1355. Spirits can be extremely misled in their judgments about souls
You may see, where judgments were spoken of earlier [921-3, 1220], that they can be quite mistaken. This is clear from the fact that when a soul is in a group, and is driven by that group and others into some feeling or desire, then while speaking they examine him, and cause him to speak also-which is easily done. When they hear his conversation flowing uninhibited, as if he were speaking on his own, then they judge him by what he says, when yet it is as if the feeling or desire were speaking, whereas he is not like that. Every soul can easily be brought into a state of such feelings or desires, then as souls speak out of this state of desire as if from themselves, the spirits therefore at once judge regarding their life. This judgment is sometimes wrong. I have observed it in their examinations of souls, and the same in regard to myself, thus from actual experience. So the Lord alone knows the inward and more inward qualities of a person or a soul. 1748, 15 March.