from Emanuel Swedenborg,, The Interaction Between the Soul and the Body Which is Believed to be Either by Physical Influx,  Or by Spiritual Influx, Or by Pre-Established Harmony  (New York:  Swedenborg Foundation, 1951)

 

The Interaction Between the Soul and the Body
Which is Believed to be Either by Physical Influx,
Or by Spiritual Influx, Or by Pre-Established Harmony

By Emanuel Swedenborg

(First published, in Latin, 1769)
 

CONTENTS

I. There are two worlds, the spiritual world, where spirits and angels are; and the natural world, where men are (1-3)

II. The spiritual world existed and 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, and the heat proceeding from it is in its essence love, and the light thence is in its essence wisdom (6)

V. Both that heat and light 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, namely, 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. The sun of the natural world is pure fire, and by means of this sun the world of nature existed and subsists (9)

VIII. Therefore every thing which proceeds from this sun, regarded in itself, is dead (10)

IX. The spiritual clothes itself with the natural, as a man clothes himself with a garment (11)

X. Spiritual things, thus clothed in a man, enable him to live a rational and moral man, thus 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 man can be elevated into the light, that is, into the wisdom in which the angels of heaven are, according to the cultivation of his reason; and in like manner his will can be elevated into the heat of heaven, that is, into love, according to the deeds of his life; but the love of the will is not elevated except so far as 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)

XVII. From these things it is evident what is the quality of spiritual influx from its origin to its effects (18)

A relation concerning the disciples of Aristotle, Descartes, and Leibnitz (19)

A relation concerning the spiritual meaning of a fisherman (20) 

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