Chapter 14 (part 6)

These souls have a perverted conscience, which tortures them; their sins are always before their eyes; they see all their injustice and frivolity, their conceit and the misery which they have caused, their scorn and arrogance, but now their self-confidence flies away." ( Forty Questions , xxii. 17.) "The most depraved souls, however, are very daring. They deny God and curse Him, and are His worst enemies. They lie to themselves, saying that they are in the right, and they rebel against God, and want to rise above Him and perform miracles." ( Forty Questions , xxii. 21.) "The condemned soul enters magically into the godless essence and enjoys it, and she teaches persons in dreams how to perform all kinds of mischief, for she is serving the devil. If a wicked person (earnestly) desires something, the devil is willing to serve him, for he can act more easily through the soul of a human being than if he is left to himself." ( Forty Questions , xxvi. 18.) Thus we have now considered the fate of those unfortunate souls who have become self-conscious in evil; or, to express it in other words, whose spirituality has become, p. 300 as it were, imprisoned within their lower qualities, and who are often spoken of as "black magicians" of varying degrees, from a simply malicious soul who performs villainous deeds for the mere sake of the enjoyment she hopes to experience from it, up to the devil incarnate, who has acquired occult knowledge and uses his spiritual powers for evil or selfish ends. But the condition of those who have during their terrestrial life found no internal pleasure in evil, but have fought against their evil desires, and striven to aid the good in them to conquer their evil propensities, is very different from the former when they depart from this world. "If the inner will daily and every hour battles against the evil qualities with which it is afflicted, if it quenches them and does not permit them to take substance in it, while at the same time those evil qualities hinder the person, so that he cannot act always according to his good will, such a man may believe and know for certain that the fire of God is glowing in him and seeking to become light; and whenever the evil body with its evil conditions is broken up, so that it can no longer hinder the glowing spark from burning, then will the divine fire in its essence burst into a flame, and the divine image will be reconstituted according to the strongest quality which that person has introduced into his desire." ( Six Theosophical Points , vii. 41.) "If a person has a constant desire for God, and if his desire is so powerful as to enable him to break up and turn into mildness the evil essences whenever they begin to burn in him; if he can resign everything that in this world glitters and allures; if he can do good for evil; if he is powerful enough to give to the needy all that belongs to his externals, be it money or goods; and if he is ready willingly to desert everything for the sake of God, and to enter into a state of misery with the certain hope for the eternal; if in him arises divine power, so that he may awaken therein the kingdom of joy and taste God; such p. 301 a person carries within himself the divine image with the celestial essence even during his terrestrial life, the image wherein Jesus is born of the virgin. He will not die eternally, but merely let the terrestrial kingdom pass away from him, it having been in this life to him au opposition and hindrance, wherewith God has (not filled but) merely covered him." ( Six Theosophical Points , vii. 44.) Such souls are during this terrestrial life, and still more after the death of the body, filled with the light and the power of God.