2178. While I was in prayer, a thought slipped in with the sense of the prayer, namely, that a gang of many spirits was streaming into the mental image or images of the thought and the prayer, so that the images are even disordered, because so many disordered elements were coming in from the world of spirits - even though to us, who are not in order, they may appear as orderly.
Take for example the eye, its very least glance can see the most disordered mess as orderly, because it is not aware of all the objects within that very least glance of the sight. Likewise in the case of sounds, such as those of several musical instruments. There seems to be a harmony, when yet there are countless dissonances in each tone.
2178. When I was in prayer, then was such a thought insinuated into the sense of the prayer, as, to wit, that a crowd of many persons inflowed into the idea, or ideas of the thought and prayer; and therefore are the ideas disordered, because very many confused things inflowed from the world of spirits, although to us who are not in order these appear orderly; for instance, take the eye: its least ray can see the most disordered things as orderly, because it is not aware of what things in the least ray constitute vision. Likewise is it with sounds as of many instruments. The harmony still appears, when yet there are innumerable discords in every sound.
2178. Cum in oratione essem, tunc insinuabatur talis cogitatio in orationis sensum, quod nempe turba multorum influeret in ideam vel ideas cogitationis et orationis, quare etiam ideae sunt inordinatae, quia perplura inordinata a mundo spirituum influerent, tametsi nobis, qui non in ordine sumus, appareant ea ordinata, sicut oculus, ejus minimus radius potest inordinatissima ordinate videre, quia non novit ea qua {a} in radio minimo visus sunt, similiter in sonis sicut instrumentorum plurium, usque harmonicum apparet, cum tamen innumerae sunt dissonantiae in quovis tono.