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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 #521

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

My sight was opened to see a dark forest and in it a mob of satyrs. The satyrs' chests were hairy, and some had feet like those of calves, some feet like those of panthers, and some feet like those of wolves, with claws instead of toes.

These satyrs were running about, shouting, "Where are the women?" And I then saw some whores who were waiting for them. They, too, were monstrous in various ways.

The satyrs ran up to them and took hold of them, dragging them away into a cavern which was situated in the middle of the forest deep beneath the earth. On the ground around the cavern, moreover, lay a great serpent coiled in a spiral, which spewed its venom into the cavern. In the branches of the forest above the serpent, deadly birds of the night were cawing and shrieking. But the satyrs and whores did not see these things, because they were forms corresponding to their lascivious lusts and thus appearances visible usually only from a distance.

[2] They afterwards emerged from the cavern and went into a certain low shack, which was a brothel; and having parted from the whores the satyrs then talked together, to whose conversation I lent an ear (for speech in the spiritual world can be heard at a distance as though in one's presence, since an extent of space there is only an appearance). They were talking about marriage, nature and religion.

Marriage was the subject of those whose feet looked like those of calves, and they said, "What is marriage but legalized adultery? And what is sweeter than licentious charades and the deceiving of husbands?"

The rest responded to this with guffaws and clapped their hands in applause.

Nature was the subject of those whose feet looked like those of panthers, and they said, "What else is there but nature? Is there any difference between man and beast other than the fact that a man can articulate his thoughts in speech, while a beast can only make sounds? Do they not both have life from heat and understanding from light by the operation of nature?"

At this the rest exclaimed, "Oh, with what judgment you speak!"

Religion was the subject of those whose feet looked like those of wolves, and they spoke, saying, "What is God or the Divine but the inmost working of nature? What is religion but an invention to capture and bind the masses?"

In response to this the rest cried "Bravo!"

[3] Some moments later they burst forth, and as they did so they saw me in the distance looking at them with intent eyes. Angered at this, they rushed out of the forest and with a menacing expression hastened their way to me.

"Why are you standing here and attending to our whisperings?" they said. To which I replied, "Why not? What is there to stop me? They were audible utterances." And I recounted to them what I had heard them saying.

At that their dispositions became calmer, and this because they were afraid of having what they said divulged. They also began to speak with restraint then and to behave with propriety, by which I recognized that they did not come from the lower classes but from worthier stock.

At that point I then related to them that I had seen them in the forest as satyrs, twenty of them as calf-like satyrs, six as panther-like satyrs, and four as wolf-like satyrs (there being thirty of them altogether).

[4] They were astonished at this, as they themselves had seen each other there only as men, just as they were now seeing themselves here with me. But I told them that that was the way they appeared at a distance because of their licentious lust, and that that satyr form was the form of their dissolute adultery and not the form of their person. I gave as a reason the following, that every evil lust presents a likeness of itself in some particular form, which is not seen by the people themselves, but by others standing at a distance. I then said to them, "To convince yourselves, send some of your number into that forest while the rest of you remain here and watch."

So they did as I said and sent off two, and the rest saw them next to that shanty brothel altogether as satyrs; and when the two returned, they greeted them as satyrs and said, "Oh, what impostors!"

As they were laughing over this, I joked with them in various ways, and I reported to them that I had seen adulterers looking also like pigs. I also recalled then the story of Ulysses and Circe, how she had sprinkled Ulysses's companions and men with Hecatean herbs and touched them with a magic wand and so turned them into pigs - "into adulterers, perhaps," I said, "because by no art could she have turned anyone into a pig!"

After they finished laughing at these and similar remarks, I asked them whether they knew from what countries in the world they came. They said they came from various different countries and mentioned by name Italy, Poland, Germany, England, and Sweden. I then asked whether they saw anyone among them from Holland, and they said they did not.

[5] After that I turned the conversation to more serious matters, and I asked whether they ever considered that adultery is a sin.

"What is sin?" they replied. "We do not know what it is."

I asked whether they ever remembered that adultery is against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue.

They replied, "What is the Decalogue? Is it not the catechism? What does that children's booklet have to do with men like us?"

I asked whether they ever had any thought of hell.

They replied, "Who has come up from there and told us?"

I asked whether they had had any thought in the world regarding life after death.

They said, "The same thought as we did of animals, and sometimes the same as we did of ghosts, which, if they are exhaled from corpses, float away."

Again I asked whether they had heard anything concerning any of these matters from priests.

They replied that they attended only to the sound of their voices, and not to the subject and what that was.

[6] Stunned by these responses, I said to them, "Turn your face and eyes to the middle of the forest where the cavern is that you were in."

So they turned around, and they saw the great serpent coiled around it in a spiral and spewing in its venom, and also the baleful birds in the branches above it.

And I asked, "What do you see?"

But terror-stricken, they made no answer.

So I said, "Is it not a horrid sight that you see? You should know that it is a representation of adultery in the atrocity of its lust."

Suddenly then an angel appeared standing near. He was a priest, and he opened a hell in the western zone into which people of this character are finally gathered. And he said, "Look over there."

They then saw what appeared to be a lake of fire; and in it they recognized some of their friends in the world, who beckoned them to join them.

Having seen and heard these things, the men turned and hastened from my sight on a course away from the forest. But I observed their steps, seeing that they pretended to go on a course away from the forest, but that by roundabout ways they made their way back it.

  
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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 #82

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82. After this a man came rushing from the northern zone in a rage, and looking at me with a threatening expression and speaking in a heated tone, he said, "You are the one who is trying to lead the world astray by establishing a New Church, which you take to be meant by the New Jerusalem that will come down out of heaven from God, and by teaching that people who embrace the doctrines of this church will be blessed by the Lord with truly conjugial love, whose delights and happiness you exalt to the sky! Is that not something you just made up? Are you not just saying it as a snare and inducement to get people to go along with your new ideas?

"Tell me in short, however, what these New Church doctrines are, and I will see whether they hang together or not."

So I replied, "The doctrines of the church that is meant by the New Jerusalem are as follows:

"1. There is one God, in whom is the Divine Trinity, and that God is the Lord Jesus Christ.

"2. Saving faith is to believe in Him.

"3. Evils must be abstained from because they are of the devil and from the devil.

"4. Good deeds must be done because they are of God and from God.

"5. These good deeds must be done by a person as though he were doing them from himself, but he must believe that they are from the Lord in him and by means of him."

[2] When he heard this, the man's rage subsided for several minutes. But after some consideration, he again looked at me with a fierce expression, saying, "These five precepts - are they doctrines of the faith and charity of the New Church?"

And I answered, "Yes."

Then he asked me gruffly, "How are you able to demonstrate the first one, that there is one God, in whom is the Divine Trinity, and that He is the Lord Jesus Christ?"

"I demonstrate it," I said, "in this way. Is God not one and indivisible? Is there not a Trinity? If God is one and indivisible, is He not one person? If He is one person, is the Trinity not in that person?

"That He is the Lord Jesus Christ I demonstrate by the following points: Jesus Christ was conceived by God the Father (Luke 1:34-35), so that in regard to His soul He was God. And therefore, as He Himself says, the Father and He are one (John 10:30). He is in the Father and the Father in Him (John 14:10-11). He who sees Him and knows Him, sees and knows the Father (John 14:7,9). No one sees and knows the Father but He who is in the bosom of the Father (John 1:18). All things belonging to the Father are His (John 3:35, 16:15). He is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him (John 14:6), thus by Him, because the Father is in Him. And, according to Paul, all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily (Colossians 2:9). And furthermore, He has authority over all flesh (John 17:2), and He has all authority in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18).

"From all this it follows that He is God of heaven and earth."

[3] The man then asked how I demonstrate the second precept, that saving faith is to believe in Him.

"I demonstrate it," I said, "by these words of the Lord:

This is the will of the Father..., that everyone who...believes in (the Son) may have everlasting life. (John 6:39-40)

God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that everyone who believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:16,15)

He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; but he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. (John 3:36)"

[4] After that he said, "Demonstrate as well the third precept, and the ones that follow."

Then I replied, "What need is there to establish that evils must be abstained from because they are of the devil and from the devil, that good deeds must be done because they are of God and from God, and that these good deeds must be done by a person as though he were doing them from himself, but that he must believe they are from the Lord in him and by means of him? The Holy Scripture from beginning to end attests throughout that these three precepts are true. What else does it teach in sum but to abstain from evils and do good deeds, and to believe in the Lord God?

"And besides, there is not any religion without these three precepts. Religion has to do with a way of life, does it not? And what is that life but to abstain from evils and do good deeds. How can a person do these things and believe in them unless he does so as though he were doing them from himself?

"If you dismiss these precepts from the church, therefore, you dismiss the Holy Scripture from the church, and you also dismiss religion. And if you dismiss these, the church is not a church."

On hearing these things, the man withdrew and considered them. But still he went away in annoyance.

  
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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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