Spirits who have similar concepts and ideas in their understanding are able to congregate and live together in a city governed by representatives appointed by the Lord, or, by the Lord through angels who reside in a discrete degree above that city. In this way the hierarchical discrete levels of the human mind are identical with the hierarchical discrete levels of the spiritual world. It is organized from top to bottom:
1) The spiritual Sun in which the Lord can be seen
2) The Third Heaven of Celestial Angels
3) The Second Heaven of Spiritual Angels
4) The First Heaven of Natural Angels (or Angelic Spirits)
5) The world of spirits where the new arrivals congregate. This is also where our spirit-body is while we are connected to the physical body
6) The region of the first hells, which are the mildest
7) The region of the second hells, which are intermediate in insanity and wickedness.
8) The region of the deepest hells, where those are isolated whose abominable fantasies have the persuasive power to turn other spirits into zombies
When you look at this alignment it is the same whether you are looking at the level of organization of the human mind or the spiritual world. There is a perfect overlap between the two. This is why it is said by the Lord that the Kingdom of Heaven is within you, though the people He said it to could not yet understand how this was possible (AC 9305). Seventeen centuries later the Lord has made His Second Coming, having sufficiently prepared the human rational faculties to be able to receive the new interior truths of the Heavenly Doctrines in the Writings. He was able to create New Heavens as well as a new interior portion of the human mind. What made this possible was our ability in these higher levels to understand by correspondence, interior-natural truths about the Lord and His Divine Laws of managing the universe. Infinite such truths are contained in the Writings, enough that only a small portion of them can be uncovered by the generations to eternity (NJHD 260).
Most people who hear this assertion about the Writings instantly reject it as foolish nonsense or naive exaggeration. But it is the truth, both because it so asserted in the Writings (xx) and because it is rationally explained why and how this marvel is real. Nothing whatsoever is left to dogma or mystery. Nothing. All of the assertions in the Writings are fully and completely explained and justified rationally so that anyone can verify that this is so by studying all of the Writings with the purpose of finding in it the Divine Truth. Not a single dogma can exist in the Writings since dogma is from hell and every single thing in the Writings is from heaven (TCR 779).
Those who are offended by this assertion raise this objection: Is it not obvious that it is a dogma to say, either you accept all of the Writings as Divine Truth or you cannot see the spiritual things in it when you read it. But this objection is not valid. One must first grant that there is Divine Truth or else the assertion is not being investigated. If you accept that there is Divine Truth then you must accept that it is possible that only Divine Truth is contained in the Writings. One follows the other logically. Now if you admit that it is possible for the Writings to contain only Divine Truth then you can read the Writings and see spiritual truths in them. And if you also rearrange your life, your daily willing and thinking, all your concepts, with no exceptions, to be compatible with your understanding of these spiritual truths, then you will also be close to heaven and the Lord, and you will see and perceive with certitude that the Writings are the Divine Truth, that is, the Word of the Second.
From all these considerations and facts you can see that everything about your salvation depends on rearranging your daily willing and thinking. Why everything? Does not my faith count? It only counts to the extent that our faith acts together with our charity (TCR 336-393). Knowing, understanding, agreeing with, and teaching the Writings is not enough. Add to it religious faith and call it the Word, and it is not enough. But do your daily willing and thinking according to your understanding of it, and that is enough to prepare your spirit-body for heavenly life. Salvation is not by religious membership and sincere worship. Salvation is only by charity directed by faith. By charity. Not by faith. Note well: we are not saying “by charity alone” for this does not lead to salvation since charity without faith is not genuine charity from the Lord (TCR 336-393). Only that is from the Lord in our spirit-body which is from charity combined with its own faith.
Now since faith in its essence is truth, it follows that in proportion to the volume and coherence of truths faith becomes more and more perfectly spiritual, and so less and less natural-sensual. For it is raised into the higher region of the mind, from where it sees below itself rank upon rank of proofs of itself in the natural world. A great volume of truths cohering as it were in a bundle makes true faith more enlightened, more easily perceived, more outstanding and clear. It also becomes more easily linked to the various kinds of good belonging to charity, and consequently more easily freed from evils, and by stages less subject to the enticements of the eye and the longings of the flesh, thus becoming essentially happier. In particular its resistance to evils and falsities is increased, and so it becomes more and more alive and conducive to salvation. (TCR 352)
Charity from the Lord cannot be adjoined with faith that is spurious or false, and thus reformation must be completed in the afterlife. Those who exercised charity of religion without confirming it by the falsities of their religion can compete reformation in the afterlife, and then continue with their regeneration to eternity. But those exercised the charity of their religion and adjoined to it by confirmation the falsities of their religion cannot complete their reformation in the afterlife, for they resist and are unwilling.
The New Church mind must therefore be reformed and regenerated in a state of charity to which is adjoined the Heavenly Doctrine that we have in our understanding from reading the Writings as the Word. This process of reformation and regeneration is a biological process of the spirit-body. The spirit-body, which is our mind, must be fully matured to enter heaven. All the levels of the mind, as discussed above, must be opened by the Lord and activated for influx. The Lord can do this to the extent that we allow Him, that is, to the extent that we cooperate with Him.
How do we cooperate with Him? This becomes the spiritual bottom line for every New Church husband who is willing to begin his reformation sometime in adult life (AE 803; AC 8780; AC 3518:[2]).
Cooperation requires conscious continuous action and reaction. The Lord is very closely and intimately involved in this process. First, he implants spiritual truths in the upper levels of the mind, as discussed above. We are totally unconscious of this process, just as we are unconscious of how the brain calibrates and manages the thousands of hormones and chemical substances every second to produce adequate electrical patterns or footprints to make possible sensation in the spirit-body. At some point the brain activity matches a certain predetermined rational pattern or footprint. This pattern of activity in the brain is now ready for being acted upon by correspondence. The spirit-body then becomes conscious of a sensation and thought. Note well: the brain pattern of activity does not cause the corresponding sensation in the spirit-body, that is, in our conscious awareness. This sensory awareness in the spirit-body is not caused by the physical sensory input to the brain—which is impossible (TCR 336-393).
Rather, the relationship is more like a resonance which occurs in the physical world for things that are in continuous (not discrete) degree with other. For example the sound of a car horn enters the brain and produces an identifiable pattern of electro-chemical activity. The brain activity is an informational representation of the specific qualities of the sound. While the brain is thus engaged in the patterned activity, the spirit-body resonates to this pattern, and when there is a match, we experience the sensation and we hear the horn. Then we can react to it through a similar process. Second by second, our spirit-body is thus active and growing by cumulating sensations, thoughts, and affections. This growth process in the organs of the spirit-body is deformed, injured, corrupt by inheritance. Our spirit-body is created when the physical body is born and the child takes its first breath, filling the lungs (D.Wis 6[9]). This opening of the lungs permits or occasions the start the life of sensation and thought, and therefore, the start of the spirit-body and its development.
In short, all affections for good and truth reach out into heaven, and there is thus connexion and linking with those there who have similar affections. All affections for evil and falsity reach out into hell, and there is thus connexion and linking with those there who have similar affections. Affections reach out into the spiritual world, almost as the range of sight reaches out into the natural world. The connexions in either place are much alike, the difference being that in the natural world they are with things, in the spiritual world with communities of angels. (LJ 9)
Our moment to moment willing and thinking is what causes the growth of the spirit-body. Such as the willing is, with its companion thinking, such is the growth of the spirit-body because such is our connection to heaven or to hell. When we are thinking this or that in the course of the day we are becoming a part of the affections that motivate the thinking and reasoning. These affections either reach out to heaven or they reach down to hell, as indicated in the quoted passage. The Lord is revealing this fundamental duality to us: Either we are in heaven or in hell with every moment of willing and thinking. And thus our affections continually reach up to heaven or down to hell. And we are at the helm, we are responsible by rational choice or choice guided by the voice of conscience. And such as our choices are, such is our spiritual fate (xx).
But note well: This is not an equity model but an all or nothing model! The millions of choices you’ve made in a few decades on earth will not be put on a scale, weighed, and the preponderance of frequency wins. There is no way of entering heavenly life with an equity model! It’s all or nothing at the gates of heaven. If you enter with a few affections that reach down to hell, can you enter? You would be suffocated by the sphere of Good there.
Will you be able to leave your evil affections behind when you arrive at the gates of heaven, so that then you can enter? You might reason this way: Does it not say that the highest angels admit that if they were left to themselves they would be plunging into hell with their affections of old that they once had? (see xx) And so not even the angels are perfect. But this is not a correct argument. The angels are perfect because they have left all their affections, left them for the Lord to be in a disanimated state. True, we are told that they can be revived once again by the Lord, if this were for a Divine purpose, which proves that they are still with the angels and will always be (see xx). But it’s clear that they do not have a single affection that is active that does not reach to heaven. This is why angels are called perfect (xx).
And so, when you arrive at the gates of heaven, will you be able to voluntarily give up every one of your affections that reach down to hell? You will not be able to because you will not be willing. What an amazing fact! (xx)
You can understand why this is so. You have these affections still with you because you have not been willing to give them up in all of your regeneration on earth.
You might think that when you get there and everything is all over, then you would be willing to let go of them, especially when you realize that they prevent your entry into heavenly life. But you’re only dreaming or lulling yourself to sleep with this vain hope. The Writings clearly explain that the affections you hold on to until death are the affections you remain with to eternity! (xx, xx). The basic reason for this is that affections are immortal spiritual fibers within which you feel the love of your life. Take away those fibers, and you no longer feel the love of your life, hence you cannot be happy or motivated to do anything.
In the unregenerate state into which we are born, our spirit-body is an offshoot of the fibers of the parents (CL 206). Such as is their spirit-body such is the spirit-body of their children. All the evil affections and unconscious preferences and tendencies are in the things inherited by the spirit-body. If we then lead a life motivated by these inherited tendencies in the spirit-body, we will develop a permanent infirm spirit-body that is not capable of living in the heavenly regions of the mind.
Everything therefore depends on monitoring our willing and thinking every hour of the day so that we can identify every particular evil affection and all the falsities of life that these evil affections create in our understanding and philosophy of living.
The state of the case with the evil in the other life is that they are not punished until their evils have reached their height, and this both in general and in particular. For such is the equilibrium in the other life that evil punishes itself, that is to say those who are evil run into the punishment of their evil, but only when it has reached its height. Every evil has its limit that varies in each individual case, beyond which it is not allowable to pass. When an evil person passes beyond this limit he precipitates himself into the penalty, and this is so in every particular (AC 1857)
This passage discusses what happens in the afterlife to those who are unwilling to eliminate their evil affections and falsities in this life.
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