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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 #326

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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.

  
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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 #391

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391. The seventh experience.

I have become aware as the result of conversations in the spiritual world with many laymen and many clergy what desolation of the truth and theological poverty exists in the Christian world at the present time. There is such spiritual famine among the clergy that they hardly know anything beyond the existence of the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and the fact that faith alone saves. About the Lord Christ they know only the historical facts about Him related in the Gospels. The rest, however, of what either Testament of the Word teaches, as that the Father and He are one, that He is in the Father and the Father in Him, that He has all power in heaven and earth, that it is the Father's will that men should believe in the Son, and that he who believes in Him has everlasting life, and much else - all this is to them as unknown and remote as what lies on the ocean bed, or rather, what lies at the centre of the earth. When these statements are extracted from the Word and read, they stand as if listening but hear nothing. The words do not penetrate deeper into their ears than the sighing of the wind or the beating of a drum. The angels who from time to time are sent out by the Lord to visit the Christian communities in the world of spirits, that is, below heaven, complain bitterly. They say that such is their stupidity and as a result the darkness under which they labour in matters relating to salvation that it is almost like listening to a talking parrot. Even their learned men say that in spiritual matters and those relating to God they do not understand more than so many statues.

[2] An angel once told me of a conversation he had with two clerics, one whose faith was separated from charity and another whose faith was not so separated. With the one whose faith was separated from charity the conversation ran like this.

'Friend, what are you?' 'I am a Christian of the Reformed church,' he replied. 'What is your doctrine and thus your religion?' 'Faith,' he answered. 'What is your faith?' said the angel. 'My faith,' he replied, 'is that God the Father sent the Son to take upon Himself the damnation of the human race, and by this means we are saved.' Then he asked him, 'What more do you know about salvation?' He replied that salvation is achieved by that faith alone. Next he said, 'What do you know about redemption?' He replied that it was accomplished by the passion on the cross, and that Christ's merit is imputed by means of that faith. Next, 'What do you know about regeneration?' He replied that it is the result of that faith. 'Say what you know about love and charity.' He replied that they are the same as that faith. 'Tell me what you think about the Ten Commandments and the remainder of the Word.' He replied that they are contained in that faith. Then he said: 'So you will do nothing?' 'What can I do?' he replied, 'I cannot of myself do any good which is good.' 'Can you,' he said, 'have faith of yourself?' 'I don't enquire into that,' he answered, 'I shall have faith.' Finally he said, 'Do you know anything at all more about salvation?' 'What more is there,' he replied, 'when salvation comes solely by means of that faith?' The angel then said, 'Your answers are like someone playing a single note on the flute; I hear nothing but faith. If you know that and nothing else, you know nothing. Go away and look for your companions.' So he went away and came upon them in a desert where there was no grass. He asked there why this was, and was told it was because they had no church among them.

[3] The angel's conversation with the one whose faith was linked with charity went thus. 'Friend, what are you?' 'I am a Christian of the Reformed church,' he replied. 'What is your doctrine and so your religion?' 'Faith and charity,' he replied. 'These,' said the angel, 'are two.' 'They cannot be separated,' he replied. 'What is faith?' he asked. 'Believing what the Word teaches,' he replied. 'What is charity?' 'Doing what the Word teaches.' 'Have you only believed these things or have you also done them?' 'I have also done them,' he replied. The angel from heaven looked at him and said, 'My friend, come with me and live with us.'

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

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