Emanuel Swedenborg

Abstract

In July 1745 Swedenborg returned to Sweden, and soon afterwards resigned his assessorship, so that he might be at liberty to devote himself to the new function to which he imagined that he had been especially called. Accordingly, all scientific studies and pursuits he now abandoned entirely; all worldly honours and interests he counted worthless; he devoted himself to that sacred office “to which the Lord Himself has called me, who was graciously pleased to manifest Himself to me, His unworthy servant, in a personal appearance in the year 1743; to open in me a sight of the spiritual world, and to enable me to converse with spirits and angels. … Hence it has been permitted me to hear and see things in another life which are astonishing, and which have never come to the knowledge of any man, nor entered into his imagination. I have been there instructed concerning different kinds of spirits, and the state of souls after death—concerning Hell, or the lamentable state of the unfaithful—concerning Heaven, or the most happy state of the faithful, and particularly concerning the doctrine of faith, which is acknowledged throughout Heaven.” He is well aware that many persons will affirm that such intercourse is impossible, and that it must be mere fancy and illusion on his part, but for all this he cares not, seeing that “he has seen, heard, and had sensible experience” of what he declares.