A Brief Biography of Emanuel Swedenborg
Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) was a Swedish philosopher and scientist who at age 56, had a spiritual awakening and wrote numerous books on his theological views and related topics. He advocated a version of Christianity of both works and faith, with the Trinity existing in Jesus as the embodiment of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, instead of three separate entities. Swedenborg derived inspiration from dreams and visions, and claimed to have visited heaven, hell, and the world of spirits in between. His works were widely read after his death and highly regarded by poets, writers and mystics such as Blake, Baudelaire, Strindberg, Balzac, Yeats, Jung, and William James. These and others established the New Jerusalem Church in London in 1789.
Who was Emanuel Swedenborg?
Emanuel Swedenborg was a Swedish engineer, natural scientist and – most notably – a theologian. He was born in 1688, and died in 1772. He served in the Swedish House of Nobles, and was a longtime assessor of mines, helping to modernize Sweden’s mining industry. Swedenborg had a longstanding interest in the natural sciences – how the physical universe works. He designed locks and dams, worked on the problem of calculating longitude, published papers on mining technologies and metallurgy, and drew plans for an early submarine and an airplane. In mid- career, he turned towards a study of the human mind and spirit. He studied anatomy in Paris with the leading surgeons of the day, focusing on the brain. He was the first scientist to describe important functions of the cerebral cortex.
Swedenborg was interested in the human body as a physical seat for the human soul. As he shifted from anatomy to theology, he applied this knowledge to the study of the interaction between the soul and body. He undertook a thorough, long term study of the Bible in its original Hebrew and Greek, to discover the internal, spiritual message within the literal narrative.
From that detailed study came the development of a theological system that would renew Christianity, and resolve some of the perennial theological problems of the Christian churches.
Swedenborg’s interest in the mind led him to practice meditation. Perhaps because of this mindfulness he began to have spiritual experiences. In his typical, methodical way – he recorded these in his journals.
In the late 1740s he felt called to write and publish his detailed analysis of this Biblical internal sense, along with many other theological works. This occupied him until his death in 1772.
His work was met with a mixture of enthusiasm and skepticism. In Lutheran Sweden, his books were largely rejected. In the more free-thinking cities of Amsterdam and London, he was able to publish his works, and people began to read them and talk about them. Swedenborg continued to travel and publish and keep up correspondence with friends and readers well into his 80s.
Some readers of his works formed reading groups to discuss the new ideas.
Some of these groups evolved into churches that adopted New Christian modes of worship according to Swedenborgian principles. Societies were formed to translate and publish his works from the original Latin into modern languages. These churches and publishers soon spread around the globe, and Swedenborg’s works were widely disseminated, producing a considerable influence on the learned world.
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Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772)
A Biography by Kurt Simons
An Evaluation and Biographies
Emanuel Swedenborg was a Swedish nobleman, a contemporary of Bach, Benjamin Franklin, Kant, Wesley, and Newton, living at the time of the first full flowering of what we now think of as modern science. For the first two-thirds of his life, he was deeply immersed in both the physical and biological aspects of that science and in philosophy as well. He not only studied these subjects but also wrote widely and originally about them. His theories about some subjects, such as brain function or cosmology, were proposed many years ahead of those authored by the men generally credited with originating them. He devised a heavier-than-air aircraft and a variety of other inventions that were ahead of their time.
Most significant, however, is not any individual part but the phenomenal scope of Swedenborg’s accomplishments. He lived during the last time in history when one person could master in a lifetime the full sweep of Western philosophic and scientific thought. This he did, while at the same time living an active political life and working as an engineer and mineralogist for the Swedish Board of Mines, itself a demanding job because the Swedish economy was largely based on mining. He was proficient at nine languages, and also mastered a diverse array of practical skills, from watch-making to celestial navigation. In summary, it seems fair to say that Swedenborg was a daVinci-like genius of the first magnitude, a savant who would later be called a “system” thinker. In Emerson’s words (in the chapter on Swedenborg in “Representative Men”), he was a man “not to be measured by whole colleges of ordinary scholars.” In sheer volume, Swedenborg’s written work is so enormous that few have read it in its entirety. His divinely-inspired theological works alone are not just thirty-five volumes long, but are densely packed with often profound and theologically ground-breaking ideas.
How do you judge such a person?
How can we know if Swedenborg’s theology is the result of his own great insight or is truly divinely inspired? How could his disclosure of the internal sense of the Word constitute (as he claimed) the Second Advent of the Lord?
The answer, of course, is that we can’t. Here again, God is seeing to it that our spiritual free will is protected. As those who wish to do so can find reasons not to believe that there is a God or that He came to this planet in person, or even that a particular scientific finding is true, so those who wish to can find reasons to credit Swedenborg’s theology to him rather than believing it to be revelation from God.
Consider, however, some of the more obvious aspects of Swedenborg’s life and work that bear on the credibility of his revelatory claim:
1) The actual process of revelation Swedenborg claims to have experienced was not mysterious or occult. It was straightforward and completely in keeping with his description of what is involved in the death process, i.e., becoming directly aware of the “spiritual world.” The transition, the conscious awakening directly in the spirit’s plane, is something everyone experiences when their body dies. Swedenborg, like the Biblical prophets and seers, was simply allowed to experience it before his actual death and then report back to us. In freedom, we may or may not choose to believe there is such a place as the spiritual world, but if we take Swedenborg at his own word, his description at least provides a reasonable explanation for how his revelation worked.
2) Swedenborg has sometimes been termed a “mystic,” and his revelation an “esoteric” work. While this is an accurate description according to his methodology, his theological works are certainly not mysterious or obscure.
The reader may believe what Swedenborg writes or not, but there is certainly no problem with understanding what he writes. Indeed, the fact that Swedenborg does not waffle or take refuge in ambiguous prose sets him apart from other avowed revelators. His dispassionate philosophic-scientific descriptions and reasoning, running from volume to volume in endless, calmly stated detail, have more in common with a lab report than with the occult.
3) Some have suggested that Swedenborg was insane, but this charge has never stood up to an objective examination of his life. (For a detailed review of this question, see “The Madness Hypothesis,” special issue of The New Philosophy 1998;101.) Swedenborg was a humble, genial man, respected and well liked by virtually everyone who came in contact with him. His life as a nobleman and scholar is well documented. In short he did not fit the diagnostic criteria for antisocial behavior or a thought disorder. Further, his measured philosophic-scientific prose and careful reasoning make it impossible to classify him as “irrational,” another criterion for insanity. Was he on an ego trip, trying to show off his massive intellect? If so, why did he venture into such a controversial area as he must have known his theology would be? Swedenborg was becoming quite famous for his scientific and philosophical works. Why did he give that up? And why did he claim his published works were a kind of divine revelation, an assertion he knew would excite nothing but opposition in those church-dominated times? (His revelation did in fact excite opposition. His books were banned in Sweden and he had to travel to England and Europe to have them published.)
Perhaps Swedenborg had a messianic complex, envisioning himself saving the world with his great theological insight? If so, why did he both write and publish his revelation anonymously for most of his many years? Why did he not attempt to start a church of his own, as most other theologians had done?
When it became known at last that Swedenborg was the author of the books of the Second Coming, he never took advantage of the excitement this produced to market them. Although he circulated the books to university libraries and certain individuals, he personally would only talk about his works if asked, and then only in his typical calm and friendly way. Finally, there are his repeated statements, both in the books of the Second Coming and to those who asked him in person, that these were not his works, that he was but a humble scribe writing at God’s direction.
Those who accept his theology as revelation do not view him as a saint, but only as a gifted and useful – and quite mortal – man. Swedenborg was emphatic in saying, in effect, “Don’t take my word for it. I state that these works are a revelation from God because I don’t want anyone to think I’m trying to take credit for them. It is not my claim that makes them true, but the truth itself contained in them. Let everyone who is interested examine that truth for themselves, as is done in scientific investigations, and make up their own mind.”
4) Swedenborg’s desire that each reader test the truth of the revelation brings up another point: If there is a God and He created the human mind, does it not seem reasonable that, if He were sending a revelation of truth for those minds, it would “fit?” with their rational operation? Would He make a mind with square holes and then send round pegs of truth to put into it? One of the characteristics of the Second Coming teachings that has been admitted even by Swedenborg’s critics is the great wisdom and plain common sense they contain. This is not proof, but it is something else to think about.
5) By the same token, if God were going to reveal the full rational explanation of His creation, doesn’t it seem likely that He would use a person with as wide a range of knowledge as possible? Wouldn’t it be helpful to have that person be one of most brilliant who ever lived? At the same time, shouldn’t the revelator be a humble person, someone who would avoid the temptation to misuse that truth, someone primarily concerned with faithfully serving God and their fellow human beings? Swedenborg may not have been the only person in history who could have fit those criteria, but there seem few others who could have met those requirements at that time.
6) There were several famous incidents late in Swedenborg’s life, after it was known that he claimed to be doing research in the spiritual world, in which he reported things to people still in life that he learned from people in the other world. It should be noted that Swedenborg only did this when specifically asked to (and often not even then), and not to show off. These incidents are well documented – involving, in one case, Queen Lovisa Ulrika of Sweden and in another case John Wesley – and there appears no obvious way to explain how he found out the things he did, if he was not in communication with the spiritual world. Swedenborg also accurately predicted the day of his own death. Again, these facts don’t prove the truth of his claim but are something to think about.
7) Perhaps the hardest thing to explain by non-spiritual means about Swedenborg’s revelation, however, is simply how he managed to write it at all. He did not begin work on it until he was fifty-seven years of age, and he began by constructing a huge Bible index based on the original Hebrew and Greek texts. In the Second Coming works themselves, many pages contain large sets of cross-references to his other books and the Bible (e.g. New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine n. 306, Doctrine of the Lord n.9), all compiled without benefit of a database! In the next 27 years, he not only wrote thousands of pages – with a quill pen – but rewrote corrected copies of each book for the printer. He then saw the books through publication, did the proofreading, and attended to many other details. And far from doing all this from the comfort of his home, he had to travel to England and Europe to do this work.
Yet all this still does not make completely clear Swedenborg’s accomplishment. His revelation was not simply large in page-count terms. It was also of staggering scope, complexity, and originality, especially in the context of Swedenborg’s own time. (One reason some of his ideas no longer seem so original is that, in the 200 years since he wrote them, many of those ideas have worked their way into our culture by indirect means, notably in the works of the many influential people who read his work, ranging from the Brownings to Emerson and Helen Keller.) Could a man, even a genius like Swedenborg, have accomplished all this and so late in life? The experience of other people, geniuses or not, suggests it would be impossible for a person on his own. Once again, we just don’t know. Whether Swedenborg was simply another theological commentator like Luther or Calvin, or the last and greatest of the prophets, is a matter of belief, just like the question of whether there is a God and whether He reveals Himself to us in the first place. If, as the teachings of the Second Coming state, you are living in spiritual freedom, all you can do is to search for the explanation of reality that makes the most sense to you, with the cautionary note that we all have the tendency to relate to that which confirms what we already believe.
A final thought from Swedenborg, made in the last moments of his life:
“Then, in preparation for the Communion, Ferelius [a priest, and friend of Swedenborg]… observed that in as much as quite a number of people thought that his sole purpose in giving out his new theological system had been to make a name for himself, Swedenborg would do well, if that were so, to deny either the whole or part of what he had presented. Upon hearing these words [Swedenborg] half rose in his bed and, placing his… hand upon his breast said, with great earnestness: ‘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.’” (The Swedenborg Epic, p. 432)
After the huge range of remarkable teachings that had been revealed to him – “I could have said more had it been permitted.” What other amazing things might that “more” have included? Presumably we will discover the answer to this, when we ourselves experience the “revelation” of passing into the spiritual world at death.
Swedenborg Biographies: An Introduction
Swedenborg’s claim to have received the revelation of Jesus Christ in His Second Coming has been, not surprisingly, a controversial one. The diversity of opinion about it is reflected in the various biographies of Swedenborg, which range across the spectrum of full credence to his claim, to outright dismissal of it. There is a similar range of treatment in reviews of Swedenborg’s theological works. Some biographies primarily cite the works that Swedenborg published himself, which give them the appearance of authoritative, divine revelation. Others quote his unpublished works, typically Worship and Love of God, The Divine Wisdom, The Divine Love, Spiritual Experiences and The Apocalypse Explained, which some contend do not appear to be based on authoritative revelation.
The “outright dismissal” approach is of course a perfectly valid position.
Indeed, it would appear to be an inescapable point of view for a non-believer.
As Jonsson notes in his biography (listed below), “Those who do not share his belief (i.e. Swedenborg’s belief that his was a true revelation) can only try to fit him into the traditional pattern, and support can be found in the religious-historical view that the assumption of a religious role is always dependent on the entire makeup of the individual, including his level of education.” (p. 16).
There is also no question that many ideas similar or identical to those of the Second Coming are to be found in earlier works, such as Origen of Alexandria’s (ca.185-254 A.D.) claims of an inner, spiritual sense of the Bible (e.g. see “The Theology of Origen” New Church Life, 1903, pp. 132-137, 206- 210), Pelagius’ teachings on free will, and the Neoplatonists’ subscription to the ideas of a spiritual sun and what Swedenborg would later term correspondences (see C. Sigstedt The Swedenborg Epic, New York: Bookman 1952, p. 179). The Neoplatonist Plotinus also had the idea of creation coming out of God, as opposed to the traditional Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo.
However, the critical point missing from proposals that Swedenborg took ideas from such sources is consideration of the extent to which those ideas in turn could be traced back to earlier revelations, ultimately to the teachings of the Ancient Church (True Christian Religion 264-266). This oversight is particularly surprising in view of the explicit detailing of this history of revelation in the Second Coming teachings, such as:
“I have been informed that Enoch (who is mentioned in Genesis 5:21-24) and those associated with him collected correspondences from the lips of [the] men [of the Most Ancient Church], and transmitted this knowledge to their posterity; and that from this it came to pass that in many of the kingdoms of Asia the knowledge of correspondences both existed and was cultivated, especially in the land of Canaan, in Egypt, Assyria, Chaldea, Syria, Arabia, Tyre, Sidon, and Nineveh, and that it was thence carried into Greece; but was there turned into myths, as can be seen from the writings of the ancient Greeks.” (True Christian Religion 202, see also 275)
“Do you believe that the ancient sages, such as Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca and others, who wrote about God and the immortality of the soul, got this idea first from their own understanding? No, they derived it by borrowing from others, who learned it first from the ancient Word….”
(True Christian Religion 273)
The important point to note here, however, is that – from a “believer” perspective – it really doesn’t matter what the apparent origins of the teachings of the Second Coming may be. The rules of the Ten Commandments were not original, having appeared in such places as the Code of Hammurabi (see also L. Boadt Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction, New York: Paulist Press 1984) long prior to their being given on Mt. Sinai. What distinguished the Commandments from such earlier lists was that God put His seal of approval on them at Sinai, giving them Divine authority. Similarly, whether a given teaching of the Second Coming was – under the guiding hand of Providence (i.e. Jesus Christ) – derived from something Swedenborg had read earlier in life or from material he received for the first time as revelation, it is the Divine imprimatur of inclusion in Swedenborg’s inspired works that gives the Second Coming teachings their authority.
A Listing of Swedenborg Biographies
R. Bell, Intelligent Default: Swedenborg’s Theistic Science and the Problem of Organic Form, Swedenborg Scientific Association, Bryn Athyn, PA, 2019.
The first part of this theistic treatment of the science of evolution details the intellectual development of Swedenborg the scientist, from his earliest days to his transition to Christian revelator. In doing so, this book offers a detailed analysis of this often neglected scientific period of Swedenborg’s life.
E. Benz. Emanuel Swedenborg. Visionary Savant in the Age of Reason, Swedenborg Foundation, West Chester, PA, 2002. (A translation of the German original, published in 1948.) An extensive consideration by the noted German scholar, basically, though not completely, affirmative to Swedenborg’s claims. Review of Swedenborg’s theology is for the most part taken from Swedenborg’s published work.
L. Bergquist. Swedenborg’s Secret, Swedenborg Foundation, London, 2005. (A translation of the Swedish original.) Long and scholarly, with some attribution to “inspiration” but basically in the Lamm tradition (see below), e.g., with Swedenborg’s “interpretations” seen as influenced by experience ranging from his father to Christian Pietists and Moravians to Swedenborg’s knowledge of anatomy and his political experience. Cites both unpublished and published works.
M. B. Block, The New Church in the New World: A Study of Swedenborgianism in America, Henry Holt, New York, 1932; reprinted New York, Octagon, 1968). A brief and readable overview of Swedenborg and his revelation, presented as introductory material to a social history of the individuals and organizations that were affected by the revelation’s teachings. Objective but affirmative, cites published works.
G. F. Dole, R.H. Kirven. A Scientist Explores Spirit. A Biography of Emanuel Swedenborg with Key Concepts of His Theology, Swedenborg Foundation, West Chester, PA 1997). Brief and readable, basically affirmative but also ambivalent about the extent to which the Swedenborg’s theological works are divine revelation and the extent to which they are a product of Swedenborg’s own thinking. Cites both unpublished and published works.
I. Jonsson. Emanuel Swedenborg, Twayne, New York, 1971. Reprinted by the Swedenborg Foundation in 1999 under the title Visionary Scientist: The Effects of Science and Philosophy on Swedenborg’s Cosmology. This biography falls squarely in the Lamm tradition (see below), attempting to demonstrate that the source of Swedenborg’s ideas was his culture rather than revelation. Cites both unpublished and published works.
M. Lamm. Emanuel Swedenborg: The Development of His Thought, Swedenborg Foundation, West Chester, PA, 2000. (A translation of the Swedish original, published in 1915). Lamm was the original proponent of the idea that Swedenborg’s work was not based on revelation at all but simply a recycling of ideas taken from other sources in the history of ideas. This position has been echoed in more recent work, such as the Jonsson and Bergquist biographies, and the Lang introduction to the New Century Edition of Heaven and Hell (West Chester: Swedenborg Foundation 2001). Cites both unpublished and published works.
C. Sigstedt. The Swedenborg Epic, Bookman Associates, New York, 1952. Reprinted by the Swedenborg Society in 1981. Affirmative and, in terms of length and historical coverage, definitive. It is written in narrative form, as what would now be termed a non-fiction novel. Much of its review is drawn from the unpublished works, typically the Spiritual Experiences.
S. Synnestvedt. A short biography from The Essential Swedenborg, Swedenborg Foundation, New York, 1976. Concise and neutral selection of passages taken directly from Swedenborg’s works. All but a minority are drawn from the published works.
S. Toksvig. Emanuel Swedenborg: Scientist and Mystic, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1948. This brief biography is skeptical of Swedenborg’s claims but relatively balanced. Cites both unpublished and published works, but with Spiritual Experiences preponderant.
G. Trobridge. Swedenborg Life and Teaching, Swedenborg Foundation, New York, 1935. Several reprints. At one time the most popular biography. Intermediate length, affirmative. Majority of citations from published works. (Most of this book is available online.)
Wikipedia entry, “Emanuel Swedenborg.” Diverse collection of information, typical of Wikipedia. Also typical is the various authors’ attempts to present Swedenborg and his theology in a fair and neutral way.
J. Williams-Hogan. Swedenborg: A Biography, in Swedenborg and His Influence. E. J. Brock (ed.)., The Academy of the New Church, Bryn Athyn, PA, 1988, pp.3-27. Brief and affirmative. Cites only published works.
For Further Reading
K. Akert, M.P. Hammond. “Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) and His Contributions to Neurology”, Medical History, 1962 Jul;6:255-6 (A brief review.)
Dunér D. [On tremulations. Emanuel Swedenborg’s Iatromechanics], Svensk medicinhistorisk tidskrift, 2005; 9:27-48.
“On the basis of his daily life experiences of water waves the Swedish natural philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) could use the wave metaphor to transfer the qualities of these waves to other physical phenomena such as sound waves and light waves. In the last issue of his scientific journal Daedalus Hyperboreus (1718), he published an overview of a new theory of tremulations. Swedenborg’s most original idea was put forward more in detail in a manuscript of 1720. He maintained that life consists of waves or tremors of the nerves. The body is like a musical instrument. He was a typical follower of iatromechanics, describing the body as a machine with pumps, levers, bellows and so forth. Of special interest is his use of the metaphor of the circle. There are many different kinds of circulations in the body, such as the blood circulation, and respiration, which are parallels to the planetary motions.” (from PubMed)
H. Fodstad. “The neuron theory”, Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery, 2001;77:20-4
In 1740 the Swedish scientist and philosopher Emmanuel Swedenborg described what is the first known anticipation of the neuron (a nerve cell with its processes). One hundred years later Ehrenberg, Remak and Purkinje recognized the nerve cell as the important element of the nervous system and provided its first accurate description. Vilhelm von Waldeyer in 1891 proposed to call the unit ‘neuron’ from the Greek word for ‘sinew’. The ‘neuron theory’ or ‘neuron doctrine’, which emerged at the end of the 19th century, asserts that nerve tissue is composed of individual cells, which are genetic, anatomic, functional and trophic units. The pioneers of the neuron doctrine included neuroscientists, physicians, a polar explorer and three Nobel Laureates. The classic neuron doctrine has served well as the theoretical basis for the great advances in our current understanding of the cellular basis of nervous system functions. (from PubMed) E. Gordh, Torsten ; G.P. Mair, William ; Sourander, Patrick “Swedenborg, Linnaeus, Brain Research and the Roles of Gustaf Retzius and Alfred Stroh in the Rediscovery of Swedenborg’s Manuscripts”, Upsala Journal of Medical Sciences, 2007; 112:143-164 “Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) at the end of his long life became famous as a visionary mystic and founder of a new religion. However, at younger age, he was recognized as a prominent mining engineer and natural philosopher, particularly interested in geology, mineralogy, cosmology, paleontology and last but not least physiology of the brain. In his Oeconomia regni animalis (1740) and in several posthumously published extensive manuscripts, he described and analyzed the structural and functional organization of the cerebral cortex, the hierarchical construction of the nervous system, the localization of the cerebrospinal fluid and the secretory functions of the pituitary gland. In these fields, he presented remarkable insights and far reaching conclusions which in some cases have been experimentally verified in modern times. In spite of family relations Swedenborg rarely met the 19 years younger Linnaeus. Linnaeus, a botanist, was not only the founder of the biological system of binomial nomenclature, but as a physician, also a keen and to some extent original observer of neurological symptoms; one of the first who adequately described motor aphasia. To regard these two men, among the few Swedish authors of the 18th century whose names are still internationally well known, as early precursors of neurological research, seems justified. The young Canadian, Alfred H. Stroh (1878-1922), had a crucial importance for the research on the works of Swedenborg, and the rediscovery of his manuscripts. His work was supported and financed to a large extent by professor Gustaf Retzius, at that time the most prominent Swedish researcher in anatomy and histology. There are many reasons to be thankful for the important contributions made by Alfred Stroh and Gustaf Retzius to stimulate the interest for Emanuel Swedenborg in Sweden and internationally.” (from PubMed) C.G. Gross. “Emanuel Swedenborg: A neuroscientist before his time.” The Neuroscientist 3: 2 (1997): 142-147 (also appears in C.G. Gross. Brain, Vision, Memory, MIT Press, Boston 1998) and in The New Philosophy 1999;102:429-445)
C.G. Gross. “Twitches versus movements. A story of motor cortex.” The Neuroscientist 2003; 16: 332-342
A review of Swedenborg’s contributions to neuroscience: sensation, movement, and cognition as functions of the cerebral cortex, function of the corpus callosum, somatotropic organization of the motor cortex, description of the neural pathway of each sense organ to the cortex, functions of the frontal lobe and the corpus striatum, circulation of the cerebrospinal fluid, and interaction of the pituitary gland between the brain and the blood.
Gross, C. “The Discovery of Motor Cortex and its Background.” Journal of the History of the Neurosciences. 2007; 16:320-331.
In 1870 Gustav Fritsch and Edvard Hitzig showed that electrical stimulation of the cerebral cortex of a dog produced movements. This was a crucial event in the development of modern neuroscience because it was the first good experimental evidence for a) cerebral cortex involvement in motor function, b) the electrical excitability of the cortex, c) topographic representation in the brain, and d) localization of function in different regions of the cerebral cortex. This paper discusses their experiment and some developments in the previous two centuries that led to it, including the ideas of Thomas Willis and Emanuel Swedenborg, the widespread interest in electricity, and the localizations of function of Franz Joseph Gall, John Hughlings Jackson, and Paul Broca. We also consider the subsequent study of the motor cortex by David Ferrier and others. (From PubMed) Gross, C. “Three before their time: neuroscientists whose ideas were ignored by their contemporaries.” Experimental Brain Research. 2008 Jul 19. [Epub ahead of print]
“I discuss three examples of neuroscientists whose ideas were ignored by their contemporaries but were accepted as major insights decades or even centuries later. The first is Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) whose ideas on the functions of the cerebral cortex were amazingly prescient….
R. H Griffith. “Swedenborg in the realm of finance.” The New Philosophy. 1972;75:283-289.
H. Söderberg, Swedenborg’s 1714 Airplane. A Machine to Fly in the Air, Swedenborg Foundation, New York, 1988.
A detailed evaluation of Swedenborg’s concept of a flying machine, its place in aviation history, and how a a model was constructed for the National Air and Space Museum, all under the the supervision of Dr. Paul Garber, Curator of the Museum. (pp. 32ff.).