Page:Swedenborg's Doctrine of Correspondence.djvu/66

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THE SCIENCE OF CORRESPONDENCE.

1. There are the real appearances and scenery of that world produced from the common and abiding states of those who inhabit and use them, and continuing with modifications according to the variations of those states. The heavenly habitations, for example, are permanent because the fundamental states of the dwellers in them are permanent; but they are constantly varying like living things, because the fundamental states of character are ever experiencing variations.

2. There are also in the spiritual world representative forms capable of being produced and modified at will for specific purposes, as if an artist might project his ideal upon the canvas without brush or pigments, by willing and thinking it there.

3. There are also, magical representations capable of being produced in the same way, which represent no reality, but only the phantasy which, for evil purposes, mischievous spirits desire to induce and make appear as real.

It will appear then from man's unconscious association with spirits, and these universal facts of the spiritual world, how certain mental phenomena are to be explained.