6214. How difficult it is for a person to believe that spirits know his thoughts has been proved to me by the following experience. Before I talked to spirits some spirit happened to address me briefly on the matters I was thinking about. I was dumbfounded by this, that a spirit could know my thoughts, for I had supposed that such thoughts lay hidden and were known to God alone. After that, when I began to talk to spirits, I was indignant that I could not have any thought at all which they did not know and that this was going to prove irksome to me. But then over several days I grew accustomed to it. At length I also came to know that spirits not only discern everything present in a person's thought and will, but also far more than the person himself discerns; that the angels discern even more than that, namely his intentions and ends in view from the primary, through the intermediate, to the final ones; and that the Lord knows not only what the entire person is like now but also will be for evermore. This has proved to me that absolutely nothing is hidden, but that a person's inward thought and designs are as plain to see in the next life as if in broad daylight.
