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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14. 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.

By the human mind are to be understood its two faculties, which are called the understanding and the will. The understanding is the receptacle of the light of heaven, which in its essence is wisdom; and the will is the receptacle of the heat of heaven, which in its essence is love, as was shown above. These two, wisdom and love, proceed from the Lord as a sun, and flow into heaven universally and individually, whence the angels have wisdom and love; and they also flow into this world universally and individually, whence men have wisdom and love.

[2] Moreover, those two principles proceed in union from the Lord, and likewise flow in union into the souls of angels and men; but they are not received in union in their minds. The first received there is the light which forms the understanding, and by slow degrees the love which forms the will. This also is of Providence: for every man is to be created anew, that is, reformed; and this is effected by means of the understanding. For he must imbibe from infancy the knowledge of truth and good, which will teach him to live well, that is, to will and act rightly: thus the will is formed by means of the understanding.

[3] For the sake of this end, there is given to man the faculty of raising his understanding almost into the light in which the angels of heaven are, that he may see what he ought to will and thence to do, in order to be prosperous in the world for a time, and blessed after death to eternity. He becomes prosperous and blessed if he procures to himself wisdom, and keeps his will in obedience thereto; but unprosperous and unhappy if he puts his understanding under obedience to his will. The reason is that the will inclines from birth towards evils, even to those which are enormous; hence, unless it were restrained by means of the understanding, a man would rush into acts of wickedness, indeed, from his inherent savage nature, he would destroy and slaughter, for the sake of himself, all who do not favour and indulge him.

[4] Besides, unless the understanding could be separately perfected, and the will by means of it, a man would not be a man but a beast. For without that separation, and without the ascent of the understanding above the will, he would not be able to think, and from thought to speak, but only to express his affection by sounds; neither would he be able to act from reason, but only from instinct; still less would he be able to know the things which are of God, and by means of them to know God, and thus to be conjoined to Him, and to live to eternity. For a man thinks and wills as of himself and this thinking and willing as of himself is the reciprocal element of conjunction: for there can be no conjunction without reciprocity, just as there can be no conjunction of an active with a passive without reaction. God alone acts, and a man suffers himself to be acted upon; and he reacts to all appearance as from himself, though interiorly it is from God.

[5] From these considerations, rightly apprehended, may be seen what is the nature of the love of a man's will if it is raised by means of the understanding, and what is its nature if it is not raised; consequently what is the nature of the man. But the nature of a man, if the love of his will is not raised by means of the understanding, shall be illustrated by comparisons. He is like an eagle flying on high, which, as soon as it sees below the food which is the object of its desire, such as chickens, young swans, or even young lambs, casts itself down in a moment and devours them. He is also like an adulterer, who conceals a harlot in a cellar below, and who by turns goes up to the uppermost apartments of the house, and converses wisely with those who dwell there concerning chastity, and from time to time withdraws from the company there and indulges himself below with his harlot.

[6] He is also like a thief on a tower, who pretends to keep watch there, but who, as soon as he sees any object of plunder below, hastens down and seizes it. He may also be compared to marsh-flies, which fly in a column over the head of a horse whilst he is running, but which fall down when the horse stops, and plunge into their marsh. Such is the man whose will or love is not raised by means of the understanding; for he then remains below, at the foot, immersed in the unclean things of nature and the lusts of the senses. It is altogether otherwise with those who subdue the allurements of the lusts of the will by means of the wisdom of the understanding. With them the understanding afterwards enters into a marriage covenant with the will, thus wisdom with love, and they dwell together above with the utmost delight.