505. IV. THE LOT OF THOSE WHO HAVE CONFIRMED THEMSELVES IN THE PERSUASION THAT THE LUST OF DEFLORATION IS NOT AN EVIL OF SIN, AFTER DEATH IS GRIEVOUS. Their lot is this: after they have passed the first time of their stay in the spiritual world, which is a time of modesty and morality, because spent in company with angelic spirits, they are next, from their externals, led into their internals, and in this case into the concupiscences with which they had been ensnared in the world, and the angelic spirits into theirs, to the intent that it may appear in what degree they had been ensnared; and if a lesser degree, that after they have been let into them, they may be let out again, and may be covered with shame. But those who had been principled in this malignant lust to such a degree as to be made sensible of its eminent delight, and to make a boast of those thefts as of the choicest spoils, do not suffer themselves to be drawn away from it; wherefore they are let into their freedom, and then they instantly wander about, and inquire after brothels, and also enter them when they are pointed out; (these brothels are on the sides of hell:) but when they meet with none but prostitutes there, they go away, and inquire where there are maidens; and then they are carried to harlots, who by phantasy can assume supereminent beauty, and a florid girlish complexion, and boast themselves of being maidens; and on seeing these they burn with desire towards them as they did in the world: wherefore they bargain with them; but when they are about to enjoy the bargain, the phantasy induced from heaven is taken away, and then those pretended maidens appear in their own deformity, monstrous and dark, to whom nevertheless they are compelled to cleave for a time: those harlots are called sirens. But if by such fascinations they do not suffer themselves to be draw away from that wild lust, they are cast down into the hell lying to the south and west, beneath the hell of the crafty courtezans, and there they are associated with their companions. I have also been permitted to see them in that hell, and have been told that many of noble descent, and the more opulent, are therein; but as they had been such in the world, all remembrance of their descent and of the dignity derived from their opulence is taken from them, and a persuasion is induced on them that they have been vile slaves, and thence were unworthy of all honor. Among themselves indeed