ed
upon the state described; otherwise their belief in everlasting life
would have perished. Above all, they confirm self-love in themselves,
calling it the fire of life and the incentive to various uses in the
kingdom. Being of this nature, they are their own idols, and their
thoughts, being fallacies and from fallacies, are images of falsity.
Indulging in the enjoyments of lusts, they are satans and devils; those
who confirm lusts of evil in themselves are satans, and those who live
them are called devils.

[4] It has also been granted me to know the nature of the most crafty
sensuous men. Their hell is deep down at the back, and they want to be
inconspicuous. Therefore they appear to hover about there like spectres,
which are their fantasies, and they are called _genii._ Some were sent
out from that hell once for me to learn what they are like. They
immediately addressed themselves to my neck below the occiput and thus
entered my affections, not wanting to enter my thoughts, which they
adroitly avoided. They altered my affections one by one with a mind to
bend them imperceptibly into their opposites, which are lusts of evil;
and as they did not touch my thought at all they would have bent and
inverted my affections without my knowledge, had not the Lord prevented
it.

[5] Such do they become who do not believe that there can be any divine
providence, and who search only for cupidities and cravings in others and
thus lead them along until they dominate them. They do this so secretly
and artfully that one does not know it, and they remain the same on
death; therefore they are cast down into that hell as soon as they enter
the spiritual world. Seen in heaven's light they appear to be without a
nose, and it is remarkable that although they are so crafty they are more
sense-ridden than others.

[6] The ancients called a sensuous man a serpent, and such a man is more
cunning and crafty and a more ingenious reasoner than others; therefore
it is said,

The serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field (Ge 3:1), and the
Lord said:

Be prudent as serpents and simple as doves (Mt 10:16).

The dragon, too, called "that old serpent" and the "devil" and "satin,"
is described as

Having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven crowns (Apoc
12:3, 9).

Craftiness is signified by the seven heads; the power to persuade by
fallacies is meant by the ten horns; and holy things of the Word and the
church which ha