Upcoming Events & Programs
View the upcoming Spring 2025 Brochure here: 
Link to the 2025 Spring Program Brochure in PDF format
In-house & Zoom: Wednesday, May 7, 6 PM Central
A New Swedenborg: Deguchi Onisaburo, Swedenborg & the Quest for a New Kingdom in Manchuria with Dell Rose. 
"Emanuel Swedenborg was the greatest theologian of all time," wrote Deguchi Saburo, the flamboyant co-founder of the Omoto faith and one of the most significant figures in modern Japanese history. Onisaburo was a promoter of a form of 'Shinto Universalism.' He sought to inform the world of the realm of the gods. When He began to read Swedenborg in the late 1890s, Onisaburo found a kindred spirit in the Swedish seer, and utilized many of Swedenborg's concepts in defining his own cosmology. 

Deguchi used Swedenborg's depictions of Tartary as the bases for an attempted theocratic coup in 20th century Manchuria. This tale is stranger that fiction! 

Location: Swedenborg Library, 77 W. Washington St. (at Clark), 17th floor
Date/Time: Wednesday, May 7, 6 PM Central
Fee: Donations accepted

Zoom Info:
Meeting room: 558 403 3057
Password: Swedenborg

Download Zoom free to join meetings at Zoom.com
Zoom: Thursday, May 8, 6–7 PM Central
Paul Through a Glass Darkly: Curating the Apostle, Self-Perception and the Optics of Conversion with Dell Rose
Accounting for more than half of the New Testament, the letters of Paul remain some of the most influential writings ever. Yet their familiarity also masks their strangeness. 
  In this program, we will discuss Paul's motivations and the reasons for his lasting success. 

Time: Thursday, May 8, 6 PM Central

Zoom Info:
Meeting room: 558 403 3057
Password: Swedenborg

Dell Rose is program director at the Swedenborg Library. Dell holds the position of Swedenborg Doctoral Fellow with the Swedenborg Society in the United Kingdom, and he is a doctoral candidate at the Centre for the History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents at the Universities van Amsterdam.
Zoom: Thursday May 15, 6 PM Central
The Language of Angels: Japanese Engagement with Swedenborg in the Quest for a Universal Language with Dr. Avery Morrow
The notion of a "language of the gods" had fascinated Japanese intellectuals for centuries, and the concept gained exceptional prominence in the nationalist culture of the Meiji-period, continuing into the Showa. 

In the search for this universal language, several major Japanese occultists found inspiration in Swedenborg's discussion of the language of angels, and sought to wed these ideas to their own nationalist and occult projects. Linguistics, after chemistry, might rightly be called the first esoteric science, and Japan gives us another testament to the attempt to discover a universal essence of communication. 

Dr. Avery Morrow is a Japanologiest and scholar of religion, with interests in Japanese esotericism, 'gush, or 'alternate history,' and its role in directing Japanese culture. He is author of "The Sacred Science of Ancient Japan: Lost Chronicle of the Age of the Gods," which introduced readers to the genre of prehistory, providing many salient comparisons with European esoteric traditions. 

Zoom Info:
Meeting room: 558 403 3057
Password: Swedenborg

Download Zoom free to join meetings at Zoom.com