7622. When all this had been completed the spirits around me who had watched the bird intently and the series of changes it had undergone talked to one another about it, and for a considerable length of time. They perceived that this kind of sight could only be a sign of something heavenly. They knew that the flaming object was a sign of heavenly love and affections; that the hand which the flame clung to was a sign of life and the power of life, and the changes of colour signs of variations in wisdom and intelligence that go with that life. They knew that the bird too had a similar meaning, the difference being that the flaming object was a sign of celestial love and aspects of that love, while the bird was a sign of spiritual love and aspects of this love. (Celestial love is love to the Lord, spiritual love is mutual love and charity towards the neighbour.) They knew too that the changes in the colours of the bird, and at the same time in the life it had within it until it became stone-like, were signs of the various successive changes in the intelligence that goes with that spiritual life.
[2] They knew furthermore that spirits who come up from underneath by way of the region of the loins into that of the breast are utterly convinced that the Lord is with them, and as a consequence believe that in all they do, even wicked and criminal acts, they are doing the Lord's will. Yet although the spirits around me knew all these things they could not figure out who exactly were meant in the scene they had witnessed. Eventually they learned from heaven that the inhabitants of Mars were meant; that their celestial love, which still exists in a large number of them, was meant by the flame that clung to the hand; that their wisdom and intelligence was meant by the series of varying colours; and that the bird at first, when its colours were beautiful and it was full of life, meant their spiritual love, but then, when that bird became stone-like, lacking in life, and dull-coloured, it meant inhabitants who had forsaken the good of love for evil, yet still believed that the Lord was with them. But since there is more that has been disclosed and demonstrated to me about those inhabitants who are like this and about their state of life, let that be recorded at the end of the next chapter.
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