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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 #44

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44. The second account:

I once saw three spirits newly arrived from the world, who were wandering about, exploring and asking questions. They were in a state of astonishment that they were living as people just as before and that they were seeing the same things as before. For they knew they had departed from the former or natural world, and they had believed there that they would not live as people until after the day of the Last Judgment, when they would be clothed with the flesh and bones laid in their graves.

To remove all doubt that they were still truly people, therefore, they alternately inspected and touched themselves and others, and handled the things they found, and in a thousand ways kept convincing themselves that they were now people as they had been in the former world, except that they were seeing each other in a brighter light and the things they found in a greater splendor, thus seeing them more perfectly.

[2] Then by chance two angelic spirits met them and stopped them, saying, "Where are you from?"

And they answered, "We have departed from the world and are again living in a world, so we have traveled from one world to another. At this we are now marveling!"

Then the three newcomers began asking the two angelic spirits about heaven. And because two of the three newcomers were adolescents, and from their eyes darted what seemed to be a spark of lust for the opposite sex, the angelic spirits said, "You have, perhaps, seen some of the women."

And they replied, "We have."

So, because the newcomers had asked about heaven, the angelic spirits told them the following:

"In heaven all things are magnificent and splendid, and are such as eye has never seen. There are also young men and women there, young women of such beauty that they may be called the very pictures of beauty, and young men of such morality that they may be called the very pictures of morality. And the beauty of the young women and the morality of the young men correspond to each other, as reciprocal and mutually adaptable forms."

The two newcomers then asked whether human forms in heaven are entirely similar to human forms in the natural world. And the angelic spirits answered that they are completely alike, with nothing taken from either man or woman.

"In a word," the angelic spirits said, "a man is still a man, and a woman is still a woman, in all the perfection of the form in which they were created. Step aside, if you like, and investigate in your own case whether anything is missing to keep you from being the man you were before."

[3] Again the newcomers said, "We heard in the world from which we departed that in heaven they are not given in marriage, because they are angels. 1 Is love between the sexes possible, then?"

The angelic spirits replied, "The love you mean between the sexes is not possible there, but an angelic love for the opposite sex is, which is chaste, free of any temptation arising from lust."

To this the newcomers said, "If love for the opposite sex is without temptation, then what is love between the sexes?"

And when they began to think about that love, they groaned and said, "How dry the joy of heaven is! What young man can then wish for heaven? Is not a love like that sterile and devoid of life?"

To this the angelic spirits laughingly replied, "Angelic love for the opposite sex, or the kind of love that exists in heaven, is still full of the deepest delights. It is a most pleasant swelling of everything in the mind and consequently of everything in the breast, and within the breast it is as if the heart were sporting with the lungs. From this sport comes a breathing, tone and speech which cause the companionships between the sexes, or between young men and women, to be heavenly sweetness itself, which is at the same time pure.

[4] "All newcomers on ascending to heaven are examined in respect to what their chastity is like, for they are introduced into companionships with young women - the beauties of heaven - and these perceive what the newcomers are like in regard to their love for the opposite sex. They perceive it from their tone of voice, their speech, their facial expression, their eyes, their bearing, and the atmosphere emanating from them. If the love is unchaste, the young women then run away and report to their friends that they have seen satyrs or lechers. And what is more, the newcomers undergo a change, and to the eyes of the angels they appear hairy, with feet like those of calves or leopards. They are also soon cast down, to keep them from polluting the atmosphere there with their lust."

Listening to this, the two newcomers again said, "Then there is no love between the sexes in heaven. What is chaste love between the sexes but love emptied of the essence of its life? Are the companionships of young men and women there not then dry joys? We are not made of stone and wood, but of living perceptions and affections!"

[5] When the two angelic spirits heard this, they indignantly retorted, "You do not know at all what a chaste love between the sexes is, because you are not yet chaste! That love is a true delight of the mind and so of the heart, and not at the same time of the flesh below the heart. Angelic chastity, which is found equally in both sexes, prevents that love from passing beyond the confines of the heart. But within those confines, and above them, the morality of the young man and the beauty of the young woman find delight in the delights of a chaste love for the opposite sex - delights which are deeper and richer for their pleasantness than can be described in words.

"But this is the love that angels have for the opposite sex, because they have only conjugial love, and conjugial love is not possible at the same time as an unchaste love for the opposite sex. Truly conjugial love is a chaste love, and has nothing in common with unchaste love. It is with one and only one of the opposite sex, with all others set aside, for it is a love of the spirit and consequently of the body, and not a love of the body and consequently of the spirit, that is, it is not a love that infests the spirit."

[6] On hearing this, the two adolescent newcomers rejoiced and said, "Then there is still love between the sexes in heaven! What else is conjugial love?"

But to this the angelic spirits replied, "Think more deeply, weigh the matter, and you will see that the love you mean between the sexes is a love outside of marriage, and that conjugial love is altogether different, being as different from the love you mean as the wheat is from the chaff, or better, as different as human life is from animal life.

"If you were to ask women in heaven what love outside of marriage is, I assure you they would respond, 'What is this? What are you saying? How can such a thing that so offends the ears come out of your mouth? How can a love not created in the first place be engendered in a person?'

"If you then asked them what truly conjugial love is, I know they would answer that it is not a love for the opposite sex, but love for one of the sex, which arises only when a young man sees a young woman provided by the Lord, and the young woman the young man, both feeling an inclination to marry kindled in their hearts, and perceiving, the young man that she is for him, and the young woman that he is for her. For love then presents itself to love and causes them to recognize each other, at once joining their souls, and afterwards their minds. From there it enters their hearts, and after the wedding goes on beyond. And so it becomes a full love, which daily grows into union, even to the point that they no longer are two, but virtually one person.

[7] "I know, too, that these same women would swear that they are not acquainted with any other love between the sexes. For they say, 'How can there be love between the sexes unless it is so honest and reciprocal that it aspires to eternal union, which is that the two may be one flesh?'"

To this the angelic spirits added, "In heaven they do not know at all what licentiousness is, not even that it exists or is possible. The angels grow cold with their whole body at unchaste love or love outside of marriage, and on the other hand, they grow warm with their whole body as a result of chaste or conjugial love. In the case of men there, all their sinews sink at the sight of a licentious woman, and grow taut at the sight of their wife."

[8] The three newcomers, hearing this, asked whether there is the same love-making between married partners in heaven as on earth.

The two angelic spirits answered that it is entirely the same. And because they perceived that the newcomers were wanting to know whether they had the same end delights in heaven, they also said that these are entirely the same, but much more blissful, since the perception and sensation of angels is much more exquisite than the perception and sensation of people.

"Moreover, what is the life accompanying that love," the angelic spirits asked, "if it does not stem from an underlying condition of ability? If this ability fails, does that love not fail and cool? Is this power not a real measure, a real progression and real foundation of that love? Is it not its beginning, support and fulfillment?

"It is a universal law that the primary elements in a series exist, subsist and persist on the basis of the final elements. So also with that love. Consequently, without the end delights, there would not be any delights in conjugial love."

[9] The newcomers then asked whether as a result of the end delights of that love, children are born in heaven. And if children were not born, of what use those delights were.

The angelic spirits replied that they do not have any natural offspring, but spiritual offspring.

"And what are spiritual offspring?" the newcomers asked.

The angelic spirits answered, "By the end delights the two partners become more united in a marriage of goodness and truth, and a marriage of goodness and truth is a marriage of love and wisdom, and love and wisdom are the offspring that are born of such a marriage. Because the husband in heaven is a form of wisdom, and his wife is a form of the love of it, and both moreover are spiritual, therefore no other than spiritual offspring can be conceived and begotten there.

"That is why, after experiencing these delights, angels do not become depressed as some do on earth, but joyful, and they have this characteristic as a result of a continual influx of fresh vigor to follow the first - fresh vigor that rejuvenates and at the same time enlightens them. For, all who come into heaven return into the springtime of their youth and into the powers of that age, and so they remain to eternity."

[10] When the three newcomers heard this, they said, "Does it not say in the Word that there are no marriages in heaven, because they are angels?" 2

To this the angelic spirits replied, "Look up into heaven, and you will receive an answer."

They then asked why they should look up into heaven.

"Because," the angelic spirits said, "we have all our interpretations of the Word from heaven. The Word is inwardly spiritual, and the angels, being spiritual, must explain its spiritual meaning."

Then, after some time, heaven opened over their heads and they caught sight of two angels. And the two angels said, "There are marriages in heaven, as on earth, but only in the case of people there who already possess a marriage of goodness and truth. They are the only ones who become angels. Therefore spiritual marriages are meant in the Word, which are marriages of goodness and truth. These spiritual marriages take place on earth and not after death, thus not in heaven. So it is said of the five foolish virgins - even though they, too, were invited to the wedding - that they could not go in, because they did not have a marriage of goodness and truth, since they had no oil, but only lamps. 3

"Goodness is meant by oil, and truth by lamps. And to be given in marriage is to enter into heaven where that marriage is."

The three newcomers were glad to hear this explanation, and were filled with a longing for heaven and the hope of being married there. And they said, "We will strive for morality and a decent and proper life, that we may obtain the object of our prayers."

Footnotes:

1. See Matthew 22:30, Mark 12:25, Luke 20:35-36.

2. See Matthew 22:30, Mark 12:25, Luke 20:35-36.

3. See Matthew 25:1-12.

  
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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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