4207. About those who desire [to return] into the body and the world
There are spirits who desire to return into the body, and again into the world, and then to obsess people on earth. These are detained in their own hell, lest they come to stay with people. Especially adulterers have this desire, and sirens, as well as others. They are punished sometimes severely, in order that they might acquire an abhorrence for that desire. By punishing spirits, a fantasy is induced on them of the body, so that they do not know but that they are in a body, the senses of which are now entirely the same. They are even able so to speak to harden the body and then to torture and mangle all the members, and break it up in various ways, causing immense pain, and this repeatedly, until they acquire a horror of such treatment. Various kinds of horror, terror, and shame are the outer restraints that are imposed by means of punishments on evil souls or spirits after death. 1749, 13 April.
