but does so from the Lord, while all the spirits of hell say that no one
can think from any other than himself. These spirits have been shown many
times that no one of them thinks or can think from himself, but that
thought flows in; it was in vain, however; they would not accept the
idea. But experience will teach, first, that everything of thought and
affection even with spirits of hell flows in from heaven, but that the
inflowing good is turned into evil there and truth into falsity, thus
everything into its opposite. This was shown in this way: a truth from
the Word was sent down from heaven, was received by those uppermost in
hell, and by them sent to lower hells, and on to the lowest. On the way
it was turned by stages into falsity and finally into falsity the direct
opposite of the truth. Those with whom it was so changed thought the
falsity of themselves seemingly and knew no otherwise; still it was
truth, flowing down from heaven on the way to the lowest hell, which was
thus falsified and perverted. I have heard of this several times. The
same thing occurs with good; as it flows down from heaven, it is changed
step by step into the evil opposite to it. Hence it was plain that truth
and good, proceeding from the Lord and received by those who are in
falsity and evil, are completely altered and so transformed that their
first form is lost. The like happens in every evil person, for as to his
spirit he is in hell.
289. I have often been shown that no one in hell thinks from himself but
through others around him, and these do not, but through others still.
Thoughts and affections make their way from one society to another, but
no one is aware that they do not originate with himself. Some who
believed that they thought and willed of themselves were dispatched to
another society and held there, and communication was cut off with the
societies around to which their thoughts usually extended. Then they were
told to think differently from the spirits of this society, and compel
themselves to think to the contrary; they confessed that they could not.
[2] This was done with a number and with Leibnitz, too, who was also
convinced that no one thinks from himself, but from others, nor do these
think from themselves, but all think by an influx from heaven, and heaven
by an influx from the Lord. Some, pondering this, said that it was
amazing, and that hardly anyone can be led to credit it, for it is
utterly contrary to the appearance, but that they still could not deny
it, for it was fully demonstrated. Nevertheless, astonished as they were,
they said that they are not in fault then in thinking evil; also that it
seems then as if evil is from the Lord; and, again, that they do not
understand how the one Lord can cause all to think so diversely. The
three points will be explained in what follows.
290. To the experiences cited this is also to be added. When it was
granted me by the Lord to speak with spirits and angels, the foregoing
arcanum was at once disclosed to me. For I was told from heaven that like
others I believed that I thought and willed from myself, when in fact
nothing was from myself, but if it was good, it was from the Lord, and if
evil from hell. That this was so, was shown me to the life by various
thoughts and affections which were induced on me, and gradually I was
given to perceive and feel it. Therefore, as soon as an evil afterwards
entered my will or a falsity into my thought, I investigated the source
of it. I inquired from whom it came. This was disclosed to me, and I was
also allowed to speak with those spirits, refute them, and compel them to
withdraw, thus to take back their evil and falsity and keep it to
themselves, and no longer infuse anything of the kind into my thought.
This has occurred a thousand times. I have remained in this state for
many years, and still do. Yet I seem to myself to think and will from
myself like others, with no difference, for of the Lord's providence it
should so appear to everyone, as was shown above in the section on it.
Newly arriving spirits wonder at this state of mine, seeing as they do
only that I do not think and will from myself, and am therefore like some
empty thing. But I disclosed the arcanum to them, and added that I also
think more interiorly, and perceive whether what flows into my exterior
thought is from heaven or from hell, reject the latter and welcome the
former, yet seem to myself, like them, to be thinking and willing from
myself.
291. It is not unknown in the world that all good is from heaven and all
evil from hell; it is known to everyone in the church. Who that has been
inaugurated into the church's priesthood does not teach that all good is
from God, and that man can receive nothing of himself except it be given
him from heaven? And also that the devil infuses evils into the thoughts
and leads astray and incites one to commit evils? Therefore a priest who
believes that he preaches out of a holy zeal, prays that the Holy Spirit
may teach him, and guide his thoughts and utterances. Some say that they
have sensibly perceived being acted upon, and when a sermon is praised,
reply piously that they have spoken not from themselves but from God.
Therefore when they see someone speak and act well, they remark he was
led to do so by God; on the other hand, seeing someone speak and act
wickedly, they remark he was led to do so by the devil. That there is
talk of the kind in the church is known, but who believes that it is so?
292. Everything that a man thinks and wills, and consequently speaks and
does, flows in from the one Fountain of life, and yet that one Fountain
of life, namely, the Lord, is not the cause of man's thinking what is
evil and false. This may be clarified by these facts in the world of
nature. Heat and light proceed from the sun of the world. They flow into
all visible subjects and objects, not only into subjects that are good
and objects that are beautiful, but also into subjects that are evil and
objects that are ugly, producing varying effects in them. They flow not
only into trees that bear good fruit but into trees that bear bad fruit,
and into the fruits themselves, quickening their growth. They flow into
good seed and into weeds, into shrubs which have a good use and are
wholesome, and into shrubs that have an evil use and are poisonous. Yet
it is the same heat and the same light; there is no cause of evil in
them; the cause is in the recipient subjects and objects.
[2] The same warmth that hatches eggs in which a screech-owl, a horned
owl, and a viper lie acts as it does when it hatches those in which a
dove, a bird of paradise and a swan lie. Put eggs of both sorts under the
hen and they will be hatched by her warmth, which in itself is innocent
of harm. What has the heat in common then with what is evil and noxious?
The heat flowing into a marsh or a dung-hill or into decaying or dead
matter acts in the same way as it does when it flows into things
flavorsome and fragrant, lush and living. Who does not see that the cause
is not in the heat but in the recipient subject? The same light gives
pleasing colors in one object and displeasing colors in another; indeed,
it grows brighter in white objects and becomes dazzling, and dims in
those verging on black and becomes dusky.
[3] There is what is similar in the spiritual world. There are heat and
light in it from its sun, which is the Lord, and they flow from the sun
into their subjects and objects. Now the subjects and objects are angels
and spirits, in particular their volitional and mental life, and the heat
is divine love going forth, and the light is divine wisdom going forth.
The light and heat are not the cause of the different reception of them
by one and another. For the Lord says,
He makes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the
just and the unjust (Mt 5:45).
In the highest spiritual sense by the "sun" the divine love is meant, and
by the "rain" the divine wisdom.
293. Let me add to this the view of the angels on will and understanding
in man. This is that there cannot be a grain of will or of prudence in
man that is his own. They say that if there were, neither heaven nor hell
would continue in existence, and all mankind would perish. The reason
they give is that myriads of human beings, as many as have been born
since the creation of the world, constitute heaven and hell, of which the
one is under the other in such an order that each is a unit, heaven one
comely humanity, and hell one monstrous humanity. If the individual had a
grain of will and intelligence of his very own, that unity could not
exist, but would be torn apart. Upon this that divine form would perish,
which can arise and remain only as the Lord is all in all and men are
nothing besides. A further reason, they say, is that to think and will
actually from one's own being is the divine itself, and to think and will
from God, is the truly human. The very divine cannot be appropriated to
anyone, for then man would be God. Bear the above in mind, and if you
wish you will have confirmation of it by angels when on death you come
into the spiritual world.
294. It was stated above (n. 289) that when some were convinced that no
one thinks from himself but from others, nor the others from themselves,
but all by influx through heaven from the Lord, they remarked in their
astonishment that then they are not in fault when they do evil, also that
then it seems evil comes from the Lord, nor do they comprehend how the
Lord can cause them all to think so differently. Since these three
notions cannot but flow into the thoughts of those who regard effects
only from effects and not from causes, they need to be taken up and
explained by what causes them.
[2] First: _They are not in fault then in doing evil._ For if all that a
person thinks flows into him from others, the fault seems to be theirs
from whom it comes. Yet the fault is the recipient's, for he receives
what inflows as his own and neither knows nor wants to know otherwise.
For everyone wants to be his own, to be led by himself, and above all to
think and will from himself; this is freedom itself, which appears as the
proprium in which every person is. If he knew, therefore, that what he
thinks and wills flows in from another, it would seem to him that he was
bound and captive and no longer master of himself. All enjoyment in his
life would thus perish, and finally his very humanness would perish.
[3] I have often seen this evidenced. It was granted some spirits to
perceive and sense that they were being led by others. Thereupon they
were so enraged that they were reduced almost to mental impotence. They
said that they would rather be kept bound in hell than not to be allowed
to think as they willed and to will as they thought. This they called
being bound in their very life, which was harder and more intolerable
than to be bound bodily. Not being allowed to speak and act as they
thought and willed, they did not call being bound. For the enjoyment of
civil and moral life, which consists in speaking and acting, itself
restrains and at the same time mitigates that.
[4] Inasmuch as man does not want to know that he is led to think by
others, but wants to think from himself and believes that he does so, it
follows that he himself is in fault, nor can he throw off the blame so
long as he loves to think what he thinks. If he does not love it, he
breaks his connection with those from whom his thought flows. This occurs
when he knows the thought is evil, therefore determines to avoid it and
desist from it. He is then also taken by the Lord from the society in
that evil and transferred to a society free of it. If, however, he
recognizes the evil and does not shun it, fault is imputed to him, and he
is responsible for the evil. Therefore, whatever a man believes that he
does from himself is said to be done from the man, and not from the Lord.
[5] Second: _It then seems as if evil is from the Lord._ This may be
thought to be the conclusion from what was shown above (n. 288), namely,
that good flowing in from the Lord is turned into evil and truth into
falsity in hell. But who cannot see that evil and falsity do not come of
good and truth, therefore not from the Lord, but from the recipient
subject or object which is in evil and falsity and which perverts and
inverts what flows into it, as was amply shown above (n. 292). The source
of evil and falsity in man has been pointed out frequently in the
preceding pages. Moreover, an experiment was made in the spiritual world
with those who believed that the Lord could remove evils in the wicked
and introduce good instead, thus move the whole of hell into heaven and
save all. That this is impossible, however, will be seen towards the end
of this treatise, where instantaneous salvation and unmediated mercy are
to be treated of.
[6] Third: _They do not comprehend how the one Lord can cause all to
think so diversely._ The Lord's divine love is infinite, likewise His
divine wisdom. An infinity of love and wisdom proceeds from Him, flows in
with all in heaven, thence with all in hell, and from heaven and hell
with all in the world. Thinking and willing therefore cannot lack in
anyone, for what is infinite is limitless. The infinite things that issue
from the Lord flow in not only universally but also in least things. For
the divine is universal by being in least things, and the divine in least
things constitutes what is called universal, as was shown above, and the
divine in something least is still infinite. Hence it may be evident that
the one Lord causes each person to think and will according to the
person's nature and does so in accordance with laws of His providence. It
was shown above (nn. 46-69) and also in the treatise _Divine Love and
Wisdom_ (nn. 17-22), that everything in the Lord, or proceeding from Him,
is infinite.
295. (ii) _The evil are continually leading themselves into evils, but
the Lord is continually leading them away from evils._ The nature of
divine providence with the good is more readily comprehended than its
nature with the evil. As the latter is now under consideration, it will
be set forth in this order:
1. In every evil there are innumerable things.
2. An evil man of himself continually leads himself more and more deeply
into his evils.
3. Divine providence with the evil is a continual tolerance of evil, to
the end that there may be a continual withdrawal from it.
4. Withdrawal from evil is effected by the Lord in a thousand most secret
ways.
296. In order, then, that divine providence with the evil may be seen
clearly and therefore understood, the propositions just stated are to be
explained in the order in which they were presented.
First: _In every evil there are innumerable things._ To man's sight an
evil appears to be a single thing. Hatred does, and revenge, theft and
fraud, adultery and whoredom, pride and presumption, and the rest. It is
unknown that in every evil there are innumerable things, exceeding in
number the fibres and vessels in the human body. For an evil man is a
hell in least form, and hell consists of myriads and myriads of spirits,
each of whom is in form like a man, but a monstrous one, in whom all the
fibres and vessels are inverted. A spirit himself is an evil which
appears to him as one thing, but in it are innumerable things, as
numerous as the lusts of that evil. For everyone, from head to foot, is
his own evil or his own good. Since an evil man is such, plainly he is
one evil composed of countless different evils, all severally evils, and
called lusts of evil. It follows that all these, one after another, must
be cured and changed by the Lord for man to be reformed, and that it can
be done only by the Lord's divine providence, step by step from man's
first years to his last.
[2] Every lust of evil, when it is visually presented, appears in hell
like some noxious creature, a serpent, a cockatrice, a viper, a horned
owl, a screech-owl, or some other; so do the lusts of evil in an evil man
appear when he is viewed by angels. All these forms of lust must be
changed one by one. The man himself, who appears as to his spirit like a
monstrous man or devil, must be changed to appear like a comely angel,
and each lust of evil changed to appear like a lamb or sheep or pigeon or
turtle dove, as affections of good in angels appear in heaven when they
are visually represented. Changing a serpent into a lamb, or a cockatrice
into a sheep, or an owl into a dove, can be done only gradually, by
uprooting evil together with its seed and implanting good seed in its
place. This can only be done, however, comparatively as is done in the
grafting of trees, of which the roots with some of the trunk remain, but
the engrafted branch turns the sap drawn through the old root into sap
that produces good fruit. The branch to be engrafted in this instance is
to be had only from the Lord, who is the tree of life; this is also in
keeping with the Lord's words in John 15:1-7.
[3] Second: _An evil man from himself continually leads himself more
deeply into his evils._ He does so "from himself" because all evil is
from man, for, as was said, he turns good, which is from the Lord, into
evil. He leads himself more and more deeply into evil for the reason,
essentially, that as he wills and commits evil, he enters more and more
interiorly and also more and more deeply into infernal societies. Hence
the enjoyment of evil increases, too, and occupies his thoughts until he
feels nothing more agreeable. One who has entered more interiorly and
deeply into infernal societies becomes like one bound by chains. So long
as he lives in the world, however, he does not feel his chains; they seem
to be made of soft wool or smooth silken threads. He loves them, for they
titillate; but after death, from being soft, those chains become hard,
and from being pleasant become galling.
[4] That the enjoyment of evil grows is known from thefts, robberies,
plunderings, revenge, tyranny, lucre, and other evils. Who does not feel
a heightening of enjoyment in them as he succeeds in them and practices
them uninhibited? A thief, we know, feels such enjoyment in thefts that
he cannot desist from them, and, a wonder, he loves one stolen coin more
than ten that are given him. It would be similar with adultery, had it
not been provided that the power to commit this evil decreases with the
abuse, but with many there still remains the enjoyment of thinking and
talking about it, and if nothing more, there is still the lust of touch.
[5] It is not known, however, that this heightening of enjoyment comes
from a man's entering into infernal societies more and more interiorly
and deeply as he perpetrates evils from the will as well as from thought.
If the evils are only in the thoughts, and not in the will, he is not yet
in an infernal society having that evil; he enters it when the evils are
also in the will. Then, if he also thinks the evil is contrary to the
precepts of the Decalog and regards these precepts as divine, he commits
the evil of set purpose and by so doing plunges to a depth from which he
can be brought out only by active repentance. It is to be understood that
everyone as to his spirit is in the spiritual world, in one of its
societies, an evil man in an infernal society and a good man in a
heavenly society; sometimes, when in deep meditation one also appears
there. Moreover, as sound and, along with it, speech spread on the air in
the natural world, affection and thought with it spread among societies
in the spiritual world; there is correspondence, too, affection
corresponding to sound and thought to speech.
[7] Third: _Divine providence with the evil is a continual tolerance of
evil, to the end that there may be a continual withdrawal from it._
Divine providence with evil men is continual permission because only evil
can issue from their life. For whether he is in good or in evil, man
cannot be in both at once, nor by turns in one and the other unless he is
lukewarm. Evil of life is not introduced into the will and through this
into the thought by the Lord but by man, and this is named permission.
[8] Inasmuch as everything which an evil man wills and thinks is by
permission, the question arises, what in this case divine providence is,
which is said to be in the least things with every person, evil or good.
It consists in this, that it exercises tolerance continually for the sake
of its objective, and permits what helps to the end and nothing more. It
constantly observes the evils that issue by permission, separates and
purifies them, and rejects what is unsuitable and discharges it by
unknown ways. This is done principally in man's interior will and through
it in his interior thought. Divine providence also sees to it constantly
that what must be rejected and discharged is not received again by the
will, since all that is received by the will is appropriated to the man;
what is received by the thought, but not by the will, is set aside and
banished. Such is the constant divine providence with the evil; as was
said, it is a continual tolerance of evil to the end that there may be
continual withdrawal from it.
[9] Of these activities man knows scarcely anything, for he does not
perceive them. The chief reason why he does not, is that the evils come
from the lusts of his life's love, and are not felt to be evils but
enjoyments, to which one does not give thought. Who gives thought to the
enjoyments of his love? His thought floats along in them like a skiff
carried along by the current of a stream; and he perceives a fragrant air
which he inhales with a deep breath. Only in one's external thought does
one have a sense of the enjoyments, but even in it he pays no attention
to them unless he knows well that they are evil. More will be said on
this in what follows.
[10] Fourth: _Withdrawal from evil is effected by the Lord in a thousand
most secret ways._ Only some of these have been disclosed to me, and only
the most general ones. For instance, the enjoyments of lusts, of which
man knows nothing, are let by clusters and bundles into the interior
thoughts of his spirit and thence into his exterior thoughts, where they
appear in a feeling of pleasure, delight or longing, and mingle with his
natural and sensuous enjoyments. There the means to separation and
purification and the ways of withdrawal and unburdening are to be found.
The means are chiefly the enjoyments of meditation, thought and
reflection on ends that are uses. Such ends are as numerous as the
particulars and details of one's business or occupation. Just as numerous
are the enjoyments of reflection on such an end as that one shall appear
to be a civil and moral and also a spiritual person, no matter what
interposes which is unenjoyable. These enjoyments, being those of one's
love in the external man, are the means to the separation, purification,
expulsion and withdrawal of the enjoyments of the lusts in the internal
man.
[11] Take, for example, an unjust judge who regards gain or friendship as
the end or use of his office. Inwardly he is constantly in those ends,
but outwardly must act as one learned in the law and just. He is
constantly in the enjoyment of meditation, thought, reflection and intent
to bend and turn a decision and adapt and adjust it so that it may still
seem to be in conformity with the laws and resemble justice. He does not
know that his inward enjoyment consists in craftiness, defrauding,
deceit, clandestine theft, and many other evils, and that this enjoyment,
made up of so many enjoyments of the lusts of evil, governs each and all
things of his external thought, in which he enjoys appearing just and
sincere. Into the external enjoyment the internal enjoyment is let down,
the two are mingled as food is in the stomach, and thereupon the internal
enjoyments are separated, purified, and withdrawn. Still this is true
only of the more grievous enjoyments of the lusts of evil.
[12] For in an evil man the only separation, purification and withdrawal
possible is of the more grievous evils from the less grievous.