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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 #416

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416. Afterwards, seeing me close by, the two angels said with respect to me to the spirits standing around, "We know that this man has written about God and nature. Let us hear what he has to say."

So they came over and asked me to read to them what I had written about God and nature; and I read therefore the following: 1

People who believe that the Divine operates in every single thing of nature, can, from the many things which they see in nature, confirm themselves on the side of the Divine, just as well as and even more than those who confirm themselves on the side of nature. For people who confirm themselves on the side of the Divine pay heed to the marvels which they see in the propagations of both plants and animals.

In the propagations of plants, they note how a tiny seed cast into the ground produces a root, by means of the root a stem, and then in succession branches, leaves, flowers and fruits, culminating in new seeds - altogether as though the seed knew the order of progression or the process by which to renew itself. What rational person can suppose that the sun, which is nothing but fire, has this knowledge? Or that it can impart to its heat and its light the power to produce such effects, and in those effects can create marvels and intend a useful result?

Any person having an elevated rational faculty, on seeing and considering these wonders, cannot but think that they issue from one who possesses infinite wisdom, thus from God.

People who acknowledge the Divine also see and think this; but people who do not acknowledge the Divine do not see and think it, because they do not want to. Therefore they allow their rational faculty to descend into their sensual self, which draws all its ideas from the light in which the bodily senses are, and which defends the fallacies of these, saying, "Do you not see the sun accomplishing these effects by its heat and its light? What is something that you do not see? Is it anything?"

[2] People who confirm themselves on the side of the Divine pay heed to the marvels which they see in the propagations of animals - to mention here only those in eggs, as that in them lies the embryo in its seed or inception, with everything it requires to the time it hatches, and with everything that develops after it hatches until it becomes a bird or flying thing in the form of its parent. Also that if one gives attention to the form, it is such that, if one thinks deeply, one cannot help but come into a state of amazement - seeing, for example, that in the smallest of these creatures as in the largest, indeed in the invisible as in the visible (i.e., in tiny insects as in large birds or animals), there are sensory organs which serve for sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch; also motor organs, which are muscles, for they fly and walk; as well as viscera surrounding hearts and lungs, which are actuated by brains. That even lowly insects possess such component parts is known from their anatomy as described by certain investigators, most notably by Swammerdam 2 in his Biblia Naturae 3 .

[3] People who attribute all things to nature see these wonders, indeed, but they think only that they exist, and say that nature produces them. They say this because they have turned their mind away from thinking about the Divine; and when people who have turned away from thinking about the Divine see wonders in nature, they are unable to think rationally, still less spiritually, but think instead in sensual and material terms. They then think within the confines of nature from the standpoint of nature and not above it, in the way that those do who are in hell. They differ from animals only in their having the power of rationality, that is, in their being able to understand and so think otherwise if they will.

[4] People who have turned away from thinking about the Divine when they see wonders in nature, and as a result become sense-oriented, do not consider that the sight of the eye is so crude that it sees a number of tiny insects as a single, indistinct mass, and yet that each of them is organically formed to be capable of sensation and movement, thus that they have been endowed with fibers and vessels, including little hearts, air passages, viscera and brains; that these have been woven together out of the finest elements in nature; and that these structures correspond to some activity of life, by which even the least of these are individually actuated.

Since the sight of the eye is so crude that a number of such creatures, each with countless components in it, looks to it like a small, indistinct mass, and yet people who are sense-oriented think and judge in accordance with that sight, it is apparent how obtuse their minds have become, and thus in what darkness they are in respect to spiritual matters.

Footnotes:

1. From Divine Love and Wisdom, nos. 351-357, 350.

2. Jan Swammerdam, 1637-1680, Dutch anatomist and entomologist.

3. Published posthumously under Dutch and Latin titles, Bybel der Natuure; of, Historie der insecten.../Biblia Naturae; sive Historia Insectorum... (A Book of Nature; or, History of Insects...), with text in Latin and Dutch in parallel columns, Leyden, 1737 (vol. 1), 1738 (vol. 2).

  
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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 #316

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316. The second account:

Walking once with tranquil heart in a pleasantly peaceful state of mind, I saw in the distance a wood, which had in the midst of it an enclosed path leading to a little palace; and I saw young women and men and husbands and wives going in. I, too, in the spirit went over there, and I asked one of the keepers standing at the entrance of the path whether I might go in as well. He stared at me; and so I asked, "Why are you staring at me?"

"I am examining you," he replied, "to see whether the pleasant state of peace reflected in your face draws any of its character from a pleasant delight in conjugial love. After this path there is a little garden, and in the middle of it a house with a newly married couple in it. Their friends are coming here today to wish them happiness and joy. I do not know the people I am allowing to enter, but I was told I would recognize them from their faces. If I saw in them a delight in conjugial love, I was to let them in, and no one else."

Every angel can see from others' faces what the delights of their heart are; and because I was thinking about conjugial love, it was a delight in that love that he saw in my face. This contemplation of mine shone from my eyes and lent an inner glow to my face, so that he told me I might go in.

[2] The enclosed path through which I went was lined with fruit trees joined together by interlocking branches, thus forming an unbroken wall of trees on either side. Through this pathway I entered the little garden, which exhaled a pleasant fragrance from its bushes and flowers. The bushes and flowers grew in pairs; and I learned that gardens of this sort appear around houses where weddings are being or have been celebrated, on which account they are called wedding gardens.

After that I went into the house, and there I saw the married couple holding each other by the hand and speaking to each other out of truly conjugial love. Moreover, from their faces I was given to see then an image of conjugial love, and from their conversation, its vibrancy.

Later, when I among many others had expressed my prayers for them and wished them happiness and joy, I went out into the wedding garden; and I saw on the right side of it a group of young men, to which all who left the house went hurrying over. They all hurried over there because they were having a conversation about conjugial love, and this conversation drew the hearts of all with a kind of hidden force to it. I listened then to a wise person in the group speaking about that love, and what I heard was in summary the following:

[3] "The Lord's Divine providence is most specific and therefore most universal in connection with marriages and in its operation in marriages in heaven, because all blessings of heaven flow from the delights of conjugial love, like sweet waters from a sweetly gushing spring. It is therefore provided by the Lord that conjugial pairs be born, and they are raised and continually prepared for their marriages, neither the boy nor the girl being aware of the fact. Then, after a period of time, the girl - now a marriageable young woman - and the boy - now a young man able to marry - meet somewhere, as though by fate, and notice each other. And they immediately recognize, as if by a kind of instinct, that they are a match, thinking to themselves from a kind of inner dictate, the young man, 'she is mine,' and the young woman, 'he is mine.' Later, after this thought has for some time become settled in the minds of each, they deliberately talk about it together and pledge themselves to each other in marriage.

"We say as though by fate and as if by instinct, when we mean by Divine providence, because when one is unaware that it is Divine providence, that is how it appears."

With respect to his statement that conjugial pairs are born, raised and prepared for their marriages without their knowing, the speaker supported it by the conjugial similarity visible in the faces of a couple, also by the innermost and eternal union of their hearts and minds, neither of which would be possible the way they are in heaven unless foreseen and provided by the Lord.

[4] Having said this - to which the group responded with applause - the wise person speaking went on to say that there is a conjugial element in the smallest particulars in every person, both male and female; only that the conjugial element in the male and the conjugial element in the female are not the same, but the conjugial element of the male possesses a capacity for conjunction with the conjugial element of the female, and vice versa, even in the least particulars.

This he showed by the marriage of will and understanding in every individual, the two of which operate together in the least constituents of the mind and in the least constituents of the body; from which it can be seen that there is a conjugial element in each component, even the least. "This is also made evident," he said, "from the composite organs of the body which are formed from its elemental constituents. We find, for example, two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, two cheeks, two lips, two arms and hands, two legs, two feet; and inside the body, two hemispheres of the brain, two ventricles of the heart, two lungs, two kidneys, two testicles. Even when an organ is not paired, still it exhibits a division into two parts. The reason there are these sets of two is that one is connected with the will and the other with the intellect, which operate in conjunction with each other so marvelously that they give the appearance of being one. Thus the two eyes produce one power of sight, the two ears one power of hearing, the two nostrils one sense of smell, the two lips one speech, the two hands one labor, the two feet one gait, the two hemispheres of the brain one habitation of the mind, the two chambers of the heart one life of the body through the blood, the two lungs one respiration, and so on. Only that in the case of a married couple, the masculine element and feminine element united by truly conjugial love produce one life that is fully human."

[5] As he was saying this, a shaft of lightning appeared in the sky to our right having a red color, and another shaft of lightning to our left that was white, neither of them very intense. These entered through our eyes into our minds and illumined them as well. Then, following these, we heard the sound of thunder - in actuality a low murmur coming from the angelic heaven and growing louder in its descent.

Hearing it, and having seen the lightning, the wise person speaking said, "These are meant for me as a signal and admonition to add to my discussion something further, that in the twinned pairs of organs I have mentioned, the one on the right symbolizes the good connected with the two, and the one on the left the truth connected with them; and that this is owing to the marriage of good and truth engraved on each person in his whole being and in his every least part, good having relation to the will and truth to the understanding, and the two together to a union of these. For this reason, in heaven 'the right eye' means the good connected with sight, and 'the left eye' the truth connected with it. So, too, 'the right ear' means the good connected with hearing, and 'the left ear' the truth connected with it. Similarly, 'the right hand' means the good connected with a person's strength, and 'the left hand' the truth connected with it. And so on with the rest of these twinned pairs.

"Moreover, because 'right' and 'left' have these symbolic associations, the Lord said:

If your right eye causes you to slip, pluck it out.... And if your right hand causes you to slip, cut it off.... 1

"He meant by this that if something good is turned to evil, it should be cast away.

"For the same reason He also told His disciples to cast their net on the right side of the boat, and when they did so, they caught a great number of fish. 2 And by this He meant they should teach the good of charity, and by doing so would gather in people."

[6] Following these remarks, the two shafts of lightning appeared again, still less intense than before. And we saw then that the lightning on the left drew the whiteness of its light from the reddish fire of the lightning on the right.

Seeing this, the speaker said, "It is a sign from heaven confirming what I have said, because something fiery in heaven means something good, and something white there means something true. As for our having seen that the lightning on the left drew the whiteness of its light from the reddish fire of the lightning on the right, this is visible evidence that the whiteness of light or light itself is nothing other than the luminance of fire."

At the end of this discourse, all in the group were fired with a joyful state of goodness and truth inspired by the shafts of lightning and what they had been told concerning them, and in this state they departed for home.

Footnotes:

1. Matthew 5:29-30.

2. John 21:6.

  
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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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