Soul-Body Interaction, Believed to Occur either by a Physical Inflow, or by a Spiritual Inflow, or by a Preestablished Harmony.

§§1–2 / [Author’s Introduction]

1. §3 / There are two worlds: a spiritual world where spirits and angels live, and an earthly world where we live.

2. §4 / The spiritual world came into being and is kept in existence from its sun, and the earthly world, from its sun.

3. §5 / The sun of the spiritual world is pure love from Jehovah God,

who is at its center.

4. §6 / Warmth and light emanates from that sun; the essence of that emanating warmth is love, and the essence of the emanating light is wisdom.

5. §7 / Both spiritual warmth and spiritual light fl ow into us. The warmth fl ows into our will and gives rise there to a love for doing what is good, and the light flows into our understanding and gives rise there to the truth that leads to wisdom.

6. §8 / These two—spiritual warmth and spiritual light, or love and wisdom—fl ow together from God into the human soul, flow through our soul into our mind and its feelings and thoughts, and flow from there into our physical senses, speech, and actions.

7. §9 / The sun of our earthly world is nothing but fire, and is the means by which this earthly world came into being and is kept in existence.

8. §10 / This means that everything that emanates from the physical sun is in and of itself dead.

9. §11 / What is spiritual wears what is physical the way we wear clothes.

10. §12 / It is spiritual elements clothed in this way that enable us to live as rational and moral beings—that is, to live spiritually on this earthly level.

11. §13 / How receptive we are to this infl ow depends on the state of love and wisdom within us.

12. §14 / Our understanding can be lifted into the light (that is, the wisdom) that angels enjoy to the extent that our rational ability has been cultivated; and our will can be elevated into the warmth, or love, of heaven, depending on how we live our lives. However, the love in our will becomes elevated only to the extent that we will and do what the wisdom in our understanding teaches us.

13. §15 / It is totally diff erent for animals.

14. §16 / Unknown until now, there are three levels in the spiritual world and three in this earthly world, and these shape the way all infl ow happens.

15. §17 / Purposes are on the fi rst level, means on the second, and results on the third.

16. §18 / This shows us the nature of spiritual infl ow, from its origin to its results.

§§19–20 / [Concluding Accounts]

4. 2 The spiritual world came into being and is kept in existence from its sun, and the earthly world, from its sun.

THE reason there is one sun of the spiritual world and another sun of the earthly world is that these worlds are quite distinct from each other, and a world has its origin in a sun. A world in which everything is spiritual cannot arise from a sun that yields only earthly things, since this would be a physical inflow, which violates the basic design.

We can be assured that the world has arisen from its sun and not the reverse by the relationship between cause and effect, noting that in every respect our world is sustained by its sun, and the way it is sustained shows the way in which it arose. That is why we say that “enduring is a constant coming into being.” We can see from this that if the sun were taken away, the world would collapse into chaos and then into nothingness.

[2] I can testify that the spiritual world has a different sun from the one in the earthly world because I have seen it. Like our sun, it looks fiery and about the same size. It is far away from angels, as our sun is from us, but does not rise or set. Rather, it stands still halfway between the zenith and the horizon, which gives angels a constant light and a constant springtime.

[3] Rationalists who are not aware of the spiritual world’s sun may readily develop insane concepts of the creation of the universe. When they think deeply about that creation, all they can discern is that it comes from nature; and since the source of nature is the physical sun, they can think only that creation comes from the sun as its creator.

Further, people cannot grasp anything about spiritual inflow unless they also know where it comes from. All inflow comes from a sun, spiritual inflow from its sun and earthly inflow from its sun. Our inner sight, the sight of our minds, receives an inflow from the spiritual sun; while our outer sight, our physical sight, receives an inflow from the earthly sun. The two kinds of sight are coordinated in their activities the way the soul is coordinated with the body.

[4] We can see from this the blindness, darkness, and folly that people can fall into if they do not know anything about the spiritual world and its sun. There is blindness because the mind that relies in its logical operations wholly and only on what the eye can see is like a bat that flies erratically and sporadically toward towels on a clothesline at night. There is darkness because when our mental sight is subservient to what flows into the sight of our eyes it is deprived of any spiritual light and becomes like the eyesight of an owl; and there is folly because although we go right on thinking, we think about spiritual matters on the basis of earthly matters and not the reverse, which means that our thinking becomes deranged, stupid, and foolish.

10. 8 This means that everything that emanates from the physical sun is in and of itself dead.

IF at this point we raise the reasoning of our minds a little above our physical senses, can we fail to see that love is intrinsically alive and that what appears to be its fire is actually its life, and that on the other hand ordinary fire is intrinsically dead by comparison? This means that the sun of the spiritual world, being pure love, is alive, and that the sun of this earthly world, being pure fire, is dead. The same holds true for everything that emanates and arises from each.

[2] There are two things that produce all the effects in the universe: life and nature. If life is within nature and activates it to produce these effects, this accords with the divine design. The other view is that nature is what lies within and causes life to become active. This is held by people who put nature above and within life, even though it is intrinsically dead. As a result, they indulge in nothing but sensual pleasures and lusts of the flesh, and attach no importance whatever to pursuing spirituality in their souls or true rationality in their minds. Because they have turned everything upside down like this, they are called “the dead.”

[3] Theirs is the view held by all the materialistic atheists in the world and all the satans in hell. In the Word as well they are called “the dead”: see in Psalms, for example, “They attached themselves to the Baal of Peor and ate the sacrifices of the dead” (Psalms 106:28); “The enemy is pursuing my soul; he makes me sit in darkness like the dead of the world” (Psalms 143:3); and “To hear the groaning of the prisoner and to open [a door] for the children of death” (Psalms 102:20); and in the Book of Revelation, “I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the things that remain but are about to die” (Revelation 3:1, 2).

[4] They are called dead because damnation is spiritual death, and damnation is what awaits people who believe that life comes from nature and that nature’s light is therefore the light of life. By doing so they conceal, stifle, and snuff out any concept of God, heaven, and eternal life. This makes them like owls that see light in darkness and darkness in light—that is, see false things as true and evil things as good. Then too, since evil pleasures are their heart’s delight, they are not unlike birds and animals that devour carrion as delicacies and experience the stenches of tombs as perfumes.

In addition, these people do not recognize any inflow other than a physical or earthly one. If they argue in favor of a spiritual inflow, this is not their own idea but something repeated from the mouth of a teacher.