Scientific discovery of Spiritual Laws given in Rational Scientific Revelations


1 In my lectures, I present this exclusion of Swedenborg as an historical bias in psychology in view of the inclusion in the textbooks of such figures as St.Augustine, Luther, Descartes, Leibniz, Goethe, Kant, and Kierkegaard, all of whom argued that the mind is a spiritual, not natural, entity.

2 See for example the popular paperback by Ray Moody, Life after Life: The Investigation of a Phenomenon-Survival of Bodily Death.. Bantam Books, 1975.

3The bulk of the Swedenborg Reports are presented in the following three titles by E. Swedenborg: Economy of the Animal Kingdom (3 vols.), Arcana Coelestia (12 vols.), and The Spiritual Diary (5 vols.).

4 An excellent summary of Swedenborg's spiritual geography may be found in John Worcester, Physiological Correspondences, Boston: Massachusetts New Church Union, 1931.

5 A review of these and other biographical events, along with references to sources, may be found in Eugene Taylor, "Some Historic Implications of Swedenborg's Spiritual Psychology," Studia Swedenborgiana, January 1983, Vol 4 (4), 5-38.

6 An application of this tripartite division led to the construction of a new taxonomy of skills and errors in information literacy, see Leon A. Jakobovits and Diane Nahl-Jakobovits, "Learning the Library: Taxonomy of Skills and Errors," College and Research Libraries, May 1987, 48, 203-14; and "Measuring Information Searching Competence," College & Research Libraries, September 1990, 51 (5), 448-62.

7 The relation of the Swedenborg reports to contemporary ideas in transpersonal psychology-an official Division of the American Psychological Association-is documented in an article by Stephen Larsen, "Swedenborg and the Visionary Tradition," Studia Swedenborgiana, June 1980, 3(4), 7-70.

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