The Interaction of the Soul with the Body

Selection from Emanuel Swedenborg's Spiritual Diary
CONCERNING THE INTERACTION OF THE SOUL WITH THE BODY

Nothing can be known concerning the interaction of the soul, unless it is known what the soul is. It is impossible to speak of the interaction of something known, as is the body, with a thing entirely unknown as to all its quality. Who, at this day, knows anything as to what the soul is? Do not some regard it as a flaming something? some as an ethereal something? others a thinking something, [existing] in some such way as in a subject? others as a pure thinking something, without a substantial form by which [to exist]? What manner of opinion is held concerning the soul, is plainly manifest from this, that they assign it a seat in some part of the body: some in the heart, some in some part of the head, in the corpus striatum in the stomach, in the striated substance, yea, in the little pineal gland! Yea, indeed, from this it is plain, that, at this day, it is entirely unknown what the soul is, since [men] believe that, after death, it remains indeed, but is kept in a certain somewhere (Pu) till the judgment-day. If it should be asked whether it has any form, it is feared to reply thereto consequently, [they believe], also, that it has no quality.

Since, therefore, the soul is such an unknown thing, it is not wonderful that there cannot be known anything concerning its state, and concerning influx, and concerning interaction - as it is called.

As respects the soul, concerning which it is said that it lives after death, it is no other than the man himself, who lives in the body, thus the purer part of the man, which is conjoined with the body, so that, by means of the body, it may perform the functions it ought, in the world. From this the body lives. This, after death, is called a spirit. It likewise appears, then, entirely in a human form; it has the senses, to wit, touch, smell, sight, and hearing, much more exquisitely than in the world. It has appetites, cravings, desires, affections, loves, similar to those which [it had] in the world, but in a less coarse state. It then thinks, as in the world, but more clearly; speaks with others, and is in society; and, this being the case, if [the spirit] does not reflect upon the fact that he is in another life, he knows no otherwise than that he is in the world - as I have heard on several occasions. This is the soul of man; and, because that is the interior man, to whose service was formed the body, which, in the world, is supposed to be, and is called, the man, the interiors of this, also, relate to man, as may be evident from the angels. These are in interiors, and appear in like manner as men do, which is also known from the Word, when they appeared to men. Thence at least, it is evident, that the angelic form is the human form.

The reason that souls appear in the human form, is, because the universal heaven does not conspire to another form, and because, in heaven, the case is such, that the universal heaven acts into the least particulars there, and the least particulars into the universal [heaven]; hence it can never be otherwise than that everyone there, whether angel or spirit, is in the form of a man.

From these things it is now plain what the soul is; and, inasmuch as, respecting the quality of the soul, and what it is, man is entirely ignorant in his thought, it is preferable that it should not be named soul, but, instead thereof, spirit, since this is the soul of man which lives after death; or, if you prefer, instead of spirit, let it be called the interior man; for it is the man himself, which lives. That the matter is so circumstanced, I ought to know thoroughly, from an eight to nine years almost constant association with spirits and angels

(from Spiritual Diary 4616-4618)

Male and Female

Selection from Conjugial Love ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
MALE IS MALE AND FEMALE FEMALE

Inasmuch as the human being lives as such after death, and is male and female, and the masculine and the feminine are different, and so different that one cannot be changed into the other, it follows that after death, the male is male, and the female female, each a spiritual being.

We say that the masculine cannot be changed into the feminine or the feminine into the masculine, and that therefore male is male after death, and female female.

As it is not understood, however, in what masculine and feminine essentially consist, this shall be told briefly: —

The difference consists essentially in the fact that inmost in the male is love, with wisdom for its envelopment, or, what is the same, the masculine is love cloaked in wisdom; while inmost in the female is that male wisdom, with love of it for its envelopment. The latter love is woman's love, given a wife by the Lord through her husband's wisdom, while the former and prior love is masculine and is a love of being wise, given the husband by the Lord in the measure of the reception of wisdom. Accordingly, the male is wisdom from love, and the female a love for that wisdom.

There has therefore been implanted in each from creation a love for union into one. The following words in Genesis make it evident that the feminine is from the masculine, or that woman was taken from man.

Jehovah God . . . took one of the man's ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and He built . . . the rib, which he had taken from the man, into a woman; and He brought her to the man; and the man said, This is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, having been taken from man (2: 21-23).

It follows from this original formation that the male is by nature intellectual and the female volitional, or what is the same, he is born into an affection for knowing, understanding and being wise, and she into a love for uniting herself with that affection in the man.

As interiors fashion exteriors to their likeness, and the masculine is a form of understanding and the feminine a form of the love of understanding, the male is different from the female in appearance, utterance and body, having a rougher appearance, a harsher utterance, and a stronger body, a bearded chin, too, in general a less beautiful form than woman. They also differ in bearing and ways. In a word, nothing is the same in them, though throughout there is what unites them.  Indeed, the man is masculine throughout, in every least part of the body, in every idea of thought, in every particle of affection; similarly the woman is feminine. As one cannot be made into the other, it follows that after death male is male, and female female.

(Conjugial Love 32-33)

Evil Has Its Origin In Man

Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

If there were no freedom of choice in spiritual things, God would be the cause of evils and thus there would be no imputation.

That God is the cause of evil follows from the prevailing belief, which was first hatched by those who held council in the city of Nice. There was concocted and established the still persistent heresy, that there were from eternity three Divine persons, each one a God by Himself. This egg being hatched, the adherents of the belief must needs approach each Person separately as God. They compiled a creed that imputed to men the merit or righteousness of the Lord God the Savior; and that no man might share with the Lord in that merit, they took away from man all freedom of choice in spiritual things, and decreed the utmost impotence as to that faith. And as they deduced everything spiritual pertaining to the church from that faith alone, they asserted a like impotence with reference to everything that the church teaches concerning salvation. Hence sprung, one after another, direful heresies based upon that faith and man's impotence in spiritual things, and also that most pernicious heresy, predestination; all of which imply that God is the cause of evil, or that He created both good and evil. But, my friend, put faith in no council, but in the Lord's Word, which is above councils. What have not Roman Catholic councils produced? Or that of Dort, from which came forth that terrible viper, predestination? It may be thought that giving to man freedom of choice in spiritual things was the mediate cause of evil; consequently, that if such freedom of choice had not been given him, he could not have transgressed. But, my friend, pause here, and consider whether any man could have been so created as to be a man without freedom of choice in spiritual things. If deprived of that, he would be no longer a man but only a statue. What is freedom of choice but the power to will and do, and to think and speak to all appearance as if of oneself? Because this power was given to man in order that he might live as a man, two trees were placed in the garden of Eden — the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil — signifying that because of the freedom given him, man is able to eat of the fruit of the tree of life or of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

That everything that God created was good, appears from the first chapter of Genesis where it is said (verses 10, 12, 18, 21, 25), "God saw that it was good;" and finally (in verse 31), that "God saw everything that He had made, and behold it was very good;" also from man's primeval state in paradise. But that evil has its origin in man, is plain from Adam's state succeeding the fall, or after it, in that he was expelled from paradise. From this it is clear that unless freedom of choice in spiritual things had been given to man, not man, but God would have been the cause of evil, and thus God would have been the creator both of good and of evil. But to think that God created evil is abominable. Because God gave man freedom of choice in spiritual things, He did not create evil, neither does He ever inspire any evil into man, for the reason that He is good itself, and in that good is omnipresent, continually urging and importuning to be received; and even when not received, He does not withdraw; for if He were to withdraw, man would instantly die, nay, would lapse into non-entity; for man's life, and the subsistence of all things of which he consists, are from God.

God did not create evil, but evil was introduced by man himself, since man turns the good which is continually flowing in from God into evil, whereby he turns himself away from God and toward himself; and when this is done, delight in good remains, but then becomes delight in evil; for unless a delight seemingly similar remained, man could not continue to live; since delight constitutes the life of his love. Nevertheless these two kinds of delight are diametrically opposite to each other; but man does not know this so long as he lives in the world; but he will know it after death and will have a clear perception of it, for then delight of the love of good is turned into heavenly blessedness, while delight of the love of evil is turned into infernal horror.

From the foregoing it is evident that every man was predestined to heaven, and no one to hell; but that man gives himself over to hell by the abuse of his freedom of choice in spiritual things, whereby he embraces such things as exhale from hell. For, as before said, every man is kept midway between heaven and hell, that he may be in a state of equilibrium between good and evil, and consequently in freedom of choice in spiritual things.

That God has implanted freedom not only in man, but also in every beast, and an analogue of it even in things inanimate, enabling each to receive it according to its nature, as He also provides what is good for them all; but that the objects themselves turn the good into evil, may be illustrated by comparisons: —

The atmosphere gives to every man the ability to breathe, and in like manner to every beast tame or wild, also to every bird, the owl and dove alike; it also gives the ability to fly, and yet it is not the atmosphere that causes its gifts to be received by creatures of contrary genius and nature.

The ocean furnishes in itself an abode and also offers nourishment, to every fish; but the ocean does not cause one fish there to devour another; or the crocodile to turn its food into poison with which it kills men.

The sun provides heat and light for all things; but objects, such as the various vegetable productions of the earth, receive these diversely, a good tree and a good shrub in one way, and the thorn and thistle in another; or a harmless herb in one way, and a poisonous herb in another.

The rain falls from the higher region of the atmosphere upon all parts of the earth; and the earth administers the waters therefrom to every shrub, herb, and grass, and each one of them takes to itself according to its need. This is what is called an analogue of freedom of choice, because they drink in the rain freely through their little mouths, pores, and ducts, which stand open in the warm seasons, the earth merely supplying the fluids and elements, and the plants partaking of them from a certain kind of hunger and thirst.

The like is true of men, in that the Lord flows into every man with spiritual heat, which in its essence is good of love, and with spiritual light, which in its essence is the truth of wisdom; but man receives these according to whether he turns towards God or towards self.

Therefore the Lord, in teaching about love towards the neighbor, says:

That ye may be the children of the Father, who maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust (Matt. 5:45).

And elsewhere He says: That He desires the salvation of all.

(from True Christian Religion 489-491)

Man, a Form of Life

Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

The Lord with all of His Divine love, with all of His Divine wisdom, thus with all of His Divine Life, flows into every man. In the Book of Creation we read:

That man was created an image of God, and that God breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives (Gen. 1:27; 2:7).

This describes man as being not life but only an organ of life. For God could not create another being like Himself; if He could have done so there would be as many gods as there are men. Neither could He create life (just as light cannot be created); but He could create man a form of life, as He created the eye a form of light; neither could or can God divide His essence, for it is one and indivisible. Since, therefore, God alone is life, it follows without question that from His life He gives life to every man, and that man without that life-giving would be in regard to his flesh nothing but a sponge, and in regard to his bones nothing but a skeleton, having no more life in him than a clock, which has its motion from a pendulum together with a weight or spring. This being so it also follows, that God inflows into every man with all of His Divine life, that is with all of His Divine love and Divine wisdom, these two constituting His Divine life, for the Divine is indivisible.

Because God is Love itself and Wisdom itself He is Life itself, which is Life in itself. It is said in John:

The Word was with God, and God was the Word. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men (John 1:1, 4).

By "God" here the Divine love is meant, and by "the Word" the Divine wisdom; and strictly speaking "life" means the Divine wisdom, and the life strictly is the light that goes forth from the sun of the spiritual world, in the midst of which sun is Jehovah God. As fire forms light so does the Divine love form life. In fire there are two properties — burning and shining — from its burning property heat proceeds, and from its shining property, light.

There are two like properties in love, one to which the burning property of fire corresponds, which is a something that inmostly affects the will of man, and another to which the shining property of fire corresponds, which is a something that inmostly affects the understanding of man. This is the source of man's love and intelligence; for, as repeatedly said before, from the sun of the spiritual world a heat goes forth that in its essence is love, and a light that in its essence is wisdom. These two flow into all things and each thing in the universe, and inmostly affect them, and with men these flow into their will and their understanding, for these two were created to be receptacles of influx — the will a receptacle of love, and the understanding a receptacle of wisdom. Thus it is manifest that the life of man dwells in his understanding, and is such as his wisdom is; and that it is modified by the love of the will.

(True Christian Religion 39)

But how God inflows with the whole of His Divine life, may in some measure be perceived in somewhat the same manner as seeing that the sun of the world with its whole essence, which is heat and light, flows into every tree, every shrub and flower, every stone both common and precious; and that the sun does not distribute its heat and light, dispensing a part to this object and a part to that, but each object draws its own portion from the common influx. The same is true of the sun of heaven, from which Divine love goes forth as heat, and Divine wisdom as light. As the heat and light of the sun flow into human bodies, so do these flow into human minds and vivify them according to the nature of their forms, each form taking what is necessary for itself from the common influx. To this the following words of the Lord are applicable:

Your Father maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust (Matt. 5:45).

Moreover, the Lord is omnipresent; and where He is present, there He is with His whole essence, and it is impossible for Him to withhold some of it and give a part to one and a part to another, but He gives it to all, and to man the ability to take either little or much. He says, moreover, that He makes His abode with those who keep His commandments, also that the faithful are in Him and He in them. In a word, all things are full in God, and from that fulness each one takes his portion. The same is true of general things, as the atmospheres and the oceans. The atmosphere is the same in its least part as in its greatest; it does not apportion a part of itself for man's respiration, another part to the birds to fly in, another to the sails of vessels, and another to the fans of windmills; but each of these takes from the atmosphere in its own portion and applies to itself so much as is sufficient. It is the same again with a storehouse full of grain; from it the possessor daily takes his food; the storehouse does not distribute it.

(True Christian Religion 364)

What is Meant by Loving the Lord and Loving the Neighbor

Selection from Divine Love ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
EVERY GOOD USE IS IN FORM A MAN

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.

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.

Loving the neighbor means performing uses to the church, one's country, society, and the fellow-citizen, because these are the neighbor in the broad and in the limited sense; neither can these be loved otherwise than by the uses that belong to each one's office.

A priest loves the church, the country, society, the citizen, and thus the neighbor, if he teaches and leads his hearers from zeal for their salvation.

Magistrates and officers love the church, the country, society, the citizen, and thus the neighbor, if they discharge their respective functions from zeal for the common good.

Judges, if from zeal for justice

Merchants, if from zeal for sincerity

Workmen, if from rectitude

Servants, if from faithfulness

and so forth.

When with all these there is faithfulness, rectitude, sincerity, justice, and zeal, there is the love of use from the Lord; and from Him they have love to the neighbor in the broad and in the limited sense; for who that in heart is faithful, upright, sincere and just, does not love the church, the country, and his fellow-citizen?

From what has now been said it is plain that loving the Lord is performing uses from Him, and loving the neighbor is performing uses to him, and the object on account of whom uses are performed is the neighbor, use, and the Lord; and that love thus returns to Him from whom it is. For every love as source through love for its object returns to love as source, which return constitutes its reciprocal. And love continually goes forth and returns through deeds, which are uses, since to love is to do. For love, unless it becomes deed, ceases to be love, since deed is the effect of love's end, and is that in which it exists.

So far as man is in the love of use, so far is he in the Lord because so far is he in the Church, and so far in heaven. The Church and heaven from the Lord are as one man. The forms of which (called higher or lower organic forms, also interior and exterior) are made up of all who love uses by doing them; and the uses themselves are what compose that Man, because it is a Spiritual Man, that does not consist of persons, but of the uses with them. Yet all those are there who receive from the Lord the love of uses — these are they who do them for the neighbor's sake, for use's sake, and for the Lord's sake — and since this Man is the Divine that proceeds from the Lord, and the Divine proceeding is the Lord in the Church and in heaven, it follows that they all are in the Lord.

These are a Man, because every use that in any way promotes the general good or serves the public, is a man, beautiful and perfect according to the quality of the use, and at the same time the quality of its affection. The reason of this is, that in each single part of the human body there is, from its use, an idea of the whole — for the part looks to the whole as its source, and the whole sees the part in itself, as its agent. It is from this idea of the whole in each part that each use therein is a man, in small as well as in greater parts. There are organic forms in the part as well as in the whole.  In fact, the parts of parts, which are interior, are men more than the composite parts, because all perfection increases toward the interiors. For all organic forms in man are composed of interior forms, and these of forms still more interior, even to inmosts, by means of which communication is given with every affection and thought of man's mind. For man's mind, in all its particulars, extends into all things of his body; its range is into all things of the body — for it is the very form of life. Unless the mind had such a field, there would be neither mind nor man. From this it is that the choice and decision of man's will are determined instantly, and produce and determine actions, just as if thought and will were themselves in the things of the body, and not above them.

That every least thing in man, from its use, is a man, does not fall into the natural idea as it does into the spiritual — in the spiritual idea man is not a person, but a use; for the spiritual idea is apart from an idea of person, as it is apart from an idea of matter, space, and time. Therefore when one sees another in heaven, he sees him indeed as a man, but he thinks of him as a use. An angel also appears in face according to the use in which he is, and affection for the use makes the life of the face. From all this it can be seen that every good use is in form a man.

(Divine Love XIII)

Men, Only Recipients of Life

Selection from Divine Love ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
THE LORD ALONE IS LOVE ITSELF, BECAUSE HE IS LIFE ITSELF
MEN AND ANGELS ARE RECIPIENTS ONLY

The Lord, because He is God of the universe, is uncreated and infinite; whereas men and angels are created and finite. That which is uncreated and infinite is the very Divine in Itself. It is not possible for man to be formed of this, for he would then be the Divine in Itself; but he can be formed of things created and finite, in which the Divine can be and to which He can communicate His life, and this, by means of heat and light from Himself as a Sun, thus from His Divine Love; it is comparatively like germinations on the earth, which cannot be formed of the essence itself of the world's sun, but of the created things of which the soil consists, in which, by means of its heat and light, the sun can be, and to which it can communicate its life. From this it is evident that men and angels, in themselves, are not life, but only recipients of life.

From the above it follows also that the conception of a human being by a father is not a conceiving of life, but only a conceiving of the first and purest form able to receive life. To this form, as a first thread or beginning, substances and matters adjoin themselves one after another in the womb, adapted into forms for receiving life in its order and in its degree, down to an ultimate form suited to the modes of the world's nature.

(Divine Love II)

The Immortality of Man

Selection from Last Judgment ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

That every man after the life in the world lives to eternity, is evident from this:  man is then spiritual, and no longer natural; the spiritual man, separated from the natural, remains such as he is to eternity - for man's state cannot be changed after death.

Moreover, the spiritual of every man is in conjunction with the Divine, since it can think of the Divine, and also love the Divine, and be affected with all things which are from the Divine, such as those which the church teaches, and therefore it can be conjoined to the Divine by thought and will, which are the two faculties of the spiritual man, and constitute his life. That which can thus be conjoined to the Divine, can never die, for the Divine is with it, and conjoins it to Himself.

Man is also created to the form of heaven as to his mind, and the form of heaven is from the Divine itself, as may be seen in the work on Heaven and Hell, where it has been shown: -

That the Divine of the Lord makes and forms Heaven (n. 7-12, and n. 78-86).

That Man is created to be a Heaven in the least form (n. 57).

That Heaven in the whole complex, has reference to one Man (n. 59-66).

That hence an Angel is in a perfect human Form (n. 73-77); an angel is a man as to his spiritual.

On this subject moreover, I have often spoken with the angels, who wondered exceedingly, that of those who are called intelligent in the Christian world, and who also are believed by others to be intelligent, there are very many who utterly reject the belief in their own immortality, believing that the soul of man is dissipated at death, just as the soul of a beast is, not perceiving the distinction between the life of a man and the life of a beast — that man has the power of thinking above himself, of God, of heaven, of love, of faith, of good, spiritual and moral, of truths, and the like, and that thus he may be elevated to the Divine itself, and he conjoined by all those things to Him. But that beasts cannot be elevated above their own natural, to think of such things, and consequently that their spiritual cannot be separated from their natural after death, so as to live by itself, as man's spiritual can: whence also it is, that the life of a beast ceases on the dissipation of its natural life.

The reason why many of the so-called intelligent in the Christian world, have no belief in the immortality of their own lives, the angels declared to be this, that in heart they deny the Divine, and acknowledge nature instead of the Divine. They who think from such principles, are not able to think of any eternity by conjunction with the Divine, nor consequently, of the state of man as dissimilar to that of beasts, for in rejecting the Divine from thought, they also reject eternity. They declared moreover, that with every man there is an inmost or supreme degree of life, or an inmost or supreme something into which the Divine of the Lord proximately inflows, and from which He disposes all the remaining interiors belonging to the spiritual and natural man, which are successive in both according to the degrees of order. This inmost or supreme they called the Lord's entrance into man, and His veriest dwelling place with him; and they said, that by this inmost or supreme, man is man, and is distinguished from brute animals which do not have it; and that hence it is, that men, as regards the interiors which are of the mind and disposition, unlike animals, can be elevated by the Lord to Himself, can have faith in Him, be affected by love to Him, and can receive intelligence and wisdom, and speak from reason.

When I asked them concerning those who deny the Divine, and the Divine truths, by which the conjunction of the life of man with the Divine itself is effected, and who yet live to eternity, they replied, that these also have the faculty of thinking and of willing, and therefore of believing and loving the things which are from the Divine, as well as those who acknowledge the Divine, and that by this faculty, they too live to eternity. They added, that this faculty is from that inmost or supreme which is in every man, of which mention was made above. Even those who are in hell have that faculty, and that they derive from it the power of reasoning and speaking against Divine truths, has been shown in many places. Hence it is, that every man lives to eternity, whatever be his quality. Because every man after death lives to eternity, no angel or spirit ever thinks of death; indeed they do not at all know what it is to die; wherefore, when "death" is mentioned in the Word, the angels understand by it either damnation, which is death in the spiritual sense, or the continuation of life and the resurrection. These things have been said in confirmation that all the men who have ever been born, and have died, from the beginning of creation, are alive, some in heaven, and some in hell.

(from Last Judgment 25)