Emanuel Swedenborg 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."

Modern astral adepts too often ignore the contradictions inherent in each other's astral "insights." More serious is their failure to come to terms with Emanuel Swedenborg [hereafter ES], the man who arguably deserves the title "The Father of Astral Projection." By the way, I am not a Swedenborgian. My thread will briefly expose the reader to ES's discoveries in the hope of inspiring discussion and debate on the extent to which his insights can or should be reconciled with those of modern astral adepts. ES is truly an original: he lived long before the emergence of modern New Age perspectives and can therefore serve as a useful foil for assessing the extent to which modern adepts are unwittingly duped by a misguided occult consensus. To provide the discussion focus and direction, I will now specify the sequence in which I will summarize aspects of ES's life and research.

I. SWEDENBORG: A SCIENTIFIC GENIUS
II. SWDENBORG'S EVOLVING METHODOLOGY
III. HIS VERIFICATIONS OF HIS CONVERSATIONS WITH THE DEAD
IV. HIS VERIFICATIONS OF HIS CONVERSATIONS WITH ANGELS
V. THREE INITIAL STATES AFTER DEATH
VI. SWEDENBORG ON THE NATURE OF HEAVEN AND HELL
VII. SWEDENBORG'S THEORY OF CORRESPONDENCES
(1) THE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN SPACE AND DISTANCE IN
POSTMORTEM EXPERIENCE
(2) EVOLUTION AND CORRESPONDENCE
(3) SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS THAT SEEM TO VERIFY SWEDENBORG'S
INSIGHTS INTO ENERGY SPHERES
(4) THE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THE HEAVENLY REALM AND ONE'S
INNER REALITY
(5) CORRESPONDENCE: THE KEY TO DIVINATION
VIII. SWEDENBORG ON SOUL RETRIEVALS
IX. SWEDENBORG ON REINCARNATION
(1) SWEDENBORG'S DISCOVERY THAT PAST LIFE RECALL PROVIDES NO
EVIDENCE FOR REINCARNATOIN
(2) A SWEDENBORGIAN CRITIQUE OF THE NEW AGE CONCEPT OF THE
GROUP SOUL

In this post, I will elaborate only I-II of my announced agneda.

I. SWEDENBORG: A SCIENTIFIC GENIUS

Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772 AD) spent the first part of his life absorbing the scientific knowledge of his era and wrote over 100 scientific works. He also mastered a repertoire of technical trades. His primary occupation was that of mining engineer and inspector of mines. But he was a ground-breaking thinker in physics, chemistry, mathematics, and astronomy. For example, he is particulary famous his nebular hypothesis. He also made major contributions in anatomy and the neurosciences. For example, he was the first to discover the functions of the brain's cerebellum. He recognized a special funtion of the pituitary gland two centuries before modern endocrinology. He was a metallurgist and is credited with founding the science of crystallography. He also directed a project that moved ships over 14 miles of mountains and valleys. He designed stoves, an ear ♥♥♥♥♥et, pumps and fire extinguishers, and a flying machine. The list goes on and on.

At age 56 in the 1740s, he shifted his focus to the nature of the pysche or soul. ln 36 volumes he recorded and interpreted his dreams and, in the process, anticipated many modern psychoanalytic insights. He quickly realized that anatomical and neurological would not be very helpful in this new quest. His former scientific approach was inadequate for such elusive matters. This realization catapulted him down the road to mysticism and astral exploration.

II. SWEDENBORG'S EVOLVING METHODOLOGY

Without knowing it, ES engaged from childhood in a meditation akin to Yogic and Buddhist practices. He would relax, close his eyes, and focus in with total concentration on a scientific problem. At the same time, his breathing would nearly stop and his awareness of the outer world and even bodily sensation would diminish to the point of vanishing. He whole existence would focus on the one issue he wanted to understand.

What began as an intensely intellectual form of meditation ultimately progressed to an exploration of his dreams, the hypnagogic state, and later, trances. The hypnagogic sate is experienced twice a day as one goes into and out of sleep. Few people have the discipline and focus to explore the spontaneous wellsprings of mind that bubble up from this state. ES learned to converse with its symbolic inner processes. Those who really explore this state can linger for hours watching scenes and hearing things said. For some reason, some people are primarily visual during this state, and others, like myself, are primarily auditory.

In the hypnagogic state, something is said or seen before there is any possibility of grasping its meaning. For example, in this state ES gains this insight: "As to pleasure, wealth, and rank, which I had pursued, I perceived that all was vanity and that he is the happier who is devoid of such things. ..I seemed to hear a hen cackling, as she does when she has laid an egg." ES later realizes that chickens are not very bright. Symbolically, his mind is warning him that his insight is nothing to be proud of and must be only the prelude to far more profound insights.

The sphere which most people rule within their minds is relatively small. Unlike ES, the average person would find it very hard to hold one thought, image, or intention in mind for even one minute. In the hypnogogic state, one can watch thoughts form and be spoken without one's behest. Further, the inner processes think faster and more cleverly than the meditator and the symbolic language spoken may not even be understood. By inspecting feelings, associations, and the situation being symbolized, it is possible to penetrate the symbol.

For ES these inner states suggest the presence of other spiritual beings interacting with our lives. Those who scoff at this suggestion have rarely shared ES's determination to use the hypnogogic state as a springboard for more vivid waking trance states and ultimately for visits to the World of Spirits, the Hells, and the Heavens. By contrast, we generally experience such inner states merely as pieces of the unconscious self bubbling to the surface. ES's communal notion of of the earthly self would embrace both perspectives as valid!

ES's exploration of this threshold state was a key to his later breakthrough as an astral adept. But there was another decisive factor that I recently discovered by perusing Ernst Benz's biography:

"At Easter, 1744, Swedenborg fell off his bed and found himself gazing into Jesus' face, radiant with warmth and love. This was a new starting point for his individuation, culminating a year later in spirit vision and a commission from God to give humankind a new religious revelation. This combined an esoteric view of God, heaven, and earth with a strong desire for a pietist reform of Lutheran orthodoxy (p. xx)." Lutheran orthodoxy would dismiss him as a heretic, but his revelations ultimately made him the father of modern spiritualism and astral projection.

To add a persnal note, I have had three interesting experiences with the hypnagogic threshold: (1) When I was a teenager, my brother Doug was on the verge of awaking when he was frightened by the spectre of a tall form leaning over my bed across from his. Doug initially thought it was my Mom, but when he called her name, the figure turned and proved to be a stranger. He still swears that he was fully awake when he witnessed that spectre. It seems more likely that he was fooled by the threshold between sleeping and awakening. But then was the spectre an astral spirit or merely an imaginary dream figure?

(2) I have often awakened to a whirring sound as if I were rotating rapidly at the end of a washing machine cycle. Was I re-entering my body after a forgotten OBE? (3) I have also often awakened to the sound of someone shouting at me. At first I would think someone was outside the house, but I would soon realize that the shouting was generated in this sleep threshold period. But was I hearing the end of a forgotten communication from an astral spirit? I remain skepical of any astral significance for (1)-(3), but ES's exploration of this threshold state often makes me wonder.

I am also haunted by a discovery made by David Fontana. Upon awaking, he was often frightened by an occasional sense that an invisible stranger was in his bedroom. Further exploration taught him that the stranger was in fact his own spirit returning to his body after a forgotten astral adventure.

ES's Discernment of the Genuineness of his Paranormal Enounters:

As his consciousness expands from dreams and hypnogogic states to waking trances, conversations with demons and angels, and visits to the afterlife territories, ES actively seeks out ways of validating his experiences. In all these psychic states, he begins to experience the little-known phenomenon called photism or orbs of light. The meditator seeking guidance finds a signal system to guide him. ES sees an affirming flame. He observes: "Such a flame appeared to me so often, and indeed, in different sizes in a diversity of color and splendor, that during some months when I was writing a certain work, hardly a day passed in which a flame did not appear as vividly as the flame of a household hearth." Most people who experience orbs are puzzled by by their significance. ES tested the validity of his flame and soon discovered that it was "a sign of approval." He could, for example, correlate it with his scientific breakthroughs. Both by its color and warmth, his flame symbolizes love and feeling. During his expanded awareness, ES begins experiencing his guiding flame during his daytime trances and visions as well.

Too many modern astral adepts tend to accept the entities they encounter at face value without rigorously discerning their positive or negative ambience. ES's passion to encounter the divine reinforces his discipline and resolve to test the spirits by sorting out their quality and usefulness. He even experiences automatic writing. He'd feel his hand being seized by lower-order spirits and forced to write things about biblical figures that he didn't even approve of. But his most impressive verifications derive from evidence that he can truly contact the dead and gain from angels information that at times cannot be gleaned from the minds of incarnate humans.

Don