65. Regarding an Essay by Lothar Brieger-Wasservogel on Swedenborg's Worldview

The editor of this journal is grateful to the author for providing this material for publication. It will form the introduction to a three-volume edition of Swedenborg's works; and those who profess the mystical-Gnostic worldview can be satisfied with such an undertaking. The undersigned did not want to be narrow-minded and did not want to give the article a place in this magazine because he cannot agree with essential points in the remarks of Mr. Btieger-Wasservogel. One should also hear the voices that contradict the direction of our magazine. But it is probably permissible to point out this contradiction here with a few words. The views expressed in the essay about Swedenborg's visions are quite untenable before a real understanding of Swedenborg. The visions of this man are here reinterpreted in the sense of a rationalistic pantheism, which stirs the spiritual world into an unclear “Allgeist”, that is, into a nebulous thought-mush. But Swedenborg was a personality whose soul was awakened to the so-called “astral” vision; and only those who have an understanding of such worlds can give an accurate judgment about them. To say that Swedenborg conversed with Plato when he compared his thoughts with those of Plato is like the blind man speaking of colors. What is said in the essay about “Theosophy” only shows that the author never knew what 'Theosophy is. Of course, what is said about Swedenborg's complaints about theosophists is “a2v”. But so few know who “write” what Theosophy is and what Theosophists want that, despite our perhaps harsh judgment, nothing bad has been said about the essay, which nevertheless pleases us. We Theosophists want to understand others; and we can wait until they will repay us with like for like. If I had to disown my mathematically sober thinking and my veneration of Spinoza because I am a Theosophist, I would truly no longer be one in an hour. But since I became a Theosophist because I once really learned to think mathematically between lectures on “Integration of linear differential equations,” synthetic geometry, and descriptive geometry, and thus also gained access to spiritual research in the sense of Plato, then nothing will happen to me.