Correspondence of Symbols

Distance Learning Tutored Course from SOLCe This course invites you to research a few parallels between the spiritual and physical worlds and then to present your insights and ideas to your tutor and fellow students, when possible. The Creator communicates with us through natural-world images as these are what we readily understand.  We have the … Continue reading Correspondence of Symbols

Multiculturalism — good or bad?

multiculturalism

Anders Behring Breivik murdered dozens of people in cold blood in Norway as a horrendous way of protesting about Islamic immigration. How should we respond? By reiterating democratic liberal values in favour of multiculturalism? Or seeing a warning sign about a society’s limits to tolerance of what is alien?

Unwanted thoughts – How to be rid of them?

unwanted thoughts

I must wash my hands repeatedly. Such an idea or mental picture may pop into your head unasked. Such ideas are unwanted if they are repetitive, unpleasant or difficult to resist. In addition to compulsive acts, they can exacerbate jealousy, temptation, or unreasonable guilt. Swedenborg’s account of unconscious inflow from a spirit realm can give the sufferer some confidence that unwanted thoughts can be ignored and got rid of.

Tell the future – Is this possible?

tell the future

To want to know the future is a perfectly natural desire. We pick up our ears when we hear of foretold events. Who would not want a few days foreknowledge of the stock market for example? A few incidents in the life of Emanuel Swedenborg suggest he had precognition.

Cats Don’t Get It!

Lucy seeks and shows affection in the way she nuzzles up to me. But she has her faults like clawing the soft furnishings. I haven’t seen any signs of what I would call a social conscience in her makeup. No public prosecutor would take an animal to court on a criminal charge. It’s otherwise with human beings. We also have a will but is ours not one based on rational understanding? For unlike animals have we not a higher degree of mind that can see beyond the things of the senses?

Gay Pride and Straight Talk.

gay

Whether to allow gay bishops is currently a hot issue in the Church of England. Many people feel puzzled by this reluctance to embrace homosexuality by strands of organised religion. And some feel angry and want to promote the idea that gay people should be proud of their sexual orientation feeling this is their natural inclination. From a spiritual perspective, we might ask whether a gay partnership has the same potential for human happiness as that of a heterosexual one. So what does Swedenborg have to say about it?

The Divine in Marriage

Distance Learning Course (with tutorials) from Swedenborg Open Learning Centre According to the proverb, marriages are made in heaven.  How true this is, according to Swedenborg in his late-published book  Conjugial Love, sometimes translated as Marriage Love.  Conjugial – is it a misprint?  No – Swedenborg used the Latin word conjugialis which is derived from … Continue reading The Divine in Marriage