by Emanuel Swedenborg, compiled by Julian Kennedy Smyth and William Frederic Wunsch, The Gist of Swedenborg — Communication with the Spiritual World (1920)
“ Likewise there is the favoring of principles which are inflamed from the fire which those have who are not in truths from any genuine affection for them. Whenever from a like affection a spirit favors a man's thoughts or principles, then the former leads the latter, as the blind lead the blind, until both fall into the ditch. ”
by Emanuel Swedenborg, compiled by Julian Kennedy Smyth and William Frederic Wunsch, The Gist of Swedenborg — Communication with the Spiritual World (1920)
“ Through the spirits a communication of the man with the world of spirits is effected; and through the angels, with heaven. As long as a man is not regenerated, he is governed quite otherwise than when he is regenerated. While unregenerated, there are evil spirits with him, who dominate him so fully that the angels, though present, can scarcely do more than guide him, so that he shall not hurl himself into the lowest evil, and bend him to some good—to some good by means of his own desires, indeed, and to some truth through even fallacies of sense. ”
by Emanuel Swedenborg, compiled by Julian Kennedy Smyth and William Frederic Wunsch, The Gist of Swedenborg — Communication with the Spiritual World (1920)
“ MANY believe that a man can be taught by the Lord through spirits who speak with him. They who believe so, and will this communication, do not know, however, that it is attended with danger to their souls. While a man is living in the world, he is in the midst of spirits as to his spirit; nevertheless spirits do not know they are with man, nor a man that he is with spirits. But as soon as spirits begin to speak with a man, they come out of their spiritual state into the man's natural state ”
