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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

 

Apocalypse Revealed #224

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224. To this I will add the following account:

I saw a gathering of spirits, all upon their knees, praying to God to send them angels they could speak with face to face and to whom they could disclose the thoughts of their heart.

Then when they arose, three angels appeared in white linen standing before them, and the angels said, "The Lord Jesus Christ has heard your prayers, and has therefore sent us to you. Disclose to us the thoughts of your heart."

[2] The spirits then replied, "Priests have told us that in theological matters it is not the intellect but faith that accomplishes anything, and that in such matters an intellectual faith is of no help to anyone, because it takes its origin from man.

"We are English, and we have heard many things from our sacred ministry which we believed. However, when we spoke with some other people who call themselves Reformed, and with some who call themselves Roman Catholics, and moreover with some Nonconformists, they all seemed to us learned, and yet in many matters not one of them agreed with another. But nevertheless they all said, 'Believe us.' And some said, 'We are God's ministers and we know.'

"Still we knew that the Divine truths that are called truths of faith and are the church's truths are no one's heritage by birth alone, or by heredity, but that they descend out of heaven from God. And because these show the way to heaven, and enter into one's life together with the good of charity and so lead to eternal life, we became anxious and prayed on our knees to God."

[3] At that the angels replied, "Read the Word and believe in the Lord, and you will see the truths that must be those of your faith and life. All in the Christian world draw their doctrinal teachings from the Word as from a single font."

[4] But two of the gathering of spirits said, "We have read it, but have not understood."

The angels replied, "You have not turned to the Lord, and you have also confirmed yourselves in falsities."

The angels also said further, "What is faith without light? And what is thinking without understanding? It isn't human. Ravens too and magpies can learn to speak without understanding. We can assure you that everyone whose soul longs for it can see the truths of the Word in a state of light. There is no animal that does not know the right food for its life when it sees it, and the human being is a rational and spiritual animal. If he hungers for it and seeks it from the Lord, the human being sees for his life not food for his body but food for his soul, which is the truth of faith. Moreover, whatever he does not receive with his intellect, also does not stick in his memory as a concept, but only as words. Consequently when we have looked down from heaven into the world, we have not seen anything, but have only heard sounds, mostly lacking in any harmony.

[5] "But we will list some truths that the learned of the clergy have banished from the intellect, not knowing that there are two paths to the intellect, one from the world and the other from heaven, and not knowing that the Lord raises the intellect from the world when He enlightens it. However, if the intellect is closed by religion, the path to it from heaven is closed, and a person then sees no more in the Word than a blind man sees. We have seen many of this sort fall into pits, from which they have not risen.

"Let examples serve to illustrate. You can understand what charity and faith are, can you not? That charity is to comport oneself well with the neighbor, and that faith is to think rightly about God and the essential constituents of the church? And therefore that anyone who behaves well and thinks rightly, that is, who lives rightly and believes rightly, is saved?"

In response to this the spirits said that they understood.

[6] The angels went on, "You understand, do you not, that to be saved a person must repent of his sins, and that unless a person repents, he remains caught up in the sins into which he was born? Moreover, that to repent means not to will evils because they are sins against God, and once or twice a year to examine oneself, see one's evils, confess them before the Lord, implore His aid, desist from them, and embark upon a new life? And that to the extent a person does this and believes in the Lord, his sins are forgiven?"

Then some of the gathering of spirits said, "This we understand, and so also what the forgiveness of sins is."

[7] At that the spirits then asked the angels to tell them something more, and specifically this time about God, the immortality of the soul, regeneration, and baptism.

To this the angels replied, "We shall say nothing but what you can understand. Otherwise what we say will fall like rain on sand, and however much they may be watered from heaven, any seeds there will still dry up and die."

Regarding God then they said, "People who enter heaven are all allotted a place there and accordingly come into eternal joy in accord with their idea of God, because this idea reigns universally throughout all aspects of worship.

"An idea of God as invisible is not focused on anyone, and so has no focus in anyone. Consequently it passes away and dies.

"An idea of God as a spirit, when one believes a spirit to be like the ether or a puff of wind, is an idea empty of content.

"But an idea of God as a man is a proper idea. For God is Divine love and wisdom, with every property of these, and their containing vessel is man, not ether or a puff of wind.

"The idea of God found in heaven is an idea of the Lord. He is God of heaven and earth, as He Himself taught. Let your idea of God be like ours, and we will be comrades."

When the angels said this, their faces shone.

[8] Regarding the immortality of the soul the angels said, "A person lives to eternity because through love and faith he can be conjoined with God. This is possible for everyone. You can understand that the immortality of the soul results from this possibility if you think about it a little more deeply."

[9] Regarding regeneration they said, "Who does not see that everyone has the freedom to think about God or not to think about Him, provided he has been taught that God exists. Thus everyone has just as much freedom in spiritual matters as he does in civil and moral matters. The Lord gives this freedom to all people continually. Consequently it is his fault if he does not think about God. A person is human because of this ability [to think about God], while an animal is an animal because it lacks the ability. Therefore a person can reform and regenerate himself as though of himself, provided he acknowledges at heart that the ability comes from the Lord. Everyone who repents and believes in the Lord is reformed and regenerated. A person must do both as though of himself, but the "as though of himself" comes from the Lord.

"It is true that a person can contribute nothing to this end - nothing at all - but still you were not created sculpted forms, but were created human beings, in order that you might accomplish this from the Lord as though of yourselves. This reciprocation of love and faith is the one thing that the Lord above all wishes a person to do for Him.

"In a word, do it of yourselves, but believe that you do it from the Lord, thus doing it as though of yourselves."

[10] The spirits, however, then asked the angels whether doing things as though of oneself was not something with which a person was endowed from creation.

One of the angels replied, "It is not something with which a person is endowed, because to do something of oneself is God's alone, but He grants the ability to a person continually, that is to say, He attaches it to a person continually; and then to the extent that a person does good and believes truth as though of himself, he is an angel of heaven. But to the extent that he does evil and so believes falsity, which he does also as though of himself, he is to that extent an angel of hell. You are surprised to be told that he does this also as though of himself, but yet you see it when you pray to be protected from the devil, that he not lead you astray, lest he enter into you as he entered into Judas, fill you with all iniquity, and destroy both soul and body. 1

"Still, everyone makes himself responsible for an action if he believes that he does it of himself, be it good or evil, but does not make himself responsible for it if he believes that he does it as though of himself."

[11] Regarding baptism the angels said that it was a spiritual washing, which is reformation and regeneration, and that a little child is reformed and regenerated when he becomes an adult and does the things that his sponsors promised for him, of which there are two, namely, repentance and faith in God. For his sponsors promise first that he will renounce the devil and all his works, and second that he will believe in God. All little children in heaven are initiated into these two, though for them the devil is hell and God is the Lord.

"Moreover, baptism is a sign to angels that a person belongs to the church."

[12] Having heard this, some of the gathering of spirits said, "We understand it." But a voice from the side was heard crying, "We don't understand it." And another voice, "We don't want to understand it."

The spirits then inquired into whose voices they were, and they found that they belonged to people who had confirmed themselves in the falsities of their faith, and who wished to be credited as oracles so as to be revered.

The angels said, "Do not be astonished. Such is the character of very many people today. From heaven they look to us like sculpted forms, so skillfully made that they can move their lips and make organism-like sounds, but they do not know whether the breath they use to make sounds comes from hell or from heaven, because they do not know whether anything is false or true. They reason and reason, and defend and defend, but they do not see whether anything is so.

"You should know, however, that human ingenuity can defend whatever it wishes, even to the point that it appears to be the case. Heretics, therefore, can do this. So can the impious. Atheists indeed can make it appear that there is no God, but only nature."

[13] After this the gathering of English spirits, burning with a desire to become wise, said to the angels, "People say such different things about the Holy Supper. Tell us what the truth is."

The angels said, "The truth is that anyone who turns to the Lord and repents is, by that most holy act, conjoined with the Lord and introduced into heaven."

But some of that gathering said, "This is a mystery."

To which the angels replied, "It is a mystery, but yet of the sort that one can understand.

"The bread and wine do not create the conjunction. There is no holiness in them. But material bread and heavenly bread correspond to each other, and so do material wine and heavenly wine. Heavenly bread is the holiness in love, and heavenly wine is the holiness in faith, both originating from the Lord, and both being the Lord. This occasions a conjunction of the Lord with man and of man with the Lord - a conjunction not with the bread and wine but with the love and faith of a person who has repented - and conjunction with the Lord is also an introduction into heaven."

Then, after the angels taught them something about correspondence and its effect, some of the gathering said, "Now for the first time we understand."

And when they said, "We understand," suddenly something flame-like descending with its light from heaven affiliated the spirits with the angels, and they loved each other.

Footnotes:

1. A reference to the prayer recited before Anglican celebrations of Holy Communion, the English text of which is quoted in The Doctrine of Life 5, which concludes, "Therefore if any of you be a blasphemer of God, or hinderer or slanderer of His word, or adulterer, or be in malice or envy, or in any other grievous crime, repent you of your sins, or else come not to the Holy Table; lest after the taking of that Holy Sacrament the Devil enter into you, as he entered into Judas, and fill you with all iniquities, and bring you to destruction both of body and soul."

  
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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.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

True Christian Religion #35

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35. I shall here add the following account of an experience. 1

Once I was amazed at the huge number of people who regard nature as the source of creation, and therefore of everything beneath or above the sun. When they see anything they say, and they give it heartfelt acknowledgment, 'Surely this is due to nature'; and when they are asked why, they say that this is due to nature rather than to God, when they still sometimes follow the usual view that God created nature, so that they could just as well say that what they see is due to God rather than to nature, they reply muttering almost inaudibly to themselves, 'What is God but nature?' This false belief that nature created the universe, a piece of madness they take for wisdom, makes them so puffed up that they look on all who acknowledge that God created the universe as ants, creeping along the ground, treading a worn path; and some as butterflies flying around in the air. They call their dogmas dreams, because they see things the others cannot, and they say: 'Who has ever seen God? We can all see nature.'

[2] While I was wondering at the immense number of such people, an angel came and stood beside me, saying 'What are you thinking about?'

I replied, 'How many people there are who believe that nature produces itself and is therefore the creator of the universe.'

'The whole of hell,' the angel told me, 'is composed of such people; there they are called satans and devils. Those who have formed a firm belief in nature and consequently denied the existence of God are satans; those who have spent their lives in crimes and thus banished from their hearts any acknowledgment of God are devils. But I will take you to the schools in the south-western quarter where such people who are not yet in hell live.'

So he took me by the hand and guided me. I saw some cottages containing schools and one building in their midst which seemed to be their headquarters. It was built of pitch-black stones coated with glassy plates giving the appearance of glittering gold and silver, rather like the stones called selenites or mica. Here and there were interspersed shining shells.

[3] We went up to this building and knocked. Someone quickly opened the door and made us welcome. He hurried to a table and brought us four books, saying: 'These books contain the wisdom which the majority of kingdoms approve to-day. This book contains the wisdom favoured by many in France, this by many in Germany, this by some in Holland, and this by some in Britain.' He went on: 'If you like to watch, I will make these four books shine before your eyes.' Then he poured forth and enveloped the books in the glory of his own reputation, so that at once the books shone as it were with light. But this light immediately vanished from our sight.

We asked him then what he was now writing. He replied that at present he was bringing out of his stores and displaying the very kernel of wisdom. This could by summarised as: (1) Whether nature is due to life, or life to nature; (2) whether a centre is due to an expanse, or an expanse to a centre; (3) about the centre and expanse of nature and life.

[4] So saying he sat down again at the table, while we strolled around his spacious school. He had a candle on the table, because there was no sunlight there, but only moonlight. What surprised me was that the candle seemed to roam about and cast its light; but because the wick was not trimmed it gave little light. While he was writing, we saw images of different shapes flying up from the table on to the walls. In that night-time moonlight they looked like beautiful birds from India. But as soon as we opened the door, in the sunlight of daytime they looked like nocturnal birds with net-like wings. They were apparent truths turned into fallacies by adducing proofs which he had ingeniously linked into coherent series.

[5] After seeing this we approached the table and asked him what he was now writing.

'My first proposition:' he said, 'whether nature is due to life or life to nature.' He remarked that on this point he could prove either proposition and make it appear true. But because of some lurking fear which was not explicit, he dare only prove that nature is due to life, that is to say, comes from life, and not the reverse, that life is due to, that is, comes from nature.

We asked politely what was the lurking fear he could not make explicit.

He replied that it was the fear of being called by the clergy a nature-worshipper and so an atheist, and by the laity a person of unsound mind, because both parties are either believers from blind faith or people who see that it is so by studying supporting arguments.

[6] Then our zealous indignation for the truth got the better of us and we addressed him thus: 'My friend, you are quite wrong. Your wisdom, which is no more than an ingenuity of style, has led you astray, and your desire for reputation has induced you to prove what you do not believe. Do you not know that the human mind is capable of being raised above the objects of the senses, that is to say, the thoughts engendered by the bodily senses; and when it is so raised it can see the products of life at a higher level and the products of nature below? What is life but love and wisdom? And what is nature but a receiver of love and wisdom, a means to bring about their effects or purposes? Can these be one, except as principal and instrumental? Light surely cannot be one with the eye, nor sound with the ear. What is the cause of these senses if not life, and what is the cause of their shapes if not nature? What is the human body but an organ for receiving life? Are not all its parts organically constructed to produce what love wills and the understanding thinks? Surely the body's organs spring from nature, but love and thought spring from life. Are these not quite distinct from each other? Raise the view of your mind a little higher, and you will see that emotion and thought are due to life; that emotion is due to love and thought to wisdom, and both of them are due to life, for, as has been said before, love and wisdom constitute life. If you raise your intellectual faculty a little higher still, you will see that love and wisdom could not exist unless somewhere they had a source, and that this source is Love Itself and Wisdom Itself, therefore Life Itself. These are God, who is the source of nature.'

[7] Afterwards we talked with him about his second proposition, whether the centre is due to the expanse, or the expanse to the centre. We asked his reasons for discussing this subject. He replied that it was in order to enable him to reach a conclusion about the centre and expanse of nature and life, which one was the source of the other. When we asked his opinion, he made the same reply as before, that he could prove either proposition, but for fear of losing his reputation he proved that the expanse was due to, that is to say, was the source of the centre. 'All the same,' he said, 'I know that something existed before there was a sun, and this was distributed throughout the expanse, and this of itself reduced itself to order, so creating a centre.'

[8] The zeal of our indignation made us address him again, saying: 'My friend, you are mad.' On hearing this he drew his chair back from the table and looked fearfully at us, but then listened with a smile on his face. 'What could be more crazy, 'we went on, 'than to say the centre is due to the expanse? We take your centre to mean the sun, and your expanse to be the universe; so you hold that the universe came into existence without the sun, do you? Surely the sun produces nature and all its properties, which are solely dependent upon the light and heat radiated by the sun and propagated through atmospheres? Where could these have been before there was a sun? We will explain their origin later on in the discussion. Are not the atmospheres, and everything on earth, like surfaces, the centre of which is the sun? What would become of them all without the sun? Could they last a single instant? And what of them all before there was a sun? Could they have come into existence? Is not subsistence continuous coming into existence? Since therefore the subsistence of everything in nature depends upon the sun, so must their coming into existence. Everyone can see this and acknowledge it from personal experience.

[9] Does not what is later in order subsist, just as it comes into existence, from what is earlier? If the surface were earlier and the centre later, should we not have what is earlier subsisting from what is later - something which is contrary to the laws of order? How can the later produce the earlier, or the more outward the more inward, or the grosser the purer? How then could the surfaces making up an expanse produce a centre? Anyone can see that this is contrary to the laws of nature. We have drawn these proofs from rational analysis to show that the expanse is produced by the centre, and not the reverse, although everyone who thinks correctly can see this for himself without these proofs. You said that the expanse of its own accord came together to form a centre. Did this happen by chance, that everything fell into such a wonderful and amazing order, so that one thing should be on account of the next, and every single thing on account of human beings and their everlasting life? Can nature inspired by some love and working through some wisdom have ends in view, foresee causes and so provide effects to bring such things about in due order? Can nature turn human beings into angels, build a heaven of them, and make its inhabitants live for ever? Accept these propositions and think them over; your idea of nature begetting nature will collapse.'

[10] After this we asked him what he had thought, and still did, about his third proposition, about the centre and expanse of nature and life. Did he believe that the centre and expanse of life were the same as the centre and expanse of nature?

He said that here he hesitated. He had previously believed that the inward activity of nature was life and that love and wisdom, which are the essential components of human life, come from this source. It is produced by the heat and light coming from the fire of the sun and transmitted through atmospheres. But now as the result of what he had heard about people living after death he was in doubt, a doubt which alternately lifted up and depressed his mind. When it was lifted up, he acknowledged a centre which had previously been quite unknown to him; when it was depressed he saw a centre which he thought to be the only one. Life was from the centre previously unknown to him, and nature from the centre he thought to be the only one, each centre being surrounded by an expanse.

[11] We said we approved of that, so long as he was willing to view the centre and expanse of nature from the centre and expanse of life, and not the reverse. We taught him that above the heaven of the angels there is a Sun which is pure love; it appears fiery, like the sun in the world, and the heat radiated from it is the source of will and love among angels and human beings; the light radiating from it produces their understanding and wisdom. Everything from this source is called spiritual; but the radiation from the sun of the natural world is a container or receiver of life; this is what we call natural. The expanse proper to the centre of life is called the spiritual world, and the expanse proper to the centre of nature is called the natural world, which owes its subsistence to its own sun. Now because space and time cannot be predicated of love and wisdom, but there are states instead, it follows that the expanse surrounding the sun of the heaven of angels is not a spatial extension, though it is present in the extension to which the natural sun belongs, and with the living things there, depending upon their ability to receive them, and this is determined by their forms and states.

[12] But then he asked, 'What is the origin of fire in the sun of the world, the natural sun?'

We replied that it was from the sun of the heaven of angels, which is not fire, but the Divine Love most nearly radiating from God, who is in its midst. Since he found this surprising, we gave this explanation: 'Love in its essence is spiritual fire; that is why "fire" in the spiritual sense of the Word stands for love. That is why priests in church pray that heavenly fire may fill their hearts, meaning love. The fire on the altar and the fire of the lampstand in the Tabernacle of the Israelites was nothing but a representation of Divine Love. The heat of the blood, or the vital heat of human beings, and of animals in general, comes from no other source than the love which makes up their life. That is why people become warm, grow hot and burst into flame, when their love is raised to zeal, or is aroused to anger and rage. Therefore the fact that spiritual heat, being love, produces natural heat in human beings, to such an extent as to fire and inflame their faces and bodies, can serve as a proof that the fire of the natural sun arose from no other source than the fire of the spiritual sun, which is Divine love.

[13] Now because the expanse arises from the centre, and not the reverse, as we said before, and the centre of life, which is the sun of the heaven of angels, is the Divine Love most nearly radiating from God, who is in the midst of that sun; and because this is the origin of the expanse deriving from that centre, which is called the spiritual world; and because that sun brought into being the sun of the world, and also the expanse which is called the natural world, it is plain that the universe was created by God.'

After this we went away, and he accompanied us out of the courtyard of his school, speaking with us about heaven and hell, and about Divine guidance, showing new powers of sagacity.

Footnotes:

1. This is repeated from Conjugial Love 380.

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

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