Emanuel Swedenborg
Emanuel Swedenborg, 1688-1772, Swedish mystic.
After publishing scientific works such as Opera Philosophica
et Mineralia (1734) and Economy of
the Animal Kingdom (1741), he was convinced
by a series of dreams in 1743-44 that he had direct access to the
spiritual world. Thereafter he turned to mysticism in such works
as Heavenly Arcana (1749-1756) and Heaven and
Hell, a target of Blake's
Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
Swedenborg believed in an eternal spiritual marriage in which the
husband and wife would unite in heaven, with the husband
representing the understanding and the wife the will.
