he himself scarcely
knew that his spirit contained so much malice and craftiness, that
is, that in himself he was such a devil as he becomes after death,
when his spirit comes into itself and into its own nature. [3] Such
malice then manifests itself as exceeds all belief. There are
thousands of evils that then burst forth from evil itself, among
which are such as cannot be described in the words of any language.
What they are has been granted me to know and also to perceive by
much experience, since it has been granted me by the Lord to be in
the spiritual world in respect to my spirit and at the same time in
the natural world in respect to my body. This I can testify, that
their malice is so great that it is hardly possible to describe even
a thousandth part of it; and so great that if man were not protected
by the Lord he could never be rescued from hell; for with every man
there are spirits from hell as well as angels from heaven (see above,
n. 292, 293); and yet the Lord cannot protect man unless he
acknowledges the Divine and lives a life of faith and charity; for
otherwise man turns himself away from the Lord and turns himself to
infernal spirits, and thus his spirit becomes imbued with a malice
like theirs. [4] Nevertheless, man is continually withdrawn by the
Lord from the evils that he attaches and as it were attracts to
himself by his affiliation with infernal spirits. If he is not
withdrawn by the internal bonds of conscience, which he fails to
receive if he denies a Divine, he is nevertheless withdrawn by
external bonds, which are, as said above, fears in respect to the law
and its penalties, and fears of the loss of gain and the deprivation
of honor and reputation. In fact, such a man may be withdrawn from
evils by means of the delights of his love and through fear of the
loss or deprivation of those delights; but he cannot be led thereby
into spiritual goods. For as soon as such a man is led into these he
begins to give his thought to pretenses and devices by simulating or
counterfeiting what is good, honest, and just, for the purpose of
persuading and thus deceiving. Such cunning adjoins itself to the
evil of his spirit and gives form to it, causing his evil to be of
the same nature as itself.

578. Those are the worst of all who have been in evils from love of
self and at the same time inwardly in themselves have acted from
deceit; for deceit penetrates more deeply into the thoughts and
intentions t