To Live in Eternity
Swedenborg was regarded as one of the greatest scientists if his age. From the age of 56 he began work on an enormous series of weighty tomes that he claimed were the fruits of direct experience. Either he was delusional, or else his work is well worth taking seriously. He certainly did not have any other features of mental illness, so I go for the latter: he’s worth taking very seriously…
“Man is so created that as to his internal he cannot die; for he is capable of believing in God, and thus of being conjoined to God by faith and love, and to be conjoined to God is to live to eternity.”
–Emanuel Swedenborg (Swedish Scientist, Mystic and Philosopher, 1688-1772)
Genuine Wisdom
“Genuine wisdom involves humility. The wiser we become, the greater the realization that there is so much more to learn and understand.”
–Emanuel Swedenborg (Swedish Scientist, Mystic and Philosopher, 1688-1772)
An Optmistic Philosophy
As far back as I can remember, I have had a close affinity with the work of the Swedish sage Emanuel Swedenborg. There are many reasons why his work may be of real value to you. Here, in a few succinct words, Colin Wilson says something most important:
“The real importance of Swedenborg lies in the doctrines he taught, which are the reverse of the gloom and hell-fire of other breakaway sects. He rejects the notion that Jesus died on the cross to atone for the sin of Adam, declaring that God is neither vindictive nor petty-minded, and that since he is God, he doesn’t need atonement. It is remarkable that this commonsense view had never struck earlier theologians. God is Divine Goodness, and Jesus is Divine Wisdom, and Goodness has to be approached through Wisdom. Whatever one thinks about the extraordinary claims of its founder, it must be acknowledged that there is something very beautiful and healthy about the Swedenborgian religion. Its founder may have not been a great occultist, but he was a great man.”
–Colin Wilson (English Novelist and Writer on Philosophy, Sociology and the Occult, 1931-)
Our Dual Natures
“There is an internal man and an external man, the internal man is in the spiritual world, and the external man in the natural world; thus the former is in the light of heaven, and the latter in the light of the world.”
–Emanuel Swedenborg (Swedish Scientist, Mystic and Philosopher, 1688-1772)
Walking the Path
“We can know the path to heaven to some extent simply by considering what the people who make up heaven are like, realizing that no one can become an angel or get to heaven unless he or she arrives bringing along some angelic quality from the world. Inherent in that angelic quality is a knowing of the path from having walked it and a walking in the path from the knowing of it.”
–Emanuel Swedenborg (Swedish Scientist, Mystic and Philosopher, 1688-1772)
