The Forty Questions of the Soul

2 gulf, or distance.

3 Or power.

4 Rev. vi. 9-11.

5 The innermost is the utter darkness.

6 essence or works.

7 essence and feeling.

8 shew juggling tricks.

9 Or spirit of the air.

20. As many appear again in the astral spirit, and seek 1 abstinence, and make many afraid, with causing disturbances in houses; all which they do by the astral spirit, till that be consumed, and then their 2 tricks lie in the darkness; and they expect the Last Judgment.

21. Our Babel saith, It is the devil which goeth up and down in the shape of the soul; indeed the damned soul hath enough of the devil, but it is not the very devil; he is in the abyss, and tormenteth the soul in the time of the body willingly, in the abyss of the soul.

22. * Neither doth he altogether want a cloak for his knavery, for he can put on an outward cloak, to seduce or terrify men in.

23. But this complaint we have against Babel, that she is so extreme bhnd, and hath so httle knowledge of God, she hath cast away the true magia and philosophy, and received the Antichrist; now she hath lost her understanding, she hath a kind of art still, but her understanding quite faileth her, she hath broken the glass, and peereth through the holes of the spectacles.

24. What shall we say? The world is blindfolded, it is drawn into a snare, and taken captive, and it seeth it not, yet it were at liberty if it did but see it; the snare wherewith it is bound is malicious knavery; thou shalt soon be made to see: It is broad daylight, do but awake, thou keeper of Israel.

1 Or rest.

2 Or pomp and show.

* "Neither doth he altogether want a cloak," etc., or "Neither doth he disdain any cloak," etc.

25. Thus, my beloved Friend, know that there is a difference of places where souls are, according to that whereinto the soul is entered; if it be holy and regenerate, then it hath a 1 body which expecteth only the 2 wonders of the body at the Last Judgment-day; it hath 3 comprehended them already in the will, but at the last day they must stand before the Judgment.

26. All souls, good and bad, shah every one receive their sentence and reward: The holy shall be set in the presence of the wicked, that they may see and 4 feel the cause of their 5 pain.

27. If any should * feign a peculiar residence, or place where they should consort or sit together, that contradicts the rule of the magia: Every soul is in its own country, and not bound to the place of the body, but it may be where it will; wheresoever it is, it is either in God, or in darkness.

28. God is everywhere, and darkness is everywhere; the angels are also everywhere, each in its own Principle, and in its own 6 property.

29. The fiction of outward reason, without the knowledge of the Principles, is 7 as a fighting with a shadow: If I should ask a thousand times, and should always be told somewhat from God himself, and yet were but in flesh and blood, I should look upon it as Babel doth; which supposeth that the soul flieth into a heaven above the stars; I know not that heaven they speak of, and I desire not to come there.

1 The body of Christ.

2 Or works.

3 conceived, or formed.

4 Or taste.

5 Or source and torment.

6 Or source.

7 Or a false glass, a conceit.

* "feign," or "imagine, fancy."

30. Heaven is indeed above; but there are the angelical principahties and thrones: This l eye of the 2 aether is our principality and kingdom.

31. The same is with them above which is with us, but our creation and essence is in our aether: A soul may come to them if it earnestly desireth, and the angels of God will lovingly entertain it.

32. For the same essence of God, which is with us, is with them; this only is the difference, that they have among them angelical works, wholly pure without blemish, and we have the great wonders, and therefore they long to be with us; and besides, they are our ministering servants during the life of the body, and withstand the devil.