Emmanuel Swedenborg was a philosopher and Christian esotericist (that’s the way I would describe him)of the 18th century. With the current revival of interest in the after-life, at least in part stimulated by the copious literature of n.d.e.(near-death experience) accounts, the interest in his works has dramatically increased. He claims to have easily travelled into the heaven and hell worlds and had discussions with angels and spirits over a thirty-year period. You can make up your own mind as to the relative validity of these experiences, but I will present here some of the Truths he uncovered that as far as I am concerned are indisputable.

N.B. We will exclude, for the sake of brevity and usefulness, all the areas in which Swedenborg got it wrong( for example that heaven and hell are simply states of mind?!) due to his copious “mind-productions”. Oy, those European intellectuals?! They have contaminated the entire planet with their hyper-cerebrality. Instead we will focus in this brief article on his valid contributions to spiritual clarity. 

♦ God is Love AND Wisdom. (N.B. Not love alone which would move us into the ‘”Peace and Love” movement which was basically a disaster!.We need the wisdom/discernment as well!)

♦All who do good in accordance with the Truth of their religion will be accepted into heaven (Take that on the chin all narrow-minded Muslims and Evangelical and other fanatical Christians! Our Quran says as much Surat2:62 and elsewhere but many scholars choose to distort the  meaning to promote Muslim nationalism!)

♦Suffering is necessary for transformation. Ultimately God will bring good out of it! God is optimizing things for your benefit. It’s better than you think! God is working things out for the best! 

♦Religious teachings have to make sense(i.e. have to agree with your intuitive sense of how things must be. Nicean-creed Christians may have a problem here lol)

♦Free will is a God-given right. More good, in terms of personal transformation, will come out of it than evil.

♦Spiritual crises help free you from your ego. 

♦It is in this world that we can do the best spiritual work. That is why we are here!

♦In the after-life there is nothing you can hide. Your good and your evil are apparent to all. Islam says more or less the same thing in numerous ways, talking about how your limbs and your tongue will betray you.

♦The theory of Reincarnation represents a misunderstanding. In fact,our consciousness is both permeable and moveable in time and space.So we can occupy someone else’s consciousness without that being us. Hazrat Inayat Khan said more or less the same thing. The Advaita Vedantists, some schools of Buddhism  and Krishnamurti go even further, stating that individual consciousness itself, is a myth!

There is an important corollary to this point about the permeability and displacement of consciousness. And that is around the troublesome theological issue of Divine Incarnation. We see this in Christian theology where many Christians believe that Jesus IS God; we see it in the Hindu idea of the avatar(a Divine incarnation) and we see it in the story of Mansur al-Hallaj in Sufism.The confusion is in the “dimensional” area-for lack of a better term. We can assume that Jesus a.s. and the authentic Hindu avatars  as well as Mansur al Hallaj had the experience of Divine Consciousness. That is in the experiential (the philosophers call this the “phenomenological” area).However they do not therefore become God in the “ontological” dimension-the dimension of “being”. So for Muslims, who are very adamant on this point, and rightfully so, Mansur al Hallaj was not God. He just experienced himself as such. His confusion cost him his life. Yes, the stakes are very high! Sorry for all the Greek terms but they do help us to avoid confusion in these theologically important areas. I hope that is helpful!

♦We should be working to be in the stream of providence (i.e consistent with the will of God. “Thy Will be done” The secularists would call this “being in the flow” but it is actually more holy than that!)

♦The Bible is about correspondences. Everything in this world has correspondences in the other world and vice-versa. Think Garden and gardens. Think the Divine Light, in the other world, and the light of the sun in this world! But don’t get confused and worship the sun! That is heresy!.

♦Philosophy is a discipline that” darkens the mind, blinds us and wholly rejects faith”. Amen! 

♦God chooses our life( and Islam tells us we agreed on the Day of Promises!) not us- as many modern occultists would have us believe.

♦Swedeborg disputes 1).the Nicean doctrine of Trinity(as do Muslims).He states that God is One( tawhid) not three personalities..He calls that Apostolic Christianity ( i.e. the Christianity of the early Church before the theologian bishops gained dominance over basic Christian  beliefs.) He also rejects Vicarious Redemption( Jesus took on all of man’s sins on the cross) in favour of individual repentance and redemption. Again Muslims would concur .Remember, religion has to make sense, in his viewpoint!