I have very often conversed with spirits about this, for spirits cannot understand this any more than people on earth, and very often as a live experiment they have been shown that it is so-in fact I even noticed several times that they were being led to speak by others, all the while thinking it was themselves. So spirits like earthly humans do not know any better than that they are not being led by others, when yet they cannot even think, much less speak, the least thought, except from others. Experience of long duration in myself has strongly corroborated this. But when they are granted the reflection that they are being led by others, then they at once think they are being deprived of their freedom and are not speaking on their own. How this matter stands, you may see elsewhere [842, 1948, 2099-2101, 2464-6]. 1748, 15 July.