4019. About sirens
It was shown how sirens hold those bound whom they are trying to obsess, namely, [by taking away] all that is streaming in from the angels, which inflow is constant when evil spirits are bringing in evil, for the angels avert and respond to the evil. But when the sirens were permitted, then they entered the inward regions of thought, and turned away everything that was flowing in out of heaven, and by their distortion all my thought was then turned in every direction, even being turned into evil, until I finally got so tired that I had to refrain from writing - for that was when they flowed in. I realized that they also flowed into inward regions with which it was not granted me at the time to be familiar. They have eyes like those of serpents, which have sight and mental imagery in all directions, close at hand.
4019. CONCERNING THE SIRENS.
It was shown how the sirens hold those bound whom they endeavor to obsess, viz. that [they pervert] all the influx from the angels, which is continual whenever evil spirits induce evil; the angels then avert it, and react against it. But whenever permission is granted to sirens, they would enter into the interior of thoughts, and by perverting turn away everything which flowed from heaven. Thus whithersoever my own thought was directed, still it was turned to evil, and that to such a degree that I was at length so wearied by it as to be induced to desist from writing, for it was then especially that they flowed in, and as, was also perceived, into interior things with which it had not then been given me to become so well acquainted. They have the eyes, as it were, of serpents, which seem to possess sight or ideas on every side, giving them a kind of ubiquity of presence.
4019. De sirenibus
Ostensum, quomodo sirenes teneant eos vinctos, quos obsidere conantur, nempe, quod omnes influxus ab angelis [tollunt], qui [influxus] continuus est, quando spiritus mali, malum inferunt, nam angeli avertunt, et respondent; sed cum sirenibus permissum esset, tunc in interiora cogitationis intrabant, et avertebant omnia quae influebant e coelo, atque pervertendo, sic quocunque cogitatio mea verteretur, usque in malum vertebatur, ut tandem ita defatigatus, ut desistere deberem a scribendo, nam tunc influebant, perceptum quoque quod in interiora, quae non tunc mihi dabatur nosse, sunt iis quasi oculi serpentum, qui undequaque visum seu ideas habent quasi praesentes.