The reason this doesn't happen to us anymore is because our old will is corrupted. When we see a tree, we see it from our natural man. No matter what we do when we look at something it symbolizes something to us. When we look at a burger we think of eating and the satisfaction that we receive when we eat it. Thus the idea of a burger in our minds is a container for our affection for food. We are a natural people. When we see things, we see them for their natural uses. Thus what is natural is contained in our thoughts and not what is spiritual. If we had a spiritual will we would see a spiritual use contained in the things we look at. The Most Ancients cared not for what tomorrow would bring and didn't think about natural things or more truly their natural will was subordinated to their spiritual will and they saw what something spiritually, not naturally symbolized.

In the most ancient Church a mans mind and heart were one. His will and understanding made one and thus this is how he saw things. He knew truth through an internal perception, not by thinking about what was true, but by connecting to some love in his being. When he heard what was true it immediately became part of him and attached to some love within him. This connection of the love and will, is often compared to the right and left part of a man and also it is shown in the writings that a mans left brain has more to do with rational and intellectual activity, and his right with loving and willing activity. In most ancient man these made one. Now days our minds have been split we no longer always will what we think and think what we will. In fact we are asked to go against what we naturally will through using our rationa. We are given a new will from the Lord. We no longer have an internal perception of what is good because our wills have been split and our old will lies to us. Many speculate that the split of the right and left brain connected by a thin corpus collosum is representative of this split of our will and understanding. Some speculate that the most ancients would have had a much larger connection between the brains. Through using a more whole brained thought process this connection can still be strenghthened. This might be a sign that through the creation of a new will, we may be able to return to a degree, to the state in which celestial man lived so long ago. It is seen through meditation that larger sections of the brain is used by creating alpha, theta and sometimes delta states.

Is their anything innately spiritual about meditation? For many centuries masters have spoken of meditation as the destruction of the self and have claimed that spiritual oneness can be received through this process. Many also speak of the ridding of earthly desires through the process of meditation? The writings often speak in this way about reformation. Reformation is the process in which man chooses to reform his life through spiritual truths. When he sees where his life disagrees with these truths, he decides to change his life in this area. When that happens a conflict arises between the old will and the new will and by means of his intellect he fights against the old will with the truths of faith. In some cases meditation mirrors this process, but the first is a process of the mind and the second a process that is spiritual and affects our will. The prior I would claim can be spiritual, but only if there are spiritual truths present and a belief in the Lord. In order for one to quiet his mind of the desires of the body, he chooses to combat against what his body wants. If for a purpose higher then himself, he empties his mind thus detatching himself from the old will and allowing for the Lord to create him anew. The process of reformation is quite often compared to emptying out. When we empty ourselves of natural lusts we make room for the Lord to enter into us. It is through the creation of a container in our spirits that the Lord is able to regenerate us and give us a new will. Through this process we can clear our minds. If we shun the lust of adultery, we can see more clearly what a women truly is, another human being. If we shun killing we are filled with a love for the neighbor and we can see who people truly are. If we shun a lust for stealing, we can see the true gifts of the natural and spiritual world which the Lord gave us and so on. This process of clearing our spiritual vision, takes a lifetime of work, whereas the Most Ancients saw everything purely. When we see a burger we still think of the natural pleasure which we receive. This isn't necessarily evil, but is far from the truth. The most ancients when they saw food, would think of what it symbolized, that is, Love which the Lord gives us all. A more correct view of a burger would be from its spiritual nature and thus the cause of its existence.

Itsays of infants that they see everything as alive even the blankets which cover them as children. This is also said of the people at the infancy of Man or the most ancient church. These people through correspondences saw the life within everything. Many native cultures of today say that there is a spirit behind everything. This may be a fallen state, for many cultures worship the spirits they see behind everything. This is even said to the be part ofthe fall of the most ancient church. Every word in the Word, has a connection to some heavenly society in heaven. I think it would be safe to speculate, that to the most ancient church, every piece of nature reflected some society in heaven. To dangerously speculate even further one might think that an individual tree to the most ancient church could have reflected an individual being within a society of heaven. This would give everything a spirit, as well as an internal concept which that spirit embodied. Another idea is that an individual tree on this earth corresponded to what an angel could embody if he so chose. Of course, at the highest level of correspondence, the Lord is there and some aspect of him is shown through these finite embodiments.

So back to infants. When it says in the writings, that infants see everything as alive, it also says that they actually more correct than we who see most things as dead. In the writings it the compares stages of man's growth to stages of the church. Through looking at these stages of growth in life we can see that the ways of perceiving the world in each church can be compared to the ways that at each stage of our life we perceive the world. The brain of an infant is mostly in states of delta untill about one year of age. We know that they saw the world as living just like the most ancients. We also know that the delta state is a more comprehensive use of the brain, many parts functioning together. As we grow we enter into different brain wave states. The first state we move into after delta is theta. Theta also uses large sections of the brain and even though there is activity between both hemispheres, the activity is greatly decreased. This could be taken to be reflective of the transition between the perception of the most ancient church and to the perception of the ancient church. The other stages of childhood to adulthood and angels present could very well mirror the other churches states of changing perception as well as the changing brain wave patterns of a grown child. Natives are found to constantly be in states of alpha and rarely enter beta unless in strenuous activity. This could be significative of the older churches way of perception still remaining in their culture.

What is more important, is that these changing brain waves and perceptive abilities might also mirror our growth from natural to spiritual man. We see things distinct and in categories, while the most ancient church saw things as they worked together. The saw a great oneness beneath the spirit of everything and there downfall was the separation of this oneness into many pieces as they separated the one God into several little Gods. The most ancient were in generals and thus from this perceived the particulars. Their love to the Lord was the general thing that ruled their life. They saw him in everything and from this they perceived what was good. We in our lesser state have moved away from love to the Lord and also have lost an ability to learn about particulars from generals. Though all truth must first be based on our idea of God, we learn the particulars as we go. Our faith is based on generals and through the word we can find particulars. This was not so for the most ancient church. They were seduced by the sensual. When they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil science was born. They were kept out of this sensual truth because it the Lord knew that they would turn to regard their own intellect and not their perception as true rationality. Many native Americans call the creator the spirit that moves within all things and I would guess that the most ancients would have sometimes used this same name to speak of the creator. This oneness was reflected in their perception. When they saw the truth, they could not separate it from its love. Likewise I would say that when they saw anything they could not see it apart from its interconnection to the worlds and systems around them. Their brain worked as one unit and I would guess that this was made possible by a constant delta state going on in their brains.

There are such differences because the things which are in the higher degree are particulars, and those in the lower degree are generals, and generals are containants of particulars. Particulars in relation to generals are as thousands or myriads to one; and such is the wisdom of the angels of a higher heaven in relation to the wisdom of the angels of a lower heaven. In like manner the wisdom of the latter surpasses the wisdom of man, for man is in a bodily state and in those things that belong to the bodily senses, and man's bodily sense belongs to the lowest degree. HH 267

The latent cause of this fear is that horses represent the sciences, and that the sciences of particulars, or of the senses, and consequently of the body, of self, and of the world, were what had seduced the Most Ancient Church, and hence caused the fall. The tree of knowledge which seduced them has a like signification. In these things lies hidden the reason for their fear of horses. Hence it comes about that they ought not to learn the sciences, for thus their understanding is obscured and blinded, and so the loves of self and the world, which thence derive their origin, begin to have dominion, reigning in darkness. SE 560

With this said I don't believe that there is anything inherently more spiritual about the way the most ancient church perceived things, for as we know, there have been evil men in every church. Meditation can only serve as a form of spiritual reformation if along with it is an idea of God at the center as well as a want to have the Lord regenerate us, otherwise it is not spiritual but natural. The destruction of the self can lead to states of peace and joy and I would say that those who have conquered many evils in their life are in a state of inner meditation. With the way we were created as long as we are on the earth we will always remain natural to a degree natural, even though our minds and hearts are with the angels. This natural is a good thing as long it is subordinated to the spiritual, but as we progress maybe there is the possibility that we can start to see what is true from an inner perception from our new will, and the presence of only generals

Tom Brown spoke of states of theta and delta, and told me something hard to believe at the time. He said that we start to learn thing we have never been taught before as we progress into these states. Now that I look back maybe he was speaking of this perception of particulars from the generals and maybe through tools of reformation like an inner meditation in all our acts and wide angle vision and sensory broadening we can more fully start to shun our evils. I think that this at least is a frontier that needs to be explored.