a long time, consider oneself a respectable man, and, as such, have
enjoyed the esteem of others. Then there comes a day when one awakes
as out of slumber, sees oneself as a spectre, is alarmed, and asks,
'Am I _that_' One discovers that one has done things which now appear
inexcusable. And one asks oneself, 'How could I?' On one occasion one
has even committed a crime; on another, one has been dragged, so to
speak, by the hair; on a third, one fell into a trap.
"But there are men who are so sleepy that they never awake; and so
wanting in intelligence that they cannot see how black they are. Once I
had a friend who was sixty years old. On one occasion, with an outbreak
of stupid astonishment, he exclaimed, 'Why are people so prejudiced
against me? I seem to myself an excellent fellow!' And this man was
a tyrant who trampled men underfoot, a hired executioner, a murderer
who betrayed the innocent, took bribes, and practised simony and all
kinds of wickedness. I did not wish to condemn him, but tried to defend
him. Perhaps he felt justified in becoming an executioner, for there
must be such officials; so he adopted it as a profession. He had an
evil nature, and found it therefore natural or right when he acted
in accordance with it. He lived in complete harmony with himself,
and those who resembled him pronounced him a 'fine fellow'--'healthy,
naïve, and, therefore, excellent society.'
"When he died, I drew a picture of his character for an acquaintance.
The latter was himself a black sheep, and answered quite naïvely, 'You
are unfair to him; I think he was a fine fellow.'"
=Somnambulism and Clairvoyance in Everyday Life.=---The teacher
said: "I am now fifty-eight years old, and have seen four generations.
I have not been pure-hearted, for all black blood streams into the
heart, but I have had moments in which I was transported into a
childlike, unconscious mood, and took delight in intercourse with men.
I knew that they hated me, laughed at my misfortune, and waited for my
fall. But I was immune against their malice. I saw in them only poor
men, who liked my company and were sympathetic with me. Even when they
made ill-natured jests against me, I did not understand them; and when
they gave vent to an open rudeness, I took it as a meaningless joke.
That is a kind of pleasant somnambulism.
"Often, however, I can be wide-awake; then I see society naked; I see
their dirty linen beneath their clothes, their deformities, their
unwashed feet. But, worst of all, I hear the thoughts behind their
words; I see their gestures, which do not harmonise with what they say;
I intercept a side-glance; I notice a foot-stamp under the table, a
nose turning itself up over my wine, or a fork critically passing by a
dish.... Then life seems ghastly! I had a friend, who once in society
had an attack of this clairvoyance; he sat down on the middle of the
table, declared all he had seen in the course of the evening, and
stripped his friends bare. The result was, he was pronounced mad and
taken to an asylum.
"There are many kinds of madness. Let us confess that!"
=Practical Measures against Enemies.=--The pupil asked: "How can
I love my neighbour as myself? In the first place, I ought not to
love myself; secondly, I feel so out of sympathy with men, that it is
difficult to regard them as objects of love."
The teacher answered: "The verb ἀγάπαω generally means only
'treating kindly,' and that you can manage to do."
"But to love one's enemies is suicide."
"You think so! But have you tried this method? It is very practical,
and I have tested it. Once against my worst enemy, who attacked my
honour and means of livelihood, I established a wholesome hatred like
a bulwark, as I thought. But my hatred became a conductor by which I
received the currents of his. They surprised me in my weak moments, and
his wickedness passed over to me. He grew to gigantic proportions, and
became a Frankenstein which I had myself produced.
"Then I resolved to break the conductor. I avoided seeing him, and
never mentioned his name, for that is a kind of incantation. When
people spoke of him in society, I was silent, or threw in a friendly
word on his behalf. My Frankenstein pined away for want of nourishment,
and disappeared out of my thoughts. Finally information reached my
enemy that I had spoken good of him. He was struck with amazement,
dwindled down, felt ashamed of himself, and believed he had made a
mistake. Therefore, never speak ill of your enemy; that only rouses
people in his defence, and procures him friends. You see, therefore,
what deep wisdom lies in the simplest teaching of the Gospel, which you
believed yourself competent to criticise."
=The Goddess of Reason.=--The teacher continued: "The fact
that our intelligence finds so many contradictions and difficulties
in the great truths of religion is due not only to defects in our
understanding but to an evil will. The presumption of wishing to
understand God and His purposes is as though one attempted to steer a
frigate with an oar. Every Greek tragedy closes with a warning against
insolence and [Greek: hubris] Nothing is so displeasing to the gods.
"Swedenborg says: 'As soon as we break our connection with what is
higher, our understanding is darkened. At the same time we are punished
by being allowed to imagine ourselves more illuminated than others.'
"All the philosophers of the 'Illumination' grope in darkness. That
period of history which is jestingly called the 'Illumination' is the
darkest we have had. The goddess of reason, Mademoiselle Maillard,
was adored only by madmen. The truths of religion never contradict
reason until the latter has been clouded by an evil will. But then the
discoveries begin, and then every religious truth 'contradicts reason,'
such as the simple truth that God exists, that the Almighty can employ
unknown laws or suspend laws which He Himself has given, that He can
impart spiritual blessings by means of material symbols, and so on.
"All 'free-thinking' is foolishness, for thought is not free, but bound
by the laws of thought, by logic, just as nature is bound by the laws
of nature. The evil will seeks freedom in order to do evil, and the
evil mind seeks freedom in order to think perversely."
=Stars Seen by Daylight.=--The teacher said: "The fool lives only
for the present, for the moment, in the last fashionable error of the
day, in the diving-bell of his daily paper, in dependence on public
opinion, in the slavery of partisanship. The wise man lives in all
times. For him there is neither time nor space. He is present always
and everywhere; on this side and that side of the grave. He ranges
over the world's history and fathoms the depths of himself; he regards
himself as an inhabitant of the Universe, and not merely of the earth.
He feels himself related to Plato and Aristotle; holds converse with
the great spirits of the past in their writings. Sometimes he lives
in his childhood; sometimes in his mature age. He lives in the past,
as though it were present. He can 'think himself' into the lives of
others; he rejoices with the joyful, mourns with the sorrowful,
sympathises with the suffering. He feels on behalf of humanity; has
no age, no nation. He sees the record of to-day's conflict laid up in
historical archives, often without any other result. On the morrow,
to-day's wisdom is only straw, in which something else grows; even
errors are useful as manure. Everything serves. He bears everything,
for he hopes; and hope is a virtue; it means believing good of God.
"Ephemeral flies get excited about trifles, and believe one can
discover new truths among the telegrams in the breakfast-table
newspaper. If a new star is discovered, they believe the others are
extinguished. But hitherto the new have all been extinguished. The new
star in Perseus appeared only for two years, and then it vanished. The
Chinese Y-King says, 'If one goes into one's tent, and makes it dark
about one, one can see the star Mei in the Archer in broad daylight.'
"Retire then sometimes to your tent in the wilderness, and you will see
the stars by day."
=The Right to Remorse.=--The pupil asked: "Is one right in feeling
remorseful for one's past, after discovering one's errors?"
"If you mean by 'feeling remorse,' wishing the past undone, you are not
right, for in every man's life there is a rectifying element; every
error by being refuted becomes an involuntary occasion for the triumph
of truth. But if you mean by 'remorse,' hating yourself as a purveyor
of falsity, you are right. But say something in your own defence."
"I can say this much: I was the child of an evil time; I was misled
by the seducers of my youth; I mention none of them. My understanding
was stronger than my divine reason. My flesh ruled over my spirit. My
inborn defiance of authority, my inherited sensitiveness of nature
received impressions, without stopping to criticise them. In a word, I
might call myself a victim of my seducers, of heredity, of my natural
weakness, and sensitiveness. The final awakening of my reason, however,
I reckon not as a merit of my own, but as a grace conferred upon me.
The fact that I have had sufficient time in which to refute my former
errors, I count as the greatest good-fortune which has ever befallen
me. Therefore I do not wish my past undone, although I abominate it."
=A Religious Theatre.=--"It looks as though men did not think
very highly of themselves. If they see a maliciously satirical piece
represented, they enjoy it without applying it to themselves. They
take it as intended only for others.
"In my youth there was a dramatist, who was at first a satirist, but
finally came to feel sympathy with men. After his feelings had become
modified by his living a steady and fairly happy life, he saw men in
a more cheerful light. Accordingly, he wrote a piece portraying only
noble characters with fine feelings and warm hearts.
"What happened? The public believed at first it was irony. But during
the second act they discovered their mistake. A voice exclaimed from
the stalls: 'Deuce take it! It is meant seriously!' The further the
piece progressed, the greater was the disgust! The audience felt
ashamed before each other, and for the author. Some hurried out, and
those who remained ended by laughing. They laughed at the goodness,
self-sacrifice, renunciation, forgiveness depicted in the piece.
They did not know themselves any more, and regarded the descriptions
as unnatural; real life, they said, was not like that; men were not
angels. It may therefore be risky to speak well of men. But one must
not forget that religious people do not visit the theatre, because the
theatre is godless. Greek tragedies used to commence with a sacrifice
to the gods, and all tragedies deal with the powerlessness of men in
conflict with deities. Why do not our religious leaders build a theatre
in which one might see the evil unmasked and put to shame?"
=Through Constraint to Freedom.=--The teacher continued: "This
world is governed by constraint. All men are dependent on one another
and press upon one another like the stones in a vaulted building--from
above, from below, from the sides. They watch and spy on one another.
There is therefore no freedom, and there can be none, in this edifice
which is called Government and Society.
"The foundation-stones have the most to bear; therefore they must be
of granite, while the upper ones are of light brick. For there are
fancy-bricks, which support nothing, but are merely ornamental; they
are supported by others, feel themselves in the way and dispensable;
but they serve as ornaments, and of that they are aware.
"He who demands more freedom than the rest, is a thief and tyrant; if
he withdraws himself from his burden, he lays it upon others. This
perpetual longing for freedom, which figures in biographies as a virtue
and a distinction, is really only a weakness. More strength is required
to bear than to be home. The only justifiable striving after relative
freedom is, not to have to bear more than one ought. Therefore it is
the business of rulers to apportion the burdens precisely. But for
that, adequate knowledge, a mathematical gift, and a nice sense of
justice are necessary.
"But behind this common longing after freedom lies another deeper one,
which is confused with the former. That is the sighing of creation for
deliverance from the bondage of the flesh. This has found its strongest
expression in St. Paul's exclamation: 'Oh, wretched man that I am! Who
shall deliver me from the body of this death?' But this freedom can
only be won by patiently bearing the constraint of this world. Through
constraint is the way to freedom therefore!"
=The Praise of Folly.=--"In this world of foolishness one sees
constantly how fools smile even when their views are ratified by time.
That is, in truth, a silly smile. The fool says, 'We are here in order
to develop ourselves.' When they see a man who, in the course of
years, has grown wiser and more righteous, they should be glad that
their assertion is established. Instead of that they make a malicious
grimace, and say scornfully, 'Yes, now you have grown old!' Yet we both
started with the assumption that wisdom should come with years. Let us
rejoice together that it is so. If the Devil really becomes a monk when
he is old, what a happiness and blessing for mankind that there is one
evil spirit the less. Is it not so? Why should they make a grimace at
it?
"Voltaire was a scoffer and a bit of a knave up to old age. Finally,
however, he recovered his reason, just like lunatics shortly before
they die. And then he wrote of human life:
"'Pleasure, in the freshness of youth, I sought thy deliciousness;
"'Finally, in the winter of old age, I discover thy vanity;
"'The thirst for reputation and honour makes men enemies to one
another. What was it that I thirsted for? Reputation is but vanity.
"'Genius in its pride roams through realms of knowledge.
"'But my knowledge only plagues me; knowledge is but vanity.'
"But the fools make grimaces, when one of them recovers his reason.
Then they say, 'He has gone mad.'"
=The Inevitable.=--The teacher said: "The question, 'What has one
a right to feel remorse for?' is very complicated. I once followed the
career of a foreign writer. I read his works, which seemed to belong
to another world, with great admiration. His dramas all appeared to
breathe a melancholy fear of some unknown terror that was bound to
come. His philosophy was that of a saint. His landscapes seemed to be
bathed not in common air but in pure æther. He was then about forty
years old, and I expected every day to hear that he had gone into a
convent.
"But afterwards I heard he had married an actress, with whom he went
about, and who appeared as a 'living statue' in one of his pieces.
He also wrote new dramas for her, and now, when they became cynical
and brutal, he achieved a greater popularity than he had ever been
able to gain before. He degraded his person, his genius, his wife;
and as he sank, I wept inwardly. One day I read in the paper that
she had deserted him, but that may have been false. The thought of
his fate tormented me; it seemed to have been predetermined. All his
dramas written while he was still unmarried treated of this terrible
thing which he foresaw and feared. It seemed to me as though he were
compelled to take a mud-bath, and obliged to let himself be besmirched
by life precisely in this way. It seemed as though he had not the right
to ante-date heaven; as though he were not allowed to lead a pure,
saintly life. It is terrible, because it is inexplicable."
=The Poet's Sacrifice.=--The teacher continued: "This man's
destiny reminds me of the Indian drama, _Urvasi_. A penitent who
withdraws to solitude in order to purify his soul by renunciation, may
finally attain such lofty spiritual heights that his power may become
dangerous to the lower deities. In order to hinder such a penitent in
his spiritual development, the god Indra sent an Apsara, a sort of
celestial courtesan, in order to distract and seduce him.
"Does not that resemble the case which I mentioned just now? How can
the one who has been seduced feel guilty in such a case, or have
the right to repent a wrong he did not do? Now a poet is something
different to a recluse, and in order to be able to describe life in
all its aspects and dangers he must first have lived it. What sort of
a poet would Shakespeare have been if he had lived as a steady young
fellow, continued in his father's honourable profession, and in
leisure hours written about his little affairs? Although one does not
know much about the great Englishman, one sees from his works what a
stormy life he must have led. There is hardly a misfortune which he
has not experienced, hardly a passion which he has not felt. Hate and
love, revenge and lust, murder and fire, all seem to have come within
the circle of his experience as a poet. A real poet must sacrifice
his person for his work. I can conceive of a symbolical monument to
Shakespeare under the figure of Hercules kindling his own pyre on Mount
Oeta, sacrificing his opulent life as an offering for mankind. That is
a good idea, is it not?"
The pupil answered: "Truly you have the power of binding and loosing;
now you have loosed me."
=The Function of the Philistines.=--The teacher said: "Israel
had some unpleasant neighbours called Philistines, who guarded the
coast-line along the sea. They worshipped weird gods, such as Dagon
the Fish-god, Beelzebub the Lord of Dung, and Astarte. But unpleasant
though they were, they seemed to have had a part to play in the
life of Israel. As soon as the chosen people abandoned the temple,
the Philistines came and closed the sanctuary, set the Lord of Dung
upon the altar, and burned incense before the Fish-god. As often as
the children of Israel quarrelled among themselves, the Philistines
advanced irresistibly. The hand of the Lord was with them, so that they
punished and chastised their enemies. Once they took possession of the
Ark of the Covenant.
"We have our Philistines on the Bosphorus; they are called Turks. When
the Christians were unfaithful to their Lord, the Turk took possession
of Christ's grave, and St. Sophia became a mosque. Whenever the
Christians fought with each other, the Turk appeared. After the Thirty
Years' War, when the Christians had tom each other like bloodhounds,
the Turk came as far as Vienna, and the Crescent surmounted the Cross
in Hungary."
The pupil asked: "Why do not the great powers recapture the Holy
Sepulchre and the Church of St. Sophia? They could do it in a moment!"
"I do not know. Perhaps they cannot. We need our Philistine, the
bogie-man with whom one frightens children. In France the churches were
shut by the pagans when people ceased to attend Mass. Now they set up
the Lord of Dung on the altar. Marat, in his time, was buried in the
Pantheon; but when Christ reentered, Marat was thrown into the sewer.
The last to obtain apotheosis in the Pantheon was an engineer, who had
a single merit--that of being murdered by a friend of freedom. When we
become Christians again, we shall receive back both the Holy Sepulchre
and Santa Sophia. We do not need to take them. Such is the great
function of the Philistines in the spiritual economy of nature."
=World-Religion.=--The teacher continued: "Goethe wrote in his
youth a treatise maintaining that the religion imposed by the State was
the most favourable for the maintenance of the State."
The pupil objected: "But how will it fare with the individual
conscience?"
"As it has done hitherto. The State determines the views of the
individual in geometry, botany, history, and religion, by instruction
in the schools, by religious services in the colleges, and prayers in
camps and barracks."
"But what about freedom of belief and thought?"
"We have already agreed that there is no freedom, but that all is
dependence and compulsion enforced by mutual pressure. Therefore misuse
not the sacred name of freedom. During the course of my long life,
I have often thought I could interpret the intention of Providence
thus: If all religious forms fell off like husks, and only the kernels
remained, they might grow together like botanical cells, and form a
single plant--a world-tree, under whose shadow all nations might rest
in devotion and in unity." The teacher continued: "I had also believed
that I had noticed there is a special purpose in the intermingling of
races which is now proceeding. This has already gone so far, that in
my insignificant family, which is registered as Scandinavian, we find
traces of all the five quarters of the world."
"But do you really believe it?"
"I do not know."
"And do you think that all nations will be united in a common
Christianity?"
"I do not know! But the promise to Abraham, 'In thy seed shall
all nations be blessed,' has already been fulfilled by Abraham's
descendant, Jesus Christ. As a matter of fact, Christian Europe and
the western hemisphere of North and South America rule the world.
And before the actual reality, our wishes, ideas, theories, and
anticipations collapse."
=The Return of Christ.=--The pupil asked: "Are we to expect the
promised return of Christ?"
"Christ Himself answered this importunate question of his disciples by
saying, 'The Kingdom of God is among you.' And when He left them He
said, 'Behold, I am with you always till the end of the world.'"
"Good. But how is Christ's Kingdom to be set up on earth?"
"Not by crusades, as you perhaps believe. You know that there are
plants which cannot simultaneously thrive in the same ground; one kind
must die out. So there are races which cannot dwell together in the
same land. As soon as Christians become Christians again, the pagans
do not thrive, and depart. Just like the giants who got earache when
they heard the sound of church-bells, sniffed and snorted when they
smelt Christian blood, and finally slunk back into their caves. One
ought to be tolerant, but not to carry it so far as to take down the
church-bells or lay the cross low, because they make the giants ill.
Swedenborg says that the gift of free-will is never revoked, and that
therefore the damned themselves choose their own hell. If they come
into a purer air, they are tested; if they happen to get into good
company, they do not thrive, and cast themselves headlong into the
region of the Lord of Dung. There they find an environment in which
they can breathe. If therefore you wish to fly evil companionship, you
need not shut your door. Only acquire an upright character, and your
fellows will shun you like the pest."
=Correspondences.=--The teacher said: "We have discussed
Swedenborg's hells and found that they are partly states of mind, and
partly resemble earthly life under certain conditions. I remember
now certain striking details in them, which bring to my mind certain
experiences of everyday life. The fire of hell consists, he says,
partly in this, that passions are aroused, only to be mocked and
punished; partly in the kindling of desires, which really must be
gratified, but die away immediately afterwards since suffering consists
in missing something. Do you know that?" "Yes, I know it." "Further,
when heavenly light reaches the damned, an icy chill pervades their
veins, and their blood ceases to flow. Do you know that?" "Yes, I know
it! And I remember once when I was very wicked a good man began to
talk kindly to me. I was not warmed thereby, but began to feel so cold
in the room where I was, that I put on my overcoat." "Further, they
wander about lonely and gloomy: they hunger, and have nothing to eat;
they go to houses, and ask for work, but when they get it, they go
their way, to be tormented again by ennui. But when they return, the
doors are shut; they must work for food and clothing, and have a harlot
for a companion, is that so?" "It is!" "The ruling principles of hell
are: the desire to rule from self-love; the desire for other people's
goods from love of the world; the desire for dissipation. The ruling
principles of heaven are: the desire to rule with a good object; the
desire for money and property, in order to use them for the benefit of
others; the desire for marriage."
=Good Words.=--The pupil asked: "Does Swedenborg never speak a
good word to comfort and cheer one?"