Fascinating: Emmanuel Swedenborg

So, I've probably been away from other human beings, sunlight, etc. for too long, but I found myself veering off course today. And by "course" I mean writing my novel. I'm roughly on page seventy of my first draft, looking for a plot (heh. heh. heeeyyy.) and generally taking a break in the second basement of a certain local library, when I randomly start leafing through books, and come across a reference to a certain "Swedenborg." The name sounded familiar, so I kept reading, was interested, and then did a library search. Fascinating man. I found seeds and antecedents for such diverse writers as Goethe, Luis Borges, George MacDonald (and therefore C.S. Lewis, and other Inklings) and, obviously, William Blake. Interestingly, there are also seeds for the Book of Mormon and certain elements of New Age movements. He was dismissed by Kant as a madman and hailed by others as a mystic (or dismissed as a mystic, depending on your view of the term). He did groundbreaking work on anatomy and physiology as well as astronomy before a mystical experience in mid-life left him writing "in search of the seat of the soul." I read up on his fascinating life story and found his prose lucid and engaging. I noticed his tone is less confrontational than, say, Blake. He writes in a kind of rational, even-keeled, almost simplistic tone, which Blake at times mimics, and perhaps mocks somewhat in his own "Marriage of Heaven and Hell." I did find it odd that, after three years at Seminary, I had never heard of him, or never less than an aside, dismissed with other heretics, such as Arminius or Michael Servetus. But these figures occupy a different space relative to modernism and, as such, Swedenborg is supremely fascinating. He doesn't fit neatly into mystic ascetic categories, heretic categories, gnostic categories. He was by all accounts a warm, charming individual, devoted to the faculty of reason, but not exclusively so, argued for the necessity of holistic apprehension of both a priori and a posteriori. He had an inclusive, ecumenical sensibility, praising and criticising both Catholic and Protestant churches, where appropriate. He had mystical visions, but was a devoted scientist. His influence alone of pseudo-Christian sects (like Mormonism), poets, scientists, mystics, and (through Inklings and others) of orthodox Christianity, however indirect, makes him worth more than just a look. He outlines heaven and hell with scientific detail to be taken literally, but advocated interpreting life experiences with symbolic meaning. He is dismissed as a crazed, New Age heretic and supported by people who claim to have had Near Death Experiences that support his vision. Truly unique. He's too orthodox for radicals like Blake and too spiritual for rationalists like Kant and too out there for the organized church. There's something about his writing and tone, warm, measured, common-sensical that makes what he writes somehow inviting. He didn't want to start a church, he wanted to integrate his visions and teachings into the church. Of course his assertion of inclusion of people of religious backgrounds in heaven suggests at once to me the intuitive truth of his claims and their utter clash with orthodoxy. That today's Christians will readily take Lewis' "The Great Divorce" as food for thought, but have on occasion dismissed Swedenborg's "Heaven and Hell" as folly is somewhat ironic. Haven't read enough to form a solid opinion, but one way or the other, fascinating.
I came across a book of essays comparing Blake and Swedenborg on amazon. Should be fun.