PRELIMINARY RELATIONS RESPECTING THE JOYS OF HEAVEN AND NUPTIALS THERE.


1. "I am aware that many who read the following pages and the Memorable
Relations annexed to the chapters, will believe that they are fictions
of the imagination; but I solemnly declare they are not fictions, but
were truly done and seen; and that I saw them, not in any state of the
mind asleep, but in a state of perfect wakefulness: for it has pleased
the Lord to manifest himself to me, and to send me to teach the things
relating to the New Church, which is meant by the New Jerusalem in the
Revelation: for which purpose he has opened the interiors of my mind and
spirit; by virtue of which privilege 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 (1768) for twenty-five years."

2. On a certain time there appeared to me an angel flying beneath the
eastern heaven, with a trumpet in his hand, which he held to his mouth,
and sounded towards the north, the west, and the south. He was clothed
in a robe, which waved behind him as he flew along, and was girt about
the waist with a band that shone like fire and glittered with
carbuncles, and sapphires: he flew with his face downwards, and alighted
gently on the ground, near where I was standing. As soon as he touched
the ground with his feet, he stood erect, and walked to and fro: and on
seeing me he directed his steps towards me. I was in the spirit, and was
standing in that state on a little eminence in the southern quarter of
the spiritual world. When he came near, I addressed him and asked him
his errand, telling him that I had heard the sound of his trumpet, and