Page:Emanuel Swedenborg, Scientist and Mystic.djvu/255

XVIII ] But if their minds have been discordant and inwardly opposed to each other, they burst forth into open enmity, and sometimes in actual fighting; not withstanding this, they are not separated until they enter the second state. . ."

The length of the stay of a spirit in the first state differs, from a few days to about a year; it depends on "the agreement or disagreement of his inner with his outer mind." Even in the other world it seems to take time to ferret out hypocrites, but gradually they show their true colors until they are in the second state, where every spirit is obliged both to be and appear as his real self. This is his "ruling love" or his will, the desire of his thoughts when he is unrestrained by any social bonds.

"Thought means everything by which man confirms himself in his affection or his love; for thought is nothing but the form of the will, or the means whereby the desires of the will may be made manifest."

Any external morality the wicked may have flaunted drops away from them, even if it has become as it were second nature to them, before they are irresistibly attracted toward hell, "because no one there is permitted to have a divided mind, that is, to think and speak one thing and will another."

But before a spirit is thus integrated downward, a good many punishments may have to be administered. Many of the evil ones cling to their shreds of moral respectability, and it takes force to make them drop it. "In the world of spirits there are many kinds of punishment, and no respect is shown to persons; it matters not whether the offender has been a king or a slave in this world." And then, like the most orthodox Buddhist, Swedenborg asserts that: "Every evil brings its own punishment with it. They are inseparably connected . . ." The punishment seems to be that being evil gives evil its power over one. Like natures are attracted to each other with the force of gravitation. In the first state after death the good and the bad and the indifferent still are mixed with each other, only the more advanced spirits being able to pierce the various moral disguises; but in the second state the inner mind is disclosed for all to see, even in the new face of the spirit, fair or foul, according to character.

Infernal spirits, candidates for hell, roam about in a region of the