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From the work, Divine Love and Wisdom 246
246. This spiritual heat is obtained only by shunning evils as sins, and at the same time looking to the Lord. For so long as a man is in evils he is also in the love of them, because he lusts after them, and the love of evil or lust is a love contrary to spiritual love and affection. And this love or lust can be removed only by shunning evils as sins, and because a man cannot shun evils from himself, but from the Lord, therefore he must look to Him. When therefore he shuns these from the Lord, then the love of evil with its heat is removed, and in place of it, the love of good with its heat is introduced, and by this means a higher degree is opened. For the Lord flows in from above and opens it, and then conjoins love, or spiritual heat, to wisdom or spiritual light. From this conjunction the man begins to flourish spiritually, like a tree in springtime.
From the work, Heaven and Hell 598
598. Man cannot be reformed unless he has freedom, for the reason that he is born into evils of every kind; and these must be removed in order that he may be saved; and they cannot be removed unless he sees them in himself and acknowledges them, and afterwards ceases to will them, and finally holds them in aversion. Not until then are they removed. And this cannot be done unless man is in good as well as in evil, since it is from good that he is able to see evils, while from evil he cannot see good.
From the work, True Christian Religion 564
[3] A purely natural person can see evils and good qualities in others, and can also criticise others. But because he has not looked into and examined himself, he sees no evil in himself; and if any evil is uncovered by someone else, he employs his rational faculty to conceal it, like a snake hiding its head and plunging into the dust, or a hornet into dung. This is caused by the joy of evil, and this surrounds him, like mist over a marsh, absorbing and attenuating the rays of light. The joy of hell is nothing but this. From hell it exhales and flows into everyone, but into the soles of the feet, the back and the rear of the head. However, should it be received by the fore part of the head, or by the chest in the body, that person becomes a slave of hell. The reason is that the human cerebrum is assigned to the understanding and to its wisdom, the cerebellum to the will and its love. That is why the brain has two parts. But the only thing which can cure, reform and turn upside down that hellish joy is spiritual rationality and morality.
