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

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

It is well known that both an active and a passive are necessary to every operation, and that nothing can be produced from an active alone, and nothing from a passive alone. It is similar with what is spiritual and what is natural: what is spiritual, as a living force, being active, and what is natural, as a dead force, being passive. Hence it follows that whatever existed in this solar world from the beginning, and whatever comes into existence from moment to moment since, exists from what is spiritual by means of what is natural; and this not only in regard to the subjects of the animal kingdom, but also to those of the vegetable kingdom.

[2] Another similar fact is also known, namely, that in every effect which is produced there are both a principal and an instrumental cause, and that these two, when anything is done, appear as one, although they are distinctly two; hence it is one of the laws of wisdom, that the principal cause and the instrumental cause make together one cause; so also do what is spiritual and what is natural. The reason that in producing effects these two appear as one is that the spiritual is within the natural, as a fibre is within a muscle and blood within the arteries, or as thought is inwardly in speech and affection in the tones of the voice; and it causes itself to be felt by means of the natural. From these considerations though thus far only indistinctly, as through a lattice it appears that what is spiritual clothes itself with what is natural, as a man clothes himself with a garment.

[3] The organic body with which the soul clothes itself is here compared with a garment, because it invests the soul; and the soul also withdraws itself from it, and casts it off as old clothing, when it departs by death from the natural into its own spiritual world. Moreover, the body grows old like a garment, but not the soul; because this is a spiritual substance, which has nothing in common with the changes of nature, which advance from their beginnings to their ends, and are terminated at stated times.

[4] Those who do not consider the body as a vesture or covering of the soul, which in itself is dead, and only adapted to receive the living forces flowing into it through the soul from God, cannot avoid concluding from fallacies that the soul lives of itself, and the body of itself, and that there is, between their respective lives, a PRE-ESTABLISHED HARMONY. They likewise infer either that the life of the soul flows into the life of the body, or the life of the body into the life of the soul, whence they conceive INFLUX to be either SPIRITUAL or NATURAL: when, nevertheless, it is a truth attested by every object in creation that what is posterior does not act from itself, but from something prior, from which it proceeded; thus that neither does this act from itself, but from something still prior; and thus that nothing acts except from a First, which does act from itself, thus from God. Besides, there is only one life, and this is not capable of being created, but is eminently capable of flowing into forms organically adapted to its reception: all things in the created universe, in general and in particular, are such forms.

[5] It is believed by many that the soul is life, and thus that a man, since he lives from his soul, lives from his own life, thus of himself, consequently not by an influx of life from God. But such persons cannot avoid tying a sort of Gordian knot of fallacies, in which they entangle all the judgments of their mind till nothing but insanity in regard to spiritual things is the result; or they construct a maze, from which the mind can never, by any clue of reason, retrace its way and extricate itself. They also actually let themselves down, as it were, into caverns underground, where they dwell in eternal darkness.

[6] For from such a belief proceed innumerable fallacies, each of which is horrible: as that God has transfused and transcribed Himself into men, whence every man is a sort of deity that lives of himself, and thus that he does good and is wise from himself; likewise, that he possesses faith and charity in himself, and thus derives them from himself, and not from God; besides other monstrous sentiments, such as prevail with those in hell, who, when they were in the world, believed nature to live or to produce life by its own activity. When these look towards heaven, its light appears to them as mere thick darkness.

[7] I once heard from heaven the voice of some one saying that if a spark of life in man were his own, and not of God in him, there would be no heaven nor anything that exists there; whence also there would be no church on earth, and consequently no life eternal.

For further particulars relating to this subject, the memorable relation in the work on Conjugial Love 132-136, ¹ may be consulted.

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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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