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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 #277

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277. Here I shall add some accounts of experiences, of which this is the first.

One day I wandered in the spirit around various parts of the spiritual world, with the intention of observing the representations of heavenly things, which are displayed in many places there. In one house occupied by angels I saw great money-bags, in which a large sum of money was stored. Since they were open, it looked as though anyone could help themselves to the money stored there, or even steal it all. But two young men sat next to the money-bags, to guard them. The place where they were put looked like a manger in a stable. In the next room some modest young women were to be seen accompanied by a respectable wife. Near that room stood two children, and I was told not to play with them like children, but to treat them wisely. Afterwards a whore appeared and a horse lying dead.

After seeing these scenes I was instructed that they represented the natural sense of the Word, which contains the spiritual sense. The large bags full of money meant an abundant supply of knowledge of truth. Their being open but guarded by young men meant that anyone can help himself to the knowledge of truth from this source, but precautions are taken to prevent anyone doing violence to the spiritual sense, which contains the bare truths. The manger as in a stable meant spiritual nourishment for the understanding; this is the meaning of a manger because a horse, which eats from it, means the understanding. The modest young women seen in the next room meant the affections for truth, and the respectable wife the joining of good and truth. The children meant the innocence of wisdom, for the angels of the highest heaven, who excel in wisdom, have as the result of their innocence the appearance of children, when seen at a distance. The whore with the dead horse meant the falsification of truth practised by many people at the present time, which destroys all understanding of truth; the whore meant falsification, the dead horse the understanding of truth reduced to zero.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #421

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421. And to him was given the key to the bottomless pit. This symbolizes their hell opened.

A key symbolizes the power to open, and also to close (nos. 62, 174, 840). And a bottomless pit symbolizes hell, where those people reside who have affirmed in themselves justification and salvation by faith alone, all of whom come from the Protestant Reformed Church. Here, however, they are people who appear in their own eyes and so in the eyes of many others to be educated and erudite - even though in the sight of angels in heaven they appear to be bereft of intellect as regards matters having to do with heaven and the church, since people who affirm such a faith, even so far as to affirm its inner tenets, close the higher constituents of their intellect, and this at last to such an extent that they can no longer see any spiritual truth in any light. The reason is that an affirmation of falsity constitutes a denial of the truth. Consequently, whenever they hear some spiritual truth, namely, a truth of the Word serviceable for doctrine and life for people of the church, they keep their mind in the falsities they have affirmed; and then they either shroud the truth they have heard in falsities or reject it as nothing but words, or they yawn at it and turn away, and this the more conceited they are owing to their erudition. For conceit glues the falsities together until they at last stick together, like solidified sea foam. The Word is therefore hidden from them, like a book sealed with seven seals.

[2] I will describe, furthermore, their character, and the character of their hell, because it has been given me to see it and speak with the inhabitants there, and also to see the locusts that issued from it:

That pit, which is like the mouth of a furnace, appears in the southern zone, and the abyss beneath it extends a great distance toward the east. The inhabitants in it have light, but if light from heaven is let in, the hell becomes dark. Consequently the pit is closed above.

Seen there are huts with arched roofs, built seemingly of brick, which are divided into several small rooms, and each room has in it a table, with sheets of paper lying on it, along with some books. At each table sits someone who in the world affirmed justification and salvation by faith alone, making charity a merely natural moral act, and deeds of charity simply those of civil life by which people are able to achieve rewards in the world; but if people should do those deeds for the sake of salvation, they condemn those deeds, and some of them do so severely, because the deeds have in them human reason and human will.

All the people in this abyss were educated and erudite in the world. And among them are some metaphysicians and scholastics who are held in higher esteem than the rest there. I recognized several when it was granted me to speak with them.

[3] Their fate, however, is this: When they are first admitted there, they sit in the first small rooms; but as they argue for faith to the exclusion of works of charity, they leave their former seats and go into little rooms nearer the east, and this repeatedly until they reach the end, where those people reside who use the Word to defend those tenets. And because they cannot help but falsify the Word then, their huts vanish, and they see themselves in a desert; and at that point they undergo such experiences as described in no. 153 above.

There is also another abyss beneath that abyss, where the residents are people who have similarly argued for justification and salvation by faith alone, but who within themselves, in their spirit, have denied God, and at heart have laughed at the sanctities of the church. They do nothing but argue there, tearing their garments, climbing up on the tables, stamping their feet and battling each other with invectives. And because no one is permitted to do physical harm there, they threaten vocally and shake their fists.

The environment there is unclean and squalid. But this a subject for another time.

  
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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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