986. The external ligaments are spirits who seemingly rush about hither and thither, and as soon as they hear anything they immediately fly, as it were, to their society, and with a loud voice declare what has been said. This I have learned at times by experience. There are some in the life of the body who love this, namely, to be able, or to seem to themselves to be able, to discern what others are thinking; nor can they keep what they hear to themselves, but carried away by some cupidity of the "animus" they tell it to others with whom they are in consociation, and who for this reason keep them in their society. There are like explorers in the general as in the single societies. These rush about in the other life in this way, and for the above reason they are admitted; thus they suppose that they are loved, but they are loved only as means to ends. 1748, Feb. 25.