Is Mars Inhabited — Swedenborg's View

1909

Long before any modern astronomer had put the question, however, it had been answered in an interesting way by Emanuel Swedenborg, the noted statesman, scientist and theologian of Sweden, who lived from 1688 to 1772. As is well known, in his latter years he claimed to have conscious converse with angels and spirits, and to have had innumerable experiences in the spiritual world, in order that he might make known to mankind things otherwise unknown. At the beginning of his little treatise, commonly entitled "The Earths in the Universe," he says:

"Since, by the divine mercy of the Lord, the interiors of my spirit have been opened, and thereby I have been enabled to speak with spirits and angels, both with those who are near our earth and with those who are near other earths, and since I had a desire to know whether there are other earths and what is their nature and that of their inhabitants, therefore it has been given me by the Lord to speak and converse with spirits and angels from other earths — with some for a day, with some for a week and with some for months — and to be instructed by them concerning the earths from which and near which they were, and concerning the life, the customs and the worship of the inhabitants, as well as various other matters worthy of narration; and since it has been granted me to learn those things in this way, I am permitted to describe them from what I have heard and seen."

Concerning the planet Mars, and its spirits and inhabitants, he wrote in part as follows:

"The spirits of Mars are the best of all among the spirits that are from the earths of our solar system. * * * They regard it as wicked to think one thing and speak another, and to will one thing and show another in the face. They do not know what hypocrisy is, nor what fraudulent pretense and deceit are. * *

"The angelic spirits (from that planet) spoke with me about the life of the inhabitants on their earth; that they are not under governments, but are arranged in societies larger and smaller, and that they take into their societies such as agree with them in mind, which they know at once from the face and speech, and are rarely deceived. Then they are friends at once. They said also that their consociations are delightful, and that they speak with one another of those things that are done in the societies, especially those done in heaven; for many of them have manifest communication with the angels of heaven. Those in their societies who begin to think perversely, and from this to will evil, are cast out of the societies, and left to themselves alone, and thus pass their time very miserably out of society, among rocks or elsewhere; for the society no longer takes thought for them."

The above statements do not throw much light upon the inventive or mechanical ability of the inhabitants of Mars; or upon the problem of the existence of immense irrigating systems on the planet. Concerning such canals Swedenborg says absolutely nothing.

It is, of course, impossible to prove the above statements of Swedenborg by any means that we have at our disposal at present. It is also impossible to disprove them. Some people believe them to be true. They are at least of interest in view of the present scientific problem of the presence on Mars of intelligent beings.

—Only excerpts of article printed in The Galveston Daily News, Galveston, TX, Sept. 19, 1909, p. 18.