Temptations are nothing other than struggles between the evil spirits and the angels who are with a person. Evil spirits dredge up every mean act a person has done, including thoughts that he has had since childhood—the wicked things and the lies—and accuse him. For them, nothing is more enjoyable than this. But the Lord protects the person through the angels and keeps the evil spirits and demons from ranging out of bounds, beyond what the Person can endure, and overwhelming him. [Arcana Coelestia 741]

During temptations there are evil spirits, as was said, who stir up a person's lies and bad acts—even arouse from his memory everything he thought and did from childhood on.  They do this so cunningly and mischievously that it defies description. But the angels who are with the person bring up his good deeds and truths and defend him in this way. The person experiences and notices this battle and attributes it to the remorse and pangs of conscience.

There are temptations of two kinds—intellectual and volitional. Under intellectual temptations, evil spirits just call up the bad things the person has done, accuse him, and condemn him. They also call up his good deeds, but they pervert these in a thousand ways, and they call up his thoughts besides. But this temptation is mild and is noticeable only as a recollection of these things in memory, some­times with accompanying anxiety.

Under volitional temptations, however, acts and thoughts are not stirred up, but there are evil demons (as evil spirits of this kind may be called) who inflame the person with their lusts and filthy loves— which he shares—and in this way attack through the person's own lusts. They do this so mischievously and stealthily that no one can believe it is from them. For in one quick motion they surge into the life of his selfishness to bend and twist his feeling for good and truth almost instantly into a feeling for evil and falsity, so that the person does not know but that he is doing this himself and it springs from his free will. This temptation is quite severe and feels like inner pain and searing torment. I have come to know and understand through many experiences that this is what happens, as well as when and how evil spirits and demons were flowing in, from where, and overwhelming whom! [Arcana Coelestia 751]

I have already said that spiritual temptation in a person is a struggle between the evil spirits and the angels who are with that person, and that this struggle is usually felt in his conscience. About this struggle one should also realize that angels are ceaselessly protecting the person and fending off the harm that the evil spirits intend him. They also guard the things that are false and wrong in the person, for they know perfectly well where the false and wrong things in the person come from—from evil spirits and demons.

Nobody ever produces anything false and evil by himself. It is the evil spirits with him who produce it, all the while making the person think it is from himself. That is how malicious they are. And what is more, they accuse and condemn the person at the very time when they are dumping this into him and misleading him. I can back this up by many experiences.

A person without a belief in the Lord cannot be taught not to think that evil comes from himself, so he makes the evil his own and becomes like these evil spirits who are with him. People are like this. It is because the angels know this that they even guard what is false and wrong in a person during temptations. Otherwise he would be destroyed, because the person has nothing except what is evil and the falsity it generates. He is like a perfect heap and collection of evils and their false concepts.[Arcana Coelestia 761]

But spiritual temptations are little known today. They are not permitted as much as they used to be because people do not have true belief, so they would be destroyed. There are other things instead of spiritual temptations, such as misfortunes, grief, and anxiety, coming from worldly and bodily causes, as well as physical sickness and disease, which keep overruling and interrupting one's life of lusts and selfishness, raising his thoughts and focusing them on more inward, sober matters. But these are not spiritual temptations. Spiritual temptations only happen for those who have received from the Lord a conscience about goodness and truth. Conscience is precisely the field where spiritual temptations are active.[Arcana Coelestia 762]

People undergoing temptation wonder what the object is. The object is love. Evil spirits and evil demons confront it and raise doubts about it—the greater the love, the more the doubts! If no beloved object were in doubt—hopeless, in fact—it would be no temptation. Certainty of success portends victory, and is victory.

Since few know what temptations are like, let's briefly explain it.

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Evil spirits never attack anything but what a person loves, and they contend the most viciously with whatever someone loves the most ardently.

Evil demons are the ones who confront anything related to a response to love, and evil spirits confront things relating to affection for the truth. As soon as they notice even the slightest thing that someone loves, or get a whiff, so to speak, of what is enjoyable and dear to him, they instantly attack it and want to destroy it, and with it the whole person, since his life is made up of his loves. Nothing anywhere is more enjoyable to them than to destroy someone this way, and they would keep it up forever if the Lord did not shoo them away. The sly, malicious ones work their way into one's actual loves, flattering them and proselytizing the person, and as soon as they enlist him, they try to destroy his loves and thus kill him. They do this in a thousand baffling ways.

They do not contest by arguing against anything good and true, either. Conflicts like this are insignificant, for if these spirits were beaten innumerable times, they would still keep on, since arguments against good and truth never run out. Instead, they distort good and true things and excite with a kind of selfish, persuasive passion so that the person does not know but that he is in the same selfish persuasion. At the same time, they inflame this with a delight snatched from some other delight the person has, and in this way they very cunningly infect and corrupt him. They do it so skillfully, by taking him from one thing to another, that if the Lord did not bring help, the person would never know but that it was his own wickedness.

Similarly, they attack those feelings for the truths that make up the conscience. As soon as they notice anything whatsoever related to conscience, they fashion their own response out of the misconceptions and superstitions in the person, and with these they darken and distort the light of truth or else bring on anxiety and torture him. They also keep his mind focused on one fixation to fill it with fantasies while secretly entangling his selfish wishes in the fantasies. There are countless other wiles that it would make no sense to describe. These are a few very general ways that they can penetrate someone's conscience which more than anything else they take the greatest delight in destroying.

From these few examples—very few in fact—you can see what temptations are like and that in general temptations are in keeping with loves. From this you can also form an idea of what the Lord's temptations were like. They were the most severe, for the greater the love, the more severe. The Lord's most burning love was salvation of the whole human race, so it was complete affection for good and affection for truth, in the ultimate degree. Against these loves all the hells struggled with the most malicious guile and virulence. But the Lord still overcame them by His own power.

There is this about victories: that afterwards the malicious demons and spirits take no chances, because their life depends on being able to destroy, but when they find out that someone is the kind that can stand up to them, they run away from the first attack, the same as they do when they approach the border of heaven. Horror and terror come over them immediately, and they retreat headlong. [Arcana Coelestia 1820]

Conscience is a new intention and a new way of understanding, from the Lord. It is, therefore, the Lord's presence with a person—the more the person responds to goodness and the truth, the closer. If the Lord's presence is closer than the degree to which the person is responsive to goodness and the truth, he enters temptation. The reason is that the evils and misconceptions in the person, in a mixture with the good qualities and truths in him, cannot stand a closer presence. You can tell this by certain things that come out in the other life. To be specific, evil spirits cannot approach any heavenly community at all without beginning to feel anguish and torment. And evil spirits cannot stand to have angels look at them, or they writhe and fall unconscious. And, moreover, hell is distant from heaven because it cannot stand heaven, or in other words, the Lord's presence, which is in heaven. This is why it says of them in the Word, "Then they will start to say to the mountains, 'Fall on us!' and to the hills, 'Hide us!'" (Luke 23:30) and "They will say to mountains and rocks, 'Fall on us and hide us from the one sitting on the throne!'" (Rev. 6:16). And a gloomy cloud emitted from the evils and falsities of the people in hell looks like a mountain or rock that they are hidden under.

Temptations and torments seem to come from the Divinity because they are brought out through the divine presence of the Lord, yet they are not from the Divinity—the Lord—but from evils and misconceptions in the one who is tempted or tormented. For nothing comes from the Lord except good, true, and merciful holiness. Obviously this good, true, and merciful holiness is just what people on the side of evil and falsity cannot stand, because they are on the other side, or in opposition. Evil, falsity, and un-mercifulness always strive to violate that holiness, and the closer they come to it, the more they are in torment. When they do get close and are consequently in torment, they think that the Divinity is the one tormenting them. [Arcana Coelestia 4299 ^2-3]

The presence of spirits with people depends on their loves. Good spirits and angels are near people who have spiritual and heavenly love, and evil spirits are near people who have only physical and worldly love. This is so true that anyone can find out what kind of spirits are with him just by paying attention to what kind of loves he has—or what kind of goals he sets, which is the same thing, since everyone sets goals by what he loves.[Arcana Coelestia 4307]

The Egyptians' forcing the Children of Israel to serve represents the effort at dominance by those who have different established practices, opposed to the truths of the church. And as to this effort at dominance, I have been privileged to know what it is like among evil people from hell. Their effort and intention to dominate good people who have the truth defies description. For they employ every kind of malice, cunning, fraud, trickery, and cruelty, and in such abundance and variety that if just part of it were told, hardly anyone in the world could believe it, they are so cunning and professional, and also so unspeakable!

 In short, they are of a kind that cannot be withstood at all by any person or even by any angel, but only by the Lord. The reason why they have this intention and make this effort is that everything enjoyable in their life, and therefore their life itself, consists in doing evil. Nothing else, therefore, occupies their thoughts, and so they have no other intention. They are quite incapable of doing good, because it disgusts them. Any good they do is for their own benefit, therefore for themselves. These days the hells are vastly increasing due to people like this. [Arcana Coelestia 6666]

 For Comments please E-mail: information@swedenborg.ca

Read the next [2nd] chapter "The Lord's temptations"

Or go to the Introduction "Introduction"
 

[Top]

Introduction   

[1] Where temptations come from    
[2] The Lord's temptations    
[3] All kinds of temptations
[4] The struggles of temptation   
[5] Inward, rational and worldly    
[6] Evil from Hell and Good from Heaven
[7] The mechanics of temptation    
[8] The use or purpose of temptation    
[9] Transformation
[10] The Lord's help in temptation    
[11] It all applies in our daily lives
[12] The necessity of self-examination and repentance    

Appendix
An investigation into the implications of Spiritual Temptations