Chapter III. The Inmost or the Soul Proper.

Though all of man except the natural body is commonly called soul, yet technically only this supreme or inmost degree is the soul. (TCR 697, 103; DLW 388.)

This soul is the veriest dwelling-place of the LORD. The LORD flows' into this degree with love and wisdom as one, and thence forms, flows into, orders and preserves all the degrees below. (Inf. 8; HH 39; LJ 25.)

This inmost is composed of the highest and purest spiritual substances in man and lies above the plane of either human or angelic consciousness. The mind B, which is below this supreme degree and formed from it, is composed of grosser spiritual substances, and the spiritual body C of still grosser. (HH 39; LJ 25; Inf. 8, 14; S.D. 5548.)

Influx from the LORD enters first into this supreme or inmost degree, thence into the mind, thence into the spiritual body and from this into the natural body. (CL 101.)

This inmost is the primal and unconscious origin of the two great faculties of spiritual liberty and rationality by which man is distinguished from the brute, which faculties are essential elements of his nature, - liberty inhering in the will, rationality in the understanding. (LJ 25 ; DLW 240, 247; AC 1707; TCR 697 end.)

In Arcana Coelestia AC (n. 1940, 1889, 1707) this highest degree is called the internal man, all the planes below it being relatively the external man. It is also called the "human internal;" - the human internals of all men, spirits and angels form in the aggregate a vast complex degree called the heaven of human internals, which is above the inmost angelic heaven. (AC 1999.)

The angelic heavens lie within the region of consciousness. What transcends this region is above the angelic heavens and so appears in the sight of the LORD.

This supreme degree is the very Alpha of man, the material body is his Omega.

Doubtless it was from His residence in this highest degree that the LORD inflowed and filled the angels with His Divine when He appeared and spoke through them to the patriarchs and prophets. The private consciousness of the angel, in whatever plane below, being for the time suspended, the utterances were not his own but the LORD'S through him. (AC 1 745, 1925; AE 1228; DP 96.)

This supreme degree being the source of all the others is drawn in gold to represent sun Colour, because sun Colour, the perfect union of red and white, is the source of all other Colours. (See "Colour in the Diagrams," page 12.)

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