2229. THAT SPIRITS FLY LIKE THE EAGLE, AS IS READ CONCERNING THE GENTILES. When it was read in Deut. 28:49 that a nation [gens] flieth like an eagle, I remembered occurrences which had often happened, to wit, that spirits are made to appear [sistantur] in a moment, and thus fly as it were, although they were afar off, and at the end of the earth, as is read, for wherever they are in the world they are made to appear immediately as present, yea, some of them very near [proxime] to the ear, to the back, and within the body. So that they are present very quickly and very near [proxime], no matter where they had lived in the world, yea [those] who [had lived] in other worlds [telluribus], for it is a fallacy of the senses [sensus] that [they are] near and very near, as may be apparent from sight and hearing, as well as because space is not in spirituals, and likewise time neither. Inasmuch as there is no space to the eye between itself and the sun, which would appear as if in the eye, did not obvious things manifest the truth [id] and the knowledge that space intervenes, I [therefore] did sometimes discourse with spirits about these things. They were willing to conclude the presence from the appearance, and not readily to believe anything unless it, as it were, appears, and yet there are indefinite fallacies of the sense which must be shaken off else the truth can never come forth. - 1748, June 7.