Spiritual Life and the Word of GodSwedenborg, Emanuel
Religion
Spiritual Life and the Word of God
Swedenborg, Emanuel
Spiritual life; Ten commandments; Word of God (Christian theology)
Moreover, the lot of these profaners after death differs from the lot of
the former. The former, as has been said, are in an unceasing delirium
of fantasy; but these hate the Lord, hate heaven, hate the Word, hate
the church, and hate all its holy things; and they come into such hatred
because their dominion is taken away from them, and thus their state is
changed into its opposite. They appear like something fiery, and their
hell appears like a conflagration; for infernal fire is nothing else
than a lust for ruling from love of self. These are among the worst,
and are called devils, while the others are called satans. (A.E., n.
1055.)
The love of ruling by the holy things of the church as means wholly
shuts up the interiors of the human mind from the inmosts toward the
outmosts, according to the kind and strength of that love. But to make
clear that they are shut up, something shall first be said about the
interiors belonging to the human mind. Man has a spiritual mind, a
rational mind, a natural mind, and a sensual mind. By means of the
spiritual mind man is in heaven and is a heaven in its least form. By
means of the natural mind he is in the world and is a world in its least
form. Heaven in man communicates with the world in him by means of the
rational mind, and with the body by means of the sensual mind. The
sensual mind is the first to be opened in man after his birth; after
that the natural mind, and as he seeks to become intelligent the
rational mind, and as he seeks to become wise the spiritual mind. And
at length, as man becomes wise the spiritual mind becomes to him as the
head, and the natural mind as the body, and the rational mind serves as
a neck to join this to the head, and then the sensual mind becomes like
the sole of the foot.
In little children the Lord so arranges all these minds by means of the
inflow of innocence from heaven that they can be opened. But with those
who begin from childhood to be inflamed with the lust of ruling through
the holy things of the church as means, the spiritual mind is wholly
shut; so, too, is the rational mind, and finally the natural mind, even
to the sensual mind, or as it is said in heaven, even to the nose. And
thus men become merely sensual, and are the most stupid of all in things
spiritual and thus in things rational, and the most crafty of all in
worldly and thus in civil matters. That they are so stupid in spiritual
things they do not themselves know, because in heart they do not believe
these things, and because they believe craft to be prudence and cunning
to be wisdom. And yet all of this kind differ according to the kind and
strength of their lust for ruling and for exercising rule, also
according to the kind and strength of the persuasion that they are holy,
and according to the kind of good and truth from the Word that they
profane. (A.E., n. 1056.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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