Swedenborg

or Swedberg, Emanuel (1688-1772), a Swedish theologian. He was a native of Stockholm. His father was a court preacher or chaplain to Charles XI. On his father's side he was a descendant of a family of wealthy miners in Dalecarlia. On his mother's side he was a descendant of Gustavus Vasa. From his earliest childhood he delighted in serious conversation on religious topics, often talking in a way that led his parents to say the angels must be speaking through him. Nevertheless he was educated at Upsala for a scientific life. He also went abroad for three years and studied chemistry, astronomy, physics, and mathematics at London, Paris, and elsewhere. In fact, from 1710 to 1745 he was an eminent scientist. He traveled extensively. He was for eleven years connected with the college of mines, became a fellow of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, and wrote a score of works and treatises on air-pumps, flying machines, ear trumpets, canals, fire, color, coinage, the working of iron and copper, the circulation of the blood, and the make-up of the brain. He was, in short, one of the most active scientific men in Europe. He is credited with a number of suggestions relative to the heart, lungs, and blood that ripened in the minds of later investigators into admitted scientific facts.

In 1745 while in London he announced that the Lord had appeared to him for the third time and had given him spiritual insight, with a commission to write of the New Jerusalem and things spiritual. He withdrew from all worldly affairs, the Swedish government continuing his salary, and wrote a series of remarkable works, "as the Lord commanded me to write." The list of these works includes a score or two of volumes. One of the latest, a general exposition of the new theology, is the True Christian Religion, or the Universal Theology of the New Church. His followers are known as Swedenborgians, or as members of the Church of the New Jerusalem. There are about 8,000 adherents in the United States and Canada.