eventually inness' art evidenced the influence of the theology of emanuel swedenborg. of particular interest to inness was the notion that everything in nature had a correspondential relationship with something spiritual and so received an "influx" from god in order to continually exist. another influence upon inness' thinking was william james, also an adherent to swedenborgianism. in particular, inness was inspired by james' idea of consciousness as a "stream of thought", as well as his ideas concerning how mystical experience shapes one's perspective toward nature.