1672. They are upright spirits, and therefore called virtues, allowing injustices to be brought upon themselves without any desire for revenge or punishment. They flee the moment they come upon spirits who are thinking about their bodies, for they do not like to think at all, nor to hear anything, about their own body. So their societies do not fit in with the societies of other spirits, and [if they are associated] an anxiety arises. In fact, it is so great that I myself had a feeling of anxiety that I sensed had arisen because they are incompatible. Then from afar, they spoke with me.
1672 1/2. I asked whether they walk upright, or whether they creep like worms; they replied that they do walk upright. And when I said, how can they walk upright without feet-which was asked so as to recall an image of their life on their earth-they did not like to hear about having had feet. I asked whether they had been born from a father and mother; they said they had been born. I asked whether they had human faces; they said that they certainly had faces, and now they are saying they have beautiful faces, and cannot stand hearing they are thought to be without a face; but still they insisted that they were without a body. And when I portrayed them as worms, which, after shedding their coverings, emerged as nymphs, they loved the idea, almost wanting to be the same. This leads me to conclude that they had been clothed with a body, but in life had so scorned their bodies as to regard them as dung, and as worm exuviae, and had longed to shed them so as not to be burdened with them. Thus they had lived as spirits during life [on earth], and then had died. From this also there arose anxiety among spirits who had loved their bodies, and it seems probable that they had been born on the planet Jupiter, and that some of them are like that.
1672 1/3. They acknowledge our Lord, just as the spirits of Jupiter, and worship Him Alone, and because of this call themselves upright.
1672 1/4. The reciprocal aversions caused the anxiety which I felt. Spirits of our earth turn away from them at their first approach because those spirits are averse to thoughts about bodies; and the aura where the spirits of our earth are is filled with them. That an aura of this kind is created by thoughts, see above [1672]: from the running together of contrary auras, there is aversion, and then from aversion, anxiety. Hence also the portrayal of snakes around them from our spirits, which, when their arms are bound by them, they shake off with annoyance. But as I write these words, they do not like to hear the idea of arms, either, again showing that they had been clothed with a body, but had had such great aversion to their own bodies. 1748, 23 March. Likewise, that they were equipped with loins and feet, for snakes appeared around their loins, and so on.
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