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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 #119

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119. The second memorable occurrence taken from Revelation Unveiled. One time just after I woke up from sleeping I fell into a deep meditation on God. Looking up I saw above me in heaven an oval of intensely shining light. As I fixed my gaze on the light, it gradually receded toward the sides and merged into the periphery [of my vision].

Then, behold, heaven opened up to me! I saw some magnificent things, and angels standing in a circle on the south side of the opening, talking to each other. Because a burning desire came over me to hear what they were saying, I was allowed to hear it—first the sound of it, which was full of heavenly love; then the conversation itself, which was full of the wisdom that goes with that love.

They were having a conversation about the only God, about being in partnership with God, and about the salvation that results. What they were saying was ineffable—most of it could not be expressed in the words of any earthly language. Several times before, however, I had been in gatherings of angels in heaven itself, and had been able to join in their conversation because I was then in a state similar to theirs. This enabled me to understand them now, and to select from their discussion a few points that could be expressed in a rational way using the words of earthly language.

[2] They were saying that the underlying divine reality is united, uniform, absolute, and undivided. They said that the same is true of the divine essence, because the underlying divine reality is the divine essence, and that the same is also true of God, because the divine essence that is the underlying divine reality is God. They used spiritual images as illustration.

They said, “The underlying divine reality cannot be divided into many entities, each of which possesses an underlying divine reality, and still remain united, uniform, absolute, and undivided. Otherwise each separate entity would think on its own from its own separate underlying divine reality. If it also happened to be concurrently of the same mind as the others, there would be a number of deities in agreement; there would not be one God. Agreement, or the consensus of many, each one acting on its own or by itself, is not an attribute of one God but of many.”

They did not say “gods” because they were unable to. It was suppressed by the light of heaven that shaped their thought and was the context in which their conversation took place. They also said that when they tried to utter the word “gods” and to describe each one as a person by himself, the effort to say that immediately veered off toward “one,” and in fact toward “the one only God.”

[3] They added, “The underlying divine reality is a reality in itself, not from itself, because if it were from itself, that would imply an underlying reality that existed in itself from some prior underlying reality. It would mean there was a god from a god, which is not possible. What comes from God is called ‘divine,’ but it is not called ‘God.’ What is ‘a god from God,’ what is ‘an eternally begotten god from God,’ and what is ‘a god emanating from an eternally begotten god from God’ except words utterly devoid of heavenly light?”

Later on they said, “The underlying divine reality, which in itself is God, is uniform—and uniform not just in a simple way but in an infinite number of ways. It is uniform from eternity to eternity. It is uniform everywhere, and it is uniform with everyone and in everyone. (It is the condition of the recipient that causes all the variety and variability in reception.)”

[4] The angels demonstrated the absoluteness of the underlying divine reality, which in itself is God, as follows: “God is the Absolute, because he is absolute love and absolute wisdom, or to put it another way, he is absolute goodness and absolute truth. As a result, he is life itself. If these qualities were not absolute in God they would never exist in heaven or in the world, because they would be relatively nonexistent compared to the Absolute. Every quality is what it is because it comes from the Absolute, both as its source and as its point of reference.

“The Absolute (meaning the underlying divine reality) has no specific location. It is with those and in those who are in specific locations, depending on how receptive they are. Love and wisdom, goodness and truth, and the life these qualities give are absolute in God; in fact, they are God himself. A specific location cannot be attributed to them, and neither can a progression from place to place as the source of their omnipresence—they are not in a particular place. For this reason the Lord says he is in the midst of people [Matthew 18:20]; and he is in them and they are in him [John 6:56; 14:20; 15:4, 5].

[5] “Nevertheless, no one can comprehend God as he is in himself. Therefore he appears as he is in himself to be a sun above the angelic heavens. He himself as wisdom emanates from that sun in the form of light, and he himself as love emanates from that sun in the form of heat. That sun is not God himself. The divine love and wisdom surrounding him as they first go forth from him come to angels’ view as a sun.

“The Absolute in that sun is the Human Being. It is our Lord Jesus Christ, including both the divine source and the divine-human manifestation. Since the Absolute, which is absolute love and absolute wisdom, was in him as his soul from the Father, therefore divine life or life in itself was in him. None of us is like this. The soul in us is not life; it is merely a vessel for receiving life.

“In fact, the Lord teaches this when he says, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life’ (John 14:6); and in another passage, ‘Just as the Father has life in himself, so he has also granted the Son to have life in himself’ (John 5:26). ‘Life in himself’ is God.”

They added that people who have any spiritual light at all can see from all this that the underlying divine reality, which is also the divine essence, cannot be shared among many, because it is united, uniform, absolute, and undivided. If anyone were to claim that the divine reality could be shared, further points that person made on the subject would contain obvious contradictions.

[6] Then the angels became aware that my thoughts included common Christian ideas of God: ideas of a trinity of persons in unity, and a unity of persons in the Trinity, and also of the Son of God’s birth from eternity. At that point they said, “What are you thinking? Surely you are thinking those thoughts from an earthly light that is incompatible with our spiritual light. We are closing heaven to you and leaving unless you get rid of the ideas that go with that point of view.”

So I said, “Please go deeper into my thinking. Perhaps you will see a compatibility.”

They went deeper and saw that three persons to me meant three emanating divine activities: creating, redeeming, and regenerating, which are activities of the one only God. The birth of a Son of God from eternity to me meant his birth foreseen from eternity and carried out in time.

Then I explained that my earthly thoughts about the trinity and the unity of persons and about the eternally begotten Son of God were based on the church’s statement of faith that was named after Athanasius. I added that the Athanasian Creed is accurate, provided that instead of the trinity of persons mentioned there one substitutes a trinity in one person—a trinity that exists uniquely within the Lord Jesus Christ; and provided that instead of the birth of a Son of God from eternity one substitutes the birth foreseen from eternity and carried out in time, because his human manifestation is openly referred to as the Son of God.

[7] The angels then said, “Good, good.”

They asked me to pass on a statement from them: “Anyone who does not seek help from the absolute God of heaven and earth cannot come into heaven, because heaven is heaven as a result of the one only God. The absolute God is Jesus Christ, who is Jehovah the Lord, Creator from eternity, Redeemer in time, and Regenerator to eternity. He is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit combined. This is the gospel that needs to be preached.”

Afterward the heavenly light I had seen above the opening came back. It came down bit by bit and filled the inner reaches of my mind, enlightening my ideas of the unity and the trinity of God. Then I saw my former merely earthly ideas being separated out, just as husks are shaken off wheat tossed in a winnowing basket. I saw my old notions carried off as if by a wind to the north of heaven and scattered.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

True Christian Religion #332

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332. At this point I shall add four accounts of experiences, of which this is the first.

I once heard some shouting, which welled up from the lower regions as if through water. One shout on the left was 'How just!'; another on the right 'How learned!'; and a third behind me 'How wise!' This made me wonder whether even in hell there were righteous, learned and wise people; and I had a strong desire to see whether there were such people there. A voice from heaven told me: 'You will see and hear.'

Then I left home in the spirit and saw in front of me an opening in the ground; on approaching and looking into it I saw steps, so I went down. When I reached the lower level I saw plains covered with bushes mixed with thorns and nettles. I asked whether this was hell. 'It is the lower earth,' they said, 'just above hell.' Then I went towards each of the shouts in turn, first to that of 'How just!' I saw a gathering of those who in the world had been judges influenced by partiality and bribery. Then I went towards the second shout 'How learned!' and saw a gathering of those who in the world had been fond of logic; and then to the third shout 'How wise!' and saw a gathering of those who in the world had been keen to prove everything.

But I left the others and went back to the first group, the judges influenced by partiality and bribery, those who were being hailed as just. On one side I saw a sort of amphitheatre built of bricks and roofed with black tiles; I was told that it was their court-house. It had three entrances on the north side, and three on the west, but none on the south or east sides; this was an indication that their judgments were not equitable but arbitrary.

[2] In the middle of the amphitheatre was to be seen a hearth, on which stokers threw torches dipped in sulphur and full of pitch. Their light projected on to the plastered walls produced pictures of birds of the evening and night. But the hearth and the flickering light projected from it to form these pictures were representations of their judgments, indicating their ability to depict the truth of any question in false colours and make it look favourable to the side they preferred.

[3] Half an hour later I saw some old and young men in robes and gowns filing in; they took off their hats and sat down on chairs at the tables to hold a session. As I listened I realised with what skill and ingenuity they leaned towards the side they favoured, and twisted their judgments to make them appear equitable. Indeed they went so far that they themselves could see injustice as just and justice instead as unjust. It could be seen from their faces and heard in the sound of their voices that they had such delusions. Then I was granted enlightenment from heaven, so that I was able to grasp whether each point was valid or not. I then saw how zealously they wrapped up injustice and gave it the appearance of justice, selecting from the laws the one which suited their case, and using clever arguments to set the rest aside. When judgment had been passed, their sentences were relayed to their clients, friends and supporters outside, and they, to repay the partiality shown to them, went off far down the street crying 'How just, how just!'

[4] After this I talked about these judges to some angels from heaven, and told them some of what I had seen and heard. The angels said that such judges appear to others to be endowed with the sharpest powers of understanding, when in fact they are unable to see a grain of justice and equity. 'If you take away their partiality,' they said, 'they sit in court like statues, and only say, "I agree, I concur with the judgment of so-and-so or so-and-so." The reason is that all their judgments are based on prejudice, and prejudice treats the case from beginning to end with partiality. Consequently they can see no other side than their friend's; if anything comes to oppose it, they avert their eyes and look at it askance. If they do take the opposing point up again, they entangle it in arguments, like a spider's web wrapped round its prey, and swallow it. So it is that they cannot see any point as valid, unless it fits into the web of their prejudice. They were tested to see whether they could, and were found to be unable. The inhabitants of your world will be astonished that this is so, but you can tell them that this is a true statement which has been checked by angels from heaven. Since they cannot see any justice, we in heaven do not regard them as human beings, but as monstrous effigies of people, their heads made of partiality, their chests of injustice, their hands and feet of proofs and the soles of their feet of justice, so that, if this does not support their friend's case, they can tread it underfoot and trample on it.

[5] What they are really like you are going to see, since their end is at hand.'

Then suddenly the earth split open, tables fell one on another, and together with the whole amphitheatre the people were swallowed up, and thrown into prison in caves. Then I was asked whether I wanted to see them there. They appeared to have faces of polished steel, their bodies from neck to legs like carvings dressed in leopard skins, and feet like snakes. I saw that the law books, which they had had placed on the tables, had turned into playing cards; and now instead of delivering judgments the task assigned to them was to make vermilion into rouge, to daub on the faces of prostitutes and make them look like beauties.

After seeing this I wanted to visit the other two groups, the one which consisted of people fond of nothing but logic, and the other of those who want to prove everything. 'Wait a bit,' I was told, 'and you will be given an escort of angels from the community closest above them. By their help enlightenment will come to you from the Lord, and you will see astonishing sights.'

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

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