Why Swedenborg's 18th Century Thinking Is Relevant Now is Subject on The Lyceum Internet Radio Show

July 25, 2011 - PRLog -- Swedenborg Foundation
Media contact:   WJ Carrel

West Chester, PA - Stephen Larsen, PhD, award-winning author and Psychology Professor Emeritus from SUNY Ulster, New York will be interviewed by host Michael Jon Kell, MD, PhD on the The Lyceum: Critiques of Ancient & Modern Understanding, a new Internet radio program on World Talk Radio Variety Channel, Friday, July, 29, 2011 at 7 am PT and 10 am  ET.  The one hour show, entitled “Emanuel Swedenborg: Why His 18th Century Thinking is Relevant Now” will focus on the life and influence of Swedish nobleman Emanuel Swedenborg, a scientist and theologian. The discussion can be accessed through the World Talk Radio web site as well as through Kell’s web site at mindbrainbody.com.

“Swedenborg was a great writer and published 50 volumes of philosophy. These volumes influenced Americans and Europeans for more than two centuries,” comments Stephen Larsen.

“My father discovered the writings of Swedenborg when experiencing a life crisis.  He was transformed and became a Swedenborgian minister,” continues Larsen.  “Swedenborg’s work, now underappreciated in western culture and letters, was, in the 18th and 19th centuries, influential. Swedenborg, in response to fundamentalist thinking of his time, wrote we must not wait for an historical event outside ourselves to determine our course, but we should try to examine the quality of our own lives and find the deep symbolic resonances within. He felt heaven is not a place you go to at the end of your life, but rather a spiritual condition available to all.  He also wrote that if you consider the needs of others as important as your own, you can experience an intelligible symbolic revelation.

“His influence on the arts, theatre, painting, and poetry was huge – Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Balzac, Beaudelaire, Strindberg, Yeats, the visionary Hudson Valley school of painting, New England transcendentalism (Henry James senior, Emerson, Thoreau), the Utopian movement, and the Underground railway.   His philosophy was pivotal in the emancipation movement and the suffrage movement - he wrote that Africans were the most spiritual people on earth and that a woman was every bit as good as a man.  Legislators paid heed and they drew reference to Swedenborg’s wise redactions which gave a basis for dignity for all.”

Stephen Larsen, who has served more than 14 years on the Board of Directors of the Swedenborg Foundation, and Robin Larsen, his wife and collaborator (an art historian and author), is an Honorary Board Member. They also serve on the foundation’s Education and Publication Committee. Robin Larsen was Editor-in-Chief of the monumental, tri-centennial anthology titled Emanuel Swedenborg: A Continuing Vision, published in 1988, 300 years after Swedenborg’s birth, by the Swedenborg Foundation. The volume includes chapters from authors in Australia, Europe, and North America.  Stephen Larsen wrote the introduction to, and edited, Carolyn Blackmer’s book Swedenborg’s Spiritual Psychology.  He also authored the introduction to the Paulist Press volume on Swedenborg (part of their Classics of World Religion series), edited and translated by Dr. George Bole. Larsen makes frequent reference to Swedenborg in his award-winning book The Fundamentalist Mind: How Polarized Thinking Imperils Us All (Quest Books).

“The Lyceum refers to the school of inquiry founded by Aristotle. The purpose of the several schools of ancient Athens was to provide a forum where interested persons could present and discuss various ideas about the universe and man's place in it.  We think this was a great idea and see no reason not to continue such inquiries today--but, over the Internet rather than in a public square. Tune in, listen to our remarkable guests and then head to the library!” comments Kell. The interview will be live and posted for replay 24/7 within 24 business hours on Dr. Kell’s host page on World Talk Radio.

Radio host Dr. Michael Jon Kell is a medical scientist, psychiatrist, inventor, engineer, narrative poet and “free-thinker”.  He has conducted scientific research on a diverse number of subjects - quantum physics, polymer chemistry, artificial kidneys, drug addiction, pain management, longevity medicine, and herbal medicine, to name a few.  He holds 11 U.S. patents for his discoveries, and is the author of ten books and over 50 scientific publications.

The Swedenborg Foundation, housed in a historic building in West Chester, PA, publishes the writings of Swedish scientist and philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). The non-profit organization, founded over 150 years ago, also publishes works that relate to Swedenborg’s influence on the arts, religion, theology, psychology, and literature.  Much of his writing relates to a deeper understanding of Christianity, often referred to as the New Church. A number of well-known people have been fascinated and/or influenced by Swedenborg’s insights – Helen Keller, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Honoré de Balzac, Immanuel Kant, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Carl Jung, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, August Strindberg, DT Suzuki, and Dr. Mehmet Oz.

More information on Stephen Larsen, Robin Larsen, and their work can be found at stonemountaincenter.com and symbolicstudies.org.  More information on the Swedenborg Foundation can be found at Swedenborg.com.  For more information on The Lyceum Show please contact Tacy Trump, Dr. Michael Kell’s Senior Executive Producer, at 480-294-6421 or tacy.trump at voiceamerica.com.

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