Brief Readings SWEDENBORG's PSYCHOLOGY Howard Davis Spoerl Swedenborg Foundation 1937

8/11/2019 Brief Readings SWEDENBORG's PSYCHOLOGY Howard Davis Spoerl Swedenborg Foundation 1937

1/16

Swedenborg s

sychology


2/16


3/16


4/16

SWEDENBORG

PSYCHOLOGICAL PIONEER

BY HowARD DAVI S SPOERL, Ph D

Director Psychology Department AmericanInternational College Springfield Mass.

O EMANUEL SwEDENBORG s many con-tributions to science, none is more sig-nificant than his work in psychology. To-day, when large numbers of people arefollowing the long road of psychology, in aneffort to trace its turnings to some final un-derstanding of human nature, the ideas ofthis famous philosopher and seer seem sur-prisingly fresh and modern. Though Swe-denborg lived and died before the AmericanRevolution , his psychology has helped manypeople to find inspiration in life, and hisoutlook is still vital though little known. nhis day his thinking was far in advance ofthe world s not only by virtue of a few rareflashes of insight that we associate withgenius, but also in its wholesale comprehen-sion of the innumerable questions that mod-ern psychologists, because of specia li zation,answer in a fragmentary way. Sweden -borg s psychology was a complete psychol-ogy.

Two centuries ago most of the work inpsychology was being done by philosopherswho produced abstract and inert systems ofmind by merely reflecting upon its apparent

[ 3 ]


5/16

nature. There was little interest in re l ating the mind in all its aspects to th e brainand the rest of the body. But Swedenborgbegan his study of the mind by studying thebody. As a result, his psychology was aphysiologic l psychology, in which he de-scribed many relationships between mindand brain . Present-day psychologists be -lieve as a matter of course in some sort ofphysiologica l approach.

Through his earlier work in psychology,Swedenborg treated the topic of the actionsof the body in their bearing on states ofmind. H ere hi s problem was that of the

regulation of the soul's domain - for hesoon came to regard the body as the regionin which mind and spirit functioned, and asthe implement of the higher and deeper sideof human natur e. The Swedish thinke ralso wrote a book on ra tional psychologyin which he dealt with the interaction of thevarious mental states. A modern note inthis r esearc h is und ed by his insistenceupon real forces and impulses within themind, which were not simp ly actions result -ing from outside influences nor yet vagueand

shadowyinstincts. During the last

twenty years Freud and other psychologistshave taken a similar position by refusing tolook upon mind as a mere passive entitythat is buffeted abo ut by even t s occurringin the outside world.

SWEDENBORG AND F R E U D

Freud's great gift to modern psychologywas the Unconscious. The forces within

[ 4 ]


6/16

the mind are often hidden from conscious-ness as to their nature and mode of opera -tion. Central to Swedenborg's psychologyis the principle that the mind functions ondifferent levels, and that we are usually un-conscious of most of its activities. Here,th en, is another leading thought which Swe-denborg held in common with modern psy-chology.

But while Freud ends his search for thesprings of action .on uncovering the libidoand while most psychologists o not go be-yond the constitution of the individual inlooking for causes, Swedenborg went much

further, penetrating into the midst of lifeand nature, unsatisfied with anything shortof the ultimate origin of thought and feel-ing. Where modern psychology leaves off,fearing to venture into the forbidden fieldsof metaphysics and mysticism, Sweden-

borg's psychology really began. The war-ring schools of psychology in the world to-day represent so many fragmentary theoriesof the mech nisms of mental life. Thepractical psychologist is pleas ed when he isable to show that lack of confidence may be

tr aced to a childhood fear, or that the falsetestimony of a witness is due to inaccurateperception of an event, or that habits aret he result of accidental conditioning. nsuch expositions the m chinery of mentalactivity is often emphasized to the exclusion

of its reason for occurring in the first place.But what has all this to do with the ques-tion of what our lives are for and what weare doing with them? One reason for the

[ 5 ]


7/16

clash of opmwns among psychologists andtheir frequent failure to achieve conclusivesolutions of life problems is unquestionablytheir ignoring of the larger context of mental growth and functioning.

Swedenborg discovered many things aboutthe mechanisms of mental life, but he alsowent on to deal with the larger context. Inhis search for meaning he left no stone un-turned. Convinced of the futility of finding ultimate causes in purely biological activity , he ventured into higher philosophicalrealm s, and his persistence in this directionled to the completion of his psychologicalstructure. t is his later contributions thatare of greatest interest today. While hisearlier work was highly original by reasonof the unification into one system of a greatmany lines of approach, physiological aswell as philosophical, it bore many similari

ties to other schemes of psychology. HadSwedenborg s labours ceased at this point,the knowledge of the soul would have re-mained where his illustrious predecessors inth ese inv e st ig ations, from Plato down, hadleft it. But Swedenborg pushed on into the

center of things, and developed the largercontext .Most people are vaguely aware that Swe

d enb org had something to do with religion.The second of the two periods of his life,beginning in 17 46, has been referred to as

the period o f theological interest. Yet itmay with equal justification be consideredas a period of psychologic l interes t. Aswe have already seen, Swedenborg discov-

[ ]


8/16

ered, as others have done before and sincethat the mind functions on different levels.In other words there are different ways ofliving. Living and thinking on the natu-ral level may be distinguished from livingand thinking on the spiritual level. Orto put it in still another way, we may re-gard life from the point of view of its -ternal form and also from the point of viewof its inner meaning . In any case we aredealing with different aspects of the samething. From the external point of viewSwedenborg's ideas constitute a theologicalsystem; from the inner point of view anamplified psychology. The search for truthabout life finally led Swedenborg to the con-clusion that mind as well as all of life, isdivine in its origin and nature. Rather thanserving as the source of mental forces andstrivings, the natural world and man's physi-cal constitution are simply the me ns bywhich we become aware of them, and thetheatre in which our thoughts and actionsare expressed.

His P R O B L E M WA S P s v c H O L O G I C A L

At this point the reader is likely to con-clude that Swedenborg was merely one moreidealistic philosopher who denied tangiblerealities; yet such is far from being thecase. The reason for coming to such a con-clusion is that the preceding paragraph

states nothing that has not often been as-serted by philosophers and theologians. B _utit does not tell the whole story. n the firstplace, Swedenborg's problem was psycho

[ 7 ]


9/16

logical r a ther than purel y philosophical.H is great aim , as h e himself says, was todiscover th e basis of th e s oul's ac tivity.In th e second place , he did not belittl e orregard as inconsequential or non- exis tent th enatu ra l level of li vi n g as dist ingui shed fromthe spiritual. Christians have some tim es re-ga rd ed the fle sh as an evi l to b e moTtified,w hil e Christian Science deni es that matterh as r eal ex iste n ce. In st ea d of reflectingsuch views as th ese, Sw edenborg em phasizedthe importance of th e natural as p ec t of life ,and hel d that eve ry feature o i t bas someprop er and n ecessa ry use. At the sametime, he went on t o dev elop th e deep er signifi ca nc e and har mo n y of the spiritual lev elof liv ing.

His demonstration of th e relationship b etween th e two ways of life is a triumph ofpsyc holo g ica l ana lysis. Every item on thenatural or exte rn al level of life ha s i t scount erpart in some item on th e s pir itual orintemal leve l. B ecause th e relation is active , spi ritual eve nt s ca us e th eir naturalcounterpar ts , but in terms of our ex p er i enc ethe r elatio n ship is si mpl y one of cMre-spondence In other words, if we look be-neath the surface of n at ur al eve nts , we c anoften discern corresp ondin g s p iri tu al eve nt sof deep e r sign ifi cance. This does not meanthat the natural eve nts are to be dismissedas having no import a nc e in th emse lves.Since we live in natural bodi es, we must liv el arge ly in terms of even ts belonging to thi sleve l.

To a phys ical scie nti st such a view might

[ 8 ]


10/16

seem fantastic and absurd. Yet similar ap-proaches are being used by modern psy -chologists in their endeavor to unlock themystery of mind and bring ad ju stment outof frustration and despair. Psychoanalyti-cal demonstrations make ceaseless use of

symbols by means of which unconsciousstrivings are brought to light. Th e labora-tory psychologist has tr i ed for nearly a cen-tury to understand why the motorist sees andinterprets as a green li gh t a disk of certa inphysical proportions that emits emanationsof a cer tain wave length. Those who areconducting physiological researches into thenewly discovered brain waves hope theycan so lve the problem of the translation ofphysical events into cQnscious states. Swe-denborg's theory of correspondences con-tains the germ of all these attempts to in-terpret mental life. A '1aw of correspond -

ence, derived from oneof the

foundersof

experimenta l psychology who in turn de-rived it from a total system st rikingl y simi-lar to Swedenborg's, is actually in use as anindispensable instrument of psychologicalresearch. This principle, known as the

psychophysica l law, was worked out inits mathematical form by G. T. Fechner acentury af ter Swedenborg, but in ignoranceof his ideas.

P R I N C I P L E O F CORRESPONDENCES

In psychology the principle of corre-spondences means that a ntinuous seriesof events in one realm is relate d in a regularway to another series of events in some

[ 9 ]


11/16

other context. Such relationships have beendesc ribed betwe en stimuli and perceptions,between stimuli and nervous reactions between nervous r ea ctions and conscious states,etc. Just as it was in one sense the backbon e of Swedenborg 's psychology so doesit furnish modern psychologists with a necessary frame of referenc e for organizingand classifying their data.

While Swedenborg thus devised a methodof ex plaining mental life that shares evenits details with more recent methods it remains true in more ways than one he beganto be a psychologist only where others l eaveoff. For Swedenborg approached the wholequestion of corr es pondence betw een the natural and the spiritual in a far more profoundway than is current in pres ent -day psyc hology. The distinction between these classesis indeed not generally r ecognized despitethe similarity of method. Only the natural sphere is investigated by most psychologists. n setting up principles of corresp ondenc e they have therefore confinedthem se lv es to math ematical statements of rel atio n ship all wi thin the natural sphere

while Swedenborg gave a full account ofthe forces which bring such relationships tol if e. He placed all uossible emphasis uponthe idea that th e n a tura l side of life differsnot only in degr ee but also in kin from thespiritual side. He therefor e taught that all

events originate in some form on the spir-itu l level and are manifested in appropriate ways on th e natural. The active forcewhich brings about this expression is spir-

[ 10]


12/16

itual force of a piece with the divine orderof the universe.

Yet the two sides or levels of conscious-ness, of life of reality, are not separaterealms of being that exclude each other.Rather do they exist a t the same time andin the same beings. A natural interpretation of experience does not exhaust its meanings; likewise a spiritual interpretation doesnot discard or supersede the natural. Loveis not exclusively a matter of sensuality;nevertheless its higher meaning does notdeny expression to the physical side. Aspeaker trying earnestly to persuade hisaudience is expressing more

thanis

con-tained in the obvious meaning of his words.A given idea is in addition to what i t purports to be, a summing up of the whole nature and atti tude of the mind that holds it.Hence, at all points of thought and action

we leaddou le

l i ves - a fact which manymodern psychologists are never weary ofdemonstrating in their own way. That theirway is often fragmentary and ultimately ineffectual could be exp l ained by their refusalto accept any order of reality but the mate

rial or natural order, or to venture uponth e deeper stratum of life as envisaged bySwedenborg, where mind must be understoodas the effect of harmony between all minds.

f we enter upon this stratum with Swedenborg, we learn that the practical prob

lem of life which confronts all men sooneror later is the problem of realizing thi s harmony and achieving an awareness of the di-vine action in the world. Among other

[ 11]


13/16

things, thi s means wh at psychologists nowcall th e making of proper adjustme nt s tolife. n religious t er ms , this ha s alway sb ee n the probl em of sa lvation. n thisa rea , Swedenborg ag ain discov e red a m ea nsof a djustment that belongs in th e most r ecently dev eloped of all fields of psychology.To beco me adjusted, the rson lity mu stbe reorganized. Th e harmony of corre-spondences bet wee n the natural and th espiritual sid es of l if e must b e brought intoview, and th e pr ece d ence of the spiritualside mu st b e acknowledged. Although Swedenborg 's language was very diff erent fromcurrent psychological t erminolo gy, i t i s evident that his solution to life's practi ca l prob-lems included the bulk of th e psy choanal yst' s con s iderations - plu s a great dealmor e of a profounder natur e. In an y eve nt ,i t included no l ess than this .

Mor e and more ar e mod er n psychologistss tr ess ing th e significance of th e total organi-zation that w e c all person a lity . As we growup, our personalities ar e reorganized manydiff er ent times. Thi s process of r eorganization ha s no end in Sw ed enborg's view .

fthe p ers on ' s outlook i s to b e adequate andhis life success ful h e must at l eas t achieve

a reorganiz a tion that p erm i t s divin e ac tionto b ec om e e ffec tiv e. Thi s is acc omplish edb y recognizing th e divine natur e of life, andby submitting to divine guidance.

Su ch are the outlines of a psychology that ,while i t has been re echo ed in part here andth er e by indep end ent investigators duringth e la st two centuries, Sw edenborg was p er -

12 J


14/16

mitted to elaborate and announce in its o m-plete and harmonious arrangement. Thephysiological accent, the dynamic emphasis,the recognition of the Unconscious, th eprinciple of correspondences, the stressingof personality and the vindication of thesupreme worth of the spir i t - these are butsome of the leading ideas in a conceptionthat is not fully understood even now byth e average student.

Sweden borg was in many respects the most re-markable man of hi s own or any age.

Schaff Herzog Encyclopedia ofReligious Knowledge 9 edit.

[ 1 3 ]


15/16

NEW-CHURCH OOK EPOTSBaltimore Md.

Swedenborg Book Center 3812 Barrington Rd.Boston Mass.

Massachuse t ts New-Church Union 134 Bowdoin St.

Chicago III .Western New-Church Union 17 N. State St.

Cincinnati OhioNew-Church Center Oak St. and Winslow Ave.

Detroit Mich.92 E. Forest Ave.

Houston Tex.

New-Church Center Box 102 Belaire

Jacksonville Fla

New-Church Center 816 Oak St.

Los Angeles Cal.5 9 So. Westmoreland Ave.

1155 Echo Park Ave.

New York N. Y.Swedenborg Foundation Inc. 51 East 42nd St.

The New-Chur


16/16

Published by the SwedenborgPublishing Society HawthorneN. J. which will supply addi-tional copies free of charge.

1937

Documents

Brief Readings SWEDENBORG's PSYCHOLOGY Howard Davis Spoerl Swedenborg Foundation 1937