Page:Swedenborg's Doctrine of Correspondence.djvu/65

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MENTAL PHENOMENA.
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phenomena, which have been found perplexing, are easily explained.

Space and time, for example, in the spiritual world, are not fixed and permanent, irrespective of the percipient, but are dependent upon the changing states of the spirits and angels. This distinction between the two worlds has already been pointed out, and referred to the law that one world is alive and the other dead. It results that thought directed to another brings presence, and thought from affection or desire brings association and conjunction of minds. You cannot love the same evil without having its infernal crew for your intimate bosom companions; and the thoughts the activities of your love awaken in them, will be communicated to your own minds. You cannot love any heavenly good, or think any divine truth which is an object of angelic thought and love, without bringing the angels present and the activities of their love into your own mind.

Then again, phenomena in the spiritual world are produced by the projection of the states of the beholders upon its background of substance, and are more or less permanent according to the permanence of the states producing them.