2656. About Satan
There are those who not only exercise cruelty, spoken of before [2615-19, 2638-45], but also, as said, delight in adulteries so much that nothing is more enjoyable to them. Such a one appeared to me, whose upper lip only was displayed to my sight. It was large, ugly, and scaly. What the rest of their body was like was not displayed to my sight. It was reported to me that their leader is David and that he was of this character. They want to obsess people, and even their bodies, and thus dwell in them if it would be permitted. They employ various tricks to get possession of someone, for they want to return to the world. They are utterly against marriage love, delighting in adulteries, and consequently against love toward the neighbor-for the one follows from the other, so they are cruel. The one displayed to me was sharp-witted in his action, able to corrupt the most upright, if possible, for he forces his poisons into the marrows, as they say, meaning into the inward parts of the mental imagery, and bends good feelings into evil ones by deep deception.