Spiritual Experiences (Odhner) n. 591

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591. There was also conversation with spirits of the other earth on the manner of philosophizing here, namely, that when those here are describing spirits, souls, and similar invisible entities, they remove all elements on which human ideas can have a grip, such as locality, components, shapes, and the like, and leave no idea and consequently no term, by which to express those things which have to do with spirits and the like, calling them immaterial, etc., thus wrapping them in terms, finally [assigning them] occult properties. Thus they end up doubting whether there is anything within, or beyond, those things which the senses grasp, and many deny that there is (at least at heart). So they deny the existence of spirits, they deny spiritual things, they deny heavenly things, supposing that they will die, as all other animals do, from which they do not even know to distinguish themselves - and nevertheless they want to be thought learned. Moreover, they connect together their terms and thereby develop many themes that are nothing but scholarly terminology which, if unwrapped, exhibits a simple, easily expressible meaning. The spirits of the planet Jupiter laugh about these and similar matters, and again they are calling such people insane - and manure, if their thinking is immersed and bound up, or entrapped, in such things. 1748, the 28th day of January.


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