5573. A certain spirit was once present, but was invisible over my head. I was led to perceive his presence from a stench of burnt horn or bone and from stinking teeth. After that a large crowd looking like a cloud appeared on the scene, coming up from below towards a higher position behind my back. These too were invisible; and they came to a halt above my head. I assumed that their invisibility was due to their own cleverness. I was told however that where the spiritual sphere obtained they were not visible, but where the natural sphere did so they were visible. They were therefore called 'the invisible natural ones'. Regarding those spirits let me record first the disclosure that they endeavoured in a most zealous, cunning, and skillful manner to prevent any exposure at all of themselves. Having this end in view they also knew how to take away from other people the ideas they possessed and to replace these with different ones with which they prevented their own disclosure. Their endeavour to do this lasted for quite a long time. From all this I was led to see that during their lifetime those spirits had been the kind of people who did not want any of their actions or thought to be exposed, which they achieved by assuming a different countenance and a different manner of speaking. Nevertheless they had not employed any kind of pretence so as to lie and deceive.

[2] I perceived that the spirits present with me had been traders during their lifetime; yet they were the kind whose delight in life lay in trading itself and not so much in riches, so that trading itself was so to speak the driving force (anima) within them. I therefore spoke to them about this, and was led to say that trading in no way prevented them from entering heaven and that in heaven there were rich people no less than poor ones. But they objected to this, saying it had been their opinion that if they were going to be saved, they would need to give up trading, donate all their possessions to the poor, and reduce themselves to a pitiable condition. I was led to answer that what they said was not true and that those among them who were in heaven because they had been good Christians and yet had been wealthy, some extremely wealthy, thought otherwise. These people had had as their end in view the common good and love towards their neighbour; and they had engaged in commerce solely for the sake of service in the world and had not, what is more, set their heart on wealth. But the reason why those to whom I was speaking were on a lower level was that they were wholly naturally-minded and therefore had no belief in a life after death, or in hell, or in heaven; indeed they had no belief in the spirit. I also told them that by the use of all kinds of ingenuity they had heartlessly robbed others of their goods and without feeling any pity could for their own gain watch entire households perish, and that they consequently derided everyone who talked to them about the spiritual life.

[3] I have also been shown the kind of belief those spirits had had regarding life after death, and regarding heaven and hell. A certain person appeared who was carried up to heaven, going up from the left over to the right. I was told that this was someone who had recently died and was being taken off immediately by angels into heaven. There followed a discussion concerning that person, but although those spirits too saw this take place, they possessed a sphere of disbelief which was an extremely powerful one and which they diffused around themselves. It was so powerful that they were willing to convince themselves and others not to believe what they had seen. Because their disbelief was so strong I was led to tell them that if in the world they had by chance witnessed the restoration to life of someone lying dead on a catafalque they would first of all have said that they refused to believe it unless they had seen many dead persons restored to life, and that if they had seen this they would have attributed such to natural causes. After this, when those spirits had been left to think for a while, they said that at first they would have believed that what they had seen was some trick. But once, they added, it proved to be no trick they would have believed that the soul of the dead person had some secret communication with the one restoring him to life, and at length that this was some secret which they could not comprehend; for the natural world contains very many incomprehensible secrets. So they could not have been led to believe that such a happening was attributable to some force outside the natural order. This revealed the kind of faith that had been theirs, that is to say, a faith which could not possibly lead them to believe in a life after death, or in hell, or in heaven. Thus it revealed that they were naturally-minded. When spirits like these are seen in the light of heaven they too seem to have no face, only a thick growth of hair in place of it.