Week 6    Day 4

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Oh, How Wise

False notions of Wisdom

CL 233. After this one of the angels said, “Follow me to the place where they are shouting ‘Oh, how wise!’ and,” he added, “you will see prodigies of men. You will see faces and bodies that are of man, and yet they are not men.” And I said, “Are they beasts then?” He answered, “They are not beasts but beast-men, for they are such that they are entirely unable to see whether truth is truth or not, and yet can make whatever they want to be the truth. Such with us are called confirmers.” We followed the shouting and came to the place....

[2] But the angels said to me, “Let us not go to them, but call out one from the company.” And we called one out and went aside with him and conversed on various subjects. And he confirmed them, every one, even so that they appeared altogether as if true. We asked him whether he could also confirm their opposites. He said, “Just as well as the former.” Then he said frankly and from the heart, “What is truth? Is there anything true in the nature of things, other than what a man makes true? Say anything you please to me and I will make it true.” I said, “Make this true, that faith is the all of the church.” And he did it so dexterously and skillfully that the learned standing around admired and applauded. Afterwards I asked him to make it true that charity is the all of the church, and he did it; and after that, that charity is nothing of the church; and then he clothed and decked them both in such appearances that the bystanders looked at each other and said, “Is he not wise!”

“But,” I said, “do you not know that to live well is charity? And that to believe well is faith? Does not he who lives well also believe well? And thus faith is of charity and charity is of faith? Do you not see that this is true?” He replied, “Let me make it true and I shall see.” And he did it, and said, “Now I see.” But presently he made its opposite true, and said, “I see also that this is true.” We smiled at this, and said, “Are they not opposites? How can two opposites be seen as truths?” Indignant at this, he replied, “You are in error. Each is true, for nothing is true but what a man makes true.”

[3] Standing nearby was one who in the world had been an ambassador of the first rank. He was astonished at this, and said, “I am aware that there is something like this in the world, but you are insane. Make it true if you can that light is darkness, and darkness light.” He replied, “That I can easily do. What are light and darkness but states of the eye? Is not the light changed to shade when the eye passes out of a sunny place? As well as when it looks intently at the sun? Who does not know that the state of the eye is then changed, and that it is from this that the light appears as shade? ... What then is light but a state of the eye? And if it is a state of the eye, is not light darkness and darkness light? Therefore, the one is true, and the other is true.”

[4] The ambassador then asked him to make it true that the raven is white, and not black. And he responded: “That also I can easily do,” and said: “Take a needle or a razor and open the feathers or quills of a raven. Are they not white within? Then remove the feathers and quills and look at the skin of the raven, is it not white?” ... “But,” replied the ambassador, “does not the raven appear black to the sight?” “And will you,” responded the confirmer, “who are a man, think anything from appearance? You can indeed say from appearance that the raven is black, but you cannot think it.... Appearance is appearance. Say what you will, the raven is entirely white. It grows white also as it grows old. I have seen this.”

[5] We then asked him to tell us, from the heart, whether he was jesting, or believed that nothing is true but what a man makes true. He answered, “I swear that I believe it.” After that the ambassador asked him if he could make it true that he was insane. He said, “I can, but I don’t want to. Who is not insane?'

This universal confirmer was afterwards sent to angels who explored him as to what kind of man he was. And after exploration they said that he possessed not one grain of understanding, because all that was above the rational in him was closed, and only that was open which is below the rational. Above the rational is heavenly light and below the rational is natural light, and the latter light is such that it can confirm whatever one pleases. But if heavenly light does not flow into natural light, a man does not see whether any truth is true, nor therefore, that anything false is false....

[6] I asked the angel concerning the lot of such.... He said that people like this, when they are alone, are not able to think anything, nor thence to speak, but that they stand mute as machines, and as if in profound sleep, but that as soon as they catch anything with the ears they awake. And he added that they become such who inmostly are evil....

[7] This said, I heard a voice from the angels who explored him, saying to me, “From the things you have heard form a universal conclusion.” And I formed this conclusion: That to be able to confirm whatever one pleases is not the mark of an intelligent man, but to be able to see that the truth is true and that the false is false, and to confirm it, is the mark of an intelligent man. After this I looked towards the assembly where the confirmers stood and the crowd around them were shouting, “Oh, how wise!” And behold, a dark cloud overveiled them, and in the cloud screech-owls and bats were flying... for confirmations of falsities, even to the point that they appear as truths, are represented in this world under the forms of birds of night, whose eyes are lit up by an illusory light within, by which they see objects in the dark as if in light.

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