Introduction

Biography

With an ec­lec­tic mind, Swe­den­borg wrote on ma­the­ma­tics, geo­lo­gy, chem­is­try, phys­ics, min­er­al­ogy, as­tro­no­my and ana­to­my. He was one of the out­stand­ing sci­en­tists of his time, and a mem­ber of Swe­den’s House of No­bles.

He de­vot­ed the last quar­ter cen­tu­ry of his life to theo­lo­gy. His works form the ba­sis of the Swe­den­borg­ian Church (al­so known as the Church of the New Je­ru­sa­lem). Though he ne­ver planned a church de­nom­in­ation, a so­cie­ty was formed in Lon­don in 1787, which even­tu­al­ly gave rise to the Ge­ne­ral Con­ven­tion of Swe­den­borg­ian Church­es.