Holy Fool,
Apparently you are not well educated enough to grasp the need for verification criteria. ES’s verifications of his visits to the spirit world are far superior not just to your psychotic prophet, but to ALL biblical prophets. So here’s your assignment: actually read my summary of ES’s verifications and show cause why ANY ONE else has produced evidence of comparable merit for their abilities to visit spiritual dimensions. And yes, my Harvard doctoral thesis was on the nature and acquisition of the gift of prophesy.
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This is the definition of divination which the writers of the bible warn against. People who claim to have special knowledge due to their so called abilities to visit the afterlife are false prophets.
From what I understand the gift of prophecy= wisdom. It is not acquired via a Harvard education, nor by exploration of the afterlife. Wisdom is gained through the experience of life itself and is available to all.
Prove it!
Oh, I see. Just because I have a Bachelor’s degree in mathematics…a masters degree in psychology…and a black belt in statistical degree in statistics…means I am not “well educated”…Hum…a doctors degree from Harvard? Well, I know a tenured professor there at Harvard, who has a doctors degree as well…and his mother has a doctors degree from Oxford at 26. And the son in his teens. At what age did you receive your PhD?
Furthermore, I spend 2 decades with the Two Feathers Medicine Clan in Crete Illinois. And I have been around ALL there ceremonies…and ALL their methods of visions…which are centuries old. So my field study there alone, makes me far more qualified than you…on matters of visions. Can you say the same thing? And here’s a segment about them (they disbanded after the spiritual leader Duke passed)
Let’s look at the training, REAL medicine men and women receive (and I know this guy, by the way):
And wasn’t Carols Castaneda’s PhD, based primary on Native American field work?
And I can learn languages, like Japanese, Mandarin, Spanish and French. Which any person can do, right?
And for the record, my Protestant mom…who passed away at 92.5…was born with the gift of prophesy.
So, PLEASE. DON’T try to shove a Harvard PHD in my face…and say I’M not qualified, to criticize Emanuel Swendenborg. GIVE ME A BREAK.
And to say things like “Emmanuel Swedenborg is far superior, to all Biblical prophets”…which would imply he’s “far superior” to ALL Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant mystics. (I.e. Jacob Boehme, Meister Eckhart , Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, etc.)…or Native American holy and medicine people, having centuries of traditions in visions (i.e. Black Elk and Fools Crow)…that’s really “delusions of grander” - in my book.
Especially when the Roman Catholic Church, is considering Black Elk for sainthood.
And least I forget. Is your Harvard doctorate in Psychiatry or Psychology? And are you a licensed therapist or psychiatrist? If not, then you can’t really label someone as “psychotic” - can you, now?
And even the non-denominational site Got Questions…shows how far Swedenborg deviates from Orthodox Christianity.
Let me quote their answer - in full:
Answer: The New Church and the Church of New Jerusalem are alternate names for Swedenborgianism. This group, which has been around since the late 1700s, is well outside of orthodox Christianity in its beliefs and can definitely be labeled as a cult.
Swedenborgianism bases its teachings on the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, who was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1688. His training was in science, but sometime around 1750 he had a vision in which he believed God came to him and declared him to be God’s personal messenger of new revelation. Further encounters with God and other beings in the spiritual realm he traveled to were the basis for his many writings.
These writings include teachings such as: God has many names, depending on the beliefs/religion of the individual; the Holy Spirit is not God; the Trinity does not exist; Jesus Christ’s death did not atone for our sin; salvation comes by practicing what you believe, whatever religion it might be; the afterlife is spiritual, but dependent on how well you lived in your physical body.
None of these teachings are compatible with biblical Christianity. The God of the Bible is the only true God (Exodus 3:13-14; Isaiah 43:10). All other gods are idols; creations of man (Exodus 20:4-5). The Holy Spirit is definitely declared to be God in the Bible (Acts 5:3-4), as is Jesus Christ (John 1:1, 14) and God the Father (Philippians 1:2); the Trinity is a valid, biblical reality. The Bible is also very clear on Jesus’ vicarious atonement of our sin (1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 2:2), and that it is only through belief in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection that salvation is possible (John 14:6; 1 Corinthians 15:1-4). The after-life will be experienced in one of two places—heaven or hell—and that in a physical body (Revelation 22).
Swedenborgianism, and its churches by whatever name they might be called, are as far outside historical, biblical Christianity as a group can get. Although they might claim to base their teachings on the Bible, every teaching is tainted by heresy, confusion, and sometimes lunacy.
So what do we know? The experts at Got Question, don’t think much of him…and I spend a lifetime with a mom, who was born with the git of prophesy…and two decades, with the Two Feathers Medicine Clan. And many years afterwards, with medicine men and women - from various tribes. Who are experts in these matters. And REAL sages from the East, who could do REAL miracles…but attributed it ALL to God. And did I forgot to mention, I hung around various presenters - at the Theosophical Society - who have equally impressive, PhD degrees? As well as a Roman Catholic priest…with the gift of healing and hearing the voice of God?
What do you bring to the table, that’s EQUALLY as compelling and exciting?
It’s seldom I get on a soap box here…but today is one of them.
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Rut Row the zombies are hacked off.
Carlos Castaneda? Wow read a few of those in high school. Wasn’t there peyote involved in there somewhere? 
Well, he used Native American plant medicine. But according to the article:
CASTANEDA, DON JUAN: Datura or Peyote?
It was Datura.
Which is NOT common. As Peyote is the preferred plant medicine, of those from North America. And Ayahuasca and San Pedro - from South America. And plant medicine is not easy. It requires special preparation diets, medical considerations, etc. And my standard CIA answer…is I can neither confirm nor deny, whether I have used such medicine…or taken part in such ceremonies.
And if folks are going to use plant medicine, it should only be with the RIGHT people…in a safe, legal and protected environment.
Anyway, anyone can say anything - about visionaries. And “appeal to authority”, to make their case. Well, I could nominate
or
As “visionaries Extraordinaire”. But I would be ignoring centuries of Sacred Tradition… in the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Native American worlds. And all the brilliant minds, such traditions produce.
Perhaps some people, in picking “visionaries extraordinaire”…are joining Frankenstein…in having some wine and smoking some “interesting” stuff?
(9) THE ALLEGED IMCOMPATIBLITY OF ES’s DISCOVERIES WITH UNIVERSALISM
SOUL RETRIEVALS: FROM “THE WORLD OF SPIRITS” (= HADES) AND HELL:
One of the things that has bothered me about ES is his failure to stress the possibility of performing soul retrievals. In our New Testament, the reality of soul retrievals is implied, for example, in the preaching to human “spirits in prison” (1 Peter 3:19; 4:6) and in the practice of proxy baptism for the unredeemed dead (1 Corinthians 15:28-29), a ritual that no doubt included intercessory prayer, But ES’s astral insight that new discarnates in the World of Spirits gradually ascend to a heaven or descend to a hell may already imply the use of retrievals. because ES describes the role of astral spirit schools and makes it clear that astral progress is ultimately a matter of choice and of achieving the right energetic make-up for ascent to a heaven ES would agree with C., S. Lewis’s wonderful maxim, “The gates of hell are locked from the inside.” And now I’ve found a passage in ES’s most respected biography that seem to imply that ES himself even retrieved some evil discarnates in Hell:
“The devils (= evil souls in hell) he converts change before his eyes, lose their bestial form, and regain their human faces (Ernst Benz, “Emanuel Swedenborg, Visionary Savant in the Age of Reason,” p. 327).”
“The wisdom of this world is stupidity to God” 1 Corinthians 3:19
Ill stick to scripture over being “carried by every wind of teaching”.
You often cite everything but scripture in your proposals. I certainly welcome you to share your belief but why share them here with people who look for answers in scriptures? A lot of what you present definitely seems very new agey to me.
We should dedicate a song, to that idea.
(10) SWEDENBORG’S REJECTION OF REINCARNATION
During his afterlife explorations, ES repeatedly discovers that we are mistaken in our belief that our thoughts are isolated. Our minds receive an influx from a endlessly changing array of good and evil discarnate souls who have not yet arrived at their ultimate destinations. We are normally connected in this way to 2 good spirits and 2 evil spirits. The particular combination of these spirits at any moment depends on our state of mind at that moment. Neither we nor these associate spirits are normally conscious of the other.
What survives death indefinitely, says ES, is our inner memory which contains our inner loves and the patterns or approaches we’ve developed in reaction to life’s experiences. Inner memory is totally distinct from bodily memory of life’s details which eventually fades after death and becomes quiescent. ES’s insight here is confirmed by OBE adept Robert Bruce: “Memories of earthly life also seem vague [to the dead], much like how a half-forgotten dream is remembered by a living person. Many spirits seem to be aware only of their present reality.”
Occasionally, the bodily memory of spirits is activated and gives the connected person the impression that these memories are hers and that she must have reincarnated. Dr. Ian Stevenson’s celebrated research on the past life recall of young children is flawed by its failure to take this insight seriously. In at least one of his cases, the child’s alleged past life continued until well after he was born–a sure sign of possession. If a discarnate spirit’s bodily memory is completely restored, that memory can override the connected person’s memories and create the experience of possession.