§580 malice & skill 353
has been deceitful throughout. This is because the deceit wholly perme-
ates their thoughts and intentions and infects them with venom, destroy-
ing all their spiritual life. Most of them are in the hells toward the rear
and are called demons. They take particular delight in making them-
selves unnoticeable and fl oating around others like ghosts, doing their
harm covertly, spraying it around like the venom of snakes. They are
tortured more severely than others.
In contrast, if people have not been guileful but have been taken
in by the craft of the malicious and still are engaged in evils because
of their self-love, they fi nd themselves toward the rear as well, but not
so deep down. People engaged in evils because of their love of the
world are in the hells toward the front, though, and are called spirits.
They do not have the same kinds of evil, the same kinds of hatred
and vengefulness, as people involved in love for themselves, so they do
not have the same kind of malice and craft. As a result, their hells are
milder.
I have been allowed to fi nd out from experience the nature of the 579
malice of the people referred to as demons. Demons do not fl ow into
people’s thoughts but into their affections. They observe them and sniff
them out the way dogs sniff out wild animals in the woods. When they
notice good affections, they change them instantly into evil ones by
using delights in something else to lead them astray in quite amazing
fashion. They do this so subtly and with such malign skill that the victim
does not notice anything. They take the greatest care to prevent anything
from obtruding into thought because this would bring it into the open.
In our case, they settle near the back of the head.
These are people who, in the world, enticed the minds of others
deceptively, using the delights of their affections or their impulses to
mislead and persuade them.
However, the Lord keeps these spirits away from anyone for whom
there is any hope of reformation because they are the kind of spirit who
can not only destroy conscience but also stir up our inherited evils that
would otherwise lie hidden. So to prevent them from leading us into
those evils, the Lord makes sure that these hells are completely closed off.
When people of this nature arrive in the other life after death, they are
instantly thrown into their hell. When they are examined as to their guile
and craft, they look like snakes.
You can gather from their unspeakable arts what the malice of these 580
hellish spirits is like. There are so many of these arts that listing them
would fi ll a book, and describing them would take volumes. Most of