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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 #388

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388. The fourth experience.

I talked with some of those who are meant in Revelation by the dragon, and one of them said: 'Come with me, and I will show you what delights our eyes and hearts.'

So he took me through a dark wood and up a hill, from which I could watch the pleasures of the dragons. I saw an amphitheatre constructed in the shape of a ring surrounded by benches running up in tiers, on which the spectators were sitting. Those sitting on the lowest benches looked to be from a distance like satyrs and priapi 1 ; some had clothing to conceal their private parts, and some without it were totally naked. On the benches above them sat fornicators and prostitutes, as it appeared to me by the gestures they made.

Then the dragon said to me: 'Now you will see our sport.' I saw let into the space in the ring what looked like calves, rams, ewes, kids and lambs; and when they were inside, a gate was opened and in rushed what looked like young lions, panthers, tigers and wolves. These furiously attacked the cattle, tore them in pieces and massacred them. After this bloody slaughter the satyrs sprinkled sand over the place where they had been killed.

[2] Then the dragon said to me: 'These are the sports which delight our minds.' 'Away with you, demon,' I replied, 'in a short while you will see this amphitheatre turned into a lake of fire and brimstone.' He laughed at this and went away. But afterwards I began to reflect why such things are permitted by the Lord. I received a reply in my heart, that they are permitted so long as people are in the world of spirits; but once their time in that world is up, such theatrical scenes are turned into the torments of hell.

[3] Everything which I saw had been the product of the dragon's imagination. So they were not really calves, rams, ewes, kids and lambs, but they made the genuine kinds of good and truth in the church, which they hated, appear in this form. The lions, panthers, tigers and wolves were the forms taken by the desires of the people who looked like satyrs and priapi. The ones with no clothing around their private parts were those who believed that evils were not manifest to God; those who had some clothing were those who believed that evils were manifest, but did not damn a person so long as he had faith. The fornicators and prostitutes were those who falsify the truths of the Word, for fornication means the falsification of truth. In the spiritual world everything at a distance looks like what it corresponds to, and when these take visible form they are called representations of spiritual things in the form of objects resembling those in the natural world.

[4] Later on I saw them emerging from the wood, the dragon in the midst of satyrs and priapi, with servants and camp-followers, who were the fornicators and prostitutes, coming after them. The column they formed grew as they went, and then I heard what they were discussing.

They were saying they had seen in a meadow a flock of sheep with lambs, and this was a sign that close by was one of the Jerusalem cities, where charity is the leading characteristic. 'Let us go,' they said, 'and capture that city, expel the inhabitants and plunder their property.' So they approached, but there was a wall around it, and angels on the wall to guard it. So then they said: 'Let us capture it by a trick. Let us send them someone skilled in sophistry, who can make black appear white and white black, and put a colourable gloss on anything.'

So they found someone who was an expert in metaphysics, able to turn real ideas into terminological ones, conceal the facts under forms of words, and so fly off like a hawk with its prey beneath its wings. He was told what to say to the people in the city, that they were co-religionists and should be let in. He went up to the gate and knocked, and when it was opened he said that he wished to speak with the wisest person in the city. He went in and was taken to someone, whom he addressed in these words: 'My brethren are outside the city, begging to be admitted. They are your co-religionists, for you and we both make faith and charity the two essentials of religion. The only difference is, that you put charity first and derive faith from it, and we put faith first and derive charity from it. What does it matter which is put first, when we believe in both?'

[5] The wise citizen replied: 'Let us not discuss this subject by ourselves, but in the presence of a larger audience who can act as umpires and judges. Otherwise we shall not reach a decision.' So more people were soon summoned, and they were addressed by the dragon's ambassador in similar words to those he had previously used.

Then the wise citizen made his reply: 'You have said that it is much the same whether charity or faith is regarded as the leading matter in the church, so long as there is agreement that either of them constitutes the church and its religion. Yet the difference is like that between prior and posterior, cause and effect, principal and instrumental, and essential and formal. I use these terms because I notice that you are an expert on metaphysics, a subject we call mere sophistry, and some people call magic formulas. But let us drop these terms. The difference is like that between what is above and what is beneath. Or rather, if you will believe me, it is the difference between the minds of those in this world who live on the upper level and the minds of those on the lower level. For the leading point constitutes the head and chest, and what is derived from it the feet and the soles of the feet. But first of all let us agree on the definition of charity and faith. Charity is the affection of the love of doing good to the neighbour for the sake of God, salvation and everlasting life; and faith is thinking from a trust in God, salvation and everlasting life.

[6] But the ambassador said: 'I agree that this is the definition of faith, and I also agree that charity is that affection for the sake of God, because it is for the sake of His commandment, but not for the sake of salvation and eternal life.' After this partial agreement and partial disagreement, the wise citizen said: 'Is not affection or liking the leading point, and thought derived from it?' The dragon's ambassador said: 'This I deny.'

But he was answered: 'You cannot deny it. Surely anyone thinks as the result of some liking. Take away the liking, and can he think at all? It is exactly as if you removed the sound from speech; if you took away the sound, could you say anything? Sound too is the product of the affection of some love or other, and speech is the product of thought, for love makes a sound and thought puts it into words. It is also like a flame and light; if you take away the flame, is not the light extinguished? It is much the same with charity, because this is the product of love, and with faith, because this is the product of thought. Can you not thus grasp that the leading point is all-important for the secondary, exactly as the flame is for the light? It is obvious from this that if you do not put the leading point first, you cannot have the second either. Therefore, if you put faith, which is in the second place, in first place, you cannot fail to appear in heaven as upside down, with your feet uppermost and your head down, or like a clown who walks upside down on the palms of his hands. When you look like this in heaven, what then will your good deeds look like, which are charity in action? They can only be the sort of things the clown does with his feet, since he cannot do them with his hands. That is why your charity is natural rather than spiritual, since it is upside down.'

[7] The ambassador understood this, since every devil can understand truth when he hears it; but he is unable to keep it in his memory, because the affection for evil, which is essentially the longing of the flesh, on its return expels thought of the truth. Afterwards the wise citizen showed at some length what is the nature of faith when it is taken as the leading point, namely, that it is purely natural, a conviction devoid of any spiritual life, and in consequence no faith at all. 'And I can almost say that there is no more spirituality in your faith, than there is in thinking about the Mogul empire, the diamond mine in it, and the treasury or court of that emperor.' On hearing this the dragon's man went off in anger and reported to his companions outside the city. When they heard it had been said that charity is the affection of the love of doing good to the neighbour for the sake of [God,] 2 salvation and everlasting life, they all shouted: 'This is a lie!', and the dragon himself cried: 'Ah, what a crime! Surely all charitable deeds if they are done for the sake of salvation, are merit-seeking?'

[8] Then they said to one another: 'Let us summon still more of our people, and lay siege to this city, and let us expel these paragons of charity.' But when they attempted this, a sudden flash of fire from heaven consumed them. But the fire from heaven was a manifestation of their anger and hatred directed against the people in the city, since they had cast down faith from first to second place, or rather to the lowest place beneath charity, since they claimed that it was no faith. The reason they appeared to be consumed by fire was that hell opened up beneath their feet, and they were swallowed up. Similar events to this occurred in many places on the day of the Last Judgment; this too is the meaning of the following passage in Revelation:

The dragon will come forth to lead astray the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, to assemble them for war; and they went up on the surface of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints, and the beloved city. But fire came down from God out of heaven and consumed them, Revelation 20:8-9.

Footnotes:

1. Priapus, a Roman god of lechery.

2. Restored from Apocalypse Revealed 655.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

True Christian Religion #621

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621. 1 At this point I shall insert some accounts of experiences, of which this is the first.

I saw a gathering of spirits all on their knees praying God to send them angels, with whom they could talk face to face, and open to them the thoughts of their hearts. When they got up, three angels dressed in fine linen were to be seen standing before them. 'The Lord Jesus Christ,' they said, 'has heard your prayers and has therefore sent us to you. Open to us the thoughts of your hearts.'

[2] 'Our priests have told us,' they answered, 'that in theological matters it is not the understanding but faith which is effective; and that faith based on the understanding is no help in such matters, because it derives from and smacks of man, not of God. We are English, and we have heard a lot from our ministers of religion, which we believed. But when we talked with others, who also called themselves Reformed, and with others who called themselves Roman Catholics, and even with members of sects, they all appeared to be learned, yet on many subjects there was not one who agreed with another. All the same, they all said, "Believe us," and some said, "We are God's ministers, and we know." But we know that the Divine truths, which are called the truths of faith and are possessed by the church, do not come to anyone from his native soil or by heredity, but from God out of heaven; and they show the way to heaven, entering a person's life together with the good of charity, and so leading to everlasting life. So we became worried, and prayed on our knees to God.'

[3] 'Read the Word,' the angels said to this, 'and believe in the Lord, and you will see truths which will be your guides to faith and life. All Christian people draw their doctrines from the Word as being their one and only source.' But two of the gathering said, 'We have read it, but not understood it.'

'You did not approach the Lord,' replied the angels, 'and He is the Word. Also you had first convinced yourselves of falsities.' The angels went on: 'What is faith without light, and what is thinking without understanding? This is not how human beings act. Ravens and jays can learn to talk without understanding too. We can assure you that every person whose soul so desires can see the truths of the Word in light. There does not exist an animal which does not know the food it needs to live on, when it sees it. Man is a rational and spiritual animal, so he knows the food not so much his body as his soul needs to live on. That is the truth of faith, provided he is hungry for it and begs the Lord for it.

[4] 'Moreover, anything that the understanding does not take in is not retained by the memory as a fact, but merely as words. So when we looked down on the world from heaven, we could see nothing, but only heard sounds, which were for the most part discordant. But we shall mention some things which the learned among the clergy have banished from the understanding, being unaware that there are two routes to the understanding, one from the world and the other from heaven. The Lord withdraws the understanding from the world, as He enlightens it. But if religion dictates that the understanding is to be shut off, the route to it from heaven is shut off, and then one sees no more in the Word than a blind man. We have seen many such people fall into pits, and be unable to get out of them again.

[5] 'Let us give some examples to illustrate this. Surely you can understand what charity and faith are - that charity is doing good to the neighbour, and faith is having a correct idea of God and the essential doctrines of the church? And as a result, that a person who does good and has a correct idea, that is to say, who lives a good life and has a correct belief, is saved?' They said that they understood this.

[6] The angels went on to say that for a person to be saved he must repent of his sins, and unless he does so, he remains in the sins to which he was born. Repentance consists in not willing evils because they are sins against God; and once or twice a year examining oneself, seeing one's evils and confessing them to the Lord, asking for help, desisting from those evils and starting a new life. So far as a person does this and believes in the Lord, so far are his sins forgiven. 'We understand this,' said some of the gathering, 'and so we know what the forgiveness of sins is.'

[7] Then they asked the angels to tell them more, and this time about God, the immortality of the soul, regeneration and baptism.

'We shall not say anything,' the angels replied, 'which you cannot understand. If we did, our words would be like rain falling on a desert and the seeds it holds, which, despite being watered from heaven, still wither away and die.'

On the subject of God they said: 'All who come to heaven are allotted their place, and thus have everlasting joy, depending upon the idea they have of God, because it is this idea which is universally dominant in every detail of worship. To think of God as a spirit, if a spirit is believed to be like the ether or the wind, is meaningless. But to think of God as Man is a correct notion, because God is Divine love and Divine wisdom, with all their attributes; and that of which love and wisdom can be predicated is man, not ether or wind. In heaven they think of God as the Lord the Saviour; as He taught us, He is the God of heaven and earth. Make your idea of God like ours, and we shall welcome you into our company.' When they said this, the faces of the others lit up.

[8] On the immortality of the soul they said: 'Man lives for ever, because by means of love and faith he can be linked with God. Every single person has this capacity. And if you think a little more deeply about it, you can understand that this capacity constitutes the immortality of the soul.'

[9] On regeneration: 'Anyone can see that any person is free to think about God or not to think about Him, so long as he has been taught that there is a God. So anyone has just as much freedom in spiritual as in social or natural matters. The Lord continually grants this to all; so a person is to blame, if he fails to think about God. It is this capacity which makes man a man, and its absence makes an animal an animal. Man can therefore reform and regenerate himself as if of himself, so long as he acknowledges in his heart that this comes from the Lord. Everyone who repents and believes in the Lord is reformed and regenerated. A person should do both as if of himself, but this as if of himself comes from the Lord. It is true that a person cannot from himself contribute anything, not in the slightest, to that process. Yet you have not been created statues; you were created human beings, so that you could do it from the Lord as if of yourselves. It is this and this alone which is the reciprocal offering of love and faith, which the Lord expressly wills should be made to Him by man. In short, act from yourselves and believe that it is from the Lord; that is how to act as if of yourselves.'

[10] Then they asked whether acting as if of oneself was implanted in man from creation. The angel replied: 'It is not implanted, because acting from himself is an attribute only of God. But it is continually given, that is to say, it is continually being applied; and then so far as a person does good and believes truth as if of himself, he is an angel of heaven. But so far as he does evil and thus believes falsity, and this too is as if of himself, so far is he a spirit of hell. You may be surprised that this too is as if of oneself, but still you can see this, when you pray to be protected from the devil seducing you, from him entering into you as he did into Judas, from filling you with every wickedness and destroying you both soul and body. But everyone becomes responsible, if he believes he is acting of himself, whether it is good or evil that he does. But he does not incur guilt, if he believes he is acting as if of himself. For if he believes that he does good of himself, he is claiming for himself what belongs to God; and if he believes that he does evil of himself, he is attributing to himself what belongs to the devil.'

[11] On baptism they said that it was a spiritual washing, and this is reformation and regeneration. 'A child is reformed and regenerated when on growing up he does what his godparents pledged on his behalf, the two promises of repentance and faith in God. For they first pledge that he will renounce the devil and all his works, and secondly, that he will believe in God. All children in heaven are taught those two promises, but for them the devil is hell and God is the Lord. Moreover, baptism is a sign visible to the angels that a person belongs to the church.' When they heard this, some in the gathering said: 'We understand this.'

[12] But at this point a voice was heard from one side shouting: 'We do not understand;' and another: 'We do not want to understand.' They made enquiry to discover whose voices these were, and discovered that they came from those who had convinced themselves of false beliefs, and wanted to be believed like oracles, so receiving worship.

'Do not be surprised,' said the angels, 'there are many like this at the present time. To us seeing them from heaven they look like carved images so cunningly made that they can move their lips and make noises, like musical instruments. But they are quite unaware whether the breath that makes them sound blows from hell or from heaven, because they do not know whether a thing is false or true. They keep on reasoning and producing proofs, yet cannot see whether anything is so or not. But you should know that the human brain can prove anything it wants, so that it really appears to be so. So this is something heretics or irreligious people can do; in fact atheists can prove that God does not exist, only nature.'

[13] After this the gathering of Englishmen was fired with a desire for wisdom and said to the angels: 'Such varying ideas are expressed regarding the Holy Supper, tell us what is the truth.'

'The truth is,' the angels answered, 'that a person who looks to the Lord and repents is by that most holy act linked to the Lord and brought into heaven.'

But people in the gathering said: 'This is a mystery.' 'It is a mystery,' the angels replied, 'but one that can be understood. The bread and wine do not bring this about; there is nothing holy about them. But material bread and spiritual bread correspond to each other, and so do material wine and spiritual wine. Spiritual bread is the holiness of love, spiritual wine the holiness of faith. Both of these are from the Lord, and both are the Lord. Thus there is a linking of the Lord with man, and of man with the Lord. It is not with the bread and wine, but with the love and faith of the man who has repented. Being linked with the Lord is also being brought into heaven.'

Now that the angels had taught them something about correspondence, some in the gathering said: 'Now for the first time we can understand this.' As soon as they said this, a flaming radiance came down from heaven and joined them to the angels' company, and they loved one another.

Footnotes:

1. This section is repeated with modifications from Apocalypse Revealed 224.

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

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