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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 #569

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569. The third experience.

Every love a person has emits a pleasing sensation which allows it to be felt. It is transmitted immediately into the spirit, from where it passes into the body. The pleasure of a person's love together with the beauty of his thought makes up his life. These pleasures and beauties are only dimly felt by a person, so long as he lives in this natural body, for this body absorbs and blunts them. But after death, when the material body is taken away, thus removing the covering or clothing of the spirit, then the pleasures of his love and the beauties of his thought are fully felt and perceived. It is remarkable that they are sometimes perceived as smells. This is the reason why the company all in the spiritual world keep depends upon their loves, those in heaven depending on their loves, and those in hell depending on theirs.

[2] All the smells, into which the pleasures of loves are turned in heaven, are experienced as the kind of sweet and fragrant smells, the lovely breaths and delightful sensations, which are experienced in gardens, flower-beds, fields and woods in the morning in springtime. The smells, into which the pleasures of the loves of the inhabitants of hell are turned, are experienced as rank, fetid and rotten stenches, such as arise from latrines, corpses and ponds full of garbage and excrement. It is remarkable that to the devils and satans there these smell like balsam, perfumes and incense, which refresh their nostrils and hearts. In the natural world too animals, birds and insects use smells to select their company, but this is not then allowed to human beings, until they have sloughed off their bodies.

[3] This is why heaven is arranged in the most elaborate order in keeping with all the varieties of love for good, and hell by contraries in keeping with all the varieties of love for evil. It is because of this opposition that there is between heaven and hell a gap that cannot be crossed. For the inhabitants of heaven cannot tolerate any smell from hell, since it causes them nausea and vomiting, and threatens to render them unconscious, if they sniff it. Much the same happens to the inhabitants of hell, if they pass beyond the mid-point of that gap.

[4] I once saw a devil, who looked from a distance like a leopard - I had seen him a few days before among the angels of the lowest heaven, since he knew how to disguise himself as an angel of light. He was crossing the mid-point and standing between two olive-trees without noticing any smell upsetting to his way of life. The reason was that no angels were present. As soon, however, as they came on the scene, he went into convulsions and fell to the ground with all his limbs contracted. He then appeared like a great snake writhing into coils, and finally rolling down through the gap. He was picked up by his companions and carried off to a cave where the foul smell of his own pleasure revived him.

[5] Another time too I saw a Satan punished by his companions. I asked the reason, and was told that he had blocked his nostrils and approached those who smelt of heaven, and on coming back brought that smell with him on his clothes. On a number of occasions it has happened that a stench as of a corpse rising from an open cave of hell has assailed my nostrils and made me feel like vomiting.

These facts can serve to establish why it is that smelling in the Word means perceiving. It is often stated that Jehovah smelt a welcome odour from burnt-offerings; and that the oil for anointing and incense were made from fragrant substances. On the other hand the Children of Israel were ordered to carry what was unclean in their camp outside the camp, and to bury and cover up their excrement (Deuteronomy 23:12-13). The reason was that the camp of Israel represented heaven, and the desert outside the camp represented hell.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

True Christian Religion #386

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386. The second experience.

One morning on waking from sleep I saw two angels coming down from heaven, one from the south, the other from the east of heaven; they were both in chariots to which were harnessed white horses. The chariot in which the angel from the south of heaven rode shone as if of silver, and that in which the angel from the east of heaven rode shone as if of gold; and the reins they held in their hands shone as if touched by the flame-coloured light of dawn. That was how the two angels looked to me at a distance; but when they came near, they did not appear in a chariot, but in the form of angels, which is the human form. The one coming from the east of heaven wore a shining purple robe; the one from the south of heaven a violet robe. When these angels reached the lower levels beneath the heavens each ran towards the other, as if racing to see who could arrive first, and embraced and kissed each other.

I was told that the two angels had been very close friends during their lives in the world, but one was now in the eastern heaven, the other in the southern one. The eastern heaven is the home of those who have love from the Lord, the southern heaven is that of those who have wisdom from the Lord. After talking for some time about the splendours of their heavens, their talk turned to this topic: whether heaven in its essence is love or whether it is wisdom. They agreed at once that one depends on the other, but they discussed which was the origin of the other.

[2] The angel from the heaven of wisdom asked the other: 'What is love?' He replied that love arising from the Lord as a sun is the heat which gives life to angels and men, so it is the Being of their life; and the things derived from love are called affections, and it is these which give rise to perceptions and thus to thoughts. 'From this flows the consequence that wisdom is by its origin love, consequently thought is by its origin an affection belonging to that love. It can be seen by considering the derivatives in their proper sequence that thought is nothing but the form taken by affection. This fact is unknown because thoughts are exposed to light, but affections to heat, so that people reflect on thoughts, but not on affections. Thought being nothing but the form taken by an affection belonging to some love or other can also be illustrated by speech, since this is nothing but a form of sound; it is also similar in that sound corresponds to affection, and speech to thought, so that affection makes a sound, and thought articulates it into words. This can also be made obvious, if we say: "Take sound away from speech - is there anything left of speech? Likewise take affection away from thought - is there anything left of thought?" It is now plain from this that love is the whole of wisdom, and consequently the essence of the heavens is love, and their coming-into-being is wisdom; or what is the same thing, the heavens are the product of Divine love, and they come into existence from Divine love by means of Divine wisdom. Therefore, as I said before, one depends upon the other.'

[3] At that time I had with me a recently arrived spirit, who on hearing this asked whether it was similar with charity and faith, since charity belongs to affection, and faith to thought.

'Yes, exactly similar,' replied the angel. 'Faith is nothing but the form of charity, just as speech is of sound. Faith is also formed by charity, as speech is by sound. We in heaven know how this forming occurs, but I have not time to explain it here. By faith,' he added, 'I mean spiritual faith, in which life and spirit come solely from the Lord by means of charity, for this is spiritual and the means by which faith is acquired. Faith without charity therefore is purely natural faith, and this is lifeless faith; it also links itself with purely natural affection, which is nothing but longing.'

[4] The angels were talking on this subject spiritually, and spiritual speech includes thousands of things beyond the power of natural speech to express, and remarkably enough these things cannot enter into the ideas of natural thought. After talking on both these subjects the angels went away, and as they receded, each towards his own heaven, stars appeared round their heads; and when they were at some distance from me I saw them again in chariots, as before.

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

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