Talk:Emanuel Swedenborg

message: The last few edits by anonymous User:209.53.208.35 are obviously motivated by religious devotion, clearly not NPOV and should probably be reverted wholesale. However, there may still be something of value in them. It would be nice if somebody with knowledge of Swedenborg's theology could look through the article. /  up+land 23:34, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks! Anonymous edits are not problematic per se, it is only problematic with obivously biased edits, and if users are anonymous they can avoid disussing it.  --Fred-Chess 15:26, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)
"The theologian Henry James Sr. was also a follower of his teachings, as were Johnny Appleseed and Helen Keller." - I am removing the second clause, which is absurd.
--207.75.34.101 (talk) 20:20, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Anonymous edits 

message: Very nice edits, Fred! The bit on Jesper is lovely now. I only have a problem with the "anatomical system where mental attributes correspond to body parts, such as worrying to the stomach", I don't understand it and the syntax kind of collapses. Btw, I capitalized the main words in all your book titles, which is the primary recommendation in the Manual of Style, but I have some doubts now I've slept on it. Your system was consistent and perfectly good in itself, do reinstate it if you prefer it, maybe it looks better. (The MoS explicitly accepts all academic styles, its specific recommendations are more meant to help people who aren't familiar with any style.)--Bishonen | Talk 09:56, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Nice edits, capitalized book titles

message: Hi! "The new guy messed up." That's me. I have tried to merge your edits back in, but please... could you go through it ...? Fred chessplayer 17:32, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No worries, it looks fine, sorry if I edit conflicted you. I'm out of there for the day anyway, so go ahead and edit in peace. Are you really new? I mean, I know you are, but I thought you must have experience from sv.wiki. You're just too good at this for a bona fide newbie! Best, Bishonen | Talk 17:54, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Edit conflicts

message: Annotated external links are very helpful, but the Swedenborgian Church and the New Church links had annotationspam. We don't need telling that these communities are based on the teachings on Swedenborg (why else would they be here?), and we don't need anything that's obviously going to be only a click away (like the various versions of the names of the communities). Especially we don't need any repetition of facts prominently supplied in the article itself, like when Swedenborg lived and died, or that he was an 18th-century theologian (c'mon!). I've shortened these listings, retaining the useful parts. --Bishonen | talk 19:23, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No problem. I've really missed some constructive criticism. It seemed I could get away with almost anything. --Fred-Chess 19:28, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: External links

message: Bishonen expressed his/her worries, on a talk page that Uppland guided me to, that a new anonymous user might make pov edits. This is not really a problem. The last edit was not wrong, as expressed in the "Claims of Veracity". The edit may not be true, but can't be discarded – Whether Sw. experienced a crisis or a Close Encounter with the Lord is something which the authors are still debating. We can't assume that he did not have a close encounter with the Lord unless we can certainly assert there is no God or that Sw. was a madman. I hope the rest of the article makes the POV's clear so that the intro itself is not the final word. --Fred-Chess 11:27, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Whether it was a spiritual or a psychological crisis, it was still a personal crisis (decisive turning point in his life, and likely emotionally stressful, if not an unstable condition).  That is why I removed the "extreme encounters with God" which is not a very encyclopedic term, and replaced the previous "psychological crisis" with the more neutral "psychological-spiritual crisis", which covers both points of view.  --Blainster 17:43, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree with Blainster. Incidentally, I feel the need to recognize excellence here: Blainster's copyediting has been fabulous altogether, IMHO. Way to add style and panache! --Bishonen | talk 18:41, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  an. edits 2 

message: I think it is time for this article to be taken to peer review again, but as I have not really contributed anything except minor details, I don't want to be the one taking the final step in doing so. up+land 19:24, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I have felt that the article is still in somewhat of a state of undress.  The threat of inviting more critical eyes inspired me to do some re-organizing.  There were things like a paragraph about his diet stuck under Psychic abilities, which was in turn listed under Scientific contributions.  I attempted to rearrange things so they made more sense, and do a little more copyediting so we wouldn't be embarassed by the expert editors around here.  IMHO, it is much closer to being presentable now, but it could still use (at minimum) a careful look at how to divide events of his scientific life between the Biography and Accomplishments sections. Feel free to weigh in with anything else.  And thanks to Bishonen for the kind words.  --Blainster 23:21, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, the article is/was messy. The main reason for this are interveaved sentences from the 1911 British Enc. --Fred-Chess 19:53, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Nobody is really working on this article. Too bad. What the thing about the trinity has to do here I don't know. --Fred-Chess 18:12, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

text: I feel this entry is completely lacking in regard to Swedenborg's actual impact on Victorian culture; but I wanted to register my sentiments here before editing the entry. In the first place, Swedenborg's visions of communication with angels largely laid the foundation for that great spiritual pandemic known as spiritualism. Because of the importance of spiritualism in Victorian life, this deserves a serious look. As if that weren't enough, several biographies of Ralph Waldo Emerson seem to suggest that Swedenborg's ideas on sexuality were even more influential. It's currently believed that both Charles Fourier and Wolfgang Goethe were inspired by Swedenborg's notion of "spiritual affinities" (which Goethe called "Elective Affinities"). In a world in which the pressure to marry young was high and the social penalties for that failure known as "divorce" were even more onerous, the notion that one might be tethered by a higher law to one's true "spiritual affinity" outside marriage exerted for many an irresistable attraction.  Moreover, Swedenborg's assertion that souls were essentially androgynous fascinated a society that struggled with harsh, iron-clad gender roles. Emerson, for instance (a mystic who was nontheless also a rational Freethought philosopher), hotly rejected spiritualism, and never gave any indication that he believed Swedenborg actually spoke with heavenly visitors. It follows that Emerson and some of his liberal contemporaries actually reverenced Swedenborg's "spiritual affinities" and spiritual androgyny. 70.59.148.221 22:27, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Although it appears to be mostly speculations, you are free to write what you want. Also see Swedenborgianism for related info. Fred-Chess 02:02, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

text:  I'm sorry, but "Swedenborg's assertion that souls were essentially androgynous" really confuses me. That souls have distinct gender and that the afterlife is one that includes regular marital relations between men and women is essential to Swedenborg's whole theology. In what works did he assert that souls were androgynous? --Mac 13:28, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Peer review again?

message: The sound file is fine and correct, and I appreciate it.
However, Swedenborg is an international character, he is the internationally most read Swedish 18t-century author next to Linneaus, and his name is probably pronounced in a different way in the Swedenborgian Churches in the United States and by the 50,000 followers worldwide. (His works were also translated first to English I think, and first later into Swedish?) 
Taking into account that this is English Wiki, I'm not sure the sound file is necessary? 
Welcome to explain your thoughts, Karmosin.
--Fred-Chess 21:31, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sound file 

message: I found these on the web
UNESCO has launched the Memory of the World Programme to guard against collective amnesia calling upon the preservation of the valuable archive holdings and library collections all over the world ensuring their wide dissemination.
One of 3 nominations from Sweden are Sw. libray. The intro follows:
Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) is one of the internationally best known of Swedish writers. After a successful career as a scientist and a technician he went through a religious crisis in the 1740's, which ended in a revelation commanding him to devote the rest of his life to interpreting the Holy Scripture and reporting what he had seen and heard in the world of spirits and angels. In obedience to this divine task, he spent his last twenty-five years writing a great number of books, in which he attempted restoring the internal sense of the Biblical Word, as he understood it. After his death in 1772, his manuscripts, some 20 000 pages, were donated by his heirs to the Royal Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, of which Swedenborg was a member. It is one of the biggest existing collections of manuscripts from the 18th century, and besides one of the very few in modern times that has served as the basis for a new Christian church. Swedenborg's message has found many receivers all over the world, and at least some of them look upon his manuscripts as relics. Because of their holy status many of the papers were also reproduced in a photolithographic edition as early as around 1870 by American and British Swedenborg congregations, and the technique was then used for the first time on a large scale. There are still quite a few Swedenborg societies and churches extant, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom. Some of these are translating and publishing his writings in new editions.
http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=16191&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
(Good, our article isn't completely off...)
And there is a "photo" section related to the nomination:
http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=16196&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=-459.html
I'm not going to take any images these without asking for permission however -- also they might have larger copies of them, and think they might be willing to contribute.
--Fred-Chess 03:56, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Further reading 

message: If some sections are doubtful or you want to know exact references about who claims what, just write it here, and I will try to add it to the article.
--Fred-Chess 18:06, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  about in text references 

message: It is possible for an etiologist to infer that Swedenborg's mystical pronouncements were "just the coffee talking."Lestrade 13:33, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Coffee Talk

message: sorry if i'm doing this wrong. i've read plenty from the wikipedia website, but never tried to comment before. anyways, I thought this was a subject which i may be credible in, and while I don't really have much to add, I thought I might as well go ahead and confirm some things. the reason I feel I am credible, is that I have been raised Swedenborgian (funny, i actually don't know how that's spelled) and am currently attending school in a Swedenborgian (New Church) Highschool.
There are just a few things I would like to comment on: First of all the sound file was... well I'm not going to call it wrong, because i've never heard it articulated by an actual Swedish person, but it's certainly not pronounced in any way i've ever heard. The way i've always said it was just as you might expect by sounding it out: I(pronounced the same way as the "i" in "big")-manuel(like a manuel you read) Sweden(like the country)-borg(like the aliens or whatever the borg is... maybe i should look that up on wikipedia. i know i've heard it before.) not that the pronunciation matters at all, but i thought i'd clarify before someone said it like that and made themself sound silly.
As an ending note: I see nothing that conflicts between the teachings i've learned and the way it's been written here, and i'm fairly certain the author was a Swedenborian like myself, or atleast grew up in a New Church community as i have (judging from their accuracy and their screen name). On that note i'll go back to my homework (i'm studying swedenborg's flying machine incase you're interested. There was an article about it on Wikipedia last i checked.)
:While I'm not Swedish and my knowledge of Swedish is very superficial, the pronunciation in the OGG file is precisely what I would have assumed it to be in today's Swedish.  Of course, it's entirely likely that Swedenborg pronounced it a bit differently, as IIRC Swedish has had some particularly dramatic evolution in the last few hundred years (at least as compared with English and French, for example). Tkinias 20:44, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Just Some Confirmation of the Article 

message: I have recently reviewed the article & found that it fulfills the criterion for being a good article. So I have promoted it to GA status. My congratulations to all the article's contributers for  doing a fine job. 
Cheers
Srikeit(talk ¦ ✉) 01:43, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  GA Promotion 

message: The article is filled with the above religious phrasing and in addition capitalizes "His" and "Him" in reference to deity. I've added an NPOV tag so that someone who has time can remove all this religiosity and piousness. JadedKat 11:50, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That is not the right tag. I will restore to previous version. Please select a different tag from Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup or Wikipedia:Template messages/Maintenance. / Fred-Chess 15:03, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "Lord", "Lord Jesus Christ", etc.

message: it doesnt talk about his extremely high IQ and him becoming mad in his later life.
Why do you think he was mad? There are no signs of this other than the fact that he experienced what many would call delusional hallucinations, but his explanations of what he experienced remain quite solidly grounded in sanity and reason. If you beleive the spiritual world exists there is no reason to think that he went crazy. Jasonschnarr 17:24, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: IQs weren't measured until the twentieth century. Previous to that time, the concept didn't exist.Lestrade 17:26, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: intelligence

message: This article's GA status has been revoked because it fails criterion 2. b. of 'What is a Good Article?', which states;
::(b) the citation of its sources using inline citations is required (this criterion is disputed by editors on Physics and Mathematics pages who have proposed a subject-specific guideline on citation, as well as some other editors — see talk page). 
LuciferMorgan 00:32, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have now added inline citations, and I've rewritten large parts of the article, including the lead section. / Fred-Chess 14:54, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reasons for GA Delisting 

message: Inserting image here temporarily. 
Fred-Chess 15:40, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Image 

message: * Swedenborg's father was a minister it appears?  This isn't readily apparent.
*the most liberal place in Europe for philosophical discussion and freedom of speech---needs to be cited or deleted.
* fix the links in the quotes at the end.
Some minor things, but cleaned up the reason for delisting.Balloonman 04:33, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure where you want this listed as a GA, so I'm leaving it up to you to classify it.Balloonman 04:36, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I have relisted it. / Fred-Chess 14:33, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: GA Re-nomination

message: A bot  has added class=GA to the WikiProject banners on this page, as it's listed as a good article.  If you see a mistake, please revert, and leave a note on the bot's talk page. Thanks, BOT Giggabot (talk) 05:30, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Automatic addition of "class=GA"

message: There is some citation problems in article. Is it alowed for good article?--Vojvodaeist 18:44, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: To be a Good Article, it must provide "references to all sources of information in the section(s) dedicated to the attribution of these sources according to the guide to layout [snd] iin-line citations from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons". Could you specify the citation problems so that they can be addressed?  Skomorokh  00:26, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: GA

message: Is the "Swedish Christians" category appropriate here? CopaceticThought (talk) 23:28, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Swedish Christians 

message: I have heard on other sites that Swedenborg predicted the day that he died, but didn't see it mentioned here. If he did, can anyone verify this?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.186.136.190 (talk) 05:27, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prediction of his death date 

message: A recent series of edits by  added the following commentary about this article into the text of the article itself. This does not meet wp:MOS, so it has been moved here:
 -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 23:32, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Myopic commentary moved out of article

message: In the previous version, the following statement was made:
>>“ Swedenborg referred to himself as an initialis, in Greek μυστικός (mystikos), "an initiate" (Bergquist, 1999, p.451; in turn based on Arcana Cœlestia §4099)”
I have deleted this statement since I could find no mention in Swedenborg’s theological works of him referring to himself as a mystikos and the AC 4099 citation refers to the regeneration process and appears to have nothing to do with Swedenborg and mysticism.Future777 (talk) 11:01, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Swedenborg and mystikos

message: I will shortly be putting up a brief summary on this long-discussed issue.Future777 (talk) 21:40, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Swedenborg and vegetarianism

message: I am removing the wikify tag since, as noted in the “No reason” comment, no reason is cited for the tag. One has to wonder if vandalism is involved here since the author does not appear to have read the article.  There already are “relevant internal links,” the standard format with theologian infobox is already in place, as are “ ”, and it follows standard Wiki layout.Future777 (talk) 11:02, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Wikify tag

message: I read in Robert Cecil's Masks of Death that his grandfather had had Swedenborgian servants who had climbed a hill on a certain day (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_apocalyptic_events ) predicted by Swedenborg to be the end of days. This obviously was not to be and they had to climb back down again when nothing happened.
--Wool Bridge (talk) 21:59, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Predicting  the end of the world 

message: (Corection of  "Myopic commentary moved out of article" above.)
The citation "Bergquist (1999)" appears in the “Notes” multiple times. The 1999 date of these citations would appear to refer to the original 1999 Swedish version of the book (Bergquist, L. Swedenborgs hemlighet Stockholm, Sweden 1999), not the 2005 English translation (Bergquist, L. Swedenborg’s Secret.  A biography. London  2005).  This raises question about the accuracy of the Notes’ Bergquist citations.  Thus, for instance, reference 35 in the Notes, “(Bergquist 1999 pp. 114-115),” mentions the family name change but in the 2005 book pages pp.114-115 refer to metallurgy.  Reference 36 in the Notes', “(Bergquist 1999 pp. 118-119),” refers to a job offer and Swedenborg’s stuttering but in the 2005 book pp. 118-119 refer to aspects of God. In sum, it appears that the reader would need to consult the original Swedish version of the book  to determine what the Bergquist Notes actually refer to.Future777 (talk) 10:44, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Bergquist foonote problem

message: I can find no evidence in the literature supporting the 21st or 29th July as the date of the fire.  I thus deleted all reference to both dates.Future777 (talk) 13:43, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: One more comment about the fire. It is stated: "it had consumed his neighbor’s home". Then it says "the fire had stopped three doors from his home". > Seems to me not both can be true. 
--A3Braam (talk) 04:31, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: The Fire Anecdotes

message: There are several facts about the fire and Swedenborg's vision:
#Any Gregorian calendar tells that July 19, 1759 was a Thursday. And Sweden converted to the Gregorian calendar at 1753.
#The original, Swedish issue of Bergquist's Swedenborg biography says (p. 313): The dinner and Swedenborg's vision aged place at Sunday July 29. Bergquist do also cite Kant. Kant dated Swedenborg's vision to a Sunday in September 1756. Bergquist corrects the date to July 29  - but he doesn't correct the Sunday. This is also consistent with the fact that July 19, 1759 was a Thursday.
#If Bergquist is right, Swedenborg could have got information about the fire without any "paranormal" abilities.
Why July 19, 1759 was a Thursday:
Year 1759 (MDCCLIX) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Friday of the 11-day slower Julian calendar). 1759.
Common year starting on Monday: July 19 is a Thursday, and July 29 a Sunday.
The confusion about the weekday of the fire is not caused by different calendars: Swedish calendar states: In 1753, one year later than England and its colonies, Sweden introduced the Gregorian calendar, whereby the leap of 11 days was accomplished in one step, with February 17 being followed by March 1.Roscoe Lamont, The reform of the Julian calendar (II), Popular Astronomy 28 (1920) 18–32, see pages 24–25.
Pål Jensen (talk) 06:31, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Why the Stockholm fire July 19, 1759, broke out on a Thursday

message: ^ STAIRS. "True Christian Religion 200". Kemptonproject.org. Retrieved 2013-07-14.
The citation given is: </ref> However, The Kempton Project citation is incorrect. The original publisher for the passage cited is the Swedenborg Foundation. (Swedenborg E, The True Christian Religion Containing the Universal Theology of the New Church. Swedenborg Foundation 1946, # 200)Future777 (talk) 19:38, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Footnote Citation Correction

message: Though the content itself appears largely factual, in many places the wording appears to take the POV of Swedenborg's writings being "the truth". It requires rewording from a neutral point of view. Instead of saying X, it should should uniformly say that he or his followers believe X.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.198.131.195 (talk) 02:19, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV issues 

message: I didn't see it anywhere in the article, but Swedenborg was very important to the American Spiritualists who were trying to generate a Spiritualist theology - beyond parlor tricks, that is. It's been a while since I studied Spiritualism, so I can't give details and references. Maybe someone else can. 
MarkinBoston (talk) 17:39, 6 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Swedenborg and Spiritualism 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I am most surprised to find nothing on his work on iron and other metals in the text of this article except the appearance of a three-volume work of 1734 in his list of publications.  This is a significant work which is still referred to by historians of the industry and ought to have a paragraph at the end of the scientific section.  Sweden had been the major European producer of copper, though the industry was by then past its prime; and was the most important exporter of iron in Europe.  These were thus major factors in the Swedish economy of the period.  Peterkingiron (talk) 08:50, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Metallurgy 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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