Heaven and Hell - Swedenborg Foundation

HEAVEN AND HELL 118
152. When an evil spirit comes among good spirits the
quarters are usually so confused that the good scarcely know
where their east is. This I have sometimes seen take place, and
have also heard about it from spirits who complained of it.
153. Evil spirits are sometimes seen turned toward the
quarters of heaven; and they then have intelligence and
perception of truth, but no affection for good; but as soon as
they turn back to their own quarters they have no intelligence
or perception of truth; and then they declare that the truths
they heard and perceived are falsities and not truths, and they
wish falsities to be truths. In respect to this turning I have been
told that with the evil the intellectual part of the mind can be
so turned, but not the voluntary part; and that this is provided
by the Lord to the end that everyone may have the ability to
see and acknowledge truths, but that no one can receive truths
unless he is in good, since it is good, and never evil, that
receives them; also that man has a like ability to the end that he
may be made better by means of truths. Nevertheless, he is
made better only so far as he is in good; consequently a man
can in like manner be turned to the Lord; but if his life is evil
he immediately turns himself back and confirms in himself the
falsities of his evil, which are contrary to the truths he had
understood and seen; and this takes place when he thinks in
himself from his interior states.