life represented by
crystals.

20. The spirits of Mercury differ entirely from those of our Earth,
for the spirits of our Earth concern themselves not so much about
[immaterial] things as about worldly, corporeal, and terrestrial
things, which are material. For this reason the spirits of Mercury
cannot be together with the spirits of our Earth, and therefore
wherever they meet them they flee away, for the spiritual spheres that
are exhaled from both are almost contrary. The spirits of Mercury have
a common saying, that they do not want to look at the sheath, but at
things stripped of their sheath, thus at interior things.

21. There appeared a flame of considerable brightness, which blazed
cheerfully, and this for about an hour. That flame signified the
advent of some spirits of Mercury who, for penetration, thought, and
speech, were prompter than those who preceded them. When they were
come, they instantly ran over the things that were in my memory,
but, owing to their promptness, I was unable to apperceive what they
observed. Immediately afterwards, I heard them say that the matter
was thus and thus. With regard to the things which I had seen in the
heavens and in the world of spirits, they said that they knew them
before. I perceived that a multitude of spirits who were consociated
with them, was behind, a little to the left, in the plane of the
occiput.

22. At another time I saw a multitude of such spirits, but at some
little distance from me, in front a little to the right, and they
spoke with me from thence, but through intermediate spirits; for their
speech is as quick as thought, which does not fall into human speech,
except by means of other spirits; and what surprised me, they spoke
in a body, and yet as promptly and rapidly as possible. Their speech,
being of many together, was apperceived as undulatory, and, what was
remarkable, it glided towards my left eye, although they were to the
right. The reason was, that the left eye corresponds to the knowledges
of things abstracted from material things, thus to such as belong to
intelligence, while the right eye corresponds to such as belong
to wisdom[m]. With the same promptness with which they spoke, they
perceived the things that they heard, and formed their judgment upon
them, saying of one thing that it was so, and of another that it was
not so, their judgment being as it were instantaneous.

[Footnote m: The eye corresponds to the understanding, becaus