Description

Secrets of Heaven is a verse-by-verse exposition of Genesis and Exodus, showing the correspondences (connections through symbol between the material and spiritual world) in which, according to Swedenborg’s analysis, the Bible is written. Each chapter includes embedded sections describing Swedenborg’s spiritual experiences and expounding his theological views. This book series is Swedenborg’s largest and in many ways most challenging title, but it contains abundant points of interest to reward the adventurous reader. In addition to a deep exploration of biblical inner meaning, it presents Swedenborg’s transcendent visions of heaven and correspondingly horrific views of hell; his reports on the process of dying and entering life after death; his spiritual anthropology (specifically, his descriptions of the spiritual state of the earliest people); and his views on many other topics, including the correspondences of the organs and systems of the human body, the theory of a higher and more perfect level of memory above our conscious memory, the existence and nature of human life on other planets, the dual nature of visions and dreams, and the nature of the human mind and its developmental stages.

Volume 2 provides the inner meaning of Genesis 9–15. Here the rise of a new and major religious culture is symbolized by the story of Noah and his descendants, and the eventual collapse of that culture by the destruction of the tower of Babel. After this point a shift in focus occurs: the inner meaning now concerns the spiritual aspects of Jesus’s life. The literal story continues with Abram’s call to Canaan, symbolizing Jesus’s first realization of his divine purpose. Within this volume Swedenborg also completes his description of hell and addresses the nature of time, space, language, and the Bible in the spiritual world.

About the Deluxe Edition

A Disclosure of Secrets of Heaven Contained in Sacred Scripture, or the Word of the Lord; Here First Those in Genesis, Together with Amazing Things Seen in the World of Spirits and in the Heaven of Angels, volume 2, by Emanuel Swedenborg. Originally published by Swedenborg in London in 1750. Translated by Lisa Hyatt Cooper. This Deluxe volume includes a series editor’s preface by Jonathan S. Rose; a translator’s preface; an explanation of conventions used in the series, along with a list of works by Swedenborg referred to in the volume; the newly translated text of Swedenborg’s work; fifty-nine pages of endnotes by Lisa Hyatt Cooper, George F. Dole, David N. Gyllenhaal, Kristin King, Robert H. Kirven, John L. Odhner, Jonathan S. Rose, Fitzhugh L. Shaw, Stuart Shotwell, Richard Smoley, and Lee S. Woofenden; a bibliography of works cited in the notes; an index to the notes; and a biographical note on Swedenborg. 2013.