E.Swedenborg’s theory about ‘ABSOLUTELY dead matter’ vs. discoveries of the modern science in relation to the elementary particles
‘And because all spiritual things in their origin are living, and all natural things from their origin are dead, and the suns are the origins, it follows that the one Sun is living and the other sun is dead; also that the dead sun itself has been created by the Lord by means of the living Sun.’ E.Swedenborg ‘Divine Love and Wisdom – 164’
‘False philosphy according to the letter, but true according to the spirit; how could life create death?!’ W.Blake ‘Annotations to E.Swedenborg’s Divine Love and Wisdom – 163, 164′
Dear members, and especially G. :), greetings in our Lord!
I have a few questions on my mind these days, and everytime I was thinking about them firstly G. (then Gs. who, as I heard from the third party, used to be a J.Lorber’s passionate reader :)!!) came to my mind :)… this was probably the ‘good effect’ of our previous constructive conversations in this group 🙂
Now, as I am presently engaged into the translating of E.Swedenborg’s TCR into my native tongue… and as for the moment I am working on it’s first chapter (1-80), about God the Creator and His creation, these few questions as given below, all of which are related to E. Swedenborg’s theory that this Sun of ours, i.e. natural sun, together with it’s heat and light and everything under it, which means our nature = material world, is completely dead and void of life (!)!, simply forced themselves into my mind:
‘For the sun, from which nature derives her own origin and essence, is pure fire, and consequently its emanations of heat and light are COMPLETELY VOID OF LIFE.’ TCR – 12:5; 75:2
‘… and consequently the nature… is ABSOLUTELY DEAD.’ TCR – 77:4 (see also DLW – 157-160)
Therefore, my first question would be, are these words of E.Swedenborg understood in the New Church in accordance with the letter, i.e. literally, or in accordance with the spirit?!
Me personally, although I would love to think that he is talking about ‘seemingly dead’ sun/heat-light/matter, I believe, especially when I compare his statements from TCR with those in DLW, that he actually spoke about ‘dead as dead can be’ sun, it’s heat and light, and finally matter!
Now, if this second option would be the case, I wonder further ‘how this statement of E.Swedenborg’, which I cannot approve even if I try very very hard, stands against the new discoveries in modern science in relation to the matter and quite ‘alive’ and ‘moving’ elementary particles, i.e. electron, proton, neutron, neutrino, nullitron etc. ?!
I am not bringing this here with the purpose of any argument but ONLY for the love of truth… and what I would truly appreciate is, of course beside your opinion about this subject, information about some available study or essay about this particular issue, if existing in the New Church!
Example of what I am looking for is given to you below in that study about the issue in question which relates to what our Lord revealed through another mighty prophet, namely, Jakob Lorber, revelation where matter = everything of that nature is not deemed to be dead, but only ‘seemingly dead’, being in itself a spiritual force with spiritual origins.
In short, this revealation which I find to be more accurate in this point teaches us that whatever God created and creates He created and creates out of Himself = out of His essence, which is Love (this statement also agrees with E.Swedenborg’s explanations as given in his TCR and DLW)… consequently, spiritual beings originally created by Him were so to speak emanated sparks of His Love force/energy, to whom was granted indenpendence… and free will… their misuse of that free will was the reason that they so to speak distanced themselves from God… more and more … and this ‘separation’ from their source produced in turn hardening of their spiritual substance… i.e. they turned themselves, by degrees (E.Swedenborg’s Doctrine of degrees would be then also truthful), into what is observed by us and called ‘matter’… God their and our Father ‘shaped’ that hardened spiritual force of His into the Creation and ordered as it’s purpose a return to it’s Source… consequently, the matter is in itself also a spiritual living force… but in ‘seemingly dead condition’ due to it’s above described rebellion … in a sort of ‘spiritual coma’… called in that Revelation a ‘judgment’ and ‘imprisonment’.
Now, please consider how this ‘theory’ of the Creation PERFECTLY stands when in confrontation with the discoveries of the modern science (when thinking about this please consider the spiritual meaning of the words in Isaiah 19:23-25 and also of Matthew 24:27):
Disclosures in New Revelation (J. Lorber and G. Mayerhofer) Relating to Elementary Particles and Modern Research Findings
Just as New Revelation anticipated the discoveries astronomers have made in recent decades, so it also contains disclosures relating to atoms and elementary particles. The terms used are not those we are familiar with today, but nevertheless a picture is given of the mysterious processes of the generation of matter that is wholly in accord with the truth. It is really striking how accurate even the details are, as science has now fully confirmed.
In presenting the line of argument, it will inevitably be necessary to involve the reader at least marginally with the subject of atomic physics. Efforts have been made to present the subject in such a way that the reader will be able to follow. Where the disclosures made by Lorber are concerned, it is important to remember that prophesy always uses its own forms of expression. It should also be noted that New Revelation perceives processes in the subatomic range that at times extend to the spiritual realm, and sees the elementary particles as the first stages in the evolution of animal life. “A spiritual particle of My Self”, it is said, “is present in every atom.” (LGh p. 163) “In everything that is created, a spiritual element is condensed, pushed together in a larger volume … This is how everything you call matter has arisen.” (LGh p. 84) Swedenborg describes it in an analogous way: “There is no natural entity that does not have its origin in the spiritual realm’ “ Materialistic science in both West and East on the other hand denies God the Creator and the transcendental world of spirits. “The materialists,” Birjukow writes, “consider matter to be the basis of all that exists in the world. Spirit and soul are the products of a particular form of highly developed matter.”67 New Revelation and materialistic science are thus diametrically opposed in their fundamental statements. A change is however beginning to emerge in science, as will be shown later. In discussing atoms and elementary particles, New Revelation speaks of “atoms”, “ether atoms”, “atomic animalcules”, “monads” and “spirit particles”.
2300 years ago, the Greek philosophers Leucippus and Democritus had evolved the concept of matter being composed of minute particles that were indivisible. The term atom derives from the Greek atomos, meaning indivisible. The assumption that the atom is indivisible has of course been shown to be false in the 20th century. The atom in turn consists of much smaller particles, known as elementary particles. These form the substructure of matter. Kenneth W. Ford said that at the beginning of this century it was known that atoms existed. The structure of the atoms and the relations between atoms were a mystery then, he continues, just as elementary particles were a mystery today. 68 In 1910, the structure of the atom was not yet known, and the science of elementary particle physics really started only around 1930. It was more than thirty years after Lorber’s death that the first elementary particle, the electron, was discovered, and then the proton in 1920 and the neutron in 1932. The electrons form the outer building stones of matter, calling the unbelievably small units elementary particles. However, the number of these particles kept increasing, until today there are about 200. It was soon found that everything is much more complicated and mysterious than was initially thought. The term “elementary particle” proved inappropriate considering the number of particles, but continues to be used in the scientific literature. Getting a glimpse of the world of smaller and smallest things is interesting and may well make gave occasion to reflect on the greatness and wisdom of the Creator. For good reason, Lorber’s writings contain the following statement: “Man is in need of gaining real knowledge of nature. For how are you to love God if you do not see him in the works of His Creation.” Max Planck, Nobel Prize Winner and founder of quantum theory, once spoke along these lines, referring to an indirect and a direct route to God, the former through science, the latter in the sacrament or in one’s conscience.
Since the discovery of the nuclear particles (nucleons) – the proton and the neutron – and of the electron – the structure of the atom is often compared to the solar system, following a model presented by the Danish scientist Niels Bohr. The comparison holds true only within limits, but it will serve here to gave an insight into the matter under discussion. The electrons are rushing around the nucleus of the atom at a tremendous rate, just as the planets circle the sun.
The atom is so small that about 100 million atoms in line will make one centimeter. The nucleus is a hundred thousand times smaller than the atom itself. 69 A pinhead and a balloon would have the same relative sizes as the diameter of an atomic nucleus and the atom as a whole, including the orbiting electrons. 70
Many decades before the turn of the century, i.e. a long time before science was able to gain an insight into the inner structure of the atom, New Revelation was teaching that the atom consisted of even smaller, subatomic particles. In the book entitled Schoepfungsgeheimnisse (Mysteries of Creation) it says, on page 227: “An idea had to precede the creation of an atom which, before it became an atom, was made up of even smaller constituents, finally bordering on the airy, gaseous or spiritual form.”
The mass of an atom is infinitesimal, as may be seen from the following: “It needs about three thousand million billion (USA trillion, translator) of the heaviest known atoms to make one gram.” 71 The nucleus, taking up one hundred thousandth of the area of the atom, nevertheless has 99.95% of the mass (weight) of the atom. The electron, the particle unit making up the orbital part of the atom, weighs 1836 times less than the proton. It weighs the 10-27th part of a gram. Mathematically, this may be written as follows: mo = 0.9107 * 10-27 grams or mo˜1/ 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 gram i.e. the nominator under the line is the figure 1 with 27 zeros. 72 Scientists are quite rightly asking themselves what the true nature of the electron may be. W.K. Heisenberg, Nobel Prize Winner, speaks of “spirit-like states” in this context, and Lincoln Barnett has said that the electron is a mere glimmer – as indefinite as a breath of wind, a sound wave in the night. 73 In spite of this, the electron, travelling around the nucleus at a rate of 2000 km per second, is a demonstrable reality. 74
According to New Revelation, the electron is on the borderline to the spiritual realm. The following was dictated to Lorber: “The electron thus is nothing more than firstly the state of rest disturbed by pressure and friction, and secondly the excited activity of the etheric spirits, as something that in part is purely spiritual and in part also the natural light and life substance in the air around the earth.” (Gr VIII 144,1) Elsewhere it says: “An ether atom is, though in your terms a noncorporeal, or, to put it in learned words, an imponderable thing, yet still something complete within itself, a limited entity. Despite its minute size, such an atom nevertheless has dimensions of depth and length like any solid body.” (LGh. p. 163). Atomic physicists refer to the electrons rushing around the nucleus as a “cloud of matter” or a “charge cloud” today, whilst New Revelation has the equally apt term “enveloping mist”. When New Revelation describes the forces of attraction and repulsion, we read: “Thus there developed between the atoms, due to their mist envelope, (= electrons, author), the process of assimilation, with the enveloping mist attracting what is homogeneous and repelling what is heterogeneous.” (LGh p. 164). This is an apt description of the attractant and repellent forces in the atom postulated by 20th century scientists.
Materialist science is still unable to accept the New Revelation statement that atoms, or rather electrons, are partly spiritual by nature. But there are scientists who have come very close to this. Jean Mussard for example writes in his three-volume work God and Random Chance: “Perhaps an atom is nothing but a particle of spirit” 75 Teilhard de Chardin held the view that every particle of matter had its atom of soul. 76
Siegfried Mueller-Markus, a professor of physics, writes: “The unobservable soul of the elementary particle directs its observable energy. The soul of particles plays a fundamental role in atomic physics. It is merely that we refuse to acknowledge its existence.” 77
It is no doubt the partly spiritual nature of elementary particles that has forced scientists to make the following confession: “Whilst we know a surprising amount about the laws to which electrons are subject, and about their interrelation with other particles, it is more or less beyond our capacity to apperceive their actual structure.” 78
Until the 1930s, everything about the atom appeared marvellously well ordered and clear. Yet during the decades that followed, scientists came to realize that it is not the atom that is the smallest unit of physical matter, but that the large numbers of elementary particles since discovered form the basis of all cosmic matter. The atom is already an offshoot. 79 What in fact are these tiny particles? The guessing game as to their real nature is still in full swing today. 80 They are almost all the same size, but differ in weight. Some weigh so little that they may be called ‘mere nothings’. They arrive from the universe impelled by inconceivable energies, up to 1021 (= a thousand trillions) electron volt. 81 This is many million times the energy of the protons scientists are rushing through the huge proton accelerators built here on earth. Passing through the layers of air around the earth, they are within tiny fractions of a second transformed into different particles. The heavy particles always disintegrate, resulting in lighter particles. The life span of particles is so inconceivably short that human concepts of time are inadequate. This is a point where Lorber’s statements, considered quite unreal by everybody in his lifetime, have been accurately confirmed by modern science. Lorber merely gives a few examples, just as only a few of the 200 or so elementary particles are discussed in the scientific literature nowadays. In the book entitled Himmelsgaben (Gift of Heaven), vol. I, page 82, written in 1840, Lorber describes the process of particle conversion as follows:
“You will believe water to be the mother of the animal world. But that is not so. The first category in the animal world are the infinitely small inhabitants of the ether. Within this, they are more or less what you call ‘atoms’ in your language. lf you want to see such an animalcule with your eyes, you need to magnify such a dot a trillion (US quadrillion, translator) times-something you will probably never achieve in earthly life. No mortal eye will be able to see things as they really are, only the eye of the spirit is able to do this.”
“These animals are spherical in form, their surface being extremely smooth. Their food is the essence of light. Their life span is the trillionth part of a second, after which they join in their trillions to begin to form a second category of living beings, though these do not differ greatly from their predecessors as far as size is concerned.” “They may be called ‘monads’.” “This type of animal has the planetary sphere for its habitat. The life span is a thousand billionth of a second.” “In the same way, one category after the other is formed, almost the same in form, with life in a higher potency each time. The life span of these entities will have gradually increased to the thousand millionth part of a second.”
In Lorber’s day, scientists could not possibly imagine a subatomic level where magnification by a thousand million would be required to perceive the smallest units of matter. Yet in the meantime, Lorber’s statements, seeming utterly fantastic at the time, have been fully confirmed. The inconceivably small particles, requiring magnification by a thousand million if they are to be made visible, do exist. The large number of elementary particles discovered mostly from the end of the 1940s onwards, includes some that put everything known before in the shade. One of them is the neutrino. It is so tiny that compared to it the electron is a giant. It has a radius of 170 quadrillionth (US quintillionth, translator) of a centimeter. It has tremendous power of penetration, simply passing right through the earth when travelling from the sun to the earth. Even a body as large as the sun should present no obstacle to it. 82 “As soon as the order of magnitude is reduced to something like 10-6,” D. ter Haar has written, “we reach an area where no sharpening of the senses (using an electron microscope, author) will get us any further.” 83 The inside of an atom has also never been seen and never will be seen. 84 Yet the physicists Cowan and Reines thought up a highly sophisticated experiment that enabled them to find the neutrino. According to Asimov, some physicists thought this was merely the ghost of a particle, though in fact it was not a figment of scientific mystique. 85
Lorber wrote that the “atoms are spherical in form, their surface being extremely smooth.” 86 This, too, has now been confirmed. According to Asimov, a photon of visible light may also be envisaged as a sphere. 87 In the scientific journal X-Magazin 8/1972, it is said of the nullitron, another fairly recently discovered particle, that it “is perfectly spherical” and “has a fairly shiny surface.” Lorber’s “extremely smooth” surface and X-Magazin‘s “fairly shiny surface” are obviously synonymous.
The food of elementary particles, Lorber continues, is “the essence of light” (Hi l p. 83). Again statements have been made in atomic physics that certainly suggest a strong analogy. One such statement is to the effect that a light photon (light particle or corpuscle, author) is at any time in contact with about a thousand million atoms, each of them trying to capture the photon and absorb it. 88
Lorber made surprisingly accurate statements as to the life span of elementary particles, statements that agree exactly with research findings in atomic physics. “Their life span”, Lorber wrote, “is one trillionth of a second” (Hi I, p. 83). The life span of the sigma particle S0 is given as 10-18 seconds by D. ter Haar, i.e. exactly a trillionth of a second. 89 Following transformation into the next stage, Lorber gives a life span of a thousand billionth of a second (Hi 1, p. 83). The life of a neutral pion is in fact 10-15 seconds, i.e. a thousand billionth of a second. 90 “The life span of these entities”, New Revelation says, “will have gradually increased to the thousand millionth part of a second.” (Hi I, p. 83). This, too, has been confirmed by D. ter Haar. The xi particle has a life of 10-9 seconds (= one milliardth of a second). 91 Ford gives the same figure for lambda particles. 92 As transformation progresses, the life span also increases, e.g. to 10-8, 10-6 and 10-3 seconds. 93 A book by Kenneth W. Ford, a reading American scientist in the field of nuclear physics and elementary particle physics, provides illumination for Lorber’s statement that such transformations gave “one category after the other, almost the same in form”.
When the lambda particle has spontaneously dissociated into a nucleon and a pion, which takes less than a thousand millionth of a second, the process continues as follows, according to Ford: The pion takes slightly longer (than a thousand millionth of a second, author) to dissociate into a myon and a neutrino. Shortly afterwards, the myon, too has disappeared and in its place an electron, a neutrino and an antineutrino have been produced. All this occurs with a millionth of a second. 94
Ford says that elementary particles normally disintegrate, giving rise to lighter particles. 95 New Revelation has an analogous statement: “Larger elements always dissolve into lighter ones.” (SGh p. 92) “In nature, one thing always changes unnoticeably into another, as wave generates wave.” (Hi 1, p. 241, 9)
Another statement made in New Revelation is that the “different classes of entities (elementary particles, author) … do not differ greatly from those that went before where their size is concerned.” (Hi I, p. 83, II) This agrees with the following, stated by modern scientists: “The elementary particles are approximately the same in size.” “The products of disintegration again are elementary particles and the same size as the original product.” 96
20th century research has shown that matter does not exist in a state of rest (i.e. it is neither ‘inert’ neither ‘absolutely dead’!!), as 19th century scientists had assumed. At subatomic level, a constant process of destruction is in progress, fast as lightning, catastrophic in nature, and mysterious, finally ending in stable elementary particles. Matter arises from a chaotic process that is almost inconceivable. These processes, far from clear as yet to modern scientists, were spectacularly anticipated by Lorber more than a hundred years ago, when he wrote down what the Inner Voice dictated. Very succinctly, New Revelation refers to these mysterious processes of creation, processes 19th century readers would hardly have been able to make much of. lt says: “Where you see little or nothing with your eyes, great things are in progress, and it is exactly as a wise man once said (meaning Shakespeare, author): ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ ” (EM p. 85)
The numerous transformations of elementary particles finally end in particles with unlimited life span. The fact that the protons and neutrons in the atomic nucleus do not disintegrate is due to their extraordinary “powers of interchange” which is also called “interaction”. The term “interaction” plays as important a role in the scientific disclosures in New Revelation as it does in modern nuclear physics. We shall return to this later. In Lorber’s day, the concept of “interaction” in conjunction with disintegration and generation was totally unknown. What is interaction? According to Ford, all the usual forces causing one object to be attracted by another are interactions, and the disintegration of an unstable elementary particle also reflects interaction. 97
The outer part and the nucleus of an atom are held together by electromagnetic interaction. This force is not enough, however, to hold together the two nucleons, the proton and the neutron. There must be another force, a force a hundred times more powerful than electromagnetic force. In 1935, Professor Hideki was able to predict, on the basis of calculations, that there must be a certain elementary particle that moves to and fro between protons and neutrons with lightning speed, creating a fast rhythm in which the protons and neutrons would not find the time to repel one another. 12 years later, this particle was indeed found in cosmic radiation and given the name pi-meson, or pion. Within one second, it rushes to and fro 5 * 1017 times (i.e. almost a trillion times) to and fro between protons and neutrons. 98 As to how interaction actually produces this force, this is something nuclear physicists are not really able to say. 99 It is in fact impossible for them to say, for according to Lorber the cause of this force of attraction is metaphysical. New Revelation says: “It is the force of My will that is the great bond joining all bodies in the universe, taking them all around and through each other… and so My will is at the same time the basic substance of all things.” (EM p. 250)
Matter in the final instance being of spiritual origin, scientists will have to admit, however deeply they may have penetrated.
Mussard says, “as to the essence of waves and oscillations. Science teaches that they comprise an energy equivalent for noncreated matter. They are as transcendental to us as the soul of man.” 105
At this point, modern science comes very close to New Revelation. There are several passages where reference is made to the wrong road taken by materialistic science. “What scientists are seeing are nothing but crude processes in their retorts and distillation apparatus; they see a highly consistent scheme but are unable to comprehend it…. They do not want to look for the spirit.” (LGh p. 80 f) “They do not want to recognize a great lawgiver, though they come upon his tracks at every step. If they were free from prejudice they surely would not be able to deny him.” (SGh p. 35) “They therefore impute intelligence to matter, saying: they are merely following this or that impulse, just as they themselves are following their own materialistic vision, which is one of total delusion.” (LGh p. 81) “But life is spiritual, and no microscope will allow us to spy on it in its sphere of activity.” (Hi I, p. 94)
Kurt Eggenstein ‘The prophet Jakob Lorber predicts coming catastrophies and the True Christianity – part one‘
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I will repeat my main question here, which is, is/are there any available study/studies existing in the scientific department of the New Church which is similar to this above presented one?!!
‘It is true that the Heavenly Doctrines contain in themselves the whole of a true science and philosophy, but where we are able to develop this, we shall find that it will make one with the teachings of the earlier works; and so we shall find that the teachings of these earlier works are the means ready to our hand whereby we can see a philosophy and science in the Heavenly Writings which otherwise might entirely escape our gaze.
The New Church is to be the crown of the churches. Unlike the former churches, its doctrines are to enlighten not only the spiritual mind but also the natural (!!). It is to give to the world not only a new theology but a new philosophy and a new science (!!); and this that the Lord may be revealed not only as the God of heaven but as the God of earth; not only as the God of the theologian, but as the God of the philosopher and the scientist (!!); the Divine Man, whose presence and operation and law is to be seen and loved and worshipped in every plane of human life; in whose land “shall be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria; and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians; and Israel shall be a blessing in the midst of the Land.”[Isaiah 19:23,24]]
Is it then to be wondered at, that in addition to the Writings of the New Church, the Lord, in preparing Swedenborg for his mission as Revelator, has also provided for the use of mankind a science and philosophy which makes one with Divine Revelation and which shall serve for the enlightenment of men that they may read that Revelation with clearer sight and see its truths in clearer light?’
A.Acton ‘Introduction to the Word Explained’
May grace and peace of our Lord
Abound with you more and more
Lorens 🙂
(May 25-26, 2008)
