Table of Contents

i. [Introduction] §§1-2

I. There are two worlds: the spiritual world, inhabited by spirits and angels, and the natural world, inhabited by men. §3

II. The spiritual world first existed and continually subsists from its own sun; and the natural world from its own sun. §4

III. The sun of the spiritual world is pure love from Jehovah God, who is in the midst of it. §5

IV. From that sun proceed heat and light; the heat proceeding from it is in its essence love, and the light from it is in its essence wisdom. §6

V. Both that heat and that light flow into man: the heat into his will, where it produces the good of love; and the light into his understanding, where it produces the truth of wisdom. §7

VI. Those two, heat and light, or love and wisdom, flow conjointly from God into the soul of man; and through this into his mind, its affections and thoughts; and from these into the senses, speech, and actions of the body. §8

VII. VII. The sun of the natural world is pure fire; and the world of nature first existed and continually subsists by means of this sun. §9

VIII. Therefore everything which proceeds from this sun, regarded in itself, is dead. §10

IX. That which is spiritual clothes itself with that which is natural, as a man clothes himself with a garment. §11

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

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

XII. The understanding in a man can be raised into the light, that is, into the wisdom in which are the angels of heaven, according to the cultivation of his reason; and his will can be raised in like manner into the heat of heaven, that is, into love, according to the deeds of his life; but the love of the will is not raised, except so far as the man wills and does those things which the wisdom of the understanding teaches. §14

XIII. It is altogether otherwise with beasts. §15

XIV. There are three degrees in the spiritual world, and three degrees in the natural world, hitherto unknown, according to which all influx takes place. §16

XV. Ends are in the first degree, causes in the second, and effects in the third. §17

XVI. Hence it is evident what is the nature of spiritual influx from its origin to its effects. §§18-20

6. -IV-. From that sun proceed heat and light; the heat proceeding from it is in its essence love, and the light from it is in its essence wisdom.

It is well known that in the Word, and thence in the common language of preachers, the Divine Love is expressed by fire; as when prayer is offered that heavenly fire may fill the heart, and kindle holy desires to worship God: the reason is that fire corresponds to love, and thence signifies it. Hence it is that Jehovah God appeared before Moses as a fire in the bush, and in like manner before the children of Israel on Mount Sinai; and that it was commanded for fire to be kept perpetually upon the altar, and for the lights of the lampstand in the tabernacle to be lighted every evening: these commands were given because fire signified love.

[2] That such fire has heat proceeding from it appears plainly from the effects of love: thus a man is set on fire, grows warm, and becomes inflamed, as his love is exalted into zeal, or into the glow of anger. The heat of the blood, or the vital heat of men and of animals in general, proceeds solely from love, which constitutes their life. Neither is infernal fire anything else than love opposed to heavenly love. Thence it is, as was stated above, that the Divine Love appears to the angels in their world as the sun, fiery, like our sun; and that the angels enjoy heat according to their reception of love from Jehovah God by means of that sun.

[3] It follows from this that the light there is in its essence wisdom; for love and wisdom, like Being [esse] and Manifestation [existere], are indivisible, since love is manifested by means of wisdom and according to it. This is as it is in our world: at the time of spring heat unites itself with light, and causes germination, and at length fruit. Moreover, everyone knows that spiritual heat is love and spiritual light is wisdom; for a man grows warm as he loves, and his understanding is in light as he becomes wise.

[4] I have often seen that spiritual light. It immensely exceeds natural light in brightness and splendour, for it is as brightness and splendour in their very essence: it appears like resplendent and dazzling snow, such as the garments of the Lord appeared when He was transfigured (Mark 9:3; Luke 9:29). As light is wisdom, therefore the Lord calls Himself the light which enlightens every man (John 1:9); and says in other places that He is light itself (John 3:19; 8:12; 12:35-36, 46); that is, that He is the Divine Truth itself, which is the Word, thus Wisdom itself.

[5] It is believed that natural light [lumen], which also is rational, proceeds from the light of our world: but it proceeds from the light of the sun of the spiritual world; for the sight of the mind flows into the sight of the eye, thus also the light of the spiritual world into the light of the natural world, but not the other way round: were it otherwise, there would be physical and not spiritual influx.

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.