5567. A certain spirit once positioned himself by my left side, at which point I did not know where he came from or what kind of spirit he was; he also acted in an obscure manner. In addition he wished to get right inside me; but he was thrust away. He emitted a general sphere of ideas constituting thought, a sphere such as cannot be described; I do not remember ever detecting any sphere like it before then. He had not given his allegiance to any basic convictions but was in general opposed to everyone, whom he had been able to refute and disparage by the use of adroit and clever arguments without even knowing what the truth might be. I was astonished that he was gifted with such cleverness, that is to say, with the ability to refute others by the use of clever arguments while having no actual knowledge of the truth. After this he went away, but he soon returned with an earthen ware flask in his hand, from which he wanted to give me something to drink. The flask contained some brew produced from false notions that would take away the understanding from those who drank it. This representation took place because he had deprived those who had been his adherents in the world of their understanding of truth and good; yet they remained his adherents. This spirit too, when seen in the light of heaven, did not seem to have a face, only teeth, for the reason that he had been able to deride other people's ideas even though he himself had no knowledge at all of the truth. I was told who he was. During his lifetime he existed among the famous and was recognized by some as such.