392. 8084. [Jer. 5:] verses 15, 16. It is the devil's gang, or evil spirits around a person, who, because we are unaware of them and what they are like, cause us to identify them as thoughts, instead. For human beings believe their thoughts are under their own control. Therefore, any who do not want to believe that spirits arouse their thoughts, and their feelings, may if they so wish, believe that their thinking does this. But then it is worse with a person, for in this way we make ourselves to blame, etc. etc. Those evil spirits are "like an open tomb," that is, like hell, which rushes in around us. And they are "mighty men" indeed, for they do not allow the least thought to slip in, derived from faith in God the Messiah, that they do not instantly seize upon, and distort - and, as said, "all" of them. They notice [anything coming from faith] in the very least, as in the greatest [thoughts], for they are full of hatred, so that the least ray of truth distresses them, and they distort it. I have had manifold experience in this matter, etc. [Light; Truth]