Spiritual Experiences (Buss) n. 1124

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1124. But when the spirits who only talk wanted to emulate those who only think, they could not do so, because all their thought is in the speech, both when they are speaking and when they hear others speaking. They tried to think without speaking, as the spirits of the planet Jupiter do, but they could not; their thought passed off into a kind of murmur.

1125 1/2.* Moreover, there are those who both think and speak, but when the speech differs from the thought it is very clearly perceived, even in each single word or in each single sound. The disagreements between thoughts and speech, derived from habit in the life of the body, are made so strikingly manifest by spirits that they instantly know it from each sound of the voice. Hence such spirits are cast out of the company of good spirits. Thence come grievous and long continued punishments, for nothing discordant between thought and speech can be tolerated in the heaven of good spirits, still less among the angels. Therefore it is first necessary that the thought and speech should be united by various modes of torture, since it is better that a spirit be altogether depraved than that there should be such dissent, for in such things there is deceit, that is to say, the spirit desires to deceive his companion for the sake of himself, or for the sake of gain. It is sometimes permitted such spirits to insinuate themselves into the company of upright spirits, and even of angels; but they are soon cast out thence as froth, and are punished. 1748, Mar. 2. Hence the evil are reduced to their own falsities and are vastated, so that there may be nothing of dissent within, when the mind is one. * In the Latin Edition and the first English Edition this has been changed to 1124 1/2; but the manuscript has 1125 1/2, and the Index (s.v. Loquela) refers to it as such.


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