A unique and discursive history of gardens and their significance across a wide range of cultures, Gardens of Heaven and Earth explores the meanings behind our efforts to maintain, manipulate and ornament our environment. Drawing particular inspiration from the work of the eighteenth-century Swedish philosopher and mystic Emanuel Swedenborg, this book explores the symbolism of gardens and their use—by Swedenborg and by others—as a metaphor for a model of heaven.
 
Gardens of Heaven and Earth is a lyrical study that investigates the nature of experience, the limitations of language and ideas of the garden as both a relationship to be experienced and as a symbolic language to be read. Discussing gardens in relation to the life and writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, this short work brings a fresh perspective to the roles that gardens have played in delighting and sustaining the human condition throughout the ages.
 
This volume is augmented by three black-and white-illustrations and also contains a chronology of Swedenborg’s life and works, an inventory of Swedenborg’s own garden in Stockholm, a bibliography, and an index.

The General Index to Swedenborg’s Scripture Quotations contains a list of all citations and references to Scripture in the theological works of the eighteenth-century Swedish philosopher and mystic Emanuel Swedenborg, including allusions to passages where Swedenborg failed to name the book, chapter, or verse in question. The book is divided into three main sections: Old Testament, New Testament, and Non-Canonical Books.
 
This reference work is an important resource for anyone looking into Swedenborg’s biblical commentaries, including scholars and students from clergy and laity alike. Popularly known as “Searle’s Index” after Arthur Hodson Searle, the editor of the first English edition, this third edition has been completely revised, expanded, and typeset with a more accessible page design, a preface by G. P. Dawson, and helpful tables of abbreviations.

Imagine that you've just died. An angel appears in front of you, ready to guide you to the next life. You say to him, "I want to go to heaven." His reply, "OK, let's go!"

In this light-hearted tour of the afterlife, based on the writings of Swedish scientist-turned-seer Emanuel Swedenborg, Albrecht H. Gralle takes the reader on a tour of heaven, hell, and the spaces between. What is it like in heaven? What about hell? What happens to people who have suffered horribly in this life? How do we reconcile that suffering with the idea of an all-loving God? What happens to people who simply don't believe in anything beyond this world? What happens to the people who do? Is there sex in heaven? What about tea? 

During pauses in the tour, Gralle poses some hard-hitting questions about the nature of belief that speak directly to people who wonder how a modern, rational person can have faith in the absence of proof. The result is at once humorous and thought-provoking.