The period from 1816 to 1823. 



In the year 1816 (or possibly 1817) Emanuel Swedenboeg's skull 

 was removed from the coffin in which it had hitherto rested. No com- 

 munication concerning this seems to have been made public before 

 the year 1823, when the newspaper Times for the 30th of March 

 contained a notice, altogether incorrect by the way, that Swedenboeg's 

 head, some time after his death, had been cut off and taken away by 

 one of his disciples, but that a short time since it had, with all due 

 ceremony, been laid back into the coffin. {Appendix, No. 2). The 

 erroneous statements in this notice called forth three corrections in the 

 same newspaper for the 1st, 4th and 5th of the following April. [Appen- 

 dix, Nos. 3 — 5). The first two were sent in by the gentlemen mention- 

 ed on page 8, i. e., by S. Noble and J. I. Hawkins; the third was 

 signed »Tertius intervenions», under which signature the officiating 

 minister of the Swedish Church J. P. Wahlin' is probably concealed. 

 Other newspapers also seem to have occupied themselves with the 

 matter, but judging from the comprehensive summary of the story in 

 the above mentioned article in the Intellectual Repository, 13 and in 

 Hindmaesh's Aise and Progress lo, nothing essentially new seems to 

 have been recorded. On the other hand certain details are supplied 

 in the Minutes of the Church Council of the Swedish Congregation in 



' Johan Petter Wâhlin, born 1 786, theological docent in Lnnd. Swedish Legalion 

 preacher in London 1818 — 1830. Became doctor of theology and rector in Western Wing- 

 åker 1830, where he died in 1861. — Published in 1846 a work Barjsländor (»Ephemerais»), 

 containing scattered notes from his sojourn in foreign parts. In this work are printed in a 

 Swedish translation the Times articles concerning Swedenborg's cranium, to which there is 

 also appended a note by the publisher which is here reproduced in the Appendix, No. 5. In 

 his translation of the article by »Tertius interveniens ■■■ the publisher has, among other things, 

 changed the year of the theft from 1816 to 1817. ^ 



