Spiritual Experiences (Odhner) n. 1681

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1681. And then I portrayed to them our earth's magnificent palaces, which our spirits were admiring, but those spirits did not think much of because they were made of stones and the like, which they call monstrous, because they were marble imitations. They said that on their earth, there were even more magnificent things, and they displayed them to the spirits of our earth, who said they had not ever seen anything more magnificent. Some of them, but which were not so magnificent, were displayed to me only, privately; more I was not allowed to see, lest they should stick in my memory. But there are their temples, in which they worship the Lord, made of tall trees that they said were very high, which they position in a way that they spread their thick limbs round about. Then they bend, train, prune, cut and stretch them so as to create palaces, all joined together by arcades, with beautiful entry halls passing from one arched dwelling into another, very spacious. They develop almost the whole forest in this manner. There are galleries lengthwise and across, with arched entry halls and doorways. When one comes in, it is as if there are walkways over the whole forest. But the inside was not visible to me, only the doors, and the fact that the inside was formed of arched tree branches thus elegantly arranged. They also fashion magnificent stairways sloping up-wards from the earth, then lay them with tree branches, thus combining use and decor, for after having climbed them, they worship the Lord on their knees. The trees visible underneath are in groups of four, and they train the branches spreading out in every direction to serve as floor, as doorways, as walls furnished with doors, and as roofs, through which the light of the sun penetrates and provides illumination. The branches on the ground and about the doors they strip to make them brighter. In the walkways below, the outside decorations were thoroughly admired by our spirits, and in describing them they said that nothing more magnificent exists, that they are beyond description. Two or three were shown separately, which were colored. They particularly love a beautiful, clear sky blue, which extremely delights their minds. Besides these, there were the colors dark orange, and also a little shining white. However, these spirits live only at ground level, not in the heights, which are sacred to them. They very much praise and prize their buildings, and value them above all else; for they love their own architecture and the simplicity of their own homes.


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