New Christian Bible Study

Commentary

 

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 #326

Study this Passage

  
/ 535  
  

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

After the question concerning the soul had been discussed in the school and answered, 1 I saw the people going out in order, the headmaster in front, after him the older men, with the five young men who had responded to the question in the midst of them, and after them the rest. As they left the building, they went around to the sides, where there were walkways surrounded by bushes. And gathering there, they broke up into small groups, all of them circles of young men conversing on matters of wisdom, with one of the wiser men from the balcony in each.

Seeing them from my place of lodging, I entered a state of the spirit and in the spirit went out to them. And there I went over to the headmaster, who a little before had posed the question concerning the soul.

When he saw me he said, "Who are you? As I watched you approaching on the way here, I was astonished to see that one minute you would pop into view, the next minute drop out of sight, so that one moment I would see you and suddenly then not. Surely you are not in the same life-state as our people."

Gently laughing at this I replied, "I am not a marionette, nor a chameleon, but I am one who alternates, being sometimes in your light and sometimes not, so that I am an alien and at the same time a native."

[2] At this the headmaster looked at me and said, "These are strange and extraordinary things you are saying. Tell me who you are."

So I said, "I live in the world in which you once lived and from which you have departed, which is called the natural world; and I live as well in the world into which you have come and in which you are now living, which is called the spiritual world. I am as a result in a natural state and at the same time a spiritual one - in a natural state when I am with people on earth, and in a spiritual state when I am with you. Moreover, when I am in a natural state, I am not visible to you; but when I am in a spiritual state, I am. To be as I am is something I have been given by the Lord.

"Being an enlightened man, you know that an inhabitant of the natural world does not see an inhabitant of the spiritual world, or vice versa. Therefore when I conveyed my spirit into my body, you did not see me; but when I conveyed it out of my body, you did.

"You also taught in your school exercise that you are souls, and that souls see souls because they are human forms. But you know that you did not see yourselves or your souls within your bodies when you were in the natural world. This fact is due to the difference that exists between something spiritual and something natural."

[3] When he heard me mention a difference between something spiritual and something natural, he said, "What is the difference? It is not like the difference between something more pure and something less so? So what is something spiritual but a purer form of something natural."

But I replied, "That is not what the difference is, but it is as the difference between something prior and something subsequent, between which there is no finite relationship. For the prior is in the subsequent, as a cause in its effect, and the subsequent exists from the prior, as an effect from its cause. That is why the one is not visible to the other."

To this the headmaster said, "I have reflected and ruminated on the difference, but so far in vain. I would like to have some concept of it."

[4] So I said, "You shall not only have a concept of the difference between something spiritual and something natural, but you will even witness the difference." Whereupon I spoke to him as follows:

"You are in a spiritual state when you are with your own people, but in a natural state with me; for you speak with your associates in spiritual language, the common language of every spirit and angel, whereas with me you speak in my native tongue. Indeed, every spirit or angel in speaking with a mortal person uses the person's customary language, thus speaking French with a Frenchman, English with an Englishman, Greek with a Greek, Arabic with an Arab, and so on.

"So then, to learn the difference between something spiritual and something natural in terms of languages, do the following: Go over to your associates, say something there and remember the words. Then with these memorized, come back and repeat them to me."

So he did as I said, and returned to me with the words in his mouth, but when he uttered them he did not know what any of them meant. The words were altogether strange and unfamiliar, being words not found in any language of the natural world.

After he repeated this experiment several times, it became clearly apparent to him that people in the spiritual world all speak a spiritual language which has nothing in common with any language of the natural world, and that every person comes automatically into use of that language after death. At the same time he also then discovered that the very intonation of spiritual language is so different from the intonation of natural language that the intonation of spiritual language, even when loud, is not at all audible to a natural person, nor the intonation of natural language to a spiritual person.

[5] After that I asked the headmaster and some others standing by to go over to their associates and write down some thought on a piece of paper, and with that piece of paper come back to me and read it. They did as I said, and they returned with the piece of paper in hand; but when they went to read it, they were unable to make out what any of it meant, since the writing consisted only of some alphabetic letters with curly lines over them, each of which carried some meaning connected with the subject. (Because every letter of the alphabet carries some meaning there, it is apparent from what origin the Lord is called the Alpha and the Omega.) 2 As they again and again withdrew, wrote and returned, they discovered that their writing included and contained a countless number of elements which no natural writing could ever express. But they were told that this is because a spiritual person thinks thoughts incomprehensible and inexpressible to a natural person, and these cannot descend or be put into any other form of writing or language.

[6] Then, because the others standing by were unwilling to believe that spiritual thought so far surpasses natural thought as to be inexpressible in comparison, I said to them, "Try an experiment. Go over into your spiritual association, think on some subject, and holding the thought come back and express it to me."

So they went, thought, held the thought, and came back; but when they went to express what they had thought, they could not. For they did not find any natural mental concept equivalent to any spiritual concept. So neither did they find any word to express their thoughts, since ideas of the mind take form as words in speech. At that they then began to withdraw and return, to prove to themselves that spiritual ideas were higher than natural ones, being inexpressible, ineffable and incomprehensible to the natural man. And because spiritual ideas are so transcendent, they began to say that spiritual ideas or thoughts compared to natural ones were the essences of ideas and the essences of thoughts, and that they therefore expressed the essences of qualities and the essences of affections; consequently that spiritual thoughts were the germs and origins of natural thoughts. It also became evident from this that spiritual wisdom was the essence of wisdom, thus unintelligible to any person of wisdom in the natural world.

They were then told from the third heaven that there is a still more interior or higher wisdom, called celestial, which has a similar relationship to spiritual wisdom as spiritual wisdom does to natural wisdom; and that these levels of wisdom flow in succession in accordance with the heavens from the Lord's Divine wisdom, which is infinite.

Footnotes:

1. This account follows on the one related in no. 315 above.

2. In Revelation 1:8,11, 21:6, 22:13. Alpha and omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, in the language in which Revelation was written.

  
/ 535  
  

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 #55

Study this Passage

  
/ 535  
  

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

I once heard a very sweet melody coming from heaven. The singers there were wives, and also young women, who were singing a little song together. The sweetness of the singing sounded like the harmoniously flowing affection of some love. (Heavenly songs are nothing else but voiced affections, or affections expressed and varied in musical tones. For as thoughts are expressed in spoken words, so affections are expressed in the singing of songs. Angels perceive the subject of the affection from the balance and flow of the musical variations.)

I had many spirits around me at the time, and I heard from some of them that they were listening to this very sweet melody, and that it was the melody of a some lovely affection whose subject they did not know. Therefore they began to make various guesses, but without success. Some guessed that the singing expressed the affection of a bridegroom and bride when they become engaged. Some supposed that it expressed the affection of a bridegroom and bride when they celebrate their wedding. And some thought that it expressed the early love of a husband and wife.

[2] However, an angel from heaven then appeared in the midst of them, and he said that they were singing about a chaste love for the opposite sex.

But the spirits standing around asked what a chaste love for the opposite sex was.

So the angel said that it is the love of a man for a maiden or married woman beautiful in form and lovely in manners, which is free of any idea of lasciviousness, and vice versa [that is, the same sort of love of a woman for a single or married man]."

Having said that, the angel vanished.

The singing continued, and now that the spirits knew the subject of the affection that the singing expressed, they began to hear it with a great deal of variety, each in accordance with the state of his own love. Those who looked upon women chastely heard the singing as harmonious and sweet. Those, however, who looked upon women unchastely heard it as discordant and sorrowful. And those who looked upon women with repugnance heard it as harsh and grating.

[3] But then, suddenly, the plain on which they were standing was turned into a theater, and they heard a voice say, "Examine and discuss this love."

Suddenly, too, spirits from various societies were present, and in the midst of them some angels in white. And the angels then addressed them saying, "We have inquired into all kinds of love in this spiritual world, not only the love of a man for a man, and of a woman for a woman, and the mutual love of a husband and wife, but also the love of a man for women, and the love of a woman for men. We have been allowed to pass through society after society as well, and to investigate, and we have not yet found the prevailing love for the opposite sex to be chaste, except in those who, because of their truly conjugial love, are in a constant state of sexual ability, and these are in the highest heavens.

"Moreover, we have also been granted to perceive an influx of this chaste love for the opposite sex into the affections of our hearts, and we felt it exceed every other love in its sweetness, except the love of two married partners whose hearts are one.

"But we pray you examine and discuss this love, because to you it is new and unknown. Also, because it is so exceedingly pleasant, in heaven we call it heavenly sweetness."

[4] As they were therefore discussing it, the first to speak were spirits who could not think of chastity as applying to marriages, and they said, "When one sees a beautiful and lovely woman, maiden or married, is there anyone who can so chasten the ideas in his thought and so purify them from lust that he loves her beauty, yet without at all wishing to taste it if he could? Who can turn the instinctive lust that every man feels into chasteness like that, thus into something against his own nature, and still feel love? When love for the opposite sex enters from the eyes into the thoughts, can it stop at a woman's face? Does it not instantly descend to her breast and beyond?

"The angels have spoken nonsense, saying that a chaste love like that exists and yet is the sweetest of all loves, and that it is only possible in husbands who are in a state of truly conjugial love and who consequently possess an extraordinary sexual ability with their wives. When these husbands see beautiful women, can they hold the ideas of their thought on high any more than others, and keep them suspended, so to speak, to prevent those ideas from descending and extending to that which prompts such a love?"

[5] After them, spirits spoke who were in both a state of coldness and a state of heat, in a state of coldness towards their wives and in a state of heat towards the opposite sex. And they said, "What is a chaste love for the opposite sex? Is it not a contradiction in terms when the word chastity is added to love and sex? What is left when a contradictory adjective is added but something robbed of its proper attribute, which is meaningless? How can a chaste love for the opposite sex be the sweetest of all loves when it is chastity that deprives it of its sweetness? You all know in what the sweetness of that love lies. Consequently, when the idea naturally accompanying this love is banished, where is the sweetness then, and what does it come from?"

Some others then interrupted and said, "We have been in the company of some very beautiful women, and we have not lusted. Therefore we know what a chaste love for the opposite sex is."

But their companions, who knew their lascivious natures, replied, "You were then in a state of antipathy toward the opposite sex owing to impotence, and that is not a chaste love for the opposite sex but the final result of an unchaste love."

[6] Having heard these things, the angels crossly asked the spirits who were standing to the right, towards the south, to speak, and these spirits said, "There is a love between men, also a love between women, and there is the love of a man for a woman and the love of a woman for a man. And these three pairs of loves are completely different from each other.

"Love between two men is like the love between one intellect and another, for men were created and so are born to become forms of understanding.

"Love between two women is like the love between one affection and another for the understanding of men, for women were created and are born to become forms of love for the understanding of men.

"These loves, namely, the love between two men and the love between two women, do not enter deeply into their hearts, but remain outside and only touch. Thus these loves do not unite the two of them interiorly.

"That is why two men together also spar with each other with endless arguments, like two athletes boxing, and two women sometimes as well, with endless insistence on their own wishes, like two marionettes battling with their fists.

[7] "On the other hand, the love between a man and a woman is a love between intellect and its affection, and this enters deeply and unites them. The union also is the love. But a union of the minds and not at the same time of the bodies, or an effort to a union of minds only, is a spiritual love and therefore a chaste love. This love is possible only in those who are in a state of truly conjugial love and who consequently possess an elevated sexuality, because men like this, out of chastity, do not permit themselves to feel an influx of love on account of the body of any other woman than their wife. And because they possess a highly elevated sexuality, they cannot help but love the opposite sex and at the same time turn their backs on anything unchaste.

"Thus they have a chaste love for the opposite sex, which regarded in itself is interior spiritual friendship. This friendship takes its sweetness from an elevated sexuality, but one that is chaste. These men have an elevated sexuality owing to their total renunciation of licentiousness. And it is chaste, because they are only in love with their wives.

"Now, then, because that love in them does not partake of the flesh but only of the spirit, it is chaste. And because the beauty of a woman, owing to the inherent attraction, enters at the same time into their mind, it is sweet."

[8] On hearing this, many of those standing around put their hands to their ears, saying, "Your words hurt our ears! The things you have said are meaningless to us."

These spirits were unchaste.

Then again, the singing was heard from heaven, and now sweeter than before. But to those unchaste spirits, it grated so discordantly that because of the harshness of the discord, they threw themselves out of the theater and ran away, the few spirits remaining being those who in their wisdom loved conjugial chastity.

  
/ 535  
  

Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.

©2024 New Christian Bible Study Corporation. All rights reserved. Printed from newchristianbiblestudy.org