4353. CONCERNING HYPOCRITES AND THEIR PHANTASIES. Hypocrites [are perceived in the other life to] have had in the life of the body no confidence in anything but themselves, and to have always had something else in their thoughts than what was said when men were speaking to them, even though they pretended to believe them, and demeaned themselves very obsequiously towards them, as if they acknowledged truths above others, while at the same time they believed nothing; not even that there was any truth, much less in eternal life, heaven, the Lord; of these things though they went beyond others in confessing them with their lips, yet they believed absolutely nothing in their hearts. Such when remitted into their interior state, wherein they believed nothing but what was obvious to the senses, are subject to direful phantasies. They can then be assaulted by things the most absurdly phantastical, as by troops of fleas, which are set in array against them and attack them, filling their minds with terror, and causing them to fly, just as if all this was as real to them in the other life as it might be in this, besides similar absurdities; for as they have not determined their thoughts to anything intrinsically true, they are brought under the influence of such phantasies. When nothing is regarded as true, then phantasy is produced, and reigns in its place. I afterwards spoke with them on this subject, when they were brought into another state, and told them that things themselves were mere interior phantasies. Being put frequently to the test on other occasions they said, in respect to eternal life, truth, and the like, that it was all as I affirmed; but yet in heart they believed nothing of it. - 1749, August 14. They are extremely prone to believe that there is nothing real: such is the genius of hypocrites; but there are also others of this stamp [besides hypocrites]. Hypocrites are those who, with the outward man, will fawn assentingly from motives of self-interest, and yet inwardly think directly the contrary.