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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

 

True Christian Religion #110

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110. At this point I shall introduce these accounts of experiences, of which this is the first.

In the spiritual world I once saw a shooting star, which fell to earth surrounded by a streak of light. It was a meteor of the sort popularly known as a dragon. I noted the place where it fell; but it disappeared in the twilight as the day began to break, as always happens with shooting stars.

After daybreak I approached the spot where I had seen it fall during the night; I found the ground there composed of a mixture of sulphur, iron filings and clay. Then there suddenly appeared two tents, one directly over the spot, the other a little to the south of it. Then when I looked up, I saw a spirit falling from heaven like a thunderbolt; he landed in the tent which stood directly over the spot where the meteor had fallen; and I was in the other tent which stood beside it to the south. I stood at the entrance to the tent and saw the spirit also standing in the entrance to his tent.

So I asked him why he had thus fallen from heaven. He replied that he had been thrown down as an angel of the dragon by the angels of Michael, 'because,' he said, 'I had expressed some of my convictions about faith, which I had formed in the world. One of these was the idea that God the Father and God the Son are two and not one; for everyone in the heavens now believes that They are one as soul and body are one. Any expression contrary to that belief is like a tickling in their nostrils, or an awl piercing their ears, which causes them mental disturbance and pain. For this reason, anyone who contradicts them is ordered to leave, and if he shilly-shallies, he is thrown out.'

[2] On hearing this I said to him, 'Why did you not believe as they did?' He replied that after leaving the world no one can believe anything but what he had proved to himself and so imprinted on his mind. This remains rooted in it so that it cannot be torn out, and this is especially the case with convictions about God, since it is his idea of God which determines everyone's place in the heavens.

I went on to ask what proofs he had found that the Father and the Son were two. 'The passages in the Word,' he said, 'which state that the Son prayed to the Father, not only before the crucifixion, but actually during it; and that He humbled Himself before the Father. How then could they be one, as the soul and the body are one in man? Who prays as if to another, or humbles himself as if before another, if he is himself that other? No man behaves like that, far less the Son of God. Moreover, the whole Christian church in my time divided the Divinity into Persons, and each Person is one by itself, and is defined as that which remains in existence by its own right.'

[3] On hearing him say this I replied: 'I have grasped from what you say that you are utterly ignorant how God the Father and God the Son are one; and since you do not know how this is, you have accepted the false notions about God still prevalent in the church. Do you not know that, when the Lord was in the world, He had a soul like any other person? Where could He have got it from, unless from God the Father? There are plenty of plain statements that this is so in the writings of the Evangelists. What then is it that is called the Son, but the Human which was conceived of the Father's Divine and born of the Virgin Mary? A mother cannot conceive a soul; that would be totally repugnant to the order which controls human reproduction. Nor can God the Father implant the soul from Himself, and then retire, as every father in the world does, since God is His own Divine Essence, and this is one and indivisible; and being indivisible, it must be God Himself. This is why the Lord says that the Father and He are one, that the Father is in Him and He is in the Father, and many more similar statements. This too was seen, at a distance, by those who framed the Athanasian Creed; so after splitting God into three Persons, they still declare that in Christ God and man, that is, the Divine and the Human, are not two, but one, as the soul and the body in man are one.

[4] 'The Lord in the world prayed to the Father as if to another, and humbled Himself before the Father as if before another, because this was to conform with the order established from creation; for this is the immutable order which controls everyone's progress towards being linked with God. This order lays down that as a person links himself to God, which he does by living according to the rules of order or God's commandments, so God links Himself to him, and makes him spiritual instead of natural. In the same way the Lord united Himself with His Father, and God the Father united Himself with the Lord. Was the Lord not a child like any other, a boy like any other boy? Do we not read that He advanced in wisdom and grace, and later, that He besought the Father to glorify His name, that is, His Human? To glorify is to make Divine by union with Himself. This shows plainly why the Lord in His state of exinanition, which was His state while advancing towards union, prayed to the Father.

[5] 'That same order was imprinted on every person from creation, namely the rule that as a person prepares his understanding by means of truths from the Word, so does he make it suitable for the reception of faith from God; and as he prepares his will by means of charitable actions, so he renders it capable of receiving love from God. For as a craftsman cuts a diamond, so he gives it the faculty of receiving and emitting a brilliant light; and so forth. To prepare oneself to receive and be linked to God is to live in accordance with Divine order, and the laws of order are all the commandments of God. The Lord fulfilled these down to the last comma, and so made Himself a receiver of the Divinity in all its fulness. Therefore Paul says that in Jesus Christ all the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily, and the Lord says that all things of the Father's are His.

[6] 'It is further to be held that the Lord alone is active in a person, and the person by himself is only passive, but he is moved to activity by the inflow of life from the Lord. This perpetual inflow from the Lord makes it appear to a person that he acts of himself. Because this is so, he also has free will, and this is given to him in order to prepare himself to receive and be linked to the Lord, a state which would be impossible if the linking were not reciprocal. This is accomplished when a person acts of his own free will, yet is led by faith to attribute all activity to the Lord.'

[7] After this I asked whether, like the rest of his companions, he admitted that God is one. He replied that he did. Then I said: 'I am afraid that in your heart you may believe that there is no God. Surely everything one says with the lips arises from thought in the mind? Therefore a verbal admission that there is one God must inevitably eliminate the idea of three Gods from the mind; and contrariwise, such a thought in the mind must inevitably eliminate the verbal admission that there is one God. So what can be the result, except a belief that there is no God? Surely this will turn into a vacuum all the intervening stages between the thought and the lips, and in the reverse direction between the lips and the thought? So what other conclusion about God can the mind reach, but that nature is God? Or about the Lord, but that His soul was from His mother or from Joseph? All the angels of heaven recoil from these two ideas as horrible and abominable.'

After this the spirit was banished into the abyss described in Revelation (Revelation 9:2ff) where the angels of the dragon discuss the secrets of their faith.

[8] The next day, when I looked towards the same spot, I saw in place of the tents two statues in human shape, made of dust from the soil, which was a mixture of sulphur, iron and clay. One statue appeared to hold a sceptre in its left hand, it had a crown on its head, and a book in its right hand; its bodice was girded diagonally with a sash decorated with precious stones, and its robe streamed out behind towards the other statue. But these were appearances given to that statue by imagination. Then a voice was heard from one of the followers of the dragon: 'This statue represents our faith as a queen, and the other one behind it is charity represented as her handmaid.' This statue was made out of a similar mixture of powders; it was placed right at the end of the robe streaming out behind the queen, and it held in its hand a placard on which was written: 'Beware of coming too close and touching the robe.' Then a sudden shower fell from heaven, which drenched both the statues, and since they were made of a mixture of sulphur, iron and clay, they began to bubble, as a mixture of those substances will when water is poured on 1 . So they caught fire from internal combustion, fell apart and were reduced to heaps, which afterwards stuck up above ground like mounds in a graveyard.

Footnotes:

1. Sulphur here means a combustible material of a sulphurous nature.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #655

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655. To this I will append the following account:

I spoke with some of the spirits meant by the dragon. And one of them said to me, "Come with me and I will show you what pleases our eyes and hearts."

Then he took me through a dark forest and over a hill, from which I could view the pleasures of the dragon spirits. And I saw an amphitheater built in the form of a circle, with sloping tiers of benches extending up all around on which spectators were sitting. Those who sat on the lowest benches looked to me at a distance like satyrs and priapi, some of them with a cloth covering their private parts, and some of them naked without one. On the benches above them sat whoremongers and harlots. So they appeared to me from their behavior.

The dragon spirit then said to me, "Now you will see our sport." And I saw what looked like calves, rams, ewes, kids and lambs brought into the arena of the circus, and after they were all there, a gate opened and I saw what looked like young lions, panthers, leopards and wolves rushing upon the flock and savagely attacking them. They tore them to pieces and slaughtered them. And after that bloody carnage the satyrs spread sand over the site where the slaughter took place.

[2] The dragon spirit said to me then, "These are our sports, which please our hearts."

But I replied, "Get away from me, you demon! In a little while you will see this amphitheater turned into a lake of fire and brimstone."

He laughed and left me. And wondering to myself afterward why the Lord permits such things, I received in my heart the answer, that they are permitted as long as spirits are in the world of spirits; but that when their time in that world is over, such theatrical scenes are turned into dreadful ones in hell.

[3] Everything that I saw was a sight induced by the dragon spirits through beguilements. There were no calves, rams, ewes, kids or lambs, therefore, but those spirits made genuine goods and truths of the church to so appear, goods and truths that they hate. The young lions, panthers, leopards and wolves were manifestations of the lusts in those spirits who looked like satyrs and priapi. Those without a cloth over their private parts were people who believed that evils are not seen in the eyes of God, while those with a cloth are people who believed that evils are seen, but do not condemn, provided they have faith. The whoremongers and harlots were people who falsified the Word's truth, for licentiousness symbolizes the falsification of truth.

Everything in the spiritual world appears at a distance in accordance with its correspondence, and when these correspondences take manifest form, in objects like those of natural ones, we call them representations of spiritual entities.

[4] I later saw those spirits leaving the forest, with the dragon spirit surrounded by the satyrs and priapi, followed by their lieutenants and camp followers, who were the whoremongers and harlots. The troop grew as it went, and I was given then to hear what they were saying among themselves. They were saying that they saw a flock of sheep and goats in a meadow, and that it was a sign that they were approaching one of the Jerusalem cities where charity is primary. And they said, "Let us go and seize that city, throw out its inhabitants, and plunder their goods!"

They went to it, but it had a wall around it, with angels as guards upon the wall. So then they said, "Let us take it by trickery. Let us send in an artful person skilled in casuistry, who can make black white and white black, and color the reality of any subject."

So the spirits found a certain expert in the metaphysical art, who could turn concepts of things into considerations of terms and hide actual realities under strings of words, and so fly away like a hawk with its prey under its wings. They told him what to say to the inhabitants of the city, that they were people who shared the inhabitants' religion and should be admitted.

Going to the city gate he knocked, and when it was opened, he said that he wished to speak with the wisest person in the city. So he was allowed in and taken to a certain man, and he addressed the man then, saying, "My brethren are outside the city and ask to be let in. They share your religion. You and we both make faith and charity to be the two essential ingredients of religion. The only difference is that you say charity is primary and faith its effect, while we say faith is primary and charity its effect. What does it matter which one is called primary, when we believe in both?"

[5] The city's wise man replied, "Let us not speak about this matter by ourselves, but do so in the presence of a number of others, to serve as arbiters and judges. Otherwise no decision will result."

And at that he summoned some others, and the dragon spirit's emissary repeated to them what he had said before.

Then the city's wise man responded, "You said that it is the same whether one takes charity to be the primary concern of the church, or faith, provided one agrees that the two together form the church and its religion. And yet the difference is as the difference between something prior and something subsequent, between a cause and its effect, between a principal cause and an instrumental cause, between an essential component and a manner of expression.

"I speak so to you, because I have observed that you are an expert in the metaphysical art, an art that we call casuistry, and that some people call mumbo jumbo. But let us put these terms aside. The difference is as the difference between something above and something below. Indeed, if you would believe it, it is as the difference between heaven and hell. For that which is primary forms the head and breast, while that which is its effect forms the feet and the soles of the feet.

"But let us first agree on what charity is and what faith is - that charity is the love's affection for doing good to the neighbor for God's sake, and for the sake of salvation and eternal life, and that faith is confident thought regarding God, salvation and eternal life."

[6] However, the emissary said, "I grant that that is what faith is, and I also grant that charity is, as you say, an affection for God's sake, because it conforms with His commandment, but not that is an affection for the sake of salvation and eternal life."

Whereupon the city's wise man said, "Let it be as you say, provided it is for God's sake."

Following this agreement the city's wise man said, "Is not affection the primary thing and thought its effect?"

To which the dragon spirit's emissary answered, "No, it is not."

But he was told in reply, "You cannot deny it. A person is moved to think by his affection, is he not? Take away the affection. Can you form any thought? The case is entirely the same as if you were to take the sound out of speech. If you were to take away any sound, could you speak a word? The tone is also a matter of affection, while the words are a matter of thought, for affection produces the tone and thought the words. The case is also like that of a flame and its light. If you take away the flame, does not the light die?

"So it is with charity and faith, charity being an affection, and faith a matter of thought. Can you not comprehend, then, that the primary element is everything in the secondary one, even as sound is in speech? And from this you can see that if you do not make primary that which is primary, you do not possess the second element. Consequently, if you take faith, which is in second place, and put it in first place, you will appear no otherwise in heaven than as a person upside down, with his feet planted upward and his head pointed down. Or you will look like a clown turned upside down and walking on his hands. Since people like you will appear so in heaven, what then are your good works constituting charity but the kind that a clown might do with his feet, seeing that he cannot do them with his hands? As a consequence your charity is natural and not spiritual, as you yourself see, because it is turned upside down."

[7] The emissary understood this, for every devil can understand truth when he hears it, even though he cannot retain it, because when his affection for evil returns, it casts out thought of truth.

After that, then, the city's wise man described with many illustrations what faith is like when it is accepted as primary, saying that it is merely natural, that it is simply knowledge devoid of any spiritual life, and that it is consequently not faith. "For your charity," he said, "is nothing but a natural affection, and the only kind of thought that springs from a natural affection is natural thought, which is what constitutes your faith.

"I might almost say, too," he continued, "that in your merely natural faith there is scarcely any other spiritual life than in your knowledge of the Mongol empire, of the diamond mine there, or of its emperor's wealth and court."

When the dragon's emissary heard this, he angrily departed and reported to his companions outside the city. And when they heard that he had been told that charity is an affection for doing good to the neighbor for God's sake and for the sake of salvation and eternal life, they all cried out, "That's a lie!"

And the dragon spirit himself said, "What an outrage! All good works that constitute charity - if done for the sake of salvation, are they not merit-seeking?"

[8] The spirits then said to one another, "Let us summon here more of our colleagues, and let us lay siege to this city. Let us make ladders, scale the wall and attack them at night, and throw out those proponents of charity."

But when they attempted this, there suddenly appeared what looked like fire from heaven which consumed them. In fact, however, the fire from heaven was a manifestation of their anger, owing to their hatred of the city's inhabitants, because those inhabitants cast faith out of first place into second place. It appeared to them as though they were consumed by fire because hell opened beneath their feet and swallowed them.

Events similar to this occurred in many places at the time of the Last Judgment, and this is the meaning of the following depiction in the book of Revelation:

(The dragon) will go out to lead astray the nations which are in the four corners of the earth..., to gather them together for war... And they went up over the breadth of the land and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. But fire came down from God out of heaven and consumed them. (Revelation 20:8-9)

  
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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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