As regards the specific thing meant here, that those represented by 'Amalek' - namely hellish genii steeped in falsity arising from interior evil - wish to do violence to the Lord's spiritual kingdom, this has been explained above in 8593, 8622. Those who were steeped in the falsity of this evil could not be kept away from those belonging to the spiritual Church, before the Lord came into the world and made Divine the Human within Him. When He did so they were shut up in hell, from where they cannot ever rise up; and also contact with that Church, effected through influx, was completely taken away. For in respect of the truth of faith a member of the spiritual Church is in obscurity; and he accepts it as the truth because the Church has said it is, not because he perceives it to be the truth. This truth as it resides with them becomes good and consequently composes their conscience. If wicked genii were to flow into that obscurity they would in a thousand ways destroy such conscience; for they go to work not on the truths of faith there but on the actual affections. Wherever they detect any degree of affection for good they instantly pervert it; they do this so secretively that it cannot at all be noticed. They attack the person's fundamental ends in view. In short, their wickedness defies description, though it may be compared to a deadly and imperceptible poison that penetrates right into the marrow of the bones. In the Lord's Divine mercy more will be said from experience about these genii at the ends of chapters.^a

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