Swedenborg: An Introduction to His Life and Ideas

by Gary Lachman

A clear and concise overview of the life and work of the immensely influential but little understood eighteenth-century mystic-scientist Emanuel Swedenborg.
"Lachman identifies all the roles Swedenborg inhabited (spiritual thinker, psychic, scientist, inventor, statesman, traveler, and possibly even spy) and does an exceptionally good job of suggesting why this little-known polymath deserves more substantial critical attention." - "The Independent on Sunday (UK)"
It is difficult to imagine modern Western alternative spirituality without the influence of Swedish scientist and mystic Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). Every movement in alternative spirituality - from mental-healing and Spiritualism to New Age mysticism and the twelve-step recovery movement - owes an immeasurable debt to the ideas he exploded upon the Western world.
Yet Swedenborg's work can be challenging for modern readers. His influence, everywhere at once, is difficult to get a handle on. Now, however, Gary Lachman provides an accessible, lively, and masterful introduction to the life and ideas of this spiritual giant. Lachman takes us to Swedenborg's roots as brilliant rationalist and scientist who, well into mid-life, began to experience visions of other realms. From this point Swedenborg produced an extraordinary range of writings based on his out-of-body experiences, in which he related encounters with angels, other-planetary beings, and "the world of spirits."
As Lachman explores, Swedenborg's work opened up a radically liberal and refreshing ideal of religion. The great mystic saw humanity, and all of nature, as phenomena emerging from the "spiritual world," and man as a vessel for divine influences. This vision inspired Western seekers to see man as a product of spiritual phenomena, and thus a being intimately connected with the cosmos. From this perspective grew bold new ideas about channeling, spiritual healing, mystical experience, mediumship - a litany of concepts that prefigured the revolutions in alternative and therapeutic spirituality.

Genres: Biography, Religion, Mysticism, History, Nonfiction, Christianity, Psychology

206 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 12, 2012

About the author

Gary Lachman is an American writer and musician. Lachman is best known to readers of mysticism and the occult from the numerous articles and books he has published.

Reviews

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a short biography and discussion of Swedenborg’s life and work.

Writers, philosophers and psychologists cite him as providing a foundation for their work- Carl Jung, Henry James, W.B., Emerson Yeats are a few who further explored his themes. Despite his great influence, he has remained an obscure historical figure.

This book does not address the reasons for omission of Swedenborg from the anthologies and academic texts that would give his ideas a wider audience. It gives an introductory sketch and the reader can draw his/her own conclusions.

This book is for those who who want a brief introduction to this scientist/philosopher.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

This well written, relatively light intellectual biography of Swedenborg is fun to read. However, the biographical telling builds to a crescendo when Swedenborg begins having visions of other worlds, however it is just at this crucial juncture that Lachman seems to tell us all about the visions of others (William James, Rilke, P.D. Ouspensky) at the cost of only the lightest skimming of Swedenborgian material. If the goal was to leave me wanting more then I suppose Lachman achieved it, and his various thematizations are exactly what I was looking for in a book like this, however, the lack of direct wrestling with Swedenborg's own "summit" experiences at the end of this book was disappointing to me. And we really received no take on his death, or his works own afterlife in Theosophy and the Swedenborgian church, all topics that I wish were covered as well.

[Lissa Notreallywolf · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was a good introduction to Swedenborg, especially Lachman's understanding of Swedenborg's scientific writing. I would have to reread Economy of the Animal Kingdom and Animal Kingdom by Swedenborg to assess if his reading is accurate, but at this point I am very impressed with his insight and expression. The prose is lucid and Lachman has an active sense of humor dealing with Schuchard's conspiracy allegations, although he is clearly intrigued. He relies heavily on Toksvig and does not cite a clear predecessor in his inquiry, Ernst Benz. He does, however, reference the Swedish scholar's Swedenborg's Secret without spoilers. I liked his critique of "scientistic" perspective and his insights on Neo-Platonism. The book is not well referenced to well known "facts" about Swedenborg-I would have hoped that being British he could have done some more research on the plague quarantine episode, or told us more about Swedenborg's time in London, things that might have come to light in the authors stay at the British Library. But very worthwhile if you are interested in Swedenborg. Here is to new Swedenborg scholarship.

[Connie Backus-yoder · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am fascinated with Swedenborg. some of the book was beyond my scope of thought and imagery, but some of the book was plain as day....with a little darkness snuck in. I hope to read this again when my consciousness is able to absorb what his writing is trying to teach me. I am desirous to see things in my soul that ....

[Nobody Particular · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well written. Concise and authoritative with fresh ways to communicate complex ideas.

[Richard Seltzer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read as research for my novel Parallel Lives.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Lachman gives a brief, easy-to-comprehend introduction to Swedenborg’s life and writing, which is both the strength and the weakness of this book. The first half focuses on his life as a scientist and explorer of inner spaces, whereas the second half examines his spiritual (some might say schizophrenic) writings on heaven, hell, and altered mystical states. Lachman aims to be open-minded, neither embracing Swedenborg completely nor panning some of his more extreme claims. Instead, he tries to position Swedenborg in relation to other intellectuals who examine altered states, from Blake to William James, Rudolf Steiner, and Jung. Unfortunately, this has the effect of creating tangential passages that move away from Swedenborg’s claims under the guise of expanding on or contextualizing his ideas.

At times, I wished for a little more insight and detail into the nuts and bolts of Swedenborg’s claims rather than comparisons to other writers. This was especially the case in the final chapter, when Lachman gives a strong synthesis of James and Ouspensky’s writings on drugged altered states with an attempt to somehow connect it to Swedenborg’s angelic conversations, which were not due to the influence of drugs. It’s almost as if Swedenborg’s claims were a little too esoteric, so Lachman felt the need to bring in these other parallel conversations before concluding, “Swedenborg’s ideas were sort of like this.” As with other sections of the book, I also felt that Lachman was attempting to legitimize Swedenborg’s more extreme views by comparing him to thinkers who are more reputable to modern readers.

Even so, this book gave me the overview of Swedenborg’s life and writing that I needed before diving into his works. The Selected Bibliography was especially helpful. The book also seemed like a good starting point for further studying the esoteric writings that emerged after Swedenborg, which Lachman covers in his other books (and often refers to in this one). Since my concern with Swedenborg has more to do with his literary influence on Balzac, Goethe, Blake, the Symbolists, etc., I found this to be an acceptable introduction for a popular audience. However, those interested in more a intense or academic study of Swedenborg’s philosophy and writings might wish to look elsewhere.

[Sverre · Rating 2 out of 5]

Instead of this work I would recommend ‘Essential Readings by Emmanuel Swedenborg’ edited by Michael Stanley. However, this work does provide more information into Swedenborg’s life, his scientific accomplishments, his obsessive-compulsive mannerisms and his ventures into mystical states. This is a quick overview of his life and beliefs/ideas three centuries ago. I concluded that Swedenborg was a tortured soul living with one foot on each side of the spirit-dimensional divide.

I didn't care too much for the author’s frequent digressions to compare, verify or justify Swedenborg’s ideas with the opinions of more recent mystics and philosophers. At times I would have to go back a few paragraphs to ascertain whose proposition was being presented, Swedenborg’s or someone else’s. I thought the author felt that Swedenborg’s extensive and unique propositions were too weak to stand on their own—that they needed to be propped up by ‘saner and more rational’ arguments.

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Cliffnotes like tour of Swedenborg's life and ideas. Erudite connections abound, however the reasoning is often somewhat slip shod, and it is difficult to know what assertions and ideas are trustworthy and which are nonsense. (For example the author briefly mentions The Mechanical Turk, a supposed Chess playing automaton of the 18th century as a mechanical wonder, without bothering to note this has been proven to be a hoax. It's impossible to say whether this lapse is from gullibility or simply from being in too much of a hurry to engage with the historic research, similar problematic notions abound throughout the book.) Still, the metaphysical visions of Swedenborg are fascinating and quickly surveyed with an open mind.

[Chelsea Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good short book for a beginner with little knowledge of Swedenborg.

[Blake Paine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was drawn to Swedenborgs ideas because of his theory of correspondences. I learned a lot.

[Ralphe Wiggins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent intro to his life and contributions.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you, Gary Lachman, so very, very much for sharing such ideas as alchemy, anima, being, the body and its relationship with the soul, David Bohn and the implicate order, the brain, breathing, consciousness, depression, despair, the Divine, dreams, earth, the ego, Ralph Waldo Emerson, emotions, energy, evolution, experience, the explicate order, form, formless, finite, geometry, Gnosis, grace, heart, heaven, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, hippocampus, hologram, Aldous Huxley, hypnagogia, illusion, the implicate order, imagination, immaterial, individuation, infinite, complex intellectualism, the limbic system, Carl Gustav Jung, Immanuel Kant, love, magnetism, man, matter, meditation, memory, Messiah complex, mortal, New Age, odors, p;personal development, physics, Plato, the psyche, Pythagoras, modern Western rationalism, reality, rebirth, religion, Jean-Paul Sartre, schizophrenia, Arnold Schoenberg, Erwin Schrodinger, the Self, sex, shamanism, sight, sleep, Socrates, soul, space, spaceless, spirit, spiritual development, stars, Rudolf Steiner, the sun, theologians, time, timeless, transpersonal, the unconscious, the universe and cosmos, war, and woman in your introduction to the lie and ideas of Swedenborg.

[Tiina Mahlamäki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tiivis ja hyvä johdatus Emanuel Swedenborgin elämään, keskeisiin ajatuksiin sekä hänen vaikutukseensa myöhemmin tulleisiin, kuten Jungiin ja Steineriin. Laaja lähdekirjallisuus, johon suhtautuu kriittisesti. On perehtynyt myös Swedenborgin omiin kirjoituksiin. Kirjoittaa itsensä ja näkemyksensä tekstiin, joka on elävää ja yleistajuista.

[Trinity · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable and readable introduction to the life and thought of Emanuel Swedenborg.