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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

 

Conjugial Love #380

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380. To this I will append two narrative accounts. Here is the first:

I was once in a state of amazement at the great number of people who attribute creation to nature, attributing to it therefore all things under the sun and all things above the sun. Whenever they see anything, they say with an acknowledgment of the heart, "Is this not a product of nature?" When they are asked then why they attribute these things to nature, and not to God, even though they sometimes say with everyone else that God created nature, and so could just as well attribute the things they see to God as to nature, they reply in a muffled, almost inaudible tone, "What is God but nature?"

As a result of their persuasion regarding the creation of the universe from nature, and that insanity masquerading as a product of wisdom, they all give the impression of being vainglorious, so vainglorious as to scorn all who acknowledge the creation of the universe as being from God, regarding them as ants crawling on the ground and treading the beaten path, and some as butterflies flitting about in the air. They call their dogmas dreams, because they see what they themselves do not see, and they say, "Who has seen God? And who has not seen nature?"

[2] As I was in a state of amazement at the multitude of such people, an angel stood beside me and said to me, "What are you meditating on?"

So I replied, "On the multitude of those who believe that nature created the universe."

Then the angel said to me, "The whole of hell consists of people like that, and they are called there satanic spirits and devils - satanic spirits, those who have convinced themselves on the side of nature and for that reason have denied God; devils, those who have lived wickedly and so have rejected from their hearts any acknowledgment of God. But I will take you down to forums located in the southwestern zone, where such people gather who are not yet in hell."

The angel then took me by the hand and led me down. And I saw cottages in which the forums were housed, and in the middle of them one that seemed to be the headquarters of the rest. It was built of pitchstones, which were overlaid with thin glass-like sheets of gold and silver, seemingly glittering, like those which are called isinglass 1 ; and interspersed here and there were oyster-shells, similarly glistening.

[3] We went over to it and knocked; and presently someone opened the door and said, "Welcome." Then he ran to a table and brought back four books, saying, "These books are the wisdom which a number of countries are applauding today. This book or wisdom here is applauded by many in France; this one by many in Germany; this one by some in Holland; and this one by some in Britain."

He then went on to say, "If you care to see it, I will cause these four books to shine before your eyes." Whereupon he poured out and projected around them the glory of his reputation, and soon the books shone as though with light. But the light immediately vanished from before our eyes.

At that point we asked, "What are you presently writing?" And he replied that he was presently extracting and elucidating from his stores of knowledge points which were matters of the most interior wisdom, being in summary the following: 1. Whether nature is a product of life, or life a product of nature. 2. Whether a center is the product of an expanse, or an expanse the product of a center. 3. How this applies to the center and expanse of nature and life.

[4] Having said this, he sat down again at the table, while we walked around in his forum, which was quite large. He had a candle on the table, because there was no daylight from the sun in the room, but a nocturnal, lunar light. And what surprised me, the candle seemed to move all about there and so cast its light - although, because the wick was not trimmed, it provided little illumination. Moreover, as he wrote, we saw images in various forms flying from the table on to the walls, which in that nocturnal lunar light looked like beautiful birds of India. But when we opened the door and let in daylight from the sun, behold, in that light they looked like birds of the evening, having net-like wings. For what he was writing were semblances of truth, which by his confirmations became fallacies, which he had ingeniously woven together into logical series.

[5] After witnessing this, we went over to the table and asked him what he was writing now.

"I am dealing," he said, "with the first point, as to whether nature is a product of life, or life a product of nature." And he remarked in regard to it that he could confirm either one and make it to be true; but that because he harbored something in him that made him afraid, he dared to confirm only that nature is a product of life, meaning that it is derived from life, and not that life is a product of nature, or derived from nature.

We asked amiably what it was that he harbored within to make him afraid.

He replied that it was the possibility of his being labeled by the clergy an adherent of naturalism and thus an atheist, and by the laity a man of unsound reason, since both clergy and laity consist of people who either believe in accordance with a blind faith or see in accordance with the sight of those who defend it.

[6] However, being moved then by a certain indignation out of zeal for the truth, we addressed him, saying, "Friend, you are greatly deceived. Your wisdom, which lies in the ingeniousness of your writing, has led you astray, and the glory of your reputation has induced you to confirm what you do not believe. Do you not know that the human mind is capable of being elevated above sensual appearances, which are appearances in the thoughts from the bodily senses, and that when it is elevated, it sees such things as have to do with life above, and such things as have to do with nature below? What is life but love and wisdom? And what is nature but a vessel of these by which they work their effects or ends? Can these two be one other than as a principal and instrumental cause? Can light be one with the eye? Or sound with the ear? Where do the powers of these senses come from except from life, and their forms except from nature?

"What is the human body but an organ of life? Are not each and all elements in it organically formed to produce the effects that love wills and the understanding thinks? Are not the organs of the body from nature, and the love and thought from life? Are these not entirely distinct from each other?

"Raise the sight of your genius yet a little higher, and you will see that to be affected and think are properties of life; and that the capacity to be affected derives from love, and to think, from wisdom, and both of these from life - for, as we said, love and wisdom are life.

"If you raise the faculty of your understanding a little higher still, you will see that no love or wisdom is possible unless somewhere it has an origin, and that its origin is love itself and wisdom itself, thus life itself; and these are God, from whom comes nature."

[7] Afterwards we spoke with him about his second point, as to whether a center is the product of an expanse, or an expanse the product of a center. And we asked why he was discussing this.

He replied that he was doing it in order to draw a conclusion concerning the center and expanse of nature and life, thus concerning the origin of the one and the other. When we asked then what his thinking was, he answered in regard to this in the same way as before, that he could confirm either one, but that for fear of losing his reputation he was confirming that an expanse is the product of a center, or in other words, derived from the center - "even though I know," he said, "that there was something prior to the sun, and this everywhere in the universe, and that these things flowed of themselves into an order, thus into centers."

[8] But then again out of an indignant zeal we spoke to him and said, "Friend, you are insane."

And when he heard it, he pushed his chair back from the table and regarded us timidly; after which he turned to us his ear, but laughing as he did so.

Nevertheless we continued, saying, "What is more insane than to say that the center comes from the expanse. We interpret your center to mean the sun, and your expanse to mean the universe, thus that the universe came into being without a sun. Does the sun not produce nature and all its properties, which are dependent solely on the heat and light emanating from the sun and conveyed through the atmospheres? Where were these before? But we will tell you where they originated later on.

"The atmospheres, and all things on the earth - are they not like surfaces, and the sun their center? What would all these things be without the sun? Could they for one instant endure? So, then, what would all these things have been before the sun? Could they have endured? Is not continued existence a continual coming into existence? Consequently, since the continued existence of all things of nature depends on the sun, it follows that their coming into existence does, too. Everyone sees this and acknowledges it from his own observation.

[9] "Does not something subsequent as it comes into existence also continue in existence from something prior? If the surface were prior, and the center subsequent, would not the prior then subsist from the subsequent - which is, however, contrary to laws of order?

"How can subsequent things produce prior ones? Or outer ones inner ones? Or grosser ones finer ones? How then can surfaces which form an expanse possibly produce centers? Who does not see that this is contrary to laws of nature?

"We have advanced these arguments from an analysis of reason, to confirm that an expanse arises from a center, and not the reverse, even though everyone who thinks rightly sees this without these arguments.

"You said that the expanse flowed together into a center of itself. Was it by chance, then, that it flowed into such a marvelous and astounding order that one thing exists for the sake of another, and each and all things for the sake of man and his eternal life? Is nature able to act from some love by means of some wisdom to produce such effects? Is nature also able to form men into angels and angels into a heaven? Contemplate this and think about it, and your idea of nature's arising from nature will fall to the ground."

[10] After that we asked him what he had thought and what he thought now in respect to the third point, regarding the center and expanse of nature and life. Did he think the center and expanse of life to be the same as the center and expanse of nature?

He said that he hesitated. He had previously thought that the inner activity of nature was life; that from it originated the love and wisdom which essentially form a person's life; and that it was the fire of the sun, acting through its heat and light by means of the atmospheres, which produced these. But now, he said, from what he was hearing about people's eternal life, he was in a state of vacillation, and this vacillation carried his mind sometimes upward, sometimes down. When it was carried upward, he acknowledged a center of which he had previously known nothing; and when down, he saw the center which he had believed to be the only one; thus thinking that life is from the center of which he had previously known nothing, and that nature is from the center which he had before believed to be the only one, each center having its own expanse surrounding it.

[11] To this we said, well and good, provided he was willing also to regard the center and expanse of nature as being from the center and expanse of life, and not the other way around.

We then told him that above the angelic heaven there is a sun which is pure love, fiery in appearance like the sun of the world; and that it is owing to the warmth emanating from that sun that angels and men have will and love, and owing to the light from it that they have understanding and wisdom. We said, too, that such things as are matters of life are called spiritual, and that such things as emanate from the sun of the world are vessels of life and are called natural. Furthermore, that the expanse of the center of life is called the spiritual world, which subsists from its sun, and that the expanse of nature is called the natural world, which subsists from its sun.

Now, because love and wisdom cannot have spaces and times ascribed to them, we said, but instead of these states, the expanse surrounding the sun of the angelic heaven is not dimensional, but yet is present in the dimensional expanse of the natural sun, and in living objects there according to their reception of it, and this in accordance with their forms.

[12] However, at that point he asked what produced the fire of the sun of the world or of nature.

We replied that it originated from the sun of the angelic heaven, which is not a ball of fire, but the Divine love most immediately emanating from God, who is love itself. Then because he wondered at this, we demonstrated it as follows:

"In its essence, love is spiritual fire. So it is, that fire in the Word, in its spiritual sense, symbolizes love. That is why priests in temples pray that heavenly fire may fill people's hearts, by which they mean love. In the Tabernacle among the Israelites, the fire of the altar and the fire of the lampstand represented nothing else but Divine love. The warmth of the blood, or the vital heat in people and in animals generally, is from no other origin than the love which forms their life. It is in consequence of this that a person is set on fire, grows hot, and bursts into flames whenever his love is roused up into zeal, anger and rage. Since it is spiritual heat, or love, which produces the natural heat in people, even so as to ignite and inflame their faces and limbs, it can accordingly be seen from this that the fire of the natural sun arose from no other origin than the fire of the spiritual sun, which is Divine love.

[13] "Now because an expanse arises from its center, and not the reverse, as we said earlier, and the center of life, which is the sun of the angelic heaven, is the Divine love most immediately emanating from God, who is in the midst of that sun; and because from it arose the expanse of that center, which is called the spiritual world; and because from that sun arose the sun of the world, and from this its expanse, which is called the natural world, it is apparent that the universe was created by God alone."

After that we departed, with him accompanying us outside the grounds of his forum. And he spoke with us about heaven and hell, and about the Divine superintendence, with a new sagacity of acumen.

Footnotes:

1. I.e., laminae of mica.

  
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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

 

Apocalypse Revealed #294

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294. To this I will append the following narrative account:

In the natural world people possess two levels of speech, because they possess two levels of thought, one inward and one outward. For a person can speak from his inner thought and at the same time then from his outer one, or he can speak from his outer thought and not from his inner one, and even contrary to his inner one. This is what makes possible pretenses, flatteries, and hypocrisies.

In the spiritual world, however, people do not possess two levels of speech, but a single one. A person there speaks as he thinks. Otherwise his voice becomes grating and hurts the ears. Still, he can remain silent and so not divulge the thoughts of his mind. Consequently, when a hypocrite comes into the company of people who are wise, either he goes away, or he hurries to a corner of the room and makes himself inconspicuous, and sits silent.

[2] Many spirits once gathered in the world of spirits and discussed this circumstance with each other, saying that being unable to speak as one thinks in the company of good spirits was a hardship for those who had not thought correctly about God and the Lord.

At the center of the gathering were the Protestant Reformed, and many of their clergy, and next to them Roman Catholics with some monks. Both groups said at first that it was not a hardship. What need is there to speak otherwise than as one thinks? And if perchance one does not think correctly, can he not purse his lips and remain silent?

Moreover, one of the clergy said, "Who does not think correctly about God and the Lord?"

But some of the gathering said, "Still, let's put it to the test."

And regarding God, there were some who had confirmed themselves in a trinity of persons - particularly because of the statement in the Athanasian doctrine,

The person of the Father is one person, that of the Son another, and that of the Holy Spirit still another.

And,

As the Father is God, so is the Son God, and the Holy Spirit God.

These were told to say "one God." But they could not. They contorted their lips and twisted them into many convolutions, but they could not articulate the sound into any other words than those in keeping with the ideas of their thought, which were ideas of three persons and so of three Gods.

[3] Moreover, those who had affirmed a faith divorced from charity were told to say the name Jesus. But they could not, even though they could all say Christ, and also God the Father. They were surprised at this, and inquiring into the reason, they found that they prayed to God the Father for the sake of the Son, and did not pray to the Savior Himself. For Jesus means Savior.

[4] They were further told to speak from their thought about the Lord's humanity and say, "Divine humanity." But none of the clergy present there could do so, though some of the laity could, and therefore the subject was presented for a serious ventilation.

So then, 1. They had read to them these statements in the Gospels:

The Father... has given all things into (the Son's) hand. (John 3:35)

(The Father has) given (the Son) authority over all flesh... (John 17:2)

All things have been delivered to Me by My Father. (Matthew 11:27)

All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. (Matthew 28:18)

They were then told to retain in thought therefore the idea that Christ is God of heaven and earth, both in respect to His Divinity and in respect to His humanity, and so to utter the term, "Divine humanity." But still they could not. And they said that they even retained from the quotations some thought of the idea from an understanding of it, but nevertheless without any acknowledgment of it, and that for that reason they could not.

[5] 2. After that they had read to them statements from Luke 1:32, 34-35, 1 saying that the Lord in respect to His humanity was the Son of Jehovah God, and statements showing that in respect to His humanity He is everywhere in the Word called the Son of God, and also the only-begotten. 2 And the examiners asked them to retain this idea in their thought, along with the idea that the only begotten Son of God born into the world could not but be God, as the Father is God, and to utter the term, "Divine humanity."

But they said, "We cannot, because our spiritual thought, which is the inner one, does not allow into the thought nearest our speech any other than like ideas."

They said, too, that they perceived from this that it is now not possible to keep separate their levels of thought as in the natural world.

[6] 3. Next they had read to them the Lord's words to Philip:

Philip said to Him, "Lord, show us the Father...." (And the Lord) said to him, ."..He who sees Me has seen the Father... Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me?" (John 14:8-11)

And moreover other passages, saying that the Father and He are one (John 10:30, and elsewhere). And they were told to retain this idea in thought and then say "Divine humanity." But because their thought was not rooted in an acknowledgment that the Lord was God even in respect to His humanity, therefore they could not. They contorted their lips into convolutions to the point of becoming irate, and they tried to force their mouths into uttering it and to spit it out. But without success. The reason was that mental ideas flowing from an acknowledgment unite with spoken words in people who live in the spiritual world; and when those ideas do not exist, words are lacking, for ideas become words when uttered in speech.

[7] 4. Then they had read to them statement from the church's doctrine accepted throughout the world, saying that the Divine and human in the Lord are not two but one, indeed one person, united altogether like soul and body - statements from the Athanasian Creed. And they were told, "You may take from this an idea in keeping with your acknowledgment, that the Lord's humanity is Divine, because His soul is Divine, for it comes from your church's doctrine which you acknowledged in the world. Moreover the soul is the underlying essence and the body the form, and the essence and form are united, like being and expression, or like the efficient cause of an effect and the effect itself."

The spirits retained this idea and tried in accord with it to utter the term, "Divine humanity." But they could not, for their inner idea of the Lord's humanity dismissed and expunged this novel new idea, as they called it.

[8] 5. Again they had read to them the following from John:

...the Word was with God, and the Word was God... And the Word became flesh... (John 1:1, 14)

And the following from Paul:

...in (Christ Jesus) dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. (Colossians 2:9)

And they were told to think hard that God, who was the Word, became flesh, and that all the Divine dwells in Him bodily. "Perhaps," they were told, "you can then utter the term, 'Divine humanity.'"

But they could not, saying openly that they could not entertain the idea of a Divine humanity, as God is God and man is man, and God is a spirit, "and we can think of a spirit only as being like a puff of wind or bit of ether."

[9] 6. Finally they were told, "You know that the Lord said, "Abide in Me, and I in you... He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. (John 15:4-5)" And because some of the English clergy were present, they had read to them also something from one of their prayers before Holy Communion:

For, when we spiritually eat the flesh of Christ, and drink the blood, then we dwell in Christ, and Christ in us.

"If you now think that this would not be possible unless the Lord's humanity is Divine, utter then the term, "Divine humanity," from an acknowledgment in the thought."

But still they could not. For they had the idea so deeply impressed on them that the Lord's Divinity was one thing and His humanity another, so that His Divinity was like the Divinity of the Father, and His humanity like the humanity of any other man.

The examiners said to them, however, "How can you think so? Is it possible for a rational mind ever to think that God is three and the Lord two?"

[10] 7. After that the examiners turned to the Lutherans, saying that the Augsburg Confession and Luther taught that the Son of God and the Son of Man in Christ are one person, that He is also in respect to His human nature the true, almighty and eternal God, and that being in respect to that nature at the right hand of almighty God, He governs everything in heaven and on earth, fills everything, is present with us, and dwells and acts in us. Moreover, there is no difference in any worship of them, since through the nature that is seen, the Divinity that is not seen is worshiped. Thus in Christ, God is man, and man is God.

Hearing this, the Lutherans replied, "Is that right?" And having looked around, they presently said, "We have not known this before. Consequently we cannot."

But one or two of them said, "We have read this and written it, yet when we have thought about it to ourselves on our own, the words were still only words, of which we could not form an interior idea."

[11] 8. Finally, turning to the Roman Catholics, the examiners said, "Perhaps you can pronounce the term 'Divine humanity,' because you believe that Christ is wholly present in the bread and wine of your Eucharist and in every particle of it, and you also worship Him as God when you present the host and distribute it, and you call Mary the mother of God. Consequently you acknowledge that she gave birth to God, which is to say, to His Divine humanity."

They then tried to utter the term in accord with those mental ideas they had of the Lord. But they could not, because of the physical idea they had of His body and blood, and because of their assertion that it was human power and not Divine power that He conferred on the Pope.

A monk then rose and said that he could think of the term "Divine humanity" as applying to the Virgin Mary, mother of God, and also to the patron saint of his monastery.

And another monk came forward saying, "I can, in accord with my mental idea of it, say 'Divine humanity' as a term applying to our most holy Pope rather than to the Christ."

But at that other monks pulled him back and said, "Shame on you."

[12] After that I saw heaven opened, and I saw little flame-like tongues descending and flowing into some of those present, and they then began to celebrate the Lord's Divine humanity, saying, "Put aside the idea of three Gods and believe that in the Lord dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, that the Father and He are one as a soul and body are one, and that God is not a puff of wind or bit of ether, but human, and you will then be conjoined with heaven, and the Lord will enable you thereby to say the name Jesus and utter the term, "Divine humanity."

Footnotes:

1. "He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David... Then Mary said to the angel, 'How can this be, since I do not know a man?' And the angel answered and said to her, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.'"

2. John 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18

  
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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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