New Christian Bible Study

Commentary

 

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 #334

Study this Passage

  
/ 853  
  

334. The third experience.

After this one of the angels said: 'Come with me to the place where they are shouting "How wise!" You will see monstrous people there, with the faces and bodies of human beings, though they are not human beings.'

'Are they animals then?' I asked.

'No,' he replied, 'they are not animals, but bestial people. They are those who are utterly unable to see whether truth is truth or not, although they can make anything they wish appear to be true. We call such people proof-mongers.'

We followed the noise of shouting and reached its source. There we found a group of men surrounded by a crowd. There were in the crowd some people of noble lineage, who, on hearing that they proved everything they said, and so obviously agreed in supporting each other, turned around and said 'How wise!'

[2] But the angel said to me, 'Let us not approach them, but let us call out one from the group.' We did so, and took him aside; we discussed a variety of subjects, and he proved each point so that it seemed exactly as if it were true. So we asked him whether he could also prove the opposite. He replied he could do so as well as the earlier points. Then he spoke openly and from the heart: 'What is truth? Is there any truth in the whole of nature other than what someone makes true? Say anything you please, and I will make it true.'

'Establish then,' I said, 'the truth of the following proposition: faith is all the church needs.' He did so, with such cleverness and skill that the learned men who were present clapped to express their admiration. Next I asked him to establish the truth of the proposition that charity is all the church needs; and this too he did. Then I asked him about the proposition that charity is of no use to the church; and he so dressed up either proposition and adorned them with plausible arguments that the bystanders looked at one another and said: 'Isn't he wise?'

'Don't you know,' I said, 'that living a good life is charity, and having a correct belief is faith? Does not the person who lives a good life also have a correct belief? And consequently faith is a part of charity, and charity a part of faith? Can't you see that this is true?'

'I shall establish the truth of it,' he said, 'and then I shall see.' He did so, and then remarked: 'Now I see.' But a moment later he established the truth of the opposite, and then he said: 'I see that this too is true.' We smiled at this and said: 'Are they not opposites? How can two opposite propositions both appear to be true?' He was indignant at this and answered: 'You are wrong. Both propositions are true, because there is no truth other than what someone establishes as true.'

[3] A man was standing nearby who in the world had been an ambassador of the highest rank. He was astonished at this and said: 'I admit that something like this goes on in the world, but still you are crazy. Establish, if you can, the truth of the proposition that light is darkness and darkness is light.'

'Nothing easier,' he replied. 'What are light and darkness but conditions of the eye? Is not light changed into shadow, when the eye comes in from sunlight, and also when one stares fixedly at the sun? Everyone knows that then the condition of the eye changes, and light then seems like shadow; and in the opposite case when the eye returns to its normal condition, the shadow seems like light. Does not the owl see the darkness of the night like broad day, and daylight like the darkness of the night? And then it actually sees the sun itself as a dark and dim ball. If a person had the eyes of an owl, which would he call light and which darkness? So what is light but a condition of the eye? And if so, is not light darkness, and darkness light? So just as one proposition is true, so also is the other.'

[4] But seeing that this proof had confused some people I said: 'I have observed that this proof-monger is unaware of the existence of true light and false light. Both of these forms of light appear to be light; but false light is not really light, but compared with true light is darkness. The owl operates by false light, for its eyes are filled with a desire to pursue and devour birds; this light enables its eyes to see by night, exactly like cats' eyes, which glitter like candles in cellars. The false light in this case arises from the desire to pursue and devour mice which fills their eyes and has this effect. This makes it plain that the sun's is the true light, and the light of desire is a false light.'

[5] After this the ambassador asked the proof-monger to establish the truth of the proposition that a raven is white and not black. 'Another easy task,' he replied. 'Take,' he said, 'a needle or a razor and open up the feathers and plumage of a raven; or take away the feathers and plumage and look at the bare skin of the raven, is it not white? What is the blackness that surrounds it but a shadow, which must not be used to judge the raven's colour? Consult the experts on optics, and they will tell you that blackness is merely shadow; or grind a black stone or a piece of black glass into fine powder, and you will see that the powder is white.'

'But when you look at it,' said the ambassador, 'surely the raven appears black?' But the proof-monger replied: 'As a human being are you willing to think about anything from appearances? Of course you can speak from appearances of the raven as black, but you cannot really think so. For instance, you can speak from appearances of the sun rising and setting; but as a human being you cannot really think it does, because the sun remains unmoving, and it is the earth which moves. It is the same with the raven; appearances are only appearances. Say whatever you like, the raven is utterly and completely white. It also turns white when it grows old, a fact I have observed.'

At this the bystanders looked at me. So I said that it is true that the feathers and plumage of the raven have inside a whitish tinge, and so does its skin. But this is true not only of ravens, but of all birds throughout the world; and everyone distinguishes birds by their colouring. If not, we should have to say that every bird is white, which is absurd and useless.

[6] Then the ambassador asked whether he could establish the truth of the proposition that he himself was insane. 'Yes,' he said, 'I can, but I don't want to. Everyone is insane.'

Then they asked him to speak from the heart and say whether he was joking, or whether he really believed that there was no truth but what someone established as true. He replied, 'I swear I do so believe.'

Afterwards this universal proof-monger was sent to some angels to have his nature examined. After doing this they said that he did not possess a grain of understanding. 'The reason is,' they said, 'that in his case everything above the rational level is shut off, and only what is below this level is open. Spiritual light is above the rational level, and natural light is below it, and it is natural light which enables a person to prove whatever he likes. But if there is no spiritual light flowing into natural light, a person cannot see whether some truth is true, and consequently not whether a falsehood is false either. The ability to see either comes from the presence of spiritual light in the natural light, and spiritual light comes from the God of heaven, who is the Lord. Therefore the universal proof-monger is neither a man nor an animal, but a beast-man.'

[7] I asked the angels about the fate of such people; how could they be in the company of the living, since spiritual light is the source of people's life; and this is the source of their understanding. They said that as long as such people are alone, they cannot think or talk about anything, but they stand as dumb as machines and as if fast asleep. But they wake up as soon as their ears catch any sound. They added that it is those who are inmostly wicked who become like that. Spiritual light from above cannot flow into them, but only some spirituality through the world; this is what gives them the ability to make up proofs.

[8] When they had said this, I heard one of the angels who had examined him say: 'Make a general conclusion out of what you have heard.' My conclusion was this: it is not the mark of an intelligent person to be able to prove anything he likes; but to be able to see that truth is true and falsehood is false, and to prove that, is the mark of an intelligent person.

After this I looked towards the gathering where the proof-mongers stood with the crowd around them shouting 'How wise!'; and suddenly a dark cloud overshadowed them, with owls and bats flying about in it. I was told: 'The owls and bats flying about in that cloud are correspondences, so as to display their thoughts. The proving of falsities, so that they seem like truths, is represented in the spiritual world in the form of birds of nocturnal habit, whose eyes are inwardly enlightened by a false light; this enables them to see objects in darkness as if in daylight. Those who prove false propositions until they seem true and are afterwards believed to be true, have a similar, spiritual, false light. They are all able to see behind them, but nothing at all before them.'

  
/ 853  
  

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Conjugial Love #355

Study this Passage

  
/ 535  
  

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."

  
/ 535  
  

Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.

©2024 New Christian Bible Study Corporation. All rights reserved. Printed from newchristianbiblestudy.org