MCB wrote:...targeted passages of Swedenborg.
...
I think that William H. Whitsitt's speculation that Rigdon read Swedenborg,
and parroted the European seer in latter day scripture is too simplistic a
viewpoint to merit much consideration.
Unless we can discover whole paragraphs of Swedenborg in Rigdon's writings,
or in the LDS Standard Works, I don't think plagiarism can be demonstrated.
On the other hand, Swedenborg did have a noticeable impact upon the fringes
of American religion. He had an itinerant disciple in the person of Johnny
Appleseed in the Ohio Valley -- at a time Spalding was in the area. Another
religionist echoing Swedenborg was Abel M. Sargent, father-in-law to a
Mormon apostle, and even more enthusiastic than was Johnny, in spreading
latter day prophetic religion in that same Ohio River Valley. Sargent had a
big following in Washington County, Pennsylvania at about the time that
Solomon Spalding moved there.
The "New Jerusalem Church" was an active promoter of Swedenborg's
seership in the United States, and it would not be a surprise if we discovered
that some early Mormons had been well acquainted with that organization.
So -- I suppose that if Smith and Rigdon were influenced by Swedenborg,
that impact need not have come directly from the Swedish seer's books. I
am not hopeful of every uncovering any direct linkage.
Rather, I see Swedenborg as just another part of the turn of the century
zeitgeist of the early 1800s. He and others had an impact upon Mormon
origins, but we may never be able to measure that influence directly.
I'm not saying that Swedenborg was a 100% fraud -- but you might add
Aiken's 1823 "Memoirs of Religious Impostors" to your reading list. I assume
that any religious con-man, hoping to get "into the business," would have
picked up a few hints from that sort of popular literature.
UD