Arcana Coelestia (Potts) n. 819

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819. There is at the left, in a plane with the lower parts of the body, a kind of stagnant lake, large, and of greater length than breadth. About its bank in front there appear to those who are there monstrous serpents, such as inhabit stagnant waters, with pestilent breath. Farther away, on the left bank, appear those who eat human flesh, and devour one another, fastening with their teeth on one another's shoulders. Still farther away to the left appear great fishes, enormous whales, which swallow a man and vomit him out again. In the farthest distance, or on the opposite shore, appear very ugly faces, too monstrous to be described, chiefly those of old women, who run about as if frenzied. On the right bank are those who are trying to butcher each other with cruel instruments, which vary in accordance with the direful feelings of their hearts. In the middle of the lake it is everywhere black, as if stagnant. Sometimes I have been surprised to see spirits brought to this lake, but was informed by some who came from it and told me, that they were those who had cherished intestine hatred against the neighbor; and that their hatred burst forth as often as occasion offered, in which they perceived their greatest delight; and that nothing had pleased them more than to bring a neighbor to judgment and cause punishment to be inflicted on him, and, if the penalties of the law had not deterred them, to put him to death. Into such things (as described above) are the hatreds and cruelties of men turned after the life of the body. The phantasies to which their hatreds and cruelties give rise have to them the reality of life.


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