Emanuel Swedenborg

Emanuel Swedenborg {{Audio|sv-Emanuel_Swedenborg.ogg|listen}} (born Swedberg) (January 29, 1688–March 29, 1772), Swedish scientist, philosopher and mystic, was born in Stockholm, the third son of the renowned but controversial bishop, Jesper Swedberg. Emanuel had a prolific career as an inventor and scientist. Then at age fifty-six he claimed that he entered into a new spiritual phase of his life, experiencing first dreams, and later visions of a spiritual world where he talked with angels and spirits, many of them from the Bible, such as Moses and Jesus. Amongst other things, he said these spirits guided his interpretation of the Scriptures.

Accomplishments

Scientific contributions

As early as 1721, Swedenborg was seeking to lay the foundation of a scientific explanation of the universe. That year saw the publication of his Prodromus Principiorum Rerum Naturalium, and he had already written his Principia in its first form. In 1734, his Opera Philosophica et Mineralia appeared in three volumes, the first volume of which (the Principia) comprised his view of the first principles of the universe, a mechanical and geometrical theory of the origin of things. The other volumes contained various metallurgical studies, probably connected to his work on the board of mines.

Related Topics:
1721 - Universe - 1734

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Swedenborg is believed to have anticipated many modern scientific discoveries. It was not until the end of the 19th century that his voluminous writings began to be examined by scientists, and he was shown to have been ahead of his time in many sciences. What should be kept in mind, however, is that his early, scientific researches are fundamentally different from the mystical discoveries of his later life. His paradigm shift from the objective experimentalist to the subjective mystic, beyond falsifiability, was complete indeed. If one combines the two periods, Swedenborg can be said to have made contributions to palaeontology, geology, physics, biology, chemistry, psychology, neuroscience, and astronomy. Some of them are:

Related Topics:
19th century - Falsifiability - Palaeontology - Geology - Physics - Biology - Chemistry - Psychology - Neuroscience - Astronomy

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• He made several practical and important inventions concerning the mining industry in Sweden while he was appointed there. The mining industry had a great importance for the Swedish economy.
• He worked on a method for determining longitude at sea by observations of the moon's path among the stars, in an attempt to win the so called longitude prize offered by the British government starting 1714.
• He investigated patterns on rocks along the coast lines, and was one of the first to notice rocks at a high elevation showing erosion from water. His theory ascribing this to Noah's flood was disproved when the actual cause was discovered to be glacial action from the ice age.
• He invented an ear-trumpet for the deaf, improved the common house stove of his native land, cured smoky chimneys, and even sketched a flying machine. These mechanical gadgets were created in the spirit of the Enlightenment Age, to fascinate the mind if nothing else. Few of them were made into practical use and were soon forgotten, and only much later discovered to be in accordance with later research. A good example is a sketch of a Swedenborg Flying Machine, drawn in one of his notebooks.
• He believed in a holistic anatomical system where mental or spiritual conditions are manifested in the body (1). Anxiety, for example, may cause stomach problems. This was prescient of modern theories of psychosomatic illness. He also proclaimed that life forms exist on every planet in the universe. This speculative nature of this kind of assertion is one reason why Swedenborg's importance has been overlooked when not weighed against his many other accomplishments.

As an astronomer he was the first to write about the nebular hypothesis, a theory later attributed to Kant. It is possible, although not confirmed, that Kant—one of the few to have purchased and read Arcana Caelestia—had derived the idea from Swedenborg. Swedenborg himself claimed it had been revealed to him by angels. Some creationists argue that this provenance disproves today's scientific view, which is in support of Swedenborg.

Related Topics:
Nebular hypothesis - Kant - Creationists

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Swedenborg also developed theories about atoms and light. He wrote a lucid account of the phenomenon of phosphorescence, and proposed a molecular magnetic theory which anticipated some of the chief features of early 20th-century hypotheses. In chemistry, the French chemist Jean-Baptiste Dumas gives him credit for the first attempt to establish a system of crystallography.

Related Topics:
Phosphorescence - Jean-Baptiste Dumas - Crystallography

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Psychic abilities

Three instances of psychic or prophetic ability were reported of Swedenborg. The first was when, during a dinner in Gothenburg, he told the party that there was a fire in Stockholm (405 km away), and even explained details of the fire that were later confirmed. The second was when he visited the Queen of Sweden, who asked him to tell her something about her deceased brother. The next day, Swedenborg whispered something in her ear that turned the Queen pale and she explained that this was something only she and her brother could know about. The third was a woman who had lost something important, and came to Swedenborg asking if a recently deceased person could tell him where it was, which he also did the following night. Immanuel Kant, then at the beginning of his career, was struck by these in 1763, and made inquiries to find out if they were true. At first he could find no flaws in the reports, but in 1765 he concluded that two of them had "no other foundation than common legend" (gemeine Sage). See Kant's Träume eines Geistersehers.

Related Topics:
Gothenburg - Immanuel Kant - 1763 - 1765

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