Earths In Our Solar System Which Are Called Planets, and Earths In The Starry Heaven Their Inhabitants, And The Spirits And Angels ThereSwedenborg, Emanuel
Religion
Earths In Our Solar System Which Are Called Planets, and Earths In The Starry Heaven Their Inhabitants, And The Spirits And Angels There
Swedenborg, Emanuel
Cosmology -- Early works to 1800
4. I have, moreover, spoken with spirits [to the effect] that men may
be led to believe that there are more earths in the universe than one,
by considering the immensity of the starry heaven with its innumerable
stars, each of which, in its own place, that is, in its own system, is
a sun, and like our sun, but differs in magnitude. Any one who rightly
weighs these facts must conclude that so immense a whole cannot but be
the means to an end which is the final end of creation, and that this
end is a heavenly kingdom, in which the Divine may dwell with angels
and men. For the visible universe, that is, the heaven resplendent
with such an innumerable multitude of stars, which are so many suns,
is merely a means for the existence of earths, and of human beings
upon them, from whom a heavenly kingdom [may be formed]. From these
considerations a rational man cannot but think that a means so immense
to an end so great was not provided for a human race, and a heaven
from them, from one earth only. What would this be to the Divine,
who is infinite, and to whom thousands, yea, myriads, of earths,
all filled with inhabitants, would be but a little thing and almost
nothing!
5. Besides, the angelic heaven is so immense that it corresponds to
each single part in man, myriads [of angels corresponding] to each
member, and organ, and viscus, and to each affection of them; and
it has been given me to know that this heaven, as to all its
correspondences, cannot possibly exist except from the inhabitants of
very many earths[f].
[Footnote f: Heaven corresponds to the Lord, and man, as to all things
in general and particular, corresponds to heaven; and hence heaven,
before the Lord, is a Man in a large effigy, and may be called the
Grand or Greatest Man, nos. 2996, 2998, 3624-3649, 3741-3746, 4625.
Concerning the correspondence of man, and of all things pertaining to
him, with the Grand Man, which is heaven, in general, from experience,
nos. 3021, 3624-3649, 3741-3751, 3883-3896, 4039-4055, 4218-4218-4228,
4318-4331, 4403-4421, 4523-4533, 4622-4633, 4652-4660, 4791-4805,
4931-4953, 5050-5061, 5171-5189, 5377-5396, 5552-5573, 5711-5727,
10030.]
6. There are spirits whose sole study is the acquisition of knowledges
finding in them their only delight. These spirits are therefore
permitted to wander about, and even to pass beyond this solar system
into others, and procure knowledges. They have stated that there are
earths in immense numbers, inhabited by human beings, not only in this
solar system, but in the starry heaven beyond it. These spirits are
from the planet Mercury.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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