Swedenborg - Emanuel Swedenborgs Journal of dreams and spiritual experiences in the year seventeen hundred and forty-four

Swedenborg, Emanuel, 1688-1772

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INTRODUCTION

Emanuel Svvedenborg", at various periods of his life, was in the iiabit of keeping- a diary. The most extensive and best known of his diaries is the Spiritual Diary, in which, from the year 1747 to 1765, he made notes of his experiences in the spiritual world.

As far as is known, Swedenborg- did not begin to keep a diary until the year 1733, when he wrote down a very brief sketch of his first two foreign journeys, beginning with the year 1710. This was followed by a larger itinerary, describing- his travels in Germany during" the years 1733 and 1734, but it was discontinued during the year 1735. when Swedenborg remained at his home in Stockholm. When, in the year 1736, he started on his fourth and most extensive foreign journey, he again began to keep an itinerary, or, more properly speaking, a diary, which he kept up until March. 1739, describing his travels in Holland, Flanders. France, and Italy. It has been reported that Swedenborg, in the manuscript containing this Diary, also described some remarkable dreams which he experienced during these years, but that his heirs removed the pages containing these dreams. Only two leaves, however, are missing from this manuscript. (Doc. 11:130.")

We come now to Swedenborg's third attempt at keeping a diary,the manuscript which has become known as "Swedenborg's Dreams, 1744,"an octavo pocket book, (6J/2 by 4 inches), bound in parchment and containing 104 written pages. Of the history of this Codex nothing is known except the fact that it was found by Mr. L. B. Borberg in the library of the late R. Scheringson, professor and lector in the city of Westeras, who died

in 1849 St the age of ninety years. Concerning this Professor Scheringson nothing further was known until we found that he was one of the earliest opponents of the New Church, having published at Upsala, in the year 1787, a work in two volumes, entitled DiSSERTATIO SISTENS ObSERVATIONES NONNULLAS DE PhILOSGPHIA RECENTIORUM PlATONICORUM, INDOLEM ATQUE ORIGINEM

Fanatismi nostri ^vi illustrantes, (A Dissertation presenting certain observations concerning the philosophy of the NeoPlatonists, illustrating the genius and origin of the Fanaticism of the present age). According to Professor Sundelin, in his History OF Swedenborgianism in Sweden, (p. 245), this work was an insidious and learned attack upon the theology of the New Church, attempting to prove that Swedenborg had borrowed almost the whole of his system from the Neo-Platonic philosophers.

But how did it come about that the manuscript of Swedenborg's Dreams was found in the library of this enemy of Swedenborg? We do not know, but the fact that Bishop Lars Benzelstjerna, who was Swedenborg's nephew and, therefore, one of his heirs, was Bishop of the Diocese of Westeras, suggests the probability that he had obtained possession of the manuscript in question, and had loaned it to Professor Scheringson, with whom it had remained, forgotten, more than half a century.

In the year 1858 the existence of this manuscript became known to Gustaf E. Klemming, the chief librarian of the Royal Library in Stockholm, and it was now purchasexi by this institution. Klemming was an avowed enemy of the New Church, but was deeply interested in Swedenborgianism as a curious literary phenomenon, and he made a specialty of collecting all works relating to it. The little pocket-book, which in many places was extremely diflficult to decipher, was now placed in the hands of Mr. F. A. Dahlgren. amanuensis at the National Archives, and this expert chirographist produced a clean copy, which, in 1859, was published in an edition of 99 numbered copies by P. A. Nordstedt and

Sons, Royal Printers at Stockholm, under the title: Swedenborgs Drommar. (Swedenborg's Dreams, 1744, together with

SOME OTHER NOTES BY HIM. FrOM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS.)

As was expected, the publication of the Drommar created a tremendous sensation both within and without the New Church. Soon after the appearance of the volume, a review, not of a friendly character, and undoubtedly written by Dr. Klemming, was published in the Aftonbladet, the leading evening paper of Stockholm.

The few and scattered Xew Church people in Sweden, usually ver>^ timid, now took courage, and, in the year i860, issued a second Swedish edition of the work, prefaced by twenty-four pages of "Reflections on the lately discovered Dreams of SwEDENBORG." (Stockholm, J. and A. Riis.) This unsigned preface was written by Lady Anna Fredrika Ehrenborg, a noble, gifted, and fearless authoress, who had championed the cause of the New Church in many publications and had edited two distinctive New Church journals, Nagot Nytt, (Something New), and Ett Christligt Sandebud, (A Christian Messenger). In her "Reflections," Lady Ehrenborg explained the real nature of these "Dreams" of Swedenborg, describing the transition state through which Swedenborg was passing in the year 1744, and the spiritual temptations and vastations he was then sustaining.

Dr. Wilkinson, in i860, completed a first English translation of the Dreams; it was never published, but the manuscript is still preserved in the library of the Swedenborg Society in London. During the next two years there appeared what was claimed to be a new and independent English version, but which was in reality nothing but a clumsily disguised transcription of Dr. Wilkinson's translation. Mr. William White, in his second, (and hostile). Biography of Swedenborg, (1867-1868), asserts that "Baron Constant Dirckinck Holmfeld. of Copenhagen, has ver\- kindlv made for me a translation into English of the rough