Memory of the World; 2012 - unesdoc - Unesco

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Emanuel Swedenborg
collection
Inscribed 2005
What is it
The collected papers, books, manuscripts and
letters of the Swedish scientist and mystic Emanuel
Swedenborg (1688–1772), dating from the 18th century.
Why was it inscribed
The Emanuel Swedenborg collection is one of the largest
existing collections of 18th-century manuscripts and
reflects not just the progression and development of
Swedenborg’s own ideas and interests from science to
metaphysics, but also the ideas and influence of the
Enlightenment or Age of Reason in the fields of science
and theology. The collection is also one of the few to
have inspired the founding of a new Christian church.
Where is it
Center for History of Science, The Royal Swedish
Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden
The collection numbers approximately 140 items
extending to 20,000 pages and covers more than 50 years
of Swedenborg’s working life, from his earlier career as a
successful scientist, technician and assessor in the College
of Mines, through to his later life and ideas after his
Damascene-style religious experience and related series
of spiritual revelations.
His work was erudite and wide-ranging and covered
mathematics, metallurgy, chemistry and geometry,
anatomy and physiology, physics and even astrophysics,
proposing theories that were ground-breaking in several
of his subject areas.
But it is for his religious writings that Swedenborg is
best known. After an apparent spiritual experience in 1745,
Swedenborg claimed that he was instructed to spend the
remainder of his years interpreting and explaining every
verse of the Bible under divine guidance. The revelations
he presumably received formed the basis of his work and
thought from then on through to his death in 1772. His
theological ideas also grew out of these revelations.
272 Emanuel Swedenborg collection
Much of his work was devoted to interpreting and
revealing the spiritual meaning, or correspondence,
that underlay Scripture. This was a departure from
contemporary mainstream belief that, for example, the
Creation story in Genesis was literal truth. His books were
published in England and the Netherlands where greater
freedom of expression existed than in his native country.
Swedenborg’s theories have parallels in Neo-Platonism
and they influenced other noted thinkers such as
Immanuel Kant, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Blake
and Carl Jung. His ideas also led after his death to the
founding of a new Christian church. Originally called
Swedenborgianism, it still exists today, most notably in
Britain and the USA, and is known as The New Church.
The veneration in which Swedenborg’s followers held his
writings and papers led to their reproduction around 1870
using the newly devised process of photolithography, the
first time the technique had been used on a large scale.
Some of the Swedenborg societies and churches continue
to translate and publish his writings today.