4285. THAT THE WHOLE WORLD OF SPIRITS MAY BECOME AND HAS BECOME WORSE AND WORSE. Under the guidance of the angels I thought concerning a particular evil which had befallen me, and which spirits, with almost one consent, attributed to me. I thought with myself how this could be, as I was of the opinion that some misfortune was likely to result to me from it, and yet I was greatly nonplussed to see how it could come from this source and how I could be the cause of it, when, at the same time, I knew that I was not in the least particular led by myself but that I was led to evil by evil spirits, and to good by the Lord through the angels, and that too in the minutest things, so that nothing so insignificant can be named that I am not thus led in it, as I have learned by the multiplied experience of many years. In this I have been the more confirmed from the fact that prior to this occurrence many societies, consisting of from 30 to 50, or 100 or 200 spirits, have assured me that it was they who thus thought, willed, did, and inflowed; and this was asserted by societies round about me one after another. To this I may add, that some of the very worst spirits were present with me, of some of whom it was said that there could not be worse, and yet of whom the angels said through spirits that they could not resist their influence nor compel me in a contrary direction; such being the equilibrium, and everyone being kept in it, so that the balance shall not incline on either side. When I reflected upon all this, and that yet the cause of the evil should be charged upon me, rendering me unhappy, it was given me to ponder how this could be, whether it were possibly owing to the life I had formerly led, which prevented its being otherwise, or whether it were foreseen and thus, as it were, predestinated, and yet that I was led in the meantime, as all men and spirits are wont to be, through delights and through hope, to a kind of felicity which may endure for a considerable time in the other life, when yet it is foreseen that such may be eventually unhappy - all this, I say, I weighed, but at length it was given me to see that the Lord turns everything to good, but that the world of spirits is so bad that it turns everything to evil, and becomes itself worse and worse, so that the equilibrium preponderates on their side; and seeing the world of spirits is such, it cannot be but that man himself should become worse by means of its influx; for so much as the world of spirits is worse, so much less avails the influent good from the Lord, and so much less can man be bent to good. The state of the world of spirits in the whole is as that of every spirit and man in part; the worse either becomes, the less good is received, and the less can evil be bent to good; the world of spirits is as a general receiving vessel, while man and spirit is as a particular vessel.