LIBRARY & ARCHIVES

The Mission of the Center for Swedenborgian Studies is to prepare qualified individuals for ministry in the Swedenborgian Church, to serve as a center of Swedenborgian scholarship and to make Swedenborgian resources for theological education available to the wider church and community.

The Circulating and Archival Collections

The Library and Archives of the Center for Swedenborgian Studies contains a wealth of materials for research and scholarship in all areas of Swedenborgian studies. In addition to the complete works of Emanuel Swedenborg in all translations and editions, one can explore works by and about authors, artists and thinkers influenced by Swedenborg and Swedenborgian thought via monographs, pamphlets, Swedenborgian periodicals, and current secondary research materials on subjects related to Swedenborgian thought. The Center published Studia Swedenborgiana, a print journal, from 1974-2006 and an occasional online journal since 2006. You may search back issues of the journal here.

It’s 26,000 item collection features indexed notebooks containing over 200 original items of correspondence to a prominent nineteenth-century intellectual sometimes called George I: George Bush (1796-1859), great granduncle of George Herbert Bush and great, great granduncle of George Walker Bush, the 41st and 43rd Presidents of the United States. A foremost American scholar of Semitic cultures, Bush wrote the first American book-length study of Islamic founding Prophet Muhammed, produced well-received commentaries on several Old Testament books, was professor of Oriental Languages at New York University, and was a foremost champion of the New Christianity of Swedenborg via numerous books and articles.

Scholarly research acquisitions are pursued for a wide range of subjects that involve Swedenborg. Art objects and archival materials pertaining to organizations and prominent participants in the history of Swedenborgianism are preserved in the collection, and the rare books section holds many first editions of Swedenborg’s works and valuable collateral materials.

Additional archival materials of note include a large traveling trunk of Henry James, Sr., with his collection of Swedenborg’s works annotated in his own hand, and a pair of oil desk lamps once adorning Swedenborg’s writing desk in Stockholm. All books and monographs have been added to GRACE, the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) Library’s online library catalog.