2542. Therefore it has also been ordained by the Lord from eternity that there should be such an interaction and communion, so that people arriving at old age would not know they lived in the body, and putting off the body would transmigrate into heaven immediately. For when such people advance into old age, they no longer reflect on their body when speaking with those in heaven, as also happened to me. I sometimes forgot I was in a body, having no thought on bodily matters because of being in conversation with spirits. Today I saw by a spiritual mental image that the body is nothing, and that if it were cast off there would be no difference between life in the body and after the shedding of the body.
2542. So also was it ordained by the Lord from eternity, that there should be such interaction and such communion as also that man should reach his [full] age, be ignorant that he lived in the body, and so his body being thrown off immediately, remove into heaven: for when such a man is carried along to old age, he has no more reflection as to his body when he speaks with those in heaven, like as also had happened to me, that I sometimes forgot that [I was] in the body, because without reflection upon those things which [belong] to the body, inasmuch as [I was] in conversation with spirits. Today I saw in spiritual idea that the body is nothing, and were it cast aside that there would be no difference between life in the body and after the casting aside of the body.
2542. Ita quoque a Domino ordinatum est ab aeterno, ut tale commercium foret, et talis communio, tum quod homo ad aetatem suam perventurus, nesciret quod viveret 1
in corpore, et sic abjecto corpore statim in coelum transmigraret; cum enim in senectutem provehitur talis homo, nullam reflexionem magis habet corporis sui, cum loquitur cum iis in coelo, sicut etiam mihi contigerat, quod oblitus sim quandoque quod in corpore, quia absque reflexione eorum quae corporis, quia in loquela cum spiritibus; hodie idea spirituali vidi, quod corpus nihil sit, et si abjiceretur, quod nihil differret inter vitam in corpore, et post abjectionem corporis.
Footnotes:
1. imperfectum in the Manuscript