About the Author

Carl Robsahm (1735–94) was a close friend and neighbor of Emanuel Swedenborg who worked as a well-respected official in Sweden’s central bank, rising to Commissioner Plenipotentiary in 1786. Robsahm was a founder of the Exegetic and Philanthropic Society created in Sweden in 1786 to translate and distribute Swedenborg’s works.
 
Anders Hallengren is a Swedish author, scholar, foreign affairs journalist, translator and composer. He has held distinguished positions at Stockholm University and Harvard University, lecturing all around the world on diverse aspects of literature, music, and history. Hallengren has published many books in English, including his study on Emerson, The Code of Concord and a collection of essays, Gallery of Mirrors. He is internationally renowned for his Nobel essay, “Nelson Mandela and the Rainbow of Culture.” In collaboration with the artist Madlen Herrström a volume of Anders’ poems was recently published as Pentagram and, as part of Ophir, Hallengren received a nomination for the Manifest Music award in 2012 for the album Opus Operatum.
 
Stephen McNeilly is the director of the Swedenborg Society and series editor of the Journal of the Swedenborg Society and the Swedenborg Archive imprint. For the Society he has published numerous volumes, including An Angel Speaks with Homero Aridjis and J. M. G. Le Clézio; Philosophy, Literature, Mysticism: An Anthology of Essays with Czeslaw Milosz et al.; Swimming to Heaven: the Lost Rivers of London with Iain Sinclair; Blake’s London: The Topographic Sublime with Iain Sinclair; and Several Clouds Colliding with Brian Catling and Iain Sinclair. He is also a visiting lecturer in art, philosophy and critical theory at several universities in the United Kingdom.