Actually it is a mind science - akin to Anton Mesmer, Phineas Quimby and Mary Baker Eddy. Which makes him accordingly a false prophet and teacher - the only one who verified it was himself! When 'mystical' practices are addressed in the bible they are throughly condemned (even to the point of being executed for the practices). (Deuteronomy 18:9-12)
Tell us all Dave - since you failed to address it on another post - is Mercury inhabited by those wearing the clothes of the 1800's? That is the prophecy/divination from Swedenborg.
Mercury was the first NASA mission
The universe is a big place and we are not the only inhabited planet
Orthodox Christianity was developed when it was believed earth was the center of the universe.
Fantastic photos of our solar system.
Swedenborg's Writings on the subject:
THE WORLD OR PLANET MERCURY, AND ITS SPIRITS AND INHABITANTS
The whole heaven is in the form of a single human being, who is therefore called the Grand Man. Every detail, both outward and inward, in the human being answers to that Grand Man, that is, to heaven. This is a secret so far unknown in the world, but I have shown the truth of it at great length.# But those who reach heaven from our world are not enough to make up that Grand Man, being relatively few, so there will need to be people from many other worlds. The Lord's providence ensures that as soon as a deficiency in quality or quantity occurs at any point in the correspondence, people are instantly summoned from another world to fill up the numbers, so maintaining the proportion and keeping heaven stable. # Heaven has a correspondence to the Lord, and a human being has in every detail a correspondence to heaven, so that in the Lord's eyes heaven is a man on the grand scale, and may be called the Grand Man (AC 2996, 2998, 3624-49 [original adds 3636-43], 3741-5, 4625). The whole subject of the correspondence of man and all his parts to the Grand Man who is heaven has been described from experience (AC 3021, 3624-49, 3741-50 [3741 in original], 3883-96, 4039-55 [4051 in original], 4218-28, 4318-31, 4403-21, 4523 [4527 in original]-33, 4622-33, 4652-60, 4791-4805, 4931-53, 5050-61, 5171-89, 5377-96, 5552-73, 5711-27, 10030).
10. I have also had disclosed to me from heaven the part played by the spirits from the planet Mercury in forming the Grand Man. It is the memory, but it is the memory of ideas abstracted from earthly and purely material objects. However, having been allowed to talk with them over a period of many weeks, hearing what they are like and how things are with the inhabitants of that world, I should like to relate my actual experiences.
11. Some spirits approached me, and I was told from heaven that they were from the world nearest to the sun, the planet named in our world Mercury. Immediately on arrival they sought out from my memory what I knew. (Spirits are very clever at doing this, being able when they approach a person to see the details stored in his memory.#) So when they looked into various matters, including the cities and places I had visited, I noticed that they were not interested in churches, palaces, houses or streets, but only in the events I knew had taken place in them, together with such matters as their administration, the character and customs of their inhabitants, and so forth. For such matters are closely bound up with places in a person's memory, so that when the places are recalled, these facts are presented too. I was surprised at this behaviour, so I asked why they dismissed the splendid locations and only looked into the things and events associated with them. They said that they took no pleasure in looking at material, bodily or earthly objects, but only facts. This proved that the spirits from that world answer to the memory of abstract ideas, not material or earthly ones. # Spirits have access to the whole of a person's memory, but nothing passes from their memory into the person's (AC 2488, 5863, 6192-3, 6198-9, 6214). Angels have access to the affections and purposes which initiate and direct what a person thinks, wishes and does (AC 1317, 1645, 5854 [5844 in original]).
12. I was told that the inhabitants of that world behaved in the same way. That is to say, they take no interest in earthly or bodily matters, but in the constitutions, laws and governments of peoples. They are also interested in heavenly matters, which are innumerable. I was also told that many of the people of that world converse with spirits, so that they know about spiritual matters and the conditions of life after death, which makes them disdain bodily and earthly matters. For anyone who knows for sure and is convinced he will live after death is concerned about heavenly matters, since they are an everlasting source of happiness, but not about worldly matters, except so far as the necessities of life demand it. This being the nature of the inhabitants, it is also that of the spirits who come from there.# # The spirits of each world are in the vicinity of their world, because they come from its inhabitants and share their character. It is also so that they can be of service to them (AC 9968).
13. The following experience proved to me how anxious they are to seek out and absorb knowledge of the kind to be found in the levels of the memory above bodily sense-perceptions. When they were looking into my knowledge of heavenly matters, they ran through everything and kept saying: 'That's the sort of thing, that's it.' For when spirits approach a person, they review everything in his memory, calling up from it whatever suits them. In fact, as I have often observed, they read its contents as if it were a book.# These spirits used to do this more skillfully and faster, because they skipped the things that slow down and narrow the inward sight, so as to delay it. All earthly and bodily matters are in this class, if they are regarded as ends in themselves, if, that is, they alone are loved. They concentrate on real objects. For objects free from earthly encumbrance allow the mind to rise and expand widely; but purely material objects draw it downwards, restricting and closing it.
Another experience which plainly showed their anxiety to acquire knowledge and enrich their memory was this. I was once writing something about future events, and they were then too far off to look into these by drawing them out of my memory. They were very cross because I was unwilling to read those things in their presence, and contrary to their usual habit they wanted to abuse me, calling me very wicked, and similar names. So as to show their annoyance they brought on a kind of painful contraction of the right side of my head as far as the ear. But such efforts did me no harm. Since, however, they had done wrong, they kept withdrawing even farther, but still kept stopping, because they wanted to know what I had written. That is how anxious they are for knowledge. # The spirits present with a person have control over everything in his memory (AC 5853, 5857, 5859-60).
14. The spirits of Mercury surpass others in the amount of knowledge they possess, both about matters within the solar system and in the starry sky beyond it. What they have once learned they retain, and recall whenever similar facts are observed. This is another clear proof that spirits have a memory, one in fact much more perfect than human beings have. They retain what they see, hear or otherwise grasp, especially if they get pleasure from it, as these spirits do from knowledge. Things that give pleasure and are loved flow in as if of their own accord and are retained. Other things do not penetrate the memory, but only make superficial contact and slip away.
15. When the spirits of Mercury visit other communities, they investigate the extent of their knowledge, and having done so depart. There exists among spirits, especially among angels, a means of communication which ensures that, if they are in a community where they are accepted and loved, everything they know is shared.# # In the heavens all kinds of goodness are shared, since heavenly love shares everything of its own with others; this is the source of their wisdom and happiness (AC 549-50, 1390-1, 1399, 10130, 10723).
16. The spirits of Mercury are more than usually proud of their knowledge. So they were told that, even though they knew countless facts, there is still an infinite number they do not know; and even if they went on increasing their knowledge for ever, they could still not achieve an acquaintance with all general principles. As for being proud and puffed up, they were told this was not proper. But they replied, by way of excusing their faults, that it was not pride, but merely boasting about the excellence of their memory.
17. They dislike speaking aloud because it is a physical process. So, when there were no spirits to act as intermediaries, I was only able to talk with them by a kind of thought activation. Their memory, being of ideas, not of purely material pictures, presents these more directly to their thinking. For thinking above the pictorial level needs abstract ideas as its object. For all this the spirits of Mercury are not particularly distinguished for their powers of judgment. They take no pleasure in matters requiring judgment or in inferences from known facts. It is the bare facts that give them pleasure.
18. They were asked whether they did not want to make some use of their knowledge, since it is not enough to take pleasure in knowledge, but this must serve a purpose, which is its end in view. Knowledge alone would not serve any purpose for them, but would for others, if they were willing to share their knowledge with them. They were told that anyone who wants to be considered wise ought never to stop at acquiring knowledge, since these are merely auxiliary causes intended to assist the discovery of matters that will affect behaviour. But they replied that they take pleasure in acquiring knowledge, and that is for them is its purpose.
19. Some of them do not want to be seen as human beings like the spirits from other worlds, but as crystal globes. The reason why they want to be seen thus, although they do not succeed, is that in the next life knowledge of non-material matters is represented by crystals. Earths in the Universe (Chadwick) n. 20 20. The spirits of Mercury are totally different from the spirits of our world, since these are not so much interested in ideas as in worldly, bodily and earthly matters, which are material objects. For this reason the spirits of Mercury are unable to associate with the spirits of our world, and wherever they meet them, they run away. The spiritual spheres which emanate from either party are more or less antagonistic. The spirits of Mercury claim that they do not wish to look at the wrapping, but the ideas stripped of their wrappings, that is, what is inside.
21. A fairly bright flame was to be seen burning cheerfully; it lasted for some time. The flame signalled the arrival of spirits from Mercury whose perception, thought and speech were quicker than that of the previous ones. Immediately on arrival they ran through the contents of my memory, but they were too quick for me to grasp what it was they were observing. I heard them saying repeatedly: 'That's the sort of thing.' When they came to what I had seen in the heavens and in the world of spirits, they said they had known this before. I became aware of a large number of spirits associated with them, who were behind me, a little to the left on a level with the back of the head.
22. On another occasion I saw a large number of spirits of this kind, but at some distance from myself, in front and a little to the right. From there they talked with me, but using spirits as intermediaries, for their speech is as rapid as thought and can only be translated into human language by using other spirits as intermediaries. What surprised me was that their speech gave an impression of a rolling wave,* but was still so ready and quick. Since there were many of them speaking at once their speech reached me in waves. A remarkable feature was that it slipped towards my left eye, though they were standing to my right. This was because the left eye corresponds to knowledge of abstract ideas, matters, that is, which are in the province of intelligence; the right eye corresponds to matters which are in the province of wisdom.# They displayed the same quickness in grasping what they had heard and in taking decisions as they did in speaking. They kept saying: 'Yes, that's right; no, that isn't,' making virtually instantaneous judgments.
[* The precise meaning of this word is not clear, but a parallel passage in SE 3233 adds: 'there was as it were a roll of them talking at once'.-TR.]
# The eye corresponds to the intellect, since the intellect is the faculty of inner sight and concerned with non-material objects (AC 2701, 4410, 4526, 9051, 10569). The sight of the left eye corresponds to truths, that is, matters of intelligence, the sight of the right eye to the kinds of good belonging to truth, that is, matters of wisdom (AC 4410).
[...] This what I have been allowed to learn about the spirits and inhabitants of the world of Mercury.
Mark 4:21-34
21 Also He said to them, “Is a lamp brought to be put under a basket or under a bed? Is it not to be set on a lampstand? 22 For there is nothing hidden which will not be revealed, nor has anything been kept secret but that it should come to light. 23 If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” 24 Then He said to them, “Take heed what you hear. With the same measure you use, it will be measured to you; and to you who hear, more will be given. 25 For whoever has, to him more will be given; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.”