Really kind of looks like him

I picked this up, along with a pamphlet on “The Uses of Pain,” while mulling around the lobby of the New York New Church waiting to pay my $20 for a group seance.

For those who don’t know, George Bush (b. 1796), biblical scholar come mystic, was a bit of a spiritual radical, having made the controversial jump in 1845 from Calvinism to the teachings of Swedenborg, a path at the time only slightly less marginal than it is today (Emerson was kind of into it).

George Bush’s literary achievements include penning the first American-published biography of Muhammad titled The Life of Mohammad, writing The Valley of Vision; or, The Dry Bones of Israel Revived, which makes the case for Zionism, and eventually (after his conversion) published a monthly magazine called Hierophant, which promoted the teachings and ideas of Swedenborg (i.e. non-literal interpretations of the New Testament).

About 150 years later some aspect of his seed would bomb the crap out of two Muslim countries in the name of freedom.