September 14, 2017

Knowledges and Truths, Like the Soul are Real — not Abstractions

Selection from Arcana Cœlestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
∙ Knowledges and truths are things no more abstracted from the purest substances of the interior man, that is, of the spirit, than sight is abstracted from its organ the eye, or than hearing is abstracted from its organ the ear.

∙ There are purer substances, and those real, from which knowledges and thoughts come forth into manifest being; and whose variations of form when animated and modified by the influx of life from the Lord, present them to view; while their agreements and harmonies, in succession or simultaneously, affect the mind, and constitute what is called beautiful, pleasant, and delightful.

∙ Spirits themselves equally with men are forms, that is, consist of continuous forms, but of a purer nature, and not visible to the bodily sight. And because these forms or substances are not visible to the bodily eye, man at this day apprehends no otherwise than that knowledges and thoughts are abstract things; hence also comes the insanity of our age — that men do not believe that they have a spirit within them which is to live after the death of the body, when yet this spirit is a substance much more real than the material substance of its body; nay, if you will believe it, the spirit, after being freed from bodily things, is that very purified body which many say they are to have at the time of the Last Judgment, when they believe that they shall first rise again. ... spirits, or what is the same, souls, have a body, see each other as in clear day, discourse together, hear each other, and enjoy much more exquisite sense than while they were in the body or in the world ....
(Arcana Cœlestia 3726:3, 4)