8383. On one occasion also evil spirits belonging to our planet were allowed to play their evil tricks and molest the spirits belonging to Jupiter who were present with me. The latter tolerated them for a very great length of time, but eventually they had to admit that they could do so no longer and that they thought there were none worse than those evil spirits. For they perverted the power of imagination of the spirits from Jupiter, and also their power of thought to such an extent that it seemed to them as though they were in bondage and could not be released from it without God's help. While I was reading something in the Word about our Saviour's passion certain spirits from Europe introduced dreadful stumbling blocks, with the intention of misleading the spirits from Jupiter. When questions were asked about who they were exactly and what they had been in the world it was learned that some of them had been preachers, not unlike those who call themselves members of the Society of Jesus^a or Jesuits, and that when in the world they could move the common people to tears by their preaching about the Lord's passion. The spirits from Jupiter were told the reason for this, which was that in the world those preachers thought one way and spoke in another, and so held one thing in their heart and bore another on their lips. But now they are not allowed to speak in that false way; for when they become spirits they are compelled to speak altogether as they think. The spirits belonging to Jupiter were completely dumbfounded by the existence of such a dichotomy between a person's interiors and his exteriors, that is to say, by a person's saying things entirely different from his thinking, which for them was an impossibility.

Notes