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Memorable Occurrences in Swedenborg's Writings

This list of Memorable Occurrences in Swedenborg's Writings was originally compiled by W. C. Henderson in 1960 but has since been updated.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #421

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421. And to him was given the key to the bottomless pit. This symbolizes their hell opened.

A key symbolizes the power to open, and also to close (nos. 62, 174, 840). And a bottomless pit symbolizes hell, where those people reside who have affirmed in themselves justification and salvation by faith alone, all of whom come from the Protestant Reformed Church. Here, however, they are people who appear in their own eyes and so in the eyes of many others to be educated and erudite - even though in the sight of angels in heaven they appear to be bereft of intellect as regards matters having to do with heaven and the church, since people who affirm such a faith, even so far as to affirm its inner tenets, close the higher constituents of their intellect, and this at last to such an extent that they can no longer see any spiritual truth in any light. The reason is that an affirmation of falsity constitutes a denial of the truth. Consequently, whenever they hear some spiritual truth, namely, a truth of the Word serviceable for doctrine and life for people of the church, they keep their mind in the falsities they have affirmed; and then they either shroud the truth they have heard in falsities or reject it as nothing but words, or they yawn at it and turn away, and this the more conceited they are owing to their erudition. For conceit glues the falsities together until they at last stick together, like solidified sea foam. The Word is therefore hidden from them, like a book sealed with seven seals.

[2] I will describe, furthermore, their character, and the character of their hell, because it has been given me to see it and speak with the inhabitants there, and also to see the locusts that issued from it:

That pit, which is like the mouth of a furnace, appears in the southern zone, and the abyss beneath it extends a great distance toward the east. The inhabitants in it have light, but if light from heaven is let in, the hell becomes dark. Consequently the pit is closed above.

Seen there are huts with arched roofs, built seemingly of brick, which are divided into several small rooms, and each room has in it a table, with sheets of paper lying on it, along with some books. At each table sits someone who in the world affirmed justification and salvation by faith alone, making charity a merely natural moral act, and deeds of charity simply those of civil life by which people are able to achieve rewards in the world; but if people should do those deeds for the sake of salvation, they condemn those deeds, and some of them do so severely, because the deeds have in them human reason and human will.

All the people in this abyss were educated and erudite in the world. And among them are some metaphysicians and scholastics who are held in higher esteem than the rest there. I recognized several when it was granted me to speak with them.

[3] Their fate, however, is this: When they are first admitted there, they sit in the first small rooms; but as they argue for faith to the exclusion of works of charity, they leave their former seats and go into little rooms nearer the east, and this repeatedly until they reach the end, where those people reside who use the Word to defend those tenets. And because they cannot help but falsify the Word then, their huts vanish, and they see themselves in a desert; and at that point they undergo such experiences as described in no. 153 above.

There is also another abyss beneath that abyss, where the residents are people who have similarly argued for justification and salvation by faith alone, but who within themselves, in their spirit, have denied God, and at heart have laughed at the sanctities of the church. They do nothing but argue there, tearing their garments, climbing up on the tables, stamping their feet and battling each other with invectives. And because no one is permitted to do physical harm there, they threaten vocally and shake their fists.

The environment there is unclean and squalid. But this a subject for another time.

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Conjugial Love #77

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77. The third account:

The next day my angel guide and companion came again and said, "Prepare yourself, and let us go to the inhabitants of heaven in the west, who are some of the people who lived in the third period or copper age. The places where they live stretch from the south across the west towards the north, but not extending into the north."

So, having prepared myself, I accompanied him, and entering their heaven from the south side, we found there a magnificent grove of palm trees and laurels. We passed through it, and then on its western border we saw giants twice the height of ordinary people.

They interrogated us. "Who let you in through the grove?"

The angel said, "The God of heaven."

And they replied, "We are guards to the ancient western heaven. But go ahead and pass."

[2] So we passed, and from a watch-tower we saw a mountain rising to the clouds, and between us in the tower and that mountain we saw villages after villages, with gardens, groves and fields in between. We then passed through the villages to the mountain and ascended. And lo, at its summit was not a peak but a plateau, and on it a city widely extended and spread out. All of its houses, moreover, were made out of wood from resinous trees, and their roofs out of wooden planks.

I asked, "Why are the houses here made of wood?"

The angel answered, "Because wood symbolizes natural goodness, and the people of the third age on the earth were in this state of goodness. And because copper also symbolizes natural goodness, therefore the age in which they lived was named after copper by people of earlier times.

"There are also sacred halls here, built out of boards of olive wood, and in the middle of them is a sanctuary, containing in an ark the Word given to the inhabitants of Asia before the Word which the Israelites had. Its narrative books are called the Wars of Jehovah, and the prophetical books, Oracles, both referred to by Moses (Numbers 21:14-15,27-30).

"In the kingdoms of Asia it has now been lost, and it is preserved only in Great Tartary."

The angel then led me to one of the buildings, and looking in, we saw in the middle of it the sanctuary, all bathed in a brilliant white light. And the angel said: "The light comes from that ancient Asiatic Word, for all Divine truth shines with light in heaven."

[3] As we were going out of the building, we heard it had been reported in the city that two strangers were about, and that they were to be investigated to find out where they came from and what their business was here. Moreover, an attendant came running from the court and ordered us to appear for a hearing.

When we were then asked where we came from and what our business was here, we replied, "We passed through a grove of palm trees and then through the abodes of giants, the ones who guard your heaven, and afterwards through a stretch of villages. You may conclude from this that we have come here, not of ourselves, but thanks to the God of heaven. As for our business, the reason for our coming, it is to be instructed regarding your marriages, to find out whether they are monogamous or perhaps polygamous."

They replied, "What are polygamous marriages? Are they not forms of licentiousness?"

[4] Then the panel of magistrates there selected someone intelligent to instruct us in his own home about this matter. And when we arrived at his house, he called his wife to his side and said the following:

"The earliest or most ancient people were in a state of truly conjugial love, and they therefore experienced the strength and power of that love, more than any other peoples in the world. They are now in a most blissful state in their heaven, which is in the east. We have precepts from them regarding marriage which we have preserved among us. We are their descendants, and they have handed down rules of life to us, like fathers to sons, and the rules which have to do with marriage include this maxim:

Children, if you wish to love God and the neighbor, and if you wish to be wise and be happy to eternity, we advise you to live monogamously. If you depart from this precept, all heavenly love will escape you, and with it inward wisdom, and you will become outcasts.

"We have obeyed, like children, this precept of our fathers, and we have perceived the truth in it. The truth we perceived is that a person becomes heavenly and internal to the extent that he loves his married partner only, and that a person becomes natural and external to the extent that he does not love his married partner only. In the latter case, he loves no one but himself and the imaginations of his own mind, and he is foolish and stupid.

[5] "This is why all of us in our heaven are monogamous. And because we are, therefore all the boundaries of our heaven are guarded to keep out polygamists, adulterers and licentious people. If polygamists get in, they are cast out into the darkness of the north. If adulterers get in, they are cast out into the fires of the west. And if licentious people get in, they are cast out into the illusory lights of the south."

Hearing this I asked what he meant by the darkness of the north, the fires of the west, and the illusory lights of the south.

He answered that the darkness of the north was dullness of mind and ignorance of truths; that the fires of the west were loves of evil; and that the illusory lights of the south were falsifications of truth. "These last," he said, "are forms of spiritual licentiousness."

[6] After this he said, "Follow me to our treasure house."

So we followed, and he showed us some written documents of very ancient peoples, telling us that they wrote on wooden and stone tablets and afterwards on polished sheets of wood assembled into books, and that people of the second age wrote their records on parchments of animal skin. Then he brought out a parchment containing maxims of the earliest peoples transcribed from their stone tablets, including also the precept regarding marriage.

[7] When we had seen these records and others from very early antiquity, the angel said, "It is now time for us to go."

Then our host went out into the garden and took some sprigs from a tree, and, tying them into a bundle, he presented them, saying, "These sprigs come from a tree native or peculiar to our heaven, whose sap has the fragrance of balsam."

We took away this bundle of sprigs with us and descended by a way, over to the east, which was not guarded. And behold, the sprigs turned into shiny bronze and their very tips into gold, as a memento that we had been among a people of the third age, which is named after copper or bronze.

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.

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