108. I did not, however, speak with those spirits who are on the side
that looks this way, and who are savage and almost brutal; but the
angels informed me of their character, and the origin of their so
brutal nature: it is this; they are greatly delighted with robbery,
and more especially with eating the prey. The delight they have
in thinking about eating the prey was communicated to me, and was
apperceived to be exceedingly great. That there have also been
inhabitants of a like brutal nature, on our Earth, appears from the
histories of various nations; also from the inhabitants of the land of
Canaan (1 Sam. xxx. 16); and likewise from the Jewish and Israelitish
nation even in the time of David, in that they made yearly excursions,
and plundered the nations, and rejoiced in feasting on the booty. I
was informed, further, that the greater part of those inhabitants are
giants, and that the men of our Earth reach only to their navel; also,
that they are stupid, not seeking to know anything about heaven or
eternal life, their only care being about their land and their cattle.

109. As they are of this character, even when they come into the other
life, they are greatly infested there by evils and falsities. Their
hells appear near the earth, and do not communicate with the hells
of the evil of our Earth, because they are of an entirely different
genius and disposition; hence also their evils and falsities are of an
entirely different kind.

110. But those of them who are such that they can be saved, are in
places of vastation, and are there reduced to the last degree of
despair; for evils and falsities of this kind cannot otherwise be
subdued and removed. When they are in the state of despair, they cry
out that they are beasts, that they are abominations, that they are