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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

 

Divine Love and Wisdom #351

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351. People who believe that the Divine operates in every single element of nature can, from the many things which they see in nature, confirm themselves on the side of the Divine, just as well as and even more than those who confirm themselves on the side of nature. For people who confirm themselves on the side of the Divine pay heed to the marvels which they see in the propagations of both plants and animals.

In the propagations of plants, they note how a tiny seed cast into the ground produces a root, by means of the root a stem, and then in succession branches, leaves, flowers and fruits, culminating in new seeds - altogether as though the seed knew the order of progression or the process by which to renew itself. What rational person can suppose that the sun, which is nothing but fire, has this knowledge? Or that it can impart to its heat and its light the power to produce such effects, and in those effects can create marvels and intend a useful result?

Any person having an elevated rational faculty, on seeing and considering these wonders, cannot but think that they issue from one who possesses infinite wisdom, thus from God.

People who acknowledge the Divine also see and think this; but people who do not acknowledge the Divine do not see and think it, because they do not want to. Therefore they allow their rational faculty to descend into their sensual self, which draws all its ideas from the light in which the bodily senses are, and which defends the fallacies of these, saying, "Do you not see the sun accomplishing these effects by its heat and its light? What is something that you do not see? Is it anything?"

[2] People who confirm themselves on the side of the Divine pay heed to the marvels which they see in the propagations of animals - to mention here only those in eggs, as that in them lies the embryo in its seed or inception, with everything it requires to the time it hatches, and moreover with everything that develops after it hatches until it becomes a bird or flying thing in the form of its parent. Also that if one gives attention to the form, it is such that, if one thinks deeply, one cannot help but fall into a state of amazement - seeing, for example, that in the smallest of these creatures as in the largest, indeed in the invisible as in the visible, there are sense organs which serve for sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch; also motor organs, which are muscles, for they fly and walk; as well as viscera surrounding hearts and lungs, which are actuated by brains. That even lowly insects possess such component parts is known from their anatomy as described by certain investigators, most notably by Swammerdam 1 in his Biblia Naturae. 2

[3] People who attribute all things to nature see these wonders, indeed, but they think only that they exist, and say that nature produces them. They say this because they have turned their mind away from thinking about the Divine; and when people who have turned away from thinking about the Divine see wonders in nature, they are unable to think rationally, still less spiritually, but think instead in sensual and material terms. They then think within the confines of nature from the standpoint of nature and not above it, in the way that those do who are in hell. They differ from animals only in their having the power of rationality, that is, in their being able to understand and so think otherwise if they will.

Footnotes:

1. Jan Swammerdam, 1637-1680, Dutch anatomist and entomologist.

2. Published posthumously under Dutch and Latin titles, Bybel der Natuure; of, Historie der insecten... / Biblia Naturae; sive Historia Insectorum... (A Book of Nature; or, History of Insects...), with text in Latin and Dutch in parallel columns, Leyden, 1737 (vol. 1), 1738 (vol. 2).

  
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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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