Gary Lachman
A clear and concise overview of the life and work of the immensely influential but little understood eighteenth-century mystic-scientist Emanuel Swedenborg.,â€œLachman identifies all the roles Swedenborg inhabited (spiritual thinker, psychic, scientist, inventor, statesman, traveler, and possibly even spy) and does an exceptionally good job of suggesting why this little-known polymath deserves more substantial critical attention.â€Â â€“ ,The Independent on Sunday (UK),It is difficult to imagine modern Western alternative spirituality without the influence of Swedish scientist and mystic Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772).Â  Every movement in alternative spirituality â€“ from mental-healing and Spiritualism to New Age mysticism and the twelve-step recovery movement â€“ owes an immeasurable debt to the ideas he exploded upon the Western world. ,Yet Swedenborgâ€™s work can be challenging for modern readers. His influence, everywhere at once, is difficult to get a handle on.Â Now, however, Gary Lachman provides an accessible, lively, and masterful introduction to the life and ideas of this spiritual giant. Â Lachman takes us to Swedenborgâ€™s roots as brilliant rationalist and scientist who, well into mid-life, began to experience visions of other realms. From this point Swedenborg produced an extraordinary range of writings based on his out-of-body experiences, in which he related encounters with angels, other-planetary beings, and â€œthe world of spirits.â€ ,As Lachman explores, Swedenborgâ€™s work opened up a radically liberal and refreshing ideal of religion. The great mystic saw humanity, and all of nature, as phenomena emerging from the â€œspiritual world,â€ and man as a vessel for divine influences. Â This vision inspired Western seekers to see man as a product of spiritual phenomena, and thus a being intimately connected with the cosmos. From this perspective grew bold new ideas about channeling, spiritual healing, mystical experience, mediumship â€“ a litany of concepts that prefigured the revolutions in alternative and therapeutic spirituality.
Biography,Religion,Nonfiction,Occult,Mysticism,History,Religion,Christianity,Psychology
Swedenborg: An Introduction to His Life and Ideas