6811. With what eagerness they search out and learn knowledges, such as are in the memory that is raised above the sensuous things of the body, was made evident to me from the fact that when they looked into what I knew about heavenly things, they ran over them all, continually saying, "That is so-and-so, that is so-and-so." For when spirits come to a man, they enter into all his memory, and excite from it all that is suited to themselves; nay, as I have often observed, they read its contents as from a book. The spirits of Mercury did this with greater skill and quickness, because they looked at the real things themselves, and did not delay over such things as are slow, and which confine and consequently retard the internal sight, as do all earthly and bodily things when regarded as an end, that is, when loved in an extraordinary degree. For realities to which earthly things do not adhere bear the mind upward, thus into a wide field; whereas merely material things bear the mind downward, thus into a narrow one. Their eagerness to acquire knowledges also became evident in the following manner. Once when I was writing something about the future, and they were at a distance, so that they could not look at it from my memory, they were very indignant because I would not read it in their presence, and contrary to their usual behavior they desired to upbraid me, calling me the worst of men, and so forth; and in order to show their anger they induced a kind of contraction on the right side of my head as far as the ear, that was attended with pain. But such things did me no harm. But as the spirits had done evil they went still further off, and yet they waited; because they wanted to know what I had written about the future. Such is their desire for knowledges.