4017. That distances are phantasies, and that they are ideas, was evinced in a great variety of ways; for when I saw or perceived anyone depart, or to be at a distance, or when I represented him to myself as in some other place, or when I spoke with certain spirits that were elsewhere, myself knowing the place, or when a certain one was separated from me to the bounds of the universe, then the distance was perceived according to an idea formed from sight or from thought, and thus apprehended by him or by me; for they are present in a moment. Place, therefore, is none at all; where the idea is, there the spirit is, for the spirit is not separated from the idea; without the idea the spirit would not be, as it is his life; therefore where the life is, there is the spirit. Distance in purer things amounts to nothing; still less is it anything in more intimate, and least of all in the most intimate, thus absolutely nothing with the Lord; wherefore He is omnipresent, and sees and orders each single thing. - 1748, November 20.