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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 #76

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76. The second account:

The next day the same angel came to me and said, "Would you like me to take and accompany you to the peoples who lived in the silver age or period, so that we may hear from them about the marriages of their time?" He also said that these people, too, could not be approached except under the Lord's guidance.

I was in the spirit as before, and I went with my guide. And we came first to a hill in the border region between the east and the south. Then, as we stood upon its slope, he showed me a far extended stretch of land, and we saw in the distance an elevation like that of a mountain. Between it and the hill on which we stood was a valley, and beyond that a level area, and after that a gently rising incline.

We descended from the hill to cross the valley, and here and there on each side we saw blocks of wood and stone carved into the shapes of people and various kinds of animals, birds and fish. So I asked the angel, "What are these? Are they idols?"

And he answered, "Not at all. They are figures representative of various moral virtues and spiritual truths. Among the peoples of this age there was a knowledge of correspondences. Since every person, animal, bird and fish corresponds to some quality, therefore each carving represents some aspect of a virtue or truth, and a group of them taken together represents the whole virtue or truth in a general, extended form. They are what in Egypt were called hieroglyphics."

[2] We continued through the valley, and as we entered the level area, suddenly we saw horses and chariots - horses with variously decorated harnesses and halters, and chariots variously shaped, some carved out like eagles, some like whales, and some like stags with horns, or like unicorns. At the end we also saw some wagons, and stables around at the sides. But when we drew near, both the horses and the chariots disappeared, and instead of them we saw people in couples and pairs, walking, talking and reasoning together.

The angel then said to me, "The various horses, chariots and stables - as they seem at a distance - are appearances expressive of the rational intelligence of the people of this age. For by correspondence a horse symbolizes an understanding of truth; a chariot, its accompanying doctrine; and stables, sources of instruction. You know that in this world, all things take on appearances according to correspondences."

[3] We went on by these things, however, and we ascended by a long incline, until at last we saw a city, which we entered. As we wandered through it, from the streets and public squares we observed its houses. They were all palaces, built out of marble. In front they had steps of alabaster, with columns of jasper on each side of the steps. We also saw temples made of precious stone the color of sapphire and lapis lazuli.

The angel said to me, "They have houses made of different kinds of stone because stones symbolize natural truths, and precious stones symbolize spiritual truths. The people who lived in the silver age all had their intelligence from spiritual truths and so from natural truths. Silver also has a similar symbolism."

[4] As we surveyed the city, we saw married couples here and there in pairs; and since they were husbands and wives, we waited to see if we would be invited in somewhere. Even as we had this in mind, moreover, as we were passing by, two of them called us back into their house. So we went up the steps and went in. Then, speaking with them on my behalf, the angel explained the reason for our coming to that heaven, saying that we had come to be instructed concerning marriages among ancient peoples - "you here being some of them," he said.

They then replied, "We come from peoples in Asia, and the focus of our age was the pursuit of truths, by which we acquired intelligence. This pursuit was the focus of our soul and mind. But the focus of our physical senses was on representations of truths in forms, and a study of correspondences combined the sensory interests of our bodies with the perceptions of our minds, gaining for us intelligence."

[5] Hearing this, the angel asked them to tell us something about marriages among them.

So the husband said, "There is a correspondence between the spiritual marriage, which is a marriage of truth with good, and natural marriage, which is the marriage of a man with one wife. And because we have studied correspondences, we see that the church with its truths and goods can by no means exist except in people who live with one wife in a state of truly conjugial love. For a marriage of good and truth in a person is the church in him.

"Consequently, we who are here all say that a husband is a form of truth, and his wife a form of good, and that good cannot love any other truth than its own truth, nor can truth love any other good in return than its own good. If it were to love another, the inner marriage that forms the church would die, and the marriage would become merely external - the kind of marriage that idolatry corresponds to, not the church. Therefore we call marriage with one wife a sacred union, but if it were contracted with more than one among us, we would call it a sacrilege."

[6] Saying this, he showed us into an anteroom outside the bedroom, which had a number of works of art on the walls and little images apparently cast out of silver. I then asked what they were.

They said, "They are pictures and forms representing the many qualities, attributes and delights which have to do with conjugial love. These ones here represent the unity of souls; these other ones, the conjunction of minds; the ones there, the harmony of hearts; those over there, the delights arising as a result."

While we were looking, we saw on the wall a kind of rainbow, consisting of three colors, purple, blue, and bright white. And we saw how the purple color passed through the blue and tinted the white with a purplish blue hue, and that the latter color flowed back through the blue into the purple and raised it into a kind of flaming radiance.

[7] Then the husband said to me, "Do you understand it?"

And I said, "Instruct me."

So he said, "The purple by its correspondence symbolizes the conjugial love of the wife; the bright white, the intelligence of the husband; the blue, the beginning of conjugial love in the husband's perception from the wife; and the purplish blue, which tinted the white, conjugial love then in the husband. This latter color's flowing back through the blue into the purple and raising it into a kind of flaming radiance symbolizes the conjugial love of the husband flowing back to the wife. Things like these are represented on these walls whenever we reflect on conjugial love, its mutual, progressive and simultaneous union, and then look closely at the rainbows exhibited there."

At this I said, "Things like this today are more than mysteries, for they are of a representational type, representing the secrets of the conjugial love of one man with one wife."

He replied, "So they are, but to us here they are not secrets, and therefore not mysteries."

[8] When he said this, a chariot appeared in the distance drawn by white ponies, and seeing it, the angel said, "That chariot is a signal for us to depart."

Then as we were going down the steps, our host gave us a cluster of white grapes with leaves from the vine still attached, and suddenly the leaves turned silver. And we took them away with us as a memento that we had spoken with people of the silver age.

  
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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 #78

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78. The fourth account:

Two days later the angel spoke with me again, saying, "Let us complete the course of the ages. The last age remains, which is named after iron. The people of this age live in the north, on the western side, extending inward or in a latitudinal direction towards the interior. They all come from early inhabitants of Asia who had the Ancient Word and who worshiped according to it. Consequently they lived before the advent of our Lord into the world. This is apparent from the writings of ancient authors in which those times are given these names. The same ages are meant by the statue seen by Nebuchadnezzar, whose head was of gold, its breast and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, and its feet of iron and also clay (Daniel 2:32-33)."

[2] The angel told me this on the way, which was shortened and speeded along by the changes of state produced in our minds according to the character of the inhabitants through whom we passed. For intervals of space, and therefore distances, in the spiritual world are appearances in accordance with states of mind.

When we lifted our eyes, behold, we were in a forest consisting of beech trees, horse chestnuts and oaks. And when we looked around, we caught sight of bears there to the left and leopards to the right.

When I wondered at this, the angel said, "They are not really bears or leopards, but people who guard these inhabitants of the north. With their noses they sniff the atmospheres of life emanating from passers-by, and rush upon all who are spiritual, because the inhabitants are natural. People who only read the Word and take nothing of doctrine from it, at a distance look like bears. And people who confirm falsities from it look like leopards."

But having seen us, they turned away and we passed on.

[3] After the forest we saw scrubland, and then grassy plains divided into fields and surrounded by boxwood. After this the ground sloped downward to a valley, in which there were cities, one after another. We passed by several of them and entered into one great one. Its streets were irregular. So, too, were its houses. These were built out of bricks, with timbers in between, and plastered.

In the squares we found chapels made of cut limestone, with the lower part of the buildings below ground level, and the upper part above. We went down three steps into one of these, and around on the walls we saw idols in various forms, and a lot of people on their knees worshiping them. In the middle of them was a choir, out of which the tutelary god of the city projected so that his head could be seen.

As we were leaving, the angel said to me that among the ancient peoples who lived in the silver age (spoken of above), these idols were images representative of spiritual truths and moral virtues. And that when a knowledge of correspondences faded from memory and became extinct, these images became first objects of worship and afterwards were adored as deities. This was the origin of idolatries.

[4] When we were outside the chapel, we observed the people and their dress. They had steel-like faces, gray-colored, and they were dressed like clowns, with skirts around their hips and thighs hanging down from a shirt tied at the chest. And on their heads they had the cocked hats of sailors.

"But enough of this," the angel said. "We are here to be instructed about the marriages of the people of this age."

So we entered into the house of an important person, who had on his head a turreted headdress. He received us kindly and said, "Come in, and let us have a conversation together."

We went into the entrance hall and sat down there. Then I asked him about the marriages in this city and general area.

He said, "We do not live with one wife, but some people have two or three wives, and some more. That is because the variety, submissiveness, and honor entertain us, as though we were kings. These are the things we have from our wives when there is more than one. With only one wife we would not have the pleasure of variety but boredom resulting from sameness. We would not have the deference of submission but the irritation of equality. Nor would we have the bliss of ruling with its accompanying honor, but the annoyance of struggling for superiority.

"After all, what is a woman? Is she not born subject to a man's will, and born to serve and not to rule? For this reason every man here in his own house is like a royal majesty. Because this is what we like, it is also the blessing of our life."

[5] But I asked, "Where, then, is conjugial love, which forms two souls into one? And joins minds together and blesses a person? This love cannot be a divided love. If it is, it becomes a passion which evaporates and passes away."

To this he replied, "I do not understand what you are saying. What else blesses a person but the rivalry of wives for the honor of being first with her husband?"

Saying this, the man went into his harem and opened its double doors. But a libidinous odor came out of it which stank like a cesspool. This was the result of polygamous love, which is matrimonial and at the same time licentious. I got up, therefore, and closed the doors.

[6] Afterwards I said, "How can you remain in this land, when none of you have truly conjugial love, and when you also worship idols?"

He replied, "With respect to marital love, we are so violently jealous of our wives that we do not allow anyone to enter our houses past the entrance halls. And where there is jealousy there is also love.

"As for the idols, we do not worship them, but we cannot think about the God of the universe except through images presented to our eyes. For we cannot raise our thoughts above the sense impressions of the body, nor can we raise our thoughts about God above the visible things we can see."

Then again I asked, "Do your idols not have various forms? How can they present a vision of one God?"

To this he replied, "It is a mystery to us. Something having to do with the worship of God lies hidden in every form."

So I said, "You are merely sensual, carnal people. You do not have any love for God, nor any love for a married partner that derives anything from spiritual love. And it is these loves that together shape a human being, and from being sensual make him heavenly."

[7] When I said this, I saw through the doorway what seemed to be a flash of lightning. And I asked, "What is this?"

He said, "Lightning like this is a signal to us that the ancient one of the east is coming, who teaches us about God - that He is one, alone the Almighty, who is the First and the Last. He also warns us not to worship the idols, but only to look on them as images representing virtues that emanate from the one God, which together form a worship of Him. This ancient one is our angel, whom we respect and listen to. He comes to us and raises us up whenever we fall into a hazy worship of God owing to some delusion regarding the images."

[8] Having heard this, we departed from the house and from the city, and on the way, from the things we had seen in heaven, we formed conclusions regarding the course and progress of conjugial love. With respect to its course, we observed that it had moved in a circle from the east to the south, from there to the west, and from there into the north. With respect to its progress, we saw that it had declined as it went - in other words, that it had been celestial in the east, spiritual in the south, natural in the west, and sensual in the north. We also noted as well that it had declined in the same measure that the love and worship of God declined.

Consequently we formed this conclusion, that conjugial love in the first age was like gold, in the second age like silver, in the third age like bronze, and in the fourth age like iron, and that at last it ceased to exist.

But afterwards my angel guide and companion said, "Nevertheless, I am sustained by the hope that the God of heaven, who is the Lord, will revive this love, because it is possible for it to be revived."

  
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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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