231. IN THE OTHER LIFE THERE ARE DELIGHTS OF INTELLIGENCE FROM THE SAD AND THE INSANE After it had been allowed me to observe those female spirits [n. 230], I saw in imagination a remarkable thing, namely, that I was grieved that there were such in the other life who, I supposed, would be of no use, but there was a wonderful representation, lasting for some time, showing how this insanity variously blended might nevertheless affect the mind gently and sweetly. In order that this might be the better perceived, there was also something intellectual, or as it were an intellectual eye, which observed and considered it as being something merely insane; but by a wonderful rolling together, as I might call it, there was still being represented something like lace, namely, something that could be converted into what was speciously beautiful; but that intellectual eye hindered me from being affected with a certain pleasure therefrom, of which I also complained. There was also a certain spirit who viewed these things with indignation, that I should, as it were, be affected by such seeming insanities thus woven together. And I perceived that if that intellectual had not been present, I could have been greatly affected, and indeed, by a new delight, which I had not experienced before in this way. When I further considered what would become of those unhappy, as it were, insane souls in the other life, and of what use they would be to themselves or others - for nothing is ever permitted by God Messiah without an end of use in His Kingdom - I at length perceived that from the influx of such spirits, delights could have been brought about similar to those which inflow into innocencies and affect them in a wonderful manner; and this, indeed, by Divine Omnipotence so that they may be disposed into such a wonderful connection of things as it were, that the delights therefrom can be woven together and affect blessed minds, especially infants, and thus innocencies. Consequently, from insanities, God Messiah so disposing, even from those that are most sad and in the highest degree undelightful, states of gladness and delight can be drawn forth, and as it were, made to germinate corn and the glad things of seedtime as if from the dust of the ground. It was also given me clearly to sensate a kind of gladness from the angels of God Messiah, that even such things, unhappy and undelightful in themselves, were of use, with the hope that such of those women who are enlightened in the things pertaining to faith in God Messiah, would also be able to perceive delights from another source, composed as it were of opposites, or little intellectual eyes. 1747, Oct. 29, o.s. in the morning. mThese things are thus described to some extent in order that a representative of spiritual and celestial things may thence in some measure be perceived.n