402. (vi) THE PURELY NATURAL AND SENSUAL MAN.
Few know who are meant by the term 'sensual men' or what sort of people they are, so, since it is important to know this, they must be described.
1. The term 'sensual man' is applied to a person whose every judgment relies upon the bodily senses, and who believes nothing but what he can see with his eyes and touch with his hands, regarding these things as real and rejecting all else. So the sensual man is the lowest level of the natural man.
[2] 2. The interiors of his mind, which would allow him to see by the light of heaven, are shut off, so that he can see there no truth at all that has to do with heaven or the church, since he thinks at the most superficial level with no inward enlightenment from any spiritual light.
[3] 3. Since he enjoys the gross light of nature, he is inwardly opposed to anything to do with heaven or the church, even though outwardly he can speak in their favour, with passion if he seeks power by their means.
[4] 4. Sensual men are sharp and clever in reasoning, because their thought is so close to their speech that it is virtually in it, so to speak, on their lips; and because in speaking they regard all intelligence as based solely upon memory.
[5] 5. Some of them are able to prove anything they wish, and with great skill what is false; and after proving them they believe these ideas are true. But their reasoning and proofs are based upon illusions produced by the senses, and these serve to attract the attention of and persuade ordinary people.
[6] 6. Sensual men surpass others in trickery and malice.
[7] 7. The interiors of their minds are foul and filthy, since through them they are in touch with the hells.
[8] 8. The spirits in the hells are sensual, and the deeper their hell, the more sensual they are. The sphere emanating from spirits in hell links itself to a person's sensual faculty from behind.
[9] 9. Sensual men cannot see any genuine truth in light, but reason and dispute on all subjects whether it is so. These disputes are heard by others as the sound of gnashing of teeth; this is, on a correct view, the noise of falsities in conflict with one another and the conflict of falsity and truth. Hence it is plain what is meant by 'gnashing of teeth' in the Word. This is because reasoning from the illusions produced by the senses corresponds to the teeth.
[10] 10. Educated and learned people who have become deeply convinced of false ideas are more sensual than other people, and even more so, if they oppose the truths of the Word, though they may not appear so to the world's eyes. Heresies have chiefly sprung from people who were sensual.
[11] 11. Hypocrites, tricksters, pleasure-seekers, adulterers and misers are for the most part sensual.
[12] 12. Those who reasoned solely from sense impressions, and against the genuine truths of the Word, and therefore of the church, were called by the ancients serpents of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Since sense impressions mean things impinging on the bodily senses and apprehended by their means, it follows that:
[13] 13. By sense impressions a person is in touch with the world, and by rational ideas above their level with heaven.
[14] 14. Sense impressions supply such things from the natural world as may be of service to the interiors of the mind in the spiritual world.
[15] 15. There are sense impressions which supply the understanding (these are the various natural phenomena known as physics), and there are sense impressions which supply the will (these are the pleasures of the senses and the body).
[16] 16. If thought is not raised above the level of sense impressions, a person's wisdom is very restricted; a wise man thinks on a higher level than sense impressions. When his thought is raised above this level, he comes into brighter illumination, and eventually into the light of heaven. This is how a person perceives truth, which is what intelligence really is.
[17] 17. The ancients were well acquainted with the raising of the mind above sense impressions and its withdrawal from them.
[18] 18. If sense impressions are in the last place, they serve to open the way for the understanding, and truths are refined by the method by which they are extracted. But if sense impressions occupy the first place, they serve to block that way, and a person can only see truths as if in a mist, or as if at night.
[19] 19. Sense impressions occupy the last place in the case of a wise person, and they are subject to more inward things; but in the case of an unwise person they occupy the first place and are dominant. It is these people who are properly called sensual.
[20] 20. Human beings have some sense impressions which are shared with animals, and others which are not.
[21] To the extent that a person thinks above the level of sense impressions, he is truly a human being. But no one can think above this level and see the truths of the church, unless he acknowledges God and lives in accordance with His commandments. For it is God who raises the level and enlightens the mind.
