448. Those, however, who in the world have mutually entered into bosom friendships cannot be separated in orderly fashion like other people, and be allotted to the community which corresponds to their life. For they are inwardly tied at the level of the spirit, and cannot be torn apart because they are like branches grafted on to other branches. If one, therefore, is inwardly in heaven and the other is inwardly in hell, they stick to each other like a sheep tied to a wolf, or a goose to a fox, or a dove to a hawk. The one whose interiors are in hell breathes his hellish ideas into the one whose interiors are in heaven. For it is one of the facts which are well known in heaven that wicked ideas can be breathed into good people, but not good ideas into wicked people. The reason is that everyone is by birth pervaded by evils. So when good people stick like this to wicked ones their interiors are shut off, and both are cast down into hell, where the good one suffers severely and only after some time has elapsed is he released, and only then does he begin his preparation for heaven.
[2] I have been permitted to see ties of this sort, especially between brothers and other relations, as well as between lords and their underlings, and of many with toadies, who had opposite affections and different characters. I saw some looking like kids with leopards, and then they embraced each other, swearing to maintain their previous friendship. Then I was aware of the good absorbing the pleasures of the wicked, holding hands, and going together into caves, where crowds of wicked people were to be seen in their hideous forms, though they have the illusion that they seem to themselves attractive. But some time later I heard the good wailing in fear as if they were to be hanged, and the wicked rejoicing as if they had taken booty from an enemy, and other such doleful scenes. I was told that later on the good after being released were prepared for heaven by being reformed, but with more difficulty than others.
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