Leon James

A Man of the Field, Volume 1: The Struggle Against Nonduality and Materialism Leon James

This book in three volumes is about regeneration, which is the conscious discipline of character change based on the scientific principles revealed in the Writings of Swedenborg (1688-1772). When we study the Writings we begin to understand regeneration in a medical, psychological, and educational perspective that is unique and beneficial. Our prior understanding is based on the fundamental principle of nonduality, which is that all things exist in the materialistic continuum of the universe. Even our ideas about God and the afterlife are based on a nonduality which puts all reality on a single continuum. When we begin to see things from the perspective of the Writings, we can transform every concept of nonduality into a duality. Every duality is by reference to the natural and the spiritual as two separate and distinct worlds, tied together by rational laws of correspondence that have now been revealed by God through the Writings. Once our ideas and beliefs are reformed and rearranged in this new spiritual-rational mode, we can effectively begin our regeneration. This requires us to cooperate with the Lord by monitoring, identifying, and shunning our daily mental evils as sins against the Lord, realizing that sins prevent the preparation of our mind for eternal heavenly life. Volume 1 focuses on the mental discipline of "reformation" which is the first step in our regeneration and requires us to dispose of the former beliefs and meanings that we uncritically acquired in an educational and intellectual environment of Christian, Eastern, and New Church forms of nonduality and scientific materialism.