302. I have talked with angels about the conjunction of heaven with the human race, and I said that, while the man of the Church declares that all good is from God, and that angels are with man, yet few believe that angels are conjoined to man, still less that they are in his thought and affection. To this the angels replied that they know that there is such a belief and even such a mode of speaking in the world, and especially, to their surprise, within the Church, where yet there is the Word to teach men about heaven and its conjunction with man. Nevertheless, there is such a conjunction that man is unable to think the least thing apart from the spirits adjoined to him, and on this his spiritual life depends. They said that the cause of ignorance of this matter is man's belief that he lives from himself, without a connection with the First Being (Esse) of life; and that he does not know that this connection exists by means of the heavens; and yet if that connection were broken man would instantly fall down dead. If man believed, as is really true, that all good is from the Lord and all evil from hell, he would not make the good in him a matter of merit nor would evil be imputed to him; for he would then look to the Lord in all the good he thinks and does, and all the evil that inflows would be cast down to hell whence it comes. But because man does not believe that there is any influx into him either from heaven or from hell, and so supposes that all the things that he thinks and wills are in himself, and therefore from himself, he appropriates the evil to himself, and the inflowing good he defiles with merit.

198. How and when temptations take place.

Spiritual combats chiefly take place by the truths of faith (n. 8962). Truth is the first of combat (n. 1685). The men of the spiritual church are tempted as to the truths of faith, wherefore with them the combat is by truths; but the men of the celestial church are tempted as to the goods of love, wherefore with them the combat is by goods (n. 1668, 8963). Those who are of the spiritual church, for the most part, do not combat from genuine truths, but from such as they believe to be true from the doctrinals of their church; which doctrinals however ought to be such, as to be capable of being conjoined with good (n. 6765).

Whoever is regenerated must undergo temptations, and he cannot be regenerated without them (n. 5036, 8403); and temptations therefore are necessary (n. 7090). The man who is regenerating comes into temptations, when evil endeavors to gain dominion over good, and the natural man over the spiritual man (n. 6657, 8961). And he comes into them when good ought to have the precedence (n. 4248-4249, 4256, 8962-8963). They who are regenerated, are first let into a state of tranquillity, then into temptations, and afterwards return into a state of tranquillity of peace, which is the end (n. 3696[1-5]).

6321. I have been led to know, through experience, of the influx from angels and of a person's inability to live without it. There are malevolent spirits who have worked out artful ways of impeding an influx from the angels, though they do so only partially. They have been allowed to do it to me also so that I might know from experience what it was like. While those spirits were impeding the influx my ability to think ebbed and flowed, till at length I felt like those sinking into unconsciousness. But I was revived in an instant, and those spirits were cast away into their own hell. They appeared on the left on a level with the top of my head, where at first they lay out of sight.