Arcana Coelestia (Potts) n. 5724

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5724. There are in the brain viscidities in which is mingled something spirituous or vital, and these viscidities, expelled from the blood there, fall first among the meninges, then among the fibers, part of them into the great ventricles of the brain, and so on. The spirits who relate by correspondence to those viscidities which have something spirituous or some life in them, appear almost directly above the middle of the head at a mid distance, and are such that from habit acquired in the life of the body they stir scruples of conscience, and intrude in matters of no conscience, and in this way burden the conscience of the simple. Nor do they know what ought to engage the conscience, but make everything that occurs a matter of conscience. Such spirits induce a sensible anxiety in the part of the abdomen beneath the region of the diaphragm. They are also present in temptations, and inject anxieties, at times unbearable. Those of them who correspond to the viscous phlegm of less vitality then keep the thought fixed in these anxieties. Moreover, when I have been in discourse with them, in order to know their quality, they tried in various ways to burden the conscience. This had been the delight of their life; and it was given me to notice that they cannot attend to reasons, and that they do not possess that more universal view of things that would enable them to see the singular ones.


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