newsletter

Q.What trait do you most admire in Swedenborg?

A.His remarkable versatility and his terrific energy. He is one of those embarrasingly prolific and creative individuals they seem to have stopped making in the last century. Also his supreme common sense and healthy attitude to life. "Do the good that you know" seems to me an inestimable piece of good advice.

If he were alive today...aside from asking him if he could put in a good word with the angels and help me find an affordable flat in London, I would ask how he felt his ideas had been taken up, if he was happy with the influence he had, and if he felt things were better now, or worse.

Heaven or Hell? Well, Blake makes heaven and angels out to be an utter bore and hell the fun place, but then Bernard Shaw turns this around and makes hell a place 'where you have nothing to do but amuse yourself'', which sounds like being trapped in front of a television for eternity. Given that sex is supposed to better in heaven, though, I think I'd go for that. I've had a few hellish experiences of it already.

My inspiration for writing Into the Interior was…to make Swedenborg more accessible to people who are interested in ideas about spirituality and the deep questions of life, yet who may be put off by the huge amount that Swedenborg wrote himself. I had a similar inspiration for writing my book on Rudolf Steiner, who was equal prolix. Also to introduce a fascinating character who should be better known.

What are you working on now? I've just finished a book on literary suicides, and am currently working on a book about politics and the occult which, incidentally, Swedenborg will figure in as well, as part of the 'occult enlightenment' period.

How would you like Swedenborg to be remembered? I think Swedenborg should be remembered as a brilliant thinker who straddled the gap between science and spirituality and who tried to make religion a matter of everyday life, and not some concern related to an abstract afterlife.

Gary Lachman is a successful author and a founding member of the rock group Blondie and in 2006 was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.