If someone takes with them doubt, fear, sorrow, and they happen to die, those feelings will be brought over.  Not everyone enters a glorious park with loved ones and daffodils. 

Swedenborg discovers tjat even souls destined for lower planes have an initial joyous encoutner with a beautiful park.  Then the principle of like attracts like kicks in and their core desires emerge from their superficial qualities that depend on the privacy of their thoughts and intents in earth life.  They are then slowly drawn to lower planes that reflect their level of progress towards PUL. 

btw, why have so many posters here assumed that all experiences of a park must reflect their location in Focus 27?   "Park" is a psychological archetype; so there must be countless "parks" on many levels of spiritual planes. 

Don

I believe that what Doc said is basically true.  If we develop ourselves spiritually not only does it benefit us while in this World, it also benefits us when we rejoin the spirit World.

However, the fulfillment that is available in the spirit World far surpasses the fulfillment that is available while incarnated in this World. This World includes imperfections that don’t exist in the spirit World once you move to a higher level.

For example, consider my situation at work. I like the people I work with and they like me, but I don’t fit in. None of them are into spirituality. None of them are able to experience divine love and peace on a regular basis.  Since they haven’t sought divine love within themselves, they don’t seek it by being drawn to people who are able to experience it.

In a way this is similar to what happens in the spirit World. Just as spirits are drawn to other spirits and where they abide on a like attracts basis, people are drawn to people they resonate with.

In order for a coworker to get close to me, he (or she) would have to be willing to become aware of levels of reality they don’t want to be aware of. As a result, even though I am surrounded by people, I am basically alone while at work.

For the most part I don’t mind being alone while at home by myself (I live alone), but when surrounded by others, it’s kind of odd. If I were in the spirit World I know that I wouldn’t be alone. In fact, I feel closer to the friendly spirits I communicate with than I do with the people I know.

If it wasn’t for the fact that I am here to help out, I wouldn’t have a problem with returning to the spirit World sooner rather than later.

I wonder how many people get completely over sexual desire while incarnated in a body. I've given it a shot without success.

However, I don't long for sexual gratification to the same extent as I long for divine love and peace. When I really want to feel fullfilled only divine love and peace will do the trick. Nevertheless, I still find women quite attractive.

Roger,

I think you are losing the forest for the trees here.  Swedenborg may talk about each of us having an inner love that we are inexorably drawn to, but while you see this as a fatalism (or unbreakable pre-destination for a heaven or hell), I am not sure that I do.

How about this; that we all have an inner love which we can direct, either parallel to  (or in accordance with) God's love, or away from God's love in a selfish manner.  So that we all, to some extent, could feed our own inner loves in accordance with God's love (namely love of others and love of God), or choose to  pursue our own selfish ends. 

Let us say one's nature was that of problem solving - getting satisfaction from plumbing the depths of a riddle and solving a puzzle.  One could use this to help others (let us say through helping people through solving a puzzle as a scientist, making a discovery to help others), or to help oneself - i.e. a person who loves solving puzzling issues to make money, to have material wealth, with no concern for how this inner love is used. 

I would therefore put it that all inner loves may be nurtured along the path toward God's love, or toward unloving ends.  It is our choice how we direct our inner  love.

If God's love is the foundation of our very being, then it would not make sense that some of us are born with a fundamental love for the opposite of this foundation.  It is more that we allow our inner nature to flow with the channel of love or we close ourselves off to pure love by willingly choosing a path of hate. 

I very much doubt that a fundamentally good person, who, as you state Roger was also obsessed with lust would have to willingly consign themselves to a hell centered around personal lust.   To some degree, sexual arousal is a state of the physical world.  In the post mortem realm, what are the person's tendencies and inclinations?  Is it just to think of their own personal satifiction, or are they open to love of God and love of others?  To the extent that they are open to love of God and of others, so can they develop in the afterlife, regardless of whether or not they also lusted in their heart or had other weaknesses.

Matthew   

Doc-

Well, first of all I personally don't subscribe to what I called ES' gloomy view of the afterlife.  That's why I ended the post by indicating that ES' view of things might have colored what he saw and reported.  Interpreter overlay if you will.

Second, all I can do is cite some references.  Van Dusen's book (The Presence of Other Worlds) on ES says "To underline the central role of the ruling love, Swedenborg referred to it at various times as a person's life itself, his own Self, his character, the essence of his life, his soul, and the very form of his spirit."  Pg 111

ES, in Heavenly Doctrine 57, says "Everything about us comes from the primary tendency of our life.  This is what distinguishes us from other people.  If we are good we make our heaven according to it, and if we are bad we make our hell according to it.  It is our basic motivation, our personality, and our character, since it is the reality of our life.  It cannot be changed after death because it is our essential self."  Italics mine.

If we choose to do good things, that doesn't seem to be something that will alter our essential self IF it is not consistent with that self.  And therefore, per ES, what happens to us when we die is pretty much set in stone.

Again, I don't personally agree with ES.  And maybe he's not really saying what he seems to be saying.  In any case it remains, as I said before, a rather gloomy picture.

R

And then there's this:

http://www.csicop.org/si/show/swedenborg_and_dr._oz

It certainly sheds a different light on ES and his discoveries.

R

Matthew, very well stated and I agree with your interpretation of what ES communicates.

Roger, I'm sure you'd agree that all models in which we try to describe our greater reality are limited and therefore can only be flawed at least to a certain degree because we can only communicate them based on our human perspectives influenced by our cultures.  Though I must say it is fascinating to try to discover meaning and truth from the various ones that are put out there.  I think we need to remember that Van Dusen's book is his own interpretation of what ES communicates.  My interpretation of what ES means by "ruling love" is like what Matthew is saying though I break it down a bit more.

Consciousness is the basic, fundamental reality upon which all else arises.  Nothing truly exists except consciousness.  Consciousness is primary, but since our ideas about what consciousness means are so limited by our cultures, I think it is easier to model it as our core essence and to say it is essence that gives rise to consciousness, that gives rise to mind, that gives rise to matter.  Our core essence is the most essential nature of our being and is completely unique to each of us. It is our "ruling love" as ES puts it.

Our core essence has been there within each of us since before the beginning of time and is far beyond the limitations of time, space and belief.  It is the individualized aspect of the divine, of God within and from this place within each of us is where we live and move and have our being.  We can easily recognize it as that which we have always known ourselves to be since birth.  In this place we are full of wisdom, love and courage. 

Our inner essence has not really changed with time since our physical birth, nor will it have changed at the time we die.  No negative experiences have ever really tainted it.  Sure, our reactions to negative experiences may have covered it, or shrouded it, but they have never really changed it because it is our most basic nature, the deeper goodness that is within each of us.  It is from this place within, the eternal fountainhead from which all our creative energies arise.

Everything we have ever done in our life began with both good intent and with pleasure.  To break it down more specifically, all creative acts/actions follow the same course in the journey into the physical.  It first manifests as consciousness within our core essence, then as intent, then as life energies that well up into the physical.  When these energies flow directly from the core through positive/loving intent, through the personality, through the physical body, we create joy, health and wellbeing in our lives as well as in the lives of others.

When we block the creative energies arising from the core with negative/fearful intent, we eventually create pain and suffering in our lives as well as the lives of others.  Yet, we need to have both positive and negative experience as a way to evolve consciousness.  We need duality in order to learn, understand and grow.  We are never separated from our core essence, it is who we really are, it is our essential self, it is our ruling love.  Experiencing a single lifetime in this or any other physical reality cannot change our inner nature or our inner being very much.  Evolutionary change does occur, but if we consider the immenseness of the essence of which we are a part of, evolution is a very slow process and a single lifetime is likely to have only the tiniest measurable impact if any at all.

Kathy

PS  Roger, interesting skeptical article.  Sounds to me like the author is writing to the skeptical world without doing his homework... just picking and choosing what he personally finds outrageous including Dr. Oz.  lol  

I've never read the ES book he mentions so couldn't speak to anything this person says about it.