Day: June 12, 2017

Conjunction of the Lord with Angels

  Lastchurch - The Eternal Purpose
Selection from Divine Providence ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

All conjunction in the spiritual world is effected by means of looking [*by intent regard]. When any one there is thinking about another from a desire to speak with him, the other immediately becomes present, and they see each other face to face. It is the same when any one is thinking about another from an affection of love; but this affection produces conjunction, while the other produces presence only. This is peculiar to the spiritual world, for the reason that all there are spiritual beings; in the natural world, in which all are material beings, it is otherwise.

With men in the natural world the same takes place in the affections and thoughts of their spirit; but inasmuch as there are spaces in the natural world, while in the spiritual world the spaces are merely appearances, that which takes place in the thought of every one’s spirit, in the spiritual world takes place actually.

This has been said to make known how the conjunction of the Lord with angels is effected, and how the apparent reciprocal conjunction of angels with the Lord is effected. For all angels turn their faces to the Lord, and the Lord’s look is upon the forehead, because the forehead corresponds to love and its affections, while angels behold the Lord with the eyes, because the eyes correspond to wisdom and its perceptions. Nevertheless angels do not, from themselves, turn their faces to the Lord, but the Lord turns them to Himself; and He turns them by influx into their life’s love, and through that love enters into the perceptions and thoughts; and thus He turns them about.

Such a circle of love to thoughts and from thoughts to love from love, is in all things of the human mind. This circle may be called the circle of life. About this something may be seen in the work on The Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom, as the following:

Angels constantly turn their faces to the Lord as a sun. All the interior things of the angels, both of mind and of body, are likewise turned to the Lord as a sun. Every spirit, of whatever quality, turns himself likewise to his ruling love. Love conjoins itself to wisdom, and causes wisdom to be reciprocally conjoined with it. Angels are in the Lord, and the Lord is in them; and because angels are recipients the Lord alone is heaven.

The Lord’s heaven in the natural world is called the church; and an angel of that heaven is a man of the church who is conjoined with the Lord, and who becomes an angel of the spiritual heaven after he leaves this world. From this it is clear that what has been said of the angelic heaven applies equally to the human heaven that is called the church. That reciprocal conjunction with the Lord which makes heaven in man is revealed by the Lord in these words:-

Abide in Me and I in you. He that abideth in Me and I in him, the same beareth much fruit; for apart from Me ye can do nothing (John 15:4, 5, 7).

(Divine Providence 29, 30)
(*emphasis by editor)
June 9, 2017
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Appearance Of The Lord

Appearance Of The Lord
A sermon by Rev. Grant R. Schnarr

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The Lord had appeared before His disciples, most of them rejoiced that
they had seen Him again. But He was alive. All the times that He had
spoken of, rising on the third day, had come true. They remembered,
they believed Him.
And yet there was Thomas who was a very earthly kind of person,
known as “Doubting Thomas,” who said, “I won’t believe in the Lord
unless I can put my finger in the holes in His hands and put my hand in
His side.” What happens? Eight days later the Lord appears before
Thomas and says, “OK, Thomas. Reach your finger in my hands. Put
your hand in my side. Handle me and see that it is I.” Thomas didn’t
need to do that any more.

He said to Him, “My Lord, my God.”
And the Lord said to Thomas, “You have seen. That’s why you have
believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed
in Him.”

Why was it that the Lord appeared to His disciples after His crucifixion?
It might have been to show that He was alive, that He had conquered
death. That’s a great part of Christianity, that He is the resurrection and
the life. But even more than this, He appeared to His disciples so that
they would worship Him in His risen form, that they wouldn’t think back
on Him historically, think about His life in the world, but to see that, yes,
He is very much alive now. He has risen, He’s alive, He’s with them still.
“Lo, I am with you always even to the end of the age,” He said to them.
The Lord came on earth to make Himself visible to the human race, to
make Himself accessible to people so that they could know Him, so that
they could understand Him, so that they could, if they chose, be one
with their Creator through that understanding.

Before the Lord had come, what kind of God did they worship at that time?
The Writings for the New Church say that they worshipped an invisible God,
incomprehensible. After all, if God is love itself, life itself, reality itself, that’s pretty
incomprehensible for us finite beings. How can the finite comprehend the infinite?
It’s impossible. Beyond that, though, they had a perception of the Lord within.
They could think of His humanity, so to speak-His love and wisdom withinperceive
what it was. But there was no external form, no concrete image, to put
that into. Again, it was an invisible God, sort of perceiving who God was, but not
really being able to grasp Him in their imagination.

And then through the process of time, as people turned away from the
Lord, as the leaders of the church at that time, began to make up teachings,
began to lead the people to themselves rather than from God, that picture of the
Lord became very clouded. And so we can look at the Old Testament, and we
see their concept of God – an angry God, a punishing God, a God who can
repent, a God who wants vengeance. This is the way they saw Him because of
their infantile state, because of the dark state that they were in.
Where was the relationship with God and man? If you think of God as
being love itself and desiring nothing more than to be one with that which He had
created, that wasn’t taking place and the end of creation was in danger, so the
Lord came to her (?) “Jehovah bowed the heavens and came down,” the Psalms
say. He presented Himself to mankind so that could understand Him, so that they
could see Him, so that they could see the infinite God in human form as Jesus.
He could set up a new church that had the opportunity to worship Him in truth
and sincerity, had an opportunity to be joined with their Creator like never before.
So the Writings for the New Church say the following, “By means of the
Human, Jehovah God sent Himself into the world and made Himself seen before
the eyes of men, and thus accessible. The Lord made the natural man in Himself
Divine in order that He might be the first and the last, that He might thus enter
with men even into their natural. He was then able to conjoin Himself to man in
His natural, yea, in His sensual. And at the same time to His spirit or mind in His
rational, and thus to enlighten man’s natural light with heavenly light.

It’s not as if the Lord said goodbye, to His disciples and zoomed off a
million miles away, or into some other realm of existence. No, He was still right
there. He’s right here today. He hasn’t gone anywhere. In our natural lives we
cannot see Him, but God exists around us, within us, in a way that He didn’t
before His Advent. He came into the natural, He made that natural within Him
Divine so that He could be with us, not only from within, from our perceptions, but
also without, so that now we can grasp God in a form and understand Him. So
now we can have a personal relationship with our Maker.

So how do we have that personal relationship with the Lord? We have to
recognize His Humanity, not like many Christian churches have done today,
solely seeing His Humanity and sort of separating it from His Divinity and the
Divine Father appear in Jesus, my friend and buddy, my pal. If we do that, if we
separate it out, then we take away that Divinity of the Lord. And when we take
that away we take away some of the respect He had, the admiration, the love,
the responsibility that we have to the Lord. We can’t see Him as merely being
human, we’ve got to see Him as Divine, life itself, in the Human form.
The Writings say that we should look at God from essence to person, think
of His essence first, that God is life itself, that God is love itself, the very reality of
these two concepts of God. His essence though, shows itself in the human form
of Jesus Christ. And we can take all these unknowable things and put them down
in a form that can be grasped.

And we can see the Lord with His arms open, waiting to take us in. And
He will take us in and hold us as long as we want Him to, in our own freedom.
That’s how we should see the Lord.
So the Lord said, “He that has seen Me has seen the Father.” He that has
seen that Humanity has seen the Divine within. “I am the Way, the Truth and the
Life. No one comes to the Father, but by Me.” No one comes to that Divinity but
through the Human of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Divine Human.
You know, many of us who are receivers, wandered away from traditional
Christianity because of that very point, that it made Christ too human, that they’ve
made God more of a fable, made God a comic strip character, rather than
something real and living.

But we can go too far. We can make God a complete abstract concept in
our life. God is life itself. God is love itself. God is impersonal. God is a concept.
But what good does that do us in our relationship with Him to do that? We can’t
worship an It. We can’t be conjoined with an It. We can’t love life itself, the esse,
the first principle. Reality, what does it mean? We can’t talk to it. We can’t love it.
We can’t be one with it? Why should we obey what it says? What good is it going
to do us? That’s the whole reason the Lord came, so that we could see Him in
that Human form, see that Divinity, so that we could be one with Him and have a
personal relationship with Him, see that He is a very real God, very real person.
So, when He appeared before Thomas, that’s why Thomas said, “My Lord and
my God,” to that Divine Human.

One of the ways we form a relationship with the Lord is through turning to
His own Word. This book is unlike any other book that has ever been written. Not
only does it teach us about God, but it is a living book. If we read the New
Testament alone, think of the picture that we get there, seeing God in human
form. What a picture that is! What a beautiful picture of who God is, how He
presents Himself.
Look at the New Testament. Look at the Lord’s life and see how He
presents Himself to us, not with preconceived notions, but take a good, honest
look. We see the Lord joking around with His disciples. When He was talking to
Peter He said, “Peter, from now on your name will be the Rock.” He was saying.
Petra. “From now on I’m going to called you Petra.” That’s like saying, “Rick, from
now on I’m going to call you Rock.” Or saying, “Stanley, from now on you’re
Stonely.” It was a pun. It was comical. And yet it says something deeper.
How about when He appeared, when He was whipped in front of the
whole Sanhedrin who were judging Him. And Caiphus says, “Are you the Christ,
the Son of the Living God?”
He said basically, “You said it. It is as you say,” right back to them.
When Pilate said to Him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”
“You said it.”

How many times have we heard in pulpits in different churches, “Are you
the king of the Jews?” “It is as you say. And they led Him away,” in a monotone
voice.
The Lord was human. “You said it. Yes, I am.”
We see Him laughing, the Scribes and the Pharisees, “You whited
sepulchers.” “You who strain at a gnat and yet swallow a camel.”
Human.
When He’s in the temple, clearing out the temple. “My house should be a
house of prayer and you have made it a den of thieves.”
And then we see another side of Him. As He’s trying to raise Lazarus from
the dead, and all these people don’t believe it. He’s been with them for three
years and no one really understood. There He is. He’s weeping. He’s weeping
because of their disbelief.

When He was in the Garden of Gethsemene, that Human was going
through such anguish, knowing what would happen, that it was said that He
sweated as if drops of blood.
Remember when He was even riding into Jerusalem, and all the people
were cheering, Luke tells us the Lord was weeping at that time. Why was He
weeping? Because God had come to the light into the darkness to save His
creation, and the darkness comprehended Him not. As John said, “He came to
His own and His own received Him not.”

A human God, someone we can relate to. He shows us all the different
aspects of humanity on purpose, so that we won’t see Him as a God afar off, so
that we won’t see Him as an abstract concept, but we can see Him as someone
who has gone through many of the things that we go through, and even worse.
We can relate to Him, that we can be with Him, that He understands us, that He’s
here and now. He’s not somewhere else.
Keep that in mind. The Lord is very real. If you picture the Lord as an old
man with a beard, holding a scepter, way off there somewhere, you’re missing
out on a lot. The Lord is very real. He’s here and now.
He’s there, ready to have a relationship with us, if we are willing to open
our minds and hearts to him.

We can see Him in the literal meaning of the New Testament so easily.
The Writings also say that there are deeper meanings to the Word, that the
whole Old Testament, for example, has a continuous internal sense, a
continuous inner symbolic meaning which deals with many different aspects of
our lives, which deals with the Lord. So that story of the Israelites coming out of
Egypt through the wilderness into the promised land, is also a story of the Lord’s
life on earth, how He came out of the slavery of that human hereditary evil and
worked toward the promised land, His glorification, making Himself Divine. And
the Writings lay out a lot of this for us in the Arcana Caelestia, 12 volumes. The
Psalms, for example, are not just prayers of David, but on a deeper level, a
symbolic level, are prayers of the Lord to the Father – that human part of Him –
praying to the Divine within, becoming one with it.

And when we read the Word in that sense, study it, and look for the
symbolism, the deeper meaning, all of a sudden the Word becomes alive. It’s a
living book. The Lord is there speaking to us. So, John says, “In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” That’s how
the Lord shows Himself to us, can talk to us in His Word. It’s alive. The Writings
say that the Word is the soul medium of conjunction between the Lord and man,
the sole medium of communion between the heavens and the human race, that
when we read the Word with simple minds and simple hearts that the angels of
heaven affect us. Whereas we understand the literal sense, they understand the
deeper internal sense. And when we read the Word we are affected by it. The
Lord can be with us in a special way to the degree that we can read the Word
with the willingness to be led, to understand.

Some people read the Word as if it’s a textbook and they are going to
have a test on it. They look for the facts. If you do that all you’re going to get are
the facts. If you look at the Word with pessimism as you read, all you are going to
get is pessimism. If you look at the Word with preconceived dogmatic notions
about what you’re looking for in certain doctrines, then all you are going to see
are certain doctrines. The Writings say, “Those who approach the Word with
preconceived doctrines, it’s as if they only read one page and flip it over, they
miss this page, they read the next one, they flip that over. They’re only reading
half the Word.” The approach is like that.

To approach the Word with open minds, open hearts, those who approach
the Word with a willingness to be led, simply to say, “Help me.” To read it, even if
you were reading something about David going off and doing this or that, or Saul,
or Solomon, you are going to get something from it. Sometimes you will be
amazed at the answers you get in the Word. When you ask a specific question
about your life, “How am I doing? How can I do better?” the Lord will answer you
in an incredible way, an astounding way. You’ll see this is a living truth. This is
alive. At other times it’s much more subtle. It was pointed out once that a lot of
the time it’s just a feeling you walk away with, a feeling that we’ve been
somewhere, a feeling that we’ve been with someone, that they are still with us in
a special way. And that someone is the Lord.
The Word is very important to read. But not only to read the Word, but to
do something with that.
There is also prayer, the whole realm of prayer, come to know our God, to
understand Him. The Lord’s prayer is a very special prayer. After all, the Lord
gave us that prayer. He says, “When you pray, say this..” He gave us that prayer.
The Writings of the New Church say two things about the Lord’s prayer. One, that
that prayer in its deeper, inmost sense, deals with all the different facets of our
relationship with God and man, and when we say that prayer we are saying a
general prayer to help us out in all fields. And if we can see that deeper, inner
sense we’d understand that it has all kinds of things to do with our life.

But beyond that, we’re told that when we say the Lord’s prayer, because
of the way it’s been written, that we can communicate, can have communion
with, all of the heavens, all the different societies of the heavens. So that prayer
has a special power, a power for good, an effect on our own lives and hearts.
There’s more than just reciting prayers. It’s funny, it’s amazing, many
churches haven’t picked up on this, especially some of our larger churches. The
Lord said, “Do not use vain repetition as the heathen do, for they think that they
will be heard for their many words. Therefore, do not be like them.” When we
pray, sometimes all we have to do is talk to the Lord. The Writings define prayer
as “speaking with the Lord.” It’s very simple. Talking to Him, “How am I doing
today? Help me out in this one. Help me to get through this. Thank you.” There’s
many things we can do, just to talk to Him. At first when we do that, when we are
not used to it, it may seem a little strange, talking to the Lord. You remember that
Paul Newman movie, Cool Hand Luke, after he had escaped for the third or
fourth time, in that church he was looking up and talking to God, he looked up
seeing if someone was listening to him. We’ll feel that way a little bit when we
first start. But what happens is, after a while when we do this, we begin to feel
the Lord’s presence in a very real way. And we begin to feel it’s more than what
we bargained for. It’s not as if we do this and ended up all of a sudden feel it,
there’s some kind of psychological reason for it. No. The Lord comes into our
presence, His presence comes into us even more than it would have at that time,
and we can feel Him and understand Him. We will be astounded.

Even more than this probably, the most important thing, we want to have a
relationship with the Lord. If we want to bring Him into our hearts and tell Him,
we’ve got to put ourselves in the order of His creation.
We’ve got to shun that evil and selfishness that we all know we have
within, that block out the Lord’s life, that block out His love. That’s why
He’s given us His teachings, so that we can use them to get our act together, to
put ourselves back in that order, to put ourselves on the right path, that He can
flow into us with His wisdom, He can come into us with His love. And with that
love comes joy and happiness. It could be sometimes, that we like God to be way
up there in an abstract concept because when we want to do what we want, He’s
not there to make us feel bad or make us feel guilty.

Think about that. How uncomfortable would you feel if you are doing
something that really was raunchy, and had that real awareness that the
Lord is right there with you, it would be a bad feeling. Sometimes we leave Him
way off in the distance. We keep Him close enough so that when we feel guilty
we have somebody to turn to, but for the most part in our lives, we keep Him way
off there. If we are going to do that, and we have a perfect right to do that, the
Lord lets us be free to do that, but if we do, let’s be honest with ourselves. We
are creating a hell in ourselves, and that after death that’s exactly where we will
go.

The Lord is not a God afar off. He is here with us. He has His arms open
to us ready to receive us into Himself. When we hold the key, we can open that
door and let Him into us. We do that by learning of Him in His Word which He
has given us, by turning to Him for help, by being aware of His existence, and by
following His teachings. When we do that, we open our eyes to Him. We can see
Him. More than that, He will be with us. And even more than those disciples, we
will know the Lord, who He is even more than Thomas, and we will be able to say
at this time with full hearts as we comprehend our God, “My Lord and my God.”
Amen.

https://newchurch.org/

DAILY INSPIRATION

“True repentance means not only examining what one does in one’s life, but also what one intends in one’s will to do.”

True Christian Religion 532

Salvation

New Christian Bible StudyNew Christian Bible Study

Spiritual Topics

Salvation

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For anyone who believes in heaven, one question stands above all the others: How can I get there? How can I be saved?

Christianity has offered a variety of answers over the millennia, from early sects that simply followed the example of Jesus to monasticism to the elaborate rites and rituals of medieval catholicism to crusading warfare to the Protestants’ hope in the mercy and blood of Jesus.

For the most part, those concepts have regarded heaven as a paradise, where anyone would be happy no matter what he or she did to get there, and no matter what kind of person he or she is. This actually does not make a lot of sense if you think about it. If the cruel and power-hungry could attain heaven alongside the kind and caring, then surely they would make heaven a hell through their cruelty and desire to rule. And if the cruel and power-hungry were rendered non-cruel and non-power-hungry, would they still be themselves anymore?

Swedenborg’s idea of heaven – and hell – is different. In his theology both are simply spiritual states where we live with others who love the same things we do. If those loves are good and kind it will be a wonderful life of sharing and joy; if those loves are cruel and selfish we will end up in endless contention with others who are cruel and selfish.

Salvation, then, is a matter of letting the Lord change our hearts from the naturally selfish state to a heavenly, loving state. We do this by learning what is right and good, using our minds to lead us in doing those things, and asking the Lord to change our hearts. If we continue and stick to it. He will little by little do that, so that eventually we can reach a state where we love what is good and know what is true.

So is that salvation by faith? Salvation by works? In a way both, and neither. Works are involved, because we have to make ourselves do what we know is good and loving. Faith is involved because we have to invite the Lord into our hearts to make a true change. But neither can get us there without the other, and the ultimate judgment is on what we love, not what we’ve done or what we believe.

http://newchristianbiblestudy.org/

(References: Divine Providence 338, 339; Divine Providence 258 [3]; True Christian Religion 150, 726)

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13 General Influx

Swedenborg Study.comOnline works based on the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg

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13 General Influx

 

“He sendeth rain upon the just and the unjust.” Matthew 5: 45

Life Inflows

“Life inflows.” This statement is a postulate which no one can refute. For life, wherever it manifests itself, cannot be proved to be inherent in any natural form or to be identical with it. The death of the body testifies to the truth that life is a gift, an “influx” from a realm beyond our sight. Life is a gift—a loan. Revelation assures us that for men it is a permanent loan which shall not be taken away from us. And the further truth is revealed that the life which unfolds its strange qualities in the tiny organisms, from lichens to men, which flourish so miraculously on the surface of the planets, is derived from the Lord God who is infinitely Man—infinite Love and infinite Wisdom.

The Lord governs the heavens and the galaxies of worlds by the modes of His influx—by laws according to which He gives of His life to all finite recipients, just so far as there is response and reciprocation. The Lord alone is Life. What appears as life with man is only reception—variable and limited states of reception. To receive is the esse of man’s life,313 His body is not his own, but is built for him out of the matters of the earth and the atmospheres. His soul is beyond his control and is eternally under the Lord’s care, being formed from higher spiritual substances as the Lord’s own abode with him.314 His mind is formed from lower spiritual substances, and into it are focussed knowledges and thoughts and spheres of affection from neighboring minds and spirits; for no man either wills or thinks from himself.

Man himself is but a state of reception, a state of response to the rich gifts of life which press in from within and from without—”good measure, pressed down and shaken together and running over.” Yet he is the focus, the ultimate upon which all the influxes of life are centered as upon their final object in and through which all the ends of creation are to be fulfilled.315 The faculty of reception is given to man by the Lord’s life acting both immediately and through diverse instrumentalities. The Lord inflows into the interiors of man, or into his rational thought and will, both immediately from Himself and mediately through heaven or the spiritual world. He also inflows into the exteriors of man’s natural, both immediately, and mediately through the spiritual world.316

The Lord’s immediate influx is not only into the will and thought of man “but also at the same time into many things which befall him”—thus ruling apparent accidents, chance and fortune; which (as was shown in a preceding chapter) are called “Providence in the ultimate of order, in which all things are relatively inconstant,” or wherein no order or necessary sequence can be discerned, but which are according to Divine foresight.317

The Lord’s mediate influx, or His mediate government of man’s mind and body is effected through the spiritual world— through the heavens and the hells. We have already stressed the teaching that all man’s states draw their causes from the spirits and angels who attend him. We are creatures of changing moods. But we are usually able, on reflection, to account for the states into which we have imperceptibly drifted, by tracing them to natural causes. To excuse our frailties or our impatience, we complain that we are tired, are unjustly treated, are bored or homesick, etc. We tend to blame our rebellious moods, our moral lapses, or our indulgence in self-pity upon deficient health or other natural circumstances.

Yet common experience tells us that the same apparent natural causes do not always produce the same moods but serve merely as an occasion favorable to their appearance. The Writings convert this vague perception into a clear doctrine which teaches that there would be no conscious life, no realized affections or distinct thought with man, except for the influx of spirits and angels; and that the real meanings which we attach to our sensations and experiences in this world are derived from the moods which spirits instil into us—moods of delight or aversion.

If we are to pursue the subject further, however, we must learn to distinguish between “particular influx” and “general influx”—between two types of influx, both mediated by the spiritual world, but affecting men in different ways.318

General Influx and Particular Influx

“There flows from the Lord through the spiritual world into the subjects of the natural world a general influx and also a particular influx—a general influx into those things which are in order, a particular influx into those which are not in order.”318 Animals are all born into the order of their creation and are ruled by a general influx, without the mediation of any spirits and angels; which is of course obvious, since animals existed before mankind. The first men were also created into the order of their lives. And before the Fall, men, like the animals, were no doubt born into similar instinctive grasp of the knowledge needed for their natural life; but they were also born with a faculty to develop a perception of spiritual wisdom which beasts cannot have. The primitive race would then have been governed, even as to their mind, by no other than a “general influx.”319

But differently from the beasts, man could change the original order of his life—although only with reference to his mental life. With the fall into sin, as hereditary evils began to multiply among men, man’s natural mind became utterly divorced from heaven. The sensual degree of that mind became by heredity so infected and perverted that the Writings declare that every tender babe now born is born in “a state of damnation!”320 For an infant feels anything as good if it favors self. This shocking truth implies first of all that man’s mind cannot any longer be governed by a general influx from heaven. The only general influx that it could receive would be a general influx from hell which would flood his unresisting understanding with fantasies of self-love. All his mental instincts would then be perverse beyond any possibility of change, and he would live like a ravening beast without any restraints of reason.321

It was therefore provided by the Lord that man’s will should be separated from his understanding so that the rational part of his mind could be built up in a certain independence of the native will. Although he might long for evil, he could then still learn about truth and good. He could see truths and reflect upon them, so that a new world could be created within him in which he becomes more or less detached from that which was natural and spontaneous to him from birth. He could then be governed in a new way under the Lord’s auspices—by “particular influx” or by limited influences through a succession of angels and spirits so counterpoised that man might be held in a freedom of choice. Two good spirits and two evil spirits thus become his attendants.

Each spirit could act upon him only by affections aroused one by one and presented as intentions and perceptions in his understanding. Good spirits could approach him through the “remains” of good and truth implanted since infancy; and evil spirits would excite the hidden states of his evil loves.

Under the regime of particular influx man is born into ignorance, not as a prey to his instincts. His responsibility is confined to the states which would be gradually aroused through knowledge and experience. His native will is mere self-love, with animal appetites capable of incredible ferocity. But man does not normally realize the character of these dormant loves, for they are mercifully covered over with apparent goods. The hereditary will is covered over, closed and reserved, lest it should overwhelm the mind with irresistible waves of passion. This is the salvation provided for the “spiritual” race on our earth, and is signified by Noah’s retreat into the ark, the lowest mansion of which was shut up.322

Through particular influx man becomes aware of his evil potentialities by their gradual admission into consciousness, as intentions; which is permitted only so far as the understanding is equipped to analyze, to recognize, and to challenge them. Man has no power to change the general state of his natural mind by any sudden exertion of free choice. But he has the power to act from his understanding and judge as to particular states when they come forth one by one. He cannot shun all his evil tendencies, but he can resist them one by one as they appear while he is in free and rational states. By placing man under the rule of particular influx, the Lord as it were permits man to break the bundle of sticks one by one.

By placing man’s disordered mind under particular influx, the Lord did not abrogate the general influx of heaven wherever such influx could be received. General influx still rules all things which are in order, and thus governs those things in body and soul which man does not control. Man has no command over his inmost soul nor over the secret operations within his body. Particular spirits attend man and rest upon his ideas and stir his various emotions, thus affecting his thought and will. But no individual spirits are appointed over that in man’s life over which he has no real direction. He is free to think, to decide what to do, and to initiate an action. But the will flows into act spontaneously, and thought flows into speech by natural processes according to an order which man does not understand because it occurs by general influx in an instinctive manner. It is done by order itself, and neither man or spirit has any part in it.323 After spending many laborious years trying to understand the subject, Swedenborg concluded that “it is better simply to know” that the will inflows and moves the body than to attempt to trace the operations in their intricate fluxions through the fibres from brain to muscles.324 The order itself is as it were implanted in nerves and muscles. Other bodily functions, like the growth of the embryo during gestation, are performed without man’s real assistance. Similarly, one tastes food and swallows it; but this being done, the digestive canal acts without the help of man in converting the food into blood.

On reflection we may see that man’s own part in life is very small, and it is sometimes said that “Nature” carries out the processes of growth, digestion, etc., with an instinctive intelligence immeasurably wiser than man’s own. But nature has no intelligence. It is the Creator Himself who inflows with life immediately into the human soul—the inmost of the spirit—and operates these miracles. The soul, which is above the ken or control of both angels and men, is created in the image and likeness of God and bears within it the cause, pattern and conatus by which the body is formed and maintained.325

The body, as to its essential form, is therefore also under the Creator’s direct rule, so that man cannot by any mental resolve make a single hair white or black. For it is under a general influx, not needing the mediation of any particular spirit.326

Yet the medium through which the human body is created and maintained by general influx is “the Grand Man, which corresponds in all its minute details to human bodies.”327 “Bodily things are exempt from the particular influx of spirits and angels,” lest men should suffer bodily obsessions.328 But the ordinate flow of the will and the thought into bodily acts is “by means of a general influx according to the correspondences of the Grand Man.”329 The human form of the body is indeed modified by parental and environmental factors, through angels, spirits and men. But this modification is comparatively slight and superficial. For “what is effected through mediate influx … is relatively very little.”330 The image of the whole of the Grand Man dominates every society of heaven, and the more general societies correspond to the organs and viscera of the body, and so regard each other mutually and make a one.331

It is a new truth revealed in the Writings that there is a general influx from each general society of heaven into the corresponding part of the human body.332 Such an influx is necessary to maintain the uses of these organs. Without it, not the smallest part of the body could have any life. We read that “spirits are appointed to every member of speech and every member of action; but these spirits do not know it.”

In fact, they are apparently not appointed as individual spirits, but as societies acting by general influx.333

From all these things the universal law may be seen that from the Lord through the spiritual world there flows a general influx into those things which are of order, and a particular influx into what is not in spontaneous order, and that man’s mind, being now in a contrary order, could not subsist without spirits adjoined to him who agree with his life.334 With the people of the most ancient church the affections, such as joy, fear, reverence or shame, were involuntarily expressed in their faces “by a general natural influx.”335 Animals, whether mild or ferocious, are governed by general influx. Indeed, nature, in whole and in part, is so governed.

But general influx has an even wider range. It may be compared with the pressure of the atmosphere which holds all things in their order. The sphere of Divine good, like an atmosphere, infills the universal heaven and encompasses, guards and preserves it. Inmostly it acts even upon the hells, although it is not openly received there and can rule only as Divine truth.336 Unless order was so imposed both in heaven and in hell, the end of creation could never be fulfilled, for even particular influx through spirits would not be possible. No freedom can exist except on the basis of order; without order there can be no clear distinctions, and thus no choice.337

Swedenborg sensed this general influx as a stream of general affections—an invisible stream of providential guidance which overrules all the conflicting endeavors of spirits and men and unifies them into forms of uses through laws of spiritual necessities. It is like an atmospheric current which holds everything in freedom, yet always within bounds. He likens the sweep of this river of heaven to the general motions of the heart and the lungs which dominate the body yet leave its parts in freedom even to the point of contrariety. He saw in it a picture of the Divine mercy.338

Spheres of Universal Loves

All life would perish unless there proceeded from the Lord certain universal spheres which fill each world, the spiritual and the natural, and sustain it.339 One of these Divine spheres looks to the preservation of the universe by means of the procreation of successive generations, and with men this makes one with the sphere of conjugial love. By a general influx it operates the miracle of propagation in all forms of life—from the simplest fern to the most perfect tree and from the unicellular protozoa to the highest mammalian structure. This sphere causes the cells to multiply and the sexes to unite from a spontaneous impulse.

With men, this sphere descends also through the celestial heaven as a free gift of conjugial love which with its ineffable delight comes to lovers everywhere as a temporary loan, by a general influx. But the feeling of selfless surrender which is instilled by this sphere cannot long remain pure, but vanishes like the manna in the desert, leaving life bleak and meaningless unless the minds of the partners are opened, by their own choice and effort, to the particular influx of celestial angels. For these inspire a resistance to evils as sins against God, and a love of the truth which alone can knit the lives of lovers more and more closely into a union of common uses— uses which make marriage the nursery of the human race and the seminary of heaven.

The second universal influx is the Divine sphere which looks to the preservation of what has been procreated. Even in the ultimates of nature we see a distant reflection of this influx in that gems are found in matrices and seeds in husks. Animals have protective coloration and by instinct build nests for their young, which they feed and defend from an inborn love called “storge.” Such a natural love of offspring is implanted in all creation. It gives the birds and beasts a herding instinct that impels an animal to give up its life for the preservation of its kind; in an unwitting resemblance to mutual love.340 Ferocious beasts and evil parents have this love as part of their love of self. How otherwise could life in its many forms be propagated generation after generation ?

A reason why the young of every species are so protected is that a sphere of innocence inflows into the helpless progeny and thence affects parents. With men, the love of procreating and the love of infants can become spiritual loves when the final end regarded is to enrich heaven with as many angels as there are descendants and when the offspring are loved for their moral virtues and their spiritual intelligence.341 Natural loves are provided as free gifts by the Lord’s general influx, to sustain His creation. But spiritual loves can be received only through the man’s own selection of associate spirits, or by particular influx.

Social Order

General influx is described in the Arcana as “a continuous endeavor from the Lord through the whole heaven into everything pertaining to the life of man.”342 It presses continually for the maintenance of external order and connection and health, so far as man’s freedom will allow it. Evil spirits also are brought into order, within “generals” which govern their particular forms of spiritual rebellion.343 Indeed, there are no hells which are not opposites or perversions of some general good of heaven. And upon these opposites a certain general form of order is externally superimposed, by general influx.

How the general influx of heaven as a whole—all its provinces and societies—maintains order, is seen illustrated in human society. For in a city or commonwealth “every use derives its life from the general” or from the community. Each use depends on the common good (Char., chap. vi). And the uses spring from the natural loves which are implanted in all men. All rewards of use, all wealth, all knowledge, conies to each man from the community, which is therefore likened to a lake from which each man derives his necessities, utilities, and delights; even as the organs of the body derive their nourishment from the common bloodstream. Because of a general influx into the “common good” there can be order in society in spite of the prevalence of evil and selfishness among individuals. There is a general influx of the whole into all the parts, holding them in form. The social instinct comes from a general influx, like the herding instinct with animals. Particular influx through specific spirits who are ever changing, makes for individuality and freedom for both the evil and the good. But general influx protects the state as a whole and causes the common good to be regarded. It causes a nation to unify in face of common dangers, to harbor common ideals and common delusions and to be moved by prejudices and passions peculiar to itself.

General influx maintains cooperative order. But it does not reform the spirit of man. Only by the repentance and regeneration of its citizens can the spiritual state of a nation be changed for the better. Order and legislation can never regenerate society. They merely facilitate the mutual uses of the people. And by this they furnish a neutral plane in which both good and evil men seek their individual ends. It is a common plane for many individual states and particular attitudes, a plane of automatic procedures which cannot be essentially changed or upset by any single person. Yet there might arise a state of disorder, a break-down of civic responsibility and national consciousness on the part of individuals, a state in which the means for the proper performance of uses are lacking and the sphere of general influx can no longer operate. Such a condition brings disease and sometimes death to the commonwealth. This principle has a tremendously important bearing on national and social issues. Totalitarian government while man is evil means a surrender of that particular influx which gives freedom to repent.

Habit and General Influx

It is the Lord who rules our spirit-associations in correspondence with our states and needs. Yet man can select the spirits who rule him. Doctrine states that there is no physical influx—no influx from men to spirits or from this world into the spiritual world. We can therefore not alter the character of the spirits who are with us. They do indeed adopt our natural memory and along with it our beliefs and ideas; and they are held in these ideas as long as they are with us. But we cannot transfer to them the changes of heart which we may experience. If we from free choice shun an evil, the spirits who induced that evil are simply compelled to retire, and are separated.

Students of the Spiritual Diary have marked with surprise that the world of spirits seemed to show no effect of the strong sphere of spiritual interest and exaltation which is apparently present among Christians on the occasions of festival seasons such as Christmas and Easter. To judge from Swedenborg’s entries on such days, the spiritual world was utterly unaffected by the holiday moods of men. Yet we seem to feel a stronger sphere from the spiritual world on such days; as we also do at church gatherings and at the death of a friend. Such is the relation of the two worlds that what we do on earth—our direction and concentration of thought and affection—does no more than invite an influx from such spirits and angels as are already in the loves and thoughts which we on earth wish to entertain. They enjoy the internal sense of the things which we then read about in the Word, for in such ultimates they find their delight. And we may be allowed to hope that the spirits of evil do at least retreat somewhat when the spirit of Christmas or Easter seizes hold of men.

What men do—their habits and their reflections—invites the corresponding types of spirits. This is indeed how habits are formed. For usually a habit is of the mind before it is of the body. Our states of mind mould our habits; which is the same thing as to say that we make our own habits quite freely, by repeating the same decision again and again, thus acting in the same way under similar circumstances. We thus become less and less conscious of our habit. It becomes “second nature,” and thus almost automatic. We add it to our life, and the control of it is as it were elevated into our subconscious memory. We give up controlling the habit. It controls us.344

Viewed from the spiritual world, the establishment of a certain habit actually means that we have placed ourselves under the rule of a special kind of spirits who delight in that routine. We no longer bother to spend any thought upon it. The question whether it is right or wrong no longer comes up. This is for us a great saving of mental labor and even of physical energy. Human life would be most arduous, if not impossible, if whatever a man learned to do would have to be reasoned out again whenever he wished to repeat it. Man could then never acquire skill or facility in anything. No matter how often he had convinced himself of some truth, he would still have recurrent doubts until he worked it all out in his mind again. Under such conditions there could be no progress. Therefore we are allowed to relegate what we have once approved to the interior or subconscious memory; or what is the same, to the spontaneous working of an accepted influx from the spiritual world. And when after death we enter that world, the roads we will see and wish to travel will correspond in general to the habits of thought which we have established in this world.345

When we exercise our freedom of thought in the course of our earthly life we are, from time to time, making decisions as to what particular spirits we desire to receive; for choice has to do with “particular influx.” As long as we are in the life of the body there will be repeated opportunities for such choice. Yet it seems likely, that when we are being carried along in a confirmed habit, which has established an unconscious plane of order or second nature, individual spirits are not so much in question as whole groups of spirits—a selected group of societies through whom life is channelled into our minds.

A man must therefore take thought and explore his habits of mind and body, before they are confirmed beyond the point of no return. In our habits we can recognize the workings of our self-love, our lack of consideration and charity, our impiety, brutality, conceit, or vanity. Our habits will reveal to us our ruling loves, our besetting sins and temptations. External habits which are in themselves good may because of their obsession over us indicate that we place overmuch value on external things.

We can imagine an evil man, a slave to his passions, without restraints or shame, who by his habits has abandoned himself to the general influx from an infernal society. His love has been fixed to the degree that he no longer desires to exercise his freedom of choice, but has surrendered to evil openly and irrevocably, so that his rational mind no longer resists. His spirit is immersed into the hell of his delight. Particular influx is then renounced, and a general influx from hell takes over the government of his mind.

Yet if this be true of an evil man, it must also be true that a regenerating man—after his work of reformation, with its cultivation of good habits, has been completed—will thereafter be upheld in the spontaneous sphere of a more general influx from heaven.

General States and General Influx

A man has freedom and choice in the particular states of his life. But general states are outside of his control. It is from a “general influx” that infants grow up in an unvarying order of development, year by year. Common ages imply common states, with only slight variations. In later life there is very much more differentiation between individuals of the same ages, because as to particular states, self-chosen, men are quite unlike each other in thought and affection.

Even so, there are general or common states among adults. Those in the same use or profession are also in a common state. We often speak of the illustration of a man’s use, a peculiar attitude, light, inspiration, or wisdom, which dignifies an office. The Writings indicate that this is based on general influx, which is given where there is the order of some use. This general influx is not based on man’s regeneration, but on his devotion to the use. An unregenerate man is of course constantly tending to break down the order of his use through dishonesty or indolence and is thus in danger of losing his professional illustration. But a faithful worker—although moved by selfish interests—is externally associated with societies of that use in the other world, and is restrained by their general influx from injuring his use.

That this is so is clear from the appointed rite of priestly ordination. The use of the priesthood being essential to the welfare of mankind, the entrance into this use must be orderly, and is solemnly marked by the laying on of hands (which represents the communication of the powers of illustration) and by “the promise of the Holy Spirit.” In effect the candidate accepts the order and responsibility which open him to a general influx from societies of the priestly use in the other world. But his own personal and inward repentance and regeneration can alone open his heart to the reception of the Holy Spirit. Such internal reception must come by way of particular influx.

With respect to the general environment in which man’s spirit is, order requires that the spirits normally around a man should be those of his own religious persuasion. Without this order—which implies also a general influx to maintain it— there could be no true freedom or normal progress, but man would become an easy prey to fickle states of doubt and spiritual indecision.

Generals come first, particulars come later. We know that as an infant grows up, he enters first into concepts of most general truths and that particulars are later given to infill them. The generals of childish thought are such that they may be accepted from natural affections which are full of hereditary evils as yet hidden. It is not to be doubted that these basic orders of generals from natural experience and from the natural sense of the Word, are maintained by general influxes from the other world. And even with adults, the literal sense of the Scriptures is delightful because the things therein can be explained to favor their own states and opinions, until these generals are qualified by an understanding of particulars and these by a perception of singulars.346

It is the same with generals of doctrine which are taught in the church. These call forth a general influx—which is very vital for preserving the church. If generals of doctrine are denied or contradicted or called into question, the general influx of heaven fails to hold the thought of the church together, and a temptation arises, the outcome of which depends on the individual choice and illustration of each man of the church; for the battle must be decided in the field of particular influx. The prayer, “Lead us not into temptation,” is a prayer for the continuance of general influx whereby men are held in a general sphere of faith and charity, the protecting sphere of heaven and of the church as a whole. We are not to seek temptation, nor introduce temptation to others. Yet it is true that general influx by itself cannot at this day preserve the church. Advance can only come if there is individual study of the doctrine and an interior entrance into truths. Generals of doctrine are protective, and must be maintained as basic. But they may easily become lightly and thoughtlessly accepted—intoned as empty ritual and vain repetition.

The Invitation to the New Church—a work which records the results, in past churches, of relying on the momentum of a merely historical faith—therefore contains the following statement: “Unless the present little work be added to the preceding one [the True Christian Religion], the church cannot be healed. For it would be a merely palliative cure. . . . The doctrine of the New Church indeed furnishes the medicine, but only exteriorly” (Inv. 25). The little work referred to was therefore added; for it contained certain particulars of utmost importance for the establishment and survival of the church.

General Influx into the Mind

The body is held by the Lord under general influx, as an instrument for man’s mind. The externals of human society are also held in order by general influx. But the mind is attended by particular spirits, good and evil, which grant to men freedom of choice in matters of thought and will. Yet even within the mind general influx dominates. It is only in the thin conscious fringes of the mind that man’s own choice is actually operating. In the unplumbed depths of the mind and in the surrounding spiritual world general influxes order all things, and endow man with the power of reasoning, analysis, and logic. General influx must flow into the minds of all men. Thus it is mentioned that “there is a universal influx” into the souls of all men predisposing them to perceive “that there is a God and that He is one.”347 No man is taught by influx; but the gyre and flux imposed upon the mind are especially attuned to accept such truths. There is also a general influx out of heaven as a whole which disposes the minds of men to think of God in terms of the human form, but variously according to their states of perception and provided that there is something of order in the mind by the shunning of evils as sins. The perception of immortality is also mentioned as universal.343 Such general concepts are indeed said to be “implanted” in the mind, or to be “intuitive.” But what is meant is that they come from a general influx.

Indeed, our faculty of thinking could not operate unless certain “generals” were so implanted in our minds that we are not aware of them. Animals, of course, are wholly led by a connate disposition and order which automatically responds to specific general influxes of their predestined natural affections. It is from an ordering by general influx that both men and animals instinctively learn to judge distances and without reflection learn to avoid objects. And man learns to order all that he knows into general categories, arranging his knowledge into series and orders according to general qualities, classing particular ideas under general heads, and thus marking out limits and protective bounds within his thoughts.349

But, finally, general influx is also responsible for that gift which is common with the simple but often lacking among those of the learned who cannot think from general principles. This is “common sense”—thought that is not the product of learned arguments or preconceived logical formulas, but comes from seeing truth in its own light. Common perception is the great preservative of mankind.350 It can in a moment explode the most elaborate structure of fallacy. It spans our practical difficulties. It cuts the Gordian knot of seemingly hopeless dilemmas. It nullifies theological doubts. As a fresh breeze it clears the smoke clouds from the scene of our intellectual battles; and remains usually the sole victor. And upon it rest the blessings of heaven. Yet common sense—alone— cannot regenerate or even reform. It can but preserve the remnants of order in the mind.

Whatever comes from general influx depends on a remnant of order, on the health of the body or the mind. Where evil steps in or disease enters this order is disturbed, and heaven reluctantly withdraws her protective wings somewhat, with the distressing result that individual spirits of hell begin to inflow.

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Starting Science From God
June 9 at 4:52pm ·

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