617. About temptations

How deceitful the devil's gang is, can never be expressed in words. During temptations they simulate not only angels, but indeed, even the Lord, feigning them in every way in keeping with the person's fantasies. [The devil] knows these fantasies in an instant, for he impersonates people and then searches out what is in them without their knowing it, and amazingly, remembers it when an opportunity arises. Moreover, when so disguised, he breathes in suitable feelings that seem either good, or evil, and manipulates them in a remarkable way, skillfully bending them toward evil. He sees clearly how the feeling is developing, constantly striving to bend it toward evil. Furthermore, he even breathes words into our thought and mouth that harmonize with that feeling, and instantly causes us to think they are our own words. They who are not aware of this, cannot believe otherwise than that they are their own words, when yet they are the devil's - to which I can testify from manifold experience. And so he proceeds from one artifice to another, which he does in an instant by a natural instinct acquired in the life of the body, which may be surprising to anyone. Such [spirits] have the nature of a wild animal, something they actually acquired, making them the more cunning in the other life, because from their nature they now act like wild animals, although with a life as if they were human. To enumerate their tricks would fill up countless sheets; wherefore, if the Lord Jesus does not keep the devil in bonds, and restrain and reverse his attempts, a person could not but succumb at every moment. m1748, 1 February.n