Eternal Rest

Selection from Conjugial Love ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them. Revelation 14:13

Eternal rest is not inactivity. From inactivity come only languor, torpidity, stupor, and drowsiness of the mind and thence of the whole body. These are death, not life, still less the eternal life in which the angels of heaven are.

Eternal rest is of a kind to dispel languor and drowsiness, and quicken men; it must be something which uplifts the mind. It is in some study or work that the mind is aroused, enlivened and delighted; and this takes place according to the use from, in, and toward which it is working. Hence all heaven in the Lord's sight is a theater of uses; every angel is an angel according to his use. His pleasure in his use bears an angel along as a favoring current does a ship. It causes him to be in eternal peace, and in the rest of peace. This is what is meant by eternal rest from labor.

That an angel is alive according to the zeal of his mind in a use, is attested by the fact that every angel has marital love, with its vigor, potency and delights, according to the zeal with which he pursues the genuine use in which he is.

(from Conjugial Love 207)

Children in the After-Life

Selection from Conjugial Love ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Love of children remains after death, especially with women.

On first being raised up, which takes place immediately on death, little ones are taken up into heaven and entrusted to angels of the female sex who in the life of the body in the world had loved children and at the same time had feared God. Having loved all children with maternal tenderness, these women receive the children as their own, and in turn the children, from an implanted instinct, love them as their own mothers. Such mothers are entrusted with as many children as they desire from spiritual storge. The heaven where infants are, appears in front in the region of the forehead, in the line or radius along which angels look directly to the Lord. Their heaven is so situated because all infants are reared under the Lord's immediate auspices. There also flows in with them the heaven of innocence, which is the third heaven. When this first period comes to an end, the children are transferred to another heaven, where they receive instruction.

Under the Lord's auspices children are educated by these women,
and grow in stature and intelligence as in the world.

Children are educated in heaven as follows:

From their teacher they learn to speak. Their first speech is only an utterance of affection, in which however there is an initial something of thought, by which the human in utterance is distinguished from animal sounds. The speech gradually becomes more articulate as ideas enter the thought from affection. All their affections - these also grow - proceed from innocence. First such things are insinuated in them as appear before the eyes and delight them, into which, too, because they have a spiritual origin, there flow things of heaven by which the interiors of the minds are opened. Then, as the children are perfected in intelligence, they also increase in stature, and in this respect also, look more like adults. This is because intelligence and wisdom are spiritual nutriment itself; hence what nourishes their minds also nourishes their bodies there. But children do not grow up in heaven beyond early youth, stopping there and remaining at that age to eternity. On reaching that age they are given in marriage by the Lord's provision; the marriage is celebrated in the heaven where the young man is, who presently follows his wife into her heaven, or into her home if they are in the same society. That I might know for certain that children grow in stature as well as in intelligence, and become adult, I was permitted to speak with some while they were children and later when they had become adult; and as adults they seemed to be of a like stature with grown youths in the world.

Children are instructed especially by means of representatives adapted and suited to their natures, of such beauty and at the same time so replete with interior wisdom that the world can hardly credit it. I may cite two representations here from which others can be imagined. Teachers once represented the Lord's rising from the tomb, and at the same time the union of His human with the Divine. First they presented an idea of a tomb, but no idea at the same time of the Lord except a remote one, so that it was scarcely perceived that it was the Lord except as it were at a distance, for the reason that there is in the idea of a tomb something funereal which they thus removed. Afterwards they discreetly let into the tomb a certain atmospheric something, yet: appearing like a fine watery something, by which they signified, again in seemly remoteness, the spiritual life in baptism. Afterwards I saw them represent the Lord's descent to those who were bound, and His ascent with them into heaven. And what was childlike, they lowered slender cords, almost invisible and very delicate and soft, as if to aid the Lord in His ascent, always devoutly fearful lest anything in the representative might border on what had nothing heavenly in it. There are other representations besides by which children are borne into knowledges of truth and affections of good, as by games agreeable to their infant minds. Children are predisposed by the Lord to these and like representatives through the innocence which comes to them from the third heaven. Spiritual things are thus insinuated into their affections and hence into their tender thoughts in such a way that the children know no otherwise than that they make up and think up such things themselves, and as a result their understanding grows.

The Lord provides in heaven
that the INNOCENCE of INFANCY in children
shall become the INNOCENCE of WISDOM.

Many may fancy that children remain children and become angels immediately on death. But intelligence and wisdom make an angel. While children have none, therefore, they are indeed among angels, but are not angels. They first become angels when they become intelligent and wise. Children are led therefore out of the innocence of infancy into the innocence of wisdom, that is, out of external into internal innocence. This innocence is the goal of all their instruction and development.

When therefore they come into the innocence of wisdom, their childhood's innocence, which had served them meanwhile as a plane, is adjoined.

I saw the nature of childhood's innocence represented by something woody, almost devoid of life, which was vivified as they were imbued with knowledges of truth and affections of good. Afterwards the nature of the innocence of wisdom was represented by a living and naked child. The angels of the third heaven, who more than others are in a state of innocence from the Lord, appear to the eyes of spirits below the heavens as naked children, and being wiser than all others, they are also more alive. The reason is that innocence corresponds to infancy and also to nakedness. Adam and his wife in their state of innocence were therefore said to be naked and not ashamed; but after they lost that state of innocence it is said they were ashamed of their nakedness and hid themselves (Genesis 2:25; 3:7, 10, 11).

In a word, the wiser an angel is, the more innocent he is. The nature of the innocence of wisdom may be seen in a measure from the innocence of childhood ... provided that in the place of the parents the Lord is put as Father, by whom they are led and to whom they ascribe all they receive.

I have spoken with angels at different times about innocence. They have said that innocence is the esse of every good, and that good is good as far as it has innocence in it; also that as wisdom is of the life and hence of good, wisdom is wisdom as far as it partakes of innocence. The same is true, they said, of love, and charity, and faith. Hence it is, too, that no one can enter heaven unless he has innocence, which is the meaning of the Lord's words:

And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them: and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them. (Mark 10:13-16; Luke 18:15-17).

In this, as in other passages in the Word, infants signify those who are in innocence. Good is good as far as it has innocence in it because all good is from the Lord, and innocence consists in being led by Him.

(Conjugial Love 410-414)

The Life of The Soul or Spirit

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

With regard to the general subject of the life of souls, that is, of novitiate spirits, after death, I may state that much experience has shown that when a man comes into the other life he is not aware that he is in that life, but supposes that he is still in this world, and even that he is still in the body. So much is this the case that when told he is a spirit, wonder and amazement possess him, both because he finds himself exactly like a man, in his senses, desires, and thoughts, and because during his life in this world he had not believed in the existence of the spirit, or, as is the case with some, that the spirit could be what he now finds it to be.

A second general fact is that a spirit enjoys much more excellent sensitive faculties, and far superior powers of thinking and speaking, than when living in the body, so that the two states scarcely admit of comparison, although spirits are not aware of this until gifted with reflection by the Lord.

Beware of the false notion that spirits do not possess far more exquisite sensations than during the life of the body. I know the contrary by experience repeated thousands of times. Should any be unwilling to believe this, in consequence of their preconceived ideas concerning the nature of spirit, let them learn it by their own experience when they come into the other life, where it will compel them to believe.

In the first place spirits have sight, for they live in the light, and good spirits, angelic spirits, and angels, in a light so great that the noonday light of this world can hardly be compared to it. The light in which they dwell, and by which they see.... Spirits also have hearing, hearing so exquisite that the hearing of the body cannot be compared to it. For years they have spoken to me almost continually.... They have also the sense of smell.... They have a most exquisite sense of touch, whence come the pains and torments endured in hell; for all sensations have relation to the touch, of which they are merely diversities and varieties. They have desires and affections to which those they had in the body cannot be compared.... Spirits think with much more clearness and distinctness than they had thought during their life in the body.

There are more things contained within a single idea of their thought than in a thousand of the ideas they had possessed in this world. They speak together with so much acuteness, subtlety, sagacity, and distinctness, that if a man could perceive anything of it, it would excite his astonishment. In short, they possess everything that men possess, but in a more perfect manner, except the flesh and bones and the attendant imperfections. They acknowledge and perceive that even while they lived in the body it was the spirit that sensated, and that although the faculty of sensation manifested itself in the body, still it was not of the body; and therefore that when the body is cast aside, the sensations are far more exquisite and perfect. Life consists in the exercise of sensation, for without it there is no life, and such as is the faculty of sensation, such is the life, a fact that anyone may observe.

(Arcana Coelestia 320-322)

Man's Entrance Into Eternal Life (Pt 2)

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
Man's Entrance Into Eternal Life

After the use of light has been given to the resuscitated person, or soul, so that he can look about him, the spiritual angels previously spoken of render him all the kindly services he can in that state desire, and give him information about the things of the other life, but only so far as he is able to receive it. If he has been in faith, and desires it, they show him the wonderful and magnificent things of heaven.

But if the resuscitated person or soul is not of such a character as to be willing to be instructed, he then desires to be rid of the company of the angels, which they exquisitely perceive, for in the other life there is a communication of all the ideas of thought. Still, they do not leave him even then, but he dissociates himself from them. The angels love everyone, and desire nothing more than to render him kindly services, to instruct him, and to convey him to heaven. In this consists their highest delight.

When the soul thus dissociates himself, he is received by good spirits, who likewise render him all kind offices while he is in their company. If however his life in the world has been such that he cannot remain in the company of the good, he desires to be rid of these also, and this process is repeated again and again, until he associates himself with those who are in full agreement with his former life in the world, among whom he finds as it were his own life. And then, wonderful to say, he leads with them a life like that which he had lived when in the body. But after sinking back into such a life, he makes a new beginning of life; and some after a longer time, some after a shorter, are from this borne on toward hell; but such as have been in faith toward the Lord, are from that new beginning of life led step by step toward heaven.

Some however advance more slowly toward heaven, and others more quickly. I have seen some who were elevated to heaven immediately after death, of which I am permitted to mention only two instances.

A certain spirit came and discoursed with me, who, as was evident from certain signs, had only lately died. At first he knew not where he was, supposing himself still to be in the world; but when he became conscious that he was in the other life, and that he no longer possessed anything, such as house, wealth, and the like, being in another kingdom, where he was deprived of all he had possessed in the world, he was seized with anxiety, and knew not where to betake himself, or whither to go for a place of abode. He was then informed that the Lord alone provides for him and for all; and was left to himself, that his thoughts might take their wonted direction, as in the world. He now considered (for in the other life the thoughts of all may be plainly perceived) what he must do, being deprived of all means of subsistence; and while in this state of anxiety he was brought into association with some celestial spirits who belonged to the province of the heart, and who showed him every attention that he could desire. This being done, he was again left to himself, and began to think, from charity, how he might repay kindness so great, from which it was evident that while he had lived in the body he had been in the charity of faith, and he was therefore at once taken up into heaven.

I saw another also who was immediately translated into heaven by the angels, and was accepted by the Lord and shown the glory of heaven; not to mention much other experience respecting others who were conveyed to heaven after some lapse of time.

(Arcana Coelestia 314-319)

Man's Entrance Into Eternal Life (Pt 1)

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
The Entrance into Eternal Life of Those Who are Raised from The Dead

When the celestial angels are with a resuscitated person, they do not leave him, for they love everyone; but when the soul is of such a character that he can no longer be in the company of the celestial angels, he is eager to depart from them; and when this takes place the spiritual angels arrive, and give him the use of light, for previously he had seen nothing, but had only thought.

I was shown how these angels work. They seemed to as it were roll off the coat of the left eye toward the septum of the nose, in order that the eye might be opened and the use of light be granted. To the man it appears as if this were really done, but it is only an appearance.

After this little membrane has been thus in appearance rolled off, some light is visible, but dim, such as a man sees through his eyelids when he first awakes out of sleep; and he who is being resuscitated is in a tranquil state, being still guarded by the celestial angels. There then appears a kind of shadow of an azure color, with a little star, but I perceived that this takes place with variety.

Afterwards there seems to be something gently unrolled from the face, and perception is communicated to him, the angels being especially cautious to prevent any idea coming from him but such as is of a soft and tender nature, as of love; and it is now given him to know that he is a spirit.

He then commences his life. This at first is happy and glad, for he seems to himself to have come into eternal life, which is represented by a bright white light that becomes of a beautiful golden tinge, by which is signified his first life, to wit, that it is celestial as well as spiritual.

His being next taken into the society of good spirits is represented by a young man sitting on a horse and directing it toward hell, but the horse cannot move a step. He is represented as a youth because when he first enters upon eternal life he is among angels, and therefore appears to himself to be in the flower of youth.

His subsequent life is represented by his dismounting from the horse and walking on foot, because he cannot make the horse move from the place; and it is insinuated to him that he must be instructed in the knowledges of what is true and good.

Afterwards pathways were seen sloping gently upward, which signify that by the knowledges of what is true and good, and by self-acknowledgment, he should be led by degrees toward heaven; for no one can be conducted thither without such self-acknowledgment, and the knowledges of what is true and good.

(Arcana Coelestia 182-189)

Transition from the Natural World to the Spiritual World

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
The Resuscitation of Man from the Dead, and His Entrance into Eternal Life

Being permitted to describe in connected order how man passes from the life of the body into the life of eternity, in order that the way in which he is resuscitated might be known, this has been shown me, not by hearing, but by actual experience.

I was reduced into a state of insensibility as to the bodily senses, thus almost into the state of dying persons, retaining however my interior life unimpaired, attended with the power of thinking, and with sufficient breathing for life, and finally with a tacit breathing, that I might perceive and remember what happens to those who have died and are being resuscitated.

Celestial angels were present who occupied the region of the heart, so that as to the heart I seemed united with them, and so that at length scarcely anything was left to me except thought, and the consequent perception, and this for some hours.

I was thus removed from communication with spirits in the world of spirits, who supposed that I had departed from the life of the body. Besides the celestial angels, who occupied the region of the heart, there were also two angels sitting at my head, and it was given me to perceive that it is so with everyone.

The angels who sat at my head were perfectly silent, merely communicating their thoughts by the face, so that I could perceive that another face was as it were induced upon me; indeed two, because there were two angels. When the angels perceive that their faces are received, they know that the man is dead.

After recognizing their faces, they induced certain changes about the region of the mouth, and thus communicated their thoughts, for it is customary with the celestial angels to speak by the province of the mouth, and it was permitted me to perceive their cogitative speech.

An aromatic odor was perceived, like that of an embalmed corpse, for when the celestial angels are present, the cadaverous odor is perceived as if it were aromatic, which when perceived by evil spirits prevents their approach.

Meanwhile I perceived that the region of the heart was kept very closely united with the celestial angels, as was also evident from the pulsation.

It was insinuated to me that man is kept engaged by the angels in the pious and holy thoughts which he entertained at the point of death; and it was also insinuated that those who are dying usually think about eternal life, and seldom of salvation and happiness, and therefore the angels keep them in the thought of eternal life.

In this thought they are kept for a considerable time by the celestial angels before these angels depart, and those who are being resuscitated are then left to the spiritual angels, with whom they are next associated. Meanwhile they have a dim idea that they are living in the body.

As soon as the internal parts of the body grow cold, the vital substances are separated from the man, wherever they may be, even if inclosed in a thousand labyrinthine interlacings, for such is the efficacy of the Lord's mercy (which I had previously perceived as a living and mighty attraction), that nothing vital can remain behind.

The celestial angels who sat at the head remained with me for some time after I was as it were resuscitated, but they conversed only tacitly. It was perceived from their cogitative speech that they made light of all fallacies and falsities, smiling at them not indeed as matters for derision, but as if they cared nothing about them. Their speech is cogitative, devoid of sound, and in this kind of language they begin to speak with the souls with whom they are at first present.

As yet the man, thus resuscitated by the celestial angels, possesses only an obscure life; but when the time comes for him to be delivered to the spiritual angels, then after a little delay, when the spiritual angels have approached, the celestial depart; and it has been shown me how the spiritual angels operate in order that the man may receive the benefit of light.

(Arcana Coelestia 168-181)

(continuation of this subject to follow)

Learning About Heaven and Hell (Pt 5)

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

CONCERNING VASTATIONS

There are many persons who during their life in this world from simplicity and ignorance have imbibed falsities of religious belief, and yet have had a kind of conscience in accordance with the principles of their faith, and have not like others lived in hatred, revenge, and adultery. In the other life these persons cannot be introduced into heavenly societies so long as they remain in these falsities, for they would contaminate them. They are therefore kept for a time in the lower earth, in order that they may get rid of their false principles. The time that they remain there is longer or shorter according to the nature of the falsity, and the life contracted thereby, and according to the degree in which they have confirmed themselves in their principles. Some suffer there severely, others not severely. These sufferings are what are called Vastations, of which there is frequent mention in the Word.* When the period of vastation is completed, they are taken up into heaven, and as newcomers are instructed in the truths of faith, and this by the angels by whom they are received. 

There are some who are very willing to be vastated and thus get rid of the false principles which they have brought with them from the world. (No one can get rid of his false principles in the other life except by the lapse of time and by means provided by the Lord.) While these persons remain in the lower earth, they are kept by the Lord in the hope of deliverance, and in the thought of the end in view, which is that they may be amended and prepared to receive heavenly happiness.

Some are kept in a middle state between sleep and waking, and think very little, except when they as it were awake - which takes place by alternations - and then they remember what they had thought and done in the life of the body, and again they relapse into the middle state between being awake and being asleep. In this way these are vastated. They are under the left foot, a little in front.

Those who have fully confirmed themselves in false principles are reduced to complete ignorance, and then they are in obscurity and confusion, so that when they merely think of the things in which they have confirmed themselves, they have inward pain. But after some time has passed, they are as it were created anew, and are imbued with the truths of faith.

Those who have assumed righteousness and merit on account of their good works, and so have attributed the efficacy of salvation to themselves, and not to the Lord and His righteousness and merit, and have confirmed themselves in this in thought and in life, in the other world have their principles of falsity turned into phantasies, so that they seem to themselves to be hewing wood: this is exactly as it appears to them. I have spoken with them. When they are engaged in their labor, and are asked whether they are not fatigued, they reply that they have not yet accomplished enough work to be able to merit heaven. When they are hewing the wood there appears to be something of the Lord under the wood, thus as if the wood were merit that they are getting. The more of the Lord there appears in the wood, the longer they remain in this condition; but when that appearance begins to cease, their vastation is drawing to an end. At length they become such that they too can be admitted into good societies, but still they long fluctuate between truth and falsity. Great care is taken of them by the Lord, because they have lived a dutiful life, and He from time to time sends angels to them. These are they who in the Jewish Church were represented by the hewers of wood —

Now therefore ye are cursed, and there shall none of you be freed from being bondmen, and hewers of wood and drawers of water for the house of my God. ... And Joshua made them that day hewers of wood and drawers of water for the congregation, and for the altar of the Lord, even unto this day, in the place which he should choose. (Josh. 9:23, 27).

Those who have lived a good civic and moral life, but have persuaded themselves that they merit heaven by their works, and have believed that it is sufficient to acknowledge an only God as the Creator of the universe, in the other life have their false principles turned into such phantasies that they seem to themselves to be cutting grass, and are called grass-cutters. They are cold, and try to warm themselves by this cutting. Sometimes they go round and inquire among those whom they meet whether they will give them some heat, which indeed spirits can do, but the heat which they receive has no effect upon them, because it is external and what they want is internal heat; and therefore they return to their cutting, and thus gain heat by their labor. Their cold I have felt. They are always hoping to be taken up into heaven, and sometimes consult together how they may introduce themselves by their own power. As these persons have performed good works, they are among those who are vastated; and at length, after some time has passed, they are introduced into good societies, and are instructed.

Those however who have been in the goods and truths of faith, and have gained therefrom a conscience and a life of charity, are taken up by the Lord into heaven immediately after death.

There are girls who have been enticed into harlotry, and thus persuaded that there is no evil in it, being in other respects rightly disposed. These, because they are not yet of an age to be able to know and judge concerning such a life, have an instructor with them, quite severe, who chastises them whenever in thought they break out into such wantonness. Of him they are in great fear, and in this way are vastated. But adult women who have been harlots and have enticed other women, do not undergo vastation, but are in hell.

* Vastation in the Latin is the same word as wasting or laying waste.

(Arcana Coelestia 1106-1113)