Who was Swedenborg?

Emanuel Swedenborg was born January 29, 1688 in Stockholm, Sweden and died in 1772. His career as a natural scientist and public official took him to locations across Europe, where he engaged various Enlightenment-era currents in engineering, mathematics, anatomy, economics, and philosophy. He published widely in these fields and served in the Swedish House of Nobles for fifty years.

In his 40s, Swedenborg began experiencing vivid dreams while asleep and eventually waking visions, which he recorded in detail in his private journals in tones of a curious scientist. He learned to replicate these experiences through breathing exercises and followed what he described as a divine calling to explore inner states of being. In these altered states, Swedenborg encountered varieties of spiritual worlds and spiritual beings, and he developed a theology that merged the spiritual wisdom from the “things seen and heard” with his scientific knowledge.

His publishing in the last half of his life was dedicated to explanations of spiritual matters. He wrote that there is a union of two primary forces in God and in all created things, Divine Love and Divine Wisdom; that everything in the natural world, including minerals, plant and animal life, and even the viscera of the human body, is infused with Divine presence and significance; that the Bible and other sacred texts should be read according to an inner, spiritual sense, rather than taken literally; and that people of all faith traditions and walks of life have a place in the afterlife – that variety in religious expression is what constitutes the perfection of heaven. While Swedenborg shied away from public preaching and speaking, in part due to a speech impediment, he left behind dozens of volumes of self-published material that has inspired readers over the last two and a half centuries and around the globe.