Spiritual Experiences (Buss) n. 5839

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5839. Some, also, were skilled in the arts of looking down below themselves into the very houses, and seeing and hearing those who were beneath, and likewise at the sides. As these acted similarly, they were all sought out and driven forth. They occasioned an itchy irritation in my body. They were all such as did not take pleasure in any use for the sake of the use, but performed every use for the sake of a living, and for the sake of honors, reputation and profit, as ends. In a word, ease was their delight; and they who love ease more than use, collect evils in their spirit; for they do not determine the mind to use, but to such things as are in the world, thus, to basenesses and evils of every kind - from which they are readily withheld, if they delight in uses. - Such purifications of the nations of the Reformed lasted a long while. It was permitted them, as before, to as it were mount up to the places where there were previously similar ones, who constituted the former heaven. They were afterwards vastated, and then arranged in order by the Lord, so that they should traverse a road which led to the society suited to them, or to the marshes and hells, from which roads it was not permitted them to deviate; and if they did deviate, they were punished. Those who turned aside had the lust of inflicting injury, or of setting themselves at liberty so that they might be able to commit evils: wherefore, there were guards at both sides of the road, and he who went outside the guards was punished and cast into his hell. Of what nature the explorations were, was clearly perceived by the angels by the turnings to the quarters. They were very numerous.


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