87. Some spirits came to me from there and attached themselves to my left temple. There they breathed speech over me, but I did not understand it. Its flow was extremely gentle; I had never felt anything so gentle, like the gentlest of breezes. It first blew upon my left temple and my left ear from above; then it proceeded to my left eye, moving gradually to the right and then flowing down, especially from the left eye, to the lips. On reaching the lips, it entered the mouth, and travelling through the mouth proceeded, in fact through the Eustachian tube, into the brain. When the breath reached that point, I understood their speech and was able to talk with them. I noticed that when they were talking with me, my lips moved and to a small extent my tongue did also. This was due to the correspondence between inward and outward speech. Outward speech consists of articulate sounds travelling to the outer membrane of the ear, and then by means of small organs, membranes and fibres inside the ear being carried to the brain.
[2] It may be known from this that the speech of the inhabitants of Mars is of a different type from that of the inhabitants of our world. It has little sound, but is almost silent, following a shorter path to penetrate the inner hearing and sight. Being of such a nature it is more perfect, more full of the concepts of thought, and so closer to the speech of spirits and angels. The actual affection in the speech is pictured in their faces, and the thought in their eyes; for with them thought and speech, as well as affection and facial expression, act as one. They consider it a crime to think one thing and say another, or to wish for one thing and show something else by facial expression. They do not know what hypocrisy or deceitful pretence or guile are.
[3] I have been able to learn by associating with certain of the Most Ancient peoples of this world that they too could speak like this. To illustrate this I should like to report what I have heard, as follows.
*'I was shown by a kind of influence which I cannot describe what speech was like among those who belonged to the Most Ancient Church.# It was not articulate, as speech in words is in our time, but silent. It was produced not by outer breathing, but by a kind of inner breathing, so it might be termed thought-speech. I was also able to grasp what inner breathing was like; it proceeded from the navel towards the heart, and so through the lips without making any sound when they spoke. It did not enter the other's ear by the external route, striking on what is called the ear-drum, but by an internal route, in fact by what is nowadays called the Eustachian tube. I was shown how by speaking like this they could express much more fully the decisions of the mind and the ideas of thought than can ever be achieved by articulate sounds or spoken words. Such speech is equally regulated by breathing, but this is outer breathing. For there is no word, or rather no part of a word, which is not regulated by the expiration of breath. But in the case of these people it was much more perfect, because it was regulated by inner breathing, which, because it is internal is more perfect, and better suited and adapted to the ideas of thought. Moreover it was helped by slight movements of the lips and corresponding changes of facial expression. For, since they were celestial people, whatever they thought shone out from their faces and eyes. These changed in conformity, the facial expression reflecting the affections of their lives, the eyes the light. They were never able to display a look on their faces which did not agree with what they were thinking. Since they spoke by means of inner breathing, the breathing of a person's very spirit, they were able to associate and talk with angels.'
[4] The way the spirits of Mars breathed was demonstrated to me,## and I perceived that their breathing proceeded from the region of the thorax towards the navel, and from there flowed up through the chest towards the mouth with an imperceptible expiration. This, together with the other proofs I experienced, allowed me to see that they possessed a celestial character, so that they were not dissimilar from those who belonged to the Most Ancient Church in this world. [* The following paragraph is repeated with some changes from AC 1118 -TR.] # The first and most ancient church in this world was a celestial church, the leading one of all (AC 607, 895, 920, 1121-4, 2896, 4493, 8891, 9942, 10545). A church is called celestial when its principal feature is love to the Lord, but spiritual when its principal feature is charity towards the neighbour and faith (AC 3691, 6435, 9468, 9680, 9683, 9780). ## Spirits and angels breathe (AC 3884-5, 3891, 3893).