De Hemelsche Leer--Part 3--
Methodological Tools for Extracting The Doctrine of the Church

Note:
This is Part 3. The special terms and phrases used in this article have been defined in Part 1  and Part 2 where you will also find matrices 1 through 14.

                           Introduction to Part 3: The Circuit of Consciousness (Matrix 15)

                      Birthing the Doctrine: How Biography Recapitulates Evolution (Matrix 16)

Explanations of the above chart (matrix 16) are given in a section below that discusses matrix 23.

NOTE: the Links in the tabulation of discoveries below take you to further explanations and samples of the topics mentioned.

Conceptual Categories in Thinking in Relation to Degrees of Consciousness (Matrix 17)

                    Ethnosemantic Hexagram in Relation to Degrees of Consciousness (matrix 18)

The diagram above (matrix 18) shows the exact overlap between my earlier work on ethnosemantic hexagrams (1975 see tabulation of discoveries above) and the six degrees of regeneration in the Writings of Swedenborg (1981 onward for me). Strangely, but significantly, I did not see the relation clearly until April of 2001. In 1981 when I started reading the Writings it seemed to me that I was abandoning or laying aside all my busy work on ethnosemantics that started in 1975. I did not look at it again until I was preparing the manuscripts for scanning and publishing on the Web in 1998. Still I didn't see it then either. Instead of the ethnosemantic system I started working on the ennead matrix and the relation between them was not clarified in my mind. Even today I am still searching for the relation between the ennead based on the Writings and the hexagrammatic system I discovered before that (see tabulation of discoveries). I think the reason I see it now in April 2001 is because I just entered the interior rational phase at age 62. This article on De Hemelsche Leer Parts 1, 2, and 3 thus marks my transition zone into interior celestial consciousness. I can now see the Doctrine of the Church in the interior celestial sense which brings me to an interior perception of the hexagrammatic scheme I developed in my pre-Swedenborgian natural and sensuous thinking. I thought to myself then that this was my own discovery and invention and attributed it all to my self-intelligence and genius. Now I see that it was given me through the vertical community from the Lord. Yet I was unable to comprehend what I was given to see.

For example: I saw intuitively that there was a difference between the first trigram (White, Yellow, Green) and the second trigram (Blue, Brown, Black). But I didn't know what the difference was in an explicit sense. I called the first trigram "the Light trigram" and the other trigram "the Dark Trigram." I also intuited that there was a distinct break between them and I called this break "the double line." I realized that my some unknown way we cross this double line in the motion or dynamic of our thinking, to create actual things or phenomena. I initially came to the hexagram idea, that is, an orderly sequence of six steps, when I was creating clusters of words that appeared to "hang together somehow." Here is an extract from my lecture notes published in a Handbook for my students in 1978 (three years before I found out about the Writings of Swedenborg)  and can be found on the Web here:

It's clear from the above that I had an insight regarding the relationship between consciousness, semantic organization, and discourse. I saw that discourse (or dialog or composition) by an individual was the outcome of prior inner processes that were rational and cultural so that we shared them within a population. This became in my mind the basis for coming up with the notion of "genetic culture" (see tabulation of discoveries above). I believed that we can discover the mental genotypes of the human race by this kind of "ethno-semantics." I also thought of ways to describe "discourse thinking" in terms of formal rules (algebraic or geometric) that specified the permissible combinations of hexagrammatic elements. These combinatorial rules were logical and involved the traditional (Aristotelian) idea that argument=nominal + complement. I recognized that discourse or dialog depends on invisible (Light Trigram--Descending Pathway) and visible elements (Dark Trigram--Ascending Pathway, as shown above in matrix 18). The invisible elements I called "pre-topical" and the visible "topical." Between the two lay the double line which I identified as the source of the contention point in discourse and in discourse thinking. It answered the question: What's the point in saying this or thinking this?

Now I can recognize the overlap between the pre-topical Light Trigram and the Descending Pathway of degrees of consciousness as outlined in the various matrices in Parts 1 and 2  of this article, and also the topical Dark Trigram and the Ascending Pathway. It's quite remarkable to me that the "double line" between the trigrams occupied my mind in mysterious ways. I saw it as a deep chasm in our semantic system and called it the origin of contention points, that is, the motive for speaking and thinking anything. Now I can see from the Writings that this double line is called the Inversion and is described in great detail in Arcana Coelestia where the inner sense is given for the migrations and encounters of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob detailed in Genesis. This is the basis of what I call today "spiritual geography." Most of the Arcana Coelestia is a handbook for consciousness raising detailing the step by step recursive series of regeneration as we become spiritual and full human beings. It turns out that the hexagrammatic and enneadic systems in ethnosemantics provides us with a methodology for drawing spiritual maps of the human mind. It is a methodology for spiritual geography, or the science of regeneration and human growth in consciousness.

See other Applications of the Hexagram in these sources:  directory 1  ||   directory 2  || article 3  || 

The Writings describe the Descending Pathway (Zones 1 through 9 in the matrices in Parts 1 and 2)  as involving the immediate (unconscious) influx of Divine Good into our sensuous consciousness, and this good unites itself with the Divine truth that enters through efflux from outside our senses, that is, through the Word and Doctrine based on the Word. But the Ascending Pathway (Zones 10 through 18 in the matrices in Parts 1 and 2)  is described as involving mediate (conscious) influx of Divine Truth into our rational consciousness. When we advance in regeneration and our rational consciousness develops, it does so within the sensuous consciousness that was prepared for it through the consummation of the Descending Pathway. This uniting of the sensual and rational consciousness is called the Marriage of Good and Truth. This marriage of good and truth is the basis of all created things, both human and non-human. Every created object or quality, such as a galaxy, molecule, grain of sand, plant seed, or a human feeling, is created into a marriage of good and truth without which no thing can be anything in existence or reality. These are the two fundamental issues when considering any created thing or object:

• What is the good in it? (refers to its properties or uses--as in, What is it good for?))
• What is the truth in it? (refers to its structure and conditions for being effective or operational--as in, How does it work?

The Psycho-Dynamics of Regeneration: Using Spiritual Geography Maps

The growth of every individual's consciousness is a process under Divine management called "regeneration." This process is the marriage of good and truth within us, a marriage the Writings call the church--not capitalized to distinguish it from the Church, which refers to civilization or age, viewed historically or in evolution. The chief mechanism by which regeneration proceeds is through an appropriate series of temptations. These are situations and dilemmas in our daily living that challenges us by putting us in the very middle of a spiritual battle going on between evil spirits and good spirits. This vertical community is a constant environment for our mind without which the mind quickly sinks into its lowest corporeal state and is there isolated from higher states--this is called the hells. So our vertical community ensures that we can maintain the growth of the mind by placing into our sensuous consciousness the content of the temptation. On the one side, from below, we feel the tug of war downward to our selfish and egocentric love of self and the world; on the other side, from above, we feel the tug of war upward to our conscience and altruistic motivations. We are poised between the two and kept in balance in a delicate and precise manner by the Lord. Upon the outcome of our free choice hangs our fate in the afterlife--whether it is to be in hell or in heaven. If we choose the selfish and the worldly, our mind is tied closer to the hells. If we choose according to the truth we know, thus according to uses and love of neighbor, we are tied closer to the heavens. And this repeats itself many thousands of times during the few decades in our life in the body.

To help us gain victory in temptations every individual is given conscious truth in the Ascending Pathway of rational consciousness, as frequently explained. This conscious truth, so vital for our development and immortal fate, is called the Doctrine of the Church. The Word or Sacred Scripture in all religions, is the source of this Doctrine. This understanding of Divine things, called the Doctrine of the Church, is something we need to acquire, develop, care for. Though we can attempt to learn other people's Doctrinal insights--their Doctrine of the Church, it only benefits us to the extent that what we understand is genuine, not deluded by self-intelligence. Whatever genuine Doctrine we extract from the Word remains with us and forms our spiritual environment and fate forever. But the Doctrine is genuine only to the extent that we live our life accordingly. We can read the literal statements expressing the insights and enlightenments of others but we cannot understand what they are referring to until we see the Doctrinal things in our very own mind and life. Doctrine can only be acquired through the orderly progression of our consciousness, as portrayed in the matrices discussed in this article. To help us in this process of Doctrine acquisition, the Word portrays the travels and adventures of the characters that form the subject matter of Genesis (chapter 12 onward). I will share the various spiritual geography maps that I have created, based on the explanations of these travels and adventures given in the Writings of Swedenborg. Also, the maps created by Ian Thompson will also be discussed.

The above chart (matrix 19) shows the components and orderly steps of regeneration in relation to degrees of consciousness, age periods, and hexagrammatic color code. It demonstrates the exact relations between my pre-Swedenborgian discoveries in ethnosemantics and discourse analysis (see tabulation of discoveries above ), and the Swedenborgian system of degrees I encountered later when first reading the Writings. The embedded recursiveness of the growth of the mind at all levels and periods is clearly portrayed by the visual representations.

                                Discovering the Ennead Matrix from the Literal of the Writings

As I started reading the Writings I came across some consistent themes, each one a remarkable and wonderful scientific revelation. If I arrange them in a logical sequence in my mind, I would name first, the idea of "substantive dualism." The structure of the universe is dual: the spiritual world is "within" the physical world--but not in space. Rather, the two worlds are linked by correspondence. Both worlds--the physical planets when they are inhabited, and the spiritual world, have a sun that supplies the materials in the case of the physical sun) or the substances (in the case of the spiritual Sun) from which all things are constructed on the planets and lands. So the big news here is the distinction our consciousness has to make about matter and substance. Substance from the spiritual Sun acts and matter from the physical sun reacts. Another way of thinking this is that phenomena in the spiritual world (made of substance) is the cause ("acts on") of phenomena in the physical world ("is acted upon" or "reacts"). All causes originate and exist in the spiritual world, and these control or cause all corresponding phenomena in the physical world. For example, if we observe the various instinctual physical behaviors of animals, our mind can formulate an idea about the spiritual causes of each behavior. The Writings reveal thousands and hundreds of thousands such correspondences, so that by studying them, we can begin to recognize them in our mind and in our regeneration. Wait! How did I get from spiritual-physical correspondences to the mind and regeneration??

That's the second consistent theme I came across as I read the Writings and it is perhaps the scientific revelation that amazed me to the extreme. That's the idea that the spiritual world and the mind overlap. In other words the mind is the spirit and the spirit lives in the spiritual world. And the spiritual world is not existent in place and time like the physical world where our body is. This was the answer to the mind-body conundrum that bedevils every generation of psychologists and philosophers since Aristotle. By Jove, I think I've got it--to quote a well known 20th century song in the English world. Finally I understood what I've been searching for in vain all these years. We are dual citizens. Our body exists in the physical world while our mind exists in the spiritual world. The two are connected by correspondences. These laws of correspondences were known to the ancients and those who were expert at knowing them were called "wise"--thus like a doctor in Philosophy in our days (Ph.D. Degree). No doubt in the future, science, which will be theistic, will require its Ph.Ds. to be familiar with the "science of correspondences" no less than we require them today to be familiar with the science of mathematics.

That the mind overlaps with the spiritual world is more than to say that our mind, called "the spirit," lives in the spiritual world. Overlap means that when the spiritual world is described, the mind is also described. This reality is the basis for "spiritual geography." For example, in Swedenborg's numerous travels "in the spirit"--which means he was conscious of what his spirit was experiencing, he visited different societies of spirits. These are the people whose minds were liberated from the connection to the physical body by the death of that body. He watched thousands of people "pass on" or pass into the spiritual world which occurs a few hours after death, upon which one awakens consciously within one's spiritual body. The mind or spirit which was connected to the physical body, was now free to roam in its own mental body called the spiritual body. This spiritual body is immortal and indestructible because it is made of substances, unlike the physical body which is made of temporary matter. We do not get into this direct sensuous consciousness in the spirit until the connection with the body is fully broken, a process that takes approximately 30 hours.  What was special in the case of Swedenborg is that he was given the ability to be conscious in the spirit while still connected to the physical body--and this for 27 years. The purpose of this special event, which Swedenborg called the greatest miracle in the history of the world, was to allow him to be the scientific revelator of the Second Advent.

Swedenborg described three levels of societies he encountered in the spiritual world. He called these the First Heaven, the Second Heaven, and the Third Heaven. The highest heavenly societies or the Third Heaven, were inhabited by people who on earth had their consciousness opened to the interior celestial degree. The middle heavenly societies or the Second Heaven, were inhabited by people who on earth had their consciousness opened to the interior spiritual degree. The lowest heavenly societies or the First Heaven, were inhabited by people who on earth had their consciousness opened to the interior natural degree. These three heavens had their corresponding hells. The intermediate "space" between the lowest heaven and the first of the hells ("Lower earth" in the spiritual world) is called the spiritual world. This organization by degrees of the spiritual world overlaps with the organization by degrees of the mental world, or mind (spirit). This is the basis for the method of spiritual geography in theistic science. Matrix 12 in part 1 discusses spiritual geography and depicts the four "directions" in the spiritual world and the character of consciousness of the inhabitants in each region. So the human mind is organized in levels of height and our life on earth in the physical body determines the level to which our consciousness will rise. Thereafter, our life in eternity is an outcome of the height we achieved. Our conscious life, or self, experiences the phenomena at the level that is active in our mind. The inhabitants of the highest level of the mind were called celestial and their power and happiness so exceeded the inhabitants of the second level (spiritual), that the highest of the spiritual could not comprehend a single thought or idea from the lowest of the third level. Moreover, a single experience as actually felt and sensed by the lowest of the celestial individual, would annihilate the highest and best of the spiritual inhabitants, like our body would be annihilated if brought close to the sun.

Similarly, the lowest of the spiritual inhabitants were so vastly superior to the highest of the inhabitants in the natural heaven (first), that the inhabitants of the natural heaven cannot comprehend a single idea of the inhabitants of the spiritual heaven. Such is the amazing difference in our life at different levels of our consciousness. We are not fully human until we reach the interior or rational celestial consciousness. Spiritual geography is the science of drawing maps of the mind for the purpose of understanding and cooperating with our regeneration. Regeneration is the process by which our consciousness is opened to higher degrees while we are in the physical body. After we leave the physical body we can no longer be transferred to a higher degree than what our mind (or spirit) has been prepared for. This is why it is so crucial that we comprehend the process of how regeneration takes place, so that we may cooperate. This cooperation is the reciprocal conjunction with God, which is what gives us eternal life in the heavens. As I read these themes in the Writings I was striving to acquire them as my own knowledge so that I can think from this knowledge. Instead of thinking from materialistic knowledge (e.g., atheistic science that gave me the Ph.D. degree), I now started thinking from substantive knowledge, that is, knowledge from scientific revelations given by God to humankind through a designated or specially prepared revelator. I therefore started keeping track of the details by drawing spiritual geography maps that my wife Dr. Diane Nahl and I started calling "the ennead matrix." We found this word in the dictionary and it means a grid or matrix of nine elements or zones. Here is the most basic ennead matrix we conceptualized:

The vertical dimension consists of the three degrees of the mind, and the horizontal dimension consists of the three organs of the mind called in the Writings: the will, the understanding, and the sensory. Diane and I used the modern social and behavioral terms: "affective" for the organ of the will; "cognitive" for the organ of the understanding; and "sensorimotor" for the organ of the sensory. The three degrees we translated in our published articles as "Level 3" as the most interior in "depth" or "internalization; "Level2" was of an intermediate depth, and "Level 1" was the most external. For example, in one article we identified the three levels with Kelman's description of "the internalization of obedience." He defined level 1 obedience as not internalized but due to fear from environmental or social punishment. When there is no surveillance, obedience stops. Level 2 obedience is more internalized and he called that "compliance" due to voluntary agreement or strategy. Even without surveillance, we still obey because we agree with it. Level 3 obedience is the most internalized since it is based on principles we uphold that are higher than ourselves. Even if we rather not obey in some situations, and would not at levels 1 and 3 (like in temptations and seductions), we still obey at level 3 out of inner higher principle. So we saw the clear relation between how the Writings describe the celestial character and how Kelman described the psychological levels of obedience. And similarly with other psychological levels discussed by Ericsson, Kohlberg, and others. So we were successful in applying the idea of "internalization" or "depth of consciousness" or "development of expertise" in many areas of daily living. You can explore these applications in Diane's publications and mine that are available on the Web. But here are some examples I reproduce here:

Here is another illustration of how we used the ennead matrix in our published articles in the atheistic literature:

Another application on "the height of discourse" may be seen in article 1 and article 2

And now for some illustrations on how we used the ennead matrix as applied to knowledges from the literal of the Writings of Swedenborg. A sequence of such diagrams based on Swedenborg's analyses of the Bible passages in Genesis can be viewed in this article on religious behaviorism.   The clearest examples can be found in this article on "the dimensions of the mind" from which I will reproduce these examples. The three concentric circles style of representing "trigrams" is called graphic methodology (see tabulation of discoveries above).

The graphic methodology in spiritual geography allows us to study and consider separate elements of the ennead matrix. Above is a simple trigram. Below is an ennead matrix arranged in three trigrams:

The advantage of the graphic method is that it presents a rational schema in a visual sensuous image. It shows in a sensuous way how the elements or organs of the mind are arranged "within" each other so that the outermost is the lowest and contains the intermediate and inmost as a protective covering or containant. The celestial mind or degree is "within" the spiritual, and this "within" the natural. The three minds or degrees of consciousness are organic constructions that tend to maintain a certain form by creation. For instance, in the above ennead diagram, arranged graphically, "pleasure" is portrayed in the sensorimotor domain of the natural mind (S1). Within this mental event (pleasure) is contained at a higher degree and through correspondence, the mental event of "intellectual delight" which is portrayed in the sensorimotor domain of the spiritual mind (S2). And within this is portrayed the mental event of "happiness" in the sensorimotor domain of the celestial mind (S3). So in order to understand the workings of the mind, we need to think of three mental events, one within the other: pleasure (outmost), intellectual delight (intermediate), and happiness (inmost). In terms of actual sequence, the inmost is the origin and occurs first; then the intermediate occurs and acts as a cause; finally, the outermost occurs and acts as an effect. Pleasure is thus really and fully pleasure, only when it is the third step in a series starting with happiness in the affective mind (inmost) externalizing by correspondence to the cognitive mind (intermediate) and resting by correspondence in the sensorimotor mind (outmost). Swedenborg explicitly described this process, for which Diane and I created this diagram (found in this article):

Later I changed the A/B/C designation to A/C/S which was easier to relate to the trigram of Affective/Cognitive/Sensorimotor. From now on I was striving to think, not of single concepts as I was taught in my education, but of "triadic concepts" or semantic trigrams. In the fields where Diane and I were publishing our articles--psychology, education, and information science, it was an entirely new approach. We always insisted on the correct theoretical sequence of any behavior or habit unit: Affective------->Cognitive------>Sensorimotor. Remarkably, when our articles were quoted or referenced in the literature, they were cited for the topic of "affective behavior" and never for the simultaneity of the A/C/S unit. It's as if this idea has not yet entered into the consciousness of atheistic science, and so is totally overlooked and not seen, by those who cite our articles. No doubt this powerful concept will become basic and universal when science turns theistic. Even now, cognitive and information science would receive a tremendous boost in effectiveness if scientists were willing to adopt the triadic approach to concepts about human behavior.

In addition, the Writings spoke of an interior and and an exterior of the mind at each level. Here is how I tried to depict this relationship:

Note that there is an inherent replication in the two dimensions of the ennead matrix. The celestial degree corresponds to the affective; the spiritual degree corresponds to the cognitive; the natural degree corresponds to the sensorimotor. Out of this triadic sequence issues all overt behavior. Note also that the ennead matrix can be doubled to represent its relation to the six degrees and hexagrammatic levels discussed above and throughout this article. In that case it relates to matrix 1 in part 1 which I reproduce again here:

Putting together matrix 1 in part 1 and  matrix 19 part 3 (above), we obtain matrix 20 below:

In the chart above (matrix 2), the zones are marked in relation to the external A/C/S units (Zones 1 through 18) and interior A/C/S units (Zones 19 through 36). This is because each of the three domains have an external and an internal zone. For instance, Zone 1 is the external affective of the external celestial, while zone 19 is the interior affective of the external celestial. Every box in the chart is thus marked for two zones. The 36 zones correspond exactly to the 36 zones in matrix 19 above. The zones in matrix 19 and matrix 20 can be identified as follows:

• Zones 1 through 18 = External A/C/S units
• Zones 19 through 36 = Interior A/C/S units
• Zones 1 through 9 = External Descending Pathway
• Zones 10 through 18 = External Ascending Pathway
• Zones 19 through 27 = Interior Descending Pathway
• Zones 28 through 6 = Interior Ascending Pathway

Now we can take a look at Dr. Ian Thompson's formal rendition of the ennead matrix. He doesn't call it the ennead matrix, possibly because he is a physicist and uses a more formal mathematical presentation. At any rate, his independent extraction from the Writings and mine are remarkably similar, demonstrating the methodology of theistic science.

Ian calls the affective domain the "interior mind," the cognitive domain he calls the "exterior mind" and the sensorimotor domain he calls the "natural world." These distinctions are used in the Writings where the will is called the interior of the mind while the understanding is referred to as the exterior or external of the mind. The outermost of the mind is the sensory and is called the natural mind in the Writings. Ian calls this the natural world, no doubt because the sensory mind is formed from stimuli from the natural or physical world entering the sensory organs of the body.

Note Ian's notation system: he uses "1" for the affective domain where "ends" or goals exist, "2" for the cognitive domain where "thoughts" exist, and "3" for the sensorimotor domain where "effects" exist.  Then, "ends of ends" or "affections for ends" receives a double 1 or 1.1; next, "ends of thoughts" or "affections for thoughts" receives a "1.2" notation, while "ends of effects" or "affections for effects" receives a notation of 1.3. "Thoughts of thoughts" has the notation 2.2 and corresponds to the "cognitive of the external spiritual" which is zone 5 and zone 23 in matrix 20 above.  In matrix 19 above,  it is called the "external spiritual of the external spiritual" (zone 5) or the "interior spiritual of the external spiritual" (zone 23)--depending on whether we're addressing external thoughts (zone 5) or interior thoughts (zone 23). And so on.  Continuing with this notation with one more embedding, Ian has the following chart:

In the above diagram, let's take the item "ends of ends" (1.1) which is the equivalent in my notation of "the affective of the external celestial" (zones 1 and 19 in matrix 20 above), which are also called the "external celestial of the external celestial" (zone 1 in matrix 19) or the "interior celestial of the external celestial" (zone 19 in matrix 19). Ian doesn't portray the distinction between external and interior ends or affections. His system then continues to the third embedding "thoughts of ends of ends" (2.11) which is not portrayed in my diagrams since they only go to two embeddings, so far. Ian's terminology is easier to understand at this level: "thoughts of ends of ends" (2.11) is comprehensible, though difficult, while mine would be more difficult to comprehend: "the cognitive of the affective of the celestial" or, "the cognitive of the celestial of the celestial," or even, "the external spiritual of the external celestial of the external celestial" and "the interior spiritual of the interior celestial of the external celestial, " which is hardly comprehensible. Clearly these pioneering attempts by Ian and me about "matrix thinking" have much groundwork to establish before people can make use of these notations as maps for their regeneration.

These things are not easy to see and my rendition and understanding of Dr. Ian Thompson's charts may not receive the agreement of their author who wrote this in an e-mail message after reading some of the above: