Book Reviews

Introducing Swedenborg

London: Swedenborg Society, 2021. 74 pp., hardcover, $14.49.

 

Introducing Swedenborg: Correspondences

Gary Lachman
London: Swedenborg Society, 2021. 68 pp., hardcover, $11.95.

Emanuel Swedenborg has inspired lofty praise for over two centuries. H.P. Blavatsky called him “the greatest among the modern seers.” For D.T. Suzuki, he was “Buddha of the North.” Emerson ranked him with Plato, Napoleon, Goethe, and other “representative men”: a “colossal soul,” one of “the missouriums and mastodons of literature.”

Today writers in the Swedenborg cottage industry follow this pattern, frequently rehearsing the long line of greats who admired the Swedish thinker, from Blake and Yeats to Jung and the father of William and Henry James. At times, though, the one-upmanship of acclaim and the persistent name-dropping in secondary sources mask the fact that the primary sources, the actual products of Swedenborg’s eighteenth-century mind, are virtually closed books for most contemporary readers, even those well versed in Western esoterica.

Hence the need for more introductions geared to present-day audiences. These two slim volumes, both commissioned by the Swedenborg Society in London, address the need with great skill, and the authors, each according to his own lights, attempt to translate Swedenborg into terms citizens of the secular world can understand if not appreciate. In many ways, they are representative men themselves—Peter Ackroyd, a living mastodon of letters in his own right, and Gary Lachman, arguably the most consistently readable master of occult and offbeat biography on the planet. With predictable eloquence, expertise, and lightly worn erudition, they take on their challenging tasks.

The most formidable: demonstrating the relevance for the twenty-first century of the Enlightenment polymath, whose divine madness, despite its audacity, often seems a little too close to just another version of bourgeois eccentricity.

Ackroyd handles the life, while Lachman concentrates on the thought, particularly Swedenborg’s signature idea of correspondences. What emerges in the life is the portrait of a virtuoso of spirit whose genius was tuned more to the Baroque than the Classical or Romantic. In his wig and mismatched buckle shoes, Swedenborg lived comfortably in a society of unquestioned class consciousness; bareheaded and unshod, he entered the other world before terrestrial armies marched for liberty in American or French revolt. He worked for monarchs in expanding colonial empires, drafting designs for machine guns and airplanes, never imagining that his dreamed-of utopian age might actually include a Wounded Knee or Hiroshima.

Even when he turned from “worldly science” to mysticism in midlife, sustained by bread, milk, caffeine, and angelic conversation, Swedenborg’s visions of heaven took on the same unique blend of domesticity, aristocracy, and intricate ornamentation with which Vivaldi, Rameau, and Swedenborg’s fellow Lutheran Bach infused their chamber music. We congratulate him for envisaging sex in the afterlife, but his eroticism evokes too much of the snuffbox and powdered peruke to stir less polite postmodern libidos.

When it comes to Swedenborg’s thought, current readers may find more traction. Lachman’s account, informed by his trademark double commitment to empathy and critique, goes far to place Swedenborg in the context of the fullness of Western mystical speculation and experimentation. Lachman’s own virtuosity is on display as the book’s strings of Baudelaire, Blake, Boehme, Balzac, Goethe, Coleridge, Henry Corbin, David Bohm, and Andrew Jackson Davis all vibrate simultaneously and with equal resonance. From Lachman’s perspective, Swedenborg operated in a vast network of God-intoxicated sensibilities who sought universal truth in the twin books of nature and scripture, discovered secret codes buried in the matrix of biblical grammar, and discerned signs of continuity—correspondences—between seen and unseen in the great chain of being from mundane to miraculous.

Lachman also reminds us of the long legacy of nonliteral interpretations of the Bible, stretching from Philo of Alexandria and early church exegetes to early modern Kabbalists and left-wing sectarians. The problem is, he admits, that Swedenborg exhibited almost no interest in reflecting on his exact place in any lineage. He was on confidential terms with unfettered human souls in England and across much of Europe, Moravians, and radicals of various types, but when he did his thinking and writing, it was with sola scriptura on the desk and the voice of God in the ear—or cerebrum.

After Emerson generously hymned the person he named the modern world’s representative mystic, he expressed frustration that the expansive vision of Swedenborg’s inner world appeared on second thought to be little more than the conventional desires of a “Lutheran bishop’s son” projected onto a screen the size of the universe. Something similar, of course, could be said of the Concord sage and his life’s work.

But Swedenborg struck a chord: there is no doubt about that. Many other unleashed—or unhinged—imaginations have too. Some do it through the adventures of their lives, some through the magic of their words. Curiously, Swedenborg continues to attract and influence, but not through the contagion of his career or his many volumes on the shelf, which are largely unread. The Swedenborg of Ackroyd and Lachman is a mystery introduced and a mystery unsolved.    

Peter A. Huff

 

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Extraordinary Awakenings: When Trauma Leads to Transformation

Steve Taylor
Novato, Calif.: New World Library, 2021. 252 pp., paper, $19.

The concept of posttraumatic growth—that the experience of types of trauma, such as illness, injury, divorce, economic hardship, or the loss of a loved one can lead to emotional growth in the period of healing and recovery—has received much attention from psychologists in recent years.

In Extraordinary Awakenings: When Trauma Leads to Transformation, transpersonal psychologist Steve Taylor takes things a step further, positing that trauma itself can generate sudden and intense spiritual transformation on a par with enlightenment.

Taylor, a senior lecturer in psychology at Britain’s Leeds Beckett University and chair of the Transpersonal Psychology Section of the British Psychological Society, calls this “transformation through turmoil.” He builds a convincing case that spontaneous illumination can be forged within the heat of trauma itself, with the suffering generating the force needed for realization.

Taylor has been researching instances of spontaneous spiritual awakening for fifteen years. He makes his case for transformation through turmoil using detailed case studies of individuals who have experienced sudden moments of clarity while on the battlefield, on the brink of suicide, suffering the sudden loss of family members, and similar hardships. These were not fleeting moments of adrenaline-driven emotion or that strange ecstasy that can hit us at our lowest points, but revelatory moments that lasted and permanently changed those who had experienced them.

Taylor also explores how the long-term trauma of incarceration can be transformative. Many former prisoners have recounted how their time without physical freedom led them to spiritual maturation. Taylor examines the similarities between a lengthy jail sentence and the elective “imprisonment” of monastics in certain Christian traditions, who spend their days in tiny cells, giving up even the freedom to speak.

Somewhat less convincing are the sections dedicated to those who say they experienced transformation through turmoil while in the bonds of drug addiction. Taylor shares several stories of individuals with addictions to hard drugs who say they woke up one morning with their addictions gone. While the reader must be happy for anyone who escapes addiction, such cases are very rare.

Taylor does not fully discount the traditional understanding of addiction and recovery—he writes favorably about the Twelve-Step process—but does express skepticism about the notion of chemical addiction to drugs. Interpreted incorrectly, this skepticism can be dangerous.

Taylor’s main argument is that moments of trauma strip away the armor from guarded humans, leaving them raw and exposed. This results in a sudden ripping away of the ego, the necessary step to enlightenment. He does not present trauma as desirable or as a shortcut to understanding, but instead focuses on how such sudden transformation can improve the human condition.

Taylor’s writing style is refreshingly readable for a book of this sort. He avoids the vagueness and generalities of many popular wellness books, as well as the hard-to-penetrate terminology of medical literature. He adopts an upbeat tone without glossing over the true suffering his subjects have experienced.

Extraordinary Awakenings is most likely to be picked up by a reader seeking literature on surviving her or his own trauma. Going in with an open mind, such a reader will find much of value. However, Taylor’s book is more than self-help. It opens the door to a new understanding of trauma and spiritual growth that merits attention and further study.

Peter Orvetti

Peter Orvetti is a political writer and former divinity student residing in Washington, D.C.

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The Afterlife Frequency: The Scientific Proof of Spiritual Contact and How That Awareness Will Change Your Life

Mark Anthony
Novato, Calif.: New World Library, 2021. 278 pp., paper,  $17.95.

Much of our fear of death lies in the fear of the unknown, especially about what happens to us afterward. The Roman Stoic Seneca said, “Life is a journey to death.” Yet even this philosopher could not tell us where we go or what the afterlife entails.

Lawyer and medium Mark Anthony provides insights into this mystery in his latest book, The Afterlife Frequency: The Scientific Proof of Spiritual Contact and How That Awareness Will Change Your Life.

Anthony acknowledges that “Death is the great unknown,” but that while “faith embraces mysteries . . . science explains them.” His gift of mediumship runs in the family. His parents were also mediums. When he was four, Anthony experienced a near-death experience, during which he was given the phrase “Eternal Light, Eternal Life,” which became his guidepost. Throughout his youth, his father, who was a NASA engineer, always told him to “be aware.”

Those of us on this side can experience the vibratory frequency or energy vibrations being given off by the spirit, says Anthony. He compares these to the difference in radio frequencies between AM and FM. The details he gives remind me of the “radiating vibrations” spoken of by Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater in their 1905 book Thought-Forms. According to Anthony, these vibratory energies, “like all other vibrations . . . tend to reproduce themselves whenever opportunity is offered to them” and attract those who are open to reception on the same mental wavelength.

Early in the book, Anthony introduces us to what he calls the “electromagnetic soul” (which he terms “spirit”). He quotes Einstein: “Matter is energy, energy is light, we are all light beings.” Death, he says, is when “the life force or energy, which Buddhists and Hindus calls consciousness and Christians, Jews, and Muslims call the soul, leaves the body.” The soul is “preexistent” to the body and survives after the body ceases to function.

While we may not all be mediums, Anthony believes that we all have the capacity to recognize synchronicities and communications from the other side. “Everyone is capable of a mediumistic experience, because everyone possesses the sixth sense to some degree.” He recommends the “RAFT technique”: recognize, accept, feel, and trust. He makes it clear that each of us is equipped to know things beyond our five senses and is “sensitive to electromagnetic energy external to the human body,” primarily through the pineal gland and the solar plexus.

One of the most common forms of “interdimensional communication” happens during sleep, when we may experience a “visitation” from someone on the other side. While Anthony’s book concerns people who have passed on, I was reminded of an interdimensional communication from the spirit who became my daughter. While pondering whether the time was right for my husband and me to have a child, over three subsequent nights I experienced a vivid dream of a beautiful little girl with dark curly hair. She didn’t say anything, but just appeared, stood before me, then left. I decided I’d received my answer, and we eventually had a beautiful baby girl who looked just like the one in my visitation.

 How do we know the difference between a visitation and a dream? Anthony says that the loved one’s image is generally clearer in a vision than in a dream. Furthermore, “visitations have a rational beginning, middle, and end, and the person who had the visitation is convinced of its authenticity,” he explains.

 Anthony addresses the phenomena of “spirit intervention,” which “explains how spirits affect our lives through premonitions, feelings, influences on chains of events (synchronicity), and even the manipulation of matter and energy. Nothing in our lives is random, and everything falls into place as part of a larger plan, which some call fate, others, synchronicity, and some the will of God.”

 Anthony describes three levels of karma: “individual karma,” “collective karma,” and “the karma experience, which includes the repercussions of being interconnected to everyone and everything living on this particular planet in this particular dimension.”

Anthony’s book is filled with fascinating anecdotes of his own experiences giving readings to groups and individuals. I believe that people gain comfort from Anthony’s readings, which often provide answers to questions surrounding their loved ones’ deaths.

Many people will be relieved to know that “hell does exist, but it is here in the material world,” Anthony says in his chapter “There’s No Place Like Hell.” As in some Eastern teachings, heaven and hell are revealed as states of mind, not necessarily places to which we go. “At some point in everyone’s life, mine included, we are cast into hell,” Anthony states. “Yet hell, like the material world where it exists, is not a permanent state, although it may sure feel like it.” He then offers a more comforting explanation: “Perhaps hell is a lesson as opposed to a punishment.”

Anthony has dedicated his life to using his abilities as an “evidential medium” to help those “suffering with the pain of loss” to understand that we survive physical death. Does his book solve the mystery surrounding the afterlife? If it doesn’t, it certainly provides some thought-provoking stories of spirit contacts that may encourage those who are fearful and doubtful to hope that life’s journey does not end with death.

Clare Goldsberry

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The Illusion of Life and Death: Mind, Consciousness, and Eternal Being

by Clare Goldsberry
Rhinebeck, N.Y.: Monkfish, 2021. xxx + 223 pp., paper, $16.99.

The human family is rich with expressions of diversity: differing languages and alphabets, various forms of art and music, unique scriptures of the world’s religions, iconic architecture, and much more. Yet there are two basic things we share in common without exception: we live and we die.

Clare Goldsberry’s new book asks the reader to ponder what it means to live well as well as to face the reality that today most people do not know how to die with grace and dignity. In olden times, death was seen as a part of life: people died in the home, in the presence of family and loved ones. Today they are more likely to die in the sterile and impersonal environment of a hospital or group home for seniors, often neglected and alone.

In The Illusion of Life and Death, Goldsberry has culled a rich array of insights into life and death from a broad range of philosophers from Plato to Seneca to Martin Heidegger; religious leaders from Shankara to Thomas Aquinas to Thomas Merton; Theosophists from H.P. Blavatsky and G.R.S. Mead to Christmas Humphreys and Joy Mills; and secular sapience from astronomers, scientists, physicists, and medical professionals.

This mosaic of thought is tied into a unified whole by Goldsberry’s ongoing narrative of her soulmate, Brent, “who taught me how to live, and more importantly, how to die.” Brent was a friend with a terminal illness who demonstrated that it is still possible, in this day and age, to die without fear or regrets.

Brent’s touching story grounds the high-minded ideas of deep thinkers into the reality of our day-to-day world. He serves as an exemplar of those insights, persuading the reader that it is indeed possible to put them into action.

Furthermore, the author says, “Dying with grace and dignity means dying knowing that we have lived a life of meaning and purpose, and can accept our death with peace, having lived a life of intention.” The obvious implication is that a life well lived facilitates a graceful exit from this world.

Goldsberry has another interesting observation: “Death is something that we do alone, but to die well is not a passive activity. Death is not something that happens to us; we can participate in it once we know how to die.” She cites the example of Buddhists who meditate on their own eventual death. Equally important is the ability to develop nonattachment, another Buddhist principle. Eventually we must let go of all things. The practice of visualizing that makes the actual process much easier.

The book emphasizes that death is not a terminus; it is a transition from one state of consciousness to another, an idea that has a long pedigree within the wisdom tradition.

David Bruce

David Bruce is national secretary of the Theosophical Society in America.

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