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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 #693

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693. The second experience. 1 Some weeks later I heard a voice from heaven saying, 'There is to be another meeting on Parnassium; come and we will show you the way.' I went and when I came near I saw someone with a trumpet standing on Heliconeum, announcing and summoning a meeting. Then I saw people coming up from the city of Athenaeum and its neighbourhood as before, and among them three newcomers from the world. The three were from the Christians, one a priest, the second a politician, and the third a philosopher. On the way the people entertained them with talk on various subjects, especially about the wise men of antiquity, whom they mentioned by name. The three asked whether they would see them. They were told that they would see them, and if they wished greet them, since they were easy to approach.

They asked about Demosthenes 2 , Diogenes and Epicurus 3 . 'Demosthenes,' they said 'is not here but where Plato lives. Diogenes with his school lives under Heliconeum, because he regards worldly matters as of no value and reflects on heavenly matters. Epicurus lives on the western boundary and does not visit us, because we make a distinction between good and evil affections; we hold that good affections go along with wisdom, and evil affections are opposed to wisdom.'

[2] When they had climbed the hill of Parnassium, some guards there brought water from its spring in crystal goblets, saying: 'This is water from the spring mentioned by the ancient writers of fables as having been broken open by the hoof of the horse Pegasus and later consecrated by the Nine Maidens 4 . But by the winged horse Pegasus the ancients meant the understanding of truth by which comes wisdom. The hooves of its feet meant the experiences which give rise to natural intelligence; and by the Nine Maidens they meant knowledge and learning of every kind. These stories are nowadays called fables, but were correspondences, a manner of expression the earliest people used.'

'Don't be surprised,' their companions told the three newcomers. 'The guards are taught to speak like this. We understand by drinking the water from the spring being taught about truths, and by means of truths about different kinds of good, and so to be wise.'

[3] After this they went into the Palladium and with them the three newcomers from the world, the priest, the politician and the philosopher. Then those with laurel wreaths who were sitting at the tables asked: 'What news is there from earth?'

'The news,' they replied, 'is that a certain person is claiming to talk with angels, and to have his sight opened into the spiritual world just as much as he has it opened into the natural world. He reports a great deal of news from there, including the following. A person, he says, lives as a person after death, just as he previously lived in the world. He sees, hears and talks, just as he did previously in the world. He is dressed and wears adornments just as previously in the world. He feels hunger and thirst, eats and drinks, just as previously in the world. He enjoys the delights of married life, just as previously in the world. He goes to sleep and wakes up, just as previously in the world. That world has lands and lakes, mountains and hills, plains and valleys, springs and rivers, parks and woodland; as well as palaces and houses, towns and villages, just as the natural world. There are writings and books there, there are official duties and business enterprises, precious stones, gold and silver. In short, every single thing that there is on earth is to be found in heaven, and in infinitely greater perfection. The only difference is that everything in the spiritual world is of spiritual origin, and so is spiritual, since it comes from the sun there, which is pure love. Everything in the natural world is of natural origin, and so is natural and material, because it comes from the sun there which is pure fire. In short, a person after death is perfectly human, in fact, a more perfect person than he was previously in the world. For previously in the world he had a material body, but in the spiritual world he has a spiritual body.'

[4] When this was said, the wise men of antiquity asked what the people on earth thought about this. 'We,' said the three, 'know that this is true, because we are here and have looked at and tested everything. But we shall tell you what was said and what reasonings were employed on earth.'

Then the priest said: 'The clergy like me, when they first heard these things, called them visions, then fictions, and later said that the man had seen ghosts. Finally they were perplexed and said, "Believe it if you like. We have up to now taught that a person will not have a body after death, until the day of the Last Judgment." '

'Are there not intelligent men,' they asked, 'among them, who can prove and convince them of the truth that a person lives on after death?'

[5] The priest said that there were some who proved it but failed to convince. 'Those who offer proofs,' he said, 'assert that it is contrary to sound reason to believe that a person does not go on living as a person before the day of the Last Judgment, and in the meantime is a soul without a body. "What is a soul and where does it live in the meanwhile? Is it more than a breath, a puff of wind flying through the air, or something lodged in the middle of the earth, where its Pu 5 is. Do the souls of Adam and Eve, and of all their successors for six thousand years or sixty centuries still flit about the universe, or are they shut up in the bowels of the earth, awaiting the Last Judgment? Is there anything more worrying and pitiable than such a period of waiting? Could not their fate be compared to that of prisoners in jails chained hand and foot? If that is man's fate after death, would it not be better to have been born a donkey than a man? Surely it is unreasonable to believe that a soul can be clothed again in its body, when the body has been eaten by worms, rats or fish? Or that some new body will be wrapped around a bony skeleton which has been parched by the sun or has collapsed into dust? How can such stinking bits of corpse be gathered together and united with souls?" But when they hear such arguments, they do not offer any reasonable answer, but cling to their faith, saying; "We keep our reason obedient to our faith." Their reply to the question about all being gathered from the grave on the day of the Last Judgment is: "This is the task of omnipotence," and when they start talking about omnipotence and faith, reason flies out of the window. I can assure you that then sound reason is treated as nothing, and some regard it as a mirage. They are actually able to tell sound reason that it is crazy.'

[6] On hearing this the wise men of Greece said: 'Are not these paradoxes refuted by themselves as being contradictory? Yet in the world to-day even sound reason cannot refute them. Can you believe anything more paradoxical than what is said about the Last Judgment, that then the universe will come to an end, and then the stars of the sky will fall upon the earth, although it is not as big as the stars? Or that people's bodies, what will then be corpses or mummies eaten up by people or reduced to shreds, will be joined to their souls again? When we were in the world, we believed in the immortality of people's souls because of the deductions which reason offered us. We also allotted a place for the blessed, which we called the Elysian fields, believing them to be likenesses or appearances of human beings, though delicate because they are spiritual.

[7] After these speeches, they turned to the second newcomer, who in the world had been a politician. He admitted that he had not believed in life after death, and had thought that the stories he had heard about it were imagination and fiction. 'When I thought about it,' he said, 'I said: "How can souls be bodies? Everything a person is lies dead in the grave. Has he got an eye there to see with? Has he got an ear there to hear with? How can he have a mouth to talk with? If any part of a person lived after death, could it be anything but a kind of ghost? How can a ghost eat and drink? How can it enjoy the delights of married life? Where does it get clothes, house, food, and so on? Ghosts, which are airy forms, look as if they existed, but they do not." It was this and such like that I thought when I was in the world about people's life after death. But now that I have seen everything, and touched everything with my hands, I have been convinced by my very senses that I am a person just as in the world. So much so, that I am unaware that I am not living as I formerly did, but for the fact that now my reason is sounder. I have several times been ashamed of what I thought formerly.'

[8] The philosopher told much the same story about himself. But the difference was that he ascribed all the news he had heard about life after death to opinions and theories which he had learnt from ancient and modern thinkers.

The wise men were astonished to hear this. Those who belonged to the school of Socrates said that this news from earth allowed them to perceive that the interiors of men's minds had little by little been closed up, so that in the world now belief in falsity shone like truth, and silly cleverness like wisdom. They said that the light of wisdom had since their time lowered itself from the interior of the brain to the mouth beneath the nose, where it looked to the eyes like the gleam of lips, and what the mouth had to say from that source seemed like wisdom.

On hearing this one of the recruits there said: 'How stupid are the minds of those who dwell on the earth to-day! I wish the disciples of Heraclitus and Democritus 6 , who laugh at everything or who weep at everything, were here. We should hear a mighty laughter and a mighty weeping.'

When the meeting was over, they gave the three newcomers from earth mementoes of their country; these were copper plates on which some hieroglyphs had been engraved, and these they took away with them.

Footnotes:

1. This is repeated from Conjugial Love 182.

2. The famous Greek politician and orator of the 4th century BC.

3. Greek philosophers of the late 4th century BC.

4. Otherwise known as the Muses.

5. See note on 29, 2. Pu, the Greek word for 'Where?' is a term for the place where the souls of the dead are thought to await resurrection.

6. Greek philosophers of the 5th century BC; Democritus was famous for his use of ridicule.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #484

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484. To this I will append three accounts of events that occurred in the spiritual world.

The first event: I once heard in the spiritual world what sounded like the noise of a mill. It was in the northern zone there. I wondered at first what it was, but then I remembered that in the Word a mill and the grinding of grain means to seek from the Word something usable for doctrine (no. 794). Therefore I went over to the place that I heard the sound coming from, and when I drew near, the sound died away, and I saw a kind of domed structure over the earth, with an entrance leading into it through a cave. Seeing this, I went down and entered, and lo, I found a room in which I saw an elderly man sitting, surrounded by books, holding a copy of the Word in front of him and seeking from it something he could use for his doctrine. He had slips of paper lying all around, on which he recorded the texts he found. In an adjoining room there were clerks who would collect the slips of paper and copy them onto a whole sheet.

I began by asking him about the books he had around him. He said that they all dealt with justifying faith, profoundly so those from Sweden and Denmark, more profoundly those from Germany, and still more profoundly those from Britain, but most profoundly those from the Netherlands. And he added that though they differed on various points, they were all in agreement on the article of justification and salvation by faith alone.

After that he told me that he was now collecting from the Word texts in support of this first tenet of justifying faith, that God the Father turned away from grace toward the human race on account of its iniquities, and that to save the human race there arose a Divine need for someone to take upon himself the condemnation required by justice, in order to effect satisfaction, reconciliation, propitiation, and mediation, and that only His Son could possibly accomplish this. He said, too, that after that, a means of approach to God the Father was opened for the sake of the Son. Moreover he said, "I have seen and still see that this accords with all reason. How could God the Father be approached except by faith in this merit of the Son? I have also now found that this accords as well with Scripture."

[2] Listening to this, I was astounded to hear him say that it accorded with reason and with Scripture, when in fact it is contrary to reason and contrary to Scripture, and I also frankly told him so. At that his zeal moved him to hotly retort, "How can you say that?"

Therefore I told him my opinion, saying, "Is it not contrary to reason to think that God the Father turned away from grace toward the human race and rejected mankind? Is not Divine grace an attribute of the Divine essence? To turn away from grace, then, would be to turn away from His own Divine essence, and to turn away from His Divine essence would mean He was no longer God. Can God be estranged from Himself? Believe me, grace on the part of God - as it is infinite, so is it eternal. The grace of God can be lost on mankind's part if people do not accept it, but never on God's part. If grace should depart from God, it would be all over with the whole of heaven and with the whole human race, to the point that people would no longer be in the least bit human. Therefore grace on the part of God continues to eternity, not only toward angels and people, but also toward the devil himself.

"Since this accords with reason, why do you say that the only means of approach to God the Father is through faith in the merit of the Son, when in fact there is a continuing approach through grace?

[3] "Furthermore, why do you call it a means of approach to God the Father for the sake of the Son, and not to God the Father through the Son? Is not the Son the Mediator and Savior? Why do you not approach the Mediator and Savior Himself? Is He not God and man? Who on earth goes directly to some emperor, king, or prince? Must one not find a deputy or someone to introduce him? Do you not know that the Lord came into the world to Himself introduce people to the Father, and that the only means of approach is through Him? Search the Scripture now, and you will see that this accords with it, and that your way to the Father is as contrary to Scripture as it is contrary to reason. I say to you also that it is an act of impudence to climb up to God the Father directly 1 and not through Him who is in the bosom of the Father 2 and who alone is in Him. 3 Have you not read John 14:6?" 4

When he heard this, the elderly man became so angry that he leapt from his chair and shouted to his clerks to throw me out. And when I immediately left of my own accord, he threw out through the exit after me a book that his hand chanced upon, and that book was the Word.

[4] The second event: After I left, I heard the noise again, but this time it sounded like the noise of two millstones crashing into each other. I went in the direction of the sound and it died away, and I saw a narrow entryway leading gradually down to a kind of domed building divided into little compartments, in each of which two men were sitting, who were also collecting from the Word proof texts in support of faith. One of them would find them, and the other would write them down, and this by turns.

I went to one of the compartments and, standing in the doorway, asked, "What texts are you collecting and writing down?"

They said, "Texts about the act of justification or faith in act, which is faith itself, justifying, vivifying and saving - the principal tenet of doctrine in Christianity."

And at that I said to one of them, "Tell me some sign of the act when that faith is introduced into a person's heart and soul."

He replied, "A sign of the act exists the moment a person is moved, by grief at his being damned, to think about Christ as having taken away the condemnation of the Law, and when, conscious of that merit of Christ, with confidence in it, he turns with it in mind to God the Father and prays."

[5] "So that is how the act occurs," I said then, "and that is the moment."

And I asked, "How am I to understand what we are told about the act, that nothing in a person cooperates with it any more than if he were a stock or a stone? Or that as regards the act a person cannot initiate, will, understand, think, do, or contribute anything to it, and cannot conform or accommodate himself to it?

"Tell me how this agrees with what you said, that the act happens when a person thinks about the judgment of the Law, about his damnation having been taken away by Christ, about the confidence with which he is conscious of that merit of Christ, and with it in mind turns to God the Father and prays? Does the person not do all these things as though of himself?"

But he said, "The person does not do them actively, but passively."

[6] And I replied, "How can anyone think, have confidence, and pray passively? Take away a person's active or reactive participation - do you not also take away his receptivity, thus everything his own, and with that the act as well? What then does that act of yours become but something purely theoretical, which we call a figment of the imagination?

"I know that you do not believe in agreement with some that an act of this kind is possible only with those people predestined to it, who are not at all aware of the infusion of faith in them. These may as well cast dice to find out if it has occurred.

"Therefore believe, my friend, that in matters of faith a person operates and cooperates as though of himself, and that without that cooperation the act of faith, which you call the principal tenet of doctrine and religion, is no more than the pillar into which Lot's wife was turned, having the faint sound of nothing but salt when scratched with a writer's pen or fingernail (Luke 17:32 5 ). I say this because as regards that act you makes yourselves to be like statues."

When I said that, the man arose and picked up the lamp violently to throw it at my face. But suddenly then the lamp went out and the room became dark, so that he hurled it at the forehead of his companion. And I went away laughing.

[7] The third event: I heard in the northern zone of the spiritual world what sounded like the rushing of water. I went therefore in that direction, and when I drew near, the rushing sound stopped, and I heard what sounded like a gathering of people. Moreover a house full of holes then appeared, surrounded by a wall, from which I heard the sound coming. I approached and found there a doorkeeper, and I asked him who were inside. He said that they were the wisest of the wise, who were coming to conclusions together about metaphysical subjects.

He spoke as he did out of the simplicity of his faith, and I asked if I might be permitted to enter. He said that I could, provided that I not say anything.

"I can let you in," he said, "because I have permission to let in the gentiles here who are standing with me at the door."

I went in therefore, and lo, I found an amphitheater with a rostrum in the middle of it, and the company of the so-called wise were discussing mysteries of faith. The matter or proposition submitted for discussion then was whether the good that a person does in a state of justification by faith, or in the progress of that state after the act, constitutes the good of religion or not. They were unanimous in saying that the good of religion means good that contributes to salvation.

[8] It was an acrimonious discussion, but those prevailed who said that any good that a person does in a state of faith or its progression is only moral, civic, or political good, which contributes nothing to salvation, but that only faith contributes anything. They established this as follows:

"How can any work of man be coupled with something free? Is not salvation bestowed gratis? How can any good work of man be coupled with the merit of Christ? Is not Christ's merit the only means of salvation? And how can any operation of man be coupled with the operation of the Holy Spirit? Does not the Holy Spirit accomplish everything without the help of man? Are not these three elements the only saving ones in any act of faith? And not do these three also continue to be the only saving ones in the state or progression of faith?

"Therefore any additional good that a person does can by no means be called a good of religion, a good which, as we said, contributes to salvation. If, however, someone does that good for the sake of salvation, it must rather be called an evil of religion."

[9] Two of the gentiles were standing by the doorkeeper in the vestibule, and having heard this, they said to each other, "These people do not have any religion. Who does not see that to do good to the neighbor for God's sake, thus in association with God and impelled by God, is what we call religion." And one of them said, "Their faith has made them foolish." And they asked the doorkeeper who the people were.

The doorkeeper said, "They are wise Christians."

To which they replied, "Nonsense. You are wrong. They are buffoons. That is how they talk."

I then went away. And when after a time I looked back at the place where the house had stood, behold, it was a marsh.

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[10] These events that I saw and heard, I saw and heard while awake in both body and spirit, for the Lord has so united my spirit to my body that I am present in both simultaneously.

My visiting those houses, and the people's deliberations on those matters then, and its happening as described, came about under the Lord's Divine auspices.

Footnotes:

1. Cf. John 10:1.

2. John 1:18.

3. John 10:38.

4. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.

5. "Remember Lot's wife."

  
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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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