and destroy the external principles of the body.  For this end there are opened to them brothels, which are on the side of hell, where there are harlots with whom they have an opportunity of varying their lusts; but this is granted with the restriction to one harlot in a day, and under a penalty in case of communication with more than one on the same day.  Afterwards, when from examination it appears that that lust is so inbred that they cannot be withdrawn from it, they are conveyed to a certain place which is next above the hell assigned for them, and then they appear to themselves as if they fall into a swoon, and to others as if they fall down with the face upward; and also the ground beneath their backs is actually opened, and they are absorbed, and sink down into hell among their like; thus they are gathered to their own.  I have been permitted to see them there, and likewise to converse with them.  Among themselves they appear as men, which is granted them lest they should be a terror to their companions; but at a certain distance they seem to have white faces consisting only of skin, and this because they have no spiritual life in them, which every one has according to the conjugial principle sown in him.  Their speech is dry, parched, and sorrowful:  when they are hungry, they lament; and their lamentations are heard as a peculiar clashing noise.  Their garments are tattered, and their lower garments are drawn above the belly round about the breast; because they have no loins, but their ankles commence from the region of the bottom of the belly:  the reason of this is, because the loins with men (homines) correspond to conjugial love, and they are void of this love.  They said that they loathe the sex on account of their having no potency.  Nevertheless, among themselves they can reason as from rationality; but since they are cutaneous, they reason from the fallacies of the senses.  This hell is in the western quarter towards the north.  These same persons, when seen from afar, appear not as men or as monsters, but as frozen substances.  It is however to be observed, that those become of this description who have indulged in the above lust to such a degree as to rend and annihilate in themselves the conjugial human principle.

* * * * *

ON THE LUST OF VIOLATION.

511.  The lust of violation does not mean the lust of defloration, which is the violation of virginities, but not of maidens when it is effected from consent; whereas the lust of violation, which is here treated of, retreats in consequence of consent, and is sharpened in consequence of refusal; and it is the passion of violating all women whatever, who altogether refuse, and violently resist, whether they be maidens, or widows, or wives.  Persons addicted to this lust are like robbers and pirates, who are delighted with spoil and plunder, and not with what is given and justly acquired; and they are like malefactors, who