'Ghosts from other planets': plurality of worlds, afterlife and satire in Emanuel Swedenborg's De Telluribus in mundo nostro solari (1758).
Annals of science October 1, 2020 Vincent Roy-Di Piazza 1 citation
A 1758 treatise by Emanuel Swedenborg, Earths in our solar system, argued for life on other planets by claiming communication with extraterrestrial spirits in the afterlife. The paper shows that Swedenborg combined two popular literary genres—writings on the plurality of worlds and dialogues of the dead—for the first time. This revised understanding presents Swedenborg as a versatile but ill-fated recombiner of literary genres. The work also sheds light on eighteenth-century literary interactions and the reception of themes like plurality of worlds, mysticism, and satire in Scandinavia and Germany.