Emanuel Swedenborg and the Tides ofSpiritual History

by Jonathan S. Rose September 2023

A talk created jointly for the 150th Anniversary of the Virginia Street Church in St. Paul, MN, and the Swedenborg Foundation’s Speaker Series

This talk is designed to serve two purposes: it is part of a three-day celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Virginia Street Church; and is also part of the Swedenborg Foundation Speaker Series. For all of you here in the room and watching online, I hope to set Swedenborg in the context of the tides of religion and spirituality since his times, with a special focus on the rise and fall and rise again of spirituality in the U.S. in the 19th and20th centuries. I also hope to touch on the future and what Swedenborg may have to offer the world.

Cut to the Chase

The main point of my talk is that the Swedenborgian churches and other institutions were vital in the sensethat it is doubtful that without them interest in Swedenborg would have made it past the 1920s, when spirituality crashed even harder than the stock market. And although today these are difficult times for churches and religion and everyone across the board, I want to encourage you and all of us to keep going! Keep reflecting on and engaging with Swedenborg’s works.

But let me set this up a little bit.

Disclaimers

Swedenborg says that we cannot really know the spiritual state of anyone, including ourselves! So for me tobriefly paint hundreds of years of the spiritual history of a nation and a world will necessarily involve using a broad brush somewhat recklessly. I hope there is a least a helpful grain of truth in what I see about where we have been, where we are, and where we might be going.

Definitions of Religion, Spirituality, Theology

To tell this story, I will mention religion, theology, and spirituality; so it might be helpful at the outset to define these terms. You could say that theology is the

study of the nature of God and religious belief. As for religion and spirituality, I like a definition I found in an article on Near-Death-Experiences by Surbhi Khanna and Bruce Greyson: “Religion usually connotes specific behavioral, doctrinal, and institutional features whereas spirituality is typically used to represent an individual's subjective experiences in attempting to understand life's ultimate questions and find meaning and purpose that transcend the concerns of mundane life.”1

I would add that the term “spiritual” generally relates to a world beyond this one, so it covers a broadrange from prayer and meditation and thought of or belief in an afterlife to actively contacting or channeling spirits and seeking to be led and taught by them, activities which might be practiced in very different ways by different people over time, and even be seen as incompatible with each other.

Swedenborg and His Works

Who Swedenborg Was

Swedenborg and his works have been a defining part of the Virginia Street Church from the beginning.

Some of you are familiar with Swedenborg, but let me nonetheless say a little bit about who he was and what he wrote.

Emanuel Swedenborg was born in 1688, and died in 1772. He was a Swedish scientist, philosopher, andstatesman who had a spiritual awakening in his mid-fifties and spent the rest of his life, until he died at 84, writing and publishing theological and spiritual works.

His claim to fame is that he became able to experience the afterlife while still conscious andfunctioning in this world, and had spiritual experiences daily for 29 years.

He wrote and published over 3 million words in 25 volumes in Latin about his experiences and what he had learned from them.

It interests me that although his father was a prominent bishop in the Swedish Lutheran church,Emanuel was not a theologian to begin with and had no such credentials. He had a religious upbringing, but he was a scientist and

1 Khanna, Surbhi, and Bruce Greyson. “Daily spiritual experiences before and after near-death experiences.”Psychology of Religion and Spirituality 2014, 6.4:302.

philosopher by trade, who then had a spiritual awakening, and that led him, late in his life, to theology and the Bible.

So he was born religious, became spiritual, and then became theological without losing the spirituality.

Swedenborg’s Theological Works

The works Swedenborg wrote expressed a concern about a contemporary decline in both religion andspirituality, and they combine the two in interesting ways. In fact, he will devote parts of a given volume to religion and theology and other parts to his spiritual experiences.

For example, in his first published theological work, Secrets of Heaven or Arcana Coelestia, he goeschapter by chapter through Genesis and Exodus; but at the end of every chapter he has material, set in a different style of font and separated by a graphic element, that talks about his spiritual experiences. Many of his other works do likewise, in various ways.

Although the primary material of all his published theological works is doctrinal and biblical, in various ways he draws the reader’s attention to the material on his spiritual experiences as a place to start.(For instance, the opening pages of Secrets of Heaven point the reader to all the main passages on spiritual experiences in that volume; several of his later works include an author’s index of accounts of his spiritual experiences in the work; and when he sent out his work on the Book of Revelation, he advised people in cover letters to read the spiritual experiences first.)

And although he divides his material into doctrinal vs. spiritual, they are not at all exclusive of each other. The theological material often includes references to his spiritual experiences, and the spiritual material often includes doctrine, theology, and the Bible. Religion and spirituality in his works are two interwoven, yet still distinguishable, threads.

I would like to look a little more closely at the content of these two threads, if you will indulge me,although this will still be no more than a cursory look.

Swedenborg’s Theology

Swedenborg’s theology is fundamentally Christian: it concerns Jesus, the Bible, angels, heaven and hell. Yethis theology is differentiated from the mainstream in a number of respects.

The Nature of God

For instance, the biblical designation of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is actually, he says, to be understood as being like our soul, body, and the things we do in the world rather than as three separate persons. After all,each of us is created in God’s image, and yet we aren’t three persons.

The purpose of the Trinity was so that God himself, the whole of divinity, could be directly and intimately present with us to help us with our problems.

Jesus is not coming again bodily—it says in Acts 13:34 that he is “no more to return to corruption”—he is coming back in a more profound, deeper way.

The “clouds” in which he is coming again are the pages of the Bible understood in a new way.

Speaking of the Bible, it is a difficult text, although it is still a bestseller today. Swedenborg says that ithas a whole layer of meaning that transcends the literal text; in fact, it has multiple layers of inner meaning.And these are written in a language of what he calls “correspondences” that are consistent from one book and one author to another across the centuries during which the Bible was written.

A lot of what irritates people about the Bible goes away when you learn about the inner meaning.For e.g., God telling people to kill children, or cursing the entire human race forever because one person ate a piece of forbidden fruit.

Practical Application

As for practical application, work is not a punishment, as a misinterpretation of Genesis has led some to believe--it is designed to be a heavenly thing.

Angels don’t sit around playing harps. They are busy serving and doing good to others in ways thatthey absolutely love doing, working not only in their own communities but with people in hell, in the world of spirits that lies between heaven and hell, and on earth, and growing as individuals as they do.

Repentance is another practice Swedenborg recommends. We are born with hereditary evil, for which we are not culpable—that was our parents’ and grandparents’ fault—but the evil we do ourselves is aproblem. Repentance is not a matter of beating ourselves up. It entails actual steps by which we can move away from our shortcomings. And it is important to at least start on this work, he says, while we are still here in this world. He is no believer in deathbed repentance, meaning the idea that you could be relentlessly horrible to everyone

throughout your life but then express regret at the hour of death and still be saved. No, from Swedenborg’s standpoint it takes years to change, but it is possible!

Swedenborg’s Spirituality/Teachings on Life after Death

But perhaps Swedenborg is best known for his teachings on spirituality.

There is an afterlife, a heaven, and a hell, in a spiritual universe that is completely separate from thephysical universe—meaning that it is not up in the physical stars. Our minds link the two worlds. At death we cross over to that world, and keep growing and developing there. Our transition at death is what I might call immediate, personal, and permanent.

Immediate meaning we don’t lie in the grave awaiting resurrection, as has been widely taught. After all, Jesus said to the criminal on a cross next to his, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

Personal meaning we are still ourselves after death--we don’t merge into a divine nirvana consciousness. After all, Jesus said to the criminal, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” In fact, the experience of dying is so seamless that most people do not realize for a while that they have died.

And permanent meaning it is “one-and-done.” There is no reincarnation back into this world. Davidsays of his child who has just died, “I shall go to him, he shall not return to me” (2 Samuel 12:23).

Unlike the teachings of most world religions, which viewed angels as beings of a higher order, Swedenborg says that angels are impressive but they (and devils too) are all “ex-people”. There is no one elseup there. The so-called “archangels” are groups of angels working together for a certain purpose.

There is an area I just mentioned that Swedenborg calls “the world of spirits,” referred to in the Bible asthe “great gulf” (Luke 16:26), where we first go after we die. There the good and the evil are sorted out, andbecome either angels or evil spirits and go to heaven or hell. Where we end up is a result of our own heartfelt choices deep within ourselves; God casts no one into hell, he says.

For the purposes of this talk I want to zoom in on what Swedenborg says about our relationship with angels and spirits and the possibility of contact with them. He says the human race was created in such a way as to have conscious contact with spirits and angels, but such contact became dangerous as the human race fell away from God. Nevertheless, all of us have angels and evil spirits with us at all times, although they are usually unseen by most people. What we

experience as our own private thoughts and feelings are actually mediated through and known by the spiritual world, and if that connection were cut off, we would fall down dead. Our minds live there already, but we are usually tuned into our physical senses; we have a spiritual body already but we are not usually tuned in to our spiritual senses in this world.

He says that in order to have safe conscious contact with angels and spirits it helps to be good people and have a selfless, higher purpose for that contact; because otherwise we will just contact the spirits whoare around us, who already think and feel exactly the way we do.

In fact, contact with spirits is extremely dangerous if we are not prepared for it and protected by a higher purpose and close relationship with the Lord, because we are likely to connect with evil spirits, andthey would love to destroy us soul, mind, and body. Our reaching out would make us visible to them and give them a chance to destroy us. (It reminds me of Lord of the Rings and the way putting on the ring of power immediately draws the hostile awareness and attention of the dreaded Nazgul.)

Interaction between the worlds is highly regulated.

The universe has been structured to give us choice and an unavoidable sense of autonomy; so angels support and protect us as much as possible, but they are not allowed to teach us anything, let alone take overand rule our lives. They are under strict instructions to preserve our freedom and are happy to comply.

Well, how then are we to learn anything new or change our minds about God and reality? One way, Swedenborg says, is through the Bible. The Bible is designed to link heaven and earth, he says; it is present inheaven and here and it is designed to give us direct access to God. By reading it with deep understanding, we can learn the difference between good and evil. And a by- product of that connection is the increased presence of angels, of which we may or may not be conscious. If at all, interaction with them comes after, not before, we have changed and been reborn.

Another source of truth and change for us is other people in this world. After all, if angels couldcommunicate directly and effectively with people, why have a Swedenborg at all? Why wouldn’t they haveeliminated the middleman? But it doesn’t work that way.

And by the way, this teaching went counter to the prevailing Christian view that angels are a separately created race of genderless beings who have

never experienced life on earth; that after we die, our bones lie in the grave (helpfully facing east andhopefully not cremated) awaiting the Second Coming when we will be reclothed in flesh and regainconsciousness to join Jesus for the millenium—along with vague ideas that angels could and should intervene in our lives in various ways, regardless of our character or motivations.

Swedenborg’s Vulnerability

Swedenborg felt in his heart that he had been shown vital things that could really help the world. But he didn’t start any movement in this world. He had his hands full just writing it all out with a quill pen and traveling abroad to publish it in his 60s, 70s, and early 80s. What would happen when he died? Would it all fall into the mud and rot? Would anybody care and carry the torch?

Swedenborg and the Tides of Spiritual History

Let me attempt to situate the reception of Swedenborg and his works in the history of the great tides ofreligion and spirituality that have happened since his time.

To do this, as I say, I’ll need to paint (as Swedenborg himself often did in his writing) with a very broad brush in sweeping gestures.

Although religion and spirituality seem obviously closely related, and at times indistinguishable, over time they have arguably had different tides.

For instance, Swedenborg’s times were very affected by an earlier movement in Christianity called Scholasticism, which started with Thomas Aquinas. This type of theology was very focused on definitionsand terminology, especially as fodder for vigorous arguments. Take the concept of faith, for instance. There wasn’t just faith; they discussed the act of faith, the certitude of faith, the knowledge of faith, the confession of faith, the grace of faith, the righteousness of faith, the light of faith, the merit of faith, the quantity of faith, the vision of faith, the way of faith, and the faculty of reason informed by faith.

There was acquired faith and infused faith. There was the faith commonly accepted and the faith properly accepted. There was correct faith and fictitious faith. There was explicit faith and implicit faith. There wasfaith that was formed or living and faith that was unformed or dead. So on the scale from religion and theology to spirituality, this was to my mind well on the religion and theology end. This trend had started centuries before Swedenborg’s time, but was still very prominent in the universities in his day.

Then a very different tide came into Christianity, specifically Lutheranism, called Pietism. In reaction to scholasticism, pietism emphasized instead how you feel in your prayer life and your personal relationship with the Lord. Were you moved to tears in your prayers? Were you living a Christian life? This movement is what made singing and music a more prominent part of worship, in the hopes that worshipers would have a deeper emotional experience.

That would to my mind be more in the direction of spirituality than theology. Swedenborg’s father was a prominent pietist, and Swedenborg expresses criticism of the dry syllogisms of scholasticism.

So I mention all this as an example of the kind of tides I mean and how things shift over time.

Church and State in Swedenborg’s Time

Religion was huge in 18th-century Europe. It is next to impossible for us now to get an idea of what that was like. It was a dominant part of everyone’s life. In most countries in the west there was just a single religion and a single denomination of that religion to which everyone you knew belonged. In Sweden at the time it was illegal to be anything but a member of the Lutheran church of Sweden. Everyone went to church every week. The church brought you into the world and saw you out. You paid taxes to the church; if you were poor, it was the church that gave you a pension. If someone died in the marketplace, you didn’t take them toa police station (those didn’t even exist yet) or a hospital; you took them to the nearest church. The government and the church were functionally indistinguishable.

A Nineteenth-Century Tide of Spirituality

The Enlightenment, however, had laid an axe at the root of the foundations of Christianity, questioning the authority of the Bible and this dominance of the church. New religious movements sprang up in Germany (where the counties and duchies had different brands of Christianity anyway); and even more so in the U.K., there was tolerance of religious diversity, and a new recognition of “nonconformist” religions: Moravians, Methodists, Quakers. So when Swedenborg came along, early devotees in England weren’t sure what to do.

Some Swedenborgians there worked within the Anglican framework, and were known as “universalist Swedenborgians,” most notably the Rev. John Clowes;

while other so-called “sectarian Swedenborgians” started a separate fledgling denomination in the late eighteenth century.

The discovery of the new world of course had a big effect on Europe. People of different Christian denominations and new religious movements escaped to America from the persecution they were facing at home. From early on, America was a pluralistic society unlike anything in Europe at the time, even if that pluralism was largely Christian.

And in the mid- to late nineteenth century in the U.S., on top of the religious diversity, a great tide of spirituality rose up, partly fueled by Swedenborg’s works, although there were lots of other factors as well.

One form this took in the 1840s in the U.S., specifically in upstate New York, was called Spiritualism. Wikipedia has this definition: “Spiritualism was a social religious movement in the nineteenth century, according to which an individual’s awareness persists after death and may be contacted by the living. The afterlife, or the ‘spirit world,’ is seen by spiritualists not as a static place, but as one in which spirits continue to evolve. These two beliefs—that contact with spirits is possible, and that spirits are more advanced than humans—led spiritualists to the belief that spirits are capable of providing useful insights regarding moral and ethical issues as well as about the nature of God.” People were taken with Swedenborg’s idea that our personalities survive death and become wise and live in a better world; and his assertion and experience that contact between people in this world and people in the next is possible. They apparently downplayed or didn’t see the passages where Swedenborg said this type of contact can be extremely dangerous, or the oneswhere he says the spirits are forbidden to teach you anything you didn’t already know. So Swedenborg was (and still is) hailed as the Father of Spiritualism, even though his works cautioned against what they were attempting to do.

The Fox sisters, Margaretta and Catherine, in upstate New York became

influential spiritualists. They said they were able to communicate through table rapping with the spirit of a man who, they claimed, had been murdered in the house before they lived there. This began in 1848 when the sisters were just 15 and 11 years old! Their claim is interesting, but the public’s response was astounding. Apparently, the public was almost desperately hungry for something just like this, and spiritualism became huge.

War played a role in the rise of spirituality too. In the 1860s, the horrors of the U.S. Civil War saw many young men die on the battlefield, leaving their

parents unable to care for them or even give them a decent burial. So Swedenborg’s ideas of immediatesurvival of death in a better world were particularly meaningful.

Another interesting possible factor in the rise of spirituality at that time was, of all things, the invention of the telephone, a prototype of which was first publicly displayed by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. For the first time people heard their living friends and loved ones as disembodied voices; and somehave argued that that may have made it a little easier to believe that their dead loved ones, although not seen, might be able to be heard in a similar fashion.

To judge by the astonishing number of reprints of Swedenborg’s works, whether by the Swedenborg Society in London, the Swedenborg Foundation in the U.S., or other publishers such as the Riverside Press of Houghton Mifflin, which published the complete set of Swedenborg’s works known as the Rotch edition,and J. B. Lippincott of Philadelphia, Swedenborg’s books were flying off the shelves in the late 1800s.

Between the 1840s and 1920s there were an estimated eight million spiritualists in the U.K. and theU.S., largely of the upper and middle classes; by my rough estimate that could be as much as half that portion of the population. Most of the mediums were women.

In 1857 there was a branch of spiritualism that became known as spiritism, which sees itself as distinct from spiritualism. It was started by Allan Kardec in France and is defined as “the doctrine founded on the existence, manifestations, and teachings of spirits.” It is still prominent in the world today, particularly in Brazil and the Philippines.

In the late 1800s many famous and influential people were reading Swedenborg and talking about him. I could rhyme off a list of names that are impressive to me at least, but in the interests of time I’ll askyou to just take my word for it. But thought leaders and prominent people were affected, although the relationship between them and the Swedenborgian churches was interesting—it was often a bit vexed.

As far as I can tell, much of the spiritualism of that time was solidly Christian. And the rest of societywas almost universally Christian too. The U.S. is still peppered with churches built at that time, including the one on Virginia Street in 1873 that is part of the celebration tonight.

The Tide of Spiritualism Goes Out

Then in the 20th century in the U.S. and Europe—I am still painting with a broad brush here--the tide of spirituality turned and dramatically receded, and a different spirit of materialism, existentialism, and secularism took over the national conversation.

For one thing, the great, almost manic, interest in the 19th century in séances, table rappings, andsuch things was brought into question as many such practices were exposed as fraudulent. One of the Fox sisters herself admitted in 1888 that their table rappings were a hoax and showed how it was done, but later retracted the admission. In the 1920s people including Harry Houdini (a famous magician, i.e., someone who was good at fooling people) launched systematic and highly successful efforts to debunk spiritualism. That is not to say that everything done in the name of spirituality was a ruse; but it started to look that way.

In the public conversation, Swedenborg was largely thrown out with this

bathwater, so to speak. Even though he would not have agreed with some of the practices that spiritualism and spiritism were teaching, he was apparently identified with it in many people’s minds. When it wasdebunked, it perhaps cast doubt on the veracity of his teachings in general. In any case, he and the séances went badly out of style in the public’s eye and sales of his works steeply declined.

Of course there were still Christian churches everywhere, and in fact in the earlier 20th century therewere significant developments in Christianity, such as the rise of biblical literalism, the Pentecostal movement, and later the Jesus movement, the megachurches, the emergent church, and so on. At no time has Christianity been static.

Meanwhile the Swedenborgian churches, which had distanced themselves from spiritualism and spiritism, stepped back from the mainstream and kept quietly reading and pondering Swedenborg’s works.

And this debunking of spiritualism was just a small part of a much larger general trend away fromboth religion and spirituality. It was replaced by several generations of atheism and the sense that the westernworld had entered a “post- Christian era.” The saying “God is dead” was a thing. Even among Judeo- Christian theologians, the notion of “the death of God” was much discussed, partly in response to the horrors of the holocaust in the mid-twentieth century.

Many people became “nonchurched,” that is, not affiliated with any

denomination—whether they had been “unchurched” from birth, as they say, or had “dechurched” duringthe course of their lives. According to polls, a majority of people in the U.S. still believed in God and angels and heaven, but church attendance was no longer as solid as it had been.

It seemed in some ways as though Christianity was becoming all but overthrown. In Europe even more than in the U.S. it had nothing like its former central role in most people’s lives and in the publicconversation. In fact, it got to the point where scholars and scientists who were religious would not care to admit that to their colleagues.

Church attendance in the U.S. across all denominations has been in decline for the past fifty years. InEurope even more so. It feels almost “over over there.”

The Tide of Spirituality Comes In Again

But then in the 1960s and ’70s the tide of spirituality turned again and made a comeback in the U.S. Who knows what it all means?

One manifestation of this was that the so-called New Age was born in the 1970s. It was adecentralized, unorganized movement that came to have millions of adherents. Some say it was launched by the books of Carlos Castaneda, the first volume of which came out in 1968. They showed an older Native-American shaman in the desert southwest teaching a young westerner his spiritual ways and beliefs.

The New Age shared the nineteenth century’s view of the possibility of talking with spirits, and called its practitioners “psychics” and their practice “channeling.”

It was not as Christian as its 19th-century counterpart, in the main. For one thing, the New Age embraced reincarnation. It also believed in religious pluralism. A New Age perspective might say:

Buddhism is actually cool! Gurus are cool. Hinduism, wiccan, and yoga are cool. Christianity as a dominant, single-minded thing is actually not cool; but if you have some new scrolls from the desert that shed a new light,I’m interested; if you have a new translation of the Lord’s prayer that attempts to reconstruct the original Aramaic, I’ll hear that. And I’ll combine this teaching and practice from one tradition with that teaching or practice from another.

Swedenborg was not as directly influential in the New Age as he had been in the nineteenth century, but his stock did rise again, so to speak.

During the 1980s, the idea that people who die are immediately in another world and are still recognizably themselves and can communicate with us came back into the national conversation. Let me citea few examples of movies and TV shows built around variations of this perspective—and I hasten to say again, this is not mainstream Christian teaching! This goes against mainstream teaching.

1984 Highway to Heaven, with Michael Landon, ran on TV for five seasons.

A good-looking probationary angel, who turns out to have been a human who died some years earlier, issent to earth to help people and is aided by a retired policeman. The critics were scathing about this show but it was really popular and tugged at people’s hearts

The 1989 movie Field of Dreams. A man in a tough spot hears a voice that leads him to create abaseball field, and baseball players who have died and are now young and vibrant again come back and play on his field.

The 1990 movie Ghost. The husband of a couple deeply in love is killed by his corrupt business partner and becomes a spirit walking the earth. He works through a charlatan psychic, who can nonetheless see him,to protect and connect with his wife.

1994’s TV show Touched by an Angel ran for nine seasons. Three angels, who are so indistinguishable from humans that people don’t know they are angels (at least until the last scene of the show), help peopleand bring comfort and hope from God. And the angels learn and develop too.

The 1998 movie What Dreams May Come. A man dies and is led through the afterlife by a spirit guide.His wife commits suicide and goes to a dark place; he tries to help her.

And the 1999 movie The Sixth Sense. A child psychologist works with a nine-year-old boy who cansee and hear dead people. Dead people are so much the same as they were that they often don’t realize they have died.

And I am sure there are many other shows like that you can think of. But you might be thinking,“But what about the movie It’s a Wonderful

Life? That has a bumbling, human-type angel who interacts with an anguished human to the benefit of both. Didn’t that come out all the way back in 1946?

Doesn’t that undermine your argument?” Well yes, it did come out in 1946, and in a 1946 interview, director Frank Capra told an interviewer that he made the film "to combat a modern trend toward atheism." Butguess what? The atheism of the time did not like the film. It was a flop! It got panned by the critics, lost

$525,000 (the equivalent of $8.5 million today), and Frank Capra’s career went

into a steep decline. Only thirty years later, in 1976 when it went into the public domain, did it become a beloved classic—much to its director’s complete astonishment and delight. It now has a ninety-four percent approval rating.

So this would tend to support the theory that the 1940s were more hostile to a story about angel-human interaction than the 1970s were.

Possible Reasons for the Return of Spirituality

Working on this talk I started to wonder why spirituality made this comeback. It is easier to see what got ridof it in the 1920s; many things about the séances were between questionable and ridiculous, not to mention manipulative. But what brought spirituality back in the ’60s and ’70s?

You are welcome to disagree with me—it is controversial—but one possible explanation is the adventof psychedelics. Although Albert Hoffmann had invented LSD back in 1938 and first tried it himself in 1943, and it was scientifically experimented on in the 1950s, it did not become a countercultural phenomenon until the mid 1960s in the U.S. and Britain. In the ensuing decades, millions tried it.

And another factor was no doubt the new awareness of Near-Death Experiences (or NDEs): Raymond Moody’s book Life after Life came out in 1975, which included a chapter on Swedenborg, and coined the term Near-Death Experience. Kenneth Ring’s book Life at Death: A Scientific Exploration of the Near- Death Experience came out in 1980.

As I am sure you know, NDEs are experiences in which people’s bodies died and then revived and they told of remarkable experiences they had had while “dead” of going to another realm full of love and light so beautiful that they didn’t want to leave. Systematic study showed remarkable similarities between such accounts across cultures and around the world. People have no doubt been having such experiences forever, but they had never been studied and documented in this way before. In the ’70s and ’80s theybecame part of the conversation.

And it strikes me—it is hard to convince someone there is no spiritual world if they are convinced that they have been there or experienced it!

As for Swedenborg’s reputation being restored at the same time, a friend of mine who studies philosophy said: The post-structuralism that emerged in France in the 1960s was questioning the idea ofuniversal truth and tearing down all existing forms of philosophy and religion and thought, and so once therest of

the buildings on the street had been wiped out, so to speak, then to the extent that Swedenborg was left standing, he started to look pretty good as a viable alternative.

For whatever reasons, Swedenborg’s boat was lifted on this spiritual tide.

Although still not back to 19th-century levels, his teachings seem to be much more appealing to peopletoday than they were to people 75 to 100 years ago.

And to zoom in on a particular area of this that has been a big part of my life, I would note that theSwedenborg Foundation, which had existed since 1849, an interesting moment in time, to keep Swedenborg’s works in print, felt a new inspiration in the 1970s and ’80s and started doing films and books related to Swedenborg, plus new translations and most recently OffTheLeftEye.

The New Century Edition (NCE), of which I am the series editor, is a set of fresh English translations of Swedenborg’s theological works designed with new readers primarily in mind, not presuming a background in Swedenborg, the eighteenth century, or even Christianity and the Bible.

It was started in 2000, and the NCE is reaching tens of thousands of people.

And OffTheLeftEye, that I know some of you know about, is a YouTube channel devoted to providing a thorough, casual, entertaining, and wide- reaching education in Swedenborg’s works and concepts.

OffTheLeftEye, which was launched in 2013, is reaching millions of people. In a recent 28-day period, it got 1.6 million views! This is a cause of gratitude and great rejoicing, but it still must be said that these atbest represent only 0.02% of 8 billion people in our world, all of whom, Swedenborg says, are “in distress” (Secrets of Heaven 5132:2).

Theology and Religion in Decline

Yet while spirituality is having another moment, the churches seem to still be struggling in some respects. Inthe past twenty-five years the number of people who say they are “more spiritual than religious” has doubled. The childhood sexual abuse scandals have obviously hurt the mainline Christian churches.

The Swedenborgian churches, which have never been huge, seem to be struggling for members and having trouble keeping the next couple of generations engaged.

Kept Swedenborg Alive

But think about this, my friends: Swedenborg somehow made it through both the long low tide in spirituality in the early to mid-twentieth century and the general slide of the mainline churches.

And the Virginia Street Church made it through too—you’re still here!

Swedenborg is fortunate that you and other Swedenborg-related institutions survived and persisted. Preparing for this talk, it struck me to wonder what would have happened to Swedenborg in that half-century or more of greatly reduced interest in spirituality without you. I think it could have been the end.

When I was studying the classics I became very interested in why some texts survive the centuries and others don’t.

What preserves a text the best is love. Lots of copies can help, but without love, multiple copies can’t keep something alive. Think about the ad flyers that come with a newspaper—what is the likelihood that many of those will survive for future generations?

If generation after generation finds something to love about a text, it will be well preserved.

Consider the fate of Christian Freiherr von Wolff, who was a slightly older contemporary of Swedenborg’s who wrote on similar topics and was considerably more famous than him. Now almost no one cares. I could find no trace of a Wolff Foundation or a Wolff Society. Very few of his works have been translated into English, let alone in multiple editions.

By contrast, Swedenborg has been translated into dozens of languages from every part of the world; everything he ever scribbled on a sheet of paper has been poured over and scanned and copied and analyzed; and there are literally thousands of different volumes by him and about him, and more come out each year.

And that is mostly because of the church groups and Swedenborg-related institutions. What I am saying is this: As strong as it had been in the 19th century, you could not have relied on public interest to keep Swedenborg’s theology alive during a time that hated It’s a Wonderful Life! The churches and organizations dedicated to Swedenborg’s teachings kept them alive and made it possible for Swedenborg to be part of another tide.

The Future

Now as long as I am talking in sweeping terms, what about the future? I hope it should be clear to you bynow that I don’t know what I’m talking about! And of course I know even less about the future. But why should that stop me?

In my ignorance I am apparently in good company. Swedenborg says that not even angels know the future of religion in our world, and this is worth quoting: “I have had various conversations with angels about the future state of the church,” something Swedenborg was concerned about. “They said that they do not know what is to come”—that blew my mind—“because knowing the future belongs to the Lord alone”;there goes the idea of asking them what is happening next! “They do know,” the quote continues, “though, that the inner slavery and captivity that the people in the church have suffered until now has been taken away; and that now, because freedom has been restored, people can have a better perception of inner truths if they choose to and in this way can become people of greater depth if they wish.“ (Last Judgment §74)

I like that emphasis on freedom at the end there.

What is the new church of the future going to look like? I just don’t know. (By the way, my wife told me to say that at least three times during my talk about the future: “I just don’t know.” And she is totally right!)

I just don’t know what the future will look like, but I would be very surprised (this is not cheating I do not think) if it didn’t involve working on ourselves as individuals and probably improving ourrelationships with others, including perhaps whole movements in society that are heading in approximately the same direction.

I really don’t know what it will look like, but it will probably continue to be about helping people in their spiritual lives.

I don’t know if this would be part of it, but it would be great if a few people knew Swedenborg’s Latin, and people with or without Latin kept studying and trying to understand his works and apply them to life.

There is a lot I don’t know; but I do know something about Swedenborg’s vision of the future, based on biblical prophecies.

But I hasten to say, You may not want to hear it—it could be too painful compared to our current reality!

You may not wish to hear the prediction that the terrible gap between heaven and earth that largelynow exists will be gone, the veil between worlds will thin to almost nothing, and that people and angels willlive and work and

worship together, hardly remembering which ones are dead and which ones are still alive in the physical world. Isn’t it painful in a way to contemplate that possibility, given our current state and the thickness of theveil between worlds?

You may not want to hear that the Holy Spirit and revelation will pour forth from within on everyonemale and female, young and old, according to Joel chapter 2. What would that even be like?

You might be reluctant to contemplate the dissolution of distinctions between the religions to the point where there’s just one denomination worldwide (Secrets of Heaven 6269), and the people who belong toit are people who are living good lives, regardless of their beliefs or background.

You may not be open to hearing that the Lord’s increased presence will organize and unite all the good people of the world into one—just the way Joseph organized his brothers at the table into just the right order—so that people everywhere recognize each other as family.

It’s too far from where we are! Denominational distinctions and interdenominational conflict are veryimportant to us! Otherwise how could you tell who is on your team?

It might really be too much to hear the possibility that children may be born in the future without hereditary evil, who already love God and other people and have access to all truth and knowledge from thetime they are born. After all we struggle with, how could we hear that?

Yes, the Bible too foretells that in some future time no one will teach another to know the Lord becausethey will all know me, says the Lord (Jeremiah 31:34).

But we humans who have worked for decades to guard a little candle of

love in our hearts and assemble a few crumbs of knowledge may not wish to consider what it would be like to have grandchildren who are little angel-beings of profound love and wisdom, miles ahead of us withoutany effort. What would they think of their grandparents?

But let’s not worry about it--if it happens at all, it won’t be for a long time.

But honestly, how would we get there from here? What would the steps be? It is truly unfathomable to me.

I can imagine in the near future, though, the tide of religion and theology turning, in public opinion, and becoming more desirable once again as people get sick of evil and chaos and are ready for something better.

And it is a beautiful thought that religion and spirituality might come together again and get back in sync. Religion needs the vibrancy and depth of spirituality, and spirituality can benefit from the structure andsolidity of religion and the clarity of a theology that works and makes sense.

What Now?

So a question for you: Is it worth it keeping these Swedenborg fires burning? I know it can be discouraging for the Swedenborgian churches when a few people are working so hard and then key parishioners die orwhole families move away, and other once interested and beloved individuals seem to fade into the hiss of the cosmic background radiation.

Although there are lots of viewers online, it can also be isolating for viewers of OffTheLeftEye whodon’t have anyone living nearby to talk face-to- face to about all this.

It does seem like Job 1 to keep the fires burning. Keep engaging with these remarkable works. Keep thinking about these perspectives and how they could help and inspire people and address the ills of society.

I don’t know what lies ahead, but I think we should keep going. We have no idea how important it might turn out to be for us as individuals and collectively to keep loving and working with these ideas.

For myself, as long as I’ve got, I want to keep getting Swedenborg’s texts in order--but that seems very basic, and the outcome I hope for is more than just the production of more books with Swedenborg’s name on them. The books are mere infrastructure for what I anticipate as an increasing appetite in the worldfor what Swedenborg wrote.

To sum all this up, I think Swedenborg has a lot to offer the world. Spiritualists have eaten only a third of the cookie, after putting weird icing on it, and the mainline religions haven’t touched the cookie at all. But theblend of religion and spirituality (not to mention science) in Swedenborg’s works could hold clues for how to bring them together. And maybe just the bringing of those two together would move us closer to the bright future Swedenborg predicts.

A Psalm and an Anecdote

Okay, almost done. Just two more things: I want to read you a psalm, and then finish with an anecdote. The psalm is about how small we humans are and how

much we need divine help in reaching the next generations and navigating these huge tides across time—itkept coming to mind when I was working on this talk.

Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, you are God. You turn man to destruction, and say, “Return, O children of men.” For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, and like a watch in the night. You carry themaway like a flood; they are like a sleep. In the morning they are like grass which grows up: in the morning it flourishes and grows up; in the evening it is cut down and withers     So

teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Oh, satisfy us early with your mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days! Return, O Lord! How long? And havecompassion on your servants. The days of our lives are seventy years; and if by reason of strength they are eighty years, yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. Make us glad according to the days in which you have afflicted us, the years in which we have seen evil. Let your work appear to your servants, and your glory to their children. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands for us; yes, establish the work of our hands. (Psalm 90)

As for the anecdote: My wife and I have a modest house with a nice view. It sits at the top of a crest looking west over a beautiful river valley. As she and I were discussing the topics for this talk late last month and looking out at the view, a flock of geese came into view flying north through the valley below our house. Then the flock split up right before us. About forty continued north to our right until out of sight, whileanother twenty turned back in the opposite direction and went south beyond our view. Then pretty soon, as we continued talking, one lone goose from the group to the north came flying to the south as straight and fast as possible—not even honking. It had apparently decided that the smaller group had it right andheading south was actually the thing to do. We both burst out laughing because it seemed like a correspondence of the trends we had been talking about.

Who knows if that goose would be able to catch up with, and add its

number to, the group going south. They had a bit of a head start. Who knows when the rest of the groupheaded north would turn around. But even leaving its

group and flying alone, that one goose seemed determined, and now was flying in the right direction (given the long term goal for geese in the northern hemisphere at the end of August). Even the majority headed in the wrong direction might turn around. And sooner or later the lone goose will join and be joined by many others flying on in a great tide of migration.