Page:Emanuel Swedenborg, Scientist and Mystic.djvu/268

252 In other language, spirits whether in or out of the flesh could project mental images of themselves. This indeed fits in with Tyrrell's theory of apparitions, that they are not "real," but conceivably projected "idea-patterns," made up by coöperating intelligences (in or out of the flesh) with all the paraphernalia of apparent reality, including spots of three-dimensional space, as anybody can create for himself in a dream.5

But did the "organic form" of the spirit—that little tight condensation or field of suggestible energy-stuff—have a "situation"?

Yes, Swedenborg said, and even if it is only an appearance it is real because it is the same as the ruling general state of the spirit both as to mind and as to character—the state which draws him into his own "society." From that state there are many variations and excursions, but into it the spirit always returns. It cannot be more than apparently "placed"; there is no up and down in the nonspatial world; but these changes of state "appear in the world of spirits as changes of place." 6

Tyrrell, in discussing the "reality" of collective hallucinations, says that even if one could imagine a group of living people so collectively hallucinated that they seemed to themselves to be living in whatever environment the "idea-pattern" had impressed on them, they could still test it by comparison with the physical world. They could, for instance, pass through the wall of a hallucinatory house.

"But if we take the further step" (Tyrrell takes it), "and suppose these persons to have shed their physical bodies, without having otherwise changed their personalities, then this impressed, hallucinatory world would have no competitor. Everything in it would behave as if all were physically occupied; and there would be no test by which they could tell whether their world were physical or hallucinatory." 7

That was precisely the trouble which Swedenborg said he had with those spirits who wouldn't believe anything to be true that they did not see with their eyes, "even if this were mere fallacy." He stuck to it, nevertheless, that their "walkings and removal" and "their advancements which are frequently seen are nothing but