Spiritual Sunshine

Today we dive back into the 18th-century mystic, Emanuel Swedenborg’s book Divine Providence – exploring the section where he tries to explain the connections between providence and our rationality and freedom as human beings. Download the book for free here (pdf): https://swedenborg.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/NCE_DivineProvidence_portable.pdf

With roots in both paganism and early Christianity, Halloween (meaning “Saints’ Evening”) is a fascinating holiday that I think we shouldn’t be shy about celebrating. Many of the various, seemingly random elements of our Halloween rituals seem to have roots in the past, from bobbing for apples to going door to door asking for treats. Even its more disparaged aspects have roots in ancient ceremonia...

Are there many paths to heaven, or is it only through one faith? We share the mystic Swedenborg's perspective that all of us have a deep connection to heaven within, informed by his many visions of the afterlife as we continue to explore his book, "Divine Providence."

Our pets bring blessings beyond description through their loving connection and by just being an example of being, enough so that perhaps we should all start calling them our companions, compatriots, or family, as many already do! Whether we recognize it or not, the beingness of pets is a key way that pets bring greater health into our lives, helping to settle our minds, comfort us, and ground us...

Most of us carry some amount of trauma and trauma response with us, even if we don’t realize it. Traumas aren’t always as easily diagnosed as X, Y, or Z, and can even be sourced from general social structures, such as the negative impacts of capitalism or of certain social norms that haven’t held space for us. Lesser known or appreciated, however, is the growth that can be found through healing fr...

For such a relatively unknown mystical sage, the 18th-century’s Emanuel Swedenborg sure has had a huge impact on the realm of Western art, partly due to his interfaith-Christian writings being some of the first known Western literature that took very seriously the deep integration and expression of the Divine in nature. He believed that all natural forms were symbolic of facets of God(dess), with...

We continue our exploration of Emanuel Swedenborg's 18th-century book, Divine Providence, free to download on our website.

Trust can be a tricky thing, especially when we’re talking about trusting Divinity itself, the God known by many names. Is God real and does God care? What are you entrusting her/him with? Ultimately, trusting Divinity amounts to trusting the present moment, while letting go of anxiety and yearnings for the future or anything outside the present moment itself. It amounts to letting go of our contr...

The scriptures speak often of the process needed to find salvation, nirvana, transcendence or whatever word that specific tradition uses to speak of finding fullness in our Divinely-sourced intrinsic awareness. Buddhist scriptures sometimes refer to butter and the churning needed to make it as an analogy for what is required to reach Buddhahood, saying that we must do the work with the power of ou...

Emanuel Swedenborg’s key message from his spiritual visions and his mystical interpretation of scripture boil down to two key ideas, dispel evil and love Love. He believed that these concepts naturally increase our connection with Heaven and God, no matter our tradition, because they describe what God and the universe is and is all about. Further, he pointed to scripture as being a key source of i...

We continue our exploration of Emanuel Swedenborg's book "Divine Providence," discovering the purpose of evil and answering the ultimate question, "What's the purpose of life?" Learn more on our website: https://swedenborgiancommunity.org

The eternity of life is something at the core of many traditions, although sometimes details are scarce. After having my own near-death experience, I was attracted to others’ accounts of the afterlife through similar near-death experiences, often abbreviated as “NDEs.” Surprisingly, I found thousands and thousands of these accounts online and catalogued in books (just Google them!), many with simi...

We are love itself. This truth is spoken by many sages and mystics alike, and yet I feel that we often miss the practical import of these words. This idea calls on us to let go of our false ideas of self – limiting ourselves to this body and mind. Instead, knowing that we are one with everything, as well as one with the essence and substance of all energy and life itself: the heat of love and its...

We explore parallels between Buddhism and Swedenborgian Christianity, an open and mystical tradition based on the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, who DT Suzuki described as "the Buddha of the North."

Today we continue to be called to face the West’s and others’ tragic past of genocide, mass abuse, and horror – particularly as many of our Western cultures forced these tragedies onto Indigenous Peoples and minorities, including in Canada and the United States. The hundreds of Indigenous children found buried at residential schools in Canada recently are a stark reminder of this and a sharp blow...

Despite some’s belief in the all-pervasiveness of original sin, scriptures throughout the world point to the fundamental health, love, and truth at the core of the human spirit and at the root of our minds – albeit, sometimes covered over with hurtful tendencies from ignorance and fear often rooted in generations past. The Christian and Hebrew Bibles themselves indicate that we are fundamentally c...

We continue our exploration of the 18th-century mystic Swedenborg's book "Divine Providence" and discover that he believes that God(dess) with the Spiritual Sun are the root of all things.

Thoughts are like the ripples on the surface of a river, just transient glimmers of awareness – hinting at the depths below. For whatever reasons, we have come to identify so much with our habitual ripples we miss the enormity of the river of life within – taking its vast depth, clarity, and peace to be a pit of emptiness as we fearfully try to color over it. When we turn more toward that river of...

We start our exploration into the 18th-century mystic Emanuel Swedenborg's book, Divine Providence - exploring how creation works and why there is evil. Download the book for on our website: SwedenborgianCommunity.org

The notion that we must die to ourselves “in order to live” is a striking one, uplifted by many Buddhist and Hindu Jnanis, as well as Christ. The idea might seem a bit negatively self-destructive at first, and yet many of us have probably noted that living primarily for our lower self is the truly destructive force in the world! The practical element of this wise request seems to be for us to watc...

It may seem a little self-indulgent to assume that we are one with the great “I AM” (as God calls herself in the Hebrew Bible), but in practice, I think the realization that we are one with the One can be quite the opposite – opening us up to compassion, clarity of awareness, and our deep connection with others. From a mystical viewpoint we are all one in God, all one in awareness and life itself,...

Swedenborgians share their opinions about the new movie Things Heard & Seen, as well as their take on its paranormal and Swedenborgian elements!

In general, our mothers envelop us in their love and wisdom as we grow, just as we’re sustained and developed within them as embryos. Similarly, we are said to be growing within God as we receive more of her Divine Love and Wisdom! This same Divinity is the source of all the greatness and care in our mothers. Indeed, the case can easily be made that our mothers tend to be the most potent and obvio...

The oneness of humanity is a theme hinted at or exclaimed by many traditions and ancient scriptures, and I think leaning into this awareness can serve as a healing salve for our minds and our world. However, why do so many traditions use different terms or explanations for how we are one, or ignore this often-scriptural concept entirely? What’s the fundamental similarity and is it similar enough t...

We explore the interfaith-Christian mystic Emanuel Swedenborg's answers to question like: what's the point of creation? And how does the spiritual realm connect with the physical universe's structure? And more!