For several days, some who had died and entered into the other life not many years before, were allowed to practice their deceptions and intrigues against true and good qualities, by distorting them, and many more tricks than I could ever describe. They have mediums; they tauntingly urge each other on; they combine their malicious efforts, which are unbelievably wicked. These points show clearly enough that belief has been laid waste at this day. 1748, 2 January. The entire lower realm, that of spirits coming from earth, is almost such that if a word is let down from heaven, it is distorted, and its meaning can hardly be understood. The things that lie inwardly concealed in people and have become their own by practice, they bring out at the entrance to the other life, on being let in among spirits. These spirits were portrayed to me as being at the left side in front, toward the middle of the face. Those at the right were the upright. This should be noted, for all at the left, however many, are corrupt, and corrupters, who use such dreadful methods that no person on earth could ever believe it. The things they perpetrate are only the root of evil, for which they have an instinct; but more hideous is the instinct of those spirits who seem to themselves to possess some light of reason. This hellish gang is devoid of the discernment with which nature endowed them.