1. The Interaction of the Soul and Body

There are three opinions and traditions, which are hypotheses, concerning the Interaction of the Soul and Body, or the operation of the one upon the other, and of the one together with the other: the first is called Physical Influx, the second Spiritual Influx, and the third Pre-established Harmony.

The first, which is called physical influx, arises from the appearances of the senses, and the fallacies thence derived. For it appears as if the objects of sight, which affect the eyes, flow into the thought and produce it; in like manner speech, which affects the ears, appears to flow into the mind, and to produce ideas there; and it is similar with respect to the senses of smell, taste, and touch. Since the organs of these senses first receive the impressions that flow into them from the world, and the mind appears to think, and also to will, according as these organs are affected, therefore, the ancient philosophers and Schoolmen believed that influx was derived from them into the soul, and hence adopted the hypothesis of Physical or Natural Influx.

[2] The second hypothesis, which is called spiritual, and by some occasional influx, originates in order and its laws. For the soul is a spiritual substance, and therefore purer, prior, and interior; but the body is material, and therefore grosser, posterior, and exterior; and it is according to order that the purer should flow into the grosser, the prior into the posterior, and the interior into the exterior, thus what is spiritual into what is material, and not the contrary. Consequently, it is according to order for the thinking mind to flow into the sight according to the state induced on the eyes by the objects before them, which state that mind also disposes at its pleasure; and likewise for the perceptive mind to flow into the hearing, according to the state induced upon the ears by speech.

[3] The third hypothesis, which is called pre-established harmony, arises from the appearances and fallacies of the reasoning faculty; since the mind, in the very act of operating, acts together with and at the same time as the body. Still, every operation is first successive and afterwards simultaneous, and successive operation is Influx, and simultaneous operation is Harmony; as, for instance, when the mind thinks and afterwards speaks, or when it wills and afterwards acts: hence it is a fallacy of the reasoning faculty to establish that which is simultaneous, and to exclude that which is successive.

No fourth opinion concerning the Interaction of the Soul and the Body can be framed in addition to these three; for either the soul must operate upon the body, or the body upon the soul, or both uninterruptedly at the same time.

13. XI. The reception of that influx is according to the state of love and wisdom with man.

That a man is not life, but an organ recipient of life from God, and that love in union with wisdom is life; also, that God is love itself and wisdom itself, and thus life itself, has been demonstrated above. Hence it follows that so far as a man loves wisdom, or so far as he has wisdom within love, so far he is an image of God, that is, a receptacle of life from God; and on the contrary that so far as he is in the opposite love and thence in insanity, so far he does not receive life from God but from hell, which life is called death.

[2] Love itself and wisdom itself are not life, but are the Being [esse] of life. On the other hand, the delights of love and the pleasures of wisdom, which are affections, constitute life; for by their means the Being [esse] of life is manifested. The influx of life from God carries with it those delights and pleasures; just as the influx of light and heat in springtime conveys delight and pleasure into human minds, and also into birds and beasts of every kind, and even into vegetables which then put forth their buds and grow fruitful. For the delights of love and the pleasures of wisdom expand the mind and adapt it to reception, just as joy and gladness expand the face and adapt it to the influx of the cheerfulness of the soul.

[3] The man who is affected with the love of wisdom is like the garden in Eden, in which there are two trees, the one of life, and the other of the knowledge of good and evil. The tree of life is the reception of love and wisdom from God, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is the reception of them from self. The man who receives them in the latter fashion is insane, yet still believes himself to be wise like God; but he that receives them in the former method is truly wise, and believes no one to be wise but God alone, and that a man is wise so far as he believes this, and still more so as he feels that he wills it. But more on this subject may be seen in the memorable relation inserted in the work on CONJUGIAL LOVE 132-136. ¹

[4] I will here add an arcanum confirming these facts from heaven. All the angels of heaven turn the front of the head towards the Lord as a sun, and all the angels of hell turn the back of the head to Him. The latter receive influx into the affections of their will, which in themselves are lusts, and make the understanding favour them; but the former receive influx into the affections of their understanding, and make the will favour them; these, therefore, are in wisdom, but the others in insanity. For the human understanding dwells in the cerebrum, which is behind the forehead, and the will in the cerebellum, which is in the back of the head.

[5] Who does not know that a man who is insane through falsities favours the lusts of his own evil, and confirms them by reasons drawn from the understanding; whereas a wise man sees from truths the character of the lusts of his own will, and restrains them? A wise man does this, because he turns his face to God, that is, he believes in God, and not in himself; but an insane man does the other, because he turns his face from God, that is, he believes in himself, and not in God. To believe in one's self is to believe that one loves and is wise from self, and not from God, and this is signified by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; but to believe in God is to believe that one loves and is wise from God and not from self, and this is to eat of the tree of life (Revelation 2:7).

[6] From these considerations it may be perceived, but as yet only as in the light of the moon by night, that the reception of the influx of life from God is according to the state of love and wisdom with a man. This influx may be further illustrated by the influx of light and heat into vegetables, which blossom and bear fruit according to the structure of the fibres which form them, thus according to reception. It may also be illustrated by the influx of the rays of light into precious stones, which modify them into colours according to the arrangement of the parts composing them, thus also according to reception; and likewise by optical glasses and by drops of rain, which exhibit rainbows according to the incidence, the refraction, and thus the reception of light. It is similar with human minds in respect to spiritual light, which proceeds from the Lord as a sun, and perpetually flows in, but is variously received.

Footnotes:

12. X. Spiritual things, thus clothed in a man, enable him to live as a rational and moral man, thus as a spiritually natural man.

This follows as a conclusion from the principle established above, that the soul clothes itself with a body as a man clothes himself with a garment. For the soul flows into the human mind, and through this into the body, bearing with it the life which it continually receives from the Lord, and transferring it thus indirectly into the body, where, by means of the closest union, it causes the body, as it were, to live. From this, and from a thousand testimonies of experience, it is evident that what is spiritual, united to what is material, as a living force with a dead force, causes a man to speak rationally and to act morally.

[2] It appears as if the tongue and lips speak from a certain life in themselves, and as if the arms and hands act in a like manner; but it is the thought, which in itself is spiritual, which speaks, and the will, which is likewise spiritual, which acts, and each by means of its own organs, which in themselves are material, because taken from the natural world. That this is the case appears in the light of day, provided this consideration be attended to: remove thought from speech, is not the mouth in a moment dumb? So, remove will from action, and do not the hands in a moment become still?

[3] The union of spiritual with natural things, and the consequent appearance of life in material objects, may be compared to excellent wine in a clean sponge, to the sweet must in a grape, to the delicious juice in an apple, and to the aromatic odour of cinnamon. The containing fibres of all these are material substances, which of themselves have neither taste nor smell, but derive them from the fluids in and between them; thus, if you squeeze out those juices, they become dead filaments. It is the same with the organs of the body, if life be taken away.

[4] That a man is a rational being by virtue of the union of spiritual things with natural is evident from the analytical processes of his thought; and that he is a moral being from the same cause is evident from the excellences of his conduct and the propriety of his demeanour. These he possesses by virtue of his faculty of being able to receive influx from the Lord through the angelic heaven, where there is the very abode of wisdom and love, thus of rationality and morality. Hence it may be perceived that the union in a man of what is spiritual with what is natural causes him to live as a spiritually natural man. The reason that he lives in a similar and yet dissimilar manner after death is that his soul is then clothed in a substantial body, just as in the natural world it was clothed with a material body.

[5] It is believed by many that the perceptions and thoughts of the mind, being spiritual, flow in unassisted and not by means of organized forms. Those thus dream, however, who have not seen the interiors of the head, where the perceptions and thoughts are in their beginnings, and who are ignorant that the brains are there, interwoven and composed of the grey and white matter, together with the glands, ventricles, and divisions, and all surrounded by the covering membranes; and who likewise do not know that a man thinks and wills sanely or insanely according to the sound or distorted condition of all those organs; consequently, that he is rational and moral according to the organic structure of his mind. For the rational sight of a man, which is the understanding, without forms organized for the inception of spiritual light, would be an abstract nothing, just as his natural sight would be without eyes; and so in other instances.