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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

 

True Christian Religion #570

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570. The fourth experience.

I once talked with a newly arrived spirit, who while in the world had spent much time meditating about heaven and hell. (By newly arrived spirits are meant people who have recently died, who are called spirits because they are then spiritual people.) As soon as he entered the spiritual world, he began in the same way to meditate about heaven and hell; and he felt happy when he thought about heaven, and sad when he thought about hell. On realising that he was in the spiritual world, he immediately asked where heaven and hell were, and what each were, and what they were like.

'Heaven,' they replied, 'is above your head, and hell is below your feet, for you are now in the world of spirits, which is mid-way between heaven and hell. But we cannot describe in a few words what heaven is and what it is like, or what hell is and is like.'

Then, being intensely eager to know he fell on his knees and prayed earnestly to God for instruction. An angel appeared at once on his right, who made him get up and said: 'You have begged to be instructed about heaven and hell. Ask and learn what pleasure is, and you will know.' And with these words the angel disappeared.

[2] Then the new spirit said to himself: 'What is the meaning of this, "Ask and learn what pleasure is, and you will know what heaven and hell are and what they are like"?' So he left the place where he was and wandered about, addressing those he met and saying: 'Please be so good as to tell me what pleasure is.' 'What sort of a question is this?' said some. 'Everyone knows what pleasure is. Isn't it joy and happiness? Pleasure then is pleasure, and one is like another; we don't know how to distinguish them.'

Others said that pleasure is mental amusement. 'When the mind is amused, the face is cheerful, speech is full of jokes, gestures are lighthearted, and the whole person is pleased.' But some said: 'Pleasure is simply feasting and eating delicacies, drinking and getting drunk on fine wine, and then having conversations on various topics, especially about the sports of Venus and Cupid.'

[3] On hearing this the new spirit was cross and said to himself: 'These are the replies of peasants, not educated people. These pleasures are neither heaven nor hell. I wish I could meet some wise men.' So he left these people and started asking, 'Where are the wise?'

Then he was seen by an angelic spirit, who said: 'I perceive that you are fired with the longing to know what is the universal characteristic of heaven and of hell. This is pleasure, so I will take you to a hill, where every day there is an assembly of those who seek out effects, of those who enquire into causes, and of those who examine ends. Those who seek out effects are called scientific spirits, or Sciences personified. Those who enquire into causes are called intelligent spirits, or Intelligences personified. Those who examine ends are called wise spirits or Wisdoms personified. Directly above them in heaven are the angels who see causes from the point of view of ends, and effects from the point of view of causes; these angels are the source of enlightenment for these three gatherings.'

[4] Then he took the new spirit by the hand and brought him onto a hill, where those who examine ends and are called Wisdoms were meeting. 'Forgive me,' he said to them, 'for coming up here to meet you. The reason is that from the time I was a boy I have been meditating about heaven and hell. I have recently arrived in this world, and some of the people I met told me that here heaven is overhead and hell is underfoot; but they did not tell me what each were or what they were like. So thinking constantly about them made me worried, and I prayed to God. Then an angel approached me and said: "Ask and learn what pleasure is, and you will know." I have been asking, but so far to no purpose. So, please, if you would be so kind, teach me what pleasure is.'

[5] 'Pleasure,' replied the Wisdoms, 'is the whole of life for all in heaven, and the whole of life for all in hell. Those who are in heaven experience the pleasure of good and truth, those in hell the pleasure of evil and falsity. For all pleasure has to do with love, and love is the very being of a person's life. So just as a person's humanity depends upon the nature of his love, so it does on the nature of his pleasure. The activity of the love creates the feeling of pleasure. In heaven its activity is accompanied by wisdom, in hell by madness. But each activity induces pleasure in the subjects it operates upon. The heavens and the hells experience opposite pleasures; the heavens experience the love for good and thus the pleasure of doing good, the hells the love for evil and thus the pleasure of doing harm. If therefore you know what pleasure is, you will know what heaven and hell are and what they are like.

[6] 'But ask and learn about pleasure from those who enquire into causes and are called Intelligences. They are on the right as you leave here.'

So he went away, approached the next gathering and explained why he had come, asking them to instruct him about pleasure. They were delighted to be asked, and said: 'It is true that, if anyone knows about pleasure, he knows what heaven and hell are and what they are like. The will, which is what makes a person human, does not move an inch, except as the result of pleasure. For the will regarded in itself is nothing but an affection of some love and thus of some pleasure. For there is some delight and thus some choice which inspires the act of willing; and because it is the will that makes the understanding think, not the slightest thinking is possible without pleasure flowing in from the will. The reason for this is that the Lord by the radiation from Himself activates everything in the soul and mind of angels, spirits and men. This activity takes place through the inflow of love and wisdom, and this inflow is the actual activity which is the source of all pleasure. This in its originating phase is called blessedness, bliss and happiness, and in its derived phase, pleasure, loveliness and delight, to use a universal term, good. But the spirits of hell turn everything they have upside down, so changing good into evil, and truth into falsity, though the pleasure remains constant. For without constant pleasure they would have no will, no feeling and so no life. From this it is plain what the pleasure of hell is, what it is like and where it comes from and likewise the pleasure of heaven.'

[7] Having heard this, he was taken to the third gathering where were those who seek out effects and are called Sciences. These said: 'Go down to the lower earth, and go up to the upper earth; on these you will perceive and feel the pleasures of both heaven and hell.'

Then some way off the ground gaped open and three devils came up through the opening; they had a fiery appearance resulting from the pleasure of their love. The angels who were accompanying the new spirit realised that the three devils had been deliberately brought up from hell and called out to them: 'Don't come any closer, but from where you are tell us something about your pleasures.'

'You may know,' they replied, 'that everyone, whether he is said to be good or wicked, experiences his own pleasure, the so-called good man his, and the so-called wicked man his.'

'What,' they were asked, 'is your pleasure?' They said it was the pleasure of fornicating, taking revenge, cheating and blaspheming. Then they were asked what their pleasures were like. They said that other people felt them as like the rank smell of dung, the stench of corpses and the rottenness of pools of urine. 'Do you find those things pleasant?' they were asked. 'Extremely so,' they replied. 'Then,' they were told, 'you are like unclean animals that live in such conditions.' 'If we are, we are,' they replied; 'but these are the kind of things that delight our nostrils.'

'What more can you tell us?' they were asked. They said that everyone is allowed to experience his own pleasure, even the filthiest, as others call it, so long as he does not annoy good spirits and angels. 'But because our pleasure will not let us stop annoying them, we have been thrown into labour-camps where we are harshly treated. It is the prevention and withdrawal of our pleasures there which is called the torments of hell; it is too a kind of inward pain.'

'Why did you annoy good people?' they were asked. They said they could not help themselves. 'There is a kind of frenzy,' they said, 'which takes hold of us, when we see an angel and feel the Lord's Divine sphere surrounding him.' 'Then you are really like wild beasts,' we said on hearing this.

A little later, when they saw the new spirit in the company of angels, a frenzy came over the devils, which seemed like the fire of hatred. So to prevent them doing harm, they were hurled back into hell. After this there appeared the angels who see causes from the point of view of ends and effects from the point of view of causes, and occupy the heaven above those three gatherings. They were seen surrounded by brilliant light, which as it rolled down in spiralling curves brought with it a garland of flowers, and placed it on the new spirit's head. Then a voice came forth saying: 'This laurel-wreath is given to you because from the time you were a boy you meditated about heaven and hell.'

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

Van Swedenborgs Werken

 

Coronis (An Appendix to True Christian Religion) #37

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37. "On a time, when I was meditating on conjugial love, the desire seized my mind of knowing what that love had been like with those who lived in the Golden Age, and what, afterwards, in the succeeding ones which are called the Silver, Copper and Iron ages. And, as I knew that all who lived well in those ages are in the heavens, I prayed to the Lord that it might be permitted me to speak with them and be instructed.

"And, lo! an angel stood by me, and said, 'I am sent by the Lord to be your guide and companion; and I will lead and accompany you, first, to those who lived in the first era, or Age, which is called the Golden.' (The Golden Age is the same as the age of the Most Ancient Church, which is meant by the head of fine gold, on the statue seen by Nebuchadnezzar in a dream - Dan. 2:32- of which we have spoken before.) The angel said, 'The way to them is laborious; it lies through a dense wood, which no one can traverse unless a guide be given him by the Lord.'

[2] "I was in the spirit, and prepared myself for the journey, and we turned our faces to the east; and as we proceeded, I saw a mountain, whose summit towered beyond the region of the clouds. We crossed a great desert, and reached a wood crowded with all kinds of trees, and dark by reason of the dense growth thereof, of which the angel told me beforehand. But that wood was intersected by numerous narrow paths. The angel said that these were so many windings of error, and that unless the eyes were opened by the Lord, and the olive-trees girt about with vine tendrils seen, and the steps led from olive-tree to olive-tree, the traveller would stray into Tartarus. This wood is of such a nature, to the end that the approach may be guarded; for no other race but the primeval one dwells on that mountain.

[3] "After we entered the wood, our eyes were opened, and we saw here and there the olive-trees entwined with vines, from which hung bunches of grapes of a dark-blue colour, and the olive-trees were arranged in perpetual windings; wherefore, we walked round and round as they came into view; and at length we saw a grove of lofty cedars, and some eagles on their branches. When he saw these, the angel said, 'Now we are on the mountain, not far from its summit.'

And we went on; and lo! behind the grove was a circular plain, where were feeding male and female lambs, which were forms representative of the state of innocence and peace of the inhabitants of the mountain.

"We crossed this plain, and lo! there were seen thousands and thousands of tents to the front, and at the sides in every direction, as far as the sight could reach. And the angel said, 'Now we are in the camp where dwell the armies of the Lord Jehovih, for so they call themselves and their habitations. These most ancient people, while they were in the world, dwelt in tents; for which reason they also dwell in them now.' But I said, 'Let us bend our way to the south, where the wiser of them dwell, that we may meet some one with whom we may enter into conversation.'

[4] "On the way, I saw at a distance three boys and three girls sitting at the door of their tent; but as we drew near, both the boys and the girls were seen as men and women of medium height. And the angel said, 'All the inhabitants of this mountain appear at a distance as young children, because they are in the state of innocence, and early childhood is the appearance of innocence.'

"On seeing us, the three men (viri) ran towards us, and said, 'Whence are you, and how have you come hither? your faces are not of the faces belonging to this mountain.'

"But the angel replied, and told the means by which we obtained access through the wood, and the reason of our coming.

"On hearing this, one of the three men invited and conducted us into his tent. The man was clad in a coat of a purple colour, and a tunic of white wool; and his wife was dressed in a crimson robe, and had, underneath, a vest of fine embroidered linen.

[5] "But inasmuch as the desire of knowing about the marriages of the most ancient people was in my mind, I looked at the husband and the wife by turns, and observed as it were a unity of their souls in their faces; and I said, 'You two are one.

"And the man answered, 'We are one; her life is in me and mine in her. We are two bodies, but one soul. There is between us a union like that of the two tents in the breast, which are called the heart and the lungs; she is the substance of my heart, and I am her lungs; but as by heart we here mean love, and by lungs wisdom-we understand the latter by the former on account of correspondence-she is the love of my wisdom, and I am the wisdom of her love. Hence, as you said, there is the appearance of the unity of our souls in our faces. Hence, it is as impossible to us, here, to look in lust upon the wife of a companion, as it is to look at the light of our heaven from the shade of Tartarus.'

"And the angel said to me, 'You hear now the speech of these angels, that it is the speech of wisdom, because they speak from causes.'

[6] "After this conversation, I saw a great light on a hill among the tents, and I asked, 'Whence is that light?'

"He said, 'From the sanctuary of our tabernacle of worship.'

"I enquired whether it was allowed to approach; and he said that it was. Then I drew near, and saw the tabernacle exactly according to the description without and within, of the Tabernacle which was set up for the Sons of Israel in the wilderness, the form of which was shown to Moses on Mount Sinai (Exod. 25:40; 26:30). I asked, further, 'What is there within, in its sanctuary, whence so great a light proceeds?'

"And he answered, 'There is a tablet, on which is written, "THE COVENANT BETWEEN THE LORD JEHOVIH AND HEAVEN."' He said no more.

"Then, also, I questioned them about the LORD JEHOVIH, whom they worship; and I said, 'Is He not God the Father, the Creator of the universe?'

"And they replied, 'He is; but, by the Lord Jehovih we understand Jehovah in His Human; for we are not able to look upon Jehovah in His inmost Divinity, except through His Human': and then they explained what they understood, and also what at this day they understand, by the

Seed of the woman trampling the serpent's head (Gen. 3:15);

namely, that the Lord Jehovih would come into the world, and redeem and save all who believed on Him, and who would believe thereafter.

"When we had finished this conversation, the man ran to his tent, and returned with a pomegranate in which was a vast number of golden seeds, which he presented to me, and I brought away: this was a token that we had been with those who lived in the Golden Age." [See the little work on CONJUGIAL LOVE , n. 75.] - For an account of the heavens of the remaining Churches which succeeded the Most Ancient, in their order, see in the same little work on CONJUGIAL LOVE (n. 76-82).

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

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