193. CONCERNING THE PERMISSION GRANTED TO EVIL SPIRITS, AND CONCERNING THEIR RESTRICTION OR RESTRAINT. EVIL SPIRITS ARE LESS THAN NOTHING From much long continued experience it was observed that evil spirits could sometimes work or exercise much, sometimes little, malice. The cause of this was disclosed to me today more clearly than before, namely, that so far as their bond is slackened and relaxed by God Messiah through the angels, to that extent do they act evilly; but so far as it is exercised by the angels, to that extent the bond is as it were tightened, that is, the power of acting is taken away, so that at length they are unable to do anything, and do not even know what they are going to do. There is a certain precise and exact weighing, as in a balance, of this loosening and tightening according to the state of the license which God Messiah is willing that the man should be allowed; the balance is so exact that it cannot be described on account of its indefinite varieties. It is the same when they are permitted to speak: in the state in which the bond is slackened, they speak dreadful and filthy things, but in the state of the tightening or as it were contraction of the said bond or license, they speak either from themselves or from others; when they speak from others, which is also of indefinite variety, they then say things which they do not will, thus speak truths contrary to their nature, or else they are entirely ignorant of what they are saying. 1747, Sept. 2, o.s. From all this it follows that they are of no account whatever, or are less than nothing.