2305. * # # When some [recently arrived] soul, or some spirit, comes among others, there are at once several who are carried away by the desire to examine them, and to find out what they are like, so they examine them in various ways. Then there are also many who think about hardly anything else but finding something evil, so that they can attack, reprove and punish them. Many are carried away by that burning desire, and are almost like executioners, even though in bodily life no such thing was suspected of them. Now when they are examining, the Lord only permits what He wishes to come forth from their thoughts and in their thoughts. For if all the evil and filthy things were to come out that are part of their thoughts and in their thoughts, they could not possibly survive, but would be torn to pieces as if by ferocious dogs. So the Lord allows only those things to come forth from and in their mental images that can be corrected, but cannot be corrected without chastening punishment. So all permissions, punishments, and forms of purging, are for the sake of a good outcome. 1748, 12 June. * Between 2304 and2305 in the original, the following incomplete and unnumbered article appears, deleted by crossing lines: