The Unity Model of Marriage Lecture Notes Dr. Leon James, Instructor Spring 2008, G27, University of Hawaii

The materialistic view on marriage is the socio-legal definition by community and government, namely that marriage ends at the death of one of the partners. This type of outlook on marriage creates what may be called "natural marriages."

"Spiritual marriages" are those in which the partners see themselves as bound together after death. Hence, when one of the two partners dies, the other does not think that the marriage is over. Death is just a temporary separation until the other can catch up, whereupon they are reunited as husband and wife to continue forever.

The materialistic view on death is that it is the end. The spiritual view on death is that it is the end of life in the physical world of time, and the beginning of life in the spiritual world of eternity.

In the history of modern scientific psychology the adoption of materialism was a necessary step in separating psychology from philosophy and religion, with which it was tied before for centuries, since Aristotle. The new materialistic psychology views marriage in the socio-legal track so that marriage counseling does not involve discussion of the marriage continuing in the afterlife. It merely assumes the end of it at death.

In the past few years the American Psychological Association, which sets standards for science and practice, has encouraged licenses therapists to become knowledgeable in "theistic psychotherapy" which refers to the inclusion into the therapy of spiritual ideas that clients may have. In other words clinicians in the future will be expected to be able to deal with relevantly spiritual marriages as well as natural marriages.

Note well: This does not mean that the therapist is expected to believe that the marriage continues after death. In other words, the therapist's view on marriage can be called a "materialistic view of spiritual marriages." Of course this is different from a "spiritual view of spiritual marriages."

The difference between materialistic and spiritual is easy to remember:

Materialistic view on marriage = 'Till death do us part

Spiritual view on marriage = Forever in the afterlife

It's understandable that materialistic psychology takes the socio-legal view on marriage when we realize that psychologists do not have any details about the human body and mind after death. Until such knowledge is developed psychology must remain materialistic about marriage and the human mind.

Fortunately, in 1981 I discovered the Swedenborg Reports which were written in the 18th century by the Swedish scientist Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). I will present his discoveries throughout the course, especially in relation to his observations about marriages in the afterlife of the spiritual world. At the age of 57 he suddenly became conscious in his spiritual mind. As a result of this he was in the unique historical position of recording his observations of what happens to people after death. The unity model of marriage in this course is based on his reports and observations.

The Swedenborg Reports at last gives psychology the knowledge of mental anatomy. It therefore gives psychology a basis for a new view on marriage which is spiritual rather than materialistic. In other words, the new view takes into account the dynamics of marriage as progressive from this life to the afterlife. The anatomy and physiology of a human being will now be dualist rather than monist. In other words every human being is born simultaneously into two worlds through a physical body in the physical world and a spiritual body through the spiritual world of the afterlife. At death we lose connection with the physical body and continue life in the spiritual body. When Swedenborg at age 57 became conscious in his spiritual body while still connected to his physical body, he was able to observe how the two worlds work together in one function.

This will help you with the new ideas introduced in this course: Remember that in this new view, our thoughts and feelings do not reside in the brain of the physical body, but in the brain of the spiritual body.

The reason is that sensations, thoughts, and feelings are psychological entities or substances, not physical or electro-chemical, like the neurons of the brain and their activity. Materialistic psychology is forced to put sensations and thoughts in the physical brain since it knows nothing about the spiritual body and its spiritual brain, spiritual heart, spiritual skin, spiritual liver, spiritual uterus, spiritual hands and legs, and so on. But in this course we are going to assume that we have valid knowledge from the Swedenborg Reports about the spiritual body and its organs.

This new approach will allow psychology to avoid the trap of "reductionism" which many critics of psychology have pointed out. Reductionism is to reduce the mind as the same as the body. Instead of talking about some hypothetical mind, psychology prefers reductionism, namely, our thoughts and feelings are "epiphenomena" of the physical brain of neuronal activity. When the neuronal activity in the physical brain dies, the thoughts and feelings disappear from existence. The self or person is no more.

Again this is a forced reductionist position for psychology since it knows nothing about the spiritual body. It is the activity of the spiritual body that constitutes what we call "the mind." This makes sense because the spiritual body is not born in physical time and matter, but in the spiritual world. Swedenborg gives many geographic details about the spiritual world of the afterlife. He observed the process of "resuscitation" with hundreds of people he knew in Sweden and elsewhere, and hundreds of strangers from all parts of the world. It happens as follows.

Our conscious life of self and personality is the collection of sensations, thoughts, and feelings we experience from birth onward. Our conscious life exists therefore because of the activity in the layers of our spiritual body which is houses the mind and its sensations, thoughts, and feelings. The mental layers or levels of conscious life in human beings falls into two major categories called the natural mind and the spiritual mind.

Swedenborg discovered that from birth to death we are conscious in our natural mind and unconscious in our spiritual mind. At resuscitation, which occurs a few hours after death, we become conscious in our spiritual mind and gradually lose consciousness in our natural mind.

In our daily life consciousness of the natural mind we are not aware that we are connected to our spiritual mind. And yet, Swedenborg shows that the two layers of the mind are interconnected and function together. Neither could function without the other. People are therefore unaware that their choices moment to moment all day long operate at two levels, one in the natural mind, connected to the physical body, and the other in the spiritual mind connected to the spiritual body.

In a natural marriage the husband and wife interact without realizing that each interaction has a determinative effect on their spiritual mind and body. But when they decide to have a spiritual marriage, they become aware of how their current interaction through the natural mind is going to affect their future together in eternity through their spiritual body and mind.

More on these anatomical details will be discussed as we progress through the course. For now you need to realize that you are not being asked to believe in the afterlife or in the scientific validity of the Swedenborg Reports, or in the unity model of marriage. You are only given these ideas as things to learn about and analyze from a rational, objective, and scientific perspective. You will learn various facts and interpretations in relation to the unity model of marriage. You don't have to believe these facts and interpretations, only to know what they are as presented in this research seminar.

The Unity Model of Marriage as I present it here has two components -- the theoretical context and the empirical confirmation. The theory is based on the mental anatomy discovered by Swedenborg through his life in a dual consciousness state for 27 years. This mental anatomy shows that we are born with a physical body in time and

a spiritual body in eternity. Marriage involves a conjunction between the partners' physical bodies (which is temporary) and their spiritual bodies (which is permanent in eternity).

If we assume the positive bias in science on the Swedenborg Reports then we can examine whether this theoretical context helps us in our modern context to understand the marriage relationship as it is today. This is the second component of the Unity Model of Marriage. Since 1981 I have made an intense study of my own marriage within this theoretical context. In 1985, I articulated my initial observations in the Doctrine of the Wife. Since then I continued my self-study on a daily basis and tried to express the theoretical context in modern scientific terms suitable for psychology as we know it today. I applied the theoretical principles to my observations of my thoughts and feelings throughout the day, especially in relation to my interactions with my wife. We discussed our insights together on a daily basis so that she is as much a co-creator of the model as I am. Her feminine intelligence is the centre of this model as expressed through my masculine intelligence.

This seminar on the Unity Model of Marriage will give you the opportunity to examine gender behavior in the context of marriage and of exclusive romantic relationships.

We will identify the sub-components of gender habits in men and women within the three domains of behavior: affective (A), cognitive (C), and sensorimotor (S). We will use the phrase "threefold self" to refer to these three levels of human activity. This three-way subdivision of human behavior is traditional and very useful. However these three components have been studied separately, each in their own context. In this course we will make sure that we always keep track of interactions in terms of these three components together. In real life nothing happens unless all three operate in synergy.

For instance, as you read this you are thinking (cognitive, C). But you are also looking (sensorimotor, S). And you couldn't be looking and thinking unless you are motivated (affective, A) to do that by some goal you have (e.g., performing an assignment, interested in the subject, etc.). So the threefold self (A, C, S) must be involved in every interaction and behavior we do all day long. Start observing things around when you can take a moment, and think about which is the affective (A) -- or why they're doing it, and which is the cognitive (C) -- or what they're thinking while doing it, and which is the sensorimotor (S) -- or what they are doing that you observe. Often it is easier to start in reverse order with what they are doing that you can see (S), what they must be thinking (C), and why they are doing it (A).

This self-witnessing exercise is also very helpful to apply to yourself in various situations throughout the day:

What I am doing or saying or showing that someone can see (S)
What I am thinking, planning, interpreting, appraising, figuring (C)
What I am intending, striving for, hoping for, wanting, desiring (A)

Our focus will be on identifying the differences in the mental structure of men and women so that we may gain a rational understanding of how they manage to actually form a pair or a unit. In order to form a perfect functioning and fulfilling pair or unit, women and men must have reciprocal mental traits to allow them to conjoin mentally, and thus to reach mental intimacy or conjunction.

There are different types of intimacy, like the intimacy of family members, the intimacy of good friends, the intimacy of lovers who have just met, the intimacy we have with various others like doctors, lawyers, therapists. These types of intimacy are different from the intimacy between married partners or couples who intend to be together for life. People recognize that when they are in love they are in heaven. And sometimes they feel like they are in heaven and hell alternately, when there are threats they perceive to that love (e.g., when having a fight or disagreement). It is recognized that being in love with one's spouse or one's committed partner provides a delightful, heavenly, and fulfilling life. But this reality is known more from romantic songs and novels than from real life because of a lack of understanding of how unity is achieved.

There are couples who are mentally tied to each other on a permanent basis, and yet don't feel fulfilled to the extent of calling their life delightful and heavenly (sometimes we observe this with our parents or uncles and aunts). There are couples who are tied to each other by tradition and family in social circles where women don't have the same rights as men to decide on things. This applies as well to dating couples and couples who live together unmarried. Inequality of status and of rights can lead to male dominance and suppression of women's inner feminine traits. Without free expression and trust, women cannot feel that they are in heaven. And the freedom that men feel in male dominated relationships is not truly a freedom that can lead them to feel that they are in heaven.

The heavenly happiness and fulfillment of both wife and husband depend on the attainment between them of physical intimacy within the shared context of mental intimacy. To be mentally intimate means that they are best friends to each other in the context of a romantic and sexual relationship. This relationship is also called being "soul mates."

We will use the expression "conjoint self" to refer to the reciprocal union of the marriage relationship, when it is based on the unity model.

Definition:

We will use the concept of "model" to refer to the principles, beliefs, and attitudes that husbands and wives use or practice to govern their behavior in the marriage relationship.

This covers both the principles and attitudes they are aware of, as well as those they acquired and perform without awareness. Both types govern the values (A), emotions (A), thoughts (C), and actions (S) during their interactions.

Note that this definition of model is a different use of the term than the one you ordinarily encounter through other courses. A "scientific model" usually refers to a theory constructed by a scientist to explain a complex set of phenomena or observations. In psychology we can contrast the "behavioral model" with the "psychodynamic model" or the "Gestalt model." In economics there are mathematical models to account for data trends such as the stock market. The Stanislavski method of teaching professional actors is also called a model. You can find two dozen definitions with this link: http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&rls=GGLJ,GGLJ:2006-24,GGLJ:en&defl=en&q=define:model&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=titl

The way we use the word model in the "unity model of marriage" is to represent the mentality, or type of mental states, that men and women have when interacting with each other. For example, if a man has the "male dominance model" in his principles and motivations, he will express attitudes that indicate the principle that women have a lower status than men and should be obedient to their husband or boyfriend. This attitude or "ruling motive" enters into every interaction with a woman that such a man has. It may only be visible in some interactions, but it is present in all interactions. In contrast a man who thinks and reasons from the "equity model" will be motivated to achieve parity, equity, or fairness between men and women in all situations.

Other terms that are related to the term "model" in the sense we are using it, include script, schema, expectancy, philosophy, or principle.

Part of the purpose of the course is to give you skills in recognizing what relationship phase that two partners are in at any particular time or in any specific situation or issue that confronts them.

This is not always clear to the participants themselves. A man may think and claim that he is in the equity phase of equal sharing in all tasks in the marriage. But in actuality, observation would show that he is acting and thinking more according to the male dominance model which gives a man privileges over women and considers women less capable or worthy than men. You will also learn of the unity model which prompts a man to treat women in a special way such as is done by men who are chivalrous or gallant and respectful of women. In this mental unity phase husbands are capable of becoming best friends and soul mates with their wife.

The overall approach we will focus on is the idea that a man and a woman can form a special and unique relationship in marriage in which they can become unified at all three levels of the threefold self -- in sensory and motor behavior (sensorimotor self, S), in thinking operations (cognitive self, C), and in feeling states (affective self, A).

When they are unified at all three levels of self, husband and wife are best friends to each other and can be called soul mates functioning with a conjoint self (instead of each with his and her independent selves).

In the male dominance and equity models there is no motivation for achieving a conjoint self. In those mental states men would feel like they are abnormally losing their freedom and personality when they consider becoming a conjoint self with their woman. But in the unity phase of thinking men desire to achieve that state and are willing to give up their independent self for the sake of the conjoint self. In general you will find that women are more attracted to the unity model than men.

The unity model of marriage actually describes a progression of three phases. The first phase is called the male dominance phase because society gives men privileges over women in many ways. Most men are raised to exercise these male prerogatives, and they do so during dating and afterward in marriage. For example, men interrupt women, and often feel it's all right to ignore what a woman wants or says. Men pressure women to do things the women don't want to do. Men expect women to serve them and take care of their personal things. Men go out with each other and do things and say things that are disrespectful to women. Men get mad and threaten women. Etc. These are all the ways in which husbands or boyfriends treat their wife or girlfriend during the first phase of their intimate relationship called the male dominance phase.

Following this phase, many men are forced to admit to themselves that their wife also has the right to expect him to share in the tasks of living and having a life together. Some men eventually get the idea that they can't just continue to dominate their wife or girlfriend and expect the two of them to be in heavenly happiness. Hence they enter more an more into the equity phase of marriage. This is the middle phase during which a man will spend more and more time acting and thinking according to the equity or parity model, and less and less time acting and thinking in the male dominance mode.

Some men are spiritually enlightened by accepting in their mind the reality of the afterlife and the ability of being together with this one woman for eternity. Once men accept this idea as real, they are called spiritually enlightened. The word "spiritual" as used in this course is defined as that which has to do with eternity. Once a man is spiritually enlightened he begins to see intuitively and rationally that equity is not bringing their wife true heavenly happiness.

Equity or parity between woman and man puts them theoretically at the same level. This relationship is better for the woman than the male dominance relationship phase -- far better. But it is not enough for a woman to feel completely free, totally her feminine, hence really happy and flourishing. A woman instinctively, or spiritually and rationally, feels and knows that she deserves a higher place in a man's estimation than just parity because women are outwardly more delicate and heavenly beings than men, and it is this heavenly nature of women that allows a man to become heavenly by conjunction with her. This is not parity or equity, but unity.

Inwardly, both men and women are equally heavenly and celestial, but outwardly a man is less heavenly than a woman. This is because the male function on this planet is to face the harshness of the outside world while the female function is to provide man with the motivation for it. She provides a softer context for his harsher exterior so that he may be mollified and acquire the capacity of be more celestial, more peaceful, more altruistic, more human. Masculine intelligence alone is harsh, competitive, and task-focused; hence it neglects the higher aspects of life that he can enjoy, such as love, conjunction, unity, peacefulness, altruism, romance, children, self-sacrifice, community, communication, intimacy, compassion, receptiveness, cooperation. These are called "heavenly" or "celestial" traits and are supplied and sustained by feminine intelligence.

Hence by making himself conjoin to his wife, a man becomes heavenly in his outward life as well. He can achieve this conjunction with his wife by following the unity model in his mind.

There are barriers or resistances to overcome with each level of the relationship process -- from male dominance to equity, and from equity to unity. We need to examine these barriers, and especially, the inherent and cultural resistance men have to the unification process. Men would outwardly prefer to remain in the male dominance phase. This is what they find most comfortable. But women desire and long for the conjoint self of soul mates, lovers and best friends, as the ultimate happiness, the ultimate fulfillment, thus, heaven itself.

Men do not at first see the conjoint self as a heaven, but as a kind of hell in which the wife is always encroaching on their mental space of freedom and comfort.

So husbands and boyfriends frequently oppose the unification process to more intimate levels, while wives and girlfriends constantly fight for pulling the man into such mental intimacy.

We will examine this classic and traditional relationship dynamic or fight by observing and monitoring the behavior of boyfriends and husbands, or those portrayed on TV, in song lyrics, and in novels. You will read the reports of prior generation students in this course in which they present some of this evidence, Your reports will be similarly studied by future generations of students. You can access the reports from the links given in the Readings section at the end of these lecture notes.

The first level of unity may be referred to as sensorimotor consociation (S) and involves what the couple do together externally or socially.

The second level may be called cognitive affiliation (C), involving how they each think and to what extent they agree in definitions and beliefs.

The third and deepest level may be called affective conjunction (A), and involves what they feel for each other, whether they have compatible intentions, whether they enjoy compatible things, and whether they are striving for compatible and mutual goals.

This includes what they are motivated to achieve, whether for instance, they are willing to make their unification as the most important element in their life, more important than anything else. For instance, it is common for husbands to devote more time, attention and importance to other activities like children, career, parents, old friends, sports, etc. This means that achieving affective conjunction or intimacy is judged less important to the husband or boyfriend than to the wife or girlfriend. This basic opposition forms the psychological dynamics of the marriage relationship -- its healthy progression or its gradual degradation into abuse or failure.

Marriage? What's the secret? How not to get a divorce:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6yvoBgbQZ8&eurl

The hypothesis to be examined throughout the course is that the marriage relationship between husband and wife begins at a natural level ("natural marriages") and can add a spiritual level of relationship ("spiritual marriages"), once the natural level is well established.

We shall introduce the new concept of spiritual marriages which is based on what Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) called conjugial love. He made a distinction between the two words -- conjugal and conjugial. Conjugal is the ordinary word that refers to natural marriages while conjugial is a new word he coined to refer to spiritual marriages. Natural marriages follow the motto "Till Death Do Us Part" while spiritual marriages follow the motto "Till Endless Eternity."

Definition:
The expression "spiritual marriage" will be used in this course to refer to the marriage of partners who define their marriage as continuing in the afterlife. The unity model of marriage is possible only with spiritual marriages. Hence "spiritual" = marriage in the afterlife of eternity. Swedenborg interviewed many couples who are living in the afterlife of eternity in what they call their "heaven."

The expression "soul mates" also implies that the relationship continues forever. Partners who see themselves as "soul mates" united forever are willing to give up their independent self for the conjoint self.

Couples who are soul mates to each other, and have achieved a relationship of mental intimacy at all three levels of the threefold self, are able to sense by inner rational insight, that death cannot separate them.

Hence they see themselves as together forever, united to endless eternity.

Until the Writings of Swedenborg (1688-1772), scientists were not able to introduce the concept of spiritual marriages and the concept of the afterlife of eternity because there was no scientific proof of the existence of an afterlife that takes place in a world of eternity, outside time and space, also called "the spiritual world" and "heaven and hell." Scientists relegate these ideas to religion, belief, or folklore. But this changed with the Swedenborg Reports, written and published in the 18th century, when it was discovered that we are born with a physical body in time and a spiritual body in eternity.

The Swedenborg Reports (or the Writings of Swedenborg) present empirical proof of the existence of the afterlife in the spiritual world of heaven and hell. The unity model of marriage is based on Swedenborg's detailed empirical data which he gathered in the spiritual world of eternity. These data include the many interviews he conducted with married couples in the mental zones of eternity called "heaven" and "hell." It may at first surprise you that we are talking about heaven and hell in a psychology course! Nevertheless you will see that it is now possible to do so, due to the Swedenborg Reports and the methodological approach called the positive bias in science.

More will be said on this as we progress, including how you can examine these reports yourself. Nothing here is based on religion or belief. Everything is based only on the objective evidence to be found in the Swedenborg Reports.

In this psychology course you are not asked to believe anything.

You are asked to evaluate rationally and scientifically the evidence presented. This means examining it, before you reject it. To reject it before you examine it, will be discussed below as the negative bias in science, while to examine it before you reject it, will be discussed as the positive bias in science.

That marriages continue in the afterlife is good news because true love strives to be eternal, and not to die at some point in the future. Swedenborg shows that what is truly human with us must be immortal and that to think of ourselves as mortal, is to remain below our true potential. If you love someone as much as you love yourself, the thought of losing this person is like death, and actually losing the person is like dying. Love dies when it loses its object of love. This is why it's such good news that love never dies. This idea exists in romance and in first loves. Often people adopt a cynical view, thinking that these are just ideas, ideals, songs, fantasy. But now with the new empirical and observational evidence presented by Swedenborg, scientists like myself can examine the facts, the explanations, the consequences.

As scientists in training in this Research Seminar on the unity model of marriage you are asked to examine this evidence and the rationality of its theory, and to see if you can usefully apply it to your current cultural and intellectual context relating to relationships and marriage.

Some marriages remain what they started out to be, namely an external socio-legal bond that is legally and socially recognized. It is also a psychological bond because married and live in partners rely on each other and support each other in joint pursuits like parenting, financial resources, lifestyle, retirement, and so on. But note also that this external bond -- legal, social, psychological -- is not sufficient to stabilize the marriage and insure unending growth. Instead, half of the marriages fail in divorce and separation, and much of the other half fails to supply the intimacy, friendship, and romance, that women crave for from their husbands or committed boyfriends.

After examining the evidence for this situation, our conclusion will be that external "natural" marriages are necessary but not sufficient for achieving true affective conjunction or intimacy, and hence not sufficient for human fulfillment and endless growth together.

We will follow this up with the concept of "spiritual marriages" which is based on Emanuel Swedenborg's Writings (see Reading List). We will examine the hypothesis that the bond between the wife and the husband can become spiritual (or eternal), in addition to natural (or temporary).

The difference is illustrated by the marriage vows. Our socio-legal-psychological context involves the idea that marriage is dissolved at the death of one of the spouses. This is correct of course -- from the legal point of view, and also from the religious point of view for most people. It is a common belief which we acquire in our socialization that marriage ends at death, hence the familiar phrase in the vows: "Until death do us part." But according to the hypothesis we are examining, the marriage bond need not end at death, but can go on forever with our spiritual bodies in the mental regions of the mind called "heaven."

Some couples who know nothing about the "afterlife of mental eternity" nevertheless have the instinctive feeling that they are "soul-mates" and can never be separated, even by death. Some spouses are so "close" that when one of them dies, the one remaining insists that that their spouse is "with them" mentally, psychologically, spiritually.

So this is not a new notion.

Although they may be in a cultural minority right now, some couples seem to have an inner bond of mental intimacy that seems to go beyond the physical body and the socio-legal-psychological bond of "natural" marriages. We will call this type of inner marriage bond "spiritual" in the specific sense that the bond survives the physical separation of the spouses by death. Marriages that are external and limited to the natural world and the physical body will be called "natural marriage" or external marriage.

A natural marriage becomes a "spiritual marriage" when the married couple's idea of their bond changes from "until death do us part" to "until endless eternity."

Of course to take this step, the partners have to know or assume that there is an afterlife of eternity, that they are both immortal human beings, and that they will be fully equipped with an eternal or spiritual body through which they can once again be together, be intimate sexually, live in a house, have a social life, and continue an endless heavenly existence in their immortality.

This detailed knowledge of the afterlife is not available to most people today.

It is flatly denied by materialistic science in the negative bias mode, and many religious dogmas are taught that deny marriages in the afterlife. Yet our culture supports many widespread activities around the idea that there is a spiritual world (or "heaven"), though nothing substantial is known about it, only wildly differing speculations. No wonder therefore that science cannot rely on this folklore about the afterlife.

As a result, psychology does not acknowledge or know about spiritual marriages that occur right here on earth. Some couples have entered the spiritual dimension of their mental intimacy, but when they are studied by scientists operating from the negative bias, the spiritual dimension is neutralized, reduced, or eliminated from focus. Hence the research literature on marriage in psychology does not mention spiritual marriages and the afterlife. Nevertheless as more people begin to accept the possibility of spiritual marriage there will be more data to study detailing the benefits of spiritual marriages to the happiness, productivity, and fulfillment of the partners here on earth.

This was the negative bias intellectual climate in which I was immersed when I started studying the marriage relationship in 1962 when I received my Ph.D. in psychology. But in 1981 my wife and I were browsing together the shelves in Hamilton Library here on the University of Hawaii campus, and we happened to come across a shelf containing a collection of around 30 volumes, all by the same author: Emanuel Swedenborg. This really intrigued us since we never saw so many volumes by one author. We each checked out one volume and started reading. We could not stop at one volume but went on to read the entire collection. What we found was amazingly stupendous!

You can read about Swedenborg's Writings in detail by consulting the Theistic Psychology Lecture Notes for Psych 459, G27, along with the student reports at:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/theistic/mental-anatomy.htm

A thorough compilation of articles and links about Swedenborg is available from Answers.com at:

www.answers.com/topic/emanuel-swedenborg

As you explore what people say about Swedenborg you will note that almost all of it has to do with interpreting his Writings as theological and religious, rather than scientific. I am among a few current scientists who see Swedenborg's Writings as science rather than religion.

To me the most amazing aspect of Swedenborg's discovery is that the spiritual world of the afterlife in eternity is the same thing as our mental world.

In other words we are born into eternity with a spiritual body and into time-place with a physical body. The two are connected by the laws of correspondence. All our sensations, thoughts, and feelings are stored and felt in the spiritual body, not in the physical body whose brain activity consists of merely chemical and electrical activity. In contrast, the activity in the spiritual body is mental and is a reaction by correspondence to the activity in the physical body. When the physical body dies or disintegrates, the spiritual body is free from the prior connection and continues life where it has been since birth, namely the mental world of eternity. The details of how this phenomenon occurs are totally unknown in psychology so it's understandable that it is not considered scientific.

This may not be an easy concept to understand right away. The positive bias in science assumes that there are two worlds of reality, one world in time-space-matter, and the other world outside time-space-matter called the mental world of eternity.

After some reflection you will come to realize that sensations, thoughts, and feelings are not material (electrical or chemical). They don't have mass and don't weigh anything in the material world. Thoughts and feelings cannot exist in the material world since they are not electrical or chemical. In the negative bias mode it is concluded that thoughts and feelings are not real but subjective illusions that "emerge from" the electro-chemical activity of the physical brain. This type of materialistic interpretation or bias is called reductionism.

But in the positive bias mode of scientific thinking it is concluded that thoughts and feelings are real objective phenomena. They are not material (physical anatomy), but substantive (mental anatomy). This is called "substantive dualism" in science. In other words, there exist mental substances and organs of the threefold self in our spiritual body, and our thoughts and feelings are constructed out of these mental substances in our spiritual body.

Swedenborg was able to confirm that the people he encountered in his spiritual travels were the same people he had known as friends and neighbors in Sweden. Swedenborg at age 57 suddenly found himself conscious in both worlds simultaneously. Until age 82 when he passed on, he took daily notes of his observations and experiments, amassing a collection of about 30 volumes called the "Writings of Swedenborg." They have been studied by Swedenborgian scholars who translated his works into various languages. Consult Google to see what Swedenborg's stature is today.

So the spiritual world of the afterlife is nothing else than the mental world in which we are conscious right now.

The reason we are not aware of those who live in the afterlife of mental eternity is that we must be conscious in our spiritual mind in order to be aware of the mental world of eternity in which we are now. Instead, our conscious awareness is restricted to the natural mind and this part of the mind gets all its input from the physical body. But once we are cut off from the physical body by the dying process, we are resuscitated a few hours later in our spiritual mind. At that instant we become aware of all those who are there and the cities and gardens they dwell in. Swedenborg observed hundreds of people undergo this resuscitation process, talking to them on earth before death, and then talking to them a few hours later in the mental world of the afterlife.

Once we are resuscitated in the spiritual body we appear exactly like before and we discover that our sensations, thoughts, and feelings are much more intense and pure when the physical body is no longer connected to our spiritual body. Swedenborg interviewed many couples who live in their "heavens," even some who have been there together for thousands of years. They all looked like they were in the "flower of youth" or late adolescence and early adulthood. You can check out many more details if you consult the Lecture Notes for Theistic Psychology (Psychology 459, G27).

This is truly wonderful and amazing news! We live our immortality in eternity, which is our mental world, not as a disembodied soul, dream specter, or ghost, but as a full fledged bodily human being.

Swedenborg was conscious in the world of the afterlife continuously without interruption for 27 years, from age 57 to 82 in the years 1745 to 1772, while at the same time he maintained his busy schedule as scientist, government engineer, legislator, traveler, international publisher, and frequent invited guest at the Swedish Royal table where his amazing stories of the afterlife were greatly appreciated and admired. This man of impeccable reputation all his life, a greatly admired genius in science and philosophy, wrote that he had been prepared by God from earliest childhood to be the vehicle for what God wanted the human race to know regarding marriage and the afterlife, and how women and men are to achieve their highest potential through an eternal marriage as soul mates.

At first this sounds to most of us as a kind of fantastic child-like story, introjected right in the middle of a research seminar in psychology by a professor who must be terribly naive, or worse.

I am attributing these words to you so that you may gain some perspective on the content of this course. I am trying to show that I am aware of the "fantastic" quality of my proposal. But this is only an appearance that you are experiencing because of your past training in the negative bias mode of thinking, and also because you've been taught that God and science don't mix. Also because there are lots of mentally questionable individuals who have claimed to talk to God or to see angels, etc.

Given all this background with the negative bias mode of thinking, it's not a surprise that you might think that this is a fantasy subject, not science.

Nevertheless, please hear me out until the end and continue your examination and study of the facts and theory being presented in this course. Even if, in the end, you will reject the eternity feature of the unity model, there will remain several very useful concepts that you can use in your life and philosophy, such as the threefold self, the three models of marriage, and the use of these models in measuring and analyzing elements of popular culture and couples' relationships.

To think that some aspects of this proposal are fantastic, is a common reaction for most people. To me, this common widespread negative reaction, shows that it is a group practice that we all learn, and that later when we are exposed to this kind of a proposal, a trained reasoning process is set in motion in each of our individual minds, and we react as expected by thinking that this is fantastic -- science fiction, rather than science.

And it is pretty easy to start listing all the reasons why we think that it is fantastic and not science. And if we compare all these reasons, we will find that almost everybody has given the same reasons. Again, this fits with what I am saying, namely that the resistance we all feel is a built in learned reaction against any proposal in science that makes mention of the afterlife, of heaven and hell, or of how God is managing events, and especially, that God appeared to Swedenborg at age 57 and prepared him to be conscious simultaneously in both worlds, and also that he talked to the people there, including Aristotle and Newton, and other historical figures we read about in the literature. All this kind of thinking strikes us at first as being fantastic due to our socialization and education in the negative bias mode of thinking.

But note this: Although we are supposed to think from science education that this proposal is fantastic and impossible, we are not able to prove that it is false and fantastic, or even, that it is not science. I have examined the explanations and arguments of various scientists writing from the negative bias mode. It is clear that they too are unable to prove that there is no God, unable to prove that this world is self-born or produced, unable to prove that our spiritual body does not exist, unable to prove that thoughts and feelings are electrical activity rather than eternal mental substances, unable to prove that marriage ends at death and does not continue. Etc. Etc. You can see from these considerations why I call the materialistic view as the negative bias in science.

A bias means that they assume something as valid which they cannot prove scientifically to be true or accurate.

For further discussion along this line, please consult Volume 1 of Textbook of Theistic Psychology at www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/theistic/ch1.htm

Let's examine Swedenborg's language and style, as translated from Latin into English. Quoting from Swedenborg's book Conjugial Love (1768):

Note:

In some places I insert italicized explanations in square brackets in order to fill in some of the context that is not presented here.

CL 27. II MARRIAGES IN HEAVEN

The existence of marriages in the heavens is incredible to those who believe that after death a person becomes a soul or spirit, if their concept of a soul or spirit is that of a tenuous ether or breath. So too it is to those who do not believe that a person can live as a person again until after the day of the Last Judgment, and generally speaking to those who know nothing about the spiritual world, where angels and spirits live, and where the heavens and hells are.

Since this world has so far remained unknown, and there is utter ignorance of the fact that the angels of heaven are completely human in form, and likewise the spirits of hell, though less completely human, any revelation about marriages has been impossible. For people would say, 'How can a soul be united with a soul?, or a breath with a breath, as husband and wife are united on earth?' And many more things which, the moment they were uttered, would destroy and scatter belief in marriages there. [ Note: angels = people who have passed into the afterlife and are living in their heavens; spirits = general word for people in the afterlife ]

Now, however, that many revelations have been made about the spiritual world, and its nature has been described in my books HEAVEN AND HELL and THE APOCALYPSE REVEALED, it is possible to present also arguments in confirmation of the existence of marriage there, even for reason to grasp, as follows:

(i) A person lives on as a person after death.
(ii) A male is then male and a female is female.
(iii) Each person retains his own love after death.
(iv) The chief love is sexual love; and in the case of those who reach heaven, that is, those who become spiritual on earth, it is conjugial love.
(v) These facts have been fully confirmed by eye-witness.
(vi) Consequently there are marriages in the heavens.
(vii) The Lord's statement that after the resurrection people are not given in marriage refers to spiritual weddings.

These arguments will now be developed in sequence. (CL 27)

CL 28. (i) A person lives on as a person after death.

It has not so far been known that a person lives on as a person after death for the reasons which have just been mentioned. It is surprising that this is even true in Christendom, where the Word is known to give enlightenment about everlasting life, and where the Lord Himself teaches that all the dead rise again, and God is not the God of the dead, but of the living (Matt. 22:31, 32; Luke 20:37, 38).

Moreover, as far as the affections and thoughts of a person's mind are concerned, he is in the company of angels and spirits, and so closely associated with them that he cannot be torn away from them except by dying. This ignorance is all the more surprising, when everyone who has died from the beginning of creation has come or is coming to his own people, or, as the Word has it, he has been or is being gathered to them.

In addition, people have a general impression, which is none other than the influence of heaven on the inner levels of the mind, which causes him to have an inward perception of truths, and so to speak to see them. This allows him to grasp this truth in particular, that a person continues to live as a person after death, happily if he has led a good life, unhappily if not. Surely everyone has this thought, if he lifts his mind a little above the body and thinks beyond the immediate level of the senses, as happens when he is deep in the worship of God, or when he lies on his death-bed awaiting his last breath, and similarly when he hears people speaking about the departed and their fate.

I have related thousands of facts about the departed, telling their brothers, wives and friends the fate of some of them. I have also written about the fate of the British, the Dutch, the Roman Catholics, the Jews, and the heathen, and about the fate of Luther, Calvin and Melanchthon. But up to the present I have never heard anyone remark, 'How can that be their fate, when they have not yet been resurrected from their graves, since the Last Judgment has not yet taken place? Surely they are in the meantime souls, mere puffs of wind, in some limbo called Pu*?' I have never heard anyone say such things, and this has allowed me to draw the conclusion that each person has a private perception that he lives on as such after death. Does not any husband who loves his wife, his young or older children, say to himself when they are dying or dead, that they are in God's hands, and he will see them again after his own death, and he will again share with them a life of love and joy? (CL 28)

CL 31. It needs to be known that after death a person ceases to be a natural man and becomes a spiritual man [ man = generic male or female ], but he looks to himself exactly the same, and is so much the same that he is unaware that he is no longer in the natural world. He has the same kind of body, face, speech and senses, because in affection and thought, or in will and intellect, he remains the same. He is in fact not really the same, because he is then spiritual, and so his inner man. But he cannot see the difference, because he is unable to compare his present state with his earlier, natural, one, since he has put that off and has put on his other state. I have therefore often heard people say that they are quite unaware of not being in their former world, but for the fact that they can no longer see those whom they left in that world, and they do see those who have departed from it, that is, who have died.

The reason, however, why they see the latter but not the former is that they are not natural, but spiritual or substantial people. A spiritual or substantial person can see a spiritual or substantial person, just as a natural or material person can see another natural or material person. But they cannot see each other because of the difference between the substantial and the material, which is similar to the difference between what is prior and what is posterior. The prior being inherently more pure is invisible to the posterior, which is inherently more gross, nor can the posterior, being more gross, be seen by the prior, which is inherently more pure. It follows that an angel is invisible to a person in this world, and such a person is invisible to an angel.

The reason why a person after death is spiritual or substantial is because this lay hidden within the natural or material person. This served him as a covering, like an outer skin, which on being shed allows the spiritual or substantial person to emerge, so that he is more pure, more inward and more complete. A spiritual person is still a complete person, although invisible to a natural person, as was made plain by the Lord's appearing to the Apostles after His resurrection. He was seen and then later was not seen, and yet He was a man like Himself, when He was seen and then disappeared. They said too that, when they saw Him, their eyes were opened. (CL 31)

CL 32. (ii) A male is then male and a female is female.

Since a person lives on after death, and a person may be male or female, and the male and the female are so different that one cannot change into the other, it follows that after death a male lives on as a male and a female as a female, each of them being spiritual. We say that the male cannot change into the female, nor the female into the male, so that in consequence after death a male is a male and a female is a female, but because it is not known in what masculinity and femininity essentially consist, I must state this briefly here.

The essential difference is that the inmost core of the male is love, and its envelope is wisdom, or what is the same thing, it is love enveloped in wisdom. The inmost core of the female is the wisdom of the male, and its envelope is the love from it. But this is a feminine love, which the Lord gives a wife by means of her husband's wisdom. The other love is a masculine love, a love of being wise, given by the Lord to the husband to the extent that he acquires wisdom. Thus it is that the male is the wisdom of love and the female the love of that wisdom. There is therefore implanted in each from creation a love of being joined into one. But I shall have more to say about these matters in what follows. The female comes from the male, that is, the woman was taken out of man, as is clear from the following passage of Genesis:

Jehovah God took one of the man's ribs and closed up the flesh in its place, and he built up the rib he had taken from the man to make a woman. And he brought her to the man, and the man said, She is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, so it shall be called Ishshah, because it was taken from man. Gen. 2:21-23.

The meaning of rib and flesh will be given elsewhere. (CL 32)

CL 33. The result of being so formed in the beginning is that the male is by birth a creature of the intellect, the female a creature of the will, or to put the same thing another way, the male acquires from birth an affection for knowing, understanding and being wise, and the female acquires from birth a love of joining herself with that affection in the male. [ this does not mean that men are more intelligent than women -- see our class discussions and later in these notes ]

Since what is within forms the outside so as to resemble itself, and the form of the male is that of the intellect, and the form of the female is that of love for it, this is why the male differs from the female in face, voice, and the rest of the body. He has a sterner face, a rougher voice and a stronger body, not to mention a bearded chin, so generally speaking a less beautiful form than the female. There are also differences in their gestures and behavior. In short, they have no similarity, and yet every detail has the impulse towards union.

In fact, there is masculinity in every part of the male, down to the smallest part of his body, and also in every idea he thinks of and every spark of affection he feels; and the same is true of the femininity of the female. Since therefore one cannot change into the other, it follows that after death the male is male and the female is female. (CL 33)

CL 34. (ii) Each person retains his own love after death.

People know about the existence of love, but not what it is. Our common forms of speech tell us that love exists, as when we say that he loves me, the king loves his subjects, the subjects love their king, the husband loves his wife, the mother her children, and they love her. We also talk of one or another as loving his country, his fellow citizens, his neighbour, and the same expression is used of non-personal objects, as in he loves this or that.

But in spite of the universal mention of love in speech, still hardly anyone knows what love is.

Since meditation about it cannot form any concept of it in a person's thinking, or bring it into the light of the intellect, because it is not a matter of light, but of heat, he asserts that it is either non-existent, or some influence produced by seeing, hearing and being in a person's company, and so impelling him. He is quite unaware that it is his very life, not just the general vital principle of the whole of his body and of all his thoughts, but the life in every single detail of these.

A wise person can grasp this in this way. Suppose we say, 'If you take away the affection of love, can you think of anything? Can you do anything?' Surely to the extent that affection, a part of love, grows cold, so do thought, speech and action, and to the extent that affection grows warm, so do they. Love then is the heat of a person's life, his vital heat, and this alone is the reason blood is hot and also that it is red. These effects arise from the fire of the sun of the heaven [ = Spiritual Sun in the mental world of eternity ] of angels [ = people after death who live in the heavens of their mind ], which is unadulterated love. (CL 34)

[ love = operations in our affective organ = life or heat of our affections, feelings, emotions, sensations, intentions, motivation ]

CL 35. The infinite variety of people's faces is an indication that everyone has his own love, to be distinguished from anyone else's, that is to say, no one has the same love [ = operations in the affective organ ] as another.

Faces are the expression of loves, for it is well known that faces change and look different, depending on the affections of a person's love. Desires too which are part of love, as well as its joys and sorrows, shine out from the face. This shows plainly that a person is his own love, or rather a form [ = exterior visible portion in body and speech ] taken by his love.

But it ought to be known that the inner man [ = our spiritual mind in the spiritual body which becomes conscious after death and resuscitation in eternity ], which is one and the same as his spirit which lives on after death, is a form taken by his love [ = our face in the spiritual body looks similar to our face in the physical body ]. But the outer man in the world [ = physical body ] is not, because this has learned from childhood up to hide the desires of his love, or rather to pretend and make a show of something other than his true feelings. (CL 35)

CL 36. The reason why each person retains his love after death is that love is a person's life (as stated in 34 above), and in consequence is the person himself. A person is also his thought, and so his intelligence and wisdom [ = operations in the cognitive organ that are directed by the operations in the affective organ ]; but these make one with his love. For it is love which is the origin and determinant of a person's thought; in fact, if he has freedom, of his speech and actions too.

From this it may be seen that love is the being or essence of a person's life, and thought is the resultant coming-into-being or arising of his life. Speech therefore and actions, which derive from thought, are not so much from thought as from love by means of thought. [ = in the threefold self, the sensorimotor actions (S) are directed by the cognitive operations (C) that are directed by the affective operations (A): thus: A --> C --> S ]

Much experience has allowed me to know that after death a person is not his thought, but his affection and the thought which comes from it; or he is his love and the intelligence which comes from it. Also, a person after death puts off everything not in harmony with his love; in fact, he successively puts on the face, voice, speech, gestures and behaviour which fit the love of his life.

Thus it is that the whole of heaven is arranged in accordance with all the different kinds of affection of the love for good, and the whole of hell in accordance with all the kinds of affection of the love for evil. (CL 36)

CL 37. (iv) The chief love is sexual love; and in the case of those who reach heaven, that is, those who become spiritual on earth, it is conjugial love.
[ Note: this is really good news, don't you think?! How can we feel that we are in heaven if we can't have conjugial love with sexual love? The sensations we experience in our spiritual body after death are far more intense and pure than the sensations we experience in the physical body now. Swedenborg was able to confirm this many times during his 27 years of dual citizenship ]

The reason why a person's sexual love remains after death is that a male remains a male and a female remains a female, and the male's masculinity pervades the whole and every part of him, and likewise a female's femininity; and the impulse to be joined is present in every detail down to the smallest.

Since that impulse to be joined was implanted from creation and is therefore continually present, it follows that the one desires the other and longs to be joined to the other.

Love taken by itself is nothing but a desire and hence an impulse to be joined; conjugial love is an impulse to be joined into one.

For the male and the female of the human species are so created as to be able to become like a single individual [ = the conjoint self in the unity model of marriage ], that is, one flesh; and when united, then they are, taken together, the full expression of humanity. [ = the conjoint self is a higher form of human potential than the self ]

If not so joined, they are two, each being as it were a divided person or half a person.

Since that impulse to be joined lies deeply hidden in every part of both male and female, and every part has the ability and desire to be joined into one, it follows that people retain mutual and reciprocal sexual love after death. (CL 37)

CL 38. Sexual and conjugial love are both mentioned, because sexual love is not the same as conjugial love. Sexual love belongs to the natural man [ = our natural mind and physical body ], conjugial love to the spiritual man [ = our spiritual mind and spiritual body ]. The natural man loves and desires only outward union [ = social and legal ] and the bodily pleasures [ = of the physical body ] it gives [ = to our natural mind ].

But the spiritual man loves and desires inner union [ = mental intimacy at the affective level of the threefold self ] and the delights of the spirit it gives [ = the pleasures experienced with the spiritual body which are more intense and pure than is possible with the physical body ], and he perceives that these are only possible with one wife [ = exclusive sexual relationship ], with whom the degree of union can perpetually [ = after death ] increase. The more the union increases, the more he feels delights rising in the same scale, and lasting for ever. But the natural man [ = materialistic outlook or mentality ] never thinks of this.

This is how it is that we say that conjugial love remains after death with those who reach heaven, those, that is, who become spiritual on earth [ = undergo the process of character reformation and regeneration of our inherited selfish or evil traits ]. (CL 38)

CL 39. (v) These facts have been fully confirmed by eye-witness.

I have so far considered it enough to confirm these propositions by intellectual, what are called rational, arguments: that a person lives on as a person after death, that a male is then a male and a female a female, that each person retains his own love after death, and his chief loves are sexual and conjugial. But people have from childhood been given by parents and teachers, and later by learned men and clergy, a firm belief that they will not live on as people after death, except on the day of the Last Judgment, and some have now spent six thousand years waiting for it.

Moreover, many have placed this belief in the category of things which must be taken on trust and not understood. For these reasons it has been necessary to confirm the same propositions also by eye-witness accounts. If this is not done, the person who trusts only his senses will be led by the belief forced on him to say, 'If people lived on as people after death, I could see and hear them' and 'Who has come down from heaven, or up from hell, to tell us?'

But it has not been and still is not possible for an angel of heaven to come down, or for a spirit of hell to come up, and talk with a person, unless the inner levels of his mind, that is, of his spirit, have been opened by the Lord. This can only happen fully with those whom the Lord has prepared to receive the truths of spiritual wisdom. It has therefore pleased the Lord to do this with me, in order to ensure that conditions in heaven and hell, and how people live after death, should not remain unknown, be sunk in ignorance and finally buried in denial.

The eye-witness proofs of the propositions mentioned above are too numerous to relate here; but they can be seen in my book Heaven and Hell, also in the Continuation About the Spiritual World; and later in my Apocalypse Revealed. But in so far as particularly concerns marriage, they will be found in the account of experiences subjoined to sections or chapters of this book. (CL 39)

[ You can read these books online at http://www.swedenborgdigitallibrary.org/index1a.html#can ]

CL 40. (vi) Consequently there are marriages in heaven.

Since this has now been confirmed both by argument and by experience [ = as reported in his books, see just above for links ], it requires no further proof. (CL 40)

CL 41. (vii) The Lord's statement that after the resurrection people are not given in marriage refers to spiritual weddings.

We read in the Gospels: [ = New Testament Sacred Scripture ]