1270. Presently some were let out of that hell; but the Lord made such a disposition by means of intermediate spirits and angels that they could do me no harm. Out of that deep they came in front, and appeared to themselves to be working their way toward the front, as it were through caverns in the rock, and so upward. At last they appeared from above to the left, in order that from there, and thus from a distance, they might inflow into me. I was told that they were permitted to inflow into the right side of the head, but not into the left side; and from the right side of the head into the left side of the chest; but by no means into the left of the head, for if this occurred I should be destroyed, because they would then flow in with their persuasions, which are direful and deadly; whereas if they flowed into the right of the head, and thence into the left of the chest, it would be by means of cupidities. Such is the case with influx.
[2] Their persuasions are of such a nature that they extinguish all truth and good, so that those into whom they flow can perceive nothing whatever, and after that cannot think; and therefore the other spirits were removed. When they began to flow in I fell asleep. Then while I slept they flowed in by means of cupidities, and this with such violence that if awake I could not have resisted them. In my sleep I was sensible of the vehemence of it, which I cannot describe, save that I afterwards remembered that they tried to kill me by a suffocating afflatus, which was like a terrible nightmare. Then, waking, I observed that they were near me; and when they perceived that I was awake, they fled away to their own place above, and flowed in from thence.
[3] When they were there they appeared to me as if they were being wrapped up in a cloth, such as was spoken of before (n. 964). I thought they were being thus wrapped up, but it was others whom they were wrapping up. This is effected by means of phantasies; but yet the spirits against whom they thus work by phantasies know not but that they are really being wrapped up. It appeared as if those whom they thus wrapped up rolled down a certain rocky declivity. But those who were thus wrapped up were released and set at liberty. They were spirits who were unwilling to withdraw, and who were thus preserved by the Lord, for otherwise they would have been suffocated-although they would have revived again, but after great suffering. The spirits from that hell then went back by the rocky declivity; and there was heard from thence a sound of boring, as if many great boring instruments were at work; and it was perceived that it was from their intensely cruel phantasies against the Lord that such a sound came. They were afterwards cast down through dark caverns into their hell beneath the misty rock. While they were in the world of spirits, the constitution or order of the sphere there was changed.*
* See Spiritual Experiences, n. 3367. [Reviser.]