Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 1644

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1644. There are very many evil spirits of an interior kind who do not speak as other spirits do; but they are well acquainted with the first origins from which ideas derive, and so are more subtle than other spirits. Great numbers of such spirits exist, but these have been entirely segregated from angelic spirits and cannot even go near them. These evil spirits who are more subtle also attach their own ideas to outward objects and inner realities in an abstract way, to those however that are filthy; and within those objects and realities they represent to themselves various but filthy things and enfold their own ideas within such things. They are so to speak fools. Their speech has been made known to me and has also been represented as the filthy dregs from a vessel. And that element of their speech which involved the understanding was represented by the hind-quarters of a horse whose fore-parts did not appear, for what belongs to the understanding is represented in the world of spirits by means of horses. The speech of angelic spirits however was represented by means of a virgin who was dressed beautifully in a robe of white neatly gathered at the breast, and who was graceful in the movements of her body.


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