Heaven and Hell (Swedenborg book)
Some of the things he claims to have experienced are that there are Jews, Muslims and people of pre-Christian times ("pagans" such as Romans and Greeks) in Heaven.
He says he spoke to married angel couples from the Golden Age who had been happy in heaven for thousands of years.
It has been translated into a number of languages, including Danish, French, English, Hindi, Russian, Spanish, Icelandic, Swedish, Serbian and Zulu.
A variety of important cultural figures, both writers and artists, were influenced by Swedenborg, including Johnny Appleseed, Jorge Luis Borges, Daniel Burnham, Arthur Conan Doyle,[4] Ralph Waldo Emerson,[5] John Flaxman, George Inness, Henry James, Sr., Carl Jung,[6] Immanuel Kant, Honoré de Balzac, Helen Keller, Czesław Miłosz, August Strindberg, D. T. Suzuki, and W. B. Yeats.
Edgar Allan Poe mentions this book in his work The Fall of the House of Usher.
The appearance of Him being angry at evil-doers was permitted due to the primitive level of understanding of people in Biblical times.
Specifically, holy fear was needed to keep the people of those times from sinking irretrievably into the consequences of their evils.
According to Swedenborg, angels in heaven do not have an ethereal or ephemeral existence but enjoy an active life of service to others.
They sleep and wake, love, breathe, eat, talk, read, work, play, and worship.
Swedenborg is explicitly clear that angels have no power whatsoever of their own, they neither take nor like to receive thanks or accept any credit.
Swedenborg states that, on the contrary, every angel or devil began life as an inhabitant of the human race.
The states of [true marriage love] are innocence, peace, tranquility, intimate friendship, full trust and a desire shared by the disposition and heart of each to do the other all the good they can.
All these things give rise to blessedness, bliss, joy and pleasure, and by their everlasting heavenly happiness.
If done for evil reasons, such as lust, it constitutes “successive polygamy.” [42] Swedenborg said in his revelation that true Christian marriage love between one husband and several wives is impossible for its spiritual origin, which is the formation of one mind out of two, is thus destroyed.
[45] In the highest sense to commit adultery means to deny the divinity of Jesus Christ and to profane the Word.
Swedenborg says judgment takes place in the World of Spirits immediately after each individual’s death.
According to Swedenborg, people are kept in spiritual freedom by means of the equilibrium between Heaven and Hell.
However, as soon as an evil person inhales the air there they have excruciating torment so they quickly shun it and escape to a place in keeping with their true state.
[59] As the old saying goes, “Where the tree falls, there it lies.”[60] The basic spiritual orientation of a person toward good or evil cannot be changed after death.
[66][67] On February 16, 1832 Joseph Smith—the progenitor of the Latter Day Saint movement—and Sidney Rigdon—a former Baptist minister associated with Alexander Campbell's movement who converted to the Church of Christ and served as a scribe and assistant to Smith—had a joint visionary experience in Hiram, Ohio while meditating on the meaning of John 5:29.
[70] The shared conception of a multi-tiered heaven may derive from the New Testament writings attributed to the apostle Paul, available to both Smith and Swedenborg through the Bible:[67][71]
