[2] 'There are,' they said, ' three universal loves of which every person is from creation compounded: the love of the neighbour, which is also the love of performing services, and this is a spiritual love; the love of the world, which is also the love of possessing wealth, and this is a material love; and self-love, which is the love of ruling over others, and this is a bodily love.

[3] A person is truly human when the love of the neighbour, or the love of performing services, makes up the head, and the love of the world makes up the body, and self-love makes up the feet. But if the love of the world makes up the head, a person is only human in the way a hunchback is. And if self-love makes up the head, he is not like a person standing on his feet, but like one standing on the palms of his hands with his head down and his haunches in the air.

When the love of the neighbour makes up the head, and the other two loves duly make up the body and feet, the person as seen from heaven appears to have the face of an angel with a lovely rainbow around his head. But if the love of the world makes up the head, seen from heaven he seems to have a pale face like a corpse with a yellow ring around his head. And if self-love makes up the head, seen from heaven he seems to have a swarthy face with a white ring around his head.'

This led me to ask, 'What do the rings around the head represent?' 'Intelligence,' they replied, 'the white ring around the head of a person with a swarthy face represents his intelligence being limited to externals or around him, and his craziness being in his internals or inside him. Also a person of this sort is wise when in the body, but crazy when in the spirit. No one is wise in the spirit except by the Lord's doing; this happens when he is born again and created anew by the Lord.'

[4] When this was said, the ground opened up on the left, and through the opening I saw a devil rising with a shining white halo round his head. 'Who are you?' I asked. 'I am Lucifer,' he said, 'the son of the dawn. I was cast down for regarding myself as like the Most High.' He was not really Lucifer, but he thought he was.

'Since you have been cast down,' I said, 'how can you rise again from hell?' 'There,' he said, 'I am a devil, but here I am an angel of light. Don't you see I have a sphere of light round my head? And you will see, if you wish, that among moral people I am more than moral, among rational people more than rational, among spiritual people even more than spiritual. I can also preach, and have done so.'

'What did you preach about?' I asked. 'I preached against cheats, against adulterers, and all the loves of hell. In fact it was then I called myself the devil Lucifer and invoked curses on myself as such, so that I was praised to the skies. That was how I got the name of the son of the dawn. To my own surprise when I was in the pulpit I could think of nothing but speaking correctly and properly. But I discovered the reason, that I was in my outward state, and this was separate from my inward one. Yet although I had discovered this, I still could not change myself, because my pride prevented me from looking to God.'

[5] 'How then,' I asked next, 'could you speak like that, when you are yourself a deceiver, an adulterer and a devil?' 'I am different,' he replied, 'when I am in my outward or bodily state from what I am in my inward or spiritual state. In the body, I am an angel, but in the spirit I am a devil. For in the body I am under the control of the intellect, but in the spirit under that of the will. The intellect carries me aloft, but the will drags me down. When under the control of the intellect, I have a white halo round my head; but when my intellect makes itself subservient to the will and becomes its creature, as ultimately happens to us, then the halo turns black and disappears. Once this has happened, we can no longer come up here into the light.

Later he talked more rationally than anyone else about his double state, inward and outward. But suddenly on seeing I had angels with me, his face and voice caught fire, and he became black, even the halo about his head doing the same; and he fell back into hell through the same opening he had come up by. On seeing this the bystanders arrived at this conclusion, that it is a person's love which determines what he is like, not his intellect, since love easily carries the intellect away to support it and makes it subservient.

[6] Then I asked the angels, 'Where do devils get such powers of reasoning?' 'It comes,' they said, 'from the radiance of self-love, for this is enveloped in radiance, which can even raise the intellect into the light of heaven. For everyone's intellect can be raised, depending on what he knows; but his will cannot be raised except by living in accordance with the truths taught by the church and by reason. This is why even atheists, who have a radiant reputation as the result of self-love, and are therefore proud of their own intelligence, enjoy higher powers of reasoning than many other people. But this happens when they are engaged in intellectual thinking, not when their will is engaged in affection. The will's affection controls a person's interior, but the intellect's thinking controls his exterior.'

The angel went on to explain the reason why a person is a mixture of the three loves mentioned above: the love of service, the love of the world and self-love. This is to enable him to think from God, although as if from himself. He said that the highest level in a person is turned up towards God, the middle level outward towards the world, and the lowest level downwards towards oneself. Since this level is turned downwards, he thinks as if his thoughts came from himself, yet in fact they come from God.