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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 #731

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731. 1 I once saw an angel flying under the eastern heaven holding a trumpet to his mouth with his hand, and sounding a blast towards the north, the west and the south. He was wearing a cloak which trailed behind him as he flew. He wore a sash studded with rubies and sapphires so that it flamed and shone. He flew head first, and alighted gently on the ground near where I was. On landing he walked upright on his feet, going in different directions, and then on seeing me came towards me. I was in the spirit, and in that state was standing on a hill in the southern quarter.

When he was near, I spoke to him and asked: 'What is happening now? I heard the sound of your trumpet, and saw you come down through the air.'

'I have been sent,' the angel replied, 'to summon the most famous for their learning, the most perceptive minds and the names most renowned for wisdom, who come from Christian lands and are in this region, to meet together on this hill, where you are now standing, and to speak their minds, stating what, when in the world, they had thought, understood and regarded as wisdom on the subject of heavenly joy and everlasting happiness.

[2] 'The reason for my mission is that some new arrivals from the world, who have been admitted to our heavenly community in the east, have reported that not a single person in the whole of Christendom knows what heavenly joy and everlasting happiness are, and so what heaven is. My brethren and colleagues were very surprised at this and told me to go down, make proclamation and summon the wisest people in the world of spirits, the place where all mortals are first gathered together on leaving the natural world, so that we can be informed by a number of voices, whether it is true that Christians are in such dense darkness and deep ignorance about the life to come. Wait a little while,' he said, 'and you will see the groups of wise men arriving here; the Lord will prepare a hall for their meeting.'

[3] I waited and after half an hour I saw two parties coming from the north, two from the west, and two from the south. The angel with the trumpet took them into the hall which had been prepared, and there they occupied the places assigned to them in accordance with the quarter they came from. There were six groups or parties; there was a seventh from the east, but the light rendered them invisible to the rest. When they were assembled, the angel revealed the reason they had been summoned, and asked the groups in turn to set forth their wisdom on the subject of heavenly joy and everlasting happiness. Then each group formed a circle with faces turned in towards one another, so that they could recall the ideas they had had about it in the previous world, discuss them, and after discussion could report on them.

Footnotes:

1. The passage 731-752 is repeated from Conjugial Love 2-25.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

True Christian Religion #77

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77. The second experience.

One morning on waking from sleep, I was meditating in the light of a fine dawn before being fully awake, when I saw through the window what looked like a flash of lightning, and soon afterwards heard what sounded like a peal of thunder. I wondered where it had come from, but I was told from heaven that there were some people near me who were engaged in a furious dispute about God and nature, and the flash of light like lightning and the roaring in the air like thunder were correspondences, which presented the appearance of a battle and clash of arguments, with one side speaking in favour of God, the other of nature.

This spiritual battle had started like this. There were some satans in hell who said to one another: 'If only we were allowed to talk to the angels in heaven, we should prove to them fully and completely that what they call God, the source of everything, is nature, and God is no more than an expression, unless by it we mean nature.' Since those satans deeply and whole-heartedly believed that, and were so keen to talk with the angels in heaven, they were permitted to climb out of the mud and darkness of hell, and talk with two angels who came down from heaven. They met in the world of spirits, which lies midway between heaven and hell.

[2] The satans on seeing the angels rushed up to them and shouted in a furious tone: 'Are you the angels from heaven with whom we can meet to debate God and nature? You call yourselves wise because you acknowledge God, but oh how simple you are! Who has ever seen God? Who understands what God is? Who can comprehend the idea that God rules, and can control the universe and all its parts? Does anyone but the common people and the crowd acknowledge what they cannot see and understand? What is more obvious than that nature is all in all? What else can the eye see but nature? What has the ear ever heard but nature? What else has the nose smelt? What else has the tongue tasted? What else has anyone felt by the touch of his hand or body? Are not the bodily senses our factual witnesses? On their evidence anyone can swear that a thing is so. Is not breathing, which keeps our bodies alive, evidence? What do we breathe but nature? Are not our heads, and yours, in nature? and from where do our thoughts come into our heads but from nature? Take away nature and you cannot think at all.' Much more was said of the same sort.

[3] On hearing this the angels replied: 'You talk like that because you are wholly under the influence of the senses. All in hell have their mental ideas so sunk in the bodily senses that they cannot lift their minds above that level. So we forgive you. A life of evil leading to a belief in falsity has so shut off the interiors of your minds that it is impossible for them to be lifted above the sensual level, except in a state where you are distant from the evils of your lives and your false beliefs. For a Satan can understand truth just as well as an angel when he hears it, but he does not retain it, because evil obliterates truth and substitutes falsity. But we observe that you are now in that distanced state, so that you can understand the truth we are telling you. So pay attention to what we are about to say.

'You lived,' they said, 'in the natural world and there you died, and you are now in the spiritual world. Did you know anything before about life after death? Surely you denied its existence and put yourselves on a level with animals. Did you know anything before about heaven and hell, or about light and heat in this world? Or the fact that you are no longer within nature, but above it? For this world and everything in it is spiritual, and the spiritual is so far above the natural that nature, in which you lived, cannot exert the slightest influence on this world. But you, because you believed that nature was a god or goddess, still believe that the light and heat of this world are identical with the light and heat of the natural world; they are not in the slightest, for natural light is here darkness, and natural heat here is cold. Did you know anything about the sun of this world, the source of our light and heat? Did you know that this sun is pure love, and the sun of the natural world is pure fire? That the sun of the world, which is pure fire, is the source from which nature came into and continues in being? And that the sun of heaven, which is pure love, is the source from which life itself, which is love together with wisdom, comes into and continues in being? So nature, which you make into a god or a goddess, is completely lifeless?

[4] 'You can, if given protection, come up with us to heaven; and we can, if given protection, go down with you into hell. In heaven you will see magnificent and splendid sights, in hell foul and filthy ones. The reason for the difference is that in heaven all worship God, in hell all worship nature. Those magnificent and splendid sights in the heavens are the correspondences of the affections of the love of good and truth; but the foul and filthy sights in hell are correspondences of the affections of the love of evil and falsity. From both these facts you can form a conclusion whether God or nature is all in all.'

To this the satans replied: 'In our present state we can draw the conclusion from what we have heard that there is a God. But when the delight of evil takes hold of our minds, then we can see nothing but nature.'

[5] The two angels and the satans were standing not far from me, so that I saw and heard them. Around them suddenly I saw a large number of people who had been distinguished by their learning in the natural world. I was surprised to see these learned men standing at one moment next to the angels, at another next to the satans, and applauding the party they stood next to. I was told that their changes of position were changes in their mental states, as they favoured one side or the other; for in their belief they were as inconstant as weathercocks 1 . 'And we will tell you a secret,' they went on. 'We looked down to earth to see those distinguished for their learning and we found six hundred out of a thousand on the side of nature, and the rest on the side of God. And those who were on God's side, because they spoke not from the understanding but only repeating what they had been told, kept saying that nature came from God. Keeping on saying a thing from memory or recall, while not at the same time prompted by thought and intelligence, produces the outward look of faith.'

[6] After this the satans were given protection and went up with the two angels into heaven, and saw magnificent and splendid sights. Then being enlightened by the light of heaven they there acknowledged that there is a God, and that nature was created to minister to life, which comes from God; that nature is in itself lifeless and so does nothing of itself, but is acted upon by life. When they had seen these sights and experienced these perceptions, they went down; and as they came down, their love of evil returned and shut off their understanding above, and opened it underneath. Then there appeared above it what looked like a small cloud flashing with hellish fire. The moment their feet touched the earth, the ground yawned open beneath them, and they fell back down to their own kind.

Footnotes:

1. Latin vertumnus, the name of a god of change, but here apparently used for figures which are constantly changing.

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

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