ience, that
the natural man cannot introduce himself into the spiritual, that is,
ascend; but that, when man is in faith, and thus in spiritual life,
the spiritual man inflows into the natural, and thinks therein; for
there is spiritual influx, that is, influx from the spiritual world
into the natural, but not contrariwise[mm].

[Footnote mm: There is spiritual influx, and not physical or natural
influx, consequently influx is from the spiritual world into the
natural, and not from the natural into the spiritual, nos. 3219,
5119, 5259, 5427, 5428, 5477, 6322. It appears as if influx were from
externals into man's internals, but this is a fallacy, no. 3721.]

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