Life
Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) was a Swedish engineer and Christian visionary whose reported experiences of heaven, hell and the world of spirits—especially Heaven and Hell—became a major published source later Spiritualists and New Church readers adapted. ORDL lists him as a literature bridge into Spiritualism’s intellectual prehistory. This page does not teach mediumship or séance method.
The system
- Visionary cosmology in a Lutheran and scientific career
- Correspondences between natural and spiritual worlds in print
- ORDL boundary: books only—no séance instruction
Key works
- Heaven and Hell (De caelo et eius mirabilibus)
- Arcana Coelestia
- The True Christian Religion
Where to start
- Use a modern Swedenborg Foundation or critical translation
- Separate Swedenborg’s own prose from later séance culture that claimed him
Ask Orin
A question to start with. It opens in Orin ready to edit; nothing is sent until you press Send.
How did a mining engineer’s visionary books become raw material for nineteenth-century Spiritualism?Ask Orin this question