5986. It is worthy of mention (for it has often happened and thus been shown) that no one either in heaven or in hell thinks, speaks, wills, and acts from himself, but from others, and thus at last all and each do so from the general influx of life, which is from the Lord. When I have heard the spirits saying that a spirit does not think and speak anything from himself, and yet the subject supposed he did so solely from himself, it has then been frequently given to speak with those who were flowing into the subject; and when they persisted in the assertion that they thought and spoke from themselves, but not so the subject from himself, and because they supposed that they so thought and spoke, it was further given to tell them that this is a fallacy, and that they as well as the subject were thinking and speaking from others. In order to confirm this point, it was also given to speak with those who were flowing into these latter, and when they also made a like confession, it was further given to speak with those who were flowing into these, and so on in a continued series. Thus it became plain that everyone was thinking and speaking from others. This experience excited in the spirits the utmost indignation, for every one of them desires to think and speak from himself. But because they were thereby instructed how the case is, they were told that everything of thought and also of will flows in, because there is but one only life, from which are these faculties of life; and that this life flows in from the Lord through a wonderful form, which is the heavenly form, not only in a general way into all, but also particularly into each; and that it is varied everywhere according to the form of each subject, as this agrees or disagrees with the heavenly form. From all this it is also evident how the case is with man, of which more will be said in what follows, when treating of influx.