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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

 

True Christian Religion #74

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74. The third experience.

I saw in the distance a number of people assembled with hats on their heads. Some had silk bands on their hats, to show they were clergymen; others, who were laymen, had the brims of their hats decorated with golden bands. All of them were educated and learned people. I also saw some people wearing caps 1 , and they were uneducated.

On approaching I heard them talking among themselves about unlimited Divine power, saying that if it operated according to some laws of order which had been passed, it would not be unlimited, but limited, and so power, but not omnipotence. 'But anyone can see,' they said, 'that no kind of compulsion could force omnipotence to act in one way and not another. To be sure, when we think about omnipotence and at the same time about laws of order which it is compelled to observe, our preconceived 2 notions about omnipotence collapse, like arms leaning on a broken stick.'

[2] Seeing me standing nearby some of them hastened up and said with some vehemence: 'Are you the man who has encumbered God with laws like fetters? What a presumptuous thing to do! By doing this you have shattered our faith, which is the basis of our salvation, in the midst of which we set the righteousness of the Redeemer, above it the omnipotence of God the Father, and we attach as an appendage the working of the Holy Spirit, which is effective while man is totally impotent in spiritual matters; all man needs to do is to proclaim the completeness of justification, which by Divine omnipotence is present in that faith. But I have been told that you see an empty void in that faith, because it contains nothing of Divine order on man's part.'

On hearing this I broke silence and said in a loud voice: 'Learn the laws of Divine order, and then open up your faith; you will see a vast desert and in it the long, sinuous Leviathan 3 surrounded by nets so knotted that they could never be disentangled. But do what we read Alexander did on seeing the Gordian knot; he drew his sword and cut it in two, so severing its contortions, threw it on the ground and trampled its strands under his heel.'

[3] This speech made the assembly bite their tongues, for they wanted to sharpen them to make a cutting reply; but they did not dare, because they saw heaven lying open above me, and heard a voice from there: 'Restrain yourselves and listen first to what order is, the laws of which Almighty God follows in His actions. God', the voice said 4 , 'created the universe from Himself in His capacity as Order, by order and to be subject to order. Likewise He created man, in whom He established the laws of his own order to make him an image and likeness of God. These are briefly, that he should believe in God and love the neighbour; so far as he applies his natural powers to performing those two actions, so far does he make himself a receiver of Divine omnipotence, and so far does God link Himself to him, and him to God. His faith thus becomes a living and saving faith, and his actions become charity, which also is living and saving. But it should be known that God is constantly present, continually striving and acting on the person, and touching his free will but never forcing it. For if God were to force a person's free will, his dwelling in God would be destroyed, and he would be left only with God's dwelling in him. This is something which all enjoy on earth as much as in heaven, and so do those in hell. For this is the source of their ability, will and understanding. The reciprocal dwelling of a person in God only occurs with those who live in accordance with the laws of order enacted in the Word; and these people become images and likenesses of Him, paradise is given them to possess, and the fruit of the tree of life to eat. The rest gather around the tree of knowledge of good and evil, talk with the serpent there, and eat of its fruit. But after this they are banished from paradise. Yet God does not abandon them; it is they who abandon God.'

[4] The people who wore hats understood and approved of this. But those who wore caps objected, saying: 'By this surely omnipotence is limited, and limited omnipotence is a contradiction in terms.'

'It is no contradiction,' I replied, 'to act omnipotently in accordance with the laws of righteousness with judgment, or according to the laws engraved upon love by wisdom. But it is a contradiction to say that God can act contrary to the laws of His own righteousness and love, for that would be to lack judgment and wisdom. It is that sort of contradiction your faith involves, if you believe that God can simply by grace justify the unrighteous, and mark him out by all the gifts of salvation and rewards of life. But I will tell you in a few words what God's omnipotence is. God by His omnipotence created the universe, and at the same time implanted order in every part of it. God also by His omnipotence preserves the universe and maintains order there with its laws for ever, and when anything slips out of order, brings it back and restores it. Moreover, God by His omnipotence established the church and in the Word revealed the laws of its order; and when it fell away from order, He restored it, and when its fall was complete, came down Himself into the world, and by assuming human form put on omnipotence and re-established it.

[5] 'God by His omnipotence and also omniscience examines everyone after death, and prepares the righteous or sheep for their places in heaven, to build up heaven from them; and prepares the unrighteous or goats for their places in hell, and builds up hell from them. Both heaven and hell He arranges into communities and assemblies in accordance with all the varieties in their love; there are as many of these in heaven as there are stars in the sky we see in the world. He links the communities in heaven into a unit, so that in His sight they are like one person, and likewise the assemblies in hell, so that they are like one devil. He separates one party from the other by an abyss, so that hell can offer no violence to heaven, nor can heaven torment hell. For those who are in hell suffer torment to the extent that they feel the influence of heaven. If God from His omnipotence were not doing all this at every moment, such savagery would overcome human beings that they could no longer be restrained by any laws of order, and thus the human race would be destroyed. These and similar things would happen, if God were not order, and omnipotent in order.'

On hearing this those who wore hats went away with their hats under their arms, praising God. (For in that world intelligent people wear hats.) But those who wore caps did not, because they are bald; and baldness is a sign of stupidity. These went off to the left, the others to the right.

Footnotes:

1. The Latin word tiara usually indicates some sort of oriental headdress; the distinction here intended may be the absence of brims.

2. The Latin has praeceptae meaning 'commanded', but praeconceptae 'preconceived' is probably intended.

3. This is the version Swedenborg follows of Isaiah 27:1 (e.g. at Arcana Caelestia 7293).

4. The Latin has 'it said' (i.e. the voice), but in view of the rest of this section dixit is probably a misprint for dixi 'I said'.

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

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