Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) was born in Stockholm, Sweden, and died in London, England. He was a pluralistic-Christian theologian, inventor, scientist, philosopher and mystic. He graduated from the University of Uppsala in 1709, and in 1715, published Sweden's first scientific journal, Daedalus Hyperboreus. King Charles XII appointed him assessor at the Royal Board of Mines. In this office, he devoted himself for 30 years to the development and improvement of Sweden's metal mining industries, as well as publishing reports and treatises on various scientific, mathematical, and philosophical issues. In 1741, he entered into a spiritual phase in which he began to experience dreams and visions. His experiences culminated in a spiritual awakening in which he said he received a revelation that Jesus Christ had appointed him to write The Heavenly Doctrine to reform Christianity. The foundation of Swedenborg's theology was laid down in Heavenly Arcana (1749-1756). The New Church, also known as the Church of the New Jerusalem or Swedenborgianism, is a new religious movement originally founded in 1787 and comprising several historically-related Christian denominations that revere Swedenborg's writings as revelation. Swedenborg wrote 18 published theological works during the last twenty-eight years of his life. Some of his best known works include Philosophical and Mineralogical Works (1734), The Economy of the Animal Kingdom (1740), and On Heaven and Its Wonders and on Hell (1758).

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