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The British Journal of Psychiatry 165: 690-691 (1994)
© 1994 The Royal College of Psychiatrists

Henry Maudsley on Swedenborg's messianic psychosis

J Johnson
University Hospital of South Manchester.

BACKGROUND. Creativity, religiosity and madness have long been thought to be aetiologically interrelated. METHOD. Henry Maudsley's little known pathography of the 17th century Swedish philosopher and polymath, Emanuel Swedenborg, was examined. RESULTS. Swedenborg developed a messianic psychosis in middle life, considered by Maudsley to be a monomania, possibly due to epilepsy. Many of Swedenborg's contemporaries thought of him, however, as a religious eccentric. Under criticism from Swedenborg's followers, Maudsley avoided further reference to Swedenborg, and the pathography was lost from view. CONCLUSIONS. Renewed interest is deserved in the contentious issues of the nature of religiosity and its relationship to psychotic experience.


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S. R. Jones and C. Fernyhough
Talking back to the spirits: the voices and visions of Emanuel Swedenborg
History of the Human Sciences, February 1, 2008; 21(1): 1 - 31.
[Abstract] [PDF]