150.
The state of a person when caught up in the proprium, that is, when he imagines that he lives from himself, is compared to a deep sleep. Indeed the ancients actually called it 'a deep sleep' while the
Word speaks of people having 'the spirit of deep sleep poured out on them,a and of their sleeping a perpetual sleep.b The fact that man's proprium is in itself dead, that is, that nobody possesses
any life from himself, has been demonstrated in the world of spirits so completely that evil spirits who love nothing except the proprium, and insist stubbornly that they do live from themselves, have
been convinced by means of living experience, and have admitted that they do not live from themselves. With regard to the human proprium I have for several years now been given a unique opportunity to
know about it - in particular that not a trace of my thinking began in myself. I have also been allowed to perceive clearly that every idea constituting my thought flowed in [from somewhere], and sometimes
how it flowed in, and where from. Consequently anyone who imagines that he lives from himself is in error. And in believing that he does live from himself he takes to himself everything evil and
false, which he would never do if what he believed and what is actually the case were in agreement.
Notes
a Isaiah 29:10-
b Jeremiah 51:57-