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Thread: Swedenborg: The Father of Astral Projection

  1. #1
    Berserk Guest

    Swedenborg: The Father of Astral Projection

    Emanuel Swedenborg was a prolific writer and my array of topics is highly selective and based on my own interests. My major source for replies I-II is my favorite book on ES: Wilson Van Dusen, "The Presence of Other Worlds: The Psychological/ Spiritual Findings of Emanuel Swedenborg." Both in I-II and the current post, I summarize Van Dusen's lengthy reports. My reports are also shaped by insights from the more scholarly work by Enrst Benz, "Emanuel Swedenborg: Vsionary Savant in the Age of Reason."

    Modern astral adepts too often ignore the contradictions inherent in each other's astral "insights." More serious is their failure to come to terms with Emanuel Swedenborg [hereafter ES], the man who arguably deserves the title "The Father of Astral Projection." By the way, I am not a Swedenborgian. My thread will briefly expose the reader to ES's discoveries in the hope of inspiring discussion and debate on the extent to which his insights can or should be reconciled with those of modern astral adepts. ES is truly an original: he lived long before the emergence of modern New Age perspectives and can therefore serve as a useful foil for assessing the extent to which modern adepts are unwittingly duped by a misguided occult consensus. To provide the discussion focus and direction, I will now specify the sequence in which I will summarize aspects of ES's life and research.

    I. SWEDENBORG: A SCIENTIFIC GENIUS
    II. SWDENBORG'S EVOLVING METHODOLOGY
    III. HIS VERIFICATIONS OF HIS CONVERSATIONS WITH THE DEAD
    IV. HIS VERIFICATIONS OF HIS CONVERSATIONS WITH ANGELS
    V. THREE INITIAL STATES AFTER DEATH
    VI. SWEDENBORG ON THE NATURE OF HEAVEN AND HELL
    VII. SWEDENBORG'S THEORY OF CORRESPONDENCES
    (1) THE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN SPACE AND DISTANCE IN
    POSTMORTEM EXPERIENCE
    (2) EVOLUTION AND CORRESPONDENCE
    (3) SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS THAT SEEM TO VERIFY SWEDENBORG'S
    INSIGHTS INTO ENERGY SPHERES
    (4) THE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THE HEAVENLY REALM AND ONE'S
    INNER REALITY
    (5) CORRESPONDENCE: THE KEY TO DIVINATION
    VIII. SWEDENBORG ON SOUL RETRIEVALS
    IX. SWEDENBORG ON REINCARNATION
    (1) SWEDENBORG'S DISCOVERY THAT PAST LIFE RECALL PROVIDES NO
    EVIDENCE FOR REINCARNATOIN
    (2) A SWEDENBORGIAN CRITIQUE OF THE NEW AGE CONCEPT OF THE
    GROUP SOUL

    In this post, I will elaborate only I-II of my announced agneda.

    I. SWEDENBORG: A SCIENTIFIC GENIUS

    Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772 AD) spent the first part of his life absorbing the scientific knowledge of his era and wrote over 100 scientific works. He also mastered a repertoire of technical trades. His primary occupation was that of mining engineer and inspector of mines. But he was a ground-breaking thinker in physics, chemistry, mathematics, and astronomy. For example, he is particulary famous his nebular hypothesis. He also made major contributions in anatomy and the neurosciences. For example, he was the first to discover the functions of the brain's cerebellum. He recognized a special funtion of the pituitary gland two centuries before modern endocrinology. He was a metallurgist and is credited with founding the science of crystallography. He also directed a project that moved ships over 14 miles of mountains and valleys. He designed stoves, an ear ♥♥♥♥♥et, pumps and fire extinguishers, and a flying machine. The list goes on and on.

    At age 56 in the 1740s, he shifted his focus to the nature of the pysche or soul. ln 36 volumes he recorded and interpreted his dreams and, in the process, anticipated many modern psychoanalytic insights. He quickly realized that anatomical and neurological would not be very helpful in this new quest. His former scientific approach was inadequate for such elusive matters. This realization catapulted him down the road to mysticism and astral exploration.

    II. SWEDENBORG'S EVOLVING METHODOLOGY

    Without knowing it, ES engaged from childhood in a meditation akin to Yogic and Buddhist practices. He would relax, close his eyes, and focus in with total concentration on a scientific problem. At the same time, his breathing would nearly stop and his awareness of the outer world and even bodily sensation would diminish to the point of vanishing. He whole existence would focus on the one issue he wanted to understand.

    What began as an intensely intellectual form of meditation ultimately progressed to an exploration of his dreams, the hypnagogic state, and later, trances. The hypnagogic sate is experienced twice a day as one goes into and out of sleep. Few people have the discipline and focus to explore the spontaneous wellsprings of mind that bubble up from this state. ES learned to converse with its symbolic inner processes. Those who really explore this state can linger for hours watching scenes and hearing things said. For some reason, some people are primarily visual during this state, and others, like myself, are primarily auditory.

    In the hypnagogic state, something is said or seen before there is any possibility of grasping its meaning. For example, in this state ES gains this insight: "As to pleasure, wealth, and rank, which I had pursued, I perceived that all was vanity and that he is the happier who is devoid of such things. ..I seemed to hear a hen cackling, as she does when she has laid an egg." ES later realizes that chickens are not very bright. Symbolically, his mind is warning him that his insight is nothing to be proud of and must be only the prelude to far more profound insights.

    The sphere which most people rule within their minds is relatively small. Unlike ES, the average person would find it very hard to hold one thought, image, or intention in mind for even one minute. In the hypnogogic state, one can watch thoughts form and be spoken without one's behest. Further, the inner processes think faster and more cleverly than the meditator and the symbolic language spoken may not even be understood. By inspecting feelings, associations, and the situation being symbolized, it is possible to penetrate the symbol.

    For ES these inner states suggest the presence of other spiritual beings interacting with our lives. Those who scoff at this suggestion have rarely shared ES's determination to use the hypnogogic state as a springboard for more vivid waking trance states and ultimately for visits to the World of Spirits, the Hells, and the Heavens. By contrast, we generally experience such inner states merely as pieces of the unconscious self bubbling to the surface. ES's communal notion of of the earthly self would embrace both perspectives as valid!

    ES's exploration of this threshold state was a key to his later breakthrough as an astral adept. But there was another decisive factor that I recently discovered by perusing Ernst Benz's biography:

    "At Easter, 1744, Swedenborg fell off his bed and found himself gazing into Jesus' face, radiant with warmth and love. This was a new starting point for his individuation, culminating a year later in spirit vision and a commission from God to give humankind a new religious revelation. This combined an esoteric view of God, heaven, and earth with a strong desire for a pietist reform of Lutheran orthodoxy (p. xx)." Lutheran orthodoxy would dismiss him as a heretic, but his revelations ultimately made him the father of modern spiritualism and astral projection.

    To add a persnal note, I have had three interesting experiences with the hypnagogic threshold: (1) When I was a teenager, my brother Doug was on the verge of awaking when he was frightened by the spectre of a tall form leaning over my bed across from his. Doug initially thought it was my Mom, but when he called her name, the figure turned and proved to be a stranger. He still swears that he was fully awake when he witnessed that spectre. It seems more likely that he was fooled by the threshold between sleeping and awakening. But then was the spectre an astral spirit or merely an imaginary dream figure?

    (2) I have often awakened to a whirring sound as if I were rotating rapidly at the end of a washing machine cycle. Was I re-entering my body after a forgotten OBE? (3) I have also often awakened to the sound of someone shouting at me. At first I would think someone was outside the house, but I would soon realize that the shouting was generated in this sleep threshold period. But was I hearing the end of a forgotten communication from an astral spirit? I remain skepical of any astral significance for (1)-(3), but ES's exploration of this threshold state often makes me wonder.

    I am also haunted by a discovery made by David Fontana. Upon awaking, he was often frightened by an occasional sense that an invisible stranger was in his bedroom. Further exploration taught him that the stranger was in fact his own spirit returning to his body after a forgotten astral adventure.

    ES's Discernment of the Genuineness of his Paranormal Enounters:

    As his consciousness expands from dreams and hypnogogic states to waking trances, conversations with demons and angels, and visits to the afterlife territories, ES actively seeks out ways of validating his experiences. In all these psychic states, he begins to experience the little-known phenomenon called photism or orbs of light. The meditator seeking guidance finds a signal system to guide him. ES sees an affirming flame. He observes: "Such a flame appeared to me so often, and indeed, in different sizes in a diversity of color and splendor, that during some months when I was writing a certain work, hardly a day passed in which a flame did not appear as vividly as the flame of a household hearth." Most people who experience orbs are puzzled by by their significance. ES tested the validity of his flame and soon discovered that it was "a sign of approval." He could, for example, correlate it with his scientific breakthroughs. Both by its color and warmth, his flame symbolizes love and feeling. During his expanded awareness, ES begins experiencing his guiding flame during his daytime trances and visions as well.

    Too many modern astral adepts tend to accept the entities they encounter at face value without rigorously discerning their positive or negative ambience. ES's passion to encounter the divine reinforces his discipline and resolve to test the spirits by sorting out their quality and usefulness. He even experiences automatic writing. He'd feel his hand being seized by lower-order spirits and forced to write things about biblical figures that he didn't even approve of. But his most impressive verifications derive from evidence that he can truly contact the dead and gain from angels information that at times cannot be gleaned from the minds of incarnate humans.

    Don

  2. #2
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    Thanks for the fascinating essay. One thing I should mention, is that some postmodern projectors, myself being one of them, consider the hypnagogic state to be a combination of many phenomena, one of communication with 'external' or 'other' beings, other versions of self, and projections of the subconscious- not necessarily to the exclusion of each other. Rewritten on edit- CF 3/9/07
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  3. #3
    Tempestinateapot Guest
    These are Berserk's original writings. He's going to be posting more, some of which I've already read. I asked him to post this, as it is really interesting. When he "copies" something, he puts it in quotes within the body of the post, and cites the author. I think he's left off the bibliography, or whatever it is he uses to quote his sources. I asked him the same thing when I read his original.

    Don, I noticed several quotes, but not the author. Would you add that in? I told you Robert is fussy about that, and so are our mods.

  4. #4
    Berserk Guest
    ES was a prolific writer and my array of topics is highly selective and based on my own interests. My major source for replies I-II is my favorite book on ES: Wilson Van Dusen, "The Presence of Other Worlds: The Psychological/ Spiritual Findings of Emanuel Swedenborg." Both in I-II and the current post, I summarize Van Dusen's lengthy reports. My reports are also shaped by insights from the more scholarly work by Enrst Benz, "Emanuel Swedenborg: Vsionary Savant in the Age of Reason."

    III. ES's VERIFICATIONS OF HIS CONVERSATIONS WITH THE DEAD

    ES never contacted the dead just to satisfy the voyeuristic curiosity of supplicants; rather, he had to be convinced that such contacts would benefit them spiritually. By his own admission, ES experienced hundreds of spectacular verifications of his gift of contacting deceased souls and angels in the spirit world. But he mentioned none of these in his prolific writings. The confirmatory incidents were all recorded out of the astonishment of the eyewitnesses. ES refrained from disclosing his verifications for at least two reasons:

    (a) He believes that miracles have a coercive effect on belief that too often undermines the quality of free will in spiritual matters. In his view, impressive miracles tend to affect only the externals of belief. In time, the internal, freely chosen path comes to rule and even miraculous events are washed away and forgotten in the current of time. God has created us to FEEL or intuit our way to Him, not to THINK our way to Him. True, feelings can be shallow and unreliable. ES is referring to our higher-level feelings that are rooted in a truly loving mpulse that can tune in to God's loving essence. Even Jesus questions the power of miracles to convince skeptics to embrace spiritual truths in a life-transforming way (Luke 16:31).

    (b) Besides, ES's gift is ridiculed by many of his contemporaries. For example, consider this incident witnessed by Dr. Krohl. One day at a large social gathering, Bishop Troilius decided "to amuse himself and the rest of the company at ES's expense." He derisively posed this challenge to ES: "By the way, ...tell us something about the spirit world. How does my friend Broman spend his time there?" ES answered instantly, "I saw him just a few hours ago shuffling cards in the presence of the Evil One, and he was only waiting for your worship to make a game of Tresett." An embarrassed Troilius had not told ES that Broman was one of his gambling buddies and that their card game of choice was Tresett! Dr. Krohl notes, "The conversation...was thus brought to a close, and it is not difficult to see which of the two became the subject of the company's mirth."

    Perhaps, ES's allusion to "the Evil One" was meant tongue-in-cheek to knock Troilius down a peg. The ensuing 3 incidents seem even more compelling: (1) ES was once summoned for an audience with swedish Queen Lousia Ulrica. She asked him if he could really converse with the dead. When ES said "yes", she invited him and Count Sheffer to retire to a quiet spot where she asked ES to take a commission to her deceased brother. The queen and her brother had been separated because their countries were at war when he died. She did not really believe in ES's abilities. Still, at his next audience with her, she lightly asked if he had a message from her brother. ES suggested that they speak alone. The queen was later described as in shock, so indisposed that she had to retire. She said later that ES had revealed what no living person knew about her brother. The message must have been intensely personal because neither ES nor the queen ever revealed it.

    (2) Around 1770 AD a merchant from Elberfield visited ES after he had moved to Amsterdam. He convinced ES that he had a burning spiritual quest and asked him if he could visit a recent deceased friend and ask him about their last conversation. ES asked his friend's name and then asked the merchant to return in a few days. Upon his return, ES smiled and said, "I have spoken with your friend; the subject of your conversation was the restitution of all things." If ES had simply read the merchant's mind, one might expect ES's ESP to be limited to the last conversational subject in general. But ES then accurately expounded in great detail the different positions that the merchant and his deceased friend had defended. The merchant turned pale and asked, "Is he in a state of blessedness?" ES replied, "No, he is not yet in heaven; he is still in Hades, and torments himself continually with the idea of the restitution of all things." The merchant exclaimed, "My God! What, in the other world?" ES replied, "Certainly; a man takes with him his favorite inclinations and opinions, and it is very difficult to be divested of them. We ought, therefore, to lay them aside here." The awstruck merchant then went back to Elberfield and shared his confirmatory story.

    (3) A skeptic might try to explain incidents (1) and (2) in terms of ESP derived from the minds of the living. But our next incident seems to preclude that explanation. In 1761 a countesse M. de Marteville came to ES and explained that her husband, the Dutch ambassador to Sweden, had just died. He had given her a costly silver service just before he died and now the silversmith was demanding payment that she could no longer afford. Besides, she felt certain that her husband had already paid for it. She asked ES to contact her husband about the receipt. ES agreed and 3 days later he visited her and reported what her husband had told him. The receipt, it seems, was in an upstairs bureau. She protested that she had already searched that bureau. But the deceased husband had told ES that she should look for a secret compartment behind a certain drawer. the woman promptly went upstairs with ES, and to her astonishment, found the receipt, together with other important papers. No one alive had known about this secret compartment.

    To me, ES's verifications of information gleaned from angels are even more impressive. I will document this in my next scheduled post.

    Don

  5. #5
    Berserk Guest
    IV. ES's VERIFICATIONS OF HIS CONVERSATIONS WITH ANGELS

    ES claims that everyone has both angels from Heaven and spirits from Hell with them all the time, normally two of each. He applies the term "angel" to discarnate humans in Heaven as opposed to Hell and the intermediary realm he calls "The World of Spirits." His practiced mastery of discernment allows him to distinguish angels from the deceptive hellbound spirits. Lower-order spirits like to pretend that they can predict and even control the future, but they cannot. Modern astral adepts have seldom penetrated the heavens, and so, are often deceived by hallucinatory encounters with lower-order spirits. But the Lord, Heaven, and angels essentially transcend time. So anyone in contact with them can potentially read the past, present, and future, and even verify their contacts with the dead.

    At first sight, some of ES's clairvoyant revelations might be due to ESP gleaned from the minds of eyewitnesses. Condider these 2 cases: (1) Chris Springer was a Swedish politician and a close friend of ES. Springer had been a major player in the secret negotiations between Sweden and Prussia. After ES's death, Springer revealed that ES had psychically gleaned detailed knowledge of these negotiations. ES discerned such details as who was present, what money was offered, what Springer had done, and why he had done it. (2) In the middle of a conversation at an Amsterdam party, ES lost his awareness of those around him and entered a deep trance. When he recovered, his dismayed associates asked him what had happened, but he initially refused to say. But after much coaxing, he soberly described how Emperor Peter III of Russia had just been strangled in a prison in Kopsha, Russia. He advised partygoers to note the date and his description, so they could later verify it from newspaper accounts. A few days later, the local papers confirmed his report.

    Skeptics challenged his ability to receive such premonitions. His sister had died without his knowing it. When chided about this, he explained that he was emotionally distant from her at the time of her death and, in any case, had not asked his angels about her. When he did ask his angels to reveal when someone would die, he received accurate clairvoyance. Two episodes illustrate this:

    (1) At a Stockholm gathering, ES was challenged by skeptics to a test: he was asked to identify who of those present would die first. ES immediately entered a profound state of meditation. After a while, he shared the angels' reply: "Olof Olofsohn will die tomorrow morning at 4;45 AM." This confident prediction transformed the mood of those present to one of anxious expectation. One of Olofsohn's friends went to his house the next morning to test the prediction. En route, he met one of Olofsohn's servants who informed him that his master had just died from a fit of apoplexy. The clock in his home had stopped at the very moment he had expired and the hand pointed to 4:45!

    This episode reminds me of 3 deaths in the Long family. Nick Long died suddenly from a heart attack while a young man. His son, Nick, Jr., was later distraught over a failed marriage and hung himself while his mother, Eleanor, was attending a funeral at my church. Eleanor herself was killed in a fiery car crash a year later. Eleanor's death hit me very hard because she was always very kind to me. A week prior to her death, she had a dream in which several deceased relatives visited her home. Her late husband came downstairs and asked her, "Honey, do you want to dance?" Eleanor would ordinarily never turn down her husband's offer to dance, but she sensed that dancing was a symbol for her imminent passing. So she replied, "Oh no, I'm not ready yet!" These 3 deaths in the Long family had one thing in common with Ofofsohn's death: the clock in teir living room stopped at the time of death for all 3 of the Longs!

    (2) ES's ability to receive accurate death premonitions from angels is dramatically corroborated by an exchange of letters with John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. ES wrote Wesley an unexpected letter, saying, "I have been informed in the world of spirits that you have a strong desire to converse with me; I shall be happy to see you if you will favor me with a visit." Wesley received the letter in an English drawing room just as he and his followers were preparing for an extended speaking tour. Wesley told those present that he was indeed eager to meet ES, but had told no one about this. He wrote ES that their meeting would have to be postponed for 6 months until the completion of his speaking tour. ES wrote back, apologizing that he could not meet him at that time because he was to die on the 29th of the next month, which, of course, he did.

    My Dad's friend Helmut can attest that ES's premonition about the exact date of his passing is not unprecedented. Helmut's Dad always said he would die on his 91st birthday. When that day arrived, he had no obvious health problems and no one dared comment of the fateful date. He had a good breakfast and cheerfully announced he was going to take a nap. He passed away peacefully durIng the nap just as he'd always predicted.

    ES receives angelic clairvoyance of 3 accidents or acts of Nature, none of which can satisfactorily be explained in terms of ESP tapping the minds of eyewitnesses. (1) In ES's day the uncertainties of wind and weather made it impossible to predetermine how many days a long sailing trip might take. Sea captains generally took his presence on a ship as a sign that the journey would be safe and swift. ES claimed he never feared these journeys because he had angels with him. Those angels demonstrated their presence in a conversation ES had with a Captain Dixon as they embarked on a trip from London to Stockholm. ES accurately predicted that the ship would arrive in Stockholm at 2 PM in exactly a week.

    (2) On July 17, 1750, he and 15 others were guests of the prominent merchant William Castel in Gothenberg at his fine home on Canal St. At 6 PM, ES suddenly turned pale. When asked what was wrong, he described a fire burning out of control at that moment in distant Stockholm. in principle, he moght have acquired this information by ESP gleaned from the minds of Stockholm's residents. But the ESP explanation cannot satisfactorily account for his detailed knowledge of the fire's course. He described where it had started and where it was burning, including the inceration of a friend's house and the fact that the fire burned itself out just before it arrived at ES's home. The next day the governor summoned ES and sought and received his report on the fire which was confirmed in detail the following day.

    (3) In 1770, ES attended a social event in his honor in Gothenberg. he sat beside Bolander, the owner of extensive cloth-mills. During dinner, ES abruptly turned to Bolander and sharply instructed him: "Sir, you had better go to your mills!" Bolander was taken aback at his rudeness, but nevertheless left the table and hurried to his mills. A large piece of cloth had just fallen near the furnace and had begun to burn. He arrived just in time to prevent his property from being reduced to ashes. When he returned, he thanked ES. ES smiled and explained that he had spoken so abruptly because he had "seen" that the danger was imminent.

    Don

    P.S. the ES anecdotes in this post are summaries drawn from van Dusen.

  6. #6
    Berserk Guest
    ES's anticipation of the exact date and time of his own passing and that of others raises the question of whether our future is predetermined in important ways. For now, I don't want to probe the complexities of this issue, apart from confessing that I don't believe in either karma or a rigidly predestined future. Rather, I prefer to share Albert Baldeo's related synchronistic experience. Albert is a retired Protestant pastor and a friend of my parents. He recently shared his remarkable death vigil with me. His Dad lay dying in a nursing home in British Columbia, Canada. Jiust before he passed over, Albert witnessed his Dad sit up, brighten visibly, and shout, "Hurry up, brother! Hurry up!" Seconds later his Dad was gone--at 12 noon on a Tuesday.

    A puzzled Albert soon discovered the significance of this bizarre episode. Albert was unaware of an incredible synchronicity during his death vigil. His Dad's brother simultaneously lay dying in the presence of loved ones about 10 miles away. Just before passing, he too sat up, opened his eyes, and shouted, "Wait for me, brother! Wait for me!" Then he died at 12 noon on Tuesday at the same time as his brother. Somehow both brothers were able to see each other's departing spirits while they were still able to function consciously with open eyes through their physical bodies. One brother was prodding the other to catch up to hiim and othe other brother tried to comply. No published NDE impresses me more for its evidential value that this one.

    Don

  7. #7
    Berserk Guest
    V. THREE INITIAL STATES AFTER DEATH

    I take seriously what ES's astral explorations have revealed on this subject because of his many awesome verifications of his conversations with angels and other discarnate humans. My source here is ES's classic book "Heaven and Hell" (= HH) from which I will now quote extensively:

    "When we die, we are still alive and just as human as ever. To convince me of this, [the Lord] has allowed me to talk with almost all the people I have ever met during their physical lives, with some for a few hours, with some for weeks and months, and some for years. This was primarily so that I could be convinced and bear witness (437)."

    "There are three states that we pass through after death before we arrive at either heaven or hell. The first state is one of more outward concerns. The second is one of more inward concerns, and the third is one of preparation. We go through all three states in the world of spirits. Some people do not go through these states, but are either raised into heaven or cast into hell immediately after their death (HH 491)."

    The "world of spirits" is a transitional state between the heavens and hells and seems to be the equivalent of Focus 24-26 in the Robert Monroe nomenclature. The highest level of the world of spirits seems to be the equivalent of Focus 27. In biblical terms, the world of spirits embraces Hades (not to be confused with Hell) in its lower planes and Paradise, an old Persian term for "park," in its upper planes.

    (1) OUR FIRST STATE AFTER DEATH

    "We use the outward aspects of our spirit to adapt our bodies in the world--especially our faces, our speech, and behavior--to our interactions with other people. The more inward aspects of our spirit are the ones proper to our intentions and consequent thought, which rarely show in faces, speech, and behavior. We are trained from infancy to present ourselves as friendly, benevolent, and honest, and to conceal the thoughts of our own intentions. As a result, of this habitual behavior, we scarely know our inner natures and pay no attention to them (HH 492)."

    "Our first state after death is like our state in the world, since we are then similarly involved in outward concerns. We have similar faces, voices, and character; we lead similar moral and civic lives. That is why it still seems to us as though we were in this world unless we notice things that are out of the ordinary (HH 493)."

    Most NDEs are marvelous experiences. But ES chillingly insists that the initial postmortem state is normally wonderful even for people who will ultimately find their way to a hell. ES's mention of their trips to gorgeous gardens and parks in the first state recalls descriptions of Focus 27:

    "Their friends...take them around to various places, into the company of different people. They go to different cities, to gardens and parks, often to gorgeous ones because things like that appeal to the outward concerns they are involved in. Many of them think they will make it into heaven because they led moral and civic lives in the world, not reflecting that both good and evil people lead similar outward lives (HH 495)."

    ES adds that "the first state after death...rarely lasts more than a year for anyone (HH 49." This fits neatly with modern research on contacts received by the recently bereaved from deceased loved ones. One study indicated that 50% of Americans and 48% of the British report convincing contacts with their deceased loved ones within the first year since their death. After that, the number of such contacts dramatically dwindles. Making such contacts is much harder for those who have moved on from the world of spirits to a heaven or a hell.

    (2) OUR SECOND STATE AFTER DEATH

    "Our second state after death is called a state of our deeper interests because then we are given access to the deeper reaches of our minds, or of our intentions and thoughts, while the more outward interests that engaged us in the first state become dormant (HH 499)." "We as spirits are brought...into the state of those deeper intentions and consequent thoughts we engaged in when we were left to ourselves in the world and our thinking was free and unfettered (HH 502)."

    At this stage we shed aspects of self that were shaped by social expectations, peer pressure, and the need to present an acceptable presenting self that can mask our inner self. As a result, "people who were inwardly devoted to the good...then behave..more wisely than when they were living in the world...In contrast, people who were focused on evil...then behave more insanely then when they were in the world (HH 505)." It now becomes impossible to act one way and inwardly be another. The person pauses at this threshold world long enough to become one with her own nature.

    "Once people like this are in the second state, they are let back into the state of their more outward concerns for brief periods of time. They then retain a memory of how they behaved when they were in the state of their more inward concerns. Some of them are embarrassed and admit they were insane. Some of them are not embarrassed at all. Some of them resent the fact that they are not allowed to be in the state of their more outward concerns all the time, but they are shown what they would be like if they were continually in this state. They would constantly be trying to do the same things covertly, misleading people of simple heart and faith with simulations of goodness, honesty, and fairness. They would destroy themselves completely because eventually their outer natures would be ablaze with the same fire as their inner natures (HH 506)."

    "The things they [evil people] had done and said in secret are now made public, too, because now, since outward factors are not constraining them, they say the same things openly, and they keep trying to do the same things without any fear for the reputations they had in the world...They [visually] look to angels and good spirits like the [evil] people they really are (HH 507)."

    (3) OUR THIRD STATE AFTER DEATH

    "Our third state after death is one of instruction. This state is for people who are entering heaven and becoming angels and not for people who are entering hell, because the latter cannot be taught (HH 512)." Their close-mindedness prevents them from sensing the vast heavenly world beyond the world of spirits. "As a result, their second state... ends in their turning straight toward...the hellish community that is engaged in a love like their own." The general intention of the hells is to ignore God and vault the interests of self above all others.

    Heaven is not just reserved for Christians. On the one hand, ES casually mentions bishops he has encountered in hell. On the other hand, humble and teachable agnostics who have lived the equivalent of a loving Christian life will then be "taught things like that God exists, that heaven and hell exist, that there is a life after death, that God is to be loved above all, and our neighbor as ourselves, and that we are to believe what is said in the Word because the Word is divine (HH 512)."

    Don

  8. #8
    Palehorse Redivivus Guest
    Berserk... are you the same Berserk I knew way back when? If so, good to see ya. If not... good to see ya anyway! Heh.

    As I'm off to lose consciousness pretty soon I can't read this whole thread right now, but I've been intrigued by Swedenborg for a while, so I will be.

  9. #9
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    This is certainly interesting reading, Don. Thank you for what you are sharing with us. I found myself wondering if ES was ever accused of witchcraft.
    "A dream is a question, not an answer."
    (Therapist and dreamworker Strephon Kaplan
    Williams)

  10. #10
    Berserk Guest
    VI. ES ON THE NATURE OF HEAVEN AND HELL: PART ONE--HELL

    [Yes, Palehorse, I am the same. I have more recently been passing myself off as "Deadworm," my handle when I began this thread.]

    For ES all of earthly life is a preparation for a postmortem existence in which our core desires and feelings towards others cannot be hidden in face-to-face encounters. In the next life we naturally gravitate towards people who share our values and want to play by our rules. Besides, in the spiritual world there is no discrepancy between physical proximity and spiritual remoteness. Essential affinity is presence, and essential incompatibility is distance. For these reasons, “the Lord never turns His face away from anyone or spurns anyone, never casts anyone into hell or is angry (HH 545).” “The divine aura that emanates from the Lord is a constant effort to save everyone (HH 595).” “The Lord does not punish anyone: demonic society itself does (AC 245)” and its denizens ultmately choose that society because they feel most comfortable there. The various levels of hell are appallingly squalid “in heaven’s light,” but quite glamorous in their own light (e. g. HH 553).. Spirits who look “bad” to the “good” will look attractive to the “bad” who share the same core desires and values. "When spirits voluntarily arrive at their hell and go in, they are accepted cordially at first and think that they have arrived among friends. This lasts only a few hours, though. All the while they are being probed to find out how crafty they are and, therefore, how powerful. Once this probing is complete, the attacks begin in various ways (HH 574).” “The hells are governed by means of angels [righteous discarnate humans] who are given the ability to look into the hells and check the insanities and riots there. Sometimes angels are sent there and their very presence brings matters under control (HH 342).”

    “These two loves, love for oneself and love for the world, rule in the hells and actually constitute the hells...Love for the Lord and love for one’s neighbor rule in the heavens and actually constitute the heavens (HH 554).” ES identifies 3 basic levels of hells, each of which contains countless communities based on subtle distinctions determined by the principle like attracts like. (1) The first and mildest level supremely values brute force and is focused on behavior. Here no one trusts anyone: one must either control or be controlled. Spirits are reluctantly forced into alliances not out of sympathy, but out of common resentment of a common enemy. Spirits are insensitive to the motivations of their partners because they are insensitive to their own motivations. Yet in their minds, they are often “happy” because they enjoy the thrill of vengeance and the hatred that fuels it. They establish new emotional normals. Alliances are constantly broken down and reformed with new members as one’s role fluctuates from victim to victimizer.

    (2) The 2nd level of hells focuses not on brute force, but on the workings of the human mind. Spirits here will try to con you out of anything you own. Here your intellect is focused not on the effort to understand things as they are, but to create the illusion that they are as you want them to
    be. The goal is not a cooperative venture to solve mysteries, but an egotistic obsession with defending one’s point of view.


    (3)The 3rd level of hells focuses on the workings of the human heart Spirits here will try to work on your feelings until you have no will of your own. ES associates the 3rd hell with the malignant creation of illusions. Our feelings, undisciplined by rationality or realism, construct fantasy worlds where anything can happen. Everyone at this level is a creator as well, which means that cosmic conflicts constantly erupt in which the odds are all against you. Occasionally, you may prevail and your illlusions may invade the minds of your opponents; but more often you find yourself to be the martyr. But in each mental battle, the winners become special targets in the next conflict.

    Don

    P. S. This post is heavily dependent on George Dole's book on ES--"Freedom and Evil: A Pilgrim's Guide to Hell." But several qutes from "Heaven and Hell" are interspersed.

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