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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 #231

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231. To this I will append three narrative accounts. Here is the first:

I once heard some clamorings from below, which sounded as though they were gurgling up through water. I heard one clamor to the left crying, "Oh, how just!" Another to the right crying, "Oh, how learned!" And a third one behind me crying, "Oh, how wise!" Then, because it struck me to wonder whether there are any just, learned or wise people in hell, I began to feel a wish to see if people of this sort might be found there; and it was told me from heaven, "You will both see and hear."

So I left home in the spirit, and I saw in the ground before me an opening. I went over to it and looked down, and behold, it had a stairway in it. I went down this stairway, and when I reached the bottom, I saw fields covered with bushes intermixed with thorns and nettles. When I asked whether I was in hell, the people said it was a lower earth just above hell.

I then proceeded in the direction of each of the clamors in turn. Going first to the place where they were crying, "Oh, how just!" I saw a gathering of people who in the world had been judges swayed by partiality and gifts. Going next to the place where they were crying, "Oh, how learned!" I saw a gathering of people who in the world had been reasoners. And going third to the place where they were crying, "Oh, how wise!" I saw a gathering of people who in the world had been confirmers.

[2] I turned back from these, however, to the first place, where the judges were who were swayed by partiality and gifts and who were proclaimed as just. There, over to one side, I saw a kind of amphitheater, built out of bricks and having a roof of black tiles; and I was told that they called it the Tribunal. It had three entrances opening into it on the north side, and three more on the west side, but none on the south or east sides - an indication that their judgments were not judgments having to do with justice but arbitrary rulings.

Inside I saw in the middle of the amphitheater a fireplace, into which the keepers of the hearth were throwing torches covered with sulfur and pitch. Shafts of light flickered out from these on to the plastered walls and formed silhouetted images of birds of the evening and night. At the same time, this fireplace, and the shafts of light flickering out into silhouettes of these images, were representations of their judgments, reflecting their ability to illumine the issues in any case with colored hues and to shape them as they pleased.

[3] After a half-hour had passed, I saw some older and younger men entering in gowns and robes; and laying aside their caps, they seated themselves at tables, ready to sit in judgment. I then heard and observed how skillfully and cleverly they avoided any appearance of favoritism, turning their judgments into semblances of justice, and this to the point that they themselves viewed injustice as nothing other than just, and justice, conversely, as unjust. Their persuasions in regard to these matters were apparent to the eye from their faces and discernible to the ear from their comments.

I was given at that point enlightenment from heaven, which enabled me to perceive in each case whether the rulings were in accordance with the law or not; and I saw to what lengths they went to camouflage injustice and give it the guise of justice, picking out from the laws some one that might support them and drawing the rest to their side through clever reasonings.

After rendering their judgments, the judges would have their verdicts conveyed out to their clients, friends and supporters; and to repay them for their favor, these would cry out for some distance along the road, "Oh, how just! Oh, how just!"

[4] I afterwards spoke with angels of heaven about these events and told them some of the things I had seen and heard. The angels said to me that judges like that appear to others as though endowed with an exceptional keenness of understanding, when in fact they do not have the least inkling of what is just and fair.

"If you take away their partiality for one side or the other," they said, "they sit on their benches as mute as statues, saying only, I agree, I go along with this person or I go along with that person. That is because all their judgments are prejudgments, and their prejudgment pursues each case from beginning to end with a biased one-sidedness. Consequently they see only the side which involves a friend. Every point that is against him they move to the periphery; and if they take it up again, they entangle it in reasonings, as a spider does its prey in the threads of its web - and so destroy it.

"That is why, if they do not follow the web of some prejudgment of theirs, they do not have any inkling of the law. They have been examined to see whether they might have some inkling of it, and it was found that they did not. The inhabitants of your world will be surprised that such is the case, but tell them it is a truth investigated by angels of heaven.

"Since these judges lack any sight of justice," they continued, "in heaven we view them as being not human but monsters, whose heads are shaped by elements of partisanship, their breasts by elements of injustice, and their feet by matters of confirmation - with only the soles of their feet being formed by matters of justice, which they step on and trample into the ground if these do not favor some friend of theirs.

"However, you will see for yourself how they look to us from heaven, for their end is near."

[5] And lo, suddenly then the ground opened, so that tables after tables went tumbling down, and they and their whole amphitheater were swallowed up. And they were cast into caverns and made prisoners there.

Then the angels said to me, "Would you like to see them now?"

And behold, in respect to their faces they appeared as though made of burnished steel. In respect to their bodies from the neck to the loins they looked like figures carved out of stone, dressed in leopard skins. And in respect to their feet they looked like serpents. I also saw the lawbooks, which they had had lying on their tables, turned into playing cards. And now, instead of judging, they were given the task of processing pigments into cosmetics with which to paint the faces of harlots and so turn them into beauties.

[6] After seeing this, I was ready to go on to the other two gatherings, to the one where the people were merely reasoners, and to the other where they were merely confirmers. But at that point the angels said to me, "Rest a while. You will be given angels from the society just above those places to accompany you. Through them you will receive light from the Lord, and you will see some astonishing sights."

  
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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

 

Apocalypse Revealed #224

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224. To this I will add the following account:

I saw a gathering of spirits, all upon their knees, praying to God to send them angels they could speak with face to face and to whom they could disclose the thoughts of their heart.

Then when they arose, three angels appeared in white linen standing before them, and the angels said, "The Lord Jesus Christ has heard your prayers, and has therefore sent us to you. Disclose to us the thoughts of your heart."

[2] The spirits then replied, "Priests have told us that in theological matters it is not the intellect but faith that accomplishes anything, and that in such matters an intellectual faith is of no help to anyone, because it takes its origin from man.

"We are English, and we have heard many things from our sacred ministry which we believed. However, when we spoke with some other people who call themselves Reformed, and with some who call themselves Roman Catholics, and moreover with some Nonconformists, they all seemed to us learned, and yet in many matters not one of them agreed with another. But nevertheless they all said, 'Believe us.' And some said, 'We are God's ministers and we know.'

"Still we knew that the Divine truths that are called truths of faith and are the church's truths are no one's heritage by birth alone, or by heredity, but that they descend out of heaven from God. And because these show the way to heaven, and enter into one's life together with the good of charity and so lead to eternal life, we became anxious and prayed on our knees to God."

[3] At that the angels replied, "Read the Word and believe in the Lord, and you will see the truths that must be those of your faith and life. All in the Christian world draw their doctrinal teachings from the Word as from a single font."

[4] But two of the gathering of spirits said, "We have read it, but have not understood."

The angels replied, "You have not turned to the Lord, and you have also confirmed yourselves in falsities."

The angels also said further, "What is faith without light? And what is thinking without understanding? It isn't human. Ravens too and magpies can learn to speak without understanding. We can assure you that everyone whose soul longs for it can see the truths of the Word in a state of light. There is no animal that does not know the right food for its life when it sees it, and the human being is a rational and spiritual animal. If he hungers for it and seeks it from the Lord, the human being sees for his life not food for his body but food for his soul, which is the truth of faith. Moreover, whatever he does not receive with his intellect, also does not stick in his memory as a concept, but only as words. Consequently when we have looked down from heaven into the world, we have not seen anything, but have only heard sounds, mostly lacking in any harmony.

[5] "But we will list some truths that the learned of the clergy have banished from the intellect, not knowing that there are two paths to the intellect, one from the world and the other from heaven, and not knowing that the Lord raises the intellect from the world when He enlightens it. However, if the intellect is closed by religion, the path to it from heaven is closed, and a person then sees no more in the Word than a blind man sees. We have seen many of this sort fall into pits, from which they have not risen.

"Let examples serve to illustrate. You can understand what charity and faith are, can you not? That charity is to comport oneself well with the neighbor, and that faith is to think rightly about God and the essential constituents of the church? And therefore that anyone who behaves well and thinks rightly, that is, who lives rightly and believes rightly, is saved?"

In response to this the spirits said that they understood.

[6] The angels went on, "You understand, do you not, that to be saved a person must repent of his sins, and that unless a person repents, he remains caught up in the sins into which he was born? Moreover, that to repent means not to will evils because they are sins against God, and once or twice a year to examine oneself, see one's evils, confess them before the Lord, implore His aid, desist from them, and embark upon a new life? And that to the extent a person does this and believes in the Lord, his sins are forgiven?"

Then some of the gathering of spirits said, "This we understand, and so also what the forgiveness of sins is."

[7] At that the spirits then asked the angels to tell them something more, and specifically this time about God, the immortality of the soul, regeneration, and baptism.

To this the angels replied, "We shall say nothing but what you can understand. Otherwise what we say will fall like rain on sand, and however much they may be watered from heaven, any seeds there will still dry up and die."

Regarding God then they said, "People who enter heaven are all allotted a place there and accordingly come into eternal joy in accord with their idea of God, because this idea reigns universally throughout all aspects of worship.

"An idea of God as invisible is not focused on anyone, and so has no focus in anyone. Consequently it passes away and dies.

"An idea of God as a spirit, when one believes a spirit to be like the ether or a puff of wind, is an idea empty of content.

"But an idea of God as a man is a proper idea. For God is Divine love and wisdom, with every property of these, and their containing vessel is man, not ether or a puff of wind.

"The idea of God found in heaven is an idea of the Lord. He is God of heaven and earth, as He Himself taught. Let your idea of God be like ours, and we will be comrades."

When the angels said this, their faces shone.

[8] Regarding the immortality of the soul the angels said, "A person lives to eternity because through love and faith he can be conjoined with God. This is possible for everyone. You can understand that the immortality of the soul results from this possibility if you think about it a little more deeply."

[9] Regarding regeneration they said, "Who does not see that everyone has the freedom to think about God or not to think about Him, provided he has been taught that God exists. Thus everyone has just as much freedom in spiritual matters as he does in civil and moral matters. The Lord gives this freedom to all people continually. Consequently it is his fault if he does not think about God. A person is human because of this ability [to think about God], while an animal is an animal because it lacks the ability. Therefore a person can reform and regenerate himself as though of himself, provided he acknowledges at heart that the ability comes from the Lord. Everyone who repents and believes in the Lord is reformed and regenerated. A person must do both as though of himself, but the "as though of himself" comes from the Lord.

"It is true that a person can contribute nothing to this end - nothing at all - but still you were not created sculpted forms, but were created human beings, in order that you might accomplish this from the Lord as though of yourselves. This reciprocation of love and faith is the one thing that the Lord above all wishes a person to do for Him.

"In a word, do it of yourselves, but believe that you do it from the Lord, thus doing it as though of yourselves."

[10] The spirits, however, then asked the angels whether doing things as though of oneself was not something with which a person was endowed from creation.

One of the angels replied, "It is not something with which a person is endowed, because to do something of oneself is God's alone, but He grants the ability to a person continually, that is to say, He attaches it to a person continually; and then to the extent that a person does good and believes truth as though of himself, he is an angel of heaven. But to the extent that he does evil and so believes falsity, which he does also as though of himself, he is to that extent an angel of hell. You are surprised to be told that he does this also as though of himself, but yet you see it when you pray to be protected from the devil, that he not lead you astray, lest he enter into you as he entered into Judas, fill you with all iniquity, and destroy both soul and body. 1

"Still, everyone makes himself responsible for an action if he believes that he does it of himself, be it good or evil, but does not make himself responsible for it if he believes that he does it as though of himself."

[11] Regarding baptism the angels said that it was a spiritual washing, which is reformation and regeneration, and that a little child is reformed and regenerated when he becomes an adult and does the things that his sponsors promised for him, of which there are two, namely, repentance and faith in God. For his sponsors promise first that he will renounce the devil and all his works, and second that he will believe in God. All little children in heaven are initiated into these two, though for them the devil is hell and God is the Lord.

"Moreover, baptism is a sign to angels that a person belongs to the church."

[12] Having heard this, some of the gathering of spirits said, "We understand it." But a voice from the side was heard crying, "We don't understand it." And another voice, "We don't want to understand it."

The spirits then inquired into whose voices they were, and they found that they belonged to people who had confirmed themselves in the falsities of their faith, and who wished to be credited as oracles so as to be revered.

The angels said, "Do not be astonished. Such is the character of very many people today. From heaven they look to us like sculpted forms, so skillfully made that they can move their lips and make organism-like sounds, but they do not know whether the breath they use to make sounds comes from hell or from heaven, because they do not know whether anything is false or true. They reason and reason, and defend and defend, but they do not see whether anything is so.

"You should know, however, that human ingenuity can defend whatever it wishes, even to the point that it appears to be the case. Heretics, therefore, can do this. So can the impious. Atheists indeed can make it appear that there is no God, but only nature."

[13] After this the gathering of English spirits, burning with a desire to become wise, said to the angels, "People say such different things about the Holy Supper. Tell us what the truth is."

The angels said, "The truth is that anyone who turns to the Lord and repents is, by that most holy act, conjoined with the Lord and introduced into heaven."

But some of that gathering said, "This is a mystery."

To which the angels replied, "It is a mystery, but yet of the sort that one can understand.

"The bread and wine do not create the conjunction. There is no holiness in them. But material bread and heavenly bread correspond to each other, and so do material wine and heavenly wine. Heavenly bread is the holiness in love, and heavenly wine is the holiness in faith, both originating from the Lord, and both being the Lord. This occasions a conjunction of the Lord with man and of man with the Lord - a conjunction not with the bread and wine but with the love and faith of a person who has repented - and conjunction with the Lord is also an introduction into heaven."

Then, after the angels taught them something about correspondence and its effect, some of the gathering said, "Now for the first time we understand."

And when they said, "We understand," suddenly something flame-like descending with its light from heaven affiliated the spirits with the angels, and they loved each other.

Footnotes:

1. A reference to the prayer recited before Anglican celebrations of Holy Communion, the English text of which is quoted in The Doctrine of Life 5, which concludes, "Therefore if any of you be a blasphemer of God, or hinderer or slanderer of His word, or adulterer, or be in malice or envy, or in any other grievous crime, repent you of your sins, or else come not to the Holy Table; lest after the taking of that Holy Sacrament the Devil enter into you, as he entered into Judas, and fill you with all iniquities, and bring you to destruction both of body and soul."

  
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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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