By much experience within several years, I have been taught that one should not resolve to do anything that is really unimportant, for the reason that one thereby not only loses one's freedom, but also gives spirits an opportunity to desire it, and thus to persuade. For it is the nature of spirits to desire intensely, and then to persuade regarding some matter as if it were a most definite cause, and should by all means be done. For this reason, the Lord sometimes even permits something that He would not have permitted if the person had not resolved to do it, but would instead have given him a conviction and feeling for something good, and for what is conducive to that good thereafter, besides being gifted in this way with freedom, as I have been taught by lengthy experience with spirits. 1748, 3 June.