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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

 

True Christian Religion #504

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504. The second experience.

I was once, while in the world of spirits, given the inward spiritual sight enjoyed by the angels of the higher heaven; and I saw two spirits not far from me, though some distance apart. I could tell that one of them loved good and truth, which linked him with heaven, and the other loved evil and falsity, which linked him with hell. I approached and called them to me, and from the sound of their voices and their replies I gathered that they were each equally able to perceive truths, and acknowledge them when perceived, to use their understanding to think about them, and to direct their intellectual processes as they pleased, and the motions of their will as they liked; in other words each enjoyed similar free will on the rational level. Moreover I noticed that as a result of that free will there appeared in their minds a glow which extended from the first vision, that of perception, to the last, that of the eye.

[2] But when the one who loved evil and falsity was left alone to think, I observed something like smoke rising from hell and putting out the glow above the level of the memory, so that he was in thick darkness as of midnight. This smoke caught fire and burned like a flame lighting up the region of his mind below the level of memory; this caused him to think of extraordinary falsities arising from the evils of self-love. When the other, however, the one who loved good and truth, was left alone, I saw a gentle flame flowing down on him from heaven, which lit up the region of his mind above the level of memory, and the region below this as well right down to the level of the eye. The light from this flame shone brighter and brighter as his love for good led him to perceive and think of truth. These sights showed me plainly that everyone, wicked as well as good, enjoys spiritual free will, but that hell sometimes blots it out in the case of the wicked, and heaven enhances it and makes it burn brighter in the case of the good.

[3] After this I talked with each of them, first with the one who loved evil and falsity. I had asked something about his experiences, but he was incensed when I mentioned free will. 'What madness it is,' he said, 'to believe that man has free will in spiritual matters! Can any human being help himself to faith and do good of himself? Does not the priesthood at the present time teach what the Word says, that no one can acquire anything unless it is given him from heaven? The Lord Christ said to His disciples, 'Without me you can do nothing.' To this I would add, that no one can move his foot or his hand to do any good action, nor move his tongue to utter any truth derived from good. The church therefore under the guidance of its wise men came to the conclusion that man is unable to will, understand or think about anything spiritual, not even to fit himself to willing, understanding or thinking about it, any more than a statue, a block of wood or a stone; and that therefore God, who alone has the freest and unlimited power, at His good pleasure breathes faith into man, and this, without any action or power on our part, by the working of the Holy Spirit produces all the effects which the uneducated attribute to man.'

[4] Then I talked with the other spirit, the one who loved good and truth, and when I had asked something about his experiences, I mentioned free will. 'What madness it is,' he said, 'to deny that man has free will in spiritual matters! Is there anyone who is unable to will and do good, and to think about and speak truth of himself, which he draws from the Word, and so from the Lord who is the Word? For He said: "Bring forth good fruit" and "Believe in the light," as well as "Love one another" and "Love God;" or again "He who hears and keeps my commandments loves me, and I will love him;" not to mention thousands of similar things throughout the Word. So what use then would the Word be, if man could will and think nothing, and so do and speak nothing that is prescribed in it? If man did not have that ability, what would religion and the church be but a shipwreck lying at the bottom of the sea, with the ship-master standing on top of the mast, shouting. 'There's nothing I can do,' while he watches the rest of the crew hoist sail in the life-boats and sail away. Was not Adam given freedom to eat from the tree of life and also from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? And because in his freedom he ate from the latter tree, smoke from the serpent, that is, from hell, entered his mind, and on account of that he was expelled from paradise and cursed. Yet even still he did not lose his free will, for we read that the route to the tree of life was guarded by a cherub, because if that had not been done, he could still have wished to eat from it.'

[5] When he said this, the other spirit who loved evil and falsity said: 'I reject what I have just heard, and keep in my mind what I suggested myself. Surely everyone knows that it is only God who is alive and so is active, and man is of himself dead, and so is purely passive? How could someone like this, who in himself is dead and purely passive, take to himself what is alive and active?'

My reply to this was: 'Man is an instrument for life; and God alone is life. God pours His life into the instrument and all its parts, just as the sun pours its heat into a tree and all its parts. God allows man to feel that life in himself as if it were his own; and God wants man to feel this so that man may, as it were of himself, live in accordance with the laws of order, which are as many as there are commandments in the Word; and so that he may put himself into a suitable state of mind to receive the love of God. Still God continually keeps His finger on the pointer of the balance, and controls it, without, however, violating free will by compulsion.

[6] 'A tree is unable to receive anything that the sun's heat supplies through its root, unless every single fibre in it is warmed and heated. Nor can elements rise up through the root, unless every single fibre passes on the heat it has received and thus contributes to the transport. Man behaves in like fashion with the vital heat he receives from God, but in distinction from a tree he feels the heat as his own, though it is not his. To the extent that he believes it is his and not God's, he receives vital light though not the heat of love from God, but the heat of love from hell. Since this is gross, it obstructs and closes the finer ramifications of the instrument, just as impure blood does the capillary vessels of the body. In this way a person turns himself from being spiritual into a purely natural man.

[7] 'Man's free will is derived from his feeling the life in him as his own, and God's leaving him to feel like this so that linking may take place. This linking is impossible unless it is reciprocal, and it becomes so when a person freely acts as if of himself. If God had not left man to do this, man would not be man, nor could he have everlasting life. For it is the reciprocal link with God which makes man a man rather than an animal, and allows him after death to live for ever. This is the result of free will in spiritual matters.'

[8] On hearing this the wicked spirit took himself off to a distance, and I then saw a flying serpent, of the sort called prester 1 , on a certain tree, offering someone fruit from it. In the spirit I approached the place, and saw there in place of the serpent a monstrous man, whose face was so covered in beard that only his nose stuck out; and instead of the tree there was a lighted fire-brand, near which he stood. The smoke had previously penetrated his mind, and after that he rejected the idea of free will in spiritual matters. Suddenly similar smoke came out of the fire-brand and surrounded both it and the man. Since they were thus lost to view, I went away. But the other spirit, who loved good and truth and insisted that man has free will in spiritual matters, accompanied me home.

Footnotes:

1. Or 'fiery serpent'.

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

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