Scribe of Heaven: Swedenborg's Life, Work, and Impact (New Century Edition)

The essays in this volume testify to the far-reaching effects of Emanuel Swedenborg’s works in Western culture. From his early days as an ambitious young scientist in the ferment of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment Europe, through his mid-life entrance into an ongoing experience of the spiritual world, to his last decades as a researcher of things spiritual, Swedenborg built a career that left a unique legacy. His vivid descriptions of the nonphysical realm made a powerful impression on minds as diverse as Goethe, Blake, Emerson, Yeats, and Borges.

This book serves as a self-contained resource on Swedenborg’s life and thought and as a gateway into further exploration of the labyrinthine garden of Swedenborg’s works. It includes a biography, rich in fascinating detail; lively overviews of the content and history of Swedenborg’s writings on spiritual topics; and essays tracing Swedenborg’s impact in various regions of the world.

Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772), a truly remarkable visionary, began his career as a Swedish mining official and member of parliament and became well known throughout Europe as a scientist and prolific writer on scientific and philosophical subjects. After a series of profound religious experiences during midlife, he devoted the remaining twenty-seven years of his life to being a servant of the Lord@ and wrote energetically to communicate a spiritual vision of reality. Since then, the rigid theologies of the eighteenth century have steadily yielded, and the foresighted lucidity of his perspective has gained widening recognition. The fresh and contemporary appeal of Swedenborg's insights arises from the respect he showed for all religious faiths that stress a useful and loving life.