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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 #846

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846. 1 I was once carried up in my spirit to the heaven of angels, and to one community there. Then some of their wise men came to me asking, 'What is the news from earth?' I told them that the news is that the Lord has revealed secrets far exceeding in excellence any so far revealed since the church began.

'What are these?' they asked. I said that they are: (1) In every detail the Word contains a spiritual sense corresponding to the natural sense, and by means of that sense the Word forms a link between people in the church and the Lord; it also creates an association with angels, and the holiness of the Word resides in that sense.

[2] (2) The correspondences of which the spiritual sense is composed have been disclosed. 'Did not the inhabitants of the earth,' asked the angels, 'previously know about correspondences?' I told them that they knew nothing at all and these had been lost to sight for thousands of years, in fact, since the time of Job. The people of that and previous ages regarded a knowledge of correspondences as the supreme science, and it was the source of their wisdom, because it was knowledge of spiritual matters to do with heaven and the church. But because the science turned into an idolatrous one, it was by the Lord's Divine providence so wiped out and lost that no one could see any trace of it. Now, however, it has been disclosed by the Lord, so that people belonging to the church may be linked with Him and associated with angels. Both of these take place by means of the Word, every detail of which is a correspondence.

The angels were extremely happy that it has pleased the Lord to reveal this great secret, which has lain so deeply hidden for thousands of years. They said that the reason it was done was in order that the Christian church, which is based upon the Word and is now at its end, should be revived and draw breath from the Lord through heaven. They enquired whether by this science it had been disclosed what was the meaning of baptism and the Holy Supper, which up to now have been the subject of so many speculations. I replied that it had.

[3] (3) I went on to say that at the present time the Lord had made a revelation about people's life after death. 'What about life after death?' said the angels. 'Surely everyone knows that a person lives after death?'

'They do and they do not,' I replied. 'They say that what lives on is not the person, but his soul, and this lives as a spirit. Their notion of a spirit is that it is like the wind or the ether; and they say that the person will only live after Judgment Day. At that time their bodily remains which they left in the world, however eaten away by worms, rats or fish, will be gathered together again and reconstructed to form a body; and this is how people will be brought to life again.'

'What an idea!' said the angels. 'Everyone knows that a person goes on living as a person after death, with the single difference that then he lives as a substantial and not as before as a material person. A substantial person can see another substantial person, just as much as a material person can see another material person. They are unaware of any difference, except that they are in a more perfect state.'

[4] (4) The angels asked, 'What do they know of our world and about heaven and hell?' I replied that they know nothing, but that at the present time the Lord had disclosed what the world is like where the angels and spirits live, and so what heaven and hell are like. It had also been revealed that angels and spirits are linked with human beings, and many other surprising facts. The angels were glad that the Lord had been pleased to disclose such matters, so that mankind should no longer be impelled by ignorance to doubt its own immortality.

[5] (5) I went on to speak of another matter revealed by the Lord at the present time. 'Your world has a different sun from ours. The sun of your world is pure love, the sun of our world is pure fire. Consequently all the radiation from your sun, since it is pure love, has something of life in it; all the radiation from ours, since it is pure fire, has no life in it. This is the origin of the distinction between spiritual and natural, a distinction up to now unknown, which has also been disclosed. From these facts it has become known what is the source of the light which enlightens the human understanding with wisdom, and what is the source of the heat, which fires the human will with love.

[6] (6) 'In addition it has been disclosed that there are three degrees of life, and that there are consequently three heavens, and a person's mind is divided into those three degrees. A person as a result corresponds to the three heavens.' 'Did they not know this before?' said the angels. I replied that they knew about degrees between greater and less, but nothing about degrees between prior and posterior.

[7] (7) The angel asked whether there had been more revelations than these. I said there had. These were about the Last judgment, and the Lord as being the God of heaven and earth; that God is one both in person and in essence, and in Him is the Divine Trinity, and He is the Lord. Other revelations were about the new church to be established by the Lord and the teaching of that church; about the holiness of the Sacred Scripture; the Book of Revelation too had been revealed; moreover, about the inhabitants of the planets and the other earths elsewhere in the universe. Further many wonders and accounts of experiences had been reported from the spiritual world, by means of which a great deal of wisdom from heaven had been disclosed.

Footnotes:

1. This and the following sections are largely repeated from Conjugial Love 532-535.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

True Christian Religion #662

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662. 1 The second experience.

Some time later I went into a park and walked there reflecting on those who have a longing to possess worldly goods and so imagine that they do. Then I saw at some distance from me two angels in conversation, who from time to time looked towards me. So I went nearer, and as I approached they addressed me and said: 'We have an inward perception that you are reflecting upon what we are talking about, or that we are talking about what you are reflecting on, which is the result of the reciprocal communication of affections.'

So I asked what they were talking about. 'About imagination,' they said, 'longing and intelligence; and now about those who delight in day-dreaming and imagining they possess everything in the world.'

[2] So I asked them to reveal their thoughts on these three topics, longing, imagination and intelligence.

They began their reply by saying that everyone inwardly by birth has longings, but outwardly acquires intelligence by education. No one has intelligence, much less wisdom, inwardly, that is, in respect of his spirit, except from the Lord. 'For everyone,' they said, 'is restrained from longing for evil, and is kept in intelligence in proportion to the extent he looks to the Lord and at the same time is linked with Him. Failing this, a person is nothing but longing; yet in externals, that is, as regards the body, he has intelligence as the result of education. A person longs for honours and riches, or to be eminent and wealthy; and these two goals cannot be achieved unless he appears well-behaved and spiritual, and so intelligent and wise. So from childhood he learns to appear thus. This is why, as soon as he mixes with people or attends a meeting, he reverses his spirit, switching it away from longing, and speaking and acting in accordance with the principles of decency and honour which he learned from childhood and retains in his bodily memory. He also takes the greatest care to see that nothing of the mad longing of his spirit slips out.

[3] Thus everyone, who is not inwardly guided by the Lord, is a pretender, a sycophant and hypocrite, appearing to be a human being without being one. Of him it can be said that his shell or body is wise, his kernel or spirit is mad; that his external is human, his internal that of a wild beast. Such people go about with the back of their heads pointing upwards, and downwards with the front, so that they are weighed down by their burden, with their heads hanging down, their gaze fastened on the ground. When they put off their bodies, becoming spirits and being set free, they turn into what their own mad longings are. For those who are ruled by self-love long to be masters of the universe, or even to extend its limits so as to have wider sway, for they can see no end to it. Those ruled by love of the world long to possess everything in it, and are grieved and envious if anyone has any treasures stored away in secret. So to prevent such people from turning into sheer longings and losing their humanity, they are allowed in the spiritual world to have their thoughts influenced by fear of losing their reputation, and so their honours and profit, as well as by fear of the law and its penalties. They are also allowed to concentrate their mind on some study or task, so that they are kept in externals and so in a state of intelligence, however much inwardly they rave and behave like madmen.'

[4] After this I asked whether all who have this longing also suffer from the delusion that they do possess worldly goods. They replied that the people who suffer from this delusion are those who think inwardly about it and over-indulge their imagination, talking to themselves about it. These people come close to separating their spirit from its link with the body; they swamp the understanding by day-dreaming, and indulge in the empty pleasure of imagining they possess everything. A person is after death the victim of this madness, if he has withdrawn his spirit from the body, and has not been willing to retreat from the delight his madness gives him. He thinks little from a religious point of view about evils and falsities, and hardly anything about unrestrained self-love as being destructive of love to the Lord, and unrestrained love of the world as being destructive of love towards the neighbour.

[5] After this the two angels and I felt a desire to see those who suffer from this imaginary longing, or delusion that they possess the wealth of all as the result of love of the world. We perceived that this desire came upon us in order that we should get to know these people. Their homes were under the ground on which we stood, but above hell. So we looked at one another and said: 'Let us go.' We saw an opening and some steps, so we went down them. We were told to approach them from the east, to avoid entering the cloud of their delusion and putting our understandings in shadow, which would at the same time obscure our sight.

Suddenly we caught sight of a building made of reeds, and therefore full of chinks, standing in the cloud, which continually seeped out like smoke from the chinks in three of the walls. We went in and saw fifty on one side and fifty on the other, sitting on benches. They had their backs to the east and south and faced the west and north. Each had a table in front of him with bulging money-bags on it, and around the bags piles of gold coins.

[6] 'Are those,' we asked each, 'the wealth of all in the world?'

'Not all in the world,' they said, 'but all in the kingdom.' Their speech sounded like a whistle, and they themselves had round faces which had a ruddy look like the shell of a snail. The pupils of their eyes seemed to sparkle against a green background; this was caused by the light of their delusion.

We took up a position in between them and said: 'Do you believe that you possess all the wealth of the kingdom?' 'Yes,' they replied.

Then we asked: 'Which one of you possesses this?' 'Each of us,' they said.

'How can you each possess this?' we asked. 'There are many of you.'

'We each of us,' they said, 'know that everything that belongs to another is ours. We are not allowed to think, much less say, "What is mine is not yours," but we are allowed to think and say, "What is yours is mine."'

Even to our eyes the coins on the tables looked as if made of pure gold. But when we let in light from the east, they turned out to be small particles of gold which they had magnified to such an extent by means of shared joint delusion. They said that anyone who comes in has to bring with him some gold, which they cut up into pieces, and these into small particles, and these they then magnify by concentrating their delusive powers with one intention, to make them look like coins of the larger sort.

[7] Then we said: 'Were you not born rational human beings? Where have you acquired that foolish fancy?'

'We know,' they said, 'that our vanity is fanciful, but because it pleases the interiors of our minds, we come in here and are delighted by seeming to possess everyone's wealth. But we do not stay here for more than a few hours, and having spent this time here we go out, and each time sanity returns to our minds. But still the attraction of our day-dreams from time to time comes upon us, and makes us alternate between coming in and going out, so that by turns we are wise and crazy. We know too that a harsh fate awaits those who cunningly filch other people's property.'

'What fate is that?' we asked.

'They are sucked down,' they said, ‘and thrown naked into some prison in hell, where they are obliged to work for clothing and for food, and then for a few pennies which they hoard and make their hearts' desire. But if they do harm to their companions, they have to give up some of their pennies as a fine.'

Footnotes:

1. This section is repeated from Conjugial Love 267-268.

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

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