1996 Volume 5 Issue 1 Pages 1-8
Emanuel Swedenborg was a scientist, philosopher, and theologian in the 18th century. In the latter part of his life, he had extraordinary psychic experiences. He entered the supernatural world and left enormous volumes recording his experiences. He is famous for his psychic experiences in the western world. But in Japan his experiences with the supernatural are not widely known. Recently, as research on Near-Death Experience (NDE) has been developed, Sweden-borg's experiences and thought concerning life after death and the after-death world have received much scientific attention. Especially Dr. R. A. Moody Jr. and Dr. K. Ring, who are authorities in NDE research, have been interested in his ideas. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the importance of Swedenborg's thoughts about death. My conclusions are as follows: 1) Swedenborg had a special psychic nature, as the philosopher Kant and psychologist C. G. Jung have pointed out. 2) Swedenborg had a premonition of NDE, as it were, in his early dreams as recorded in Journal of Dreams. 3) Swedenborg recorded in detail his NDE in Spiritual Diary. 4) In Swedenborg's religious works we can find many psychic experiences which are common with modern NDEs. 5) Swedenborg defined the death of the human body as the moment when the heart's movement stops completely.
