Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Katie Lambert and I'm Sarah Downy and we have
Speaker 1: been spending an awful lot of time in Italy lately
Speaker 1: because of our Medici super series. So today we thought
Speaker 1: we'd move a little further north to Sweden and our
Speaker 1: subject for today is going to be Emmanuel Swedenborg, who
Speaker 1: was famously called by the philosopher D. T. Suzuki the
Speaker 1: Buddha of the North, and he was a mechanical genius
Speaker 1: who began his whole body of work by looking for
Speaker 1: mechanical explanations for nature, so a mechanical explanation for the
Speaker 1: physical world. And from there he began to study the
Speaker 1: soul as it related to the human body. And he
Speaker 1: was quite advanced for his time as far as science goes.
Speaker 1: He had anatomical theory ease that weren't proven until the
Speaker 1: late nineteenth century. And we're talking about a seventeenth century guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But what makes him truly interesting is that, well in
Speaker 1: the midst of all these studies about the soul, he
Speaker 1: has a crisis of faith and abandons his scientific pursuits altogether,
Speaker 1: and he spends the rest of his life trying to
Speaker 1: explicate the scriptures, and his followers end up founding a
Speaker 1: church in his name. So this is our our subject
Speaker 1: for today, so let's go back to his roots. He
Speaker 1: was born January twenty nine, six eighty eight, in Stockholm
Speaker 1: as Emmanuel Swedenburgh. His father, Jasper was a Swedish clergyman
Speaker 1: at court chaplain and also a professor of theology who
Speaker 1: later became the Bishop of Skara, and their family was
Speaker 1: in nobled, which is my current favorite word in seventeen nineteen,
Speaker 1: and that's when they took the name Swedenborg, and the
Speaker 1: young Emmanuel studied philosophy at the University of Uppsala and
Speaker 1: spent five years abroad he was This becomes a common
Speaker 1: theme in his life of going abroad and uh learning
Speaker 1: lots of new things. But for this first trip he
Speaker 1: becomes interested in mathematics and natural sciences and pursues study
Speaker 1: in England and Holland, France and Germany learning mechanical skills.
Speaker 1: Even when he's in England, he moves in uh Newton's circles,
Speaker 1: and he was a bit of a da vinci esque genius.
Speaker 1: He's a real mechanical hot shot. He thought up new
Speaker 1: ways to make docs, had some vague ideas about submarines
Speaker 1: in the airplane, which Sarah mentioned. It was a good
Speaker 1: thing he didn't stick to this. If you remember our
Speaker 1: Bungled Flight Attempts episodes, was a high point for bungle
Speaker 1: flight attempts, and he even had some ideas about a
Speaker 1: machine gun. But when he returns to Sweden in seventeen fifteen,
Speaker 1: he starts to publish the Dadalist Hyperborous, which is Sweden's
Speaker 1: first scientific journal, and there he's able to write about
Speaker 1: mechanical inventions and discoveries, and all of his work in
Speaker 1: the mechanical sciences really starts to impress King Charles the twelfth,
Speaker 1: who make him an assistant to one of the biggest
Speaker 1: names in Swedish mechanical science at the time, and he
Speaker 1: gets a position at the Royal Board of Minds and
Speaker 1: he later becomes an assessor there. But this is his
Speaker 1: day job, so imagine through almost all of the writings
Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about later in the podcast, this
Speaker 1: is what he's doing for most of his time working
Speaker 1: at the mines, improving the country's mining industry and mining
Speaker 1: was a huge pursuit and Sweden at the time. So
Speaker 1: he goes home from his day of mining science and
Speaker 1: works on the other sciences and philosophy, everything from cosmology
Speaker 1: and puscular philosophy to math and human sensory perceptions. He
Speaker 1: does the first work on algebra in the Swedish language,
Speaker 1: lots of stuff on chemistry and physics, and he's a
Speaker 1: bit of a jack of all trades. He even spends
Speaker 1: some of his time composing poems in Latin, so he
Speaker 1: apparently did more in his downtime than I do. We're
Speaker 1: going to catch up with him at his second major
Speaker 1: trip abroad. So a few years after he's ennobled in
Speaker 1: seventeen nineteen, he goes abroad again and he publishes some
Speaker 1: works on natural philosophy and chemistry. But then he doesn't
Speaker 1: write much for about ten years, and it's clear that
Speaker 1: when he starts again in seventeen thirty three, he's been
Speaker 1: reading a lot and thinking a lot. He goes on
Speaker 1: his third European tour and just goes crazy with the publishing,
Speaker 1: and this is when he switches from thinking about inventions
Speaker 1: and starts thinking about the mechanical ways to explain nature
Speaker 1: that we've mentioned before. He publishes philosophical and logical works.
Speaker 1: The first folio is called Principle of Natural Things, and
Speaker 1: in this work he comes pretty close to things that
Speaker 1: modern science comes up with much later. For instance, he
Speaker 1: has a theory that is very close to what we
Speaker 1: know about the atom with a nucleus and electrons, and
Speaker 1: also an idea that's very close to the Conte Laplace
Speaker 1: nebular theory that the suns and planets form a common
Speaker 1: nebulas so a man ahead of his time time. But
Speaker 1: then his course of study changes again and he starts
Speaker 1: to switch towards studying the soul as related to the body.
Speaker 1: He goes home in seventeen thirty four, and his father
Speaker 1: dies in seventeen thirty five, and he takes a leave
Speaker 1: of absence from his assessor job at the Minds and
Speaker 1: starts to travel again. This time he goes to France
Speaker 1: and Italy and Holland and he writes the Economy Regney
Speaker 1: in Amale's which is translated as the Economy of the
Speaker 1: Animal Kingdom, and returns to Stockholm. Although I read one
Speaker 1: thing that was interesting, that's not the best translation for
Speaker 1: that title. It's kind of misleading. He means the kingdom
Speaker 1: of the animal or soul when he says Regney in Amali,
Speaker 1: not the animal kingdom, which is what he might think
Speaker 1: when you first read that. Um. So another translation you
Speaker 1: could kind of think of as the biological bases of
Speaker 1: the soul, right, the less literal translation. And this work
Speaker 1: draws Swedenborg closer to the study of the body. He
Speaker 1: studies human anatomy and physiology, but he's also beginning to
Speaker 1: think about the study of the soul, specifically trying to
Speaker 1: prove the immortality of the soul to the senses themselves.
Speaker 1: According to Encyclopedia Britannica, and he has a really excellent
Speaker 1: understanding of the cerebral cortexes role it's sensory, motor, and
Speaker 1: cognitive functions. Um most people thought it didn't really have
Speaker 1: a purpose. It was just kind of a leftover. Even
Speaker 1: cortex means rind, so people really thought it was the
Speaker 1: brain rind, which gives you an idea of of the
Speaker 1: common thought. At the time, he realizes this is something
Speaker 1: important and it's where he's going to start in his
Speaker 1: search for the soul. He also considered the pituitary gland
Speaker 1: to be the crown of the brain, which is a
Speaker 1: pretty revolutionary thought for the time. And he figured all
Speaker 1: of this out by basically reading and studying the work
Speaker 1: of other scientists. He didn't report much on his own
Speaker 1: experiment um, but he didn't just read their analysis of
Speaker 1: their own work. He looked at their experiments and looked
Speaker 1: at all of the stuff that they found and drew
Speaker 1: his own conclusions. And that's how he was able to
Speaker 1: come up with these ideas that were, um so different
Speaker 1: from what everybody else was thinking at the time. And
Speaker 1: you might think that these ideas would be very exciting
Speaker 1: to the medical and scientific community, but you would be wrong.
Speaker 1: His anatomical studies weren't given much heed, and according to
Speaker 1: an article by Charles G. Gross in The Neuroscientist, this
Speaker 1: is because these little nuggets of scientific brilliance were embedded
Speaker 1: in these huge books he wrote about the soul. And
Speaker 1: you know, by the point they were available, he had
Speaker 1: the reputation of a mystic, so you might be less
Speaker 1: inclined to listen. Yeah. Well, and also he's not a professor.
Speaker 1: He's not working with people who are going to read
Speaker 1: and review his work. Um, there there wouldn't be a
Speaker 1: strong reason for a temporary scientists to even read what
Speaker 1: he was writing. But by the time that all these
Speaker 1: works kind of really came out there in the late
Speaker 1: nineteenth century, scholars started looking at these ideas, especially these
Speaker 1: ideas about the brain, and realizing, oh, my gosh, we
Speaker 1: just figured this stuff out recently. And he had he
Speaker 1: had ideas for this back in the seventeen hundreds, but
Speaker 1: after the economy he got to work on more studies
Speaker 1: of anatomy and the soul. But Um, these things were
Speaker 1: brought to a halt by a religious crisis. So he
Speaker 1: started a new travel journal in July of seventeen forty three.
Speaker 1: It's basic, you know, kind of banal, everyday kind of entries,
Speaker 1: and then suddenly it turns into this dream journal that's
Speaker 1: known as the Journal of Dreams Um, detailing recall dreams
Speaker 1: and nighttime spiritual experiences from March to October seventeen forty four,
Speaker 1: and some of these are surprisingly most pornographic and embarrassed
Speaker 1: later more prudish Victorian readers, you know. In April seventh,
Speaker 1: seventeen forty four, he has this first vision of Christ,
Speaker 1: which makes him feel a little better about the temptation
Speaker 1: of intellectual pride, which was just getting him down, I guess,
Speaker 1: And by April seventeen forty five he had received a
Speaker 1: definitive call to abandon worldly learning. Um. So that's the
Speaker 1: end of his work in the natural sciences. So that
Speaker 1: brings us to his theological work, which is a bit dense. Basically,
Speaker 1: God called him, according to him, to explain the spiritual
Speaker 1: meaning of Scripture. So Swedenborg started writing about angels, Paradise
Speaker 1: and the Last Judgment as well as the New Jerusalem.
Speaker 1: He was kind of like an old school prophet, is
Speaker 1: what Sarah and I compared him to. And from then
Speaker 1: on he he gets into Bible interpretation in relating the
Speaker 1: world of spirits and angels, and he writes thirty volumes
Speaker 1: in Latin. Most of his works are anonymous, and he
Speaker 1: does them from seventeen forty nine to seventeen seventy one. UM.
Speaker 1: His best known theological work is on Heaven and Its
Speaker 1: Wonders and on Hell, and his final work is True
Speaker 1: Christian Religion. Um. But he says he's gotten into this,
Speaker 1: you know, new vocation because of a divine vision and call.
Speaker 1: And Encyclopedia Britannica again says that his spiritual senses were
Speaker 1: opened so that he might be in the spiritual world
Speaker 1: as consciously as in the material world. And the thirty
Speaker 1: volumes he really writes them as God's revelations. He wanted
Speaker 1: to enter um a new age of truth and reason
Speaker 1: to religion, and he thought that these new revelations of
Speaker 1: his that he was putting down were the Second Coming.
Speaker 1: And anything that's as broad as a religion is difficult
Speaker 1: to get a grasp on and and distill into something
Speaker 1: as short as a podcas past. So we thought it
Speaker 1: would be a good idea to talk with someone who's
Speaker 1: well versed in the Swedenborgian religion, and so we talked
Speaker 1: to Lisa Oz, who was raised as a Swedenborgian, and
Speaker 1: introduced her husband, doctor Oz, to the religion as well.
Speaker 1: And we wanted to start by better understanding Swedenborg's epiphany,
Speaker 1: since clearly this was the defining experience in his life.
Speaker 1: So that's where we started. Hello, I am Lisa Oz,
Speaker 1: author of Us Transforming Ourselves and the Relationships that matter Most.
Speaker 1: From my understanding of his epiphany, it seemed like it
Speaker 1: was something overnight, but it was a while in coming
Speaker 1: in terms of the preparation for this what we as
Speaker 1: Swedenborgians UM like to see as a spiritual opening of
Speaker 1: his of his of his eyes, as opening with spiritual
Speaker 1: eyes and being able to see into the spiritual dimension.
Speaker 1: He had studied. UM obviously studied religion very UM closely,
Speaker 1: from very a very early age, and UM also practiced
Speaker 1: breathing techniques. He had started journaling his dreams UM of
Speaker 1: the year before his spiritual awakening. UM. So it wasn't
Speaker 1: that it was just out of the blue. One day
Speaker 1: he was a scientist and the next day he was
Speaker 1: a theologian. He had wrote written extensively on religion and
Speaker 1: philosophy and tried to find a connection to the spiritual
Speaker 1: in the human brain. He was looking for the seat
Speaker 1: of the soul. So there was a lot of preparation
Speaker 1: leading up to his epiphany. And UM, what I find
Speaker 1: particularly entertaining for me was that the first UM, the
Speaker 1: first communication he had with the spiritual world directly was
Speaker 1: someone telling him not to eat so much, which I
Speaker 1: think is really relevant in my own life. Lisa went
Speaker 1: on to explain that this epiphany didn't stifle sweden Words
Speaker 1: traditional life. He still carried out his duties as a
Speaker 1: member of the aristocracy, Mr ennobled Man, and he didn't
Speaker 1: become a recluse as you might imagine a mystic, would
Speaker 1: you know. When I think of a mystic, I usually
Speaker 1: think of someone who's kind of hidden away from the world,
Speaker 1: say at a convent, yeah, or a dude living in
Speaker 1: a cave. But he wasn't a recluse. Um, he was
Speaker 1: a mystic, however, And since the definition of mystic can
Speaker 1: be a bit of a controversial one when talking about
Speaker 1: sweden Worg, we are we asked a Swedenborgian to explain
Speaker 1: what she thought he was mystical. Um. I think that
Speaker 1: mystical experience is one where you have a direct experience
Speaker 1: of the Numenus. And that was exactly what sweden Worg
Speaker 1: was describing. It was for most of us who do
Speaker 1: not have mystical experiences, we have to take it on
Speaker 1: someone else's word that this other realm exists. So Emmanuel
Speaker 1: Swedenborg spent the rest of his life working on uh
Speaker 1: these theological writings, and he dies in London in seventeen
Speaker 1: seventy two. But despite never preaching, he stuck solely to
Speaker 1: writing Lesley in Latin. The first sweden Borgian Society start
Speaker 1: popping up in the seventeen eighties, and the Church of
Speaker 1: the New Jerusalem is founded in London later in that decade.
Speaker 1: And one of the most interesting things about this guy
Speaker 1: is how his ideas inspired writers like ball Back, Baudelaire, Emerson, Yates,
Speaker 1: the Brownings, Blake Coleridge, Henry James, Sr. The Philosopher, even
Speaker 1: Helen Keller. We're not talking about some obscure historical figure.
Speaker 1: He was actually a very influential person. And that led
Speaker 1: us to question ourselves as to why we had never
Speaker 1: heard of this man and didn't know who he was.
Speaker 1: So we asked Lisa a little bit about how he's
Speaker 1: influenced contemporary thought. Yeah, and she's said that some of
Speaker 1: the impact of sweden Bor on contemporary spiritual thought is
Speaker 1: indirect and it comes through all of those writers that
Speaker 1: we can be reading almost a distilled version of his
Speaker 1: ideas in some of their works. Um, but well, he
Speaker 1: was influential in indirect ways. We were also curious about
Speaker 1: why his church doesn't have a bigger presence today. I
Speaker 1: think mostly there's not a large swing where in church
Speaker 1: today because there's no impetus to to convert or proselytize
Speaker 1: because we just don't care. It doesn't matter if people
Speaker 1: are other religions. As long as they're living a life
Speaker 1: of love and compassion and connection and relationship, that's great.
Speaker 1: And so I think that there's not that movement to
Speaker 1: spread the church. The other thing is that sweden works
Speaker 1: writings are not easy. There. It is thousands and thousands
Speaker 1: of pages. I think it's thirtiesome volumes of very dense
Speaker 1: translated from the latin um, heavy material, and it's not
Speaker 1: the kind of thing you can just pick up and say, well,
Speaker 1: all this makes sense. And if you're looking for a
Speaker 1: good place to start with some of Swedenborg's works, because
Speaker 1: again it is dense. We've tried to read some of
Speaker 1: it and had a difficult time. Lisa told us her
Speaker 1: favorite of his many works was Arcana Celestia, and you know,
Speaker 1: he does write like a scientist. It's it's dry and
Speaker 1: it's to the point. But he also sees some of
Speaker 1: Scripture as I guess we'd say, parables for your spiritual journey.
Speaker 1: She also gave us a word to the wise about Swedenborg.
Speaker 1: He's a man of his time, and for example, his
Speaker 1: views toward women wouldn't seem particularly enlightened and certainly not
Speaker 1: as enlightened as the rest of his scientific work. Um,
Speaker 1: but you know, just to consider his historical context when
Speaker 1: reading his works, and we were saying, it's just so interesting.
Speaker 1: It's always interesting to see someone who's so fully engaged
Speaker 1: in both science and religion. It was equal interest in both,
Speaker 1: although it's also interesting that he felt he couldn't do
Speaker 1: them at the same time, because after all, he did
Speaker 1: drop science as an ego driven pursuit, at least for him.
Speaker 1: But it's also so interesting that science he couldn't drop
Speaker 1: it completely. He may have stopped his scientific writings, but
Speaker 1: science is clearly influencing his theological work. Right. It reminded
Speaker 1: me of a book I was reading, John Horgan's Rational Mysticism,
Speaker 1: which tries to impose a sort of rational scientific framework
Speaker 1: on top of the idea of mysticism, which is guess
Speaker 1: something that Swedenborg also did. Fortunately for you guys, we
Speaker 1: have some really great articles on the brain and on
Speaker 1: religion written by our own Molly Edmunds of stuff Mom
Speaker 1: never told you. The first is the brain hardwired for religion,
Speaker 1: and the second is morality located in the brain, And
Speaker 1: you can find both of these on our home page
Speaker 1: at www. Dot how Stuff Works dot com. For more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, does it how
Speaker 1: Stuff work dot com And be sure to check out
Speaker 1: the Stuff you missed in History Class blog on the
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