The literal sense of Sacred Scriptures is a cultural and historical document associated with a specific religion. There is a hidden correspondential sense within Sacred Scriptures which reveals a universal biological science that may be called theistic psychology.

Proposition 2:

Any text that contains an extractable interior sense by the application of correspondences, is Sacred Scriptures. The interior sense is then arranged in a complete rational series of interrelated meanings and propositions about the development and anatomy of the human mind (or “spirit body”).

Proposition 3:

The Theological Writings of Swedenborg are Sacred Scriptures.

Proposition 4:

The holy books known in the major world’s religions today are Sacred Scriptures.

Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) wrote a verse by verse, and word by word, analysis of the first two books of the Old Testament (Genesis, Exodus) and the last book of the New Testament in the Bible (Apocalypse or Book of Revelations). He identified the correspondential sense of every word, and then confirmed that sense by giving numerous examples from other parts of the Bible where the same word or expression is meant also in this correspondential sense. What is totally amazing is that the same correspondential sense is present across all the books of the Bible, even though these books were written by different prophets over the course of two millennia.

And even more stupendous is the amazing possibility explored below that all the books of Sacred Scriptures from around the world comprising all the major historical religions across millennia, also contain this same correspondential sense that Swedenborg discovered is present in the Old and New Testaments. The evidence I present strongly suggests such a possibility.

The correspondential sense of Sacred Scriptures was called by Swedenborg “spiritual sense” and the “interior sense of the Word.” The plain text meaning of the words and verses he called the “literal sense” or meaning. He showed by thousands of examples from across all the books of the Bible that the entire Old and New Testaments is “written in correspondences.” The correspondential sense in Sacred Scriptures is the spiritual message that God wants us to know about, and not just the literal sense.

Swedenborg honored the literal sense of the Old and New Testaments as “the Word of God.” He asserted and insisted that the literal sense is historically true and accurate in every detail, having been dictated by God to each prophet from within the mind. God is the actual author of the literal text of Sacred Scriptures. Swedenborg shows by many passages from the Old and New Testaments that God speaks the literal words in Sacred Scriptures, and these are therefore Divine and Holy. He shows by many examples from the Bible that God often speaks the literal in one way, and then follows it up by explaining its meaning another way. For instance, in the Parables of Jesus in the New Testament Sacred Scriptures, God speaks the parable or story, and then explains the spiritual meaning of the story. The story events in the literal “stand for” or correspond to some spiritual meaning, which is the message of the story as a whole, a message God wants us to understand by deciphering the symbolism and rational implications of the literal meaning.

Swedenborg states that God has always spoken in this way to humanity, since the beginning of the race on earth. He says that among the most ancient people on earth there were scientists called “wise men” and “sages” who studied the “laws of correspondences” and used them to extract new meanings from their Sacred Scriptures. This ancient science was later called “the science of correspondences.” In its modern version as rediscovered by Swedenborg in the eighteenth century, correspondences are cause-effect laws of creation that link the vertically arranged discrete degrees of existence in the mental world of eternity and in the physical world of time and space.

Swedenborg painstakingly demonstrates with thousands of examples in two dozen volumes that God speaks in correspondences because that is how meanings about truth and love descend from God and enter the minds of human beings. Swedenborg describes the anatomy of the human mind showing that it is layered in vertically arranged discrete degrees or layers of consciousness, some closer to God in authenticity of truth and love, and some more distant. God gives each of us the opportunity to settle in any of these mental regions of life. When God speaks, the audience is the entire human race. God’s meanings are celestial, spiritual, and rational in their purest form. They descend first into the highest layers of the human mind called celestial. When our consciousness is elevated into the celestial layer of thinking and loving, we have a celestial-rational understanding of the spiritual meaning of God’s message or communication.

In daily activities our consciousness is in the material or natural layer of thinking and loving, and we have reduced understanding of God’s message. It is still God’s Divine message, equally as before. But it is a lower form of God’s meaning or presence in our understanding and love.

We know what is God’s message to us in the material consciousness of the literal sense of Sacred Scriptures. When we talk about the content of the Bible we normally refer to the historical details of the physical events that took place at some place in some century. This is the literal sense. If there is also a correspondential sense hidden within this, then what is it? What is God talking about in the correspondential sense of Sacred Scriptures? The evidence presented below will show the astonishing fact that God is talking about details of theistic psychology and science, namely, about mental development, mental anatomy, steps in regeneration, discrete degrees in cause-effect laws, correspondences, and conjugial love between soulmates.

When God speaks the Divine Words reach us here in our conscious material mind as we read Sacred Scriptures. Said differently: When we read Sacred Scriptures God speaks Divine Words to us and they are reaching us through a series of discrete layers of meaning in our mind called correspondences. First we understand God’s meaning through celestial-rational correspondences. We are not conscious of this operation. When we operate with our material consciousness of daily life, we understand God’s meaning through material-natural correspondences. Celestial-rational correspondences of God’s Speech and material-natural correspondences of it, are different and contrastive, and this difference needs to be understood.

Celestial and rational correspondences of God’s meaning (“spiritual sense”) deal with

love and truth as substance within the mind, being God there
dying and resuscitating
the second death and organic induction into heaven and hell
synergy of breathing of spiritual societies
nature of life in eternity and the vertical community connection
mental development, remains, temptations, reformation, and regeneration
conjugial love and eternal marriage between soulmates
God’s management methods and goals
mental anatomy and spiritual genetics
discrete degrees and correspondences.

Material or natural correspondences of God’s meaning (“literal sense”) deal with

animal sacrifices to gain forgiveness from God
worship rituals that must be performed as a group or society
outward conduct of appropriate social behavior towards others
punishment of bad behaviors that are forbidden by God
historical and cultural events, places, and details
natural disasters, famines, migrations, miracles
promises and reassurances of God’s forgiveness and love

You can see from the contrast between the two lists that the higher correspondential sense that can be extracted from the literal sense results in a change of content or topics. The more interior “spiritual sense” exists in a more rational understanding that is above the natural or material understanding. We can read Sacred Scriptures at two levels of meaning. One is the literal or surface meaning of God’s Speech, and the other is the underlying or spiritual meaning of God’s message. The literal meaning of God’s message deals with sacrifices, worship, punishment, and promises, while the spiritual meaning deals with mental development and anatomy, discrete degrees and the laws of correspondences, regeneration and temptation, marriage and community in eternity. In other words, the correspondential or spiritual sense of Sacred Scriptures deals with theistic psychology.

It is clear that God gives both of these components of Sacred Scriptures because both are important and necessary to humankind. Religion and science are both necessary. If God gave only the theistic psychology component to science there would be no religion. Without religion there would be no civilized world, hence no science or community. If the literal of Sacred Scriptures were written as theistic psychology, only few people would read it and acknowledge it. Further, when God speaks the Divine Words are rational truths that come down to the conscious material mind through stages of transformation by the laws of correspondences. The celestial-rational meanings represent the first transformation. As this descends into the material mind there is another transformation. Each transformation changes the content. By the time it reaches the mind of the prophet the transformation has reached its final state in the form of a particular language and culture on earth.

The literal meaning of the written Word is therefore the basis and source of a religion. The literal meaning now contains all the previous transformations. Knowledge of correspondences allows science to extract these prior or more interior meanings. Hence it is that we can list the content and many of the details of theistic psychology. The knowledge of theistic psychology is extractable by any scientist or scholar from any Sacred Scriptures. Its methodology has been described as rational empiricism.

Swedenborg did not use the expression “theistic psychology” but it is obvious to me that this is what he was in fact describing, namely, that while the literal sense of Sacred Scriptures is given for religion, the correspondential sense is given for theistic science.

In line with the discoveries and developments by Swedenborg, I investigated the following proposition:

Proposition 2:

Any text that contains an extractable spiritual sense by the application of correspondences, is Sacred Scriptures.

My research after several years of investigation indicates two preliminary findings that I believe will be fully established by other researchers and scholars.

Proposition 3:

The Theological Writings of Swedenborg are Sacred Scriptures.

Proposition 4:

The holy writings known in the major world’s religions today are Sacred Scriptures.

A critical methodological issue facing the Propositions is to distinguish between “contains correspondences” vs. “contains a complete series of correspondences.” Swedenborg states that the Book of Job which forms part of the modern Bible, is written in the ancient style of correspondences, but does not contain a complete rational series, as do the other books of the Old Testament. While there are “holy books” it doesn’t mean that all holy books have a complete internal series of correspondences. The definition of Sacred Scriptures is that they contain an arrangement that forms a complete rational series. This series must cover all the anatomical layers of descent.

The following presents samples of my research selected from my online collection of books Principles of Theistic Psychology (18 volumes) and from my other essays and articles.

Evidence

Relationship Between Sacred Scriptures, Religion, and Theistic Psychology

Sacred Scripture is Divine Speech transformed by correspondence into a natural language . All genuine Sacred Scripture has therefore two levels of meaning. The clearly visible literal sense is historical and cultural, leading to particular religions. The hidden correspondential sense is universal and culture-free. Hence although the literal sense of the various collections of Sacred Scripture is necessarily cultural and ethnic, also divisive against each other, the hidden correspondential sense of all Sacred Scripture is unified and consistent, relating to the rationality and love of Divine Speech as One God for all.

The above is from: http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/theistic/ch1p1.htm#topic3

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To understand how we are alive and what it means to be alive, we need to know what God has revealed to humanity. These Divine revelations are known in most cultures today as Sacred Scriptures. The literal meaning of Sacred Scriptures in a natural language was given to serve as the basis a specific religion at some time in history. The scientific meaning hidden within the literal meaning, was given to serve as the basis for theistic science and theistic psychology.

Quoting from the Writings of Swedenborg:

(Note: The words in italics are substitutions for the original expressions (see Table below):

SS 78. Further, it is through Sacred Scripture that God the Divine Psychologist is present with us and is conjoined with us, for God the Divine Psychologist is Sacred Scripture, and as it were speaks with us in it. God the Divine Psychologist is also Divine truth itself, as likewise is Sacred Scripture. From this it is evident that God the Divine Psychologist is present with us and is at the same time conjoined with us, according to our understanding of Sacred Scripture, for according to this we have truth and the derivative rational knowledge in our cognitive organ, and also pro-social motivation in our affective organ. God the Divine Psychologist is indeed present with us through the reading of Sacred Scripture, but we are conjoined with Him through the understanding of truth from Sacred Scripture, and according thereto; and in proportion as God the Divine Psychologist has been conjoined with us, in the same proportion theistic psychology is active in our mind.

Theistic psychology is within us; theistic psychology that is outside of us is the institutionalized scientific discipline with a number of us who have theistic psychology within them. This is meant by the words of the Incarnated Divine Human to those who study theistic psychology without applying it to their daily willing and thinking who want to know how heaven is established in our mind:

"The kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:21).

Here the "kingdom of God" means God the Divine Psychologist, and from Him, knowledge of theistic psychology. (SS 78) (see Note below)

Note: The following substitutions were made in the above paragraph indicated by italics:

Original Literal Expression in the Writings of Swedenborg (given for religion)	Equivalent Translated Concept into Theistic Psychology (given for science)
the Word	Sacred Scriptures
the Lord	God the Divine Psychologist, Incarnated Divine Human
a man, him, his, he is	us, our, we are
faith	rational knowledge in our cognitive organ
love and the derivative life	pro-social motivation in our affective organ
the church is in man; with man; within him; outside of man	the knowledge of theistic psychology is active in our mind; outside of us is the institutionalized scientific discipline of theistic psychology
the Pharisees	those who study theistic psychology without applying it to their daily willing and thinking
who asked	who want to know
when the kingdom of God would come	how heaven is established in our mind
within you	in our mind

The conversion Table above illustrates the way in which theistic psychology is extracted from the literal meaning of Sacred Scripture, in this case, the Writings of Swedenborg. As you can see, all traces of the original historical or ethnic references vanish when this is done, and what remains is universal science applying to all human beings. Many more illustrations will be given in what follows.

The above is from: http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/theistic/ch1p1.htm#topic3A

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Why We Need Sacred Scripture

This is why it is absolutely necessary that God give people guidelines and definitions of what is heavenly and what hellish. We cannot rely on our own judgment. Hence it is that God gives Sacred Scripture to the human race. This is the Divinely given definition and criterion for what is good vs. evil, true vs. false, heavenly vs. hellish.

In Sacred Scripture God gives us several distinct layers of meanings and definitions. Our first encounter with Divine Speech through Sacred Scripture is the literal sense of the sentences that make up the books of Sacred Scripture. These sentences can be read by anyone and be understood in the literal sense. What are the topics of Sacred Scripture at this literal level of meaning? What is God talking to us about?

At the literal level Sacred Scripture has a historical and religious content. For instance, the Old Testament Sacred Scripture reads like the history of an ancient people, and contains poetry about God, visions and dreams by prophets, various prophecies of future history, numerous commandments and rituals that must be performed, and punishments and rewards are received accordingly. This literal-historical level of meaning of Sacred Scripture forms the basis for religion and its various denominations and varieties.

What happens when people form religions and belief systems based on the literal sense of Sacred Scripture? People interpret this literal content to suit themselves and what they love. People focus on the parts they like and ignore the parts of Sacred Scripture they don’t like. There is no consistency, no rational responsibility for being consistent. It is necessary therefore for people to go to the next layer of meaning in Sacred Scripture. This is called the spiritual meaning or the interior meaning, whereas the literal sense is called the natural meaning or the external meaning.

People are able to penetrate to the hidden correspondential sense of Sacred Scripture by making these steps:

(1) Acknowledging that the correspondential sense of Sacred Scripture can only be understood by being received from God.

No one can do this on their own or from their own. Those who try come up with much improbable fantasy rather than truth and reality.

(2) Studying Sacred Scripture by rational and scientific methods.

One must be completely consistent, explain apparent contradictions, and ignore no parts. This is called forming for oneself the Doctrine of Truth from Sacred Scripture. Theistic psychology is an instance of this approach.

(3) Applying each truth and idea to our daily willing and thinking.

We must monitor the hundreds of choices we make every day. Every choice must be distinguished in our mind as either heavenly or hellish, as defined by the spiritual meaning of Sacred Scripture that God reveals to us on a daily basis.

If we practice these three steps on a daily basis, we are slowly building up our heaven and cutting our ties with hell. After resuscitation we happily and easily let go of whatever hellish traits remain, and we enter our heaven.

The correspondential sense of the Old and New Testament Sacred Scriptures are revealed in the Writings of Swedenborg Sacred Scriptures. The Writings Sacred Scriptures teach us how to extract the correspondential sense of all Sacred Scriptures. The literal sense of the Writings Sacred Scriptures makes up the Swedenborg Reports in about 30 volumes that describe his experiments, observations, and rationale. It is revealed there that life in eternal heaven is a conjugial life, that is, everyone there is married to their soulmate. Swedenborg interviewed many married couples who live in their heavens. A husband and wife are soul mates and live out their immortal life in happiness and blessedness in company with other similar couples with who they form a society or city. Swedenborg describes the details of life in heaven and hell.

The Hidden Correspondential Sense of Sacred Scriptures

What is God talking to us about in the hidden correspondential sense of Sacred Scriptures? And why is it hidden?

The idea of “God talking” is the same as the idea of “Divine Truth” because God thinks and speaks Divine Truth and nothing else. Remember that the mental world of eternity is the world created by God’s thoughts and purposes. God has no beginning and no end, and therefore God’s thoughts are eternal, which is the same as saying that God’s thoughts, or Divine Truth, forms the world of eternity. Remember also that the physical world of time and space is an effect or consequence of a mental cause. This mental cause of the physical world is Divine Truth, which is God’s thinking.

We at first think that the physical world is concrete and solid while the mental world is ephemeral, almost non-existent in concrete reality. We have sayings in popular culture like “It’s only in his imagination. It’s not real.” A popular song about an island the singer is dreaming of ends with “But there is no island at all, just a picture on my wall.” So we grow up with the idea that the mental world is less real than the physical world.

But as we progress in our rational thinking we discover from the hidden correspondential sense of Sacred Scripture that the mental world is more real than the physical world. Everything in the physical world is temporary and breaks down with time. Nothing is permanent. But in the mental world created by God’s thoughts every single thing is permanent. We are immortal because our mental world is created by the thoughts of God, that is, by Divine Truth. A human mind constructed out of God’s thoughts and feelings is an immortal being because nothing in it can die; everything in it is permanent in eternity. Animals do not have the same mental body we have.

While we have a natural or material mind and a spiritual-rational or celestial-rational mind, animals only have a natural mind. Upon the death of the animal the mental body containing the animal’s natural mind cannot remain itself, cannot survive, and so dissipates. It is our rational mind that makes us different from all animals. Our spiritual-rational mind is constructed as a receptor organ for God’s thoughts and feelings, while animals do not have such an organ. The natural mind that animals have are similar to our natural mind in that its content is constructed through the sensory signals of the physical body. In contrast to this, the spiritual or celestial-rational mind does not receive any input whatsoever from the physical body and the natural world. All the input into our spiritual mind comes from the spiritual world, that is, the mental world of eternity.

The input or inflow of God’s thoughts and feelings into our spiritual mind is unconscious and automatic. This is the source of rationality, that is, our ability to think and reason rationally in our natural mind. We are not conscious of the inflow of God’s rational thoughts. We are only conscious of the rational thoughts as we are thinking about something or solving a problem.

Why then are we not perfectly rational all the time? Why is the Divine Truth hidden in Sacred Scripture as its correspondential sense? Why not reveal the truth to everybody?

To understand the answer you need to recall that God’s thoughts and feelings flow out into the created mental world of eternity where the minds of human beings exist and live. God’s thoughts and feelings spread out into the mental world of humanity like sunlight and heat spread out into physical space and into the planets. Divine Truth as Divine Speech, spreads into the unconscious spiritual mind of every human being, insuring the rationality and immortality of every member of the human race. But where does Divine Truth go from there? How does it go from the unconscious spiritual mind to the conscious natural mind where we do our thinking?

The answer is that the natural mind and the spiritual mind are connected by the laws of correspondences. These laws govern the functional connection between the layers of reality, starting with the spiritual mind and its layers, spreading outward to the natural mind, and finally being written down as sentences in a book. At each level of descent there is a corresponding reaction so that the upper level causes the lower level to react in correspondence with itself. When Divine Speech, or Divine Truth, reaches the bottom of the natural mind, the meaning of the ideas are natural, not spiritual. The literal sense that the prophet writes down in sentences is not what God said or thought, but a correspondence to what God thought and said. See the Layers Diagram.

For instance the literal sense of the Old Testament Sacred Scripture often speaks of water, different forms of it, like rain, ocean, storm, flood, river, spring waters, etc. When Swedenborg read the Sacred Scripture people use in the heavens of their eternity, there was no mention of water anywhere. Instead, when Swedenborg compared the specific passages and phrases where the Old Testament Sacred Scripture mentions water, there was mention of various forms of truth, like external vs. internal truth, or mediate truth vs. genuine truth, or truth of doctrine, truth of religion, natural truth vs. spiritual truth, falsified truth, etc. In other words, Divine Speech discusses the varieties of truth in human minds, not the weather or bodies of water on earth.

Another example is the frequent mention and description of wars conducted by the children of Israel in the Holy Land. All sorts of sordid details are given, some quite revolting. In several passages God is quoted as saying that He orders the children of Israel to invade the land that was promised them, wage holy war against the inhabitants, and destroy their cities, and decimate their population. God orders that no one should be spared the sword, -- women, children, and cattle. Many people today are puzzled or offended by such a barbaric treatment commanded by God. But you can understand it if you look for the hidden spiritual meaning of these events. Every detail of war mentioned in the Old Testament Sacred Scripture can be analyzed and seen to deal with the details of the psychology of regeneration.

Swedenborg was conscious in both the natural mind, as we are now, and in his spiritual mind, as we will be after resuscitation, which is the process of awakening in the spiritual mind a few hours after the death of the physical body . Because Swedenborg was conscious in both minds simultaneously he was in a position of making direct empirical observations of how natural and spiritual phenomena are interrelated. He was able to read the literal meaning of the Bible in Hebrew and Greek so that he was conscious of its meaning in the natural mind, as we are, but also of its meaning in the spiritual mind, since the two are interrelated. This is how he empirically discovered the natural-spiritual correspondences in the Bible.

The Correspondential Sense of the Genesis Creation Story

Let's see what he discovered about the Genesis creation story as he compared passages in the Bible with Sacred Scripture that exists in every person's unconscious spiritual mind. In the following passages people are called "angels" when, after death and resuscitation, they become conscious in their spiritual and celestial layers of the mind. The expression "the Word" refers to Sacred Scripture. "The Lord" refers to the universal God the Divine Human . The expression "the Word in the world" refers to the literal meaning of Sacred Scripture as we are conscious of it in our natural mind, which is referred to as "the church."

Quoting from the Writings of Swedenborg: [comments in italics are not in the original]

De Verbo 14. XIV The Word in the heavens.

The Word [= Sacred Scripture] exists in all the heavens [= layers of the mind], and it is read there as it is in the world [= the meaning of it in our natural mind] , and sermons [= knowledge of theistic psychology] are based on it.

For it [= Sacred Scripture] is the Divine Truth which is the source of the angels' [= people in the afterlife already conscious in their celestial layers] intelligence and wisdom. For without the Word no one knows anything about the Lord [= God the Divine Human], love and faith, redemption, and all the other secrets of heavenly wisdom. In fact without the Word heaven [= consciousness in the afterlife in our celestial layers] would not exist, just as without the Word there would be no church in the world [= no way of regenerating our character], so that there would be no linking with the Lord. (...)

[2] The Word in the Lord's spiritual kingdom [= unconscious spiritual layer of our mind] is not the same as the Word in the world [= conscious natural layer of our mind]. In the world there is the natural Word, but in that kingdom there is a spiritual Word. The difference is like that between its natural and spiritual senses.

The nature of the spiritual sense [= correspondential sense] has been demonstrated at length in my Arcana Coelestia, where the whole contents of Genesis and Exodus have been explained in accordance with that sense. The difference is such that no word is the same. Things take the place of names, and likewise of numbers; the histories are replaced by matters concerning the church [= the natural mind]. The surprising thing is that, when an angel reads it, he is unaware that it is not the same as what he read in the Word while in the world [= after resuscitation, we become conscious in the spiritual mind and unconscious in the natural mind]. This is because he no longer has any natural ideas, since they are replaced with spiritual ones; and the natural and the spiritual are linked by correspondences into a kind of unity.

So when someone passes from the natural into the spiritual [= at our death and immediate resuscitation], it seems to him as if they were the same. In fact an angel does not know that he is wiser than he was in the world, though his wisdom is really so superior as to be comparatively indescribable. He is unable to recognize the difference, because in his spiritual state he knows nothing of the natural state, which he had in the world; and he is unable to compare and differentiate them [= as Swedenborg was able to do], because he cannot return to his former state so as to make a comparison [= but Swedenborg was conscious in both before his death]. Still an angel in heaven is constantly being brought to a higher degree of perfection in wisdom than he had in the world, because his affection for spiritual truth is purer [= more rational and perfect].

[3] However, the Word in the Lord's celestial kingdom is far superior and wiser than the Word in His spiritual kingdom. The difference is of the same kind as that which distinguishes the natural Word in the world from the spiritual Word, as has been stated.

For that Word contains an inmost sense, called celestial, which in all its details refers to nothing but the Lord [= how God the Divine Human manages our mental operations]. In this Word [= celestial layer of our mind] the Lord [= God the Divine Human ] is read in place of "Jehovah" [= God's literal Name in the Bible], and of "Abraham", "Isaac" and "Jacob"; and also the Lord is named in place of "David", "Moses," "Elijah" and the rest of the Prophets; and His divinity is distinguished by special marks [= in the written version of Sacred Scripture that exists in our celestial mind]. The names of the twelve tribes of Israel, and also the names of the Apostles, when read there, convey something about the Lord as regards the church [= how we can change our inherited character]; and so with all the rest.

From this it became plain to me that the whole of the Sacred Scripture deals in its inmost sense with nothing but the Lord. The difference which distinguishes the two Words, the spiritual and the celestial, is like that between thoughts, the province of the intellect [= our cognitive organ], and affections, the province of the will [= our affective organ]. For the angels of the celestial kingdom are guided [= our chief motives and loves] by love to the Lord and so affection for good [= wanting to be conjoined with God the Divine Human ]; the angels of the spiritual kingdom are guided by faith in the Lord and so by perception of truth [= wanting to be conjoined with the truths of God the Divine Human].

[4] Another difference between the celestial and spiritual Words is their script. The script of the spiritual Word is made up of letters resembling the printed letters of our world; but each letter has a meaning. If therefore you were to see that script, you would not understand a single word. For one letter succeeds another without a break, with dashes and dots above and below, since it is in accordance with spiritual speech, which has nothing in common with natural speech. The wiser angels are, the more they see of the inner secrets of their Word so written, more so than the simpler angels. What is stored there is plainly visible to the eyes of the wise, but not to the eyes of the simple. It is similar to what happens with our Word, but to a greater degree; here too the wise see more than the simple.

The script of the celestial Word, however, is made up of letters not known in the world. They are indeed alphabetical, but each one of them is composed of curved lines with serifs above and below, and there are small marks or dots in the letters, and also above and below them. I was told that the most ancient people on this earth had such a script. Some details agree with the Hebrew script, but not much. Such a script expresses the affections which make up a love; so it contains more secrets than they themselves can ever utter. They express these unutterable secrets which they perceive from their Word by means of representations. The wisdom hidden away in this Word surpasses the wisdom in the spiritual Word as a thousand does one.

[5] To make the difference between the three Words, the natural, the spiritual and the celestial, intelligible, let us take as an example the first chapters of Genesis, which deal with Adam, his wife and the Garden.

In the natural Word which we have in this world there is a description of the creation of the world, the first creation of man, and the earthly pleasures and delights of man and the world. By the persons named following him up to the Flood [= hellish traits we inherit and acquire ] are meant his descendants, and the numbers mean their ages. But in the spiritual Word the angels of the spiritual kingdom have, this is not what is meant. The first chapter is a description of the reform and regeneration of the people of the most ancient church [= celestial traits we inherit and acquire]; this too is called a new creation. The second chapter describes as the Garden the intelligence of the people of that church; Adam and his wife stand for the church itself, and their descendants down to the Flood describe the changes in the state of that church [= evolution of mental states in the human race], up to the time when it came to an end and was finally destroyed by the Flood [= hellish traits we inherit and acquire].

But in the celestial Word possessed by the angels of the Lord's celestial kingdom, the first chapter describes the glorification of the Lord's Human; the Garden describes his Divine wisdom. Adam himself is understood to mean the Lord as regards the Divine itself and at the same time the Divine Human. His wife stands for the church, which since it has life from the Lord is called Eve from [the Hebrew word for] life. Adam says of her that she was to be his bone and his flesh, and [they should be] one flesh, because the church comes from the Lord, and is out of Him and with Him as if one. The names of the descendants of Adam describe the successive states by which the Lord was received by the people of that church and linked with them, until there was nothing at all received and so no linking.

[6] So when the first chapters in our Word are read by upright people, especially by boys and girls, and they feel joy at the state when everything was created and at the Garden, then these meanings are unfolded, and the spiritual angels [= those in the afterlife connected to the natural mind of people still on earth] understand them in accordance with their Word, and the celestial angels in accordance with theirs, without being aware that a person or a child is reading it [= hence without prior knowledge or biased teaching]. These meanings are unfolded in their due sequence because they correspond, and correspondences are from creation like this.

This makes it plain what the Word is like in its depths, that is, it has three senses. The last is the natural one for men on earth; this deals mainly with worldly matters [= historical narratives] and where it deals with Divine matters [= spiritual meanings about the afterlife], they are still described by the kind of things which the world contains [= spiritual ideas described and understood naturally, not spiritually]. The middle sense is the spiritual one, which describes the kind of things which belong to the church [= mental world of eternity in the afterlife]. The inmost sense is the celestial one, which contains the kind of things which belong to the Lord [= how we are conjoined to God by loving Him].

For the whole of nature is a theatre representing the Lord's kingdom; and the Lord's kingdom, heaven and the church, is a theatre representing the Lord Himself. For just as the Lord glorified His Human [during the Incarnation Event], so too He regenerates a person; and as He regenerates a person, so too did He create him.

[7] These facts may establish what the Word is like in its depths. The natural Word as possessed by the Christian part of the world contains within itself a spiritual and a celestial Word. For the spiritual sense of our Word is the Word in the heavens which make up the Lord's spiritual kingdom; and the celestial sense of our Word, its inmost sense, is the Word in the heavens which make up the Lord's celestial kingdom. Our Word therefore contains both the spiritual and the celestial Words; but the spiritual Word and the celestial Word do not contain the natural Word. The Word of our world is therefore the one most full of Divine wisdom, and consequently more holy than the Word of the heavens [= because it contains the other two Sacred Scripture within itself]. (DE VERBO 14)

AC 4. While the mind cleaves to the literal sense alone [= of Sacred Scripture], no one can possibly see that such things [= heavenly secrets in the form of correspondences] are contained [= hidden] within it. Thus in these first chapters of Genesis [= Chapters 1 to 11], nothing is discoverable from the sense of the letter other than that the creation of the world is treated of, and the garden of Eden which is called Paradise, and Adam as the first created man. Who supposes anything else? But it will be sufficiently established in the following pages that these matters contain arcana [= secrets] which have never yet been revealed; and in fact that the first chapter of Genesis in the internal sense treats in general of the new creation of man, or of his regeneration [= mental character change from inherited hellish traits to heavenly], and specifically of the Most Ancient Church; and this in such a manner that there is not the least expression which does not represent, signify, and enfold within it these things. (AC 4)

AC 67. CHAPTER 2 As of the Lord's Divine mercy it has been given me to know the internal meaning of the Word, in which are contained deepest arcana that have not before come to anyone's knowledge, nor can come unless the nature of the other life is known (for very many things of the Word's internal sense have regard to, describe, and involve those of that life), I am permitted to disclose what I have heard and seen during some years in which it has been granted me to be in the company of spirits and angels. (AC 67)

AC 68. I am well aware that many will say that no one can possibly speak with spirits and angels so long as he lives in the body; and many will say that it is all fancy, others that I relate such things in order to gain credence, and others will make other objections. But by all this I am not deterred, for I have seen, I have heard, I have felt. (AC 68)

AC 69. Man was so created by the Lord as to be able while living in the body to speak with spirits and angels, as in fact was done in the most ancient times; for, being a spirit clothed with a body, he is one with them. But because in process of time men so immersed themselves in corporeal and worldly things as to care almost nothing for aught besides, the way was closed. Yet as soon as the corporeal things recede in which man is immersed, the way is again opened, and he is among spirits, and in a common life with them. (AC 69)

AC 70. As it is permitted me to disclose what for several years I have heard and seen, it shall here be told, first, how the case is with man when he is being resuscitated; or how he enters from the life of the body into the life of eternity. In order that I might know that men live after death, it has been given me to speak and be in company with many who were known to me during their life in the body; and this not merely for a day or a week, but for months, and almost a year, speaking and associating with them just as in this world. They wondered exceedingly that while they lived in the body they were, and that very many others are, in such incredulity as to believe that they will not live after death; when in fact scarcely a day intervenes after the death of the body before they are in the other life; for death is a continuation of life. (AC 70)

Here is a summary of the correspondential sense of the first chapters of Genesis:

From: BibleMeanings.info (paraphrased from the Writings of Swedenborg):
http://www.biblemeanings.info/Bible/genesis.html

AC 6. The six days, or periods, which are so many successive states of the regeneration of man, are in general as follows.

AC 7. The first state is that which precedes, including both the state from infancy, and that immediately before regeneration. This is called a "void," "emptiness," and "thick darkness." And the first motion, which is the Lord‘s mercy, is "the Spirit of God moving upon the faces of the waters."

AC 8. The second state is when a distinction is made between those things which are of the Lord, and those which are proper to man. The things which are of the Lord are called in the Word "remains," and here are especially knowledges of faith, which have been learned from infancy, and which are stored up, and are not manifested until the man comes into this state. At the present day this state seldom exists without temptation, misfortune, or sorrow, by which the things of the body and the world, that is, such as are proper to man, are brought into quiescence, and as it were die. Thus the things which belong to the external man are separated from those which belong to the internal man. In the internal man are the remains, stored up by the Lord unto this time, and for this use.

AC 9. The third state is that of repentance, in which the man, from his internal man, speaks piously and devoutly, and brings forth goods, like works of charity, but which nevertheless are inanimate, because he thinks they are from himself. These goods are called the "tender grass," and also the "herb yielding seed," and afterwards the "tree bearing fruit."

AC 10. The fourth state is when the man becomes affected with love, and illuminated by faith. He indeed previously discoursed piously, and brought forth goods, but he did so in consequence of the temptation and straitness under which he labored, and not from faith and charity; wherefore faith and charity are now enkindled in his internal man, and are called two "luminaries."

AC 11. The fifth state is when the man discourses from faith, and thereby confirms himself in truth and good: the things then produced by him are animate, and are called the "fish of the sea," and the "birds of the heavens."

AC 12. The sixth state is when, from faith, and thence from love, he speaks what is true, and does what is good: the things which he then brings forth are called the "living soul" and the "beast." And as he then begins to act at once and together from both faith and love, he becomes a spiritual man, who is called an "image." His spiritual life is delighted and sustained by such things as belong to the knowledges of faith, and to works of charity, which are called his "food and his natural life is delighted and sustained by those which belong to the body and the senses; whence a combat arises, until love gains the dominion, and he becomes a celestial man.

AC 13. Those who are being regenerated do not all arrive at this state. The greatest part, at this day, attain only the first state some only the second; others the third, fourth, or fifth; few the sixth; and scarcely any one the seventh.

Continued here: http://www.biblemeanings.info/Bible/genesis.html

Let us examine a Number from the Writings Sacred Scripture that will demonstrate to you how the scientific sense is extracted from the literal meaning of Sacred Scripture. This passage gives an analysis of a phrase in the Old Testament Sacred Scripture. Try to keep track of the topic by translating certain words from the literal meaning into theistic psychology concepts. See if you can memorize these correspondences:

THE WRITINGS SACRED SCRIPTURE	CORRESPONDING THEISTIC PSYCHOLOGY CONCEPTS
the Word	Sacred Scripture
the Lord	God the Divine Human
church	our understanding of truth from Sacred Scripture
labor, combat, works	fighting against spiritual temptations
rest on the seventh day, peace	not being in a state of temptation, conjunction with God the Divine Human
external man, internal man	conscious natural mind, unconscious spiritual mind
Divine order, heaven rules man	our daily thinking and willing conforms to the truth from Sacred Scripture that is in our understanding
born into loving the world and himself more than heaven and the Lord	inherited hellish traits in the natural mind, materialism, selfism, negative bias in science
regenerating, regenerated, external things disposed so as to agree with internal things	character reformation to conform to truth from Sacred Scripture in our understanding
the hells flow from all sides, continually endeavoring to infest	particular connection to vertical community through our love for inherited enjoyments and attachments
the Lord continually protects and sets him free.	the Divine Psychologist manages the process of character reformation to the extent we reciprocate
the body and its senses, see and act through influx from heaven	sensations are not caused by the electro-chemical action of neurons, but the reverse
raised from external things into internal, and thus into the light of heaven.	becoming conscious in the rational mind when is in correspondence with the spiritual mind
in this world are intelligent and wise, those who are in the truth and good of the church	when we make our daily willing and thinking to conform to the truths of Sacred Scripture in our understanding, we receive intelligence in greater degree
[scientists who] confirmed themselves against the truths and goods of the church, are more insane and foolish that the rest	materialistic monism or the negative bias in science, which denies God and the truths of Sacred Scripture, thus denies spiritual reality, which is irrational, thus is in the hells of the mind
after death they are raised by the Lord into angelic wisdom	those who make their daily willing and thinking to conform to the truths of Sacred Scripture, are resuscitated in their mental body and choose to dwell in their conjugial heaven, where where they think and feel in terms of celestial-rational correspondences of Divine Speech

Quoting from the Writings Sacred Scripture: (words in italics appear in the table above)

AC 9278. Six days thou shalt do thy works. [Exodus. 23:12]

That this signifies the state of labor and of combat when the man is in external delights that are to be conjoined with internal, is evident from the signification of the "six days" which precede the seventh, as being a state of labor and of combat (see n. 737, 900, 8510, 8888, 8975). The labor and combat then are signified by the "works" which they were to do in the six days. By the "works of the six days," and the "rest on the seventh day," are signified those things which come forth in man in his first, and in his second state, during regeneration, and also those which come forth in him when he has been regenerated. (Concerning the first and second states of man during regeneration, see above, n. 9274; and concerning those things which come forth with him when he has been regenerated, n. 9213.)

These things take place to the end that external things may be conjoined with internal; for there is an external man, which is also called natural; and there is an internal man, which is also called spiritual. The external man communicates with the world, and the internal man with heaven.

[2] The Divine order is that heaven should rule the world in man, and not the world rule heaven in him; for when heaven rules man, then the Lord rules him. Man is born into loving the world and himself more than heaven and the Lord. And because this is opposite to Divine order, there must be an inversion by means of regeneration; and this inversion is effected when the things of heaven and the Lord are loved more than those of the world and of self. This is the reason why the man who has been regenerated, as also he who is in heaven, is alternately in external and in internal things; for external things are thereby disposed so as to agree with internal things; and finally to be subject to them.

[3] When a man is in external things, he is in labor and combat, for he is then in a life which savors of the world, into which the hells flow from all sides, continually endeavoring to infest, and even to subjugate in the man the things of heaven; but the Lord continually protects and sets him free.

From this arise the labor and combat which are signified by the "six days of the week in which works are to be done." But when the man is in internal things, then, because he is in heaven with the Lord, the labor and combat cease, and he is in the tranquility of peace, in which tranquility conjunction also is effected. These are the things which are signified by the "seventh day." That the interiors of man have been created according to the image of heaven, and his exteriors according to the image of the world; thus that man is a heaven and a world in a little form, and according to the maxim of the ancients, is a microcosm, may be seen above (n. 6057); and consequently that it is according to Divine order that the Lord through heaven directs the world in man, and by no means the reverse.

[4] The nature of the labor and combat when a man is in external things, can be seen from the fact that he is then in such a state as to be in heat from the world and to be cold toward heaven, unless heaven be to him as the world; and that he is consequently in such a shade that he cannot conceive otherwise than that external things flow into internal, and consequently that the eye sees and the ear hears of itself, and that their objects bring forth thoughts, and produce the intellect, and that thereupon he is able of himself to believe, and likewise to love God; consequently from the world to see heaven.

From this fallacy he can scarcely be withdrawn until he has been raised from external things into internal, and thus into the light of heaven. Then for the first time he perceives that the things in him which are of the world, thus which are of the body and its senses, see and act through influx from heaven, that is, through heaven from the Lord, and not at all from themselves. From this it is evident why a sensuous man believes that everything of his life is from the world and from nature; that there is no hell, nor heaven; and finally that there is no God; consequently why he ridicules everything of the church insofar as he is concerned; but is in favor of it insofar as it concerns the simple, so that they may be in bonds, in addition to those of the laws.

[5] From this it can be known what it is to be in external things, and not at the same time in internal things, and that when a man is in external things, he is in cold and shade in respect to the things which are of heaven and which are of the Lord. From this also it can be known who in this world are intelligent and wise, namely, those who are in the truth and good of the church, because these are wise from heaven; and also who are foolish and insane, namely, those who are not in the good and truth of the church, because their knowledge is derived solely from the world; and that those among them who by means of the sciences of the world have confirmed themselves against the truths and goods of the church, are more insane and foolish that the rest, however much they may believe themselves intelligent and wise in comparison with others, and may call those simple who are in the good of life from the truths of doctrine; when yet the simplicity of these latter is wisdom in the eyes of the angels, and moreover after death they are raised by the Lord into angelic wisdom. (AC 9278)

You can see from the above that the hidden meaning of the verse "Six days thou shalt do thy works" in the Old Testament Sacred Scripture refers to the process of regeneration by which the natural mind is made to correspond to the rational mind by compelling our thinking and willing to conform to the truths of Sacred Scripture in our understanding. This self-compulsion on a daily and hourly basis is referred to as "six days of doing one's works." In God's purpose our main task on earth is to regenerate, hence the methods of regeneration is a major topic of Divine Speech hidden throughout Sacred Scripture.

For other demonstrations of extracting the hidden meaning of Sacred Scripture using correspondences, see Sections:

9.1.1 || 1.8.8.1 || 1.8.8.2.3 || 1.8.8.12 || 1.8.8.2.1 || 1.8.2

The above is from: http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/theistic/ch1p1.htm#need-SS

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Why We Need Theistic Psychology

This is what God wants us to know. Divine Love wants each human being to live in the heaven of eternity that is constructed out of God’s rational feelings and thoughts. God has arranged things so that He cannot make us to be in our heaven if we don’t want to. This is called spiritual freedom. God puts spiritual freedom above all other properties of human beings. Through His Divine omnipotence God maintains the spiritual freedom of every human being from birth to endless eternity. God makes sure that we remain totally unaware of the fact that our thoughts and feelings are nothing but reactions or adaptations in our mind to His thoughts and feelings in the form of the spiritual substances of good and truth inflowing from Him. His thoughts and feelings are not our thoughts and feelings! But our reactions to the substances of good and truth inflowing into our mental organs, are our thoughts and feelings. Our thoughts and feelings are never God's thoughts and feelings, and vice versa, but they are related to each other by correspondence.

God does not want us to actually sense or be sensuously aware of the fact that our thoughts and feelings are mere reactions and adaptations to His thoughts and feelings inflowing as good and truth substances. Why not?

Because we would not like it, and could not be happy in heaven. In order for us to feel happy it is a necessity that we feel like an independent self or person, and that we act from our free will according to our own desires and understanding. We don’t want our thoughts and feelings to be controlled by God. And so because God has made us this way, He makes sure that we are unconscious of the source of our thinking and feeling as being from God rather than from self.

God gives us the sense and feeling that we think and feel from ourselves. This is called the as-of self . In other words, we do not have a self that originates in ourselves. The collection of thoughts and feelings we call a human person is not built up by ourselves, but by God’s actions in our mind, and to which each of us reacts in a unique fashion. Every human being is born from parents so that the mental world of the offspring is an actual offshoot to the mental world of the parents. This has been true since the beginning of the race so that everyone lives in the same inherited mental world of humanity. Our mental body contains all the qualities of our parents, and they inherited their mental qualities from their parents. Various specific genealogies thus evolve as races, blood lines, families, and nations, each sub-variety of culture being a particular zone in the mental world. The inheritance of the visible physical traits are correspondences to the inheritance of the mental traits.

Over the many generations of human beings on this planet there occurred a progressive decline in mental traits because people falsified the thoughts of truth that came into their conscious natural mind from their spiritual mind. The original generations lived in a paradise on earth because this corresponded to their mental states, which were heavenly . They were in direct communication with conscious awareness, of their family and friends already in the afterlife of eternity. This was through their spiritual mind, which in those days was still conscious. But later generations began to falsify the thoughts of truth in their natural mind. Falsified truths serve to justify feelings and intentions that are contrary to good. In this way they created a hell in the mental world and became unconscious of their spiritual mind while on earth.

Hell in the thoughts and feelings of our natural mind is nothing but the perversion of the thoughts and feelings in our spiritual mind or heaven, because evil, which is hell, is nothing but the corruption or adulteration of good, which is heaven.

The hells of the human mind then kept growing and accumulating from generation to generation. The New Testament Sacred Scripture reveals that every human being born on this earth had become a hell by the time of the Incarnation Event two thousand years ago, by which God made Himself be born as a human child on earth. By acquiring a Divine Natural Body, God radically changed His relationship to the human race and our evolution of consciousness. The Divine Child, while on earth, created in His natural mind a new mental organ that did not exist before in the human race. This organ is called the spiritual-natural mind.

The above is from: http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/theistic/ch1p1.htm#need-tp

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The Incarnation Event: God Enters the World of History and Science

About two thousand years ago an extraordinary and totally unique event took place that altered the course of human evolution in a fundamental way that is only now being discovered by science. The Universal God the Divine Human, Creator and Manager of the universe, entered history and science by the Incarnation Event (see entry for Incarnation Event in the Subject Index in Volume 18).

This event had been foretold in the most ancient Sacred Scriptures.

The ancient prophecy was given at the beginning of a phase of human evolution called The Fall . Before this, the celestial human race existed on this earth . At the end of this phase called the Golden Period, the new spiritual phase began on this earth. We are of this race. We are called spiritual in contradistinction to the earlier race called celestial. The human mind was created in three discrete layers -- celestial, spiritual, natural. Hence the evolution of the race must follow the anatomical composition of the human mind. The celestial layer of the human race was evolved, developed, and completed through the lives of the individuals that lived in the early generations on this earth. When the celestial anatomical layer was complete, the celestial race was "consummated" or extinguished. A few "remnants" whose anatomical structures deviated from the norm were the carriers that insured the connection between the extinguished celestial race and the newly beginning spiritual race.

As we are part of the spiritual race we possess a functioning operational celestial layer of our mind even though nothing of its operations is conscious to us. Our celestial mind is above our spiritual mind, a discrete degree within it, and whatever is within or above, is far superior all that is below it. Our celestial mind is far superior to our spiritual mind. But even so, we only become conscious of our spiritual mind after resuscitation . This happens just a few hours after physical death. When we are resuscitated we at first are conscious in our natural mind, which is the layer we know ourselves in everyday life here on earth. This natural layer forms the content of who we know ourselves to be. But shortly thereafter our natural mind begins to fade like a distant memory -- our identity, profession, hobbies, knowledge of history and science -- all of this that is stored up in our natural mind, slowly begins to fade like a distant memory from childhood or some land we once visited. See the Layers Diagram.

This happens because the natural mind is totally unsuited for life in eternity which is a mental world without time, space, matter, or sickness and death. Everything now depends on our rational feeling and thinking. What kind of people we are with and what the environment and situation is like, depends entirely on our ruling loves. Not like before on earth out of which the content of the natural mind was formed. Now in eternity the laws that govern reality are purely rational laws. To try to operate with the natural mind after resuscitation doesn't get you anywhere. You have to disregard your identity, your culture, your nominal religion, your citizenship awards, your achievements and reputation -- all of these things are formed in your natural mind and are part of the natural mind. But after resuscitation you are existing in your spiritual mind.

Swedenborg reports that some people he talked to after resuscitation insisted on not letting go of the natural mind. The only way this is possible is to act insane in the spiritual mind, pretending by fantasy that you are still in your natural mind and in your physical body on earth. The result of this spiritual inanity is very sad and frightening. People in this mental state are victims of their own emotions and feelings. In the spiritual mind the environment around you is created by correspondences of your emotions and thoughts. So if you have insane thoughts and emotions the environment you exist in are correspondences to them in the natural world. For instance the intention to rob someone by misleading them and posing as a friend, immediately causes deadly scorpions and poisonous flying snakes with an ominous darkening of the skies. So the intended victim can immediately recognize the stranger's evil intentions. Nevertheless, some victims who are also spiritually insane, fantasize something totally different that is going on. And so they fall victim to the machinations of others. And Swedenborg reports that no matter how clever someone is, there is one who is more clever in and endless series of the layer of the human mind called the hells.

Everyone is born into eternity with a permanent and immortal mental body and temporary physical body . After the celestial race was extinguished, as discussed above, what happened to those people who had been celestial and had lived on earth all those generations? Well, they were in the immortal heavens of their mind called the celestial heavens of the most ancient peoples . Swedenborg visited with them in their mental states, seeing the habitations they lived in that corresponded to their feelings and thoughts. So even though the celestial race died out on earth, the people of that race continued to evolve in their celestial heavens.

This fact is of greatest importance for us to understand because our unconscious celestial mind is made up of their celestial heavens. Whatever the mental operations they experience, these are the causes of the operations in our unconscious spiritual mind. And whatever we experience here in our conscious natural mind is a consequence of the operations going on in our spiritual mind, which are connected by correspondence to the celestial mind of those who are in that state. Hence it is that the various distinct layers of the human mind are connected by the laws and operations of correspondence.

The Universal God the Divine Human manages the layers of the human mind through the laws of correspondences. Divine Speech or Divine Truth issues forth from God's mind into the layers of the human mind, first into the inmost or highest layer called celestial heavens, and from there in descends or externalizes by correspondence into the spiritual layer of our mind, and from there by correspondence into the conscious natural layer of our mind where it presents itself as Sacred Scripture in a natural historical language. This process of the sequence of correspondences initiated by Divine Speech is the continuous and permanent method by which God rules the universe. See the Layers Diagram.

Until two thousand years ago the long history of evolution of the race on earth was managed by God the Divine Human in this way through correspondences. But there was a creeping mentality of materialism that came about as the natural mind of the human race on earth was becoming more scientific and more rational in consciousness, mentality, and civilization. In order to allow for democratic modernism to evolve on this planet it was necessary to develop the sensuous sub-layer of the natural mind as opposed to its rational layer. The sensuous layer of the natural mind tends to be submerged into materialism to such an extent that we start denying the existence of God or the afterlife of eternity. These concepts require a rational understanding and when people reject rational understanding as not important to them, they lose the ability to comprehend spiritual things like theistic psychology. See the Layers Diagram.

So materialism was strengthened while religious ideas and practices became cultural and national expressions rather than spiritual. Once people lost their rational ability to see spiritual truths and realities, they could no longer be conscious or aware of the existence of God and the afterlife. Even those who had religious ideas and practices could not understand Sacred Scripture in a universal scientific or rational sense.

What was God going to do about this? This was a serious situation where the human race could die out so that those who were already in their eternity could also be destroyed since the created order no longer worked to keep all things into one synergistic unit. Of course God had already provided for the solution since the beginning of creation, since to God all things are united into one -- past, present, and all future. The solution had to be such that the natural mind could once more recognize that God exists.

God cannot exist for us in full strength or conjunction unless each individual reciprocates God's love for the individual. We must acknowledge God's love for us or else we cannot closely be conjoined to God. And without this there are consequences. God manages molecules, planets, animals, and all things directly by correspondences which provide for the cause-effect relation between adjacent layers of discrete degrees . God manages human beings in two ways. One is immediately and unconsciously across the layers of the mind. The second is mediately and consciously through the conscious layers of the mind. The celestial race is conscious at the celestial level. The spiritual race is conscious at the natural level prior to resuscitation, and afterwards at the spiritual level. When materialism took hold of the natural mind on earth, God disappeared from conscious awareness of people on earth.

The prior conscious awareness of God was replaced by a blind faith in God.

But a blind faith is not the same as a rational faith based on conscious understanding of God such as we have in theistic psychology. Blind faith only enters the natural layer of the mind. The spiritual layer requires rational faith. So while people on earth had a rational faith in their unconscious celestial and spiritual mind, they only had a blind faith at the conscious natural level.

The only way God could remedy this situation was by entering history and science.

God made Himself be born as a Divine Human Child. This Child was at first not conscious of who He was, namely the Incarnated God in the natural or physical world. God the Divine Human was always both Divine and Human. This is why He created human beings who are in His Image as the Divine Human. So God has always been in the Human Form. However, God's Human Form was a mental body that consisted of a celestial affective organ and a spiritual cognitive organ. The affective organ is in the Human Form and the cognitive organ is in the Human Form. This is therefore also true of us. Our affective and cognitive organs are both in the human form.

However, God did not have a physical body. This was completely unnecessary in the prior generations because people could see spiritually, and therefore they could see God's Human Form replicated in their own mental body. People were able to look upon the human form they had and see God's Human Form. But after the Fall, the spiritual race was no longer able to see God's Human Form in their own body and mind. Whenever God wanted people to have a communicative exchange with Him He would "possess" or take over the conscious mind of an individual in the celestial or spiritual race in their heavens. They were called "angels" when they appeared to people's natural consciousness. God spoke through the angels and everyone could see and hear that.

But once materialism crept into the mind, people were no longer able to even believe that there are angels, let alone see and hear them through their internal mind. In the past God could communicate with people's internal mind and thereby influence them and protect them. But this path of communications was destroyed by materialistic thinking which denied God and taught the negative bias in science. This is what you and I were taught in our generation. Hence we no longer had the ability to hear God, to recognize Divine Speech in Sacred Scriptures.

But when God entered the physical world, this suddenly changed. The Divine Child grew into an adult male and He declared Himself to be Divine. God's life on earth as a citizen of a small mid-eastern nation created a historical biography, which makes God's presence on earth a historical fact. This was His mission, to make Himself once more visible to humankind on earth. Now people had a choice as to whether to acknowledge God or not. People did not have that choice before God's Incarnation.

Furthermore, by entering history, God entered science.

It is true that the literal sense of the New Testament Sacred Scripture is used as a religion by various groups who disagree with each other on almost everything about God and the afterlife. It is the literal sense of the New Testament Sacred Scripture that gives the historical account of God's Incarnation and its details.

Quoting from the Writings Sacred Scriptures:

AC 2803. (...) But the Divine Human which was born from eternity was also born in time; and what was born in time, and glorified, is the same. Hence it is that the Lord so often said that He was going to the Father who sent Him; that is, that He was returning to the Father. And in John: [New Testament Sacred Scripture]

In the beginning was the Word (the "Word" is the Divine Truth itself), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; the same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:1-3, 14; see also John 3:13; 6:62).

(AC 2803)

Doc. Lord 1. The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the

Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14).
The light is come into the world and men loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil (John 3:19).
While ye have the light, believe in the light, that ye may be sons of light. I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth in Me should not abide in the darkness (John 12:36, 46).

From these passages [in the New Testament Sacred Scripture] it is evident that the Lord is God from eternity, and that this God is the selfsame Lord who was born in the world; for it is said that the Word was with God, and God was the Word, and also that without Him was not anything made that was made; and it is added that the Word was made flesh, and they beheld Him. (Lord 1)

TCR 3. (...) Jehovah God is Love itself and Wisdom itself, or Good itself and Truth itself. He came down in the form of Divine Truth, which is the Word and which was God with God, and took upon Himself human form, so as to reduce to order everything in heaven, in hell and in the church. For at that time the power of hell was stronger than the power of heaven, and on earth the power of evil was stronger than the power of good, so that utter damnation stood threatening at the gates. This impending damnation was removed by Jehovah God by means of His Human, which was Divine Truth, and thus angels and men were redeemed. Afterwards He united in His Human Divine Truth with Divine Good, or Divine Wisdom with Divine Love, and so returned into the Divinity which was His from eternity, together with and in His glorified Human. This is the meaning of the passage in John: [New Testament Sacred Scripture]

The Word was with God and the Word was God; and the Word was made flesh. John 1:1, 14.

(TCR 3)

Here there is an explanation about the New Testament Sacred Scripture saying that "the Word was God ... And the Word was made flesh." The Word" = Divine Truth or Divine Speech = God the Divine Human. "Was made flesh" = incarnation in a physical body on earth. That this was God who incarnated is clear from the statement that "the Word was God' and that the Word was made flesh. Hence it was God who incarnated in a physical body on earth. This is the Divine Child.

The literal sense of Sacred Scripture is always used by religion, not science. Hence there are disagreements according to culture and interpretation. But the correspondential sense of Sacred Scripture reveals its scientific sense, which is universal because it does not mention culture or anything in the natural mind, but only the spiritual and celestial mind. Theistic psychology is based only on the correspondential sense and hence cannot be identified with any religion. The Incarnation Event is therefore not only an religious event but an evolutionary scientific event.

The correspondential sense of the Old and New Testament Sacred Scripture reveals that the Divine Child created a new layer in His Natural mind that did not exist before in the human race. This new layer is called the spiritual-natural layer or the interior-natural layer. Once this layer was created in the Divine Child's mind, it became available to every human being, past, present, and future. This was the momentous new evolutionary step that was taken by the human race about two thousand years . See the Layers Diagram.

From then on we would be able to be consciously aware of spiritual truths. This fact then restored the race to its celestial level, though in a totally different way. Now we would be able to receive a new mind that was not contaminated by inherited evils. This new mind then could form the basis for our heavenly eternity. This new mind was constructed within our natural mind, so that we could be conscious of it. But this ability would be dependent on our regeneration. Only when we are willing to undergo character reformation, can we see anything with this new spiritual-natural capacity. This requires the positive bias and theistic psychology.

There remains a logical puzzle about the Incarnation Event. The New Testament Sacred Scripture records few biographical facts about God's life on earth as a citizen of the Ancient Holy Land. Almost all the facts reported about Him are external, belonging to His social and political life. Almost nothing is recorded about His state of mind, what He thought of as a Divine Man on earth, or what He was busy doing in the universe while He was growing up as a Divine Child. But these biographical facts about God's inner life while on earth are revealed in the correspondential sense of the Old Testament Sacred Scripture, written hundreds of years prior to the Incarnation Event! For instance, the Psalms of David, one of the Books of the Old Testament Sacred Scripture, records the thoughts and feelings that King David had when he was stressed under attack from his political enemies from whom he was forced to flee for awhile.

By Divine Providence David was allowed to think, compose, and write down only those thoughts and emotions, that corresponded to what the Divine Child would undergo mentally when stressed under the attack of the hells. And similarly with the histories of the the patriarchs and their families that make up a large portion of the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament Sacred Scripture. Every recorded detail fits by correspondence all the developmental stages that the Divine Child went through in order to create the new human organ called the interior-natural organ within the conscious natural mind. This new creation was one of the central purposes for God's Incarnation, as explained above.

So we have all these biographical details of the thoughts and feelings of the Divine Child during the Incarnation Event. So the puzzle is this: What explains the strange history of God, portrayed as a political problem to the authorities of the land and was put to death by them at age 33? What happened to God on earth so that these events could befall Him? After all He was God, and so He was still omnipotent and running all things in the universe. He was of course running the details of His Own Incarnation. He was running the minds of the authorities who tried and condemned Him, and He was running the Roman soldiers who executed Him.

After the execution and His death, He caused Himself to be resuscitated in His physical or natural body.

This was a unique event in the history of the human race. God the Divine Human was now equipped with a Natural Body, born and grown on earth in time-space, in history and science. God's relationship to the human race took a whole new turn, that was not possible before. Now God could be seen in the conscious awareness of the natural mind. It is easy to picture and see in one's mind the event of God as a Man with a Natural Body, a Face, Hands, Feet, Heart, Lungs, Liver, etc. God was always in the Human Form, as explained above, but now in addition to the mental human form, God acquired the natural human form.

Note carefully this detail: human beings do not resuscitate in the physical body.

We resuscitate in the mental body in the afterlife of eternity. The physical body or corpse, disintegrates. But with Himself, God caused His resuscitation with the physical body. Swedenborg confirms that He often saw God's Natural Body in eternity , and in fact, we will all be able to confirm this with our own observation when we are resuscitated. All those who were in their heaven in eternity could also see God's Natural Body there.

God's Natural Body in eternity is not physical but substantial. This is described and explained under the topic of "glorification".

Note that without the idea of God's Natural Body born on this earth it is not possible to picture God in any way since He is infinite and we cannot picture something that is not in the human form. The religions based on the Old Testament Sacred Scripture, including the Koran Sacred Scripture, created the rule that it is not permitted to picture God in human form. And this is understandable for it is not possible to picture an infinite God who is not in the human form. Now if you allow the Incarnation Event as part of theistic psychology, it is permitted to picture God in the human form. Now we know what God looks like in the Natural Form, namely like we do. And this is why it is said in Sacred Scripture that we were created in God's Image and Likeness.

So by creating a Natural Body for Himself God changed His relationship to the human race. In this way He repaired the loss suffered by the race called the Fall (see above). The race had already completed the celestial and spiritual layers of the mental world of eternity, and now it was necessary to complete the last layer called the spiritual-natural or interior-natural layer of the mental world. This required that God obtain for Himself a Natural Body on earth.

The sad and ignominious details of God's short life on earth was constructed by God for the sake of correspondences. In Sacred Scripture God's incarnation is called "the Word made flesh" (as discussed above). He is Divine Speech, He is Divine Truth, He is Sacred Scripture or "the Word." Written Sacred Scripture had been given to people since the Fall, but with the rise of materialistic thinking people lost the spiritual meaning of Sacred Scripture and interpreted all its meanings with materialistic ideas. For instance, they pictured the afterlife as happening here in the physical world. They rejected the idea of an afterlife in mental eternity. They could not comprehend such a thing.

As a result, they reinterpreted Sacred Scripture to suit their pet philosophies and political lifestyles. Hence Sacred Scripture lost all its spiritual value and it became useless for the purpose of preparing oneself for a life in eternity. In other words, they "killed the Word." Since God was "the Word" or Sacred Scripture, He enacted in physical life by correspondence, what people had done to Sacred Scripture over the generations. They perverted Sacred Scripture for their political gain, thus killing God in their own mind. When God incarnated, He created those details in His biography on earth that corresponded and represented the details of how Sacred Scripture was killed in the minds of people.

Henceforth people would no longer be able to kill Sacred Scripture in their mind because it is now known in history and science that God is a Man, and that His Divine Speech is Sacred Scripture. The human race is now on a permanent rise in evolution so that any individual regardless of cultural or religious background, can have a living relationship with God the Divine Human born on this earth. In theistic psychology this living relationship is called the Divine Psychologist.

It is important to have a rational understanding of God. This understanding requires knowing about correspondences, that is, knowing how God has formed all things in discrete non-overlapping layers of existence. The only connection between the layers is that they operate together by correspondences. The layers have no independent existence of functioning. It is that the human mind, or the world of eternity, was created by God in corresponding layers so that all the layers react to each other as cause and effect. In this way the entire creation is held together as one in God's Mind.

Further, you need to remember the distinction between "God as He is in Himself" and "God as He is Outside of Himself". God as He is in Himself is changeless from eternity to eternity, is infinite, incomprehensible, and cannot be approached directly. Because of this, God created the mental world of eternity, and then the physical world of time linked to it by correspondences. God's creative activities are rational and developmental. When the human mental world evolved sufficiently in the course of numerous generations, it reached a phase where God could reveal Himself in a Natural Body taken up from earth. So God made Himself be born a Divine Child in the land that had been entrusted by Him centuries before, to study and protect the Old Testament Sacred Scripture. This Sacred Scripture was a theistic psychology textbook on what the Divine Child is going to do, what thoughts He is going to have, and how He is going to change the psychobiology of the mental world in eternity. Every human being past, present, and future will therefore be directly affected by this change.

God's Natural Body is Divine because it is made of Divine substances. All the substances of earth or matter that formed His inherited physical body had been replaced by the death and resurrection process. Now God had a Divine Natural Body along with His Divine Natural Mind He constructed for Himself on earth. This is the Body that can now be seen by anyone from the spiritual and celestial layers of their mind.

But it is necessary to think of this Natural Body as Divine, and therefore infinite. This is a difficult idea to comprehend rationally and without the idea of space, time, or place.

God's Natural Body can be seen by anyone, regardless of where they are or which way they turn. Swedenborg confirmed this amazing phenomenon. He observed with the people who live in the third heaven or celestial mind, that whichever way they turn turn or face, the Spiritual Sun in which God's Natural Body appears, remains in front of them at the same altitude of height on the horizon, and, equally brilliant in light. God can now appear in this Natural Body in every individual's mind. This is why the Incarnation Event had to happen. This Divine Human Natural Body is in every place but apart from space . It is therefore omnipresent. That is, God the Divine Human is omnipresent and omnipotent in this Divine Human Natural Body.

The above is from: http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/theistic/ch1p1.htm#incarnation

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How Divine Speech Descends In the Human Mind Through Discrete Layers

Our mental heaven in eternity is inborn. This heaven is already present in our mind when we are born, just as hell is present in the human mind at birth. Physiologically, our mind is constructed out of heavenly feelings and traits and out of hellish feelings and traits. In other words, heaven and hell are located within the spiritual organs of the mind. This awesome secret has been revealed thousands of years ago in the literal sense of Sacred Scripture. An example is the scientific revelation in the New Testament Sacred Scripture:

Being demanded of the Pharisees when the kingdom of God should come, He answered them, and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation; neither shall they say, Lo here! or, Lo there! for behold, the kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:20-21).

The phrase "cometh not with observation" means that the natural mind, which is formed by physical content, cannot be in heaven. In the literal sense it means that heaven is not in the natural world but in the spiritual world of eternity. Hence this passage, among others in the New Testament Sacred Scripture, reveals the scientific reality of dualism, that is, of the existence of this world in time-space, and the world of eternity which is snot in time-space. The phrase "the kingdom of God is within you" means that eternity is in our mind. "Within you" contrasts with the phrase "with observation" which is outward through the physical senses, while "within you" is mental and is not observable outwardly by the physical senses.

I am amazed that I did not realize the meaning of this passage the first time I read it thirty years ago . And I am astonished that no one until Swedenborg in the eighteenth century, took note of this amazing scientific revelation in the New Testament. It wasn't until I became an expert on Swedenborg and then read this passage again that its meaning hit me. It is the Divine revelation of scientific dualism . Similar scientific revelations occur in the Old Testament Sacred Scripture, as for instance the Genesis verses:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth (Gen. 1:1).

And the heavens and the earth were finished (Gen. 2:1).

These are the nativities of the heavens and of the earth (Gen. 2:4),

In the literal sense it plainly says that God created the spiritual world of eternity ("the heavens") and the natural world of time, space, and energy. This is the Divine confirmation of scientific dualism as a reality, not a hypothesis or theory. What is not revealed here is that the world of the heavens in eternity is the same as the mind. For thousands of years people who derived their religion from the Old Testament had a materialistic worldview, not abstracted from the senses. They were not willing to think of the heavens as being created in a separate universe, outside time, space, or region. To think of the universe of eternity, not in space, not in time, involving no material substances, and yet still supportive of human life and happiness, requires a rational spirituality, not material or sensuous. It requires a rational consciousness of God. This level of thinking had not yet developed in the human mind until the age of science and modernism starting in the 18th century.

This is the reason that 20 centuries of Christian scholarship and adoration of the New Testament were not able to uncover this obvious heavenly secret, namely, that "the Kingdom of God is within you." In theistic psychology I render this statement by the following formulaic expression:

the Kingdom of God = eternity and human life there = the heavens = within you = your mind = your mental organs = your feelings, thoughts, and loves = the self = immortality

Is this not an astonishing realization?

You too will be astonished as soon as you begin to reflect on this amazing rational equation. This equation shows that all human beings are born immortal! Who knew this? The vast majority of people on this planet today belong to the Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist religions and practices. None of these religions give a clear and factual description of our immortality or life in eternity. None of the religions give any clear explanation of the most basic facts that Swedenborg presents in the Writings Sacred Scripture. As for instance the fact that every human being who dies is resuscitated within 36 hours and continues life in eternity as himself or herself. Which religious leader, prophet, or scholar has known this? The reason is that Sacred Scripture reveals almost nothing about life after death -- when you consider the literal meaning of the sentences of Sacred Scripture. This is why all sorts of imaginative and fantastic interpretations have been given of the Book of Revelations, which is the last book of the New Testament Sacred Scripture, and is written in a prophetic and visionary style, rather than historical narrative, as the rest of the New Testament is written.

The most popular beliefs surrounding the symbolism and interpretation of the Apocalypse, or Book of Revelation, have been that its visionary scenes that John witnessed "while being in the spirit," describe symbolically the historical scenes that will take place on earth at the so-called "end of times" or when the physical planet is destroyed and instantaneously remade, while the faithful who are saved, are "caught up in the air" and kept safe during these tumultuous events that destroy earth. Then a "new earth" is created by God for those who are "resurrected from the graves," put back together again with new and immortal bodies, to enjoy forever on the new earth.

These amazingly imaginative ideas come from one source -- the practice of interpreting the literal sense of Sacred Scripture in accordance with one's own ideas, beliefs, scholarship, intelligence, or imagination. None of these approaches can yield the true spiritual meaning that is hidden within the literal sense of Sacred Scripture . Instead, it was necessary to wait until God reveals the appropriate method for extracting the hidden meaning from the literal sentences. This method had been revealed before by God to the most ancient peoples on this earth. Swedenborg interviewed some of these people who have been living since then in their celestial heavens. They informed him that when they were on earth they called this knowledge the Science of Correspondences.

This therefore is the most ancient science on the planet. It has to do with how the spiritual world of causes relate or act upon the natural world of effects. In other words, the science of correspondences was the rational revelation of scientific dualism and how the two worlds are connected by laws. Swedenborg interviewed people in eternity who were from different historical eras on earth. He was thus able to piece together a historical chart of the succeeding civilizations on this earth , describing the mentality and character of those people. After some generations, the most ancient civilization died out and in its place arose a series of civilizations. By the time the Old Testament Sacred Scripture was written about three thousand years ago, almost nothing was left of the knowledge of the science of correspondences. It was so well hidden that no one knew, not even the prophets who wrote the Bible, that the sentences of Sacred Scripture were written in correspondences because they represented the content of Divine Speech.

This history is necessary for us to know because of a rational principle that I would like to phrase as follows:

Individual biography recapitulates human evolution and history

In other words by knowing the details of the mental evolution of the human race on earth we are able to know details of our own mental states and how they develop in our life from birth to eternity.

It wasn't until the Writings of Swedenborg in the eighteenth century that the human mind was first given knowledge again of the lost science of correspondences. Now for the first time we are able to read Sacred Scripture and extract from it the Divine Speech that is hidden within it. In order for God to revive this consciousness in the human race it was necessary that He select a scientist, like Swedenborg, who was given the scientific genius, rationality, and reputation, to bring this science of dualism back into modern times and the modern person of the future. In order to succeed, it was necessary for this person to be given access to the laboratory of eternity.

This was done by making Swedenborg's spiritual mind to be conscious while he was still living on earth. At age 57, he became a dual citizen, living and interacting in both worlds simultaneously! Only a scientist who had access to both worlds simultaneously could make the necessary observations of this science of correspondences, since it is the science of how the worlds are connected by functional cause-effect laws for all phenomena. Now any person who studies these laws of correspondences can read Sacred Scripture and figure out its hidden correspondential sense. This correspondential sense is the content of Divine Speech. Theistic psychology is the knowledge extracted from the literal sense of the Writings Sacred Scriptures.

In order to understand this more clearly, it is necessary to have a mental chart of the human mind and how it is created, ordered, and managed by God through Divine Speech. Study the following conceptual diagrams which are explained elsewhere in theistic psychology (see Volume 6):

Conceptual Charts of the Physiology of God and the Human Mind

Chart 1

Chart 2

The above is from: http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/theistic/ch1p1.htm#layers

(to be continued)

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The Method of Correspondences With Enlightenment

Enlightenment is not a mystical experience. Nor is it difficult to understand precisely what it is. From the perspective of theistic psychology enlightenment is a psychobiological process of the human mind corresponding to the biological process by which sunlight and its heat are received by plants and use it to fabricate their nutrition. Spiritual light in which there is spiritual heat proceeds from the Spiritual Sun into the mental world of humanity where it enters the mind of every existing human being simultaneously and proceeds outward and downward by successive degrees of correspondence. The cognitive (light) and affective (heat) organs of the mind are constructed and animated by this universal “influx,” and we use it for willing and thinking in daily activities.

The operation of enlightenment in the cognitive organ is also called “revelation”: Quoting: By "revelation" is meant enlightenment when the Word is read, and perception then” (AC 8694). When we read the Writings Sacred Scripture (“the Word”) we can comprehend the revelations in a spiritual way when we are enlightened while reading and reflecting. It is not necessary that we read the printed sentences on the page or screen. It is equally effective if we think the sentences or phrases and reflect upon their universal meaning.

In this reflection upon the universal meaning, we are to be motivated to apply the truth to self. To be motivated to apply the truth to one’s willing and thinking is to search for the universal meaning. This universal meaning applies to every individual regardless of background, culture, and religion. Hence we call this universal meaning theistic psychology. This process of extracting the scientific meaning from the Writings Sacred Scripture is the process of practicing the method of correspondences with enlightenment.

Enlightenment is the comprehension of scientific meaning within the literal meaning. It is to perceive how the sentence applies to self and to all other human beings. This is what makes it into a science – universal and objective applicability. Enlightenment, or the perception of spiritual meaning, is not received when our motivation for reading and reflecting upon the Writings is other than application to one’s own willing and thinking. Our interest must be no other than the desire to reform our inherited character by facing spiritual combat in temptations. The truths we extract that apply to our willing and thinking are to be formed into a doctrine of justification by which we can fend off doubts and relapses. This is the ultimate purpose of enlightenment.

Enlightenment is not something superfluous or special, reserved for certain types of scholarship and piety. Enlightenment is the psychobiological process by which every person’s affective and cognitive organs are regenerated and prepared for life in heaven. Without enlightenment no one can be prepared for heaven. Either we are enlightened in this world, or failing that, in the afterlife. No one enters heaven without being enlightened while reading the Writings Sacred Scripture. Everyone who is resuscitated in the world of spirits is given instruction in the Writings Sacred Scripture since they alone contain the rational heavens of our immortality. Those who have lived a life of conscience and use are happy and willing receivers of the truths of the Writings. Others are unwilling.

The extracted knowledge of theistic psychology may be studied by anyone for any purpose, but everything in it will be understood naturally, and nothing in it will be understood spiritually – unless one is enlightened by the Divine Psychologist while it is being read or applied. It is not possible to perceive spiritual meanings without being ‘online’ as it were, connected to “mediate influx” in a deliberate and conscious way. This ‘online’ feature applies to enlightenment since it is the organic operation of spiritual light in the cognitive organ of thinking and reasoning. As long as we are plugged in the correct way, enlightenment flows and operates in our conscious mind. The organic venue for the process is the interior-natural organ.

When the Writings discuss some particular historical ethnic group or religion, we are to search for the scientific meaning behind the discussion, just as Swedenborg performed for us with the Old and New Testament portion of Sacred Scripture. The Writings teach that all Sacred Scripture is written in correspondences and that we are to extract spiritual doctrine from them. The Writings Sacred Scripture are written in natural-rational correspondences, which is a discrete degree above the New Testament Sacred Scripture. The angelic spirits in the first heaven of the mind read the Writings Sacred Scripture as we do, but it is clear that they know nothing about any of the historical names, nations, periods, and places mentioned in the Writings. Instead of these things, they see the interior-natural correspondences. Our interior-natural organ can give us enlightenment to see these spiritual-natural correspondences of the Letter of the Writings, not exactly as they do, but in an image that is so close that we can speak with them and think with them.

The scientific meaning of “Abraham” is a celestial mental state in every person’s mind regardless of religion or planet. Similarly with “Jerusalem,” which refers to the spiritual-rational correspondences out of which is constructed the second heaven of every human mind. By this method of correspondences the reader makes the historical names “vanish,” and likewise, with all references to natural things (AC 1405; 3776). When we read the Writings Sacred Scripture we think and reason in our external natural understanding by means of the natural-rational correspondences of the literal meaning. But the angels who are with us, only perceive the interior-natural, the spiritual-rational, and celestial-rational correspondences that are within the literal meaning we are reading.

Quoting:

AC 1963

When the Word is being read by man, angels neither know nor perceive what eighty-six is, nor are they concerned about what age Abram was when Hagar bore him Ishmael. Rather, when such a number is read, the real things embodied in that number instantly present themselves to them, as when all other expressions are read, these present themselves as the things which they have been shown to mean in the internal sense. (AC 1963)

when the Word is being read by man the angels may thereby be in their happiness of wisdom (AC 5398)

this sense is for the angels who are with man while the Word is being read, consequently that there is from this source an influx of holiness, and a perception of it, with those who are in the life of faith and charity (AC 8971)

They said that these persons are mentioned with honour in the Word for the reason that in the internal sense the Lord is meant by them-by "Abraham", "Isaac", and "Jacob", the Lord in respect of the Divine and the Divine Human; by "David" the Lord in respect of the Divine Royalty; and by the "Apostles" the Lord in respect of Divine Truths; also that when the Word is read by man the angels have no perception whatever of these men, for their names do not enter heaven (HH 526)

When we read passages in the Writings Sacred Scripture that discuss Abraham or King David or one of the Apostles, these names repeatedly appear within the literal meaning of the Writings. What is the scientific or universal meaning of these names? They each refer to human mental states and their dynamic activity in regeneration and spiritual growth. This applies to all people regardless of background, religion, or planet, though no doubt with realistic differences. When we read one of the many superb Memorable Relations throughout the Writings, what do the angels who are with us get out of it? Especially when our children read them in the innocence of ignorance? The angels have no idea of number or age. What then do they think of when numbers and ages are mentioned in the Memorable Relations? Neither do they know of directions like north or south. Neither do they know of the European nations and cities, as those which are mentioned in many places throughout the Writings, nor the names of the bishops of the Church, and so on.

It is clear that the Writings Sacred Scripture exists at discrete levels and that the Letter is different at each level. The method of correspondences starts at the natural-rational level of the literal meaning, collecting facts and organizing them into an orderly doctrine that we use as a tool in daily spiritual combat with our temptations brought to us by the Divine Psychologist for this very purpose. This doctrine may be called abstracted, to distinguish it from the later doctrine that is extracted.

Abstracted doctrine does not use the method of correspondences, and hence does not depend on enlightenment. We all start with principles of life and religious doctrines that are abstracted, paraphrased, contrasted, and reflected on. They are the foundation of our moral-rational life, and hence of civilization and society. Further on down the road of maturity we begin to go beyond abstraction. We leave the discrete degree of the literal and its rational abstractions in our mind, by making the literal meaning “vanish” from central focus, and as a result, we begin to think with angels (AC 1405; 3776).

Quoting:

But as he grows into a young adult, if he develops his power of reason, he employs what is in his interior natural to work out the reasons for things, which are truths of a yet higher nature. These are extracted so to speak from what is present in the interior natural. (...) This is the manner in which a person rises with his understanding from the world up to heaven. (AC 5497)

The phrase “to rise with the understanding from the world up to heaven” refers to enlightenment through Sacred Scripture. Our thoughts suddenly begin to operate by means of spiritual-natural correspondences of the Writings Sacred Scripture. We are with the angelic spirits that inhabit the first heaven in our mind. And by progressive enlightenment in our interior-natural organ we climb up Jacob’s ladder of discrete correspondences in our mind, “as though” we actually were in the presence of the angels who dwell in our spiritual mind.

We receive this light of heaven when we read the Writings as Divine Speech rendered in the correspondences of Sacred Scripture. To read the Writings as Divine Speech in correspondences is to read them with enlightenment. The abstract doctrine of the literal meaning is suddenly seen infused with heavenly light so that its interiors are perceived as truth from the Divine Human. This interior perception in enlightenment cannot possibly be at the same discrete level of meaning as the literal. The literal Sacred Scripture and the abstracted doctrine of the literal, now become spiritually empowered with a comprehension that is a discrete degree above them.

We learn and memorize and apply abstracted doctrine for decades before we begin reformation and regeneration. Abstracted doctrine is necessary for making us ready for reformation, and we could not become ready without it. But the Writings tell us that the time must come in adulthood when we choose to begin our reformation and regeneration. Now we must enter a discrete degree within the abstracted doctrines that we have collected in our mind until then. We do this under the supervision of the Divine Psychologist who provides the spiritual light or enlightenment.

The Divine Psychologist is commanding us, through the literal meaning of the Writing Sacred Scripture, that we must begin practicing the method of correspondences with enlightenment. This involves the deliberate intention and systematic application procedures called extractive research, that is, spiritual meaning that is “drawn out” by means of correspondences and illustration.

Quoting:

AC 8694

[3] But what is the nature of the revelation with those who are in good and from this in the affection of truth, cannot be described. It is not manifest, neither is it altogether hidden; but it is a certain consent and favoring from within that a thing is true, and a non-favoring if it is not true. When there is a favoring, the mind is at rest and is serene, and in this state there is the acknowledgment which is of faith. The cause of its being so is from the influx of heaven from the Lord; for through heaven from the Lord there is light, that surrounds and enlightens the intellect, which is the eye of the internal sight. The things which are then seen in that light are truths, for this very light is the Divine truth which proceeds from the Lord. That this Divine truth is light in heaven, has been frequently shown. (AC 8694)

This passage describes in natural expression a spiritual phenomenon that we experience mentally when extracting theistic psychology knowledge for ourselves. The extracted information is called “revelation” because it cannot be perceived as true except by enlightenment. The spiritual meaning which is the content of revelation or enlightenment, “cannot be described” with natural expressions because “it is not manifest.” But “neither is it altogether hidden.”

What does this mean? Something that cannot be described in language that refers to natural objects and conditions, which are “not manifest” in natural perception? The closest specific description given for it is that “it is a certain consent and favoring from within that a thing is true, and a non-favoring if it is not true.” If we were to become conscious in our third heaven, we would be nearly omniscient, because whatever we were curious about would instantly be present in our thoughts as an answer in Divine Truth, which is omniscient.

Methods of Extraction

The procedures for extracting scientific facts from the Writings Sacred Scripture are surely endless in number when we consider that the Writings Sacred Scripture mark themselves as the last portion of the overall Sacred Scripture that took thousands of years to deliver to humanity. It calls itself “the Crown of Revelations” because “it will endure forever.” Quoting:

Coronis 0

LII. This New Church, truly Christian, which at this day is being established by the Lord, will endure to eternity, as is proved from the Word of both Testaments; also it was foreseen from the creation of the world; and it will be the crown of the four preceding churches, because it will have true faith and true charity. (CORO 0)

We need to extract the correspondential sense of the above passage to see how it applies to theistic psychology:

Passage From the Writings Sacred Scripture	Its Correspondential Sense in Theistic Psychology
New Church, truly Christian	People from all religions who acknowledge that there can be only one God and that He is Divine Human in whose Image He created human beings. Consequently this one God is the God of all human beings.
which at this day is being established by the Lord	Every human being regardless of religion or culture is given access to new human mental states that were not accessible to people before this.
will endure to eternity	These new mental states give access to the rational understanding of spiritual truths.
as is proved from the Word of both Testaments	The new rational powers are accessed through the correspondential sense of all Sacred Scripture.
also it was foreseen from the creation of the world	This evolutionary organic upgrade could not be delivered to the human race before the new civilization of rationality and science. Now, every individual has access to the highest human potential through rationality from Sacred Scripture.
it will be the crown of the four preceding churches	All mental states below these highest powers are to be made to align themselves with them so that our thinking, willing, and doing in daily acts are to be congruent with the quality of these highest mental states.
because it will have true faith and true charity	The highest human potential is attained when the cognitive organ operates by the rationality of the correspondential sense of Sacred Scripture, and the affective organ operates by willing those things which agree with this rationality.

We now know that heaven and earth must stay connected in creation so that there will never be an end to earths in the natural world. An endless series of civilizations and generations will be using the Writings Sacred Scripture for extracting the information they will need to regenerate. Every generation must extract its own information because each generation is unique in relation to all the others, and their regeneration will depend on new truths that prior generations have not seen.

This is why it is rational to think that the number of methods by which spiritual information can be extracted from the Writings, is endless. But here are three methods of extraction that it was given me to discover. Perhaps others have also made these and similar discoveries in their study of the Writings. They are serviceable to our generation for extracting certain types of spiritual facts that are suitable to a civilization whose genes of consciousness is formed by natural-rational correspondences. I use the expression genes of consciousness to refer to the basic semantic units that define our mentality levels.

The Method of Substitution

The substitution technique involves parallelisms in the Writings that are explicitly stated in the Letter. It may also be called the method of applying the Letter to the Letter. The Letter of the Writings must define the substitution for it to be permissible. Some substitutions are near to each other, as they are mentioned closely to each other in the text, while other substitutions are more distant from each other, so that several steps of parallelisms must be reconstructed and demonstrated.

I illustrate near substitutions in the following table which is based on a search for equivalence statements in the text, as for instance "it is the same whether you say that...", besides others like it that could also be searched.

“it is the same whether you say...”	Permissible substitutes
Divine worship consists of these truths and goods, or that man consists of them, (AC 10298)	Divine worship	man
truth or faith, since everything of faith is truth; also it is the same whether you say good or love, since everything of love is good (HH 232)	good	love
conjunction of understanding and will or conjunction of truth and good. (HH 370)	conjunction of understanding and will	conjunction of truth and good
ruling love or that which he loves above all things. (HH 486)	ruling love	that which he loves above all things
truth or faith (NJHD 35)	truth	faith
"begotten of God" or "proceeding from God;" (TCR 23)	begotten of God	proceeding from God
God is Good itself and Truth itself or He is Love itself and Wisdom itself (CAN 8)	God	Good itself and Truth itself
	God	Love itself and Wisdom itself
Lord's Divine Human, or the Divine Love (AE 146)	Lord's Divine Human	Divine Love
the understanding of truth is described, or those who are in it are described (AE 355)	the understanding of truth	those who are in the understanding of truth
the spiritual and natural mind or the spiritual and natural man. (AE 406)	spiritual and natural mind	spiritual and natural man
falsities from the hells, or the hells (AE 538)	falsities from the hells	the hells
faith or conscience (AC 2325)	faith	conscience
higher and lower ones, or more internal and more external (AC 10051)	higher and lower	more internal and more external

Let’s take a passage that allows several substitutions according to the table above. I have bolded the words in the original, and also in its duplicate paragraph below to indicate the substitutions: Quoting:

The natural mind, by its two capacities called rationality and freedom, is in this state that it is capable of ascending through three degrees, or of descending through three degrees. It ascends by reason of goods and truths, and descends by reason of evils and falsities. And when it ascends, the lower degrees which tend towards hell are closed, but when it descends, the higher degrees which tend towards heaven are closed. The cause for this is that they are in reaction. These three degrees, higher and lower, have neither been opened nor closed in man in earliest infancy, for he is then ignorant of good and truth, and of evil and falsity. (DLW 274)

[making the substitutions;]

The natural man, by its two capacities called rationality and freedom, is in this state that it is capable of ascending through three degrees, or of descending through three degrees. [The man] ascends by reason of love and faith, and descends by reason of evils and the hells. And when [the man] ascends, the external degrees which tend towards hell are closed, but when [the man] descends, the internal degrees which tend towards heaven are closed. The cause for this is that they are in reaction. These three degrees, internal and external, have neither been opened nor closed in man in earliest infancy, for he is then ignorant of love and faith, and of evil and the hells.

It this case, it turns out that the original and the substitutions are so close that the two paragraphs hardly seem different in meaning. Nevertheless, the second paragraph is not merely synonymous with the original but reveals new features that are more interior. To see this requires more detailed study and examination. (see Note 8).

Let us take another passage where the substitutions create a more dramatic difference:

· The very essence and life of faith is the Lord alone (AC 30)

· The very essence and life of conscience is the Lord alone

The second sentence containing the substitution is a more interior meaning than the original. We knew that the life of faith is the Lord since faith is truth from the Lord, and what is from the Lord is the Lord. Hence, the very essence and life of faith is the Lord alone. But we did not know that the very essence and life of conscience is the Lord alone. This is a new spiritual revelation contained within the first revelation of the Letter. We must now confirm this new more interior perception by finding a passage in the Letter that states that the life of conscience is the Lord. As for example: Quoting:

The new will with the spiritual regenerate man is conscience (NJHD 1919)

[2] A person does not feel this struggle to be anywhere but in himself, and he feels it as the pangs of conscience. Yet it is the Lord and the devil (that is, hell) who struggle in man; their struggle is to gain control of the person, to see which is to possess him. The devil, or hell, attacks the person and calls forth the evil in him, while the Lord protects him and calls forth the good in him. (TCR 596)

Genuine conscience is given by the Lord through the knowledges of a true faith (SE 3615)

With angelical spirits there are bonds of conscience, which conscience is from the Lord. (SE 3850)

Judgments are based on what is the Lord's when they accord with truths and spring from conscience. (AC 9160)

When conscience dictates, it is in like manner said in the Word that "Jehovah speaks;" because conscience is formed from things revealed, and from knowledges, and from the Word; and when the Word speaks, or dictates, it is the Lord who speaks; hence nothing is more common, even at the present day, when referring to a matter of conscience, or of faith, than to say, "the Lord says." (AC 371)

You can see from these series of passages that a conscience that is genuine is from the Lord and is the Lord. Quoting: “nothing is more common, even at the present day, when referring to a matter of conscience, or of faith, than to say, "the Lord says."

In summary, we go through three steps in the method of substitution. First, we find parallelisms in the Letter that are explicitly identified in the plain meaning of the sentences. Second, we make the substitutions and reflect on the new formulation. This new meaning is more interior than what could be seen in the original text of the Letter. It has been spiritually enriched by the different series or contexts which are brought together by the substitution. Third, find new passages that explicitly confirm the new meaning.

Note that the new perception after substitution is more interior than the older perception before substitution. Despite this, the new perception is not yet a discrete degree higher than the old perception. It is in the same degree, which is natural-rational at a more interior continuum. Performing this three-step method builds natural-rational vessels that are needed later for influx and enlightenment. This occurs when we apply the new meaning to our hourly willing and thinking all day long. Then, at some point -- unexpected point -- we receive enlightenment. That’s when for the first time we can see the meaning of the new perception in a spiritual degree.

Without having practiced the substitution method regarding some topic, there are not any such cognitive “vessels” that can be enlightened. Of course, it is possible for people to practice the substation technique implicitly, not as a formal research technique, but spontaneously, since our thinking about Sacred Scripture is always in the company of angels who prompt the train of our thoughts in favorable directions for noticing parallelisms and discovering the substitutes.

The Method of Rational Series

Quoting from the Writings Sacred Scriptures:

210. III. THE SENSE OF THE LETTER OF THE WORD IS THE BASIS, THE CONTAINANT, AND THE SUPPORT OF ITS SPIRITUAL AND CELESTIAL SENSE.

In everything Divine there is a first, a middle, and a last, the first passing through the middle to the last, and so existing and subsisting; consequently the last is the basis. Again, the first is in the middle, and through the middle in the last; thus the last is the Containant. And since the last is the Containant and the Basis, it is also the Support. The learned can understand that these three may be called end, cause, and effect; also being [esse], becoming [fieri] and standing forth [existere]; and that the end is being, the cause is becoming, and the effect is standing forth; consequently that in every complete thing there is a trine, which is called the first, the middle, and the last, also end, cause, and effect. When this is understood, it can also be understood that every Divine work is complete and perfect in its last; also that the whole is in the last, because in it prior things are together. (TCR 210)

The triconcentric diagram visually exhibits the three "discreet degrees of height" (A----> C ---> S) which are called "successive order", and the three "continuous degrees of breadth" which are called "simultaneous order." Picturing the triconcentric diagram while reading a sentence or paragraph in the Writings Sacred Scripture, greatly enhances our capacity to see the meaning distinctly. Quoting from the Writings:

The human mind always dwells in the trine called end, cause and effect. If one of these is lacking, the mind is not possessed of its life. An affection of the will is the initiating end; the thought of the understanding is the efficient cause; and bodily action, utterance or external sensation is the effect from the end by means of the thought. (DLW 178)

The first sentence may be graphically analyzed using the triconcentric method, as shown on the left of the diagram below:

Diagram 2

Note that the three degrees of existence are connected by "correspondences" which are functional relations as indicated by the arrows. Thus, "ends" (also called "essence" elsewhere) descend by correspondence into "causes" and these in turn descend into "effects," the three being in functional correspondence with each other, both successively and simultaneously. By adding the concepts in the third sentence of the quotation above, we can enlarge the graphic diagram to include them and obtain a slightly more complex form of Swedenborg's thought, as shown on the right of the diagram above. In theory, there is no limit to the size of the graphic diagram, but in practice we restrict each diagram to a particular topic or topic domain under study.

Swedenborg's Writings are replete with sentences that mention one element of each of the three degrees of existence, as in the two quotations above. The Table below illustrates this same pattern in collateral works by various others discussing Swedenborg's ideas. Try to picture the concepts in a triconcentric diagram, as above.

A - words --> AFFECTIVE	B - words ---> COGNITIVE	C - words SENSORIMOTOR	Source
HOPE	REASON	EVENT	Swedenborg, Divine Providence, n.178
GOOD OF LOVE	RATIONAL TRUTH	MEMORY	Swedenborg, Arcana Coelestia, n.1959
BREAD	WINE	FRUITS	Swedenborg, Arcana Coelestia, n.5620
SYMPATHY	UNDERSTANDING	MEMORY	H. Keller, My Religion, p.142
FUNCTIONS	POWERS	ACTIVITIES	H. Keller, My Religion, p.117
WILL	MIND	BODY	H. Keller, My Religion, p.124
RELIGION	CONVENTION	POLITICS	H. Keller, My Religion, p.133
FEELING	THOUGHT	ACTION	J. Spalding, Sw. Theol. Works, p.31
AFFECTION	INTELLECT	EMBODIMENT	J. Spalding, Sw. Theol. Works, p.35
STRIVING	RIGHTEOUSNESS	EXPERIENCE	J. Spalding, Sw. Theol. Works, p.37
IMPULSES	SIN	SELECTING	J. Spalding, Sw. Theol. Works, p.38
CREATION	DESIGN	USE	W. Van Dusen, Uses, p.7
FEEL FREE	REALIZE	ACT	W. Van Dusen, Uses, p.113
ENDS	WISDOM	BEAUTY	G. Dole, Logos, Spring 1982 (end)
LOVING	UNDERSTANDING	HELPING	G. Dole, Logos, Spring 1982 (end)

This kind of conceptual "matrix" reveals a great deal about the system of thought in the Writings Sacred Scripture. The more a person studies the Writings the more one gains in one's thought a new way of classifying ideas or concepts by which one can then apprehend phenomena in an entirely new way; that is, in an integrated rather than loose system. By running your eye up and down within a column of such a matrix, you get a good indication of the specific character of that degree as applied to a particular topic domain. In the above instance, note how the A-words (affective organ) are inmost in degree, hence highest or earliest in successive order. Note how the C-words (sensorimotor organ) are outermost in degree of existence, and thus are the lowest or ultimate in succession. When you run your eye across a row horizontally, you are getting a good indication of the mechanism of that particular phenomenon, how it comes into existence and what are its successive steps of existence from origin / end, through cause, to effect. For instance, the GOOD OF LOVE (second line) must occur first in order to externalize as RATIONAL TRUTH in the intermediate stage and as MEMORY or MEMORY-KNOWLEDGES in its ultimate stage. Or to take the last line, HELPING is a consequence or effect of prior UNDERSTANDING, which in turn originates from LOVING.

The next diagram shows the trigrammatic series applied to contemporary concepts and authors in social psychology.

Diagram 3

The method of rational series for extracting scientific information from the Writings Sacred Scripture is illustrated in the section 15.3 Genes of Consciousness. It consists of arranging words or phrases from the Writings in sets that they belong to.

COLUMN 1	COLUMN 2	COLUMN 3
Love	Wisdom	Use
Celestial	Spiritual	Natural
Third heaven	Second heaven	First heaven
Abraham	Isaac	Jacob
Jerusalem	Assyria	Egypt
Affective	Cognitive	Scientific (sensorimotor)
Lamb	Mules	Horses

If you inspect each column up and down you are creating a new rational set in the organization or thesaurus that you carry in your memory-knowledge. Now, when you read about Abraham you can supply the rest of the series in your mind, thus giving it a new meaning which is more interior than what you had before. Now, this new semantic gene of a higher continuous level will serve as a vessel for enlightenment. This occurs the moment you apply this new semantic gene to your willing and thinking in daily activities.

The Method of Mapping

This method is illustrated in section 15.3.5 titled Enneadic Gene Structures. It uses a chart or matrix created by putting together two series obtained from the method of rational series. This chart is made of intersections that have dynamic properties relating to mental states, as described in the Writings when explicating the correspondential sense of the Old Testament. In the example below, the first column lists the phrases in the Writings and in the second column, their mental state map location is given. A refers to the affective organ (“the will”), C refers to the cognitive organ (“the understanding”). Levels 3, 2, and 1 refer to the three degrees: celestial, spiritual, natural.

Divine good of the rational	A3
Good by an internal way	A2
truth by an external way.	C2
Good thus conjoins itself with truth in the rational	A2 + C2
the rational as to good	A2
memory-knowledges and knowledges from the natural man	C1

When you identify the map location of “Divine good of the rational” as A3, you are thinking in a more interior way about this concept. “A” means affective and level “3” means celestial. So to recognize in your mind that “Divine good of the rational” is celestial willing (A3), you are providing an enlarged context for it that can be hooked up to other mapped areas, as is illustrated in the section below. Now this enlarged more interior thesaurus becomes a vessel for enlightenment the moment that you apply this larger interior thesaurus to some part of your willing and thinking at some point during the day.

The method of extraction can only be applied to the Writings Sacred Scripture. Only Divine text is written in such a way that it may contain endless information to be extracted until eternity. It may appear at first that the extracted knowledge is of the same degree as the original, but deeper analysis shows that the extracted knowledge is at a higher degree, all the way to the celestial-rational.

The elevation of meaning during the extraction process is due to the operation of the interior-natural organ, as discussed section 8 titled Thinking With Angels -- Our Virtual Heavens.

External and Internal Revelation

From Swedenborg's Arcana Coelestia (AC 5121):

"And Joseph said unto him, This is the interpretation of it." That this signifies revelation from perception from the celestial in the natural as to what it had in itself, is evident from the signification of "saying" in the historic parts of the Word, as being perception (n. 1791, 1815, 1819, 1822, 1898, 1919, 2080, 2619, 2862, 3395, 3509), here revelation from perception, because said of a dream and its interpretation - all revelation being either from speech with angels through whom the Divine-Human speaks, or from perception (of which hereafter); and from the representation of Joseph, as being the celestial in the natural (of which above, n. 5086, 5087, 5106); and from the signification of "interpretation," as being what it had in itself (of which also above, n. 5093, 5105, 5107). From this it is plain that by "Joseph said unto him, This is the interpretation of it" is signified revelation from perception from the celestial in the natural as to what it had in itself.

The above is a passage from the Writings that discusses the scientific sense of the verse in Genesis 40:12. Note the expression "revelation from perception from the celestial in the natural ." You need to know what is being referred to before you can understand it. What does "the celestial in the natural" refer to? Here, "the celestial" refers to the celestial mind or the celestial portion of our mind. This is the organ that is able to receive direct influx from the Spiritual Sun so that spiritual heat (or love) and spiritual light (or truth) stream into it, a process called "Divine influx." This influx is called divine not because God can enter into us, but because the love and truth that enter into us are from the Spiritual Sun and this is the expanse around the Divine-Human, hence it is Divine.

Note this very important principle: Whatever is from God must be fully God since God cannot be divided into portions. This is because God is infinite and the infinite cannot be divided but remains the infinite wherever it enters the finite. So the infinite enters the finite, not the other way around. The finite contains the infinite fully, not just a part of the infinite, but all of it, since as already said, the infinite cannot be divided into lesser portions of itself.

You need to understand rationally the way the infinite enters the finite and "dwells" there in fullness of itself,

You can see that this is the same as saying: You need to understand rationally the way God enters the human mind and "dwells" there in fullness of itself,

God or the infinite "dwells" in the finite mind by adjoining love and truth to the mind as-if they belong to the person. We experience love as a feeling, like wanting to be useful to society, and we experience truth as an understanding, like seeing that selfishness is destructive. God dwells within the feeling of wanting to be useful, and the seeing that selfishness is destructive. God dwells in the loves and truths we acquire and feel as-if our own. How can that be? That's because the love and truth we experience as-if our own is not our own but came into our celestial mind from the Spiritual Sun. Now that they are in our organs, love in the affective organ and truth in the cognitive organ, they feel like our own, as-if they were own. Even if we know from revelation that all love and truth are God's, we still feel as-if they are own within us.

This is where God dwells, where God is in us. It's possible only because the love and truth in us is God's love and truth, and whatever is God's cannot be separated from God but forever remains God's. God is infinite and unchanging, and therefore the love and truth emanating from Himself as the Spiritual Sun, must remain God's. God cannot give them away to created things like the finite human mind. So if we now have the experience that the love and truth in us is our own, then it is equivalent to being adjoined or connected to God. But note carefully: It is never the case that we can be conjoined to God, or merging with God, or being one with God. If this were possible, we would become God, and each of us would be God, as some people believe.

Clearly, the possibility of being connected or adjoined to God depends on this sensation or feeling that the love and truth in us is as-if our own.

The moment we would actually sense the influx, or become aware of it, the as-if position is destroyed and we can never be conjoined to God, hence not receive love and truth from God, and thus instantaneously disappear from existence.

Consider again the phrase in the passage above: "revelation from perception from the celestial in the natural." The celestial mind is "within" the natural mind, which means that it is higher and superior to it. Whenever something is said to be "within" another portion of the mind, it is always superior to it in excellence, by far. So the celestial portion of the mind is superior to the natural portion of the mind in mode and level of operation in its affective organ (feelings, loves) and in its cognitive organ (thoughts, truths). The phrase "revelation from perception" refers to the influx of truth which is felt as-if it is our own. God prevents us from sensing influx so that we can maintain the as-if feeling. By maintaining the as-if feeling, we can be connected to God's love and truth, hence to God. The connection depends on our feeling that the love and truth is as-if our own.

Scientific revelations are Divine truths contained in Divine Speech. When we understand scientific revelations found in Sacred Scripture we are receiving revelation from perceiving the scientific sense of a word or phrase in Sacred Scripture. Perceiving the scientific sense is an intellectual effort that feels like our very own effort. This is the as-if feeling we have that those truths are our own from the effort of understanding them. Once we understand some scientific revelation, the truth of it becomes as-if our own. This is called rational consciousness. It does not work with sensuous consciousness. Feeling something we call "oneness with God" is an effort to connect with God through sensuous consciousness. This can only translate into mystical spirituality, which inhibits all forms of rational spirituality.

Rational spirituality is necessary for the appropriation of love and truth to self by means of the as-if feeling. The appropriation of love and truth to self is necessary in order to be connected to God. Hence all connection to God is based on rational understanding and not on sensuous experience. If we appropriate the sensuous consciousness of God, we become God, and this is impossible. It is therefore destructive of rational consciousness, our only means of connection to God. Our heaven is embedded in our rational consciousness, while our hell is embedded in sensuous consciousness or corporeal spirituality, this being a state of anti-rationality or irrationality.

Going on with the Number (AC 5121):

[2] In regard to revelations being either from perception, or from speech with angels through whom the Divine-Human speaks, it is to be known that they who are in good and thence in truth, and especially they who are in the good of love to the Divine-Human, have revelation from perception; whereas they who are not in good and thence in truth, can indeed have revelations, yet not from perception, but through a living voice heard within them, and thus through angels from the Divine-Human. This revelation is external, but the former is internal. The angels, especially the celestial, have revelation from perception, as also had the men of the Most Ancient Church, and some too of the Ancient Church, but scarcely anyone at this day; whereas very many, even those who have not been in good, have had revelations from speech without perception, and also by means of visions or dreams.

This fascinating paragraph reveals and specifies many details about scientific revelations viewed from an evolutionary perspective. The highest portion of the mind called celestial receives revelation directly from perception of the scientific sense of Divine Speech. But we are not conscious of our celestial mind while we are attached to the physical body on earth, with the unique exception of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). Therefore in order for us to become conscious of the scientific sense of Sacred Scripture, our understanding must be enlightened by gradual acquisition of knowledge which we must consciously build up into a coherent framework called "doctrine." We can also call it theistic psychology, from the perspective of organized and institutional science.

The passage above reveals that anyone can have revelation from perception if they are willing to love the scientific revelations enough to guide their daily life according to it. This is expressed as "they who are in good and thence in truth." To be in good refers to our willingness to love the Divine-Human as the source of all that we have in our mind and in our future. When we love scientific revelations as God's Speech to us, we love good and thence truth. The truth we perceive is loved because it is from the Divine-Human. When we are in this state of mind, we experience perception from revelation. We can perceive how the truth applies specifically to us, and particularly to our feelings and thoughts. What we think must be according to truth or else we must reject what we think. And what we feel or enjoy must be according to the love or else we enjoy what is the opposite of love, namely love of self as god, which is not properly love, but cupidity.

When we are unwilling to love the Divine-Human as the source of all that we have, we can still be enlightened to see the scientific sense of Sacred Scripture. But not by perception, only by mediation, through the intermediary of others. Others who have perception can translate for us through correspondences that are lower and easier to understand within the natural perspective. It is said in the passage above that when we are in this state we can hear a "living voice" within our mind. This refers to the sensuous consciousness of a spiritual vision that the prophets had in the Old Testament. The spiritual vision could be heard rather than seen, and the words heard could be written down as Sacred Scripture. This is called an "external revelation" to contrast with the "internal revelation" by direct perception. Swedenborg was raised into his celestial mind and made conscious there so that he had revelation from perception like all the inhabitants of the higher heavens.

Continuing:

[3] Such were most of the revelations of the prophets in the Jewish Church; they heard a voice, they saw a vision, and they dreamed a dream; but as they had no perception, these were merely verbal or visual revelations without any perception of what they signified. For genuine perception comes through heaven from the Divine-Human, and affects the intellect spiritually, and leads it perceptibly to think as the thing really is, together with internal assent, the source of which it knows not. It supposes that it is in itself, and that it flows from the connection of things; whereas it is a dictate through heaven from the Divine-Human, flowing into the interiors of the thought, about such things as are above the natural and sensuous, that is, about such things as are of the spiritual world or of heaven. From what has now been said it may be seen what revelation from perception is. But the revelation from perception which the Divine-Human had (who is here represented by Joseph, and which revelation is here treated of in the internal sense), was from the Divine in Himself, thus was from Himself. (AC 5121)

It is clear from these details that God is very much involved in the details of our thinking and feeling. You need to maintain rational thinking to understand this enough in order not to feel disappointed or angry at God. My grown up children have always expressed a distaste for this idea that God is so involved in their thinking. It seems to them from their natural perspective, that if this were so, there would be no point or desire to keep thinking and living. They lose all enthusiasm for living when thinking about how it is God who directs their attention, focus, and memory. They suddenly feel that they are not free in that case and all joy of life leaves them, and all desire to do anything. But as they continue to grow in rational consciousness of God they will start feeling less and less troubled by the idea, and eventually, they will start feeling more and more that it is their joy to know it is God within them that activates and guides these processes in the mind, thus insuring that we are well and that our future is well. If it were left to us to think on our own even for a few seconds, we would instantly hate God and precipitate ourselves into the lowest hell of our mind, where we stay forever, being unwilling to emerge from there by loving God.

Another quote from Swedenborg (NJHD 51). (Reference numbers refer to numbered paragraphs in Arcana Coelestia):

The Sciences and Knowledges through which the internal spiritual Man is opened.

Those things are called scientifics which are in the external or natural man and in its memory, but not those which are in the internal or spiritual man, nos. 3019, 3020, 3293, 3309, 4967, 9918, 9922. Because scientifics belong to the external or natural man, they are respectively things of service, because the external or natural man was made to serve the internal or spiritual man, just as the world was made to serve heaven, nos. 5077, 5125, 5128, 5786, 5947, 10272, 10471. The external man is respectively a world, because the laws of the Divine order which are in the world, are inscribed upon it, and the internal man is respectively a heaven, because the laws of the Divine order which is in heaven, are inscribed upon it, nos. 4523, 5424, 5368, 6013, 6057, 9278, 9279, 9283, 9706, 10156, 10472; and in the work on Heaven and Hell, nos. 51 to 58.

There are scientifics which concern natural things; there are such as relate to the civil state and life, and again there are such as relate to the moral state and life, and such as relate to the spiritual state and life, nos. 5774, 5934. But for distinction those which relate to the spiritual state and life, and which are chiefly doctrinals, are called knowledges, no. 9945.

A man ought to become imbued with sciences and knowledges, because through them he learns how to think; afterwards how to understand what is true and good, and at length how to be wise; that is how to live according to what is true and good, nos. 129, 1450, 1451, 1453, 1548, 1802. Scientifics and knowledges are the first things, on which a man's civil, moral, and spiritual life are built and founded; but they ought to be learned for the sake of the use of life as an end, nos. 1489, 3310. Knowledges open the way to the internal man, and afterwards conjoin the internal with the external man according to uses, nos. 1563, 1616. The Rational is born through sciences and knowledges, nos. 1895, 1900, 3086. Still, not through the sciences and knowledges themselves, but through the affection of uses from them, and according to such affection, no. 1895.

The internal man is opened and successively perfected through sciences and knowledges, if the man has for an end some good use; particularly the use which has respect to eternal life, no. 3086. In this case, the spiritual things from the celestial and spiritual man, go to meet the scientifics and knowledges which are in the natural man, and adopt those that agree, no. 1495. The uses of a heavenly life are then extracted, eliminated, and elevated by the Divine-Human, through the internal man, from the scientifics and knowledges which are in the natural man, nos. 1895, 1896, 1900-1902, 5871, 5874, 5901. And the scientifics which do not agree, and which are inimical, are rejected to the sides and exterminated, nos. 5871, 5886, 5889. The sight of the internal man calls forth from the scientifics and knowledges of the external man, only such as belong to its love, no. 9394. Scientifics and knowledges are arranged in bundles, and conjoined according to the loves by which they have been introduced, no. 5881.

The things belonging to the love are then in the middle and in clearness, under the sight of the internal man, but those which do not belong to the love are at the sides and in obscurity, nos. 6068, 6084. Scientifics and knowledges with a man are successively implanted in his loves, and dwell in them, no. 6325. A man would be born into every science, and into intelligence from it, if he were born into the love of the Divine-Human, and into love towards the neighbour but since he is born into the love of self and the world, he is therefore born into [a state of] entire ignorance, nos. 6323, 6325. Knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom are the sons of love to the Divine-Human and love towards the neighbour, nos. 1226, 2049, 2116.

Since scientifics and knowledges belong to the external or natural man, they are in the light of the world; but the truths, which have become matters of love and faith, and have thus obtained life, are in the light of heaven, no. 5212. Still, the truths which have thus obtained life, are comprehended by a man by means of natural ideas, no. 5510. Spiritual influx takes place through the internal man into the scientifics and knowledges which are in the external man, nos. 1904, 8005. Scientifics and knowledges are receptacles, and as it were vessels, of the truth and good belonging to the internal man, nos. 1469, 1496, 3068, 5489, 6004, 6023, 6052, 6071, 6077, 7770, 9922. Vessels in the Word, therefore, signify, in the correspondential sense, scientifics and knowledges, nos. 3068, 3069, 3079, 9394, 9544, 9723, 9724.

Scientifics are a kind of mirrors, in which the truths and goods of the internal man appear, and are perceived, as in an image, no. 5201; they are together in them, as in their ultimate, nos. 5373, 5874, 5886, 5901, 6004, 6023, 6052, 6071, 6077. Because scientifics are in the light of the world, they are confused and obscure when compared with the things which are in the light of heaven; consequently, so also are the things which are in the external man, when compared with those which are in the internal man, no. 2831. Therefore, what is intertwined or confused, signifies in the Word the Scientific, no. 2831; likewise by the obscurity of a cloud, nos. 8443, 10551.

The starting-point ought to be made from truths of doctrine which are from the Word, and they ought first to be acknowledged; it is permitted afterwards to consult scientifics in order to confirm these truths, which are corroborated in this manner, no. 6047. Those who are in an affirmative principle in respect to the truths of faith, are therefore permitted to confirm these truths intellectually by means of scientifics, but not those who are in a negative principle; for the affirmation which precedes inclines all things in favour of its own side, while the negation which precedes inclines them to its side, nos. 2568, 2588, 3913, 4760, 6047. There is an affirmative principle of doubt, and a negative principle of doubt; the former is with some who are good, and the latter with the evil, no. 2568. Entering into scientifics from the truths of faith, is agreeable to order; but, conversely, entering into the truths of faith from scientifics, is contrary to order, no. 10236. For influx is spiritual, and not physical, that is, natural; and, therefore, it takes place from the truths of faith because they are spiritual, into scientifics because they are natural, nos. 3219, 5119, 5259, 5427, 5428, 5779, 6322, 9109, 9110.

Whoever is in a principle of negative doubt, which in itself is negative, and who says that he will not believe until he is persuaded through scientifics, will never believe, nos. 2094, 2832. Those who do so, become insane as to the things which belong to the Church and Heaven, nos. 128-130. They lapse into falsities of evils, no. 232, 233, 6047. And in the other life, when thinking about spiritual things, they are like drunken persons, no. 1072. A further description of their quality, no. 196. Instances to illustrate that spiritual things cannot be comprehended, if you enter into them in an inverted order, nos. 233, 2094, 2196, 2203, 2209. Many of the learned are more insane in spiritual things, than the simple-minded, because they are in a negative principle, and are furnished in abundance with scientifics by which they confirm the negative [state], no. 4760. An instance of an educated person, who was unable to understand anything concerning the spiritual life, no. 8629. Those who reason from scientifics in opposition to the truths of faith, reason sharply, because [they do so] from the fallacies of the senses, which are captivating and persuasive; for they can be shaken off only with difficulty, no. 5700.

Those who do not understand anything of truth, and they also who are in evil, are able to reason concerning the truths and goods of faith, and yet they are not able to be in any enlightenment, no. 4214. The mere confirmation of a dogma is not the part of an intelligent man, because a falsity can be confirmed as easily as a truth, nos. 1017, 2482, 2490, 4741, 5033, 6865, 7012, 7680, 7950, 8521, 8780. Those who reason concerning the truths of the Church, whether a thing be so or not, are totally in the dark with respect to truths, and are not yet in spiritual light, nos. 215, 1385, 3033, 3428.

There are scientifics which admit Divine truths, and others that do not, no. 5213. Useless scientifics ought to be destroyed, nos. 1489, 1492, 1499, 1500. Those scientifics are useless which regard as their end, and confirm, the loves of self and the world, and which withdraw [the mind] from love to the Divine-Human and love towards the neighbour; because such scientifics shut up the internal man, so that the man is afterwards unable to receive anything from heaven, nos. 1563, 1600. Scientifics are means for becoming wise, and means for becoming insane; and through them the internal man may either be opened or shut; and thus the Rational may either be cultivated or destroyed, nos. 4156, 8628, 9922.

After death the sciences are of no account, but only what a man through the sciences has imbibed into his understanding and life, no. 2480. Still all scientifics remain after death, but they are quiescent, nos. 2476-2479, 2481-2486.

(( NOTA BENE!))

The same scientifics which are false with the wicked because they are applied to evils, are true with the good because they are applied to goods, no. 6917. Scientific truths are not truths with the evil, however they may appear like truths while they pronounce them for interiorly there is evil in them, and from it they are falsified; science with the evil does not even deserve to be called science, because it is without life, no. 10331.

Being wise is one thing, understanding another, being acquainted with a thing is a further, and doing is another still; nevertheless with those who lead a spiritual life, they follow in order and correspond, and in the doing or the works they are together simultaneously, no. 10331. It is also one thing to know, another to acknowledge, and still another to have faith, no. 896.

An instance of the quality of the desire of knowing with spirits, no. 1973. The angels have an immeasurable desire of knowing and of becoming wise, because knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom, are spiritual food, nos. 3114, 4459, 4792, 4976, 5147, 5293, 5340, 5342, 5410, 5426, 5576, 5582; 5588, 5655, 6277, 8562, 9003.

The chief science with the ancients was the science of correspondences, but this science at the present day has perished, nos. 3021, 3419, 4280, 4844, 4964, 4966, 6004, 7729, 10252. The science of correspondences existed among the eastern nations, and in Egypt, no. 5702, 6692, 7097, 7779, 9391, 10407. Their hieroglyphics were derived from that source, nos. 6692, 7097. Through the science of correspondences the ancients introduced themselves into the knowledges of spiritual things, nos. 4749, 4844, 4966. The Word was written by mere correspondences, and its internal or correspondential sense is from that source; and without the science of correspondences it is impossible to know that this sense exists, or yet what the quality of the Word is, nos. 3131, 3472-3485, 8615, 10687. How much the science of correspondences excels the other sciences, no. 4280. (NJHD 51)

The above is from: http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/theistic/ch4.htm#enlightenment

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The Process of Enlightenment and Regeneration: The Scientific Meaning of Genesis 24

Here is the text of Genesis 24 as it appears in the Writings, where it is given a word by word and phrase by phrase analysis regarding their spiritual meaning or “internal sense.” The passage opens with the comment that Sacred Scripture (“the Word”) has a literal meaning which has “stored within it” a different meaning which is “heavenly secret” because no one can know what it is except through a knowledge of correspondences. The internal sense is revealed to anyone who knows the correspondences in which Sacred Scripture is written. This is the secret now revealed to humankind through the Writings of Swedenborg (see also the analysis of Genesis 22 in Section xx):

Arcana Coelestia 3011.
From what has been said it may be seen what hidden things the Word has stored within it; which can by no means come to anyone's knowledge except from the internal sense.

GENESIS 24

1. And Abraham being old was come into days; and Jehovah blessed Abraham in all things.

2. And Abraham said unto his servant, the elder of his house, who administered all that he had, Put I pray thy hand under my thigh.

3. And I will make thee swear by Jehovah the God of heaven and the God of the earth, that thou shalt not take a woman for my son of the daughters of the Canaanite, in the midst of whom I dwell;

4. But thou shalt go unto my land, and to my nativity; and take a woman for my son for Isaac.

5. And the servant said unto him, Peradventure the woman will not be willing to follow me unto this land; bringing shall I bring back thy son unto the land whence thou camest out?

6. And Abraham said unto him, Beware that thou bring not back my son thither.

7. Jehovah the God of heaven, that took me from my father's house, and from the land of my nativity, and that spoke unto me, and that swear unto me, saying, Unto thy seed will I give this land, He shall send His angel before thee, and thou shalt take a woman for my son from thence.

8. And if the woman be not willing to follow thee, then thou shalt be clear from this mine oath; only thou shalt not bring back my son thither.

9. And the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham his lord, and sware to him concerning this word.

10. And the servant took ten camels, of the camels of his lord, and departed, and every good of his lord was in his hand; and he arose and went to Aram-naharaim, unto the city of Nahor.

11. And he made the camels kneel down, without the city, by the well of waters, about the time of evening, about the time the drawers go out.

12. And he said, O Jehovah God of my lord Abraham, cause to meet I pray before me this day; and do mercy with my lord Abraham.

13. Behold, I stand by the fountain of waters; and the daughters of the men of the city come out to draw waters.

14. And let it come to pass, that the damsel to whom I shall say, Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink, and she shall say, Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also, her hast Thou appointed for Thy servant Isaac; and thereby shall I know that Thou hast done mercy with my lord.

15. And it came to pass that scarcely had he done speaking, when behold Rebekah came out, who was born to Bethuel the son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham's brother, with her pitcher upon her shoulder.

16. And the damsel was exceeding good to look upon, a virgin, neither had any man known her; and she went down to the fountain, and filled her pitcher, and came up.

17. And the servant ran to meet her, and said, Let me I pray sip a little water from thy pitcher.