Spirits have often been told that it is they who bring evil upon themselves when they are punished by other spirits and treated harshly, and that evil has punishment within or accompanying it. And because the evil of punishment or the punishment itself came from others, not from themselves, therefore they wondered how the matter stands. From a spiritual mental image I can now somewhat understand that that evil spreads itself among many round about, thus to the whole assemblage of malignant spirits, who are then aroused to punishing-for their greatest desire and greatest delight is to punish. So then from the general assemblage of malignant ones this delight and urge flows into smaller groups, and then into those who maltreat the one in whom the evil is. So the evil returns by a remarkable circuit and focussed flow to the one having the evil, and turns into the evil of punishment. Since this cannot be plain unless the Lord reveals it by spiritual mental imagery, from which come truths, it can therefore not easily be made plain to people on earth how the matter stands.