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THE HEAVENLY CITY: A SPIRITUAL GUIDEBOOK

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The Heavenly City is Swedenborg's own brief introduction to his religious ideas, translated into readable modern English. If you want to get the basics on Swedenborg in his own words--without having to struggle through old-fashioned translations--this is the book for you!

Contents

Introduction: The New Sky, the New Land, and What "The New Jerusalem" Means

Preface: A Comparison of Ancient and Present-Day Religion

Part I: Our Inner Structure

1. Goodness and Truth
2. Motivation and Understanding
3. Our Inner and Outer Selves

Part II: Our Different Loves

4. Love in General
5. Selfishness and Materialism
6. Loving Other People, or Kindness

Part III: Our Spiritual Life

7. Faith
8. Religious Devotion
9. Conscience
10. Freedom
11. Taking Credit for Our Actions

Part IV: Our Spiritual Development

12. Regretting our Faults and Giving Them Up
13. Rebirth
14. Inner Struggles

Part V: Christian Observances

15. Baptism
16. The Holy Supper

Part VI: Life After Death

17. Rising from Death
18. Heaven and Hell

Part VII: Facets of Religion

19. The Christian Religion
20. The Bible: A Holy Book
21. The Lord's Provision for Us
22. The Lord
23. Religious and Political Government

This contemporary translation of a small inspirational work by Swedenborg is also available as an audiobook on two cassettes. It is copublished by the Swedenborg Foundation, West Chester, PA, and the Swedenborg Enquiry Centre and Lending Library, Sydney, Australia.

I might never have bought this book on my own, but I was in a church study group. This book was first published in Latin in 1758, before the American revolution. Swedenborg had been trained in science and engineering, and worked in mining. According to the Introduction, this book, "the philosophy of the new religion," comes from heaven. "The only difference between things in heaven and things on earth is that everything in heaven is at a higher stage of development; everything there is spiritual, and spiritual things are far more developed than material things." (p. 6). This book is quite small, about a hundred pages. Kant must have read far more of Swedenborg's dreams and visions before writing his book, DREAMS OF A SPIRIT-SEER ILLUSTRATED BY DREAMS OF METAPHYSICS in 1766. Kant had been hoping, before he read all he had of Swedenborg, that Swedenborg would be able to provide some explanation for the powers of telepathy which Swedenborg possessed, which were most amazing. This book is confined to the topic of religion.

Things have changed in some denominations since 1758. A note by the translator alleges that those churches where "people are not allowed to read the Bible" (p. 7) are different now. Harmony, in this book, relates to a divine plan. "Goodness and truth come from the divine, which is the source of everything. This means there cannot be anything in heaven or on earth that does not relate to these two things." (p. 13). Since human beings have motivation and understanding, "The goodness in us is our motivation, and the truth in us is our understanding." (p. 15). An additional twofold aspect: "In good people, the inner part is in heaven with its light, and the outer part is in the world with its light. . . . In harmful people, the inner part is in the world with its light, and so is the outer part." (p. 17). For most people, "We are `sense-oriented' when our inner part is so superficial that we do not believe anything unless we can see it with our own eyes and touch it with our own hands. When we are like this, we are the lowest type of materialist, entangled in fallacies about everything that has to do with religious faith. . . . The body is just an extra outer part added on, in which the other two exist." (p. 20). Everything after that is about spirit. "Thinking and motivation are the spirit's inner part, and speech and action are its outer part." (p. 20).

Chapter 10, on "Freedom," starts to illustrate certain dangers. "Things we do under compulsion do not come from our own motivation, but from the motivation of whoever is forcing us to do them. . . . Freedom to do good things and freedom to do harmful things are as different and as distant from each other as heaven is from hell, though they seem outwardly similar. Freedom to do good things comes from heaven, and is called heavenly freedom. Freedom to do harmful things comes from hell, and is called hellish freedom." (p. 54). Religion becomes more important in Chapter 12: "When we are living in kindness and faith, we regret our faults every day. We think about our bad traits, admit them, avoid acting on them, and ask the Lord for help." (p. 63). Not only do we suffer when we are under compulsion, according to Chapter 13, "Every bad trait that has become second nature to us through long habit is passed on to our children. . . . Finally, so many bad traits have been passed down to us that all of our life is nothing but faults." (p. 67). But society has become so revolutionary in all its aspects, breaking chains of compulsion so often, all we are left with is Chapter 14, "Inner Struggles." As the thoroughly modern Christian (pretty amazing for a book written in 1758), Swedenborg proclaims, "So you can see that inner struggles are brought on by hell and are not from heaven. This is part of Christian belief, which says that God does not torment anyone." (p. 71).

Part V, Christian Observances, has religious explanations, such as "Heaven and Hell," which reflects "we stay there forever," (p. 84) either way. Part VII, Facets of Religion, tackles philosophy in Chapter 19. "But our religious philosophy by itself does not make us religious--only living by that philosophy does. This means faith by itself does not make a religion, but living by our faith, which is kindness, does make a religion." (p. 87). On government, the idea, "These officials should reward people who live in an orderly way, and punish people who defy law and order." (p. 101) There is probably a lawyer somewhere who thinks that means we should make all tax cuts permanent, and build more prisons, and his client's accountants might even agree. "Otherwise, the human race will be lost." (p. 101). But, "Rulers who believe that they themselves have the authority are not very wise," (p. 103) which must have been how Freud felt when he wished he had written "I can heartily recommend the Gestapo to anyone" before he left Vienna.

This is a book you will continue to return to year after year.

I like to re-read it at the begining of each year to refresh faith walk.

It is for the seeker who is looking to understand Christianity in a fresh new way. This book is for people of all faiths.

It is simple and a wonderful introduction to the faith Swedenborg had.

If you take to heart the ideas in this book, you will grow spiritually.