4319. CONCERNING INFLUX. There is this that is wonderful about influx, that some who flow in appear as remote, and then other spirits, who are more or less remote, speak. I have been in society with such more or less nearly, and it was observed that this [nearness] is according to the affections of man which constitute his life; that the more anyone has of life, the nearer they are, and the less the more remote; and that the nearer they are, the more they are appropriated to man, and make his life, but the more remote, the less they do this. Those who are in faith, in the Lord, and in charity, the Lord disposes in such a way that they shall be nearer or more remote according to his good pleasure, and thus a new life is effected. Whatever is more remote does not inhere, but is easily dissolved; the case is different with what is near. - 1749, July 3.