Soul-Body Interaction, Believed to Occur either by a Physical Inflow, or by a Spiritual Inflow, or by a Preestablished Harmony.

§§1–2 / [Author’s Introduction]

1. §3 / There are two worlds: a spiritual world where spirits and angels live, and an earthly world where we live.

2. §4 / The spiritual world came into being and is kept in existence from its sun, and the earthly world, from its sun.

3. §5 / The sun of the spiritual world is pure love from Jehovah God,

who is at its center.

4. §6 / Warmth and light emanates from that sun; the essence of that emanating warmth is love, and the essence of the emanating light is wisdom.

5. §7 / Both spiritual warmth and spiritual light fl ow into us. The warmth fl ows into our will and gives rise there to a love for doing what is good, and the light flows into our understanding and gives rise there to the truth that leads to wisdom.

6. §8 / These two—spiritual warmth and spiritual light, or love and wisdom—fl ow together from God into the human soul, flow through our soul into our mind and its feelings and thoughts, and flow from there into our physical senses, speech, and actions.

7. §9 / The sun of our earthly world is nothing but fire, and is the means by which this earthly world came into being and is kept in existence.

8. §10 / This means that everything that emanates from the physical sun is in and of itself dead.

9. §11 / What is spiritual wears what is physical the way we wear clothes.

10. §12 / It is spiritual elements clothed in this way that enable us to live as rational and moral beings—that is, to live spiritually on this earthly level.

11. §13 / How receptive we are to this infl ow depends on the state of love and wisdom within us.

12. §14 / Our understanding can be lifted into the light (that is, the wisdom) that angels enjoy to the extent that our rational ability has been cultivated; and our will can be elevated into the warmth, or love, of heaven, depending on how we live our lives. However, the love in our will becomes elevated only to the extent that we will and do what the wisdom in our understanding teaches us.

13. §15 / It is totally diff erent for animals.

14. §16 / Unknown until now, there are three levels in the spiritual world and three in this earthly world, and these shape the way all infl ow happens.

15. §17 / Purposes are on the fi rst level, means on the second, and results on the third.

16. §18 / This shows us the nature of spiritual infl ow, from its origin to its results.

§§19–20 / [Concluding Accounts]

5. 3 The sun of the spiritual world is pure love from Jehovah God, who is at its center.

THE only possible source of spiritual realities is love, and the only possible source of love is Jehovah God, who is love itself. This means that the spiritual world’s sun, from which all spiritual realities issue as from their wellspring, is pure love emanating from Jehovah God, who is at its center. That sun is not God, but it is from God. It is a field emanating from himself that most closely surrounds him. It was by means of this sun that Jehovah God created the universe, meaning all the worlds taken together—as many as there are stars in the vast expanse of our sky.

[2] The reason creation was accomplished by means of this sun, which is pure love, and therefore by Jehovah God, is that love is the essential reality of life and wisdom is the resulting manifestation of life; and everything was created out of love, by means of wisdom. This is what the Gospel of John means when it says “The Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made through him, nothing that was made came about without him, and the world was made through him” (John 1:1, 3, 10). “The Word” here is divine truth and therefore also divine wisdom. So too, in John 1:9 the Word is called the light that enlightens everyone, the way divine wisdom does by means of divine truth.

[3] If people trace the origin of the worlds to any source other than divine love by means of divine wisdom, they are hallucinating like the mentally ill who see ghosts as real people, apparitions as lights, and figments of their own imagination as images of reality. The created universe is actually a coherent work, from love by means of wisdom. If you are able to explore the connections in the divine design from beginning to end, you will certainly see this for yourself.

[4] Just as God is one, the spiritual sun is one as well, since we cannot attribute spatial extension to the spiritual things that are derived from such a sun. Nonspatial essence and manifestation is everywhere in space without being limited by space, so divine love is present from the beginning of the universe to all its remotest boundaries. Reason can see, at least from a distance, that Divinity fills everything and by so doing maintains everything in its created state. Reason can even see this close at hand if it knows what love is really like, how love works with wisdom to identify purposes, how love flows into wisdom to establish means, and how love operates through wisdom to achieve results.