1827. CONCERNING THE INTERIORS OF MAN. I spoke with spirits concerning the interiors of man, observing that the learned of this age know nothing beyond the distinction of man into internal and external, and even that is not a truly scientific distinction, but one founded simply upon [the letter of] the Word of the Lord, as they distinguish only between the body and the mind, and even concerning these they dispute as to what the body is, and what and which the soul is, being ignorant that in respect to every single thing in man the case is as in heaven. It is said, [for instance,] that to the body only pertain the external senses, together with the pleasures and appetites of the senses; that such is properly the nature of the body. They are ignorant that a certain natural mind is given, which is almost similar to the mind of brutes, for to it belong cupidities, phantasies, and imagination - a mind to which philosophers have attributed material ideas. This, however, is distinguished from the corporeal principle. There is, moreover, a mind still more interior or intimate, which is truly human, for it is not given in brute animals. To it belongs the understanding and the will, and that this is interior and superior appears from the fact that a man can think and thence will, which a brute animal cannot, and also from the fact that that mind can govern the concupiscences of the natural mind. Everyone knows that while cupidities are bearing a man away, he can still reflect upon them, and thus restrain them; that is, govern them, whence that mind is more interior. There is, moreover, given a mind still more interior [intimior] such as there is in heaven - the inmost heaven - which mind cannot be described, for it is well known that those things which are of thought are ruled from inmosts, the quality of which cannot be expressed, and which give to thought itself its faculty. Thus man corresponds with the heavens. But as these things are remote from the ideas of the learned, who dispute only, as to these matters, whether there be a soul, and what it is; and therefore, as long as they are engrossed with these debates, they can have no idea of the principle in question and its quality. - 1748, April 3.