460. CONCERNING THE ASSIDUITY OF SPIRITS IN FASHIONING RESEMBLANCES OF TRUTH From a certain kind of experience today, I could observe how spirits are able to feign resemblances of truth and so deceive human minds: as for instance, their figment about the inhabitants of Saturn, who, they say, are tiny men, for the most part small in stature, though yet of a good disposition; and that they meditate more than they speak; that they live in a cold climate; that they cast out from them those who are evil, but do not punish them with death - which they say is wicked - but the evil are thus banished from their society and are no longer tolerated by the rest; that they worship God, the Creator of the universe: and there are similar things which they fashioned to resemble truths. But because they wanted to add particulars, I could not believe them. Meanwhile, I could thence deduce that the inhabitants of that orb, though ignorant of Christ Jesus, must needs be instructed by some Divine Word in order that they may thus have a knowledge of Him, however obscure; and that those who have not had, and are destitute of, such knowledges, like the gentiles of our earth, as the Africans, can still be saved. 1748, Jan. 11.