Flying, Fighting, Love
dreamed 1744/4/23 by Emanuel Swedenborg
INTRODUCTION
Swedenborg (1688-1772) worked for decades as a scientist (especially metallurgy and mining), but his reputation today is primarily as a mystic. He kept a dream journal during the period of his great change from engineer to visionary, early 1743 to late '44; one of the world's oldest surviving dream-journals. It was never meant for publication--scrawled, with scratch-outs, abbreviations and highly personal references--difficult even before translation. However, Swedenborg's scientific habits serve him well--dates are clear, dreams are in sequence, and he regularly attempts interpretation; he's practical, reasonable, and sometimes records multiple possibilities.
Yet he was devout; he seems determined to emulate Christ, purging all selfish and worldly urges to become, essentially, a saint. Curious ambition for a scientist! Odder still, he achieved it--at least his practical demonstrations of miraculous knowledge (see Swedenborg's Visions) were the best-documented of his century; he influenced Blake and Emerson, and troubled Kant. If he'd been Catholic he'd likely be a saint--if a controversial one like Francis of Assisi. As it is, he's a strange, powerful figure making both scientists and conventional Christians uncomfortable. Good for him!
FLYING, FIGHTING, LOVE
It seemed that I fought with a woman in flight, who drove me down into the lake, and up; at last, I struck her on the forehead as hard as possible with a plate and bore down upon her face, until she appeared to be got the better of.
It was my struggles and my combat with my thoughts which I had overcome.Afterwards during the whole night something holy was dictated to me, which ended with "sacrarium et sanctuarium." I found myself lying in bed with a woman, and said, "Had you not used the word sanctuarium, we would have done it." I turned away from her. She with her hand touched my member, and it grew large, larger than it ever had been. I turned round and applied myself; it bent, yet it went in. She said it was long. I thought during the act that a child must come of it; and it succeeded en merveille [marvellously].
There was one beside the bed who lurked about afterwards; but she went away first.
This denotes the uttermost love for the holy; for all love has its origin therefrom; is a series; in the body it consists in its actuality in the projection of the seed; when the whole... is there, and is pure, it then means the love for wisdom. The former woman stood for truth; yet as there was one listening, and nothing was done until this one was away, it signifies that we ought to be silent about this matter, and let no one hear of it; because for the worldly understanding it is impure, in itself, pure.
Editor's Note
I like his calm, non-Freudian view of sex as just one more kind of image to be interpreted like any other. The last sentence is a little murky, but I think he means sex, symbolizing love or union, is itself pure, but the world misinterprets sexual symbols so badly it's best not even to discuss them. If so, he was right. His own sexual dreams, including this one, were censored in early editions, then included only in Latin; they first appeared in English only circa 1980! A quarter of a millennium of hysterical denial. Saints can't dream of sex!
Source: Swedenborg's Journal of Dreams 1743-1744, 1989 ed. with intro by Wilson van Dusen. Paragraphs 167, 171-172. Descriptive titles are mine; untitled in journal. Interpretations are Swedenborg's, though run together with dream text; I offset interpretations for clarity.
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