Here in part two, Stephen looks at themes within Swedenborg's work and how these variously connect him to other seekers or set him apart. He clarifies what he thinks separates Swedenborg's Christianity from all other Christian denominations. -Editor
Swedenborg is considered the founder of a religion, today called the New Church. He wrote thirty thick books that redefine Christianity. He did not think about his books as theology, though. They were always based on his own experiences. This is why there is more to Swedenborg than theology.
Swedenborg and Spiritism
Swedenborg is also considered to be one of the forefathers of spiritism, a movement that became very active in England in the 19th century. Spiritism basically means talking to spirits, in séances, with cards and oracles, or in magic rituals. This practice is based on the belief that we pass into a spirit world after death and can still communicate with people here. Spiritism is reputed to have some four million adherents the world over in 2012. That number is probably at the low end. By comparison, the religion based on Swedenborg’s theology only has a few thousand members the world over today.
Swedenborg and Life After Death
Life after death is maybe one of the biggest themes in Swedenborg’s books and stories. He systematically describes what life in the next world is like, right from the moment of dying, our initial interactions with angels, our instruction as to life in this new place, and the challenges that we all will have to face as our old self is left behind on earth. The biblical phrase, “all will be revealed” refers to our life after death. We will know everything there is to know about ourselves, nothing can be hidden, not even our private thoughts. The book Heaven and Hell is the main travel guide, as it were, to life after death.
Given the extensive descriptions of the afterlife, it is not surprising at all that Swedenborg has been connected to spiritism.
However, spiritism has a bad reputation in certain circles. It is associated with evil spirits, weirdness, irresponsible excitement-seeking, misuse of power, drugs, etc. Swedenborgians today mostly want nothing to do with spiritism and regret the association that exists. Yet...the association is understandable and even justified, since Swedenborg spent the last twenty-seven years of his life talking to spirits and angels on a daily basis, and he was very clear and open about that.
Swedenborg and Correspondences
An aspect of Swedenborg’s teachings that stands out in the context of the time he lived in (17th century) is correspondences, meaning: each natural object, each word, each color, has a connection to an invisible world. The corresponding thing is composed of spiritual substance. This spiritual substance is invisible to our physical eyes, at least for many people. The spirit counterpart of a stone, as an example, comes first and gives the quality, essence, and meaning to stone. Stone is an archetype, in the words of Jung, whereas a stone is an individual expression or manifestation of that archetype. Same with animals, geometric patterns, elements of nature, colors, clothing, metals, etc. This is typically not a one-on-one relationship, seeing that there is a huge variety in stones, in texture, hardness, color, value, etc. In other words, while it is true to say that stone corresponds to truth, that is an extremely generalized statement.
Today we are used to the idea of symbols, through psychology, dream work, and anthropological studies. In Swedenborg’s time this was a science in its infancy.
Swedenborg states that everything written in the Bible, the sacred text that he worked with, is written in correspondences. That is how it can be the Word of God. Each story has a corresponding meaning in the spirit world or in heaven, and so carries deep spiritual meaning still today for us, people on the path of regeneration. Swedenborg gives many examples of specific correspondences in his thirty books. He is by no means exhaustive, often just touching the surface. Yet the window of correspondences makes it possible to read the Bible in a new light, where each word has other layers of meaning. These layers are not intellectual ideas, there is no intellectual or philosophical system. These layers, instead, refer to a level of reality that lies underneath and above the reality we know. This makes Swedenborg’s explanations of the Bible more than just Swedenborg’s explanations. He is referring us to a greater universe.
Some examples:
Fish : knowledge that lives in memory
Eagle : truth seen in clear rational perspective
Birds : thoughts
Fire : love, passion
Swedenborg and Shamanism
Michael Harner, in his 1980 book The Way of the Shaman, describes that medicine men and women from cultures all over the world have likewise attached consistent and coherent spiritual meaning to natural objects or animals. No analysis was used, only the direct experience of these objects and animals in the spirit world. A shaman is someone who travels into non-ordinary reality, call it a dream world if you must, and brings back information, revelation, and experience that can be passed on for the benefit of others. Healing can sometimes result by simply understanding the root of a personal problem. Information has power, if given at the right time to the right person.
By all of these definitions Swedenborg was a superb shaman. He travelled into heaven and hell with his eyes open, under the protection and guidance of angels, and if you want to believe it, under the guidance of Jesus Christ himself. Swedenborg brought back thirty books of insight and stories, experiences he had in that other world. This body of information is so coherent and deep that it is now considered by some a further revelation of the Word of God, in the sense that it opens up the Old and New Testaments and gives them new meaning.
Swedenborg and the Ancient People
Swedenborg was able to talk with people that are now in the spiritual world, including those that had lived a long time ago. A result of this is that he writes extensively about the ancient history of this planet. He does not indicate in years when this was, but he calls this period the time of the Most Ancient Church, or maybe better translated the “First period that there was any coherent religion.”
What he says about these people borders on the ridiculous. It is quite unbelievable. They were totally clairvoyant and could talk to plants and to animals. They openly associated with angels. They communicated with each other by using the muscles of the face, without sound or words. Their breathing was “internal.” It is not quite clear what that means. What Swedenborg literally suggests is that these ancient people did not use their lungs to breathe air. They were breathing with spiritual “lungs.”
Today we have remnants of these kinds of people in the primitive tribes around the world. Maybe a large part of their knowledge has been lost. Yet the traces remain. Knowledge of plants and herbs as medicine is present in all tribes. This can be very specific knowledge, such as which two plants to combine to get a specific effect. This is old knowledge, passed on through generations. Telepathy and shamanic journeys into the other world are abilities found around the globe in indigenous peoples, the Native Americans, the Incas, the Aborigines, the Kogis, etc.
Swedenborg and Theology: main idea – God
I am reading Lars Bergquist’s biography of Swedenborg and am struck by a claim he makes:
"Knowledge of God can, according to Swedenborg, be given to a person only through a personal, existential experience" (page 369 Swedenborg’s Secret).I went, hang on a minute here! I thought that the Swedenborgian way to God was through truth, through understanding, through heavy exercise of the intellect, through reading thick books. So I dove into Swedenborg’s writings and searched around. This is what I found.
God is love. Love is at the core of each human life (Divine Love and Wisdom 1-4).
We are a likeness of God because we experience things from God in ourselves as if they were our own. (True Christian Religion48)
The state of a person when he is being regenerated...does not become readily clear to anyone except from experience, and indeed through reflecting on experience. (Arcana Coelestia 933)
I have been informed, both by conversation with angels, and by living experience. (Arcana Coelestia 1378)This is just a small selection. There is much more.
So what Lars Bergquist is highlighting, in his reading of Swedenborg, is that truth or God must be existentially experienced. Only then does anything happen internally in a person, a new birth, a new life.
There are thousands of references in the theological books of Swedenborg that point out that all that is written here was experienced by the author. In between the abstract chapters are stories of experiences that Swedenborg had in the spiritual world. These stories have been deliberately put into the books, right from the first Arcana volume down to the last published work (True Christian Religion). In fact, people criticized him for including the personal experience stories...
I [Rudolph Tafel] know that Swedenborg has related his memorabilia in good faith. I asked him once, why he wrote and published those memorable relations, which seemed to throw so much ridicule on his doctrine, otherwise so rational; and whether it would not be best for him to keep them to himself, and not to publish them to the world? But he answered, that he had orders from the Lord to publish them; and that those who might ridicule him on that account would do him injustice; for, said he, why should I, who am a man in years, render myself ridiculous for fantasies and falsehoods. (Documents Concerning Swedenborg Volume 2 p.417)
Conclusion:
So, one thing that makes Swedenborg’s teaching different from main stream Christianity is this: experience. Personal experience.
Swedenborg could have chosen to study the Bible as a scientist, as a philosopher. He could have gone the way of his contemporaries, Kant, Wolff, Leibniz. At first, he tried to be a scientist of the soul. But then God, Jesus Christ himself, came into the picture and said, “No, you can’t be an intellectual and write about me. Let me show you heaven and hell. Let me make sure you experience the things that other people only speculate about.”
And that is what happened, and that is what is recorded in the writings of Swedenborg.
Stephen is forty-nine years old and currently located in Stockholm. He is now a freelance New Church minister and shaman, having recently resigned from the General Church. His main areas of interest are the Native American flute, the direct experience of God, and the awakening human race. His current independent spiritual work can be followed on youareanotherme.wordpress.com.