[8] For this reason one who is in the love of ruling from the love of self thinks nothing of defrauding his neighbor, committing adultery with his wife, slandering him, breathing vengeance on him even to the death, treating him cruelly, and other such deeds. This a man gets from the fact that the devil himself, with whom he is conjoined and by whom he is led, is nothing else than the love of ruling from self-love. One who is led by the devil, that is, by hell, is led into all these evils and is constantly led by enjoyments of these evils. Hence all who are in hell want to do evil to all, but those in heaven want to do well by all. From this opposition there results the intermediate state in which man is and in it is in equilibrium, as it were, so that he can turn towards hell or towards heaven. So far as he favors the evils of self-love he turns towards hell, and so far as he removes them from him he turns towards heaven. [9] It has been granted me to feel the nature and also the strength of the enjoyment of ruling from the love of self. I was let into it that I might know. It was such as to exceed all worldly enjoyments. It was an enjoyment of the whole mind from its inmosts to its outmosts, but felt in the body only as pleasure and gratification, making the chest swell. It was also granted me to perceive that there issued from this enjoyment as from their fountainhead the enjoyments of evils of all kinds, such as adultery, revenge, fraud, slander, and evil-doing in general. There is a similar enjoyment in the love of possessing the wealth of others by whatever ruse, and from this love in the lusts derived from it; yet not the same degree of enjoyment unless this love is conjoined with self-love. As for distinction and riches sought not for themselves but for usefulness' sake, this is not love of them but love of uses; distinction and wealth serve it as means. This love is heavenly. But of it more in what follows.