What goes up must come down

Everyone can comprehend the reality that if you throw a stone into the air it will fall back to earth. This universal law of nature can be applied to our lives as well. The human mind can also rise up to noble and rarefied ideals but then come crashing down if it allows the physical body to succumb to the vanities and allurements of the world.

However, even a person who sustains his or her spiritual integrity must eventually come back down to earth in order to be truly useful to society. But in this second scenario the body is acting in conjunction with the higher ideals of the mind (so there is no crash).

According to scientist/theologian Emanuel Swedenborg the growth of the human mind is based on God’s strategy of salvation. I have studied his ideas for dozens and dozens of years and noticed that this divine strategy moves in two opposite directions!

In Swedenborg’s book Divine Love And Wisdom he describes an upward trajectory in human mental growth. As children, we first develop our minds from an innate curiosity and affection for knowledge. Later as we get older, we seek to understand more deeply what we know in our memory. Finally, we seek from our understanding the things that most represent truth for us in order to acquire wisdom. It is at this stage when an individual is seeking truth and wisdom that the Lord God wishes to instill spiritual principles.

In Swedeborg’s biblical exegesis, the Arcana Coelestia (heavenly secrets), he describes a downward trajectory. This downward trajectory is symbolically expressed in the Genesis story of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Abraham, who was guided by God to go on a special journey, represents one who has been given spiritual principles. This wisdom is only intellectual and is not yet real spiritual wisdom until it affects the heart. In order to affect the heart, spiritual wisdom must bring forth a new activity in the understanding (rational mind) and a new activity in the body (from the corporeal/natural mind). The birth of Isaac and Jacob represent the downward trajectory and progeny of God’s wisdom bringing forth new activity in the human mind and bodily action (spiritual deeds).

Obviously, one isn’t really wise unless one acts wisely in the body and in the world.

People can acquire great knowledge and still act like fools.

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The College Student And The Magical Glasses

Once upon a time a bright college student named Bobby attended a lively debate on campus about the Holy Bible. The three speakers in the debate consisted of an atheist, a fundamentalist Christian, and a liberation theologian promoting biblical relativism.

The fundamentalist argued that God’s Holy Word was inerrant and having true religious faith required that every bit of it must be literally believed.

The atheist argued that if the Bible was a deposit of absolute truth, then God was a jealous, revengeful, war mongering, biased and land-grabbing Deity—not a God of Infinite love, wisdom and mercy. Besides, the Bible offered no rational response to the modern scientific theories of creation and evolution.

The liberation theologian argued that the stories of the Bible needed to be interpreted as a universal saving event and that contemporary men and women must find the relevancy of transformed existence for themselves. Liberation was the central core of the Bible stories.

Later that night Bobby returned to his dorm room and thought more deeply about the discussion of scriptural authority. Was the Word of God a perfect heavenly document or the work of imaginative human writers who were influenced by cultural, economic, political and personal circumstances? He found the topic every bit as perplexing as quantum physics. How could he ever find visceral confirmation to any point of view concerning the Bible’s inerrancy and authority? He felt that the fantastic images and events portrayed in Revelation challenged the scientific assumptions of modern cosmology, yet he sensed something powerful in John’s prophetical vision.

The thought of never finding an adequate conclusion made Bobby feel ill and intellectually exhausted so he lay down in bed.

Suddenly a beautiful angel appeared in Bobby’s room. “Don’t be alarmed,” said the angel. “You have a sincere heart to learn so I have been sent here to teach you amazing new things concerning God’s Word.”

“Is Scripture inerrant and sacred?” asked the wide-eyed student.

“Yes, but not in the way you think,” responded the heavenly creature.

“Things are either true or they are not true,” came the confused student’s reply.

“Go to your bookshelf and grab your Bible. Then begin reading through the Genesis chapters concerning Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,” said the angel.

Bobby gabbed his copy of the Bible, sat back on his bed, and opened it to the pages that the angel instructed him to read.

“Before you start to read put on these special glasses,” said the angel and handed Bobby a pair of unusual glasses with magical lenses.

“What kind of glasses are these?” asked the surprised student.

“They are special 3-D glasses from heaven. They will help you see new things within the linear stories of scripture that the human eye easily misses.”

Bobby put the magical glasses on and began to read from the Bible. “Wow! What is happening? The whole story has changed!” Bobby took off his glasses and gazed at the words on the pages. “When the glasses are off, I only understand the literal meaning of the words. But when I am looking through these glasses I see higher meanings being expressed!”

“What does the Bible teach with the glasses on?” tested the angel.

“The story of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is about the spiritual process of how God transforms the human heart and mind,” came Bobby’s excited response. “I would never have expected that such a thing were possible.”

“Now put your glasses back on and look even deeper,” said the angel with a loving smile.”

Bobby put the glasses back on and went over the very same biblical passages again. “I don’t believe what I am now seeing!” he exclaimed. “The very same story is now informing me of how the Lord made his human nature fully divine while on earth and conquered all the forces of hell to restore the process of salvation!”

“Correct!” said the joyful angel. “God’s Holy Word has three tiers of meaning. On the lowest level is the literal meaning of the words. Above this, the words convey a purely spiritual meaning that is eternally relevant to everyone’s individual salvation. At the highest level the words address the Divine drama of the Lord’s glorification through perfectly unifying his human essence (Jesus) with his divine essence (the Father). That is why I said that God’s Holy Word was ‘inerrant’ in ways that you did not suspect. Only God can communicate in such a profound and transcendental way!”

“The world needs to know these things!” said Bobby.

“Yes, and God is sending angelic influences to all those who are open to new divine revelations.”

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Tiger Woods admits transgressions

Apparently Tiger Woods has finally admitted to transgressions after a new woman has come forward with information that she had an affair with the married golfer. I think Tiger is now making the right decision to come clean—not just for the public’s sake and his image but for his spiritual future and welfare.

Tiger seems to be willing to employ sincere introspection and make some changes. I applaud this. I also hope he turns to God for guidance.

What strikes me first about all this is that Tiger’s wife is a stunningly beautiful woman. Apparently, a woman’s beauty has little affect on whether a man is faithful. How can this be? It doesn’t seem rational.

According to scientist/theologian Emanuel Swedenborg, faithfulness in men has to do with spirituality.

One of Swedenborg’s visionary insights was that women are born with the strong inclination to love one man. This is their “prince.” However, men are born with the love of the entire opposite sex. Men’s eyes wander before and after they are married. For the male sex to focus love on one woman, it requires sincere spiritual growth and a change of behavior.

In other words, what comes naturally with women has to be acquired through spiritual effort with men. That is why women are much more concerned with the inner quality of their suitors than men are. Let me make an analogy. In the same way that a male’s sperm is received into a woman’s sexual organs, a wife also psychologically takes the image and quality of her husband’s life deeply into her own. Cultivating this image in her thoughts and feelings is how a woman makes herself a wife. So when a husband cheats, the truth of his image that has been cultivated and adored deep within the very life fabric of a woman is shattered.

Men do not know about this inner union and its sacredness. Men have to learn about the spiritual significance of sexual penetration and that it is more than a penis that gets inside a women.

While my new book Proving God touches on this important topic, Emanuel Swedenborg’s wonderful work Conjugial Love offers a full account and deep spiritual insight into the way each sex approaches marital relationships and how marriage is God’s ultimate scheme for human souls to reach their true heavenly potential.

To order a copy of Conjugial Love go to http://www.swedenborg.com

We can be touched by a hand or a mind

All awareness and perception represents some kind of sense of touch. Through our sensitive skin we can feel someone touching us. We sense taste when objects touch our tongue. Smells, fragrances and odors touch organs of sensation in the nose. Sounds touch sensitive structures in the ear. And light (electromagnetic waves) touches receptors in the retina.

Interestingly, each of these distinct senses allows us to be touched by things at increasingly further distances. But the human mind can also be touched by a minister’s sermon or an inspirational message (something an animal cannot experience). When one considers that the mental ideas and concepts being communicated by a sermon (or any other human communication) are not restricted by the physical laws of spacetime, then one must assume that the human mind is sensitive to a non-material realm. (If the human mind operates from quantum processes, as some physicists theorize, then its dynamics are certainly non-local.)

We can like or dislike the way things feel, taste, smell, sound or look. We also can like or dislike ideas and ideologies. We can embrace or reject God.

Science is said to deal with factual objective data, not values. Yet every distinct function of human sensation is tempered by a value (which is a derivative of love representing some perceived goodness). Even a scientist seeks to find truth from the good that will come from it (whether for personal reward or to genuinely help society)!

What the Neo-Darwinian synthesis overlooks is that deep within the brain’s neural substrates, the human mind has more interior sensory capacities. Pioneering researchers in neuroscience are now suspecting that the neuron itself contains deeper levels of cognitive architecture—to explain the higher operations of reasoning and abstract thought. The point is that human evolution has its trajectory towards a non-physical realm through a choice of values.

Religion (untainted by human prudence) is God’s strategy to allow human bio-complexity to properly adapt to a non-physical world (heaven). This is accomplished through humans who adopt spiritual values, which in turn, subordinate and coordinate an individual’s deepest inner fabric according to heavenly order and life.

If this topic interests you, visit http://www.provinggod.com

The Descent and Ascent of Process

If we contemplate for a moment about the actions of our lives, we will discover that there is both a “downward” and “upward” trajectory (involution and evolution) within the fullness of a completed task.

A conscious human action starts from some intention, passion, or disposition of the will. From the endeavor of the will, causal process descends into forms of thought that allow us to intellectually see how to reach our goal. The goal is finally reached when this process, started in the will, descends into the actions of the physical body.

Science calls this top-down causation. However, what is not taken into account is that when a goal is reached the process turns back “upwards” through the human psyche to its primal soil or causal principle. This can be verified through direct human experience if we are observant and mindful.

The will starts from a recognition that a certain goal is a delightful pursuit and harmonious to its values. The will then adapts the ideas of the mind to match its disposition. In other words, all thoughts and ideas are mental forms (embodiment) of the will’s desires. Bodily action is the full outward manifestation of the will and thought within time and space. But once a goal has been achieved through the physical body, its success is verified higher up by the human intellect then rises to the delight in the will where the whole process started.

What materialistic science needs to understand is that first principles return to first principles. Causal process descends from a non-physical and non-local beginning through discrete (non-continuous) steps and returns back up through those same steps to a non-physical dimension. (Some forward thinking physicists acknowledge that the mind operates outside of time and space).

According to scientist/theologian Emanuel Swedenborg, this down-and-up causal trajectory is a mirror image of God’s purposeful action within the scheme of creation and evolution. Creation begins from a non-physical realm (God’s heaven) and descends, through increasing lawful constraints into inert matter. Evolution starts from inert matter and ascends through more complex life forms with increased intelligence and consciousness—until we get to the human race, which has the God-given capacity to return to heaven.

This universal patterning principle is what gives process coherence, order, and allows the universe to be self-consistent. It would take a book to explore this subject more deeply, so I have done just that. The book is Proving God and will be available in Spring 2010.

To find out if such a book would interest you, take a peek at:

http://www.provinggod.com

The Infinite Potency Of A Single Seed

Scientists don’t like infinities showing up in their equations. However, the two pillars of modern physics, relativity theory and quantum theory, both plague scientists with the problem of infinity. General relativity describes the singularity of the Big Bang as a dimensionless point of infinite gravity and curvature of space. Quantum physics offers up states of infinite possibilities within a non-temporal and non-local realm.

Infinities bring unwanted complexities into scientific models. But indeed, current theories suggest that the whole expanding and evolving universe had its prenatal existence in a realm removed from any involvement with time and space. In other words, fundamental reality is not physical.

The subject of infinity is not just some abstract mathematical concept. Infinity can also be found in the potency of all organic life. For instance, a single seed from an apple tree contains within it a potential orchard of apple trees. In fact, the whole earth could be covered in apple trees from a single seed if it were allowed to. Moreover, everything from insects to humans could multiply and smother the earth if disease, competition, predation or finite resources were removed from the equation.

Life has an infinite potency. This reality is a direct smack in the face of physical science, which likes to keep things tidy through the exploration of finite quantities.

How does infinite life hide in a single tiny seed? It seems that infinite things are not constrained by physical size or measurement (like the singularity of the Big Bang theory).

Scientist/theologian Emanuel Swedenborg claimed that universal nature is a theater that mirrors the Lord God’s infinite heavenly kingdom—which is spiritual and beyond spacetime or physical matter.

Neither traditional religion nor the New Physics offers any rational insight into understanding a dynamical world void of physical limits and taken out of relation to spaces and times. But this will be the future challenge for both religion and science.

To offer clues and point religion and science in the right direction I have written a new book Proving God. I attempt not only to show how complex order and life can operate in a spiritual (non-physical) realm but that the physics ruling the universe on a fundamental level are expressions of spiritual forces and laws operating in pre-space. All finite entities in the universe are recipient forms of God’s infinite influence (influx).

http://www.provinggod.com

Black Friday and Spiritual Hedonism

Have you ever wondered what the angels in heaven do on Black Friday? Do they have any hedonistic tendencies like so many of us on the terrestrial plane? Do they shop?

The answer is yes!

It may seem like the words “spiritual” and “hedonism” are contradictory terms. The human species is often described as being hedonistic, that is, humans are pleasure seekers. While spiritual beings, like angels, forgo physical pleasure and live in eternal adoration of God and find their heart’s delight in receiving divine gifts.

But what is just starting to be understood by neuroscientists is that the heart occupies the cockpit of the mind. Our feelings focus the intellect upon a subject or object and arrange the contents of one’s memory according to what gives us delight and pleasure.  Nothing is purchased or owned by the mind unless it represents the yearning of the heart. This pleasure seeking process is not only subjective it is hierarchical.

Pleasure can be sought in physical things, creative things, intellectual things and spiritual things. These various pleasures are distinct from each other—meaning that we can all have our heart’s desire on different levels.

As I hinted above, angels also shop for things that will give the deepest delight to themselves and to others. These heavenly pleasures are God’s gifts of spiritual goodness and their accompanying truths.

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:21

What do you seek?

http://www.innergardening.net

What is the greatest holiday blessing one can pray for?

Since this is a hectic time of the year I will make this blog post really short.

It is a holiday tradition to thank God for the blessings we have received in life. But what is the greatest blessing of all? Health? Family? Employment? A 20-pound turkey on the table?

The most important thing to pray for during this time of reflection and giving thanks is goodness. Goodness is to enjoy the harvest of a loving heart.

God’s Holy Word is not naïve to the realities, challenges and conflicts that the terrestrial world brings our way. That is why Scripture states “be wise as a serpent but innocent as a dove.” In other words, we should be fully aware of the ways of the world and not be taken advantage of. Yet we must also be on guard not to harbor any ill will towards others.

Even during trying times, what can we possibly possess that would trump goodness?

Happy Holidays, everyone!

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Love and the quantum measurement problem

In my upcoming book Proving God I touch on the topic of a most perplexing problem facing physicists concerning how quantum indeterminacy (potentialities) take on irreversible measurable results. In other words, what is the mechanism whereby a quantum wave function, which consists of tendencies to exist, finally “chooses” where it really is and what it is really doing.

This is called the measurement problem in quantum physics. What is really being asked here is how do “propensities” settle into stable forms of matter with real velocities seeking equilibrium in real space and in real time?

Current thinking involves some kind of outside influence (even human consciousness), which causes the wave function to “collapse” into an actual measurable result.  If quantum potentials actually collapse then this implies that none of the wave-potentialities associated with a quantum cloud disappear, but they all somehow take part in the event.

Scientists know that energy coheres into matter and that matter coheres into stable units like atoms—which cohere into galaxies and solar systems. What modern science does not yet know is that quantum potentials cohere as well. Quantum potentials seek equilibrium (balance) among themselves according to both active and passive principles. These active and passive forces effect cooperation among propensities to produce dynamical magnitudes (the change and renewal of equilibrium).

A single quantum potential contains the active force relative to all the others. All other potentials within a quantum “cloud” represent the passive force (parameters and constraints) relative to each single potential. In other words, the quantum potentials cohere (collapse) because they enter into a cooperation whereby they all act to determine and influence a type of mass (“dressed mass”) that takes physical form and becomes kinetic. (No active force or potential is realized or given form without a passive or restraining principle that quantifies and qualifies the event—and no passive principle would have existed in the early universe unless potentials could provide this force.)

All existence is through subsistence. Every entity in the created universe exists continuously from that which gives it its existence. Quantum potentials could not bring anything into formal existence unless they were the means by which a measured result subsists.

Why would such a principle of coherence and order point to the work of a Designer-God? Theology tells us that God is Infinite Love. The essence of love is to unite. It is God’s Love that drives nature to self-organize through the change and renewal of equilibriums.

Happy holidays! (I didn’t want you all to just stuff your stomachs!)

http://www.provinggod.com

Larry the Lunatic

Once upon a time there lived a young man named Larry. He was like most people who wished that human beings would treat each other better in the world. But he was also different from most people in that he began to notice negative and ignoble inclinations within his own life.

This observation was both painful and perplexing. Larry had a hard time grasping why he was so vulnerable to bouts of bad behavior, especially when he knew better. He read about science, philosophy and even religion, but somehow his intelligence failed him. How could this be?

Larry became so concerned about this strange predicament that it finally made him sick. He could not endure one more failed relationship with friends, office workers or those he dated. So he stayed in bed all day, immobilized and feeling hopeless that his life would ever change. He even closed the curtains in his room. He could no longer handle any kind of influence coming from the outside world and wanted to shut it all out.

While lying motionless in bed, he became aware that his room was suddenly flooded by light—a light that also brought comforting and loving warmth with it. He lifted his head from the pillow and was amazed to see a beautiful angel in his room. The angel was the source of this light and warmth.

“Why are you here?” asked Larry in astonishment.

“The Lord God has sent me to show you why your education can’t help you with the things that really matter in life,” answered the caring and loving angel.

“I must be going loony,” said Larry reacting to the seeing and hearing of this illusionary creature—an obvious outcome of his tortured mind.

“Yes,” said the angel. “You are a lunatic but not because you see me or hear me. You are a lunatic because of the pathological way you treat valuable knowledge and information.”

“I have tried to use knowledge to better my life”’ said Larry.

“The purpose of knowledge and study is to find truth. The purpose of truth is to find love and goodness,” said the angel. “If your knowledge does not lead you to love and sincere helpfulness, then your knowledge is simply hovering around outside of you.”

“What do you mean? If knowledge is in my head then it must be inside me,” came Larry’s defense.

“Not so! Do you know where the term lunatic came from?” asked the creature sent from heaven.

“I suspect that it has its origins from the fact that people act weird during times of the full moon,” said Larry.

“The answer goes much deeper than that,” came the angel. “It involves some symbolism.”

“What kind of symbolism?’

“Pretend that the planet earth represents your individual life. The moon would then represent your cognitive memory,” explained the angel. “One’s memory is a mere satellite encircling one’s true being. In the same way that the moon reflects the sun’s light, a person’s memory lets us reflect on various ideas. But these ideas, no matter how profound, remain outside of our true inner being if they do not affect our hearts. A lunatic is one who listens to sermons, reads about God’s commandments or the Golden rule but keeps these ideas at a distance so that he or she does not have to face their own inner contradictions”

“Why do we humans do such things?” asked Larry.

“Because truth can be painful,” returned the beautiful angel. “Humans go to great lengths in order to nullify this pain, like using alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex, money, power, celebrity and constantly fanaticizing about their own imagined self-importance. All such people have a basic knowledge and understand what it is to be good. But they keep this knowledge at a safe distance where it can be merely reflected upon and used for the purposes of deceit, cunning or self-gain rather than for personal transformation. Now you know why the world seems to be going crazy. It is full of lunatics—who see themselves as ordinary people.”

Larry was shocked to hear this but could resonate with the angel’s strong words. From that point on Larry made an oath to “clean house.” He was no longer fearful of finding what he kept hidden in the dark corners of his life.

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