326. THAT HUMAN SOULS, EVEN ANGELS, CAN BE TRANSMITTED INTO THE STATE OF THEIR NATURAL MIND, THUS INTO THEIR CONCUPISCENCES, AND THEREBY CAN ALSO BE EXPLORED, TO MAKE EVIDENT OF WHAT QUALITY THEY ARE WHEN LEFT TO THEMSELVES Today, as before, it was shown me by living experience, that the human intellectual can be as it were taken away [from a spirit], and his natural light remain to him; yet so much, and such, an intellectual as pertains to the natural is left, that he may still be a man: and I was taught from living experience, that in that state the souls of the dead are then devils, and they perpetrate crimes like a devil. This was also shown by prolonged experience. Indeed it was also shown that angels can be reduced to the same state, from which state there can be an exploration of what sort of man he had been as to the will; for his will, which in the world was restrained by his cupidities, as well as by the civil law, then goes forth as it were, freely. But still God Messiah does not permit a holy one to act freely to this degree, [except] in order that he may see his infernal [tendencies]. 1747, Dec. 10.