302 HEAVEN and HELL §508
eminence. When they arrive in the second state, they are supremely stu-
pid because the more they love themselves the farther they move from
heaven, and the farther they move from heaven, the farther they move
from wisdom.
[ 2 ] There are people caught up in self-love and in guile at the same
time, people who have used devious means to raise themselves to posi-
tions of esteem. They take up company with the worst people of all and
study magical arts that are abuses of the divine design, using them to
harass everyone who does not defer to them. They hatch plots, cherish
hatred, breathe out vengeance, and long to savage everyone who does
not submit to them. They plunge into all these behaviors to the extent
that the malevolent horde supports them. Eventually, they start mulling
over how they can climb up to heaven and destroy it, or how they can be
worshiped there as gods. Their madness carries them all the way to this.
[ 3 ] Catholics like this are more insane than others. They cherish the
thought that heaven and hell are in their power and that they can for-
give sins at will. They claim everything divine for themselves and call
themselves Christ. Their belief that this is true is so strong that wherever
it fl ows in it disturbs minds and brings on a darkness to the point of
pain. They are much the same in both states, though in the second they
lack rationality. There will be particular information about their forms
of insanity and their lot after this state in the booklet The Last Judgment
and Babylon Destroyed.
[ 4 ] There are people who have attributed creation to nature and have
therefore denied the Divine Being at heart, though not out loud, thus
denying everything about the church and heaven. They gather with peo-
ple like themselves in this state and call everyone God who is particularly
guileful, even honoring such individuals with divine worship. I have seen
people like this in a meeting worshiping a magician, discussing nature,
and behaving like idiots—as though they were animals in human form.
Some of them had been appointed to high offi ce in the world and some
had been considered learned and wise. The details may vary.
[ 5 ] You may gather from these few cases what people are like whose
deeper levels of mind are closed toward heaven. This is what happens for
everyone who does not accept any infl ow from heaven by acknowledg-
ing the Divine Being and by a living life of faith. People may judge for
themselves what they would be like if this were their nature, if they were
allowed to behave with no fear of the law or fear for their lives, without
any outward restraints—threats to their reputation or to their rank, their
profi t, and the pleasures that attend them.