front cover of THE FASHIONING OF ANGELS
THE FASHIONING OF ANGELS
PARTNERSHIP AS SPIRITUAL PRACTICE
STEPHEN & ROBIN LARSEN
Swedenborg Foundation Publishers, 2000

Stephen and Robin Larsen, authors of A Fire in the Mind, the authorized biography of their friend Joseph Campbell, explore man-woman relationships, questing for the answer to the timeless question, "What do couples really want?"

The Larsens look to ancient wisdom -- the realm of mythology -- to solve the relationship riddle. Storytelling artists, they underline the powerful messages in the myths, folktales, and fairytales described in the book, stories that help heal wounds of gender wars. Experiential exercises the Larsens have developed deepen couples' spiritual bonds.

Readers "eavesdrop" on issues in the Larsens' own marriage; their dialogs about their own relating process bring passion and intimacy to the book.

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front cover of The Five Ages
The Five Ages
Swedenborg's View of Spiritual History
Emanuel Swedenborg
Swedenborg Foundation Publishers, 2009
The Five Ages: Swedenborg’s View of Spiritual History presents a compelling spiritual and psychological history of human evolution. It is a compilation of extracts from the works of the eighteenth-century Swedish philosopher and mystic Emanuel Swedenborg on the subject of the “world ages,” a concept that is found in many different cultures and mythologies. The Greeks and Romans called these epochs the Golden, Silver, Bronze and Iron Ages; Hindu mythology talks of the four yugas; Islam, meanwhile, refers to a pattern of the six major prophets. Similar timeframes appear in Norse, Persian, and Aztec mythology, but nowhere is this theme treated with such detail as in the works of Swedenborg. He divides human history into five biblically based ages: that of Adam, Noah, Moses, Jesus Christ, and a fifth one that is just unfolding, one predicted in the book of Revelation.
 
The Five Ages brings together passages from over twenty different works by Swedenborg, neatly linking them with an engaging and informative commentary in which P. L. Johnson compares and contrasts Swedenborg’s ideas with those from other cultures, placing them in the context of historical and archaeological knowledge gathered since Swedenborg’s time.
 
The book is illustrated throughout, featuring thirty helpful and charming black-and-white line drawings. It also contains a bibliography, a subject index, an index of quotations from the works of Swedenborg, and an appendix on “World Age Patterns.”
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front cover of Flight of the Trogon
Flight of the Trogon
Book 2 of the Mexican Eden Trilogy (A Stand-alone Prequel and Sequel to Book 1)
Sylvia Montgomery Shaw
Swedenborg Foundation Publishers, 2023

A novel of love, revenge, and redemption set during three crucial years of the Mexican Revolution (1910–13).

When an eccentric Mexican general dies and leaves his entire fortune to Isabel Brentt, the American daughter-in-law he never met, his widow suspects foul play and seeks revenge against the young woman.

This is a story of love, the backlash of revenge, and the choices that define us: A young lawyer sets off on a quest to find the truth about the general’s death. A bodyguard is ordered to murder the man he is supposed to protect. A ruthless criminal falls in love with a prostitute. A priest is forced to maintain an elaborate lie. An accused patricide seeks redemption through a brotherhood of criminals. Above all, it is Isabel’s exploration of the problem of evil and of prayer as a pathway to inner freedom.

Sylvia Montgomery Shaw invites readers to follow the continuing romance of Benjamín and Isabel as both seek their freedom against the backdrop of a brutal war and learn the unexpected strength that can come from one’s inner will.

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front cover of FREEDOM & EVIL
FREEDOM & EVIL
A PILGRIM'S GUIDE TO HELL
George F. Dole
Swedenborg Foundation Publishers, 2001

Is there really a hell? Should we be good simply to avoid punishment in the life hereafter? Just asking these questions theoretically doesn't get us far, George F. Dole suggests, but examining the works of someone who has been there may help. Dole refers to Emanuel Swedenborg, the eighteenth-century Swedish scientist and statesman who over the last twenty-seven years of his life had the privileged status of an observer of non-physical worlds, including hell. Swedenborg wrote that we are unconscious residents of the spiritual world as well as the material world, and the hells he encountered have mirrors in our everyday lives.

Within this framework, Dole examines questions about evil and hell that have plagued thinkers for centuries: Do we have freedom of choice? Do our spirits exist after death? Does an all-loving God condemn us to hell? If not, can we ourselves become irredeemably evil? What distinguishes Dole's approach to these questions is his open-mindedness and his hopefulness. Freedom and Evil brings us face to face with a God of mercy, and it is easy to believe, with Dole, that the gates of hell are not to keep people in but to keep people out.

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