A Memorable Fancy
An Angel came to me and said: ‘O pitiable, foolish young man! O horrible! O dreadful state! Consider the hot, burning dungeon thou art preparing for thyself to all Eternity, to which thou art going in such career.’
I said: ‘Perhaps you will be willing to show me my eternal lot, and we will contemplate together upon it, and see whether your lot or mine is most desirable.’
So he took me thro’ a stable, and thro’ a church, and down into the church vault, at the end of which was a mill. Thro’ the mill we went, and came to a cave. Down the winding cavern we groped our tedious way, till a void boundless as a nether sky appear’d beneath us, and we held by the roots of trees, and hung over this immensity. But I said: ‘If you please, we will commit ourselves to this void, and see whether Providence is here also. If you will not, I will.’ But he answer’d: ‘Do not presume, O young man, but as we here remain, behold thy lot which will soon appear when the darkness passes away.’
So I remain’d with him, sitting in the twisted root of an oak. He was suspended in a fungus, which hung with the head downward into the deep.
By degrees we beheld the infinite Abyss, fiery as the smoke of a burning city; beneath us, at an immense distance, was the sun, black but shining; round it were fiery tracks on which revolv’d vast spiders, crawling after their prey, which flew, or rather swum, in the infinite deep, in the most terrific shapes of animals sprung from corruption; and the air was full of them, and seem’d composed of them—these are Devils, and are called Powers of the Air. I now asked my companion which was my eternal lot? He said: ‘Between the black and white spiders.’
But now, from between the black and white spiders, a cloud and fire burst and rolled thro’ the deep, blackening all beneath; so that the nether deep grew black as a sea, and rolled with a terrible noise. Beneath us was nothing now to be seen but a black tempest, till looking East between the clouds and the waves we saw a cataract of blood mixed with fire, and not many stones’ throw from us appear’d and sunk again the scaly fold of a monstrous serpent. At last, to the East, distant about three degrees, appear’d a fiery crest above the waves. Slowly it reared like a ridge of golden rocks, till we discover’d two globes of crimson fire, from which the sea fled away in clouds of smoke; and now we saw it was the head of Leviathan. His forehead was divided into streaks of green and purple like those on a tiger’s forehead. Soon we saw his mouth and red gills hang just above the raging foam, tinging the black deep with beams of blood, advancing toward us with all the fury of a Spiritual Existence.
My friend the Angel climb’d up from his station into the mill: I remain’d alone, and then this appearance was no more; but I found myself sitting on a pleasant bank beside a river, by moonlight, hearing a harper, who sung to the harp; and his theme was: ‘The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.’
But I arose and sought for the mill, and there I found my Angel, who, surprised, asked me how I escaped.
I answer’d: ‘All that we saw was owing to your metaphysics; for when you ran away, I found myself on a bank by moonlight hearing a harper. But now we have seen my eternal lot, shall I show you yours?’ He laugh’d at my proposal; but I, by force, suddenly caught him in my arms, and flew westerly thro’ the night, till we were elevated above the earth’s shadow; then I flung myself with him directly into the body of the sun. Here I clothed myself in white, and taking in my hand Swedenborg’s volumes, sunk from the glorious clime, and passed all the planets till we came to Saturn. Here I stay’d to rest, and then leap’d into the void between Saturn and the fixed stars.
‘Here,’ said I, ‘is your lot, in this space—if space it may be call’d.’ Soon we saw the stable and the church, and I took him to the altar and open’d the Bible, and lo! it was a deep pit, into which I descended, driving the Angel before me. Soon we saw seven houses of brick. One we enter’d; in it were a number of monkeys, baboons, and all of that species, chain’d by the middle, grinning and snatching at one another, but withheld by the shortness of their chains. However, I saw that they sometimes grew numerous, and then the weak were caught by the strong, and with a grinning aspect, first coupled with, and then devour’d, by plucking off first one limb and then another, till the body was left a helpless trunk. This, after grinning and kissing it with seeming fondness, they devour’d too; and here and there I saw one savourily picking the flesh off of his own tail. As the stench terribly annoy’d us both, we went into the mill, and I in my hand brought the skeleton of a body, which in the mill was Aristotle’s Analytics.
So the Angel said: ‘Thy phantasy has imposed upon me, and thou oughtest to be ashamed.’
I answer’d: ‘We impose on one another, and it is but lost time to converse with you whose works are only Analytics.’
I have always found that Angels have the vanity to speak of themselves as the Only Wise. This they do with a confident insolence sprouting from systematic reasoning.
Thus Swedenborg boasts that what he writes is new; tho’ it is only the Contents or Index of already publish’d books.
A man carried a monkey about for a show, and because he was a little wiser than the monkey, grew vain, and conceiv’d himself as much wiser than seven men. It is so with Swedenborg: he shows the folly of churches, and exposes hypocrites, till he imagines that all are religious, and himself the single one on earth that ever broke a net.
Now hear a plain fact: Swedenborg has not written one new truth. Now hear another: he has written all the old falsehoods.
And now hear the reason. He conversed with Angels who are all religious, and conversed not with Devils who all hate religion, for he was incapable thro’ his conceited notions.
Thus Swedenborg’s writings are a recapitulation of all superficial opinions, and an analysis of the more sublime—but no further.
Have now another plain fact. Any man of mechanical talents may, from the writings of Paracelsus or Jacob Behmen, produce ten thousand volumes of equal value with Swedenborg’s, and from those of Dante or Shakespear an infinite number.
But when he has done this, let him not say that he knows better than his master, for he only holds a candle in sunshine.