It begins to be a real trouble for me, always to use the cautious language of reason. Why should I, too, not be allowed to talk in academical style? This exempts the writer as well as the reader from thinking, which, after all, sooner or later must lead only to annoying indecision. Thus "it is as good as demonstrated," or, to be explicit, "it could easily be proved," or still better, "it will be proved" I don't know where or when, that the human soul also in this life forms an indissoluble communion with all immaterial natures of the spirit-world, that, alternately, it acts upon and receives impressions from that world of which nevertheless it is not conscious while it is still man and as long as everything is in proper condition.[1] On the other hand it is probable that the spiritual natures on their side can have no immediate conscious sensation of the corporeal world,[2] because they are not conjoined with any part of matter which could make them aware of their place in the material world-whole, nor have they elaborate organs for entering into the mutual relations of beings of spacial extent. But they can, probably, flow into the souls of men as into beings of their own nature, and it is likely that they are actually at all times in mutual intercourse with them, yet, in such a way that those conceptions which the soul entertains as a being dependent on the corporeal world cannot be communicated to the other purely spiritual beings; nor can the conceptions of these latter, being conceptions of immaterial things, be transferred into the consciousness of men, at least not as
- ↑ 23 (p. 61).—"So long as man lives in the world he knows nothing of the opening of these degrees within him, because he is then in the natural degree, which is the outmost, and from this he thinks, wills, speaks, and acts; and the spiritual degree, which is interior, communicates with the natural degree, not by continuity but by correspondences, and communication by correspondences is not sensibly felt."—D. L. W., 238.
- ↑ 24 (p. 61).—"Man whilst he lives in the world, is in conjunction with heaven, and also in consociation with the angels, although both men and angels arc ignorant of it. The cause of their ignorance is, that the thought of man is natural, and the thought of an angel spiritual, and these make one only by correspondences. Since man, by the thoughts of his love, is inaugurated into the societies either of heaven or of hell, therefore, when he comes into the spiritual world, as is the case immediately after death, his quality is knownby the mere extension of his thoughts into the societies, and thus every one is explored; he is also reformed by admissions of his thoughts into the societies of heaven, and he is condemned by immersions of his thoughts into the societies of hell."—Ath. Cr., 3.
"To the above it is proper to add that every man, even while he lives in the body, is as to his spirit in society with spirits, although he docs not know it; a good man is through them in an angelic society, and an evil man in an infernal society; and he comes also into the same society after death. This has been frequently said and shown to those who after death have come among spirits. A man does not indeed appear in that society as a spirit, when he lives in the world, because he then thinks naturally; but those who think abstractly from the body, because then in the spirit, sometimes appear in their own society ; and when they appear, they are easily distinguished from the spirits who are there, for they go about meditating, are silent, and do not look at others; they are as if they did not see them, and as soon as any spirit speaks to them, they vanish."—H. H., 438.
