T.L.Harris & Swedenborg

Thomas Lake Harris

Thomas Harris studied Swedenborg - from a young age. In turn, Harris was the one-time teacher of Laurence Oliphant.

Oliphant appears in Dr. Steiner's Karmic Relationships lectures as a reincarnation of Ovid, and you'll find that Swedenborg is discussed just prior to this, as a reincarnation Ignatius of Loyola.

 While incarnated as Ignatius of Loyola, he (Swedenborg) was under the influence of a "Mars Genius". As a balance to this it appears he was more under the inspiration of a Venusian influence during his stint as Swedenborg. Swedenborg, says Steiner, had a deeply intense love for knowledge, his clairvoyance however was not attained by means of exercises as recommended in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds.

Swedenborg attained his higher knowledge by means of what Steiner calls "erotic forces". Of course we don't have to take Steiner's word on this because Swedenborg tells us this himself: 
Why Mrs. Blake Cried

The above article reveals how also William Blake was a follower of Swedenborg.

"Also attending the Fetter Lane services was Emanuel Swedenborg, who periodically lived in London while working as a secret intelligence agent for the pro-French, pro-Jacobite party in Sweden (called the "Hats"). Since his student days, Swedenborg had access to rare instruction in heterodox Jewish mysticism, which included the more erotic and visionary theories of the Sabbatians, secret disiciples of the seventeenth-century "false messiah," Sabbatai Zevi. In his diaries, Swedenborg recorded many of the lurid sexual ceremonies of the Moravians, which initially attracted but later repelled him. Like Zinzendorf, Swedenborg sought out Jewish
Kabbalists in the East End, and he soon came under the spell of Dr. Samuel Jacob Falk, known as the "Baal Shem" of London (master of the magical names of God)."

Dr. Steiner spoke of the highly influential Sabbatai Zevi as a "False Christ".

From the above webpage:

"through the sublimation of his sexual energy into visionary energy. By meditating on the male and female potencies concealed in the vessels of Hebrew letters, by visualizing these letters in the forms of human bodies, by regulating the inhalation and exhalation of breath,"

Swedenborg progressed along the above lines.

Swedenborg:

"Journal of Dreams (1744-45)

...the will [male sephira] influences the understanding [female sephira] most in inspiration [breathing in]. The thoughts then fly out of the body inward, and in expiration are as it were driven out, or carried straight forth; showing that the very thoughts have their alternate play like the respiration... therefore when evil thoughts entered, the only thing to do was to draw to oneself the breath; so the evil thoughts vanished.

Hence one may also see the reason that during strong thought the lungs are held in equilibrium...and at this time the inspirations go quicker than the expirations... Also, of the fact that in ecstasy or trance, the man holds his breath "

Thomas Lake Harris was able to develop extraordinary abilities in respiration, so much so that a doctor declared that he had never encountered the like of before.

Swedenborg

An appreciation of D.N. Dunlop by W. J. Stein:


He also told me about Mr. Thomas Lake Harris, whom he met first in Ireland. He said: “Harris once met Laurence Oliphant in Piccadilly. Harris touched him on the shoulder and said ‘I want to change your life. Try to become the correspondent of The Times in Paris. Go to Paris, but one day a stone will be thrown through your window. Understand this as the sign that you must go immediately to California.’ All this happened. Oliphant found an excellent successor for his work for The Times and left, Paris.” All this Mr. Dunlop told me himself. Mr. Lake Harris was the head of a Spiritual Community, the Brotherhood of a New Life. In connection with this community there was a vegetarian restaurant in Dublin, where a special non-alcoholic wine was sold. Mr. Dunlop and his wife ran this restaurant for six months, but it came to an end when the cook had to leave. In this way Mr. Dunlop had a connection with Harris. After his return from America he had in his possession all the books by Harris, but up to that time he had not read them.

He felt that he should write to Madame Blavatsky, and he told her that he was in possession of all Harriss unpublished manuscripts, but had not started to read them. H. P. Blavatsky answered that he should send all these books back without reading them and after an important decision in which he had to choose between Harris and Blavatsky he decided in a way which was illustrated in a vision. Mr. Dunlop told the content of this vision to me, but I found a description of it written down by George Russell, his friend, under the title, “The Secret of Power” in the journal “The Path” which appeared as a publication of the Blavatsky Institute in Hale, Cheshire, and was edited by Dunlop and Lazenby. Mr. Dunlop told me that this vision appeared not only to him but also to his friend, George Russell, who was present in the same house in the moment of the vision. A.E. (George Russell) writes in Volume I of “The Path,” February, 1911:

“My friend was strangely disturbed, not only were his material affairs unsettled, but he was also passing through a crisis in his spiritual life. Two paths were open before him. On one side lay the dazzling mystery of passion; on the other ‘the small old path’ held out its secret and spiritual allurements. I had hoped that he would choose the latter, and as I was keenly interested in his decision, I invested the struggle going on in his mind with something of universal significance, seeing in it a symbol of the strife between ‘light and darkness which are the worlds eternal ways.’ He came in late one evening. I saw at once by the dim light that there was something strange in his manner. I spoke to him in enquiry; he answered me in a harsh dry voice, quite foreign to his usual manner: ‘Oh, I am not going to trouble myself any more. I will let things take their course.’ This seemed the one idea in his mind, the one thing he understood clearly was, that things were to take their own course; he failed to grasp the significance of any other idea or its relative importance. He answered: ‘Aye, indeed,’ with every appearance of interest and eagerness to some ‘trivial’ remark about the weather, and was quite unconcerned about another and most important matter which should have interested him deeply. I soon saw what had happened; his mind, in which forces so evenly balanced had fought so strenuously, had become, utterly wearied out and could work no longer. A flash of old intuition illuminated at last – it was not wise to strive with such bitterness over life – therefore he said to me in memory of this institution, ‘I am going to let things take their course.’ A larger tribunal would decide. He had appealed unto Caesar. I sent him up to his room and tried to quiet his fever by magnetization with some success. He fell asleep and as I was rather weary myself I retired soon after.

This was the vision of the night. It was surely in the room. I was lying on my bed and yet space opened on every side with pale, clear light. A slight wavering figure caught my eye, a figure that swayed to and fro; I was struck with its utter feebleness, yet I understood it was its own will or some quality of its nature which determined that palpitating movement towards the poles between which it swung. What were they? I became silent as night and thought no more. Two figures awful in their power opposed each other; the frail being wavering between them could, by putting out its arms, have touched them both. I alone wavered, for they were silent, resolute and knit in the conflict of will; they stirred not a hand nor a foot; there was only a still quivering now and then as of intense effort, but they made no other movement. Their heads were bent forward slightly, their arms folded, their bodies straight, rigid and inclined slightly backwards from each other like two spokes of a gigantic wheel. What were they, these figures? I knew not and yet gazing upon them, thought which took no words to clothe itself mutely read their meaning. Here were the culminations of the human, towering images of the good and evil men may aspire to. I looked at the face of the evil adept. His bright red-brown eyes burned with a strange radiance of power; I felt an answering emotion of pride, of personal intoxication, of physic richness rise up within me gazing upon him. His face was archetypal; the abstract passion which eluded me in the features of many people, I knew was here declared, exultant, defiant, gigantesque; it seemed to leap like fire, to be free. In this face I was close to the legendary past, to the hopeless worlds where men were martyred by stony Kings, where prayer was hopeless, where pity was none. I traced a resemblance to many of the great destroyers in history whose features have been preserved, Napoleon, Rameses, and a hundred others, named and nameless, the long line of those who were crowned and sceptred in cruelty. His strength was in human weakness. I saw this, for space and the hearts of men were bare before me. Out of space there flowed to him a stream, half invisible, of red; it nourished that rich radiant energy of passion. It flowed from men as they walked and brooded in loneliness, or as they tossed in sleep. I withdrew my gaze from this face which awoke in me a lurid sense of accompaniment, and turned it on the other.

An aura, pale soft blue was around this figure through which gleamed an underlight as of universal gold. The vision was already dim and departing, but I caught a glimpse of a face god-like in its calm, terrible in the beauty of a life we know only in dreams, with strength which is the end of the heros toil, which belongs to the many times martyred soul; yet not far away nor in the past was its power, it was the might of life which lives externally. I understood how easy it would have been for this one to have ended the conflict, to have gained a material victory by its power, but this would not have touched on or furthered its spiritual ends. Only its real being had force to attract that real being, which was shrouded in the wavering figure... This figure, wavering between the two, moved forward and touched with its hand the Son of Light. All at once the scene and actors vanished, and the eye that saw them was closed. I was alone with darkness and a hurricane of thoughts... For the rest the vision of that night was prophetic and the feet of my friend are now set on that way which was the innermost impulse of his soul.”

This is the story as given by George Russell. Mr. Dunlop described this vision to me and even many years afterwards, speaking about it, I could see how intensely alive both these figures had been. He described two beings, the red one in red clothing and red light: and the blue one in blue clothes and blue light, both very beautiful and impressive, and the voice sounded and asked him to choose between them, and he said, “I decided for the blue, and it was a great decision, as I felt. The red disappeared at first, and only afterwards the blue, and then an old wise man appeared and began to teach me.”