4207. CONCERNING THOSE WHO DESIRE TO RETURN INTO THE BODY AND INTO THE WORLD. There are spirits who desire to return into the body and thus again into the world, and in this manner to obsess men. Such are retained in their own hell, that they may not come near to man. Adulterers and sirens are pre-eminently of this class, as also others. They are sometimes punished with great severity that they may have a horror of that cupidity. The phantasy of a body is induced upon them by the punishing spirits, so that they know no otherwise than that they are actually in a body, so entirely similar is the sensation; nay, such spirits can, as it were, harden the body, and so put them in torture by mangling all their limbs, and breaking them in different ways, accompanied with immense anguish, and this often till they are inspired with a honor [of such a desire], for horrors, terrors, and shames are external bonds which are imposed through punishments upon such souls or evil spirits after death. - 1749, April 13.