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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

 

Survey of Teachings of the New Church #118

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118. Three Memorable Occurrences Taken from Revelation Unveiled

The first memorable occurrence. Once as I was explaining chapter 20 in the Book of Revelation and was meditating on the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet, an angelic spirit appeared to me and asked what I was meditating on. I said, “The false prophet.”

The angelic spirit said, “I will take you to the place where the spirits meant by the false prophet are.” He added, “They are the same spirits portrayed in chapter 13 of the Book of Revelation as the beast from the earth who had two horns like a lamb, but who spoke like a dragon.”

I followed the angelic spirit. To my surprise I saw a crowd with church leaders in the center of it. The leaders were teaching that nothing saves us except faith in Christ’s merit and that works are good things to do, but not for our salvation. They were also proclaiming that works need to be taught from the Word so as to put lay people, especially simple ones, on a leash so that they obey their civic leaders and feel compelled from within by religion to practice moral goodwill.

[2] Then one of them saw me and said, “Do you want to see our shrine? It has a sculpture in it that portrays our faith.”

I went and saw it. It was magnificent! In the center of the shrine there was a statue of a woman dressed in scarlet clothes. She had a gold coin in her right hand and a chain of pearls in her left.

Both the statue and the shrine, however, were projected images. Hellish spirits have the ability to portray magnificent things using projected images. They do it by closing off the inner levels of our mind and opening only its outer levels.

When I realized that the statue and the shrine were conjured up through sorcery I prayed to the Lord. Suddenly the inner levels of my mind were opened. Then instead of a magnificent shrine, I saw a house that was full of cracks from the roof all the way to the foundation. Nothing in it was solidly connected. Instead of the woman, I saw a dummy hanging in the house, which had the head of a dragon, the body of a leopard, the feet of a bear, and the mouth of a lion. It was exactly like the beast from the sea described in Revelation 13:2. Instead of the floor, there was a swamp that contained thousands of frogs. I was told that under the swamp there was a great hewn stone; and beneath it the Word lay deeply hidden.

[3] Seeing this I said to the sorcerer, “Is this your shrine?”

“It is,” the sorcerer said.

Just then, though, the sorcerer’s inner sight opened up as well. The sorcerer saw the same things I was seeing and loudly shouted, “What is this? Where did this come from?”

“It came from the light of heaven,” I said, “which has disclosed the true quality of each form here, including the quality of your faith, which has been separated from spiritual goodwill.”

Immediately the east wind came up and blew away the shrine with the sculpture. It dried up the swamp and exposed the stone that had the Word lying underneath it.

Then a warm, springlike breeze blew in from heaven. To my surprise I then saw a tent in that same place, a very simple one in its outer form.

Angels who were with me said, “Look, it is Abraham’s tent just as it was when the three angels came to him to announce that Isaac was going to be born [Genesis 18:1, 2, and following]. The tent looks simple to the eye, but as the light of heaven flows in, it becomes more and more magnificent.”

The angels were then granted the ability to open the heaven where spiritual angels live—the angels who have wisdom. In the light that flowed in from that heaven, the tent looked like the Temple in Jerusalem. When I looked inside, I saw that the foundation stone under which the Word had been hidden was now covered in precious stones. From the precious stones a kind of lightning was flashing onto walls that had reliefs of angel guardians on them, giving the angel guardians beautifully different colors.

[4] As I was feeling awestruck by these sights, the angels said, “You are about to see things that are even more miraculous.” They were then granted the ability to open the third heaven where heavenly angels live—the angels who have love. As a result of the light that flowed in from that heaven, the entire temple disappeared. In its place I saw the Lord alone, standing on the foundation stone, which was the Word. He looked much the way he had when seen by John in Revelation chapter 1.

Yet because holiness then filled the inner realms of the angels’ minds so that they felt an overwhelming urge to fall forward on their faces, suddenly the channel of light from the third heaven was closed by the Lord and the channel of light from the second heaven was reopened. As a result, the earlier appearance of a temple, and also a tent, returned. The tent was in the temple.

These experiences illustrated what Revelation 21 means when it says, “Behold, the tent of God is among people, and he will dwell with them” (Revelation 21:3); and when it says, “I saw no temple in the New Jerusalem, because the Lord God Almighty is its temple, and the Lamb” (Revelation 21:22).

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for their permission to use this translation.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

True Christian Religion #281

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281. The fifth experience.

The Lord has permitted me to be simultaneously in the spiritual and the natural worlds, so that I have been able to talk with angels just as I do with men, and thus to discover the states of those who after death arrive in that hitherto unknown world. For I have talked with all my relations and friends, as well as with kings and dukes, not to mention scholars, who have met their fates; I have been doing this now constantly for twenty-seven years. I can therefore describe from direct experience the nature of the states people undergo after death, both those who have lived good as well as those who have lived wicked lives. At this point I shall only relate something about the state of those who have convinced themselves from the Word of false doctrines, in particular those who have favoured the doctrine of justification by faith alone. The stages through which they pass are the following:

(i) When they have died and come alive again in the spirit, an event which commonly takes place on the third day after the heart has ceased to beat, they seem to themselves to have a body exactly like the one they had while living in the former world. This is so much the case that they are quite unaware that they are not still living in the former world, but it is not in a material but a substantial body, which appears to their senses to be material, though it is not.

[2] (ii) After a few days they see that they are in a world where there are various communities established. This is called the world of spirits, and it lies midway between heaven and hell. All the communities there, though countless in number, are arranged in wonderful order, according to whether their natural affections are good or evil. Those communities which are arranged in accordance with good natural affections are in touch with heaven; those arranged in accordance with evil affections are in touch with hell.

[3] (iii) The newly arrived spirit, that is, the spiritual man, is taken and introduced to various communities, good as well as evil, and tested to see whether he responds to various kinds of good and truth, and in what way; or whether he responds to evils and falsities, and in what way.

[4] (iv) If he responds to various kinds of good and truth, he is taken away from evil communities, and brought into good ones. He visits various of these communities until he comes to one which answers to his natural affection. There he enjoys the good corresponding to that affection, and this continues until he puts off his natural affection and puts on a spiritual one, then he is raised to heaven. This is what happens to those who have lived in the world a life of charity, and thus also a life of faith; that is to say, they have believed in the Lord and shunned evils as sins.

[5] (v) Not so those who have used logical arguments and especially the Word in order to convince themselves of false ideas, thus living a purely natural, that is, evil life. For evils are the companions of false ideas and cling closely to them. Since these people do not respond to various kinds of good and truth, but only to evils and falsities, they are taken away from good communities and brought into evil ones. They visit various of these communities until they come to one which answers to the longings of their love.

[6] (vi) But because in the world they have made a show on the surface of good affections, although inwardly all their affections were evil or lustful, they are by turns kept in their outward character. Those who in the world had been in charge of groups, are here and there put in charge of communities in the world of spirits, either in general or in sections depending upon the seniority of the offices they had previously held. But since they have no love for truth or justice, and cannot even be sufficiently enlightened to know what truth and justice are, they are dismissed after a few days. I have seen such people moved from one community to another, and in each given administrative duties, but after a short while each time dismissed.

[7] (vii) After repeated dismissals some of them are too upset to want, and some are too afraid of losing their good name to dare, to take on any more posts. So they withdraw and sit looking sad. Then they are taken away to a wilderness where there are huts; they go into these, and are given some work to do. They receive rations proportionate to the work done; if they do none, they go hungry and get no food, so that their need forces them to work. The kinds of food there are like those in our world, but of spiritual origin. The food is provided for all from heaven by the Lord, in keeping with the useful work performed. The idle, being useless, receive none.

[8] (viii) After some time they get tired of the work, so they leave the huts. If they were formerly priests, they have a desire to build. At once there appear piles of shaped stones, bricks, beams and planks, and heaps of reeds and rushes, clay, lime and tar. On seeing these they are seized with a passionate desire to build. So they begin to make a house, taking up now a stone, now a piece of wood, now a reed and now mud, and placing one on top of the other without any orderly arrangement, though to their eyes it appears well arranged. What they build in the course of the day falls down during the night. The next day they collect the fallen pieces from the rubble, and start building again. This continues repeatedly, until they get tired of building. This is the result of correspondence, because they have heaped up passages from the Word with the intention of proving the false ideas of their faith, and their falsities cannot build any other sort of church.

[9] (ix) When they tire of this, they go away and sit by themselves, doing nothing. Since, as I said, the idle receive no food from heaven, they begin to feel hungry. Then they can think of nothing but how they can get some food and allay their hunger. While they are in this condition, people come to them, from whom they beg alms. But they are told: 'Why do you sit idle like this? Come home with us and we will give you work to do, and feed you.' Then they get up cheerfully and go home with them, where each is given work to do and food as a reward for work. But because all who have convinced themselves of false ideas of faith cannot do good and useful work, but only work with wicked purposes, they do not work fairly, but cheat and work only under compulsion. So they abandon their work, and only want to meet others, talk, stroll about and sleep. Since their masters can no longer make them work, they are sent away as useless.

[10] (x) When they are sent away, their eyes are opened so that they see a road leading to a sort of cavern. When they reach it, the door opens, and they go in to see whether there is any food there. On being told that there is, they ask permission to stay there. Permission is given and they are taken in, and the door shuts behind them. Then the overseer of the cavern comes and says to them: 'You cannot go out again. Look at your companions; they are all working, and in proportion to their work they receive food from heaven. I am telling you this so that you may know how it is.' Their companions also say: 'Our overseer knows what work each of us is fitted for, and he gives us a suitable task each day. Every day that you complete your task, you get food. If you do not, you get neither food nor clothing. If anyone hurts another, he is thrown into a corner of the cavern onto a sort of bed of hellish dust, where he undergoes wretched torments. This continues until the overseer sees some sign of repentance from him. Then he is taken out, and told to get on with his work. Each man is also told that, when he has done his work, he may stroll about and chat, and later go to sleep. He is taken still deeper into the cavern, where there are whores; each is allowed to pick one for himself and call her his woman, but promiscuity is forbidden under severe penalties.

[11] Hell is composed of such caverns, which are nothing less than eternal labour-camps. I have been allowed to enter some and look around, so that I could make this known. All the people there seemed to be of low status, nor did any of them know who he had been and what position he had held in the world. But the angel who accompanied me told me that this one had been a servant in the world, this one a soldier, this an officer, this a priest, this of high birth, this a wealthy man. Yet all of them know nothing but that they were servants or people of similar status. This is because they were inwardly alike, despite their outward dissimilarity. It is the inward character which brings people together in the spiritual world.

[12] The hells in general consist of nothing but such caverns and labour-camps, but there is a difference between those containing satans and those containing devils. Satans is the name given to those who are subject to false ideas and to the evils that arise from them; devils is the name given to those who are subject to evils and the false ideas that arise from them. In the light of heaven satans look livid like corpses, some of them dark like mummies. Devils in the light of heaven have a dark, fiery look, some of them pitch black like soot. All of them have monstrous faces and bodies. But in their own light, which resembles that from burning coals, they look not like monsters, but like human beings. This concession is made to them, so that they can associate with one another.

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

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