About the Author

Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) was a Swedish scientist, nobleman, and theologian who spent his life investigating the mysteries of the soul. Born in Stockholm to a staunchly Lutheran family, he graduated from the University of Uppsala and then traveled to England, Holland, France, and Germany to study the leading scientists of the time. He gained favor with Sweden’s King Charles XII, who gave him the position of overseer of the Swedish mining industry. Later, he was given a seat on the Swedish House of Nobles by Charles XII’s successor, Queen Ulrika Eleonora. Between 1743 and 1745 he began to have visions of heaven, hell, and Jesus Christ which resulted in a stream of books about the nature of God, the afterlife, and the inner meaning of the Bible. He devoted the last decades of his life to studying Scripture and presenting his own unique theology to the world.

Donald L. Rose was a Swedenborgian minister who was educated at the Academy of the New Church in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania and at the University of Grenoble in France. He served his ministry in Australia, New Zealand, France, and Holland. He produced a number of Swedenborgian studies designed for young people, including The Human Face, and was the co-editor of Conversations with Angels and Debates with Devils.

Sylvia Montgomery Shaw is a Mexican-American writer and scholar who was born in Mexico, grew up fully bilingual, majored in Spanish literature as an undergraduate and earned a doctorate degree in English. Her teaching career has taken her to the University of Rhode Island, Clark University, and Boston University. Her research interests include Swedenborg’s influence on writers of the 19th and 20th centuries and studies on the historiography of the Mexican Revolution of 1910, which recently resulted in the completion of a novel set in that crucial era.