Week 1    Day 1

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Introduction

Passages Regarding the Nature of the Memorable Relations

CL 1 (see also TCR 851). I foresee that many who read the following Relations and those after the chapters will believe they are fictions of the imagination; but I declare in truth that they are not fictions, but things actually done and seen. Nor were they seen in any state of the mind asleep, but in a state of full wakefulness. For it has pleased the Lord to manifest Himself to me, and to send me to teach the things that will belong to the New Church which is meant by the New Jerusalem in the Apocalypse. To this end He has opened the interiors of my mind and spirit, whereby He has given me to be in the spiritual world with angels and at the same time in the natural world with men, and this now for five and twenty years.

AR 962. Since it has been given me by the Lord to see the wonderful things which are in the heavens and below the heavens, I must, from command, relate what has been seen.

Index to Memorable Relations [in True Christian Religion]. The things contained in the Memorable Relations which follow the chapters are true; and similar things were seen and heard by the prophets before the coming of the Lord, and similar things by the apostles after His coming, as by Peter, Paul, and especially by John in the Apocalypse; these things are set forth.

DSE 4123. CONCERNING REVELATIONS [through Swedenborg]

There are spirits who are averse to anything being said about the things revealed, but it was replied that they are instead of miracles, and that without them men would not know the character of the book, nor would they buy it, or read it, or understand it, or be affected by it, or believe it—in a word, that they would remain in ignorance [of the whole subject] and would not wish to hear anything about the interiors of the Word, which they regard as mere phantasies. Such as are merely men of learning will for the most part reject them. – 1748, December 9.

Invitation to the New Church 39. That miracles are not done at this day, is on account of the reasons which are stated in True Christian Religion (n. 501); wherefore, the Lord said that they would seduce (Matt. 24:24). Again, what is more common with the Roman Catholics than filling the tombs of the saints, and the walls of monasteries with miracles? How many plates of gold and silver are there not in the tomb of Anthony of Padua? How many are there not where the three wise men are said to be buried? And how many are there not at Prague? And in other places? What else than illusions can be derived from them?

The fact that I converse in the spiritual world with angels and spirits, that I have described the states of heaven and hell and the life after death; and further, the fact that there has been disclosed to me the spiritual sense of the Word—besides many other things—is worth more than all these miracles. Such communication, as far as I know, has not been granted by the Lord to anyone before. These are evidence that this has been granted for the sake of the New Church, which is the crown of all the churches, and which will endure forever. Being in the spiritual world, seeing the wonderful things of heaven and the miserable things of hell; and being there in the very light of the Lord in which are the angels, surpasses all miracles. Evidence that I am there may be seen in abundance in my books.

Passages Regarding the Appearances of Things in the Spiritual World and the Letter of the Word

AE 410. No one can understand all these things [written in Isaiah 2:10-21] except from the internal sense, and unless he knows what the appearance of things is in the spiritual world.

AE 503. The sense of the letter of the Word comes for the most part from appearances in the spiritual world.

Letters Regarding Reactions to the Memorable Relations

Letter of Count von Hopken (a Swedish noble and contemporary of Swedenborg), writing to a friend:

“Once I asked [Swedenborg] why he wrote and published those memorable relations, which seemed to throw so much ridicule on his doctrine, otherwise so rational; and whether it would not be best for him to keep them to himself, and not publish them to the world? But he answered that he had orders from the Lord to publish them, and that those who might ridicule him on that account would do him an injustice. For, he said, why should I, who am a man in years, render myself ridiculous for fantasies and falsehoods?”

Letter from Swedenborg to Dr. Gabriel Andersson Beyer, April 8, 1766:

”At the conclusion of every chapter [of Apocalypse Revealed] there are memorable relations, separated from the text by asterisks. Please read over these first. From these, a thorough knowledge may be gathered of the wretched state into which the Reformed Churches have been brought by faith alone. I am now going from this place to England, where some noise is probably being made on account of the bishops of England being somewhat severely treated in the memorable relations; yet necessity required it.”

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