Conversations with Angels #1

Po Emanuel Swedenborg
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1. CONVERSATIONS WITH ANGELS

One evil contains within itself an infinite number of lusts, interior and exterior, about which man knows nothing.

All of these lusts are removed by the Lord so long as man looks to the Lord and shuns evil as if of himself.

Illustration by various examples from human anatomy, such as matters concerning the stomach, kidneys, and genital organs.

Man does not need to know about them.

Evil appears to man as if it were a single thing, yet contained in it are all lusts, interior as well as exterior, thus in sequence, though they are present in that evil in simultaneous order. This too is to be illustrated.

Man is not purified by his shunning evil merely for civil and moral reasons, for he is then purified only as to his externals and not as to his internals.

Thus no one is purified by the faith of today which lays down only civil, moral, and social actions.

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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.