290. To the experience already set forth this also is to be added: When it was granted me by the Lord to speak with spirits and angels this interior truth (arcanum) was immediately disclosed to me. For I was told from heaven that, like others, I believed that I thought and willed from myself when in fact there was nothing from myself but if there was good it originated from the Lord, and if evil it originated from hell. That this was so was demonstrated to me in a realistic manner by various thoughts and affections induced upon me, and I was enabled gradually to perceive it and to feel it. Therefore, as soon as any evil afterwards entered into my will or any falsity into my thought, I inquired into its source. This was disclosed to me, and I was also permitted to speak with those from whom it came, to refute them, and to compel them to withdraw and thus to retract their evil and their falsity and to keep them to themselves, and no longer to infuse any such thing into my thought. This has happened a thousand times; and in this state I have remained now for many years, and I continue in it still; and yet I seem to myself to think and to will from myself like others, with no difference, for it is Of the Lord's Providence that it should so appear to everyone, as was shown above in its own place. Spirits who have newly arrived wonder at this state of mine, only seeing that I do not think and will anything from myself, and therefore that I am like some inane creature. But J revealed the truth to them; adding that I also think even more interiorly and perceive whether what flows into my exterior thought is from heaven or from hell; and that I reject what is from hell and accept what is from heaven; assuring them that still I seem to myself, just as they do, to think and to will from myself.