The great power which is ascribed to the dragon, and to this beast, and which is represented in the spiritual world by horns, and therefore was representatively shown to John as being upon the dragon, is the power belonging to reasonings from the natural man, which spring from fallacies, thus from falsities. In such reasonings there is not in fact any real power - for all power pertains to truths - nevertheless, falsities which arise from the fallacies of the senses, and, consequently, reasonings therefrom, exercise great power with men on earth before they are in truth from good; that is, before they are regenerated by the Lord. For man from his birth is in evils, and consequently also in falsities. For falsities flow from evils like impure waters from an impure fountain; and those falsities, when confirmed by reasonings from the fallacies of the senses, appear like truths. And because a man from his birth is in falsities from evils, he therefore easily seizes upon, acknowledges, and believes them: for they are in agreement with his first natural light, and with the heat of that light, which is from the fire of the love of self or of the love of the world. And since man is easily, and, as it were, spontaneously, led away to believe such things, and is thereby deceived, therefore great power is here ascribed to the beast, and, above, to the dragon. Against the man, however, who is in truths from good, or against one who is regenerated by the Lord, they have no power; and always less in proportion as truths are multiplied in him, and, at length, none at all. For, as was said above, all power is in truths from good, consequently none in falsities from evil.

[2] This can be confirmed from things seen and perceived in the spiritual world. For there, in certain places, continual combats arise between those who are in falsities, with such as are similar and with such as are dissimilar. And the evil were seen to conquer by falsities, and draw very many over to their side; when I wondered at this, it was said and perceived, that falsities prevail against those who are in falsities; for it was discovered that those who were conquered, and so drawn over, were just as much in falsities; and, on the other hand, that falsities do not prevail against those who are in truths. Moreover, it was also seen that those who were in falsities fought with those who were in truths, and that they also conquered them; but still it was perceived that the latter were not in truths from good, but in truths without good. On the other hand, when those who are in falsities fight against those who are in truths from good, they cannot prevail in the least; they are like chaff in the air, which is dispersed and scattered in every direction by a man's breath, without any power of resisting. From these things it is evident why it is that, in the Word, the evil are sometimes called mighty and powerful. Hence it is now clear, why ten horns were seen upon the head of the dragon, and upon the head of this beast, and similarly upon the head of the scarlet beast (Apoc. xvii. 3).