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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 #462

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462. Since no one today knows what is meant by enchantments, we will briefly say what they are.

Enchantments are listed just above in place of the eighth commandment of the Decalogue, "You shall not bear false witness," for mentioned there are three other prohibited evils, namely, murders, sexual immorality, and thefts.

To bear false witness means, in the natural sense, to act as a false witness, to lie and defame; and in the spiritual sense it means to convince and persuade that falsity is true and that evil is good. It is apparent from this that to practice enchantment means, symbolically, to persuade someone of falsity and thus to destroy the truth.

[2] The practice of enchantments existed among ancient peoples, and they were accomplished in three ways:

First, they would keep someone else's hearing and thus his mind continually focused on their words and declarations, without letup on any part of them, while at the same time inspiring and instilling their thought then through their breathing, coupled with the affection in the tone of their discourse, with the result that the hearer could not form any thought of his own. Thus would speakers of falsehood forcibly infuse their falsities.

Second, they would infuse a persuasion, which they would do by keeping the mind from anything contrary, and by keeping it intent only on the idea in what they were saying. Thus the spiritual atmosphere of one person's mind dispelled the spiritual atmosphere of another person's mind and suffocated it. This was the spiritual witchcraft that magicians once employed, and they called it overcoming and binding the intellect. This kind of enchantment was an enchantment of the spirit or thought only, whereas the first kind was a enchantment of the mouth or speech as well.

[3] Third, a hearer would keep his mind so firmly in his own opinion that he would almost close his ears to hearing anything of what someone else was saying. He would accomplish this by holding his breath, and sometimes by a tacit muttering, and thus by a continual denial of his adversary's opinion. This kind of enchantment was practiced by people listening to others, while the first two kinds were practiced by people speaking to others.

These three kinds of enchantment were practiced among ancient peoples, and are still practiced among spirits in hell. In the case of people in the world, however, only the third kind remains, and this among people who have affirmed in themselves falsities of religion out of a conceit in their own intelligence. For when these people hear contrary views, they do not admit them any further into their thought than to superficial contact, and then they emit from the inner recess of their mind a kind of fire which consumes those views, of which the other person knows nothing beyond the indications of the facial expression and tone of voice in reply, if the enchanter does not contain that fire, that is, the anger of his conceit, by hiding it.

This kind of enchantment today causes truths not to be accepted, and in many cases, not to be understood.

[4] Many magical arts were practiced in ancient times, and that these included enchantments is apparent in the book of Deuteronomy:

When you come into the land..., you shall not learn to imitate the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found in you anyone who causes his son or his daughter to pass through fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a diviner or fortune teller, or a user of potions, or one who uses enchantments, or one who inquires of an oracle, or a reader of signs, or one who seeks the dead. For (all of these things) are an abomination to Jehovah. (Deuteronomy 18:9-12)

A persuasion to falsity and thus the destruction of truth is symbolically meant by enchantments in the following passages:

Your wisdom and your knowledge have led you astray... Therefore evil shall come upon you... Stay now in your enchantments, and in the multitude of your sorceries... (Isaiah 47:10-12)

...by (Babylon's) enchantment all the nations were deceived. (Revelation 18:23)

Outside are dogs and enchanters and the sexually immoral and murderers... (Revelation 22:15)

(Joram said to Jehu,) "Is it peace...?" He answered, ."..as long as the harlotries of your mother Jezebel and her enchantments are many?" (2 Kings 9:22)

Harlotries symbolize falsifications (no. 134), and her enchantments symbolize destructions of truth by persuasions to falsity.

[5] Conversely, an enchantment may symbolize a rejection of falsity by truths, which was also accomplished by tacitly thinking and muttering against falsity out of a zeal for the truth, as is apparent from the following:

...Jehovah... will take away from Jerusalem... the mighty man, the man of war..., the counselor, the practiced mutterer, and the expert in enchantment. (Isaiah 3:1-3)

Their poison is like the poison of a... deaf cobra; it stops its ear, so as not to hear the voice of mutterers, of the skillful user of enchantments. (Psalms 58:4-5)

...behold, I am sending basilisk 1 serpents among you, against which there is no enchantment... (Jeremiah 8:17)

...in distress they sought you, they cried out in their muttering... (Isaiah 26:16)

Footnotes:

1. A legendary serpent or dragon, whose breath and glance were said to be lethal. Formerly identified in English translations of the Latin Vulgate with the cockatrice, and retained as such in the King James Bible.

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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

 

True Christian Religion #505

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505. The third experience. 1

I once heard a noise as of two mill-stones grinding together. I approached the sound, and it ceased. I saw a narrow doorway leading downwards and at an angle towards a building with a vaulted roof; it had a number of rooms each divided into small cells. In each of the cells sat two people collecting passages from the Word in support of justification by faith alone; one collected the passages and the other wrote them out, and they took turns to do this.

I went up to one cell which was near the entrance and asked: 'What are you collecting and writing out?'

'Passages,' they said, 'about the act of justification or faith in action, the faith which is the real one, and justifies, quickens and saves. It is the leading doctrine of the church in our part of Christendom.'

'Tell me,' I said to him then, 'some sign of that act, when that faith is introduced into a person's heart and soul.'

'The sign of that act,' he answered, 'is at the moment when a person smitten with grief at the thought of being damned, and being in a state of contrition, thinks about Christ taking away the damnation imposed by the law, confidently grasps this merit of His, and keeping this in his thoughts approaches God the Father and prays.'

[2] 'The act does so take place,' I said, 'and there is this moment. But how am I to understand,' I asked, 'what is said about this act, that nothing on man's part assents to it, any more than he would assent if he were a block of wood or a stone? Man, as it is said, with regard to that act can begin nothing, will or understand or think nothing, perform no act or contribute to any joint act, or fit or adjust himself. Tell me how this squares with your assertion that the act arises at the time when a person thinks about the enforcement of the law, about the taking away of his damnation by Christ, about the confidence with which he seizes Christ's merit, and with these thoughts in mind approaches God the Father and prays. Surely all of these are acts done by the person?'

'Yes,' he said, 'but they are not done by him actively, but passively.'

[3] 'How,' I answered, 'can anyone think, have confidence and pray passively? If you take away his activity and co-operation, do you not also take away his capacity to receive, and so everything is lost together with the act itself? What then does your act become but something purely imaginary, what is called a point of argument? I hope that you do not follow certain people in believing that such an act only takes place with those who are predestined, and know nothing of the faith being poured into them. They could just as well play at dice to determine whether faith was poured into them or not. Therefore, my friend, you should believe that man as regards faith and charity acts of himself under the Lord's guidance, and without this act on his part this act of faith of yours, which you called the leading doctrine of the church in Christendom, is no more than Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt, which rings as pure salt when struck with a scribe's quill or with his fingernail (Luke 17:32). I have said this because you are making yourselves with regard to this act like such statues.'

When I said this, he took hold of the lamp-stand to hurl it with all the force in his hand in my face. But the lamp suddenly went out and he threw it in his companion's face, while I went away amused.

Footnotes:

1. This passage is repeated with slight modifications from Apocalypse Revealed 484-486.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.

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