Heaven and its Wonders and HellSwedenborg, Emanuel
Religion
Heaven and its Wonders and Hell
Swedenborg, Emanuel
Future life -- Christianity -- Early work to 1800; Heaven -- Christianity; Hell -- Christianity
90. Since man is both a heaven and a world in least form after the
image of the greatest (see above, n. 57), there is in him both a
spiritual and a natural world. The interior things that belong to his
mind, and that have relation to understanding and will, constitute
his spiritual world; while the exterior things that belong to his
body, and that have relation to its senses and activities, constitute
his natural world. Consequently, everything in his natural world
(that is, in his body and its senses and activities), that has its
existence from his spiritual world (that is, from his mind and its
understanding and will) is called a correspondent.
91. From the human face it can be seen what correspondence is. In a
face that has not been taught to dissemble, all the affections of the
mind present themselves to view in a natural form, as in their type.
This is why the face is called the index of the mind; that is, it is
man's spiritual world presented in his natural world. So, too, what
pertains to the understanding is presented in speech, and what
pertains to the will is presented in the movements of the body. So
whatever effects are produced in the body, whether in the face, in
speech, or in bodily movements, are called correspondences.
92. All this shows also what the internal man is and what the
external, namely, that the internal is what is called the spiritual
man, and the external what is called the natural man; also that the
one is distinct from the other as heaven is from the world; also that
all things that take place and come forth in the external or natural
man take place and come forth from the internal or spiritual man.
93. This much has been said about the correspondence of man's
internal or spiritual with his external or natural; now the
correspondence of the whole heaven with everything pertaining to man
shall be treated of.
94. It has been shown that the entire heaven reflects a single man,
and that it is in image a man and is therefore called the Greatest
Man. It has also been shown that the angelic societies, of which
heaven consists, are therefore arranged as the members, organs, and
viscera are in man, that is, some are in the head, some in the
breast, some in the arms, and some in each of their particulars (see
above, n. 59-72); consequently the societies in any member there
correspond to the like member in man; those in the head corresponding
to the head in man, those in the breast to the breast in man, those
in the arms to the arms in man; and so with all the rest. It is from
this correspondence that man has permanent existence, for from heaven
alone does man have permanent existence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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