Swedenborg’s Communication as promised in the session of the Society, on September 16th
Society, September 23rd, 1859
Dear good friends and faithful believers. I wished to come here to encourage you in the path that you walk with such a great endeavor with respect to the spiritist subject. Your zeal is appreciated in the spiritual world. Move on but be aware that the obstacles will still block you for some time. Thus, as with me, you will not lack detractors. I preached Spiritism a century ago and found enemies of all kinds. I also had keen followers that supported my courage.
My spiritist moral and doctrine are not exempt of great mistakes, which I do acknowledge now. Thus, the penalties are not eternal, I see well. God is very just and good to eternally punish the creature that has not had sufficient strength to resist to the passions. Also, what I said about the world of the angels, preached in the temples, was not but an illusion of my senses. In good faith I thought I had seen it, as I said, but I was wrong. You are in the best path for you are better enlightened than we were in my time.
Carry on, but be prudent, so that your enemies do not find strong weapons against you. Watch over the space you gain daily!
Thus, courage! Your future is guaranteed. Your strength is your speech in the name of reason. Do you have questions to me? I will respond now.
SWEDENBORG
1. You had the first revelation in London, 1745. Did you wish for that? Were you already involved with the theological questions? - I was already involved with that but in no way I wished for that revelation. It came spontaneously to me.
2. Who was the spirit that appeared to you saying that he was God Himself? Was it really God? - No. I believed in what he said because I saw a super human being and I was flattered.
3. Why has he taken God’s name? - To be better obeyed.
4. Can God directly manifest to human beings? - God certainly could but no longer does that.
5. There was a time when God did manifest then? - Yes, in the first ages of Earth.
6. That spirit who made you write things that you now recognize wrong, did he do it in ill-faith? - He did not do it in ill-faith. He was mistaken himself, for he was not elevated enough. Today I see that the illusions of my own spirit and intelligence influenced him, despite anything. However, among some system errors, it is easy to acknowledge great truths.
7. Your doctrine is founded on the correspondences. Do you still believe in those relationships that you found among things of the material world with each thing of the moral world? - No. It is a fiction.
8. What do you understand by these words: God is man himself? - God is not man: man is an image of God.
9. Please elaborate. - I say that the human being is an image of God because the intelligence, the genie that he eventually receives is an emanation of the Divine Omnipotence. He represents God on Earth by that power he exerts onto nature and by the great virtues he has the capability of acquiring.
10. Should we consider man a part of God? - No. The human being is not part of Divinity. It is only his image.
11. Could you tell us how you received the communications from the spirits? Did you write what was revealed to you like the mediums or by inspiration? - When I was in silence, worshiping, my spirit was in a kind of ecstasy, and I clearly saw an image before me, speaking with me, dictating what I had to write. Sometimes, my imagination mixed with all that.
1
2. What should we think about the fact mentioned by Knight Beylon, with respect to the revelation you made to Queen Luisa Ulrika? - The revelation was true. Beylon denatured that.
13. What is your opinion about the Spiritist Doctrine, as is today? - I told you that you are in a safer path than I was since your lights are generally broader. I had to fight a much greater ignorance and, in particular, against superstition.
