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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 #623

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623. The third experience.

I once was allowed to see three hundred clergy together with laymen, all well-educated and learned, because they knew how to prove that faith alone was sufficient for justification, and even 1 beyond. Since their belief was that heaven was merely a matter of being admitted by grace, they were given permission to go up to one community in heaven, but not one of the higher ones. When they went up, they looked from a distance like calves. On entering heaven they were received politely by the angels; but when they began to talk with them, they were seized with trembling, then terror and finally agony like that of death. Then they cast themselves down headlong, and as they fell they looked like dead horses. The reason why they looked like calves, when they were going up, was that the natural affection for seeing and knowing in joyous play is by correspondence like a calf. When they were falling down they looked like dead horses, because by correspondence the understanding of truth looks like a horse, and the lack of understanding of truth as the church possesses it, like a dead horse.

[2] There were some boys down below, who saw them coming down, and looking like dead horses as they fell. Then they turned their faces away, and said to the master who was with them: 'What is the meaning of this monstrous thing? We saw people and now they have turned into dead horses. So being unable to look at them we turned our faces away. Let us not stay in this place, sir, but go away.' So they went away.

Then as they went the master taught them what a dead horse meant. 'A horse,' he said, 'means the understanding of truth drawn from the Word. All the horses you have seen meant that. When someone goes along meditating on something from the Word, his meditation seen from a distance looks like a horse, of good breeding and alive if he meditates spiritually, and by contraries a poor or dead one if he meditates materially.'

[3] Then the boys asked: 'What is meant by meditating spiritually or materially on something from the Word?' 'I will illustrate this,' replied the master, 'by examples. Everyone who reverently reads the Word thinks inwardly about God, the neighbour and heaven, doesn't he? Anyone who thinks about God only as a Person and not as Essence thinks materially; and so does anyone who thinks about the neighbour merely as an external form, without regard to the sort of person he is. If anyone thinks of heaven merely as a place, instead of as love and wisdom, which are what make it heaven, he too is thinking materially.'

[4] But the boys said: 'We have thought about God as a Person, and about the neighbour as a human form, and about heaven as a place which is up above us. So when we read the Word, did we then look to anyone like dead horses?'

'No,' said the master, 'you are still children, and could not do otherwise. But I have noticed that you have an affection for knowing and understanding; and since this is spiritual, you were also thinking spiritually. For there is some spiritual thought hidden within your material thought, a fact so far unknown to you. But I want to go back to what I said before, that anyone who thinks materially when he reads the Word or meditates on anything from it, looks from a distance like a dead horse; but if he thinks spiritually, like a live one. I said too that anyone who thinks of God only as a Person and not as Essence is thinking materially about God. The Divine Essence has many attributes, such as omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, eternity, love, wisdom, mercy, grace and others too. There are also attributes which proceed from the Divine Essence; creation and preservation, redemption and salvation, enlightenment and instruction. Everyone who thinks of God in terms of Person makes three Gods; there is one God, he says, who is the Creator and Preserver, another who is the Redeemer and Saviour, and a third who is the Enlightener and Instructor. But everyone who thinks of God in terms of Essence makes God one; God created us, he says, and He too redeems and saves us, and also enlightens and instructs us. That is the reason why those who think of the Divine Trinity in terms of Person, and so materially, cannot help being led by the ideas in their thought, which is material, to make three Gods out of one. But they are still obliged to say, contrary to their thinking, that the three are united by Essence, because their thought has also led them to perceive God, as it were through a lattice, in terms of Essence.

[5] 'You, my pupils, should therefore think about God in terms of essence, and from this think about person. Thinking in terms of person about essence means thinking materially about essence too. But thinking about person in terms of essence means thinking spiritually also about person. The pagans of antiquity, since they thought materially about God and so also about His attributes, made not three but as many as a hundred Gods; for they made each separate attribute into a God. You should know that the material cannot enter into the spiritual; but the spiritual can into the material. It is much the same with thinking about the neighbour in terms of external form rather than the sort of person he is. Or again, thinking about heaven in terms of place rather than love and wisdom, which are what heaven is made of. It is much the same with every single thing in the Word. Anyone therefore who cherishes a material idea of God, and also of the neighbour and of heaven, cannot understand anything in the Word, since for him it is a dead letter; and he himself, when he is reading the Word or meditating on anything from it, looks from a distance like a dead horse.

[6] 'Those whom you saw coming down from heaven and turning before your eyes into dead horses were people who had shut off their rational vision as regards theological matters, or the spiritual concerns of the church, not only for themselves but also for others, by their special dogma that the understanding must be kept subservient to their faith. They never thought that if the understanding is kept shut off by religion, it is as blind as a mole, and full of thick darkness. Darkness of this sort, which reflects all spiritual light, prevents it flowing in from the Lord and out of heaven, and sets in its place a barrier at the level of the bodily senses, far below the rational level, in matters of faith. That is to say, it sets this barrier near the nose, securing it in the cartilage there, so that afterwards it is not even possible to smell what is spiritual. As a result, some people have become so sensitive that on catching a whiff of what is spiritual they fall down in a faint. By smell I mean perception. These are the people who make God into three. They do speak in terms of essence, saying that God is one, but still they are led by their faith to pray that God the Father may have mercy for the sake of the Son and send the Holy Spirit, so that it is clear they are making three Gods. They cannot help themselves, if they pray to one to have mercy for the sake of another, and to send a third.' Then the master taught them about the Lord being the one God in whom is the Divine Trinity.

Footnotes:

1. Reading et quidem for et quidam 'and some of them'.

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

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