1662. THAT THE MEMORY OF MAN REMAINS UNIMPAIRED IN THE OTHER LIFE. Souls in the other life seem, indeed, to themselves to have lost the memory of particulars, or the corporeal memory, in which merely material ideas inhere, because they are unable to excite anything from that memory, while yet the full faculty of perceiving and speaking remains as in the life [of the body]. But this is owing to the fact that the Lord has so ordained that the soul shall not be able to draw forth anything from that memory, as then it would excite the same things as it did in the former life, and would live in like manner, and so could not be perfected. Still that memory remains, not, however, as active, but as passive, and it can be excited by others; for whatever men may have done, seen, or heard in their lifetime, when they are spoken of to them with a like idea, then they at once recognize them, and know that they have said, seen, or heard such things which has been evinced to me by such abundant proofs that I could, in confirmation, fill many pages with them. As such, then, is the state of the case, it appears that spirits retain all their memory of particulars, so that they lose nothing, only that, for the causes above mentioned, they cannot draw anything from it, as they are now led onward into [their interior] life, and thus no longer act from their [externals]. Souls are not at all aware but that they speak from their own memory, and do, in fact, sometimes thus speak, as I have heard, but then it is from the interior memory, through which the things in their corporeal memory are excited; and how they can thus speak, and even preach, is a matter for investigation at another time. They confessed, however, that they had lost the memory of particular [or material] things, at which they were indignant. It was only given them to remember those things which they could excite from my memory. Spirits also do the same, and thus speak in a manner suitable to their own life, the life which they have contracted from the life in the body, for they can excite nothing else; [but this they do] with variety according to the state of life in which they are, which state is induced by the societies they are conjoined to, as they then speak in an altered manner. As spirits speak from the life of their loves, and that life appears sufficiently manifest, many things can thus be excited by other spirits which they recognize, and thus what they have said, seen, and heard is excited [indirectly] in their own memory. But all these things are directed to the Lord alone. - 1748, March 23.