ain any idea of it through
intercourse with the souls of other living men, because their inner
nature is not opened--_i. e._ their inner sense contains none but
obscure representations. Hence it arises that Mr. Swedenborg is the
true oracle of spirits, which are not at all less curious to read in
him the present condition of the world, than he is to view in their
memory, as in a mirror, the marvels of the spiritual world. Although
these spirits stand in like manner closely connected with all other
souls of living men, by a reciprocal commerce of action and passion,
yet they are as little aware of this as men are aware of it. Spirits
therefore ascribe to themselves as the product of their own minds what
in fact results from the action of human souls upon them; just as men
during their lives imagine that all their thoughts, and the motions of
the will which take place within them, arise from themselves,
although in fact they oftentimes take their origin in the spiritual
world. Meantime every human soul, even in this life, has its place and
station in this spiritual world, and belongs to a certain society
which is always adapted to its inner condition of truth and
goodness,--that is, to the condition of the understanding and the
will. But the places of souls in relation to each other have nothing
in common with the material world; and therefore the soul of a man in
India is often in respect to spiritual situation next neighbour to the
soul of another man in Europe; as on the contrary very often those,
who dwell corporeally under the same roof, are with respect to their
spiritual relations far enough asunder. If a man dies, his soul does
not on that account change its place; but simply feels itself in that
place which in regard to other spirits it already held in this life.
For the rest, although the relation of spirits to each other is no
true relation of space, yet has it to them the appearance of space;
and their affinities or attractions for each other assume the
semblance of proximities, as their repulsions do of distances; just as
spirits themselves are not actually extended, but yet present the
appearance to each other of a human figure. In this imaginary space
there is an undisturbed intercourse of spiritual natures. Mr.
Swedenborg converses with departed souls whenever he chooses, and
reads in their memory (he means to say in their representative
faculty) that very condition in which they contemplate themselves; and