No, answered they; but, on the contrary, natural material bodies give spirits motion; for we spirits, being incorporeal, have no motion but from our corporeal vehicles, so that we move by the help of our bodies, and not the bodies by our help; for pure spirits are immovable. If this be so, replied the Empress, how comes it then that you can move so suddenly at a vast distance? They answered, that some sorts of matter were more pure, rare, and consequently more light and agile than others; and this was the reason of their quick and sudden motions. Then the Empress asked them, whether they could speak without a body, or bodily organs? No, said they; nor could we have any bodily sense, but only knowledge. She asked, whether they could have knowledge without body? Not a natural, answered they, but a supernatural knowledge, which is a far better knowledge than a natural. Then she asked them, whether they had a general or universal knowledge? They answered, single or particular created spirits, have not; for not any creature, but God Himself, can have an absolute and perfect knowledge of all things. The Empress asked them further, whether spirits had inward and outward parts? No, answered they; for parts only belong to bodies, not to spirits.

Again, she asked them, whether their vehicles were living bodies? They are self-moving bodies, answered they, and therefore they must needs be living; for nothing can move itself, without it hath life. Then, said she, it must necessarily follow, that this living, self-moving body gives motion to the spirit, and not the spirit motion to the body, as its vehicle. You say very true, answered they, and we told you this before. Then the Empress asked them, of what forms of matter those vehicles were? They said they were of several different forms; some gross and dense, and others more pure, rare, and subtle. If you be not material, said the Empress, how can you be generators of all creatures? We are no more, answered they, the generators of material creatures, than they are the generators of us spirits. Then she asked, whether they did leave their vehicles? No, answered they; for we being incorporeal, cannot leave or quit them: but our vehicles do change into several forms and figures, according as occasion requires. Then the Empress desired the spirits to tell her, whether Man was a little world? They answered, that if a fly or worm was a little world, then Man was so too.

She asked again, whether our forefathers had been as wise, as men were at present, and had understood sense and reason, as well as they did now? They answered, that in former ages they had been as wise as they are in this present, nay, wiser; for, said they, many in this age do think their forefathers have been fools, by which they prove themselves to be such. The Empress asked further, whether there was any plastick power in nature? Truly, said the spirits, plastick power is a hard word, and signifies no more than the power of the corporeal, figurative motions of nature. After this, the Empress desired the spirits to inform her where the Paradise was, whether it was in the midst of the world as a centre of pleasure? or, whether it was the whole world; or a peculiar world by itself, as a world of life, and not of matter; or whether it was mixed, as a world of living animal creatures? They answered, that Paradise was not in the world she came from, but in that world she lived in at present; and that it was the very same place where she kept her court, and where her palace stood, in the midst of the imperial city. The Empress asked further, whether in the beginning and creation of the world, all beasts could speak?