. This is called regeneration, especially wit regard to "undergoing temptations." This process gradually creates the "new will" which is the heavenly proprium with which we live in conjugial heaven to eternity (see Section xx).

The distinguishing difference between the spiritual and the celestial races is the method of creating a heavenly will. The celestial people were able to do this in a straightforward fashion. They grew up being taught by direct communication with heaven so that they became adults in an orderly manner, loving to be obedient to the rule of God and rationality. But the spiritual race is born in a disorderly state that is opposed to the order of God and rationality. The will we are born has built in hereditary ties to the hells, not the heavens. We grow up to be disorderly adults leading a life of conflict and irrationality, full of personality traits that are selfish and obsessive. Hence it becomes necessary for every individual to be "reborn" and "regenerated." A new will then replaces the old will. This is accomplished through conscience and the doctrine of truth from written Sacred Scripture. First the understanding or cognitive organ is reformed by means of the doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture. Then, the will is regenerated as we make daily choices in accordance with the doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture. This new will is a heavenly proprium that lives in conjugial love to eternity.

The chart below shows the two roads ahead of us, one that leads to heaven by means of the new will, the other leads to hell by means of the old will.

This flow chart shows the radical difference for the spiritual race, between sensuous and rational consciousness of Divine Speech. The sensuous consciousness of God is a perspective of the old will with which we are born. The old will refers to the evil inherited traits with which everyone is now born. This is why the spiritual race is called the Fallen humankind. We incline towards hellish traits (see Section xx). This means that unless we are regenerated and receive a new will, we cannot escape our ultimate fate in hell. The old will, filled with hellish loves, acknowledges Sacred Scripture as part of culture and tradition--but only in its literal sense. Why?

Because the literal sense of Sacred Scripture allows people to use it to justify their current loves. The literal sense of Sacred Scripture is written in natural correspondences relating to a materialistic view of God and the world. The hellish loves of the old will conjoin themselves with only those beliefs that support these loves. We ignore all the places in Sacred Scripture where we are instructed to change our character. We find passages in Sacred Scripture that will justify whatever reasoning we need to justify ourselves, to justify our current loves that we do not wish to give up. This approach to using Sacred Scripture is called literalism and fundamentalism. It creates religious institutions that have a social and political function in society. Disagreements in interpretation of Sacred Scripture leads to conflict and factionalism. Leaders emerge to create new prophecies and cults. People claim to have visions and hear voices form heaven, or even, to talk to God directly. They are unwilling to undergo regeneration as shown by the fact that they have institutional hatreds and discriminations against those who disagree with them--thus, immersed in hellish loves instead of heavenly. This is how we all are and prefer it that way---until we switch from mystical spirituality to rational spirituality.

As the chart above shows, rational consciousness of God starts with rational understanding of Sacred Scripture. This means understanding the correspondential meaning or "inner sense" of the sentences in Sacred Scripture (see Section xx). As explained elsewhere, the correspondential meaning is universal and is the basis of theistic psychology. We form our rational spirituality by studying theistic psychology and reforming our understanding in according with it. Everything that we thought we understood before about God is now modified in terms of rational understanding. Mystical ideas are eliminated along with the puzzling contradictions in the literal passages of Sacred Scripture. We are no longer seeking a sensuous consciousness of God and heaven. We do not wish to have God appear to us, or speak to us in a living voice. We do not wish a special or personal relationship with God, but only a relationship of understanding, a closeness from adoration of the truth in our understanding. The more we apply the truths to our life choices, the closer we feel to God because God is Truth.

The regenerated will, which is called the new will, is formed by means of the understanding of truth from Sacred Scripture. Without this truth, the will cannot be regenerated and remains the old will. Only Divine Truth, when loved in our understanding, can we acquire the motivation and willingness to resist temptations in the old will. If we obey the truth from Sacred Scripture in our rational understanding, then the new will is being created gradually, and only to the extent that we make our daily choices according to this rational consciousness from Sacred Scripture.

Note carefully:  We can learn and understand the doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture, we can even teach it to others, but fail to apply it to our daily choices. In that case our rational consciousness will remain shallow or narrow, and less effective in allowing us to regenerate the old loves.

Both charts above refer to the regeneration of the old will, which is then called the new will. Because opposites cannot function together in the mind, the new affective organ must grow in a different portion of the mind from the old will. As we make heavenly choices in the course of every day experiences and challenges, growth takes place in a degree within the natural mind. The anatomy of the natural mind shows that it has three portions from lower to higher, called, natural-corporeal mind, natural-sensuous mind, and natural-rational mind. The old affective organ is located within the corporeal-sensuous portions. That's what we inherit from our parents. But the natural-rational portion grows from our own effort in becoming a literate citizen. This is our normal level of thinking and understanding.

When we read Sacred Scripture we have the capacity and choice of understanding it at this level of natural-rational thinking. We can study correspondences and spiritual implications, and in this way develop for ourselves a doctrine or philosophy of living. Now as we make choices every day in accordance with our doctrinal principles, new spiritual fibers or nerve endings begin to grow within our understanding of doctrine. As we discover new meanings in Sacred Scripture we must make new choices in our daily life. Each time we understand something new or deeper, we are challenged to apply this new element in our understanding to the choices we make. We cannot get stuck with one invariable set of choices, as the old will gets stuck in fundamentalism or cultism.

Our choices must reflect our understandings--that is the essence of rational spirituality and growth.

New understandings must be loved, which means, must be enacted and performed in choices. Then the new will is going to grow steadily within the spiritual portion of the natural-rational mind. This new portion is called the "spiritual-natural" mind, and sometimes, the "interior-natural" mind.

This is the only place in our mind that is heavenly or spiritual. Making choices involves facing our resistance to acting according to each new truth we understand. At whatever level we understand a spiritual topic, we face resistance to it from the old will. Some love will have to be given up, and we don't like that. So we resist. We find ourselves violating our conscience and doctrine by doing X or not doing Y. For instance, yesterday and today I have not shaved or cleaned my teeth. I've been thinking about it a number of times. I feel guilty and irrational. My teeth feel sensitive. I think about the bacteria eating up the enamel and causing cavities. I think about how I exaggerate to the dentist when he asks me if I brush and floss every day. I lie to protect my reputation as a reasonable person who's got his life in check. I feel anxious when I'm thinking about the consequences of not being conscienscious in my dental care. I'm aware of hellish traits involved--lying, misrepresenting, neglecting, fearing, rebelling, resisting.

In other words, the doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture tells me to go take care of my teeth. This is a Divine Commandment that is frequently repeated in Sacred Scripture--not mentioning the teeth specifically, but mentioning that we are required to take care of our body, our family, our property, and our country. But I fail to love this doctrine sufficiently, which is why I don't follow it every day. It is the same with all other choices we make in the course of a day (see Section xx). And now, I'm interrupting this work to go take care of my teeth!

Here's another example. I have in my mind the doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture which tells me that I must learn to love others as much as I love myself, and even, more than I love myself. Swedenborg has often talked with people who dwell eternally in the highest regions of their mind called the Third Heaven. They have assured him that the greatest enjoyment and blessedness they experience is when they can be of some service to others rather than to themselves. They gladly give up anything they possess to anyone who wants it. So this is my aspiration. I love the idea that I should benefit others more than myself. Before I started reading the Writings of Swedenborg I was afraid to love others as much as myself. I was always privately rooting for myself in anything--having more money than others, having more intelligence,  and luck, being most admired, etc.  Everything that was going on in the world, the news, the family, was about me--in my mind. I was the center of the universe. I liked the idea of having more than others, and being able to hand things to them to impress them and to make them feel beholden to me. Where did I get this attitude of self-centered arrogance and delusion?

6.0.5.3  Self-assessment Using the Ten Commandments Chart

As I was studying the Writings, my rationality became more genuine so that I was able to understand that my total egocentrism was my inheritance, in common with everybody else. I understood the consequences of remaining in that perspective. I began fearing to remain what I had been. I began my spiritual self-witnessing in earnest (see Section xx). I gathered much empirical evidence on the ways in which my thoughts and feelings all day long were driven by my egocentricity. My inherited selfishness became apparent at the minutest level of behavior. The Table below gives examples in relation to the Ten Commandments (see Section 5.7.10).

TEN COMMANDMENTS (literal meaning)	SCIENTIFIC MEANING The Doctrine of Truth from Sacred Scripture (see Section 5.7)	SELF-WITNESSING DATA
First Commandment There is not to be any other God before my face	God  is the sole source of everything. Spiritual values must guide every one of your behaviors.	In the course of the day I constantly forget to keep God in my conscious awareness. My commitment to do so is not constant, showing that I have insufficient love or motivation for it even though I accept the principle that I should.
Second Commandment Do not take the Name of God in vain	You must give up what is against God in your mind--slander, innuendo, character assassination, cursing, gossip, exaggeration, idle talk, obscene jokes.	I accept this in principle but there are occasions when I find myself exaggerating something, or thinking of something obscene, or something negative about a stranger I don't even know.
Third Commandment Keep the Sabbath Day Holy	You must acknowledge God's operational presence in your thoughts and feelings all day long every day.	I understand this process rationally, yet I frequently act as if I'm alone in my mind. I thus temporarily expel God from my mind when I want to continue doing what I shouldn't.
Fourth Commandment Honor your father and mother	Obey your conscience and the rule of law. Do not be cynical, arrogant, and unethical. Conserve the common good.	I hold this up as an ideal for myself, yet I give myself permission to drive over the speed limit, or to waste water conservation by laziness (like not fixing a leak, or keeping the faucet running unnecessarily).
Fifth Commandment Do not murder	Do not vent your anger or fantasize revenge. Do not violate the human rights of anyone.	I fully agree with this, yet I enjoy, for a few seconds, the image of physically restraining someone who stands in my way, even mentally crushing another car with my giant tractor. I reject these fantasies as evil, yet I have not stopped enjoying them for the few moments they last, before I put an end to them.
Sixth Commandment Do not commit adultery	Do not fantasize illicit sex or enjoy pornographic entertainment in the privacy of your mind.	I understand how important this requirement is, and yet I enjoy a sexual fantasy that pops into my mind, or a sexy photograph that unexpectedly comes my way on the computer screen, on TV, or a Victoria's Secrets lingerie catalogue.
Seventh Commandment Do not steal	Do not spread false beliefs or deprive others of their truth and rationality. Do not attribute any power to yourself, but only to God.	I officially attribute all things to the omnipotent God, and yet I often act as if I am my own boss, doing what I want instead of what God says He wants us to do.
Eight Commandment Do not lie	Do not deceive anyone for your personal benefit. Do not contradict the truth of God. Do not justify in your mind or, find excuses for the bad things you do.	I dislike the idea of spreading false facts, and yet I sometimes exaggerate how precisely I know something, giving my guess or recollection the status of research facts. Thus, my convenience and my self-promotion take precedence over being truthful.
Ninth and Tenth Commandments Do not covet	Do not focus only on cleaning up your outward behavior. You must also clean up your private thoughts and feelings.	I'm fully committed to this principle, and yet I see how my thoughts do not match my outward behavior, which means that I'm being hypocritical for my benefit. When I'm competing I have to remind myself that others have an equal right to win.

The Ten Commandments Chart helps us to observe and catalogue all the ways in which we break them in our daily behavior. As you can see from my entries for each Commandment, I am fully committed to them theoretically, or cognitively, because I have formed for myself the doctrine of truth out of Sacred Scripture. Despite my commitment, I do not live up to the doctrine in my mind. this proves that I have hellish loves that oppose my heavenly commitments. Clearly, I must continue to fight for my eternal life in heaven. The Divine Psychologist is in charge of the events in my life, and in my mind, so that I might have the maximum opportunity possible to choose good over bad. Eventually, this process of victories in temptations, will bring me to a state where my motive to follow the Commandment is greater than my motive not to follow them. For more on this topic see Section xx.

6.0.5.4  A Spiritual Growth Method Based on Swedenborg and Gurdjieff.

Peter Rhodes, is a Swedenborgian psychologist in private practice in Bryn Athyn, PA. In his book AIM (see Reading List) Dr. Rhodes takes various concepts from Russian psychologist Gurdijef that are compatible with his Swedenborgian perspective, and collects them into a practical system for spiritual growth that has been used in Swedenborg oriented support groups for the past few years (see for example this Web location:  www.newchurch.org/youngadults/AIM/Aim%20Title%20Page.htm )

Quoting from an interview in which Peter Rhodes discusses Gurdijef and the spiritual growth practice based on some of his concepts:

He [Gurdijef ] had a tremendous interest in what he calls esoteric Christianity. He was searching for the truth, and his premise was that the truth has been lost over time so the further you go back in time, the closer you get to a purer form of truth. As a young man he organized a group called the "Seekers of Truth," and after a long time he came to a book in Tibet which he describes as being written before Egypt had sand. (I don't know how old that is, but it must be quite old.) He studied the book and formed an organization which started to bring these teachings to London, Paris, Russia, and elsewhere. I was introduced to his teachings through a book called In Search of the Miraculous, by Ouspensky, who was a student of Gurdjieff and who was undergoing a similar search. Ouspensky had immediately recognized that this man, known only to him as "G," had something he had been looking for. It was something entirely different than just a psychology or other various theories and philosophies that he had previously studied. There was something unique in what Gurdjieff had found and taught. His teaching helped me for the first time to make a connection between what the Writings talk about and the thoughts, feelings and attitudes that I was becoming aware of in myself. I wanted to be free of many of my reactions to other people, my prejudices, anger, frustration and irritation, etc. This man was talking in ways that I could understand and he told of actual changes I could make by doing what he taught. A real change did take place in the way I responded in life.

I first came across Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, and also Maurice Nicoll, a student of Gurdjieff who studied the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, when I was raising young children. Anyone who has raised children knows that a lot of the things children do produce very strong responses in the parent. The children may not be doing something that we would term "bad" in terms of motive - for instance, when a child inadvertently spills a glass of grape juice on a new rug. There's no evil operating in the child; the glass is big and his hand is small, and his coordination is just starting to develop. Nevertheless, as a parent who just purchased a new rug, you may have a lot of anger; irritation and frustration occur. The immediate mechanical response may be to discipline the child. "I told you to be careful! Can't you pay attention?" A lot of anger comes out and the child, of course, gets upset and cries, and there is a lot of negativity that takes place. Gurdjieff's first statement to any student was, "You must not express negative emotions." He says that you do not have the power to not have negative emotions; you have no choice in regard to having negative thoughts and negative feelings, but a man must start by non-expression of these negative emotions. He also stressed that the negative response comes from within and is due to a man's "level of being" and only appear to be caused by the event, i.e., the child. (Peter Rhodes interview posted at:  www.newchurch.org/youngadults/AIM/appendix%20etc..htm )

The basis of spiritual growth is self-control for the sake of obeying God's Commandments, the result of which is a heavenly character that can live its immortality in heaven. This heavenly character must be formed while we are still on earth. There are two things we should note about the Ten Commandments. First, that they are about all the things we must not do (see Section xx). Second, they apply to both outward conduct and mental behavior--thoughts and feelings. We also know that negative emotions are symptoms we have that show our inherited connectedness to the hells. Though we may know and understand the scientific meaning of the Ten Commandments, we may still not be able to instantly obey them, as I discussed above using myself as an example (see Section 6.0.5.3). We need the help of systematic techniques or methods in order to compel our outward conduct and our mental behavior to obey the dictates of our rational doctrine from Sacred Scripture.

Gurdijef's method starts with the principle that we "must not express negative emotions." This means that we must suppress their overt expression. This we have the power to do, if only we have the motivation or commitment. Suppressing the outward show of an inward negative emotion is thus the first step. All other steps depend on this. Note that there are good and bad motives for not showing a negative emotion like anger or disdain. A good motive would be to spare the other person the negative experience of being exposed to our show of anger or criticism. A bad motive would be to control, seduce, or mislead the other person for our own benefit, and thus acting hypocritically.

To try to improve our character to become more heavenly, is a good motive. We can elevate this motive to high rank in the hierarchy of our life motives through commitment and fear or  love of God. From this rational position we are given the power to control the sensuous and corporeal mind, and therefore of the physical body. We can suppress the expression of negative emotions for the sake of our heavenly character. Gurdijef was much practiced in self-witnessing and he observed that you cannot control the mental behaviors in the same way as you can control the physical ones. In fact, he advised that you cannot control having a negative emotion by suppressing it in the way you do with the physical show of anger, like using threatening gestures and insulting words. Gurdijef attributed our negative thoughts and emotions to our "level of being." The cause of the negative emotion is never an outside event or person but the level of our mental consciousness, that is, of our spiritual growth. Anger, resentment, rage, criticism, depression, cynicism, arrogance, self-centeredness, pride, deceptiveness, intolerance, etc., are negative mental operations at a low level of spirituality. To grow spiritually, we must get rid of them in our daily life.

Continuing with the Peter Rhodes interview:

So I began not expressing negative emotions to my children and to observe that these negative emotions were in me. It became clear that any real change would come through a change in my reactions and not through trying to change my children or others. The child had just spilled the grape juice. The negative reaction was caused by the hells in the internal world, in my proprium trying to come through me to love of the world, in terms of the new rug, or love of dominion, etc. and if I gave in to negative responses I would see a live demonstration of the hells in me. I started to see what took place if the hells didn't operate through me. I saw the child and I could pick up the dropped glass, and be with the child. I could observe the tender emotions going on in him - his own concern, his own frustration, his own fear - and this would make a definite real change in my relationship to my family and others. This could only take place through what Gurdjieff calls, "the Work," i.e., work on oneself.

Why do we have to work on ourselves?

Because, as discussed in many places, we are born with ties to the hells in the lower portions of our natural mind (see Section xx). These ties do not damn us to hell and for which we need forgiveness to go to heaven, as some people have expressed it. God forgives even before we commit the sin, as revealed in the Writings. It is not God's lack of forgiveness that keeps us from heaven. We keep ourselves from heaven, which is in the mind of every human being, freely available at any time we should want it. God cannot compel us to raise ourselves to the heavens in our mind, for if He did, we would arrive there and see nothing and feel agony or death. This is because our life is in hell, though we may not know it or believe it when told. If you remove our ties to the hells, we have no emotions left, as long as most of our life is in negative emotions. And that happens to be the case for everyone born today on this earth.

This is then the reason that we are required to work on ourselves so that we ourselves freely come to choose heavenly loves and are willing to abandon all hellish enjoyments. Then we can have a life left in heaven where we can be conjugially happy to eternity. It is not God who prevents entry to our own heaven in the mind. We prevent ourselves by being unwilling to give up negative emotions we love from heredity.

Note carefully: If we end up in hell we are not being punished by God for misdeeds. Rather, we confirm the hells in us that we have from heredity. It is this confirmation in ourselves that sends us to hell and keeps us there forever. We go with the life of the emotions. If we hold on to bad emotions, that is our life, our only life, and therefore we keep ourselves in hell. The cause of going to hell is this holding on to the bad emotions.

This "holding on" is the grip of hell that we try to break as we work on ourselves.

The hell grips us not from its own power, remember that. Nothing has power but God. But God cooperates--within limits-- with the intentions of human beings. These limits are discussed in connection with the Laws of Divine Providence and Permissions (see xx). Within these limits everyone has the impression that they are acting from themselves with their own power. This as-of self impression is carefully maintained in place by God (see Section xx). It is required that we exercise this as-of self initiative and effort, or else we cannot appropriate the heavenly loves which constitute our very life in conjugial eternity.

The Writings reveal the process by which we appropriate to ourselves either hellish or heavenly ties. We are born from inheritance with ties to evils, but we also have the capacity to establish new ties with the heavens. The ties to the hells are in the lower portion of the natural mind called corporeal and sensuous, while the ties to the heavens are in the upper portion of the natural mind called "rational and spiritual" (see Section xx). We confirm the ties to the hells when we make the negative feelings our own. We make the feelings our own when we identify with them as our own, when we believe that they are our own and we love them and freely choose them. We experience the hells through our senses and mental justifications of them. We experience the heavens through our rational doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture. If we understand them and then love them by doing them, then we are appropriating the good traits. We are being prepared for heaven in immortality.

We cannot suppress our hellish emotions, feelings, and thoughts, but we can refuse to identify with them as our own.

The Writings explain that God has the power to suppress our hellish emotions and feelings, but if He did this He would remove our freedom to choose, and therefore, our ability to appropriate the heavenly traits we need for conjugial  immortality. God must therefore wait for our cooperation and willingness. This is the work we must do to regenerate our character.

Continuing with the Peter Rhodes interview:

I remember one particular incident with my son. It was sort of like waking up for the first time, or coming out of water and seeing clearly through the air. I could see how young and how tender he was. He was just about to be very injured by emotions in me, and I could see very clearly that the hells were going to come out and interfere with my relationship with him, my love and concern for him. I could see what Gurdjieff says is the horror of the situation. Swedenborg talks about this a great deal. He says if you could see things the way they really are you would be horrified. I started to see that things that I took as natural (it's natural to get angry, frustrated, etc.) are not natural. They are things the Lord has been telling us about. He really wishes His kingdom to come on earth, and He wishes His children to be raised by people who are open to His leading. But it takes a lot of conscious effort and work and it takes the understanding that we can only get from Revelation, or what Gurdjieff calls "higher influences." These things are not gained from natural reason but have to be explained to us by doctrine.

Peter Rhodes talks about his rational consciousness of God through "the understanding that we can only get from Revelation, " referring the Writings of Swedenborg. It is the doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture that has the power to fight our own self-destructive tendencies that are made super-strong in us by heredity. It takes "a lot of conscious effort and work" to use our doctrine as a weapon of victory over our temptations. We would be horrified were we allowed to see our real character or proprium. Our Divine Psychologist prevents us from seeing ourselves as we are in order to protect us from a horror we cannot deal with.

6.0.5.4.1  The Ugliness of the Proprium or What Is Our Own

Swedenborg, after special preparation and protection, was allowed to observe the human proprium, and he provides these descriptions:

Man's proprium when viewed from heaven looks just like something bony, lifeless, and utterly misshapen, and so in itself something dead. But once it has received life from the Lord it appears as something having flesh. For man's proprium is something altogether dead, though it has the appearance to him of being something; indeed it appears to be everything. (AC 149)

Nothing evil or false can possibly exist that is not the proprium or derived from the proprium. For man's proprium is evil itself, which means that man is nothing but evil and falsity. This has become clear to me from the fact that when the contents of the proprium are presented to view in the world of spirits they look so ugly that nobody can paint any uglier picture. (Those contents vary however according to the nature of the proprium.) As a result when anyone is offered a glimpse of the contents of his proprium he is horrified at himself and wishes to run as though from the devil.

On the other hand contents of the proprium which have been given life by the Lord look beautiful and attractive, varying according to the life to which a celestial quality that is the Lord's can be added. Indeed people who have received charity, that is, been made alive by it, look like boys and girls with very attractive faces. And people who have received innocence look like naked small children adorned in different ways with garlands of flowers twined around their breasts, and precious stones in their hair, living and playing in brightest light, with a sense of happiness stemming from the depths of their being. (AC 154)

What is the proprium? The human proprium consists of everything evil and false that gushes out of self-love and love of the world. It involves people believing not in the Lord or in the Word but in themselves, and their imagining that what they do not grasp through sensory evidence or through facts does not exist at all. They become as a consequence nothing but evil and falsity and so have a warped view of everything. Things that are evil they see as good, and those that are good as evil; things that are false they see as true, and those that are true as false. Realities they imagine to be nothing, and things that are nothing they imagine to be everything. They call hatred love, thick darkness light, death life, and vice versa. In the Word such people are called 'the lame and the blind'. This then is the human proprium which in itself is hellish and condemned.  (AC 210)

What a devastating description of the human proprium or hereditary self. There are those who believe that the human psyche is innocent, beautiful, and godly, for instance the well known French Renaissance educator J. J. Rousseau. His followers today may have here a contrastive view from scientific revelation. Through many generations our race has cumulated countless traits under the influence of the hells, all of them collected in each generation, and increasing. That's why it says that "The human proprium consists of everything evil and false that gushes out of self-love and love of the world."

The most damaging feature of the Fallen human proprium on this earth is that it hides from us the true ugliness and wickedness in which it is immersed. It triggers our negative emotions from a distance, behind us, so that we do not suspect the ugliness of the source of our enjoyments. It is like kissing a stranger at a dance in a dimly lit room, or outdoors at night in moonlight. When the lights are turned on you are horrified to see you've been kissing and enjoying a horrible pussy human-frog with wild eyes like coal and full of inhuman hatred like an alien in a bad sci-fi movie.

That's what self love is. We love to kiss the drippy alien demon without taking a look at the ugliness and scariness of it. The repulsive appearance of the human proprium, or self, is merely a reflection of the inhuman affections and insane thoughts that are in our mind from heredity. Divine Speech speaking to us in the natural mind says this about us: "The human proprium consists of everything evil and false that gushes out of self-love and love of the world" But it's not really about us. This is what provides an exit from our inherited loves. These evil loves for self and world, this hatred for the good, the true, and the rational, is not ours, and is not truly human. Our true humanity is the good, the true, and the rational.

The problem therefore is that we think that the evil loves we enjoy are ours.

Our defeat is to be unwilling to hear the message of Sacred Scripture that informs uf of the true reality: These evil loves are not our own. Self-love is not our own. The self feels like what we have that's most our own. This is why it's called the proprium--the Latin word for "own" or "very own."

A useful way of thinking about it is that we are under a spell or in a dream. The ancients Swedenborg talked to in the spiritual world described our situation on earth as "darkness" and "utter darkness." This is also the expression used in all Sacred Scripture. The solution is to wake up. And a method for waking up has been provided for all people through philosophy, science, theology, religion, and truth seeking. These are all rational activities leading to dualism, which is the acknowledgment that there is God and immortality of the mind. Dualism is the wake up call.

When we enlarge our ability to think rationally about Sacred Scripture, we are acquiring new concepts, or new meanings, which elevate our consciousness above the appearances of materialism.

Materialism in its modern form is enforced today in science and education by the negative bias (see Chapter 1). Through this self-enforced censorship the scientific professions are fostering materialistic views on the self, the mind, death. This learned attitude strengthens the grip on the illusion of the self, that is, keeps us thinking that the self is our own, our very own. But dualism breaks this grip because it helps us to see that this feeling of "my" love, "my" thing, "my" wants, "my" happiness, my etc.--is a falsity of belief, and by believing it, we put ourselves in a sleep which is preventing us from preparing for our immortality. And you know the consequences of that (see Section xx).

We elevate our consciousness by means of correspondences to Divine Speech (see Section xx). God has created human beings so that they can be raised to immortality in conjugial heaven. This required that we be born on a physical earth until we acquire a heavenly proprium, at which point we transition permanently into the conjugial  heavenly state of eternity. This idea of the afterlife is dismissed by many people, indicating their materialism or sometimes, lack of specific knowledge. And though this idea of the afterlife was known since the earliest generations on earth, its scientific basis was never established--until the scientific revelations in the Writings of Swedenborg (1768-1772).

Swedenborg interviewed these people in their immortal heavens. His observations prove that the idea of the afterlife known to the ancients, is accurate and verifiable. In fact anyone can verify it, once we are resuscitated (see Section xx). Sacred Scripture as we know it here on earth, are natural and spiritual correspondences of Divine Speech. As we study Sacred Scripture using the methods of theistic psychology we extract the correspondential meaning of Divine Speech. In other words, we are given a new rational insight on the meaning of the natural correspondences of the literal text.  This new understanding is carried by spiritual-rational correspondences of Divine Speech (see Section xx). And our consciousness can be elevated to the highest heaven by being given the rational insight of a still higher-level of meaning called celestial-rational correspondences.

I underlined the phrase "we are given" to highlight the idea that this process is not in our own control.

Our Divine Psychologist is in charge of every step. Of course God would love to elevate everybody's mind to the highest heavenly potential of each individual. He would love to because He is pure Love and Love cannot do any other way. What stops Him is Truth or Wisdom or rationality, just as our parenting principles stop us from giving in to the impulse of love and stop disciplining our children.  God cannot take anyone to heaven, cannot raise anyone's consciousness to that state of mind--except by the individual's willingness to love a heavenly proprium.

It's a rational necessity of creation. We must love the heaven we are taken to, or into which we are created--or else we do not feel free. We would feel in a prison to be forced into the heavenly state of our mind. We would feel controlled like a zombie, lose all joy of life and endeavor. Therefore God's Divine Love cannot save us from staying in hell--unless we are willing to love the heavenly proprium God creates in us by which we can be free and happy in our immortality.

The key issue for personality theory in theistic psychology is therefore this: How do we develop the practical skills human beings need to acquire a heavenly proprium that we can love to eternity.

Divine Speech gives us the knowledge. It is not possible to discover this by self-observation or observation of others. It must come to us by scientific revelations from Divine Speech. Human beings were created in that relationship to Divine Speech. There is an "online" relationship between our rational mind and the Divine Human through Divine Speech. Through Divine Speech we have access to correspondences of higher and higher levels, as discussed throughout theistic psychology. And through correspondences we can elevate our rational consciousness of God to our heavenly mind, where we can spend our immortality.

Let's examine some of these statements of Divine Speech, through its natural-rational correspondences, the level at which we are studying theistic psychology.

As has been stated, man's proprium is nothing but evil, and when presented to view is terribly ugly; but when charity and innocence are instilled into the proprium by the Lord it looks fine and attractive, as stated in 154. The charity and innocence not only excuse the proprium, that is, a person's evil and falsity, but also virtually do away with it, as anyone may see in the case of young children. When they love one another and their parents, and at the same time a childlike innocence is evident, evil and false traits at such times not only go unnoticed but are even pleasing. From this it can be seen that nobody is allowed into heaven unless he has some measure of innocence in him, as the Lord said,

Let the young children come to Me and do not hinder them; of such is the kingdom of God. Truly I say to you, Whoever has not received the kingdom of God like a young child will not enter into it. Taking them up therefore into His arms, He laid His hands upon them, and blessed them. Mark 10:14-16.

 (AC 164)

In other words, when we stop believing the illusion that our inherited proprium is our very own, we are given a new proprium that is beautiful in appearance because it is made of heavenly loves. This new proprium is the Divine Human Proprium of God which appears to us just as "our very own" as the former proprium. Swedenborg confirms that the people he interviewed in their highest heavenly states, are able to actually perceive the influx of the Divine Human Proprium, love by love, and thought by thought. And despite this perception, and knowledge, they still experience it as their own proprium.

Countless things can be said about the proprium - about what the proprium is like in the case of the bodily-minded and worldly man, what it is like in the case of the spiritual man, and what in the case of the celestial man. With the bodily-minded and worldly man the proprium is his all. He is unaware of anything else but the proprium. And, as has been stated, if he were to lose his proprium he would think that he was dying.

With the spiritual man the proprium takes on a similar appearance, for although he knows that the Lord is the life of all, and that He confers wisdom and intelligence, and consequently the ability to think and to act, it is more a matter of something he says and not so much something he believes.

The celestial man however acknowledges that the Lord is the life of all, who confers the ability to think and act, because he perceives that this is so. Nor does he ever desire the proprium. Nevertheless even though he does not desire it the Lord grants him a proprium which is joined to him with a complete perception of what is good and true, and with complete happiness. Angels possess a proprium such as this, and at the same time utmost peace and tranquility, for their proprium has within it things that are the Lord's, who is governing their proprium, that is, governing them by means of their proprium. This proprium is utterly heavenly, whereas the proprium of the bodily-minded man is hellish. But more about the proprium further on. (AC 141)

The above passage describes the three stages of spiritual growth everyone can go through. Each stage of growth is characterized by the content of the proprium, which means, the level of its affective and cognitive operations. Our first state of rationality is natural and materialistic, and referred to above as the "bodily-minded and worldly man." In this state of negative bias we are "unaware of anything else but the proprium." But in the next stage of spiritual growth, called the "spiritual man," we acquire dualist concepts and begin to understand rationally what God is and how His omnipotence requires the management of every detail in our thinking and feeling. But at this stage, this knowledge is "more a matter of something he says and not so much something he believes." I noted students of theistic psychology who wrote accurate reports on its concepts, yet at the end state that the "still do not believe." (See Reading List, Part 2).

The next stage of spiritual growth is called the "celestial man" in which we begin to actually perceive in a sensuous manner, the influx into the heavenly proprium of the Divine Human loves and truths. This is no longer an issue of believing Divine Speech, but of perceiving it. This heavenly proprium turns us into Angels, "for their proprium has within it things that are the Lord's, who is governing their proprium, that is, governing them by means of their proprium." It is the Divine Human's Proprium that governs their thoughts and feelings, and this puts them in a state of "utmost peace and tranquility" to eternity in conjugial happiness.

The state of a person when caught up in the proprium, that is, when he imagines that he lives from himself, is compared to a deep sleep. Indeed the ancients actually called it 'a deep sleep' while the Word speaks of people having 'the spirit of deep sleep poured out on them, [Isaiah 29:10] and of their sleeping a perpetual sleep. [Jeremiah 51:57 ] The fact that man's proprium is in itself dead, that is, that nobody possesses any life from himself, has been demonstrated in the world of spirits so completely that evil spirits who love nothing except the proprium, and insist stubbornly that they do live from themselves, have been convinced by means of living experience, and have admitted that they do not live from themselves. With regard to the human proprium I have for several years now been given a unique opportunity to know about it - in particular that not a trace of my thinking began in myself. I have also been allowed to perceive clearly that every idea constituting my thought flowed in [from somewhere], and sometimes how it flowed in, and where from. Consequently anyone who imagines that he lives from himself is in error. And in believing that he does live from himself he takes to himself everything evil and false, which he would never do if what he believed and what is actually the case were in agreement.  (AC 150)

What must we do to exchange our inherited evil proprium for a new heavenly proprium? The first stage of our effort must be self-witnessing (see Section xx). Theistic psychology makes self-witnessing an essential first step in regeneration. This idea is addressed by Peter Rhodes in the continuation of his interview discussed above:

Gurdjieff's teaching is that we always turn around and observe and work on our own response and not on the neighbor or "apparent cause." Observing our response does not necessarily change our response. He stresses that for years all we can do is observe our proprial response. It's not that by observing, you respond differently at once. It can, on the other hand, make it obvious to us that the hells through our proprium are in charge. He calls it being mechanical. Swedenborg tells us that we are servants to the hells, that our spirit may be in hell and may be captive.

Through observing these things objectively a transformation starts to take place. It's like a new skier - he may get upset when he falls, but if he can realize that falling gives him the same amount of information as not falling - then he can learn. But if he gets angry and frustrated at not being a good skier, then it's going to take a longer time for him to become a good skier. So the first thing we observe is that we derive our life through our proprium and love of self and of the world. We respond to other people by reacting in anger, etc. Observing these things starts to bring about change.

If you immediately observe your response to a person, you will have a picture of your place in the spiritual world. This will show you your level of being, giving you some idea of what loves are operating within you, so you can see where you are, compared to where you wish to be. Before observing their reaction, people believe that another person running into their car causes their anger, and that their anger is justified. At that point, according to Gurdjieff, you are "asleep." You're not even free to work because you don't even know what work is. Observation just brings you to the point of choice where you may wish to work or change your "level of being." (Peter Rhodes interview posted at:  www.newchurch.org/youngadults/AIM/appendix%20etc..htm )

Self-witnessing is an objective technique for mapping out the spiritual societies to which we are connected all day long. Rhodes says that "If you immediately observe your response to a person, you will have a picture of your place in the spiritual world." This is because the content of our proprium is not ours but only feels like ours. The contents actually belong to the societies of hell that are brought into connection with our mind (see Section xx). As discussed above, we identify with the loves coming into us from the vertical community, and consider these loves as our own rather than theirs. As a result, we are unwilling to let go of these loves, believing that if we do, we would lose all life and happiness.

An example is the button myth that I discuss in my book on "aggressive driving"  (see Reading List). Drivers often justify their aggressive behavior by saying that it's the other driver that's to blame because "he pushed my button." This is a trick that allows us to give ourselves permission to act aggressively. We don't have such a button. This is an example of "being asleep" in your proprium. You believe the illusion that the anger and desire for retaliation is your own, so you defend it as your own, as something you want to justify and hang on to. You think that it is right and good for you to be angry, given the circumstances. In that state of mind, as pointed out in the quote above, "You're not even free to work because you don't even know what work is."

"Work" means that you don't swim downward with the stream of you proprial loves. You don't accept them as your own. You are able to think that the anger is not yours. Whose is it? If you move into dualism as method of understanding reality, then you know that the anger is from the hells. Once you make this new identification, you are given the power to dissociate yourself from the hells, whereupon you experience a sudden and complete cessation of the anger, rage, resentment, and desire for revenge.

In the quote above it is said that Gurdijef "stresses that for years all we can do is observe our proprial response." But his experience is not based on the most effective method of emotional control since he does not make use of the doctrine of truth based on Sacred Scripture. In theistic psychology we can expect immediate results with the emotions that we reject as belonging to hell. After all it is God who actually disconnects us from the hell societies. We have no power to do that on our own. All that is required is that we have the desire to be rid of this particular negative emotion for the sake of our heavenly proprium.

I underline the phrase "for the sake of our heavenly proprium" because no other motive will work.

The reason is that this is the highest of all rational loves we can have here on earth.

Our loves in the affective organ of the mind are arranged in a hierarchy of operation from highest to lowest. The top ranking love is called the "ruling love" and also "lord" ( with a small "l"). Our loves are "lords" to us because we obey them. This is our apparent happiness while we are growing up. We are happy when we can do what we want, what we feel like doing, and we are unhappy and depressed otherwise. Our ruling love is "lord" because all our other loves are in obedience to the ruling love.

We may not be able to identify our ruling love until later in our regeneration, but we can identify the upper hierarchy of loves, among them our ruling love, by self-witnessing our thoughts and emotions all day every day. Our mind is created structurally to allow the upper region to see what's going on in the its lower region. This allows for self-monitoring and self-editing, which helps achieve expertise in skills, including the skill of thinking rationally, so essential for understanding Sacred Scripture and Divine Speech.

What do you think about a lot, more than other things? It's not enough to set up a list like this one: Money, sex, God, reputation, marriage, children, etc. These are broad topics within which one can do either heavenly or hellish things. You have to observe your record of thoughts, or be a witness to them while they are happening. If you're thinking about money or sex or children, in what way are you involved--selfishly or altruistically. Everybody must answer this question objectively, which means from actual self-observation of one's thoughts.

Of course not this: the self-witnessing can be done for a number of reasons or motives, but only one motive will actually be able to overcome the ruling loves--the motive to prepare our heavenly proprium. Why? Because this is the highest affective operation in the natural mind. It is built in that way. So we must go to the top motive we are given to oppose our hellish loves if we are going to succeed. A higher love trumps a lower love.

Peter Rhodes, a Swedenborgian psychologist who uses some of Gurdijef's techniques, describes his understanding of the process of evolving our heavenly proprium, as follows:

The beginning is that through observation one starts to see the real nature of feelings and of his thoughts. Then comes an awareness that they are not in fact good but evil. Through observing, we come to the possibility of not expressing what we observe. What Gurdjieff says is that it becomes possible to not identify with it and not to respond from it. We think evil, we feel evil, but we refuse to do it. Once we recognize it for what it is, and refuse to do it, then we are available to higher influences, heaven can begin to flow into us. We must first empty the cup before it can be filled with something.

Gurdjieff talks about how to participate in the process of becoming nothing. (Swedenborg tells us that of ourselves we are nothing.) We start to sacrifice our moods, our mechanical or proprial responses. For instance, if we are so wrapped up in love of self that we have envy of the neighbor, or hate, or irritation, or contempt, then we certainly couldn't feel love for the neighbor, or have what Gurdjieff calls "external consideration." But if we feel contempt and see that it's within, that it has nothing to do with the neighbor, and refuse to go along with that feeling, then at that time we may be able to feel for the first time some compassion, some love, some joy in relation to the neighbor. So Gurdjieff is really talking about the first process, which is emptying the cup. Then positive emotions become possible for the first time.

There's a long process and many techniques and exercises that Gurdjieff talks about. But it all comes down to the same thing, which is to give up one's own will, and to do so actively through conscious effort and attention. Then we become available to an influx from something higher. We make a place for heaven to enter. (ibid)

So this is the key technique that can be effective for us: "We think evil, we feel evil, but we refuse to do it. Once we recognize it for what it is, and refuse to do it, then we are available to higher influences, heaven can begin to flow into us." In other words, heaven moves in where hell moves out. Note that merely observing our faults or evils is not a motivation to suppress them. Our self-witnessing must have a spiritual purpose, which means that we are to apply the doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture. What makes self-witnessing spiritual is the use of a heavenly tool to assess our inherited loves. Without this basis in theistic psychology our self-observation is useless because the assessment is then done from self, not from Divine Speech or God. When we judge from self we see what is good as evil and what is evil as good. Likewise, we think falsity and call it good, and we hear or read truth, can call it falsity. Clearly, we do not judge objectively but in a biased way to favor ourselves.

Dr. Rhodes summarizes the process: "But it all comes down to the same thing, which is to give up one's own will, and to do so actively through conscious effort and attention. Then we become available to an influx from something higher. We make a place for heaven to enter." We must "give up one's own will" which means the inherited proprium. But can we give it up?

Yes or No, depending on the motive.

As already discussed, a higher motive trumps a lower one, so we must have the highest heavenly motive on earth to trump the highest hellish motives we have from inheritance. Swedenborg confirms this by observation in the world of spirits where people from all the earths in the universe are resuscitated. People undergo a series of intense experiences in which they are compelled to give up their external veneer of loves that activated their social personality. The top dog of our loves then takes over, or else, the top angel. We then become either infernal or angelic for the rest of our immortality (see Section xx). This point is called the second death. Swedenborg confirmed by observation what was revealed to him from Divine Speech, that the motive to prepare for heaven is the only one that can overcomes the infernal ruling love. One may have been a kind and honest person, but for a selfish motive. For instance, for wanting to be most praised, or for having a higher status in heaven so others could admire them and serve them. We can be a seemingly good person on earth yet be motivated by hidden loves that turn out to be raging and insane when liberated in the world of spirits after resuscitation.

It is interesting to reflect upon the fact that Gurdijef did not make use of this highest heavenly motive in a specific way, thought it is being said about him that he was somewhat familiar with the Writings of Swedenborg. It seems to me that what Peter Rhodes is doing as a Swedenborgian psychologist, is to translate Gurdijef's less explicit approach into Swedenborg's more explicit approach, with which he is also very familiar. In other words, he "reads into" Gurdijef what isn't actually there. Nevertheless, Gurdijef's methods of self-observation and daily exercises to do may be of use to theistic psychology as long as the spiritual motive is applied in each exercise specifically, not just globally. Spiritual motive in theistic psychology is always specified as the doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture. Any other definition such as that given by Gurdijef and others is thus a different meaning of spiritual, not suitable for the purposes of theistic psychology. We know this from the Writings which frequently specify this rule (see Section xx).

 Here is an example of how Rhodes takes something from Gurdijef and embeds it in the context of Swedenborg:

Revelation teaches us that regeneration is a gradual process. The frustration and irritation at not becoming immediately a new person is really the impatience of the hells, our love of our own understanding, because we tend to think we can regenerate ourself. This is impossible. In the beginning all we can do is observe the hells in us, and refuse to go along with them. This is the process by which we are being made new by the Lord. Non-critical Self- observation is extremely hard to do, because we tend to identify with those things we observe. The Writings call it attributing them to ourselves. Gurdjieff explains the conscious process of drawing our feelings out of what we observe and how that starts to bring about change. It's much easier to teach people who are willing to learn from any response they get. I think that's true even in the process of transformation, repentance or regeneration. (ibid)

Here he takes this non-theistic idea from Gurdijef: "the conscious process of drawing our feelings out of what we observe and how that starts to bring about change." Then he supplies the theistic motive from Swedenborg: "frustration and irritation at not becoming immediately a new person is really the impatience of the hells" and "This is the process by which we are being made new by the Lord."

Here is another clear example:

Fortunately we don't have to regenerate all the way in order to have the process take place in relation to one particular state. Often Gurdjieff talks about big angels and big devils, and little angels and little devils. There are states, or what he would call "mechanical" reactions, that we refuse to respond to and thoughts that we refuse to think and emotions that we refuse to identify with and with which we struggle. Over time - and time varies, depending on the size of the state you're dealing with - you start to feel less and less identified with these thoughts and emotions. You start to feel a distance from what you are resisting. Then separation takes place; the hells may rage but the feeling of who you are is separated from those hells. There begins to be a tranquility in regard to that particular state, and a freedom that you realize was brought about only by something that is higher than yourself. You know the Lord is doing it, and that tranquility in regard to that particular evil encourages you to continue working on other evils. You may see the storm raging, even be surrounded by its fury, but you may still feel peace. A friend gave me a pillow with the words on it "Serenity is not peace from the storm, it is peace amid the storm." There's a peaceful place, a safe harbor available to us at all times, if we really want it. It's where the Lord dwells. (ibid)

Here Rhodes takes this idea from Gurdijef: "Often Gurdjieff talks about big angels and big devils, and little angels and little devils. There are states, or what he would call "mechanical" reactions, that we refuse to respond to and thoughts that we refuse to think and emotions that we refuse to identify with and with which we struggle." You should be aware that Gurdijef's use of "devils" and "angels" is metaphorical and refers to our mental states. He doesn't talk about heaven and hell as an actual place for the afterlife, though he could have known about this from reading Swedenborg. But obviously he did not take the Writings literally, thus like Emerson and others, assuming that Swedenborg merely talked this way to get his philosophical insights across.

To make up for this lack, Rhodes supplies to it the context from the Writings: "Then separation takes place; the hells may rage but the feeling of who you are is separated from those hells" and "You know the Lord is doing it...There's a peaceful place, a safe harbor available to us at all times...It's where the Lord dwells."

Theistic psychology has two branches of research--extractive and predictive (see Section xx). Extractive research refers to "extracting" knowledge from the Old Testament, New Testament, and the Writings of Swedenborg. Predictive research refers to a theory we construct from our knowledge of theistic psychology, which then needs to be confirmed by showing passages in Sacred Scripture that are consistent with the theory. We can consider the research of Peter Rhodes about Gurdijef as predictive research in theistic psychology since he always confirms  a Gurdijef concept by contextualizing it in a Swedenborgian environment, as shown above. Other instances of predictive research may be seen throughout this book (see section xx).

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

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

2. biological theology  (see Section xx)

3. doctrine of the wife (see Section xx)

4. dual citizenship  (see Section xx)

5. ennead matrix for predictive research (see Section xx)

6. extractive and predictive research (see Section xx)

7. genes of consciousness  (see Section xx)

8. genetic culture  (see Section xx)

9. graphic differential  (see Section xx)

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

11. hexagram of development (see Section xx)

12. positive bias (see Section xx)

13. professionalized self (see Section 5.4.1.2)

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

15. religious behaviorism (see Section xx)

16. scientific meaning of the Writings (see Section xx)

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

18. self-witnessing method (see Section xx)

19. spiritual geography (see Section xx)

20. spiritual geography = mental anatomy

21. spiritual literacy skills (see Section xx)

22. spiritual psychobiology (see Section xx)

23. standardized imaginings (see Section xx)

24. substantive (scientific) dualism  (see Section xx)

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

26. taxonomy of the daily round (see Section 5.4.1.2)

27. theistic psychology (science) (see Section xx)

28. threefold self (see Section xx)

29. trigram of meaning (see Section xx)

30. vertical community (see Section xx)

31. and some others (see Section 5.0)

Whatever is not confirmable by Sacred Scripture id not part of theistic psychology. A new concept or new formulation from predictive research, must be concordant and consistent with extractive research already known. Furthermore, only that kind of predictive research is of interest which is known not to be in opposition to anything already known in extractive research. When someone proposes a new principle or idea it is automatically evaluated as we read it--is there anything in this proposed idea that is contrary to what I already know from Sacred Scripture or theistic psychology?

Sometimes a proposed new theory may be essentially in agreement with extractive research, but may contain some elements that appear not to be. A scientific evaluation of them by others is then called for. Let those who see the discrepancy prove it by extractive research. If there is reasoned agreement by several independent researchers that there is or there isn't inconsistency, the matter will be settled by this evidence.

See also Section 5.0 on Predictive Research.

6.0.6  The Birth of the Self in Infants

Self-consciousness begins in the newborn infant when the child notices the will in action. The child might see its hand move across the field of vision. It is moving the hand but the child is not conscious of that. At first, the hand is just another moving object in the world. But the infant has an innate tendency to grasp things in view, and with this effort comes the perception of one's own effort leading to some external event. The will in action is the hand moving according to one's desire. When the infant notices the correlation between inner desire and outer action, the self is born.

But this is merely a sensorimotor self, a corporeal mind that is hardly above the physical body itself. This self must grow into its next phase in order to become a proprium or self-concept. This next phase requires another human will. The child's will has to clash with another human will, and when this is noticed, the true proprium is born. For example, the mother removes an object the child is holding. The child holds on and resists, but the mother is stronger and takes the object away. Now the child has a reaction. This reaction, when noticed by the child, gives birth to the true proprium. The child's will against the mother's will creates a clash of wills. When this is noticed the child has new view, a new perspective, and a new orientation to life. This is the beginning of the child's humanness.

The human child now begins life as an oscillating experience of heaven and hell. Infants love many things since they are born with hereditary loves in the mind. They love to grasp things and put them in the mouth, as everyone knows who has had a child or has taken care of other people's infants. They love many sensations of touch and taste. The love visual puzzles at their level of noticing. They love being held and spoken to tenderly. These loves are not learned. They come wired in the mental organ. Their heaven is the delight of receiving the mother's approval. Their hell is to receive the mother's disapproval or clash of wills.

When there is a clash of wills heaven suddenly disappears and hell is around. The parent or care taker becomes a punisher and looks scary and disapproving. The child wants to play and stay up; the parent wants the child to go to sleep. The parent wants the child to eat; the child doesn't want to swallow. And so on. The presence of hell is now evident. The child is in its hell quite visibly. It contorts its face, it screams, it cries, it throws itself violently to the floor, it refuses to be consoled, it is filled with a kind of infantile hatred, that is just a forerunner of the hatred later that leads the child into being bad and horrible. Then this hellish phase dies and the child is willing to be comforted. Heaven returns, for awhile.

This alternating cycle between clashing wills and harmonious wills, produces the mature self.

The child grows mentally in knowledge and intelligence. At every step of this activity there are clashes between its will and the will of authority. Soon the child learns about God's will. And this takes the self to its fully mature phase. The concept of God is that of a parent who is always there, sees everything that you think and do. This concept opens the beginnings of rationality.

For instance, moral reasoning develops when the child thinks as follows: "I want to play with those scissors. Mommy doesn't want me to. She punishes me when she sees me playing with it. I won't play with it." This is the lowest stage of moral reasoning. Obedience or compliance depends on external surveillance. Drivers don't break the speed limit when there is a police car behind them. People don't steal something in front of a surveillance camera, if they know it's there. But as soon as Mommy's eyes are outside the room, I can play with the scissors. Or, when I am allowed to visit overnight with my friend, I can stay up all night and even do forbidden things like sex.

With the concept of God being there all the time, our moral reasoning has to become more rational, more self-motivated. With God, there is no time out. If I plan something forbidden, God knows it. If I enjoy something I should stop, god is there to witness it. It is customary with most religious instruction to emphasize that God rewards and punishes (or disapproves of) both overt deeds that are bad and thoughts or feelings that are bad. There is therefore established in the mind a constant clash of the wills between self and God. The self always wants what God always forbids. Our reaction to this is one of frustration and displeasure. We become more and more aware of what we want that we cannot have, of what we want to do that we must not.

The essence or life of our own proprium or self is therefore rebellion to God's Proprium.

Quoting from the Writings on the character of the human proprium or one's own self:

What man's Own is may be stated in this way. Man's Own is all the evil and falsity that springs from the love of self and of the world, and from not believing in the Lord or the Word but in self, and from supposing that what cannot be apprehended sensuously and by means of memory-knowledge [sensualiter et scientifice] is nothing. In this way men become mere evil and falsity, and therefore regard all things pervertedly; things that are evil they see as good, and things that are good as evil; things that are false they see as true, and things that are true as false; things that really exist they suppose to be nothing, and things that are nothing they suppose to be everything. They call hatred love, darkness light, death life, and the converse. In the Word, such men are called the "lame" and the "blind." Such then is the Own of man, which in itself is infernal and accursed. (AC 210)

In other words, our "self" is limited to the material aspects of our life. The self is a materialistically oriented agent, to whom physical things appear real and solid, while mental things appear unreal and ghostlike. When the self hears about the existence of God, it rejects the idea as something mental and hypothetical, of little consequence and importance in comparison to concrete things like food, money, pleasure, or power that get you things. The self finds God an inconvenient clashing agent, seeing God as a threat to the self's security and comfort.

When infants oscillate into the heavenly phase they learn the existence of heavenly feelings and delights. These experiences are produced in the infant through the presence of celestial angels. As long as the infant allows it, the angels stay. But when the infant is readied to go into the hellish phase, the angels withdraw somewhat and allow the approach of the evil spirits. Now the hellish traits that have been inherited are set into action, enflamed by the passion of the evil spirits for bad things--rebellion against the good, disbelief of the truth, delight in deceit, violent acts of destructiveness, refusal to be rational, enjoyment of the forbidden, insistence on resentment and anger, etc.

6.0.7  The Self in Childhood and Adolescence

Since the self grows as an oppositional agent to parent and God, the human proprium derives its life or content from the hells. When the self is told that it must love parents and God, it develops self-love instead. Self-love is the opposite of love of parent and God. Self-love is the actual proprium that is evil. The evil in self-love is the irrational insistence that the life we have is our own and from our self. This insistence rests on irreality, which is nothing but an appearance or delusional belief obtained when one opposes and denies truth or reality. Swedenborg reports seeing a hall in the spiritual world in which was a long table with many chairs. People would walk in, sit on an empty chair, and place on the table a few nuggets of gold. When all the chairs were filled, the doors were closed and the people sitting there were left to their phantasies of riches. Every person there fantasized that they owned all the gold they could see on the long table. This made them deliriously happy. Afterwards they left, taking their few nuggets with them, and reported that they felt revived and content. This happiness would last for awhile, and then they had to return to the room or feel miserable.

What is this kind of happiness based on? Irreality. Fantasy and delusion. It is a poor form of human happiness that is temporary and full of limitation in comparison to the happiness of reality in heaven where all things are possible that are truly good, lasting, and meaningful.

Quoting from the Writings Sacred Scripture:

HH 344. From the things stated, it can be confirmed what the education of little children is in heaven, namely, that it is leading them by means of an understanding of truth and the wisdom of good into the angelic life, which is love to the Lord and mutual love, in which is innocence. But how different in many cases is the education of little children on the earth can be seen from this example. I was in the street of a large city, and saw little boys fighting with each other; a crowd flocked around and looked on with much pleasure; and I was told that little boys are incited to such fights by their own parents. Good spirits and angels who saw this through my eyes were so revolted at it that I felt their horror, and especially that parents should incite their children to such things, saying that in this way parents extinguish in the earliest age all the mutual love and all the innocence that little children have from the Lord, and initiate them into hatred and revenge. Consequently, by their own endeavours they shut their children out of heaven, where there is nothing but mutual love. Let parents therefore who wish well to their children beware of such things. (HH 344)

The proprium of a child is marked by a sharp ambivalence. Children and adolescents experience swings between being in heaven and being in hell. They develop the natural belief system that they have two selves, one good and the other evil or rebellious. They alternate between these two states. They feel that they are the owners of both the good self and the evil self. They see themselves as ambivalent or dual. Both the good self and the hellish self feel like their own. It is extremely dangerous to believe that the evil we enjoy, think and do, is our own. The evil we enjoy is not on our evil but the evil of those who are in hell and are in an influencing relationship on our mental operations (see "vertical community" in Chapter xx).

We are not in hell while we are on earth tied to our physical body. We could end up in heaven or in hell, but we still have the option of going either way. As long as we don't appropriate the evil we enjoy we are kept in a state of mental balance. This balance is what gives us freedom to choose. We can then proceed with our rebirth and regeneration (see Section xx) and the Divine Psychologist maintains the balance for us. But as soon as we appropriate the evil enjoyments to ourselves as our own, our very own, originating in ourselves and being part of ourselves, then the balance is destroyed. As a result, we are not free to choose between good and evil since we believe that the evil is already ours. It's not a matter of choice but of fact. So we believe and so we think.

It is also dangerous to attribute to ourselves the good we enjoy and think. If we believe that the good and truth we have is our own we have no choice but to believe that we are good. This belief is called "meritoriousness," In the Christian religion this is known as a fundamental sin that takes us to hell. It is called attributing the "merit of righteousness" to oneself, and thus robbing God since God alone has merit and righteousness. Whatever good we have is God's good which we receive online, so to speak. Imagine if your refrigerator acquired self-conscious thinking and thought that the electric power it has is its own. It would be a delusional refrigerator. Delusional human beings think that the life, good, and truth they possess is their own. This delusional thinking leads them into further delusions like materialism and the negative bias, so that they end up living false philosophies. These false ideas lead to the society we are familiar with in our day--unloving, unpeaceful, unwise, beleaguered by sickness, crime, stress, deceit.

Hell on earth in our mind is produced by the false philosophies that are based on the delusion of self-appropriation of either evil or good.

Self-love or egotistical character is the product of a self that is beleaguered by false philosophies called "false gods." We worship false gods when we are in self-love. Self-love attaches to itself only those thoughts and justifications that will not oppose, and those reasonings that will support it. Self-love gets rid of mental operations that oppose self-love and promote love of God. In this state, good is perceived as evil, and evil is perceived as good. Also, truth is perceived as falsity, and falsity is perceived as truth. You can see why such a state is dangerous and deadly since falsity leads to hell and only truth leads to heaven.

Children can greatly benefit from being taught early that there is both good and evil in them, but neither belongs to them, and that they are to use the good to defeat the evil. In this way they will avoid a life of pain and fear in hell and can look forward to a life of fun and happiness in heaven. All they need to do is to use the good they have to fight the bad they also have. The bad is not part of them and therefore they can get rid of it, like dirt is not part of their room and they can clean it up. But the wall is part of the room and they cannot get rid of that. The commitment to get rid of the evil is like the wall, but the evil is like the dirt.

Later children are further benefited by being taught that the commitment to get rid of the evil in them is theirs, but the power that gets rid of the evil is not theirs. The commitment is theirs but not the power. The power is God who is present in the mind and managing all its details, making it work and operate. It is very useful for children to get the idea that God is so intimately participating in their thoughts and feelings and that they are never alone. If God left them alone, they would cease to be. Nothing would work in their mind. They thus get familiar with God and even attached to God.

Children are dependent upon adults to guard them from the consequences of bad judgment. Children and adolescents have limited ability to foresee consequences. They are dependent on responsible adults to help them resist inherited loves they cannot resist on their own. Children must be deterred from doing bad things and thus protected from the consequences they cannot accurately predict.

In infancy and early childhood the inherited heavenly trait of innocence allows them to experience heavenly feelings when they are harmoniously connected to parents. There is no feeling of the clash of wills because the children are happy to obey the parents' will. Opposition or resistance from their own will does not arise. Hence self-love has not yet developed. During this phase the heavenly feelings are stored up in a special compartment of the mind called "remains," and these are used later by the Divine Psychologist during the Sabbath rest, as discussed above. The heaven we eventually enter is within these remains. Once we reach there in our mind it feels like a "return home" because we are back in the innocence of our celestial state in infancy. This is the "heavenly proprium" that has now completely replaced the Fallen proprium. The essence of the heavenly proprium is the willingness to be led by the Divine-Human and the horror at the idea of being led by self.

The more children are given a focus on morality and virtues, the more they are protected from their inherited evil loves because morality and conscience are the tools for building rationality. Rational thinking is the only method available for resisting inherited evil loves. Some of these loves try to express themselves overtly while others linger in the background and exert their nefarious influence from the dark recesses of the sub-conscious mind. But the more rational or socio-moral tools we teach children the more of these evil loves they can face sooner, and by resisting them, develop a spiritual mind that can live in heaven.

The typical pattern in human growth is for heavenly remains to recede into the sub-conscious while the aggressive hellish traits come out into the fore. Self-love and independence grow up together so that older children and adolescents are often rebellious to parental and societal authority. The external natural mind or personality of the adolescent is in disorder in both bodily and mental habits. Quoting Swedenborg:

The evils present with man have many origins. The first lies in the heredity passed down to him by the series of transmissions to his father from grandfathers and forefathers, and then from his father, in whom evils have thereby become heaped up, down to himself. The second origin lies in what he himself makes actual, that is to say, in what a person acquires to himself by a life of evil. This evil consists partly of that which he draws from his heredity, as from an ocean of evils, and puts into practice, and partly of much more which he adds for himself to these. This is the source of the proprium which a person acquires to himself.

But this actual evil which a person makes his own also has various origins, though in general there are two. First there is the evil he receives from others, for which he is not worthy of blame; second there is that which he adopts of his own accord and for which he is thus worthy of blame. That which anyone receives from others and for which he is not blameworthy is meant in the Word by 'that which is torn', whereas that which he adopts of his own accord and for which he is thus blameworthy is meant in the Word by 'a carcass'. (AC 4171)

In other words, people are not responsible for their inherited evils. This makes good rational sense. It would seem a form of injustice to make us responsible for what we have not chosen. However, we are responsible for what we do about the evils with which we are born. This too makes good rational sense. The evil we are born with is similar to the situation of being pushed off a boat that is traveling up a large river. It wasn't our fault for falling into the river and being threatened by death. But it now becomes our responsibility to swim to shore. If we throw up our hands and drown it becomes our responsibility--not for falling into the river, but for refusing to swim ashore to safety. In the same way our inherited evils only put us into the life threatening river of evil consequences. We are also given the skill of swimming prior to falling. We are taught morality and respect for conscience--these are the "swimming" skills of regeneration. If we are unwilling to resist evil enjoyments, then we are responsible. It is counted to us as "sin" which means that we are being permanently connected to the hells, to which we shall gravitate irresistibly when we pass into the world of spirits. Unless we repent.

Repentance is the "one last chance" we are given by the Mercy of a compassionate God. We can repent. We can be horrified at our evil enjoyments and insane thoughts. Then our Divine Psychologist can bring us into spiritual temptation to face the infernal loves that are lurking in our sub-conscious, from where they are slowly and inexorably hauling us in to the hells where they actually are. Repentance is merely the platform from which to fight the battle of temptations, repeatedly, daily, for years.

But children are not capable of rational judgment and cannot be regenerated since regeneration  is by means of spiritual temptations that can only be resisted by means of truths rationally understood. We don't reach adulthood until we are capable of rational judgment on our own behalf, at which point we are responsible for our choices and we can begin regeneration. Children and teenagers who pass into the world of spirits are welcomed by guardians and teachers who act as their parents, instruct them, supervise their mental growth until they become adult in the mind. They are then given the opportunity to exercise their choice for heaven or hell.

Bringing infants and children to adulthood in the spiritual world is one of the beloved occupations of angels. They have powerful mental tools to monitor the children's mental progress and to provide for each one the unique type of experience and opportunity each needs to face their inherited evils. They are instructed in rational truths about God, heaven, and regeneration. The children then use these understandings to reason against their Fallen proprium and thus to be regenerated. The process is more efficient in the world of spirits where special mental methods are available to create scenes and induce impressions, like a live version of Star Trek holodeck. The Writings inform us that the children are never allowed to be immersed in the experience of evil itself but are only allowed to the edge of it, as it were, then are held back until they have a reaction of rejection of their own. They are then freed of that connection with the hells in their mind--like a surgical cutting of the fibers.

Every person who reaches their twenties while still on earth is given the opportunity to regenerate regardless of religious or ethnic background. It wouldn't make rational sense for God to manage a system where some people get left out of the loop so to speak. Regeneration is for everyone without any exception. It is a universal psychobiological process all human beings undergo on all the planets of the vast inhabited universe. Regeneration is the spiritual development that is required for an earth born person to become a heavenly angel in eternity. Those who are unwilling to undergo regeneration by giving in to all their temptations, arrive into the world of spirits completely immersed in their sensuous mind. To keep this level of thinking they refuse to let the rational mind take over. They insist on irrational thinking and disorderly conduct. They are therefore segregated and allowed to sink into their hells where they spend eternity taking turn torturing each other in repulsive and horrible ways.

6.0.8  The Self or Proprium in Adulthood

Quoting from the Writings:

It is well known that a person cannot be regenerated except in adult years, for not until then is he able to exercise reason and judgment and in so doing to receive good and truth from the Lord. Before entering that state he is being prepared by the Lord through the implantation of such things as can serve him as the soil for receiving the seeds of truth and good. Implanted thus are many states of innocence and charity, also cognitions of good and truth, and consequently thoughts. This implantation occurs during many years before his regeneration takes place. When a person has been endowed with these things and so has been prepared, his state is now said to be complete, for the things that are interior have been arranged ready to receive. All those things with a person which the Lord grants him prior to regeneration and by means of which he is regenerated are called remnants, which in the Word are meant by the number ten (AC 2636)

In other words, regeneration begins when the young adult is fully prepared with rational skills that can take Divine truth from Sacred Scripture and apply it to one's thinking and feeling on the daily round of activities. The passage above refers to "implantations" of states of innocence or "remains" (or "remnants"). This is also called the "seed of truth and good." Thoughts and sequences of reasoning are called forth by these seeds of truth and good, which are called "cognitions of good and truth." This process of implantation or spiritual growth goes on for years before the preparation is "complete."

Adulthood begins when we begin to form our own proprium out of the childhood self. We are now required to think for ourselves and most people have a strong desire to be freed from the childhood proprium and dependencies. Up to the point we mostly accepted our childhood religion and moral standard. It's the only thing we knew and our innocence, or partial innocence, made us happy, or sometimes happy, just to follow in the order of things that was laid out for us. Beginning to question this former acceptance is the beginning of our adulthood. There are individual differences in the intensity and urgency of this new direction in our life so that some people grow up fast while others prolong the dependency.

The fact that we are compelled by circumstances of life to think for ourselves now produces a new proprium. It is a mixed proprium, containing both good and evil habits of feeling and thinking. The Writings discuss the progression of remains or remnants we receive throughout the growth process:

Three kinds of goods are meant by 'remnants' - those instilled in earliest childhood, those instilled when want of knowledge is still present, and those instilled when intelligence is present.

The goods of earliest childhood are those instilled into a person from birth up to the age when he starts to be taught and to know something. The goods received when want of knowledge is still present are instilled when he is being taught and starting to know something. The goods that come with intelligence are instilled when he is able to reflect on what good is and what truth is. Good instilled in earliest childhood is received up to his tenth year.

[3] Good instilled when want of knowledge is still present is instilled from then until his twentieth year; and from this year the person starts to become rational and to have the ability to reflect on good and truth, and to acquire the good received when intelligence is present. The good instilled when want of knowledge is still present is that which is meant by 'twenty', because those with whom merely that good exists do not enter into any temptation. For no one undergoes temptation until he is able to reflect on and to perceive in his own way what good and truth are. (...)

[5] As regards the nature of these different kinds of goods- those instilled in earliest childhood, those when want of knowledge is still present, and those when intelligence is present - the last of these is the best, since it is an attribute of wisdom. The good which precedes it, namely that instilled during want of knowledge, is indeed good, but because it has only a small amount of intelligence within it, it cannot be called the good of wisdom. The good that belongs to earliest childhood is indeed in itself good, but it is nevertheless less good than the other two kinds, because it has not as yet had any truth of intelligence allied to it, and so has not become in any way the good of wisdom, but is merely a plane enabling it to become such. Cognitions of truth and good are what enable a person to be wise in the way possible to man. Earliest childhood itself, by which is meant innocence, does not belong to earliest childhood but to wisdom, as may become clearer from what will be stated at the end of this chapter about young children in the next life. (...)  (AC 2280)

This passage tells us that there is a progression of goods and truths that we acquire as we grow, and only those we acquire as adults can be called goods and truths of "wisdom." The rational understanding of truth is called intelligence and its application to good is called wisdom. For instance, we learn, understand, and accept the idea that people are entitled to have their wallet back when it's inadvertently dropped. We can see from intelligence that it's only fair and that losing something doesn't mean it's no longer ours. But it's not until we find something that belongs to someone else that we have the opportunity to act according to our intelligence. If we return the wallet because of what we understand rationally by intelligence, then we are acting from wisdom. Only when truth is allied to good are the two secure in our character. Truth refers to what we know about something and good refers to acting in accordance with the truth we know and understand.

Conscience is formed by wisdom which is the "good of intelligence." It is the principles by which we now want to live our life. It gives rise to our personal code of conduct. This ideal self is now freely chosen, not merely received uncritically from parents and from a borrowed religious faith. Our ideal self is a heavenly proprium. But if we don't live up to our code of conscience we are building a hellish proprium. In this way the adult mind develops as spiritual schizophrenic, with two heads, one beautiful and good, the other ugly and evil. We alternate between the two like the infamous Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in his multiple personality disorder. Because our mind is made of this mixture of oscillating opposites the rational mind is only operating at an immature level called the "first rational." Quoting from the Writings:

With everyone who is being regenerated there are two rationals, the first existing before regeneration, the second after. The first, which exists before regeneration, is acquired by means of the experiences of the senses, by means of reflecting on the things that take place in public life and in private life, by means of formulated knowledge, and by means of reasonings based on and presented through these, as well as by means of cognitions of spiritual things obtained from the doctrine of faith, that is, from the Word. But none of these acquisitions rise at this time very much above the ideas present in the external or bodily memory, which are relatively speaking quite materialistic. Consequently whatever thought takes place in the rational at this time consists of such materialistic ideas, or else, so that what it thinks may be comprehended at the same time by inner or intellectual sight, the semblances of such things are presented in the form of comparisons or analogies. Of such a nature is the first rational, or the rational that exists before regeneration.

[3] But the rational after regeneration is formed by the Lord by means of affections for spiritual truth and good, which affections the Lord implants in a remarkable manner within the truths of the first rational, and in this way the things there that are in agreement and are favorably disposed towards them are given life. The rest however, having no use, are separated from these, until at length spiritual goods and truths are gathered so to speak into bundles, once those that do not agree and which cannot be given life are cast away so to speak to the circumference, this being effected gradually as spiritual goods and truths increase together with the life of the affections for them. From this it is evident what the second rational is like. (AC 2657)

In other words, there are two levels of rational operations in our mind. The first rational reflects a materialistic order since it is an intelligence built on the order of the world and society. Even the religious ideas we have are natural, not spiritual. This level of mental operation is called the "natural-rational" to distinguish it from the "spiritual-natural" which is a higher type of rational operation. The spiritual-natural is also called the interior-natural, and represents the level of thinking of those who are in the "first heaven." Note carefully that knowledge about God, religious faith, heaven, hell, or the things in Sacred Scripture, come to us in the first rational so that these ideas about spiritual subjects are natural ideas about spiritual topics. Later, when we operationalize the higher rational levels of operation, we then first begin to comprehend these spiritual topics spiritually.

The passage above says that the second or more advanced rational begins with regeneration when we develop our new adult proprium through the love of Sacred Scripture or "affections for spiritual truth and good." The difference between the first and second rational is described further in the same Number:

[4] These matters may be illustrated by comparing them to the fruit of trees. To begin with the first rational is like unripe fruit which ripens gradually until it produces seeds within itself. Then, having reached the point when it is ready to part from the tree, its state is complete, regarding which see above in 2636. The second rational however, which the Lord confers on those who are being regenerated, is like this same fruit now lying in good soil, where the flesh surrounding the seeds decays and these express themselves from the core, after which they send down a root and also a shoot up above the ground that grows into a new tree and spreads out, till finally it produces new fruits, and after that gardens and orchards, according to the affections for good and truth which it is receiving; see Matt. 13: 31, 32; John 12: 24.

[5] But since examples help to make things clear, take the proprium which a person has before regeneration and the proprium which he has after regeneration. From the first rational which he acquires through the means mentioned above, a person believes that it is from what there is within himself, thus from his proprium, that he thinks what is true and does what it good. This first rational is incapable of thinking anything else even when the person is taught that every good of love, and every truth of faith, derives from the Lord. But when he is undergoing regeneration, which takes place in adult years, he then starts - from the second rational which is conferred by the Lord - to think that good and truth do not spring from that which is within himself, that is, from his proprium, but from the Lord, though he still does what is good or thinks what is true, as if it began from within himself, see 1937, 1947. At this time the more he becomes confirmed in this the more he is guided into the light of truth concerning those matters, until he finally believes that all good and all truth come from the Lord. At this time the proprium belonging to the first rational is gradually separated and the Lord confers on that person a heavenly proprium which becomes that of the new rational. (AC 2657)

In other words, when we still operate mentally with the first rational we cannot but think that the truth we think and the good we do is from self. The truth and the good are felt to be our own, from our proprium. This is a dangerous delusion we must give up once regeneration begins. Through temptations in regeneration we begin to observe ourselves directly, seeing that we are indeed powerless to be good and to think truth, unless we allow God to give us the truth to think and the good to do. We can now see that truth and good do not spring from our proprium but from God. The old rational is "separated" or laid to rest and the new rational is now called the "heavenly proprium" by which we can think and understand that every and all truth and good is from God.

Continuing with the same Number:

[6] Take a further example. To begin with the only love known to the first rational is that of self and the world, and although it hears about heavenly love being altogether different it still has no conception of it. In this case when the person then does anything good the only delight he sees in doing it is that he may seem to himself to merit another's favor, or that he may be considered to be a Christian, or that he may obtain the joy of eternal life out of doing it.

The second rational however which the Lord confers through regeneration begins to feel some delight in goodness and truth themselves and to be stirred by this delight, not on account of anything that is his own but on account of goodness and truth themselves. When led by this delight he spurns the thought of merit, until at length he detests it as something monstrous. This delight as it exists with him gradually increases and becomes a blessed delight, and in the next life a blissful delight, being for him heaven itself. From this it may now become clear how it is with each of the two rationals in one who is being regenerated. (AC 2657)

Again we see that the first rational is meritorious since it is motivated to be good for the sake of reward. We think that "if I am being good, I deserve to be rewarded." This is called "monstrous" because it robs God of the ownership of all good and truth and therefore denies God's omnipotence. To feel that we deserve heaven is to feel that we are good from ourselves, which is a hellish thought based on hatred of God and innocence. But with the mental operations of our second rational we are able to see that all good and truth belongs to God. By loving "good and truth themselves," that is, for the sake of good and truth because they are good and truth, we are loving God. There is no meritoriousness in this since we do not think we deserve heaven but instead, are grateful to receive heaven from God. Our task is to prepare our mind so that it can live in the heaven graciously offered to us by God.

6.0.9  Death of Self and Rebirth of the New Proprium

God provides a specific mechanism by which we can anesthetize the Fallen proprium, or self-love, so that  we could adopt the new will and understanding that self-love denied and kept out, and that is innocence or willingness to obey God's order of reality. As pointed out before, this process is called rebirth and regeneration. It involves cooperating actively with the Divine Psychologist who is effecting the regeneration by His Own Divine Proprium, and the extent to which we are thus regenerated is proportional to the extent of our cooperation.

A central focus in theistic psychology is to develop effective principles for the psychology of cooperation with the Divine Psychiatrist. People would greatly benefit to learn effective techniques for cooperating with the Divine-Human in the critical lifelong process of regeneration or character rebuilding. The old self must die to make place for a new self, one that comes not from the disorder of the materialism but from the order of the mental heaven which each individual mind contains by creation.

We need to understand the mechanism by which the old material self can be rendered operationless so that the new spiritual-rational self can take its place as the center and sphere of our consciousness. This mechanism must involve our thoughts and feelings and the self-witnessing methodology (see Section xx) is quite adequate to give us an accurate map of how our thoughts and feelings gradually change as the old self is being pushed down and the new self to take over the agent and executor of our behavior, both physical, mental. The more rationally we understand this mechanism, the more we can be effective in our cooperation with the Divine Psychiatrist, thus insuring the elevation of our consciousness to the heavenly sphere of conjugial love in eternity.

We have already discussed in several places that regeneration is the process spiritual development and it is carried out by God through temptations--natural, spiritual, and celestial, in that order over a lifetime of struggle (see Section xx). The function of temptations is to bring to the fore something in our self that is hidden. For instance, a motive like infidelity in marriage may lie in the background in a husband's hierarchy of motives for many years unrecognized. Yet its motivational influence continues to exert powerful effects that slowly dissolve his resolve for loyalty to his marriage partner. These signs are not seen collectively by the man, thus not putting them together and realizing that they are all caused by this one big motive lurking there on its hierarchical node, beaming its powerful nefarious influence, dissolving the strength and future of his marriage and happiness. He may for example give himself permission to enjoy pornography in various forms. He may enjoy flirting with women at the office, or he may engage in phone sex or a fake passionate email exchange with a stranger. The man does not realize that these various activities are satisfying the hidden lust of infidelity.

Now then the Divine Psychologist has created a method for dealing with hidden motives. This is the method of temptations. When the temptation is precipitated upon us we suddenly are faced with this hidden love now suddenly seen in the open and clear vision of our conscious awareness. For instance, an unexpected situation may develop, such as being away at a conference, or being stuck in an elevator, and meeting a woman who arouses in us intense feelings that we are enamored with. We suddenly realize that all along we were longing for this kind of feeling, and that now we seem to ourselves really alive, while before we hardly were. This is a spiritual temptation.

It  is agonizing.

It is called a spiritual temptation because there is no other way of fighting it except by means of spiritual weapons of truth that we have acquired previously and consider to be our creed.

Now our love and loyalty to the creed or "doctrine" is tested against our love and loyalty to self-love, this egocentric fascination we have with the feeling that seems to make us alive when we were not.

A lot of at stake. In fact, everything--your life, your future, your happiness, your eternity. Everything.

The Writings say that if you lose the temptation battle and after consciously applying your doctrine to the situation, you gave in, you are done for. Your fate in hell is sealed. Why? Because you will be unwilling to ever let go of that enamored fascination, no matter how much you suffer for it to eternity. This Swedenborg has confirmed--to his own amazement at such enormous tenacity of infernal love.

This is the reason that the Divine Psychologist does not bring to us a temptation that we cannot overcome. Of course those who are bent to take themselves to hell are given the spiritual temptations, and give in to them. This seals their desire to be in hell. But those who are unsure, feeling attracted to both heaven and hell, need the temptation so they may face the choice against the hidden evils to which they are attached by heredity and acquisition.

How then do we prevail upon the love we enjoy so much that we think all our true happiness will be gone if it's taken away from us .

Quoting from the Writings:

(...) the joining together of good and truth within the natural is effected by means of spiritual conflicts, that is, by means of temptations. With regard to the joining together of good and truth in the natural, the position in general is that man's rational receives truths before his natural receives them, the reason being that the Lord's life which, as has been stated, is the life of His love, may be able to flow in by way of the rational into the natural, bring order into it, and make it submissive. For the rational is purer, and the natural grosser, or what amounts to the same, the former is interior, the latter exterior. It is according to order - an order that one can know - that the rational is able to flow into the natural, but not the natural into the rational. (AC 3321).

In other words, the power of Divine truth enters the conscious mind through the rational thinking we do when we reason from Sacred Scripture. This rational power has the ability to "subdue" the natural mind which contains the Fallen proprium of self-love. The natural mind has several levels (see Section xx). The lower levels are mental operations based on materialistic thinking. The upper levels are mental operations based on Sacred Scripture. Reasoning from Sacred Scripture can be either rational or materialistic. In the lower operations of the mind, Sacred Scripture is misused to justify principles and behaviors that support self-love. In the higher more rational operations, Sacred Scripture is used to justify principles and behaviors that oppose self-love.

The above passage tells us that "the Lord's life," which refers to Divine Truth from Sacred Scripture, comes into our natural mind in the upper portion where we think rationally. In other words, the Divine Truth becomes our doctrine of life, that is, the principle to which we are committed as the ruling love in our daily behavior. This rational principle is from a Divine origin and has the power to make the lower potion of the mind "submissive" to itself. It cleans up our act. We are able to understand and see clearly the consequences of not imposing the Divine rational order upon our sensuous mind and life of enjoyment.

Though we enjoy the excitement of infidelity in a moment of temptation and unexpected opportunity, we are not blinded by the rush of its irresistible fever. Since it is irresistible, only Divine Power can defeat it and save us like a firebrand from a fire. This Divine Power comes through the doctrine of life or the rational principle we formed for ourselves from Sacred Scripture.

Continuing with the same Number:

[2] Consequently a person's rational is able to be adjusted to truths and to receive them before the natural does. This becomes quite clear from the fact that the rational man with someone who is to be regenerated conflicts greatly with the natural, or what amounts to the same, the internal man does so with the external. For as is also well known, the internal man is able to see truths and also to will them, but the external man refuses to see them and stands opposed to them. For in the natural man there are facts, which are to a great extent derived from the illusions of the senses, and which, although they are falsities, he nevertheless believes to be truths.

There are also countless things which the natural man does not grasp, since the natural man, compared with the rational man, is in shade and thick darkness; and the things which the natural man does not grasp are thought not to exist or not to be so.

There are also desires in the natural man which are those of self-love and love of the world, and the things which support those desires he calls truths. And when a person gives in to them everything that arises from them is contrary to spiritual truths. Present also are reasonings derived from falsities imprinted since early childhood. What is more, a person comprehends plainly with his senses the things which exist in his natural man, but less so those which exist in his rational until he has shed the body. This also causes him to suppose that the natural constitutes the whole, and what does not fall within the compass of his natural senses he believes to be scarcely anything.

In other words, through our rational thinking we are able to "to be adjusted to truths and receive them." When we are stuck in our sensuous way of reasoning it is difficult to believe in the existence of anything but the concrete sensual experience. The lower natural mind is materialistic while the upper rational mind is dualist (see Section xx). The lower way of thinking about truth and God is through sensuous consciousness; the higher way is through rational consciousness (see Section xx). The sensuous mind is opposed to the rational mind, and therefore it must be subdued and compelled to obey. The sensuous mind reads what truth is but refuses to see it, wants to doubt it, and finally rejects it. Now it sees falsities as truth because the falsities support the self-love and justifies it. Think of how many philosophies and creeds our generation entertains that justify any type of love that is enjoyable to the Fallen proprium. A general review with many examples will be found in my book A Man of the Field, Volume 1:  www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/volume1-nonduality.html

In the passage above it is said that the "natural man is in shade" and doesn't comprehend many things about reality because it is not visible to the physical senses. This is talking about the sensuous portion of the natural mind. Our affective life at this level of consciousness is filled with the affections of "self-love and the love of the world." Whatever supports those desires is called truth. At this level of operation our mind is not genuinely human but animal. We become human in our higher operations that are in the rational portion of the natural mind called the natural-rational (see Section xx). The passage says that after "we shed the body" and are resuscitated in the world of spirits (see Section xx), we are able to better understand rational things. When we think at the level of the sensuous mind we believe that rational things are less real than sensuous things. When we hear about spiritual things like life in heaven, we think of a thinned out sensuous world like floating in clouds.

The truth however is that rational things are more real than sensuous things and that the rational ether that constitutes the spiritual world is far more alive and real than the physical matter of the natural world. Heaven is in our rational consciousness while hell is in our sensuous consciousness. Heaven is infinitely more real than hell. Rational consciousness is more real than sensuous consciousness devoid of the rational. But there is also a sensuous consciousness that has rational consciousness within it, and this is the mentality we have in heaven. For in heaven sensuous delights are plentiful and real and they are produced by the rational consciousness that is within them.

Continuing with the same Number:

[3] These and many others are the factors which cause the natural man to receive truths much later and with greater difficulty than the rational man receives them. Consequently conflict occurs, which persists for rather a long time and does not end until the recipient vessels of good in the natural man have been softened by means of temptations, as shown above in 3318; for truths are nothing else than recipient vessels of good, 1496, 1832, 1900, 2063, 2261, 2269. The harder those vessels are the more firmly is a person settled in the things referred to above. And the more firmly settled he is, the more serious is the conflict if he is to be regenerated. This therefore being the situation with the natural man - that the joining of truths to good in the natural man is effected by means of the conflicts brought about by temptations (...). (AC 3321)

A useful study of this passage (AC 3321) is given in a sermon by Rev .J. Clark Echols, Jr. titled Honest Self-Observation (General Church, Cincinnati, Ohio January 11, 2004). He points out that repentance is an important component of the process of temptations. Conscience and guilt  motivate us to feel sorry about our evil deed or thought. Feeling sorry is a rejection of some particular evil in us that comes to our attention through the temptation experience. Prior to feeling sorry we feel indulgent toward the evil enjoyment as indicated by such expressions as, "You only live once so go for the gusto!" or, "You deserve a break today" or, "It's okay, no one else will ever know" or, It has always been this way."

When we operate at the level of the lower natural mind we want to hide how we feel, what we hope for, and what we think. Naturally, we don't want to be punished or disapproved of because of them. We want to enjoy loves that are antisocial, stupid, gross, abusive, deceptive. So we hide them and do the enjoying part in secret. We pose as hypocrites with a veneer of decency and generosity, meanwhile in our private self we are filled with envy, rage, and disdain for others.

When we think the upper portion of the natural mind we can reason in a rational way and understand rational things. We are not swayed by the senses and we can have ideas that are abstracted from the senses, ideas that have to do with morality and eternity, with altruism and integrity. When we think rationally we think from Divine truth since it is the source of all rationality in our mind. Rational consciousness of God motivates us to be innocent, to love to be obedient to God's order and God's Commandments (see Section xx). During regeneration we discover this basic conflict and opposition between our sensuous consciousness and our rational consciousness.

"Honest self-observation is the first step of repentance. To observe ourselves is to look at ourselves from our rational man, from the light of heaven. ... And repentance leads to spiritual freedom, to a genuine love for neighbor, to marriage love with your spouse, and to eternal happiness in heaven." (Echols, p. 4).

6.0.10  The State of Reformation Begins Regeneration

Regeneration is the central issue in theistic psychology. Without regeneration there is eternal hell and with regeneration there is eternal heaven. Given that we are born immortal human beings what can be more important to us than regeneration?

We discussed above that regeneration begins in adulthood and continues lifelong, and beyond. Regeneration is a word frequently used in Sacred Scripture, especially in the New Testament and the Writings. Little details are offered in the literal sense of the New Testament and the bulk of what has been revealed about it is in the literal meaning of the Writings. In the future much more will be known about regeneration when extractive research recovers the scientific revelations that lay hidden in the literal sense of Divine Speech.

Quoting from the Writings:

(...) the quality of the state of those who are reformed is in the beginning ... that they are carried away into various wanderings; for it is given them by the Lord to think much about eternal life, and thus much about the truths of faith; but because from what is their own (as just stated) they cannot do otherwise than wander hither and thither, both in doctrine and in life, seizing as truth that which has been inseminated from their infancy, or is impressed upon them by others, or is thought out by themselves-besides their being led away by various affections of which they are not conscious-they are like fruits as yet unripe, on which shape, beauty, and savor cannot be induced in a moment; or like tender blades which cannot in a moment grow up into bloom and ear.

But the things which enter in at that time, though for the most part erroneous, are still such as are serviceable for promoting growth; and afterwards, when the men are being reformed, these are partly separated, and are partly conducive to introducing nourishment and as it were juices into the subsequent life-which again can afterwards be partly adapted to the implanting of goods and truths by the Lord, and partly to being serviceable to spiritual things as ultimate planes; and thus as continual means to reformation, which means follow on in perpetual connection and order; for all things even the least with man are foreseen by the Lord, and are provided for his future state to eternity; and this for his good insofar as is in any wise possible, and as he suffers himself to be led by the Lord. (AC 2679)

This passage strikingly describes the intimate relationship every human being has with the Divine-Human who foresees in advance the future from birth to eternity of every individual. To foresee and to bring about--such is the total involvement of God with every human being's every instant of existence. This is called a "perpetual connection." The passage also reveals some of the mechanisms God uses to create our future moment by moment. In this instance we are focusing on that portion of our life called "reformation." Experientially it feels like we are "carried away into various wanderings" which are supervised or managed by the Divine-Human. Specifically, we are given to "think much about eternal life" and about "truths of faith." In our generation we refer to it as being "spiritual" or having "spiritual interests" or being interested in "spirituality" or religion.

But here only the period of reformation is involved. Some people may get stuck at this stage and be interested in spirituality all their life as a hobby or as entertainment or as expertise. These later states of intellectual searching or "wanderings" are not being discussed here (but elsewhere).  If one prolongs the wanderings of reformation one postpones regeneration and all subsequent interest in spirituality is in vain until one returns to Sacred Scripture exclusively as the soul source of all truth. Then the Divine Psychologist can resume the process of reformation followed by regeneration. Endless wanderings in search of truth produces an idealist like Don Quixote, who though well meaning, is portrayed as a fool and laughing stock.

The intellectual wanderings in search of truth during reformation have a vacillating quality, going "hither and thither both in doctrine and life." In doctrine, our multivalenced approach takes us into all sorts of nonduality--eastern religions, ascetic disciplines, psychotropic drugs, shamanism, nihilist philosophies, secular humanism, political idealism, moral dissonance, fundamentalist faiths, universalist expressions, new age rituals. These are the spiritual interests of the early phases of reformation. It is a universalist awakening to dualism through all sorts of introductions and initiations. We are being "led away by various affections of which we are not conscious" and we bounce around with the persuasions to which we are exposed. The Divine Psychologist  supervises every detail of these wanderings, every opportunity, every chance encounter or discovery in a book or conversation, every determined follow up, and yes, every crash--for the only reason we meander across the territory is that we abandon whatever we come to, back out, and continue searching.

The passage reveals how the Divine Psychologist conducts the wanderings for truth from things that are "for the most part erroneous" yet they are "serviceable for promoting growth." There are no real chance encounters or happenstances. These seemingly random events are used by God to hide His presence and close management of our mental operations (see Section xx). God is managing things in our mind in such a way as to bring us to rational conscious awareness of His Presence in the mind and outside. It must be a rational consciousness of His Presence. It would be so simple for God to instantaneously give us sensuous consciousness of Him as the Divine-Human simply by turning on the light of the spiritual mind so that we could see Him no matter which way we turned or what we were doing. This is precisely what He does when we climb to the heaven of our mind. Swedenborg has seen the Divine-Human many times for 27 years during his dual consciousness period. Everyone in the heavens of their mind can see Him. Right now if you could elevate your conscious awareness to the top region of your mind, you would see the Divine-Human surrounded by the Spiritual Sun and in the midst of it.

This would be so simple. So the fact that God is not doing this, not raising our sensuous consciousness to Him, must mean that He has a good reason why not. It always means in these kind of issues that, for God to do so, would be injurious to the individual. The Writings give much information on why such enlightenment of our sensuous consciousness would destroy our ability to develop our rational consciousness of the Divine-Human. Perhaps we would see God in flash, and then we would tumble from the heaven of our mind into the hell of our mind, and will we be able to emerge from there to eternity?

All this is understandable if you consider the full details (see Section xx). The fact you have to remember is that the new heavens that now exist in our mind (see Section xx), were created in our mind by the Incarnation Event two thousand years ago (see Section xx). There is no other heaven we can live in except the new rational heavens that were created then--the spiritual-natural operations in our mind ("First Heaven"), the spiritual-rational operations in our mind, and the celestial-rational operations in our mind. There is no other place in the human mind or the spiritual world where there is a heaven except in our rational consciousness. You can see now why God doesn't just appear in your mind or in your living room. Among Christians, the rational consciousness of the Divine-Human is called the "Holy Spirit" (see Section xx).

And so the Divine Psychologist uses wanderings to cure us of our inherited obsessions until He can bring us to Himself, through His Divine Speech or Sacred Scripture. In this we find the absolute dualities we have been running away from, and now we can accept them, and wonder of wonder, begin to love them. This insures that our regeneration will be successful since when we love the truth of Sacred Scripture we are restored to state of innocence, hence obedience with gladness. We are then willingly induced to cooperate with the Divine Psychologist. Our mission: To learn to reject the evil enjoyments and to abhor them. As we do this, and to the extent that we do, the Divine Psychologist implants the new proprium, the good will, the fresh thoughts, the good of blessedness and charity.

But this is only the beginning of a long journey full of effort and suffering, as well as full of discovery and enthusiasm. At first we believe that heaven is where all our wants are satisfied. Sure we want to go there. But along the way the Divine Psychologist shows us that His will is not the same as our will. What He wants for us is not the same as what we think we want for ourselves. There is a clash of wills between a Giant and "little me." The clash is painful, agonizing. Until we learn to give up the idea that heaven is where we get to satisfy what we want. Gradually the Divine Psychologist enlightens our understanding so that we begin to see that our heaven is where we satisfy the Divine-Human's wants, not our wants. For all our wants in the state of regeneration stem partly from the hellish proprium that is being eliminated, eliminating, going--but not yet gone.

We never knew and will never know what we truly want but only what we imagine we want. But if we love God more than self and world, we are more than happy to rely on God's ideas of what is our true happiness. This total and absolute reliance on God is much more reassuring than reliance on self. When we see this rationally, we would feel horror and anxiety at the idea of relying on self instead of God.

The Divine Psychologist is leading us therefore to a future that we cannot foresee or imagine, and even less, contribute anything to bringing it about.

6.1  The Awesome Power of the Affective Organ

The spiritual world (or the mind) is divided into heaven on top, hell at the bottom, and the world of spirits in between. These mental states or levels of mind are the same in every individual. Every person has a mind in which these three organic levels have been formed at birth. Since the mind operates in rational ether, all three geographic levels of the spiritual world are in the mind of every individual. We can ascend to heaven or descend to hell at will. For instance when we give in to selfishness and insincerity, we begin behaving in cruel and destructive ways and create a hell around us. On the other hand, we can create a heaven around us when we put up the effort to modify our character to become good, sincere, and wise.

While we are earth bound there are limitations to the heaven and hell we can create, but these restrictions are no longer there when, at the death of the physical body, we start operating in rational ether with our spiritual body. While as earthlings we have many limitations, when we become spirits at "death," we are liberated into the world of spirits, rational ether in rational ether, as a unique immortal individual.

There are no limits at that point. The will of the mind is powerful beyond expectation when it can act in rational ether and is not tied by physical restrictions of matter and space. The power we have to create a world in our dreams is now a real power creating a reality, not a dream. We can instantaneously create real palaces and real mountains and real diamonds, all within the rational ether of the spiritual world. You can see from this that if other spirits can catch you in their own web of creation, they could create a hell for you in which you are tortured beyond belief.

It may be puzzling as to how we cross from our own mental world into theirs where we suffer their hell, and also why we can't escape from their clutches if we are free spirits? The answer is as surprising as it is catastrophically devastating: You are keeping yourself in their hell!

This is the reason why you cannot be rescued from hell once you get into it. No one is forcing you in there and no one is keeping you there. Remember that hell is the bottom of your mind, hardly human, completely savage and uncivilized and stupid. The only way your consciousness can enter there is by willfully destroying the two operations that keep you from falling into hell: your conscience and your rationality.

Once these two spiritual operations have been willfully neutralized or rendered ineffective, and you have descended into the hell in your mind, what can bring your consciousness back up again?

Swedenborg reports various experiments he was allowed to conduct with people who live in hell, that is, willfully keep themselves in that state of mind. They were medically and momentarily raised back into the world of spirits, which is midway in the mind between heaven and hell. Once they are brought back into their "external mind" they appear normal, not like hideous devils, and they talk like normal people, and do not behave like dangerous delusional maniacs. This proves that they have the capacity to return to their sanity at any time. Amazingly, they only tolerate this normalcy for a little while, after which the craziness returns and they "cast themselves" back down into the hell of their mind.

At birth we come into possession of two bodies, one temporary, the other permanent and eternal. The temporary body is the physical body made of matter that is tied to time and space. The eternal body is the mind or spirit made of spiritual ether which contains substances from the Spiritual Sun. The physical body is made of matter originating in the natural sun or star, while the spiritual body or spirits is made of substance originating in the Sun of the spiritual world. This perspective is called substantive dualism (see Section xx).

Upon the death of the physical body our spirit is resuscitated within a few hours and we awaken in the world of spirits. At the point we can see that our spiritual body is a complete copy of the physical body but much more alive, sensitive and dynamic. From then on we continue life in immortality in the spiritual body.

The spiritual body contains our mental organs since birth. There are no mental organs in the physical body or brain. All sensation is located in the spiritual body. No sensation or feeling can be located in a physical body.

 The spiritual body contains an integrated and coordinated action of three separate but interacting systems called the affective organ, the cognitive organ, and the sensorimotor organ. This integration of the three mental systems corresponds to the integration of the three physical systems known as circulatory, respiratory, and nervous systems of the physical body. The three systems in the spiritual body are known to non-theistic psychology by tradition going back to Aristotle. Modern psychology recognizes that the affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor functions of the mind are distinct and form an integrated whole.

The affective organ in the spiritual body has spiritual fibers that are adapted to receive spiritual heat from the Spiritual Sun. This heat radiates from the Spiritual Sun everywhere in the entire spiritual world, which is also the human mind. The Spiritual Sun creates a rational ether or sphere in which the spiritual body can be born and develop to eternity. The spiritual heat radiating outward from the Spiritual Sun enters every human mind from the chest of the spiritual body where the heart is located. The heart in the physical body corresponds to the heart of the spiritual body, and this is the affective organ. So the affective organ in the spiritual body is in the region of the heart and has a pulsation like the heart. The entire heaven of the human race pulsates with this beat.

The lungs of the physical body correspond to the lungs of the spiritual body which are its cognitive organ by which the spirit can think and reason. This organ of thinking is constructed of spiritual fibers that have the capacity to receive spiritual light from the Spiritual Sun. Spiritual heat and spiritual light streaming out of the Spiritual Sun together are separated when received by the two distinct mental organs. Once received, the spiritual heat in the affective organ create the experience of sensations and feelings, while the spiritual light in the cognitive organ create the consciousness of rational thought or meaning. When the feelings and the thoughts are now reunited in the mind, they give the power of overt behavior through muscles. This overt or external behavior is the outward correspondence of the two affective and cognitive organ acting together.

While we are on earth the affective--cognitive integration in the spiritual body has the power to produce movement in the physical body. The two bodies are linked by the laws of correspondences. Whatever action occurs in the mind has a correspondential action in the physical body. If you remove this mind-body connection the body cannot function and quickly disintegrates.

 6.1.1  The Affective--Cognitive Integration: The Circle of Love

The relation between the affective and cognitive organs is determined by the relation between spiritual heat and spiritual light form the Spiritual Sun. These two substances make up the two organs and keep it operational by the constant influx of these two substances. This gives us the ability to think thoughts from rational meanings and to feel feelings and satisfactions from affections. All affections are forms of love and all thoughts are forms of truth. Spiritual heat is love and spiritual light is truth.

It takes a level of abstract thinking to be able to understand that love and truth are rational substances streaming from a Sun and entering our mind.

God is infinite Divine Love and Truth. That's the best way to describe and understand what God is. Love is God's Divine quality and truth is God's Divine-Human qualities. Rationality is from truth. In other words, rational operations in the cognitive organ are initiated and built by the truth it receives as spiritual light. Freedom and choice is from love. In otter words, affective operations in the affective organ are initiated and built by love it receives as spiritual heat.

To love is the power of the affective organ, while to think rationally is the power of the cognitive organ. In order for behavior and experience to occur we must perform loving and thinking together. They must act conjointly like husband wife, or like heart and lungs. For instance, to think a single thought or to visualize a single image, we must have a love for it, or a motive to do it. Without a motive or love to think something, we cease thinking. If you take away all the wants we have, we can no longer think anything. Thinking is a response to a want or desire or effort to reach a specific goal state.

You can see this when you consider how humans act. We have a motive, desire, need, or impulse. This mental experience is the result of the operations of the affective organ. This state of wanting something persists as long as it is maintained by some love that inflows or is received from the spiritual world. The motive or goal-effort acts upon the cognitive organ in such a way as to elicit thoughts that support and agree with the motive or goal effort. We begin to reason by means of cognitive skills of understanding and formulate a plan that promotes the fulfillment of the goal or want. The motive and the plan thus make a one. This then leads to the overt action which is therefore the integration of the affective and cognitive operations.

Quoting from the Writings Sacred Scripture concerning the distinction between "presence" and "conjunction":

DP 29. All conjunction in the spiritual world is effected by means of looking (inspectio). When anyone there is thinking of another from a desire to speak with him, the other immediately becomes present, and they see each other face to face. It is the same when anyone is thinking of another from an affection of love; but this affection brings about conjunction, while the other produces presence only.

This is peculiar to the spiritual world, for the reason that all there are spiritual: it is otherwise in the natural world, where all are material. With men in the natural world the same takes place in the affections and thoughts of their spirit; but as there are spaces in the natural world, while in the spiritual world spaces are only appearances, that which is done in the thought of everyone's spirit, in the spiritual world becomes an act in deed.

[2] This has been said in order to make known how the conjunction of the Lord with angels is effected, and how the apparent reciprocal conjunction of angels with the Lord is effected. For all angels turn the face towards the Lord, and the Lord looks upon their forehead, because the forehead corresponds to love and its affections; while angels direct their eyes towards the Lord, because the eyes correspond to wisdom and its perceptions. Nevertheless, the angels do not from themselves turn the face to the Lord, but the Lord turns them to Himself. He turns them by influx into their life's love, and through that love enters into their perceptions and thoughts; and in this way He turns them.

[3] There is in all things of the human mind this circle of love to thoughts and from thoughts to love from love, a circle which may be called the circle of life.

On this subject something may be seen in the treatise THE DIVINE LOVE AND WISDOM, as for instance:

The angels constantly turn the face to the Lord as a Sun (n. 129-134).
All the interiors of the angels, of mind as well as of body, are likewise turned to the Lord as a Sun (n. 135-139.
Every spirit, whatever his character may be, turns himself likewise to his ruling love (n. 140-145).
Love conjoins itself to wisdom, and causes wisdom to be reciprocally conjoined to itself (n. 410-412).
The angels are in the Lord, and the Lord is in them; and because angels are recipients the Lord alone is heaven (n. 113-118).
(DP 29)

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Everything about our life and future is therefore determined by our loves operating in the affective organ.

While we are on earth God maintains two types of influx or inflow into the spiritual body and mind--a heavenly and a hellish influx. The heavenly influx is heavenly love from the spiritual heat of the Spiritual Sun. The hellish influx is infernal heat issuing from the hells. This heat is also called lust and cupidity. All inflowing love from the Spiritual Sun enters the highest level of the affective organ and descends by successive degrees to the lowest level of affective operations. In the process of being handed down by successive degrees, the love is transformed in accordance with the individual unique characteristics of the recipient affective organ. At this stage the original love may still be functionally present, or else its opposite love is present. Heavenly love thus turns into infernal love by how the individual reacts to it or receives it.

For instance, while riding the bus, we can receive the impulse to give up our seat to someone who seems to need it. This impulse inflows from heaven and gives rise to the thought of giving up the seat and the desire to do so. But then we have a reaction to it. We don't feel like leaving the comfort of the seat. We are reluctant. This feeling is an infernal love flowing from hell. It is the opposite love from the heavenly.

There are two ruling loves flowing in from heaven--the love of God and the love of heaven for the sake of loving others. These two loves can be turned into their opposites--the love of self and the world for the sake of self. So altruistic loves flow in from the heavens and selfish loves flow in from the hells.

When we are resuscitated in the world of spirits we quickly adjust to the new way of life in eternity. We learn that the surrounding environment or quality of our life is determined completely by what loves are operating in the affective organ. Heavenly loves create a heaven around us where we dwell in community with others who are also in similar heavenly loves. Hellish loves create a hell around us where we dwell in societies with others who are also similar in hellish loves.

Shortly after resuscitation we undergo various experiences designed to bring out our deepest ruling loves. If they are heavenly loves we enter the state of mind called heaven and abide there in conjugial love to eternity. If they are hellish loves we enter the state of mind called hell and abide there in infernal lusts to eternity. Therefore it is obvious that nothing can be more important to us while still on earth than to make sure that we acquire heavenly loves. And these loves cannot stay with us unless we rid ourselves of hellish loves. This is the process of regeneration (see Section xx).

6.2   What Determines Our Ultimate Fate in Eternity?

Quoting from the Writings Sacred Scripture:

SE 1715. CONCERNING THE EFFECT OF PHANTASY.
Let it not seem wonderful that such things, which are merely corporeal, exist also in the world of spirits, namely, that the inhabitants appear to themselves to be bodies, yea, to be clothed with garments, that they should perceive pains, consequently that they should possess the sense of touch, besides other things which are merely corporeal, and such as it would seem could never fall to the lot of spiritual essences, or spirits; whereas that such is the fact is so true that all heaven is in the affirmation of it. (SE 1715)

SE 1716. Hence are their tortures in hell; hence their many pains and terrors, as also their cupidities, and other things which are corporeal. (SE 1716)

SE 1717. As it respects the causes whence such things exist [there], it is because spirits take with them phantasies from the life of the body, which because they are of the mind, and are such as are operative, therefore thence are their affections. (SE 1717)

SE 1718. ((Nor, supposing one to be possessed of any degree of sound judgment, has he reason to wonder at the fact now stated; for life, whether corporeal or spiritual, is not given without sense, and all sense refers itself to touch, even the intimate and inmost senses, as may be known to anyone from the sense of seeing and hearing. Since, therefore, there can no life be given without sense, it follows that those who think themselves to be corporeal, or who are in corporeal phantasies, and as long as they are in them, as is the case with many recently departed souls [carry those phantasies with them]; hence the effect above mentioned, or a kind of sense of corporeal things, for they imagine themselves to be living altogether in their bodies, nor can they be dispossessed of that phantasy, unless by living demonstrations, of which see in abundance elsewhere. (SE 1718)

SE 1719. For these reasons let men beware of giving heed to those opinions which some persons would fain publish and inculcate, that spirits are altogether devoid of sense, or that spiritual essences lack all that kind of affection which they enjoyed while living in their bodies. I know the contrary, which has been demonstrated to me by a thousand and a thousand most sensible proofs of experience, as I can solemnly declare and attest; and if men are unwilling to believe from the weight which they attach to their suppositions and opinions in respect to spiritual essences; let them take heed to themselves when they come into the other life, where experience will compel them to believe what they do not credit in this world.

In ancient times there were no men of such a faith in regard to spirits, but [they exist] at this day, when from the ratiocination of their own brain, and not from the Word of the Lord, they would explain the nature of spirits whom they deprive, by their definitions and conjectures, of all sensual properties, denying everything of the kind to their interior and intimate principles, when yet these are the things which merely manifest themselves in externals and which are perceived; and although they appear in externals, yet it is no otherwise than as they believe the eye sees, the ear hears, when at the same time they may know that the eye is merely an organ which transmits visibilities, while the interior minds [of men] are what see and hear, the sensorial power being utterly dead without things interior, as may be abundantly shown.))

((((Hence now it may appear that there are senses in spirits or the spiritual essences of man, and moreover that they survive in souls after death, and that as long as a man is not in the truth of faith, he is made up of phantasies, which produce the effects before mentioned)))) (SE 1719)

SE 1720. Yea, I can assert that their torments, terrors, and the like are to them wellnigh as sensible as in the body, which they have oftentimes confessed to me; and unless the Lord should take away their phantasies, their corporeal things thus remaining in their minds, they would be tormented with much severer anguish than in their bodies; for evil spirits and the diabolic crew not only have such phantasies, but they inflict the like upon the minds of those whom they torment, which unless the Lord took away and moderated, they would have a hell vastly more excruciating than would ever be possible from their bodies being held in the suffering of the most intense anguish. (SE 1720)

One can understand it more rationally if you think of life after death as a continuation of life on earth. You bring with you what is already in your natural mind that has accumulated over your lifetime on earth. No one compels a novitiate spirit to choose heaven or hell, as a reward or as a punishment. Everyone is compelled by their own will. So whether you go up or down depends on what is in your will or character. If you've acquired affective habits in your will that are selfish, cruel, dishonest, foolish, then you are compelled by your own will to seek out the spiritual spheres that are most nourishing to it, and to avoid and recoil from spiritual spheres that inhibit its mode of operations.

Swedenborg interviewed people both in the bottom of their mind, and then afterwards, when they were momentarily brought up to the world of spirits, and also when they were momentarily brought up all the way to the heaven in their mind. What happened? If you are artificially brought up into the heaven of your mind while you retain active operations in your hell, you feel torn apart from the inmost of your being, exploding like a field mine you just stepped on. This is because the sphere of rational ether in the upper regions of the mind enters the spiritual fibers of the mind in counter-clockwise influx from the Spiritual Sun, and as this descends it tears up the spiritual fibers in the will that run in the opposite direction. There is no way you can stay in heaven for more than a few breaths before you are destroyed from within, which causes you to precipitate yourself back down as quickly as possible where, Swedenborg reports, they revive and stay put. Any hell is better for a "devil" than heaven.

You can see from this that minds operating in rational ether in the spiritual world are vastly more powerful than anything that exists in the physical world. There is a direct and instantaneous connection between our feelings and thoughts on the one hand, and on the other hand,  the appearances of the spiritual environment around us. This is analogous to the awesome powers we have in dreams. The environment that appears in our dream world is not made of physical matter like the environment around our sleeping physical body. Dream scapes and objects are rational or spiritual objects, constructed of rational ether from the substances of the spiritual world.  They are instantaneously created by the operation of the feelings and thoughts upon the spiritual environment. This is a built in feature of the structure of the spiritual world and the structure of the spiritual body. Both have the same substances and the same laws so that there is an identity already discussed: mental world = spiritual world. This the basic tenet upon which theistic psychology is founded. It is the definition of substantive dualism.

Quoting from the Writings:

AC 9192. 'He who sacrifices to the gods' means worship composed of falsities arising from evil.

This is clear from the meaning of 'offering sacrifice' as worship, worship being meant by 'offering sacrifice' because sacrifices were the chief forms of worship among the Israelite and Jewish people, 923, 6905, 8680, 8936; and from the meaning of 'the gods' as falsities, dealt with in 4402(end), 4544, 7873, 8941. The expression 'worship composed of falsities arising from evil' is used since it is the opposite of worship composed of truths springing from good. For the guidelines of all worship are religious teachings, which to the extent that they spring from good are truths, and to the extent that they arise from evil are falsities. The truths derive the essence and the life that is theirs from the good, while on the other hand the falsities derive the death that is theirs from the evil.

[2] The implications of all this are that there are some people who possess authentic truths, some who possess unauthentic truths, and some who possess falsities. And yet those who possess the authentic truths are often damned, while those who possess the unauthentic truths, and those too who possess falsities, are often saved. To most people this will seem to be paradoxical, but it is nevertheless the truth. Actual experience has proved it to me. I have seen in hell those who were more learned than others in truths derived from the Word and from the teachings of their Church, both prelates and others. On the other hand I have seen in heaven those who possessed unauthentic truths, and even those who possessed falsities, both Christians and gentiles.

[3] The reason why the former were in hell was that in doctrine they had indeed possessed truths, but in life they had been steeped in evils. And the reason why the latter were in heaven was that in doctrine they had indeed possessed unauthentic truths, but in life they had nevertheless been governed by good. Some spirits who had arrived recently in the next life and to whom I was allowed to speak were amazed that those who were more learned than others in the Word and in the teachings of their Church should be among the damned. They had supposed that these would be leading lights in heaven, in accordance with the following words in Daniel,

Those who have intelligence will shine like the brightness of the expanse, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and into eternity. Dan. 12:3.

But I told those spirits that 'those who have intelligence' are people who possess truth and teach truths, and 'those who turn others to righteousness' are people who are governed by good and lead others to good, and that this was why the Lord said,

The righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Matt. 13:43.

The word 'righteousness' has reference to good, so that 'the righteous' are those governed by good, see 2235.

[4] I went on to tell those spirits that people who are learned in doctrine but evil in the life they lead are the ones to whom the Lord was referring in Matthew,

Many will say to Me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy through Your name, and through Your name cast out demons, and do many mighty works in Your name? But then I will confess to them, I do not know you; depart from Me, you workers of iniquity. Matt. 7:22, 23.

And in Luke,

Then you will begin to say, We ate in Your presence and we drank; You taught in our streets. But He will say, I say to you, I do not know where you come from; depart from Me, all you workers of iniquity. Luke 13:26, 27.

The same people were also meant by the foolish virgins who had no oil in their lamps, who are spoken of in Matthew,

Finally those virgins came, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But He replying said, Truly I say to you, I do not know you. Matt. 25:11, 12.

'Having oil in their lamps' means having good within truths that belong to the Church's faith, 4638, 'oil' being the good of love, see 886, 4582.

[5] I also told those spirits that those who possess unauthentic truths, and indeed those who as a result of their ignorance possess falsities, yet are governed by good and therefore desire to know the truth, were meant by the Lord in Matthew,

I say to you that many will come from the east even to the west and will recline with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be cast into outer darkness. Matt. 8:11, 12.

And in Luke,

They will come from the east and the west, and from the north and the south, reclining in the kingdom of God. And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last. Luke 13:29, 30.

The fact that gentiles who are governed by good, even though as a result of their ignorance they possess unauthentic truths, are received into heaven, see 2589-2604, 2861, 2863, 3263, 4190, 4197.

[6] From all this it now becomes clear that 'those who sacrifice to the gods' means people whose worship consists of falsity arising from evil, and that they are the ones who 'shall be utterly destroyed', that is, cast out. Falsities arising from evil are evils in an outward form, for when evil steps out into the light and dons an outward form it is called falsity. So it is that if people are ruled by evil in the life they lead, then even though in doctrine they possess truths, they are still steeped in falsities arising from their evil. The truth of this is plain to see in the next life. When those people are left to themselves, then evil that goes against the truths they have known and claimed to believe in governs their thinking, that is, falsities compose it. Those same people behave in a similar way in the world if left to themselves; for then their thoughts are such that those people either pervert truths or deny truths, in order to justify the evils of their life.

[7] But people who are governed by good yet possess unauthentic truths, and even people who possess falsities because they know no better (of whom there are very many within the Church, and also very many outside it, called gentiles), do indeed regard their falsities as truths. But since these falsities proceed from good and those people bend them towards good, there is nothing harmful about them, as there is about falsities that arise from evil. And since falsities arising from good are gentle and yielding, those people are capable of receiving truths, and do indeed receive them when given instruction by angels. These falsities may be compared to food that looks bad but is nevertheless palatable, whereas falsities arising from evil may be compared to bad-looking food that is rotten inside. Truths that arise from evil however may be compared to food that looks good yet contains what is harmful, or if hypocrisy is present is poisonous, as the Lord teaches in Matthew,

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you make yourselves like white-washed sepulchres, which outwardly do indeed appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and of all uncleanness. Matt. 23:27.

(AC 9192)

 

 6.2.1  Wanting to Know the Future Through Psychic Prophecies

Quoting from the Writings:

As a foreknowledge of future events destroys the human itself, which is to act from freedom according to reason, therefore it is not granted to anyone to know the future; but everyone is permitted to form conclusions concerning future events from the reason; hence reason with all that pertains to it enters into our life.

It is on this account that we do not know someone’s lot after death, or know of any event before we are involved in it. For if we knew this, we would no longer think from our interior self how we should act or how we should live in order to meet the event; but we would only think from our exterior self that we were meeting it.

Now this state closes the interiors of our mind in which the two faculties of our life, liberty and rationality, especially reside. A longing to know the future is innate with most people; but this longing derives its origin from the love of evil. It is therefore taken away from those who believe in the Divine Providence; and there is given them a trust that God is disposing their lot.

Consequently they do not desire to know the future beforehand lest they should in any way set themselves against the Divine Providence. (…)

[2] That this is a law of the Divine Providence may be confirmed by many things from the spiritual world. Most persons when they enter that world after death desire to know their lot. They are told that if they have lived well their lot is in heaven, and if they have lived wickedly it is in hell.

But as all, even the wicked, fear hell, they ask what they should do and what they should believe to enter heaven. They are told that they may do and believe as they will; but that they should know that in hell good is not done and truth is not believed, but only in heaven.

To each one the answer is: "Seek out what is good and what is true; then think the truth and do the good, if you are able." So in the spiritual world as in the natural world all are left to act from freedom according to reason; but as they have acted in this world so do they act in the spiritual world. (…) (DP 179) (“man” and “his” were changed to the plural)

6.3  The Vertical Community of Minds

What is always surprising about this identity is the experience we all have that we are alone in our mind. It feels absolutely private and it cannot be measured, detected, or copied. This is accurate -- but only for physical privacy, physical measuring devices, physical attempts at detection. It is the opposite in the spiritual world where our spiritual body is born and located. Our spiritual body is our mind and contains the affective organ, the cognitive organ, and the sensorimotor organ, each operating at three non-overlapping levels. But what does the spiritual body look like -- surely not like a walking brain! How funny. People have imagined all sorts of shapes for the soul, or ghosts and spirits. Even the word "spirit" gives us a feeling of airiness and unreality in comparison to the body or a tree. But Swedenborg verified the fact that spirits look like solid, clothed, earthlings.  The mind that undergoes the resuscitation phase, a few hours following the cessation of the brain's functioning, is already housed in a spiritual body, since birth. There is no death or change in the spiritual body when the physical body disintegrates. Nothing can die in the mind because nothing mental exists in the physical body that dies. All along the brain did not house our feelings, thoughts, and sensations. These were in the mind all along, not on earth but in the world of spirits.

So our shape as spirits is the same shape as the spiritual body which is the same shape as the physical body. In fact the physical body has its shape only because it is a copy of the spiritual body. But whereas the physical body can be born damaged or undergo damage later, there is no damage or blemish on the spiritual body, nor can there be to eternity, for it is made of eternal substances in an eternal arrangement. The spiritual body can be seen, heard, touched by other spiritual bodies in the spiritual world. Swedenborg confirms the fact that spirits can see the spiritual body of anyone who is still tied to the physical body. Our spiritual body appears to them like the physical body appears to us when it is in a coma. Swedenborg observed that there is a special aromatic aura that surrounds the area around each of those spiritual bodies, serving as a warning for the spirits not to come closer, and also as a protective shield from unwanted communication and influence. Swedenborg observed these phenomena daily for 27 years as he was writing his notes.

Quoting from the Writings of Swedenborg:

That I might witness the torment of those who are in hell, and the vastation of those who are in the lower earth, I have at different times been let down thither. To be let down into hell is not to be carried from one place to another, but to be let into some infernal society, the man remaining in the same place. But I may here relate only this experience: I plainly perceived that a kind of column surrounded me, and this column was sensibly increased, and it was intimated to me that this was the "wall of brass" spoken of in the Word. {1} The column was formed of angelic spirits in order that I might safely descend to the unhappy. When I was there I heard piteous lamentations, such as, O God! O God! take pity on us! take pity on us! and this for a long time. I was permitted to speak to those wretched ones, and this for a considerable time. They complained especially of evil spirits in that they desired and burned for nothing else than to torment them. They were in despair, saying that they believed their torment would be eternal; but I was permitted to comfort them. (AC 699)

There are women who have lived in the indulgence of their natural inclinations, caring only for themselves and the world, and making the whole of life and the delight of life to consist in outward decorum, in consequence of which they have been highly esteemed in polite society. They have thus, by practice and habit, acquired the talent of insinuating themselves into the desires and pleasures of others, under the pretense of what is honorable, but with the purpose of gaining control over them. Their life therefore became one of dissimulation and deceit. Like others they frequented churches, but for no other end than that they might appear virtuous and pious; and moreover they were without conscience, and very prone to shameful acts and adulteries, so far as these could be concealed. Such women think in the same way in the other life, knowing not what conscience is, and ridiculing those who speak of it. They enter into the affections of others, whatever these may be, by simulating virtue, piety, pity, and innocence, which are their means of deceiving; but whenever outward restraints are removed, they rush into things most wicked and obscene.

[2] These are the women who become enchantresses or sorceresses in the other life, some of whom are those called Sirens; and they there become expert in arts unknown in the world. They are like sponges that imbibe nefarious artifices; and are of such talent that they quickly put them in practice. The arts unknown in this world which they learn in the other are these. They can speak as though they were in another place, so that their voice is heard there as from good spirits. They can as it were be with many at the same time, thus persuading others that they are as if present everywhere. They can speak as several persons at the same time, and in several places at the same time. They can turn aside what flows in from good spirits, even what flows in from angelic spirits, and in divers ways pervert it instantly in favor of themselves. They can put on the likeness of another, by the ideas of him which they conceive and fashion. They can inspire any one with an affection for themselves, by insinuating themselves into the very state of another's affection. They can withdraw suddenly out of sight, and escape unseen. They can represent before the eyes of spirits a white flame about the head, which is an angelic sign, and this before many. They can in divers ways feign innocence, even by representing infants whom they kiss. They also excite others, whom they hate, to kill them (for they know they cannot die), and then divulge it and accuse them of murder.

[3] They have called up out of my memory whatever of evil I have thought and done, and this most skillfully. While I was asleep they have talked with others, just as if from me, so that the spirits were persuaded of it, thus of things false and obscene. And many other arts they have. Their nature is so persuasive that no room is left therein for any doubt; therefore their ideas are not communicated like those of other spirits. And their eyes are like those ascribed to serpents, seeing and paying attention every way at once. These sorceresses or sirens are grievously punished, some in Gehenna, some in a kind of court among snakes; some by wrenchings and various collisions, attended with the greatest pain and torture. In course of time they are separated from all society and become like skeletons from head to foot. A continuation of the subject follows at the end of the chapter. (AC 831)

[2] It is the same with one man during temptation and when the commotions or waters of temptation cease, as it is with man in general, as I have learned by repeated experience; for evil spirits in the world of spirits sometimes band together in troops, and thereby excite disturbances until they are dispersed by other bands of spirits, coming mostly from the right, and so from the eastern quarter, who strike such fear and terror into them that they think of nothing but flight. Then those who had associated themselves are dispersed into all quarters, and thereby the societies of spirits formed for evil purposes are dissolved. The troops of spirits who thus disperse them are called the East Wind; and there are also innumerable other methods of dispersion, also called "east winds," concerning which, of the Lord's Divine mercy hereafter.

When evil spirits are thus dispersed, the state of commotion and turbulence is succeeded by serenity, or silence, as is also the case with the man who has been in temptation; for while in temptation he is in the midst of such a band of spirits, but when they are driven away or dispersed, there follows as it were a calm, which is the beginning of the disposal of all things into order. (AC 842)

Regarding how spirits communicate and are arranged in the vertical community, the Writings Sacred Scripture say:

AC 6923. At another time I saw a multitude of such spirits, but at some distance from me, in front, a little to the right, and they talked with me from there, but through intermediate spirits; for their speech is as quick as thought, which can fall into human speech only through intermediate spirits. And what surprised me, they spoke all together, and yet just as promptly and quickly. Their speech was perceived as an undulation, because it was of many together; and what is remarkable, it fell toward my left eye, though they were to the right. The reason was that the left eye corresponds to knowledges of things abstracted from things material, thus to such as are of intelligence; but the right eye corresponds to those which are of wisdom. They likewise perceived and judged what was heard with the same promptness as that with which they spoke, saying that this was so, and this not so. Their judgment was as it were instantaneous. (AC 6923)

 6.3.1  Human Consciousness and Mediated Divine Influx

(From: www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/
instructor/gloss/harmonizing2.htm )

This is what I call the vertical community. Our physical body is immersed in a social world of others so that we can interact and touch each other. Our body has a social and legal identity within a society within a nation and culture. This is our horizontal community -- it is bound in space and time across the planet. Within the context of the horizontal community our mind is a private world. But within the context of our vertical community the mind is a social world -- auras around our head reflect our mood and intentions when approaching, whether hostile or friendly. Objects and animals seen around us are clues to what we are feeling and thinking since these external appearances are creations by the laws of correspondence of the feelings and thoughts we have at any moment.

As feelings or moods change in an individual there is an instantaneous effect on the spiritual world. Bad moods create the appearance of a dark and stormy weather filled with screeching owls and black birds and scorpions. Negative emotions create the appearance of wild animals roaming around and awful smells that correspond to particular thoughts. Good feelings create beautiful gardens and paradises filled with gentle animals and luscious fruit. When you think about someone with the desire to interact, the person and you suddenly are in each other's presence. When you fight with a companion, he or she disappears from your presence. When you feel like eating, food appears. And so on. Swedenborg observed these instantaneous creations and changes for 27 years and it became so familiar that it was accepted ass something normal.

It is clear from this that the human personality has a super-natural ability and power that is impressive. An individual's mind is far more powerful than the all the natural forces on an entire planet. You know this from the power you have in your dreams, day dreams, imagination, and visualization. When we think from materialism we are less impressed by this mind-power since dreams, imagination, visualization are mental and come and go, with little apparent effects on our earthly environment. People say, Oh, that's just a dream, or that's just my expectation, etc. This appears valid only as long as we restrict our focus on the material physical world where is our physical body. But what about the spiritual world where our mind is? What happens there when we dream, daydream, fantasize, or feel a striving or desire for something?

Boom!

Suddenly everything changes as you change feelings or moods -- the environment, the house, the people you're with, your clothes, the sounds and smells, everything changes. So it's never "just" dreams or thoughts since they are the everything in the spiritual or mental environment.

The individual traits of personality are determined by the unique way each mind or "spirit" receives and processes the spiritual heat and light streaming forth from the Spiritual Sun. The spiritual light streams into the cognitive organ of the mind while the spiritual heat streams into the affective organ of the mind. The result is a unique reception with each unique personality or individual. This is analogous with the natural sun rays which stream into a variety of plants, each plant species in a unique way (wavelength), so that the same sunlight (photosynthesis) and heat (activation and flow) produce a variety of flowers and fruit. Similarly, the same spiritual light and heat from the Spiritual Sun produce unique effects in each mind receptor.

The spiritual influx of substances into the mind organ produces its affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor operations at several levels. Influx first enters through the celestial mind and is unconscious. The effects produced on the celestial mind filter down to the spiritual mind by the laws of correspondences. Ordinarily we are unaware of the operations in our spiritual mind, though we can acquire that ability to some extent. Finally, the effects of the operations in the spiritual mind filter down by functional correspondence to the natural mind. Here we become conscious of them.

The natural mind is built up by daily experience through the physical body and social interactions. The natural mind has three sub-components or levels of operation: corporeal-sensuous, and natural-rational. Corporeal-sensuous levels of operations in our mind are focused on sensations and motor movements. Natural-rational levels are focused on abstract representations of the corporeal-sensuous operations. When the operations of the natural mind are integrated and healthy the human personality is civilized, intelligent, virtuous, and  moral. Prior to this integration, or even in states of disintegration, the human personality is savage, partially intelligent, corrupt, and amoral or immoral. Inheritance of personality traits insures that the disintegration of the natural mind is passed on to the ensuing generations. Each generation passes on additional new negative traits so that there has been a tendency for "fossilizing" negative and unhealthy personality traits. Every generation and every individual is thus faced with the challenging task of modifying inherited traits that prevent individuals from reaching their full human potential. See the discussion on character reformation (see Section xx).

Theistic psychology makes available new human resources by uncovering hidden powers known from scientific revelations. For instance, the knowledge that both heaven and hell are inside every individual provides us with techniques for character reformation. For every depression we have available anti-depression, and for every negative emotion we have access to is positive counter side. No one has to be stuck where they are born or where they have fallen. No one is more or less privileged in possessing both the highest and the lowest of humanity. Another example is the knowledge that everyone possessed a spiritual-rational mind that is not under their conscious control and cannot be perverted. This is the mind which causes the natural mind to be orderly arranged and to carry out operations that are rational. Hence everyone has an equal capacity to arrange their natural mind into a civilized and rational mode. All society's ills are caused by the natural mind remaining in disorder due to its active opposition to the influence of the spiritual mind. Untold human benefit would result if we allowed the knowledge of theistic psychology to spread to science and public education.

Certain cognitive habits function to inhibit the rational influence of the spiritual mind and thus lead to the downward spiral of hell. Atheism, materialism, cynicism, Machiavelli's, cultism, terrorism are all systems of thought, ways of thinking and feeling that are opposed and destructive of theism and rationality, the two elements of our character upon which heaven is built up. For instance religious terrorists have developed a religious and patriotic rationale for justifying hellish acts that go beyond universal rules of human decency and international law. On the one hand they ascend to their heaven and worship God through their ritual and dogma. On the other hand they descend to their hell and practice evil deeds as a deliberate policy to solve a particular political problem. They are thus activating both heaven and hell within themselves, destroying the fabric of their mind. Can suicide bombers enjoy life in heaven when heaven is a place of loving others more than self?

Consider the contrast with wars a country wages according to human decency and international law. One can disagree with the motive for going to war, and yet definite rules are voluntarily observed when dealing with the enemy. We are even expected to feel compassion for the enemy so that when we wound an enemy soldier we feel compelled, not to finish him off, but to rescue him from death by medical care, and afterwards we feel obligated to send them home. We wage war in a civilized manner because to become uncivilized is worse than to lose the war or to die honorably.

non-theistic psychology has been hampered in its mission to improve the lot of humanity by its inability to take sides between good and evil personality traits. There was no rationale for saying that this human trait is better than that. Blind evolution theory has it that the fittest survive, not the good in heart, and even that selfism is more "rational" than altruism since it is more likely to lead to one's survival. But now with theistic psychology we know as a scientific fact that the human mind is immortal and contains heaven and hell. Suddenly the stakes have gone much higher. Instead of a few decades of unhappiness due to immaturity we are looking at an eternity of happiness, or else, unhappiness. The stakes could not be higher than this!

Theistic psychology gives the current generation, and all the generations in the future, a knowledge of what's at stake and how to meet it. Theistic psychology opens up vast new untapped resources of human potential. Understanding personality from within is a great advantage that gives power to transform one's inherited character into a heavenly character that consists of loves that can sustain us in our heavenly mansions. Swedenborg has interviewed and observed many heavenly inhabitants. In that state of life every person is called an "angel" and everyone is in the "flower of their youth" -- around age 20 in looks, according to Swedenborg's impression. Everyone is beautiful there. Everyone is wise, decent, altruistic, and imbued with the love of serving the needs of others. Only "conjugial couples" live there, each in their heavenly mansion or garden, each growing happier, wiser, and more beautiful on a daily basis to eternity. Such is the awesome power and goodness of the human mind in its full potential.

non-theistic psychology teaches that people and animals do things for reward and reinforcement of their needs and goals. In that case every novitiate spirit should immediately rise to their heaven, but this is not the case. Swedenborg observed thousands of people being resuscitated from different countries during his years of active observation of the world of spirits (1745-1771) and he was amazed to discover that more than half descended to the bottom of their mind. He interviewed them to find out why. He eventually came to understand the spiritual physiology of personality which explained whey people would freely choose to descend to the bottom of their mind instead of ascend to the top.

The most important dynamic feature of the mind is that the affective rules the cognitive, and the two together rule the sensorimotor, which rules the body. In other words the will, which is an affective organ, rules the understanding, which is a cognitive organ. It is significant that non-theistic psychology has not been able to discover this, always leaning towards the position that the cognitive rules the affective. The primacy of the affective over the cognitive was confirmed by Swedenborg in many ways. It is known today that synergy depends on integration of diverse elements. The Writings had already fully established this thesis in the 18th century. For instance, the cumulative perfection of the human race is dependent on the diversity of its races and cultures, but only if they are integrated. If not, the diversity leads to conflict and discrimination. This applies equally to the affective domain, that is, the operations of willing and intending.

Quoting from the Writings:

These two verses deal with the introduction of truth into good. But the nature of this introduction does not fit easily into the pattern of thought of anyone whose mind is illumined solely by such things as are seen in the light of the world, and not at the same time by those seen in the light of heaven, by which those belonging to the light of the world are illumined.

People who are devoid of good and consequently of faith have no other ideas in their minds than those formed from objects seen in the light of the world. They do not know what the spiritual is, nor even what the rational is in the genuine sense, but only the natural, to which they ascribe everything. Here also is the reason why those things stated in the internal sense about the introduction of truth into good appear to them too remote to mean anything at all. Yet to those who see in the light of heaven they are considered most precious.

With regard to the introduction of truth into good, before truth has been introduced and rightly joined it does indeed reside with man, yet it has not so to speak become his or his own. But as soon as it is introduced into its own good it does become his own. It goes out of his external memory and passes over into the internal memory. Or what amounts to the same, it ceases to exist in the natural or external man, and passes over into the rational or internal man, where it clothes itself with the person himself and constitutes his humanity, that is, his own human character.

This is the situation with all truth that is being joined to its good, as also in a similar way with falsity that is being joined to evil which it calls good. The difference however is that truth opens the rational and so makes a person rational, whereas falsity closes the rational and makes him irrational, though he seems to himself while in the darkness enveloping him at this time to be more rational than others. (AC 3108)

This passage explains how the Divine Psychologist causes our mind to develop spiritually in preparation for entering eternal conjugial heaven in our mind. This is called "the introduction of truth into good." This refers to the marriage or conjunction between our cognitive and affective organs. This inner mental marriage makes us heavenly. It is an actual mechanism that will be researched in the future under a branch of theistic psychology called "spiritual psychobiology" (see Reading List under that title, as well as the title "Human Organic").

The above passage refers to our "external memory" and our "internal memory." These anatomical parts of our mind are distinct and have different functions. The external memory is involved in our overt personality roles and involvements. Only that information will enter the internal memory which we love. It's very important that people monitor this process of interiorization since the external memory is made non-operational at our second death when we permanently enter either heaven or hell in our mind. IN order to enter heaven we must transfer the doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture into the interior memory, or else we do not have it with us at the second death, meaning that we cannot enter the heavenly state in our mind.

The passage above describes how we can transfer the doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture from our external memory to our internal memory. This is the method of love. By making ourselves love the doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture we achieve the marriage between the will and the understanding, that is, between our affective and cognitive organs. In other words, we make the love actual and real when we intend and act in accordance with the doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture. That's what it takes.

The second paragraph in the quoted passage above explains that we cannot understand this process of spiritual development without the doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture. Without this information or concept of Divine Truth operating in the world, we remain materialists in our thinking, being unable to see anything whatsoever in these ideas about good and truth and how God introduces one into the other to create a marriage that makes a heaven out o four mind. The the materialist person in the negative bias, these things seem meaningless and without any foundation (see Section xx).

The third paragraph in the quoted passage above explains that when the doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture initially "resides" with us but has not become "our own." That's why it is called the "external" memory--it is outside of us. What we call the "us" or the "self" or what is our "own" is what is in our love or affective organ, that is, our character, what we really love underneath it all. This is the internal spiritual mind that remains with us into immortality. When we make our daily choices according to the truth in our external memory, we intend what we believe and know. This makes it our very own. Anything that we freely intend is our own since when we are free, we intend only what we love (no pretenses). If we freely intend what we know from our doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture, then the truth "ceases to exist in the natural or external man, and passes over into the rational or internal man." The doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture then becomes our own, which means that our character has become heavenly.

It is not possible for a non-heavenly character to freely intend the doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture. Before we are mature adults we often know the doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture but we do not freely intend it. We make a show of intending it because we desire to have a good reputation in the yes of those around us. But in the privacy of our own mind it is not possible for us to freely intend the doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture--unless we desire to love it. But the hellish part of our mind cannot freely desire to love the doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture. It is as impossible to do that as it is to put a house in your pocket from which you just exited.

The last paragraph of the passage quoted above explains that doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture (or "truth") "makes a person rational" while non-truth or "falsity" makes a person "irrational." What is noteworthy is that when we are in an irrational state of mind, truth appear false and falsity appears like truth.

Quoting from the Writings:

It is well known that nobody is born rational but merely into the ability to become so, and that he becomes rational by means of factual knowledge, that is to say, by means of cognitions which divide up into many genera and species, the first of which are the means leading on to those next to them, and so on in order to the last of all which are cognitions of the spiritual things of the Lord's kingdom and are called matters of doctrine. These latter cognitions are learned in part from the doctrine of faith, in part directly from the Word, and in part therefore by a person's own efforts, as is also well known. As long as these matters of doctrine remain solely in the memory they are merely factual truths and have not as yet been made over to the individual as his own.

They first become made over to him when he starts to love them for the sake of life, and more so when he applies them to life. When this happens truths are raised up from the natural memory into the rational part of the mind and are there joined to good. And when they have been joined they are no longer matters of knowledge but of life, for in that case a person is no longer learning from truths how to live but actually living by them. In this way truths come to be his own and become matters of the will. He accordingly enters the heavenly marriage, for the heavenly marriage consists in good and truth joined together in the rational. With men these things are accomplished by the Lord. (AC 3161)

The same applies to everything implanted in someone since childhood. It does not become his own until he acts according to it, and does so from affection. For when he acts from affection that which has been implanted in him passes into his will. Then it is no longer put into practice by him simply because he knows that he should or because he has been taught to do it, but because some delight unknown to himself and so to speak his own disposition or nature lead him to do so. For everyone acquires such a disposition or nature from frequent practice or habit, and that practice or habit from the things he has learned.

This does not come about until the things he has absorbed through his being taught them have been passed through from the external man to the interior; for when they exist in the interior man he no longer acts from the sensory memory but from his acquired disposition, till at length they flow into action spontaneously. For in this case they have been inscribed on the person's interior memory, and the things that proceed from this give the appearance of being innate. This may be recognized from the languages a person has learned in childhood, also from the ability to reason, and from conscience too. From these considerations it is evident that the truths of doctrine, even those that are interior, are not joined to a person until they are matters of life. But further information on these points will in the Lord's Divine mercy appear elsewhere. (AC 3843)

You can see that the essence of a human being is the hierarchy of loves contained in the mind. If these loves are good and rational, the human being is heavenly. But if the loves are evil and irrational, the human being is hellish. We are such as our loves are, and in fact, angels in heaven call each other "affections," meaning, loves, enthusiasms, happinesses, and the like. The individual's highest potential is built up by the quality of loves one has as one's very own. If we live in our evil loves, we are nothing but devils and satans -- delusional and dangerous caricatures of humans. But if we live good loves, we are nothing but angels and good spirits -- peaceful, rational, and  compassionate. Every individual can be either of these two from an innate capacity, as part of the spiritual organics of the immortal mind.

Human loves in the affective organ of the will, are organized in a ruling hierarchy. The entire hierarch depends on the "ruling love" which is top dog, king, and chair of the board. Swedenborg determined that the entire human race on earth has evolved an affective hierarchy that is passed on from generation to generation, cumulating in strength and intensifying over the generations. This hierarchy is visible by its ultimate effects -- a society marred by increasing criminality causing suffering and a deteriorating physical environment causing sickness and discomfort. These negative effects are the results of negative loves.

There are three strong forces that oppose this deterioration of loves: rationality, conscience, and sacred scripture. Rationality always promotes morality and respect for community standards. Conscience always promotes resistance to selfish and irrational temptations and serves as a guide to what are bad loves that should be avoided and what are good loves that should be embraced. Sacred Scripture always promotes love of God's commandments of life and love of others. You can see that these three forces -- rationality, conscience, and sacred scripture, give us the power to realign our affective hierarchy by dethroning the chief loves in place by the time we become adults and can survey our mental territory. The two ruling loves of every individual on this planet is "the love of self and world" and "the love of ruling over others."

By understanding the nature of these two loves theistic psychology can be more effective in reversing the downward evolution of human loves.

TCR 36. This section of the chapter will be discussed under separate headings as before.

• (i) God is Love itself and Wisdom itself, these two making up His Essence.
• (ii) God is Good itself and Truth itself, because Good refers to Love and Truth to Wisdom.
• (iii) Love itself and Wisdom itself constitute Life itself, or Life in itself.
• (iv) Love and Wisdom are one in God.
• (v) The essence of love is loving others than oneself, wishing to be one with them and devoting oneself to their happiness.
• (vi) These properties of the Divine Love were the reason the universe was created, and are the reason it is preserved in existence.

These headings must now be discussed one by one. (TCR 36)