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S2« DOCUMENTS CONCERNING SWEDENBORG.
manner he endeavored to involve the Queen herself, and several most respecta-
ble and trustworthy witnesses o^ her declaration, in deception and falsehood.
Nevertheless, this same writer says in the same Journal, p. 306 :
—
"’In the meantime, I founcl an opportunity of speaking with the Queen herself, who is
now dead,* concerning Swedenborg, and she told me herself, the anecdote respecting her-
self and brother, with a conviction which appeared extraordinary to me. Every one who
knew this truly enlightened sister of the great Frederick, will give me credit when I say,
that she was by no means enthusiastic or fanatical (schtcdrmerisch), and that her entire
mental character was wholly free from such conceits. Nevertheless, she appeared to me
to be so convinced of Swedenborg’s supernatural intercourse with spirits, that I scarcely
durst venture to intimate eome doubts, and to express my suspicionofseci’et intrigues ; and
when she perceived my suspicion she said, with a royal air
—" Je ne suis pas facilement
dupe,"
—
{" I am not easily duped ;") and thus she put an end to all my attempts at refuta-
tion.’!
" It is not a little remarkable that this writer, after his personal interview
with the Queen, and after he had witnessed, from her own mouth, her unsha-
ken conviction as to the truth of the assertion she had made, and also after he
had perceived the indignation arising in her mind when he barely intimated his
suspicion that underhand intrigue or collusion might have been practised ; —it is
remarkable that, after all this, he should have endeavored, in 1788, to explain
it on the ground of secret intrigue ! If the Queen had still been living, he
would not have dared to have thus caluminated her assertion, and therefore he
waited till she was dead. This attempt, however, which was made in the
Berlin Journal, to explain the occurrence on the ground of intrigue and collu-
sion, was immediately met by a Swedish gentleman. Captain de Stahlhammer,
who said in a letter to the said Journal
—
" *
I have read with astonishment the letter (in the Berlin Journal) giving an account of
the conversation which the famous Swedenborg had with the Queen Louisa Ulrika ; the
circumstances related in that letter are altogether false, and I hope the author will ex-
cuse me, if by a faithful account, which can be attested by many persons of distinction
who were present, and are still alive, I convince him, how much he has been deceived.’^
**
As another confirmation of the Queen’s assertion. Count Hopken may be ad-
duced, who was many years Prime Minister of Sweden, and who wrote down
the account which was afterwards printed from his MSS. in the New Jerusalem
Magazine, 1790, p. 153.
" It would appear that Count Hopken was the person whom the Queen em-
ployed to procure an interview between herself and Swedenborg, in order that
she might test the wonderful gift of conversing with departed spirits which he
was said to possess.
" The particulars concerning this occurrence were also ascertained, believed,
and confirmed by no less a personage than the celebrated German philosopher,
Emanuel Kant, who in a letter to a lady of quality, Madame de Knobloch, dated
Konigsberg, August 10th, 1758, declared, that after the strictest examination, no
* She died in 1782.
t The italics in this extract are the same as in the German.
i See this communication entire in the Documents concerning Swedenborg, p. 122.
(Eng. Ed.)
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