Page:Emanuel Swedenborg, Scientist and Mystic.djvu/310

294 into the kind of state in which he could communicate with spirits not of earth, who nevertheless "corresponded" to various universal ideas and feelings.

Swedenborg said that the spirits of Jupiter "represent rational ideas," those of Venus and the earth "corporeal appetites," etc.21—the lore had little to do with astronomy, and a good deal to do with astrology, though Swedenborg never admitted that the "stars" could influence human lives. But, if one peers around to see where he could have found the patterns for interpreting these experiences of his, one finds that he had read22 and greatly admired the so-called Theology of Aristoteles, a late Neoplatonic work, filtered through the Arabic into Latin. In that, for instance, "Jupiter souls" were spoken of and a book referred to, which he may also have read, in which it was alleged that "to every people and clime pertain a group of spirits," and in which the regions of the differrent spirits were mapped out according to planets and zodiac.

It is not possible to trace all the different strands that manifested themselves to Swedenborg as these planetary visits. Some of the "spirits" recall descriptions of primitive tribes. It is at least worth remembering that his cousin Andreas Hesselius had brought back descriptions of American Indians, for a drawing that Swedenborg made of one of the spirit dwellings resembles just the kind of "Quonset" hut which other early travelers had drawn of Indian wigwams.23 But at any rate, his experiences, whatever they were, he set down in his diary in the "dissociated" handwriting just as they came, at different times, less neatly put together than when he published them separately in 1758.

Another little book that Swedenborg published in 1758 in London had likewise been drawn from the diaries, after having been, like the visits to the planets, filtered through the Arcana Celestia. This was the one which had upset Baron Tilas, Swedenborg's account of what he called The Last Judgment.

Going back to the diaries, one finds that very early in his other-world experiences Swedenborg had mentioned that spirits told him the world was in such a bad way, both here and yonder, that some sort of housecleaning, so to speak, was due. It was hinted that this would take place in the world of spirits, the in-between place, because too many evil spirits had banded together and were upsetting