1719. On this account, people should beware of those opinions that some spread around and impress on others, to the effect that spirits are entirely without senses, that spiritual beings lack all the kind of feeling they had had while living in their bodies. I have learned the contrary to be true, which has been demonstrated to my very senses by a thousand and again a thousand experiential proofs. To this I can swear and testify, and if they do not wish to believe it due to their own assumptions and opinions regarding spiritual beings, let them take care when they come in the other life, where actual experience will make them believe what they do not believe here in the world.
People of ancient times never held such a belief about spirits, but nowadays, trying to investigate the nature of spirits not from the Word of the Lord, but from their own cerebral reasoning, they deprive them by their definitions and assumptions of all sensory properties. Thereby they deny their own inward and more inward parts of any such properties, those very parts which in fact project themselves into the outward parts, and are in fact what sensate, even though they appear in the outward parts in such a way that people believe it is the eye that sees, the ear that hears. Yet they can understand that the eye is only an organ that transmits visible objects, while it is the inward minds that see, and hear. The sensory faculties are entirely dead without the inward ones, as is abundantly obvious.
From all this it may be clear that the senses abide in the spirits, or spiritual essences of mankind; consequently, that they live on in souls after death. And as long as people lack a true belief, their belief consists of fantasies having this real effect.
1719. For these reasons let men beware of giving heed to those opinions which some persons would fain publish and inculcate, that spirits are altogether devoid of sense, or that spiritual essences lack all that kind of affection which they enjoyed while living in their bodies. I know the contrary, which has been demonstrated to me by a thousand and a thousand most sensible proofs of experience, as I can solemnly declare and attest; and if men are unwilling to believe from the weight which they attach to their suppositions and opinions in respect to spiritual essences; let them take heed to themselves when they come into the other life, where experience will compel them to believe what they do not credit in this world. In ancient times there were no men of such a faith in regard to spirits, but [they exist] at this day, when from the ratiocination of their own brain, and not from the Word of the Lord, they would explain the nature of spirits whom they deprive, by their definitions and conjectures, of all sensual properties, denying everything of the kind to their interior and intimate principles, when yet these are the things which merely manifest themselves in externals and which are perceived; and although they appear in externals, yet it is no otherwise than as they believe the eye sees, the ear hears, when at the same time they may know that the eye is merely an organ which transmits visibilities, while the interior minds [of men] are what see and hear, the sensorial power being utterly dead without things interior, as may be abundantly shown.)
(Hence now it may appear that there are senses in spirits or the spiritual essences of man, and moreover that they survive in souls after death, and that as long as a man is not in the truth of faith, he is made up of phantasies, which produce the effects before mentioned)
1719. Propterea caveant sibi homines ab iis opinionibus, quas quidam vulgant, ac imprimunt, quod spiritus sint prorsus absque sensu, seu quod essentiae spirituales careant omni affectione tali, qua dum in corporibus suis vixerunt; contrarium novi, ac mille et mille experientiae documentis mihi ad ipsum sensum demonstratum est 1
, quod asseverare et contestari possum, sique non credere velint, ex causa suarum suppositionum et opinionum de essentiis spiritualibus, habeant sibi, cum in alteram vitam veniunt, ubi quae hic in mundo sic non credunt, ipsa experientia faciet eos credere! talis 2
fidei de spiritibus, homines nusquam fuerunt in antiquis temporibus, sed hodie, cum ex suo cerebroso ratiocinio volunt explorare, non a Verbo Domini, quid spiritus, quos omnibus sensualibus privant per suas definitiones, et suppositiones, tunc omnia talia derogant interioribus ac intimioribus suis, cum tamen ea sunt, quae se in externis exserunt, et ea sunt quae sentiunt, tametsi appareant in externis, non aliter ac quod credant {a} oculum videre, aurem audire, et tamen scire possunt, quod oculus modo sit organum, quod transmittit visibilia, et interiores mentes sint, quae vident, et audiunt, sensoria prorsus mortua sunt, absque interioribus, ut ex pluribus constat.
Exinde nunc constare potest, quod sensus sint in spiritibus, seu spiritualibus essentiis hominis, proinde quod vivant in animabus post mortem, et quamdiu homo non in veritate fidei est, ex phantasiis constat, quae id {b} efficiunt.
Footnotes:
1. The Manuscript has demonstrata sunt
2. The Manuscript has credere; talis