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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

 

Survey of Teachings of the New Church #118

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118. Three Memorable Occurrences Taken from Revelation Unveiled

The first memorable occurrence. Once as I was explaining chapter 20 in the Book of Revelation and was meditating on the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet, an angelic spirit appeared to me and asked what I was meditating on. I said, “The false prophet.”

The angelic spirit said, “I will take you to the place where the spirits meant by the false prophet are.” He added, “They are the same spirits portrayed in chapter 13 of the Book of Revelation as the beast from the earth who had two horns like a lamb, but who spoke like a dragon.”

I followed the angelic spirit. To my surprise I saw a crowd with church leaders in the center of it. The leaders were teaching that nothing saves us except faith in Christ’s merit and that works are good things to do, but not for our salvation. They were also proclaiming that works need to be taught from the Word so as to put lay people, especially simple ones, on a leash so that they obey their civic leaders and feel compelled from within by religion to practice moral goodwill.

[2] Then one of them saw me and said, “Do you want to see our shrine? It has a sculpture in it that portrays our faith.”

I went and saw it. It was magnificent! In the center of the shrine there was a statue of a woman dressed in scarlet clothes. She had a gold coin in her right hand and a chain of pearls in her left.

Both the statue and the shrine, however, were projected images. Hellish spirits have the ability to portray magnificent things using projected images. They do it by closing off the inner levels of our mind and opening only its outer levels.

When I realized that the statue and the shrine were conjured up through sorcery I prayed to the Lord. Suddenly the inner levels of my mind were opened. Then instead of a magnificent shrine, I saw a house that was full of cracks from the roof all the way to the foundation. Nothing in it was solidly connected. Instead of the woman, I saw a dummy hanging in the house, which had the head of a dragon, the body of a leopard, the feet of a bear, and the mouth of a lion. It was exactly like the beast from the sea described in Revelation 13:2. Instead of the floor, there was a swamp that contained thousands of frogs. I was told that under the swamp there was a great hewn stone; and beneath it the Word lay deeply hidden.

[3] Seeing this I said to the sorcerer, “Is this your shrine?”

“It is,” the sorcerer said.

Just then, though, the sorcerer’s inner sight opened up as well. The sorcerer saw the same things I was seeing and loudly shouted, “What is this? Where did this come from?”

“It came from the light of heaven,” I said, “which has disclosed the true quality of each form here, including the quality of your faith, which has been separated from spiritual goodwill.”

Immediately the east wind came up and blew away the shrine with the sculpture. It dried up the swamp and exposed the stone that had the Word lying underneath it.

Then a warm, springlike breeze blew in from heaven. To my surprise I then saw a tent in that same place, a very simple one in its outer form.

Angels who were with me said, “Look, it is Abraham’s tent just as it was when the three angels came to him to announce that Isaac was going to be born [Genesis 18:1, 2, and following]. The tent looks simple to the eye, but as the light of heaven flows in, it becomes more and more magnificent.”

The angels were then granted the ability to open the heaven where spiritual angels live—the angels who have wisdom. In the light that flowed in from that heaven, the tent looked like the Temple in Jerusalem. When I looked inside, I saw that the foundation stone under which the Word had been hidden was now covered in precious stones. From the precious stones a kind of lightning was flashing onto walls that had reliefs of angel guardians on them, giving the angel guardians beautifully different colors.

[4] As I was feeling awestruck by these sights, the angels said, “You are about to see things that are even more miraculous.” They were then granted the ability to open the third heaven where heavenly angels live—the angels who have love. As a result of the light that flowed in from that heaven, the entire temple disappeared. In its place I saw the Lord alone, standing on the foundation stone, which was the Word. He looked much the way he had when seen by John in Revelation chapter 1.

Yet because holiness then filled the inner realms of the angels’ minds so that they felt an overwhelming urge to fall forward on their faces, suddenly the channel of light from the third heaven was closed by the Lord and the channel of light from the second heaven was reopened. As a result, the earlier appearance of a temple, and also a tent, returned. The tent was in the temple.

These experiences illustrated what Revelation 21 means when it says, “Behold, the tent of God is among people, and he will dwell with them” (Revelation 21:3); and when it says, “I saw no temple in the New Jerusalem, because the Lord God Almighty is its temple, and the Lamb” (Revelation 21:22).

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for their permission to use this translation.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Conjugial Love #532

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532. To this I will append the following narrative account:

I was once in my spirit taken up to the angelic heaven and into one of its societies; and some of the wise there then came to me and said, "What news do you have from earth?"

"This is new," I said, "that the Lord has revealed secrets which surpass in excellence all the secrets previously revealed from the inception of the Church."

"What are they?" they asked.

I said that they were the following:

1. That in the Word and in each and every particular of it, there is a spiritual meaning corresponding to the natural meaning; that through that spiritual meaning people of the church are conjoined with the Lord and affiliated with angels; and that in it lies the holiness of the Word.

[2] 2. That the corresponding elements of which the spiritual meaning of the Word consists have been disclosed.

The angels asked whether the inhabitants of the earth knew anything about correspondences before. I said that they knew nothing at all of them. They have lain hidden now for several thousand years, I said, namely from the time of Job. Among peoples who lived at that time and before, a study of correspondences was the study of studies, from which they had their wisdom, because they gained from it a concept of spiritual things having to do with heaven and so with the church. But because that study was turned into an idolatrous one, it was of the Lord's Divine providence so blotted out and lost that no one has seen any trace of it. However, knowledge of it has nevertheless now been disclosed by the Lord, I said, in order that people of the church may be conjoined with Him and affiliated with angels. This conjunction and affiliation are effected through the Word, in which each and every particular is a correspondent form.

The angels greatly rejoiced that it had pleased the Lord to reveal this great secret, which for several thousand years had lain so deeply hidden. And they said it was done in order that the Christian Church, founded as it is on the Word and being now at its end, might be revived and again draw its spirit through heaven from the Lord.

They inquired as well whether in consequence of that knowledge it had at this time been disclosed what baptism and Holy Supper symbolize, sacraments about which people have hitherto had such various thoughts. And I replied that it had been disclosed.

[3] I said further, 3. that the Lord has now revealed the circumstances of people's life after death.

The angels said, "What about life after death? Who does not know that a person lives after death?"

"They know it and do not know it," I replied. "They say that what lives after death is not the person but his soul, and that this lives on as a spirit, of which they harbor an idea as of its being like the wind or ether, saying that it does not live as a real person until after the day of the Last Judgment. At that time, they say, the elements of the body which were left in the world, even though eaten by worms, mice and fish, will be gathered together again and constituted once more into a body, and that it is thus that people will rise again."

"What is this you are saying?" the angels said. "Who does not know that a person lives as a person after death, the only difference being that he then lives as a spiritual person? And who does not know that a spiritual person sees a spiritual person as a material person does a material one, without their being aware of a single distinction, except that they are living in a more perfect state?"

[4] The angels then inquired, "What do people know of our world, and of heaven and hell?"

I said that they have known nothing, but 4. that the Lord has now disclosed the nature of the world in which angels and spirits live, thus the nature of heaven and the nature of hell; as also that angels and spirits live in affiliation with men; in addition to many other wonders connected with them.

The angels were gladdened that it had pleased the Lord to disclose such things, so that people would no longer suffer such ignorance as to be in a state of uncertainty regarding their immortality.

[5] Going on, I said, 5. "The Lord has now revealed that there is in your world a different sun from the one in our world; that the sun of your world is pure love, while the sun of our world is nothing but fire; that because your sun is pure love, everything that emanates from it brings with it something of life, while because our sun is nothing but fire, everything that emanates from it brings with it nothing of life; also that this is the origin of the difference between what is spiritual and what is natural, a difference hitherto unknown which has also been disclosed."

It has been made known in consequence of this, I said, from what source the light comes which enlightens the human intellect with wisdom, and from what source the warmth comes which kindles the human will with love.

[6] In addition, it has been disclosed 6. that there are three degrees of life, and consequently three heavens; that the human mind is divided into these degrees, and that the human being thus corresponds to the three heavens.

"Did people not know this before?" said the angels.

I replied that they knew about greater and lesser degrees in a range, but nothing about prior and subsequent degrees.

[7] The angels asked whether in addition to these disclosures anything else had been revealed. I said that a number of other things had been, namely, 7. concerning the Last Judgment; concerning the Lord, that He is God of heaven and earth, that God is one both in person and in essence, in whom is the Divine trinity, and that He is the Lord; also concerning the New Church about to be established by Him, and the doctrine of that church; concerning the sacredness of the Holy Scripture; as also that the Apocalypse has been revealed, nothing of which could have been revealed, not even in one little verse, except by the Lord.

Included also is a revelation concerning inhabitants of other planets and concerning other earths in the universe, I said; as well as many accounts and wonders from the spiritual world, by which much else having to do with wisdom has been disclosed from heaven.

  
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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.

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