154.  In respect to Divine worship, they said that they acknowledge a God under the Human Form, consequently our Lord; for all who acknowledge the God of the universe under the Human Form are accepted and led by our Lord:  the rest cannot be led, because they think apart from a form.  They added, that the inhabitants of their earth are instructed about the things of heaven by a certain immediate intercourse with angels and spirits, into which they may be brought by the Lord more easily than others, because they reject corporeal things from their thought and affection.  I asked what becomes of those amongst them who are evil.  They told me that on their earth no wicked person is allowed to exist; but if any one thinks and does evil, he is reprimanded by a certain spirit, who threatens him with death if he persists in doing so; and if he persists, he dies by a swoon; and that by this means the men of that earth are preserved from the contagion of evils.  A certain spirit of this character was also sent to me:  he spoke with me as if with those [evil ones]:  he moreover inflicted something of pain in the region of my abdomen, saying that this is what he does to those who think and do evil, and that he threatens them with death if they persist.  I was also told that they who profane holy things are grievously punished; and that before the punishing spirit comes, there appears to them in vision the gaping mouth of a lion, of a livid colour, which seems as if it would swallow their head, and tear it asunder from the body, whence they are seized with horror.  They call the punishing spirit the devil.

155.  As they were desirous to know how the case is on our Earth in regard to revelation, I told them that it is effected by means of writing and preaching from the Word, and not by immediate intercourse with spirits and angels; and that what is written can be published by printing, and thus be read and comprehended by whole societies, and that thus the life can be amended.  They were exceedingly surprised that such an art, utterly unknown elsewhere, could exist on our Earth; but they comprehended that on this Earth, where corporeal and terrestrial things are so much loved, Divine things could not otherwise inflow from heaven and be received; and that it would be dangerous for such beings to converse with angels.

156.  The spirits of that earth appear above, in the plane of the head, towards the right.  All spirits are distinguished by their situation relatively to the human body; and this is a consequence of the universal heaven corresponding with all things of man[f].  These spirits keep themselves in that plane, and at that distance, because their correspondence is not with the externals, but with the interiors, belonging to man.  Their action is upon the left knee, above and a little below, with a certain vibration very sensibly felt.  This is a sign that they correspond with the conjunction of natural things and heavenly things.