[editor] reading swedenborg at the rim of the world: perspectives on swedenborgian thought from the...

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THE NEW PHILOSOPHY, July–December 2014

EDITORIAL REMARKS

In This Issue

We are delighted to have Dr. Devin Zuber, M.A., M.Phil. serve asGuest Editor for this issue. Dr. Zuber is Assistant Professor for

American Studies, Literature, and Swedenborgian Studies at the GraduateTheological Union in Berkeley, California. He is a graduate of Bryn AthynCollege (B.A., 2000). The articles included here are papers of students inhis spring 2013 course on “Swedenborg and History.”

As a matter of record for the Swedenborg Scientific Association weinclude in this issue the Treasurer’s Report for 2013. As there was noAnnual Meeting in the traditional sense in 2014, no transactions are in-cluded.

Erland J. Brock

READING SWEDENBORG AT THE RIM OF THEWORLD: PERSPECTIVES ON SWEDENBORGIANTHOUGHT FROM THE GRADUATE THEOLOGICALUNION

Devin Zuber

The Graduate Theological Union (GTU) in Berkeley, California, wasformed in 1962 as an ecumenical consortium for religious and theo-

logical education, part of a larger groundswell of interdenominationalgoodwill that included the liberalizing policies of the second VaticanCouncil (or “Vatican II”). Today the GTU is not only a leader in interde-nominational divinity programs, but remains a pioneer of interreligiousgraduate education, with centers and programs for Jewish Studies, Bud-dhism, and Islamic Studies, in addition to its eight Protestant and Catho-lic-affiliated seminaries and theological institutions.1 Since 2002, the

1 Over the next two years, the GTU will be launching a new Center for Dharma Studiesthat is to offer graduate courses in Hinduism, Sikhism, and Jainism, thus broadening the GTU’scomprehensive coverage of all the world’s major religions.

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EDITORIAL REMARKS

Swedenborgian House of Studies, formerly the Swedenborg School ofReligion in Andover, Massachusetts, has resided at the Pacific School ofReligion—one of the founding Protestant members of the GTU consor-tium—and has contributed distinctly Swedenborgian courses and theol-ogy into the broader GTU curricula over the last decade. Swedenborg’sown remarkable 18th century religious pluralism, an enlarging facet of hisChristian theosophy that went on to make substantial contributions to thehistory of American interreligious dialogue and the study of comparativereligion,2 has meshed well with the GTU’s mission to be a place “wherereligion meets the world.”

One has a sense of that meeting, quite literally, from the expansivevistas of the Pacific School of Religion campus that overlook the SanFrancisco Bay, with the city towers of San Francisco rising across thewater. With such a westward facing view—the Pacific Ocean can often beseen, framed by the Golden Gate Bridge—one never loses the resolutesense of being perched on the Pacific rim, facing westwards towards Asia:the terminus of the North American land mass. Perhaps it is no wonderthat it was in purview of such a vista, in the mountains above nearby SantaCruz, that a former Swedenborgian minister named Hermann Vetterlingbegan publishing the Buddhist Ray in 1888—a periodical “Devoted toBuddhism in General and to the Buddhism in Swedenborg in Particular,”which stands today as the first Buddhist journal to be published in NorthAmerica.3 In the density of San Francisco, Berkeley, and Oakland that liesbelow this panorama afforded by “Holy Hill” (as the GTU is affectionatelycalled by locals) sits one of the most demographically and religiouslydiverse urban areas in the United States. The graduate students who cometo the GTU refract the microcosm of the globe that is the Bay Area, and a

2 The importance of Swedenborgian theology for the worlds first (inter)religious parlia-ment of 1893 is addressed in George Dole, With Absolute Respect: The Swedenborgian Theology ofCharles Carroll Bonney (West Chester: Swedenborg Foundation, 1993). For the possible back-ground role of Swedenborgian thought in William James’s foundational text for the compara-tive study of religion, Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), see Eugene Taylor, “The SpiritualRoots of James’s Varieties of Religious Experience” in William James, The Varieties of ReligiousExperience: A Study in Human Nature, Centenary Edition, ed. by Eugene Taylor and JeremyCarette (New York: Routledge, 2002), xv–xxxviii.

3 See Devin Zuber, “Buddha of the North: Swedenborg and Transpacific Zen.” Religionand the Arts 14.1–2 (2010): 1–33.

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typical GTU classroom has students of varying theological and spiritualstripes, both those practicing a religious tradition and those there to studyreligion from a more secular point of view. It is an exciting, and occasion-ally challenging, environment in which to teach Swedenborg’s writings.

The students who took my spring 2013 course on “Swedenborg inHistory” were no exception to this diversity. Some were PhD and MAstudents studying comparative theologies or interdisciplinary approachesto art and religion; others were enrolled as divinity students to earn adegree that would qualify them for denominational ordination or to workas chaplains. All, by and large, were relatively new to reading Swedenborg,and part of the delight of teaching such a class was to watch how theirvarious encounters with Swedenborg could open unexpected perspec-tives on their own research agendas, while simultaneously casting newlight on several areas of Swedenborg Studies. The three essays gatheredhere represent the best thinking to come out of that seminar, and eachcontributes to our better collective understanding of how Swedenborgianthought impacted various cultural contexts that lie outside the pale of thedenominational history of the New Church. The essays are arrangedchronologically, and cover periods prior to Swedenborg’s life, the 18thcentury in which Swedenborg lived and wrote, as well as moments of laterartistic reception in the 19th and 20th centuries. The methodologies andapproaches to Swedenborg are as varied as the different centuries andtime periods under consideration. In “Seven are the Steps to Heaven: aComparative Study of Swedenborg and Simnani,” Cassie Lipowitz de-ploys a comparative theological framework to explore some of the pro-found parallels between Swedenborg’s concepts of spiritual regenerationand those of ‘Ala’ ad-dawla as-Simnani (1261–1336), the great medievalIslamic mystic. This dexterous bridging across-the-centuries owes, asLipowitz acknowledges, much to the pioneering comparative work ofHenry Corbin, the first scholar to address the significant parallels betweenSwedenborgian theology and esoteric Islam.4 Despite Corbin’s breadth ofconsideration, however, Lipowitz’s essay here will be the first to directly

4 See the posthumous collection, Henry Corbin, Swedenborg and Esoteric Islam (WestChester: Swedenborg Foundation, 1995).

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EDITORIAL REMARKS

address Simnani viz-a-viz Swedenborgian hermeneutics. “BothSwedenborg and Simnani understood,” Lipowitz argues, “that humanbeings—like the sacred texts they interpreted—have multiple levels. Theymay also have understood, better than most, that if we, as individuals,remain inert on the lowest level, we remain ‘dead’—just as a literal read-ing of the sacred text renders it lifeless.”

A different set of parallels is noted by Sarah McCune in “Mining theConnections between Falu Gruva and Emanuel Swedenborg.” McCuneoffers a close-reading of Swedenborg’s earlier poetry about mines, findingin their ambivalent combination of wonder and terror an anticipation notonly of Swedenborg’s later descriptions of hell, but of a Romantic poeticsof the sublime that came to reevaluate subterranean spaces. McCune’sliterary interpretation of Swedenborg’s poetry sheds light on an oftenneglected corner of Swedenborg’s pre-theological writing, and may even,McCune writes, help us gain insight into relationships between poetry,natural science, and theology—fields that, particularly in the case of thelatter two, were quickly emerging as fault lines of conflict as the 18thcentury progressed.

Painters and poets of the subsequent Romantic era readily gravitatedto Swedenborg’s dual role as scientist and revelator, and often attemptedto develop a theory of representation, an accounting for the power of theaesthetic as a spiritual agent, out of their respective engagements withSwedenborg’s writings—in some cases, even using the word “science” todescribe their approach to color, form, and poetic sound.5 These earlierRomantic attractions to Swedenborg—sign-posted by Ralph WaldoEmerson’s use of Swedenborg as his iconic figure of the mystic, for hisinfluential Representative Men essay collection (1850)—paved the way for amore general diffusion of Swedenborgian thought in various avant-gardecircles of the nineteenth century, from the French Symbolists to the ground-breaking, radical poetics of Walt Whitman. The Swedish literary critic andscholar of Swedenborg, Anders Hallengren, has spent considerable time

5 See Jane Williams-Hogan, “Emanuel Swedenborg’s Aesthetic Philosophy and Its Impacton 19th Century American Art,” Toronto Journal of Theology 28(1): Spring 2012, 105–124. TheAmerican painter George Inness’s “scientific” use of Swedenborgian theology for aesthetics isfurther addressed by Rachel Ziady Delue in George Inness and the Science of Landscape (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 2004).

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thinking on the nature of this diffuse influence, including more recentreflections on the Whitman-Swedenborg connection.6 Swedenborg’s tracesin cultural history, writes Hallengren, makes us consider “What, or rather,why is influence then? What is the nature of influence in general? . . .‘Influence’ implies that you open yourself up to receive an effect, sincethere is an imminent attraction or an imminent affinity: it belongs to youand has already domiciliary rights in the world of your mind.”7

The final essay in this issue by Colette Walker, “The Language of Formand Color: Traces of Swedenborg’s Doctrine of Correspondences inKandinsky’s Concerning the Spiritual in Art,” takes up the challenge pre-sented by Swedenborg’s amorphous presence within the history of post-Romantic abstract painting in the early 20th century, particularly in thework and theories of Wasily Kandinsky (1866–1944). By following howFrench Symbolist painters, novelists, and poets variously adapted andappropriated Swedenborg’s doctrine of correspondences, and the conse-quent ways that Symbolism generated anti-mimetic tendencies in laterModernist painting, Walker argues we can locate a definitiveSwedenborgian presence behind early Abstraction’s overtly spiritual pre-occupations with “pure” forms and color. While this topic has beenbroached by art historians before, Walker opens fertile new ground fordelineating specific affinities between Swedenborgian theology andKandinsky’s highly influential theories of non-representational art.

Taken as a whole, these three essays that respectively deal with thevisual arts, 18th century depictions of mines, and Islamic mysticism, rep-resent quite a variegated terrain to survey from the singular perspective ofSwedenborg Studies. Their diversity and breadth of chronological scopeattests, at the very least, to the longevity and significance of Swedenborgianthought. They demonstrate how Swedenborg has vitally mattered, andfurther suggest—like the capacious prospects of the Pacific afforded bythe view from the GTU—of the ongoing relevance of Swedenborg’s writ-ings in the future.

6 Anders Hallengren, “A Hermeneutic Key to the title of ‘Leaves of Grass’,” in In Searchof the Absolute: Essays on Swedenborg and Literature, ed. Stephen McNeilly (London: SwedenborgSociety, 2004): 45–60.

7 Anders Hallengren, Gallery of Mirrors: Reflections of Swedenborgian Thought (WestChester: Swedenborg Foundation, 1998), xxix–xxx.

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SWEDENBORG AND SIMNANI

SEVEN ARE THE STEPS TO HEAVEN: ACOMPARATIVE STUDY OF SWEDENBORG ANDSIMNANI

Cassie Lipowitz*

Though Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) and ‘Ala’ ad-dawla as-Simnani (1261–1336) lived in very different times and contexts, a

close reader may observe many striking similarities present in their ex-egetical works on the Bible and the Qur’an. While a more thoroughcomparison of the two mystics’ ideas would undoubtedly prove valuable,such an endeavor would require extensive analysis, which falls beyondthe scope of the present paper. As such, I will confine the present study toa comparison of Swedenborg’s exegesis of Genesis 1:1–2:3, in which hedescribes the stages of spiritual regeneration, with Simnani’s conceptionof seven spiritual stages, each of which corresponds with one of theQur’anic prophets. In proceeding, two questions will be of particularinterest. First, in a broader vein, how do Swedenborg and Simnani’sspiritual hermeneutics deviate from “normative” readings of their respec-tive sacred texts? And second, to what extent do the stages described bySwedenborg and Simnani follow a corresponding pattern? Through adetailed analysis of Swedenborg’s states of regeneration and Simnani’sstages, I hope to demonstrate an analogous pattern of spiritual develop-ment as envisioned by both mystics; in addition, I will show that bothSwedenborg and Simnani developed strikingly similar conceptions ofspiritual hermeneutics, in which both the text and the individual seekerare perceived as “multilayered” entities. In this approach, I am indebted tothe French scholar Henry Corbin (1903–1978), particularly his essay “Com-parative Spiritual Hermeneutics” that was published posthumously in thecollection Swedenborg and Esoteric Islam. Corbin’s work has much influ-enced my own thinking and comparative methodology in the presentessay. Corbin also addressed the spiritual hermeneutics of ‘Ala’ ad-dawlaas-Simnani, both in The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism (cited extensively inthe present paper), and his multivolume masterpiece, En Islam Iranien. In

* [email protected]

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the present paper, I have endeavored to build upon Corbin’s pathbreakingwork by setting forth a comparison of the spiritual hermeneutics ofSwedenborg and Simnani. While Swedenborg and Simnani have bothreceived scholarly attention, no prior work has yet addressed a compara-tive approach to the two mystics’ writings.

Before delving into Swedenborg’s spiritual exegesis of the first chap-ter of Genesis, it will be helpful to provide a brief biographical sketch.Emanuel Swedenborg was born in 1688 in Stockholm to Jesper Swedbergand Sara Behm. Perhaps due to his father’s religious vocation, Swedenborgdescribes his childhood as a time in which he “was constantly engaged inthoughts on God, salvation, and the spiritual sufferings of men.”1 Thethird eldest of nine children, Swedenborg began attending university atUppsala (where his father had held a position as faculty of theology) at theage of twelve. Having successfully defended his dissertation in 1709,Swedenborg left the following year for England, to seek out opportunitiesfor further scientific study.2 In the following years, Swedenborg proved tobe a remarkable thinker in the natural sciences, physiology, and optics, aswell as astronomy and mathematics, and put his scientific knowledge touse in drawing up plans for various inventions, including a submarine, adrawbridge, and a flying carriage, amongst others. In addition, Swedenborgpublished various scientific works, treating subjects such as cosmologyand mineralogy, as well as upholding his position and responsibilitieswithin the Swedish House of Nobles and Sweden’s Board of Mines.3

In spite of a brilliant career in the sciences, however, Swedenborg’s lifewas to take a dramatic turn during his early 50’s. In 1738, in his fiftiethyear, Swedenborg set out to find the seat of the soul in the human body—a popular scientific venture in his day. The result of his efforts produced amulti-volume work called (as it was often translated into English) Economyof the Animal Kingdom (in the original Latin, Oeconomia Regni Animalis—“Dynamics of the Soul’s Domain”). Yet, even after scrupulous and carefulresearch, the answers he tirelessly sought remained elusive, and, perhapsin part due to this seemingly futile quest, Swedenborg gradually fell into a

1 George F. Dole and Robert H. Kirven, A Scientist Explores Spirit: A Biography of EmanuelSwedenborg (New York: Swedenborg Foundation, 1997), 10.

2 Ibid., 11.3 Ibid., 31–32.

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cycle alternating between states of elation, depression, and intense self-criticism. In 1743–44, Swedenborg began to keep a dream journal, in whichhe recorded strange dreams, many of which reflected the internal, spiri-tual struggle and crisis that was building within.4 Stephen Larsen, in hisintroduction to the book Emanuel Swedenborg: Universal Human and SoulBody Interaction, posits an intriguing explanation for this crisis:

Swedenborg was truly a modern thinker in that he insisted that his

inherited theistic concept of the universe be brought into relationshipwith empirical science. He may have been incapable of that cognitive

segregation which allows many people to keep their commonsense knowl-

edge and felt beliefs apart. But in the attempt to reconcile these opposingpoles of power, he stepped into the field of the very Energy he sought to

know, and underwent the ordeal of personal metamorphosis that often

comes to those who do so.5

Swedenborg’s spiritual crisis reached a crescendo on an April night in1744, at which time he underwent an intense visionary experience ofChrist. This vision, along with a second vision the following year, giftedhim with a new commission: to “explain to men the spiritual meaning ofScripture.”6 Throughout the remainder of his life, Swedenborg dedicatedhimself to this task, producing voluminous exegetical and theologicalworks. His magnum opus, Arcana Coelestia (“Heavenly Mysteries”), aneight-volume spiritual commentary on Genesis and Exodus, was pub-lished in London between 1749–1756. It is in this work that Swedenborgaddresses the spiritual states of humanity, and (though not as extensively)the spiritual states of growth (or “regeneration”) that individuals un-dergo.7

In order to understand Swedenborg’s exegesis of Genesis, it is neces-sary to first offer a brief outline of his doctrine of correspondences. After

4 Ibid., 31–37.5 George F. Dole, ed., Emanuel Swedenborg: Universal Human and Soul and Body Interaction

(Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1984), 2.6 Dole and Kirven, A Scientist Explores Spirit, 40.7 Ibid., 44.

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Swedenborg’s visionary experiences, he turned his full attention to inter-preting Scripture—not in order to elucidate its literal, historical meaning,but rather to decipher its esoteric, “inner sense.” Ernst Benz, in his biogra-phy Emanuel Swedenborg: Visionary Savant in the Age of Reason, explainsSwedenborg’s approach:

He used the allegorical method to harmonize the content of his intuitive

vision of the universe with the content of Scripture. This method stripped

the words of Scripture of their historical, literal meaning and transformedall figures, persons, events, and images into “meanings” and “types,”

containing a spiritual and metaphysical sense. This method was devel-

oped in his doctrine of correspondences.8

Swedenborg posited that there are three states or “realms” of being, eachone successively further removed from God and the original divine un-derstandings: the celestial (divine), the spiritual, and the natural. The lawof correspondences states that there is a relationship between these threerealms, such that it is possible to know what is celestial through properlylooking at what exists within the natural world. Benz elaborates upon thisidea:

The relationship between the divine, spiritual, and natural realms is therelationship between archetype, likeness, and shadow. Every natural

object is a representation and the correspondence of a spiritual and divine

thing. It does not only represent itself but is a shadow indicating itsspiritual image. The spiritual image is in turn the representation of a

divine archetype. All things in the lower world proclaim the higher world

by reflecting the divine archetype in shadow form. Divine archetype,spiritual likeness, and earthly image relate to each other like a living face,

mirror reflection, and silhouette.9

It is only in seeing echoes of the spiritual within the natural, and echoes ofthe divine within the spiritual, that one may progress.

8 Ernst Benz, Emanuel Swedenborg: Visionary Savant in the Age of Reason (West Chester:Swedenborg Foundation, 2002), 352.

9 Ibid.

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Indeed, it is in rightly understanding the relationship between theserealms that one achieves spiritual growth and understanding. Whetherone is reading Scripture, or the “book of nature,” Swedenborg seems tosuggest, one must learn how to see these correspondences. As Benz fur-ther articulates,

Every speck of dust preaches the mysteries of heaven. Whoever possesses

the key to the correspondences of things can learn the truth of heaven

from the dust and be borne from the heavy earth to the realm of heavenlyfreedom and truth on the wings of vision. A divine mystery slumbers in

every least thing. If one could only unlock it, then the stones would

preach of God and the transient world would reveal the wonders ofimmortality.10

According to Swedenborg, the Bible contains the sacred Word—the divinetruth that has descended from the highest realm into the natural world,where it is presented in a form that human beings may apprehend. How-ever, the Scripture itself contains levels of meaning, with the literal senseacting as a “sentinel to the truth hidden within.”11 As Martin Lamm notesin Emanuel Swedenborg: The Development of His Thought, Swedenborg iden-tifies three levels of Scriptural meaning, which accord with the biblicaltrinity of body, soul, and mind.12 True understanding—that is, under-standing of the deeper levels of truth within Scripture—is only granted tothose who understand the correspondences between these three levels.

It is, indeed, through an understanding of these correspondences thatSwedenborg interprets the biblical stories. Turning now to Swedenborg’sexegesis of the six days of creation in his work Arcana Coelestia, we shallsee that he draws correspondences between the outer events, characters,descriptions, etc., and their inner signification. According to Swedenborg,this account does not refer to the creation of the earth, but rather, thespiritual “regeneration” of the human being. As Lars Bergquist explains,

10 Ibid., 353.11 Ibid., 357.12 Martin Lamm, Emanuel Swedenborg: The Development of His Thought (West Chester, PA:

Swedenborg Foundation, 2000), 226.

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each day of creation symbolizes a further step in the individual’s spiritualjourney: “The six days correspond to the same number of spiritual stateson the way to life with God which results from receptivity to the divinelove.”13 Bergquist goes on to add that in Arcana Coelestia, as in all ofSwedenborg’s theological works, the Latin term for spiritual states (statusspiritualis), is “…an essential concept in regard to human qualities andinsights. Our experiences, feelings, and actions are affected by our spiri-tual state of mind.”14 As each individual grows more receptive to thedivine love, he or she progresses through the spiritual states, or “days ofcreation.”

On the first day of creation, God creates heaven and earth. ForSwedenborg, heaven symbolizes the internal man, while earth symbolizesthe external man.15 In the beginning, there is thick darkness; a void and an“emptiness” that covers all. This represents a state of human ignorance,which, according to Swedenborg, precedes regeneration. An initial move-ment, however, also occurs on the first day: the spirit of God hovers overthe waters. In addition, God creates light, and then separates the lightfrom the darkness, calling them “day” and “night.” Swedenborg sees thisas the beginning of a separation of (and battle between) opposites—thetwo most basic of which are good and evil.16

On the second day, the battle between opposites intensifies as a “vault”is created to separate the waters above and the waters below. ForSwedenborg, this signifies a further demarcation between the external andinternal man: “The internal man is called an ‘expanse’; the knowledgeswhich are in the internal man are called ‘the waters above the expanse’;and the memory-knowledges of the external man are called ‘the watersbeneath the expanse.’”17 Before regeneration, the individual is not evenaware of the existence of this “internal” aspect within; only on the “second

13 Lars Bergquist, Swedenborg’s Secret: The Meaning and Significance of the Word of God(London: The Swedenborg Society, 2005), 249.

14 Ibid.15 Emanuel Swedenborg trans.John Clowes, Arcana Coelestia, (West Chester, PA:

Swedenborg Foundation, 1998), §16.16 Bergquist, Swedenborg’s Secret, 249.17 Swedenborg, Arcana Coelestia, §24.1.

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day” of regeneration does this become quite apparent. Regarding thisproblem, Bergquist writes,

He [the individual] has become aware of his dual nature: he consists of an

outer man—the earth—where knowledge comes by means of his earthly

senses; and at the same time he has an inner self—the firmament—withan awareness of and insight into the existence of divine good and truth.

The waters under the firmament are the knowledge belonging to the old,

outer man, while the waters above this canopy are the inner concepts ofthe new man, now being born.18

Thus, it is on the second day that what Swedenborg refers to as “remains”(knowledge of faith that exists within the internal man) begin to showthemselves more fully within the individual’s field of awareness.

On the third day, dry lands are formed that produce vegetation.Swedenborg refers to these plants as “tender herbs,” from which, eventu-ally, arise both the “herb bearing seed” and the “tree bearing fruit.”Swedenborg explicates the symbolism and signification more fully whenhe writes,

When the “earth,” or man, has been thus prepared to receive celestial

seeds from the Lord, and to produce something of what is good and true,then the Lord first causes some tender thing to spring forth, which is

called the “tender herb”; then something more useful, which again bears

seed in itself, and is called the “herb yielding seed”; and at length some-thing good which becomes fruitful, and is called the “tree bearing fruit,

whose seed is in itself,” each according to its own kind.19

The “herb yielding seed” may be seen as the seed of true faith, which hasbegun to readily grow in the individual in this third state. This faith bringsforth repentance in the seeker, as well as works of piety and devotion. Assuch, the third state marks an important turning point: now the individualunderstands “…that the higher, God-given knowledge about truth and

18 Bergquist, Swedenborg’s Secret, 250.19 Swedenborg, Arcana Coelestia, §29.1.

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good reaches him from the inner man. There is now a readiness to receivehigher insights that root themselves in man and then grow.”20 However,Swedenborg notes that faith is not yet complete at this stage, for theindividual still believes those insights arise from himself (an understand-ing that issues forth from the outer man), rather than from God. As such,the faith cultivated in the third state may be seen as a harbinger of a morecomplete faith, yet to be realized.

This faith is further perfected on the fourth day, at which time twolights, the sun and the moon, as well as the stars, are created. ForSwedenborg, these celestial bodies represent divine love and faith; the suncorresponds with love and the celestial, which, in turn, illuminates themoon (faith). At this stage, it may be said that the individual’s faith isexponentially deepened, since it is now illuminated by love. As such, thisfourth state also marks an important departure from the previous three:now, the individual has begun to realize that all goodness, love, and faith,arise not from himself, but from God. This reorientation—insofar as itinstills in the seeker a realization of the inseparability between wisdom(associated with knowledge and understanding) and good works (associ-ated with the will and love)—is a crucial turning point.21

What was begun on the fourth day continues on the fifth day. Theindividual, illuminated by the “twin lights” of faith, is now truly “alive.”As such, he or she becomes “animated”—a “living soul” in a deeplysymbolic and meaningful sense. For Swedenborg, this new animation issymbolized by the creation of the birds of the air and the fish of the sea thatarise on the fifth day: “Now that he is vivified by love and faith, andbelieves that the Lord works all the good that he does and all the truth thathe speaks, he is compared first to the ‘creeping things of the water,’ and tothe ‘fowls which fly above the earth,’ and also to ‘beasts,’ which are allanimate things, and are called ‘living souls.’”22 In this fifth state, the innerman comes to the fore, now dominating the outer, and thus, knowledgeand wisdom flow much more freely through him. As Bergquist puts it,“He [the individual] no longer has himself as center, being in the state

20 Bergquist, Swedenborg’s Secret, 250.21 Ibid., 251.22 Swedenborg, Arcana Coelestia, §39.2.

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where everything is directed to divine purposes. The biblical text speaksof the creation of fish and birds, commanded to be fruitful and multiply.God-given knowledge is endless; one thing known leads to another byinner, hidden connections.”23

On the sixth day, it is said that humanity—both the male and thefemale—are created in the image of God. This has a very deep significancefor Swedenborg, insofar as it symbolizes a joining or “marriage” of twoopposites: the male, representing understanding and wisdom, and thefemale, representing love and will. The union of these two, created in thedivine image, thus signifies a “marriage” of the faculties within the indi-vidual who has reached the sixth stage. Bergquist eloquently explains thesymbolic significance of this joining of male and female: “For the spiritualman [individual] the union of these two powers [wisdom and love] is a‘marriage’ in which new insights are constantly born.”24 Swedenborgfurther illuminates this idea by referencing the parable of the mustardseed in the Gospel of Matthew. As he interprets the inner meaning of theparable,

A “grain of mustard seed” is man’s good before he becomes spiritual,

which is “the least of all seeds,” because he thinks that he does good ofhimself, and what is of himself is nothing but evil. But as he is in a state of

regeneration, there is something of good in him, but it is the least of all. At

length as faith is joined with love it grows larger, and becomes an “herb”;and lastly, when the conjunction is completed, it becomes a “tree,” and

then the “birds of the heavens” (in this passage also denoting truths, or

things intellectual) “build their nests in its branches,” which are memory-knowledges.25

Thus, on the sixth day, the individual becomes a “spiritual” human being,and is well on the way to reaching the state of “celestial” human beingwhich corresponds with the seventh day—the Sabbath or the day of rest.

23 Bergquist, Swedenborg’s Secret, 252.24 Ibid., 253.25 Swedenborg, Arcana Coelestia, §55.3–4.

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On the seventh and final day, God rests, satisfied with the creation.This constitutes the highest state of perfection for the individual—a statein which there is complete union between his or her inner and outer selves.Furthermore, whereas in the sixth state, the individual is described bySwedenborg as an “image” of God, in the seventh state, he or she becomesa “likeness.” Now, completely aligned with God’s will, so as to be scarcelydifferentiated from it, the celestial human being finds rest and peace:“Such is the quality of the celestial man that he acts not according to hisown desire, but according to the good pleasure of the Lord, which is his‘desire.’ Thus he enjoys internal peace and happiness.”26 Thus, the seventhday constitutes the pinnacle of the regenerative process, in which theindividual, having undergone a complete transformation in the previoussix stages, is now renewed in his or her celestial aspect.

Now that we have surveyed Swedenborg’s treatment of the stages ofregeneration, we may turn our attention to a consideration of Simnani. AsJamal J. Elias recounts in his work The Throne Carrier of God: The Life andThought of ‘Ala’ ad-dawla as-Simnani, Simnani was born in 1261 in a smallvillage near Simnan, in the Southwestern province of present-day Iran.He—somewhat like Swedenborg’s own background—descended from awealthy aristocratic family and was groomed, from an early age, to fulfill aposition within the Ilkhanid royal court. A Sunni Muslim, Simnani’sformative education consisted of lessons in the Islamic rational and tradi-tional sciences, as well as preparation for bureaucratic life. Although notformally trained in the subtleties of Islamic mysticism as a child andadolescent, Elias conjectures that Simnani very likely encountered severalSufis during these years: Sayyid Ibrahim-i Simnani (himself a member ofthe Simnani family) as well as a number of wandering dervishes.27

At fifteen, Simnani joined the royal court, but it was in his twenty-fourth year that he underwent an experience that would ultimately changethe trajectory of his life and work: Simnani, participating in a battle,experienced a profound mystical encounter as he uttered the battle-cry,Allahu akbar! (“God is greater”). This mystical experience, along with two

26 Swedenborg, Arcana Coelestia, §85.3.27 Jamal J. Elias, The Throne Carrier of God: The Life and Thought of Ala’ ad-dawla as-Simnani

(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), 15–17.

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others that followed soon after, provoked a profound change of heart inSimnani, and he abandoned his position at court for a more pious andascetic lifestyle. During this period, Simnani turned more decisively to hisreligious education, studying both the legal sciences and the Islamic mys-tical tradition. In addition to his studies, Simnani adopted a very rigorousspiritual practice, praying as many as three hundred cycles (rak’at) of thesalat (prayer) each day. The mystical experiences Simnani underwentimpelled his search for spiritual guidance, and shortly thereafter he ben-efited from the presence and instruction of several Sufi teachers: firstSharaf ad-din al-Hanawayh, a wandering mystic, and later, al-Hanawayh’sown teacher, Nur ad-din al-Isfara’ini.28 Eventually, ten years after begin-ning his discipleship with al-Isfara’ini, Simnani himself was given permis-sion to guide disciples of his own.29 In addition to training spiritual disciples,Simnani, like Swedenborg, was also a prolific writer. Among his mosthighly regarded works are mystical treatises, and his commentary on theQur’an. His writings and his role as a spiritual teacher should not beregarded in isolation, however; much of what he wrote served the verypractical purpose of describing and outlining the stages of the spiritualpath, as he himself had experienced it, in order to benefit his disciples.30

To draw a brief sketch of the context within which Simnani envisionsthe seven stages of human perfection that constitute the path to God, wecan see that he describes a very complex, Neo-Platonist vision of thecosmos consisting of a number of realms—from the Realm of Divinity, tothe Realm of Essence, Omnipotence, Attributes, Sovereignty, Acts, Effects,and finally, the human realm.31 While the discussion of these variousrealms is quite intricate, Simnani’s cosmological schema, at its more fun-damental level, consists of two primary realms: a finite, earthly realm ofmanifestation and sense perception, which he refers to as ‘alam al-afaq orthe “realm of horizons,” and an infinite, spiritual realm called ‘alam al-anfus or the “realm of souls.” Simnani’s theology, like Swedenborg’s,

28 Ibid., 23–27.29 Ibid., 39.30 Ibid., 147.31 For a more detailed explanation of these various realms and their attributes, see Elias’

book, mentioned above.

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emphasizes a system of correspondences between these two realms. AsElias summarizes, “His [Simnani’s] methodology is characterized by theconstruction of hierarchies and correspondences in the physical and thespiritual realms, and by emphasis upon the polarity and complementaritybetween these two realms.”32 For Simnani, the physical world of manifes-tation (the world of the senses) reflects the attributes of God, while thespiritual realm reflects the hidden (batn) aspects of the Divine.

Like many other Sufis, Simnani posits that the human being, whilephysically tied to the realm of horizons, also contains within his or herinner self the raw potential to ascend to spiritual perfection and esotericunderstanding. As Elias writes, “. . . the human being is a composite of allthe levels of divine manifestation in this world, and is therefore created inGod’s image as mentioned in the canonical prophetic saying: ‘IndeedAllah, may He be exalted, created Adam in His image.’”33 Yet, in contrastto most other Sufi cosmological and spiritual anthropological schemas,wherein the perfected human being (insan-i kamil) is seen as a microcosmof the spiritual realm, in Simnani’s schema, the spiritual realm, or therealm of souls, resides within the human being; indeed, it is depicted as amacrocosm of the physical world, the world of horizons. Thus, even thoughthe physical world appears larger than the spiritual realm, on a metaphysi-cal level, the former is smaller than the latter, and is, in truth, encompassedby the latter. In the same way, although the physical breast appears toencompass the heart, it is actually the heart (an aspect of the spiritualworld) that contains the physical breast within itself.34

For Simnani, the human body is the barrier between, but also themeeting place for the higher and lower forces present in the higher andlower levels of existence. The human body, containing within itself thepotential for every level of divine manifestation, is composed of fourelements: soul of earth, heart of water, inmost being of air, and spirit offire. Simnani observes that when an individual is tied to the purely ani-malistic level of divine manifestation, he or she will incline toward the“animal” desires that correspond with these four elements and that exist

32 Ibid., 2.33 Ibid., 79.34 Ibid., 68–69.

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purely on the level of sensual experience (this is the level in which manysouls reside and remain during their natural lives). In other words, thesoul will gravitate toward baseness and lethargy, the heart to worldlyattachments, the inmost being to selfish, ego-driven love, and the spirit toarrogance and anger. Only when the individual begins to undergo thejourney of spiritual maturity does he or she gradually acquire the spirituallight that ultimately illuminates these “animal” attributes and transformsthem into true human characteristics.35

According to Simnani, the transformative journey involves a matura-tion of the spiritual body—a process on the spiritual level that correspondsto the development of the physical body on the level of physical manifes-tation—through seven successive stages of development of the lata’if, thesubtle substances. As Kristin Zahra Sands describes the lata’if in her bookSufi Commentaries on the Qur’an in Classical Islam, these subtle substancesessentially constitute the spiritual faculties a human being may succes-sively develop, but which remain latent until this “activation” processoccurs. In Simnani’s system of correspondences, there is a direct correla-tion between the seven lata’if (subtle bodily substance, subtle soul sub-stance, subtle heart substance, subtle innermost substance, subtle spiritsubstance, subtle mystery substance, and subtle reality substance) andseven of the Qur’anic prophets (Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David,Jesus, and Muhammad) whom Simnani refers to as the “prophets of yourbeing.” Corbin, in his History of Islamic Philosophy, elucidates the innersignificance of Simnani’s correspondences as follows:

Just as Schiller was to speak of “the stars of your destiny” which arewithin you, al-Simnani spoke of the “prophets of your being,” thereby

relating each element which emanates from one of the prophets of the

Biblical and Quranic tradition to one of the centres of the subtle physiol-ogy typified respectively by one of these prophets. The elements of

prophetology must be read and understood on these levels of “inner

history.”36

35 Ibid., 80.36 Henry Corbin trans. Liadain Sherrard, with Phillip Sherrard, History of Islamic Philosophy

(New York: Kegan Paul International, 1993), 300.

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In the same way that Swedenborg reads Scripture for its inner signifi-cations, Simnani suggests that it is in perceiving these correspondencesand applying them to an esoteric (in contrast to an exoteric) reading of theQur’an, that one progresses along the mystical path. As Sands articulates,

Knowledge and deeper understanding of the Qur’an, as well as theability to benefit from it, requires the discovery of the connection between

the horizons (afaq) and the souls (anfus), between the prophets and the

subtle substances of man. Man has the potential to develop spirituallyfrom a speaking animal to the bearer of the trust of God. At each level of

his development, he becomes the possessor of a new subtle substance

(latifa) . . .37

According to Simnani, the traveler on the path should read the Qur’anwith special attentiveness to the correspondences between the prophetsand the lata’if, as this will reveal hidden levels of meaning, otherwiseconcealed:

Whenever you read a part of the Book [the Qur’an] addressing Adam,listen to it with your subtle bodily substance (latifa qalabiyya). Apply your

bodily substance practically in what has been commanded and prohib-

ited for it, and take heed in the similitudes struck for it (bi-mal duriba

mathal lahu). Know with certainty that the inner sense (batn) of this Book is

connected to you in [the realm of] souls (anfus) just as its external sense is

connected to Adam in [the realm of] horizons (afaq), to enable you tobenefit from the Speech of Truth and so that you may be one of those who

read [the Qur’an] fresh and new.38

As the subtle substances successively become active in a traveler on thepath, he or she will gradually develop a deeper understanding of esotericrealities of the Qur’anic and, by means of this knowledge and experientialunderstanding, ascend toward the highest state of perfection possible forhumanity.

37 Kristin Zahra Sands, Sufi Commentaries on the Qur’an in Classical Islam (New York:Routledge, 2006), 44.

38 Ibid.

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The first stage, for Simnani, consists of the subtle bodily substance,and corresponds with the prophet Adam. The possessor of this subtlesubstance is identified as “man” or “humanity” (insan), but has not yetmatured spiritually—he or she has not yet become “civilized” in a moralor religious sense. As such, the only aspect that separates this humanbeing from animals is his or her ability to speak.39 As Corbin articulates inhis work The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism, this first subtle substance,identified with the “Adam of your being,” is almost identical with thephysical body insofar as it comprises the “embryonic mold” of the new,acquired subtle body. The “densest” of the subtle substances, the subtlebodily substance corresponds with the color black (or grey) and thus,darkness.40

The second stage, comprised of the subtle substance of soul, corre-sponds with the prophet Noah. In this stage of development, the seekermatures into “civilized man” (al-insan al-madani), and the subtle percep-tive faculty of soul is activated. The individual who reaches this stage ofdevelopment resembles Noah, for just as Noah confronts his people overtheir iniquities, so too, the soul confronts the baser appetites that over-ruled it in the previous stage. Elias distinguishes the subtle soul substancefrom the appetitive soul (the nafs-i ammara or the soul that incites to evil).41

Rather, the subtle soul substance may perhaps be identified with the nafs-i lawwama, the soul that repents of its past deeds. Corbin identifies thisstage as “. . . the testing ground for the spiritual seeker; in confronting hislower self, he is in the same situation as Noah facing the hostility of hispeople. When he has overcome it, this subtle organ is called the Noah ofyour being.” Interestingly, Corbin notes in in his “Comparative SpiritualHermeneutics” how Swedenborg and Qazi No‘man (a 10th century Isma’iliMuslim writer) both deploy esoteric readings of Noah, based on thebiblical and Qur’anic texts. For Swedenborg, Noah is associated with theAntiqua Ecclesia—or “ancient church”—which represents the period fol-lowing humankind’s “fall” from a pure celestial state of knowing. Thus,

39 Elias, The Throne Carrier of God, 81.40 Henry Corbin, The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism (New Lebanon: Omega Publications,

1994), 124–126.41 Elias, The Throne Carrier of God, 84.

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the transition from Adam to Noah corresponds to the transition from “. . .the person of immediate spiritual perception (Antiquissima Ecclesia) to theperson of conscience (Antiqua Ecclesia).”42 For Qazi No‘man, Noah is asso-ciated with the second day of the hexa?meron, which in Isma‘ili thought isthe second period in the current cycle of prophecy that stretches fromAdam to Muhammad. According to Isma‘ili thought, we are currentlyliving in the “time” of Muhammad (corresponding to the sixth day) andwill remain in such a state until the arrival of the Imam of the Resurrection(Qa’im al-Qiyamat), which corresponds with the seventh day.43

The third stage, wherein the subtle substance of heart becomes active,corresponds with the prophet Abraham. Simnani describes the subtlesubstance of heart as a shell within which a pearl forms—just as Abraham,ancestor and father of the three monotheistic traditions, is the “shell” fromwhich Muhammad, the “pearl” or Seal of the Prophets, emerges. AsCorbin eloquently explicates the symbolic significance of the heart sub-stance, it is the subtle organ in which “. . . the embryo of mystical progenyis formed, as a pearl is formed in a shell. This pearl or offspring is noneother than the subtle organ which will be the True Ego, the real, personalindividuality (latifa ana’iya).”44 It is this True Ego, described by Corbin as“the child conceived in the mystic’s heart,” that is realized in the seventhstage. Furthermore, it is in the third stage that the seeker is cleansed ofdarkness, and begins to experience true faith. As such, the possessor of theheart substance is rightly called a muslim, or one who submits (to God).45

This faith is a precursor for the more complete faith that will be realized inthe fourth through seventh stages.

The fourth subtle substance, the innermost substance, constitutes astage in which the seeker’s faith is further perfected. One who attains thissubstance is called mu’min, “believer,” and he or she is decorated with thelight of faith. The innermost subtle substance corresponds with the prophetMoses, for just as Moses conversed intimately with God, so too, the seekerin this stage is capable of intimate conversation (monajat) with God.

42 Corbin, Swedenborg and Esoteric Islam, translated by Leonard Fox (West Chester:Swedenborg Foundation, 1995), 87.

43 Ibid, pp. 100–112).44 Ibid.45 Elias, The Throne Carrier of God, 83.

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In the fifth stage, the subtle substance of spirit becomes active. Thissubtle substance corresponds with the prophet David, and the one whoenters this stage is known as a wali, a friend or an intimate of God. Just asDavid, in the Qur’an, is said to be the caliph of God on earth, so too thespirit is said to be the divine representative within the human body.46

The subtle mystery substance, revealed within the seeker during thesixth stage, corresponds with Jesus. This stage is representative of theprophetic, and signals an internal shift within the seeker from the stationof sainthood (waliya) to the station of the prophet (nabi). As Corbin de-scribes it, this is a stage in which

Help and inspiration from the Holy Ghost are received by means of thisorgan [the substance of mystery] . . . it is the Jesus of your being; it is he who

proclaims the Name to all the other subtle centers and to the ‘people’ in

these faculties, because he is their Head and the Name he proclaims is theseal of your being, just as in the Qur’an (3:6) it is said that Jesus, as the

prophet before the last of the prophets of our cycle, was the herald of the

last prophet, i.e., of the advent of the Paraclete.47

Thus, the sixth stage serves as a final preparation before the advent andfulfillment of the seventh and final stage, wherein the Muhammadan“pearl” is perfected within the “shell” of the preceding stages.

The seventh stage, in which the subtle reality substance is activated,constitutes the perfection of the human being. This subtle substance corre-sponds with the prophet Muhammad, who in Islam is considered the“Seal of the Prophets”—both insofar as he is the last of the prophets, andbecause he is considered to represent the perfection or completion of theprophetic cycle that begins with Adam. As another sufi, the great 12thcentury mystic Ibn al-‘Arabi eloquently writes on this matter,

46 Ibid., 84.47 Corbin, The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism, 125. As both Corbin and Elias note, the term

Paraclete has a special and specific meaning in Islam, which differs from its sense in theChristian tradition. According to Islamic exegetical works, the word Parakletos, as it appears inthe Gospel of John, is a distortion of the word Peryklitos. In Islam, Jesus is heralded as the onewho announces the imminent arrival of the Seal of the Prophets, Muhammad (see Qur’an 61:6,wherein the text reads: “And remember Jesus, the son of Mary, said: ‘O Children of Israel! I amthe messenger of Allah to you, confirming the law before me, and giving glad tidings of amessenger to come after me whose name shall be Ahmad.”)

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Every prophet, from Adam to the last of the prophets, derives what he

has from the seal of the prophets, even though he comes last in histemporal, physical manifestation, for in [his] essential reality he has

always existed. The Prophet said, “I was a prophet when Adam was

between the water and the clay,” while other prophets only became suchwhen they were sent forth [on their missions].48

Muhammad, as Seal of the Prophets, symbolizes the pinnacle of humanperfection. As such, it is Muhammad who corresponds in Simnani’s sev-enth stage with the subtle substance of reality, which, when activatedwithin the mystic, is the “pearl” that had begun to form inside theAbrahamic “shell” during the third stage. Thus, in Simnani’s thought, theQur’anic passages that link Abraham and Muhammad esoterically sym-bolize the movement of the human spirit through the higher stages ofone’s being:

Every passage in the Qur’an which defines the relationship of Muhammad

with Abraham then offers us an admirable example of the inward move-ment actualized by Semnani’s hermeneutics, the transition from “hori-

zontal time” to “the time of the soul.” It ends by actualizing, in the person

of the human microcosm, the truth of the meaning according to which thereligion of Muhammad originates in the religion of Abraham, for

“Abraham was neither Jew nor Christian, but a pure believer (hanif), a

Muslim ([Qur’an] 3:60),” which is to say that the “Abraham of your being”is led through the subtle centers of higher consciousness and the arcanum

(the Moses and Jesus of your being) until he reaches your True Ego, his

spiritual progeny.49

Ultimately, it is by progressing to this stage of the subtle realitysubstance that one acquires what Simnani calls the substance of “I-ness,”which is the culmination of mystical perfection. This I-ness, veiled by theacquired subtle bodies in the same way that the subtle bodies are veiled bythe mortal (physical) body, bursts forth from its shell, or—to use another

48 Ibn al-‘Arabi trans. R.W.J. Austin, The Bezels of Wisdom (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press,1980), 67.

49 Corbin, The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism, 125.

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of Simnani’s metaphors—is illuminated once the mystic has passed throughall seven levels of his or her being. Like a mirror, the substance of I-nesshas the ability to reflect perfectly the very essence of God; yet it is only themystic who has realized this substance, who becomes a worthy bearer ofthe sacred Trust, and a knower of the divine names.50 As Elias explains, thesubstance of I-ness takes its place opposite the face of God and becomes amirror that reflects God’s attributes of grace and power, as well as hisbeauty and majesty. In the process, there is a (temporary) dissolution ofthe line separating the beholder (the mirror of the substance of I-nessmanifest in the mystic) and the one beheld (God). In the moment of thisencounter

It is no longer possible to differentiate God as He witnesses himself in the

mirror from the mirror as it bears witness to God. They are like two bright

lights reflecting back at each other. The beauty of God is reflected andwitnessed by the mirror which reflects this beauty back to God Who

witnesses the perfect reflection of His own beauty as identical to His

beauty. In other words, God witnesses the same image of Himself in themirror as the mirror witnesses in God.51

In this moment of encounter, the possessor of the substance of I-ness isfinally able to see reality—to see things as they really are—and thusachieves a state of perfection.

Having provided this explication of Swedenborg’s and Simnani’svarious conceptions of the states or stages, what parallels or correspon-dences might we draw between the two? If we consider the states andstages side by side in their respective order, we may notice some strikingsimilarities. In the first stage, both Swedenborg and Simnani refer to ahuman state that precedes the awareness of divine mysteries or real faith.It is characterized by Swedenborg as a state of “emptiness” and “void,”preceding the state of regeneration. Only later in the first day do we see the

50 In the Qur’an, it is written: “Indeed, we offered the Trust to the heavens and the earthand the mountains, and they declined to bear it and feared it; but man [undertook to] bear it.”(33:72, Sahih International translation) The Trust (al-Amana) has been understood in variousways, but it is generally agreed that it is a gift that only humankind is capable of carrying,because of their unique status within the creation.

51 Elias, The Throne Carrier of God, 96.

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beginning of a realization of divine presence, in the “spirit of God hover-ing over the waters,” as well as the separation between “night” and “day”or good and evil. For Simnani, the first stage is also characterized bydarkness and ignorance—for although the seeker in this stage has ac-quired the first of the subtle substances (the bodily substance) this sub-stance is hardly distinguishable from the dense physical body itself.Furthermore, the human being in this stage is considered “uncivilized;” heis still ruled by his nafs-i ammara (the soul that incites to evil) since he hasnot yet learned to differentiate between what comes from God, and whatcomes from his lower, appetitive self.

In the second stage, Swedenborg notes that the differentiation be-tween the internal and external man becomes more pronounced. Now theseeker realizes, to a greater extent, the “inner” aspect within. As a result,he or she begins to experience a greater awareness of goodness and truth.Simnani describes a similar process occurring in the second stage: theseeker, now equated with the prophet Noah, begins to realize there aretwo aspects, or forces, dwelling within—one which incites him to thatwhich is lower, and that which inspires him to ascend (metaphoricallyspeaking) towards God. As such, the seeker in this stage begins to realize,like Noah, that he must wage “battle” with the people that surround him(or the nafs-i ammara, symbolizing those aspects within him that tie himdown to appetitive desires and limited understanding).

The third stage, for both Swedenborg and Simnani, marks the begin-ning—or the promise—of faith. In Swedenborg’s conception, the vegeta-tion produced by the earth (the human being) is called “tender herbs,”“herb bearing seeds,” and “tree bearing fruit.” For Swedenborg, plantsgenerally symbolize knowledge and insight, and so it may be extrapolatedthat the seeker in this stage is gradually growing in his or her wisdom ofdivine mysteries, and likewise, in faith.52 As Swedenborg points out,however, this faith is not complete, for it has not yet been fully illuminatedby love. For Simnani, the third stage corresponds with the prophetAbraham, who is described as the “shell” containing the promise of theMuhammadan pearl. This shell can be seen to correspond with the “tree

52 Benz, Emanuel Swedenborg, 358. Also see Arcana Coelestia §75, wherein shrubs and herbsof the ground watered by the mists correspond with the knowledge and rationality of thecelestial man.

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bearing fruit” which signals promise, or greater things to come. The seekerin this stage, in whom the subtle substance of heart is now active, begins toexperience the birth of faith and true belief, but it is only a preliminaryfaith, not yet complete.

The fourth stage constitutes a marked turning point for Swedenborgand Simnani, in terms of the development of faith; indeed, it may bedescribed as the stage in which faith is illuminated. Swedenborg interpretsthe two lights of sun and moon (and stars) as representing the divine lightsof love and faith. These lights illuminate the seeker, and he or she begins torealize that all her good works are not truly from herself, but from God.Thus, it can be said, she begins to realize the workings of the divine withinher. For Simnani, we see a similar description of this fourth stage: theseeker, like Moses, now experiences a more intimate connection with God,arising from within. This is implied by the use of the term monajat, “inti-mate conversations.” The seeker in this stage is called a “believer” and isdecorated by the light of faith.

In the fifth stage, Swedenborg speaks of an “animation” of the indi-vidual. Now illuminated by the “twin lights,” the seeker’s works are nolonger inert, but arise more directly from his inner self. In this stage, he orshe has realized that all comes from God; as such, there is an easier flow ofunderstanding and wisdom from that divine source. These divine in-sights, Swedenborg suggests, are symbolized by the birds of the air andfish of the sea. Simnani, too, suggests that the fifth stage constitutes a morecomplete command of the inner self, as well as a closer relation with God:David, the prophet corresponding with the fifth stage, is called wali, orfriend (of God), and is the caliph of God on earth, just as the spirit is therightful ruler of the human being. That it is the subtle spirit substancewhich becomes active in the fifth stage, suggests that the “inner” aspecthas finally gained full command of the individual; he or she is no longeroverruled by the lower, appetitive self.

In the sixth stage, Swedenborg describes the creation of the male andfemale in the image of God as symbolic of the “marriage” of wisdom andlove within oneself. This marriage represents a fuller movement towardswholeness, through which the individual becomes a “spiritual” humanbeing. This is not the highest state, according to Swedenborg, but pointstowards the highest state—the celestial. For Simnani, the sixth stage corre-

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sponds with Jesus, who, within Islam—and in particular, in the mysticaltradition—symbolizes the Spirit (ruh) of God, which is, in many respects,beyond human conception.53 As such, Jesus corresponds with the subtlemystery substance, which emanates from locus of the divine unity.54 Jesus,as a forerunner for Muhammad, corresponds with the spiritual, or thatwhich points to the celestial—that which is revealed in the seventh stage.55

Finally, we come to the seventh stage. For both Swedenborg andSimnani, this stage symbolizes the culmination of the previous stages andthe pinnacle of human perfection. Swedenborg describes it as a state ofpeace, in which the individual has come to “rest,” just as God rests on theSabbath. At this stage, the seeker’s desire is one with the divine desire:now embodying the “archetype” of celestial humanity, his or her love andwill are in attunement with God. Simnani describes a similar state, inwhich the seeker, having attained the subtle reality substance correspond-ing with Muhammad, discovers the substance of “I-ness” that lies con-cealed within the center of his or her being. This substance is like a mirror,capable of perfectly reflecting the divine countenance. In reflecting theface of God, there is a point at which distinctions between mirror andcountenance fall away and there is perfect unity between the seeker’sinmost self (the substance of I-ness) and God.56 In this sense, the final state

53 See Qur’an 21:91, wherein the conception of Jesus is discussed: “And she [Mary] whowas chaste, therefore We breathed into her (something) of Our Spirit and made her and her son[Jesus] a token for (all) peoples.” Trans. by Mohammad Picktall.

54 Elias, The Throne Carrier of God, 83.55 For quite apparent reasons, this signals the most striking difference between

Swedenborg’s and Simnani’s description of the stages: for Simnani, as a Muslim, Jesus isconsidered a prophet, as well as the spirit of God (Qur’an 21:91) and the Word of God (Qur’an4:171)—but not God or the son of God. For Swedenborg, Jesus is Lord.

56 Simnani’s imagery and metaphor here is similar, in certain respects, to Swedenborg’sdescription of the angels facing their Lord every which way they turn: “Angels turn their facesconstantly to the Lord as a sun, because they are in the Lord, and the Lord in them; and the Lordinteriorly leads their affections and thoughts, and turns them constantly to Himself” (DivineLove and Wisdom, § 130). As Swedenborg articulates, this constant turning to toward the Lordapplies to human beings just as it does to angels, insofar as the human spirit is capable of thesame “turning” or “encounter” with God. Swedenborg explicitly states this in the precedingsection: “For man in respect to his mind is a spirit, and if he be in love and wisdom, is an angel;consequently, after death, when he has put off his externals, which he had derived from thenatural world, he becomes a spirit or an angel. And because angels turn their faces constantlytoward the sun in the east, thus toward the Lord, it is said also of any man who is in love andwisdom from the Lord, that ‘he sees God,’ that ‘he looks to God,’ that ‘he has God before hiseyes,’ by which is meant that he lives as an angel does” (Divine Love and Wisdom, § 129).

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for both Swedenborg and Simnani suggests a unifying experience be-tween the mystic and God.

In the final analysis, both Swedenborg and Simnani approached theirexegetical work in a very particular way. The Bible and Qur’an, respec-tively, were not perceived merely as historical texts—but living texts that,if read perceptively, would provide a set of “inner maps” to guide indi-viduals toward a deeper experience of the divine. The works of exegesis,based on each man’s experiential understanding of correspondences, thusserved to revitalize the sacred texts by making them directly relevant to areader’s own inner experience. Additionally, in their exegetical works,they strove to illustrate how the inner experience of the individual ismirrored (and concealed) within textual symbols. Both Swedenborg andSimnani understood that human beings—like the sacred texts they inter-preted—have multiple levels. They may also have understood, better thanmost, that if we, as individuals, remain inert on the lowest level, weremain “dead”—just as a literal reading of the sacred text renders itlifeless. Swedenborg reflects on this very issue in the outset of ArcanaCoelestia, when he writes,

Without such a life, the Word as to the letter is dead. The case in thisrespect is the same as it is with man, who—as is known in the Christian

world—is both internal and external. When separated from the internal

man, the external man is the body, and is therefore dead; for it is theinternal man that is alive and that causes the external man to be so, the

internal man being the soul. So is it with the Word, which, in respect to

the letter alone, is like the body without the soul.57

Thus, it is only in traversing the levels of his or her inner landscape—alongside the inner levels of the text—that the individual may come, oncemore, into the illuminating light of the divine presence.

57 Swedenborg, Arcana Coelestia, §3.

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Corbin, Henry. Trans. Liadain Sherrard, with Phillip Sherrard. History of Islamic Philosophy. NewYork: Kegan Paul International, 1993.

Corbin, Henry. The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism. New Lebanon: Omega Publications, 1994.

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Dole, George F. ed. Emanuel Swedenborg: Universal Human and Soul and Body Interaction.Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press 1984.

Dole, George F. and Robert H. Kirven A Scientist Explores Spirit: A Biography of EmanuelSwedenborg. New York: Swedenborg Foundation, 1997.

Elias, Jamal J. The Throne Carrier of God: The Life and Thought of ‘Ala’ ad-dawla as-Simnani. Albany:State University of New York Press, 1995.

Ibn al-‘Arabi trans. R.W.J. Austin, The Bezels of Wisdom. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1980.

Lamm, Martin. Emanuel Swedenborg: The Development of His Thought. West Chester, PA:Swedenborg Foundation, 2000.

Sands, Kristin Zahra. Sufi Commentaries on the Qur’an in Classical Islam. New York: Routledge,2006.

Swedenborg, Emanuel. Trans. John Clowes. Arcana Coelestia. West Chester, PA: SwedenborgFoundation, 1998.

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FALU GRUVA AND EMANUEL SWEDENBORG

MINING THE CONNECTIONS BETWEEN FALUGRUVA AND EMANUEL SWEDENBORG

Sarah McCune*

Emanuel Swedenborg is known for his significant contributions toboth the natural sciences and theology. In 1744, at age 56, Swedenborg

experienced a religious crisis causing him to lay aside his science careerand devote himself to theology and to becoming a “humble servant of theLord Jesus Christ.” His extensive religious writings posthumously in-spired some of his readers to create their own sect, which is today a smallworldwide church. Though Swedenborg’s life is often split into two dis-tinct scientific and theological periods, his early ekphrastic poems “InFabros qvi majors ferri massas formant” (“on the smiths that form largemasses of iron”) and “In Fodinam Fhalunensem” (“On the mine in Falun”)reveals interdependence between his science and theology.1 The purposeof this essay is to highlight the important role that poetry played forSwedenborg as a medium which could communicate about the intersec-tions of science and theology.

Relatively little research has analyzed Swedenborg’s fifteen year po-etic period, which ran parallel to his early scientific pursuits. Hans Helander,Professor of Latin at the University of Uppsala, contributed significantlyto understanding the importance of Swedenborg’s poetry when he trans-lated Swedenborg’s poetry into English from the Neo-Latin. His transla-tions have now made Swedenborg’s poetic interpretations accessible andreveal Swedenborg’s work as “clearly conditioned by their time and liter-ary conventions.”2 Classical works inspired Swedenborg’s poetry, andLatin poetry contextualized Swedenborg’s choices of poetic language.Classical poetics would not only inspire individuals like Swedenborg, butas Marjorie Hope Nicolson—a scholar who writes on literature and sci-ence—Classical imagery laid the foundation for Romanticism: “. . . detailsof the Romantic mise-en-scène—mountains, caverns, cataracts, ruins, hur-

* [email protected] The English translations will be used in this article2 Emanuel Swedenborg, Ludus Heliconius and Other Latin Poems, ed. Hans Helander

(Uppsala: Almqvist &Wiksell International, 1995), 4

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ricanes, storms, volcanoes, earthquakes, had been the stock in trade ofeighteenth-century descriptive poets, or that the characteristic adjectivesand epithets of the Romantic poets had long been familiar: dark, gloomy,still, awful, unfathomable, ghastly, rude; magnificent, majestic, grand;glorious; terror and delight, joy and exultation.”3

“On the Mine in Falun” was published in approximately 1716 andoriginally written in Neo-Latin. The poem’s narrator describes in richdetail his “pleasant” descent into the great Copper Mountain and Mine atFalun, Sweden. In great sensorial detail the narrator “glides from theupper world in a bucket, brought all the way to the dark shadows ofdeath,” but moves “to and fro hanging in the middle of air,” finding it“pleasant to sing holy hymns” and “weigh his poor and fragile life.”4 Thenarrator finds delight, a sense of joy, in knowing his life “depended on thepower of a rope,” and does not appear afraid to enter “the recesses of themine” where “the band of Hades hurriedly rushes along.”5 The juxtaposi-tion of images helps to illumine what would later be termed the sublime.As Nicholson writes, “. . . terror, in the eighteenth-century sense of theword, was an integral part of the new aesthetic experience of men whosought a new language to express their mingled feelings of joy and awe.”6

Emanuel Swedenborg employed an ekphrastic poetic style and effectivelyarticulated the simultaneous beauty and terror of the Falun mine. Ekphrasisis “a descriptive (periegematikos) speech which vividly (enargos) brings thesubject shown before the eyes.”7 Swedenborg exemplifies vivid imagery ofthe mine depths and exposes how descending into the Earth’s depthsalters sensory perception. Ruth Webb asserts, “The virtues of ekphrasisare the following: above all clarity (sapheneia) and the vividness (enargeia)which makes one almost see what is being spoken about (ta-apangellomena);then one should avoid speaking at great length about useless things

3 Majorie Hope Nicholson, Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory: The Development of theAesthetics of the Infinite (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997), 21

4 Swedenborg, Ludus Heliconius and other Latin poems, 1225 Ibid, 122.6 Marjorie Hope Nicolson, Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory: The Development of the

Aesthetics of the Infinite, 217 Ruth Webb, Ekphrasis, Imagination, and Persuasion in Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Practice

(Surry: Ashgate Publishing, 2009), 198.

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(achresta); in general one should fit the language (apangelia) to the subject(ta hupokeimena) . . .”8 Swedenborg’s poetry focuses on the mine in Falunand clearly and vividly conveys the complicated reception of the mines.

His use of ekphrasis also reflects the shift in the representation ofmountains as depicted by Nicholson: “a century and a half ago, mountainsbecame ‘temples of Nature built by the Almighty’ and ‘natural cathedrals,or natural altars . . . with their clouds resting on them as the smoke of acontinual sacrifice.’ A century and a half earlier, however, they had been‘Nature’s Shames and Ills’ and ‘Warts, Wens, Blisters, Impostumes’ uponthe otherwise fair face of Nature.”9 During his poetic period, Swedenborgwas in the transitional moment between these two differing cultural inter-pretations of Nature. He was not divorced from the classical fears of themountains’ depths, as seen in Virgil and Dante’s imagery of Hades, norfully wedded to a belief that mountains were temples, as found in laterRomantic artistry. This likely occurred because Swedenborg was part ofthe beginnings of scientific developments, which Nicholson argues alteredinterpretations of the mountains: “Theology, philosophy, geology, as-tronomy—basic and radical changes all occurred before the ‘MountainGloom’ gave way to ‘Mountain Glory.”10 Even though Swedenborg wasinspired by Latin poetics and “the Latin attitude towards mountains,however, at least among classical writers, remained almost consistentlyadverse,” he still found the mines as a place of sacred encounter.11

Swedenborg was able to capture mine experience through poeticlanguage because he had a close relationship to the Falun mine and othermines. From the beginning, Swedish mines were an integral part of EmanuelSwedenborg’s life, as both of “Swedenborg’s grandparents, the Swedbergsand the Behms, were stockholders in the corporation that owned andoperated Falun.”12 Emanuel’s early childhood years were spent at his

8 Ibid., 198.9 Majorie Hope Nicolson, Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory: The Development of the

Aesthetics of the Infinite, 210 Ibid., 3.11 Ibid., 39.12 Robert Kirven and Robin Larsen, “Emanuel Swedenborg: A Pictorial Biography” in ,

Emanuel Swedenborg: A Continuing Vision, edited by Robin Larsen, Stephen Larsen, JamesLawrence, and William Woofenden (New York: Swedenborg Foundation, 1988), 5.

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family home near Falun. Inside the home were murals depicting biblicalscenes, which reflected the devout Christianity in the Swedenborg home.Emanuel’s father Jesper was a professor of theology at Uppsala and laterserved as the Bishop of Skara, so Swedenborg was raised in a home thatvalued Christian theological education (with a strong Pietistical empha-sis). At age eleven Emanuel Swedenborg enrolled at the University ofUppsala and began his studies. One of his professors, Olof Rudbeck ofmedicine and botany, “instilled a deep interest in botany and anatomy intwo of his most famous students—Swedenborg and Linneaus.” In addi-tion to education in scientific knowledge, Rudbck “guided them to afascination with what today would be called comparative religions, in-cluding the religious symbols of antiquity and the visionary imagery ofindigenous healers among the Lapps.”13 Despite Swedenborg’s focus onthe sciences in his education, balance between studies of the sciences andhumanities was valued.

After graduating, Swedenborg traveled for five years expanding hisknowledge by visiting other mines and educational institutions. Uponreturning he was appointed to the Swedish Board of Mines. Serving in thisposition Swedenborg was able to contribute to a new discourse of mineral-ogy and invent new technologies that assisted in mining. In addition to hisinventions, Swedenborg published a massive three-volume work entitledthe Principia; or The First Principles of Natural Things, which contained twoimportant treatises on copper and iron. According to Ralph Waldo Emerson,Swedenborg was an example of a representative man, as “No one man isperhaps able to judge the merits of his works on so many subjects. One isglad to learn that his books on mines and metals are held in highest esteemby those who understand these matters.”14 Thus Swedenborg’s careerinformed later generations of mineralogists and those who engaged withmining.

In her chapter “Swedenborg’s Career on the Board of Mines—TheWorld of Uses,” Jane Williams-Hogan, Professor of Social Science at Bryn

13 Ibid., 10.14 Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Swedenborg; Or the Mystic” in Representative Men: Seven

Lectures, 103.

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Athyn College, suggests Swedenborg balanced intellectualism and emo-tional ties to individuals when he served on the Swedish Board of Mines:

In both of these cases it would appear that Swedenborg took the human

condition into account. Thus, he moved beyond the hard fact of these

cases and expressed concern and compassion. It is possible to imagineSwedenborg attending sessions at the Board of Mines on a daily basis,

day after day, year after year, walking first from his apartment on Gamla

Stan and then later in the 1740s from his home on Hornsgatan onSödermalm through rain and snow, days of sunshine and days with

overcast skies to participate in the multi-varied work of the Royal College

of Mines. At the board he dealt with countless administrative details,technological breakthroughs, struggles over inheritances, and vexing dis-

putes between individuals and officials. It would appear that while some

individuals could be worn down and become cynics in such a role,Swedenborg was able to respond with both head and heart. In an envi-

ronment focused on use and the public good, Swedenborg internalized a

living love of use that opened him up to humbly accept the call to servethe Lord. In fact, it is possible that is was his service on the board that was

the incubator of his call rather than all his intellectual striving after firstthings. However, once called, they too could serve.15

Even though Williams-Hogan provides two examples where Swedenborgcarried out justice while serving on the Board of Mines and brings to thesurface the potential for early spiritual formation in his life, perhaps themines taught Swedenborg more about spiritual correspondences of thenatural world than his personal call to service in administrative work. Inhis later theological writing, Swedenborg did refer to himself as a humbleservant of the Lord Jesus Christ, but in his scientific works there is nodeclaration of servanthood. Instead of seeing himself as a scientific ser-vant, Swedenborg was more likely to see himself as a scientific messenger,as demonstrated in his Treatise on Copper, where he “. . . set forth the

15 Jane Williams-Hogan, “Swedenborg’s Career on the Board of Mines: The World ofUses,” The New Philosophy 113(2010): 1–2. 981–1015.

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produce of these mines for the years 1711 to 1724, to enable the wonderfulphenomena of nature existing in the subterranean kingdom to be observedmore clearly.”16 Swedenborg wanted to make the work he did accessible.He had a desire to improve rational scientific understanding of the uni-verse and even challenged important figures like Newton when naminghis first volume the Principia—a direct counterpoint to Newton’sgroundbreaking work Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.Swedenborg did what he set out to do in his work, but he also knew it was“an arduous attempt to explain philosophically the hitherto secret opera-tions of elemental nature, far removed as they are, and almost hidden fromour view.”17 The subterranean kingdoms remained difficult to grasp andwere often equated to Hell, but as scientific innovations were made real-izations occurred. The subterranean kingdoms could be explored andexploited for their natural riches. Swedenborg acknowledged the diffi-culty of comprehending the natural world, but he did not back down, “inmaking the attempt, however, I must endeavor to place, as it were, beforethe eyes, those phenomena which nature herself is careful to conceal, andof which she seems most adverse to the investigation.”18 Sight provedimportant for Swedenborg who used sight in both his scientific and theo-logical work. As a natural philosopher Swedenborg published Economy ofthe Animal Kingdom, which systematically analyzed the importance of thebody and its relationships to the natural world via sensory perception.Swedenborg expanded Economy of the Animal Kingdom into his larger workAnimal Kingdom, which sought to correct “superficiality” to his recentinquiries. He felt a much more detailed investigation of the body wasneeded to identify the seat of the soul. Later, as he wrote theology,Swedenborg continued to use sight and sound imagery that he had inves-tigated during his days as a natural philosopher. Nicholson explains whythere was a shift to a sense of awe with sight: “An interregnum was

16 Emanuel Swedenborg, Opera Philosophica et Minerali (Treatise on Copper), Volume 3,Trans. Arthur Hodson Searle (London: Swedenborg Society and British Non-Ferrous MetalsResearch Association, 1938), ix.

17 Emanuel Swedenborg, The Principia, or, The First Principles of Natural Things : to which areadded the Minor Principia and Summary of the Principia, vol. 1, trans. by James R. Rendell andIsaiah Tansley (London: Swedenborg Society, 1912), 4.

18 Ibid.

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necessary between neoclassicism and Romanticism, a period when menwere learning to see. Visual qualities were emphasized. Imagination waslearning to ‘feel through the eyes.”19 Swedenborg was located in betweenshifts in these cultural epistemes, a liminal space, where there was adramatic shift in how individuals would understand and value sight.Furthermore, Swedenborg’s ekphrases about the mines could be said tohave profound significance in Swedenborg’s work, as mines alter one’ssensory perceptions, especially sight.

Over this time period, Swedenborg explored his new understandingsthrough a variety of publications and exhibited his immense knowledge ofsubjects like astronomy (within which he developed a nebular hypoth-esis), and inventing various new technologies. Despite the scientific natureof “On Copper,” Swedenborg mentions at the beginning of his thirdvolume that a Biblical flood was the reason for treasures within the moun-tains being revealed to humans:

From these considerations it may also be concluded that the flood itself

was a provision of the Divine Providence, that whatever the earth hadconcealed in its innermost recesses, and had acquired through a long

course of time and manifold vicissitudes, it might, in this manner, offerup for the enjoyment of mortals: this, it seems, could not have been done

unless the terraqueous globe had undergone this fate of disintegration

and likewise being covered by this overwhelming flood.20

As a scientist, Swedenborg could have departed from a traditional reli-gious understanding of world’s creation, but in his understanding minesare not limited to their scientific and economic use. They are deeplyembedded within his religious understandings of how the world cameinto being—in this case Divine Providence. Furthermore, some of themines Swedenborg mentions in his writing had names like The Crown ofPrince’s, God’s Will, God’s Blessing, God’s Help in Need, and New Luck,

19 Marjorie Hope Nicolson, Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory: The Development of theAesthetics of the Infinite, 25.

20 Emanuel Swedenborg, Opera Philosophica et Minerali (Treatise on Copper), Volume 3,Trans. Arthur Hodson Searle (London: Swedenborg Society and British Non-Ferrous MetalsResearch Association, 1938), xiii.

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which shows how mines were not viewed as separate from religiousunderstandings of the time. Sweden was Christianized in the 11th centuryand during the 16th century the Lutheran church of Sweden had becomethe state church. Individuals in power held positive outlooks towardsmines because they profited from mines, but if one looked from theperspective of the miners engaged in treacherous physical labor, mineswere also a place comparable to Hades. This comparison can also be tracedback to some of the earliest classical writers like Dante, Homer, and Virgil.There were vacillations in how individuals viewed mountains and mines.On one hand there was a delight of riches found in the Earth’s depths, andon the other hand there was a deep fear of the winding paths of darkness.The mine in Falun was no different; Falun was the primary source ofwealth for Sweden and the location where a young miner, Mats Israelsson,had gone missing in 1670. Fifty years later miners came across his perfectlypreserved body. When they brought his body to the surface his fiancéewas able to identity her former lover. His body was put on display in themine’s museum and became a spectacle within the community.

Swedenborg seems to have been aware of Mats Israelsson when hewrites, “. . . the amount of copper held in the solution in the water is sogreat that even human bodies that have been immured and suffocated inthe rocks and caves, and immersed in the water for several years, havebecome so penetrated by a certain vitriolic menstruum as to be preservedentire from dissolution, and have afterwards been taken out into broaddaylight in view of all.”21 It was Carl Linnaeus, Swedenborg’s brother-in-law, who communicated to local community members that the minewaters kept Israelsson’s body preserved. Similar to Swedenborg, CarlLinnaeus confirmed the majestic and hellish nature of the mines: “TheFalun mine is one of the great wonders of Sweden but as horrible as hellitself.”22 Many artists, including E.T.A. Hoffmann, who wrote a fictionalaccount of Mats Israelsson in his short story “The Mines of Falun,” reinter-preted Israelsson’s story and reiterated a fear yet fascination with the

21 Emanuel Swedenborg, The Principia, 2.22 Magareta Kjellin and Nina Ericson, Genuine Falun Red (Stockholm: Prisma, 1999), 124.

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mines—a combination of wonder and fear that anticipates the later articu-lations of the Romantic sublime.

Swedenborg’s poetry was situated in these early formative years ofscientific exploration and discovery. His environment shaped his otherwritings as well as his poetry. Helander agrees: “on closer investigation,the poems turn out to be an interesting and in part fascinating picture ofthe age, a mirror of the last dramatic years of the Great Northern War,conveyed by the mind of a young, very talented and very ambitiousscholar and scientist.”23 Thus, Swedenborg’s use of ekphrasis was both aresult of literary conventions of the time and of his own understandings ofhow experiences in the mine enabled dynamic encounters with the naturalworld. In the preface of his Treatise on Copper Swedenborg describes mineswith vivid imagery similar to his poetry: “an abyss and immense crateryawns open in the middle; at its sides, in different directions, there arehundreds of pits and excavations towards the deeper parts, where in likemanner other caves and hollows succeed and, from there open out de-scents into fresh grottoes and mines, and thus they make a great highway. . .”24 Nature comes alive and takes on human characteristics such asyawning in this description. Hans Helander explains how personificationwas not defined as a rhetorical trope until after the eighteenth century, but“ancient handbooks categorized the phenomenon that we today define aspersonification as either fictio personae, conformatio, prosopopoeia, or ‘meta-phors that transfer from the living to the non-living.”25 Helander providesthe example of Virgil’s ancient Latin literary description of the entrance toHades, which provided groundwork and descriptive vocabulary forSwedenborg’s poems “On the smiths that formed large masses of iron”and “On the Mine in Falun.” Intertextuality was frequently employed inNeo-Latin texts, and Helander argues, “for the poet who wrote Latinpoetry, a large number of inherited ideas and themes were at his disposal,as loci ready to be used. Of these, many were of classical origin, but somewere themes that had come to form a part of the intellectual repertorium

23 Emanuel, Swedenborg, Ludus Heliconius and other Latin poems, 7.24 Emanuel Swedenborg, Opera Philosophica et Minerali (Treatise on Copper), 1.25 Emanuel, Swedenborg, Ludus Heliconius and other Latin poems, 37–38.

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during the Renaissance and the Baroque period.”26 Swedenborg’s minepoetry finds its roots in inherited ideas and themes of Hades, but compli-cates Hades’ imagery because of Swedenborg’s seminal involvement inscientific developments in mineralogy.

“On the smiths that formed large masses of iron” describes in exactingdetail the different tasks blacksmiths must go through to make iron useful:

This one brings a rough lump and hurls it into the furnace

That one carries charcoal, another torches.This one tosses up and turns the mass, another seizes it with tongs,

Yet another puts the glowing burden on the anvil.

This one goes round the anvil, remodels the mass and prepares it.Another pours on a stream of water that resounds greatly.

They stood there deaf from the sound, black from the sulphur.

Just add the wrinkles—and you had the face of Charon.27

The strong descriptions in this poem help this scene come alive and createsa tangible setting. All of the senses are engaged, and the poem embodieswhat Swedenborg describes in The Principia that, “it is impossible toreceive knowledge immediately from the soul; man attains only throughthe medium of organs and senses.”28 The reader is given the opportunityto experience and learn about the blacksmith’s profession through thenarrator’s own sensory engagement. The narrator effectively uses poeticimagery to awaken the senses. Interestingly, the narrator conveys thispoem from a distance, not in the place of the miners, but as an outsider.There is not a sense of judgment, but one of awe. There is a fascinationwith miners carrying charcoal, viewing the radiating light from the bur-den, hearing the stream of water resound, and observing that minersexperienced deafness as a result of their work. The line “yet another putsthe glowing burden on the anvil” has a double meaning—the burden aspart of the mining process and something that weighs an individualdown. Perhaps the narrator understood the burdensome nature of this job,

26 Ibid., 30.27 Ibid., 122.28 Emanuel Swedenborg, The Principia, 4.

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similar to Swedenborg’s experiences on the Royal College Board of Mines.The poem provides many points of encounter, but at the end of the poemthere is a turn from concrete details to the figure Charon, which takes thepoem into a deeper realm of mythological allusion and interpretation. Theminers go from being miners to embodying Charon, who in Greek my-thology is the ferryman of Hades. Miners provide a connection betweenthe living, found above the mine and in themselves, and the deadness thatpermeates the mine interiors. Even though there is a connection to theliving, the miners remain deaf from the sounds in the mine and are unableto escape the haunting nature of their reality. In this poem the minersaccept their state, but it is how others, such as the narrator, see the minersthat reveals the potential terror of the miners’ appearance while engagedin their work. The narrator does not conflate the miner with Charon butshows how one small detail, like adding wrinkles, would produce the faceof Charon. Wrinkles inevitably happen over time and show the life com-mitment to work in the mines and the way the mines dehumanize theminer’s body. This destruction distorts, and is slow and painful. HansHelander demonstrates how this poem “contains echoes of Virgil’s de-scriptions of the busy Cyclopes at work in the forges under Aetna” andreferences similar moments of Charon, but does not say much more aboutthe significance of Charon in this piece.29 Charon appears in works byVirgil and Dante—authors Swedenborg was deeply familiar with—as abrutal and grotesque figure of the underworld, so the parallel to Charonhas the potential to elicit fear and trepidation.

While this first poem focuses more on the process of extracting ironfrom the earth and the miner’s resemblance to Charon, the second poem,“On the Mine in Falun,” goes into more detail following a narrator’sjourney into the Falun mine:

Behold, a wonderful thing! I glide down from the upper world in a

bucket,

thus hanging, I am brought all the way to the dark shadows of death.But, as I moved to and fro hanging in the middle of the air,

29 Emanuel Swedenborg, Ludus Heliconius and other Latin poems, 218.

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it was pleasant for me to sing holy hymns.

It was pleasant thus to weigh this poor and fragile life,which all depended on the power of a rope.

Behold, —in the recesses of the mine the band of Hades hurriedly

rushes along,with dark faces wondering at me and my followers.

Some of them roll rocks, some sweat in the dust,

this one throws down wood, another brings torches.Yet another enters the recesses, someone puts out from a hole

a face that is burnt, so that even dark Charon himself would laugh.

Another with a great effort climbs quivering ladders, yet another issquatting in a vessel;

the vessel holds only half his body.

This one is working himself through winding veins, another goes round,for he leads small horses around in a circle.

What more shall I mention? All is full of hard work and skill.

Skill is not inferior to the material, nor is the material inferior to theskill.30

The narrator, like the one in “On the smiths that form large masses ofiron,” is not a miner, but reports what he experiences. The narrator islikely an overseer because “dark faces” are “wondering at me and myfollowers” (a line that could also refer to Swedenborg’s role as an asses-sor). This is significant because the mine is experienced from an outsider’sobservations. The narrator’s insights could have many interpretationsembedded in the poetic narrative, which could allow for the mines to beunderstood as both a positive and negative space. The narrator beginswith expressing delight, and the choice of words “behold, a wonderfulthing” goes beyond an individual impressed with mines. “Behold” indi-cates that this journey is remarkable and evokes a sense of sacred rever-ence. One is not simply looking, but fully embracing an experience. Ninetyyears after Swedenborg wrote his famous poem “On the Mine at Falun,”

30 Ibid., 122.

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William Wordsworth wrote “Home at Grasmere,” and Kate Rigby, Profes-sor of Environmental Humanities at Monash University, argues,

Presumably, the ‘seclusion’ that Wordsworth speaks of [in this poem]

refers to the way in which the little valley seemed to be enclosed by the

surrounding mountains, which rise above the place on which the boy ispositioned.” Despite his elevated lookout point and the subsequent rep-

etition of words from the paradigm of sight (‘looked, ‘gaze,’ ‘behold,’

‘gazed”), Grasmere is precisely not displayed to us in a view from above.Instead, we are told of what being therein that spot at that moment made

this particular boy think, feel, and imagine.31

In a similar manner as Wordsworth’s (Romantic) rhetorical strategy,Swedenborg’s ekphrasis of the Falun mine also provides readers withwhat the narrator thinks, feels, and imagines as he descends from theupper world to the depths. “Behold” can mean to see or observe, but inconversation with “wonderful” evokes Christian scripture. For example,Luke 2:10–11 says, “And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, Ibring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For untoyou is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ theLord.”32 This scripture brings into view the power of sacred looking likeone would look at an icon and see a permeating divine presence. The angelin Luke speaks “behold” and is a vessel for sacred encounter. In fact, thenarrator continues with angelic imagery as he glides from the “upperworld in a bucket, thus hanging, I am brought all the way to the darkshadows of death.” “Glide” conveys gracefulness, which in a woodenbucket seems contradictory. Swedenborg strategically employs paradoxi-cal, successfully utilizing the Baroque pattern of antithesis, which, accord-ing to Helander, is a “very typical feature of Swedenborg’s poems.”33 Afterthe narrator describes his initial descent, he finds himself hanging in abucket, swinging to and fro, and being brought into “dark shadows of

31 Kate Rigby, Topographies of the Sacred: the Poetics of Place in European Romanticism(Charlottsville: University of Virginia Press, 2004). 82–83.

32 New King James Bible Translation.33 Emanuel Swedenborg, Ludus Heliconius and other Latin poems, 30.

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death.” In order to cope with potential anxiety of entering a space with anair of death and lack of control over the bucket, the narrator begins to singholy hymns. Holy hymns embody a sacred tone and aural reassurance.The narrator does not abandon spirituality when entering the mines andfinds comfort in these Christian songs. Singing these songs reveals to thenarrator that his life is poor and fragile and depends only on the ropeattached to the bucket. The description of poor and fragile life indicates theimpermanent nature of human life, and the rope is a linguistic connectionto divinity. In an instant one’s life could be lost, and there is control overwhen that time will come; thus trust in the rope and bucket is essential.

There is power in the rope, and the narrator’s successful descentexposes readers to the mine’s recesses. It is here where a band of Hadeshurriedly rushes along, directly communicating that this place is hell. Theminers with their “dark faces [wonder] at me and my followers.” Asmentioned earlier, this moment could be a place where Swedenborg pro-vided commentary about his own position on the Royal College Board ofMines. This position would keep him out of the laborious mining workand participating in the mines as an overseer. Even though Swedenborgand this narrator do not work in the mine, both recognize the dangersminers face. The next few lines depict what the narrator observes— rollingrocks, sweating in dust, throwing wood, and bringing torches. HansHelander compares these images in Swedenborg’s poem to a descent intoa mine made by Frenchman Charles d’Ogier who claimed to see Sisyphusand Ixion. These images furthered the standard depiction of mines ashellish.34 Charon is also mentioned in this poem like Swedenborg’s otherpoem about blacksmiths, but in this poem Charon is laughing because ofthe miners’ burnt faces. The narrator objectively conveys what he sees, buthis inclusion of Charon reveals a fear of what the mines do to miners’bodies. They disfigure the bodies and strip individuals of human qualities.The miner climbing the quivering ladders with great effort communicatesthe strain on one’s body. The mines are not safe working environments,and the image of a man squatting in a corner that only holds half his body,perhaps defecating, proves there is a savage existence in the mines.

34 Ibid., 220.

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The narrator’s final observation describes going through the windingveins, and another individual leading horses around in a circle reflectsmonotony and repetition. This work traps the miners in deadly cyclicalpatterns. Throughout the poem Swedenborg italicizes specific words foremphasis, and to collate them together is striking: “which all depended on thepower of a rope” – “rocks” – “dust” – “wood” – “torches” – “recesses” – “hole” –“ladders” – “vessel” – “winding veins.” These words become the poem’sfocus and communicate the main ideas of the poem, which include con-templations about mortality and the mine’s physicality. The mines consistof images that would later take shape in how individuals interested inSwedenborgianism would interpret his theory of correspondences. Forexample, according to Edward Craig Mitchell, rocks and stones would“correspond to, and represent truth in ultimates, external truth, truth as itcomes down, and out, and reaches our outward conduct, and thus restsupon our outward life.”35 Many of these words would show up later inSwedenborg’s journeys through spiritual worlds, particularly in his de-scriptions of the hells. The poem ends with a didactic moment where thenarrator explains the hard work involved in the mines and equates skilland material. There is a recognition that the miners are engaged in labori-ous tasks that involve great skill, but that the miner’s work is not in vainand that the materials are still praised for their valuable contribution. Thispoem provides a holistic image of mines as being a place of scientificdiscovery and spiritual encounter. a place where one can contemplatemortality and the meanings of existence.

Science and theology both grapple with mortality and meanings ofexistence, but often are divided as two different modes of understanding.Emanuel Swedenborg’s poems reflect how science and theology can in-form one another. This argument is informative because Swedenborg’spoetry ran parallel to his work in mineralogy, drew from neoclassicalmetaphors and allegory, and also could have provided Swedenborg withdescriptive language for his later theology. Sally M. Promey, professor ofreligion and visual culture at Yale University, discusses how Swedenborg“offered a system for encountering the unknown through the known.

35 Edward Craig Mitchell, Scripture Symbolism: An Introduction to the Science of Correspon-dences or Natural and Spiritual Counterparts (St. Paul: McGill-Warner Co, 1904), 100.

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While superior to the material, the spiritual was inherent in the materialworld; the divine could be discovered in nature.”36 Thus Swedenborg’sexperience in the mines and his understanding of neoclassical literaryconventions shaped his theological writing style. In Heaven and its Wondersand Hell From Things Heard and Seen Swedenborg vividly describes hisjourney into hell, which draws upon imagery similar to his earlier poetry:

I have been permitted to look into the hells and to see what they are

within; for when the Lord wills, the sight of a spirit or angel from abovemay penetrate into the depths beneath and explore their character, not-

withstanding the coverings. In this way I have been permitted to look

into them. Some of the hells appeared to the view like caverns and dens inrocks extending inward and then downward into an abyss, either ob-

liquely or vertically.37

As in his poetry, Swedenborg effectively uses ekphrasis, and this excerptreveals how his work in the mines shaped his theological language. AsSwedenborg’s poem conveys, the mines consist of winding veins andabysses. Hell becomes a place not distant, but beneath one’s feet, a placeone can travel into via a precarious bucket and where one might findcomfort in holy hymns. Swedenborg, as a humble servant of the LordJesus Christ, is given access into the realms of heaven, hell, and the worldof spirits. His cosmology could be said to describe a liminality in thevalleys between mountains and rocks, with hell being beneath the moun-tains:

The world of spirits appears like a valley between mountains and rocks,

with windings and elevations here and there. The gates and doors of thehells are visible only to those who are about to enter. To whom they are

then opened. When these are opened gloomy and seemingly sooty cav-

erns are seen tending obliquely downwards to the abyss, where againthere are many doors. Through these caverns nauseous and fetid stenches

36 Sally M. Promney, “The Ribband of Faith: George Inness, Color Theory, and theSwedenborgian Church,” (American Art Journal, Vol. 26, No. 1/2. 1994): 50.

37 Swedenborg, Heaven and its Wonders, and Hell, From Things Heard and Seen, Trans. J.C.Ager, (New York: American Swedenborg Printing and Publishing Society, 1889), no. 586.

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exhale, which good spirits abominate and flee from, but evil spirits

delight in them and seek for them.38

Heaven, hell, and the world of spirits are places accessible by the imagina-tion. These places are associated, named correspondences by Swedenborg,with places in the physical and material world, which informsSwedenborg’s theology because his theology of heaven and hell asserts,“in the spiritual world, the world where spirits and angels live, things lookmuch the same as they do in the natural world where we live—so similarthat at first glance there seems to be no difference.”39 Prior to Swedenborgwriting his theological works, the mines had already become a locus foranxious speculation. Darkness was associated with humans’ propensity tosin and an absence of God’s truth, often depicted as light. Swedenborg’stheology confirms fears of places like mines as sites for punishment be-cause one turned towards evil as a source of truth. In the depths of themines sight is muted and one struggles with locating light. In “On theMine in Falun” Swedenborg describes the narrator confronting a descentfrom the “upper world to the dark shadows of death,” as well as theminers who “stood there deaf from the sound, black from the sulphur” in“On the smiths that forms large masses of iron,” which is similar to hisimagery of hell in Heaven and Hell:

There are hells everywhere. They are under mountains and hills and cliffs

and under the plains and valleys. The openings or gates to the hells thatare under the mountains and hills and cliffs look at first sight like crevices

or fissures in the rocks. . . . All of them seem dim and gloomy when you

look in, although the hellish spirits who live there have the kind ofillumination you get from glowing coals. Their eyes are adjusted to the

reception of this kind of light.40

38 Swedenborg, Heaven and its Wonders, and Hell, no. 429.39 Emanuel Swedenborg, Heaven and Hell, no. 582.40 Swedenborg, Heaven and its Wonders, and Hell, no. 584.

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Lighted coals and burning sulphur is an artificial source of light andcannot supplement the true source of heavenly light. The thick darkness,often conveyed in descriptions of mines and caverns, alters sight, whichcorresponds to falsities. The light coals and burning sulphur are character-istics of mines and provide sensorial indicators of hell. One can smell andtaste coal and sulphur. If Swedenborg had not had his experiences inmines, then it is likely he may not have been able to describe hell in suchrich detail. It is because Swedenborg had descended into the depths ofmines that he was able to provide vivid imagery of places like hell.

Emanuel Swedenborg made substantial contributions to a variety ofdisciplines. Swedenborg’s work on the Royal College Board of the Minesand his work on the body gave Swedenborg the language to convey histheological revelations. Swedenborg’s theology was not devoid of thenatural sciences, nor were his theological inquiries absent in his scientificdiscoveries. Swedenborg was operating in a world where secular andsacred realms had not (yet) been polarized. The interdependence of sci-ence and theology would provide Swedenborg’s successors, especiallythose who would be known as Transcendentalists and Romantics, withlanguage to discuss the role of the natural world in spirituality. Individu-als like Sampson Reed, an early American Swedenborgian disciple andearly contributor to the Transcendentalist movement, would come toargue that “the state of poetry has always indicated the state of science andreligion.”41 Did Swedenborg’s poetics simultaneously convey the state ofscience and religion? In “On the Mine in Falun,” Swedenborg suggeststhat both science and religion inform the narrator’s perception as he entersthe mine. Emerson found Swedenborg to be a representative man andexemplary poet because his “design of exhibiting such correspondences,which adequately executed, would be the poem of the world, in which allhistory and science would play an essential part.”42 Even though Emersonpraised this understanding of correspondences, he still believed thatSwedenborg’s theology “fatally narrowed his interpretation of nature”because he “fastens each natural object to a theologic notion.”43 Although

41 Sampson Reed, “Observations on the Growth of the Mind,” in Transcendentalism: AReader, ed. Joel Myerson (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).

42 Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Swedenborg; Or the Mystic,” 121.43 Ibid., 121.

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Swedenborg’s theology could limit the interpretation of the natural world,Swedenborg’s earlier poetry finds a balance in science and religion as asource of comfort, as a narrator sings to himself and finds delight in thedepths of a mine.

Furthermore, Swedenborg’s understandings of the great Copper Moun-tain and Mine of Falun would also influence German Romantics likeJohann Wolfgang von Goethe who attempted to understand the nature ofthe mines. Kate Rigby describes how “no other type of landscape under-went so dramatic a transformation in the European cultural imagination inthis period. Once thought to be the haunt of dragons, an embodiment of allthat was most frightful about this fallen Earth, mountains had by Goethe’stime been redefined as a privileged sight of sublime spiritual experi-ence.”44 In Emanuel Swedenborg: A Continuing Vision: A Pictorial Biographyand Anthology of Essays and Poetry, the editors show how “in the lateeighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, during and just afterSwedenborg’s lifetime, European intellectuals like Goethe and Coleridgeread Swedenborg and discussed his books. That tradition persisted intothe twentieth century among Europeans, like Oscar Milosz, interested inthe spiritual realm.”45 Questions remain, such as which Swedenborg worksGoethe read and how many of those works influenced Goethe’s ownwork. Vacillations in how individuals understood “Mountain Gloom”versus “Mountain Glory” can be traced in Swedenborg’s own understand-ing of the mountain peaks as comparable to heaven, pure spiritual experi-ence, and yet the caverns below being a place of hell. Rigby continues thatGoethe “was on the track of the divine under as well as up mountains.Indeed, within German romanticism the descent down the cavernousdeep, was to prove an even more important topos than the ascent to themountain peak. And it was here, in the seamy depths of these literarymine shafts, that the monstrous returned to the mountains. . . .”46

Swedenborg’s works on the mines came before Goethe’s own experience

44 Kate Rigby, Topographies of the Sacred, 131.45 Alice Skinner, “Poets with Swedenborgian Connections: Introduction” in Emanuel

Swedenborg: A Continuing Vision: A Pictorial Biography and Anthology of Essays and Poetry, 53.46 Kate Rigby, Topographies of the Sacred, 132.

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of working in mines, but Swedenborg clearly grappled with similar imag-ery of mountains that Goethe confronts. Swedenborg was similar to theyounger German Romantics because “the aesthetic and spiritual apprecia-tion of mountains was not incompatible with their scientific explorationand commercial exploitation.”47 Taken as a sum whole, Swedenborg’sprodigious work in mineralogy, his ekphrastic poems “On the smiths thatform large masses of iron” and “On the Mine in Falun”, and his latertheological writings, we might gain new insights into the relationshipsbetween poetry, natural science, and theology, and further appreciate thesignificance of Swedenborg’s complex personae of poet, scientist, andreligious visionary.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, “Swedenborg; Or the Mystic” in Representative Men: Seven Lectures, 95–145, Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1850.

Kirven, Robert and Robin Larsen, “Emanuel Swedenborg: A Pictorial Biography” in , EmanuelSwedenborg: A Continuing Vision, edited by Robin Larsen, Stephen Larsen, James Lawrence,and William Woofenden. New York: Swedenborg Foundation, 1988. 1–50.

Kjellin, Margareta and Nina Ericson, Genuine Falun Red. Stockholm: Prisma, 1999.

Mitchell, Edward Craig, Scripture Symbolism: An Introduction to the Science of Correspondences,or Natural and Spiritual Counterparts. St. Paul: McGill-Warner Co, 1904.

Nicolson, Marjorie Hope, Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory: The Development of the Aestheticsof the Infinite. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997.

Promney, Sally M. “The Ribband of Faith: George Inness, Color Theory, and the Swedenbor-gian Church,” American Art Journal, Vol. 26, No. 1/2. (1994): 44–65.

Reed, Sampson. “Observations on the Growth of the Mind,” in Transcendentalism: A Reader, ed.Joel Myerson. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. 26–61.

Rigby, Kate. Topographies of the Sacred: the Poetics of Place in European Romanticism. Charlottes-ville: University of Virginia Press, 2004.

Skinner, Alice. “Poets with Swedenborgian Connections: Introduction” in Emanuel Sweden-borg: A Continuing Vision: A Pictorial Biography and Anthology of Essays and Poetry, editedby Robin Larsen, Stephen Larsen, James Lawrence, and William Woofenden (New York:Swedenborg Foundation, 1988), 53–54.

Swedenborg, Emanuel, Ludus Heliconius and other Latin poems, ed. Hans Helander, Uppsala:Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1995.

____________ . Heaven and its Wonders, and Hell, From Things Heard and Seen, Trans. J.C.Ager. New York: American Swedenborg Printing and Publishing Society, 1889.

47 Ibid., 140.

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____________ . Angelic Wisdom concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom, Trans. JohnCurtis Ager. West Chester: Swedenborg Foundation, 1995.

____________ . The Principia; or, The First Principles of Natural Things, Bring New AttemptsToward a Philosophical Understanding of the Elementary World, Vol. 1, Trans. The Rev.Augustus Clissold, London, 1845.

____________ . The Principia, or, The First Principles of Natural Things : to which are added theMinor Principia and Summary of the Principia, vol. 1, trans. by James R. Rendell and IsaiahTansley. London: Swedenborg Society, 1912.

____________ . Opera Philosophica et Minerali (Treatise on Copper), Volume 3, Trans. ArthurHodson Searle (London: Swedenborg Society and British Non-Ferrous Metals ResearchAssociation, 1938).

Webb, Ruth, Ekphrasis, Imagination, and Persuasion in Ancient Rhetorical Theory and PracticeSurry: Ashgate Publishing, 2009.

Williams-Hogan, Jane. “Swedenborg’s Career on the Board of Mines: The World of Uses,” TheNew Philosophy 113(2010): 1–2. 981–1015.

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THE LANGUAGE OF FORM AND COLOR

THE LANGUAGE OF FORM AND COLOR: TRACES OFSWEDENBORG’S DOCTRINE OF CORRESPONDENCESIN KANDINSKY’S CONCERNING THE SPIRITUAL INART

Colette Walker*

Wassily Kandinsky’s groundbreaking book, Concerning the Spiritualin Art, appeared in December 1911, and has come to be considered

perhaps the most influential art theoretical book of the twentieth century.1

In it, Kandinsky lays out his belief that art, especially abstract painting, cancounteract the degenerative effects of contemporary materialist societyand help usher in the coming “epoch of the Great Spiritual.” By movingaway from recognizable imagery of the visible world, and relying solelyon color and non-representational form, he believed, painters could accessand express the invisible realities behind our everyday experience of theworld, thus acting as vanguard for the rest of humanity as it evolvedtoward a higher state of consciousness.2

Kandinsky’s book, which he likely drafted between 1900 and 1909(Kandinsky, vii), drew together a number of currents widespread in Euro-pean thought in the first years of the twentieth century, among them thecritique of the current age, with its materialistic rejection of spiritualrealities, and the belief that the everyday world masked higher invisiblerealms which were apprehensible only to gifted seers. In forming hisideas, Kandinsky read widely on the subjects of esotericism, philosophy,art, and science, and a number of scholars have addressed the contribu-tions of Theosophy, Anthroposophy and contemporary scientific theories

* [email protected] The first edition sold out almost immediately, requiring two further editions in 1912 to

keep up with demand. (Kandinsky, vii) Within a few years it had been translated from Germaninto English, Russian and French.

2 As Dann has shown, the term “consciousness” to discuss the possibility of evolutionaryprogress in the human psyche was already in use by the late nineteenth century, favored bythose who embraced such evolutionary models following Darwin. Those who did not tendedto prefer the term “soul” (Dann, 46).

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on his thought, sources that Kandinsky alludes to in his book.3 Given thewealth of material upon which to draw, Kandinsky and others of the erawere free to construct an ideological mélange from the available sources,making it exceptionally difficult to pin down specific currents of thoughtsurfacing in his art theory beyond those that he specifically mentions in hiswritings, especially where the initial concepts had already gone through aseries of mutations before reaching him.

One such intriguing current—to date, relatively unexplored in rela-tion to Kandinsky—originates in the writings of the eighteenth-centuryscientist and visionary Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), which exerciseda profound influence on nineteenth-century esoteric thought. Swedenborg’s“doctrine of correspondences” and use of cross-sensory analogy in hisdescriptions of spiritual realms were especially attractive to artists andwriters. They were embraced—and also transformed—by such nineteenth-century French writers as Honoré de Balzac and Charles Baudelaire, whoin turn inspired an intense enthusiasm for Swedenborg among Symbolistpoets and artists internationally, among whom Kandinsky counted him-self in his early years as a painter. Swedenborg’s doctrine of correspon-dences suggests that the material world is a form of divine language,revealing truths of higher realms to those whose spiritual eyes have beenopened. (Swedenborg, n. 87–89; Balakian, 13–14).4 Such visionaries—in-cluding Swedenborg himself—were to reeducate their fellows in the read-ing of this hidden language of nature, and thereby redeem their decadentsociety. This doctrine resonated with the yearnings for profound meaningand mystery of the Romantics and, in turn, the Symbolists, for whom theSwedish seer became identified with the poet or artist, and the visionsthemselves became conflated with the rare neurological condition of syn-esthesia, in which one sense is experienced in terms of another. By the timeKandinsky wrote his book, this understanding of correspondences, whichwould likely have been unrecognizable to Swedenborg himself, had been

3 Scholars addressing Kandinsky’s debt to Theosophical ideas include Sixten Ringbom,followed by Rose-Carol Washton Long and others. Linda Dalrymple Henderson and othershave discussed Kandinsky’s interest in scientific theory at length.

4 Note: It is standard scholarly practice to refer to passages in Swedenborg’s works bysection number rather than by page number.

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so thoroughly assimilated that Kandinsky seemingly takes it as self-evi-dent.

Swedenborg’s doctrine of correspondences

Swedenborg was well advanced in his career as a natural scientistwhen he began having vivid, extraordinary visions of supernatural beingsand places in 1743. Through his experiences of conversing with “angels”—the spirits of the deceased—and Jesus Christ, he believed he was chargedwith communicating the deeper spiritual truths of God’s Word written inthe Bible and present in the correspondences of nature, truths to whichhumanity had lost access. To this end, Swedenborg wrote a number ofworks—including the immense, nine-volume Arcana Coelestia (1749–56)—in many of which he interspersed extensive biblical exegesis with passagesdescribing his own visionary experiences. When the Arcana failed to at-tract a significant audience, Swedenborg published Heaven and Hell in1758, intended as an abridged, more accessible version of the earlier work,removing most of the exegesis, and instead highlighting his spiritualaccounts of things “seen and heard.” Heaven and Hell—which describesSwedenborg’s conversations with angels and his observations of the threerealms of heaven, the intermediate realm of recently departed souls, andhell—became his most widely read book during his lifetime, and wastranslated from neo-Latin into German, English and French by the early1780s, and continued in popularity during the following century.5 An-other Swedenborg text that was unavailable to his contemporaries but wasread with interest in the nineteenth century was his Dream Diary of 1743–1744, a personal record of his initial visionary experiences, which was first

5 In Germany, F.C. Oetinger translated the work as Vom Himmel und von den WunderbarenDingen desselben, wie auch von der Geisterwelt und vom dem Zustand des Menschen nach dem Tod;und von der Hölle; so wie es gehöret und gesehen worden, von Emanuel Swedenborg, published inLeipzig in 1774. The first English edition, translated by William Cookworthy and revised byRev. Thomas Hartley, appeared in 1778 and was entitled A Treatise concerning Heaven and Hell,containing a relation of many wonderful things therein, as heard and seen by the author, the HonourableEmanuel Swedenborg, of the Senatorial Order of Nobles in the kingdom of Sweden. In France, LesMerveilles du Ciel et de L’Enfer, et des terres planétaires et astrales, par Emanuel de Swédenborg, d’aprèsle témoignage de ses yeux et de ses oreilles, translated by Abbé Antoine-Joseph Pernety, appearedin 1782 (Hyde, 222, 245, 247).

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published in 1859 and was soon thereafter translated from Swedish intoFrench, English, German and other languages.

Both texts were valuable sources for readers interested in Swedenborg’sdoctrine of correspondences, which was itself a reworking (or perhaps are-visioning) of the ancient Hermetic dictum attributed to HermesTrismagistus, “That which is above is like that which is below, to perpetu-ate the mystery of the One Thing” (Quoted in Dann, 37–38). Swedenborg,who served to re-popularize the idea, taught that everything encounteredin the visible, material world contains multiple levels of meaning, notsimply the literal sense apparent on the surface. In Swedenborg’s words,“The whole natural world corresponds to the spiritual world—not just thenatural world in general, but actually in details. So anything in the naturalworld that occurs from the spiritual world is called a correspondent. It isvital to understand that the natural world emerges and endures from thespiritual world, just like an effect from the cause that produces it”(Swedenborg, n. 89). Objects in nature, then, correspond to a series ofincreasingly profound truths coinciding with the three levels ofSwedenborg’s heaven: the natural, the spiritual, and the celestial. Accord-ing to Swedenborg, during a golden age in the distant past, humanity hadbeen able to read these correspondences without effort, but due to increas-ing degeneration and materialism had gradually lost this ability. In hisown age, he believed, only those granted the divine gift of vision were ableto see through to the deeper meaning written by God in nature.6

In addition to nature, Swedenborg also saw spoken and written lan-guage as a form of God-given communication that operates on multiplelevels, a belief that suggests elements of Kabbalism, with which he was

6 Swedenborg contrasted his contemporaries with “the ancient people,” who prized theirknowledge of correspondences and through using this knowledge “thought like angels andactually talked with angels” and to whom “the Lord often appeared . . .” in order to teach themdirectly. By his own era, on the other hand, this knowledge had been lost, largely because “manhas moved himself away from heaven through love of self and love of the world. For a personwho loves himself and the world primarily focuses on worldly things only, since these appealto his outward senses and gratify his inclinations. He does not focus on spiritual things becausethese appeal to the inner senses and gratify the mind. As a result, people of this kind rejectspiritual things, calling them too lofty to think about” (Swedenborg, n. 87).

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likely familiar.7 Swedenborg believed that by learning to use spiritualvision in reading the Bible, which he believed was “composed by purecorrespondences” and contained both “a literal and a spiritual meaning,”he and his readers could begin to regain the fusion of vision and under-standing humankind had once had, and that angels enjoy still (Swedenborg,n. 114, Wilkinson, 95). Through understanding these correspondences,present both in the Word and in nature, he felt, humanity could bringabout a new golden age, a millennialism that finds an echo in that ofKandinsky over a century later.

The concept of a “language of nature” that may be read by means ofspiritual sight links Swedenborg’s correspondences to the broader searchfor a universal language that occupied a number of thinkers during theseventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Among them was Gottfried WilhelmLeibniz (1646–1716), who hoped to establish a universally understandablesystem of characters that could communicate human thought, includingmetaphysical concepts, as unequivocally as arithmetic expresses numbers.As Inge Jonsson has shown, Swedenborg was for a time similarly inter-ested in constructing such a language, a “philosophia universaliummathematica,” in order to express the essence of the soul (Jonsson, 98–99).The quest for a universal language also led some to speculate on theorigins of human language systems, with some concluding that humanlanguages evolved separately in response to specific characteristics ofplace and people group, an orientation found, for example, in the writingsof Johann Gottfried Herder. Others posited that all human languagesbegan as a single system that then mutated over time until humankindwas left with but a dim reflection of the power that language once held, anidea in keeping with Swedenborg’s ideas of the golden age. The interest inuniversal language continued to evolve over the nineteenth century withthe development of synthetic languages such as Esperanto, intended tobecome a shared global language, and in the more poetic and esotericexplorations of writers and artists—among them Kandinsky, who hoped

7 Describing the written language of heaven, for example, Swedenborg writes “Once asmall page was sent me from heaven, with only a few words written on it in Hebrew letters.I was told that each letter enfolded secrets of wisdom, and that these were within the bends andcurves of the letters and therefore in the sounds as well” (Swedenborg, n. 260). RegardingSwedenborg’s awareness of Kabbalistic teachings, see Goodrick-Clarke, 165–166.

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color and line within abstract painting could become such a medium ofcommunication (Wilkinson, 3–5).

This search revived the metaphor of the hieroglyph, a concept thatexerted a strong fascination on the European mind in the eighteenthcentury, and continued to resonate even after Champollion’s decipheringof the Rosetta Stone in 1822. Although Plato had knowledge of Egyptianhieroglyphics as an alphabet-based writing system, knowledge of thesymbols was gradually lost over the centuries, and the symbols came to beequated with esoteric ciphers that both communicated and concealedsecret knowledge. This understanding was furthered with the discoveryof Horapollo’s Hieroglyphica, a book of late antiquity rediscovered in 1419,which described the late “enigmatic” hieroglyphics as symbols of reli-gious and philosophical principles rather than as a straight-forward writ-ing system, and which contributed to the sixteenth and seventeenth centurycraze for emblem books, which were often called “hieroglyphical”(Dieckmann, 307, Jonsson, 107, 112–114). As Jonsson has shown, the con-cept of hieroglyphics within the emblematic tradition had clear similari-ties with Swedenborg’s theory of correspondences, suggesting as it didthat “before the invention of alphabets, humanity knew God throughhieroglyphics, and what are the heavens, the earth, and all beings buthieroglyphs and emblems of his glory?” (Jonsson, 112–113).The fascina-tion with hieroglyphs was intensified with William Warburton’s assertionin 1741 that Egyptian writing had shifted over time from a system of“natural” signs, in which the character was directly linked to the meaningit represented, to arbitrary, symbolic signs. The same year, Swedenborglikewise took an interest in the metaphor of the hieroglyph, and personallylinked it with his doctrine of correspondences in his unfinished manu-script Clavis hieroglyphica (An Hieroglyphical Key to Natural and SpiritualMysteries, by Way of Representations and Correspondences), written in 1741,but unpublished during his lifetime. Other writers specifically invokedthe metaphor of the hieroglyph in relation to poetry and art, among themDenis Diderot, writing in 1751, who described poetic expression as “a webof hieroglyphs which depict thought. In this sense one might say that allpoetry is emblematic” (Dieckmann, 306). This linkage continues in thenineteenth century, with the German Romantic artist Philip Otto Rungedescribing his highly symbolic and enigmatic paintings as “hieroglyphs,”

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and André Gide, who used the term to refer to the mysterious and essen-tial relationships between nature, language and poetry (Dieckmann, 306).

Another aspect of Swedenborg’s writings that provided a strong drawfor the artists and poets that followed him was his use of sensory meta-phors in his descriptions of the heavenly realms. This often is associatedwith the effects of various levels of speech—or even thought—on thesenses, as when Swedenborg explains that “to angels, hellish speech is likea foul smell that hurts the nostrils,” or when he relates that angels’ thoughtsand speech can create “changes in heaven’s light” or a sense of warmth(Swedenborg, n. 239, 245). Swedenborg frequently uses such descriptionsin order to suggest the otherness of the sensations experienced in non-earthly realms, a technique that may have contributed to Swedenborg’ssignificance for nineteenth-century poetics despite his otherwise ratherscientific and unpoetic writing style.

Popularizing Swedenborg in the nineteenth century

These concepts of the hieroglyph, correspondences, and the intermin-gling of the senses were compelling to the generations of Romantic andSymbolist poets. By the nineteenth century, Swedenborg’s works hadbeen translated into many languages, including English, French, Germanand Russian, and the popularity of Swedenborgianism was such thatBalakian asserts it had become “the basic mysticism of the time” (Balakian,12). Most nineteenth-century readers, who included such luminaries asRalph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, William Blake and George Innes,were far less interested in Swedenborg’s interpretations of the Bible thanin his mystical visions, and turned primarily to Heaven and Hell and to hisdream journal for inspiration. As William Blake pointed out in his Mar-riage of Heaven and Hell (1791), this draw was due less to the originality ofSwedenborg’s ideas, than to his ability to synthesize and thereby popular-ize so many esoteric philosophies of past ages in one system (Balakian,12).8

8 For more on Blake’s contested entanglement with Swedenborg, see Noah Adrien Lyon’sessay in this issue, “Blake and Swedenborg: a New Approach to Opposition,” [page numbers]

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Despite the strong interest in Swedenborg’s doctrine of correspon-dences among nineteenth-century artists and poets, there were aspects ofhis work with which certain close readers took issue. AlthoughSwedenborg’s visions were in many ways radical, he nonetheless re-mained a member of the Lutheran Church all his life, and for some hisinterpretation of his spiritual experiences indicated a hesitance to stray toofar from his Christian and scientific roots. Whereas nineteenth-centuryreaders sought to use the idea of correspondences to explode open themeaning inherent in the natural world and to bypass too strict a relianceon the rational mind, Swedenborg took an Enlightenment approach ofcataloging such meanings, which Balakian calls “old-fashioned allegoryand not symbol, as the word evolved in the century following Swedenborg”(Balakian, 14). This aspect of Swedenborg—the compulsion to pin downmeaning definitively—led to critiques by writers who were otherwisequite appreciative of his ideas. They typically embraced those aspects theyfound useful or appealing while dismissing, ignoring or altering thosewith which they disagreed. Such reworking resulted in popularized—andin some cases mistaken—understandings of Swedenborg’s ideas, espe-cially since few people in the nineteenth century seem to have actuallyread the works of Swedenborg for themselves, according to Wilkinson.9

“In nineteenth-century everyday and literary English and French,” sheexplains, “‘correspondences’ took on a new sense: the word came todesignate potential meanings suggested by the existence of an allegoricallanguage of nature which, it was believed, Swedenborg had explained in aseries of exegetical works” and yet few people delved deeply enough intohis writings to discover the key to this allegorical language, a tendencystrengthened by the Romantic and Symbolist preference for embracing—rather than explicating—mystery (Wilkinson, 19).

Given such relatively loose interpretations of his ideas, Swedenborgcould, chameleon-like, be adapted to serve as patron saint for diverse

9 Even those who did often had to rely on abridged or faulty translations of his works. Inhis study of the reception of Swedenborg’s writings in France, Karl-Erik Sjödén reports that thefirst French translator of Heaven and Hell, Antoine-Joseph Pernety, took great liberties in histranslation such that “when [he] came across a paragraph that did not suit him personally, hesimply changed it,” and even “interjected answers from his oracle into his translations”(Quoted in Gyllenhaal, 88).

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causes and perspectives. Swedenborg’s works, for example, were em-braced by radical utopian movements such as that of Joseph Fourier inFrance and the United States, and in France Swedenborg’s name came tobe additionally associated with populist political orientations, despite thefact that in Protestant lands his politics were seen as relatively conserva-tive.10 At the same time, Swedenborg’s ideas also became associated withand were transmitted alongside the doctrines of Mesmerism, leading tohis doctrine of correspondences becoming interwoven with ideas of ener-getic healing and clairvoyance in some circles (Wilkinson, ix; Gabay, 40–41, 218).

Swedenborg’s reception in French literary circles: Balzac, Baudelaireand the Symbolists

The literary works of Honoré de Balzac played a key role in spreadingand popularizing certain aspects of Swedenborgian thought well into thetwentieth century, and served as a bridge delivering his ideas—thoughthrough Balzac’s own personal lens—to later writers and artists includingBaudelaire and the composer Arnold Schönberg. This is especially true ofhis two “Swedenborgian novels” Seraphita and Louis Lambert, two of thethree works collectively titled Recherche de l’Absolu. Seraphita introduces anumber of Swedenborgian concepts through recounting the story of thetitle character Seraphita, or Seraphitus, a 17-year-old visionary cousin ofSwedenborg’s. Seraphita’s/Seraphitus’ position between heaven and earthis underscored by the ambiguity of her/his gender, suggestive ofSwedenborg’s concept of heavenly marriage in which two individuals arebonded together “into one mind” such that they “are not referred to as twoangels but as one” (Swedenborg, n. 468). Seraphita/Seraphitus befriends ayoung man and woman, Wilfred and Minna, both of whom fall in lovewith her/him, and s/he shares with them some glimpses of the higherworlds. Balzac uses these and other conversations within the novel topresent a number of Swedenborgian concepts, such as the correspondence

10 For further exploration of nineteenth-century American Fourierists’ embrace ofSwedenborgian ideas, see Robert W. Gladish, Swedenborg, Fourier and the America of the 1840s.

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of the earthly with the heavenly, and the intermingling in heaven of senseperceptions that on earth are distinct from one another. Minna’s father,Pastor Becker—depicted as a close reader of Swedenborg despite hismarked skepticism—alludes to this latter idea, explaining to Wilfred andMinna that “some very good men will not recognize [Swedenborg’s]worlds where colors are heard in delicious concerts, where words areflames, and the Word is written in inflected letters” although he allowsthat “to poets and writers [his theosophy] is infinitely marvelous; to seersit is all absolute truth” (Balzac, 50).11 The most striking presentation ofsynesthesia comes with the apotheosis of Seraphitus (who, in the end, isreferred to only in the masculine), in which Minna and Wilfred are given aglimpse of heaven as their friend completes the transformation fromearthly being to heavenly seraph. During this vision “they heard the songsof heaven which gave them all the sensations of color, perfume andthought and which reminded them of the innumerable details of all thecreations, as an earthly song can revive the slenderest memories of love”(Balzac, 140; Balakian, 18–19).

In contrast to Seraphita/Seraphitus, the title character of Louis Lambertis likewise a visionary figure, but one who is ultimately unable to reconcilehis spiritual vision with life in the world and succumbs to madness. Balzacweaves elements of Swedenborg’s philosophy throughout this novel aswell, using them to mirror aspects of his character’s intellectual and spiri-tual development. In a passage near the beginning, for example, Balzacutilizes the concept of the hieroglyph in reflecting on Lambert’s extraordi-nary love of reading from early childhood and his delight in the mysticalqualities of language (Wilkinson, 152). Lambert asks the narrator, “Whocan philosophically explain the transition from sentence to thought, fromthought to word, from word to its hieroglyphic presentment, from hiero-glyphics to the alphabet, from the alphabet to written language, of whichthe eloquent beauty resides in a series of images, classified by rhetoric, and

11 Seraphita’s/Seraphitus’ own words only once directly suggest the experience ofsynesthesia, and then rather wryly, allowing that people ascribe all manner of supernaturalabilities to her. “They say that I walk on clouds; I am on familiar terms with the eddies in thefjord; the sea is a horse I have saddled and bridled; I know where the singing flower grows,where the talking light shines, where living colors blaze that scent the air . . .” (Balzac, 85).

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forming, in a sense, the hieroglyphics of thought?” (Balzac, 147). In certainof his works, then, and especially in these two “philosophical novels,”Balzac makes use of ideas from Swedenborg without adhering to themrigidly, transmitting, as Wilkinson terms it “a literary myth of Swedenborgwhich was, perhaps in spite of itself, relatively faithful to the original”(Wilkinson, 152).

Baudelaire’s “Correspondances” and French Symbolism

Charles Baudelaire, whose 1857 poem “Correspondances” was topopularize a version of Swedenborg’s doctrine throughout fin de siècleEurope, certainly would have read Balzac’s Recherche de l’Absolu, in addi-tion to reading certain of Swedenborg’s works directly, including Heavenand Hell.12 Baudelaire is a notoriously difficult poet to categorize, de-scribed by scholars as both a decadent and a Catholic, as a Romantic, aproto-Symbolist, or even the father of Symbolist poetry. As was the casewith Balzac, Baudelaire furthered an understanding of Swedenborg’s ideasthat differed significantly from their original source. As Wilkinson notesof Baudelaire’s critical writings, although the French poet makes referenceto Swedenborg eight times in his essays on Victor Hugo, Richard Wagner,Fourier and Eugene Delacroix, and mentions the doctrine of correspon-dences seven times, he primarily does so in order to support his ownaspirations for the role of the artist as visionary.13 In his 1861 essay onVictor Hugo, for example, he wrote “the metaphors and epithets of excel-lent poets are drawn from the inexhaustible fund of the Universal analogy. . . Swedenborg already taught us that everything, form, movement,number, color, perfume, in the spiritual as well as in the natural, is signifi-cant, reciprocal, converse, correspondent” (Wanner, 150). Elsewhere in thesame essay he asks, “Thus what is a poet (I take the word in its widestsense) if not a translator, a decipherer?” (Dann, 38). Thus, where Balzac

12 According to Gyllenhaal, Baudelaire’s copy of Heaven and Hell survives and includes thepoet’s underlining (Gyllenhaal, 90).

13 Wilkinson points out that in all seven cases where Baudelaire includes the term“correspondences,” he uses it to suggest analogies among the arts, to describe the artisticprocess in terms of a linguistic model, and to discuss utopianism (Wilkinson, 19, 219, 240).

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clearly took an interest in (but was perhaps ambivalent about) the vision-ary states reported by Swedenborg that he reflected in passages of his ownnovels, Baudelaire deliberately recasts the poet in the role of the visionary,the seer who can reveal truths invisible to the less gifted.

This association is implicit in the poem “Correspondances,” the en-thusiastic reception of which helped establish the perceived hieratic role ofthe artist—here linked with cross-sensory experience—in the minds of theSymbolist generation, and embedding this in the popular understandingof Swedenborg’s doctrine:

Correspondences?

Nature is a temple where living pillars

Let sometimes emerge confused words;

Man comes there over forests of symbolsWhich watch him with intimate eyes.

Like those deep echoes that meet from afarIn a dark and profound harmony,

As vast as night and clarity,

So perfumes, colors, tones answer each other.

There are perfumes fresh as children’s flesh,

Soft like oboes, green as meadows,

And others corrupted, rich, triumphant

Possessing the diffusion of infinite things,

Like amber, musk, incense, and aromatic resin,

Chanting the ecstasies of spirit and senses.14

As literary scholars have pointed out nearly from the beginning, thepoem has a very noticeable shift of orientation halfway through. The twoquatrains with which it begins are much closer in spirit to Swedenborg’s

14 Translated by Geoffrey Wagner (Baudelaire, unpaginated).

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doctrine (although the “living pillars” of the temple only sometimes allow“confused words” to emerge), while the following tercets turn insteadtoward earthly sensory experience. With their oracular and mysterioustone and suggestion of spiritual meaning infusing the objects amongwhich we move, the quatrains’ lines suggest “vertical correspondences,”linking the earthly with the divine unity, in which even the sensoryallusions (“perfumes, the colors and the sounds”) are oriented towardthings beyond the physical plane. The two tercets that follow, in contrast,have been described as presenting “horizontal correspondences.”15 In them,Baudelaire turns from contemplating mysterious worlds to reveling in themystery and pleasure of the here and now. These lines, though writtenbefore the concept of synesthesia had entered the artistic lexicon, wereinitially understood to echo the use of sensory analogy found inSwedenborg’s own writings about heavenly realms. However, by the endof the century Baudelaire’s poem had become firmly linked with the ideaof synesthetic experience, a faculty coveted by Symbolists—includingKandinsky—who equated it with spiritual insight.

Although by 1911 the idea of synesthesia was widely discussed bypoets, artists and musicians, in 1857 it had yet to emerge from medicaljournals where the phenomenon was first noted, and in Swedenborg’s dayhad not yet appeared at all. Kevin Dann traces the fortunes of the conceptfrom its earliest appearances in medical treatises, through its “discovery”by French literary culture with the publication of Arthur Rimbaud’s poem“Voyelles” in 1872, to the resultant craze for synesthetic experience thatcontinued in Kandinsky’s day and beyond. The poem, in which Rimbaudassigns a color to each vowel, was inspired by the poet’s avid reading ofmedical encyclopedias, in which he likely came across just such a listdescribed by a true synesthete (Dann, 17, 25). The enthusiasm for his poem

15 For discussion of the concepts of “horizontal” versus “vertical correspondences” andtheir use by scholars in discussing Baudelaire’s poem, see Wilkinson, 218-219.

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and the ensuing curiosity about synesthesia led to a reappraisal of thecross-sensory language in Baudelaire’s “Correspondances” as well.16

Russian Symbolism and Baudelaire

Swedenborg’s doctrine of correspondences was thus enthusiasticallyembraced by the emerging generation of French Symbolist poets andartists, who in turn inspired parallel movements elsewhere in Europe,including Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia. Although theSymbolist poets and artists were not necessarily reading Swedenborgdirectly, “their international coterie agreed on accepting a common originin the philosophy of Swedenborg,” as Balakian explains (Balakian, 11).The Symbolists, who sought to counter the superficial materialism of theera—in some cases with the ennui and cynicism of the “Decadence,” inother cases with optimism and a sense of spiritual mission—turned in-ward, seeking profound truths in esotericism, seeing the artist/poet as aprophet with exquisite sensitivity to realities invisible to the rest, and whocould then reveal these to humanity. Thus the poet, and later the painter,placed themselves in the role of seer that Swedenborg had occupiedearlier.

These Symbolist groups also shared an intense cult-like veneration ofBaudelaire, which Wanner reports started earlier in Russia than elsewherein Europe, culminating in the “Silver Age” of Russian culture in the early

16 Dann makes a point of differentiating between the extremely rare phenomenon ofneurological synesthesia, which he terms “idiopathic synesthesia,” and imaginative or poeticexpression that incorporates synesthetic imagery. True synesthetes, for example, commonlyexperience letters—especially vowels as in Rimbaud’s poem—or numbers, as having aparticular color, associations which stay quite stable over time, whereas the colors assignedmore subjectively by non-synesthetes are likely to change frequently. Also telling is thetendency for artists to assign relatively pure colors (Rimbaud’s vowels, for example) ratherthan the complex mixes reported by true synesthetes –for example, a synaesthete mightdescribe a letter as “yellowish gray, like new rope” or “mouse color.” These color associationstypically do not follow an organized pattern, such as the sequence found in the spectrum orcolor wheel. In contrast, the Russian composer and self-proclaimed synesthete AlexanderScriabin, whom Dann asserts was not an idiopathic synesthete, made use of color to correspondto notes in his work Prometheus: the Poem of Fire of 1910, but based his system upon a directrelation between the musical scale and the color spectrum. Scriabin also felt free to alter thesequence of colors somewhat for aesthetic effect. Finally the tendency for these color attributesto coincide with color symbolism of ancient or more recent vintage would make a determina-tion of true synaesthesia unlikely (Dann, 11–12, 71–73).

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years of the twentieth century (Wanner, ix).17 Toward the end of thenineteenth century, and especially once censorship of Baudelaire’s LesFleurs du Mal was finally lifted in 1906, the demand for his books in Russiawas “furious” (Wanner 124). As with Swedenborg’s reception in Franceearlier in the century, Baudelaire’s image in Russia was likewise conve-niently mutable. “In fact,” writes Wanner, “perhaps the most strikingfeature in the Russian response to Baudelaire is the surprisingly variousimages of the French poet. Baudelaire was seen in turn as a social critic,decadent, symbolist, revolutionary, reactionary, aestheticist, pornogra-pher, nihilist, and religious prophet. . . . Baudelaire appealed to membersof both the “progressive” and the “decadent” camp. As do the changingcolors of litmus paper, Baudelaire’s metamorphoses indicate the characterof the milieu in which he was immersed” (Wanner, 2). While he wasinitially celebrated by the poets known as the “Decadents,” by the 1890s,the younger generation of Symbolist writers—with whom Kandinsky wasa contemporary—turned from the pessimism and self-indulgence of thepoets immediately preceding them, and wished to use art to reveal tran-scendent truths. They turned to Baudelaire’s more spiritually resonantpoems, especially “Correspondences,” for inspiration, and quickly madesootvetstviia (“correspondences”) their “omnipresent slogan and catch-word” (Wanner, 123). In Russia, the Swedenborgian concept, as filteredthrough Baudelaire, was merged with the theological philosophy ofVladimir Solovyov (1853–1900), whose rejection of the positivism of theage and call for the progressive transfiguration of the material worldthrough beauty and art, exerted a strong influence on the second genera-tion of Russian Symbolists (Wanner, 145, 152).18 Although Baudelaire’s

17 For a discussion of Swedenborg’s influence on Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky who,like Baudelaire, was embraced as a predecessor by the Russian Symbolists, (Wanner, 70) seeCzeslaw Milosz’s article “Dostoevsky and Swedenborg.”

18 One of these mystically oriented Symbolist poets, Vyacheslav Ivanovich Ivanov (1866–1949), pronounced his love of Baudelaire while also maintaining a critical stance toward theFrench poet’s less spiritual elements. Ivanov, who believed art should be the “revelation of ahigher, transcendental truth,” had an ambiguous attitude towards Baudelaire’s Correspondances,approving primarily of the initial half, which he wrote “discloses the real mystery of nature,completely alive and completely founded on secret correspondences, kinship, and confidencesof something that appears to our dead ignorance as separate and dissonant, accidentally closeand lifelessly mute. In nature, for those who can hear, there is a sound of a[n] . . . eternal word”(Wanner, 147). In an article on contemporary symbolism published in 1908, he disapproves ofthe sensuality and abandonment of mystical unity in the tercets, and draws a parallel betweenthe quatrains and passages from Balzac’s two philosophical novels, suggesting Baudelairemay have appropriated the quatrains from Balzac (Wanner, 148).

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poem was widely read, translated and commented upon, Wanner con-tends that his Russian Symbolist enthusiasts more often used him as ascreen upon which to project their own ideas, much as had been the casewith Swedenborg in mid-century France. Wanner suggests that“Baudelaire’s significance lay perhaps ultimately less in his poetry, letalone in his critical writings (which few Russians bothered to read) than inhis image. He turned into a mythical presence, a poetic icon which could beupheld for veneration and derision. . . ” (Wanner, 196).

Kandinsky’s involvement with international Symbolist movements

Although Kandinsky is most often discussed in context of Expression-ism and early modern abstraction, at the time that he wrote Concerning theSpiritual in Art the term “Expressionism” had not yet been coined, and hisideas and his art during the period emerged in the context of Symbolism.He began his career as an artist relatively late, leaving a promising careeras a law professor in 1896 at the age of 30, and moved to Munich where hecompleted his art studies in the atelier of Franz von Stuck, a prominentGerman Symbolist painter and member of the Munich Secession.19 Theartistic culture in Munich through the first decade of the new centuryremained strongly Symbolist and Jugendstil—the German version of artnouveau—and Kandinsky’s painting during these years reflects aspects ofa folkloric Symbolist style. Kandinsky also cultivated professional rela-tionships with prominent Symbolist painters, among them the FinnishSymbolist Akseli Gallen-Kallela, whose interest in Swedenborg has beennoted by Nina Kokkinen.20 He also had connections with Symbolist groupsoutside of Munich. While living in Sèvres near Paris in 1906-1907, heestablished links with the French Symbolist group that published themystically oriented journal Les Tendances Nouvelles. He also maintainedclose ties with Symbolist colleagues in Moscow and St. Petersburg, travel-ling to Russia in 1903 and again in 1910, subscribing and contributing

19 It was in Stuck’s atelier that Kandinsky met and befriended a number of younger artistswho were to become his Expressionist comrades in the Blue Rider group, including Franz Marcand Paul Klee.

20 See, for example, Kokkinen’s article “Hugo Simberg’s Art and the Widening Perspec-tives into Swedenborg’s Ideas” in Emanuel Swedenborg—Exploring a “World Memory.”

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articles to Russian Symbolist journals, and participating in exhibitions ofthe Moscow-based Symbolist artists group the Blue Rose (Düchting, 57).Kandinsky was thus clearly still strongly affiliated with Symbolist groupswhile formulating the ideas expressed in Concerning the Spiritual in Art.

Concerning the Swedenborgian in Art

Returning to Kandinsky’s slim book of 1911, we can begin to tease outtraces of Swedenborg’s doctrine of correspondences as filtered throughnineteenth-century sources. Kandinsky’s embrace of aspects of Symbolistthought is relatively easy to see, as is his debt to contemporary theories ofsubtle energy, filtered in part through Theosophical writings.21 Kandinsky’sposition often remains relatively close to those of the Russian Symbol-ists—especially in the first section, “About General Aesthetics”—empha-sizing the soulless state of contemporary European culture, and theattendant need for a spiritual regeneration, themes championed by Solovievwhose work Kandinsky had read while still in Russia. Kandinsky’s senseof a dawning new age of human spiritual progress emerged, in part, fromthe long-standing tradition of millennialism within Russian philosophicalthought dating back to the seventeenth century, but also drew uponesoteric evolutionary theories current within the Theosophical Society andother spiritual circles at the time (Weiss, 140). It should be noted, as well,that Swedenborg’s belief that the Last Judgment had already taken placeand that humankind was henceforth living in a post-apocalyptic world inwhich spiritual regeneration was immanent likely had played a role in thenineteenth- and early twentieth-century discourse about human spiritualevolution.

In keeping with Symbolist views, Kandinsky includes artists of allmedia (painters, but also poets and musicians) among the prophets des-tined to help humanity in this evolutionary process. Such visionaries, he

21 This is especially apparent in his discussion of “vibrations” caused in the artist or viewerwhen looking at form or color, of which Kandinsky makes mention several times. Anotherfascinating trajectory to explore, though beyond the scope of this paper, is the traces ofSwedenborgian thought that reach Kandinsky by way of nineteenth-century mind cure trendsas interpreted by the Theosophical Society and others.

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claims, are able to sense “inner need” to a degree their fellows cannot, andto communicate knowledge of it through their art. Kandinsky’s descrip-tions of what constitutes the apprehension of “inner need” appear incon-sistent at times—at certain points he seems to be suggesting psychologicalprocesses, at others a sense of divine communication, and at yet others asecularized objective need on the part of a personified “Art”—shifts whichmay reflect his changing perspective over the several years during whichhe drafted the book.

Intriguing parallels with Swedenborg’s doctrine of correspondencesappear in Kandinsky’s discussion of how painters might communicate thisinner need to viewers. Kandinsky advocates a move toward non-represen-tational art as the best means by which artists can help usher in the comingspiritual era. In the current materialistic age, in his view, representationalart is no longer able to point the viewer beyond the surface of things. Onlythose artists who incorporate levels of abstraction following the sense ofinner need rather than simply visual beauty, are, like Cézanne, “endowedwith the gift of divining the inner life in everything” (Kandinsky, 37). Theabstract artist presents mysterious signs that startle the attentive viewerinto seeing differently, seeing the “inner meaning” within the composi-tion, form and colors acting as “human words in which a divine messagemust be written in order for it to be comprehensible to human minds”—though he felt that at the time he was writing viewers were not yet ready toencounter fully non-representational painting (Kandinsky, 59). Through-out his treatise, Kandinsky uses “abstract” and “non-material” seeminglyinterchangeably, making a conceptual connection between non-represen-tational art and the non-physical or “spiritual” dimensions. In this regard,Kandinsky’s proposed language of pure color and form in painting couldbe interpreted as a yet more radical intervention than that offered bySwedenborg, whose words pointed back to nature and to the Bible, for anera even further removed than Swedenborg’s from the golden age whenhumankind could comprehend the universal language of nature.

Yet by moving away from recognizable subject matter, Kandinsky isforced to address the question of whether a universal language of formand color is actually possible. Here, in his long treatment of color, he isclearly trying to find some universally accepted criteria by which variousshades of color can be interpreted. In doing so, he moves between subjec-

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tive color analogies and associations, traditional color symbolism systems,and physiological responses to color in an attempt to establish some solidground, but without being entirely successful. He at one point introducesa medical account of synesthesia, in which the patient consistently experi-enced the taste of “blue” when eating a particular sauce, though Kandinskyattributes this experience to the individual’s exquisite sensitivity of soul,rather than to a neurological difference (Kandinsky, 50). Given the aspira-tion that Kandinsky held out for abstract art to express the “eternal andobjective,” the intractable subjectivity of color experience remains prob-lematic, and a hurdle for his modernist revision of the concept of corre-spondences.

Finally, Kandinsky’s emphasis on the parallels between painting andmusic throughout the book bear some echo of the trajectory of Swedenborg’slegacy by way of French literature. In his conclusion, Kandinsky discusseshis own experimental forms of painting in terms of musical terminology,calling his quickest sketches in response to specific experiences “Impres-sions,” his intuitively created pieces “Improvisations” and his carefullyconstructed pieces, for which he would often create scores of preparatorysketches, “Compositions.” In music itself, he hails the rejection of conven-tional tonality by avant-garde composers such as Arnold Schönberg as aparallel project to his own.22 Such atonal compositions, he suggests, forcethe listener out of a passive reception of familiar beauty to experience the“inner beauty” of the music being expressed, much as do non-representa-tional canvases (Kandinsky, 34, 35).

Kandinsky’s reference to Schönberg, and the connection that he forgedwith the composer only months before Concerning the Spiritual in Art waspublished, is a fitting element with which to conclude.23 Kandinsky hadattended a concert of Schönberg’s music in January 1911, an experiencethat inspired him to paint Impression III (Concert) in response to the sensa-tions and emotions the music awoke in him. He wrote to Schönberg within

22 Although in the 1920s, Schönberg became especially associated with the twelve-tonesystem he invented, in 1911 he had only recently embraced atonal composition, and hadpublished his theories regarding this in his book Harmonielehrer published only months beforeConcerning the Spiritual in Art.

23 Kandinsky had all but completed his manuscript by the time he became acquainted withSchönberg, thus precluding direct influence on the ideas expressed in it.

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a couple days of the concert, expressing his appreciation of the music andhis belief that he and Schönberg were pursuing parallel paths. “What weare striving for and our whole manner of thought and feeling have somuch in common,” Kandinsky wrote, “that I feel completely justified inexpressing my empathy [for your work],”24 Kandinsky’s letter initiatedmany years of warm friendship and collaboration between the two men.During these years, Schönberg likely had opportunities to share withKandinsky his enthusiasm for Swedenborgian ideas, which he had en-countered through Balzac’s Seraphita, a novel he described as “perhaps themost glorious work in existence” in a letter to Kandinsky on August 19th,1912 (Hahl-Koch, 54, 144). In the same letter, Schönberg reflected on theirshared artistic and spiritual goals in more overtly Swedenborgian—andyet also avant-garde modernist—terms:

We must become conscious that there are puzzles around us. And wemust find the courage to look these puzzles in the eye without timidly

asking about “the solution.” It is important that our creation of such

puzzles mirror the puzzles with which we are surrounded, so that oursoul may endeavor—not to solve them—but to decipher them. What we

gain thereby should not be the solution, but a new method of coding ordecoding. The material, worthless in itself, serves in the creation of new

puzzles. For the puzzles are an image of the ungraspable. And imperfect,

that is, a human image. But if we can only learn from them to consider theungraspable as possible, we get nearer to God, because we no longer

demand to understand him. Because then we no longer measure him

with our intelligence, criticize him, deny him, because we cannot reducehim to that human inadequacy which is our clarity. (Hahl-Koch, 54–55)

24 Letter dated January 18, 1911 (Hahl-Koch, 21).

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