Spiritual Experiences (Buss) n. 456

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456. THAT WHEN GOOD SPIRITS WHO HAVE BEEN CARRIED AWAY INTO THE MORE INTERIOR HEAVEN RETURN, IT SEEMS [TO THEM] AS IT IS WITH A MAN WHO HAS FALLEN INTO A SWEET SLEEP IN WHICH HE SEES, AS IN FULLEST WAKEFULNESS, THINGS MORE INTERIOR, AND THE GLORY OF THEM You will see it stated above [nos. 319-20], that spirits are transferred into very many states of wakefulness and sleep. A certain good spirit seemed to me to have fallen as if into a sweet sleep, which was sometimes granted me to perceive by the communication of the state of those who were with me. When he, who was an angel, awoke, as it seemed to me, he related that he had been contemplating the Glory of God Messiah, which it was granted me to see very obscurely in his sleep. Hence it can be concluded that the translation of spirits into heaven, or of the heavenly ones into a more interior heaven, resembles sleep in respect to his lower faculties; and that in such sleep, things appear just as manifestly alive as in fullest wakefulness. This I can testify from experience. Therefore, when the more interior mind is taken away, its lower faculty becomes quiescent as though it did not exist, for that which is lower cannot be transferred into that which is higher. 1748, Jan. 8.


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