281. CONCERNING MY CONVERSATION WITH ABRAHAM, JACOB, THE APOSTLES AND MANY OTHERS OF ANCIENT TIME For many weeks I have been in conversation with the Apostles, with Abraham, with Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Sarah, the wife of Abraham, Leah and Rachel, at which time I could believe no otherwise than that I had been conversing with those persons: but afterwards, having been taught by experience, I could deduce that they were those who assumed the place of these persons in the interior heaven and also believed that they were those same persons. For the angels of the more interior heaven are able to speak with men by means of spirits of the interior heaven, thus this is effected mediately. But these spirits assume the place of those persons, and thus at the same time can show of what quality they had been at first after the death of the body. It is otherwise when the same spirits appear to man in the more interior heaven, which is effected by a sublime representation. 1747, Nov. 31.* These things came into my thought today, but whether the case with these spirits is as stated, I cannot as yet know for certain.** * Perhaps a slip for Dec. 1. ** This subject is also presented in WE 5593.