Don't take the truth for granted. Keep looking for it and living it. Doug shares the story of how he came to find the work of Emanuel Swedenborg and the truth he found there. He encourages everyone who has these truths to use them and share them - you never know whose life will be changed by them. -Editor
Christianity has over the centuries been corrupted by false doctrines and traditions. As it is now, much of it is based on false premises: there is a tritheistic definition of God, where He is divided between three persons, many are taught that they just have to believe and do nothing, many do not believe in an afterlife and await some future resurrection, and there is no logical foundation for defining what portions of scripture are Divinely inspired or not. The Church is divided. Anyone who examines this will see the problem, and most churches are unable to address it. The end result is that many have left the Church. They either become a “spiritual independent,” or become a secular materialist, or if they keep looking will be tempted by other false ideologies or religions. This is what I discovered when I first started asking questions and not accepting to believe things blindly. There is a lot of darkness and uncertainty out there.
For those who follow the theology of the New Church, they experience none of this spiritual uncertainty: the new revelation explains the doctrines of Christianity in a logical and rational manner, and explains where the major denominations have erred. However, for those who are unaware of the revelations given to Emanuel Swedenborg, when one begins to see the problems with Christianity it can lead to doubt, uncertainty, and even outright denial. And this does not just apply to the congregations, it applies to even ministers who secretly harbor these doubts. I went through this period of doubtful searching for many years, and at times it was very distressful. When I was twelve, I had been a Christian for a while, but when I asked the question, “Exactly how did Jesus Christ save humanity?” I did not have an answer. The theology of salvation by vicarious atonement not only did not make any sense, it was irrational and immoral. So at that time I opened the Bible, and came up with a similar doctrine to what is taught in the New Church—how Jesus conquered sin, until the Holy Spirit became available to humanity. Not as detailed as what Swedenborg describes, but enough of it is there in the New Testament.
Later, I looked at the closed Bible on the shelf, and thought, I better start reading it more to determine what the Church is teaching is correct. I had at one time decided to read the entire Bible, but when I hit the book of Leviticus, my thought was, “this has got to be the most incredibly boring book I have ever read.” This book was weird—why such detail in how to sacrifice an animal? I then skipped to the book of Revelation, and fell in love with the symbolic imagery of that book. But as I started to take a look at the Bible, the first problem I started to address was how do we prove this is Divinely Inspired? I wanted a strong logical and rational foundation. If you ask the Catholic Church, they will say, “Because we told you so.” And that is what we know as a logical error as “Argument from Authority” (Argumentum ab auctoritate). I knew the Bible was not completely correct, as the apostle Jude made a scriptural quote from the apocryphal book of Enoch. This was not a problem I could completely solve.
At this point, I thought let’s move on and try to prove the existence of God. That was a bit of a bigger problem. Where to start? The problem was with any logical proof, you must begin with a set of assumptions that can never be proven. Those assumptions must be taken based on “faith.” So I decided, let’s start with a proof that has some physical or witness evidence. There are two things that modern science denies: there is no such thing as prophecy, where one knows the future, and there is no such thing as the afterlife. I would periodically scan bookstores, diving into the New Age section. I had also gathered books on ancient symbolism. Here my research had a bit of success. There is documented proof that periodically some people have had visions of the future. Ordinary people have precognitive dreams every day. For the afterlife, I discovered the Near Death Experience (or NDE), and research in this is ongoing. One of the books was Life After Life, by Raymond Moody, M.D. And in a brief chapter, he mentioned this person I never heard of, Emanuel Swedenborg, who had described the NDE in the 18th century. At that time there was no internet. So I made a mental note to check up on this person when I had access to a bigger library. Around this time I had also started to keep a journal of dreams. In one dream, I had asked God to just show me what was the real truth. I was in darkness, and a door began to open. Behind the door this tremendous light was beginning to shine through, behind it I felt was heaven. But just as the door began to open, I awoke.
I began to question myself—with all the divisions within the Christian Church, where is the “one true” Church? Why in the past two millennia has there been no revelation? A trinity of three persons was an obvious error. And the thought came to me, that all people assume that the religion they were born in is the one truth, and do not question it. So I decided to not make that assumption: instead, I decided to assume that most everything I knew was false, and to search for the truth wherever it led me. This led to me leaving the Church, and several years of searching, and there were many, many dead ends and disappointments. I was no longer willing to box my mind in with teachings for which we did not know the validity. Many should know this is a hard step to take: we all like to think we know everything, that we are always right. Few will take the step that what they know or believe might be wrong. A willingness to admit that what we know or do is wrong is distressful. But it is a necessary step to take in order to reach the truth. To a certain extent, I would say it is always healthy to maintain a certain sense of agnosticism and not be so fixed on a particular mindset.
This uncertain search continued until the day I was in a university library, and remembered that reference to Swedenborg. I decided to look up that author and pick up his book. To my amazement, the list of books went on for several pages in the library catalog. One, True Christian Religion, was readily available so I decided to pick that one up and start reading it. I thought, for sure, as with many New Age religions Swedenborg was going to say that Jesus Christ was just a “good teacher” of some sort. Once he made that error I was going to close that book. To my surprise, not only did he declare that Jesus was Jehovah in human form, but he also solved the problem of the Trinity. I was totally shocked. It is very hard for me to describe that moment, for a great weight had been lifted. There was also sadness, because for many years I did not properly acknowledge Jesus for who He was—because without this knowledge, people pray to the Father for the sake of the Son, sort of bypassing Jesus. It reminded me of the passage, "They shall look on him whom they pierced" (John 19:37). My reaction was, this book is worth more to me than its weight in gold. I felt that I had discovered a great treasure, something kept secret from many. A host of other issues were resolved, and after further research, there was just no conceivable way he thought of this on his own. He was being guided to reveal these spiritual truths, to show us who God is: it is important to love, for He is love itself, and came to us in human form.
And that was just the beginning. I have encountered many other surprises along the way. I know people who still have visions and dreams similar to what Swedenborg describes, but they typically keep this private. The symbolism that Swedenborg describes is universal, and I often use it to interpret dreams. After I began to study Swedenborg I had another dream: I saw a doorway in front of me. I then heard a booming voice: WELCOME MY CHILD, TO THE MIRROR OF TRUTH. The doorway then changed into a full length mirror, and I saw a true reflection of myself. The mirror shimmered and turned into liquid, and I walked right through it. Behind the mirror was a huge labyrinth of stone walls, with many passageways and directions. On the walls were endless passages of writing – different letters, which I thought was from the Bible, revealing certain secrets. As I started to read the letters I then awoke. I have been wandering in the labyrinth ever since.
My point is here, do not take the truths that you know for granted. Try to live them, for then they become life changing. They have great value, and many are still seeking for these answers. Share with others. Many will reject them, but here and there a light bulb will turn on for those who are ready.
Doug is an IT Director for a U.S. financial company, and in the past has been a contractor for the U.S. military. He has a degree in Near Eastern Studies from U.C. Berkeley, as well as another degree in Software Engineering. He is the author of the book The Decoded Prophecies of Nostradamus, and in 1994 appeared as a subject matter expert on the CBS documentary, Mysteries of the Ancient World. He has published the entire works of Emanuel Swedenborg in a digital e-book, The Divine Revelation of the New Jerusalem, where all the references are hyperlinked for easy reference (standard edition: http://amzn.com/B008GHMPSO, expanded edition: http://amzn.com/B00AMLPBHO). His blog on spiritual topics can be found at http://dream-prophecy.blogspot.com/.