Page:Emanuel Swedenborg, Scientist and Mystic.djvu/259

XVIII ] newly arrived soul to his not having had spirits "adjoined" to him yet. In his diary he says: "The souls of the dead, whether a short or a long time after the death of the body, are very dull and know almost nothing before they are consociated with spirits . . . But as soon as they are associated with their like in a certain way . . . they are much more acute than when in the life of the body." 21

He mentioned specifically a man whom he had known who couldn't remember who he was (about five months after his death) until "spirits were adjoined," when he came into "full understanding and remembrance." And he was then able to recognize himself from having "his own image when alive" presented to him in Swedenborg's imagination.22

Swedenborg had indeed, he said, been spoken to by "separate spirits," but they were, whether they knew it or not, what he called "subjects"—or spirits whose job it was to "receive the reasonings of others and thus express the general sense of the genus to which they belong, and collect their thoughts and thus converse with me. When these spirits had departed from me, they were seen to unite again with their own species, that they might lead a life in harmony with them." 23

Such spokesmen were a feature of the other world. While his acquaintance was still mainly limited to the in-between state or "world of spirits," Swedenborg said he could only communicate with "the interior heaven . . . through an intermediate angel, who told me that he was then made a medium by which a conversation could be established between them and me." 24

These angels were aware of their being mouthpieces of their societies and rejoiced in the greatly increased happiness they derived from the "communication of delight" that being "consociated" gave them, but spirits were not usually pleased with the idea, even if they could be made to believe it through Swedenborg's arguments.

"It can never happen," he wrote, "that any spirit can be absolutely alone; he must be in a certain association with spirits who speak together; certain spirits, however, think that they are alone and that they speak from themselves, and when they are told that it is not so, they are wont to be indignant . . ." 25

Swedenborg confessed that he himself was indignant at first