Spiritual Experiences (Buss) n. 4311

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4311. CONCERNING AFFECTIONS NOT INSTRUCTED, AND CONCERNING INTELLECTUALS NOT INSTRUCTED. There are spirits in the other life who are affected by good and holy things, and who yet lack a discriminating intellect, so that, provided a thing is good, they do not consider the motive, nor any of its attendant circumstances. They are such as do not suffer themselves to be illustrated, and therefore want judgment; they are carried over to the side of the deceitful, of sirens, and of hypocrites, who can feign the good, the true, and the holy, and thus favor them. Some of them are such as are capable of being informed, though but slowly; these sometimes add to the power of the deceitful. It was hence manifest what affection is without intellect, viz., that unless a man is instructed as to his intellectual part, though he may be endowed with natural goodness, or has been imbued with good from his infancy, that affection is blind and easily seduced.


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