4533. Included among the wonders that occur in the next life is this: When the angels of heaven look at evil spirits these spirits appear altogether different to them from how the spirits appear to one another. Among themselves and in their own false light, which is like that emitted from a coal fire, as has been stated, evil spirits and genii appear to themselves to exist in human form, which in keeping with their own delusions is not unattractive. But when the same spirits are looked at by the angels of heaven that dim light is immediately dispelled and they acquire an altogether different facial appearance, each spirit now having a face that expresses his particular disposition. Some are swarthy and dark like devils; some have ghastly faces like those of dead bodies; some have almost no face at all but instead something covered in hair; some are all teeth, looking like a crate; others like skeletons. Even more amazing than this, some look like monsters, the deceitful like serpents, and the very deceitful like vipers; and there are others with different faces again. But as soon as the angels cease to look at them those spirits appear in the form which they possessed previously in their own dim light. The angels take a look at the evil as often as they realize that they are endeavouring to leave their hells for the world of spirits with the intention of doing harm to others. As a consequence they are found out and turned back. The reason why angelic sight is so efficient is that there is a correspondence between the sight of the understanding and that of the eye; their sight possesses an acuteness which dispels the light of hell, and then the true nature of the evil spirits' form and disposition is visible.

3804. 'And she ran and told her father' means acknowledgement by means of interior truths. This is clear from the meaning of 'running and telling' as the affection for making known, in this case from acknowledgement; and from the meaning of 'her father' as the good meant by 'Laban'. The bringing about of that acknowledgement by means of interior truths is represented by 'Rachel', who means the affection for interior truth. Consequently these words mean acknowledgment by means of interior truths. The situation is this: The existence of the good which Jacob represents, the good of the natural, like all good in general, is known and acknowledged, but not the specific character of it except by means of truths. For good receives its own specific character from truths, and so it is by means of truths that it is known and acknowledged. For good does not become the good which is called the good of charity until truths have been implanted in it. And the character of the truths implanted in it determines that of the good.

[2] This is why one person's good, though seemingly just the same, is not however like another's, for the good in every single human being throughout the whole world is different from that in any other. It is like human faces in which for the most part affections present themselves, in that none throughout the whole human race is exactly like another. Truths themselves compose so to speak the face of good, whose beauty arises from the form which truth takes; but it is good that produces the affections there. All angelic forms are such, and man would be such if from interior life he were ruled by love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbour. Man was created into forms such as these because he was created in the likeness and image of God, and forms such as these are the ones whose spirits have been regenerated, whatever appearance their bodies present. From this one may see what is meant by the statement that good is acknowledged by means of interior truths.