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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 #261

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

In the upper northern zone in the spiritual world, over to the east, there are places of instruction, some for boys, some for adolescents, some for men, and some also for older men. All who have died as little children and are being raised in heaven are sent to these places. So, too, are all those newly arrived from the world who wish to learn about heaven and hell.

This district is over to the east in order that they may all be instructed by means of influx from the Lord. For the Lord is the east, since He is there in the sun, which is pure love emanating from Him. The warmth from that sun consequently in its essence is love, and the light from it in its essence is wisdom. These two are infused by the Lord into the people there from that sun, and they are infused in accordance with their reception of them, which in turn depends on their love of becoming wise.

When their periods of instruction are over, those who have become intelligent are sent out from there and are called disciples of the Lord. They are sent first to the west, and if they do not remain there, to the south, and some through the south to the east. And so they are introduced into the societies where their dwellings are to be.

[2] Once, when I was thinking about heaven and hell, I began to wish to have a universal concept of the state of each, knowing that a person who is acquainted with the universals of a thing can afterwards comprehend the particulars, since the particulars are contained in the universals, like the parts in a whole.

With this wish I looked in the direction of that district in the northern zone over to the east, where the places of instruction were; and going there by a way then opened to me, I went into one of the colleges in which the students were young men. There I approached the senior teachers who were doing the instructing, and I asked them whether they knew any universal characteristics relating to heaven and hell.

[3] They replied that they knew a little something; "but," they said, "if we look eastward to the Lord, we will be enlightened and then we will know." They proceeded to do this, and then said:

"The universal characteristics of [both heaven and] hell are three, but the universal characteristics of hell are diametrically opposite to the universal characteristics of heaven. The universal characteristics of hell are the following three loves: a love of governing stemming from a love of self; a love of possessing the goods of others stemming from a love of the world; and licentious love.

"The universal characteristics of heaven opposite to these are the following three loves: a love of governing stemming from a love of being useful; a love of possessing the goods of the world stemming from a love of performing useful services by means of them; and truly conjugial love."

Their having said this, after wishing them peace, I departed and returned home.

When I got home, I was told from heaven, "Examine these three universal characteristics, above and below, and afterwards we will see them on your hand." They said, "on your hand," because everything a person examines mentally appears to angels as though written on his hands.

  
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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 #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.

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