The ennead above helps us to distinguish more clearly the kind of relationship that married partners are in when they model their behavior in accordance with the three levels of mentality on the vertical axis. A "model" refers to a person's meta-framework in justifying what they are doing or thinking. Many husbands start marriage in the "dominance model" mentality (level 1), move on to the equity model in how they treat their wife (level 2), and may later adopt the unity model to govern all interactions with their wife (level 3).

The corporeal mentality of the dominance model (level 1) involves the the husband at a general level of himself, thus more distant to his wife than the mentality in the equity or unity models. The husband relates to his wife at a general level. He is willing to participate in physical and mental intimacy with his wife, but only at the external or outward level of self -- how he appears to her in behavior and attitude. Inside however, what he actually thinks and feels may be the opposite -- he may disagree with her and belittle her in his own mind. When a husband governs his interactions from a male dominant tradition, he restricts his relationship to his wife to a general level that is not yet personal (level 2 mentality).

But when a husband regulates his interactions to conform to the equity model (level 2), the married partners can interact at the personal level, independently of tradition and family. They get closer to each other mentally, not just physically. They get to know each other's opinions and preferences and they take turns agreeing with one another as a way of maintaining peace and avoiding warfare. Their relationship is at the personal level and can get more and more personal, but it cannot get to be all encompassing, involving every particular aspect of their personality and social make up. Husbands prefer to remain at a certain distance in their intimacy in many areas. For instance,  they both agree to some "legitimate" independence -- e.g., how they think about certain things like politics or religion, what is the best and what the next best of something is, what friends and hobbies they are allowed to have separately from each other, etc There are various interaction settings that husbands claim as their male prerogative. Society tends to support them and their wives have to put up with it. That's a feature of the equity model.

All the negotiated agreements and mutual allowances of independence in the equity model, are banished when the husband moves up to the unity model of interaction (level 3). The rational mentality of this model prompts the husband to be intolerant of any differences between them. He strives to eliminate any love, affection, desire, or goal that is antagonistic or independent of the wife's desires and goals. In this way they have a mutual love that expresses itself as the constant striving or motivation by each, to make the other one happy through what one can do for them.

The Writings Sacred Scripture declare that women have a built in biological propensity for the unity model in marriage. It is the husband who needs these ordered series of mental steps represented by the ennead chart. Men are born with a propensity for independence and resist the unity model until they become enlightened through theistic psychology, that is, through their doctrinal study of the Writings Sacred Scripture and a love for the unity model (see the Doctrine of the Wife in Section xx).

 In the dominance model of interaction the wife is persuaded to make the husband happy by doing things for him the way he wants and directs. This is a general level of relationship based on a corporeal or physicalistic mentality (level 1). In the equity model the two partners take turns doing for the other what is wanted or requested. This is a personal level of relationship based on sensuous appearances that each partner gives to the other about oneself. In the unity model of rational mentality (level 3), the husband is enlightened spiritually to realize that perfect marriage unity depends on exchanging his independent loves and goals for joint loves and goals. He thus acquires a conjoint self that is dependent, compatible, and integrated with his wife. In this way out of two separate individuals, they become one conjoint individual. This is the highest state of life humans can reach in which they are stable, happy, wise, useful,  and productive beyond anything possible otherwise.

Let's look at some of the developmental pathways that are available on the ennead chart.

Note the progression in path 1,4,7. What is the difference between sensorimotor behavior as it rises from dominance to equity to unity? Similarly for the cognitive behavior of husbands -- path 2,5, 8. How does their thinking change as they progress from cognitive dominance to cognitive equity to cognitive unity? In the same way, how does affective dominance differ from affective equity and affective unity -- path 3,6,9?

You need to observe the threefold self of partners to know specifically what kind of interaction occurs in each of the nine zones. Observing yourself, or self-witnessing, is a powerful way of learning to understand the psychological dynamics that is operational in each zone. Understanding this allows you to accurately assess the depth of your relationship as a couple. This leads to greater satisfaction as well as influence over the course of your marital relationship. It also helps you understand the behavior of other couples like parents and friends. It can also guide you in raising children, helping prepare their threefold self with habits that insure receptivity to unity marriage (or "conjugial love" -- see Section xx)..

It helps to know some dynamic elements of the nine zones. Here is the chart with some further paths illustrated.

Consider the dominance phase -- zones 1, 2, 3. The two married partners begin their life of conjunction at the bottom of zone 1 marked 1a. Sensorimotor dominance (SD) is shown by the fact that they act physically with each other according to culture and tradition. This normally means that the husband sets the pace for their physical interactions and the wife submits or complies. While this is going on, the partners also go through the phase of cognitive dominance (CD) marked as 2a. This shows by the way the husband's ideas and decisions take precedence over the wife's. While this is going on, the partners also undergo the phase of affective dominance (AD) marked as 3a. This shows by the way the husband's will is imposed on the wife's. She is expected to take care of his feelings and well being while she has to put her own feelings in the background.

The pattern 1a ------> 2a ------>  3a  is  followed by the inverse pattern  3b ------> 2b ------>  1a.  The first pattern is not as clear as the second pattern. For instance the cognitive dominance in zone 2a is not yet fully connected to the affective dominance in 3a. It is just building up. The pattern 3b ------> 2b ------>  1a is fully mature and established because the sensorimotor dominance is justified by the cognitive dominance, and this is fully supported by the affective dominance. The husband at this point will not budge on any of the issues he defines as his prerogative as a man. At this point the relationship is "vastated" or "consummated" at the dominance phase. No further growth is possible unless the husband decides to move into the equity model. He now has to define his interactions with his wife in terms of zone 4a -- sensorimotor equity in the initial phase.

Husbands may make this move for several possible reasons. They are exposed to more modern and less traditional ideas. They agree to go along with some of the wife's demands or requests. They become more spiritual and realize that the wife has human rights he should respect and cater to. They feel moved by inner love for their wife and a desire to please her in many new ways. So he begins the journey to deeper intimacy and conjunction by following path  4a ------> 5a ------>  6a. They now get into the habit routines where they negotiate outcomes. The husband may still be trying to dominate the wife in these negotiations, but he now has the new habit of allowing her to argue with him until they can come to a consensus. For this, he must give up his affective and cognitive dominance. Stability at the equity level is not established until they routinely follow pattern  6b------> 5b ------>  4b. Now the husband is grounded in affective equity so that he no longer allows himself to impose his will over his wife, but must rely on cognitive equity in their discussions. He now must respect her views and opinions as much as his own. At least, he must act that way. Eventually he will be completely honest and the marriage reaches a new plateau of happiness and intimacy.

But for the wife, this is not the end. She desires and inwardly needs to have affective unity with her husband. She doesn't want to have to negotiate all the time (like a man wants to), and she longs for her husband to know how she feels and how she wants to be treated in their interactions. She wants him to take the initiative in going along with her perceptions and instincts. She longs for the day when she will not have to defend her rights to him, and she wants him to want to grant all her unspoken requests and desires in everyday things, like his appearance, his clothes, his manners, his thoughtfulness, his tastes, how he talks to her, how he touches her, how he thinks of her. Their marriage has reached another new state of vastation and consummation. They are no longer growing but merely marking time in this pattern of equity interactions.

If the husband becomes enlightened spiritually and rationally, he will want to make the move to zone 7, following the initial pattern  4a ------> 5a ------>  6a. Now for the first time in his life the husband begins to think of the relationship as going on into the afterlife to eternity. This idea motivates him to become more to his wife than a cooperative and thoughtful partner. He is now for the first time beginning to be receptive to his wife's inmost feelings and wants. He sees rationally that eternity together must mean total union, total unity, total conjunction. During these formative stages the husband experiences many lapses and he continually wants to negotiate with his wife about this or that. But if the wife continues to insist and demand affective unity, he can eventually establish himself on the pattern 9b ------> 8b ------>  7b, which when it becomes mature, is the celestial marriage or "conjugial love," the highest consciousness, potential, and happiness that human beings are capable of. This is why it's called "heaven."

9.1  Models of Mental Development Based on Sacred Scripture

Quoting from the Writings Sacred Scripture:

AC 5. It may therefore be stated in advance that of the Lord's Divine mercy it has been granted me now for some years to be constantly and uninterruptedly in company with spirits and angels, hearing them speak and in turn speaking with them. In this way it has been given me to hear and see wonderful things in the other life which have never before come to the knowledge of any man, nor into his idea. I have been instructed in regard to the different kinds of spirits; the state of souls after death; hell, or the lamentable state of the unfaithful; heaven, or the blessed state of the faithful; and especially in regard to the doctrine of faith which is acknowledged in the universal heaven; on which subjects, of the Lord's Divine mercy, more will be said in the following pages. (AC 5)

SD 2185. They [the spirits he was with] said because they now speak with me, that those things which I have written are so rude and gross that they suppose nothing which is internalizing can be understood from those words or the mere sense of the words. I also perceived by a spiritual idea that it was so, that my expressions were very rude, wherefore it was given me to reply that my words are only vessels in which purer, better, and internalizing things can be infused. (SD 2185)

Here Swedenborg was speaking with people in the world of spirits, hence they are called "spirits." The world of spirits is the objective mental world that our conscious awareness enters when our spiritual mind becomes conscious at death. The afterlife of immortality is the life of every human being after the death of the body when the natural mind no longer receives input from the physical world. Our consciousness then moves from the natural mind to the spiritual mind, which until then was unconscious. This is why no one is able to see the objective mental world while the natural mind is still operating.

 In that natural state of mind, the mental world appears to us as our own and individual and private. And yet the mental world is neither our own, nor individual, nor private! (See Section xx) What an amazing revelation!

Swedenborg himself was not yet a spirit because he was still attached to his physical body on earth. But in order to fulfill his special Divine mission (see Section xx), Swedenborg's spiritual mind was made conscious simultaneously with his conscious natural mind. He became a dual citizen for 27 years -- from age 57 to 84, when he passed into the "spiritual world" at death (see Section xx).

Because his conscious natural mind was still attached to the physical body, Swedenborg appeared totally different to the spirits, and they knew that he had a dual life -- which excited their curiosity to the extreme, never having encountered such a phenomenon before. In the passage above, he was taking notes in his diary on earth while at the same time, with adept dual focus, he was talking to the spirits. As a result of this mental co-presence, they were able to read what Swedenborg was writing, since the sentences were composed in his mind before he wrote them out. They could see what was in his mind, which is normal for spirits with each other (see Section xx).

As the spirits became aware of the literal sentences of the Writings of Swedenborg, they described them as "rude and gross." Swedenborg understood their reaction because he had learned the difference between the natural languages used on earth and the one universal spiritual language used in the spiritual world by every human being. Everyone there uses the same spiritual language, even spirits who were born on planets outside our solar system (see Section xx). It is an innate human language and we start using the moment we are conscious in our spiritual mind at resuscitation, a few hours after the moment of death (see Section xx).

When we start using this universal spiritual language we are not conscious of the differences between it and our former natural language. The only way to observe the difference objectively is to lay the two languages side by side and contrast them by experimental or systematic techniques. Swedenborg was able to run that experiment during the 27 years of his dual consciousness, simultaneously in both worlds, that is, in both his natural and his spiritual mind. Swedenborg confirmed the observation of the spirits on this unique occasion in their experience (see passage above SD 2185, when they were able to contrast their former natural language with their current spiritual language. From the perspective of his spiritual mind, Swedenborg also found his sentences "very rude" by which he meant that they were devoid of spiritual-rational meaning, such as was contained in the normal ideas of spirits.

How can the sentences of the Writings Sacred Scripture be devoid of any spiritual-rational meaning? Quoting Swedenborg about the Writings Sacred Scripture he authored:

My words are only vessels in which purer, better, and internalizing things can be infused. (SD 2185)

Swedenborg wrote that all Sacred Scripture is written in natural correspondences of Divine Speech. The literal meaning of his sentences had to correspond to Divine Speech and its rational series, by which Divine Speech forms the genes of human consciousness (see Section xx). Hence he called the literal sentences of the Writings "vessels," a word he frequently uses when he illustrates this point with the Old and New Testament Sacred Scriptures (see Section xx). Cognitive vessels are rational concepts we obtain from the literal meaning of the Writings. These concepts are potential "vessels" in the sense that they can contain higher-order correspondences of Divine Speech, as illustrated many times (see Section xx). The literal expressions of all Sacred Scripture are taken up in our memory from where our rational mind can extract higher-order correspondences of Divine Speech. As we become conscious of these higher-order correspondences, we are enlightened, and empowered accordingly (see Section xx).

All expressions in the literal meaning of Sacred Scripture are natural correspondences for spiritual ideas. When the spirits looked only at the literal expressions, they saw nothing spiritual in them. But Swedenborg taught them that anyone can extract spiritual meaning from Sacred Scripture if the method of correspondences with enlightenment is followed (see Section xx). The basis of theistic psychology is the application of this method of extraction to the Writings Sacred Scripture. The same method can be used to extract higher-order correspondences from the Old Testament Sacred Scripture and the New Testament Sacred Scripture (see Section xx).

Continuing with the next passage:

SS 3. The style of the Word is such that there is holiness in every sentence, and in every word, and in some places in even the very letters. This is why the Word conjoins man with the Lord, and opens heaven. (SS 3)

All Sacred Scripture ("the Word") is Divine Speech in natural correspondences or meanings. The Old Testament Sacred Scripture is written in natural-corporeal correspondences. The New Testament Sacred Scripture is written in natural-sensuous correspondences. The Writings Sacred Scripture is written in natural-rational correspondences (see Section xx). The parts of this historical threefold collection hang together in a rational progression or series that is part of the Divine Human's Rational Mind. Each collection of Sacred Scripture was given in a form appropriate for the mentality of those who received it, worshipped it, and protected it (see Section xx). Each time a particular Sacred Scripture was given, it elevated the consciousness level of the people who received it by giving them a new way of thinking and a new set of values. Divine Speech animates and controls human consciousness through the same series of correspondences that is built into the creation of every object and of the immortal human mind (see Section xx).

The passage above (SS 3) says that every word in Sacred Scripture is "holy" because it is from Divine Speech, which is from the very Mind of God, and therefore may be said to be God Himself. Hence Sacred Scripture may be correctly said to be God Himself -- but not the literal meaning, since this is merely natural and God is spiritual. The difference is like that between heaven and earth. Spiritual-rational correspondences within Sacred Scripture refer to heavenly topics in a spiritual way or meaning, while natural-rational correspondences refer to heavenly topics in a natural way or meaning.

Anyone can approach the Writings Sacred Scripture with a negative bias and read there what is said about God, heaven and hell, regeneration, conjugial love, discrete degrees, and other such heavenly or spiritual topics. They are called spiritual topics because they refer to the events and activities in the spiritual world of the afterlife and immortality. When one reads these spiritual topics with the negative bias, one can only understand them naturally, not spiritually. All ideas of God and the afterlife will then be nothing but fantasy or science fiction in our mind. This is because the spiritual does not appear visibly in the literal meanings of Sacred Scripture. But when we approach the Writings Sacred Scripture with the positive bias, we are willing to apply the method of correspondences with enlightenment, in order to figure out in a spiritual way what is being said.

Notice that merely applying the method of correspondences mechanically will not yield any spiritual meaning. For instance, what do you make of the idea that spiritual correspondences are "within" the literal meaning of Sacred Scripture? What does "within" mean? We at first tend to think of it as a kind of metaphor. We can say that someone is "hot under the collar" and "blows his top" frequently. This is not meant literally, but figuratively. We learn to extract the actual meaning intended from the literal meaning which is not intended. In fact, natural language expressions are created by mental-physical metaphors that are often true correspondences, as in the case of "being hot" physically, which corresponds to being intensely emotional mentally. Love or passion is nothing else than spiritual heat form the Spiritual Sun entering our affective organ and animating it with operations that we experience as feelings and motives (see Section xx).

The passage above (SS 3) also mentions the biological and evolutionary function of Sacred Scripture, which is that it  "conjoins man with the Lord, and opens heaven." We need to understand spiritually these three natural-rational expressions -- "heaven," "the Lord," and "opens." To understand them spiritually means to extract the higher order correspondences that are contained within them. The  word "heaven" here actually refers to a mental state that exists in the mind of every human being (see Section xx). Heaven is a built in construction or creation in the human organic mind (see Section xx). The natural-rational expression "the Lord" signifies the Divine Psychologist who is co-present in every human mind, supervising and managing the thoughts and feelings we have, from birth to endless immortality (see Section xx). The natural expression "to open" signifies enlightenment, which is the conscious understanding of spiritual meanings (see Section xx). This ability to understand spiritual-rational correspondences in a spiritual way, begins at our reformation or "rebirth" (see Section xx) and continues to enlarge and deepen endlessly, to the extent that we make progress in our regeneration or character reformation (see Section xx).

The role, function, and purpose of Sacred Scripture is therefore to create and activate in us the ability to understand spiritual-rational meanings, or correspondences of Divine Speech (see Section xx).

Understanding spiritual concepts in a spiritual way "conjoins us to heaven," that is, causes our mind to develop spiritually. We need to develop a spiritual understanding of Divine Speech because this rational understanding brings our consciousness into the heavenly regions of our mind, which are the highest potential possible for human beings (see Section xx). All those who are in their heavens are in eternity and are able to interact with each other. When Swedenborg's spiritual mind was activated at age 57, he was able to be consciously present in the heavens of his mind, and there he saw other people who had been born on some earth and were now in their eternity. This is possible because the objective spiritual world is the same as the mental world (see Section xx).

9.1.1  Extracting Theistic Psychology Concepts From the Writings Sacred Scripture

Quoting from the Writings Sacred Scripture:

AC 1984

Few persons can bring themselves to believe that the Word has within it an internal sense that from the letter is not apparent, because it is so remote from the sense of the letter that it is as it were distant from it as heaven is from earth. But that the sense of the letter contains such things within itself, and that it is representative and significative of arcana that no one sees except the Lord, and angels from Him, is evident from what has been stated in various places in the first Part of this work.

The expression "the Word" refers to Sacred Scripture. In other words, Sacred Scripture has a hidden universal "spiritual meaning" that can be extracted from the literal meaning or "sense of the letter." This literal meaning is as distant from the extracted spiritual meaning as "heaven is from earth," that is, as distant as the spiritual mind is from the natural mind. The spiritual mind is unconscious and invisible to our awareness or perception, while the natural mind is conscious. The spiritual mind is grows from sensory input from the spiritual world, while the natural mind grows from sensory input from the physical world. Hence the literal meaning of Sacred Scripture is called natural, while the extracted meaning is called spiritual.

To extract meaning from the literal sentences of Sacred Scripture is like making the unconscious mind conscious.

AC 1872. There appeared to me a beautiful girl with a radiant face, passing quickly upward toward the right, and making some haste. In age she seemed to be in the first bloom-not a child nor yet a young woman-becomingly clothed with a dress of shining black; so she was hastening on with gladness from light to light. It was said that the interiors of the Word are such in their first ascent; the black dress was the Word in the letter. Afterwards the young girl flew to my right cheek, but was perceivable only by the interior sight. It was said that such are the things from the internal sense of the Word which do not come to the comprehension. (AC 1872)

Here, the literal meaning of Sacred Scripture ("the Word") is represented by a "black dress" in what Swedenborg saw in the spiritual world. The "interiors" of Sacred Scripture appeared to him as what the girl in the black dress was doing, namely, "she was hastening on with gladness from light to light."

Quoting from the Writings Sacred Scripture:

SS 71. As regards the Word in heaven, it is written in a spiritual style, which differs entirely from a natural style. The spiritual style consists solely of letters, each of which contains a meaning, and there are points above the letters which exalt the meaning. With the angels of the spiritual kingdom the letters resemble printed letters in our world; and with the angels of the celestial kingdom the letters (each of which also contains a complete meaning) resemble the ancient Hebrew letters, curved in various ways, and with marks above and within.

Such being the style of their writing, there are no names of persons and places in their Word such as there are in ours, but instead of the names there are the things which they signify. Thus instead of Moses there is the historical Word, instead of Elijah, the prophetical Word; instead of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Lord as to His Divinity and Divine Human; instead of Aaron, the priestly office; instead of David, the kingly office, each of the Lord; instead of the names of the twelve sons of Jacob, or of the tribes of Israel, various things of heaven and the church; and like things instead of the names of the Lord's twelve disciples; instead of Zion and Jerusalem, the church in respect to the Word and doctrine from the Word; instead of the land of Canaan, the church itself; instead of the cities therein on this side and beyond Jordan, various things of the church and of its doctrine; and so with all the other names.

It is the same with the numbers; neither do these appear in the Word that is in heaven, but instead of them the things to which the numbers that are in our Word correspond. It is evident from these examples that the Word in heaven is a Word that corresponds to our Word, and thus that the two are a one, for correspondences make a one. (SS 71)

The above passage reveals that there is Sacred Scripture in "heaven."

All Sacred Scripture is Divine Speech exteriorizing across the mind of the human race. Divine Speech issues and proceeds from the Spiritual Sun, which is the bright aura around the Divine Human who can be seen there by all those who dwell in the heavens of their mind. There is only objective spiritual world and this is no other than the subjective mental world (see Section xx). There is only one objective mental world and every individual's subjective mind is in this one mental world. When Swedenborg "traveled" objectively through the spiritual world, meeting the people in their heavens, he did not actually have to go anywhere since the spiritual world is without space and time -- it is eternity. There is nowhere to walk through. And yet there is the appearance that there are lands, cities, streets, and houses, where the inhabitants walk, live, and interact similarly as on earth. But these are like the appearances of spaces in our dreams -- the spaces and objects in the imagination get manufactured instantly by the feelings that drive the dream sequence and its meaningful content.

In reality, Swedenborg stayed in his room on earth while he was "traveling" to the heavens and the hells. All that had to happen was for his spiritual mind to become conscious. Once conscious of his spiritual mind, he suddenly entered the same conscious world that we all enter when we pass on at the death of the body and are resuscitated as a spirit (see Section xx). Swedenborg was given this consciousness while he was still on earth so that he may write and publish the books of the Writings Sacred Scripture.

Swedenborg discovered that when he focused on the content of his spiritual mind, now conscious to him, he was co-present with others who were conscious in their spiritual mind, and he could interact and communicate with them!

This makes rational sense when you consider that there is only one spiritual world, that is, only one mental world in which everybody's consciousness exists. The same one Spiritual Sun exists in every human mind, and the instant you become conscious in your spiritual mind, you too can see the Spiritual Sun, and the Divine Human amidst of it.

Divine Speech exteriorizes first into the topmost organ of the mind called the "celestial mind" (see Section xx). Those who are already in their afterlife and have their consciousness at this discrete level, are the first among the human race to be conscious of Divine Speech entering the human mind. Swedenborg saw their Sacred Scripture and he reports that it looked generally similar to the Hebrew script in which the Old Testament Sacred Scripture is written. Swedenborg studied the Hebrew Old Testament Sacred Scripture and was familiar with the script. The meanings of the celestial script are all in celestial-rational correspondences which discuss topics relating to the Divine Human Love, or Good, and how this infinite and omnipresent living substance activates the universe and all its details by means of spiritual light, which is Divine Truth  (see Section xx).

As Divine Speech activates the organic operations of the celestial mind, it also activates the correspondential operations in the spiritual mind by means of spiritual-rational correspondences of Divine Speech. This level of meaning creates and maintains our spiritual mind. When Swedenborg visited the spiritual heavens ("Second Heaven') he was actually being mentally co-present with those whose consciousness operated at the spiritual-rational level of meaning. Swedenborg was able to observe that the Sacred Scripture in the Second Heaven of the human mind is written in spiritual-rational correspondences.

As Divine speech activates the operations of the spiritual mind, it also activates the correspondential organic operations in the interior of the natural mind, which is called the "First Heaven." When Swedenborg visited the First Heaven in his mind, he was co-present with people whose consciousness in eternity operated with spiritual-natural correspondences of Sacred Scripture, which Swedenborg also saw there.

What Swedenborg saw in the "heavens he visited," was what every human beings can see because there is only one mental world. Whatever Swedenborg saw, we can see, or anyone can see on any planet. This is because the human race is networked together above the natural mind. Whenever we raise our consciousness above the natural mind, we are co-present with all those who have also raised their consciousness above the natural level. This mental state is called enlightenment. Every individual becomes enlightened upon death and resuscitation, when our immortal life continues in our mind above the natural level (see Section xx).

But we can also become enlightened while still on earth in our natural mind due to the fact that an interior-natural organ can be activated in our conscious natural mind when we are regenerating (see Section xx). This means that we can develop a virtual heaven in our conscious awareness, so that we can understand higher order correspondences of Divine Speech (see Section xx). It is the rational understanding of these higher-order correspondences of Divine Speech that creates our heaven on earth now, and heaven in eternity after death. These higher order correspondences extracted from Sacred Scripture, are the genes of consciousness (see Section xx). We are enlightened more and more as we become conscious of the celestial series that create the genes of consciousness. The more we are enlightened, the closer we are "conjoined" to the Divine Human, and the higher the human potential we can receive into ourselves to be as-if our own (see Section xx).

Quoting from the Writings Sacred Scripture:

AC 4279. The Word originates in the Lord and comes down from Him by way of heaven to man. Its nature is therefore such that it is Divine in every detail. And as it has come down from the Lord so it goes up, that is, is raised up to Him, returning by way of the heavens. It is well known that there are three heavens, and that the inmost is termed the third heaven, that the middle one is called the second heaven, while the lowest is referred to as the first heaven. Consequently since it goes up by the same path as it comes down the Word as it exists in the Lord is Divine, celestial as it exists in the third heaven since that heaven is the celestial heaven, spiritual as it exists in the second heaven since that heaven is the spiritual heaven, but celestial-natural and spiritual-natural as it exists in the first heaven, which is also given the names celestial-natural and spiritual-natural. As it exists in the Church with man however, the Word in the sense of the letter is natural, that is, worldly and earthly. (AC 4279)

In this passage "the Word" refers to Divine Speech that "comes down from God." Since there is only one mental world, Divine Speech enters every human mind simultaneously and descends through its discrete layers.

First,  Divine Speech entering our celestial mind, or "third heaven," and activating operations of meaning there called celestial-rational. Those who have progressed in their regeneration all the way to their celestial temptations, are conscious at that level and their experiences in eternity match that level of existence (see Section xx). When we are in that mental state, we are called "angels." Celestial-rational correspondences deal with topics pertaining to Divine Love (see Section xx).

Second, Divine Speech exteriorizes or "descends" into the spiritual-rational layer of the mind. All those who are in that mentality level are conscious of the activity in their spiritual mind. This level of consciousness and rational understanding, is activated by spiritual-rational correspondences of Divine Speech. This level of mind is called "second heaven" and when we are conscious there we are called "angelic spirits." Spiritual-rational correspondences deal with topics pertaining to Divine Truth (see Section xx).

Third, Divine Speech continues to exteriorize into the spiritual-natural degree of the interior-natural mind. This is done by spiritual-natural correspondences of Sacred Scripture and the people who are in that consciousness are called "good spirits" in "first heaven." Spiritual-natural correspondences deal with topics pertaining to "uses," a word that refers to the external effects of Divine Love, through Truth, as it manifests in real appearances (see Section xx).

Fourth, Divine Speech exteriorizes in the external-natural mind through purely natural correspondences of Sacred Scripture written out in a natural language. This is the level at which we begin our spiritual journey. At the natural level of thinking and willing the topics of Divine Speech focus on the consequences of our action in the natural world, although some details are given regarding our immortality at "resurrection" when the world will end and a new earth will be created. These ideas do not appear at all in the spiritual meaning of Sacred Scripture (see Section xx), but they are useful to motivate people at the religious level (see Section xx).

Here is an illustration of the procedure for extracting theistic psychology concepts from the Writings Sacred Scripture. We can use the passage discussed above, which is reproduced again here for your convenience:

SS 71. As regards the Word in heaven, it is written in a spiritual style, which differs entirely from a natural style. The spiritual style consists solely of letters, each of which contains a meaning, and there are points above the letters which exalt the meaning. With the angels of the spiritual kingdom the letters resemble printed letters in our world; and with the angels of the celestial kingdom the letters (each of which also contains a complete meaning) resemble the ancient Hebrew letters, curved in various ways, and with marks above and within.

Such being the style of their writing, there are no names of persons and places in their Word such as there are in ours, but instead of the names there are the things which they signify. Thus instead of Moses there is the historical Word, instead of Elijah, the prophetical Word; instead of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Lord as to His Divinity and Divine Human; instead of Aaron, the priestly office; instead of David, the kingly office, each of the Lord; instead of the names of the twelve sons of Jacob, or of the tribes of Israel, various things of heaven and the church; and like things instead of the names of the Lord's twelve disciples; instead of Zion and Jerusalem, the church in respect to the Word and doctrine from the Word; instead of the land of Canaan, the church itself; instead of the cities therein on this side and beyond Jordan, various things of the church and of its doctrine; and so with all the other names. (SS 71)

It is the same with the numbers; neither do these appear in the Word that is in heaven, but instead of them the things to which the numbers that are in our Word correspond. It is evident from these examples that the Word in heaven is a Word that corresponds to our Word, and thus that the two are a one, for correspondences make a one.

The list below is a summary of the correspondences specified in the above passage. The expressions from the Old Testament Sacred Scripture appear on the left of the equal sign (=), while the equivalent expressions from the Writings Sacred Scripture appear on the right of the equal sign. The level of meaning between the two varies by two discrete degrees, from the natural-corporeal correspondences of the Old Testament Sacred Scripture to the natural-rational correspondences of the Writings Sacred Scripture (see Section xx).

• Moses = the historical Word
• Elijah = the prophetical Word
• Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob =  the Lord as to His Divinity and Divine Human
• Aaron = the priestly office
• David = the kingly office, each of the Lord
• the names of the twelve sons of Jacob, or of the tribes of Israel = various things of heaven and the church
• the names of the Lord's twelve disciples = various things of heaven and the church
• Zion and Jerusalem = the church in respect to the Word and doctrine from the Word
• the land of Canaan = the church itself
•  the cities therein on this side and beyond Jordan = various things of the church and of its doctrine
• It is the same with the numbers; neither do these appear in the Word that is in heaven, but instead of them the things to which the numbers that are in our Word correspond.

This kind of comparison study is called the method of correspondences. But in order to understand these equivalencies spiritually we must go one more step of extraction or equivalence, and this is where theistic psychology begins. This step requires enlightenment by the Divine Psychologist so it's not possible to do it on one's own. This enlightenment is given to those who study theistic psychology with a positive bias for the sake of regeneration of their character in preparations for their immortality. The following chart shows the methodology:
 

The comparative chart above clearly shows the difference in topical content of the Old Testament Sacred Scripture taken literally (left column), and their spiritual content as defined by correspondences (middle column). You can see that there is no semantic relationship between the two. This explains why no one has been able to discover these correspondences despite the numerous scholars who have written works on Bible interpretation or exegesis. Now the time of evolution in human consciousness has arrived so that the correspondences of creation and of Sacred Scripture have been revealed in the Writings of Swedenborg (see Section xx).

When you look up and down the left hand column you see only natural concepts pertaining to the history of an ancient people. This is the content of the natural mind at the level of thinking that is based on natural-corporeal correspondences of Divine Speech (see Section xx). The literal meaning of the Old Testament Sacred Scripture consists of natural-corporeal expressions (left column) for spiritual ideas (middle column). There is no clue in the natural expression what these spiritual ideas or meanings are.

The spiritual ideas of the Writings Sacred Scripture (middle column) are also expressed by natural correspondences, but at two discrete degrees higher in the natural mind. There are three discrete degrees levels of functioning in the natural mind -- corporeal, sensuous, and rational. These are three mentality levels that Divine Speech creates in the human mind through Sacred Scripture, either directly or indirectly (see Section xx).

Divine Speech produces in us the mentality level of the Old Testament Sacred Scripture through the acquisition of natural-corporeal correspondences for spiritual ideas. Then, Divine Speech produces in us the mentality level of the New Testament Sacred Scripture through the acquisition of natural-sensuous correspondences for spiritual ideas. Then, Divine Speech produces in us the mentality level of the Writings Sacred Scripture through the acquisition of natural-rational correspondences for spiritual ideas.

These threefold stages recycle at all levels of spiritual development, as described in this Volume. They constitute the genes of consciousness (see Section xx).

When you look up and down the third column of the chart above (right hand side), you are seeing the topical content of theistic psychology.

What is the difference between the middle column (the Writings), and the right hand column (theistic psychology)?

The middle column illustrates the topical content of the Writings Sacred Scripture, viewed in its plain literal meaning. The level of thinking is based on natural-rational correspondences of Divine Speech (see Section xx). You will notice immediately that this is the level of the "New Church" religion and theological concepts belonging to Christianity within a Western culture --

• the Lord
• the Church
• the prophetical Word
• the priestly office
• doctrine
• faith
• what is holy

The text of the Writings makes frequent mention of the fact that these religious ideas have a dual meaning -- historical-theological and psychological-individual. For instance the expression "the church" signifies things about mental states, as shown in this passage:

AC 710

Build ye houses and dwell in them; and plant gardens and eat the fruit of them (Jer. 29:5, 28).

Here "building houses and dwelling in them" relates to the will; "planting gardens" to the understanding: and it is the same in other passages. And the "house of Jehovah" is frequently mentioned as signifying the church wherein love is the principal; the "house of Judah" as signifying the celestial church; and the "house of Israel" as signifying the spiritual church. As "house" signifies the church, the mind of the man of the church (wherein are the things of the will and of the understanding, or of charity and faith), is also signified by "house."

In other words, whenever the Writings Sacred Scripture talk about the things of religion and the Christian Church, it is also taking at the same about our mental states, especially in relation to our regeneration of character. Therefore when we read and study the Writings Sacred Scripture, we automatically acquire knowledge called theistic psychology, which is about the individual psychological states that every individual must go through or experience. The right hand column in the chart above are theistic psychology concepts that can be confirmed with the literal meaning of the Writings.

As you read up and down the theistic psychology column, you can see the conceptual relationship with the literal meaning of the Writings because they both deal with mental states during regeneration or spiritual growth and development. But there is a crucial difference in the literal sentences of theistic psychology (right hand column) and the literal sentences of the Writings Sacred Scripture (middle column). While the Writings in the literal meaning involve religious and historical issues, this is entirely absent in theistic psychology.

9.1.1.1   The Literal Meaning and the Extracted Meaning

This is a crucial difference in use. The literal of the Writings Sacred Scripture is serviceable for the New Church, a new Christian religion based on the Writings (see Section xx). The literal of theistic psychology is serviceable for science and public education in all countries regardless of culture and religion.

It is important to realize and acknowledge that there is a prescribed methodology for the extraction process that creates the third column of theistic psychology out of the middle column of the Writings Sacred Scripture. This methodology is called the method of correspondences with enlightenment (see Section xx). Anyone with some intellectual effort can create a third column fictitiously, using their self-intelligence and knowledge of literary traditions in theology and psychology. But this type of interpretation is not part of theistic psychology. Only that is part of theistic psychology which is knowledge obtained through the extraction process that is prescribed in the Writings for application to all Sacred Scripture, including itself. This method is Divine and Divinely prescribed in the literal text of the Writings Sacred Scripture where the correspondences of Divine Speech are revealed. The steps of our character reformation set the pace for our ability of being enlightened by the Divine Psychologist, who is co-present with every individual (see Section xx).

You will also notice another crucial difference between the Writings and theistic psychology in their literal sentences. Theistic psychology is a science and involves explanations at the mechanistic level because everything is categorized within heuristically defined levels, directions, and actions. The Writings often use the expression of "opening" the mind to describe God's active role in regeneration and enlightenment. This level of description ("opening the mind") is sufficient for religious thinking even at the level of "rational faith," which is what the New Church is called in the Writings. But it is not sufficient at the level of explanation required in a science. To achieve this level of meaning we need to acquire new thinking that matches the level of the first heaven in the human mind. Only then do we begin to go "within" the natural, and  into the spiritual (see Section xx).

When we extract the spiritual-natural meaning (of theistic psychology) from the external natural-rational meaning (of the Writings Sacred Scripture), the religious and historical references "vanish" and what is left behind is the meaning of Divine Speech that the people in their interior-natural heaven are conscious of (first heaven). But with further progress in our regeneration or character reformation, we acquire additional abilities to understand spiritual-rational correspondences (second heaven) and celestial-rational-correspondences (third heaven). This is achieved by the Divine Psychologist managing our mind, who creates an interior-natural organ within the external natural organ, creating a virtual heaven by which we can consciously understand the higher-order correspondences of Divine Speech that exist in the three heavens in our mind (see Section xx).

Theistic psychology is the knowledge accumulated through this new spiritual understanding of spiritual topics.

It is new to our natural mind here on earth, but is not new to the three heavens. Those who already populate the heavens of their mind in their immortality, are to be considered distinguished theistic psychologists. The knowledge of theistic psychology is universal and endless. The Topical Index of All Sections (Volume 18) only presents theistic psychology as I view it, but it will expand endlessly in the coming centuries and millennia.

The bottom part of the chart above gives the spiritual signification of numbers used in Sacred Scripture. Enough information is given in the Writings Sacred Scripture about correspondences of numbers to create a new science around the subject of spiritual psycholinguistics (see Section xx). I have selected just a few numbers in the chart above to illustrate specifically the research I present in this Volume on the genes of consciousness. This work is based on the spiritual significance of the numbers 3, 6, 9, 12, and 24. I discovered these patterns several years before I began reading the Writings, and thus in a natural way (see Section xx). I therefore call it predictive research rather than extractive research (see Section xx).

 In the past 23 years since I have been studying the Writings, I have discovered that these patterns are embedded in Divine Speech and that they are mechanisms used by the God to manage the universe and the human mind (see Section xx). Hence I coined the expression the genes of consciousness to refer to the conceptual structures that carry meaning and conform to the series of correspondences. Knowledge of these gene structures of our understanding is useful for everyone's regeneration task, for instruction in schools and at home, and most specifically, for science.

Below is a passage from the Writings Sacred Scripture that shows the level of explanatory concepts it typically uses for explaining the spiritual significance of numbers. The passage makes reference to the existing numerical syntax, or arithmetic, that can be used to extract their significance. We are never given a full chapter or lesson on how this syntax works in detail, but a few things are mentioned here and there. More predictive research is called for to establish the knowledge of spiritual arithmetic. For instance, the number 9 signifies "conjunction," while the number 10 signifies "remains of good and truth," that is, thinking patterns that we acquire that are compatible with a heavenly character. Now what does the number 90 mean? It contains 10 times 9, which translated, means "conjunction through remains." In other words, when you look at the third column of the chart above for the number 9, it gives this explanation of theistic psychology --  "dynamic mental states mapped on the ennead chart showing the steps of acquiring a heavenly character, as explained in this Volume (see Section xx)"

As frequently discussed and illustrated, the ennead chart is a matrix of nine cells created by juxtaposing two factors having three sub-levels each (9 = 3x3).This chart is used to map the mental states we go through during spiritual development (see Section xx).

Now when you compare the expression from the Writings -- "conjunction through remains" -- and its translation into theistic psychology, you can see that the explanations in theistic psychology do not remove, minimize, or contradict in any way the Divine truths that are presented through its literal meaning. We can say rationally that one way we achieve "conjunction" with God is through the "remains of good and truth" that He unconsciously "implants" in our character whenever we are doing something that is compatible with "good" and heaven. This level of thinking is called "rational faith" and allows for the construction of doctrine for a religious life in preparation for heavenly life (see Section xx). There is also an additional use and benefit that Divine Speech is giving the human race by specifying for us a methodology we can use to extract still more specific details about the mechanisms God uses in regenerating the human mind. This is the knowledge of theistic psychology. Those who already have "rational faith" and a religion based on the Writings of Swedenborg, will also benefit further by studying theistic psychology as a way of extending the uses and benefits of the Writings, which they love and worship as "the Word of the Divine Human in His Second Coming" (see section xx).

AC 2075.

[2] Now that the number "nine" signifies conjunction, and still more the number "ninety," which is the product of the multiplication of nine into ten (for "ten" signifies the remains by which conjunction is effected, as is evident from what was said above, n. 1988, at the end), may also be seen from the representatives and significatives which now follow. It was commanded that on the tenth day of the seventh month there should be a day of expiations, and that this should be a Sabbath of a Sabbath; and on the ninth day of the seventh month at evening, from evening even to evening, they should celebrate a Sabbath (Lev. 23:27, 32).

[3] In the internal sense these things signify conjunction by means of remains-"nine" signifying conjunction, and "ten" signifying remains. That a Divine arcanum lies hidden in these numbers, is clearly evident from the months and the days of the year that were to be held holy; as that every seventh day there was a Sabbath; and that every seventh month, as just stated, there should be a Sabbath of a Sabbath; in like manner the seventh year; and also that on the seven times seventh year the jubilee should commence. The case is the same with all other numbers in the Word; as with "three," the signification of which is nearly the same as that of "seven;" and with "twelve," which signifies all things of faith; and with "ten," which signifies the same as "tenths," that is, remains (see n. 576); and so on. Thus in the passage here quoted from Leviticus, unless the number "ten" and the number "nine" involved arcana, it would by no means have been commanded that this Sabbath of a Sabbath should be on the tenth day of the seventh month, and that on the ninth of the month they should celebrate it.

Such is the Word of the Lord in the internal sense, although in the historical sense nothing of the kind appears.

In other words, there are "heavenly secrets" hidden in Sacred Scripture. These higher meanings are called "the internal sense" and in this meaning, "nothing appears" to view in the literal sense that is on the surface. Hence it is that theistic psychology, which is extracted from the literal sense of the Writings, is suitable as a universal science and as public education in all countries regardless of religion and culture. In theistic psychology, "nothing appears" of the historical and religious meaning of the literal sentences of the Writings Sacred Scripture.

Consider these descriptions of the "style" in which Divine Speech is rendered as Sacred Scripture, which is called "the Word" in this next passage, though the expression "Sacred Scripture" also appears thousands of times in the Writings.

Quoting from the Writings Sacred Scripture:

AC 1.

From the mere letter of the Word of the Old Testament no one would ever discern the fact that this part of the Word contains deep secrets of heaven, and that everything within it both in general and in particular bears reference to the Lord, to His heaven, to the church, to religious belief, and to all things connected therewith; for from the letter or sense of the letter all that anyone can see is that-to speak generally-everything therein has reference merely to the external rites and ordinances of the Jewish Church. Yet the truth is that everywhere in that Word there are internal things which never appear at all in the external things except a very few which the Lord revealed and explained to the Apostles; such as that the sacrifices signify the Lord; that the land of Canaan and Jerusalem signify heaven-on which account they are called the Heavenly Canaan and Jerusalem-and that Paradise has a similar signification.

This passage in the literal sense uses the expression "the Word" to refer to the Old Testament Sacred Scripture, which in its literal meaning, concerns itself with the history of the "Jewish Church." What do the people of the first heaven see when they read this paragraph of the Writings Sacred Scripture? Instead of "the Word of the Old Testament" they see "the initial mental states of each cycle of regeneration." And instead of the "Jewish Church" they see "the mental states prior to beginning reformation."  People in the third heaven have an even loftier view of the meaning of this passage because they are looking at the celestial-rational correspondences of Divine Speech (see Section xx).

The extraction of correspondences in Divine Speech is the method by which God creates the gradual evolutionary elevation of human consciousness.

Divine Speech permeates and immerses the human mind like sunlight penetrates a room through its windows and doors. All layers of the human mind are filled simultaneously with it. No human mind can escape it or live without it. Divine Speech is what makes human beings to have consciousness, from which they are immortal. Regeneration is the organic mechanism which has been created in the human mind by the Incarnation Event (see Section xx) in order to allow for the elevation of human consciousness to its immortal and quasi-omniscient level of operation called the celestial mind (see Section xx). Quoting from the Writings Sacred Scripture:

SE 1625. CONCERNING THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE ANGELS. In regard to the knowledge of the angels of the interior heaven, a single example may suffice, taken from their knowledge of the structures and forms of the [human] body; for while any one, no matter what, of the viscera of the body is under consideration, they are enabled to know not only its whole structure and operation, but also all the experience which anatomy is able to detect in the smallest particulars, as whether it be true or genuine. Not only so, but they know in an instant whether what is stated respecting each of the viscera be correct, besides many interior things which no one of the human race can know, as I have sometimes found by experience. They are acquainted, too, with the correspondence which these things bear to things spiritual. Indeed, their knowledge is such that if men were aware of it they would be astounded, although matters of this kind had never been their study in the life of the body. It flows, as it were, spontaneously from the fact that by reason of an intelligence bestowed by the Lord, they know how everything is with the Grand Man in general and in particular, and the knowledge seems to be innate in them. But such knowledge they could never possess were it not that the whole heaven represents the whole man, with all his several parts, and unless the Lord were the life of that man, and thus life itself and unless also the universal heaven were organic. - 1748, March 22. They are thus in first principles, and from first principles, or things interior, and more interior, could comprehend the things which are without or below. (SE 1625)

Theistic psychology is the organized science of enlightenment, therefore of immortality, since it is our by our consciousness that we live forever (see Section xx). When theistic psychology is genuine, it is a Divine science because nothing from self-intelligence is allowed in its topics and explanations, but only that which is extracted from the literal sentences of the Writings Sacred Scripture. The extraction process must follow the prescribed method of correspondences with enlightenment (see Section xx). Anything extracted with enlightenment -- genuine enlightenment not imagined enlightenment -- remains Divine since the Divine cannot be divided (see Section xx).

Theistic psychology, when genuine, is the Divine Doctrine in our mind, which is the same as the Divine Truth "with us." The level at which we reconstruct Divine Speech or Divine Truth in our mind, varies with the enlightenment level at which we are progressing in our character reformation (see Section xx). There is no possibility of understanding anything spiritually when our natural mind has not undergone reformation first (see Section xx). Once we begin reformation we continue with our regeneration, and that's when we are on a course of endless spiritual growth.

This spiritual growth is an organic process and it depends on the mind-flexing we do with the rational concepts and ideas from the Writings Sacred Scripture. In any phase of our life, we need to bend the conscious mind into a direction appropriate to the doctrine of truth that we understand. In other words, we need to inhibit willing and thinking from nonduality and self-intelligence, and do a new willing and thinking that is in conformity with the doctrine of truth. We extract this doctrine of truth from the Writings and we establish it in our mind. Now we let that doctrine rule our willing and thinking in daily life (For more details on this process, see Volume 1 of my online book A Man of the Field available at
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/volume1-nonduality.html 

The doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture applied to living, is theistic psychology. To the extent that we apply the explanations of theistic psychology to our daily willing and thinking, to that extent we are enlightened by the Divine Psychologist who is working with us to bring about the steps of our individual progression and growth. To the extent that we are enlightened, to that extent we are able to understand and write about higher order correspondences in the Writings Sacred Scripture (see Section xx).

Continuing with another passage from the Writings Sacred Scripture regarding the "heavenly secrets" or ("arcana coelestia") that are extractable from Sacred Scripture from its hidden "internal or correspondential sense," when the literal meaning is made to "vanish." The expression "the Word" refers to all Sacred Scripture viewed as Divine Speech and written in correspondences. The expression "the church" refers to the mental states of regeneration that every individual must experience for spiritual growth.

WH 11

In the internal or correspondential sense of the Word there are innumerable arcana. The Word in the internal sense contains innumerable things which exceed human comprehension (n. 3085, 3086). It also contains things ineffable and inexplicable (n. 1965). Which are manifest only to angels, and are understood by them (n. 167). The internal sense of the Word contains arcana of heaven, which relate to the Lord and His kingdom in the heavens and on earth (n. 1-4, 937). Those arcana do not appear in the sense of the letter (n. 937, 1502, 2161). (...)

The internal sense is itself the genuine doctrine of the church (n. 9025, 9430, 10401.) They who understand the Word according to the internal sense, know the true doctrine itself of the church, because the internal sense contains it (n. 9025, 9430, 10401). The internal of the Word is also the internal of the church, as it is likewise the internal of worship (n. 10460). The Word is the doctrine of love to the Lord, and of charity towards the neighbor (n. 3419, 3420).

There is no end to the human enterprise of theistic psychology because the number of spiritual correspondences that can be extracted from the Writings Sacred Scripture is "innumerable." There is no end to theistic psychology, which makes it suitable for a language of thinking in our immortality, which likewise has no end. Our inmost happiness in heaven depends on seeing ourselves acquire new knowledges from Divine Speech, and this every day to eternity. The infinity of truths extractable from the Writings Sacred Scripture is a necessary consequence of the fact that it is Divine Truth in the mind of humanity. Divine Truth is nothing else than the spiritual light that streams out of the Spiritual Sun and into the mind of humanity (see Section xx). It is this spiritual substance that interacts with our organic elements in the mind, making itself part of our very being.

But our consciousness cannot be fed and grown by it unless we make the Divine truth conscious in our awareness, and acknowledge it as the Divine Truth in our rational understanding, and not our own truth.

This rational understanding gives us our heavenly immortality when we are willing to marry (conjoin) that truth with good, that is, when we are willing to integrate what we think is true with what we do and choose. We accomplish this integration of our mind ("marriage"), by striving to cooperate with the Divine Psychologist in our regeneration. This cooperation consists of applying the doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture to our daily willing and thinking (see Section xx).

The heavenly secrets in theistic psychology "do not appear in the sense of the letter" of the Writings Sacred Scripture. We need to extract its hidden scientific meaning because this "is itself the genuine doctrine of the church." This phrase in the Writings signifies the knowledge of theistic psychology when it is genuine, meaning, when the prescribed extraction method was used, as frequently mentioned (see Section xx).

Theistic psychology is "the internal sense" of the Writings Sacred Scripture, as indicated by this sentence: "They who understand the Word according to the internal sense, know the true doctrine itself of the church, because the internal sense contains it ." In other words, theistic psychology is the genuine doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture. Every regenerating person uses theistic psychology by learning how to cooperate in their regeneration steps with the Divine Psychologist.

It is said in the passage above that "the internal of the Word is also the internal of the church, as it is likewise the internal of worship." The expression "the internal of the Word" refers to genuine theistic psychology extracted from the Writings Sacred Scripture. Hence theistic psychology is "the internal of the church," a phrase signifying the organic virtual heaven created within our interior-natural mind when we begin regeneration (see Section xx). This new spiritual organic portion of the natural mind, can resonate in correspondence with the the higher-order correspondences in our unconscious three heavens. Hence it is that we are enlightened, which refers to the new ability of being able to comprehend rationally spiritual correspondences within Divine Speech. The expression "internal of worship" refers to our attitude of cooperation with the Divine Psychologist who is effecting our regeneration and looking to each of us to do our part. This involves our willingness to face down the temptations He brings to us (see Section xx).

Our ability to face down the habits and enjoyments of the old character depends on the quality of the doctrine of truth we extract from Sacred Scripture. The Divine Psychologist brings to each person a particular series of temptations in the right sequence and timing, giving the individual the opportunity to face down this or that hellish character trait (see Section xx). Spiritual and celestial temptations are not brought to us when we are unwilling to face them down and oppose them (see Section xx).

It is also said in the passage above that "the Word is the doctrine of love to the Lord, and of charity towards the neighbor." This means that genuine theistic psychology exists in the mind only when our purpose for gaining that knowledge is to become a heavenly person. This is the ultimate purpose of the Divine Psychologist with every individual, to raise their consciousness to the level of their heaven, where their merely human proprium or self is no longer desired. Instead, there is the desire for the Divine Proprium of the Divine Human (see Section xx). Swedenborg reports that those who already dwell in their heaven as angels and angelic spirits, are horrified by the idea of returning to their own willing and thinking, such as they had below their heavenly consciousness. What keeps them in heavenly joy and power, is their love for the Divine Proprium. They each become a unique version of the Divine Proprium by allowing the Divine Psychologist to animate their willing and thinking. The sense of as-of self freedom is then maximum -- as empirically reported by the people in that mental state to whom Swedenborg spoke to.

To be animated by God instead of self may sound unattractive when considered from the perspective of the external natural mind, which cannot let go of itself without feeling a loss. So the idea of willing and thinking, not from self, but from the Divine Proprium, sounds unattractive and aversive to the unenlightened natural mind. But we have the evidence of Swedenborg and of Sacred Scripture that this is a false or invalid way of thinking about the Divine Propirum. Instead of a loss of a sense of freedom, feeling the Divine Proprium activate our willing and thinking, without our resistance, is the ultimate rational and heavenly life of a human being, leading to ultimate joys and endlessly new powers or potentials.

9.1.2   The Scientific Meaning of Heaven                           

Quoting from the Writings Sacred Scripture:

AC 13. Those who are being regenerated do not all arrive at this state. The greatest part, at this day, attain only the first state; some only the second; others the third, fourth, or fifth; few the sixth; and scarcely anyone the seventh.

AC 67. CHAPTER 2 As of the Lord's Divine mercy it has been given me to know the internal meaning of the Word, in which are contained deepest arcana that have not before come to anyone's knowledge, nor can come unless the nature of the other life is known (for very many things of the Word's internal sense have regard to, describe, and involve those of that life), I am permitted to disclose what I have heard and seen during some years in which it has been granted me to be in the company of spirits and angels.

AC 68. I am well aware that many will say that no one can possibly speak with spirits and angels so long as he lives in the body; and many will say that it is all fancy, others that I relate such things in order to gain credence, and others will make other objections. But by all this I am not deterred, for I have seen, I have heard, I have felt.

AC 69. Man was so created by the Lord as to be able while living in the body to speak with spirits and angels, as in fact was done in the most ancient times; for, being a spirit clothed with a body, he is one with them. But because in process of time men so immersed themselves in corporeal and worldly things as to care almost nothing for ought besides, the way was closed. Yet as soon as the corporeal things recede in which man is immersed, the way is again opened, and he is among spirits, and in a common life with them.

AC 70. As it is permitted me to disclose what for several years I have heard and seen, it shall here be told, first, how the case is with man when he is being resuscitated; or how he enters from the life of the body into the life of eternity. In order that I might know that men live after death, it has been given me to speak and be in company with many who were known to me during their life in the body; and this not merely for a day or a week, but for months, and almost a year, speaking and associating with them just as in this world. They wondered exceedingly that while they lived in the body they were, and that very many others are, in such incredulity as to believe that they will not live after death; when in fact scarcely a day intervenes after the death of the body before they are in the other life; for death is a continuation of life. 

As I started reading the Writings I came across some consistent themes, each one a remarkable and wonderful scientific revelation. Once such idea is substantive dualism (see Section xx). This is the point of view presented in the Writings, that the structure of the universe is dual: there is a "spiritual world" and it is located "within" the physical world--but not within its spatial properties. Rather, the two worlds are in "discrete degrees" (see Section xx) and functionally linked by correspondence relations that are built into every object from creation (see Section xx). This means that when operations or events take place in the spiritual world they function as "causes" of corresponding events in the physical world ("effects").

The spiritual world has only one sun called the Spiritual Sun, which is a bright aura that surrounds the Divine Human who can be seen in the midst of it by all those who dwell in the heavens of their mind. The spiritual world of eternity is within the mind. This heavenly secret was revealed in the New Testament Sacred Scripture more than two millennia ago.

The kingdom of God cometh not with observation; neither shall they say, Lo here! or, Lo there! For behold, the kingdom of God is within you. (Luke 17:20-21)

upon which the Writings Sacred Scripture comment as follows:

AC 4279

From this one may see the nature of the Word and what happens to it when a person reads it with a holy mind, that is, one in whom good and truth are present. For when he reads it, it is seen by him as something existing in this world or as a historical document, but which nevertheless is inwardly holy. But in the first heaven it is seen as something celestial-natural and spiritual-natural, which however is inwardly Divine In the second heaven it is spiritual, and in the third celestial; and in the Lord it is Divine. The sense in the Word varies according to whatever heaven it may be. The highest sense of the Word, whose subject is the Lord, exists for the inmost or third heaven; the internal sense, whose subject is the Lord's kingdom, exists for the middle or second heaven; the lower sense, in which the internal sense is narrowed down to the nation referred to there, exists for the lower or first heaven. But the lowest or literal sense exists for man while he is still living in the world. Yet man's nature is such that the more interior sense, and also the internal and highest sense, can be communicated to him. For man has communication with the three heavens; indeed he is created on the pattern of the three heavens, so much so that when love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbour constitute his life he is heaven in miniature. Consequently such a person has the Lord's kingdom within him, as the Lord Himself teaches in Luke,

Behold, the kingdom of God is within you. Luke 17:21.

In the passage above, "the Word" refers to Sacred Scripture. "To read it with a holy mind" refers to the positive bias in theistic psychology (see Section xx). In that state of mind, "good and truth are present," which means that our willing and thinking in daily life strives to conform to the doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture (see Section x). The positive bias is to read Sacred Scripture as "something existing in this world or as a historical document, but which nevertheless is inwardly holy." The expression "inwardly holy" refers to the Divine character of theistic psychology when it is genuine, that is, extracted from the Writings Sacred Scripture in accordance with the method of correspondences with enlightenment (see Section xx).

Genuine theistic psychology is said to be Divine because it proceeds from Divine Speech, and what proceeds from the Divine remains Divine, when it is operative in our mind without "adulteration" or distortion by self-intelligence (see Section xx).

Sacred Scripture in the three heavens are encoded in correspondences appropriate to each consciousness level -- From Divine in the Divine Human, it becomes Divine-celestial in the third heaven of our mind, then Divine-spiritual in the second heaven of our mind, then Divine-natural in the first heaven of our mind. The topic of Sacred Scripture in our third heaven is the Divine Human Love in our affective organ. The topic of Sacred Scripture in our second heaven is the "the Lord's kingdom" which is "heaven," that is,  the Divine Human Truth in our cognitive organ.. The topic of Sacred Scripture in our first heaven is "narrowed down to the nation referred to there." This is an expression that signifies the Divine Human Uses in our sensorimotor organ (see Section xx). This is an "internal sense" that is above the external historical level of Sacred Scripture, which gives the "literal sense for man while he is still living in the world."

The literal meaning of Sacred Scripture as most people know it, hides within itself three discrete layers of spiritual meaning that is unrelated to the literal meaning. These three inner meanings are called spiritual-natural, spiritual-rational, and celestial-rational (see Section xx). These inner meanings actually create the genes of consciousness at each discrete level of our mind (see Section xx).

The expression "man has communication with the three heavens" refers to the three discrete layers of functioning in our mind -- celestial, spiritual, natural, and how they interact with each other through correspondences, and what operational consequences they produce in our conscious natural mind.

Note this crucial sentence for theistic psychology: "man's nature is such that the more interior sense, and also the internal and highest sense, can be communicated to him." In other words, while we are here on earth conscious in our natural mind ("man's nature"), the higher-order rational correspondences operating in our unconscious spiritual mind ("three heavens"), "can be communicated to him," meaning that these unconscious spiritual correspondences can be made conscious to our natural mind.

This is a most welcome piece of news! Theistic psychology is in fact the knowledge of these spiritual correspondences being "communicated" to us, that is, made conscious in our natural mind. As mentioned frequently elsewhere (see Section xx), this spiritual ability is the basis of our rational consciousness of God, and has been made possible in us by the work of the Divine Child during the Incarnation Event (see Section xx).

This new spiritual organ within the natural mind is a discrete degree within the natural level of thinking and willing. Hence it is called the "interior-natural" level, and this is the same as the spiritual-natural correspondences in our first heaven (see Section xx). Hence it is that we call this new organ a virtual heaven since it gives the new ability to be conscious of spiritual correspondences of Divine Speech -- not merely spiritual-natural, but also spiritual-rational (second heaven) and celestial-rational (third heaven).

Hence it is that theistic psychology, when it is genuine in our understanding, is heaven within us. Or, to say it another way, theistic psychology creates heaven within us. More specifically, since heaven is in us from creation, the study of theistic psychology activates or operationalizes the heavenly potential in us.

This spiritual idea that "heaven is within us," is an instance of a "naked truth" that is written out in the literal meaning of the natural language in the New Testament Sacred Scripture (see Section xx). Despite this heavenly secret being around for many centuries in the Western mind and literature, it has not led to enlightenment regarding what it means or how one is to understand it. It is common to relate its meaning to the natural idea that we need to repent from our sins and have good will towards others, if we expect to enter heaven, at "the end of times" when our bodies are resurrected to eternal life "on a new earth." But things have changed completely since the18th century, when the Writings Sacred Scripture were delivered to humanity through Swedenborg (see Section xx).

Today it is known in theistic psychology that the Divine Human has created in Himself during the Incarnation Event, this new interior-natural organ that allowed Him to become conscious of the Divine correspondences that He had within His (then) unconscious spiritual mind. The lowered consciousness of the Divine Child is referred to in the Writings as "exinanition." As the Divinee Child was creating this new higher biological organ in Himself, He was also creating this new organ in the human mind through His Divine power from within Himself. When the process was completed in Himself -- called "glorification" -- it was also completed in every human mind. From that moment on, every human being anywhere in both worlds, possessed that new capacity within themselves.

The human race took its final step of evolution by being given the new ability of becoming conscious of the three heavens that are created within us. In theistic psychology this new higher spiritual consciousness is called rational consciousness of God (see Section xx), and in the literal of the Writings, it is called "rational faith" which is what the New Church is based on (see Section xx).

Another passage from the Writings Sacred Scripture identifies "heaven within us" as the mental states of regeneration.

AC 8036

This then is charity, and this is faith. They who are in these have within them the kingdom of the Lord and heaven, and within them is the church; and these are they who have been regenerated by the Lord, and from Him have received a new will and a new understanding.

The expression "the church" in the Writings Sacred Scripture signifies the mental states of the regenerating person during character reformation. The expression "a new will and a new understanding" refers to the higher-order virtual heaven, or interior-natural organ, discussed just above. This new organ contains a new affective organ ("the will") and a new cognitive organ ("the understanding"). these interior-natural organs operate with spiritual correspondences that virtually match those in our three heavens -- the spiritual-natural correspondences, the spiritual-rational correspondences, and the celestial-rational correspondences (see Section xx).

When the Divine Child as an Adult said to His followers, "the Kingdom of heaven is within you," He was talking about this new interior-natural organ that He was at that very time creating in Himself, and in His followers, and in the rest of the human race.

Though they are within every person by that act of creation, the three heavens nevertheless remain dormant or unconscious to us, until we begin our reformation and regeneration ("rebirth"). This is a process of perfection of character that goes on all our life, in this world and in immortality. But it goes on differently once we pass into our heavenly consciousness, where temptations are never present, as they are here during our regeneration (see Section xx).

Quoting further on this topic from the Writings Sacred Scripture:

AC 1733

That which is interior in man is called 'heaven', and that which is exterior 'earth'. The reason heaven means that which is interior in man is that man as regards interior things is an image of heaven, and so a miniature heaven. The Lord's Interior Man primarily is heaven, for the Lord is the All in all of heaven, and thus heaven itself. The exterior man's being called 'the earth' follows as a consequence of this. Here also is the reason why 'the new heaven and the new earth' described in the Prophets and in the Book of Revelation is used to mean nothing other than the Lord's kingdom and every person who is the Lord's kingdom, that is, who has the Lord's kingdom within him. As regards heaven and earth having these meanings, see 82, 911, for heaven, and 82, 620, 636, 913, for earth.

In other words, our natural mind is relatively "exterior" in relation to the Spiritual Sun, and is called "earth," while our spiritual mind is "interior" and is called "heaven." Our unconscious interior spiritual mind is built up solely by sensory input and information from the spiritual world. Our conscious exterior natural mind is built up solely by sensory input and information from the natural world. We thus have both "heaven and earth" within our mind, which is called a heaven "in miniature" and a "little earth." The end of the world and the destruction of the earth referred to in the New Testament Sacred Scripture, are therefore references to the regeneration of the natural mind and the animation of the spiritual mind through the "new will" or interior-natural organ (see above). The details about this regeneration process are given in the scientific sense of the Book of Revelations in the New Testament. This hidden meaning remained unknown to the world, though it gave rise to many speculations and fantasies. But now, the Writings of Swedenborg revealed the method of correspondences with enlightenment, by which the hidden meaning is made conscious to a person.

It took Swedenborg eight volumes (AE and AR) to explain the inner correspondential sense of every word, phrase, and verse in the Book of Revelations of the New Texstament. Anyone can read these volumes and make the translation process understandable to themselves -- but only in a natural way of thinking about these spiritual topics. In order to gain a spiritual understanding of these spiritual topics, we must be enlightened, which happens to anyone who is undergoing character reformation by means of the doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture (see Section xx).

The Writings Sacred Scripture do not constitute science, but they contain scientific revelations that can be systematically extracted, as illustrated in theistic psychology. This extracted knowledge is the form of meaning we need in order to be able to regenerate our character by means of the genuine doctrine of truth (see Section xx). The literal meaning of the Writings Sacred Scripture can only give us natural-rational correspondences of Divine Speech. At this level of thinking, we can know what we must do to regenerate, but we don't have the steady motivation to accomplish it. Nor do we have a comprehension of spiritual correspondences, until we are willing to consciously and explicitly look for them within the literal meaning, using the proper method, as discussed frequently.

The mental state of consciously comprehending spiritual correspondences is called "enlightenment" (see Section xx). The literal meaning of the Writings Sacred Scripture cannot give us this state of enlightenment, hence cannot serve for our regeneration (see Section xx). Only if we apply the literal meaning to our own willing an thinking can this knowledge serve for our regeneration. Theistic psychology teaches systematic methods for the extraction process, along with a rational register or syntax for generating new doctrine that is genuine, and can serve for motivating our regeneration.

9.1.2.1  Heavenly Robotics -- In the Image and Likeness of God

One of the most far reaching discoveries Swedenborg has made is that our true humanity begins when we allow God to animate all our willing and thinking.

God is the Divine Human from eternity, prior to the existence of the universe and the creation of human beings.

Therefore, the Divine of God is infinite and from eternity, and the Human of God is infinite and from eternity.

The infinite Divine Human from eternity created the universe and human beings by means of His Human and from His Divine.

The Human of God is called Divine Truth and the Divine of God is called Divine Love. Therefore God created the universe and human beings by means of truth from love.

The phrase "by means of truth from love" means that the visible outward shape of the universe and of human beings is that of the shape of truth, while the invisible inward shape of all created things is that of the shape of love.

The visible shape of God's Truth is Human, while the invisible shape of God's Love is Divine.

Of all created things, human beings are the only creations that appear in the actual human shape of Truth.

Every human being is born with a unique mind into which are built several layers of mentality and life. The highest layer is the only true human form because it is built out of God's Human, that is, out of Truth. This truly human layer is called heaven. When our mentality level and character develops all the way to our heaven, we have reached the highest human potential possible. We are called "angels" and our immortality is lived in conjugial love and in community with like others. Outwardly we live in a paradise and magnificent palaces and cities. Inwardly, in our willing and thinking we are animated completely by the Divine Human Proprium. Every moment of our life is a Grand Moment, filled with with as much joy, enthusiasm, and inventiveness that we are willing to experience. We live eternity unselfconsciously, feeling ourselves pulled by the "stream of Divine Providence" in complete peace and confidence. There can never be a dull moment or a diminution of the intensity of our feelings and the inventiveness of our thoughts. There is no sense of time, no sense of conflict, no dilemma, no puzzle or mystery. Everything you want to know instantly comes to your awareness. Everything you desire is instantly created and provided for you. This is the true human life for which God created the human race, and continues to create it in ever larger numbers.

What does it mean that to be truly human, or in heaven, we must be willing to be animated by the Proprium of the Divine Human? This is the key to our eternal happiness and success.

The word "proprium" is a Latin word that means what is our "own," and this is what we call "the self." The proprium of every human being is born deformed by inheritance, and is not in the proper human shape of truth (see Section xx). Only the heaven in their mind is in the proper human shape. The task before every person on earth is therefore to learn to become truly human in the character and in the level of one's thinking mentality. By inherited inclination our natural mind is animalistic or sub-human. Society had to become civilized by following the principles of truth, which are in the genuinely human shape. God reshapes and recreates the inherited human character by the process of reformation and regeneration by means of truth from Divine Speech that comes into our conscious awareness through Sacred Scripture and instruction based on it (see Section xx).

In this way our character becomes heavenly, that is in the shape of truth, the genuinely human shape.

The process of raising ourselves to our heavenly potential is accomplished by a lifelong effort of character reformation governed by the doctrine of truth which we extract from Sacred Scripture (see Section xx).

When we become spirits after being resuscitated (see Section xx), our natural mind is no longer the focus of our conscious awareness. We become completely involved the life we have in our spiritual mind, which was unconscious while we were on earth in our natural mind (see Section xx). Now our new life of immortality begins in our spiritual mind, which is perfectly well equipped with sensory organs. We have a keen perception of the spiritual environment around us, which corresponds with our mental states. We live in the inward unconscious life we had before. It is not a new life. All the loves, feelings, and ideas are familiar to us, now that they are no longer unconscious. That is why they feel so totally familiar. We now exist inside our feelings and thoughts.

There are those who come into the life of immortality with a heavenly character already achieved through regeneration. They are swept by their inclinations, into the life of heaven in their mind.

There are those who come into the life of immortality with an unregenerate hellish character such as they had from birth. They are swept by their inclinations, into the life of hell in their mind.

The life of endless hell in the mind is the life of one's own proprium. The life of eternal heaven in the mind is the life of God's Divine Human Proprium.

Swedenborg discussed this with those who were in the heaven of their mind. They explained to him that they have an actual sensory perception of the "influx" of God's Proprium into their character (affective organ) and into their understanding (cognitive organ). Spiritual light, which is Divine Truth in substance, flows from the Spiritual sun into their cognitive organ, and enlightens it. This feels to them as a kind of omniscience, since it gives them instant access to any knowledge or information they are curious about. There is no sense of mental effort such as there is when we study, learn, and enlarge our knowledge in the natural mind. At the same time, the perceive spiritual heat form the Spiritual Sun entering their affective organ. This feels to them like a kind of omnipotence in that they are able to achieve perfect success at anything they are moved to undertake. They also experience a kind of omnipresence in that they are able to appear in any place instantaneously without the effort of moving.

Clearly then, the highest human potential possible is a state of life that feels in some respects like that of God -- genuinely human possessing good and truth, immortal, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.

What is most astonishing to me about this, is that we are most human when we are God's robots!

The idea of being "robots" wouldn't sound attractive to most people, even if it is God's robots. But this is a natural or materialistic way of thinking about robots. Heavenly robotics is different. The quality of Divine Love is such that it desires and wills that what is its own, belong to human beings. Divine Love comes to human beings in the visible appearance of Divine Truth. We are given a rational portion of the mind in order to be able to see, recognize, comprehend, accept, and love Divine Truth. Inside of this truth, invisible to us, is God's Divine Love. By consciously comprehending and accepting God's Divine Truth in our cognitive organ, God secretly activates and animates our affective organ with love. In this way He makes us heavenly and truly human, which means that we are willing to give up living our life according to our own self, and willing to live instead according to God's Proprium.

We are willing to feel happy and blessed when our willing and thinking is animated by God's character rather our own.

This is the secret of heavenly life.

The angels told Swedenborg that the instant they would imagine to pursue something from their own (dormant) self or character, they fall out of their heaven, and into hell. Heaven is God's Proprium, and to live in that mental state in our mind, we must be willing to give up our own self, and love to be nothing but God's Proprium for the rest of eternity.

Heavenly robotics is the achievement of maximum pure freedom in the life of human beings. This heaven is created in our mind by Divine Speech through the higher-order rational correspondences of Sacred Scripture that we are willing to extract and use as guiding doctrine for our daily life on earth (see Section xx).

But of course "robotics" is just a modern analogy for the mental state of angels in relation to the Divine Human's Proprium. The spiritual meaning of this celestial relationship with God is in the idea of "innocence" -- the heavenly trait that is most like the perfection of the Divine Human. The experience of innocence in relation to God is the closest mental state a human being is capable of achieving by creation, from birth to eternity.

The Divine Child was in this mental state of innocence in relation to His inmost Divine being. Without it, He could not have "glorified" his natural mind "by His own power." And in that case the natural human could not have become one with His Human Divine, in which case the He could not have created the new interior-natural organ in every human mind. And without that, no one could be regenerated. Therefore every human being, past, present, and future, would have fallen into the hells of their mind to eternity. But this unimaginable catastrophe was averted thanks to the innocence of the Divine Child during the Incarnation Event (see Section xx).

As angels in our third heaven we are not robots. We are in the mental state of innocence in relation to the Divine Human who is the "all in all" in our mind. This is an expression referring to our willingness to subdue and inhibit the slightest sign of our own proprium or self-initiative and self-intelligence. In the mentality of our third heaven, we find it most aversive and abominable to choose self over the Divine Human. In the celestial mental state we think with celestial-rational correspondences. This is the only true and genuine level of thinking and willing. In our heavenly mental state we allow Divine Speech to shape our consciousness by means of celestial-rational correspondences. All the topics of that thinking level concern themselves with only one major theme -- how they may love the Divine Human more and more.

They receive this love for the Divine Human in innocence, from the Divine Human.

In other words, when we are in the mental state of innocence, we feel prompted to love the Divine Human.

This love for the Divine Human consumes us. We can think nothing else that we can love more. We have a distinct feeling of increasing happiness and joy every day to eternity. This love is infinite and our increasing joy and blessedness increases endlessly.

Why does God prompt us to love Him more and more and causes that love for Him to increase endlessly in us?

Because love conjoins, and the greater the love, the closer the conjunction. The closer the conjunction to God, the more truly human we become in our willing, thinking, and sensing. And in this way God can keep our heavenly happiness and powers to multiply daily endlessly. This is God's goal in creating the human race and the universe. Such is the nature of the Divine Human's infinite love for the human race that He desires to make us happy endlessly from the infinite variety of His Good by means of the infinite multiplicity of His Truth.

You may wonder what innocence feels like. You can have a sense of the mental state of innocence when you are in the presence of an infant or baby, especially if you are a parent or relative. All infants are mentally connected to their third heaven and the people that already dwell there in their eternity. This connection remains with them as long as they are in the mental state of innocence. The Writings define innocence as the willingness to obey God.  To infants and little children, parents or caretakers are in the role position of of God. They have all their physical and mental needs being taken care of by the parents just as the parents have theirs being taken care of by God. Infants love their parents and caretakers and cling to them, obey them, love to please them. When we do this with the Divine Human, we enter the mental state of innocence. The study and love for theistic psychology helps us develop the skill of entering and maintaining the mental state of innocence in relation to the Divine Human.

Innocence can be better understood if you think of as a trigrammatic concept constructed out of three discrete components (see Section xx):

[ willingness to receive  /  willingness to obey  /  willingness to give      ]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ sensorimotor              /   cognitive                      /    affective                          ]
[ first heaven                /   second heaven           /     third heaven                  ]

This spiritual understanding of the concept of innocence allows us to see, to some extent, why it is that the Writings Sacred Scripture pick innocence as the highest possible human angelic trait. Innocence actually forms our three heavens. In other words, our three heavens are constructed out of innocence, which is the highest celestial substance that our affective organ is capable of receiving.

The celestial substance of innocence is the core of spiritual heat that streams from the Spiritual sun. Innocence is the meaning itself of Divine Speech. When we are reborn we are like children since we are willing to receive good and truth from the Divine Human through Sacred Scripture. Until we are reborn our character is not yet reformed so that we are in a mental state in which we are unwilling to receive good and truth from the Divine Human -- we deny the Divine Human in our very willing and thinking. We allocate God to a position of distance from our willing and thinking, where we insist that we be independent and on our own.

When we overcome this irrational mental state and bow to the rational implications of God's omnipresence, including our willing and thinking all day long, and all night, from birth to endless eternity. Such is our amazing close and intimate relationship with God. When we acknowledge this with our rational understanding, we are in the first state of innocence, the willingness to receive good and truth from the Divine Human in our mind. This creates our first heaven, which is the interior of the natural mind (see Section xx).

To advance in our regeneration to the second discrete level of consciousness, we must be willing to obey the Divine Human doctrine of truth that we extracted from the Writings Sacred Scripture. To obey the truth that we understand is to elevate our understanding of that truth to a new discrete level called the second heaven. This is a new power in the operations of our cognitive organ. We can reason at a higher level of rationality that is formed by spiritual-rational correspondences of Sacred Scripture.

To advance in our regeneration to the third and highest discrete level of consciousness, we must be willing to give to others the good and truth that we receive from the Divine Human. This is the highest state of innocence because the desire to give to others is called "charity" and this is nothing else than Divine Human Love. In other words, spiritual heat entering the affective organ at its highest level (celestial), activates the desire to give to others or to benefit others with the good and truth we possess. 

In the New Testament Sacred Scripture, the Divine Human is portrayed as a Lamb because that animal represents and corresponds to celestial innocence. The Human of God is willing to be animated totally by the Divine of God. This willingness of the Human of God is innocence itself. It is this innocence that saves the human race from finding itself permanently in the hells of the mind. Only the Divine of God, which is Love, has omnipotence. It is this omnipotence that keeps the human race from degenerating into its hells. By being innocent in perfection, the Human of God is conjoined into unity with the Divine of God. This is called the Divine Marriage and is the model after which our own mental marriage is based, namely, the unification process between our ideal knowledge of truth and its practical execution in our willing and doing (see Section xx). It is the Lamb, therefore, that saves the human race by making it possible for our understanding to be united to our will.

We are willing to be animated completely by the Divine Human when we give up all desire to be animated by our own self -- our affections, loves, motives. and ideas. This mental stat is the height of innocence itself. It is to be a "heavenly robot."

Innocence is the mental state that sets up the interaction between God and humanity, upon which all eternity is founded.

When we are still children we are more in the mental state of innocence than in our adulthood. As children we are willing to receive good and truth from our parents, caretakers, and society, by acknowledging authority. We are even more in the state of innocence if we are also willing to obey their rules and wishes. And we are most in a state of innocence when, as children, we are animated by the desire to please, to share, to give.

When we are willing to remain in the mental state of innocence, we experience happiness and enthusiasm. These affective operations stimulate our cognitive operations so that our thinking becomes of a superior level, based on higher or deeper truths. With higher truths in our rational understanding, we can receive still higher good in our affective organ. In this way we live in endlessly increasing enthusiasm, intelligence, and happiness.

It makes sense to think of innocence as the highest human potential because it is the Divine Human who has invented and created human beings for the sole purpose of making them endlessly happy, enthusiastic, and intelligent. He could do this in only way -- to create them with a mind that can receive from the Divine Human's infinite store of heavenly mental states called "good and truth."

You can see that we are able to receive "good and truth" from God willingly, in all innocence, or else in an unwilling state. God created human beings, in all innocence --  to receive, obey, and give, as discussed above. But at the same time God also grants every human being the desire to follow self, instead of God. Whenever we want to follow self, we take the "good and truth" we receive from God, and we pretend it is our own, not from God. This is called the state of "arrogance," and it is the opposite of the state of innocence. God cooperates with each of us, and empowers our decisions, by which He brings about consequences that we have to face and deal with. In this process we eventually are more willing to give up the destructive desire to follow self, and we are willing to follow God. Then at last can God give us more "good and truth" and bring us to our next phase of development.

Innocence is the entry point for humanity's conjunction with God.

Prior to rebirth and reformation (see Section xx) we are in an arrogant mental state due to several influences. We inherit the powerful attraction to our own wants, desires, pleasures, and enjoyments. We are unwilling to give them up when we are told what innocence is and what we should do. Our arrogance mixes itself with cynicism. When we hear about what "heavenly robotics" is, as discussed in this Section, we are disenchanted, even hateful. We find it ludicrous to think that to be God's robots is the highest human potential we can reach. It seems to us in this mental state, that innocence is the lowest human state because it removes our human independence and demeans our spirit.

From the perspective of theistic psychology we can see that this way of thinking is to think in a natural way about a spiritual topic (see Section xx). Innocence as an expression of "heavenly robotics" actually elevates the human spirits to its highest created state of operation precisely because it removes the independent human self or "proprium," which is called a "little hell." In fact, what we experience as enjoyable is from hell. In other words, everyone is born with both hell and heaven in the mind (see Section xx). Hellish enjoyments operate in the lower portion of the organic mind and heavenly enjoyments operate in the upper portion.

Heavenly enjoyments (see Section xx) are produced in our mind by "good and truth" when received in innocence, as explained above.

Hellish enjoyments (see Section xx) are produced in our mind by the appropriation of that "good and truth" to oneself.

God empowers both types of operations for the sake of the individual's regeneration (see Section xx).

Self-attribution of "good and truth" is a mental state of rational insanity. It would be like an individual in a city who is unwilling to acknowledge the government as real. How would this person explain what's going on around -- laws, courts, police, permits, taxes, jails, road construction and repair? Whatever account or explanations the person would make up for these things would be insane .In the same way, it is insane to think that we have the ability to function one hour of the day on our own as human beings. God is "omnipotent" which means rationally that we do not have any ability or power whatsoever. If we had the power to lift a finger on our own, or to think a concept on our own, then God would not be omnipotent.

Since God is omnipotent, we must think rationally how it seems then that we act from our own self (see section xx). We could not be happy and intelligent beings unless we had the experience that we are acting from our own self -- this is true. Therefore God has created our mind in such a form that it not only can receive "good and truth" from God, but we can experience it as-if it was our own.

This must be understood rationally. The contrast is between "experience" and "acknowledgement." Our happiness and intelligence do not depend on knowing that we act from self, but on experiencing it.

We can acknowledge and know that God animates our willing and thinking. This will not detract from our happiness and intelligence -- as long as we have the experience that we are acting from self. We can wrongly rely on this experience of as-of self independence, and make up an insane doctrine, like materialism, which denies the existence of a spiritual world of eternity from where God creates and runs the universe by means of Divine Speech.

For more discussion on the as-of self concept, see Section xx.

9.1.2.1.1 The Freedom and Remains in Innocence

xxxx see p. 464 V.2 in AC

9.1.3  The Divine History of Theistic Psychology

The New Church, established at the end of the 18th century, is the religion based on the literal meaning of the Writings Sacred Scripture (see Section xx). It is my observation from their literature coveing the past one hundred and fifty years (see Readings), that the doctrine of the Church they have evolved for their regeneration, has been formed by applying the extraction process in a general rather than a fully explicit and systematic way, as it is done in theistic psychology. Nevertheless, it is clear when one reads their accumulated work, that they are implicitly following that procedure when thinking deeply about the topics. In fact, they have come to the explicit realization of this in the1920s and 1930s, as documented in a Church doctrinal magazine publication that has been republished under its title known as De Hemelsche Leer --  which means "Heavenly Doctrine" in the Dutch language.  I have scanned this happily preserved three-volume publication, now in the public domain, and have made it available on the Web at: www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409ss99/thompson/mscan9.html.

The Dutch branch of the General Church in the 1920s consisted of no more than a dozen families. The men met together regularly to study and discuss a new insight they had about the Writings Sacred Scripture, which they called the "Third Testament," equal in Divinity with the Old and New Testaments. This was the view that distinguished the General Church from other branches of the New Church. However, the Dutch group now went a step further, a giant step further. The insight they received was this: The Writings teach how we must extract the spiritual meaning hidden within the literal of the Old and New Testaments. This method of extraction of the spiritual meaning from Sacred Scripture is called the method of correspondences with enlightenment, as frequently discussed and applied in theistic psychology (see Section xx).

For one hundred years, the General Church scholars, whose work is listed in the Readings, defended vigorously the idea that the Writings of Swedenborg are Sacred Scripture ("the Word"). But they did not receive the insight that the method of correspondences with enlightenment should also be applied to the Writings, since they are Sacred Scripture. The Writings declare in multiple places that all Sacred Scripture is written in natural correspondences, and that we should apply the method of correspondences with enlightenment when we read Sacred Scripture. It seems obvious that if we consider the Writings of Swedenborg as Sacred Scripture, then we ought to read it with the of correspondences with enlightenment. After one hundred years of preparation, the obvious idea hit the awareness of the General Church through the Dutch group. They started a Dutch magazine in which they wrote about their new idea. The magazine was called De Hemelsche Leer which is "Heavenly Doctrine" in Dutch.

The Dutch members of the General Church who wrote the articles, prove their thesis without the shadow of a doubt, by providing abundant evidence for it from many quotations from the Writings. They collected hundreds of passages that show how the method of correspondences with enlightenment must be applied to the literal meaning of the Writings in order to extract the "Heavenly Doctrine," without which regeneration is not possible. This controversial issue is reviewed in Volume 2 of my book A Man of the Field, available here: www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/nonduality.html  I call it controversial because the leaders of the General Church back home in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, read the articles and wrote articles in their own magazines that rejected the whole idea as a "heresy" or false doctrine. There was an exchange of a series of acrimonious letters, which you can read in the English translation of the De Hemelsche Leer (available at: www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409ss99/thompson/mscan9.html ).

Eventually the climate between the two groups became so divisive that the tiny Dutch Group of the General Church split off and became reborn under its new name of The Lord's New Church. Today, seventy years later, the two Churches are both located in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania and have close educational, social, and family ties. But they remain separate in the issue that originally divided them.

When I started reading the Writings in 1981 I was unaware for awhile that a New Church existed that was based on the Writings. I started reading the magazines and articles of the General Church. Shortly thereafter, I discovered also De Hemelsche Leer and read the exchange of letters and the historical split in the Church. It was immediately clear to me that a paradigm shift in thinking took place between the General Church and the Lord's New Church. Later I came to the realization that this paradigm shift in thinking is a developmental step every individual must take who is being regenerated (see Section xx).

It is my observation that the scholars of the General Church who think deeply when studying the Writings, produce articles and doctrinal lessons that are to some extent abstracted principles from the literal meaning. Take for example, the work of Bishop George de Charms of the General Church (see Readings), on the "Doctrine of Reflection" now available online at: www.thenewphilosophyonline.org/journal/article.php?issue=107a&page=1002

Quoting Bishop George De Charms:

“There are more arcana in the doctrine of reflection than in any other whatever.” This arresting statement is found in number 733 of the Spiritual Diary1 by Emanuel Swedenborg. It seems to challenge the generally accepted view, for we have been prone to think of reflection as merely one form, among many, of mental activity. We would ordinarily place it in the same category as sensation, memory, imagination and thought. Why should it contain more arcana than any of these? Are there not other doctrines that are of even greater importance? Consider creation, redemption and glorification; or influx, providence and regeneration. Must these not have an even broader application than the doctrine of reflection?

However, when we analyze the teaching of the Writings on the subject of reflection, we learn that it has a universal application because it underlies all the other operations of the human mind. All consciousness depends upon it. Without it there can be no sensation, memory, imagination or thought. Without it the Lord could not have effected the glorification of His Human; nor could He have provided for the regeneration of man and the salvation of the human race. Not only does it contain the key to the understanding of all the conscious activities of the human mind, but it explains all the countless phenomena of the spiritual world. The life of man on earth is distinguished from that of angels and spirits solely by the fact that they have a distinctly different plane of reflection. Because of this, the inhabitants of one world can be completely unconscious of those in the other world, and at the same time can be in constant and intimate association with them. Without this association there could be no conscious life in either world. Open communication between the two worlds is made possible only by bringing both men and spirits temporarily into a state of reflection that is common to both.

Furthermore, the doctrine of reflection has never been revealed before in the entire history of the human race. The laws of reflection have indeed been operative from the beginning of time, but they have not been known. Men have enjoyed the benefits of their operation, and have taken them for granted without even trying to understand them. Just as the laws of gravity existed before the time of Newton, and those of electricity before Franklin began to investigate them, so the laws of reflection were operative before they were revealed in the Writings of the Lord’s Second coming. They were unknown to the men of the Most Ancient Church who nevertheless had great heavenly wisdom. They were concealed from the men of the Ancient Church even in the days of its pristine glory. They could not be made known to those who belonged to the Jewish Church, nor even to Christians before the Lord had made His second coming. Only through the medium of one who could live consciously in both worlds at the same time, and who therefore could compare the two worlds and note how each was related to the other, could the laws of reflection be made known.

These laws are now laid open by the Lord because some understanding of them is vital to the establishment of the New Church.

As you read these paragraphs by De Charms do they not seem to you like theistic psychology material?

This is because his method of reading the Writings involves extracting new knowledge that is not apparent from reading the Writings by retaining focus on the surface of the text. In this sample, De Charms starts with the literal meaning of a sentence in the Writings: "There are more arcana in the doctrine of reflection than in any other whatever." He wants to penetrate this idea more deeply. He asks himself why should this topic of "reflection" be more special than others that seem at first equally or more important. He sees reflection as a mental state related to "sensation, memory, imagination and thought." These are universal psychological concepts about human development that he elaborates on in many of his works. His research with various passages in the Writings lead to conclude that reflection "has a universal application because it underlies all the other operations of the human mind. All consciousness depends upon it."

Clearly De Charms is into theistic psychology here -- though without calling it that officially. What we call theistic psychology, he calls "doctrinal studies." He sees his work in the context of religion while we see theistic psychology in the context of science.

Works by other General Church scholars can easily be cited to show the same thing. For instance, Hugo Lj. Odhner's 1969 book called The Human Mind: Its Faculties and Degrees. A Study of Swedenborg's Psychology, presents a very useful anatomical chart extracted from the Writings. Contemporary interest in the General Church includes the desire to maintain a school curriculum that conforms to the developmental steps described in the Writings. This applied research in theistic psychology is discussed in Section xx.

The literature on the doctrine of the General Church is fairly extensive, as is shown in the Readings, where I only list the material I am familiar with. In my view, the two most distinctive and extensive instances of this doctrinal work, are the articles and books by Bishop George DeCharms of the General Church, and Bishop Philip N. Odhner, of the Lord's New Church. The articles, books, and doctrinal lessons they have left behind form an integral part of theistic psychology -- which is why I have included them in the Readings. The lifelong work of Bishop DeCharms on cognitive development and dynamics, is discussed in Section xx, and Bishop Odhner's work on the inner meaning of the Writings is discussed in Section xx.

It is therefore a historical irony that it was on Bishop DeCharms watch as leader of the General Church, when the "Dutch Controversy" broke up the Church, with the splinter group declaring themselves to be a new entity called The Lord's New Church Which Is Nova Hierosolyma. Philip Odhner became their first official Bishop. He was in that post when he contacted me in 1983, having heard of my work on Swedenborg at the University of Hawaii. When we met in Hawaii he asked me whether it would be possible to create a science of psychology that is compatible with the Writings Sacred Scripture, which he called "the Third Testament." I had been working with such a goal since 1981 when I first started reading the Writings of Swedenborg. And now you can see this goal culminating in the making of theistic psychology through these18 volumes. One day my wife Diane and I received a package from Philip Odhner and his wife Beryl. It contained the three-volume set of the De Hemelsche Leer.

The moment I started reading De Hemelsche Leer I recognized that it was written in spiritual-natural correspondences, unlike the Wirings which were written in natural-rational correspondences (see Section xx).

It felt like a new enlightenment, a new and additional valid way of comprehending the literal meaning of the Writings Sacred Scripture, which the authors referred to as "the Third Testament" and also as "the Final Testament."

I also came across the extensive correspondence exchanged between the General Church leaders in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, and the tiny Dutch group that consisted of about a dozen enlightened men. Their chief spokespersons and contributors were Ernest Pfeiffer, Harry Groeneveld, and Theodore Pitcairn. Pfeiffer and Pitcairn, like Philip Odhner, were ordained ministers in the General Church, from which they resigned to begin the new era of the Lord's New Church. You can read the correspondence, translated in English, here: www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409ss99/thompson/mscan.html. When I first read it I was quite surprised that Bishop DeCharms and colleagues seemed unable to comprehend the spiritual correspondences in which De Hemelsche Leer was written. They focused on its literal meaning only no matter how much the new rational understanding was rephrased and re-proven by new passages during the course of the exchange. As I was reading this written record over and over again, I came to realize that a discrete degree of thinking separated the old and the new sides of the issue. I discuss this matter in detail in Volume 2 of my book A Man of the Field available here: www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409ss99/thompson/mscan.html 

The contributors of the De Hemelsche Leer began a new era in the understanding of the Writings as Sacred Scripture by analyzing the sentences of the Writings using the method of correspondences with enlightenment.

However, they were not scientists. They were doing this as religion. The research presented in this Volume shows the exact nature of the difference between religious doctrine and theistic psychology. It is my prediction that once theistic psychology is studied by the scholars of these two branches of the New Church, and perhaps other branches as well, they will be able to recognize that Divine Speech is to be made conscious to most people on this earth by means of theistic psychology as science, rather than by means of the spread of the New Church religion. This will indeed occur to some extent, as the New Church has already spread to more than a dozen of countries -- involving tiny numbers of people who have converted to this new Christian religion.

But the Writings teach that the diversity of cultures, and their varieties of religious beliefs, is a correspondential reflection of the infinity that is in the Divine Human. It is not to be expected that the variety of religions is to disappear from this earth. The Writings reveal that when people are resuscitated (see Section xx), they are instructed regarding the Divine Human, but they are not pressured or influenced in any way to change the religion of their childhood. The heaven in the minds of people vary with their religion and cultural character or "genius." When they ascend to their heavens they do not find the New Church there, but their own religion, modified somewhat by eliminating the false notions attached to it, which are incompatible with the character of the Divine Human.

From all this you can see that it is not to be expected that the the Writings Sacred Scripture will enter the conscious awareness through the New Church religions. But the concepts and ideas of the Writings must enter their awareness, or else they cannot develop a rational consciousness of the Divine Human, just as Christians cannot, without knowing the correspondences in which the New Testament is written (see Section xx). God had to provide another way for bringing the new knowledge of the Writings to all humanity. This new way is the universal pan-human science of theistic psychology.

Religious New Church doctrine that is based on the literal meaning of the Writings does not concern itself with the scientific details of the mechanisms involved. Actually, I have observed that the religious New Church mind imbued with a sense of worship and sacredness, feels an initial aversion to theistic psychology. It seems sacrilegious to discuss the Divine Love and Wisdom as "scientific mechanisms," or to refer to "the Lord God" as "our Divine Psychologist." In fact, the literal of the Writings sometimes uses the word "scientifics of the Word" to refer to the mere memory-knowledges of Sacred Scripture (see Sections xx). What is above "scientifics of the Word" is "doctrine drawn from the Word," which means a personal understanding of the Writings that is rational and organized. Doctrine is considered higher than scientifics because scientifics is the phase of general or broad understanding, prior to personal understanding of rational series and details (see Section xx).

Because of this usage of the word "scientifics" as external knowledges not yet rationally understood, the New Church mind inclines to the automatic rejection of the idea that theistic psychology as a science is higher than religion for giving us a rational and spiritual consciousness of God. But I predict that his initial aversion vanishes when the New Church mind realizes that theistic psychology is actually the doctrine and the consciousness that operate in their three heavens. Through the new creation of the interior-natural organ, discussed frequently, anyone regardless of religion and culture, can now consciously become aware of the spiritual correspondences in their three heavens. This is good news for the entire humanity.

Every mind contains three heavens, or three discrete degrees of mental operation (see Section xx). Regardless of religion, the first heaven is constructed out of spiritual-natural correspondences of Divine Speech. The second heaven is constructed out of spiritual-rational correspondences of the Writings Sacred Scripture as Divine Speech. The third heaven is constructed out of celestial-rational correspondences of the Writings Sacred Scripture. These are the three levels of human willing and thinking called theistic psychology.

The first theistic psychologist was the Divine Child during the Incarnation Event who extracted the scientific sense of the Old Testament and thereby became conscious of all the correspondences in that Sacred Scripture, all the way above the third heaven to Himself as the Divine Human (see Section xx).

 The second theistic psychologist was Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) through whom the Divine Human delivered the Writings Sacred Scripture to humanity. Swedenborg showed how to extract the scientific correspondences of the Old and New Testament Sacred Scripture by applying the method of correspondences with enlightenment. He did not make it explicit that the Writings he authored should also be read through that method -- hence it is easy to deny it.

The third theistic psychologist was the collective of contributors to De Hemelsche Leer, and especially, Ernest Pfeiffer, Harry Groeneveld, and Theodore Pitcairn, and later, Philip N. Odhner, whose work is now being featured in the restart issues of this magazine in English, by Rutger Perizonius, under the old title De Hemelse Leer  (with a modernized spelling) (see Readings).

The fourth theistic psychologist was the collective of contributors to the doctrinal literature of the General Church over the past century, especially Rev. John Clowes, Rev. Edward S. Hyatt,  Rev. N.C. Burnham, Rev. William Frederic Pendleton, Bishop George DeCharms, Rev. Geoffrey S. Childs, and others (see Readings). I do not include other New Church branches which may use the Writings in worship and instruction, because they do not acknowledge them as Sacred Scripture, but only as "divinely inspired books." Extracting theistic psychology from the Writings requires that they be treated as Sacred Scripture, written in natural-rational correspondences (see Section xx).

The fifth theistic psychologist is the collective of contributors to the new science of theistic psychology, as exemplified by me in this work of 18 volumes. This work has historical significance because it creates a new scientific register for discussing God, Sacred Scripture, and scientific revelations. Prior to the creation of this register, it was not possible to discuss God, heaven, hell, and regeneration, in the context of science and public education (see Section xx). This work was first used in the Spring Semester of 2004 as a textbook in a psychology course I teach in a state university. That date marks the beginning of the new age of theistic psychology as a universal science.

I predict that future generations will be given the opportunity to open up this Divine True Science and to adapt it to their culture and public education system.

Swedenborg does give many scientific details in the literal of his sentences, and they are presented as "illustrations" for religious concepts that are to be understood rationally. These illustrative examples are not considered "scientific" by the contemporary New Church attitude, as expressed in their literature, with which I am familiar (see Readings). But even these scientific illustrations in the literal of the Writings, are given in general terms only. There is no attempt in the Writings to present diagrams and charts, such as abound in theistic psychology. There are no formal definitions. Cross-references are used frequently but there is no attempt to introduce systematicity, as is done in theistic psychology through models, such as are familiar throughout science. Swedenborg uses models and charts in his scientific works prior to age 57, but he does not use any in the Writings. Evidently therefore, it did not serve God's purpose to have the literal of the Writings Sacred Scripture read like a science curriculum.

From the point of view science, a Divine revelation in the form of a textbook or engineering handbook, could not be acceptable.

Science is a rational and inventive intellectual effort of human self-intelligence. Not so religion, which is expressed by "faith" and "worship" as signs of obedience to doctrine and ritual which are based on the literal text of Sacred Scripture (see Section xx). Religion is obedience to the will of God by self-effacement and piety, while science is the self-assertion of independence and mastery. You can see from this why the literal meaning of the Writings Sacred Scripture could not form the basis of theistic psychology as a science.

What would happen if God had delivered to us an engineering textbook with new principles we did not know about? We would of course make use of the principles, if they are practical to us, but this would not cause us to understand God, or even believe that He exists as the omnipresent Divine Human who delivered to us the engineering books. Other theories would arise as to where those books really came from, ideas that would mislead people and make more difficult for them to regenerate by rational consciousness of the Divine Human (see Section xx).

The same would happen if the Divine Human suddenly appeared at the United Nations and addressed the peoples of the world through the media broadcasts. How many would believe no matter what proofs are offered? How many contrary theories will be offered after the Divine event?

So it is not possible to build our rational consciousness of God by sensory consciousness that comes from the external senses of the body, or from the internal senses of thinking and meditation (see Section xx). The only actual and real proof and evidence that God can give us of Himself and His omnipresence in our mind, is rational consciousness of Him. This awareness and comprehension of the Divine Rational Human is achieved through climbing up the mental ladder of rational consciousness using the steps of correspondences that are contained in Sacred Scripture as Divine Speech. To put it another way, theistic psychology is the one method provided by God to enlighten every human mind. Enlightenment is the conscious perception of spiritual light from the Spiritual Sun which diffuses it into the mind of every person. The content of theistic psychology is the scientific knowledge that Divine Speech communicates to every human mind through a graduated discrete series of correspondences. These celestial and spiritual correspondences are the mechanisms God uses to elevate our conscious awareness into the heaven of our mind which He constructs there.

These higher order correspondences, or meanings, cannot be described in a science textbook, which would be based on the literal meaning -- this being the only meaning that is possible to write out in script in a natural language. Rather, the scientific concepts of theistic psychology must be extracted by our own intellectual effort, though not by our own method. When we apply the prescribed method, we acquire the conscious meaning of higher-order correspondences. This is by enlightenment only. So the higher meanings are not in the literal itself, but within it, when extracted. The rational understanding of the extracted higher-order correspondences, resides in the mind when enlightened. It does not lie in the literal meaning of the sentences of theistic psychology. So even when you read theistic psychology, at first you only understand in a natural way, what it says about the extracted spiritual correspondences. You need to undergo a paradigm shift in thinking before you can understand it spiritually. And this means making progress in your regeneration and character reformation (see Section xx).

Theistic psychology is the knowledge every person needs to be able to cooperate with the Divine Psychologist (or "Holy Spirit") who is effecting our character reformation in every detail, to insure that we are adequately prepared for life in our heaven. Since He constructs our heaven out of His own affections and meanings, He also tries to use love and truth to re-construct our conscious natural mind. From an old inherited evil character, we become a new reborn heavenly character whose content and quality are constructed from the same love and truth out of which He has constructed our heaven. This is what it means to be "prepared for heaven" or to "regenerate." What fills the content of this new reborn mind?

It is Divine Speech in its various forms of exteriorization or "descent." This content must be extracted as-of self by every individual, or it is useless for regeneration (see Section xx). Theistic psychology cannot be taught as a method for entering heaven, but only as a method for gathering the knowledge we need to enter heaven. The personal understanding of this knowledge depends not on exposure to it and of memory-knowledge of it, but on the extraction process we apply ourselves. We may receive help from others who have written about it, but this help cannot be understood rationally and spiritually except by enlightenment. And this is proportional to our progress in character reformation and regeneration.

From the perspective of the New Church, two clashing positions are possible regarding theistic psychology as a science based on the extracted correspondences from the literal of the Writings -- the negative and positive bias.

The negative bias is to read theistic psychology with the purpose of demonstrating that it is contrary to religion and religious doctrine. The positive bias is to read theistic psychology with the purpose of examining whether or not it is compatible with one's religious views from the Writings of Swedenborg.

The positive bias is clearly more rational and productive. It admits in advance that it is possible that theistic psychology is genuine. From this perspective it is easy to see that theistic psychology strengthens and magnifies religion by showing that the literal meaning of the Writings is Divine, otherwise it could not contain theistic psychology within it, along with the three heavens in our mind. Theistic psychology shows to every human mind that our consciousness and our immortality is produced by the correspondences of Divine Speech contained in Sacred Scripture. Theistic psychology shows to the individual that three heavens are contained in every person's mind, and that these three heavens are contained in Sacred Scripture. Our mind is contained in the Writings Sacred Scripture. That is, everything genuine and heavenly in our mind is contained in Sacred Scripture, but not the inherited hellish traits of adulterated good and falsified truth (see Section xx). The heavenly ladder that lets us escalate to this heaven is the ladder of correspondences in Sacred Scripture from Divine Speech. Divine Speech is the same as Divine Truth (see Section xx).

To understand the Writings spiritually, we need to apply to it the method of correspondences with enlightenment, which is prescribed in the Writings for extracting and understanding the spiritual correspondences of all Sacred Scripture ("the Word") (see Section xx). We need to know and comprehend these spiritual correspondences in order to know how to cooperate with the Divine Psychologist who is effecting our regeneration -- the extent of our  cooperation (see Section xx).

Theistic psychology actually strengthens religion by advancing the central purpose and goal of religion, which is to teach people that the Writings are Divine Sacred Scripture, and to lead people to change their behavior to conform to the Church doctrines. The central purpose and goal of theistic psychology is to develop people's rational understanding of the process of regeneration and character reformation (see Section xx). The difference between the two is that religion pursues its goal by general explanations and by fellowship rituals, while theistic psychology pursues its goal by constructing specific scientific explanations and models that are extracted from the literal meaning, as frequently discussed.

In the negative bias mode of thinking about theistic psychology, religious people implicitly desire to elevate the general explanations of the literal meaning above the specific scientific explanations of the extracted meaning. But in the positive bias mode of thinking, people can see that the meaning we have of the Writings in our three heavens do differ in accordance with the level of correspondences in each heavenly layer of our mind (see Section xx). Now when we scrutinize the order of correspondences in Sacred Scripture as Divine Speech, we can realize that the higher the correspondences in discrete degrees, the more specific and particular are the rational explanations. The spiritual-rational correspondences of our second heaven, are far, far above the spiritual-natural correspondences of our first heaven (see Section xx). And similarly, the celestial-rational correspondences of Divine Speech in our third heaven are far more specific and particular in the detail of the explanations that emerge there.

It is evident therefore that the celestial angels of the third heaven are far more excellent theistic psychologists than the angelic spirits of the second heaven, and that these in turn are far more excellent theistic psychologists than the good spirits of the first heaven. The difference is so striking, that celestial-rational correspondences no longer produce any trace of religion, while spiritual-rational correspondences still allow worship rituals and sermons -- as was frequently observed by Swedenborg in his mental travels throughout the spiritual world.

Why don't we have any religion in our third heaven?

Because the thinking we do in that mental state is based on celestial-rational correspondences of Divine Speech, and these concern themselves only with the scientific details by which the Divine Love of the Divine Human initiates every operation in the human mind and in the universe. This is the highest human expertise possible in the knowledge of theistic psychology. For us to reach that level of thinking while we are still on earth, we must painstakingly strive to reconstruct the celestial-rational correspondences that are hidden within the Writings Sacred Scripture. The research work that I present in this Volume is at the level of spiritual-natural and spiritual-rational correspondences. Future researchers will no doubt contribute further advances involving celestial-rational correspondences.

The idea that religion disappears as we approach closer to Divine Speech, is a challenging notion for those who are of the New Church, for those who consider themselves Christians, and possibly for those of other religions who are studying theistic psychology. But this initial puzzle or hesitation resolves itself satisfactorily when one reads in the Writings, that there is no religion in our highest form of eternal life. Our rational love and voluntary obedience to God are consequences of our scientific understanding of the process of regeneration. We must understanding precisely what happens when we don't love God and don't obey Him (see Section xx). The love that springs from knowledge of scientific details and models is a celestial love, while the love that springs from religious obedience and piety, is a spiritual and natural love that has some of our self in it. Our love for God from religion is less pure a love than the love of God which we have from our understanding of theistic psychology. In consequence, it is rational and right for religion to promote theistic psychology,

9.1.3.1 Individual Spiritual Development Recapitulates New Church History  

Quoting from the Writings Sacred Scripture:

The situation with the people who make up the church en masse or taken collectively is much the same as with the person by himself or taken individually. People en masse or taken collectively are a church of many members; and the person by himself or taken individually is the church in each of those many members. It is in accordance with Divine order that there should be general and particular levels, co-existing in any thing you like to mention, and the particular levels could not otherwise come into or continue in existence. (...)

These illustrations have been given to make it known that in the church too there are general and particular levels, as well as the very general ones. It is also intended to show that this is why the four churches have succeeded in order. This succession gave rise to the most general level of the churches as a whole, and one after another the general and particular level of each. (...)  (TCR 775)

This passage explicitly states that "the church taken collectively" is " much the same as with the person taken individually." Hence is derived the principle in theistic psychology that New Church history recapitulates individual steps of regeneration. The reason for this is stated in the passage above, namely that the "church taken collectively" is made up of "many members" and each member is an individual who is undergoing regeneration and spiritual growth. Clearly, if the Church goes through certain phases then the individual must also, for one is made up of the other.

The passage also mentions that there had been "four churches" in succession over the ages, and these are discussed and reviewed elsewhere in many other passages (see Section xx). The New Church is called the "Crown of Churches" because it is the culmination of the sequence of spiritual steps marked by all the prior Churches on this earth since the earliest generations were born (see Section xx). The expression "New Church" frequently used in the Writings Sacred Scripture, refers to any individual of any religion who is undergoing regeneration by means of knowledge from theistic psychology. Every individual goes through the same phases of progression, regardless of religion or background culture.

Using this principle, we can construct developmental maps of individual regeneration on the basis of our knowledge of New Church history.

The history of the New Church Christian religion begins with the Writings of Swedenborg, a 30-volume set of books published by Swedenborg from 1745 to 1771 (see Section xx). Swedenborg wrote the following in the last book of the Writings published in 1771, a few months before his passing permanently into the spiritual world:

TCR 115. (1) Redemption itself was a subjugation of the hells, a restoration of order in the heavens, and by means of these a preparation for a new spiritual church. That these three things are redemption I can affirm with all certainty, since at this day also the Lord is effecting a redemption, which began in 1757, together with a final judgment which was then accomplished. This redemption has been going on up to the present time, and for the reason that at this day is the second coming of the Lord, and a new church is now to be established; and this could not be done without a previous subjugation of the hells and a restoration of order in the heavens. And as it has been granted to me to see all this, I am able to describe how the hells were subjugated, and the new heaven established and arranged: but this would require a whole volume. But how the final judgment was accomplished I have made known in a little work published at London in 1758.

Redemption was a subjugation of the hells, a restoration of order in the heavens, and the establishment of a new church, because without these no one could have been saved. Moreover, they follow in order; for the hells must be subjugated before a new angelic heaven can be formed; and this must be formed before a new church can be established on earth; because men in the world are so closely connected with angels of heaven and spirits of hell as on both sides to be one with them in the interiors of their minds. But this subject will be explained in the last chapter of this work, where the Consummation of the Age, the Coming of the Lord, and the New Church, will be treated of in detail.

The New Church Christian religion "is now to be established." Indeed, when I googled "New Church History" I found the following informative paragraph about it at the Baltimore New Church Web site available at:
www.baltimorenewchurch.org/bhist.htm

"In the early days of the New Church in North America, the Baltimore society set the stage for what followed on a remarkable number of fronts. The first New Church liturgy was produced in Baltimore in 1792. Baltimore's first clergyman, Rev. John Hargrove (pictured above), became, in 1795, the first New Church minister on the continent, from whom all other ordinations in the New Church in North America descend. He exchanged letters with George Washington in 1793, and Thomas Jefferson in 1799. While visiting Washington in 1802, through the instrumentality of the Senate chaplain, he was invited to preach in the Capitol rotunda, his audience including Jefferson and 100 members of Congress. His subject was "The Leading Doctrines of the New Jerusalem Church," and he "preached again, by request, on the following evening" (Hindmarsh Rise and Progress, p. 181). In 1804, he preached to both houses of Congress, on the the Second Coming and Last Judgment. Hargrove also oversaw the construction of the first New Church church building ("temple" in those days) in this hemisphere in 1800, and the first New Church periodical, The Temple of Truth, in 1801. In 1810, he was one of the founders of the Maryland Bible Society, and may have been responsible for their providing John Chapman ("Johnny Appleseed") with Bibles that he distributed (along with copies of Swedenborg's Writings) in his travels. Last but not least, the first printing of Heaven and Hell in the United States was done in Baltimore in 1812. "

From the publication of the last book of the Writings in 1772  to the historical beginning of the New Church in 1792, only twenty years had gone by, and there are historical documents to show that a decade earlier there were New Church groups in London. Swedenborg never saw the New Church actualize and was not involved in any way in its establishment. He did not see it as part of his mission to be active in the establishment of the New Church religion, which he had described in his books of revelation.

The history of the New Church is of formal methodological interest to theistic psychology because of the universal law of spiritual development described in the Writings, that I often render as

history recapitulates individual biography (see Section xx).

The paragraph of the Writings quoted just above (TCR 115), says that "at this day is the second coming of the Lord, and a new church is now to be established." The expression "at this day" refers to a new mental technology made available to the human race. This new science of regeneration and immortality is what we call theistic psychology. It is referred to here as "the Second Coming of the Lord" as a reference to the New Testament Sacred Scripture which records the details of the Incarnation Event in natural-sensuous correspondences (see Section xx). This event is known historically as the "First Coming" (of the Divine Human into the natural world). The "Second Coming" is announced in the New Testament in several places and in in various ways (see Section xx). The completion of the Writings Sacred Scripture are referred to here as the "Second Coming" of the Divine Human into the natural world. This event refers to the publication of the books of the Writings Sacred Scripture.

The passage refers to the completion of the "Second Coming" as "redemption" -- a a biological event of major evolutionary significance that was accomplished by the Divine Child during the Incarnation Event ("First Coming") (see Section xx). This passage summarizes the three steps involved in the Divine Human act of "redemption:"

• (1) subjugation of the hells
• (2) restoration of order in the heavens
• (3) preparation of a new spiritual church

The expression "subjugation of the hells" (1) refers to the struggle for character reformation through temptations (see Section xx). "The hells" refer to the portion of our organic mind that operates mental states that belong to what we call our inherited hellish character with which we are born. In those negative mental states our intentionality is harmful to others and our thinking mentality is egocentric and irrational.  Those hellish mental states must be isolated and inhibited, so that our natural mind can be reformed and regenerated. This is necessary if we are to climb to the heavens in our mind (see Section xx).

The expression "restoration of order in the heavens" (2) signifies the acquisition of the "new will" or regenerated character. We develop this new heavenly mentality and consciousness when we operate our daily willing and thinking in accordance with the doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture (see Section xx).

The expression "preparation of a new spiritual church" (3) signifies the knowledge of theistic psychology that is based on the extracted method of correspondences with enlightenment (see Section xx).

In summary, the three sequential phases of spiritual development that every individual must go through regardless of religion and culture, are (1) struggling with character reformation; (2) learning to act from the genuine doctrine of truth in our understanding; (3) evolving our understanding of theistic psychology to higher order correspondences. Therefore the "new church that is now to be established" refers to the phases of development every individual must go through when going through regeneration.

From this you can see that what comes out in New Church history is going to be a picture or representation of the steps that every individual must go through in regeneration. This principle applies to all New Church people as well as to all students and practitioners of theistic psychology from other religions and backgrounds, who are using the Writings Sacred Scripture to extract spiritual correspondences for their regeneration efforts.

I have discussed New Church history above, and in other places (see Section xx), because this history is a map of individual regeneration for all people in the age of theistic psychology. I will illustrate this proposition in the next Section (9.1.4) after I introduce the ennead matrix, which will be used to show how individual regeneration recapitulate the steps of New Church history. 

9.1.3.2   New Church History and Degrees of the Mind

xxxx

 In the case of religious behavior, the three phases of the entire developmental scale, namely, Moses-Paul-Swedenborg, repeat themselves within each phase, cyclically.  Further cyclical patterns no doubt occur, and will be discovered by future researchers in True Science. Here is a matrix that shows the recursive property of phases within phases. Since there are 3 phases, laying them against each other creates a ennead or matrix of nine cells. These type of matrices place levels or developmental steps on the vertical dimension, starting with the bottom level first, then ascending in steps to the top. The horizontal dimension is laid out from left to right and indicate three steps of internalization (initial, intermediate, mature). I have numbered the cells accordingly.