The Characteristics Of Truth In Swedenborg's Alice In Wonderland

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“Stop judging it by it’s cover, how would you feel if everyone judged you on the color of your hair? I promise it’s a good book Caitlin.” I hear this from my mother all the time. I remember a particular time when my mother said this to me, when she was trying to get me interested in reading a book at the age of 7. I could care less about a silly book, all I wanted to do was dance in the backyard like a princess while eating my chocolate-chips with my friends, the lightning bugs. I didn’t want to read a book about a girl sitting in a field with her cat, that’s just boring. But sure enough my mother convinced me to read it...by of course bribing me with more chocolate-chips. Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll, is a story about a young girl, This is shown when he leads Alice down the rabbit hole into Wonderland and by Alice trying to find him throughout the story, just as we try to find truth throughout our lives. The White Rabbit also acts as the herald for the Queen and always speaks the truth even if it contradicts others. Another character Alice meets that Swedenborg wrote about is the Caterpillar. Swedenborg writes, a caterpillar symbolizes evil therein, a caterpillar produces what is filthy (7643, 8481). The Caterpillar in the story represents evil within itself and is an unclean character in the sense he is smoking a pipe; smoke portrays falsity from evil (2851). The actions of the Caterpillar in the story are very creepy and he is portrayed in the story as a some-what rude character. But in the end of the story we learn that all of Alice’s adventures were just in a This is saying that the idea of dreams come from evil spirits, but are buffered or even fully changed by good spirits. But in Arcana Celestia it says, From these considerations it becomes clear that dreams of that kind, just as much as visions, flow in from heaven, the difference being that dreams take place when the body is asleep but visions when it is not (AC 1975). This is saying something different than in the other selection. This quote is saying that dreams do come from the Lord and have the same good spiritual meaning as visions do. This compares to Alice, because even though her dream had some rude characters in the story, she was never harmed and was always enjoying new adventures; she also in the end wound up awake in her loving sister’s lap in time for tea. Alice In Wonderland is a dream that has evils in it, but the other characters overpower those

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