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

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

Spiritual things cannot proceed from any other source than from love, nor love from any other source than from Jehovah God, who is love itself: hence the sun of the spiritual world, from which, as from their fountain, all spiritual things stream forth, is pure love proceeding from Jehovah God, who is in the midst of it. That sun itself is not God, but is from God: it is the nearest sphere around Him from Himself. By means of this sun the universe was created by Jehovah God; by which are meant all worlds considered as one whole, which are as many as the stars in the expanse of our heaven.

[2] Creation was effected by means of that sun, which is pure love, thus by Jehovah God, because love is the very Being [esse] of life, and wisdom is the Manifestation [existere] of life from thence, and all things were created from love by means of wisdom. This is understood by these words in John: “The Word was with God, and God was the Word. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made: and the world was made by Him” (John 1:1, 3, 10). The Word there is the Divine Truth, thus likewise the Divine Wisdom; therefore, also, the Word is there called (verse 9) the light which enlightens every man, in like manner as does the Divine Wisdom by means of the Divine Truth.

[3] Those who deduce the origin of worlds from any other source than from the Divine Love by means of the Divine Wisdom are deluded like those mentally afflicted, who see spectres as men, phantoms as luminous objects, and imaginary beings as real figures. For the created universe is a coherent work, from love by means of wisdom: this you will see, if you are able to view the connection of things in order, from first principles to ultimates.

[4] As God is one, so also the spiritual sun is one; for extension of space is not predicable of spiritual things, which are its derivations: and essence and existence, which are without space, are everywhere in spaces without space; thus the Divine Love is everywhere from the beginning of the universe to all its boundaries. That the Divine fills all things, and by such infilling preserves them in the state in which they were created, the rational faculty sees remotely: and it sees it more nearly, in proportion as it has a knowledge of the nature of love as it is in itself; of its conjunction with wisdom that ends may be perceived, of its influx into wisdom that causes may be exhibited, and of its operation by means of wisdom that effects may be produced.

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

Who does not see from the rational faculty belonging to his understanding, if this be a little elevated above the things of the bodily senses, that love, regarded in itself, is alive, and that the appearance of its fire is life; and, on the contrary, that elementary fire, regarded in itself, is respectively dead; consequently, that the sun of the spiritual world, being pure love, is alive, and that the sun of the natural world, being pure fire, is dead; and that the case is the same with all the products which proceed and exist from them?

[2] There are two things which produce all the effects in the universe, LIFE and NATURE; and they produce them according to order, when life, from within, actuates nature. The case is otherwise when nature, from within, causes life to act, which occurs with those who place nature, which in itself is dead, above and within life, and thence wholly devote themselves to the pleasures of the senses and the lusts of the flesh, esteeming the spiritual things of the soul, and the truly rational things of the mind, as nothing. These persons, on account of this inversion, are those who are called THE DEAD: such are all atheistic materialists in the world, and all the satans in hell.

[3] They are also called the dead in the Word; as in David: “They joined themselves also unto Baal-Peor, and ate the sacrifices of the dead' (Psalm 106:28). The enemy persecutes my soul; he makes me to sit in darkness, as the dead of the world' (Psalm 143:3). “To hear the groaning of the prisoner, and to set at liberty the sons of death” (Psalm 102:20). And in Revelation: “I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and are dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die” (3:1-2).

[4] They are called THE DEAD, because spiritual death is condemnation; and condemnation is the lot of those who believe life to be from nature, and thus believe the light of nature to be the light of life, and thereby conceal, suffocate, and extinguish every idea of God, of heaven, and of eternal life. In consequence of so doing, such persons are like owls, which see light in darkness, and darkness in light, that is, they see falsities as truths, and evils as goods, and, as the delights of evil are the delights of their hearts, they are not unlike those birds and beasts which devour dead bodies as choice delicacies, and scent the stenches arising from graves as balsamic odours. They also see no influx but such as is physical or natural; if, notwithstanding, they affirm influx to be spiritual, it is not from any idea of it, but from the mouth of their instructor.