New Christian Bible Study

Commentary

 

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 #80

Study this Passage

  
/ 853  
  

80. The fifth experience.

Once a satan was given leave to come up from hell together with a woman, and he approached the house where I was. On seeing them I shut the window, but carried on a conversation with them through it. I asked the Satan where he came from, and he said from the company of his own people.

I asked where the woman came from, and he made the same reply. She belonged to the crew of sirens. Their skill is by fantasy to put on every appearance of beauty and every adornment of dress. At one time they assume the beauty of Venus, at another the charm of countenance of a Muse, at another they deck themselves like queens in crowns and robes, and pace in regal fashion leaning on silver staves. Such women in the spiritual world are prostitutes and specialise in fantasy. They induce fantasies by thinking sensually, which blocks any ideas from a more inward mode of thinking.

I asked the Satan if she was his wife. 'What is a wife?' he replied. 'This is a term unknown to me and my community; she is my woman.' Then she roused her man's lewdness, a thing these sirens are skilled in doing. On feeling this he kissed her, saying, 'Oh my Adonis!'

[2] But to more serious matters. I asked the Satan what was his calling. 'My calling,' he said, 'is learning; don't you see the laurel wreath on my head? 'This his Adonis had conjured up by her magic arts and put on his head from behind.

'Since you come from a community,' I said, 'where there are schools of learning, tell me what you and your companions believe about God.' 'God,' he replied, 'is for us the universe, which we also call nature. Simple folk in our country call it the atmosphere, by which they mean the air; but the intelligent mean the atmosphere which is also the ether. God, heaven, angels and the like, the subject of many tales in this world, are idle words and fictions inspired by meteors, which many people here have seen flash before their eyes. Is not everything to be seen upon earth the creation of the sun? Every time it approaches in springtime are not insects born, with and without wings? Does not its heat make birds love each other and reproduce? And does not the earth, warmed by its heat, cause seed to sprout and produce fruits as its offspring? Does this not mean that the universe is God, and nature a goddess, and she as the wife of the universe conceives, bears, rears and nurtures these things?'

[3] I went on to ask what he and his community believed about religion. 'We who are educated above the ordinary level,' he replied, 'look on religion as nothing but a toy for the common people. The sensory and imaginative areas of their minds are surrounded with a sort of aura, in which religious ideas flit about like butterflies in the air. Their faith, which links these ideas into a sort of chain, resembles a silk-worm in its cocoon, from which the king of butterflies flutters forth. For the uneducated masses love images which rise above the bodily senses and the thoughts they engender, because they have a longing to fly. So they make themselves wings, so that they can soar like eagles and show off in front of the earth-bound, saying, 'Look at me!' We, however, believe what we see and love what we touch.' At this he touched his woman, saying, 'This I believe, because I see and touch it. But we throw all that sort of rubbish out of our windows of mica, and waft it away on a gale of laughter.'

[4] Then I asked his opinion and that of his companions on heaven and hell. He laughed and said: 'What is heaven but the ethereal firmament on high? What are angels but spots wandering round the sun? What are archangels but comets with their long tails, on which their company lives? What is hell but marshland full of frogs and crocodiles, which their imagination turns into devils? Everything but these ideas of heaven and hell is mere nonsense, thought up by some church dignitary to seek fame among an ignorant populace.'

He said all this exactly as he had thought in the world, unaware that he was living after death, and forgetful of everything he had been told when he first entered the world of spirits. Therefore even when asked about life after death, he replied that it was a figment of the imagination, but there might perhaps be some effluvium given off by the corpse in the grave in shape resembling a person, or something like the ghosts which some tell tales about, and this had led people to fantasise on the subject.

[5] On hearing this I could no longer stop myself bursting out laughing. 'Satan,' I said, 'you really are mad. What are you now? Are you not in shape like a person? Don't you talk, see, hear and walk? Remember that you lived in another world, which you have forgotten, and now you are alive after death, yet have been speaking exactly as you did before you died.'

He was given back his memory, and on remembering he was ashamed and cried: 'I am mad. I have seen heaven up above, and heard angels there speak things beyond description. But this was when I was a recent arrival. Now I shall remember this to tell the companions I left behind, and then perhaps they will be ashamed too.' He had it on the tip of his tongue to call them mad, but as he went down forgetfulness blotted out his memory, so that on arrival he was as mad as they were, and called what I had told him madness.

Such is the state of thought and conversation among satans after death. The name of satans is given to those who have convinced themselves of falsities until they completely believe them, and the name of devils to those who have fostered evils in their characters by living a wicked life.

  
/ 853  
  

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

True Christian Religion #385

Study this Passage

  
/ 853  
  

385. I shall here add accounts of some experiences, of which this is the first.

An angel once said to me: 'You want to see clearly what faith and charity are, and so what faith is when separated from charity, and what it is when joined to charity; I will give you a visual demonstration.'

'Please do,' I replied.

'Instead of faith and charity,' he said, 'think of light and heat, and you will see clearly. Faith in its essence is truth belonging to wisdom, and charity in its essence is affection belonging to love. In heaven truth belonging to wisdom is light, and affection belonging to love is heat. The light and heat the angels enjoy are essentially this and nothing else. From this you can see clearly what faith separated from charity is like, and what faith joined to charity is like. Faith separated from charity is like light in wintertime, and faith joined to charity is like light in springtime. Light in wintertime, being light without heat but combined with cold, completely strips the trees of their leaves, kills off the grass, makes the ground hard and freezes water. But light in springtime, being light combined with heat, makes the trees grow, putting forth first leaves, then flowers, and finally fruits; it opens up and softens the ground, to bring forth grass, plants, flowers and shrubs, and it also melts the ice so that water flows from springs.

[2] 'It is exactly the same with faith and charity: faith separated from charity makes everything die off, and faith combined with charity makes everything come to life. This coming to life, as well as that dying off, can be seen actually happening in our world, the spiritual one, because here faith is light and charity is heat. For where faith is combined with charity, there are parkland gardens, flower-gardens and shrubberies, the more beautiful, the more closely they are combined. But where faith is separated from charity, not so much as grass grows; and any patch of greenery is produced by thorns and briars.'

Not far off were standing some clergymen, whom the angel called believers in men's justification and sanctification by faith alone, as well as mystery-mongers. We told them the same and demonstrated it to them so that they could see that it was so. When we asked whether it was not so, they turned their backs and said, 'We did not hear.' But we shouted at them and said, 'So listen to it again.' However, then they put both hands over their ears and cried: 'We do not want to hear.'

[3] After hearing this I spoke with the angel about faith on its own and said that I had been allowed to know by personal experience that that sort of faith is like the light of wintertime. I told him how for some years past spirits who had different kinds of faith had passed by me; and whenever those who had separated faith from charity came near, such a chill attacked my feet, and then by degrees my loins and finally my chest, that I hardly knew otherwise than that all the vitality in my body was going to be extinguished. This would actually have happened, if the Lord had not driven those spirits away and freed me.

It seemed to me surprising that those spirits did not in themselves feel any chill, as they admitted. So I compared them to fish under ice, for they too do not feel any chill, since their life and thus their nature is essentially so cold. I perceived then that this chill spread from the deceptive light of their faith, much like that which rises after sunset from marshy and sulphurous ground in midwinter. Travellers in all parts see this deceptive, cold light.

They can be compared with the icebergs which are torn from their places in arctic lands and are carried hither and thither on the ocean. Of these I have heard it said, that on their approach the crews of ships all shiver with cold. Groups of spirits whose faith is separated from charity can therefore be likened to these icebergs, and if you like you can so call them.

It is well known from the Word that faith without charity is dead; but I will say why it dies. It dies of cold, and this kills off faith like a bird in a severe winter. First of all its sight goes, and at the same time its ability to fly; finally its breathing stops, and it falls headlong off the branch into a snowy grave.

  
/ 853  
  

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

©2024 New Christian Bible Study Corporation. All rights reserved. Printed from newchristianbiblestudy.org