4225. CONCERNING THOSE WHO WISH TO POSSESS MAN. For some two or three days I have been among those who desire to possess men, and who are of such a quality that they think of nothing else than of returning into the world, inasmuch as their thoughts are [dominantly] worldly and corporeal. They are absolutely ignorant of what spiritual life is, and their sphere is a sphere of continual adulteries. Their position is high above at the back; there are among them not only exterior, but interior spirits, and that too quite numerous, who are of this quality. Their sphere is turned into a kind of intestinal sphere; their ideas were represented to them by long-drawn intestines, at the sight of which they sadly lamented. Some of them, who seemed to be like spirits flying hither and thither, were desirous of possessing me as it were by main force, but I was preserved by the Lord. They are such as in the life of the body loved worldly and corporeal things, and feared death out of regard to their life in the world and in the body, which they held most dear; the greater part of those of this character having been middle aged or aged persons; those who died in boyhood or girlhood are not of such a quality, because not yet ensnared by the love of self and of the world. These when they come into the other life seem to themselves merely to hold on in their begun existence, and are therefore unassailed by such a love. The above mentioned class of spirits are withheld from man, nor is it permitted them even to approach him. - 1749, April 16.