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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 #570

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570. The fourth experience.

I once talked with a newly arrived spirit, who while in the world had spent much time meditating about heaven and hell. (By newly arrived spirits are meant people who have recently died, who are called spirits because they are then spiritual people.) As soon as he entered the spiritual world, he began in the same way to meditate about heaven and hell; and he felt happy when he thought about heaven, and sad when he thought about hell. On realising that he was in the spiritual world, he immediately asked where heaven and hell were, and what each were, and what they were like.

'Heaven,' they replied, 'is above your head, and hell is below your feet, for you are now in the world of spirits, which is mid-way between heaven and hell. But we cannot describe in a few words what heaven is and what it is like, or what hell is and is like.'

Then, being intensely eager to know he fell on his knees and prayed earnestly to God for instruction. An angel appeared at once on his right, who made him get up and said: 'You have begged to be instructed about heaven and hell. Ask and learn what pleasure is, and you will know.' And with these words the angel disappeared.

[2] Then the new spirit said to himself: 'What is the meaning of this, "Ask and learn what pleasure is, and you will know what heaven and hell are and what they are like"?' So he left the place where he was and wandered about, addressing those he met and saying: 'Please be so good as to tell me what pleasure is.' 'What sort of a question is this?' said some. 'Everyone knows what pleasure is. Isn't it joy and happiness? Pleasure then is pleasure, and one is like another; we don't know how to distinguish them.'

Others said that pleasure is mental amusement. 'When the mind is amused, the face is cheerful, speech is full of jokes, gestures are lighthearted, and the whole person is pleased.' But some said: 'Pleasure is simply feasting and eating delicacies, drinking and getting drunk on fine wine, and then having conversations on various topics, especially about the sports of Venus and Cupid.'

[3] On hearing this the new spirit was cross and said to himself: 'These are the replies of peasants, not educated people. These pleasures are neither heaven nor hell. I wish I could meet some wise men.' So he left these people and started asking, 'Where are the wise?'

Then he was seen by an angelic spirit, who said: 'I perceive that you are fired with the longing to know what is the universal characteristic of heaven and of hell. This is pleasure, so I will take you to a hill, where every day there is an assembly of those who seek out effects, of those who enquire into causes, and of those who examine ends. Those who seek out effects are called scientific spirits, or Sciences personified. Those who enquire into causes are called intelligent spirits, or Intelligences personified. Those who examine ends are called wise spirits or Wisdoms personified. Directly above them in heaven are the angels who see causes from the point of view of ends, and effects from the point of view of causes; these angels are the source of enlightenment for these three gatherings.'

[4] Then he took the new spirit by the hand and brought him onto a hill, where those who examine ends and are called Wisdoms were meeting. 'Forgive me,' he said to them, 'for coming up here to meet you. The reason is that from the time I was a boy I have been meditating about heaven and hell. I have recently arrived in this world, and some of the people I met told me that here heaven is overhead and hell is underfoot; but they did not tell me what each were or what they were like. So thinking constantly about them made me worried, and I prayed to God. Then an angel approached me and said: "Ask and learn what pleasure is, and you will know." I have been asking, but so far to no purpose. So, please, if you would be so kind, teach me what pleasure is.'

[5] 'Pleasure,' replied the Wisdoms, 'is the whole of life for all in heaven, and the whole of life for all in hell. Those who are in heaven experience the pleasure of good and truth, those in hell the pleasure of evil and falsity. For all pleasure has to do with love, and love is the very being of a person's life. So just as a person's humanity depends upon the nature of his love, so it does on the nature of his pleasure. The activity of the love creates the feeling of pleasure. In heaven its activity is accompanied by wisdom, in hell by madness. But each activity induces pleasure in the subjects it operates upon. The heavens and the hells experience opposite pleasures; the heavens experience the love for good and thus the pleasure of doing good, the hells the love for evil and thus the pleasure of doing harm. If therefore you know what pleasure is, you will know what heaven and hell are and what they are like.

[6] 'But ask and learn about pleasure from those who enquire into causes and are called Intelligences. They are on the right as you leave here.'

So he went away, approached the next gathering and explained why he had come, asking them to instruct him about pleasure. They were delighted to be asked, and said: 'It is true that, if anyone knows about pleasure, he knows what heaven and hell are and what they are like. The will, which is what makes a person human, does not move an inch, except as the result of pleasure. For the will regarded in itself is nothing but an affection of some love and thus of some pleasure. For there is some delight and thus some choice which inspires the act of willing; and because it is the will that makes the understanding think, not the slightest thinking is possible without pleasure flowing in from the will. The reason for this is that the Lord by the radiation from Himself activates everything in the soul and mind of angels, spirits and men. This activity takes place through the inflow of love and wisdom, and this inflow is the actual activity which is the source of all pleasure. This in its originating phase is called blessedness, bliss and happiness, and in its derived phase, pleasure, loveliness and delight, to use a universal term, good. But the spirits of hell turn everything they have upside down, so changing good into evil, and truth into falsity, though the pleasure remains constant. For without constant pleasure they would have no will, no feeling and so no life. From this it is plain what the pleasure of hell is, what it is like and where it comes from and likewise the pleasure of heaven.'

[7] Having heard this, he was taken to the third gathering where were those who seek out effects and are called Sciences. These said: 'Go down to the lower earth, and go up to the upper earth; on these you will perceive and feel the pleasures of both heaven and hell.'

Then some way off the ground gaped open and three devils came up through the opening; they had a fiery appearance resulting from the pleasure of their love. The angels who were accompanying the new spirit realised that the three devils had been deliberately brought up from hell and called out to them: 'Don't come any closer, but from where you are tell us something about your pleasures.'

'You may know,' they replied, 'that everyone, whether he is said to be good or wicked, experiences his own pleasure, the so-called good man his, and the so-called wicked man his.'

'What,' they were asked, 'is your pleasure?' They said it was the pleasure of fornicating, taking revenge, cheating and blaspheming. Then they were asked what their pleasures were like. They said that other people felt them as like the rank smell of dung, the stench of corpses and the rottenness of pools of urine. 'Do you find those things pleasant?' they were asked. 'Extremely so,' they replied. 'Then,' they were told, 'you are like unclean animals that live in such conditions.' 'If we are, we are,' they replied; 'but these are the kind of things that delight our nostrils.'

'What more can you tell us?' they were asked. They said that everyone is allowed to experience his own pleasure, even the filthiest, as others call it, so long as he does not annoy good spirits and angels. 'But because our pleasure will not let us stop annoying them, we have been thrown into labour-camps where we are harshly treated. It is the prevention and withdrawal of our pleasures there which is called the torments of hell; it is too a kind of inward pain.'

'Why did you annoy good people?' they were asked. They said they could not help themselves. 'There is a kind of frenzy,' they said, 'which takes hold of us, when we see an angel and feel the Lord's Divine sphere surrounding him.' 'Then you are really like wild beasts,' we said on hearing this.

A little later, when they saw the new spirit in the company of angels, a frenzy came over the devils, which seemed like the fire of hatred. So to prevent them doing harm, they were hurled back into hell. After this there appeared the angels who see causes from the point of view of ends and effects from the point of view of causes, and occupy the heaven above those three gatherings. They were seen surrounded by brilliant light, which as it rolled down in spiralling curves brought with it a garland of flowers, and placed it on the new spirit's head. Then a voice came forth saying: 'This laurel-wreath is given to you because from the time you were a boy you meditated about heaven and hell.'

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Conjugial Love #79

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79. The fifth account:

The same angel as before, who had been my guide and companion to the ancient peoples who had lived in the four ages called golden, silver, copper and iron - the same angel appeared again and said to me, "You would like to see the age that followed those ancient ages, to find out what it was like, and what it is still like today. Follow me, then, and you will see. These are the people of whom Daniel prophesied when he said:

(A kingdom will arise after those other four, in which iron will be mixed with miry clay.) They will mingle together through the seed of man, but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay. (Daniel 2:41-43)"

The angel added, "The seed of man, through which iron will be mingled with clay, and yet without their adhering together - this seed means the truth of the Word falsified."

[2] After these words I followed him, and on the way he told me this. "They live," he said, "in the border region between the south and the west, but at a great distance beyond those who lived in the previous four ages, and also deeper down."

So we continued through the south to a region bordering on the west, and we passed through a dreadful forest. For we found pools of water there from which crocodiles raised their heads, gaping at us with jaws open wide and showing their teeth. And between the pools we saw horrible dogs, some of them with three heads like Cerberus, some of them with two heads, all of them with hideous mouths and watching us with savage eyes as we passed by. Entering the western part of this area, we also saw dragons and leopards, like the ones described in the book of Revelation,chapters 12:3 and 13:2.

[3] Then the angel said to me, "All these wild beasts you have seen are not beasts but correspondent and thus representative forms of the lusts that motivate the inhabitants we are going to visit. Those hideous dogs represent the lusts themselves; the crocodiles, their deceits and deceptions; the dragons and leopards, their falsities and corrupt feelings towards things that have to do with worship.

"The inhabitants thus represented, however, do not live just the other side of the forest, but beyond a great desert that lies between, to keep them completely away and separate from the inhabitants of the preceding ages. Moreover, they are altogether alien - totally different from those other people. Indeed, they have heads above their breasts, breasts above their loins, and loins above their feet, like the earliest people. But there is not a bit of gold in their heads, or of silver in their breasts, or of bronze in their loins. In fact, there is not a bit of just plain iron in their feet. Instead, they have iron mixed with clay in their heads, both of these mixed with bronze in their breasts, both of these also mixed with silver in their loins, and these mixed with gold in their feet.

"By this inversion they have been transformed from human beings into caricatures of human beings, in which nothing inwardly holds together. For what had been uppermost has become lowermost, so that what was the head has become the heel, and vice versa. Viewed from heaven, they look to us like play-actors who turn their bodies upside down, support themselves on their elbows and thus move about. Or they look like animals that lie upside down on their backs, raise their feet in the air, and, digging their heads into the ground, from that position look up at the sky."

[4] We passed through the forest and proceeded into the desert, which was no less horrible. It consisted of piles of rocks, with pits in between, out of which crept poisonous snakes and vipers and from which flew fiery serpents.

This whole desert kept sloping downward, and we descended by a long decline, until at last we came to a valley inhabited by the people of that region and age. We saw huts here and there, which finally appeared to come together and be joined into the form of a city.

We went into the city, and behold, the houses were constructed out of charred tree branches mortared together with clay. The roofs were made of black tiles. The streets were irregular, all narrow at first, but widening as they went, becoming finally quite broad and terminating in squares. Consequently there were as many squares as there were streets.

Darkness fell as we entered the city, because the sky was not visible. We looked up, therefore, and we were given light by which to see.

I then asked the people I encountered, "Can you see, since the sky does not appear above you?"

And they replied, "What sort of question is this? We see clearly. We walk in full light."

Hearing this the angel said to me, "Darkness to them is light, and light to them is darkness, as it is for nocturnal birds. For they look downwards instead of upwards."

[5] We went into some of the shacks here and there, and in each we saw a man with his woman. And we asked whether all of them here lived each in his own house with only one wife.

But they replied to this with a hiss, "What do you mean, with only one wife? Why not ask whether we live with only one harlot? What is a wife but a harlot?

"According to our laws we are not allowed to commit whoredom with more than just one woman, but still it is not dishonorable or shameful for us to do so with more than one, provided we do it away from the house. We boast about it with each other! In this way we enjoy license and its pleasure more than polygamists do.

"Why is having more than one wife denied to us, when it has been permitted in the past and is permitted today in the whole world around us? What is life with just one woman but captivity and imprisonment?

"But here we break open the bar of this prison and so rescue ourselves from slavery and set ourselves free. Who is angry with a prisoner if he liberates himself when he can?"

[6] To this we replied, "You speak, my friend, like one devoid of religion. What person endowed with any power of reason does not know that adulterous affairs are profane and hellish, and that marriages are sacred and heavenly? Are not adulterous relationships found among devils in hell, and marriages among angels in heaven? Have you not read the sixth commandment in the Decalogue? And in Paul, that adulterers can by no means come into heaven? 1 "

At this our host laughed heartily, and he looked on me as a simpleton - almost, even, as insane.

But at that very moment a messenger came running from the headman of the city and said, "Bring the two strangers to the city square, and if they will not come voluntarily, drag them there! We saw them under the dark cover of daylight. They have come here in secret. They are spies!"

The angel then said to me, "The reason we seemed to be under dark cover is that we were in the light of heaven, and the light of heaven to them is darkness, while the darkness of hell to them is light. This is because they regard nothing as sinful, not even adultery, and consequently they see falsity altogether as truth. Falsity shines with light in hell, in the eyes of satanic spirits, while truth darkens their eyes like the gloom of night."

[7] Then we said to the messenger, "We will not be forced, still less dragged to the city square, but we will go with you voluntarily."

So we went, and behold, we found a great crowd there. From it came some lawyers who whispered in our ear, "Take care that you do not say anything against religion, against our form of government, or contrary to good manners."

But we kept answering, "We will only speak in favor of them and in accordance with them."

Then we asked, "What is your religion in regard to marriage?"

At this the crowd began to murmur, and they said, "What concern do you have here with marriage? Marriages are marriages."

So we asked a second time, "What is your religion in regard to licentious relationships?"

At this the crowd began to murmur again, saying, "What concern do you have here with licentious relationships? Illicit affairs are illicit affairs. He who is without guilt, let him throw the first stone. 2 "

So we asked a third time, "Does your religion teach regarding marriages that they are sacred and heavenly, and regarding adulterous affairs that they are profane and hellish?"

In response to this many in the crowd guffawed, mocked, and jeered, saying, "Ask our priests about matters of religion, not us. We accept without comment whatever they say, since nothing of religion falls within the ability of the understanding to judge. Have you not heard that the understanding is devoid of reason in the mysteries on which the whole of religion is based?

"Besides, what do our actions have to do with religion? Is it not the pious murmurings of the heart that makes souls blessed - murmurings about expiation, satisfaction and imputation - and not works?"

[8] But then some of the so-called wise men of the city came over and said, "Get away from here. The crowd is becoming inflamed. There will be a riot in a minute. Let us talk about this by ourselves. There is an alley behind the courthouse. Let us go back there. Come with us."

So we followed. And then they asked us where we came from and what our business was there.

We said, "We have come to be instructed about marriage, to find out whether or not marriages among you are sacred unions as they were among the ancient peoples who lived in the golden, silver and copper ages."

But they replied, "What do you mean, sacred unions? Are they not deeds of the flesh and the night?"

Then we began to answer, "Are they not also deeds of the spirit? And what the flesh does impelled by the spirit, is that not spiritual? Moreover, everything that the spirit does, it does from a marriage of goodness and truth. Is it not this spiritual marriage which enters into the natural marriage that exists between husband and wife?"

To this the so-called wise men replied, "You probe and refine the matter too much. You leap over rational considerations to spiritual ones. Who can begin there, then descend and thus form a judgment about anything?" To which they added sarcastically, "Perhaps you have the wings of an eagle and can soar to the uppermost regions of the sky and look down on such matters. But we cannot."

[9] So we then asked them to tell us, from the height or region to which the ideas of their minds flew aloft, whether they knew or were able to know that such a thing exists as the conjugial love of one man with one wife, into which have been gathered all the blessings, felicities, delights, gratifications and pleasures of heaven. Moreover, that this love comes from the Lord according to people's reception of goodness and truth from Him, thus according to the state of the church.

[10] Hearing this they turned away and said, "These men are crazy. They go into outer space with their rational faculties, form empty conjectures and shower us with nutty speculations."

Afterwards they turned around to us and said, "We will give a straight answer to your airy conjectures and dreams."

Then they said, "What does conjugial love have in common with religion and with being inspired by God?

"Does that love not exist in everyone according to the condition of his sexual powers? Is it not found among people who are outside the church as well as among people who are in the church? Among gentiles as well as among Christians? In fact, among impious people as well as among pious ones?

"Does the vigor of that love in everyone not come either from heredity, or from good health, or from temperance of life, or from the warmth of the climate? And can it not also be strengthened and stimulated by drugs?

"Is the same love not found in animals, especially in birds which mate in pairs? Is that love not a matter of the flesh? What does a matter of the flesh have to do with the spiritual state of the church?

"Does that love with a wife in its ultimate expression differ one bit from love with a harlot in its ultimate expression? Is the lust not the same, and the delight the same?

"It is harmful, therefore, to trace the origin of conjugial love from the sacred things of the church."

[11] When we heard this we said to them, "You are reasoning from the heat of lasciviousness and not from conjugial love. You do not know at all what conjugial love is because among you that love is cold. We are convinced by what you have said that you come from the age that is named after and consists of iron and clay, which do not cohere, according to the prophecy in Daniel 2:43. For you make conjugial love and licentious love the same thing. Can these two cohere any more than iron and clay? People believe you are wise and call you wise, yet you are anything but wise!"

Inflamed with anger at these words, they began to cry out and call the crowd to throw us out. But then, by a power given us by the Lord, we stretched out our hands, and suddenly fiery serpents, vipers and poisonous snakes came from the desert, and dragons, too, and they invaded and filled the city, so that the inhabitants became frightened and fled away.

And the angel said to me, "New people keep coming from earth to this region every day, and the previous inhabitants are by turns removed and cast down into chasms in the west, which at a distance look like lakes of fire and brimstone. The people there are all adulterers, both spiritually and naturally."

Footnotes:

1. See 1 Corinthians 6:9.

2. Cf. John 8:7.

  
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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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