the same in both the first and the second state; but
in the second they are without rationality. Of
their insanities and their lot after this state some
particulars will be given in the treatise on The Last
Judgement and the Destruction of Babylon. [4] Those
that have attributed creation to nature, and have
therefore in heart if not with the lips denied the
Divine, and thus all things of the church and of heaven,
affiliate with their like in this second state, and
call everyone a god who excels in craftiness, worshiping
him even with Divine honors. I have seen such
in an assembly adoring a magician, debating about
nature, and behaving like fools, as if they were beasts
under a human form, while among them there were some
who in the world had been in stations of dignity,
and some who had been esteemed learned and wise.
So with others in other states. [5] From these few
instances it may be inferred what those are who have
the interiors of their minds closed heaven-wards,
as is the case with all who have received no influx
out of heaven through acknowledgment of the Divine
and a life of faith. Everyone can judge from himself
how he would act if, being such, he were left free
to act with no fear of the law and no fear in regard
to his life, and with no outward restraints, such
as fear of injury to one’s reputation or of
loss of honor and gain and consequent pleasures. [6]
Nevertheless, the insanity of such is restrained by
the Lord that it may not rush beyond the limits of
use; for even such spirits perform some use. In
them good spirits see what evil is and its nature,
and what man is when he is not led by the Lord.
Another of their uses is their collecting together
evil spirits like themselves and separating them from
the good; and another, that the truths and goods that
the evil had outwardly professed and feigned are taken
away from them, and they are brought into the evils
of their life and the falsities of their evil, and
are thus prepared for hell. [7] For no one enters
hell until he is in his own evil and the falsities
of evil, since no one is permitted there to have a
divided mind, that is, to think and speak one thing
and to will another. Every evil spirit there must
think what is false from evil, and speak from the falsity
of evil, in both respects from the will, thus from
his own essential love and its delight and pleasure,
in the same way that he thought while in the world
when he was in his spirit, that is, in the same way
as he thought in himself when he thought from interior
affection. The reason is that the will is the
man himself, and not the thought except so far as
it partakes of the will, the will being the very nature
itself or disposition of the man. Therefore man’s
being let into his will is being let into his nature
or disposition, and likewise into his life; for by
his life man puts on a nature; and after death he
continues to be such as the nature is that he has
acquired by his life in the world; and with the evil
this nature can no longer be amended and changed by
means of the thought or by the understanding of truth.


