513. The lust of seducing innocencies is neither the lust of defloration, nor the lust of violation, but is peculiar and singular by itself; it prevails more especially with the deceitful. The women, who appear to them as innocencies, are such as regard the evil of adultery as an enormous sin, and who therefore highly prize chastity, and at the same time piety: these women are the objects which set them on fire. In Roman Catholic countries there are maidens devoted to the monastic life; and because they believe these maidens to be pious innocencies above the rest of their sex, they view them as the dainties and delicacies of their lust. With a view of seducing either the latter or the former because they are deceitful, they first devise arts, and next, when they have well digested them, without receiving any check from shame, they practise them as from nature. These arts are principally pretences of innocence, love, chastity, and piety; by these and other cunning stratagems, they enter into the interior friendship of such women, and thence into their love, which they change from spiritual into natural by various persuasions and at the same time by insinuations, and afterwards into corporeal-carnal by irritations, and then they take possession of them at pleasure; and when they have attained this end, they rejoice in heart, and make a mock of those whom they have violated.

514. The lot of these seducers after death is sad, since such seduction is not only impiety, but also malignity. After they have passed through their first period in the spiritual world, which is in externals, wherein they excel many others in the elegance of their manners and the courteousness of their speech, they are reduced to another period of their life, which is in internals, wherein their lust is set at liberty, and commences its sport; and then they are first conveyed to women who had made vows of chastity, and with these they are examined as to the quality of their malignant concupiscence, to the intent that they may not be judged except on conviction: when they are made sensible of the chastity of those women, their deceit begins to act, and to attempt its crafty arts; but as this is to no purpose, they depart from them. They are afterwards introduced to women of genuine innocence; and when they attempt to deceive these in like manner, by virtue of a power given to those women, they are heavily fined; for they occasion in their hands and feet a grievous numbness; likewise in their necks, and at length make them feel as it were a swoon; and when they have inflicted this punishment, they run away and escape from the sufferers. After this there is a way opened to them to a certain company of courtezans, who have been versed in the art of cunningly feigning innocence: and these first expose them to laughter among themselves, and at length after various engagements suffer themselves to be violated. After some such scenes, a third period takes place, which is that of judgement; and in this case, being convicted, they sink down, and are gathered to their like in the hell which is in the northern quarter, and there they appear at a distance like weasels; but if they have allured by deceit, they are conveyed down from this hell to that of the deceitful, which is in the western quarter at a depth to the back; in this hell they appear at a distance like serpents of various kinds; and the most deceitful like vipers: but in the hell into which I was permitted to look, they appeared to me as if they were ghastly pale, with faces of chalk: and as they are mere concupiscences, they do not like to speak: and if they do speak, they only mutter and stammer various things, which are understood by none but their companions who are near them; but presently, as they sit or stand, they make themselves unseen, and fly about in the cavern like phantoms; for on this occasion they are in phantasy, and phantasy appears to fly: after flying they rest themselves, and then, what is wonderful, one does not know another; the cause of this is, because they are principled in deceit, and deceit does not believe another, and thereby withdraws itself. When they are made sensible of any thing proceeding from conjugial love, they fly away into hiding places and conceal themselves. They are also void of all love of the sex, and are real impotencies, and are called infernal genii.