We tend to think of “truth” as something dry, cold, lifeless: information that is valid and important, but not something moving or inspiring. Yet Swedenborg’s works say repeatedly that divine truth - truth from the Lord - was the actual agent of creation, is the ongoing agent in sustaining life, and is, in fact, the Lord Himself. That is difficult to conceive: How can truth make something? How can truth sustain something? How can truth be a person?

But imagine if you could mix elements of dreaming and being awake. In this scenario, you would have the usual control over your thoughts and feelings, and your thoughts and feelings would be continuous, as they are when you’re awake. But the reality around you would be able to bend and shift the way reality does in dreams. If you wanted to climb a skyscraper, jump from it to fly over the Grand Canyon, then dive to the ocean floor, you could do so, with the full experience of reality you have in a deep dream. If you wanted to see your grandmother, who died five years ago, she would be there, to hug you and talk to you and share your tears. Other friends and loved ones would be just a thought away, and you’d be surrounded by beauty limited only by your own imagination. And while all this was happening, your physical body would lie there sleeping.

In such a state, your physical body and physical surroundings are not a factor - in fact, you could say they don’t actually exist in that internal world. The “body” you experience, the surroundings you see, the things you hear and see and taste, all are simply products of your thoughts. So your thoughts actually create the world you live in, and go on creating it every moment.

In a typical dream, of course, that world is a product of only your own thoughts. So imagine that such a world could be shared by many people, or even everyone. In such a world, when you talk to your grandmother, it really is your grandmother, and she is having a similar “dream” experience of talking to you. When you see your friends, they really are your friends, experiencing similar dream-like states.

A number of books and movies have been based on such a concept. In the books and movies, though, the goal typically is to get back to “reality,” meaning back to the physical world. Often, the death of the physical body would mean the death of the dream worlds, too.

But think about it. With all the power you can have in the dream world, the things you can do and people you can see, why would you want to go back to the stiff, limited world of physical reality? And what if the death of the physical body did not snip the thread to the alternative world, but instead freed you to enter it fully?

Such a world is actually close to spiritual reality, as described in Swedenborg’s works. The big difference is that ultimately the “dream” is the Lord’s, and His thoughts and His affections are the ones constantly forming and empowering it, like a great tapestry of potential experience. As humans we are like swirls in the fabric, patterns that can be more or less aligned with those divine thoughts and feelings. Each swirl is unique in the way it weaves together the threads of divine thought, and thus has a unique set of experiences. And the miracle of miracles is that we are free to swirl as we will; that’s what we were created to do. In fact, the whole reason for physical reality - which is a projection of spiritual reality into dead material - is to separate us from divine thought enough to actually experience that freedom.

That divine thought is what Swedenborg means by “divine truth.” It carries all the possibilities for all of our lives, and is by its nature exquisitely, infinitely loving, since it carries the Lord’s love to us and strives constantly to coax us into alignment.

It’s also incredibly powerful, because the more we align ourselves with the Lord’s thoughts, the more we can receive His love and the more truly alive we can be - we can be swirls following the grain of the fabric, and that much more a part of the whole. Also, the more we align ourselves, the more we can see the patterns of the fabric around us - we can see the Lord’s plans for us and everyone else in the world, and fit in to serve His goals. Mentally this is like being in light, and Swedenborg’s works say the divine truth is the actual light of heaven.

So why does “truth” sound so cold and dry? The problem is in us, of course. We’re born into the physical world and our senses are filled by physical things, so we tend to think of “truth” as the aspects of divine thought that can be projected into the physical world. And those aspects are the coldest and driest, with the love awaiting us on the spiritual level.

(Referências: Apocalypse Explained 219, 411 [4], 434, 594, 748, 948 [3], 950; Apocalypse Revealed 193; Arcana Coelestia 4687 [3], 4724, 5321 [2], 6880, 6996 [3], 7004 [2], 7056 [2-3], 7058 [2], 7270 [2-4], 8200, 8705 [3], 9407 [1-3], [13], 9410 [5], 9905, 10026, 10060; Canons of the New Church 15; Heaven and Hell 13, 127, 137 [2-4], 232, 347; On the Athanasian Creed 145; The Apocalypse Explained 130 [2], 412 [2], 700 [2], 768 [15], 997 [2-3]; The Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem 32 [1-6]; The White Horse 14; The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine 25; True Christian Religion 39, 85, 86-88, 142, 224)

397. Until their fellow-servants as well as their brethren, who were to be killed, as they also were, should be fulfilled, signifies until evils were consummated. This is evident from the signification of "until they should be fulfilled," as being until they were consummated; also from the signification of "their fellow-servants as well as their brethren, who were to be killed, as they also were," as being evils, for to kill these denotes evil, "fellow-servants" meaning those who are in truths, and "brethren" those who are in goods, and "fellow-servants" and "brethren" together those who are in truths from good; for in the internal sense the two are conjoined into one.

"Consummation" is mentioned in some passages in the Word, likewise "when evils are consummated," but scarcely anyone at this day knows what this signifies. In three articles above (n. 391, 392, 394) it is said that the former heaven consisted of such as had led a moral life in externals, and yet were internally evil, and that these dwelt in high places in the spiritual world, and therefore thought themselves to be in heaven.

These, because they were interiorly evil, would not tolerate among them those that were interiorly good, and this because their affections and thoughts were discordant, for all consociations in the spiritual world are effected according to agreement of affections and thence of thoughts; for angels and spirits are nothing but affections and thoughts therefrom in a human form; and as those who then were in the high places could not endure the presence of those who were interiorly good, they cast them out from among them, and wherever they saw them, treated them wrongfully and shamefully, consequently the good were delivered by the Lord from this violence and concealed under heaven and preserved; and this was taking place from the time when the Lord was in the world even until this time when the judgment was accomplished; then those who were on high places were cast down, and those who were under heaven were elevated. The evil were tolerated so long on the high places, and the good were detained so long under heaven, in order that both "might be fulfilled," which means that there might be a sufficient number of the good to form a new heaven, and also that the evil might sink down of themselves into hell; for the Lord casts no one down into hell, but the evil itself which is with evil spirits casts them down (as may be seen in the work on Heaven and Hell 545-550). This takes place when evils are consummated, that is, fulfilled.

[2] This also is what is meant by the Lord's words in Matthew:

The servants of the householder coming, said, Didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? whence then are the tares? And they said, Wilt thou therefore that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay, lest in gathering the tares ye root up at the same time the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest; and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them into bundles to burn them; but gather the wheat into the barn. So shall it be in the consummation of the age (Matthew 13:27-30, 37-42).

"The consummation of the age" is the last time when judgment takes place; "the time of harvest" is when all things are consummated, that is, are fulfilled; "the tares" mean evils or those in whom evils are, and "the wheat" means goods or those in whom goods are. (But of these see further in the small work on The Last Judgment 65-72.) From all this it can in some measure be known why it was said to them "that they should rest yet a little time, until their fellow-servants, as well as their brethren, who were to be killed, as they also were, should be fulfilled;" "to be killed" has here the like signification as "to be slain" above n. 392, namely, to be rejected by the evil because of Divine truth, and because of their confession of the Lord.

[3] When this is known it can be known what is signified by "consummation" and by "iniquity consummated" in the following passages. In Moses:

Jehovah said, I will go down and see whether they have made a consummation, according to the cry that is come unto Me (Genesis 18:20-21).

This is said of Sodom. In the same:

For the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet consummated [fulfilled] (Genesis 15:16).

In Isaiah:

A consummation and decision I have heard from the Lord Jehovih of Hosts upon the whole earth (Isaiah 28:22).

In the same:

A consummation is determined, righteousness has overflowed. For the Lord Jehovih of Hosts is making a consummation and a decision in the whole earth (Isaiah 10:22-23).

In Zephaniah:

In the fire of the zeal of Jehovah of Hosts the whole land shall be devoured; for He shall make a consummation, even a speedy one, with all the inhabitants of the land (Zephaniah 1:18).

In Daniel:

At last upon the bird of abominations shall be desolation, and even to the consummation and decision it shall drop upon the devastation (Daniel 9:27);

and elsewhere. "Consummation" and "decision" in these passages signify the last state of the church, a state in which there is no longer any truth because there is no good, or in which there is no longer any faith because there is no charity; and when this is the state of the church, then comes the Last Judgment. The Last Judgment then comes, for the further reason that the human race is the basis or foundation of the angelic heaven, for the conjunction of the angelic heaven with the human race is perpetual, the one subsisting by means of the other; when therefore the basis does not correspond the angelic heaven totters; consequently there must then be a judgment upon those who are in the spiritual world, that all things in the heavens as well as in the hells, may be reduced to order. (That the human race is the basis and foundation of the angelic heaven, and that the conjunction is perpetual, see in the work on Heaven and Hell 291-310.) From this it can be known that "consummation" means the last state of the church, when there is no longer any faith because there is no charity. This state of the church is also called in the Word "vastation" and "desolation," and by the Lord "the consummation of the age" (Matthew 13:39, 40, 49; 24:3; 28:20).