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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 #662

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662. 1 The second experience.

Some time later I went into a park and walked there reflecting on those who have a longing to possess worldly goods and so imagine that they do. Then I saw at some distance from me two angels in conversation, who from time to time looked towards me. So I went nearer, and as I approached they addressed me and said: 'We have an inward perception that you are reflecting upon what we are talking about, or that we are talking about what you are reflecting on, which is the result of the reciprocal communication of affections.'

So I asked what they were talking about. 'About imagination,' they said, 'longing and intelligence; and now about those who delight in day-dreaming and imagining they possess everything in the world.'

[2] So I asked them to reveal their thoughts on these three topics, longing, imagination and intelligence.

They began their reply by saying that everyone inwardly by birth has longings, but outwardly acquires intelligence by education. No one has intelligence, much less wisdom, inwardly, that is, in respect of his spirit, except from the Lord. 'For everyone,' they said, 'is restrained from longing for evil, and is kept in intelligence in proportion to the extent he looks to the Lord and at the same time is linked with Him. Failing this, a person is nothing but longing; yet in externals, that is, as regards the body, he has intelligence as the result of education. A person longs for honours and riches, or to be eminent and wealthy; and these two goals cannot be achieved unless he appears well-behaved and spiritual, and so intelligent and wise. So from childhood he learns to appear thus. This is why, as soon as he mixes with people or attends a meeting, he reverses his spirit, switching it away from longing, and speaking and acting in accordance with the principles of decency and honour which he learned from childhood and retains in his bodily memory. He also takes the greatest care to see that nothing of the mad longing of his spirit slips out.

[3] Thus everyone, who is not inwardly guided by the Lord, is a pretender, a sycophant and hypocrite, appearing to be a human being without being one. Of him it can be said that his shell or body is wise, his kernel or spirit is mad; that his external is human, his internal that of a wild beast. Such people go about with the back of their heads pointing upwards, and downwards with the front, so that they are weighed down by their burden, with their heads hanging down, their gaze fastened on the ground. When they put off their bodies, becoming spirits and being set free, they turn into what their own mad longings are. For those who are ruled by self-love long to be masters of the universe, or even to extend its limits so as to have wider sway, for they can see no end to it. Those ruled by love of the world long to possess everything in it, and are grieved and envious if anyone has any treasures stored away in secret. So to prevent such people from turning into sheer longings and losing their humanity, they are allowed in the spiritual world to have their thoughts influenced by fear of losing their reputation, and so their honours and profit, as well as by fear of the law and its penalties. They are also allowed to concentrate their mind on some study or task, so that they are kept in externals and so in a state of intelligence, however much inwardly they rave and behave like madmen.'

[4] After this I asked whether all who have this longing also suffer from the delusion that they do possess worldly goods. They replied that the people who suffer from this delusion are those who think inwardly about it and over-indulge their imagination, talking to themselves about it. These people come close to separating their spirit from its link with the body; they swamp the understanding by day-dreaming, and indulge in the empty pleasure of imagining they possess everything. A person is after death the victim of this madness, if he has withdrawn his spirit from the body, and has not been willing to retreat from the delight his madness gives him. He thinks little from a religious point of view about evils and falsities, and hardly anything about unrestrained self-love as being destructive of love to the Lord, and unrestrained love of the world as being destructive of love towards the neighbour.

[5] After this the two angels and I felt a desire to see those who suffer from this imaginary longing, or delusion that they possess the wealth of all as the result of love of the world. We perceived that this desire came upon us in order that we should get to know these people. Their homes were under the ground on which we stood, but above hell. So we looked at one another and said: 'Let us go.' We saw an opening and some steps, so we went down them. We were told to approach them from the east, to avoid entering the cloud of their delusion and putting our understandings in shadow, which would at the same time obscure our sight.

Suddenly we caught sight of a building made of reeds, and therefore full of chinks, standing in the cloud, which continually seeped out like smoke from the chinks in three of the walls. We went in and saw fifty on one side and fifty on the other, sitting on benches. They had their backs to the east and south and faced the west and north. Each had a table in front of him with bulging money-bags on it, and around the bags piles of gold coins.

[6] 'Are those,' we asked each, 'the wealth of all in the world?'

'Not all in the world,' they said, 'but all in the kingdom.' Their speech sounded like a whistle, and they themselves had round faces which had a ruddy look like the shell of a snail. The pupils of their eyes seemed to sparkle against a green background; this was caused by the light of their delusion.

We took up a position in between them and said: 'Do you believe that you possess all the wealth of the kingdom?' 'Yes,' they replied.

Then we asked: 'Which one of you possesses this?' 'Each of us,' they said.

'How can you each possess this?' we asked. 'There are many of you.'

'We each of us,' they said, 'know that everything that belongs to another is ours. We are not allowed to think, much less say, "What is mine is not yours," but we are allowed to think and say, "What is yours is mine."'

Even to our eyes the coins on the tables looked as if made of pure gold. But when we let in light from the east, they turned out to be small particles of gold which they had magnified to such an extent by means of shared joint delusion. They said that anyone who comes in has to bring with him some gold, which they cut up into pieces, and these into small particles, and these they then magnify by concentrating their delusive powers with one intention, to make them look like coins of the larger sort.

[7] Then we said: 'Were you not born rational human beings? Where have you acquired that foolish fancy?'

'We know,' they said, 'that our vanity is fanciful, but because it pleases the interiors of our minds, we come in here and are delighted by seeming to possess everyone's wealth. But we do not stay here for more than a few hours, and having spent this time here we go out, and each time sanity returns to our minds. But still the attraction of our day-dreams from time to time comes upon us, and makes us alternate between coming in and going out, so that by turns we are wise and crazy. We know too that a harsh fate awaits those who cunningly filch other people's property.'

'What fate is that?' we asked.

'They are sucked down,' they said, ‘and thrown naked into some prison in hell, where they are obliged to work for clothing and for food, and then for a few pennies which they hoard and make their hearts' desire. But if they do harm to their companions, they have to give up some of their pennies as a fine.'

Footnotes:

1. This section is repeated from Conjugial Love 267-268.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #675

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675. To this I will append the following account:

I saw a piece of paper sent down by the Lord through heaven into a society of Englishmen - though that society was one of their smallest - in which there were also two bishops. The piece of paper contained an exhortation to acknowledge the Lord as God of heaven and earth, as He Himself taught (Matthew 28:18 1 ), and to turn away from a doctrine of faith that justifies apart from works of the law, because the doctrine is wrong.

Many of the people read the piece of paper and made copies of it, and they thought and spoke rationally about what it contained from an interior power to judge, so that they were enlightened by the Lord and received that enlightenment with a clarity of sight more innate in the English than in others.

After their acceptance of these ideas, however, they said to each other, "Let us ask the bishops."

And they asked the bishops, but the bishops contradicted the ideas and disapproved them. However, the bishops there were some of those who in the world had become callous with respect to the spiritual aspects of faith and charity, owing to a love of dominion over the sanctities of the church and a love of their eminence in consequence of them also in political affairs. After a brief consultation with each other, therefore, they sent the piece of paper back to the heaven from which it came.

When the bishops did this, most of the laity, after some murmuring, turned away from their earlier acceptance, and their light in spiritual matters, which before had shone, was suddenly extinguished.

Then, after they were warned a second time, but in vain, I saw that society sink down - though how deeply I did not see - so that it disappeared from the sight of angels, who worship the Lord only and reject faith alone.

[2] Several days later I saw as many as a hundred people ascend from the lower earth to which that small society had sunk. They came over to me, and a wise man among them said, "Listen to this amazing thing. When we sank down, the place looked to us at first like a lake, but a little while later like dry land, and afterward like a small city, in which we each had his own house, though a poor one.

"The next day we took counsel with each other as to what we should do. Many said we should go to the two bishops and gently blame them for sending the piece of paper back to the heaven from which it descended, on which account this has befallen us.

"They chose some representatives who went to the bishops," and the wise man speaking with me said he was one of them. "And then some of the wiser among us spoke to the bishops," he said, "as follows:

"'Hear us, you church fathers. We believed that more than others we had a church among us that deserved to be called foremost in the Christian world, and a religion that deserved to be called great. But we were given an enlightenment from heaven, and in that enlightenment a perception that there is no longer any church in the Christian world today, and no longer any religion.'

[3] "The bishops said, 'What are you saying? Does the church not exist where the Word is found? Where Christ the Savior is known? And where the sacraments are celebrated?'

"To this our spokesman replied, 'These things embody the church and they form the church, but they do not form it around a person but within a person.'

"Going on then he said, 'As regards the church: Can the church exist where people worship three gods? Can the church exist where its entire doctrine rests on a single saying of Paul misinterpreted, and so not on the Word? Can the church exist when people do not turn to the Savior of the world, and where they divide Him in two?

"'As for religion: Who can deny that religion consists in refraining from evil and doing good? Is there any religion where people are taught that faith alone saves, and not charity? Is there any religion where people are taught that charity emanating from people is nothing but moral and civic charity? Who does not see that in such charity there is no religion? Is there any deed or work in faith alone? And yet religion consists in doing.

"'In the entire world is there any nation having in it some religion that excludes anything saving from goods of charity, which are good works, even though everything connected with religion consists in goodness, and everything connected with the church consists in doctrine, which ought to teach truths, and through truths, goodness?

"'See, church fathers, what glory we would have if a church that does not now exist and if a religion that does not now exist should begin and arise with us.'

[4] "The bishops then replied, 'You speak too arrogantly. Faith in act, the faith that fully justifies and saves, is it not the church? And faith in state, the faith that emanates and perfects, is it not religion? Apprehend that, my children.'

"But then the wise Englishman said, 'Listen, you church fathers. A person who produces faith in act, does he not do so like a log? Does the church exist in a log that is, according to your notion, then brought to life? Is not faith in state but a continuation and extension of faith in act? And since, according to your notion, everything saving resides in faith, and nothing in the good of charity issuing from a person, where then is religion?'

"At that the bishops said, 'Friend, you speak as you do because you do not know the mysteries of justification by faith alone, and someone who does not know these does not know the path of salvation from within. Your path is an external and untutored way. Go that way if you wish, but provided you know that all good comes from God and none from man, and that in spiritual matters a person can therefore do nothing at all of himself.'

[5] "Annoyed at that, the Englishman speaking with them said, 'I know your mysteries of justification better than you, and I tell you plainly that I have seen in your interior mysteries nothing but phantoms. Does religion not involve acknowledging and loving God and shunning and hating the devil? Is God not good itself, and the devil evil itself? Who in the entire world, if he has any religion, does not know this? To acknowledge and love God - is that not to do good because it is of God and from God? And to shun and hate the devil - is that not to refrain from evil because it is of the devil and from the devil?

"'Your faith in act, which you say is faith that completely justifies and saves, or to say the same thing, your act of justification by faith alone - does it teach the doing of any good that is of God and from God? And does it teach the shunning of any evil that is of the devil and from the devil? Not in the least, because you have determined that there is no salvation in either.

"'Your faith in state, which you say is faith that emanates and perfects - unless it is the same as faith in act, how can that faith in state be perfected when you exclude from it any good issuing from a person as though originating from him, saying, "How can a person be saved by any good issuing from him, when salvation is by grace? And what is good issuing from a person but merit-seeking? And yet the merit of Christ is everything. Consequently to do good for the sake of salvation would be to attribute to self what is Christ's alone, and therefore it would be to try to justify and save oneself. Moreover, how can anyone do good when the Holy Spirit accomplishes everything without the least help of the person? What need then is there for any additional good on the person's part, when any good issuing from the person is in itself not good. And so on."

[6] "'Are these not your mysteries? But in my eyes they are nothing but sophistries and shams concocted in order to set aside good works that are works of charity so as to establish your faith alone. And because you do this, you view people in relation to those works, and in relation to everything spiritual in general having to do with the church and religion, as being like logs or inanimate statues, and not as human beings created in the image of God, to whom have been given, and are continually given, the faculties of understanding and willing, of believing and loving, and of speaking and acting, entirely as though of themselves, especially in spiritual matters, because they are what make a person human. If a person did not think and act in spiritual matters as though of himself, what then would faith be, what then would charity be, and what then would worship be - indeed, what then would the church and religion be?

"'You know that to do good to the neighbor out of love is charity. But you do not know what charity is, even though charity is the soul, life force and essence of faith. And because charity is all of that, what then is faith divorced from charity but lifeless? And a lifeless faith is nothing but a phantom. I call it a phantom, because the Apostle James calls faith without good works not only lifeless but also the faith of demons.' 2

[7] "When he heard his faith called lifeless, the faith of demons, and a phantom, then one of the two bishops became so enraged that he snatched the miter from his head and threw it onto the table, saying, 'I will not take it up again until I have taken vengeance on the enemies of the faith of our church.' And he shook his head, muttering to himself and saying, 'That James! That James!'

"His miter had on it a plaque, which had engraved on it, 'FAITH ALONE.'

"And suddenly then a monster rising up from the earth appeared, with seven heads, having feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion, altogether like the beast described in Revelation 13:1-2, an image of which was made and worshiped, verses 14, 15, in the same chapter.

"This phantom took the miter from the table, and widening the lower part, placed it on its seven heads. At that the earth opened under its feet and it sank into hell.

"Seeing this, the bishop cried out, 'A violation! A violation!'

"We then departed from them, and suddenly we saw a stairway before us, by which we ascended and returned above ground into the sight of heaven, where we were before."

This is the account the wise Englishman related to me.

Footnotes:

1. "And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, 'All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.'"

2. James 2:14-26

  
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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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