927. It was also given me to perceive how their minds [animus] then became opened up. There is, as it were, a sphere exhaling which, not being concordant with my thought, at once bent it into that which the soul had, without his being aware of it. Thus, when I thought this soul was in a place at the back, he immediately, without thought on his part or previous consideration or premeditation about it, bent his way forwards so that I scarcely knew other than that he was at the forward part below, when yet he was at the hinder part below. This was because in his lifetime he had been such that he did not want any one to know on which side he stood; otherwise he could not be in their societies, and know what they intended, and so would be deprived of the opportunity of profiting thereby, or, as is said, of enriching himself as regards honors and wealth. On each occasion he acted in the same way. Unknowingly and without premeditation he perverted my more universal thoughts so skillfully that I scarcely knew but that I was such, and felt indignant in myself that I should be held in such depraved affection. It was the same in many other things which I have forgotten. In this way the ruling or more universal passions could be known; but the angels distinguish them easily.