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INTRODUCTION
The Writings of Swedenborg (1688-1771) have elicited a variety of reactions over the centuries, ranging from making them a basis of a new Christian revelation to considering them the grandiose output of a mere madman and mystic. Recently, Talbot (1997) revisited the long literary history of Swedenborg's alleged insanity, a charge which understandably has offended many New Church intellectuals.1 The logic and arguments of the Swedenborgian supporters (see Larsen, 1988; Williams-Hogan, 1988) appear far superior, more detailed, and weightier than the meager, insufficient, and contentious speculations of the Swedenborg detractors.
The latest of these insanity charges, which Talbot fully and definitively demonstrates to be unfounded and untenable, is a brief note by John Johnson in the British Journal of Psychiatry (1994) in which he concludes on the basis of psychohistorical methods ("psychopathography") that Swedenborg's spiritual experiences were "hallucinations" of "acute schizophrenia or epileptic psychosis." Similar charges by other psychiatrists are referred to (for example, Maudsley) held together by the unifying idea that Swedenborg had "the conviction that he was the Messiah and the Second Advent of the Lord Jesus Christ." As Talbot points out, this charge is clearly inaccurate to anyone who reads Swedenborg's writings. Swedenborg never claimed to be the Messiah but rather to worship the Messiah as God-Man and to announce to the world the good news of the Messiah's Second Advent for which he was a witness and revelator in response to a special and unique Divine calling. He always insisted that it was not he, Swedenborg, who was holy or special or infallible, but his given mission, and that people should test the ideas in his writings by their own common sense and rational thinking. He always insisted that people should not believe anything except what their common sense and reasoned thought convince them to be the truth. Thus he always presents the ideas in the writings as one would present scientific or legal issues in a court of law or legislative body, thus, from a rational perspective with a rational method, and following a rational sequence. The purpose is always to prove logically and common sensically and by analogy, avoiding blind acceptance or persuasion as one ought to avoid the plague.
1 The article was reprinted in the January-June, 1998, issue of The New Philosophy (vol. CI, nos. 1 & 2) which was devoted to the so-called madness hypothesis in reference to Swedenborg. This 220-page issue consists of nine articles, both original and reprinted, on a range of topics, and is recommended reading for anyone interested in examining in depth the subject of Swedenborg's state of mind.
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