Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 1.djvu/58

 was informed that they were taken from the memory of their authors, and that not one word contained in the book written by the same person when in the world, was wanting there; and that thus the most minute circumstances may be called forth from the memory of another, even those which the man himself had forgotten in the world.

The reason was also disclosed to me, which was this: Man has an external memory and an internal memory; an external memory which belongs to his natural man, and an internal memory which belongs to his spiritual man; and that everything which a man has thought, willed, spoken, done, also which he has heard and seen, is inscribed on his internal or spiritual memory; and that whatever is recorded in that memory is never erased, since it is inscribed at the same time on the spirit itself, and on the members of its body, as was said above; and that the spirit is therefore formed according to the thoughts and acts of the will.

I am aware that these things will appear like paradoxes, and will scarcely be believed, but still they are true.

Let no man, therefore, imagine that anything which he has thought within himself, and which he has done in secret, remains hidden after death. But let him be assured that every thought and deed is then laid open as in the clear light of day.