6213. That hell through its spirits continually injects evil and falsity, and that these spirits pervert and extinguish truths and goods, and that the Lord through the angels continually averts, removes, mitigates, and moderates these efforts, has been made so familiar to me by the almost continual experience of many years, that I cannot even think of any doubt. But in order that the angels may be able to avert the influxes from hell, there must be in the man truths of faith joined to good of life into which they may flow. These must be the plane into which they may operate. But if a man have no such things, he is carried away by hell, and then the Lord through angels rules him as to externals, which are called external bonds, which belong to the man's own prudence, in order that he may appear in external form as a lover of his neighbor and his country; but only for the sake of his own honor, of his own advantage, of reputation for the sake of these, of the fear of the penalties of the law, and also of death. These are the external bonds by which a man is ruled, when there are no internal bonds which are of conscience. But these external bonds are of no avail in the other life, for they are taken away from the man, and when they are taken away he appears such as he had been inwardly.