“You cannot be spiritually reborn without some knowledge of the new or spiritual life, of the true things that you ought to believe and the good things that you ought to do. You cannot learn these things on your own, because on your own you can comprehend things only through your physical senses. Your physical senses give you information about the material world and yourself, not about heaven and God. Spiritual knowledge comes only from revelation.”

Emanuel Swedenborg, New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine 177