The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love: To Which is Added the Pleasures of Insanity Pertaining to Scortatory Love

Emanuel Swedenborg was a Swedish scientist and theologian who, in his final decades, claimed direct access to the afterlife. This 1769 work is his most personal and peculiar text: a vision of heaven structured as a series of dialogues where angels debate what constitutes eternal joy. Some insist it is feasting and pleasant company. Others argue it is usefulness and serving others. An angel guides these spirits toward a startling conclusion: genuine heaven is the marriage of love and wisdom. But Swedenborg's real radicalism lies in what follows: a detailed examination of "conjugial love" - the spiritual bond between married partners - and its opposite, "the pleasures of insanity pertaining to scortatory love." He argues that marriages in heaven can wither if partners discover their incompatibilities and must then seek their true soulmates. Written in formal 18th-century prose but containing passages of startling intimacy, this is a text that reads like a theological treatise written by someone who genuinely believed he had slept with angels. It appeals to anyone fascinated by visionaries, weird lit, or the strange specificities of obsolete spiritual epistemologies.