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
96. As the bird of stone represented those also who are in knowledges
alone, and in no life of love, and as these consequently have no
spiritual life, therefore, by way of appendix, I may here show that
those only have spiritual life who are in heavenly love, and thence
in knowledges; and that a love contains in itself all the power of
knowing (_cognitinum_) which belongs to that love. Take for example
the animals of the earth, and also the living creatures of the heaven,
that is, the birds. These have the knowledge (_scientia_) of all
things that belong to their love. Their loves are, to nourish
themselves, to dwell safely, to propagate their kind, to take care
of their young, and, with some, to provide for the winter. They have,
therefore, all the requisite knowledge, for this is inherent in those
loves, and inflows into them as into its own receptacles; and this
knowledge in some animals is such that man cannot but be amazed at it.
Their knowledge is connate and is called instinct; but it belongs to
the natural love in which they are. If man were in his own love, which
is love to God and towards the neighbour, (this love is man's peculiar
love, by which he is distinguished from beasts, and it is heavenly
love,) he would not only be in all requisite knowledge, but likewise
in all intelligence and wisdom; for these [qualities] would inflow
into those loves from heaven, that is, from the Divine through
heaven. As, however, man is not born into those loves, but into their
contraries, that is to say, into the loves of self and of the world,
therefore he cannot but be born in complete ignorance and want
of knowledge But by Divine means he is brought to something of
intelligence and wisdom, yet not actually into any, unless the loves
of self and of the world are removed, and a way is thus opened for
love to God and towards the neighbour. That love to God and love
towards the neighbour have in them all intelligence and wisdom, may
appear from those who have been in those loves in the world. These,
when, after death, they come into heaven, know and are wise in things
of which they previously knew nothing; yea, they there think and
speak, like the rest of the angels, such things as the ear has not
heard, nor the mind known, which are ineffable. The reason is, that
those loves have the faculty of receiving such things into themselves.
THE EARTH OR PLANET SATURN, AND ITS SPIRITS AND INHABITANTS.
97. The spirits from that earth appear in front at a considerable
distance, below, in the plane of the knees, where that earth itself
is; and when the eye is opened thither, a multitude of spirits come
into view, who are all from that earth. They are seen on this side of
that earth, and to the right of it. It has been given me to speak with
them also, and thereby to know of what character they are relatively
to others. They are well-disposed, and they are modest; and as they
esteem themselves little, therefore also in the other life they appear
small.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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