‘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 for twenty-five years.’