The February 17th entry in A Swedenborg Perpetual Calendar captures the essence of what is explained in our most recent episode of Swedenborg and Life: the sequence of movement from the inner to the outer.
February XVII: “Divine order is for the Lord to flow in through the interiors of man into his exteriors, thus through the will of man into his action.”—Arcana Coelestia 8513
Go to the February 17th recap of our “Sensing Your Spiritual Body” show and see for yourself! Curtis Childs explains Swedenborg’s emphasis on the inner informing the outer, the spiritual affecting the physical. And physicist Dr. Ian Thompson and psychologist Dr. Erica Goldblatt Hyatt confirm Swedenborg’s claim, describing an interdependent body-soul relationship.
Contrary to popular belief, our world is not dictated by what enters through the five senses of hearing, sight, smell, taste, and touch. According to Thompson: “The mental life generates processes in the physical life, but what happens in the physical life selects what further processes happen in the mental life.” And Hyatt explains that “what you expect to see might actually color your reality. . . . We focus on what we expect to see and what we want to focus on, and that might mean that we miss a whole lot of what’s going on in our environment.”
So, try to pay more attention to what is on the inside; and then witness what happens as a result on the outside!
Julia A. Kellogg (1830–1914) was an American educator, writer, and disciple of Henry James. She selected and arranged excerpts from Emanuel Swedenborg’s writings to create A Swedenborg Perpetual Calendar, which was published by the Swedenborg Publishing Association in 1902. Kellogg dedicated the book “to thinkers, in any church or out of all churches.”
