Page:Emanuel Swedenborg, Scientist and Mystic.djvu/177

XIII ] the embryo, made him believe that the immaterial force which he called the soul directed the material atoms in forming the body. He decided that the place where the soul continued to influence the body and to cognize sensations was in the cortical cells of the brain. He regarded it as possible that other entities (spirits) or forces from the immaterial universe could influence the cortical cells (neurons) and induce "sensations" besides the force of a man's own soul.

All his further studies of psychology and physiology led him to feel certain that the external senses of the body were merely the mechanical reporters or carriers of stimuli which did not become conscious sensations until they became "known" by the "internal senses" which he regarded as belonging to the subtle body of the immaterial soul, the governor of the material body. He thought that the soul with its "internal senses" (or psychic properties) could exist separately from the material body, and that hence it could survive apparent death. Swedenborg believed he had proved this, not by either accepting or receiving "revelation," but by means of all the scientific knowledge his time afforded, plus his own power of synthesis, of putting things together.

What he did not claim to have any idea of, before April, 1745, was under what form man would survive. This, he said, would be a case of the caterpillar trying to guess the appearance of the butterfly.9 But even earlier, in 1741, he was sure that space and time as we know them would not obtain in the world of the dematerialized; he even then supposed that there thought could be directly communicated.

From the convictions Swedenborg had arrived at there was no antecedent improbability in his being aware of discarnate spirits, especially as he now felt he could use his "internal senses" at will. He need not have considered and did not consider himself insane because of this. Of nothing was he more stubbornly certain than that he did have communication with the souls of the dead.

A Swedish scholar is reported to have said that either Swedenborg was insane, which he was not; or Swedenborg was dishonest, which he was not; but if he were neither we should have to change all our ideas.

That scholar seems to have forgotten psychoanalysts. But they have not neglected Swedenborg.