266. THAT THERE IS A SOCIETY OF SPIRITS, SOME OF WHOM ARE IN MAN'S HEAD, AND SOME OUTSIDE; AND THESE THINGS CORRESPOND I have sometimes observed when certain spirits were outside and also speaking with me, and while they held me captive so that I could not be loosened from them, which sometimes happened to me, they then at the same time also had their auxiliary spirits or troops in my head, either within or outside the brain. It was granted me to observe this by manifest experience, for when those who were outside of me, and with whom I was speaking, were cast down, then those who were in the head flowed forth, and indeed, with a kind of sound as of someone going out and of an expulsion through the ear. Hence it was evident that there were many spirits there, and that sometimes ten, twenty, more or less, were as it were drawn forth in that manner by those who were outside, and with whom they were as if coagulated in society. From this it can also be concluded how man is held bound by the evil crowd of spirits, and that they are both within and outside him. Hence they shut out the operation of the angels, whose operation, nevertheless, is insinuated in a marvelous manner, like the more interior action in action; and so it is given man to understand what is true and good, but with difficulty. 1747, Nov. 24, o.s.