4580. CONCERNING THE HELLS OF [THOSE OF] THE MALE SEX WHO ARE LIKE THE SIRENS, WHO ARE OF THE FEMALE. There are some of the male sex, who talk sincerely and as it were truly, and have also acquired from practice and disposition the ability to appear so, and are also believed to be of such a character, and quite persuade others that they are such; when yet they enter into the affections of others, and inveigle them according to opportunity, and, when their reputation is not endangered, [they seduce] others to such things, and plunder others of their belongings, in a deceitful and cunning manner. They know different ways of doing this. They are interiorly the most malicious, having no other end than to rule and cheat. Such, in the other life, sound as if sincere and true, and are so believed to be by the simple. They are wholly pernicious, not unlike the sirens; they suppose that they [can] never be thrust down into hell: they trusted in their art. There is a great number of such, and their hell was changed. It is near the hell of the sirens, but nearer, at a less distance [from me], and nearer to the side, to wit, backwards. When they were cast thither, it appeared as if all were successively heaped together into one ball, and then rolled down into their hell. There, a nebulous [cloud] receives them. Hence, communication with the world of spirits is taken away from them. They there practice such things upon one another, because they cannot do so upon others; and they torment each other, and this by turn and turn about, and at oft-repeated intervals, even till their malice is subdued, which only happens after many ages.