159. CONCERNING THE GENERAL POWER OF SPIRITS COMMUNICATIVE WITH MEN IN GENERAL This morning it was clearly shown to me how spirits operate upon man, that is, how God Messiah leads man by means of spirits and angels. I was wide awake, engaged in thought, in a state which formerly was familiar to me, so that with a rather vivid imagination I was talking to myself, as it were, about a certain matter, and I continued in that thought; I was thus almost in the same state as I had been before, when spirits did not speak with me. I am in a similar state now as I am writing these things, and also for the most part when I am conversing with friends in company, as at the table, and when I am writing letters. In order that I might learn the way of that communication of spirits with man - because at times I have had doubts about it since no sense then perceives the operations of spirits upon oneself, thus even less those of the angels, and still less of God Messiah through the angels - therefore, after I had been in that state for some time, so that I was, as it were, without spirits being around me, that state was then suddenly changed, and spirits began to address me. From permission granted by God Messiah, they began to tell me about the state in which they had been when I was in that thought in myself, as it were, namely, that they knew no otherwise than that they were the ones who were then thinking and thus meditating, and speaking within themselves, as it were; and indeed, so much so, that those who were nearest believed that it was they who were thinking; those, however, who were more distant, believed this less, and those who were still more distant, believed less still, although they also were in such a state to some extent, but with a difference according to their distance, or what is the same, according to the affinity of that subject to the spirits.