From the inside cover:

Devotional books are for devotional people, but this anthology is not like that at all. The pieces gathered here were drawn together by no divine thread, so far as we are aware. Religious thinking concerns itself for the most part with all those things we mortals do no know, about which our deepest uncertainties revolve. So, although a spirit of optimism links this odd assortment, it springs no from conviction, but from aspiration.

One who did claim insight into the eternal mysteries, and who spoke from utter conviction, was the 18th century seer, Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). Few have reported from actual observation, as he apparently did, and surely no one has ever written so voluminously or, indeed, so laboriously. We therefore examine a little of what he wrote, and use him toe spark off each weekly selection.

These extracts have been condensed an rephrased in a styles such as Swedenborg just might have used, had he been writing today for the “ordinary reader”. These are adaptations rather than quotations.