By David Dunรฉr
The following is the first part of a journal article that was published in Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 51:2 (June 2016), 450โ479.
Introduction: Astrotheology and the Plurality of Worlds
The extraterrestrial life debate, or the plurality of worlds debate, intensified in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Dick 1982; Guthke 1983; Crowe 1986; Dick 1996; Brake 2006; Crowe 2008; Dunรฉr 2012; 2013a; 2013e; see also Michael Croweโs paper in this section). With the new heliocentric system, earth had become a planet like the others and no longer the center of the universe. With the invention of the telescope, topographical features on the moon were revealed similar to those on earth. Added to these explanations and observations, the discoveries of new worlds overseas led to cultural encounters with foreign ways of life. The possible existence of life unrelated to our own earthly, European culture led also to a heated debate on the unique status of the human being and of Christianity. When rejecting Christianity was not an option, philosophers and theologians had to either deny the existence of other worlds or reconcile the idea with Christian dogmas (Dick 2009, 175 f.). One of those who discussed the new scientific world-view and its implications for theology was the Swedish natural philosopher and theologian Emanuel Swedenborg. In his works, which I will show in the following, there is a transition of ideas from natural philosophy to theology, arriving at an eighteenth-century astrotheology, informed by contemporary natural philosophy, which tried to solve those questions that the extraterrestrial life debate raised.
The theological and existential implications of the new astronomical world-view are well-known. When Nicolaus Copernicus showed in 1543, in his De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, that earth no longer must necessarily be considered as the center of the universe, the human being, during this transition from a geocentric to a heliocentric world-view, also lost its central position in the divine creation. The planets became earths. When Galileo Galilei (1610) aimed his telescope at the moon in 1609 and found it a rough globe resembling our own planetโs topography of mountains and plains, then earth lost its unique status as the only habitable planet in our solar system. If we find other worlds with similar topographical features as earth, why could these planets not also harbor life? Earth seemed not to have any unique characteristics that we cannot find elsewhere in the universe. Our planet became a planet amongst others. These astronomical observations, along with geographical discoveries of foreign countries and nations on earth, gave material for a genre of space travel stories that blended scientific knowledge with a fictional grip that stretched the imagination to the extreme. It was very much a utopian, satirical genre. Travels to the moon were a way of telling about other possible ways of living, a critique of the mundane, political world in which we live. Well-known are the stories of travels to other worlds by Francis Godwin, John Wilkins, Athanasius Kircher, Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac, Samuel Brown, Ludvig Holberg, and Franรงois Marie Arouet de Voltaire. But there were also others who claimed that they, literally, had been there themselves. One of those space travelers was Swedenborg.
In the extraterrestrial life debate of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, our closest celestial body, the moon, was the prime candidate for life on other worlds. However, a number of natural philosophers and scholars also speculated about life on other planets, both within our solar system and beyond its frontiersโfor example, on Venus (Dunรฉr 2013e) and Jupiter. One of the most famous and popular accounts defending the plurality of worlds, also read by Swedenborg, is Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelleโs book Entretiens sur la pluralitรฉ des mondes (1686), which consists of six evening discussions on the plurality of worlds between a philosopher and an aristocratic lady in the gardens of a country chateau. Perhaps, wonders the philosopher, there are astronomers on Jupiter; and perhaps we cause them to engage in scientific quarrels, so that some Jovian philosophers must defend themselves when they put forward the ludicrous opinion that we exist. Their telescopes are directed toward us, as ours are toward them, โthat mutual curiosity, with which the inhabitants of these Planets consider each other, and demand the one of the other, What world is that? What people inhabit it?โ (Fontenelle 1686; 1702 trans., 93 ). Another prominent natural philosopher, Christiaan Huygens, expresses in Cosmotheoros (1698) his thoughts about extraterrestrial life, and believed that life on other planets is similar to what we find on earth. He notes that liquid water is necessary for life, and he thought he saw darker and lighter spots on the surfaces of Mars and Jupiter, which must be understood as water and ice. Beyond our solar system there are stars of the same sort as our sunโand why, he asks, would not they, in turn, have their own planets and moons? Huygensโs extraterrestrials are in many ways just like earthlings; they have mathematics, astronomy, music, similar intellect, and moral conceptions.
Some natural philosophers even speculated about the intelligence of these extraterrestrials. The philosopher Immanuel Kantโwho had, as we will see, a complicated relation to Swedenborgโs spiritual teachingsโwrote in Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels (1755) that the intelligence of the extraterrestrials becomes โmore excellent and perfect in proportion to the distances of their habitats from the sun.โ The Mercurians and Venusians are according to Kant less intelligent than earthlings who are exactly in the middle. The Jovians and Saturnians are superior beings. Kant wrote: โFrom one side we saw thinking creatures among whom a man from Greenland or a Hottentot would be a Newton, and on the other side some others would admire him as [if he were] an apeโ (Kant 1755, 189 f.; Crowe 1986, 52 f.). Interestingly, here Kant actually discusses how the body functions of humans are a result of their location in the solar system, and also how this location and their bodies affect their minds and their ability to think.
There was also a lively extraterrestrial life debate in Swedenborgโs native country. Two dissertations were defended in the 1740s in Uppsala with the astronomy professor Anders Celsius chairing the proceedings, of which one refuted the idea of a habitable moon, while the other defended the idea of the plurality of worlds (Celsius 1740; 1743). Of more relevance for Swedenborg was a short story about traveling to the moon written by the inventor Christopher Polhem with whom Swedenborg collaborated closely for a couple of years. Polhemโs Nyia tiender uthur mรฅnan (News from the moon) from the 1710s tells about a Sami who travels to the moon (Dunรฉr 2013b). A Sami had been engaged by some learned men in Uppsala to use wings to fly in the air, but after several unsuccessful flight attempts, another Sami, who was a magician, suggested another way of traveling to the moon. With the help of his magic drum, he could travel there. After spending seven months on the moon, while learning the language of the Lunarians, he returned to earth and told about everything he had seen and heard on the moon.
Natural philosophy and theology were intertwined in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century plurality of worlds debate. Godโs providence upholds the laws of nature, and the wonderful ingenuity and diversity in nature indicated that there is a clever divine watchmaker behind the creation. But the very possibility of life on other planets raised a number of theological problems. Is humankind unique in the universe? Are aliens like us, or of higher or lower intelligence and morality? And how does the idea of habitable worlds fit into Godโs plan with his creation? The idea that there could be โโlife on other planets became more accepted by philosophers and theologians. In the Middle Ages, because of philosophical reasons, especially due to the dominance of Aristotelian philosophy, it had been impossible; it became now not just a possibility, but a probability, due to the new cosmology, new observations, and interpretations. If this idea raised serious objections in the early seventeenth century because it seemed to be contrary to Christian truths, it could in the eighteenth century rather support the belief in an omnipotent creator. Common arguments against the existence of other worlds had been that it would lead to a questioning of the uniqueness of the human being and its central position in Godโs creation. And what would happen with Christโs death on the cross? Did our Jesus die also for the sins of the extraterrestrials, or are there a countless number of Jesuses out there in space who died on their crosses? And had all these inhabited worlds their Adams, their apples of Eves, their snakes? Or did Christ the Redeemer hop, as Thomas Paine asked, from one world to another in an endless succession of deaths? (Paine 1794; Dick 2009, 176; see Michael Croweโs paper in this section).
In the eighteenth century, however, many natural philosophers and theologians came to defend a physico-theological view that the wonderful and astonishing order and efficiency we can see in nature, and the countless life forms we can find on earth, show that there must be an omnipotent and infinitely wise Creator. According to the physico-theologists, there were good arguments that life must exist on other planets. The all-powerful Creator must have filled the entire universe with life, and he could not have left all stars and planets as an immense, empty, barren desert. One of the most famous promoters of such a physico-theological interpretation was the English theologian William Derham who in his book on astrotheology from 1713 (translated into Swedish in 1735) put forward that the stars and planets indicated the existence of an ingenious creator. The stunning mechanics of the starry sky tells us about a divine watchmaker who had created everything according to a certain pre-established plan. Derham believed that the moon was inhabited, and there were many inhabited solar systems and planets besides our own. Our earth is just a point compared to the entire universe. And for this little point, we fight with fire and sword. By citing Seneca, Derham (1715, 235; Seneca, Naturales quaestiones, 1, praef. 8, 11) points out how ridiculous this is, when โabove there are vast spaces, to whose possession the Mind is admitted.โ
Probably one of the most original and curious contributions to the debate concerning the plurality of worlds in the eighteenth century was a work that, without the slightest irony, provided a sincere account of its authorโs encounters with extraterrestrials. In 1758, the Swedish spiritual visionary Emanuel Swedenborg published a book that described his encounters with extraterrestrial spirits, which he entitled De telluribus in mundo nostro solari (Goerwitz 1985; Acton 1996; Bedford 2006). Swedenborg did not only say that extraterrestrial life might exist, and his travels among inhabited worlds are not just the stuff of a utopian novel; he in fact claimed that he had met these extraterrestrial beings and talked to them in person. In this paper I will show that Swedenborgโs belief in extraterrestrial life, how seemingly strange, rests on his work as a natural philosopher and on various scientific beliefs that were circulating during his time. I will, to begin with, sketch his astrotheology that could be found in his natural philosophical works, where he puts forward a number of ideasโsuch as the astrodynamics of the solar system, the micro-macrocosmic analogy, and the creation of the natural worldโand his endeavor to reconcile the words of the Bible with contemporary natural philosophical theories that are important for understanding his later theological treatment of the question of the plurality of worlds in De telluribus. We will follow Swedenborgโs astrotheological transformation chronologically, but first I need to introduce the main figure of this paper and put his works and teachings in a biographical and intellectual context.
SwedenborgโNatural Philosopher and Theologian
Emanuel Swedenborg (1688โ1772) was a Swedish natural philosopher and assessor of mines, who later became an original Bible exegete, spirit-seer, and theologian. As a natural philosopher with Cartesian and Wolffian inclinations, he wrote a number of books on mathematics, matter theory, metallurgy, astronomy, anatomy, and physiology (Crasta 1999; Jonsson 1999; Dunรฉr 2013c; 2013d; Schaffer 2014). In the mid 1740s he underwent a religious conversion. He found his natural philosophical aspirations as insufficient, partially failed, and fruitless. He abandoned his scientific work and went on traveling in his dreams to a totally different world, to a spiritual, immaterial world. He claimed that he had discovered the correspondence between the natural and spiritual meanings in the Bible, or as he said, he had received the key to the inner message of the Bible. His novel interpretation of the Bible rests on his correspondence doctrine, i.e., that every physical thing corresponds to an intellectual or moral sense as well as to a theological or divine truth. For example, the creation story is not really about the creation of the earth but about humanityโs own rebirth and maturation, where the six days of creation correspond to six spiritual states.
Swedenborg received the knowledge of these correspondences, as he says, under the guidance of the Lord, through his travels in the spiritual world and his conversations with spirits and angels. With his internal vision, he could see into the afterlife. During sleep, but also during dormant states in the middle of the day, he traveled in his dreams to the world of spirits and angels. The spiritual world is a kind of gathering place for the souls of the dead, from where they then after a time travel on to either heaven or hell. But Swedenborgโs heaven and hell are not places; they are spiritual states. The universe as a whole appears like a gigantic human being, wherein each of us is a miniature of the Universal Human (Maximus Homo). Each part of the human body corresponds with similar parts of the Universal Human, but they also have various spiritual meanings. Swedenborgโs first major theological work was a commentary on Genesis and Exodus, Arcana Coelestia (1749โ1756) in eight volumes. This work, which reveals the heavenly secrets hidden in the words of the Bible, summarizes the major elements of his theological thinking. All his theological worksโa total of eighteen were published during his lifetimeโwere written in Latin and printed in Amsterdam and London. In the summer of 1758 he published no fewer than five books, including the work on the earths in our solar system, De telluribus in mundo nostri solari, where he tells us about his conversations with spirits from the other planets in our solar system, but also in other planetary systems in the universe.
Swedenborgโs clairvoyant abilities made him famous in eighteenth-century Europe. Immanuel Kant mentions a story in which Swedenborg saw in his inner mind a fire taking place far away in Stockholm. Kant even wrote a whole book about Swedenborg, Trรคume eines Geistersehers (1766), where he launches into a bitter tirade against the spirit-seerโs dreams and describes him as a swindler and a liar, and he says that everything Swedenborg wrote had its origin in the pure fantasy of a sick mind. Subsequent research, however, has tried to show that Kantโs view of Swedenborg was more complicated, that Swedenborg in fact had an impact on Kantโs critical turn (Florschรผtz 1992; Stengel 2008). Swedenborgโs teachings were controversial in Germany. The theologian Johann August Ernesti attacked Swedenborgโs spiritual interpretation of the Bible, while the theologian and philosopher Friedrich Christoph Oetinger, in turn, defended him (Hanegraaff 2007). Oetinger also published Swedenborgโs De telluribus in German in 1770, 1771, and 1776, Von den Erdcรถrpern der Planeten und des gestirnten Himmels Einwohnern (Stengel 2011, 422 f.). In his Beurtheilungen (1771, 50), Oetinger concluded that Swedenborgโs speculations concerning extraterrestrials, without a doubt, had taken ideas from Huygensโs Cosmotheoros.
Swedenborgโs contrast-rich life, a life that took him from natural philosophy to theology, from rationalism to mysticism, from mathematics to spirit-seeing, has puzzled many scholars (Benz 1948; Toksvig 1948; Sigstedt 1952; Bergmann and Zwink 1988; Brock 1988; Larsen 1988; Lawrence 1995; Wilkinsons 1996; Hallengren 1998; Bergquist 2005; Stengel 2011; Grandin 2013). After being a natural philosopher of the mechanistic school, he turned to what may be perceived as the antithesis of rational, natural science: a deeply religious world-view with the idea of โโan immaterial spiritual world, where everything tends toward the spiritual and the Divine. Friedrich von Schelling wrote that in Swedenborgโs teachings โthe loveliest comfort, the most devout poetry, the most brilliant depth of thought carry on a strange and wonderful war with abstract dogmatism and poor mathematicsโ (Horn [1954] 1997, 32). Despite Swedenborgโs seemingly contradictory course in life, recent research has shown a clear relationship between the former natural philosopher and the latter theologian (Lamm [1915] 2000; Jonsson 1999; Dunรฉr 2013c).
The Cosmic Cycle
In order to explain how Swedenborg as theologian and spirit-seer could assume the existence of intelligent life on other planets, we need to trace these ideas back to his natural philosophical works. His conception of spirits from other worlds is dependent on his natural philosophical theories developed from the 1710s to the 1730s. In his very first works on astrodynamics in the late 1710s, we find a dependence on classical ideas about the divine circle, and the heliocentric world-view is explained in Cartesian terms. One could especially note his endeavor to reconcile the statements of the Bible with the contemporary heliocentric world-view.
Stars, suns, planets, and moons are recurring themes in Swedenborgโs natural philosophy, poetics, and theology, stretching from a small poem in the year 1700 to his later travels in the universe of the spiritual world. Swedenborgโs astronomical studies of the celestial movements are connected to the seasons, times, and ages, to navigation on the seas, and to the creation of the solar system. It is a universe of spiral motions, whirls, and micro-macrocosmic correspondences (Dunรฉr 2002). Time is a cosmic cycle, through the orbit of the earth around the sun, with the seasons repeated in a circle, or the peregrinations of the heavenly bodies, the annual tasks in the fields, the ebb and flow of the sea, the course of rain and rivers, the stages of life and regeneration. The preacher in Ecclesiastes starts with the vanity of the eternal, meaningless cycle; as generations come and go, the sun rises and sets, the wind goes toward the south and turns to the north. All rivers run into the sea, yet the sea never becomes full. There is nothing new under the sun.
There is a longing for immobility in the classical world-view with its spherical celestial bodies in circular movements. Swedenborg develops it into a world of spiral bubbles in spiral motion and whirling spheres, constantly in movement. Swedenborg followed Renรฉ Descartes in the tracks of his vortical theory. Aristotelian natural philosophy had been forced to concede, with its circles and its crystalline, concentric spheres representing an immutable, eternal celestial order, in contrast to the notion of rectilinear movement upward or downward that dominated under the moon, on the imperfect, mutable earth, as it was put forward in the physics of Aristotle (Physikฤs, 8.8.261b27โ262a12; Peri ouranou, 1.2.268b15โ26). Swedenborg adopted Cartesian vortices, a whirling movement that applies both above and below the moon, to the biggest and the smallest alike. But he does not let go of the idea of a perfect order established by an infinite geometrician. The world is a reflection of perfect figures. The doctrine of the perfection of the circle lived on as an important basis of his thought, immortalized as a spiral.
The whole of Swedenborgโs mechanistic natural philosophy actually seeks to provide purely mechanical explanations such as pressure and motion in a continuum. Occult forces working at a distance, thus also Isaac Newtonโs theory of gravity, had no explanatory value. What heaven has to say is merely that God is an omnipotent and omniscient Creator. Swedenborg had distanced himself from the kind of interpretations embraced by his father, the Bishop Jesper Swedberg, who read more concrete messages into the sudden celestial phenomena. Swedberg wrote to the priest he had sent to the Christina congregation in Pennsylvania, Andreas Hesselius, to tell of โthe dreadful and terrible celestial signโ that had been seen on the night of March 6, 1716. Hesselius replied that this โwould be like the gleaming of swords with their points facing down, and many quickly moving and unusual flashes. May God let it not mean something evil!โ (Swedberg 1941, 345; [1732] 1985, 85 f.; Schรผck 1918, 111). Swedenborg did not believe in augury; stars and comets are not portents of coming misfortunes, but as we will see next, astronomy has an explanatory value for interpreting some problematic statements of the Old Testament.
The Age of the Antediluvians
Everything is perishable; nothing lasts forever. โSince this is the case with earthly things, one can well conclude as to things superterrestrial, and that even there everything progresses toward a goal and a [state of] rest,โ wrote Swedenborg in 1717 in En ny theorie om jordens afstannande (A new theory about the retardation of the earth) (Swedenborg, Opera III, 271; Linkรถping Diocesan Library, N 14a, no. 34; Photolith. I, 28โ65; trans., 43). In this manuscript he puts forward a number of reasons for his opinion that the earth has been moving increasingly slowly since the beginning. Ether causes a resistance in the earthโs orbit, and air in the motion around the axis, which makes the years and the days longer and longer. He bases this on an analogical thinking: there are similarities between the mechanics of the universe and the tools of humankind. The earth rolls and spins on its axis, or its central pole, as when one takes a ball and throws it into the water, when a point on a wheel rotates around its axis or the spindle on a spinning wheel. Another reason why the movement around the axis must have been faster in the past can be detected in the roundness of the earth. The irregularities have been rubbed off and subsided in spherical form. โIf one takes a lump of clay and rolls it around its axis in water, it is formed into an ovalโ (Opera III, 272 f.; trans., 45). For Swedenborg, then, in contrast to a Newtonian explanation, the earth is oval owing to the resistance of the medium.
There is also written evidence, according to Swedenborg, for the theory that the world is slowing down, as when the Bible and classical poets talk of an eternal spring in primeval times. When the year and the days were shorter, the antediluvians, those who lived before the Deluge, could reach an age of 700 to 800 years. So Methusalahโs 969 years actually correspond to only 121โ of our years. Perhaps with the support of Johan Peringskiรถldโs genealogical tables in King Charles XIIโs Swedish Bible, Swedenborg calculated that in the time from Adam to the Deluge, the age of the antediluvians had decreased by 100 years in 1,656 years. If the earth had not been flooded, it would now have had an age of 18,212 years.
Around 1718 to 1719 he wrote two other versions about the motion and position of the earth. In the first version, in manuscript, En ny mening om jordens och planeternas gรฅng och stรฅnd eller nรฅgra bewis at jorden lรถper alt sachtare och sachtare: at winter och sommar, dagar och dygn til tiden blifwa lengre och lengre in til werldsens sista tid (1718), he puts forward โa new opinion about the motion and position of the earth and the planets or some proof that the earth is moving more and more slowly: that winter and summer, days and nights are becoming longer and longer until the end of the world.โ The increasing distance of the earth from the sun has made it poorer and less fertile. But this has not been noticed, and no wonder, for โwe have not been aware that our earth rotates like a ball each day: indeed our vision often deceives us in small matters; one does not notice that the ship is moving forward or backward.โ If one sails around the earth one does not know that one has traveled in a circle if one does not return to the same place again or finds that one has lost a day. โBehold, thus are we deceived by the light of our own senses, and are blind with them, and believe an untruth to be trueโ (Swedenborg, Opera III, 285, cf. 303). We therefore cannot trust our senses. It requires reason and geometry for Swedenborg to make us truly able to see.
Swedenborg published his theory in 1719 in Om jordenes och planeternas gรฅng och stรฅnd (On motion and position of the earth and the planets). A theory about the origin of the earth from chaos ought to follow geometry and be compared with the opinions of Descartes and Newton. But that would be beyond the scope of the present work, he says. Instead he puts forward a number of reasons for the decreasing speed of the earth based on arguments in a Rudbeckian tradition in which, according to the Swedish physician and historian Olof Rudbeck the Elder, ancient myths have something to say, notably that the lost Atlantis actually refers to Sweden in old times. Rudbeck can explain, he writes, why Canaan and the golden land can be compared โwith our mountains and iron-cliffs, its bright and delightful summer with our chilly and cloudy winterโ (Swedenborg, Opera III, 301). Godโs word; Ovid; other pagan poets such as Homer, the โTrue Grandfather of Poetsโ; and Platoโs Atlantis tell us that the earth once had โa glorious air, a constant spring, a golden age, an Eden and Paradise, an earth inhabited by Atlasโ (Swedenborg, Opera III, 306, cf. 287; Homer, The Odyssey I, 7.112โ132). There was a heaven here on earth. Life flourished in the eternal spring.
Methusalahโs abnormal age is due to the fact that the earth used to move faster. He lived as long as we do now, but he experienced more summers and winters. With the decreasing speed of the earthโs orbital rotation, the generations after us will regard twenty or thirty years as a high age. Swedenborg is thinking in a variant of the old idea of mundus senescens, the aging earth. Our globe would age and die like a human being (Dunรฉr 2015). In the past there was a golden age, according to the myth related by Ovid (Metamorphoseon, 1.89โ150) and Hesiod (Erga kai emerai; trans., 117โ120), but now we have descended into a poor age of copper, iron, and clay. Invoking the support of Rudbeckโs Atlantica (1679โ1702), as well as Samuel Pufendorf, he seeks to show that Sweden was once a marvelously abundant land, like a Canaan, Savoy, or Italy, like a Florence or Mantua (Swedenborg, Opera III, 312, cf. 293). Swedenborgโs theory is also able to explain why the great island of America is inhabited. During the eternal spring, when the air was still and mild, as in the month of April in todayโs Sweden, the first inhabitants walked across Lapland and Greenland to America. Then winter spread itself over the world. Physical experiments could demonstrate that the thesis was correct, as when one rotates a thermometer slowly over a fire, the alcohol rises, but with greater speed to a smaller peak (cf. Swedenborg, De cultu, n. 17, note i; Principia, 447; trans., II, 359 f.). Another experiment can be performed with the vibrations of the pendulum. Just as an ordinary cart wheel makes as many revolutions during a mile regardless of whether one is traveling fast or slow, there are always 365 days in a terrestrial year, irrespective of the speed of the earthโs orbital rotation. In the printed version there were no illustrations to explain the experiments, but in a copy once owned by Swedenborgโs cousin Johan Morรฆus and then by his son-in-law Carl Linnaeus, Swedenborgโs own drawings are appended (Linnaeusโs copy of Swedenborgโs Om jordenes och planeternas gรฅng och stรฅnd, pp. 24/25, in Linnean Society, London). During his childhood, Linnaeus had been amazed that the early ancestors lived to such an age, but Swedenborgโs theory explained everything to him (Linnaeus, Diรฆta naturalis, 17).
What the Bible says about the signs that will precede the last days is compatible with the retardation of the earth, with reference to the description of the destruction of Jerusalem in Luke 21:25: โAnd there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring.โ The earth will be destroyed, Swedenborg warns; the human race will dry up, barrenness and famine will spread. There will be signs visible in sun and moon, in air and sea, โdreadful eclipses shall come, causing the peoples anxiety and fright,โ stars shall fall down, โthe sea and the wave shall roarโ with storms and rain (Opera III, 319, cf. 296). This could be interpreted as showing that Swedenborg at this time read the Bible literally, not embracing a doctrine of correspondences with levels of meaning, and that he believed the Creation, the age of the antediluvians, Noahโs flood, and doomsday to be real events. He transfers the particular history in the Bible to a universal history. To understand the hidden mechanism of the solar system he uses physical and biblical examples.
Of special significance for Swedenborgโs cosmogony and geogony was Thomas Burnetโs theory of the mundane egg in Telluris theoria sacra (1681), which was in his library (Opera III, 297, 319 f.; Jonsson 1999, 27). In a notebook started in the 1710s he made annotations about Burnetโs cosmogonic world egg alongside data from David Gregoryโs astronomy about the distance of the planets from the sun, and something about Johannes Keplerโs theory and the hypotheses of Epicurus, Descartes, and Leibniz (Swedenborg, Anatomica et physiologica, 165โ186; Burnet 1694, II, ch. X, 137โ140; 1697, II, ch. VIII, 184 f.; Gregory 1726). The surface of the earth, according to Burnet, was perfectly smooth, regular, and uniform before the deluge, without mountains or oceans. The earth arose from chaos, a fluid mass in which everything was mingled in confusion. Heavier matter sank toward the middle, while lighter matter swam up. The oilier and lighter substances were separated from the heavier ones, floating on the surface, like cream and milk, oil and water (Burnet 1694, I, ch. V, 21; 1697, I, ch. V, 38). Chaos and the idea of the cosmos are based on the conceptual pair of cognitive dialectics, that cosmos presupposes chaos, that order presupposes disorder. The order that we have must come from disorder.
Swedenborgโs theory of the slowing earth is linked not only to Burnet, but also to Polhem and Newtonโs Principia. What is most obvious, however, is that he proceeds from the Cartesian vortices. Since all particles in Descartesโs vortex theory seek to move in straight lines, this means that the stronger or heavier particles will describe the largest circles. There is thus a centrifugal force, as mathematically studied by Huygens. According to Descartes, an orbit arises through a balance between the planetโs centrifugal tendency and an opposite pressure from matter in the vortex. Centrifugal and centripetal forces can thus explain planetary orbits. In other words, the spiral path of the earth is due to its centrifugal force being greater than the opposite force of the ether. The idea of the retarding motion of the earth, with a spiral path proceeding from the sun, was something that Swedenborg had read and transcribed several times from Polhem. One of Polhemโs favorite examples, which he varied countless times in order to illustrate the centripetal and centrifugal forces of the planets in the solar vortex, is an experiment with a sphere that is rotated under water (Dรฆdalus Hyperboreus I, 7; Polhems brev, 8โ11, 13, 24, 90, 118 f.). Polhem may have derived the inspiration for this experiment from his teacher Rudbeck the Elder, who had just devised a model to describe the movement of the heavenly bodies by revolving a globe in water (Spole 1686).
In November 1719 Swedenborg heard rumors in the capital that the earth had come 25,000 Swedish miles (about 166,000 English miles) closer to the sun (Swedenborg, Opera I, 290 f.; Letters I, 214 f.). He was amazed that such a jump could take place in just a year or two, and he seriously doubted the statement. He told his brother-in-law, the university librarian Eric Benzelius the Younger, that he thought it was unreasonable. Moreover, the claim was in opposition to his own theories. This gave him occasion to comment on the motion and position of the earth. The stronger the movement and rotation in the solar vortex, the further the planets are thrown out from the center, but a weaker movement causes them to be drawn inward. โAnd it is well known in what proportion the vis centrifuga, in traveling outward and inward, increases according to the speed. Of this, Isaac Newton treats in his Principia.โ Swedenborg read Newton with Cartesian eyes, reading vortices into the theory of gravitation. He had probably read a section in Newtonโs Principia (1687, II, sect. IV, prop. XV, theorem XII) about the circular motion of bodies in resistant media, where Newton demonstrated that if the force of gravitation varies in inverse proportion to the cube of the distance, instead of to the square, then the planets would not follow an elliptical orbit, but would be hurled away out from the sun in a logarithmic spiral course.
There is no risk yet that the earth will be swallowed up by the sun, Swedenborg assures us: โIf the sun grows larger and larger before our eyes, then first would be the time to entertain fear because of it, and to commend oneself to Godโs handsโ (Swedenborg, Opera I, 293; Letters I, 220). Benzelius also wondered about another thing he had readโnamely, a statement that the abode of the damned is in the sun (Benzelius had been reading Neue Zeitungen von gelehrten Sachen, 2 August 1719; Letters I, 218 f.). โI think just the opposite,โ Swedenborg replied. The sun is, if anything, the abode of the blessed. For it is at the center of our planetary system, in which all vortical movements have their origin. It has the most splendid light and magnificence, whereas darkness and terrors are furthest away from it. The sun consists of the most subtle particles,
almost devoid of composition, and so put off the denomination of matter, and also of form, weight, and many other properties possessed by compound particles. And it would also seem likely that in this finest, must be the finest essences. A God, an angel, a thing which, moreover, has nothing materiale in its being.
Swedenborg is led toward the idea of God and the sun being brought together in his assurance: โGod has his seat in the sunโ (Swedenborg, Opera I, 294; Letters I, 220 f.).
Swedenborg could thus explain gravitation in mechanical terms, as did Polhem and other philosophers trained in Cartesian natural philosophy, as being dependent on the pressure of the atmosphere or the โether.โ In Miscellanea observata (1722) Swedenborg expresses this equilibrium in terms of heavier bodies falling downward and lighter ones rising. This Cartesian understanding of gravity becomes odd when he concludes his reasoning by referring to an authorityโNewton, the โstar of the learned worldโ (Swedenborg, Miscellanea, 160; trans., 100). Swedenborg did not read Newtonโs Newton, but rather Newton with a Cartesian pre-understanding. One contemporary reviewer points out that Swedenborg must be a very special admirer of Newton, since it cannot be unknown to him how little value Newton attached to concocted physical theories based solely on the discovererโs own fantasies (Historie der Gelehrsamkeit unserer Zeiten 1722, 315โ327; trans., The New Philosophy 2003, 565). It is not permissible for a natural philosopher merely to create things from his own brain.
David Dunรฉr is Professor of History of Science and Ideas at Lund University, Sweden. He is Principal Investigator of the research group Space Humanities at Lund University and leader of the scientific working group Historical, Philosophical, Societal and Ethical Issues in Astrobiology of the European Astrobiology Institute. He is author of the book The Natural Philosophy of Emanuel Swedenborg: A Study in the Conceptual Metaphors of the Mechanistic World-View (2013) and editor of the collection of papers The History and Philosophy of Astrobiology: Perspectives on Extraterrestrial Life and the Human Mind (2013).
Visit our Swedenborg Studies bookstore page to explore our scholarly titles >
Read more posts from the Scholars on Swedenborg series >
References
Acton, Alfred. 1996. โLife on the Moon.โ New Church Life 116:256โ263.
Aristotle. 1986.ย Peri ouranou. Inย On the Heavens, ed. William K. C. Guthrie. Cambridge, MA & London: Harvard University Press/Heinemann.
โโโ. 1986.ย Physikฤs. Inย On the Soul. Parva naturalia. On Breath, ed. W. S. Hett. Cambridge, MA & London: Harvard University Press/Heinemann.ย
Bedford, Allen J. 2006. โPlanets and Perspectives: New Church Theology and the Plurality of Worlds Debate.โ The New Philosophy 109:315โ340.
Benz, Ernst. 1948. Emanuel Swedenborg: Naturforscher und Seher. Mรผnchen: Rinn.
Bergmann, Horst, and Eberhard Zwink, eds. 1988. Emanuel Swedenborg 1688โ1772: Naturforscher und Kundiger der รberwelt. Stuttgart: Wรผrttembergische Landesbibliothek.
Bergquist, Lars. 2005. Swedenborgโs Secret: The Meaning and Significance of the World of God, the Life of the Angels, and Service to God. A Biography. London: Swedenborg Society.
Brake, Mark. 2006. โOn the Plurality of Inhabited Worlds: A Brief History of Extraterrestrialism.โ International Journal of Astrobiology 5(2):99โ107.
Brock, Erland J., ed. 1988.ย Swedenborg and His Influence. Bryn Athyn, PA: Academy of the New Church.
Burnet, Thomas. 1694. Telluris theoria sacra: orbis nostri originem & mutationes generales, quas aut jam subiit, aut olim subiturus est, complectens, libri duo priores de diluvio & paradiso, new ed. Amsterdam.
โโโ. 1697. The Theory of the Earth: Containing an Account of the Original of the Earth, and of All the General Changes which it Hath Already Undergone, or Is to Undergo till the Consummation of All Things, 3rd ed. London.
Celsius, Anders, pres. 1740. Dissertatio astronomico-physica de luna non habitabili, resp. Eric Engman. Uppsala.
โโโ. 1743. Dissertatio philosophica, de pluralitate mundorum, resp. Isacus Svanstedt. Uppsala.
Copernicus, Nicolaus. 1543.ย De revolvtionibvs orbium cลlestium, libri VI. โฆย Nรผrnberg; trans.,ย On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres. Philadelphia, PA: Running Press, 2002.
Crasta, Francesca Maria. 1999. La filosofia della natura di Emanuel Swedenborg. Milano.
Crowe, Michael J. 1986. The Extraterrestrial Life Debate 1750โ1900: The Idea of a Plurality of Worlds from Kant to Lowell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
โโโ. 2008.ย The Extraterrestrial Life Debate, Antiquity to 1915:A Source Book. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame.
Derham, William. 1715. Astro-theology or a Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God, from a Survey of the Heavens, 2nd ed. London; trans. Anders Nicander, Astro-theologie eller Himmelska kropparnes betracktelse. Til รถgonskenligit bewis at en Gud รคr til, och at han det aldrabรคsta, aldrawisaste och alsmรคktigste wรคsende รคr med kopparstycke fรถrfattad. Stockholm, 1735.
Dick, Steven J. 1982. Plurality of Worlds: The Origins of the Extraterrestrial Life Debate from Democritus to Kant. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
โโโ. 1996. The Biological Universe: The Twentieth-Century Extraterrestrial Life Debate and the Limits of Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
โโโ. 2009. โA Historical Perspective on the Extent and Search for Life.โ In Exploring the Origin, Extent, and Future of Life: Philosophical, Ethical, and Theological Perspectives, ed. Constance M. Bertka, 167โ185. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dunรฉr, David. 2002. โSwedenborgโs Spiral.โ Studia Swedenborgiana 12(4):1โ58.
โโโ. 2012. โThe History and Philosophy of Astrobiology.โ Special issue of Astrobiology 12(10):901โ1016.
โโโ. 2013a. โIntroduction: Extraterrestrial Life and the Human Mind.โ In The History and Philosophy of Astrobiology: Perspectives on Extraterrestrial Life and the Human Mind, eds. David Dunรฉr, Joel Parthemore, Erik Persson, and Gustav Holmberg, 1โ25. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
โโโ. 2013b. โThe Language of Cosmos: The Cosmopolitan Endeavour of Universal Languages.โ In Sweden in the Eighteenth-Century World: Provincial Cosmopolitans, ed. Gรถran Rydรฉn, 39โ65. Farnham: Ashgate.
โโโ. 2013c. The Natural Philosophy of Emanuel Swedenborg: A Study in the Conceptual Metaphors of the Mechanistic World-View. Dordrecht: Springer.
โโโ. 2013d. โSpheres and Bubbles: Emanuel Swedenborgโs Theory of Matter and the Metaphors of the Mind.โ In Emanuel Swedenborg โ Exploring a โWorld Memoryโ: Context, Content, Contribution, ed. Karl Grandin, 12โ33. Stockholm: The Center for History of Science.
โโโ. 2013e. โVenusians: The Planet Venus in the 18th-Century Extraterrestrial Life Debate.โ In Meeting Venus: A Collection of Papers Presented at the Venus Transit Conference in Tromsรธ 2012, eds. Christiaan Sterken, and Per Pippin Aspaas. The Journal of Astronomical Data 19(1):145โ167.
โโโ. 2015. โLength of Time Such Civilizations Release Detectable Signals into Space, L, pre-1961.โ In The Drake Equation: Estimating the Prevalence of Extraterrestrial Life through the Ages, eds. Douglas A. Vakoch, and Matthew F. Dowd, 241โ269. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Florschรผtz, Gottlieb. 1992. Swedenborgs verborgene Wirkung auf Kant: Swedenborg und die okkulten Phรคnomene aus der Sicht von Kant und Schopenhauer. Wรผrzburg: Kรถnigshausen und Neumann.
Fontenelle, Bernard Le Bovier de. 1686. Entretiens sur la pluralitรฉ des mondes. Amsterdam; ed. A. Calame, Paris, 1966; trans. John Glanvill, A Plurality of Worlds. London, 1702.
Galilei, Galileo. 1610.ย Siderevs nvncivs magna, longeqve admirabilia spectacula pandens, โฆย Venice; trans. William R. Shea,ย Galileoโs Sidereus Nuncius, or, A Sidereal Message. Sagamore Beach, MA: Science History Publications, 2009.
Goerwitz, III, Richard L. 1985. โExtraterrestrial Life: A study of the Intellectual Context of Emanuel Swedenborgโs Earths in the Universe.โ The New Philosophy 88:417โ446, 477โ485.
Grandin, Karl, ed. 2013. Emanuel Swedenborg โ Exploring a โworld memoryโ. Context, content, contribution. Stockholm: The Center for History of Science.
Gregory, David. 1726. Astronomiรฆ physicรฆ & geometricรฆ elementa I, 2nd ed. Genรจve.
Guthke, Karl S. 1983. Der Mythos der Neuzeit: Das Thema der Mehrheit der Welten in der Literatur- und Geistesgeschichte von der kopernikanischen Wende bis zur Science Fiction. Bern: Francke.
Hallengren, Anders. 1998.ย Gallery of Mirrors: Reflections of Swedenborgian Thought. West Chester, PA: Swedenborg Foundation.
Hanegraaff, Wouter J. 2007.ย Swedenborg, Oetinger, Kant: Three Perspectives on the Secrets of Heaven. West Chester, PA: Swedenborg Foundation.ย
Hesiod. 2006.ย Theogonia;ย Erga kai hฤmerai. Inย Theogony, Works and Days, Testimonia, ed. Glenn W. Most. Cambridge, MA & London: Harvard University Press/Heinemann.
Historie der Gelehrsamkeit unserer Zeiten. Leipzig, 1722; trans., The New Philosophy 2003.
Homer. 1995.ย The Odysseyย I, ed. Augustus T. Murray. Cambridge, MA & London: Harvard University Press/Heinemann.
Horn, Friedemann. 1954.ย Schelling und Swedenborg: Ein Beitrag zur Problemgeschichte des deutschen Idealismus und zur Geschichte Swedenborgs in Deutschland. Lรถrrach-Stetten; trans. George F. Dole,ย Schelling and Swedenborg: Mysticism and German Idealism. West Chester, PA: Swedenborg Foundation, 1997.
Huygens, Christian. 1698. Kosmotheลros, sive de terris cลlestibus, earumque ornatu, conjecturรฆ. The Hague.
Jonsson, Inge. 1999.ย Visionary Scientist: The Effects of Science and Philosophy on Swedenborgโs Cosmology. West Chester, PA: Swedenborg Foundation.
Kant, Immanuel. 1755. Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels. Kรถnigsberg & Leipzig.
โโโ. 1766.ย Trรคume eines Geistersehers, erlรคutert durch Trรคume der Metaphysik. Riga & Mietau; trans. Gregory R. Johnson, and Glenn A. Magee,ย Kant on Swedenborg: Dreams of a Spirit-seer and Other Writings, ed. Gregory R. Johnson. West Chester, PA: Swedenborg Foundation, 2002.
Lamm, Martin. 1915.ย Swedenborg: En studie รถfver hans utveckling till mystiker och andeskรฅdare. Stockholm: Geber; trans. Tomas Spiers, and Anders Hallengren,ย Emanuel Swedenborg: The Development of his Thought. West Chester, PA: Swedenborg Foundation, 2000.
Larsen, Robin, ed. 1988. Emanuel Swedenborg: A Continuing Vision. A Pictorial Biography & Anthology of Essays & Poetry. New York: Swedenborg Foundation.
Lawrence, James F., ed. 1995.ย Testimony to the Invisible: Essays on Swedenborg. West Chester, PA: Swedenborg Foundation.
Linnaeus, Carl. 1958. Diรฆta naturalis 1733, ed. Arvid Hj. Uggla. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell.Neue Zeitungen von gelehrten Sachen. Leipzig, 2 August 1719.
Newton, Isaac. 1687. Philosophiรฆ naturalis principia mathematica. London.
Oetinger, Friedrich Christoph. 1771. Beurtheilungen der wichtigen Lehre von dem Zustand nach dem Tod und der damit verbundenen Lehren des berรผhmten Emanuel Swedenborgs theils aus Urkunden von Stockholm theils aus sehr wichtigen Anmerkungen verschiedener Gelehrten.
Ovid. 1984.ย Metamorphoseon. Inย Metamorphosesย IโII, ed. Frank J. Miller. Cambridge, MA & London: Cambridge University Press/Heinemann; trans. John Dryden et al.,ย Metamorphoses, ed. Samuel Garth. Ware: Wordsworth, 1998.
Paine, Thomas. 1794. Age of Reason: Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology. Paris.
Polhem, Christopher. 1941โ1946. Christopher Polhems brev, ed. Axel Liljencrantz. Uppsala: Lรคrdomshistoriska samfundet.
โโโ. 1954. โNyia tiender uthur mรฅnan.โ In Christopher Polhems efterlรคmnade skrifter IV: Varia, ed. Bengt Lรถw, 338โ42. Uppsala: Lรคrdomshistoriska samfundet.
Rudbeck the Elder, Olof. 1679โ1702. Atland eller Manheim โฆ IโIV. Uppsala; ed. Axel Nelson, Atlantica IโIV. Uppsala: Lรคrdomshistoriska samfundet, 1937โ1950.
Schaffer, Simon. 2014. โSwedenborgโs Lunars.โ Annals of Science 71(1):2โ26.
Schรผck, Henrik, ed. 1918. Bokwetts Gillets protokoll (1719โ31). Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell.
Sigstedt, Cyril Odhner. 1952. The Swedenborg Epic: The Life and Works of Emanuel Swedenborg. New York: Bookman Associates.
Spole, Anders, pres. 1686. Hydro-pneumatica de elaterio & phoenomenis globulorum aereorum sub aqua…, resp. Bonde Humerus. Stockholm.
Stengel, Friedemann, ed. 2008. Kant and Swedenborg: Zugรคnge zu einem umstrittenen Verhรคltnis. Tรผbingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.
โโโ. 2011. Aufklรคrung bis zum Himmel: Emanuel Swedenborg im Kontext der Theologie und Philosophie des 18. Jahrhunderts. Tรผbingen: Mohr Siebeck.
Swedberg, Jesper. 1732. America illuminata, skrifwen och vtgifwen af thes biskop, doct. Jesper Swedberg, รฅhr 1732. Skara; new ed., Stockholm: Proprius, 1985.
โโโ. 1941. Jesper Swedbergs Lefwernes beskrifning, ed. Gunnar Wetterberg. Lund: Vetenskapssocieteten i Lund.
Swedenborg, Emanuel. Collectanea physica-mathematica, sรฅsom ock รฅtskilligt rรถrande Sveriges natural historia, hvaraf gjordes bruk vid Societatis literariae inrรคttande i Upsala. Linkรถping Diocesan Library, N 14a.
โโโ. Anatomica et physiologica. Royal Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, cod. 53 (114).
โโโ. 1716โ1718. Dรฆdalus Hyperboreus: eller nรฅgra nya mathematiska och physicaliska fรถrsรถk och anmerkningar: som wรคlborne herr assessor Polhammar och andre sinrike i Swerige hafwa giordt och nu tijd efter annan til almen nytta lemna IโVI. Uppsala & Skara; facsimile, In Kungliga vetenskaps societetens i Upsala tvรฅhundraรฅrsminne, ed. Nils C. Dunรฉr. Uppsala: Kungl. Vetenskaps-Societeten i Uppsala, 1910.
โโโ. 1717. En ny theorie om jordens afstannande; ed., In Opera III; trans. Hugo Lj. Odhner, โA New Theory about the Retardation of the Earth.โ The New Philosophy, April 1950.
โโโ. 1718. En ny mening om jordens och planeternas gรฅng och stรฅnd eller nรฅgra bewis at jorden lรถper alt sachtare och sachtare: at winter och summer, dagar och dygn til tiden blifwa lengre och lengre in til werldsens sista tid; ed., In Opera III.
โโโ. 1719. Om jordenes och planeternas gรฅng och stรฅnd: thet รคr nรฅgra bewisliga skiรคl at jorden aftager i sitt lopp och nu gรฅr longsammare รคn tillfรถrene; giรถrande winter och sommar, dagar och nรคtter lengre i anseende til tiden nu รคn fรถrr. Skara.
โโโ. 1722.ย Miscellanea observata circa res naturales & prรฆsertim circa mineralia, ignem & montium strataย IโIII. Leipzig; trans. Charles Edward Strutt,ย Miscellaneous Observations Connected with the Physical Sciences, new ed. Bryn Athyn, PA: Swedenborg Scientific Association, 1976.
โโโ. 1734.ย Principia rerum naturalium sive novorum tentaminum phรฆnomena mundi elementaris philosophice explicandi. Dresden & Leipzig; trans. Augustus Clissold,ย The Principia; or, the First Principles of Natural Things, Being New Attempts toward a Philosophical Explanation of the Elementary Worldย IโII, 3rd pr. Bryn Athyn, PA: Swedenborg Scientific Association, 1988.
โโโ. 1745.ย De cultu et amore Dei. London; trans. Alfred H. Stroh, and Frank Sewall,ย The Worship and Love of God. West Chester, PA: Swedenborg Foundation, 1914.
โโโ. 1758. De telluribus in mundo nostri solari, quรฆ vocantur planetรฆ. London; German trans. Friedrich Christoph Oetinger, Von den Erdcรถrpern der Planeten und des gestirnten Himmels Einwohnern, allwo von derselben Art zu denken, zu reden und zu handeln, von ihrer Regierungs-Form, Policey, Gottesdienst, Ehestand und รผberhaupt von ihrer Wohnung und Sitten, aus Erzรคhlungen deselben Geister selbst durch Emanuel Schwedenborg Nachricht gegeben wird โฆ Anspach, 1771; English trans. John Chadwick, The Worlds in Space. London: Swedenborg Society, 1997.
โโโ. 1869โ1870. Em. Svedenborgii autographa ed:photolith IโVIII, ed. Rudolf Leonhard Tafel. Stockholm.
โโโ. 1907โ1911. Opera quรฆdam aut inedita aut obsoleta de rebus naturalibus IโIII, ed. Alfred H. Stroh. Stockholm.
โโโ. 1948โ1955.ย The Letters and Memorials of Emanuel Swedenborgย IโII, ed. Alfred Acton. Bryn Athyn, PA: Swedenborg Scientific Association.
Toksvig, Signe. 1948.ย Emanuel Swedenborg: Scientist and Mystic. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Wilkinsons, Lynn R. 1996.ย The Dream of an Absolute Language: Emanuel Swedenborg and French Literary Culture. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
