578. What man would be if he did not cooperate with the Lord, may also be illustrated by comparisons: When he had a perception and sense of anything spiritual pertaining to heaven and the church, it would be as if something distasteful or discordant flowed in, like an offensive smell entering the nose, a discordant sound the ear, a monstrous sight the eye, or a foul taste affecting the tongue. If a delight of charity or a pleasure of belief were to flow into the spiritual organism of the mind of those whose delight is in evil and falsity, if such delight and pleasure were thrust upon them, they would be in anguish and torture, and finally would fall into a swoon. Because that organism consists of perpetual helices, in such a case it would coil itself up in spirals, and writhe like a serpent on an ant-hill. The truth of this has been proved to me by much experience in the spiritual world.
