th
in itself. But beware of the arrogant error of believing that it is the only one."
Swedenborg may have had an "inverted Œdipus complex." He may also have been of at least a schizoid type. But he may equally well have had psychic experiences of the kind that modern experimental psychical research makes part of its object of study.
Whatever one may decide as to what were the "spirits" of whom Swedenborg spoke, he soon realized that he had to be dissociated from the external world in order to "converse with them."
On March 4, 1748, he noted that for thirty—three months he had been able to talk with "them," yet had also been able to be "like another man in the society of men," but, "when however I intensely adhered to worldly things in thought, as when I had care concerning necessary expenses, about which I this day wrote a letter, so that my mind was for some time detained therewith, I fell as it were into a corporeal state, so that spirits could not converse with me . . . whence I am able to know that spirits cannot speak with a man who is much devoted to worldly and corporeal cares; for bodily concerns draw down the ideas of the mind and immerse them in corporeal things." 17
Instead of shying from this, like a horse from a piece of white paper in the dark, let us try to see how far modern psychical research can go in making Swedenborg's belief in "spirits" intelligible, even if not credible. That may belong to another department! Do not be put off by the fact, if it is a fact, that psychical research is not "generally accepted"; what science ever was so, in its beginning—certainly not psychoanalysis!
Try the new piece of tracing paper, even if the only picture which emerges from under it is one which you feel you must classify under "imagination." The only question then is whether Swedenborg's experiences, imaginative or not, have value in themselves as pieces of thinking that can send us off to reflect for ourselves on fundamental issues. This highly intelligent man, as by common testimony he continued to be till his death—how did the possible future of man out of the body present itself to him? With what religion did he finally content himself? His experiences and opinions on these subjects may have been all in his imagination, but they were still experiences.
