This morning it was clearly shown to me how spirits operate into us, that is, how God the Messiah leads people on earth by means of spirits and angels. In full wakefulness, I was occupied with a thought that had previously been familiar to me - so much so that I was more or less talking to myself about a certain matter, with fairly vivid mental imagery - and I continued in this thought. (So I was in about the same state as formerly, when spirits did not speak with me, as also now there was a similar state when I was writing these things, and normally is when I am speaking with friends in company, like at the table, and when I am writing letters.) In any case, in order that I might learn how things really stand in regard to that communication with mankind (because at times I have doubted about this, since no sense can perceive the spirits', much less the angels', operations themselves, and still less those of God the Messiah through angels and thus through spirits, indirectly and directly), after I had been for some time in the state as though I were without spirits around me, suddenly this state changed, and spirits began to address me and, with the consent of God the Messiah, began to tell me what state they had been in when I seemed to be by myself in that thought. They said they did not know that it was not they who were doing the thinking, believing that they were meditating amongst themselves in that way, and seemingly speaking - so the ones nearest by really believed it was they who were thinking the thought, but the ones farther off less so, and those still farther away less again, but still, even they were to some degree in that kind of state, but with a difference depending on the distance, or what is the same thing, depending on the relationship of the subject of thought to the spirits concerned.