4198. WHO THEY ARE THAT WOULD FAIN OBSESS MEN. There are spirits who in the life of the body so loved the world as to make it paramount to everything else, and at the same time were bent upon ruling over others, placing in this the delight of their life, and retaining it to their dying day. These spirits in the other life are inclined to obsess man, or to return through man into the world, preferring the dead and defiled things of the world to the spiritual and celestial things which so vastly surpass them. Wherefore, as there are at this day great numbers of such, a deep new hell is prepared for them at some distance to the left which is open and is seen by such, and it was said that it was more atrocious than the other hells. Some of the inmates soared upwards from it, and it was perceived to be a dark and dreary region, and the abode of dragons and serpents. They are known by the circumstance that when they flock thither the point of a spear is vibrated before their left eye, as if it was about to strike it, but it is removed: thus the spear's point is vibrated before the eye, causing a dread of its striking, and then the spear becomes an axis thrust through the loins, about which they are made to revolve, and thus are discerned. Indeed, previous to their coming in crowds to that hell, they appear to be circumrotated lengthwise about a spear [as a central axis]. These are they who would fain return again into the world, and when the leave, such as it is, is granted to this effect, they are prompted to obsess men: from which circumstance arises their direful phantasies, so that in some cases they are induced to lay violent hands upon themselves. - 1749, April 3.