1964. I was shown also in several ways how spirits had acquired from their life in the body a harmony, and a consequent pleasure, for example in speaking against, in plotting against, marriage love, and attempting to break it down, and above all in the [resulting] acts of wickedness. Indeed, they do this with such enjoyment, that they consider nothing more enjoyable.
Their enjoyments have sometimes been communicated to me, as spoken of elsewhere [see 379, 399] sometimes shown by [the opposite states of] boredom displeasure, sometimes by the confessions of those engrossed in their pleasures-thus on countless occasions, by actual experience. Their life consists in the pleasures they had acquired, so there are as many diversities of life as there are have been will be, people on earth spirits; if they went on increasing eternity, still there would be distinct differences. This is confirmed obvious just from the [diversity] of faces of speech. 1748, 16 May.
1964. It was shown in various ways how spirits, from their life in the body, have acquired to themselves harmony from different sources, as from contradicting, from plotting against conjugial love, from attempting to destroy it, and especially from various abominable things in which they take such delight that they can conceive of nothing more exquisite. These delights of theirs were occasionally communicated, as I have elsewhere remarked, being made known at one time by means of [opposite] tediums and unpleasantnesses, at another by the confessions of those who had been in them, thus evincing by lively experience in innumerable instances that their life is in acquired pleasures. Thus there are as many diversities of life as there are, and have been, and will be men and spirits, and if they were to be multiplied to eternity, still the diversities would be distinct; which was also confirmed by its being manifest from their faces and speech alone. - 1748, May 16.
1964. Ostensum quoque est, variis, quomodo spiritus ex vita in corpore harmoniam et inde jucunditatem sibi acquisiverint in diversis, sicut in contradicendo, in insidiando amori conjugiali, conandoque destruere illum, et prius in nefandis, et quidem tanta delectatione, ut nihil delectantius putent, delectationes eorum quandoque mihi communicatae sunt, ut alibi [vide 379, 399], quandoque ostensae per taedia et injucunditates, quandoque per eorum confessiones, qui in iis fuerunt, ita innumeris vicibus per vivam experientiam, in jucunditatibus acquisitis est eorum vita, sic tot vitae diversitates, quot sunt et fuerunt, et venturi homines, ac ssiritus, et si vel in aeternum augerentur, usque diversitates forent distinctae; quod etiam confirmatum, ut solum a faciebus et loquelis constare potest. 1748, 16 Maj.