these observations, and said, that if one learns to think in that way one proceeds in inverted order:  adding, that if any one wants to be foolish, he has only to proceed in that way; and that one should constantly think of use, and from what is interior.  He next showed me what idea he had had of the Supreme Deity.  He had represented Him to himself as having a human face, and encompassed about the head with a radiant circle; but he now knew that the Lord is Himself that Man, and that the radiant circle is the Divine [proceeding] from Him, which inflows not only into heaven but also into the universe, disposing and ruling both.  He added, that He who disposes and rules heaven, disposes and rules the universe also, because the one cannot be separated from the other.  He also said, that he believed in only one God, whose attributes and qualities men distinguished by names as numerous as the gods they worshipped.  A woman appeared to me who stretched out her hand, desiring to stroke his cheek.  When I expressed my surprise at this, he said, that while he was in the world such a woman had often appeared to him, and as it were stroked his cheek, and that her hand was beautiful.  The angelic spirits said that such women sometimes appeared to the ancients, and that they called them Pallases; and that the one who appeared to him was from spirits who, when they lived as men in the ancient times, were delighted with ideas and indulged in thoughts, but without philosophy; and as such spirits were with him, and were delighted with him because he thought from what is interior, they representatively exhibited such a woman to his view.  Lastly, he told me what idea he had had concerning the soul or spirit of man, which he called Pneuma, namely, that it was an invisible vital [principle], like something of the ether.  He said that he knew his spirit would live after death, since it was his interior essence, which cannot die, because it can think; and moreover that he could not think clearly concerning it, but only obscurely, because he had not possessed any knowledge on the subject except from himself, with a little also from the Ancients.  Aristotle, it may be remarked, is among sane spirits in the other life, but many of his followers are among the foolish.

39.  I once saw that some spirits of our Earth were with some spirits of Mercury, and I heard them conversing with one another; and on this occasion the spirits of our Earth asked them, among other things, in whom they believed.  They replied that they believed in God.  But when they inquired further concerning the God in whom they believed, they would not say, since it is their custom not to give direct answers to questions.  Then the spirits from the earth Mercury, in their turn, asked the spirits from our Earth in whom they believed.  They said that they believed in the Lord God.  The spirits of Mercury then said they perceived that they believed in no God, and that they had contracted a habit of