Antiquity Medieval Early modern Modern Iran India East-Asia Emanuel Swedenborg (/ˈswiːdənbɔːrɡ/,[2] Swedish: [ˈsvêːdɛnˌbɔrj] ⓘ; born Emanuel Swedberg; (29 January 1688  – 29 March 1772)[3] was a Swedish polymath; scientist, engineer, astronomer, anatomist, Christian theologian, philosopher, and mystic.

[16][17] He travelled abroad and studied theology, and on returning home, he was eloquent enough to impress the Swedish king, Charles XI, with his sermons in Stockholm.

[18][3] Jesper took an interest in the beliefs of the dissenting Lutheran Pietist movement, which emphasised the virtues of communion with God rather than relying on sheer faith (sola fide).

According to the preface of a book by the Swedish critic Olof Lagercrantz, Swedenborg wrote to his benefactor and brother-in-law Benzelius that he believed he might be destined to be a great scientist.

However, the warlike king did not consider this project important enough, but did appoint Swedenborg to be assessor-extraordinary on the Swedish Board of Mines (Bergskollegium) in Stockholm.

[26] In 1724, he was offered the chair of mathematics at Uppsala University, but he declined and said that he had dealt mainly with geometry, chemistry and metallurgy during his career.

[27] The Swedish critic Olof Lagerkrantz proposed that Swedenborg compensated for his impediment by extensive argumentation in writing.

In the Principia, the first part of his Opera Philosophica et Mineralia, he outlined his philosophical method, which incorporated experience, geometry (the means by which the inner order of the world can be known) and the power of reason.

[35]) Other inventions by Swedenborg include a submarine, an automatic weapon, an universal musical instrument, a system of sluices that could be used to transport boats across land and several types of water pumps, which were put into use when he was on Sweden's Board of Mines.

[38][39] He also conducted dedicated studies of the fashionable philosophers of the time such as John Locke, Christian von Wolff, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, and Descartes and earlier thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus and Augustine of Hippo.

[51][52] His writings were filled with symbolism; Swedenborg often used stones to represent truth, snakes for evil, houses for intelligence, and cities for religious systems.

There are several accounts of his last months, made by those with whom he stayed and by Arvid Ferelius, a pastor of the Swedish Church in London, who visited him several times.

Raising himself up on his bed, his hand on his heart, Swedenborg earnestly replied, "As truly as you see me before your eyes, so true is everything that I have written; and I could have said more had it been permitted.

[78] Some propose that he did not have a revelation at all but developed his theological ideas from sources which ranged from his father to earlier figures in the history of thought, notably Plotinus.

[79][b] Swedish critic and publicist Olof Lagercrantz had a similar point of view, calling Swedenborg's theological writing "a poem about a foreign country with peculiar laws and customs".

With the aid of this scenario, Swedenborg now interpreted the Bible in a different light, claiming that even the most apparently trivial sentences could hold a profound spiritual meaning.

[c][88][89][90] In the high and increasing wind it spread very fast, consuming about 300 houses and making 2000 people homeless.

They further contend that if Swedenborg had only received news of the fire by the normal methods there would have been no issue of psychic perception recorded for history.

[99] The third event was in 1758 when Swedenborg visited Queen Louisa Ulrika of Sweden, who asked him to tell her something about her deceased brother Prince Augustus William of Prussia.

[100][d] The fourth incident involved a woman who had lost an important document, and came to Swedenborg asking if a recently deceased person could tell him where it was, which he (in some sources) was said to have done the following night.

[101] In 1763, Immanuel Kant, then at the beginning of his career, was impressed by accounts of Swedenborg's psychic abilities and made inquiries to find out if they were true.

[106] However, three years later, in 1766, Kant wrote and published anonymously a small book entitled Träume eines Geistersehers (Dreams of a Spirit-Seer)[107] that was a scathing critique of Swedenborg and his writings.

[109] As rationale for his critique, Kant said he wanted to stop "ceaseless questioning"[110] and inquiries about Dreams from "inquisitive" persons, both known and unknown.

Neither did he wish to compare it to philosophy, a discipline he discarded in 1748 because, he claimed, it "darkens the mind, blinds us, and wholly rejects the faith".

The question arises due to a statement attributed to Jesus that there is no marriage in heaven (Luke 20:27–38, Matthew 22:23–32, and Mark 12:18–27).

Swedenborg wrote The Lord God Jesus Christ on Marriage in Heaven as a detailed analysis of what he meant.

In the case of marriage, the object is to bring about the joining of the two partners at the spiritual and physical levels, and the happiness that comes as a consequence.

[137] A variety of important cultural figures, both writers and artists, were influenced by Swedenborg's writings, including Robert Frost,[138] Johnny Appleseed, William Blake, Jorge Luis Borges, Daniel Burnham, Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Conan Doyle,[139] Ralph Waldo Emerson,[140] John Flaxman, George Inness, Henry James Sr., Carl Jung,[141] Immanuel Kant, Honoré de Balzac, Helen Keller, Czesław Miłosz, Joseph Smith, August Strindberg, D. T. Suzuki, W. B. Yeats, Tomislav Vlašić, and Mother Teresa.

His philosophy had a great impact on the Duke of Södermanland, later King Carl XIII, who as the Grand Master of Swedish Freemasonry (Svenska Frimurare Orden) built its unique system of degrees and wrote its rituals.

[145] Furthermore, he was characterized by his contemporaries as a "kind and warm-hearted man", "amiable in his meeting with the public", speaking "easily and naturally of his spiritual experiences",[146][147][148] with pleasant and interesting conversation.