Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 5187

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5187. A certain spirit once came to me, asking whether I knew a place where he could stay. I thought he was an upright spirit, and when I told him that he could perhaps stay where I was, harrier spirits who belonged to this province came along and harried him piteously. This grieved me, and I sought in vain to stop them. At this point I became aware of the fact that I was in the province of the gall bladder. The harrying spirits were some of those who despised uprightness and godliness. I was allowed to witness one kind of harrying there, which consisted in compelling a spirit to speak faster than he could think. This they accomplished by severing his own speech from his thought and then compelling him to speak what they were speaking, a painful experience. By means of this form of harrying the slow are introduced into thinking and speaking more quickly.


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