4573. About the hells of the Sirens

What sirens are like has been described several times before [see the index]. These women are extremely malicious and have learned in the world how to simulate those who are good, as if they were angels. For the purpose of doing this they radiate good affections and thus slip in among simple spirits that relate to a person's outward qualities of thought or earthly characteristics. In this way they keep themselves in the world of spirits and can be forced out only with difficulty, for such things elevate evil spirits from hell for quite a long time and through such things they enter into people's thoughts and lead them entirely. Consequently, because they are of an inward nature, they are the very worst of spirits who take possession of a person's mind, from whom a person can never be defended except by the Lord. They act very stubbornly and fear nothing, trust in their own arts, and know how to slip in by labyrinthine gyres. They speak from these, sometimes in such a way that they are heard elsewhere than where are they really are, so that they are sought in vain. It has granted me to learn this by many actual experiences.

[2] They are of two kinds. Certain ones have the goal of ruling over others and over every society to which they can gain access, doing so by possessing and leading their thoughts. These women are the most annoying. The second kind does likewise but does not have such a wild obsession with ruling. They take freedom entirely away from those who want to have good thoughts and give freedom to those who want to have evil thoughts. These are very obscene women; they are sorceresses and are against everything good and true. Where this gang comes from has been explained before [cf. 3205 ff]. Their hell was in front at some distance toward the left there; the men who want to rule, a little toward the right, in various caverns. But I saw that their hells had been changed and moved to the back toward the left, rather deep down, from which they can never again break out and attack spirits and people on earth. They are there under a thick cloud which their tricks can in no way get through. They were forced in there in crowds of between fifty and a hundred sirens. This went on for many hours.

Above the hell, there is something like a maw with jaws that open. And the moment they arrived, it opened the maw, twisting and bending it like labyrinths into which they put themselves, and it swallowed them up and then thrust them deep under the disreputable earth there, from which they cannot emerge, this appeared to me in 1752, Aug. 5, 6., for they form snakelike connections, in which they fix themselves and then cannot be moved by others except by means of similar connections. Such it is in the other life.

3167. 'And to [her] mother' means to natural truth also, that is to say, spiritual things passed from the rational to it, even as they passed to natural good, dealt with just above. This is clear from the meaning of 'a mother' as the Church, which by virtue of truth is called 'a mother', dealt with in 289, 2717. So that people may know how spiritual things pass to natural good and to natural truth as a result of truth being introduced into good in the rational, a brief description must be given here. Everyone has an internal and an external, his internal being called the internal man, and his external the external man. But few know what the internal man is and what the external. The internal man is one and the same as the spiritual man, and the external man one and the same as the natural man. The spiritual man depends for understanding and wisdom on things that belong to the light of heaven, whereas the natural depends for its understanding and wisdom on things that belong to the light of the world. Regarding those two kinds of light, see 3138. For in heaven none but spiritual things exist, whereas in the world none but natural exist. The human being was created in such a way that in him spiritual things and natural things, that is, his spiritual man and his natural man, should accord with each other or make one. But in that case the spiritual man ought to have control over the things in the natural, and the natural man ought to obey, like a servant his master.

[2] Through the Fall however the natural man started to raise itself above the spiritual man and so turn Divine order itself upside down. As a consequence the natural man separated itself from the spiritual, and spiritual things could not reach it any longer except so to speak through chinks to provide the ability to think and speak. But so that spiritual things might flow in once more into the natural man this had to be regenerated by the Lord, that is, truth from the natural man had to be introduced and joined to good in the rational. When this happens spiritual things have access to the natural man, for now the light of heaven flows in and illuminates things in the natural man, and causes what is there to receive light. The goods there receive the warmth that the light conveys, which is love and charity, whereas the truth receives rays of light, which is faith. It is in this way that spiritual things pass from the rational into natural good and truth. Natural good in that case consists in all the delight and satisfaction gained from having service to the spiritual man as the end in view, and so service to the neighbour, more so to one's country, more so still to the Lord's kingdom, and above all to the Lord. And natural truth consists in all doctrinal teaching and factual knowledge which have wisdom, that is, the performance of those things, as the end in view.