1983. CONCERNING MEMORY. I have learned from experience that there is an interior from which is excited the memory of material and corporeal ideas, and that such a memory remains also with spirits from which, at the good pleasure of the Lord, those things that have been stored up in the memory of sensual ideas are excited. That there is such a memory, and that it is more perfect than the memory of the body, is a fact which has been forced upon me by many proofs; yea, even that which man supposes forgotten is still lodged in that memory, though buried up in sensuals. The same thing may be inferred from dreams and other indications. But beside this memory, there is a memory still more interior, namely, of spiritual ideas, by the and of which thought and speech may be carried on, and this it is by which that [first] interior memory is excited. By means of that spiritual memory spirits possess a great advantage over men, so that they can think much more subtly and distinctly; thus their faculties are vastly augmented in comparison with what they were in the life of the body. This was confirmed by an abundant experience, concerning which elsewhere. - 1748, May 17.