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ABSTRACT
In 1758 in London, Swedish natural philosopher and mystic theologian Emanuel Swedenborg published De Telluribus in Mundo nostro Solari (Earths in our solar system), a treatise on the plurality of worlds and life on other planets. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, these topics formed a heterogenous literary genre which encompassed theology, astronomy, philosophy and satire. In De Telluribus, Swedenborg made detailed claims of communication with extraterrestrial spirits in the afterlife, through which he sought to spread his theology to new audiences. The paper will explore the role of De Telluribus in Swedenborg's career, explain its content and analyse its polarized reception. It will show that De Telluribus combined for the first time the literary codes of two popular genres during the period, namely those concerning the plurality of worlds and the dialogues of the dead. By doing so, the paper revises current scholarly understanding of Swedenborg by showcasing him as a versatile yet ill-fated recombiner of literary genres. More broadly, the paper will shed light upon previously unnoticed eighteenth-century literary interactions along with a wider overview on the reception of themes such as the plurality of worlds, mysticism and satire in Scandinavia and Germany.
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Notes
1 See Alfred Acton, Letters and Memorials of Emanuel Swedenborg, ed. by Alfred Acton, 2 vols (Bryn Athyn: Swedenborg Scientific Association, 1948, 1955), II (1955), p. 689.
2 See Laura Sangha, ‘The Social, Spiritual and Personal Dynamics of Ghost Stories in Early Modern England’, The Historical Journal, 63:2 (2020), 339–59.
3 See Kurt Nemitz, ‘What has God revealed?’, Swedenborg study (1976) <http://www.swedenborgstudy.com/articles/life-on-planets/kn76.htm> [accessed 8 July 2020]. See also Lamm (note 52), 212.
4 See, e.g. Roy Nicholls, ‘Are the Planets named mistakenly?’, Swedenborg Study (1977). <http://www.swedenborgstudy.com/articles/life-on-planets/kn77.htm> [accessed 8 July 2020] and Karin Childs, ‘Life in our Solar System’, New Church Life, 1997, 467, <http://www.swedenborgstudy.com/articles/life-on-planets/kc97.htm> [accessed 8 July 2020].
5 See particularly David Dunér, ‘Swedenborg and the Plurality of Worlds: Astrotheology in the 18th Century’, Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science, 51:2 (2016), 450–79 (pp. 458–65) and Mats Barrdunge, ‘En andeskådare i upplysningstid’, Tidningen Kulturen, 2 (2019).
6 In Michael J. Crowe, The Extraterrestrial Life Debate 1750–1900: The Idea of a Plurality of Worlds from Kant to Lowell (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986), Crowe gave an analysis of Swedenborg’s De Telluribus which failed to identify the use of irony nor the satirical overtones of his accounts. A similar view about the absence of irony and satirical modes of expression was wrongly repeated further in Dunér (note 5) 454, who stated that Swedenborg’s De Telluribus provided accounts ‘without the slightest irony’.
7 In the case of Swedenborg’s original form of mysticism, the term will refer to the latter’s claims of unlimited access to the different planes of heaven, hell and the ‘spiritual world’, but also of constant communication with deceased spirits and angels and occasional communication with Christ. See, e.g. Acton (note 1), II, 626 and 739. For Swedenborg’s first claim of communication with Christ, see Lars Bergquist, Swedenborg’s secret (London: The Swedenborg Society, 2005), pp. 165–67. For later claims, see Acton (note 1), II, 759.
8 For a detailed summary of Swedenborg’s early astronomical views, see Dunér (note 5) 450–79 (pp. 458–65).
9 Dunér (note 5), 467.
10 Emanuel Swedenborg, The Principia or the First Principles of Natural Things, 2 vols (Bryn Athyn: Swedenborg Scientific Association, 1988), II, p. 241.
11 See Steven J. Dick, Plurality of Worlds: The Origins of the Extraterrestrial Life Debate from Democritus to Kant (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1982), Steven J. Dick, ‘A Historical Perspective on the Extent and Search for Life’, in Exploring the Origin, Extent, and Future of Life: Philosophical, Ethical, and Theological Perspectives, ed. by Constance M. Bertka (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 167–85, Karl S. Guthke, Der Mythos der Neuzeit: Das Thema der Mehrheit der Welten in der Literatur und Geistesgeschichte von der kopernikanischen Wende bis zur Science Fiction (Bern, Switzerland: Francke, 1983), Crowe (note 6), Michael J. Crowe, The Extraterrestrial Life Debate, Antiquity to 1915 (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008) and Michael Crowe, ‘William Whewell, the Plurality of Worlds, and the Modern Solar System’, Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science, 51:2 (2016), 431–49, Mark Brake, ‘On the Plurality of Inhabited Worlds: A Brief History of Extraterrestrialism’, International Journal of Astrobiology, 5 (2006), 99–107, and Dunér (note 5); For examples of explicit parallels between the New World and extra-terrestrial worlds, see Cyrano de Bergerac, Histoire Comique des Etats et Empires de la Lune (Paris: Charles de Sercy, 1657) p. 11 and Christian Huygens, Cosmotheoros sive de terri coelestibus (The Hague: Adrianum Moetjens, 1698) §23.
12 Dunér (note 5) 451.
13 Emanuel Swedenborg, Arcana Coelestia, 8 vols (London: John Lewis, 1749–1756). For an English edition of reference, see Emanuel Swedenborg, Secrets of Heaven: The New Century Edition, trans. by Lisa Hyatt Cooper, 15 vols (West Chester, PA: The Swedenborg Foundation, 2008–2015).
14 See A lexicon to the Latin text of the theological writings of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772), ed. by John Chadwick and Jonathan Rose (London: The Swedenborg Society, 2010) p. 267.
15 In Swedenborg’s first manuscripts recording his mystical experiences in the 1740s, the memorabilia were first referred to as experientiae spirituales, ‘spiritual experiences’. See Norman Ryder, A descriptive bibliography of the works of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772), 6 vols (London: The Swedenborg Society, 2010-), II (2012), p. 120.
16 For reference to Swedenborg stating that his memorabilia are not visions, see Arcana Coelestia (note 13) §1885.
17 One of the few and most famous buyers of Arcana Coelestia was the philosopher from Königsberg Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). See Immanuel Kant, Träume eines Geistersehers (Königsberg: Johann Jacob Kanter, 1766) and for an English translation, Dreams of a spirit-seer and other writings, ed. and trans. by Gregory R. Johnson (West Chester, PA: The Swedenborg Foundation, 2002), pp. 40, 49–50.
18 See Acton (note 1), II, 509–11.
19 See particularly Swedenborg’s works De Telluribus in mundo nostro solari, quae vocantur planetae (London: John Lewis, 1758), De Coelo et ejus mirabilibus, et de inferno (London: John Lewis, 1758), and De Ultimo Judicio et de Babylonia destructa (London: John Lewis, 1758). The two other works released by Swedenborg this year were De Equo albo de quo in Apocalypsi, Cap: XIX (London: John Lewis, 1758) and De Nova Hierosolyma et ejus doctrina coelesti: ex auditis e coelo (London: John Lewis, 1758). On publication order, see note 24.
20 See, e.g. De Ultimo Judicio (note 19).
21 See, e.g. Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet), Le Micromégas de M. de Voltaire (London: John Robinson, 1752) and Immanuel Kant, Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels (Königsberg: Johann Friedrich Petersen, 1755).
22 The differences between Swedenborg’s Spiritual Diary, Arcana Coelestia extra-terrestrial accounts and De Telluribus were listed in a rare study from the 1950s published in Latin and reedited in 1980 by Lisa Hyatt Cooper, De Telluribus in Universo, cum parallelismis ex operibus ejusdem auctoris Arcana Coelestia & Diarium Spirituale ob ab Emanuele Swedenborg (Bryn Athyn: The Academy of the New Church Press, 1980).
23 Ten years earlier in the first volume of his unpublished Spiritual Diary, Swedenborg recorded his accounts with spirits in the following order: Jupiter (§519) Mercury (§1415) Venus (§1441) and Saturn (§1513). See Emanuel Swedenborg, The Spiritual Diary, 5 vols (Bryn Athyn: The Academy of the New Church, 1977–8) I.
24 Although De Telluribus was listed by Swedenborg as the first work composed after his Arcana Coelestia, in later years Swedenborg came to present De Telluribus as last to be read among his five works of 1758, which some scholars called the ‘presentation order'. On the hypothesis of ‘composition' versus ‘presentation’ order, see Editor’s preface by Jonathan Rose and Stuart Shotwell, in Emanuel Swedenborg, The Shorter Works of 1758: The New Century Edition, ed. by Jonathan Rose and others (West Chester, PA: The Swedenborg Foundation, 2018).
25 The uncertainty surrounding the origin of those spirits was noted by Swedenborg’s followers. See, for example, ‘revealed knowledge of the planets’ ed. by W. B. Caldwell, New Church Life Magazine (1950), 119–25 (p. 123).
26 See Arcana Coelestia (note 13) §10589.
27 See Michael Hoskin, ‘The Milky way from antiquity to modern times’, in The Milky Way Galaxy; Proceedings of the 106th Symposium, Groningen, Netherlands, ed. by Hugo Allen and others (Springer: New York, 1983), pp. 11–24.
28 See Acton (note 1), II, 524: De Telluribus in Universo Errata Typographica.
29 See part on Reception.
30 The spirit world, the heavens and the hells are described on various occasions as ‘spiritual states’, states of being and cognition with the appearance of places. See, e.g. De Coelo (note 19), §193.
31 Lunarians have relation to the ensiform or xiphoid cartilage (§111). Spirits from the first exoplanet are related to the spleen (§132). Spirits from the second exoplanet to sight and ‘keenness of vision' (§140), spirits from the third exoplanet ‘to the left knee’ while appearing ‘on the plane of the head’ (§156), etc.
32 See Hans Helander, Neo-Latin Literature in Sweden in the Period 1620–1720. Stylistics, Vocabulary and Characteristic Ideas (Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 2004), p. 439.
33 See, e.g. Emanuel Swedenborg, Regnum Animale, 3 vols (I-II: the Hague: Adrianum Blyvenburgium, 1744, and III: London: J. Nourse and R. Manby, 1745), I. For a list of all organs covered by Swedenborg in these volumes, see Ryder (note 15), II, 42–4.
34 See De Telluribus (note 19) §88, 95, 107–08, 132, 140.
35 See, e.g. De Coelo (note 19), §582.
36 See Emanuel Swedenborg, Vera Christiana Religio, 2 vols (Amsterdam, [n.pub.], 1771) §475.
37 See, e.g. Spiritual Diary (note 23), §355, §3173 and Arcana Coelestia (note 13) §6008.
38 See Emanuel Swedenborg, A Philosopher’s Notebook, trans. and ed. by Alfred Acton (Bryn Athyn: Swedenborg Scientific Association, 2009), pp. 394–95.
39 See Swedenborg (note 38), 372.
40 On the concept of ‘spheres’ in Swedenborg’s theology, see Chadwick and Rose (note 14) 431.
41 De Telluribus (note 19), §138.
42 See De Telluribus (note 19), §128, §138, §168.
43 De Telluribus (note 19), §42 and Arcana Coelestia (note 13) §7247.
44 De Telluribus (note 19), §42, §47.
45 In De Telluribus (note 19), §160, Swedenborg mentions Abraham, Sarah, Lot, the inhabitants of Sodom, Manoah and his wife, Joshua, Mary, Elizabeth and ‘the prophets in general’. See also in De Telluribus (note 19) §159, Swedenborg’s use of Luke 24 :39.
46 De Telluribus (note 19), §160. Swedenborg retraced the closure of mankind’s spiritual senses to the emergence of lie, which physically diverted the reception of divine influx in the brain, from the cerebellum to the cerebrum (§88).
47 See De Telluribus (note 19), §71 and §160.
48 See Spiritual Diary (note 23), I, §130.
49 See De Telluribus (note 19), §135.
50 See, e.g. Arcana Coelestia (note 13), §10808, De Telluribus (note 19), §170.
51 De Telluribus (note 19), §135.
52 Swedenborg’s ‘dual state’ has been a source of fascination for scholars with an interest in mental illness, who retrospectively diagnosed Swedenborg with either temporal-lobe seizures, epilepsy and/or various forms of schizophrenia. See, e.g. Karl Jaspers, Strindberg, Van Gogh, Swedenborg et Hoelderlin (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1953), J. Johnson, ‘Henry Maudsley on Swedenborg’s messianic psychosis’, British Journal of Psychiatry, 165 (1994), 690–91, and for an overview: Mario Poirier, ‘Le mystère Swedenborg: raison ou déraison ?’, Santé mentale au Quebec, 28:1 (2003), 258–77. In 1915, great Swedish scholar Martin Lamm indulged in similar then-fashionable psychologizing. See Martin Lamm, Swedenborg and the development of his thought (West Chester, PA: Swedenborg Foundation Publishers, 2000), pp. 208–14.
53 See De Telluribus (note 19), §135.
54 See, e.g. De Telluribus (note 19), §1, §123, §125, §127, §138.
55 See, e.g. De Telluribus (note 19), §68, §72 and §154; §83 and §149; §93 and §162.
56 See Bergquist (note 7), ‘Contents of Swedenborg’s Library’, 469–82.
57 See Dunér (note 5), 472.
58 De Telluribus (note 19), §69, §91, §98–99, §103, §107, §150–51, §153–54, §175.
59 De Telluribus (note 19), §103, §134, §147, §178.
60 See Dunér (note 5), 475.
61 Apart from Swedenborg’s other theological works, see also Swedenborg’s allegorical-political poems Festivus Applausus and Camena Borea (1715) and the ‘Scheringsson manuscript’, better known as his so-called Dream Diary (1743). See Emanuel Swedenborg, Festivus Applausus in Caroli XII in Pomeraniam suam adventum, edited, with introduction, translation and commentary by Hans Helander (Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 1985), Emanuel Swedenborg, Camena Borea, edited, with introduction, translation and commentary by Hans Helander (Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 1988), and Lars Bergquist, Swedenborg’s Dream Diary, trans. by Anders Hallengren (West Chester, PA: Swedenborg Foundation Publishers, 2001).
62 See, e.g. Arcana Coelestia (note 13) §5858, and De Telluribus (note 19), §73, §52, §106, §160.
63 The expression ‘heavenly philosophy’ of Swedenborg (‘Himmlische Philosophie’) is from the German theologian Christoph Friedrich Oetinger (1702–1782). See part on Reception and note 104.
64 See Johnson (note 17), xvii–xviii.
65 For obvious similarities between extra-terrestrial descriptions in De Telluribus and other works, see particularly Francis Godwin, The Man in the Moone (London: John Norton, 1638), Bergerac’s Histoire Comique des Etats et Empires de la Lune (note 11) and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (London: Benjamin Motte, 1726).
66 See, e.g. De Telluribus (note 19), §61, §163.
67 De Telluribus (note 19), §56, 61, §89, §98, §158, §163, §169.
68 Emanuel Swedenborg, On the Infinite and the Final Cause of Creation (London: The Swedenborg Society, 1992), p. 18.
69 De Telluribus (note 19), §122.
70 See Emanuel Swedenborg, Ludus Heliconius and other Latin poems, edited, with introduction, translation and commentary by Hans Helander (Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 1995) pp. 82–83. Swedenborg celebrated again the invention of typography with a poem published in Leipzig in 1740: In præconium inventionis typographiæ in a volume commemorating the tercentenary of the invention of typography by Gutenberg. See Ryder (note 15), I, 447.
71 For evidence of Swedenborg’s interest in Hebrew, see, e.g. Spiritual diary (note 23), I, 420, the posthumously published On the Sacred Scripture or the Word of the Lord, trans. by John Chadwick (London: The Swedenborg Society, 1997) §3:9, §4:14, §33, De Coelo (note 19) §260, and Vera Christiana Religio (note 36), I, §278. For evidence of Swedenborg’s lifelong interest in hieroglyphs, see, e.g. Inge Jonsson, A Drama of Creation: Sources and Influences in Swedenborg’s Worship and Love of God (West Chester: Swedenborg Foundation Publishers, 2004), pp. 32–4, and Acton (note 1), II, 684–85.
72 See Arcana Coelestia (note 13) §10325.
73 See, for example, Johannes Kepler, Somnium (Frankfurt: Sagani Silesiorum, 1634), Godwin, The Man in the Moone (note 65), Athanasius Kircher, Itinerarium Ecstaticum (Rome: Vitalis Mascardi, 1656) de Bergerac, Histoire Comique des Etats et Empires de la Lune (note 11), Ludvig Holberg, Nicolai Klimii Iter Subterraneum (Copenhagen: Jacob Preuss, 1741), Voltaire, Micromégas (note 21). One can also mention in antiquity, Lucian of Samosata, Alethe Diegemata / Verae Historiae. in Lucian. Works trans. by A. M. Harmon (Cambridge, MA: Loeb Classical Library, 1913) and during the Renaissance, Giordano Bruno, De l’infinito universe et mondi (Venice, [n. pub.], 1584). For a wider overview, see Crowe 1986 (note 6).
74 See Dunér (note 5), 453.
75 We know Swedenborg had the second volume of Wolff’s Elementa in his library, however we have no evidence about the third volume. See Bergquist (note 7), 481.
76 Dunér (note 5), 454.
77 Dunér (note 5), 453.
78 Dunér (note 5), 453. See also Helander (note 70), 203.
79 Carlos Ziller Camenietzki, ‘L’Extase interplanetaire d’Athanasius Kircher: philosophie, cosmologie et discipline dans la compagnie de Jésus au XVIIe siècle’, Nuncius 10 (1995) 3–32.
80 Huygens (note 11), §102–03.
81 de Bergerac (note 11), 4.
82 See Swedenborg (note 38), 283.
83 In De Telluribus (note 19), the dead mentioned are not all anonymous and references are made to the spirits of Christian Wolff and Aristotle in §38, in a fashion typical of dialogue des morts literature.
84 Helander (note 61), in Camena Borea, 19.
85 Swedenborg purchased Stiernhielm’s annotated copy of Plotinus’s Enneads at an auction in 1705 during his university years at Uppsala (1699–1709), see Bergquist (note 7), 477. At the time the Swedberg and Stierna families were thought to be related by a common ancestor, although the connection later proved to be based on a confusion between two unrelated homophones. See Anita Hjelte-Björklund, ‘Emanuel Swedenborg – från bergsmansrötter till andesfärer’, Släktforskarens Årsbok 2019 (Malmö: Exakta, 2019), 8–27.
86 See Helander (note 61), in Festivus Applausus, 33–4.
87 From the end of the seventeenth to the end of the eighteenth century, approximately two hundred dialogues des morts were published in France. See Lise Andries, ‘Le Dialogue des Morts au XVIIIe siècle’, Compte-rendu de séance n°4, projet Agon Sorbonne, (2011). <http://www.agon.paris-sorbonne.fr/en/ressources-en-ligne/comptes-rendus/les-dialogues-des-morts-au-xviiie-siecle#1> [accessed 12 July 2019], Lise Andries, ‘Querelles et dialogues des morts au XVIIIe siècle’ Littératures classiques, 81 (2013), 131–46. See also Commemorating Mirabeau: Mirabeau aux Champs-Elysées and other texts. ed. by Jessica Goodman, 58 (Cambridge, UK: Modern Humanities Research Association, 2017), and Pujol, Stéphane, Le dialogue d’idées au dix-huitième siècle (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2005).
88 See Rebecca Esterson, Secrets of heaven: allegory, Jews, the European Enlightenment and the case of Emanuel Swedenborg (unpublished doctoral thesis, Boston, 2017), pp. 27–28.
89 See Johnson (note 17), xxiv.
90 See Acton (note 1), II, 528–29.
91 For developed accounts of these episodes, see Bergquist (note 7), 269–73.
92 See Acton (note 1), II, 652–53.
93 See Letter from Kant to Charlotte von Knobloch in Johnson (note 17), 10:45–10:47, 68–70.
94 See Johnson (note 17), xiii–xiv, xxiv.
95 See Acton (note 1), II, 608–09.
96 See Johnson (note 17), xi, xvi, and Acton (note 1), II, 641, Letter from Lavater to Swedenborg, 24 August 1768.
97 See Johnson (note 17), xi.
98 See Alfred Acton, Academy Collection of Documents about Emanuel Swedenborg ed. by Alfred Acton, 9 vols. (Bryn Athyn, The Academy of the New Church), IX (1770–1773), p. 423.
99 See Acton (note 98).
100 Acton (note 98).
101 See Acton (note 98), 424.
102 See Acton (note 98) 424.
103 See Acton (note 1), II, 651–52.
104 See Friedrich Christoph Oetinger, Swedenborgs und anderer Irrdische und Himmlishe Philosophie (Frankfurt and Leipzig, [n. pub.], 1762) and Acton (note 1), II, 606–07.
105 The expression ‘ghosts from other planets’ is taken from this review, which can be accessed in German in Acton (note 98), 4–9.
106 For reference to the review, see Acton (note 98) 4–9.
107 See Acton (note 1), II, 606.
108 See Acton (note 1), II, 763–64.
109 See Acton (note 1), II, 763–64.
110 See Acton (note 1), II, 763–64.
111 For reference to Swedenborg being asked to contact dead relatives, see, e.g. Acton (note 1), II, 643, 757–59 and Acton (note 98), 419. For help in resolving theological disputes through contact with the dead, see Acton (note 1), II, 628.
112 For reference to the cipher, see Acton (note 1), II, 687–88.
113 For reference to Lavater’s request about how to obtain the same gifts, see Acton (note 1), II, 643. For Swedenborg’s correspondence with landgrave Louis IX, see Acton (note 1), II, 736–38. For further correspondence between Swedenborg and the landgrave, see 745–47, 751–57.