4060. There were certain spirits to whom it was permitted to pass from me to a certain man, and thence to speak with me. When one of them came thither and would fain perform carefully what he intended, he was unable, for he could neither perceive nor understand what he wanted. Hence he said - which was also perceived - that there was to him as it were a certain black inanimate something as a black heap, void of life. Of such a quality do men appear as seen by spirits, for such is comparatively the corporeal life, because it is corporeal. This it was given also to know from a homicide, while he lay as a black mass, as he was then in the life of the body, and he then said that he lived better thus than in any other way, and yet he appeared as a black inanimate mass. I was instructed that in regard to men who are in faith alone, that they in like manner appear comparatively inanimate, but as made of wood in the human likeness, and almost of the color of wood. - 1748, November 23.