Page:Emanuel Swedenborg, Scientist and Mystic.djvu/160

144 usually find it in whatever orthodox idea of "sin" belongs to their cultural background, at least in the case of Christian mystics.

That Swedenborg had tasted this "honey of the soul" before his feelings of sinfulness began to attack him is quite clear. Perhaps it was as early as 1733, but certainly there are more than hints at mystical experience in the Economy. And in the prologue to the Animal Kingdom (the "Soul's Kingdom") written about 1742, he cites the well-known description (by Plotinus) of how the soul having united itself with a higher world and "feeling his own immortality with the greatest assurance and light" has to descend again into the body, becoming "sorrowful as the light decreased." Very significantly Swedenborg adds, "but this may perhaps appear like a mere fable to those who have not experienced it." 14

According to his diary of 1744, he continued to experience "the usual state of inward joy" quite frequently, but he had no more visions, not at least recorded, which he placed as outside of himself. He did have "a strong inward" vision of Jesus, he said, when he was bothered in a dream by dogs (he identified them with animal instincts). In another dream (definitely distinguished from a vision) he says he again saw Jesus. Here there was a charming touch. From time to time Swedenborg worried a little as to whether he wasn't avaricious, a vice he particularly detested, and in some of his dreams he noted that he wanted to hold on to his money. But in this one, he said, "It seemed as if I were with Christ himself as informally as with anybody. He borrowed a five-pound note from someone; I was sorry he had not borrowed it from me, and I took out two notes, letting one drop and then the other. He asked what was that, I said I had found them and that he had dropped one of them. I gave them to him and he took them—we seemed to live together in such a state of innocence."

Still, doubts kept returning. Even the night after the great Vision at Delft, he could not make his thoughts "contemplate Christ whom I saw such a little while ago . . ." There was a constant fight between faith and reason in spite of the fact that he thought he had submitted himself in all humility to faith. The fight went with him to England, where he went in May, 1744, having seen the first two parts of his new physiological work (the "Soul's Kingdom") through the press in The Hague. Sticking close to faith, he had