4946. Certain spirits exist who during their lifetime absorbed the idea that no one should bother himself with matters that concern the internal man, consequently with spiritual things, only with matters that concern the external man, that is, with natural things. Their reason for thinking this way is that things of a more internal nature unsettle their comfortable lifestyle and create discomfort. Those spirits were acting into my left knee, a little above the front of it, and also into the sole of my right foot. I talked to them in their dwelling-place. They said that during their lifetime they had imagined that none but external interests had held any life in them and that they had had no idea of what anything internal was. Consequently they had been acquainted with natural things but with nothing spiritual. So I was allowed to tell them that thinking the way they did they had shut out from themselves countless things which could have come in from the spiritual world, had they acknowledged and so allowed these to enter among the ideas constituting their thought.
[2] I was allowed to go on and tell them that each idea present in human thought has countless facets which to the human being, especially to one who is natural, are not seen as anything else than a simple whole, when in fact there is an unlimited number of things coming in from the spiritual world which produce in the spiritual man a superior power of sight enabling him to see and also perceive whether something is indeed the truth or not the truth. Also, because these spirits doubted what they were told, the matter was demonstrated to them through actual experience. An idea was represented to them which they saw as a simple whole, and therefore as a faint dot - a representation such as this being produced easily in the light of heaven. When that idea was opened up and at the same time their interior sight was opened, a general whole leading to the Lord was revealed. They were also told that the same was the case with every idea of good and truth; that is to say, it is an image of the whole of heaven, because it comes from the Lord, who is the All of heaven or the essential reality that is called heaven.
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