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Thread: Swedenborg: The Father of Astral Projection

  1. #11
    Ioolo Guest
    Fantastic read! I had only read briefly about ES but he was a true inspiration. Thanks for sharing

  2. #12
    Berserk Guest
    [Thans Ioolo]

    PART TWO: HEAVEN

    In the heavens communication is telepathic, and so, is no longer based on human languages. As ES puts it, "They are not able to utter...any name (AC 1876)." There is no time as we know it in the heavens. This transcendence of time explains why ES's angels can be so accurate in their predictions. Modern adepts are often fooled by astral predictions that emanate from ignorant but pretentious lower planes.

    ES encounters beings from other planets in the universe who expand the immensity of heaven. In the heavens, everyone lives in societies with people of similar uses and disposition. The stereotype of a boring heaven of sterile rest and worship is admittedly reinforced by many Christians. But ES's astral travels reveal that heaven is far from a place of ideness. Everyone there has spiritual work to do:

    "Some spirits have believed that heavenly happiness consisted of a life of leisure. Then they were shown in many ways that heavenly life consists of...thoughtful actions...that are services to others...So that these people might feel shame...they are allowed to perceive what kind of life this [idleness] would be. They see that it is thoroughly miserable (HH 403)."

    ES's picture fits neatly with biblical teaching. St. Paul asks rhetorically: "Don't you know that the saints will judge the world?...Don't you know that we will judge angels (1 Corinthians 6:2-3)?" The Greek for "judge" can be translated "exercise jursidiction over" and the Greek for "world" ("kosmos") can be translated "universe". So Paul's questions might be translated; "Don't you know that we will have jurisdiction over angel?" and "Don't you know that the saints will exercise jurisdiction over the universe?" Thus understood, the latter question may imply a future role for humans as co-creators with God in new universes! In this regard, the identity of the "us" in Genesis 1:27 is intriguing: "Let us make man in our image." This can be neither a literary we nor a reference to the Trinity. So the "us" may refer to intelligent beings from prior creations and may thus hint at our ultimate destiny. ES learns that there is government in heaven, but only those who are truly useful to others are allowed such power. This insight parallels Jesus claim that the extent of personal civic jurisdiction in heaven depends on one's faithfulness in performing earthly responsibilities (Luke 19:16-19).

    Spirits in the hells and the intermediate realm (ES's "world of spirits") are visible to souls in the heavens. But "the heavens are not visible to spirits in the world of spirits unless their spiritual sight has been opened (HH 583)." Those bound for heaven sense that there is an ultimate higher power and are determined to relate to it.

    In my view, Robert Monroe's aversion to the loving God of conventional spiritualities prevents him from exploring the heavens beyond Focus 27. Some of his "Knowns" seem traceable to misunderstandings emanating from the lower astral planes: e.g.

    "These to me are Knowns: This, our Creator...does not demand worship, adoration, or recognition, does not punish for `evil' or `misdeeds', does not intercede or interdict in our life activity (UJ 224-25)."

    His biased terms "demand" and "punish" deflect attention away from two truths disclosed by ES's angels: (1) the heavenbound delight in worshiping God and feasting on His love. (2) Many people are truly evil, but they in effect punish themselves by choosing to ignore the godly loving path in favor of the hellbound path on the basis of the principle like attracts like.

    Entities from the lower astral convey a contrary narcissistic principle to Monroe: "There is no good, there is no evil. There is only expression (UJ 217)." This stress on self (valueless self-expression) stands in contrast with the resolve of the heavenbound according to ES: their humility and respect for the greatness of creation fuels a deep resolve to be with others and be of significant use to them. In the heavens, says ES, the joy of one is the joy of all. By contrast, the general design of the hells is an orientation towards self over others. This splits existence apart and causes hell's dissension. Despite this, those with this orientation will most comfortably drift towards the company of likeminded people in the hells because they nevertheless feel better there than in the company of saints. It just suits them better than the heavens.

    According to Monroe, in the astral planes, "there is no greater, there is no lesser. There is only balance (UJ 217)." This claim echoes ES's principle which, in my view, expresses this truth more accurately: "The relationship of heaven and hell...is like that of two opposites that act against each other.. This action and reaction yield a state of equilibrium within which everything exists...This is the spiritual balance which provides us with our freedom for thinking and intending (HH 536-57)." Thus, hell is part of the enrichment of ultimate possibilities.

    In my view, ES's most striking and original contribution to our understanding of the afterlife is also his most controversial: his insights of the role of "correspondences" in the fabric of existence. I will tackle this issue in my next planned post.

    Don

  3. #13
    Berserk Guest
    VII. SWEDENBORG'S THEORY OF CORRESPONDENCE:
    (1) THE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN SPACE OR DISTANCE AS
    PSYCHOLOGICAL CHANGE OF STATES:

    This is the first in a series of posts on ES's discovery of how the principle of correspondence determines the structure of spiritual reality. ES learns that there is no space in heaven. What corresponds to distance are the feelings we have for each other. To quote ES's "Heaven and Hell:"

    "People who are nearby are the ones in a similar state and the ones who are far away are in dissimilar states. This is why space in heaven is nothing but the outward states that correspond to the inner ones. This is the only reason why the heavens are differentiated from each other; as are the communities in each heaven and the individuals in each community. It is also why the hells are completely separate from the heavens. They are in an opposite state (hh 193)."

    "This is also why in the spiritual world one individual is present to another only if that presence is intensely desired. This is because one person sees another in thought in this way and identifies with that individual's state. Conversely, one person moves away from another to the extent that there is any sense of reluctance. Whenever people move from one place to another, whether it is in their town, their courtyards, in their gardens, or to people outside their own community, tbey go there more quickly if they are eager to and more slowly if they are not. The path itself is lengthened or shortened depending on their desire, even though it is the same path. We can illustrate this by our own thoughts. . .for whatever we focus on intently in our thought is seemingly present (HH #194-96)."

    This psychological equivalence to earthly spacial relationships among heavenly communities raises interesting questions. Most of us have multi-faceted loves and tastes. Assume for the sake of argument that I wind up in heaven. I enjoy the company of men who make me laugh, men who love sports, and men who stimuate me intellectually. I enjoy the company of women who have the gift of empathy, women who charm me, and women who balance me because they are very different from me, etc. Let us assume that people of each type enjoy my company equally and are equally evolved in their spirituality. How will the "geography" of these personality types be worked out? What combination of strengths, interests, and quirks would bring my "type" together into a heavenly community? Would I be with comedians who make me laugh, with men who stimulate me intellectually, with women who charm me, but are very different from me, etc.? How can love be quantified? Does God have some hierarchy of values that elevates some loving personality types to a higher level than others? If so, what are they? Perhaps, it is simply a matter of the purity and frequency of a soul's vibration. So many questions, so few answers!

    Don

  4. #14
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    I would say that God does not elevate or separate, that our resonance does-and frankly, love is the 'glue' that binds, or the magnet that connects. Kind of like polymerization- Given the right conditions compatible souls find themselves, and God is the condition.
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    "Stop acting as if life is a rehearsal" Dr. Wayne Dyer.

  5. #15
    Berserk Guest
    VII (2) EVOLUTI0N AND CORRESPONDENCE

    ES discovers that in both the spiritual and natural worlds each person, animal, plant, and mineral is encompassed by its spiritual replica, an energy sphere which continually emanates from it. ""Thus the natural world derives from the spiritual, and the spiritual from the Divine (DLW 283)." This insight is independently confirmed by channeled material from deceased Oxford professor F. W. Myers. Myers confirms the truth of the widely espoused "as above, so below" principle. Myers reveals that dinosaurs existed in the spirit world before they became physical and that their prior existence as spirits was essential to their emergence on Earth. If ES had known about dinosaurs, he would no doubt agree. He reports:

    "This whole natural world is responsive to the spiritual world--the natural not just in general but in detail. So whatever arises in the natural world is called `something that corresponds'. It must be realized that the natural world arises from and is sustained in beng by the spiritual world exactly the way an effect relates to an efficient cause (HH 89)."

    "Now because every single thing remains in being from the Divine,...and every single thing from that source is inevitably a representative of the real thing by means of which it has come into being, the whole visible universe is therefore nothing else than a theatre that is representative of the Lord's kingdom. And this in turn is a theatre representative of the Lord Himself (AC 483),"

    So ES does not simply believe that God spoke and "Poof!" life appeared. For ES, Nature provides a mechanism whereby the Lord's life reaches down to ultimates [evolved states] and returns to Himself through higher and higher "uses" (DLW 180, 316). Both evolution and some form of reincarnation are at least consistent with this scheme of things.

    ES reveres biblical truth but insists that the Genesis creation story cannot be taken literally. He precedes Darwin by almost a century and inevitably makes mistakes in his speculations about the development of life forms. But he anticipates the general drift of modern evolutionary theory. He recognizes the tiny lichen on a rock as a developmental prelude to emerging forests. He believes that each order of plants gives birth to a corresponding order of animals (WLG 30). He traces the modern human species back to a primordial prehuman stage (SD 3390).

    In my view, he anticipates and corrects a flaw in the evolutionary principle of natural selection. Natural selection assumes that chance variations create genetic advantages that improve the chances of survival. ES accepts the role of randomness in creation, but insists that the Lord controls chance or probabiliity distributions (AC 550. His anticipation of evolutionary theory a century before Darwin is yet another confirmation of the validity of his gift of astral projection.

    In my next planned post, I will discuss how his views on the origin and development of life forms find confirmation in modern scientific experiments.

    Don

  6. #16
    Berserk Guest
    VII (3) SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS THAT SEEM TO VERIFY SWEDENBORG'S INSIGHTS INTO ENERGY SPHERES:

    Biologist Rupert Sheldrake argues that the DNA molecule cannot contain all the information essential to the organism's formation; rather, DNA is a finely tuned receptor which taps into the information contained in the "morphogenetic field" of that organism, a field that seems to be the functional equivalent of ES's energy spheres flowing out from each organism. Sheldrake contends that the form, development, and behavior of living organisms are shaped and maintained by this field together with genetic inheritance. In a sense, these fields function like a kind of species memory through which the newly acquired characteristics of prior generations can be passed on to future ones. The key to species evolution is this: the condition of an organism's systems is constantly updated in these fields.

    Sheldrake put his theory to the test in an experiment he conducted on live TV. Millions of BBC viewers were taught to see hidden images in puzzle pictures. Before the program aired, a base line was established by observing how well people could distinguish the hidden image. After the program, people from all over the world who could not have seen or heard the program were again asked to find the image. The results indicated significant improvement in the worldwide ability of non-viewers to distinguish the image.

    Sheldrake was building on the findings of animal research. (1) At Harvard experiments on rats found that children of rats mastered a maze much faster (tenfold) than their parents, even though the offspring were not born at the time their parents were tested. This result was replicated in both Scotland and Australia and the rats' performance dramatically improved from place to place even though there was no physical contact among the geographically separated rats.

    (2) In pre-WW2 Europe, milk was home-delivered in cartons. A bird species (bluetits) suddenly began to land on top of the cartons, remove the cover, and drink the cream. Some of the birds were even found drowned inside the cartions! Bluetits have a range of 4-5 miles. Yet this practice spread for a hundred miles within a year. The same phenomenon occurred in Scandanavia and Holland. Milk delivery ceased during the German occupation of Europe during WW2. Bluetits only have a 2-3 year life expectancy; so all the avian cream drinkers died off. But after the war, bluetits resumed their cream drinking and this habit spread just as before WW2.

    (3) Fontana (p. 22-23) discusses a study in which measurements were taken of electrodermal reactions on the skin of receivers while they were subjected to a series of both arousing and calming thoughts from a sender in another room. The sender would visualize the receivers in a very fearful situation or as relaxing on a sunlit beach. The receivers had no idea which type of thoughts were being sent. Thus the experiments show that even when receivers have no conscious awareness of whether they are receiving arousing or calming thoughts, the unconscious or morphogenetic field seems to be receiving the information and registering it in physiological reactions.

    Don

  7. #17
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    I like Sheldrake's theories. I just wish he would stop trying to quantify his fields and call them 'chreodes'. That name bothers me, although I do like his ideas.
    https://linktr.ee/CoralieCFTraveler
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    "Stop acting as if life is a rehearsal" Dr. Wayne Dyer.

  8. #18
    Berserk Guest
    VII (4): THE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THE HEAVENLY REALMS AND
    ONE'S INNER REALITY

    Some of our dreams are merely faint echoes of the prior day's events. Others are triggered by bodily issues. But our more important dreams use imagery to dramatically represent the dreamer's situation in life. Our minds are designed with a self-corrective internal guidance system that is more brilliant than we seem to be. After our more poignant dreams, we often ask ourselves, "Where did I come up with that?" Aspects of our dreams can be attributed to influxes from like-minded disnarnates in the world of spirits. We can gain insights into symbolism in the heavens from the symbolism in our more significant dreams.

    Like dreams, the spirit in heaven finds herself in a world of representations; she is beginning to meet her own nature in the things, people, and settings that surround her. Like attracts like.

    "[Spirits] actually accept and absorb whatever agrees with their life. They do not accept much less absorb, what does not agree. This is because spirits are affections, and therefore have a human form that resembles their affections (HH 517)."

    "Seen in any of heaven's light, all the spirits in the hells appear in the form of their own evil. Each one is in fact an image of his or her own evil, since for each individual the inner and outer natures are acting as a unit, with the deeper elements presenting themselves to view in the outer ones--in the face, the body, the speech, and the behavior. So you can tell what they are like by looking at them (HH 553)." "Angels can know the essentials of a person's life from just few uttered words (HH 236)."

    Each person spontaneously designs and eventually comes to the spiritual realm of his own choices. Spiritually rich inner states reflect in surroundings that are gorgeous and rich. Barren inner states reflect in wretched surroundings.

    There are buildings, cities, hills, woods. etc. But these are psychological realities corresponding to inner states. There are meals, but spiritual food has inner implications for the life and development of individuals. The garments one finds in one's closet reflect changes in one's qualities.

    Don

  9. #19
    Berserk Guest
    VII (5): ES ON CORRESPONDENCE AS THE KEY TO DIVINATION

    ES writes: "The whole natural world is responsive to the spiritual world--the natural world not just in general, but in detail. So whatever arises in the natural world out of the spiritual one is called `something that corresponds' (HH 89-90)."

    A. HOW TO KILL WITH ASTROLOGY:

    This aspect of correspondence might explain the various types of divination. The most fascinating (if ghastly) radio interview I ever heard was with astrologer Jack Gillam. At the birth of his son, Jack noted a "death aspect" on his son's horoscope that would become effective on the boy's 3rd birthday. When this birthday arrived, Jack's wife kept the boy in the kitchen to keep an eye on him. But when the phone rang, she got distracted and the child toddled out of the house, crawled through a hole in the fence, and headed for an apartment block next door. The little boy fell into the outdoor swimming pool. A 12-year-girl by the pool could easily have saved him, but she ran off screaming, and so, he drowned.

    Psychiatrist Carl Jung did a study of astrological compatibility between couples. He found that the predicted astrological correlation clearly confirmed their compatibility. Years later, Jung had second thoughts about these results. Why should planetary relationships have anything to do with love? He tried to replicate his earlier study. This time he found no correlation between planetary configuration and romantic compatibility. So why the difference? Apparently, Jung's open curiosity in the first study attracted to him just those people whose horoscopes would create the illusion of astrological validity. Jung calls this synchronicity. In my view, Jack Gillam's belief in astrological "death aspects" worked like black magic attracting the event that he most feared. His son's premature death was no doubt facilitated by influxes from negative spirits.

    B. MY SPECTACULAR CARD READING:

    When I was in grad school, I reluctantly agreed to take my date to the New England flower show. Quickly bored, I noted two card readers sitting at a table. One read regular playing cards and charged $5; the other read Tarot cards and charged $35. I had never had a card reading before and didn't really believe in it. So I chose the cheaper reading.

    The reader asked me to draw 3 cards. The cards looked like a lousy poker hand to me. Then she told me 4 things: (1) I should dump the gal I brought to the show. This amused me because my date had sneered at the readers when she passed them and I took this advice as the reader's revenge. But the reader was right: we were incompatible. (2) Then the reader told me I had serious issues with women. My ex-girlfriend, Janet, had recently committed suicide, but this comment seemed too vague to impress me. (3) Next, she told me I was good with children and implied that I'd be working with them very soon. This seemed absurd to me. I was working on my doctoral thesis and had no time for kids. (4) Finally, she told me that in the next few days I'd be receiving a job offer from an exotic place, but that I should not accept it. I dismissed this too because I hadn't even applied for a job. When the reading was over, I'm sure she thought I viewed her as a fake.

    The next week, I got a call from my thesis advisor asking me about an overdue chapter of my thesis. While I made excuses, he told me he was the commissioner of the Arlington Youth Soccer Federation and that he needed a coach for an under-12 boys team. He knew I'd played soccer in Canada and asked me if I'd do it. How could I say no to my thesis advisor? I felt manipulated and thought I'd hate it. In fact, the 3 years I coached those boys were one of the highlites of my life. I had never been married, but those boys became like the sons I would never have. The next year we were undefeated and made it to the county championship game which we lost 2-1. So the reader was absolutely correct about point (3).

    Two days after the reading, I received an odd call from a professor in Newfoundland. He asked me if I'd be willing to come and teach in his university there. I was dumbfounded because I hadn't applied for the job. I reluctantly turned it down because I wasn't close to finishing my thesis. The reader had said I'd immediately get a job offer from an "exotic" place that I should turn down! Newfoundland seems pretty exotic to me. So the reader's fourth point proved absolutely amazing!

    So how did my bad poker hand yield such spectacular clairvoyance? For the same reason that Gillam's death aspect proved true. I'll quote Van Dusen's Swedenborgian perspective (p. 185):

    "Astrology is an example of correspondence between the inner person and planetary configurations. The ancients had a whole host of ways of trying to divine the future and find evidence by the arrangement of material things: the fall of cards (Tarot), tea leaves, yarrow sticks (I Ching), cracked bones, etc. Usually these systems required a considerable amount of interpretation that allowed some projection of inner processes."

    I'm puzzled by several aspects of ES's principle of correspondence. But he seems to have identified a spiritual principle that can can be both beneficial and a source of devastating evil. I wish I had a better handle on this principle.

    Don

  10. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by Berserk
    VII (4): THE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THE HEAVENLY REALMS AND
    ONE'S INNER REALITY

    Like dreams, the spirit in heaven finds herself in a world of representations; she is beginning to meet her own nature in the things, people, and settings that surround her. Like attracts like.

    "[Spirits] actually accept and absorb whatever agrees with their life. They do not accept much less absorb, what does not agree. This is because spirits are affections, and therefore have a human form that resembles their affections (HH 517)."

    "Seen in any of heaven's light, all the spirits in the hells appear in the form of their own evil. Each one is in fact an image of his or her own evil, since for each individual the inner and outer natures are acting as a unit, with the deeper elements presenting themselves to view in the outer ones--in the face, the body, the speech, and the behavior. So you can tell what they are like by looking at them (HH 553)." "Angels can know the essentials of a person's life from just few uttered words (HH 236)."

    Each person spontaneously designs and eventually comes to the spiritual realm of his own choices. Spiritually rich inner states reflect in surroundings that are gorgeous and rich. Barren inner states reflect in wretched surroundings.

    There are buildings, cities, hills, woods. etc. But these are psychological realities corresponding to inner states. There are meals, but spiritual food has inner implications for the life and development of individuals. The garments one finds in one's closet reflect changes in one's qualities.

    Don
    There is an author (whose name escapes me- I lent the book out and it never came back) who believes that at death our spirits and souls separate and one of them reincarnates and the other one goes into this self-creation until in the future they become reunited. He equates one of them with our temporary rationality and the other with our subconscious, which really lives in our memories. He postulates that the part of us that is 'being' loses all memories of everything and stays in bliss, and then goes on to reincarnate, while the 'subconscious' part of us, the part that doesn't have decision-making capabilities, continues reliving it's past (whether positive or negative) thereby creating a continuation of it's previous existence, and impressing itself or becoming its part of the akashic records. According to him, the more aware a person is of his/her subconscious processes at the moment of death, the better chances he has of creating a positive hereafter and someday reuniting with it's 'spark'.
    I can't remember the author's name, but the book was called "The missing secret of death" or something like that. I found the theory compelling even though I didn't necessarily agree with everything 100%. But then I hardly ever do.
    https://linktr.ee/CoralieCFTraveler
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