Heaven and Hell 379:The delight of true marriage love not only endures to old age in the world, but after death becomes the delight of heaven and is there filled with an interior delight that grows more and more perfect to eternity. The varieties of blessedness of true marriage love could be enumerated even to many thousands, not even one of which is known to people, or could enter into the comprehension of any one who is not in the marriage of good and truth from the Lord.
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Arcana Coelestia 2734:Those who during their lifetime have found happiness in marriage because of genuine conjugial love find happiness again in the next life, so that the happiness experienced by them in one life is continued into that of the other, where it becomes a union of minds, in which is heaven.
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Conjugial Love 216:People who are in a state of truly conjugial love look to eternity in their marriage because eternity is inherent in this love. Its eternity is owing to the fact that this love in the wife and wisdom in the husband grow to eternity, and as these grow or progress, the partners enter more and more deeply into the blessings of heaven-blessings which their wisdom and love of wisdom at the same time carry concealed within them.

It’s sort of like finding Hegelian parallels in Joseph. One has to be careful on how to take them. Further, from an LDS perspective, who is to argue that Swedenborg wasn’t partially inspired so as to lay the groundwork for the restoration? Why do we put in pamphlets the inspiration of folks like Martin Luther but ignore folks less accepted in the mainstream?

Ardis: thanks for commenting; your contributions are always more than welcome . Also, how Mormons dealt with these issues during the Utah period is equally interesting–too bad most of my fascination with Mormonism didn’t make the trek west.

I’m revising the Buck’s paper (the MHA one) now and do feel that there were several important issues relating to angels in the negotiation of sacred pasts and authority. In the Chain paper that I’ve almost completed revisions for I argue that there was a humanization of angels required to tame the old Chain, and I think this plays a crucial part in JSJ’s angelology as well. I’ll be interested to get your comments on my angel work.

once I finish the death project (current plan is to submit jan 1, 2009), I’m collecting material for an essay that I plan to call “The early Mormon assault on Common Sense” that brings together the disparate threads of rationalism, supernaturalism, biblical textuality, and the meaning of knowledge and science for antebellums.

I agree with you that Mormon angelology has been only poorly considered as a general rule and think it’s time for more and better work. One of the chapters in the death book will focus on angels and the meaning of the encounters, mostly emphasizing the Chain material and the creation of a society against death.

As for Swedenborg, I had to abandon an essay on this for lack of time, but it’s an interesting question. Quinn’s evidence is actually a minor misquote from Edward Hunter’s late autobiography, and Quinn is the source that Brooke and Albanese rely on. Nobody really has adduced much concrete evidence of any specific encounter.

That said, there’s no reason to doubt that early LDS knew about Swedenborg–Parley Pratt clearly invoked him in his response to LaRoy Sunderland’s 1838 pamphlet, and there are other clues of varying complexity. Heaven and Hell was immensely popular at the time, and people talked about Swedenborg a lot (though popular Swedenborgianism would wait to skyrocket for seance spiritualism of the 1850s and 60s, which relied heavily on his angelology/eschatology). A description of Swedenborgianism was available in Buck’s (and on the same page as I recall as the Nestorians which Taylor quoted directly), and if I had to guess how much Smith and others knew, I would say that the Buck’s piece and random gossip would be the extent of their knowledge.

It would be simplistic to deny any link between Swedenborgianism and Smithian angelology, just as it would be simplistic to read JSJ as a closet Swedenborgian. My personal view is that a somewhat superficial understanding of Swedenborg represented one of the many disparate threads from which JSJ drew inspiration as he revealed the new dispensation. Perhaps not as directly as he inspired Ann Lee (the Shaker founder called Swedenborg her “John the Baptist”), but ES at the very least opened the way for JSJ. A priesthood manual from the 1940s (may have the date off by a decade or two) actually brought up ES as an example of how God was preparing the world for the prophet of the Restoration.

Incidentally, it’s not a surprise to see the way some modern spiritualists use Joseph Smith and particularly Moroni to defend angelic intercourse through seance-type encounters.

I seem to remember Quinn making the argument that JS had a lot of contact with Swedenborianism, but I don’t have my Early Mormonism and the Magic World View handy.

Hopefully someone will comment who has researched this matter more and is qualified to give a better answer.