men distinguished by names as numerous as the gods they worshipped.
A woman appeared to me who stretched out her hand, desiring to stroke
his cheek. When I expressed my surprise at this, he said, that while
he was in the world such a woman had often appeared to him, and as it
were stroked his cheek, and that her hand was beautiful. The angelic
spirits said that such women sometimes appeared to the ancients, and
that they called them Pallases; and that the one who appeared to him
was from spirits who, when they lived as men in the ancient times,
were delighted with ideas and indulged in thoughts, but without
philosophy; and as such spirits were with him, and were delighted with
him because he thought from what is interior, they representatively
exhibited such a woman to his view. Lastly, he told me what idea he
had had concerning the soul or spirit of man, which he called Pneuma,
namely, that it was an invisible vital [principle], like something
of the ether. He said that he knew his spirit would live after death,
since it was his interior essence, which cannot die, because it can
think; and moreover that he could not think clearly concerning it,
but only obscurely, because he had not possessed any knowledge on the
subject except from himself, with a little also from the Ancients.
Aristotle, it may be remarked, is among sane spirits in the other
life, but many of his followers are among the foolish.

39. I once saw that some spirits of our Earth were with some spirits
of Mercury, and I heard them conversing with one another; and on this
occasion the spirits of our Earth asked them, among other things, in
whom they believed. They replied that they believed in God. But when
they inquired further concerning the God in whom they believed, they
would not say, since it is their custom not to give direct answers
to questions. Then the spirits from the earth Mercury, in their turn,
asked the spirits from our Earth in whom they believed. They said that