The New Philosophy Vol 99 No 1-2, January-June 1996

The pre-Theological and Theological works of Emanuel Swedenborg have been artificially divided by an abyss of revelation. Because of the obvious abrupt change in both the style and content of the books published after his spiritual crisis of 1744-45, it is easy to presume that the two collections are virtually unrelated. In a stark transition from the rigorous analytical method of his scientific works, we find in Swedenborg’s theological Writings a philosophical and exegetical style, dependent no longer on the reproducible data of the scientific method, but on spiritual experience, with the authority of divine revelation alone.

The rather strangely named “Chaos Theory” has become very popular in helping to describe how the world works, and its ideas have fascinated me during the last few years. I have tried to find out in more detail exactly what “chaos” is in the scientific usage of the word, but, the theory and the application do appear to get very complicated very quickly. Certainly as a non-scientist and with limited mathematics I found it did so for me trying to understand it. But this is not surprising as this is part of what the chaos theory is trying to show.

The Group of Swedenborgians in Nantes