By Dr. Rebecca Esterson
Faculty and students from the Center for Swedenborgian Studies (CSS) participated in an international conference on the topic of “Retracing Swedenborg: Texts, Contexts, and Changing Perspectives,” November 6–8, 2025, at the Swedenborg House in London.
In addition to our cohort from the Graduate Theological Union (Berkeley, California), participants came from the University of Copenhagen (Denmark), Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg (Germany), the Jagiellonian University Kraków (Poland), University of Jyväskylä (Finland), University of Amsterdam (Netherlands), Lund University (Sweden), Tokyo Metropolitan University (Japan), Heritage Christian University (Alabama), and several British universities including University of Kent, Oxford University, University College London, University of London, Lincoln Bishop University, and the University of Cambridge. There were also many independent scholars, artists, and community members in attendance.
The conference organizers highlighted the following as key areas of focus: “Swedenborg’s connections to William Blake; Enlightenment and Romantic-era philosophies; and eighteenth and nineteenth-century Reform Movements, as well as the role of Swedenborgian thought in early Modernist and Surrealist contexts. Sessions will also address wider thematic currents such as eighteenth-century politics, millenarianism, esotericism, and the role of visionary experience in intellectual history.” A presidential address at the conclusion of the conference featured celebrated author Iain Sinclair on the subject of poetry and pilgrimage in London.
CSS was well represented. Professor Devin Zuber presented on the Swedenborgian artist Ralph Albert Blakelock, and Dean Rebecca Esterson presented on Helen Keller’s Swedenborgian phenomenology of the senses. CSS student C. J. Swenson presented on Swedenborg’s study of longitude, or how he “charted sea and spirit,” while CSS student Dell Rose presented on engagement with Swedenborg in Meiji-era Japan.
Those in attendance were inspired by the work of our hosts, the Swedenborg Society, and by what they have created at Swedenborg House, which is located in the vibrant Bloomsbury Square area in north London. The entry rooms of the building contain a lively bookstore and coffee shop, where one can enjoy “Arcana” brand coffee and peruse Swedenborgian literature. Further along, one finds an art gallery/museum, large event spaces, and a library and archive specializing in Swedenborgian history. The building was bustling with people from diverse backgrounds, wandering the halls for various reasons and enjoying the spirit of discovery and wonder that the space encouraged. Some were there for the coffee and pastries, but stayed to pick through an interesting volume. Others were there for the art, which featured in the gallery spaces, but was also spread throughout every room of the many-leveled building. Others were there for special events such as a book launch, a gallery event, or the academic conference. Many of us were able to access the archives while we were there for the sake of our own research and to enjoy quiet moments with original manuscripts or historical material that exists nowhere else on the planet. For instance, I was able to access late-nineteenth-century issues of the journal Uses “A Monthly New-Church Journal of Evolutionary Reform” put out by the New-Church Socialist Society in England.
The conference was an opportunity for Swedenborg scholars from around the globe to meet and engage with one another, and we expect significant collaborations to come from the gathering. The Swedenborg Society (swedenborg.org.uk) hopes this will be the first of many conferences to be held, every other year, in different locations around the world. There are plans already for upcoming conferences in Sweden and Japan. The event also provided much inspiration for those of us interested in thinking about ways to create multi-purpose Swedenborgian spaces, spaces that integrate the arts, community activity, and scholarship (and coffee!). Please, if you are ever in north London, pay a visit to Swedenborg House.
Read the full issue of the March Messenger.
Meet Rebecca Esterson
Dr. Rebecca K. Esterson is the dean of CSS and the Dorothea Harvey Professor of Swedenborgian Studies. She teaches in the Department of Sacred Texts and Their Interpretation at the GTU in Berkeley, California and is a member of the Swedenborg Society of the East Bay.
