Customer Reviews

Into the Interior

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If you know Gary Lachman's writings, you will not be surprised that his brief book on Swedenborg is well-researched and very readable. It is fewer than 100 pages long, so you will be disappointed if you are looking for the complete life of "The Buddha of the North". Basically, this book is an introduction, a bit more in depth than D.T Suzuki's study, but not by much. However, Lachman keeps the book interesting throughout. He explains some of Swedenborg's ideas clearly, offers some excerpts from the Scandinavian mystic's writings, and details the trajectory of this visionary's life--from his successful career as a scientist, through his period of crisis and troubling dreams, to his journey to Heaven and Hell and his communion with spirits, angels, demons, and with Christ Himself. Lachman does not write from the point of view of a follower or "Swedenborgian"; he entertains the understandable questions of the skeptics, yet he is very much open to the possibility that Swedenborg was neither mad nor a con man--that he was a mystic who visited other realms and wrote voluminously about his findings. I only wish the book was longer and more in-depth.