4265. CONCERNING BABEL AND PROFANATION; THE DRAGON. There was a certain spirit pre-eminently malicious, a profaner, who was apperceived, and because he was so much more malicious than others he could not be driven away by the angels except by the appearance of a certain fiery something, just as if had been an evil genius. Having been thus cast down he appeared as a slender form suspended midway; but the sirens wished to have him as a subject of their own, when he began by degrees to become larger and larger, and grew at length to the great size that belonged to him; and as then by means of phantasies he drew a multitude, troops, as it were, of spirits around him, he became proportionally gross, and appeared finally as a huge dragon, and enclosed the sirens in his belly, of which they complained, for all their artifices were then unavailing, as he had bound and held them subject to his will. In the meantime I conversed with them and with him, and they said that they wished to be released from him, being now powerless. He had cords which he extended to catch and draw his victims into his mouth, and he projected his jaws backwards and thus [seized and] swallowed them; all which were representations. It was thus apperceived what is signified by the dragon, and by his becoming great and swallowing so many, and thus what is signified by Babel; for multitudes are allured to such a power because of his versatile nature, and his potent persuasions. - 1749, May 7.