all who
acknowledge the God of the universe under the Human Form are accepted
and led by our Lord: the rest cannot be led, because they think apart
from a form. They added, that the inhabitants of their earth
are instructed about the things of heaven by a certain immediate
intercourse with angels and spirits, into which they may be brought by
the Lord more easily than others, because they reject corporeal
things from their thought and affection. I asked what becomes of those
amongst them who are evil. They told me that on their earth no wicked
person is allowed to exist; but if any one thinks and does evil, he
is reprimanded by a certain spirit, who threatens him with death if he
persists in doing so; and if he persists, he dies by a swoon; and that
by this means the men of that earth are preserved from the contagion
of evils. A certain spirit of this character was also sent to me:
he spoke with me as if with those [evil ones]: he moreover inflicted
something of pain in the region of my abdomen, saying that this is
what he does to those who think and do evil, and that he threatens
them with death if they persist. I was also told that they who profane
holy things are grievously punished; and that before the punishing
spirit comes, there appears to them in vision the gaping mouth of
a lion, of a livid colour, which seems as if it would swallow their
head, and tear it asunder from the body, whence they are seized with
horror. They call the punishing spirit the devil.

155. As they were desirous to know how the case is on our Earth in
regard to revelation, I told them that it is effected by means of
writing and preaching from the Word, and not by immediate intercourse
with spirits and angels; and that what is written can be published by
printing, and thus be read and comprehended by whole societies, and
that thus the life can be amended. They were exceedingly surprised
that such an art, utterly unknown elsewhere, could exist on our
Earth; but they comprehended that on this Earth, where corporeal
and terrestrial things are so much loved, Divine things could not
otherwise inflow from heaven and be received; and that it would be
dangerous for such beings to converse with angels.

156. The spirits of that earth appear above, in the plane of the head,
towards the right. All spirits are distinguished by their situation
relatively to the human body; and this is a consequence of the
universal heaven corresponding with all things