243. The fact of this-that a person's intellect may be elevated into the light of heaven, or into angelic wisdom, but that his will cannot be elevated into the warmth of heaven or into angelic warmth unless he refrains from evils as being sins and looks to the Lord-has been made plainly apparent to me from experience in the spiritual world. I have often seen simple spirits who knew only that there is a God and that the Lord was born a man, and scarcely anything else, and I have perceived that they fully understood the secrets of angelic wisdom, almost as angels do. And not only they, but also many of the devil's crew. Yet they understood these things when they heard them, and not when they thought to themselves. For when they heard them, a light entered in from above, but when they thought to themselves, then no other light could enter than such as corresponded to their warmth or love. Consequently, after they heard these secrets and comprehended them, upon turning their attention away they retained nothing. Indeed, those who were of the devil's crew then rejected these things and utterly denied them. The reason was that the fire of their love and its light, being an illusory fire and light, induced in them a darkness by which the heavenly light entering in from above was extinguished.