I was absorbed in a general mental image, which is almost an idea of everything without concentration upon anything specific. Nor am I able to describe it, because [while] this kind of mental image can be understood in the spiritual world and can indeed exist with others, that is, people on earth, yet it cannot be understood by them. Into this general mental image flowed the particular or individual ones of spirits, which I understood quite clearly in a general way, while remaining absorbed in the general mental image. Thus [did I learn] that individual mental images flowed in from others, and I understood them. I was told that this [general one] is what the idea of some spirits is like. 1748, 20 March.

[1562 1/2.] From this it is clear that general mental images are distinct unto themselves, distinct from individual ones. And individual mental images are in a general one; yet they are unaware of being in a general one. But this general mental image was not focused to cause individual things to attach themselves to it, because [...]* * This unfinished and unnumbered paragraph appears to have been deleted in the original.