Splendors of the Spirit: Swedenborg's Quest for Insight — Biographical Documentary

[Music] from time immemorial humanity has pursued answers to the fundamental questions who are we what is the meaning and purpose of life what happens after death [Music] two centuries ago in Sweden there lived a man who found remarkable answers to these questions his name was Emmanuel swedenborg an eminent scientist inventor Statesman and philosopher at the height of his career swedenborg underwent a spiritual transformation became a Visionary and Explorer seeking the spiritual realities of the afterlife hearing the unforgettable wisdom of angels and learning secrets for happiness in this life and the next the insights from these experiences evolved into a profound spiritual yet intensely practical philosophy org's extraordinary spiritual findings have inspired generations and his ideas have influenced people and movements the world foreign [Music] Ed my eyes I have seen things which lie deeply concealed in man I am well aware that many will say that no one can talk with spirits and angels as long as he lives in the body that it is a fantasy but by all this I am not deterred for I have seen I have heard and I have felt Emmanuel swedenborg was born in Stockholm in 1688 a time when the challenge that science posed religion was one of the most important topics of the day the dawning of the 18th century brought sweeping changes throughout Europe democracy industrialization and invention spread across the continent the Age of Reason ushered in a compelling new belief in science providing a new lens with which to view the world scientists were energized with a vision of endless possibility they believed if they adhered strictly to the scientific method objective observation and testing first formulated by Francis Bacon in the 16th century they could dispel the clouds of religious Superstition and begin to truly understand the world swedenborg was born into a world ripe for a new type of spiritual exploration swedenborg grew up in a very religious household so the atmosphere in the household was one of both faith belief and charity pietism emphasized the fact that you've got to live your religion and a very strong belief in the existence of the spiritual world and of spirits and Angels swedenborg's first contacts with the spiritual world were with invisible spiritual Playmates swedenborg's parents report that when he was small he would have Playmates in the garden and he would come in and Report these remarkable interchanges with them and they said that at times the most amazing things would come out of his mouth swedenborg's father was a court chaplain Who Would One Day become a highly respected Bishop in the Swedish Lutheran Church swedenborg's mother died when he was a small boy but within a few years his father remarried and his new wife made a very happy home for the family and doted on her gifted stepson Emmanuel swedenborg's youth was largely spent at uppsala University where his father was a faculty member he began when he was only nine years old not an unheard of practice for brilliant sons of the privileged classes an outstanding honor student when he graduated at 21 he was richly endowed with the gifts for meeting life's forthcoming adventures and acute intellect strong self-confidence and abundant physical Vitality after graduation the promising young Swede traveled for the next five years to meet and study with some of Europe's greatest Minds when he returned home he poured himself into inventing and writing founding Sweden's first scientific journal his mind brimming with ideas in his notebook full of inventions he worked for the next few years as an assistant to Christopher pull him Sweden's most famous inventor they collaborated on several major projects including the trollhatton canal a particularly challenging engineering problem due to a series of steep ascents over rugged mountains swedenborg focused his efforts on developing methods that enabled people to do things more efficiently he designed an extraordinary range of inventions a steel Rolling Mill a crane to hoist cannons a hearing aid a rapid firing air gun an air pump and the world's largest Dry Dock to name just a few in addition swedenborg invented an airplane some 200 years before the Wright brothers and it was the first known vehicle to incorporate aerodynamic principles for flight in the late 19th century a working version of his glider plane was built and flown and a model now resides in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC curator Dr Paul Garber explains some of the plane's ingenious features this is a scale model of the aircraft of Emmanuel spadenberg which he conceived back in 1714 many many years before the modern airplane and yet he incorporates in this some of the essentials of modern aircraft these are louvered so that the the air on the downstroke the power stroke will give the lift and then on the return stroke these louvers will open up so as to let the air pass through then he has a very interesting undercarriage here and that has these four struts and they constitute the landing gear for takeoff and Landing he has wheels on that and then he realized the need for stability he Incorporated that in this pendulum and this of course sought a Setter but because of its of its weight and force of gravity think of this as the the mind of the of a real Genius of that early time in 1719 when he was 31 swedenborg was appointed Royal assessor of mines a position he held for much of his life this motivated him to design many of his devices to improve safety and efficiency in the mining industry in order to really appreciate the significance of swedenborg's inventions you need to realize that copper mining was the industry in Sweden there was a copper mine called the giant Copper Mountain up in falun which produced a tremendous amount of copper and one of the main challenges was how are we going to get all this wood down into the mine for burning in order to break off the copper and how are we going to haul all of this copper out fast enough so many of his inventions have buckets and pulleys and are for hauling logs swedenborg at one point was asked by Charles XII to solve a great military problem which was how to get all of his ships five miles over land I'm very steep mountainous terrain and swedenborg was just a young engineer at the time but he tackled the problem and solved it he used some rolling logs and some pulleys and some engineering Miracle to get all these chips across land the enemy didn't expect at all for ships to be coming over the mountains and so they were they were trounced by the Swedish troops swedenborg seems to have mastered every field of knowledge he explored he helped establish the disciplines of Metallurgy and crystallography produce the first Swedish algebra and calculus texts and wrote scientific Works in almost every subject from astronomy to zoology he became over the course of time so famous as a scientist in Europe that his movements were recorded in the papers swedenborg today left Amsterdam as if that fact in and of itself was a worthwhile thing for people to know he became quite famous particularly for his magnum opus the principia was published in three volumes the first volume was philosophy in the second and third volumes he wrote about iron and copper which were the economic backbone of the Swedish economy swedenborg's burning scientific thirst also Drew him to study atomic theory and cosmology he anticipated many Concepts which scientists only confirmed recently such as the molecular basis of magnetism but swedenborg came to realize that science wasn't an end in itself he said I was introduced to the Natural Sciences and studied them for 30 years thus I was prepared to understand the things which lie deeply concealed in man and serve as an instrument for laying them bare in midlife swedenborg began his greatest Quest the search for the human soul with an exhaustive study of anatomy he discovered among other things the function of the endocrine glands however by his early 50s he had narrowed the focus of his research to a single site the human brain he was the first to discover the synchronous action of the brain and lungs the functions of the cerebellum and pituitary gland thinking in memory areas of the cerebral cortex and the integrative action of the nervous system he wrote his four-volume Treatise on the brain in Latin the customary language of Scholars at that time later since it wasn't translated into English the Treatise was largely forgotten however in 1968 the Journal of the American Medical Association recognized swedenborg as a Pathfinder for his pioneering contribution in this field many people have been intrigued with swedenborg's intelligence he was among the people who were studied by a group at Stanford University working with Professor Turman to see who had been the most brilliant people in the world three people tied for first place swedenborg Gerda and John Stuart Mill the single purpose of my studying Anatomy was to search for the seat of the soul in the body for the soul is represented in the body which is its mirror swedenborg poured all his energy into his work but for All His Brilliant labor his goal of finding the soul continued to elude him unexpectedly in the midst of his growing frustration his own soul began to call for his attention a long series of Dreams candidly recorded in a unique Journal tells of his struggles with his intellectual Pride his intense emotions and his embattled faith and for the next several years he recorded and analyzed his dreams and Visions compiling perhaps the most complete record of inner experience ever assembled rather unique for a man of his time he began to keep a very exacting Journal of Dreams then he set about an a systematic way to interpret the symbols that he found in the dreams years of course before Freud and Jung ever attempted the same thing eventually swedenborg developed his own path to heightened Consciousness as a scientist he had become capable of a concentration so intense that his breathing virtually stopped experience familiar to Saints and Mystics of both East and West when he focused that concentration on scripture he found himself in a state of dual Consciousness simultaneously aware of spiritual realities and of his physical surroundings and swedenborg like these Visionaries experienced a profound transformation during two successive Easter Seasons he saw visions of Christ the second one in 1745 when he was 57 years old called him to an entirely new way of life and from that day forth I gave up the study of worldly science and I labored in spiritual things the Lord opened my eyes so that in the middle of the day I could see the other world state of perfect wakefulness converse with angels and Spirits swedenborg's inquiring Spirit had led him deep into the physical through the psychological and now far into the spiritual dimensions in exploring the domain of angels and Spirits in the spiritual World swedenborg observed that they are reflections both of our own subconscious and of a larger transpersonal world angel in a vision or dream corresponds to that which is Angelic within a demon to that which is demonic these observations gave rise to a system of symbolic interpretation which he called correspondence for swedenborg correspondence was the Supreme mode of knowing a divinely inspired guide to human psychology and the soul in its immense scope he discovered the roots of the world's ancient languages Egyptian hieroglyphics mythology Alchemy and other symbolic systems of antiquity in correspondence the images or symbols are not to be idolized but rather to remind people of or awaken them to the Heavenly things which they signify swedenborg believed that the Divine is present in all living things and that in the system of Correspondence he had discovered the underlying principles of the larger pattern the divine plan his quest for insight revealed two Realms in which the authorship of the Divine could be seen the first realm is the world of nature foreign swedenborg came to believe that everything in the world of nature portrays something in the world of spirit the world of nature offers us a mirror like the surface of a lake which shows reflections of our own many moods from tranquil to somber to enraptured at times life seems so fragile yet he believed that the subtle and resilient power of nature speaks to us of the strength within our own souls and the infinite beauty of the world is a reflection of the beauty of God and of the divine within all of us swedenborg found the application of Correspondence fruitful in another realm his beloved Bible which for him was an eloquent testimony to the presence of the Divine in many passages he discovered the symbolic imagery of correspondences for example the opening passages of the Book of Genesis in the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth can be translated in the beginning God created within each of us spiritual realities symbolized by heaven and material needs symbolized by Earth life is an interplay of spirit and matter as we evolve we learn to strike a balance within ourselves integrating Heavenly and Earthly concerns Genesis when viewed in the light of Correspondence becomes an ageless model of Man created in the image and likeness of God each of us is the microcosm the universe in miniature with correspondence as an interpretative tool the Bible reveals unexpected depths within its text swedenborg found three levels of meaning he says the the first and perhaps the simplest one is that the the Bible narrative from Genesis through to the end of Revelation is really a spiritual history of the whole human race he calls this the internal historical sense of the Bible the second level really gives detailed information about everything that can happen to an individual human being in terms of their spiritual growth and development and he calls us the spiritual sense deepest and highest level of the Bible what he calls the celestial sense is a story of the spiritual development of Jesus Christ when he came into the world and lived a life here on this plane it's the story of the process that God went through in taking on this human and we have the unique phrase the Divine human for swedenborg the principles of Correspondence were not merely intellectual theories they were an integral facet of his intimate experience of the spiritual world after his spiritual eyes were open swedenborg spent much of his writing explaining scripture and also documenting his spiritual experiences early on you see both of these types of materials side by side he's moving along explaining some verse in the Old Testament and then he will suddenly shift sometimes in mid-sentence into a spiritual experience and to indicate that he indents the text on the manuscript page so for example sometimes he explains that he'll be writing about Moses and then he'll suddenly say I am with Moses right now and he's saying this and he's saying that or he reports exchanges with Solomon or with other people who are in the spiritual world we are because God is All Things Are full of God and all take the abortion from that fullness after his spiritual awakening swedenborg found a means to begin integrating science and spirit through careful observation and consistent recording of his explorations in the spiritual dimensions he also knew he needed to address Humanity's growing spiritual skepticism which was being fueled by the new faith in science so for the next 30 years he painstakingly documented his other worldly Journeys and what he found proved extraordinary swedenborg reports having experienced firsthand what it's like to die much the way people go through near-death experiences only his was kind of deliberate in order to show him what the experience of dying is like which we all wonder about what he says to us is really reassuring because he says there is no pain there's no such thing as a painful death and really there's no such thing as a sudden death not only is there's no physical pain there's not even mental anxiety you can sometimes save a person that their death was a nice peaceful transition and sleep and you might contrast that with someone who died in a car accident or an explosion or in the violence of War but really all deaths are gentle transitions the initiation of the process may be one thing but the death itself is very gentle and is overseen and protected by Angels whose very occupation it is to preside over people who are dying swedenborg describes the continuation of our afterlife Journey which follows the death of the physical body he says that first of all you wake up in a beautiful world that's very much like the one you're in now you see people who have gone on before you within a short while you are in a state very much like you were in this world and you start to alternate between that state and what he calls your Interstate a state of who you really are at your core you go through a process of being boiled down to what that core is with things that don't belong in that core or don't Accord with it being removed over time so that people get down to an Essence that's either good or it's evil and they find their home in either Heaven or Hell there are many many Heavens arranged according to the specifics of what people love and what they believe and many many Hells according to the particular kind of evil that they're addicted to swedenborg said that as we progress toward the interstate some ugly emotions can erupt but to reach heaven we need to be willing to face our hidden Dark Side our selfish and destructive impulses if we defend and gravitate toward them then we move closer and closer toward hell if we see them and say no I don't want to be that kind of person we move closer and closer toward heaven then he says that for people who ultimately choose hell to find that's where they go that's where they want to be for people who choose Heaven There is a third state which is one of instruction because there is so much to learn and because a Heavenly attitude toward life is an attitude that is open to learning and hungry for learning it wants to know wants to understand swedenborg's meticulous note-taking produced one of the most extensive documentations of the death experience ever recorded and yet for two centuries his account remained largely unconfirmed we're heading into vfib I want 200 watt seconds on that defibrillator when I want it now let's go hurry up we're losing our today with modern medicine's resuscitation techniques millions of people have reported having near-death experiences I could see the doctors trying to revive me [Music] I found myself carried through a long tunnel toward a radiant light I have never felt so completely known so completely loved for the majority the effect on their lives has been positive we have a pulse these contemporary accounts lend substance to swedenborg's findings since people returned from near-death experiences with new values and a radically different view of themselves in addition to these striking similarities between contemporary accounts of near-death experiences and swedenborg's own account his reports of 27 years include a wealth of fascinating detail on a wide range of spiritual topics Sweden work teaches that the human mind is actually in the human form and that we have already have a spirit that's alive in the spiritual world even though most of the time we don't sense that world when we arrive in the other world angels look at that spiritual body which is in the complete human form and amazing to say they can read all the events of Our Lives written on there so the traumas that we've been through the good decisions that we made the bad decisions are all written on our bodies almost as if we were a videotape and they simply play the tape and can see in a moment the events of our lives and most importantly what we love and Who We Are this is The Book of Life that's been much talked about that you have a complete internal memory that stores everything that's happened to you everything you said and thought and read all the events of your life are stored in a most perfect way in your spiritual Book of Life swedenborg reported learning that after death the soul moves through a progression of states the goal of this process is heaven but it is a heaven that is quite different from what most organized religions have led us to expect swedenborg describes a heaven that is Lively many leveled and most faceted swedenborg experienced three levels of Heaven one that he called roughly unnatural or I prefer behavioral heaven for people who basically don't want a probe too deeply into the nature of things they want to be decent caring people and lead a good honest life that's all that matters to them he saw a higher level of Heaven for people who wanted really to understand themselves and other people whose Focus was on that understanding and he saw a highest level of Heaven for people who were totally utterly transparently loving and who simply felt the reality didn't have to analyze it didn't have to probe the concept of Heaven that we get from swedenborg is really radical compared to many other views he not only says that people from All Phases and types of Life on this Earth are there but he was completely convinced that there were many many other inhabited planets uh in this in the universe and and that all of these people had a heaven at the heart of swedenborg's description of heavenly Community is an intriguing view of the way they are formed communities in the other world are very much different from the communities here here everybody mixes and mangles together but in the other world it's The like-minded Who band together and the focus of the community is some particular useful service much like the human body where you have a purpose outside of self that that Community serves and you find yourself so at home with the other people who have the same mission that you have swedenberg reports that Heavenly communities are composed of people who gravitate together because of their inner kinship without regard for any external differences that may have divided them before death emphasizing again that the truths of our interior nature is one of the governing principles of the afterlife the same inner nature determines our path our destination and our visual experience along the way swedenborg's understanding about the afterlife's visual quality is found in his fascinating Revelation that our thoughts are such potent agents that the world we see around us is directly shaped by what we are thinking whether it be Heavenly or infernal swedenborg tells us that heaven is visually stunning and is highly Visionary concept of the afterlife is somewhat reflected in the book and movie What Dreams May Come which Drew upon many of swedenborg's ideas in the book Richard Matheson credit swedenborg with giving him idea on the other life and one of the Striking things is his use of color swedenborg's emphasis on color in the other life is so striking he talks about diamond-like atmospheres and paradisal scenes he says there's even a rainbow Heaven the Church of the Lord consists of all of those who have lived in the good of Charity according to their own belief the Church of the Lord is universal as extraordinary as our swedenborg's Heavenly descriptions are his accounts of Hell there are no traditional fiery pits for punishing Souls rather as in parts of Heaven the locales appear somewhat Earth-like but here they mirror each inhabitant's own darker inner nature swedenborg tell is not a place where someone else punishes us for the evils we have committed on Earth but a place where we experience the inevitable effects of our own Relentless selfishness swedenborg also reports that it is not a place where the soul is cast by outside forces but that the beings there feel irresistibly drawn to be there swedenborg's hell is a remarkable place for one thing he says that who you are inside is reflected outside of you in the vegetation and the structures and buildings that are around you hell is largely devoid of vegetation or at best it has brambles and thorns a lot of Rocky and Sandy places and swamps where the frogs croaked and the crocodiles crawl people find their place there according to the particular evil that they love the most and this evil is represented around them by a kind of Filth or what Angels would perceive as filth but which the inhabitants find most delightful actually hell is arranged very carefully according to the different kinds of loves and there's a lot of restrictions on what you can do and can't do you are not allowed to hurt other people or to hurt Angels or infest people who are in this world as a result of his remarkable spiritual Quest swedenborg gained profound insight into the meaning and purpose of existence swedenborg saw the whole universe as created for the purpose of Soul making Soul making not just for individuals incidentally but for Community as well since we are implanted in the divine we can never die for we are in what is eternal and infinite so far as you approach and draw near to God doing so entirely as if of your own accord so far does God approach and draw near to you and becomes one with you in your inmost being one of swedenborg's spiritual insights concerns the nature of angels he saw their powerful loving energy radiating as colorful emanations perhaps the reason they are often pictured with wings in fact he says that God intends each one of us to One Day become an angel swedenborg's remarkable claim is that over a 27-year period he had daily interaction with angels he became very familiar with them and would talk with the same people sometimes for years on end he says that their language is a beautiful language a language of love he has great difficulty expressing exactly how they communicate because they use visual symbols hand gestures facial expressions and can convey in a single word what would take a half an hour in Earthly language to express inadequately he says that angels are also able to tell from a single word that someone else speaks what their whole state is and what their nature is so Angelic language is extremely efficient he reports seeing someone who had recently died in the other world who had encountered his little brother who had died as a child and become an Angel and the brother spoke to him with such love that this person who was a hardened businessman melted into tears and dissolved because he said it was as if love itself was speaking swedenborg talks about an Angelic language which he says all of us know deep down inside of us it talks about the vowels as being inherently expressive of our feelings and the consonants inherently making the distinctions that our thought makes so that in an instant he says an angel can say more than we can say in an hour which is marvelously expressive language and he says that it the earliest languages were like this so that in a sense he picks Hebrew that was the oldest language he knew as having some resemblance to this Angelic language but presumably the earlier you you could go if you could go into the history of language the more you'd find this responsiveness between the contents of the soul and the forms of expression while looking at Angels swedenborg often witnessed an extraordinary relationship in the afterlife between two individuals who had been loving couples before death swedenborg has wonderful descriptions of his encounters with angels in the spirit world and you have to realize that he's moving in a kind of a shape-shifting dimension in which appearance and metaphor ceaselessly interpenetrates the perceptual field nonetheless on closer inspection of what seems to be a single being an angel he actually discerned that there were two beings two appearing within the overall Angel and that this was a man and a woman in relationship in a kind of a dynamic Divine dance of rapture his position is that because God is love then human love is a is in a continuation with Divine love a man and a woman who are truly in love use each other as both the actual recipient and the symbol for something which otherwise would be described as belonging to the Divine or Divine love and so in this Earthly Covenant that we call marriage there is the creation of a spiritual being and this is how swedenborg says an angel is created we cannot become angels that is come into heaven unless we bring something of an Angelic character from living in the world Heaven consists of a heartfelt desire for the good of others rather than our own good not for the sake of any selfish hope of reward [Music] swedenborg's experiences in the spiritual Realms offered him the rare opportunity to bring back a dynamic and practical philosophy one that could help others find a greater fulfillment and meaning in their lives he advised that the effort to become a better person by seeing and then rooting out our flaws should be made without harsh self-judgment and that when we're faced with difficulties we should remain positive and find strength through prayer even wrongdoing and evil he said can be useful since we may learn from them what not to choose and there is no Freedom if we have no choice he emphasizes that it's up to each of us to freely choose to do good and to do so in a loving and thoughtful manner as incredible as it seems swedenborg reported that our Behavior May sometimes be affected by external good or evil forces flowing in from the other world and he offers a practical perspective to help us maintain our Power of Choice one of the most amazing things that swedenborg says is this business of everything flowing in from the other world and you can make all of that objective to yourself and simply say all I am is a choice I sit here in the middle and I choose to have love in myself and I choose not to have hatred or cruelty or revenge in myself we can become one with God only through love and loving actions love being the essence of spiritual connection everything we confirm by our will and understanding remains to Eternity everything in heaven Heaven body both great and small was created from Muse in use and for use [Music] swedenborg's philosophy of love and action has been called a Theology of uses and it has become a potent method for personal growth and Spiritual Development one of his greatest themes and Legacies is the idea of usefulness the idea that to be spiritual you need to be active in this world swedenborg emphasizes love for God and love for our neighbors a love is to be a tangible thing expressed through uses through usefulness which means doing things four other people using our own talents on their behalf the point of usefulness is the love which you're putting into action you don't have to be perfect but caring makes a big difference in the whole nature of what we do swedenborg would say that one of our Hells is exclusive self-preoccupation well the question then arises what is the opposite of that why being concerned for your fellow human beings and in this regard comes swedenborg's idea of uses namely that we are probably at our healthiest both mentally and emotionally when we are serving others there's a Japanese style of therapy based on this called Nikon therapy in which people who have an overwhelming amount of depression or anxiety or neurotic self-absorption are cured by having them help others in Acts of charity the impact of uses on a person's life is seen only by living it if we have as a a goal or purpose in our life to be of use to other people in any number of ways that are available to us it does something to us it makes a psychological change in us that opens up new Vistas for us that we had never been aware of before and it does mean that we do become literally a different person by practicing this over a long period of time love is the life of humanity freedom and love are one to act from the enjoyment of one's love is to act in Freedom swedenborg's philosophy of uses found expression in the 19th century American folk hero John Chapman known knows Johnny Appleseed while many Americans know of his work planning apple orchards few you are aware that he also planted spiritual seeds handing out pages from swedenborg's books acting as a one-man Wilderness lending library he brought light to the struggling Pioneer families calling swedenborg's teachings good news fresh from Heaven Helen Keller blind deaf and mute was another remarkable person deeply influenced by swedenborg's teachings when she was barely a teenager she began asking spiritual questions and failed to get answers that satisfied her then one day she was introduced to swedenborg's books by John hits an associate of her close acquaintance inventor Alexander Graham Bell [Music] when John hits came to visit her when she was about 12. and discovered she had these questions he presented her with a volume of swedenborg's Heaven and Hell in Braille that was just the first of many swedenborg volumes which she read throughout her life [Music] Helen Keller grew up to be an inspiration for generations of people in her spiritual autobiography light in my darkness she writes of swedenborg his truths have been to my faculties what light color and music are to the eye and ear they have given me a vivid consciousness of the complete being within me one thing I know that whereas I was blind now I can see she said that swedenborg's teachings enabled her to understand and value herself as a spiritual being regardless of her limitations the result was her extraordinary determination to become a useful person which empowered her to devote her life to studying writing and traveling to educate others about the gifts and special needs of people like herself her efforts altered forever their perception and treatment of people with disabilities the world over to think and to will without action when one is able is like a flame shut up in a vessel which dies away [Music] after swedenborg's spiritual Revelations he underwent numerous changes his extraordinary experiences far from fostering an otherworldly attitude instead strengthened his resolve to live a philosophy of uses he worked to express his spiritual insights to others through his writing his output grew into an immense and remarkable body of theological work including such titles as Heaven and Hell Divine love and wisdom Divine Providence and the multi-volume Arcana Celestia or secrets of Heaven when Queen Enrique granted nobility to his family Emmanuel was given the opportunity to serve in politics and he became an involved member of the House of Nobles yeah swedenborg after his spiritual awakening softened you can see a an increased humility and a reduction in that arrogant youthful Pride that he used to have he also became more aware of the Primacy of love the fact that love and feeling was even more important than the world of thought in which he had excelled he also purchased a large beautiful property on an island in the South overlooking Stockholm and I see this as significant that in went after his spiritual eyes were opened that he became more a citizen of this world more involved in politics and more involved in home ownership and entertaining people than he ever had been before in his life change also swept through swedenburg's social and personal life while he was disappointed in love as a young man and so chose to remain a lifelong bachelor after his spiritual opening he met a woman named Countess gillenborg Legend has it that he confided to friends that he had finally found his true love and even expected her to be his mate in heaven after death another personal change was the Striking increase in his psychic perception after swedenborg's Spiritual Awakening apparently spiritual Powers developed alongside his connection with the other world he published his works for a long time anonymously for about 15 years after his spiritual eyes were opened he was publishing without putting his name on the title page so no one knew who was the origin of these works that were full of these spiritual experiences but all that changed when his psychic gifts became public Mrs William Castell witnessed one of the best documented cases of swedenborg's Clairvoyance it occurred at her home in Gothenburg Sweden in 1759 at a dinner party attended by swedenborg and 15 other guests I noticed he pushed his place aside and became much more agitated and I inquired again if there was anything I could do well he stood up and soon began talking and telling us about a fire in Stockholm Stockholm but Stockholm is some 300 miles distant from your home in Gothenburg yes but he described in every detail how the fire began the buildings it was consuming how it was finally extinguished just two doors from his house this was on Thursday Saturday a messenger came from Stockholm and we learned that every detail swedenborg had told us was true well people of All Sorts then became curious after this event the queen of Sweden among others sought out swedenborg for his extraordinary psychic gift so many people became interested in swedenborg's spiritual connection at that point and somehow this led to an awareness of his having published these books as well so he became famous again after 15 years of being in the Shadow with his spiritual Powers it came to light and for the rest of his life he was famous a second time not this time as a scientist but as a Revelator as someone with a spiritual connection at age 84 swedenborg's long and extraordinary life came to a peaceful close remarkably he died precisely as he had predicted which was attested to by his maid Elizabeth Reynolds at 5 pm on March 29 1772. thank you when our bodies cease to function we do not die but pass from a dim life to a clear one for the death of the body is only the continuation and also the Perfection of life [Music] swedenborg's ideas on the nature of spiritual reality have influenced many remarkable people the world over writers and artists have often been catalysts of profound changes in society so it is not surprising that swedenborg's insights were first embraced and then expressed in Myriad Ways by such outstanding European writers as Gerta Balzac Elizabeth and Robert Browning baudelaire Coleridge Yates and Dostoyevsky their Works in turn transmitted his insights to Society at large some of the effects were subtle some quite bold in Emmanuel swedenborg A continuing Vision editor Robin Larson explores swedenborg's sweeping influence on Western culture the influence of swedenborg on European art and literature probably begins most importantly with Goethe we know that Gerta red swedenborg extensively that he is familiar with swedenborg's ideas we're told that after reading Heaven and Hell got a completed Faust but he was also fascinated with the science chance of sight and vision in a mechanical way William Blake the 19th century British Visionary artist and poet was another major figure influenced by swedenborg Blake encountered swedenborg's ideas early in his life and for a number of years wrestled strenuously with them Blake was immersed in those ideas as a young person and then he found it necessary to reject them in order to develop himself as an artist and a visionary in his later work we find swedenborg's ideas re-emerging in a more mature Blake where they're integrated with Blake's ideas his concepts of the human imagination as a motivating force and Visionary life while swedenborg's influence is felt around the world it found an especially deep resonance with the fundamental American beliefs in human rights and religious freedom his ideas have permeated countless aspects of the culture the most potent early expression of swedenborgian ideas was that of writer and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson [Music] century many people read swedenborg in fact Henry Ward Beecher a popular preacher of the day said that nobody was educated who'd not read Sweden work soap various artists were sensitive to what swedenborg had to say about the spirit and they talked about it they painted about it they expressed it themselves in their own work swedenborg got absorbed into American culture in this way visual artists were especially attracted to swedenborg's sense of light as evidence of the imminence of the Divine in the natural world swedenborg's highly visual ideas are brought to life in the paintings of the Hudson River School and include those of founder Thomas Cole along with Frederick church and George Innis swedenborg's Concepts also influenced the canvases of the Brandywine School of Art which included those of Howard Pyle and the Wyeth lineage N.C Andrew and Jamie Wyeth meanwhile Ralph Waldo Emerson corresponded with the English writer Thomas Carlisle who shared swedenborg's ideas with John Ruskin founder of the worldwide arts and crafts movement the expression of a deep appreciation for nature and natural materials and a reverence for the artist's creative Spirit are all ideas strongly rooted in swedenborg's teachings a number of important 19th century American Architects were swedenborgians and his theology inspired their Works including Daniel Burnham John Rood and Lewis Sullivan the father of the modern skyscraper after reading swedenborg's writings Sullivan began incorporating a beautiful feminine style of ornamentation into his previously very masculine forensic looking block buildings he said his new form expressed swedenborg's ideal of marriage love a love that would endure through eternity and the complementarity of the male and female comprising the whole architect Daniel Burnham used swedenborg's ideas of Heaven in his design for the rebuilding of Chicago look at descriptions of Heaven you can start to see similarities between the plan of Chicago after the Great Chicago Fire and descriptions of Heaven through Emmanuel swedenborg and the most recent research shows us through letters and documentation that in fact that's just what he was trying to do that the plan of Chicago the way the streets are laid out the way the quadrants are laid out everything has some reference or correspondence if you will to the writings of Emmanuel swedenborg swedenborg's spiritual ideas concerning freedom and human values have spread throughout American society his ideas have helped to shape a number of important social movements such as utopian communities like Brook Farm in Massachusetts where people attempted to live according to Heavenly principles many champions of the anti-slavery movement were people who were also stirred by swedenborg's ideas on freedom and human dignity new research at the Lincoln Log Cabin Center reveals that when Abraham Lincoln was a child he had a close relationship with his swedenborgian neighbors Lincoln was very good friends with a family by the name of Sergeant and family records indicate that he had long and detailed conversations with the sergeants about swedenborg's teachings a number of experts now believe that the sergeants told Lincoln about swedenborg's ideas concerning human freedom and his deep appreciation for the spiritual nature of African people another leader in the anti-slavery cause was Lydia Maria child editor of an anti-slavery paper in New York who said she considered swedenborg one of her most important inspirations swedenborg's works also gave strength and encouragement to the women's rights movement early feminist Margaret Fuller wrote that she was particularly impressed with his understanding of a woman's role as an equal partner in marriage swedenborg's ideas also lit the way for the interfaith religious movement particularly his insistence that the Divine is present in all religions in the late 19th century a swedenborgian Attorney Charles Bonnie initiated the parliament of world religions as part of the Great Chicago World's Fair Bonnie believed that the conference would usher in a new era of religious tolerance and understanding it had a tremendous impact and it marks really the introduction of Eastern religion into this country it was a turning point in our American spiritual history then we're now living in a culture where there are cities with more Muslims than episcopalians where there are Buddhist temples where you can walk down the street and see people in Saffron roads it's a wonderful thing that's happening and a world in which thou we are faced with the need of understanding and seeing the beauty in other religions the enduring quality of swedenborg's influence is no doubt largely due to the rare nature of his spiritual wisdom at once Transcendent and highly practical I think Sweden works most important Legacy is the understanding that the important thing about our religious being is our motivation what is in our hearts and in our minds not our beliefs not our actions but that which it comes from within from our Spirits what swedenborg tells us about eternity and about our lives is that we actually control it within ourselves and that that choice and that free will will eventually Define us through eternity if I were to pick one thing as the most important center Corps of swedenborg's message that was intended to change the world and has begun to do it it's the teaching that this higher power is purely and solely loving and utterly and infinitely wise there's no Angry Gods there is no will to damn us whenever we turn to the Divine we can turn for affection and understanding and healing [Music] one without factual knowledge so that we may come into all knowledge and grass into intelligence and through this into wisdom by using what we have learned for love for God and others we become one with God and by means of this become truly human and enter into eternity [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Applause] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Applause] if you'd like to purchase a copy of the award-winning documentary splendors of the spirit swedenborg's quest for insight call 1-800-355-3222 or visit the website at swedenborg.com did you know that a genius from 18th century Sweden had a profound influence on American culture and modern social movements his name was Emmanuel swedenborg an eminent scientist and Visionary learned about as many scientific inventions and see a model of his airplane in the Smithsonian Institute discover his well-documented spiritual experiences his writings on the mysteries of the afterlife the language of angels and the meaning of life join us for the award-winning documentary splendors of the spirit swedenborg's quest for insight