SWEDENBORG
Encyclopedia Masonica
Emanuel Swedenborg, a distinguished theologian of his age, and the founder of a sect which still exists, has been always mythically connected with Freemasonry. The eagerness is indeed extraordinary with which all Masonic writers, German, French, English, and American, have sought to connect the name and labors of the Swedish sage with the Masonic institution, and that, too, without the slightest foundation for such a theory either in his writings, or in any Credible memorials of his life.
Findel (History of Freemmasonry, page 329), speaking of the reforms in Swedish Freemasonry, says: "Most likely Swedenborg, the mystic and visionary, used his influence in bringing about the new system; at all events, he smoothed the way for it." Lenning speaks of the influence of his teachings upon the Swedish system of Freemasonry, although he does not absolutely claim him as a Freemason.
Reghellini, in his Esprit du Dogme de la FrancheMaçonnerie, or Genius of the Tenets of Freemasonry, writes thus: "Swedenborg made manly very learned researches on the subject of the Masonic mysteries. He thought that their doctrines were of the highest antiquity, having emanated from the Egyptians, the Persians, the Magi, the Jews, and the Greeks.
He also became the head of a new religion in his effort to reform that of Rome. For this purpose he wrote his Celestial Jerusalem, or his Spiritual World: he mingled with his reform, ideas which were purely Masonic. In this celestial Jerusalem the Word formerly communicated by God to Moses is found; this word is Jehovah, lost on earth, but which he invites us to find in Great Tartary, a Country still governed, even in our days, by the patriarchs, by which he means allegorically to say that this people most nearly approach to the primitive condition of the perfection of innocence." But there is no work written by Swedenborg which bears either of those titles, Celestial Jerusalem or Spiritual World. It is possible that Reghellini alludes either to the Arcana Celestia, published in 1749-53, or to the De Nova Hierosolyma, published in 1758. The same writer, in his Maçonnerie considéree comme le résultat d es religions Egyptienne, Juive et Chrétienne, or Masonry considered as the result of Egyptian, Jewish, and Christian Religions (ii, page 454), repeatedly speaks of Swedenborg as a Masonic reformer, and sometimes as a Masonic impostor Ragon also cites Reghellini in his Orthodoxe Maçonnique (page 255), and recognizes Swedenborg as the founder of a Masonic system.
Thory, in his Acta Latornorum, cites "the system of Swedenborg"; and in fact all the French writers on Masonic ritualism appear to have borrowed their idea of the Swedish theosophist from the statement of Reghellini, and have not hesitated to rank him among the principal Masonic teachers of his time. Doctor Oliver is the earliest of the English Masonic writers of eminence who has referred to Swedenborg. He, too often careless of the weight of his expressions and facile in the acceptance of authority speaks of the Degrees, the system, as well as the Freemasonry of Swedenborg just in the same tone as he would of those of Cagliostro, of Hund, or of Tschoudy. Lastly, and in the United States of America, we had a more recent writer, Brother Samuel Beswick, who was evidently a man of ability and of considerable research.
He has culminated to the zenith in his Claims of the Masonic character of Swedenborg. He published at New York, in 1870, a volume entitled, The Swedenborg Rite and the Great Masonic Leaders of the Eighteenth Century. In this work, which, outside of its Swedenborgian fancies, contains much interesting matter; he traces the Masonic life of Swedenborg from his initiation, the time and place of which he makes in 1706, in a Scottish Lodge in the town of Lund, in Sweden, which is a fair specimen of the value of his historical statements. But after treating the great Swede as a Masonic reformer, as the founder of a Rite, and as evincing during his whole life a deep interest in Freemasonry, he appears to us to surrender the whole question in the following closing words of his work:
From the very moment of his initiation, Swedenborg appears to have resolved never to allude to his membership or to his knowledge of Freemasonry, either publicly or privately. He appears to have made up his mind to keep it a profound secret, and to regard it as something which had no relation to his publie life. We have searched his Itinerary, which contains brief references to everything, he saw, heard, and read during his travels, for something having relation to his Masonic knowledge, intercourse, correspondence, visits to Lodges, places, or persons; but there is a studied silence a systematic avoidance of all allusion to it. In his theological works, his Memorable Relations speak of almost every sect in Christendom, and of all sorts of organizations, or of individuals belonging thereto. But Freemasonry is an exception: there is a systematic silence in relation to it.
It is true that he finds in this reticence of Swedenborg the evidence that he was a Freemason and interested in Freemasonry, but others will most probably form a different conclusion. The fact is that Swedenborg never was a Freemason. The reputation of being one, that has been so continuously attributed to him by Masonic writers, is based first upon the assumptions of Reghellini, whose statements in his Esprit du Dogme were never questioned nor their truth investigated, as they should have been, but were blindly followed by succeeding writers. Neither Wilkinson, nor Burk, nor White, who wrote his biography—the last the most exhaustively—nor anything in his own voluminous writings, lead aq to anx such conclusion. But the second and more important basis on which the theory of a Swedenborgian Freemasonry has been built is the conduct of some of his own disciples, who, imbued with his religious views, being Freemasons, carried the spirit of the New Jerusalem doctrines into their Masonic speculations. There was, it is true, a Masonic Rite or System of Swedenborg, but its true history is this:
About that period we find Pernetty working out his schemes of Masonic reform. Pernetty was a theosophist, a Hermetic philosopher, a disciple, to some extent, of Jacob Böhme, that prince of mystics. To such a man, the reveries, the visions, and the spiritual speculations of Swedenborg were peculiarly attractive. He accepted them as an addition to the theosophic views which he already had received.
About the year 1760 he established at Avignon his Rite of the Illuminati, in which the reveries of both theme and Swedenborg were introduced. In 1783 this system was reformed by the Marquis de Thomé, another Swedenborgian, and out of that reform arose what was called the Rite of Swedenborg, not because Swedenborg had established it, or had any-thing directly to do with its establishment, but because it n as based on his peculiar theological views, and because its symbolism was borrowed from the ideas he had advanced in the highly symbolical works that he had written. A portion of these Degrees, or other Degrees much like them, have been called apocalyptic; not bemuse Saint John had, any more than Swedenborg, a connection with them, but because their system of initiation is based on the mystical teaehings of the Apocalypse; a work which, not less than the theories of the Swede, furnishes abundant food for a system of Masonico-religious symbolisrn.
Benedict Chastanier, was also another disciple of Swedenborg, and who was one of the founders of the Avignon Society, carried these views into England, and founded at London a similar Rite, which afterward was changed into a purely religious association.
"The Theosophical Society, instituted for the purpose of promoting the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Jerusalem." In one of his visions, Swedenborg thus describes a palace in the spiritual world which he had visited. From passages such as these which abound in his various treatises, the theosophic Freemasons concocted those Degrees which have been called the freemasonry of Swedenborg. To no reader of the passage annexed can its appropriateness as the basis of a system of symbolism fail to be apparent.
I accordingly entered the temple, which was magnificent, and in the midst of which a woman was represented clothed in purple, holding in her right hand a golden crown piece, and in her left a chain of pearls. The statue and the representation were only fantastic representations for these infernal spirits, by closing the interior Degree and opening the exterior only, are able at the pleasure of their imagination to represent magnificent Objects.
Perceiving that they were illusions, I prayed to the Lord. Immediately the interior of my spirit was opened and I saw, instead of the superb temple, a Tottering house, open to the weather from the top to the bottom. In the place of the woman-state an image was suspended, having the head of a dragon, the body of a leopard, the feet of a bear, and the mouth of a lion: in short, it was the beast rising out of the sea, as described in the Apocalypse (xiii, 2). In the place of a park, there gas a marsh full of frogs and I was informed that under this marsh there was a great hewn stone, beneath which the Word was entirely hidden. afterwards I said to the Prelate, who was the fabricator of these illusions,"Is that your temple? "Yes," replied he, it is." Immediately his interior sight was opened like mine, and he saw what I did.
" How now, what do I see?" cried he. I told him that it was the effect of the celestial light, wish discovers the interior quality of everything, anal which taught him at that very moment what faith separated front good works was. While I was speaking, a wind blowing from the east destroyed the Temple and the image, dried up the marsh, and discovered the stone under which the Sacred Word was Concealed. A genial warmth, like that of the spring, descended from heaven; and in the place of that Temple we saw a tent, the exterior of which was very plain. I looked into the interior of it, and there I saw the foundation-stone beneath which the Sacred Word was concealed ornamented with precious stones, the splendor of which. diffusing itself over the walls of the Temple, diversified the colors of the paintings, which represented cherubims.
The angels, perceiving me to be filled with admiration; told me that I should see still greater wonders than these. They were then permitted to open the third heaven, inhabited by the celestial angels, who dwelt inlove. All of a sudden the splendor of a light of fire caused the Temple to disappear, and left nothing to be seen but the Lord himself, standing upon the foundation-stone—the Lord who was the Word, such as he showed Himself (Apocalypse i, 13 to 16). Holiness immediately filled all the interior of the spirit of the angels, upon Which they made an effort to prostrate themsell es, hut the Lord shut the passage to the light from the third heavers openiny the passage to the light of the second, which caused the Temple to reappear, with the tent in the midst.
Such passages as these might lead one to suppose that Swedenborg was familiar with the system ofMasonic ritualism His complete reticence upon the subject, however, and the whole tenor of his life, his studies, and his habits, assure us that such was not the case; and that if there was really a borrowing of one from the other, and not an accidental coincidence, it was the Freemasons of the advanced Degrees who borrowed from Swedenborg, and not Swedenborg from them. If so, we cannot deny that he has unwillingly exercised a powerful influence on Freemasonry.
