In this essay Stephen compares Swedenborg's written accounts of people on other planets with the descriptions of extra-terrestrial life given by Howard Storm after his near death experience in 1985. The two are in extraordinary sympathy with each other. -Editor.
Swedenborg wrote about aliens. Why did he do that?
In the Arcana Coelestia it is explained that the revelations about heaven and hell, life after death, the process of regeneration, etc., have been given to lead people into a belief and a true understanding of the Lord's nature and purpose. Among the revelations that the Lord gave through Swedenborg we find the descriptions of Swedenborg's interactions with spirits that once lived on other planets. These accounts turn up in the Spiritual Experiences. They are used later as inter-chapter material in the latter part of Arcana Coelestia. Finally, which for us may emphasize the point that Swedenborg really was serious about these accounts, he published them once more separately in the book Earths in the Universe.
Here is an interesting fact: although Swedenborg uses the term "God Messiah" a number of times in the early Spiritual Experiences, he adopts the term "the Lord" on Jan 26, 1748, and pretty much ceases to use "God Messiah." This follows rapidly on the heels of his experiences with the spirits of Jupiter, who, around Jan 23, 1748, speak much about "the One Only Lord."
Swedenborg came to the realization that the people on other planets knew the Lord too. Even though He, as Jesus Christ, had not been born on their world. This was one of the things that convinced Swedenborg about the truth of the Lord being Jehovah Himself.
I want to look at the subject matter of the work Earths in the Universe, in other words, at aliens, from a specific angle. Instead of rehashing Swedenborg's descriptions, I will use a transcription of an interview with Howard Storm1 and create a parallel narrative of his report and Swedenborg's report. Howard Storm experienced an NDE in which he was allowed to ask about life in the universe. He later became a minister as a result of his NDE, though he was not at all interested in religion at the time of the NDE. He is nevertheless describing what he was shown about life in the universe in a frame of reference that is deeply Christian. As far as I can determine he had, and has, to this day no knowledge of Swedenborg.
Earths in the Universe 2 starts with the words, “It is a very well-known fact in the next life…” and continues to say that there exist many inhabited planets in the universe. Swedenborg makes the argument, addressing the reader, that it is only reasonable to think that the universe is full of life, that all planets have been created to support life. This is a rational argument that is not very convincing to a modern reader. But that’s okay, since it is not the burden of proof.
The burden of proof is given in the words, “It is a very well-known fact in the next life…” which makes this a matter of the unique experience granted to Swedenborg. Nor was this experience one of a kooky 18th century madman. It was given to him by the Lord. “By the Lord's Divine mercy I have had my interior faculties… opened, so that I have been enabled to talk with spirits and angels, not only those in the vicinity of our earth, but also with those near other worlds” (Earths in the Universe 1).
Heaven is huge and the Lord is infinite. This is reflected in the size of the physical universe, as well as the diversity of life found there. “The visible universe… with countless stars… is but a means to the creation of worlds, and human beings to live on them, from whom the heavenly kingdom may be formed” (Earths in the Universe 4).
Interview with Howard Storm2
Howard Storm: I asked them if there were other worlds. And they said, ‘Yeah, the universe is full of other worlds. And there are other dimensions of other physical universes and those are filled with other worlds.’ In our physical universe there’s unlimited number of worlds, inhabited worlds with intelligent beings. And then there are other dimensions with worlds in them… Beyond counting, beyond number.
Swedenborg discovered that the spirits of other planets recognized the Lord Jesus Christ as their God, without knowing that name, obviously. But still they recognized the same Lord as Swedenborg knew, as all Christians on earth knew. “The inhabitants of other worlds... acknowledge the Lord as the one and only God” (Arcana Coelestia 6700). They do this without knowing that the Lord was born on one particular planet as a human being in a body. Just like the Divine showed Himself in human form to Abraham, Joshua, Gideon, Daniel, etc., He shows himself on other planets in a form that is recognized as being human by them (Arcana Coelestia 6700).
Howard Storm: And that the action of God, the word of God, the Son of God, the Christ, the spirit of the Christ… nothing is apart from that spirit. That Christ has been everywhere. Now, Jesus the carpenter wasn’t Jesus the carpenter on every single one of these worlds [chuckles].
In his conversations with aliens, particularly the spirits from Mars, Swedenborg reports that the Lord is recognized to be the God of both the physical universe and the spiritual realm, and to be the source of all that is good (Arcana Coelestia 7477).
They said further that He has revealed to them how they ought to live and what they ought to believe (Earths in the Universe 65:1).
There even is a story of some spirits from our planet right out questioning the validity of the identity of the Lord as worshiped by aliens. But to this the spirits from another planet, Jupiter in this case, responded by saying that they had seen the Lord Jesus Christ in the sun of the spiritual world and that He was the same one as appeared on their own planet (Arcana Coelestia 8543).
Howard Storm: Because… our world is in a lower level of spiritual evolution. And many of these worlds Jesus didn’t have to go to and be crucified and die on a cross, for their sins. Because there are worlds where people have chosen good and rejected evil, and lived a life profoundly in the love of God and the love of their neighbor. And so Jesus could go to these worlds and just bless them [laughs]. And they were happily accepting Jesus. I mean, what a difference! Can you imagine a world where Jesus came and people said, ‘Yes, we knew and understood that this is what you wanted us to be, and we thank you for being our revelation. We have known you from the beginning of time. And we have understood you and tried to live the way that you have wanted us to live.’
The quality of our lives and beliefs determines where we fit in the grand scheme of heaven. On planet earth we are very bodily minded. This creates a constant conflict between our natural self and our spiritual self, a conflict that generally is called temptation (Arcana Coelestia 4272).
"Since the spirits of our world answer in the Grand Man [i.e. the grand scheme of heaven] to natural and bodily sense, I have been allowed to learn by plain experience how the spiritual and the natural man fight and quarrel, if the natural man is not in a state of faith and charity" (Earths in the Universe 102).
Aliens are generally described as occupying other, more inward positions in the Grand Man. Martian spirits for example “correlate with something that occupies a more inward position in a person” (Arcana Coelestia 7480). They are said to live in a greater integrity of affections and thoughts, being almost incapable of deceit (Arcana Coelestia 7360, 7361).
Howard Storm: There are worlds where people are perfectly good, and have no sin, and don’t allow evil to be part of their lives. This world [i.e. earth] is unique, because of the degree of not only temptation, but the willingness to accept temptation and failing the testing that we’re in.
Despite the fact that Swedenborg often saw aliens in shapes that basically reminded him of our own human form, there are numerous hints of differences too. Mercurians look pretty much like us, just smaller (Earths in the Universe 44). The inhabitants of Jupiter have very large faces and they “move with the help of their hands, almost like swimmers” (Earths in the Universe 52). Others are described with protruding faces and lips, and faces that are “flexible” (Arcana Coelestia 4799).
A very interesting description is found in this passage:
[Some] spirits said that they had never been clothed with a body, nor do they appear to each other in a bodily form, but in the form of a cloud, barely having a human shape. Some spirits have been portrayed to me in this way on several occasions, that is, as bright clouds in a roughly human shape, hardly recognizable as such. (Spiritual Experiences 1669)
With our modern exposure to science fiction movies we have little difficulty in imagining what that might look like.
Howard Storm: When I asked to see what other intelligent beings looked like, they paraded images of beings in front of me. They started off as humans, and then they got a little stranger looking, and a little stranger looking. And then they became unrecognizable as human beings and looked very weird. And I said, ‘OK! I get it.’ They can be shaped in very different ways than us. ‘Fine, whatever, I get it.’ [laughs]
The answer to that question is a resounding Yes. We are human beings because of our spirits, not our bodies. Our humanity comes from the inside, from our understanding and our will, our wisdom and our love. “The human being is not a human being by virtue of the shape of face and body but by virtue of an understanding that sees what is true and a will that intends what is good” (Arcana Coelestia 9407, emphasis mine).
"The material form [i.e. the body] which is added and superimposed in the world is not the human form per se, but is its product, being added and superimposed to enable the person to perform useful services in the natural world" (Divine Love and Wisdom 388, emphasis mine).
The reason we have two arms and two legs, etc., is that this shape allows us to function in the natural world. But having two arms and legs is itself not a feature of being human.
Howard Storm: In other words, there’s worlds where people have this kind of shape, but there’s worlds where people take on very different kinds of shapes. But the shape of us in this world is of little importance.
Just like Swedenborg was helped in his understanding the true nature of the Lord through his experiences with aliens, so we can come to a true understanding of what it means to be human. In our human life we are meant to regenerate and be born of the spirit. This would be an easy task if our awareness of ourselves as spirits wasn’t so obscure (Arcana Coelestia 24:2). What we take with us into eternal life is not our earthly body, but our spirit. It is this that needs to be reborn.
"The end in view of regeneration is that a person may be made new as regards his internal man, and so as regards the soul or spirit" (Arcana Coelestia 3539).
When we interact with other people on our planet, how and where they live and think and feel, we are encouraged to look deeper, away from externals, to reach for the charity and respect that is due to them as spiritual beings. When we imagine what aliens are like, how and where they live and think and feel, this spiritual dimension becomes so much easier to see, because we’re forced to ignore externals.
In essence each person, alien or otherwise, is a spirit.
"Each of us is inwardly a spirit. Anyone who thinks things through carefully can see that it is not the body that thinks…. Rather, it is the soul, because the soul is spiritual. The human soul… is our spirit; it is in fact immortal in all respects" (Heaven and Hell 432).
So by looking at aliens we see immortal spirits. If we do that successfully, seeing ourselves as immortal spirits is a natural consequence.
Howard Storm: Because in fact what’s important is our spiritual being. And who we ultimately truly are. We are beings of light. We are beings of love. In a sense this tent we live in now is not who we truly are. In this body it’s more like a little pup or prison that we’re in. In our immortal bodies we are glorious.
1. Howard Storm had an NDE in 1985, published in his book My Descent into Death. The source of the interview with him is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqJECcP04Ls. The interview is not found in the book. (Continue reading)
2. All of the boxed quotes from this interview are given unedited, grammatical mistakes and all, and are given in the same sequence as they unfolded in the interview itself. (Continue reading)