At the end of the previous chapter it was shown that in the Grand Man spirits belonging to the planet Mercury constitute the memory of things that are not material; and because they therefore love to know things that do not have any material associations they are more immediately ready than other spirits, and quicker, to scrutinize something, form an idea of it, and talk about it. For material things act like weights which slow one down and hold one back; they drag the mind downwards and immerse it in earthly concerns, and in so doing remove it from the spiritual world, from which all clear-sightedness comes. How immediately ready those spirits are may be recognized from the following experiences.