Selection from Divine Love and Wisdom ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
Man's mind is his spirit, and the spirit is the man, while the body is an external by means of which the mind or spirit feels and acts in its world.That man's mind is his spirit, and that the spirit is the man, can hardly enter the faith of those who have supposed the spirit to be wind, and the soul to be an airy something like breath breathed out from the lungs. For they say, How can the spirit, when it is spirit, be the man, and how can the soul, when it is soul, be the man? They think in the same way of God because He is called a Spirit. This idea of the spirit and the soul has come from the fact that spirit and wind in some languages are the same word; also, that when a man dies, he is said to give up the ghost or spirit; also, that life returns, after suffocation or swooning, when the spirit or breath of the lungs comes back. Because in these cases nothing but the breath or air is perceived, it is concluded from the eye and bodily sense that the spirit and soul of man after death is not the man. From this corporeal conclusion about the spirit and soul, various hypotheses have arisen, and these have given birth to a belief that man after death does not become a man until the day of the last judgment, and that meanwhile his spirit remains somewhere or other awaiting reunion with the body, according to what has been shown in the Continuation concerning the Last Judgment (#'s 32-38): —
CONTINUATION ON THE SPIRITUAL WORLD
The spiritual world was described in a special book called HEAVEN AND HELL; this contains numerous descriptions of that world, and, since everyone after death comes into it, of what his state will be then. Is there anyone who does not know that he is going to live after death, seeing that he was born a human being and created to be an image of God, and that this is the Lord's teaching in His Word? But no one up to now has known what kind of life awaits him.
People have believed that they would then be a soul, and they formed no idea of a soul except as air or ether, having some residual power of thought, but deprived of the sight the eye has, the hearing the ear has, and the speech the mouth has. Yet a person is just as much a person after death, to such a point indeed that he is unaware that he is not still in the former world. He can see, hear and speak as in the former world. He can walk, run and sit as in the former world. He can eat and drink as in the former world. He can sleep and wake up as in the former world. He can enjoy the delights of marriage as in the former world. In short, he is a person down to the last detail. This makes it plain that death is no more than a continuation of life, being merely a passing over.
There are many reasons why people have not known that this will be their state after death. One is that they could not be enlightened, because they had too little faith in the immortality of the soul. This is evident from the many, including the learned, who think they are like animals, being only superior to them in having the power of speech. Although they profess with their tongues to believe in life after death, they deny it in their hearts. Thinking like this has made them so dependent on their senses that they cannot believe that a person is still a person after death, because they cannot see him with their eyes. They even say: 'How can a soul be like that?'
Those who believe they will continue to live after death are quite different. They think to themselves that they will go to heaven, enjoy its delights in company with angels, see the heavenly paradises and stand before the Lord dressed in white, and much more. This is what they think inwardly; but their outward thinking may diverge from this, when they allow the theories of the learned about the soul to influence their thinking.
It is evident that a person remains a person after death, even though not visible to the eyes, from the angels seen by Abraham, Gideon, Daniel and other prophets; or from the angels seen in the Lord's tomb, and many times after that by John, as described in Revelation; and above all from the Lord Himself, who showed Himself to the disciples to be a man by touch and by eating, yet was able to vanish from the sight of their eyes. The reason why they saw Him was that at that time the eyes of their spirits were opened, and when they are open objects in the spiritual world are as plain to see as those in the natural world.
The difference between a person in the natural world and one in the spiritual world is that one is clothed in a spiritual body, the other in a natural one; and a spiritual person sees another spiritual person as clearly as a natural person sees another natural person. But a natural person cannot see a spiritual person, nor can a spiritual person see a natural person because of the difference between the natural and the spiritual. This can be described, but not in a few words.
From what I have seen over so many years I can report as follows.
Because man's mind is his spirit, the angels, who also are spirits, are called minds.The spiritual world contains countries just as the natural world does, hills and mountains, plains and valleys; springs and rivers, lakes and seas; parks and gardens, woods and forests; palaces and houses; writing and books; official positions and businesses; precious stones, gold and silver. In short it contains everything that exists in the natural world of every kind, and those in the heavens are infinitely more perfect.
But there is one general difference: everything in the spiritual world is of spiritual origin and is consequently in essence spiritual, since it is the product of the sun of that world which is pure love. Everything in the natural world is of natural origin and is consequently in essence natural, since it is the product of the sun of that world which is pure fire. As a result a spiritual person needs to be fed with food of spiritual origin, just as a natural person with food of natural origin. See further in HEAVEN AND HELL.
Man's mind is his spirit, and the spirit is the man, because by the mind all things of man's will and understanding are meant, which things are in first principles in the brains and in derivatives in the body; therefore in respect to their forms they are all things of man. This being so, the mind (that is, the will and understanding) impels the body and all its belongings at will. Does not the body do whatever the mind thinks and wills? Does not the mind incite the ear to hear, and direct the eye to see, move the tongue and the lips to speak, impel the hands and fingers to do whatever it pleases, and the feet to walk whither it will? Is the body, then, anything but obedience to its mind; and can the body be such unless the mind is in its derivatives in the body?
Is it consistent with reason to think that the body acts from obedience simply because the mind so wills? in which case they should be two, the one above and the other below, one commanding, the other obeying.
As this is in no way consistent with reason, it follows that man's life is in its first principles in the brains, and in its derivatives in the body (according to what has been said above); also that such as life is in first principles, such it is in the whole and in every part; and by means of these first principles life is in the whole from every part, and in every part from the whole.
All things of the mind have relation to the will and understanding, and that the will and understanding are the receptacles of love and wisdom from the Lord, and that these two make the life of man, has been shown in the preceding pages.
From what has now been said, it can also be seen that man's mind is the man himself. For the primary texture of the human form, that is, the human form itself with each and every thing thereof, is from first principles continued from the brain through the nerves, in the manner described above. It is this form into which man comes after death, who is then called a spirit or an angel, and who is in all completeness a man, but a spiritual man. The material form that is added and super induced in the world, is not a human form by itself, but only by virtue of the spiritual form, to which it is added and super induced that man may be enabled to perform uses in the natural world, and also to draw to himself out of the purer substances of the world a fixed containant of spiritual things, and thus continue and perpetuate life. It is a truth of angelic wisdom that man's mind, not alone in general, but in every particular, is in a perpetual conatus toward the human form, for the reason that God is a Man.
That man may be man there must be no part lacking, either in head or in body, that has existence in the complete man; since there is nothing therein that does not enter into the human form and constitute it; for it is the form of love and wisdom, and this, in itself considered, is Divine. In it are all terminations of love and wisdom, which in God-Man are infinite, but in His image, that is, in man, angel, or spirit, are finite. If any part that has existence in man were lacking, there would be lacking something of termination from the love and wisdom corresponding to it, whereby the Lord might be from firsts in outmosts with man, and might from His Divine Love through His Divine Wisdom provide uses in the created world.
(from Divine Love and Wisdom 386-389)