Emanuel Swedenborg

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Emanuel Swedenborg, painting by Carl Frederik von Breda
Emanuel Swedenborg signature.png

Emanuel (von) Swedenborg (actually Swedberg ; born January 29, 1688 in Stockholm , † March 29, 1772 in London ) was a Swedish scientist , mystic and theosophist . He wrote his numerous writings exclusively in Latin.

Life

Emanuel Swedenborg was born as the son of the theologian and later Bishop of Västergötland Jesper Swedberg and studied philology and philosophy, mathematics and natural sciences, as well as theology at Uppsala University . He toured England, Holland, France and Germany from 1710–1714. In 1716 he became assessor of the mining college in Stockholm. In this position he was noticed by several mechanical inventions. For the siege of Frederikshall in 1718, he had seven ships on rollers transported over mountains and valleys for five hours. This as well as his writings on algebra, the value of coins, the course of the planets, ebb and flow and other subjects resulted in Queen Ulrike ennobling him in 1719 under the name Swedenborg.

In the following years he toured the Swedish, Saxon and later also the Bohemian and Austrian mines. In his Opera philosophica et mineralogica (1734, 3 volumes with 155 copperplate engravings) he developed a system of nature based on extensive studies of subjects in the natural sciences and applied mathematics, which focused on the idea of ​​a necessary mechanical and organic connection between all things. After recent travels (1736–1740) through Germany, Holland, France, Italy and England, he applied his natural system in the writings Oeconomia regni animalis (London 1740–1741), Regnum animale (volumes 1–2, Hague 1744; volume 3, London 1745) and De cultu et amore Dei (London 1740, 2 volumes) also refer to the living creation, and in particular to man.

The last-named work and all of the following were no longer strictly scientific. Swedenborg turned from now on exclusively to theosophical studies. In this way he wanted - as he explained - to prepare himself for a profession inspired by God himself, which would consist in the founding of a new church . This is already promised in the New Testament book of Revelation .

Swedenborg believed he was fulfilling this mission by interpreting the word of God in its true meaning, establishing a complete system of new religious doctrine, and revealing the nature of the spirit realm and its connection with the human world in visions , several of which attracted attention Kant aroused and prompted him to find himself in the book Dreams of a Ghost Seer (1766) with Swedenborg as a “candidate of the hospital” and “archphantast among all fantasists”, who with his reports from the world beyond death in a “milk and honey of metaphysics “Want to procrastinate to critically examine. Kant described the work Arcana caelestia as “eight quarto volumes full of nonsense”.

To be able to realize his religious ideas undisturbed, Swedenborg gave up his official position in 1747. In the following years he lived on a royal pension.

On July 19, 1759, from Gothenburg , he is said to have described the fire in his hometown Stockholm , which took place 400 kilometers away , in order to prove that he had clairvoyant abilities. According to Swedenborg biographer Lars Bergquist, however, this did not happen until July 29, ten days after the fire.

During a trip he undertook in 1771 in the interests of his apprenticeship, he fell ill in London and died there on March 29, 1772.

The number of his followers, the "Swedenborgians" , slowly increased; they spread, if only sporadically, through Sweden, Poland, England and Germany. The New Church or Church of the New Jerusalem (Engl. New Church , New Jerusalem Church ) gained a foothold in England, later also in North America.

Theosophical teaching

Swedenborg bust with mystical allegory in relief on Mariatorget

Swedenborg on his teaching

In his knowledge of the divine and spiritual world, Swedenborg referred to the Bible and to "conversations with angels and spirits", which he claims to have had according to his own statement. He was aware that this would lead to a lot of incomprehension:

“I foresee that many who read what follows and the memoirs behind the chapters will regard them as inventions of the imagination; but I assure you in truth that they are not inventions, but really happened and seen. Seen not in any state of numbness of mind, but in a state of complete wakefulness. "

Fully in accordance with the teachings of spiritism , he warned that man should be careful with the information received from the spirits, as this corresponds to their respective moral and intellectual development level, that is, they could be true or false, honest or deceitful.

God, creation, man

In Swedenborg's writings, divine wisdom is one of the two characteristics of God - the other is divine love . In addition to these main properties of the primordial ground, the attributes of God are called unity, omnipresence , omnipotence , omniscience , infinity and eternity . Wisdom and love are described as inseparably one: "Divine love belongs to divine wisdom, and divine wisdom to divine love". In Swedenborg's doctrine of correspondence, God (Christ seen as the spiritual sun) is set in correspondence with the natural sun. Just as the rays of the natural sun are perceived by humans as light and warmth, so the spiritual sun is experienced as spiritual light (divine wisdom) and as spiritual warmth (divine love) in the "world of spirits". The divine wisdom and love are substance and form, which pours into the created universe. Angels, spirits (people without physical bodies) and people are, according to Swedenborg, receptacles for this divine stream. Therefore, the life of every person and especially his development after death is determined by how much of this wisdom and love he accepts in himself. Since the beings are free in their will , they could also decide against divine wisdom and love by choosing the "hellish" forms of love instead of the "heavenly" forms of love, love of God and neighborly love (altruism), to “love the world” and “self-love” (selfishness).

The doctrine of correspondences plays an essential role in Swedenborg's writings. After that, all being and life has unfolded downwards from God. The heavenly, the spiritual and the natural proceed from the Lord. The heavenly is divine love and good. The spiritual is divine wisdom and truth. The natural is the lowest level.

Man is an image of God and contains a correspondence between these three elements of creation. The “inner man” forms the heavenly and spiritual, the “middle” the rational and the “outer” the sensual. The interior of man lives after death and in eternity. The real life of a person is his love, by which the love for good or bad is meant. God has given him free will so that he feels like an independent being and loves God of his own choosing.

The human body consists of many individual cells, through whose interaction the whole body functions. Swedenborg transfers this image to the spiritual world. For him, spirit beings are grouped into communities. These communities in turn join together in the “greatest man” (lat. Homo maximus ), whose members are spirit communities and whose cells are the individual spirits.

This thesis bears a certain resemblance to what analytical psychology, according to Jung , calls the collective unconscious :

“The doctor in me refuses to regard the mental life of a people as being beyond basic psychological rules. For him the soul of the people is just a somewhat more complex structure than the soul of the individual [...] Because something in our soul is not individual, but people, totality, even humanity. Somewhere we are part of one great soul, one great human being, to speak to SWEDENBORG. "

Swedenborg distinguishes between an inner (spiritual) and an outer (natural) person. The spiritual man is "in the splendor of heaven" he is called alive in the teaching of Christ. The natural man who is only in the light of the world is called "dead". The inner man is an “angel of heaven” and man is destined to become this angel within himself by living divine wisdom and love. Swedenborg postulates an eternal progress of all beings in the growth and development of divine wisdom and love. All angels were men in the past and have since evolved up through charity. The doctrine, founded on spiritual vision, caused a special sensation and the reluctance of the Swedish imperial church that in heaven not only Christians, but also non-Christians and pagans can be found, because God does not look at the beliefs, but at whether the respective person is in the good of heavenly love.

Heaven Hell

The soul is the actual human being, and the body is only the organ through which it is active in the earthly world. “From this it is evident that when a person dies, he only passes from one world to the other”.

His being led out of the earthly body into the spiritual world is resurrection . The consciousness is not interrupted, so that at first he does not perceive the onset of death. In the spiritual world too he appears completely in human form. But it cannot be seen with bodily eyes, only by ghosts .

First the departed enters the spirit world. It is "a middle place between heaven and hell and is also a middle state after death". In the transition there is Judgment Day . This is understood to mean the last judgment of a person, which takes place shortly after his death and not only at the end of the world, as it is presented in other faiths.

The judgment is the self-disclosure of the inner man. All masks fall, and he now also externally becomes what he is internally. Everyone has an “inner memory”, a “book of life” in which their life and deeds are recorded. The court takes place without a judge or judgment. It is rather a clarification of his life in which the soul fully develops its inner inclination.

Because most of them did not clearly love only good or bad, those who predominantly loved good, “remove falsities, and give them the truths that are consistent and uniform from their good, and with the wicked there, truths are removed and the falsities consistent with their evil will be given to them ”.

Now the basic direction has been determined, and from now on the principle “like and like to join” applies. Each mind is surrounded by a sphere of its inner being and thus of truth or falsity. This is how he is recognized and he also recognizes the others. The bad guys are drawn to the bad guys and a society of devils arises who torment one another. The agony of hell is not a punishment imposed by God, but a self-punishment of the evil person who followed his false love and threw himself into hell.

While hell is ruled by self-love , there is love for God and neighbor in heaven . That is why man becomes an angel to people here . Even in the middle state, the good feel good with the spiritual angels. They are then prepared to be taken to heaven. When their conscience has been distorted by ignorance or heresy, they must discard their false principles, which can be a very difficult experience for some. Then they are instructed, dressed in angelic robes, and taken on the path that leads up to heaven.

The angels are all of the human race and became angels because they lived in the world in heavenly love and faith. The angels' clothes correspond to their insights. Those of the most discerning shimmer like fire.

Conjugal love

In his late work Die Eheliche Liebe (full title: The delights of wisdom over conjugal love and the lusts of folly over courting love ) he wrote about the development of lovers after death.

Man and woman are different beings in earthly appearance. After death, the spouses recognize each other, socialize and usually live together for some time. But when they gradually put aside their outer appearance and step inside, they realize what love and affection they have for one another, and it is decided whether they can live together or not. If they go together, they will stay together forever. Otherwise they will separate and each will find a suitable partner. Whoever had several spouses or lovers on earth either accepts one of them in the other world or leaves them all. Such separations are common because the marriages concluded in earthly life are mostly external.

Marriage in heaven is necessary because husband and wife alone are not perfect human beings. Two spouses who are united inwardly appear in heaven not as two people, but as one sexless ( androgynous ) angel.

The spouses who go to hell, on the other hand, are separated from one another, because they were only connected to one another by sexual love, but not by conjugal love.

Relation to other teachings

For Swedenborg a belief without charity is not a belief and contradicts any religion. Keeping God's commandments, active love and striving for the moral and spiritual lead people to heaven.

From the theological point of view, there are opposites to other Christian beliefs. Swedenborg criticizes the dogma of the Trinity , the concept of original sin , predestination and the Lutheran doctrine of justification . Despite these contradictions, he calls for religious tolerance:

“In Christianity the churches differ according to their doctrinal regulations. Hence they call themselves Roman Catholics , Lutherans , Calvinists or Reformed and Evangelical etc. They are only called that because of their teachings. That would by no means be the case if they made love for the Lord and active love for neighbor the main thing. For then those things would only be differences of opinion in the mysteries of faith which true Christians leave to the conscience of each. True Christians say in their hearts that a true Christian is whoever lives as a Christian or as the Lord teaches. In this way, all the different churches would become one, and all disputes that arise from mere doctrine would disappear, yes, mutual hatred would instantly cease and the Lord's kingdom would arise on earth. "

About Islam he said that this religion is necessary to show different souls a way. Muslims too can come to the Lord by doing works of love.

effect

  • Around 1786 Alessandro Cagliostro tried to combine his ritualism of “Egyptian Freemasonry ” with that of Swedenborg, and made unsuccessful efforts in London to found a new temple of a new Jerusalem.
  • The Mormonism has especially received a lot of feedback from Swedenborg's teachings in his early days, however, changed this in some essential details.
  • The Swedenborg supporter Charles Bonney , a member of the Chicago Swedenborg Church, founded the 1st World Parliament of Religions in 1893 on the occasion of the world exhibition in Chicago . He wanted to complement the materialistic, triumphant world industrial fair with a spiritual world meeting of religions. His idea was particularly well received by modern theosophists, who, through Henry Steel Olcott and Annie Besant, represented a "brotherhood of religions" as a fixed program and still represent it today.

The following are considered to be influenced:

The Swedenborg rite , an " irregular " Masonic high degree system of 30 degrees, refers to Swedenborg, which, however, had no influence on it.

German translations

Initially, the Protestant prelate Friedrich Christoph Oetinger in Württemberg began translating several writings, but later turned away from it. For a time, Swedenborg also had an impact on Oetinger's former vicar Philipp Matthäus Hahn through the translations .

The essential translations come from the Tübingen philosophy professor and university librarian Johann Friedrich Immanuel Tafel (1796–1863), who re-edited 21 Latin works by Swedenborg and translated 15 into German.

Theosophical works

Title page to Emanuel Swedenborg: The True Christian Religion , published by the Swedenborg Society, London 1893
  • Arcana coelestia , 8 volumes. London 1749-1756. German edition ed. by Johann Friedrich Immanuel Tafel, 13 volumes; Tübingen 1833–1842. German: Heavenly Secrets , 16 volumes; Translation by Johann Friedrich Immanuel Tafel; Tübingen 1842-1870
  • De Coelo et eius mirabilibus, et de inferno . London 1758. German: Heaven and Hell ; Translation by Johann Friedrich Immanuel Tafel; 3rd edition, Tübingen 1873
  • De nova Hierosolyma et ejus doctrina . London 1758. German: Of the New Jerusalem and its heavenly teaching ; Translation by Johann Friedrich Immanuel Tafel; Tuebingen 1860
  • Apocalypsis explicata . London 1761. German: The revelation explains according to the spiritual sense , 4 volumes; Translation of blackboard; Tübingen 1824-1831
  • Apocalypsis revelata . 1766. German: The Unveiled Revelation ; Translation by Johann Friedrich Immanuel Tafel; Tübingen
  • Vera christiana religio . London 1771. German edition ed. von Tafel, Stuttgart 1857. German: The True Christian Religion , 3 volumes; Translation by Johann Friedrich Immanuel Tafel; Tübingen 1855-1858
  • Delitiae sapientiae de amore conjugiali post quas sequuntur voluptates insaniae de amore scortatorio . Amsterdam 1768. German: Die Eheliche Liebe ; Translation by Johann Friedrich Immanuel Tafel; Tübingen 1845, 4th edition 1964.
  • Selected fonts . 4 volumes; Hechtel, Frankfurt (Main) 1776.
  • Emanuel Swedenborg: The True Christian Religion , published by the Swedenborg Society, London 1893
  • Heaven and hell . Edited and commented by Hans-Jürgen Hube after the translation by JFI Tafel, 5th edition 1910. marixverlag, Wiesbaden 2005, ISBN 3-86539-056-0 , 2nd edition 2012 ISBN 978-3-86539-277-0 .

literature

  • Richer: La nouvelle Jerusalem , 8 volumes. Paris 1832-1835
  • Johann Friedrich Immanuel Tafel: Collection of documents about Swedenborg's life and character , 3 volumes; Tübing, 1839-1842
  • Johann Friedrich Immanuel panel: Outline of Swedenborg's life . Tübingen 1845.
  • [Anonymous]: E. Swedenborg's life and teaching . Frankfurt 1880.
  • Potts: Swedenborg Concordance . London 1889
  • Wilson van Dusen: Man in the force field of other worlds . Swedenborg Verlag, Zurich 1980; ISBN 3-85927-128-8 .
  • Ursula Groll: Emanuel Swedenborg and the New Age . St. Goar 1993; ISBN 3-87667-200-7 .
  • Olof Lagercrantz : From life on the other side . Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt 1997; ISBN 3-518-40912-3 .
  • Kurt Hutten : seers - brooders - enthusiasts. The book of traditional sects and special religious movements . Quell Verlag, Stuttgart 1997; ISBN 3-7918-2130-X .
  • Thomas Noack: The seer and the clerk of God: Emanuel Swedenborg and Jakob Lorber in comparison . Constance 2004. (pdf; 1.1 MB)
  • Eberhard Zwink (Ed.): Swedenborg in the Württembergische Landesbibliothek . Stuttgart: Württemberg State Library, 1988; ISBN 3-88282-017-9 .
  • Harro Maltzahn: Emanuel Swedenborg: Clairvoyant, natural scientist, visionary - life story and work of the great European clairvoyant . Greiz: König, 2002; ISBN 3-934673-19-8 .
  • Ursula Groll: The unity of Orient and Occident in the work of the seer Emanuel Swedenborg . Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2003; ISBN 3-8330-0838-5 .
  • DT Suzuki, Andrew Bernstein: Swedenborg: Buddha of the North . The Swedenborg Foundation, West Chester, Pennsylvania 1996; ISBN 978-0-87785-184-4
  • Wolfgang Heller:  SWEDENBORG, Emanuel. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 11, Bautz, Herzberg 1996, ISBN 3-88309-064-6 , Sp. 294-304.

Biographies

  • James John Garth Wilkinson: Emanuel Swedenborg: A Biography . William Newbery, London 1849, urn : nbn: de: bvb: 12-bsb10067272-1 .
  • Schaarschmidt (Elberfeld 1862)
  • M. Matter: Emmanuel Swedenborg, sa vie, ses écrits et sa doctrine . Paris 1863 [1]
  • Wiliam White: Emanuel Swedenborg: Life and writings of Swedenborg. (2nd ed., London 1874) [2]

Web links

Commons : Emanuel Swedenborg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Robert Zimmermann: Kant and Spiritism ; Vienna 1879
  2. Approaches to Philosophy. Basic volume for upper school ; Cornelsen-Verlag, p. 77
  3. ^ Lars Bergquist: Swedenborgs Hemlighet, Stockholm 1999.
  4. Introduction to Marital Love
  5. a b G. Midnight (Ed.): Emanuel Swedenborgs Leben undehre ; Frankfurt am Main, 1880
  6. a b Emanuel Swedenborg: The wisdom of angels , Volume 1: The divine love and wisdom ; German translation of Sapienta angelica de divino amore et de divino sapientia , 1763; Swedenborg Verlag Zurich, 1997
  7. ^ Carl Gustav Jung : Collected Works , Volume 10; P. 103 "The soul problem of modern man"
  8. a b Heaven and Hell
  9. a b Heavenly Secrets .
  10. Translator from Swedenborg: Heaven, Hell, Spirit World. Selection, translation and afterword by Walter Hasenclever, 1925
  11. Oetinger was one of the first theologians to campaign for Swedenborg's appreciation of the spirit realm, but soon distanced himself from Swedenborg's allegorical interpretation of the biblical scriptures. For example, on the reception of Swedenborg in Oetinger, which was important for Goethe, see The Works of Friedrich Christoph Oetinger. Chronological-systematic bibliography 1707–1724 . Edited by Martin Weyer-Menkhoff and Reinhard Breymayer . (Bibliography on the history of Pietism , Volume 3.) Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2015, here p. 438 in the register Proof of Swedenborg mentions on 73 pages; especially on pp. 195–209. 234-242. 367-375.