Swedenborg: Introducing the Mystic

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s groundbreaking essay on Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772), originally published in Emerson’s book Representative Men in 1850, places the Swedish philosopher and mystic alongside other great men of genius, including Michel de Montaigne and William Shakespeare. Casting a sharp critical eye over the central tenets of Swedenborg’s philosophy, Emerson examines the dynamic relationship between Swedenborg’s mysticism and his scientific ways of reasoning.
 
Innovative, critically aware, and thoroughly engaging, Emerson’s essay is an indispensable tool in reading Swedenborg and understanding his subsequent influence on writers as established and respected as August Strindberg and Jorge Luis Borges. This accessible new edition includes a contextual introduction by Stephen McNeilly, a chronology of Swedenborg’s life and works, a chronology of Emerson’s life and works, endnotes, and an index.

Swedenborg: Introducing the Mystic, originally published in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Representative Men in 1850, casts a sharp critical eye over the philosophy of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772), placing him among other great men of genius such as Michel de Montaigne and William Shakespeare. It has since become one of the most influential and widely read essays on Swedenborg ever written.