851. I foresee that many readers of the accounts of experiences which come at the end of the chapters will think that they are fictions of the imagination. But I declare in truth that they are no fictions, but things I have truly seen and heard; and not things seen and heard in some state of mental somnolence, but in full wakefulness. For it has pleased the Lord to show Himself to me, and to send me to teach the doctrines of His new church, which is meant by the New Jerusalem in Revelation. For this purpose He opened the interiors of my mind or spirit, thus allowing me to be with angels in the spiritual world and at the same time with people in the natural world; and this has continued now for twenty-seven years.
Would anyone in the Christian world have known anything about heaven and hell if it had not been the Lord's pleasure to open the sight of someone's spirit, and show and teach him?
[2] It is quite plain that things of the kind described in the accounts of experiences are to be seen in the heavens from the similar things seen and described by John in Revelation, as well as those seen and described by the prophets in the Old Testament Word.
Examples in Revelation are: his seeing the Son of Man in the midst of the seven lampstands; seeing a tabernacle, a temple, an ark and an altar in heaven; the book sealed with seven seals and its opening, and the horses coming out of it; the four creatures around the throne; the twelve thousand chosen from each tribe; the locusts coming up out of the abyss; the woman giving birth to a male child, and fleeing into the desert because of the dragon; the two beasts coming up, one from the sea and one from the land; the angel flying in mid-heaven holding the everlasting gospel; the sea of glass mixed with fire; the seven angels having the seven last plagues; the bowls which they poured out on the earth, the sea, the rivers, the sun, the throne of the beast, the Euphrates and the air; the woman seated upon the scarlet beast; the dragon cast out into a lake of fire and brimstone; the white horse; the great dinner; the new heaven and the new earth; the holy Jerusalem coming down from heaven, with the description of its gates, its wall and the foundations of the wall; also the river of the water of life, and the trees of life which bear fruit every month; and many things besides which were all seen by John, while he was in his spirit in the spiritual world and in heaven.
There are also the things seen by the Apostles after the Lord's resurrection, as well as those seen by Peter (Acts 11) and seen and heard by Paul. There are too the experiences of the Old Testament prophets. For instance, Ezekiel saw four creatures, which were the Cherubim (Ezekiel 1, 10); a new temple and a new earth, and an angel measuring them (Ezekiel 40 to Ezekiel 48); he was carried away to Jerusalem and saw abominations there, and also to Chaldaea (Ezekiel 8, 11).
[3] Likewise it happened to Zechariah to see a man riding a horse among the myrtles (Zechariah 1:8-11); four horns, and then a man with a measuring line in his hand (Zechariah 2); a flying scroll and an ephah (Zechariah 5:6); four chariots between the two mountains, and their horses (Daniel 7:1-8; 7:13-14); the battles of the ram and the he-goat (Daniel 8; 9). Likewise Elisha's lad saw chariots and horses of fire around Elisha, and he saw them when his eyes had been opened (2 Kings 6:17).
From these and many other passages in the Word it is established that the things which come into existence in the spiritual world have been seen by many people before and after the Lord's coming. What is surprising then if it happens when a new church is beginning, or the New Jerusalem is coming down from heaven?
