Emanuel Swedenborg was a true 'Renaissance' figure. A man of broad interests, knowledge and ability, he was, among other things, an eminent scientist, philosopher, theologian and visionary. Born in Sweden, he began his career as an engineer and inventor, later becoming interested in anatomy and religion. By the time of his death Swedenborg had gained fame throughout Europe as one of the greatest minds of the eighteenth century.
Born in Stockholm in 1688, the son of a Lutheran bishop, Swedenborg was educated at Uppsala University and spent his early adulthood travelling. He studied a broad mix of literary figures including Shakespeare, Milton and Dryden, and a wide range of philosophers and scientists from Aristotle to Newton. Swedenborg spent much time in London, some of it with Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, at the Observatory in Greenwich.
During his life, Swedenborg became a prolific writer and left behind nearly 30 published books and a further 30 unpublished manuscripts - on themes ranging from science, anatomy, philosophy and theology - that have since had a profound influence on literature, the arts, philosophy and the social sciences. The many figures influenced by Swedenborg's writing include Immanuel Kant, William Blake, Charles Baudelaire, W B Yeats, C G Jung, D T Suzuki, J L Borges, C Milosz, C J Jung, S T Coleridge and Honore de Balzac. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, in 1850, 'after Dante, Shakespeare and Milton there came no grand poet until Swedenborg sung the wonders of man's hearts in strange prose poems which he called Heaven and Hell, Celestial Secrets and so on…'.
Early in his career, Swedenborg was the editor of the first scientific journal in Sweden and he soon gained renown for his scientific and inventive work, ranging from a submarine, an aeroplane, water clock and a device to carry large ships over land. His theories of the origin of the solar system and of the workings of the human brain anticipated later scientific discoveries - he predicted the nebular hypothesis* in advance of Kant and Laplace. Swedenborg was offered Professorships of Astronomy and Mathematics at Uppsala but instead chose a post in the Swedish Board of Mines where he felt he could be of greater service to his nation. Swedenborg's mother had come from a family of mine owners.
At the age of 35, Swedenborg earned the position of ‘Assessor Extraordinary of the Board of Mines’. He realised that the Swedish mining industry was backward and strove for many years to bring it up to date. In doing so he studied many branches of science and technology and absorbed much of the knowledge available at the time. As a result of these studies, Swedenborg wrote and published various works on metallurgy, including Principia and Opera Philosohica et Mineralia, which won him respect and recognition across Europe. During this period, he was given a seat in the House of Nobles and began to attend the Swedish Diet**.
In his mid-forties, Swedenborg began to focus his attention on physiology and anatomy and extended his exhaustive researches to philosophy and psychology. Swedenborg became interested in finding the seat of the soul but eventually realised that science would not provide the answers he sought. He sparked the first interest in the relationship between the cortical substance of the brain and higher mental activities. Despite this new focus, Swedenborg did not neglect other interests and continued to write widely on geology, chemistry, physics and cosmology.
Swedenborg's enthusiasm for science was, however, later replaced by a preoccupation with religion. He became inspired to study Hebrew and the Bible, writing various commentaries on Genesis. At about the same time he became aware of meaningful dreams and later had psychic experiences. These experiences led to a state of unusual spiritual awareness, which, he claimed, was of Divine permission. Swedenborg said he was allowed to experience the 'future life', a sort of permanent near death experience, for over twenty years. These spiritual visions led him to devote the remainder of his life to a study of the sacred scriptures and the teachings of the Christian religion.
"The Lord is the sun of the heaven of angels, and it is this which appears before their eyes, when they meditate on spiritual matters... every single truth of Wisdom is as if it were a mirror in which the Lord is seen, and every kind of good which is part of love is an image of the Lord." Emanuel Swedenborg, True Christian Religion.
As with his scientific research, Swedenborg recorded everything as he experienced it and numerous theological books resulted from these recordings. The first of these theological / visionary works was an eight volume exposition titled Arcana Caelestia (Heavenly Secrets). Swedenborg then produced numerous further titles, including his classic Heaven and Hell as well as others on what he termed angelic wisdom, books such as The Divine Love and Wisdom and Marriage Love. In his final work, The True Christian Religion, Swedenborg offers a complete account of his main theological and philosophical points.
"Conjugial love has the quality of each one wanting to be the other's, completely and reciprocally. When this is experienced they are in heavenly happiness."Emanuel Swedenborg, Arcana Caelestia
These later works influenced a diverse range of writers and thinkers. The poet Czelaw Milosz once wrote: "In the history of the rebellion of man against God, Swedenborg stands out as a great healer who wanted to break the seals on the sacred books and thus make rebellion unnecessary."
Swedenborg died in the Clerkenwell district of London in 1772, famous throughout Europe not only for his eminent contribution to science and technology but above all for his important and influential writings on philosophy and religion.
'Voltaire said that the most extraordinary man in recorded history was Charles XII. I would disagree: the most extraordinary man - if we admit such superlatives - was that mysterious subject of Charles XII, Emanuel Swedenborg'. Jorge Luis Borges
* This is the theory that the planets in the solar system originated from the solar mass. This theory is usually attributed to the philosopher Kant and to the slightly later French scientist Laplace, but it is accepted that Swedenborg anticipated this theory in his Principia (1734).
** The 'Diet', 'Riksdag' in Swedish, was the Parliament. It sat in four Houses, Nobles, Clergy, Burgesses and Peasants. Swedenborg sat in the House of Nobles, or 'Riddarhuset' in Swedish.