Page:Emanuel Swedenborg, Scientist and Mystic.djvu/285

XX ] was cast down headlong. Afterwards he was lifted up by his associates, and taken into a den and into his own odor, where he revived." 20

That poor devil was better off, however, than another (here one suspects humor) whom Swedenborg said he saw scourged by his associates in hell, because he (though without meaning to and because he had a cold in his head and couldn't smell) "had approached such as were in a heavenly odor and had brought back some of their perfume in his garments," 21 which seems unjust but what can you expect of devils!

But life in the spirit world did not all smell like London in the eighteenth century. Swedenborg perceived a pleasant vinous odor and was informed "that it came from those who compliment one another from friendship and rightful love, so that there is also truth in the compliments. This odor exists with much variety, and comes from the sphere of fine manners."

The spheres of "charity and faith," or, as he sometimes called them, of love and wisdom, when they were perceived as odors smelled of "flowers, lilies and spices" of infinite variety.

"Moreover, the spheres of angels are sometimes made visible as atmospheres or auras, which are so beautiful, so pleasant and so various, that they cannot possibly be described." He did, however, sometimes try to describe the visible spheres or auras, not only of angels but of men, animals, plants, and minerals, for he saw them all as having their own sphere around them, "even the minutest particle." Man in the body he saw as "solid" as to his "terrestrial parts" inside his spiritual sphere, and both men and spirits he sometimes saw as surrounded by spheres of various colors, having spiritual significance, the darker colors pertaining to selfishness, the lighter to better qualities. They could be muddy; they could be rainbowlike.22

How those spheres were acquired which could sometimes be represented visually or via the spiritual equivalent of smell Swedenborg also tells. "Take as an example," he said, "one who has formed a high opinion of himself and of his own pre-eminent excellence. He at last becomes imbued with such a habit, and . . . wherever he goes, though he looks at others and speaks with them, he keeps himself in view; and this at first manifestly but afterwards not so