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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

 

Conjugial Love #355

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355. The second account:

When I once looked out into the world of spirits, I saw some men in a particular meadow, dressed in the same sort of clothing that people wear in the world, from which I recognized that they had only recently come from the world.

I went over to them and stood to the side, in order to hear what they were saying to each other. They were talking about heaven; and one of them, who knew something about heaven, said there were wonders there which no one could ever possibly believe unless he saw them. He cited as examples the paradise-like gardens; the palaces, magnificently constructed architecturally owing to the quintessence of the art there, shining as though of gold, with columns of silver in front, and covered with precious stones in heavenly forms; the houses, too, of jasper and sapphire, fronted by majestic porticos through which the angels enter; and the adornments inside the houses, which neither art nor words can describe.

[2] "As for the angels themselves," he said, "they are of both sexes. There are young men and married men, maidens and wives - maidens so beautiful that the world has nothing to match such beauty. Yet the wives are even more beautiful, appearing as veritable pictures of heavenly love, and their husbands as pictures of heavenly wisdom. The latter are also all youthful young men; and what is more, they do not know what love for the opposite sex is other than conjugial love. Furthermore - something that will surprise you - the husbands have a continual ability to experience its delights."

When those newly arrived spirits heard that they did not have any love for the opposite sex there other than conjugial love, and that they had a continual ability to experience its delights, they laughed among themselves and said, "What you are saying is unbelievable. Such an ability is not possible. You are, perhaps, making up stories."

[3] But then an angel from heaven stood unexpectedly in their midst and said, "Listen to me, please. I am an angel from heaven, and I have lived with my wife now for a thousand years, in the same flower of youth in which you see me here. I have this youthfulness as a result of conjugial love with my wife; and I can declare that I have had and continue to have the continual ability you are talking about. However, because I perceive that you believe it is not possible, I will speak with you on this subject in terms of its reasons, in accordance with the light of your intellect.

"You know nothing of the original state of man, which you call the state of his integrity. In that state, all the interior faculties of the mind were opened all the way to the Lord, and consequently were pervaded by a marriage of love and wisdom or of goodness and truth. So, because the goodness of love and the truth of wisdom are continually drawn to each other by love, they continually aspire to be united; and when the interior faculties of the mind are opened, this conjunctive, spiritual love freely flows down with its continual impetus and imparts the ability.

[4] "Because man's very soul is pervaded by a marriage of goodness and truth, it is impelled not only by a perpetual striving for union but also by a perpetual striving to be fruitful and produce a likeness of itself. So, when a person's interior faculties are open all the way down from the soul from that marriage there - since the interior faculties continually look to producing an effect in outmost expressions as their goal, in order to manifest themselves - as a result that perpetual striving to be fruitful and produce a likeness of itself, which is one of the soul, becomes one of the body. Consequently, because the ultimate operation of the soul in the body in the case of a married couple is into the ultimate expressions of love there, and these depend on the state of the soul, it is apparent why they have this continual ability.

[5] "They experience as well a perpetual fruitfulness, because there is a universal atmosphere of begetting and propagating the celestial attributes that have to do with love, the spiritual attributes that have to do with wisdom, and so the natural attributes that have to do with offspring - an atmosphere which emanates from the Lord and fills the entire heaven and entire world. Thus that heavenly atmosphere fills the souls of all people, and descends through their minds into the body, even to the outmosts of it, imparting a generative power. However, this power can be imparted only to those in whom a passage stands open from the soul through the higher and lower regions of the mind into the body and its outermost elements, which is the case in those who allow themselves to be led back by the Lord into the original state of their creation.

"I can declare that for a thousand years now I have never lacked the ability, or the power, or the virility, and that I have not experienced at all any diminishing of its forces, since these are continually renewed by the continual flowing in of the aforesaid universal atmosphere. They also then gladden the spirit, and do not leave it depressed, as happens in the case of those who suffer a loss of them.

[6] "Furthermore, truly conjugial love is altogether like the warmth of spring, whose flowing in inspires all things to burgeon and be fruitful. That, too, is the kind of warmth we have in our heaven. Consequently married partners there have springtime in them with its constant stimulus; and that constant stimulus is the impetus from which our virility comes.

"The fruits produced among us in heaven, however, are of another kind than among people on earth. With us the fruits are spiritual, which are the fruits of love and wisdom or of goodness and truth. A wife acquires from her husband's wisdom a love of it in her, and from his wife's love of wisdom a husband acquires wisdom in him. Indeed, a wife is actually transformed into an embodiment of love for her husband's wisdom, which is accomplished by her receptions of the propagations of his soul with delight - a delight arising from her willing to be an embodiment of love for her husband's wisdom. From being a maiden she thus becomes his wife and a likeness of him. As a result, too, love with its inmost friendship constantly increases in the wife, and wisdom with its happiness in the husband, and this to eternity. This is the state of angels in heaven."

[7] After the angel said that, he looked at the men who had come recently from the world and said to them, "You know that when you have felt the virile urge of love, you have made love to your married partners, and that after experiencing the delight you have turned away. But you do not know that in heaven we do not make love to our partners because of that virile force, but we have that virile force because of our love; and because we love our partners continually, that virility is continual in us.

"If you can reverse your state, therefore, you can understand this. When a man loves his partner continually, does he not love her with his whole mind and his whole body? For love directs all things of the mind and all things of the body to that which it loves; and because it is reciprocated, it so joins the two that they become as one."

[8] He said further, "I will not speak to you of conjugial love's having been implanted from creation in males and females, and of their inclination to a legitimate union; nor of the procreative faculty in males, which is tied together with a faculty for proliferating wisdom from a love of truth; nor of the fact that so far as a person loves wisdom from a love of wisdom, or truth from goodness, so far he experiences truly conjugial love and its accompanying power."

  
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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 #568

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568. The second experience.

Every religious and wise person wants to know what his life will be like after death, so I shall give a general description so that he may know.

Everyone after death, when he becomes aware that he is still alive, but in another world, and he is told that above him is heaven, where there are everlasting joys, and below him is hell, where there are everlasting sorrows, is first brought back into the external state he was in, while he was in his former world. Then he believes that he will certainly reach heaven, and he talks intelligently and behaves prudently. Some say: 'We have lived a moral life, we have had honourable ambitions, we have not deliberately done evil.' Others say: 'We have gone regularly to church, we have attended mass, we have kissed holy statues, we have prayed hard on our knees.' Some say: 'We have given to the poor, we have helped the needy, we have read devotional books, as well as the Word.' And there are many more similar claims.

[2] But when they have made these statements, the angels standing by them say: 'All the things you have mentioned you did externally; but you still do not know what you are like internally. You are now spirits with a substantial body, and the spirit is your internal man. It is this in you which thinks what it wishes, and wishes what it loves, and this is the pleasure of its life. Everyone from early childhood begins his life on the external level. He learns to behave with morality, to talk intelligently, and once he has formed some idea of heaven and its blessedness, he begins to pray, to go to church and attend regular services. Yet he still treasures up in the depths of his mind the evils which spring in profusion from their native source; he cleverly covers them up too with reasonings based upon fallacies, until he himself does not know that evil is evil. Then as for the evils which are wrapped up and covered, as if by dust, he does not give them another thought, only taking care that they are not exposed to the world's gaze. So his only concern is with the externals of a moral life, and so he becomes duplicitous, a sheep in externals, a wolf in internals. He becomes like a golden box containing poison; or like a person with bad breath who keeps a pastille in his mouth to prevent by-standers smelling it; or like a mouse's skin made to smell of balsam.

[3] 'You said that you lived a moral life and devoted yourselves to religious studies. But my question is, did you ever examine your internal man and become aware of any longings for revenge, even to the point of murder, any longings for indulging your lusts even to the point of adultery, any longings for fraud even to the point of stealing, any longings for lying even to the point of giving false witness? Four of the Ten Commandments contain the injunction, "You are not to," and the last two "You are not to covet." Do you really believe that in these matters your internal man resembled your external one? If you do, I think you may be wrong.'

[4] To this they replied, 'What is the internal man? Is it not one and the same as the external? Our ministers have told us that the internal man is nothing but faith, and reverence in utterance and morality in life is a sign of it, because it shows its working.'

The angels answered: 'Saving faith is in the internal man, and likewise charity, and this is the source of Christian faithfulness and morality in the external man. But if the longings we mentioned before remain in the internal man, that is, in the will and so in his thinking, and if, therefore, you love those longings inwardly, and yet act and talk differently in externals, then in your case evil is placed above good, and good below evil. However much, therefore, you seem to talk from the understanding, and to act from love, there is evil within and this is wrapped up, as we said. Then you are like cunning chimpanzees, which ape human actions, but their heart is not in them.

[5] 'You know nothing about your internal man, because you have not examined yourselves, and following that examination repented. You will discover shortly what your internal man is like, when you have the external stripped off and you enter into possession of the internal. When this happens, your companions will no longer recognise you, nor will you recognise yourselves. I have seen wicked people who pretended to be moral looking like wild beasts, glaring truculently at their neighbour, burning with murderous hatred, and cursing God, whom they worshipped in the external man.'

On hearing this they went away; and then the angels told them: 'You will see what your life will be like after this, for your external man will shortly be taken away and you will enter into possession of the internal, which is now your spirit.'

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

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