1. PRELIMINARIES
CONCERNING THE JOYS OF HEAVEN AND CONCERNING WEDDINGS THERE I foresee that many who read the things which follow, and the Memorable Relations at the end of the chapters, will think that they are inventions of the imagination; but I asseverate in truth that they are not inventions but are things actually done and seen; nor were they seen in any state of a mind asleep but in a state of full wakefulness. For it has pleased the Lord to manifest Himself to me and to send me to teach the things which shall be of the New Church, meant by the New Jerusalem in the Apocalypse. To this end, He has opened the interiors of my mind and spirit, whereby it has been granted me to be in the spiritual world with angels and at the same time in the natural world with men, and this now for twenty-five years. * In the original edition, this paragraph is enclosed in inverted commas.