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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.

Из Сведенборгових дела

 

Survey of Teachings of the New Church # 115

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115. The second memorable occurrence. Once an angel said to me, “Do you want to see clearly what faith and goodwill are, and therefore what faith separated from goodwill is, and what faith united to goodwill is? I will express it in visual terms for you.”

“Please do!” I answered.

The angel said, “Instead of faith and goodwill, think of light and heat, and you will see them clearly. Faith in its essence is truth that relates to wisdom. Goodwill in its essence is affection that relates to love. In heaven, truth related to wisdom is light and affection related to love is heat. The light and heat that angels live in are, in essence, exactly this. As a result, you can clearly see what faith is when it is separated from goodwill and what it is when it is united to goodwill.

“When faith is separated from goodwill, it is like the light in winter. When faith is united to goodwill, it is like the light in spring. The light in winter, which is a light separated from heat, is united to coldness; therefore it completely strips trees of their leaves, kills grass, makes ground as hard as rock, and freezes water. Light in spring, which is a light united to heat, causes trees to grow, first producing leaves, then flowers, and finally fruit; it also unlocks and softens the ground so that it produces grass, plants, flowers, and shrubs; and it melts ice, so that water flows from its sources again.

“The situation with faith and goodwill is absolutely identical. Faith separated from goodwill kills everything. Faith united to goodwill brings everything to life. This killing and this bringing to life are vividly visible in this spiritual world of ours, because here faith is light and goodwill is heat. Where faith has been united to goodwill there is a paradise of gardens, flower beds, and lawns; the more united faith and goodwill are, the more pleasing the gardens are. Where faith has been separated from goodwill, there is not even grass; the only greenness comes from thorns and brambles.”

At that point there were some members of the clergy not far away. The angel called them “justifiers and sanctifiers of people through faith alone” and also “arcanists.” We said the same things to the members of the clergy and added enough proof that they could see that what we said was true. But when we asked them, “Isn’t that so?” they turned away and said, “We didn’t hear you.” So we cried out to them and said, “Then keep listening to us,” but they put both hands over their ears and shouted, “We don’t want to hear you!”

Closing Thought from Jeremiah 7:2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11

Stand in the gate of the house of Jehovah and proclaim this word there. “Thus says Jehovah Sabaoth, the God of Israel: ‘Make your ways and your deeds good. Do not put your trust in lying words, saying, “The temple of Jehovah, the temple of Jehovah, the temple of Jehovah are these.” Are you going to steal, kill, commit adultery, and swear falsely, and then come and stand before me in this house that bears my name and say “We are delivered” when you are doing all these abominations? Has this house become a den of thieves? Behold I, even I, have seen it,’ says Jehovah.”

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

Из Сведенборгових дела

 

True Christian Religion # 80

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80. The fifth experience.

Once a satan was given leave to come up from hell together with a woman, and he approached the house where I was. On seeing them I shut the window, but carried on a conversation with them through it. I asked the Satan where he came from, and he said from the company of his own people.

I asked where the woman came from, and he made the same reply. She belonged to the crew of sirens. Their skill is by fantasy to put on every appearance of beauty and every adornment of dress. At one time they assume the beauty of Venus, at another the charm of countenance of a Muse, at another they deck themselves like queens in crowns and robes, and pace in regal fashion leaning on silver staves. Such women in the spiritual world are prostitutes and specialise in fantasy. They induce fantasies by thinking sensually, which blocks any ideas from a more inward mode of thinking.

I asked the Satan if she was his wife. 'What is a wife?' he replied. 'This is a term unknown to me and my community; she is my woman.' Then she roused her man's lewdness, a thing these sirens are skilled in doing. On feeling this he kissed her, saying, 'Oh my Adonis!'

[2] But to more serious matters. I asked the Satan what was his calling. 'My calling,' he said, 'is learning; don't you see the laurel wreath on my head? 'This his Adonis had conjured up by her magic arts and put on his head from behind.

'Since you come from a community,' I said, 'where there are schools of learning, tell me what you and your companions believe about God.' 'God,' he replied, 'is for us the universe, which we also call nature. Simple folk in our country call it the atmosphere, by which they mean the air; but the intelligent mean the atmosphere which is also the ether. God, heaven, angels and the like, the subject of many tales in this world, are idle words and fictions inspired by meteors, which many people here have seen flash before their eyes. Is not everything to be seen upon earth the creation of the sun? Every time it approaches in springtime are not insects born, with and without wings? Does not its heat make birds love each other and reproduce? And does not the earth, warmed by its heat, cause seed to sprout and produce fruits as its offspring? Does this not mean that the universe is God, and nature a goddess, and she as the wife of the universe conceives, bears, rears and nurtures these things?'

[3] I went on to ask what he and his community believed about religion. 'We who are educated above the ordinary level,' he replied, 'look on religion as nothing but a toy for the common people. The sensory and imaginative areas of their minds are surrounded with a sort of aura, in which religious ideas flit about like butterflies in the air. Their faith, which links these ideas into a sort of chain, resembles a silk-worm in its cocoon, from which the king of butterflies flutters forth. For the uneducated masses love images which rise above the bodily senses and the thoughts they engender, because they have a longing to fly. So they make themselves wings, so that they can soar like eagles and show off in front of the earth-bound, saying, 'Look at me!' We, however, believe what we see and love what we touch.' At this he touched his woman, saying, 'This I believe, because I see and touch it. But we throw all that sort of rubbish out of our windows of mica, and waft it away on a gale of laughter.'

[4] Then I asked his opinion and that of his companions on heaven and hell. He laughed and said: 'What is heaven but the ethereal firmament on high? What are angels but spots wandering round the sun? What are archangels but comets with their long tails, on which their company lives? What is hell but marshland full of frogs and crocodiles, which their imagination turns into devils? Everything but these ideas of heaven and hell is mere nonsense, thought up by some church dignitary to seek fame among an ignorant populace.'

He said all this exactly as he had thought in the world, unaware that he was living after death, and forgetful of everything he had been told when he first entered the world of spirits. Therefore even when asked about life after death, he replied that it was a figment of the imagination, but there might perhaps be some effluvium given off by the corpse in the grave in shape resembling a person, or something like the ghosts which some tell tales about, and this had led people to fantasise on the subject.

[5] On hearing this I could no longer stop myself bursting out laughing. 'Satan,' I said, 'you really are mad. What are you now? Are you not in shape like a person? Don't you talk, see, hear and walk? Remember that you lived in another world, which you have forgotten, and now you are alive after death, yet have been speaking exactly as you did before you died.'

He was given back his memory, and on remembering he was ashamed and cried: 'I am mad. I have seen heaven up above, and heard angels there speak things beyond description. But this was when I was a recent arrival. Now I shall remember this to tell the companions I left behind, and then perhaps they will be ashamed too.' He had it on the tip of his tongue to call them mad, but as he went down forgetfulness blotted out his memory, so that on arrival he was as mad as they were, and called what I had told him madness.

Such is the state of thought and conversation among satans after death. The name of satans is given to those who have convinced themselves of falsities until they completely believe them, and the name of devils to those who have fostered evils in their characters by living a wicked life.

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

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