3573. THAT EVIL SPIRITS SEIZE UPON TRUTH AND GOOD, ALTHOUGH THEY DO NOT KNOW WHAT THEY ARE. There was something which I had forgotten, and which I seemed to myself anxious to recall to mind, but [certain] spirits were unwilling; wherefore when it was recalled, or was on the point of being recalled, they snatched it away, so that I could not recollect it. I know not what it was, nor did the spirits know, supposing it, however, to be something which might infest them, or which proceeded from malice. It was hence given to know that spirits can seize and secrete even things of which they know not what they are; as also that they can perceive how near a thing is to being recalled to my mind which I have once seen. It appears also from this, in a twofold manner, that evil spirits, at the first presence and approximation of truth and good, seize upon it and pervert them, -one reason of which is that they are so directly opposed to their nature; another, that their malignity is such that they are prompted to seize and conceal. - 1748, October 15.