# Dreams of a Spirit-Seer/Part 1/Chapter 2

SECOND CHAPTER.
A FRAGMENT OF SECRET PHILOSOPHY AIMING TO ESTABLISH COMMUNION WITH THE SPIRIT-WORLD.
Gross reason which cleaves to the bodily senses has, I trust, by this time become so accustomed to higher and abstract conceptions that now it can see spiritual figures, devoid of corporeal clothing, in that dusk in which the faint light of metaphysics renders visible the kingdom of shadows. We will venture therefore upon the dangerous road, since we have endured such laborious preparation for it.
Ibant sub nocte per umbras Perque domos Ditis vacuas et inania regna.
Virgil.
The characteristics of the dead matter which fills the universe are stability and inertia; it further possesses solidity, expansion, and form, and its manifestations, resulting from all these three causes, admit of physical explanations, which, at the same time, are mathematical, and, collectively, are called mechanical. But let us direct our attention to the kind of beings which contain the cause of life in the universe—those which therefore neither add to the mass and extent of lifeless matter, nor are influenced by it according to the laws of contact and ​collision, but which rather, by inner activity, move themselves and dead matter as well—and we shall find ourselves convinced, if not with the distinctness of demonstration, still with the presentiment of well applied reason, that immaterial beings exist. Their peculiar laws of operation we may call "spiritual," or, in so far as bodies are the medium of their operation in the material world, "organic." As these immaterial beings are self-active principles, consequently, substances and natures existing by themselves, the conclusion which suggests itself first is, that, immediately united with each other, they might form, perhaps, a great whole which might be called the immaterial world (mundus intelligibilis). For what reason could render the assertion probable that such beings of similar nature could communicate only by means of other beings (corporeal) of dissimilar nature? This latter supposition would really be much more mysterious than the first.
This immaterial world, therefore, can be regarded as a whole existing by itself, and its parts, as being in mutual conjunction and intercourse without the instrumentality of anything corporeal. The relation by means of things corporeal is consequently to be regarded as accidental; it can belong only to a few; yea, where we meet with it, it does not hinder even those very immaterial beings, while acting upon one another through matter, from standing also in their special universal relationship, so that at any time they may exercise upon one another mutual influences by virtue of the laws of their immaterial existence. Their ​relation by means of matter is thus accidental, and is due to a special divine institution, while their direct relation is natural and insoluble.
By combining in this way all principles of life in the whole of nature, as so many incorporeal substances, communicating with each other, partly also united with matter, we conceive of the immaterial world as a great whole, an immeasurable but unknown gradation of beings and active natures by which alone the dead matter of the corporeal world is endued with life. But to which members of nature life is extended, and which those degrees of it are which are next to utter lifelessness, can, perhaps, never be made out with certainty. Hylozoism imputes life to everything; materialism, carefully considered, kills everything. Maupertuis attributed to the organic particles of the nutriment of all animals the lowest degree of life, other philosophers see in them nothing else but dead masses which serve only to augment the lever-apparatus of animal machines. The undoubted characteristic of life in that which appeals to our external senses is, I may say, the free movement which shows that it is arbitrary, but the conclusion is not certain that, wherever this characteristic is not found, there is no degree of life. Boerhave says somewhere: The animal is a plant which has its roots in the stomach (inside). Another might, perhaps, play without censure with these conceptions by saying: The plant is an animal which has its stomach in the root (outside). The plants, therefore, may lack the organs of arbitrary ​movement, and thus the external characteristics of life. These are necessary to the animals, because a being which has the instruments of nourishment inside must be able to move about according to its needs; but a being where these are outside and planted in the nourishing element, is already sufficiently maintained by external forces. Such a being contains indeed a principle of inner life in the fact of vegetation, yet it does not need an organic apparatus for external free activity. I do not propose to use any of these considerations as evidence, for, aside from the fact that I could say very little in favour of such conjectures, they have the ridicule of fashion against them, as being dusty antiquated fancies. The ancients, namely, thought that they could assume three kinds of life, the vegetable, the animal, and the reasonable. In uniting in man the three immaterial principles of those kinds of life, they very likely erred; but so far as they distributed the three principles among the three kinds of growing beings which propagate their kind, they indeed said something undemonstrable, but not, on that account, unreasonable, especially not in the judgment of one who considers the close relation of the polyps and other zoophytes with the plants, or who takes into account the special life belonging to the separated parts of some animals, irritability—that quality of the fibres of an animal body and of some plants, so well demonstrated, and, at the same time, so inexplicable. But, after all, the appeal to immaterial principles is a subterfuge of bad philosophy. ​Explanations of that kind should be avoided as much as possible, so that those causes of the world's phenomena which rest on the laws of motion of matter alone, and which solely and alone are capable of being conceived, may be recognized in their full extent. Nevertheless, I am convinced that Stahl, who likes to explain animal processes organically, is often nearer to the truth than Hofmann, Boerhave, and others, who leave immaterial forces out of their plan and keep to mechanical reasons. Yet these follow thereby a more philosophical method, which sometimes perhaps fails, but oftener proves right, and which alone can be applied to advantage in science. For the influence of beings of incorporeal nature can only be said to exist, but it can never be shown how it proceeds, nor how far its efficiency extends.
The immaterial then would primarily comprise all created intelligences. Some of these are combined with matter, thus forming a person, and some not. It further comprises the sensating subjects in all kinds of animals, and finally all the principles of life wherever in nature they may be found, although such life may not make itself evident by the external characteristics of arbitrary movement. All these immaterial natures, I say, whether they exercise their influences in the corporeal world or not, and all the rational beings who are, accidentally, in an animal state, here on earth or on other terrestrial bodies, while they may be vivifying gross matter now or in future, or may have done so in the past, nevertheless form, according to these conceptions, a communion ​in conformity with their nature. And this communion would not rest upon the conditions by which the relations of bodies are limited, but distance in space and time, which forms in the visible world the great cleft severing all communion, would disappear. We should, therefore, have to regard the human soul as being conjoined in its present life with two worlds at the same time, of which it clearly perceives only the material world, in so far as it is conjoined with a body, and thus forms a personal unit. But as a member of the spiritual world it receives and gives out the pure influences of immaterial natures, so that, as soon as the accidental conjunction has ceased, only that communion remains which at all times it has with spiritual natures.
​It begins to be a real trouble for me, always to use the cautious language of reason. Why should I, too, not be allowed to talk in academical style? This exempts the writer as well as the reader from thinking, which, after all, sooner or later must lead only to annoying indecision. Thus "it is as good as demonstrated," or, to be explicit, "it could easily be proved," or still better, "it will be proved" I don't know where or when, that the human soul also in this life forms an indissoluble communion with all immaterial natures of the spirit-world, that, alternately, it acts upon and receives impressions from that world of which nevertheless it is not conscious while it is still man and as long as everything is in proper condition. On the other hand it is probable that the spiritual natures on their side can have no immediate conscious sensation of the corporeal world, because they are not conjoined with any part of matter which could make them aware of their place in the material world-whole, nor have they elaborate organs for entering into the mutual relations of beings of spacial extent. But they can, probably, flow into the souls of men as into beings of their own nature, and it is likely that they are actually at all times in mutual intercourse with them, yet, in such a way that those conceptions which the soul entertains as a being dependent on the corporeal world cannot be communicated to the other purely spiritual beings; nor can the conceptions of these latter, being conceptions of immaterial things, be transferred into the consciousness of men, at least not as ​long as these conceptions preserve their peculiar quality, for the components of the two sets of ideas are of different kind.
It would be beautiful if such a systematic constitution of the spirit-world, as we conceive it, could be determined, or only with some probability supposed, not merely from the conception of spiritual being in general, which is altogether too hypothetical, but from an actual and universally conceded observation. Therefore I venture upon the indulgence of the reader and insert here an attempt at something of this kind which, although somewhat out of my way, and far enough removed from evidence, still seems to give occasion for not unpleasant surmises.
Among the forces which move the human heart, some of the most powerful seem to lie outside of it. They consequently are not mere means to selfishness and private interest, which would be an aim lying inside of man himself, but they incline our emotions to place the focus in which they combine, outside of us, in other rational beings. Thence arises a struggle between two forces, the proprium which refers everything to itself, and the public spirit by which the mind is driven or drawn towards others outside of itself. I do not dwell upon that instinct which causes us to depend so much and so universally upon the judgment of others, to consider outside approbation or applause requisite to a good opinion of ourselves. Sometimes a mistaken conception ​of honour comes up in this matter, but nevertheless there is even in the most unselfish and open natures a secret leaning to compare with the judgment of others what we have by ourselves recognized to be good and true, so as to make both concordant; on the other hand there is an inclination to stop, so to speak, each human soul on its way to knowledge, when it seems to go another path than that upon which we have entered. All this comes, perhaps, from our perception of the dependence of our own judgment upon the common sense of man, and it becomes a reason for ascribing to the whole of thinking beings a sort of unity of reason.
But I pass over this otherwise not unimportant consideration, and, for the present, take up another which, as far as our purpose is concerned, is more obvious and pertinent. When we consider our needs in relation to our environment, we cannot do it without experiencing a certain sensation of restraint and limitation which lets us know that a foreign will, as it were, is active in us, and that our own liking is subject to the condition of external consent. A secret power compels us to adapt our intentions to the welfare of others, or to this foreign will, although this is often done unwillingly, and conflicts strongly with our selfish inclination. The point to which the lines of direction of our impulses converge, is thus not only in ourselves, but there are besides powers moving us in the will of others outside of ourselves. Hence arise the moral impulses which often carry us away to the ​dicomfiture of selfishness, the strong law of duty, and the weaker one of benevolence. Both of these wring from us many a sacrifice, and although selfish inclinations now and then preponderate over both, these still never fail to assert their reality in human nature. Thus we recognize that, in our most secret motives, we are dependent upon the rule of the will of all, and thence arises in the community of all thinking beings a moral unity, and a systematic constitution according to purely spiritual laws. If we want to call the fact that we feel forced to adapt our will to the will of all, the sense of morality, we thereby describe only a manifestation of that which actually takes place in us, without settling upon its causes. Thus Newton called the established law that all particles of matter have the tendency to approach each other, gravitation, because he did not want to have his mathematical demonstrations mixed up with possible philosophical disputes over the causes of gravitation. Nevertheless, he did not hesitate to treat gravitation as the true effect of a general interaction of matter, and therefore gave to it also the name of attraction. Should it not be possible to conceive the phenomenon of moral impulses in the mutual relations of thinking creatures as the consequence of an actual force, consisting in the fact that spiritual natures flow into each other? The sense of morality then would be the sensation of this dependence of the individual will upon the will of all, and would be a consequence of the natural and universal interaction whereby the immaterial ​world attains its unity, namely, by conforming itself to a system of spiritual perfection, according to the laws of this sense of morality, which would constitute its mode of cohesion. If we grant to these thoughts so much probability as to make it worth while to measure them by their consequences, we shall be drawn by their charm, perhaps unconsciously, into being partial to them. For in this case there seem to disappear most of the irregularities which otherwise, owing to the contradiction between the moral and physical relations of men here on earth, strike us as being so strange. The moral quality of our actions can, according to the order of nature, never be fully worked out in the bodily life of men, but it can be so worked out in the spirit-world, according to spiritual laws. The true purposes, the secret motives of many endeavours, fruitless by impotency, the victory over self, or the occasional hidden treachery in apparently good actions, are mostly lost as to their physical effect in the bodily state, but in the immaterial world they would have to be regarded as fruitful causes, and, consequently, according to spiritual laws and on account of the connection between the individual will and the will of all, they would mutually produce and receive effects appropriate to the moral quality of free will. For just because the morality of an action concerns the inner state of the spirit, it naturally can only in the immediate communion of spirits have an effect adequate to its full morality. Thus it would happen that man's soul would already in this life have to take its place among the ​spiritual substances of the universe according to its moral state, just as, according to the laws of motion, the matter of the universe arranges itself into an order conformable to its material forces. When finally through death the communion of the soul with the body-world is abolished, life in the other world would be only a natural continuation of such connections as were formed with it already in this life, and all the consequences of the morality exercised here we would find there in the effects which a being standing in indissoluble communion with the whole spirit-world would have already achieved, according to spiritual laws. Present and future would be, as it were, out of one piece and constitute a continuous whole, even according to the order of nature. This latter circumstance is of especial importance. For in a speculation based merely upon reasoning there is a great difficulty if, in removing the inconvenience which follows from the incomplete harmony of morality and its consequences in this world, we have to resort to an extraordinary idea of the divine will. For, though our judgment of it might, according to our conceptions, be probable, a strong suspicion would ​remain that the weak conceptions of our understanding were applied to the Highest perhaps very erroneously. For it is incumbent upon man to judge of the divine will only from the harmony which he actually perceives in the world, or which, by the rule of analogy, according to the order of nature, he may suppose to be in it; he is not entitled to imagine new and arbitrary arrangements in the present or future world, according to some scheme of his own wisdom which he prescribes to the divine will.
We now turn our consideration again into the former path, and approach the aim which we have set before ourselves. If the facts of the spirit-world be such as we have stated, and the share of our soul in it be truly pictured in the sketch just made, then scarcely anything appears more strange than that communion with spirits is not quite a common and ordinary thing; and what is extraordinary about it is rather the scarcity of apparitions than their possibility. This difficulty is tolerably easy to remove and already has been partly removed. For the conception which the soul of man has of itself as of a spirit, which, moreover, it has obtained through contemplation of the immaterial, i.e., by observing itself in its relation to beings of similar nature, this conception is entirely different from that where its consciousness conceives itself as a man, by means of an image originated in the impression of corporeal organs and conceived of in relation to none but corporeal things. It is, therefore, indeed one subject, which is thus at the same ​time a member of the visible and of the invisible world, but not one and the same person ; for, on account of their different quality, the conceptions of the one world are not ideas associated with those of the other world, thus, what I think as spirit, is not remembered by me as man, and, conversely, my state as man does not at all enter into the conception of myself as a spirit. Moreover, my ideas of the spirit-world may be ever so clear and perspicuous, still that would not suffice to make me, as ​a man, conscious of that world ; and so, however clear an idea one may, by reasoning, derive of himself, i.e., of his soul, as a spirit, still, this idea is with no man an object of actual sight and experience.
This difference, however, in the nature of spiritual ideas and those belonging to the body-life of man must not be considered so great an obstacle as to remove all possibility of becoming, sometimes, conscious of the influences of the spirit-world even in this life. For spiritual ideas can pass over into the personal consciousness of man, indeed, not immediately, but still in such a way that, according to the law of the association of ideas, they stir up those pictures which are related to them and awake analogous ideas of our senses. These, it is true, would not be spiritual conceptions themselves, but yet their symbols. For, after all, it is one and the same substance which is a member both of this world and the other, and both kinds of ideas belong to the same subject and are connected with each other. How this is possible can be made intelligible by considering how our higher conceptions of reason, which approach the spiritual pretty closely, ordinarily assume, as it were, a bodily garment to make themselves clear. Thence it is that the moral c|ualilics of deity are represented by the ideas of anger, jealousy, mercifulness, revenge, &c.; for the same reason poets personify the virtues, vices, and other qualities of human nature, though this is done in such a way that the true idea of the meaning shines through; in the same way the geometrician represents ​time by a line, although time and space have comformity only by relation and therefore agree, indeed, according to analogy, but never according to quality. This is the reason why the idea of divine eternity assumes even with philosophers the appearance of infinite time, be they never so careful not to mix them up; and one great cause why mathematicians are generally loath to admit the monads of Leibnitz may be that they cannot help but imagine these monads as little masses. Thus it is not improbable that spiritual sensations can pass over into consciousness if they act upon correlated ideas of the senses. In such a way ideas which are communicated by spiritual influx, would clothe themselves with the signs of that language which man uses for his other purposes. Thus the sensation of the presence of a spirit becomes converted into the picture of the human figure; the order and beauty of the immaterial world into fantasies which, under other circumstances, give pleasure to our senses in this life, &c.
Nevertheless this kind of apparition cannot be a common and ordinary thing but can occur only with persons whose organs have an unusual sensitiveness for intensifying, by harmonious motion, according to the inner state of the soul, the pictures of the imagination, to ​a higher degree than is usually the case, and should be the case, with healthy persons. Such abnormal persons would be confronted, in certain moments, with the appearance of many objects as if they were outside of themselves. They would think that spiritual natures present with them were affecting their bodily senses, while yet this is only a delusion of the imagination, occurring, however, in such a way that its cause is a true spiritual influence, not, indeed, perceivable immediately, but revealing itself to consciousness by correlated pictures of the imagination which assume the appearance of sensations.
Conceptions derived from education and all sorts of fancies that have crept into the mind would exercise their influence here, where delusion is mingled with truth, a real spiritual sensation being, indeed, the foundation, but converted into phantoms of sensuous things. It will further be admitted that the power to thus develop the impressions of the spirit-world into the clear perception of this world can hardly be of any use, because in such a process the spiritual sensation becomes necessarily so closely interwoven with the fancies of the imagination that it cannot be possible to distinguish the truth from the gross surrounding delusions. Such a state would likewise indicate a disease, because it presupposes an altered balance of the nerves, which are put into unnatural motion merely by the activity of purely spiritual sensations of the soul. Finally, it would not be at all strange to find the spirit-seer to be at the same time a dreamer, at ​least in regard to the mental pictures which he makes of his visions; because ideas, unknown to him by their very nature and incompatible with those of his bodily state, crowd in and drag into external sensation badly adjusted pictures, creating thereby wild chimeras and curiously distorted figures, which float in trailing garments before the senses, deceiving them in spite of the fact that such chimeras may be based upon a true spiritual influence.
Now we need no longer be at a loss to give apparently rational causes for the stories about apparitions which so often cross the path of philosophers, as well as to account for all sorts of influences from spirits of which the rumour goes here and there. Departed souls and pure spirits can indeed never be present to our external senses, nor communicate with matter in any other way than by acting upon the spirit of man, who belongs with them to one great republic. The spirits must act in such a way that the ideas which they call up in man's mind clothe themselves in corresponding pictures according to the law of imagination, thus causing any objects which fit into the picture to appear as if they were outside of him. This deception can affect any one of the senses, and, however mixed it may be with incongruous fancies, it should not keep one from supposing spiritual influences in it. I should encroach upon the penetration of the reader if I should stop to apply this mode of explanation. For metaphysical hypotheses are possessed of such an immense flexibility that one must be very awkward not to be able to adapt this one to an ​story he hears even before investigating its truthfulness, which is in many cases impossible, and in still more is impolite to the narrator.
But if we balance against each other the advantages and disadvantages which might accrue to a person organized not only for the visible world, but also, to a certain degree, for the invisible (if ever there was such a person), such a gift would seem to be like that with which Juno honoured Teiresias, making him blind so that she might impart to him the gift of prophesying. For, judging from the propositions above made, the knowledge of the other world can be obtained here only by losing some of that intelligence which is necessary for this present world. I am not sure if even certain philosophers can be freed entirely from such a hard condition, when they turn their metaphysical telescopes upon such far-off regions and tell us of miraculous things. At least I do not grudge them their discoveries. But I am afraid that some man of sound sense but little polish might intimate to them what the coachman answered to Tycho Brahe, when, one night, the latter suggested to the man he might drive the shortest way by directing his course according to the stars: "My dear master, you may be an expert as to the sky, but here on earth you are a fool."
* ↑ 11 (p. 57).—"The two worlds, the spiritual and the natural, are so distinct as to have nothing in common with each other; yet so created as to have communication, yea, conjunction, by means of correspondences. "The universe in general is divided into two worlds, the spiritual and the natural. In the spiritual world are angels and spirits, in the natural world men. In external appearance these two worlds are entirely alike, so alike that they cannot be distinguished; but in internal appearance they are entirely unlike. The men themselves in the spiritual world, who are called angels and spirits, are spiritual, and, being spiritual, they think spiritually and speak spiritually.But the men of the natural world are natural, and therefore think naturally and speak naturally; and spiritual thought and speech have nothing in common with natural thought and speech. From this it is plain that these two worlds, the spiritual and the natural, are entirely distinct from each other, so that they can in no respect be together."—D. L. W., 83, 163.
* ↑ 12 (p. 57).—"Man enjoys this privilege which the angels do not, that he is not only in the spiritual world as to his interiors, but also at the same time in the natural world as to exteriors. His exteriors which are in the natural world, are all things of his natural or external memory, and of thought and imagination therefrom; in general, knowledges and sciences, with their delights and gratifications, so far as they savour of the world, and also many pleasures belonging to the sensuals of the body, together with his senses themselves, his speech, and actions. All these also are the ultimate things into which the divine influx of the Lord closes; for it does not stop in the midst, but proceeds to its ultimates. From these things it may be manifest that in man is the ultimate of divine order, and because it is the ultimate, that it is also the basis and foundation. Because the divine influx of the Lord does not stop in the midst, but proceeds to its ultimates, as was said, and because the medium through which it passes is the angelic heaven, and the ultimate is with man, and because there is nothing given which is unconnected, it follows that such is the connection and conjunction of heaven with the human race, that the one subsists from the other, and that the human race without heaven would be as a chain when the hook is removed, and heaven without the human race would be as a house without a foundation."—H. H., 304.
* ↑ 13 (p. 57).—"That nothing in nature exists or subsists, but from a spiritual origin, and by means of it. "The reason of this is that nothing can exist except from something else, and this lastly from Him, who is and who exists in Himself, and He is God; therefore also God is called esse and existere. The reason that nothing in nature exists but from a spiritual origin is, that there cannot be anything in existence unless it has a soul, all that which is essence being called soul; for that which has not in itself an essence, docs not exist—it is a nonentity; because there is no esse from which it can derive existence. Such is the case with nature; its essence, from which it exists, being thespiritual origin or principle, because this possesses in itself the divine esse, and also the divine force—active, creative, and formative. This essence may also be called soul, because all that is spiritual lives; and when that which is alive acts upon that which is not so, upon that, for instance, which is natural, it causes it either to live as if from itself, or to derive from it something of the appearance of life; the former is the case with animals, the latter with vegetables. The reason that nothing in nature exists but from a spiritual origin or principle is, that no effect is produced without a cause. Such is the case with nature; all the several and most minute objects belonging to it are effects produced from a cause, which is prior, interior, and superior to it, and proceeding immediately from God. For since there exists a spiritual world, which is prior, interior, and superior, to the natural world, therefore all that belongs to the spiritual world is cause, and all that belongs to the natural world is effect."—Ath. Cr., 94.
* ↑ 14 (p. 57).—"That nature serves as a covering for that which is spiritual, is evident from the souls of beasts, which are spiritual affections, being clothed from materials in the world, it being well known that their bodies are material; so also the bodies of men. The reason that the spiritual can be clothed from the material is, that all the objects which exist in nature, whether they belong to atmosphere, to water, or to earth, are, as to every individual of them, effects produced from the spiritual as a cause. The effects again act as one with the cause, and are in complete agreement with it, according to the axiom, that nothing exists in the effect that is not in the cause. But the difference is, that the cause is a living force, because it is spiritual, while the effect derived from it is a dead force, because it is natural. From this it is, that there are in the natural world such objects as are in complete agreement with those which exist in the spiritual world, and that the former can be suitably conjoined with the latter. Hence then it is, that it is said that nature was created that the spiritual may be clothed from it with forms to serve for use. That nature was created that the spiritual may be terminated in it, follows from what has been already said, that the objects in the spiritual world are causes, while those in the natural world are effects, and effects are limits."—Ath. Cr., 95.
* ↑ 15 (p. 59).—"Effects teach nothing but effects; when effects alone are considered no cause is brought to light; but causes reveal effects.To know effects from causes is to be wise; but to search for causes from effects is not to be wise, because fallacies then present themselves, which the investigator calls causes, and this is to turn wisdom into foolishness. Causes are things prior, and effects are things posterior; and things prior cannot be seen from things posterior, but things posterior can be seen from things prior. This is order."—D. L. W., 119.
* ↑ 16 (p. 59).—"Those who are in the one world cannot see those who are in the other world. For the eyes of man, who sees from natural light, are of the substance of his world, and the eyes of an angel are of the substance of his world ; thus in both cases they are formed for the proper reception of their own light. From all this it can be seen how much ignorance there is in the thoughts of those who, because they cannot see angels and spirits with their eyes, are unwilling to believe them to be men. "Hitherto it has not been known that angels and spirits are in a totally different light and different heat from men. It has not been known even that another light and another heat are possible. For man in his thought has not penetrated beyond the interior or purer things of nature. And for this reason many have placed the abodes of angels and spirits in the ether, and some in the stars—thus within nature, and not above or out of it. But, in truth, angels and spirits are entirely above or out of nature, and in their own world, which is under another sun. And since in that world spaces are appearances (as was shown above), angels and spirits cannot be said to be in the ether or in the stars; in fact, they are present with man, conjoined to the affection and thought of his spirit;—for man, in that he thinks and wills, is a spirit; consequently the spiritual world is where man is, and in no wise away from him. In a word, every man as regards the interiors of his mind is in that world, in the midst of spirits and angels there; and he thinks from its light, and loves from its heat."—D. L. W., 91, 92.
* ↑ 17 (p. 60).—"As heaven is a man in greatest form, and a society of heaven, in less form, so is an angel, in least form; for in the most perfect form, such as the form of heaven is, there is a likeness of the whole in a part, and of a part in the whole. The cause that it is so is, that heaven is a communion; for it communicates all its own to every one, and every one receives all that is his from that communion: an angel is a receptacle, and thence a heaven in theleast form; as also was shown above in its proper article. Man also, as far as he receives heaven, is likewise so far a receptacle, is a heaven, and is an angel."—H. H., 73.
* ↑ 18 (p. 60).—"An idea of anything without origin cannot exist with the natural man, thus neither can the idea of God from eternity; but it exists with the spiritual man. The thought of the natural man cannot be separated and withdrawn from the idea of time, for this idea is inherent in it from nature, in which it is; so neither can it be separated and withdrawn from the idea of origin, because origin is to it a beginning in time; the appearance of the sun's progress has impressed on the natural man this idea. But the thought of the spiritual man, because it is elevated above nature, is withdrawn from the idea of time, and instead of this idea there is the idea of a state of life, and instead of duration of time, there is a state of thought derived from affection which constitutes life." (See also Note 21.)—Ath. Cr., 32.
* ↑ 19 (p. 60).—"All men, as to the interiors which belong to their minds, are spirits, clothed in the world with a material body, which is, in each case, subject to the control of the spirit's thought, and to the decision of its affection; for the mind, which is spirit, acts, and the body, which is matter, is acted upon. Every spirit also, after the rejection of the material body, is a man, in form similar to that which he had when he was a man in the world."—Ath. Cr., 41.
* ↑ 20 (p. 60).—"What is material sees only what is material, but what is spiritual sees what is spiritual. On this account when the material of the eye is veiled and deprived of its cc-operation with the spiritual, spirits appear in their own form, which is human; not only spirits who are in the spiritual world, but also the spirit which is in another man, while he is yet in his body." —H. H., 453. "When the body is no longer able to perform its functions in the natural world, corresponding to the thoughts and affections of its spirit, which it has from the spiritual world, then man is said to die. This takes place when the respiratory motions of the lungs and the systolic motions of the heart cease; but still man does not die, but is only separated from the corporeal part which was of use to him in the world; for man himself lives. It is said that man himself lives, because man is not man from the body, but from the spirit, since the spirit thinks in man, and thought with affection makes man.Hence it is evident, that man, when he dies, only passes from one world into another."
* ↑ 21 (p. 60).—"The worldly and corporeal man does not see God except from space, he thus regards God as the whole inmost principle in the universe, consequently as something extended. But God is not to be seen from space; for there is no space in the spiritual world, space there being only an appearance derived from that which resembles it."—Ath. Cr., 19.
* ↑ 22 (p. 60).—"It can in no case be said that heaven is without, but that it is within man; for every angel receives the heaven which is without him according to the heaven that is within him. This plainly shows how much he is deceived who believes that to go to heaven is merely to be taken up among the angels without regard to the quality of one's interior life: that is, that heaven may be given to every one from immediate mercy: when yet, unless heaven is within a person, nothing of the heaven which is without him flows in and is received."—H. H., 54. "The angelic societies in the heavens are distant from each other according to the general and specific differences of their goods. For distances in the spiritual world are from no other origin than from a difference in the states of the interior life: consequently in the heavens, from a difference in the states of love."—H. H., 41, 42.
* ↑ If one speaks of heaven as the seat of the happy, common conception likes to place it above, high up in the immeasurable universe. But one does not consider that our earth, viewed from those regions, must also appear as one of the stars of heaven, and that the inhabitants of other worlds, with as good reason, may point to us and say, "See there the dwelling-place of eternal joys, a heavenly abode, prepared to receive us some day." For a queer illusion makes the high flight which hope takes, always to be connected with the idea of rising physically, without considering that however high we may have risen, we have to descend again to land eventually in another world. According to the ideas just mentioned, heaven would be properly the spirit-world, or, perhaps, the happy part of it, and this we would have to seek neither above nor below, because such an immaterial whole must be conceived of, not according to the further or nearer distances of corporeal things, but according to the spiritual connections of its parts with each other. Its members, at least, are conscious of themselves only according to such relations.
* ↑ 23 (p. 61).—"So long as man lives in the world he knows nothing of the opening of these degrees within him, because he is then in the natural degree, which is the outmost, and from this he thinks, wills, speaks, and acts; and the spiritual degree, which is interior, communicates with the natural degree, not by continuity but by correspondences, and communication by correspondences is not sensibly felt."—D. L. W., 238.
* ↑ 24 (p. 61).—"Man whilst he lives in the world, is in conjunction with heaven, and also in consociation with the angels, although both men and angels arc ignorant of it. The cause of their ignorance is, that the thought of man is natural, and the thought of an angel spiritual, and these make one only by correspondences. Since man, by the thoughts of his love, is inaugurated into the societies either of heaven or of hell, therefore, when he comes into the spiritual world, as is the case immediately after death, his quality is knownby the mere extension of his thoughts into the societies, and thus every one is explored; he is also reformed by admissions of his thoughts into the societies of heaven, and he is condemned by immersions of his thoughts into the societies of hell."—Ath. Cr., 3. "To the above it is proper to add that every man, even while he lives in the body, is as to his spirit in society with spirits, although he docs not know it; a good man is through them in an angelic society, and an evil man in an infernal society; and he comes also into the same society after death. This has been frequently said and shown to those who after death have come among spirits. A man does not indeed appear in that society as a spirit, when he lives in the world, because he then thinks naturally; but those who think abstractly from the body, because then in the spirit, sometimes appear in their own society ; and when they appear, they are easily distinguished from the spirits who are there, for they go about meditating, are silent, and do not look at others; they are as if they did not see them, and as soon as any spirit speaks to them, they vanish."—H. H., 438.
* ↑ 25 (p. 62)—"There is a love of rule springing from a love of performing uses, which is a spiritual love, because it makes one with love towards the neighbour. Still this cannot be called a love of rule, but a love of performing uses. "There are two loves which are the head of all the rest, that is, to which all other loves are referable; the love which is the head of all heavenly loves or to which they all relate, is love to the Lord: and the love which is the head of all infernal loves, or to which they all relate, is the love of rule springing from the love of self. These two loves are diametrically opposed to each other."—D. L, W., 141.
* ↑ 26 (p. 64).—"The affections of man, from which his thoughts proceed, extend into the societies [of the spiritual world] in every direction, into more or fewer of them, according to the extent and the quality of his affection. Within these societies is man as to his spirit, attached to them as it were with extended cords circumscribing the space in which he walks. As he proceeds from one affection to another, so he proceeds from one society to another, and the part of the society in which he is, is the centre from which issue his affection and the thought originating in it to all the other societies as circumferences. These societies are thus in unbroken connection with the affections of the centre, from which he at the time thinksand speaks. He acquires for himself this sphere—which is the sphere of his affections and their thoughts—whilst he is in the world; if he is evil, in hell; but if he is good, in heaven. He is not aware that such is the case, because he is not aware that such things exist. Through these societies the man, that is, his mind, walks free, although bound, led by the Lord, nor does he take a step into which and from which he is not so led. It is moreover, continually provided that he should have no other knowledge than that he proceeds of himself in perfect liberty."—Ath. Cr., 68.
* ↑ 27 (p. 64).—"The life which is from the Lord is attractive, because it is from love: for all love possesses in itself a force of attraction, because it wills to be conjoined even unto one." —Arcana Cælestia, 8604.
* ↑ 28 (p. 65).—"When the first state after death is passed through, which is the slate of the exteriors, the man-spirit is let into the state of his interiors, or into the state of his interior will and its thought, in which ho had been in the world when left to himself to think freely and without restraint. Into this state he glides without being aware of it, in like manner as in the world, when he withdraws the thought which is nearest to the speech, or from which the speech is, towards his interior thought, and abides in that. When, therefore, the man-spirit is in this state, he is in himself and in his own very life; for to think freely from his own affection is the very life of man, and is himself. "The spirit in this state thinks from his own very will, thus from his own very affection, or from his own very love; and in this case the thought makes one with the will, and one in such a manner that it scarcely appears that the spirit thinks, but that he wills. The case is nearly similar when he speaks yet with this difference, that he speaks with some degree of fear lest the thoughts of the will should go forth naked, since by civil life in the world this habit also had become of his will."—H. H., 502, 503.
* ↑ 29 (p. 66).—"All man's will and love remains with him after death (n. 470–484). He who wills and loves evil in the world, wills and loves evil in the other life, and then he no longer suffers himself to be withdrawn from it. Hence it is that the man who is in evil is tied to hell, and likewise is actually there as lo his spirit, and after death desires nothing more than to be where his own evil is; consequently it is man after death who casts himself into hell, and not theLord. For no one comes into hell until he is in his own evil and in the falsities of evil, since it is not allowed any one there to have a divided mind, namely, to think and speak one thing and to will another. Every evil spirit must there think what is false derived from evil, and must speak from the falsities of evil; in both cases from the will, thus from his own love and its delight and pleasure; just as in the world when he thought in his spirit, that is, as he thought in himself when he thought from interior affection. The reason is that the will is the man himself, and not the thought, only so far as it partakes of the will, and the will is the very nature itself or disposition of the man; thus to be let into his will is to be let into his nature or disposition, and likewise into his life."—H. H., 547, 510.
* ↑ The interactions of man and the spirit-world, taking place by means of morality, according to the laws of spiritual influences, might be defined in such a way that thence a closer association of a good or a bad soul with good or evil spirits respectively would naturally arise, and thus the evil spirits would, from themselves, associate with that part of the spiritual republic that is in accordance with their moral quality, undergoing all the consequences which thence might follow according to the order of nature.
* ↑ 30 (p. 66).—"Every one comes to his own society in which his spirit had been in the world; for every man as to his spirit is conjoined to some society, either infernal or heavenly, a wicked man to an infernal society, a good man to a heavenly society (see n. 438). The spirit is brought to that society successively, and at length enters it. An evil spirit when he is in the state of his interiors, is turned by degrees to his own society, and at length directly to it, before this state is ended ; and when this state is ended, then the evil spirit casts himself into the hell where his like are."—H. H., 510.
* ↑ 31 (p. 67).—"The Lord never acts contrary to order, because He Himself is Order. The divine truth proceeding from the Lord is what makes order, and divine truths are the laws of order, according to which the Lord leads man. For this reason to save man by immediate mercy is contrary to divine order, and what is contrary to divine order is contrary to the Divine. Divine order is heaven with man, which order man had perverted with himself by a life contrary to the laws of order, which are divine truths. Into that order man is brought back by the Lord out of pure mercy, by means of the laws of order; and so far as he is brought back, so far he receives heaven in himself, and he who receives heaven in himself, comes into heaven. Hence again it is evident that the divine mercy of the Lord is pure mercy, but not immediate mercy."—H. H., 523.
* ↑ This may be elucidated by a certain double personality which belongs to the soul even in this life. Certain philosophers think that, without fear of the least objection, they can refer to the state of sound sleep when they want to prove the reality of obscure ideas, since nothing can be said about that state with certainty, except that, in the waking state, we do not remember any of the ideas which we might have had in sound sleep. From this fact, however, follows only this much, that the ideas were not clearly represented while we were waking up, but not that they were obscure also while we slept. I rather suppose that ideas in sleep may be clearer and broader than even the clearest in the waking state. This is to be expected of such an active being as the soul when the external senses are so completely at rest. For man, at such times, is not sensible of his body. When he wakes up his body is not associated with the ideas of his sleep, so that it cannot be a means of recalling this former state of thought to consciousness in such a way as to make it appear to belong to one and the same person. A confirmation of my idea of sound sleep is found in the activity of some who walk in their sleep, and who, in such a state, betray more intelligence than usual, although in waking up they do not remember anything. Dreams, however, i.e., the ideas which one remembers in waking up, do not belong here. For then man does not wholly sleep, he perceives to a certain degree clearly, and weaves the actions of his spirit into the impressions of the external senses. He therefore remembers them in part afterwards, but finds in them only wild and absurd chimeras, since ideas of phantasy and of external sensation are intermingled in them.
* ↑ 32 (p. 69).—"There is a connection of the natural world with the spiritual world, and this is why there is a correspondence of all things which are in the natural world with all things which arein the spiritual. According to this law of correspondence the Word was written in which all the words and senses of the words are correspondences, and thus contain a spiritual or internal sense, in which the angels are. For this reason, when man reads the Word and perceives it according to the sense of the letter, or the external sense, the angels perceive it according to the internal or spiritual sense; for all the thought of the angels is spiritual, whereas the thought of man is natural. These thoughts indeed appear diverse, but still they are one, because they correspond. . . . . The natural ideas of man thus pass into spiritual ideas with angels, without their knowing anything of the sense of the letter of the Word; as of a new heaven and a new earth, a new city of Jerusalem, its wall, the foundations of the wall, and the measures. Nevertheless the thoughts of angels make one with the thoughts of man, because they correspond. They make one almost like the words of a speaker, and the understanding of them by a hearer who docs not attend to the words, but only to the meaning. . . . . When, therefore, the angels think thus spiritually, and man thus naturally, they are conjoined almost like soul and body: the internal sense of the Word also is its soul, and the sense of the letter is its body. Such is the Word throughout: hence it is evident that it is a medium of the conjunction of heaven with man, and that its literal sense serves for a basis and foundation."—H. H., 303, 307.
* ↑ 33 (p. 69)—"In the natural world there are three degrees of ascent, and in the spiritual world there are three degrees of ascent. Man alone is a recipient of the life both of the three degrees of the natural world and of the three degrees of the spiritual world. From this it is that man can be elevated above nature, while the animal cannot. Man can think analytically and rationally of the civil and moral things that are within nature, also of the spiritual and celestial things that are above nature, yea, he can be so elevated into wisdom as even to see God."—D. L. W., 66.
* ↑ 34 (p. 69).—"An opinion has prevailed with some, that God turns away His face from man, rejects him from Himself, and casts him into hell, and that he is angry with him on account of evil; and with some it is supposed still further, that God punishes man and does evil to him. In this opinion they confirm themselves from the literal sense of the Word, where such things are said, not being aware that the spiritual sense of the Word, which explains the senseof the letter, is altogether different; and that hence the genuine doctrine of the church, which is from the spiritual sense of the Word, teaches otherwise, namely, that God never turns away His face from man and rejects him from Himself, that He does not cast any one into hell and that He is not angry with any one. Every one also whose mind is in a state of illustration when he reads the Word, perceives this to be the case, from the fact that God is good itself, love itself, and mercy itself; and that good itself cannot do evil to any one, also that love itself and mercy itself cannot reject man from itself, because it is contrary to the very essence of mercy and love, thus contrary to the Divine Itself. Wherefore they who think from an enlightened mind when they read the Word, clearly perceive that God never turns Himself away from man, that He deals with him from good, love, and mercy ; that is, that He wills his good, that He loves him, and that He is merciful to him. Hence also they see that the literal sense is spoken in accommodation to the apprehension of man, and according to his first and common ideas."—H. H., 545. "When things that are contrary to the Divine are treated of in the Word, they cannot be presented otherwise than according to the appearance … for such as man is, so does the Lord appear to him."—Arcana Cælestia, 3425, 3605.
* ↑ 35 (p. 70).—"Now, times which are proper to nature in its world are in the spiritual world pure states, which appear progressive because angels and spirits are finite; from which it may be seen that in God they are not progressive because He is Infinite, and infinite things in Him are one (as has been shown above, n. 17–22). From this it follows that the Divine in all time is apart from time."—D. L. W., 75.
* ↑ 36 (p. 70).—"Because God is a Man, the whole angelic heaven in the aggregate resembles a single man, and is divided into regions and provinces according to the members, viscera, and organs of man. Thus there are societies of heaven which constitute the province of all things of the brain, of all things of the facial organs, and of all things of the viscera of the body; and these provinces are separated from each other, just as those organs are separated in man; moreover, the angels know in what province of man they are. The whole heaven has this resemblance to man, because God is a Man. God is also heaven, because the angels, who constituteheaven, are recipients of love and wisdom from the Lord, and recipients are images."—D. L. W., 288. (See also note 32.)
* ↑ I do not mean by this the organs of external sensation, but the sensory of the soul, as it is called, i.e., that part of the brain the motion of which, according to the opinion of philosophers, is wont to accompany the various images and ideas of the soul when thinking.
* ↑ 37 (p. 72).—"Visions are often spoken of which indeed are really seen, but in phantasy. The spirits which induce such phantasies work upon persons of weak minds, and who are easily credulous; such persons are visionaries, and the things which they see are illusions conjured up from outward objects, especially in obscure light. Visions caused by enthusiastic spirits are similar to these, but refer to subjects of belief."—Arcana, 1967–68. "Genuine visions are the actual sight of things which exist in the other life, and are seen by the eyes of the spirit, not of the body."—Arcana, 1970.
* ↑ 38 (p. 72).—That angels are spirits and cannot see into the world except by some one as a medium whose interior senses are opened to perceive the things of the spiritual world.—See Arcana, 1880. "Spirits of all kinds perceive the very thoughts of man: angelic spirits the interiors of thought; angels the causes and ends which are still more interior."—Arcana, 1931. "The spirits attendant upon man perceive not the objects presented to the mans sight, or the words he hears, but the subjects of his thoughts."—Arcana, 6319.
* ↑ 39 (p. 73).—How little Kant was capable of making a true psychological estimate of Swedenborg's experience is abundantly shown in this single allusion which reveals the fact that either Kant was entirely ignorant of Swedenborg's public life, or else that he, like others since his time, shirked the difficult problem of reconciling Swedenborg's political activity as a trusted and highly valued member of the House of Nobles, and as an important contributor to the science of his time, with these charges of "foolishness" and "lack of this world's intelligence." The "Traume" was published in 1766. In 1760 Swedenborg had presented in the Diet of Sweden the following papers: Memorial in favour of returning to pure metallic currency. Appeal in favour of the Restoration of a Metallic Currency. Additional Considerations with respect to the Course of Exchange. Memorial to the Ring against the exportation of Copper. Memorial declining to become a Commissioner on Exchange. See Documents concerning Swedenborg.—By R. L. Tafel, I., 509.It is difficult to conceive that a man deserving to be characterised as "a fool on earth," and as "lacking in this world's intelligence" should have been invited by the Swedish House of Knights and Nobles to sit as a member of a private Commission on Exchange. The fact is also to be borne in mind that, at this date, Swedenborg's Arcana had not only been entirely published and circulated, but that his own authorship of the work, printed anonymously, was now publicly revealed. In the same year, 1761, in which he was writing several of his minor treatises, on the Spiritual World, and on the Sacred Scriptures, on Faith, and on the Last Judgment, he was engaged in a political controversy with Councillor Nordencranz in defence of Von Hoepken and the Swedish Government, and sent a Memorial to the Diet on The Maintenance of the Country and the Preservation of its Freedom (Documents I., 510–538). Swedenborg filled the office for many years of Assessor of the Royal College of Mines, was one of the Founders of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Stockholm, was a member of the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, and of the Society of Sciences at Upsala. Christian Wolf and foreign men of learning addressed him by letter, in order to obtain his ideas on subjects which they found it difficult to fathom. [See also Sir Samuel Sandel's Eulogy over Swedenborg in the House of Nobles, in the name of the Royal Academy of Sciences, October 7th, 1772.]