new church life: september/october 2017
on an earth for the sake of man.” (Arcana Coelestia 9237; see also Earths In The
Universe 112)
In view of the kind of teachings that I have noted, I feel pretty confident
that when Swedenborg was led to assert that there are people living on this or
that planet in our solar system, or in some other solar system, they are or were
there at the time the teaching was given. I just can find no indications in the
Heavenly Doctrine to believe otherwise.
But then how do we account for the data accumulated by scientists which,
so far, do not appear to confirm what the Heavenly Doctrine asserts? What
provisions has the Lord made of all things on these planets and satellites for
the sake of their inhabitants that they can be there and yet we have not detected
them? I would suggest that the Lord, in the Heavenly Doctrines, has not left us
without some clues, a few of which may be the following.
In a series in Spiritual Experiences, Swedenborg is led to discuss the
character of some spirits who apparently had lived on a satellite associated
with Jupiter. These people were of such a “spiritual” orientation that they
were denying that they had had natural bodies, intimating that perhaps they
had always been spirits. Investigation was made and it was determined that
they had indeed had natural bodies when they had lived on their earth.
Then this general, and I believe very significant, principle is given:
“Corporeal forms are governed entirely by the state of the atmospheres, and
many other things pertaining to the earths in which they dwell.” (Spiritual
Experiences 1670)
This is a very broad principle which could apply to situations ranging
in variety from conditions somewhat similar to what we have on our earth to
conditions that are radically different from this planet.
Perhaps conditions on Venus are of the first kind. Although impossible
perhaps for us maybe they are still similar enough for us to have some idea as
to how people may exist there. I do not know if Swedenborg as a scientist knew
of the great heat on the surface of Venus, but in the Heavenly Doctrine there
is clear indication of this.
While many passages about the people on Venus might leave us with the
impression that they live there much as we live here, note what is said in the
following passage about surface conditions in at least some places there and
the adaptation that people have made to them. “On account of the excessive
heat where they dwell they do not consociate during the daytime, but at night;
wherefore they live in darkness, yet they see.” (Spiritual Experiences 1450)
Conditions on Saturn may also be somewhat similar to our own, but still
a long way outside of what we might tolerate. Apparently it is very cold on
Saturn, at least for the people living there, and so it is indicated that the Lord
has provided them with a thermal skin. “They have no other than natural
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