Emanuel Swedenborg??

dont know for sure babs but he was an interesting character

from

http://www.fst.org/spirit2.htm

Emanuel Swedenborg was that vehicle. He was an expert in mine engineering, metallurgy, astronomy, physics, zoology, anatomy, and political economics. He was, also, a military engineer under the reign of Charles XII. Above and beyond this vista of intellectual accomplishments, Swedenborg was best known as an astute Biblical theologian.

Well thank you Steve, I appreciate that. I had
no idea who he was, and too lazy to look it up,
I have this ANCIENT little text about the Bible
written by him.

Now there is something REALLY odd about this all. Upon
further reading of the site you mentioned I realized that
this was a group of "spiritualists" There is a town of
spiritualists who live in Florida, in a small town called Casadega.
The weird part is that I've been there numerous times. I went
once with a friend, to see a spiritualist. More as a "something
to do" than anything. And I thoroughly expected it was a sham.
However, the woman I met with & spent about a half hour with
and she asked me not one thing about myself - nothing at
all. But she gave me a pencil and some paper so I could
jot down all that she told me. Well this has now been over
18 years ago; and I have watched as little by little each
thing she mentioned became a part of my life. It was so
uncanny. She talked about things that were part of my
life at the current time also. She did that part first, and
then she proceeded on into whatever she "saw" in my
future. Some of it has been VERY far into the future, but
at this time - every single thing she told me has come to
be. And she talked about specifics, the person's name with
whom I'm now partnered. Who I had not met at the time.
And a ring that I got about 2 years later - a remarriage of
sorts. As I look back over it - I've kept those little pieces of
paper all these years so I would have her name and so I
could refer to it once in a while. To imagine that my father,
the odd duck that he was, believed in spiritualists is really
surprising to say the least. My parents raised us in the
Presbyterian church, which is good, since it's an easy religion.
Surely not like catholicism, which seems to leave countless
people hating themselves for not being perfect. Or feeling
guilty their whole lives, just for enjoying themselves ~sigh.
I've been back to Casadega at least 3 times....although I
never met another woman as true OR as on the mark, as
Ester was.

Babs-I have afew friends in the Swedenborgian Church. they , like me , are in the sciences and seemed to have gravitated to the tenets of Swede...
Their history and personal revelations are tied together with the teachings from Emmanuel S. It is a religion that, similar to Episcopalian Church, is a "Catholicism Light" (without all the wonderful guilt and judgementalism)

You have your
Personal revelation
Doing good works is better than just believing
2nd coming is already happening in a spiritual form
Free will
The trinity
A spiritual world , paralleling this one , exists

The local Sweden... seems to be centered North of Philadelphia in Bucks County Pa. I believe the US HQ is in New England somewhere.
Thats sort of an encapsulated description I received from my friends during our many conversation. Oh yeh, Swedenborg himself didnt found the religion he just wrote about 30 books on his personal revelation and this was later adopted into a formal liturgy and structure, by followers still in England.

More information about Swedenborg's church today can be found at:

http://www.swedenborg.net/

Welcome to the discussion Farmerman! Good to hear another
viewpoint, and by the way - one that is not too disimilar from
my own. What I like about this religious group, is the total
lack of guilt, sin, talk about devils, witches or other such
ridiculous stuff. I also like the way that it clearly makes the
statement that the primary belief is in a "god", a Creator, a
higher form of spiritual being rather than what the world's religions
have done with the essentialness of spirituality. I found in reading
the link which Steve so aptly found (THANKS STEVE) that there
was such an odd sense of the almost unbelievable uniqueness of
such a church existing at the time that it did as well - where it did.
Since both of my father's parents & all of his ancestors were
British & came to Canada at first, then in time, traveled down
to upstate New York & New England - it does make sense that he
may have grown up as part of this group. Then when marrying
to an Episcopalian; they must have decided on a very neutral
church (Presbyterian) .... rather than on their own past religions.
my father was a medic and a conscientious objector during WWII.
but he talked about none of this. I do like quite a few things
that I read in thoe links and it seems so open and inviting.

Emmanuel Swedenborg
Emmanuel Swedenborg was a prolific inventor and scientist living in the 1700's. He studied psychology, learned to master his dreams and could communicate and travel with spirits. He was also a clairvoyant.

yeh right, but hes still dead.

Thanks so much for adding your comments about what
you know of Emanuel Swedenbord. I would have been
a TOTAL skeptic had it not been for the information that
I got from the spiritualist who I met there and had a
30 minute session with. I wrote down all that she said
as she simply looked off to the side, and began to tell
me things about me, about certain current events and
an unbelievable amount of future information - which I
still have the information she gave me and one by one;
every single thing that she "saw" & told me about did
come to pass in my life over the next 15 years. It didn't
all make sense to me at the time because I had never
met a woman named Patty - but I later did and this was
a most amazingly profoundly life altering experience in
MY life. I still have these sheets of paper, and at times
I still wonder if there is more to come - that I will only
be able to comprehend by "looking back" after the fact.
It is one of those "coincidences" in life that are truly NOT
coincidental at all. These are - to me - extraordinary
events, they are no coincidences at all. They were so
freely given to me - and so completely correct about
events of my future - even though I could not really make
total sense of all of it until after the fact, after what she
told me did indeed come to pass in my life. For instance,
one of the things that she told me was about my sister(and
she even knew that my sister's name was Susan???)
was that there would come a time in her life when she would
desperately need my help but not at all in the manner of
financial assistance, something far greater than that. I'm
not sure if this one last thing has finished or has "played
out" in my life (yet). I have begun a process of keeping
track of all of the "seemingly coincidental" events that have
occurred in my life over the years, and the list is very long.
Times when I was daydreaming at a red light and when it
turned green I did not immedtiatly go. A few seconds later
one of those huge pulpwood trucks came blastine thru that
intersection. IF I had gone on the green signal when it did
turn, I would have been mashed potatoes !!
So, for me - and perhaps for you also ... these have been
very fascinating and mind altering events - ones for which
I owe only to an "intuitive sense" or maybe precognition.
I am trying to keep track of the nature of these events, sort
of like a study of these truly amazing things that happen to
me.... far beyond what the spiritualist in Casadega told me
about. At any rate - I am grateful for your input on this
subject and I do hope to see more of you around A2K.
Thanks, Babs