When I am in the understanding my head is surrounded by a
white belt, but when the understanding submits itself entirely to the
will, and becomes subservient to it, which is our last lot, the belt
grows black and disappears; and when this is the case, we cannot again
ascend into this light." Afterwards he spoke of his twofold state, the
external and the internal, more rationally than any other person; but on
a sudden when he saw the angels attendant on me, his face and voice were
inflamed, and he became black, even as to the belt round his head, and
he sunk down into hell through the opening from which he arose. The
bystanders, from what they had seen, came to this conclusion, that a man
is such as his love, and not such as his understanding is; since the
love easily draws over the understanding to its side, and enslaves it. I
then asked the angels, "Whence have devils such rationality?" They said,
"It is from the glory of self-love; for self-love is surrounded by
glory, and glory elevates the understanding even into the light of
heaven; for with every man the understanding is capable of being
elevated according to knowledges, but the will only by a life according
to the truths of the church and of reason: hence even atheists, who are
in the glory of reputation arising from self-love, and thence in a high
conceit of their own intelligence, enjoy a more sublime rationality than
many others; this, however, is only when they are in the thought of the
understanding, and not when they are in the affection of the will.
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