Page:Emanuel Swedenborg, Scientist and Mystic.djvu/264

248 Of so-called "physical phenomena," that is, the alleged influence of mind or of "spirits" on actual material things, Swedenborg has not much to say, but he does make references to them. In a diary entry he says that the inhabitants of the world of spirits have "peculiar skill in these things" which have an "effect on material and corporeal objects." He calls them "magical arts" and says they could easily "induce the minds of men to believe they were miracles." 40

From his personal experience he mentions that "spirits have produced on my body effects entirely perceptible to sense . . . have scattered disagreeable and sweet odors often enough," and "they have maltreated my body with grievous pain . . . have most manifestly induced cold and heat, and cold more frequently; have as it were driven along blasts of wind; I have felt the wind plainly, yea so as to cause the flame of the candle to flicker," and papers too have been moved, he says.41

From these phenomena, familiar to the modern investigator, especially the sensation of cold, Swedenborg deduced that although spirits were not "material," yet they were "real substances" and not "mere thought," and such "substances in man are conjoined to the material body."

Other semiphysical "mediumistic" phenomena mentioned by him are for instance that he sometimes felt lifted up by spirits when passing over steep places.42 (Levitation.) He tells furthermore that sometimes when he looked into a mirror and at the same time spoke with spirits his actual physical face would be changed so as to resemble the faces of those he spoke with. "Nevertheless my face remained, but the changes seemed to belong to theirs . . ." This happened several times, he says, "sometimes to their indignation, sometimes to their delight. They perfectly recognized themselves." 43

It is clear that Swedenborg conceived of the role now played by mediums. He says (January 26, 1748): "I have already said and shown that spirits, who are the souls of those who are dead as to the body, whilst they are with man stand at his back thinking they are altogether men, and if they were permitted they could through the man who speaks with them, but not through others, be as though they were entirely in the world, and indeed in a manner