6809. On one occasion they came to me and investigated the contents of my memory. Spirits can do this with the greatest skill, for when they come to a person they see in his memory every item of what he knows. When therefore those spirits belonging to Mercury investigated its various contents, which included cities and other places where I had been, I noticed that they had no wish to know about churches, palaces, houses, or streets, only about the deeds I had heard of that had been performed in those places, also about anything that had to do with their form of government, or that had to do with the character and customs of the people there, and anything similar. For in a person's memory things like these are associated with places, and therefore when these places are called to mind those things present themselves as well. I was amazed that those spirits were of such a disposition and I therefore asked them why they ignored the magnificent sights in such places and investigated only the conduct of affairs and the deeds performed there. They said that they gained no delight out of looking at material, bodily, or earthly objects, only at things of real importance. This experience was what first made it evident to me that spirits belonging to that planet correlate in the Grand Man with the memory of things devoid of material and earthly associations.