AC 789,790,794,798 - the flood and persuasions

AC 789
Speaking generally, every person, even the regenerate,
is such that if the Lord did not withhold him from evils and falsities
he would cast himself headlong into hell.
The very moment he is not withheld, he rushes headlong into it.
. . . This withholding from evils and falsities is in effect a lifting up,
so that evils and falsities are perceived below,
and the person above.
. . . It is this elevation which is signified by the
"ark being lifted up from off the earth, and going upon the face of the waters."

AC 790
"waters" here and in the following verses signify falsities
. . . inundations of waters signify desolations and temptations,
which involve the same as falsities . . .

AC 794
Falsities are principles and persuasions of what is false . . ..
Persuasions immensely increase when people mingle truths with desires,
or make them favor the loves of self and of the world;
for then in a thousand ways
they pervert them and force them into agreement.
For what person is there who,
having adopted a false assumption, or made one for himself,
does not confirm it from the many facts he knows,
even indeed from the Word?
Is there any heresy
which does not in like manner take hold of confirmatory ideas,
and which does not force things that do not agree,
and in different ways explain and distort them
so that they disagree no longer?

Every evil desire which a person fosters constitutes the life of his will,
and every false assumption or persuasion
constitutes the life of his understanding.
The life of his will and that of his understanding make one when truths,
or doctrinal matters concerning faith, are immersed in evil desires.
Everybody in this way forms a soul for himself so to speak,
and of such a nature does his life become after death.
Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person
than knowing what the truth is.
When he knows what the truth is,
and knows it so well that it cannot be perverted,
it cannot then be steeped in evil desires and have deadly effect.

AC 798
For such is the life of persuasions
that it not only rejects every truth and absorbs every falsity,
but also perverts every truth that comes near.