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626 [Doc. 272.
THREE EXTRAORDINARY FACTS.
agreement with the rule of sound reason to incline to the
negative side ; not as if I had imagined such a case to be
impossible, although we know but very little concerning the
nature of a spirit, but because the instances are not in general
sufficiently proved. There arise, moreover, from the incom
prehensibility and inutility of this sort of phenomena, too many
difficulties; and there are, on the other hand, so many proofs
of deception, that I have never considered it necessary to
suffer fear or dread to come upon me, either in the cemeteries
of the dead or in the darkness of night. This is the position
in which my mind stood for a long time, until the report
concerning Swedenborg came to my notice.
"This account I received from a Danish officer, who was
formerly my friend, and attended my lectures ; and who, at
the table of the Austrian ambassador, Dietrichstein, at Copen
hagen, together with several other guests, read a letter which
the ambassador about that time had received from Baron de
Lutzow, the Mecklenburg ambassador in Stockholm; in which
he says, that he, in company with the Dutch ambassador, was
present, at the Queen of Sweden’s residence, at the extra
ordinary transaction respecting Swedenborg, which your lady
ship will undoubtedly have heard. The authenticity thus given
to the account surprised me. For it can scarcely be believed,
that one ambassador should communicate to another for public
use a piece of information, which related to the queen of the
court where he resided, and which he himself, together with
a distinguished company, had the opportunity of witnessing,
if it were not true. Now in order not to reject blindfold the
prejudice against apparitions and visions by a new prejudice,
I found it desirable to inform myself as to the particulars of
this surprising transaction. I accordingly wrote to the officer
I have mentioned, at Copenhagen, and made various inquiries
respecting it. He answered that he had again had an interview
concerning it with Count Dietrichstein; that the affair had
really taken place in the manner described ; and that Professor
Schlegel, also, had declared to him, that it could by no means
be doubted. He advised me, as he was then going to the
army under General St. Germain, to write to Swedenborg
himself, in order to ascertain the particular circumstances of
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