"Two signs show that they (the spirits) dwell with a man; one is an old man with a white face. This sign will signify to him that he is always to speak the truth, and to act justly.... I myself have seen such an antique human face. There are faces of pure whiteness and great beauty, from which uprightness and modesty beam."
(In order not to alarm the reader, I have purposely concealed the fact, that all the above relates to the inhabitants of the planet Jupiter. My surprise may be imagined when one spring morning they bring me a French review containing a picture of Swedenborg's house in the planet Jupiter, drawn by Victorien Sardou. Why on Jupiter? What a remarkable coincidence! And has the master and doyen of the Théâtre Français observed that the left façade of the building seen from a sufficient distance forms an antique human face? This face is the same as that which was formed by my cushion-cover. But in Sardou's drawing there are more of such silhouettes formed by the lines of the building. Has the master's hand been guided by another hand, so that he produced more than he knew?)
Where has Swedenborg seen his heaven and hell? Are they visions, intuitions, inspirations? I hardly know, but the correspondence of his hell to that of Dante, and of the Greek, Roman, and German mythologies, leads to the idea that the powers have generally used similar means to realise their purposes. And what are these purposes? The completion of the human type; the production of the higher Man--the Superman, as Nietzsche, that rod of chastisement prematurely used and cast into the fire, has announced him. So the problem of good and evil is again set up for us to solve, and Taine's moral indifference seems insipid before these new demands.
The belief in spirits follows as a natural consequence. What are spirits? As soon as we admit the immortality of the soul, we see that the dead are still alive and continue their relationships with the living. "Evil spirits," then, are not evil, for their object is good, and it would be better to call them, with Swedenborg, "corrective spirits," than to abandon oneself to fear and to despair. Accordingly, there exists no Satan, as an autonomous personality opposed to God, and the undeniable apparitions of the Evil One in his traditional form must be regarded as a scarecrow conjured up by Providence--Providence the Supreme and Good, which carries on its government by means of an enormous comprehensive staff, consisting of departed souls.