"Introducing Swedenborg" by Peter Ackroyd

 

This is a miniature biography of a complex man, a Swedish mining engineer who became a member of their House of Lords and, following a series of visions, a mystic theologian and philosopher. Swedenborg  frequently travelled to London (he died there) and attended lectures given by Isaac Newton, studied with astronomers John Flamsteed and Edmund Halley. He published Sweden's first scientific journal and was the cousin of Carl Linnaeus. He corresponded with Kant and John Wesley. His conversations with angels remind one of William Blake. He wrote loads of books.

This tiny biography can't hope to do justice to its subject in 64 pages, but it's an admirably well-written start.

Selected quotes:

• "He realized that by breathing slowly he was able to better concetnrate and understand." (p 4)
• "How did the infinite, which is not material and is not defined by time or space, give rise to the finite? He posits the existence of a number of points without dimension, which emerge from the infinite and which are the cause of matter." (pp 8 - 9)
• "He tried to elucidate his thoughts by means of a series of steps from lower to higher which he called 'correspondences'. This was an occult maxim which had been used elsewhere, namely 'that which is above is like that which is below'." (p 13)
• "Writing in the highest heaven consists of curves and distinct forms; good is distributed through the vowels 'u', 'o' and 'a' while truth is conveyed by 'e' and 'i'." (p 34)
• "Some angels are naked because nakedness corresponds with innocence." (p 39)
• "All those in hell 'are ruled by means of their fears' ... Each person believes that they act through their own choice; so it is that a person is the cause of their own evil and so casts themself 'into hell from death'." (p 40)
• "Socinians rejected the divinity of Christ and thus the existence of the Trinity." (p 57)

Peter Ackroyd is a novelist who also writes biographies, particularly of people associated with London.

Novels by Peter Ackroyd

• The Great Fire of London (1982)
• The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde (1983) 
• Hawksmoor (1985)
• Chatterton (1987) 
• First Light (1989)
• English Music (1992) 
• The House of Doctor Dee (1993)
• Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem (1994)
• Milton in America (1996)
• The Plato Papers: A Prophecy (1999)
• The Clerkenwell Tales (2003)
• The Lambs of London (2004)
• The Fall of Troy (2006)
• The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein (2008)
• The Canterbury Tales – A Retelling (2009)
• The Death of King Arthur: The Immortal Legend – A Retelling (2010)
• Three Brothers (2013)

Non-fiction by Peter Ackroyd

• Notes for a New Culture: An Essay on Modernism (1976)
• Dressing Up: Transvestism and Drag, the History of an Obsession (1979)
• Ezra Pound and His World (1980)
• T. S. Eliot (1984)
• Dickens' London: An Imaginative Vision (1987)
• Dickens (1990)
• Introduction to Dickens (1991)
• Blake (1995)
• The Life of Thomas More (1998)
• London: The Biography (2000)
• Dickens: Public Life and Private Passion (2002)
• Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination (2002)
• The Beginning (2003)
• Illustrated London (2003)
• Escape From Earth (2004)
• Ancient Egypt (2004)
• Shakespeare: The Biography (2005)
• Ancient Greece (2005)
• Ancient Rome (2005)
• Thames: Sacred River (2007)
• Coffee with Dickens (with Paul Schlicke) (2008)
• Venice: Pure City (2009)
• The English Ghost: Spectres Through Time (2010)
• London Under (2011)
• The History of England, v.1 Foundation (2011)
• The History of England, v.2 Tudors (2012)
• The History of England, v.3 Civil War (2014)
• Alfred Hitchcock (2015)
• The History of England, v.4 Revolution (2016)
• Queer City: Gay London from the Romans to the Present Day (2017)
• The History of England, v.5 Dominion (2018)
• The History of England, v.6 Innovation (2021)
• Introducing Swedenborg (2021) 
• The Colours of London (2022)
• The English Actor: From Medieval to Modern (2023)
• The English Soul: Faith of a Nation (2024)
• Forgotten London: Exploring the Hidden Life of the City (2025)

Ackroyd's Brief Lives

• Chaucer (2004)
• J.M.W. Turner (2006)
• Newton (2008)
• Poe: A Life Cut Short (2008)
• Wilkie Collins: A Brief Life (2012)
• Charlie Chaplin: A Brief Life (2014)

This review was written by

the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling 

and The Kids of God