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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 #25

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25. At this point I shall insert the following account of an experience. 1

Once on waking from sleep I fell into a profound meditation about God; and when I looked up, I saw in the sky above me a brilliant, oval-shaped light. When I fixed my gaze upon that light, it moved to either side and occupied the surrounding area. Then suddenly heaven lay open before me, and I saw wonderful sights, and angels standing in a ring on the south of the opening, talking among themselves. Because I was fired with a desire to hear what they were saying, I was first permitted to hear the sound of their voices, which was full of heavenly love, and later their speech, which was full of the wisdom which comes from that love.

They were talking among themselves about the one God, being linked with Him and salvation by this means. What they said was beyond words to express; most of it could not be put into the words of any natural language. But because on a number of occasions I had been in company with angels in heaven itself, and then, being in a like state, I could speak similarly with them, I was now able to understand them, and pick up a few points in their conversation which can be rationally expressed in the words of natural language.

[2] They were saying that the Divine Being is one, the same, the very self and indivisible. They illustrated this by spiritual ideas, saying that the Divine Being cannot be reduced to several, each of which is the Divine Being, and still remain one, the same, the very self and indivisible. For each would think from His own Being from Himself, and in each case through Himself; if He then thought from the others and through them in agreement, then there would be several gods of like mind, and not one God. For unanimity, being a consensus of several with each one agreeing of himself and through himself, is not consonant with the oneness of God, but with a plurality. They did not say 'of gods', because they were unable to, since the light of heaven which governed their thought, and the aura which carried their speech, offered resistance.

They said too that when they wanted to say the word 'Gods', and each as a Person by Himself, as soon as they attempted to say this it was instantly replaced by one, or rather the sole, God. They added that the Divine Being is the Divine Being in itself, not from itself, because from itself supposes Being in itself arising from another prior one. Thus it supposes a God arising from God, which is impossible. Anything arising from God is not called God, but Divine. For what is God arising from God, or God born of God from eternity, and what is God arising from God proceeding by means of God born from eternity but mere words totally devoid of heavenly light?

[3] They went on to say that the Divine Being, which is in itself God, is the same; not the same in a simple way, but infinitely the same, that is, the same from eternity to eternity. He is the same everywhere, the same with each person and in each person; but all the changes and differences occur in the person who receives Him, and it is his state which causes this.

To demonstrate that the Divine Being, which is God in itself, is very self they said: 'God is very Self, because He is love itself and wisdom itself, that is, because He is good itself and truth itself, and thus life itself. If these things were not the very Self in God, they would be as nothing in heaven and the world, because none of them would be related to the very Self. Every quality gets its quality from the fact that it is the self which is its source, and must be related to it to have that quality. This very Self, which is the Divine Being, is not in any place, but with and in those people who are located in accordance with their ability to receive it, since neither place nor movement from one place to another can be attributed to love and wisdom, or good and truth, and life from them, which constitute the very Self in God, or rather are God Himself. Hence God is omnipresent. That is why the Lord says that He is in the midst of them, and that He is in them and they in Him.

[4] 'Because God cannot be received by anyone such as He is in Himself, He appears as He is in essence, as the Sun above the heavens of the angels; the radiation emitted by Him as light is Himself as regards wisdom, and as heat is Himself as regards love. That Sun is not God Himself, but the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom coming forth most nearly from Him, all around Him, and these appear to the angels as the Sun. He Himself is in the Sun as a Man; He is our Lord Jesus Christ, both as regards the Divine origin and the Divine Human; since the very Self, which is Love itself and Wisdom itself, was His soul from the Father, and so Divine Life, which is Life in itself. This is different in the case of any person; in him his soul is not Life, but a receiver of life. The Lord teaches us this too, when He said:

I am the Way, Truth and Life, John 14:6.

and elsewhere:

Even as the Father has life in Himself, so too did He grant the Son to have life in Himself, John 5:26.

Life in Himself is God.'

They added that those who are at all spiritually enlightened can perceive from these statements that the Divine Being cannot exist in several, because it is one, the same, the very self and thus indivisible. If anyone were to say that this plurality was possible, there would be obvious contradictions in the qualities predicated.

Footnotes:

1. This is repeated from Apocalypse Revealed 961.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Conjugial Love #267

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267. The second account:

Some period of time later I entered a wooded area, where I walked engaged in thought concerning people who are caught up in a craving to possess those things which have to do with the world, and who fantasize on that account that they do. And I saw, then, two angels at some distance from me, talking together and now and then looking over at me. Consequently I drew nearer; and as I approached, they spoke to me, saying:

"We perceive in ourselves that you are thinking about the same thing we are discussing, or that we are discussing the same thing you are thinking about, which comes from a reciprocal communication of our affections."

I asked them, therefore, what they were discussing.

"Fantasy, lust, and intelligence," they said, "and at the moment, people who find delight in picturing and imagining that they possess everything in the world."

[2] At that I then asked them to express their thought with respect to the first three points - lust, fantasy and intelligence.

So, taking up the subject, they said that everyone is in a state of lust inwardly from birth, and in a state of intelligence outwardly from training; but that no one is in a state of intelligence inwardly, thus in spirit - still less in a state of wisdom - except from the Lord.

"For everyone," they said, "is withheld from the lust of evil and kept in a state of intelligence according as he looks to the Lord and is at the same time conjoined with Him. Apart from this a person is nothing but lust. Yet he is still in a state of intelligence in outward aspects, or as regards the body, from training. For though a person craves honors and riches, or prominence and wealth, these two are not attained unless he appears to be moral and spiritual in character, thus intelligent and wise; and he learns to appear such from the time he is a little child. That is why, as soon as he comes into the company of others or into gatherings of them, he turns his spirit about, withdraws it from lust, and speaks and acts in accordance with the becoming and honorable virtues he has learned from early childhood and still retains in his physical memory - doing his utmost to take care that nothing emerges of the insanity of lust which grips his spirit.

[3] "Consequently everyone not inwardly led by the Lord is a faker, a phony and a hypocrite, and so is human in appearance but not in reality. Of such a person it may be said that his outer shell or body is wise, while his kernel or spirit is insane; or that his outward aspect is human and his inward one animal. People like that direct the back of their heads upward and the front downward, thus going about as though afflicted with heaviness, their heads hanging down and their faces turned to the ground. When they put off the body and become spirits, and are then set free, they become reflections of the insanities of their lust. For people who are caught up in love of self have a longing to rule over the universe, even to extend its limits in order to widen their dominion, never seeing an end; while people who are caught up in a love of the world have a longing to possess all its riches, and they grieve and are envious if any of its treasures are kept hidden from them in the possession of others.

"To keep people like this from becoming nothing but reflections of their lusts, therefore, and so no longer human, it is given them in the natural 1 world to think in accord with fear for the loss of their reputation, and so the loss of honor and gain, together with fear of the law and its penalties; and also to apply their minds to some pursuit or work, by which they are held in external concerns and thus in a state of intelligence, however irrational and insane they are inwardly."

[4] Following this description I asked whether all people who are caught up in the lust are at the same time caught up in the fantasy of it.

They replied that those are caught up in the fantasy of their lust who think withdrawn into themselves and indulge their imagination excessively, talking to themselves; for they almost separate their spirit from its connection with the body, overwhelming their understanding with delusion and stupidly entertaining themselves with nonsense as though everything in the universe were theirs.

This madness is what a person comes into after death if he has withdrawn his spirit from the body and has been unwilling to relinquish the pleasure of his madness, thinking little from religion about evils and falsities, and least of all about unbridled love of self as being destructive of love toward the Lord, or about unbridled love of the world as being destructive of love for the neighbor.

Footnotes:

1. The original text reads, "in the spiritual world," but preceding and subsequent statements in the discussion, and the general doctrine delivered elsewhere concerning the nature of the two worlds, suggest that it is probably a slip of the pen for "the natural world." (The same statement is repeated in True Christian Religion, no. 662[3], without correction, but so are several other, more obvious errors, indicating that the latter was simply set in type again from the text here, without careful review.)

  
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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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