Swedenborg
Encyclopedia of Theistic Psychology
The Ideas of Emanuel Swedenborg
(1668-1772)
Expressed In Modern Scientific Psychology
First Published:
November 1995 | Updated: May
2003; August 2007
Theistic
Psychology is the scientific discovery of
spiritual laws given in rational scientific revelations.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
You can go directly to the
Swedenborg Encyclopedia of Theistic Psychology Directory found below
The Swedenborg Encyclopedia of Theistic
Psychology is a
collection of my articles, lecture notes, and books on topics generated from my
study of the Writings of
Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), a Swedish scientist who left behind a collection
of some 30 volumes on what I consider to be Theistic Psychology. Neither
Swedenborg nor his commentators and followers used this expression, but as a
psychologist I felt it was appropriate to describe the psychological content of
his work in that way. "Theistic" means that it assumes the positive bias
regarding God.
Theistic psychology contrasts with atheistic
or nontheistic psychology which assumes the negative bias regarding God. In the
negative bias psychology (nontheistic) any explanatory account
that relies on God as cause is defined as unscientific. In the positive
bias psychology (theistic) any explanatory account that does not rely on
God as cause is defined as unscientific. For example, nontheistic psychology
explains the human growth process and its developmental anatomy without ever
mentioning God in the account. In contrast theistic psychology obtains all its
information, data, and principles from God's Speech, also known as Sacred
Scripture -- not Sacred Scripture in its literal historical sense, but Sacred
Scripture in its correspondential sense.
Swedenborg's greatest accomplishment in my
view is the rediscovery of the Divine laws of correspondences that are imparted
to humanity through Sacred Scripture given at various times in time and place in
history. The literal sense of each Sacred Scripture is clearly geographic,
ethnic, and historical, so that when you compare the literal meaning of the
various Sacred Scripture we know of, there is a clash, an antipathy, a
contradiction, even hatred and racism. This state of affairs would hardly become
a great potentate on earth, let alone the all powerful universal God! There must
be a rational explanation for the intellectual diversity and mutual aversion
that God has created between these different versions of "His Word."
Swedenborg gives the rational solution to this awesome
historical and scientific puzzle.
All genuine Sacred Scripture is indeed
Divine Speech itself -- not in the literal sense of the expressions and words,
but in their correspondential sense that needs to be accessed through
translation rules presented in the Writings of Swedenborg.
In the positive bias of theistic psychology the Writings of
Swedenborg are Divine revelations ordinarily called Sacred
Scripture. Other Sacred Scripture known today include the Old Testament, the New
Testament, the Koran (Qu'ran), the Hindu Scriptures, the Baha'i' Scriptures, and
some others. The identification of whether some work is Sacred Scripture
involves the attempt to access its correspondential sense as known from other
Sacred Scripture already identified.
Swedenborg is the only known scientist in
history who had empirical observational access to the correspondential sense of
Sacred Scripture by direct sensuous consciousness. At age 57 the well known
European scientist and publisher, Baron Emanuel Swedenborg of Sweden, suddenly
found himself conscious and awake in a dual universe, one natural through his
physical body, the other spiritual through his mental body which he called
"spirit body." He lived the next 27 years as a dual citizen, interacting
socially in this world of time, where he was a busy government mining engineer;
and simultaneously also being conscious in the spiritual world of the afterlife
and eternity, where he interacted with all the people he had known before their
death, and all the authors and historical personalities he had known from the
world's literature.
No credible scientist before Swedenborg, or since, exists who
has provided a rational and fully integrated scientific account of the
correspondential sense of Sacred Scripture . Due to his dual
awareness Swedenborg was able to read his Bible in Hebrew and Greek with his
natural mind, and simultaneously with his spiritual mind. As he came upon each
word and each expression in the natural sense, he observed directly their
correspondential sense by looking around him and observing what was happening.
He documents what he saw with each expression and word including numbers, days
of the week, names of people and places, and double expressions that appear mere
synonyms or hyperbole, as well the mythical animals and battles and visionary
events. Through these empirical observations Swedenborg produces a dictionary of
correspondences contextually presented in series of volumes that give a word by
word analysis of the major portions of the Bible.
Anyone reading and studying these semantic
demonstrations can acquire the rational logic that governs the laws of
correspondences. Every human being has an intrinsic understanding of
correspondences, though only some people are aware of it while living in this
world. But anyone can rationally study the correspondences that govern their own
mind-body connections. These are familiar to us as similes and metaphors when we
talk about mental things as if they were physical (e.g., "he is a brain" (hi is
intelligent); "let's hake on it" (agreeing), "he was deeply wounded" (hurt
pride), etc.).
If you apply the laws of correspondences to
Sacred Scripture the literal sense completely vanishes from semantic focus.
Instead of "Jacob" we read "the natural mind"; instead of "Jerusalem" we read
"theistic science"; and "Rachel" becomes "rational truth" while her "handmaiden"
becomes "natural truth"; all numbers involving 4 (like "forty days in the
desert") signify "mental states of temptation during regeneration"; and "flood"
refers to "inability to resist temptations and hence becoming wicked and evil."
And so on. Swedenborg shows that reading the Bible through the correspondential
sense gives access to a textbook of theistic psychology or science.
Divine Speech is Divine Truth, absolute and infinite. To
communicate this truth to the human race the elements of Divine Speech are
transformed into semantic correspondences. These Divine thoughts or meanings
descend in rational and scientific series into the highest layers of the human
mind called the celestial heavens. Swedenborg was able to compare the language
and script of Sacred Scripture that was given to the
celestial and spiritual societies in eternity. When people die they are
resuscitated within 30 hours and awaken in the afterlife of eternity. They
discover that this world is a mental world. Things and people around them can
come and go, appear and disappear, and so is their house, or any object or
animal. The afterlife of eternity behaves like dreams, It's all very familiar.
It is the mental world into which we we born to begin with but somehow had our
consciousness restricted to the physical world of time and matter.
On earth things are solid and remain put. You can't wish a
person out of your sight. You can't walk out of a closed room. You can't see
someone not present. But it's different in your dreams. If your wedding
reception room is too small you dream up a bigger one to accommodate thousands
of guests and you create more food up to your will. It is the same in the mental
world of eternity, once you are detached from the physical world. Swedenborg was
a unique case in that he was able to interact in the afterlife of eternity while
he was still attached to his physical body and natural life. He called this
state "the greatest miracle the Lord has given since creation." Without a person
having these experiences our knowledge of eternity would be restricted to the
literal sense of Sacred Scripture, and this provides almost
no details whatsoever regarding what the afterlife is like.
Historically the work of Swedenborg has been treated as
theology and religion, which explains why he is not mentioned in the history of
psychology. But this was my insight, or new perspective, as I studied
Swedenborg's work and discovered in it a complete scientific and empirical
account of the human mind.
The theistic psychology in Swedenborg's Writings is so hidden
that experts and admirers of his work for the past 200 years of active
Swedenborgian literature, have failed to see it, or have seen in it something
psychological, but never a systematic empirical science of psychology. It is
important to understand why this has occurred. For the first few years of my
study of Swedenborg's multi-volume works I could recognize the importance of his
observations to psychology but did not see that it presented a complete
scientific account of the human mind. Instead, I saw it as "spiritual
psychology" that is relevant and useful for psychology.
The long evolution of my understanding of Swedenborg's Writings
was assisted by what others have written and charted regarding his ideas. This
collateral literature is given credit and reference in many of the articles and
books in this Encyclopedia. I saw my unique function as presenting Swedenborg's
work through concepts and theoretical accounts that are comprehensible to college
students taking a course in Advanced Psychology. This means that I needed to
address the issue of scientific rigor and method. I had to present Swedenborg's
work as a full fledged empirical science of psychology having the defining
characteristics of a scientific discipline -- namely, presence of empirical
data, repeatability and stability of observations, and rational coherence and
consistency in theoretical explanations involving cause-effect chains of
phenomena.
The issue of scientific rigor and definition is repeatedly
addressed in various ways throughout several volumes, and especially Volume 1,
Introduction to Theistic Psychology where it is discussed as The Negative and
Positive Bias in Science (Section 1.0.6).
Psychology as it is known today aligns itself with a categorical non-theistic
perspective, denying that God is part of the reality that science needs to
address. There is also the denial of the afterlife and the world of eternity.
These denials are rightly called the "negative bias in science" since there is
no proof given or even attempted to show that God is not part of reality and the
cause-effect phenomena of the universe. In this non-theistic perspective there
is no room for Swedenborg's theistic science. Hence it is understandable that he
is not mentioned in the history of psychology. It is important to understand
that non-theistic psychology maintains a negative bias against theism despite
the lack of any evidence for such a denial. This is why it is called a bias.
It is also the case that the acceptance of God's existence in
theistic psychology is also a bias for which proof is not given. Theistic
psychology takes up
the positive bias position that God exists, and then examines the evidence to
see if it makes rational sense to maintain this bias in science. Scientists must
now examine this perspective rationally and scientifically to see if it is
methodologically feasible and useful in increasing scientific knowledge and
understanding of the
human mind. The positive bias perspective in psychology allows scientists and
students to examine the evidence and rationale for theistic psychology. The
negative bias in psychology denies this evidence in advance, hence cannot objectively examine
the evidence that Swedenborg presents.
It makes rational sense therefore to adopt the positive
bias in order to have the opportunity to examine the evidence Swedenborg is
presenting. The purpose of the Swedenborg Encyclopedia of
Theistic Psychology is to present the evidence for the scientific knowledge
of God extracted from the correspondential sense of the Writings of Swedenborg.
I discovered this unique collection in 1981 in our
university library and was truly amazed that it is not cited and known in the
scientific literature, and in particular, Psychology, a field that I had been
teaching for twenty years at that time (Ph.D., 1962, McGill University). I started writing about what I was
reading in the Writings of Swedenborg, and in 1995, when I created my
Web site
on Swedenborg, I sought a way of integrating my notes and articles for public
presentation, and the result was this Swedenborg Encyclopedia of Theistic
Psychology. Its prior name was the Swedenborg Glossary.
The main themes in this Encyclopedia are God, spirituality, rationality,
afterlife, the mind's anatomy, scientific dualism, heaven and hell,
regeneration. These are topics that Swedenborg discusses from first hand
observation. I try to reference my discussions by
citing Swedenborg throughout the text of every entry article. I try to be
specific about the citation, using the standard citation style used by
Swedenborgian scholars that refers the reader to the original Book and Paragraph
Number. Swedenborg numbered all his paragraphs, which actually consisted of
several sub-paragraphs, so that very specific citations are possible. Further,
most of the 30 volume set of his "theological" Writings can be accessed and searched by the
public at:
www.theheavenlydoctrines.org/
Swedenborg was the only scientist in history
who had the gift of dual consciousness. This refers to his ability
to be awake simultaneously in his physical body, as the rest of us are, and in
his "spirit-body," which normally does not occur until our
resuscitation or awakening from the dying process which, as observed by
Swedenborg numerous times, lasts for about thirty hours relative to this world. He reported that this
conscious awareness of the "spirit-body" while still alive in the physical body, was given to him by God, who appeared to him and sent him
off to his Divine writing and publishing mission, which was, that he shall write
up as a scientist what information he could gather by this special observation
technique. He was
57 at the time and he passed on at 83. This Divine process of "intromission" of
his consciousness into the spirit-body in the spiritual world is according to
Swedenborg, the "greatest miracle the Lord has granted since creation." And this
new gift to humanity was for the sake of the development of
rational
spirituality.
The advantage of assuming the positive bias in psychology is
that it opens up a new source of knowledge that is unavailable to the negative
bias non-theistic psychology. This new resource is known to people in all
cultures since the beginning of human history as
Sacred
Scripture. There is a long and active tradition of research and study of
Sacred Scripture in every culture. Theology and religion are always based on the
literal meaning of Sacred Scripture, each religion and ethnic group having their
own Sacred Scripture given to them by Divine revelation through a prophet or
revelator. In Western Christian literature there have been made many attempts to
use the Bible to justify a religious belief or rule of life. The specific case
of Creationism is discussed in
Section 1.8.9 Theistic Science: The Scientific Alternative to Creationism
and Intelligent Design. Theistic psychology is not based on the literal
meaning of Sacred Scripture, as religions are, but on its correspondential sense
(Section
1.0.5.5.5).
The topic of correspondences is the central focus of all of
theistic psychology as science, e.g. in these Sections of the
Theistic Psychology
Volumes:
1.1.4.3.2
Extracting the Content of Divine Speech Through Correspondences
1.6.5 The Method of Psycho-Biological Correspondence
1.8.1
The "Bible Code" vs. the Method of Correspondences With Enlightenment
1.8.8.1
The Secret Presence of Correspondences in Sacred Scripture
3.7.1 The Nature and Character of God: A Scientific Perspective:
The Science of Correspondences
3.15 The Universal Laws of Correspondences
4.0
Why the Writings Sacred Scripture Are Written in Correspondences
5.1.1.4 The Mind's Three Discrete Degrees: Corresponding
Degrees--Natural and Spiritual Minds
6.3.1.1.1( IX) Correspondences to Divine Speech in Sacred Scripture
8.10.2.3 Principles of Theistic Psychology Education:
Correspondences
9.1.1.1 Models of Spiritual Development Based on Sacred
Scripture: The Literal Meaning and the Extracted Meaning
10.0 Physiological Correspondences
12.0.7.1 The Geography of the Spiritual World: First
Heaven--Spiritual-Natural Correspondences
13.0.4
Religious Psychology: Levels of Correspondences in Sacred Scripture
What was unknown and unsuspected until the
revelations of the Writings of Swedenborg in the 18th century, is that the Old and New Testaments are written in a
language that expresses psychological facts not directly, but in "correspondences."
Further, every genuine Sacred Scripture in all cultures and traditions is
written in the same scientific language of correspondences in which spiritual
realities are expressed in words and meanings that are the natural
correspondences to these spiritual ideas. In other words, every idea stemming
from natural observation is a correspondence for an idea stemming from spiritual
facts. This is equally true of objects: every physical object or operation is
the effect, whose cause is a spiritual object or operation, the two cause-effect
being linked by the law of correspondences that governs the relation between the
natural world and the spiritual world.
The self-evident discovery I made while researching these topics
in Swedenborg's Writings is the greatest piece of news science has ever
received: and it is this: that the spiritual world of the afterlife in eternity
= the mental world. (see
Section 1.0.1).
Every human being is
born into a dual
universe tied by correspondence. At birth we acquire a physical body that is
tied by correspondence to a mental body (or "spirit-body"). All mental
operations occur not in the brain but in the mind, that is, in the anatomical
organs that make up the mind in the mental body. The mental body is immortal.
Upon the death of the physical body the mental body continues conscious life in
the mental world of eternity known as the afterlife of heaven and hell -- see
Section 1.1.4
(F) Sixth Conclusion: The Eternity of the Afterlife is Our Mental World Now.
Correspondences occur in Sacred Scripture because Divine Speech
originates them -- see
Section
15.0.1.1 The Scientific Meaning of Genesis, as an illustration of the method
of extracting psychological knowledge from Sacred Scrioture. As Divine Speech
descends from God and enters the mental world of humanity and thus of every
individual, it descends across the layers of the human mind until it reaches the
external layer of natural culture and history. Throughout this descent Divine
Speech is transformed at each layer so that each lower layer is a correspondence
of the prior upper layer. Correspondences govern mental phenomena in the
mental world of eternity and they also govern physical phenomena in time and
place.
The action of correspondences is the
scientific mechanism that governs the interaction between every natural
phenomenon as an effect, with its corresponding spiritual phenomenon as its
cause. For example, the names of the people and places mentioned in all Sacred
Scripture are symbolic references to
mental states, and so are numbers, objects, actions, and events. Swedenborg
verified with his dual consciousness the observational fact that whenever he
read the Bible in the physical body he was able to see the correspondence of
each word and phrase appear before him in the spirit body.
The process is fully confirmed scientifically
by the reversal effect, namely, that whenever he was discussing psychological
topics about mental states while he was conscious in his spirit-body, he
observed the sensory effects of the discussion all around him in the world of
spirits. For example, when he was talking to people there who are mentally in
evil states, the environment around them became darker, the sky was filled with
dark clouds, the surroundings showed caverns, stinking marshes, and screeching
poisonous animals and insects. But when he was speaking with the inhabitants of
heaven, the surrounding environment showed beautiful houses and gardens on
bright and sunny streets, with wonderful fragrances, melodious sounds, and
friendly animals.
What is amazing is that there was a one to one relationship or
mechanism between particular objects in the environment and specific topics of
discussion, to such an extent, that the people there, who all live in a
marvelous spirit-body, are able to tell from a distance what a person is
thinking and feeling, merely by looking at the surround that gets instantiated
wherever people are in the spiritual world.
The mechanism that produces these natural
looking environments in the spiritual world of the afterlife is exactly the same
mechanism that is in the natural language in which all Sacred Scriptures were written.
Of course the existence of the secret language of correspondences was not known to
the authors of the Old and New Testaments, but the visions and events they wrote
down were inspired into them by God so that only those details were written down
that will make a scientific series of linked concepts and explanations when
translating the natural into its correspondential sense. What is
extraordinary and amazing is that the correspondential sense of the Old and New
Testament books form an uninterrupted rational series of meanings and
explanations about the human mind -- a textbook or encyclopedia of the mind's
anatomy and immortal development. Swedenborg demonstrated this for the Old
and New Testament Sacred Scriptures.
This
alone proves that the Old and New Testaments is Divine, for how could dozens of
uneducated pre-scientific authors, writing about their inspired visions, come up
with a literal sequence of sentences that then form a meaningful rational unit
together, in the whole of the Old and New Testament. Can you imagine another
rational explanation?
Theistic psychology shows that this also
applies to the Writings Sacred Scripture, and to other Sacred Scripture (see
Section
15.0.4 Ancient Forms of Sacred Scripture and Their Derivatives. And see
Section
1.0.1.3 Revelation: Divine Speech Exteriorizing as Sacred Scripture).
Today anyone regardless of background can read
these Divine scientific revelations and have a complete rational understanding
of God and how we are to prepare for our afterlife, which begins in the
spirit-body just a few hours after death of the physical body, as observed
thousands of times by Swedenborg, and described by him in scientific detail. This is what the Swedenborg
Encyclopedia of Theistic Psychology is about -- my
attempt to be of service to others by describing them in the modern terms of
scientific psychology in which I was trained and have functioned now for over four
decades.
This is not a difficult task for me, but a
joyous one that has changed my life and brought me enlightenment and love. Now
everyone can examine in a scientific way the mysteries of their faith and
philosophy. The One God of the universe who takes care of every person, moment
by moment to eternity, has now given humanity this most precious of all
revelations that completes the creation of the human mind into an angelic person
with supernatural powers and virtues of love and wisdom. The lot of such a
person is heavenly bliss to eternity. Take charge of your eternity! It makes
sense to do so! What can be more important than that? And the entry point to
heaven is by means of rational spirituality in the mind.
See a continuation of this introduction:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499f99/ortal/goodtrue.html
See also:
Scientific Proof that the
Threefold Word is Divine
For an Introduction and Overview article on Theistic
Psychology, please click here
See also Dr. Ian Thompson's Site
TheisticScience.org
