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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 #335

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335. The fourth experience.

I woke from sleep one morning while it was still twilight, and saw as it were apparitions of various sorts before my eyes. Then when it was full morning, I saw mirages of different types. Some were like sheets of paper covered with writing, which were folded over so many times that at last they looked like shooting stars, failing into the air and vanishing. Some looked like open books, some of which glittered like small moons, others burnt like candles. Among them were books which soared aloft, and high in the air disappeared; others fell to the ground and there were reduced to dust. On seeing these things I guessed that beneath these appearances in the air stood people arguing about imaginary matters, which they regarded as of great importance. For in the spiritual world such phenomena in the atmospheres are to be seen arising from the reasoning of those beneath.

A little later the sight of my spirit was opened, and I observed a number of spirits with their heads wreathed in laurel leaves, and their bodies dressed in flowery robes. This was a sign that they were spirits who in the natural world had been famous for their learning. Being in the spirit, I approached and joined the gathering. Then I heard that they were engaged in a bitter and intense debate about connate ideas, that is to say, whether human beings have any ideas directly from birth, as animals do.

Those who denied this were withdrawing from those who asserted it, and finally they stood divided into two parties, like the lines of two armies about to fight with swords. But lacking swords they were fighting with verbal thrusts.

[2] Suddenly an angelic spirit took his stand in their midst, and cried in a loud voice: 'I have heard from a distance, but not too far from you, that on both sides you are engaged in fierce debate, whether human beings have any connate ideas, as animals do. I tell you that human beings do not have any connate ideas, and that animals do not have any ideas at all. So your quarrel is about nothing, or, as the saying goes, about goats' wool or the beard of this age 1 .'

On hearing this they all flew into a rage and yelled: 'Throw him out, what he says is contrary to common sense.' But when they attempted to throw him out, they saw that he was surrounded by light from heaven, through which they could not break, for he was an angelic spirit. So they retreated and kept a short distance from him. When the light was re-absorbed, he said to them: 'Why do you fly into a rage? Listen first and take in the arguments I shall use, and then reach your own conclusion from them, I foresee that those who have good powers of judgment will agree and will calm the storms which have arisen in your minds.' In reply to this they said, though with indignation in their voices; 'Speak then, and we will listen.'

[3] Then he began speaking and said: 'You believe that animals have connate ideas, and you have deduced this from the fact that their actions seem to spring from thought. Yet they do not have the slightest capacity for thought, and it is only resulting from thought that we may speak of ideas. It is the mark of thought that one acts in such and such a way for this or that reason. Consider then whether the spider weaving its so skillfully designed web thinks in its tiny head: "I will stretch threads out in this order, and join them together with cross threads, so that my web will stand up to the air pressure it will encounter. And where the inside ends of the threads meet to make the centre, I will make myself a place to sit, so that I can detect anything falling into the web and run to it. So if a fly flies into it, it will be ensnared, and I shall quickly attack and wrap it up, so that it will be food for me." Again, does the bee think in its tiny head: "I will fly off. I know where there are meadows in flower, and there I shall suck up wax from some flowers and honey from others; and from the wax I shall build a series of adjoining cells, leaving as it were streets so that I and my companions may freely enter and go out again. Then we shall store large amounts of honey in the cells, to last through the coming winter, so that we do not die." There are many other wonderful details in which bees not only rival the social and economic provisions of men, but in some actually surpass them. (see above 12).

[4] 'Again, does the hornet think in its tiny head: "My companions and I will construct a dwelling of thin paper, with the walls inside curving around to make a labyrinth; and in the middle we shall make a kind of square, equipped with a way in and a way out, but so artfully contrived that no other creature than our own species will find its way to the middle where we hold our meetings." Or does the silk-worm, while still in the grub stage, think in its tiny head: "Now is the time for me to prepare to spin silk, so that, when it is spun, I can fly out, and in the air, an element previously beyond my reach, play with my mates and provide myself with offspring"? And likewise the other grubs, when they crawl through walls, and turn into nymphs, pupas, chrysallises, and finally butterflies? Does any fly have an idea about meeting another fly in one place and not another?

[5] 'It is much the same with larger animals as it is with these insects; as for instance birds and winged creatures of every kind, which know when to meet, when to prepare nests, lay eggs in them, sit on them and hatch their young, offer them food, bring them up until they fly away, and afterwards drive them from their nests as if they were not their own offspring, and countless things besides. It is much the same with land animals, snakes and fish. Is there any among you who cannot see from what I have said that their spontaneous actions do not result from any process of thought, the only context in which we can speak of ideas? The erroneous belief that animals have ideas has arisen solely from the false idea that animals think just as much as human beings, and the power of speech is the only difference.'

[6] After this speech the angelic spirit looked around, and since he saw that they were still wavering about whether animals have thought-processes or not, he went on speaking and said: 'I perceive that the similarity of the actions of animals to those of men has left you still dreaming about their thought-processes. So I will tell you the source of their actions. Every animal, every bird, fish, creeping thing and insect has its own natural, sensual and bodily love; these reside in their heads, and in the brains in them. By this route the spiritual world acts directly upon their bodily senses, and by these it directs their actions. This is why their bodily senses are much more sensitive than those of human beings. This impulse from the spiritual world is what is called instinct, and it is given this name because it arises without the mediation of thought. There are also secondary instincts arising from habit. But their love, by which the impulse from the spiritual world directs their actions, is concerned only with feeding and the propagation of the species, not with any knowledge, intelligence and wisdom, the means by which love develops successively in human beings.

[7] 'Nor does man have any connate ideas, as can be clearly established from the fact that he has no connate thought-process, and in the absence of thought-processes no idea can exist, for the one is dependent upon the other. This can be deduced from newly born babies, who are unable to do anything but take milk and breathe. Their ability to take milk is not the result of being born with it, but of having continually been sucking in the mother's womb. Their ability to breathe is the result of being alive, for this is something which is universal among living creatures. Even their bodily senses are extremely feeble; and little by little they work away from this state by contact with objects, likewise they learn by practice to move. Little by little too they as it were learn to make babbling sounds, at first uttered without any idea, but something dim arises in their mental imagery; and as this becomes clearer, a dim kind of imagination arises, and from this the same kind of thought. In proportion to the formation of this state ideas arise, which, as was said before, are inseparable from thought, and thinking develops from nothing by instruction. This is how human beings come to have ideas; they are not connate, but formed, and from them their speech and actions are derived.'

For man having nothing by birth other than a faculty for knowing, understanding and being wise, and an inclination to love not only these faculties but also his neighbour and God, see the experience recorded above (48); and in one of those to follow.

After this I looked round and saw close by Leibnitz and Wolff 2 , who were listening intently to the arguments put forward by the angelic spirit. Then Leibnitz approached and signified his approval and assent; but Wolff went away both assenting and dissenting, since he lacked the inner powers of judgment which Leibnitz had.

Footnotes:

1. Proverbial expressions for what does not exist.

2. Leibnitz (1646-1716) and Wolff (1679-1754), both famous German philosophers.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #752

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752. To this I will append the following account:

I was given to speak with Pope Sixtus V. 1 He came from a society in the west to my left. He told me that he had been put as chief governor over a society composed of Catholics who more than others excelled in judgment and industry. He said he had been made their chief governor because he had believed during the last half year before his death that the vicariate was an invention in order to gain dominion, and that the Lord the Savior, being God, was the only one who should be venerated and worshiped. He also said that the Holy Scripture is Divine and thus more holy than the edicts of popes. Pope Sixtus said that he had continued to believe in these two principal tenets of religion to the end of his life.

Pope Sixtus also said that their saints are of no account. He was surprised when I told him that it had been decided in council and confirmed by a bull that saints should be invoked.

He said that he led an active life as he had in the world, and that every morning he proposes to himself nine or ten things that he wishes to be accomplished by the end of the evening.

I asked him where he had obtained in so few years the great treasury he had placed in the Castelo del Angelo. He replied that he had written with his own hand to the prefects of wealthy monasteries, telling them to send him as much of their wealth as in their judgment they could, as it was for a holy purpose, and because they feared him, they sent it in abundance.

Moreover, when I said that the treasury still exists, he said, "Of what use is it now?"

[2] While speaking with him, I reported that since his time the treasury at Loreto had been immensely increased and enriched, and so, too, the treasuries in some monasteries, primarily in Spain, but not so much today as in earlier centuries. I added also that these treasuries are preserved for no other useful purpose than the pleasure of possessing them. Moreover, when I reported this, I said, too, that those who possessed them were thus like the gods of the underworld that the ancients called Plutos. 2

When I mentioned Plutos, Pope Sixtus responded, "Hush! I know."

Pope Sixtus said again that the only people admitted into the society over which he presides are those who excel in judgment, and who can accept that the Lord alone is God of heaven and earth, and that the Word is holy and Divine. Moreover, under the Lord's auspices he is perfecting that society daily, he said.

He also said that he has spoken with some so-called saints, but that they become foolish when they are told and believe that they are holy.

He even called stupid those popes and cardinals who wish to be venerated like Christ, even if they are not venerated in person, and who do not acknowledge the Word to be actually holy and Divine, which alone is what people ought to live by.

[3] Pope Sixtus wishes me to tell people who are alive today that Christ is God of heaven and earth, that the Word is holy and Divine, and that it is not the Holy Spirit that speaks through someone's mouth, but Satan, who wishes to be venerated as God.

Moreover, he said that people who do not pay attention to his words go away, as stupid, to their own kind, and after a time are cast down into hell to people who labor under the fantasy that they are gods, where the only life they have is the that of a wild animal.

At this I said, "Your words are perhaps too harsh for me to write."

But he replied, "Write them and I will sign them, because they are true."

And he went away from me then into his society and signed a copy, and sent it as a bull to other societies committed to the same religion.

Footnotes:

1. Born Felice Peretti, 1521-1590, Italian ecclesiastic, Pope 1585-1590.

2. The Roman deity Pluto, god of the underworld, was in later times often confused with the minor Greek deity Plutus (Plou'to"), god of abundance and wealth, a confusion reflected also here and elsewhere in the writer's works.

  
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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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