5378. Some spirits once came to me but remained silent. Then after a while they did speak, though not as a number of individuals but all of them together as a single person. I recognized from the way they spoke that they were the kind who wished to know everything and desired the explanation for everything, and who thereby became convinced that something was true. These spirits were modest, declaring that nothing done by them was their own idea but was inspired by others, even though it may have seemed to be their own idea. At this point they began to be troubled by some other spirits who, I was told, constituted the province of the kidneys, ureters, and bladder. They were modest in their response to these other spirits, who nevertheless continued to trouble and harass them; for that is what those connected with the kidneys are like. Consequently, since they were unable to prevail over them by their modest responses they resorted to behaviour in keeping with the disposition of the ones who troubled them. That is to say, they resorted to swelling themselves out and thereby striking terror. They therefore seemed to grow large, yet solely as a single person whose body swelled out just as Atlas seemed to tower up into the sky. A spear appeared in his hand; but for all the terror that he struck he had no desire at all to do harm. The spirits belonging to the kidneys fled from him, at which point a spirit was seen who pursued them as they fled, and then another was seen who set off from a forward position and flew between the feet of the enlarged one. The enlarged one also seemed to have wooden footwear which spread right out to those spirits belonging to the kidneys.
[2] Angels told me that those modest spirits who so enlarged themselves are spirits who correlate with the Peritoneum. The peritoneum is a general membrane which envelops and holds within it all the internal organs of the abdomen, in the way that the pleura does all the internal organs in the chest. And because this membrane is so extensive and is a large one compared with other membranes, and is capable of swelling out as well, the spirits connected with the peritoneum are therefore allowed, when troubled by others, to display themselves visually as that enlarged man and at the same time to strike terror, especially into those who constitute the province of the kidneys, ureters, and bladder. For these interior organs or vessels lie within the folds of the peritoneum and are held in place by it. The wooden footwear represented the lowest natural substances such as are absorbed and carried away by the kidneys, ureters, and bladder; for by 'shoes' are meant the lowest natural things, see 259, 4938-4952. The declaration made by those spirits that nothing done by them was their own idea but was inspired by others also correlated them with the peritoneum, for something similar is true of the peritoneum.
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