was in the beauty of its colours and the vigour of its life, signified their spiritual love:  but that the bird when it had become as it were stony and devoid of life, and at length of a dusky colour, signified those inhabitants who have removed themselves from the good of love, and are in evil, and still believe, nevertheless, that they are in the Lord.  The same thing was signified by the spirit who rose up and wished to take away the bird.

95.  The bird of stone also represented inhabitants of that earth, who by a strange method transmute the life of their thoughts and affections into almost no life, on which subject I have learned the following particulars.  There was a certain spirit above my head who spoke with me, and from the tone of his voice he was apperceived to be as it were in a state of sleep.  In this state he spoke many things, and with a sagacity (prudentia) that he could not have surpassed when awake.  It was given me to perceive that he was a subject through whom angels spoke, and that in that state he apperceived [their speech] and produced it[ll]; for he spoke nothing but what was true; if anything inflowed from any other source, he indeed admitted it, but did not produce it.  I questioned him respecting his state.  He said that to him that state was a peaceful one, and was free from all solicitude respecting the future; and that at the same time he was performing uses by which he had communication with heaven.  I was told that such, in the Grand Man, have relation to the longitudinal sinus, which lies in the brain between its two hemispheres, and is there in a tranquil state, no matter how disturbed the brain may be on either side.  While I was in conversation with this spirit, some spirits introduced themselves towards the anterior part of the head where he was, and pressed upon him; wherefore he retired to one side, and gave place to them.  The spirit strangers spoke with each other; but neither the spirits about me, nor I myself, understood what they said.  I was informed by the angels that they were spirits from the earth Mars, who have the skill to speak with each other in such a way that the spirits present could not understand or perceive anything.  I wondered that there could possibly be speech of this kind, since for all spirits there is one speech, which flows from thought, and consists of ideas which are heard as vocal expressions in the spiritual world.  I was told that those spirits have a certain method of forming ideas, expressed by the lips and face, unintelligible to others, and that they at the same instant skilfully withdraw their thoughts, guarding particularly lest anything of the affection should manifest itself, because if anything of the affection were perceived, the thought would appear, for the thought flows from the affection, and as it were in it.  I was further informed that such speech was contrived by those inhabitants of Mars,—­though not by all,—­who make heavenly life to consist in knowledges alone,