Whatever cause Swedenborg may have assigned to the previous vision, he did not doubt for a moment now that the Most High had actually revealed Himself to him. This conviction was so reassuring that the strange things he beheld in his visions ceased to have any terror for him. If he ever asked himself why he should have been selected by the Almighty above the rest of mankind for so great an honour, the frequency of the divine appearances no doubt speedily satisfied his curiosity, for not a day passed during the rest of his life but God descended from Paradise—or if too busy, “sent an angel or saint in His place”—to converse with this remarkably privileged Swede and explain to him the mysteries of Heaven and Hell.
In the visions of St. Francis and St. Theresa, the Virgin, Jesus and the Almighty appeared according to the Roman Catholic conception of them. The faith of Swedenborg’s heavenly visitor was Lutheran—a faith be it said, to which Swedenborg adhered as devotedly as Saints Francis and Theresa did to theirs—and when he appeared he dressed accordingly, wearing neither the Stigmata nor the Crown of Thorns without which no good Catholic would have recognized him. He spoke a mystical jargon which was often so absurd as to be unintelligible.
The Unseen World, as revealed to Swedenborg was the exact counterpart of the seen. It was inhabited by spirits of both sexes—the good ones dwelt in Heaven and the bad ones in Hell. They had the same occupations as people on the earth. They married and begot children, among other things; and Swedenborg was present at one of these celestial weddings. They also had “schools for infant angels; universities for the learned; and fairs for such as were commercially inclined—particularly for the English and Dutch angels!” For the spirits of the Unseen had all lived in the seen.
According to Swedenborg, man never dies. The day he experiences what he calls death is the day of his eternal resurrection. Christ was the ruler of both these worlds. He was the one and only God. All human desire would be consummated when the two worlds should become one, as they had been in the beginning, before the Fall. On this day the New Jerusalem would be established on earth. To hasten this event, it was necessary to seek the “lost word” or “primitive innocence.” This was Swedenborg’s idea of the philosopher’s stone, which he declared was to be found in the doctrines he taught. Should any person be tempted to seek it elsewhere, he was advised to go in quest of it in Asia, “among the Tartars”!
It was some time, however, before he became at home in the spiritual world. Time ceased to have any significance to him. He would lie for days in a trance from which he would awake at night “to wrestle with evil spirits” to the terror of his household. Sometimes his soul would escape altogether from his body and “borne on the wings of the Infinite, journey through Immensity from planet to planet.” To these travels, the most marvellous that imagination has ever taken, we owe the Arcana Cœlestia and The New Jerusalem. These books translated from the Latin in which they had been dictated to him by the Almighty had a prodigious success. In Protestant countries—which he personally canvassed—especially in Sweden and England where he made the most converts, they were regarded as the gospel of a new religion, the Bible of the Church of the New Jerusalem.
“Show me four persons,” said Fontenelle, “who swear it is midnight when it is noon, and I will show you ten thousand to believe them.”
Firmly convinced that he was in daily intercourse with the Almighty, Swedenborg soon convinced others. For his was the faith which removes mountains. He had, moreover, a majestic appearance and a magnetic personality which rendered ridicule silent in his presence, and inspired the confidence and love of all who came in contact with him. Three extraordinary instances of his power to communicate with the unseen world are cited by his followers. Even Kant, the philosopher, was struck by them, though he confesses that on inquiry he dismissed them as having no foundation but report. Nevertheless there were thousands who did not doubt, least of all Queen Ulrica. Had Swedenborg not related to her the contents of a letter known only to herself and her brother who had been dead for years?
That the sentimental Lutheranized Gnosticism he preached should have been received with enthusiasm in Protestant Europe is not surprising. The peoples of the North are naturally mystical. Nothing that appears to them in the guise of religion is too fantastic to be refused a hearing. In England the more fantastic the more certain is it of success. Swedenborgianism was to the “illuminized Jerusalemites” of Manchester, where alone they numbered twenty thousand, merely a very delicious rechauffée of a diet to which their imagination was specially addicted. The eagerness with which it was accepted in England was due entirely to appetite.
Much more remarkable was the influence of Swedenborg in the Catholic world. Naturally it manifested itself differently in different nations, assuming the character peculiar to each. Thus, whilst in England supernaturalism under the influence of Swedenborg became a religious craze, in France it grafted itself upon philosophy, and in Germany infected the secret societies in which the theories of the French philosophers found active political expression.
The secret of this universal appeal is not far to seek. It was one of the articles of faith with the old Rosicrucians that by them “the triple diadem of the pope should be reduced to dust.” The theosophy of Swedenborg presumed the liberty, equality, and fraternity of mankind. It was at once the spiritual negation and defiance of the arrogant supremacy of both Church and State. Occultism, which has ever proclaimed the spiritual rebellion of the soul against any kind of tyranny, was in the eighteenth century of necessity revolutionary. Of the forces of disintegration to which the ancien régime succumbed, it was the only one that worked systematically towards a definite object.