Swedenborg Reading Group
S w e d e n b o r g C h a p e l * 5 0 Q u i n c y S t r e e t , C a m b r i d g e , M A 0 2 3 8 2 * 6 1 7 . 8 6 4 . 4 5 5 2
Copyright 2008 All Rights Reserved
About the Group
While the Swedenborgian church started with groups of people reading his books 200 years ago, this particular group has been in existence for a little over half a decade. The reading group meets weekly on Thursday nights from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m.. We gather to read and discuss the theological writings of Emanuel Swedenborg. While his writings are centuries old, they ask and answer questions that, even today, are pertinent to living a meaningful and intentional life. We welcome all who wish to participate.
Re-Imagining the Past
A hundred a fifty years ago, a group of Harvard students and teachers sat not to far from here reading Swedenborg. Emerson, Thoreau, Reed, and many more all explored the questions of the ultimate while reading Swedenborg. Today, the reading group revives a tradition dating back before the invention of television, movies and other forms of entrainment. In fact, until recent times, when books are bought and sold for a dollar on the street corner, books were considered to be one of the most valuable items in a person’s home. Groups would form where people would bring a book they had purchased and read to one another. Depending on the book, it might be the only one in the state.
JOIN US FOR AN EVENING OF READING!
Whether you start at the beginning of the book or join toward the end, everybody is welcome to attend and fully participate. The group has a collection of books for those who attend, so there is no need to bring anything. The members of the group are used to people who know little about religion, Swedenborg, or what has already been read of the text. We seek an open environment where people can bring their whole self to the discussion of the text, keeping in mind the purpose of the group is to focus on the primary source material of Emanuel Swedenborg.
Eugene Taylor, Ph.D., director of the Cambridge Institute of Psychology and Religion.
To peruse the pages of Secrets of Heaven is to make a spiritual journey with one of the most remarkable visionaries the Western world has ever produced. Emanuel Swedenborg guides us through Scripture, specifically through the verses of Genesis and Exodus. From deep within the Bible, he uncovers the hidden meaning of these books, revealing evidence, for example, of emotional and mental trials that Jesus underwent during his life on earth. He also reveals the mysteries of the afterlife and the angelic welcome and process of self-discovery that await us after we die.
Translator Lisa Hyatt Cooper has produced a fresh and vibrant render of this spiritual classic. Wouter J. Hanegraaff, professor of History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents at the University Of Amsterdam, provides an introduction that relates the work to the context of its times; and renowned Swedenborg scholar William Ross Woofenden supplies an overview of the work in the context of Swedenborg's other works.
"With regard to Swedenborg's Secrets of Heaven, there never was a time more pressing than now to understand that the internal spiritual meaning of the Christian Bible refers not to the special dispensation of one sect, but to the evolution of a higher spiritual consciousness within each individual."
Our Current Book: Secrets of Heaven (2009)
Reading Group: 7:00-8:00 p.m.
Visitors Welcome!!