63 Facts About Emanuel Swedenborg

Emanuel Swedenborg became best known for his book on the afterlife, Heaven and Hell.

Emanuel Swedenborg's experiences culminated in a "spiritual awakening" in which he received a revelation that Jesus Christ had appointed him to write The Heavenly Doctrine to reform Christianity.

Emanuel Swedenborg termed himself a "Servant of the Lord Jesus Christ" in True Christian Religion, which he published himself.

Some followers of The Heavenly Doctrine believe that of his theological works, only those that were published by Emanuel Swedenborg himself are fully divinely inspired.

Emanuel Swedenborg travelled abroad and studied theology, and on returning home, he was eloquent enough to impress the Swedish king, Charles XI, with his sermons in Stockholm.

Emanuel Swedenborg completed his university course at Uppsala in 1709, and in 1710, he made his grand tour through the Netherlands, France and Germany before reaching London, where he would spend the next four years.

Emanuel Swedenborg studied physics, mechanics and philosophy and read and wrote poetry.

In 1715, aged 27, Emanuel Swedenborg returned to Sweden, where he devoted himself to natural science and engineering projects for the next two decades.

Emanuel Swedenborg's purpose was to persuade the king to fund an observatory in northern Sweden.

However, the warlike king did not consider this project important enough, but did appoint Emanuel Swedenborg to be assessor-extraordinary on the Swedish Board of Mines in Stockholm.

From 1716 to 1718, aged 30, Emanuel Swedenborg published a scientific periodical entitled Daedalus Hyperboreus, a record of mechanical and mathematical inventions and discoveries.

In 1718, Emanuel Swedenborg published an article that attempted to explain spiritual and mental events in terms of minute vibrations, or "tremulations".

Emanuel Swedenborg said that he did not have the gift of eloquent speech because of a stutter, as recognized by many of his acquaintances; it forced him to speak slowly and carefully, and there are no known occurrences of his speaking in public.

The Swedish critic Olof Lagerkrantz proposed that Emanuel Swedenborg compensated for his impediment by extensive argumentation in writing.

Emanuel Swedenborg had the first known anticipation of the neuron concept.

Emanuel Swedenborg had prescient ideas about the cerebral cortex, the hierarchical organization of the nervous system, the localization of the cerebrospinal fluid, the functions of the pituitary gland, the perivascular spaces, the foramen of Magendie, the idea of somatotopic organization, and the association of frontal brain regions with the intellect.

Emanuel Swedenborg outlined his cosmology, which included the first presentation of his nebular hypothesis.

Emanuel Swedenborg knew that it might clash with established theologies since he presented the view that the soul is based on material substances.

In 1743, at the age of 55, Emanuel Swedenborg requested a leave of absence to go abroad.

Emanuel Swedenborg's purpose was to gather source material for Regnum animale, a subject on which books were not readily available in Sweden.

Emanuel Swedenborg had planned to produce a total of 17 volumes.

Emanuel Swedenborg carried a travel journal with him on most of his travels and did so on this journey.

Emanuel Swedenborg experienced many different dreams and visions, some greatly pleasurable, others highly disturbing.

Emanuel Swedenborg proposed that what Swedenborg was recording in his Journal of Dreams was a battle between the love of himself and the love of God.

Emanuel Swedenborg felt that he should drop his current project and write a new book about the worship of God.

Emanuel Swedenborg soon began working on De cultu et amore Dei, or The Worship and Love of God.

In 1745, aged 57, Emanuel Swedenborg was dining in a private room at a tavern in London.

Emanuel Swedenborg explained that he was obliged to complete a work that he had begun and requested to receive half his salary as a pension.

Emanuel Swedenborg took up afresh his study of Hebrew and began to work on the spiritual interpretation of the Bible with the goal of interpreting the spiritual meaning of every verse.

The work was anonymous, and Emanuel Swedenborg was not identified as the author until the late 1750s.

Emanuel Swedenborg's writings were filled with symbolism - Swedenborg often used stones to represent truth, snakes for evil, houses for intelligence, and cities for religious systems.

Emanuel Swedenborg described the appearance of heaven in great detail, as well as inhabitants from other planets.

Nonetheless, the early-days ideal appears to have given rise to the idea that Emanuel Swedenborg was a vegetarian.

Emanuel Swedenborg published his work in London or the Netherlands to escape censorship by the Swedish Empire.

Emanuel Swedenborg's health improved somewhat, but he died in 1772.

Emanuel Swedenborg said that he had been told in the world of spirits that Wesley wanted to speak with him.

Wesley, startled since he had not told anyone of his interest in Emanuel Swedenborg, replied that he was going on a journey for six months and would contact Emanuel Swedenborg on his return.

Emanuel Swedenborg was buried in the Swedish Church in Princes Square in Shadwell, London.

Emanuel Swedenborg has had a variety of both supporting and critical biographers.

Swedish critic and publicist Olof Lagercrantz had a similar point of view, calling Emanuel Swedenborg's theological writing "a poem about a foreign country with peculiar laws and customs".

Emanuel Swedenborg argued that it is the presence of that spiritual sense which makes the Word divine.

Four incidents of purported psychic ability of Emanuel Swedenborg exist in the literature.

Emanuel Swedenborg became agitated and told the party at six o'clock that there was a fire in Stockholm, that it had consumed his neighbour's home and was threatening his own.

Emanuel Swedenborg warned him, again abruptly, of an incipient fire in one of his mills.

The next day, Emanuel Swedenborg whispered something in her ear that turned the Queen pale and she explained that this was something only she and her brother could know about.

The fourth incident involved a woman who had lost an important document, and came to Emanuel Swedenborg asking if a recently deceased person could tell him where it was, which he was said to have done the following night.

Joseph Green, his English friend, who investigated the matter for Kant, including by visiting Emanuel Swedenborg's home, found Emanuel Swedenborg to be a "sensible, pleasant and openhearted" man and here again, a scholar.

Emanuel Swedenborg termed Swedenborg a "spook hunter" "without official office or occupation".

Emanuel Swedenborg claimed in The Heavenly Doctrine that the teachings of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ were revealed to him.

Emanuel Swedenborg considered his theology a revelation of the true Christian religion that had become obfuscated through centuries of theology.

Emanuel Swedenborg begins this work by outlining how the creation myth was not an account of the creation of Earth, but an account of man's rebirth or regeneration in six steps represented by the six days of creation.

One often discussed aspect of Emanuel Swedenborg's writing is his ideas on marriage.

Emanuel Swedenborg himself remained a bachelor all his life, but that did not hinder him from writing voluminously on the subject.

Emanuel Swedenborg wrote The Lord God Jesus Christ on Marriage in Heaven as a detailed analysis of what he meant.

Emanuel Swedenborg saw creation as a series of pairings, descending from the Divine love and wisdom that define God and are the basis of creation.

Emanuel Swedenborg rejected the common explanation of the Trinity as a Trinity of Persons, which he said was not taught in the early Christian church.

Emanuel Swedenborg spoke in virtually all his works against what he regarded as the incomprehensible Trinity of Persons concept.

Emanuel Swedenborg said that people of other religions opposed Christianity because of its doctrine of a Trinity of Persons.

Emanuel Swedenborg considered the separation of the Trinity into three separate Persons to have originated with the First Council of Nicaea and the Athanasian Creed.

In other words, Emanuel Swedenborg spoke sharply against the faith-alone doctrine of Luther and others.

Emanuel Swedenborg held that justification before God was not based solely upon some imputed righteousness before God, and was not achievable merely by a gift of God's grace, granted without any basis in a person's actual behavior in life.

Emanuel Swedenborg's philosophy had a great impact on the Duke of Sodermanland, later King Carl XIII, who as the Grand Master of Swedish Freemasonry built its unique system of degrees and wrote its rituals.

Copies of the original Latin version in which Emanuel Swedenborg wrote his revelation are available from the following sources.