Evidently the finding on other physical earths, of spiritual conditions unknown upon this physical planet since the days of fable, was vital to Swedenborg's theological system, because that finding furnished plausible reason why Jehovah God as the Word should incarnate here, and only here. As for the other reason: "because the Word might be written on this earth, and afterward published broadcast, and then preserved to all posterity, and so made manifest to all in another life," to us this reason seems far-fetched and even puerile.

That the Wisdom Religion agrees with Swedenborg's belief that other worlds are by no means left in spiritual darkness, the doctrine of the Christos amply proves. Moreover, that, for special purposes, certain great beings, corresponding with our Avatars, should from time to time appear on those earths, and in the forms proper to their dwellers, is in conformity with the Hermitic maxim: "As above, so below."

The writings of Swedenborg contain no hint of reincarnation as taught by the exponents of the Ancient Wisdom. Of man's origin he says: "The soul, from the father, is the man, and the body, from the mother, is not the man, but is from him. The body is but the covering of the soul, and is composed of things of the natural world, while the soul is of things in the spiritual world. After death, every man puts off the natural, and retains the spiritual, together with a kind of border from the purest things of nature around him." This border or limbus is no doubt identified with the subtle matter which investigators have discovered exuding from the bodies of mediums when in a trance condition, and probably it is very like the "etheric double" mentioned in theosophical writings.

In lieu of reincarnation, advanced Sweden-borgians argue that the original amoeba, from which originated the amoeboid corpuscles in man's blood, had a tiny soul, or a spiritual essence, capable of infinite subdivision. We contend that this theory accounts wholly for only the reproduction of physical resemblences.

The Ancient Wisdom declared that what exists has always existed, and its life is inherent. The world of to-day, and the manifold existences upon it, are the outcome of physical, mental, and spiritual evolution. Concerning creation Swedenborg says: "All things are created by the Lord, through the sun of the spiritual world, and not through the sun of the natural world, since the latter is far below the former, with the spiritual world above it, and the natural world below it. Moreover, the sun of the natural world has no life of its own, but only that which it draws from the spiritual sun; that first proceeding of Divine Love, and Divine Wisdom, from which two all things are."

To show how utterly Swedenborg rejects the idea of inherent life in the things of the natural world, we quote the following: "It is commonly believed that man is not merely the receptacle of life, but is also Life; whereas, he is not Life, but only a finite receptacle of life from God." In respect to space and time, the following from Swedenborg might almost have been taken from the Ancient Wisdom: "The creation of the universe was not wrought from space to space, nor from time to time, for to the Creator these are non-existant, but it was wrought from eternity and from infinity." Again, in agreement with the Ancient Wisdom, Swedenborg says: "There is no difference between the maximum and the minimum of either time or space." His meaning is that what to man are great and small in size, and long and short in time, are seen by God to be equal. Much that Swedenborg discovered concerning time and space in the angelic heavens, accords with the old teachings. In further agreement with them, Swedenborg holds Love to be a spiritual substance, and Wisdom to be its form, and that by these, as the Spiritual Sun, all things in both the spiritual and the natural world are created. He argues convincingly that if Love and Wisdom be not substance and form, they are only imaginary entities.

What is known to the students of the Ancient Wisdom as the "Great Breath," has its parallel in the atmospheres in three degrees which, according to Swedenborg, originate by perpetual influx from the spiritual sun. His statement that the scenery of the spiritual world proceeds from the affections of its inhabitants, and changes as their affections change, wholly coincides with ancient teachings. Swedenborg always conceives of God as an anthropomorphic being; moreover, he asserts that after death, man is in a spiritual body which duplicates every organ of the physical body, but, whereas in the natural world the reproductive organs perpetuate the species, in the heavenly world they beget angelic love and wisdom in their possessors, while in the hells they beget hate and insanity. The Ancient Wisdom teaches that the reproductive organs pertain only to the physical body, and in posthumous life their creative potency is transferred to the mind and supplements it. This union of what is known as the upper and the lower triads, enables the discarnate man to create his environment from the plastic substance of the super-physical planes.

While yet in earth life, Jesus transferred the power of the lower triad to his brain centres. Hence, he became a creator who moulded material substance at will; as witness the miracle of the loaves and fishes.

In a certain matter vital to his doctrine, Swedenborg differs wholly from the ancient teaching, for he argues that should man embody a portion of the Divine, God's love for him would be self-love. The spermatozoon from the father, and the ovum in the womb of the mother, are the nucleus of the human child that, for a season, must draw nourishment from the body of the mother. Now who would say that the love of the parents for their offspring as a physical being, is in any way self-love? Why, then, if man embody a spark of the Divine Essence, should God's love for him be self-love? We grant that if spiritual man be in fact the thought of God, - as Mary Baker Eddy taught - then God's love for his child would be that self-love which Swedenborg deems contrary to the Divine Nature.