The Presence of Other Worlds: The Psychological/Spiritual Findings of Emanuel Swedenborg

In 1974, Wilson Van Dusen published a groundbreaking study on the findings of Emanuel Swedenborg, a book that has inspired thousands to look more closely into Swedenborg's works and to consider the implications of living a useful and thoughtfully directed life. This updated second edition, published on the thirtieth anniversary of the book's original publication, includes a new introduction to this bestselling work. An account of the monumental journey of an eighteenth-century scientist and philosopher into the depths of his own mind and to spiritual worlds beyond, The Presence of Other Worlds shows how Swedenborg's personal experiences radiate with insights about psychological and spiritual develpments that are relevant to modern-day seekers. It has been hailed since its first publication as a passport for all spiritual voyagers into the human psyche and the innter sanctum of the afterlife. Dr. Raymond Moody, author of Life After Life, provides a foreword that explains the importance of Swedenborg's mystical experiences in connection with the near-death experience. Dr. James Lawrence presents a tribute to Wilson Van Dusen and his enduring legacy in an afterword.

Religion & Spirituality

VAN DUSEN, WILSON

New Age & Spirituality

Harper Row Publishers

Psychologist Wilson Van Dusen explores the secret spaces of our inner world with clues drawn from his own personal experience, his work with psychiatric patients, and his study of Eastern and Western philosophy. Drawing from the insights of Swedish visionary Emanuel Swedenborg, Van Dusen discusses self-reflection, dreams, hallucinations, and the mystical experience.

The natural depth in man

Harper&Row

Psychologist Wilson Van Dusen explores the secret spaces of our inner world with clues drawn from his own personal experience, his work with psychiatric patients, and his study of Eastern and Western philosophy. Drawing from the insights of Swedish visionary Emanuel Swedenborg, Van Dusen discusses self-reflection, dreams, hallucinations, and the mystical experience.

The Natural Depth in Man

Self-Help

Personal Transformation

Swedenborg Foundation Publishers

Used.Acceptable Condition.Softcover.By Wilson Van Dusen.Former Owner Name Stamped.Tanning.1974.Minor Wear Present.

The Presence of Other Worlds

Religious Studies

Swedenborg Foundation

The presence of other worlds: the psychological/spiritual findings of Emmanuel Swedenborg

“Here is an account of a scientific genius, dead two centuries, who having mastered all that science knew of the external world, went on to a daring, often frightening, exploration of the inner world. Van Dusen, having traveled some of the same distance himself, presents Swedenborg sympathetically in the man's own terms. An excitingly thoughtful book.” — Carl R. Rogers

Presence of Other Worlds

In 1974, Wilson Van Dusen published a groundbreaking study on the findings of Emanuel Swedenborg, a book that has inspired thousands to look more closely into Swedenborg's works and to consider the implications of living a useful and thoughtfully directed life. This updated second edition, published on the thirtieth anniversary of the book's original publication, includes a new introduction to this bestselling work. An account of the monumental journey of an eighteenth-century scientist and philosopher into the depths of his own mind and to spiritual worlds beyond, The Presence of Other Worlds shows how Swedenborg's personal experiences radiate with insights about psychological and spiritual develpments that are relevant to modern-day seekers. It has been hailed since its first publication as a passport for all spiritual voyagers into the human psyche and the innter sanctum of the afterlife. Dr. Raymond Moody, author of Life After Life, provides a foreword that explains the importance of Swedenborg's mystical experiences in connection with the near-death experience. Dr. James Lawrence presents a tribute to Wilson Van Dusen and his enduring legacy in an afterword.

The Presence of Other Worlds: The Psychological and Spiritual Findings of Emanuel Swedenborg

Beauty, Wonder, and the Mystical Mind spreads before the reader a rich word picture of the spiritual realm. Wilson Van Dusen describes the mature mystic, enumerating the characteristics of those whose lives are shaped by the experience of God. He explains how religion fits within the context of culture and how mysticism fits -- or does not -- within the context of religion. He also compares the mystical to the aesthetic, noting the similar ways in which art and epiphany move and elevate the experiencer.
Believing that all have the potential to experience God, Van Dusen opens the mystical realm to the reader with his warm and accessible style. Writing from lifelong personal experience in the spiritual dimension, he offers a singular interpretation of the history of major religions and their regard for mysticism.

Beauty, Wonder, and the Mystical Mind

In The Design of Existence, Wilson Van Dusen offers spiritual explorers a guidebook for mystical experience, describing the inner landscape in detail. Though considering himself a scientist, Van Dusen approaches reality as a mystic, using the writings of 18th-century visionary Emanuel Swedenborg as a lens. For Swedenborg and Van Dusen, our interior realm reflects the external cosmos, which makes a mystical sense of oneness possible: "We are in a massive order, far greater than we can see. Yet we are not alien to this order. We are created out of it." For Van Dusen's mysticism, Swedenborg is the exemplar of universality. A scientist who mastered fields as varied as chemistry, physiology, optics, and metallurgy, Swedenborg turned inward to investigate the psychological and the spiritual. He affirmed the value of other religious cultures and even wrote in gender-inclusive Latin. He had startlingly contemporary insights: he saw that the spiritual must inform everyday experience, that feelings must aid the intellect in seeking the spiritual, that the quest for the soul leads to understanding the cosmos and vice versa. Van Dusen uses Swedenborg's ideas as the basis for a true universal mysticism. In The Design of Existence, he invites each of us to confront mystical experience as proof that we and the cosmos share a spiritual design, which orders our lives as surely as it orders the universe itself.

The Design of Existence: Emanation from Source to Creation

Chrysalis Books

Book by Perls, Frederick S., Van Dusen, Wilson

Gestalt Is: A Collection of Articles About Gestalt Therapy and Living

PERLS, FREDERICK S.

Real People Pr

Return to the Source: The Way to the Experience of God

(From the Introduction) This book revolves around a simple observation. Some people find their way into the joys of mystical or transcendent experiences--the direct experience of God. The elements in human experience that can lead into this direct experience of God are relatively common, and are easily available to the agnostic and atheist as well as the believer. I hope to describe the mystical experience until you begin to understand so many aspects of it that you will be able to recognize it and discover it in your own experience. The experience of God is not rare and difficult to obtain. It is our understanding of it that needs great improvement. I am a lifelong and natural mystic. I have known the direct experience of God countless times. What is it like to be a mystic in this world? In part, it is sad. Mystics can go through a long period in which they have experiences of God, but they remain unsure. Once after I gave a talk in a church an old woman waited until the crowd of people who came up to me afterward cleared. I saw that she was not long for this world. Acting very circumspectly, she recited a short dream in which a golden sun came to her, and asked if it was God. I first thought of my standard reply, "We need to get into the dream, and to see what is in it." But then I was struck by the total emotional impact of the larger situation. This old woman is dying, and it matters very much to her if she met God even once in this life. I said, "Yes, it was God," and we both broke into tears. But how sad. She had the marks of a very spiritual person, whose life was embedded in God. And yet she asks desperately if once she met Him. To me she represents most of mankind. She is already well on her way, but she does not recognize the signs. Some people want some thunderbolt out of heaven to knock them down. In my experience such thunderbolts occur, but are rare. Most mystical experience is very direct and simple, like the soft glance of a lover that says it all. U.S. television reflects a culture that craves the big sensation--great explosions and car smash-ups, and death. If you translate this attitude into the mystical realm we would expect God to do it big, and put on a grand show for us. I once approached God in somewhat this attitude, wanting a Big Sign. By direct knowing, without words, I was led to reflect on the scope of the known universe in all its complexity and immensity, and was asked, "Is this not enough sign?" I felt taken aback. If one is not satisfied with the entire created universe as a sign, then nothing much else will do either! To a mystic, the opening of a flower is quite enough sign. One thing that will surprise some readers is that I concentrate on the smallest signs. They can't get too small to notice. The finest way into the direct experience of God is to learn to recognize the little signs you already have, here and now, in the commonplace. God is in all the little, ever-present signs we are missing. All have known this kind of experience, countless times, and yet it is rarely recognized for what it is. There is a fairly classical mystical experience which I believe every human being on earth has enjoyed at some time: the beauty of nature. You are in a beautiful setting, perhaps with a sunset. You are relaxed and simply taking in all the natural beauty. The mood is one of patience and a relaxed perception of what is there. You suddenly and unaccountably feel as though you are a part of the immense, living, creative life before you. There is just awesome wonder in which you are immersed and a part of it all. There is peace and harmony, and the experience feels therapeutic, as though balance is restored. You may have little sense of time passing, or how long you were in awe. There are even small experiences which are like the raptu

Returning to the Source: The Way to the Experience of God

Worship & Devotion

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