Aufklärung bis zum Himmel

In Immanuel Kant's Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, Swedenborg is seen as a candidate for the hospital and at the same time is said to be an arch-hallucinator. This hard verdict may have contributed considerably to the fact that Swedenborg's name has virtually disappeared from official historiography, although the works of Swedenborg, who was a natural philosopher and a theologian, were read by many of his contemporaries. In view of Swedenborg's surprising sources in particular, Friedemann Stengel reconstructs his comprehensive works, which were based on mechanistic natural philosophy, contemporary soul and brain research, Leibniz-Wolff rationalism and Lutheran theology. The origins, and mainly Swedenborg's striking reception, open up an unexpected perspective on the Enlightenment.