1954. For the more one contemplates the meaning of the words, the less attention one pays to the words, as everyone should know when it comes to conversations, and the reading of written materials. Whereas, the more one attends to the words of someone speaking or of a written piece, the more the discernment of their meaning is lost, as everyone should also know who pays attention to the matter. And this takes place in direct proportion to one's concentration either on the meaning, or on the words. I have quite often been allowed to learn this by actual experience with spirits, who acknowledged it was so.
1954. For the more the sense of words is regarded, the less are the words themselves attended to, as may be known to anyone in conversation, and in the reading of authors; so that the more anyone attends to the words of a speaker or of a writer, the more the perception of the sense perishes, as may be known to everyone if he attend to the subject, which happens in the degree that the attention is directed to the sense or to the words, which it has often been given to know in the case of spirits, who confessed it to be so.
1954. Quo enim magis intuentur sensum verborum, eo minus attendunt ad verba, sicut cuivis nooum esse potest in loquelis, et lectione scriptorum, et quo magis [quis] 1
attendit ad verba loquentis et scripti, eo magis perit perceptio sensus eorum, sicut etiam cuivis notum esse potest, si attendat; et quidem in simili gradu ac attentio est ad sensum vel ad voces: quod per vivam experientiam saepius in spiritibus datum est nosse, qui idem fassi sunt.
Footnotes:
1. sic in J.F.I. Tafel's edition