477. CONCERNING A CERTAIN CLEVER SPIRIT: OR CONCERNING ANOTHER MAHOMED In the morning when I awoke, there was a certain rather clever spirit, who, although those about me were complaining, had assiduously turned everything good into evil. Being awake, I spoke with him who excelled in this gift; [he said] that he wanted to explore what truth is. I therefore proposed at random, this question and that, which he solved cleverly and discovered the truth [of the matter]; wherefore he was received into the company of good spirits among whom he remained for a time. But because he was too active, and wanted to act from himself, he was sent away and came into a company of other spirits.* From this I can conclude that certain spirits excel others by a greater gift of perceiving, and that the difference is such that scarcely anyone suffers it to persuade him.
[477a.]** CONCERNING PHANTASIES HOW THEY ARE PUT OFF, AND THE KIND THAT REMAIN Moreover, there was also here a Mahomed who excels with such a faculty that he can understand what is true and good, with whom I spoke at the same time about the phantasies that reign amongst the spirits who first come into that life, so that there are nothing but phantasies which must be entirely put off, and which are put off with difficulty and resistance, because man favors them and takes pleasure in them. Wherefore they are little by little put off by Jesus Christ, and the spirits are reduced to interior, and thus to more interior, phantasies which correspond to verity and goodness and can be together with them, whence there is heavenly joy and gladness; and thus man also lives with delights from his own [principles]. These things I spoke with the Mahomed of Mecca; and there was also another Mahomed, but who he was, I do not know. It is said that he also is adored. Thus each excels in the faculty of understanding truth and good, and indeed each confesses that the fount of all verities and goodnesses is Jesus Christ, which they here want to testify from so much experience that no one can ever have doubt about it. ** This paragraph is unnumbered in the manuscript. It was written in continuation of n. 477, and the heading was interpolated later. * According to the Index (s.v. Mahomed, Spiritus), "These spirits were of an intermediate kind."
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