AI is Advancing Fast — Here’s a big picture view to keep things in perspective.

Artificial intelligence is changing how we work, write, diagnose illness, compose music, even how we converse. It can feel exciting. It can also feel unsettling, especially when you need to look for another job. If you’ve felt anxiety about where this is heading, you’re not alone. But there is a Swedenborgian perspective that brings steadiness, clarity, and hope. And it begins with a profound truth: Life belongs to the Lord alone. 

The nature of Life 

AI systems today can: 

• Write essays 
• Generate art
• Draft legal arguments
• Diagnose disease patterns
• Simulate conversation. 

To many, this looks like intelligence at work. To some, it looks like the beginnings of consciousness. But Swedenborg makes a crucial distinction between apparent intelligence and life. He teaches that God alone is Life, and all created beings are recipients of life. Your thoughts, affections, insights, and spiritual awakenings do not originate from neurons. They are the result of inflow — the reception of Divine love and wisdom. 

This teaching reframes the AI discussion. No matter how complex an electronic network becomes, no matter how sophisticated quantum processing grows, natural mechanisms do not generate life. They can simulate patterns. They can replicate behaviour. But they do not cross into the realm of the mind. 

Swedenborg’s doctrine of discrete degrees explains why. Human beings are structured as body, mind and soul. These are distinct orders of reality. No accumulation of natural complexity can generate what occurs at the mind (love of truth) or soul (love of good) level. 

Intelligence is not the Highest Human Quality 

Our culture admires and rewards academic achievement, analytic skill, rapid information processing. AI systems excel in these things. They can retrieve and synthesise information in seconds, producing outputs that are impressive. But Swedenborg shifts what is to be valued. Love is primary. He also values wisdom which he describes as love and truth working together. He sees the heavenly realm as ordered by affection for good — not IQ. Angels are not described as beings of superior cognitive abilities. They are described as beings of use — joyful service, mutual love, alignment with Divine order. Let’s remember what humans can do: 

• Choose good for its own sake
• Experience conscience
• Love selflessly
• Perceive spiritual meaning
• Turn freely toward the Lord 

What Love Drives the Tool? 

Swedenborg teaches that every person acts from a ruling love. That love shapes everything we build. AI is not neutral in its effects. It amplifies the intentions behind it. 

If driven by: 

• Control
• Surveillance
• Maximise Profit at any cost
• Manipulation of attention 

Then those loves become magnified. 

But if guided by: 

• Love of use
• Healing
• Education
• Protection of dignity
• Preservation of freedom 

Then AI becomes an instrument aligned with the common good. 

The developers of AI are responsible for the outcomes of their software. It is a moral and spiritual responsibility. Some of the crucial questions are: 

• Does this technology preserve human freedom?
• Does it support rational thought rather than bypass it?
• Does it strengthen empathy or deepen fragmentation?
• Does it protect the dignity of persons? 

When tools undermine conscience or exploit weakness, they are spiritually harmful. When tools empower informed choice and meaningful service, they participate in Divine purpose. Your voice in these conversations matters. 

Freedom is Sacred

Divine Providence works continually to preserve two gifts: 

• Freedom
• Rationality 

Without these, spiritual life cannot exist. Modern algorithmic systems already test this boundary—personalised feeds, behavioural nudging, attention-maximising design. When technology bypasses deliberate choice, it threatens something sacred within us. From a Swedenborgian standpoint, any system that weakens conscience or manipulates choice undermines our spiritual potentials coming into fruition. Conversely, technologies that inform, clarify, and strengthen thoughtful decision-making supports the Lord’s ends. The issue is whether AI strengthens or diminishes freedom. And that is something we can actively influence. 

 

Providence is not Absent 

Major technological revolutions carry dual potentials: 

• Fire
• The printing press
• Electricity
• The internet 

All are capable of immense harm and immense good. All unfolded within Divine Providence. As computer processing becomes more capable of providing impressive outputs, we are invited to put it to good use. As tools display more “apparent intelligence,” we are called to become wise in directing their application. The challenge is not only technological, but spiritual. AI is a mirror. It forces us to clarify what we value. It exposes our assumptions about intelligence and control. It asks us to examine our ruling loves.

Becoming More Fully Human 

The future will be shaped by: 

• The loves we cultivate
• The freedom we protect
• The uses we prioritise
• The spiritual vision we affirm 

Swedenborg’s writings equip us to approach this era calmly and thoughtfully. In an age of powerful tools, we are continually being challenged to become more fully human, more loving, more discerning, more conscious of the Divine inflow that sustains every moment of our life. If we do that, then the tools of our hands—however advanced—will serve Divine purposes rather than oppose them.

Spiritual Rays of Light

Spiritual Rays of Light presents concepts based on the writings of scientist and seer Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjHC206cVd0

Ten stages of mystical insight.

There is one account of stages with which I do feel in full accord: the Zen ox-herding pictures (From THE THREE PILLARS OF ZEN, by Philip Kapleau.)These pictures don't come out of speculation but rather out of the experience of many mystics. They depict ten stages of mystical insight in a series of paintings of a person and an ox. The person is the spiritual seeker; the ox is the Divine in a wild, unknown, untamed form. Some may find it surprising that the Lord is represented here as an ox.

Well, at first it is as though you are in the woods (1), and now and then you find the footprints of some heavy beast (2). You would like to see it, so you track it. Finally you catch a glimpse of it (3). Many are at this stage, having caught only a glimpse of the beast! Finally you catch him but he's a tough one (4). He once stepped on me and I can testify he is heavy. Finally the ox starts to work with you (5). Finally you two are in accord and you can ride the ox home (6).

This whole book is about the first six stages, in which one reaches friendship with the Divine; one can contact the Divine and learn from it. But there is still some dualism, that of the rider versus the ox, though now there is enough friendship and understanding that there is no longer opposition.

   

I have felt little need to describe the last four stages because the person who has reached stage six is well on their way, and will be shown the last four stages in time. In the seventh picture the ox is forgotten. The monk came to realize he could reflect on the very Life in himself. Ox and self are now the same thing. There is no other. The life one sees and feels within is the One life. The cut-off self never existed. There always was only Life. The repeated experience of the eternal, of coming back to the Divine, gradually weakens the ego sense of "I am a separate entity." Finding the One in so many people and contexts overcomes the sense of separateness. Finally we experience separateness and ego as illusion (Maya). Just as we repeatedly stepped from time to the eternal and back, we can also step from separateness to no separation and back again. Let us look at the last three stages, but realize that only direct experience makes these stages real. In the eighth picture we see just a circle drawn on the page. Even the seeker has vanished. This is the ultimate illumination. There is only this unity. In the ninth picture the world and all its beauty returns, but this is the world transfigured, permeated with the One. There is nothing to seek. It is obvious the One is everywhere. In the tenth picture the adept returns to the marketplace with helping hands, doing what he/she can. What was given is multiplied by being shared. The Zen ox-herding series represents the experience of many, and they are in a nearly universal language. You may have some sense of where you are in this series.

Wilson van Dusen, Returning to the Source, Ch14 Some Questions Answered

Swedenborg’s influence on Sibelius

Sibelius, the famous Finnish composer, wrote ‘Finlandia’ and seven symphonies and so much else. He was married to a lady called Aino, who was very much into everything spiritual and supernatural.

His recent biographer wrote a three-volume in-depth life of Sibelius and mentions that Sibelius bought a copy of Martin Lamm’s ‘Life of Swedenborg’ and said that he completely devoured it. And he (Sibelius) went on to say that Swedenborg’s idea of everything being in divine harmony helped him to complete the writing of his 5th Symphony which he had been struggling with.

THINGS WE ALL SHARE

By Julian Duckworth

Today, care for the world around us comes high on everybody’s list. This is something we all share and must take responsibility for. We’re learning fast that the world’s resources are not endless and we must clean up the planet and conserve our use of virtually everything.

This stark fact can help to remind us of a number of important things. One is that the human race lives in one community around the globe and none of us can afford to live in isolation or stay unaware of the effect we may have on everybody else. Today it is becoming possible to ‘seed’ rain clouds above heavily populated cities to provide water, but the effect is to lessen the amount of rainfall in the surrounding region.

We have been – and still are to some extent – greedy in terms of consuming resources and taking so much for granted. We are slowly realising that the world works in a very balanced way and to take too much not only deprives others from having enough to survive on but harms the overall harmony of the planet.

At the beginning of the Bible there is the story of the Garden of Eden, obviously a statement about a world that is functional as well as beautiful. It says that God put human beings in the garden to tend it and take care of it. This is how we need to be viewing the world around us, basically as a garden in need of tending.

The present generation are not the ones primarily affected by the longer-term consequences. We need to conserve and sustain the living planet so that our children and their children can look at green trees and blue skies and live safely and healthily in this world which is still a remarkably beautiful and richly-resourced world in which to live. 

LOSING A LOVED ONE

By Julian Duckworth

How unbelievably hard it is to lose someone you love because they have died. You are still here but they are no longer with you, at least not physically. It feels like you have lost part of yourself. At such times, words are not very helpful to us, yet when words say the right thing they can be very powerful and healing.

When someone loses someone they love – which is almost certainly going to happen to all of us in our life – it is very hard for the people who love you to know how they can best help or when to be around. But it is very important not to be too much or too long on your own in your loss. It is important to allow your loving friends to be there with you even without much to say to you. It is also very important to make sure you have your own time alone.

A common experience when you lose someone you love is to find yourself moving through all kinds of different feelings. You may feel anger, or emptiness, or a strange sense of peace, or such things as guilt or blame on yourself or others. These will come and they will go, because they are the way in which your mind is managing this shock to your system. It is running through and trying out every emotion. Let it do that and don’t be troubled by it all.

It’s often said that time is a great healer when death happens. That is really the case but you can’t set the timetable. It will in all probability take a full year to begin to get back into being yourself which surely is what the person you love would want you to do. And don’t be surprised at a number of personal changes that come to the fore, because life is going to be different from what it used to be.

Many people believe in life after death. Let them help you in their way at the right time for you. This belief is universally shared by all religions across the world. Let it help you.

LAUGHTER

By Julian Duckworth

Sometimes, when people laugh, it’s at someone else’s expense. That’s a rather cruel kind of laughter, though. A nicer laughter is to be able to laugh at some of the foibles of life and not to take it all too seriously. Being able to laugh like that eases everything and it’s a good place to be. Perhaps we could stretch this idea even further and say that seeing and sharing the funny side of life is the normal way we’re meant to be because it is healthy and healing. It immediately dissolves tricky moments and tensions that come along.

It’s lovely watching a group of people, perhaps over a meal, being together, and noticing the relaxed friendly laughter coming from among them as a group. They are right into it and nobody seems at all self-conscious but catching everyone’s fun. Laughter is contagious of course. They say it even does our body good, lowering blood pressure, letting off steam and having a good chuckle. There are even groups of people who get together, say in a park, simply to be together to laugh.

Jesus talked about having joy. This isn’t exactly the same as laughter, but it still suggests a lightness of being, a feeling of well-being through having joy in yourself.

One telling statistic that has emerged is that little children laugh (with that wonderful open children’s way of laughing) about 300 times a day, but adults on average only laugh about 15 times a day. Something got lost in the business of growing up and we’ve forgotten the therapy and spontaneity of this precious gift of laughter.

So let’s aim to reverse that dreadful statistic and allow ourselves, more and more, to be caught up in letting laughter do us good.