Swedenborgian Talk in Sydney, Friday 23rd November

One of the most formative philosophies in the self-help movement is that of Swedenborgianism. Many of the earliest writers in self-help were interested in the writings of Swedenborg or had direct links to the Swedenborgian New Church.
On the 23rd of November my dear friend Julian Duckworth, himself a Swedenborgian New Church Minister, is giving a really fascinating talk at the Swedenborg Centre in North Ryde. Here are the details:

Can we change who we are and if so, how?
Speaker: Julian Duckworth
FRIDAY 23TH NOVEMBER 2012 at 7.45pm
1 Avon Road, North Ryde
Cost: $7; concession $5 (including refreshments)

One of the great questions of all time is whether or not we human beings can change. That question throws up many others... What do we mean by "change"? Are we perhaps predisposed to be who we are by nature? And what exactly might that be? Is the fact that trying to change is so difficult pointing out that we can't or maybe that we are not trying hard enough? And why should we think about changing ourselves anyway? Can't I just be me?
We will take a good hard long look at this whole idea of us changing and try and keep a balance between reality and wishful thinking. We will draw in some spiritual points and also look at a few case-histories. And if we come to the point of thinking that we can change, we'll try and open up some possible ways.



Julian Duckworth is the Minister at the New Church in Roseville, a Swedenborgian-based church which sees the Bible and Christian teachings through Swedenborg’s spiritual writings. He has regularly presented talks at both the Swedenborg Centre and around New South Wales and further afield, and he enjoys spreading out to come into contact with many other rich and wholesome spiritual approaches, while valuing the Swedenborg base he feels privileged to have received.










Swedenborg Association of Australia Inc.
North Ryde Group - Telephone: (02) 9888 1066
website: www.swedenborg.com.au

Andrew Jackson Davis

One of the grandfathers of self-help writing is Andrew Jackson Davis.


Known as the "Poughkeepsie Seer," Davis is seen by many as the father of spiritualism and at the height of his career he was a prominent figure throughout America. His long and rambling books (one of which I've read at the University of Sydney's Fisher Library) were exceedingly popular. Davis helped popularise in the new world ideas of mesmerism and animal magnetism.

He was a student of the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg and could quote passages from Swedenborg's Arcana Coelestia by heart, complete with page references. Such was the learning style of the day. Davis set about copying Swedenborg's methods of spiritual contemplation, entering into altered states of consciousness where he said secrets of the universe were revealed to him by divine entities.

Interestingly, Davis was later to deny his own study, claiming that he was functionally illiterate and that his wisdom came direct from the heavens. But those who knew Swedenborg's work (and in the mid-nineteenth cntury Swedenborg's writings had quite a following in America) saw too much of it in Davis' philosophies to believe his claim of ignorance.

The influence of Emanuel Swedenborg on the Literature of Self-Help

Swedenborg and Self-Help: The Influence of Emanuel Swedenborg on the Modern Literature of Self Improvement




Speaker: Walter Mason

FRIDAY 24TH JUNE 2011 at 7.45pm
Swedenborg Centre, 1 Avon Road, North Ryde
Cost: $7; concession $5 (including refreshments)

While most imagine that self-help books are something new, emerging fully-formed at some mysterious point in the late 1960s, they are, in fact, a venerable literary form with their roots stretching back into the 18th century. Many of the earliest self-help writers were students of Swedenborg's writings, and his ideas have filtered into our culture via the medium of popular self-help, from "How to Win Friends and Influence People" to "The Secret."
In this talk Walter Mason, who is completing his doctoral dissertation on the history of self-help literature in Australia, will discuss the people and ideas that have connections to Swedenborg and that have gone on to make up part of the rich history of popular non-fiction in the West.

Swedenborg Association of Australia Inc.
North Ryde Group - Telephone: (02) 9888 1066
website: www.swedenborg.com.au

The Body in The Science of Mind

Holmes is adamant that the body is a real thing, and that its aches, pains, illnesses and worries are real also. In this insistence he is putting himself at odds with Christian Science, which maintains that all of these things are false and have no real existence.
He devotes a whole chapter in The Science of Mind to his theology of the body, and it makes for interesting reading.
He seems to be presenting a kind of neo-Swedenborgian notion that our present physical body is merely a reflection of an eternal spiritual body. He also implies a process of reincarnation in saying that the spiritual body merely changes physical bodies once they are worn out and can no longer serve their purpose of constant spiritual evolution. This changing of bodies is merely a part of the constant process of creation that is the nature of God and being. As Holmes puts it (all in capitals), "THE BODY OF THE UNIVERSE CANNOT HELP CHANGING!" This idea of constant flux and change is, of course, thoroughly Buddhistic, though Holmes is unique in putting a positive spin on it. In the Buddhist conception, this constant change is seen as a source of suffering.
Ultimately, body is the manifestation of our soul. So our body's appearance and state of wellbeing accords with our present karma (a word Holmes uses, having read Annie Besant very carefully).