1342. Uninformed spirits think they spoke with me with their lips
When someone known to me in life was speaking with me, it appeared as if he were moving his lips and thus speaking with the lips. When I told him this, he said that he had spoken with me using the lips, but I replied to him that a spirit does not have lips, and so cannot speak with the lips. Yet he kept on insisting, until he was informed by an actual demonstration that it was not so, but that it is a depiction of lips, and it so appears by way of symbolic portrayal proper to spirits. 1748, 14 March.
Consequently, the term "lips" in the Word of the Lord symbolizes mental imagery and thus thoughts.
1342. THAT UNINSTRUCTED SPIRITS SUPPOSE THAT THEY TALKED WITH ME BY THEIR LIPS
When a certain spirit whom I had known during his lifetime spoke with me, it appeared to me as though he moved his lips, and thus spoke by means of them. When I told him this he said that he did speak with me by his lips. But when I replied that a spirit does not have lips and so cannot speak by means of them, he still insisted, until he was instructed by living proof that it was not so, but that there is a representation of lips and it so appears according to the representation of the spirits. 1748, Mar. 14. Hence the term lips in the Lord's Word signifies ideas and thus thoughts.
1342. Quod spiritus non instructi putent se labiis loquutos 1
mecum
Cum quidam in vita mihi notus, mecum loqueretur, apparuit mihi, sicut moveret labia, et sic labiis loqueretur, quod cum ei dicerem, dixit, quod labiis mecum loquutus sit, at ei respondebam, quod spiritus labia non habeat, ita nec loqui possit labiis, sed usque institit, dum instructus esset per vivam demonstrationem, quod ita non esset, sed quod repraesentatio sit labiorum, et sic secundum repraesentationem spirituum appareat. 1748, 14 Martius. Inde labiorum vox in Verbo Domini significat ideas et sic cogitationes.
Footnotes:
1. This is how it appears in J.F.I. Tafel's edition; the Manuscript has loquuti