103.  Furthermore, the spirits of that earth gave me information concerning the inhabitants, the nature of their consociations and other particulars.  They said that they live divided into families, every family apart from the others; thus, a man (vir) and wife with their children; and that these, when they unite in marriage, are separated from the house of the parents, and have no further care about it; wherefore the spirits from that earth appear in pairs.  That they are little solicitous about food and raiment; that they live on the fruits and pulse which their earth produces; and that they are lightly clothed, being girt with a coarse skin or coat, which keeps out the cold.  Further, that all on that earth know that they shall live after death; and that on this account they have no care for their body, except so far as is necessary for the sake of the life which they say is to endure and to serve the Lord; that for this reason also they do not bury the bodies of the dead, but cast them away, and cover them with branches of trees from the forest.

104.  Being questioned concerning that great belt which appears from our Earth to rise above the horizon of that planet, and to vary its positions, they said, that it does not appear to them as a belt, but only as a snowy something in the sky in various directions.

THE EARTH OR PLANET VENUS, AND ITS SPIRITS AND INHABITANTS.

105.  The planet Venus, in the idea of spirits and angels, appears to the left a little behind, at some distance from our Earth.  It is said, in the idea of spirits, because to no spirit does the sun of this system, or any planet, appear; but spirits have only an idea that they exist.  In consequence of this bare idea, the sun of this system is exhibited behind as a very dark something, and the planets not moving as in the system, but remaining constantly in their places (see above, no. 42).

106.  In the planet Venus there are two kinds of men, of contrary dispositions; the first mild and humane, the second savage and almost brutal.  Those who are mild and humane appear on the other side of the earth, those who are savage and almost brutal appear on the side of it looking this way.  But it should be known that they appear thus according to the states of their life, for the state of life determines every appearance of space and of distance there.

107.  Some of those who appear on the other side of the planet, and who are mild and humane, came to me, and were presented to my sight overhead, and I spoke with them on various subjects.  Amongst other things, they said that while they were in the world they acknowledged, and now still more acknowledge, our Lord as their One only God.  They added that on their earth they had seen Him, and they also represented how they had seen Him.  These spirits, in the Grand Man, have relation to the memory of material things, agreeing with the memory of immaterial things, to which the spirits of Mercury have relation:  wherefore the spirits of Mercury have the fullest agreement with these spirits of Venus; therefore, when they were together, I was sensible from their influx of a remarkable change, and a powerful operation in my brain (see above, no. 43).