Sometimes, it seems like the spiritual and natural "worlds" could be usefully imagined as two different TV channels. While you're tuned to one, you're generally not aware of the other.

We've been testing the New Christian Chatbot, working to make it better and better. I thought it would be interesting to see how it would handle a question about the strengths and weaknesses of the 2 channels analogy. It gave a surprisingly good answer, which I've pasted here, and modified only very slightly:

The analogy of the spiritual and natural worlds being like two different TV channels is a modern way to help people grasp the distinct but simultaneous existence of these realms. From a New Christian perspective, this analogy offers both helpful strengths and significant shortcomings.

Strengths of the Analogy:

1. Simultaneity and Distinctness:

Just as two channels exist simultaneously on a television but aren’t seen together, the spiritual and natural worlds coexist but are distinct. Our spirits exist in the spiritual world while our bodies operate in the natural world, yet we are normally conscious of only one “channel” at a time (Heaven and Hell 436).

2. Switching Awareness:

Changing channels resembles the transition at death — suddenly we’re conscious in the spiritual world, just as we switch to and become aware of a different channel. This helps illustrate that the spiritual world is always present, merely hidden from our current perception.

3. Underlying Reality:

Both TV channels are broadcast continuously, whether or not we’re tuned in. Similarly, our connection to the spiritual world is continuous, even if we’re not consciously aware of it (Arcana Coelestia 5849).

Weaknesses of the Analogy:

1. Separation Implied by Channels:

TV channels are entirely separate — you watch one at a time and they don’t interact. In reality, while we’re in the natural world, the spiritual world is not only concurrent but actually flows into and sustains the natural (Divine Love and Wisdom 89). Our thoughts, affections, and very life are continuously derived from the spiritual world; the connection is intimate, not merely parallel.

2. No overlap on TV, but there is with Spiritual-Natural Interaction:

Unlike the strict division of TV channels, the spiritual world interacts continuously with the natural world. Angels and spirits influence our thoughts and affections, and the Lord’s life flows into every aspect of our being (Heaven and Hell 292-294). This interactivity is far more integrated than two TV broadcasts.

3. TV Channels are Impersonal, but the Spiritual Connection is Deeply Personal:

A TV channel is merely received passively. Our spiritual-natural connection involves real, living relationships — with the Lord, angels, and spirits, even if subconsciously. The analogy doesn’t capture this personal, dynamic, and purposeful relationship (Heaven and Hell 600).

4. Does not adequately convey the cause-effect relationship:

Everything natural has a spiritual origin; the natural world is an effect from the spiritual as cause (Heaven and Hell 89– 91). TV channels exist independently of each other, while in fact the natural world can only exist and persist due to the spiritual (Divine Love and Wisdom 55).

Summary:

The TV channel analogy helps illustrate the separate but concurrent existence and the shift in awareness at death, but it falls short in capturing the living, intimate, causative, and interactive nature of the relationship between the spiritual and natural worlds taught in New Christian doctrine.

[Shared from the New Christian Chatbot. Copyright 2025]

295. The kind of spirit that is associated with us is determined by the kind of person we are in respect to affection and love, though good spirits are assigned to us by the Lord while we ourselves summon the evil ones. The spirits with us change, however, as our own affections change. This means we have one kind with us in infancy, another kind during our childhood, another kind as we are growing up and in early adulthood, and still another kind in old age. During our earliest years, spirits who are in innocence are with us, that is, spirits who are in touch with the heaven of innocence, the inmost or third heaven. In later childhood we are in the company of spirits who are engaged in an affection for knowledge and who are in touch with the ultimate or first heaven. As we are growing up, during our early adulthood, spirits who are responsive to affections for what is true and good and therefore with intelligence are with us. They are spirits who are in touch with the second or intermediate heaven. In old age, though, spirits who are in wisdom and innocence are with us, spirits therefore who are in touch with the inmost or third heaven.

Still, this association is arranged by the Lord for people who can be reformed and regenerated. It is different for people who cannot be reformed or regenerated. Good spirits are assigned to them as well in order to restrain them from evil as much as possible, but their direct connection is with the evil spirits who are in touch with hell. This means that the spirits are of the same nature as the people they are associated with. Whether they love themselves or money or revenge or adultery, the same kind of spirits are with them and are, so to speak, taking up residence in their evil affections. To the extent that we cannot be restrained from evil by good spirits, they inflame us, and to the extent that an evil affection is in control, they cling to us and will not back off.

In this way, evil people are united to hell and good people to heaven.