A Love Affair with Africa: 19th Century Swedenborgian Views of Africa

A Love Affair with Africa:Nineteenth Century Swedenborgian views on

Africa

A Love Affair with Africa 2

Andrew M.T. Dibb


A Love Affair with Africa

Abstract: Contrary to his time, Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) took a remarkably different view of the salvation of non-Christians, and Africans in particular. While contemporary churches insisted that only Christians enter heaven, Swedenborg taught that God provided access to all who sincerely followed a religion. Eighteenth and nineteenth century Swedenborgians believed societies of civilized and almost angelic Africans existed in the unexplored continent.

It is almost impossible to imagine how Europeans in the eighteenth century saw Africa. Africa was a dark, savage continent, its vast spaces blank on their maps, often filled with the fanciful guesswork of those who had never ventured there. The vegetation and animal life was the stuff of dreams– or nightmares. The people of Africa, so different from cultured Europeans, were wild, savage and untamed, more objects of curiosity than human beings. Few Europeans venturedinto Africa beyond the coasts, preferring to circumnavigate iton the way to India or the East. No one thought to build an Empire there, and, aside from the Dutch at the Cape of Good Hope, and the Portuguese on the East and West coasts, virtually no Westerners inhabited this immense landmass. It would remain this way all through the eighteenth century, until Africa gradually revealed her secrets to the explorers in the nineteenth century.

In many ways there was very little reason why Europeans shouldhave much interest in Africa. Eighteenth century Europe stillneeded her people. The surplus population and economic depression following the Napoleonic Wars and the industrial revolution still lay in the future. The little trade between Europe and Africa was mostly in human flesh as the great plantations of the Americas relied on slaves to remain economically viable. During this period those willing to dealin human bondage made great fortunes1. Nearly all the sea faring nations of Europe participated in this trade: English, French, Dutch and Portuguese ships plied the sea with their

1 Durant, Will and Ariel. The Age of Enlightenment. 1965:67.


miserable cargo. In the hundred years between 1680 and 1786 it is estimated that the English alone transported over two million Africans to the New World2. Africans were thought of as mere commodities; soulless, sub-human savages who could be bought and sold like cattle.

Those outside of slave owning countries had even less contact with the people of Africa. While there were some Africans in the great cities, they were a minuscule minority in relation to the overall population. They arrived in the same way as they were taken to the Americas, as slaves. African slaves first came to London in 1555, and while they were never numerous, their number grew over time. By the middle of the next century many fashionable and noble households had black servants3. As late as 1777 slaves in England were branded to make recognition possible and establish ownership if a disputearose. Runaway slaves begging in the streets of the cities were returned to their owners if they were caught. The difference between slavery in England and the New World was one of degree, not principle.

Very few people questioned the justice of these attitudes or the system of slavery, few challenged the status quo in any arena of life. It was the way things had always been, and in all likelihood would so remain. A few people thought differently, and in the early eighteenth century small movements sprang up to free the slaves. A handful of people joined them, but for a hundred years they made little progressor impact on popular thought4. The great emancipation movementsof the nineteenth century were merely embryonic.

This was the enlightened, eighteenth century world of Emanuel Swedenborg. Born in 1688 and dying in 1772 his life-span coincided with much of that great involuntary migration of people. It is possible that he encountered Africans at one point or another during his travels, although there is no

2 Durant 1965:68, see Cambridge Modern History VI 187.3 Ackroyd, Peter. London, the Biography. London: Vintage. 2001:712.4 Durant 1965:68.


record of it. Yet, Swedenborg took a new view of Africa and Africans, one very out of step with his times. To him Africans were not mindless, soulless commodities to be bought and sold like animals in human form, but people with spiritualqualities. In fact their spiritual potential was far beyond that of the any European. What Africa lacked in technology and worldly knowledge, it made up for in pure spirituality.

Swedenborg’s teachings on Africans are scattered throughout the many volumes of his theological writings. In 1749, with the publication of his first book, The Arcana Coelestia, he made a unique claim: he had been permitted to see and speak to spirits in the Spiritual World. This set him on a long journeyof study, resulting in some thirty volumes, in English, of collected theological writings. In the process he questioned the usually understood concept of the Trinity, the nature of the Bible, the way of salvation.

Swedenborg’s Teachings on Gentiles in General

In the age of Enlightenment, Swedenborg stood squarely opposedto the accepted concepts of the Christianity of his day. Whenmost Christians believed that only those who had been baptizedand saved would go to heaven, he taught that heaven is opened to all. The uncounted millions, who had never heard of Jesus Christ or ever read the Bible, would be just as welcome in heaven as the most pious Christians of Europe. He based this idea on his contact with the spirits of Gentiles he met in thespiritual world in the period between 1745 and 1772. At the end of his life he reflected that over the years,

I have day by day talked with nations and peoples of thisworld, not only those from Europe, but also those from Asia and Africa, as well as those of other religions…5

Swedenborg was struck by the reality that there were far more non-Christians, Gentiles, in the world than Christians, and

5 Swedenborg, Emanuel. True Christian Religion. London: The SwedenborgSociety. 1988. Passage # 795.


many of them were in Africa. In the eighteenth century, Christendom was largely confined to Europe and places immediately colonized by Europeans. Christians were few compared to the Gentiles in the rest of the world where Christianity was unknown6. For most Christians, this ignorance, even if it was caused by the lack of opportunity, condemned these people to hell and everlasting torment. Only Christians could be saved.

Swedenborg rejected that idea. Striking a difference between willful and innocent ignorance, he taught that a Gentile’s ignorance was not a choice based on the rejection of God, but a matter of circumstance, and an all-loving God would tend towards mercy rather than punishment7.

Swedenborg’s teaching about the Gentiles says much about the nature of God. The purpose for creation, he taught, was to bring all people into heaven where they could be showered by God’s love. For those removed from Christian influences by cultural and geographical reasons beyond their control, God made it possible for anyone to go to heaven. This conclusion was revolutionary in eighteenth century Christianity. To explain how a non-Christian could be saved, Swedenborg writes that God

… has provided a religion for everyone, and by it acknowledgment of the Divine and interior life; for to live in accordance with one's religion is to live interiorly, since one then looks to the Divine, and so far as he looks to the Divine he does not look to the world but separates himself from the world, that is, fromthe life of the world, which is exterior life8.

He conceded that it was true that Gentiles knew nothing about Christianity, but this was not from choice. Circumstances had6 Swedenborg, Emanuel. The Word of the Lord from Experience. PosthumousTheological Works. New York: Swedenborg Foundation. 1969. Passage # 16.7 Swedenborg, Emanuel. Heaven and Hell. New York: Swedenborg Foundation.1971. Passage # 318.8 Heaven and Hell passage # 318.


cut them from a Christian faith and life. This puts them in an entirely different spiritual state than a Christian who rejected Christianity because of the restrictions belief mightplace on one’s lifestyle. Gentile ignorance was also different from that of a Christian who, in spite of the opportunities available, simply neglected to find out about God.

Further, Gentiles can be saved because religion, and consequently salvation, is not so much a matter of belief, or theological content, but of how beliefs are used in the courseof life. For a religion to connect people to God and lead to salvation, it must lift the mind to some god and challenge people to subordinate themselves to that god. Belief in a godfocuses thought outside of self, requiring people to submit tothe god’s will. Even a rudimentary idea of a god can do this by instilling a willingness to serve god as understood by a particular people. Every idea of a god, then, Christian or not, lays the foundation of the first great commandment: to love God above all else.

There is a close interconnection between belief in a god and service to that god, providing the god’s requirements are in harmony with the essential principles of the Ten Commandments.There is a distinction, for example, between following a god who demands cruelty and a god who requires honesty or justice.Cruelty appeals to the baser instincts in people, while honesty or justice requires people to rise above their naturaltendencies. Serving a just god calls for people to place themselves at their god’s disposal in both body and mind. This act of subordination generates humility and innocence, which Swedenborg defines as a willingness to follow God.

Salvation is possible to Gentiles, because even though they may be ignorant of Christianity, the religion provided to themby God opens up the deepest parts of their souls. After death, when the restraints of time and space are laid aside, this humility and willingness to follow their god makes it possible for gentiles to learn the essentials of true


religion. Even in their ignorance, God lays the foundation for salvation.

Swedenborg saw all religions more as a process of connecting people to God than the theological elements making up the doctrinal teachings of a religion, although the doctrines of areligion are important, and the more a religion reflects the truths of Christianity, the more effective they are. However,the universal principles of how people are connected with God work in all religions, making it possible for Gentiles as wellas Christians to be saved, if they live according to the process.

By going against the thought of his time, Swedenborg was not advocating an anarchic free-for-all in religion. There have to be certain basic elements in religion which are necessary for a religion to lead people to heaven. Any religion, Christian or Gentile, missing these elements will not be able to connect people to God. In essence these elements are universal, in Christianity the God is God Jesus Christ, in Islam, Allah, in Gentile religions, the understood god of the people. The life these gods prescribe may vary in different places according to the individual customs of the people, but they are still able to connect people to God Himself.

What then, one might ask, is the point of being Christian at all? For Swedenborg the spiritual life of Gentiles may lead to heaven, but it is not without pitfalls. God leads Gentilesto heaven in spite of their ignorance, and ignorance in spiritual matters can be dangerous, just as it can in medical or scientific things. It was precisely to dispel this ignorance that God revealed Himself in the Word, so that people might have a truer, more fulfilling connection with Him.

This connection with God results in the perfecting of the human being. A central teaching in Swedenborg’s writings is that people are born with inclinations towards all sorts of loves opposing connection with God. These tendencies are the


source of human selfishness, greed, anger, pride and the rest of the plagues that haunt humanity. The only way out of this cycle is by placing God above self, not just in thought, but also in life. As a result people are changed, regenerated or born again, becoming increasingly, images and likeness of God.

Swedenborg taught that the qualities of true humanity exist only in God. People learn these qualities through exposure tothe Word and a life according to it. The more people learn about God and the more accurate their understanding of Him, the more perfectly they can live according to His teachings. In the process they take God’s qualities upon themselves, and become more human.

This perfection, however, rests on the two primary essentials of religion. The more accurate the understanding of God, the fuller the expression of worship can be. Since Christianity rests on a revelation of God given in the pages of direct revelation, Christians have the chance – although they do not always take it – of bringing their lives into complete harmonywith God’s. Those outside of Christianity may have an idea ofGod, but it is circumscribed by ignorance. Religion may be externalized, taking the form of rituals and sacrifices ratherthan the inner self searching and internal discipline that Christianity calls for. Spiritually speaking, Gentiles are handicapped by their lack of direct knowledge of God. While their religion makes salvation possible, the full development of their spiritual humanity is arrested by their ignorance, and held captive until, in the spiritual world, they can reachtheir true potential through the teaching of the Word.

Swedenborg highlighted the limitations of the state of some Gentile by describing an encounter with spirits from an islandwho had lived externally good lives, but knew nothing of God or the Word. While looking much like everyone else as to their bodies, their spiritual ignorance had prevented the spiritually human aspects of their minds to develop. After death, when they had left their bodies aside, their true


nature showed itself in the appearance of the spirit. Swedenborg relates that

[t]hey appeared to me not as human beings but as apes, yet having still a human face. They so appeared because they knew nothing of God, and the Divine is in the likeness of a human being. One of the Christians was put in charge of them by God9.

This, of course, was merely an initial appearance. As these spirits learned the truth, their understanding of God would have gradually grown, and with it, their humanity, arrested inthis world, would also develop. In the process they would lose their ape-like appearances and appear more and more human. The ignorance imposed in this world would be dispelledin the next.

Swedenborg stood squarely against the accepted teachings of his time. In an era when non-Christians were considered damned, merely people to be bought and sold, to be transportedacross the sea where they could be exploited at will, he described the universal laws of religion in such a way to include them in the great economy of God. Those who read his works, from the years immediately following their publication to the present, look at Gentiles differently.

The Africans

Of all the Gentiles Swedenborg encountered in the Spiritual World, the Africans impressed him the most. His theological Writings are filled with references to the potential of African spirituality. In the Spiritual World he found himselfable to speak to them on deep subjects, about God and the nature of human beings and he was amazed at their judgment in these matters. They could clearly understand spiritual principles that were stumbling blocks to many educated Europeans.

9 Swedenborg, Emanuel. Last Judgment Posthumous. Miscellaneous Theological Works.New York: Swedenborg Foundation. 1969. Passage # 129. [130.]


Swedenborg does not dwell at all on the natural circumstances of Africans in this world. He makes no reference at all to their culture or customs. His interest is purely in their spiritual condition. Even though he had never been to Africa,and in all likelihood had never encountered an African, he speaks with the authority of one who knows them well because of his spiritual experiences. He was fascinated by the Africanmind which he described as having certain internal qualities that could only have been revealed in the Spiritual World.

The African mind, he taught, works very differently from the Western or European mind. The Europeans work through a process of learning and memory. They reason from the memory, often without getting to the real heart of the subject. Further, they place a high value on the authority of others, especially in religious matters, accepting things to be true because the leaders of the church have proclaimed it so. Thischaracteristic has always been strong in European religion. Christianity, as we know it, was largely shaped by councils ofthe Church, and reinforced by threats and punishments. It worked, because the European mind was willing to follow their church leaders, with only a few willing to question and test the principles of the Church. Christians often believed that the less they understand about the mysteries of faith, the greater their faith if they believe in them. In thinking thisway, Europeans are committed to rather superficial things.

Swedenborg conceived of the Africans very differently. It is true that they still have to learn things and commit them to memory, but their thought process goes beyond superficiality to the kernel of the teaching. They are less concerned with the authority of the church, nor do they accept religious teachings on the say-so of others, but examine it themselves to see if it is indeed true. If it is, they assent to it and accept it as truth. This allows them to have a deeper enlightenment in spiritual matters that the more superficial Westerners do not have. Swedenborg wrote,


The African race is the one in this earth which is able to be in illustration beyond all other races, because they are such that they think interiorly, and receive truths, and acknowledge that they are truths from that ground, differently from other races…10

These mental qualities are visible in the attitudes of Africans in the Spiritual World. While Europeans are prone topride and intellectual conceit, the Africans are both wise andintelligent. Part of their intelligence is an instinctive belief that God is a human being11, although when they come into contact with Christians they may have difficulty accepting the Trinity, and the idea that God was born a man onearth12.

Swedenborg was so impressed with the African Spirits he met inthe next world that he compared them to the wisest people who ever lived13. ‘They said that they are looking for information, and that they love to know truths’14. In spite oftheir ignorance of spiritual matters in this world, the Africans in the Spiritual World are keen to learn about God. To this end, angels are sent to them to teach them, and the Africans, learn with joy15. When presented with the truth, they are more receptive than any other people in the world, and accept the truth willingly16.

As they learn truth, so they adjust their lives to bring it into harmony with what the angels have taught them. They believe, Swedenborg says,

10 Swedenborg, Emanuel. Spiritual Diary. New York: Swedenborg Foundation.1978. Passage # 5518.11 Swedenborg, Emanuel. The Athanasian Creed. Posthumous Theological Works. NewYork: Swedenborg Foundation. 1969. Passage # 81.12 Swedenborg, Emanuel. Continuation of the Last Judgment. MiscellaneousTheological Works. New York: Swedenborg Foundation. 1969. Passage # 74.13 Athanasian Creed passage # 81.14 Spiritual Diary passage # 5517. 15 Spiritual Diary passage # 5517. 16 Spiritual Diary passage # 4783.


… that there is no man who does not live according to hisreligion, and, if he does not, he cannot do otherwise than become stupid, because, then, he does not receive anything from heaven17.

In this way the elements of religion are planted in the Africans. In the Spiritual World they are no longer Gentiles,but become angels, indeed wiser angels than many from the Christians, who, while they lived in the world, believed that these same ‘Gentiles’ were doomed to hell because of their ignorance.

These spiritual qualities in Africans are a carry over from this world. Since Africans in the eighteen century were largely ignorant of the Christian religion, and yet were able to be lifted up to such heights of spirituality, the question naturally arises: where did the impetus for this come from? The only answer to this is that Africans in the natural world had to have spiritual information from somewhere. During his conversations in the spiritual world, Swedenborg discovered that Africans on earth receive a direct revelation about God, in contrast with the written revelation of Christianity18. He describes an oral communication from the spiritual world to the natural, which the Africans do not always hear as a voice,but which opens their in their minds the ability to see and understand truth when they come across it. Angels told Swedenborg

… that at this day some speak with Africans in the world,and instruct them orally; and that their speech with themfalls especially into their interior perception; and thatthey perceive the influx, and so receive the revelation with enlightenment; and that such speech is with their instructors, in whom they have confidence19.

17 Spiritual Diary passage # 5518a.18 Continuation of the Last Judgment passage # 76. 19 Last Judgment Posthumous passage # 124.


Africans, therefore, were in a continual process of receiving a revelation directly from heaven that provided them with the basic essentials for religion. On the one hand, this made themreceptive of truth, and so able to enter into states of spiritual illumination, but on the other hand led them to reject things they perceived to be false. This is why Africans were so resistant to the Christian Church, and particularly the teachings of the Trinity. According to Swedenborg, Africans

… acknowledge our Lord as God of heaven and earth, and laugh at monks, when they come to them, and Christians talking about a triple Divinity and salvation by only thinking. They say that no one who worships at all fails to live according to his religion. If he did not, he would inevitably become stupid and wicked, for he does not then receive anything from heaven20.

The source of their information about spiritual matters may befrom direct revelation, but Swedenborg also believed that a sacred text exists in parts of Africa21. This ‘book’ is written in symbols and correspondential forms by men who were enlightened in spiritual things22. It is fascinating to imagine the form this revelation might take. It may, perhaps,be the ancient myths and legends of Africa, passed from generation to generation, not unlike the stories of ancient Greece and Rome23. It might be some iconic form that the unknowing European could easily confuse with a fetish or idol.Whatever it looks like, this revelation is the source of spiritual enlightenment so that when Africans in the SpiritualWorld are presented with the truth, they understand it very clearly, and see deeper things within the Bible, when it is shown them24. They find that internally the Bible contains the

20 Continuation of the Last Judgment passage # 76.21 Last Judgment Posthumous passage # 120. [121.].22 Spiritual Diary passage # 5809.23 Some of these stories have been collected in the nineteenth century byBishop Henry Callaway. More recently collections of African mysteries havebeen published by Credo Mutwe in his book “Indaba, My Children”.24 Last Judgment Posthumous passage # 123. [123.].


same message they were accustomed to receiving in this world. They are especially receptive of teachings about life after death and the reality of heaven, hell and the Spiritual World in general25.

Just as the ancient Israelites knew of the coming Messiah and looked forward to His day, so from their revelations, some of the people of Africa, from their internal revelations, were expecting a revelation of the truth. On at least two occasions, Swedenborg meets spirits from Africa who are waiting for a revelation from heaven about God Jesus Christ26. They believed that this revelation would spread across Africa from the center to the circumferences27. Following this revelation, they are also expecting the church to be established among many in Africa28.

I have heard it reported that the Church today is being established among many in Africa, that they are currentlyreceiving revelations, and that they are receptive of thedoctrine of heaven, especially as regards God.

This statement caught the imagination of early receivers of the New Church and fuelled them with a fascination for Africa.Somewhere in Africa there were people who were open and receptive to the teachings of the New Church. Their Gentilism, from a European point of view, was part of the grand design for the beginning a new dispensation.

Early readers of Swedenborg’s theological writings, took note of some of the balancing teachings as well. In spite of the spiritual potential, the Africans are still gentiles. There are gaps and holes in their knowledge that could only be filled through teaching. They noted that Africans do not knowthat God was born a man in this world, although they know that

25 Last Judgment Posthumous passage # 117.26 Last Judgment Posthumous passage # 11627 Last Judgment Posthumous passage # 117. [118.].28 Last Judgment Posthumous passage # 115.


God is in the human form29. When told that he was born of a virgin,

They said that they had not known anything else than thatHe was, like any other person, born of a human father, and thus had died, and had afterward been accepted by people as God, and that they now knew that God was not such a person as others are (LJP 128).

One temptation those in the early days of the New Church facedwas to think that these teachings applied to all Africans. Swedenborg makes the point that not all Africans were the same, and they differ in their idea of God30. The result was that the practice of religion, which always comes from the notion of God, differed from place to place. In some parts ofAfrica, the understanding of God was so obscure that it openedits way for spiritual abuses that led inexorably to hell, rather than to harmony with God.

There were also evil Gentiles, and just as Africans had the potential of becoming the best of angels, so they have the ability to become the worst of devils31. One example Swedenborg gives of religion gone wrong in Africa is the case of a queen who believed that she had absolute power

… over the lives of men, namely, that it had been lawful for her to kill whomsoever she pleased, whether innocent or guilty. Moreover, from her religious belief she knew that there was a God, and likewise acknowledged Him. She was lascivious in an extreme degree, and admitted lovers,but had afterwards caused them to be slain, lest a reportshould thence spread to the public, that she was of such a character. She was seen. She was black like the inhabitants of that region, with a handsome face, and, also, beautiful hair32.

29 Spiritual Diary passage # 5919.30 Last Judgment Posthumous passage # 119.31 Consider Spiritual Diary passage 3s 4946 – 4951.32 Spiritual Diary 4740.


These counterbalancing teachings were very important, for while Africa in mid-eighteen century was a closed book to Europeans, by the end of the nineteenth century it was well known. Although many people thought they had found the idea Africans that Swedenborg described, their experience also showed that the other type also existed, and, in spite of that, they should not lose hope for the reception and growth of the Church in Africa.

Organizing the New Church

Swedenborg did not start any Church organization, he was content to write down the details of his revelation and leave the development of the church to those who, in the future, would read and accept his teaching. This reception was alwaysslow. In his native Sweden, his followers were persecuted. It was against the law to publish his Writings there until 1809. The law forbidding the formation of a New Church organization was not lifted until 182733. Small groups gathered to form reading groups, and these often fell under the influence of spiritualism or Mesmerism and lost interest in Swedenborg. The New Church stood very little chance of a vibrant birth in Sweden, mostly because of the entrenched opposition of the state controlled Lutheran Church. New religions, or sects, simply had no place in the established order of things.

Since the situation was similar in other countries it is not surprising that the organized New Church was still-born in Europe. The exception was England. England had been spared most of the horrors following the Reformation. The Civil War of the 1640’s was the closest they had come to religious conflict. The benign spiritual freedom granted in England from the Restoration onwards created a climate of tolerance tomost forms of Protestantism. This was partly why Swedenborg

33 Block, Marguerite Beck. The New Church in a New World. New York: HenryHolt and Company. 1932:52.


published many of his books in London, and it was there that people began to read them34.

Swedenborg’s theological writings did not sell like hot cakes,but some people read them and were struck with the insights, interpretations and challenges to historical Christianity he laid down. Many were convinced that Swedenborg was telling the truth about his experiences, and came to acknowledge his work as a Divinely inspired revelation that would form the foundation of an entirely new Christian Church. There were two theories of how this New Church would come into being so we will consider briefly the founders of these movements, Rev.John Clowes35 and Robert Hindmarsh.

John Clowes was an Anglican clergyman serving in the Manchester area. He first read Swedenborg’s writings in 1773,just a year after Swedenborg died. Impressed with the teachings, he established a ‘New Church Society’. Clowes characterized one approach to the development of the New Church. He believed that the purpose of the New Church was to revitalize the existing Church, injecting a new Christianity into an otherwise tired religiosity. In line with this, he never broke with the Church of England, but continued to serve his Anglican parish. His was a tremendous influence on the developing New Church, and many owe their connection with the Church to him. In spite of remaining in communion with the Anglicans, he was a skillful and erudite scholar of Swedenborg’s works, probably the first true Swedenborgian scholar. He wrote many works, which are still available, and many are still read.

Ten years after Clowes’ conversion, a young man of nineteen, Robert Hindmarsh, also found Swedenborg Writings. He was alsoconvinced that they were true, and began to look for other readers. Together with a group of three friends, Hindmarsh advertised a public meeting at a coffee shop in London. One 34 The other European stronghold of tolerance was the Netherlands. Duringthe Seven Years War, when England was closed to Swedes, Swedenborg was ableto continue publishing in a very similar environment to England.35 Pronounced ‘Clues’.


person attended, swelling the group to five. The characteristic of this group, and others, who followed in Hindmarsh’s footsteps, was the belief that the New Church would not survive within the confines of the Church of Englandor any other currently existing organization. It had to be a completely new and free church, founded entirely on Swedenborg’s Writings. This little meeting in a London coffee-shop laid the foundation for the New Church as an organization. The ambitious group began meeting weekly, and gradually the numbers grew.

The early receivers of the New Church were energetic missionaries. They began to preach to groups in the open air,not unlike the friars of medieval times. The results were slow, but gradually little groups of receivers formed in London, Salisbury and Bristol36. Together with Clowes’ work inthe Manchester area, the New Church, by the late 1780’s was starting to take form.

As the church grew, so the issue of the nature of the New Church and its relationship to the existing Christian Church became urgent. The faction, led by John Clowes, believed thatthe New Church was a revitalizing force within the organized church, particularly the Church of England37. Those who followed Hindmarsh were mostly from a Methodist background. They wanted to start a new organization with its own priesthood. The matter came to a head in 1787. The church separated and ordained a new clergy to lead it. On July 31st, 1787 the separatist faction applied for a Dissenter’s License,and the New Church came into being as an organized body38.

This organization of the New Church in England would, of course, have a great impact on the development of the Church in the world and most current New Church activity can be traced back to this separatist group.

36 Block. 1932:63.37 He refused a Bishopric to concentrate on developing the New Church withinhis parish (Block 1932:65).38 Block. 1932:65.


Early New Church concepts of Africans

Inspired by the portrayal of Africans in Swedenborg’s Writings, early New Church people took an idealized view of Africans. This is evident in the earlyliterature, and indeed in theart, of the New Church. Oneof the earliest works of NewChurch art is an illustration,published in the IntellectualRepository for 1791 depictinga scene from one ofSwedenborg’s recordedspiritual experiences. Itthis picture an African spiritis pointing out the trueconcept of marriage toEuropean spirits. His wisdomon the subject earns him acrown of recognition.

As early New Church convertsread Swedenborg’s works, someof them were struck with howwise they depicted Africans incontrast to the locallyaccepted mores of the day.The issue of slavery was stilllargely unquestioned in thesecond half of the eighteencentury. Africans were barelyhuman, bi-pedal beasts ofburden, good only for thelabor they produced. Someearly New Church readers,however, were deeply moved by the hope and promise for the Gentiles, and particularly for Africans.


An early convert, Charles B. Wadstrom, read Swedenborg’s descriptions of Africans, and grew increasingly convinced thatslavery should be abolished. Not only was it an affront to the African people in this world and the next, but it also went completely against Swedenborg’s strong teachings about personal freedom.

In 1779 he convened a council in Sweden to discuss agitating for the abolition of slavery. Those attending the council were convinced at they should establish a colony on the coast of Africa for freed slaves, with the full intention that they would also be taught Swedenborg’s doctrines. Wadstrom and his group petitioned the King of Sweden for eight years, until, in1787, the king sent him to the west coast of Africa to find a location for this colony. Wadstrom took his idea to England to find capital. The colony was established in due course, but in 1795 it was destroyed by French pirates and most of thecolonists were killed.

Swedenborg’s teachings about Africans, had, however, given a new spark to the anti-slavery movement. Amongst those influenced by his teachings was William Wilberforce39, who is generally considered ultimately responsible for the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 183340.

The teachings about Africans continued to fascinate New Churchmembers through the nineteenth century. Story after story appears in the pages of New Church publications, some of them quite fanciful, but all leading in the general direction that Africans are more spiritual, more highly civilized and more Christian than was generally thought possible in Europe. One example of a story published to highlight the nobility of Africans, at the expense of Europeans, was published in a New Church periodical in 1812. In it a young African is placed inthe army of Louis XIV. This youth was mistreated by an 39 Block. 1932:55.40 There is also evidence that Abraham Lincoln was also a reader ofSwedenborg’s works, although it is not clear how much these influenced himin his abolition of slavery in the United States.


officer, and was called upon to retaliate. The article relates how

[h]e refused, and in fact chose to leave the army rather than take revenge. His closing words were: ‘he did not imagine the Christians were such unaccountable people; and that he could not apprehend their faith was of any use to them, if it did not influence the practicer. In my country, we think it no dishonor to act according to the principles of our religion’41.

Recalling this story from the days of Louis XIV, thus before Swedenborg’s doctrines, indicates the belief that Africa had been spared the moral and spiritual decline that Swedenborg taught had gripped Europe. The principles of faith and honor were still practiced in Africa, even if not in so-called Christendom. At the root of this article is the idea that theNew Church almost exists somewhere in Africa which someone would find soon.

If New Church ideas of Africa were uninformed as the exploration and opening up of Africa had yet come to pass, they were by no means the only people who believed that there were secret civilizations in Africa. One such account is in another article in 1818:

For some years past the attention of Europe, and particularly our own country, has been directed to the interior of Africa, where, in consequence of reports gathered by various travelers, there has been supposed toexist a nation highly civilized. That this conjecture has a foundation in truth, those who receive the testimony of E[manuel] S[wedenborg] are fully convinced …. 42.

In this particular instance the story is told by a French Marquis who found himself enslaved by a highly civilized

41 Halcyon Luminary 1812: 140.42 Intellectual Repository 1818:167.


nation near the Mountains of the Moon43. This nation formed part of the ‘Empire of Droglodo’, an empire as ancient as China and more civilized than its surrounding neighbors. The Marquis

examined the history of their country, and found their sacred books much resembling, in many respects, the Holy Scriptures. He conceives that Genesis has been written according to the geography of that country44.

Once again Swedenborg’s writings were presumed to be vindicated in this account, perhaps especially since it came from a non-New Church origin. He had written that the Africans had a revelation, and also that Europeans caught among them were sold into slavery. The importance of this testimony was reinforced to contemporary New Church people by the observation that this story had been published by a Londonnewspaper, the New Times, on 14th April 1818. It was not a NewChurch fabrication, but still it seemed to substantiate Swedenborg’s writings, feeding the belief of an advanced New Church civilization, and substantiating the writings of Swedenborg.

A similar account appears in the same magazine four years later. This account takes place in the same area of Africa, the ‘Mountains of the Moon’, which seemed to capture the imagination of the times. In this article, a Mr. Waldeck writes that

… he found an inscribed pillar, erected by a Roman Consul, about the period of Vespasian. On the top of this chain of mountains is a level tract of 400 miles broad on which he discovered a temple of the highest antiquity, and in fine preservation, and still used for religious purposes45.

43 So far research has not turned up the location of these mountains. It ispossible that they may be the Ruwanzori Mountains in the lake district ofUganda – or they may be entirely fictional.44 Intellectual Repository 1818:167.45 Intellectual Repository 1822:71.


Not all those enthusiastic about Swedenborg’s Writings were convinced of their accuracy regarding Africans. In 1812 JamesGlen of Demerara, South America46, wrote a letter to the editorof the Intellectual Repository questioning whether ‘negroes orIndians’ could ever be true Christians. His observation was that while slavery was contrary to the concepts of human freedom taught so strongly in Swedenborg’s Writings, nevertheless it served to provide an external restraint on thegreater evils likely to erupt should the slaves be freed. Glen rejected the external Christianization of Africans in theNew World, holding that under the façade of Christianity lay an intense savagery. In addition to this, they seemed to be totally uninterested in religion at all. The final paragraph of his letter expresses his angst on the subject.

I will safely venture to say, few men have ever enquired by questions, into the thoughts, ideas, and affections ofnegroes and American Indians here, more than I have; and though they have seen me most desirous to pump up all theknowledge of any kind I could get out of them, yet I never found one who had the least desire to enquire afterany knowledge of any kind by a single question put to me.Yet I am certain there is no negro or Indian here, man orwoman, who would not ten times rather choose a handful oftobacco or a bottle of new rum, or five or six bits of dry money, than any kind of knowledge that I could communicate; and as to spiritual knowledges of any kind, they are totally averse to them; they deem them idle and useless; money and sensual pleasures, and fine clothes are seated in the inmost chamber of their affections. Can such persons ever be made real and internal Christians?47

James Glen had good reason to be despondent. He had first learned about the New Church in 1781 while reading a Latin copy of Heaven and Hell aboard ship. A scholar and linguist he

46 Modern Guyana. 47 Intellectual Repository 1864 327.


embraced the New Church with fervor and planned to transport it to the British colony of Demerara in South America. He joined the organized New Church in London in 1783, and is generally held responsible for introducing its teachings to Philadelphia and so to the United States in 1784. Most of hisadult life, however, was spent in Demerara, gradually coming to the conclusion that his work was a failure and that ‘negroes’ could never become Christians48.

Perhaps James Glen had run into the less heavenly kind of African. His letter to the Intellectual Repository did not dampen enthusiasm for finding the kind of Africans described in Swedenborg’s Writings. If the British public in the 1820’s thought of Africa as a land of mythological civilizations, their expectations were not diminished by some of the realities that emerged as the continent opened up. As the century wore on, European contact with Africa began to stretchbeyond the coasts. South Africa is a good example of this. Prior to 1795, the tip of Africa was a Dutch possession, originally settled as a company colony for the Dutch East India Company. Aside from the natural beauty of the Cape, theDutch were not particularly interested in the Cape as an imperial possession. It was more important as a fuelling station for ships traveling to more exotic possessions in the East Indies. Cape Town provided necessary food, and some excellent wines. The British and other European nations voyaging to India and other places on the continent were happyto refuel there too, but had no territorial aspirations.

This changed, however, with the Napoleonic Wars. With the Netherlands under French control, the British were concerned that the Cape might fall into the hands of the French. That would interrupt their passage to India. To prevent this from happening, they took control briefly in 1795, and then permanently in 1806. This gave them a toehold in Africa. Thenews filtering back to England was in some ways as interestingand thought provoking as reports of lost, almost New Church civilizations. The animals were almost as mythical, and it is

48 See Block 1932:62-63; 73-74.


easy to see why a person who could believe in a hippopotamus could easily believe that Vespasian left a pillar at the base of the ‘Mountains of the Moon’.

In the modern world of zoos and game reserves, movies and photographs, the creatures of Africa are no longer mysterious,but consider a reader in 1822 being introduced to a hippo for the first time:

This singular animal is frequent in the rivers which water the new colony at Alloa Bay (sic)49, near the Cape of Good Hope. It is here called the Sea Cow. The body is the size of the largest ox, the foot much larger, but of the same shape, yet the legs are not more than 18 inches long. The skin from one and a half to two inches thick, rough and uneven, with a little hair scattered over it. The head is immensely large, measuring from thetop of the head to the nose three feet, breadth across the eyes two feet two inches, continuing nearly the same size quite down to the mouth. Just above the mouth are two holes through which the animal spouts up water; the tusks are from four to five inches long, the ears very small. This leviathan of the rivers generally keeps in the water, but at night comes out to feed on the weeds and long grass which abound on the banks. Of all the monsters nature has formed, this is surely the most ugly50.

British settlers poured into South Africa throughout the nineteenth century, admittedly not in the same mighty flood that populated Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States, but in sufficient numbers to populate the Cape Colony.Knowledge of local areas brought an increasing awareness of ignorance of the true immensity of the continent. One thing that seemed to be lacking in the eyes of the settlers familiarwith Swedenborg’s teaching, however, was confirmation of the

49 Should read: Algoa Bay.50 Intellectual Repository 1822:72.


mythical New Church civilization. It certainly was not evident in South Africa.

In England, people looked for evidence of the African Church in other parts of the continent. Every description of Africa was scrutinized and reported on. The news was mixed. In an 1844 report on Nigeria, a writer observes that Africa for ‘thegreater part seems shut up as effectively against the advancesof civilization as if it were upon another planet’51. The samewriter points out that four fifths of the map of Africa is blank, although what they have found is exciting:

For half a century, the English government has been expending lives and treasure in a partial exploration. Theyhave found that this whole tract of country is one of amazing fertility and beauty, abounding in gold, ivory, and all sorts of tropical vegetation52.

This blankness helped to perpetuate the hope that surely, withall that natural wealth, in the vast blank expanses that lost hidden nation continued. A strong belief remained in the New Church that Swedenborg’s description of an African civilization living in angelic harmony, enriched with a revelation direct from the angels.

Upon this river [the Niger] are scattered cities, some of which are estimated to contain a million of inhabitants, andthe whole country teems with a dense population … Far in theinterior, in the very heart of this continent, is a nation in an advanced state of civilization53.

African Religious Beliefs

As Africa gradually opened up, and Europeans began to learn about their cultures and religious beliefs, so New Church people continued to look for signs that the Africa spoken of

51 Intellectual Repository 1844:439.52 Intellectual Repository 1844:440.53 Intellectual Repository 1844:440.


in Swedenborg’s Writings was congruent with the Africa before them. While they were naturally interested in the geographical reports of Africa, and the sociological descriptions filtering out of the continent, their primary interest was in the religion of Africans. Swedenborg had saidnothing about the natural circumstances of Africa; if the Africans described in his writings were to be found, the indicators would be their beliefs and religious practices. In1864 an article appeared in the pages of the New Church magazine, the Intellectual Repository which indicates that NewChurch people might interpret African religions somewhat differently from others.

New Churchmen have a special interest in watching the disclosures of what may be the religious doctrines of theAfricans; and when those disclosures are made in a spiritof rational inquiry, rather than with sectarian colouringfor sectarian opposition, they become important as well as interesting54.

The same articles uses Western Africa as an example, by citingthat religion in that area is monotheistic. The writer states,

But I think that with some shadow of confidence, I may hazard an opinion by stating that, on closer examination,the religion of Africa will be found in general to be monotheistic55.

He goes on to then describe how the people in the district of Accra ‘have a pretty exact knowledge of the one God, whom theycall ‘Father’ and the ‘eternal one…’ So exact is their knowledge, but they do not even have a plural form of the word‘God’. Missionaries from the area assured the writer of that article that they had had to coin a plural form when translating the Bible into the regional language.

54 Intellectual Repository 1864:102.55 Intellecutal Repository 1864:102.


This analysis of African religion was very interesting for nineteenth century New Church people. It coincided perfectly with Swedenborg’s description of Africans as being almost angelic, for not only are angels monotheistic by definition, but he says, that they ‘are unable to open their lips to utterthe word "gods," for the heavenly aura in which they live resists it’56. In descriptions like these there is not only acoming together of practice and doctrine, but also an indication of the truth of Swedenborg’s teachings.

The issue of monotheism was central to New Church people, for Swedenborg had rejected the orthodox Christian concept of one God in a Trinity of Three Persons. Such an idea, he said, wasmonotheism on the lips, but tritheism in practice. If the Africans rejected a plurality of God, then they embraced the monotheism of Swedenborg. The monotheism of this tribe, however, did not translate into the personal loving God, Jesus Christ, whom the New Church worshipped. In New Church theology God is a constant presencein people’s lives, intimately involved in every detail, both guiding and protecting human freedom of choice. This personalaspect of God was missing from African concepts of the Divine.

… the African considers God to be too ‘high’, too ‘mighty’ a Being, too ‘far’ from the earth to trouble himself about the small affairs of men; and therefore it is ordained in African theology that the African mortal creature should be placed during the present life under the protection of ‘Fetishes’57.

‘Fetishes’, ‘idols’ and ‘cultic images’ were characteristic ofpre-Christian African beliefs, in which spirits abounded and ancestors were the primary protectors – or punishers. The Africans did not pray directly to God. In some cultures He was almost forgotten, or remembered as a primary creator.

56 This is a reference to TCR 6.57 Intellectual Repository 1864:102.


Thus while African religious beliefs coincided at times with the teachings of the New Church, there were also bitter disappointments when those leads were carried to their conclusions. However, the New Church concept of religion is multifaceted. Belief plays an important role, and as Swedenborg wrote, the idea of God is the most important one a person can have. However, ideas or beliefs in their own rightdo not create spirituality. True religious life is an interaction between belief and activity. If the exuberant reports of monotheistic West Africans was somewhat subdued by fetishism, then other reports rekindled hope that the life of religion might be found on the continent.

The published reports of Dr. David Livingstone, whose travels took him deep into the heart of Africa, rekindled the belief that somewhere in Africa the New Church existed, that a revelation was taking place, the Word read, and that elusive angelic culture flourished. Livingstone’s journey into modernMalawi enthused English readers, one of whom writes,

Who shall despair of Africa when we find it contains a race energetic and industrious in their habits, skilful in workmanship, obedient to law, and holding a belief in one God and a future state? Such are the people of Nyassa…58.

Africa’s Magna Charter

Even though the people at the time could not have known it, the New Church was moving towards her role as a spiritual presence in Africa. The promises and hopes of an African New Church had had to wait for a long century as the continent opened up both physically and spiritually. Soon, however, thefirst tentative steps towards establishing the New Church would break the boundaries of colonial groups and spread amongst Africans. In the meantime, the ground work of interest in and enthusiasm for this work was growing in England and South Africa. A final discussion that influenced

58 Intellectual Repository 1866:185.


the New Church in England, and perhaps laid the finishing paving stones for an African Church took place in the 1890’s between two scholarly men.

In 1892 Dr. James John Garth Wilkinson was eighty years old, agiant of a man, both mentally and physically59. His contribution to New Church literature and thinking was immense, spanning more than forty years. He first appears on the New Church scene in the 1850’s. Following the tradition of John Clowes, he was a Non-Separatist who had not given up membership in the Church of England. This did not limit his total commitment to the New Church; it simply meant that he was interested in various avenues to its growth other than theorganized church. Like many New Church people of his time, hewas fascinated by Spiritualism, although he believed séances to be harmful60. It is some measure of the man that the attraction Spiritualism held for him was the possibility of using Spiritualistic methods of communication as a way of treating the insane. Automatic writing and drawing, for example, could provide a way of analyzing and tracking a mental patient’s progress. It is interesting that his idea ofhaving asylum patients draw, and then comparing drawings done over a period of time, has become a standard practice in certain therapies61. A profound intellect and liberal thinker,he was interested also interested in Fourierism62, the nineteenth century movement advocating free love – although Wilkinson was sufficiently grounded in Swedenborg’s doctrines of marriage to see that the two ideas did not mix63. Because of this, Fourierism lost to the New Church in claiming his allegiance. He also played an enormous role in translating and publishing works by Swedenborg that had not yet appeared before the public. Historian, Marguarite Beck Block sums him up saying,

59 Morning Light 1891:487.60 Block 1932:140.61 This type of therapy is particularly useful in assessing children who maynot have the verbal skills to express their inner conflicts.62 Followers of Charles Fourier.63 Block 1932:150.


Dr. Wilkinson may well be called the first Swedenborgian scientist in England, for he not only translated the Regnum Animale, and other works by Swedenborg, but also wrote several highly original works of his own, such as The Physics of Human Nature, and The Human Body … He wrote a Life of Swedenborg in which he takes a decidedly liberal view of the great Seer’s life and teachings64

Wilkinson’s liberal approach did not always endear him to readers in the New Church, but his standing in the scientific community, plus the fact that he was personal friends with people like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry James and others of that calibre65, meant that when he wrote something, people tooknotice. They took notice in 1892, when he published a book with the imposing title: The African and the True Christian Religion, his Magna Charta, a study in the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, by James John GarthWilson, Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. The reference to the Royal Geographical Society was the final reminder of his already impressive and impeccable credentials. This was a work to take seriously.

He was a man to take seriously. His thoughts on Africa were grounded on wide reading, study of Swedenborg’s Theological Works, and on contact with African people. For years he had been in contact with Africans, and once had two African bishops under his roof at the same time66. He had personally traveled to North Africa, as had other members of his family. His interest in the continent and its people was so deep, thathe considered himself to be an African!67

Wilkinson further enhances the credibility of the book by dedicating it to Dr. Edward W. H. Blyden with the following words:

64 Block 1932:307 – 308.65 Block 1932:308.66 Morning Light 1891:488. The author does not state whether these ‘Africanbishops’ were truly African, or British missionary bishops who had beenposted to Africa. 67 Morning Light 1891:488.


I am glad to have your kind permission to inscribe this Book to you. I sought the honor because you are an eminent Representative of your Race, and in the near future will in all likelihood be instrumental in guiding and shaping its fortunes. I also wish hereby to signalize my obligations to your powerful work, Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race, of which I have made large use68.

Edward Wilmot Blyden was also a well-known, respected scholar.His distinction from contemporary scholars was the fact that he was black and lived in Liberia. Blyden was born in the St.Thomas Virgin Islands in 1832. Initially intending to be a clergyman, he studied on the island until he outgrew the school. In 1850 he went to the United States and applied to enter a theological college. His race barred him. A year later he left the United States for Liberia, an independent African country on the West Coast.

Blyden continued to educate himself. In turns he became a principal of a school, a college professor, the Secretary of State for Liberia. He edited newspapers, and even ran for president. Over the years he wrote many pamphlets and books, each championing and defending the people of Africa and Africans abroad. He is recognized as one of the founders of the Pan-African movement, and his works are still held in highesteem.

Blyden sought to prove that Africa and Africans have a worthy history and culture. He rejected the prevailing notion of the inferiority of the black man but accepted the view that each major race has a special contribution to make to world civilization. He argued that Christianity has had a demoralizing effect on blacks, while Islam has had a unifying and elevating influence69.

68 Wilkinson, James John Garth. The African and the True Christian Religion, his MagnaCharta, a study in the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, by James John Garth Wilson, Fellow of theRoyal Geographical Society. 1892.69 Biographical Resource Center.


Blyden’s views on Africa, which included some controversial insights into the success of Islam over Christianity, were spread through many of his works. His greatest work, however,Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race, published in 1887 was the one that inspired Wilkinson to connect African nationalism with New Church Doctrine. Blyden’s theme was that Christianity had largely failed to provide Africa with the influences necessaryto remake African society. On the other hand Islam has performed admirably. He reiterated this belief to Wilkinson in a letter of gratitude for the dedication of Wilkinson’s work.

I believe that Islam has done for the vast tribes of Africa what Christianity in the hands of Europeans has not yet done. It has cast out the demons of fetishism, general ignorance of God, drunkenness, gambling, and has introduced customs which subserve for the people of the highest purposes of growth and preservation. I do not believe that a system which had done such things can be outside of God’s beneficent plans for the evolution of humanity70.

The concepts in Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race sparked many ideas in Wilkinson’s mind, amongst them, Swedenborg’s descriptions of Africa and Africans combined with teachings onthe nature of Islam and the people drawn to it. One passage that leaped out at him, and is quoted in his own book is Blyden’s description of a new African civilization.

It will be – indeed must be – a civilization of a peculiar stamp; perhaps, we venture to conjecture, not somuch distinguished by art as by a certain beautiful nature; not so marked or adorned by science as exalted and refined by a new and lovely theology – a reflection of the light of heaven more perfect and endearing than that which the intellects of the Caucasian race have everexhibited. There is more of the child, of

70 Blyden to Wilkinson, Nov. 17th 1891. Published as an appendix toWilkinson 1892:244.


unsophisticated nature in the Negro race than in the European71.

These words may well have come from Swedenborg, they summarizehis teachings so well. For Wilkinson, the obvious solution was the New Church, taken to Africa and presented to Africans by Africans committed to the cause. Wilkinson takes Blyden’s idea that Africa would be best populated by expatriate, educated American Christians who can teach and lead the people, and carry them a step forward. The motive for this repatriation must be religion, and that religion, of course, must be the New Church. He writes,

But what if the Negro learns from Swedenborg, through hisreligious instructors of his own race, that a special newreligion awaits him, and that according to his obedience to its commandments he can be a new man with a high mission before him? (Wilkinson 1892:vi).

Wilkinson was convinced that the only solution to Africa’s troubles lay in the New Church, for only in that way would it be possible for people, both black and white, to come to a true appreciation for each other: ‘Now I see that such a statesuperinduced upon the Negro Race would soften the relations ofthe Black population to the white men’72. The only way to do this, would be to create a ‘store of black missionaries’ from the Americas ‘to penetrate the Dark Continent’73. Stanley’s ‘Darkest Africa’ would become the New Church’s ‘Brightest Africa’74.

To demonstrate his point that the New Church is the most suitable Church for Africa, Wilkinson spends over a hundred pages in the first part of The African and the True Christian Religion on Swedenborg’s teachings on Africans. It is one of the longest and fullest expositions of the subject in the history of New 71 Wilkinson 1892:126, quoting Edward Blyden: Christianity, Islam and theHuman Race.72 Wilkinson 1892:vii.73 Wilkinson 1892:vii.74 Wilkinson 1892:7.


Church literature. Interspersed among the quotations is editorial material on the suitability of the New Church to theAfrican. One particularly poignant editorial passage reads:

In these deep, clear, doctrinal, childlike conferences ofSwedenborg with the Africans in the spiritual world, we see in him an explorer in a real but new sense, for spiritual space is a reality, being no other than the distance or measured distance between the hearts and affections; and he was with these disciples in social intercourse on the ground of love alone. No stranger canbe in the spiritual Africa, but by the neighborliness of the heart. The information he communicated and exchangedwith his beloved Africans – for they made it take the simple form it did – was not only good school theology, but was a profound alteration of the state of those African spirits, putting them in receptive communication with their long unknown heavens, and kindling their hearts to the Africa they left behind in the natural world75.

He followed this exposition of Swedenborg’s teachings on Africans with a careful analysis of Blyden’s work, showing howin many cases it was in perfect accord with Swedenborg. A particular parallel he draws is between Swedenborg’s teaching,and Blyden’s experience that Africans do not easily accept themissionary teachings of European Christians. However, if the missionaries were African themselves, of the same spiritual heredity of their potential converts, and if they could speak the language, getting to the heart of the matter, then they would be ‘welcomed by hearts that want them’76. It would be even better still if Africans converted to the New Church thenbecame the leaders of their own churches.

Wilkinson does not idealize the Africans of his time, though. He points out that the African spirits Swedenborg spoke to

75 Wilkinson 1892:18.76 Wilkinson 1892:152.


were ‘heathens, and remained so while in the natural world’77. The angelic Africans have not yet been found78. However, whilemany people at that time would accuse the African as having ‘athirst for blood and an utter disregard for human life … oftencombined with cannabilism’79, the New Church person would not give up looking for the good ones. Rather poignantly he writes,

The tenor of Swedenborg’s general doctrine, however, would be, that if there were no good men in Africa in this time, there would be no good spirits then from Africa in the spiritual world; consequently no communication through heaven by spiritual African societies to any natural African society on earth. Deathchanges no man; he is most exactly the same man, person, identity, character, in the life after death as before; only that his earthly body, which obstructs his showing for good or evil, is put aside80.

Although reports of African savagery may be true, Wilkinson holds fast to the belief that those who will embrace the New Church are in and continue to be in Africa somewhere.

Wilkinson finishes his book by drawing a parallel between the Epiphany of Jesus Christ and the coming of the New Church to Africa. Both introduce new states of the Church, on in the person of God, the other in the teachings of the Word. The hope of the New Church, and through it of all humanity, lies in Africa.

The African and the New Church Religion sparked a wave of interest in the Africa and the prospects of the Church there. Reviews appeared in various New Church periodicals over the next few years. Some of them disagreed with Wilkinson’s interpretations of Swedenborg’s teachings on Africa81, but this77 Wilkinson 1892:145. 78 Wilkinson 1892:154.79 Wilkinson 1892:162.80 Wilkinson 1892:162. 81 For example, J. Howard Spalding’s review in New Church Magazine


merely served to focus attention even more closely on the spiritual nature of Africans. Other reviewers took issue withWilkinson’s writing style, but never with the concept itself. Africans need the New Church, because the New Church is particularly suited to their mind, and when they receive it, they will lead the way into true Christianity. J. Howard Spalding sums this up in the closing words of his review of Wilkinson:

Great as is the change which has passed over the popular idea of the Negro since Swedenborg’s time, the great massof the races of European origin still overlook him so loftily that he is scarcely visible to them, except as the object of a smile or jeer. The time may come when thewhite man, having exhausted all the resources of his vaunted civilization and found it vanity, may be willing to receive from the humble Africans the lessons of the way of life; and find, at last, that he has been unwittingly sitting at the feet of Jesus and learning from Him to be meek and lowly of heart82.

The nineteenth century is called many things, but seldom the ‘Age of Africa’, yet in many respects this is what it was. The fantasy notions, born of ignorance, of the first half of the century gave way to the opening up of the continent. While there were those who fought the institution of slavery, there were also those who were only too eager to exploit Africa for their own ends. The possibilities of land, power, gold, diamonds, space and servants proved too much for many Europeans. Africa was carved up into the Empires that define which part of the continent speaks which European language. For the most part the relationship between Europe and Africa was not edifying, nor would they be for a long time to come.

(1892:590) calls Wilkinson to task or presenting the idea that therevelation to Africans is temporary. Spalding writes that ‘the revelationto the Africans was not merely a preparation for a Church, but theinstitution of a Church’, and therefore remains a continual fact, ratherthan a once-off event.82 Spalding, J. Howard. New Church Magazine. 1892:593.


In the New Church, however, the idea of Africa did not change,but ripened and matured. The early enthusiasm of the Swedish idealists who formed their colony on the West Coast grew into the appreciation of African potential. Wilkinson’s book, the articles, lectures and dreams of the next twenty years served to refine that enthusiasm. Within twenty years for Wilkinson’s book, Swedenborg’s doctrines would be read across South Africa and in Lesotho, and within a hundred years would form the basic belief of people in East and West Africa, French and English both. In almost all cases the New Church developing in the individual counties of Africa would begin bypeople finding copies of Swedenborg’s Writings, and contactingorganized churches in England and the United States. At the present moment, the majority of New Church people live in Africa.

A Love Affair with Africa: 19th Century Swedenborgian Views of Africa

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