§356 types of knowledge: references 199
than others. In heaven they are the intelligent and wise ones who shine
like the radiance of the fi rmament and gleam like stars. The simple peo-
ple there, though, are the ones who have acknowledged the Divine Being
and have loved the Word and led a spiritual moral life, but who have not
developed the deeper levels of their minds through insights and learning
in the same way. The human mind is like soil whose quality depends on
the way it is tilled.
References to Passages in Secrets of Heaven
Concerning Different Types of Knowledge
[ 4 ] We should saturate ourselves with information and knowledge, because
it is through them that we learn to think, then to sort out what is true and
good, and ultimately to be wise: 129 , 1450 , 1451 , 1453 , 1548 , 1802. Factual
information constitutes the elemental basis on which our civic and moral
lives as well as our spiritual lives are built and grounded; and it is learned
with a view to using it: 1489 , 3310. Real knowledge opens a path to the inner
person, and then unites that person with the outer in proportion to useful
action: 1563 , 1616. Our rational functioning is born through information
and knowledge: 1895 , 1900 , 3086. This does not happen through knowledge
itself, however, but through the affection of putting it to use: 1895.
[ 5 ] There are facts that are open to divine truths and facts that are
not: 5213. Empty information should be destroyed: 1489 , 1492 , 1499 , 1580
[ 1581 ]. Information is “empty” if it aims at and strengthens love for our-
selves and love for the world, and if it leads us away from love for God
and our neighbor. This is because such infl uences close off the inner per-
son, even to the point that we cannot accept anything from heaven: 1563 ,
- Facts may be a means to wisdom or a means to insanity. Through
them the inner person is either opened or closed, and rational function-
ing either nurtured or destroyed: 4156 , 8628 , 9922.
[ 6 ] The inner person is opened and is progressively completed by means
of information if we have constructive activity as our goal—especially