Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 391

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391. The fact that people under the influence of falsity and evil are afraid of everybody else can be recognized best of all from evil spirits in the next life. Those who have divested themselves of all charity are wanderers and fugitives. If, wherever they go, they come to any communities, the people there perceive their character the moment they are approaching. The perceptivity existing in the next life is such that these communities not only drive those intruders away, but also punish them severely. Indeed their intention is to kill them if possible. So very great is the pleasure which the evil find in punishing and torturing one another that their greatest delight consists in doing so. And what is an arcanum still, the cause lies in falsity and evil themselves, for what anyone wishes upon another recoils upon himself. In fact falsity and evil carry within themselves the punishment of falsity and evil, and consequently the fear of punishment.


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