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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

 

True Christian Religion #568

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568. The second experience.

Every religious and wise person wants to know what his life will be like after death, so I shall give a general description so that he may know.

Everyone after death, when he becomes aware that he is still alive, but in another world, and he is told that above him is heaven, where there are everlasting joys, and below him is hell, where there are everlasting sorrows, is first brought back into the external state he was in, while he was in his former world. Then he believes that he will certainly reach heaven, and he talks intelligently and behaves prudently. Some say: 'We have lived a moral life, we have had honourable ambitions, we have not deliberately done evil.' Others say: 'We have gone regularly to church, we have attended mass, we have kissed holy statues, we have prayed hard on our knees.' Some say: 'We have given to the poor, we have helped the needy, we have read devotional books, as well as the Word.' And there are many more similar claims.

[2] But when they have made these statements, the angels standing by them say: 'All the things you have mentioned you did externally; but you still do not know what you are like internally. You are now spirits with a substantial body, and the spirit is your internal man. It is this in you which thinks what it wishes, and wishes what it loves, and this is the pleasure of its life. Everyone from early childhood begins his life on the external level. He learns to behave with morality, to talk intelligently, and once he has formed some idea of heaven and its blessedness, he begins to pray, to go to church and attend regular services. Yet he still treasures up in the depths of his mind the evils which spring in profusion from their native source; he cleverly covers them up too with reasonings based upon fallacies, until he himself does not know that evil is evil. Then as for the evils which are wrapped up and covered, as if by dust, he does not give them another thought, only taking care that they are not exposed to the world's gaze. So his only concern is with the externals of a moral life, and so he becomes duplicitous, a sheep in externals, a wolf in internals. He becomes like a golden box containing poison; or like a person with bad breath who keeps a pastille in his mouth to prevent by-standers smelling it; or like a mouse's skin made to smell of balsam.

[3] 'You said that you lived a moral life and devoted yourselves to religious studies. But my question is, did you ever examine your internal man and become aware of any longings for revenge, even to the point of murder, any longings for indulging your lusts even to the point of adultery, any longings for fraud even to the point of stealing, any longings for lying even to the point of giving false witness? Four of the Ten Commandments contain the injunction, "You are not to," and the last two "You are not to covet." Do you really believe that in these matters your internal man resembled your external one? If you do, I think you may be wrong.'

[4] To this they replied, 'What is the internal man? Is it not one and the same as the external? Our ministers have told us that the internal man is nothing but faith, and reverence in utterance and morality in life is a sign of it, because it shows its working.'

The angels answered: 'Saving faith is in the internal man, and likewise charity, and this is the source of Christian faithfulness and morality in the external man. But if the longings we mentioned before remain in the internal man, that is, in the will and so in his thinking, and if, therefore, you love those longings inwardly, and yet act and talk differently in externals, then in your case evil is placed above good, and good below evil. However much, therefore, you seem to talk from the understanding, and to act from love, there is evil within and this is wrapped up, as we said. Then you are like cunning chimpanzees, which ape human actions, but their heart is not in them.

[5] 'You know nothing about your internal man, because you have not examined yourselves, and following that examination repented. You will discover shortly what your internal man is like, when you have the external stripped off and you enter into possession of the internal. When this happens, your companions will no longer recognise you, nor will you recognise yourselves. I have seen wicked people who pretended to be moral looking like wild beasts, glaring truculently at their neighbour, burning with murderous hatred, and cursing God, whom they worshipped in the external man.'

On hearing this they went away; and then the angels told them: 'You will see what your life will be like after this, for your external man will shortly be taken away and you will enter into possession of the internal, which is now your spirit.'

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

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