784. As regards the dispensations by which they make gain there are various forms: There are dispensations respecting marriages contracted within the degrees prohibited by law; respecting divorce; respecting evils, even enormous ones, and release at the time from temporal penalties. Then also by means of indulgences there are dispensations respecting official services without any legal sanction or authority of the secular powers; among which are also confirmations of dukedoms and principalities; not to mention by means of the promises of heavenly joys made to those who enrich monasteries and augment their treasuries, by calling their gifts good works in themselves holy and also meritorious. They are led to these by an impressed faith concerning the authority and might of the saints and the miracles done by them. Especially do they lie in wait for the rich when they are sick, and then also infuse a terror of hell and so make extortions by promising the sacrifice of the Mass for their souls in accordance with the value of the legacy, and a gradual delivery thereby from the place of torment which they call Purgatory, and thus admission into heaven. [2] As regards Purgatory, I can firmly assert that it is purely a Babylonish fiction for the sake of profits, and that it does not and cannot exist. Every man after death first comes into the world of spirits, which is midway between heaven and hell, and is there prepared either for heaven or for hell, each one in accordance with his life in the world. And in that world no one has torment, but then the evil first come into torment when after preparation they come into hell. In that world there are innumerable societies, the joys in them being similar to those on earth. This is because those who are there are conjoined with men on earth, who also are in the midst between heaven and hell. Their externals are put off gradually, and so the internals are opened. And this takes place until the ruling love is revealed because this is the life's love and is inmost and dominant over the externals. From this revelation it is plain what the man is like; and in accordance with the quality of that love he is sent forth out of the world of spirits to his own place, if good in heaven and if evil in hell. That such is the case it has been given to know for certain because it has been granted to me by the Lord to be together with those who are in that world and to see all, and thus to relate it from actual experience, and this now for twenty years. Therefore I can firmly assert that Purgatory is a fiction which can be called diabolical, because it is for the sake of the profits and the authority over souls, even of the deceased after death.