this, when man after death becomes an angel he is in intelligence and
wisdom ineffable in comparison with his intelligence and wisdom while
he lived in the world; for while he lived in the world his spirit was
bound to his body, and was thereby in the natural world; and
therefore whatever he thought spiritually flowed into natural ideas,
which are comparatively general, gross, and obscure, and which are
incapable of receiving innumerable things that pertain to spiritual
thought; and which infold spiritual thought in the obscurities that
arise from worldly cares. It is otherwise when the spirit is released
from the body and comes into its spiritual state, which takes place
when it passes out of the natural world into the spiritual world to
which it belongs. From what has already been said it is evident that
the state of its thoughts and affections is then immeasurably
superior to its former state. Because of this the thoughts of angels
are ineffable and inexpressible, and are therefore incapable of
entering into the natural thoughts of man; and yet every angel was
born a man, and has lived as a man, and he then seemed to himself to
be no wiser than any other like man.

577. In the same degree in which angels have wisdom and intelligence
infernal spirits have malice and cunning; for the case is the same,
since the spirit of man when released from the body is in his good or
in his evil--if an angelic spirit in his good, and if an infernal
spirit in his evil. Every spirit is his own good or his own evil
because he is his own love, as has been often said and shown above.
Therefore as an angelic spirit thinks, wills, speaks, and acts, from
his good, an infernal spirit does this from his evil; and to think,
will, speak, and act from evil itself, is to think, will, speak, and
act from all things included in the evil. [2] So long as man lived in
the body it was different, since the evil of the spirit was then
under the restraints that every man feels from the law, from hope of
gain, from honor, from reputation, and from the fear of losing these;
and therefore the evil of his spirit could not then burst forth and
show what it was in itself. Moreover, the evil of the spirit of man
then lay wrapped up and veiled in outward probity, honesty, justice,
and affection for truth and good, which such a man professes and
counterfeits for the sake of the world; and under these semblances
the evil has lain so concealed and obscured that