Activity in the World of Spirits

From Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

In general there are with man spirits of such a quality as is the man himself.  If he is avaricious, there are spirits who are avaricious; if he is haughty, there are haughty spirits; if he is desirous of revenge, there are spirits of this character; if he is deceitful, there are the like spirits. Man summons to himself spirits from hell in accordance with his life. The hells are most exactly distinguished according to evils of cupidities, and according to all the differences of evil. Thus there is never any lack of spirits like himself to be called out and adjoined to a man who is in evil.

The evil spirits with man are indeed from the hells, but while they are with him they are not in hell, but taken out from thence. The place where they then are is midway between hell and heaven, and is called the World Of Spirits.... In this world called the world of spirits there are also good spirits who likewise are with man. Into that world also come men immediately after death, who after tarrying a while there, are either sent away into the lower earth, or are let down into hell, or taken up into heaven, each one according to his life. In that world, the hells are terminated above, being there closed or opened at the good pleasure of the Lord; and in that world, heaven is terminated below; thus it is an interval that distinguishes heaven from hell. From this it may now be known what the world of spirits is. When evil spirits who are with man are in that world, they are not in any infernal torment, but are in the delights of the love of self and of the world, as also of all the pleasures in which the man himself is; for they are in every thought and every affection of the man; but when they are sent back into their hell, they return into their former state.

(Arcana Coelestia 5851, 5852)

Life 'Variously Received' According to the Form of the Receiving Vessel

From Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

The influx from the spiritual world into man is in general of such a nature that man cannot think or will anything of himself, but everything flows in; good and truth from the Lord through heaven, thus through the angels who are with the man; evil and falsity from hell, thus through the evil spirits who are with the man; and this into the man's thought and will. This I know will appear a very great paradox because it is contrary to the appearance; but experience itself shall declare how the matter stands.

No man, spirit, or angel ever has any life from himself, thus neither can he think and will from himself; because in thinking and willing is the life of man, and speaking and acting is the life thence derived. For there is one only life, that of the Lord, which flows into all, but is variously received, and indeed according to the quality which a man has induced on his soul by his life. Hence with the evil, goods and truths are turned into evils and falsities, but with the good they are received - goods as goods, and truths as truths. This may be compared to the light of the sun flowing into objects, which is modified and varied in them diversely according to the form of the parts, and thus is turned into colors, some sad and some cheerful. While a man lives in the world he induces a form on the purest substances of his interiors, so that it may be said that he forms his soul, that is, its quality; and according to this form is received the life of the Lord, which is the life of His love toward the universal human race.

(Arcana Coelestia 5846,5847)

Taught By The Lord

Passages from Divine Providence ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word; and the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (John 1:1, 14).

Every man is a man not from his face and body but from the good of his love and the truths of his wisdom; and because a man is a man from these, every man is also his own truth and his own good, or his own love and his own wisdom; and without these he is not a man.

But

[T]he Lord is Good itself and Truth itself, or, what is the same, Love itself and Wisdom itself; and these are the Word which in the beginning was with God and which was God, and which was made flesh.

Therefore to be taught from the Word is to be taught by the Lord Himself, because it is to be taught from Good itself and from Truth itself, or from Love itself and from Wisdom itself, which are the Word; but everyone is taught according to the understanding appropriate to his own love; what is taught beyond this does not remain.

All those who are taught by the Lord in the Word are instructed in a few truths while in the world, but in many when they become angels. For the interiors of the Word, which are Divine spiritual and Divine celestial things, are implanted at the same time but are not opened in a man until after his death, when he is in heaven where he is in angelic wisdom; and this in comparison with human wisdom, that is, his former wisdom, is ineffable.

Divine spiritual and Divine celestial things, which constitute angelic wisdom, are present in all things of the Word in general and in particular.

(Divine Providence 172:4,5)

The Natural Life Without The Spiritual Life

From Apocalypse Explained ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

[T]he essential life of man is his spiritual life, for it is through this that he is a man and is distinguished from beasts, which have only natural life. In man the natural life without the spiritual life is dead, since it has not in itself heaven, which is called "life" and "eternal life," but has hell, which is spiritually called "death." In the Word, the "dead" mean those who live a natural life only, and not at the same time a spiritual life; also "death," in reference to man, means a lack of the faculty of understanding truth and perceiving good; and this lack exists when the internal spiritual man has not been formed, for this is formed by means of truths from good. In that internal man the ability to understand truth and perceive good has its seat, for that man is in heaven and in its light, and he who is in the light of heaven is a living man. But when the natural man only has been formed, and not at the same time the spiritual, there is no faculty of understanding and perceiving the truths and goods of heaven and the church, because that man has no light from heaven. For this reason such a man is called "dead."

(Apocalypse Explained 694)

When External Worship is the Effect

From Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

When a man is in love and charity he is continually in worship, external worship being merely the effect.

The angels are in such worship; with them, therefore, there is a perpetual Sabbath - from this the Sabbath, in the internal sense, signifies the Lord's kingdom. But man, while in the world, ought not to be otherwise than in external worship also; for by external worship internal things are excited, and by means of external worship external things are kept in holiness, so that internal things can flow in. And besides, man is thus imbued with knowledges, and is prepared for receiving celestial things, and is also gifted with states of holiness, although he is unaware of this; which states of holiness are preserved to him by the Lord for the use of eternal life, for in the other life all the states of his life return.

(Arcana Coelestia 1618)

Every Good Use is in Form a Man

Selection from On Divine Love and Wisdom ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

So far as man is in the love of use, so far is he in the Lord, so far he loves the Lord and loves the neighbor, and so far he is a man.

From the love of uses we are taught what is meant by loving the Lord and loving the neighbor, also what is meant by being in the Lord and being a man.

• To love the Lord means to do uses from Him and for His sake.
• To love the neighbor means to do uses to the church, to one's country, to human society and to the fellow-citizen.
• To be in the Lord means to be a use.
• And to be a man means to perform uses to the neighbor from the Lord for the Lord's sake.

To love the Lord means to do uses from Him and for His sake, for the reason that all the good uses that man does are from the Lord; good uses are goods, and it is well known that these are from the Lord. Loving these is doing them, for what a man loves he does. No one can love the Lord in any other way; for uses, which are goods, are from the Lord, and consequently are Divine; yea they are the Lord Himself with man. These are the things that the Lord can love. The Lord cannot be conjoined by love to any man, and consequently cannot enable man to love Him, except through His own Divine things; for man from himself cannot love the Lord; the Lord Himself must draw him and conjoin him to Himself;

Therefore loving the Lord as a Person, and not loving uses, is loving the Lord from oneself, which is not loving.

He that performs uses or goods from the Lord performs them also for the Lord's sake. These things may be illustrated by the celestial love in which the angels of the third heaven are. These angels are in love to the Lord more than the angels in the other heavens are; and they have no idea that loving the Lord is anything else than doing goods which are uses, and they say that uses are the Lord with them. By uses they understand the uses and good works of ministry, administration, and employment, as well with priests and magistrates as with merchants and workmen; the good works that are not connected with their occupation they do not call uses; they call them alms, benefactions, and gratuities.

All Uses have for a Basis the Natural World

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

The doctrinal things of memory-knowledges are doctrinal things from the literal sense of the Word, and are especially serviceable to those who are being initiated for the first time into more interior truths of the church, such as that widows, orphans, and the poor in the streets are the especial objects of beneficence; and also the precepts of the Decalogue.These and more are doctrinal things of memory-knowledges ...

Such doctrinal things, being the first that a man learns, afterward serve him as an ultimate plane; for when progress is being made to more internal things, they become ultimates. Moreover celestial and spiritual things actually terminate in these, for they as it were stand and rest upon them; because the spiritual world has as it were its feet and soles of the feet in the natural world, and with man in respect to his spiritual life has them in the doctrinal things of memory-knowledges, in like manner as the internal sense of the Word has them in its literal sense.
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Lower things ought to serve interior ones. The lower things are the truths of the church in the natural, which are represented by the sons of Jacob; but that which is interior is spiritual good, which is represented by Israel their father. This being more interior, or what is the same, higher, ought to be served by exterior or lower things.

For lower things are formed for nothing else than to be things of service, for they are formed for the interior to live and act in them and through them, and indeed so that if the interior is taken away from them, they are nothing but vessels without life and action, thus altogether dead.

This is the case with the body relatively to its spirit, and therefore when the spirit withdraws, the body at once dies. Such also is the case with the external man relatively to the internal, and also with the internal man relatively to the Lord; for the internal man has been formed to receive life from the Lord, and is nothing else than an organ of His life. Consequently it is formed to serve the Lord for all the uses that love to Him and charity toward the neighbor demand, first in the natural world, and afterward in the spiritual world.

(Arcana Coelestia 5945;5947)