Why There is No Affection of Good and No Affection of Truth

Excerpt from Arcana Cœlestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Few are solicitous or wish to know what spiritual truth is; and what truth (not) spiritual. They are so far from being solicitous about it as to be scarcely willing to hear the word spiritual, for at the bare mention of it gloom assails them, together with sadness, and loathing is excited, and so it is rejected. That this really happens has also been shown me.

While my mind was dwelling on such things, there were spirits present from Christendom, who were then let into the state in which they had been in the world; and they were not only affected with sadness at the mere thought of spiritual good and truth, but were also seized with so great a loathing, from aversion, that they said they felt within them the like of that which in the world excites vomiting. But it was given me to tell them that this was in consequence of their affections having been fixed upon merely earthly, bodily, and worldly things — for when a man is immersed in these he loathes the things of heaven. They had frequented places of worship where the Word is preached, from no desire to know the things which are of heaven, but from some other desire contracted from the time of early childhood. From this it was plain what is the quality of Christendom at this day.

The cause — to speak generally — is that the Christian Church at this day preaches faith alone and not charity, and thus doctrine but not life.

When life is not preached, a man comes into no affection of good; and when he is in no affection of good, he is also in no affection of truth.

It is for this reason that it is contrary to the delight of the life of most persons to hear anything more about the things of heaven than what they have known from infancy.

• Why is man in this world?

And yet the fact is that man is in this world in order to be initiated by his activities there into the things which are of heaven, and that his life in this world is hardly a moment in comparison with his life after death, for this is eternal. But there are few who believe that they will live after death; and for this reason also, heavenly things are of no account to them. But this I can declare with certainty: that man immediately after death is in the other life, and that his life in this world is wholly continued there, and is of the same quality as it had been in this world. This I can assert, because I know it; for I have talked after their decease with almost all with whom I had been acquainted in the life of the body, and thus by living experience it has been given me to know what lot awaits everyone, namely, a lot according to his life; yet those who are of such a quality do not believe even these things.

(from Arcana Cœlestia 5006:2-4)

The Divine Man Made Comprehensible

Excerpt from Arcana Cœlestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

"the celestial of the spiritual," ... is meant the Lord; the same may also be said abstractedly of Him, because He [the Lord] is the celestial itself and the spiritual itself, that is, good itself and truth itself.

As regards man, these cannot indeed be conceived of abstractedly from person, because what is natural is adjoined to everything of his thought; nevertheless, when we consider that everything in the Lord is Divine, and that the Divine is above all thought, and altogether incomprehensible even to the angels, consequently if we then abstract that which is comprehensible, there remains being and coming-forth itself, which is the celestial itself and the spiritual itself, that is, good itself and truth itself.

Nevertheless, as man is such that he can have no idea of thought whatever about abstract things unless he adjoins something natural which has entered from the world through the senses (for without some such natural thing his thought perishes as in an abyss and is dissipated), therefore lest what is Divine should perish in man when he is wholly immersed in bodily and earthly things, and with whomsoever it remained it should be defiled by an unclean idea, and together with what is Divine everything celestial and spiritual thence derived should also perish, it pleased Jehovah to present Himself such as He actually is, and such as He appears in heaven, namely, as a Divine Man. For everything of heaven conspires to the human form, as may be seen from what has been shown at the end of the chapters [in the works: Arcana Cœlestia] concerning the correspondence of all things of man with the Grand Man, which is heaven. This Divine, or this of Jehovah in heaven, is the Lord from eternity. The same the Lord took also upon Him when He glorified or made Divine the human in Himself, as is very evident from the form in which He appeared before Peter, James, and John, when He was transfigured —

And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.  (Matt. 17:1, 2)

and also in which He at times appeared to the prophets. It is from this that everyone is able to think of the Divine Itself as of a Man, and at the same time of the Lord, in whom is all the Divine, and a perfect Trinity, for in the Lord the Divine Itself is the Father, this Divine in heaven is the Son, and the Divine thence proceeding is the Holy Spirit. That these are a one, as He Himself teaches, is hence manifest.

(from Arcana Cœlestia 5110:2,3)

Becoming Rational to the Third Degree

Selection from Heaven and Hell ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

How the rational faculty may be cultivated shall also be told in a few words. The genuine rational faculty consists of truths and not of falsities; whatever consists of falsities is not rational.

There are three kinds of truths, civil, moral, and spiritual.

• Civil truths relate to matters of judgment and of government in kingdoms, and in general to what is just and equitable in them.
• Moral truths pertain to the matters of everyone's life which have regard to companionships and social relations, in general to what is honest and right, and in particular to virtues of every kind.
• Spiritual truths relate to matters of heaven and of the church, and in general to the good of love and the truth of faith.

In every man there are three degrees of life.

The rational faculty is opened to the first degree by civil truths, to the second degree by moral truths, and to the third degree by spiritual truths. But it must be understood that the rational faculty that consists of these truths is not formed and opened by man's knowing them, but by his living according to them; and living according to them means loving them from spiritual affection

to love truths from spiritual affection is to love what is just and equitable because it is just and equitable, what is honest and right because it is honest and right, and what is good and true because it is good and true — while living according to them and loving them from the bodily affection is loving them for the sake of self and for the sake of one's reputation, honor or gain.

Consequently, so far as man loves these truths from a bodily affection he fails to become rational, for he loves, not them, but himself; and the truths are made to serve him as servants serve their Lord; and when truths become servants they do not enter the man and open any degree of life in him, not even the first, but merely rest in the memory as knowledges under a material form, and there conjoin themselves with the love of self, which is a bodily love.

All this shows how man becomes rational, namely, that he becomes rational to the third degree by a spiritual love of the good and truth which pertain to heaven and the church; he becomes rational to the second degree by a love of what is honest and right; and to the first degree by a love of what is just and equitable. These two latter loves also become spiritual from a spiritual love of good and truth, because that love flows into them and conjoins itself to them and forms in them as it were its own semblance.

(Heaven and Hell 468)

With Interest Looking

Selections from Arcana Cœlestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

What a man knows and understands to be so, he calls truth; and what he does from will, thus what he wills, he calls good. These two faculties [will and understanding] should constitute a one.

This may be illustrated by comparison with the sight of the eye, and with the pleasantness and delight that are experienced by means of this sight. When the eye sees objects, it experiences a pleasantness and delight from them in accordance with their forms, colors, and their consequent beauties both in general and in their parts; in a word, in accordance with the order or dispositions into series. This pleasantness and delight are not of the eye, but of the animus and its affection; and insofar as the man is affected with them, so far he sees them and retains them in memory, while the things that the eye sees from no affection, are passed over and are not implanted in the memory, thus are not conjoined with it.

From this it is evident that the objects of the external sight are implanted in accordance with the pleasantness and delight of the affections; and that they are in this pleasantness and delight; for when a similar pleasantness or delight recurs, such objects also recur; and in like manner when similar objects recur, such pleasantness and delight also recur, with variety according to the states. It is the same with the understanding, which is the internal sight - its objects are spiritual, and are called truths; the field of these objects is the memory; the pleasantness and delight of this sight is good; and thus good is that in which truths are inseminated and implanted....
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The man who is born within the church, from earliest childhood learns from the Word and from the doctrinal things of the church what the truth of faith is, and also what the good of charity is. But when he grows up to manhood he begins either to confirm or to deny in himself the truths of faith that he has learned

for he then looks at these truths with his own sight, and thereby causes them either to be made his own or else to be rejected

for nothing can become one's own that is not acknowledged of one's own insight, that is, which the man does not know to be so from himself, and not from somebody else; and therefore the truths learned from childhood enter no further into the man's life than the first entrance, from which they can either be admitted more interiorly, or else be cast out.

(from Arcana Cœlestia 4301:3,4; also no. 5376:1)

He Who Regards Himself In Everything

Selection from Arcana Cœlestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

The people is said to be one, and their lip one, when all have as their end the common good of society, the common good of the church, and the kingdom of the Lord; for when this is the case the Lord is in the end, and all are a one from Him.

But the Lord cannot possibly be present with a man whose end is his own good; the own itself of man estranges the Lord, because thereby the man twists and turns the common good of society, and that of the church itself, and even the kingdom of the Lord, to himself, insomuch that it is as if it existed for him.

He thus takes away from the Lord what is His, and puts himself in His place.

When this condition reigns in a man, there is the like of it in every single thought he has, and even in the least particulars of his thoughts; for such is the case with whatever is regnant in any man.

This does not appear so manifestly in the life of the body as it does in the other life, for there whatever is regnant in anyone manifests itself by a certain sphere which is perceived by all around him, and which is of this character because it exhales from every single thing in him.

The sphere of him who has regard to himself in everything, appropriates to itself, and, as is said there, absorbs everything that is favorable to itself, and therefore it absorbs all the delight of the surrounding spirits, and destroys all their freedom, so that such a person has to be banished from society.

But when the people is one, and the lip one, that is, when the common good of all is regarded, one person never appropriates to himself another's delight, or destroys another's freedom, but insofar as he can he promotes and increases it. This is the reason why the heavenly societies are as a one, and this solely through mutual love from the Lord; and the case is the same in the church.

(from Arcana Cœlestia 1316)

The Nature of the Correspondence Between the Soul and the Body

Selections from Arcana Cœlestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

What is the nature of the correspondence between the soul and the body, or between the things of the spirit which is within man and those of his body which are without him, may be plainly seen from the correspondence, influx, and communication of the thought and perception, which are of the spirit, with the speech and hearing, which are of the body. The thought of a man who is speaking is nothing but the speech of his spirit, and the perception of the speech is nothing but the hearing of his spirit. When man is speaking, his thought does not indeed appear to him as speech, because it conjoins itself with the speech of his body, and is in it; and when man hears, his perception appears merely like hearing in the ear. This is the reason why most persons who have not reflected know no otherwise than that all sense is in the organs of the body, and consequently that when these organs fall to decay by death, nothing of sense survives, whereas the man (that is, his spirit) then comes into his veriest life of sensation.

Man is a spirit, and that his body serves him for uses in the world ... the spirit is man's internal, and the body his external.

They who do not apprehend how the case is with man's spirit and with his body, may suppose from this that thus the spirit dwells within the body; and that the body as it were encompasses and invests it. Be it known however that the spirit of man is in the whole and every part of his body, and that it is its purer substance, both in its organs of motion and in those of sense, and everywhere else; and that the body is the material part that is everywhere annexed to it, adapted to the world in which it then is. This is what is meant by man's being a spirit, and by his body serving him for uses in the world; and by the spirit's being his internal, and the body his external. From this also it is evident that after death man is in an active and sensitive life, and also in the human form, in like manner as in the world, but in greater perfection.

(from Arcana Cœlestia 4652; 4659)

Intellectual Sight

Selections from Arcana Cœlestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

The eye is the noblest organ of the face, and communicates more immediately with the understanding than do the rest of man's organs of sense. It is also modified by a more subtle atmosphere than the ear, and therefore the sight penetrates to the internal sensory, which is in the brain, by a shorter and more interior way than does the speech which is perceived by the ear. Hence also it is that certain animals, being devoid of understanding, have as it were two subsidiary brains within the orbits of their eyes, for their intellectual depends on their sight.

But with man this is not the case, for he enjoys the use of an ample brain, in order that his intellectual may not depend on the sight, but the sight on the intellectual. That the sight of man depends on the intellectual is very evident from the fact that his natural affections portray themselves representatively in the face, but his more interior affections, which pertain to the thought, appear in the eyes, from a certain flame of life and a consequent vibration of light, which flashes out in accordance with the affection in which is the thought; and this a man knows and observes, without being taught by any science, for the reason that his spirit is in society with spirits and angels in the other life, who know this from a plain and clear perception.

Every man as to his spirit is in society with spirits and angels

There is a correspondence of the sight of the eye with intellectual sight, plainly appears to those who reflect; for the objects of the world, all of which derive something from the light of the sun, enter through the eye, and bestow themselves in the memory, and this evidently under a like visual figure, for whatever is produced therefrom is seen inwardly. This is the source of man's imagination, the ideas of which are called by philosophers material ideas. When these objects appear still more interiorly they present thought, and this also under some visual figure, but more pure, the ideas of which are called immaterial, and also intellectual. That there is an interior light, in which there is life, and consequently intelligence and wisdom, and that this light illumines the interior sight, and meets the things which have entered in through the external sight, is very evident; and also that the interior light operates according to the disposition of the things present there from the light of the world. The things that enter through the hearing are also inwardly turned into forms like those of the visual images that come from the light of the world.

As the sight of the eye corresponds to intellectual sight, it also corresponds to truths, for all things that are of the understanding bear relation to truth, and likewise to good, in this way - that a man may not only know what is good, but also be affected by it. Moreover all things of the external sight also bear relation to truth and to good, because they bear relation to the symmetries of objects, consequently to their beauties and the derivative charms. A clear-sighted observer can see that each and all things in nature bear relation to truth and to good, and thereby he can also know that universal nature is a theater representative of the Lord's kingdom.

(Arcana Cœlestia 4407 - 4409)