Here is a Spiritual Conundrum submitted to Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life by a reader named AJ739:
Dear Lee,
Your website has massively helped me overcome my anxiety that was brought on by the New Age Movement and their beliefs, but I have two questions:
Can God/spirits cause things to happen to people? For example, can God/spirits cause a man to kill another or can God/spirits cause a warlord to start a war on various people at a time?
And finally, does God influence the universe? For example could God use outside forces to rearrange building structures or the Earth’s structure?
Many thanks.
Thanks for the great questions, AJ739! I think and hope this response will reduce your New-Age-induced anxiety level a couple more notches.
In previous eras, almost everyone believed that God and spirits, both good and evil, not only influenced but controlled everything from the weather to the fertility of crops, herds, and wives to victory and defeat in battle. And so they prayed and sacrificed to their gods, to the spirits of their ancestors, and to the demons and angels that populated the spiritual realms.
In today’s more rational and scientific age, talking about God doing miracles and spirits influencing events is enough to get a person grouped in with wild-haired men in the streets shouting about the end of the world.
And yet, too many people have had too many experiences suggesting that God and the spiritual realms are indeed very close to us, intimately intertwined with our lives.
What are we to think? Do God and spirits influence people and things in the physical universe? Do they shift buildings and start wars?
Yes and no. Let’s take a closer look.
The testimony of scripture
The Bible, along with many other sacred books, is full of stories of God influencing people and human events, and of God rearranging physical structures and events. Just listing and summarizing them all could be a book in itself. Here are just two examples from the Bible:
The Lord said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet. You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go out of his land. But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and I will multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt. When Pharaoh does not listen to you, I will lay my hand upon Egypt and bring my people the Israelites, company by company, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment. The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring the Israelites out from among them.” (Exodus 7:1–6, italics added)
What follows is the famous story of the Ten Plagues, in which God is said to influence people, specifically by hardening Pharaoh’s heart so that he would not listen to Moses and would not let the Israelites go, and also to do many miracles, bringing upon the Egyptians various plagues that involve the manipulation of nature.
And a less famous but more astronomically astounding example:
In Joshua 10, five kings band together to defeat the city of Gibeon, which has made a treaty with the invading Israelites. The Gibeonites appeal to Israel to come to their defense. Here is the account of the battle:
So Joshua went up from Gilgal, he and all the fighting force with him, all the mighty warriors. The Lord said to Joshua, “Do not fear them, for I have handed them over to you; not one of them shall stand before you.” So Joshua came upon them suddenly, having marched up all night from Gilgal. And the Lord threw them into a panic before Israel, who inflicted a great slaughter on them at Gibeon, chased them by the way of the ascent of Beth-horon, and struck them down as far as Azekah and Makkedah. As they fled before Israel, while they were going down the slope of Beth-horon, the Lord threw down huge stones from heaven on them as far as Azekah, and they died; there were more who died because of the hailstones than the Israelites killed with the sword.
On the day when the Lord gave the Amorites over to the Israelites, Joshua spoke to the Lord; and he said in the sight of Israel,
“Sun, stand still at Gibeon,
and Moon, in the valley of Aijalon.”
And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped,
until the nation took vengeance on their enemies.Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? The sun stopped in midheaven, and did not hurry to set for about a whole day. There has been no day like it before or since, when the Lord heeded a human voice; for the Lord fought for Israel.
Then Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, to the camp at Gilgal. (Joshua 10:7–15, italics added)
In this story, God first throws the enemy armies into a panic to make it easier for the Israelites to slaughter them. Then God gets directly involved, killing even more of the enemy soldiers than the Israelites by raining huge hailstones down upon them.
But the final act of God is the real kicker: God makes the sun stand still in the sky, giving the Israelites an extra day’s worth of daylight to pursue and utterly defeat their enemies.
Did the sun really stand still at Gibeon?
- People falling into an irrational mass panic? Check. That happens.
- Hailstones falling from the sky that are big enough to kill people? Check. That happens.
- The sun and moon standing still in the sky? Umm . . . I don’t think so!
To the ancient Israelites, it would be no problem. They thought of the earth as flat disk, and the sun and moon as lights that traveled across the sky each day. If God wanted to stop those lights in their path to assist the Israelites in defeating their enemies, that was perfectly doable in their cosmology.
Today, however, we know that the sun and moon don’t really move across the sky every day. Rather, the earth rotates on its axis, making the sun and moon appear to move across the sky every day to a person standing on the surface of the earth. (The moon also orbits the earth, moving in the same direction the earth is rotating, so it appears to move across the sky slightly slower than the sun.)
The only way to make the sun stand still for an extra day’s worth of daylight would be to stop the rotation of the earth on its axis. Now consider this: At the earth’s equator, everything on the earth’s surface is moving at a speed of almost 1,000 miles per hour in the direction of the earth’s rotation. Can you imagine what would happen if God suddenly slammed on the brakes? The results would be catastrophic. No one on earth would survive the resulting destruction.
Besides, if such an event had happened, it would have been visible everywhere on earth (though on the other side of the earth it would have been experienced as a very long night). Court scribes and historians all around the world would have recorded this amazing event. However, though there are legends in other cultures of the sun standing still in the sky, or not rising for several days at a time, they don’t match the story in Joshua in timing or in exactly what took place. Despite unsubstantiated claims that have proliferated in fundamentalist Christian books, sermons, and websites, there is no corroborating historical evidence for such an event happening during Joshua’s time in the 13th century BC.
And no, NASA has not confirmed that there was a missing day back in Biblical times.
So we can safely say that God did not literally make the sun and the moon stand still one fine day in ancient Palestine so that Joshua could complete the defeat of his enemies.
Does this invalidate the Bible? No. It is simply one more example showing that the Bible is not meant to be read in a rigorously literal fashion. See: “Can We Really Believe the Bible?”
Scripture is about human life, not about science and history
In the past few centuries, science and reason have come to the forefront of our understanding of the physical universe around us. Ironically, this has resulted in many Christians adopting and defending a very materialistic view of the Bible: that the Bible is meant to be read literally, and that it is an accurate description of historical and scientific events. Since science is ascendant in our culture, and carries great weight in people’s minds, these Christians are attempting to make the Bible into a textbook of science, thinking that this enhances its authority.
But that is completely missing the point of the Bible. If the Bible is God’s Word, then its primary purpose is not to tell us about history and science, but to guide us to eternal life. In doing so, it uses many different styles, including myth, cultural history, poetry, and prophecy. These are intended, not to tell us about physical and historical events, but to reach our mind and heart in order to motivate and guide us toward living a life that leads to salvation and heaven.
In short, for the most part it simply doesn’t matter whether the events described in the Bible happened literally and historically exactly as they are described there. What matters is whether those stories inspire and lead us to follow God’s way in living a life of faith, love, and kindness toward our fellow human beings. See: “The Bible: Literal Inerrancy vs. Divine Depths of Meaning.”
Perhaps some of the less unbelievable miracles in the Bible—you know, the ones that wouldn’t tear apart the earth—did actually happen. I don’t know. I wasn’t there. But for rational, thinking people who are also religious, it doesn’t really matter whether they did or didn’t. Nor does the Bible provide any scientific evidence that they did. These are stories meant to touch and change the human soul.
I believe the same is true of the many other sacred books of humanity that describe God rearranging the physical order of the universe. These are not literal stories about God changing the laws of physics. They are metaphorical stories about God changing the human heart.
Does God rearrange physical things?
But . . . does God influence the physical universe? Could God rearrange building structures or the earth’s structure?
Certainly in a theoretical sense, God could do these things. After all, God is omnipotent, and God is the one who created the physical universe. So what’s to stop God from tinkering with the engine?
Nothing, really. Except that God is not only omnipotent, but omniscient. Another way of saying this is that God can do anything God wants to, and God doesn’t make mistakes. So why would God create a universe that God has to be constantly fixing and adjusting? That would be an example of poor design on God’s part.
This is the main reason that although I believe God theoretically could rearrange physical structures, I don’t believe God actually does so. At least, not by violating the laws of the universe.
God is the one who established the laws of physics, chemistry, biology, structural mechanics, and so on. And God did so with a perfect knowledge and understanding of the purposes for which God established those laws.
In short, I believe that in designing the universe God got it right in the first place, so that there is no need to rearrange things later in order to get them to work properly according to God’s plans. The engine of God’s car doesn’t need fixing.
Does God influence people?
But what about people? Can God or spirits cause one person to kill another? Or cause a warlord to start a war that kills many people?
The Bible certainly seems to say so.
In the story about Pharaoh and the plagues quoted from earlier, it says many times that God hardened the heart of Pharaoh and his officials (see Exodus 4:21; 7:3; 9:12; 10:1, 20, 27; 11:10; 14:8, 17). But it also says that Pharaoh hardened his own heart (see Exodus 8:15, 32; 9:34). And for good measure, several times it simply says that Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, without saying who did the hardening (see Exodus 7:13, 14, 22; 8:19; 9:7, 35). So who hardened Pharaoh’s heart? God or Pharaoh? The Bible says both!
God does only good things, not bad things
One of God’s “omnis” is that God is omnibenevelont.
Here is how this is expressed poetically in the Psalms:
The Lord is good to all,
and his compassion is over all that he has made.
(Psalm 145:9)
Not good to some. Good to all. Not over some of what he has made. Over all that he has made.
In non-poetic language, God does good to all people, not only to the ones who do what God wants them to do. And yes, this includes enemies such as Pharaoh who are actively working against God’s plans. We know this from Jesus’ own words:
But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. (Matthew 5:44–45)
Why, then, does the Bible say that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, when doing so certainly would not be good or merciful to Pharaoh and his people? And why are there so many other places in the Bible where it says that God brings disaster on God’s enemies, and so on?
This is an example of the Bible speaking according to the way things appear to us rather than the way they actually are.
We talk about the sun rising and setting every day, when we know very well that what’s really happening is that the earth is turning on its axis making the sun appear to rise and set. Similarly, to people in the ancient world, it appeared as if God was raining death and destruction upon their enemies—or upon themselves when they sinned against God—when in fact both Israel’s enemies and Israel itself brought death and destruction upon themselves when they stubbornly refused to live according to God’s commandments.
The Bible speaks as if God does evil as well as good so that simple-minded people will think of God as being extremely powerful, able to both bless and curse them, and will therefore respect and listen to God. But the reality is, as the Psalm says, that the Lord is good to all, and never does anything evil or destructive.
This means that you don’t have to be afraid of God tripping you up and destroying you. If you are tripped up and destroyed, it is either by other people (including evil spirits), or most likely, by yourself because you’re stubbornly resisting going in the good direction that God wants you to go.
So please don’t worry about God cursing and killing you. Worry, rather, about your own bad habits that bring all sorts of pain and suffering upon yourself and the people around you. And then do the hard work of changing them. See: “What does Jesus Mean when He Says we Must be Born Again?”
In short, God’s influence on us is always for good, and never for evil.
Do evil spirits influence people?
If anyone causes people to kill one another or start wars, it is certainly not God. But evil spirits might be involved in it.
These days it’s generally considered irrational and unscientific to believe that there are good and evil spirits influencing our thoughts and feelings. However, science is mostly useful in telling us how the physical universe works. If spirits and angels exist, that is outside the purview of science. And reason by itself can’t tell us anything about the spiritual world either.
I do believe that the spiritual world is real, that there are angels, good spirits, and evil spirits around us all the time, and that they do influence our thoughts and feelings. About the reality of the spiritual world, see: “Where is the Proof of the Afterlife?” And about spirits and angels visiting us and influencing us, there are so many millions of people who have described encounters with angels and spirits, both in the Bible and other sacred literature and in stories of dreams, visions, and near-death experiences, that I firmly believe these spiritual beings are around us all the time, connecting with our thoughts and feelings, and influencing us in various directions.
However, I also believe that ultimately, the choice of what we will actually do is ours. There may be an angel and a devil figuratively standing on each shoulder and whispering good and evil things in our ears. But it remains our choice which of these voices we will listen to, and what we will do.
In other words, yes, I believe that not only God, but also good and evil spirits do influence our thoughts and feelings. But I also believe that God balances those influences on us so that we remain free to choose whether we will actually do good or evil.
In the case of murderers and warlords, this means that although there certainly are evil spirits whispering in their ears and encouraging them to kill people and start wars, that doesn’t cause them to kill people or start wars. We listen to the people—and spirits—that favor what we ourselves want to do. So if a murderer or warlord listens to those evil spirits, the murder and war still comes from the person’s own will, and the murderer or warlord is still responsible for his or her own actions.
God continually keeps us in freedom
We humans are subject to all sorts of influences, both in the world of human society here on earth and from the spiritual world where we all go after we die.
Growing up and going to school, there are some kids who are a good influence on us, and others who are a bad influence on us. Which ones do we listen to? Which ones do we hang out with? The choice is always ours. And whichever choice we make, that will allow those influences to guide our actions.
In the corporate world there are people saying we need to always be honest and fair in our dealings, and others saying that if lying or cheating helps the bottom line, that’s just how the company gets ahead and beats the competition. Which ones do we listen to? How do we ourselves act in the business world? The choice is ours. And whichever choice we make, the people we have listened to will guide our actions.
In every area of life there are voices influencing us for good and voices influencing us for evil. Adding angels and spirits from the spiritual world to the mix doesn’t really change anything. It simply means that we are embedded in an even larger and more complex human community, some of which is here on earth, and some of which is in the spiritual world.
It’s still our choice which voices to listen to, and what influences and advice to act upon.
That’s because no angel or evil spirit is in control of the universe. God is. And God arranges the universe so that the forces bearing on us from on either side are equally balanced. This leaves us in freedom to listen to the voices we want to listen to, and to live our life in the way we want to live it, whether that is good or evil.
Do God and Spirits Influence People and Things in the Physical Universe?
Let’s sum up the main points:
- God has no need to physically rearrange things because God has already created the laws of the physical universe to accomplish God’s purposes.
- Even though some people need to believe that God does evil and brings destruction so that they will respect and listen to God, the reality is that God only does what is good and constructive.
- Both good and evil spirits are around us all the time, influencing our mind and heart. But we remain in freedom to decide which influences we will pay attention to and act upon.
The miracles of healing and rescue described in the Bible, not to mention many other miracles described in other books and memoirs, may or may not have happened as described. I wasn’t there, so I can’t say for sure. Still, if miracles do happen, they don’t violate the laws of nature, but are accomplished through the laws of nature, which are also God’s laws.
However, the greatest influence of God and spirits is not on physical events, but on the human mind and heart. That is where God and the angels reach out to us from above, inviting us to live in the light of understanding and mutual love, while evil spirits and demons claw at us from below, attempting to drag us down into darkness, evil, and destruction.
And in the midst of all these influences, we remain free to choose what we will do, and which way we will go.
This article is a response to a spiritual conundrum submitted by a reader.
For further reading:
- Your Crowdsourced Mind
- What about Spiritualism? Is it a Good Idea to Contact Spirits?
- What is the Wrath of God? Why was the Old Testament God so Angry, yet Jesus was so Peaceful?
- Where is the Proof of the Afterlife?
- Can We Really Believe the Bible?
- What does Jesus Mean when He Says we Must be Born Again?
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Lee Woofenden is an ordained minister, writer, editor, translator, and teacher. He enjoys taking spiritual insights from the Bible and the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg and putting them into plain English as guides for everyday life.
Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life 
Thank you for the article, Lee. A question: is there truly no night in heaven?
Hi Julia,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment and question. I presume you are thinking of passages such as these ones in the book of Revelation:
However, the book of Revelation was never meant to be taken literally. See: “Is the World Coming to an End? What about the Second Coming?” The “day” and “light” in these passages refer to the light of truth shining into the minds and hearts of good people, and the “night” refers to the darkness in the minds and hearts of people who have chosen to reject God and live an evil and selfish life. There is “no night” in the New Jerusalem because only good people who walk in the light go there. And the Lord God is their light because God is the source of all wisdom, understanding, and truth.
In fact, Swedenborg says that people in heaven most commonly experience the Lord as the sun of heaven, shining down on them with its warmth and light. They feel the warmth as God’s love, and they perceive the light as God’s truth. So in heaven, Swedenborg says, it never gets fully dark, but the daylight only dims to a time of twilight before returning to full daylight. This is because the angels of heaven do go through regular cycles of more and less understanding and enlightenment.
Full night, Swedenborg says, exists only in the lower parts of the spiritual world, especially in hell, where people go who reject the light of God’s truth and live in the darkness of falsity instead. However, to them it does not seem like darkness, but is more like the night vision of an owl or a cat.
Thank you! This has really helped me as it’s a question I’ve been having for awhile. I deeply appreciate the explanation!
Some thoughts on evil spirits influencing us: Near death experiences sometimes include accounts of the experiencers seeing darkened spirits floating around the living. However, these spirits aren’t demons, but human spirits who haven’t crossed over due to being too attached to earthly things and not wanting to let them go. The spirit who was addicted to alcohol in life, for example, desperately tries to get drunk by attempting to make the living drink so he can try to leech off of them. The same goes for spirits who crave sex, violence, and the like. In fact, some channeled material says that executing murderers and the violent may end up being more harmful than good, as those spirits are now free to try and influence others to do the violence that they loved so much in life. For those who have weak wills, they may end up succumbing to this influence and commit violence of their own.
Not all is bad, though: these experiencers are often told that these disembodied spirits won’t even try to influence those who are focused on living a good, helpful life that doesn’t feature the vices they crave. Prayer and asking God to send angels to escort these spirits to the light will work, too, as sometimes the spirits don’t go to the light because they’re too terrified of judgement instead of the grace that awaits them. If nothing else, it’s a good lesson for us to not become too attached to the things of this earth, and to not fear going to the light when we die.
Hi Ian,
Thanks for your thoughts. Swedenborg also encountered spirits who attached themselves to people on earth who indulged in the same low-level physical pleasures, as well as evil actions, that the spirits themselves did. These, he said, were mostly the spirits of people who had died fairly recently, and had not moved on to their final home, usually in hell, but sometimes in heaven if they had a good heart underneath their physical indulgences. And he said, similarly, that they usually don’t come near good, thoughtful, and loving people because they can’t stand the atmosphere of love and kindness that surrounds them.
My main problem with the death penalty is that it cuts off any possibility that the person might think better of his (or her) actions and begin living a good life instead. It’s true that many do not, no matter how long they live. But others may come to their senses as they get older and begin to reflect upon their life.
As far as the evil spirits influencing people who have weak wills, that does happen, as I mention in the above article. But it happens only if such people lean toward self-indulgent and bad behavior. God doesn’t allow the influence of evil spirits to become so strong that people on earth cannot resist it. We always have a choice to turn toward the light instead. Some people have to experience for themselves the pain and suffering that self-indulgent and wrong behavior leads to before they will make a decision not to live that way anymore.
I have a problem with your position about God “rearranging” physical things. You write, “In short, I believe that in designing the universe God got it right in the first place, so that there is no need to rearrange things later in order to get them to work properly according to God’s plans. The engine of God’s car doesn’t need fixing.” This, I believe, is called the “non-interventionist” conception of God’s action in the world. That is, God doesn’t intervene in the causal order he created because any and all natural effects he intended were “front-loaded” in the act of creation itself. Obviously, you’re not the only person to hold such a view. Here’s my problem:
You concede that God *could* intervene in the causal order but you believe that he doesn’t do so, because, “God doesn’t make mistakes. So why would God create a universe that God has to be constantly fixing and adjusting? That would be an example of poor design on God’s part.”
This entire argument rests on the unstated premise that the only reason God could have for intervening in the causal order is that he made a *mistake* in its creation that subsequently needs to be fixed. That premise is unstated and not argued for, and indeed it’s hard to see how it could be argued for. Why should anyone believe this premise? Why should anyone believe that the only plausible reason for intervention is that God made a mistake? Surely this premise demands an argument of its own, but what could it be?
Moreover, this way of thinking seems to presuppose a kind of determinism that science no longer supports (i.e., Laplacean). It looks rather like God created the kind of universe in which he would have to intervene in order to bring about desired outcomes. If so, what of it? I see no reason to understand this as an imperfection or mistake of some kind. Maybe this kind of a universe is the best setting for creatures endowed with basic freedom.
Hi Todd,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your thoughtful comment.
Taking the last first, I don’t think God created the universe in a deterministic, Newtonian / Laplacean fashion. See my article:
God: Puppetmaster or Manager of the Universe?
It’s not a matter of God setting initial conditions that then inexorably play themselves out like a vast machine. For one thing, God’s creation of the universe is not a temporal event, but one that takes place from within, above, and outside of time and space, and is therefore (from our perspective) a continual creation of the universe moment to moment.
The “God doesn’t make mistakes” statement is just an informal way of saying that I believe God created—or more accurately, creates—the universe in such a way that it accomplishes God’s purposes without the need for special intervention. I say special intervention because in a sense, God is continually “intervening” in the universe by continually creating the universe. But God does so in accordance with physical and spiritual laws, which are, in turn, expressions and reflections of divine law. So my main point is that God has no need to violate physical laws and rearrange things in order to accomplish God’s purposes because those physical laws are already perfectly accomplishing God’s purposes.
Thanks for the reply Lee. I enjoy the blog a great deal. I think my main problem is still there. You conclude, “So my main point is that God has no need to violate physical laws and rearrange things in order to accomplish God’s purposes because those physical laws are already perfectly accomplishing God’s purposes.” You don’t use the word “mistake” this time but you imply that if God were to do special intervention it would signal some imperfection in the established causal order. And again, I just don’t see why you’d come to that conclusion.
One consequence of your position would be that no physical event exemplifies the agency of God more than any other. Is that correct?
Hi Todd,
Glad you’re enjoying the blog!
Did you read the article I linked for you? These are complex questions because they relate to the interface between divine omnipotence and non-determinism in the created realms of reality, including human free will. I don’t think we’ve even been able to think about these issues with any real understanding until the last century or so, when the earlier scientific determinism began to give way to present, non-deterministic models of the universe. And we’re still figuring this stuff out to this day. If you had posed some of these issues to me a few decades ago, I probably would have just scratched my head and said, “I dunno.” A lot of this is new thinking for me.
About your final question, I would say that every physical event expresses in some way the full agency of God. God is not different in one place than in another. God is fully present everywhere. So it would be hard to say “This physical event especially shows God’s presence and power, and that one not so much so.”
What is more likely is that our perception of physical events varies according to whether or not we are attuned to God’s presence in them. People who aren’t looking for God won’t see God in any physical event, whether it is a rainbow or an earthquake. But people who are looking for God will see God in both.
Further, we tend to see God in events that we think of as spectacular, but not so much in events that we see as ordinary. Yet if there’s one thing science has taught us, it’s that even “ordinary” daily events that we experience all the time are quite miraculous once we start studying them in detail. For example, we eat food every day, and rarely pay any attention to what happens to it next. But a study of the physiology of digestion and assimilation of food shows that it is indeed a highly complex and in some ways miraculous process.
All of this is why I hesitate to say that God is involved in some special way in one physical event, and not so much in another. Perhaps the ancient Israelites did experience earthquakes and lightning and thunder and the earth opening up under their feet. But is that really more a “special intervention” than their eating food and their body processing it and taking what it can use while eliminating what it can’t?
Lee, I’ve had a chance to reflect on your “Puppetmaster” essay, and as I see it, you’re defending a kind of panentheism, according to which God takes advantage of the nondeterministic “slack” in microphysical processes to direct them according to his plan. Thus, divine providence is continuous at the quantum level without having been “front-loaded” in a deistic sense. Before I say anything else, is what I’ve just said a fair representation of your view, which also seems to be an updated version of what Swedenborg was doing? Thanks for walking through this with me.
Hi Todd,
Yes on panentheism. Swedenborg denied that God is everything (pantheism). But he affirmed that God is present in everything (panentheism), with the proviso that God is received in created beings variously according to their exact type and level of receptivity. What flows in from God is the same everywhere; it’s not a variation in God. Rather, when the love, wisdom, and power of God reach a recipient vessel (a created being), it is turned into a form that matches the nature of the recipient. An equivalent phenomenon in nature is that when the sun strikes a fruit tree, the tree turns the sunlight into branches, leaves, and fruit. But when the sun strikes the carcass of a dead animal, the heat breeds maggots and causes decomposition. The sunlight is the same in either case. But it is turned into very different things by the recipients.
I would say no on God directing events by taking advantage of nondeterministic slack in microphysical processes. This would seem to be a variation on the “God of the gaps” theory, only instead of God working through scientific unknowns, God works through scientific unknowables. Perhaps God does work in this fashion in the occasional believable miracles (i.e., ones that don’t require the earth’s rotation to come to a screeching halt), such as Jesus’ miracles of healing and modern unexplained and seemingly miraculous recoveries from severe illnesses. The jury is still out on that in my mind. But I don’t think that is how God ordinarily operates. Rather, I think that the nondeterminism of quantum processes is part of God giving a certain level of freedom to the universe, and with that freedom, an identity of its own distinct from God’s identity. So God, I believe, allows the quantum processes, and the resulting macro processes, to unfold in a self-directed way in carrying out God’s plans for the universe. Another way of saying this is that God gives the created universe the ability to carry out God’s plan, but the created universe actually does carry out God’s plan on its own initiative rather than being micromanaged by God to do so. That’s the “manager” vs. “puppetmaster” idea of the article.
And yes, the theory outlined in the Puppetmaster article is my stab at an updated version of what Swedenborg was doing. Relativity, quantum mechanics, and related ideas didn’t exist as scientific theories in Swedenborg’s day. He worked from Newton, Descartes, and other scientists and philosophers who lived up to his day. But I think his theology broke their theories in that it really didn’t support a mechanistic and deterministic view of the universe. Some of what he taught just doesn’t fit in comfortably with the science he had access to. So I have been working in my mind on following the arc of where Swedenborg was headed as far as I am able to based on today’s science—recognizing that I am not a scientist myself, but only an amateur student of science. I expect and hope future thinkers who are more deeply versed in science than I am will do a better job of this than I have. But I can at least plant some seeds that may grow into more robust understandings over time.
Thanks again for your thoughtful reply. Can you explain exactly what your objection to “God of the gaps” arguments is? I recognize that this label is often used as a summary dismissal of certain teleological arguments (as the Wikipedia entry points out) but it’s less clear to me what the real objection is.
Second, your comment “the created universe actually does carry out God’s plan on its own initiative rather than being micromanaged by God to do so” suggests some sort of panpsychism, in addition to panentheism, right? For the universe to have “initiative” it must have some kind of mental states.
The upshot seems to be that God doesn’t have to “act” in an interventionist sense because he created a universe capable of acting, in an agent-like way as opposed to a “blind force” kind of way. Is that a reasonable way of understanding your view?
Hi Todd,
Practically speaking, God of the gaps arguments tend to fail over time as science explains (in a physical sense) things that were previously unknowns, so that the “gaps” become smaller and smaller.
Of course, there are always gaps in our knowledge. But pinning our belief in God on unknowns is a shaky foundation for faith. Swedenborg rejected the traditional definition of faith as believing something we can’t know for sure, and replaced it with a definition of faith as an attitude of seeking out and accepting the truth simply because it is true (not for ulterior motives), and being faithful to the truth—i.e., living by it. (See: “Faith Alone Is Not Faith.”) God of the gaps arguments fit well into the traditional definition of faith as believing things we can’t know for sure, but they don’t fit well into the biblical definition of faith as a devotion to and willingness to live by the truth.
About panpsychism, I don’t believe the physical universe itself is conscious. That belief, I suspect, comes from the reality that there is a consciousness behind the universe: God’s consciousness, and also the consciousness of the overall human community in the spiritual world. That divine and spiritual consciousness flows into the physical universe, giving it an appearance of consciousness that it itself does not possess.
On the mind-brain problem, I believe that consciousness resides in the human spirit rather than the human body and brain, and that the consciousness of animals similarly is in the animal’s spirit rather than in its body and brain. Everything in nature is an expression of some spiritual entity or reality, which, in turn, is an expression of some aspect of God. So if there is consciousness in nature, it is not nature’s own consciousness, but the consciousness of the spiritual and divine realms that flow into it.
When I speak of the created universe acting on its own initiative, I mean that more or less metaphorically, depending on the level of what’s acting. Human beings do consciously act on our own initiative. Even animals, especially higher animals, seem to have some level of choice and initiative in what they do. Instinct explains much, but not all of it. Some scientists believe that plants have a type of consciousness also.
However, inanimate things, such as rocks, water, and quantum processes do not, I believe, have consciousness. When they “take initiative” it is to act according to their nature as created things. But we now know that that isn’t entirely deterministic, especially on the quantum level. There seems to be a certain randomness built into the nature of nature, even if that randomness also acts within the framework of various physical laws. Acting in a partially random manner within the laws of nature is what I’m referring to as the inanimate portion of the created universe acting on its own initiative. I don’t think God decides the outcome of each random process. I believe that happens internally as part of the nature of created physical entities.
I would agree that the created universe acts in an agent-like way. But the inanimate part of nature does also act blindly, in that it is not aware of or consciously directing its own actions. God, I believe, created the entire universe with a certain level of freedom. But that level varies according to the level of the created entity. It is highest and most conscious and free in human beings, less so in the animal kingdom, even less so in the vegetable kingdom, and least so in the mineral kingdom, which includes the various processes of physics and cosmology. On that lowest level, the freedom created into the universe is not conscious, but does partake of freedom in that the processes are not entirely determined, but have some indeterminacy and randomness built right into them, which isn’t reducible to deterministic processes.
Another related article that you might want to read is:
If God Already Knows What We’re Going to Do, How Can We Have Free Will?
See especially the example of a car given in that article. The car acts “on its own initiative” in the sense that it drives down the road based on its own (created) capabilities, rather than being pushed along by God or the driver. (A car, however, is a mechanical entity, so its level of freedom is even lower than that of quantum processes.)
Hello again.
Concerning “God of the gaps,” you write, “God of the gaps arguments tend to fail over time as science explains (in a physical sense) things that were previously unknowns, so that the “gaps” become smaller and smaller.” I don’t see why this is a problem, unless you are convinced a priori that science will close all gaps. But why believe that?
Is it *possible* that God acts directly in the natural order, intervening in causal processes? You’ve already stated that it is possible, and I can’t see any reason at all why anyone other than an atheist would think it impossible (and even an atheist might concede that God’s existence is possible). So if it’s possible that God intervenes, what would that look like? What would count as evidence for such a thing? It seems to me that it would look like gaps: things that defy normal causal explanation, aka miracles. I’d point out that in the Bible such things are often referred to as “signs” and are specifically cited as reasons to believe that God has acted in the world.
I agree that pinning one’s belief on miracles alone is a shaky foundation for faith, but who has ever suggested doing that? Miracles are just one part of the picture. Plenty of people who witnessed the miracles of Jesus didn’t come to faith. It hardly follows that all apparent miracles should be set aside as things science just hasn’t explained yet.
I’d also point out that some of Swedenborg’s own experiences qualify as miraculous, if we understand miracles to be interventions in the natural order caused by God to convey some message. The well-known Stockholm fire incident has no natural explanation, but it resulted in Swedenborg losing his anonymity and more public attention being drawn to his work. His precognitive awareness of the day of his own death is another example, unless you are convinced that he unconsciously caused himself to die in order to fulfill the prediction to Wesley.
“Acting in a partially random manner within the laws of nature is what I’m referring to as the inanimate portion of the created universe acting on its own initiative. I don’t think God decides the outcome of each random process. I believe that happens internally as part of the nature of created physical entities.” Thanks, I think I understand what you’re saying a bit better now.
Hi Todd,
After Jesus’ resurrection, in response to Thomas requiring physical evidence (touching the wounds from crucifixion in Jesus’ resurrected body), Jesus said to him:
This is commonly interpreted as meaning that it’s blessed to believe without any certainty, and is quoted as support for the traditional idea of faith as believing something we’re not really sure of. But in the context of Thomas’s requirement of physical evidence, I think it means something quite different. It means, rather, that those who believe for internal reasons rather than external reasons have a stronger faith.
Believing based on physical evidence, such as miracles, simply isn’t a very strong basis for faith. As you say, many people saw Jesus’ miracles, yet they didn’t believe in him.
For people who don’t have an internal basis for their faith, miracles will actually have the opposite effect that they’re intended to. They will initially induce a superficial belief, but when such people return to their inner state and attitudes, they’ll find ways to explain the miracles away, and it will harden them in their unbelief. Atheists do this constantly as they “debunk” various religious and spiritual claims. And every time they “debunk” some miracle or experience, they harden themselves in disbelief even more. They operate on a principle of “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me even one more #$%^ time, and I’m a @&$% idiot, so you’re never gonna fool me again.” Every miracle they encounter becomes one more reason to reject God and spirit.
I don’t doubt that Jesus was able to do miracles of healing and such. However, I disagree with those who think that the miracles ceased over time because people fell away from the faith of the early church. People did fall away from the faith of the early church, and eventually “Christianity” became something that would have been unrecognizable to Jesus Christ and his disciples. However, the cessation of the miracles was not part of that falling away. Rather, the miracles were intended to appeal to an entirely physical-minded populace and get them to pay attention enough to hear the message. Once the message had started to percolate through the minds of the people, miracles were no longer necessary because now people could start to believe for internal rather than external reasons. That, once again, is what I believe Jesus was saying to Thomas: miracles are a shallow basis for belief; belief must come from within.
So yes, I do believe God can intervene in the physical universe. I just think it’s generally not the most effective way for God to operate. Miracles are mostly attention-getters for physical-minded people. The people of Bible times were mostly very physical-minded, so God did miracles—though some of the more spectacular miracles in the Bible were probably cultural myths rather than actual, historical occurrences. The incidence of miracles generally denotes a non-spiritual mindset in the people among whom they happen. People who have a spiritual mindset neither seek nor require miracles.
Hello again. I think we’ve drifted a bit. The question, to my mind, is not whether physical miracles (i.e., actions in which God or his appointed agents override physical causal laws) are the best basis for faith. I think the answer to that question depends a great deal on the contextual details, the personalities involved, and no doubt much more. What originally caught my attention was your original statement, “This is the main reason that although I believe God theoretically could rearrange physical structures, I don’t believe God actually does so. At least, not by violating the laws of the universe.” I take this to mean that you believe God simply doesn’t do physical miracles, since physical miracles involve rearranging physical structures in one way or another.
Now I’m not so sure if that’s what you meant, since you wrote, “God did miracles.” It’s a separate question whether he still does them. I think a case could be made that contemporary people are at least as “physical-minded” as those of ancient Judea. At any rate, if God *ever* does miracles, then at least some “God of the gaps” explanations are sound.
I also disagree that Swedenborg’s clairvoyance doesn’t count as a physical miracle. As you say, clairvoyance involves perception not mediated by physical channels, i.e., light impinging on retinas, sound waves on eardrums, and so on. Perception, as we know it, involves physical causal chains. To perceive distant events without the involvement of those physical causal chains, is as much a physical miracle as water to wine. The very idea of “spiritual senses” violates physical principles. This is why Skeptics are so insistent that such things never happen. They would claim that to call Swedenborg’s experience clairvoyance is to invoke another “gap” explanation.
In the Bible, as well as in some other religious traditions, physical miracles are indeed understood as signs, pointing to a reality beyond the physical. And indeed the danger is that we might become so infatuated with the signs that we forget about what they point to.
Hi Todd,
It may seem like drifting, but my purpose is to put in place an essential element for understanding the whole picture in which miracles do or don’t take place.
Unlike events in (non-human) nature, God’s actions are always driven by purposes. And God’s purposes are all eternal, spiritual purposes. More specifically, God always acts to provide for the eternal life and happiness of the human beings whom God has created. This means that providing a sound basis for faith is integral to why God does or doesn’t do miracles in any given situation. Without understanding God’s purposes, and their relationship to our faith and our eternal life, we cannot understand why God would or wouldn’t do miracles.
Theoretically, God could do anything whatever. God could cause the entire physical universe to blink in and out of existence every other second. However, there would be no purpose for God to do so, which means God won’t do that. If the purpose of miracles is to serve as signs leading to faith, then God will do miracles only if they serve as signs pointing to faith.
I would add, though, that in times and cultures where people are so physical-minded that they’re not capable of real faith—which is an internal thing—God might also do miracles to induce and external semblance of faith, which is all people in such cultures are capable of. This, according to Swedenborg, was the case with the ancient Israelites.
About the statement of mine you quote, it was made in the context of this question in the original spiritual conundrum quoted at the beginning of the article: “For example could God use outside forces to rearrange building structures or the Earth’s structure?” In other words, could (and does) God make major changes in major physical structures (buildings, the earth) by miraculous means. And though my response was not meant to be taken as an absolute—hence the hedging about “not by violating the laws of the universe,” in general I don’t think God does engage in major rearranging of the physical structures of the universe through miraculous means. And though, as I said in the article, I wasn’t there, and don’t know for sure, I strongly suspect that most or all of the miracles recounted in the Bible that involve such major structural change were more mythical history than actual history. They were stories that grew up in the culture and became touchstones for its religious and cultural life. Whether they actually, physically happened is not that important.
My main thrust in these statements is that we don’t have to worry about God suddenly destroying the building we’re living in or opening up the earth under our feet so that it swallows us up, because that’s not the way God operates. Perhaps there have been some extraordinary circumstances in which God did such things. If so, they would be extremely rare, and not something we have to worry about as part of our daily lives any more than we have to go about our days worrying about whether a piano will fall out of the sky and squash us. God does not operate in this way:
By “physical miracles” I mean miracles that rearrange physical things. Knowledge of physical events obtained by non-physical means is not, by this definition, a physical miracle, even though it is rejected by atheists and skeptics just as much as physical miracles.
In general, “miracles” are things accomplished by non-physical means, or using non-physical capabilities and forces, in a way that influences things in the physical realm. And the more physical and relatively inert are the things acted on, the more miraculous it is, or seems.
From a point of view that accepts the reality of God and spirit, “miracles” that involve people having sudden insight or inspiration or visions that change their lives are the least “miraculous,” because that is simply the human spirit interacting with God and the spiritual realms and gaining a new outlook on life, resulting in living a different life.
Miracles of healing are more miraculous because they involve changing physical structures in the body. And yet, these sorts of things are observed even by non-religious physicians to happen from time to time. A person gets well from a life-threatening illness, and the doctor has no explanation for it.
Miracles that involve changing meteorological events, such as Jesus calming the storm, or God causing an east wind to bring flocks of quails into the camp, are more miraculous because there is no life or consciousness in the subject of the miracle, so spiritual forces wouldn’t ordinarily act in this way. (This is based on the idea that life is actually a spiritual phenomenon, not a physical one.) But the weather does change, and these things could have just happened to happen at just the right time.
Then there are miracles such as Jesus changing water to wine, that really can’t happen that way in ordinary nature, but that also don’t cause any real problems with the physical laws of nature. There are no wider ramifications in physics and cosmology of several stone jars full of water suddenly turning into wine. Miraculous, yes, but not catastrophic.
Cracks suddenly opening up in the ground also does sometimes happen in the normal course of events, as does major, destructive and even deadly hail. (Just a few days ago we had hailstorms in the area that totaled cars and caused major damage to buildings.)
All of these things could happen without causing a major disturbance in the operations of nature. Causing the sun to stand still, however, would throw the entire earth into chaos. That sort of miracle that would violate the laws of nature in a wholesale way I just don’t think God ever does. And that was the main thrust of the statement of mine that you quoted from the article.
Hi Todd,
To take up a few more points in your latest:
I would say that people today are commonly materialistic, in that they seek after material possessions and satisfactions, just as the ancient Israelites were. But I don’t think people today are as physical-minded as the ancient Israelites and the other cultures of that era. By that I mean that people today are generally more capable of thinking abstractly, formulating ideas and concepts about the nature of life, and living according to some principle rather than simply obeying and adhering to the external laws and influences of their society. Perhaps “physical-minded” is not quite the right term for that. Maybe “externally influenced” or something like that would be better.
Today, even people who are motivated primarily by profit and pleasure tend to do it based on some idea or principle rather than simply being driven by external forces and physical desires. The desires and forces are there, certainly. But people follow them because they think that’s what life is all about, and you have to “go for the gusto,” or “we’re just animals like any other animal,” or some such slogan. It’s a subtle difference, but I do think there’s a difference.
And about “gap” explanations and Swedenborg, I don’t think of Swedenborg’s experience as a “gap.” I think of it as part of a long and broad category of human experience that has been going on for thousands of years, and that has been the primary basis for humans having religious, theological, and spiritual beliefs. They are a different category of experience than experience of physical phenomena.
“God of the gaps” is generally about attributing physical phenomena we can’t explain to God’s intervention. When we had no physical explanation for lightning, we thought of it as God’s weaponry wielded against those with whom God was angry. When we had no explanation of the sun traveling across the sky every day, we thought of it as one of the gods driving a brilliant chariot across the sky once a day. Now we have physical explanations for these phenomena, so we no longer think of them as supernatural beings throwing their weight around.
The common denominator here is that these are all physical phenomenon.
Materialists have also attempted to reduce psychological phenomena to physical phenomena through, for example, tying thought patterns to brain waves and neurological activities in various parts of the brain. But our experience of these things is of their existing in a realm entirely distinct from the physical. Rather than being a “gaps” explanation, attributing these to a distinct realm (the spiritual realm) is simply accepting our mental and emotional processes as existing in the way that we actually experience them: as non-physical realities. That, to me, is not a “gaps” explanation. It is accepting our experiences as valid realities rather than attempting to reduce them all to physical phenomena as materialists attempt to do.
Materialists generally say that physical senses are necessary for any perception to occur, and for us to receive any kind of information. But we have a long and extensive record of people receiving information that didn’t come via the physical senses. Accepting that experience as valid is, to me, simply broadening the types of experience we are willing to “accept into evidence.” For more on this, see my article:
Where is the Proof of the Afterlife?
I suppose miracles could be considered “God of the gaps” phenomena. However, they are experienced only by the people who are present for them, and they are not reproducible by others. Atheists and materialists generally don’t feel the need to explain miracles because their standard response is to say that the miracle never actually happened: that it was either fabricated or misperceived by those who reported it. “God of the gaps” is more about ongoing phenomena that all people (or many people) experience that currently have no scientific explanation.
Hi Todd,
The “miracles” associated with Swedenborg were not physical ones. They were, rather, miracles that would fall under the category of “clairvoyance”: seeing and knowing things that would not be possible to see and know by ordinary, physical means. Swedenborg himself attributed them all to his spiritual senses being opened and to receiving information via the spiritual world. Swedenborg did have some narrow escapes during his youth that he attributed to divine providence looking over him. But I’m not aware of any physical miracles associated with Swedenborg.
Swedenborg generally didn’t put much stock in miracles. He didn’t deny the miracles of the Bible. But he considered their spiritual meaning to be far more important than the physical event of the miracle. And the idea I outlined in my previous comment that miracles are for physical-minded people, and can fall away as people become more spiritual-minded, is straight out of Swedenborg.
One of the early Church fathers (in the first few centuries of the Christian era) advised thus: “Believe so that you will understand.”
We may not be able to interpret it all correctly or deduce everything so tidily, but God’s ways are far above ours. We flatter ourselves that we will be able to understand it all. The more important thing is to live out one’s Christian faith and not confine it to some mental game. Do not let your mind become an impediment to working on loving God and loving your neighbor. That is just my 2 cents for what it may be worth.
Hi larryzb,
Thanks for your thoughts.
I agree that living our faith is the most important thing. Still, the better we understand our faith, the better we are able to live it. Jesus spent his days teaching, preaching, and healing (Matthew 4:23; 9:35). And his followers were called “disciples,” which means “learners.” Clearly, teaching and learning are an essential part of being a Christian.
Hello again. You wrote, “Rather than being a “gaps” explanation, attributing these to a distinct realm (the spiritual realm) is simply accepting our mental and emotional processes as existing in the way that we actually experience them: as non-physical realities. That, to me, is not a “gaps” explanation. It is accepting our experiences as valid realities rather than attempting to reduce them all to physical phenomena as materialists attempt to do.”
I’m basically in agreement with what you are saying here, although I’d point out that from a materialistic viewpoint the appeal to an entire realm distinct from the physical is very much a “gap” move.
Concerning the alleged miracle of the sun at Gibeon, that may not have been what you’re calling a physical miracle at all. Thousands of people are said to have witnessed the “sun miracle” at Fatima in 1917. If the miracle had been produced by causing the earth to “wobble” violently, the result would have been catastrophic, just as in the Gibeon case. If you are prepared to accept that the Fatima sun miracle happened at all, it would have to be classified as a mass vision. The Gibeon miracle could be explained similarly. Since mass visions are not known to happen normally, the events would still be miraculous.
Miracles may be intended for physical-minded people, but that doesn’t imply that they are inconsistent with God’s nature or that they imply some error or shortcoming in his normal creative and providential activity.
Hi Todd,
Yes, materialists will consider anything other than the material level of reality to be unreal and an illusion. They will search for physical explanations for everything, even phenomena that are not well-explained by physical processes, such as consciousness. They have faith that we’ll be able to explain consciousness through a more thorough understanding of the brain. But so far there is no scientific explanation for consciousness. Just some correlations with brain activity. And mere correlation does not establish any definite cause and effect relationship—such as neural activity causing consciousness. It could just as easily be consciousness causing neural activity.
And yes, materialists will consider positing a distinct, spiritual realm a “gaps” explanation. But from my perspective, that is distinct from traditional “gaps” explanations such as, “We don’t know what causes lighting, so it must be the gods engaging in battle with each other or expressing their anger at us.” Or in present-day times, “Quantum processes have some inherent randomness in them, so God must be using that randomness to direct and control nature according to God’s plan.” The common denominator here is that these are inherently physical processes, which are being explained as acts of God rather than as the unfolding of physical processes according to the laws of physics.
Consciousness, spiritual experiences, visions, dreams, emotions, thoughts, and so on are not obviously and inherently physical processes. We don’t experience them as physical, and no scientific instruments can record them, even if we can record some of their effects upon human physiology and behavior. But that, once again, is merely correlation. It doesn’t tell us anything about the cause or locus of mental states. In fact, though we tend to focus on the brain, mental and emotional states have an effect on the entire body. So the very idea that our thoughts and emotions exist in our brain is somewhat suspect, and not something we can really nail down scientifically. Yes, we believe that the rest of the body is responding to nerve impulses originating in the brain. But the more we study, the less clear cut that is. There is actually a two-way street of sensory inputs from the body influencing the brain and neuronal activity in the brain influencing the body. Can we really say that the brain is directing everything when the brain is continually responding to inputs from the body? Can we really say that thoughts and emotions exist in the brain, and not in the entire body?
In short, while from a materialist perspective, positing a spiritual realm is a “gaps” explanation, from a non-materialist perspective, positing that all mental and emotional processes can be explained by physical processes is also a “gaps” explanation. Physical science hasn’t actually filled in those gaps, but materialists have faith that in time, it will. That, to me, is “gaps” thinking. And it is an example of faith in science.
About the sun standing still at Gibeon, a mass vision is certainly a possibility. The only thing I’m prepared to state categorically is that the sun did not physically stand still in the sky. Beyond that, it could have been a mass vision, as is likely with the Fatima sun miracle, or it could simply have been a legend that grew in that culture, just as similar legends have grown in other cultures.
Not being a literalist, I do not feel the need to “explain” how everything in the Bible happened literally. For example, I do not believe the story of Jonah ever happened historically at all. I think it was a story composed at some point in Israelite history as a commentary on certain social and spiritual issues—a moral novella, if you will. Similarly, I suspect many of the miraculous events contained in the historical-style books of the Bible never happened historically, but were origin myths that said something about the character of the Israelite nation and its relationship with God.
The common error of literalists is thinking that if these things didn’t literally, historically happen, it would mean that the Bible, and by extension God, is lying to us. But the Bible as the Word of God isn’t about physical truth. It’s about spiritual truth. And the deeper, spiritual truth contained within the miracles of the Bible are their real message. That’s why I don’t think that the question of whether or how the miracles happened is all that interesting or important. Seeing their spiritual message, and taking that message to heart and putting it into practice in our lives, is what’s important.
Having said that, I don’t deny that God can do physical miracles if God wants to. However, I believe they will be localized, not general, and that they will not involve wholesale violations of the laws of physics and biology. They will also not be repeatable, meaning that they cannot be studied by scientific means.
If miracles do occur, then they depend upon the spiritual state of the people who experience them. The Gospels clue us in to this when they say things like:
Traditionally this would be interpreted as Jesus withholding miracles from those who lack faith. But I think a better understanding is that in the absence of faith, there are not the right conditions for miracles to occur. People who lack faith do not believe miracles can happen. Therefore they will not experience miracles, because miracles are at root the expression of spiritual power, and people who lack faith are not receptive to the expression of spiritual power in their lives and experience. That is the general explanation of why religious people fairly commonly report experiencing miracles, whereas secular people do not.
I’m aware that some people who were formerly skeptical are converted by experiencing something their skepticism could not explain, such as a near-death experience. But I suspect that even in those cases the person was at a point of life in which their former skeptical and atheistic beliefs or leanings were wearing thin, and they were ready to move beyond that skeptical stance even if they were still resistant to it mentally.
The general point here is that if miracles do occur, they occur based on the spiritual atmosphere or conditions within and among the people who experience them. The receptivity of the person or group of people to the possibility that something miraculous might happen is a necessary condition for a miraculous event to occur.
In this way, even if miracles seem to violate the laws of physics and biology, they actually are law-abiding occurrences. They are simply obeying a fuller set of laws that includes spiritual laws in addition to physical ones. And the “violation” of physical laws is not really a violation under these circumstances, because physical laws, and indeed, the entire material universe, is held in existence by spiritual forces flowing into them moment-by-moment, and maintaining them in their physical integrity in accordance with physical laws, which are derivations of spiritual laws. Miracles, if they do occur, involve a change in the flow of spiritual power into localized pockets of the physical universe where the spiritual state of the people allows for them, and where these events will accomplish God’s purposes among those people.
However, once again, they never happen in such a way that they would throw the laws of the physical universe into chaos. That would indeed be a matter of God having made an error in the design of the universe, and stepping in to “fix” or “correct” that error. My belief is that the normal unfolding of the physical and biological laws of the universe carries out God’s will in an ongoing fashion, such that God has no need to “adjust” them along the way by, for example, having the sun stand still at Gibeon.
Thanks again for your extended replies. I’ve been meaning to get back to this.
I find myself agreeing with much that you say. I’m not sure exactly what you mean by “literalists” when you write, “Not being a literalist, I do not feel the need to “explain” how everything in the Bible happened literally.” I take it that you mean that some Biblical narratives that sound like they are describing actual physical events really aren’t, whereas some readers may insist that all such narratives do describe actual events. I’m again inclined to agree with you, although I have to confess that I have no principled way to say which narratives to take literally and which not to.
It’s certainly true that if we are not prepared to accept the possibility of a miracle, nothing will ever count as one.
“In this way, even if miracles seem to violate the laws of physics and biology, they actually are law-abiding occurrences. They are simply obeying a fuller set of laws that includes spiritual laws in addition to physical ones. And the “violation” of physical laws is not really a violation under these circumstances, because physical laws, and indeed, the entire material universe, is held in existence by spiritual forces flowing into them moment-by-moment, and maintaining them in their physical integrity in accordance with physical laws, which are derivations of spiritual laws. Miracles, if they do occur, involve a change in the flow of spiritual power into localized pockets of the physical universe where the spiritual state of the people allows for them, and where these events will accomplish God’s purposes among those people.”
I find this to be a very good way to think about it. I still think it’s fair to talk about “violation” of physical laws, even if the word “violation” is tendentious. I take a descriptivist view of physical laws, i.e., the laws are descriptions of observed causal uniformities in nature. As you note, this picture is incomplete because it only includes certain kinds of observations–the kind we call “measurements.” When miracles happen, those measured uniformities break down, and since we don’t “measure” spiritual power, we see something supernatural happening. And indeed, if the “natural” is limited to the measurable, the word “supernatural” fits.
“However, once again, they never happen in such a way that they would throw the laws of the physical universe into chaos.” I don’t know what this means. If it means that God doesn’t do things that permanently change or abolish laws of nature, then I suppose that’s true. I have no idea what that would look like. If it’s about the Gibeon sun miracle again, and the notion that God would have to stop the rotation of the Earth, causing mass destruction, then I agree, but I’d add that I really have no idea as to how such a miracle might be accomplished. I mentioned mass vision, as in the Fatima case, but for all I know there could be other ways.
To take another example, consider the events of Matthew 27:52-53. Tombs are opened and the bodies of the dead saints rise up and appear to many. I have a hard time believing this as an historical event, not because I think God’s not up to the miracle involved, but because if this did happen if would be one of the most incredible events in the history of the world. Yet not only is it not mentioned by extra-Biblical sources, it’s not even mentioned in the other gospels. This mass resurrection event supposedly happened before the resurrection of Jesus himself, yet nobody else has a word to say about it. The point that they “appeared to many” does sound like Matthew making an evidential point, that we don’t have to take his word for it, but I remain unpersuaded. If the idea is that many who were spiritually dead were regenerated, it’s also puzzling. If they were spiritually dead, why call them saints? And why would they be spiritually regenerated by the death of Jesus on Good Friday? Maybe Swedenborg had something helpful to say about this alleged miracle.
Hi Todd,
Yes, by “literalist” I mean, among other things, people who believe that all of the narratives of the Bible occurred historically just as they are described in the Bible.
As for what actually did happen historically, I’m happy to leave that to the historians and archaeologists. For the most part, beyond Jesus Christ being an actual, historical figure who came out of Jewish society about 2,000 years ago, it doesn’t really matter to my faith whether the various stories in the Bible happened the way they are described there, or even happened at all. While I’m not disposed to consider the Bible to be an entirely fictional account, from my perspective the importance of the Bible is not in providing some historical narrative, but in the moral and spiritual message that it contains. That, and not the literal, historical accuracy, is what’s important about the Bible as a spiritual book.
And yes, I would say that science deals in measurable events and phenomena, whereas miracles are inherently non-measurable. I suppose they could cause physical changes that would theoretically be measurable, such as changing water into wine. But first, it’s unlikely that any scientific instruments would be present to record those changes, and second, science depends upon consistently replicable events that can be reproduced by other scientists and observers to confirm them—and miracles are by nature non-replicable. They are unique to the particular spiritual and human circumstances in which they occur.
And no, I don’t think God will ever intervene in nature in a way that suspends or abolishes the laws of nature. For example, there will never be a time when there is a literal “new sky and new earth” because the old ones have passed away, and resurrected people live forever on an eternally resplendent earth. We know that stars have a life cycle. And even if our particular star will have a long life cycle, measured in billions of years, eventually it will run out of fuel, rendering life impossible on the planets that orbit it. I do not believe God will suspend that order of nature in order to miraculously bring about an eternal, physical earth on which people live eternal, physical lives.
Gibeon would be another example if, as literalists believe, the sun literally stood still in the sky, and it was not some psychological time dilation phenomenon or some group spiritual experience.
About Matthew 27:52–53, Swedenborg generally says that such things are seen with people’s spiritual eyes rather than their physical eyes. People’s spirits do not remain with their bodies in their physical graves, but are resurrected immediately after death into the spiritual world. So it would not be possible for people’s spirits to still be in their graves, and be resurrected right after the Lord’s death.
According to Swedenborg what was going on, rather, was that there were a certain (large) number of people who were already in the spiritual world but had not yet been raised up to heaven. They lived instead in places low in the world of spirits called “the lower earth” or in the Bible’s metaphorical language, “the pit.” These people could not be lifted from there into heaven until the Lord (Jesus) had completed his work of gaining full victory over the Devil and the power of evil, which he completed on the Cross. Once that work was complete—i.e., right after his death—he was then able to lift those people who had been waiting so long in the “lower earth” up into heaven.
This is the event, Swedenborg says, that people in and around Jerusalem who were aware of Jesus’ death saw, not with their physical eyes, but with their spiritual eyes. The “graves” that these people were resurrected from were not the physical graves where their physical bodies had been laid, but the metaphorical “graves” or “pits” of their confinement in a low place outside of heaven until Jesus Christ gained the victory over the Devil that made it possible for them to finally be raised up into heaven.
And it is heaven, not the physical Jerusalem, that is the “holy city” that they entered after thus being raised out of their “graves.”
This also accounts for the fact that there is no contemporary secular record of such an amazing event ever having occurred. The general populace of Jerusalem did not see dead people brought to life and entering Jerusalem because this event took place, not in the physical world, but the spiritual world, and was seen by those who did witness it, not with their physical eyes, but with their spiritual eyes.
I too have been asking myself for years the question about what is a miracle from a scientific perspective, and especially about how God performs miracles, and now that I have read your discussion I found the answers. This discussion virtually disperses the very thick fog that has been accumulating for centuries around the meaning of the word miracle, which turns out to be so incredibly complex. I should of course go back and read the whole thing much more carefully once again as I need to allow all the details to sink in. But it reminds me of the days of the ancient Greek symposia and the genuine quest for truth, when the philosophers could afford the time to sit for days on end devoting their whole attention to one single topic no matter how long the discussiont would take.So this old tradition of the West is still alive!
Hi Magnolia,
Glad you enjoyed the article and ensuing discussion! Yes, for me it was very much like those ancient Greek symposia, in which we mutually seek out the truth. I am continually learning as well. The above discussion helped me to suss out various strands of thought and meaning, and understand things better even as we were discussing them. We are all in process. We are all traveling toward the light, if we choose to do so.
Hi lee , I remember in a previous comment on a different article that Swedenborg is the best for Spirituality and science becoming united, i wanted to say that i cant agree more with that , as has been shown through quantum mechanics and modern science disciplines Swedenborg’s statements are coming true or in a better way coming to light to show the authenticity of what he wrote wether it be Psychology, physics or astro physics . Do you think that when swedenborg and hellen keller said that the logic and truth of the new church will finally begin to come to fruition is coming true ?
Hi AJ749,
Swedenborg certainly was a great figure in the harmonizing of science and religion with each other. And in general, yes, the progress of science has been supportive of Swedenborg’s thought.
However, Swedenborgians who have thought that science would, over time prove that Swedenborg was right have been disappointed time after time. The watershed moment for this sort of thinking was when we landed on the moon, and found it barren and lifeless, contrary to Swedenborg’s statements that it was inhabited by intelligent human life. (Swedenborg used “human” in a broad sense. He called his described inhabitants of other worlds “human” just as much as the inhabitants of our planet.)
Although Swedenborg did see the physical and spiritual universes as a harmonious whole, and did not see any conflict between good science and true religion, he also warned against attempting to come to a position of faith based purely on reason and science. He said, rather, that once a person comes to faith in God and spirit, science and reason can then confirm these things in that person’s mind.
In other words, it is a mistake to think that the advance of science will demonstrate that Swedenborg was right, and induce people to accept his spiritual experiences, his Bible interpretations, and his theology as genuine. However, for those who accept them as genuine, and who are willing to keep their minds open to new developments in human science and culture—including ones that Swedenborg did not foresee—the progress of science is very much confirmatory of Swedenborg’s system as a whole, even if we now know that he was mistaken on some particular points.
I have ti say i am wuite amazed that many occult or spiritualist writings try to use science to prove what they wrote was true yet fail miserably but swedenborg to the best of my knowledge never tried to use science to prove his points
And yet quantum mechanics , holography, Psychology and other science disciplines confirm his views without people forcing science to meet his views . Science agrees with swedenborg because what swedenborg wrote was true
Hi AJ749,
Yes. And Swedenborg actually was a scientist, unlike these channelers and spiritualists.
What is the “science” behind miracles the Lord did in the physical world? Did He work with laws of nature we don’t know? Does reality bend to His will?
Hi K,
We don’t really know the answers to those questions. Science as we know it today didn’t exist back then, and there were no scientific instruments analyzing what happened. My own view is that he used spiritual power that flowed into the material world and changed objects and events from within.
I’m glad I’m not the only Christian who believes in good spirits. It seems today that Christian’s say that it’s demons in disguise but I’ve had too many experiences where that makes no sense.
Hi Bethany,
In general, I’m not in favor of contacting spirits. However, I do believe that God sometimes sends good spirits and angels to help us at times when we need it. And when that happens, it is truly a blessing.
Hi Lee feels weird to be commenting on an post regarding a conundrum i sent in 😂.
I was hoping that you could help me with something. Many modern paranormal researchers looking in to things such as UFOs , loch ness monster, yetis and such have found many similarities between them all and say that its likely they have the same source. I know you have said in another article that these from a swedenborgian view can be explained by diaboical visions from enthusiastic spirits.
Two wuestions.
Could you explain in some detail the difference between Divine visions, Diabolical visions and fantasical visions swedenborg describes ?
Second swedenborg says the world of spirits is mostly evil, does that mean the realm closest to ours known as the astral plane , world of spirits and such is full of enthusiastic spirits
Hi AJ749,
In response to your last question, as I said in another recent reply, it was only before the most recent Last Judgment took place in 1757 that the world of spirits was full of, and largely controlled by, evil spirits. As part of that Last Judgment, God cleared all of those evil spirits out of the world of spirits, and sent them to their final homes in hell. Since then, the world of spirits has been merely a way-station for people from earth to get sorted out before heading to their final home in heaven or hell. This usually takes place within the equivalent of a decade or two from the time they died, and sometimes much more quickly. In other words, the world of spirits is now in good order and balance, and no longer has such a negative influence on people here on earth as it did before.
However, there are still evil spirits in the world of spirits, and of course, in hell, and they do still influence people on earth. Diabolical and fantastical visions would mostly come to people who are bent toward evil, though sometimes good but confused or ignorant people do experience such things, apparently as a way to shake them out of their lethargy and confusion. Meanwhile, people on earth who have an evil heart, and who have such visions, may set themselves up as messiah figures or cult leaders, and cause all sorts of havoc among their followers and in their part of the world. Diabolical and fantastical visions will tend to fill those who have them with delusions of their own greatness and power, and at the same time inculcate all sorts of false ideas about God and spirit that support those delusions of grandeur.
Divine visions, on the other hand, will fill a person with a sense of humility and awe in the presence of God, and with a sense of love for everyone around them, so that they will come away wanting to be a servant to the people around them, not a master. People who have such visions will attribute all goodness, love, truth, and power to God, and none of it to themselves. Their main hope and wish will be to be a humble servant of God in loving and serving their fellow human beings in whatever way God has given them to serve.
Of course, there are good people in all religions. Good-hearted people who are spiritual leaders will have good and heavenly visions in accordance with their particular religious belief and culture. A Hindu spiritual leader will be very unlikely to have a vision Christ, but will have a vision of God as Hinduism understands God. That’s because God comes to each of us according to what we have learned within our own religion and culture.
When it comes to UFOs, the Loch Ness monster, Yeti, and so on, these are just popular delusions that get filled with quasi-spiritual meaning among people who aren’t very spiritual, but are more focused on earthly phenomena, yet want to have a sense of wonder and awe at things they don’t fully understand. And so they go for mythical material-world phenomena that always seem to be just outside the realm of science.
So would the UFOs, yeti, lochness monster come under diabolical / fanaticsl vision ?
As if so i think it would really help solve a major mystery in research in the various things i read about .
From what i can make out all of these things seem to be deception based in the sense that althought they arent physical they seem it to the people seeing it which is being brought on by enthusiastic / fanatical spirits
Hi AJ749,
UFOs, Yeti, the Loch Ness monster, and so on are really rather benign delusions. For the most part, though they are fallacies, they don’t do a whole lot of harm. The main harm they do is get people focused on illusory things that waste time that they could spend doing something more productive. So yes, they are deceptions, but they are likely deceptions from some of the milder evil spirits. “Diabolical” seems too strong a word.
Incidentally, I should add to my previous comment that diabolical visions can also be of a character to terrify people and grind them down, and make them feel that they are inevitably damned to hell, so that there is no hope for them. The other kind I mentioned, of making people think that they are gods, is not the only kind of diabolical vision. In general, diabolical visions are aimed at destroying the good and truth in people, engaging them in evil and falsity, and ultimately dragging them down to hell.
Divine and angelic visions, on the other hand, seek to de-emphasize the evil and falsity in people, strengthen the good and truth in them, and orient them toward love for God and the neighbor, and in this way lifting them up toward heaven.
Hi Lee after looking up diabolical and swedenborg , it does seem harsh, trickster spirit would be better but he calls them something else like fantastical spirits which produce fantasys that seem as real as the physical world to the person yet are merely delusions
Hi AJ749,
Yes, that pretty well sums it up.
Hi Lee, being brought up in charismatic churches and prayer houses I’ve seen a lot of miracles that would defy laws of nature. I’ve personally seen healing, I’ve been pushed around by the Holy Spirit, I’ve seen angels carry a boy, and I’ve heard stories and seen videos of many more. These would defy laws of nature in every form. Also, I’ve been told that since God created all organs, He can replace them as He sees fit. This is usually the basis for healing prayers.
Also, in prayer houses, they pray against spirits and spirit controls, do deliverance etc. And I always felt scared only after the prayers or the rebuking of spirit but I can’t opt out, my parents are heavily involved in those prayers and churches.
I guess my question is, what are your thoughts on prayer houses and unnatural miracles.
Hi Mira,
In the above article, I didn’t cover miracles of healing and so on because I didn’t want to get too far afield from the questions that were asked. But to answer your question:
I do believe that miracles of healing and other similar miracles are possible. I have no problem believing that Jesus and his apostles actually did do the miracles of healing that are described in the New Testament. There is no reason such miracles could not also happen today among people who have faith that they can happen. Most people today do not have that kind of faith, so most people do not experience miracles. I should also add that there are many religious charlatans faking miracles to build up fame and wealth for themselves, so it is good not to believe every unbelievable thing you hear.
Do I believe that churches and pastors that do miraculous healings are especially touched by the Holy Spirit? No, I don’t. I believe they are materialistic churches for people who require physical, sensory evidence of God’s presence in order to believe. That was the character of most of the people Jesus and his apostles worked their miracles on. Those miracles were necessary in order to gather an initial group of followers and establish the Christian church in a very materialistic age and culture. As time went on, Christians become less physical-minded and more spiritual in their outlook. Physical miracles therefore mostly faded away in Christianity because they were no longer necessary. However, the miracles in the Bible also have a greater spiritual meaning about healing our soul. They still carry great spiritual lessons and wisdom for us.
When Thomas required physical proof that Jesus had risen from the dead, Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29). This does not mean that we are blessed if we blindly believe. Rather, it means we are blessed if we can believe without requiring the sort of physical, sensory proof that Thomas required. Christianity is supposed to be a spiritual religion, not a physical-minded one.
Jesus also told his disciples, “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father” (John 14:12). Many Christians have assumed that this means Christians will do even more fantastic miracles than Jesus did. But it would be hard to top raising someone from the dead! What it really means, I believe, is that Christians will experience miracles greater than the physical miracles that Jesus did because they will experience miracles of healing of the spirit, not just healing of the body. After all, healing a person’s physical body makes that person better temporarily, but healing a person’s spirit gives that person health and happiness to eternity.
So although I believe that physical miracles are possible, I’m not particularly impressed by them. If people need that sort of physical proof of God’s power, then they haven’t gotten much farther than Thomas did. They are not doing the “greater things” that Jesus spoke of, which are things of the spirit, not things of the body.
As for your situation with your parents’ charismatic church, if you are still living under their roof and being supported by them, you will probably just have to go along with it for now. Once you are out on your own, living your own life, you can choose what sort of church you want to go to.
Thank you Mr Lee,
I never thought of it that way. It seems that here, the more miracles the church provides, the more spiritual it is. And according to the Bible, that’s actually not the case. It’s not to put down on the miracles they do but it shouldn’t be necessary because we believe by faith and not by sight.
You are great minister, sir, keep up the good work
Hi Mira,
Thank you for your kind words.
Hi Lee. I was wondering: there are many people who have or have had sleep paralysis and many of them say that when it happened they have seen a dark shadowy figure near them that gave them an intense sense of fear, like it looked like some kind of demon or something. I was surprised by how many people reported extremely similar experiences, it doesn’t seem that uncommon at all. Do you think that has some kind of spiritual meaning or is it just our brains playing games with us? I’ve experienced sleep paralysis in my life but I don’t remember seeing such a thing, although it does feel awful.
Hi Rod,
Of course, secular scientists will pooh-pooh any suggestion that there are spirits involved in such experiences. They will say that it is just our brains playing games with us. But they still haven’t figured out how our brains could produce consciousness, so it’s not as if they’re speaking from any real knowledge or certitude. They just reject the idea that the spiritual world exists, and therefore interpret everything materialistically. And God has arranged things so that they can continue to believe that nothing but the material universe exists. This is part of our spiritual freedom, which God will not violate.
However, once we accept the reality of the spiritual world, and recognize that both consciousness and our mind are spiritual, and that we are living simultaneously in the physical and spiritual worlds, we can look at these experiences quite differently. According to Swedenborg, we are surrounded by spirits, both good and bad, all the time. These spirits are so connected to our thoughts and feelings that if we weren’t embedded in that spiritual community, we wouldn’t be able to think and feel anything at all.
Most of the time we are not consciously aware of their presence. But sometimes the veil separating our conscious mind from the spiritual world becomes thinner, and we become aware of them. This, I believe, is what’s happening when people see demons while they are gripped with sleep paralysis. Yes, there are physiological issues and causes of our various physical afflictions. But according to Swedenborg, there are also evil spirits connected to our physical illnesses—spirits that correspond to the particular nature of the illness or affliction. Most of the time we are not aware of them, but sometimes, as I said, the veil becomes thinner, and their presence becomes known to us.
This does not mean we are continually at the mercy of every evil spirit that happens to pass by. There are also good spirits and angels with us, and God is with us, protecting us from them. It is a battle. Sometimes due to our physical and social circumstances, or in some cases due to bad choices that we have made, the evil spirits get the upper hand, and do real damage to our psyche. This is part of the struggle between good and evil that we are all involved in throughout our lifetime on earth as we make our decision of which way we want to go spiritually: up or down.
So yes, I believe the shadowy figures people sometimes see during sleep paralysis and during other traumatic experiences actually are evil spirits who have become visible to us. But no, I don’t believe this means the person is on the slippery slope to hell. Only that the evil forces with us all the time sometimes become visible, as do the good forces in transcendent visions and spiritual experiences that people have from time to time.
At minimum, it will suggest to people whose minds aren’t entirely closed to God and spirit that there are greater issues involved in our day-to-day life, which we would do well to pay attention to. If we spend all of our time and energy on material concerns, how will we build the spiritual life that we will carry with us when we leave behind this material world and everything in it?
After I wrote my question I vaguely remembered that when I was younger someone said that the shadowy figure that often appears during sleep paralysis is a witch that steps over the person. Well, different cultures seem to give this experience a different name or explanation, but it does seem to be something experienced by people of all places and times.
In case it really is an evil spirit, do you think they can harm us? Because based on people’s experiences, it seems like they can see them and sometimes even bend over them in a threatening way. From what I understand of Swedenborg’s explanation, spirits can’t see us during our daily life, but in such moments when the veil becomes thinner, do you think they can also see us or even harm us? Or maybe just see us and act in a creepy way but not being able to actually do something to us?
Hi Rod,
Evil spirits come through in different guises in different cultures. It’s the same phenomenon, only perceived differently by different groups of people.
It does seem to be the case that when we become aware of a spirit’s presence with us, the spirit becomes aware of our presence as well. During our ordinary day-to-day life they are not aware of us as an individual; they only live in the atmosphere of our thoughts and feelings, without attaching them to a particular person. But when we are aware of and especially when we are in communication with spirits, they do become consciously aware of our presence as individuals.
Whether they can harm us depends greatly on the circumstances. If we are actively seeking out contact with spirits, there is a greater possibility that evil spirits could harm us because it is our idea, not God’s, that the contact should take place. We therefore tend to reject some of the protections that God and the angels usually put around us. God will not violate our freedom, even if it means we will end out harming ourselves or allowing others to harm us. God will only do what is possible to protect us from the worst ramifications of our actions.
If our will and ego are not actively involved, however, and the spirits come unbidden, then there is much less chance that evil spirits who become aware of our presence will be able to harm us. In the case of evil spirits appearing during sleep paralysis, aside from their aiding and abetting the sleep paralysis itself, the main harm is, as you say, acting in a creepy way and scaring us. But even that is not all bad. Once we come out the other end we are able to get some perspective on our fears, and recognize that no lasting harm has been done. Facing and overcoming our fears is part of our development as people and as angels.
Thank you. And still on the topic of God and spirits influencing our world: I’ve always had a strong intuition. Sometimes I just have a strong feeling that I should or should not do something. Usually, when I follow my intuition things turn out to be okay, but if I ignore it and do the opposite, I almost always regret it. I’ve always wondered if God or an angel is whispering something in my ear. Still, I’m never completely sure if I should always trust my intuition, like, what if it turns out to be wrong? I also often have a good idea of what someone else is thinking or feeling, or just feel the “vibe” of another person, even though I’m not very smart or particularly good at socializing. So, what do you think is going on here?
Hi Rod,
I do believe that intuition is angels or spirits whispering in our ear. But it’s complicated because they can whisper only according to what is already in our heart and mind. If our head and heart aren’t in the right place, it could be the wrong type of spirits whispering in our ear. If our head and heart are in a good place, angels and good spirits can whisper things that we never would have figured out for ourselves, and put us on a course to do good things never would have occurred to us. This happens all the time, for many people.
The thing about intuition is that it’s a feeling more than a thought. Rationally analyzing it won’t help much. But if we know our own mind and pay attention to the type of feeling we are having as the intuition hits us, we can usually (though not always) tell if following it would or wouldn’t be a good idea. Evil spirits can feign good feelings, but not perfectly. There is often a telltale shadow or twinge that accompanies their attempts to dress up bad ideas as good ones. No such shadow or twinge will accompany intuitions that come from good spirits and angels.
Overall, though, experience is the best guide. The more you follow your intuitions and get good results, the more confident you can be that your next intuition will lead to good results also.
Okay, thank you.
Hi Lee. I recently had a dream where I was talking to my late great-greandmother. This is very unusual because I don’t dream very often and when I do it’s usually just nonsense or nightmares, and I had never had a meaningful dream before. My great-grandmother was very special to me and although she died more than a decade ago and I don’t remember that much about her, still she is one of the people that I love the most and feel closest to. So in my dream I was talking to her and it really felt like her, also she looked exactly as I remember her. During our conversation, at one point she said that we are Jewish, which is quite interesting because I have always felt a very close connection to the Jewish people, even having been raised Catholic. I asked in my family but nobody seems to know for sure if we have Jewish ancestry (our family is mostly Catholic). My great-grandmother had Spanish roots and her maiden name was a common surname among Jews who came from Spain to Brazil, although that name is also common among non-Jews, so the whole thing is a bit ambiguous (and also in the past many of those Spanish Jews were forced to convert to Catholicism and adopt new names). Detail: in the same dream, by my great-grandmother’s side was my other late great-grandmother, who, I should note, did not like Spanish people, but she didn’t say anything during the whole dream (and also I never felt particularly close to her).
I wonder if this is my imagination creating a story while I was asleep or if I was genuinely talking to my grandma. It really felt like her and it was nice to feel connected to her again, even if very briefly. I miss her a lot and I’ve been feeling very lonely and even forgotten in these past times, so I like to think that she was showing me that she knows how I feel and still cares about me and is still present in my life, even if not physically.
Hi Rod,
It’s a beautiful dream. I have no problem believing it actually was your great-grandmother. Of course, I’m not God, so I don’t know for sure. But whether we realize it or not, we are surrounded by angels and spirits all the time. And the ones who are closest to us are the ones we are closest to in spirit. If you feel close to your great-grandmother, it is very likely that she is unconsciously with you much of the time. And I think that this time, God allowed her to talk to you in a dream so that she could help you through a difficult and lonely time in your life. After all, if in the Bible God sent angels to give people messages in their dreams, why can’t God do the same thing today?
Yes, I agree. Thank you.
Hello. Still on the topic of God and spirits influencing the material world:
Is there such a thing as a “blessed object”? I’m thinking of Acts 19:12 where objects that belonged to Paul were apparently used to heal sick people. Are those isolated events of the past or are there still holy objects or even holy places around? When it comes to places, I’ve heard of people feeling the Divine presence in a much stronger way in certain locations (the tomb of Saint Francis of Assisi comes to mind, but there are other examples). Going the opposite direction, are there also “cursed” objects?
My second question completes the first: In some religious traditions it’s common to have at home a portrait of a saint / someone regarded as a holy person. I wonder if this has some kind of effect of attracting spirits who are like-minded in relation to the person in the portrait? And also going in the opposite direction, would a picture of a notoriously bad person attract evil spirits? The saint / holy person would be in heaven and the evil person presumably would be in hell, so would the pictures themselves have some kind of positive or negative effect in the material world, since they show a person who is still very much alive in the spiritual world? That is, one object or portrait giving a kind of positive “vibe” (not the best word, but anyway) and the bad one giving a negative vibe around, somehow making it easier for something good or bad to happen in our world?
Some people would probably use the words “good luck” or “bad luck”, but I don’t think those words are appropriate in this context, maybe even misleading. I’m curious about how spirits would influence the material world through objects, if they do at all.
Hi Rod,
It’s a tricky question. On the one hand, objects do have specific correspondences, which can be good or bad, and which could theoretically attract good or evil spirits to them. For example, a corpse full of maggots would be delightful and attractive for evil spirits, but sad and repugnant for angels and good spirits. A rainbow, on the other hand, would be beautiful and delightful for good spirits, but evil spirits would find its brightness and beauty to be cloying and unpleasant.
So yes, it’s possible that particular objects could be strongly associated with either good or evil spirits.
However, I suspect that for the most part, it is what those objects call up in the mind and spirit of the people who see them or touch them that gives them their power. And I think that good spirits and angels, or evil spirits, primarily act through the state of mind brought about in a person by seeing or touching the object.
Would those handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched Paul’s skin have had those effects if no one knew that they had touched Paul’s skin? I doubt it. And the fact that it is reported in Acts 19:12 that they had touched Paul’s skin shows that this fact about them was known. I strongly suspect that it was the belief on the part of the people involved that something that had touched Paul would have this kind of power that induced on them a state of mind in which they could be healed by spiritual forces from within.
Here in Africa, many people who still wholly or partially follow tribal religions believe in the power of curses and cursed objects to harm them. If such a curse is directed at them, they may wither away and die no matter how much Western medicine is practiced on them. Meanwhile, people who no longer give any heed or credence to such things will be unaffected even if the very same curse is directed at them. This suggests that the power of the objects used in laying the curse on a person lies more in the receptivity to such things in the mind and spirit of the person against whom the curse is directed than in the object itself. Someone who believes in these curses will react with terror at seeing the cursed object. Someone who does not will likely just pick it up, throw it away, and forget about it.
About portraits of saints or of evil people, placing them in one’s home and contemplating them will likely have similar affects to taking such a person as a mentor. If it is a portrait of a good person, then if the people seeing the portrait are receptive, it will call to mind the good qualities in the person pictured, which the ones seeing it will seek to emulate. Ditto in reverse for a portrait of a bad person.
Once again, it is not the object itself, but what it calls up in the mind, heart, and spirit of the person who sees it that has good or evil effects.
These, at any rate, are my thoughts on the subject.
Wow, I totally agree with this. Thanks Mr Lee.
It’s also been a while since we’ve conversed? How’s your wife and life in SA.
Hi Mira,
Good to hear from you. Yes, it’s been a while. I hope that’s because you have reached some kind of resolution for the time being.
Annette and I are doing fine. A few months ago we moved to a nice little rented house in Dlamini, still in Soweto, about ten minutes from the church. We’re enjoying getting to know our new neighbors.
I think the receptivity thing makes sense. I think I once saw a rabbi saying something similar: that if a person believes that curses have a harmful effect, then they do, but if the person doesn’t give attention to that kind of thing, then they won’t have any effect at all.
Should we then be receptive to the good stuff (that is, having faith that God is greater than those things and protects us from harmful influences) and pretty much ignore the bad stuff and not give it much credence? I’m thinking of Thessalonians 5:21 “Test all things; hold fast what is good.”
Hi Rod,
Sounds like a good plan. 🙂
Okay, thanks for the insights!
Hi Lee. I was reading about the health benefits of positive self-talk, affirmations, and having in general a positive mindset and I was wondering if that would have a spiritual good result as well. So if I understand it right, if spirits influence our thoughts, does it also go the other way around? Do we attract specific kinds of spirits with specific kinds of thoughts (good spirits for good thoughts and evil spirits for evil thoughts)?
Hi Rod,
Yes, indeed! There are spirits connected with all of our thoughts: good spirits with good thoughts, and evil spirits with bad thoughts. When we wallow in bad thoughts, and the false thinking that goes with them, evil spirits are both feeding and feeding off of those thoughts, whereas good spirits are pushed to the background. When we keep ourselves focused on good thoughts, and the true thinking that goes with them, good spirits are both feeding and feeding off of those thoughts, and evil spirits are pushed to the background.
Thanks!
If God doesn’t interfere with free will by staying hidden, then why did He reveal himself clearly to people in Bible stories (assuming such happened literally)?
(this is an objection raised from atheism that I heard BTW)
Hi K,
It’s a good and interesting question.
In part, the answer is indeed that the stories in the Bible didn’t all happen literally as written. We have no way of knowing whether historically God spoke to this or that person as recorded in the Bible, or even whether some of those people existed in the first place. The Bible really isn’t a history book.
But the more interesting answer is that God speaks only to people who believe in God, or are at least open on some level to believing in God.
God won’t speak to convinced atheists because that would force belief, violate human free will, and, ironically, lead most atheists to go even harder into their atheism than before on the principle, “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.” After hearing God’s voice, and maybe even believing at first that it actually was God, an atheist who is not willing to become a theist will explain it away as a hallucination, and will henceforth be even more skeptical and hardened against any belief in God. Strange but true. That is why atheists who dare God to come into their living room and have a little chat with them to prove His existence will never have God actually do that, even though God would be perfectly capable of doing so.
However, for people who believe in God, hearing God’s voice will only serve as a confirmation of what they already believe. It therefore will not force belief or violate the person’s freedom of thought, but will instead strengthen the belief they had already adopted. Many believers over the centuries have told of hearing God’s voice. I do not believe they are all lying or deceived, as atheists do.
Back to the Bible, in those days pretty much everyone believed in God, so there was no problem with God speaking to them, either directly or through their leaders.
As a parallel, in the Gospels there are places where it says that Jesus didn’t do many miracles in this or that place because of their lack of faith. It’s the same principle explained above at work. Where there is no faith, God cannot—or more accurately, will not—show God’s presence and power.
If an atheist explains a spiritual encounter as a hallucination, then how would an atheist explain away a shared death experience (SDE) or mass death experience (MDE, c.f. Mass Hallucination Theory to explain away Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection)? If a spiritual encounter was too accurate to explain by chance, how would an atheist explain it away? Or would an atheist ignore or dismiss it? Like a near-death experience of a character that you’ve never heard of and then you later hear about the character and see it as exactly as in your vision? Or a shared death experience with a person you’ve never met but hear the name of in the NDE and later meet in real life and find the person exactly as you saw in the NDE and the same name and the person remembers seeing you in the vision exactly as he sees you now and by the same name? Why wouldn’t the atheist repeat Bernie’s line from the Incredibles “Coincidence? I think NOT!”?
Answer those one-by-one.
Hi World Questioner,
I’m not an atheist, and not even all atheists think the same, so I can’t say what the “average atheist” would say about these things. But in general, atheists think of themselves as not accepting any claims that can’t be verified by physical evidence, and specifically by scientific method aided by human reason. Most likely they would just dismiss all of these things as unscientific and unverifiable.
Assuming ghosts are real, could they be a sort of “spiritual recording” or “spiritual hologram” and not conscious entities?
Otherwise it would suck how spirits could be stuck haunting the same place and doing the same thing for decades or even centuries. Especially the spirits of children.
Hi K,
The ghosts that haunt earthly places would be materialistic, earth-bound spirits who long to be back in the physical world. But even they cannot stay there forever. Before long, they must move on to their final home, likely in hell.
Even if haunting spirits appear as children, they are not really children. All children who die are raised in heaven and become angels. If anyone experiences a child-spirit haunting a house, it is actually an adult appearing as a child.
I still think it’s possible that at least some ghosts are “spirit recordings” or “spirit holograms”, as they can do the same stuff in the same place for even centuries (or so I hear from tales of hauntings), while Swedenborg says spriits spend at most the equivalent of 30 years in the World of Spirits.
Hi K,
That’s possible. It’s also possible that the haunting spirits are engaged in a “relay race” in which new spirits take over from previous ones. This could happen because the world of spirits is semi-stable, and has places that correspond to places on earth. Those places would be continuously occupied. As some spirits leave for their final home in heaven or hell, others come in to replace them. Similar to an apartment that is continuously occupied, but by one person, couple, or family after another.
In “God Is Unconvincing To Smart Folks? – Part 1”, you said on “(by which I mean spiritual power acting into the material world)” on the “magic” subject.
How does the spiritual ultimately have a direct effect on the physical in a way that’s “magic”? Does it cause a “lack of reality” (as Terry Pratchett put it), where the laws of physics are “pushed aside”?
Or does it cause an effect that’s permitted by the laws of physics that’s ordinarily very unlikely?
An example of the latter is me walking through a wall as if the wall wasn’t there: it’s possible but normally it’s ridiculously, astronomically, extremely unlikely because of electrons repelling electrons.
Hi K,
That’s a very good question, for which I don’t have a very good answer.
Personally, I have never witnessed a miracle (“magic”) that involves manipulating physical matter using spiritual forces. So I can’t say from direct experience whether or not such things happen. Many people believe that they do. Some say they have seen it happen. But I haven’t. While I don’t deny the possibility of it happening, I’m also loath to develop a whole theory of how it does happen when I’m not 100% sure that it does. Even the miracles in the Old and New Testaments happened long before you or I were alive. Whether they literally happened or were placed in the Bible entirely for their symbolic meaning, I don’t know for sure.
This is another reason I put “magic” in quotes. The main point is that just as I don’t know for sure whether such things do or don’t happen, neither do atheists and skeptics. They assume and believe that magic and miracles can’t happen because it violates their understanding of reality and causality. But their understanding of reality and causality does not include divine or spiritual reality and causality, which would be necessary for the operation of the sort of “magic” that I consider a possibility.
Of course, divine and spiritual reality and causality do affect the material world every day through the agency of living beings, especially humans. From a Swedenborgian perspective, life and consciousness are spiritual phenomena. Material things are intrinsically dead and inert, and gain life only from the presence of spirit operating within them. If this is true, then it means that everything life does here on earth is an example of spiritual forces operating on the material world.
The apex of this spiritual action on the material world happens through human minds and bodies. Humans can make conscious and free decisions to act one way or another, to create this or that material thing or earthly community, to level a mountain or to dam a river and create an artificial lake. All of these are the result of spiritual forces—in this case human consciousness and free will—acting into the material world and rearranging physical objects. However, we do not consider this “miraculous” or “magic” because it’s such an integral part of human life that we’re used to it and consider it to be normal.
The greatest miracles, really, are miracles of evil, selfish, and greedy people having a change of heart and choosing to leave their evil behind and to instead live a good and loving life of unselfish service to others. That is truly a miracle! And it’s what the miracles performed in the Old and New Testaments are all about if we read them symbolically rather than literally.
But can spiritual and divine forces act directly into inanimate matter and rearrange it? Theoretically, yes. They certainly have the power do do so, given that the entire physical universe is held in existence moment-to-moment by God, acting both directly and through the spiritual realm.
But whether this would violate God’s laws is something I’m still thinking about. At minimum, it will not happen where people don’t believe it can happen. That would violate human free will, which God holds inviolable. In the Gospels, lack of faith is given as a reason Jesus could not do many miracles in some towns. This is also why atheists and skeptics will rarely if ever experience anything miraculous. Their very lack of belief creates a condition in which such things cannot happen.
In general, I don’t believe God violates God’s own laws. If miracles would violate God’s laws, then I don’t think they can happen.
But perhaps spiritual power acting directly into the material world is not a violation of God’s laws under certain circumstances. Perhaps “magic” is possible under the right conditions. I just don’t know for sure. But I don’t deny that at least some of the biblical miracles could have happened literally. As for the sun standing still so that the Israelites could finish routing their enemies in battle (Joshua 10:12–14), we now know that that one could not have happened, or it would have destroyed everything on earth. But as for Jesus turning water into wine, or walking on water, or healing the blind, there would be no major physical repercussions for such miracles, and I’m not ready to say they would be impossible.
As for how they would happen, as far as I’ve gotten is that they would happen by spiritual forces acting through correspondences into the physical world.
Oh, and I doubt that walking through a wall is physically possible absent a miracle. The atomic forces that repel tightly packed atoms from one another are real, and cannot just be suspended.
Thanks for the reply.
I think if “magic” is “quantum oddness on a macroscopic scale”, it doesn’t necessarily break the laws of physics. If “magic” is instead a “lack of reality”, that “lack of reality” could still follow overall “laws of existence”, even if laws of physics are pushed aside.
(also there’s “quantum tunneling” that can make walking through a wall possible – just like fusion at room temperature – but it is very unlikely)
Hi K,
If nothing else, that would provide atheists and skeptics who encountered something miraculous with a way out of believing that it represented supernatural forces acting into the material universe.
I think there’s 2 ways the spirit can interact with matter: through ordinary processes via correspondences, and directly through “magic” or miracles, which are that “lack of reality” thing, and spiritual laws allow natural laws to be pushed aside for them when – and if – they happen.
Hi K,
I would say that the “magic” or miracles are spiritual reality acting directly into natural reality via correspondences.
Still, stuff like walking on water, turning water into wine, or readily walking through a door because of “quantum tunneling” don’t happen in ordinary reality, so “magic” like miracles – the spirit acting directly on spacetime – could still be said to be a “lack of reality” as far as the physical goes.
Hi K,
Yes, if it happens, then it does override ordinary physical laws to accomplish things that wouldn’t happen if nature were left to operate on its own.
Hi again Lee!
I’m asking a lot of questions lately, but i think you are the only one with enough spiritual and scientific knowledge to help me with it. I know we can’t get ride of those really annoying evil spirits, but, is there a way to at least how to tone them down permanently efficiently?
Because looks like every time I’m in peace they always find a breach in my beliefs to torment me really bad, like it was when thinking about eternal marriages that i asked you some weeks ago.
Years ago, i suffered a really hard spiritual crisis and i feel like its happening all over again. Unfortunately i was always too curious about the mysteries of life and years ago searched a really A LOT about parallel dimensions and the most crazy theories about the multiverse, parallel realities, you know, more specifically, those things scientists and philosophers create to get rid of God. While i don’t believe in those theories, that is what those voices uses to make me despair and doubt, they are always here with those “what if that theory it’s real, maybe your life is meaningless like that nihilist philosopher is affirming, maybe your universe is just one in 10000000 billions, trillions, quadrillions and God really doesn’t exist?” It’s just killing me inside since there is no way to contradict them, because at the end it’s all an matter of faith about what i choose belief.
I think that is happening again because my faith is very poorly developed, like, i always believed in what my parents teaches to me, but, those things don’t make sense to me anymore (like reincarnation, they are spiritualists) since i discovered Swedenborg. So it’s easy shake able when it comes to MY own belief and faith in the meaning of life and the afterlife itself.
I’m fairly young, 24 years and i would really like to solidify my own faith like you did. You probably have much less existential and spiritual crisis than you had in my age, like, not anything trivial can shake you and your whole belief system nowadays! I see you discussing with a lot of hard atheists in the comments sections and you never feels shaken up. I would love to grown and have a faith like that!
So how did you cope with all those questions, how you ignored and still ignore those evil spirits telling you all the time to doubt even that you actually exists in your life journey? Thank you!
Hi caionsouza,
It sounds to me like these spiritual crises are crises of the head that then affect your heart, rather than the other way around. I.e., it sounds to me like your heart is good, but your “too curious” thinking mind gets you all tangled up in doubts that then start dragging you down into despair. In other words, these are fundamentally crises of faith rather than crises of love.
If that is the case, then first it helps to identify just which type of evil spirits are involved.
Swedenborg speaks of two general types of evil spirits: “devils” and “satans.” “Devils” are evil spirits that are especially wrapped up in evil and destructive loves. They are metaphorically evil spirits of the heart. “Satans” are evil spirits that are especially wrapped up in falsity and deception. They are metaphorically evil spirits of the head. Based on your description of your crises of faith, you seem to be dealing with satans rather than with devils. And the mild bit of good news is that devils are considerably worse than satans, meaning you are not dealing with the most virulent type of evil spirits. But of course, they’re still bad.
The next thing to understand is that the falsities that these satans trade in do not have any fundamental reality or existence of their own. Rather, falsity in general is a twisting of the truth. Truth has intrinsic reality. Falsity has only borrowed reality. Its reality is borrowed from truth that it takes and twists into falsities. This is why there is a grain of truth behind every falsehood. This is also why the best lies are not total fabrications, but mix in elements of truth to make the lie more believable.
That’s why the arguments these evil spirits are making inside your head are so hard to stave off. They’re not totally wrong. They’re taking facts and knowledge of the truth and using it to draw false conclusions by twisting it into unnatural shapes.
For example, even if there are billions and billions of universes in a vast multiverse, that doesn’t mean there’s no God. Not that I particularly accept the multiverse either. At this point it cannot be disproven because we cannot gain any information about any other universe, which makes it an unscientific and entirely speculative theory.
However, if we actually do live in a multiverse, then it makes just as much sense to say that God created all those universes as it does to say that this means there is no God. After all, if God is infinite and omnipotent, it would be just as easy to create a trillion trillion universes as it would be to create one universe. Under this theory, God would create as many universes as it takes to get one, or a few, that produce life—just as in our known universe, God has created trillions and trillions of planets, only one of which is so far known to host life, and self-aware, intelligent life at that. Maybe life is just so complex and difficult that it takes trillions of universes to ensure that there will be the right conditions in at least one of them to host this precious thing that we know of as human life. If God is a God of love, God would create quadrillions and quintillions of universes if that’s what it took to provide for beings such as ourselves, who are able to feel and return God’s love.
Whatever the merits of that argument, it just goes to show that the very same sets of facts and suppositions can just as easily be interpreted to support the existence of an infinite God of love as it can to deny the existence of God.
But all of these are mind games, which you’ve probably already engaged in ad infinitum and ad nauseam.
The real solution to these spiritual temptations is to continue to learn new spiritual truth and gain new spiritual understanding. That is one of our primary purposes on earth.
Here is another way to look at these temptations and crises brought about by evil spirits working on your thinking mind: Every one of these temptations and crises is a goad prompting you to learn more, and learn more deeply, in order to rise up to the challenge that these evil spirits are throwing your way.
Evil spirits specialize in falsity, and in twisting truth into false shapes. The antidote to this is not endless reasoning. That’s the sort of thing evil spirits love to do. Rather, the antidote is to learn more and more about the nature of God and spirit, until it forms a strong fortress of belief that has fewer and fewer chinks and weaknesses for the satans to exploit.
Yes, when I was younger I did have some much milder crises of faith. Milder because I grew up with Swedenborg, so that answers to nearly every hard question were readily at hand. It was hard for those satans to get at me because my parents and my church armed me well to deal with them. But still, I did go through a period in my late teens when I questioned it all, and considered whether maybe it was all just an illusion.
I looked into other religions and philosophies, including taking the philosophy class at the high school I attended, which devoted a whole semester to studying the major world religions. But mostly, I spent a lot of time reading the Bible, Swedenborg, Swedenborgian “collateral literature,” and other books, both fiction and non-fiction, that dealt with the big questions of life. I was a voracious reader, and almost everything I read was serious, deep, thoughtful literature.
Of course, there is no end of knowledge. Even the most learned among us are only skimming over the surface of a vast ocean of knowledge. But through all that reading and study, not to mention actually listening to the sermon on Sunday (!) and engaging with my Sunday School teachers and the ministers who taught classes at our church Youth League religious retreats, camps, and so on, I began filling in the major gaps in my understanding of God, spirit, and the meaning of life on this earth.
That process didn’t stop when I became an adult. In my twenties, I continued to read heavily in Swedenborg and Swedenborgian literature, as well as other books and articles. At that time I was living a relatively easy life, without a lot of responsibilities to take up my time. But when I was 28 years old, my first child was born, and it was time to settle into a more serious and dedicated life and career. That’s when I decided that from now on, I would make my entire living working for the New Church (Swedenborgian). I began studying for ministry, and took various side jobs that all involved working in Swedenborgian fields—mostly editing, translating, and so on. From that day to this, I have been able to devote my entire working life to studying, learning, and applying more and more of the beautiful truths of the New Jerusalem.
That is how, over time, I arrived at my current state of mind, in which, though I certainly have many struggles in my life, my faith is not one of them. Rather, my faith keeps me steady throughout the struggles of life, pulling me away from some of the worst decisions I could make and the worst actions I could take. Yes, I sometimes still do stupid and thoughtless things. I’m no better than the next guy. But my faith—which is really truth, as Swedenborg says—keeps me moving forward. I no longer have the angst that I did briefly feel as a youngster about whether all of this is true.
Of course, not everyone can devote their life and career to studying God and spirit. There are many jobs that must be done in this world, most of which are not in spiritual fields. But everyone whose heart and mind prompts them can devote significant chunks of time to reading, watching (videos), listening (podcasts), and learning about God and spirit. No one works all the time. Everyone has some free time, which people devote to various things—sometimes things that are not particularly good or healthful. If some of that wasted time is given to the pursuit of spiritual knowledge and understanding instead, anyone who wishes to may grow in faith and understanding, and reach a point where he or she is living in a strong fortress of faith that cannot be defeated by the mental temptations brought about by the satans of hell.
My suggestion and advice for you, then, is to think of every one of these temptations and crises as a challenge to learn more and grow deeper in your faith. Whatever particular idea is being twisted by the evil spirits into something that tests and challenges your spiritual strength and resolve, delve into that idea. Read the Bible. Read Swedenborg. Read my blog. Find other sources of good, solid knowledge about that subject, and become a mini-expert on it. Then, when those satans come your way, you will be well-armed to deal with their attacks. And where they find weaknesses, you will know where to apply your mind to shore up those weak areas in your knowledge and understanding. It’s like companies hiring hackers to find the vulnerabilities in their computer systems so that they can patch the vulnerabilities before real hackers get in and do real damage.
If you want to get serious about it, I would be happy to recommend books based on your areas of interest. Not everything is covered in the literature, but most of the basics are. Of course, I can also link you to various articles here on the blog. Sometimes searches don’t turn up the most relevant articles, though it’s always worth doing a few searches of the site first. I’m pushing close to 400 articles now, meaning there’s quite a bit of coverage of different topics here.
Thank you very much for sharing so many important points, Lee. I would love to see your book recommendations!
I’m currently planning to buy all your books (digitally) on Amazon too since they are not available in my country (Brazil) physically. It’s a small gesture of acknowledgement for helping me and so many others every day, at the same time that i learn new things 🙂
Hi caionsouza,
Thank you! That would certainly be a good place to start, if I do say so myself! 😉
In 2019 I published the first two of five planned volumes of collected articles from Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life: God and Creation and The Bible and its Stories. These are both hefty volumes. I’ve been stalled since then due in large part to our move to South Africa and the whirlwind of activities here. However, some changes are coming in our life, and I therefore have some reasonable hope that I will be able to get back to the job of editing and publishing the rest of the volumes later this year, or perhaps next year.
The other two books I have in print are much smaller, but worthwhile, I think:
The first is based on a series of sermons I preached on the Parables of the Kingdom in Matthew when I was pastor of a small Swedenborgian church. The second was my MA thesis project during my seminary years at the Swedenborg School of Religion nearly thirty years ago now. My, how time flies!
There are also a number of classic Swedenborgian books that I edited and published new editions of by Print On Demand. You can probably find them by searching for “Lee Woofendern” on Amazon. However, many of them are somewhat “special interest” works. One that is of general interest is:
Inner Light: Swedenborg Explores the Spiritual Dimension, by Brian Kingslake
This is one of the most readable and accessible introductions to Swedenborg’s teachings ever written. Brian Kingslake was a New Church minister and a wonderful communicator.
All of these links are to the Kindle editions on the American Amazon site. (I do receive commissions from the links to Amazon on this website.)
If there is any subject you are especially interested in, let me know. If there is anything solid written about it, I’ll give you my recommendations.
Of course, there are also Swedenborg’s own writings, which are a vast land of spiritual teaching and learning. For a nice video that goes over some of his key works, see:
Thank you again! All those reads will be a great addition to my understanding about God and his divinity, as well for repelling those unwanted satans messing with my head all the time. It worked really well the last time you helped me about the fear of losing my heavenly marriage. I’m really excited to read everything you recommended.
God bless you and your family. 💟
Hi caionsouza,
You are most welcome! I’m glad to help. Please let me know if there is anything else I can do for you. And Godspeed on your spiritual journey!
Hi Lee!
As promised, i bought all the books you recommended, including your entire main section on Amazon store hehe 🙂 Already started reading God and Creation, and I’m planning to bought a Kindle e-reader too since reading on my smartphone is not one of the most pleasure experiences for my eyes! Thanks for everything!
Hi caionsouza,
Great! Thanks! I hope you’ll get a lot of enjoyment and understanding from reading them.
By the way, you don’t have to buy a specific Kindle e-reader. You can buy any tablet, and install the Kindle app on it. That’s what I use when I want to relax and get comfortable with an e-book. You can also install a reader on a computer and read that way, but reading on a tablet is more pleasant, I think.
Hi Lee!
My cousin has one basic kindle that he is not using so often, so he will lend to me for a while! Tablets, even the most basic models are very expensive here, a kindle for example, costs half of the price 🙂
I tried reading in my computer but without success Hehe, I guess books are truly my favorite way of reading! (i have one physical copy of Heaven and Hell and Conjugial Love in my book library, both were very hard to find in my main language, Brazilian Portuguese since unfortunately the New Church is almost non existent here), at the same time, English is my 2nd language, so no language barrier!
Besides, the kindle is very cool to use since it looks like a mini book!
Hi caionsouza,
Sounds good. Though English has the most translations of Swedenborg’s writings, at least some of them have been translated into many other languages, including Portuguese. You might want to download and install the Swedenborg Reader App available here, and take a look through what it has available in Portuguese.
Hi Lee Woofenden, you said the following:
The only way to make the sun stand still for an extra day’s worth of daylight would be to stop the rotation of the earth on its axis. Now consider this: At the earth’s equator, everything on the earth’s surface is moving at a speed of almost 1,000 miles per hour in the direction of the earth’s rotation. Can you imagine what would happen if God suddenly slammed on the brakes? The results would be catastrophic. No one on earth would survive the resulting destruction.
Besides, if such an event had happened, it would have been visible everywhere on earth (though on the other side of the earth it would have been experienced as a very long night). Court scribes and historians all around the world would have recorded this amazing event. However, though there are legends in other cultures of the sun standing still in the sky, or not rising for several days at a time, they don’t match the story in Joshua in timing or in exactly what took place. Despite unsubstantiated claims that have proliferated in fundamentalist Christian books, sermons, and websites, there is no corroborating historical evidence for such an event happening during Joshua’s time in the 13th century BC.
That argument about the earth stopping spinning, as well as about everyone noticing the sun standing still, shows that YOU yourself do not understand the scriptures nor the power of God. Matthew 22:29. God is all-powerful and as such he can defy the laws of physics if he wants. Maybe he could bend the beam of light, or something.
Hi WorldQuestioner,
So you’re saying that God violates the laws that God established? That God is a lawbreaker? Knowingly violating God’s laws is the definition of sin. Are you saying that God is a sinner?
No. I’m talking about miracles.
Hi WorldQuestioner,
Most of Jesus’ miracles were healings, which don’t defy the laws of physics. Even secular doctors occasionally have their patients inexplicably get well, often quite rapidly, from diseases that are considered incurable.
Even turning water into wine, though it wouldn’t be possible according to the classical laws of science, doesn’t cause existential problems for all life on earth. Strange things are possible under quantum mechanics—just extremely unlikely.
But stopping the earth’s rotation to create a longer day . . . that would violate the laws of physics wholesale, and likely tear the earth apart, or at least cause such a cataclysm on its surface that no one would survive.
God could make people (and everything else on Earth) stop rotating WITH the Earth, so they don’t feel the Earth stop rotating. Couldn’t God also bend the beam of light from the Sun so that it looks like it is where it isn’t?
Hi WorldQuestioner,
You are free to believe whatever you want to believe. As for me, I don’t believe God makes laws only to break them.
God breaks the laws of physics only when necessary, does he not?
Hi WorldQuestioner,
As I have already said, I don’t think God does break the laws of physics. They are God’s own laws. They are not faulty, so that they would need to be broken.
P.S. What do you think of my referencing Matthew 22:29 when talking about God and the laws of physics?
Hi WorldQuestioner,
Not much. 😛
You’re just like the Sadducees in Matthew 22, in the respect of not understanding the scriptures nor the power of God.
God is not bound by the laws of physics. The laws of physics are for us, not God.
Would you call God the Government of Physics?
Hi WorldQuestioner,
So . . . you think I’m like the Sadducees because I don’t think God is a lawbreaker? Where in Scripture does it say that God is a lawbreaker? In fact, it says that Christ is the fulfillment of the law, not a breaker of the law. Are you aware that Jesus refers to Scripture itself as the Law?
Read Psalm 119.
Where do you think the laws of physics came from? From the Devil?
There’s a difference between the moral laws and the physical laws. I’m talking about the laws of physics, not the Ten Commandments of the ceremonial laws.
Hi WorldQuestioner,
But whose laws are they? Who established the laws of physics?
God is not “subject” to the law. God is the law. For God to violate God’s own laws would be for God to violate himself. A house divided against itself cannot stand.
And . . . nowhere in Scripture does it say that God is “above the law,” or that God breaks the law. Any law.
To the last question, definitely NOT from the Devil.
Morality and ethics are not physical, correct? Logic and math are not physical. Am I right?
The Laws of Physics on the other hand are physical. God can bend the Laws of Physics to his will, including special relativity (e.g. by increasing or decreasing the speed of light) and the Law of Conservation of Mass and Energy. God can bend any cosmological constant to his will, right?
God is above the Laws of Physics. He is not the laws of physics themselves. For the moral laws, it’s a different story. God IS the moral law as you say.
Hi WorldQuestioner,
That would assume that the laws of God (including the laws of physics) are not perfect, but have to be tinkered with to get the effects God wants.
So that the days are longer in Gibeon, maybe God could have just varied the flow of time between Gibeon and elsewhere. The people’s clocks would be faster in Gibeon, everything would move faster (such as people, animals, wind, and inanimate objects) EXCEPT the Earth’s rotation. Then the rotation of the Earth, and the relative “motion” of the Sun, would appear slower to those in Gibeon. But elsewhere, such as in China, the flow of time would remain the same, so time would pass normally for people there.
This idea is not the same as time dilation, which according to Special Relativity depends on motion at velocities near the Speed of Light. Person 1 would view Person 2’s clock as slow, you might think Person 2 would view Person 1’s clock as fast, but actually Person 2 would be like “No, YOUR clock is slow!” That’s not true for the variation of the flow of time in Gibeon, which wouldn’t need relativistic speeds, since it’s a miracle performed by God, not a natural event. Chinese would have viewed the clocks of those in Gibeon as fast, and people of Gibeon would have viewed clocks in China as slow, if they observed each other, the only reason they didn’s is that the two groups wouldn’t be able to see each other.
The same would be true for Native Americans as for Chinese. Same for those in sub-Saharan Africa. And everywhere outside of Gibeon.
What do you think?
Hi WorldQuestioner,
It’s an imaginative attempt to take the story of Gibeon literally. What do I think? I don’t take that story literally, so I don’t have to tie my brain in knots trying to come up with some imaginative explanation of how it could have happened.
Hi WorldQuestioner,
Beyond that, insisting that the Bible is all about literal, historical events is the most reductionistic, materialistic view of the Word of God that I can think of. Truly the flesh kills, but the spirit gives life.
Jesus did most of his teaching in parables. If Jesus is God With Us as the Gospel says, then this should tell us something about how God teaches us in the Bible. See:
The Bible: Literal Inerrancy vs. Divine Depths of Meaning
Hi Lee,
I also wanted to ask you what are you thoughts on paranormal researchers like when they say that when we walk around places like our house we create this static or energy imprint so when someone experiences like an after death contact, it’s not your loved one but just a hologram like on loop being replayed over and over and they call this a residual haunt because it’s not intelligent it’s just a so called imprint on loop like a movie being played then rewind over and over?
And when these “paranormal searchers” capture things on camera, like I remember they had some sorta of infer red camera with a temperature sensor camera something like that and they captured this orb passing through a room. What is that? I just watched a OTLE video talking about ghost and Swedenborg says how spirits can attach themselves to objects through correspondences but I wasn’t sure what to make of this.
Also I wanted to ask you, what are your thoughts on these ranches like “Skin Walker Ranch”? I remember watching something a while ago on it and there was that place and a lake in Nevada (Lake mead I think) but all these people like park rangers and cops were seeing wolfs turns into people and visa versa they call these “skin walkers”. There were also “orb” lights, and random shapes as well. Like I remember these people had a scanning machine to survey these tunnels on the land and they picked up apparently these strange shaped creatures along with videos of it like with tentacles. What are your thoughts on this as well? I feel like of course a lot of these things are fake but I just wanted to get your thoughts.
Thank you kindly again Lee
Hi Sam,
Looks like this one got by me earlier.
Yes, I think they’re mostly fake, or they’re hallucinations. Hallucinations are things we see with our spiritual eyes, but not in a waking state in the spiritual world. They’re similar to dreams.
It is possible for spiritual things to influence physical things. Most of the photographs of spirits I suspect are also fake, or just phenomena of light and shadow in the physical world. But if they’re not fake, it’s because the spiritual atmosphere was able to affect the physical world there. But this is mostly not allowed, which is why only wispy things appear. In the spiritual world, spirits are not wispy, but just as solid and real as people are in this world.
I don’t know anything about “residual haunts.” I suspect it’s mostly in the minds of the people experiencing it. Which also means it would be the influence of spirits, but not in the actual physical space. It would be spirits influencing the minds of the people who feel it. But in general, I don’t put much stock in this sort of thing.
Hi Lee,
No problem! And that makes a lot of sense why those things happen. Thank you for the clarification.
Hi Lee,
There is a group of people who claim they can speak and basically FaceTime with spirits by using EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon) and ITC (I don’t know what that stands for). There is a lady named “Sonia Rinaldi and her team have been producing some of the best digital audio of potential spirit voices AND images to match for over 30 YEARS, not making a dime of profit in the process, all via a research station ON spirit side facilitating it.” How can a “research station” exist in the spirit world when they are complete separate realities?
There is another one named “Keith Clark (so called “expert”) from iDigitalMedium.com discusses the idea behind continual online ITC experiments and I question him on stations on the astral plane and other recent concepts.” Again, I don’t get how there can be a “station” on the “other side” and be able to send images and talk through it? And supposedly Nikola Tesla is behind it? I have no clue what to make of these claims. Ghost hunters capture voices as well on devices how would that work as well?
I also know all these people think physics is behind all spiritual things “we just haven’t figured it all out yet” so again applying materialism to spiritual reality.
And also I really don’t like this YouTuber at all but unfortunately when browsing on FB groups “afterlifetopics” is what came up when first learning about the subject. Ugh!
Thank you Lee
Hi Sam,
As you know, I don’t put a lot of stock in these things. I’m sure the people involved are decent, well-intentioned people. And I’m sure it helps some people to feel that there’s more to life than just this material plane.
But really, it’s very thin gruel compared to what we already have in the Bible and more recently in Swedenborg’s writings. The messages that are supposed to be coming through from people on the other side seem very hackneyed and trivial. If this is what people are getting all excited about, then they’re really missing the good stuff!
As for it being Nicola Tesla on the other side, that is highly unlikely. It is much more likely spirits impersonating Nicola Tesla because he has the right mix of fame and intrigue to strike just the right note of secret special knowledge that the spirits on the other side (or the fraudsters on this side) want to convey to their audiences.
Why is it always some famous but not too famous person coming through? Why is it always someone from history who has an air of secret mysteries? Why isn’t it some ordinary peasant, given that the ratio of peasants to strange famous people is millions to one? Wouldn’t we be far more likely to get a peasant than Nicola Tesla?
The answer is that people won’t listen if it’s just some unnamed and unknown peasant. But they’ll listen if it’s some strange famous person from history.
Some mediums have even claimed to be talking to Swedenborg on the other side. And wouldn’t you know it, Swedenborg has completely changed his mind! Now he believes everything that the medium teaches, not what he learned from nearly thirty years of his own first-hand experience in the spiritual world! 😀 😀 😀
Hi Lee,
As always thank you for the understanding and guidance on these topics. Once explained it makes so much sense like finally finding the last puzzle pieces.
But how would this FaceTime stuff even work on the first place? How can you receive a signal for another reality that isn’t remotely part of physical reality except through correspondences and inflow?
And it’s so true it’s always someone mysterious or famous or something shocking coming through and always fitting in with the New Age field of the medium!
But let’s throw out the Bible and Swedenborg because they’re too “boring” it’s not woo woo enough lol … crazy!
Thank you again Lee
Hi Sam,
If what a medium is hearing is real, and the medium isn’t a fraud, then mediums are hearing these things with their spiritual ears, not their physical ears.
As for “Institutes” on the other side, that is perfectly possible. The spiritual world is not an empty place. It has everything we have here on earth, and more! But count me skeptical that these people are in touch with real institutes on the other side. Maybe they are. Who knows? But once again, I just don’t put a lot of stock in this stuff. What comes through from mediums is light fare compared to what we already have in the sacred literature of humankind.
As for signals coming through electronics, I suppose it’s possible. Spiritual things can influence physical things. But once again, count me skeptical. And honestly, I don’t consider it worth my time to spend the time trying to find out if any of this stuff is real. As my mother used to say, “Once you have Swedenborg, why would you bother with anything else?”
Hi Lee,
So true, and that is a very wise saying indeed! I’m definitely going to remember that!
If angels truly have use of power in the physical, I imagine quite a number of them would want to use it to topple tyrannical regimes (especially before the modern world) and end a whole host of atrocities and injustices. What keeps them from being able to do so?
Hi K,
This is really just a tamer version of the question of why God doesn’t use God’s infinite power to topple tyrannical regimes and end all sorts of rampant evil in our world. It’s the ancient, vexed issue of “theodicy,” or why an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving God allows evil to exist. After all, angels are angels because they love God and live according to God’s ways. If God wanted something done, hosts of angels would be at the ready to carry it out.
I have a number of articles on this site that address this issue. Here links to my basic article on the subject, and to the first part of a more extended treatment of it:
On the question of why God and the angels don’t topple tyrannical regimes, we must take seriously the question of why those regimes exist in the first place. What causes them? Why do the people under them allow them to exist, and put up with their oppression? After all, no dictator or military could stand if the entire populace of a country rose up against it. But this would require the great mass of people to decide that death would be preferable to continuing to allow their current situation to exist. Once a population comes to that conclusion, ultimately, nothing can stop them.
Unfortunately, we humans have to learn the hard way that certain ideologies lead only to dictatorship, oppression, poverty, and misery. And deeper than that, we have to learn the hard way that putting power and wealth first in our goals and ambitions causes widespread human suffering.
It’s all part of our process of seeing our own evil and falsity for what it is, and fighting the battle to overcome it. God and the angels will give us strength for that battle if we ask for it, but we ourselves must make the decision to fight it, and then put in the sustained effort to successfully engage in that fight.
Thanks for the reply. It can seem hopeless that tyrannical regimes will ever end (especially a certain one in the modern world), and it can seem frustrating how God and Heaven seemingly stand by and do nothing to really stop it, but it would be rather different if they did do so in an undeniable miraculous way.
So while angels can do quite a bit in the afterlife, they find they normally cannot do much to the physical?
Hi K,
Tyrannical regimes often come to their end very suddenly. Some of the ones that exist today will probably not exist in another decade. But it certainly is hard to watch. And the aftermath of their collapse is often very messy, also.
Angels normally cannot do much to directly influence the physical world. After all, they are spiritual beings, not physical beings. What they can do is influence the spiritual part of humans on earth, which is the human mind and heart. Then those humans who accept that influence—which is the influence of God’s love, wisdom, and power flowing through heaven—can and do influence the physical in positive ways.
Contrary to popular belief, most people on earth are living better than people ever have in the past. It doesn’t hit the news much, because death and disaster is what gets the clicks. But in fact, worldwide poverty is way down, disease is way down, wars are way down, and almost every other scourge on the human population on earth is way down. In other words, contrary to popular belief, things are getting better, not worse, on this earth.
It does seem like recently there is an overall trend of stuff getting worse, but that is indeed a slight decrease overall, compared to the massive overall improvement from how it was during agrarian times, and the 19th and early 20th century.
One may still wonder why God allowed humanity to run such a crappy world before the modern era, and why He is allowing the world now to start to get a little crappeier now (again, relative to the past), but it seems that problem of evil dilemma has been discussed by Swedenborg and others.
Hi K,
As is often the case, it’s a two steps forward, one step back process.
As for why God allowed us to run such a crappy world, that’s just part of creating us as human beings having free will. If God were always stepping in and correcting our wrongs, and their destructive result, we would never learn that our way is not the best way, and God’s way is the better way. We’d just keep doing wrong, and letting God clean up our messes.
Still, eventually there comes a time when we’ve mucked things up so badly that we’re in danger of snuffing ourselves out spiritual altogether. That’s when God does intervene, not in the physical world, but in the spiritual world, performing a Last Judgment that clears the spiritual atmosphere, and re-establishes the flow of good and true things from God through heaven and the world of spirits to people on earth. This gives us a new freedom to do the hard work of fixing up our world ourselves.
However, even though there has been huge improvement over agrarian times, this world is still rather crappy overall. Full of suffering and endless atrocities. But not all bad though.
Hi K,
Less so than people think. If the news media reported on all the people that are living pretty good lives from day to day, they would quickly lose their audience. The news thrives on death and disaster, not on ordinary people living happy lives.
There can be ambiguity or a debate over semantics with the meaning of “supernatural”, but with the writings of Swedenborg, I take it that “supernatural” means “beyond the natural” – the spiritual. And that in the natural, the “supernatural” is that which defies (normal) so-called laws of physics: events such as walking on water or turning water into wine.
Hi K,
“Supernatural” is not a very common word in Swedenborg’s writings. Mostly it does seem to be used as a synonym for “spiritual.” But sometimes it is used in the more common meaning of “power that goes beyond normal physical power.”
In general, it’s best to read the words Swedenborg uses in their context, because like all writers, he uses words in different ways in different contexts.
So in other words, miracles (and so-called magic in general) really is that which defies the so-called laws of physics then, which is why it does not seem to happen that often?
Hi K,
Yes.
I guess another way to put it is that so-called “magic” (which also includes miracles here) could be thought of as “cheat codes” or “glitches in the simulation”. Stuff like turning water into wine, defying the mechanics of buoyancy and walking on water, and seemingly violating the law of conservation of mass-energy by feeding an entire multitude with just a few loaves of bread and fish meat, as some examples.
And based on what Swedenborg wrote*, skeptics who witness a miracle or other supernatural happening could chalk such up to “unlikely physics working reliably” or “quantum physics at a macroscopic scale” (like quantum tunneling), or some other scientific explanation like that?
*”Divine providence works in an invisible, unfathomable way in order to allow us the freedom to ascribe events to either providence or chance.” – Swedenborg
Hi K,
Yes. Even if atheists and materialists saw a miracle, they would assume that it has a scientific explanation that we just don’t happen to know. Such is their faith in science. Ironic that they attack theists for just this sort of belief about spiritual things.
But for the most part, atheists and materialists will never see miracles in the first place. Their lack of belief prevents it from happening. The Gospels themselves talk about Jesus not doing many miracles in places where the people had a lack of faith.
But really, for us, the main point of the biblical miracles is their spiritual meaning. Whether or not they literally happened is not all that important.
Speaking of skeptics, a skeptical argument I heard is that if the “supernatural” is indeed real, then history and science become unreliable.
I think the argument claims that’s because if the “supernatural” is real, ten the world could have been made to appear the way it is by “supernatural” means, and of course scientific observations and tests could be rendered useless if the “supernatural” interferes.
I think that if the “supernatural” is indeed real, the natural still works reliably enough, how much the “supernatural” influences physical reality is limited, and so history and science are still reliable means of looking at the physical.
Hi K,
I agree with your response to this particular skeptical argument.
What’s missing from the usual views of “the supernatural” is the concept of the orderly relationship between the spiritual world and the material world via correspondences. Not to mention the concept that the spiritual world operates according to laws just as the material world does. And the concept that God operates according to definite, unchangeable laws.
The popular concept of God as being like a human king gets mixed up with the idea that God can make whatever laws he wants, and just do any old crazy thing that strikes his fancy, such as causing the earth to stop spinning for a day, or plunking down a 1,400 mile cube onto the earth without the earth going off its axis and tearing itself apart.
In reality, the orderly, dependable laws we see in the physical world around us are an expression of the orderly, dependable laws that are part of the nature of God. The spiritual world (“the supernatural”) similarly operates according to orderly, dependable laws that are expressions of the orderly nature of God. The very fact that we can rely on natural laws to operate everywhere is based on the fact that God and spirit are orderly and law-abiding.
The idea that if the supernatural exists, it would make the universe unreliable is the exact opposite of the truth. The universe is reliable because the supernatural is reliable.
As far as the supernatural interfering, clearly no such interference has caused anything in this physical realm to get out of whack. Even if miracles are real, and have happened at various times throughout history, the earth has kept right on turning, and the sun has kept right on burning, just as they have since our solar system first formed. This is not accidental, nor is there going to be some miracle in the future that will cause the physical universe to become unreliable. This is part of how God has created the universe as an orderly, law-abiding place.
Thanks again for the replies.
So if I understand right, spirit can influence the physical using the ordinary physical (which can work via correspondences), such as ordinary brain function. However, spirit can impact the physical more directly (so to speak) via so-called magic or miracle, where nature responds to spirit in ways that defy the natural order (which is like cheat codes in a video game), such as the aforementioned miracles of Christ.
Does that sound like what Swedenborg explained?
Hi K,
Not quite. All interaction between the spiritual and the physical is via correspondences. This is true whether the effect is ordinary or miraculous. The physical realm is continually held in existence by its correspondence with the spiritual realm and everything in it, which, in turn, is kept in existence by its correspondence with God and the infinite things in God.
Even if something appears miraculous to us here on earth, it still takes place through the laws of correspondences. It’s just something that the physical realm would not ordinarily do on its own.
But that line is fuzzier than we may think. Strange, inexplicable things happen in the physical realm all the time. Some of them we can explain through known physical and biological laws. Others we can’t. Materialists have faith that all of them could be explained through physical laws if we had a complete knowledge of those laws and complete data about the event that happened. But that’s a matter of faith, not something that can be objectively demonstrated. It is also possible that some of them simply can’t be explained by any physical laws, because they happen due to direct influence from the spiritual level.
Does this violate physical laws? Perhaps. It’s an interesting question. But if it does, it doesn’t do so in a way that abrogates physical laws and stops them from operating everywhere they apply. The physical laws just keep on operating according to their usual application. So even if miracles do occur, they do not make the physical universe unreliable. They only bend its rules here and there in rather localized instances.
The reason scientists in general are so concerned about miracles is that they’re worried it would make their work untenable because natural laws are unreliable. But it is also a matter of faith that all physical laws apply equally everywhere, under all circumstances. This is a convenient axiom that scientists take as a basis for their work. They must do so, or they couldn’t engage in scientific method. But once again, it’s not something we can prove objectively. Rather, it’s something that seems to hold true for all practical purposes, so that we can take it as an axiom and engage in scientific exploration as if it is true.
Is it true? I think so, in general. But a few localized miracles here and there aren’t going to break the system. Once again, they’ll just bend it a little. Even if Jesus actually did miraculously turn water into wine, and heal various people, it clearly didn’t cause the whole universe to go off its axis and descend into unpredictable chaos.
Another way of saying this is that if spiritual power is used to directly change physical events (still via correspondences), this happens in such a way that it does not destabilize the physical realm.
Spiritual powers only work in the spiritual world, and only work on spiritual objects, right? Spiritual powers cannot affect the physical, at least not directly. Whether I’m having an out-of-body experience, sleep paralysis or otherwise, or DMT trip, or near-death experience… If a a spirit that appears to be a deceased loved one came to me, I could say “Get behind me Satan (or however you translate it),” and have the power to cast the demon away. Such powers only work in the spirit realm, right? The parentheses in those quotes might be the words I say to the spirit.
Thoughts?
Hi World Questioner,
Not exactly. Spiritual powers can work on physical objects, but physical powers cannot act on spiritual objects.
Howard Storm reported that when he was surrounded by evil spirits in a hellish NDE, calling on Jesus to rescue him (he was an atheist at the time) resulted in his being rescued and carried up to a peaceful place. If you think you can banish evil spirits by your own power, you will have a rude awakening. However, if it’s deceased loved ones, another possibility is that they actually are your deceased loved ones.
Next time I make a paranormal encounter during sleep paralysis, I will say “Get behind me Satan (or however you translate Matthew 16:23)”… Except I am unable to talk during sleep paralysis, so maybe I could say that in my head. Or maybe say that verbally when I wake up with “yes, get behind me Satan.” Also, that parentheses in the quote “Or however you translate” could be my comment, or it could be part of what I say.
Hi World Questioner,
If the paranormal encounter is of a frightening or hellish character, that might be a good thing to do. Calling on the name of Jesus can also have a repellent effect on evil spirits who would cause a hellish paranormal experience. But you do have to believe what you’re saying. The words will have no effect by themselves. It is the spirit in which you say the words that matters.
Hi K,
As an example of what I’m talking about in my previous reply, consider a medical doctor who is treating a patient for a disease that is considered incurable, and there is a “spontaneous healing” that can’t be attributed to the treatments the doctor has been administered. This is a relatively rare but known phenomenon among doctors and their patients.
If this happens, are all the doctors going to throw everything they know about human physiology, disease, and medical practice out the window? Not at all. They’re going to scratch their head, congratulate the patient, and continue with their work on other patients. It’s not something they expected to happen. It’s not something they could have predicted. It was apparently not due to the treatments they were administering to the patient. But it’s not going to stop them in their tracks and cause them to give up medical practice.
If miracles do happen, it is the same situation. Just because something we can’t explain happens, that doesn’t mean we’re going to throw out all the laws of nature and just start praying for miracles. We still have to proceed according to the ordinary laws of nature, even if something unexpected and unexplainable occasionally happens.
Can spirits use what could be considered so-called ESP, at least in the spiritual world, if not also in the physical? I mean stuff like telekinesis, telepathy, and remote viewing here.
PS: hopefully spirits are not usually stuck with using the spiritual equivalent of just muscle power. Even in this life, that is rather limiting.
Hi K,
In the spiritual world, power can be projected without the physical application of muscle power. Powerful angels, for example, can scatter whole armies of evil spirits simply by looking in their direction. Sometimes simply the appearance of a powerful arm and fist can strike terror into the hearts of evil spirits, and even of simple good spirits.
Beyond that, ordinary tasks such as food preparation often happen without any need for physical activity at all. At banquets in the spiritual world, new plates of food and new cups of drink can appear instantly as soon as people take the ones that were there before.
People can engage in physical activity to accomplish this or that task in the spiritual world. But they are not obliged to do so. At least, angels are not. They do so because the activity itself is enjoyable. Evil spirits, however, are forced to do some useful work in order to receive food, clothes, and housing.
Hi K,
This sort of thing is fairly ordinary in the spiritual world. There, our surroundings are created as an expression of what’s inside of us. So if we think of something with a desire to have it be real, it will be real. And if we think of someone at a distance with a desire to be with them, we will be with them. And if we think of something across the room and want it in our hand, it will be in our hand. That’s just how things work. It won’t even seem magical there. It doesn’t mean we can’t also get up and cross the room to pick the thing up, or take a road trip to visit someone. But these things also reflect our thoughts and emotions in relation to that object or person.
For example, if the person we’re thinking of is in a very different state of mind than we are, we will have to go through mental changes to match their state if we want to visit them. Those mental changes will express themselves as a longer or shorter journey depending on the mental and emotional distance there was between the two people when one first thought of seeing the other. The journey itself reflects the mental and emotional changes that one person goes through in order to visit the other.
As for ESP, it is possible and even easy to share thoughts with other people without saying it in words. Sometimes this is done through subtle variations in facial expressions. Other times, though, it happens through direct transfer of thoughts. When allowed, one spirit or angel can enter right into another spirit or angel’s mind, search the other person’s memory, and learn all the things the other person has learned, at least as it is represented in that person’s memory. It is also possible to close our mind off to others. But even then, the highest angels, who are also the most loving, can read everything in a person just by looking at him or her. This is why evil spirits cannot stand to be in the presence of angels, especially the highest angels.
So yes, all of this takes place in the normal course of events in the spiritual world.
I don’t see any spiritual meaning of the Sun standing still.
When a verse in the Bible is metaphorical or mythical, shouldn’t the spiritual meaning be obvious, or at least, easily figured out in less than an hour?
As for the Earth stopping rotating, you’re like the Sadducees, as Matthew 22:29 said, “You neither understand the scriptures nor the power of God.”
My proposed explanation for the Sun standing still would be slowing the flow of time in Gibeon, so that from the perspective of people in Gibeon, things in the rest of the world would appear to move slower, while from the perspective of the rest of the world, things in Gibeon would appear to be moving faster. It’s not like time dilation of Alice and Bob at relativistic speeds, in which Alice sees Bob’s clock as slow, yet Bob sees Alice’s clock as slow. Instead, Alice were in Gibeon and Bob were in the rest of the world, Alice would see Bob’s clock as slow, because just as the Sun stood still, so does Bob and everything around him, and Bob would see Alice’s clock as fast, and things around Alice going faster. Therefore, the speeding up and slowing down the flow of time is absolute, not relative in this case. Any problems? Other thoughts?
Hi World Questioner,
Swedenborg explains the meaning of the sun standing still in Gibeon (Joshua 10:12–13) in Apocalypse Explained #401[18], in case you’re interested. It will take you less than an hour to read it. 😀 Unfortunately, it’s an old-fashioned translation, but that’s all we have for that work. Short version: the sun standing still means everything good and true in the church being destroyed.
Any problems with your explanation? Ask a physicist. I suspect the physicist would tell you that for that amount of time difference between Gibeon and the rest of the world, Gibeon would have to be orbiting a black hole at relativistic speeds, while the rest of the world wasn’t. Cutting time in half in one city but not in the rest of the world would tear the earth apart even more violently than suddenly slowing the entire earth’s rotation by 50%.
I don’t suppose… They saw the Sun stand still with their spiritual eyes? The problem is, in the physical world, the Earth still spins as normal, so after their spiritual eyes closed, the day should have been the same length, but it wasn’t. Unless time was slowed down for them spiritually, not physically, so from the spiritual perspective, the physical world was frozen in time. Then they wouldn’t need to orbit a black hole at relativistic speeds.
Like the Sadducees in Matthew 22:29, you neither understand the scriptures nor the power of God.
If Alice was in the spiritual world and Bob was in the physical world, Bob might be frozen in time. What do you think of that illustration?
Hi World Questioner,
It’s possible that they had light because their spiritual eyes were opened. That’s something I use to think. But now, I lean toward believing that this is a mythical story, not a literal, historical one. Anyone who tries to read everything in the Bible literally will be continually fighting a rearguard battle against science and reason. But people who are willing to read the Bible spiritually instead will not have to fight these battles.
This may seem like a dumb question, but it is also a basic one: where is the spiritual in relation to the physical, according to Swedenborg?
I think Swedenborg believed it is a different mode of existence that is more different than a computer simulation itself is from the physical, and that the spiritual is beyond time in space, but how does the spiritual relate to the physical? Is the physical like some kind of simulation running on the spiritual? Some realm somehow within the spiritual? A separate realm entirely where something from one is like an abstract concept in the other?
And then how would the Divine realm as Swedenborg believed it relate to the spiritual and physical?
So-called New Age claims that the spiritual world (or the astral) is in the same place as the physical, but at a so-called higher vibration (whatever that means), and that there are even higher realms at even higher levels of so-called vibration in the same place, with the realm of God at the highest so-called vibration.
Hi K,
It’s a good question. Jesus said:
The kingdom of God is the spiritual realm. And as Jesus says here, it is not in one physical place or another. Rather, it is inside of us.
The spiritual realm is within the physical realm, and God (the divine realm) is within the spiritual realm. They are like concentric spheres, one inside the other. But not physically. Rather, as cause and effect, and like motivation, ideation, and action. Each lower level flows from the level above it.
The “higher vibrations” thing isn’t entirely wrong. Everything is in motion, and that motion is a “vibrational” motion in the sense that it happens in cycles. However, it is not only vibrational frequency that matters. There are also distinct levels, such as solid, liquid, and gaseous, or ordinary matter, the electromagnetic field, and gravitation, each of which does not blend into the others, but has its own distinct existence. In some cases, such as sound waves and electromagnetic waves, the frequencies overlap, but the “vibrations” are on distinctly different levels, in distinctly different media.
In other words, it’s not just a matter of higher or lower vibrational frequencies. It’s also a matter of distinct levels. The spiritual world is not just a higher vibrational frequency than the physical. It is a distinct level or realm of reality, whose vibrational frequencies could overlap with those of the physical realm.
God is also not just the highest vibrational level. This would imply that there is some specific point at which vibrations can go no higher in frequency. But God is infinite, which means beyond any scale or level we could set or imagine. This means that God, also, is on a level entirely distinct from both spiritual reality and physical reality, which are finite, not infinite, and thus entirely distinct from God.
Also, the lower levels are not simulations of the higher ones. They are expressions of the higher ones—and ultimately of God, who is the highest—each on their own level. They are real, but their reality is derived from the higher level. A simulation doesn’t actually exist in the form in which it is perceived. It is just computer code being presented as tangible reality. Spiritual and material reality do exist in the form in which they are perceived. Even if they are not the ultimate form of reality, they are still real on their own level. They aren’t virtual realities that we merely perceive as real.
These levels relate to each other through what Swedenborg calls “correspondence.” Correspondence is the structure by which higher things express themselves in lower things.
When an artist paints a landscape, the landscape is distinctly different from the artist, but it expresses something of the mind of the artist. That expression is not arbitrary or haphazard. The specific elements and details of the particular landscape express specific details and elements of the mind of the artist, whether or not the artist is aware of exactly how the details express the details of the artist’s mind and heart. The specific muscle fibers that work together in specific ways when we throw a baseball or walk across the room correspond precisely to the will from which we move and the mind’s instructions as to how we want to move, even though we are almost entirely unaware of the complexities of the minute workings of the muscle fibers.
That is correspondence. It is the relationship by which higher things express themselves and their nature in lower things. It is not just a general, overall relationship, but a highly complex and detailed one, right down to the tiniest details. Swedenborg devotes much of his massive eight volume (in Latin) magnum opus Secrets of Heaven to explaining the details of correspondences and how they work, including thousands of specific correspondences between divine, spiritual, and physical things. And he himself says that he is only scratching the surface.
Thanks for reply.
If I understand the nature of God according to Swedenborg right, is the form of the core essence of God (the Father) like Allah in Islam*: beyond comprehension and undefined by even the spiritual equivalent of time and space (in order to be omnipresent), while the Son is the more comprehensible human form of God, and the Holy Spirit is the activity of God in creation?
* “No vision can grasp Him” [al-An’am 6:103]
Hi K,
Yes, that would be a fair description of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in Swedenborg’s theology.
When a person in extreme emotional pain and depression passes away and meets first angels sent to great them, do the angels know the suffering the recently deceased has suffered, and can they steer them to the help they need to find recovery?
Also, are these angels able to understand the life someone lived, and thus what’s needed to help them? Do they really even care about helping these new arrivals?
Hi tammi85,
The angels who first meet us when we die, and usher us into the spiritual world, are angels of the highest, heavenly or “celestial” heaven. These are angels whose whole life is focused on love. They intensely love each person they encounter, regardless of the character of that person. When people who are dying move on from them, it is not because these angels withdraw their love, but because the people themselves eventually can’t bear that level of love anymore, and they move on to something closer to their own character and state of mind.
So yes, the first angels who greet us when we die do love us and care very much about us.
The angels we move on to are angels of the spiritual heaven, who are less about love (though they still do care about us) and more about answering our questions and providing any information and guidance we might need as we begin our conscious life in the spiritual world.
The heavenly angels that first meet us do know about the trauma, pain, and depression we have been in. They have access to our entire mind and memory. However, they carefully push any negative thoughts and emotions to the side during the transition, and keep us in a state of complete peace. No matter how traumatic our death might have been, once we lose consciousness in the physical world, we enter a state of complete peace and tranquillity. This lasts as long as we are with the heavenly angels who greet us on the other side.
Even when we move on to the spiritual angels, our previous life does not come back to us all at once. Due to our recent experience of dying, we naturally have questions and confusion, and for a while, we will focus on that, in order to get ourselves oriented in the new place or state in which we are now living.
However, once we settle down, we do return to living a life very similar to the one we were living on earth before we died. Then, our emotional pain and depression may (or may not) return. And yes, there are very caring and skilled angels who will help us through it if we are willing to accept help.
If we are stubborn and not willing to accept help, we will have to work our way through it in a more difficult and painful way. But eventually, if our heart is good, we will find healing, and will move on to a good and happy life.
For a related article, please see:
Does Suicide Work?
For a more general overview of the process after death, please see:
What Happens To Us When We Die?
Hi Lee,
I just wanted to get your guidance on these quotes and these common themes I hear about (sometimes even from other Swedenbrogians), but I’ll include the full quotes below:
“Supernatural phenomenon like my “dream” experience, as well as, mighty mythical creatures, are more real than the constructed reality of the matrix and the control system that keeps the illusions intact; especially the fear based narratives designed to control our minds. So, regardless of how our minds have been controlled in the past. We’re not being held back by what happened in the past. We’re being held back by what we’re not doing in the present.
“Are we alone in the universe?” The thing to understand is, not only are we NOT alone in the universe…we’re not even alone in our own solar system! Every single planetary body in our solar system has parallel levels, which are energetically nested, like a Russian doll. Our physical universe appears to be one dimension within a spectrum of vibration that contains layer upon layer of projected realities, all contained within the one true reality of consciousness; a formless intelligence that underlies and permeates all layers.
This deep and profound truth about reality can be explored firsthand by anyone willing to breakdown the self-imposed beliefs that separate us from claiming our cosmic citizenship. Tomorrow night I will layout a deeper vision of reality for those who attend my talk, ‘Aliens In Our Own Backyard’. Then, this coming Tuesday, I will teach participants of my astral projection evening workshop, the necessary tools for initiating their own adventures in hyperspace, which will forevermore, shatter the control system illusion that we are alone in the universe ! A knowledge in Energy mechanics and principles that ETs have in traveling holographic hyperspace up above our spiritual bodies.”?
This is the full quote below:
“Last night, I went to sleep intending to embark on a spiritual journey, a vision quest of sorts. Earlier that day, I received a ritual artifact – a dragon carved from Nuummite, the oldest known mineral, estimated to be 3.7 billion years old. My plan was to transform this artifact into a potent totem power object. In the past, I devoted a significant amount of energy to creating astral thought forms, akin to guardian spirits, to safeguard my home and ritual spaces on an etheric level. However, I thought it might be more powerful to connect with an ancient guardian spirit of the Earth willing to work with me through this sacred ritual object. Given the dragon-carved nature of the artifact, I aimed to perform a dream-walk vision quest during my sleep, to connect with such a majestic etheric creature. Dragons, after all, are known to hold dominion over the four elements, which further fortifies my cause for this ritual artifact. As I drifted into sleep, my last conscious thought was of connecting with a dragon spirit in the Etheric realm. Despite waking briefly throughout the night, I continuously reaffirmed my intention before falling back asleep. While I didn’t have any conscious out-of-body experiences, I did recall a vivid dream. In the dream, I was guided through a sacred threshold site between worlds, and a strong, clear voice pronounced the name of the place – “Lime Tree Farm,” followed by a more muffled voice uttering something like “blaa blaa York blaa blaa.” Upon waking, I initially assumed it might refer to New York. However, expanding my search to include the UK, I discovered Lime Tree Farm in Yorkshire, England. Much to my surprise, the photos of the place, particularly of the roundhouse, closely mirrored my dream experience. Most astonishing was the sight of a dragon guardian depicted in one of the photos on their Website. On the Web page for the roundhouse, it says, “Just outside the roundhouse, a dragon gateway has been carved. The dragon stands at an impressive five meters and looks to the east. This is an earth dragon that guards the true treasure, the land itself.” I take all this as a sign to delve deeper into my vision quest, , and that my cause is surrounded by auspicious energies. I might even see this as an “invite” to journey via this
“dragon gateway” portal at lime tree farm. The lime tree is also a sacred tree, and represents the Sacred Heart, so lots of energy to work with there! Now, to conclude my post, l’d like to make something abundantly clear to anyone who needs to hear this… Supernatural phenomenon like my “dream” experience, as well as, mighty mythical creatures, are more real than the constructed reality of the matrix and the control system that keeps the illusions intact; especially the fear based narratives designed to control our minds. So, regardless of how our minds have been controlled in the past. We’re not being held back by what happened in the past. We’re being held back by what we’re not doing in the present. As such, you don’t have to be as ambitious as my quest, as my plans also involve collective energy work. Just have faith that in the present moment, which is the only reality that is truly tangible and accessible to us – you can call forth great power when you need to, especially if you’re feeling stuck”
Second quote:
As I studied the object more closely, I had a sudden insight that I was experiencing a continuum of energy, which was manifesting from an object in a higher dimension. And knowing all objects in physical reality are multidimensional in nature, I had strong feeling I was witnessing the formation of the energy substructure of our new PandoraStar light. The last insight I received before making the command to return to my body was… All I need now do, is take the inspired actions I will be guided to take in the following days and weeks, and the higher dimensions will help me and my team birth our next light into physical existence. I also instinctively knew, the only thing that would stop the energy momentum from the higher levels would be my own inaction and fear! As such, after returning to my body, I made a detailed drawing of the object, which I then immediately sent off to a group of designers. And after following one inspired action after another, just two months later, the continuum of energy emanating from the higher dimensional object, manifested itself into physical form… World, meet PRISM… Crafted from one piece of polished, machined, aluminum alloy and stunning reflective, multi-faceted, acrylic glass, PRISM is original in its look and feel from all angles. Elegant, powerful, and packed full of advanced technologies; including an internal battery pack, we’re calling it – the “Macbook” of light machines… The photos below are of our working prototypes, which look amazing, but the final release version of PRISM, which will be available in a few months, look even better.Soon, we’ll be ready to alpha test our fully working prototypes in the UK, USA, and Europe, so please comment below if you would like to take part.Oh, 1 almost forgot…
We’ve also incorporated sacred geometry, master numbers, and the power of 3, 6, & 9 into PRISM, which means it’s built for profound states of consciousness and trans-dimensional meditation states like no other light machine on the market. We’ve literally layered the sacred geometry, like layers of crystal…you can see some of the many layered hexagrams built into the design, as well as some equal lateral triangles, and other powerful sacred stuff…and as I said, these are just the prototypes, so we’ve since discovered more ways to insert geometry, as well as the golden ratio… And with 18 high powered LEDs, PRISM is the most powerful light machine available for individual and group use!”
I also remember reading I’m pretty sure in Divine Love and Wisdom that objects in this material world get their shape from their usefulness? So an atom or say a telescope acts a certain way and has a certain shape and so on because the usefulness inflowing from the Divine to the Spiritual to the worldly? Hopefully I remember reading that right! But I just wanted to get your thoughts on above and why do people put so much weight on geometry, numbers and phases like “unconditioned look will reveal a grander universe following laws and processes that are an extended set of nature’s rules, expanding into an infinity which can no longer be captured by mathematical formulas – and yet I found at the root of creation lies a geometry of mathematical precision that determines the manifestation of all the realities I have visited. However, I have found one overriding law that can be laid down in one simple sentence:
“When the relay station and filter, which is our brain, stops functioning and the body is returned to its individual atoms, our conscious and subconscious mind become our new external reality. ”? But there isn’t a “extended set of natures laws” or “geometry” because physical laws can’t be extended to spiritual or divine realities.”
But why is there so much emphasis put on math and “scared geometry” numbers and the other stuff described above? I even heard this from some Swedeborgians talking about spirals and plants and geometry and the “golden ratio” that’s in “all things in the universe”?
Sorry for the long quotes! I remembering hearing this stuff a lot in “spiritual” circles and when reading Divine Love and Wisdom it reminded me of hearing this and wanted to get your thoughts.
Thank you kindly Lee!
Hi Sam,
Numbers and math do have spiritual meaning. That’s why Swedenborgians talk about it. Swedenborg spends a lot of time explaining the meaning of the numbers that appear in the Bible. Basic math goes into it also, since a number like twelve that has factors gets its meaning from the meaning of its factors (3, 4, 2). As in mathematics prime numbers, especially the low ones, have key positions in Swedenborg’s system of the correspondences of numbers. My father used to jokingly call it “the Swedenborgian numbers game.” 😀
New Age types sense, or perhaps know, the spiritual meaning of the different numbers. But they tend to make it into something very abstract. And also, in the case of the above quotes, into marketable merch! 😉
Most things in the New Age movement have some truth behind them. It’s just that they get turned in directions that tend to be very wispy and fuzzy, and sometimes are just plain wrong, such as reincarnation and all the damage it does when people really think through its implications.
For example:
It is true that we’re not held back by what happened in the past, but by what we’re doing or not doing in the present. However, the past does form our present, so this isn’t some either/or thing. As long as we continue acting in line with our past, it will continue to have its influence on us. But we can break the chain through the process of repentance, reformation, and regeneration (to use the traditional Swedenborgian terms), and then the past will lose its grip on us. So yes, it’s what we do or don’t do in the present that holds us back or moves us forward. But our present is also built upon our past.
Also, our past never entirely goes away. It is just gradually pushed more and more to the side if we decide to take a different course in our life than the one that our past has put us on. If we ever get cold feet and start backsliding, our past can come roaring back and take over our life again. But even then, it will be because in the present we’re not sticking with the decision and commitment we made to live a new and different life.
About supernatural phenomena being “more real than the constructed reality of the matrix and the control system that keeps the illusions intact,” there’s truth behind that too. Spiritual things are more real than material things. But we’re not living in a “constructed reality,” if people think this means the physical world and the material universe. The material universe is real. It is not mere illusion, as some Eastern and New Age religions say.
Any “constructed reality” and “illusion” is the illusion of false beliefs and false ideas that cause us to see both the physical and the spiritual worlds inaccurately, and interpret them wrongly. It is our selfish and greedy desires that especially cause us to prefer falsity and its illusions over truth and the accurate picture of reality it gives us. Why? Because false ideas will support our selfish and greedy desires and actions, whereas the truth exposes them for what they are. When we’re driven by selfishness and greed, we want to excuse and justify ourselves, not be exposed for what we truly are.
I’m not opposed to religious merch. I don’t think money is evil. But I had to chuckle reading that big long advertisement for whatever fancy crystal light product that this guru and his group are doing pre-release marketing for. It makes me wonder if all this New Age vision stuff is really about selling merch and making money. Dressing it up in lots of “spiritual” “astral” and “transcendental” language makes it sound like they’re above all that.
Perhaps these folks are legit. I don’t know. But they may also be living in their own “matrix of constructed reality” in which making a buck is somehow a spiritual enterprise rather than a material-world enterprise.
The main point is that we create our own “matrix.” And it involves not seeing things accurately, whether those things are physical or spiritual. The physical and spiritual things themselves are objectively real. But we see them from a subjective perspective. That perspective will see them more or less accurately depending on how much truth or falsity there is running around in our head. Truth is seeing things as they really are. Falsity is seeing things wrongly, and misunderstanding their meaning.
As for “the control system that keeps the illusions intact,” there is not some vast hidden conspiracy in which a secret cabal of illuminati is controlling us like marionettes on a string. Instead, there is evil, hell, and our own participation in it.
Evil and falsity go together in what Swedenborg calls “the hellish marriage,” as opposed to “the heavenly marriage” of good and truth. Evil desires falsity to justify it, and falsity loves the evil that it justifies. Hell is the home and source of both evil and falsity, and of all the destructive words and actions that flow out from them. The falsity within our own mind, and especially the evil within our own heart is, where hell resides in us.
The solution to this is not mere enlightenment and rising up to higher astral and spiritual planes. The solution is regeneration. It starts with learning the truth, especially the truth about the difference between right and wrong. The Ten Commandments are a good place to start—especially the second table detailing forbidden actions against our fellow human beings. (The first table is beyond most spiritual beginners, so that’s not the best place to start.)
Once we have learned something about what’s right and what’s wrong, we must examine our own desires, thoughts, and actions, and compare them to what we have learned. When we find something in in ourselves and our actions that is wrong and contrary to the Ten Commandments, we then have to do the work of rooting it out of our life.
The practical way to do this is, every time we are thinking about actually doing the wrong thing we desire, to say to ourselves, “I know I want to do this, but I am not going to do it because it is wrong and against God’s commandments.” If we continually stop ourselves from acting on that wrong desire, and instead do the good thing that is opposite to it, then the wrong desire will gradually fade away in our heart because we are not giving it any expression.
Another way of saying this is that if we do the outer work of stopping ourselves from acting on our wrong desires, God will do the inner work of taking away our desires for those wrong actions. This does not happen all at once. It happens gradually over time as we do the work of regeneration every day of our lives.
My general reaction to all this New Age “spiritual experiences” stuff is, “So what? How does this actually change your character from being a jerk to being a good and loving person?”
I’ve known people who had all sorts of amazing spiritual experiences, but they had massive egos and were impossible to live with. They were self-centered jerks. So I don’t really care what amazing spiritual experiences people have had. I care about whether they’re spending their days doing practical good deeds of one sort or another for their fellow human beings. If they are, then their spiritual experiences mean something. If they’re not, then all those visits to supernatural planes above the astral mean nothing at all. In fact, it will bring them even more condemnation, because they should have known better.
Hi Sam,
About this:
Yeah, that’s mostly a lot of BS.
Sure, there are different levels. The material level is one. The spiritual level is another. The divine level (God) is another. And there are many levels within those levels.
However, there aren’t multiple physical levels. There is one physical level, and various levels within it, such as solid, liquid, and gaseous matter, the electromagnetic field, and gravity. We see, sense, and feel all of these with our one set of physical senses. There are not some hidden “other levels” of physical reality that we cannot see or sense.
This means that if there are people living on other planets, then if we go there, we will be able to see them with our physical eyes, hear them with our physical ears, and touch them with our physical fingers (though it might have to be through a space suit!).
The reality is that we’ve sent probes to land on, orbit around, or fly by every planet in our solar system, and many of its moons, and there just aren’t any people there. The best scientists are hoping for now is that they might find simple microbial life on some of the rocky or ocean planets and moons in our solar system, such as Mars or Saturn’s moon Titan. It’s possible that more complex life could have formed in the vast subsurface oceans of some of the moons. That would be hitting the jackpot in terms of exobiology! But we can now confidently say that there are no human-like beings capable of self-awareness and spiritual thought on any of the other planets or moons in our solar system.
Still, the planets do have spiritual meanings. Those meanings do relate to human spiritual reality. It’s no different than trees or mountains or lakes having spiritual meaning. That doesn’t mean there are people or spirits living in the trees or mountains or lakes. It means that they are expressions of something spiritual and human. They are expressions of something human because God is (infinitely) human, and everything in Creation is an expression of some aspect of God.
Further, since we are human because we are made in the image and likeness of God, this means that everything in Creation, including the planets and their moons, corresponds to something within us, including in our spirit. This is the truth behind the mistaken idea—which even Swedenborg believed—that every planet and moon is inhabited by intelligent, spiritually aware life, aka humans.
Swedenborg could be forgiven for making this mistake because he lived long before we had the capability of sending probes, and even people, to the Moon and to the other planets in our solar system. People today who continue to believe that the other planets in our solar system are inhabited by intelligent life have no excuse. We know for a fact that this is not true.
Hi Sam,
I meant to comment on the last part of this:
There is no such thing as “formless intelligence.” There is no such thing as formless anything. To exist, something must have both substance and form. Without either one, it is just an abstraction, not a reality. It may be spiritual substance and form rather than physical substance and form, but it is still substance and form.
Intelligence is the antithesis of formlessness. Intelligence has a specific form. It is built upon facts drawn from experience, known as “data” among scientists. It is built of a developed understanding of those facts, how they all fit together with one another, and how they function in relation to each other and to other entities. And it can grow into wisdom, which is using the facts we know and the understanding of them that we have developed to accomplish good and constructive things.
To use an earthly illustration, a house is a structured form. It is built of particular materials, which are the “facts” or “data” that it is based on. Those materials are put together in a specific way, using nails or mortar or adhesives, in a specific arrangement, so that the house has a foundation, walls, roof, rooms, windows, kitchen, bathroom, and so on. Each must have certain elements to it in order to serve its function. This is the “understanding” part of the house: how all the materials are put together to form the house. The “wisdom” part is actually living in the house. What’s the point of building a house if nobody is going to live in it?
Just so, all intelligence, including spiritual and divine intelligence, is not formless, but has a detailed, specific, and meticulous form without which it would not be intelligence.
Even a heap of bricks has form. It’s just a rather disorganized form. When those bricks are built into a house, it has an organized form that serves a specific purpose.
Intelligence is not just a heap of bricks. Even then it would not be formless. Rather, it is a whole array of facts and knowledge all related to one another and built into a mental edifice of understanding. It is highly detailed, and has a form far more complex than any physical house, or even a than a magnificent mansion or skyscraper.
The very fact that this person speaks of “formless intelligence” demonstrates that he or she does not understand what intelligence is.
What actually “underlies and permeates all layers” is the mind and being of God, which is not formless, but has infinite form.
Hi Lee,
Thank you for all the fantastic in-depth clarifications on these topics and it really makes so much more sense about what these topics really mean and how they really relate to material and spiritual not to mention Divine reality. When people preach stuff like this it can be really convincing especially when they say phrases like “if you don’t agree with me than you’re just suffering from cognitive dissonance because I’m telling you something that you disagree with because everyone is convinced their right and I’m telling the truth” it seems like people know persuasive and impressive/fearful sounding sayings to spread their merch or get a kick out of being a guru. (Sorry if I’m reposting twice on my end it didn’t show it submitted, my apologies!)
Hell really does have a persuasive grip on these subjects! How Hell twist things to convince whole groups of people. Like in Spiritual Experiences 5103 about hellish gangs using persuasive force.
My only follow up questions would be, when you talk about how intelligence is not formless but is God’s infinite form, would that be like when Swedenborg says how “nothing comes from nothing”? (probably not the exact quote!) but that’s what came to mind when you explained it. And how there would be material world intelligence, spiritual world intelligence, heavenly intelligence, and Divine intelligence? Since these are all discrete degrees of intelligences which all come from God?
And also, like how you said regarding numbers and how even Swedenborg talks about numbers and how everything even planets are telling something about the Grand Human. Would this be like that as well?
“unconditioned look will reveal a grander universe following laws and processes that are an extended set of nature’s rules, expanding into an infinity which can no longer be captured by mathematical formulas – and yet I found at the root of creation lies a geometry of mathematical precision that determines the manifestation of all the realities I have visited.
However, I have found one overriding law that can be laid down in one simple sentence:
“When the relay station and filter, which is our brain, stops functioning and the body is returned to its individual atoms, our conscious and subconscious mind become our new external reality. ” and “I was inspired by Rupert Sheldrake this morning, showing us how life springs from sound which creates pattern, the base of all life, which can be found throughout nature. Patterns and Fractals have always been my
“thing” because they appear during deep meditation and especially if you break through the barriers of the lower consciousness.”
This was the video attached to that quote: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vTerUb7SSyQ
about Rupert Sheldrake who won the “Gaia awards”?
It seems like fractals and math are talked a lot about the “creation process” and how “creations of video games contains fractals” and how these things like “the golden ratio/ Sacred Cosmic geometry that can be found in everything” (which I hear materialist to Christian’s to new age all have their own interpretations of what this is? I remember seeing an article how Elon Musk’s girlfriend got a tattoo of alien cosmic math geometry that went viral): like these quotes:
“Everything is data in our computer reality
Physicality is a set of calculations for a particular reality. The root of creation lies a geometry of mathematical precision that determines the manifestation of all the realities
At the basis of creation are basic mathematical and geometric shapes, which build everything via increasingly complex fractal geometry in an instant. Everything is constructed with fractal geometry, although it may not appear obvious on the surface. Simply looking at plant growth, life forms, the coats of animals, shells, flowers, rivers, stars and galaxies, we find that fractal geometry is even here on the physical level at the basis of everything. Fractals are such a powerful aspect of creation that it is now extensively used in computer simulations, and new computer games are designed around them to simulate a whole ever-changing universe and infinite gaming territories. The universe is an infinite frequency domain. Space and time domains get created and within that very individual space and time domains get created within the bigger wider energy field.
So it’s a matter of perspective of reality and where you are within reality which is no more than a mental construct / virtual reality.
Physically is a set of equations which quantum physics supports. They can create equations that can create physicality. Therefore, it’s a rule set, it’s a rule set that says this is what physical feels like.”
These gurus even say how scientists already know how to create physicality because it’s all math?
But would all this be false because all physical things are all correspondences/representations which are insights into our spiritual humanity like you talked about? Instead of seeing these for what they truly are these people are turning these things into a false religion of explaining reality?
Thank you so much again Lee for all the wonderful information and for your time as well. To use your analogy, every time I learn something true and new it feels like I’m replacing a piece of an old house with something new that eventually I’m standing in a new stable house and not an old,spooky crumbling one! And I’m definitely going to read upon more about the “the Swedenborgian numbers game” as well! lol
Hi Sam,
About this:
Yes, that’s how it works. Intelligence didn’t come from nowhere, and it didn’t just randomly arise from dumb matter. It came from God, who is infinitely intelligent, and is the source of our finite intelligence.
About numbers, geometry, fractals, and all that, yes, they all have meanings. If you keep reading in Secrets of Heaven, you’ll get lots of explanations of the spiritual meaning of various numbers. Heck, the very first chapter covers the numbers from one to seven, which are the foundational numbers for all the rest. But spiritually, it’s not about numbers or triangles or squares or fractals. Even though those things do exist in the spiritual world, their meanings are all about spiritual things.
For example, three is a number of completeness because it represents love, wisdom, and action, which the three “essential components” of God and of everything that God creates. Two is love and wisdom. But for something stable, like a tripod, you need the third, which is action or function.
That’s how numbers and shapes work out in the spiritual world. It’s not just a “Woooooow! Coooool!” sort of thing. It’s about specific meanings related to how the human mind and spirit work.
Hi Lee,
Thank you for the further explanation and it’s so cool how numbers and factual and mathematical equations all have specific spiritual meanings regarding the human mind and spirit not to mention showing that correspondence like a triangle shape is a tripod which is completeness spiritually. I find myself getting tripped up on the numbers or math equations or whatever else in physical reality since people say these things are our spirit like saying our spirit is made of some unknown matter or whatever physical thing else. Like those in the Bible who worship idols but I need to learn to not focus or get hung up on so much on the object itself but look for its spiritual meaning instead. And I’m definitely going to read those chapters in Secrets of Heaven as well tonight! I’ve been jumping around reading passages but need to start reading them in sequential order.
Thank you kindly Lee
Are so-called psychic or ESP powers (telekinesis, telepathy, remote viewing) possible in the physical according to New Church beliefs? If so, then why do they evade scientific scrutiny, and prizes for proving ESP ability always go unclaimed?
Hi K,
In general, yes, although this is not something practiced or recommended by Swedenborg and New Church people. They are fringe phenomena that aren’t part of or necessary for our process of spiritual rebirth.
They evade scientific scrutiny because natural science is the study of physical phenomena and physical cause-and-effect relationships, whereas these are phenomena that originate in the spiritual world, and do not have physical cause-and-effect relationships. They are therefore also not repeatable under identical or similar physical conditions, which is a necessity for scientific study and experiments.
Telekinesis definitely has physical consequences if it happens though. And remote viewing could be used to obtain info not otherwise available by physical means. So if those are possible to use in the physical, why are those seemingly elusive to scrutiny?
Hi K,
About telekinesis, it will depend upon the spiritual conditions as well as the physical conditions. The very presence of skeptical scientists and their scientific instruments could cause it not to work. It’s the same principle as Jesus not being able to do many miracles in his home town because the people there were skeptical of him. The spiritual atmosphere requires belief for things to happen. Unbelief causes things not to happen. That’s a common element of spiritual law that doesn’t exist in physical law. Remember, the spiritual world is the world of the mind.
About remote viewing, from what I hear it’s been tried, and sometimes it yields results, but it’s not consistent and reliable. The reason for this, I think, is that since remote viewing is done with people’s spiritual eyes rather than their physical eyes, spiritual things can get mixed in with physical things in the experience and the person’s field of vision, and the person doing the remote viewing won’t be able to distinguish them from one another. This would mean that what the remote viewer is seeing will not necessarily represent what’s actually happening in the physical world, or won’t necessarily represent it accurately.
If someone does try to develop ESP abilities in the physical (such as telekinesis or remote viewing), that alone does not necessarily cause any serious issues for someone who believes New Church beliefs?
And of course in the New Church afterlife, such abilities are natural in the spiritual and definitely should not be a problem there?
Hi K,
As long as those abilities are used for good and not evil, there’s no problem with them from a new church perspective. But they will be constrained by the secularism and atheism that exists in the world today, and in general probably won’t be very useful.
And yes, in the spiritual world, angels can do most or all of these things anyway. They wouldn’t even be noticed as something “unusual.”
Are ESP abilities hindered by a lack of belief in the New Church afterlife like you say they are in this life, or is it different there? I think it is different, as Swedenborg claims a whole army of demons cannot stand up to a single angel (assuming the angel does not think power from God is really from himself).
Otherwise that would suck if mere lack of belief could hinder others from using ESP.
Hi K,
I think what I said got a little scrambled in translation.
First, it’s not a lack of specific belief in the New Church afterlife, but a lack of belief in the existence or real influence of the spiritual realm, and spiritual things generally, that hinders spiritually influenced phenomena from happening. Plenty of people believe that the spiritual world is real, but think of it very differently from what Swedenborg describes in his writings. But as long as they believe that spiritual things are real, and are in some sort of relationship with us here on earth, it is possible for spiritual forces to work in their vicinity.
Second, I was thinking more of telekinesis, ghosts, and so on than of ESP. ESP just seems to be an ability that some people apparently have, irrespective of their particular beliefs. They sense other people’s thoughts and feelings. How this works, they don’t necessarily know. Even some materialists believe that ESP is real, but they think it happens through some sort of physically-mediated transfer of information that we just haven’t managed to pinpoint with our current science. However, using the power of the mind to move objects strains scientific credulity more than the transfer of information that characterizes ESP. Telekinesis, poltergeist, and so on are more commonly attributed to spiritual forces operating on the physical realm.
Also, I was talking about these phenomena here on earth. In the spiritual world, these sorts of things happen regularly. People get used to it, and just think of it as how things work. It isn’t any more unusual to them than you typing something on your computer and me reading it moments later thousands of miles away. We’re so used to it that we don’t think of it as something miraculous, even though for someone living two or three hundred years ago, it would seem quite miraculous, if not entirely impossible.
Angels have far more power than demons because angels are tapped into the power of good that comes from God, whereas demons have a much weakened and distorted version that has been filtered out and attenuated on its way from God to them. As an analogy, sunlight shining in through the opening of a cave when the sun is at the right angle will completely drown out any bioluminescence that might be shining its feeble light from the walls or brackish ponds in the cave.
Did Swedenborg ever say dreams are experiencing the spiritual world? If so, then how come at least my dreams can be impacted by stimulus in the real world (like hearing music playing in the dream that is playing IRL), and an altered brain state (like fever delirium making dreams delirious)?
Hi K,
Swedenborg didn’t say that dreams are experiencing the spiritual world, but that they flow from the spiritual world. Visions, by contrast, can be an experience of the spiritual world, though not all visions are. This is some of what he says about “genuine visions”:
However, visions can also be purely symbolic:
Dreams are often symbolic in a way similar to these types of visions:
However, there are different types of dreams:
These statements make it clear enough that though visions can be (but aren’t always) direct experiences of the spiritual world, dreams are symbolic or representational, and happen via correspondences, meaning they are not direct experiences of the spiritual world, but do flow from the spiritual world.
(I should also mention that here in these relatively early sections of Secrets of Heaven Swedenborg is still using his earlier terminology to refer to angels, such as “angelic spirits,” which he would later call “spiritual angels.” These are angels of the middle of the three heavens, which is the “spiritual” heaven. “Angels” in this naming scheme are angels of the highest, “heavenly” or “celestial” heaven. “Good spirits” are what he would later call the angels of the lowest, “earthly” or “natural” heaven.)
This also means that in dreams, we are not seeing what exists in the spiritual world. Rather, we are seeing metaphorical representations of things in the spiritual world. And to answer your question directly, the objects, people, an events in our dreams, even though they represent spiritual things, come from our own mind and experience. Here is a longer quote about how dreams are not the subjects or things in heaven themselves, but things that represent them:
It’s not crystal clear here that these representing things in the dream come from the dreamer’s own mind. However, this is at least in part what Swedenborg is referring to when he says, “The reason, again, is that the things we remember and the things we love are vessels.” An example Swedenborg gives in the next section makes it much clearer that these “things we remember” are things from our own memory:
In other words, this man known to Swedenborg was drawn out of his own memory and appeared in the dream because his character was an existing representation from Swedenborg’s own mind of the subject that that the angels from whom the dream came were talking about.
So again, the direct answer to your question is that dreams do come from the spiritual world, but they use material found in our own memories to build their story, sequence, and symbolism. And if dreams can draw on what’s in our memory, there’s no reason they can’t draw on things reaching our senses while we are dreaming, such as music that’s playing while the person is sleeping. This might be more of an outside intrusion into the dream, but it also might be woven into the dream itself in a seamless way. And of course, the state of our brain/mind will affect dreams because they are being mediated through and affected by our body, brain, and external environment.
All these quotes are from an extended sequence on visions and dreams in Secrets of Heaven. I’ve extracted the parts that are most salient to your question, but I’ve also necessarily left out a lot of interesting material. If you want to read the whole thing, it starts at Secrets of Heaven #1966. The part specifically on dreams starts at 1975, but the part on visions is not long, and the longer sequence on dreams does refer back to it, so it’s best to start at the beginning and read the whole thing.
Assuming any of those spooky ghost videos on YouTube are not fake, how can spirits influence physical inanimate objects, such as moving stuff or showing up on camera (again, assuming that stuff is not faked)? I thought Swedenborg said spirits cannot perceive the physical in Heaven and Hell. Maybe it is a correspondences thing? Or maybe there are special situations where someone in the spiritual can perceive and use magical or so-called psionic power to influence the physical?
Hi K,
Swedenborg does say in a number of places that spirits don’t see the material world. However, he also says, or at least suggests, that they have the ability to see, and even influence, the material world:
In general, spirits don’t see or influence physical things because they’re living their own lives in the spiritual world, and they’re not interested in the physical world. But this unusual statement (for Swedenborg) suggests that spirits can see and “flow into” the physical, whereas the reverse is not possible.
How does this happen? I don’t know for sure. But since the spiritual is within the physical, keeping it in existence, it seems possible that it could also exert an actual influence on the physical, making it do something it wouldn’t normally do based on physical laws. This would not be repeatable or scientifically verifiable, but it apparently can happen in the divine design, as in Jesus turning the water into wine, doing miracles of healing, and so on. It would happen via correspondence, because the relationship between the spiritual and the physical is one of correspondence, not contiguity.
I also have a suspicion that maybe the “limbus” of “the finest things of nature” that we’ve talked about before has something to do with ghost sightings. If the limbus is made of physical substances, perhaps it can become visible as a diaphanous human outline. This would explain why it is visible to cameras, which can see only physical things, not spiritual things. But that’s just a theory. There’s nothing in Swedenborg’s writings that actually says this.
If it turns out hauntings and ghosts are somehow real, and they can influence the physical (like moving stuff around), that does not necessarily contradict what Swedenborg wrote about spirits not being able to perceive the physical, as it could be a special case thing?
Hi K,
There does seem to be that possibility in Swedenborg’s system because spirit can flow into matter, though not the reverse.
What about out-of-body-experiences (OBEs) or remote viewing? That is, if any of that is real despite the research of skeptics, could a mortal in the physical somehow see the physical out-of-body or remotely via ESP, in Swedenborg cosmology?
PS: There was that alleged incident where Swedenborg was somehow able to see that a fire stopped before burning his house down, while he was rather far away at some dinner party (IIRC).
Hi K,
Though it’s not spelled out exactly how it happened, and the accounts of this event are third-party anyway, we don’t know for sure how Swedenborg saw that fire from a distance. I would presume that he saw it with his spiritual eyes. But it’s also possible that he saw it through the eyes of someone in Stockholm. That seems less likely, though, both because this isn’t usually done without the person’s knowledge and consent and because Swedenborg seemed to have a God’s-eye view of the fire, describing its progress, and where it stopped, in a way that would not likely be possible if he were seeing it through the eyes of someone watching the fire from a particular vantage point on the ground.
Hi K,
I’m not an expert on OBEs, but seeing people during their OBEs isn’t a thing, as far as I know. It’s usually all about the experience of the person having the OBE. Having said that, presumably the same mechanism that apparently allows spirits to become minimally visible and/or affect objects in the physical world might also apply to people having OBEs, since it is their spirit that is having the OBE, not their physical body. Alternatively, people at a distance could see and hear with their spiritual senses the person having the OBE. If this sort of thing does occur, that is more likely how it happens.
Expressive mapping: could divine, spiritual, and physical realms map to OS kernel and user space distinction, or protection rings? Divine like i386 Ring 0, spiritual like Ring 1 and 2, and physical like Ring 3? Or mapping to OpenVMS, would divine be like kernel, spiritual like Executive or Supervisor, and physical like applications or user space? You wouldn’t understand that technical stuff.
I’m out of screen time, so I can’t give more.
Hi World Questioner,
I’m a theologian, not a programmer, so I can’t get too technical about this. But in general, reality does resolve into groupings of three elements—also of other groupings, of course but three is a primary one. There is the central driver, the middle executive, and the outer results, corresponding to divine love, divine wisdom, and divine action. This is reflected in the big picture of creation, with God at the center, surrounded by the spiritual realm, and the material realm outside of that—not spatially, but functionally. It would only make sense that this fundamental pattern of God and the universe would also be reflected in computers and computer programming.
Swedenborg was a metaphysicist, right?
The divine, spiritual, and physical realms are metaphysical concepts, right?
The divine is above the spiritual, and the spiritual above the physical, metaphysically, not physically. Right?
Hi World Questioner,
I suppose you could call Swedenborg a metaphysicist, but the usual terms are scientist, philosopher, and theologian.
And I suppose you could call the divine, spiritual, and physical realms metaphysical concepts, but of course, the physical is physical, not metaphysical. The idea that there is a spiritual realm, and a God, is metaphysical by definition, because these are beyond the physical.
And of course the divine and spiritual are not physically above the physical because if they were, they would be physical, not spiritual or divine. So yes, you could say they are metaphysically above the physical, but that’s a tautology. It’s like saying the sky is the sky. The metaphysical is everything beyond the physical.
You said that the physical world is the foundation for the spiritual world. So wouldn’t logically the spiritual realm be the foundation for the divine?
Then in expressive mapping, the physical world would be the hardware, and the spiritual and divine would be software.
Hi World Questioner,
No, the physical world is the foundation, the spiritual world is the house, and God is the one who dwells in the house.
But yes, I think you could consider the physical world to be the hardware and the spiritual world the software, in that the spiritual world is what directs the physical world to do what it does. In this analogy, God would be the programmer and the one who builds the computer.
Probably best not to take the analogy too far, though. The spiritual world also has “hardness” and solidity; it’s just made of spiritual substance, not of physical matter.
God as the programmer? Why didn’t I think of that?
Hi World Questioner,
I don’t know. But you’ve sure asked that a lot of times! 😛
So the afterlife and divine realms of New Church beliefs are not all around you yet at a higher plane or so-called level of vibration, nor are they in some extra-dimensional direction*? So relative to the physical, they are nowhere?
* (like how the Z axis is in an extra-dimensional direction relative to the denizens of the 2D realm of Flatland)
In other words, “where” is the New Church afterlife and divine realms supposed to even be?
Hi K,
God and spirit are nowhere and everywhere at the same time.
In terms of material space and dimensions, they are nowhere, because they are not spatial, and are not located in space. They are not in another dimension a la the third dimension of Flatland, if we take that third dimension literally as a third spatial dimension. They are not located in space at all.
Flatland is a useful metaphor for God and spirit in relation to matter. But the whole point of a metaphor is that you don’t take it literally. God and spirit are not literally another dimension. That would place them within material reality, and they’re not in material reality. They are on two entirely distinct planes of reality that are entirely non-material, non-spatial, and non-temporal.
However, God and spirit are also everywhere, because they are present in and pervade all material things, in all space and time, from within. They are what continually give everything in the material universe its ongoing existence, and where there is life, they are what give it life.
To be fully accurate, God is what gives everything in the material universe its ongoing existence. To slightly paraphrase Swedenborg, existence is ongoing creation (see Secrets of Heaven #3648, Spiritual Experiences #1714). However, God does this, not directly, but through various layers, starting from the spiritual sun, going through the spiritual world, and from there to the material world. So the material world is sustained in existence by the spiritual world, which is sustained in existence by God. (But God is also directly present everywhere.)
In this way, God and spirit are not only everywhere, but they are continually keeping everything in existence from within.
“Within”?
And that “here but at a higher plane or vibration” New Age-y explanation is not how the afterlife and divine realms of New Church works either? Not even remotely so?
Hi K,
“Within” in the same way your mind (not your brain) is within your body. It is present in your body, but it’s not physical, and it’s not temporal or spatial. It is consciousness, which is spiritual, not matter, which is physical.
At a higher vibration, not exactly, unless it’s taken metaphorically rather than literally. Since spiritual and divine things are not in time and space, attributing a higher vibration, as in something moving more rapidly through space, in time, is a conceptual error. But if “a higher vibration” is taken metaphorically as existence and activity at a higher level of reality, then it’s not wrong.
At a higher plane, yes. Not a higher physical plane, as in the sky rather than the ground. But a higher plane in the sense of a different plane of reality that is entirely non-physical.
And “here” in the same sense your mind is “here.” Not as a physical entity, but as a presence within you body. In the same way, the spiritual universe is a presence within all of humanity, and even within all animate and non-animate things in the physical universe.
I doubt New Age believers always believe the so-called vibration is like physical vibration. I think they may think it is more like some phase or level of existence. Otherwise and AFAIK, the higher so-called planes of existence (astral, mental, etc) and the divine realm are all here, but in a different phase or mode of existence. I take it the New Church afterlife (NCA) is still not like that, and somehow defies location and moment, yet is somehow magically sustaining physical existence and is thus somehow connected with everywhere in it?
(the New Age-y explanation is easier to comprehend)
Hi K,
Right. I don’t think most New Agers take the “vibrations” thing too literally. But in general, they have a fuzzy view of reality, so it doesn’t really matter anyway.
Keep in mind that Swedenborg was a major influence on the New Age movement. However, that movement rejected the Christian core of his theology, and accepted only the parts that fit with a more Eastern view of the universe. Their concept of phase or levels of existence (astral, mental, etc.) draws partially on Swedenborg and includes some of the elements of spiritual reality that Swedenborg described. However, Swedenborg’s spiritual realm is much more clearly defined and law-abiding than the New Age spiritual realms.
In New Church belief, could the afterlife realm be relative to the physical what the physical is relative to a hallucination or a VR simulation: the location of the New Church afterlife realm is non-applicable relative to the physical, just like the location of the physical is non-applicable to a realm of a hallucination or VR simulation? Like in a VR simulation, I cannot exactly point to where the physical is?
Hi K,
Yes, that’s a very good illustration of how it works.
In the simulation, the real world is nowhere, because it’s not within the realm of that reality. However, it is also everywhere in that the simulation requires real-world equipment to run. It is being generated by real-world computers, which are continually creating every element of the simulation, and which host it on their servers. Not the tiniest pebble or blade of grass in the simulation exists that isn’t present in the computer memory and code. The two are completely related to each other, but they exist in distinct realms.
Despite that pervasive relationship right down to the details, the simulation doesn’t even know that the computer exists. It operates by its own rules, established by its programming as built into it by the game designers. It operates as if it were independent of the real world even though it is being continually generated by equipment and people in the real world.
The main difference is that neither the physical universe nor the spiritual universe is a simulation. Both are real worlds having real, solid existence. I.e., when you touch something in either the physical world or the spiritual world, you are actually, objectively touching that thing. It’s not a simulation, and it’s not all in your head.
I think this would make a good blog post. 🙂
As I mentioned before, Terry Pratchett called so-called magic a lack of reality (or one could call it reality manipulation if you want it to sound scifi-ish). In real life, I guess if supernatural power really does work in the physical, it could be called lack of physical reality to be more precise: either way, such is like so-called cheat codes in a video game on the way the physical works, to pull off stuff like walking on water or turning water into wine.
Hi K,
Since there’s not an actual question here that I can see, I’ll just comment that according to Swedenborg, the main reasons Jesus did miracles were: a) because the people of the time were very materialistic, and would pay attention only if there were physical miracles, and b) because all the miracles have spiritual significance related to our process of spiritual rebirth. He further stated that after the Apostolic period the miracles largely ceased because they were no longer necessary.
As far as how the miracles of Jesus and the Apostles were accomplished, he said they were done through correspondences, which basically means bringing spiritual forces to bear in a specific way in which spiritual forces work on corresponding physical realities. So the miracles themselves actually embody their spiritual meaning.
What I meant to ask is the way so-called magic or supernatural powers or spiritual forces acting on the physical works is ultimately a so-called lack of reality (that is, physical reality)? Or in other words, so-called cheat codes on the physical?
Hi K,
No. It’s a greater reality acting on a lesser reality.
I think if it does work what way it could look as I described if one is only looking at the physical. Like ordinarily in the physical, one cannot walk on water because of stuff like surface tension and buoyancy limitations. But if there is a so-called lack of reality or reality manipulation there (again, looking just at the physical), then walking on water does become possible.
For another example, ordinarily a physical object does not move by itself in response to mere thought, since when looking at just the physical, thought is (or is related to) electrochemical activity in the brain. But with telekinesis working, some kind of lack of reality responds to that thought and the object moves, seemingly violating conservation of momentum (again, this is only looking at the physical).
Hi K,
Obviously, for someone who looks at things only from a physical perspective, something supernatural happening would look like magic. And to a colorblind person, everything looks like shades of gray.
But supernatural influence on the natural, looking at only the natural, would be as I describe: a so-called lack of reality or reality manipulation?
And looking at the big picture, could the way the physical normally works be like the normal functions of a VR simulation, while so-called magic or the supernatural happening in the physical is like manually altering the normal working of the simulation from outside?