6484. There was a certain spirit who had become quite convinced that nothing was the work of Divine Providence, but that every single thing was attributable to prudence, and also to fortune and chance. He asserted the existence of fortune yet did not know what it was. He was one of the evil spirits who are crafty, for he had spent more time in thinking than in talking to and mixing with others. When he entered the next life he continued there the life he had led previously, as everyone usually does. He enquired after and also learned about everything - including magical devices - which he thought might be of service to him, in looking out for his own happiness. I talked to him and he said that he was in his heaven when things were thus, and that no other heaven could possibly exist than that which he created for himself. But I was led to reply that his kind of heaven is turned into hell as soon as heaven as it really is flows into it. (That spirit was at this time in the world of spirits, and when people are there they experience the joys associated with the loves that ruled them when they were in the world, 5852). It so happened that at that point heaven flowed into that spirit's joy, and suddenly he had the feeling of hell. Horrified by it he said that he would never have believed it. Some good spirits told me that he was more wicked than all the rest, for what flowed from him had more craftiness in it than what flowed from others.
[2] After this the same spirit was taken back into the state of his early childhood. The Lord showed the angels what that state had been like, and also what his future life was foreseen to be like. It was shown that every specific detail of his life had been subject to the Lord's guidance, and that if it had not been he would have thrown himself headlong into an utterly horrible hell, that is, if there had been the smallest lapse in the constant watch kept by the Lord's Providence, as can be demonstrated to the angels in a visual manner. The spirit was also asked whether he ever thought about eternal life. He said that he had no belief in it and cast aside everything of the kind, for the reason that he saw so much confusion, the suffering of the righteous and boasting of the wicked, and the like. He also saw, he said, that animals have senses similar to men's, and similar life, as well as powers of observation and prudence. So his belief was that when he died he would be like them. He went on to say that he was utterly amazed when he realized that he was alive after death.
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