1741. In a word, insanities, that is, phantasies, reign with all those who constitute the externals of man; for externals are such that they act against internals, and yet they are held by internals in their proper connection and order, although they do not wish to appear to be governed by internals, but by themselves. Such phantasies or insanities are very numerous, and arise from numerous causes, wherefore as long as they are in them they constitute such externals, especially skins and membranes, which act against internals. A very large portion of those from this our earth are of such a character, for our orb is in externals, and almost wholly rules internals; and as much as this ascendancy prevails, so much are its inhabitants tormented in the other life, until such phantasies are so far moderated that an equilibrium can be established, nor are they previously permitted to act as such membranes, but they are without or below the body of the Grand Man in the lower earth, and various places of hell, from which they are taken out and elevated in order to constitute such things as above described. While they are being perfected in these by means of the many vexations they there undergo, the are advanced to more interior states, and thus into heaven, for all the membranes become more perfect in proportion as they approximate what is more interior and intimate; yea, there is nothing given in the human body except from membranes; from these are the organic forms which are actuated by blood and spirit, which are themselves also organic forms, but active in respect to others, though still void of any life but what is from the Lord. The active powers of life are called celestial; the passive, spiritual; and as celestial things or love ought to rule spiritual things and not spiritual celestial, so in like manner are things constituted in the body. The nature of the influx of the one into the other may appear in some measure from the organical structures of the body; but because the subject is one of so much vastness, it can never be understood except in its most general features, as far as may be necessary to serve for forming ideas, which the Lord fills and vivifies according to uses and ends. - 1748, March 27.