Abstract

Queen Christina's abdication in 1654 and her subsequent journey to Rome is explained in a twofold context: First, I show that the Queen's ideas on immortality, and especially Leibniz' report on her adoption of a philosophical belief in a single universal spirit, accounts for the contemporary rumours about her libertine, i.e. heterodox, religious opinions. I account for Christina's World Soul philosophy by describing some possible background causes to her attitude. I argue that the spiritual atomism of Swedish-Baltic thinkers may explain Christina's statement that Lucretius' philosophy is her religion. The studies in theological linguistics at the Stockholm Academy founded the Hermetic esthetics of the Stockholm court. Second, I show that this structure of ideas is compatible with millenarian doctrines that can explain Christina's political moves in the years following the abdication, beginning with her attempt in 1656 to set herself up as the future monarch of Naples. Her support of Isaac La Peyrere' s work on men before Adam poses the question of her relationship to the Prince of Conde, and to the group who argued that Conde was the legitimate heir of the throne in France. La Peyrere's doctrine on the Political Messiah may have played a role in Christina's acceptance of pope Alexander VII as the Angelic Pope who through his league against the Ottomans would save Europe from disintegration. ;By showing the mythical character of Descartes' "Catholic" influence on Queen Christina, I argue that the Queen's irreligious scepticism comes to the foreground. The evidence in the reports of Christina's Jesuit instructors does not preclude that her conversion primarily was a political act. I show that her fringe involvement with alchemy and astrology is tied to her World Soul philosophy and that such activity gave her insights that facilited her acceptance of Molinos' Quietist internalism. In concert with Leibniz' argument I pose the question of the underlying similarities between World Soul philosophers and spiritual personalists. I consider the social conditions for European internalism and its simultaneous development among Quakers, Jansenists, and Quietists and pose the question whether these forms of mysticism were due to the breakdown of midcentury expectations for the millenium and its accompaning doctrine of restitution. ;Finally, I argue that Christina's abdication and unusual existence as a political convert gave arguments to the Enlightenment critique of royal grace and absolute sovereignty