Spirits speak among themselves, it is true, but I have discussed with spirits how their speaking is done, whether by a kind of articulation of words, like the speech of people on earth. They had thought that they also spoke articulately, as if by sounded words, but after weighing the matter more carefully, they instructed me that it was not done by words, by enunciating words, or still less sounds, but by mental images resembling those shaped by words. For it is well known that when people hear another speaking, they are only paying attention to the sense of the words, not to the words themselves. Everyone is aware of this from their own experience, from the fact that they are hearing the sense of the words directly, that is, the images shaped by the enunciated words. When spirits speak in these mental images amongst themselves, they no more reflect on the words and the articulation of words and sounds than people on earth whenever they are paying close attention to the meaning of the words; so spirits, because they do not reflect on the words, cannot but suppose they are speaking the same way as people on earth do.