INFLUX
The 59/60 Decay — How Life Flows Downward
Influx is Swedenborg's term for the continuous flow of life from spiritual to natural. It flows in one direction only: from higher to lower, from cause to effect, from source to manifestation. Nothing flows the other way. Effects do not produce causes. The natural does not create the spiritual.
But influx is not simple transmission. At each degree boundary, something happens. Energy adapts. It clothes itself in new form. And in that clothing, something is "lost" — not destroyed, but absorbed by the medium itself. The κ-framework quantifies this exactly: 59/60 passes through; 1/60 is absorbed.
The Law of Influx
"There is one only Life which flows into and vivifies all Forms. To this life forms which are substances correspond; which by continual Divine influx are vivified in such wise that to themselves they appear to live from themselves."— Emanuel Swedenborg, Arcana Coelestia #3484
This is radical. There is ONE life, not many. What we call "our" life is not ours — it is the universal life flowing through us. We do not generate life; we receive it. And we receive it through influx.
The illusion of separate, self-generated life is created by the "clothing" process. As life flows through degrees and clothe itself in increasingly dense forms, it appears to originate from those forms. A human seems to "have" life. But the life is inflowing, moment by moment, from source.
"Life flows in from God through angels, and angels through spirits, to humans."— Emanuel Swedenborg
The 59/60 Ratio
The κ-framework identifies the precise decay ratio at each step of influx.
At each degree boundary:
- → 59/60 (98.33%) of energy passes through to the next level
- → 1/60 (1.67%) is absorbed by the transition medium
- → This absorption is not loss — it is the "cost" of translation
Why 59/60? Because 60 is the complete base — containing 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30. It is the smallest number divisible by all these structural factors. 59 is what remains when you extract the minimum unit (1) from completeness (60).
The Influx Chain
Watch what happens as influx flows through multiple degrees:
Notice: after 60 steps, approximately 36.77% remains. This is remarkably close to 1/e (0.368...), the natural exponential decay constant. The framework and natural mathematics converge.
Clothing as Adaptation
"Order is that the celestial shall flow into the spiritual and adapt it to itself; that the spiritual shall flow into the rational, and adapt it to itself; and so the rational into the knowing and adapt it to itself."— Swedenborg, Compendium
Swedenborg's word is "adapt." At each degree, influx adapts to the receiving vessel. It takes on the form of what receives it. This is not corruption — it is necessary translation. Without adaptation, the higher could not communicate with the lower at all.
"The thought does not shade off into the speech. The thought descends into the speech and clothes itself."— Divine Love and Wisdom
Thought → speech is a micro-example of influx. The thought does not gradually become speech. It instantaneously clothes itself in words. The words are not the thought — they carry the thought. Something is "lost" in translation (this is why we say "I can't find the right words"). But without that loss, no communication would occur.
The gap between them is the "clothing" — necessary translation
The Mathematics of Influx
The 1/60 absorbed at each step is not destroyed. It becomes the medium through which the next transmission occurs. The angels, spirits, and heavenly societies that Swedenborg describes ARE this absorbed energy — structured, conscious, alive. The "loss" creates the channel.
Why One-Way Only?
"There are three degrees in the spiritual world and three degrees in the natural world, according to which all influx takes place."— Interaction of Soul and Body
Influx is strictly one-directional: from higher to lower. This is not arbitrary — it follows from the nature of cause and effect.
Why Effects Cannot Create Causes
- Cause is prior; effect is posterior
- Higher contains more; lower contains less
- Lower cannot produce what it doesn't contain
- Information flows from organized to less organized
- Energy dissipates; it doesn't spontaneously concentrate
The natural world cannot create spiritual reality for the same reason speech cannot create thought. Words can evoke thought in a listener (by correspondence), but the words themselves are empty without prior thought to fill them.
This is why materialism — the belief that physical processes produce consciousness — fails. It inverts the direction of influx. It claims effects produce causes. The framework shows why this is geometrically impossible.
Influx and Consciousness
Human consciousness is influx experienced from within. We are receivers, not generators. What we call "our thoughts" are influx clothing itself in our mental forms.
"Man sees from his interior man the things that are in the exterior man as from the middle of a garden he sees what is around him."— Emanuel Swedenborg
We are positioned to receive influx and perceive its clothing as "experience." The interior (higher degrees, more source) looks outward at the exterior (lower degrees, more form). This looking IS consciousness.
But we typically identify with the clothing, not the source. We think we ARE our thoughts, our feelings, our body. We forget we are the receiver of all these — the point through which influx flows.
The rays clothe themselves in thoughts, feelings, sensations
The human is the receiver, not the generator
Practical Implications
If influx is real and one-directional:
- → You cannot force spiritual growth through physical effort alone. The body is effect, not cause. Physical practices can prepare the vessel for reception, but cannot generate what flows in.
- → Reception requires openness. Influx flows through open channels. Closed attitudes, rigid beliefs, and fear constrict the vessel and reduce what can be received.
- → Quality of reception matters. Same influx, clothed differently in different receivers. A mind full of falsity will clothe truth in distorted forms.
- → The 1/60 "lost" is not waste. It creates the medium for future transmission. Every conscious being is made of "absorbed" influx.
"To see the truth we have in us needs only to be excited or vivified."— Emanuel Swedenborg
The truth is already flowing. It is always available. The question is only: how much can we receive, and how clearly can we clothe it?
[1 = -1]