Emanuel Swedenborg
1688 – 1772 Swedish scientist, theologian, Christian visionary
Scientist turned visionary whose reports of heaven and hell founded the New Church.
- Religion
- A visionary Christianity based on his reported journeys into heaven and hell and spiritual conversations, later organized as the New Church.
- Affiliations
- No occult society of his own. His writings inspired the New Church and a Swedenborgian Masonic rite.
Emanuel Swedenborg was a respected scientist and engineer who, in midlife, described a series of visions and spiritual experiences that he recorded in works such as Heaven and Hell. He claimed to converse with angels and spirits and to read the inner spiritual sense of scripture. His followers founded the New Church, and his ideas fed into Spiritualism, Theosophy, and a Masonic rite that carries his name.
Connections
- influenced Helena Blavatsky — Blavatsky cited Swedenborg among forerunners of her spiritual teaching.
- influenced Jakob Böhme — Böhme's theosophy anticipated Swedenborg's visionary Christianity.
- influenced Jakob Böhme — Shared the tradition of visionary Christian theosophy.