Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 6930

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6930. After this the spirits belonging to Mercury sent me a long, uneven sheet of paper consisting of many sheets pasted together. It seemed to have printed type on it like that on our planet, so I asked them whether they had such a thing as printing among them. They said that they did not but that they knew of the existence on our planet of sheets like that. They did not wish to say anything more, but I could tell that they were thinking that this was what the knowledge of real things was like on our planet, that is, that it was separate from a person himself except when he focused his eye and so his mind on such sheets of paper. For that reason they laughed among themselves at people belonging to our planet who seemingly knew nothing except from sheets of paper. But I told them what the situation really was. After some time those spirits came back and sent me another sheet of paper which also seemed to be covered with type as the previous one was but consisted of less pastings together and was not so untidy. Rather, it was neat and trim. They said that they had received the further information that on our planet sheets of paper are like this and that books are made out of them.


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