Emanuel Swedenborg: The Development of His Thought

The publication in the English-speaking world of Martin Lamm's seminal work on Swedenborg is much more significant than it might appear upon a casual glance through the volume. Lamm's treatise is significant not only because it represents the most important scholarly study on Swedenborg ever undertaken in his native land and continues to be regarded in European academic circles as the cornerstone of scholarship on Swedenborg, but also because it provides a highly provocative thesis—namely, that Swedenborg's theological system (and in particular the “science of correspondences”) was already developed before his supposed illumination and prophetic calling. In fact, Lamm believes that, however interesting it may be for students of the paranormal, Swedenborg's famed mode of revelatory perception—of “things seen and heard”—was completely unnecessary as a means of insight, because all of his core concepts had been developed and were at-hand when he began his theological works.
For the scholarly study of Swedenborg, Lamm's perspective is one that must be engaged and weighed against other views. For the religious devotee of Swedenborg's theological system, this work provides fascinating new possibilities of understanding the development of Swedenborg's thinking, particularly on the one doctrine that would become his chief distinguishing method as a biblical expositor.