Spiritual Representation And The Source Of Angelic Power | NCE Spotlight

Featured quotations from Emanuel Swedenborg's Secrets of Heaven:


3215


The representative objects that present themselves to spirits
come in unbelievable variety, but most of them resemble objects
that exist on the earth in its three kingdoms. 


3214


Scenes representing what is spiritual and heavenly sometimes
occur in a long series, lasting an hour or two, one after
another, in an order that is astounding. There are certain
communities in which this happens, and I was allowed to stay in
them for many months. The representations are such that if I were
to narrate and describe the chain of events in just one of them,
it would fill many pages. The scenes are intensely pleasing,
because something new and unexpected always comes next, and this
keeps happening until the phenomenon being represented has been
brought to perfect completion. When everything is complete, the
viewer is able to take it all in at a single glance and at the
same time to sense what the individual pieces of it symbolize.


This is another way good spirits are introduced into spiritual
and heavenly thinking.


3417:3


[3] So people who know religious concepts but do not live a life
of love for others cannot see that any pleasure exists besides
that which results from supremacy. It monopolizes their minds and
constitutes their whole life. Consequently they are completely
unacquainted with the heavenly satisfaction that comes of
humility and the desire to help others—that is, with the joy of
love for the Lord and charity for their neighbor—and with the
bliss and happiness these produce. For that reason, the Lord
accommodated to their weaknesses when he spoke, so that by this
means they could be stirred up and led to learn, teach, and do
good. All the same, he teaches what importance and prestige in
heaven really are . . .


[After death] we do admittedly become relatively great,
important, powerful, and imperial, since a single angel is
stronger than many thousands of hellish spirits. But the power
comes from the Lord, not ourselves.