Swedenborgian, The.
A New-Church Monthly Magazine.
1858--1860
New York, NY.
Publisher: American New Church Association.
Editor: Rev. B.F. Barrett, A.M.
1/1, January 1858-4/6, June 1860. 72 pp., $1.00 a year. Two volumes a year.

This was a fairly typical New Church journal of the time: well-written, though wordy, and somewhat pedantic. It was started as a means of aiding the American New Church Association and contained notices of New Church activities and internecine squabbles, and extensive reviews of contemporary literature. Benjamin Fiske Barrett (1808-1892), the editor, was a central figure in the 1840s and 1850s in the efforts in the Church to determine the relationship of Swedenborg and spiritualism, and in the process rubbed shoulders with practically everybody involved in early spiritualism. He was an early biographer and translator of Swedenborg and as early as 1845 had warned of the dangers of "Open Intercourse with the Spiritual World." In 1847, with George Bush, he published "Davis' Revelations Examined,"with a guarded acknowledgment of the concordance of Andrew Jackson Davis's visions and Swedenborg's. In 1857 he traveled to Buffalo to examine the Davenport Brothers, and wrote praising their works. The journal carried regular excerpts from and reviews of Thomas Lake Harris -- although Barrett had strong disagreements with Harris over his pretensions of possessing a "celestial sense"beyond Swedenborg's "spiritual sense"-- and contributions by Woodbury Melcher Fernald. In discussing spiritualism, Barrett attempted to show the diabolical dangers of the modern movement:

"The experience of modem Spiritualists is gradually teaching many of them that there are legions of diabolical spirits, whose influence is much to be dreaded. Dr. Orton, a distinguished Spiritualist, is reported, in a late No. of the Spiritual Telegraph, to have said at a recent ‘Conference,' that it is from this ever-flowing fountain of diabolical inspiration and obsession, that fallacy [in Spiritualism] has its rise. . . . He had once heard a ‘medium' who was undoubtedly entranced by spirits, break out in this wise, ‘0, don't dam up your passions, my beloved! Air your concupiscence! Ventilate the divine right to the gratification of all your appetites, lest ye be consumed in their pent-up fires!'

Barrett also was the one who converted and ordained Samuel Parr Beswick, who is notable for his involvement with the "Swedenborg Rite." Virginia Tech; Marietta (Ohio) College; Ohio State University; Urbana University; Dallas Theological Seminary, etc.

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