CHAPTER SIX.
AN EVALUATION OF THE RANGE OF PSYCHIC , MEDIUMISTIC EXPERIENCES OF EMANUEL SEDENBORG.
Introduction.
In order to continue the investigation whether there is a relationship between the psychic and the spiritual Chapter Six will now discuss the apparent transformative spiritual mediumistic experiences of Emanuel Swedenborg. Swedenborg had many ostensible experiences of the meta-geographic realms. He classified his experiences of these levels beyond the threshold of ordinary circadian three-dimensional time and space as fitting the descriptions of Heaven, Hell and the Intermediate Realms. Swedenborg claimed to have had countless discussions with celestial communicators. Of Swedenborg's encounters with otherworldly beings, he refers to them as angels, however he claimed that they had had previous lives in the physical earthly plane of existence. Of Swedenborg Klimo writes: “One of the true giants of channelling literature appeared in the eighteenth century: the Swedish scientist turned mystic Emanuel Swedenborg. A middle-aged, well-respected scientist with nearly one hundred publications to his credit, Swedenborg seemed in every way a well-adjusted professional. He wrote, at age fifty-six, that he began to have extremely vivid and prolonged visions, voices, sojourns, and visitations. By his own prolific accounts, he probably spent more hours channelling than anyone before him. Time and again, he reported, angels visited him and also took him in his spiritual body into the non-physical realm…” 1 Swedenborg reported that over the course of practically the last thirty years of his life that he had a broad range of exceptional human experiences. As noted, these included the receipt of mediumistic communications, which led him into lengthy dialogues. From the tutelage of these ostensible discarnate beings Swedenborg accumulated a vast amount of detailed eschatological information regarding both the character of and natural laws, which govern the geo-psychic dimension. He further documented the ethical teachings that he received from the same source for the spiritual benefit of humankind. Swedenborg supplemented this tutelage and his experience-generated insights with knowledge he accumulated from his meditations and studies. Emanuel Swedenborg due to his intelligence and his ethereal encounters has been chosen as a more contemporary example for exploration as his alleged mediumistic experiences with non-corporeal beings appear to evidence that humankind can indeed gain spiritual and eschatological insights from such memorable non-physical beings. In the case of Swedenborg these spiritually inspired encounters led to the birth of both a new spiritual movement and the foundation of his Church. The New Church which became known as the Church of the New Jerusalem 2 was born and inspired by Swedenborg's documented experiences of the invisible realms and was/is dedicated to the dissemination of the spiritual philosophy and eschatological information ostensibly communicated to him from discarnate beings who inhabit the non-physical spheres. Swedenborg did not set out to found a Church as such but to offer spiritual and eschatological teachings to others. His mission was to cleanse people of the distortions, corruptions, dogmas and doctrines that his ostensible communicators believed had over the millennia overtaken the spiritual philosophies that had become the world's established, organised, institutionalised religions. Swedenborg's alleged communicators taught that spiritual truths can be found in the depths of the world's spiritual philosophies or religions, that each is an expression of the Divine, yet the profound truths have become suppressed and overshadowed by institutionalised distortions and dogmas. Significantly the earlier discussion of the En-dor mistranslations to some extent, evidence this claim. Unfortunately misunderstandings regarding spiritual injunctions and punishments can arise when spiritually revealed messages are documented and believed to be the exact undistorted, word of God. Arguably all spiritually orientated mediumistic messages, as that is what they are, should be understood as being interpreted at the level of human spiritual maturity further influenced by the cultural, sociological, political, religious climate and historic epoch in which the messages are received. Spiritually orientated mediumistic communications from angelic beings may be further misrepresented due to the filters that may affect those psychically receptive aspects of the human and perhaps animal constitution. These filters may inadvertently cause further misinterpretation of the inspirations and communications conveyed by celestial beings. As a further consequence over the millennia the original message, already unwittingly corrupted on a number of counts, can become increasingly out of date rather than dynamically interpreted and understood at the progressive level of humankind's spiritual evolution and maturity. There is also the question of which celestial communicator is sending the message and what is the level of their spiritual maturity. Consequently, the institutionalisation of religions in a static manner might well lead to the inadvertent suppression and distortion of the original message and both the celestial communicator and the communication is not understood and interpreted in the correct psychical phenomena context; issues in connection with this were discussed in Chapter One. Swedenborg's ostensible communicators wished to encourage maturity and liberation with regard to spiritual truths and the universality of spiritual thought. Significantly this objective is being progressively reflected in more recent ecumenical movements. Throughout the majority of Swedenborg's life he proved himself to be a prolific writer. Due to the constraints of space and the voluminous quantity and nature of his writings it will only be possible in this chapter to sample the character of the ostensible communications that Swedenborg received from the inhabitants of the celestial spheres and the salient aspects of his teachings that followed. He published writings of enormous length, which run into many volumes, providing documented detailed descriptions of his innumerable discourses with and experiences of angels, of whom he made clear, were once physical earthly beings who had graduated or progressed spiritually and over time had become angels. From nearly three decades of such otherworldly experiences there emerged an encyclopaedic, advanced, complex spiritual philosophy containing many of his experience-based spiritual and eschatological insights, which in turn contributed to his theoretical and scientific insights. Significantly due to the enigmatic nature and broad range of Swedenborg's experiences he has variously been described as a Sage, a Prophet, a Seer, a Mystic, and as a person who demonstrated clairvoyant (seeing discarnate beings) and clairaudient (hearing non-corporeal beings) abilities, all of which encapsulate the capabilities that are found in mediumship or channelling. Swedenborg would appear to be a spiritual medium of the highest order. He was also a leading psychical researcher of the Eighteenth Century as his research took him beyond the exploration of the physical realm to that of the non-physical. His first objective in this vast, little researched area was primarily to seek out the seat of the soul in the physical body. Later there followed nearly three decades of experiences of the implicit,
|
