1672. They are upright to such a degree as to be called probities, and they suffer the infliction of injuries without any desire of revenge or redress. They flee as soon as ever they approach to spirits who think of their bodies, for no one of them is willing to think of his own body, or to hear anything respecting it, wherefore their societies do not agree with the societies of other spirits, whence an anxiety exists, and of such a nature that I partook of it; I perceived, too, that it arose from the circumstance of the disagreement now spoken of. These societies afterwards spoke to me from a greater distance.
1672 1/2. ((I asked of them whether they walked erect or crept like worms; to which they replied that they walked erect. When I inquired how they could do this without feet, requesting at the same time that they should recall the idea which they had [on this subject] during their earthly life. I found that they were unwilling to hear anything of their having had feet. I then inquired whether they were not born of a father and mother. They said they were born. I asked whether they had human faces; they certainly had faces, and again they were handsome, nor could they bear to hear that I thought of them as without faces, but they still insisted that they were without a body, and when I would represent them as worms divested of their exuviae)), (((and emerging as nymphae, this they liked, and would fain have the case to have been thus. I was thence able to conclude that they had been clothed with a body, but that in their lifetime they had so despised their bodies as to hold them as vile filth, and as the exuviae of worms, and that they wished to be divested of them, because they were clogs, and that they had died after having lived as spirits during their lifetime; and also that hence arose the anxiety among them in relation to spirits that loved their bodies. It seems probable, therefore, that they were born on the planet Jupiter, where some are this character.)))
1672 1/3. ((They acknowledge our Lord like the spirits of Jupiter, and worship Him alone, whence they say that they are upright.))
1672 1/4. ((The anxieties which I perceived were caused by reciprocal aversions. The spirits of our earth are averse to them at their first approach by reason of their repugnance to all thoughts concerning bodies - thoughts with which the sphere of the spirits of our earth is filled, for such a sphere is formed from thoughts (see above), and aversion arises from the concurrence of contrary spheres, and from aversion, anxiety. Thence, also, originate the representation caused by our spirits of serpents twined around them, which they endeavor to throw off as a troublesome annoyance from the arms encircled in their folds. But while I write these things, they do not wish to have anything said which implies the idea of arms; and this again indicates that they were once possessed of a corporeal investment, but that they held their bodies in extreme aversion. - 1748, March 23. In like manner that they were furnished with loins and feet, for serpents appeared about their loins, etc.))
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