Correspondence is the relationship between a natural thing and its spiritual meaning, and it exists according to that thing's use. The spiritual world and the natural world correspond; forms exist here because their purpose exists there. Sacred text such as in the Bible has outward form and inner meaning and the two are in complete correspondence.

This can be illustrated by the following example: when you see someone you love, you smile. It seems like a pretty simple process, but in reality, it's not; instead it’s a whole string of events, with simpler things relating to more complex ones, rising to the spiritual level and coming back down. First light bounces off that person’s face and enters your eyes. Your eyes send information to your brain. From there it passes into your mind - a spiritual organ, according to Swedenborg’s works - and registers in your consciousness. You recognize the person and feel love for them! But that has to get translated back down through the brain, which generates signals to all the facial muscles, which then contract or relax according to orders, producing a smile.

As you can see, the real activity here is mental. You “see” that face in your mind; before then it’s just a string of impulses carrying information. And you “smile” in your mind, with the information translated back into more impulses carry more information leading to physical activity. Your eyes don’t “know” what they’re seeing; your cheeks don’t “know” that they are smiling. They are simply projections of an internal, spiritual thing - your mind - into a lower physical reality.

That’s an example of correspondences, on a very small scale. What you see on the natural plane of existence corresponds to your idea of what you see and the affection you have for it. Your reaction in turn corresponds to the affection you have. The correspondence of one with the other is a way for the more important spiritual reality - the activity in your mind - to project itself into physical reality.

Swedenborg’s works tell us that those correspondences are more important than we could possibly imagine. In fact, everything in the physical world corresponds to something in the spiritual world. Mountains, for example, are not just mountains; they are the spiritual love of the Lord projected into physical reality in the form of mountains. Trees are rooted, lasting spiritual principles projected into physical reality in the forms of trees. A river is a flow of true spiritual ideas projected into physical reality. In a way, it’s like the spiritual world is one huge collective mind, expressing itself through physical reality the way our own minds express themselves through our own bodies.

And then there’s another level: Swedenborg’s works say that the most perfect form of spiritual reality, heaven, is in a state of complete, all-encompassing correspondence with the Lord, with each aspect of heaven expressing some aspect of the deepest reality of all, which is the Lord’s love and wisdom themselves. This is way out at the raw edge of what we can grasp, but it’s really quite beautiful. Spiritual reality is not part of the Lord, but it is from the Lord and can express the Lord as it approaches perfection. Physical reality is not part of the Lord and is not part of spiritual reality, but it is from the Lord by way of spiritual reality, and it can express spiritual reality (and thus the Lord) as it approaches perfection.

This is why the Lord had so many physical laws for the children of Israel: the prescribed physical actions corresponded to spiritual meanings, which in turn corresponded to aspects of the Lord Himself. It explains why we see advanced astronomy and awareness of nature in the remnants of ancient religions worldwide: They came from the Ancient Church, which had a surpassing knowledge of correspondences and used that knowledge in worship and life. To some degree it explains why we still love mountaintops, beautiful gardens, natural beauties like waterfalls: we can still feel the spiritual reality close inside them, even if we don’t know it in its specifics.

Correspondences also explain the continuing power of the Bible even in this skeptical age. The Lord provided that it should be written - most of it, anyway - in correspondences, which actually give access to His whole infinite being. We may not understand them, but that does not limit their power to teach us, to form our minds; this is why it’s important for people to read the Bible with open minds, to let the Lord enter in.

One other fascinating and meaningful aspect of correspondences comes in the form of what Swedenborg’s works call the “Grand Man” or “Grand Human.” Because heaven is in complete correspondence with the Lord and the Lord is the ultimate, infinite, divine and archetypal human, this means that heaven is in human form. And this is quite literal and precise: parts of heaven correspond the heart, others to the lungs, others to the brain, skin, ears, hair, digestive tract, everything. What’s more, just as the body’s organs are broken down into tissues and the tissues into cells, so also is the Grand Human broken down. So as an individual angel you might serve a brain function for a cell that performs a protective function for an organ that plays a digestive role in the Grand Human. That sounds a bit strange, but if you consider the unique mix of ideas and affections in each of us you can see how we could, indeed, fill such precise roles calling for such precise degrees of precisely layered talents.

And since physical reality is in correspondence with spiritual reality, this means that our communities and societies in this world are also in the human form, though obviously not all to a very perfected degree. This also sounds strange, but it’s an interesting exercise to think about the functions of the brain (to think and judge), the skin (to protect and hold together), the lungs (to draw in new thoughts and ideas), the digestive tract (to create energy to do work), heart (to circulate energy and ideas) and muscles (to do the actual work) and relate them to the functions of human organizations. Most likely, effective human organizations will indeed have these elements, and will have them in the proper balance.

Finally, of course, correspondences are one of the primary reasons for this website to exist. Our purpose is to share the knowledge of correspondences offered through Swedenborg’s works, so we can all understand the Bible, the Lord and ourselves a little bit better and find our own places in the Grand Human.

(Препратки: Heaven and Hell 89; The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine 261)

261. The Word is written by correspondences, and thus by representatives.

The Word, as to its literal sense, is written by mere correspondences, thus by such things as represent and signify spiritual things which relate to heaven and the church (n. 1404, 1408-1409, 1540, 1619, 1659, 1709, 1783, 2179, 2763, 2899). This was done for the sake of the internal sense, which is contained in every part (n. 2899). For the sake of heaven, since those who are in heaven do not understand the Word according to the sense of the letter, which is natural, but according to its internal sense, which is spiritual (n. 2899). The Lord spoke by correspondences, representatives, and significatives, because He spoke from the Divine (n. 9048, 9063, 9086, 10126, 10728). Thus the Lord spoke at the same time before the world and before heaven (n. 2533, 4807, 9048, 9063, 9086). The things which the Lord spoke filled the entire heaven (n. 4637). The historicals of the Word are representative, and the words significative (n. 1540, 1659, 1709, 1783, 2686). The Word could not be written in any other style, that by it there might be a communication and conjunction with the heavens (n. 2899, 6943, 9481). They who despise the Word on account of the apparent simplicity and rudeness of its style, and who fancy that they would receive the Word, if it were written in a different style, are in a great error (n. 8783). The mode and style of writing, which prevailed amongst the most ancient people, was by representatives and significatives (n. 605, 1756, 9942). The ancient wise men were delighted with the Word, because of the representatives and significatives therein, from experience (n. 2592-2593). If a man of the Most Ancient Church had read the Word, he would have seen the things which are in the internal sense clearly, and those which are in the external sense obscurely (n. 4493). The sons of Jacob were brought into the land of Canaan, because all the places in that land, from the most ancient times, were made representative (n. 1585, 3686, 4447, 5136, 6516). And thus that the Word might there be written, in which Word those places were to be mentioned for the sake of the internal sense (n. 3686, 4447, 5136, 6516). But nevertheless the Word was changed, for the sake of that nation, as to the external sense, but not as to the internal sense (n. 10453, 10461, 10603-10604). In order that it may be known what the correspondences and representatives in the Word are, and what is their quality, something shall also be said concerning them.

All things which correspond are likewise representative, and thereby significative, thus that correspondences and representatives are one (n. 2896-2897, 2973, 2987, 2989-2990, 3002, 3225). What correspondences and representations are, from experience and examples (n. 2763, 2987-3002, 3213-3226, 3337-3352, 3472-3485, 4218-4228, 9280). The knowledge of correspondences and representations was the chief science amongst the ancients (n. 3021, 3419, 4280, 4748, 4844, 4964, 4966, 6004, 7729, 10252). Especially with the Orientals (n. 5702, 6692, 7097, 7779, 9391, 10252, 10407); and in Egypt more than in other countries (n. 5702, 6692, 7097, 7779, 9391, 10407). Also among the Gentiles, as in Greece and other places (n. 2762, 7729). But at this day it is among the sciences which are lost, particularly in Europe (n. 2894-2895, 2994, 3630, 3632, 3747-3749, 4581, 4966, 10252). Nevertheless this science is more excellent than all other sciences, since without it the Word is not understood, nor the signification of the rites of the Jewish church, which are recorded in the Word; neither is it known what heaven is, nor what the spiritual is, nor in what manner spiritual influx takes place into what is natural, with many other things (n. 4280, and in the places above cited). All the things which appear before angels and spirits, are representatives, according to correspondences of such things as relate to love and faith (n. 1971, 3213-3226, 3449, 3475, 3485, 9481, 9574, 9576-9577). The heavens are full of representatives (n. 1521, 1532, 1619). Representatives are more beautiful, and more perfect, in proportion as they are more interiorly in the heavens (n. 3475). Representatives there are real appearances, being derived from the light of heaven, which is Divine truth, and which is the very essential of the existence of all things (n. 3485).

The reason why each and all things in the spiritual world are represented in the natural world, is because what is internal assumes a suitable clothing in what is external, whereby it makes itself visible and apparent (n. 6275, 6284, 6299). Thus the end assumes a suitable clothing, that it may exist as the cause in a lower sphere, and afterwards that it may exist as the effect in a sphere lower still; and when the end, by means of the cause, becomes the effect, it then becomes visible, or appears before the eyes (n. 5711). This may be illustrated by the influx of the soul into the body, whereby the soul assumes a clothing of such things in the body, as enable all the things which it thinks and wills, to appear and become visible; wherefore the thought, when it flows down into the body, is represented by gestures and actions which correspond thereto (n. 2988). The affections, which are of the mind, are manifestly represented in the face, by the variations of the countenance, so that they may be seen therein (n. 4791-4805, 5695). Hence it is evident, that each and all things in nature have in them a latent cause and end from the spiritual world (n. 3562, 5711). Since the things in nature are ultimate effects, which contain prior things (n. 4240, 4939, 5051, 6275, 6284, 6299, 9216). Internal things are represented, and external things represent (n. 4292).

Since all things in nature are representative of spiritual and celestial things, therefore, in ancient times, there were churches, wherein all the externals, which are rituals, were representative; wherefore those churches were called representative churches (n. 519, 521, 2896). The church founded with the sons of Israel was a representative church (n. 1003, 2179, 10149). All its rituals were external things, which represented the internal things of heaven and the church (n. 4288, 4874). Representatives of the church and of worship ceased when the Lord came into the world, because the Lord opened the internal things of the church, and because all the externals of the church in the highest sense regarded Him (n. 4832).

6135. 'Nothing is left before [my] lord apart from our bodies and our ground' means that the receptacles of goodness and truth have been made completely desolate. This is clear from the meaning of body' as the receptacle of good, dealt with below; and from the meaning of ground' as the receptacle of truth. The reason why 'ground' is the receptacle of truth is that it receives seeds, and seeds sown in it mean in a specific sense matters of faith derived from charity, thus of truth derived from good, 1025, 1447, 1610, 1940, 2848, 3038, 3310, 3373; consequently 'the ground' means the receptacle of truth. See also what has been stated and shown previously regarding the ground in 566, 1068, 3671. The fact that such receptacles have been made desolate is meant by 'nothing is left before [my] lord apart from'.

[2] In the genuine sense 'body' means the good of love and 'ground' the truth of faith. When truths and forms of the good of truth, meant by 'the silver' and 'the livestock', can be seen no longer on account of the desolation, 'body' means merely the receptacle for good and 'ground' the receptacle for truth. The reason why 'body' in the genuine sense means the good of love is that the body or the entire person meant by the body is a receptacle of life from the Lord, thus a receptacle of good; for the good of love composes the actual life in a person. The vital heat that consists in love is vital heat itself; and unless that heat exists in a person, the person is something dead. This then is the reason why in the internal sense 'body' means the good of love. Even if a person does not have heavenly love present in him but hellish love, the inmost centre of his life still owes its existence to heavenly love. For this love flows in constantly from the Lord and provides him with vital heat in its primary and original form; but as it comes to that person it is perverted by him, and this gives rise to hellish love, from which an unclean heat is radiated.

[3] I have been able to see quite clearly from the angels that 'body' in the genuine sense is the good of love. When they are present, love floods out of them, so much so that you think they are nothing but love; it floods out of their entire bodies. Also their bodies have a dazzling appearance, full of light shining from them; for the good of love is like a flame sending out from itself light, which is the truth of faith derived from that good. If this therefore is what the angels of heaven are like, what of the Lord Himself? He is the Source of every spark of love among the angels, and His Divine Love is seen as the Sun from which the whole of heaven receives its light, and from which all who are there derive their heavenly heat, that is, their love and so their life. The Lord's Divine Human is what appears in that way and is the Source of all those things. From this one may now see what is meant by the Lord's body - Divine Love, the same as is meant by His flesh, dealt with in 3813. Also, the Lord's very body - having been glorified, that is, made Divine - is nothing else than such Love; so what else can one feel the Divine, which is the Infinite, to be?

[4] From all this one may recognize that nothing else is meant by 'body' in the Holy Supper than the Lord's Divine Love towards the entire human race, described in the Gospels as follows,

Jesus, taking the bread and saying a blessing, broke and gave to the disciples and said, Take, eat, this is My body. Matthew 26:26; Mark 14:22; Luke 22:19.

He said, referring to the bread, 'this is My body' because 'bread' too means Divine Love, 276, 680, 2165, 2177, 3464, 3478, 3735, 4735, 5915.

[5] Divine Love is again meant by the Lord's body in John,

Jesus said, Destroy [this] temple and in three days I will raise it up again. But He was speaking of the temple of His body. John 2:19, 21.

'The temple of His body' is Divine Truth derived from Divine Good, for 'the temple' is the Lord's Divine Truth, see 3720. And since 'body' in the highest sense is the Divine Good of the Lord's Divine Love, all in heaven are said to be in the Lord's body.

[6] That the Lord's body is Divine Good is also clear from the following words in Daniel,

I lifted up my eyes and saw, and behold, a man clothed in linen whose loins were girded with gold of Uphaz, and his body was like tarshish, ¹ and his face was like the appearance of lightning, and his eyes were like fiery torches, and his arms and his feet like the shine of burnished bronze, and the sound of his words like the sound of a multitude. Daniel 10:5-6.

'The gold of Uphaz' with which the man's loins were girded, 'the appearance of lightning' that his face had, 'the fiery torches' descriptive of his eyes, and 'the shine of bronze' descriptive of his arms and feet mean aspects of the good of love. 'Gold is the good of love, see 113, 1551, 1552, 5658, as also is 'fire', 934, 4906, 5215; and since 'fire' has that meaning, so does 'lightning'. 'Bronze' is the good of love and charity in the natural, 425, 1551; 'tarshish' which the rest of his body looked like, that is to say, which his trunk between head and loins looked like, means the good of charity and faith; for tarshish is a sparkling and precious stone.

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