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only care being about their land and their cattle. 109. As they are of this character, even when they come into the other life, they are greatly infested there by evils and falsities. Their hells appear near the earth, and do not communicate with the hells of the evil of our Earth, because they are of an entirely different genius and disposition; hence also their evils and falsities are of an entirely different kind. 110. But those of them who are such that they can be saved, are in places of vastation, and are there reduced to the last degree of despair; for evils and falsities of this kind cannot otherwise be subdued and removed. When they are in the state of despair, they cry out that they are beasts, that they are abominations, that they are hatreds, and thus that they are damned. Some of them, when in such a state, even cry out against heaven; but for this they are forgiven, because it proceeds from despair. The Lord restrains them from indulging in vituperation beyond fixed limits. When they have passed through extreme suffering, the corporeal [principles] with them being then as it were dead, they are finally saved. It was also said of them that, during their life on their earth, they had believed in a certain supreme Creator without a Mediator; but when they are saved, they are also instructed that the Lord is the only God, Saviour, and Mediator. I have seen some of them, after they had passed through extreme suffering, taken up into heaven; and when they were received there, I have apperceived such a tenderness of joy from them as drew tears from my eyes. THE SPIRITS AND INHABITANTS OF THE MOON. 111. Some spirits appeared overhead, and voices like thunders were heard thence; for their voices thundered forth just as thunders do from the clouds after lightnings. I supposed that there was an immense multitude of spirits, who had acquired the art of uttering their voices with such a sound. The more simple spirits who were with me laughed at them, at which I greatly marvelled. The cause of their laughter was soon disclosed, and it was, that the spirits who thundered were not many, but few, and were also small as children, and that on former occasions they had terrified them by such sounds, and yet were quite unable to do them the least harm. In order that I might know their character, some of them let themselves down from on high, where they were thundering; and, strange to say, one carried another
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