Spiritual Experiences (Buss) n. 353

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353. THAT MAN ENJOYS A TWOFOLD MEMORY; ALSO HOW THE TWOFOLD MEMORY PERISHES The memory which man properly calls the memory, is the natural memory, because it is of the natural mind, and is the memory of particulars, or of material ideas which correspond to words; this memory perishes when man dies. His soul retains the faculty of reasoning and of understanding from a certain spiritual memory, or the memory of ideas rational or immaterial, as they are called. It is his memory that causes a man after death to know no otherwise than that he is still in the life of the body. But because this memory is born from the natural memory it is replete with fallacies, and it still disturbs, obscures, and, if left to itself, perverts truths; wherefore this memory also successively vanishes, insomuch that even the rational born therefrom perishes. But this memory is nevertheless retained for some time, and is imbued with the cognitions of truth, even until it can be obliterated. At length the man remains - so far as he is a man - which is the part remaining, together with the things acquired, which is the soil in which new, or heavenly seed is sown. From this there arises a new man, that is, a heavenly paradise within man, with all heavenly felicity, peace and innocence. 1747, Dec. 15.


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