4280. CONCERNING SPHERES OF AFFECTION. All spheres of the affection of goodness and truth are from the Lord. The more a spirit or an angel can be reduced into a state of harmony with such a sphere, the more perfect he is, both [as we may say] as to quality and quantity. It was shown me by lively experience how certain societies of spirits were affected by a sphere of the Lord's affections, causing them to will what was good and true, and to resist evil and the false, when other spirits in the same sphere could not do it. It was given to speak with those in societies who said they were of such a quality, and then to observe the differences, how one society was more or less affected, and another not at all, and I conversed with them on the subject. Every sphere of affection involves in it a certain general something, in which spirits are as to particulars, according to their states. They now say that they might then have been enraged, and from what cause, and that still other states were possible; in a word, that they might be otherwise than they are. - 1749, May 21.