608. As internal breathing waned, external breathing almost of the kind we have today gradually replaced it. With external breathing came verbal speech — the speech of articulated sounds. This was now the vehicle for the individual ideas that make up thought.

In the process, the human condition changed radically. People could no longer perceive things in the way they had before but, as a substitute for perception, began to hear another kind of inner voice that can be called conscience. It was similar to conscience, although it was more or less a middle ground between perception and the conscience that some people today are familiar with. ¹

When the ideas that make up thought came to be poured into this type of mold — into spoken words, that is — human beings could no longer receive instruction by way of the inner self as the earliest people had but only through the outer self. The revelations of the earliest church gave way to articles of doctrine, which would first be grasped through the physical senses. These physical sensations would be shaped into concrete images in the memory and then reshaped into ideas — the components of thought. The ideas would provide an avenue and a framework for instruction.

So it was that this church, which came after the earliest church, had a completely different kind of psyche. Had the Lord not imposed on the human race this new psyche or new approach, no one could ever have been saved.

Footnotes:

81. Inner Meaning

THIS chapter deals with the heavenly person; the last dealt with the spiritual person, who previously had been lifeless. In modern times, though, people know nothing about the character of a heavenly person and very little about that of a spiritual person or of a lifeless one. Let me clarify the differences through a brief discussion of each type.

1. The only truth and goodness that lifeless people acknowledge are bodily and worldly kinds, and these they revere.

Spiritual people acknowledge spiritual and heavenly types of truth and goodness, but their acknowledgment stems from faith — as do their actions — and not as much from love.

Heavenly people believe and perceive truth and goodness of spiritual and heavenly kinds, but they acknowledge no other faith than one that springs from love; and love is also what moves them to action.

[2] 2. Those who are lifeless fixate purely on bodily and worldly life as their goals. They do not know what eternal life is or what the Lord is. If they have heard about these, they have no belief in them.

Those who are spiritual focus first on eternal life as their goal, and then on the Lord.

Those who are heavenly concentrate first on the Lord as their goal, and then on his kingdom and eternal life.

[3] 3. When the lifeless undergo conflict, they almost always give in. When they are free of conflict, evil and falsity master them, and they are slaves to it. Their restraints are external and include fear of the law and fear of losing their life, wealth, profits, and consequent reputation.

The spiritual are subject to conflict, but they always win. The restraints that curb them are internal ones termed the bonds of conscience. ¹

Heavenly people experience no conflict. If evil and falsity attack them, they spurn them, which is why they are called victors. They have no apparent restraints to curb them, being free, but they do have invisible restraints, which are the goodness and truth they perceive.

Footnotes: