3920. I was moreover instructed that in proportion as the variations of form are more [retorted] backwards, the more false is the evil signified thereby; and that to whatever point it is retroverted in the life of the body, there it remains after death, and he is not led forth to less evil, and consequently more forwards, where there is also evil, but that a reformation takes place to such a degree that [the man] can subsist in the least of his evil, and be there held by the Lord, and thus affected with truth and good. Wherefore it was previously represented to me that a spirit might be held suspended, as it were, from his evil, and thus be affected with truth and good, though as far as there is any relaxation, so far he precipitates himself into evil. It is therefore solely a detention from evil [that keeps him back], and this is effected by vastations, with a view to his being withheld from evil, and thus brought into a state in which truth and good from the Lord can flow in. This I have today, and often before, experienced.