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Temptations A series of extracts compiled by Bazil Lazer from the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg on the nature, cause and purpose of spiritual temptations CONTENTS
Introduction
"Regeneration takes place in order for the previous life of the person to die away and for a new life that is heavenly to come in. You can assume from this that there certainly will be a struggle, for the former person resists and does not want to die out, while the life of the new person can enter only where the old life has expired. Clearly there is a struggle on both sides, and a fierce one because it is a struggle for life" Emanuel Swedenborg
"Temptations" compiled by Bazil Lazer from the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg New Translation of Latin quotations and revision of Basil Lazer's remarks by David F Gladish For Basil Lazer Trust The New Church Originally printed in Australia by Nadley Press • 68 Oak Road Kirrawee NSW 2232 ISBN 0 646 29546 2
Layout design and linocuts by Donna Heldon © 2009
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There are many temptations. In general, they are heavenly, spiritual, and worldly, not to be confused in the least. There can be heavenly temptations only for people who love the Lord, and spiritual ones for those who have charitable love for their neighbour. Worldly temptations are entirely different from these. They are not temptations but only anxieties about whatever attacks their worldly loves, stirred up by misfortune, diseases, and malfunction of the blood and body fluids. These
few remarks give some idea of what temptation is. Clearly it is anguish
and anxiety about things that are hostile to what we love. For those who
love the Lord, anything hostile to love for the Lord causes a deep
internal anguish.
This is temptation on a heavenly plane. For
those who have love for the neighbour, or charity, anything hostile to
this love arouses pangs of conscience. This is temptation on a spiritual
plane. But what many worldly people call "temptations" and "remorse of
conscience" are not temptations but only anxieties about what is
threatening their loves, as when they anticipate and apprehend being
deprived of prestige, worldly goods, reputation, pleasures, bodily life,
and so on. Still, these anxieties usually yield some good result. People who have charity on a worldly level have
temptations, too— all kinds of people with variant beliefs, gentiles,
and idolaters—from things that threaten their life's beliefs that they
hold dear but these are difficulties that simulate spiritual
temptations. In temptations there is exhaustion and desertion,
there is discouragement and resultant enervation and indignation as
well as other feelings of inward pain, in variety and with variations
according to the states of evil and misbelief which evil demons and
spirits stir up and the victim struggles against. Diabolical spirits
long to discover some falsity more than anything else. In fact, it is
common for them to supply a misconception themselves and then use it as
an accusation. When a person asserts himself against the evil and
falsity poured in and stirred up by evil spirits during temptations,
that person has more freedom than under any conditions other than
conditions of temptation, although he cannot appreciate this at the
time. The freedom is an inner freedom, in which he wants to subdue evil,
and it is sufficient to equal the strength and persistence of the evil
that confronts him. Otherwise he would never be able to resist. This freedom comes from the Lord, who inserts it into
the person's conscience and by means of it enables him to conquer the
evil as if on his own. Through this freedom one is gifted with a selfhood in
which the Lord can do good. Without a selfhood gained in freedom (given,
that is) people can never be reformed, because they cannot receive the
new will which is conscience. The freedom supplied in this way is
precisely the plane for the flowing in of goodness and truth from the
Lord. This is why people who do not resist from free will, or in
freedom, during temptations, fall victim to them. The
Lord never forces anyone. Someone who is forced to think the truth and
do good is not reformed but thinks untruth and wants what is wrong all
the more. All compulsion has this effect, as
records and documents from life show. They
make two things known: that conscience does not allow itself to be
forced, and that we incline toward what is forbidden. Besides, everyone
wants to move from constraint to freedom, because this is a vital
matter. So it
is obvious that the Lord dislikes anything that does not corm out of
freedom, that is, voluntarily or from free will.
For when ______________________________________________________ Someone who is forced to think truth and do good is not reformed but thinks untruth and wants what is wrong all the more ______________________________________________________
pulsion, he is not worshipping from
anything in himself. He makes an outward show,
or rather is forced
to make it. Inwardly there is either nothing or else
repugnance—contradiction, in fact. Thanks to the freedom the Lord provides, when someone
is being regenerated, he uses self-control, is humble, even coerces his
rationality to submit, and so he receives an angelic selfhood. Then the
Lord improves this selfhood step by step and makes it more and more
free. So it becomes responsive to goodness and therefore to truth, and
delights in it, and is happy with good and truth, like the angels. Of
this freedom the Lord Himself says in John (8:32,36), "the truth shall
make you free ... if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed". People without a conscience do not know what this freedom is at all, for they place freedom in pleasure and the liberty to think and speak falsity and to intend and do evil, and not repress these things and be humble, much less coerce themselves. This is ______________________________________________________ we incline toward what is forbidden ______________________________________________________ quite the opposite thing, and the Lord teaches of
them, "Whoever commits sin is a slave of sin" (John 8:34). They
get this enslaved freedom from the infernal spirits who are around them
and infuse it into them.
When they participate in
these
spirits' lives, they participate in the spirits' loves and lusts. They
are wafted on a putrid, fecal happiness. When they are carried away on
its rush, so to speak, they think they are in freedom, but it is
infernal freedom. The difference between this infernal freedom and
heavenly freedom is that the one is deadly and drags them down toward
hell, but the other—heavenly freedom— is vital and carries them up
toward heaven. Self-coercion is mastering and subduing the evils and false convictions that rise from the outer person up into his rational life. It is not some plunge into poverty and misery or giving up all physical pleasures. Evil is not mastered and subdued this way, and sometimes another evil may be stirred up, like merit for self-denial. Moreover, the person's freedom suffers. Only in the soil of freedom can goodness and true belief be planted. [Arcana Coelestia 1947] Temptations are nothing other than the inner person's wrestling with the outer; that is, the spiritual person with the worldly. For they both want to control, and when there is a question of control, there is a struggle, which is wrestling. In an inward sense, the "wrestlings of God" and "prevailing" (see Gen. 30:8) are temptations in which the person is successful, but in the outward sense this is resistance on the person's worldly level, since all temptation is just that. For spiritual temptations are a matter of control—a matter of which will be in charge, the inner person or the outer, or in other words, the spiritual or the worldly, since they are mutually opposed. So when someone is in temptation, the inward or spiritual person is ______________________________________________________ it is not some plunge into poverty and misery or giving up all physical pleasures evil is not subdued or mastered in this way ______________________________________________________ ruled by the Lord through the angels but the outer or
worldly person is ruled by spirits of hell. The struggle between them is
what is experienced as temptation in the person. When someone is fit for
regeneration both in his beliefs and in the way he lives, he will
prevail in temptations, but when he is not able to be regenerated, he
will give way in temptations. Temptation is the way the inner being of a person merges with the outer. For they differ with one another, but temptations reduce them to accord and agreement. The exterior person is definitely the type that, left to itself, craves nothing but physical and worldly things. They are the joy of his life. But when the inner person is open to heaven and wants heavenly things—as those who can be regenerated do—then heavenly things are a joy to that inner person. When someone is under temptation, there is strife between these two joys. The person does not know it, because he does not know what heavenly joy is and what hellish joy is, much less how opposite they ______________________________________________________ temptation is the way the inner person merges with the outer ______________________________________________________ are. But
angels of heaven can in no way join a person in his physical and worldly
pleasure until it is brought into compliance, so that physical and
worldly pleasure is no longer the object, except to serve heavenly
pleasures. Once this happens, angels can be with the person in both
pleasures, and then his pleasure becomes bliss, and finally, in the next
life, happiness. Anyone who thinks that a person's worldly pleasure
before regeneration is not infernal and not beset with diabolical
spirits, is very much mistaken. He does not know what people are like.
As to his worldly plane, a person is in the clutches of demons and
infernal spirits before regeneration, no matter how much he might seem
to himself to be just like anyone else and can be just as holy as the
rest. He can debate about the truth and goodness of his faith and even
think he is confirmed in it. If he does not detect in himself any
fondness for what is right and fair in his job and for truth and
goodness in company and in life, he should know that he is enjoying the
kind of pleasure that the infernals do, for in his pleasure there is no
love other than love of self and love of the world. When these loves
make up someone's pleasure, there is nothing of charity in it and
nothing of faith. Once this pleasure is dominant, the only way it can
be blunted and overthrown is by affirming and acknowledging the holiness
of belief and good behaviour, and then by temptation. For people who do
not affirm and acknowledge the good and truth associated with belief and
charity are unable to enter any temptation at all. There is nothing
within them that resists the evil and the falseness that worldly
pleasure encourages. Temptation occurs only to people who are experiencing
the good effects of the truth—that is, people who love the truth, or
have affection for it—since someone who does not love the truth he has,
or feels no response to it, does not care about it. But someone who
loves it is anxious not to have it injured. What makes up a person's
intellectual life is what he thinks is true, and what he has stamped on
his mind as being good makes up the life of his will. Therefore, when
what he thinks is true is attacked, his intellectual life is attacked,
and when what he has stamped on his mind as being good is attacked, the
life of his will is attacked. When someone is tempted, therefore, his
life is at stake. The first battle is about truth, because this is what
one loves at first. Evil spirits attack whatever someone loves. Once he
loves goodness more than truth (the precedence having reversed), he is
tempted in regard to goodness. But
not many people know what temptation is these days, because not many
undergo temptation at all. Only people with the good motives of belief,
which is love for the neighbour, can be tempted. People without this
charity would succumb at once if tempted, and those who succumb start
confirming evil and having false convictions.
It brings them into contact with evil
spirits who master them. This is why so few people come under any kind
of spiritual temptation these days. They only feel certain worldly
anxieties—to keep them from the self-love and materialism that they
would otherwise rush into without restraint. Note in general that good and truth are always
brought together in the course of temptations. The reason is that evil
and falsity resist and, so to speak, revolt and try to interfere with
the connection of goodness with truth and truth with goodness, in every
way they can. This struggle develops between the spirits who are with a
person—between the spirits of evils and false concepts and the spirits
of goodness and true beliefs. The person notices it in the form of
temptation, as if within himself. So when the spirits of goodness and
true beliefs overcome the spirits of evils and false concepts, the Lord
sends the good spirits joy through heaven. The person feels this joy,
too, as if in himself, as a soothing relief. But the joy and relief are not due to the victory but
to the meeting of goodness and truth, for the uniting of goodness with
truth always has joy in it. It is the heavenly marriage, in which is the
Divinity. Conditions during temptation, compared to conditions
afterwards, are like those in a dungeon or prison—squalid and filthy,
because when someone is being tempted filthy spirits are near him. They
encircle him and stir up the evil inclinations and false ideas that are
in him, and they keep these active and exacerbate them until he is in
despair. This is why the person is in filth and squalor at that time. In the other life, all spiritual states can be seen with the eyes, and when this state of temptation comes out to be seen, it looks like a fog drifting out of foul places, and you ______________________________________________________ when a condition of temptation stops the fog lifts and the air clears ______________________________________________________ can smell
the stench from it. This is how the aura surrounding someone in
temptation looks, and someone who is being laid waste; in other words,
is in a pit in hell. But
when a condition of temptation stops, the fog lifts and the air clears.
The reason is that the temptations reveal
the misconceptions and bad tendencies in the person and remove them.
That mist appears as these are revealed, and the air clears as they are
removed. This changing condition is represented by Joseph's shaving and
changing his clothes (Gen. 41:14). A state of temptation can also be compared to the
state a person is in when he is among thieves—hair standing up,
expression desperate, and clothes torn. If someone succumbs in
temptation, he stays this way, but if he overcomes in temptation, then
after he has relaxed his face, combed his hair, and changed his clothes,
he becomes jovial and at peace. And there are, indeed, spirits and
demons of hell who surround you in the guise of criminals, and attack,
and induce temptation. All
temptations seem bad, because they are inner anxiety and pain, and are
like damnation. This is because then the person is placed in a condition
appropriate to his bad inclinations, so he is among bad spirits who
accuse him and torment his conscience. Yet angels protect him; that is,
the Lord does through angels. He maintains the person's hope and trust,
which are the inner weapons with which he fights back. The worldly plane
of life enters temptation especially when it is accepting the spiritual
plane, because life's evils and
false beliefs occupy the worldly plane. Around everyone, and around every good spirit, is a general sphere of effort from hell and a general sphere of effort from heaven. The sphere from hell is a sphere of effort to do harm and destroy. The one from heaven is a sphere of effort to do good and rescue. These spheres are general. Concurrently there is a special sphere around every person, for spirits out of hell and angels from heaven are with each person, so ______________________________________________________ people are in equilibrium and are free to think and intend evil as well as to think and intend good ______________________________________________________ people are in equilibrium and are free to think and
intend evil as well as to think and intend good.
Therefore, when someone of the church enters temptation, which takes
place when he follows his bad inclinations, then a struggle goes on
around him between the spirits out of hell and the angels from heaven.
The struggle lasts as long as the person
sticks to his bad inclinations. In the struggle it sometimes seems to
the spirits from hell that they are winning, and they press on,
sometimes that they are being defeated, and then they retreat. It makes
them afraid that more angels from heaven might join in against them and
that then they might be thrown into hell and never get out again. And
this is what does happen when they are defeated.
When spirits out of hell fight against angels,
they are in the world of spirits and are at liberty there. These things
can demonstrate, then, what is meant in an inner sense by the fact that
the Egyptians infested and oppressed the descendants of When someone is in temptation, that person is beset
all around by false concepts and evil influences that interfere with the
light flowing in from the Divinity, which is truth and goodness. The
person is, so to speak, in the shade. Shadows, in the other life, are
simply a siege of misbeliefs, for these take away the light and
therefore the awareness of consolation by truths for the person in
temptation. But when someone emerges from temptation, light appears,
with its spiritual heat, which is truth with its good. This brings
happiness after anxiety. This is the morning that follows night in the
other life. The reason why good is then noticeable and truth appears is
that after temptation, truth and good work down within and take root.
When someone is in temptation, he is as if hungering for what is good
and thirsting for the truth, so when he emerges from temptation, he
absorbs good like a hungry person feasting on food, and he takes on
truth like a thirsty person drinking. To "die in the wilderness" (Exodus 14:11) means to
fall victim in temptation and therefore to be condemned. This shows that
"Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in
the wilderness?" means that, with damnation, where is the difference if
it is from infestation by false ideas, the state they were in before, or
by temptations where they succumb, the state they are in afterwards. Clearly these are desperate words. People who are in despair, which is the climax of temptation, even think such things as this, and then they are on a slippery slope, or as if sliding into hell. But actually, a thought like this at that time is not harmful. Angels pay no attention to it, for there is a limit to everyone's strength. When temptation reaches the final limit of one's strength, he can hold on no longer but slips. But just then, on the brink of falling, the Lord raises him, and this releases him from the desperation. Usually he is then led into a state of hope and from there into full consolation and also into a festive mood. ______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
"false concepts and evil influences interfere with the light flowing in from the Divinity" (linocut by Donna Heldon © 2009) A state of temptation where people succumb is called damnation because those who give in under temptation enter the state of the condemned. ______________________________________________________ temptations are for the purpose of confirming good states of mind and true beliefs ______________________________________________________ Temptations are for the purpose of confirming good
states of mind and true beliefs, and uniting them like faith and
charity, and this purpose is achieved when someone succeeds under
temptation. But when someone fails, the truth and good are rejected, and
falsity and evil are confirmed. A state of damnation for people comes
from this. As to the temptations that people of the spiritual
church suffered, and the ones the people of this church will suffer,
note that in people of a spiritual church a belief cannot be implanted
except through temptations, so neither can charity, for in temptations a
person is in a struggle against what is false and what is evil. The
false and the evil flow from the hells into the outward level of a
person, but what is good and what is true flow into the inward person
from the Lord. So what we call temptation is the struggle of the inward
person with the outward. The
more the outer person is brought under obedience to the inward person,
the more faith and charity are implanted.
For the outer or worldly plane of a person
is a receptacle of ______________________________________________________ there must be temptation to regenerate a person ______________________________________________________ receives nothing that flows from within but
either rejects it, kills it, or smothers it, so there is no
regeneration. This is why there must be temptation to regenerate a
person, which is brought about by the sowing of belief and of charity,
and thus by the formation of a new will and a new way of understanding.
This is also the reason why the Lord's Church is spoken of as militant. Temptations are on-going hopelessness about
salvation, mild at first but more and more serious, until finally there
is doubt, almost to the point of denial, about the presence of the
Divinity and about His help. Spiritual life is ordinarily carried to
this extreme in temptations because this gets worldly life out of the
way. Then, in this medium of despair, the Lord keeps the innermost plane
of life in the struggle against falsity. As a result, this despair is
soon dissipated by comfort that the Lord then provides. For after every
spiritual temptation there is consolation and something like renewed
life.
For Comments please E-mail: information@swedenborg.ca Read the next [4th] chapter "The struggles of temptation" Or go
to the previous [2nd] chapter
"The Lord's temptations"
[1] Where temptations come from
Appendix |
