885. CONCERNING THE DETERMINATION OF SOULS TO DEFINITE ENDS; ALSO CONCERNING THEIR FORMATION IN THE OTHER LIFE: AND CONCERNING THE INTERIOR MEMORY Such as men have been formed during their life in the body, and indeed such as they have thence been at the point of death, such do they remain. First of all they are met with those things which took place at the point of death, also during disease, or at the end of life. Next they are introduced into various companies, and indeed into the company of good spirits, whose function is to explore of what quality they are in respect to their natural inclinations, which office they perform as though it were their own, scarcely knowing otherwise. Accordingly, as they are examined they are either received into better companies or are remitted to worse, in every case in agreement with the natural disposition of the spirits, thus by a mode of consent, that is, of love and of aversion, each and all things of which are disposed by the Lord. I have been taught these things by manifold experience, and I have seen, heard, and perceived. Spirits have told me what they are like in the one state, and what in the other. They are also at first largely actuated by the opinions and persuasions they have adopted, but experience teaches them whether they are of such a nature or otherwise. In the meanwhile, they are in their own function, and, as it were, in their own life, and they can thus prove the spirits flowing to them in their own ways and by various means. The reasons why they do this are very many. In addition to the desire which prevails among spirits, namely, that they are curious and desirous of knowing the quality of others and what it is, there is the reason that cognitions in general are spiritual foods. Thus these desires and cupidities correspond to the bodily appetites of eating and drinking; for this reason cognitions are also called spiritual foods, and hence is the interior signification of bread, grain, wheat, milk, water, and of many other things.