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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 #333

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333. The second experience.

Some time later I heard again from the lower earth the same cries as before 'How learned, how learned!' On looking around to see who was there, I found myself in the presence of angels from the heaven exactly above the people who were shouting 'How learned!'

When I talked to them about the shouting, they said that these were learned people who only argue whether a thing exists or not, and rarely reach the thought that it is so. 'They are therefore like winds which blow and pass on, or like bark around trees that have no heartwood, or like almond shells with no kernel, or like the peel around fruits with no flesh inside. For their minds are devoid of interior judgment, and merely coupled to the bodily senses. So if the senses themselves are unable to judge, they can reach no conclusions. In short, they are creatures of their senses, and we call them logicmongers. We call them this because they never reach any conclusions, but they pick up anything they hear and argue whether it exists, continually speaking for and against. Nothing gives them more pleasure than attacking truths and by subjecting them to argument tearing them in pieces. These are the people who consider themselves learned beyond anyone in the world.'

[2] On hearing this I begged the angels to take me down to visit them. So they took me down to a hollow, from which steps led down to the lower earth. We went down and followed the sound of shouting 'How learned!' There we found some hundreds of people standing in one place stamping on the ground. I was surprised at this and asked: 'Why are they standing like that stamping on the ground? They might,' I added, 'make a hole in the ground like that.'

The angels smiled at this and said: 'They seem to stand in one place because they never think about anything being so, but only whether it exists, and this they argue about. When thought makes no further progress, they seem merely to trample and wear out one clod of earth without advancing.'

The angels went on: 'Those who arrive in this world from the natural one, and are told that they are in a different world, form groups in many places, and try to find out where heaven and hell are, and likewise where God is. But even after being taught this, they still begin reasoning, debating and arguing whether God exists. They do so because at the present time so many people in the natural world are nature-worshippers, and when the talk turns to religion this is the subject they discuss among themselves and with others. This proposition and discussion rarely ends in an affirmation of faith in the existence of God. Afterwards these people associate more and more with the wicked; this happens because no one can do any good from the love of good, except by God's help.'

[3] After this I was taken to a meeting, and there I saw people with not unpleasing faces and well dressed. 'They look like this,' said the angels, 'in their own light, but if light is shed from heaven, there is a change in their faces, and in their clothes.' This happened, and their faces turned swarthy and they seemed to be wearing black sackcloth. But when this light was shut off, they returned to their previous appearance.

A little later I spoke with some of the people in the meeting and said: 'I have heard the crowd around you crying out "How learned!" So I should like, if I may, to enter into conversation with you about matters of the most profound learning.' 'Say anything you like,' they replied, 'and we will satisfy you.'

'What sort of religion,' I asked, 'will effect people's salvation?'

'We shall split up this question,' they said, 'into several, and we cannot give a reply until we have settled these. The order of discussion will be: (1) whether religion is of any importance; (2) whether or not there is such a thing as salvation; (3) whether one religion is more efficacious than another; (4) whether heaven and hell exist; (5) whether there is everlasting life after death; and many more questions.'

So I asked about the first question, whether religion is of any importance; and they started discussing it with many arguments. So I asked them to refer it to the meeting, which they did. The agreed reply was that this proposition requires so much investigation that it would not be finished before evening. 'Could you,' I asked, 'finish it within a year?' One of them said it could not be finished in a hundred years. 'So,' I said, 'in the meantime you have no religion, and since salvation depends upon it, you have no idea of salvation, no belief in it or hope for it.'

'Wouldn't you like us,' he replied, 'to prove first whether religion exists, what it is, and whether it is of any importance? If it exists, it will be for the wise too; if it does not, it will be only for the common people. It is well known that religion is called a bond; but the question may be asked, "For whom?" If it is only for the common people, it is not really of any importance; but if it is for the wise, then it is.'

[4] On hearing this I said: 'You are anything but learned, since you can think of nothing but whether it exists, and argue this in either direction. Can anyone be learned, unless he knows something for certain, and advances to that conclusion, just as a person advances step by step, and in due course achieves wisdom? Otherwise you do not so much as touch truths with your finger-tips, but drive them further and further from your sight. Therefore reasoning only whether it exists is like arguing about a hat without wearing it, or about a shoe without putting it on. What can come of this, except ignorance whether anything exists, whether anything is more than an idea, and so whether salvation exists, or everlasting life after death, whether one religion is better than another, or whether heaven and hell exist? You cannot have any thoughts on these subjects, so long as you are bogged down at the first step and pound the sand there, unable to put one foot in front of the other and make progress. Take care that, while your minds stand in the open outside the court, they do not inwardly grow ossified and turn into pillars of salt.'

With these words I left them, and they were so incensed they threw stones after me. Then they looked to me like carvings, totally devoid of human reason. I asked the angels what was their fate. They said that the worst of them are plunged into the depths, and there they find a desert, where they are forced to carry loads. Since they can then make no reasonable utterance, they chatter and make idle remarks, Seen from a distance there they look like donkeys carrying loads.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Conjugial Love #155

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155. 13. Chastity cannot be ascribed to people who have renounced marriage by a vow of perpetual celibacy, unless a love for the truly conjugial life is present and remains in them. There is no ascribing of chastity to people like this, because after a vow of perpetual celibacy, they cast aside conjugial love, and yet chastity is applicable only to this love.

Moreover, there is still an attraction to the opposite sex in them from creation and so from birth, and when this is restrained and suppressed, it inevitably happens that the attraction turns into a feeling of warmth and in some cases into a state of heat, which, rising from the body into the spirit, torments it and in some people corrupts it. It can happen as well that the spirit thus corrupted in turn corrupts matters of religion and casts them down from their proper internal abode, where they are held in reverence, to an external abode, where they become merely words and gestures.

Because of this, the Lord has therefore provided that celibacy of this kind occur only among people who have an external worship, which they are in because they do not go to the Lord or read the Word. In their case, eternal life is not put in peril by conditions of celibacy imposed along with a vow of chastity, as it would be in the case of people who have an internal worship.

In addition, many of these people do not enter that kind of life of their own free will, but some do so before they reach a state of freedom arising from reason, and some do so as a result of seductive influences from the world.

[2] Among people who adopt that way of life in order to free their minds from the world so as to have time for Divine worship, only those are chaste in whom a love for the truly conjugial life either was present before the celibate state or came into being afterwards and then remained, because a love for the truly conjugial life is the love to which chastity applies.

For this reason, too, after death, all monastics are finally released from their vows and allowed to go free, in order that they may be led to choose either married or unmarried life according to the inner prayers and longings of their love. If they then choose to enter married life, those who have at the same time loved the spiritual things of worship are allowed to marry in heaven. But those who choose an unmarried life are sent to others like themselves, who live in the outskirts of heaven.

[3] With respect to women who devoted themselves to a life of piety, giving themselves up to Divine worship and thus withdrawing themselves from the illusions of the world and the lusts of the flesh, and who had therefore taken a vow of perpetual virginity, I have asked angels whether they are received into heaven, and whether they become first among the happy there, according to their belief. But the angels replied that they are indeed received, but when they feel the atmosphere of conjugial love there, they become unhappy and distressed. And then, the angels said, they leave or are sent away, some of them going on their own, some after asking permission, and some by being told to go. Moreover, when they are outside the heaven they had been in, a way opens before them leading to companions who had lived in a similar state of life in the world. And then they become no longer distressed but cheerful, and they rejoice with one another.

  
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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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