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https://anchor.fm/valerie-harvey/episodes/U-S--President-10-John-Tyler-Part-I-ersnbq
https://anchor.fm/valerie-harvey/episodes/U-S--President-10-John-Tyler-Part-II-ersnic
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https://anchor.fm/valerie-harvey/episodes/U-S--President-10-John-Tyler-Part-IV-eshlcm
Emanuel Swedenborg (/ˈswiːdənbɔːrɡ/, Swedish: [ˈsvêːdɛnˌbɔrj]; born Emanuel Swedberg; 8 February [O.S. 29 January] 1688 – 29 March 1772) was a Swedish pluralistic-Christian theologian, scientist, philosopher and mystic. He became best known for his book on the afterlife, Heaven and Hell (1758).
Swedenborg had a prolific career as an inventor and scientist. In 1741, at 53, he entered into a spiritual phase in which he began to experience dreams and visions, notably on Easter Weekend, on 6 April 1744. His experiences culminated in a "spiritual awakening" in which he received a revelation that Jesus Christ had appointed him to write The Heavenly Doctrine to reform Christianity. According to The Heavenly Doctrine, the Lord had opened Swedenborg's spiritual eyes so that from then on, he could freely visit heaven and hell to converse with angels, demons and other spirits and the Last Judgment had already occurred the year before the 1758 publication of De Nova Hierosolyma et Ejus Doctrina Coelesti [Concerning the new Jerusalem and its heavenly doctrine], in 1757.
Over the last 28 years of his life, Swedenborg wrote 18 published theological works—and several more that remained unpublished. He termed himself a "Servant of the Lord Jesus Christ" in True Christian Religion, which he published himself. Some followers of The Heavenly Doctrine believe that of his theological works, only those that were published by Swedenborg himself are fully divinely inspired. Others have regarded all Swedenborg's theological works as equally inspired, saying for example that the fact that some works were "not written out in a final edited form for publication does not make a single statement less trustworthy than the statements in any of the other works". The New Church, a new religious movement originally founded in 1787 and comprising several historically-related Christian denominations, reveres Swedenborg's writings as revelation.
Early life
Swedenborg's father, Jesper Swedberg (1653–1735), descended from a wealthy mining family, the first known paternal ancestor being Otte Persson from Sundborn parish, mentioned 1571. He traveled abroad and studied theology, and on returning home, he was eloquent enough to impress the Swedish king, Charles XI, with his sermons in Stockholm. Through the king's influence, he would later become professor of theology at Uppsala University and Bishop of Skara.
Jesper took an interest in the beliefs of the dissenting Lutheran Pietist movement, which emphasized the virtues of communion with God rather than relying on sheer faith (sola fide). Sola fide is a tenet of the Lutheran Church, and Jesper was charged with being a pietist heretic. While controversial, the beliefs were to have a major impact on his son Emanuel's spirituality. Jesper furthermore held the unconventional belief that angels and spirits were present in everyday life. This also came to have a strong impact on Emanuel.
In 1703–1709, Swedenborg lived in Erik Benzelius the Younger's house. Swedenborg completed his university course at Uppsala in 1709, and in 1710, he made his grand tour through the Netherlands, France and Germany before reaching London, where he would spend the next four years. It was also a flourishing center of scientific ideas and discoveries. Swedenborg studied physics, mechanics and philosophy and read and wrote poetry. According to the preface of a book by the Swedish critic Olof Lagercrantz, Swedenborg wrote to his benefactor and brother-in-law Benzelius that he believed he might be destined to be a great scientist.
Scientific period
In 1715 Swedenborg returned to Sweden, where he devoted himself to natural science and engineering projects for the next two decades. A first step was his meeting with King Charles XII of Sweden in the city of Lund, in 1716. The Swedish inventor Christopher Polhem, who became a close friend of Swedenborg, was also present. Swedenborg's purpose was to persuade the king to fund an observatory in northern Sweden. However, the warlike king did not consider this project important enough, but did appoint Swedenborg to be assessor-extraordinary on the Swedish Board of Mines (Bergskollegium) in Stockholm.
From 1716 to 1718, Swedenborg published a scientific periodical entitled Daedalus Hyperboreus ("The Northern Daedalus"), a record of mechanical and mathematical inventions and discoveries. One notable description was that of a flying machine, the same he had been sketching a few years earlier.
In 1718, Swedenborg published an article that attempted to explain spiritual and mental events in terms of minute vibrations, or "tremulations".
Upon the death of Charles XII, Queen Ulrika Eleonora ennobled Swedenborg and his siblings. It was common in Sweden during the 17th and 18th centuries for the children of bishops to receive that honor, as a recognition of the services of their father. The family name was changed from Swedberg to Swedenborg.
In 1724, he was offered the chair of mathematics at Uppsala University, but he declined and said that he had dealt mainly with geometry, chemistry and metallurgy during his career. He also said that he did not have the gift of eloquent speech because of a stutter, as recognized by many of his acquaintances; it forced him to speak slowly and carefully, and there are no known occurrences of his speaking in public. The Swedish critic Olof Lagerkrantz proposed that Swedenborg compensated for his impediment by extensive argumentation in writing.
New direction of studies ahead of his time
During the 1730s, Swedenborg undertook many studies of anatomy and physiology. He had the first known anticipation of the neuron concept. It was not until a century later that science recognized the full significance of the nerve cell. He also had prescient ideas about the cerebral cortex, the hierarchical organization of the nervous system, the localization of the cerebrospinal fluid, the functions of the pituitary gland, the perivascular spaces, the foramen of Magendie, the idea of somatotopic organization, and the association of frontal brain regions with the intellect. In some cases, his conclusions have been experimentally verified in modern times.
In the 1730s, Swedenborg became increasingly interested in spiritual matters and was determined to find a theory to explain how matter relates to spirit. Swedenborg's desire to understand the order and the purpose of creation first led him to investigate the structure of matter and the process of creation itself. In the Principia, he outlined his philosophical method, which incorporated experience, geometry (the means by which the inner order of the world can be known) and the power of reason. He also outlined his cosmology, which included the first presentation of his nebular hypothesis. (There is evidence that Swedenborg may have preceded Kant by as much as 20 years in the development of that hypothesis.)
In 1735, in Leipzig, he published a three-volume work, Opera philosophica et mineralis ("Philosophical and mineralogical works") in which he tried to conjoin philosophy and metallurgy. The work was mainly appreciated for its chapters on the analysis of the smelting of iron and copper, and it was the work that gave Swedenborg his international reputation. The same year, he also published the small manuscript de Infinito ("On the Infinite") in which he attempted to explain how the finite is related to the infinite and how the soul is connected to the body. It was the first manuscript in which he touched upon such matters. He knew that it might clash with established theologies since he presented the view that the soul is based on material substances. He also conducted dedicated studies of the fashionable philosophers of the time such as John Locke, Christian von Wolff, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, and Descartes and earlier thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus and Augustine of Hippo.
In 1743, at the age of 55, Swedenborg requested a leave of absence to go abroad. His purpose was to gather source material for Regnum animale (The Animal Kingdom, or Kingdom of Life), a subject on which books were not readily available in Sweden. The aim of the book was to explain the soul from an anatomical point of view. He had planned to produce a total of 17 volumes.
Journal of Dreams
By 1744, Swedenborg had traveled to the Netherlands. Around the time, he began having strange dreams. Swedenborg carried a travel journal with him on most of his travels and did so on this journey. The whereabouts of the diary were long unknown, but it was discovered in the Royal Library in the 1850s and was published in 1859 as Drömboken, or Journal of Dreams.
Swedenborg experienced many different dreams and visions, some greatly pleasurable, others highly disturbing. The experiences continued as he traveled to London to progress the publication of Regnum animale. This process, which one biographer has proposed as cathartic and comparable to the Catholic concept of Purgatory, continued for six months. He also proposed that what Swedenborg was recording in his Journal of Dreams was a battle between the love of himself and the love of God.
Visions and spiritual insights
In the last entry of the journal from 26–27 October 1744, Swedenborg appears to be clear as to which path to follow. He felt that he should drop his current project and write a new book about the worship of God. He soon began working on De cultu et amore Dei, or The Worship and Love of God. It was never fully completed, but Swedenborg still had it published in London in June 1745.
In 1745, Swedenborg was dining in a private room at a tavern in London. By the end of the meal, a darkness fell upon his eyes, and the room shifted character. Suddenly, he saw a person sitting at a corner of the room, telling him: "Do not eat too much!". Swedenborg, scared, hurried home. Later that night, the same man appeared in his dreams. The man told Swedenborg that he was the Lord, that he had appointed Swedenborg to reveal the spiritual meaning of the Bible and that he would guide Swedenborg in what to write. The same night, the spiritual world was opened to Swedenborg.
Scriptural commentary and writings
In June 1747, Swedenborg resigned his post as assessor of the board of mines. He explained that he was obliged to complete a work that he had begun and requested to receive half his salary as a pension. He took up afresh his study of Hebrew and began to work on the spiritual interpretation of the Bible with the goal of interpreting the spiritual meaning of every verse. From sometime between 1746 and 1747 and for ten years henceforth, he devoted his energy to the task. Usually abbreviated as Arcana Cœlestia or under the Latin variant Arcana Caelestia (translated as Heavenly Arcana, Heavenly Mysteries, or Secrets of Heaven depending on modern English-language editions), the book became his magnum opus and the basis of his further theological works.
The work was anonymous, and Swedenborg was not identified as the author until the late 1750s. It had eight volumes, published between 1749 and 1756. It attracted little attention, as few people could penetrate its meaning.
His life from 1747 to his death was spent in Stockholm, the Netherlands and London. During the 25 years, he wrote another 14 works of a spiritual nature; most were published during his lifetime.
One of Swedenborg's lesser-known works presents a startling claim: that the Last Judgment had begun in the previous year (1757) and was completed by the end of that year and that he had witnessed it. According to The Heavenly Doctrine, the Last Judgment took place not in the physical world but in the World of Spirits, halfway between heaven and hell, through which all pass on their way to heaven or hell. The Judgment took place because the Christian church had lost its charity and faith, resulting in a loss of spiritual free will that threatened the equilibrium between heaven and hell in everyone's life.
The Heavenly Doctrine also teaches that the Last Judgement was followed by the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, which occurred not by Christ in person but by a revelation from him through the inner, spiritual sense of the Word through Swedenborg.
In another of his theological works, Swedenborg wrote that eating meat, regarded in itself, "is something profane" and was not practiced in the early days of the human race. However, he said, it now is a matter of conscience, and no one is condemned for doing it. Nonetheless, the early-days ideal appears to have given rise to the idea that Swedenborg was a vegetarian. That conclusion may have been reinforced by the fact that a number of Swedenborg's early followers were part of the vegetarian movement that arose in Britain in the 19th century. However, the only reports on Swedenborg himself are contradictory. His landlord in London, Shearsmith, said he ate no meat, but his maid, who served Swedenborg, said that he ate eels and pigeon pie.
In Earths in the Universe, it is stated that he conversed with spirits from Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Saturn, Venus and the Moon as well as spirits from planets beyond the solar system. From the "encounters", he concluded that the planets of our solar system are inhabited and that such an enormous undertaking as the universe could not have been created for just one race on a planet or one "Heaven" derived from its properties per planet. Many Heavenly societies were also needed to increase the perfection of the angelic Heavens and Heaven to fill in deficiencies and gaps in other societies. He argued: "What would this be to God, Who is infinite, and to whom a thousand or tens of thousands of planets, and all of them full of inhabitants, would be scarcely anything!" Swedenborg and the question of life on other planets has been extensively reviewed elsewhere.
Swedenborg published his work in London or the Netherlands because of their freedom of the press.
In July 1770, at the age of 82, he traveled to Amsterdam to complete the publication of his last work. The book, Vera Christiana Religio (The True Christian Religion), was published there in 1771 and was one of the most appreciated of his works. Designed to explain his teachings to Lutherans, it is the most concrete of his works.
Later life
In the summer of 1771, he traveled to London. Shortly before Christmas, he suffered a stroke and was partially paralyzed and confined to bed. His health improved somewhat, but he died in 1772. There are several accounts of his last months, made by those with whom he stayed and by Arvid Ferelius, a pastor of the Swedish Church in London, who visited him several times.
There is evidence that Swedenborg wrote a letter to John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, in February. Swedenborg said that he had been told in the world of spirits that Wesley wanted to speak with him. Wesley, startled since he had not told anyone of his interest in Swedenborg, replied that he was going on a journey for six months and would contact Swedenborg on his return. Swedenborg replied that that would be too late since Swedenborg would be going to the spiritual world for the last time on March 29. (Wesley later read and commented extensively on Swedenborg's work.) Swedenborg's landlord's servant girl, Elizabeth Reynolds, also said that Swedenborg had predicted the date and that he was as happy about it as if he was "going on holiday or to some merrymaking":
In Swedenborg's final hours, his friend, Pastor Ferelius, told him some people thought he had written his theology just to make a name for himself and asked Swedenborg if he would like to recant. Raising himself up on his bed, his hand on his heart, Swedenborg earnestly replied,
"As truly as you see me before your eyes, so true is everything that I have written; and I could have said more had it been permitted. When you enter eternity you will see everything, and then you and I shall have much to talk about".
He then died, in the afternoon, on the date he had predicted, March 29.
Swedenborg House in London
He was buried in the Swedish Church in Princes Square in Shadwell, London. On the 140th anniversary of his death, in 1912/1913, his remains were transferred to Uppsala Cathedral in Sweden, where they now rest close to the grave of the botanist Carl Linnaeus. In 1917, the Swedish Church in Shadwell was demolished, and the Swedish community that had grown around the parish moved to Marylebone. In 1938, Princes Square was redeveloped, and in his honor the local road was renamed Swedenborg Gardens. In 1997, a garden, play area and memorial, near the road, were created in his memory.
Veracity
Swedenborg's transition from scientist to revelator or mystic has fascinated many people. He has had a variety of both supporting and critical biographers. Some propose that he did not have a revelation at all but developed his theological ideas from sources which ranged from his father to earlier figures in the history of thought, notably Plotinus. That position was first taken by Swedish writer Martin Lamm who wrote a biography of Swedenborg in 1915. Swedish critic and publicist Olof Lagercrantz had a similar point of view, calling Swedenborg's theological writing "a poem about a foreign country with peculiar laws and customs".
Swedenborg's approach to proving the veracity of his theological teachings was to use voluminous quotations from the Old Testament and the New Testament to demonstrate agreement with the Bible, and this is found throughout his theological writings, since he rejected blind faith and declared true faith to be an internal acknowledgement of the truth. The vast use of these Biblical confirmations led a Swedish Royal Council in 1771 to examine the heresy charges of 1770 against two Swedish supporters of his theological writings: "there is much that is true and useful in Swedenborg's writings". Victor Hugo felt that Swedenborg had "lapsed into madness" in Chapter 14 of Les Misérables.
Scientific beliefs
Swedenborg proposed many scientific ideas during his lifetime. In his youth, he wanted to present a new idea every day, as he wrote to his brother-in-law Erik Benzelius in 1718. Around 1730, he had changed his mind, and instead believed that higher knowledge is not something that can be acquired, but that it is based on intuition. After 1745, he instead considered himself receiving scientific knowledge in a spontaneous manner from angels.
From 1745, when he considered himself to have entered a spiritual state, he tended to phrase his "experiences" in empirical terms, to report accurately things he had experienced on his spiritual journeys.
One of his ideas that is considered most crucial for the understanding of his theology is his notion of correspondences. But, in fact, he first presented the theory of correspondences only in 1744, in the first volume of Regnum Animale dealing with the human soul.
The basis of the correspondence theory is that there is a relationship among the natural ("physical"), the spiritual, and the divine worlds. The foundations of this theory can be traced to Neoplatonism and the philosopher Plotinus in particular. With the aid of this scenario, Swedenborg now interpreted the Bible in a different light, claiming that even the most apparently trivial sentences could hold a profound spiritual meaning. Swedenborg argued that it is the presence of that spiritual sense which makes the Word divine.
Prophetic accounts
Four incidents of purported psychic ability of Swedenborg exist in the literature. There are several versions of each story.
Fire anecdotes
On Thursday, 19 July 1759 a great and well-documented fire broke out in Stockholm, Sweden. In the high and increasing wind it spread very fast, consuming about 300 houses and making 2000 people homeless.
When the fire broke out Swedenborg was at a dinner with friends in Gothenburg, about 400 km from Stockholm. He became agitated and told the party at six o'clock that there was a fire in Stockholm, that it had consumed his neighbor's home and was threatening his own. Two hours later, he exclaimed with relief that the fire had stopped three doors from his home. In the excitement following his report, word even reached the ears of the provincial governor, who summoned Swedenborg that same evening and asked for a detailed recounting.
At that time, it took two to three days for news from Stockholm to reach Gothenburg by courier, so that is the shortest duration in which the news of the fire could reach Gothenburg. The first messenger from Stockholm with news of the fire was from the Board of Trade, who arrived Monday evening. The second messenger was a royal courier, who arrived on Tuesday. Both of these reports confirmed every statement to the precise hour that Swedenborg first expressed the information. The accounts are fully described in Bergquist, pp. 312–313 and in Chapter 31 of The Swedenborg Epic. According to Swedenborg's biographer Lars Bergquist, however, this event took place on Sunday, July 29 – ten days after the fire.
(Bergquist states, but does not document, that Swedenborg confirmed his vision of the fire incident to his good friend, Consul Christopher Springer, "one of the pillars of the church, ... a man of enviable reputation for virtue and intelligence", and that Swedenborg's innkeeper, Erik Bergström, heard Swedenborg affirming the story.)
It seems unlikely that the many witnesses to Swedenborg's distress during the fire, and his immediate report of it to the provincial governor, would have left room for doubt in the public eye of Swedenborg's report. If Swedenborg had only received news of the fire by the normal methods there would have been no issue of psychic perception recorded for history. Instead, "when the news of Swedenborg's extraordinary vision of the fire reached the capital, public curiosity about him was very much aroused."
A second fire anecdote, similar to the first one, but less cited, is the incident of the mill owner Bolander. Swedenborg warned him, again abruptly, of an incipient fire in one of his mills.
Queen of Sweden
The third event was in 1758 when Swedenborg visited Queen Louisa Ulrika of Sweden, who asked him to tell her something about her deceased brother Prince Augustus William of Prussia. The next day, Swedenborg whispered something in her ear that turned the Queen pale and she explained that this was something only she and her brother could know about.
Lost document
The fourth incident involved a woman who had lost an important document, and came to Swedenborg asking if a recently deceased person could tell him where it was, which he was said to have done the following night.
Although not typically cited along with these three episodes, there was one further piece of evidence: Swedenborg was noted by the seamen of the ships that he sailed between Stockholm and London to always have excellent sailing conditions. When asked about this by a friend, Swedenborg played down the matter, saying he was surprised by this experience himself and that he was certainly not able to do miracles.
Kant's view
In 1763, Immanuel Kant, then at the beginning of his career, was impressed by accounts of Swedenborg's psychic abilities and made inquiries to find out if they were true. He also ordered all eight volumes of the expensive Arcana Cœlestia (Heavenly Arcana or Heavenly Mysteries). One Charlotte von Knobloch wrote to Kant asking his opinion of Swedenborg's psychic experiences. Kant wrote a very affirmative reply, referring to Swedenborg's "miraculous" gift, and characterizing him as "reasonable, agreeable, remarkable and sincere" and "a scholar", in one of his letters to Mendelssohn, and expressing regret that he (Kant) had never met Swedenborg. Joseph Green, his English friend, who investigated the matter for Kant, including by visiting Swedenborg's home, found Swedenborg to be a "sensible, pleasant and openhearted" man and here again, a scholar.
However, three years later, in 1766, Kant wrote and published anonymously a small book entitled Träume eines Geistersehers (Dreams of a Spirit-Seer) that was a scathing critique of Swedenborg and his writings. He termed Swedenborg a "spook hunter" "without official office or occupation". As rationale for his critique, Kant said he wanted to stop "ceaseless questioning" and inquiries about Dreams from "inquisitive" persons, both known and unknown. Kant's friend Moses Mendelssohn thought there was a "joking pensiveness" in Dreams that sometimes left the reader in doubt as to whether Dreams was meant to make "metaphysics laughable or spirit-seeking credible". In one of his letters to Mendelssohn, Kant refers to Dreams less-than-enthusiastically as a "desultory little essay".
Kant never closed off the possibility of mysticism or spirits in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, and the exact relationship of his thought to Swedenborg's remains unclear, according to contemporary scholars.
Theology
Swedenborg claimed in The Heavenly Doctrine that the teachings of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ were revealed to him.
Swedenborg considered his theology a revelation of the true Christian religion that had become obfuscated through centuries of theology. However, he did not refer to his writings as theology since he considered it based on actual experiences, unlike theology, except in the title of his last work. Neither did he wish to compare it to philosophy, a discipline he discarded in 1748 because, he claimed, it "darkens the mind, blinds us, and wholly rejects the faith".
The foundation of Swedenborg's theology was laid down in Arcana Cœlestia (Heavenly Mysteries), published in eight Latin volumes from 1749 to 1756. In a significant portion of that work, he interprets the Biblical passages of Genesis and Exodus. He reviews what he says is the inner spiritual sense of these two works of the Word of God. (He later made a similar review of the inner sense of the book of Revelation in Apocalypse Revealed.) Most of all, he was convinced that the Bible describes a human's transformation from a materialistic to a spiritual being, which he calls rebirth or regeneration. He begins this work by outlining how the creation myth was not an account of the creation of Earth, but an account of man's rebirth or regeneration in six steps represented by the six days of creation. Everything related to mankind in the Bible could also be related to Jesus Christ, and how Christ freed himself from materialistic boundaries through the glorification of his human presence by making it Divine. Swedenborg examines this idea in his exposition of Genesis and Exodus.
Marriage
One often discussed aspect of Swedenborg's writing is his ideas on marriage. Swedenborg himself remained a bachelor all his life, but that did not hinder him from writing voluminously on the subject. His work on Marriage Love (Conjugial Love in older translations) (1768) was dedicated to this purpose.
A central question with regard to marriage is whether it stops at death or continues into heaven. The question arises due to a statement attributed to Jesus that there is no marriage in heaven (Luke 20:27–38, Matthew 22:23–32, and Mark 12:18–27). Swedenborg wrote The Lord God Jesus Christ on Marriage in Heaven as a detailed analysis of what he meant.
The quality of the relationship between husband and wife resumes in the spiritual world in whatever state it was at their death in this world. Thus, a couple in true marriage love remain together in that state in heaven into eternity. A couple lacking in that love by one or both partners, however, will separate after death and each will be given a compatible new partner if they wish. A partner is also given to a person who loved the ideal of marriage but never found a true partner in this world. The exception in both cases is a person who hates chaste marriage and thus cannot receive such a partner.
Swedenborg saw creation as a series of pairings, descending from the Divine love and wisdom that define God and are the basis of creation. This duality can be seen in the pairing of good and truth, charity and faith, God and the church, and husband and wife. In each case, the goal for these pairs is to achieve conjunction between the two component parts. In the case of marriage, the object is to bring about the joining together of the two partners at the spiritual and physical levels, and the happiness that comes as a consequence.
Trinity
Swedenborg rejected the common explanation of the Trinity as a Trinity of Persons, which he said was not taught in the early Christian church. There was, for instance, no mention in the Apostolic writings of any "Son from eternity". Instead he explained in his theological writings how the Divine Trinity exists in One Person, in One God, the Lord Jesus Christ, which he said is taught in Colossians 2:9. According to The Heavenly Doctrine, Jesus, the Son of God, came into the world due to the spread of evil here.
Swedenborg spoke in virtually all his works against what he regarded as the incomprehensible Trinity of Persons concept. He said that people of other religions opposed Christianity because of its doctrine of a Trinity of Persons. He considered the separation of the Trinity into three separate Persons to have originated with the First Council of Nicaea and the Athanasian Creed.
Sola Fide (Faith Alone)
The Heavenly Doctrine rejects the concept of salvation through faith-alone (sola-fide in Latin), since he considered both faith and charity necessary for salvation, not one without the other, whereas the Reformers taught that faith-alone procured justification, although it must be a faith which resulted in obedience. The purpose of faith, according to The Heavenly Doctrine, is to lead a person to a life according to the truths of faith, which is charity, as is taught in 1 Corinthians 13:13 and James 2:20.
In other words, Swedenborg spoke sharply against the faith-alone doctrine of Luther and others. He held that justification before God was not based solely upon some imputed righteousness before God, and was not achievable merely by a gift of God's grace (sola gratia), granted without any basis in a person's actual behavior in life. Sola-fide was a doctrine averred by Martin Luther, John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli and others during the Protestant Reformation, and was a core belief especially in the theology of the Lutheran reformers Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon.
Although the sola-fide doctrine of the Reformers also emphasized that saving faith was one that effected works (by faith-alone, but not by a faith which is alone), Swedenborg protested against faith-alone being the instrument of justification, and held that salvation is only possible through the conjunction of faith and charity in a person, and that the purpose of faith is to lead a person to live according to the truths of faith, which is charity. He further states that faith and charity must be exercised by doing good out of willing good whenever possible, which are good works or good uses or the conjunction perishes. In one section he wrote:
It is very evident from their Epistles that it never entered the mind of any of the apostles that the church of this day would separate faith from charity by teaching that faith-alone justifies and saves apart from the works of the law, and that charity therefore cannot be conjoined with faith, since faith is from God, and charity, so far as it is expressed in works, is from man. But this separation and division were introduced into the Christian church when it divided God into three persons, and ascribed to each equal Divinity.— True Christian Religion, section 355
Later history
Swedenborg made no attempt to found a church. A few years after his death – 15 by one estimate – for the most part in England, small reading groups formed to study his teachings. As one scholar states, The Heavenly Doctrine particularly appealed to the various dissenting groups that sprang up in the first half of the 18th century who were "surfeited with revivalism and narrow-mindedness" and found his optimism and comprehensive explanations appealing.
A variety of important cultural figures, both writers and artists, were influenced by Swedenborg's writings, including Robert Frost, Johnny Appleseed, William Blake, Jorge Luis Borges, Daniel Burnham, Arthur Conan Doyle, Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Flaxman, George Inness, Henry James Sr., Carl Jung, Immanuel Kant, Honoré de Balzac, Helen Keller, Czesław Miłosz, August Strindberg, D. T. Suzuki, and W. B. Yeats. His philosophy had a great impact on the Duke of Södermanland, later King Carl XIII, who as the Grand Master of Swedish Freemasonry (Svenska Frimurare Orden) built its unique system of degrees and wrote its rituals. In contrast, one of the most prominent Swedish authors of Swedenborg's day, Johan Henric Kellgren, called Swedenborg "nothing but a fool". A heresy trial was initiated in Sweden in 1768 against Swedenborg writings and two men who promoted them.
In the two and a half centuries since Swedenborg's death, various interpretations of his theology have been made, and he has also been scrutinized in biographies and psychological studies. Swedenborg, with his claimed new dispensation, has been considered by some to suffer from mental illness. While the insanity explanation was not uncommon during Swedenborg's own time, it is mitigated by his activity in the Swedish Riddarhuset (the House of the Nobility), the Riksdag (the Swedish parliament), and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Additionally, the system of thought in his theological writings is considered by some to be remarkably coherent. Furthermore, he was characterized by his contemporaries as a "kind and warm-hearted man", "amiable in his meeting with the public", speaking "easily and naturally of his spiritual experiences", with pleasant and interesting conversation. An English friend of Kant's who visited Swedenborg at Kant's behest described Swedenborg as a "reasonable, pleasant and candid man and scholar". Of note here is Swedenborg's statement that he was commanded by the Lord to publish his writings and "Do not believe that without this express command I would have thought of publishing things which I knew in advance would make me look ridiculous and many people would think lies".
Works
Copies of the original Latin version in which Swedenborg wrote his revelation are available from the following sources.
List of referenced works by Swedenborg and the year they were first published.
Within parenthesis is the common name used in a New Church listing. Then follows the title in its original publication. All the titles listed were published by Swedenborg, except one, The Spiritual Diary, which was not. Various minor reports and tracts have been omitted from the list.
1716–1718, (Daedalus Hyperboreus) Swedish: Daedalus Hyperboreus, eller några nya mathematiska och physicaliska försök. (English: The Northern inventor, or some new experiments in mathematics and physics)
1721, (Principles of Chemistry) Latin: Prodromus principiorum rerum naturalium: sive novorum tentaminum chymiam et physicam experimenta geometrice explicandi
1722, (Miscellaneous Observations) Latin: Miscellanea de Rebus Naturalibus
1734, (Principia) Latin: Opera Philosophica et Mineralia (English: Philosophical and Mineralogical Works), three volumes
(Principia, Volume I) Latin: Tomus I. Principia rerum naturlium sive novorum tentaminum phaenomena mundi elementaris philosophice explicandi
(Principia, Volume II) Latin: Tomus II. Regnum subterraneum sive minerale de ferro
(Principia, Volume III) Latin: Tomus III. Regnum subterraneum sive minerale de cupro et orichalco
1734, (The Infinite and Final Cause of Creation) Latin: Prodromus Philosophiz Ratiocinantis de Infinito, et Causa Finali Creationis; deque Mechanismo Operationis Animae et Corporis.
1744–1745, (The Animal Kingdom) Latin: Regnum animale, 3 volumes
1745, (The Worship and Love of God) Latin: De Cultu et Amore Dei, 2 volumes
1749–1756, (Arcana Cœlestia (or Caelestia) (Heavenly Mysteries) Latin: Arcana Cœlestia, quae in Scriptura Sacra seu Verbo Domini sunt, detecta, 8 volumes
1758, (Heaven and Hell) Latin: De Caelo et Ejus Mirabilibus et de inferno. Ex Auditis et Visis.
1758, (The Last Judgment) Latin: De Ultimo Judicio
1758, (The White Horse) Latin: De Equo Albo de quo in Apocalypsi Cap. XIX.
1758, (Earths in the Universe) Latin: De Telluribus in Mundo Nostro Solari, quæ vocantur planetæ: et de telluribus in coelo astrifero: deque illarum incolis; tum de spiritibus & angelis ibi; ex auditis & visis.
1758, (The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine) Latin: De Nova Hierosolyma et Ejus Doctrina Coelesti
1763, (Doctrine of the Lord) Latin:Doctrina Novæ Hierosolymæ de Domino.
1763, (Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture) Latin: Doctrina Novæ Hierosolymæ de Scriptura Sacra.
1763, (Doctrine of Life) Latin: Doctrina Vitæ pro Nova Hierosolyma ex præceptis Decalogi.
1763, (Doctrine of Faith) Latin: Doctrina Novæ Hierosolymæ de Fide.
1763, (Continuation of The Last Judgement) Latin: Continuatio De Ultimo Judicio: et de mundo spirituali.
1763, (Divine Love and Wisdom) Latin: Sapientia Angelica de Divino Amore et de Divina Sapientia. Sapientia Angelica de Divina Providentia.
1764, (Divine Providence) Latin: Sapientia Angelica de Divina Providentia.
1766, (Apocalypse Revealed) Latin: Apocalypsis Revelata, in quae detegunter Arcana quae ibi preedicta sunt.
1768, (Conjugial Love, or Marriage Love) Latin: Deliciae Sapientiae de Amore Conjugiali; post quas sequumtur voluptates insaniae de amore scortatorio.
1769, (Brief Exposition) Latin: Summaria Expositio Doctrinæ Novæ Ecclesiæ, quæ per Novam Hierosolymam in Apocalypsi intelligitur.
1769, (Interaction of the Soul and the Body) Latin: De Commercio Animæ & Corporis.
1771, (True Christian Religion) Latin: Vera Christiana Religio, continens Universam Theologiam Novae Ecclesiae
1859, Drömboken, Journalanteckningar(Journal of Dreams), 1743–1744
1983–1997, (Spiritual Diary) Latin: Diarum, Ubi Memorantur Experientiae Spirituales.
Utsuro-bune (虚舟, 'hollow ship'), also Utsuro-fune, and Urobune, was an unknown object that allegedly washed ashore in 1803 in Hitachi province on the eastern coast of Japan. When defining Utsuro-bune, the bune part means "boat" while Utsuro means empty, or hollow. Accounts of the tale appear in three texts: Toen shōsetsu (1825), Hyōryū kishū (1835) and Ume-no-chiri (1844).
According to legend, an attractive young woman aged 18-20 years old, arrived on a local beach aboard the "hollow ship" on February 22, 1803. Fishermen brought her inland to investigate further, but the woman was unable to communicate in Japanese. She was very different from anyone else there. The fishermen then returned her and her vessel to the sea, where it drifted away.
Historians, ethnologists and physicists such as Kazuo Tanaka and Yanagita Kunio have evaluated the "legend of the hollow boat" as part of a long-standing tradition within Japanese folklore. Alternatively, certain ufologists have claimed that the story represents evidence for a close encounter with extraterrestrial life.
Historical sources
The best-known versions of the legend are found in three texts:
Toen shōsetsu (兎園小説, "tales from the rabbit garden"), composed in 1825 by Kyokutei Bakin. The manuscript is today on display at the Mukyū-Kai-Toshokan at Machida (Tokyo prefecture).
Hyōryū kishū (漂流紀集, "diaries and stories of castaways"), composed during the Edo period in 1835 by an unknown author. It is today on display at the library of the Tenri University at Tenri in the Nara prefecture.
Ume-no-chiri (梅の塵, "dust of the apricot"), composed in 1844 by Nagahashi Matajirō. It is today on display at the private library Iwase-Bunko-Toshokan (岩瀬文庫図書館) at Nara.
Description in all three books bear similarity, thus they seem to have the same historical origins. The book Toen shōsetsu contains the most detailed version.
Legend
Toen shōsetsu
On February 22, 1803, local fishers of the Harayadori (はらやどり) shore in the Hitachi province saw an ominous "ship" drifting in the waters. Curious, they towed the vessel back to land, discovering that it was 3.30 meters (10.83 feet) high and 5.45 meters (17.88 feet) wide, reminding the witnesses of a Kōhako (Japanese incense burner). Its upper part appeared to be made of red coated rosewood, while the lower part was covered with brazen plates, obviously to protect it against the sharp-edged rocks. The upper part had several windows made of glass or crystal, covered with bars and clogged with some kind of tree resin. The shape of the hollow boat resembled a wooden rice pit. The windows were completely transparent and the baffled fishermen looked inside. The inner side of the Utsuro-bune was decorated with texts written in an unknown language. The fishermen found items inside such as two bed sheets, a bottle filled with 3.6 liters of water, some cake and kneaded meat. Then the fishermen saw a beautiful young woman, possibly 18 or 20 years old. Her body size was said to be 1.5 meters (4.92 feet). The woman had red hair and eyebrows, the hair elongated by artificial white extensions. The extensions could have been made of white fur or thin, white-powdered textile streaks. This hairstyle cannot be found in any literature. The skin of the lady was a very pale pink color. She wore precious, long and smooth clothes of unknown fabrics. The woman began speaking, but no one understood her. She did not seem to understand the fishermen either, so no one could ask her about her origin. Although the mysterious woman appeared friendly and courteous, she acted oddly, for she always clutched a quadratic box made of pale material and around 0.6 m (24 in) in size. The woman did not allow anyone to touch the box, no matter how kindly or pressingly the witnesses asked.
An old man from the village theorized, "This woman could be a princess of a foreign realm, who married at her homeland. But when she had an affair with a townsman after marriage, it caused a scandal and the lover was killed for punishment. The princess was banned from home, for she enjoyed lots of sympathy, so she escaped the death penalty. Instead, she might have been exposed in that Utsuro-bune to leave her to destiny. If this should be correct, the quadratic box may contain the head of the woman's deceased lover. In the past, a very similar object with a woman was washed ashore on a close-by beach. During this incident, a small board with a pinned head was found. The content of the box could therefore be the same, which would certainly explain why she protects it so much. It would cost lots of money and time to investigate the woman and her boat. Since it seems to be tradition to expose those boats at sea, we should bring the woman back to the Utsuro-bune and let her drift away. The townspeople were frightened. In a different version, the lady from the hollow boat stays where she landed and grows to old age. From human sight it might be cruel, but it seems to be her predetermined destiny." The fishermen reassembled the Utsuro-bune, placed the woman in it, and set it to drift away into the ocean.
Ume no chiri
On March 24, 1803, at the beach of 'Harato-no-hama' (原舎浜) in the Hitachi province, a strange 'boat' was washed ashore. It reminded the witnesses of a rice cooking pot, around its middle it had a thickened rim. It was also coated with black paint and it had four little windows on four sides. The windows had bars and they were clogged with tree resin. The lower part of the boat was protected by brazen plates which looked to be made of iron of the highest western quality. The height of the boat was 3.33 m (10.83 ft) and its breadth was 5.41 m (17.75 ft). A woman of 20 years was found in the boat. Her body size was 1.5 m (4.92 ft) and her skin was as white as snow. The long hair dangled smoothly down along her back. Her face was of indescribable beauty. The dress of the woman was of unknown style and no one could recognize it. She spoke an unknown language. She held a small box no one was allowed to touch. Inside the boat two unusually soft carpets of unknown style and fabric were found. There were supplies such as cake, kneaded food and meat. A beautifully decorated cup with ornaments no one could identify was also found.
Similar traditions
There are several further documents about Utsuro-bune sightings in Japan, for example 'Hirokata Zuihitsu' (弘賢随筆) and 'Ōshuku Zakki' (鶯宿雑記). The investigation started in 1844, and continued in 1925, and 1962. In 2010 and 2012 two rare ink printings were found and investigated by Kazuo Tanaka. In 1977 they contained stories about Utsuro-bune with very similar content to that of the Hyōryū kishū, although they claim a different location for the events: 'Minato Bōshū' (港房州) (harbour of Bōshū).
Other legends concerning Utsuro-bune
A well known Japanese legend is that of the origin of the Kōno clan of the Iyo Province. In the 7th century, a fisherman named 'Wakegorō' (和気五郎) from Gogo island found a 13-year-old girl inside an Utsuro-bune drifting at sea. He brought her to land, where she told him that she was the daughter of the Chinese emperor and that she had been forced to flee to escape her stepmother. The fisherman named her "Wake-hime" (和気姫) ("princess Wake") and raised her, before she married an imperial prince of Iyo province and gave birth to a son named "Ochimiko" (小千御子), the ancestor of the Kōno clan. A part of this folktale held that she was responsible for bringing the first silk cocoons to Japan. Princess Wake is still worshiped at the Funakoshi Wakehime Shinto shrine in the village of Funakoshi on Gogo island.
There are more myths that share many similarities to Utsune-Bune. Toen shosetsu, which translates to "rabbit in the garden", a book written by Kyokutei Bakin, tells the story of a few castaways marking their journey and end up in the same situation. Another story written by an unknown author Umi-nu-chiri, which translates to "dust of the apricot" is another story that shares many similarities to Utsuro-Bune.
Interpretations
Historical investigations
The first historical investigations of the Utsuro-bune incident were conducted in 1844 by Kyokutei Bakin (1767–1848). Kyokutei reports about a book called Roshia bunkenroku (魯西亜聞見録, 'Records of seen and heard things from Russia'), written by Kanamori Kinken. The book describes traditional Russian clothes and hairstyles and mentions a popular method to dust hair with white powder. It also mentions that many Russian women have natural red hair and that they wear skirts, similar to that of the lady of the legend. Based upon the book, Kyokutei suggests that the woman of the Utsuro-bune incident could have been of Russian origin. He writes that the stories are similar to each other, as they differ only in minor descriptions (for example, one documents says "3.6 liters of water", another says "36 liters of water"). He also questions the origin of the alleged exotic symbols found in and on the boat. Because he is convinced that he saw similar signs on a British whaler stranded shortly before his writing, Kyokutei wonders if the woman was a Russian, British or even American princess. Furthermore, he expresses his disappointment about the drawings of the Utsuro-bune, because they obviously do not fully match the witness descriptions.
Modern investigations
Further investigations of the Utsuro-bune incident were done in 1925 and in 1962 by ethnologist and historian Yanagida Kunio. He points out that circular boats were never anything unusual in Japan since early times; only the western-like details, such as the windows made of glass and the brazen protective plates, make the Utsuro-bune look exotic. He also found out that most legends similar to that of the Utsuro-bune sound alike: Someone finds a strange girl or young woman inside a circular boat and rescues the stranded or sends her back to the ocean. Yanagida also points out that the eldest versions of Utsuro-bune describe humble, circular and open log-boats without any dome atop. Yanagida assumes that the details of the brazen plates and windows made of glass or crystal were added because skeptics would question the seaworthiness of a humble log-boat on the high seas. A steel reinforced Utsuro-bune with glass windows would more easily survive traveling on the ocean than an open, unreinforced wooden boat.
Dr. Kazuo Tanaka (田中 嘉津夫), Japanese professor for computer and electronics engineering from Gifu University at Tokyo (東京), investigated the original scripts in 1997. He considers the popular comparisons of the Utsuro-bune with modern UFO sightings to be far-fetched. He points out that the Utsuro-bune of the legends never flies or moves on its own, nor does it show any signs of extraordinary technologies. It simply drifts motionless on the water. Tanaka concludes that the tale of the Utsuro-bune was a literary mixture of folklore and imaginations. He bases his assumptions on the 1925 investigations of the Japanese historian Yanagida Kunio, who had also studied the tales of the Utsuro-bune.
Dr. Tanaka himself found out that the locations "Haratono-hama" and "Harayadori" are fictitious. To make the anecdote sound credible, the author designated the beaches as personal acreages of a Daimyō named Ogasawara Nagashige. This daimyō actually lived during the Edo period, but his acreages were placed at heartland and it seems sure that Ogasawara never had any contact with the fishermen of the Pacific coast. The Ogasawara clan served the famous Tokugawa clan, who held power over the most north-eastern part of Japan until 1868 and their main acreages were placed in the Hitashi province, geographically very close to the eastern beaches. Tanaka finds it very odd that no incident of such alleged importance was commented on in the curatorial documents, since strangers leaving the shore had to be reported at once. But the only remarkable incident during the late Tokugawa clan happened in 1824, when a British whaler was stranded at the north-eastern coast of the Hitachi district. Tanaka also found out that, during the rulership of the Tokugawa clan, the Ogasawara family and the Tokugawa started mapping their territories and acreages. And both names of "Haratono-hama" and "Harayadori" are missing. They also do not appear on the maps of the first complete mappings of the whole of Japan in 1907. If the name of a village, city or place had changed in history, this would have been noted in some curatorial documents, but it is not. Tanaka thinks it rather unlikely that important places such as "Haratono-hama" and "Harayadori" actually could have been forgotten in records.
The peculiar European appearance of the woman, the upper part of the Utsuro-bune and the unknown writings lead Tanaka and Yanagida to the conclusion that the whole story was based on the historical circumstance that people of the Edo period totally encapsulated Japan against the outer world. To bedizen a stranded woman with European attributes showed how much the peoples were afraid of bad cultural influences from the western world, especially North America and Great Britain. The story of the Utsuro-bune is significantly constructed in a way that makes the tale sound incredible at one site, but self-explaining at the same time (the woman and her craft are sent away so no one could ever consult her personally).
Furthermore, Tanaka and Yanagida point out that the people of Edo period shared great interests in paranormal things such as yūrei, onibi, hitodama and yōkai, so it would not be surprising to find stories of exotic boats like the Utsuro-bune.
In his conclusions, Tanaka points to the difficulty in the correct reading of the place names. In modern transcriptions, the Kanji 原舎 have to be read as Harasha. But in Toen Shōsetsu the signs are written in Kana and they have to be read as Hara-yadori. In Ume no chiri they are written in Furigana making the place to be named as Haratono-hama. Alternatively, the kanji for Haratono could be read as Hara-yadori. According to Tanaka’s investigations, the transcription of 原舎ヶ浜 in the Hyōryū Kishū as "Harasha-ga-hama" is therefore a typo based on a misreading and should originally be read as "Haratono-ga-hama". Thus, all writings describe the same place. Tanaka also points out that the word Utsuro means "empty" or "abandoned" and that the word Utsubo means "quiver" and describes the bags in which hunters and archers once carried their arrows. But both words also describe old, hollowed tree trunks and branch holes of sacred trees. The word Fune/Bune simply means "boat". Altogether, the word Utsuro-bune means "hollow ship".
On May 26, 2014, The Ibaragi Shimbun (茨城新聞, Ibaragi Shinbun) reported Tanaka found Jinichi Kawakami's palaeography (ja:古文書, Komonjyo) regarding Utsuro-bune strange story (うつろ舟奇談, Uturobune kidan) and place name Hitachihara Sharihama (常陸原舎り濱)(as of 2014, Hasakisharihama, Kamisu (神栖市波崎舎利浜)) where coast surveyed in 1801 and on Dai Nihon Enkai Yochi Zenzu (ja:大日本沿海輿地全図 maps of Japan's coastal area) by Inō Tadataka.
Ufological
In Ufology, the legend of the Utsuro-bune has been described as an early case of a documented close encounter of the third kind based on the similarities between the drawings of the vessel from the Edo period and 20th century descriptions of flying saucers. Some Ufologists suggest the Utsuro-bune could have been an unidentified submarine object (USO). They note the mysterious symbols which were reportedly found on the object that regularly appear as addenda within the depictions. They are suggested by some to be similar to the symbols reported at the Rendlesham Forest Incident in England, which was used by the United States Air force. The same writing is also found in caves. Caves also show many drawings of odd figures along the symbols. UFO proponents further point to the ominous box held by the woman as well as her physical appearance and unusual dress as evidence of an extraterrestrial encounter. The assumptions of any historian and ethnologist about those items are repeatedly ignored.
Utsuro-bune in manga and anime
Utsuro-bune are popular motifs in manga and anime. A prominent example appears in the television series Mononoke (2007), which revolves around the tales told by a traveler known as the "medicine seller" (薬売り). In episodes 3–5, the protagonist tells the story of Umibōzu, in which a sunken Utsuro-bune features prominently. Here it is depicted as a decorated, sealed, hollow tree trunk, and contains the corpse of a young woman who had been sacrificed to sea demons.
In the third season of Mysterious Cities of Gold, an Utsuro-bune coming from the sunken third City has ended up in the forest near Kagoshima. When activated, it reveals a water-like hologram of a woman that tells the protagonists of the next key item to find.
Grey aliens, also referred to as Zeta Reticulans, Roswell Greys, or Grays, are purported extraterrestrial beings. According to journalist C. D. B. Bryan, two percent of all reported alien encounters in the United States describe Grey aliens, a significantly higher proportion than other countries. Such claims vary widely, but typically Greys are described as being human-like with small bodies with smooth grey-colored skin, enlarged hairless heads, and large black eyes. The Barney and Betty Hill abduction claim, which purportedly took place in New Hampshire in 1961, popularized Grey aliens. There are precursor figures described in science fiction and similar descriptions appeared in early accounts of the 1947 Roswell UFO incident.
The Grey alien has emerged as an archetypal image of an intelligent non-human creature and extraterrestrial life in general, as well as an iconic trope of popular culture in the age of space exploration.
Appearance
Greys are typically depicted as grey-skinned diminutive humanoid beings that possess reduced forms of, or completely lack, external human body parts such as noses, ears or sex organs. Their bodies are usually depicted as being elongated, having a small chest, and lacking in muscular definition and visible skeletal structure. Their legs are depicted as being shorter and jointed differently from humans with limbs proportionally different from a human.
Greys are depicted as having unusually large heads in proportion to their bodies with no hair on the body, and no noticeable outer ears or noses, sometimes with small openings or orifices for ears, nostrils, and mouths. In drawings, Greys are almost always shown with very large opaque black eyes. They are frequently described as shorter than average adult humans.
In popular culture
History
The precise origin of the Grey as the stereotypical extraterrestrial being is difficult to pinpoint. In the 1893 article "Man of the Year Million", science fiction author H. G. Wells envisioned the possibility of humanity transformed into a race of grey-skinned beings who were perhaps one meter tall, with big heads and large, oval-shaped pitch-black eyes. In his 1901 book The First Men in the Moon, Wells described Selenites (natives of the Moon) as having grey skin, big heads, and large black eyes. He also briefly describes aliens resembling Greys brought down to Earth as food for the Martians, who were the antagonist characters in his 1898 novel The War of the Worlds.
In 1933, the Swedish novelist Gustav Sandgren, using the pen name Gabriel Linde, published a science fiction novel called Den okända faran ("The Unknown Danger"), in which he describes a race of extraterrestrials who wore clothes made of soft grey fabric and were short, with big bald heads, and large, dark, gleaming eyes. The novel, aimed at young readers, included illustrations of the imagined aliens.
In 1965, newspaper reports of the Betty and Barney Hill abduction made the archetype famous. The alleged abductees, Betty and Barney Hill, claimed that in 1961, alien beings had abducted them and taken them to a flying saucer. Under hypnosis, Betty Hill produced a "star map" which she claimed located the home planet of her abductors in the Zeta Reticuli star system (allegedly the third planet of one of the stars of the Zeta Reticuli binary system). Betty thereafter began to refer to them as Zeta Reticulans. According to science writer and skeptic Brian Dunning, the Hill's alleged abduction introduced the gray alien into popular culture, although popular use of the term "greys" would follow years later.
In his 1990 article "Entirely Unpredisposed," Martin Kottmeyer suggested that Barney's memories revealed under hypnosis might have been influenced by an episode of the science fiction television show The Outer Limits titled "The Bellero Shield" which was broadcast about two weeks before Barney's first hypnotic session. The episode featured an extraterrestrial with large eyes who says, "In all the universes, in all the unities beyond the universes, all who have eyes have eyes that speak." The report from the regression featured a scenario that was in some respects similar to the television show. In part, Kottmeyer wrote:
Wraparound eyes are an extreme rarity in science fiction films. I know of only one instance. They appeared on the alien of an episode of an old TV series The Outer Limits entitled "The Bellero Shield." A person familiar with Barney's sketch in "The Interrupted Journey" and the sketch done in collaboration with the artist David Baker will find a "frisson" of "déjà vu" creeping up his spine when seeing this episode. The resemblance is much abetted by an absence of ears, hair, and nose on both aliens. Could it be by chance? Consider this: Barney first described and drew the wraparound eyes during the hypnosis session dated 22 February 1964. "The Bellero Shield" was first broadcast on 10 February 1964. Only twelve days separate the two instances. If the identification is admitted, the commonness of wraparound eyes in the abduction literature falls to cultural forces.
Depictions of grey aliens appear in a number of films and television shows, such as the benevolent aliens in the 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
1980–1991
During the early 1980s, Greys were linked to the alleged crash-landing of a flying saucer in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. A number of publications contained statements from individuals who claimed to have seen the U.S. military handling a number of unusually proportioned, bald, child-sized beings. These individuals claimed, during and after the incident, that the beings had over-sized heads and slanted eyes—but scant other distinguishable facial features.
In 1987, novelist Whitley Strieber published the book Communion, which, unlike his previous works, was categorized as non-fiction, and in which he describes a number of close encounters he alleges to have experienced with Greys and other extraterrestrial beings. The book became a New York Times bestseller, and New Line Cinema released a 1989 film adaption that starred Christopher Walken as Strieber.
In 1988, Christophe Dechavanne interviewed the French science-fiction writer and ufologist Jimmy Guieu during a weekly French TV Live Show which, at the time, was entitled "Ciel, mon mardi !". It was broadcast by TF1, one of the three national TV channels in France. Besides mentioning Majestic 12, Jimmy Guieu described the existence of what he called "the little greys" which, later on, became better known in French under the name: les Petits-Gris.
In the early 1990s, the same ufologist Jimmy Guieu wrote two docu-dramas, using as a plot the Grey aliens / Majestic-12 conspiracy theory as described by John Lear and Milton William Cooper: the series "E.B.E." (for "Extraterrestrial Biological Entity"): E.B.E.: Alerte rouge (first part) (1990) and E.B.E.: L'entité noire d'Andamooka (second part) (1991).
1992–present day
During the 1990s, popular culture began to increasingly link Greys to a number of military-industrial complex and New World Order conspiracy theories. A well-known example of this occurring as a form of entertainment was the FOX television series The X-Files, which first aired in 1993. It combined the quest to find proof of the existence of Grey-like extraterrestrials with a number of UFO conspiracy theory subplots, in order to form its primary story arc. Other notable examples include the X-COM video game franchise (where they are called "Sectoids"), Dark Skies, first broadcast in 1996, which expanded upon the MJ-12 conspiracy, and Stargate SG-1, which in the 1998 episode "Thor's Chariot" introduced the Asgard, a race of benevolent Greys who visited ancient Earth masquerading as characters from Norse Mythology. Greys, referred to as "visitors", appear in two episodes of South Park, and Roger Smith, a regular character on the animated comedy series American Dad! since its debut in 2005, is a Grey-like alien. On Babylon 5, the Greys were referred to as the Vree, and depicted as being allies and trade partners of 23rd-century Earth.
In 1995, filmmaker Ray Santilli claimed to have obtained 22 reels of 16 mm film that depicted the autopsy of a "real" Grey supposedly recovered from the site of the 1947 incident in Roswell, New Mexico. However, in 2006 Santilli announced that the film was not original, but was instead a "reconstruction" created after the original film was found to have degraded. He maintained that a real Grey had been found and autopsied on camera in 1947, and that the footage released to the public contained a percentage of that original footage.
During the 2000s, William J. Birnes published numerous accounts of encounters with Greys in UFO Magazine.
The 2011 film Paul tells the story of a Grey who attributes the Greys' frequent presence in science-fiction pop-culture to the US government deliberately inserting the stereotypical Grey alien image into mainstream media so that if humanity came into contact with Paul's species, there would be no immediate shock as to their appearance.
Analysis
In close encounter claims and ufology
Greys are often involved in alien abduction claims. Among reports of alien encounters, Greys make up approximately 50 percent in Australia, 73 percent in the United States, 48 percent in Continental Europe, and around 12 percent in the United Kingdom. These reports include two distinct groups of Greys that differ in height.
Abduction claims are often described as extremely traumatic, similar to an abduction by humans or even a sexual assault in the level of trauma and distress. Research has shown that the emotional impact of perceived abductions can be as great as that of combat, sexual abuse, and other traumatic events.
The eyes are often a focus of abduction claims. Claims often describe a Grey staring into the eyes of an abductee when conducting mental procedures. This staring is claimed to induce hallucinogenic states or directly provoke different emotions.
Psychocultural expression of intelligence
Neurologist Steven Novella proposes that Grey aliens are a byproduct of the human imagination, with the Greys' most distinctive features representing everything that modern humans traditionally link with intelligence. "The aliens, however, do not just appear as humans, they appear like humans with those traits we psychologically associate with intelligence."
The "Mother Hypothesis"
In 2005, Frederick V. Malmstrom, writing in Skeptic magazine, vol. 11 issue 4, presents his idea that Greys are actually residual memories of early childhood development. Malmstrom reconstructs the face of a Grey through transformation of a mother's face based on our best understanding of early childhood sensation and perception. Malmstrom's study offers another alternative to the existence of Greys, the intense instinctive response many people experience when presented an image of a Grey, and the act of regression hypnosis and recovered-memory therapy in "recovering" memories of alien abduction experiences, along with their common themes. It has also be proposed that the "Greys" are actually distorted memories of traumatic experiences, faded with time, especially according to studies by Malmstrom and similar researchers. "It's easier to imagine being abducted by alien creatures than to face the traumatic memories of being bullied by peers or assaulted by an aggressive man."
Evolutionary implausibility
According to biologist Jack Cohen, the typical image of a Grey, assuming that it would have evolved from a world with different environmental and ecological conditions from Earth, is too physiologically similar to a human to be credible as a representation of an alien.
Some ufologists explain such implausible coincidences as evidence that extraterrestrial beings may have had influence on the evolution of life on Earth in the distant past (the theory of ancient astronauts), specifically that extraterrestrials were involved in the evolution of primates, including humans.
Conspiracy theories
Some conspiracy theorists believe that Greys represent part of a government-led disinformation or plausible deniability campaign, or that they are a product of government mind control experiments.
