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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.

Mula sa Mga gawa ni Swedenborg

 

Conjugial Love # 269

Pag-aralan ang Sipi na ito

  
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269. We subsequently ascended from this underworld in a southerly direction to where we had been before; and there the angels recounted a number of other things worth mentioning, concerning lust that is not delusionary or given to fantasy - the kind everyone is possessed of from birth. Whenever people are caught up in this lust, they said, they are as fools, and yet appear to themselves as extremely wise. But they are by turns brought back from this foolish state into a rational one, which in them resides in their outward faculties; and in that state they see, recognize and acknowledge their insanity.

"But still," the angels continued, "they long to go from their rational state into their irrational one, and they also let themselves go into it, as from a compelled and unpleasant condition into a free and pleasant one. Thus it is lust that pleasures them inwardly, and not intelligence.

[2] "Every human being is from creation a combination of three universal loves: love of the neighbor, which is also a love of performing useful services; love of the world, which is also a love of possessing riches; and love of self, which is also a love of exercising command over others.

"Love of the neighbor, or a love of performing useful services, is a love of the spirit. Love of the world, on the other hand, or a love of possessing riches, is a love of material things. And love of self, or a love of exercising command over others, is a love of one's own person.

[3] "A person is a human being as long as love of the neighbor or a love of performing useful services forms the head, with love of the world forming the body, and love of self forming the feet. But if love of the world forms the head, a person is not a human being except in a kind of hunchbacked way. And when love of self forms the head, he is no longer a human being standing on his feet, but one standing on his hands with his head down and bottom up.

"When love of the neighbor forms the head, and the other two loves form respectively the body and feet, the person appears, when viewed from heaven, to have an angelic face, with a beautiful rainbow-like halo about his head. But if love of the world forms the head, he appears when viewed from heaven to have a pallid face, like that of a dead man, with a yellow circle about his head. And if love of self forms the head, he appears from heaven to have a dark face, with a white circle about his head."

At that point I asked what the circles around the heads represented.

"They represent intelligence," they replied. "A white circle around a head with a dark face represents that the person's intelligence lies in his outward faculties or round about him, while insanity resides in his inward faculties or within him. Even a person like that is wise so long as he is in a state of the body, but when he is in a state of the spirit he is insane. No one is ever wise in spirit except from the Lord, which comes about when he is being born again or created anew by Him."

[4] Following these words, the ground to my left opened, and through the opening I saw a devil rising, having a luminous white circle about his head. I asked him therefore, "Who are you?"

"I am Lucifer," he answered, "son of the dawn. And because I made myself like the Most High, I was cast down." 1

In fact he was not really Lucifer, but he thought he was. So I asked him, "Seeing that you were cast down, how is it that are you able to rise again from hell?"

To which he replied, "In hell I am a devil, but here I am an angel of light. Do you not see the ring of light encircling my head? And if you wish, you will see, too, that with moral people I am more than moral; with rational people, more than rational; indeed, with spiritual people, more than spiritual. I can even preach, and moreover have preached."

"What have you preached?" I asked.

"I have preached," he said, "against swindlers, against adulterers, and against infernal loves of every kind. Indeed, at such times I have called myself - Lucifer - a devil, and have uttered falsehoods against myself as such; and for that I have been praised to the sky. That is why I have been called son of the dawn. Moreover - what has surprised me - whenever I was in the pulpit, I had no other thought than to speak uprightly and fittingly. However, I discovered in myself the reason, which is that I was caught up in external states, and these were then separate from my inward ones. Yet, having discovered this in myself, still I could not change, because my arrogance prevented me from having regard for God."

[5] I then inquired, "How were you able to speak as you did, seeing that you are a swindler, adulterer, and devil yourself?"

He replied, "I am one sort of person when I am in external states or a state of the body, and another when I am in internal states or a state of the spirit. In a state of the body I am an angel, but in a state of the spirit a devil. For in a state of the body I am directed by my understanding, but in a state of the spirit by my will; and my understanding carries me upward, while my will carries me down. Furthermore, when I am directed by my understanding, a band of white encompasses my head; however, as soon as my understanding surrenders itself completely to my will and becomes its servant - which is our ultimate fate - then the band turns black and disappears. When that happens, we can no longer ascend into this light."

The devil afterwards talked about his dual states, one external, one internal, and he spoke of them more rationally than anybody else has. But suddenly, when he noticed the angels with me, he became inflamed in face and voice and turned black, including even the band about his head; and he sank back down to hell through the opening through which he had risen.

There were some people standing by who witnessed these events, and they drew from them the following conclusion, that a person's character is shaped by his will, and not by his intellect, since love easily carries away the understanding into seeing things its way and becoming its servant.

[6] I then asked the angels, "How is it possible for devils to have such rationality?"

And they said, "It comes from the glory of self-love; for love of self is wrapped in glory, and glory raises the understanding even into the light of heaven. Indeed, in every person the understanding is capable of being raised in accordance with his knowledge, in contrast to the will, which can be raised only by living in accordance with the truths of the church and of reason. That is why even atheists who from love of self are motivated by the glory of their reputation and by a resulting conceit in their own intelligence, may possess a higher degree of rationality than many others - but only when they are directed by the thought of their intellect, and not by the affection of their will. For the affection of the will governs a person's inner self, while the thought of the intellect governs his outer one."

One of the angels further explained why human beings are a combination of the three loves referred to previously, namely, a love of being useful, a love of the world, and a love of self. The reason, he said, is to enable a person to think in accord with God, yet do so as though on his own. The highest elements in a person are directed upwards to God, the intermediate elements outwards to the world, and the lowest ones downwards to self. And because these last elements are directed downwards, a person thinks as though on his own, when in fact he does so from God.

Mga talababa:

1. See Isaiah 14:12-15. The reference is a metaphor for the king of Babylon (Isaiah 14:3,4), but based on an erroneous connection with Luke 10:18 (cf. also Revelation 9:1, 12:7-10), since the 3rd century it has been applied to Satan, a mythical rebel angel cast down from heaven. Modern interpreters generally understand the reference as an allusion to the planet Venus, translating it usually as "day star" or "morning star."

  
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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.

Mula sa Mga gawa ni Swedenborg

 

Conjugial Love # 267

Pag-aralan ang Sipi na ito

  
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267. The second account:

Some period of time later I entered a wooded area, where I walked engaged in thought concerning people who are caught up in a craving to possess those things which have to do with the world, and who fantasize on that account that they do. And I saw, then, two angels at some distance from me, talking together and now and then looking over at me. Consequently I drew nearer; and as I approached, they spoke to me, saying:

"We perceive in ourselves that you are thinking about the same thing we are discussing, or that we are discussing the same thing you are thinking about, which comes from a reciprocal communication of our affections."

I asked them, therefore, what they were discussing.

"Fantasy, lust, and intelligence," they said, "and at the moment, people who find delight in picturing and imagining that they possess everything in the world."

[2] At that I then asked them to express their thought with respect to the first three points - lust, fantasy and intelligence.

So, taking up the subject, they said that everyone is in a state of lust inwardly from birth, and in a state of intelligence outwardly from training; but that no one is in a state of intelligence inwardly, thus in spirit - still less in a state of wisdom - except from the Lord.

"For everyone," they said, "is withheld from the lust of evil and kept in a state of intelligence according as he looks to the Lord and is at the same time conjoined with Him. Apart from this a person is nothing but lust. Yet he is still in a state of intelligence in outward aspects, or as regards the body, from training. For though a person craves honors and riches, or prominence and wealth, these two are not attained unless he appears to be moral and spiritual in character, thus intelligent and wise; and he learns to appear such from the time he is a little child. That is why, as soon as he comes into the company of others or into gatherings of them, he turns his spirit about, withdraws it from lust, and speaks and acts in accordance with the becoming and honorable virtues he has learned from early childhood and still retains in his physical memory - doing his utmost to take care that nothing emerges of the insanity of lust which grips his spirit.

[3] "Consequently everyone not inwardly led by the Lord is a faker, a phony and a hypocrite, and so is human in appearance but not in reality. Of such a person it may be said that his outer shell or body is wise, while his kernel or spirit is insane; or that his outward aspect is human and his inward one animal. People like that direct the back of their heads upward and the front downward, thus going about as though afflicted with heaviness, their heads hanging down and their faces turned to the ground. When they put off the body and become spirits, and are then set free, they become reflections of the insanities of their lust. For people who are caught up in love of self have a longing to rule over the universe, even to extend its limits in order to widen their dominion, never seeing an end; while people who are caught up in a love of the world have a longing to possess all its riches, and they grieve and are envious if any of its treasures are kept hidden from them in the possession of others.

"To keep people like this from becoming nothing but reflections of their lusts, therefore, and so no longer human, it is given them in the natural 1 world to think in accord with fear for the loss of their reputation, and so the loss of honor and gain, together with fear of the law and its penalties; and also to apply their minds to some pursuit or work, by which they are held in external concerns and thus in a state of intelligence, however irrational and insane they are inwardly."

[4] Following this description I asked whether all people who are caught up in the lust are at the same time caught up in the fantasy of it.

They replied that those are caught up in the fantasy of their lust who think withdrawn into themselves and indulge their imagination excessively, talking to themselves; for they almost separate their spirit from its connection with the body, overwhelming their understanding with delusion and stupidly entertaining themselves with nonsense as though everything in the universe were theirs.

This madness is what a person comes into after death if he has withdrawn his spirit from the body and has been unwilling to relinquish the pleasure of his madness, thinking little from religion about evils and falsities, and least of all about unbridled love of self as being destructive of love toward the Lord, or about unbridled love of the world as being destructive of love for the neighbor.

Mga talababa:

1. The original text reads, "in the spiritual world," but preceding and subsequent statements in the discussion, and the general doctrine delivered elsewhere concerning the nature of the two worlds, suggest that it is probably a slip of the pen for "the natural world." (The same statement is repeated in True Christian Religion, no. 662[3], without correction, but so are several other, more obvious errors, indicating that the latter was simply set in type again from the text here, without careful review.)

  
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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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