Summary: the life
review as exposed in 462b of Swedenborg’s A treatise concerning
heaven and hell, containing a relation of many wonderful things
therein, as heard and seen by the author, London, 1778
The life review in Swedenborg’s Heaven and Hell 462b
462b*, which I came across by opening the French translation of the
aforementioned work at random on 19th June, presents the information
Swedenborg claims to have gathered during one of his trances and the
subsequent contact he claims to have had with the other world (an
‘experience’ in his jargon). Interestingly, the examples provided in this
passage are very similar to those mentioned in the Second Temptation by the
Devil in the 15th century Ars Moriendi (roughly speaking, a
mediaeval ‘book of the dead’), as well as they are reminiscent of what is
said about all of our deeds and
thoughts being recorded in several of the Qu’ran’s surahs and, to some
extent, even of the Indian or theosophical concept of the Akashic records.
However, I shall refrain from making any conjectures at this point and
simply provide the text in the original English (but with some emphasis of
my making in green).
462. That man takes with him all his memory from this world into the other,
has been fully shewed before : I have had much sensible and memorable
experience of this, part of which shall here be orderly related. There were
certain spirits in the other world, who denied the crimes and enormities
which they had been guilty of in this ; and therefore, to the end they might
not pass for innocent in these matters, all
the capital sins they had committed in the course of their past life,
particularly those of adultery and fornication, were
set before them in order, as they
were recorded in their own memory ;
as likewise some others, who, by various
artifices of deceit and fraud, had wronged their neighbours, to
whom also their various acts of craft and
injustice were enumerated, many of which were known only to themselves
; and as these were discovered to them with clearness of evidence, even
to all their circumstances, and also what had passed in their own minds
relating thereto, they could not but
confess their guilt. There were some who had sat in the seat of
judgment, and suffered themselves to be corrupted by gifts and bribes, whose
memories were scrutinized, and all their malversations / and iniquitous
practices in office produced against them, to the number of some hundreds, together with the time, place, and the state of
their minds during such transactions ; nay, however wonderful it
may appear, the very books in which they had entered these things were
opened, and read to them page by page. There were others who had seduced and
violated the chastity of virgins, who were brought to the same trial, and convicted by the evidence of their own memory made
manifest, even as to time, place, conversation, and other particulars,
nay, the very faces of the virgins and
women they had seduced, were all at once fully represented, and that
sometimes for hours together. A certain spirit, who in this world had been
much addicted to slandering and backbiting, which he had here studiously
endeavoured to conceal from the parties injured, was there exposed to open
shame by a publick recital of his
calumnies and defamation, and that in his own words, together with the names
of the persons before whom he uttered them. Another, who had deceitfully
deprived a kinsman of his inheritance, was in like manner judged and
convicted, and, which will appear very strange, the
letters and writings, that had passed between them, were read in my
hearing ; and I was told that they were exact to a word : the fame
spirit had a little before his death taken away the life of his neighbour by
poison, which was made manifest under the following representation : he
appeared as digging a hole in the ground, and having ended his work, a man
was seen to rise out of it as from his grave, crying out to him, What have
you done to me ? Upon which he made a full discovery of the truth, and
related how the poisoner bespoke him in a friendly manner, and handed to him
the fatal cup ; and also what passed in his
mind, and what followed after : upon this evidence the delinquent
was sentenced to hell. In a word, all
murders, robberies, fraudulent devices, and sins and crimes of every kind,
are so evidenced from the memories and consciences of all offenders to
their full conviction in the other world, and all the circumstances of
them set in so clear a light, that not the least room is left them for
evasion or denial. I have also heard from the memory of a certain
spirit, as viewed and examined by the angels, all
that had passed in his mind from day to day for a month together, without
the least mistake, and that by a revocation of particulars as to the
perception of the party himself, in as clear a manner as at the time of
the first impression. These examples may serve to evince, that man retains
the memory of past things after he has entered upon the other world ; and
that nothing is kept so secret here, as not to have its manifestation
there, and that in the presence of many witnesses, according to
those words of our Lord : “There is
nothing covered, that shall not be revealed ; neither hid, that shall
not be known. Therefore, whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness, shall be
heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets,
shall be proclaimed upon the house-tops,” Luke xii. 2, 3.
This
entry was published on the seventh day of July 2021.
