Page:Emanuel Swedenborg, Scientist and Mystic.djvu/308

292 pains suffered by the communicating spirit just before its passing from this world. Incidentally, Swedenborg says elsewhere that the dead at first relive those things which happened at "the extremity" of their life.)

But Swedenborg's physiological symbolism was also useful to him in providing a mass of similes for the kind of people he had met, whether in or out of the body. Certain ones, he said, were like the "external ligaments" that connect the organs of the body; "they are such as in the life of the body loved to perceive what others thought, or to appear to themselves to perceive it, and when they hear anything they cannot rest, but are carried away by a certain cupidity or passion of the mind for making it known to others with whom they associate, and who, on that account, retain them in their society . . . they [these gossips] think themselves loved, but they are only loved as means for the attainment of ends." 16

There were also spirits, and men, Swedenborg said, who "correspond" to the nasal mucus. They are those "who make it a rule to cause dissensions . . . divide in order to rule . . . like many politicians . . ." He explained it was because the nasal mucus may obstruct natural breathing and thus could correspond to the breaking of communication between inner and outer things.17

"Cuticular spirits" were unduly particular about the care of the skin, and they hated all useful work; they were "adjoined" to similar human beings.18

But those who belonged to the province of the colon, "were such as are devoid of mercy, and who without conscience desire to destroy, slay and plunder . . . whether they be men who resist, or boys or women or infants . . . of so ferocious a disposition are they—even as for the most part soldiers and their commanders are." Swedenborg said he had talked about these with other spirits and said they were worse than wild beasts, "which do not in this manner rush on the destruction of their own species."

He said that a "representation" (mental image) of what he was saying reached the celestial angels, and they "were struck with horror that the human race on this earth should be of such a nature, for without seeing the like spectacle it would have appeared incredible to them." "And I also conversed with them [the angels] asking could such souls ever be admitted into heaven where love,