2306. I sometimes wondered, and spirits also, that such ideas as are mere phantasies, and the phantasies among them have the same effect which the senses have in the body, to wit, that they not only seem to themselves to suffer pains and very many things, but that they perceive them in reality, so that their phantasies have an effect, as it were, real or sensitive. Wherefore they could not know why these could be called phantasies, since they are perceived by the senses in reality. But it is the fact that their phantasies have so real an effect, inasmuch as they are of such a character as to believe it. But when they receive faith from the Lord, then they at the same time receive the gift or the faculty to be capable of being withdrawn [therefrom], and to be led to believe that these are phantasies; wherefore they are then removed (raised up) by the Lord. It is not so before, except in a certain miraculous manner. - 1748, June 12.