Zones of the Spirit: A Book of Thoughts. August Strindberg
certainly there are. An ugly and evil woman, who so dazzles the eyes of a man that he sees her as the most beautiful and best, is a witch."
"Should she be burnt?"
"No, for she burns herself through her wickedness when she meets a man who is mail-clad with the love of God. Then the missiles of the witch rebound and strike herself. But one should not talk of such. He who touches pitch is defiled."
Through Faith to Knowledge.—The pupil asked: "How shall I know that I believe rightly?" "I will tell you. Doubt the regular denials of your everyday intelligence. Go out of yourself if you can, and place yourself at the believer's standpoint. Act as though you believed, and then test the belief, and see whether it agrees with your experiences. If it does, then you have gained in wisdom, and no one can shake your belief. When I for the first time obtained Swedenborg's Arcana Cœlestia, and looked through the ten thousand pages, it appeared to me all nonsense. And yet I could not help wondering, since the man was so extraordinarily learned in all the natural sciences, as well as in mathematics, philosophy, and political economy. Amid the apparent foolishness of the book were some details which remained riveted in my memory.
"Some time later, in my ordinary life, there happened something inexplicable. Subsequently light was thrown upon this by an experience which Swedenborg refers to his so-called heaven and his so-called angels. Then I began to search and to compare, to make experiments and to find explanations. I come to the conclusion that Swedenborg has had experiences which resemble those of earthly life, but are not the same. This he brings out in his theory of correspondences and agreements. The theosophists have expressed it thus: parallel with the earth-life we live another life on the astral plane, but unconsciously to ourselves."
The Enchanted Room.—The pupil became curious and asked: "What opened your eyes as regards Swedenborg?"
"It is difficult to say, but I will try to do so. In my lonely dwelling there was a room which I considered the most beautiful in the world. It had not been so beautiful at first, but great and important events had taken place there. A child had been born in it, and in it a man had died. Finally I fitted it up as a temple of memory, and never showed it to anyone.
"One day, however, the demon of pride and ostentation took possession of me, and I took a guest into it. He happened to be a 'black man,' a hopeless despairer, who only believed in physical force and in wickedness, and called himself 'a load of earth.' As I admitted him I said, 'Now you will see the most beautiful room in the country.' I turned on the electric light, which generally poured down from the ceiling such a blaze that not a dark corner was left in the room. The man stood in the middle of the room, looked round, grumbled to himself, and said 'I can't see that.'
"As he spoke, the room darkened, the walls contracted, the floor shrank in size. My splendid temple was metamorphosed before my eyes. It seemed to me like a room in a hospital, with coarse wall-papers; the beautiful flowered curtains looked dirty; the white surface of the little writing-table showed spots; the gilding was blackened; the brass fittings of the tiled oven were tarnished. The whole room was altered, and I was ashamed. It had been enchanted.
Concerning Correspondences.—"Now comes Swedenborg, but his explanation is somewhat difficult. I must make a prefatory remark, in order that you may not think I regard myself as an angel. By 'angel' Swedenborg means a deceased mortal, who by death has been released from the prison of the body, and by suffering in faith has recovered the highest faculties of his soul. It is necessary to bear this definition of Swedenborg's in mind, and to remember that it does not apply to my guest or myself.
"Swedenborg further remarks regarding these dematerialised beings: 'All which appears and exists around them seems to be produced and created by them. The fact that their surroundings are, as it were, produced and created by them is evident, because when they are no longer there the surroundings are altered. A change in the surroundings is also apparent, when other beings come in their place. Elysian plains change into their trees and fruits; gardens change into their roses and plants, and fields into their herbs and grasses. The reason for the appearance and alteration of such objects is that they are produced by the wishes of these angel beings and the currents of thought set in motion thereby.'
"Is not this a subtle observation of Swedenborg's, and have not the facts he alleges something corresponding to them in our lower sphere? Does it not resemble my adventure in the 'enchanted room?' Perhaps you have had a similar experience?"
The Green Island.—The pupil answered: "I have certainly had strange experiences, but did not understand them because I thought with the flesh. As I just heard you say that our experiences can receive a symbolical interpretation, I remembered an incident which resembled that which you have just related and compared with an observation of Swedenborg's. After a youth spent under intolerable pressure and too much work, a friend gave me a sum of money that I might spend the summer on the sea in literary recreation. When I saw the 'Green Island' with its carpets of flowers, beds of reeds, banks of willows, oak coppices, and hazel woods, I thought that I beheld Paradise. Together with three other young poets I passed the summer in a state of happiness which I have never experienced since. We were fairly religious, although we did not literally believe in the gods of the state, and we lived, as a rule, innocently enough, with simple pleasures such as bathing, sailing, and fishing.
"But there was an evil man among us. He was overbearing, and regarded mankind as his enemies; denied all goodness; spied after others' faults; rejoiced in others' misfortunes. Every time he left us to go to the town, the island seemed to me more beautiful; it seemed like Sunday. I was always the object of his gibes, but did not understand his malice. My friends wondered that I was not angry with him, as I was generally so passionate. I do not myself understand it, but I was as though protected, and noticed nothing, whatever the cause may have been. Perhaps you ask whether the island really was so wonderful. I answer: I found it so, but perhaps the beauty was in my way of looking at it."
Swedenborg's Hell.—The pupil continued: "The next summer I came again, but this time with other companions, and I was another man. The bitterness of life, the spirit of the time, new teachings, evil companionship made me doubt the beneficence of Providence, and finally deny its existence. We led a dreadful life together. We slandered each other, suspected each other even of theft. All wished to dominate, nobody would follow another to the best bathing-place, but each went to his own. We could not sail, for everyone wished to steer. We quarrelled from morning till night. We drank also, and half of us were treating themselves for incurable diseases. My 'Green Island,' the first paradise of my youth, became ugly and repulsive to me. I could see no more beauty in nature, although at that time I worshipped nature. But wait a minute, and see how it agreed with what Swedenborg says! The beautiful weed-fringed bay began to exhale such miasmas, that I got malarial fever. The gnats plagued us the whole night and stung through the thickest veil. If I wandered in the wood, and wished to pluck a flower, I saw an adder rear its head. One day, when I took some moss from a rock, I saw immediately a black snake zigzagging away. It was inexplicable. The peaceable inhabitants must have been infected by our wickedness, for they became malicious, ugly, quarrelsome, and enacted domestic tragedies. It was hell! When I became ill, my companions scoffed at me, and were angry, because I had to have a room to myself. They borrowed money from me, which was not my own, and behaved brutally. When I wanted a doctor, they would not fetch him."
The teacher broke in: "That is how Swedenborg describes hell."
Preliminary Knowledge Necessary.—The pupil asked: "Is there a hell?"
"You ask that, when you have been in it?"
"I mean, another one."
"What do you mean by another one? Has your experience not sufficed to convince you that there is one?"
"But what does Swedenborg think?"
"I don't know. It is possible that he does not mean a place, but a condition of mind. But as his descriptions of another side agree with our experiences on this side in this point, that whenever a man breaks the connection with the higher sphere, which is Love and Wisdom, a hell ensues, it does not matter whether it is