274. I have been allowed to see peoples born in the islands*, who had reasonable ideas of civil life, yet were totally ignorant about God. In the spiritual world they look like baboons. But because they were born human beings, and consequently have the faculty of receiving spiritual life, they are taught by angels and endowed with life by learning about the Lord as Man. What a person is like left to himself is plainly to be seen by considering those in hell, who include some leaders of the church and scholars. These are not even willing to listen to anything about God, and therefore neither can they name God. I have seen these people and talked with them. I have also talked to people who became fired with anger and wrath, when they heard anyone speaking of the Lord. Imagine then what a person would be like who had heard nothing about God, when people are in such a condition who have talked about God, written about God, and preached about God. Their nature is the result of their will, which is evil; and the will, as said before, guides the understanding, and carries away the truth from the Word that there is there. If a person could know by himself that God exists and there is life after death, why would he not know that a person remains a person after death? Why does he believe that his soul, that is, his spirit, is like wind or ether, with no eyes to see, no ears to hear and no mouth to speak with, until it is joined and coalesces with his corpse or skeleton? Suppose then a doctrine hatched from nothing but the enlightenment of reason - would it not prescribe the worship of oneself? That is what has happened for ages, and is what is still done to-day by people who have learned from the Word that God alone is to be worshipped. No other kind of worship could exist based upon the human self, not even a worship of the sun and the moon.