1422. And when I asked them from which planet they were, because I had noticed they were not from ours, they did not want to tell me this, or the fact that they had been clothed with a body. They did not like to think of themselves as having been on some earth or clothed with a body, because it is contrary to their principles to think, much less to say anything about bodily and earthly matters. And when I portrayed to them meadows, wheat fields, forests, rivers, they turned them at once into almost opposite things. For example, they darkened the meadows and as it were filled them with snakes. They also blackened the waters, not wanting me to look at clear water. And while I was wondering why this was so, why their waters were so black, I heard it was for the reason that according to their systems and laws, they are not allowed to think about such things, but only about realities. So they accept higher knowledge of matters that occur in heaven, but not those which occur on the earths.
1422. When I inquired from what earth they were - because I observed that they were not from our earth - they did not want to say. Nor would they say that they had been clothed with a body, for they were unwilling to think that they had been on some earth and been clothed with a body, since it is contrary to their principles ever to think, still less to speak of, corporeal and earthly things. When I represented to them meadows, cornfields, woods, and streams of water, they thereupon immediately turned them into almost the contrary, so that they darkened the meadows and filled them, as it were, with serpents, and also blackened the waters, as if they were unwilling that I should look at the clear water. And when I wondered why this was so, why their waters should be so black, I heard that the reason was that according to their institutes or laws, they were not allowed to think about such things, but only about things that are real, to the end that they might receive cognitions of the things which take place in heaven, not of those which are on the earth.
1422. Cumque quaererem ex qua tellure, quia animadversum quod non ex nostra, id non volebant dicere, nec quod corpore induti fuerint, nam non cogitare volebant, se fuisse in terra quadam, nec corpore indutos 1
, quia id eorum principiis adversatur, ut quicquam cogitent, minus loquantur, de corporeis, et terrestribus; cumque repraesentarem iis, prata, sata, sylvas, flumina, tunc statim vertebant ea in paene contraria, sicut prata obscurabant, et implebant quasi serpentibus, aquas quoque denigrabant, sic ut claram undam spectare me, non vellent, cumque cogitarem cur ita esset, quod aquae eorum tales essent, tam nigrae, audivi quod ideo esset quia secundum eorum instituta, seu leges, non licet iis cogitare de similibus, sed solum de realibus, sic ut cognitiones rerum, quae fiunt in coelo, acciperent, non quae sunt in terris.
Footnotes:
1. The Manuscript has induti