Spirits grow very angry when I say that the Lord God Alone lives, and that no man, spirit or angel lives on his own, or has life on his own, and is merely an instrument of life. Because spirits cannot grasp this, I demonstrated it by several points:

1) That the senses of the body, or the body itself does not live on its own but from the spirit, neither does the spirit on its own, but from its soul, then neither does the soul from itself, but from the Lord. 2) Next that a person assumes nothing else but that his or her body lives, and yet souls after death, or spirits, with whom I have spoken, are still living, even though their body is gone. They had not believed this in life. Also a soul thinks itself living due to the bodily parts of which alone it considers life to consist, when yet souls are familiar with the fact that the bodily element of a soul can be removed and it can still go on living in the same way in an inward life. This was shown before their very eyes, so they do not deny it. 3) [I asked] how they would conceive of the life of man or spirit, whether as anything but an organic form, or whether as a live flame within that keeps sparking life. And as no one can conceive of the latter by a spiritual sight, they could not but agree with [the former]. Whatever people may raise to contradict it is nothing but empty words, as that life produces [a second,] thus independent life. 4) Then also, the better spirits live a more inward life than newly arrived souls, angels of the inward heaven a more inward one than the better spirits, having shed the former life, angels of the very inward heaven a still more inward one, having shed inward life-something which those lower down cannot conceive of, but which all higher up well understand. 1748, 12 March. No one is able now to utter a single word; they are silent.

1313 1/2. Angels of the inward heaven, then angels of the very inward heaven, then also angels of the innermost heaven, were just now affirming that this is the very truth. A voice came to me through spirits from the heavens, one after another, affirming it. 1748, 12 March.