“Many say that no one can speak with those in the other life

and bring something back. This is because they do not believe

in life after death, or that the dead are re-animated; though

they know that in ancient times it was common practice to

converse with spirits and angels.”

So wrote Emanuel Swedenborg, a century before the advent of modern

Spiritualism. He was able not only to converse with those in the “other

life”, which became almost a second home, he also brought back enough

knowledge to write the profoundest theology.

The strongest influence on his early life was his father, Jesper Swedberg.

The young Jesper had grown up in the village of Falun, Sweden. One day he fell into an icy stream and was carried into a giant water wheel. It jammed, trapping him underwater.  By all accounts he should have drowned, but he was pulled out and resuscitated.

Thinking his life had been spared for a reason, he dedicated it to God.  He studied for the priesthood in the Lutheran Church and became chaplain to one of King Charles XI’s regiments. Finding the soldiers illiterate and brutalized by years of campaigning, he wished to do more than preach. He promised a catechism to all who learned to read. So many did so, he could not afford the cost; but a grateful Charles gave him the money without counting it.  

Meanwhile, he had married Sara, an industrialist’s daughter.  She bore him first a daughter and then on 29th January 1688, a son.  He was christened Emanuel, or ‘God is with us’. Jesper was afterwards appointed Bishop of Skara.  

Emanuel studied at university and received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, aged only 21. He had also studied science and mathematics,  and afterwards sailed to England to further his education. He grew to love England and spent  much of his later life there, but his first visit was hardly auspicious. Boarded by a French privateer, his ship then took a broadside from the English.  Swedenborg landed safely but was then arrested and threatened with execution for breaking quarantine regulations.  

Nevertheless, he was allowed to stay, and he studied under the King’s Astronomer, John Flamsteed. He also lodged with various craftsmen such as watch and instrument makers. From them he learned how to make his own scientific instruments.  

On his return to Sweden, he became joint editor of a scientific journal. It earned him the patronage of King Charles XII, and the post of Extraordinary Assessor in the College of Mines. He was also employed in logistics at a siege; but the king’s zeal for military glory ended with a fatal wound to the temple. His successor, Queen Ulrica Elenora, ennobled Jesper and changed the family name to Swedenborg. This entitled Emanuel to a seat in the House of Nobles, the Swedish parliament.

For the next few years he also travelled extensively and learnt all he could about mining. Wherever possible the experience was hands on, often at the pit face –  unheard of for a nobleman.  He published several scientific works, but his mind increasingly turned to religion and the nature of the soul. In 1745 he  published the second part of The Worship and Love of God, and in March began work on the third part.

While dining at an inn, he had a spiritual experience that changed his life. Incredibly, he left no first-hand account, but did tell two friends: Carl Robsahm, director of the Stockholm bank and Dr Gabriel Andersson Beyer, afterwards his first convert.  He said he was in a room alone, overindulging at a late meal, when suddenly it grew dark, and a man appeared seated in the corner.

“Eat not so much,” he said, at which Swedenborg grew fearful.  Then the darkness cleared and he was alone once more.  When he retired to his room, the man appeared again, but dressed in imperial purple and surrounded by a majestic light.  From what he said, Swedenborg understood that he was Jesus.  

Whatever the truth of this, Swedenborg affirmed for the rest of his days that in this vision he received his commission: to reveal to the world the hidden spiritual content of scripture.  On that night, the mysteries of the Spirit World were also revealed to him.

Thereafter, he gave up all thought of pursuing an academic career, and devoted himself to things spiritual.  He developed the ability both to communicate with the spirits who came to him and to visit them in the “other life”. There, he could roam pretty much as he wished, but was usually guided by the more evolved spirits whom he called angels. They in turn called him “Underlig”, the Strange One.

He met new arrivals, travelling on a road he came to know well.  They had recently left the physical body, but thought they were still on earth, so much did their new surroundings resemble it. He and his guides were able to converse with them and he recorded what they said in his Spiritual Diary.

He questioned them closely.  What was their opinion about life after death?  One said: “If there were a life after death, why is it no one has come back to tell us?” Another declared that no one could come back “because after death man is a spectre like a breath of wind which could not return and speak”.

Another thought it best to wait for Judgement Day, when people would return to their bodies and could report what had happened to them.  “But how,” asked yet another, “can a spirit or breath of wind return to a decayed body, or to a skeleton dried up in the sun? How could an Egyptian mummy, which has been made into medicines by a doctor and perhaps swallowed by patients, ever come alive again and declare what he had seen and heard?”  

Even Swedenborg’s guides were surprised, because these men were Christians. How could they hold the faith and have such fanciful notions? The guides therefore talked to them earnestly and showed them by all possible means that they were in the physical world no longer. Astonished, they cried, “Then where are we?”  “You are in the spiritual world and we are angels.”

At last they cast aside all doubt and cried, “Show us then the way to heaven!”  Others, though, continued for some while as though still on earth, clinging stubbornly to their old religious ways. So they were actively encouraged, not only to go to church, but also to remain.  There they prayed continuously, chanted, recited and listened to sermon after sermon – till they could stand it no longer.  Swedenborg even saw one congregation run from the church, the priest in hot pursuit!

His Spiritual Diary also served another purpose. His commission was to reveal the real meaning of the  scriptures. He had studied them in Hebrew and Greek, but now realised it was not so much the actual  words that were important, as the meaning behind them.  

These meanings he called ‘correspondences’. They were generally inspired by spirit guides, but sometimes he took dictation.  He was asked to express it in his  own words and then destroy the original.   The fruits of his labours, recorded in The Spiritual Diary,were published in a number of books, chiefly the Arcana oelestia,or Heavenly Secrets. This is what he understood by the opening passage in Genesis – not the creation of heaven and earth, but of a fully realised man in the image of his maker:  

“In the beginning God made  heaven and earth, and the earth was without form and void.” This is humanity in infancy before its spiritual birth. Humanity is like the earth, enveloped in darkness and spiritual ignorance.  “God said, ‘Let there be light’.”  

Humankind takes its first steps out of darkness and into the morning light.  “Let the waters above be separated from those below.” Humanity begins to distinguish things temporal from things eternal. “Let dry land appear.” Human beings can now plant a spiritual seed to grow, but still think that any goodness they do is their’s, not God’s.  “God created the sun, moon and stars to rule the day and the night.”  

 

Humanity begins to be inspired by the sun, or love of God, and guided by the moon and stars, or faith. When realization dawns that all goodness is God’s, humanity begins to come alive.  “God created creeping things, birds and sea creatures.”

As humankind becomes more and more alive, sluggishness is cast off and rational thought, like a bird, takes wing.  “God created animals.” Touched by the gentle nature of animals, the human acts from love rather than faith and obedience.  When faith is conjoined with love, God’s work is accomplished and the true human being emerges in his image and likeness.  

The Spiritual Diary also records Swedenborg’s many excursions into the Spirit World, not all of them pleasant.  Sometimes the darker aspects of life beckoned, so that he might record them in the diary. He would tread bleak, desolate landscapes full of slimy, slithering creatures where many dwelt in darkness.   Forever scheming and plotting, they quarrelled, fought, delighted in revenge and even  came to blows.  

It was not that they shunned the idyllic meadows and groves of the heaven world: they could go to see them, but could not abide their spiritual light. So they sought shelter instead in darker abodes. It was Swedenborg’s understanding, however, that it was ever God’s intention to raise them from darkness to light.

He published Heavenly Secretes and many other books in England, where there was a comparatively free press. The first publication was in Latin, but thereafter there was an English edition. His vision of heaven appears as essentially Christian. Yet his mission from the Spirit World was to reform that religion.  Moreover, his views reflected the age in which he lived.  

Religion in 18th century Europe was Christian – or rather, Christianity was the only religion that mattered. No one looked elsewhere for enlightenment.  Spiritualism and the Vedas, Theosophy and the world of the Mahatmas were still a century away. Moreover, anyone who claimed to see or hear spirits was liable to prosecution, incarceration or worse.

In Sweden’s House of Clergy, Dean Ekebom ridiculed the writings of “Assessor Swedenborg”, even though he had not read them.  He termed them “corrupting,  heretical and most objectionable”.  Yet no one, not even the clergy, wanted to attack the respected and venerated old man directly.

Prominent people were inspired by his works and said so publicly. Wolfgang von Goethe and later literary figures – Honore de Balzac, Victor Hugo, August Strindberg and the blind and deaf Helen Keller – all acknowledged their debt to Swedenborg.  So did psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung and Britain’s Sir Isaac Pitman, who published a biography of him in shorthand.

In India, Sadhu Sundar Singh, the Christian mystic (1889-1929), declared he had seen and conversed with Swedenborg in the Spirit World. He wrote to Lutheran bishop Nathan Soderblom confirming this the year before his passing.  

Finally, in February 1772, Swedenborg wrote to John Wesley, saying he had heard in the Spirit World that the eminent preacher wished to meet him. An astonished Wesley declared he did, though he had told no one.  He was, however, about to undertake a six-month journey, but would see him on his return. Swedenborg’s reply was that it would be too late, for he had foreseen his final departure to the Spirit World on the 29th of the following month. It was as he predicted.

His remains were interred in the Swedish Lutheran Church in London.  There they remained for 136 years until the Swedish government finally paid him the honour due. In 1908 his remains were moved to Upsala Cathedral.  

His New Church, or New Jerusalem, thrives in Sweden and elsewhere; and The Swedenborg Society in London publishes his many works and propagates his teachings.

Originally published in Psychic News

Reproduced by permission of the author, who retains the copyright.

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