Here is a short write-up from Publishers Weekly about the Swedenborg Foundation at Book Expo America (BEA)!
“Because we’re so small, we meet people at BEA we wouldn’t normally be in touch with,” says executive editor Joanna Hill. “It’s a way for us to know what the industry is doing, as well as getting our name out there. It gives us more exposure.”
The episode of the PBS Program, “Finding Your Roots” which originally aired this past Sunday, April 22, 2012 touched on Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Swedenborgian connection.
Watch the preview here for a clip featuring the Bryn Athyn Cathedral.
Watch the complete episode here online.
Swedenborg Foundation Press
320 North Church Street
West Chester, PA 19380
For Immediate Release CONTACT: Carol Urbanc
610.430.3222 ext. 13
A Heavenly Gathering for the Annual Meeting of the Swedenborg Foundation at Glencairn Museum
West Chester, PA, April 19, 2012 – An evening of spiritual readings and celestial music awaits those who attend the Swedenborg Foundation’s 162nd Annual Meeting on Friday evening, May 18, 2012, at Glencairn Museum (1001 Cathedral Road, Bryn Athyn, PA). All are invited—members as well as the general public—and there is no charge.
Titled “Moods in Emanuel Swedenborg’s Theological Works: A Musico-Verbal Exploration,” the performance will take a light-hearted look at some passages from the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg and will debunk the idea that his work is uniform or monotonous. In fact, the original Latin conveys a wide variety of moods. The evening will feature translator Jonathan Rose reading portions from the new translations, while violinists Annalisa and Greg Synnestvedt reflect the moods portrayed in the passages through musical interludes. It promises to be an evening full of expressive and inspirational thoughts interpreted through a musical lens in a magnificent setting.
After a short business meeting of the nonprofit foundation at 7:00 p.m., the performance will begin at 8:00. Guests attending the performance only will be seated after 7:30 p.m. and are invited to stay for a dessert reception after the concert where they can meet members of the board, the performers, and staff.
The Foundation will feature a display of recent publications and membership information, including the 2011 annual report outlining the activities and publications of the Foundation.
For further information about the event, the Foundation, or Glencairn Museum, please go to: www.swedenborg.com or www.glencairnmuseum.org or contact Carol Urbanc at the Foundation: marketing@swedenborg.com.
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Click these links to learn about the disappearance of the 1924 bronze bust of Swedenborg sculpted by Swedish artist Adolf Jonsson that once graced Lincoln Park in Chicago. The bust was stolen in 1976, most likely for the value of the metal.
History of the bust and details about its original dedication ceremony.
Fortunately, the original mold used to cast the bust was identified and put to good use. A replacement for the bust has been recast and is on its way to Chicago. More information will be provided about the re-dedication when available!
Check out this link for pictures of the new bust!
Check out these lovely blog reviews of Helen Keller’s How I Would Help the World!
OnlinewithAndrea at Allvoices by Andrea Garrison:
“You will love this precious little book because there is so much in these pages. There are precious photos and beautiful heart inspired words from Ray Silverman, Helen Keller and Emanuel Swedenborg. So it is small in size but huge in depth and content.”
Andrea Garrison also spoke with author Ray Silverman on her Radio Blog.
And from Good and Truth on Patheos.com by Rev. Coleman Glenn:
“It’s clear that Keller herself understands that not everyone who picks up a book of Swedenborg will see what she does in it. But I like the way she puts it:
If people would only begin to read Swedenborg’s books with at first a little patience, they would soon be reading them for pure joy. (381/689)”
For further information, contact:
Joanna Hill, 610-430-3222, ext 12 (jhill@swedenborg.com) or
Alexia Cole, 610-430-3222, ext 15 (pubasst@swedenborg.com)
For Immediate Release
New Entries Sought for Second Annual Bridge Book Awards
November 3, 2011—The General Church of the New Jerusalem and the Swedenborg Foundation, publisher of the theological works of Emanuel Swedenborg, are pleased to announce the second annual Bridge Book Awards competition.
The Bridge Book Awards were created to encourage new writers to explore the ideas of Swedish scientist and theologian Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). Interested authors should submit a query letter, outline, and sample chapter for their proposed book, which will be evaluated by a panel chosen by the competition organizers.
Three winners and three runners-up will be chosen for this second annual contest. Winners will receive a cash prize of $1,500; runners-up will receive $500. All winners will be honored at an award ceremony and have their entries considered for possible publication by the Swedenborg Foundation Press editorial board.
The deadline for proposal submission is February 1, 2012.
Winners will be announced in April 2012.
Suggested List of Genres and Topics
Genres:
Fiction
Nonfiction
Memoir/Autobiography/Biography
Young Adult
Humor
Topics:
Because of the growing interest in the works of Emanuel Swedenborg and increased student body at Bryn Athyn College, whose curriculum is based on Swedenborg’s theology, the Swedenborg Foundation and the General Church are eager to publish books that are relevant, accessible, and theologically sound. All proposals are valued, and varied perspectives are welcomed. The final selections will be based on a combination of potential usefulness to new readers of Swedenborg, creative interpretation, quality of writing, and contemporary relevance.
For further information about the contest, go to www.swedenborg.com or www.newchurch.org. Forms for submitting proposals are available in downloadable form. You can also request entry forms from Publications Assistant Alexia Cole at 610-430-3222, ext 15 or pubasst@swedenborg.com.
Contact Alexia Cole or check the websites for further information.
The Hidden Levels of the Mind:
Swedenborg’s Theory of Consciousness
Douglas Taylor
With an Essay by Reuben P. Bell
Scattered throughout the works of Emanuel Swedenborg are descriptions of our mind and how it relates to both the physical and spiritual worlds. In this book, Douglas Taylor guides the reader through the levels of the mind, comparing our everyday mind with the state of a person who has been regenerated—that is, someone who has allowed their mind to be opened by the Lord.
This is the first time in many decades that a book has been published on Swedenborg’s philosophy of the mind. Taylor’s straightforward commentary gives readers a rare insight into this crucial aspect of Swedenborg’s theology.
The book includes an essay by Dr. Reuben P. Bell that traces ideas of the mind throughout the ages, starting with Plato and following a string of philosophers to Swedenborg, putting these ideas in their historical context.
Douglas Taylor was born in Terang, Victoria State, Australia. He received a BA from the University of Adelaide and went on to earn a Diploma in Education in Edinburgh, Scotland. While teaching French and English literature at a private school, he encountered the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg and was instantly hooked, eventually becoming ordained as a Swedenborgian minister. He is the author of Escape from Egypt, Landmarks in Regeneration, and Spirituality That Makes Sense, and he currently lives in Bryn Athyn with his wife, Christine.
Read an excerpt from the first chapter of The Hidden Levels of the Mind:
Our Mind
A general answer might be that the mind is an organ of consciousness. This is only partly true, because there are also levels of our mind that are above our conscious awareness while we are living on earth. However, we tend to identify most often with the part of our mind that makes us aware of our surroundings in this world—the part that you are using at this very moment.
As Swedenborg states in Divine Love and Wisdom, at birth every human being has a soul and a body, but only the rudiments of a mind. We all know from the experience of seeing a newborn baby that he or she has very little consciousness. One of the great delights of parenthood is to watch the growth of understanding in children as they gradually become aware of the world around them.
Like our soul, our mind is made of spiritual substance. This is what distinguishes the mind from the brain. Since our brain is made entirely of physical matter, like all the organs of our body, it can be seen by our physical eyes. Not so our mind. It can never be detected by our physical senses (even when aided by a powerful microscope), because it is on a higher plane of existence. This higher plane, the mental level, is not subject to the laws of time and space. For example, in our imagination, we can we can fly, travel from one place to another in a split second, and watch our thoughts manifest themselves in front of us.
Yet our mind, though made of spiritual substance, is in one respect inferior to the soul: it does not receive love or wisdom directly from the Lord. Instead, these things enter us through the medium of the world of spirits, by thoughts and feelings flowing in from its inhabitants (Soul-Body Interaction §8). Just as our soul, mind, and body exist on separate levels, so does all of creation: At the highest level is heaven, where people who have lived good lives go after death; all of the angels there were once human beings living on earth, just as all of the devils in hell also were human beings. Below heaven is the world of spirits, where people of all types gather first of all after death; it is there that we discover what truly lies inside us, and whether the things that we love will pull us toward heaven or hell. All of the spirits there were once human, also, and the inhabitants of the world of spirits are closest to our physical world.
The world of spirits is the level or plane of existence that separates heaven from our physical world and acts as the medium between the two, just as our mind mediates between our soul and our body. Like our mind, the world of spirits has no physical substance and cannot be detected with any instrument; it can only be perceived by its effect on us. Swedenborg repeatedly reminds us that while our soul is above the heavens and the whole spiritual world, our mind is in the spiritual world—even now at this very moment—and is therefore subject to the influences of both good and evil spiritual forces. We need to realize also that the mind that we use while living in this natural world “is made up of both spiritual substances and earthly substances. These latter substances fade away when we die, but the spiritual substances do not. So when we become spirits or angels after death, the same mind is still there in the form it had in the world” (Divine Love and Wisdom §257).
The same mind continues unchanged—but its function is different. In this world our “earthly mind” makes us aware of the world of nature. At the death of our body, however, when its natural substances recede, we can no longer be conscious of, or in, the natural world; we make the shift to become permanently conscious of and in the spiritual world. Death, then, is only a transfer of consciousness from the natural to the spiritual world, like switching the radio from one station to another. Shutting one door opens the other.
When seen in this way, our mind is also our human spirit (Divine Love and Wisdom §387). The same substance that we call our mind becomes the spirit when our consciousness, and thus our residence, is automatically transferred to the spiritual world after our physical body dies.
Swedenborg describes the mind as being organized on three distinct levels or grades of mental activity: the natural or earthly, the spiritual, and the celestial or heavenly (Divine Love and Wisdom §237). In the original Latin, he used the term gradus, meaning a step or grade, to describe these levels. In the past, this term has usually been translated as “a degree.” However, with some readers of Swedenborg that has been confusing, and the concept has acquired an aura of mystery, particularly when the term discrete degrees is used. The term degree refers simply to different levels of mental activity; when the word
discrete is attached, it means that these levels exist separately and cannot be thought of as mixing together. It is important to attach clear ideas to those terms; otherwise they will become almost meaningless words that are easily repeated mindlessly. Accordingly, we will use the word level instead of degree.
Swedenborg describes the three levels of our mind in this way:
The mind of man, which consists of will and understanding, is from creation, and therefore from birth, of three levels, so that man has a natural mind, a spiritual mind, and a celestial mind, and can thereby be elevated into and possess angelic wisdom while he lives in the
world; but it is only after death, and then only if he becomes an angel, that he enters into that wisdom, and his speech then becomes ineffable and incomprehensible to the natural man. (Divine Love and Wisdom §239)
That passage says that we can be “elevated into and possess angelic wisdom” while living in this world, but that is referring only to our potential. It is nothing more than a possibility. We all have that wisdom implicitly, but we enter into it according to our life on earth and use it fully and explicitly only after death and if we become an angel.
The highest level of our mind, the celestial, receives love from the Lord—the purest form of love, and the part of our self that manifests it most clearly. It is the fulfillment of the first and greatest commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37). With regard to conscious understanding, this part of our mind receives the divine wisdom—the ability to see all things in heavenly light—that is the offspring of divine love.
The spiritual mind or level of mental activity consists of love of others and feelings of goodwill or charity. In the next verse of Matthew, the Lord identifies this as the second of the two great commandments: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself ” (Matt. 22:39). When we experience this love and express it in words or actions, we are saying what we really believe.
We gain a fuller understanding of these two commandments when we realize that in the Greek of the New Testament there are two words for love: one means “to be fond of ” and the other means “to consider the welfare of.” The second word is used in both commandments, and elsewhere whenever we are commanded to love. The Lord can certainly command us to consider the welfare of others: that is real love, an outgoing love. But no one, not even the Lord, can command us “to be fond” of another. That happens spontaneously or it does not happen at all. We are either fond of a person or we are not fond. It is a personal matter. Consequently, the Lord is not commanding us to be fond of everyone; but he is commanding us to consider the welfare of others—whether we like them or not. Verses that mention our love for the Lord have a similar meaning. Our salvation does not depend on our being “fond” of the Lord, but on considering his welfare and that of his kingdom. That is why he said: “He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me” (John 14:21).
The two higher levels of the mind, the celestial and the spiritual, constitute what Swedenborg calls the internal mind. We can also think of it as the supra-conscious mind, as opposed to the conscious mind and the subconscious mind that Sigmund Freud wrote about. While the subconscious mind exists below our conscious awareness and houses
our less-than-perfect impulses, the supra-conscious mind exists above our conscious awareness and can lift us up above the influences of the subconscious. This internal mind is in contrast to the external or natural mind, which we will discuss below.
Spiritually speaking, the internal mind obviously belongs to heaven, since its ruling or predominant love is either love for the Lord or charity toward the neighbor. In fact, it could also be called the heavenly mind. This is where the Lord dwells with us.
It is important to realize that everyone, no matter what his or her heredity or environment, has that internal mind. There are no exceptions. As we read in Swedenborg’s Secrets of Heaven, “In the internal mind are nothing else than goods and truths that are the Lord’s . . . In every person [there is] a celestial and a spiritual level that corresponds to the angelic heaven” (§978; see also §1594:5).
Although our internal mind is above our conscious awareness while we are on earth, when we pass into the spiritual world (and if we become an angel there), we gain the wisdom of either the spiritual or the celestial level of heaven, depending on which one of those two higher levels of our mind most often flowed down into us while we were living in this world.
In marked contrast to the sublime reaches of our internal mind is the conscious mind that we use in our daily life: the lowest level of our mind, the natural or earthly level. If you are reading this book and understanding it (or even not understanding it!) you are using your conscious mind, which is also called the external mind. This, Swedenborg often points out, is not the same thing as our brain. Since the mind is the person, the term external mind refers to that part of us that is conscious of the world around us. Our body (of which the brain is a part) exists only to allow us to function on the physical plane. So wherever you find the terms “external mind” or “natural mind” in this book, keep this distinction in mind.
With the internal mind focused on heaven and the external mind focused on this world, it’s easy to see how the two can be in conflict. This is the cause of our temptations; they represent our struggle to make our external mind submit to our higher levels. Our natural mind is the only part of us that can be out of heaven’s order, cause trouble, and be perverted. It often is— we all know that from experience! It is our natural mind that exercises free will, and it is there that we choose either to obey the Lord or disobey. When our external mind is aligned with our internal mind, it is because we have chosen self-compelled obedience.
Our natural or external mind, then, is the source of all our problems, individually and collectively. In order for us to progress spiritually and move toward heaven, our natural mind needs to be reformed and regenerated—to be reborn. This, says Swedenborg, is what is meant by John 3:3: “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
In order for this to happen, our internal mind must take possession of and transform our external mind. But how is this done? How, in other words, can we let heaven’s influence flow into us?
A short answer would be: We have to shun our evils because they are sins against the Lord and not for any lesser or worldly reason, such as self-aggrandizement or social status.
A more comprehensive answer is that while we are born with a natural mind, it is only the beginning. We can develop our understanding by means of what we learn from the world around us. We could go on learning and learning and learning for the rest of our life; we could gain two or three university degrees; we could even acquire an impressive understanding of the Bible, the Word of God. But we would still remain natural in quality unless we began to live according to that understanding.
The more we live according to the Word, the more we are motivated by real goodness. Our actions begin to become spiritual in quality, because the spiritual level of our internal mind is opened. If this happens, our natural mind will be opened at the top, so that what exists at the spiritual level of the mind (charity or love toward the neighbor) could flow down into our conscious mind and move us in our everyday lives.
However, above the spiritual level of our mind is the celestial level. If we were to go on living a life of charity for the rest of our lives, we would indeed become heavenly, but we would never rise above that middle spiritual level. To go beyond that, we need to come into celestial love—loving the Lord (or rather, having his love come into us). We accomplish that by obeying the Lord’s commandments for his sake rather than any selfish thought of promoting ourselves. In that way, love and concern for the Lord flow down into our natural mind, making it celestial or spiritual in quality (see Divine Love and Wisdom §237).
Because we have free will, we can also choose to keep our natural mind closed at the top, so that none of these higher loves can flow in. That happens to the extent that we do not live according to what the Word of God teaches us to believe and do. In that case, we would remain the same forever, even in the spiritual world, and never be able to experience heaven’s love.
In summary, regeneration or rebirth consists in allowing the higher levels of our mind to act upon our natural level, transforming it and making it spiritual or celestial in quality. (There is a fuller explanation of regeneration in chapter 2.) However, these levels do not simply merge one into the other; they remain distinctly separate, which is the idea behind the concept of “discrete degrees” discussed above. These levels also remain distinct from the brain and the body where it lives.
The dance theatre work “Angels of Swedenborg” created by Ping Chong in 1985, will be the opening production of the 50th anniversary season at La MaMa’s Ellen Stewart Theatre. It is a multi-media dance and theatre meditation of a man caught between material and spiritual aspirations, and is inspired by the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.
It promises to be a “spectacular and physical production that combines dance, theatre, music, multi-media projections, eight angels, two spirits, Swedenborg himself and 600 pounds of feathers.”
For more information, check out this article from BroadwayWorld.com or visit La MaMa’s website.
The production runs from October 27-November 13, 2011 on Wednesdays-Saturdays at 7:30pm and on Sundays at 2:30pm. Tickets are $30/$25 students and seniors and can be purchased online at www.lamama.org or by calling the box office at 212-475-7710.
Emanuel Swedenborg: Visionary Savant in the Age of Reason
Swedenborg Studies Series #14
Originally written more than fifty years ago by eminent scholar Ernst Benz, this volume stands as one of the most comprehensive biographies of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) ever published.
Benz examines Swedenborg’s life through the lens of the intellectual atmosphere of the eighteenth century. Growing up at a time when the classical view of the world was being challenged by the new philosophers and scientists of the Enlightenment, Swedenborg was deeply immersed both in the religious teachings of the Lutheran church and the explorations of rational science. His quest for understanding eventually led to his spiritual awakening and the unique insights that continue to inspire seekers and thinkers today.
Now available for the first time in paperback, Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke’s
eminently readable translation shines a new light on the Swedish seer.
Ernst Benz (1907-1978) was a professor of Church History at the University of Marburg. Benz’s bibliography embraces hundreds of learned articles and some fifty books, ranging from studies of Eastern Orthodox churches and Asian religions to mystical sources of German Romanticism and the interaction of theology and science in such movements as Mesmerism and electrotheology.
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke is the director of the Exeter Centre for the Study of Esotericism at the University of Exeter in England. He is also the author of The Western Esoteric Traditions: A Historical Introduction (2008), Helena Blavatsky (2004) and The Occult Roots of Nazism, which has been in print continuously since its first publication in 1985.
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Excerpt from Emanuel Swedenborg: Visionary Savant in the Age of Reason, pages 277-280.
Swedenborg therefore differentiated the various kinds of visionary experience according to the alertness of his daytime consciousness. In his exegesis of Genesis 32:3, he establishes a model with five grades. The first and highest grade is vision “with open eyes.” This occurs with people “who belong to the inner Church to such an extent that they can see the angels as well as men.” In this highest state of visionary experience, the onlooker’s gaze penetrates the earthly and spiritual worlds in the same instant. Whoever is deemed
worthy of this highest form of vision can understand the mysteries of both the upper and the lower world in a fully wakened state. He sees the mundane reality in the light of the spiritual world, understands the spiritual forces forming this sensuous world, sees the influences from above which determine life below, and sees in every earthly figure its corresponding archetypal heavenly form. He glimpses the energies and causes that have led to its present form and also recognizes the latent potencies, possibilities, and goals of future realization and unfolding that lie hidden in every earthly thing.
The second form of vision occurs likewise with waking consciousness and alert senses. However, a kind of separation and loosening of the outer and inner senses takes place. While the outer senses remain directed towards things in the outer world, albeit to a diminished extent, the inner sense focuses on things in the spiritual world and communicates its perceptions to the cognitive center. In this form of vision, the outer impressions are bound to fade in comparison with the dominant experiences of inner vision taking place in the cognitive center.
The third form of vision is closest to the state of wakefulness, “to the extent that the onlooker cannot believe that he is other than awake, while in reality this is not a true state of being awake.” In this interim state between sleeping and waking, the consciousness of wakefulness is present in the vision, while in reality the outer senses are resting. This was the case in Swedenborg’s highly frequent visions, which occurred between sleep and waking in that intermediate state where daytime consciousness has not quite become fully awake.
The fourth form exists when the visionary “sees apparitions in a state of wakefulness as clearly as in daylight, but with closed eyes.” The final form is represented by dream visions, which are not identical with customary dreams but represent a state of heightened consciousness during sleep.
These forms of vision are graded according to the degree of alertness of consciousness in the onlooker. The five grades demonstrate a progressive lapse of daytime consciousness and alertness. In the first grade, both the outer and the inner person are awake. The wakened spirit and senses simultaneously receive impressions from the mundane and spiritual world and see the incidents of the visible world in the light of the spiritual world; the wall separating both worlds is demolished; the eye penetrates both realms with one gaze. In the lowest grade, by contrast, the inner and the outer person are quite separate. The activity of waking, daytime consciousness and the senses is completely extinguished and the outer being sleeps, while the inner views the spiritual world with waking spiritual eyes. The intermediate grades demonstrate the gradual fading of daytime consciousness
and outer perception and the increasing loosening of the outer from the inner person.
Swedenborg noted that he had personally experienced all kinds of vision except for the first. “I can solemnly swear that manifestations of the second, third, fourth, and fifth kind have occurred to me; the second kind frequently, the third kind several times, the fourth kind extremely frequently, and now and again the fifth kind in the course of several years.” The assertions of his own reports absolutely confirm this statement. Swedenborg’s numerous observations about his visionary state at any one time show that two kinds of vision were most frequent in his case. In one kind, Swedenborg remained aware of being in his room, or on a particular spot in the street, or in church during the visionary experience. The sensory perceptions of his surroundings continued to impinge on his consciousness, while his spirit was directed towards persons and phenomena of the spiritual world, which became partly visible in the context of earthly reality and seemed to intrude into his sensory world of experience. The other frequent kind of vision occurred when he was sitting in a state of complete absorption with closed eyes. His outer sensory perception had completely lapsed, while his spirit perceived events in the realm of other dimensions. By contrast, there are seldom accounts in his reports of pure dream visions. Visions granted to him in a state of “false” wakefulness are relatively few, and as a rule these are expressly noted as such.