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

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

This follows as a conclusion from the principle established above, that the soul clothes itself with a body as a man clothes himself with a garment. For the soul flows into the human mind, and through this into the body, bearing with it the life which it continually receives from the Lord, and transferring it thus indirectly into the body, where, by means of the closest union, it causes the body, as it were, to live. From this, and from a thousand testimonies of experience, it is evident that what is spiritual, united to what is material, as a living force with a dead force, causes a man to speak rationally and to act morally.

[2] It appears as if the tongue and lips speak from a certain life in themselves, and as if the arms and hands act in a like manner; but it is the thought, which in itself is spiritual, which speaks, and the will, which is likewise spiritual, which acts, and each by means of its own organs, which in themselves are material, because taken from the natural world. That this is the case appears in the light of day, provided this consideration be attended to: remove thought from speech, is not the mouth in a moment dumb? So, remove will from action, and do not the hands in a moment become still?

[3] The union of spiritual with natural things, and the consequent appearance of life in material objects, may be compared to excellent wine in a clean sponge, to the sweet must in a grape, to the delicious juice in an apple, and to the aromatic odour of cinnamon. The containing fibres of all these are material substances, which of themselves have neither taste nor smell, but derive them from the fluids in and between them; thus, if you squeeze out those juices, they become dead filaments. It is the same with the organs of the body, if life be taken away.

[4] That a man is a rational being by virtue of the union of spiritual things with natural is evident from the analytical processes of his thought; and that he is a moral being from the same cause is evident from the excellences of his conduct and the propriety of his demeanour. These he possesses by virtue of his faculty of being able to receive influx from the Lord through the angelic heaven, where there is the very abode of wisdom and love, thus of rationality and morality. Hence it may be perceived that the union in a man of what is spiritual with what is natural causes him to live as a spiritually natural man. The reason that he lives in a similar and yet dissimilar manner after death is that his soul is then clothed in a substantial body, just as in the natural world it was clothed with a material body.

[5] It is believed by many that the perceptions and thoughts of the mind, being spiritual, flow in unassisted and not by means of organized forms. Those thus dream, however, who have not seen the interiors of the head, where the perceptions and thoughts are in their beginnings, and who are ignorant that the brains are there, interwoven and composed of the grey and white matter, together with the glands, ventricles, and divisions, and all surrounded by the covering membranes; and who likewise do not know that a man thinks and wills sanely or insanely according to the sound or distorted condition of all those organs; consequently, that he is rational and moral according to the organic structure of his mind. For the rational sight of a man, which is the understanding, without forms organized for the inception of spiritual light, would be an abstract nothing, just as his natural sight would be without eyes; and so in other instances.