150. The state of a person when caught up in the proprium, that is, when he imagines that he lives from himself, is compared to a deep sleep. Indeed the ancients actually called it 'a deep sleep' while the Word speaks of people having 'the spirit of deep sleep poured out on them, ¹ and of their sleeping a perpetual sleep. ² The fact that man's proprium is in itself dead, that is, that nobody possesses any life from himself, has been demonstrated in the world of spirits so completely that evil spirits who love nothing except the proprium, and insist stubbornly that they do live from themselves, have been convinced by means of living experience, and have admitted that they do not live from themselves. With regard to the human proprium I have for several years now been given a unique opportunity to know about it - in particular that not a trace of my thinking began in myself. I have also been allowed to perceive clearly that every idea constituting my thought flowed in [from somewhere], and sometimes how it flowed in, and where from. Consequently anyone who imagines that he lives from himself is in error. And in believing that he does live from himself he takes to himself everything evil and false, which he would never do if what he believed and what is actually the case were in agreement.

Poznámky pod čarou:

541. There were some who, not knowing what heavenly joy was, were carried away unexpectedly into heaven. To enable them to be taken up they had been brought into that state where the physical impulses and false notions have been lulled to sleep. I heard from there one of them telling me that he now felt for the first time how much joy there was in heaven, and that in holding to a different idea of it he had been grossly misled. In his inmost being he now felt this as something immeasurably superior to any pleasure men delight in during the life of the body, and which he called something base.