Description

Emanuel Swedenborg’s Other Planets (De Telluribus in Mundo Nostro Solari, 1758) was written during an era of scientific discovery and metaphysical speculation. It transforms the eighteenth-century fascination with the “plurality of worlds” into a meditation on the moral and spiritual dimensions of human existence.

A Visionary Cosmos with a Human Face

In this new translation from the original neo-Latin, Swedenborg describes dialogues with the spirits of Mercury, Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Venus, the Moon, and worlds beyond our solar system. Each planetary community embodies a distinctive moral or spiritual quality—curiosity, humility, community, or contemplation—revealing how cosmic diversity reflects the inner landscape of humanity itself.

In his 2020 article, Vincent Roy-Di Piazza notes that Swedenborg’s planetary spirits function as “ghosts from other planets”—figures of reflection that blur the line between revelation and satire. Through them, Swedenborg critiques the intellectual pride of his age, particularly the Enlightenment’s confidence in rationalism and empirical certainty. What seems at first a travelogue of the heavens becomes a meditation on the limits of human knowledge and the enduring reach of divine order.

The Moral Imagination of the Universe

Other Planets offers what might be called a spiritual anthropology of the cosmos. Each encounter Swedenborg records suggests that heaven and the afterlife mirror the moral choices of earthly life. The beings of other worlds are not aliens but exemplars—echoes of what humanity might become when shaped by love, wisdom, or ignorance.

This interpretive complexity gives the book its lasting vitality. It can be read as visionary theology, philosophical allegory, or even as gentle satire of scientific hubris. Readers are invited to hold these possibilities in tension, reflecting Swedenborg’s own conviction that the universe is alive with correspondences between the physical and the spiritual.

A Portable New Century Translation

In Other Planets, Swedenborg’s voice stands between two worlds: the rigorous empiricism of his early scientific career and the expansive spirituality of his later theological works. This Portable New Century Edition, translated by George F. Dole and Jonathan S. Rose for the Swedenborg Foundation, preserves Swedenborg’s contemplative tone and wry intelligence. The edition situates the text within his broader theological vision and his subtle critique of the Enlightenment’s self-assured materialism.