The Heavenly City: A Spiritual Guidebook

This is a book you will continue to return to year after year. I like to re-read it at the begining of each year to refresh faith walk. It is for the seeker who is looking to understand Christianity in a fresh new way. This book is for people of all faiths. It is simple and a wonderful introduction to the faith Swedenborg had. If you take to heart the ideas in this book, you will grow spiritually.

The Heavenly City is Swedenborg's own brief introduction to his religious ideas, translated into readable modern English. If you want to get the basics on Swedenborg in his own words--without having to struggle through old-fashioned translations--this is the book for you! Contents Introduction: The New Sky, the New Land, and What "The New Jerusalem" Means Preface: A Comparison of Ancient and Present-Day Religion Part I: Our Inner Structure 1. Goodness and Truth 2. Motivation and Understanding 3. Our Inner and Outer Selves Part II: Our Different Loves 4. Love in General 5. Selfishness and Materialism 6. Loving Other People, or Kindness Part III: Our Spiritual Life 7. Faith 8. Religious Devotion 9. Conscience 10. Freedom 11. Taking Credit for Our Actions Part IV: Our Spiritual Development 12. Regretting our Faults and Giving Them Up 13. Rebirth 14. Inner Struggles Part V: Christian Observances 15. Baptism 16. The Holy Supper Part VI: Life After Death 17. Rising from Death 18. Heaven and Hell Part VII: Facets of Religion 19. The Christian Religion 20. The Bible: A Holy Book 21. The Lord's Provision for Us 22. The Lord 23. Religious and Political Government

I might never have bought this book on my own, but I was in a church study group. This book was first published in Latin in 1758, before the American revolution. Swedenborg had been trained in science and engineering, and worked in mining. According to the Introduction, this book, "the philosophy of the new religion," comes from heaven. "The only difference between things in heaven and things on earth is that everything in heaven is at a higher stage of development; everything there is spiritual, and spiritual things are far more developed than material things." (p. 6). This book is quite small, about a hundred pages. Kant must have read far more of Swedenborg's dreams and visions before writing his book, DREAMS OF A SPIRIT-SEER ILLUSTRATED BY DREAMS OF METAPHYSICS in 1766. Kant had been hoping, before he read all he had of Swedenborg, that Swedenborg would be able to provide some explanation for the powers of telepathy which Swedenborg possessed, which were most amazing. This book is confined to the topic of religion.Things have changed in some denominations since 1758. A note by the translator alleges that those churches where "people are not allowed to read the Bible" (p. 7) are different now. Harmony, in this book, relates to a divine plan. "Goodness and truth come from the divine, which is the source of everything. This means there cannot be anything in heaven or on earth that does not relate to these two things." (p. 13). Since human beings have motivation and understanding, "The goodness in us is our motivation, and the truth in us is our understanding." (p. 15). An additional twofold aspect: "In good people, the inner part is in heaven with its light, and the outer part is in the world with its light. . . . In harmful people, the inner part is in the world with its light, and so is the outer part." (p. 17). For most people, "We are `sense-oriented' when our inner part is so superficial that we do not believe anything unless we can see it with our own eyes and touch it with our own hands. When we are like this, we are the lowest type of materialist, entangled in fallacies about everything that has to do with religious faith. . . . The body is just an extra outer part added on, in which the other two exist." (p. 20). Everything after that is about spirit. "Thinking and motivation are the spirit's inner part, and speech and action are its outer part." (p. 20).Chapter 10, on "Freedom," starts to illustrate certain dangers. "Things we do under compulsion do not come from our own motivation, but from the motivation of whoever is forcing us to do them. . . . Freedom to do good things and freedom to do harmful things are as different and as distant from each other as heaven is from hell, though they seem outwardly similar. Freedom to do good things comes from heaven, and is called heavenly freedom. Freedom to do harmful things comes from hell, and is called hellish freedom." (p. 54). Religion becomes more important i

This contemporary translation of a small inspirational work by Swedenborg is also available as an audiobook on two cassettes. It is copublished by the Swedenborg Foundation, West Chester, PA, and the Swedenborg Enquiry Centre and Lending Library, Sydney, Australia.