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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 #504

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504. The second experience.

I was once, while in the world of spirits, given the inward spiritual sight enjoyed by the angels of the higher heaven; and I saw two spirits not far from me, though some distance apart. I could tell that one of them loved good and truth, which linked him with heaven, and the other loved evil and falsity, which linked him with hell. I approached and called them to me, and from the sound of their voices and their replies I gathered that they were each equally able to perceive truths, and acknowledge them when perceived, to use their understanding to think about them, and to direct their intellectual processes as they pleased, and the motions of their will as they liked; in other words each enjoyed similar free will on the rational level. Moreover I noticed that as a result of that free will there appeared in their minds a glow which extended from the first vision, that of perception, to the last, that of the eye.

[2] But when the one who loved evil and falsity was left alone to think, I observed something like smoke rising from hell and putting out the glow above the level of the memory, so that he was in thick darkness as of midnight. This smoke caught fire and burned like a flame lighting up the region of his mind below the level of memory; this caused him to think of extraordinary falsities arising from the evils of self-love. When the other, however, the one who loved good and truth, was left alone, I saw a gentle flame flowing down on him from heaven, which lit up the region of his mind above the level of memory, and the region below this as well right down to the level of the eye. The light from this flame shone brighter and brighter as his love for good led him to perceive and think of truth. These sights showed me plainly that everyone, wicked as well as good, enjoys spiritual free will, but that hell sometimes blots it out in the case of the wicked, and heaven enhances it and makes it burn brighter in the case of the good.

[3] After this I talked with each of them, first with the one who loved evil and falsity. I had asked something about his experiences, but he was incensed when I mentioned free will. 'What madness it is,' he said, 'to believe that man has free will in spiritual matters! Can any human being help himself to faith and do good of himself? Does not the priesthood at the present time teach what the Word says, that no one can acquire anything unless it is given him from heaven? The Lord Christ said to His disciples, 'Without me you can do nothing.' To this I would add, that no one can move his foot or his hand to do any good action, nor move his tongue to utter any truth derived from good. The church therefore under the guidance of its wise men came to the conclusion that man is unable to will, understand or think about anything spiritual, not even to fit himself to willing, understanding or thinking about it, any more than a statue, a block of wood or a stone; and that therefore God, who alone has the freest and unlimited power, at His good pleasure breathes faith into man, and this, without any action or power on our part, by the working of the Holy Spirit produces all the effects which the uneducated attribute to man.'

[4] Then I talked with the other spirit, the one who loved good and truth, and when I had asked something about his experiences, I mentioned free will. 'What madness it is,' he said, 'to deny that man has free will in spiritual matters! Is there anyone who is unable to will and do good, and to think about and speak truth of himself, which he draws from the Word, and so from the Lord who is the Word? For He said: "Bring forth good fruit" and "Believe in the light," as well as "Love one another" and "Love God;" or again "He who hears and keeps my commandments loves me, and I will love him;" not to mention thousands of similar things throughout the Word. So what use then would the Word be, if man could will and think nothing, and so do and speak nothing that is prescribed in it? If man did not have that ability, what would religion and the church be but a shipwreck lying at the bottom of the sea, with the ship-master standing on top of the mast, shouting. 'There's nothing I can do,' while he watches the rest of the crew hoist sail in the life-boats and sail away. Was not Adam given freedom to eat from the tree of life and also from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? And because in his freedom he ate from the latter tree, smoke from the serpent, that is, from hell, entered his mind, and on account of that he was expelled from paradise and cursed. Yet even still he did not lose his free will, for we read that the route to the tree of life was guarded by a cherub, because if that had not been done, he could still have wished to eat from it.'

[5] When he said this, the other spirit who loved evil and falsity said: 'I reject what I have just heard, and keep in my mind what I suggested myself. Surely everyone knows that it is only God who is alive and so is active, and man is of himself dead, and so is purely passive? How could someone like this, who in himself is dead and purely passive, take to himself what is alive and active?'

My reply to this was: 'Man is an instrument for life; and God alone is life. God pours His life into the instrument and all its parts, just as the sun pours its heat into a tree and all its parts. God allows man to feel that life in himself as if it were his own; and God wants man to feel this so that man may, as it were of himself, live in accordance with the laws of order, which are as many as there are commandments in the Word; and so that he may put himself into a suitable state of mind to receive the love of God. Still God continually keeps His finger on the pointer of the balance, and controls it, without, however, violating free will by compulsion.

[6] 'A tree is unable to receive anything that the sun's heat supplies through its root, unless every single fibre in it is warmed and heated. Nor can elements rise up through the root, unless every single fibre passes on the heat it has received and thus contributes to the transport. Man behaves in like fashion with the vital heat he receives from God, but in distinction from a tree he feels the heat as his own, though it is not his. To the extent that he believes it is his and not God's, he receives vital light though not the heat of love from God, but the heat of love from hell. Since this is gross, it obstructs and closes the finer ramifications of the instrument, just as impure blood does the capillary vessels of the body. In this way a person turns himself from being spiritual into a purely natural man.

[7] 'Man's free will is derived from his feeling the life in him as his own, and God's leaving him to feel like this so that linking may take place. This linking is impossible unless it is reciprocal, and it becomes so when a person freely acts as if of himself. If God had not left man to do this, man would not be man, nor could he have everlasting life. For it is the reciprocal link with God which makes man a man rather than an animal, and allows him after death to live for ever. This is the result of free will in spiritual matters.'

[8] On hearing this the wicked spirit took himself off to a distance, and I then saw a flying serpent, of the sort called prester 1 , on a certain tree, offering someone fruit from it. In the spirit I approached the place, and saw there in place of the serpent a monstrous man, whose face was so covered in beard that only his nose stuck out; and instead of the tree there was a lighted fire-brand, near which he stood. The smoke had previously penetrated his mind, and after that he rejected the idea of free will in spiritual matters. Suddenly similar smoke came out of the fire-brand and surrounded both it and the man. Since they were thus lost to view, I went away. But the other spirit, who loved good and truth and insisted that man has free will in spiritual matters, accompanied me home.

Footnotes:

1. Or 'fiery serpent'.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Conjugial Love #233

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233. The third account:

After this, one of the angels said, "Follow me to the place where they are crying out, 'Oh, how wise!'" And he added, "You will see human monstrosities. The faces and bodies you see will be like those of a human being, and yet they are not human."

So I said, "Are they animals, then?"

The angel replied, "No, they are not animals, but animal-like. For they are people who cannot see at all whether truth is true or not, and yet whatever they wish they can make to be true. Among us, people like that are called confirmers."

We then followed the clamor and came to the place. And lo, we found a group of men surrounded by a crowd of people, and in the crowd some people of noble lineage. The men were confirming whatever the latter said and agreeing with them with such manifest accord that when they heard it, they turned to each other and said, "Oh, how wise!"

[2] However, the angel said to me, "Let us not go over to them but instead call one of them out of the group."

So we called one of them to us, and going aside with him, we talked about various matters. And he confirmed each point so thoroughly that they all appeared entirely as true.

We then asked him whether he could also confirm the converse of these. He said that he could, just as well as he did the previous ones. At which point he said openly and from the heart, "What is truth? Is there any truth in the nature of things other than what a person makes true? Say to me anything you please and I will make it to be true."

So I said, "Make this true, that faith is everything in the church." And he did so, so cleverly and skillfully that some learned bystanders looked on in admiration and applauded. I asked him next to make it true that charity is everything in the church, which he did, and afterwards that charity is nothing in the church. And he dressed up both propositions and arrayed them in such verisimilitudes that the bystanders looked at each other and said, "Isn't he wise!"

But I said, "Do you not know that to live rightly is charity, and to believe rightly is faith? If anyone lives rightly, does he not also believe rightly? Thus showing that faith is connected with charity, and charity with faith? Do you not see that this is true?"

He replied, "I will make it true and then I will see." And having done it he said, "Now I see." But shortly he made the converse of it to be true, and then he said, "I see as well that this is true."

We chuckled at this and said, "But are these not contradictory conclusions? How can you see two contrary conclusions as true?"

Nettled by our response, he replied, "You are wrong. Both conclusions are true, since truth is only what a person makes true."

[3] Standing nearby was someone who in the world had been an ambassador of the highest rank. He marveled at this and said, "I recognize that something of this sort goes on in the world, but still you are insane. Make it to be true, if you can, that light is darkness, and darkness light."

To which he replied, "I will do it easily. What are light and darkness but conditions of the eye? Does light not turn to darkness when the eye comes in out of bright sunshine? Or when it gazes intently at the sun? Who does not know that the state of the eye then changes and that light consequently appears as darkness? And conversely, that when the condition of the eye recovers, the darkness appears as light?

"Does an owl not see the darkness of night as the light of day, and the light of day as the darkness of night? Does it not see the sun itself as a dark and shadowy orb? If a person had eyes like an owl's, what would he call light and what would he call darkness?

"What then is light but a condition of the eye? And if it is a condition of the eye, is not light darkness and darkness light? Consequently the one proposition is true and the other is true."

[4] After that the ambassador asked him to make it to be true that a raven is white and not black.

To which he replied, "I will do this easily, too. Take a needle or razor," he said, "and open up the feathers or quills of a raven. Are they not white inside? Then remove the feathers and quills and look at the raven's skin. Is it not white? What is the blackness surrounding it but an opaqueness to light, which is hardly a basis on which to judge the raven's color? If you do not know that blackness is only an absence of light, ask experts in the science of optics and they will tell you. Or grind a piece of black stone or black glass into a fine powder, and you will see that the powder is white."

"But," said the ambassador, "does a raven look black to the eye?"

"Perhaps," replied this confirmer of ours, "but as a human being, are you willing to base what you think on an appearance? You may indeed speak in accordance with the appearance and say that a raven is black, but you cannot think it. As for example, you may speak in accordance with the appearance and say that the sun rises, travels and sets, but as a human being you cannot think it, because the sun stands still and it is the earth that moves. It is the same with the raven. An appearance is only an appearance. Say what you will, a raven is totally and utterly white. It even turns white when it grows old, as I have observed."

[5] We then asked him to tell us honestly whether he was joking or whether he really believed that there is no truth but what a person makes true. And he answered, "I swear that I believe it."

After that the ambassador asked him whether he could make it true that he was insane. To which he said, "I could, but I do not want to. Who is not insane?"

This total confirmer was afterwards sent to some angels for them to examine and determine what sort of person he was. And having examined him, they said he possessed not even a grain of understanding, because everything that exists above the level of reason in him was closed up, and only that which is below the level of reason was open.

"Above the level of reason," they said, "is the light of heaven, and below the level of reason is the light of nature. And the light of nature is such that it can confirm whatever it pleases. However, if the light of heaven does not flow into the light of nature, a person does not see whether any truth is true, and so neither whether any falsity is false. An ability to see both what is true and what is false results from the presence of light from heaven in the light of nature, and the light of heaven comes from the God of heaven, who is the Lord.

"This total confirmer is therefore neither human nor animal, but animal-like."

[6] I asked the angel with me about the fate of people like that and whether it was possible for them to be among the living, since a person has life from the light of heaven, and from it comes his intellect. And the angel said that when people of this sort are by themselves, they are incapable of thought and so have nothing to say, but stand as mute as machines, as though in a deep sleep; but as soon as something catches their ears, they awaken. He added also that people become like that who are inmostly evil. "The light of heaven cannot flow into them from above," he said, "but only some spiritual element through the world, from which they have an ability to confirm."

[7] After he said this, I heard the voice of one of the angels who had examined the man, calling to me and saying, "From what you have heard draw an overall conclusion."

So I drew the following conclusion: An ability to confirm whatever one pleases is not the mark of an intelligent person; rather, the mark of an intelligent person is to be able to see that truth is true and falsity false, and to confirm that.

I afterwards looked over at the gathering where the confirmers stood and where the crowd surrounding them was beginning to cry out, "Oh, how wise!" And suddenly a dusky cloud enveloped them, with screech owls and bats flitting about in the cloud.

It was then explained to me, "The owls and bats flitting about in the dusky cloud are correspondent forms and thus manifestations of their thoughts. For in this world, confirmations of falsities to the point that they appear as truths are represented under the forms of birds of the night, whose eyes are lit up with an illusory light from within by which they see objects in darkness as though in light. This is the kind of illusory spiritual light had by those who confirm falsities to the point that they appear as truths, and who afterwards say and believe they are truths. They all possess a kind of after-sight and not any prior sight."

  
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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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