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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 #477

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477. To this I will append the following narrative account:

I heard a certain spirit, a young man newly come from the world, boasting of his licentious activities and acting as though he wished to have the acclaim of being a man more manly than others. Then amid the effronteries of his boasting, he blurted out also the following:

"What is more dismal than to imprison one's love and to live alone with only one woman? And what is more delightful than to set one's love free? Who is not wearied by the companionship of one, and enlivened by the attentions of many? Is anything sweeter than unrestricted freedom, variety, the deflowering of virgins, the deceiving of husbands, and licentious charades? Do not those things delight the inmost elements of the mind which are obtained by wiles, subterfuges and theft?"

[2] On hearing this, the people standing by said, "Do not speak so! You do not know where you are and in whose company you are. You have only recently arrived here. Under your feet is hell, and above your head is heaven. You are now in the world which is midway between those two and is called the world of spirits. All people come here and are gathered here who pass away out of the world, and they are explored with respect to their character and prepared, evil people for hell and good people for heaven. Perhaps you recall still from priests in the world that licentious and wanton men and women are cast into hell, and that the chastely married are taken up into heaven."

The newcomer laughed at that, saying, "What is heaven, and what is hell? Is it not heaven wherever a person is free, and is he not free who is at liberty to make love to as many of the opposite sex as he pleases? And is it not hell wherever a person is enslaved, and is he not enslaved who must restrict himself to one?"

[3] But a certain angel looking down from heaven heard what he was saying and stopped him from speaking, to keep him from going any further and speaking profanely of marriage. And the angel said to him, "Come up here, and I will show you by actual experience what heaven is and what hell is, and what the latter is like for the deliberately licentious."

The angel then pointed out a path, by which the newcomer ascended. And after receiving the newcomer, he took him first to a garden paradise, containing fruit trees and flowers whose beauty, charm and fragrance filled their spirits with invigorating delights.

On seeing these sights, the newcomer marveled with great admiration; but he was then seeing with his external sight, of the kind he had had in the world when viewing like things there, and in that state of sight he was rational. However, when seeing with his internal sight, in which licentiousness predominated and occupied every particle of his thought, he was not rational. His external sight was closed up, therefore, and his internal sight opened. And when it was opened he said, "What is this I am seeing now? Are they not wisps of straw and dry sticks of wood? And what am I smelling now? Is it not a foul stench? Where now have the things of paradise gone?"

Whereupon the angel said, "They are close by and around you, but they are not visible to your internal sight, which is licentious; for licentiousness turns heavenly things into hellish ones and sees only their opposites. Every person has an inner mind and an outer mind, thus an internal sight and an external sight. In evil people the inner mind is insane and the outer one wise, while in good people the inner mind is wise and in consequence of it the outer one too; and the character of the mind determines how a person in the spiritual world sees objects."

[4] After that, by a power given him, the angel closed up the newcomer's internal sight and opened his external one; and he took him through some gates towards the central area of their residences, where the young man saw magnificent palaces of alabaster, marble, and various precious stones, with arcades adjoining them, and columns round about, covered and beset with stunning emblems and ornamentations.

When the young man saw these, he was overwhelmed with astonishment, and he said, "What am I seeing? I am seeing magnificent sights in the essence of their magnificence, and architecture in the essence of its art!"

But then the angel closed up his external sight again, and opened his internal one, which was evil because of its foully licentious character; and at that the young man cried out, saying, "What am I seeing now? Where am I? Where now have the palaces and magnificent sights gone? I am seeing ruins, rubble, and cavernous hollows!"

[5] He was, however, shortly restored to his external state and taken into one of the palaces; and he beheld the ornamentations of the doors, windows, walls and ceilings - especially of the implements, which were covered and beset with heavenly forms of gold and precious stones such as words cannot describe or any art portray; for they transcended the imagery of words and the conceptions of art.

Seeing these things, the young man cried out again, saying, "These are truly marvels, never seen by any eye before!"

But then as previously his external sight was closed up and his internal one opened; and on being asked what he saw now, he replied, "Nothing but walls of rushes here, of straw there, and of firebrands over there."

[6] Again, however, he was brought into his external state of mind, and maidens were presented to him who were pictures of beauty, because they were images of heavenly affection; and these spoke to him in the sweet voice of their affection. At that, then, on seeing and hearing them, the young man's expression changed, and he spontaneously slipped back into his internal qualities, which were licentious. And because these qualities cannot endure any element of heavenly love, and conversely cannot be endured by any heavenly love, they vanished on both sides - the maidens from the sight of the man, and the man from the sight of the maidens.

[7] After that the angel informed him of the reason for these changes in the state of his sight. "I perceive," he said, "that in the world from which you come, you had a dual character, being one person in your inner qualities and another in your outer ones; and that in your outer qualities you were a law-abiding, moral and rational person, but in your inner qualities not law-abiding, not moral, and not rational, because you were licentious and an adulterer. When people of this character are permitted to ascend into heaven and are kept there in their outer qualities, they can see the heavenly objects around them; but when their inner qualities are laid open, instead of heavenly objects they see hellish ones.

[8] "However, you should know that the outer qualities in everyone here are gradually closed up and the inner ones laid open, and thus they are prepared for heaven or for hell. Furthermore, because the evil of licentiousness defiles the inner qualities of the mind more than any other evil, it is inevitable that you be carried down to the foul depravities of your love, depravities which exists in the hells, in caverns which stink of excrement.

"Who cannot know from reason that unchasteness and lasciviousness in the spiritual world is impure and unclean, and thus that nothing pollutes and defiles a person more and induces on him a hellish character?

"Take care, therefore, not to boast any further of your licentiousness, thinking that in this you are a man more manly than others. I predict to you that you will become impotent, even so that you scarcely know where your masculinity lies. Such is the fate that awaits those who boast of the prowess of their licentiousness."

After hearing this the young man descended and went back to the world of spirits, and returning to his former companions, he spoke with them modestly and chastely - but yet not for long.

  
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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 #182

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

Several weeks later 1 I heard a voice from heaven saying, "Behold, another assembly is convening on Parnassium hill. Come, we will show you the way."

I went, and as I drew near, I saw on the hill Heliconeum someone with a trumpet, with which he announced and proclaimed the assembly. I also saw people from the city Athenaeum and its bordering regions ascending as before, and in the midst of them three newcomers from the world. The three were Christians, one a priest, the second a politician, and the third a philosopher. On the way the people entertained them with various kinds of conversation, especially concerning the ancient wise men, whom they mentioned by name. The visitors asked whether they would see these wise men. The people said that they would, and that if they wished, they would meet them, since they are friendly and cordial.

The visitors asked about Demosthenes, Diogenes and Epicurus.

"Demosthenes is not here," the people said, "but with Plato. 2 Diogenes stays with his disciples at the foot of the hill Heliconeum, because he regards worldly matters as of no importance and occupies his mind solely with heavenly ones. Epicurus lives at the border to the west, and he does not come in to join us either, because we draw a distinction between good affections and evil ones, saying that good affections accompany wisdom and that evil affections are opposed to wisdom."

[2] When they had ascended the hill Parnassium, some of the keepers of the place brought crystal goblets containing water from a spring there; and they said, "The water comes from a spring which the people of old told stories about, saying that it was broken open by the hoof of the horse Pegasus and afterwards became sacred to the nine Muses. 3 But by the winged horse Pegasus they meant an understanding of truth which leads to wisdom. By its hooves they meant empirical observations which lead to natural intelligence. And by the nine Muses they meant learning and knowledge of every kind. These stories today are called myths, but they were allegories which the earliest people used to express their ideas."

"Do not be surprised," the people accompanying the three visitors said to them. "The keepers have been told to speak as they did, to explain that what we mean by drinking water from the spring is to be taught about truths and through truths about goods, and thus to become wise."

[3] After this they entered the Palladium, and with them went the three newcomers from the world, the priest, the politician, and the philosopher. Then the people with the laurel wreaths who sat at the tables 4 asked, "What news do you have from earth?"

So the newcomers replied, "We have this news. There is someone who maintains that he speaks with angels, having had his sight opened into the spiritual world, as open as the sight he has into the natural world; and he reports from that world many novel ideas, which include, among other things, the following: A person lives, he says, as a person after death, the way he did before in the world. He sees, hears, and speaks as he did before in the world. He dresses and adorns himself as before in the world. He becomes hungry and thirsty, and eats and drinks, as before in the world. He experiences the delight of marriage as before in the world. He goes to sleep and wakes up as before in the world. The spiritual world has lands and lakes, mountains and hills, plains and valleys, springs and rivers, gardens and groves. One finds there palaces and houses, too, and cities and towns, just as in the natural world. They have written documents and books as well, and occupations and businesses, also precious stones, gold and silver. In a word, one finds in that world each and every thing that one finds on earth - things which are infinitely more perfect in heaven. The only difference is that everything in the spiritual world comes from a spiritual origin, and consequently is spiritual, because it originates from the sun there, which is pure love; while everything in the natural world comes from a natural origin, and consequently is natural and material, because it comes from the sun there, which is nothing but fire.

"This person reports, in short, that a person after death is perfectly human, indeed, more perfectly human than before in the world. For before in the world he was clothed in a material body, while here in this world he is clothed in a spiritual one."

[4] When the newcomers had thus spoken, the ancient wise men asked what people on earth thought of these reports.

The three visitors said, "We know that they are true, because we are here and have seen and investigated them all. We will tell you, therefore, what people said and judged concerning them on earth."

At that the priest then said, "When those who are members of our order first heard these reports, they called them hallucinations, then fabrications; later they said he saw ghosts; and finally they threw up their hands and said, believe if you will. We have always taught that a person will not be clothed in a body after death before the day of the Last Judgment."

The ancient wise men then asked, "Are there not any intelligent ones among them who can show them and convince them of the truth that a person lives as a person after death?"

[5] The priest said that there were some who showed it to them, but without convincing them. "The ones who show it say that it is contrary to sound reason to believe that a person does not live as a person until the day of the Last Judgment and meanwhile is a soul without a body.

"What is a person's soul, they ask, and where is it in the meantime? Is it an exhalation or a bit of wind flitting about in the air, or some entity hidden away at the center of the earth where its nether world is located? The souls of Adam and Eve, and of all the people after them, for six thousand years or sixty centuries now - are they still flitting about the universe or still being kept shut up in the bowels of the earth, waiting for the Last Judgment? What could be more distressing or more miserable than having to wait like that? May their fate not be likened to the fate of captives held chained and fettered in prison? If that is to be what a person's fate is like after death, would it not be better to be born a donkey than a human being?

"Moreover, is it not contrary to reason to suppose that a soul can be clothed again with its body? Does the body not get eaten away by worms, mice and fish? And this new body - can it serve to cover a bony skeleton that has been charred by the sun or has fallen into dust? How can these decomposed and foul-smelling elements be gathered together and joined to souls?

"But when people hear arguments like these, they do not use reason to respond to them, but hold to their belief, saying, 'We keep reason in obedience to faith.' As for all people being gathered together from their graves on the day of the Last Judgment, this, they say, is a work of omnipotence. And when they use the terms omnipotence and faith, reason is banished; and I can tell you that sound reason is as nothing then, and to some of them, a kind of hallucination. Indeed, it is possible for them to say in reply to sound reason, 'You are crazy.'"

[6] When the wise men of Greece heard this, they said, "Are logical inconsistencies like that not dispelled of themselves as mutually contradictory? And yet sound reason cannot dispel them in the world today. What can be more logically inconsistent than to believe what they say about the Last Judgment, that the universe will then come to an end and that at the same time the stars of heaven will fall down on to the earth, which is smaller than the stars; and that people's bodies, being then either cadavers, or embalmed corpses other people may have eaten, 5 or particles of dust, will come together with their souls?

"When we were in the world, we believed in the immortality of human souls on the basis of inductive arguments which reason supplied us, and we also determined places for the blessed, which we called the Elysian Fields. And we believed these souls to be human forms or likenesses, but ethereal since they were spiritual."

[7] After they said this, they turned to the second visitor, who in the world had been a politician. He confessed that he had not believed in a life after death, and had thought concerning the new reports he began to hear about it that they were fictions and fabrications. "Thinking about it I said, how can souls be corporeal beings? Does not every remnant of a person lie dead in the grave? Is the eye not there? How can he see? Is the ear not there? How can he hear? Where does he get a mouth with which to speak? If anything of a person should live after death, would it be anything other than something ghostlike? How can a ghost eat and drink? And how can it experience the delight of marriage? Where does it get its clothing, housing, food, and so on? Besides, being airy apparitions, ghosts only appear as though they exist, and yet do not.

"These and others like them are the thoughts I had in the world concerning the life of people after death. But now that I have seen it all and touched it all with my hands, I have been convinced by my very senses that I am as much a person as I was in the world, so much so that I have no other awareness than that I am living as I did then, with the difference that I now reason more sensibly. I have sometimes been ashamed of the thoughts I had before."

[8] The philosopher had a similar story to tell about himself, with the difference, however, that he had classed these new reports he heard regarding life after death with other opinions and conjectures he had gathered from ancient and modern sources.

The sages were dumbfounded at hearing this; and those who were of the Socratic school said they perceived from this news from earth that the inner faculties of human minds had become gradually closed, with faith in falsity now shining like truth in the world, and clever foolishness like wisdom. Since our times, they said, the light of wisdom has descended from the inner regions of the brain to the mouth beneath the nose, where it appears to view as a brilliance of the lips, and the speech of the mouth therefore as wisdom.

Listening to this, one of the novices there said, "Yes, and how stupid the minds of earth's inhabitants are today! If only we had here the disciples of Heraclitus who weep over everything and the disciples of Democritus who laugh at everything. What great weeping and laughing we would hear then!"

At the conclusion of this assembly, they gave the three newcomers from earth emblems of their district, which were copper plaques on which some hieroglyphic symbols were engraved. With these the visitors then departed.

Footnotes:

1. I.e., several weeks after the occurrence related in nos. 151[r]-154[r].

2. See no. 151[r]:1.

3. Cf., in Greek mythology, the spring Hippocrene on Mount Helicon, and perhaps also the spring Castalia on Mount Parnassus.

4. See no. 151[r]:2.

5. As late as the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the substances of embalmed corpses, particularly of Egyptian mummies, were used in the preparation of potions and powders prescribed and taken for a variety of supposed medicinal purposes. Cf. True Christian Religion 160[5]; also nos. 693[6], 770.

  
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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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