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Swedenborg, Emanuel (1688-1772)
Swedish
scientist, theosophist, and mystic, a pioneer in both scientific, religious and spiritual
thought.
For most of his life
Swedenborg pursued a conventional, albeit brilliant, career. Educated at Uppsala
University he first became a natural scientist and official with the Swedish Royal College
of mines (1710-45), concentrating on research and theory. His foremost scientific writing
is 'Opera Philosophica et Mineralia' (Philosophical and Mineralogical Works,
three volumes, 1734), a unique combination of metaphysics, cosmology, and science.
A first-rate scientific
theorist and inventor, Swedenborg, in some of his insights, anticipated scientific
progress by more than a century. Visited by a mystic illumination in 1745, Swedenborg
claimed a direct vision of a spiritual world underlying the natural sphere. He began
having dreams, ecstatic visions, trances and mystical illusions in which he communicated
with Jesus Christ and God and was granted a
view of the order of the universe that was radically different from the teachings of the Christian church. He resigned his job to
concentrate full-time on his ecstatic visions and transcribing the knowledge imparted to
him from the spiritual world. His voluminous works from this period are presented as
divinely revealed biblical interpretations. In his system, best reflected in
'Divine Love and
Wisdom' (1763),
Swedenborg conceived of three spheres: divine mind, spiritual world, and
natural world. Each corresponds to a degree of being in God and in humankind: love,
wisdom, and use (end, cause, and effect). Through devotion to each degree, unification
with it takes place and a person obtains his or her destiny, which is union with creator
and creation.
Unlike many mystics,
Swedenborg proposed an approach to spiritual reality and God through, rather than in
rejection of, material nature. His 12-volume compendium
'The Heavenly
Arcana' (1747-56) represents a unique synthesis between modern science and
religion. In response to a vision of the 'last judgment' and the 'return of Christ',
Swedenborg proclaimed the advent of the New Church, an idea that found social expression
in the Swedenborgian societies and in the foundation of the Church Of The New Jerusalem in
England in 1778, and in the United States in 1792. Many of his views were adopted by 19th
century spiritualism and many of his ideas
were also disseminated in the works of writers and poets such as
William Blake,
Samuel Taylor
Coleridge and
Henry James.
Related books:
A Thoughtful Soul: Reflections from Swedenborg.
Emanuel
Swedenborg: The Universal Human and Soul-Body Interaction (Classics of Western
Spirituality).
Heaven &
Hell, Divine Love & Wisdom, Divine Providence.
Swedenborg:
Buddha of the North (Swedenborg Studies, No. 5).
The Animal
Kingdom: Considered Anatomically, Physically, and Philosophically.
The Heavenly
Arcana.
Way of Wisdom:
Meditations on Love and Service.
Click
here for more related
books.
Further info:
Emanuel Swedenborg - Servant of the
Lord.
Emanuel Swedenborg
[netaxs.com].
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