4057. CONCERNING CUPIDITIES. I wondered that the deceitful, sirens, adulterers, and the wicked, were possessed of such knowledge and skill in infusing and doing evil. I could not but marvel both at the nature and degree of their adroitness in this respect, when I was yet aware that in the life of the body they knew nothing of the kind; as, for instance, that the deceitful should flow in with the utmost subtlety into all things of thought and affection, and pervert them, which is done by sirens and adulterers. They are acquainted with such magical arts as are never known in the world; and yet when they come into the other life they are in them, just as if in the life of the body they had practiced such arts and deceits. But it was perceived that he who is in any cupidity whatever, and in its delight, and consequently in its insane love, no matter what the accompaniments are which pertain to such an insane love, he knows them all. All evil spirits of this class, besides many others, conspire and inbreathe their evils, and when such is the quality of anyone, he knows no otherwise than that he is fully versed in them; the life of cupidity involves this in it, for whoever is in cupidity or insane love, he is in the knowledge of all such arts, even while the prompting is from others. Wherefore, as much as one is in the life of cupidities, so much is he in the science of those things which belong to cupidities, and thence in the other life are such deceits and such malignities.