‘I am a New Swedenborg, a New Khan’
Aries June 4, 2026 Dell J. Rose
Swedish visionary Emanuel Swedenborg's thought was received and adapted in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Japan, particularly during the Meiji era. Japanese intellectuals regarded Swedenborg as the world's greatest theologian, even calling him the Buddha of the North. The article examines how Deguchi Onisaburō, co-founder of the Ōmoto faith, applied Swedenborg's teachings in Japanese contexts while aiming to introduce the world to its primordial ancestry in Japan. It also sketches Buddhist interpretations of Swedenborg that Deguchi used. The article combines Buddhist and Shintoist perspectives on Swedenborgian studies, encouraging esotericism scholars to consider East Asian receptions of Western esoteric thinkers.