HC Andersen was a remarkable author and it seems like in the future the world will learn much more about his achievements.
Today we will talk a little about HC Andersen´s travelogue called “Pictures of Sweden” from 1852. According to himself this is the most comprehensive work he ever published and that doesn´t say a little considering his other four hundred published pieces or so.
This travelogue isn´t easy to grasp for the average reader because it´s filled with stories of spiritual encounters in various mostly unknown places around Sweden. However, there is one story from the city of Vadstena that really stands out from all perspectives, both spiritual and worldly. The priory of Vadstena became a big story in the Catholic Church after Bridget of Sweden passed away in AD 1373. She requested rights to start a priory with mixed genders and a female abbess as the top leader of the priory. This was in itself a revolutionary request but the Pope gave his admission and the priory called Abbey Pax Mariae was opened in AD 1374 by her daughter.
Vadstena Church Interior – Stones with a Bluish tint
Sweden is the only country with the name of ´Eden´ included in its country name. Is that a coincidence or not? Let´s keep this fact in mind while reading about the priory of Vadstena described in detail by HCA.
The priory of Vadstena was a unique priory but it´s not a good story. Its history ends up with complete disgrace for the monastery and the collapse of catholicism in Sweden followed by the expulsion of monks and nuns from Sweden by the Swedish King who expressly forbade Swedish women from becoming nuns without his explicit permission. What was really going on in Vadstena priory? The true and real story seems to be secret and erased from all history books. The reasons will become clear to everyone soon.
HC Andersen looked into many historical sources and we conclude the essential bits here:
– The priory of Vadstena had three gardens and one was a fruit tree garden.
– In the fruit garden there was a pear tree called the “tree of death”.
– Anyone who ate a fruit from that tree was predestined to die shortly after.
– It was forbidden to visit that poisonous tree but in the morning the grass was trodden down around the tree showing that there were people going there during nights.
– The monks and nuns had feasts and drank wine in that garden during nights.
– One day a storm came and pulled down the tree.
– Under the roots of the pear tree there were skeletons of the murdered infants of the nuns.
HCA tells us not to judge others when we read these horror stories. Because otherwise we will be judged too. However, there are things to learn from others´ mistakes.
When we think about it there were three main figures in Vadstena:
– The abbess, the nuns and the monks. Nuns were in absolute majority. Sixty nuns and twenty five monks were allowed.
Adam and Eve looking Swedish with their treasonous Master – Lilith the Snake
Now let´s return to the Garden of Eden and compare with the story about the Vadstena priory in (Sw)Eden. What were the key aspects of Adam and Eve and the Snake Lilith in the Garden of Eden? There were three characters and there was matriarchy with the snake Queen/female King Lilith on top. They operated in a garden with a fruit tree. They didn´t obey their Lord God but instead followed the snake Lilith as their false Master and committed treason. In Vadstena they added the infant murders to the other crimes – this part we can´t find in the Biblical story which is perhaps understandable if true.
We can see a near perfect match with the Vadstena priory. The name of (Sw)Eden, the fruit tree where the terrible crimes were committed, the matriarchy of the Abbess, the three main characters represented by the Abbess, the nuns (Eve) and the monks (Adam).
As for breaking the commandments of their Lord God we can safely say that the monks and nuns in Vadstena did deeds against their vows to God that are so outstanding that I think nobody can ever forget them.
What else do we find about the priory of Vadstena that stands out? Its name focuses on Saint Mary and not Jesus. They added ´Pax´to their name, a false flag of epic proportions since Pax means peace. The orientation of the Vadstena Church was opposite to all other monasteries with the altar placed in the west instead of the east and the nuns replacing the traditional altar to the east. The altar symbolizes Jesus in any Christian church. What does this indicate? Females replacing the altar hint at the nuns replacing God doesn´t it? Did the nuns wanted to signal that they replaced Jesus their God? It sure seems that way.
Background of Vadstena – Vikings Attacking Monks at Holy Island
Is it really true that history repeats itself? Then what did the Vikings do that was very devilish? In fact the first recorded Viking attack was committed at Lindisfarnoe monastery on the Holy Island in AD 793. We see that the Vikings were focused on attacking a holy island and peaceful Christian monks as their starting point. This was of course followed by similar attacks in various parts of the world with their reputation for violence, rapes, polygamy etc standing out. There was a monk who once stated that if the Vikings had walked with God they would have been invincible. Instead they will collapse from internal strife. This is true to this day. Sweden was neutral in all major conflicts since the Napoleonic wars. To be neutral isn´t a good thing. It means that you hide your true intentions and opinions.
So the obvious question arises – who controlled the Vikings to do these immoral things against peaceful people across the world? Olof von Dahlin, the Swedish polymath, gives an answer in his great works about ancient Swedish history. In fact he claimed that the reason for Vikings being branded “beasts” and ´Gog and Magog´ etc across the world was because of the Swedish women. They liked to dress up like male warriors and hence the pious locals were shocked to see such barbarian ladies attacking them. What he says resonates very much with the story of Vadstena priory where the Swedish ladies were in charge leading to a moral collapse. In fact, the public history admits that there were many corrupt abbesses at Vadstena, some of which stole a lot of treasures for themselves and were found guilty of these crimes. This is not to push all Swedish women down but we can see in modern times that the Swedish sin also originated with Swedish women who wanted to abandon traditional culture and nuclear families and instead became sexually liberated. Today Swedish men are feminized to an extent not seen in other countries. This is all in line with the historic script in Sweden.
Sweden and the Two Adams – the New Adam and the Old Adam
Less known to people is the fact that there is a biblical story about the new Adam – often associated with Jesus. What is the essence here? The new Adam says no to the snake Lilith and goes his own way by following the instructions of his Lord God in action. Hence he gains his freedom and can go to heaven while the old Adam loses his life along with his snake Master Lilith.
What can we learn from these stories? The moral teaching is that whoever holds fast to his righteous principles of honesty and loyalty no matter how big the losses are in this human world will win the big price in his afterlife. The question is where our focus is, longterm or short term. Besides, which honest person wants to do bad deeds and rebel against their Father? History has a lot of legendary stories on this theme and it seems like there are no coincidences at all in this human world as we enter 2025.