Psychology 459, Theistic Psychology Fall 2006 Generation 25

Dr. Leon James: www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/theistic/ch1.htm

Class Homepage: www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy25/classhome-g25.htm

My Home Page: http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leon/459f2006/lovett/lovett-home.htm

Class Home Page:  www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy25/classhome-g25.htm
Instructions for this Report:  www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy25/459-g25-weekly.htm

My report of

Theistic Psychology by Dr. Leon James

Yuko Lovett

Report 3

Section 1.1. to 1.1.4.3.1

Study Question 1

Study the Table that begins Section 1.1 “Three Levels of Thinking About God.” Explain the history of your own development regarding the idea of God. Use the Table to describe your own thinking at each level. Can you guess about where will your thinking take you in the future?

Answer 1

Level 1 is the lowest form of rational thinking. The denial of God, atheism, materialism, and animism are also included in this level. I was in this level before learning Theistic Psychology under the guidance of Dr. James. I feel someone as the great existence who is controlling in this world; however, I recognize it as the level of attaining salvation when I need help. Like sometime I says, “Oh my God!”

I have culturally animism; Shinto (the native religion of Japan) is a form of animism which stresses the importance of harmony between humans and nature. Regardless of religious person or not, though joining Shinto’s annual function for Japanese people’s life, they spontaneously believe animism. There are God of mountain, God of water, God of house, and so on; it is natural to believe God existing into all places for Japanese.

As long as believing for many Gods existing into nature, this seems denies of God as one Divine Infinite Conscious Rational Human Person. God creates all things which cannot have life of themselves, neither any power to grow, to act, or to think. God is a person. He creates human beings. We don’t have life from ourselves as our own. God supply the power and intelligence to us.

My belief system is a part of lifestyle. I can’t say that animism is my religion, but it influences to my personal belief system culturally. However, on the other hand, I knew that, as long as accepting in this belief, I can not have the rational view. Because animism and theistic psychology are contradict in my mind. I believe that my personal belief system not supposed thinking as scientific idea.

Now I think about this way, as long as studying theistic psychology, I would be understand it is science field and requires only rational thinking. On the other hand, I can keep my belief system, because it is very different category. For instance, I like a strawberry short cake. I know it is a junk food which made of sugar and fat. Fruits, a brawn muffin or a carrot cake, are better choice as nutrition food; however, I like a strawberry short cake. Therefore I eat it sometimes as a treat without comparing any nutritious foods.

Same as this, I would like to study and follow the theistic psychology; however, I would keep my favorite thinking: animism. Because the idea that God of forest protects all trees, God of ocean protects me from all happening during I am windsurfing, and God of plants protects all flowers lives, are feel easy to me. Even this is only fantasy.

Level 1 is lower than level 2, the religion which the assumption that there is God and how best to prepare for the afterlife. Because Level 1 cannot help us at all in terms of preparing ourselves for the afterlife, this view is denying or ignoring the connection between physical and mental.

Level 2 is the level of people who believe the God exist; however, there is no scientific personal relationship and it is cultural identity which is not rational. Level 2 thinking is above level 1 thinking in rationality. They have cultural explanation of God, but their God is not universal.

I am learning of the religious psychology (theistic psychology), not psychology of religion (studying religious view of people).

William James defined true beliefs which are useful to the believer. According to William James, “Truth ideas lead us into useful verbal and conceptual quarters as well as directly up to useful sensible termini. They lead to consistency, stability and flowing human intercourse “but” all true processes must lead to the face of directly verifying sensible experiences somewhere.”* For religious people, what is real are the experiences people have when they report being in contact with God. God is not a real scientific concept.

Therefore, Religion and theistic psychology do not refer to the same ground or map. Religion refers itself to the literal meaning of Sacred Scripture while theistic psychology refers itself to the universal correspondent meaning of Sacred Scripture. Religious psychology state that God or heaven and hell are not real concepts, scientific realities.

I have kept distance from religion. I have positioning of that “revival” in religion is as the mass catharsis or mass hysteria. It is not contemptuous meaning. During in the condition of mass hysteria, people sometimes could express their feelings, opinions, and ideas which they never have before in their ordinary lives. Through these experiences, they recognized their inclinations and self- enlightenment; they arouse interest in personality development. I believe that it is good for developing a moral concept.

However, I am required to know there are totally different field. This means that I need studying harder to understand Theistic psychology, and I also not necessary to become a religious person because I know God is not an idol, God is scientific fact though theistic psychology.

Level 3 is the view of theistic psychology. God is the cause of every natural event and all human behavior. Basis of the Sacred Scripture by the Writings of Swedenborg, people learn the systematic cumulative scientific knowledge.

In this level, rationally, people understand human is born with two worlds; one is the natural world where the human’s physical body and brain are connected and the spiritual world where the human’s mental body are connected. These two are locked into functional correspondence (laws of correspondence). In this level of people are able to explain and make a proof of the dual universe through their inner scientific and universal sense.

I wish I could go in this level. For reaching this goal, I have to organize many ideas which I used leaning and having the experiences.

It is very hard for working of PSY 459 assignment everyday. Keep thinking and writing about theistic psychology, is like ascetic practices for purging my soul. I have a hard time for studying these in the limited time; however, I believe that this is going to understand theistic psychology; this is precious and irreplaceable time from being taught by Dr. James and this is the step for going up to the level 3 in theistic psychology.

*http://spartan.ac.brocku.ca/~lward/James/James_1907/James_1907_06.html

Study Question 2

Make up a gain-loss sheet that lists and briefly explains what you could gain or lose by adopting the negative vs. positive bias regarding God’s existence as a scientific reality.

Gains of my negative bias view:

1. According to Theistic psychology, God is human, and He is perfectly and totally loving and wise. However, there is no human who is perfect. I can’t imagine a perfect human. Being perfect is the desire for us; we try to become better people by following our conscience. I believe that, trying to be for a perfect human with love and wise, which is our human goal. We will never be perfect people, but it is beautiful life when we are doing test. There is no perfect human, it is human’s ideal.

2. If the writing of Swedenborg is the fact and the right evidence, why this fact not be getting into the news? Why is his name not well known among ordinary people?

3. As a New Age idea, every thing in the universe is spiritually interconnected, participating in the same energy. This is monism; however, Theistic psychology and New Age seem like the same approach as a conceptual integration of mind, body, and spirit. How are they different??

　　　↓↓　　　　　　　　　↓　↓　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　↓↓　　　　　　　　　　　　　

Loose these negative biases and equal to gain the positive bias:

　　１´My view was subjective for the existence of God. My image of God is a Crucifixion or Buddha who is sitting in meditation on a lotus flower. In theistic psychology, God has revealed scientific facts about the structure of the universe, about the anatomy of the human mind, and the details of life after death. Viewing of theistic psychology is objective and not a belief system through which we imagine the shape of God. Through perspective of rational thinking, I would be understood that the difference between the scientifically perfect God and the perfect human, which we aim to be.

2´Because most people don’t know the difference of spiritual between the theistic psychology and supernatural, occultism, mysticism, spiritualism, and so on, they think theistic psychology is a part of religions.

Theistic psychology is based on the Writings of Swedenborg, which is the only original source of scientific information on the spiritual world. In the other religions spiritual information is based on direct sensory input from the spiritual world or God. Thus, personal intuition is the most important connection with God. This is not rational and we are not able to prove irrational things. People can choose which doctrine is suitable.

For instance, these are similar to compare between the lecture as a credit class in college and the lecture for the general public as a non credit class or seminar. The former teaches the rational knowledge by teacher who has a degree and the latter teaches something based on the topic ordinary people are interested in. The lecture of college is not easy and it requires reading comprehension. This purpose of the lecture is giving the knowledge and put knowledge to practical use to the student. On the other hand, the public lecture is fun. The purpose of lecture is giving some knowledge and does not require the auditors engage in comprehensive thinking. It is free to how understand and interpret for them. The instructor has everything his or her own way. These are not which is good and which is bad. The purpose is different and what students want is different.

If someone wants to understand the reason of living, he or she would meet Swedenborg certainly. I think it is chance for understanding Swedenborg rationally or aiming to enjoy mysteries’ phenomena.

3´Because the idea of New Age was born from influence of Swedenborg, there are many common words. For instance, death is not the end; there is only life in different forms.

However, the New Age worldview is not experiment-and –theory-based view. It involves a mysticism-based view of describing and controlling the external world.

The idea of New age is that all humanity is spiritually interconnected, participating in the same energy. “God” is one name for this energy. Or spiritual beings (e.g. angels, ghosts, ascended masters) exist and will guide us, if we open ourselves to their guidance. “Intuition” or “divine guidance” is a more appropriate guide than rationalism, skepticism, or the scientific method.

I think New Age is one of the ideas which answer the needs of the times. I remember the time of postmodernism in twenty years ago. Their shift to a feeling of control over their expression of spirituality reflects a trend towards personal responsibility, as well as personal empowerment. New Age responds to postmodernism. In New Age, the individual’s choice in spiritual matters, such as the role of personal intuition and experience is the basis of doctrine and sanctioned in society.

New Age would become obsolete. Popular ideas will change with the times. However, a rational idea never changes. This is why theistic psychology is stabile and better approach.

Question 3

Why does God allow people to be in the negative bias and survive as well as those who are in the positive bias?

Answer 3

God controls everything, including of the control of human’s decision. We, human are given from God to chose staying in the hellish mind or staying in the heavenly mind.

There is a scenario for how we can build up hell in our mind. For instance, when we have jealousy of someone, we know jealousy is negative emotion consciously. Because we have feeling of resentment, fear, or annoyance when we every see his or her. And then, we begin to desire to be hostile and be in the trouble of him or her. This is the way of building up hellish in our mind.

Although we are not responsible for hell initially, these negative emotions and both hostile intentions and acts will tumble out of us spontaneously. It is difficult to get out these from negative mind. With keeping the negative mind, we receive the guilty of hell from God.

God allows us to be in the negative bias, because what we desire is our freedom, which God is given to us.

We are required to choose which one we desire to have between negative mind and positive mind in our lifestyle. When we are in the hell of our mind, doing bad is a sensorimotor act that follows from the conjunction or cooperative action between a prior affective act (intending bad) and a corresponding cognitive act.

There must be a corresponding cognitive act to the bad intention. The cognitive act is the act of justifying the evil intention by thinking that in this case it is good despite what it looks like. This gives us permission to carry out the bad act. If we are in the hell of our mind, we can not have rational thinking. Because we are too emotional, we can not think rationally.

I wonder this option is like God’s test with litmus paper for not acidity but purification in our mind. God gives us this test every we meet some events for purpose of spiritual discipline. God let to us stay in negative mind or positive mind with sharing the result of test, and let us to receive of spiritual discipline.

Question4

Explain the difference between mystical religion and theistic psychology.

Answer 4

I already wrote some differences between mystical religion and theistic psychology on study question 2. Therefore, I would like to write why people choose mysterious religion but not theistic psychology.

First of all, people, who are interested mystical religion, might desire to purify their souls of sin. They might seek truth from their sense of values in spreading material culture and consumer society; they seek and desire to regenerate themselves. They might be looking for salvation by someone. Thus, the motivation for interest in communication to God is the same starting point of the motivation for learning theistic psychology.

I recognize Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is depicted as a square consisting of five levels: from the lower to the top, 1.physiological (biological needs), 2. Safety, 3. Love/belonging, 4. Status (esteem), 5. Actualization.

The four lower levels are grouped together as deficiency needs associated with physiological needs, while the top level is termed growth needs associated with psychological needs.

Self- actualization, the top level is the instinctual need of humans to strive to be the best they can be. People who reach on this level are motivated or can control their behavior.

Because Mystical religious people seek their self-actualization and their spiritual salvation, they easily accept the psychological and spiritual techniques, which lack scientific evaluative data.

For understanding theistic psychology, the belief system is not required. It doesn’t matter where we get this study from: the recommendation from friends, the article of news paper, or the book accidentally found in the library. Theistic psychology is not organizations which compel us to believe and follow the idealized leaders who claiming transformative visions. Leaning theistic psychology only requires the rational thinking.

Second, many mystical religious people believe the reincarnation. Reincarnation doesn’t have any scientific proofs. I believe that reincarnation is the theme what is more the field of literature or moral education. However, once a person accepts the mystical religions, he or she gradually becomes more willing to accept others easily. Because the credibility of the entire network of ideas increases once he or she have attributed credibility parts of the network.

Theistic psychology is study of knowledge, which based of the Sacred Scripture in the Writings of Swedenborg. It is the knowledge through the scientific perspective. It does not forth to accept the concept of Divine Speech to readers. It just not works of the knowledge of theistic psychology if reader wouldn’t read and think rational perspective. And then, it requires the time and the effort for understanding theistic psychology. It is selected study for people who desire scientifically understanding of the connection between mental world and physical world, and where we are going after our death.

Lastly, Mystical religious people rely more their feelings and their inspirations whether trust or not in the doctrine of Mystical religions. Therefore, it is not difficult for increasing the member for religious organizations. There are many psychological method for conversion to their religions; training, education, growth-oriented workshop, and so on. However, though the fundamental assumption of American pluralism, we can’t critically examine our fundamental assumptions. It is taboo to criticize any religions. We can not tell Mystical religions are dangerous because they will be control their conscience which is influenced by their feelings and their inspirations.

It is not necessary for making the organization of theistic psychology. The people who accept theistic psychology is not called the believer in religion. It is not necessary for correcting contributions for supporting the organization. For learning theistic psychology, it is not necessary things in this material world because it is learning about our mental world and it is immortal world.

Question 5

Prove rationally that if God exists, then He must be a Divine Human Person whose creation must be Perfect.

Answer 5

Because God is a Person, He can be loving and wise, or, good and rational. Since God is perfect love and wisdom, it is rational to think that He would create conscious human being to live forever.

Therefore, God is Divine Human; we are born immortal.

God controls our life; however, our life in heaven or hell in after life, which are depending on the habits of choices we accumulate in this life. Why God reveals these things to us on earth? Because this is the purpose of God; He communicates us with humankind in the form of Sacred Scripture.

If we are going to fully accept such a principle and reason from it in our mind, God’s thoughts and feelings would flow out into the created mental world of eternity where the minds of human beings exist and live.

God connects us and reconnects us moments by moment to assist us in the continuity, and God also coheres of our thinking process moment by moment while we awake and asleep.

Therefore, if we don’t have Divine revelations, we would make up our own materialistic ideas in the form of false belief systems, persuasive faiths, delusional perceptions, or irrational ways of thinking. Divine revelation is the only source of true rationality about God and the afterlife.

We cannot make a proof of God exist by the measurement system, because our consciousness is restricted to the external mind, which is entirely composed of conscious ideas built up through the senses. Only we can make a proof of God exists by our rational thinking. In different words, if we could make a proof of God exists with our consciousness, God is not Perfect. Because we are able to only prove within our ability. Our conscious ability is limited. We can not control our life by ourselves.

Question6

Describe what the two worlds are that God created and maintains in rational order.

Answer 6

God creates two our existence when we are conceived and born. Our existence starts in both worlds of time and eternity. We are born in dual citizens.

Our physical body is conceived and born in time and space. Physical body is mortal. Physical organs have limited life. On the other hand, our spirits live in eternity. In the natural world, where we are now existence the material world, our spirits (spiritual body) is temporally dwelling in our physical body. Eventually physical body will die; it is the time that our mental body leaves from the natural world into metal world for living immortally.

While the mental body dwelling in the physical body in the natural world, both the mental body and the physical body are connected by the law of correspondence and are related to cause and effect.

The mental body located in eternity from birth onward, we have organs; affective organ (corresponds to heart and circulatory system in the physical body), cognitive organ (corresponds to the lungs and respiratory in the physical body), and sensorimotor organ (corresponds to the brain and neurons throughout the physical body).

Our mind are always operating by means of the affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor operations working together; however, we are unconscious of the operations that are always going on in the spiritual mind and the celestial mind, which are the higher level of operation of our natural mind.

The mind’s operations are dependent on the inflow of spiritual heat (love) and spiritual light (truth) from Spiritual Sun. Receiving spiritual head and light, the mind builds out, activate, and keep the substances of love and truth functioning in perfect order to eternity.

God creates two worlds from the outside of Universe. I wonder why God let us to live in the physical world first. Why He gives us the destiny for die. We, human are immoral and are easily led astray by temptations. I wonder why God just watch over us, not relieve us.

I wonder whether or not we are able to solve many problems. I am still familiar the belief system in religion, because Jesus may help from people troubled.

Question 7

Prove rationally that our mental world is the world of eternity. What will be the consequences for society when this knowledge becomes known?

Answer 7

According to the Writing of Sacred Scripture by Swedenborg, there is only one human mind for the whole human race. Every person’s mental world is in the one common mental world of humanity, and overlaps with it. We can see each other only through the spiritual mind, which remains unconscious until resuscitation.

Thus, if we deceive each others now (physical world), we knew what thinking about each others in the mental world, where is immortal.

We are born with two worlds: the physical world and the mental world. We are born with possessing of immortal mental body which attaching to the temporal physical body. These two are tied to each other by the laws of correspondence so that the operations in the two bodies are completely integrated and acting symbiotically as one organism. After we die, we will leave our physical bodies and only live in endless mental world.

Why we can live in the mental world where is immortal? Because we are able to think rationally, we are able to love, self-examination, and regeneration by our own efforts. Having a rational concept of God, we are “conjoined” to God. God is in eternity, we are being conjoined to immortal life in eternity.

I had a good experience of the blackout on last Sunday. Because of raining and no lights, my family had nothing to do in the dark house. Of course, I was busy working in the household and writing the class assignment. However, I could have a chance to think back to my daily life. How deep I am living in the consumer society. How much I spend all my energy for living. I have been too busy and think only of the present.

If God control all our life, God should give us this kind of happening sometimes. We could think back to our life and look for the way we supposed to go. Sad to say, we will not think about our daily life if we will not have this chance nowadays.

Question 8

How are humans different from animals? What makes us human? Justify the statement that we are human because we are rational. Explain why animals are not immortal. How do you react to this knowledge? Look up what Swedenborg said about animals (you can use google).

Answer 8

A human has thoughts and feelings, which are in the mind and spiritual body. The spiritual body and the physical body are operating and developing each other, and these are related by the cause and the effect.

For instance, we are able to express our feelings by making sentences on the paper with writing materials. This action means that we are processing from thinking in the mental world to writing in the physical world. We are able to do this because not only brain and physical body are connected but the mental body and the physical body is also connected by the law of correspondence.

And the paper which we wrote some sentences will be lost or be missing some day; however our feelings which were written on the paper would be not losing. Our mental feelings live in the mental world immortally.

However, Animal doesn’t have mind or spiritual body. Animal are not able to think. Although animal have love and the ability to do things they want, they are not capable of pursuing their loves by planning and understanding rationally. Animals just follow their innate instincts or biologically.

Such as, Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist, found conditioned reflex; a hungry dog trained to associate the sound of a bell with food salivated at the sound even in the absence of food.

Human has the conditioned reflex but human also have control their will. Human goal-directed behavior is loving and rational, or else the transformation of loving and rational into hating and irrational. Human are able to act follow love and truth or evil and fantasy. When human know that deceiving is bad, human can stop their acts. For instance, we can stop eating if we think that First Food is not good for our health, even we are very hungry.

Love is combined with truth when only humanity begins. Human is immortal because human could be appropriate immoral substances as God’s love and truth and could make the substances out of which the organ of their mind is constructed.

Thorough God’s love and truth entering and operating our mind, we can be adjoined to God. We are able to live with the spiritual substances of love and truth from God.

However, the animals lack the ability to reason about love and truth. Animals cannot reject evil and falsity because they do not have the mental anatomy and spiritual psychobiology for these functions. There is no function without substance and form.

According to Dr. James’s interpretation of Swedenborg, when the animal’s body dies, its spirit is removed and transformed by God. At any rate, the animals in the spiritual world appear instantaneously lime all other object, in accordance with the mental states of those who are gathered somewhere.

I believe that we can see our animal pet again in the mental world. Because we love them and miss them, we could go in heaven and feel happy with them again.

Question9

When people do something bad that they enjoy doing, it seems to them that it is good. Explain this phenomenon. You might want to check the word “hellish traits” in the Index Volume 18 to find other discussion on this.

Answer 9

Hell is feeling good from doing bad, and feeling bad from doing good. According to Sacred Scripture, the reason why doing bad appears good to us when we are in the hell of our mind, is that doing bad is a sensorimotor act that follows from the conjunction or cooperative action between a prior affective act (intending bad) and a corresponding cognitive act. There must be a corresponding cognitive act to the bad intention.

For instance, I told a lie to my friend. I felt very bad for cheating friend. I was in the hell of my mind. My consciousness descended into that portion of my mind that is the source of bad feelings and negative emotions. I was in my hell when I felt the awful explosion inside of me as I explode with guilty. This feeling activated in me, wants to continue living and enduring in me. It attaches itself to my consciousness.

We are living mentally along three levels or degrees of operation: natural, rational, and celestial. The natural degree of our life (natural mind) is same level of animals. The next level is rational. The rational mind is capable know right from wrong and good from evil. Animals don’t know these differences. The highest level is the celestial mind. It is unconscious while we are attached to the physical body.

Regardless of being ridden with guilt, I wonder that hellish mind is the same level as animals.

Swedenborg told that there is a difference between what men receives from his father and what he receives from his mother. Although the external: limbs and the physical body are inherited from the mother, the internal: the spiritual mind, the external natural mind, and the spiritual body are organs inherited from the father. And these inheritances of mental traits are cumulative.

The inherited spiritual package from each line of the male parent is so filled with numerous hellish traits that every individual grows up with a character that is hellish. Therefore, we condemn ourselves to a life of endless hell in immortality.

Evil inherited from the male parental line is lodged in the external natural mind; however, the internal spiritual mind contains no evil from heredity. Since Fall of human race, the inmost traits are organized into a collection by our inherited ruling love which is always hellish.

People do something bad that they enjoy might be inherited spontaneous behavior. However, this behavior is the level of natural degree, same as animals. We have mental organs which are inflexed substances good and truth from spiritual sun. We are able to leave hellish trait by our own ability. We can fight against the hellish thoughts. If we choose to reject the hellish thoughts, God performs our regeneration and removes our connections to hellish mind. We only need to do is to make as-of-self effort by making consent to cooperate with God.

Study Question 1

Explain how we become spiritually enlightened by studying theistic psychology. What is the difference between natural and spiritual enlightenment? Who do you know that is enlightened, either personally or by reputation?

Answer 1

By the elevation of operations in the cognitive organ of our mind, we could have enlightenment. I study Theistic psychology now, which means that my cognitive operations are still beginner. However gaining experience and knowledge through thinking rationally, our cognitive operations become more effective and more complex.

For instance, I understand the human is dual citizens now. I was born with two worlds. I think about this way, I set up this physical world as the time of practicing asceticism toward the spiritual world where I die. I understand why things happen in my daily life and how to control for problems, better than before.

This is enlightenment; however, it is still the level of natural-rational mind. This level is that we expertise or being good at something from experience.

On the other hand, the spiritual-rational type of enlightenment, above the natural=rational enlightenments, comes only from the doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture. The source of spiritual-rational enlightenment is the spiritual mind through the spiritual body.

The sauce of our natural-rational enlightenment is the natural mind through the physical body. Reading the Sacred Scripture, going the church, or playing for salvation to God, these only understand the literal sense of Sacred Scripture with our natural-sensuous and natural-rational mind.

If we want to achieve the level of spiritual enlightenment, it requires us to translate the literal sense into its universal correspondent sense.

We cannot be enlightened when our natural habits of feeling, thinking, and doing are based on our inherited hellish states of mind. Therefore, if our purpose of enlightenments is for our gaining wealth and rising in fame, this is not enlightenment. We are just enjoying hellish operations. If we go through phases of feeling bad for doing the right thing or feeling good for doing the wrong thing, we are in the hellish. This is the opposite estate of enlightenment.

Question 2

Explain how our spiritual development depends on our willingness to fight our temptations. What happens after we are victorious? What you have observed about your own temptations in the past?

Answer 2

Without confronting with temptations, we are not able to develop our spiritual mind. We always make progress in our moral development, such as helping people who are in trouble, not telling a lie, and so on. However, this progress of moral development is different than spiritual development.

For progress of spiritual development, we have to be willing to undergo spiritual temptation. We have to reach the enlightenment and regenerate our character from hellish to heavenly.

Spiritual temptations are brought to our conscious awareness by Divine Psychologist, who chooses the timing on the basis of what we are willing to obey. Divine Psychologist gives us spiritual temptations when we are ready.

When we ready to oppose and fight hellish trait, it is the time to fight with a spiritual temptation.

For overcoming the spiritual temptation, we are necessarily translating the literal sense of Sacred Scripture into its correspondent sense (called the spiritual doctrine of Truth).

While studying Sacred Scripture, we could construct and build up our mind with the spiritual doctrine of Truth. And then if we overcame the spiritual temptation, we would never go back to the hellish trait.

We never feel good for doing bad, and feel bad for doing good. We only want to do well, to think right, to feel like in heaven.

I used to stop myself of thinking when I was envious of friends, because I am never satisfied myself. Why do I always worry about money? Why am I clumsy in everything? Why do I not have any relatives around, and so on. I always feel worse after comparing myself with my friends. This is ugly jealousy and negative feelings. However, now I know, to stop thinking is not enough for changing my character. I should realize that this is chance for my regeneration which God as the Divine Psychologist gave to me, and I really required facing my negative trait.

Question 3

When and how did Sacred Scripture reveal that heaven in eternity is the mental world? Why do you think that this knowledge remains unknown or disbelieved?

Answer 3

According to the Writing of Sacred Scripture, if we read theistic psychology from the negative bias perspective of non- theistic psychology, we are called “the learned”, because we accept the perspective of the negative bias scientists. Thus, we are choosing by default to maintain this negative perspective on God and dualism.

However, if we accept what Sacred Scripture says in its literal sense, we are called “the simple”, because we are not on our defensive guard when hearing about God and science in our focus. Thus if we place ourselves in a perceptive perspective on God and Sacred Scripture, we could be eternal spirits in a temporary material body.

Immortal life is not the prolongation of human life. We already possess eternity right now, because we are able to conjoin with God. Since God is in eternity, we are being conjoined to immortal life in eternity. We have a rational level of thinking and have an idea of God and eternity. A rational level of thinking is required to be conjoined to eternity.

Most people choose some religion by following the family or friends’ religion. Or when some people are born, parents are already decided certain religions. For some people, religion is like culture. It is common to follow family tradition and religion is family tradition.

Therefore, most people don’t have any criterion for comparing or being critical of their own religion.

While I read 1.1.4.3, How Divine Speech Descends In the Human Mind Through Discrete Layers and Keeps It Functioning, I am reminded the mystery story, Da Vinci Code. I should not compare and mix of these different subjects, of course, Da Vinci Code is fiction and Sacred Scripture is non fiction. However, this fiction became a best-selling book. When I think about the reason of popularity in this book, it had a strong hold on the public mind, which has an enthusiastic desire for knowing the secret. People always desire to know the real fact. I am wondering if there is the forthcoming time for people to desire the Writings of Sacred Scripture. Just like there was the time that was waiting for me to learn theistic psychology.

Question 4

Explain the principle that “individual biography recapitulates human evolution and history.” How does this influence the way you see yourself?

Answer 4

Although the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Writings of Swedenborg have given us the evolutional steps, individual mental growth follows the same pattern as the development of human civilizations in the course of history.

For thousands of years, people who derived their religion from the Old Testament had a materialistic world view, not abstracted from the senses. People were not willing to think of the heavens as being created in a separate universe outside time, space, or religion. However, thinking of the universe of eternity requires a rational spirituality and rational consciousness of God. The Old Testament level of moral intelligence is the rational idea or perspective that individual human behavior has a universal significance in relation to God. This perspective ties the individual to God. It is the bottom line of spiritual life and growth. Applying to the human’s age, this level is age one year old to ten years old, our early years of development covering the first decade of life. We can compare with Old Testament to the first ten years of human life, it is still amateur. Children are taught that God exists and that He knows and see everything we do. This level is the bottom line of oral life and rational intelligence.

New Testament is ranked with the human who are eleven to twenty years old. People begin to examine the rational implications and assumptions of our beliefs about God. They raise the moral intelligence or consciousness of humankind by distinguishing between external behavior and mental behavior. They can experience a radical shift of focus from external behavior to internal behavior.

Although New Testament level of thinking about God and mental behavior motivates us to put up effort in our character reformation, we just try to reject our enjoyments of evil and yet fail to do so over and over again. Our desire to reject evil is not deep enough. Swedenborg wrote about in Sacred Scripture that it doesn’t sink deep enough into our character to survive the second death.

Writings of Swedenborg are third level of moral intelligence. Twenty-one years and up is the age level of rational consciousness, this level of human is able to have a scientific understanding of how the mind works and what its relation to heaven and hell is. We understand both level 1 (our overt behavior) and level 2 (our mental behavior of intentions and enjoyment) are not a matter of our sin and its forgiveness by God through our faith and good intentions.

When we enter the level 3, the Writings of Secured Scripture, we can see that God automatically forgives everything for everyone and then we have freedom to choose how willing we are to let God regenerate and reform our thoughts and feelings by giving us temptations.

Applying the level of moral intelligence to my life, it is easy to understand what and how I think about human life. Praying is a sacred action; however, how we act with praying is more important. Not waiting for God helps us: we face ourselves and make efforts of enlightenment; concerning this attitude, God supports us and helps to live in heavenly love.

Question 5

In your own words explain chart 1 in Section 1.1.4.3.1. Do not just guess. You will need to do some research in Volume 18 to find the explanations and clarifications:

www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/theistic/#Searching_for_something

Answer 5

There are two faculties in human mind. One is called the “will”, which is an affective organ, and the other is called the “understanding” which is a cognitive organ. Human soul is still the inmost degree and the mind is split to the affective and cognitive organs.

We often accept Divine Speech with mystical systems through our affective organ. Old will was the original state of mind of the earliest generations on earth and based on sensuous consciousness of God. These mystical systems depend on blind faith or credulity and as a result. God is placed as an explanatory concept. This is the level of literal meaning of sacred scripture in natural mind. There are a variety of mystical systems: literalism, fundamentalism visions, voice, miracles, superstitions, cults, new prophecies, and so on.

However, since the creed or faith resists breakdown and rational analysis, these are not able to arrive at a conclusion with rational or scientific way.

On the other hand, we are able to accept Divine Speech through our cognitive organ. We could understand God as a concept in all explanations about human behavior and dynamics. Our understanding is based on rational consciousness of God. This means that no one can make up what God is or is not, or what God wants or does not want, or how God manages the created universe, or what our fate is in the afterlife. This is theistic psychology, which is based exclusively on the method of correspondences with enlightenment.

When we learn theistic psychology, we are enlightened when performing certain required steps and fulfilling certain required conditions. This is called character reformation or regeneration. Through communicating with God, we will have our ability for changing ourselves and for growing ourselves into a celestial person that can live in heaven.

Question 6

In your own words explain chart 2 in Section 1.1.4.3.1. Do not just guess. You will need to do some research in Volume 18 to find the explanations and clarifications:

www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/theistic/#Searching_for_something

Answer 6

The diagram tells that how mediate influx descends from the Spiritual Sun and passes through the minds of the vertical community in an orderly manner. There are three minds in mental body (A) the affective mind, (B) the cognitive mind, (C) the spiritual mind.

From Spiritual Sun, the Divine influx descends through the three heavens. It first reaches the human race through the uppermost portion of mind; the Third Heaven. People, whose consciousnesses are elevated to this level, the celestial angels dwell with their immortality in conjugial bliss. The spiritual angels saw the meaning of the sentences as discussing love and the hierarchy of human affections in this level.

The Third Heaven corresponds perfectly to the Second Heaven. The spiritual angels dwell in the Second Heaven. The spiritual angels saw the meaning of the sentences as discussing truth and the varieties of human understanding in this Heaven.

Angelic spirits dwell permanently in the First Heaven of the human race. All three Heaven are respectively communicate with own language and correspond to each other by discrete degrees.

Finally, it through into the mind of earthlings whose physical bodies live on earth; however, the mind live in the spiritual world. The mind of earthlings receive influx from both heaven and hell, because the purpose of keeping us in balance or spiritual freedom.

Our minds are able to opened or elevated all the way to the third heaven. Mediate influx means that Divine influx; it is mediated or filtered through the minds of humanity by degrees downward.

This is called the vertical community. Our physical body is immersed in a social world of others so that we can interact and touch each other. In this community, our mind is a social world.

Human mind are located between the heavens and the hells and tied to a physical body. All our thoughts in the natural mind through the brain and sensory organs, are always from the beginning in the world of spirits where is our spiritual body. And these are in our mental organs or our spirits.

Question 7

In your own words explain chart 3 in Section 1.1.4.3.1. Do not just guess. You will need to do some research in Volume 18 to find the explanations and clarifications:

www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/theistic/#Searching_for_something

Answer 7

God, the logical implications of an Omnipotent, is the unifying concept that explains how the universe is integrated in a coherent whole. God has no beginning or end. Therefore, God is the only concept that implies infinity.

Divine Speech, as an outflow or emanation from the Spiritual Sun, flows out of Divine Human’s mind into the created universe. Divine Human creates and maintains all things in a rational and loving order.

When we are born, our physical body is temporarily alive on the earth while our mental body permanently alive in the mental world. Physical body and mental body are connected with the Law of Correspondence.

The spiritual world is a vertically organized operational sphere for supporting the activity of Human’s thought and feelings, which are operations in the anatomical organs of the mind.

Spiritual heat (love) and Spiritual light (truth) are the Divine Speech’s substances from the Spiritual Sun. These substances inflow to human’s mental organs. Spiritual heat inflows to affective organ, which corresponds to the heart and circulatory system in the physical body. Spiritual light inflows to cognitive organ, which corresponds to the lungs and respiratory in the physical body.

If making to collect all together from each individual’s mind in the heavens, they would take the shape of the Grand Human. In this level of human; in the spiritual world, is able to comprehend Divine Speech in terms of natural-rational correspondences about God, society marriage, family, and the afterlife.

Their physical bodies are still on earth. The spiritual mind of human is not consciously available to their awareness. While we are on earth, Divine Speech operates on the unconscious mind from an internal entry point; however it operates on conscious mind from an external way through the physical senses with following the means of Sacred Scripture. Although they are capable to thinking with spiritual and celestial ideas that are in themselves not spiritual and celestial, they are functionally equivalent.

Divine Speech operates on both the unconscious and conscious mind. Right under the spiritual mind is conscious natural mind. This is our mind on the earth. Compared with the spiritual mind, which contain inflow of information from the spiritual world, the natural mind contains the memories and experiences we obtain with the physical body.

God manages the operations of human’s mind and He synchronizes the precise one to one relations between operations in the mind and in the body. However, God blocks human’s memory, the human is not able to remember something or forget something. In natural world, God appears as if human are managing themselves. Therefore, the Writings of Sacred Scripture states “as-of-self” instead of the “self.

Question 8

In your own words explain chart 4 in Section 1.1.4.3.1. Do not just guess. You will need to do some research in Volume 18 to find the explanations and clarifications:

www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/theistic/#Searching_for_something

Answer 8

When we are born, we are born into two worlds. One is the natural world, which is physical and temporal, and the other is the spiritual world, which is eternal. Our mind and body are connected with the laws of correspondences. We have the spiritual organ, a celestial-rational organ, at the top of the mind when we are born.

When we are in the natural world, our natural mind is conscious and develops from sensory and cultural input through the physical senses. Our consciousness is able to travel up and down in levels of mental operation with our spiritual body. When we feel bad, sad, selfish, and so on, our consciousness is in our natural hells. Our mind creates the natural hells by the justification of the evil tendencies. We permit the evil actualize to conjunct with our affective and our cognitive organs. However, if we actualize in practice to act of our cognitive organ for thinking doctrine of truth with our desire, we are able to go up in the rational mind. The rational mind is the highest level of the natural mind we think with natural-rational correspondences. We are capable of becoming conscious of higher order meanings, which called enlightened.

In the spiritual world, we are unconscious until “resuscitates” or awakens in the spiritual body. However, we are able to think with spiritual and celestial ideas. The spiritual mind receives sensory input from the spiritual world.

When we die and are resuscitated a few hours later, we awaken consciously in the spiritual mind that God give to us conscious awareness, and then our sensory input is no longer from the physical world but from the spiritual world. We become be “spirit” and continue our life of immortality.

Question 9

In your own words explain chart 5 in Section 1.1.4.3.1. Do not just guess. You will need to do some research in Volume 18 to find the explanations and clarifications:

www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/theistic/#Searching_for_something

Answer 9

Human beings have two different levels of operations: the natural mind, and the spiritual mind. When we are born, we have two these levels within our affective and cognitive organs, which make up the mind like the circulatory and respiratory systems make up the body. (There is also the nervous system corresponds to the sensorimotor organ). These three systems of the psychical body are natural in construction; three systems of the mind are spiritual in construction. This natural mind is not able to build up without the spiritual mind. Thus, the abilities we have through the natural mind’s affective and cognitive organs could not function at all without the mediate influx from both the heavens and the hells into our natural mind.

After fist death of physical body, the three mental systems continue life in eternity. The spiritual mind is the organ in which are located the human heavens. Our spiritual mind is unconscious while we are attached to a physical body. Our awareness and conscious knowledge is located in the natural mind. In the natural mind, we build up ideas and experiences.

Human is born with a hellish trait. We are easy to have hellish feelings in our natural mind. However, what creates the natural hells in our mind is the justification of the evil tendencies so that we no longer think they are evil of hellish. The evil intention or tendency in the affective organ (willing evil) cannot actualize itself in our mind until we make it permissible by false rezoning (thinking falsity), and confirm these by our lifestyle habits. If we want to keep a hellish trait as our habit, we would be in the hell in the spiritual mind.

On the other hand, what makes the natural heavens in our mind is not merely the good intentions and motives we have in the affective organ, but their actualization in practice, which can only happen when the cognitive organ (thinking doctrine of truth) acts in coordination with those intentions or motives (willing according to the doctrine of truth).

Through this diagram, we understand that hell in the mind and heaven in the mind is not determined by own philosophy, view of religion, or view of life. We really need to manage our character reformation for understanding what heavenly character is and solving our hellish feelings.

y the Table that begins Section 1.1 “Three Levels of Thinking About God.” Explain the history of your own development regarding the idea of God. Use the Table to describe your own thinking at each level. Can you guess about where will your thinking take you in the future?

Answer 1

Level 1 is the lowest form of rational thinking. The denial of God, atheism, materialism, and animism are also included in this level. I was in this level before learning Theistic Psychology under the guidance of Dr. James. I feel someone as the great existence who is controlling in this world; however, I recognize it as the level of attaining salvation when I need help. Like sometime I says, “Oh my God!”

I have culturally animism; Shinto (the native religion of Japan) is a form of animism which stresses the importance of harmony between humans and nature. Regardless of religious person or not, though joining Shinto’s annual function for Japanese people’s life, they spontaneously believe animism. There are God of mountain, God of water, God of house, and so on; it is natural to believe God existing into all places for Japanese.

As long as believing for many Gods existing into nature, this seems denies of God as one Divine Infinite Conscious Rational Human Person. God creates all things which cannot have life of themselves, neither any power to grow, to act, or to think. God is a person. He creates human beings. We don’t have life from ourselves as our own. God supply the power and intelligence to us.

My belief system is a part of lifestyle. I can’t say that animism is my religion, but it influences to my personal belief system culturally. However, on the other hand, I knew that, as long as accepting in this belief, I can not have the rational view. Because animism and theistic psychology are contradict in my mind. I believe that my personal belief system not supposed thinking as scientific idea.

Now I think about this way, as long as studying theistic psychology, I would be understand it is science field and requires only rational thinking. On the other hand, I can keep my belief system, because it is very different category. For instance, I like a strawberry short cake. I know it is a junk food which made of sugar and fat. Fruits, a brawn muffin or a carrot cake, are better choice as nutrition food; however, I like a strawberry short cake. Therefore I eat it sometimes as a treat without comparing any nutritious foods.

Same as this, I would like to study and follow the theistic psychology; however, I would keep my favorite thinking: animism. Because the idea that God of forest protects all trees, God of ocean protects me from all happening during I am windsurfing, and God of plants protects all flowers lives, are feel easy to me. Even this is only fantasy.

Level 1 is lower than level 2, the religion which the assumption that there is God and how best to prepare for the afterlife. Because Level 1 cannot help us at all in terms of preparing ourselves for the afterlife, this view is denying or ignoring the connection between physical and mental.

Level 2 is the level of people who believe the God exist; however, there is no scientific personal relationship and it is cultural identity which is not rational. Level 2 thinking is above level 1 thinking in rationality. They have cultural explanation of God, but their God is not universal.

I am learning of the religious psychology (theistic psychology), not psychology of religion (studying religious view of people).

William James defined true beliefs which are useful to the believer. According to William James, “Truth ideas lead us into useful verbal and conceptual quarters as well as directly up to useful sensible termini. They lead to consistency, stability and flowing human intercourse “but” all true processes must lead to the face of directly verifying sensible experiences somewhere.”* For religious people, what is real are the experiences people have when they report being in contact with God. God is not a real scientific concept.

Therefore, Religion and theistic psychology do not refer to the same ground or map. Religion refers itself to the literal meaning of Sacred Scripture while theistic psychology refers itself to the universal correspondent meaning of Sacred Scripture. Religious psychology state that God or heaven and hell are not real concepts, scientific realities.

I have kept distance from religion. I have positioning of that “revival” in religion is as the mass catharsis or mass hysteria. It is not contemptuous meaning. During in the condition of mass hysteria, people sometimes could express their feelings, opinions, and ideas which they never have before in their ordinary lives. Through these experiences, they recognized their inclinations and self- enlightenment; they arouse interest in personality development. I believe that it is good for developing a moral concept.

However, I am required to know there are totally different field. This means that I need studying harder to understand Theistic psychology, and I also not necessary to become a religious person because I know God is not an idol, God is scientific fact though theistic psychology.

Level 3 is the view of theistic psychology. God is the cause of every natural event and all human behavior. Basis of the Sacred Scripture by the Writings of Swedenborg, people learn the systematic cumulative scientific knowledge.

In this level, rationally, people understand human is born with two worlds; one is the natural world where the human’s physical body and brain are connected and the spiritual world where the human’s mental body are connected. These two are locked into functional correspondence (laws of correspondence). In this level of people are able to explain and make a proof of the dual universe through their inner scientific and universal sense.

I wish I could go in this level. For reaching this goal, I have to organize many ideas which I used leaning and having the experiences.

It is very hard for working of PSY 459 assignment everyday. Keep thinking and writing about theistic psychology, is like ascetic practices for purging my soul. I have a hard time for studying these in the limited time; however, I believe that this is going to understand theistic psychology; this is precious and irreplaceable time from being taught by Dr. James and this is the step for going up to the level 3 in theistic psychology.

*http://spartan.ac.brocku.ca/~lward/James/James_1907/James_1907_06.html

Study Question 2

Make up a gain-loss sheet that lists and briefly explains what you could gain or lose by adopting the negative vs. positive bias regarding God’s existence as a scientific reality.

Gains of my negative bias view:

4. According to Theistic psychology, God is human, and He is perfectly and totally loving and wise. However, there is no human who is perfect. I can’t imagine a perfect human. Being perfect is the desire for us; we try to become better people by following our conscience. I believe that, trying to be for a perfect human with love and wise, which is our human goal. We will never be perfect people, but it is beautiful life when we are doing test. There is no perfect human, it is human’s ideal.

5. If the writing of Swedenborg is the fact and the right evidence, why this fact not be getting into the news? Why is his name not well known among ordinary people?

6. As a New Age idea, every thing in the universe is spiritually interconnected, participating in the same energy. This is monism; however, Theistic psychology and New Age seem like the same approach as a conceptual integration of mind, body, and spirit. How are they different??

　　　↓↓　　　　　　　　　↓　↓　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　↓↓　　　　　　　　　　　　　

Loose these negative biases and equal to gain the positive bias:

　　１´My view was subjective for the existence of God. My image of God is a Crucifixion or Buddha who is sitting in meditation on a lotus flower. In theistic psychology, God has revealed scientific facts about the structure of the universe, about the anatomy of the human mind, and the details of life after death. Viewing of theistic psychology is objective and not a belief system through which we imagine the shape of God. Through perspective of rational thinking, I would be understood that the difference between the scientifically perfect God and the perfect human, which we aim to be.

2´Because most people don’t know the difference of spiritual between the theistic psychology and supernatural, occultism, mysticism, spiritualism, and so on, they think theistic psychology is a part of religions.

Theistic psychology is based on the Writings of Swedenborg, which is the only original source of scientific information on the spiritual world. In the other religions spiritual information is based on direct sensory input from the spiritual world or God. Thus, personal intuition is the most important connection with God. This is not rational and we are not able to prove irrational things. People can choose which doctrine is suitable.

For instance, these are similar to compare between the lecture as a credit class in college and the lecture for the general public as a non credit class or seminar. The former teaches the rational knowledge by teacher who has a degree and the latter teaches something based on the topic ordinary people are interested in. The lecture of college is not easy and it requires reading comprehension. This purpose of the lecture is giving the knowledge and put knowledge to practical use to the student. On the other hand, the public lecture is fun. The purpose of lecture is giving some knowledge and does not require the auditors engage in comprehensive thinking. It is free to how understand and interpret for them. The instructor has everything his or her own way. These are not which is good and which is bad. The purpose is different and what students want is different.

If someone wants to understand the reason of living, he or she would meet Swedenborg certainly. I think it is chance for understanding Swedenborg rationally or aiming to enjoy mysteries’ phenomena.

3´Because the idea of New Age was born from influence of Swedenborg, there are many common words. For instance, death is not the end; there is only life in different forms.

However, the New Age worldview is not experiment-and –theory-based view. It involves a mysticism-based view of describing and controlling the external world.

The idea of New age is that all humanity is spiritually interconnected, participating in the same energy. “God” is one name for this energy. Or spiritual beings (e.g. angels, ghosts, ascended masters) exist and will guide us, if we open ourselves to their guidance. “Intuition” or “divine guidance” is a more appropriate guide than rationalism, skepticism, or the scientific method.

I think New Age is one of the ideas which answer the needs of the times. I remember the time of postmodernism in twenty years ago. Their shift to a feeling of control over their expression of spirituality reflects a trend towards personal responsibility, as well as personal empowerment. New Age responds to postmodernism. In New Age, the individual’s choice in spiritual matters, such as the role of personal intuition and experience is the basis of doctrine and sanctioned in society.

New Age would become obsolete. Popular ideas will change with the times. However, a rational idea never changes. This is why theistic psychology is stabile and better approach.

Question 3

Why does God allow people to be in the negative bias and survive as well as those who are in the positive bias?

Answer 3

God controls everything, including of the control of human’s decision. We, human are given from God to chose staying in the hellish mind or staying in the heavenly mind.

There is a scenario for how we can build up hell in our mind. For instance, when we have jealousy of someone, we know jealousy is negative emotion consciously. Because we have feeling of resentment, fear, or annoyance when we every see his or her. And then, we begin to desire to be hostile and be in the trouble of him or her. This is the way of building up hellish in our mind.

Although we are not responsible for hell initially, these negative emotions and both hostile intentions and acts will tumble out of us spontaneously. It is difficult to get out these from negative mind. With keeping the negative mind, we receive the guilty of hell from God.

God allows us to be in the negative bias, because what we desire is our freedom, which God is given to us.

We are required to choose which one we desire to have between negative mind and positive mind in our lifestyle. When we are in the hell of our mind, doing bad is a sensorimotor act that follows from the conjunction or cooperative action between a prior affective act (intending bad) and a corresponding cognitive act.

There must be a corresponding cognitive act to the bad intention. The cognitive act is the act of justifying the evil intention by thinking that in this case it is good despite what it looks like. This gives us permission to carry out the bad act. If we are in the hell of our mind, we can not have rational thinking. Because we are too emotional, we can not think rationally.

I wonder this option is like God’s test with litmus paper for not acidity but purification in our mind. God gives us this test every we meet some events for purpose of spiritual discipline. God let to us stay in negative mind or positive mind with sharing the result of test, and let us to receive of spiritual discipline.

Question4

Explain the difference between mystical religion and theistic psychology.

Answer 4

I already wrote some differences between mystical religion and theistic psychology on study question 2. Therefore, I would like to write why people choose mysterious religion but not theistic psychology.

First of all, people, who are interested mystical religion, might desire to purify their souls of sin. They might seek truth from their sense of values in spreading material culture and consumer society; they seek and desire to regenerate themselves. They might be looking for salvation by someone. Thus, the motivation for interest in communication to God is the same starting point of the motivation for learning theistic psychology.

I recognize Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is depicted as a square consisting of five levels: from the lower to the top, 1.physiological (biological needs), 2. Safety, 3. Love/belonging, 4. Status (esteem), 5. Actualization.

The four lower levels are grouped together as deficiency needs associated with physiological needs, while the top level is termed growth needs associated with psychological needs.

Self- actualization, the top level is the instinctual need of humans to strive to be the best they can be. People who reach on this level are motivated or can control their behavior.

Because Mystical religious people seek their self-actualization and their spiritual salvation, they easily accept the psychological and spiritual techniques, which lack scientific evaluative data.

For understanding theistic psychology, the belief system is not required. It doesn’t matter where we get this study from: the recommendation from friends, the article of news paper, or the book accidentally found in the library. Theistic psychology is not organizations which compel us to believe and follow the idealized leaders who claiming transformative visions. Leaning theistic psychology only requires the rational thinking.

Second, many mystical religious people believe the reincarnation. Reincarnation doesn’t have any scientific proofs. I believe that reincarnation is the theme what is more the field of literature or moral education. However, once a person accepts the mystical religions, he or she gradually becomes more willing to accept others easily. Because the credibility of the entire network of ideas increases once he or she have attributed credibility parts of the network.

Theistic psychology is study of knowledge, which based of the Sacred Scripture in the Writings of Swedenborg. It is the knowledge through the scientific perspective. It does not forth to accept the concept of Divine Speech to readers. It just not works of the knowledge of theistic psychology if reader wouldn’t read and think rational perspective. And then, it requires the time and the effort for understanding theistic psychology. It is selected study for people who desire scientifically understanding of the connection between mental world and physical world, and where we are going after our death.

Lastly, Mystical religious people rely more their feelings and their inspirations whether trust or not in the doctrine of Mystical religions. Therefore, it is not difficult for increasing the member for religious organizations. There are many psychological method for conversion to their religions; training, education, growth-oriented workshop, and so on. However, though the fundamental assumption of American pluralism, we can’t critically examine our fundamental assumptions. It is taboo to criticize any religions. We can not tell Mystical religions are dangerous because they will be control their conscience which is influenced by their feelings and their inspirations.

It is not necessary for making the organization of theistic psychology. The people who accept theistic psychology is not called the believer in religion. It is not necessary for correcting contributions for supporting the organization. For learning theistic psychology, it is not necessary things in this material world because it is learning about our mental world and it is immortal world.

Question 5

Prove rationally that if God exists, then He must be a Divine Human Person whose creation must be Perfect.

Answer 5

Because God is a Person, He can be loving and wise, or, good and rational. Since God is perfect love and wisdom, it is rational to think that He would create conscious human being to live forever.

Therefore, God is Divine Human; we are born immortal.

God controls our life; however, our life in heaven or hell in after life, which are depending on the habits of choices we accumulate in this life. Why God reveals these things to us on earth? Because this is the purpose of God; He communicates us with humankind in the form of Sacred Scripture.

If we are going to fully accept such a principle and reason from it in our mind, God’s thoughts and feelings would flow out into the created mental world of eternity where the minds of human beings exist and live.

God connects us and reconnects us moments by moment to assist us in the continuity, and God also coheres of our thinking process moment by moment while we awake and asleep.

Therefore, if we don’t have Divine revelations, we would make up our own materialistic ideas in the form of false belief systems, persuasive faiths, delusional perceptions, or irrational ways of thinking. Divine revelation is the only source of true rationality about God and the afterlife.

We cannot make a proof of God exist by the measurement system, because our consciousness is restricted to the external mind, which is entirely composed of conscious ideas built up through the senses. Only we can make a proof of God exists by our rational thinking. In different words, if we could make a proof of God exists with our consciousness, God is not Perfect. Because we are able to only prove within our ability. Our conscious ability is limited. We can not control our life by ourselves.

Question6

Describe what the two worlds are that God created and maintains in rational order.

Answer 6

God creates two our existence when we are conceived and born. Our existence starts in both worlds of time and eternity. We are born in dual citizens.

Our physical body is conceived and born in time and space. Physical body is mortal. Physical organs have limited life. On the other hand, our spirits live in eternity. In the natural world, where we are now existence the material world, our spirits (spiritual body) is temporally dwelling in our physical body. Eventually physical body will die; it is the time that our mental body leaves from the natural world into metal world for living immortally.

While the mental body dwelling in the physical body in the natural world, both the mental body and the physical body are connected by the law of correspondence and are related to cause and effect.

The mental body located in eternity from birth onward, we have organs; affective organ (corresponds to heart and circulatory system in the physical body), cognitive organ (corresponds to the lungs and respiratory in the physical body), and sensorimotor organ (corresponds to the brain and neurons throughout the physical body).

Our mind are always operating by means of the affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor operations working together; however, we are unconscious of the operations that are always going on in the spiritual mind and the celestial mind, which are the higher level of operation of our natural mind.

The mind’s operations are dependent on the inflow of spiritual heat (love) and spiritual light (truth) from Spiritual Sun. Receiving spiritual head and light, the mind builds out, activate, and keep the substances of love and truth functioning in perfect order to eternity.

God creates two worlds from the outside of Universe. I wonder why God let us to live in the physical world first. Why He gives us the destiny for die. We, human are immoral and are easily led astray by temptations. I wonder why God just watch over us, not relieve us.

I wonder whether or not we are able to solve many problems. I am still familiar the belief system in religion, because Jesus may help from people troubled.

Question 7

Prove rationally that our mental world is the world of eternity. What will be the consequences for society when this knowledge becomes known?

Answer 7

According to the Writing of Sacred Scripture by Swedenborg, there is only one human mind for the whole human race. Every person’s mental world is in the one common mental world of humanity, and overlaps with it. We can see each other only through the spiritual mind, which remains unconscious until resuscitation.

Thus, if we deceive each others now (physical world), we knew what thinking about each others in the mental world, where is immortal.

We are born with two worlds: the physical world and the mental world. We are born with possessing of immortal mental body which attaching to the temporal physical body. These two are tied to each other by the laws of correspondence so that the operations in the two bodies are completely integrated and acting symbiotically as one organism. After we die, we will leave our physical bodies and only live in endless mental world.

Why we can live in the mental world where is immortal? Because we are able to think rationally, we are able to love, self-examination, and regeneration by our own efforts. Having a rational concept of God, we are “conjoined” to God. God is in eternity, we are being conjoined to immortal life in eternity.

I had a good experience of the blackout on last Sunday. Because of raining and no lights, my family had nothing to do in the dark house. Of course, I was busy working in the household and writing the class assignment. However, I could have a chance to think back to my daily life. How deep I am living in the consumer society. How much I spend all my energy for living. I have been too busy and think only of the present.

If God control all our life, God should give us this kind of happening sometimes. We could think back to our life and look for the way we supposed to go. Sad to say, we will not think about our daily life if we will not have this chance nowadays.

Question 8

How are humans different from animals? What makes us human? Justify the statement that we are human because we are rational. Explain why animals are not immortal. How do you react to this knowledge? Look up what Swedenborg said about animals (you can use google).

Answer 8

A human has thoughts and feelings, which are in the mind and spiritual body. The spiritual body and the physical body are operating and developing each other, and these are related by the cause and the effect.

For instance, we are able to express our feelings by making sentences on the paper with writing materials. This action means that we are processing from thinking in the mental world to writing in the physical world. We are able to do this because not only brain and physical body are connected but the mental body and the physical body is also connected by the law of correspondence.

And the paper which we wrote some sentences will be lost or be missing some day; however our feelings which were written on the paper would be not losing. Our mental feelings live in the mental world immortally.

However, Animal doesn’t have mind or spiritual body. Animal are not able to think. Although animal have love and the ability to do things they want, they are not capable of pursuing their loves by planning and understanding rationally. Animals just follow their innate instincts or biologically.

Such as, Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist, found conditioned reflex; a hungry dog trained to associate the sound of a bell with food salivated at the sound even in the absence of food.

Human has the conditioned reflex but human also have control their will. Human goal-directed behavior is loving and rational, or else the transformation of loving and rational into hating and irrational. Human are able to act follow love and truth or evil and fantasy. When human know that deceiving is bad, human can stop their acts. For instance, we can stop eating if we think that First Food is not good for our health, even we are very hungry.

Love is combined with truth when only humanity begins. Human is immortal because human could be appropriate immoral substances as God’s love and truth and could make the substances out of which the organ of their mind is constructed.

Thorough God’s love and truth entering and operating our mind, we can be adjoined to God. We are able to live with the spiritual substances of love and truth from God.

However, the animals lack the ability to reason about love and truth. Animals cannot reject evil and falsity because they do not have the mental anatomy and spiritual psychobiology for these functions. There is no function without substance and form.

According to Dr. James’s interpretation of Swedenborg, when the animal’s body dies, its spirit is removed and transformed by God. At any rate, the animals in the spiritual world appear instantaneously lime all other object, in accordance with the mental states of those who are gathered somewhere.

I believe that we can see our animal pet again in the mental world. Because we love them and miss them, we could go in heaven and feel happy with them again.

Question9

When people do something bad that they enjoy doing, it seems to them that it is good. Explain this phenomenon. You might want to check the word “hellish traits” in the Index Volume 18 to find other discussion on this.

Answer 9

Hell is feeling good from doing bad, and feeling bad from doing good. According to Sacred Scripture, the reason why doing bad appears good to us when we are in the hell of our mind, is that doing bad is a sensorimotor act that follows from the conjunction or cooperative action between a prior affective act (intending bad) and a corresponding cognitive act. There must be a corresponding cognitive act to the bad intention.

For instance, I told a lie to my friend. I felt very bad for cheating friend. I was in the hell of my mind. My consciousness descended into that portion of my mind that is the source of bad feelings and negative emotions. I was in my hell when I felt the awful explosion inside of me as I explode with guilty. This feeling activated in me, wants to continue living and enduring in me. It attaches itself to my consciousness.

We are living mentally along three levels or degrees of operation: natural, rational, and celestial. The natural degree of our life (natural mind) is same level of animals. The next level is rational. The rational mind is capable know right from wrong and good from evil. Animals don’t know these differences. The highest level is the celestial mind. It is unconscious while we are attached to the physical body.

Regardless of being ridden with guilt, I wonder that hellish mind is the same level as animals.

Swedenborg told that there is a difference between what men receives from his father and what he receives from his mother. Although the external: limbs and the physical body are inherited from the mother, the internal: the spiritual mind, the external natural mind, and the spiritual body are organs inherited from the father. And these inheritances of mental traits are cumulative.

The inherited spiritual package from each line of the male parent is so filled with numerous hellish traits that every individual grows up with a character that is hellish. Therefore, we condemn ourselves to a life of endless hell in immortality.

Evil inherited from the male parental line is lodged in the external natural mind; however, the internal spiritual mind contains no evil from heredity. Since Fall of human race, the inmost traits are organized into a collection by our inherited ruling love which is always hellish.

People do something bad that they enjoy might be inherited spontaneous behavior. However, this behavior is the level of natural degree, same as animals. We have mental organs which are inflexed substances good and truth from spiritual sun. We are able to leave hellish trait by our own ability. We can fight against the hellish thoughts. If we choose to reject the hellish thoughts, God performs our regeneration and removes our connections to hellish mind. We only need to do is to make as-of-self effort by making consent to cooperate with God.

Study Question 1

Explain how we become spiritually enlightened by studying theistic psychology. What is the difference between natural and spiritual enlightenment? Who do you know that is enlightened, either personally or by reputation?

Answer 1

By the elevation of operations in the cognitive organ of our mind, we could have enlightenment. I study Theistic psychology now, which means that my cognitive operations are still beginner. However gaining experience and knowledge through thinking rationally, our cognitive operations become more effective and more complex.

For instance, I understand the human is dual citizens now. I was born with two worlds. I think about this way, I set up this physical world as the time of practicing asceticism toward the spiritual world where I die. I understand why things happen in my daily life and how to control for problems, better than before.

This is enlightenment; however, it is still the level of natural-rational mind. This level is that we expertise or being good at something from experience.

On the other hand, the spiritual-rational type of enlightenment, above the natural=rational enlightenments, comes only from the doctrine of truth from Sacred Scripture. The source of spiritual-rational enlightenment is the spiritual mind through the spiritual body.

The sauce of our natural-rational enlightenment is the natural mind through the physical body. Reading the Sacred Scripture, going the church, or playing for salvation to God, these only understand the literal sense of Sacred Scripture with our natural-sensuous and natural-rational mind.

If we want to achieve the level of spiritual enlightenment, it requires us to translate the literal sense into its universal correspondent sense.

We cannot be enlightened when our natural habits of feeling, thinking, and doing are based on our inherited hellish states of mind. Therefore, if our purpose of enlightenments is for our gaining wealth and rising in fame, this is not enlightenment. We are just enjoying hellish operations. If we go through phases of feeling bad for doing the right thing or feeling good for doing the wrong thing, we are in the hellish. This is the opposite estate of enlightenment.

Question 2

Explain how our spiritual development depends on our willingness to fight our temptations. What happens after we are victorious? What you have observed about your own temptations in the past?

Answer 2

Without confronting with temptations, we are not able to develop our spiritual mind. We always make progress in our moral development, such as helping people who are in trouble, not telling a lie, and so on. However, this progress of moral development is different than spiritual development.

For progress of spiritual development, we have to be willing to undergo spiritual temptation. We have to reach the enlightenment and regenerate our character from hellish to heavenly.

Spiritual temptations are brought to our conscious awareness by Divine Psychologist, who chooses the timing on the basis of what we are willing to obey. Divine Psychologist gives us spiritual temptations when we are ready.

When we ready to oppose and fight hellish trait, it is the time to fight with a spiritual temptation.

For overcoming the spiritual temptation, we are necessarily translating the literal sense of Sacred Scripture into its correspondent sense (called the spiritual doctrine of Truth).

While studying Sacred Scripture, we could construct and build up our mind with the spiritual doctrine of Truth. And then if we overcame the spiritual temptation, we would never go back to the hellish trait.

We never feel good for doing bad, and feel bad for doing good. We only want to do well, to think right, to feel like in heaven.

I used to stop myself of thinking when I was envious of friends, because I am never satisfied myself. Why do I always worry about money? Why am I clumsy in everything? Why do I not have any relatives around, and so on. I always feel worse after comparing myself with my friends. This is ugly jealousy and negative feelings. However, now I know, to stop thinking is not enough for changing my character. I should realize that this is chance for my regeneration which God as the Divine Psychologist gave to me, and I really required facing my negative trait.

Question 3

When and how did Sacred Scripture reveal that heaven in eternity is the mental world? Why do you think that this knowledge remains unknown or disbelieved?

Answer 3

According to the Writing of Sacred Scripture, if we read theistic psychology from the negative bias perspective of non- theistic psychology, we are called “the learned”, because we accept the perspective of the negative bias scientists. Thus, we are choosing by default to maintain this negative perspective on God and dualism.

However, if we accept what Sacred Scripture says in its literal sense, we are called “the simple”, because we are not on our defensive guard when hearing about God and science in our focus. Thus if we place ourselves in a perceptive perspective on God and Sacred Scripture, we could be eternal spirits in a temporary material body.

Immortal life is not the prolongation of human life. We already possess eternity right now, because we are able to conjoin with God. Since God is in eternity, we are being conjoined to immortal life in eternity. We have a rational level of thinking and have an idea of God and eternity. A rational level of thinking is required to be conjoined to eternity.

Most people choose some religion by following the family or friends’ religion. Or when some people are born, parents are already decided certain religions. For some people, religion is like culture. It is common to follow family tradition and religion is family tradition.

Therefore, most people don’t have any criterion for comparing or being critical of their own religion.

While I read 1.1.4.3, How Divine Speech Descends In the Human Mind Through Discrete Layers and Keeps It Functioning, I am reminded the mystery story, Da Vinci Code. I should not compare and mix of these different subjects, of course, Da Vinci Code is fiction and Sacred Scripture is non fiction. However, this fiction became a best-selling book. When I think about the reason of popularity in this book, it had a strong hold on the public mind, which has an enthusiastic desire for knowing the secret. People always desire to know the real fact. I am wondering if there is the forthcoming time for people to desire the Writings of Sacred Scripture. Just like there was the time that was waiting for me to learn theistic psychology.

Question 4

Explain the principle that “individual biography recapitulates human evolution and history.” How does this influence the way you see yourself?

Answer 4

Although the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Writings of Swedenborg have given us the evolutional steps, individual mental growth follows the same pattern as the development of human civilizations in the course of history.

For thousands of years, people who derived their religion from the Old Testament had a materialistic world view, not abstracted from the senses. People were not willing to think of the heavens as being created in a separate universe outside time, space, or religion. However, thinking of the universe of eternity requires a rational spirituality and rational consciousness of God. The Old Testament level of moral intelligence is the rational idea or perspective that individual human behavior has a universal significance in relation to God. This perspective ties the individual to God. It is the bottom line of spiritual life and growth. Applying to the human’s age, this level is age one year old to ten years old, our early years of development covering the first decade of life. We can compare with Old Testament to the first ten years of human life, it is still amateur. Children are taught that God exists and that He knows and see everything we do. This level is the bottom line of oral life and rational intelligence.

New Testament is ranked with the human who are eleven to twenty years old. People begin to examine the rational implications and assumptions of our beliefs about God. They raise the moral intelligence or consciousness of humankind by distinguishing between external behavior and mental behavior. They can experience a radical shift of focus from external behavior to internal behavior.

Although New Testament level of thinking about God and mental behavior motivates us to put up effort in our character reformation, we just try to reject our enjoyments of evil and yet fail to do so over and over again. Our desire to reject evil is not deep enough. Swedenborg wrote about in Sacred Scripture that it doesn’t sink deep enough into our character to survive the second death.

Writings of Swedenborg are third level of moral intelligence. Twenty-one years and up is the age level of rational consciousness, this level of human is able to have a scientific understanding of how the mind works and what its relation to heaven and hell is. We understand both level 1 (our overt behavior) and level 2 (our mental behavior of intentions and enjoyment) are not a matter of our sin and its forgiveness by God through our faith and good intentions.

When we enter the level 3, the Writings of Secured Scripture, we can see that God automatically forgives everything for everyone and then we have freedom to choose how willing we are to let God regenerate and reform our thoughts and feelings by giving us temptations.

Applying the level of moral intelligence to my life, it is easy to understand what and how I think about human life. Praying is a sacred action; however, how we act with praying is more important. Not waiting for God helps us: we face ourselves and make efforts of enlightenment; concerning this attitude, God supports us and helps to live in heavenly love.

Question 5

In your own words explain chart 1 in Section 1.1.4.3.1. Do not just guess. You will need to do some research in Volume 18 to find the explanations and clarifications:

www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/theistic/#Searching_for_something

Answer 5

There are two faculties in human mind. One is called the “will”, which is an affective organ, and the other is called the “understanding” which is a cognitive organ. Human soul is still the inmost degree and the mind is split to the affective and cognitive organs.

We often accept Divine Speech with mystical systems through our affective organ. Old will was the original state of mind of the earliest generations on earth and based on sensuous consciousness of God. These mystical systems depend on blind faith or credulity and as a result. God is placed as an explanatory concept. This is the level of literal meaning of sacred scripture in natural mind. There are a variety of mystical systems: literalism, fundamentalism visions, voice, miracles, superstitions, cults, new prophecies, and so on.

However, since the creed or faith resists breakdown and rational analysis, these are not able to arrive at a conclusion with rational or scientific way.

On the other hand, we are able to accept Divine Speech through our cognitive organ. We could understand God as a concept in all explanations about human behavior and dynamics. Our understanding is based on rational consciousness of God. This means that no one can make up what God is or is not, or what God wants or does not want, or how God manages the created universe, or what our fate is in the afterlife. This is theistic psychology, which is based exclusively on the method of correspondences with enlightenment.

When we learn theistic psychology, we are enlightened when performing certain required steps and fulfilling certain required conditions. This is called character reformation or regeneration. Through communicating with God, we will have our ability for changing ourselves and for growing ourselves into a celestial person that can live in heaven.

Question 6

In your own words explain chart 2 in Section 1.1.4.3.1. Do not just guess. You will need to do some research in Volume 18 to find the explanations and clarifications:

www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/theistic/#Searching_for_something

Answer 6

This diagram tells that how mediate influx descends from the Spiritual Sun and passes through the minds of the vertical community in an orderly manner. There are three minds in mental body (A) the affective mind, (B) the cognitive mind, (C) the spiritual mind.

From Spiritual Sun, the Divine influx descends through the three heavens. It first reaches the human race through the uppermost portion of mind; the Third Heaven. People, whose consciousnesses are elevated to this level, the celestial angels dwell with their immortality in conjugial bliss. The spiritual angels saw the meaning of the sentences as discussing love and the hierarchy of human affections in this level.

The Third Heaven corresponds perfectly to the Second Heaven. The spiritual angels dwell in the Second Heaven. The spiritual angels saw the meaning of the sentences as discussing truth and the varieties of human understanding in this Heaven.

Angelic spirits dwell permanently in the First Heaven of the human race. All three Heaven are respectively communicate with own language and correspond to each other by discrete degrees.

Finally, it through into the mind of earthlings whose physical bodies live on earth; however, the mind live in the spiritual world. The mind of earthlings receive influx from both heaven and hell, because the purpose of keeping us in balance or spiritual freedom.

Our minds are able to opened or elevated all the way to the third heaven. Mediate influx means that Divine influx; it is mediated or filtered through the minds of humanity by degrees downward.

This is called the vertical community. Our physical body is immersed in a social world of others so that we can interact and touch each other. In this community, our mind is a social world.

Human mind are located between the heavens and the hells and tied to a physical body. All our thoughts in the natural mind through the brain and sensory organs, are always from the beginning in the world of spirits where is our spiritual body. And these are in our mental organs or our spirits.

Question 7

In your own words explain chart 3 in Section 1.1.4.3.1. Do not just guess. You will need to do some research in Volume 18 to find the explanations and clarifications:

www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/theistic/#Searching_for_something

Answer 7

God, the logical implications of an Omnipotent, is the unifying concept that explains how the universe is integrated in a coherent whole. God has no beginning or end. Therefore, God is the only concept that implies infinity.

Divine Speech, as an outflow or emanation from the Spiritual Sun, flows out of Divine Human’s mind into the created universe. Divine Human creates and maintains all things in a rational and loving order.

When we are born, our physical body is temporarily alive on the earth while our mental body permanently alive in the mental world. Physical body and mental body are connected with the Law of Correspondence.

The spiritual world is a vertically organized operational sphere for supporting the activity of Human’s thought and feelings, which are operations in the anatomical organs of the mind.

Spiritual heat (love) and Spiritual light (truth) are the Divine Speech’s substances from the Spiritual Sun. These substances inflow to human’s mental organs. Spiritual heat inflows to affective organ, which corresponds to the heart and circulatory system in the physical body. Spiritual light inflows to cognitive organ, which corresponds to the lungs and respiratory in the physical body.

If making to collect all together from each individual’s mind in the heavens, they would take the shape of the Grand Human. In this level of human; in the spiritual world, is able to comprehend Divine Speech in terms of natural-rational correspondences about God, society marriage, family, and the afterlife.

Their physical bodies are still on earth. The spiritual mind of human is not consciously available to their awareness. While we are on earth, Divine Speech operates on the unconscious mind from an internal entry point; however it operates on conscious mind from an external way through the physical senses with following the means of Sacred Scripture. Although they are capable to thinking with spiritual and celestial ideas that are in themselves not spiritual and celestial, they are functionally equivalent.

Divine Speech operates on both the unconscious and conscious mind. Right under the spiritual mind is conscious natural mind. This is our mind on the earth. Compared with the spiritual mind, which contain inflow of information from the spiritual world, the natural mind contains the memories and experiences we obtain with the physical body.

God manages the operations of human’s mind and He synchronizes the precise one to one relations between operations in the mind and in the body. However, God blocks human’s memory, the human is not able to remember something or forget something. In natural world, God appears as if human are managing themselves. Therefore, the Writings of Sacred Scripture states “as-of-self” instead of the “self.

Question 8

In your own words explain chart 4 in Section 1.1.4.3.1. Do not just guess. You will need to do some research in Volume 18 to find the explanations and clarifications:

www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/theistic/#Searching_for_something

Answer 8

When we are born, we are born into two worlds. One is the natural world, which is physical and temporal, and the other is the spiritual world, which is eternal. Our mind and body are connected with the laws of correspondences. We have the spiritual organ, a celestial-rational organ, at the top of the mind when we are born.

When we are in the natural world, our natural mind is conscious and develops from sensory and cultural input through the physical senses. Our consciousness is able to travel up and down in levels of mental operation with our spiritual body. When we feel bad, sad, selfish, and so on, our consciousness is in our natural hells. Our mind creates the natural hells by the justification of the evil tendencies. We permit the evil actualize to conjunct with our affective and our cognitive organs. However, if we actualize in practice to act of our cognitive organ for thinking doctrine of truth with our desire, we are able to go up in the rational mind. The rational mind is the highest level of the natural mind we think with natural-rational correspondences. We are capable of becoming conscious of higher order meanings, which called enlightened.

In the spiritual world, we are unconscious until “resuscitates” or awakens in the spiritual body. However, we are able to think with spiritual and celestial ideas. The spiritual mind receives sensory input from the spiritual world.

When we die and are resuscitated a few hours later, we awaken consciously in the spiritual mind that God give to us conscious awareness, and then our sensory input is no longer from the physical world but from the spiritual world. We become be “spirit” and continue our life of immortality.

Question 9

In your own words explain chart 5 in Section 1.1.4.3.1. Do not just guess. You will need to do some research in Volume 18 to find the explanations and clarifications:

www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/theistic/#Searching_for_something

Answer 9

Human beings have two different levels of operations: the natural mind, and the spiritual mind. When we are born, we have two these levels within our affective and cognitive organs, which make up the mind like the circulatory and respiratory systems make up the body. (There is also the nervous system corresponds to the sensorimotor organ). These three systems of the psychical body are natural in construction; three systems of the mind are spiritual in construction. This natural mind is not able to build up without the spiritual mind. Thus, the abilities we have through the natural mind’s affective and cognitive organs could not function at all without the mediate influx from both the heavens and the hells into our natural mind.

After fist death of physical body, the three mental systems continue life in eternity. The spiritual mind is the organ in which are located the human heavens. Our spiritual mind is unconscious while we are attached to a physical body. Our awareness and conscious knowledge is located in the natural mind. In the natural mind, we build up ideas and experiences.

Human is born with a hellish trait. We are easy to have hellish feelings in our natural mind. However, what creates the natural hells in our mind is the justification of the evil tendencies so that we no longer think they are evil of hellish. The evil intention or tendency in the affective organ (willing evil) cannot actualize itself in our mind until we make it permissible by false rezoning (thinking falsity), and confirm these by our lifestyle habits. If we want to keep a hellish trait as our habit, we would be in the hell in the spiritual mind.

On the other hand, what makes the natural heavens in our mind is not merely the good intentions and motives we have in the affective organ, but their actualization in practice, which can only happen when the cognitive organ (thinking doctrine of truth) acts in coordination with those intentions or motives (willing according to the doctrine of truth).

Through this diagram, we understand that hell in the mind and heaven in the mind is not determined by own philosophy, view of religion, or view of life. We really need to manage our character reformation for understanding what heavenly character is and solving our hellish feelings.