1648. CONCERNING THE PREPARATION OF THE WAY, BEFORE THE ADVENT, OF ANGELS TO MEN ON THE EARTH JUPITER, AND CONCERNING JOHN THE BAPTIST. A certain one of the spirits of Jupiter who strike fear and terror into man by their approach, applied himself to my left side under the elbows, and then spoke in his peculiar way, at first with a somewhat harsh, grating sound, as of the teeth, and afterward as of the lips, as he also said, so that the sound of his utterance was heard like that of one who sonorously compresses his lips. The words were not continuous, but very discrete, and accordingly the ideas or words of the discourse were not closely connected, [but so separated that] it was necessary to wait for a considerable time in order to know what was said. He inspired also a degree of terror in connection with what he uttered, saying to me among other things that it was customary in the earth prior to the approach of angels to have one sent before as a herald, to prepare a man for their coming, to talk with him concerning them, and to admonish him to entertain them courteously, and to do them no harm; to whom I replied that this did not depend upon me, but upon the spirits of the earth where I am, whom, if they are present, I cannot control; but if they [the spirits of Jupiter] were able to do it, very well.