11. Some spirits came to me, and it was declared from heaven, that they were from the earth which is nearest to the sun, and which in our earth is called by the name of the planet Mercury. Immediately on their coming, they sought from my memory what I knew. Spirits can do this most dexterously, for when they come to man, they see in his memory all things contained therein.# During their search for various things, and amongst others, for the cities and places where I had been, I observed that they did not wish to know anything of temples, palaces, houses, or streets, but only of those things which I knew were transacted in those places, also of whatever related to the government therein, and to the genius and manners of the inhabitants, and similar things: for such things cohere with places in man's memory; wherefore when the places are recalled, those things also are brought up. I wondered that they were of such a nature; wherefore I asked them, why they disregarded the magnificence of the places, and only attended to the things and deeds done there. They said they had no delight in looking at things material, corporeal, and terrestrial, but only at things real. Hence it was confirmed, that the spirits of that earth, in the Greatest Man, have relation to the memory of things abstracted from what is material and terrestrial.
# Spirits enter into all the things of man's memory but not from their own memory into man's (n. 2488, 5863, 6192, 6193, 6198, 6199, 6214). Angels enter into the affections and ends, from which and for the sake of which man thinks, wills, and acts in such and such a manner and not otherwise (n. 1317, 1645, 5844).