3909. THAT EVIL SPIRITS ACQUIRE TO THEMSELVES [ADDITIONAL] POWERS FROM NUMBERS. I observed a certain [female] who was a subject of evil spirits, that inspired abominable things with [a powerful] persuasion. Other spirits, partly from curiosity and partly from a desire to abstract their thoughts from what I was writing, observed with a fixed attention how such a subject [would be affected], and what would happen; the intuitions and ideas of several were then fixed upon her who was the subject, from whence her powers of thinking were increased; for in proportion as the intuitions of a number concenter in one, she acts more strongly, as I had also observed before, [in the case of one] who had thus magically attracted the intuitions of others by receiving the things that flowed in, and so going to those from whom the influx came. It was said to spirits that the power of that subject would be thus augmented; wherefore they were withdrawn, and she being left alone with evil spirits, her power was entirely gone, which could be perceived, and at which the spirits wondered. - 1748, November 8.