Table of Contents

i. [Introduction] §§1-2

I. There are two worlds: the spiritual world, inhabited by spirits and angels, and the natural world, inhabited by men. §3

II. The spiritual world first existed and continually subsists from its own sun; and the natural world from its own sun. §4

III. The sun of the spiritual world is pure love from Jehovah God, who is in the midst of it. §5

IV. From that sun proceed heat and light; the heat proceeding from it is in its essence love, and the light from it is in its essence wisdom. §6

V. Both that heat and that light flow into man: the heat into his will, where it produces the good of love; and the light into his understanding, where it produces the truth of wisdom. §7

VI. Those two, heat and light, or love and wisdom, flow conjointly from God into the soul of man; and through this into his mind, its affections and thoughts; and from these into the senses, speech, and actions of the body. §8

VII. VII. The sun of the natural world is pure fire; and the world of nature first existed and continually subsists by means of this sun. §9

VIII. Therefore everything which proceeds from this sun, regarded in itself, is dead. §10

IX. That which is spiritual clothes itself with that which is natural, as a man clothes himself with a garment. §11

X. Spiritual things, thus clothed in a man, enable him to live as a rational and moral man, thus as a spiritually natural man. §12

XI. The reception of that influx is according to the state of love and wisdom with man. §13

XII. The understanding in a man can be raised into the light, that is, into the wisdom in which are the angels of heaven, according to the cultivation of his reason; and his will can be raised in like manner into the heat of heaven, that is, into love, according to the deeds of his life; but the love of the will is not raised, except so far as the man wills and does those things which the wisdom of the understanding teaches. §14

XIII. It is altogether otherwise with beasts. §15

XIV. There are three degrees in the spiritual world, and three degrees in the natural world, hitherto unknown, according to which all influx takes place. §16

XV. Ends are in the first degree, causes in the second, and effects in the third. §17

XVI. Hence it is evident what is the nature of spiritual influx from its origin to its effects. §§18-20

17. XV. Ends are in the first degree, causes in the second, and effects in the third.

Who does not see that the end is not the cause, but that it produces the cause, and that the cause is not the effect, but that it produces the effect, consequently, that these are three distinct things which follow one another in order? The end with a man is the love of his will; for what a man loves, this he proposes to himself and intends: the cause with him is the reason of his understanding; for by means of reason the end seeks for middle or efficient causes: and the effect is the operation of the body, from and according to the end and the cause. Thus there are three things in a man which follow one another in order, in the same manner as the degrees of altitude follow one another. When these three are established, the end is inwardly in the cause, and, by means of the cause, the end is in the effect: thus these three exist together in the effect. On this account it is said in the Word that every one shall be judged according to his works; for the end, or the love of his will, and the cause, or the reason of his understanding, are simultaneously present in the effects, which are the works of his body: thus in them is contained the quality of the whole man.

[2] Those who do not know these truths, and thus do not distinguish the objects of reason, cannot avoid terminating the ideas of their thought either in the atoms of Epicurus, the monads of Leibnitz, or the simple substances of Wolff. Inevitably, therefore, they shut up the understanding as with a bolt, so that it cannot even think from reason concerning spiritual influx, because it cannot think of any progression; for, says the author concerning his simple substance, if it is divided it falls to nothing. Thus the understanding remains in its own first light [lumen], which merely proceeds from the senses of the body, and does not advance a step further. Hence it is not known but that the spiritual is the natural attenuated; that beasts have rationality as well as men; and that the soul is a puff of wind, like that breathed forth from the chest when a person dies; besides several ideas which are not of the light, but of thick darkness.

[3] As all things in the spiritual world, and all things in the natural world, proceed according to these degrees, as was shown in the preceding article, it is evident that intelligence properly consists in knowing and distinguishing them, and seeing them in their order. By means of these degrees, also, every man is known as to his quality, when his love is known; for, as observed above, the end which is of the will, the causes which are of the understanding, and the effects which are of the body follow from his love, as a tree from its seed, and as fruit from a tree.

[4] There are three kinds of loves: the love of heaven, the love of the world, and the love of self; the love of heaven is spiritual, the love of the world material, and the love of self corporeal. When the love is spiritual, all the things which follow from it, as forms from their essence, derive a spiritual quality: so, also, if the principal love is the love of the world or of wealth, and, thus material, all the things which follow from it, as derivatives from their first origin, derive a material quality: so, again, if the principal love is the love of self, or of eminence above all others, and thus corporeal, all the things which follow from it derive a corporeal quality; because the man who cherishes this love regards himself alone, and thus immerses the thoughts of his mind in the body. Therefore, as just remarked, he who knows the reigning love of any one, and is at the same time acquainted with the progression of ends to causes and of causes to effects, which three things follow one another in order according to the degrees of altitude, knows the whole man. In this way the angels of heaven know every one with whom they speak: they perceive his love from the sound of his voice; from his face they see an image of him; and from the gestures of his body his character.

13. XI. The reception of that influx is according to the state of love and wisdom with man.

That a man is not life, but an organ recipient of life from God, and that love in union with wisdom is life; also, that God is love itself and wisdom itself, and thus life itself, has been demonstrated above. Hence it follows that so far as a man loves wisdom, or so far as he has wisdom within love, so far he is an image of God, that is, a receptacle of life from God; and on the contrary that so far as he is in the opposite love and thence in insanity, so far he does not receive life from God but from hell, which life is called death.

[2] Love itself and wisdom itself are not life, but are the Being [esse] of life. On the other hand, the delights of love and the pleasures of wisdom, which are affections, constitute life; for by their means the Being [esse] of life is manifested. The influx of life from God carries with it those delights and pleasures; just as the influx of light and heat in springtime conveys delight and pleasure into human minds, and also into birds and beasts of every kind, and even into vegetables which then put forth their buds and grow fruitful. For the delights of love and the pleasures of wisdom expand the mind and adapt it to reception, just as joy and gladness expand the face and adapt it to the influx of the cheerfulness of the soul.

[3] The man who is affected with the love of wisdom is like the garden in Eden, in which there are two trees, the one of life, and the other of the knowledge of good and evil. The tree of life is the reception of love and wisdom from God, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is the reception of them from self. The man who receives them in the latter fashion is insane, yet still believes himself to be wise like God; but he that receives them in the former method is truly wise, and believes no one to be wise but God alone, and that a man is wise so far as he believes this, and still more so as he feels that he wills it. But more on this subject may be seen in the memorable relation inserted in the work on CONJUGIAL LOVE 132-136. ¹

[4] I will here add an arcanum confirming these facts from heaven. All the angels of heaven turn the front of the head towards the Lord as a sun, and all the angels of hell turn the back of the head to Him. The latter receive influx into the affections of their will, which in themselves are lusts, and make the understanding favour them; but the former receive influx into the affections of their understanding, and make the will favour them; these, therefore, are in wisdom, but the others in insanity. For the human understanding dwells in the cerebrum, which is behind the forehead, and the will in the cerebellum, which is in the back of the head.

[5] Who does not know that a man who is insane through falsities favours the lusts of his own evil, and confirms them by reasons drawn from the understanding; whereas a wise man sees from truths the character of the lusts of his own will, and restrains them? A wise man does this, because he turns his face to God, that is, he believes in God, and not in himself; but an insane man does the other, because he turns his face from God, that is, he believes in himself, and not in God. To believe in one's self is to believe that one loves and is wise from self, and not from God, and this is signified by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; but to believe in God is to believe that one loves and is wise from God and not from self, and this is to eat of the tree of life (Revelation 2:7).

[6] From these considerations it may be perceived, but as yet only as in the light of the moon by night, that the reception of the influx of life from God is according to the state of love and wisdom with a man. This influx may be further illustrated by the influx of light and heat into vegetables, which blossom and bear fruit according to the structure of the fibres which form them, thus according to reception. It may also be illustrated by the influx of the rays of light into precious stones, which modify them into colours according to the arrangement of the parts composing them, thus also according to reception; and likewise by optical glasses and by drops of rain, which exhibit rainbows according to the incidence, the refraction, and thus the reception of light. It is similar with human minds in respect to spiritual light, which proceeds from the Lord as a sun, and perpetually flows in, but is variously received.

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