4390. THAT SPIRITS PERCEIVE IDEAS OF THOUGHT AND THE LESSER THINGS OF IDEAS. Before my internal sight was opened so that I could speak with spirits, I supposed that no angel or spirit could ever understand and perceive my thoughts because they were within me - [no one] save God alone - and this [I believed] only from the fact that it was thus said in the Word. It happened once, at that time, that a spirit knew what I was thinking of, as appeared by his speaking with me in few words [about it]. At this I was astonished and chiefly for the reason that spirits should be able to know the thoughts. I am hence convinced that others believe in like manner. But I was afterwards instructed by very much and living experience, that spirits not only perceive the thoughts but also the interiors of the thoughts, and the ideas; angels, things yet more interior, as ends and the progressions of ends, which a man does not apperceive, nor can, while he is in the life of the body; so that there is nothing so insignificant which a man can believe that he thinks, that spirits and angels do not perceive copiously and manifestly.