142. No one is reformed in _a state of bodily sickness_ because his reason is not then in a state of freedom; the state of the mind depends on that of the body. When the body is sick, the mind is also, if for no other reason because it is withdrawn from the world. Withdrawn from the world it thinks indeed about God but not from Him, for it is not possessed of freedom of the reason. Man has this freedom in being midway between heaven and the world, thus can think from heaven and from the world, likewise from heaven about the world and from the world about heaven. So when he is ill and thinks about death and the state of his soul after death, he is not in the world but is withdrawn in spirit. In this state by itself no one can be reformed, but he can be strengthened in it if he was reforming before he fell ill. [2] It is similar with those who renounce the world and all occupation in it and give themselves only to thoughts about God, heaven and salvation; on this further elsewhere. If those of whom we were speaking have not been reformed before their illness, then if they die they become such as they were before their illness. It is vain, therefore, to suppose that one can repent or receive some faith in illness; for no deed accompanies the repentance, and there is no charity in the faith; each is oral only and not at all from the heart. 143. No one is reformed in _a state of ignorance,_ for all reformation is by truths and a life according to them. Therefore those who do not know truths cannot be reformed, but if they long for them with affection for them, after they die they undergo reformation in the spiritual world. 144. Nor can one be reformed in _a state of blindness of the understanding._ These also have no knowledge of truths or consequently of life, for the understanding must teach truths and the will must do them; when the will does what the understanding teaches, a man has life in accord with truths. When the understanding is blind, however, the will also is indifferent and acts in freedom according to one's reason only to do the evil confirmed in the understanding, and the confirmation is falsity. Besides ignorance, a religion which teaches a blind faith also blinds the understanding; so does a false doctrine. For just as truths open the understanding, falsities close it. They close it above and open it below, and opened only below, the understanding cannot see truths but only confirm what a man wills, falsity especially. The understanding is also blinded by lusts of evil. As long as the will is in these, it moves the understanding to confirm them, and so far as they are confirmed, the will cannot be in affections of good, from these see truths, and so be reformed.