Page:Emanuel Swedenborg, Scientist and Mystic.djvu/251

XVIII ] or state, and he believed that in his own case he was able to visit it consciously when he "suspended bodily sensations."

While, as has been said, he at first incorporated these experiences in The Word Explained, he soon put them into separate diaries, which are most valuable source material for a study of a "medium" or "sensitive," as these supposed links between two worlds are now usually called.

From the point of view of psychical research a "medium" is defined (by G. N. M. Tyrrell) as "a person who manifests paranormal phenomena, usually in a state of trance," and a "sensitive" as "one who possesses the special faculty of experiencing paranormal phenomena, especially of the extra-sensory type." 12

Psychical research notes but does not underwrite the medium's customary assertion that while he or she is in a state of trance (usually unconscious) "spirits" speak through the entranced body, sometimes giving veridical information. The sensitive may or may not believe in spirits, but he or she claims to be capable of acquiring correct information by other than normal means, such as clairvoyance, etc., or, sometimes, by automatic writing.

Swedenborg was a most unusual combination of the two, except that his mediumship differed from the customary form by his being conscious of his experiences.

For a long period he noted them in his diary as they came to him day by day. Between December, 1747, and November, 1748, he wrote about fifty folio pages a month.13 He also wrote a detailed index of what he "saw, heard and felt," in order to use his observations in a sort of guidebook.

This guidebook he combined with the Bible commentaries of the Arcana Celestia in a way reminiscent of modern magazine-wile when advertising is sandwiched into a story. Before a chapter of exegesis he put an account of life in the spirit world, ending it by saying that the continuation would be found at the close of the chapter.

Sometimes he copied his diary entries literally; sometimes he trimmed and arranged them. Still the descriptions in the Arcana are often nearer his unedited and unrationalized impressions than what he was to write in his later theological books. The latter did gain in clarity, but lost very much in that Swedenborg often