od will finally
reckon.

When the good spirit, from a long series of defeats, yields all hope of
ever again obtaining the ascendancy over its dark rival, and flees in
despair from the soul over which it has watched, then the mind and body
of the person become devoted with all their powers to the devil, the
prince of the spirit that presides over him. He then receives a kind of
supernatural power; but it is not of that kind by which good may be
wrought, but seeks to set friends at variance and to array man against
his fellow-man. It even endues him, who is subject to its undisputed
sway, with the power of working a species of miracles; but the effects
of these miracles are always noxious. This is what has usually been
termed witchcraft. The spirit of evil becomes visible and audible to him
who is invested with this fearful power, and he is no longer regarded by
the eye of Heaven as one who may even possibly free himself from the
master he serves, and repent and find forgiveness. His good angel is
gone from him to return no more; for God hath said, "My spirit shall not
always strive with man." Beyond this world his doom is irrevocably
sealed, and his lot cast among the forever damned.

On the other hand, by deeds of charity and love, and by a life of
extraordinary purity, the evil spirit may be expelled, and the soul left
to the undisputed sway of the good one. He who is thus freed from the
power of his evil angel has the power of seeing and hearing his good
one, and of learning things incomprehensible to the generality of his
race. To him the fountains of knowledge are unsealed, and he learns,
while yet on earth, much that is reserved to be learned in Heaven after
we have become a new order of beings, endowed with new intelligence. It
is sin only that blinds our sight and darkens our minds, and,
consequently, the more effectually we can free ourselves from sin the
better are we prepared for the reception of knowledge. Perfect knowledge
can only be attained by perfect purity, and hence perfect knowledge is
perfect bliss; and the highest bliss of heaven is to perfectly
understand all things. On earth, corrupted and polluted as it is by sin,
there can be no perfect knowledge, and, consequently, no perfect bliss.
And although there are different degrees of knowledge in Heaven, yet
every degree is perfect, and affords perfect bliss so far; and, as we
ascend step by step up the heavenly temple of knowledge, perfect bliss
wil