2845. THAT SOULS AFTER DEATH, AND SPIRITS SEE ALL THE THOUGHTS OF MAN, AND HIS INTENTIONS [IN] WHATSOEVER HE HAS THOUGHT, AND YET DO NOT KNOW OTHER THAN THAT THEY ARE MEN. Souls and spirits are in such a state that they can perceive, and see the interior thoughts of man, and many things which are at the same time in the thoughts and ideas; they come into that faculty, as soon as being divested of the body they come into the other life; yea, such is their state, that if they had been for a little time in such idea, while they were in the body, they would be reduced to insanities. Spirits are ignorant of their being in such a state; they suppose that they are in no different state from what is theirs, when they think in the body. Wherefore it was granted, to tell a certain spirit who had been a judge in time of his life [that] had men been thus able to know the thoughts, as he [does] mine, with everything which is thereto adjoined, they would have had no need of any investigation, inquisitory process, and controversies whether [a matter] is so, or is not [so]; for they can see more things than man - when he reflected thereupon, than he could know that he was in a more perfect state then when he was a man. For everyone is ignorant of his state in which he is, and which is familiar to him; he scarcely reflects thereupon. It [is] so [with] spirits. It [is] so [with] men. - 1748, August 17.