Emanuel Swedenborg
Emanuel Swedenborg (/ˈswiːdənbɔːrɡ/,[2] Swedish: [ˈsvêːdɛnˌbɔrj] ; born Emanuel Swedberg; (29 January – 29 March 1772)[3] was a Swedish Christian theologian, scientist, philosopher and mystic.[4] He became best known for his book on the afterlife, Heaven and Hell (1758).[5][6]
Emanuel Swedenborg
29 March 1772 (aged 84)
- Arcana Cœlestia
- True Christian Religion
- Heaven and Hell
18th-century
Lutheranism; inspired the New Church[1]
- Trinity in one person
- Correspondence
- The Last Judgment and Christ's Second Coming began in 1757
Swedenborg had a prolific career as an inventor and scientist. In 1741, at 53, he entered into a spiritual phase in which he began to experience dreams and visions, notably on Easter Weekend, on 6 April[7]
1744.[8]
His experiences culminated in a "spiritual awakening" in which he received a revelation that Jesus Christ had appointed him to write The Heavenly Doctrine to reform Christianity.[9] According to The Heavenly Doctrine, the Lord had opened Swedenborg's spiritual eyes so that from then on, he could freely visit heaven and hell to converse with angels, demons and other spirits, and that the Last Judgment had already occurred in 1757, the year before the 1758 publication of De Nova Hierosolyma et ejus doctrina coelesti (English: Concerning the New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine).[10]
Over the last 28 years of his life, Swedenborg wrote 18 published theological works—and several more that remained unpublished. He termed himself a "Servant of the Lord Jesus Christ" in True Christian Religion,[11] which he published himself.[12] Some followers of The Heavenly Doctrine believe that of his theological works, only those that were published by Swedenborg himself are fully divinely inspired.[13] Others have regarded all Swedenborg's theological works as equally inspired, saying for example that the fact that some works were "not written out in a final edited form for publication does not make a single statement less trustworthy than the statements in any of the other works".[14] The New Church, also known as Swedenborgianism, is a Restorationist denomination of Christianity originally founded in 1787 and comprising several historically related Christian churches that revere Swedenborg's writings as revelation.[1][15]
Scientific studies and spiritual reflections in the 1730s[edit]
During the 1730s, Swedenborg undertook many studies of anatomy and physiology. He had the first known anticipation of the neuron concept.[29] a century before the full significance of the nerve cell was realised. He also had prescient ideas about the cerebral cortex, the hierarchical organization of the nervous system, the localization of the cerebrospinal fluid, the functions of the pituitary gland, the perivascular spaces, the foramen of Magendie, the idea of somatotopic organization, and the association of frontal brain regions with the intellect. In some cases, his conclusions have been experimentally verified in modern times.[30][31][32][33][34]
In the 1730s, Swedenborg became increasingly interested in spiritual matters and was determined to find a theory to explain how matter relates to spirit. Swedenborg's desire to understand the order and the purpose of creation first led him to investigate the structure of matter and the process of creation itself. In the Principia, he outlined his philosophical method, which incorporated experience, geometry (the means by which the inner order of the world can be known) and the power of reason. He also outlined his cosmology, which included the first presentation of his nebular hypothesis. (There is evidence that Swedenborg may have preceded Kant by as much as 20 years in the development of that hypothesis.[35]) Other inventions by Swedenborg include a submarine, an automatic weapon, an universal musical instrument, a system of sluices that could be used to transport boats across land and several types of water pumps, which were put into use when he was on Sweden's Board of Mines.[36]
In 1735, in Leipzig, he published a three-volume work, Opera philosophica et mineralis ("Philosophical and Mineralogical Works") in which he tried to conjoin philosophy and metallurgy. The work was mainly appreciated for its chapters on the analysis of the smelting of iron and copper, and it was the work that gave Swedenborg his international reputation.[37] The same year, he also published the small manuscript De Infinito ("On the Infinite") in which he attempted to explain how the finite is related to the infinite and how the soul is connected to the body. It was the first manuscript in which he touched upon such matters. He knew that it might clash with established theologies since he presented the view that the soul is based on material substances.[38][39] He also conducted dedicated studies of the fashionable philosophers of the time such as John Locke, Christian von Wolff, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, and Descartes and earlier thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus and Augustine of Hippo.[40]
Swedenborg was a critic of slavery. He was the first prominent Swede to condemn slavery. In his works, he argued that sub-Saharan Africans were superior to Europeans, and condemned European missionaries for intruding on African lands.[41]
In 1743, at the age of 55, Swedenborg requested a leave of absence to go abroad. His purpose was to gather source material for Regnum animale (The Animal Kingdom, or Kingdom of Life), a subject on which books were not readily available in Sweden. The aim of the book was to explain the soul from an anatomical point of view. He had planned to produce a total of 17 volumes.[42]
Veracity[edit]
Swedenborg's transition from scientist to revelator or mystic has fascinated many people. He has had a variety of both supporting and critical biographers.[79] Some propose that he did not have a revelation at all but developed his theological ideas from sources which ranged from his father to earlier figures in the history of thought, notably Plotinus. That position was first taken by Swedish writer Martin Lamm who wrote a biography of Swedenborg in 1915.[80][b] Swedish critic and publicist Olof Lagercrantz had a similar point of view, calling Swedenborg's theological writing "a poem about a foreign country with peculiar laws and customs".[81]
Swedenborg's approach to proving the veracity of his theological teachings was to use voluminous quotations from the Old Testament and the New Testament to demonstrate agreement with the Bible, and this is found throughout his theological writings. A Swedish Royal Council considering heresy charges against two Swedish promoters of his theological writings concluded that "there is much that is true and useful in Swedenborg's writings".[82] Victor Hugo suggested in passing, in Chapter 14 of Les Misérables, that Swedenborg, in company with Blaise Pascal, had "glided into insanity".[83]
Scientific beliefs[edit]
Swedenborg proposed many scientific ideas during his lifetime. In his youth, he wanted to present a new idea every day, as he wrote to his brother-in-law Erik Benzelius in 1718. Around 1730, he had changed his mind, and instead believed that higher knowledge is not something that can be acquired, but that it is based on intuition. After 1745, he instead considered himself receiving scientific knowledge in a spontaneous manner from angels.[84]
From 1745, when he considered himself to have entered a spiritual state, he tended to phrase his "experiences" in empirical terms, to report accurately things he had experienced on his spiritual journeys.
One of his ideas that is considered most crucial for the understanding of his theology is his notion of correspondences. But, in fact, he first presented the theory of correspondences only in 1744, in the first volume of Regnum Animale dealing with the human soul.[22]
The basis of the correspondence theory is that there is a relationship among the natural ("physical"), the spiritual, and the divine worlds. The spiritual realm was seen by Swedenborg and believers in the New Church as "more real than the physical" and as a series of divided "spheres" where souls are sent depending on the level of morality they achieved in the physical world or Earth.[85] Souls navigate through the spiritual world and redeem themselves by travelling through it and reaching higher spheres, then encountering "divinity".[85] The foundations of this theory can be traced to Neoplatonism[85] and the philosopher Plotinus in particular. With the aid of this scenario, Swedenborg now interpreted the Bible in a different light, claiming that even the most apparently trivial sentences could hold a profound spiritual meaning.[86] Swedenborg argued that it is the presence of that spiritual sense which makes the Word divine.[87]
Copies of the original Latin version in which Swedenborg wrote his revelation are available from the following sources.[152][153][154][155]
The common names used in a New Church listing are given parenthetically,[156] followed by the titles in the original. All the titles listed were published by Swedenborg except The Spiritual Diary.[157] Various minor reports and tracts have been omitted from the list.
In popular culture[edit]
The song The Dreams of Swedenborg, from symphonic metal band Therion's 2004 album Lemuria, talks about Swedenborg's revelations.
Swedenborg's book Heaven and its Wonders and Hell From Things Heard and Seen is a major contributor to the plot of the movie Things Heard & Seen, which premiered on Netflix in 2021.
In Olga Tokarczuk's 2018 novel, "Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead," the main character, Janina Duszejko, makes a reference to Swedenborg's work in astrology.
Posthumous honours[edit]
The mineral swedenborgite, discovered in Långban, Sweden in 1924, is named in his honor.[158]
