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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

 

True Christian Religion #187

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187. The third experience 1 .

Once when I was meditating on the dragon, the beast and the false prophet described in Revelation, an angelic spirit appeared to me and asked: 'What are you meditating about?' 'The false prophet,' I told him. Then he said: 'I will take you to a place where those live who are meant by the false prophet.' He told me that the same people are meant in chapter 13 of Revelation by the beast from the land, which had two horns like a lamb's, and spoke like a dragon.

I followed him, and came upon a crowd surrounding some leading ecclesiastics, who taught that nothing but faith in Christ's merit confers salvation on people, and that deeds are good but do not contribute to their salvation. None the less, they said, these should be taught in accordance with the Word, so that laymen, particularly the simple, should be kept more rigorously subject to the dictates of magistrates, and thus be impelled, as if by religion and thus inwardly, to exercise ethical charity.

[2] Then one of them saw me and said: 'Would you like to see our shrine, which contains a statue representing our faith?'

I went along and looked; and there was a magnificent shrine, and inside it a statue of a woman wearing a scarlet dress, holding a gold coin in her right hand and a pearl necklace in her left. But both the statue and the shrine were imaginary, for the spirits in hell can by their imagination produce magnificent representations, by closing the interiors of the mind, and opening only its exteriors. When I realised that all this was mere conjuring, I prayed to the Lord, and the interiors of my mind were suddenly opened. Then in place of that magnificent shrine I saw a ruinous building with cracks in the walls from ceiling to floor; and in place of the woman I saw hanging in that building an image with a head like a dragon's, a body like a leopard's, feet like a bear's and a mouth like a lion's, exactly as the beast from the sea is described in Revelation 13:2. Instead of the floor there was a marsh teeming with frogs. I was told that beneath the marsh there was a great squared stone, beneath which lay the Word, deeply hidden away.

[3] On seeing this I asked the conjurer: 'Is this your shrine?' He said it was. But then suddenly his interior sight was opened, which made him see what I saw. At this sight he shouted very loudly: 'What is this? Where has it come from?' I told him that it was the result of light from heaven, which reveals the true nature of every form, and consequently the true nature of his faith separated from spiritual charity.

Immediately the east wind sprang up and blew away the shrine with its statue. It also dried up the marsh, thus laying bare the stone beneath which the Word lay. After this a warm wind, as in springtime, blew from heaven, and then in the same place was to be seen a tent, of simple external construction. The angels with me said: 'This is what Abraham's tent was like, when the three angels came to him and told him that Isaac was to be born. This may appear to view as simple, but it becomes more and more magnificent as light flows in from heaven.'

They were allowed to open the heaven where the spiritual angels are, who possess wisdom, and the light which poured in from there made that tent look like a temple such as that in Jerusalem. When I looked inside, I saw the stone base under which the Word was stored inlaid all around with precious stones. A sort of radiance was projected from these on to the walls, which were decorated with carved cherubs; and these the radiance beautifully picked out in various colours.

[4] When I admired this, the angels said: 'Now you will see something even more wonderful.' They were allowed to open the third heaven, where the celestial angels are who possess love. Then the flame-coloured light flooding in made that whole temple vanish, and in its place was to be seen the Lord alone, standing upon the stone base which was the Word, in appearance as He was seen by John (Rev. chapter 1). But because a feeling of holiness then filled the interiors of the angels' minds, causing them to long to fall on their faces, the path of light from the third heaven was suddenly blocked by the Lord, and the path for light from the second heaven was opened up, thus restoring the previous appearance of the temple, and also of the tent, but this was inside the temple. These sights provided an illustration of what is meant by the verse in Revelation:

Here is the tabernacle of God with men, and He will dwell with them, Revelation 21:3.

and also this:

I saw no temple in the New Jerusalem, for the Lord God almighty and the Lamb are its temple, Revelation 21:22.

Footnotes:

1. This section is repeated from Apocalypse Revealed 926.

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

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