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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.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #153

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153. To this I will add the following account, regarding the lot after death of people who in both doctrine and life have confirmed themselves in the doctrine of faith alone to the point of believing it to be justifying.

1. When they are physically dead and come to life again in the spirit, which generally happens on the third day after the heart has stopped beating, they appear to themselves to have the same body that they had before in the world, so much so that they do not know otherwise than that they are living in the prior world. Yet they do not have a material body, but rather a spiritual one, and to their senses, which are also spiritual, their body appears as though material, even though it is not.

[2] 2. After several days they see that they are in a world where various societies have been established - a world called the world of spirits, which is midway between heaven and hell. All the societies there, of which there are a countless number, have been marvelously organized in accordance with the inhabitants' natural affections, good and evil. Societies organized in accordance with good natural affections communicate with heaven, while societies organized in accordance with evil affections communicate with hell.

[3] 3. A newly arrived spirit or new spiritual person is taken about and conveyed into various societies, both good and evil, and he is examined to see whether he is affected by truths, and in what way, or whether he is affected by falsities, and in what way.

[4] 4. If the person is affected by truths, he is led away from evil societies and introduced into good ones, and into various good ones, until he comes to a society corresponding to his natural affection, and there he experiences a goodness in harmony with that natural affection. This continues until he sheds the natural affection and takes on a spiritual one, at which point he is raised into heaven. But this is what happens in the case of people who in the world lived a life of charity and so also a life of faith, which consisted in their believing in the Lord and refraining from evils as sins.

[5] 5. In contrast, people who in both doctrine and life had confirmed themselves in the doctrine of faith alone to the point of believing it alone to be justifying - these, because they are affected not by truths but by falsities, and because they have dismissed goods of charity or good works from being means of salvation, are led away from good societies and introduced into evil ones, and into various evil ones, until they come to a society corresponding to the lusts of their self-love. For anyone who loves falsities cannot help but love evils.

[6] 6. However, because they feigned good affections in outward appearances in the world (even though they inwardly harbored nothing but evil affections or lusts), they are periodically kept at first in states of outward pretense. Moreover, those who in the world had presided over companies of others are set here and there over societies in the world of spirits, in overall charge or in part, according to the scope of the positions they had held before. Yet because they like neither truth nor justice, and cannot be enlightened sufficiently to know what truth and justice are, therefore after several days they are discharged. I have seen spirits like this conveyed from one society to another, and though everywhere given some administrative position, after a short time they are just as often discharged.

[7] 7. After repeated dismissals, some of these people out of weariness do not wish to seek further positions, and some out of a fear of losing their reputation do not dare to. Therefore they go off and sit sadly, and at that point they are led away into an uninhabited region where they find cabins, which they enter. There they are given some work to do, and to the extent that they do it they are given food. But if they do not do it, they go hungry and are not given any. Necessity accordingly compels them.

Foodstuffs in that world are like those in our world, only they come from a spiritual origin and are given by the Lord from heaven to all in accordance with the useful functions they perform. Idle people, as they perform no useful function, are not given any.

[8] 8. After a while these people loathe work, and they then leave the cabins. If they were priests, they wish to become builders, and instantly then piles of hewn stones, bricks, boards and wooden panels appear, with heaps of reeds and rushes, clay, plaster and asphalt. When they see these, they are fired with an urge to build, and they begin to construct a house, taking now a stone, now a piece of wood, now a reed, now wet clay, and placing one upon another in haphazard fashion, though in their eyes an ordered one. Yet what they build by day collapses overnight; and the following day they gather the fallen materials from the rubble and build again, and this repeatedly until they grow weary of building.

This is the case because they used to pile up falsities to confirm the doctrine of salvation through faith alone, and that is how these falsities build the church.

[9] 9. Out of weariness these people next go off and sit solitary and idle, and because, as we said, idle people are not given any food from heaven, they begin to hunger. They also begin to think of nothing else than how to get food and relieve their hunger.

When they are in this state, some people come to them, from whom they beg assistance. But those other people say to them, "Why are you sitting so idle? Come with us to our houses, and we will give you jobs to do and feed you."

They joyfully then arise and go away with those people to their houses, and each is there given his job, and in exchange for the work food. However, because all who have confirmed themselves in falsities of faith cannot do works of good and useful service, but only works that serve evil, and because they do not do the works faithfully, but only so that people may see them, for the sake of acclaim or material gain, therefore they abandon their jobs and care only to socialize, talk, walk, and sleep. And then, because their employers can no longer induce them to work, they are therefore forced to leave as serving no useful function.

[10] 10. When they have been forced to leave, their eyes are opened and they see a path leading to a certain cavern. When they go to it, the entrance opens and they go in, inquiring whether there is any food there, and when they are told that there is, they ask permission to remain. They are then told that they may, and they are taken in, with the entrance closing behind them.

The master of the cavern then comes and says to them, "You cannot leave anymore. See your fellow inhabitants. They all work, and as they work, they are given food from heaven. I tell you this so that you know."

Their fellow inhabitants say, moreover, "Our master knows for what work each of us is suited, and every day he assigns it to us. Every day that you finish it you are given food. But if you do not finish it, you are given neither food nor clothing. Also, if anyone does evil to another, he is forced to a corner of the cavern, onto a bed of accursed dust, 1 where he is miserably tortured, and this until the master sees some sign of repentance in him. He is then taken out and ordered to do his work."

They are told, too, that after they have done their work, they are all allowed to walk about, converse, and later sleep. They are also taken deeper into the cavern where there are whores, and they are each permitted to choose one of them to be his woman, but are forbidden under threat of penalty to go whoring promiscuously.

[11] The whole of hell consists of such caverns, which are nothing less than eternal workhouses. I have been given to go into some and see, in order that I might make this known, and the people all appeared to be of a low class, nor did any one of them know who he had been in the world or what his occupation had been. But an angel who accompanied me told me that this one had been a household servant in the world, this one a soldier, this one an administrator, this one a priest, this one a person of high rank, this one a person of wealth; and yet none of them knew anything other than that they had been servants, and their fellows likewise. That is because they had been inwardly alike, even though unalike outwardly, and it is people's inner qualities that affiliate them in the spiritual world.

Such is the lot of people who have set aside a life of charity, and so have not lived it in the world.

[12] As regards the hells in general, they consist solely of such caverns and workhouses, but of one sort where they are inhabited by satanic spirits, and of another where they are inhabited by diabolical spirits. Satanic spirits are ones who have been governed by falsities and their resulting evils, while diabolical spirits are ones who have been governed by evils and their accompanying falsities.

Satanic spirits appear in the light of heaven as cadaverous, and some black, like mummies, while diabolical spirits appear in the light of heaven dark and fiery, and some as black as soot. All, however, in face and body are monstrous. Yet in their own light, which is like that of burning coal, they do not appear as monstrous, but as human. This appearance is granted to them to enable them to associate with one another.

Footnotes:

1. The dust of certain hells is so named. See Angelic Wisdom Regarding Divine Love and Wisdom 341[2].

  
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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.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

True Christian Religion #79

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79. The fourth experience.

Once when I was thinking about the creation of the universe, some people from the Christian part of the world approached me, who in their time had been among the most famous philosophers and had a reputation for surpassing wisdom. 'We notice,' they said, 'that you are thinking about creation; tell us what is your opinion on that subject.'

'Tell me first,' I replied, 'what is yours.' 'My opinion,' said one of them, 'is that creation is the work of nature, and that nature therefore created itself, having existed from eternity. A vacuum does not and cannot exist. Yet what is it that we see with our eyes, hear with our ears, smell with our noses and breathe with our lungs, if not nature? Because nature is outside us, it is also within us.'

[2] Another person who heard this said: 'You speak of nature and regard it as the creator of the universe, but you do not know how nature made the universe; so I will tell you. It twisted itself into vortices which clashed together as clouds do, or like houses collapsing in an earthquake.' He explained that this collision caused the denser material to come together to form the earth; the more fluid parts separated out and came together to form the seas; and the lighter parts also separated out to form the ether and the air, the lightest of all formed the sun. 'Have you not seen how when oil, water and dust are mixed together, they spontaneously separate out and arrange themselves in order one above the other?'

[3] Then another listener said: 'What you say is mere imagination. Everyone knows that the first source of all things was chaos, which in size filled a quarter of the universe. In its midst was fire, with ether around that, and matter around the ether. This chaos split open and the fire burst forth through the cracks, as it does from Etna or Vesuvius, to form the sun. Next the ether expanded and spread around, to form an atmosphere. Finally the remaining matter condensed into a ball, to form the earth. As for the stars, they are merely lights in the expanse of the universe, which arose from the sun and its fire and light. For the sun was at first like an ocean of fire, which to avoid setting fire to the earth threw off from itself shining sparks; these took up their positions in the surroundings and so completed the universe by forming the sky.'

[4] But there was one of the by-standers who said: 'You are wrong. You think yourselves wise, and I seem to you simple. Yet in my simplicity I have believed, and still do, that the universe was created by God; and because nature is part of the universe, He created it at the same time as the whole of nature. If nature had created itself, would it not have existed from eternity? That is a fine piece of nonsense.'

Then one of the so-called wise men rushed up nearer and nearer to the speaker, and put his left ear to the other's mouth - his right ear was blocked with what looked like cotton-wool - and asked what he had said. He repeated the same statement, whereupon the man who had come up looked around him to see if any priest was present; he caught sight of one beside the speaker, and then twisted around saying: 'I too admit that the whole of nature comes from God, but -.' And he went off, whispering to his companions and saying: 'I said that because there was a priest present. You and I know that nature comes from nature, and because nature is therefore God, I said that the whole of nature comes from God, but - .'

[5] But the priest, hearing what they were whispering, said: 'Your wisdom is nothing but philosophy, which has led you astray and shut off the interiors of your minds so completely that no light from God and His heaven can penetrate and bring you enlightenment. You have put the light out. Consider therefore,' he went on, 'and decide among yourselves what is the origin of your souls, which are immortal. Do they come from nature, or were they at the same time in that mighty chaos?'

On hearing this the first man went off to his colleagues, to ask their help in solving this knotty problem. They came to the conclusion that the human soul is nothing but ether, and thought is merely a modification of the ether caused by sunlight; and ether is a part of nature. 'Surely everyone knows,' they said, 'that we talk by means of the air? And what is thought but speech in a purer sort of air, which is called ether? That is why thought and speech act as one. Anyone can observe this in children; a child first learns to talk, and then afterwards to talk to himself, and that is thinking. What then can thought be but a modification of the ether? Or what is the sound of speech but a modulation of it? From these considerations we deduce that the thinking soul is part of nature.'

[6] But some of them, while not disagreeing, cast light on the state of the question by saying that souls arose when the ether formed itself into a ball out of that mighty chaos, and then in the highest region divided itself into innumerable individual forms. These are infused into people, when they begin to think by that purer sort of air, and they are then called souls.

Another on hearing this said: 'I admit that the individual forms made from the ether in its highest region may have been innumerable, but still the number of human beings born from the creation of the world has exceeded the number of forms, so how could those ethereal forms be enough? This has led me to think that the souls which issue from people's mouths when they die return to the same people again after some thousands of years, so that they embark on and complete a life, similar to their previous one. It is well known that many wise men believe in the transmigration of souls and similar ideas.' In addition to these there were other guesses flung around, which I pass over as being crazy.

[7] After a short while the priest returned, and the one who had previously spoken about the creation of the universe by God told him their decisions concerning the soul. On hearing these the priest told them: 'You have spoken exactly as you thought in the world, unaware that you are not any longer in that world but another, which is called the spiritual world. All those who, by convincing themselves of the nature theory, have become immersed in the bodily senses, are not aware that they are no longer in the same world as that in which they were born and brought up. The reason is that there they had a material body, but here a substantial body; and a substantial person sees himself and his companions around him exactly as a material person sees himself and his companions around him, for the substantial is the starting-point of the material. Because you think, see, smell, taste, and speak just as you did in the natural world, you believe that nature here is the same. Yet the nature of this world is as different and remote from that of the former world as the substantial is from the material, or the spiritual from the natural, or what is prior from what is posterior. Because the nature of the world in which you previously lived is comparatively speaking lifeless, so by convincing yourselves of your belief in nature you too have become virtually dead as regards matters which relate to God, heaven and the church, as well as what concerns your souls. Still every person, bad as well as good, can have his understanding raised into the light enjoyed by the angels in heaven; and then he can see that God exists, that there is a life after death, that the human soul is not ethereal and thus of the nature of the material world, but spiritual, and so destined to live for ever. The understanding can enjoy that angelic light, so long as the natural loves are banished which came from the world, favouring it and its nature, and from the body, favouring it and the self 1 .

[8] At once those loves were banished by the Lord, and they were permitted to talk with angels. From their conversation in that state they perceived the existence of God and that after dying they were living in another world. This made them blush with shame and cry: 'We were mad, we were mad!' But since this state was not their own and after a few minutes became tiresome and unwelcome, they turned their backs on the priest and were unwilling to go on listening to him. Thus they reverted to their former loves, which were entirely natural, worldly and bodily. They went off to the left, from one community to another, and eventually reached a road where they caught a whiff of the delights of their own loves, and said: 'Let us take this road.' So they went along it, going down until they came to people who delighted in similar loves, and further still. Since their delight consisted in doing evil, and they harmed many on the way, they were thrown into prison and became demons. Then their delight was turned into misery, because they were restrained and prevented from enjoying what had previously delighted them, the behaviour which had formed their nature, by punishment and the fear of punishment.

They asked their companions in that prison whether they were to live like that for ever. Some of those there replied: 'We have been here for several centuries, and we are to remain for ever and ever, because the nature we acquired in the world cannot be changed or driven out by punishment. When it is driven out by this, it still comes back after a short interval.'

Footnotes:

1. Latin proprium, the term often used for the unregenerate self.

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

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