323. Spirits can smell odors, and those odors correspond to the spiritual life of [the deceased persons]

It is also amazing in regard to the dead after [earthly] life, that when it is so permitted, it can be clearly and perceptibly smelled what someone is like who has died; and when they had lived an evil life, then such an offensive odor is smelled from the corpse, that the spirits cannot stand approaching them. They have told me that it is an odor like that of a most stinking corpse, and that the differences between such odors or stenches are like those between spiritual qualities of their life. A stench of this kind has many times arisen near me, especially that of a decaying mouse, which corresponds with greed in its countlessly diverse forms.

These facts lead me to the conclusion that by the sign put upon Cain, an odor of this kind is meant, so intense that he could wander nowhere, without being driven away [Gen. 4:14,15]. For a similar thing happens in the other life, as I have been shown by much actual experience.

But such an odor is removed from everyone when they are brought to their own habitations, for if it were then present, they could not be received anywhere and stay. So they are admitted into habitations by being perceived in a different way, through the disposition of God the Messiah Alone. 1747, the 9th day of December.