4900. CONCERNING TOTAL DEVASTATION (CHARLES XII). He who has to be vastated, that is, deprived of goods and truths and so sent into hell, is vastated successively from the head to the feet, which, for the reason that all things belonging to him are obsessed by evils, takes many years. This befell Charles XII, who was at length vastated even to the soles of the feet, and to his fingers. At last all things of the muscular envelope of the body were wasted, as it were, by callosities. Meanwhile, he was led round about and kept in the delights of his evil, which was that of governing; and, at length, he was conducted to the left, where there is a forest and therein a darksome cave like a pit; and then he was somewhat underneath there, and was let down a little. He was thus deprived of intellect, and so left. He was then destitute of all power of doing such things as before. Thus, also, were his powers successively taken away - as, too, was shown by the stretching out of the right hand, which then disappeared. Thus, through a much longer time, does regeneration also take place successively, to wit, from head to foot.