new church life : may / june 2016
Do such experiences , which are not terribly rare , violate people ’ s freedom and rationality by compelling them to believe in life after death ? No , they can be dismissed as mere dreams or something imagined . Those who are convinced by them probably already had the unconscious beginnings of belief in life after death in their hearts ; the experience of seeing a loved one who had died just brought that belief into full flower .
( WEO ) some will never learn
We might think that materialism would be impossible in the spiritual world – after all , the materialist ’ s own existence there should stand as living proof of the very thing his philosophy denies . Swedenborg tried that line of reasoning with an evil spirit he encountered once , but it only worked for a moment . Here are some excerpts from the account of their conversation ( with just the spirit ’ s words in quotation marks ):
I asked : Since you come from a community where there are schools of learning , tell me what you and your companions believe about God . “ God ,” he replied , “ is for us the universe , which we also call nature . God , heaven , angels and the like are idle words and fictions inspired by meteors , which many people here have seen flash before their eyes .”
I went on to ask what he and his community believed about religion . “ We who are educated above the ordinary level ,” he replied , “ look on religion as nothing but a toy for the common people . We believe what we see and love what we touch .”
Then I asked his opinion on heaven and hell . He laughed and said : “ mere nonsense , thought up by some church dignitary to seek fame among an ignorant populace .”
He said all this exactly as he had thought in the world , unaware that he was living after death , and forgetful of everything he had been told when he first entered the world of spirits . Therefore even when asked about life after death , he replied that it was a figment of the imagination .
On hearing this I could no longer stop myself from laughing . Satan , I said , you really are mad . Are you not in shape like a person ? Don ’ t you talk , see , hear and walk ? Remember that you lived in another world , and now you are alive after death , yet you have been speaking exactly as you did before you died .
He was given back his memory , and on remembering he was ashamed and cried : “ I am mad . I have seen heaven up above , and heard angels there speak things beyond description . But this was when I was a recent arrival . Now I shall remember this to tell the companions I left behind .” But as he went down forgetfulness blotted out his memory , so that on arrival he was as mad as they were , and called what I had told him madness . ( True Christian Religion 80 )
( WEO )
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