Alex Murray (narrator) is the librarian and archivist at the Swedenborg Society in Holborn, a 200-year-old institution dedicated to promoting the thought and influence of the Swedish C18 scientist and mystic Emanuel Swedenborg. 

This wide-ranging talk, recorded at The Burning of the Clavie at MKII in January 2025, summarises the philosophy and teachings of Swedenborg, his relevance to resonance, and introduces Sam Mcloughlin and David Chatton Barker’s @folklore-tapes performance of their electro-acoustic work ‘Heavenly Realms’, which was written and conceived after their residency at the Swedenborg Society.

Swedenborg’s most renowned work, Heaven and Hell (1758), synthesised years of dreams, trance states and ecstatic communications with angels into a complete vision of the afterlife and the spiritual realms. In it Swedenborg meticulously details a stratified order of the heavens, an ultimate reality within which physical matter relates to spirit through divine correspondences emanating from a highest, purest echelon, God.

The duo approach this vision of eternity through music created entirely with a collection of antique clock chimes and harmonics, and as Alex outlines in his talk, the music is a living embodiment of Swedenborg philosophy.

📷: ‘The Valley of the Shadow of Death’ 1867 by George Inness, inspired by Swedenborg’s teachings

Alex Murray discusses Swedenborgianism

celestial journeys between light, sound, and setting. infinite monkey on @netil-radio

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