y, when heaven wills to
have its own, and hell wills to have its own, and yet they cohere, they
are both swept away, and thus the proper human life perishes, and the
man becomes like a brute animal, continually delirious, and carried
hither and thither by fantasy like a dragon in the air, and in his
fantasy shreds and specks appear like giants and crowds, and a little
platter like the universe; and so on.

As such have no longer any human life they are not called spirits, but
something profane, nor are they called he or she, but it; and when they
are seen in the light of heaven they appear like dried skeletons. But
this kind of profanation is rare, since the Lord provides against a
man's entering into a belief in truth and a life of good unless he can
be kept in them continually even to the end of his life. (A.E., n.
1047.)

It has been said that the most grievous kind of profanation is when the
truths of the Word are acknowledged in faith and confirmed in the life,
and man afterward recedes from faith and lives wickedly, or if he does
not recede from faith he nevertheless lives wickedly. But one who is in
faith and in a life according to it from childhood to youth, and
afterward in adult age recedes from faith and from a life of faith, does
not profane, for the reason that the faith of childhood is a faith of
the memory, and is the master's faith in the child; while the faith of
adult age is a faith of the understanding, and thus a man's own faith.
This faith a man can profane if he recedes from it and lives contrary to
it, but not the former. For nothing enters the life of a man and
affects it except what comes into the understanding and from that into
the will; and a man does not think from his own understanding and act
from his own will until he arrives at adult age. Before that he has
thought merely from knowledge and acted merely from obedience; and this
does not make a part of his life, and therefore cannot be profaned.

In a word, whatever a man thinks, speaks, and does, from the
understanding with the will favoring it, this belongs to his life or
comes to be of his life; and if this is holy it is profaned by his
receding. But the profanations of this kind are more or less grievous
according to the quality of the truth and the consequent faith, and
according to the quality of the good and the consequent life, and
according to the quality of the withdrawal from these; and therefore
there are many specific