3494. CERTAIN MAHOMETANS CAME ALMOST IMMEDIATELY AFTER DEATH INTO CHOIRS [gyros] OR CONSENTING HARMONIES. I heard a certain sonorous though somewhat hoarse-voiced choir, which I knew at once, from the gyre and the sound, to be composed of Mohometans. It was [as I remarked], of hoarser or less flowing sound than that of any choir I had before heard, and I was informed by others that they were Mohometans, who had died three or four days previously. In like manner I heard a choir of Mahometan women, of whom the same thing was said. That they were Mohometans was given me to perceive by the communication of their delight when they heard that the women were near. They held on during the whole night, and I heard at length that they formed their choirs with peculiar rapidity and ease, as they were in fact almost initiated into the harmonies in the space of one night; for these choirs are formed from all speaking and thinking as each one, and each one as all. Certain spirits remarked that Christians were seldom inaugurated into these choirs and harmonies in short of thirty years. - 1748, October 6.