130. 4575. at which I have at times been amazed in spirits, who do not deliberate on the deceptions they are weaving together, but seize on them at the slightest nod, and then, as if unaware, spin together poisonous deceptions. So it is their nature, like that of serpents, that is acting. It had appeared to me that they were acting deliberately, but later I realized that it was from a nature that wholly dominates, and then draws every least thing into the whole, and thus corrupts it. For where a general purpose is regnant, all the least things are looked upon and seized upon as being for that purpose, which the spirits constantly harbor in themselves, and thus look to. This seemed to me to be the cause of their extreme shrewdness, which I have noticed at times. [See WE 4576-77, concluding the explanation of Exod. 23:8.]