Arcana Coelestia #7
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:
1. literally, The faces
Revelation 1:13
13
And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle.