Who the hell are the swedenborgians?

These folks have some very upscale PRIVATE universities around the country, with small class sizes but LARGE endowments. That means that each student receives about 50k a year for attending. I'm wondering what this is all about, they claim it is a religious institution. The swedenborgs, anyone hear of them?

A semi-mystic crew, 300 or so years old.
Most famous Swedenborgian was the poet William Blake ( Jerusalem, Tyger, Tyger etc,)
An extreme form of Protestantism at the core: much drivel surrounds it.
You'll find oodles of stuff on Swedenborg if you search either that name or Blake's.

I did a quick search, here is a definition.

Definition: Founded by Emmanuel Swedenborg (1688-1771), Swedenborgianism was an important vehicle for the transmission of paranormal and occult beliefs in America during the 19th century. Swedenborg would probably today still be famous for his scientific accomplishments if it had not been for his abandoning science in favor of mysticism. Among his early discoveries were the functioning of the brain's pituitary gland and he even created plans for a submarine.

Swedenborg followed a Platonic philosophy of idealism in which the spiritual realm was more "real" than the physical world. There, is, however, a corresondence between everything in the spiritual and physical realms - he called this his "law of correspondences". Thus, when a person dies, they travel to some spiritual level which corresponds to whatever level of moral development they achieved while alive. The goal of life, then, is to simply reach as high of a moral level as possible. These beliefs were later adopted by most New Age philosophies.

After his death, followers created the Church of New Jerusalem around his teachings, even though while alive he professed that he didn't want to found a new religion. Today we can find Swedenborgian congregations all around the world and his writings have been translated into many languages.

Wow, I thought Swedenborg might be mentioned on these forums but was surprised and delighted to find over 260 results! I attended a private high school of theirs on scholarship. As far as the scholarship itself, their yoke was easy and their burden was light. (A group of us had to clean school buildings and it was great fun. Detention for students who got in trouble also consisted of some form of chores. In the old days, detention was called "coal pile," and former students from back in the day could hardly understand what school authorities found for detainees to do when the school stopped burning coal!) My sisters graduated from their high school and one of them attended some college. The church may have some wealthy benefactors but they are hardly communists. There are a few rich Swedenborgians and a number of middle-class and poor ones just like the rest of America and yes it probably does work out to about 99 to 1. I'll be happy to try to field or pass on questions from anyone who may show interest.

originally posted by: Ycon
I did a quick search, here is a definition.

Definition: Founded by Emmanuel Swedenborg (1688-1771), Swedenborgianism was an important vehicle for the transmission of paranormal and occult beliefs in America during the 19th century. Swedenborg would probably today still be famous for his scientific accomplishments if it had not been for his abandoning science in favor of mysticism. Among his early discoveries were the functioning of the brain's pituitary gland and he even created plans for a submarine.

* * * *

After his death, followers created the Church of New Jerusalem around his teachings, even though while alive he professed that he didn't want to found a new religion. Today we can find Swedenborgian congregations all around the world and his writings have been translated into many languages.

The first statement is incorrect, the second, correct! Swedenborg just wrote the books; his followers founded the religion! www.newchurch.org...

The assessment of his scientific work made me laugh because years ago when some fundamentalist friends who were also engineers looked into his history, one said, "You know, this guy would have been fine if he'd just stuck to science."