SWEDENBORG, Emanuel (1688-1772):
Swedish scientist, philosopher, theologian and MYSTIC
whose ideas strongly influenced ROMANTICISM and are in many ways the inspiration for the
NEW AGE MOVEMENT and many similar religious groups, including MORMONISM and the
UNIFICATION CHURCH. After a brilliant engineering career, he experienced strange dreams
and visions leading to a religious crisis between 1743 and 1745. This culminated in a
vision of CHRIST and religious CONVERSION. Renouncing SCIENCE, he spent the rest of his
life propagating his new ideas and founded the NEW CHURCH known as the "New Jerusalem
Church" or Swedenborgian Movement.