Distant Voices

The legacy of the Enlightenment philosopher, scientist, and mystic Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) permeated widely throughout nineteenth-century literature, art, and social reform movements. In Distant Voices: Sketches of a Swedenborgian World View, John S. Haller takes us from the mid-nineteenth-century worlds of Henry James Sr., Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Charles Fourier through to the 1960s era of counterculture shaped by D. T. Suzuki. Each chapter can be read as a self-contained essay: biographical and critical appraisals (and reappraisals) in which the subjects are linked together by their use of Swedenborg, their interest in Eastern culture, and their desire for the betterment of society. The complete list of essays includes Henry James Sr., Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Fourier, Albert Brisbane, Thomas Lake Harris, J. J. G. Wilkinson, James Tyler Kent, Charles Bonney, The World's Parliament of Religions, Paul Carus, Herman Vetterling, Ralph Waldo Trine, and D. T. Suzuki.

John S. Haller Jr., emeritus professor of history and medical humanities at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, has written on subjects ranging from the history of race and sexuality to medicine, pharmacy, and spirituality. His most recent books include The History of American Homeopathy (2009), The History of New Thought (2012), and Shadow Medicine (2014).

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