1054. WHY CERTAIN SPIRITS, WHO ARE NOT ANGELS, ARE SOMETIMES PERMITTED TO ENTER HEAVEN Sometimes, and indeed fairly often, it is permitted evil spirits by cunning to insinuate themselves into heaven, that is, into the company of angels, for thereby they are in heaven, for heaven is not a separate place, but societies that are of a heavenly genius and intelligence. During certain states of the angels of the interior heaven, evil spirits are sometimes admitted by means of imitations of goodness, and by putting on a pretence of being angels. The angels freely admit them. But when they are discovered, which comes about from their discordance, they are then cast out of heaven. The reason of this is that thus the angels also are tried and proved, whether they are of such a nature as heavenly beings ought to be; for impurities always adhere, and these must successively and in course of time be exterminated. Thus the angels are deceived and their blemishes laid bare. Evil spirits are like a ferment which stirs up evil into disturbances. If the angels then suffer themselves to be misled they also are banished from heaven for a time, and undergo a suitable kind of vastation, after which they are again admitted, as I have sometimes heard. 1748, Feb. 27.