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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

 

Conjugial Love #183

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183. The second account:

A grove of palms and laurels appeared to me in the eastern zone, with the trees planted in rings in the form of spirals. Going over, I entered and walked along paths that curved around through several of the rings, and at the end of the paths I saw a garden, which formed the heart of the grove. Between the grove and the garden stood a small bridge, having a gate on the grove side and another gate on the garden side. I approached, and a keeper opened the gates. When I asked him what the name of the garden was, he said, "Adramandoni, which means the delight of conjugial love."

I went in, and behold, I found olive trees, with vines running and hanging down from one tree to another, and with bushes in flower beneath the trees and between them. In the middle of the garden there was a grassy circle, on which husbands and wives and young men and women were sitting, paired off in couples; and at the center of the circle was an elevated piece of ground, where a little fountain of water spurted up into the air owing to the force of its stream.

When I moved closer to the circle, I saw two angels in purple and scarlet, who were speaking with the people sitting on the grass and talking about conjugial love, its origin and its delights. And because this love was the subject of their conversation, the people were listening with eager attention and full receptivity, producing in them a feeling of exaltation as though from the fire of love in the speech of the angels.

[2] I have condensed into summary form the following excerpts from their conversation:

The angels began by remarking how difficult it is to investigate and discern the origin of conjugial love, since it has a Divine origin in heaven; for the origin is Divine love, Divine wisdom, and Divine application to useful purpose. These three emanate as one from the Lord, and they flow as one from Him into people's souls, and through their souls into their minds; and there they flow into the inner affections and thoughts, through these into desires nearer the body, and from these through the breast into the reproductive region. Here all the forces derived from the first origin exist concurrently, and together with successive elements, result in conjugial love.

After this the angels said, "Let the interchange in our discussion be by questions and answers, because although a perception of something does indeed flow in when gained solely from listening, still it does not remain unless the listener also thinks about it for himself and asks questions regarding it."

[3] Then some of the married group said to the angels, "We have heard that conjugial love has a Divine origin in heaven, because it comes from an influx from the Lord into people's souls; and that being from the Lord, its origin is love, wisdom, and application to useful purpose - these being the three essential attributes which together make up the one Divine essence. We have also heard that nothing but what is of the Divine essence can emanate from the Lord and flow into the inmost being of a person, which is called his soul; and that these three essential attributes of it are transformed into analogous and corresponding qualities as they descend into the body. So now, the first question we ask is what is meant by the third essential Divine emanation, which is called application to useful purpose."

The angels replied that love and wisdom without application to useful purpose are only abstract and theoretical ideas, which, even after being entertained for a time in the mind, eventually pass away like the winds. "But love and wisdom are brought together in application to useful purpose," they said, "and in this they become a single entity which is called actual. Love cannot rest unless it acts, for love is the active force in life; nor can wisdom exist and endure unless it does so from love and together with love whenever love acts, and to act is application to useful purpose. Therefore we define application to useful purpose as the doing of good from love through wisdom. Application to useful purpose is what good is.

[4] "Since these three elements - love, wisdom, and application to useful purpose - flow into people's souls, we can see why it is said that all good is from God. For all action from love through wisdom is called good, and action includes also application to useful purpose.

"Love without wisdom - what is it but a kind of foolish infatuation? And love accompanied by wisdom, but without application to a useful end - what is it but an airy affectation of the mind? On the other hand, love and wisdom together with application to a useful end - these not only make a person what he is, but they also are the person. Indeed, what may perhaps surprise you, they produce the person. For a man's seed contains his soul in perfect human form, clothed with substances from the finest elements of nature, out of which the body is formed in the womb of the mother. This useful end is the supreme and final end of Divine love acting through Divine wisdom."

[5] Finally the angels said, "We reach the inevitable conclusion that all reproduction, all propagation, and all procreation stem in origin from an influx of love, wisdom, and application to useful purpose flowing in from the Lord - from a direct influx from the Lord into the souls of human beings, from an indirect influx into the souls of animals, and from a still more indirect influx into the inmost elements in plants. All these processes, moreover, take place in things that are last in order as a result of things that are first in order.

"Processes of reproduction, propagation and procreation are clearly continuations of creation; for creation can have no other source than Divine love acting through Divine wisdom in Divine application to useful purpose. Everything in the universe is therefore generated and formed as a result of useful purpose, in fulfillment of useful purpose, and to serve a useful purpose."

[6] Afterwards the people sitting on the banks of grass asked the angels, "What is the source of the delights of conjugial love, delights which are beyond number and description?"

The angels replied that these delights arise from the useful applications of love and wisdom, and that this could be seen from considering that to the extent anyone loves to become wise for the sake of some genuinely useful purpose, to the same extent he is in the stream and vigor of conjugial love, and to the extent he is in this stream and vigor, to the same extent he enjoys their delights.

"Application to useful purpose produces this result," they said, "because love [finds expression in useful purpose] through wisdom [and they] take delight in each other, and play with each other, so to speak, like little children. And as they mature, they congenially unite together, which is accomplished as though through stages of betrothal, wedding, marriage and the bearing of offspring, and this continually and with variety to eternity.

"These conjunctions between love and wisdom take place inwardly in application to useful purpose. In their beginnings, however, the delights are imperceptible, but they become more and more perceptible as they descend by degrees from their beginnings and enter the body. They enter by degrees from the soul into the interior regions of a person's mind, and from there into its outer regions, and from there to within the breast, and from there into the reproductive region.

[7] And though a person does not perceive anything of these conjugal and heavenly interplays in the soul, from the soul they insinuate themselves into the inner regions of the mind in the form of peace and innocence, and into the outer regions of the mind in the form of bliss, felicity and delight, while within the breast they appear in the form of the delights of inmost friendship, and in the reproductive region as the delight of delights owing to the continual influx all the way from the soul, bringing with it an actual sensation of conjugial love.

"Such conjugal interplays of love and wisdom in application to useful purpose in the soul become lasting as they proceed towards their place within the breast, and there within the breast they manifest themselves perceptibly in an infinite variety of delights. And because of the marvelous communication of the interior of the breast with the reproductive region, in that region the delights become the delights of conjugial love - delights which are heightened over all other delights that exist in heaven and in the world, because the use served by conjugial love is the most excellent use of all; for it results in the propagation of the human race, and from the human race comes the angelic heaven."

[8] To this the angels added that people know nothing about the variety of the countless delights connected with truly conjugial love if they do not have from the Lord a love of growing wise for the sake of some useful purpose. "For," they said, "people who do not love to become wise in accord with genuine truths, but prefer to be irrational in accord with falsities, and who through this irrationality of theirs are motivated by some love to serve evil purposes - in their case the way to the soul is closed. As a result the conjugal and heavenly interplays of love and wisdom in the soul become more and more cut off, and together with them, conjugial love with its flow, vigor, and delights."

The people who were listening said in response that they perceived that conjugial love depends on a love from the Lord of growing wise for the sake of useful purposes. The angels replied that this was so. And then on the heads of some of the listeners appeared little wreaths of flowers.

So they asked, "Why is this?"

The angels said, "Because you understood more deeply." And then the angels departed from the garden, with these people in the midst of them.

  
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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 #80

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80. The fifth experience.

Once a satan was given leave to come up from hell together with a woman, and he approached the house where I was. On seeing them I shut the window, but carried on a conversation with them through it. I asked the Satan where he came from, and he said from the company of his own people.

I asked where the woman came from, and he made the same reply. She belonged to the crew of sirens. Their skill is by fantasy to put on every appearance of beauty and every adornment of dress. At one time they assume the beauty of Venus, at another the charm of countenance of a Muse, at another they deck themselves like queens in crowns and robes, and pace in regal fashion leaning on silver staves. Such women in the spiritual world are prostitutes and specialise in fantasy. They induce fantasies by thinking sensually, which blocks any ideas from a more inward mode of thinking.

I asked the Satan if she was his wife. 'What is a wife?' he replied. 'This is a term unknown to me and my community; she is my woman.' Then she roused her man's lewdness, a thing these sirens are skilled in doing. On feeling this he kissed her, saying, 'Oh my Adonis!'

[2] But to more serious matters. I asked the Satan what was his calling. 'My calling,' he said, 'is learning; don't you see the laurel wreath on my head? 'This his Adonis had conjured up by her magic arts and put on his head from behind.

'Since you come from a community,' I said, 'where there are schools of learning, tell me what you and your companions believe about God.' 'God,' he replied, 'is for us the universe, which we also call nature. Simple folk in our country call it the atmosphere, by which they mean the air; but the intelligent mean the atmosphere which is also the ether. God, heaven, angels and the like, the subject of many tales in this world, are idle words and fictions inspired by meteors, which many people here have seen flash before their eyes. Is not everything to be seen upon earth the creation of the sun? Every time it approaches in springtime are not insects born, with and without wings? Does not its heat make birds love each other and reproduce? And does not the earth, warmed by its heat, cause seed to sprout and produce fruits as its offspring? Does this not mean that the universe is God, and nature a goddess, and she as the wife of the universe conceives, bears, rears and nurtures these things?'

[3] I went on to ask what he and his community believed about religion. 'We who are educated above the ordinary level,' he replied, 'look on religion as nothing but a toy for the common people. The sensory and imaginative areas of their minds are surrounded with a sort of aura, in which religious ideas flit about like butterflies in the air. Their faith, which links these ideas into a sort of chain, resembles a silk-worm in its cocoon, from which the king of butterflies flutters forth. For the uneducated masses love images which rise above the bodily senses and the thoughts they engender, because they have a longing to fly. So they make themselves wings, so that they can soar like eagles and show off in front of the earth-bound, saying, 'Look at me!' We, however, believe what we see and love what we touch.' At this he touched his woman, saying, 'This I believe, because I see and touch it. But we throw all that sort of rubbish out of our windows of mica, and waft it away on a gale of laughter.'

[4] Then I asked his opinion and that of his companions on heaven and hell. He laughed and said: 'What is heaven but the ethereal firmament on high? What are angels but spots wandering round the sun? What are archangels but comets with their long tails, on which their company lives? What is hell but marshland full of frogs and crocodiles, which their imagination turns into devils? Everything but these ideas of heaven and hell is mere nonsense, thought up by some church dignitary to seek fame among an ignorant populace.'

He said all this exactly as he had thought in the world, unaware that he was living after death, and forgetful of everything he had been told when he first entered the world of spirits. Therefore even when asked about life after death, he replied that it was a figment of the imagination, but there might perhaps be some effluvium given off by the corpse in the grave in shape resembling a person, or something like the ghosts which some tell tales about, and this had led people to fantasise on the subject.

[5] On hearing this I could no longer stop myself bursting out laughing. 'Satan,' I said, 'you really are mad. What are you now? Are you not in shape like a person? Don't you talk, see, hear and walk? Remember that you lived in another world, which you have forgotten, and now you are alive after death, yet have been speaking exactly as you did before you died.'

He was given back his memory, and on remembering he was ashamed and cried: 'I am mad. I have seen heaven up above, and heard angels there speak things beyond description. But this was when I was a recent arrival. Now I shall remember this to tell the companions I left behind, and then perhaps they will be ashamed too.' He had it on the tip of his tongue to call them mad, but as he went down forgetfulness blotted out his memory, so that on arrival he was as mad as they were, and called what I had told him madness.

Such is the state of thought and conversation among satans after death. The name of satans is given to those who have convinced themselves of falsities until they completely believe them, and the name of devils to those who have fostered evils in their characters by living a wicked life.

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

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