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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.

Van Swedenborgs Werken

 

Apocalypse Revealed #655

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655. To this I will append the following account:

I spoke with some of the spirits meant by the dragon. And one of them said to me, "Come with me and I will show you what pleases our eyes and hearts."

Then he took me through a dark forest and over a hill, from which I could view the pleasures of the dragon spirits. And I saw an amphitheater built in the form of a circle, with sloping tiers of benches extending up all around on which spectators were sitting. Those who sat on the lowest benches looked to me at a distance like satyrs and priapi, some of them with a cloth covering their private parts, and some of them naked without one. On the benches above them sat whoremongers and harlots. So they appeared to me from their behavior.

The dragon spirit then said to me, "Now you will see our sport." And I saw what looked like calves, rams, ewes, kids and lambs brought into the arena of the circus, and after they were all there, a gate opened and I saw what looked like young lions, panthers, leopards and wolves rushing upon the flock and savagely attacking them. They tore them to pieces and slaughtered them. And after that bloody carnage the satyrs spread sand over the site where the slaughter took place.

[2] The dragon spirit said to me then, "These are our sports, which please our hearts."

But I replied, "Get away from me, you demon! In a little while you will see this amphitheater turned into a lake of fire and brimstone."

He laughed and left me. And wondering to myself afterward why the Lord permits such things, I received in my heart the answer, that they are permitted as long as spirits are in the world of spirits; but that when their time in that world is over, such theatrical scenes are turned into dreadful ones in hell.

[3] Everything that I saw was a sight induced by the dragon spirits through beguilements. There were no calves, rams, ewes, kids or lambs, therefore, but those spirits made genuine goods and truths of the church to so appear, goods and truths that they hate. The young lions, panthers, leopards and wolves were manifestations of the lusts in those spirits who looked like satyrs and priapi. Those without a cloth over their private parts were people who believed that evils are not seen in the eyes of God, while those with a cloth are people who believed that evils are seen, but do not condemn, provided they have faith. The whoremongers and harlots were people who falsified the Word's truth, for licentiousness symbolizes the falsification of truth.

Everything in the spiritual world appears at a distance in accordance with its correspondence, and when these correspondences take manifest form, in objects like those of natural ones, we call them representations of spiritual entities.

[4] I later saw those spirits leaving the forest, with the dragon spirit surrounded by the satyrs and priapi, followed by their lieutenants and camp followers, who were the whoremongers and harlots. The troop grew as it went, and I was given then to hear what they were saying among themselves. They were saying that they saw a flock of sheep and goats in a meadow, and that it was a sign that they were approaching one of the Jerusalem cities where charity is primary. And they said, "Let us go and seize that city, throw out its inhabitants, and plunder their goods!"

They went to it, but it had a wall around it, with angels as guards upon the wall. So then they said, "Let us take it by trickery. Let us send in an artful person skilled in casuistry, who can make black white and white black, and color the reality of any subject."

So the spirits found a certain expert in the metaphysical art, who could turn concepts of things into considerations of terms and hide actual realities under strings of words, and so fly away like a hawk with its prey under its wings. They told him what to say to the inhabitants of the city, that they were people who shared the inhabitants' religion and should be admitted.

Going to the city gate he knocked, and when it was opened, he said that he wished to speak with the wisest person in the city. So he was allowed in and taken to a certain man, and he addressed the man then, saying, "My brethren are outside the city and ask to be let in. They share your religion. You and we both make faith and charity to be the two essential ingredients of religion. The only difference is that you say charity is primary and faith its effect, while we say faith is primary and charity its effect. What does it matter which one is called primary, when we believe in both?"

[5] The city's wise man replied, "Let us not speak about this matter by ourselves, but do so in the presence of a number of others, to serve as arbiters and judges. Otherwise no decision will result."

And at that he summoned some others, and the dragon spirit's emissary repeated to them what he had said before.

Then the city's wise man responded, "You said that it is the same whether one takes charity to be the primary concern of the church, or faith, provided one agrees that the two together form the church and its religion. And yet the difference is as the difference between something prior and something subsequent, between a cause and its effect, between a principal cause and an instrumental cause, between an essential component and a manner of expression.

"I speak so to you, because I have observed that you are an expert in the metaphysical art, an art that we call casuistry, and that some people call mumbo jumbo. But let us put these terms aside. The difference is as the difference between something above and something below. Indeed, if you would believe it, it is as the difference between heaven and hell. For that which is primary forms the head and breast, while that which is its effect forms the feet and the soles of the feet.

"But let us first agree on what charity is and what faith is - that charity is the love's affection for doing good to the neighbor for God's sake, and for the sake of salvation and eternal life, and that faith is confident thought regarding God, salvation and eternal life."

[6] However, the emissary said, "I grant that that is what faith is, and I also grant that charity is, as you say, an affection for God's sake, because it conforms with His commandment, but not that is an affection for the sake of salvation and eternal life."

Whereupon the city's wise man said, "Let it be as you say, provided it is for God's sake."

Following this agreement the city's wise man said, "Is not affection the primary thing and thought its effect?"

To which the dragon spirit's emissary answered, "No, it is not."

But he was told in reply, "You cannot deny it. A person is moved to think by his affection, is he not? Take away the affection. Can you form any thought? The case is entirely the same as if you were to take the sound out of speech. If you were to take away any sound, could you speak a word? The tone is also a matter of affection, while the words are a matter of thought, for affection produces the tone and thought the words. The case is also like that of a flame and its light. If you take away the flame, does not the light die?

"So it is with charity and faith, charity being an affection, and faith a matter of thought. Can you not comprehend, then, that the primary element is everything in the secondary one, even as sound is in speech? And from this you can see that if you do not make primary that which is primary, you do not possess the second element. Consequently, if you take faith, which is in second place, and put it in first place, you will appear no otherwise in heaven than as a person upside down, with his feet planted upward and his head pointed down. Or you will look like a clown turned upside down and walking on his hands. Since people like you will appear so in heaven, what then are your good works constituting charity but the kind that a clown might do with his feet, seeing that he cannot do them with his hands? As a consequence your charity is natural and not spiritual, as you yourself see, because it is turned upside down."

[7] The emissary understood this, for every devil can understand truth when he hears it, even though he cannot retain it, because when his affection for evil returns, it casts out thought of truth.

After that, then, the city's wise man described with many illustrations what faith is like when it is accepted as primary, saying that it is merely natural, that it is simply knowledge devoid of any spiritual life, and that it is consequently not faith. "For your charity," he said, "is nothing but a natural affection, and the only kind of thought that springs from a natural affection is natural thought, which is what constitutes your faith.

"I might almost say, too," he continued, "that in your merely natural faith there is scarcely any other spiritual life than in your knowledge of the Mongol empire, of the diamond mine there, or of its emperor's wealth and court."

When the dragon's emissary heard this, he angrily departed and reported to his companions outside the city. And when they heard that he had been told that charity is an affection for doing good to the neighbor for God's sake and for the sake of salvation and eternal life, they all cried out, "That's a lie!"

And the dragon spirit himself said, "What an outrage! All good works that constitute charity - if done for the sake of salvation, are they not merit-seeking?"

[8] The spirits then said to one another, "Let us summon here more of our colleagues, and let us lay siege to this city. Let us make ladders, scale the wall and attack them at night, and throw out those proponents of charity."

But when they attempted this, there suddenly appeared what looked like fire from heaven which consumed them. In fact, however, the fire from heaven was a manifestation of their anger, owing to their hatred of the city's inhabitants, because those inhabitants cast faith out of first place into second place. It appeared to them as though they were consumed by fire because hell opened beneath their feet and swallowed them.

Events similar to this occurred in many places at the time of the Last Judgment, and this is the meaning of the following depiction in the book of Revelation:

(The dragon) will go out to lead astray the nations which are in the four corners of the earth..., to gather them together for war... And they went up over the breadth of the land and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. But fire came down from God out of heaven and consumed them. (Revelation 20:8-9)

  
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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.

Van Swedenborgs Werken

 

Survey of Teachings of the New Church #114

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114. To these points I will add two memorable occurrences taken from Revelation Unveiled.

The first memorable occurrence. I was suddenly overcome with a deathly illness. My whole head felt worse and worse. A poisonous smoke was blowing in from the great city that spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt (Revelation 11:8). I was half dead and in severe pain. I thought I was about to die. I lay in bed in that condition for three and a half days. My spirit developed this sickness, and then my body came down with it as well.

Then I heard voices around me saying, “Look, he is lying dead in the street of our city—the one who was preaching that we should repent so that our sins would be forgiven and [that we should worship] only Christ the human being.”

They asked some of the clergy, “Is he worthy of burial?” (We read that the same thing happened to the two witnesses who were killed in that city; see Revelation 11:8, 9, 10.)

The clergy replied, “No. Let him lie there as a spectacle.”

They kept going away and coming back to mock me.

And I am telling the truth when I say that this happened to me at the very time that I was explaining the eleventh chapter of the Book of Revelation.

Then I heard more serious words from the people who had been mocking me—especially these: “How can repentance be practiced apart from faith? How can Christ the human being be adored as God? Given that we are saved for free without our deserving it at all, what then do we need except faith alone—the faith that God the Father sent the Son to take away the damnation of the law, to credit us with his own merit, to justify us before the Father, to absolve us from our sins, and then to give us the Holy Spirit, who activates every good thing within us? Aren’t these points in accordance with Scripture and also with reason?”

The crowd of bystanders applauded these statements.

[2] I heard all this but was unable to respond because I was lying there almost dead.

After three and a half days, however, my spirit regained its health. In the spirit I went from that street into the city, and I said again, “Practice repentance and believe in Christ, and your sins will be forgiven and you will be saved. If you do not, you will perish. The Lord himself preached that we must repent in order for our sins to be forgiven, and that we must believe in him. He commanded the disciples to preach the same message. Surely the dogma of your faith leads to utter complacency about the way you live!”

“What are you babbling about?” they replied. “The Son has made satisfaction. The Father has assigned us the Son’s merit and has justified us for the reason that these are our beliefs. We are now led by the spirit of grace. What sin could there be within us? What death could there be among us? Do you grasp this Good News, you preacher of sin and repentance?”

Then a voice from heaven said, “Surely the faith of someone who has not practiced repentance is nothing but a dead faith. The end has come, the end has come upon you who are complacent, guiltless in your own eyes, justified by your own faith—devils!”

At that moment a chasm suddenly opened up in the middle of the city and spread outward. The houses were falling in on each other and the people were swallowed up. Soon water bubbled up from the great hole and flooded what was already devastated.

[3] After they sank to a lower level and were seemingly covered in water, I wanted to know what their situation was like in the depths. A voice from heaven told me, “You will see and hear.”

Then the water that had seemingly flooded them disappeared from before my eyes. (Water in the spiritual world is a correspondence that appears around people who have false beliefs.) I saw the people in a sandy place at a great depth, where there were piles of stones. They were running between the piles of stones and loudly bemoaning their having been cast out of their great city.

They were shouting and wailing, “Why has this happened to us? We are clean, pure, just, and holy because of our faith.”

Others were saying, “Surely through our faith we have been cleansed, purified, justified, and sanctified.”

Still others were asking, “Hasn’t our faith made it possible for us to be seen and esteemed by God the Father and the whole Trinity, and to be declared before angels, as clean, pure, righteous, and holy? Haven’t we been reconciled, atoned for, ritually purged, and therefore absolved, washed, and wiped free of our sins? Didn’t Christ take away the damnation of the law? Why then have we been thrown down here like the damned? We did hear from a bold proclaimer of sin in our great city, ‘Believe in Christ and practice repentance.’ But didn’t we believe in Christ when we believed in his merit? Didn’t we practice repentance when we confessed that we were sinners? Why then has this happened to us?”

[4] A voice was then heard from the side: “Are you aware of any sin in yourselves? Have you ever examined yourselves, and then abstained from any evil because it is sinful against God? If you do not abstain from sin, then you are still devoted to it; and sin is the Devil. You, then, are the people of whom the Lord spoke when he said, ‘You will then begin to say, “We ate and drank with you. You taught in our streets.” But he will say, “I tell you, I do not know you, where you are from. Depart from me, all you workers of wickedness”’ (Luke 13:26, 27). Matthew 7:22, 23 is also about you. Therefore go away, each to your own place. Do you see the holes leading to those caves? Go in there, and each of you will be given your own work to do, and food in accordance with your work. If you don’t go in, your hunger will drive you in.”

[5] After that a voice from heaven came to some people who were up at the level of the ground but were outside the city (see Revelation 11:13). The voice said loudly, “Beware! Beware of associating with people like that. Don’t you understand that evils that are called sins and acts of wickedness make us unclean and impure? How can you be cleansed and purified from them except by active repentance and by faith in the Lord God the Savior? Active repentance is examining yourselves, recognizing and admitting to your sins, accepting that you are at fault, confessing them before the Lord, begging for his help and power in resisting them, stopping doing them, and living a new life. All this is to be done as if you were doing it on your own. Do this once or twice a year when you are about to take Holy Communion. Afterward, when the sins for which you are at fault recur, say to yourselves, ‘We do not want these, because they are sins against God.’ This is actual repentance.

[6] “Surely you can all recognize that if you do not examine yourselves and see your sins, you remain in them. From birth you find all evils delightful. It feels good to take revenge, to be promiscuous, to steal, and to slander. Because they feel good you overlook them. If someone happens to point out to you that they are sins, you make excuses for them because they feel good. You use false arguments to defend them and convince yourselves that they are not sins, and you stay in them. And afterward you do those evil things more than you did before, to the point where you no longer know what sin is or even whether there is such a thing.

“It is different, however, for people who actively go through a process of repentance. The evils that they recognize and admit to [in themselves] they call sins. They therefore begin to abstain and turn away from them. Eventually they begin to feel the pleasure of those evils as unpleasant. The more this happens, the more they see and love what is good, and eventually even feel delight in it, which is the delight that the angels in heaven feel. Briefly put, the more we put the Devil behind us, the more we are adopted by the Lord and are taught, led, held back from what is evil, and kept in what is good by him. This is the pathway from hell to heaven; there is no other way.”

[7] It is amazing that Protestants have such a deep-seated resistance, antipathy, and aversion to active repentance. Their reaction to it is so strong that they cannot force themselves to do self-examination, to see their sins, and to confess them before God. It is as if they are overcome by horror as soon as they form the intention to do it. I have asked many Protestants in the spiritual world about this, and they all said that it is completely beyond their strength. When they heard that Catholics practice this, that is, that they examine themselves and openly confess their sins to a monk, the Protestants were profoundly amazed, especially since the Protestants themselves could not do this even in secret before God, although they had been commanded, just as the Catholics had been, to do this when they were about to take the Holy Supper. Some people in the spiritual world investigated why this was, and discovered that faith alone was what had led to such an impenitent state and such an attitude of heart. Then those Protestants were allowed to see that Catholics are saved if they turn to Christ and worship him, and no longer worship but only honor the leaders of their churches.

[8] After that we heard a kind of thunder, and a voice speaking from heaven and saying, “We are amazed. Say to the gathering of Protestants, ‘Believe in Christ and practice repentance, and you will be saved.’”

So I said it.

I added, “Clearly, baptism is a sacrament of repentance and therefore introduction into the church. What else do godparents promise for the child being baptized but that she or he will renounce the Devil and all his works? Clearly, the Holy Supper is a sacrament of repentance and therefore introduction into heaven. Doesn’t the priest say to those about to take it that they absolutely have to practice repentance first? Clearly, the Ten Commandments are the universal teaching of the Christian church; they urge repentance. Isn’t it true that the six commandments on the second tablet say, ‘You are not to do this and that thing that is evil,’ not, ‘You are to do this and that thing that is good’? Therefore you are capable of knowing that the more we abstain from what is evil, the more we love what is good; and that before that, we do not know what good is, or even what evil is.”

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

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