Heaven and its Wonders and HellSwedenborg, Emanuel
Religion
Heaven and its Wonders and Hell
Swedenborg, Emanuel
Future life -- Christianity -- Early work to 1800; Heaven -- Christianity; Hell -- Christianity
441. As to being carried away by the spirit to another place, I have
been shown by living experience what it is, and how it is done, but
only two or three times. I will relate a single instance. Walking
through the streets of a city and through fields, talking at the same
time with spirits, I knew no otherwise than that I was fully awake,
and in possession of my usual sight. Thus I walked on without going
astray, and all the while with clear vision, seeing groves, rivers,
palaces, houses, men, and other objects. But after walking thus for
some hours, suddenly I saw with my bodily eyes, and noted that I was
in another place. Being greatly astonished I perceived that I had
been in the same state as those who were said to have been led away
by the spirit into another place. For in this state the distance,
even though it be many miles, and the time, though it be many hours
or days, are not thought of; neither is there any feeling of fatigue;
and one is led unerringly through ways of which he himself is
ignorant, even to the destined place.
442. But these two states of man, which are his states when he is in
his interiors, or what is the same, when he is in the spirit, are
extraordinary; but as they are states known about in the church, they
were exhibited to me only that I might know what they are. But it has
been granted to me now for many years to speak with spirits and to be
with them as one of them, even in full wakefulness of the body.
443. That in respect to his interiors man is a spirit there are
further evidences in what has been said and shown above (n. 311-317),
where it is explained that heaven and hell are from the human race.
444. That man is a spirit in respect to his interiors means in
respect to the things pertaining to his thought and will, for these
are the interiors themselves that make man to be man, and such a man
as he is in respect to these interiors.
445. XLVI. THE RESUSCITATION OF MAN FROM THE DEAD AND HIS ENTRANCE
INTO ETERNAL LIFE.
When the body is no longer able to perform the bodily functions in
the natural world that correspond to the spirit's thoughts and
affections, which the spirit has from the spiritual world, man is
said to die. This takes place when the respiration of the lungs and
the beatings of the heart cease. But the man does not die; he is
merely separated from the bodily part that was of use to him in the
world, while the man himself continues to live. It is said that the
man himself continues to live since man is not a man because of his
body but because of his spirit, for it is the spirit that thinks in
man, and thought with affection is what constitutes man. Evidently,
then, the death of man is merely his passing from one world into
another. And this is why in the Word in its internal sense "death"
signifies resurrection and continuation of life.{1}
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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