There was an article in the November, 1998, issue of Studia Swedenborgiana by Dan Campbell titled, "The Poughkeepsie Seer," comparing Andrew Jackson Davis with Edgar Cayce. It was an informative article, and I would now like to carry the story further by looking at some of the ways in which Swedenborgians responded to Davis.

Davis was born on August 11, 1826, in Blooming Grove, New York. His father, who was unstable and did odd jobs to support the family, may have been an alcoholic. Davis' mother apparently was a strongly religious woman. The family moved frequently, and Andrew had little regular schooling. Poorly nourished and uneducated, he was quiet and apparently shy.¹

Andrew began having spiritual experiences in childhood. He would occasionally sleepwalk and hear voices. One day, when he was about seven, he ran out of his cottage exploding in anger over some incident. He heard a voice say: "Why, Jackson!" He went inside and found it was not his mother's voice. As he grew older, his encounters with the voice increased. When he was thirteen and begging for food, he heard: "A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump." So, he began selling yeast and made some money for the family.

When Davis was seventeen years old [in 1843], he attended a lecture on Mesmerism. He began experiencing trance states and found that he had considerable clairvoyance. He could, for example, read a newspaper on his forehead or diagnose disease. Some of his cures are ones that a modern mind might find revolting: such as applying the skins of recently killed rats to the ear to cure deafness.²

On March 6, 1844, Davis went into his usual clairvoyant trance state to diagnose disease, but then had difficulty shaking the trance. In his boarding house room he fell asleep but then was awakened by a voice telling him to get dressed and then follow its directions. Davis was led to Mill and Hamilton Streets in Poughkeepsie where he saw a vision of a shepherd and sheep. Then Davis fell to the ground unconscious for awhile. When he awoke he ran across the ice on the Hudson River and ended up in a cemetery in the midst of a woods. He saw a spirit there who lectured him on the many ways people of the earth were violating natural laws. Davis later realized this spirit was Galen, the ancient Greek physician. The old gentleman gave Davis a magical staff that represented the correspondence between Galen's medical system and nature.³ Then Davis realized that there was a second figure in the cemetery who was a man of great intellect and spirituality. The spirit said to him, "Thou hast become an appropriate vessel for the influx and perception of truth and wisdom .... By thee will a new light appear ...."⁴ Later, Davis was made to understand that this spirit was Emanuel Swedenborg.⁵ Soon afterwards, he claimed that he again encountered Swedenborg who gave him the letters "A.C." and then a series of numbers. Davis was in. structed to send these to a Professor Bush, a Swedenborgian whom Davis had recently met.⁶

George Bush was professor of Hebrew at New York University. Bush was actually the brother of Timothy Bush, the great-great-grandfather of the former president.⁷

Through an interest in Mesmerism, Bush had discovered the Swedenborgian Church and later was the leader of the New York Society of the New Church. Bush was convinced that Swedenborgian theology provided an explanation for Mesmerism.⁸

In 1847 Bush published a book, Mesmer and Swedenborg, showing how Mesmerism is proof of Swedenborg's experiences in the spiritual world. In his first appendix he discussed the experiences of Andrew Jackson Davis. He considered Davis to be entirely genuine, pointing out that he was uneducated and had never heard of Swedenborg prior to this trance. It should be noted, however, that he had met Bush prior to that trance, so that he had probably heard of Swedenborg.⁹ While in trance, Davis gave lectures on subjects like cosmology, ethnology, astronomy, geology, and physics. Bush further claimed that in trance states, Davis could quote pages of Swedenborg virtually verbatim as well as languages such as Latin and Greek that he knew nothing about.

Bush said that Davis "is a young man not far from twenty years of age, who is well known to a wide circle as a person of remarkable clairvoyant powers in the investigation of disease.¹⁰ He devoted an appendix of nearly fifty pages extolling the virtues of Davis.

Bush's initial enthusiasm about Davis later proved to be embarrassing for Swedenborgians. In 1847, Davis published an eight-hundred page book of his trance lectures: The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind which was well received, in part due to Bush's accolades of Davis. However, it became clear to Bush that Davis' theology was, in fact, quite contradictory to Swedenborg's on a number of major points.

For example, Davis developed a belief that he had reached the "Superior Condition" beyond clairvoyance where he received truth from the spiritual sun beyond the spiritual world. Like Swedenborg, Davis claimed to be able to visit the spirit world at will. He also found six spiritual spheres, but unlike Swedenborg, said none of them was hell. To Davis, all spirits continue progressing throughout eternity.¹¹

The New Jerusalem Magazine gave a scathing critique of Davis, and of Bush for supporting him, in September of 1847. The magazine said:

We have had the volume but a short time, and have not thoroughly examined it, but the contents affect us painfully, and fully justify the deep regret we felt, that through the writings of Professor Bush, so much currency had been given to the opinion, that these lectures of Davis had some important connection with the writings of Swedenborg^.12

The New Jerusalem Magazine went on to caution readers not to take Bush's perspective as representative of the New Church as a whole. They pointed out that Davis saw the Lord as merely a man who was a great reformer and that Davis denied the sanctity of the Word. The article hoped that "the writings and claims of Swedenborg may be entirely separated from the ravings of Davis, and of all other unprepared intruders . . . into the confines of the spiritual world ...."¹³

Bush, apparently attempting to get back in the good graces

of Swedenborgians, co-authored with B. F. Barrett a pamphlet:

"Davis's Revelations Revealed" in which Bush reversed his

opinion on the authenticity of Davis' experiences.

Bush and Barrett state: "Although the general tone of his

[Davis'] allusions to this distinguished man [Swedenborg] is

respectful and honorary, yet we propose to show that they are

calculated greatly to mislead the reader as to the true character

of his teachings ...."¹⁴ Bush continued, however, to support

the integrity of Davis: "... in our discussion of the subject we shall waste little time in arguing the question of the genuineness of the present work"¹⁵ The way Bush and Barrett resolved this dilemma is an argument that Swedenborgians have often used about messages received from trance mediums: they came from lower-level spirits who were not truthful.

Two months after the pamphlet was published, Bush wrote to a friend that his involvement with Mesmerism "has drawn upon me the deep disapprobation of the Boston circle." He noted that he was disappointed in parts of Davis' book, which he hadn't seen prior to publication. But he comments that the "assault in the last New Jerusalem Magazine is one of the most impotent failures I have ever seen." Then he adds: "If he [Davis] is right, Swedenborg is undoubtedly wrong in some of the grandest points of his system."¹⁶

The December issue of the New Jerusalem Magazine reviewed the pamphlet by Bush and Barrett. They were displeased at the extent to which the authors continued to hold Davis in high regard. However, they were glad that Bush had finally reversed himself and acknowledged that Davis' teachings were not Swedenborgian doctrine and that he had revealed "the inconsistencies and self-contradictions" that were throughout Davis' work)¹⁷ The New Church Review, published in London, did a review of The Principles of Nature, her Divine Revelations, and A Voice to Mankind in 1848. They said:

With respect to the intrinsic value of this strange production, to say that it utterly falsifies all the glowing eulogiums with which it was ushered into public notice, would be but an imperfect statement of our estimation of its contents.¹⁸ Davis continued to be a controversial figure in Swedenborgian history. He was an important link between Spiritualists and Swedenborgians. His writings aroused considerable Swedenborgian hostility in his time. Perhaps it is time to take a fresh look at Andrew Jackson Davis and his role in our church's history.

REFERENCES CITED

Block, Marguerite. The New Church in the New World: A Study of Swedenborgianism in America. New York: Swedenborg Publishing Association, 1984.

Bush, George. Mesmer and Sweclenborg; or, The Relation of the Developments of Mesmerism to the Doctrines and Disclosures of Swedenborg. New York: John Allen, 1847.

. Letter of Nov. 22, 1847, in Woodbury, M. Fernald, Memoirs and Reminiscences of the Late Prof. George Bush. Boston: Otis Clapp, 1860.

Bush, George and B. F. Barrett. Davis' Revelations Revealed; being a Critical Examination of the Character and Claims of that Work in Its Relations to the Teachings of Swedenborg. New York: John Allen, 1847.

Davis, Andrew Jackson. The Magic Staff: An Autobiography of Andrew Jackson Davis. New York: J. S. Brown & Co. 1857.

Judah, J. Stillson. The History and Philosophy of the Metaphysical Move-

ments in America. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1967. New Church Quarterly Review or Philosophical Examiner. Volume II.

London: 1848.

New Jerusalem Magazine. Boston; Vol. 21. September and December, 1847.

Podmore, Frank. From Mesmer to Christian Science: A Short History of Mental Healing. Hyde Park, NY: University Books, 1963.

This article is adapted from the author's upcoming book, Wings and Roots: The New Age and Emanuel Swedenborg in Dialog. It is scheduled to be published by J. Appleseed & Co. in 1999.

1 Frank Podmore, From Mesmer to Christian Science: A Short History of Mental Healing (Hyde Park, NY: University Books, 1963), 220-221.

2. J. Stillson Judah, The History and Philosophy of the Metaphysical Movements

in America (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1967), 53, citing Davis, Magic Staff, 1869.

3. Andrew Jackson Davis, The Magic Staff." An Autobiography of Andrew Jackson Davis (New York: J. S. Brown & Co., 1857), 240-241, 248.

4. Ibid., 227-248.

5. Ibid., 248.

6. Ibid., 316, 333.

7. See New York Newsday of Feb.,1989.

8. Davis, 134.

9. Ibid., 316.

10. George Bush, Mesrner and Swedenborg; or The Relation of the Developments of Mesmerism to the Doctrines and Disclosures of Swedenborg. (New York: John Allen, 1847), 169.

11. Bush, 56, citing Davis, The Great Harmonia, vol. 2, 251-254.

12. New Jerusalem Magazine, (Boston: September, 1847), 551.

13. Ibid., 552.

14. George Bush and B. F. Barrett, Davis' Revelations Revealed; being a Critical Examination of the Character and Claims of that Work in Its Relations to the Teachings of Swedenborg. (New York: John Allen, 1847), 6.

15. Ibid., 7.

16. Bush, letter of Nov. 22, 1847, in M. Femald Woodbury, Memoirs andReminis-cences of the Late Prof George Bush (Boston: Otis Clapp, 1860).

17. New Jerusalem Magazine (Dec. 1847), 109.

18. New Church Quarterly Review or Philosophical Examiner. Volume II (London: 1848), 36.