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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 #664

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664. The fourth experience.

I once looked out into the spiritual world towards the right, and observed some of the elect 1 talking to one another. I went up to them and said: 'I saw you from a distance, and you had a sphere of heavenly light around you. I knew from this that you belong to the people who are called in the Word the elect.' So I came to you to hear what is the heavenly matter you are talking about.'

'Why,' they replied, 'do you call us "the elect"?'

'Because,' I answered, 'in the world, where I am in the body, they know no better than that the elect in the Word means those who, either before they were born or after birth, were chosen by God and predestined for heaven. To them alone is faith given as a token of their election. The remainder are disapproved and left to themselves, to take whatever way they like to hell. Yet I know that no election takes place before birth or after it, but that all are chosen and predestined for heaven, because all are called. After death the Lord chooses those who have lived good lives and held a proper belief, and these only after they have been examined. I have been permitted to know that this is so by much experience. Since I saw that you had a sphere of heavenly light encircling your heads, I perceived that you belong to the elect who are being prepared for heaven.'

'What you report,' they replied, 'is something unheard of. Is there anyone who does not know that there is no person born who is not called to heaven, and that after death those of them are chosen who have believed in the Lord and have lived in accordance with His commandments? To acknowledge any other election would be to accuse the Lord not only of inability to save, but also of injustice.'

Footnotes:

1. Or 'the chosen'.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Conjugial Love #261

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261. To this I will append three narrative accounts. Here is the first:

In the upper northern zone in the spiritual world, over to the east, there are places of instruction, some for boys, some for adolescents, some for men, and some also for older men. All who have died as little children and are being raised in heaven are sent to these places. So, too, are all those newly arrived from the world who wish to learn about heaven and hell.

This district is over to the east in order that they may all be instructed by means of influx from the Lord. For the Lord is the east, since He is there in the sun, which is pure love emanating from Him. The warmth from that sun consequently in its essence is love, and the light from it in its essence is wisdom. These two are infused by the Lord into the people there from that sun, and they are infused in accordance with their reception of them, which in turn depends on their love of becoming wise.

When their periods of instruction are over, those who have become intelligent are sent out from there and are called disciples of the Lord. They are sent first to the west, and if they do not remain there, to the south, and some through the south to the east. And so they are introduced into the societies where their dwellings are to be.

[2] Once, when I was thinking about heaven and hell, I began to wish to have a universal concept of the state of each, knowing that a person who is acquainted with the universals of a thing can afterwards comprehend the particulars, since the particulars are contained in the universals, like the parts in a whole.

With this wish I looked in the direction of that district in the northern zone over to the east, where the places of instruction were; and going there by a way then opened to me, I went into one of the colleges in which the students were young men. There I approached the senior teachers who were doing the instructing, and I asked them whether they knew any universal characteristics relating to heaven and hell.

[3] They replied that they knew a little something; "but," they said, "if we look eastward to the Lord, we will be enlightened and then we will know." They proceeded to do this, and then said:

"The universal characteristics of [both heaven and] hell are three, but the universal characteristics of hell are diametrically opposite to the universal characteristics of heaven. The universal characteristics of hell are the following three loves: a love of governing stemming from a love of self; a love of possessing the goods of others stemming from a love of the world; and licentious love.

"The universal characteristics of heaven opposite to these are the following three loves: a love of governing stemming from a love of being useful; a love of possessing the goods of the world stemming from a love of performing useful services by means of them; and truly conjugial love."

Their having said this, after wishing them peace, I departed and returned home.

When I got home, I was told from heaven, "Examine these three universal characteristics, above and below, and afterwards we will see them on your hand." They said, "on your hand," because everything a person examines mentally appears to angels as though written on his hands.

  
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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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