2824. As for the fall, it was portrayed as follows. First it appeared as if a veil were bending around in circles above the head at a distance, periodically turning around. The veil was flying, as I have seen in pictures somewhere, and soon it was bending around faster and faster, until it did not appear as a veil higher up, but by its swift revolution it was looking like a spherical horizon being rotated, such as is that of the rotating atmosphere, and this from right to left.
So he appeared to be driven around in circles, which results from the fantasy of falsity thus driving him around, causing this portrayal to appear. With the falling angel it is the insanity of his earthly mind which, when he falls into the world of spirits-I do not know whether it so appears to him-causes that portrayal of
2824. As respects the fall it was thus represented. There appeared at first a circumflexion, as it were, of a veil, round about, over the head, by its turning about [conversionem] at a distance. It was a floating veil [velum volans] like as I have seen somewhere in pictures: and then the circumflexion [was] faster and faster, so long as such a veil appeared above [superius]: but by swift revolution [circumvolutionem] [he] appeared like a sphere of horizontal rotation [circumactionis] such as characterizes the whirled sphere of the atmosphere, and this [was] from right to left when he appeared thus driven around [circumactus]: which was the result of the phantasy belonging to the falsity, that thus whirls him round, from which there appears such representation. With the angel who falls, such is the insanity of his natural mind when he falls into the world of spirits (I do not know whether [it appears] to him): then is represented such a whirling and sphere of such whirling.
2824. Quod lapsum attinet, ita repraesentabatur: apparebat primum circumflexio quasi veli circum circa supra caput ad distantiam per conversionem ejus, velum volans erat, sicut in picturis alicubi vidi, et mox circumflexio celerior et celerior, usque dum non apparuit tale velum superius, sed per circumvolutionem celerem, apparebat ut sphaera horizontalis circumactionis, qualis est sphaerae atmosphaerae circumactae, et hoc a dextro ad sinistrum, cum sic circumactus apparebat, quod sequitur ex phantasia falsitatis, quae sic circumagit eum, unde repraesentatio apparens talis--apud 1
angelum cadentem est talis ejus mentis naturalis insania, quae dum in mundum spirituum labitur (non scio an apud eum),
(2825.) tunc repraesentatur circumactio talis et sphaera circumactionis talis--velum 2
sic in sphaeram talem cum formatum, alius tunc prope eum longius inde arripit sphaeram veli, et revolvit 3
versu contrario, sic ut ex velo isto revolvatur, et sic diminuitur, sed continuatur satis diu, a peripheria ad centralem locum ubi is, et cum prope eum venit, labitur is deorsum, et quidem in stagnum nigrum, sordidissimum, et ibi manet, [usque] dum a Domino inde liberatur; est aqua tam sordide 4
nigra, ut vix describi possit. Tales lapsus saepius existunt, nam sic a falsitatibus liberatur coelum, sed cum in mundo spirituum fuerint instructi, et sic meliores, iterum recipiuntur, hoc factum antrorsum, ad distantiam; ee visi aliorum casus quoque plures.
Footnotes:
1. The Manuscript has talis, apud
2. The Manuscript has talis. velum
3. In the Manuscript manu aliena probabiliter B. Chastanier et falso in se mutatum et revolvit simul attactum
4. This is how it appears in J.F.I. Tafel's edition; the Manuscript has sorde