4581. CONCERNING MAGIC. Magical arts in the other life are so abundant and so wicked, that they can never be described. They [who practice them] know how to bind themselves to a man, if he should be a spirit in the other life, like myself, in execrable ways, namely, by binding all things of the face, of the mouth, of the head, of the occiput - where is common-sense - and entering into and binding the ideas; and this by divers modes, subtleties and deception. It is done with a spiral figure in deceitful ways; and it is wonderful, in that the thing is sensibly perceived how they are bound. For they are bound, so that they [who bind them] lead the exteriors of the memory and thought. The reason is, that the spirits and genii who are by, and inflow into such ideas, are present, and form a sphere about the man, and thus adjoin infernal spirits; so that, by these, they may be led to think similarly: and besides this, spirits are present, who suppose themselves to be the man, by whom also they operate, all together. There are many such magical modes: and they can never be removed, save by the help and mercy of the Lord.