Newton’s laws of motion are three physical laws that form the basis for classical mechanics. They describe the relationship between the

English: William Blake’s depiction of Isaac Newton working on the principle of Divine Proportion (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

forces acting on a body and its motion due to those forces. They have been expressed in several different ways over nearly three centuries,^[1] and can be summarized as follows:

1. First law: If an object experiences no net force, then its velocity is constant: the object is either at rest (if its velocity is zero), or it moves in a straight line with constant speed (if its velocity is nonzero).^[2][3][4]

2. Second law: The acceleration a of a body is parallel and directly proportional to the net force F acting on the body, is in the direction of the net force, and is inversely proportional to the mass m of the body, i.e., F = ma.

3. Third law: When a first body exerts a force F₁ on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force F₂ = −F₁ on the first body. This means thatF₁ and F₂ are equal in magnitude and opposite in direction.

The three laws of motion were first compiled by Sir Isaac Newton in his work Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, first published in 1687.^[5] Newton used them to explain and investigate the motion of many physical objects and systems.^[6] For example, in the third volume of the text, Newton showed that these laws of motion, combined with his law of universal gravitation, explained Kepler’s laws of planetary motion.

Overview

English: Isaac Newton Dansk: Sir Isaac Newton Français : Newton (1642-1727) Bahasa Indonesia: Issac Newton saat berusia 46 tahun pada lukisan karya Godfrey Kneller tahun 1689 Lietuvių: Seras Izaokas Niutonas 1689-aisiais Македонски: Сер Исак Њутн на возраст од 46 години (1689) Nederlands: Newton geboren 4 januari 1643 Türkçe: Sir Isaac Newton. (ö. 20 Mart 1727) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Isaac Newton (1643-1727), the physicist who formulated the laws

Newton’s laws are applied to bodies (objects) which are considered or idealized as a particle,^[7] in the sense that the extent of the body is neglected in the evaluation of its motion, i.e., the object is small compared to the distances involved in the analysis, or the deformation and rotation of the body is of no importance in the analysis. Therefore, a planet can be idealized as a particle for analysis of its orbital motion around a star.

In their original form, Newton’s laws of motion are not adequate to characterize the motion of rigid bodies and deformable bodies. Leonard Euler in 1750 introduced a generalization of Newton’s laws of motion for rigid bodies called the Euler’s laws of motion, later applied as well for deformable bodies assumed as a continuum. If a body is represented as an assemblage of discrete particles, each governed by Newton’s laws of motion, then Euler’s laws can be derived from Newton’s laws. Euler’s laws can, however, be taken as axioms describing the laws of motion for extended bodies, independently of any particle structure.^[8]

Newton’s laws hold only with respect to a certain set of frames of reference called Newtonian or inertial reference frames. Some authors interpret the first law as defining what an inertial reference frame is; from this point of view, the second law only holds when the observation is made from an inertial reference frame, and therefore the first law cannot be proved as a special case of the second. Other authors do treat the first law as a corollary of the second.^[9][10] The explicit concept of an inertial frame of reference was not developed until long after Newton’s death.

In the given interpretation mass, acceleration, momentum, and (most importantly) force are assumed to be externally defined quantities. This is the most common, but not the only interpretation of the way one can consider the laws to be a definition of these quantities.

Newtonian mechanics has been superseded by special relativity, but it is still useful as an approximation when the speeds involved are much slower than the speed of light.^[11]

Newton’s first law

Walter Lewin explains Newton’s first law and reference frames. (MIT Course 8.01)^[12]

The first law law states that if the net force (the vector sum of all forces acting on an object) is zero, then the velocity of the object is constant. Velocity is a vector quantity which expresses both the object’s speed and the direction of its motion; therefore, the statement that the object’s velocity is constant is a statement that both its speed and the direction of its motion are constant.

The first law can be stated mathematically as

Consequently,

• An object that is at rest will stay at rest unless an unbalanced force acts upon it.

• An object that is in motion will not change its velocity unless an unbalanced force acts upon it. This is known as uniform motion.

An object continues to do whatever it happens to be doing unless a force is exerted upon it. If it is at rest, it continues in a state of rest (demonstrated when a tablecloth is skillfully whipped from under dishes on a tabletop and the dishes remain in their initial state of rest). If an object is moving, it continues to move without turning or changing its speed. This is evident in space probes that continually move in outer space. Changes in motion must be imposed against the tendency of an object to retain its state of motion. In the absence of net forces, a moving object tends to move along a straight line path indefinitely.

Newton placed the first law of motion to establish frames of reference for which the other laws are applicable. The first law of motion postulates the existence of at least one frame of reference called a Newtonian or inertial reference frame, relative to which the motion of a particle not subject to forces is a straight line at a constant speed.^[9][13] Newton’s first law is often referred to as the law of inertia. Thus, a condition necessary for the uniform motion of a particle relative to an inertial reference frame is that the total net force acting on it is zero. In this sense, the first law can be restated as:

In every material universe, the motion of a particle in a preferential reference frame Φ is determined by the action of forces whose total vanished for all times when and only when the velocity of the particle is constant in Φ. That is, a particle initially at rest or in uniform motion in the preferential frame Φ continues in that state unless compelled by forces to change it.^[14]

Newton’s laws are valid only in an inertial reference frame. Any reference frame that is in uniform motion with respect to an inertial frame is also an inertial frame, i.e. Galilean invariance or the principle of Newtonian relativity.^[15]

Newton’s law of universal gravitation for two bodies. This law governs gravitational forces in the Earth. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

History

From the original Latin of Newton’s Principia:

Translated to English, this reads:

Aristotle had the view that all objects have a natural place in the universe: that heavy objects (such as rocks) wanted to be at rest on the Earth and that light objects like smoke wanted to be at rest in the sky and the stars wanted to remain in the heavens. He thought that a body was in its natural state when it was at rest, and for the body to move in a straight line at a constant speed an external agent was needed to continually propel it, otherwise it would stop moving. Galileo Galilei, however, realized that a force is necessary to change the velocity of a body, i.e., acceleration, but no force is needed to maintain its velocity. In other words, Galileo stated that, in the absence of a force, a moving object will continue moving. The tendency of objects to resist changes in motion was what Galileo called inertia. This insight was refined by Newton, who made it into his first law, also known as the “law of inertia”—no force means no acceleration, and hence the body will maintain its velocity. As Newton’s first law is a restatement of the law of inertia which Galileo had already described, Newton appropriately gave credit to Galileo.

The law of inertia apparently occurred to several different natural philosophers and scientists independently, including Thomas Hobbes in his Leviathan.^[17] The 17th century philosopher René Descartes also formulated the law, although he did not perform any experiments to confirm it.

Newton’s second law

Walter Lewin explains Newton’s second law, using gravity as an example. (MIT OCW)^[18]

Explanation

The second law states that the net force on an object is equal to the rate of change (that is, the derivative) of its linear momentum p in an inertial reference frame:

The second law can also be stated in terms of an object’s acceleration. Since the law is valid only for constant-mass systems,^[19][20][21] the mass can be taken outside the differentiation operator by the constant factor rule in differentiation. Thus,

where F is the net force applied, m is the mass of the body, and a is the body’s acceleration. Thus, the net force applied to a body produces a proportional acceleration. In other words, if a body is accelerating, then there is a force on it.

Consistent with the first law, the time derivative of the momentum is non-zero when the momentum changes direction, even if there is no change in its magnitude; such is the case with uniform circular motion. The relationship also implies the conservation of momentum: when the net force on the body is zero, the momentum of the body is constant. Any net force is equal to the rate of change of the momentum.

Any mass that is gained or lost by the system will cause a change in momentum that is not the result of an external force. A different equation is necessary for variable-mass systems (see below).

Newton’s second law requires modification if the effects of special relativity are to be taken into account, because at high speeds the approximation that momentum is the product of rest mass and velocity is not accurate.

Impulse

An impulse J occurs when a force F acts over an interval of time Δt, and it is given by^[22][23]

Since force is the time derivative of momentum, it follows that

This relation between impulse and momentum is closer to Newton’s wording of the second law.^[24]

Impulse is a concept frequently used in the analysis of collisions and impacts.^[25]

Variable-mass systems

Main article: Variable-mass system

Variable-mass systems, like a rocket burning fuel and ejecting spent gases, are not closed and cannot be directly treated by making mass a function of time in the second law;^[20] that is, the following formula is wrong:^[21]

The falsehood of this formula can be seen by noting that it does not respect Galilean invariance: a variable-mass object with F = 0 in one frame will be seen to have F ≠ 0 in another frame.^[19]

The correct equation of motion for a body whose mass m varies with time by either ejecting or accreting mass is obtained by applying the second law to the entire, constant-mass system consisting of the body and its ejected/accreted mass; the result is^[19]

where u is the relative velocity of the escaping or incoming mass as seen by the body. From this equation one can derive the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation.

Under some conventions, the quantity u dm/dt on the left-hand side, known as the thrust, is defined as a force (the force exerted on the body by the changing mass, such as rocket exhaust) and is included in the quantity F. Then, by substituting the definition of acceleration, the equation becomes F = ma.

History

Newton’s original Latin reads:

This was translated quite closely in Motte’s 1729 translation as:

According to modern ideas of how Newton was using his terminology,^[26] this is understood, in modern terms, as an equivalent of:

The change of momentum of a body is proportional to the impulse impressed on the body, and happens along the straight line on which that impulse is impressed.

Motte’s 1729 translation of Newton’s Latin continued with Newton’s commentary on the second law of motion, reading:

If a force generates a motion, a double force will generate double the motion, a triple force triple the motion, whether that force be impressed altogether and at once, or gradually and successively. And this motion (being always directed the same way with the generating force), if the body moved before, is added to or subtracted from the former motion, according as they directly conspire with or are directly contrary to each other; or obliquely joined, when they are oblique, so as to produce a new motion compounded from the determination of both.

The sense or senses in which Newton used his terminology, and how he understood the second law and intended it to be understood, have been extensively discussed by historians of science, along with the relations between Newton’s formulation and modern formulations.^[27]

Newton’s third law

An illustration of Newton’s third law in which two skaters push against each other. The skater on the left exerts a force F on the skater on the right, and the skater on the right exerts a force −Fon the skater on the right.
Although the forces are equal, the accelerations are not: the less massive skater will have a greater acceleration due to Newton’s second law.

A description of Newton’s third law and contact forces^[28]

The third law states that all forces exist in pairs: if one object A exerts a force F_A on a second object B, then B simultaneously exerts a force F_B on A, and the two forces are equal and opposite: F_A = −F_B.^[29] The third law means that all forces are interactions between different bodies,^[30][31] and thus that there is no such thing as a unidirectional force or a force that acts on only one body. This law is sometimes referred to as the action-reaction law, with F_A called the “action” and F_B the “reaction”. The action and the reaction are simultaneous, and it does not matter which is called the action and which is called reaction; both forces are part of a single interaction, and neither force exists without the other.^[29]

The two forces in Newton’s third law are of the same type (e.g., if the road exerts a forward frictional force on an accelerating car’s tires, then it is also a frictional force that Newton’s third law predicts for the tires pushing backward on the road).

From a conceptual standpoint, Newton’s third law is seen when a person walks: they push against the floor, and the floor pushes against the person. Similarly, the tires of a car push against the road while the road pushes back on the tires—the tires and road simultaneously push against each other. In swimming, a person interacts with the water, pushing the water backward, while the water simultaneously pushes the person forward—both the person and the water push against each other. The reaction forces account for the motion in these examples. These forces depend on friction; a person or car on ice, for example, may be unable to exert the action force to produce the needed reaction force.^[32]

History

A more direct translation than the one just given above is:

LAW III: To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction: or the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts. — Whatever draws or presses another is as much drawn or pressed by that other. If you press a stone with your finger, the finger is also pressed by the stone. If a horse draws a stone tied to a rope, the horse (if I may so say) will be equally drawn back towards the stone: for the distended rope, by the same endeavour to relax or unbend itself, will draw the horse as much towards the stone, as it does the stone towards the horse, and will obstruct the progress of the one as much as it advances that of the other. If a body impinges upon another, and by its force changes the motion of the other, that body also (because of the equality of the mutual pressure) will undergo an equal change, in its own motion, toward the contrary part. The changes made by these actions are equal, not in the velocities but in the motions of the bodies; that is to say, if the bodies are not hindered by any other impediments. For, as the motions are equally changed, the changes of the velocities made toward contrary parts are reciprocally proportional to the bodies. This law takes place also in attractions, as will be proved in the next scholium.^[33]

In the above, as usual, motion is Newton’s name for momentum, hence his careful distinction between motion and velocity.

Newton used the third law to derive the law of conservation of momentum;^[34] however from a deeper perspective, conservation of momentum is the more fundamental idea (derived via Noether’s theorem from Galilean invariance), and holds in cases where Newton’s third law appears to fail, for instance when force fields as well as particles carry momentum, and in quantum mechanics.

Importance and range of validity

Newton’s laws were verified by experiment and observation for over 200 years, and they are excellent approximations at the scales and speeds of everyday life. Newton’s laws of motion, together with his law of universal gravitation and the mathematical techniques of calculus, provided for the first time a unified quantitative explanation for a wide range of physical phenomena.

These three laws hold to a good approximation for macroscopic objects under everyday conditions. However, Newton’s laws (combined with universal gravitation and classical electrodynamics) are inappropriate for use in certain circumstances, most notably at very small scales, very high speeds (in special relativity, the Lorentz factor must be included in the expression for momentum along with rest mass and velocity) or very strong gravitational fields. Therefore, the laws cannot be used to explain phenomena such as conduction of electricity in a semiconductor, optical properties of substances, errors in non-relativistically corrected GPS systems and superconductivity. Explanation of these phenomena requires more sophisticated physical theories, including general relativity and quantum field theory.

In quantum mechanics concepts such as force, momentum, and position are defined by linear operators that operate on the quantum state; at speeds that are much lower than the speed of light, Newton’s laws are just as exact for these operators as they are for classical objects. At speeds comparable to the speed of light, the second law holds in the original form F = dp/dt, where F and p are four-vectors.

Relationship to the conservation laws

In modern physics, the laws of conservation of momentum, energy, and angular momentum are of more general validity than Newton’s laws, since they apply to both light and matter, and to both classical and non-classical physics.

This can be stated simply, “Momentum, energy and angular momentum cannot be created or destroyed.”

Because force is the time derivative of momentum, the concept of force is redundant and subordinate to the conservation of momentum, and is not used in fundamental theories (e.g., quantum mechanics,quantum electrodynamics, general relativity, etc.). The standard model explains in detail how the three fundamental forces known as gauge forces originate out of exchange by virtual particles. Other forces such as gravity and fermionic degeneracy pressure also arise from the momentum conservation. Indeed, the conservation of 4-momentum in inertial motion via curved space-time results in what we callgravitational force in general relativity theory. Application of space derivative (which is a momentum operator in quantum mechanics) to overlapping wave functions of pair of fermions (particles with half-integerspin) results in shifts of maxima of compound wavefunction away from each other, which is observable as “repulsion” of fermions.

Newton stated the third law within a world-view that assumed instantaneous action at a distance between material particles. However, he was prepared for philosophical criticism of this action at a distance, and it was in this context that he stated the famous phrase “I feign no hypotheses“. In modern physics, action at a distance has been completely eliminated, except for subtle effects involving quantum entanglement.^{[citation needed]} However in modern engineering in all practical applications involving the motion of vehicles and satellites, the concept of action at a distance is used extensively.

The discovery of the Second Law of Thermodynamics by Carnot in the 19th century showed that every physical quantity is not conserved over time, thus disproving the validity of inducing the opposite metaphysical view from Newton’s laws. Hence, a “steady-state” worldview based solely on Newton’s laws and the conservation laws does not take entropy into account.

See also

• Euler’s laws

• Galilean invariance

• Hamiltonian mechanics

• Lagrangian mechanics

• List of scientific laws named after people

• Mercury, orbit of

• Modified Newtonian dynamics

• Newton’s law of universal gravitation

• Principle of least action

• Reaction (physics)

References and notes

English: Principle of action of the Theban diagonal phalanx. Français : Principe d’action de la phalange oblique thébaine (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Abbatiale Saint-Junien de Nouaillé-Maupertuis (Photo credit: kristobalite)

In physics, the principle of least action – or, more accurately, the principle of stationary action – is a variational principle that, when applied to the action of a mechanical system, can be used to obtain the equations of motion for that system. The principle led to the development of the Lagrangian and Hamiltonianformulations of classical mechanics.

The principle remains central in modern physics and mathematics, being applied in the theory of relativity, quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, and a focus of modern mathematical investigation in Morse theory. This article deals primarily with the historical development of the idea; a treatment of the mathematical description and derivation can be found in the article on action. The chief examples of the principle of stationary action are Maupertuis’ principle andHamilton’s principle.

The action principle is preceded by earlier ideas in surveying and optics. The rope stretchers of ancient Egypt stretched corded ropes between two points to measure the path which minimized the distance of separation, and Claudius Ptolemy, in his Geographia (Bk 1, Ch 2), emphasized that one must correct for “deviations from a straight course”; in ancient Greece Euclid states in his Catoptrica that, for the path of light reflecting from a mirror, the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection; and Hero of Alexandria later showed that this path was the shortest length and least time.^[1] But the credit for the formulation of the principle as it applies to the action is often given to Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, who wrote about it in 1744^[2] and 1746.^[3] However, scholarship indicates that this claim of priority is not so clear; Leonhard Euler discussed the principle in 1744,^[4] and there is evidence thatGottfried Leibniz preceded both by 39 years.^[5][6][7]

General statement

As the system evolves, q traces a path throughconfiguration space (only some are shown). The path taken by the system (red) has a stationary action (δS = 0) under small changes in the configuration of the system (δq).^[8]

The starting point is the action, denoted  (calligraphic S), of a physical system. It is defined as the integral of the Lagrangian L between two instants of timet₁ and t₂ - technically a functional of the N generalized coordinates q = (q₁, q₂ … q_N) which define the configuration of the system:

where the dot denotes the time derivative, and t is time.

Mathematically the principle is^[9][10][11]

where δ (Greek lower case delta) means a small change. In words this reads:^[12]

The path taken by the system between times t₁ and t₂ is the one for which the action is stationary (no change) to first order.

In applications the statement and definition of action are taken together:^[13]

The action and Lagrangian both contain the dynamics of the system for all times. The term “path” simply refers to a curve traced out by the system in terms of the coordinates in the configuration space, i.e. the curve q(t), parameterized by time (see also parametric equation for this concept).

[edit]Origins, statements, and controversy

In the 17th century Pierre de Fermat postulated that “light travels between two given points along the path of shortest time,” which is known as the principle of least time or Fermat’s principle.^[14]

[edit]Various formulations

Maupertuis

Credit for the formulation of the principle of least action is commonly given to Pierre Louis Maupertuis, who felt that “Nature is thrifty in all its actions”, and applied the principle broadly:

This notion of Maupertuis, although somewhat deterministic today, does capture much of the essence of mechanics.

In application to physics, Maupertuis suggested that the quantity to be minimized was the product of the duration (time) of movement within a system by the “vis viva“,

Maupertuis’ principle

which is the integral of twice what we now call the kinetic energy T of the system.

Euler

Leonhard Euler gave a formulation of the action principle in 1744, in very recognizable terms, in the Additamentum 2 to his Methodus Inveniendi Lineas Curvas Maximi Minive Proprietate Gaudentes. Beginning with the second paragraph:

As Euler states, ∫Mvds is the integral of the momentum over distance travelled, which, in modern notation, equals the reduced action

Euler’s principle

Thus, Euler made an equivalent and (apparently) independent statement of the variational principle in the same year as Maupertuis, albeit slightly later. Curiously, Euler did not claim any priority, as the following episode shows.

Disputed priority

Maupertuis’ priority was disputed in 1751 by the mathematician Samuel König, who claimed that it had been invented by Gottfried Leibniz in 1707. Although similar to many of Leibniz’s arguments, the principle itself has not been documented in Leibniz’s works. König himself showed a copy of a 1707 letter from Leibniz to Jacob Hermann with the principle, but the original letter has been lost. In contentious proceedings, König was accused of forgery,^[5] and even the King of Prussia entered the debate, defending Maupertuis, while Voltaire defended König.

Euler, rather than claiming priority, was a staunch defender of Maupertuis, and Euler himself prosecuted König for forgery before the Berlin Academy on 13 April 1752.^[5] The claims of forgery were re-examined 150 years later, and archival work by C.I. Gerhardt in 1898^[6] and W. Kabitz in 1913^[7] uncovered other copies of the letter, and three others cited by König, in the Bernoulli archives.

Further development

Euler continued to write on the topic; in his Reflexions sur quelques loix generales de la nature (1748), he called the quantity “effort”. His expression corresponds to what we would now call potential energy, so that his statement of least action in statics is equivalent to the principle that a system of bodies at rest will adopt a configuration that minimizes total potential energy.

Lagrange and Hamilton

Much of the calculus of variations was stated by Joseph Louis Lagrange in 1760^[17][18] and he proceeded to apply this to problems in dynamics. In Méchanique Analytique (1788) Lagrange derived the generalequations of motion of a mechanical body.^[19] William Rowan Hamilton in 1834 and 1835^[20] applied the variational principle to the classical Lagrangian function

to obtain the Euler-Lagrange equations in their present form.

[edit]Jacobi and Morse

In 1842, Carl Gustav Jacobi tackled the problem of whether the variational principle always found minima as opposed to other stationary points (maxima or stationary saddle points); most of his work focused on geodesics on two-dimensional surfaces.^[21] The first clear general statements were given by Marston Morse in the 1920s and 1930s,^[22] leading to what is now known as Morse theory. For example, Morse showed that the number of conjugate points in a trajectory equalled the number of negative eigenvalues in the second variation of the Lagrangian.

Gauss and Hertz

Other extremal principles of classical mechanics have been formulated, such as Gauss’ principle of least constraint and its corollary, Hertz’s principle of least curvature.

Apparent teleology

The mathematical equivalence of the differential equations of motion and their integral counterpart has important philosophical implications. The differential equations are statements about quantities localized to a single point in space or single moment of time. For example, Newton’s second law

states that the instantaneous force F applied to a mass m produces an acceleration a at the same instant. By contrast, the action principle is not localized to a point; rather, it involves integrals over an interval of time and (for fields) an extended region of space. Moreover, in the usual formulation of classical action principles, the initial and final states of the system are fixed, e.g.,

Given that the particle begins at position x₁ at time t₁ and ends at position x₂ at time t₂, the physical trajectory that connects these two endpoints is an extremum of the action integral.

In particular, the fixing of the final state appears to give the action principle a teleological character which has been controversial historically.^{[citation needed]} However, some critics maintain this apparentteleology occurs because of the way in which the question was asked. By specifying some but not all aspects of both the initial and final conditions (the positions but not the velocities) we are making some inferences about the initial conditions from the final conditions, and it is this “backward” inference that can be seen as a teleological explanation.

The speculative fiction writer, Ted Chiang, has a story, Story of Your Life, that contains visual depictions of Fermat’s Principle along with a discussion of its teleological dimension. Keith Devlin‘s The Math Instinct contains a chapter, “Elvis the Welsh Corgi Who Can Do Calculus” that discusses the calculus “embedded” in some animals as they solve the “least time” problem in actual situations.

See also

• Action (physics)

• Analytical mechanics

• Calculus of variations

• Hamiltonian mechanics

• Hamilton’s principle

• Lagrangian mechanics

• Maupertuis principle

• Occam’s razor

• Path of least resistance

Notes and references

1. ^ Kline, Morris (1972). Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 167–168. ISBN 0-19-501496-0.
2. ^ P.L.M. de Maupertuis, Accord de différentes lois de la nature qui avaient jusqu’ici paru incompatibles. (1744) Mém. As. Sc. Paris p. 417. (English translation)
3. ^ P.L.M. de Maupertuis, Le lois de mouvement et du repos, déduites d’un principe de métaphysique. (1746) Mém. Ac. Berlin, p. 267.(English translation)
4. ^ ^a b Leonhard Euler, Methodus Inveniendi Lineas Curvas Maximi Minive Proprietate Gaudentes. (1744) Bousquet, Lausanne & Geneva. 320 pages. Reprinted in Leonhardi Euleri Opera Omnia: Series I vol 24.(1952) C. Cartheodory (ed.) Orell Fuessli, Zurich. scanned copy of complete text at The Euler Archive, Dartmouth.
5. ^ ^a b c J J O’Connor and E F Robertson, “The Berlin Academy and forgery“, (2003), at The MacTutor History of Mathematics archive.
6. ^ ^a b Gerhardt CI. (1898) “Über die vier Briefe von Leibniz, die Samuel König in dem Appel au public, Leide MDCCLIII, veröffentlicht hat”, Sitzungsberichte der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften,I, 419-427.
7. ^ ^a b Kabitz W. (1913) “Über eine in Gotha aufgefundene Abschrift des von S. König in seinem Streite mit Maupertuis und der Akademie veröffentlichten, seinerzeit für unecht erklärten Leibnizbriefes”,Sitzungsberichte der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, II, 632-638.
8. ^ R. Penrose (2007). The Road to Reality. Vintage books. p. 474. ISBN 0-679-77631-1.
9. ^ Encyclopaedia of Physics (2nd Edition), R.G. Lerner, G.L. Trigg, VHC publishers, 1991, ISBN (Verlagsgesellschaft) 3-527-26954-1, ISBN (VHC Inc.) 0-89573-752-3
10. ^ McGraw Hill Encyclopaedia of Physics (2nd Edition), C.B. Parker, 1994, ISBN 0-07-051400-3
11. ^ Analytical Mechanics, L.N. Hand, J.D. Finch, Cambridge University Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-521-57572-0
12. ^ The Road to Reality, Roger Penrose, Vintage books, 2007, ISBN 0-679-77631-1
13. ^ Classical Mechanics, T.W.B. Kibble, European Physics Series, McGraw-Hill (UK), 1973, ISBN 07-084018-0
14. ^ Analytical Mechanics, L.N. Hand, J.D. Finch, Cambridge University Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-521-57572-0
15. ^ Chris Davis. Idle theory (1998)
16. ^ Euler, Additamentum II (external link), ibid. (English translation)
17. ^ D. J. Struik, ed. (1969). A Source Book in Mathematics, 1200-1800. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. pp. 406-413
18. ^ Kline, Morris (1972). Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-501496-0. pp. 582-589
19. ^ Lagrange, Joseph-Louis (1788). Méchanique Analytique. p. 226
20. ^ W.R. Hamilton, “On a General Method in Dynamics”, Philosophical Transaction of the Royal Society Part I (1834) p.247-308; Part II (1835) p. 95-144. (From the collection Sir William Rowan Hamilton (1805-1865): Mathematical Papers edited by David R. Wilkins, School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland. (2000); also reviewed as On a General Method in Dynamics)
21. ^ G.C.J. Jacobi, Vorlesungen über Dynamik, gehalten an der Universität Königsberg im Wintersemester 1842-1843. A. Clebsch (ed.) (1866); Reimer; Berlin. 290 pages, available online Œuvres complètes volume8 at Gallica-Math from the Gallica Bibliothèque nationale de France.
22. ^ Marston Morse (1934). “The Calculus of Variations in the Large”, American Mathematical Society Colloquium Publication 18; New York.

External links

• Interactive explanation of the principle of least action

• Interactive applet to construct trajectories using principle of least action

• Georgi Yordanov Georgiev 2012 [1], A quantitative measure, mechanism and attractor for self-organization in networked complex systems, in Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS 7166), F.A. Kuipers and P.E. Heegaard (Eds.): IFIP International Federation for Information Processing, Proceedings of the Sixth International Workshop on Self-Organizing Systems (IWSOS 2012), pp. 90–95, Springer-Verlag (2012).

• Georgi Yordanov Georgiev and Iskren Yordanov Georgiev 2002 [2], The least action and the metric of an organized system, in Open Systems and Information Dynamics, 9(4), p. 371-380 (2002)

a dung beetle, near the giant tomb Sa Ena ‘e Thomes, Sardinia, Italy Français : un bousier, photographié en Sardaigne (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Dung Beetles Navigate Via the Milky Way, First Known in Animal Kingdom

Posted by Christine Dell’Amore of 

Samuel

Samuel anoints David, Dura Europos, Syria, Date: 3rd c. AD (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other persons named Samuel, see Samuel (name).

For the Biblical books, see Books of Samuel.

Samuel
Infant Samuel by Joshua Reynolds 1723
Prophet, Seer
Honored in	Judaism Christianity Islam
Major shrine	Tomb of Samuel, Jerusalem

Samuel (pron.: /ˈsæm.juː.əl/;^[1] Hebrew: שְׁמוּאֶל, Modern Shmu’el Tiberian Šəmûʼēl; Greek: Σαμουήλ Samouēl; Latin: Samvel; صموئيل, Ṣamu’īl; Strong’s: Shemuwel) is a leader of ancient Israel in the Books of Samuel in the Hebrew Bible. He is also known as a prophet and is mentioned in the second chapter of the Qur’an, although not by name.^[2]

His status, as viewed by rabbinical literature, is that he was the last of the Hebrew Judges and the first of the major prophets who began to prophesy inside theLand of Israel. He was thus at the cusp between two eras. According to the text of the Books of Samuel, he also anointed the first two kings of the Kingdom of Israel: Saul and David.

Biblical account

Gerbrand van den Eeckhout - Hannah presenting her son Samuel to the priest Eli ca.1665

Family

Samuel’s mother was Hannah and his father was Elkanah. Hannah, at the beginning of the narrative, is barren and childless, like Abraham‘s wifeSarah. Hannah prays to God for a child. Eli who is sitting at the foot of the doorpost in the sanctuary at Shiloh, sees her apparently mumbling and thinks Hannah is drunk, but is soon assured of her motivation and sobriety. Eli was, according to the Books of Samuel, the name of a priest ofShiloh, and one of the last Israelite Judges before the rule of kings in ancient Israel. He blesses her after she promises the child to God. Subsequently Hannah becomes pregnant; her child is Samuel. After he is weaned, she leaves him in Eli’s care.

Elkanah is Samuel’s father and lives at Ramah (1 Sam. 1:19; 2:11; comp. 28:3), in the district of Zuph. His genealogy is also found in a pedigree of the Kohathites (1 Chron. 6:3-15) and in that of Heman, his great-grandson (ib. vi. 18-22). According to the genealogical tables, Elkanah was, aLevite, a fact otherwise not mentioned in the books of Samuel. The fact that Elkanah, a Levite, was denominated an Ephraimite is analogous to the designation of a Levite belonging to Judah (Judges 17:7, for example).^[3]

Name

According to 1 Samuel 1:20, Hannah named Samuel in memory of her requesting a child from God and God listening. Samuel is translated asHeard of God or possibly as a sentence “God has heard” (from ‘Shama’, heard and ‘El’, God — with “Shama” as the verb and “El” as the subject).^[4] Samuel in the Hebrew root word is “sha’al” which is mentioned seven times in 1 Samuel 1 and once as “sha’ul” (1:28), which is Saul’s name in Hebrew. Coogan suggests that Saul’s birth narrative was transferred to Samuel by the Deuteronomistic Historians.^[5]

Calling

One night, around the age of 13, Samuel heard a voice calling his name. According to the Jewish historian Josephus, Samuel was about 12 years old.^[6] He initially assumed it was coming from Eli and went to Eli to ask what he wished to say. Eli, however, sent Samuel back to sleep. After this happened three times Eli realized that the voice was God’s, and instructed Samuel on how to respond. Once Samuel responded God told him that the wickedness of the sons of Eli had resulted in their dynasty being condemned to destruction. Eli asked Samuel to honestly recount to him what he had been told, and upon receiving the communication merely said that God should do what seems right to himself.

Leader

Judges in the Bible
In the Book of Joshua
Joshua†
In the Book of Judges
Othniel Ehud Shamgar Deborah Barak† Gideon Abimelech† Tola Jair Jephthah Ibzan Elon Abdon Samson
In First Samuel
Eli† Samuel†
†Not explicitly described as a judge
v t e

During Samuel’s youth at Shiloh the Philistines inflicted a decisive defeat against the Israelites at Eben-Ezer (1 Sam. 4:1,2), placed the land under Philistine oppression, and took the sanctuary’s Ark for themselves. (Some modern textual scholars consider that the Song of Moses, believed to be originally distinct from the surrounding text of Deuteronomy and not written by Moses, may in reality have been written in response to the theological implications of this disastrous defeat, possibly by Samuel himself.)^{[citation needed]}

This was decades before the Israelites began to be ruled by a king. After 20 years of such oppression, Samuel, who had gained national prominence as a prophet, summoned the people to Mizpah (one of the highest hills in the land), where he organized them into an army, and led them against the Philistines. The Philistines, having marched to Mizpah to attack the newly amassed Israelite army, were soundly defeated and fled in terror. The retreating Philistines were slaughtered by the Israelites, which the Bible portrays positively. The text then states that Samuel erected a large stone at the battle site as a memorial, and there ensued a long period of peace thereafter.

Textual criticism

National prophet, local seer

Some authors see the biblical Samuel as combining descriptions of two distinct roles:

• A seer, based at Ramah, and seemingly known scarcely beyond the immediate neighbourhood of Ramah (Saul, for example, not having heard of him, with his servant informing him of his existence instead). In this role, Samuel is associated with the bands of musical ecstatic roaming prophets (shouters - neb’im) at Gibeah, Bethel, and Gilgal, and some traditional scholars have argued that Samuel was the founder of these groups. At Ramah, Samuel secretly anoints Saul, after having met him for the first time, while Saul was looking for his father’s lost donkeys, and treated him to a meal.

• A prophet, based at Shiloh, who went throughout the land, from place to place, with unwearied zeal, reproving, rebuking, and exhorting the people torepentance. In this role, Samuel acted as a (biblical) judge, publicly advising the nation, and also giving private advice to individuals. Eventually Samuel delegates this role to his sons, based at Beersheba, but they behave corruptly and so the people, facing invasion from the Ammonites, persuade Samuel to appoint a king. Samuel reluctantly does so, and anoints Saul in front of the entire nation, who had gathered to see him.

Textual scholars suggest that these two roles come from different sources, which later were spliced together to form the Book(s) of Samuel. The oldest is considered to be that which marks Samuel as the local seer of Ramah, who willingly anoints Saul as King in secret, while the latter is that which presents Samuel as a national figure, who begrudgingly anoints Saul as King in front of a national assembly. This later source is generally known as the republican source, since here, and elsewhere, it denigrates the actions and role of the monarchy (particularly those of Saul) and favours religious figures, in contrast to the other main source – the monarchial source – which treats the monarchy favourably. Theoretically if we had the monarchial source we would see Saul appointed king by public acclamation, due to his military victories, and not by cleromancy involving Samuel. Another difference between the sources is that the republican source treats the shouters as somewhat independent from Samuel (1 Samuel 9) rather than having been led by him (1 Samuel 19:18ff). The passage (1 Samuel 7:15-16) in which Samuel is described as having exercised the functions of a (biblical) judge, during an annual circuit from Ramah to Bethel to Gilgal (the Gilgal between Ebal and Gerizim) to Mizpah and back to Ramah, is thought by textual scholars to be a redaction aimed at harmonizing the two portrayals of Samuel.^[7]

The Book(s) of Samuel variously describe Samuel as having carried out sacrifices at sanctuaries, and having constructed and sanctified altars. According to the Mitzvot only Aaronic priests and/or Levites(depending on the Mitzvah) were permitted to perform these actions, and simply being a nazarite or prophet was insufficient. The books of Samuel and Kings offer numerous examples where this rule is not followed by kings and prophets, but some textual scholars look elsewhere seeking a harmonization of the issues. In the Book of Chronicles, Samuel is described as a Levite, rectifying this situation; however textual scholars widely see the Book of Chronicles as an attempt to redact the Book(s) of Samuel and of Kings to conform to later religious sensibilities. Since many of the Mitzvot themselves are thought to postdate the Book(s) of Samuel (according to the documentary hypothesis), Chronicles is probably making its claim based on religious bias. The Levitical genealogy of 1 Chronicles 4 is not historical, according to modern scholarship.^[7]

The Deuteronomistic Historians’ Portrait of Samuel

The Deuteronomistic Historians, who redacted the Former Prophets (Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings), idealized Samuel as a figure who is larger than life like Joshua. Samuel is a priest even though he is not of the tribe of Levi from his childhood. Samuel is a judge who leads the military like in the Book of Judges and also who exercises judicial functions. In 1 Sam 12:6-17, the Deuteronomic Historians composed a speech of Samuel that puts him as the judge sent by God to save Israel.^[8] In 1 Samuel 9:6-20, Samuel is seen as a local “seer.” The Deuteronomistic Historians preserved this view of Samuel while contributing him as “the first of prophets to articulate the failure of Israel to live up to its covenant with God.” ^[8] For the Deuteronomistic Historians, Samuel was extension of Moses and continuing Moses’ function as a prophet, judge, and a priest which made historical Samuel uncertain.^[8]

[edit]Samuel’s retirement and death

Apparition of the spirit of Samuel to Saul, by Salvator Rosa, 1668.

Samuel initially appointed his two sons as his successors; however, the Israelites rejected them and insisted on having a king rule over them. Samuel, who is opposed to a king, warns them of the potential negative consequences of such a decision, but at the people’s insistence, asks God for a king. Samuel is told to seek out Saul, an animal herder said to be a head taller than his peers, and anoint him as the first King of Israel.

Just before his retirement, Samuel gathered the people to an assembly at Gilgal, and gives them a farewell speech, in which he emphasised how prophets and judges were more important than kings, how kings should be held to account, and how the people should not fall into idol worship, or worship of Asherah or of Baal; Samuel threatened that God would subject the people to foreign invaders should they disobey. This is seen by some people as a deuteronomic redaction;^[7] being that archaeologically sees that Asherah was still worshipped in Israelite households well into the 6th century. However, the Bible is clear in 1 Kings 11:5, 33, and 2 Kings 23:13 that the Israelites fell into Asherah worship later on.^[9]

Samuel then went into retirement, though he reappears briefly in the two accounts of why Saul’s dynasty lost divine favour (parts of 1 Samuel 13 and 15), essentially acting, according to scholars, as the narrator’s mouthpiece.^{[citation needed]} Apart from being the individual who anoints David as king, a role Samuel is abruptly summoned to take, he does not appear any further in the text until his own death at his hometown Ramah (1 Samuel 25:1, 28:3), where he is buried (cf. 2 Kings 21:18, 2 Chronicles 33:20, and John 19:41). According to classical rabbinical sources, this was at the age of fifty-two.

Samuel’s death, however, is not completely the end of his appearance in the narrative. In the passage concerning Saul’s visit to the Witch of Endor, ascribed by textual scholars to the republican source, Samuel was temporarily raised from the dead so that he can tell Saul his future. Many Christian interpretations of this event portray Samuel’s appearance as being a deception from Satan, or even a demon in disguise. There are other interpretations which say that Saul and the witch having been frightened by his appearance, and Samuel as having been composed, classical rabbinical sources argue that Samuel was terrified by the ordeal, having expected to be appearing to face God’s judgement, and had therefore brought Moses with him (to the land of the living) as a witness to his adherence to the mitzvot.^[7]

Perspectives on Samuel

Grave Prophet Samuel, Jerusalem

Judaism

According to the Book of Jeremiah, and one of the Psalms (99), Samuel had a high devotion to God. Classical Rabbinical literature adds that he was more than an equal to Moses, God speaking directly to Samuel, rather than Samuel having to attend the tabernacle to hear God.^[10] Samuel is also described by the Rabbis as having been extremely intelligent; he argued that it was legitimate for laymen to slaughter sacrifices, since the Halakha only insisted that the priests bring the blood (cf Leviticus 1:5, Zebahim 32a).^[11] Eli, who was viewed negatively by many Classical Rabbis, is said to have reacted to this logic of Samuel by arguing that it was technically true, but Samuel should be put to death for making legal statements while Eli (his mentor) was present.^[11]

Samuel is also treated by the Classical Rabbis as a much more sympathetic character than he appears at face value in the Bible; his annual circuit is explained as being due to his wish to spare people the task of having to journey to him; Samuel is said to have been very rich, taking his entire household with him on the circuit so that he didn’t need to impose himself on anyone’s hospitality; when Saul fell out of God’s favour, Samuel is described as having grieved copiously and having prematurely aged.^[12]

Christianity

For Evangelical Christians Samuel is considered to be a Prophet, Judge, and wise Leader of Israel, and treated as an example of fulfilled commitments to God. On the Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar, his feast day is August 20. He is commemorated as one of the Holy Forefathers in the Calendar of Saints of the Armenian Apostolic Church on July 30. In the Coptic Orthodox Church, the commemoration of the departure of Samuel the Prophet is celebrated on 9 Paoni.

Islam

Mosque of the Prophet Samuel, Jerusalem

Tomb of the Prophet Samuel, Jerusalem

Samuel is also a revered prophet^[13] and seer^{[disambiguation needed]} in the Islamic faith. The narrative of Samuel in Muslim literature focuses specifically on his birth and the anointing of Saul. Other elements from his narrative are in accordance with the narratives of other prophets of Israel, as exegesis recounts Samuel’s preaching against idolatry. Although he is mentioned in the Qur’an, his name is not given but he is instead referred to as “a Prophet”.^[14] According to Islamic history, the Israelites, after the time of the prophet Moses, wanted a king to rule over their country. Thus, God sent the prophet Samuel to anoint Saul as the first king for the Israelites. The Qur’an states:

Have you thought of the elders of Israel after Moses, and how they said to their apostle: “Set up a king for us, then we shall fight in the way of God?” He replied: “This too is possible that when commanded to fight you may not fight at all.” They said: “How is it we should not fight in the way of God when we have been driven from our homes and deprived of our Sons?” But when they were ordered to fight they turned away, except for a few; yet God knows the sinners.

—Qur’an, sura 2 (Al-Baqara), ayah 246^[14]

The Qur’an goes on to state that a king was anointed by the prophet, whose name was Talut (Saul in the Hebrew Bible). However, it states that the Israelites mocked and reviled the newly appointed king, as he was not wealthy from birth. But, in sharp contrast to the Hebrew Bible, the Qur’an praises Saul greatly, and mentions that he was gifted with great spiritual and physical strength. In the Qur’anic account, Samuel prophesies to the children of Israel, telling them that the sign of Saul’s kingship will be that the Ark of the Covenant will come back to the Israelites:

And when their prophet said to them: “God has raised Saul king over you,” they said: “How can he be king over us when we have greater right to kingship than he, for he does not even possess abundant wealth?” “God has chosen him in preference to you,” said the prophet “and gifted him abundantly in wisdom and stature; and God gives authority to whomsoever He will: God is infinite and all-wise.”
Their prophet said to them: “The sign of his kingship will be that you will come to have a chest (tabu’t) full of peace and tranquility (Sakina) from your Lord and remainder of the legacy of the children of Moses and the children of Aaron, carried over by the angels. In this certainly shall be a sign for you if you really believe.”

—Qur’an, sura 2 (Al-Baqara), ayah 247–248^[15]

See also

• Biblical judges

• Books of Samuel

• Book of Samuel the Seer

• List of names referring to El

• Midrash Samuel

• Tomb of Samuel

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Samuel

References

1. ^ LDS.org: “Book of Mormon Pronunciation Guide” (retrieved 2012-02-25), IPA-ified from «săm´yū-ĕl»
2. ^ http://www.guidedways.com/search-keyword-Samuel-translator-5.htm Al-Baqara [2:247,248 & 251]
3. ^ Jewish Encyclopedia:Small Text Hence in I Sam. i. 1 his ancestral line is carried back to Zuph (comp. I Sam. ix. 5 et seq.). The word in I Sam. i. 1 should be emended to (“the Zuphite”), the final mem being a ditto-gram of that with which the next word, , begins; as the LXX. has it, Σειφὰ. Elkanah is also represented in I Sam. i. 1 as hailing from the mountains of Ephraim, the word here denoting this (comp. Judges xii. 5; IKings xi. 26)—if indeed is not a corruption for “Ephraimite”—and not, as in Judges i. 2 and I Sam. xvii. 12, an inhabitant of Ephrata (see Lxx.). Jewishencyclopedia.com
4. ^ Behind the Name: Meaning, Origin and History of the Name Samuel
5. ^ Michael D. Coogan, “A Brief Introduction to the Old Testament: the Hebrew Bible in its Context” (New York: Oxford, 2009), 194.
6. ^ Josephus. “Book 5 Chapter 10 Section 4″. Antiquities of the Jews. Sacred Texts. Retrieved 7 October 2011.
7. ^ ^a b c d Jewish Encyclopedia, Samuel, Saul, Book of Samuel, et al.
8. ^ ^a b c Michael D. Coogan, “A Brief Introduction to the Old Testament: the Hebrew Bible in its Context” (New York: Oxford, 2009), 196.
9. ^ Israel Finkelstein, The Bible Unearthed; Richard Elliott Friedman, Who wrote the Bible?
10. ^ Berakot 31b, Ta’anit 5b, Exodus Rashi 14:4
11. ^ ^a b Berakot 31b
12. ^ Berakot 10b, Nedarim 38a, Ta’anit 5b
13. ^ Abdullah Yusuf Ali, The Holy Qur’an: Text, Translation and Commentary, Note.278 on verse 246: “This was Samuel. In his time Israel had suffered from much corruption within and many reverses without. The Philistines had made a great attack and defeated Israel with great slaughter. The Israelites, instead of relying on Faith and their own valour and cohesion, brought out their most sacred possession, the Ark of the Covenant, to help them in the fight. But the enemy captured it, carried it away, and retained it for seven months. The Israelites forgot that wickedness cannot screen itself behind a sacred relic. Nor can a sacred relic help the enemies of faith. The enemy found that the Ark brought nothing but misfortune for themselves, and were glad to abandon it. It apparently remained twenty years in the village (qarya) of Yaarim (Kirjath-jeafim): I. Samuel, 7:2. Meanwhile the people pressed Samuel to appoint them a king. They thought that a king would cure all their ills, whereas what was wanting was a spirit of union and discipline and a readiness on their part to fight in the cause of Allah.”
14. ^ ^a b Quran 2:246
15. ^ Quran 2:247

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Easton, Matthew George (1897). “^{article name needed}“. Easton’s Bible Dictionary (New and revised ed.). T. Nelson and Sons.

Preceded by Eli

Judge of Israel

Saul Anointed king

[show] v t e Prophets in the Hebrew Bible

[show] v t e People in the Quran

[show] v t e Prophets of Islam outside the Quran

I believe that the cosmic holes were represented by the Egyptians in  a symbol form (The Djed). You can see it in this video.

As in the sumarian cylinder seal we see that  the ancients had very high knowledge.After taking this all in please give me your opinion,as this is my Insight only, as far as I know.

When you go further with this theory of the cosmic hole, you can research (Time travel) and the knowledge the Egyptians had that we can learn from. Reverend Darcy

OAM52976-TOR1-Lotusbud-column supporting Djed-pillar (Photo credit: CESRAS)

The Ankh – symbol of life – thoracic vertebrae of a bull

The Djed – symbol of stability – base or sacrum of a bull’s spine

The Was – symbol of power and dominion – a staff made from a dried bull’s penis

Isis and Seti

Arches

12 Around 1

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English: Map of Anaximander’s universe (6th century BCE). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Esoteric cosmology is cosmology that is an intrinsic part of an esoteric or occult system of thought. Esoteric cosmology maps out the universe with planes of existence and consciousness according to a specific worldview usually from a doctrine.

Esoteric cosmology almost always deals with at least some of the following themes: emanation, involution, spiritual evolution, epigenesis, planes of existence or higher worlds (and their emanation and the connections between them), hierarchies of spiritual beings, cosmic cycles (e.g., cosmic year, Yuga), yogic or spiritual disciplines and techniques of self-transformation, and references to mystical and altered states of consciousness.^[1]

Such cosmologies cover many of the same concerns also addressed by religious cosmology and philosophical cosmology, such as the origin, purpose, and destiny of the universe and of consciousness and the nature of existence. For this reason it is sometimes difficult to distinguish where religion or philosophy end and esotericism or occultism begins. However, esoteric cosmology is distinguished from religion in its more sophisticated construction and reliance on intellectual understanding rather than faith, and from philosophy in its emphasis on techniques of psycho-spiritual transformation.

Examples of esoteric cosmologies can be found in Gnosticism, Neoplatonism, Nagualism, Nagualism (Carlos Castaneda), Tantra (especially Kashmir Shaivism), Kabbalah, Sufism, the teachings of Jacob Boehme, The Urantia Book, the Sant Mat/Surat Shabda Yoga tradition, Theosophy, Anthroposophy, The Cosmic Tradition of Max Theon and his wife, Max Heindel (The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception), elements of the teachings of Sri Aurobindo, Meher Baba, the Fourth Way propounded by Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, PaGaian Cosmology and many current New Age teachings, to give only a few examples.^[2]

Gnosticism

Gnostic teachings were contemporary with those of Neoplatonism. Gnosticism is an imprecise label, covering monistic as well as dualistic conceptions. Usually the higher worlds of Light, called the Pleromaor “fullness”, are radically distinct from the lower world of Matter. The emanation of the Pleroma and its godheads (called Aeons) is described in detail in the various Gnostic tracts, as is the pre-creation crisis (a cosmic equivalent to the “fall” in Christian thought) from which the material world comes about, and the way that the divine spark can attain salvation.^[3]

Kabbalah

Kabbalah combines orthodox Judaic, Neoplatonic, Gnostic, and philosophical (e.g. Aristotlean) themes, to develop an elaborate and highly symbolic cosmology in which God, who is ineffable and unknowable, manifests as ten archetypal sephirot, each with its own Divine attributes, and arranged in a configuration of interrelated paths called the Tree of Life. The original Tree gives rise to further trees, until there are four or (in Lurianic Kabbalah) five worlds or universes (Trees) in all, with the lowest sephira of the lowest world constituting the material cosmos.

This cosmology proved highly popular with occultists, and formed the basis of Western hermetic thought (e.g. the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and subsequent organisations), where it is associated with a form of astral travel called “pathworking“.

Neoplatonism

Although under Plotinus, Neoplatonism began as a school of philosophy, the teachings of later Neoplatonists such as Iamblichus and Proclus incorporate additional details of the emanation process in terms of the dialectical action of the hypostases and further subdivisions from Plotinus’ original three hypostases. Each higher hypostasis constitutes a more sublime deific state of existence. There is also a tendency in later neoplatonic thought towards increasing transcendentalism and dualism. Although Plotinus saw spiritual ascent as leading ultimately to the One (The Absolute), in later Neoplatonism the best one can hope for is irridation of the Soul by the Nous above.

Neoplatonic ideas were later taken up by Gnosticism, Kabbalah, Christianity (Pseudo-Dionysius), and, in the 19th century, Theosophy.

]Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception

Max Heindel presents in his The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception (1909) an evolutionary process of man and the universe, correlating science with religion. This work of esoteric knowledge contains the fundamentals of the Rosicrucian Philosophy and also deals, among other topics, metaphysics and cosmology. The second part of the book contains the scheme of Evolution in general and the Evolution of theSolar System and the Earth in particular, according to Heindel. In the field of cosmology (Cosmogenisis and Anthropogenesis) it teaches about the Worlds, Globes and Periods, Revolutions and Cosmic Nights related to life waves and human development and also the constitution of our solar system and of the Universe: The Supreme Being, the Cosmic Planes and God.

Theosophy & Anthroposophy

H.P. Blavatsky in her Theosophical writings presented a complex cosmology, in terms of a sevenfold series of cosmic planes and subplanes, and a detailed sevenfold system of cycles and sub-cycles of existence.^[4] These ideas were adapted by later esotericists like Rudolf Steiner (Anthroposophy), Max Heindel, Alice Bailey, and Ann Ree Colton, and some of these ideas were included in New Age thought.

Max Theon and the “Cosmic Philosophy”

The occultist Max Theon developed a sophisticated cosmology, incorporating Lurianic Kabbalistic and other themes. This describes a number of divine and material worlds, and four or eight “states” (equivalent to the Theosophical Planes), each divided into degrees, each of which are in turn subdivided into sub-degrees. The details of these various occult worlds, their beings, recognisable colours, and so on, were all laid out, but very little of this material has yet been published.

See also

• Sufi cosmology
• Plane (cosmology)
• The Urantia Book
• Nondual

Great Chain of Being 2 (lighter) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

References

1. ^ S. K. Basu Encylopaedic Dictionary of Astrophysics 2007, p. 73
2. ^ Tim Voigt The Grand Fantasy of Einstein: The Search for the Theory of the Universe 2010
3. ^ Rosemary Guiley The encyclopedia of saints 2001, p. 396
4. ^ Virginia Hanson H.P. Blavatsky and the Secret Doctrine 1988

• Blavatsky, H.P. (1967). Practical Occultism. ISBN 81-7059-076-0.

• Blavatsky, H.P. (1972). The Key to Theosophy. ISBN 0-911500-07-3.

• Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1999). Vedic Physics. ISBN 0-9684120-0-9.

External links

• Puranic Vaishnava cosmology – planetarium
• Planes of Existence - Kheper website
• The Thirty-one Planes of Existence - according to Buddhist cosmology
• Sant Mat / Surat Shabd Yoga charts

- Sant Ajaib Singh Ji Memorial Site

- Genesis, Planes of Creation, Positive & Negative Powers

• The Great Continuum Of Consciousness according to George A. Boyd
• The Visible and Invisible Worlds according to Max Heindel & related Diagrams in The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception

Paradise Trinity (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Related articles

• Cosmology (earthpages.wordpress.com)
• From Rasta to Urantia (mtexpress.com)
• The End of Cosmology? (telescoper.wordpress.com)
• “A” is for axion (Alphabet of Cosmology) (catch26.wordpress.com)
• Visual Chronology of Cosmologies and Astronomical Maps, I+II (longstreet.typepad.com)
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Are you tired of waiting around for happiness to find you? Stop waiting and start getting happy with these tips.

By Mayo Clinic staff

Do you know how to be happy? Or are you waiting for happiness to find you?

Despite what the fairy tales depict, happiness doesn’t appear by magic. It’s not even something that happens to you. It’s something you can cultivate.

So, what are you waiting for? Start discovering how to be happy.

How to be happy: What science tells us

Only 10 percent or so of the variation in people’s reports of happiness can be explained by differences in their circumstances. It appears that the bulk of what determines happiness is due to personality and — more importantly — thoughts and behaviors that can be changed.

So, yes, you can learn how to be happy — or at least happier.

Although you may have thought, as many people do, that happiness comes from being born rich or beautiful or living a stress-free life, the reality is that people who have wealth, beauty or less stress are not happier on average than those of who don’t enjoy those blessings.

People who are happy seem to intuitively know that their happiness is the sum of their life choices, and their lives are built on the following pillars:

• Devoting time to family and friends
• Appreciating what they have
• Maintaining an optimistic outlook
• Feeling a sense of purpose
• Living in the moment

How to be happy: Practice, practice, practice

If you have been looking for happiness, the good news is that your choices, thoughts and actions can influence your level of happiness. It’s not as easy as flipping a switch, but you can turn up your happiness level. Here’s how to get started on the path to creating a happier you.

Invest in relationships

Surround yourself with happy people. Being around people who are content buoys your own mood. And by being happy yourself, you give something back to those around you.

Friends and family help you celebrate life’s successes and support you in difficult times. Although it’s easy to take friends and family for granted, these relationships need nurturing.

Build up your emotional account with kind words and actions. Be careful and gracious with critique. Let people know that you appreciate what they do for you or even just that you’re glad they’re part of your life.

Express gratitude

Gratitude is more than saying thank you. It’s a sense of wonder, appreciation and, yes, thankfulness for life. It’s easy to go through life without recognizing your good fortune. Often, it takes a serious illness or other tragic event to jolt people into appreciating the good things in their lives. Don’t wait for something like that to happen to you.

Make a commitment to practice gratitude. Each day identify at least one thing that enriches your life. When you find yourself thinking an ungrateful thought, try substituting a grateful one. For example, replace “my sister forgot my birthday” with “my sister has always been there for me in tough times.”

Let gratitude be the last thought before you go to sleep. Let gratitude also be your first thought when you wake up in the morning.

Cultivate optimism

Develop the habit of seeing the positive side of things. You needn’t become a Pollyanna — after all, bad things do happen. It would be silly to pretend otherwise. But you don’t have to let the negatives color your whole outlook on life. Remember that what is right about you almost always trumps what is wrong.

If you’re not an optimistic person by nature, it may take time for you to change your pessimistic thinking. Start by recognizing negative thoughts as you have them. Then take a step back and ask yourself these key questions:

• Is the situation really as bad as I think?
• Is there another way to look at the situation?
• What can I learn from this experience that I can use in the future?

Find your purpose

People who strive to meet a goal or fulfill a mission — whether it’s growing a garden, caring for children or finding one’s spirituality — are happier than those who don’t have such aspirations.

Having a goal provides a sense of purpose, bolsters self-esteem and brings people together. What your goal is doesn’t matter as much as whether the process of working toward it is meaningful to you.

Try to align your daily activities with the long-term meaning and purpose of your life. Research studies suggest that relationships provide the strongest meaning and purpose to your life. So cultivate meaningful relationships.

Are you engaged in something you love? If not, ask yourself these questions to discover how you can find your purpose:

• What excites and energizes me?
• What are my proudest achievements?
• How do I want others to remember me?

Live in the moment

Don’t postpone joy waiting for a day when your life is less busy or less stressful. That day may never come.

Instead, look for opportunities to savor the small pleasures of everyday life. Focus on the positives in the present moment, instead of dwelling on the past or worrying about the future.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/how-to-be-happy/MY01357

Oct. 1, 2012 — The commonly held belief that men should dominate sexually can disempower both women and men, according to a new study.

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Gender roles and norms play a key role in sexual behavior between men and women. It is often assumed that men should dominate women

Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Sexual Fantasies (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

sexually. This assumption may lead to loss of both power and the ability to control sexual behavior among women and men, as well as lead to increased sexual risk-taking, such as not using a female condom. The new study, by Dr. Lisa Rosenthal from Yale University in the US, and her colleagues, is published online in Springer’s journal Sex Roles.

Social dominance orientation is a measure of people’s level of support for social power inequalities and hierarchy. The belief is linked to greater hostile sexism, more negative attitudes towards women’s rights, a greater tolerance of sexual harassment and a greater preference for traditional gender roles. Rosenthal and team examined whether the extent to which both women and men endorse social dominance orientation explains gender dominance and dynamics in heterosexual relationships.

A total of 357 undergraduate women and 126 undergraduate men from a Northeastern US university took part in the study. Participants were asked to complete a questionnaire on a computer, next to which there was a bowl of female condoms. The researchers assessed the students’ social dominance orientation, the extent to which they believed that men should dominate sexually, how confident they felt in sexual situations, as well as the number of female condoms they took away with them.

Overall, women were less likely than men to endorse the view that men should dominate sexually. The more men and women believed that social power inequalities and hierarchy were valid, the more likely they were to endorse the belief that men should dominate sexually, and the less likely they were to feel confident in sexual situations and consider using female condoms.

The authors conclude: “These findings suggest that beliefs about power may play a key role in both women’s and men’s attitudes to sexual behavior, and potentially their decisions to protect themselves during sexual activity. Results highlight that social dominance orientation and dynamics in heterosexual relationships do not only hurt women, but also men because they potentially decrease their sexual self-efficacy and interest in female condoms as well.”

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121001095517.htm

|

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided bySpringer Science+Business Media.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Lisa Rosenthal, Sheri R. Levy, Valerie A. Earnshaw. Social Dominance Orientation Relates to Believing Men Should Dominate Sexually, Sexual Self-Efficacy, and Taking Free Female Condoms Among Undergraduate Women and Men. Sex Roles, 2012; DOI: 10.1007/s11199-012-0207-6

Need to cite this story in your essay, paper, or report? Use one of the following formats:

 APA MLA

Springer Science+Business Media (2012, October 1). How sexual power can be disempowering. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 28, 2013, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­/releases/2012/10/121001095517.htm

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Twin soul (Photo credit: Mara ~earth light~)

Twin Souls

Author: Madison Meadows

It sometimes happens that a man and a woman meet and instantly recognize the other half of themselves behind the eyes of each other.  The eyes have been rightly called ‘the windows of the soul.’  Even their voices are familiar to each other’s ears, like a remembered chord of music.  These are two who immediately sense the unalterable fact that they have been- are- and must always be One; even though they might have fought against their fate for centuries and struggled in vain to escape their linked destiny.  Almost at the first moment they meet and gaze upon each other their spirits rush together in joyful recognition, ignoring all convention and custom, all social rules of behavior, driven by an inner knowing too overwhelming to be denied.  Inexplicately, often without a word being spoken, they know that only through each other can they hope to find wholeness- only when they’re together can they both be Complete in every way.

Somehow, they feel Immortal, and they are, for this level of love can bestow the beginning knowledge of the attainment of several centuries longevity in the same flesh body on the Earth plane.  A man and woman who are soul mates hardly need to speak the words ‘I love you,’ knowing as surely as they do that they must belong to each other.  No man can break the tie between Twin Souls, not even themselves.  Nor can any energy in the Universe.  The force that created them is all powerful and indestructible.

This kind of instant magnetic attraction is often called ‘love at first sight,’ which is no accident of fate, but very real.  The crossing of their paths has been predestined on a Higher Level of Awareness.  Certain spiritual energies are at work to bring about their meeting.  Even when the Soul Mate is at last discovered, there are often many complications and testings of wortiness which cause temporary pain.  Only in continually and consistently practicing tolorance and forgiveness can the hurt be allivated.  Only the heart knows how to lead you into Union with the soul of the one you love.

Reference ~ Love Signs by Linda Goodman

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/mysticism-articles/twin-souls-6054036.html

About the Author

I am married with two kids.  I live in Phoenix, Arizona.  I blog about my mystical/spiritual experiences I’ve had since I was a child. I share those experiences now as insight to those whom have had similiar experiences, or are just searching for a deeper meaning in their lives.

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Peter Pan playing the Pipes (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

neverland (Photo credit: patrice-photographiste)

Illustration of Peter Pan playing the pipes, with Neverland in the background by F. D. Bedford, from the novel Peter and Wendy published in 1911.

Neverland (also spelled Never Land or expanded as Never Never Land) is a fictional place featured in the works of J. M. Barrie and those based on them. It is the dwelling place of Peter Pan, Tinker Bell, the Lost Boys and others. Although not all people in Neverland cease to age, its best known resident famously refused to grow up, and it is often used as a metaphor for eternal childhood (and childishness), immortality, and escapism. It was first introduced as “the Never Never Land” in the theatre play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up by Scottish writer J. M. Barrie, first staged in 1904.

In his 1911 novelization Peter and Wendy, Barrie referred to “the Neverland”, and its many variations “the Neverlands”.^[1] In the earliest drafts of Barrie’s play, the island was called “Peter’s Never Never Never Land”, a name possibly influenced by “the Never Never“, a contemporary term for outbackAustralia. In the 1928 published version of the script, it was shortened to “the Never Land”. Neverland has been featured prominently in subsequent works, either adapting Barrie’s works or expanding upon them. These Neverlands sometimes vary in nature from the original.

English: Tinkerbell by Diarmuid Byron O’Connor commissioned by Great Ormond Street Hospital London 2005 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Nature of Neverland

The novel explains that the Neverlands are found in the minds of children, and that although each is “always more or less an island”, and they have

Neverland 202/365 (Photo credit: mollyjolly)

a family resemblance, they are not the same from one child to the next. For example, John Darling‘s had “a lagoon with flamingos flying over it” while his little brother Michael‘s had “a flamingo with lagoons flying over it”. The novel further explains that the Neverlands are compact enough that adventures are never far between. It says that a map of a child’s mind would resemble a map of Neverland, with no boundaries at all.^[1]

The exact situation of Neverland is ambiguous. In Barrie’s original tale, the name for the real world is the “Mainland”, which suggests Neverland is a small physical island offshore of Britain, and its tropical depiction suggests far offshore. It is reached by flight, and Peter gives its location as being “second to the right, and straight on till morning”. In the novel, it is stated that Peter made up these directions to impress Wendy and that they found the island only because it was “out looking for them”. Barrie also writes that it is near the “stars of the milky way” and it is reached “always at the time of sunrise”, so it could be in the sky or in space. Walt Disney’s 1953 version Peter Pan presents this possibility, adding “star” to Peter’s directions: “second star to the right, and straight on till morning” and from afar, these stars depict Neverland in the distance. The 2003 film version echoes this representation, as the Darling children are flown through the solar system to reach Neverland.

In Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens a proto-version of Neverland called the Bird’s island is reached by flight, paper boat, or a thrush’s nest, and it is connected to the Kensington Gardens by the Serpentine river. Therefore, Neverland could be a physical island, or a heavenly world above the earth or in outer space, and the “Mainland” could represent either Britain, or it could represent reality and the real world, or possibly both. In Peter Pan in Scarlet (not by Barrie), the children get to the Neverland world by flying on a road called the High Way, and the island is located in a sea known as the Sea of One Thousand Islands.

The passage of time in Neverland is also ambiguous. The novel Peter Pan mentions that there are many more suns and moons there than in our world, making time difficult to track, and that the way to find the time is to find the crocodile, as there is a clock inside it. Although widely thought of as a place where children don’t grow up, Barrie wrote that the Lost Boys eventually grew up and have to leave, and fairies there lived typically short lifespans. According to Peter Pan in Scarlet, time froze as soon as the children arrived in Neverland.

Locations

Map of Neverland created by Walt Disney Productions as a promotion for its 1953 film Peter Pan. Users of Colgate-Palmolive‘s “Peter Pan Beauty Bar with Chlorophyll” could obtain the map by mailing in three soap wrappers and fifteen cents.^[2]

Canon

In J.M. Barrie’s play and novel, most of the adventures in the stories take place in the Neverwood, where the Lost Boys hunt and fight the pirates and redskins, and build the Wendy house. It is also the location of the Home Underground, where Peter and the Boys reside.

The mermaids live in Mermaids’ Lagoon, which is also the location of Marooners’ Rock. It is dangerous for mortals to come anywhere near here at night, and it is the most dangerous place in Neverland. Trapped on Marooners’ Rock, close offshore in the lagoon, Peter faced the impending death of drowning, as he couldn’t swim nor fly from it to safety. The mermaids made no attempt to rescue him, but he was saved by the Neverbird.

The only other explicitly named canon location in the book and play is the Pirate Ship, Captain Hook’s “Jolly Roger”. Barrie does however refer to “plains”, close to the Neverwood.

Non-canon

In the many film, television and video game adaptations of Peter Pan, adventures which originally take place in either the Mermaids’ Lagoon, the Neverwood forest or on the Pirates’ ship are played out in more elaborate locations, or a greater number of these.

In the Disney franchise version of Neverland, many non-canon locales are added, which make appearances variously throughout film, TV and video game instalments. These include Cannibal Cove/Tiki Forest, a “jungle environment filled with monkeys, parrots, boars, cobras, bees and a host of evil traps” and occupied by a tribe reminiscent of both African and indigenous Pacific-Islander cultures. This location appears regularly in the Disney Channel’s animated series Jake and the Neverland Pirates. It also adds or gives names to implied locations within Barrie’s original Neverland, such as Never Land Plains, where the Indians reside, Skull Rock, where the “pirates are said to hide their booty” and Crocodile Creek, a swamp environ where the Crocodile lives.

The Black Castle referred to in the 2003 film is a ruined, old abandoned castle, decorated with stone dragons and gargoyles. It is one of the places where Tiger Lily is taken by Captain James Hook. This sequence is based on the Marooners’ Rock sequence in the original play and book and like Disney’s non-canon “Skull Rock”, Black Castle replaces Marooners’ rock in this film.

Neverpeak Mountain is the huge mountain that is right in the middle of Neverland. According to Peter Pan in Scarlet, when a child is on top of Neverpeak Mountain, he or she can see over anyone and anything and can see beyond belief.

The Maze of Regrets is a maze in Peter Pan in Scarlet where all the mothers of the Lost Boys go to find their boys.

Pixie Hollow is where Tinker Bell and her tiny fairy friends live and dwell in Disney’s Tinker Bell movies and related books.

In the film Hook, the pirates occupy a small port town peppered with merchant shopfronts, warehouses, hotels, pubs and an improvised baseball field, and many ships and boats of varying sizes and kinds fill the harbour, as the pirates, since Peter’s disappearance, have been able to expand their territory. The Home Underground has also been replaced by an intricate tree house structure which is prominent on the landscape rather than concealed, as the Lost Boys have successfully taken over their part of Neverland. This structure is possibly a continued development of Peter’s “house atop the trees” which he occupies following Hook’s defeat and the Lost Boys’ return to the Mainland, presumably because he no longer has to hide nor house a large community. The number of lost boys have also increased and they navigate their home via hybrid wind-surfer/skateboard tracks, as the power of flight was lost with Peter. The Mermaids’ Lagoon is directly connected to the Lost Boys’ tree house structure by a giant clam-shell pulley system, possibly because they have become allies to the Lost Boys in Peter’s absence. The Home Underground is discovered buried and forgotten by an adult Peter in the film, underneath the new home of the lost boys. Thus, while more elaborate, the locations of the Home Underground and the Pirates are unchanged. Neither the redskins nor their territory appear in the film.

Inhabitants

Fairies

Fairies are arguably the most important magical inhabitants of the Neverland, and its primary magic users. A property of their nature is the production and possession of fairy dust, the magic material which enables flying within the story for all characters except Peter, who was taught to fly by the birds (as described by Barrie in Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens), and later by the fairies in Kensington Gardens. They are allied to the Lost Boys and against the pirates. The most prominent and famous fairy is Tinker Bell, Peter Pan‘s companion, whose name alludes to her profession as a “tinker” or fixer of pots and pans. Tinker Bell is essentially a household fairy, but far from benign. Her exotic, fiery nature, and capacity for evil and mischief, due to fairies being too small to feel more than one type of emotion at any one time, is reminiscent of the more hostile fairies encountered by Peter in Kensington Gardens.

In Barrie’s play and novel, the roles of fairies are brief: they are allies to the Lost Boys, the source of fairy dust and where they act as “guides” for parties travelling to and from Neverland. They are also responsible for the collection of abandoned or lost babies from the Mainland to the Neverland. The roles and activities of the fairies are more elaborate in Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. They occupy kingdoms in the Gardens and at night, “mischief children who are locked in after dark” to their deaths or entertain them before they return to their parents the following day, and they guard the paths to a “Proto-Neverland” called the “bird’s island“. These fairies are more regal and engage in a variety of human activities in a magical fashion. They have courts, can grant wishes to children and have a practical relationship with the birds, which is however “strained by differences”. They are portrayed as dangerous, whimsical and extremely clever but quite hedonistic. After forgetting how to fly, unable to be taught by the birds, (see birds, below), Peter is given the power to fly again by the fairies.

Barrie writes that “when the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, … and that was the beginning of fairies”.^[3] and the Neverland’s fairy can be killed whenever someone says they don’t believe in fairies, suggesting that the race of fairies is finite and exhaustible. When dying from Hook’s poison, Tinker Bell is saved when Peter and other children and adults across the Neverlands and Mainland call out “I do believe in fairies, I do, I do”, so their deaths are not necessarily permanent. At the end of Barrie’s novel Wendy asks Peter about Tinker Bell, whom he has forgotten and he answers, “I expect she is no more”.

The Disney Fairies Peter Pan franchise has elaborated on aspects of Barrie’s fairy mythology. The “Never Fairies” (and associated sparrow men) live in Pixie Hollow, located in the heart of Neverland.^[4] As stated in the Tinker Bell film, after the baby’s first laugh breaks into numerous (bubble-looking) pieces, any piece that can blow with the wind and survive the trip to Pixie Hollow becomes a fairy, who then learns his/her specific talent.

Birds

In the novel and the play, between the flight from the mainland (reality) and the Neverland, they are relatively simple animals which provide entertainment, instruction and some limited guidance to flyers. These birds are described as unable to sight its shores, “even, carrying maps and consulting them at windy corners”.

In Barrie’s Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, birds have a far more prominent role on a proto-Neverland called the “Bird’s Island”. On the island, the various birds speak bird-language, described as being related to fairy language which can be understood by young humans, who used to be birds. The birds are responsible for bringing human babies into the Mainland, whose human parents send folded paper boats along the serpentine “with ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ and ‘thin’ or ‘fat’ (and so on) written”, indicating to the official birds which species to send back to transform into human children, who are described as having an “itch on their backs where their wings used to be” and that their warbles are fairy/bird talk.

A half-magical bird called the Neverbird, is also very prominently featured in the novel and play.

Lost Boys

The Lost Boys are a tribe of “children who fall out of their prams when the nurse is not looking”,^[5] and who, having not been claimed by humans in seven days, were collected by the fairies and flown to the Neverland. There are six of them: Tootles, Nibs, Slightly, Curly and the Twins. They are not permitted to fly by Peter, as it is a sign of his authority and uniqueness. They live in tree houses and caves, wear animal skins, bear spears and bows and arrows, and live for adventure. They are a formidable fighting force despite their youth and they make war with the pirates, although they seem to enjoy a harmonious existence with the other inhabitants of Neverland. Their leader is Peter Pan, whom they call “father” in whose absence their activity and bloodlust is diminished, and to whom they are completely loyal, fearful and adoring. The Lost Boys long for a mother, and they ask Wendy to take on the role. Following Peter’s defeat of the pirates and commandeering of the Jolly Roger, they are adopted by Wendy’s parents.

Pirates

The crew of the pirate ship Jolly Roger have taken up residence off-shore, and are widely feared throughout Neverland. How they came to be in Neverland is unclear. Their captain is the ruthless James Hook, known as Captain James Hook or more personally Jas Hook, named after (or predestined for) the hook in place of his right hand, and who is obsessed with finding Peter and his Lost Boys’ secret lair and exacting revenge for the loss of his hand, which was cut off by Peter and then fed to the crocodile, which has “licked its lips after the rest of him, ever since”. After James Hook’s death, the Jolly Roger is taken over by Peter Pan, to fly everyone back to London.

In Peter Pan in Scarlet, Peter has become captain of the Jolly Roger when he dons Hook’s old coat, which turns him evil. Hook is also revealed to have survived the crocodile, tricking Peter under the guise of “Ravello”.

Native American

There is a tribe of wigwam-dwelling Native Americans who live on the island, referred to by Barrie as “Redskins”, or the Piccaninny tribe. They have an imposing tribal chief Great Big Little Panther, whose daughter Tiger Lily is the princess of the tribe. She has a crush on Peter Pan. The Piccaninny tribe are known to make ferocious and deadly war against Captain Hook and his pirates, but their connection with the Lost Boys is more lighthearted. For “many moons” the two groups have captured each other, only to promptly release the captives, as though it were a game. It is unclear how the Piccaninny tribe came to be in Neverland, although they seem to know Neverland better than anyone. But it is said that Native Americans are born some place else than Never Never Land. But some Native Americans are born in Never Never Land.

Mermaids

Mermaids live in the lagoon. They enjoy the company of Peter Pan but seem malevolent towards everybody else, including the fairies, and show a particular dislike of Wendy, who is Peter’s “special” female interest. They are hedonistic, frivolous and arrogant; they “sing” and play the “mermaid games” all day, like blowing bubbles, and they “love to bask out on Marooners’ Rock, combing their hair in a lazy way”. Wendy is enchanted by their beauty, but finds them offensive and irritating, as they would “splash her with their tails, not accidentally, but intentionally” when she attempted to steal a closer look. They occupy rock-pools and the ocean surrounding Marooners’ Rock, and their homes are “coral caves underneath the waves” to which they retire at sunset and rising tide, as well as in anticipation of storms. The 2003 film Peter Pan briefly describes mermaids as different from those in traditional story books, as “dark and dangerous creatures in touch with all things mysterious”, who will drown humans who get too close, but do not harm Peter. They report to him intelligences such as Hook’s whereabouts on the island at any one time. When one attempts to drown Wendy, Peter hisses – rather than crows – at them and orders them to give her protection. This sequence is influenced by Barrie’s allusion to the mermaids’ “haunting” transformation at the “turn of the moon, where they utter strange wailing cries” when “the lagoon is dangerous for mortals”. In the novel, the Mermaids’ Lagoon with their precious and transient company is a favourite “adventure” of Peter and the others, and where they take their “midday meal”. Peter gives Wendy one of the mermaid’s combs as a gift.

Animal kingdom

Animals, referred to as “beasts”, live throughout Neverland, such as bears, tigers, lions, wolves, flamingoes and crocodiles. In Barrie’s original novel, these “beasts” hunt the Piccaninny tribe, who hunt the Pirates, who are themselves hunting the Lost Boys, who in turn hunt the beasts, creating a chain of prey and murder in the Neverland that only ends when one party stops or slows down, or when Peter redirects the Lost Boys to other tasks and activities. Like all the agencies of the Neverland, the animals do not need to eat, nor are they eaten when killed, nor do they reproduce (as they enjoy the same immortality as all other inhabitants), so their presence is a paradox. There are also a variety of birds, whose societies are present in the proto-Neverland described in Barrie’s Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens.

Stars

In Barrie’s novel, stars are personified as living creatures which occupy a fixed position in the “firmament” (heavens). They do not occupy either the Neverland or the Mainland, but are suspended between and watch over each. Barrie’s description of the Neverland being somewhere near “the stars the milky way” places the role of stars as a map of the paths between the mainland and the Neverland. They are described as watchful and “beautiful”, but as living a sad and strange existence, as “they may not participate actively in anything” but “must look on forever”, (which suggests they are immortal). Barrie attributes this existence as a “punishment” awarded them long ago, the original crime forgotten even by stars. They are also described as being both “older” and “younger”, so new stars are created continuously. Barrie describes “they are not really friendly to Peter, who has a mischievous way of sneaking out behind them and trying to blow them out”, but the younger stars wanderlust and “fond(ness) of fun” compels them to support Peter’s adventures and spiriting away of the Darling children to the Neverland. When Tinker Bell is revived by a ritual collective enunciation of “I do believe in fairies”, the stars shout curses at the children who do not participate or actively jeopardize her revival through their disbelief.

Other residents

Other inhabitants of Neverland are suggested by Barrie in his original novel, such as a “small old lady with a hooked nose”, “gnomes who are mostly tailors”, and princes “with six elder brothers” – reminiscent of European fairy tales. There are also some briefly described locations without inhabitants, but the author is suggestive of their former presence, such as a “hut fast going to decay”. One inhabitant that could be classified as half-animal, half-magical creature (or possibly “deity”, in the case of an interpretation of the Neverland’s agencies as “Pathetic Fallacy“), the “Neverbird”, featured prominently in chapter nine of Barrie’s novel. It is described as a nurturing, maternal spirit who guides her baby’s nest to Peter when he is trapped on Marooners’ Rock (in the Mermaids’ Lagoon); Peter is facing his impending death by drowning but Neverbird rescues him from harm. The Neverbird is contrasted in this chapter to the Mermaids, who “retire one by one to their bedchambers in the coral caves under the sea”, instead of attempting to help Peter.

In the many revisions of Peter Pan, inhabitants of Neverland have been omitted, added, or elaborated upon. In the Japanese anime, The Adventures of Peter Pan (Peter Pan no Boken), the individual characters of the pirates, “redskins”, and mermaids are expanded, and new characters, such as the schizophrenic, spellcaster princess, Luna, and the witch, Sinistra are added.

References

1. ^ ^a b Barrie, James Matthew (1911). Peter and Wendy. Hodder & Stoughton.
2. ^ Hopkins, Martha; Michael Buscher (1999). Language of the Land: The Library of Congress Book of Literary Maps. Washington, DC: Library of Congress. p. 187. ISBN 0-8444-0963-4.
3. ‘^ Peter Pan Play and novel, JM Barrie’
4. ^ Monique Peterson, In the Realm of the Never Fairies: The Secret World of Pixie Hollow, Disney Press, 2006
5. ^ Peter and Wendy, JM Barrie (1911)

illustration of Lost Boys, Wendy, Peter Pan (Photo credit: Wikipedia)   Characters and setting Peter Pan Wendy Darling Captain Hook Tinker Bell The Lost Boys Other characters Neverland Tinker Bell and the Mysterious Winter Woods (Photo credit: Wikipedia)   Official books and plays The Little White Bird (1902) Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (1906) Peter and Wendy (1911) Peter Pan in Scarlet (2006) Films Peter Pan (1924) Peter Pan (1953) Hook (1991) Return to Never Land (2002) Peter Pan (2003) Neverland (2003) Finding Neverland (2004) Tinker Bell films Tinker Bell (2008) The Lost Treasure (2009) The Great Fairy Rescue (2010) Pixie Hollow Games (2011) Secret of the Wings (2012) Pirate Fairy (2014) TV series The Lost Boys (1978) The Adventures of Peter Pan (1989) Peter Pan and the Pirates (1990–91) Jake and the Never Land Pirates (2011–present) Neverland (2011) Theatre 1950 musical 1954 musical 1976 musical Peter Pan: A Musical Adventure Peter and the Starcatcher (play) Peter Pan 360 (play) Video games Peter Pan and the Pirates Hook Starcatchers books Peter and the Starcatchers Peter and the Shadow Thieves Peter and the Secret of Rundoon Peter and the Sword of Mercy The Bridge to Neverland Never Land Books Never Girls Other media Peter Pan’s Flight (ride)

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• Peter Pan
• Utopias
• Fictional countries
• Fictional islands
• Fantasy worlds

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Filmed Feb 2002 • Posted Apr 2009 • TED2002

English: Emanuel Swedenborg (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Emanuel Swedenborg (born Emanuel Swedberg; 29 January 1688^[1] – 29 March 1772) was a Swedish scientist, philosopher, theologian, revelator, and, in the eyes of some, Christian mystic.^[2] He termed himself a “Servant of the Lord Jesus Christ” in True Christian Religion,^[3] a work he published himself.^[4] He is best known for his book on the afterlife, Heaven and Hell (1758).^[5][6]

Swedenborg had a prolific career as an inventor and scientist. In 1741, at the age of 53, he entered into a spiritual phase^[7] in which he began to experiencedreams and visions, beginning on Easter weekend of April 6, 1744. This culminated in a ‘spiritual awakening’, in which he received revelation that he was appointed by the Lord to write a heavenly New Church Doctrine to reform Christianity. According to the New Church Doctrine the Lord had opened Swedenborg’s spiritual eyes, so that from then on he could freely visit heaven and hell, and talk with angels, demons and other spirits; and that the Last Judgement had already occurred, in 1757, although this was only visible in the spiritual world, where he had witnessed it.^[8] New Church Doctrine states that The Last Judgement was followed by the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, which occurred, not by Christ in person, but by a revelation from Him through the inner, spiritual sense of the Word^[9] through Swedenborg.^[10] However, he tells us that at this day it is very dangerous to talk with spirits, unless a person is in true faith, and is led by the Lord.^[11][12]Swedenborg argued that it is the presence of that spiritual sense which makes the Word Divine.^[13]

For the remaining 28 years of his life, Swedenborg wrote 18 published theological works, and several more which were unpublished. Some followers of the New Church believe that, of his theological works, only those which Swedenborg published himself are fully divinely inspired.^[14]

New Church Doctrine rejects the concept of salvation through faith alone, since he considered both faith and charity necessary for salvation, not one without the other, whereas the Reformers taught that faith alone procured justification, although it must be a faith which resulted in obedience. The purpose of faith, according to New Church Doctrine, is to lead a person to a life according to the truths of faith, which is charity, as is taught in 1 Corinthians 13:13 and James 2:20. However, he made no attempt to found a church.^[15][16] A few years after his death – 15 by one estimate^[17] – for the most part in England, small reading groups formed to study the truth they saw in his teachings.^[18] As one scholar has noted, New Church teachings particularly appealed to the various dissenting groups that sprang up in the first half of the 18th century who were “surfeited with revivalism and narrow-mindedness” and found his optimism and comprehensive explanations appealing.^[19]

In Earths in the Universe, it is stated that he conversed with spirits from Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Saturn, Venus, the Moon, as well as spirits from planets beyond our solar system.^[20] From these ‘encounters’ he concluded that the planets of our solar system are inhabited, and that such an enormous undertaking as the universe could not have been created for just one race of people; nor one ‘heaven’ derived from it.^[21][22] He argued: “What would this be to God, Who is infinite, and to whom a thousand or tens of thousands of planets, and all of them full of inhabitants, would be scarcely anything!”.^[23] Swedenborg and the life on other planets question has been extensively reviewed elsewhere.^[24]

A variety of important cultural figures, both writers and artists, were influenced by New Church Doctrine, including Johnny Appleseed, William Blake, Jorge Luis Borges, Daniel Burnham, Arthur Conan Doyle,^[25] Ralph Waldo Emerson,^[26] John Flaxman, George Inness, Henry James Sr., Carl Jung,^[27] Immanuel Kant,^[28]Honoré de Balzac, Helen Keller, Czesław Miłosz, August Strindberg, D. T. Suzuki, and W. B. Yeats. His philosophy had a great impact on the Duke ofSödermanland, later King Carl XIII, who as the Grand Master of Swedish Freemasonry (Svenska Frimurare Orden) built its unique system of degrees and wrote its rituals. In contrast, one of the most prominent Swedish authors of Swedenborg’s day, Johan Henric Kellgren, called Swedenborg “nothing but a fool”.^[29] A heresytrial was initiated in Sweden in 1768 against New Church writings and two men who promoted these ideas.^[30]

In the two and a half centuries since Swedenborg’s death, various interpretations of his theology have been made, and he has also been scrutinized in biographies and psychological studies.^[31][32] Of note is that, just as Jesus Christ, with his new teachings, was considered insane by some (John 10:20, Mark 3:21), so Swedenborg, with his claimed new dispensation, has been considered by some to suffer from mental illness.^[33][34][35] “While the insanity explanation was not uncommon during Swedenborg’s own time, it is mitigated by his activity in the Swedish Riddarhuset (The House of the Nobility), the Riksdag (the Swedish parliament), and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Additionally, the system of thought in his theological writings is considered by some to be remarkably coherent.^[36] Furthermore, he was characterized by his contemporaries as a “kind and warm-hearted man”, “amiable in his meeting with the public”, speaking “easily and naturally of his spiritual.experiences”.^[37][38][39]”, with pleasant and interesting conversation…. An English friend of Kant’s who visited Swedenborg at Kant’s behest described Swedenborg as a “reasonable, pleasant and candid man and scholar”.^[40] Of note here is Swedenborg’s statement that he was commanded by the Lord to publish his writings and “Do not believe that without this express command I would have thought of publishing things which I knew in advance would make me look ridiculous and many people would think lies…”^[41]

Cover of Heaven and Hell

Français : Emanuel Swedenborg (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Biography

Early life

Memorial plaque at the former location of Emanuel Swedenborg’s house at Hornsgatan on Södermalm,Stockholm.

Swedenborg’s father, Jesper Swedberg (1653–1735), descended from a wealthy mining family. He travelled abroad and studied theology, and on returning home he was eloquent enough to impress the Swedish king, Charles XI, with his sermons in Stockholm. Through the King’s influence he would later become professor of theology atUppsala University and Bishop of Skara.^[42][43]

Jesper took an interest in the beliefs of the dissenting Lutheran Pietist movement, which emphasised the virtues of communion with God rather than relying on sheer faith (sola fide).^[44] Sola fide is a tenet of the Lutheran Church, and Jesper was charged with being a pietist heretic. While controversial, the beliefs were to have a major impact on his son Emanuel’s spirituality. Jesper furthermore held the unconventional belief that angels and spirits were present in everyday life. This also came to have a strong impact on Emanuel.^[42][43][45]

Swedenborg completed his university course at Uppsala in 1709, and in 1710 made his grand tour through the Netherlands, France, and Germany, before reaching London, where he would spend the next four years. It was also a flourishing center of scientific ideas and discoveries. Emanuel studied physics, mechanics, and philosophy, and read and wrote poetry. According to the preface of a book by the Swedish critic Olof Lagercrantz, Swedenborg wrote to his benefactor and brother-in-law Eric Benzelius that he believed he (Swedenborg) might be destined to be a great scientist.^[46][47]

Scientific period

The Flying Machine, sketched in his notebook from 1714. The operator would sit in the middle, and paddle himself through the air. See Smithsonian model^[48] and explanation by Dr. Paul Garber, former Curator of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, on the principle of flight of the aircraft. His descriptions may be found in a chapter of the Söderburg book,^[49] p. 32, or on the video clip at 5:48 on its timeline.^[50]

In 1715 Swedenborg returned to Sweden, where he devoted himself to natural science and engineering projects for the next two decades. A first step was his noted meeting with King Charles XII of Sweden in the city of Lund, in 1716. The Swedish inventor Christopher Polhem, who became a close friend of Swedenborg, was also present. Swedenborg’s purpose was to persuade the king to fund an observatory in northern Sweden. However, the warlike king did not consider this project important enough, but did appoint Swedenborg assessor-extraordinary on the Swedish Board of Mines(Bergskollegium) in Stockholm.^[51]

From 1716 to 1718, Swedenborg published a scientific periodical entitled Daedalus Hyperboreus (“The Northern Daedalus“), a record of mechanical and mathematical inventions and discoveries. One notable description was that of a flying machine, the same he had been sketching a few years earlier (see Flying Machine (Swedenborg)).^[47]

Upon the death of Charles XII, Queen Ulrika Eleonora ennobled Swedenborg and his siblings. It was common in Sweden during the 17th and 18th centuries for the children of bishops to receive this honour as a recognition of the services of their father. The family name was changed from Swedberg to Swedenborg.^[52]

In 1724, he was offered the chair of mathematics at Uppsala University but he declined, saying that he had mainly dealt with geometry, chemistryand metallurgy during his career. He also noted that he did not have the gift of eloquent speech because of a speech impediment. The speech impediment in question was stuttering, noted by many acquaintances of his: it forced him to speak slowly and carefully and there are no known occurrences of his speaking in public.^[53] The Swedish critic Olof Lagerkrantz proposed that Swedenborg compensated for his impediment by extensive argumentation in writing.^[54]

New direction of studies, ahead of his time

During the 1730s, Swedenborg undertook many studies of anatomy and physiology. He had the first anticipation, as far as known, of the neuronconcept^[55]. It was not until a century later that science recognized the full significance of the nerve cell. He also had prescient ideas about thecerebral cortex, the hierarchical organization of the nervous system, the localization of the cerebrospinal fluid, the functions of the pituitary gland, the perivascular spaces, the foramen of Magendie, the idea of somatotopic organization, and the association of frontal brain regions with the intellect. In some cases his conclusions have been experimentally verified in modern times.^{[56][57][58][59][60]}

In the 1730s Swedenborg became increasingly interested in spiritual matters and was determined to find a theory which would explain how matter relates to spirit. Swedenborg’s desire to understand the order and purpose of creation first led him to investigate the structure of matter and the process of creation itself. In the Principia he outlined his philosophical method, which incorporated experience, geometry (the means whereby the inner order of the world can be known), and the power of reason. He also outlined his cosmology, which included the first presentation of his Nebular hypothesis. (There is evidence that Swedenborg may have preceded Kant by as much as 20 years in the development of this hypothesis.^[61][62])

In Leipzig, 1735, he published a three volume work entitled Opera philosophica et mineralis (“Philosophical and mineralogical works“), where he tries to conjoin philosophy and metallurgy. The work was mainly appreciated for its chapters on the analysis of the smelting of iron and copper, and it was this work which gave Swedenborg international reputation.^[63] The same year he also published the small manuscriptde Infinito (“On the Infinite“), where he attempted to explain how the finite is related to the infinite, and how the soul is connected to the body. This was the first manuscript where he touched upon these matters. He knew that it might clash with established theologies, since he presents the view that the soul is based on material substances.^[64][65] He also conducted dedicated studies of the fashionable philosophers of the time such as John Locke, Christian von Wolff, Leibniz, and Descartes; and earlier thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus and Augustine.^[66]

In 1743, at the age of 55, Swedenborg requested a leave of absence to go abroad. His purpose was to gather source material for Regnum animale (The Animal Kingdom, or Kingdom of Life), a subject on which books were not readily available in Sweden. The aim of the book was to explain the soul from an anatomical point of view. He had planned to produce a total of seventeen volumes.^[67]

Journal of Dreams

By 1744 Swedenborg had traveled to the Netherlands. Around this time he began having strange dreams. Swedenborg carried a travel journal with him on most of his travels, and did so on this journey. The whereabouts of the diary were long unknown, but it was discovered in the Royal Library in the 1850s and published in 1859 as Drömboken, or Journal of Dreams.

Swedenborg experienced many different dreams and visions, some greatly pleasurable, others highly disturbing.^[68] The experiences continued as he traveled to London to progress the publication of Regnum animale. This process, which one biographer has proposed as cathartic and comparable to the Catholic concept of Purgatory,^[69] continued for six months. He also proposed that what Swedenborg was recording in his Journal of Dreams was a battle between the love of his self and the love of God.^[70]

Visions and spiritual insights

In the last entry of the journal from October 26–27, 1744, Swedenborg appears to be clear as to which path to follow. He felt he should drop his current project, and write a new book about the worship of God. He soon began working on De cultu et amore Dei, or The Worship and Love of God. It was never fully completed, but Swedenborg still had it published in London in June 1745.^[71]

One explanation why the work was never finished is given in a well-known and often referenced story. In April 1745, Swedenborg was dining in a private room at a tavern in London. By the end of the meal, a darkness fell upon his eyes, and the room shifted character. Suddenly he saw a person sitting at a corner of the room, telling Swedenborg: “Do not eat too much!“. Swedenborg, scared, hurried home. Later that night, the same man appeared in his dreams. The man told Swedenborg that He was the Lord, that He had appointed Swedenborg to reveal the spiritual meaning of the Bible, and that He would guide Swedenborg in what to write. The same night, the spiritual world was opened to Swedenborg.^[72]

It should be noted, however, that (1) The Robsahm transcriptions on which this story is based were second hand, despite Robsahm’s presenting them in the first person^[73] and (2) accuracy cannot be achieved since there are several versions of this story, in whole or part ^[74][75][76] differing in important respects, e.g. Lord figure seen in corner vs. close by, conditions of dimness or darkness vs. bright light and date of 1744 vs. 1745. However, Swedenborg did not publish any of these documents himself so the doctrinal aspects are not authoritative.^[77]

Scriptural commentary and writings

Arcana Cœlestia, first edition (1749), title page

In June 1747, Swedenborg resigned his post as assessor of the board of mines. He explained that he was obliged to complete a work he had begun and requested to receive half his salary as a pension.^[78] He took up afresh his study of Hebrew and began to work on the spiritual interpretation of the Bible with the goal of interpreting the spiritual meaning of every verse. From sometime between 1746 and 1747, and for ten years henceforth, he devoted his energy to this task. Usually abbreviated as Arcana Cœlestia and under the Latin variant Arcana Caelestia^[79] (translated as Heavenly Arcana, Heavenly Mysteries, or Secrets of Heavendepending on modern English-language editions), the book became his magnum opus and the basis of his further theological works.^[80]

The work was anonymous and Swedenborg was not identified as the author until the late 1750s. It consisted of eight volumes, published between 1749 and 1756. It attracted little attention, as few people could penetrate its meaning.^[81][82]

His life from 1747 until his death in 1772 was spent in Stockholm, Holland, and London. During these 25 years he wrote another 14 works of a spiritual nature of which most were published during his lifetime.

One of his lesser known works presents a startling claim, that the Last Judgment had begun in the previous year (1757) and was completed by the end of that year^[83] and that he had witnessed the whole thing.^[84] According to Swedenborg, the Last Judgment took place, not in the physical world, but in the World of Spirits, which is located half-way between heaven and hell, and which everyone passes through on their way to heaven or hell.^[85] The Judgment took place because the Christian church had lost its charity and faith, resulting in a loss of spiritual free will that threatened the equilibrium between heaven and hell in everyone’s life^[86][87]

In another of his theological works, Swedenborg wrote that eating meat, regarded in itself, “is something profane,” and was not practiced in the early days of the human race. However, he said, meat-eating today is a matter of conscience and no one is condemned for doing it.^[88] Nonetheless, the early-days ideal appears to have given rise to the idea that Swedenborg was a vegetarian. This conclusion may have been reinforced by the fact that a number of Swedenborg’s early followers were part of the vegetarian movement that arose in Great Britain in the 19th century.^[89] However, the only reports on Swedenborg himself are contradictory. His landlord in London, Shearsmith, said he ate no meat but his maid, who served Swedenborg, said that he ate eels and pigeon pie.^[90]

Swedenborg published his work in London or Holland due to the freedom of the press unique to those countries.^[91][92]

Swedenborg’s crypt in Uppsala Cathedral

In July 1770, at the age of 82, he traveled to Amsterdam to complete the publication of his last work. The book, Vera Christiana Religio (The True Christian Religion), was published in Amsterdam in 1771 and was one of the most appreciated of his works. Designed to explain his teachings to Lutheran Christians, it was the most concrete of his works.^[93]

In the summer of 1771, he traveled to London. Shortly before Christmas he suffered a stroke and was partially paralyzed and confined to bed. His health improved somewhat, but he died on March 29, 1772. There are several accounts of his last months, made by those he stayed with, and by Arvid Ferelius, a pastor of the Swedish Church in London, who visited him several times.^[94]

There is evidence that Swedenborg wrote a letter to John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, in February, saying he (Swedenborg) had been told in the world of spirits that Wesley wanted to speak with him.^[95] Wesley, startled, since he had not told anyone of his interest in Swedenborg, replied that he was going on a journey for six months and would contact Swedenborg on his return. Swedenborg replied that that would be too late since he (Swedenborg) would be going to the spiritual world for the last time on March 29.^[96] (Wesley later read and commented extensively on Swedenborg’s work.)^[97] Swedenborg’s landlord’s servant girl, Elizabeth Reynolds, also said Swedenborg had predicted this date, and that Swedenborg was as happy about it as if was “going on holiday or to some merrymaking”.^[98]

In Swedenborg’s final hours, his friend, Pastor Ferelius, told him some people thought he had written his theology just to make a name for himself and asked Swedenborg if he would like to recant. Raising himself up on his bed, his hand on his heart, Swedenborg earnestly replied, “As truly as you see me before your eyes, so true is everything that I have written; and I could have said more had it been permitted. When you enter eternity you will see everything, and then you and I shall have much to talk about”.^[99] He then died, in the afternoon, on the date he had predicted, March 29.^[99]

He was buried in the Swedish Church in Shadwell, London. On the 140th anniversary of his death, in 1912/1913, his earthly remains were transferred to Uppsala Cathedral in Sweden, where they now rest close to the grave of the botanist Carolus Linnaeus. In 1917, the Swedish Church in Shadwell was demolished and the Swedish community that had grown around the parish moved to West London. In 1938 the site of the former church where he had been buried in London was redeveloped, and in his honor the local road was renamed Swedenborg Gardens. In 1997, a garden, play area and memorial near the road were created in his memory.^[100][101]

Veracity

Swedenborg’s transition from scientist to revelator or mystic has fascinated many people ever since it occurred (see list of some of the people involved above, in introduction).

Swedenborg has had a variety of biographers, favorable and critical.^[102] Some propose that he did not in fact have a revelation at all, but rather developed his theological ideas from sources ranging from his father to earlier figures in the history of thought, notably Plotinus.This position was first and most notably taken by the Swedish writer Martin Lamm, who wrote a biography of Swedenborg in 1915, which is still in print.^[103][104] Olof Lagercrantz, the Swedish critic and publicist, had a similar point of view, calling Swedenborg’s theological writing “a poem about a foreign country with peculiar laws and customs”.^[105]

Swedenborg’s approach to demonstrating the veracity of his theological teachings was to find and use voluminous quotations from the Old Testament and New Testament to demonstrate agreement between the Bible or Word of God and his theological teachings. The demonstration of this agreement is found throughout his theological writings, since he rejected blind faith and declared true faith is an internal acknowledgment of the truth. The vast and consistent use of Biblical confirmations in Swedenborg’s theological writings led a Swedish Royal Council in 1771, examining the heresy charges of 1770 against two Swedish supporters of his theological writings, to declare “there is much that is true and useful in Swedenborg’s writings.”^[106]

Beginning in the 20th century, the medical community began to notice similarities between the accounts of Swedenborg concerning the afterlife and the experiences of those who were revived after their heart had stopped.^{[107][108][109]} Among hundreds and then later thousands of witness accounts, the experiences of these people shared common traits which eventually became known as the “Near Death Experience” (NDE). Raymond Moody, a psychologist and medical doctor who first coined the term for NDE, noted that similar to these accounts, Swedenborg described death as a pulling away from the physical body, followed by encounters with departed ones and a life review drawn from the person’s memory.^[110] Most notably, many of these witnesses describe encountering a supreme Being of Light, or a light at the end of a tunnel, which Swedenborg had also described as the Sun of heaven in which the Lord resided.^[111] These experiences are still being studied by various researchers.

Scientific beliefs

Swedenborg proposed many scientific ideas during his lifetime. In his youth, he wanted to present a new idea every day, as he wrote to his brother-in-law Erik Benzelius in 1718. Around 1730, he had changed his mind, and instead believed that higher knowledge is not something that can be acquired, but that it is based on intuition. After 1745, he instead considered himself receiving scientific knowledge in a spontaneous manner from angels.^[112]

From 1745, when he considered himself to have entered a spiritual state, he tended to phrase his “experiences” in empirical terms, claiming to report accurately things he had experienced on his spiritual journeys.

One of his ideas that is considered most crucial for the understanding of his theology is his notion of correspondences. But in fact, he first presented the theory of correspondences in 1744, in the first volume of Regnum Animale dealing with the human soul.^[47]

The basis of the correspondence theory is that there is a relationship between the natural (“physical”), the spiritual, and the divine worlds. The foundations of this theory can be traced to Neoplatonism and the philosopher Plotinus in particular. With the aid of this scenario, Swedenborg now interpreted the Bible in a different light, claiming that even the most apparently trivial sentences could hold a profound spiritual meaning.^[113]

Psychic accounts

Four incidents of purported psychic ability of Swedenborg exist in the literature.^[114] There are several versions of each story.

Fire anecdotes

On Saturday, July 19, 1759 a great and well-documented fire broke out in Stockholm, Sweden.^{[115][116][117][118][119][120]} In the high and increasing wind it spread very fast, consuming about 300 houses and making 2000 people homeless.^[116]

When the fire broke out Swedenborg was at a dinner with friends in Gothenburg, about 400 km from Stockholm. He became agitated and told the party at six o’clock that there was a fire in Stockholm, that it had consumed his neighbor’s home and was threatening his own. Two hours later, he exclaimed with relief that the fire had stopped three doors from his home. In the excitement following his report, word even reached the ears of the provincial governor, who summoned Swedenborg that same evening and asked for a detailed recounting.

At that time, it took two to three days for news from Stockholm to reach Gothenburg by courier, so that is the shortest duration in which the news of the fire could reach Gothenburg. The first messenger from Stockholm with news of the fire was from the Board of Trade who arrived Monday evening. The second messenger was a royal courier, who arrived on Tuesday. Both of these reports confirmed every statement to the precise hour that Swedenborg first expressed the information. The accounts are fully described in Bergquist, pp. 312–313 and in Chapter 31 of The Swedenborg Epic.^[121][122]

It seems unlikely in the extreme that the many witnesses to Swedenborg’s distress during the fire, and his immediate report of it to the provincial governor^[123][124] would have left room for doubt in the public eye of Swedenborg’s report. Indeed, if Swedenborg had only received news of the fire by the normal methods there would have been no issue of psychic perception recorded for history. .

In a second fire anecdote, similar to the first one, but less cited, is the incident of the mill owner Bolander. Swedenborg warned him, again abruptly, of an incipient fire in one of his mills.^[125]

Queen of Sweden

The third event was in 1758 when Swedenborg visited Queen Louisa Ulrika of Sweden, who asked him to tell her something about her deceased brother Prince Augustus William of Prussia. The next day, Swedenborg whispered something in her ear that turned the Queen pale and she explained that this was something only she and her brother could know about.^[126][127]

Lost document

The fourth incident involved a woman who had lost an important document, and came to Swedenborg asking if a recently deceased person could tell him where it was, which he (in some sources) was said to have done the following night.^[128]

Although not typically cited along with these three episodes, there was one further piece of evidence of possible pertinence here: Swedenborg was noted by the seamen of the ships that he sailed between Stockholm and London to always have excellent sailing conditions.^[129] When asked about this by a friend, Swedenborg played down the matter, saying he was surprised by this experience himself and that he was certainly not able to do miracles.^[129]

Kant on Swedenborg

In 1763, Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), then at the beginning of his career, was impressed by these accounts and made inquiries to find out if they were true. He also ordered all eight volumes of the expensiveArcana Cœlestia (Heavenly Arcana or Heavenly Mysteries). One Charlotte von Knobloch wrote Kant asking his opinion of Swedenborg’s psychic experiences^[130][131] Kant wrote a very affirmative reply, referring to Swedenborg’s “miraculous” gift, and characterizing him as “reasonable, agreeable, remarkable and sincere” and “a scholar”, in one of his letters to Mendelssohn,^[132] and expressing regret that he (Kant) had never met Swedenborg.^[133][134] An English friend who investigated the matter for Kant, including visiting Swedenborg’s home, found Swedenborg to be a “sensible, pleasant and openhearted” man and, here again, a scholar.^[135]

However, three years later, in 1766, Kant wrote and anonymously published a small book entitled Träume eines Geistersehers (Dreams of a Spirit-Seer)^[136] that was a scathing critique of Swedenborg and his writings. He termed Swedenborg a “spook hunter”^[137] ”without official office or occupation”^[138] As rationale for his critique Kant said that he wanted to stop “ceaseless questioning”^[139] and inquiries about “Dreams” from “inquisitive” persons, “both known and unknown”,^[140] and “importunate appeals from known and unknown friends”.^[141] as well as from “moon calves”^[141] He also said he did not want to expose himself to ”mockery.”^[142] More significantly, he became concerned about being seen as an apologist for both Swedenborg and for Spiritism in the guise of the interest in Swedenborg.,^[143] which might have damaged his career.^[144] It seems clear that Dreams was intended as a refutation of all such thinking.^[145] This left Kant in the ironic or hypocritical position of trying to free himself of ridicule while at the same time applying ridicule to Swedenborg .^[143]

However, there has long been a suspicion among some scholars that, despite “Dreams”, Kant actually had a behind-the-scenes respect for Swedenborg.^[146] Certainly there were inconsistencies in Kant’s handling of this issue. For instance,

(1) Kant’s writing style was usually “complex, labored, dry …and earnest”^[147] but in Dreams was often “playful, ironic and humorous”.^[147]

(2) While he mocked Swedenborg in print, in the preserved notes of Kant’s lectures on metaphysics taken by a student named Herder, Kant treated Swedenborg with respect, “not to be sneezed at”.^[148][149]At one point, Herder’s notes term Swedenborg’s visions as “quite sublime”.^[150]

(3) Kant’s friend Moses Mendelssohn thought there was a “joking pensiveness” in “Dreams” that sometimes left the reader in doubt as to whether “Dreams” was meant to make “metaphysics laughable or spirit-seeking credible”.^[151]

(4) In a one of his letters to Mendelssohn, Kant refers to “Dreams” less-than-enthusiastically as a “desultory little essay”.^[152]

For more examples of these discrepancies, see Heron’s list in the original^[153] and with the Dole corrections^[154][155]

Finally, a case has been made that Kant wrote “Dreams” before, not after, the Knobloch letter and that this was accomplished by accidentally or deliberately falsifying the dates of the documents involved, notably that of the Knobloch letter.^[156] This alteration, if true, would strengthen the case for Swedenborg’s work being viewed by Kant, in the last analysis, positively. However, the fact of the matter is difficult to determine since the key date involved is that of the original of the Knobloch letter, which is lost.^[156]

Theology

According to the Doctrine of the New Church the teachings of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ were revealed to and published by Emanuel Swedenborg.^[157]

Swedenborg considered his theology a revelation of the true Christian religion that had become obfuscated through centuries of theology. However, he did not refer to his writings as theology since he considered it based on actual experiences, unlike theology,^[47] except in the title of his last work. Neither did he wish to compare it to philosophy, a discipline he discarded in 1748 because it “darkens the mind, blinds us, and wholly rejects the faith”.^[158]

The foundation of Swedenborg’s theology was laid down in Arcana Cœlestia (Heavenly Mysteries), published in eight Latin volumes from 1749 to 1756. In a significant portion of that work, he interprets the Biblical passages of Genesis and Exodus. He reviews what he says is the inner spiritual sense of these two works of the Word of God. (He later made a similar review of the inner sense of the book of Revelation in Apocalypse Revealed.^[159]) Most of all, he was convinced that the Bible describes a human’s transformation from a materialistic to a spiritual being, which he calls rebirth or regeneration. He begins this work by outlining how the creation myth was not an account of the creation of Earth, but an account of man’s rebirth or regeneration in six steps represented by the six days of creation. Everything related to mankind in the Bible could also be related to Jesus Christ, and how Christ freed himself from materialistic boundaries through the glorification of his human presence by making it Divine. Swedenborg examines this idea in his exposition of Genesis and Exodus.^[160]

Marriage

One aspect of Swedenborg’s writing that is often discussed is his ideas on marriage. Swedenborg himself remained a bachelor all his life, but that did not hinder him from writing voluminously on the subject. His work on Marriage Love (Conjugial Love in older translations) (1768) was dedicated to this purpose.^[161][162]

A central question with regard to marriage is whether it stops at death or continues into heaven. The question arises due to a statement of Jesus’ that appears to say that, indeed, “death do us part.” Paul, furthermore, questions marriage in the first place, as opposed to celibacy. For a detailed analysis of this issue, see Jesus and Paul on the Eternity of Marriage. ^[163]

The quality of the relationship between husband and wife resumes in the spiritual world in whatever state it was at their death in this world. Thus, a couple in true marriage love remain together in that state inheaven into eternity. A couple lacking in that love by one or both partners, however, will separate after death and each will be given a compatible new partner if they wish. A partner is also given to a person who loved the ideal of marriage but never found a true partner in this world. The exception in both cases is a person who hates chaste marriage and thus cannot receive such a partner.^[164]

Swedenborg saw creation as a series of pairings, descending from the Divine love and wisdom^[165] that define God and are the basis of creation. This duality can be seen in the pairing of good and truth,^[166]charity and faith,^[167] God and the church,^[168] and husband and wife.^[169] In each case, the goal for these pairs is to achieve conjunction between the two component parts. In the case of marriage, the object is to bring about the joining together of the two partners at the spiritual and physical levels, and the happiness that comes as a consequence.