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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 #695

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695. The fourth experience.

Most people today who believe in a life after death also believe that in heaven their only thoughts will be devotions, their only utterances prayers, and both of these together with their facial expressions and bodily acts will be nothing but ways of glorifying God. So they imagine that the only homes they will have will be places of worship or consecrated buildings, and so they will all be priests of God. But I can solemnly state that in that life the rites of the church do not take up more of people's minds or houses than they do where God is worshipped in the world, though in a purer and more inward way. But there are to be found there all kinds of matters requiring secular attention, and all sorts of matters requiring rational learning, and these of the highest degree,

[2] One day I was carried off into heaven and brought to a society, where wise men lived who in ancient times had been distinguished for the learning they had gained from deep study and meditation on matters within the scope of reason, and which at the same time were of service. Now they were in heaven because they had believed in God, and now believed in the Lord, and they had loved the neighbour as themselves. I was subsequently taken to a meeting they held and asked where I came from. I revealed that I was in the body in the natural world, but in the spirit in their spiritual world.

These angels were delighted to hear this and kept asking: 'In the world where you are in the body what do people know and understand about inflow 1 ?'

After thinking what I could recollect on the subject from conversations and from the writings of famous people, I replied that they are still ignorant of any inflow from the spiritual world into the natural world, though they know of the inflow of nature into objects in nature. For instance, the inflow of heat and light from the sun into living bodies, and also into trees and plants, which causes them to become alive; and in the opposite case the inflow of cold into the same bodies, which causes their death. Moreover they know about the inflow of light into the eyes bringing about sight, the inflow of sound into the ears bringing about hearing, the inflow of smell into the nostrils bringing about smelling, and so on.

[3] Apart from these instances the scholars of the present time reason in different ways about the inflow from the soul into the body, and from the body into the soul. On this subject there are three theories current. One party argues whether there is an inflow from the soul into the body, which they call 'incidental' 2 because of the chance incidence of things on the bodily senses. Or they argue whether there is an inflow from the body into the soul, which they term 'physical', because objects impinge on the senses and from these on the soul. Or whether there is a simultaneous and instantaneous inflow both into the body and the soul together, to which they apply the term 'pre-established harmony'. Yet each of these parties thinks that the inflow they believe in exists inside the realm of nature.

Some people believe that the soul is a particle or drop of ether, some that it is a tiny ball or speck of heat and light, some that it is some entity hidden in the brain. But whatever it is they consider the soul to be, they call it spiritual; but by spiritual they mean something purer but natural, since they know nothing of the spiritual world and the inflow from it into the natural world, so that they remain restricted to the natural sphere. Within this they climb up and drop down, and they soar into it like eagles into the air. Those who are limited to nature are like the natives of an island in the sea who are unaware of the existence of any land but theirs; or they are like fish in a river unaware of the existence of air up above their waters. As a result when anyone mentions the existence of a world apart from theirs inhabited by angels and spirits, and describes this as the source of all inflow into human beings, as well as into trees at a more inward level, they stand astonished, as if they had been told of visions of ghosts, or of nonsense from astrologers.

[4] Apart from the philosophers, people nowadays, in the world in which I live in the body, are unable to think and talk about any other sort of inflow than that of wine into glasses, of food and drink into the stomach, of taste into the tongue, and perhaps of the inflow of air into the lungs, and so on. But if these people are told anything about the inflow from the spiritual world into the natural one, they say: 'Let it flow in, if it does; what pleasure or use is there in knowing this?' Off they go, and then afterwards on talking about what they are told about inflow, they play about with it, as some people play with pebbles, running them through their fingers.

[5] Afterwards I talked with those angels about the amazing effects caused by the inflow from the spiritual world into the natural one. For instance, we talked about the way caterpillars turn into butterflies, about bees and drones, and the astonishing things the silkworm does, and also spiders; how people on earth attribute all these things to the light and heat of the sun, and so to nature. What has often astonished me is that they use these facts to strengthen their leaning towards nature, and any such strengthening plunges their minds into sleep and oblivion, so that they become atheists.

[6] After this I related the amazing facts about plants, how they all progress from the seed in due sequence until they produce new seeds, exactly as if the earth knew how to provide and adapt its elements to the reproductive principle of the seed; and from this to bring forth a shoot, to broaden this to form a stem, to send forth branches from this, to clothe these with leaves, and later to embellish them with flowers, and beginning from their interiors to produce fruits, and by means of these produce as offspring seeds from which the plant can be born again. But because these things are always to be seen and have become familiar, usual and commonplace by constant repetition, they are not looked on as amazing, but as simply the effects of nature. People hold this view solely because they are ignorant of the existence of a spiritual world, working from within on and actuating every single thing which comes into existence and is formed in the world of nature and upon the natural earth, activating sensation and movement as the human mind does in the body. Nor do they know that every detail of nature is as it were a tunic, sheath or clothing enclosing spiritual things and serving at the lowest level to bring about the effects corresponding to the purpose of God the Creator.

Footnotes:

1. The Latin influxus is throughout this section translated 'inflow', although in some cases other translations would be more natural in English.

2. Or 'occasional'.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #752

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752. To this I will append the following account:

I was given to speak with Pope Sixtus V. 1 He came from a society in the west to my left. He told me that he had been put as chief governor over a society composed of Catholics who more than others excelled in judgment and industry. He said he had been made their chief governor because he had believed during the last half year before his death that the vicariate was an invention in order to gain dominion, and that the Lord the Savior, being God, was the only one who should be venerated and worshiped. He also said that the Holy Scripture is Divine and thus more holy than the edicts of popes. Pope Sixtus said that he had continued to believe in these two principal tenets of religion to the end of his life.

Pope Sixtus also said that their saints are of no account. He was surprised when I told him that it had been decided in council and confirmed by a bull that saints should be invoked.

He said that he led an active life as he had in the world, and that every morning he proposes to himself nine or ten things that he wishes to be accomplished by the end of the evening.

I asked him where he had obtained in so few years the great treasury he had placed in the Castelo del Angelo. He replied that he had written with his own hand to the prefects of wealthy monasteries, telling them to send him as much of their wealth as in their judgment they could, as it was for a holy purpose, and because they feared him, they sent it in abundance.

Moreover, when I said that the treasury still exists, he said, "Of what use is it now?"

[2] While speaking with him, I reported that since his time the treasury at Loreto had been immensely increased and enriched, and so, too, the treasuries in some monasteries, primarily in Spain, but not so much today as in earlier centuries. I added also that these treasuries are preserved for no other useful purpose than the pleasure of possessing them. Moreover, when I reported this, I said, too, that those who possessed them were thus like the gods of the underworld that the ancients called Plutos. 2

When I mentioned Plutos, Pope Sixtus responded, "Hush! I know."

Pope Sixtus said again that the only people admitted into the society over which he presides are those who excel in judgment, and who can accept that the Lord alone is God of heaven and earth, and that the Word is holy and Divine. Moreover, under the Lord's auspices he is perfecting that society daily, he said.

He also said that he has spoken with some so-called saints, but that they become foolish when they are told and believe that they are holy.

He even called stupid those popes and cardinals who wish to be venerated like Christ, even if they are not venerated in person, and who do not acknowledge the Word to be actually holy and Divine, which alone is what people ought to live by.

[3] Pope Sixtus wishes me to tell people who are alive today that Christ is God of heaven and earth, that the Word is holy and Divine, and that it is not the Holy Spirit that speaks through someone's mouth, but Satan, who wishes to be venerated as God.

Moreover, he said that people who do not pay attention to his words go away, as stupid, to their own kind, and after a time are cast down into hell to people who labor under the fantasy that they are gods, where the only life they have is the that of a wild animal.

At this I said, "Your words are perhaps too harsh for me to write."

But he replied, "Write them and I will sign them, because they are true."

And he went away from me then into his society and signed a copy, and sent it as a bull to other societies committed to the same religion.

Footnotes:

1. Born Felice Peretti, 1521-1590, Italian ecclesiastic, Pope 1585-1590.

2. The Roman deity Pluto, god of the underworld, was in later times often confused with the minor Greek deity Plutus (Plou'to"), god of abundance and wealth, a confusion reflected also here and elsewhere in the writer's works.

  
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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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