Anarchoprimitivism in Emanuel Swedenborg's work
"A clearer picture still is brought to mind when Swedenborg throws in the information that his Churches are related to the Classical Ages of Greece and Rome, the Most Ancient Church with the Golden Age, the Ancient Church with the Silver Age and so forth, as shown on the chart above. (Incidentally you will also find many other versions of this pattern in other mythologies, Norse, Celtic, Persian (Daniel’s statue), Hindu, even Native American and also in Astrology.)
These Classical Ages don’t mean much to us today, most think of them as being mere myths and of little account. But not so for Swedenborg’s 18th century readership. All education then was taught through reading the Greek and Roman classical authors and so for them the classical ages were the very basis of ‘history’ and were assumed to be sound, if not actually true in all the magical detail."
(From the article "Five churches" by Patrick L Johnson on the website SwedenborgStudy)
And how did they live in the Golden Age, the Most Ancient Church, on the earth, in more detail? Swedenborg answers that question in the work Arcana Coelestia from 1749-1756:
" The Most Ancient Church had immediate revelation from the Lord by companionship with spirits and angels, and also by visions and dreams from the Lord, from which it was given them to know in general what is good and true. And after they had a general knowledge, their general principles were confirmed by innumerable things perceived, which were particulars under the generals. . . . Whatever did not agree with the generals they perceived to be not so; and whatever did agree, to be so. Such is the state of the celestial angels also." (A. C. 597.)
(Quoted in the article "The Garden of Eden" on SwedenborgStudy.com)
So the spirits and angels walked with the first men in the Garden of Eden, similar to what is written in the creation story in Genesis, where God walks with Adam in the Garden.
Swedenborg describes some details about the life of the Most Ancient Church which is in heaven, in "Wisdom's Delight in Marriage Love" which he wrote 1768. Here is an excerpt:
"75. The First Memorable Relation:
Once when meditating on conjugial love, my mind was seized with a desire to know what that love had been with those who lived in the Golden Age, and what it had been later with those who lived in the Ages that followed and which are named from silver, copper, and iron; and, knowing that all who had lived well in those Ages are in the heavens, I prayed the Lord that He would allow me to speak with them and be instructed. And lo, an angel stood by me and said: "I am sent by the Lord to be your guide and companion. First I will guide and accompany you to those who lived in the first age or period called GOLDEN"; and he added, "The way to them is hard. It lies through a dark forest through which no one can pass without a guide given him by the Lord."
[2] Being in the spirit, I girded myself for the journey, and we turned our faces towards the east. As we went on, I saw a mountain whose height extended above the region of the clouds. We passed through a great desert and came into the forest of which the angel had spoken. It was thick with trees of various kinds, and dark by reason of their density. The forest was intersected by many narrow paths, and the angel said: "These paths are so many tortuous paths of error, and unless his eyes are opened by the Lord to see the olive trees entwined with vine tendrils, and his steps directed from tree to tree, the traveler would wander off into the Tartarean shades which lie round about at the sides. This forest is such, to the end that it may guard the approach; for none but the primeval race dwells on that mountain."
[3] After entering the forest, our eyes were opened and here and there we saw olive trees entwined with vines from which hung clusters of grapes of a dark blue color. The trees were arranged in continuous gyres, and following these as they came into view we went round and round. At last we saw a grove of lofty cedars and on their branches some eagles. Seeing these, the angel said, "We are now not far from the top of the mountain."
We continued on, and lo, beyond the grove, a circular plain whereon male and female lambs were feeding. These were forms representative of the state of innocence and peace of those who dwelt on the mountain. We crossed this plain, and lo, in front and at the sides, in every direction as far as the eye could reach, were seen tabernacles after tabernacles to the number of many thousands. The angel then said: "We are now in the camp where dwells the Army of the Lord Jehovih, this being what they call themselves and their habitations. While living in the world, these most ancient peoples dwelt in tabernacles, and therefore they dwell in them now also. But let us bend our way to the south where are the wiser of them, that we may meet some one with whom to converse."
[4] Walking on, I saw at a distance three boys and three girls sitting at the door of one of the tents, but when we drew near, they were seen as men and women of middle stature. The angel then said: "At a distance, all the inhabitants of this mountain appear like little children, for they are in a state of innocence, and infancy is the appearance of innocence." "
Thus they live in tents (Swedenborg calls family tents tabernacles) in the inmost heaven, the highest heaven, according to Swedenborg. And they are like small children in their being. Very much like wild indigenous people, very anarcho-primitivistic. And according to this last passage, there are wild forests in heaven, the societies of the Most Ancient Church are surrounded by wild forests, just like the indigenous people are.
How did Swedenborg then look at wild indigenous people in the forests? It is wellknown that Swedenborg held the African people in very high esteem. He asserted that “the most intelligent ones (of races) come from Africa” (Last Judgment, section 51, published 1757). Yes, he praised the Africans, like in this passage in Last Judgment:
“The African people are more capable of enlightenment than all other peoples on this earth, because they are of such character as to think interiorly and thus to accept truths and acknowledge them” (section 118)
In the foreword to the article "The Swedenborgian search for African purity" (2005), the author Robert I. Rotberg states: "Emanuel Swedenborg, an engineer and mystic of the Enlightenment, prophesied that mankind's spiritual perfection was to be found deep in the heart of Africa."
This praising of the Africans caused many later Swedenborgians to become anti-slavery campaigners, abolitionists, like the notable Carl Bernhard Wadström (1746–99), a Swedish chemist and Swedenborgian whose book Observations on the Slave Trade (1789) provided fuel for the British antislavery movement.
All this is in full harmony with the fact that Swedenborg believed that the inmost heaven is like the Garden of Eden before the Fall, that people there live like Adam and Eve, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, in tents. Of course he then held indigenous people in high esteem, and especially the most uncivilized of them all, the Africans.
Swedenborg saw human history on this planet as a descent from paradise, the Garden, to hell, the Great Babylon. He did not believe in progress, as far as I know. After his conversion from scientist to mystic and seer, he rejected science, and said that it was horrible witchcraft, sorcery and magick (1). He says about hell that ingenuity and inventions of all sorts are there esteemed (see for confirmation the article "The Fall of Babylon" on SwedenborgStudy.com). Swedenborg would certainly have rejected modernity if he had lived today. Yet he believed that his writings were the Second Coming of Jesus, and that the Final Judgment took place in the spirit world 1757. This is a strange fact that I cannot understand. I do not see much of the promised Millennial Kingdom after 1757, just further fall from paradise. I believe many things that Swedenborg saw is true, but not everything. His view on the Second Coming is still something I cannot believe. But some day I might understand it.
(1) This fact is not very popular among modern Swedenborgians. But I am 100% certain that I read about it in an old book on the internet a few years ago. I just cannot find it any more.
