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Heaven and its Wonders and Hell
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362 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1758
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About the author
Emanuel Swedenborg
1,709 books282 followersEmanuel Swedenborg (born Emanuel Swedberg; February 8, 1688–March 29, 1772) was a Swedish scientist, philosopher, Christian mystic, and theologian. Swedenborg had a prolific career as an inventor and scientist. At the age of fifty-six he entered into a spiritual phase in which he experienced dreams and visions. This culminated in a spiritual awakening, where he claimed he was appointed by the Lord to write a heavenly doctrine to reform Christianity. He claimed that the Lord had opened his eyes, so that from then on he could freely visit heaven and hell, and talk with angels, demons, and other spirits. For the remaining 28 years of his life, he wrote and published 18 theological works, of which the best known was Heaven and Hell (1758), and several unpublished theological works.
Swedenborg explicitly rejected the common explanation of the Trinity as a Trinity of Persons, which he said was not taught in the early Christian Church. Instead he explained in his theological writings how the Divine Trinity exists in One Person, in One God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Swedenborg also rejected the doctrine of salvation through faith alone, since he considered both faith and charity necessary for salvation, not one without the other. The purpose of faith, according to Swedenborg, is to lead a person to a life according to the truths of faith, which is charity.
Swedenborg's theological writings have elicited a range of responses. Toward the end of Swedenborg's life, small reading groups formed in England and Sweden to study the truth they saw in his teachings and several writers were influenced by him, including William Blake (though he ended up renouncing him), Elizabeth Barrett Browning, August Strindberg, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Baudelaire, Balzac, William Butler Yeats, Sheridan Le Fanu, Jorge Luis Borges and Carl Jung. The theologian Henry James Sr. was also a follower of his teachings, as were Johnny Appleseed and Helen Keller.
In contrast, one of the most prominent Swedish authors of Swedenborg's day, Johan Henrik Kellgren, called Swedenborg "nothing but a fool". A heresy trial was initiated in Sweden in 1768 against Swedenborg's writings and two men who promoted these ideas.
In the two centuries since Swedenborg's death, various interpretations of Swedenborg's theology have been made (see: Swedenborgian Church), and he has also been scrutinized in biographies and psychological studies.
Swedenborg explicitly rejected the common explanation of the Trinity as a Trinity of Persons, which he said was not taught in the early Christian Church. Instead he explained in his theological writings how the Divine Trinity exists in One Person, in One God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Swedenborg also rejected the doctrine of salvation through faith alone, since he considered both faith and charity necessary for salvation, not one without the other. The purpose of faith, according to Swedenborg, is to lead a person to a life according to the truths of faith, which is charity.
Swedenborg's theological writings have elicited a range of responses. Toward the end of Swedenborg's life, small reading groups formed in England and Sweden to study the truth they saw in his teachings and several writers were influenced by him, including William Blake (though he ended up renouncing him), Elizabeth Barrett Browning, August Strindberg, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Baudelaire, Balzac, William Butler Yeats, Sheridan Le Fanu, Jorge Luis Borges and Carl Jung. The theologian Henry James Sr. was also a follower of his teachings, as were Johnny Appleseed and Helen Keller.
In contrast, one of the most prominent Swedish authors of Swedenborg's day, Johan Henrik Kellgren, called Swedenborg "nothing but a fool". A heresy trial was initiated in Sweden in 1768 against Swedenborg's writings and two men who promoted these ideas.
In the two centuries since Swedenborg's death, various interpretations of Swedenborg's theology have been made (see: Swedenborgian Church), and he has also been scrutinized in biographies and psychological studies.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 64 reviews
July 31, 2020
Swedenborg's Heaven and Hell is now 250 years old, but it's still fresh in its implications for personal spirituality.
Swedenborg, in a matter-of-fact and humble way, rambles on and on about endless details of the afterlife. Some of his explanations seem a little odd. But scattered through the book are passages where his penchant for detail and his uncommon focus, breadth of purview, and length of attention span give fresh perspectives on deeply human questions.
I am learning from Swedenborg how my deeply internal will is the real me and will be unclothed in the eternal world. It invokes the saying of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas, "Not 'til you can take off your clothes and step on them are you ready for the kingdom of God."
Swedenborg, in a matter-of-fact and humble way, rambles on and on about endless details of the afterlife. Some of his explanations seem a little odd. But scattered through the book are passages where his penchant for detail and his uncommon focus, breadth of purview, and length of attention span give fresh perspectives on deeply human questions.
I am learning from Swedenborg how my deeply internal will is the real me and will be unclothed in the eternal world. It invokes the saying of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas, "Not 'til you can take off your clothes and step on them are you ready for the kingdom of God."
February 10, 2016
I found the book to be easy to read, interesting and very enlightening. Granted, I say this not really having a preconceived notion of what heaven or hell is/’should’ be like (although like everyone else, I have/had my own ideas too). It is my opinion that what Swedenborg presents sounds very plausible and I find his interpretation as further proof of God’s infinite love—which is what I tend to look for when reading spiritual works. I was delighted to find the book both mystical in nature but also very human. It’s not an intimidating text and indeed the subject of non-Christians is also dealt with. I am absolutely motivated to read Swedenborg’s other works, most notably "Marriage Love," "Divine Love and Wisdom," and "The White Horse."
In terms of the book’s contents, I have retained the following details. Firstly, although the introduction is rather lengthy—59 pages—I highly recommend reading it because it provides very insightful background information on the work and Swedenborg’s times.
Although this work is titled “Heaven and Hell,” the book deals mostly with heaven and angels. There are 3 parts, the last of which is the chapter on hell. Hell is mentioned throughout the book, but usually in quick comparisons to whatever is being described as existing in heaven. It is written in simple language that is easy to read—delightful given that this can sometimes be an issue when dealing with spiritual works—reminding us that Swedenborg had indeed written the book for “people with simple heart and simple faith.” With that said, what might make the reading ‘slow’ is the fact that there are tons of annotations which the reader may want to read, causing him to pause on a constant basis. Also, depending on a reader’s background and reception of the subject at hand, reading slowly might help in better absorbing the content. Some readers may find some of his statements to be repetitive, but I personally don’t mind it as it serves to drive home certain important points and therefore help in remembering them. Since spiritual works can sometimes feel ‘heavy’ with information, I find this tactic to be effective.
One of the points that made an impression is “what we love, we intend.” I consider it a useful and powerful concept that I will be sure to actively reflect upon.
In terms of the book’s contents, I have retained the following details. Firstly, although the introduction is rather lengthy—59 pages—I highly recommend reading it because it provides very insightful background information on the work and Swedenborg’s times.
Although this work is titled “Heaven and Hell,” the book deals mostly with heaven and angels. There are 3 parts, the last of which is the chapter on hell. Hell is mentioned throughout the book, but usually in quick comparisons to whatever is being described as existing in heaven. It is written in simple language that is easy to read—delightful given that this can sometimes be an issue when dealing with spiritual works—reminding us that Swedenborg had indeed written the book for “people with simple heart and simple faith.” With that said, what might make the reading ‘slow’ is the fact that there are tons of annotations which the reader may want to read, causing him to pause on a constant basis. Also, depending on a reader’s background and reception of the subject at hand, reading slowly might help in better absorbing the content. Some readers may find some of his statements to be repetitive, but I personally don’t mind it as it serves to drive home certain important points and therefore help in remembering them. Since spiritual works can sometimes feel ‘heavy’ with information, I find this tactic to be effective.
One of the points that made an impression is “what we love, we intend.” I consider it a useful and powerful concept that I will be sure to actively reflect upon.
March 7, 2015
I've been a reader of Swedenborg since high school, appreciating his honest enthusiasm for things spiritual. Recently, after the loss of my 32-year old son, I began casting about for fresh reflection on the subject of life after death.
I'm a masters and doctoral degree graduate of mainline theological seminaries, and for something over twenty-four years, served as a mainstream Protestant pastor. Still, when death came unexpectedly to my door, I wanted something more.
Swedenborg's Heaven and Hell came to mind. And this updated, modern-language edition spoke voluminously.
I don't recommend the book because of what Swedenborg says he heard and saw in his visions. I recommend it because he believed what he experienced and, at this point in my life, that's the kind of candor I depend on.
I'm a masters and doctoral degree graduate of mainline theological seminaries, and for something over twenty-four years, served as a mainstream Protestant pastor. Still, when death came unexpectedly to my door, I wanted something more.
Swedenborg's Heaven and Hell came to mind. And this updated, modern-language edition spoke voluminously.
I don't recommend the book because of what Swedenborg says he heard and saw in his visions. I recommend it because he believed what he experienced and, at this point in my life, that's the kind of candor I depend on.
September 18, 2012
Forgot religious dogma and pure rationalism, this guy is brilliant in a lot of ways...
First off, I'm not quite halfway finished with this text, but I feel ready to review. Second, I hope and trust and believe there will be no Swedenborg adherents who will come to this review to 'Boo' it as there was some time back when I called out Mormon apologists in my review of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet (which wasn't that good otherwise). I assure everyone that I have no antipathy or distrust towards the good Swedenborgians, partially because I don't believe highly elaborate and financed missionary runs are one of their pillars. (Although if Swedenborgians came knocking at my door I think a conversation with them would be far more beneficial than anything I'd get from a million of the other "knockers.")
As for Emanuel himself, he shockingly even refuses to deny pagans entry into the kingdom of God! (I am dialing up my father now...land line, never cellular...to let him know there is hope we might again enjoy some ham and biscuits together.) He also gives some love to 'Africans' who he perceives are generally closer to divinity by viewing and experiencing the world with more inner channeling, let's call it. He's got interesting and pretty potent thoughts also on time and distance, and how both can be overcome. I certainly appreciate and have long agreed with his idea of "inflow" or "correspondence" whereby something material on earth, even something quite simple, a garden let's say, can send a person to other worlds through "inflow," through the "correspondence" with something heavenly/divine. But he's not only up in the clouds: on earth, life is useful and important because it not only reflects our inner being but also carries us into our time in the hereafter.
That's not to say there aren't more than a few fairly wacky ideas in here, but I'm not holding anything against someone for a wacky idea (generally).
Even John Wesley was fascinated with the guy, despite, of course, having to rebuke him. Knowing John Wesley even read any of Swedenborg's long tracts says something about both of them.
My main drag with Emanuel is that I always struggle with folks who write so scientifically about imaginative or spiritual things, as if they are attempting to prove something to us. The details that Swedenborg writes are practically handmade for charts, models, and graphic organizers. But I understand that was somewhat a product of the times as well as a step towards some other style within the trajectory of European intellectualism and discovery. Still, the dividing of heavens and angels into communities, kingdoms, levels, etc.....
But hold on!!! That kind of stuff could be entertaining and interesting---hell, Dungeons and Dragons, Tolkien, et al. The problem is that Emanual went for clarity and accessibility, so the explanations are covered in a dry and drab paint that sticks on your shoes at times like wet tar....Honestly, when I picked this heavy book up, "Heaven and Hell," I'm thinking romantic, flowery and evocative descriptions of things. But it's really the opposite approach. Oh he's got the baroque sense of detail down, as well as the romantics' topics of choice, but his style bites them both in the ass, in a sense....
And there's a section on loving the sun and how that reflects warmth, love, divinity, etc, (detailed in the driest, yet most comprehensive of manners), but where's the love for winter??? No mention of it! And I'm a winter guy. I'd be fine if there were no more warm days at all! My guess is that unfortunately Emanuel might haul winter out in later chapters when he focuses on hell. And he's also going to give a very bad rap to chaos and death....unlike myself.
So:
1. The primeval mind. Order and chaos, good and evil. Okay, that gets points with both Swedenborg and me, although I'm much more of a sidewinder on this and can love chaos and evil sometimes as much as I can despite it. Swedenborg, on the other hand, has a one way street.
2. Neoplatonic: everything connects to the spirit world. Yep. Swedenborg and me are pure bedfellows here.
3. Renaissance: Hmmmm.....It's a push on this one. Swedenborg is all for noble wealth, liberty, self-determination, against monasticism. Me, I'm all over the board, dependent on the spirit behind things.
4. Baroque: Yeah, I'm game, but he's got the most boring of its sorts.
5. Romantic: A grand certainty for me, but again, he's not one of the most electrifying of its proponents.
Still, Timmy and Emanuel could easily get along for a week or so, even if I spent a decent amount of time giggling. Especially when he says, "These matters cannot be further clarified here, but they will be in subsequent chapters."
Great.
Then I'd drag him into a cold, wintry day where snowmen are dressed akin to his description of angels.....
Later notes:
Wow! Rereading his sections on time and space! He's got it!
Still later:
By the end of the book I had warmed somewhat to Swedenborg's clear and plain writing style, but on the flip side, the last 100-150 pages show a lot of repetition.
First off, I'm not quite halfway finished with this text, but I feel ready to review. Second, I hope and trust and believe there will be no Swedenborg adherents who will come to this review to 'Boo' it as there was some time back when I called out Mormon apologists in my review of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet (which wasn't that good otherwise). I assure everyone that I have no antipathy or distrust towards the good Swedenborgians, partially because I don't believe highly elaborate and financed missionary runs are one of their pillars. (Although if Swedenborgians came knocking at my door I think a conversation with them would be far more beneficial than anything I'd get from a million of the other "knockers.")
As for Emanuel himself, he shockingly even refuses to deny pagans entry into the kingdom of God! (I am dialing up my father now...land line, never cellular...to let him know there is hope we might again enjoy some ham and biscuits together.) He also gives some love to 'Africans' who he perceives are generally closer to divinity by viewing and experiencing the world with more inner channeling, let's call it. He's got interesting and pretty potent thoughts also on time and distance, and how both can be overcome. I certainly appreciate and have long agreed with his idea of "inflow" or "correspondence" whereby something material on earth, even something quite simple, a garden let's say, can send a person to other worlds through "inflow," through the "correspondence" with something heavenly/divine. But he's not only up in the clouds: on earth, life is useful and important because it not only reflects our inner being but also carries us into our time in the hereafter.
That's not to say there aren't more than a few fairly wacky ideas in here, but I'm not holding anything against someone for a wacky idea (generally).
Even John Wesley was fascinated with the guy, despite, of course, having to rebuke him. Knowing John Wesley even read any of Swedenborg's long tracts says something about both of them.
My main drag with Emanuel is that I always struggle with folks who write so scientifically about imaginative or spiritual things, as if they are attempting to prove something to us. The details that Swedenborg writes are practically handmade for charts, models, and graphic organizers. But I understand that was somewhat a product of the times as well as a step towards some other style within the trajectory of European intellectualism and discovery. Still, the dividing of heavens and angels into communities, kingdoms, levels, etc.....
But hold on!!! That kind of stuff could be entertaining and interesting---hell, Dungeons and Dragons, Tolkien, et al. The problem is that Emanual went for clarity and accessibility, so the explanations are covered in a dry and drab paint that sticks on your shoes at times like wet tar....Honestly, when I picked this heavy book up, "Heaven and Hell," I'm thinking romantic, flowery and evocative descriptions of things. But it's really the opposite approach. Oh he's got the baroque sense of detail down, as well as the romantics' topics of choice, but his style bites them both in the ass, in a sense....
And there's a section on loving the sun and how that reflects warmth, love, divinity, etc, (detailed in the driest, yet most comprehensive of manners), but where's the love for winter??? No mention of it! And I'm a winter guy. I'd be fine if there were no more warm days at all! My guess is that unfortunately Emanuel might haul winter out in later chapters when he focuses on hell. And he's also going to give a very bad rap to chaos and death....unlike myself.
So:
1. The primeval mind. Order and chaos, good and evil. Okay, that gets points with both Swedenborg and me, although I'm much more of a sidewinder on this and can love chaos and evil sometimes as much as I can despite it. Swedenborg, on the other hand, has a one way street.
2. Neoplatonic: everything connects to the spirit world. Yep. Swedenborg and me are pure bedfellows here.
3. Renaissance: Hmmmm.....It's a push on this one. Swedenborg is all for noble wealth, liberty, self-determination, against monasticism. Me, I'm all over the board, dependent on the spirit behind things.
4. Baroque: Yeah, I'm game, but he's got the most boring of its sorts.
5. Romantic: A grand certainty for me, but again, he's not one of the most electrifying of its proponents.
Still, Timmy and Emanuel could easily get along for a week or so, even if I spent a decent amount of time giggling. Especially when he says, "These matters cannot be further clarified here, but they will be in subsequent chapters."
Great.
Then I'd drag him into a cold, wintry day where snowmen are dressed akin to his description of angels.....
Later notes:
Wow! Rereading his sections on time and space! He's got it!
Still later:
By the end of the book I had warmed somewhat to Swedenborg's clear and plain writing style, but on the flip side, the last 100-150 pages show a lot of repetition.
May 17, 2022
Los grandes del misticismo, como H. P. Blavatsky, A. Besant y el poco conocido Maestro Santiago Aranegui, y hasta de la literatura universal, como el mismo Borges, refieren lecturas de Swedenborg. No se equivocaban. Un libro escrito en prosa muy simple, sin artificios; es claro para el público que esté dispuesto a ver y escuchar. Para el resto (del público), este libro no creo que le sea necesario.
June 15, 2020
UPLIFTING AND ENLIGHTENING
I TOTALLY recommend this book to any serious spiritual seeker.
It is totally enlightening and will be a cornerstone throughout my life.
I TOTALLY recommend this book to any serious spiritual seeker.
It is totally enlightening and will be a cornerstone throughout my life.
May 10, 2013
If you have heard of the Near Death Experience, and the light that everyone encounters at the end of the tunnel, this work describes what happens AFTER that, when one enters the realm of light. Probably the most comprehensive account of the afterlife ever written, based on over 25 years of visions of the author. All other accounts offer only brief glimpses of this other spiritual reality.
February 14, 2025
A one-of-a-kind work setting out the discoveries of an 18th-century Swedish scientist's extended forays into the spirit realm. Swedenborg gives detailed descriptions of what happens to us after we die, and the process that leads to our being drawn to either heaven or hell as our ultimate and permanent destination.
Swedenborg, the son of a Lutheran bishop, presents an eschatology that is consistent with his faith. According to him, if you're a Catholic you face serious obstacles to gaining entrance to heaven, even though God's--or the Lord's, to use Swedenborg's invariable designation, apparently referring more especially to Jesus Christ--intention is for all people to be saved. You're also in for an unpleasant surprise if you're a Muslim, since you will discover that Muhammad can do nothing for you after all. You will be reeducated by angels who themselves were Muslims in earthly life, and will thus be able to gain entrance to heaven.
And what about other religions? What about atheists? According to Swedenborg, the way to heaven is open to all who practice a true religion--that is, one that embraces belief in a (the) supreme god. I couldn't help but note that this appears to exclude Buddhism, which is not based on belief in a creator god. And yet Buddhists (and other atheists) are as capable of ethical behavior as anyone, and it is our behavior, or, rather, the intentions behind our behavior, that is key in determining our ultimate destination. It's just that, according to this author, all loving acts stem from the Lord, since the Lord is love, and so apparently ethical behavior that does not come from faith in Him is actually hypocritical, since it is based on love for oneself or love for the world--perverted types of love that are the cause of all evil.
Against this, I note simply that loving-kindness and compassion are attitudes and practices that are taught by Buddhism, especially by Mahayana Buddhism, and are held to arise from the fundamental nature of mind and not due to one's relationship with any god. As a Buddhist, am I in for a rude awakening after I die? Will I find that my face after death is turned not toward God, but away from him, and that I accordingly will have self-selected my fate to the underworld of the hells? There, because I am not especially aggressive or cunning, I would certainly find myself enslaved by those who have those traits, and there I would remain until . . . well, forever.
Sobering thoughts.
Personally, I have no doubt that Swedenborg is reporting real experiences. I believe that he did indeed make extensive tours of the spirit realm and have interactions with many spirits and angels (and angels, by the way, were all once human beings; it is a mistake to think that they were created by the Lord as a separate class of being--and the same goes for demons). There is consistency and profundity in what he records. The question then is about the status of his experiences: is he describing an objective reality, and, if so, is it the only objective reality?
If he is, then it seems to contradict, or at least differ from, the experiences of at least some other people who have also made forays to the spirit world. The American businessman Robert Monroe, in his book Journeys Out of the Body, describes journeying in at least three distinct astral realms. In one of these he experienced the presence of a great "Lord," someone that all the people there bowed down to--as he did himself while he was there. But my sense here was that this Lord was more of a tyrant, someone who needed to be worshipped. But Monroe himself seems to have been basically a secular man, and his experiences were mainly secular ones.
Another traveler to the beyond was Betty J. Eadie, who, in her book Embraced by the Light: The Most Profound and Complete Near-Death Experience Ever, describes a days-long sojourn in the postmortem state after dying in a hospital. She is a Christian, and in the spirit realm she encountered Jesus. If I recall correctly, there are many points of similarity between her account and Swedenborg's, but also many differences.
The Buddha himself is said to have had extensive visions of the cosmic order. In particular, shortly before his enlightenment he was able to see all of his previous births: each one individually, hundreds of thousands of them. He was also able to see the mechanism of karma: how people are propelled by it from one life to another, again and again, like balls in a pinball game. This was samsara, the endless round of birth, death, and rebirth: the endless round of suffering.
For Swedenborg there is no rebirth; our lives are one-shot deals. What about children who die? They are lovingly attended to by female angels and raised to adulthood in heaven. Since they spend so little time on Earth, and have a sure pass to heaven due to their relative innocence (although Swedenborg does discuss at length the difference between childhood innocence and true innocence, an adult quality that enables one to become an angel), their lives are among the most blessed. This should be a comfort to parents who have lost a child.
But is it true? I don't know, and I have no way of checking it until I have astral experiences of my own--or until I die. Most of us are in this situation; we have to use our best judgment to prepare ourselves for whatever exists above and beyond the physical reality that we know, and after our present life. What is least prejudicial to our long-term welfare?
Swedenborg offers a comprehensive picture of the spiritual world, which includes many authentic-sounding details. If you ordered your life according to his vision, you would be a devout Christian, a Protestant, scrupulously ethical in your conduct and exhibiting high personal integrity--for he emphasizes this above almost anything else. In the spirit world, there are no hidden agendas and there is no hypocrisy; it is impossible to think one thing and say or do the opposite. There, for better or for worse, your heart is always on your sleeve, and can never be anywhere else. Everyone knows where everyone else stands. Indeed, this is why heaven and hell exist: they are the natural destinations of people whose motives are good and bad, respectively. In the spirit realm, our true inner selves are laid bare and we go to live among others like ourselves. So here in earthly life, it's best to say and do good things because you really value God and really value your neighbor. That is the surest path to heaven.
Swedenborg's book is well worth reading. At the very least, it will challenge your spiritual beliefs and assumptions, which to me seems inherently healthy. Whatever your beliefs about the afterlife are, why do you hold them? How strong is that basis? Here we have a man of integrity, a man of science, telling us plainly the results of hundreds or perhaps thousands of his own experiences with the spirit world, a place where he had much dialogue with angels and with the spirits of people he knew and people he didn't. He saw the vast array of the heavens, and glimpsed the equally vast and dark array of the hells. The picture is consistent and detailed. It's hard to ignore.
For my part, I will trust to whatever spiritual experience of my own that I have been able to have, which has been within the context of Buddhist practice. Unless the Lord sees fit to give me a clear vision to the contrary--as he apparently gave Swedenborg--this is my path. I intend to keep my mind open, along with my eyes and ears, and, moving forward thus, hope for the best. If there is a Lord in charge of it all, I'm hoping he's a reasonable guy.
Swedenborg, the son of a Lutheran bishop, presents an eschatology that is consistent with his faith. According to him, if you're a Catholic you face serious obstacles to gaining entrance to heaven, even though God's--or the Lord's, to use Swedenborg's invariable designation, apparently referring more especially to Jesus Christ--intention is for all people to be saved. You're also in for an unpleasant surprise if you're a Muslim, since you will discover that Muhammad can do nothing for you after all. You will be reeducated by angels who themselves were Muslims in earthly life, and will thus be able to gain entrance to heaven.
And what about other religions? What about atheists? According to Swedenborg, the way to heaven is open to all who practice a true religion--that is, one that embraces belief in a (the) supreme god. I couldn't help but note that this appears to exclude Buddhism, which is not based on belief in a creator god. And yet Buddhists (and other atheists) are as capable of ethical behavior as anyone, and it is our behavior, or, rather, the intentions behind our behavior, that is key in determining our ultimate destination. It's just that, according to this author, all loving acts stem from the Lord, since the Lord is love, and so apparently ethical behavior that does not come from faith in Him is actually hypocritical, since it is based on love for oneself or love for the world--perverted types of love that are the cause of all evil.
Against this, I note simply that loving-kindness and compassion are attitudes and practices that are taught by Buddhism, especially by Mahayana Buddhism, and are held to arise from the fundamental nature of mind and not due to one's relationship with any god. As a Buddhist, am I in for a rude awakening after I die? Will I find that my face after death is turned not toward God, but away from him, and that I accordingly will have self-selected my fate to the underworld of the hells? There, because I am not especially aggressive or cunning, I would certainly find myself enslaved by those who have those traits, and there I would remain until . . . well, forever.
Sobering thoughts.
Personally, I have no doubt that Swedenborg is reporting real experiences. I believe that he did indeed make extensive tours of the spirit realm and have interactions with many spirits and angels (and angels, by the way, were all once human beings; it is a mistake to think that they were created by the Lord as a separate class of being--and the same goes for demons). There is consistency and profundity in what he records. The question then is about the status of his experiences: is he describing an objective reality, and, if so, is it the only objective reality?
If he is, then it seems to contradict, or at least differ from, the experiences of at least some other people who have also made forays to the spirit world. The American businessman Robert Monroe, in his book Journeys Out of the Body, describes journeying in at least three distinct astral realms. In one of these he experienced the presence of a great "Lord," someone that all the people there bowed down to--as he did himself while he was there. But my sense here was that this Lord was more of a tyrant, someone who needed to be worshipped. But Monroe himself seems to have been basically a secular man, and his experiences were mainly secular ones.
Another traveler to the beyond was Betty J. Eadie, who, in her book Embraced by the Light: The Most Profound and Complete Near-Death Experience Ever, describes a days-long sojourn in the postmortem state after dying in a hospital. She is a Christian, and in the spirit realm she encountered Jesus. If I recall correctly, there are many points of similarity between her account and Swedenborg's, but also many differences.
The Buddha himself is said to have had extensive visions of the cosmic order. In particular, shortly before his enlightenment he was able to see all of his previous births: each one individually, hundreds of thousands of them. He was also able to see the mechanism of karma: how people are propelled by it from one life to another, again and again, like balls in a pinball game. This was samsara, the endless round of birth, death, and rebirth: the endless round of suffering.
For Swedenborg there is no rebirth; our lives are one-shot deals. What about children who die? They are lovingly attended to by female angels and raised to adulthood in heaven. Since they spend so little time on Earth, and have a sure pass to heaven due to their relative innocence (although Swedenborg does discuss at length the difference between childhood innocence and true innocence, an adult quality that enables one to become an angel), their lives are among the most blessed. This should be a comfort to parents who have lost a child.
But is it true? I don't know, and I have no way of checking it until I have astral experiences of my own--or until I die. Most of us are in this situation; we have to use our best judgment to prepare ourselves for whatever exists above and beyond the physical reality that we know, and after our present life. What is least prejudicial to our long-term welfare?
Swedenborg offers a comprehensive picture of the spiritual world, which includes many authentic-sounding details. If you ordered your life according to his vision, you would be a devout Christian, a Protestant, scrupulously ethical in your conduct and exhibiting high personal integrity--for he emphasizes this above almost anything else. In the spirit world, there are no hidden agendas and there is no hypocrisy; it is impossible to think one thing and say or do the opposite. There, for better or for worse, your heart is always on your sleeve, and can never be anywhere else. Everyone knows where everyone else stands. Indeed, this is why heaven and hell exist: they are the natural destinations of people whose motives are good and bad, respectively. In the spirit realm, our true inner selves are laid bare and we go to live among others like ourselves. So here in earthly life, it's best to say and do good things because you really value God and really value your neighbor. That is the surest path to heaven.
Swedenborg's book is well worth reading. At the very least, it will challenge your spiritual beliefs and assumptions, which to me seems inherently healthy. Whatever your beliefs about the afterlife are, why do you hold them? How strong is that basis? Here we have a man of integrity, a man of science, telling us plainly the results of hundreds or perhaps thousands of his own experiences with the spirit world, a place where he had much dialogue with angels and with the spirits of people he knew and people he didn't. He saw the vast array of the heavens, and glimpsed the equally vast and dark array of the hells. The picture is consistent and detailed. It's hard to ignore.
For my part, I will trust to whatever spiritual experience of my own that I have been able to have, which has been within the context of Buddhist practice. Unless the Lord sees fit to give me a clear vision to the contrary--as he apparently gave Swedenborg--this is my path. I intend to keep my mind open, along with my eyes and ears, and, moving forward thus, hope for the best. If there is a Lord in charge of it all, I'm hoping he's a reasonable guy.
November 28, 2017
Can't believe I actually finished this. This is very important if you wish to understand the magical writings of Balzac, Baudlaire, and especially Blake.
read the Portable Blake then this, then started The Modern Library's Selected poems and prose of William Blake. The texts popped after reading Swedenborg.
read the Portable Blake then this, then started The Modern Library's Selected poems and prose of William Blake. The texts popped after reading Swedenborg.
January 27, 2016
I was in great good luck the day I grabbed this wonderful book. This book has in-depth information on the wonders of heaven and it also puts in to light the practicalities of life in heaven. Kingdom of heaven has been misunderstood quite a lot, but the book very clearly explains that to be a part of the Kingdom of Heaven, one must be guided by the King of heaven, the Supreme, the one great god. The book is very interesting and also explains the law of God. No one is accepted in Heaven only by mercy of God, but by the person's deeds here on Earth and that the vibrations of Heaven are too strong for anyone not prepared to enter Heaven. So all preparation for Heaven begins on Earth and every single day is an opportunity.
The book has some eye-opening wonders and facts mis-understood on Earth. I recommend this book to everyone looking for an understanding of The Kingdom of Heaven.
The book has some eye-opening wonders and facts mis-understood on Earth. I recommend this book to everyone looking for an understanding of The Kingdom of Heaven.
May 5, 2025
«El hombre de la Iglesia hoy día apenas sabe cosa alguna acerca del Cielo y del Infierno, ni de su vida después de la muerte, por más que todas estas cosas se hallan consignadas en el Verbo; hasta hay muchos, nacidos dentro de la Iglesia, que las niegan, diciendo en su corazón: “Quién ha venido de allí y las ha contado?” Con el fin, pues, de que semejante negación, la cual reina principalmente entre aquellos que tienen mucho de la sabiduría del mundo, no contamine y corrompa también a los de sencillo corazón y de sencilla fe, me ha sido otorgado estar con los ángeles, y hablar con ellos como hombre con hombre y así como ver las cosas que hay en el Cielo y también las que hay en el Infierno, y esto por espacio de trece años, siéndome ahora permitido referirlas por oídas y vistas, esperando que así la ignorancia será iluminada y la incredulidad disipada. La razón por la cual tal inmediata revelación tiene lugar actualmente es que esta revelación es lo que se entiende por la venida del Señor.»
Este libro es otra de las tantas recomendaciones que me ha hecho Jorge Luis Borges: la obra magna del místico y visionario Emanuel Swedenborg publicada en 1758 y cuyo nombre completo es “De Coelo et ejus mirabilibus et de Inferno, ex auditis et visis”, o sea, “Del Cielo y sus maravillas y el Infierno de cosas oídas y vistas”.
Emanuel Swedenborg nació en Suecia en 1688 e hizo de todo en su vida. Fue inventor, filósofo, científico, teólogo y místico. Publicó una serie de libros de relevancia siendo “Del Cielo y del Infierno” el libro por el cual sea reconocido hasta el día de hoy.
Ferviente católico supo confesar que a la edad de 53 años, en 1741 tuvo una experiencia mística y visionaria por la cual entró en un trance que lo llevó a experimentar sueños y visiones en los que interactuó tanto con ángeles como espíritus y demonios, conoció el Cielo, el mundo de los espíritus y el Infierno que derivaron en un “despertar espiritual” gracias al cual escribió este libro: «Fui introducido en un estado de insensibilidad, con respecto a los sentidos corporales, o sea casi en el estado de un moribundo, permaneciendo integra la vida interior con el pensamiento, a fin de que percibiese y retuviese en la memoria las cosas que experimentaba y que experimentan los que resucitan de los muertos.»
En él y supuestamente “por intermediación de Jesucristo” fue designado para escribir este tratado teológico-filosófico de “espiritualidad racional” en el que nos explica a manera de testimonio directo el hecho de que el hombre, inmediatamente después de morir no es enviado al Cielo o al Infierno en el sentido tradicional que se nos narra en la Biblia bajo la determinación del juicio o castigo sino más bien por la racionalidad y la elección del ser humano a volcarse a la “Verdad” (el Cielo) o a la “Falsedad” (el Infierno). Todo esto sucede mientras el hombre se halla en “El mundo de los espíritus”, una especie de “limbo”, que a diferencia de la concepción de Dante Alighieri en “La Divina Comedia” no es temporaria sino estacional y decisiva para que el alma, muy poco después de abandonar el cuerpo decida qué rumbo tomar: «El mundo de los espíritus ni es el Cielo ni es el Infierno, sino un lugar intermedio entre ambos; porque allí entra el hombre después de la muerte y luego, transcurrido cierto tiempo según su vida en el mundo, es elevado al Cielo, o bien castigado en el infierno.»
Aquí sí, en similitud con Dante, nos cuenta cómo es el lugar en el alma subirá por un camino parecido al “Purgatorio” de “La Divina Comedia” a los Cielos o caerá por oscuros pasadizos, cuevas y cavernas a la profundidades del Infierno.
A su vez, nos detalla un esquema de cómo está organizado el Cielo, de la función de los ángeles, del ambiente en el que se desarrolla el mundo espiritual y de cómo funciona el Infierno.
Hace hincapié en que Dios es quien regentea tanto Cielo como Infierno y se diferencia de la concepción católica que conocemos en el Antiguo Testamento de la Iglesia Católica como también del concepto narrado por John Milton en “El paraíso perdido”, ya que asegura que ni Satanás, el Diablo o Lucifer existen en su Infierno, sino que es Dios quien tiene el control del Averno:
«En el mundo se ha creído hasta ahora que existe algún demonio que está al mando de los Infiernos, y que ha sido creado ángel de la luz, pero habiéndose rebelado; fue con su turba precipitada al Infierno, La causa de esta creencia es que en el Verbo se habla del Demonio y de Satanás así como de Lucifer; y que el Verbo ha sido interpretado literalmente siendo, sin embargo, asi que en dichos lugares, y por Demonio y Satanás se entiende el Infierno; por el Demonio, aquel Infierno que se halla detrás, donde se hallan los peores que se llaman genios, y por Satanás, el Infierno que se halla delante, donde se hallan los que no son tan malignos; quienes se ]laman malos espíritus, y por Lucifer se entiende los de Babel o de Babilonia, que son los que extienden su imperio hasta el Cielo. Que no hay demonio bajo cuyo mando se hallan los Infiernos, es claro también por eso de que tanto los que están en los Infiernos, cuanto los que están en el Cielo, son todos del generó humano y que se encuentran allí miríadas de miradas desde el principio de la creación hasta este tiempo, siendo cada uno de ellos tal demonio, cual ha sido su vida en el mundo en contra de lo Divino.»
Si bien la lectura del libro se torna por momentos densa y repetitiva (Swedenborg adopta una descripción dualista y antagónica de lo que detalla bajo el concepto “Si no es una cosa es lo contrario”, “Del Cielo y del Infierno” puede ser una alternativa para aquellos lectores católicos (y no los que no lo son) que quieran saber acerca de conocer otro concepto sobre cómo son el Cielo y el Infierno.
Este libro es otra de las tantas recomendaciones que me ha hecho Jorge Luis Borges: la obra magna del místico y visionario Emanuel Swedenborg publicada en 1758 y cuyo nombre completo es “De Coelo et ejus mirabilibus et de Inferno, ex auditis et visis”, o sea, “Del Cielo y sus maravillas y el Infierno de cosas oídas y vistas”.
Emanuel Swedenborg nació en Suecia en 1688 e hizo de todo en su vida. Fue inventor, filósofo, científico, teólogo y místico. Publicó una serie de libros de relevancia siendo “Del Cielo y del Infierno” el libro por el cual sea reconocido hasta el día de hoy.
Ferviente católico supo confesar que a la edad de 53 años, en 1741 tuvo una experiencia mística y visionaria por la cual entró en un trance que lo llevó a experimentar sueños y visiones en los que interactuó tanto con ángeles como espíritus y demonios, conoció el Cielo, el mundo de los espíritus y el Infierno que derivaron en un “despertar espiritual” gracias al cual escribió este libro: «Fui introducido en un estado de insensibilidad, con respecto a los sentidos corporales, o sea casi en el estado de un moribundo, permaneciendo integra la vida interior con el pensamiento, a fin de que percibiese y retuviese en la memoria las cosas que experimentaba y que experimentan los que resucitan de los muertos.»
En él y supuestamente “por intermediación de Jesucristo” fue designado para escribir este tratado teológico-filosófico de “espiritualidad racional” en el que nos explica a manera de testimonio directo el hecho de que el hombre, inmediatamente después de morir no es enviado al Cielo o al Infierno en el sentido tradicional que se nos narra en la Biblia bajo la determinación del juicio o castigo sino más bien por la racionalidad y la elección del ser humano a volcarse a la “Verdad” (el Cielo) o a la “Falsedad” (el Infierno). Todo esto sucede mientras el hombre se halla en “El mundo de los espíritus”, una especie de “limbo”, que a diferencia de la concepción de Dante Alighieri en “La Divina Comedia” no es temporaria sino estacional y decisiva para que el alma, muy poco después de abandonar el cuerpo decida qué rumbo tomar: «El mundo de los espíritus ni es el Cielo ni es el Infierno, sino un lugar intermedio entre ambos; porque allí entra el hombre después de la muerte y luego, transcurrido cierto tiempo según su vida en el mundo, es elevado al Cielo, o bien castigado en el infierno.»
Aquí sí, en similitud con Dante, nos cuenta cómo es el lugar en el alma subirá por un camino parecido al “Purgatorio” de “La Divina Comedia” a los Cielos o caerá por oscuros pasadizos, cuevas y cavernas a la profundidades del Infierno.
A su vez, nos detalla un esquema de cómo está organizado el Cielo, de la función de los ángeles, del ambiente en el que se desarrolla el mundo espiritual y de cómo funciona el Infierno.
Hace hincapié en que Dios es quien regentea tanto Cielo como Infierno y se diferencia de la concepción católica que conocemos en el Antiguo Testamento de la Iglesia Católica como también del concepto narrado por John Milton en “El paraíso perdido”, ya que asegura que ni Satanás, el Diablo o Lucifer existen en su Infierno, sino que es Dios quien tiene el control del Averno:
«En el mundo se ha creído hasta ahora que existe algún demonio que está al mando de los Infiernos, y que ha sido creado ángel de la luz, pero habiéndose rebelado; fue con su turba precipitada al Infierno, La causa de esta creencia es que en el Verbo se habla del Demonio y de Satanás así como de Lucifer; y que el Verbo ha sido interpretado literalmente siendo, sin embargo, asi que en dichos lugares, y por Demonio y Satanás se entiende el Infierno; por el Demonio, aquel Infierno que se halla detrás, donde se hallan los peores que se llaman genios, y por Satanás, el Infierno que se halla delante, donde se hallan los que no son tan malignos; quienes se ]laman malos espíritus, y por Lucifer se entiende los de Babel o de Babilonia, que son los que extienden su imperio hasta el Cielo. Que no hay demonio bajo cuyo mando se hallan los Infiernos, es claro también por eso de que tanto los que están en los Infiernos, cuanto los que están en el Cielo, son todos del generó humano y que se encuentran allí miríadas de miradas desde el principio de la creación hasta este tiempo, siendo cada uno de ellos tal demonio, cual ha sido su vida en el mundo en contra de lo Divino.»
Si bien la lectura del libro se torna por momentos densa y repetitiva (Swedenborg adopta una descripción dualista y antagónica de lo que detalla bajo el concepto “Si no es una cosa es lo contrario”, “Del Cielo y del Infierno” puede ser una alternativa para aquellos lectores católicos (y no los que no lo son) que quieran saber acerca de conocer otro concepto sobre cómo son el Cielo y el Infierno.
February 16, 2011
Ralph Waldo Emerson called Swedenborg a mystic in his Representative Men. I can't tell why. This is a straight forward description of Heaven and Hell with some interesting twists (God rules both heaven and hell, so there is no devil; you attain heaven after basically going through "training" by spirits right after you die; you keep your body and have a job, house, all the things you had in life...). Anyway, unless you're really interested in the people who influenced the spiritualism that developed in the late 19th century, don't bother.
January 13, 2011
Swedenborg poses some interesting and provocative theories in this book. Yet ultimately he is inconsistent, especially concerning bible passages. He claims the Word should be read not literally, but in the spiritual sense. Often times he provides a literal interpretation of the Word to support his arguments though. He also tends to rely a lot upon repition. Given, this makes his arguments more persuasive, but towards the end it becomes more and more of a nuisance (although that is probably also so experienced by me because I read the book in a short period of time). In conclusion, it is a fairly interesting journey into the mind of Swedenborg and how he percieves religion, as well as an account of the state the Catholic Church was in back in the day (Swedenborg clearly describes the confusion and the differences of opinion between fellow catholics and christians). However, I don't believe, as the author claims, that there are humans living on Jupiter, Mars, Venus, etc. Or any other part of it for that matter.
February 11, 2020
Rating a book like this seems silly, as it's absolutely unique. Also quite mad. Swedenborg moved from earth to heaven to hell as if strolling through the neighborhood. (In his mind he is.) He knows angels well and speaks highly of them. His theology is droll, optimistic, tolerant, and genial. A fascinating book--and one as is well known that influenced William Blake enormously.
Read
January 15, 2014Dnf. Perhaps I'll give this one another go some day, perhaps not.
February 21, 2024
C.S. Lewis promulgated the argument that if Jesus wasn’t in fact God, then Jesus had to be insane. John Wesley more emphatically declared this author, Emanuel Swedenborg, to be insane. This was likely because Swedenborg contended that he experienced visitations with angels, demons, and the demised, including having received tours of heaven and hell. Indeed this, and the excessive redundancy in Swedenborg’s writing, are perhaps indicative of mental troubles.
Human history reveals that many persons who bring new and radical ideas are often ostracized, murdered, banished, or declared insane. We can think of Socrates, Gandhi, MLK, Bruno, Galileo, and others, just to name a few. Typically, it is only later generations that come to see value in the ideas of extremists.
Swedenborg’s Explanation For Hell
Can a true Christian, impregnated with the love of Christ, ever rest easy in heaven, knowing other souls are burning miserably and infinitely in hell? How can anyone countenance the contention that Christ came for sinners if so many sinners are going to be in perpetual misery in hell? Certainly, there is conflicting dichotomy here, which leads one to suspect error in the never-ending punishments of hell, as preached by fundamentalists. Swedenborg obviously sensed these same problems with the orthodox doctrine.
Swedenborg resolves the orthodox dilemma of hell by imagining the world in production of indestructible spirits that become good or evil during their lifetimes and actually choose heaven or hell. Swedenborg suggests that all suffering that comes to us, especially in the next life, is not from God, but from our own “spiritual state”. That is, the particular “state of being” that we have developed for ourselves based upon what we truly love.
Adam and Eve’s expulsion from Eden is not so different from that of any child who is eventually pushed out of the family nest to endure for themselves in the world. Genesis portrays the raising of juvenile humans to the point where they are eventually freed into the world, to journey in the capacity of their preferred existential selves, towards their favored states of being.
Thus, Swedenborg sees the world as a womb, like a solarium designed to incubate spirits out of matter; or, like an Eden that fosters the creation of indestructible beings, some of which morph into beautiful spirits, while others become deformed miscarriages that volitionally refuse their full potential. Because all endure infinitely, each must have a place, and thus the reason for hell. Spirits get what they have chosen, which Swedenborg presents as varying degrees of self-affliction, or as gradually darkening shades of gray.
The great awakening in a human being comes with realization of the significance of volitional choice and the power it entails. The gift of volition gives us the power to become what we choose, and to thus locate ourselves within a vast spectrum that spans from the brightest light to the remotest outer darkness. Spirits populate the spectrum in places relative to their particular aura.
Perhaps the existence of Swedenborg’s hell is best exemplified within our own reality by the existence of prisons. We do not know what to do with those who willingly violate the structure of good community; so we throw them into prisons which truly appear hellish in comparison to a life of freedom. And within such hellish incarceration, these souls are exposed to other evil people, and the result is a seething cauldron of hellish evil that feeds upon itself.
Why Do Some Choose Hell?
As we have explained, Swedenborg’s essential position is that the creation of hell is a necessity resulting from the creation of indestructible, volitional beings; because volitional beings must have a choice if they are to be truly volitional, and some will certainly choose hell if they are indeed not robotic automatons. But why do some choose hell? The answer is no different than the answer of why one would choose to be arrogant, to enslave others, to ignore those in plight, or to conduct other forms of evil. With volition comes the allurement to self-aggrandizement, the desire to hoard wealth, pathological accumulation, and the intoxications of power.
Essentially, evil is a desire to be more than human, and involves motivation to take over the lives of others through manipulation and control, with the intent of belittling others into subservience to someone or something other than the true Goodness of God. Such self-aggrandizement foments the evil necessary for bribes, pretended love, extravagance, extortion, threats, humiliation, and all the shades of evil that diabolical people manifest.
As Swedenborg sees it, the choice between heaven and hell is essentially the same as the choices between self and others, ego or community, hoarding or sharing, hardened ambivalence or compassion, deception or honesty, etc. The choice is not one single decision that we make under the pressure of a raving theologian beckoning us down the aisle amidst a brainwashed congregation of indoctrinated individuals. No, the choice is multi-faceted, and we make it constantly, over and over again, day after day, in our active lives, by how we treat others, how we think of ourselves, what we do with our resources, and what we refuse to do.
The world is a medium of experiences designed to flush out our true selves and define our “state of being” so that it may be determined where we ultimately belong. Ultimately, where we belong is determined from our own true desires and wants. The vibes we give off determine the nature of the herd within which we will dwell. Swedenborg’s separation of heaven and hell in the spiritual realm is a separation of good and evil energies. Volition is living energy.
The Power of Evil In This World
Harboring evil is a very serious affliction. Evil procreates itself within human beings through animosity that arises through misconceptions, egotistical pride, and via an innate thirst for revenge. People come under an impulse to harm others when they perceive their pride has been damaged or they have otherwise been wronged. People often lash out verbally at others, thereby inflaming evil in the other party; and through the feuding that ensues, evil is kindled into a blazing hatred of horrible thoughts, and sometimes outright physical violence. Inflamed evil can easily extend into entire populations in such an infectious manner that war results.
The greatest catalyst for evil is falsehood, fear, misunderstandings, and poor communications. When people express themselves poorly, fail to listen, or communicate solely through prideful ego, evil can easily gain a spark and blaze into a vicious confrontation. Evil is extinguished by love, apology, and passive resistance.
The countries of the world are ruled by prideful elites who are harshly egotistical, easily offended, and constantly tempted towards war. The policies of the elites involve wasteful spending upon instruments of war and ostentatious extravagance, while feeding upon the masses, whom they view simply as worker bees. The mammon circulated by elites creates a spectrum of worldly wealth that attempts to reverse the spiritual spectrum of heaven and hell, with the leisurely seated amidst the greatest comforts and the laborers struggling just to survive.
The evil that emanates from the elites is disseminated out to the masses through propagandistic media that emphasizes international conflicts, sexual disorientation, pathological consumption, violence, vulgarity, and premeditated social engineering. The elites incarcerate nonconformists, enact burdensome taxation, waste resources, manufacture weapons, and oversee persistent environmental degradation.
We Must Forego Tribalism For True Community
To reside in a heavenly state of being, we must develop the capability of existing within a true community that is intent upon goodness, instead of one that is governed by evil elitists. To accomplish this, we must first gain awareness that extends beyond what comes to us initially as individuals. We initially see, hear, think, smell, taste, and feel individually, with all our senses attuned entirely to us personally. We have to learn awareness that transcends just being fully engrossed within the sensory operations of our own bodies.
We often find it difficult to absorb the perceptions of others, except through our awkward conversational abilities. Think how hard it often is just to say: I love you . These difficulties are exacerbated by cultural differences. And, even when we are culturally similar, most of us lack essential listening skills. These sorts of deficiencies allow dictatorial people to seize control of communities.
However, as we grow spiritually, we learn to better share our experiences and sensory perceptions with others, which allows us to operate with greater information and less discord. Armed with diversified ideas from others, we become more informed, more spiritually attuned, and better connected as a community. Communal love entails wanting others to flourish, and so intelligence and wisdom are willingly shared with everyone. Interactions and experiences with others are vital in facilitating social evolution and widespread spiritual growth.
Swedenborg reports that in the next life we become fully transparent entities with our thoughts fully visible to all. In this way, our awareness becomes fully communal such that everyone knows what others are thinking, which is the reason spirits conglomerate in the next life. If we imagine what it will be like if everyone could read everyone else’s mind, we quickly see why learning to love others in communal existence is so vital. In heaven’s light, everything exists as it really is.
Communing effectively with others requires that we learn to manage conflict, suppress disruptive emotions, think about how we express ourselves, and become more conscious of what we emanate. The mind is nourished through reciprocal love, mutual study, shared experiences, deep relationships, collective creativity, concerted work, and the uplifting of one another.
Often, when conflict with others begins, the ego gets offended and lashes back without forethought, simply for the sake of getting the last word in, or for the malevolent delight in putting another in their place, etc. Instead, our actions and responses should always be to promote peace with others, to pacify them if possible, to retain their friendship, to bend over backwards to avoid further offending them, even if our own ego is offended. In this way, we work to stamp out the fire and embers of evil which might otherwise rise into a blaze if we contribute our own vicious fuel.
Swedenborg understands that placing a disruptive spirit into a community of heavenly beings is like shitting into your soup. Instead, we relegate shit into septic tanks and keep it separated to languish in its own decay. If we may metaphorically perceive of heaven as a human body, we see that which is ingested either becomes contributive to the goodness and wellbeing of the whole body, finding symbiotic residence therein, or is otherwise expelled as waste into the outer darkness of hell. Uncooperative people are like unhealthy viruses or bacteria that must be expelled to avoid corruption and deterioration of the good heavenly community.
Swedenborg repudiates the traditional idea of grace, not by an absence of God’s mercy, but by the fact that volition in humans results in some choosing evil. If God saved those who want evil, it would necessarily involve extinguishing their volition, making them automatons, which would mean they would no longer be sentient beings.
Those who do not volitionally love goodness can’t stand heaven, but instead go to that which they love foremost. Similarly, those who proclaim faith as the only basis of their salvation, void of deeds of love, find an inability to carry on such deception in the afterlife. There is no pretending to be something you’re not, no false facades.
Love
Swedenborg seems to distinguish true love from carnal love on the basis of selfishness, with the later being conducted without good intent for the loved. Monogamous relationships are a standard in modern society because jealousy rouses animosity. We not only want to love the other, we want to possess them as well, even if that possession limits their ability to experience love from others. Countless marriages have ended because of one party’s inability to transcend the personal jealously that arises because their partner encountered love that didn’t involve them.
In more primitive, patriarchal societies, polygamy was essentially the action of men collecting women like they would cows or sheep. A much broader, spiritual love occurs when relationships bloom out of mutual love that reveals an utmost desire for the welfare and benefit of the beloved. This sort of spiritual love is void of the jealous tendencies to encage or corral others simply for oneself.
Listening to Swedenborg, we can imagine spiritual love as good spirits moving through one another in ecstasy that is beyond our wildest imaginations. Swedenborg explains this spiritual blending as occurring solely out of true love for the other, out of the desire to experience the other more closely, wanting to be inside the other, and wanting the other inside of us. Swedenborg imagines a merging of souls that renders greater bliss and eroticism than any form of physical intercourse. It is an interaction so intense that other spirits celebrate and delight in recognizing the joy derived, instead of jealously envying and coveting the relationship for themselves. This form of advanced spiritual love isn’t just to stroke the ego or to perform a conquest but occurs simply from the spontaneous manifestation of true love itself. Loving another in this way is loving what they stand for, what they are, what they exude, how they blend into us, the pleasure that occurs in just being with them, and the ability to feel the emission of their love even at a distance.
God is love. When we become spirit, we will be comprised of love. Shedding the body jettisons the components of matter that are not love. Our spiritual existence consists of whatever love we have cultivated in this life, whatever that may be. God introduces us into this world out of a slimy drop of semen inserted with a bit of love. Instead of forty acres and a mule, we get a tiny bit of love. Our spiritual composition depends upon what we do with that stake in love. Have we nurtured it, grown it, hidden it, extinguished it, or turned it into something different?
Conclusion
Swedenborg sees the next life as like becoming naked, removing the outer facade, and examining what constitutes the inner person. What is found within the inner person is either raw egocentricity or abounding love, or some state in between; and this inner existence is the composition of the spirit, the fruit of what was produced in the soil of earthly existence, the raw intention, the actual inner conviction, the only substance that is birthed into spiritual existence and which truly constitutes what we are. A good litmus test for people is whether it is an effort for them to participate in love and righteousness or does it bring them joy and happiness.
Swedenborg never answers the reader’s pressing question as to what qualifies him to converse with angels and certainly Wesley’s contention that he was insane is not without merit. But do we really know what insanity is and are we justified in rashly dismissing the ravings of the insane without a second thought? Certainly, a time traveler from the present to medieval times would have been declared crazy when spreading tales of telephones, televisions, airplanes, guns, computers, flushing toilets, electricity, and many other things.
Swedenborg’s treatises allow us to picture God as a consuming fire, as emanating energy, able to assume any physical or spiritual form It wishes; and, to some extent, granting that same volitional ability to humans, and then watching to see what form humans choose to take. Because volitional choice necessitates that some will choose Godlessness, the dichotomy of good and evil arises, and this polarization establishes separation into heavens and hells. Love for God and one’s neighbor makes for heaven, while love for oneself and for the world makes for hell.
The question we must resolve in this life is whether or not we want to be God’s companion. God gives us volition and frees us from instinct in order to find out. Many remain preoccupied with their self-image. Others die totally to self and become automatons, like many fundamentalists. Fewer freely develop volitional love for Godliness, thereby becoming God’s companions.
Do we want to be mesmerized by ourselves? Do we want to just be God’s pet, ruled entirely by instinct? Or do we want to be something more, someone who chooses God of their own volition? If we choose the latter, then we must join God in confronting the fear and pain of worldly sin.
God prefers companions more than pets. God prefers intellectual friends more than robotic automatons. God wants us to possess freewill to the extent that we can handle it. That is, to the extent that we can bear freewill without succumbing to the wickedness of self-aggrandizement. Jesus succeeded in this endeavor, becoming a companion of God, and initiating a community of brotherhood. Jesus reaches for us to bring more spirits into this companionship, spirits that similarly love relationships in good community.
-end-
Human history reveals that many persons who bring new and radical ideas are often ostracized, murdered, banished, or declared insane. We can think of Socrates, Gandhi, MLK, Bruno, Galileo, and others, just to name a few. Typically, it is only later generations that come to see value in the ideas of extremists.
Swedenborg’s Explanation For Hell
Can a true Christian, impregnated with the love of Christ, ever rest easy in heaven, knowing other souls are burning miserably and infinitely in hell? How can anyone countenance the contention that Christ came for sinners if so many sinners are going to be in perpetual misery in hell? Certainly, there is conflicting dichotomy here, which leads one to suspect error in the never-ending punishments of hell, as preached by fundamentalists. Swedenborg obviously sensed these same problems with the orthodox doctrine.
Swedenborg resolves the orthodox dilemma of hell by imagining the world in production of indestructible spirits that become good or evil during their lifetimes and actually choose heaven or hell. Swedenborg suggests that all suffering that comes to us, especially in the next life, is not from God, but from our own “spiritual state”. That is, the particular “state of being” that we have developed for ourselves based upon what we truly love.
Adam and Eve’s expulsion from Eden is not so different from that of any child who is eventually pushed out of the family nest to endure for themselves in the world. Genesis portrays the raising of juvenile humans to the point where they are eventually freed into the world, to journey in the capacity of their preferred existential selves, towards their favored states of being.
Thus, Swedenborg sees the world as a womb, like a solarium designed to incubate spirits out of matter; or, like an Eden that fosters the creation of indestructible beings, some of which morph into beautiful spirits, while others become deformed miscarriages that volitionally refuse their full potential. Because all endure infinitely, each must have a place, and thus the reason for hell. Spirits get what they have chosen, which Swedenborg presents as varying degrees of self-affliction, or as gradually darkening shades of gray.
The great awakening in a human being comes with realization of the significance of volitional choice and the power it entails. The gift of volition gives us the power to become what we choose, and to thus locate ourselves within a vast spectrum that spans from the brightest light to the remotest outer darkness. Spirits populate the spectrum in places relative to their particular aura.
Perhaps the existence of Swedenborg’s hell is best exemplified within our own reality by the existence of prisons. We do not know what to do with those who willingly violate the structure of good community; so we throw them into prisons which truly appear hellish in comparison to a life of freedom. And within such hellish incarceration, these souls are exposed to other evil people, and the result is a seething cauldron of hellish evil that feeds upon itself.
Why Do Some Choose Hell?
As we have explained, Swedenborg’s essential position is that the creation of hell is a necessity resulting from the creation of indestructible, volitional beings; because volitional beings must have a choice if they are to be truly volitional, and some will certainly choose hell if they are indeed not robotic automatons. But why do some choose hell? The answer is no different than the answer of why one would choose to be arrogant, to enslave others, to ignore those in plight, or to conduct other forms of evil. With volition comes the allurement to self-aggrandizement, the desire to hoard wealth, pathological accumulation, and the intoxications of power.
Essentially, evil is a desire to be more than human, and involves motivation to take over the lives of others through manipulation and control, with the intent of belittling others into subservience to someone or something other than the true Goodness of God. Such self-aggrandizement foments the evil necessary for bribes, pretended love, extravagance, extortion, threats, humiliation, and all the shades of evil that diabolical people manifest.
As Swedenborg sees it, the choice between heaven and hell is essentially the same as the choices between self and others, ego or community, hoarding or sharing, hardened ambivalence or compassion, deception or honesty, etc. The choice is not one single decision that we make under the pressure of a raving theologian beckoning us down the aisle amidst a brainwashed congregation of indoctrinated individuals. No, the choice is multi-faceted, and we make it constantly, over and over again, day after day, in our active lives, by how we treat others, how we think of ourselves, what we do with our resources, and what we refuse to do.
The world is a medium of experiences designed to flush out our true selves and define our “state of being” so that it may be determined where we ultimately belong. Ultimately, where we belong is determined from our own true desires and wants. The vibes we give off determine the nature of the herd within which we will dwell. Swedenborg’s separation of heaven and hell in the spiritual realm is a separation of good and evil energies. Volition is living energy.
The Power of Evil In This World
Harboring evil is a very serious affliction. Evil procreates itself within human beings through animosity that arises through misconceptions, egotistical pride, and via an innate thirst for revenge. People come under an impulse to harm others when they perceive their pride has been damaged or they have otherwise been wronged. People often lash out verbally at others, thereby inflaming evil in the other party; and through the feuding that ensues, evil is kindled into a blazing hatred of horrible thoughts, and sometimes outright physical violence. Inflamed evil can easily extend into entire populations in such an infectious manner that war results.
The greatest catalyst for evil is falsehood, fear, misunderstandings, and poor communications. When people express themselves poorly, fail to listen, or communicate solely through prideful ego, evil can easily gain a spark and blaze into a vicious confrontation. Evil is extinguished by love, apology, and passive resistance.
The countries of the world are ruled by prideful elites who are harshly egotistical, easily offended, and constantly tempted towards war. The policies of the elites involve wasteful spending upon instruments of war and ostentatious extravagance, while feeding upon the masses, whom they view simply as worker bees. The mammon circulated by elites creates a spectrum of worldly wealth that attempts to reverse the spiritual spectrum of heaven and hell, with the leisurely seated amidst the greatest comforts and the laborers struggling just to survive.
The evil that emanates from the elites is disseminated out to the masses through propagandistic media that emphasizes international conflicts, sexual disorientation, pathological consumption, violence, vulgarity, and premeditated social engineering. The elites incarcerate nonconformists, enact burdensome taxation, waste resources, manufacture weapons, and oversee persistent environmental degradation.
We Must Forego Tribalism For True Community
To reside in a heavenly state of being, we must develop the capability of existing within a true community that is intent upon goodness, instead of one that is governed by evil elitists. To accomplish this, we must first gain awareness that extends beyond what comes to us initially as individuals. We initially see, hear, think, smell, taste, and feel individually, with all our senses attuned entirely to us personally. We have to learn awareness that transcends just being fully engrossed within the sensory operations of our own bodies.
We often find it difficult to absorb the perceptions of others, except through our awkward conversational abilities. Think how hard it often is just to say: I love you . These difficulties are exacerbated by cultural differences. And, even when we are culturally similar, most of us lack essential listening skills. These sorts of deficiencies allow dictatorial people to seize control of communities.
However, as we grow spiritually, we learn to better share our experiences and sensory perceptions with others, which allows us to operate with greater information and less discord. Armed with diversified ideas from others, we become more informed, more spiritually attuned, and better connected as a community. Communal love entails wanting others to flourish, and so intelligence and wisdom are willingly shared with everyone. Interactions and experiences with others are vital in facilitating social evolution and widespread spiritual growth.
Swedenborg reports that in the next life we become fully transparent entities with our thoughts fully visible to all. In this way, our awareness becomes fully communal such that everyone knows what others are thinking, which is the reason spirits conglomerate in the next life. If we imagine what it will be like if everyone could read everyone else’s mind, we quickly see why learning to love others in communal existence is so vital. In heaven’s light, everything exists as it really is.
Communing effectively with others requires that we learn to manage conflict, suppress disruptive emotions, think about how we express ourselves, and become more conscious of what we emanate. The mind is nourished through reciprocal love, mutual study, shared experiences, deep relationships, collective creativity, concerted work, and the uplifting of one another.
Often, when conflict with others begins, the ego gets offended and lashes back without forethought, simply for the sake of getting the last word in, or for the malevolent delight in putting another in their place, etc. Instead, our actions and responses should always be to promote peace with others, to pacify them if possible, to retain their friendship, to bend over backwards to avoid further offending them, even if our own ego is offended. In this way, we work to stamp out the fire and embers of evil which might otherwise rise into a blaze if we contribute our own vicious fuel.
Swedenborg understands that placing a disruptive spirit into a community of heavenly beings is like shitting into your soup. Instead, we relegate shit into septic tanks and keep it separated to languish in its own decay. If we may metaphorically perceive of heaven as a human body, we see that which is ingested either becomes contributive to the goodness and wellbeing of the whole body, finding symbiotic residence therein, or is otherwise expelled as waste into the outer darkness of hell. Uncooperative people are like unhealthy viruses or bacteria that must be expelled to avoid corruption and deterioration of the good heavenly community.
Swedenborg repudiates the traditional idea of grace, not by an absence of God’s mercy, but by the fact that volition in humans results in some choosing evil. If God saved those who want evil, it would necessarily involve extinguishing their volition, making them automatons, which would mean they would no longer be sentient beings.
Those who do not volitionally love goodness can’t stand heaven, but instead go to that which they love foremost. Similarly, those who proclaim faith as the only basis of their salvation, void of deeds of love, find an inability to carry on such deception in the afterlife. There is no pretending to be something you’re not, no false facades.
Love
Swedenborg seems to distinguish true love from carnal love on the basis of selfishness, with the later being conducted without good intent for the loved. Monogamous relationships are a standard in modern society because jealousy rouses animosity. We not only want to love the other, we want to possess them as well, even if that possession limits their ability to experience love from others. Countless marriages have ended because of one party’s inability to transcend the personal jealously that arises because their partner encountered love that didn’t involve them.
In more primitive, patriarchal societies, polygamy was essentially the action of men collecting women like they would cows or sheep. A much broader, spiritual love occurs when relationships bloom out of mutual love that reveals an utmost desire for the welfare and benefit of the beloved. This sort of spiritual love is void of the jealous tendencies to encage or corral others simply for oneself.
Listening to Swedenborg, we can imagine spiritual love as good spirits moving through one another in ecstasy that is beyond our wildest imaginations. Swedenborg explains this spiritual blending as occurring solely out of true love for the other, out of the desire to experience the other more closely, wanting to be inside the other, and wanting the other inside of us. Swedenborg imagines a merging of souls that renders greater bliss and eroticism than any form of physical intercourse. It is an interaction so intense that other spirits celebrate and delight in recognizing the joy derived, instead of jealously envying and coveting the relationship for themselves. This form of advanced spiritual love isn’t just to stroke the ego or to perform a conquest but occurs simply from the spontaneous manifestation of true love itself. Loving another in this way is loving what they stand for, what they are, what they exude, how they blend into us, the pleasure that occurs in just being with them, and the ability to feel the emission of their love even at a distance.
God is love. When we become spirit, we will be comprised of love. Shedding the body jettisons the components of matter that are not love. Our spiritual existence consists of whatever love we have cultivated in this life, whatever that may be. God introduces us into this world out of a slimy drop of semen inserted with a bit of love. Instead of forty acres and a mule, we get a tiny bit of love. Our spiritual composition depends upon what we do with that stake in love. Have we nurtured it, grown it, hidden it, extinguished it, or turned it into something different?
Conclusion
Swedenborg sees the next life as like becoming naked, removing the outer facade, and examining what constitutes the inner person. What is found within the inner person is either raw egocentricity or abounding love, or some state in between; and this inner existence is the composition of the spirit, the fruit of what was produced in the soil of earthly existence, the raw intention, the actual inner conviction, the only substance that is birthed into spiritual existence and which truly constitutes what we are. A good litmus test for people is whether it is an effort for them to participate in love and righteousness or does it bring them joy and happiness.
Swedenborg never answers the reader’s pressing question as to what qualifies him to converse with angels and certainly Wesley’s contention that he was insane is not without merit. But do we really know what insanity is and are we justified in rashly dismissing the ravings of the insane without a second thought? Certainly, a time traveler from the present to medieval times would have been declared crazy when spreading tales of telephones, televisions, airplanes, guns, computers, flushing toilets, electricity, and many other things.
Swedenborg’s treatises allow us to picture God as a consuming fire, as emanating energy, able to assume any physical or spiritual form It wishes; and, to some extent, granting that same volitional ability to humans, and then watching to see what form humans choose to take. Because volitional choice necessitates that some will choose Godlessness, the dichotomy of good and evil arises, and this polarization establishes separation into heavens and hells. Love for God and one’s neighbor makes for heaven, while love for oneself and for the world makes for hell.
The question we must resolve in this life is whether or not we want to be God’s companion. God gives us volition and frees us from instinct in order to find out. Many remain preoccupied with their self-image. Others die totally to self and become automatons, like many fundamentalists. Fewer freely develop volitional love for Godliness, thereby becoming God’s companions.
Do we want to be mesmerized by ourselves? Do we want to just be God’s pet, ruled entirely by instinct? Or do we want to be something more, someone who chooses God of their own volition? If we choose the latter, then we must join God in confronting the fear and pain of worldly sin.
God prefers companions more than pets. God prefers intellectual friends more than robotic automatons. God wants us to possess freewill to the extent that we can handle it. That is, to the extent that we can bear freewill without succumbing to the wickedness of self-aggrandizement. Jesus succeeded in this endeavor, becoming a companion of God, and initiating a community of brotherhood. Jesus reaches for us to bring more spirits into this companionship, spirits that similarly love relationships in good community.
-end-
December 11, 2023
4 stars as SFF . . . maybe 1.5 stars as theology? I think the easiest way to explain most hermetic/esoteric writing (Paracelsus, the Lotus Sutra, etc. etc.) is that these are just extremely creative people who didn't have fiction as an outlet, and hence worked with what they had, i.e. pre-existing religious imagery.
pp. 440-41:
pp. 440-41:
There are hells everywhere. They are under the mountains and hills and cliffs and under the plains and valleys. The openings or gates to the hells that are under the mountains and hills and cliffs look at first sight like crevices or fissures in the rocks. Some of them are quite broad and open, some narrow and confined, full of rough places. All of them seem dim and gloomy when you look in, although the hellish spirits who live there have the kind of illumination you get from glowing coals. Their eyes are adjusted to the reception of this kind of light. This is because when they were living in the world they were in darkness about divine truths owing to their denial of them. . . . The entrances or gates to the hells that are under the plains and valleys have different forms. Some of them are like the ones under the mountains, hills, and cliffs; some of them are like caves and caverns; some are like large chasms and quagmires, some like swamps; and some like stagnant ponds. All of them are covered over and are visible only when evil spirits are being cast in there from the world of spirits. . . . In some hells you can see what look like the ruins of houses and cities after a fire, where hellish spirits live and hide out. In the milder hells you can see crude huts, sometimes grouped in something like a city, with alleyways and streets. There are also dark forests where hellish spirits roam like wild beasts; and there are underground caves there where they flee when they are being threatened by others. Then there are desert areas where everything is barren and sandy, with rugged cliffs here and there. . . . As to the location of specific hells, no one can know this, not even an angel in heaven -- only the Lord. Roughly, though, their location is recognized by the quarter where they are found. Like the heavens, the hells are differentiated into regions; and in the spiritual world, regions are marked off according to loves because all regions in heaven start from the Lord as the sun, who is the east. So since the hells are the opposite of the heavens, their regions start from the opposite direction, the west."
May 6, 2023
Heaven and Hell is a 1758 book written by Emanuel Swedenborg. It details events that unfold in the afterlife with questions such as what happens to us when we die? Where do we go?
While the introduction was the most interesting introduction I read to a text thus far, the rest of the book is not that good. The writing is fair and uninspired. It frequently claims to have received messages from spirits however I remain unconvinced. Just because a person claims to have heard voices from God or angels doesn’t actually mean that they heard it. One has to verify the claim. Where is the line drawn between people who claim to hear voices from angels and people who hear voices from hallucinations? Why are people considered wise when they say they hear voices from God whereas a person who hears a hallucination is called a schizophrenic. There is no difference. Also, Swedenborg says that everything comes from the divine, what theologians usually mean when they say this is everything except evil. But where did Satan come from? From thin air? Who created Lucifer, was he not an admired Angel? The religious backpedal this flaw in reasoning when someone mentions Isaiah 45:7 where it is admitted that God is the creator of both good and evil. The problem is, religious people don’t want to admit that religion and god is in part to blame with the creation of evil.
Overall I don’t get why many people thought this book was good, however if you are spiritual or religious you will like this book.
While the introduction was the most interesting introduction I read to a text thus far, the rest of the book is not that good. The writing is fair and uninspired. It frequently claims to have received messages from spirits however I remain unconvinced. Just because a person claims to have heard voices from God or angels doesn’t actually mean that they heard it. One has to verify the claim. Where is the line drawn between people who claim to hear voices from angels and people who hear voices from hallucinations? Why are people considered wise when they say they hear voices from God whereas a person who hears a hallucination is called a schizophrenic. There is no difference. Also, Swedenborg says that everything comes from the divine, what theologians usually mean when they say this is everything except evil. But where did Satan come from? From thin air? Who created Lucifer, was he not an admired Angel? The religious backpedal this flaw in reasoning when someone mentions Isaiah 45:7 where it is admitted that God is the creator of both good and evil. The problem is, religious people don’t want to admit that religion and god is in part to blame with the creation of evil.
Overall I don’t get why many people thought this book was good, however if you are spiritual or religious you will like this book.
April 20, 2011
I picked this up because of Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
It is very, very interesting. Based on Blake's criticism of the work, I expected a boring work of scholarly theology. It definitely is not.
Swedenborg claims to have spoken with the angels and visited the many levels of heaven and hell. He claims that he was given this privilege because people on earth have forgotten the spiritual realms and we need to remember them.
These are big claims. The book comes through in a big way. It is coherent and well written. Swedenborg know his theology and is able to eloquently tie his experiences with theological concepts. If you pick up the work and read it, you'll see its not a work of fiction. He definitely experienced what he expressed.
I was willing to write this off as, perhaps, a hallucination until I recognized the similarity between Swedenborg's methods and Jung's 'active imagination'. Its clear they're both tapping into the same reality.
That's whats interesting about this work. Swedenborg is tapping into the same level of reality as Jung in his Red Book or Blake in any number of his poems. They just describe it differently. Blake can criticizes Swedenborg for being too good and for letting his morality get in the way of his visions.
It is very, very interesting. Based on Blake's criticism of the work, I expected a boring work of scholarly theology. It definitely is not.
Swedenborg claims to have spoken with the angels and visited the many levels of heaven and hell. He claims that he was given this privilege because people on earth have forgotten the spiritual realms and we need to remember them.
These are big claims. The book comes through in a big way. It is coherent and well written. Swedenborg know his theology and is able to eloquently tie his experiences with theological concepts. If you pick up the work and read it, you'll see its not a work of fiction. He definitely experienced what he expressed.
I was willing to write this off as, perhaps, a hallucination until I recognized the similarity between Swedenborg's methods and Jung's 'active imagination'. Its clear they're both tapping into the same reality.
That's whats interesting about this work. Swedenborg is tapping into the same level of reality as Jung in his Red Book or Blake in any number of his poems. They just describe it differently. Blake can criticizes Swedenborg for being too good and for letting his morality get in the way of his visions.
April 30, 2022
Confined to the house with omicron virus I had the opportunity to tackle some of the longer books on my reading list. I have some old copies of Swedenborg which I found challenging to read so I welcomed this translation as it was so much easier to digest. I read it suspending (as much as possible) my own skepticism. I have no means to verify his claims, bar having a near death experience or dying and finding out. Nevertheless I finished it and it has seeped into my consciousness. Before his revelations he was very much in the rationalist domain being a scientist and inventor which gives him more credibility. It is not a 'suffer in this life and be rewarded in heaven' premise which was what I was essentially brought up with. Who we are in life appears to have a relationship where you end up in the afterlife and it is very much about connecting with the divine when in the world. The book had me research more on You Tube. It has shifted something for me in terms of context in my life. I recommend it for anyone interested in spirituality. It may be as I get older I think more of death and this book is preparation for what we all have to deal with.
February 20, 2012
I ran into a mailman I used to have and he, with good intentions, gave me this book. I've been studying the ideas about hell in past centuries. Heaven too, of course. Swendenborg wrote in the 1700s. I only read the first pages of this book. Swendenborg claimed he talked with angels. He claimed that anyone who believed in the Trinity instead of one god wouldn't get into heaven. Also, anyone who only believed in human good works couldn't get there. That was in the first few pages.
I didn’t read on. He was an elimination system, defying the usual judgment of a human according to their sins or crimes, and basing judgment on the belief of a theological idea. I find it sad that people thought about Christianity that way in Europe in past centuries.
I didn’t read on. He was an elimination system, defying the usual judgment of a human according to their sins or crimes, and basing judgment on the belief of a theological idea. I find it sad that people thought about Christianity that way in Europe in past centuries.
October 3, 2017
Excellent introduction into ES thinking and approach. Struck by it's continuity, vision, but most of all, it's optimism.
Read
February 22, 2020 I loved how Swedenborg added the element of the medical community in how her explains how each person will survive after death to enter the spiritual world, and describes details concerning the process of dying which were later confirmed in the twentieth century with the discovery of the Near Death Experience . I fully integrated my understanding of Heaven is a realm in which there is no space and no time, where societies are formed according to one's ruling love, and everyone's internal thoughts are revealed in a moment. Powerful and informational read. I would recommend it to anyone
February 17, 2010
This eighteenth century author claims to have had multiple visions/visits in Heaven and Hell and describes what he learned and saw. Although some of what he witnessed doesn't fall in line with my understanding of the afterlife, I loved reading this book and could jump around to the chapters that most interested me. The chapters were arranged topically which was very helpful. I'm not sure which translation I read, but the version I read was about 700 pages.
January 17, 2023
Are we really judged into heaven or hell? This 250+ year old book provides a fresh take on judgement - which is that there isn't really a judgement at all. Since a good soul is incompatible with the evils of hell, and an evil soul incompatible with the goodness of heaven, there's no need for an active judgement from God. Rather, our soul is pulled towards where it is most compatible. Good souls will adore being in heaven, and evil souls will adore being in hell (!).
October 7, 2011
I read this book every other year. It helps to keep me oriented in a material world.
July 6, 2012
interesting gobbledygook - actually have a friend who was raised Swedenborgian
hanging around the canon on the coattails of william blake
hanging around the canon on the coattails of william blake
my-library
March 2, 2016I wish they had editors back in 1758...
August 7, 2019
SEE FOR YOURSELF, he just hands over the keys to the kingdom.
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