Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) was – not too surprisingly, given his name – a native of Sweden. Emanuel’s father, Jesper Swedenborg, was the Lutheran bishop of Skara. Despite his position and official denomination, the senior Swedenborg was a Pietist, holding that direct experience of religion was more important than dogma – and he also held a firm belief in angels and spirits.

Rather than following his father into professional religion, however, Swedenborg Jnr followed the sciences. He graduated from the University of Uppsala in 1709, and spent the following years travelling through France, Germany, and the Netherlands, settling in London to further his chemistry studies. Returning to Sweden in 1715, he studied and wrote about physics and metallurgy, and in the 1730s began exacting research into anatomy and physiology.