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.

To say that each of us has an internal “self” and an external “self” is not particularly revolutionary. We all have a natural sense that our thoughts and feelings are “inside” us and our bodies and actions are on the “outside” of us.

As Swedenborg describes it, though, “internal” and “external” are a little more nuanced: Our internals are our thoughts and intentions and also our understanding about and love for spiritual and divine truths and how these are to be processed by us. Swedenborg also points out that we have internals that we are aware of and those we are unaware of and which the Lord alone knows are there within us.

Externals are the expression of internals. Internals, thoughts and intentions, if not externalised, have little or no meaning. Yet externals without any internal can become dead, things of mere habit, and even hypocritical. Swedenborg says that the physical world and our activity in it forms the external plane of the spiritual world.

So let’s say you’re cooking your family’s favorite dinner. When you’re measuring ingredients, setting the oven temperature, thinking about when to start cooking something to be done at a particular time, that’s all external thinking. When you’re imagining how happy your spouse and children will be, how nice it will be to sit down to eat together, feeling a sense of joy in doing something nice for people, that’s internal thinking and feeling.

So which is more important? Ultimately, our place in heaven (or hell) will be determined by what we love, what makes us happy. So it’s clear that ultimately internal things are more important. That makes sense because they feel “higher,” like they come from a part of us that is more “us.”

But externals are important too. If you only think about that meal but don’t actually cook it, you won’t be sharing your love with your family in a very complete way. For another, our externals give us the chance to change. We can make ourselves do what’s right in externals even if we don’t really want to, and if we keep at it and ask the Lord to help He will ultimately change us so that we love to do good things.

Swedenborg makes one other key point about internals and externals, which is that while internals can “compel” externals (your deeper thoughts and feelings can control what you do on the outside), your externals cannot “compel” your internals (what you’re forced to do on the outside cannot control your thoughts and feelings on the inside). We see this all the time when one nation tries to rule over another, or when a repressive regime tries to control its own people. Ultimately hearts and minds cannot be controlled.

This is key when we are trying to help others: you might be able to force someone (your child, say, or your student, or someone who works for you) to do what you think is right, but unless you can appeal to his or her internals, you’re not really changing anything significant.

It’s also key when guiding ourselves in our own lives: forcing ourselves to do the right thing is meaningless unless we also start an internal dialog about what we truly want and truly think, and start opening up inside to the Lord.

(参考: Arcana Coelestia 1999, 5828 [3], 9824 [2]; The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine 46)