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]

8. 6 These two—spiritual warmth and spiritual light, or love and wisdom—flow 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.

THE spiritual inflow proposed by polished intellects of the past flows from the soul into the body. They did not, however, recognize any inflow into the soul or through the soul into the body. Nevertheless it is known that all love for doing what is good and all truth that leads to wisdom flow into us from the Lord; that no trace of love or wisdom comes from us; and that whatever flows in from the Lord flows first of all into the soul, then through the soul into the rational mind, and through this into the constituent parts of the body. If we investigate spiritual inflow under any other framework, it is like damming up the flow of a spring and still expecting a constant stream of water from it, or positing the origin of a tree in its roots rather than its seed, or studying phenomena that are actually secondary without considering their source.

[2] The soul is not life in and of itself. It is a vessel for life from God, who is life in and of itself; and all inflow of life is from God. This is the meaning of the statement that “Jehovah God breathed into the human’s nostrils the breath of lives, and the human was made into a living soul” (Genesis 2:7). “Breathing the breath of lives into the nostrils” means instilling a perception of what is good and true. Then too, the Lord says of himself, “Just as the Father has life in himself, so he has also granted the Son to have life in himself” (John 5:26). “Life in himself” is God, and the life of the soul is life that is flowing in from God.

[3] Given the fact, then, that all inflow is an inflow of life, that it works through its recipient vessels, and that the central or first vessel in us is our soul, it follows that if we are to understand inflow properly we must start with God and not at some halfway point. If we were to do the latter, our concept of inflow would be like a carriage without wheels or a ship without sails. That is why earlier in this work there was a discussion of the spiritual world’s sun, which has Jehovah God at its center (§5), and of the inflow of love and wisdom—of life, therefore—from that source (§§6–7).

[4] The reason life from God flows into us through our souls into our minds (that is, into our feelings and thoughts) and flows from these into our physical senses, speech, and actions is that the above are the vessels of life in sequential order. The mind is subject to the soul and the body is subject to the mind. The mind has two kinds of life, one belonging to the will and the other to the understanding. The life in our will is the goodness of love, and its offshoots are called feelings. The life in our understanding is the truth that leads to wisdom, and its offshoots are called thoughts. Our mind is alive as a result of our feelings and thoughts. However, the life in our body is its senses, words, and actions. It follows from the sequence in which things occur that these come from the soul through the mind. Just on the basis of this sequence, the wise see all this clearly without having to conduct further research.

[5] Since the human soul is a higher, spiritual substance, it receives an inflow directly from God. The human mind, though, being a lower spiritual substance, receives an inflow from God indirectly through the spiritual world; while the body, being made of the earthly substances we refer to as matter, receives an inflow from God indirectly through the earthly world.

We will see below [§14] that a love for doing what is good and the truth that leads to wisdom flow into our souls together—that is, absolutely united—but that we separate them as they proceed. They become rejoined only in people who allow themselves to be led by the Lord.