5173. In the other life there are very many methods of agitation, and also very many methods of inaugurations into circles. The purifying in the body of the blood, as well as of the serum or lymph, and also of the chyle, represents these agitations, which are effected also by various castigations; and the subsequent introducing into use of these fluids represents the inaugurations into circles. It is a very common thing in the other life for spirits, after undergoing agitation, to be let into a tranquil and delightful state, thus into the societies into which they are to be inaugurated, and to which they are to be joined.
[2] That the castigation and purifying of the blood, serum, and chyle, and of the food in the stomach, correspond to such things in the spiritual world, cannot but seem strange to those who think of nothing else in natural things than what is natural, and especially to those who believe in nothing else, thus denying that there is or can be anything spiritual within natural things that acts and rules; when yet the truth is that in all and each of the things in nature and her three kingdoms there is an inward active force from the spiritual world; and unless this were so, nothing whatever in the natural world could act as cause and effect, and consequently nothing could be produced. That which is within natural things from the spiritual world is called a force implanted from the first creation; whereas it is an endeavor, on the cessation of which, action or motion ceases. Hence it is that the universal visible world is a theater representative of the spiritual world.
[3] The case herein is like that of the motion of the muscles from which is action; unless there were in this motion an endeavor from man's thought and will it would cease in a moment; for it is according to laws known in the learned world that when endeavor ceases, motion ceases, and also that everything of determination is in endeavor, and that in motion there is nothing real except endeavor. It is clear that this force or endeavor in action or motion is the spiritual in the natural; for to think and will is spiritual, and to act and be moved is natural. It is true that those who do not think beyond nature do not apprehend this, and yet they cannot deny it. Nevertheless that in the will and thence in the thought, which produces, is not alike in form to the action that is produced; for the action merely represents that which the mind wills and thinks.