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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

 

Conjugial Love #182

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182. To this I will append two narrative accounts. Here is the first:

Several weeks later 1 I heard a voice from heaven saying, "Behold, another assembly is convening on Parnassium hill. Come, we will show you the way."

I went, and as I drew near, I saw on the hill Heliconeum someone with a trumpet, with which he announced and proclaimed the assembly. I also saw people from the city Athenaeum and its bordering regions ascending as before, and in the midst of them three newcomers from the world. The three were Christians, one a priest, the second a politician, and the third a philosopher. On the way the people entertained them with various kinds of conversation, especially concerning the ancient wise men, whom they mentioned by name. The visitors asked whether they would see these wise men. The people said that they would, and that if they wished, they would meet them, since they are friendly and cordial.

The visitors asked about Demosthenes, Diogenes and Epicurus.

"Demosthenes is not here," the people said, "but with Plato. 2 Diogenes stays with his disciples at the foot of the hill Heliconeum, because he regards worldly matters as of no importance and occupies his mind solely with heavenly ones. Epicurus lives at the border to the west, and he does not come in to join us either, because we draw a distinction between good affections and evil ones, saying that good affections accompany wisdom and that evil affections are opposed to wisdom."

[2] When they had ascended the hill Parnassium, some of the keepers of the place brought crystal goblets containing water from a spring there; and they said, "The water comes from a spring which the people of old told stories about, saying that it was broken open by the hoof of the horse Pegasus and afterwards became sacred to the nine Muses. 3 But by the winged horse Pegasus they meant an understanding of truth which leads to wisdom. By its hooves they meant empirical observations which lead to natural intelligence. And by the nine Muses they meant learning and knowledge of every kind. These stories today are called myths, but they were allegories which the earliest people used to express their ideas."

"Do not be surprised," the people accompanying the three visitors said to them. "The keepers have been told to speak as they did, to explain that what we mean by drinking water from the spring is to be taught about truths and through truths about goods, and thus to become wise."

[3] After this they entered the Palladium, and with them went the three newcomers from the world, the priest, the politician, and the philosopher. Then the people with the laurel wreaths who sat at the tables 4 asked, "What news do you have from earth?"

So the newcomers replied, "We have this news. There is someone who maintains that he speaks with angels, having had his sight opened into the spiritual world, as open as the sight he has into the natural world; and he reports from that world many novel ideas, which include, among other things, the following: A person lives, he says, as a person after death, the way he did before in the world. He sees, hears, and speaks as he did before in the world. He dresses and adorns himself as before in the world. He becomes hungry and thirsty, and eats and drinks, as before in the world. He experiences the delight of marriage as before in the world. He goes to sleep and wakes up as before in the world. The spiritual world has lands and lakes, mountains and hills, plains and valleys, springs and rivers, gardens and groves. One finds there palaces and houses, too, and cities and towns, just as in the natural world. They have written documents and books as well, and occupations and businesses, also precious stones, gold and silver. In a word, one finds in that world each and every thing that one finds on earth - things which are infinitely more perfect in heaven. The only difference is that everything in the spiritual world comes from a spiritual origin, and consequently is spiritual, because it originates from the sun there, which is pure love; while everything in the natural world comes from a natural origin, and consequently is natural and material, because it comes from the sun there, which is nothing but fire.

"This person reports, in short, that a person after death is perfectly human, indeed, more perfectly human than before in the world. For before in the world he was clothed in a material body, while here in this world he is clothed in a spiritual one."

[4] When the newcomers had thus spoken, the ancient wise men asked what people on earth thought of these reports.

The three visitors said, "We know that they are true, because we are here and have seen and investigated them all. We will tell you, therefore, what people said and judged concerning them on earth."

At that the priest then said, "When those who are members of our order first heard these reports, they called them hallucinations, then fabrications; later they said he saw ghosts; and finally they threw up their hands and said, believe if you will. We have always taught that a person will not be clothed in a body after death before the day of the Last Judgment."

The ancient wise men then asked, "Are there not any intelligent ones among them who can show them and convince them of the truth that a person lives as a person after death?"

[5] The priest said that there were some who showed it to them, but without convincing them. "The ones who show it say that it is contrary to sound reason to believe that a person does not live as a person until the day of the Last Judgment and meanwhile is a soul without a body.

"What is a person's soul, they ask, and where is it in the meantime? Is it an exhalation or a bit of wind flitting about in the air, or some entity hidden away at the center of the earth where its nether world is located? The souls of Adam and Eve, and of all the people after them, for six thousand years or sixty centuries now - are they still flitting about the universe or still being kept shut up in the bowels of the earth, waiting for the Last Judgment? What could be more distressing or more miserable than having to wait like that? May their fate not be likened to the fate of captives held chained and fettered in prison? If that is to be what a person's fate is like after death, would it not be better to be born a donkey than a human being?

"Moreover, is it not contrary to reason to suppose that a soul can be clothed again with its body? Does the body not get eaten away by worms, mice and fish? And this new body - can it serve to cover a bony skeleton that has been charred by the sun or has fallen into dust? How can these decomposed and foul-smelling elements be gathered together and joined to souls?

"But when people hear arguments like these, they do not use reason to respond to them, but hold to their belief, saying, 'We keep reason in obedience to faith.' As for all people being gathered together from their graves on the day of the Last Judgment, this, they say, is a work of omnipotence. And when they use the terms omnipotence and faith, reason is banished; and I can tell you that sound reason is as nothing then, and to some of them, a kind of hallucination. Indeed, it is possible for them to say in reply to sound reason, 'You are crazy.'"

[6] When the wise men of Greece heard this, they said, "Are logical inconsistencies like that not dispelled of themselves as mutually contradictory? And yet sound reason cannot dispel them in the world today. What can be more logically inconsistent than to believe what they say about the Last Judgment, that the universe will then come to an end and that at the same time the stars of heaven will fall down on to the earth, which is smaller than the stars; and that people's bodies, being then either cadavers, or embalmed corpses other people may have eaten, 5 or particles of dust, will come together with their souls?

"When we were in the world, we believed in the immortality of human souls on the basis of inductive arguments which reason supplied us, and we also determined places for the blessed, which we called the Elysian Fields. And we believed these souls to be human forms or likenesses, but ethereal since they were spiritual."

[7] After they said this, they turned to the second visitor, who in the world had been a politician. He confessed that he had not believed in a life after death, and had thought concerning the new reports he began to hear about it that they were fictions and fabrications. "Thinking about it I said, how can souls be corporeal beings? Does not every remnant of a person lie dead in the grave? Is the eye not there? How can he see? Is the ear not there? How can he hear? Where does he get a mouth with which to speak? If anything of a person should live after death, would it be anything other than something ghostlike? How can a ghost eat and drink? And how can it experience the delight of marriage? Where does it get its clothing, housing, food, and so on? Besides, being airy apparitions, ghosts only appear as though they exist, and yet do not.

"These and others like them are the thoughts I had in the world concerning the life of people after death. But now that I have seen it all and touched it all with my hands, I have been convinced by my very senses that I am as much a person as I was in the world, so much so that I have no other awareness than that I am living as I did then, with the difference that I now reason more sensibly. I have sometimes been ashamed of the thoughts I had before."

[8] The philosopher had a similar story to tell about himself, with the difference, however, that he had classed these new reports he heard regarding life after death with other opinions and conjectures he had gathered from ancient and modern sources.

The sages were dumbfounded at hearing this; and those who were of the Socratic school said they perceived from this news from earth that the inner faculties of human minds had become gradually closed, with faith in falsity now shining like truth in the world, and clever foolishness like wisdom. Since our times, they said, the light of wisdom has descended from the inner regions of the brain to the mouth beneath the nose, where it appears to view as a brilliance of the lips, and the speech of the mouth therefore as wisdom.

Listening to this, one of the novices there said, "Yes, and how stupid the minds of earth's inhabitants are today! If only we had here the disciples of Heraclitus who weep over everything and the disciples of Democritus who laugh at everything. What great weeping and laughing we would hear then!"

At the conclusion of this assembly, they gave the three newcomers from earth emblems of their district, which were copper plaques on which some hieroglyphic symbols were engraved. With these the visitors then departed.

Footnotes:

1. I.e., several weeks after the occurrence related in nos. 151[r]-154[r].

2. See no. 151[r]:1.

3. Cf., in Greek mythology, the spring Hippocrene on Mount Helicon, and perhaps also the spring Castalia on Mount Parnassus.

4. See no. 151[r]:2.

5. As late as the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the substances of embalmed corpses, particularly of Egyptian mummies, were used in the preparation of potions and powders prescribed and taken for a variety of supposed medicinal purposes. Cf. True Christian Religion 160[5]; also nos. 693[6], 770.

  
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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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