715. Having seven heads.- That this signifies the knowledge (scientia) of the holy things of the Word, which they have adulterated, and consequent insanity, but yet craftiness, is evident from the signification of head, as denoting intelligence and wisdom, and in the opposite sense insanity and folly, (concerning which see above, n. 553, 577, and that it also denotes craftiness, n. 577); and from the signification of seven, which denotes all men and all things, and is said of that which is holy (concerning which see above, n. 257), in this case therefore, of the holy things of the Word, which they have adulterated. As seven is used in reference to holy things, it is also, in the opposite sense, used in reference to those things when adulterated and profaned; for in the Word every expression has also an opposite sense, and the opposite of what is holy is what is profane. It is clear from these things that the seven heads, which the dragon was seen to have, do not mean heads, or seven, but the knowledge (scientia) of the holy things of the Word, which they have adulterated, and, consequent insanity, but yet craftiness.

[2] Insanity is signified by the head of the dragon, because the intelligence of the man of the church is from genuine truths from the Word. The truly human understanding is formed and perfected by means of natural, civil, moral, and spiritual truths, the interior understanding by means of spiritual truths, but the exterior by means of moral and civil truths; such therefore as the truths are, such is the understanding that is formed from them. All spiritual truths are from the Word, and make one with the good of love and of charity. When therefore a man places everything of the church and of heaven in faith, and separates the good of charity and of love from that faith, as those do who form the head of the dragon, as stated in the preceding article, then the interior understanding cannot be formed, consequently, instead of intelligence in spiritual things, they have insanity. For from a false principle falsities flow forth in a continual series, and, in consequence of the separation of the good of charity, they cannot possibly have any genuine truth, since all truth is of good, and in fact, is good in form. From this it is clear that the head of the dragon signifies insanity in spiritual things.

[3] The head of the dragon also signifies craftiness, because all those who form its head are merely natural and sensual, and if such have at the same time studied the Word and the doctrine of the church, and have seized upon falsities instead of truths, and have also confirmed these by knowledges (scientifice), they are crafty above all others. But this craftiness is not so manifest in the world as it is afterwards when they become spirits; for in the world they cover over their craftiness with external piety and feigned morality, which conceal it from view, but as the craftiness is in their spirit, it is plainly manifest when externals are removed, as is the case in the spiritual world. But it must be understood that the craftiness which is signified by the head of the dragon is craftiness in perverting the truths and goods of the Word by reasonings from fallacies and sophistries, also from persuasive things, by means of which the understanding is fascinated, thus by giving to falsities the appearance of truths. That this is the case is also evident from the serpent by which the first parents were seduced, which is said, "to have been more crafty than any wild beast of the field" (Genesis 3:1); for the signification of that serpent is similar to that of the dragon. Therefore the latter is also called "the old serpent that seduceth the whole world," in the ninth verse of this chapter.

1673. 'And they smote the Rephaim in Ashteroth Karnaim, and the Zuzim in Ham, and the Emim in Shaveh Kiriathaim' means false persuasions or the hells of such persuasions which the Lord overcame. This is clear from the meaning of the Rephaim, the Zuzim, and the Emim, as those of a similar kind to the Nephilim mentioned in Genesis 6:4 - the Nephilim, as was shown more than adequately at that verse, meaning false persuasions or those people who because they were persuaded of their own superiority and pre-eminence regarded all things that were holy and true as worthless, and who plunged falsities into evil desires, see 581 - and from the following places quoted in that paragraph, Numbers 13:33; Deuteronomy 2:10; Isaiah 14:9; 26:14, 19; Psalms 88:10. Here it is the different kinds of false persuasions that are meant by these three, and also by 'the Horites in Mount Seir', for there are many kinds of false persuasions, each kind varying not only according to the falsities but also according to the evil desires to which those falsities are allied or into which they are plunged, or from which they stem and are produced. The nature of such false persuasions cannot possibly become clear to anyone who knows scarcely anything more about false persuasion or evil desire than that such things exist; but in the next life they are arranged quite distinctly and separately into their own genera and their own species.

[2] Among those who lived before the Flood, especially among those called the Nephilim, most dreadful false persuasions existed. The Nephilim were such that in the next life by their persuasions they deprive other spirits they encounter of their whole ability to think. As a result it seems to those spirits as though they are scarcely alive, let alone capable of thinking anything true. For in the next life, as has been shown, there is a communication of the thoughts of all; and therefore when persuasiveness such as this flows in, it inevitably kills so to speak all power to think that the others have. Such were the unspeakably horrible nations against whom the Lord fought in earliest childhood and whom He overcame. And unless the Lord by His Coming into the world had overcome them, nobody at all would be alive today on this planet, for everyone is governed by the Lord through spirits. Today those same people, on account of their delusions, are hemmed in all round by what looks like a misty rock, out of which they are constantly endeavouring to rise up, though to no avail - see 1265-1272, and in many places before that. They and their like are also the people meant by Isaiah,

The dead will not live, the Rephaim will not rise. To the end that You have visited and destroyed them, and wiped out all remembrance of them. Isaiah 26:14.

[3] And in David,

Will you work a wonder for the dead? Will the Rephaim rise up and confess You? Psalms 88:10.

'The dead' here is not used to mean the dead but the condemned. At the present day too, especially from the Christian world, there are people who in a similar way have persuasions, but not of so dreadful a nature as those possessed by people before the Flood. False persuasions which occupy both the will and the understanding parts of man's mind - as did the persuasions of those before the Flood, and of those meant by the Rephaim, Zuzim, and Emim - are of one kind. But false persuasions that occupy only the understanding part, having their origin in false assumptions confirmed within oneself, are of another kind. The latter kind are not so powerful as the former, nor so deadly, but they nevertheless cause much annoyance to the other spirits in the next life, partially taking away from them their capacity to think. Spirits such as these arouse in man outright confirmations of falsity, so that a person inevitably sees falsity as truth, and evil as good. It is their sphere which is of such a nature. As soon as any truth is called forth by angels those spirits smother and extinguish it.

[4] A person can discover whether such spirits govern him by merely considering whether he thinks the truths of the Word to be falsities and confirms himself in this so that he is not able to see otherwise. He can in that case be quite sure that such spirits reside with him and have dominion. It is similar with those who persuade themselves that all private gain is the common good, and who imagine that nothing contributes to the common good if it is not to their own private gain. Evil spirits residing with such a person supply so many confirmations that he does not see otherwise. Such people as regard all private gain as the common good, or who disguise it with the appearance of its being the common good, in the next life act in much the same way with regard to the common good there. That this is the nature of the influx of the spirits residing with man I have been given to know to the life from uninterrupted experience.