COMMUNICATIONS FROM EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.
The following communications, purporting to come from the spirit of
Emanuel Swedenborg, at Mrs. Green's, are arranged in the order of their
reception:
September 26, 1881:
"I greet you; good morning. You hail from dear old Sweden, my native land.
The same native blood that coursed through my veins flows through yours.
For a long time I have realized that your thoughts have been on me and the
doctrines I taught on earth, some of which I would gladly recant. In my
day nothing else could have been projected through my brain, and nothing
less violent, though more truthful, would have engaged attention or
commanded respect. My writings, as I now see them, were a strange
commingling of truth and error, though I believe with truth largely
predominant. I want the world, especially my followers, the disciples of
the Church of New Jerusalem, to eliminate, in the interest of truth, the
errors and crudities that unwittingly, though reverentially, crept into my
theological writings. The hells as I portrayed them I now know were
magnified into undue and absurd proportions, colored and distorted by my
own preconceived notions, and, moreover, largely attributable to the
religious temper and theologic thought of the time in which I wrote. Tell
your good companion and others of like convictions to discard at once and
fearlessly my unwarranted denunciation against holding intercourse with
the inhabitants of the spiritual world. I misapprehended, and, alas,
misinterpreted the holy visions given me. I was allowed to see
prophetically that the two worlds would be brought into close
communicating relations, and I ought to have seen farther--that it would
occur through and by the permission and co-operative agency of God and his
laws, and ought not therefore to be interdicted. This has given me vast
annoyance, and I am very solicitous indeed that this shall be righted.
Hold fast to this spiritualism, for therein only can be found light and
love and wisdom. My power to maintain control is weakening, and I must
close for the present. I will meet you here again. Good bye.
"EMANUEL SWEDENBORG."
October 3, 1881
"In my communication a week ago I referred, not incidentally, but
purposely, to my followers of the Church of the New Jerusalem. It is
gratifying to me to know that they are in the main honest, faithful and
intelligent people; but I regret that they have deemed it proper to
resolve themselves into an exclusive sect; for, disguise it as you may,
all sects are more or less exclusive. Among the many curses that afflict
your mortal humanity, none are to be more deplored than sectarianism and
dogmatic theology. Do you know that in the most ambitious moments of my
earthly career, much less in the lofty moods of my medial inspiration, I
never dreamed that I was to become the founder of a religious sect,
especially one based on dogmatic formulas. The affirmations of material
science now no longer questioned that in all organized structures reside
the underlying, all-pervading and continually operating elements.
Disintegration, decay and ultimate destruction of the organized form apply
with equal and unerring certainty to ecclesiastical bodies. Modern
spiritualism in this, that it is specifically and rigidly scientific,
clustering beauteously around the family hearthstone, adorning and
hallowing the family altar, may be distinguished by its infinite
superiority to all other systems, it having no creed to establish, and
steadfastly repelling all attempts at organization, is destined to survive
the wreck and demolition of all theological teaching standing in
antagonistic relations to it; and this God-given, heaven-inspiring
humanity, embracing soul-uplifting spiritualism, is to become the
universal religion of mankind. I will continue to administer to your wants
and remove the scales from the eyes of the people, especially my
followers. More anon.
"EMANUEL SWEDENBORG."
On October 17, 1881, the following communication appeared on the slate:
"The blessings of the most high God and the benediction of His holy angels
and spirits on you and yours. What I most desire to say to you to-day is
that since our last interview here I have participated with others in a
discussion relative to a recent scientific discovery in the spirit world
which, when imparted to the world of embodied man, will strike the learned
savants of your life with mingled feelings of awe and consternation. Our
recent experiments were exceedingly satisfactory, and the questions that
remain open are, when, to who and through whom shall it be given to the
children of earth. The general expression of our society favored some time
towards the close of the coming year as best adapted. In this view I
concurred, for many reasons. My revered friend, let me say to you to-day,
with great and positive emphasis, that the year 1882, earth time, will be
the most marvelous year of the world's history, and will be characterized
by the most stupendous events in all the circling centuries of past time.
In that year and the succeeding one astounding spiritual revelations will
be made to the denizens of this earth, utterly upsetting old, effete
theological doctrines, and mercilessly demolishing now considered well
established scientific conclusions, and your scientists' tests,
self-complacent and arrogant in their pretensions, and possessed most
fully of the spirit of vaulted ambition, the creation of their
self-conceit, will awake to the consciousness that they have been mere
pigmies in scientific research, and that on many subjects may have been so
superficial as not to penetrate beyond the mere shadows and surface of
things. I promise you that when the proper time arrives for this
disclosure you shall not be overlooked or neglected. Bound to you in
fraternal relation of a common brotherhood, embracing in grand
reciprocation the inhabitants of both the mundane and supermundane worlds,
I am yours, devoted for the truth,
"EMANUEL SWEDENBORG."
June 12, 1882
"If we concede for the sake of argument that there really exists a literal
hell, as depicted by theological teaching, and which constitutes an
article of faith in most of the Christian sects, we are forced to inquire
(and it is a legitimate subject of inquiry from the assumed premises), Was
hell made for man, or man for hell? and this involves the question of
duration of existence in point of time antecedent. Whichever way we
determine, and our determination of the question from a terrestrial
standpoint can only arise from speculation and conjecture, and not from
proofs, one conclusion we can not escape, namely, the malevolence of the
author. If hell was established prior to the time when the _fiat_ went
forth bringing man into being, and was designed for his abode and
accommodation, we can not reconcile the goodness of the Lord with such
utterly unjust and malevolent purpose, because to concede this much admits
the possession of sufficiency of power to have ordered otherwise, which
precludes impotency and concludes the will and purpose to so order and
arrange.
"If the creation of hell and man as arbitrary acts of the Deity was
coeval, then the same conclusion inevitably follows, before and behind the
act of these creations resided in the Lord the power to have differently
ordered; hence we must assume that the simultaneous creation of hell and
man was predetermined, and in accordance with the will-pleasure and
purpose of the Creator.
"If, furthermore, man was first created without any reference to hell or
any preconceived purpose or expectancy to establish it, and that its
creation was necessitated from man's unexpected disobedience, and as the
only proper means of gratifying the vengeance of an insulted God, then we
unwittingly and in a very silly way declare the absence of foreknowledge
in the Lord, and degrade him to the level of a puny, passionate man.
"To assume any of these puerile positions to be true is to assume that the
Lord, however august in power, and the physical, mental and spiritual
ability to order and to direct, is nevertheless a moral weakling, and
wholly devoid of moral excellence in degree superior to the meanest of his
creatures."
June 15, 1882:
"If hell exists, it is plain to be seen there was a necessity for it. If
created before man, there was no necessity for its existence, for the Lord
is governed by the idea of uses, and there was present no use for it. Will
it be maintained that the Lord would create any thing without a use and
wise purpose? It is the uses of things that so signally distinguish his
creative and moral governments.
"If it is said in reply that when hell was fashioned and established the
Lord had in contemplation the creation of man, and that it was to be
subsequently rendered useful as a place of punishment for disobedience,
which implies that the Lord knew in advance of man's creation that he
would be disobedient, then, oh, man, you are surely in the hands and under
the power of a merciless demon, falsely called God. If this indeed is the
true character of our Lord, then truly may his weak and helpless children
bow their heads in sorrow and despair.
"These teachers of false theology, these false interpreters of simple
truth, these false prophets of a false conception, affirm that this
appalling hell, offspring of a monster creative agency, is a fixed
location somewhere, which they have the candor to say, they know not.
"The theologians perceiving throughout the vast domain of universal nature
two confronting opposites or extremes, and that there scheme must fall if
hell were left alone to be the final destiny of the entire human family,
erect another falsity and construct another place or harbor for the
sojourners and pilgrims of earth, and consequently they say that the Lord
has established somewhere in space a heaven, the location of which,
although a locality, can not be ascertained.
"The same questions, with equal propriety, might be propounded in
reference to heaven and the same conclusions follow. Was it made for man
or man for it? Was it made before or after man was made? Where is it
situate; who go there and why do they go there, and for what purpose? If
the theologians answer these pertinent questions in harmony with their
creeds, they would make my friend John Calvin, who accompanied me here
this morning and is now standing by my side, blush with shame. He now, as
a noble spirit, pities the ignorance and credulity that characterized him
in his religious frenzy when in the form, and the credulity and weakness
of his followers."
June 19, 1882:
"The original conception of a literal local heaven and hell was a feeble
monstrosity and far exceeding the intuitions and anticipations of its
originators, it has assumed huge and alarming proportions. Originally it
was treated either as a human created joke, or as a wild vagary of the
imagination, and in both cases without even the shadow of a foundation in
fact. But as time moved along it began to grow seriously in the minds of
the morbidly curious and credulously constituted, and it found many
earnest advocates and believers, and they were not altogether limited to
the ignorant. Had this been the case it would have been harmless and
short-lived. The poet in depicting the career of vice aptly illustrates
the history of this conception:
"'Vice is a monster of such frightful mien,
As to be dreaded needs but to be seen.
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first pity, then endure, and then embrace.'"
"I unhappily lived in a day when it had been largely embraced. Had I lived
in the day when it was conceived and promulgated, or approximately near it
and been possessed of the physical, mental and spiritual organization with
which I was favored in earth life, I would have undoubtedly earnestly
combated it. But in my time it had grown into prominence and general
acceptance among Christian sects, including the Lutheran, to which I
adhered before my spiritual illumination; and hence while my spiritual
mediumistic unfoldment, mental adaptabilities and capabilities would not
allow me to accept the literal teaching of purblind theology on the
subject, I was disqualified from perceiving and promulgating the real
truth. I endeavored, however, to do what the theologians have never
attempted, namely, to assign reasons for the existence of heavens and
hells in justification and defense of the Lord. The groundlessness of my
philosophy and the impotency of my reasoning I was unable to understand
until the lapse of years after my entrance into the spiritual world, and
then only by slow and discreet degrees. Step by step only did I receive
the influx of spiritual light and truth, opening my eyes to the truth and
impressing my soul with the consciousness of the errors and falsities of
my teachings when on the earth embodied.
"In the spiritual world we are not allowed to perceive truth except by
degrees and interior growth, and only as we are enabled to outgrow and
disown error. Our errors, whether of acts and deeds committed, duties
omitted, or false theories, either taught or believed by us when in the
form, follow us to the spiritual world and cling to us with a perfectly
amazing and persistent tenacity, and this constitutes hell and it exists
nowhere else."
June 22, 1882:
"In my philosophy of correspondences there was much truth, with here and
there a shade of error. It was argumentative, speculative, and
characterized by analogous reasoning, but not sufficiently intuitive to
reach the full height of spiritual induction. But whatever errors may have
crept into this department of my writings, they have been comparatively
harmless.
"What has given me the greatest annoyance since my departure from the
flesh, or rather since I have better understood the subject; and what has
given me the greatest anxiety to have eradicated from the minds of those
who read me believingly, are my teachings on the subject of the hells in
the spiritual world. I desire here to lay down a proposition I know to be
true, whoever may state to the contrary, namely: No embodied spirit was
ever enabled, no matter how highly developed the organism of the subject,
to leave the body, go into the spiritual spheres, undergo experiences
there, behold scenes, hold converse with their inhabitants, witness events
and occurrences transpiring there, then return to the body, bring it back
into normal action, and then correctly and in detail and in purity of
narrative give to the world through the physical organism of the body,
what it had seen, heard, and witnessed, during its temporary absence. If
it were otherwise, and the spiritual world a real, fixed and objective
reality, all who visited it in spirit during physical embodiment, would on
returning and reanimating the body with the returning spiritual influx
impart the same information and recite the same story. The directly
opposite of this is true, and settles the question irrevocably in the
negative as to the absolute reliability of knowledge imparted by spirits
while inhabiting the natural body, although permitted by the operation of
a certain law which is neither wholly spiritual nor physical, but a
combination of both, to leave for a short period its tenement of flesh.
Even then the spirit entire does not vacate the body, even for an instant
of time, for if it did life in the body would become immediately extinct.
However far the _consciousness_ of the spirit may wander away from its
home in the material house it must maintain an inseparable connection with
it, at least by a portion of the magnetism of itself. Therefore during its
visits away it is nevertheless all the while connected with the body, and
hampered and fettered by it, and more or less governed by its laws and
conditions. It can not, therefore, on returning, and it has never been
wholly absent, give fully, purely, and correctly its spiritual
observations and experiences.
"When I visited the spiritual world during my embodied life I was governed
by this same law and subjected to the same limitations, and hence what I
related was not entitled to full credence and belief. So it has been in
all cases of trance in the past, and will continue to be in the future for
ages yet to come. In my next I shall speak of some instances illustrative
of this truth."
June 26, 1882:
"As illustrative of the proposition submitted in my last I will only
mention a few among numerous instances.
"The book of Revelations states that John visited the Isle of Patmos on
the Lord's day, and was then and there in the spirit. (I should have used
the expression 'entranced' or 'trance state,' or that 'the Lord permitted
me to see.') While thus in the spirit or trance state he was taken to the
heavens. After resuming his normal condition in the body he essays to
write out what he thinks he saw, or so much of it as he is enabled to
retain in memory, and call up after again fully controlling the physical
body. He says that he saw beasts worshiping around the throne of God, and
that he saw a beast rise out of the sea with seven heads and ten horns;
that a book written in heaven was handed him with the command that he eat
it, which he assures us he did, etc. Does any one believe that these were
veritable occurrences, 'that there were beasts in heaven full of heavenly
love, evinced in worshiping before the throne, and that books were written
in heaven for men to eat? The Koran of Mahomet is an improvement on this,
for it was not eaten, but preserved for use.
"Now, I want to say to the world, especially the New Church people, that
my visions of the hells had no more foundation in fact than John's beasts,
dragons and golden candlesticks. The difference between John and myself,
that is, the important difference, consisted in the fact that John's
symbolic visions were explained to be unrealities, while I was left to
believe mine to be absolute verities. In fact one was as unreal as the
other, and only forcibly illustrates the unreliability of this mode of
deriving true and genuine spiritual knowledge.
"Your own Andrew Jackson Davis is another instance corroborative of my
proposition. He avers that he has been, not 'in the spirit,' like John,
nor 'in the trance state,' like myself, but, in more aesthetic phraseology,
'in the superior state.' They all practically mean the same thing. Davis
says he located while in the 'superior state' the spirit world proper, and
found it to be in or beyond the 'milky way,' thus inflicting a cruel blow
upon the science of astronomy. Astronomy teaches, and correctly, too, as
every well informed spirit knows, that the 'milky way' is a vast
assemblage or constellation of suns, worlds and systems of solar worlds,
and yet Mr. Davis was honest.
"Judge John Worth Edmonds, in his earlier mediumship and spiritualistic
experiences, visited the other world in spirit, and his description of the
hells recorded in his work entitled 'Spiritualism,' was somewhat analogous
to mine, and very much in harmony with it. His temperament, mental methods
and spiritual development were not very dissimilar to mine, and he had
been previously as thoroughly grounded in Calvinism as I had been in
Lutheranism. So it was but natural that we should see and interpret much
alike. Yet in final conclusions we were in absolute antagonism, differing
fully as widely as the poles are separated in distance by terrestrial
measurement.
"Truth can not dissemble nor assume deceptive garbs, and all seeing the
same things differently, proves that neither could be relied upon, for if
they had been true and genuine verities, all would have seen and reported
them alike."
June 29, 1882:
"Since I have been inducted into higher light and blessed with the true
knowledge I have been utterly amazed in reviewing my writings, resulting
in the discovery of two facts, namely, their prolixity in matter and
stupendousness in folly. It seems to me now as almost utterly incredible
that in my efforts at the spiritual interpretation of the scriptures I
should have written so many absolutely silly and unmeaning things. It
becomes my duty, and I can not be happy without it, to make this
declaration, however humiliating it may be to me, viewed from your
standpoint, but the truth and the peace, happiness and progress of my
spirit require it. No work was ever written but what an ingenious
metaphysician might not twist out of its every paragraph an assumed
interior and mysterious meaning.
"But, after all, I was fortuitous in advancing many ennobling and
wholesome truths. In all that I wrote I take greater pride and unto myself
much rejoicing in my assaults upon the Lutheran doctrine of justification
by faith alone, and in my enjoining love to the neighbor. However, to
believe in and teach the doctrine of love one to another, or 'love thy
neighbor as thyself,' does not require an inspiration from heaven. It is
the doctrine taught by universal nature and in-worked in the web and woof
of human nature. To realize and understand it we have only to become even
partially civilized and to commune with nature and ourselves.
"A great portion of my life has been devoted to secular pursuits and the
study of natural science. I also possessed some inventive genius, and
during my purely secular career I was always contemplating, by silent
meditation, employing the latter part of my life in the study of the
properties of the human soul and its relation to the Lord and human life.
Therefore when I came to engage the subject, it was not a spontaneous
impulsion to it, as some have supposed, although it was immediately
attended and characterized by a degree of spiritual illumination and
inspiration. I did not approach the examination of the subject wholly free
and untrammeled by prejudice and uninfluenced by bias. I had previously
conceived thoroughly deep convictions relating to this subject, and I now
know no amount of spiritual aid could have possibly eradicated them
sufficiently to have allowed the presentation of the plain, unadulterated
truth.
"Oh, how effectually are we enslaved by education, association and mental
training. The man who can overcome them in the pursuit of truth is far
superior in all that goes to make up true manhood to the crowned heads and
pampered ones of earth; yea, he is not only grand and noble in the full
stature of his manhood, but he is more--he is godlike."
July 3, 1882:
"I do not affirm the non-existence of heaven and hell, but what I would be
understood as affirming is their non-existence as separate, independent
and fixed localities. If you will interpret heaven to mean happiness, and
hell its opposite, that is, misery, we can fully agree, for this
interpretation implies what is veritably true, namely, that they are
conditions, and not localities. As conditions they not only exist in the
spiritual world, but also in the sensual or material, and apply to both
embodied and disembodied man.
"It is related that Jesus said, 'The kingdom of heaven is within you,' and
never was truth more completely and potently uttered. At the time he was
talking to men in the body, and to _them_ he declares, 'The kingdom of
heaven is _within you_.'
"If he is entitled to credit as an authority on the subject, and
Christians certainly will not gainsay it, then it is quite clear that
heaven, being in the human, spiritual beings is as a locality nowhere
else. And inasmuch as it could not exist in the human being as a location,
for this would give us millions upon innumerable millions of localized
heavens, one for each breathing human embodied man, to become destroyed at
the death of each, which is too absurd to be seriously discussed, it must
necessarily follow, and as clear as the sunlight of heaven, that whatever
that kingdom may in fact be, it is simply and absolutely a condition. And
we can therefore readily see that as a condition, different with every
human being, owing to the moral status and spiritual development of each,
it perpetuates itself as truly and fully as does the spirit itself survive
the dissolution of the aggregated physical atoms and forces of the
material body, and moreover accompanies the real man into the spiritual
world. So with its opposite--hell.
"If this is conceded, and no Christian can deny it with any degree of
consistency, for the moment he does he dishonors Jesus as an authority,
then the whole foundation of a local permanent hell is swept away, and the
loathsome superstructure erected thereupon falls to the ground forever.
"Heaven and hell, viewed in any sense, are opposites, and wherever they
exist they must exist simultaneously, for some are in heaven and some in
hell all the time, and therefore if the kingdom of heaven is in the
children of men, so also must be the kingdom of hell, or it does not exist
at all.
"With my limited power I can not elaborate this point, or even present it
as I should like to, and you must be content with a bare and imperfect
statement."
July 6, 1882:
"Before the mythologists of antiquity had constructed a hell they had on
their hands a personal, individualized spirit of evil, known as the
serpent or satan, and more modernly as the devil. Investing this
mythological creature with all the distinguishing attributes of the Lord,
save that of goodness, they must have a localized place of sufficient
capacity, and properly arranged for the enjoyment by him of the fruits of
his labors. Divesting him of all goodness _per se_, the hell of their
creation must necessarily represent his newly-acquired condition of total
depravity, for previously he had been an angel in heaven, and must
possess the proper and sufficient elements to enable him to gratify his
hatred of the Lord in the punishment of his children. It was but natural
in that day that the element of fire should be chosen, as it was supposed
to be the most destructive element in nature, and best calculated in its
very nature to induce the most intense and excruciating suffering to
physical and material bodies possessed of the animating principle of
animal life. In their unspiritual and ignorant state they supposed and
believed that the bodies in the other world would be similar to those in
this, and therefore subject to similar effects from heat and fire. What a
monstrous conception, and how utterly inexplicable that it should ever
have been believed. Even John the Revelator took a material view of hell,
and described it as a 'lake of fire and brimstone.'
"I was compelled, or rather impelled, from reason or from experiences
sufficiently clear, in my frequent moods or states of spiritual exaltation
to depart from this grossly materialistic view. While my hells were in the
plural, yet I fell into nearly as great error in my creations. They were
the progeny of imperfect visions, imperfectly understood and grossly
erroneous in their relation.
"You have only to think a moment seriously to discover the utter folly of
my hells, and I will only present one instance among many equally absurd.
You will find in my 'memorable relations' that I spoke of a certain class
of Jews and others wading through mud, quagmires and swamps, and being
injuriously affected by them, and this for the purposes of punishment.
Now, the conception of a spirit, composed largely of pure ether, wading
in the mire and wallowing in spiritual miasmatic swamps and filthy dirt,
is only equaled by the mythological conception believed in and advocated
by Christians that a spirit could be effected to any degree of suffering
by material fire and brimstone. Both conceptions are as false as God is
true.
"In reference to the mythological arch fiend of mankind let us summarize:
First an angel in heaven; then a rebel; then a war in the peaceful realms
of heaven, instigated by this fiend; then the fall from the angelic state;
then a transformation into a terrible and grim devil; then the building of
a hell for his use, convenience and felicity, and then turning over to his
control and malignant fiendishness three-fourths or more of poor, weak
beings, creatures of an Infinite God, and you have fitly spoken a system
that could only have originated in an orthodox hell, figuratively
speaking, and by an orthodox devil, and which for malevolence far exceeds
any thing ever thought of in this or any other world."
July 17, 1882:
"The bible makers having established a heaven and hell, with God presiding
over the one and the devil over the other, were driven to the necessity of
concocting a scheme for populating them. The God of their creation they
represent to be possessed of infinite perfections and glory, and heaven
the very ideal of grandeur and beatitude. One would very naturally
conclude that in their scheme they would have so arranged that God would
have had the first choice, and heaven the destination of the best and
wisest of the denizens of earth. Nothing short of this could have so
completely enamored us of the conception and rendered heaven devoutly to
be wished for; but here the arrangement in value and superlative worth
meets with a severe set back. One of the weak and frail points in the
scheme consists in not allowing this infinite God to have his own choice
in selecting those to become consociated with him in enjoying celestial
delights in heaven. Human nature, by the fall in the Garden of Eden,
became weak and subjected to malign influences with an inadequacy of
repellant power to overcome them. The cruel authors of this system, while
they establish their god in heaven, a far distant locality, and keep him
there constantly occupied and absorbed with the music and praises of the
ransomed few, turn the devil loose to roam at will, and invest him not
only with the deific attribute of omnipresence, but also confer upon him
the extraordinary power without restraint of assuming angel's garbs even
to the deceiving of the elect. In addition they place under his authority
and to do his bidding an unlimited number of smaller devils, whose
services have been utilized by him in preying upon the peace and happiness
of the children of this world, and in preparing their souls for eternal
punishment and subservience to his will in the world to come."
July 20, 1882:
"To counteract this terrible invisible influence of evil no power of equal
potency is furnished. They say that God's holy spirit in conjunctive
co-operation with the saints embodied (they mean, of course, the preachers
and good church people) is seeking man's deliverance and salvation. They
confess, however, that this agency is impotent when compared with the
power wielded by the devil and his invisible cohorts. They make Jesus say
substantially that the road that leads to heaven is narrow and
circumscribed and few travel in it, while the road that leads to hell is
broad and the many travel therein, 'many shall be called, but few chosen,'
etc., etc.
"If their system be true we are forced inevitably to conclude that when
the creative energies residing in man have succeeded in producing a high
order of intellection the devil straightway captures them, leaving heaven
to be peopled without the presence of the great and godlike in mental
power. It would seem prudent and wise that this should have been otherwise
arranged in order to have rendered heaven reasonably and fairly
intellectual. No wonder, therefore, that their highest conceptions of
worship and gratitude consisted in keeping up around the throne of the
Lord a continual musical concert, both vocal and instrumental. Such
distinguished and illustrious souls as Washington, Jefferson, Webster,
Clay, Lincoln, Garfield, Paine, Voltaire, and others, could not be induced
to participate for all future time in such exercises, for their mental
constitutions were too robust and great and their souls too much
interested in other and more ennobling pursuits. This kind of heaven would
not suit souls of such intellectual proportions, and the orthodox hell, if
accompanied by suffering, would be preferable to them, because their
associations, at least, would be intellectual, for the devil is said to be
exceedingly wise, and all wise souls live and delight in kindred
consociations."
July 21, 1882:
"According to the orthodox scheme, heaven, hell, and the devil, all go
together, or, in other words, they are inseparably connected with and
belong to the plan. Heaven would be the destination of all without a hell
and _vice versa_. Heaven and hell are in antagonism, and there would be no
strife but by and through the devil, and therefore his existence is a
necessity to this end. God is too good to take part in this strife, and is
either indifferent or too weak to avert it. Even when the war in heaven,
according to Milton, was waged between the devil and the Lord, with
relentless fury, he would take no direct and active part, but commissioned
Michael his generalissimo. How could he now be expected to take an
immediate and active part, even to save his own defenseless children.
Earthly parents act quite differently when their offspring are in peril,
and so do the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air. I am talking
ironically only to show the utter folly of the whole matter.
"In this connection did you ever think why it is that the devil is
continually seeking the moral overthrow and eternal ruin of the human
family? It is not because he has any ill feeling for cause against the
children of men. They have never given him any occasion, and as we have
seen, in their helpless condition, they could not if they would. According
to the bible and the claims of Christians they have always done just as
the devil wanted them to. He wanted Adam and Eve to eat the apple and they
did so. He wanted Abraham to debauch Hagar, and after her ruin to turn her
loose with her helpless babe on her bosom amid the wilds of the wilderness
of Beersheba, and Abraham did so. He wanted Noah to drink of the wine and
become drunken, and Noah hesitated not, etc. So in fact the assumption
can not be maintained that the devil in capturing nine-tenths of the human
family is actuated by any malignant feeling towards his victims. The
reason lies elsewhere. We are assured by the bible theologians and their
coadjutors that the devil is solely actuated by his intense hatred of the
Lord and the purpose of wreaking vengeance upon him for banishing him from
heaven and the angelic state. If this is true common justice and sympathy
for the suffering of the unoffending impose most seriously the duty upon
the Lord, either to conciliate the devil in the interest of harmony, peace
and concord, and to save his helpless children, or destroy outright this
malignant enemy of his. If he will do neither, nor arrest him in his
diabolical work, then truly are we justified not only in withholding
homage from him, but also in regarding him equally at enmity with our
welfare and a party (_particeps criminis_) in causing our sufferings and
preparing our eternal doom."
July 27, 1882:
"Why seriously discuss questions that are fast fading out of sight? The
advancement of mind and the development of spiritual discernment are on
the eve of relegating old antiquated theories and ideas to the past ages
of heathen darkness, where they properly belong. Total depravity throwing
its dark mantle over tender infancy--parent of the doctrine of infant
damnation--is no longer taught or believed by enlightened clergymen and
their followers. It only has a sickly foothold where the people are
spiritually dominated by an ignorant or pusillanimous priesthood. Why,
therefore, seek to revive by serious discussion any interest in dogmas
now almost inanimate and staggering to their final fall and eternal sleep.
Let them die serenely if they can, and be buried out of sight without pomp
or regret. We have questions of greater moment and of much more value to
mankind, and to them let us address ourselves. All things are not only
progressive but eternally progressing. Must we therefore resolve that
systems of religion and theological dogmas are finished and settled
forever. If so, when did this divinely appointed consummation take place?
It certainly, if true, must be an event of recent date. By whom settled,
how and when? Certainly not by the old Romish Church and the hierarchy
established at Nice and Laodicia, for their history since has been
characterized by quarrels and dissensions, which at times have threatened
their very existence. And certainly no one will seriously maintain that
they have reached the high altitude of final and definite settlement by
Luther, Calvin and others in their departure from the original faith. Some
of the articles of faith of these have either been discarded or quietly
abandoned, and those left have been modified, and are scarcely an
improvement on the originals. In candidly looking over the whole field
among the religious sects now extant, only one thing is discovered to be
mutually agreed upon, and that is that man lives after death. We hardly
need to stop to except those semi-materialistic Christians who claim that
a future existence at all depends wholly on the physical resurrection of
the material body at some vague and indefinite period of future time. This
doctrine is so unscientific and so disconsonant with reason that we pass
it by with a mere reference to it."
July 28, 1882:
"The Catholics have three states for the dead, Heaven, Hell and Purgatory;
the thorough orthodox Protestants two, striking out purgatory; while the
Universalists insist on expunging hell from the catalogue. Some will have
one God, and others a trinity of them. But they differ materially as to
the course to pursue in order to obtain the divine favor, holy unction and
saving grace of the Lord. Here they are put to the severest test. It is
infinitely of less moment to ascertain how many gods rule above, or how
many states of the dead, as it is to know how to reach the much desired
haven of peace and happiness in the eternal world.
"A prudent man would be comparatively indifferent as to how many ruling
sovereigns over the destinies of man, or how many locations of consignment
for their souls, so he is enabled to attain unto the highest good, and
this consideration more imperatively absorbs his attention. Knowledge of
the former would be valueless without knowledge of the latter. And hence
in seeking to become familiar with the latter is where he becomes lost in
the labyrinthian mazes of divergent and perplexingly diversified
theologies.
"One would have you attend to the confessional, do penance and observe and
conform to the dictums emanating from the Roman Pontiff and the imperious
mandates of priests, thereby securing absolution from the consequences of
sin, and due preparation for the next world. Another admonishes you that
your salvation depends on the nature and degree of faith in the atoning
sacrifice. Another that you must become regenerated and washed of
inherited and committed sins by belief in and conformity to certain
specific and definitely prescribed tenets. And still another, that a good,
moral life is the one thing needful, Jesus having paid the penalty of sin
and triumphed over it for the whole of mankind. And so on, scarcely
without limit, do these various and varied systems present themselves to
perplex and annoy."
July 31, 1882:
"Instead of there being one, two or three states of the dead, the truth is
there are an infinite number and variety of conditions in which the
children of men exist in the spiritual world with the qualification that
they do not remain in them longer than they are enabled to progress out of
them into other and higher ones. The plain truth is, as every intelligent
and fairly progressed returning spirit will tell you, that faith and
belief have nothing whatever to do in determining your status in the
spiritual world, nor will what a man believes, however erroneous it may
verily be, if he is honest in it, have any potency in preparing the
spiritual conditions or assigning him his spiritual sphere. Here we must
be clearly understood, that we may avoid both misapprehension and
misrepresentation. I do not affirm that false beliefs and erroneous
conceptions of the hereafter do not have any effect on the spirit. They do
have a very troublesome effect. They do not, however, in the slightest
degree, determine the spiritual status, for this is regulated by other
considerations--moral conduct, noble acts, spiritual unfoldment, etc. But
when the proper sphere is reached after death, for which the new-comer is
spiritually fitted, they halt him there, and for a time impede and retard
his progress, at least until he shall have outgrown false beliefs and
conceptions while in the material body. A man may sincerely believe that
the veritable orthodox devil is his constant companion, or that the air is
swarming with malevolent creatures bent on his ruin, or that he is totally
depraved by inheritance, and destined to utter and endless wretchedness in
the other world, or any thing else, however absurd and untrue, and yet
that man's whole earth life may have been justly distinguished for
charitable deeds, love of the neighbor, and in all his habits, walks and
ways all that the severest moralists could require, do you not at once see
that in all justice and righteousness the man's life, acts and deeds must
inevitably determine his sphere or spiritual condition, without the
slightest interference by what foolish things he may have believed. And
yet it is nevertheless not difficult to see further, that he must disabuse
his mind of those errors of conception and belief before he can make any
appreciable and valuable progress. And I tell you these erroneous belief
and unfounded conceptions cling to the man with more obdurate persistency
than the most of mankind could be induced to believe. Hence the prime
importance of forming correct ideas of the future while still animating
the material body."
August 3, 1882:
"Acts of charity and deeds of benevolence are estimated by the spiritual
laws of our being in just correspondence to the motives inspiring and
actuating them. By the motives prompting them, more than the acts and
deeds themselves, do they become either valuable or valueless to our
spiritual promotion and good. I have known men who devoted a lifetime of
arduous labor in the acquisition of wealth, all the while wholly
regardless of the interests and wants of others, and toward the end of the
puny life, and in anticipation of the near approach of death, they
bequeathed their accumulations to charitable and benevolent institutions,
only to find themselves the merest spiritual paupers in the spiritual
world. And why? Because being governed a lifetime by grasping and selfish
motives, they only dispensed the accumulated results of the cultivated
spirit of avarice and cupidity under the selfish and painfully delusive
motive of enhancing their interests in a world to which their aged
infirmity admonished them they were hastening. Upon their entrance to the
spiritual world the motive met them, and overshadowed them with its
pitiless condemnation.
"Had charity and benevolence characterized their lives all along for the
sake of doing good and blessing others, it would have been quite otherwise
with them in the eternal world of justice and truth.
"Charities bestowed only possess eternal value when done for sweet
charity's sake, and with the unselfish object of helping others. This
constitutes love and genuine love of the neighbor, and is consequently
divine and heavenly and of permanent and enduring value.
"The Confucian doctrine, 'Do unto others as you would they should do unto
you,' reiterated by the man Jesus, contains the great and salutary rule of
life, which if practiced with the holiest and most disinterested motives
will inevitably work out a most glorious future reward for the spirit.
The shepherd kings promulgated this rule in a finer sense and reduced it
to the fine realm of mind. The Confucian rule related to the _actions_ of
men, one to the other, but the other declares, 'Think of others as you
would have others think of you.' If your thoughts and actions are governed
by these rules you may conclude you are not far from the kingdom of heaven
or angelic sphere. If you observe these because you love the right, you
can not fail to love the Lord with all your heart and the neighbor as
yourself, thus fulfilling the law of spiritual growth and development
while in the temple of flesh, and insuring a condition of superlative
happiness in the spiritual world. If in your present state of development
you can not do this, you can, at least, make the honest and persevering
effort to do it, and your reward shall be great."
August 7, 1882:
"Abstain from evil-doing from the conscientious conviction that it is
wrong to do evil and right to abstain. Do not allow yourself, in choosing
between right and wrong, to be governed by a fear of future punishment, or
hope of future reward, for this is cowardly and pusillanimous and of no
practical value to your future happiness. Do right for the sake of the
right and not from the selfish motive of deriving a personal benefit. You
have in your world two very injurious and reprehensible doctrines taught
by learned men, namely: materialism and forgiveness of sins. They are both
degrading and far reaching in their baleful consequences. Christians treat
materialism with scornful derision, and yet it is just as true as that the
misdeeds of life can be overcome and rendered harmless in their following
consequences by death-bed repentance and the blood of atonement. One is as
true as the other, and my presence here in spirit proves materialism to be
groundless. Materialism is the doctrine of one world only, a mere passing
moment of life, and suggests very naturally to make the most out of it. I
do not mean to be understood as asserting that there are not good honest
people who believe in this doctrine, but that they are good and honest in
spite of their belief and not as a result of it. The theological heresy
which proclaims the necessity of conversion, new birth, and regeneration
(they are convertible terms) would be much more plausible if not
supplemented by the more alarming and reprehensible doctrine of obtaining
full pardon for repeated crimes and misdeeds just preceding or at the
imminent moment of departing from the material body by so-called death.
The first becomes bereft of its value, if indeed it has any, by the
latter. It is tantamount to asking a man to liquidate an indebtedness now,
when, under the law, he has ten or twenty years option. In a purely
business view he realizes that the possession and use of his money for ten
or twenty years is to him a matter of pecuniary interest and profit. So
likewise is it with the man of the world with an organization tending to
licentiousness and vice. He perceives no wisdom or practical use in
becoming regenerated in the days of his youth, when in old age the
opportunity is afforded to repent and thereby avoid the consequences of
the loose indulgences and vices of a lifetime. Every villain who has run a
lifetime unwhipt of justice and unpunished for his crimes, must be
fascinated with this indulgent fallacy, while all truly noble souls must
silently, if not avowedly, abhor and detest it."
August 10, 1882:
"While the Universalists are considered liberal and progressive, yet their
doctrine is equally dangerous and untrue. Indeed, I have more respect for
the others. They (the Universalists) claim to stand upon the Word, and
affirm that the blood and death of one man propitiated sin so far as the
future life is concerned, and that therefore sinning entails no hurtful
consequences but such as are met with along the journey of life from the
cradle to the grave. In other words, that the consequences of sin are
visited upon us during our earth life, or not at all. They attempt to
justify and defend their doctrine by a mere play upon words found in
isolated passages in the bible, especially the epistles in the New
Testament. The declarative assumptions of the bible, as translated for
your use and guidance, are utterly at war with their teachings, and it is
folly to deny it. In this age when the human heart and mind are reaching
out for something better it is useless and unproductive of good to go back
to the root of words in originals to bolster up a doctrine founded in
error. The effort will always prove unprofitable and must inevitably fail
of its purpose.
"I am aware that some advanced and more spiritually minded Universalists
believe in progression in the future life, and in this regard their
conclusions are better and far in advance of their premises.
"I would say to those, however good and pure, who expect to awake to
consciousness in an ideal world of transcendent beatitudes without shadows
and crosses that they will realize a most perplexing disappointment. They
will find a world more natural than this, because more substantial and
enduring, and what is more they will find they lack very much of being
perfect, more perfect indeed in undevelopment than in that soul growth and
unfoldment that would enable them to command the joys and delights
vouchsafed by association with progressed spiritual beings in the higher
walks and spheres of the spiritual world. To attain unto this state is the
work of time and the reward of labor.
"The true doctrine is, as all shall know in time, that conscious and
willful sinning, that is, where volition in choosing between the right and
the wrong was within our power, is treasured up in the memory of the
spirit and confronts us in the spiritual world, and will remain until
outgrown and overcome by arduous effort. Happiness can only be enjoyed by
the finite in contrast with misery, and shadows and crosses will fall upon
us, marring our joys, until in the ages of coming time we shall so expand
and grow towards deific perfections and excellences as to think no evil,
thus not only rendering our actions submissive to the highest wisdom, but
our hearts and minds to the divine love, and in a happy union of love,
wisdom, and the will, we shall become something more than finite in our
approach to the infinite."
August 11, 1882:
"Nevertheless let it be said to the humblest, struggle on, strive to
battle for the right as you perceive it. If you see it not aright in good
time it will be revealed unto you. Be of good cheer. You must needs
suffer, for suffering in the right is spiritual growth--you are
continually encircled by infinite love. You shall rise step by step,
unfolding this latent power and that, gradually and by discreet degrees
casting aside this harrowing and distressing memory and that, all the
while aided by those spirits who have passed through tribulations and
sorrows into higher unfoldments and joys, until finally you shall rejoice
in blissful disenthrallment from the imperfections of your past being.
Then you will be enabled to see why you have thus suffered and rejoice
that it has been so. No pang will afflict you worse than those you have
inflicted upon others, or of greater magnitude than thousands and millions
have endured. Be kind and forbearing to the erring, be merciful to all,
even the humblest creature of the creation. Deal justly with all, live
uprightly, fear nothing but evil and fly from it. Be brave for the right.
Love your neighbor, which being spiritually interpreted, means all
mankind. Endeavor to learn and believe truth wherever found; try, if
possible, to think no evil; worship at no shrine but that of eternal
truth, and no harm can come to you in the everlasting realms of immortal
souls. No shadows shall darken the pathway of your progress other than
those incident to your connection with matter and your undeveloped
spirituality. And these shall be dissipated, facilitated, and accelerated,
by the sweet memories of good deeds and good thoughts.
"In the feeble communications I have given you, by the permission of the
Lord, I have not been able to impart my ideas in the same language and
style that characterized my writings when embodied. I know they will be
subjected to this criticism, but the difficulties of projecting my ideas
into form in words have been many and great. If they were explained they
in turn would be criticised with equal virulence. When coming within the
radius of mediumistic aura we encounter obstacles great and difficult to
overcome at their state of mediumship. Happily in time these difficulties
will be surmounted. The aura of the medium and sitter blending with my
spirit magnetism, your continued thinking and also the medium, thereby
disturbing the equability of the magnetic and electric emanations, and to
a corresponding degree affecting the psychic forces of the communicating
spirit, and other things you would not understand if told you, all
conspire to enfeeble the spirit intellectually, and, to a certain extent,
limit it to the mental sphere of those present, especially the medium,
upon whom we are so largely dependent. If you understood the subject as it
really is, you would be surprised that we could even do so well. You, my
dear Swedish friend, have aided us nobly; your motives being so pure and
honest, we found in that itself a great auxiliary, and we sincerely thank
you. I shall be with you often, and shall reward your many kindnesses by
helping your sweet and interesting children in spirit life and others dear
to you, to learn spiritual wisdom in their progress, and shall take a deep
interest in you when you come to our life.
"God bless this medium, for she is worthy. In earnest supplication we
invoke the blessings of the Lord, angels and spirits upon you both.
"EMANUEL SWEDENBORG."