7. The first state is the state which precedes, both the state existing from earliest childhood onwards and that existing immediately before regeneration; and it is called a void, emptiness, and thick darkness. And the first movement, which is the Lord's mercy, is 'the Spirit of God hovering over the face ¹ of the waters'.

Footnotes:

8629. A certain spirit rising up from the lower earth came to me and said that he had heard the things I had spoken to the other spirits, but that he had understood scarcely anything of what had been said about spiritual life and light. I asked him whether he wished to learn about those things; he said he had not come with the intention of doing so, from which I concluded that he did not wish to. He was extremely stupid. Angels told me that when he lived as a person in the world he had been one of those quite famous for their learning. He was a cold person, which I became clearly aware of from his breath. This was an indication that he saw things in merely natural and not at all in spiritual light, thus that knowledge served not to open but to close the way to the light of heaven for him.