ES was a prolific writer and my array of topics is highly selective and based on my own interests. My major source for replies I-II is my favorite book on ES: Wilson Van Dusen, "The Presence of Other Worlds: The Psychological/ Spiritual Findings of Emanuel Swedenborg." Both in I-II and the current post, I summarize Van Dusen's lengthy reports. My reports are also shaped by insights from the more scholarly work by Enrst Benz, "Emanuel Swedenborg: Vsionary Savant in the Age of Reason."

III. ES's VERIFICATIONS OF HIS CONVERSATIONS WITH THE DEAD

ES never contacted the dead just to satisfy the voyeuristic curiosity of supplicants; rather, he had to be convinced that such contacts would benefit them spiritually. By his own admission, ES experienced hundreds of spectacular verifications of his gift of contacting deceased souls and angels in the spirit world. But he mentioned none of these in his prolific writings. The confirmatory incidents were all recorded out of the astonishment of the eyewitnesses. ES refrained from disclosing his verifications for at least two reasons:

(a) He believes that miracles have a coercive effect on belief that too often undermines the quality of free will in spiritual matters. In his view, impressive miracles tend to affect only the externals of belief. In time, the internal, freely chosen path comes to rule and even miraculous events are washed away and forgotten in the current of time. God has created us to FEEL or intuit our way to Him, not to THINK our way to Him. True, feelings can be shallow and unreliable. ES is referring to our higher-level feelings that are rooted in a truly loving mpulse that can tune in to God's loving essence. Even Jesus questions the power of miracles to convince skeptics to embrace spiritual truths in a life-transforming way (Luke 16:31).

(b) Besides, ES's gift is ridiculed by many of his contemporaries. For example, consider this incident witnessed by Dr. Krohl. One day at a large social gathering, Bishop Troilius decided "to amuse himself and the rest of the company at ES's expense." He derisively posed this challenge to ES: "By the way, ...tell us something about the spirit world. How does my friend Broman spend his time there?" ES answered instantly, "I saw him just a few hours ago shuffling cards in the presence of the Evil One, and he was only waiting for your worship to make a game of Tresett." An embarrassed Troilius had not told ES that Broman was one of his gambling buddies and that their card game of choice was Tresett! Dr. Krohl notes, "The conversation...was thus brought to a close, and it is not difficult to see which of the two became the subject of the company's mirth."

Perhaps, ES's allusion to "the Evil One" was meant tongue-in-cheek to knock Troilius down a peg. The ensuing 3 incidents seem even more compelling: (1) ES was once summoned for an audience with swedish Queen Lousia Ulrica. She asked him if he could really converse with the dead. When ES said "yes", she invited him and Count Sheffer to retire to a quiet spot where she asked ES to take a commission to her deceased brother. The queen and her brother had been separated because their countries were at war when he died. She did not really believe in ES's abilities. Still, at his next audience with her, she lightly asked if he had a message from her brother. ES suggested that they speak alone. The queen was later described as in shock, so indisposed that she had to retire. She said later that ES had revealed what no living person knew about her brother. The message must have been intensely personal because neither ES nor the queen ever revealed it.

(2) Around 1770 AD a merchant from Elberfield visited ES after he had moved to Amsterdam. He convinced ES that he had a burning spiritual quest and asked him if he could visit a recent deceased friend and ask him about their last conversation. ES asked his friend's name and then asked the merchant to return in a few days. Upon his return, ES smiled and said, "I have spoken with your friend; the subject of your conversation was the restitution of all things." If ES had simply read the merchant's mind, one might expect ES's ESP to be limited to the last conversational subject in general. But ES then accurately expounded in great detail the different positions that the merchant and his deceased friend had defended. The merchant turned pale and asked, "Is he in a state of blessedness?" ES replied, "No, he is not yet in heaven; he is still in Hades, and torments himself continually with the idea of the restitution of all things." The merchant exclaimed, "My God! What, in the other world?" ES replied, "Certainly; a man takes with him his favorite inclinations and opinions, and it is very difficult to be divested of them. We ought, therefore, to lay them aside here." The awstruck merchant then went back to Elberfield and shared his confirmatory story.

(3) A skeptic might try to explain incidents (1) and (2) in terms of ESP derived from the minds of the living. But our next incident seems to preclude that explanation. In 1761 a countesse M. de Marteville came to ES and explained that her husband, the Dutch ambassador to Sweden, had just died. He had given her a costly silver service just before he died and now the silversmith was demanding payment that she could no longer afford. Besides, she felt certain that her husband had already paid for it. She asked ES to contact her husband about the receipt. ES agreed and 3 days later he visited her and reported what her husband had told him. The receipt, it seems, was in an upstairs bureau. She protested that she had already searched that bureau. But the deceased husband had told ES that she should look for a secret compartment behind a certain drawer. the woman promptly went upstairs with ES, and to her astonishment, found the receipt, together with other important papers. No one alive had known about this secret compartment.

To me, ES's verifications of information gleaned from angels are even more impressive. I will document this in my next scheduled post.

Don