Robsahm, a friend of Swedenborg’s, probably alludes to this circumstance, when he writes: “One day as a criminal was led to the place of execution to be beheaded, I was by the side of Swedenborg, and asked him how such a person felt at the time of his execution. He answered: ‘When a man lays his head on the block, he loses all sensation. When he first comes into the spiritual world, and finds that he is living, he is seized with the fear of his expected death, tries to escape, and is very much frightened. At such a moment no one thinks of anything but the happiness of heaven, or the misery of hell. Soon the good spirits come to him, and instruct him where he is, and he is then left to follow his own inclinations, which soon lead him to the place where he remains for ever.’” It appears that whatever happens at the hour of death, is carried into the other life, and the state is continued for some time. Thus we read in the “Spiritual Diary” of a person who had been reduced by melancholy to despair, until being instigated by diabolical spirits, he destroyed himself, by thrusting a knife into his body. “This spirit came to me,” writes Swedenborg, “complaining that he was miserably treated by evil spirits. He was seen by me, holding a knife in his hand, as though he would plunge it into his breast. With this knife he labored very hard, as wishing rather to cast it from him, but in vain.” It soon became widely known that Swedenborg had intercourse with spirits; and many and various were the demands made upon him, for information of one kind and another. The Queen of Sweden asked him whether his spiritual intercourse was a science or art that could be communicated to others. He said: “No, it is the gift of the Lord.” “Can you then,” said she, “speak with every one deceased, or only with certain persons?” He answered, “I can not converse with all, but only with such as I have known in this world, with all royal and princely persons, with all renowned heroes, or great and learned men, whom I have known, either personally, or from their actions or writings; consequently with all _of whom I could form an idea_; for it may be supposed that a person whom I never knew, and of whom I could form no idea, I neither could or would wish to speak with.”