Project Infinite Freep: Restore our national dialog!
More Swedenborgians:
Carl Jung and the Holy Grail of the Unconscious - NYTimes.com -- NY Times
Johnny Appleseed: Swedenborgian Evangelist in America
Johnny Appleseed; Good News Fresh From Heaven
Foundation for my Church
Major confirmations of Him:
THE TWELVE STONES SET UP AT THE JORDAN FOUND WITH INSCRIPTIONS
***Swedenborg interrogated Calvin in the spiritual world.***
This is a fantastic claim. What manner of flying carpet did he employ?
I enquired of the Catholic Encyclopedia what it had involving Swedenborg:
Swedenborg and his followers hold that as the Christian religion succeeded the Jewish so the Swedenborgian teaching supplemented the Christian. This new dispensation promulgated by Swedenborg is, according to them, based on a Divinely revealed interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures. Some of the characteristic features of this new religious system are presented in the following outline.
•God is Love Itself and Wisdom Itself. His Power is from and according to these as they flow forth into creative act.
•The Trinity does not consist of three distinct Divine persons as Catholics maintain; but is understood in the sense that in the Incarnation the Father or Jehovah is essentially the Divine Being, while the Son is the human (or sub-spiritual) element assumed by the Godhead in order to become present among men. The Holy Spirit is the Divine Presence and Power consequent upon this assumption and resultant transfiguration (glorification in Swedenborgian language) of the human element which thus became “a Divine Human” with all power in heaven and on earth. Jesus Christ is, therefore, not the incarnation of a second Divine person, but of the Divine as a whole; he includes the Father (Godhead), the Son (assumed humanity), and the Holy Spirit (Divine-human power).
•Life does not exist except in Him or from Him, and cannot be created. Its presence in created forms is accounted for by continuous Divine influx.
•On this earth man enjoys the highest participation of life, but he is greatly inferior, in this respect, to the races undoubtedly inhabiting other planets, e.g. Jupiter, Mercury.
•His three constituent elements are soul, body, and power.
•Originally granted full freedom in the use of his faculties, he erroneously concluded that he held them from no one but himself and fell away from God.
•The Lord, after the fall, did not abandon the sinner, but appeared to him in the form of an angel and gave him the law to reclaim him from his evil ways. These efforts were useless, and God clothed Himself with a human organism and redeemed man, opening anew his faculties to the influx of Divine life.
•Men are admitted into the New Church through baptism; they are strengthened in the spiritual life by the reception of the Eucharist.
•Justification cannot be obtained by faith alone; good works are likewise necessary.
•The seclusion of the cloister is not a help but a hindrance to spiritual growth; the healthiest condition for the latter is a life of action in the world.
•Miracles and visions produce no real spiritual change because they destroy the requisite liberty.
•The hope of reward is not to be recommended as an incentive to virtue, for good actions are vitiated when prompted by motives of self-interest.
•Death is the casting off by man of his material body which has no share in the resurrection.
•Immediately after death all human souls enter into the intermediate state known as the world of spirits, where they are instructed and prepared for their final abodes, heaven or hell.
•We need not expect the Last Judgment for it has already taken place; it was held in 1757 in Swedenborg’s presence.
•No pure spirits exist; both angels and devils are former members of the human race, have organic forms, and experience sensation.
The liturgy of the New Church is is modelled on the Anglican service. The Church organization in Great Britain is congregational; in the United States most of the various religious societies are grouped in state associations under the charge of general pastors, while the “General Church” (see below) is avowedly episcopal in government.
May I ask, sir, aside from the use of seeing stones and a hat, what sets Swedenborg apart from Joseph Smith?
Actually, he's closer to the papacy because Swedenborg was a mystic...like your popes.