217. THAT EVIL SPIRITS CONTINUALLY ENDEAVOR TO ACT CONTRARY TO ORDER ALTHOUGH THEY PERCEIVE THAT THEY CAN DO NOTHING WHATEVER Early in the morning there was a certain spiritual conflict between spirits who wanted above everything to infest me, and this with all their might; but I was as if remote. Although I perceived their efforts in a wonderful manner, I did not hear their speech; but there was, as it were, a sphere which withdrew me from their efforts. I wondered at the time that they could not lay aside their obstinacy, but they still continued to act obstinately although in vain; and likewise I wondered that they could effect nothing, and yet could inflow into me. It was a state such as I can in no wise describe; but it seemed to me that if they had then succeeded, they would have utterly crushed me. I then likewise observed that it was an interior general sphere into which I had been raised; whether those spirits had been in that same sphere, I cannot know. I also observed that there was not the least thing which did not come from the direction of God Messiah and from His mercy towards me; also that a spirit cannot do even the very least thing except from permission; 1747, Oct. 22, o.s., as I suppose.