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In the 18th century, a great Swedish scientist and inventor, at the height of his career, began to see visions of Heaven, spirits, saints, and angels. He saw Lord Jesus come to open his inner eye, which allowed him to travel in the celestial sphere and talk with different spiritual beings. This mystical experience transformed the scientist into an enlightened spiritual leader with a new understanding of Christianity. His name is Emanuel Swedenborg. From 1744 onwards, Emanuel Swedenborg spent over a decade of his life writing down what he saw in his spiritual voyages in more than two dozen books. Today, it is an honor to present selections from “Divine Providence,” where Emanuel Swedenborg emphasizes the importance of spiritual love and goodness. “If the good that love does is not united to the truth that wisdom perceives, it is not really good, but it may seem to be; and if the truth that wisdom perceives is not united to the good that love does, it is not really true, but it may seem to be. The truth of the matter is that nothing good occurs that is really good unless it is united to something true that is appropriate to it, and nothing true occurs that is really true unless it is united to something good that is appropriate to it.”“The reason that goodness can be separated from truth and truth from goodness and that they still seem good and true even when separated is that we have an ability to act, called freedom, and an ability to discern, called rationality. It is by the misuse of these abilities that we can seem different outwardly than we are inward, so that an evil individual can do what is good and say what is true, and so that a devil can pretend to be an angel of light.” “The first of the goals toward which the Lord’s Divine Providence works is that we should be engaged in what is good and what is true together. That is our ‘good’ and our love, and that is our truth and our wisdom because that is what makes us human and images of the Lord. However, while we are living in this world, we can be engaged simultaneously in what is good and what is false, or in what is evil and what is true – even in what is at once evil and good, and therefore double – and since this division destroys that image and therefore our very humanity, the Lord’s Divine Providence is trying to get rid of this division in everything it does.”
