507. The fifth memorable occurrence. Once I was having a conversation with angels. The conversation eventually turned to the craving for evil that every one of us is born with.
One angel said, "In the world where we are, people who are experiencing that craving appear to us angels as fools, although at the time they seem to themselves to be supremely wise. Therefore when they are undergoing the process of being brought out of their foolishness, they go back and forth between their foolishness and the rationality that in their case resides in their outer selves. When they are in the latter state they see, recognize, and admit to their own insanity, and yet they passionately long to return from their rational state to their state of insanity. Once back in it, they immerse themselves in it like someone finding freedom and delight again after a period of duress and unpleasantness. This shows that they take inward enjoyment in their own craving rather than in gaining perspective.
[2] "By creation every human being is composed of three universal loves: love for our neighbor, which is also a love of being useful (this love is related to the spirit); love for the world, which is also a love of possessing wealth (this love is related to matter); and love for ourselves, which is also a love of dominating other people (this love is related to the body).
"We are truly human when love for our neighbor or love of being useful plays the role of the head, love for the world or love of possessing wealth plays the role of the torso, and love for ourselves or love of dominating plays the role of the legs and feet. If, however, love for the world plays the role of the head, our humanity is hunchbacked. If love for ourselves plays the role of the head, our humanity is standing on its hands rather than its feet, with its head down and its buttocks in the air.
[3] "When our love of being useful plays the role of the head and the other two loves play the role of the torso and the legs, as they are designed to, in heaven our face looks angelic and we have a beautiful rainbow around our head. If our love for the world or of wealth plays the role of the head, from heaven's perspective our face looks gray like a corpse and we have a yellow ring around our head. If our love for ourselves or of dominating others plays the role of the head, from heaven's perspective our face looks burnt and dark and we have a white ring around our head. "
"What does the ring around the head represent?" I asked.
"Intelligence," the angels replied. "The white ring surrounding a face that is burnt and dark represents that those people hold their intelligence outside or around themselves, but have insanity in their inner levels or within themselves. Such people are wise when they are in their bodies but insane when they are in their spirits. None of us is wise in spirit except with the help of the Lord; we become wise as he generates and creates us anew. "
[4] As soon as they said this, the ground on the left opened up. Through the opening I saw a devil rising up, whose face was burnt and dark and who had a white ring around his head.
"Who are you?" I inquired.
"I am Lucifer, son of the dawn," he said. "I was thrown down because I made myself like the Highest. I am described in Isaiah 14:[14]. "
He was not actually Lucifer, although he believed he was.
"Since you have been thrown down," I said, "how are you able to rise up out of hell?"
"I am the Devil there," he replied, "but here I am an angel of light. Don't you see that my head is surrounded by a white ring? If you wish, you can also see that I am moral among the moral, rational among the rational, and spiritual among the spiritual. I also had preaching ability. "
"What did you preach about?" I asked.
"I preached against people who commit fraud, against people who commit adultery, and against all the types of love that come from hell. In fact, I then called my 'Lucifer' self the Devil, and I invoked curses against that me. On that account I was lifted with praise to the heavens, and that is why I am called the son of the dawn. I myself have been amazed to notice that when I was in the pulpit I had no other thought but that I was speaking uprightly and correctly. I learned why this was: it was because I was in my outer self and that self was separated at the time from my inner self. But although this has been revealed to me, I have still not been able to change myself, because I set myself above the Highest and exalted myself against him. "
[5] "How were you able to preach those things," I asked, "given that you yourself commit fraud and adultery?"
"I am one way," he replied, "when I am in my outer self or my body, and another way when I am in my inner self or my spirit. In my body I am an angel; in my spirit I am a devil. In my body I am in my intellect; in my spirit I am in my will. My intellect lifts me upward, but my will takes me down. When I am in my intellect, a white ring surrounds my head, but when my intellect becomes completely subservient to my will and becomes its property (which is the final outcome that awaits us), then the ring grows darker and disappears; and once it is gone I can no longer rise up into this light. "
When he saw the angels with me, a sudden rage showed in his face and voice. He, as well as the ring around his head, turned dark, and he fell down into hell through the opening by which he had risen up.
Those who were present concluded from what they had heard and seen that our quality is the quality of our will, not the quality of our intellect, because the will easily moves the intellect to see things from its own perspective and makes the intellect subservient to itself.
[6] Then I asked the angels, "Where does the rationality of devils come from?"
"It comes from the glory of their love for themselves," they replied. "Self-love is surrounded by glory - glory supplies the brightness of its fire. This glory lifts the intellect virtually into the light of heaven. In all of us, in fact, the intellect is capable of being lifted up in accordance with the concepts we have; but our will can be lifted up only if we live according to the truths of the church and the truths of reason. This is how it comes about that atheists whose love for themselves leads them to glory in their reputation and take pride in their own intelligence have a more sublime rationality than many others, but only when they are involved in the thought of their intellect, not when they are involved in the love in their will. The love that resides in the will possesses the inner self; the thoughts in the intellect possess the outer self. "
The angel also told me why we are composed of three kinds of love (love of being useful, love for the world, and love for ourselves): to enable our thinking to come from God, although it seems to come entirely from ourselves. "The highest areas of a person's mind," he said, "are turned upward toward God; the middle areas are turned outward toward the world; and the lowest areas are turned downward toward the body. Because the lowest things are turned downward, our thinking appears to occur under our own initiative, when in fact it comes from God. "
