The possible existence of extraterrestrial life led in the eighteenth century to a heated debate on the unique status of the human being and of Christianity. Swedish natural philosopher and theologian Emanuel Swedenborg was one of those who discussed the new scientific worldview and its implications for theology.
Continue ReadingScholars on Swedenborg
Our Scholars on Swedenborg blog features articles written by Swedenborgian academics with an emphasis on how religious pluralism has been used to solve some of the most pressing issues of the past and present.
A Connection Between Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Emanuel Swedenborg: Their Message for a New Era
The question has been asked before: how influenced was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the renowned German Lutheran pastor and theologian who led the resistance against Hitler and was executed for it, by his favorite grandmother’s Swedenborgian commitments? The answer may lie partly in the vision shared by both Swedenborg and Bonhoeffer of a dramatic new era unfolding now in the divine plan.
Continue ReadingSwedenborg’s Eve: On Mutuality, Meaning, and Mirrors
Swedenborg wrote The Worship and Love of God, his most poetic work, during a year of intense spiritual awakening. The book, though unfinished, is remarkable for its bold vision concerning the cosmos’s first female.
Continue ReadingSwedenborg’s Influence on Balzac and Strindberg
Swedenborg’s doctrine of correspondences can serve the artist as a tool for accessing depth of meaning and understanding.
Continue ReadingFrom Böhme and Swedenborg to Hegel and Schelling: The Role of Mysticism in German Idealism
Swedenborg ripened into being both sophisticated and childlike—a most productive combination.
Continue ReadingThree Worldviews That Paved the Way for Women’s Suffrage
This year marks the centennial anniversary of American women winning the right to vote on August 18, 1920. How did their victory come about? What happened in the century leading up to the legalization of women’s suffrage? Where did the idea even come from?
Continue ReadingA Story without End
How did a young Swede become, after William Wilberforce, the second most important abolitionist in England’s history? The answer: he read Swedenborg.
Continue ReadingThe American Yen for Zen Began with Swedenborg . . . Sort of
What’s the story behind a Swedenborgian minister changing his name from Herman Vetterling to Philangi Dàsa, founding and editing the first Buddhist periodical in America, and publishing a fat book called Swedenborg the Buddhist? It’s complicated.
Continue ReadingIntimations of Immortality: Three Case Studies
A celebrated philosopher of religion ponders Swedenborg and other evidence of the afterlife.
Continue ReadingIs There Really Life on Other Planets?
An acclaimed astronomer, Swedenborg’s deductions about the physical universe were brilliant. Was he also onto something about its spiritual nature?
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