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SERENUS: Nobody doubts that unclean spirits can influence the character
of our thoughts, but this is by affecting them from without by sensible
influences, i.e., either from our inclinations or from our words, and those
likings to which they see that we are especially disposed. But they cannot
possibly come near to those which have not yet come forth from the inmost
recesses of the soul. And the thoughts too, which they suggest, whether
they are actually or in a kind of way embraced, are discovered by them not
from the nature of the soul itself, i.e., that inner inclination which lies
concealed so to speak in the very marrow, but from motions and signs given
by the outward man, as for example, when they suggest gluttony, if they
have seen a monk raising his eyes anxiously to the window or to the sun, or
inquiring eagerly what o'clock it is, they know that he has admitted the
feeling of greediness. If when they suggest fornication they find him
calmly submitting to the attack of lust, or see him perturbed in body, or
at any rate not groaning as he ought under the wantonness of an impure
suggestion, they know that the dart of lust is already fixed in his very
soul. If they stir up incitements to grief, or anger, or rage, they can
tell whether they have taken root in the heart by the movements of the
body, and visible disturbances, when, for instance, they have noticed him
either groaning silently, or panting with indignation or changing colour;
and so they cunningly discover the fault to which he is given over. For
they know that every one of us is enticed in a regular way by that one, to
the incitement of which they see, by a sort of assenting motion of the
body, that he has yielded his consent and agreement. And it is no wonder
that this is discovered by those powers of the air, when we see that even
clever men can often discover the state of the inner man from his mien and
look and external bearing. How much more surely then can this be discovered
by those who as being of a spiritual nature are certainly much more subtle
and cleverer than men.
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