33. Later I showed them pictures of the kinds of birds, both large and small, to be found in our world. Lifelike pictures of such things can be shown in the next life. On seeing these birds pictured, at first they wanted to change them, but then they were pleased with them and became quiet. This was because birds mean the knowledge of facts, a thing they perceived by means of an influence they then felt.# So they stopped changing them so as to avoid taking them into their memory. Later I was allowed to picture to them a most beautiful garden full of lamps and lanterns. Then they paused and their attention was caught, because lamps together with lanterns mean truths shining as the result of good.## This made it plain that they could be kept watching material objects, so long as at the same time their meaning in the spiritual sense was hinted at. What is conveyed by the spiritual sense is not completely abstract, since it is represented by these objects. # Birds mean matters of reason and intellect, thoughts, ideas and cognitions (AC 40, 745, 776, 778, 866, 988, 991 [993 in original], 5149, 7441). These vary according to the genera and species of the birds (AC 3219). ## Lamps together with lanterns mean truths which good makes to shine (AC 4638, 9548, 9783).