The Vertical Community and Mental Biology

                   (I) Mental Biology

Chart A

Study Questions for Chart A (for answers see Volume 1 Topics)

1. What are the logical implications of an omnipotent God?
2. What is spiritual heat and spiritual light substance from the Spiritual Sun?
3. What are the organs and levels of the mind? What are abilities and intelligence?
4. What is the Grand Human and the human heavenly habitations?
5. What’s the difference between the natural mind and the spiritual mind?
6. Where are the hells? (affective and cognitive)
7. Explain “born into eternity” and “death.”
8. What was Swedenborg’s discovery about the [un]conscious spiritual mind?

Note: you need to print the Chart so you can have it in front of you as you read what follows. Or else you can have two windows open and alternate between the running text and the diagram.

Chart A above constitutes a single concept in theistic psychology. It is drawn and explained with multiple sub-parts, and your task is to integrate them into one concept, in your mind. The Chart is a visual concept. This concept is expressed as an equation at the bottom, where it equates mental anatomy with eternity and vertical community. You already know that mental anatomy is about the 12 layers of the mind in eternity. Now you need to add the idea of "vertical community" which is an expression that contrasts with "horizontal community."

Our horizontal community is in space and time, and includes our family, friends, city, country, and the other countries on earth. These refer to physical presence, and the fact that we have physical or social connections with others who are physically present in some place. But our vertical community is not in space, nor is it in time, but in eternity. The fact is that there can be only one mental world in eternity, and eternity is that mental world. We are born into that mental world of eternity with our spiritual body and its mental organs (layers 10 to 4). Every human being from every inhabited planet since the beginning of creation is born into that same mental world for the human race. This means that there are no barriers to connecting with anyone who is already conscious in their spiritual mind (layers 6, 5, 4 for heavenly regions, and layers 8, 7 for the hellish zones).

Swedenborg proved this by going frequently to all the layers, all the regions, and all the zones, and talking there to the inhabitants of that mental region. There were no barriers or distances. All co-presence in eternity is determined by people's thoughts and feelings. Opposite thoughts and feelings cannot be co-present, and similar thoughts and feelings automatically creates co-presence. This is what creates the appearance in eternity of communities, cities, and larger societies, all arranged in a rational order by categories of thoughts and feelings. The expression "vertical community" refers to the connections that we have with these societies and groups in the mental world of eternity.

The Divine Psychologist manages these connections moment by moment as we go about our daily activities. When for instance, you are feeling and thinking something in layer 9 (corporeal mind) the Divine Psychologist is keeping you connected with certain societies in eternity in which the thoughts and feelings of the inhabitants are compatible with the thinking you are doing in layer 9 as you are engaged in your activities. But now the Divine Psychologist presents you with an opportunity to elevate your thinking and feeling to level 8. He then closes the connection with the societies you are with in layer 9 and connects you to societies in the vertical community that are compatible with the thoughts and feelings you can have in your layer 8. When this happens, you suddenly feel elevated to a higher consciousness level and you feel enlightened to a new rational understanding. 

This is just one example of the way in which the Divine Psychologist, all day long all night long, closes and opens connections we each have with various spiritual societies in eternity. In this way the Divine Psychologist not only manages our thoughts and feelings every moment from birth to eternity, but gives us the benefit of the influence of the thoughts and feelings of others who are like us and are already conscious in eternity. This is in fact how the human race evolves, through mutual enrichment and enhancement of every individual with every other.

Swedenborg was able to observe that when he was visiting with any of the spiritual societies, the thoughts and feelings of each person was being communicated and received by all other individuals in that society. There was a continuous and perpetual enrichment of each other. Each person or couple is unique and that means that they are all enriched by each other's unique reception of good and truth from the Spiritual Sun that shines in eternity and penetrates every layer of the mental world and every mental organ in that layer, thus all human beings. Since every human being born on any planet is born at the same time in eternity, you can imagine how vast the population of the mental world must be by now, and growing fast! By keeping all these individuals connected to each other according to their similarities, the Divine Psychologist insures that the entire human race is evolving together as one immense plant or garden.

Now you have an idea of the vertical community. You need to remember that when we are connected to a spiritual society we are not aware that we are connected, and neither are the people in that society aware that they are connected to any one of us. The Divine Psychologist does not permit awareness of each other in the vertical community. In ancient times the Divine Psychologist did allow such awareness of each other as something routine and useful for instruction and growth (see the Most Ancient Church, Section xx). In subsequent generations this awareness ceased. However certain forms of "spirit possession" did continue until the Incarnation Event two thousand years ago (see Section xx). We are told in Sacred Scripture that after that Event spiritual possession and communication was no longer permitted. The reason was anatomical (see Section xx).

It would be dangerous for us to become aware of the spiritual societies we are connected to, hence it is not permitted by the Divine Psychologist.

There are cases of obsessions today in which the individual experiences illusory loss of control to "aliens" or "voices."  But since awareness of the vertical community is not permitted it is apparent that these cases do not represent actual awareness of spiritual societies.  But we know from Sacred Scripture that the obsessions the person is experiencing are produced through the connections with societies in hell who are facilitating the obsessions through their own obsessions. In each such situation the Divine Psychologist is apparently working with the individual, trying to heal and bring growth and development. Future research in theistic psychology might be able to explain the details of such procedures, so that we may understand rationally why only certain people experience obsessions.

From all this you can see to some extent that the vertical community is a critical component in both individual development of consciousness, and of mental evolution of the human race. You already have the notion of an evolution of civilization on a historical basis, so that the succeeding generations of people on this earth have developed to more and more advanced civilizations. Our modern times are built on the shoulders of our predecessors. Those predecessors are present with us every day through the vertical community since they all are now living in eternity within some spiritual society.

The Chart above tries to put together the various components that were just discussed.

Swedenborg reports that a single idea, when we are in our mental heavens (layers 6 and above), would take volumes to describe with the ideas and words we have in our natural mind (layer 8 or 7). As soon as we are resuscitated, we begin conscious life in the eternity of our spiritual mind (layers 6, 5, 4). At that moment we automatically and spontaneously talk like all "spirits" who already inhabit eternity. This is a thought-language rather than a word-language such as we use with natural languages.

You've heard the expression "a picture is worth a thousand words." Now you can say that an expression or concept in our spiritual mind is worth a trillion words in our natural mind. In a similar way Chart A above creates a single spiritual-natural concept, and it would take many pages of theistic psychology to write this spiritual concept out in the words of English. But because we are capable of thinking rationally and abstractly in our conscious natural mind (layer 8, 7), we can study the Chart and gradually piece together an understanding of it. Once you have this knowledge organized in a coherent and personally meaningful way, you can look at the Chart and encompass it in its entirety in one spiritual-natural concept that you could call "mental biology."

The conceptual elements to be put together are listed on the Chart and summarized in the Study Questions listed under it. You need to look up the topics in theistic psychology to be able to answer those questions coherently and consistently (consult the Subject Index and other listings in Volume 18: www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/theistic/ ). There are three distinct levels of progression we must go through in order to arrive at a spiritual-natural understanding of the concept "mental biology" as depicted in Chart A above (see Section xx).

Level 1 is to be able to replicate the Chart in its essential features so that you have it in long term memory, and then to be able to create a rational explanation or account of its elements and how they fit together. This level is achieved by students in theistic psychology after a course of study and reading, and are able to pass a quiz or exam on it. Or by any reader of theistic psychology who studies it as an intellectual or scientific discipline. At this level it is difficult to tell whether a person is approaching this with the negative or positive bias (see Section xx). You will note that level 1 thinking is in layer 9C in terms of rational understanding.

Level 2 progresses to the positive bias, but not yet at the scientific level. In other words, in relation to the elements in Chart A, we believe that there is a God, that we have an affective organ and a cognitive organ, that there is heaven and hell and eternity, but we are not yet sure that this diagram, representing Swedenborg's version of things, is necessarily it, and we feel that this may just be another opinion or belief, even if interesting and possibly inspired and accurate. You will note that level 2 thinking is in layer 8C in terms of rational understanding.

Level 3 progresses to the theistic psychology phase of thinking about the Diagram. This thinking about Chart A operates by seeing the Chart as a natural-rational representation of Divine Speech (layer 7) (see Section xx). The instant that you make this idea real in your mind, you will experience its spiritual-natural meaning (equivalent to layer 6). You will then be able to see the expression "mental biology" and see its spiritual meaning with full conscious awareness. All concepts in theistic psychology are understood at these three levels, and only the third level is actually the level of theistic psychology thinking and reasoning. This third level is genuine and holy, because it is spiritually online, so to speak, not natural. Hence it is Divine, and everything that is of the Divine, is called holy. In other words, it is the Divine Psychologist that has to give you the spiritual-natural perception of Divine Speech, as it is encapsulated or represented in Chart A. This is why I say that it is "online" as it were, since the spiritual-natural perception of Divine Speech is an influx from the Spiritual Sun into our natural mind, passing through layers of intermediate states. You will note that level 3 thinking is in layer 7C in terms of rational understanding.

 

             (II) God's Omnipotence and the As-of-Self Free Will

Chart A shows that all events and phenomena in existence are powered, controlled, managed, and determined by God, through "immediate influx" of the spiritual heat and light into the inmost framework of every object or event in the universe. Everything that exists is maintained in existence by this influx. Should the influx cease for a moment, all existence collapses and disappears.

It is the continuous and ceaseless influx that keeps the universe going, once it was created. This influx originates from the Omnipotent Divine Human whom Swedenborg was able to visually observe amidst the Spiritual Sun that surrounds God's Head like a super-brilliant aura. Swedenborg confirmed by repeated observations that everybody who is already in their upper layer of their spiritual heavens of eternity (layer 4), can visually see the Divine Human in this way. And on some special occasions, according to their accounts to Swedenborg, the Divine Human also appears to them face-to-face. Nevertheless, they know that this is only an outward visual appearance of God, who in actuality is infinite and omnipresent.

People who have not studied theistic psychology or the Writings Sacred Scripture, are not fully prepared rationally (at Level 2 thinking),  to understand and accept the idea that God's omnipotence means that every detail of the universe must be controlled, operated, managed, determined by God directly and continuously without any exception (see Section xx). Especially are they unclear and hesitant about the idea that this omnipotence also applies to our thinking sequence, memory, and emotions and feelings. After all, every individual can say "I think what I want, I look where I want, I touch what I want, I laugh at what I want, I fantasize what I want. God doesn't make me do these things."

This idea of complete determinism by God has to be rationally reconciled with the idea of complete free will in our decisions, intentions, and actions. The two seem to contradict one another and unless they can be logically reconciled, our mind must reject one of them. But this would be destructive of our rationality. The Writings of Swedenborg, for the first time in scientific history, have given us the rational and true solution to this seeming paradox. Chart A above depicts this solution with the words "as-of-self liberty" and "as-of-self rationality" shown under the affective and cognitive organs of the natural mind. You will find a number of different Sections in theistic psychology that discuss the concept of "as-of-self" (see Section xx).

The concept of "self" in non-theistic psychology assumes that the self is a self-determined human agent that makes up the person. No account has to be made of God's omnipotence and how there could be an autonomous self. The self is automatically considered autonomous. But the concept of "as-of-self" in theistic psychology is the idea that God creates and manages the mental details of the individual in such a way as to create in the person the sense of a self-determined being we refer to as "I, me, myself."  In reality, as revealed by Divine Speech, God has to create and manage the mental details that must be held together just right in order to create a self-conscious human person that has the sense or feeling of being autonomous or inner existent.

No sense of "self" would be possible by itself, as an autonomous natural or spiritual object unless it were put together and held together and driven to action, by the Divine Psychologist. What we notice with our eyes or senses is selected and determined by Him. What we don't notice or ignore, as well. What we remember or forget, what we succeed in or fail at, all is selected and determined by the omnipotent God whom we refer to as the Divine Psychologist.

Within this context of absolute determinism, God creates free will in our affective organ, and calls it the "as-of-self."

We must have free will as a true reality, not as an illusion.

We must have freedom to choose what we desire or intend. We must have the freedom to think whatever thoughts we want to think. God will maintain this real freedom for us. For instance, you feel like rubbing your right eye. You must have the freedom to be able to lift your arm and touch your eye. God cooperates. You must have the freedom to think about whoever you want, and be able to remember their name or face or details from your memory.  So God cooperates by bringing particular stuff from your memory to your awareness at the right instant you want it. This is omnipotence. But this also: you decide to rob a bank so you can live in luxury. God cooperates by giving you the reasoning process necessary for planning and executing such an illegal and evil act. God cooperates in the background, never letting you see directly that you are being managed. This allows us to maintain the as-of-self freedom we sense we have.

This is not an illusion. It is a real freedom and we sense that reality. But we do not sense all the reality. God does not let us sense the reality of His Co-Presence and total management procedures. But we would not be human unless God revealed to our rational understanding that these mental operations that appear to be our won, are not. In this revelation God is telling us that He is managing us through the Laws of Divine Providence and Divine Permissions (see Section xx). Through the laws of Divine Providence God manages the parts of us that are in a heavenly order, giving and providing for all that is needed. Through the laws of Divine Permissions God manages the parts of us that are in a hellish order, allowing only those events that He can turn into something useful and good to self and others. This means that human beings in a hellish order don't get to do whatever they want, but only those things that God allows, that He can turn into ultimate good. This is the Law of Divine Permissions.

It is necessary that every human being understand these two things:

1. We have the real sense of as-of-self autonomy and self-determination, but it is God who creates it and maintains it
2. We must strive as-of-self to struggle against temptations, knowing and understanding that it is God managing and overcoming for us.

These two propositions or "doctrines of truth from Sacred Scripture" form the spiritual foundation stones of our conjugial heavens in layers 6, 5, and 4 of the mental world of eternity.

God manages our mental operations in such a way as to keep certain thoughts, memories, or realizations from us at different times, when they would overwhelm us with emotions we cannot handle, or discourage us and set us back in our spiritual development. If the Divine Psychologist did not do this work in every individual's mind from birth to endless eternity, there would not be and could not be a person alive in the heavenly layers of the mental world of humanity. We would be deranged monsters, worse than beasts because we would use human intelligence to create disorder or anti-order and anti-sanity. That human beings are born this way is revealed by God in Sacred Scripture. What makes us human is the rational, and in this we are in the "image of God," our creator. Of course, in the negative bias mode of materialistic thinking the idea is rejected that God makes any scientific revelations, or that there is a God, He would not make scientific revelations.

But why not, if there is a God, as we assume in the positive bias mode of dualist science. It makes sense that God wants us to know about the theistic psychology that is hidden in the correspondential sense of Sacred Scripture. The reason that it is hidden is that Divine Speech comes down across the layers of our mind, and it changes in content at each layer, so that by the time it reaches the conscious natural mind through the physical book, the content of Sacred Scripture in the literal sense has become historical and poetic, rather than scientific.

God has a goal or purpose in managing our mind, and He has revealed it in Divine Speech that comes down to us as Sacred Scripture. God's purpose is to regenerate our character so that we may live our immortality in the joyful and expansive life of the eternal conjugial heavens. Every moment of life on earth is arranged by God to bring maximum possible progress in our regeneration. The further we are willing to be regenerated, the higher God can bring us into the endless human potential that our race can receive from Him. God cooperates to such an extent with our as-of-self that He permits the existence of evil intentions, painful experiences, false beliefs, destructive acts. God provides a hell in the human mind to accommodate those who insist on inverting every truth and perverting or destroying every good. God allows them to do this, providing them with the as-if power and the as-if intelligence, in order to make sure that they maintain their real freedom to choose.

The victims of all evil deeds are also protected by God through the laws of Divine Permissions that allow only those evils to come into existence that He can ultimately turn into spiritual good on behalf of each victim. Their sense of as-of-self is not diminished while they suffer horribly and are being victimized.

 

               (III) God's Omnipresence -- Not in Space, But Within It

Another paradox to resolve rationally is the concept of "immanence" or omnipresence of God, even though He is One Divine Human Person.

How can one person be everywhere simultaneously? Of course this is not possible in the natural world of space and time where a person can only be in one place at a time. even God! If God came out (or down) into the natural world of time and space, He would be able to be in only one place at a time in the natural world, if He only had a finite physical body like ours. In fact, this has already happened. When the Divine Child was on earth during the Incarnation Event (see Section xx), He was present in the natural world in one place at a time, and had to physically travel from one place to another. However, after He turned His finite physical body into a "glorified" Divine physical body, He was able to be omnipresent with that changed material body as well (see Section xx).

Well, who was minding the store, so to speak, running the universe, managing people's minds, while God was on earth with a finite physical body? Of course it was the same God who Incarnated as a Divine Child, but He was omnipresent not in physical space, but "within" it or "apart" from it (see Section xx). As you recall from before, "within" refers to a discrete degree within. Everything physical has a discrete degree within itself, called the spiritual degree of eternity. Time, space, and matter are like a covering upon eternity and the mental world of sensations, thoughts, and feelings. God is present in space apart from space or within space. Apart from space is a discrete degree within space, in which there is no space that can divide things by distance and keep them separate. So from a state in which all is together, God can be present in all space and place where things are separated.

We need to understand this idea rationally (layer 7C), not spatially (layer 8C).

Consider your dreaming. You construct dreams while you sleep, just like you construct daydreams while you are awake. Both involve imagination. The content of dreams, daydreams, or imagined things is made up of objects, situations, events, feelings, sensations, interactions. Suppose you have a dream in which you see a man slip on the street and fall. We can say that you, the author of the dream, are "within" the dream. This doesn't mean that you are in the dream, as when you are dreaming that you are the one falling on the street. In this case you are not in the dream (not dreaming about yourself), but as the author of the dream, you are omnipresent "within" the dream, or "apart" from the dream. That is, you are creating the dream. You are the cause of the dream.

Swedenborg showed that the cause of anything is always "within" the effect. For example, suppose you are switching stations on the radio. You have an intention to switch, a desire to listen to another station. You are motivated to move your hand to execute the switch. You do it, and now the old station is gone. What is the cause of the switch? It is your desire or intention to switch. This desire or intention (cause) is "within" the switching event (effect).

Quoting from the Writings Sacred Scripture:

TCR 30. (iii) SINCE THE MAKING OF THE WORLD GOD IS NON-SPATIALLY IN SPACE AND NON-TEMPORALLY IN TIME.

The idea that God and the Divine which proceeds directly from Him is not in space, although He is omnipresent, present with every person in the world, every angel in heaven and every spirit beneath heaven, cannot be grasped by purely natural thinking, but can be to some extent by spiritual thinking. Purely natural thinking cannot grasp it because space is contained in it, since it is formed by the objects in the world around us; and in each and every object visible to the eyes there is space. It is space which makes anything big or small as well as long, broad and high. In short, every measurement, shape and form there depends upon space. Still one can to some extent grasp this idea by natural thinking, so long as one admits some spiritual light into it. But first I must say something about the idea of spiritual thinking. This is in no way dependent upon space, but gains its whole quality from state. State is what can be attributed to love, life, wisdom, affections, joys, and in general to good and truth. Any really spiritual concept of these has nothing in common with space, it is on a higher plane and looks down on spatial ideas as beneath itself, just as heaven looks down on earth.

[2] The fact that God is non-spatially present in space and non-temporally in time explains why God is ever the same from eternity to eternity, and so the same since the creation of the world as before it; and why before the creation of the world space and time did not exist in God or in His presence, but they did after this event. Therefore because He is the same, His presence in space is non-spatial and in time is non-temporal. Hence it follows that Nature is separate from Him, yet He is omnipresent in it. It is much the same as life being present in every substance and all the matter that make up a person, yet it is not mixed up with them. It might be compared with light in the eye, sound in the ear, taste in the tongue, or the ether in land and sea, which holds together and permits the rotation of the globe with the land and seas on its surface, and so on. If these agents were removed, the things constructed of substance and matter would at once collapse and fall apart. Indeed, the human mind, if God were not present in it at every place and every time, would burst like a bubble; and each of the two brains, which serve as the originating sources of action, would turn to foam, so that everything distinctive of humanity would become dust and a smell dispersed in the atmosphere. (TCR 30)

TCR 31.

[2] The angels in heaven understand by the immensity of God the Divinity as to Its Being (Esse), and by His eternity the Divinity as to Its Coming-into-Being (Existere); also by immensity they understand the Divinity as to Love and by eternity the Divinity as to Wisdom. This is because the angels banish space and time from their ideas of the Divinity, and this is the result. But because human beings are incapable of thinking except by means of ideas formed from spatial and temporal concepts, they cannot form any idea of the immensity of God before space existed or His eternity before time existed. In fact, when the human mind wishes to form such an idea, it is as if it lapsed into unconsciousness, almost like a shipwrecked mariner who has fallen into the water, or someone swallowed up by the earth in an earthquake. Indeed, if the mind persists in the attempt to penetrate these mysteries, it can easily become deranged, and thus be led to deny the existence of God.

[3] I [Swedenborg] too was once in a state like this, when I was thinking what God did from eternity, or before the world was made: did He deliberate about creation and work out the order to be followed? was deliberative thought possible in a total vacuum? and other useless speculations. But to prevent me becoming deranged by such speculations, I was lifted up by the Lord into the sphere and light enjoyed by the interior angels; and when the idea of space and time which had previously restricted my thinking was there to a small extent removed, I was allowed to grasp that the eternity of God is not an eternity of time, and that because time did not exist before the creation of the world it was quite useless to engage in such speculations about God. But because the Divine from eternity, and so regarded as separate from all time, does not involve the existence of days, years and centuries, but these are to God a single instant, I concluded that the world was not created by God in time, but that time was introduced by God together with creation.

[4] I will add this account of an experience.

At one end of the spiritual world are to be seen two statues of a monstrous human shape with open mouths and gaping jaws. Those who have useless and mad thoughts about God from eternity imagine themselves being swallowed by these statues. But this is mere imagination into which those plunge who have absurd and improper thoughts about God before the creation of the world. (TCR 31)

 

 

All this is to indicate that God orders the universe by discrete degrees or layers (see Section xx). The existence of this order was revealed for the first time in the Writings Sacred Scripture in the 18th century. It is the foundation stone for theistic science in general, not just for theistic psychology (see Section xx). God manages all events through a downward series of discrete degrees that correspond. In Chart A several discrete degrees or layers are shown:

• (1) God the Divine Human surrounded by the Spiritual Sun from which flow out spiritual heat (love) and spiritual light (truth)

• (2, 3) not shown. Human Internals and Soul

• (4, 5, 6) spiritual mind with affective and cognitive organs

• (7, 8, 9) natural mind with affective and cognitive organs

• (10, 11) not shown. Spiritual body and limbus

• (12) physical body and world

Each higher discrete degree is "within" the next lower discrete degree, as you recall from the simultaneous view of the 12 layers chart.

 

 

 

 

From this you can see that God is "within" all the subsequent discrete degrees. God is "within" your mind, and "within" your body, and "within" every natural object or cause-effect event. From this non-spatial meaning of "within" you can see that God is "within" every thing, though He is not in anything spatially. If you think of god being spatially everywhere, then you must think of God as some force or energy. Force, energy, space, God -- would be all physical. One force within another, as we are used to with natural objects and their constituents. To retain a rational idea of the Divine Human Person's omnipotence and omnipresence, we must think of discrete degrees, and that God determines and manages events from "within" them. Just as you determine and manage events in your dream or novel from "within" the dream, or "within" the novel, namely, by causation and intention.

God is omnipresent by being "within" each degree. The rational concept of discrete degrees allows you to see how a Person can be "within" another person, as when people say that God is "within" you. Without discrete degrees to think of, the expression "God is within me" can only be taken as metaphorical. If taken literally or physically, then God cannot be a Person in our mind. Hence we need the concept of discrete degrees to allow God to be a Person, and omnipresent.

 

               (IV) Free Will, Heaven and Hell in the Levels of Our Mind

Quoting from Swedenborg:

TCR 475. III So long as a person lives in the world, he is kept midway between heaven and hell, and he is there in spiritual equilibrium. This is free will.

In order to know what free will is and what it is like, one needs to know its origin, It is chiefly by knowing its origin that one gets to know not only of its existence, but what it is like. It originates from the spiritual world, where a person's mind is kept by the Lord. A person's mind is his spirit, which lives after death; and his spirit is constantly in company with spirits in that world who are like himself, while his spirit is equally by means of the material body surrounding it in company with people in the natural world. The reason for a person's not knowing that as regards his mind he is surrounded by spirits, is that the spirits, in whose company he is in the spiritual world, think and talk spiritually, while so long as a person is in the material body, his spirit thinks and talks naturally. Spiritual thought and speech cannot be understood or heard by the natural man, and vice versa; this is why spirits cannot be seen either. However, when a person's spirit associates with spirits in their world, then he joins them in spiritual thought and speech, because his mind is inwardly spiritual, though outwardly natural. Therefore its interior permits him to communicate with those spirits, and its exterior with men. It is this communication which allows a person to perceive things, and to think about them analytically. Without this a man's thought would not go beyond or differ from an animal's; and if he were deprived of all contact with spirits, he would instantly die.

[2] But to render comprehensible how a person can be kept midway between heaven and hell, and by that means in spiritual equilibrium, I must explain briefly the origin of his free will. The spiritual world consists of heaven and hell; heaven there is overhead, hell is beneath the feet, yet not in the middle of the globe which men live on, but beneath the lands of the spiritual world. These too are of spiritual origin, and so not in space, though there is an appearance of space.

[3] Between heaven and hell there is a wide gap, which to those in it looks like a whole world. Into this gap there rise from hell exhalations of evil in boundless profusion, and, on the other hand, from heaven there flows in good, also in boundless profusion. This is the gap which Abraham described to the rich man in hell:

Between us and you a great gulf is fixed, to prevent those who want from passing across to you, and those there from passing across to us. Luke 16:26.

Everyone is as regards his spirit in the middle of this gap, for the sole purpose of allowing him to have free will.  (TCR 475)

TCR 476. From childhood to old age everyone changes his place or location in the world of spirits. As a young child he is kept towards the north of the eastern sector. As a boy, as he begins to learn the rudiments of religion, he moves away by stages from the north towards the south. As a young man, as he begins to think for himself, he moves southwards; and later on, when he can exercise his own judgment and be his own master, in proportion to his development in matters which inwardly concern God and love towards the neighbour, south-eastwards. However, if his preference is for evil and he absorbs that, he moves towards the west. Everyone in the spiritual world has his dwelling-place determined by compass-points. The east is inhabited by those who have good from the Lord, for this is where the sun is, in the midst of which is the Lord. The north is inhabited by those who lack knowledge, the south by those who are intelligent, the west by those who are wicked.

[2] The person himself is not kept bodily in this gap or mid-region, but in his spirit; and as this changes its state, approaching good or else evil, the spirit is moved to places or locations in one or the other quarter, and comes into company with those who live there. It must, however, be known that it is not the Lord who moves them hither and thither, but the person moves himself in different ways. If he chooses good, then he together with the Lord, or rather the Lord together with him, moves his spirit eastwards. But if he chooses evil, then he together with the devil, or rather the devil together with him, moves his spirit westwards. It should be noted that where heaven is mentioned in this connection, the Lord is also meant, because the Lord is the all-in-all of heaven; and where the devil is mentioned, hell is meant, since that is where all the devils are. (TCR 476)

Chart B below gives a general account of the vertical community and its function in creating heaven and hell in the human mind. The spiritual mind is the organ in which are located the human heavens (layers 4, 5, 6), as shown in the earlier diagram. While we are attached to a physical body on earth, our spiritual mind is unconscious. Our awareness and conscious knowledge is located in the natural mind (layers 9, 8, 7) which is built up by ideas and experiences we have through the physical body (layer 12), such as our social exchanges and life as a citizen. It is not suspected that this mental life in our natural mind could not be built up without the unconscious spiritual interactions we have with the vertical community through our spiritual mind (layers 6, 5, 4) within our spiritual body (layer 10). In other words, the abilities we have through the natural mind's affective (A) and cognitive organs (B) could not function at all without the mediate influx from both the heavens and the hells into our natural mind, as depicted in Chart B.

Chart B

Chart B shows that human beings have two distinctly different levels of operation. The lower level is called the natural mind (layers 9, 8, 7), while the upper level is called the spiritual mind (layers 6, 5, 4). when we are born we come equipped with both these levels within our affective and cognitive organs. Neuroanatomy makes it clear that the brain operates at different levels of neural architecture, such as those of the "old brain" (cerebellum) and "new brain" (cortex). As you descend into the deeper fissures and neural clumps, one finds more and more complex networks of interconnections of synapses, fibers, and molecular exchanges. The brain has these physical properties because it is a perfect correspondent, part for part, of the spiritual brain in our spiritual body (layer 10) constructed of immortal spiritual substances (see Section xx). In other words, by studying the properties of the physical brain we get to discover some of the properties of the spiritual brain and mind, to which the physical brain corresponds.

There are then levels of operation in our mind, specifically in our affective and cognitive organs, which make up the spiritual body, like the circulatory and respiratory systems make up the physical body. The remaining part of the physical body, the nervous and skeletal systems, corresponds to the sensorimotor organ (not shown in the diagrams). (But see Section xx for more detailed diagrams of mental anatomy.) These three systems in the physical body correspond to the three systems in the spiritual body, namely, affective (feelings, intentions), cognitive (thinking, justifying), and sensorimotor (sensations and movements). (See Section xx). The three systems of the mind and spiritual body are spiritual in construction, while the three systems of the physical body are natural in construction. Upon the death of the three physical systems, the three mental systems continue life in eternity, that is, outside time and space (see Section xx).

The shape of the circulatory system in the physical body matches the overall body's form called the human form. The heart, arteries, capillaries, liver, digestive system, kidneys, are the circulatory system considered globally as the management of blood circulation and its contents (nutrition for cells). When considered in this global sense, you can see that the circulatory system is in the human shape. If you had a computer simulation of the body so that you could remove the other two systems and leave only the circulatory system, what would show up is the shape of the human body. It is the same with all three systems -- they are each in the human form, because they correspond to the mind, and the mind has that form. The shape of the mind is that of the shape of the body, and in fact, it is the other way round: the physical body has this shape because the spiritual body has this shape. And the spiritual body has this shape because God is a Divine Human, and everything created has the Human within it, in its inmost construction (see Section xx). In God, the Divine Human Person, infinite different things make one in the Human form (see Section xx).

The spiritual mind develops along with the natural mind, but each distinctly in their sphere. The natural mind is conscious and develops from sensory and cultural input through the physical senses which the corporeal mind (layer 9) can monitor and react to by correspondence. The spiritual mind is unconscious while we are tied to earth, but becomes conscious at resuscitation, 36 hours after the physical body has ceased being able to function in essentials. After resuscitation we are conscious in the spiritual mind, but we still have all our memories and cultural personality from the natural mind. After some further experiencing, we undergo the second death, which is the moment of ultimate choice. We are compelled to choose between our two ruling loves: hellish ruling love or heavenly ruling love. The Chart shows how these two ruling loves were built up by us while conscious in the natural mind during our life on earth through the temporary physical body.

We are born with a heredity and culture that predisposes us to willing evil, like maintaining selfish motives and engaging in prejudiced judgments. The word evil in theistic psychology means that which is in disorder relative to heavenly order. And heavenly order is revealed and specified in Divine Speech as Sacred Scripture (it is not something people can make up). Modern life of mass society and competition makes it easy for us to maintain a life of negativity and selfishness in our affective organ of inherited tendencies and cultural practices.

In other words, it is easy for most us to live a daily life of alternation between the hells and the heavens in our natural mind. We are in the natural heavens of our conscious awareness (layers 8, 7 having been regenerated) when we feel good, energized, enthusiastic, hopeful, confident, altruistic, honest, sincere, prudent, wise, and motivated to be creative and useful to others, to society, to humanity, to God.

When we feel these things, we do so because our consciousness is in our natural heavens (regenerated layers 8, 7). But our consciousness is in our natural hells (layers 8, 7 not yet regenerated) when we feel bad, sad, depressed, fearful, tired out, exploited, displeased, angry, vengeful, mean, insensitive, cruel, dissatisfied, unmotivated, destructive, selfish, egotistical, tyrannical, violent, murderous, deceitful, hypocritical, foolish.

Note that it is not heredity and culture that make our hell, since this would be unfair to the individual who chooses neither of them at birth. What creates the natural hells in our mind is the justification of the evil tendencies so that we no longer think they are evil or hellish. This is what makes the hells -- the conjunction or coordination of the affective (A) and the cognitive (C) organs acting as one disorder. The evil intention or tendency in the affective organ (= willing evil) (A) cannot actualize itself in our mind until we make it permissible -- justify it -- by false reasonings (= thinking falsity) (C), and confirm these by our lifestyle habits (doing evil works) (S).

Similarly, what makes the natural heavens in our mind is not merely the good intentions and motives we have in the affective organ (A), but their actualization in practice, which can only happen when the cognitive organ (= thinking doctrine of truth) (C) acts in coordination with those intentions or motives (= willing according to the doctrine of truth) (A), thus executing or performing (S) that intention.

Thinking falsely (= hell in the mind) vs. thinking rightly (=heaven in the mind), is determined not by one's philosophy or self-intelligence, which may vary endlessly from person to person, and from one time to another, but by the Divine Psychologist through Divine revelations given to the human mind through Divine Speech or Sacred Scripture (see Section xx) which defines for us the Doctrine of Truth for Living.

In other words, we need to manage our character reformation by first knowing what the heavenly character is (enlightenment), and then struggling to intend and think only that which is according to heavenly order (regeneration). This process of progressive character reformation and regeneration, from early adulthood to the separation of the physical body at death, is managed and created by the Divine Psychologist, especially through spiritual temptations at different levels and intensities throughout the course of life on earth (see Section xx).

TCR 478. Spiritual equilibrium, which is free will, can be illustrated by instances of natural equilibrium. It is like the equilibrium of someone who is tied around the body or by the arms between two men of equal strength, one of whom pulls the person in the middle to the right, and the other to the left. Then the person in the middle can freely turn in one direction or the other, as if there were no force acting on him; and if he moves to the right, he pulls the man on the left violently towards himself, even to the point of making the man on the left fall to the ground. It would be the same if even a weak* man were tied between three men on the right and the same number of and just as strong men on the left; and likewise if he were tied between camels or horses.

[2] Spiritual equilibrium, which is free will, can be compared with a balance, in either scale of which are placed equal weights; if then a little is added to the scale on one side, the balancing beam above rocks. It is the same too with a lever, or with a large beam balanced on its fulcrum. Every single part inside the human body, such as the heart, the lungs, the stomach, the liver, the pancreas, the spleen, the intestines, and so on, is in such a state of equilibrium; and this is what allows each of them to perform its functions in the greatest tranquility. It is the same with all muscles; if there were no such equilibrium in them, all action and reaction would cease, and the person would no longer be able to act as a person. Since then everything in the body is in such a state of equilibrium, and also everything in the brain is in like equilibrium, it follows that everything in the mind is too; and these things relate to the will and the understanding.

[3] Animals, birds, fish and insects also have freedom; but these are impelled by their bodily senses at the promptings of appetite and pleasure. A person would not be very different from them, if he were as free to act as he is free to think; he too would be impelled only by his bodily senses at the promptings of lust and pleasure. The case is different if he drinks in the spiritual teachings of the church and uses them to control his free will. The Lord leads him away from lusts and wicked pleasures and the innate longings he has for these; he strives after good, and turns his back on evil. He is then moved by the Lord nearer to the east and at the same time to the south in the spiritual world, and brought into heavenly freedom, which is true freedom. (TCR 478)

TCR 481. I have had personal experiences to show that everyone is given the ability to understand truth and to will it; even devils receive it, and it is never taken away. One of those who were in hell was once brought up into the world of spirits, and was there questioned by angels from heaven, to see whether he could understand what they were saying to him; the subject was spiritual ideas about God. He answered that he did. And when asked why he had not accepted similar ideas, he said that he did not like them and so did not wish to accept them. He was told again that he could have so wished. This surprised him, and he said he could not. The angels therefore filled his understanding with pride in his reputation together with its delights. On feeling this he then so wished and even liked the ideas. But soon afterwards he was brought back to his earlier state, in which he had been a thief and adulterer who cursed his neighbor; then, since he did not wish to do so, he was no longer able to understand those ideas. This shows plainly that it is free will in spiritual matters that makes a man a man; without this he would be like a tree-trunk, a stone, or the pillar Lot's wife became. (TCR 481)

 

              (V) The Divine Psychologist and Our Character Reformation

Quoting from the Writings Sacred Scripture:

 

You can see from this passage that Divine Love is the motive of the Divine Psychologist in interacting with each individual mind. The Divine Psychologist reveals spiritual truths to each mind so that people can use that truth in their rational understanding to fight their false ideas, fantasies, and evils. This is the basis of reformation and regeneration that opens up in our spiritual mind the eternal conjugial heavens (layers 6, 5, 4).

When we struggle to apply spiritual truths to our thoughts and feelings in daily life, we undergo spiritual enlightenment. Reformation of the cognitive mind (layer 8C) and regeneration of the affective mind (layer 8A) begins in early adulthood, followed by the lifelong process of regeneration (see Section xx), during which we create a new character by daily self-witnessing and self-modification disciplines (see Section xx). It is the Divine Psychologist who arranges our physical and social environment all day long every day, and He does this in view of the developmental steps we must take to regenerate, which means, to establish a spiritual heaven in our spiritual mind (layers 6, 5, 4). These are the heavens that constitute our conjugial eternity after our separation from the physical body (layer 12) and resuscitation in the spiritual body (layer 10).

The method by which the Divine Psychologist creates or builds up the heavens in our spiritual mind has been revealed in the Writings Sacred Scripture, and is thus available for theistic psychology as a source of extracting its correspondences (see Section xx). The literal of Sacred Scripture uses the word "remains" to refer to all the heavenly moments of happiness and innocence that we may experience on some days in our natural mind. As infants and children we go through mental states of innocence in which the Divine Psychologist manages our focus and motivation in heavenly directions. The inherited evils can be kept from becoming active in these heavenly states of mind. The Divine Psychologist stores up all these "remains" of heaven in the spiritual mind (layers 6, 5, 4) where they will be waiting for us after resuscitation. However when we are unwilling to face spiritual combat against our inherited hells, we remain connected to those hell societies forever, and the remains store in the spiritual mind are put to sleep, never to function again. It's important to remember as you go through life not to destroy your remains. This occurs when we systematically and cumulatively ignore the voice of our conscience, or build a philosophy of life that denies that there is a heaven and a hell in the afterlife. 

Consider a commonplace example of remains that occur in our conscious life as an adult (layer 9, 8, 7). You see someone drop their bag and the the contents spill on the street. You experience an impulse to help the stranger pick up the scattered objects. This impulse is a heavenly feeling and is stored by the Divine Psychologist as remains in your spiritual mind. Every time you are being good in something, like deciding to brush your teeth instead of skipping, or actually doing your assigned readings instead of pretending to have done it, or being nice to a friend instead of not nice, or doing your job well instead of not well -- in each of these moments there is a feeling of heaven that the Divine Psychologist deposits for you in your spiritual mind. These are your very own feelings, so that when you feel them again in your eternity, you will accept them as familiar and as your own, thus making your eternal conjugial heaven. It's not feasible for the Divine Psychologist to fill your spiritual mind with heavenly remains that are not the feelings you yourself have had or experienced.

If He did this you would wake up at resuscitation and you would have no heaven to be in since heaven must be what is your very own. People who are in their heavens already and are visiting other heavens are unable to spend even one night in a "foreign" heaven to them. So the remains that are stored up for us by the Divine Psychologist can be only those feelings and impulses that we have actually experienced.

It is the same with hellish feelings when you will what is evil and make it allowable for you to do that (S), think that (C), enjoy that (A), or feel that (A). Any deliberate evil intention (9A, 8A), when justified (9C, 8C) and carried out (9S, 8S), gets deposited in your natural mind, keeping it fixed in the hellish order that is opposite to the spiritual mind. There is an organic structural coupling within the vertical community. We alternate and oscillate our daily life moments from a hellish disorder in our natural mind to a heavenly order in our natural mind, between evil feelings and intentions and heavenly ones. This alternation is accomplished through being alternately connected and disconnected to either the hells or the heavens in our vertical community.

For instance, when we have an impulse (layer 9A, 8A) to cheat or steal (layer 9S, 8S), or to act imprudent or uncaring or neglectful (layer 9S, 8S), we are being activated by the evil intentions and cravings of those who already live in the hells of their afterlife and who are in our vertical community by virtue of the similarity of our thoughts and feelings.

If we give in, those in our vertical community in the eternal hells experience a fulfillment or consummation of their desires, thus a satisfaction or contentment of life. We can resist this connection with those hell societies through the truth of doctrine from Sacred Scripture that we have internalized in our understanding and perspective on life. These truths are acquired in the reformation of our mind, which leads to our spiritual enlightenment. This process of regeneration through daily efforts and spiritual combat continues over many years (see Section xx).

Everything then is purified and simplified and disentangled immediately after our first death at resuscitation, when we drop the physical body (see Section xx). Between the first death, and the second death, a few weeks or months later (by earth time, as Swedenborg experienced it in his dual citizenship), our ruling love decides what we can stand and what we cannot stand.

If we can stand to let go of every single hellish trait and enjoyment accumulated in our natural mind, then the Divine Psychologist puts these hellish traits to sleep, along with the entire natural mind. We are then conscious in our functioning spiritual mind in the eternal conjugial state of heaven. But if, at our second death, we cannot stand to let go of our ruling love and sub-loves that are hellish, then all the heavenly order and remains we accumulated are shut down and put to sleep, along with the spiritual mind. Now we are in the eternal misery and insanity of our eternal hells, along with others who are also there, which are very many, as witnessed by Swedenborg (see Section xx).

The natural heavens in the interior-natural mind (layer 7) are a new creation by the Divine Child during the Incarnation Event (see Section xx). This new evolutionary portion of the natural mind is in a more interior discrete degree than the external-natural mind (layer 9, 8) that are connected to the hells by inheritance. The Divine Child created this more interior structure of the natural mind in Himself, and this had the result that ever since then, about two thousand years ago, every human being is born with this new interior-natural organ (layer 7) (see Section xx).

This new interior-natural organ (layer 7) is actualized or "opened" to the extent that we are regenerating, that is, working the daily discipline of self-witnessing and self-modification of our intentions, thoughts, and deeds (see Section xx). The growth of the interior-natural organ, also called the natural-rational mind (layer 7) is the process of character reformation and regeneration through spiritual combat fought with spiritual truths from Sacred Scripture. It is activated and energized by the mediate influx of those who are already living in their eternal conjugial habitations in their mind (layers 6, 5, 4) and who are in our vertical community.

The more our daily life of willing and thinking becomes orderly, in the order of heaven or spiritual mind (layers 6, 5, 4), the more our natural heavens grow within the new interior-natural organ (layer 7). Our life on earth becomes more and more celestial, angelic, peaceful, wise, charitable, useful, content, conjugial, productive, understanding, intelligent, creative. And this is only a distant foretaste of the actual spiritual heavens that then become our permanent mental state. We then live as angels forever in the flowering of our youth and enthusiasm for life and conjugial love (see Section xx). Layer 7 thinking (7C) and willing (7A) allows the Divine Psychologist to regenerate layer 8 thinking (8C) and feeling (8A). The regeneration of layer 8 then allows the final regeneration of layer 9. At this point our natural mind has become a heaven on earth (layers 9, 8, 7), and after resuscitation, we will be a heaven in eternity (layers 6, 5, 4).

But if our natural mind remains a hell on earth, just as we were born, then the natural heaven cannot open and develop in our natural mind. Then our spiritual heavens cannot be formed as the spiritual mind remains closed (layers 6, 5, 4). Then when our consciousness is cut off from this world at resuscitation, our consciousness is in the hells that were built up in correspondence with the natural hells we lived our life on earth. When we remain in our natural hells we experience unhappiness, anxiety, discontent, depression, lack of confidence, inability to love, and we have a strong desire to hurt others, to be mean and cruel to them, to deny their rights, to take away their dignity, to hurt their innocence, all of which results in the society we have today and those that preceded this one -- injustice, violence, war, fear, anxiety, overeating, not reaching one's potential, unequal distribution of wealth, poverty, sickness, insanity, psychosis, ignorance, etc., all of which create a hell on earth. But the experiences in our hells in eternity are far worse, as described by Swedenborg in his many "travels" there (see Section xx).

Please review Chart B, now that you have read the relevant explanations for it. See where the First and Second deaths are located on it. See the vertical relationship of influence between the spiritual mind and the natural mind. The natural heavens are located right above "Enlightenment and Regeneration" because you need to be enlightened (reformed) before you are willing to be regenerated, and you need to be regenerated for awhile before you can become conscious of being in your natural heavens.

           (VI) Societal Consequences of Individual Effort

The natural hells refers to the hells in our natural mind, which means the disorder in our thinking and feeling in layers 9, 8. Our thinking and willing are in disorder because they match the disorderly thinking and willing of the people in hell. These are the people who have been resuscitated in the afterlife and then reject all heavenly loves in themselves. This means shutting down layers 6, 5, and 4. Now they have to live in the consciousness of their natural mind (layers 7, 8, 9). Since they were unwilling to undergo regeneration of the natural mind prior to resuscitation, their ruling love now rejects all heavenly loves as being incompatible. Now the ruling love takes over the three layers (7, 8, 9) which are unregenerate from the person's inherited and acquired hellish traits.

The ruling love now rules over a kingdom of hellish traits and there is no way of stopping such a person possessed by irrationality, cruelty, and destructiveness. But they are not alone since no one can be alone in the vertical community after resuscitation. The law of similarity operates, which means one person is always surrounded by others whose thoughts and feelings are similar. Surrounded by people whose ruling love is as hellish as theirs, they make a spiritual community of devils and satans, as Swedenborg was able to confirm. He talked to many of them in that layer of the human mind in eternity. He found them to be alternately sane and insane in their conversation. There were endless numbers of sub-layers in those mental regions of eternity, each layer to accommodate the peculiar madness and cruelty of certain people.

You can understand the problem more clearly when you consider that the afterlife is in the same world as our thoughts and feelings are in right now, and that world is called eternity because it is not in time and space. Once you are born there is no way to get rid of you since you are born immortal in the mental world of eternity. This may sound strange only because we've all been taught in our education and conversation that the mental world is in the physical brain! That is indeed a strange idea from the perspective of theistic psychology because the brain is physical, while thoughts and feelings are not physical. Where are they then? They are in our mental organs within the spiritual body (layers 10 to 4). We have this body since birth, otherwise we would not be able to have thoughts and feelings with just a physical brain. We would be advanced robots, not even "bionic" which must start as a real person.

Since the mental world of eternity is constructed out of rational ether (not physical space), people in the afterlife who believe themselves to be still on earth, will take everything real there upside down. Since their spiritual mind is now closed or non-operative, they are left with only their ruling love and its compatible sub-loves. Love in the affective organ has complete control over thinking in the cognitive organ, and this is even more apparent after resuscitation. Take for example the ruling love of possessing other people's possessions. These people are constantly thinking about how they can take away the possessions of others. They will hatch plots, play hypocritical roles, impersonate others, steal, blackmail, threaten, injure, torture, and kill. These are just some of the ways in which the ruling love dictates its desires to the thinking process, to obtain from it the strategies to carry out their evil goals.

If the affective organ (A) is in disorder (hellish ruling love), then the cognitive organ (C) will also be in disorder (insane thinking). The sensorimotor (S) environment of the hell mental layers corresponds to the infernal marriage between the perverted willing (A) and the insane understanding (C). All this is going on in your natural mind in the spiritual world of eternity. It is like a fish trying to live on land after beaching itself. Or like a bird trying to swim in a crocodile infested pond. The organs of the natural mind being in a disordered state trying to live in mental world of rationality. Like gravity and anti-gravity, the person's mind is destroyed as to its humanness. Swedenborg's reports of what he observed in the hells of our mental world are absolutely appalling (see Section xx).

The hells in our natural mind here on earth are built up with more and more organic connections, every time we are willing evil and thinking falsity along with it, in order to justify the evil enjoyment in our mind. To justify our evil means to make it all right to do, to think that it is all right to do, that it is not really evil. This thinking justifies the evil in our mind so we can continue doing it. This also seals our fate to the hells from which this evil originates in us from inheritance.

The heavens in our natural mind here on earth are built up every time we are willing good and thinking truth according to spiritual truths in Sacred Scripture. The operations of our affective organ (willing evil or good) is activated by spiritual heat flowing in form the Spiritual Sun, and how we receive it -- in a heavenly order or invert it into its opposite hellish order. Similarly, the operations of our cognitive organ (thinking truth or rationally) is activated by spiritual light and how we receive it -- in a heavenly order without distorting it, or a hellish one by distorting it.

The next Chart (C) depicts the organization of heaven and hell in the human mind.

Chart C

1. What is heaven or hell on earth?
2. What are heavenly and hellish traits? Explain with each illustration you give.
3. What is enlightenment (reformation) and regeneration?
4. What is the relation between the spiritual and natural mind?
5. What is the relation between collective and individual effort?

The influx of good and truth from the Divine Psychologist through the Spiritual Sun enters the spiritual mind (layer 4 downward) and activates it. The affective organ of the spiritual mind (see previous Chart B), is activated by the spiritual heat, which is a spiritual substance called good, while the cognitive organ is activated by the spiritual light that surrounds the spiritual heat, and is a spiritual substance called truth.

These two immortal substances in the mental world of eternity are from God in infinite variety. As they stream into the mental world they are received by the human affective and cognitive organs at each layer, but in a different way. The mental organs have been created by God to be able to function as receptors for spiritual heat, or good, and spiritual light, or truth (see Section xx). This is analogous to the natural heat and light from our sun that permeates the earth's atmosphere and surface, entering the earth, the plants, and animals. The organ of the eye in the physical body is a receptor organ for that light, and the the organs on the skin are receptors of its heat. The eye and vision corresponds to the the cognitive organ and understanding (C), while the skin receptors and heat correspond to the affective organ and the will (A).

When spiritual light is received by the cognitive organ of the spiritual mind (layer 4C, 5C, 6C), the person is endowed with the ability of rationality, which then gives us in the natural mind (layers 7, 8, 9) the ability to think and reason, in a different way in each layer. When the spiritual heat is received by the affective organ of the spiritual mind (layer 4A, 5A, 6A), the person is endowed with the ability called "liberty," by which we can have free will and voluntary action.

There is a powerful dynamic tendency for the affective and cognitive organs to act in coordination with each other. The spiritual mind is in heavenly order because it is being built up by the Divine Psychologist through the remains of good that we freely will to do. We cannot destroy, corrupt, or downgrade these remains of innocence because they are attached to the spiritual mind over which we have no influence whatsoever as it is completely unconscious while we are still attached to the physical body (see Section xx). But as discussed before, the spiritual mind and its remains can be made to shut down by our unwillingness to regenerate, and our permanent involvement in the enjoyments of a hellish ruling love. While we cannot directly destroy the remains in the spiritual mind we have the freedom to refuse to love them. And if they are not loved by us, they become non-functional, non-operative, shut down organically so they cannot operate. 

The spiritual heavens (depicted in diagrams A and B above), are created within our unconscious spiritual mind (layer 4, 5, 6) by the Divine Psychologist, but only to the extent that it can act as one. This means that the affective and cognitive organs are fully coordinated, conjoined, married into a unity. For instance, we can know the truth (C) but act contrary to it anyway (A). The truth will guide us only if the will will agree to follow what truth teaches. Another way to say it is that anyone can know the truth and understand it in an abstract manner, even those who deny God. This kind of knowing truth is useless for regeneration, hence for heavenly life. But truth that we love, or truth that we use for regeneration, does promote our regeneration and heaven.

The truth we love and want for the sake of regeneration, can be built up by the Divine Psychologist into heaven in our mind, if we also love the good that goes with that truth. To love the good of that truth means to receive the good in the affective organ (A), that is, to intend it, to will it, to plan it (C), and consequently to do it (S).

To learn the truth from God and to use it to remake our character according to it, is the process of regeneration. This changeover, or makeover, of our character begins in adult life when we become enlightened through reformation (see Section xx). This refers to the realization and understanding that we are born dual citizens in the natural and spiritual worlds, and that heaven and hell are in our mind from birth to eternity. This conscious enlightenment in our rational understanding (layer 7C), is produced by the Divine Psychologist in the interior-natural mind by connecting our conscious understanding with rational ideas based in the spiritual mind (layer 6, 5). Although these spiritual ideas in layers 6 or 5, are not conscious to us in a direct way, nevertheless they produce an elevation of understanding in the conscious natural mind (7C), and this can be distinctly felt or noticed. When we notice it, we experience extraordinary delight and clarity of vision. We can then make use of the new perspective by incorporating it into the ideas or issues that we are consciously involved with in daily life (layer 8, 9). As the Chart above (C) shows, these issues can be positive or negative.

At the individual level of effort in daily experience, we oscillate between our heavenly and hellish traits. These are located in separate and isolated parts of our natural mind, as shown in the the first Chart A. At the collective level, good and truth are received as a collectivity that is managed and maintained by the Divine Psychologist as a venue for human experiences and mental development.

Experiences occasion remains of innocence, which are preserved in the spiritual mind where the eternal heavens are built out of them. The human race is variegated and getting more and more so, as the evolution of the mind progresses into the endless future (see Section xx). Variety of "genius" or spiritual collectivities, and "similitudes" in loves and affections, receive their own influx as their eternal biography is maintained in progression and evolution as a collectivity.

This has a spiritual form that is called "heavenly" (layer 4, 5, 6). Swedenborg frequently describes the visits he made to these heavenly habitations or collectivities that he calls "societies of heaven." Each society or mental collectivity has its own identity and this is symbolically expressed as the Society's official Logo or Seal by which it is recognized by other societies. The individuals that inhabit a collectivity are each unique, yet they have a common hierarchy of affections, loves, and consequently, the truths they understand and which form their external reality -- their cities, lands, architecture, form of social government, daily routines or involvements, etc. (see Section xx).

 

             (VII) The Spiritual Economics of Immortality

Definitions:

1. Loving = avoiding harming someone and doing something good instead

2. God = Creator from eternity, Redeemer in time, and Regenerator to eternity

3. Others = any human being

4. Self = oneself, me, I

5. Result = consequences in the afterlife of eternity

6. For the sake of = What is primary; the motivating feeling; the ruling love

7. Angel = anyone in the interior heaven (layer 4) 

8. Spiritual love = loving the heavenly traits in someone (not loving the person's hellish traits)

9. Conjugial love = the unity of husband and wife as soul mates and best friends in eternity

10. Piety = living with the idea that the body is a temple of God, taking it literally instead of rationally

11. Interior heaven = third or celestial heaven (layer 4)

12. Innocence = lacking all resistance to good and truth