—­Heaven and Hell, nn. 554, 556, 559

“OUR NAME IS LEGION”

Men have believed hitherto that there is some one devil who is over the hells, and that he was created an angel of light; but that after he turned rebel, he was cast down with his crew into hell.  Men have had this belief because the Devil is named in the Word, and Satan, and also Lucifer, and in these passages the Word has been understood according to the sense of the letter, when yet hell is meant in them by the Devil and Satan....  That there is no single Devil to whom the hells are subject, is also evident from this fact, that all who are in the hells, like all who are in the heavens, are from the human race; and that from the beginning of the creation to this time they amount to myriads of myriads, every one of whom is a devil of a sort according with his opposition to the Divine in the world.

—­Heaven and Hell, n. 544

COMMUNICATION WITH THE SPIRITUAL WORLD

“Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.  But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in His law doth he meditate day and night.”

—­Psalm, I, 1, 2

ONE’S SPIRITUAL COMPANY

The mind of a man is his spirit which lives after death; and a man’s spirit is constantly in company with spirits like himself in the spiritual world.  Man does not know that in respect to his mind he is in the midst of spirits because the spirits with whom he is in company in that world, think and speak spiritually.  The spirit of man, however, while in the material body, thinks and speaks naturally; and spiritual thought and speech cannot be understood, nor perceived, by the natural human being; nor the reverse.  Hence, too, it is that spirits cannot be seen.  Yet when a man’s spirit is in society with spirits in their world, then he is in spiritual thought and speech with them, too, because his inner mind is spiritual, but the outer natural; wherefore by his inner nature he communicates with them, and by his outer being with men.  By this communication a man perceives and thinks analytically.  If there were no such communication, man would no more think than a beast, nor any differently from a beast.  Indeed, were all commerce with spirits cut off, a man would instantly die.

—­True Christian Religion, n. 475

“MINISTERS OF HIS, THAT DO HIS PLEASURE”

Man is quite ignorant that he is governed by the Lord through angels and spirits, and that there are at least two spirits with a man and two angels.  Through the spirits a communication of the man with the world of spirits is effected; and through the angels, with heaven.  As long as a man is not regenerated, he is governed quite otherwise than when he is regenerated.  While unregenerated, there