Swedenborg: An Introduction to His Life and Ideas
Presenting the influential mystic who reported speaking with angels and inhabitants of other planets as well as unlocking the genuine meaning of the Bible, Lachman extracts Swedenborg’s basic ideas from his immense, esoteric oeuvre. Those are not easily and perhaps not convincingly summarized, but Lachman, a former rock-’n’-roller whose second career is writing books about spiritual seekers like Swedenborg, successfully informs his readers of the arc of Swedenborg’s inner theological experience, which did not begin until Swedenborg hit middle age in the 1740s. Until then, he was notable in Sweden as an inventor, science popularizer, and mining official. But Swedenborg’s visions and dreams during this period led to his ecstatic contemplation of connections between the finiteness of earth and the infinitude of ethereal realms. The slew of Swedenborgian tracts that ensued, such as Heaven and Hell (1758) and The True Christian Religion (1771), receive Lachman’s clear and respectful explanations, which pave the way for readers ready to tackle the standard biography, Emanuel Swedenborg: Scientist and Mystic, by Signe Toksvig (1948). --Gilbert Taylor