3409. Then when I was thinking about the dragon being such that he is thinking one thing when he is saying another [505, 2364, 3042], he replied to me that he knows there are such people, but that he is not taken in by them. But when that wicked spirit began to operate, then the dragon was let into the ancient Jerusalem and hidden in the darkest part there together with Jews. It was said that the Jews are thus hidden away when such spirits come and operate-that is, they are wrapped around by darkness, and thus covered over so that the fantasies of the wicked spirit would not catch up to them. I was given to realize that in this way the Jews are held far away from the faith so that they may entirely deny the Lord, for the sake of being hidden away in thickest darkness, and that they would otherwise be drawn away and cast forth by such spirits. The dragon as well as the Jews imagine that they hide themselves away in the darkness with which they claim they wrap themselves, but now the dragon has been shown, as he also admitted, that [the spirit] could draw him away together with the Jews and then throw him into his net-the dragon imagining he could resist by wrapping himself in darkness, so he was allowed to try, and he confessed that he could not resist unless the Lord watched over him. So he is now submissive.