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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

 

True Christian Religion #80

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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.

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

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