Life Appears as Man's Own

Selection from Arcana Cœlestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

the goods which are of faith and of charity cannot be given to man nor to angel so as to be their own, for men and angels are only recipients, or forms accommodated to receive life, thus good and truth, from the Lord. Life itself is from no other source, and as life is from the Lord, it cannot be appropriated otherwise than as appearing to be man's own; but they who are in the Lord plainly perceive that life flows in, consequently good and truth, for these belong to life. The reason why life appears as man's own is that the Lord from Divine love wills to give and to conjoin all His own to man, and as far as it can be effected, does conjoin it. This "own" which is given by the Lord, is called the heavenly own.

(from Arcana Cœlestia 8497)

Two Ways to Rationality

Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

One who has never repented or has never looked into and searched himself, finally ceases to know what damning evil or saving good is.

As few in the Reformed Christian world practice repentance, this is here added, that he who has not looked into and searched himself, finally ceases to know what damning evil or saving good is, because he has no religion from which to know it

for the evil that a man does not see, recognize, and acknowledge — remains

and whatever remains becomes more and more enrooted, until it obstructs the interiors of the mind, whereby man becomes first natural, then sensual, and finally corporeal, and in such states he knows not any damning evil or saving good. He becomes like a tree growing on a hard rock, which spreads its roots among the crevices and finally withers away from lack of moisture.

Every man rightly educated is rational and moral; but there are two ways to rationality — one from the world and the other from heaven. He who has become rational and moral from the world only, and not from heaven, is rational and moral in word and gesture only, but is inwardly a beast, and even a wild beast, because he acts as one with those who are in hell, where all are wild beasts. But he who is rational and moral from heaven also, is truly rational and moral, because he is so at once in spirit, word, and body — the spiritual being within these two latter like a soul actuating the natural, sensual, and corporeal; it also acts as one with those who are in heaven. Therefore there can be a spiritual-rational and moral man, and also a merely natural-rational and moral man. These two are not distinguished from each other in the world, especially if the man has by practice become imbued with hypocrisy; but they are distinguished by the angels in heaven as easily as doves from owls or sheep from tigers.

The merely natural man can see good and evil in others, and also rebuke others; but not having looked into and examined himself, he does not see any evil in himself, and if any is discovered by another, he cloaks it by means of his rationality; as a serpent hides his head in the dust, and immerses himself in it, as a hornet buries himself in mud. This is done by the delight of evil, which encompasses him as a fog does a marsh, absorbing and extinguishing the rays of light. Infernal delight is no other. It is exhaled from hell, and flows into every man, into the soles of his feet, his back, and his occiput. And when it is received by the head in the forehead and by the body in the breast, man is made a slave to hell; and for the reason that the human cerebrum is devoted to the understanding and the wisdom it contains, but the cerebellum to the will and its love. This is why there are two brains. But that infernal delight can be corrected, reformed, and inverted solely by the spiritual-rational and moral.

(True Christian Religion 564)

A Brief Description of the "Merely" Natural-rational and Moral Man

Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

There shall now be given a brief description of the merely natural-rational and moral man, who viewed in himself is sensual, and if he goes on, becomes corporeal or fleshly; but the description shall be sketched in separate statements.

• The sensual is the outmost of the life of man's mind, adherent to and coherent with his five bodily senses.
• He is called a sensual man who judges of everything from the bodily senses, and believes nothing but what he can see with his eyes and touch with his hands, calling that something real, and rejecting everything else.
• The interiors of his mind, which have their vision from the light of heaven, are closed, so that he sees nothing of the truth that relates to heaven and the church.
• Such a man thinks in outermosts, and not interiorly from any spiritual light, because he is in gross natural light; therefore he is interiorly opposed to the things that pertain to heaven and the church, although outwardly he can speak in favor of them, even zealously, in proportion to his hope of gaining power and wealth by means of them.

Men of learning and erudition, who have confirmed themselves deeply in falsities, and still more those who have confirmed themselves against the truths of the Word, are more sensual than others.

• Sensual men reason acutely and skillfully, because their thought is so near to speech as to be almost in it, as it were, on the lips; also because they ascribe all intelligence to the speech that is from memory alone. Moreover, they can dexterously confirm falsities, and after confirming them they believe them to be true; but their reasoning and confirmation are from the fallacies of the senses, which captivate and persuade the common people.
• Sensual men are more cunning and malicious than others.
• The avaricious, adulterous, and crafty are especially sensual, although to the world they seem talented.
• The interiors of their minds are vile and filthy; by these they communicate with the hells; in the Word they are called dead.
• Those who are in the hells are sensual, and more so the more deeply they are in them; and the sphere of infernal spirits conjoins itself from behind with man's sensual. In the light of heaven their occiput seems hollow.
• Those who reasoned from sensual things only, were called by the ancients serpents of the tree of knowledge.

• Sensual things ought to occupy the last place, not the first; and in a wise and intelligent man they do occupy the last place, and are subordinate to things interior; but in a foolish man they occupy the first place, and are predominant.
• When things sensual occupy the last place, a way is opened by means of them to the understanding, and truths are perfected by the method of extraction.
• Such sensual things stand most near to the world, and admit what flows to them from the world, and, as it were, sift it.
• By means of sensual things man communicates with the world, and by means of rational things with heaven.
• Sensual things supply what is of service to the interiors of the mind.
• There are sensual things that supply what is serviceable both to the intellectual and to the voluntary part.

Unless thought is raised above sensual things man has but little wisdom. When man's thought is raised above sensual things, he comes into a clearer light, and at length into heavenly light, and then he has a perception of such things as flow down from heaven.


The outmost of the understanding is the natural knowing faculty, and the outmost of the will is sensual delight.

(True Christian Religion 565)