Prolific lutheran lunatic turned mystic
Whose Arcana Cœlestia
incurred the wrathladen delight of Freidenkeren Scandinavia during the frightful sixteen hundreds, age of Spinozas, Leibnizi and Alphonse di Liguori.
Who quaintly claimed his vision of eternity bested Dante who only wrote poetry while Emmanuel was actually there avisioning in its midst, writing in Latin, the results being published over a multiyear span in London*
Regrettably, and “According to The Heavenly Doctrine, the Lord had opened Swedenborg’s spiritual eyes so that from then on [after April 4th, 1744], he could freely visit heaven and hell to converse with angels, demons and other spirits and the Last Judgment had already occurred in 1757, the year before the 1758 publication of De Nova Hierosolyma et ejus doctrina coelesti (English:
Concerning the New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine).”
Today, in the environs of West Chester PA, the outfit retains an HQ, fifty thou or so as loyal retinue.
But in earlier years he’d been a mensch of science:
“During the 1730s, Swedenborg undertook many studies of anatomy and physiology. He had the first known anticipation of the neuron concept.
It was not until a century later that science recognized the full significance of the nerve cell. He also had prescient ideas about the cerebral cortex, the hierarchical organization of the nervous system, the localization of the cerebrospinal fluid, the functions of the pituitary gland, the perivascular spaces, the foramen of Magendie, the idea of somatotopic organization, and the association of frontal brain regions with the intellect. In some cases, his conclusions have been experimentally verified in modern times.”
Remarkable given Descartes before this had assigned the pineal gland a role as haven for soul. Swedenborg:
“Since it has been granted me to speak with angels, I will say something from experience. I have spoken with those who lived many ages ago, with some who lived before the Flood and some who lived after it, with some who lived at the time of the Lord and with one of His apostles, and with many who lived in the centuries since. They all seemed like men of middle age and said that they do not know what death can be unless it is condemnation. Further, all who have lived well, on coming into heaven, come into the state of early manhood in the world and continue in it to eternity, even those who had been old and decrepit in the world. Women, too, although they had become shrunken and old, return into the bloom and beauty of their youth.” ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*This linguistic monumentality went unchallenged for sheer hubris until the days of Olmo** **[Wiki:] In 1815, Miguel Olmo wrote a booklet proposing Latin as the common language for Europe, with the title Otia Villaudricensia ad octo magnos principes qui Vindobonæ anno MDCCCXV pacem orbis sanxerunt, de lingua Latina et civitate Latina fundanda liber singularis (“Leisure of
Villaudric to the eight great princes who ordained world peace at Vienna in 1815, an extraordinary book about the Latin language and a Latin state to be founded”).
