Emanuel, was born at Stockholm, in Sweden, in January 1689. His father was bishop of Skara in West Gothland; member of a society for the propagation of the Gospel, formed on the plan of that of England; and president of the Swedish Church in Pennsylvania and London. To this last office he was appointed by Charles XII, who seems to have had a great regard for the bishop, and to have continued that regard to his son. Of the course of young Swedenborg's education we have procured no account; but from the character of the father, it may be supposed to have been pious; and by his appearing with reputation as an author when but twenty years of age, it is proved to have been successful. His first work was published in 1709; and the year following he sent into the world a collection of pieces on different subjects, in Latin verse, under the title of Ludus Heliconius, sive Carmina Miscellanea quae ortis in locis cecinit. The same year he began his travels, first into England, afterwards into Holland, France, and Germany, and returning to Stockholm in 1714, he was two years afterwards appointed to the office of assessor in the Metallic College by Charles XII, who honoured him with frequent conversations, and bestowed upon him a large share of his favour. At this period of his life Swedenborg devoted his attention principally to physic and mathematical studies; and in 1718 he accompanied the king to the siege of Fredericksball, where he gave an eminent proof that he had not studied in vain. Charles could not send his heavy artillery to Fredericksball, from the badness of the roads, which were then rendered much worse than usual by being deeply covered with snow. In this extremity Swedenborg brought the sciences to the aid of valour. By the help of proper instruments he cut through the mountains and raised the valleys which separated Sweden from Norway, and then sent to his master two galleys, five large boats, and a sloop, loaded with battering pieces, to be employed in the siege. The length of this canal was about 23 miles. The execution of this great work, however, did not occupy all his time. In 1716 he had begun to publish essays and observations on the mathematical and physical sciences, under the title of Daedalus Hyperboreus; and he found leisure during the siege to complete his intended collection, and also in the same year to publish an introduction to algebra, under the whimsical title of the Art of the Rules.

At the siege of Fredericksball he lost his royal patron; but he found another in Ulrica Eleonora, the sister and successor of that hero, by whom, in 1719, he was created a baron. His promotion did not lessen his ardour for the sciences; for he published in the same year A Method to fix the Value of Money, and to determine the Swedish Measures in such a way as to suppress all the Fractions and facilitate the Calculations. About the same time he gave the public a treatise on The Position and Course of the Planets; with another on The Height of the Tides, and Flux and Reflux of the Sea; which, from information gathered in different parts of Sweden, appeared to have been greater formerly than when he wrote.

As Swedenborg continued, under the new sovereign, to hold the office of assessor to the Metallic College, he thought it necessary, for the discharge of his duty, to make a second journey into foreign countries, that he might himself examine their mines, particularly those of Saxony and Harts. During these travels, which were undertaken for the improvement of the manufactures of his native country, he printed at Amsterdam Prodromus Principiorum Naturae sine novorum Tentaminum Chemiam et Physicam experimentalem geometrico explicandi; Nova Observata et Inventa circa Ferrum et Ignem, praecipue Naturae Iunis elementarem, una cum nova Camini Inventione; Methodus nova invienendi Longitudines Locorum terrae marique ope Lune; Modus construendi Receptacula Navalia vulgo en Docklymadder; Novae Constructio Aggeris Aquatici; Modus explorandi Virtutes Navigiorum; and at Leipzig and Hamburg, Miscellanea Observata circa Res Naturales, preservant Mineralia, Ignem, et Montium Strata. This journey was made, and these tracts published, in the compass of a year and a half; and perhaps there has not been another man, Linnaeus excepted, who has done so much in so short a time. After his return in 1722, Swedenborg divided his time so equally between the duties of his office and his private studies, that in 1733 he finished his grand work, entitled Opera Philosophica et Mineralia and had it printed under his own direction in 1734, partly at Dresden and partly at Leipzig. During the same year he also went to inspect the mines of Austria and Hungary. The work is divided into three volumes folio. The title of the first is Principia Rerum Naturalium, sive novorum Tentaminum Phenomena Mundi elementaris philosophice explicandi; of the second, Regnum Subterraneum, sive Minera de Ferro; and the third, Regnum Subterraneum, sive Minera de Cupro et Orichalo. The whole is written with great strength of judgment; and the work is ornamented with plates to facilitate the comprehension of the text.

In the year 1729 he was enrolled among the members of the Society of Sciences at Upsala, and was, probably about the same time, made a fellow of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Stockholm; nor were strangers less willing than his own countrymen to acknowledge the greatness of his merit. Wolfius, with many other learned foreigners, was eager to court his correspondence. The Academy of St Petersburg sent him, on the 17th of December 1734, a diploma of association as a corresponding member; and soon afterwards the editors of the Acta Eruditorum, published at Leipzig, recognised in his works some acceptable contributions to useful knowledge.

By many persons the approbation of learned academies would have been highly valued, but by Baron Swedenborg it was considered as of very little importance. "Whatever of worldly honour and advantage may appear to be in the things before mentioned, I hold them," says he, "but as matters of low estimation, when compared to the honour of that holy office to which the Lord himself hath called me, who was graciously pleased to manifest himself to me, his unworthy servant, in a personal appearance, in the year 1743, to open in me a sight of the spiritual world, and to enable me to converse with spirits and angels; and this privilege has continued with me to this day. From that time I began to print and publish various unknown Arcana, which have been either seen by me or revealed to me, concerning heaven and hell, the state of men after death, the true worship of God, the spiritual sense of the Scriptures, and many other important truths tending to salvation and true wisdom. (Short Account of the Hon. E. Swedenborg.) After this extraordinary call, Swedenborg dedicated himself wholly to the great work which, he supposed, was assigned him, studying diligently the Word of God, and from time to time publishing to his fellow-creatures such important information as was made known to him concerning another world. Among his various discoveries concerning the spiritual world, one is, that it exists not in space.

"Of this," says he, "I was convinced, because I could there see Africans and Indians very near me, although they are so many miles distant here on earth; may, that I could be made present with the inhabitants of other planets in our system, and also with the inhabitants of planets that are in other worlds, and revolve about other suns. By virtue of such presence, I have conversed with apostles, departed popes, emperors, and kings; with the late reformers of the church, Luther, Calvin, and Melanchthon, and with others from distant countries." (Swedenborg's Universal Theology, vol. i. p. 87.) Notwithstanding the want of space in the spiritual world, he tells us, "that after death a man is so little changed that he even does not know but he is living in the present world; that he eats and drinks, and even enjoys conjugal delight, as in this world; that the resemblance between the two worlds is so great, that in the spiritual world there are cities, with palaces and houses, and also writings and books, employments and merchandises; that there are gold, silver, and precious stones there." "In a word," he says, "there is in the spiritual world all and everything that there is in the natural world, but that in heaven such things are in an infinitely more perfect state. Such was his zeal in the propagation of these peculiar doctrines, that he frequently left his native country to visit distant cities, particularly London and Amsterdam, where all his theological works were printed at great expense, and with little prospect or probability of a reimbursement.

"Wherever he resided when on his travels, he was," says one of his admirers, "a mere solitary, and almost inaccessible, though in his own country of a free and open behaviour. He affected no honour, but declined it; pursued no worldly interest, but spent his time in travelling and printing, in order to communicate instruction and benefit to mankind. He had nothing of the precise in his manner, nothing of melancholy in his temper, and nothing in the least bordering on enthusiasm in his conversation or writings." He died at London, March 29, in the year 1772; and after lying in state, his remains were deposited in a vault at the Swedish church, near Radcliff-Highway.