WITH MAN THE CONJUNCTION OF BODY AND SPIRIT IS THROUGH HIS CARDIAC AND PULMONARY MOTIONS: SEPARATION TAKES PLACE WHEN THOSE MOTIONS CEASE

For this to be understood some things must be stated first, which may as it were bear a torch in advance; from them the truth of the above will be seen. They are:

(1) A man's spirit is equally a man.

(2) His spirit likewise has a heart and consequently pulsation, also lungs and consequently respiration.

(3) The pulsation of the spirit's heart and the respiration of its lungs flow into the pulsation of the heart and respiration of the lungs with the man in the world.

(4) The body's life, which is natural, comes into existence and continues in existence by means of that influx; it ceases upon withdrawal of the influx, thus on separation taking place.

(5) A man, then, from being natural becomes spiritual.

[95.] (1) A man's spirit is equally a man. This you may see attested by much experience in the work HEAVEN AND HELL, Nos. 73-77, 311-316, 445-452, 461-469: also that every one is, in respect of his interiors, a spirit, in Nos. 432-444. To this it may be added that everything spiritual is, in its essence, a man, and thus everything of love and of wisdom proceeding from the Lord, for this is spiritual. The reason that everything spiritual or everything proceeding from the Lord, is a man, is because the Lord Himself, who is God of the universe, is Man, and there cannot proceed from Him anything that is not of like nature; for what is Divine is not changeable within itself, nor is it extended, and that which is not extended is everywhere the same. From this comes His Omnipresence.

The reason men have formed the idea, in regard to angels and spirits and in regard to themselves after death, that they are like ether or air without a human body, is that materialistic (sensuales) learned men have conceived this to be the case from the name "spirit (spiritus)"* being the breath of the mouth, and also from spirits being invisible and not appearing to the sight; for materialistic men only think from the bodily-sense plane and from what is material. This notion of theirs was due also to some passages in the Word having not been spiritually understood. Yet they knew from the Word that the Lord, notwithstanding His being a man in respect of flesh and bones, actually became invisible in His disciples' presence, and passed through closed doors; they knew also that in the Word angels were seen as men by a number of persons, and these angels had not put on a human form but were showing themselves in their own form to those persons before the eyes of their spirit which had been opened at the time.

In order, therefore, that men should no longer remain in a fallacious idea concerning angels and spirits and their own souls after death, it has pleased the Lord to open the sight of my spirit and so enable me to speak face to face with angels and with men deceased, to observe them, to touch them, to tell them many things about the disbelief of those now living and how they are deceived. I have been in their company daily from the year 1744 to the present time, a period of 19 years.

From the above things it can be seen that a man's spirit is [equally a man].

[2] [96.] (2) A man's spirit likewise has a heart and consequently pulsation, also lungs and consequently respiration. This must be confirmed first from experience and afterwards by reason.

From experience. The angelic heaven is distinguished into two kingdoms, one called the celestial kingdom, the other the spiritual kingdom. The celestial kingdom is in love to the Lord, and the spiritual kingdom is in wisdom from that love. Heaven is distinguished in this way, because love and wisdom in the Lord, and from Him, are two distinct things, though united nevertheless; as said above, they are distinct in the same way as heat and light coming from the sun are. Angels of the celestial kingdom, being in love to the Lord, have reference to the heart of heaven, and angels of the spiritual kingdom, being in wisdom from that love, have reference to the lungs of heaven: for as also said above, in the Lord's sight the whole heaven is like one man. Furthermore, there is an influx from the celestial kingdom into the spiritual kingdom, like the influx from the heart into the lungs, with man; in consequence there is universal correspondence of heaven with those two motions, the cardiac and the pulmonary, in every individual. I even had occasion to learn from angels that the arteries pulsate in them from their heart and that they breathe, just the same as men in the world do; and further, that there are with them variations in the pulsation according to their states of love, and variations in their breathing, according to their states of wisdom. They themselves felt their wrists and told me so, and I have myself often felt the breathing from their mouth.

[[2]] [97.] As the whole heaven is distinguished into societies according to affections that are of love, and as all wisdom and intelligence is according to affections, therefore each society has distinctive breathing, different from that of any other society, and similarly, distinctive cardiac pulsation. Owing to this, no one from one society can enter another society remote from it, nor can any one from a higher heaven descend into a lower one, or any one from a lower ascend into a higher, for in that case his heart beats with difficulty and his lungs feel compressed; least of all, can any one from hell ascend into heaven: any one venturing to do so begins to struggle for breath like some one in the death agony, or like a fish taken out of water into the air.

[[3]] The most general difference in the respirations and pulsations arises from the idea they have of God, for it is from this that differences in love and wisdom result. On account of this a nation of one religion cannot approach nations of differing religion. I have seen how Christians were unable to approach Mohammedans on account of their respiration. The easiest and gentlest breathing of all is the breathing of those whose idea of God is that He is a Man, and, amongst those from Christendom, the breathing of those whose idea of the Lord is that He is the God of heaven. On the other hand, the breathing of those who deny His Divinity, as do Socinians and Arians, is hard and rough. As pulsation makes one with the Will's love, and breathing makes one with the Understanding's wisdom, those who are to come into heaven are first inaugurated into angelic life by means of respirations that accord with it; this is effected in various ways; by this means they come into interior perceptions and into heavenly freedom.

[[4]] [98.] By reason. A man's spirit is not a substance unconnected with his viscera, organs and members, it is intimately attached to them; for that which is spiritual accompanies every thread of them from outermost things to inmost things, and so, every thread and fibre of heart and lungs as well; the consequence is that when the connection between a man's body and spirit is severed, his spirit is in a form similar to the form the man had previously; there is merely a separating of the spiritual substance from the material substance. Accordingly the spirit possesses heart and lungs just as the man had possessed them in the world, and consequently it also enjoys similar sensations and similar motions, and speech as well; without a heart and lungs there could be neither sensation, nor movement, nor speech. Around spirits also there are atmospheres, but they are spiritual atmospheres. How greatly do they go astray who assign to the soul some particular position in the body, like the brain or the heart, for a man's soul which is to live after death, is his spirit.

[3] [99.] (3) The pulsation of the spirit's heart and the respiration of its lungs flow into the pulsation of the heart and respiration of the lungs with the man in the world. This also must be corroborated from experience, and afterwards by reason.

From experience. Men do not know that, while living in the world, they have a twofold pulmonary respiration and a twofold cardiac pulsation, because they do not know that a man in respect of his interiors is a spirit, and that his spirit is equally a man. That these twofold motions, however, do exist in man continuously, and that the two motions of his spirit flow into the two motions of his body, it has been granted me to feel perceptibly. I was once reduced to the use of the former only, at a time when there were spirits with me, who, from a strong Persuasive could deprive the Understanding of all its faculty for thinking, and so, take away the ability to breathe as well. Lest this might do me harm, I was reduced to the use of my spirit's respiration only, and I then plainly felt it to be in accord with the respiration of angels in heaven. From this it was evident also that heaven in general breathes and that every angel there in particular does so too; and further that so far as the Understanding is affected, the respiration is affected as well. For the Persuasive possessed by some evil spirits in the spiritual world has at the same time a suffocating effect as well. Accordingly it is termed "suffocative" in respect of the body, and "destructive" in respect of the lower mind (animus). Sometimes, too, angels have been empowered to control my respiration, reducing my bodily respiration and by degrees suppressing it until only the respiration of my spirit remained, and then I also perceptibly felt it. Besides I was in the respiration of my spirit whenever I was in a state similar to that of angels and spirits and whenever I was raised into heaven; at such times I have been in the spirit and not in the body, at other times in both the spirit and the body. See also HEAVEN AND HELL, NO. 449, in regard to the animation of my lungs, and of my body being suspended, leaving only the animation of my spirit.

[[2]] [100.] By reason. These actual experiences establish the fact that, because every human being enjoys this double respiration, one within the other, he can think rationally from his Understanding, indeed spiritually too: and can thereby also be differentiated from animals; and furthermore that he can be enlightened in respect of his Understanding, be raised into heaven and breathe with angels, and so be reformed and regenerated.

Besides, where there is an external, there must also be an internal; and this internal must be in every action and in every sensation. The external supplies what is general, the internal supplies what is particular (singulare), and where there is not a general, there is no particular either. Accordingly, human beings possess both an external and an internal systolic motion and inhaling motion, the external systolic and inhaling motions being natural, the internal being spiritual. It is in this way that the Will can, in union with the Understanding, bring about bodily movements, and that the Understanding can, with the Will, bring about bodily sense-activities. In animals also there are both general and particular pulsations and respirations, but in their case, what is external and what is internal are both natural, whereas, in the case of human beings, what is external is natural but what is internal is spiritual.

In a word, such as is the Understanding, such is the respiration, because such is the man's spirit; it is his spirit that from the Understanding thinks, and from the Will, wills. In order that these operations may flow into the man's body and enable him to think and will on the natural plane, the spirit's respiration and pulsation must be conjoined to his body's respiration and pulsation, and there must be influx from the one into the other; otherwise transference could not take place.

[4] [101.] (4) The body's life, which is natural, comes into existence and continues in existence by means of that influx; it ceases upon withdrawal of the influx, thus on separation taking place. The reason a man after death is equally a man as he was before, except that he then becomes a spirit man, is that his spiritual is adjoined to his natural-or the substantial of his spirit to the material of his body-so adaptively and so unitedly, that there is not a single fibril, or woven particle, or any smallest thread of them, in which the human of the spirit does not make one with the human of the body. And as the life of the whole and the life of the parts depend solely upon those two universal motions, the heart's systolic motion and the lungs' respiratory motion, the consequence is that when those motions cease in the body, the natural things that are material become separated from the spiritual things that are substantial, being unable to carry on together the same work, and this results in that which is the active itself, the spiritual, withdrawing from each of the things acted upon, namely, the natural things, and so the man becomes a man of another kind. This, then, is the death of the man, and it is his resurrection; on this subject, some things related from actual experience may be seen in the work HEAVEN AND HELL, Nos. 445-452, 453-460, 461-469.

[[2]] [102.] When a man's breathing ceases, he appears to have died, yet he is not dead until the motion of his heart also ceases, and usually this does not take place till later. That a man is not dead till then, is evident from the life possessed by infants in the womb and also from the life possessed by adults in fainting-fits or in states of suffocation, in which the heart continues contracting and expanding, while the lungs are quiescent; they are alive nevertheless, though without sensation and without movement, and so not conscious of any life. The reason for this is that, though it is true their spirit's respiration is continuing, there is no corresponding bodily respiration, and consequently there cannot be any reciprocation between the two vital motions, the motion of the heart and the motion of the lungs; without that correspondence and without that reciprocation, there is no life in sensation, neither is there any action.

It is the same with the natural life of a man's body as with the spiritual life of his mind; if his Will and Understanding, or his love and wisdom, do not act conjointly, no rational operation takes place. If the Understanding, or the wisdom, ceases to act, the Will with its love becomes as if dead; yet it is still alive, though not conscious of itself, provided the Understanding is only temporarily inactive, as in cases of loss of memory. It is quite different if the Will, or love, ceases to act; then it is all over with a man's mind, just as it is all over with him when his heart stops beating. That the separation of the spirit from the body takes place in most cases the second day after death supervenes, it was given me to know through my speaking with different deceased persons who were then spirits, the third day after.

[5] [103.] (5) A man, then, from being natural becomes spiritual. A natural man and a spiritual man are entirely different from each other; to such an extent do they differ that there is no possibility of their being together. Any one not knowing what the spiritual is in its essence, may suppose it to be only a purer natural which in man is called the rational. The spiritual, however, is above the natural and as distinct from it as midday light compared with the shades of evening in autumn. No one can become acquainted with that distinction and that difference except one who is in both worlds, the natural and the spiritual, and to whom it is granted to alternate between them, being now in the one, now in the other, and so, by his reflections upon them, to look at the one from the other. It having been granted me to be in a position to do this, I have become informed as to the nature of a natural man and the nature of a spiritual man, who is a spirit. In order that others may know this, it must he briefly described.

[104.] A natural man, in everything of his thought and speech and in everything of his Will and action, has matter, space, time and quantity as their "subject"**: these with him are fixed and permanent things, nor is he free from them in any idea of his thought or of his speech therefrom, or in any affection of his Will or in any action proceeding from it. [[2]] A spiritual man, or spirit, does not have these things as "subjects," but only as objects, the reason for this being that in the spiritual world there are objects exactly like the objects in the natural world; there are lands, there are plains, there are fields, there are gardens and woods: there are houses with rooms in them, and in the rooms all useful things: there are garments, too, women's garments and men's garments such as there are in the world: there are tables, foods, drinks, such as there are in the world: there are animals as well, both harmless ones and harmful ones; there are consequently spaces and times, and also numbers and measurements; all these things being so like the things in the world that the eye can detect no difference at all; yet they are all nevertheless appearances of wisdom and perceptions of loves, the appearances being of the angels' Understanding and the perceptions being of the angels' Will. For the objects are created in a moment by the Lord, and in a moment also are dissipated. They endure or they do not endure according as the spirits or angels continue or do not continue in the wisdom and love of which they are the appearance; this is the reason they are only the objects of their thoughts and affections, their "subjects" being the things from which the appearances are derived, which, as said, are the things of wisdom and of love, thus spiritual things. For example, when they see spaces, they do not think about them from the space they contain: when they see gardens, trees, fruits, shrubs, flowers and seeds, they do not think about them from the outward appearance they present but from those things that are the source of their appearing; and similarly with everything else. [[3]] Hence it is that the thoughts of spiritual beings are altogether different from the thoughts of natural beings: their affections likewise; they are so different, indeed, that they transcend the thoughts of natural beings, and do not fall into natural ideas, except in some degree into interior rational sight, and then only by withdrawing or removing from one's thought, when thinking about qualities, everything to do with quantities.

[105.] It is evident from this that angels possess a wisdom that to natural men is incomprehensible, and is moreover inexpressible. Their thoughts being so different, their speech is consequently different, too; so much does it differ from man's speech that they do not agree in respect of a single word. It is the same with their writing; although, as regards its letters, it resembles the writing of men in the world, even so it cannot be understood by anyone in the world. In their writing each consonant is a complete idea, and each vowel is an affection; the vowels, moreover, are not written, but pointed.*** Their manual works, which are innumerable, and the duties of their occupations, likewise differ from the works and duties of natural men in the world, and therefore cannot be described in human language.

[[4]] It can be perceived from these few instances that "natural" and "spiritual" are as different as darkness and light. However, there are many varieties of this difference, for there are sensual spiritual men, rational spiritual men and celestial spiritual men; there are evil spiritual men and good spiritual men. The difference varies with the affection and with the thought therefrom, and the appearances presented vary with the difference.

The above makes it plain that a man from being a natural man, becomes a spiritual man as soon as his body's lungs and heart cease their motions, and his material body becomes on that account separated from his spiritual body. * The Latin word anima means both "breath" and "soul," and spiritus means both "breathing" and "spirit." As the argument here depends on the double meanings of these Latin words, they have been inserted in brackets in every case. ** The Latin word "Subjectum" is used by Swedenborg in a philosophic sense, as that in and by which another thing has actuality. Thus, the eye is the "Subject" in which and by means of which the mind's seeing of external things has effective existence. *** In the Hebrew language, the vowels are said to be "pointed" because there are no vowel letters, the vowel sounds being indicated by small signs below, or above, or within, the consonants.