I
PRELIMINARIES
THE JOYS OF HEAVEN AND WEDDINGS THERE
I foresee that many of the readers of what follows here, and of the experiences recorded at the end of chapters, will believe them to be imaginative fiction. But I solemnly declare that they are not fictions, but things I have truly done and seen. Nor were they seen in some state of somnolence, but while fully awake. For the Lord has been pleased to show Himself to me, and to send me to teach the doctrines of the New Church meant by the NEW JERUSALEM in the Book of Revelation. For this purpose He has opened up the inner levels of my mind and spirit. This has allowed me to associate with angels in the spiritual world and at the same time with human beings in the natural world, something I have now experienced for twenty-five years.
When he was near, I spoke to him and asked: ‘What is happening now? I heard the sound of your trumpet, and saw you come down through the air.’
‘I have been sent,’ the angel replied, ‘to summon the most famous for their learning, the most perceptive minds and the names most renowned for wisdom, who come from Christian lands and are in this region, to meet together on this hill, where you are now standing, and to speak their minds, stating what, when in the world, they had thought, understood and regarded as wisdom on the subject of HEAVENLY JOY AND EVERLASTING HAPPINESS.
[2] ‘The reason for my mission is that some new arrivals from the world, who have been admitted to our heavenly community in the east, have reported that not a single person in the whole of Christendom knows what heavenly joy and everlasting happiness are, and so what heaven is. My brethren and colleagues were very surprised at this and told me to go down, make proclamation and summon the wisest people in the world of spirits, the place where all mortals are first gathered together on leaving the natural world, so that we can be informed by a number of voices, whether it is true that Christians are in such dense darkness and deep ignorance about the life to come. Wait a little while,’ he said, ‘and you will see the groups of wise men arriving here; the Lord will prepare a hall for their meeting.’
[3] I waited and after half an hour I saw two parties coming from the north, two from the west, and two from the south. On arrival the angel with the trumpet took them into the hall which had been prepared, and there they occupied the places assigned to them in accordance with the quarter from which they came. There were six groups or parties; there was a seventh from the east, but the light rendered them invisible to the rest. When they were assembled, the angel revealed the reason they had been summoned, and asked the groups in turn to set forth their wisdom on the subject of heavenly joy and everlasting happiness. Then each group formed a circle with faces turned in towards one another, so that they could recall the ideas they had had about it in the previous world, discuss them, and after discussion report on them.
[2] After this speech, the second group from the north out of their wisdom made the following prediction: ‘Heavenly joy and everlasting happiness are simply the most entertaining meetings with angels, and the most charming conversations with them. This keeps their faces constantly wreathed in smiles, and the mouths of the whole assembly laughing sweetly at their soft words and witty speech. What are the joys of heaven but variations on this theme for ever?’
[3] The third group, the first of the wise from the western quarter, from thinking about their affections made this declaration: ‘What are heavenly joy and everlasting happiness but feasting with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? Their tables will be supplied with rich and dainty dishes, fine wines and noble vintages; and after the banquet there will be games and dances by girls and youths to the music of bands and pipes, with interludes of the sweetest singing of songs. Then finally toward evening there will be theatrical performances, and after this another banquet, and so on every day for ever.’
[4] Following this statement the fourth group, the second from the west, pronounced its opinion. ‘We have held,’ they said, ‘numerous ideas about heavenly joy and everlasting happiness, and we have looked into various joys and compared one with another; and we have come to the conclusion that the joys of heaven are the joys of a garden. What is heaven but a garden stretching from east to west and from south to north, containing fruit trees and delightful flowers? In the middle will be the magnificent tree of life, around which the blessed will sit, feeding on fruits of exquisite flavour, and decked with garlands of flowers with the sweetest scent. Under the breezes of a perpetual spring these will grow time and again in infinite variety day by day. Their perpetual growth and flowering, as well as the constant spring climate, will continually refresh the mind, so that they cannot fail to take in and imbibe new joys day by day, and bring people back to the flower of youth and so to the primeval state, which Adam and his wife were created to enjoy. Thus they will be returned to their garden of Eden, now transferred from earth to heaven.’
[5] The fifth group, which was the first of clever people from the south, made the following statement: ‘Heavenly joys and everlasting happiness are simply surpassing dominions and the richest treasures, which will confer magnificence beyond the reach of kings, and splendour beyond compare. We have grasped that these must be the joys of heaven and their continued enjoyment, which is everlasting happiness, by considering those in the previous world who attained this state. Moreover, we infer this from the fact that the happy are to reign in heaven with the Lord, and be kings and princes, because they are the sons of Him who is King of kings and Lord of lords; and they will sit on thrones being waited on by angels. We have grasped the magnificence of heaven from the fact that the New Jerusalem, which is used to describe the glories of heaven, will have each of its gates made out of a single pearl, streets of pure gold, and precious stones for the foundations of its wall. So everyone who is received into heaven will have his mansion gleaming with gold and precious substances, and the rule will pass in turn from one to another. Knowing as we do that in such things joys are inherent and happiness is immanent, and that God’s promises can never be broken, we have been forced to conclude that the happiest state of life in heaven is from this source and no other.’
[6] After this the sixth group, which was the second from the south, spoke up and said: ‘The joy of heaven and its everlasting happiness are simply a perpetual glorifying of God, one long festival lasting for ever, and a most blessed act of worship with songs and shouts of triumph. Thus our hearts will be constantly lifted up to God in full confidence that our prayers and praises will be acceptable on account of God’s generosity in blessing us.’ Some of the group added that this glorifying of God will be accompanied by magnificent lamps, the most fragrant incense and processions of great pomp, with the chief priest leading the way with a great horn, followed by the bishops and dignitaries of higher and lower rank, and finally by the men with palms and the women with images made of gold in their hands.
[2] Then they said to the angel with the trumpet: ‘You know that every person who had longed to go to heaven and had any definite ideas about its joys is after death allowed to experience the joys he imagined; and after they have found out by experience what those joys are like, and realise that they are empty ideas in their minds and ravings of their imaginations, they are taken away from them and taught. This happens to most people in the world of spirits, who in their previous lives had thought deeply about heaven, and come to some conclusion about its joys, so as to desire to experience them.’ On hearing this the angel with the trumpet said to the six groups summoned from the wise of the Christian world: ‘Follow me, and I shall bring you to experience the joys you imagine, and so into heaven.’
I was allowed to look inside that building, and I saw people running from one room to another, looking for gatherings which answered to their affection and thus to their idea of joy. In the gatherings I saw three sorts of people: some who were more or less panting to speak, some who were anxious to ask questions, and some keen on listening.
[2] The building had four doors, one on each side, and I noticed that many people were breaking up the gatherings and hastening to leave. I followed some of them to the east door, and saw some people sitting near it with long faces. So I went up to them and asked why they were sitting looking so sad. ‘The doors of this building,’ they replied, ‘are kept shut against those who want to leave. It is now three days since we came in, and we have spent our time as we wished in meetings and conversations, and we have become so tired of continual talk that we can hardly bear to listen to the mere noise of it. We were so bored we made our way to this door and knocked; but we were told that the doors of this building are open for people to come in, but not to go out. “Stay and enjoy the joys of heaven,” they told us. So we concluded from this reply that we shall have to stay here for ever. As a result our minds have fallen victim to sadness, our chests are beginning now to feel constricted, and we are becoming worried.’
[3] Then the angel addressed them and said: ‘This state is death to your joys, the ones you thought were the only heavenly ones, though they are but concomitant to heavenly joys.’ ‘What then,’ they asked the angel, ‘is heavenly joy?’
The angel replied briefly as follows: ‘It is the pleasure of doing something which is of service to oneself or others. This pleasure derives its essence from love, and its coming-into-being from wisdom. The pleasure of service arising from love by means of wisdom is the soul and life of all heavenly joys. [4] There are in the heavens most entertaining meetings, which cheer the angels’ minds, delight their spirits, gladden their hearts and refresh their bodies. But these take place after they have performed services in their occupations and work. This is what gives soul and life to all their pleasures and amusements. But if you deprive them of that soul or life, the concomitant joys one after another cease to be joys, first becoming matters of indifference, and then worthless, and finally the source of sadness and worry.’
When he had said this, the door was opened and the people sitting near leaped out. They hurried away home, each to his own occupation and his own work, and so were revived.
‘Why are there so many tables?’ they asked. The angel replied that the first table was Abraham’s, the second Isaac’s, the third Jacob’s, and then ranged next to these the tables of the twelve Apostles. On the other side were the same number of tables for their wives, the first three for Sarah, the wife of Abraham, Rebecca, the wife of Isaac, and Leah and Rachel, Jacob’s wives. The other twelve were for the wives of the twelve Apostles.
[2] After a little while all the tables appeared full of dishes of food, and the small spaces between them were decorated with small pyramids of sweets. The diners stood around the tables waiting to see the people who would preside; and after a short interval these were seen entering in procession with Abraham at their head and the rear brought up by the last of the Apostles. Then each went to his own table and sat down on the couch at its head, from where they invited those standing around: ‘Will you too please take your seats with us.’ So the men sat at table with the patriarchs, and the women with their wives, and they ate and drank cheerfully and with reverence. After the lunch the patriarchs went out, and then the games began, dancing by young girls and young men, and then theatrical performances. When these were over, they were invited to feast again, but the rule was that the first day they should dine with Abraham, the second with Isaac, the third with Jacob, the fourth with Peter, the fifth with James, the sixth with John, the seventh with Paul, and so on with the rest up to the fifteenth day, after which they would go through all the feasts again, merely changing places, and so on for ever.
[3] After this the angel called together the men in the group and said to them: ‘All these whom you have seen at table had much the same thoughts as you did, when they imagined the joys of heaven and everlasting happiness. In order that they should see for themselves how vain their notions were, these feasts and performances were set up with the Lord’s permission. The leading figures you saw at the head of each table were old men portrayed by actors, many of them countryfolk who had beards, and as the result of some degree of wealth more haughty than the rest; these were made to imagine that they were the ancient patriarchs. But follow me to the exits from this exercise-ground.’
[4] So they followed him and came upon fifty people in one place and fifty more in another, who had stuffed their bellies with food until they felt sick. Then they longed to return to the familiar surroundings of their homes, some to their duties, some to their businesses, and some to their work. But many of them were stopped by the guards of the wood, and questioned about the days they had spent feasting, and whether they had yet eaten at the tables of Peter and Paul, telling them that if they left before this, it would make them ashamed to be so impolite. But most of them answered: ‘We have had enough of our joys. The food has become tasteless to us, our throats have become parched, so that our stomachs loathe food and we can no longer bear to swallow it. We have spent a number of long days and nights amid that luxury; we beg you earnestly to let us go.’ When they were allowed out, they hurried off home so fast they were out of breath.
[5] After this the angel called the men of the group together, and as they walked gave them the following information about heaven: ‘In heaven, just as in the world, there is food and drink, and there are banquets and parties. The leading people there have their tables laden with rich feasts, dainties and delicacies, which serve to cheer and refresh their minds. There are also games and theatrical performances; there are also concerts and singing, and all achieve the highest perfection. Such things are a joy to them, but they do not constitute happiness. Happiness has to have joys and therefore comes from joys. It is the happiness in joys that makes them joys, enriches them, and keeps them from becoming worthless and boring. Everyone gets this happiness by being of service in his occupation.
[6] ‘Every angel has some hidden tendency in the affection of his will, which induces his mind to do something. By this means the mind calms and satisfies itself. This feeling of satisfaction and calm render the state of the mind amenable to receiving from the Lord the love of service. Heavenly happiness is the result of receiving this, and this is what gives life to the joys I mentioned before. Heavenly food is essentially nothing but love, wisdom and service all combined; that is, service performed by means of wisdom out of love. Everyone therefore in heaven gets food for the body depending on the service he performs; it is magnificent for those who perform the highest services, moderate but of exquisite flavour for those whose service is modest, humble for those who perform humble services. But there is none at all for the lazy.’
[2] When he said this, a throne appeared next to each column, and on the throne a robe of silk, and on the robe a sceptre and a crown; and next to each pyramid appeared a chair raised three cubits above the ground, and on the chair a chain with gold links, and sashes of knighthood with diamond-studded globes at their ends. Then the cry went up, ‘Come now and dress yourselves, take your seats and wait.’ At once the older men hurried to the thrones and the younger men to the chairs, put on their robes and sat down. Then what looked like a mist appeared coming up from below; and as a result of breathing this those who sat on the thrones and chairs had their faces begin to swell up, and their chests were puffed up, and they were filled with a confident belief that they were now kings and princes. The mist was the aura of delusion which inspired them. Then suddenly young men flew in as if from heaven and stood, two behind each throne and one behind each chair, to wait on them. Then it was repeatedly proclaimed by a herald; ‘You kings and princes are to wait here a little longer. Your courts are now being made ready in heaven, and your courtiers and attendants will shortly be here to take you to them.’ They kept on waiting and waiting, until their spirits began to gasp and they were worn out through longing.
[3] After three hours heaven was opened above their heads, and the angels looked down and pitied them. ‘Why,’ they said, ‘do you sit like this looking foolish and playing at acting? They have made fools of you and changed you from human beings into dummies, because you believed in your hearts that you would reign with Christ as kings and princes, and that then angels would wait upon you. Have you forgotten the Lord’s words, that he who would be great in heaven must become a servant? You must learn therefore what is meant by kings and princes and by reigning with Christ. This means being wise and performing services. For Christ’s kingdom, which is heaven, is a kingdom of services. For the Lord loves all and so wishes to do good to all, and good is service. Since the Lord does good or performs services indirectly through angels, and in the world through people, He gives those who faithfully perform services a love of service and its reward, which is inward blessedness, and this is everlasting happiness.
[4] There are in the heavens, as on earth, surpassing dominions and the richest treasures. For there are governments and forms of government, and therefore major and minor authorities and ranks. Those who hold the highest offices have palaces and council-chambers, the magnificence and splendour of which surpass those of the palaces and council-chambers of emperors and kings on earth; and the number of their courtiers, ministers and attendants, and the magnificent uniforms they wear, form for them an ambience of honour and glory. But these highest rulers are chosen from those whose heart is in the welfare of society, and only their bodily senses are concerned with the greatness of magnificence, in order to inspire obedience. Since the public weal demands that everyone should serve some purpose in the community as being the common body, and since all service comes from the Lord, and is performed by angels and by men as if of themselves, it is obvious that this is reigning with the Lord.’
On hearing this from heaven the people dressed up as kings and princes came down from their thrones and chairs, and threw away their sceptres, crowns and robes. The mist which brought the aura of delusion went away, and they were covered by a shining cloud containing an aura of wisdom, and this brought sanity back to their minds.
[2] Under the angel’s guidance they saw a huge throng of men, both old and young, of boys, and of women and girls. There were groups upon groups of three or ten, sitting among the rose-beds weaving garlands to adorn the heads of the old men, the arms of the young men and to wrap around the chests of the boys. Other women were picking fruits from the trees and carrying them in baskets to their companions. Others were pressing juice into goblets out of grapes, cherries and berries, and drinking it with pleasure. Others were sniffing the fragrance given off and spread around by flowers, fruits and aromatic foliage. Others were singing sweet songs to charm the ears of those present. Others were sitting by springs, and diverting the gushing water to make channels of various shapes. Others were walking about conversing and joking together. Others were running, playing, dancing, at one place to make patterns, at another in rings. Others were going into summer-houses to lie down on couches; and there were many other garden delights.
[3] When they had seen this, the angel led his companions through paths that wound hither and thither; and at last they came to a group who were sitting in a most beautiful rose-garden, surrounded by olive, orange and lemon trees. They were rocking to and fro, with their heads in their hands, grieving and weeping. The angel’s companions addressed them and said: ‘Why are you sitting like that?’ ‘It is seven days now,’ they replied, ‘since we came into this garden. When we came in our minds seemed to soar to heaven and to be plunged into the inmost bliss of its joys. But after three days the bliss began to wear off, to fade from our minds, becoming impossible to feel and so nothing. When the joys we had imagined died away, we were afraid of losing all the pleasure in our lives; and we started to feel doubtful whether there was such a thing as everlasting happiness. After this we wandered through the paths and beds, looking for the gate by which we had come in. But we wandered round and round in circles, asking anyone we met. Some of these told us that the gate was not to be found, because this paradise of a garden is a vast maze, so arranged that anyone who wants to get out penetrates deeper into it. “So you have no option but to stay here for ever,” they said. “You are in the middle of it, where all its delights are concentrated.”‘
The people they had encountered went on to tell the angel’s companions: ‘We have been sitting here now for a day and a half, and since we have lost all hope of finding the way out, we sat down by this rose-bed. We can see masses of olives, grapes, oranges and citrus-fruit around us, but the more we look at them, the more our eyes get tired of seeing them, our noses of smelling them, our tongues of tasting them. That is why you see us now sad, grieving and weeping.’
[4] On hearing this the angel with the group said to them: ‘This garden-maze is in fact an entrance to heaven. I know the way and will take you out.’ When he said this, those who were sitting down sprang up and embraced the angel, and they followed him together with his group. On the way the angel taught them what heavenly joy and everlasting happiness are. He told them that there is no outward delight in gardens, unless this is accompanied by inward delight in gardens. The outward delights of gardens are only delights of the bodily senses, but inward delights are delights of the affections of the soul. Unless these are within the outward ones, there is no heavenly life, because there is no soul, in them. Every delight without its corresponding soul becomes feeble and dull by continuance, and wearies the mind more than work. There are paradise-gardens everywhere in the heavens, and the angels find great joy in them, and the more delight of the soul there is in them, the more they feel those joys as joys.’
[5] On hearing this they all asked: ‘What is the delight of the soul, and where does it come from?’ ‘The delight of the soul,’ the angel answered, ‘comes from love and wisdom under the Lord’s guidance. Since love is an effective agent and achieves its effect through wisdom, so both of these are present in the effect, and the effect is service. The Lord pours this delight into the soul, and it passes down through the higher and lower levels of the mind into all the bodily senses, where it reaches its fulfilment. That is what makes joy joy, and it becomes everlasting by the action of Him who is its everlasting source. You have seen the gardens, and I assure you, there is nothing in them, not so much as a tiny leaf, which is not the product of the marriage of love and wisdom realised in service. So if anyone enjoys this, he is in the heavenly garden, and so in heaven.’
* The Latin word paradisus translated here ‘garden’ meant originally a walled garden, but came to mean also what we understand by ‘paradise’.
‘Follow me,’ the angel told them, ‘and I shall take you where you can experience your idea of joy.’ He took them into a small town, in the middle of which there was a church, and all the houses were called sacred buildings. They saw in the town crowds coming from every corner of the surrounding country, and amongst them a number of priests. These received and greeted the new arrivals, and taking them by the hand brought them to the doors of the church, and from there to some buildings around it, and introduced them to the constant worship of God. They told them that this town was a forecourt leading to heaven, and its church was the entrance to a magnificent, vast church in heaven, where the angels glorify God with prayers and praises for ever. ‘The rules here and also there,’ they said, ‘are that people must first enter the church and spend three days and three nights there. After this initiation they must go into the houses of the town, which are all sacred buildings dedicated by us; and then moving from one to another, they must join the congregations there in prayer, shouts of praise and the reading aloud of sermons. But above all you must be careful not to think to yourselves or say to companions anything but what is holy, pious and religious.’
[2] After this the angel took his party into the church, which was packed full with many who had held high rank in the world as well as many ordinary people. There were guards at the doors to prevent anyone leaving before spending his three days there. ‘Today,’ said the angel, ‘is the second day since these people came in; look carefully at them, and you will see how they glorify God.’
When they looked, they saw that most were asleep, and those who were awake could not stop yawning. As a result of constantly keeping their thoughts raised to God, and never allowing them to drop back to the body, some appeared to themselves and so also to others as if their faces were shut off from the body. Some were wild-eyed from constantly withdrawing their eyes. In short, all were depressed at heart and weary in spirit from boredom. They turned their backs on the pulpit and shouted: ‘Our ears are stunned. Put an end to your sermons; we cannot listen to another word and the sound of it is beginning to become hateful.’ Then they got up, rushed in a body to the doors, broke them open and by pressure on the guards drove them out of the way.
[3] On seeing this the priests followed them and coming close beside them kept teaching them amid prayers and sighs. ‘Keep the festival,’ they said, ‘glorify God, sanctify yourselves. In this forecourt to heaven we shall initiate you into the everlasting glorification of God in the magnificent, vast church which is in heaven, and so you will enjoy everlasting happiness.’ But they were unable to grasp this and hardly heard it, because two days of keeping their thoughts raised and removed from domestic and everyday matters had dulled their minds. But when they tried to snatch themselves away, the priests caught hold of their arms and their clothes too, pressing them to enter the buildings where sermons were being delivered. All to no avail; the people cried, ‘Leave us alone; we feel in our bodies as if we were fainting.’
[4] As soon as this was said, four men were seen, dressed in white robes and mitres. One of them had been an archbishop in the world and the other three had been bishops; all had now become angels. They called the priests together to address them. ‘We have seen you,’ they said, ‘from heaven with this flock of yours, and what sort of pastors you are. You are driving them mad. You do not know what glorifying God means; it means bringing forth the fruits of love, that is, faithfully, honestly and painstakingly doing the work demanded by one’s occupation. For this is a part of loving God and loving the neighbour; it is the bond which holds a community together, and it is the good it performs. By this God is glorified, as well as by worship at fixed times. Have you not read the Lord’s words:
In this is my Father glorified, by your bringing forth much fruit and becoming my disciples. John 15:8.
[5] ‘You priests can devote yourselves to worship and glorification, because this is your duty, and it brings you honour, glory and reward. Still you could no more than they devote yourselves to that glorification, if honour, glory and reward did not attend upon your duty.’
With these words the bishops ordered the guards on the doors to allow everyone to enter and to leave. ‘For,’ they said, ‘there is a vast number of people who are unable to imagine any joy in heaven other than constantly worshipping God, because they know nothing about conditions in heaven.’
[2] They replied in turn. The first said: ‘From earliest childhood until the end of my life in the world my notion of heaven was that it was the place of every kind of blessedness, bliss, delight, beauty and pleasure. I thought if I were admitted, such an aura of happiness would lap me round that I should drink it in and fill my heart with it, like a bridegroom at a wedding, and when he enters the bridal chamber with his bride. With this notion I went up to heaven and passed the first set of guards, and also the second. But when I reached the third set of guards, their officer spoke to me. “Who are you, friend?” he said. “Isn’t this heaven?” I answered. “I have come up here to satisfy my earnest desire, so please let me in.” And he did so. There I saw angels in white clothes, and they walked round me and looked at me, and I heard them whispering: “Here is a new arrival who is not wearing the clothes of heaven.” On hearing this I thought: “This sounds to me like the man whom the Lord spoke of as having gone to a wedding without a wedding garment.” So I said: “Give me clothes like yours.” But they only laughed. Then someone hurried up with orders from the court: “Strip him naked, throw him out and throw his clothes after him.” And in that way I was thrown out.’
[3] The second to speak said: “My belief was like his, that if only I was admitted to heaven, which is above my head, I should be surrounded by joys so that I could breathe them in for ever. I too was granted my wish. But when the angels saw me, they ran away, saying to one another: “What is this monstrous happening? How has a night bird come here?” In fact I felt I was changed from a human being, though no change had taken place; this was due to the pressure of the atmosphere of heaven on me. Soon someone hurried up with orders from the court, that two servants should take me out and escort me back down the path I had followed, until I reached home. When I was back at home I seemed to others and to myself like a human being again.’
[4] ‘I,’ said the third, ‘had always had a notion of heaven as a place, not as based on love. So when I came into this world, I had a great longing for heaven; and when I saw people going up, I followed them. I was allowed in, but not for more than a few paces. But when I wanted to cheer myself with my notion of the joys and blessedness there, the light of heaven, which was white as snow, and is said be in essence wisdom, filled my mind with bewilderment, so that darkness covered my eyes and I began to go mad. Then the heat of heaven, which was as intense as the whiteness of the light, and is said to be in essence love, made my heart pound, filled me with anxiety, and so racked me with internal pain, that I threw myself on my back on the ground. As I lay there, an attendant came from the court with orders that they were to carry me gently down to my own light and heat. On reaching these my spirit recovered and my heart became normal.’
[5] The fourth said that he too had thought of heaven as a place and not as based on love. ‘As soon as I came into the spiritual world,’ he said, ‘I asked the wise men whether one was allowed to go up to heaven. They told me that everyone is allowed, but they must take care they are not thrown out. I laughed at this and went up, believing as did others that all in the whole world could receive the joys there to the full. But in fact when I got inside, I nearly died, and the pain which racked my head and body made me cast myself upon the ground, and I writhed like a snake put close to a fire, creeping towards a precipice, over which I threw myself. Afterwards I was picked up by the bystanders below and carried to an inn, where I returned to normal.’
[6] The other five too had remarkable stories to tell about how they went up to heaven. They compared the changes in their condition of life with those of fish, when they are lifted out of water into air, or of birds in the upper air. They said that after such rough treatment they had no further desire to go to heaven, but only to live in the company of people similar to themselves, wherever they were. They were aware, they said, that in the world of spirits, where they then were, all are first prepared, the good for heaven, and the wicked for hell. When they have been prepared, they see roads opened up leading to communities of people like themselves, in whose company they will remain for ever. They take these roads with pleasure, because they are the ways their love takes them. All those from the first group assembled, on hearing this admitted that they too had no other notion of heaven than as a place, where they had only to open their mouths to drink in for ever the joys around them.
[7] After this the angel with the trumpet said to them:’ You can now see that the joys of heaven and everlasting happiness are not places, but are the conditions of a person’s life. The conditions of life in heaven arise from love and wisdom; and because it is service which holds together love and wisdom, the conditions of life in heaven are due to their combination in service. It is the same if one speaks of charity, faith and good deeds, since charity is love, faith is the truth which leads to wisdom, and good deeds are services. Moreover, there are in our spiritual world places just as there are in the natural world, otherwise we should have nowhere to live or any separate dwellings. But place there is not really place, but an appearance of space depending on one’s condition with respect to love and wisdom, that is, to charity and faith.
[8] ‘Everyone who becomes an angel carries within himself his own heaven, since he has a love for his own heaven. For man is by creation a small-scale effigy, image and model of the great heaven. The human form is nothing else. Therefore each person comes into the community in heaven of which he is formed as a particular effigy. When therefore he comes into that community, he enters a form corresponding to himself, so passing as it were from himself to himself in it, and from it to it in himself. He absorbs its life as his own, and its own as his. Each community is as it were something shared, and the angels there are like similar parts combining to create the community. It now follows from this that those who are in the grip of evils and so of falsities have formed in themselves an effigy of hell; and this in heaven is tortured by the influence and violence of one thing working upon its opposite. For hellish love is the opposite of heavenly love, so that the pleasures of those two loves clash with each other like enemies, and kill each other when they come to grips.’
So ten were chosen and followed the angel. They went up a hill by a sloping path, and from there on to a mountain, on top of which was the heaven of those angels. Previously seen from a distance it had looked to them like an expanse in the clouds. Gates were opened for them, and when they had passed through the third, the angel conducting them hastened to the prince of that community or heaven, and announced their arrival.
‘Take some of my retinue,’ replied the prince, ‘and tell our guests that their arrival is welcome to me. Take them into my outer courtyard, and allot each a room with its bedroom. And take some from my court and servants to wait upon them and serve them at their wish.’ This was done as had been ordered.
When they had been brought in by the angel, they asked whether they might visit the prince and see him. ‘It is morning now,’ replied the angel, ‘and you cannot see him before noon. Until then all are occupied with their duties and work. But you have been invited to lunch, and you will then sit at table with our prince. Meanwhile I shall take you into his palace, to see the splendid and magnificent things in it.’
[2] While they were stunned by the magnificence of what they had seen, the angel said: ‘Do not be surprised. These things you see were not made or crafted by the hand of any angel. They are the work of the Craftsman of the universe, given as a present to our prince. This therefore is architecture at its highest, and it is from this that all the rules of architecture in the world derive. You may judge,’ the angel went on, ‘that such things fascinate our eyes and so dazzle them that we think those are the joys of our heaven. But because our hearts are not set on them, they are only extras added to the joys of our hearts. Thus in so far as we look on them as extras, and as God’s handiwork, so far do we see in them the omnipotence and mercy of God.’
‘What do you mean?’ they answered, ‘there is no garden here. We can see only one tree, with what looks like golden fruits on its branches and its top, and what look like leaves of silver, their edges decorated with emeralds; and under the tree there are children with their nurses.’
To this the angel replied with deep feeling in his voice: ‘This tree is in the middle of the garden, and we call it the tree of our heaven; some call it the tree of life. But go on closer and your eyes will be opened, and you will see the garden.’ They did so, and their eyes were opened, and they saw trees laden with tasty fruits, with grape-vines trained round them; and their tops with fruit on them nodded towards the tree of life in the middle.
[2] These trees were planted in an unbroken row, extending outward and running in constant circles or rings, like a never-ending spiral. It was a perfect spiral of trees, in which one species followed another arranged in order of the nobility of their fruits. There was a considerable gap between the beginning of the spiral and the tree in the middle, and this gap sparkled with gleams of light, which made the trees of the ring shine with a splendour running in graduated steps from the first to the last. The first trees were the most outstanding of all, luxuriant with the finest fruits; these were called trees of paradise, something never seen before, because they do not, nor can they, exist on earth in the natural world. These were followed by trees that yield oil, and these by trees that yield wine. After this came trees with a fragrant scent, and finally trees with wood useful for making things. Here and there in this spiral or ring of trees were seats shaped out of tree-shoots brought and woven together from behind, enriched and embellished with their fruits. There were gates in this unbroken circle of trees, leading to flower gardens, and these leading to lawns, divided into plots and beds.
[3] When the angel’s companions saw these they cried; ‘Here is heaven made visible! Whichever way we turn our gaze, there is an impression made on us of heavenly paradise, beyond description.’ The angel was delighted to hear this, and said: ‘All the gardens in our heaven are visible forms or models representing the varied blessedness of heaven in their origins. It was the influence of the varied blessedness which uplifted your minds and made you cry: “Here is heaven made visible!” Those, however, who do not receive that influence look upon these paradises as no more than woodland. It is all those who have a love for performing services who receive that inflow. Those who have a love for glory and are not motivated by service do not receive it.’ Afterwards he set forth and instructed them what was the representation and meaning of each detail in that garden.
So they fastened these on with a girdle and followed their angel, who brought them into an open courtyard of the palace, where people could stroll, to wait for the prince. There the angel introduced them to groups of important people and governors, who were also awaiting the prince. After a short time they saw the doors thrown open, and through a rather wider door on the west the prince entered with a dignified procession. He was preceded by his privy councillors, then came his treasury councillors, and after them the leading members of the court. In their midst walked the prince, followed by courtiers of various ranks, and finally the attendants. Altogether they numbered a hundred and twenty.
[2] The angel was standing in front of the ten newcomers, who were dressed to look like residents. He approached the prince with them and respectfully introduced them. The prince without pausing in his progress said to them: ‘Come and eat with me.’
They followed him into the dining-room and saw a table magnificently set out. In the middle was a lofty pyramid of gold, with a hundred dishes ranged in three rows on their stands. On the dishes were sugared cakes and crystallised grape-juice, together with other delicacies made of bread and wine. Through the middle of the pyramid burst a sort of fountain of wine like nectar; the liquid spread out from the top of the pyramid, and filled goblets. By the side of this lofty pyramid were various heavenly designs made of gold, on which were plates and saucers filled with food of every kind. The heavenly designs on which the plates and saucers stood were artistic representations based on wisdom, which no art in the world could create, nor can they be described in worldly language. The plates and saucers were of silver, engraved all round with designs on a plane surface similar to those of their supports. The goblets were made of translucent gems. Such was the setting of the table.
[2] When they were reasonably satisfied, the prince addressed the ten guests, and said: ‘I have heard that on the earth beneath this heaven you were summoned to assemble, to disclose your thoughts about the joys of heaven, and so about everlasting happiness. I heard that you expressed your thoughts in different ways, each depending on the bodily pleasures you appreciate. But what are bodily pleasures without those of the soul? It is the soul that makes them attractive. The pleasures of the soul are in essence imperceptible states of blessedness, which become more and more perceptible as they come down into the thoughts of the mind, and from these into the feelings of the body. In the thoughts of the mind they are felt as kinds of bliss, in the feelings of the body as pleasures, and in the body itself as gratifications. Everlasting happiness is a compound of all these together. But the latter sort produce a happiness which is not everlasting but temporary; it reaches an end and passes away, sometimes turning into unhappiness. You have now seen that all your joys are also among heaven’s joys, and they exceed anything you have ever imagined; none the less they do not make any deep impression on our minds.
[3] ‘There are three things which flow from the Lord as one into our souls; these three, felt as one, or a triad, are love, wisdom and service. Love and wisdom, however, have no real existence except as concepts, because they are confined to the affection and thought which exist in the mind. But they are realised in service, because they come together in the act and work done by the body. Where they are realised in practice, they also remain in existence. Since love and wisdom come into and remain in existence in service, it is service we find attractive; and service consists in performing the tasks of one’s calling faithfully, honestly and diligently. The love of service and thus diligence in service concentrates the mind and keeps it from wandering, and absorbing all the desires which pour in from the body and the world through the senses to titillate them, causing the truths of religion and morality with the kinds of good they produce to be scattered to the four winds. But the earnest devotion of the mind to service keeps them together and binds them, disposing the mind so as to receive wisdom coming from those truths. Then it banishes to one side or the other the mockery and folly of falsities and vanities. But you will hear more on this subject from the wise men of our community, whom I will send to you this afternoon.’
With these words the prince rose from the table and his fellow diners with him, wished them peace, and told the angel who was their guide to take them back to their rooms, and offer them all the honours politeness demands. He was also told to call in polite and agreeable men to entertain them by talking about the varied joys of their community.
On hearing this the people sent from the town spoke as follows: ‘There are here holidays proclaimed by the prince to give mental relaxation from the weariness which some feel as the result of longing not to be outdone. On these days there are concerts of music and singing in the squares, and outside the town sports and theatrical performances. At this time the squares are equipped with galleries surrounded by balustrades of interwoven vines, from which hang bunches of grapes. Amongst these musicians sit in three tiers with string and wind instruments, some high and some low-pitched, some loud and some gentle-sounding, with at either side singers of either sex. These entertain the citizens with the most delightful anthems and songs, either in choirs or as solos, varying the genre from time to time. On holidays these performances last from morning till noon, and then through the afternoon till evening.
[2] ‘In addition, every morning there are to be heard coming from the houses round the squares the sweetest singing by maidens and girls, which echoes all through the town. There is one affection of spiritual love which is each day the subject of a song. That is to say, the affection is to be heard in the variations and modulations of the singing voice, and it is felt in the singing as if it were actually present. It flows into the souls of the audience, and rouses them to corresponding feelings. Such is the nature of singing in heaven. These singers say that the sound of their singing as it were inspires them and excites them inwardly, making them pleasurably uplifted, in proportion to the reactions of their listeners. When this is over, the windows and doors of the houses in the squares and streets are shut, and there is silence throughout the town, nor is there noise to be heard anywhere, nor are people to be seen wandering about. All then apply themselves to performing the task of their occupations.
[3] ‘But at noon the doors are opened, and in the afternoon the windows too in some places, so that they can watch the boys and girls playing in the streets under the eyes of their nurses and masters, who sit in the porches of the houses.
[4] ‘At the outermost edges of the town there are fields for various sports for boys and youths. There are races and games played with balls. There are games played with balls bouncing off walls, what is called rackets. There are competitions among the boys to see who is more and who less energetic in speaking, acting and seizing the point. The more energetic get a few laurel leaves as their prize. There are many other sports intended to develop latent skills in the boys.
[5] ‘In addition, there are actors who put on performances in theatres outside the town. These display the various kinds of honourable and virtuous action which take place in civilised society. There are some among them who are actors who show contrasts.’ ‘What do you mean,’ said one of the ten, ‘by showing contrasts?’ ‘No virtue,’ they replied, ‘can be vividly displayed with all its fine and proper sentiments, except by contrasts between degrees of virtue varying from maximum to minimum. These actors portray the minimum of virtues, until they become zero. But there is a firm rule that they are not to show anything of their opposites, what are called dishonourable and improper actions, except figuratively and as it were seen a long way off. The reason this rule is laid down is that nothing decent and good in any virtue can by successive steps change into what is indecent and evil; but it decreases more and more until it ceases to exist, at which point the opposite begins. Heaven, therefore, where everything is decent and good, has nothing in common with hell, where everything is indecent and evil.’
When the angel in charge of the group heard this, he said to them: ‘At table our prince talked with them about where wisdom resides and said that it was in service. Would you too please talk to them about this?’ ‘At man’s first creation,’ they said, ‘he was endowed with wisdom and the love of wisdom, not for his own sake, but so that he might share it with others. So there is a warning attached to the wisdom of the wise, that no one is to keep his wisdom to himself alone, or live for himself alone, but is at the same time to share it with others. That is the origin of society, which could not otherwise exist. To live for others is to perform services. Services are what hold society together, and there are as many ways of doing this as there are ways of doing good, and services are beyond counting. There are spiritual services, which have to do with love to God and love towards the neighbour. There are moral and political services, which have to do with the love of the community and country in which a person lives, and with his colleagues and fellow-citizens. There are natural services, which have to do with the love of the world and its demands. And there are bodily services, which have to do with looking after oneself, so as to be able to perform higher services.
[2] ‘All these services are imprinted on a person, and they follow in their proper order, one after the other; when they are present together, then one is contained within another. Those who are devoted to the first set of services, the spiritual ones, are also devoted to those that follow, and these people are wise. Those, however, who are not devoted to the first set, but still are to the second and following ones, are not so wise, but only appear so as the result of an outward show of morality and civility. Those who are not devoted to the first and second sets, but only the third and fourth, are far from being wise, for they are satans, loving only the world and themselves for the world’s sake. But those who are devoted only to the fourth set are the least wise of all, for they are devils who live exclusively for themselves, and what they do for others is entirely for their own sakes.
[3] ‘Moreover, every love has its own pleasure, for this is what gives it life; and the pleasure of the love of service is a heavenly pleasure, which enters into the pleasures that follow in turn, and in accordance with the order in which one follows the other it uplifts them and makes them everlasting.’ After this they listed the heavenly delights arising from the love of service, saying that there were tens of millions, and that those who went to heaven entered into them. So continuing with their wise talk about the love of service they spent the rest of the day with them until evening.
Then when they woke up, they heard the maidens and girls singing from the houses around the square, as was described before. The affection which was the subject of their song was on this occasion that of conjugial love. Its sweetness affected them and moved them deeply. They felt a blessed loveliness growing in their joys, uplifting and renewing them. When it was time, the angel said: ‘Get dressed and put on the clothes of heaven which our prince has sent you.’ They put them on and saw their clothes shining as if with the light of a flame. ‘Why is this?’ they asked the angel. ‘Because.’ he answered, ‘you are going to a wedding; at such times clothes in our community shine and become wedding garments.’
[2] While they were looking at these, the door of the next room was thrown open, and they saw six maidens coming out followed by the bridegroom and bride. They were holding hands, and they led each other to a seat set near the lamp-stand. They sat down on this, the bridegroom on the left and the bride on his right; and the six maidens took up a position beside the seat near the bride. The bridegroom was dressed in a mantle of gleaming purple and a tunic of shining linen with an ephod, on which was a golden plate set with a surround of diamonds. An egret was engraved upon this plate, the wedding emblem of this community of heaven. His head was covered with a mitre. The bride wore a red cloak over an embroidered gown falling from neck to foot, with a golden girdle below the bust; on her head she had a crown of gold set with rubies.
[3] When they had taken their places, the bridegroom turned to the bride and put a gold ring on her finger. Then he took out bracelets and a pearl necklace, and fastening the bracelets above her wrists and the necklace around her neck, he said: ‘Accept these pledges.’ As she accepted them, he kissed her and said: ‘Now you are mine,’ and he called her his wife.
When he did this, all the guests cried: ‘A blessing on you.’ Each said this individually, and then they all called it out together. Someone who had been sent by the prince to represent him also called this out; and at that instant the ante-chamber was filled with the fragrant smoke of incense, a sign of blessing from heaven. Then the attendants took the bread from the two tables next to the lamp-stand, and the goblets, which were now full of wine, from the tables in the corners, and gave each guest bread and a goblet; so they ate and drank. After this the husband and wife rose and were followed by the six maidens with silver lamps in their hands, now lit, as far as the threshold. So the married couple entered the bridal chamber, and the door was shut.
One of the wise men who was at the wedding said: ‘Do you understand the meaning of what you saw?’ They said they understood only a little, and they asked him why the bridegroom, who was now the husband, was dressed in this way. He replied that the bridegroom, who was now the husband, represented the Lord, and the bride, who was now the wife, represented the church, because weddings in heaven represent the marriage of the Lord with the church. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is why he had a mitre on his head, and he was dressed like Aaron in a mantle, a tunic and an ephod. That too is why the bride, now the wife, had a crown on her head and wore a cloak, like a queen. Tomorrow they will be dressed differently, because this representative role lasts only for today.’
[2] They asked a second question. ‘Since he represents the Lord and she the church, why did she sit on his right?’ ‘Because,’ said the wise man, ‘there are two things which make the marriage of the Lord and the church, love and wisdom; and the Lord is love and the church is wisdom. Wisdom is at the right hand of love, because a member of the church has wisdom as if of himself, and to the extent that he is wise, he receives love from the Lord. The right hand also stands for power, and love gets its power by means of wisdom. But as I said, after the wedding the representation is changed, for then the husband represents wisdom, and the bride the love for his wisdom. Yet this love is not the primary one, but a secondary love, which the wife gets from the Lord by means of the husband’s wisdom. The love of the Lord, which is the primary love, is a love of being wise in the husband. So after the wedding, the husband and his wife together represent the church.’
[3] They asked another question. ‘Why did you men not stand at the side of the bridegroom, now the husband, as the six maidens stood at the side of the bride, who is now the wife?’ ‘The reason,’ replied the wise man, ‘is that today we are counted among the maidens, and the number six stands for all and for what is complete.’ ‘Why is this?’ they said. ‘Maidens stand for the church, which is composed of people of both sexes. We too, therefore, in respect to the church are maidens. This passage in Revelation proves that this is so:
These are they who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are maidens, and they follow the Lamb wherever he goes. Rev. 14:4.
It was because maidens stand for the church that the Lord likened it to the ten maidens or virgins invited to a wedding (Matt. 25:1ff). It is because Israel, Zion and Jerusalem stand for the church that the Word says so many times ‘the virgin or daughter of Israel, Zion or Jerusalem.’ The Lord also describes His marriage with the church in these words from the Psalms of David:
The queen is at your right hand in the finest gold of Ophir, her clothing is woven with gold; in embroidered garments she will be brought to the king, and after her the maidens, her friends, will come into the king’s palace. Ps. 45:9-15.’
[4] After this they said: ‘Surely it is appropriate to have a priest present to conduct a service over them?’ ‘This is appropriate,’ said the wise man, ‘on earth, but not in the heavens, because they represent the Lord Himself and the church. This fact is unknown on earth. Yet with us a priest conducts engagement ceremonies, and hears, receives, confirms and consecrates their consent. Consent is the essential feature of marriage, and the other ceremonies which follow are its formal expression.’
So the angel went back to his companions and told them the answer he had received; and he added: ‘I suspect your attraction to the opposite sex is not chaste. In heaven we love maidens for their beauty and the elegance of their manners; we love them very dearly, but in a chaste manner.’ His companions laughed at this, and said: ‘Your suspicions are well founded. Can anyone see such beauties close at hand without some feeling of desire?’
So they dressed themselves and went with the angel and entered the church. It was, they saw, large enough to hold about three thousand; it was semi-circular, with pews or seats running in an unbroken arc to match the shape of the church, the seats at the rear being higher than those at the front. In front of these was a pulpit, a little back from the centre. The door was behind the pulpit on the left. The ten newcomers went in with their angel guide, who assigned places to them where they were to sit, telling them: ‘Everyone who comes into the church knows his own place. He knows this intuitively, and he cannot sit anywhere else. If he does, he cannot hear or perceive anything, and he upsets the arrangement, and if this happens, the priest is not inspired.’
As the congregation was leaving, the angel asked the priest to say a few words of greeting to his ten companions. So he came over to them, and they talked together for half an hour. The priest spoke about the Divine Trinity, saying it was in Jesus Christ, in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, as the Apostle Paul stated. Afterwards he spoke about the union of charity and faith, but what he said was the union of charity and truth, because faith is truth.
There are too the visions of the prophets. For instance, Ezekiel saw the four beasts which were cherubim (Ezek., chapters 1 and 10); the new temple and the new earth and the angel measuring them (chapters 40-48); his being taken off to Jerusalem and seeing abominations there, and being taken to Chaldea into captivity (chapters 8 and 11). Zechariah had similar experiences; he saw a man riding among the myrtles (Zech. 1:8ff); four horns, and then a man, carrying in his hand a measuring-line (2:1ff); a lamp-stand and two olive trees (4:1ff); a flying scroll and a barrel (5:1, 6); four chariots coming from between two mountains, and their horses (6:1ff). Equally Daniel saw four beasts coming up from the sea (Dan. 7:1ff); the fighting between the ram and the he-goat (8:1ff); the angel Gabriel with whom he had a long conversation (chapter 9). Elisha’s boy saw chariots and horses of fire around Elisha; and he saw these when his eyes had been opened [2 Kings 6:17].
It is clear from these and many other passages in the Word that the things which come about in the spiritual world have been seen by many both before and after the Lord’s coming. Is it surprising that the same has happened now too, when a church is starting up, and the New Jerusalem is coming down from the Lord out of heaven?
MARRIAGES IN HEAVEN
The existence of marriages in the heavens is incredible to those who believe that after death a person becomes a soul or spirit, if their concept of a soul or spirit is that of a tenuous ether or breath. So too it is to those who do not believe that a person can live as a person again until after the day of the Last Judgment, and generally speaking to those who know nothing about the spiritual world, where angels and spirits live, and where the heavens and hells are. Since this world has so far remained unknown, and there is utter ignorance of the fact that the angels of heaven are completely human in form, and likewise the spirits of hell, though less completely human, any revelation about marriages has been impossible. For people would say, ‘How can a soul be united with a soul?, or a breath with a breath, as husband and wife are united on earth?’ And many more things which, the moment they were uttered, would destroy and scatter belief in marriages there.
Now, however, that many revelations have been made about the spiritual world, and its nature has been described in my books HEAVEN AND HELL and THE APOCALYPSE REVEALED, it is possible to present also arguments in confirmation of the existence of marriage there, even for reason to grasp, as follows:
(i) A person lives on as a person after death.
(ii) A male is then male and a female is female.
(iii) Each person retains his own love after death.
(iv) The chief love is sexual love; and in the case of those who reach heaven, that is, those who become spiritual on earth, it is conjugial love.
(v) These facts have been fully confirmed by eye-witness.
(vi) Consequently there are marriages in the heavens.
(vii) The Lord’s statement that after the resurrection people are not given in marriage refers to spiritual weddings.
These arguments will now be developed in sequence.
It has not so far been known that a person lives on as a person after death for the reasons which have just been mentioned. It is surprising that this is even true in Christendom, where the Word is known to give enlightenment about everlasting life, and where the Lord Himself teaches that all the dead rise again, and God is not the God of the dead, but of the living (Matt. 22:31, 32; Luke 20:37, 38). Moreover, as far as the affections and thoughts of a person’s mind are concerned, he is in the company of angels and spirits, and so closely associated with them that he cannot be torn away from them except by dying. This ignorance is all the more surprising, when everyone who has died from the beginning of creation has come or is coming to his own people, or, as the Word has it, he has been or is being gathered to them.
In addition, people have a general impression, which is none other than the influence of heaven on the inner levels of the mind, which causes him to have an inward perception of truths, and so to speak to see them. This allows him to grasp this truth in particular, that a person continues to live as a person after death, happily if he has led a good life, unhappily if not. Surely everyone has this thought, if he lifts his mind a little above the body and thinks beyond the immediate level of the senses, as happens when he is deep in the worship of God, or when he lies on his death-bed awaiting his last breath, and similarly when he hears people speaking about the departed and their fate.
I have related thousands of facts about the departed, telling their brothers, wives and friends the fate of some of them. I have also written about the fate of the British, the Dutch, the Roman Catholics, the Jews, and the heathen, and about the fate of Luther, Calvin and Melanchthon. But up to the present I have never heard anyone remark, ‘How can that be their fate, when they have not yet been resurrected from their graves, since the Last Judgment has not yet taken place? Surely they are in the meantime souls, mere puffs of wind, in some limbo called Pu*?’ I have never heard anyone say such things, and this has allowed me to draw the conclusion that each person has a private perception that he lives on as such after death. Does not any husband who loves his wife, his young or older children, say to himself when they are dying or dead, that they are in God’s hands, and he will see them again after his own death, and he will again share with them a life of love and joy?
* Literally, ‘in some Pu or where.’ Pu is the Greek word for ‘where’. See 29 below.
The result of this would be that being born a man was the most lamentable fate imaginable. But it is the reverse of this which has been provided by the Lord, who is Jehovah from everlasting, the Creator of the universe. He has seen to it that a person who links himself to Him by living according to His commandments, is more blessed and happier after death than in the world before it. What makes a person more blessed and happier is that he is then spiritual, and a spiritual person feels and perceives spiritual pleasure, which so far surpasses natural pleasure that it is a thousand times greater.
* By Archbishop Ussher’s Biblical chronology.
The reason why a person after death is spiritual or substantial is because this lay hidden within the natural or material person. This served him as a covering, like an outer skin, which on being shed allows the spiritual or substantial person to emerge, so that he is more pure, more inward and more complete. A spiritual person is still a complete person, although invisible to a natural person, as was made plain by the Lord’s appearing to the Apostles after His resurrection. He was seen and then later was not seen, and yet He was a man like Himself, when He was seen and then disappeared. They said too that, when they saw Him, their eyes were opened.
* i.e. composed of substance, believed to underlie all forms of matter.
Since a person lives on after death, and a person may be male or female, and the male and the female are so different that one cannot change into the other, it follows that after death a male lives on as a male and a female as a female, each of them being spiritual. We say that the male cannot change into the female, nor the female into the male, so that in consequence after death a male is a male and a female is a female, but because it is not known in what masculinity and femininity essentially consist, I must state this briefly here.
The essential difference is that the inmost core of the male is love, and its envelope is wisdom, or what is the same thing, it is love enveloped in wisdom. The inmost core of the female is the wisdom of the male, and its envelope is the love from it. But this is a feminine love, which the Lord gives a wife by means of her husband’s wisdom. The other love is a masculine love, a love of being wise, given by the Lord to the husband to the extent that he acquires wisdom. Thus it is that the male is the wisdom of love and the female the love of that wisdom. There is therefore implanted in each from creation a love of being joined into one. But I shall have more to say about these matters in what follows. The female comes from the male, that is, the woman was taken out of man, as is clear from the following passage of Genesis:
Jehovah God took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the flesh in its place, and he built up the rib he had taken from the man to make a woman. And he brought her to the man, and the man said, She is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, so it shall be called Ishshah,* because it was taken from man. Gen. 2:21-23.
The meaning of rib and flesh will be given elsewhere.
* Hebrew for ‘wife’.
People know about the existence of love, but not what it is. Our common forms of speech tell us that love exists, as when we say that he loves me, the king loves his subjects, the subjects love their king, the husband loves his wife, the mother her children, and they love her. We also talk of one or another as loving his country, his fellow citizens, his neighbour, and the same expression is used of non-personal objects, as in he loves this or that.
But in spite of the universal mention of love in speech, still hardly anyone knows what love is. Since meditation about it cannot form any concept of it in a person’s thinking, or bring it into the light of the intellect, because it is not a matter of light, but of heat, he asserts that it is either non-existent, or some influence produced by seeing, hearing and being in a person’s company, and so impelling him. He is quite unaware that it is his very life, not just the general vital principle of the whole of his body and of all his thoughts, but the life in every single detail of these. A wise person can grasp this in this way. Suppose we say, ‘If you take away the affection of love, can you think of anything? Can you do anything?’ Surely to the extent that affection, a part of love, grows cold, so do thought, speech and action, and to the extent that affection grows warm, so do they. Love then is the heat of a person’s life, his vital heat, and this alone is the reason blood is hot and also that it is red. These effects arise from the fire of the sun of the heaven of angels, which is unadulterated love.
The reason why a person’s sexual love remains after death is that a male remains a male and a female remains a female, and the male’s masculinity pervades the whole and every part of him, and likewise a female’s femininity; and the impulse to be joined is present in every detail down to the smallest. Since that impulse to be joined was implanted from creation and is therefore continually present, it follows that the one desires the other and longs to be joined to the other. Love taken by itself is nothing but a desire and hence an impulse to be joined; conjugial love is an impulse to be joined into one. For the male and the female of the human species are so created as to be able to become like a single individual, that is, one flesh; and when united, then they are, taken together, the full expression of humanity. If not so joined, they are two, each being as it were a divided person or half a person. Since that impulse to be joined lies deeply hidden in every part of both male and female, and every part has the ability and desire to be joined into one, it follows that people retain mutual and reciprocal sexual love after death.
I have so far considered it enough to confirm these propositions by intellectual, what are called rational, arguments: that a person lives on as a person after death, that a male is then a male and a female a female, that each person retains his own love after death, and his chief loves are sexual and conjugial. But people have from childhood been given by parents and teachers, and later by learned men and clergy, a firm belief that they will not live on as people after death, except on the day of the Last Judgment, and some have now spent six thousand years waiting for it. Moreover, many have placed this belief in the category of things which must be taken on trust and not understood. For these reasons it has been necessary to confirm the same propositions also by eye-witness accounts. If this is not done, the person who trusts only his senses will be led by the belief forced on him to say, ‘If people lived on as people after death, I could see and hear them’ and ‘Who has come down from heaven, or up from hell, to tell us?’
But it has not been and still is not possible for an angel of heaven to come down, or for a spirit of hell to come up, and talk with a person, unless the inner levels of his mind, that is, of his spirit, have been opened by the Lord. This can only happen fully with those whom the Lord has prepared to receive the truths of spiritual wisdom. It has therefore pleased the Lord to do this with me, in order to ensure that conditions in heaven and hell, and how people live after death, should not remain unknown, be sunk in ignorance and finally buried in denial. The eye-witness proofs of the propositions mentioned above are too numerous to relate here; but they can be seen in my book HEAVEN AND HELL, also in the CONTINUATION ABOUT THE SPIRITUAL WORLD*; and later in my Apocalypse Revealed. But in so far as particularly concerns marriage, they will be found in the account of experiences subjoined to sections or chapters of this book.
* Now usually printed together with THE LAST JUDGMENT.
Since this has now been confirmed both by argument and by experience, it requires no further proof.
We read in the Gospels:
Some of the Sadducees, who deny that there is a resurrection, asked Jesus, saying, Master, Moses wrote, ‘If a man’s brother who has a wife dies, and he is childless, his brother is to marry his wife, and raise up seed to his brother.’ There were seven brothers each of whom, one after the other married a wife, but they died childless. At length the woman too died. In the resurrection then, whose wife will she be? But Jesus in reply told them, The children of this world marry and are given in marriage. But those who will be judged worthy of reaching the other world and rising again from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage. For they can no longer die, for they are like angels and sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. But the resurrection of the dead was proved by Moses calling the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. But God is not the God of the dead, but of the living; for him all are alive. Luke 20:27-38; Matt. 22:23-32; Mark 12:18-27.
The Lord made two points in this teaching; first that people rise again after death, and secondly, that they are not given in marriage in heaven. Resurrection after death was proved by God being not the God of the dead, but of the living, and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are alive; and further by the parable of the rich man in hell and Lazarus in heaven (Luke 16:22-31).
[2] The second point, that people are not given in marriage in heaven, was proved by the words ‘those judged worthy of reaching the other world do not marry or are given in marriage.’ It is plain this means spiritual weddings because of the immediately following words, ‘they can no longer die, because they are like angels and sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.’ A spiritual wedding means being linked with the Lord, something that happens on earth, and if it has taken place on earth, it has also taken place in heaven. The wedding therefore cannot be repeated in heaven, nor can they be given in marriage again. This is the meaning of these words, ‘The sons of this world marry and are given in marriage. But those judged worthy of reaching the other world neither marry nor are given in marriage.’ These people are also called by the Lord ‘the sons of the wedding’ (Matt. 9:15; Mark 2:19*); and in this passage ‘angels,’ ‘sons of God’ and ‘sons of the resurrection.’
[3] Marrying is being linked with the Lord, and going in to a wedding is being received into heaven by the Lord. This is plain from these passages. The kingdom of the heavens is like a royal personage who made a wedding for his son, and sent out his servants with invitations to the wedding (Matt. 22:1-14). The kingdom of the heavens is like the ten maidens who went out to meet the bridegroom, five of whom were ready and went in to the wedding (Matt. 25:1ff). It is clear that the Lord here meant Himself from verse 13 of this chapter, which says, ‘Keep awake, because you do not know the day or the hour at which the Son of Man will come.’ Also from the Book of Revelation:
The time of the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his wife has made herself ready. Blessed are they who are summoned to the wedding feast of the Lamb. Rev. 19:7, 9.
There is a spiritual meaning in everything the Lord said, as was shown fully in THE TEACHING OF THE NEW JERUSALEM ABOUT THE HOLY SCRIPTURE, published at Amsterdam in 1763.
* The original Greek says ‘sons of the bride-chamber.’
* * * * *
One morning I looked up into heaven and saw above me one broad level above another, and as I watched, the first level near to me was opened up, and then the second above, and finally the third, which was the highest. I was enlightened by this so as to grasp that the angels forming the first or lowest heaven were on the first level, those forming the second or middle heaven on the second level, and those forming the third or highest heaven on the third level.
At first I wondered what this meant and why it so appeared; and then I heard a voice like the sound of a trumpet coming out of heaven, which said, ‘We have noticed and now see that you are meditating about conjugial love. We know that so far no one on earth knows what truly conjugial love is in its origin and essence, important though it is to know this. It has therefore pleased the Lord to open up the heavens to you, so that the light which enlightens may flow into the inner levels of your mind and allow you to perceive it. Our celestial delights in the heavens, especially the third, are chiefly from conjugial love. We have therefore been given permission to send down a married couple for you to see.’
[2] Then suddenly there was to be seen a chariot coming down from the highest or third heaven, containing what seemed to be one angel. But as it approached, it seemed to have two angels in it. The chariot seen from afar sparkled like a diamond, and had harnessed to it foals as white as snow. The travellers riding in the chariot held in their hands two turtle-doves, and they called out to me, ‘You would like us to come closer, but be careful then that the fiery radiance, which is from the heaven we come down from, does not strike too deep. It will certainly enlighten the higher concepts in your intellect, which are in themselves heavenly. But these are inexpressible in the world where you now are. So understand rationally what you are about to hear, and so explain this to your intellect.’
‘I will be careful,’ I replied, ‘come closer.’ They did so, and turned out to be a husband and wife. ‘We are a married couple,’ they said. ‘We have led a blessed life in heaven from the earliest time, which you call the Golden Age. We have been perpetually in the bloom of youth, in which you see us today.’
[3] I gazed at them both, because I realised that in their life and their adornment they were a picture of conjugial love. Their lives were to be seen from their faces, their adornment from their dress. For all angels are affections of love in human form. Their ruling affection shines out from their faces, and it is their affection which provides and determines what they wear. So in heaven there is a saying, everyone is dressed by his affection. The husband looked to be of an age half way between an adolescent and a young adult. Sparkling light glittered from his eyes, an effect of the wisdom of love; this light made his face shine with a kind of internal radiance, and this radiation made his skin shine on the outside, so that his whole face was a single lovely splendour. He was dressed in an ankle-length robe, over a blue garment with a gold belt, decorated with three gems, a sapphire at either side and a carbuncle at the centre. He wore stockings of shining linen with silver threads in the weave, and pure silk shoes. This was the picture presented by conjugial love in the husband.
[4] In the wife it appeared like this. I saw her face and at the same time I did not see it. It looked like Beauty itself, but I could not see it because this is inexpressible. Her face shone with fiery light, the light the angels in the third heaven enjoy, and this dazzled my sight, so that I was simply amazed. When she noticed this, she spoke to me. ‘What can you see?’ she asked. ‘I can see nothing but conjugial love and the form it takes,’ I answered. ‘But I both see and don’t see.’
At this she turned sideways on to her husband, and then I could gaze at her more fixedly. Her eyes flashed with the light of her heaven, a fiery light, as I have said, which derives from the love of wisdom. For the love wives have for their husbands in that heaven comes from and is focussed on their wisdom, and the love husbands have for their wives comes from and is focussed on that love for themselves, so that it unites them. As a result her beauty was such that no painter could ever rival it or render it in its true appearance, for his colours lack radiance and his art has no means to express her loveliness. Her hair was beautifully dressed in an arrangement which had a meaning by correspondence, and it had flowers in it made of jewelled settings. Her necklace was of carbuncles, and from it hung a rosary of gold-coloured gems, and she had pearl bracelets. She was dressed in a red gown over a purple blouse, fastened at the front with rubies. But I was surprised to see that the colours changed as she turned towards or away from her husband, and this too made them sparkle more or less, more when they looked at each other, less when not directly facing.
[5] When I had seen this, they spoke with me again; and when the husband spoke, it was as if what he said came at the same time from the wife, and when the wife spoke, it was as if it came at the same time from her husband, so closely united were their minds, from which their utterances flowed. And I could also then hear the sound of conjugial love, which was in inward unison within their speech, and arose from the delights of a state of peace and innocence.
At length they said, ‘We are being called back, we must go.’ Then they were seen again riding in a chariot, as before. They drove along a paved road between flower-beds with olive-trees and trees laden with orange fruit springing from them. When they approached their own heaven, maidens came out to welcome them and escort them in.
I once saw three spirits newly arrived from the world, who were wandering about, gazing around and asking questions. They were surprised to find that they were still living as human beings, and seeing familiar sights. For they knew that they had departed from the previous, natural, world, and that there they had not believed that they would live as human beings until after the day of the Last Judgment, when they would again be clothed in the flesh and bones they had left in their graves. So to free them of all doubt that they were really human beings, they took turns to examine and touch themselves and others, handling objects and finding a thousand proofs that they were just as much human beings as in their previous world, with the one difference that they could see one another in brighter light, and objects in greater splendour, that is to say, more perfectly.
[2] Then it happened that two angelic spirits came across them. They stopped them to ask, ‘Where do you come from?’ ‘We have departed from the world,’ they replied, ‘and are living again in a world, so we have moved from one world to another; that is what is making us wonder.’ The three newcomers then questioned the two angelic spirits about heaven; and since two of the newcomers were young men, and their eyes glittered with the spark of sexual lust, the angelic spirits said, ‘Have you perhaps seen any women?’ ‘Yes, we have,’ they answered.
In reply to their questions about heaven the angelic spirits said, ‘In heaven everything is magnificent and splendid, things of a sort you have never set eyes on. There are girls and youths there, the girls so beautiful they could be called models of beauty, and the youths of such good character they could be called models of good character. The beauty of the girls and the good character of the youths match so well that they resemble shapes that fit snugly together.
The two newcomers enquired whether human form in heaven is exactly like that in the natural world. The reply was that they are exactly alike, with nothing taken away from the man or from the woman. In short, a man is a man, and a woman is a woman, with all the perfection of shape with which they were endowed by creation. Please go aside and check yourselves over, to make sure you are just as much a man as before.’
[3] The newcomers asked another question: ‘We were told in the world we have left that in heaven there is no giving in marriage, because people are then angels. So is sexual love possible?’ The angelic spirits replied, ‘Your sort of sexual love is impossible, but there is angelic sexual love, which is chaste and free from all the allures of lust.’ ‘If sexual love,’ said the newcomers, ‘is devoid of allures, what is it then?’ Thinking about that kind of love made them groan and say, ‘How boring heavenly joy must be! How could any young man long to go to heaven? Is not such love barren and lifeless?’
The angelic spirits replied with a smile, ‘Sexual love among the angels, the kind of love there is in heaven, is still full of the most intimate delights. It is an extremely pleasant feeling, as if every part of the mind were expanded. This affects all parts of the chest, and inside it is as if the heart were playing games with the lungs; and this play gives rise to breathing, sound and speech. These make contact between the sexes, that is, between young men and girls, the very model of heavenly sweetness, because it is pure.
[4] All newcomers who come up to heaven are tested to see how chaste they are. They are introduced into the company of girls of heavenly beauty, and these can detect from their sound, speech, face, eyes, gestures and the sphere they emit, what their sexual love is like. If it is unchaste, they run away and tell their friends they have seen satyrs and priapi. The newcomers too undergo a change and appear hairy to the eyes of angels, with feet like calves or leopards. They are quickly sent back down, so as not to pollute with their lust the atmosphere there.’
On hearing this the two newcomers said again, ‘So there is no sexual love in heaven! What can chaste sexual love be but love stripped of its living essence? Surely the contacts between young men and women there are boring pleasures. We are not made of stone or wood, but sensations and the wish to live.’
[5] On hearing this the two angelic spirits indignantly replied, ‘You are quite ignorant of what chaste sexual love is, because you are not yet chaste yourselves. That love is the supreme delight of the mind and so of the heart, but not of the flesh too below the heart. Angelic chastity, which is shared by either sex, prevents that love from passing beyond the barrier of the heart, but within and above it the young man’s good character enjoys the delights of chaste sexual love with the beauty of the young woman. These are too inward and too rich in charm to be described in words. This sexual love is the prerogative of angels, because they have only conjugial love; and this cannot be combined with unchaste sexual love. Truly conjugial love is a chaste love, and has nothing in common with unchaste love. It is confined to one person of the opposite sex to the exclusion of all others, for it is a love of the spirit leading to love of the body, not a love of the body leading to love of the spirit, that is to say, not a love which attacks the spirit.’
[6] The two newcomers were pleased to hear this and said, ‘So there is sexual love in heaven. What else is conjugial love?’ But the angelic spirits replied, ‘Think more deeply and check your thoughts; you will find that your sexual love is love outside marriage, quite different from conjugial love, which is as different from it as wheat from chaff, or rather what is human from what is bestial. If you ask women in heaven what is love outside marriage, I assure you they will reply, “What do you mean? What are you saying? How can you utter a question that hurts our ears like this? How can a love which was not created be generated in a person?”
‘If you then ask them what truly conjugial love is, I know they will answer that it is not sexual love, but the love of one of the opposite sex, something that happens only when a young man sees the young woman the Lord has provided for him, and the young woman sees the young man. Then they both feel the fire of marriage catch alight in their heart, and he sees that she is his and she sees that he is hers. One love meets the other, makes itself known and instantly joins their souls, and thus their minds. From there it enters their chests, and after they are married spreads further, so becoming love in all its fulness, growing together day by day, until they are no longer two, but as if one person.
[7] ‘I know too that these women in heaven will swear that they know no other kind of sexual love. For they say, “How can sexual love exist, if it does not go out to meet the other and receive it in return, so as to long for everlasting union, the two becoming one flesh?”‘ To this the angelic spirits added, ‘In heaven no one knows what promiscuity means or even the possibility of its existence. Angels feel cold all over at the idea of unchaste love or love outside marriage; on the other hand chaste or conjugial love makes them feel warm all over. In the case of men, all their sinews go slack at the sight of a whore, and become tense on seeing their wives.’
[8] On hearing this the three newcomers asked whether married couples in the heavens have the same kind of love as they do on earth. The two angelic spirits replied that it is exactly the same. Then seeing they wanted to know whether the ultimate delights were the same there, they said they were exactly the same, but far more blessed, ‘because,’ they said, ‘angels’ perception and feeling is much more exquisite that those of human beings; and what brings love alive but the current of potency? Surely its failure leads to a cessation and cooling of that love? Is not that power the very measure, degree and basis for that love? Is it not its beginning, its strengthening and its completion? It is a universal law that first things are brought into being by ultimates, are kept in being by them and endure by their means. So it is with this love; so if the ultimate delights were absent, there would be no delights in conjugial love.’
[9] Then the newcomers asked whether the ultimate delights of that love led to the birth of children there, saying that, if not, what use were they? The angelic spirit replied that there are no natural, only spiritual children. ‘What,’ they asked, ‘are spiritual children?’ ‘A married couple,’ they answered, ‘are more and more united by the ultimate delights in the marriage of good and truth. The marriage of good and truth is that of love and wisdom, and love and wisdom are the children born of that marriage. Since in heaven the husband is wisdom and the wife is the love of wisdom, both being spiritual, they cannot have any but spiritual children conceived and born there. This is why these delights do not leave angels depressed, as some on earth are, but cheerful; this is due to the constant inflow of fresh strength to replace the former, at once renewing and enlightening it. For all who reach heaven return to the springtime of their youth, recovering the strength of that age, and keeping this for ever.’
[10] On hearing this the newcomers said, ‘Do we not read in the Word that in heaven people are not given in marriage, since they are angels?’ ‘Look up to heaven,’ was the angelic spirits’ answer to this, ‘and you will receive your answer.’ They asked why they should look up to heaven. ‘Because,’ they were told, ‘it is from there we get our interpretation of the Word. The Word is deeply spiritual, and angels, being spiritual, will teach us its spiritual meaning.’
After a short while heaven was thrown open overhead, and two angels came into view, who said, ‘There are weddings in the heavens as there are on earth, but only for those for whom good and truth are married, for no others are angels. So it is spiritual weddings, the marriage of good and truth, which are meant by this passage. These are possible on earth, but not after death, and so not in the heavens. So it is said of the five foolish maidens, who were also invited to the wedding, that they could not go in, because they lacked the marriage of good and truth; for they had no oil, but only lamps. Oil means good and lamps truth; and being given in marriage is entering heaven, where that marriage is.’
The three newcomers were very happy to hear this, being full of the longing for heaven and hoping to get married there. So they said, ‘We shall devote ourselves to good behaviour and a decorous life, so that we can achieve our aims.’
THE STATE OF MARRIED COUPLES AFTER DEATH
I have just demonstrated the existence of marriage in the heavens, so I must now show whether or not the marital bond entered into in the world will last and remain stable after death. Since this is not a matter of judgment but of experience, something I have been given by associating with angels and spirits, it is for me to pass it on, but in such a way as to gain support from reason. To know about this is something married couples hope and long for. For husbands who have loved their wives, if their wives are dead, want to know whether all is well with them, and whether they will meet again; and likewise wives who have loved their husbands. Many couples too want to know in advance whether they will be parted after death or will live together. Those whose dispositions are not in harmony want to know if they will be parted; those whose dispositions are in harmony whether they will live together. So to satisfy these wishes I shall pass on my experiences, in the following sequence.
(i) Everyone retains his sexual love after death, exactly as it was inwardly; that is, as it was inwardly in his thought and will while in the world.
(ii) The same is true of conjugial love.
(iii) Married couples generally meet after death, recognise each other, renew their association and for some time live together. This happens in their first state, while they are concerned with outward matters as in the world.
(iv) But by stages, as they put off their outward state and enter instead into their inward one, they perceive what their mutual loves and feelings towards each other were like, and whether or not they can live together.
(v) If they are able to live together, they remain a married couple. But if not they part, sometimes the husband leaving the wife, sometimes the wife leaving the husband, and sometimes each leaving by mutual agreement.
(vi) In this case a man is given a suitable wife, and the woman likewise a husband.
(vii) Married couples enjoy living together in the same way as in the world, but this is more pleasant and blessed. It does not, however, lead to the procreation of children, but their place is taken by spiritual offspring, love and wisdom.
(viii) This is what happens to those who go to heaven, but not to those who go to hell.
I shall now explain how each of these statements can be demonstrated and proved.
Every love accompanies a person after death, because it is the essence of his life; and the dominant love, the chief of all, lasts for ever in a person, together with the subordinate loves. The reason is that love is properly a function of a person’s spirit, reaching the body from the spirit. Since after death a person becomes a spirit, he brings his love with him. Since love is the essence of a person’s life, it is obvious that a person’s fate after death is determined by the kind of life he led in the world.
As regards sexual love, this is a universal feature shared by all. For it was implanted from creation in a person’s soul, which is the source of the whole person’s essence, as something necessary for the continuance of the human race. This love remains the chief one, because after death a man is a man and a woman is a woman; and there is nothing in the soul, mind or body which is not male in the man and female in the woman. These two have been so created as to strive to be joined, in fact to be joined into one. This striving is sexual love, which precedes conjugial love. Since then this tendency to union is stamped upon every detail of the male and the female, it follows that it cannot be wiped out and die together with the body.
* This is the opposite of conjugial love, which Swedenborg named amor scortatorius. Though with other nouns ‘promiscuous’ may serve, it is hardly sufficient to translate ‘promiscuous love’, since it is especially reserved for the love which is the opposite of the love of one man for one woman, and so is opposed to the principle of monogamy.
Because sexual and conjugial love are different, both are here mentioned, and it is stated that conjugial love also remains after death as it was in a person’s interior when he lived in the world. But since few people know the difference between sexual and conjugial love, I must at the outset of this section say something by way of preface. Sexual love is love directed to and shared with several persons of the other sex, but conjugial love is directed to and shared with one person of the other sex. Love directed to and shared with several persons is natural love, for man has this in common with animals and birds, which are natural creatures. But conjugial love is spiritual, special and proper to human beings, because human beings were created, and are therefore born, to become spiritual. In so far as a person becomes spiritual, he sheds sexual love and takes on conjugial love.
At the beginning of a marriage sexual love seems as if combined with conjugial love. But as the marriage progresses, these loves become distinct, and then with those who are spiritual, sexual love is banished and conjugial love is introduced. In the case of those who are natural, the reverse happens. What I have now said makes it plain that sexual love, being shared with several persons and inherently natural, or rather animal, is impure and unchaste, since it is errant and unchecked, scortatory. Conjugial love is totally different. It will be shown in the following pages that conjugial love is spiritual and properly human.
47r* (iii) Married couples generally meet after death, recognise each other, renew their association and for some time live together. This happens in their first state, while they are concerned with outward matters as in the world.
After death a person goes through two states, an outer and an inner one. He comes first into his outer state, afterwards into his inner one. When he is in his outer state, a husband meets his wife, if they have both died, recognises her and if they lived together in the world forms an association and for some time they live together. While they are in this state, each is unaware of the other’s feelings towards him or her, since this is kept hidden at the inward level. But afterwards, when they reach their inner state, their feelings become plain. If they are harmonious and sympathetic, they continue their married life; but if they are discordant and antipathetic, they put an end to it.
If a man had more than one wife, he associates with them in turn, while he is in the outer state; but on entering upon his inward state, when he can grasp the nature of the feelings of love, he either chooses one and leaves the rest, or he may leave them all. For in the spiritual world as much as in the natural one, no Christian is allowed to marry more than one wife, because this is an attack on religion and profanes it. The same thing happens to a woman, if she has had more than one husband. However, wives do not form associations with their husbands; they merely present themselves, and the husbands take them to themselves. It should be noted that husbands rarely recognise their wives, but wives recognise their husbands very well, since women are able to perceive inward love, while men perceive only outward love.
* There are two sections numbered 47 and 48 in the original.
48r (iv) But by stages, as they put off their outward state and enter instead into their inward one, they perceive what their mutual loves and feelings towards each other were like, and whether or not they can live together.
There is no need to explain this further, since it follows from what was explained in the last section. I shall here only illustrate the way a person after death puts off his outer state and takes up his inner one. Each person is after death first brought into what is called the world of spirits, which is midway between heaven and hell, and there he is prepared, for heaven if good, for hell if wicked.
[2] The preparation he undergoes there is intended to bring the interior and the exterior into harmony, so that they make one, instead of disagreeing and making two. This is what happens in the natural world, and it is only in the case of those of upright heart that they make one. Their making two is clear from the deceitful and tricky, especially hypocrites, toadies, pretenders and liars. In the spiritual world, however, no one is allowed to have his mind divided, but anyone who was wicked inwardly will also be wicked outwardly. Likewise one who was good will be good both inwardly and outwardly.
[3] For everyone after death becomes what he was like inwardly, not outwardly. For this purpose he is then by turns put into his outward and then his inward state. When each is in his outward state, he is wise, that is, he wants it to look as if he were wise, even if he is wicked. But the wicked man is inwardly a fool; he can at intervals see his own follies, and recover his senses. But if he did not recover them in the world, he cannot do so later, for he loves his follies, and wants to keep them. Thus he induces his outward state to be similarly foolish, so making his inward and outward states one. When this has happened, he is ready for hell.
[4] The good man follows the opposite course. Since in the world he had looked to God, and recovered his senses, he was more wise inwardly than outwardly. Outwardly he was at times led into madness by the enticements of the world and its vanities. So he too has his exterior brought into harmony with his interior, which, as I said, is wise. When this has happened, he is ready for heaven. This will illustrate the way in which the exterior is put off and the interior is put on after death.
The reason for separations taking place after death is that the unions which happen on earth are rarely due to any inward perception of love, but to an outward perception which conceals the inward one. The outward perception of love is caused by and derived from considerations of love of the world and the body. Considerations of love of the world are chiefly wealth and possessions; of love of the body, rank and honours. In addition to these there are various enticements, such as beauty and a pretence of good behaviour, in some cases even unchastity. Moreover, marriages are usually contracted within the district, city or town where the person is born and lives, where only restricted choice is possible, limited to the households of one’s acquaintance, and to those among them of similar station to oneself. That is why most marriages contracted in the world are outward, and not inward ones at the same time. Yet it is inward union, the union of souls, which really makes a marriage. This union cannot be perceived before a person puts off the exterior and puts on the interior, and this happens after death. This then is the reason why separations take place at that time, followed by new unions with similar persons or of the same type, unless such a union had been provided on earth. This can happen in the case of those who from youth up have loved, wished for and begged the Lord for a lawful and agreeable match with one partner, rejecting and turning up their noses at shifting lusts.
This is because only those couples who have been or can be inwardly united to make one can be accepted into heaven to stay there. For in heaven a couple are not called two, but one angel. This is what is meant by the Lord’s words, that they are no longer two, but one flesh. The reason why no other couples are accepted into heaven is that no other people can there live together, that is, in one house sharing a room and a bed. For it is the affinity and closeness of their love which determines everyone’s associations in the heavens, and equally where they live. The spiritual world does not have space, but the appearance of space, and this appearance depends upon the way in which people live, which in turn depends upon the way they love. No one therefore can stay anywhere but in his own house, which is provided for him and allocated depending on the nature of his love. If he lives elsewhere, his chest feels tight and he has difficulty in breathing.
Two people cannot live together in the same house unless they are exactly alike; nor consequently can married couples, unless they have the same feelings towards each other. If the feelings are only outward and not at the same time inward, the house or the location itself parts them, rejecting them and driving them away. This is why those who are after preparation admitted to heaven have a marriage provided for them with a partner, whose soul is so strongly attracted to union with the other’s, that they do not wish to have two lives, but one. It is for this reason that after parting a man is given a suitable wife and a woman likewise a suitable husband.
Married couples enjoy living together in much the same way as they do in the world, because after death the male is male and the woman is female, each having from creation an innate tendency to union. This tendency in each person belongs to the spirit, from where it reaches the body. After death, therefore, when he becomes a spirit, the mutual tendency remains; and this is possible only when they live together in much the same way. For a person remains as much a person as before, and neither male nor female have anything less, having similar bodily form and equally similar affections and thoughts. How then can the result be anything but living together in the same way? And because conjugial love is chaste, pure and holy, how can their living together not be fully realised? More on this subject may be found in the experience recorded in 44. Living together then is more pleasant and blessed, because, when a person becomes a spirit, that love becomes more inward, purer and so more deeply felt; and every pleasure increases the more deeply it is felt, to the point where its blessedness is noticeable in its pleasure.
When it is said that after death a man is given a suitable wife and a woman likewise a suitable husband, and that they enjoy the pleasures and blessedness of living together, but without procreating any but spiritual offspring, it must be understood that this refers to those who are received into heaven and become angels. This is because these people are spiritual, and marriages are essentially spiritual and thus holy. Those, however, who go to hell are all natural, and marriages that are only natural are not marriages, but unions tainted with unchaste lust. The nature of these unions will be described later on, when I discuss chastity and unchastity, and further when I speak of scortatory love.
(a) All married partners who are only natural are parted after death. This is because their love of marriage is cold, and their love of adultery is warm. Still after parting, they sometimes associate with other like couples, but after a short while they leave each other. This often happens repeatedly. At length a man is made subservient to some slut, and a woman to some adulterer; this happens in the prison of hell (described in APOCALYPSE REVEALED 153[.10]), where promiscuous fornication is forbidden on pain of punishment.
(b) If one of a couple is spiritual and the other natural, they too are parted after death. The spiritual one is given a suitable partner, but the natural one is banished to join similar spirits in lewd surroundings.
(c) Those, however, who lived unmarried in the world putting all idea of marrying far from their minds, remain unmarried, if they are spiritual. But if they are natural they become fornicators. It is different if unmarried people have longed to get married, and even more so if they have kept seeking to get married without success. If such people are spiritual, blessed marriages are found for them, but not until they reach heaven.
(d) Those who were confined to monastic institutions in the world, young women as well as men, are after living the life of a monk, which continues for some time after death, freed from their vows and allowed out. They achieve the freedom to satisfy their longings, whether they want to live in a marriage or not. If they do, they can; if not, they are directed to the unmarried on the fringe of heaven. But those inflamed with impermissible lust are cast down.
(e) The unmarried live on the fringe of heaven, because the sphere of perpetual celibacy is repulsive to the sphere of conjugial love, the sphere of heaven itself. This is because it comes down from the heavenly marriage of the Lord and the church.
* * * * *
I once heard from heaven the sweetest music. There were wives there together with girls, who were singing a song. Its sweetness was like the affection of some love, pouring forth in a harmonious stream. Songs in heaven are nothing but affections in audible form, that is, affections expressed in modulated sounds, for just as thoughts are expressed by speaking, so are affections by singing. Angels can grasp the subject of the affection by the regularity and fluency of the modulation.
There were a number of spirits around me, some of whom told me that they could hear this very sweet music, and it was the music of some affection, but they did not know what its subject was. They made various guesses, but without success. One guess was that the song expressed the affection of the bridegroom and bride on plighting their troth, another that it was their affection on entering wedlock, another that it was the earliest stage in the love of husband and wife.
[2] Then an angel from heaven suddenly appeared among them, and said that they were singing about chaste sexual love. The bystanders enquired what chaste sexual love was. The angel replied that it was a man’s love for a young woman or a wife of lovely appearance and good manners, free from any idea of lewdness; and the similar love of a woman for a man. With these words the angel vanished.
The singing continued, and since they then knew the subject of the affection it expressed, they began to hear it in many different ways, in each case depending on the state of their own love. Those who looked on women chastely heard the singing as harmonious and sweet. But those who looked on women unchastely heard it as inharmonious and depressing, and those who looked on women with distaste, heard it as discordant and harsh.
[3] The ground on which they were standing was suddenly changed into a theatre, and a voice was heard, saying, ‘Discuss this love.’ Spirits then quickly appeared from various communities, and among them some angels dressed in white, who said, ‘In the spiritual world we have made enquiry into all the kinds of love, not only the love of a man for a man and a woman for a woman, and the reciprocal love of husband and wife, but also a man’s love for women and a woman’s love for men. We have been allowed to work through communities checking, and we have not yet found any shared chaste sexual love, except among those endowed with constant potency by truly conjugial love; and these are in the highest heavens. We have also been allowed to feel the influence of that love on the affections of our hearts, and our feeling was that it surpassed in sweetness every other love, except the love of a married couple whose hearts are one. But we should like you to discuss this love, since it is a new and unfamiliar one to you. Since it is the height of loveliness, we in heaven call it the sweetness of heaven.
[4] So in the discussion the first to speak were those who were unable to think of chastity in connexion with marriage. ‘Can anyone,’ they said, ‘on seeing a lovely or loveable girl or wife so control the ideas he thinks about and keep them so untainted by lust, as to love her beauty and yet not wish, if he were allowed, to taste it? Can anyone turn the lust innate in every man into such chastity as to make it what it is not, and still go on loving? Can sexual love, when it passes from the eyes into the thoughts, stop at the woman’s face? Does it not instantly go down to the chest, and beyond? The angels were talking nonsense when they said that there is a chaste form of that love, which is none the less the sweetest of all; a love which is only possible for husbands who have truly conjugial love, so that they have extraordinary potency with their wives. Are these so much above others that on seeing lovely women they can keep the ideas they think about uplifted and as it were in suspense, to prevent them coming down and proceeding to what makes that love?’
[5] The next speakers were those who felt both heat and cold, coldness towards their wives, but heat towards the other sex. ‘What is chaste sexual love?’ they said. ‘Surely to add chastity to love is a contradiction in terms. Can you add a contradiction without taking away what is predicated of a thing, so making it non-existent? How can chaste sexual love be the sweetest of all loves, when chastity robs it of its sweetness? You all know where the sweetness of that love is located. So when the idea of union is thrown out together with that, where is its sweetness, and where is it to come from?’
Then some others intervened, saying, ‘We have been with the loveliest women without desiring them. So we know what chaste sexual love is.’ But their companions, knowing their lewdness, replied, ‘You were then reduced to loathing the other sex as the result of impotence, and this is not chaste sexual love, but the depth of unchaste love.’
[6] On hearing this the angels were angry and asked those who stood on the right, that is, to the south, to speak. ‘There is,’ they said, ‘the love of two men for each other, and the love of two women for each other, and the love of a man for a woman and of a woman for a man. These three pairs of loves are completely different. The love of two men is like the love of two intellects, for man was created and therefore is by birth designed to become an intellect. The love of two women is like the love of two affections for man’s intellect, for woman was created and is designed by birth to become the love of a man’s intellect. These loves, those between two men or two women, do not sink far into the breast, but stay outside, making merely superficial contact and not leading to any inner union of the two. This too is the reason why two men fence with reasoned arguments on either side, like boxers; and two women sometimes with lusts on either side, like actors pretending to fight with fists.
[7] But the love of a man and a woman is the love of the intellect and its affection, which sinks in deep and leads to union. That union is love; but the union of minds, and not of bodies at the same time, or an impulse towards that union and no other, is spiritual love, and so a chaste one. This love is only possible for those who possess truly conjugial love, and thus have abundant potency, because these people’s chastity does not allow them to feel any influence of love from the body of any woman other than their wife. Being in this state of surpassing potency, they cannot help loving the other sex and at the same time loathing unchastity. As a result they have chaste sexual love, which regarded in essence is an inner spiritual friendship; this gains its sweetness from their abundant, but chaste, potency. That abundant potency is the result of a total forswearing of promiscuity, and, since the wife alone is loved, it is chaste. Now since that love in their case does not partake of the flesh, but only of the spirit, it is chaste; and because their innate attraction makes the woman’s beauty at the same time enter the mind, it is delightful.’
[8] On hearing this many of the bystanders clapped their hands over their ears, saying, ‘Your remarks offend our ears, and we regard what you have said as nonsense.’ They were unchaste. Then the singing from heaven was heard again, and it was even sweeter than before. But to the ears of the unchaste it sounded such a discordant din, that to avoid the racket they rushed out of the theatre and took to their heels, leaving a few behind, whose wisdom made them love chastity in marriage.
I was once talking with angels in the spiritual world when I was filled with a delightful longing to see the Temple of Wisdom, which I had visited once before. I asked them the way to it, and they replied, ‘Follow the light and you will find it.’ ‘What do you mean,’ I said, ‘by following the light?’ ‘Our light,’ they said, ‘gets more and more brilliant, the closer you come to that temple. So follow the light as its brilliance increases. Our light comes from the Lord as a sun, so regarded in essence it is wisdom.’
Then accompanied by two angels I went towards the increasing light, climbing by a sloping path to the top of a hill in the southern region. There was a magnificent gateway there, and on seeing the angels with me the porter opened it. Inside we saw an arcade made of palms and laurels, along which we walked. It led us in a curve and ended in a garden, in the middle of which was the Temple of Wisdom. Arriving there I looked around and saw small buildings resembling the temple, each containing a wise man. We went up to one, and on the door-step spoke with our host, explaining why we had come and how we had arrived there. ‘You are welcome,’ said our host, ‘come in and sit down and let us engage in wise conversation.’
[2] On looking into the building I saw it was divided into two, though still one. It was cut in half by a transparent wall, but being of the purest crystal its transparency made the room appear to be one. I asked why this was.
‘I am not alone,’ he said, ‘my wife is with me, and though we are two, we are still not two, but one flesh.’ ‘I know,’ I said. ‘that you are wise; but what has a wise man or wisdom to do with a woman?’ At this our host’s face dropped in some show of annoyance, and he held out his hand. At once other wise men came from the nearest buildings, to whom he said in a joking manner, ‘Our guest here asked the question, “What has a wise man or wisdom to do with a woman?”‘ This provoked general laughter, and they said, ‘What is a wise man or wisdom without a woman, or without love? A wife is the love of a man’s wisdom.’
[3] ‘Let us have a wise conversation,’ our host said, ‘on the subject of causation, beginning with the cause of the beauty of the female sex.’ So they took turns to speak. The first said that the reason was that women were created by the Lord as affections for the wisdom of men, and the affection for wisdom is the height of beauty.
The second said the reason was that woman was created by the Lord by means of a man’s wisdom, being created from a man, so that she is a form of wisdom inspired by the affection of love. And since the affection of love is really life, a woman is the life of wisdom, but the male is wisdom, and the life of wisdom is the height of beauty.
The third said that the reason was that women have been endowed with a feeling for the delights of conjugial love, and since their whole body is an organ of this feeling, it must inevitably be that, where the delights of conjugial love reside and are felt, there is beauty.
[4] The fourth said the reason was that the Lord took the beauty and elegance of life from man and placed it in woman. So a man, unless reunited with his beauty and elegance in a woman, is grim, stern, dry and unlovable. He is not wise, except to himself, which makes him insensitive. But when a man is united with his beauty and elegance of life in a wife, he becomes pleasant, charming, lively and loveable, and so is wise.
The fifth said that the reason was that women were created as models of beauty, not for their own sakes, but for the sake of men, so that men, being of themselves hard, should be softened, their characters, being of themselves serious, should be made mild, and their hearts, being of themselves cold, should grow warm. This is what happens to them, when they become one flesh with their wives.
[5] The sixth said the reason was that the universe was created by the Lord as the most perfect work. But nothing more perfect was created in it than a woman with a lovely face and proper manners. This was to make men thank the Lord for that act of munificence, and repay it by receiving wisdom from Him.
When these and many similar opinions had been expressed, his wife was seen through the crystal wall. She said to her husband, ‘Please speak.’ While he spoke, we could perceive in his words the life of wisdom coming from his wife, for her love was present in the sound of his speech. So experience bore witness to this truth.
Afterwards we visited the Temple of Wisdom and the gardens surrounding it. So we went away full of joy, passing through the arcade to the gateway, and went down by the way by which we had come up.
TRULY CONJUGIAL LOVE
There are countless varieties of conjugial love; no one has exactly the same conjugial love as another. It may indeed seem similar in many people, but this is the result of applying bodily judgment, and this judgment does not allow one readily to make distinctions, being gross and dull. Bodily judgment means mental judgment which relies on the outward senses. But those whose sight comes from the judgment of the spirit can see the differences, and the more clearly if people are able to lift this power of judgment to a higher level, something which can be done by withdrawing it from the senses and raising it into a higher light. Those who reach this level are finally able to confirm intellectually and thus see that no one has exactly the same conjugial love as another.
Still no one can see the countless varieties of this love, however enlightened and raised his intellect may be, unless he first knows what that love is like in its essence and integrity; what it was like, in fact, when conferred on man by God together with life. Without knowing the most perfect state it then had, it is vain to expect any amount of research to reveal its distinctions. For there would not then be any fixed point from which distinctions could be seen to depart, or target at which they could be said to aim, so as to show whether they were truly or fallaciously made. This is why we here begin with a description of conjugial love in its true essence; and since it was in this state when it was introduced by God into man together with life, we begin by describing its primeval state. Because at that stage it was truly conjugial, this section is headed ‘Truly Conjugial Love.’ The description will proceed in the following order.
(i) Truly conjugial love exists, but is so rare that today its nature is unknown and almost its very existence.
(ii) This love arises from the marriage of good and truth.
(iii) This love stands by correspondence for the marriage of the Lord with the church.
(iv) This love, having regard to its origin and correspondence, is more celestial, spiritual, holy, pure and clean than any other love the Lord confers on angels in heaven or people in the church.
(v) This love is also the foundation of all celestial and spiritual loves, and thus of all natural ones.
(vi) All joys and all delights, from first to last, have been conferred on this love.
(vii) The only people who can acquire and enjoy that love are those who approach the Lord, loving the truths the church teaches and doing the good deeds it prescribes.
(viii) This was the highest form of love among the people of antiquity, who lived in the Golden, Silver and Copper Ages, but after this it gradually came to an end.
There now follows an explanation of these propositions.
The existence of such conjugial love as is described hereafter can in fact be recognised from the initial stage of that love, when it finds its way into and takes possession of the heart of a young man or woman. Or so it does with those who start by loving only one of the opposite sex and wanting her for a bride; and it increases during the time they are engaged, when this is prolonged, and as their wedding draws near; and then when at last they are married and in the first days afterwards. Is there anyone who does not then recognise and agree with the following proposition: that this love is the foundation of all loves, and all joys and delights, from first to last, have been conferred on it? And is there anyone who does not know that after this pleasant time, this cheerful state little by little passes away and comes to an end, so that in the end the couple hardly feels any cheerfulness at all? If you then tell them the same as previously, that this love is the foundation of all loves, and that all joys and cheerfulness are conferred on it, they do not agree or recognise this. They may perhaps say that these are trivial, or that they are transcendental mysteries.
It is plain from this that the earliest stage of love in marriage imitates truly conjugial love and presents some kind of picture of it. This happens because then sexual love, which is unchaste, is rejected and instead there is implanted the love of one member of the opposite sex, which is truly conjugial and chaste love. Surely everyone then looks on other women without any feelings of love, and only on one’s own choice in amorous fashion.
[2] What happens on entering upon marriage is almost the same. Then a person becomes more fully human, because by being joined with his partner he acts as one person with her. But this happens at the first stage, when there is a kind of picture [of conjugial love], as mentioned before. It begins in the same way from the bodily level, and progresses to the natural, but in respect of married life, and so to union into one. Those who then love what is bodily or natural, and only the rational ideas arising from them, cannot be joined as it were into one with their partner, except at this outward level. And when the outward level fails, coldness invades the inward levels driving the pleasures of that love from the body as it does from the mind, and later from the mind as it does from the body. This process goes so far that nothing is left of the remembrance of the earliest state of their marriage, and so there is no knowledge of it. Since this is the case with most people today, it is now plain that the nature of truly conjugial love is unknown, and almost its very existence. The case of spiritual people is quite different. For them the first state is an introduction to perpetual bliss, and this progressively grows, as the spiritual rational level of the mind, and as a result the natural sensual level of the body, in each person join with that of the other and unite. But such people are rare.
Every intelligent person acknowledges, since it is a universal truth, that everything in the universe has reference to good and truth. It must also be admitted that in every detail of the universe good is linked with truth, and truth with good, because this too is a universal truth which hangs together with the other one. The reason why everything in the universe has reference to good and truth, and why good is linked with truth, and truth with good, is that both of these proceed from the Lord and do so from Him as one. Love and wisdom are the two things proceeding from the Lord, because these are the Lord and so come from Him. All things relating to love are called kinds of good, all things relating to wisdom are called truths. Since the two proceed from the Lord as the Creator, it follows that the two are present in what is created.
An illustration of this is the heat and light radiated by the sun. Everything on earth comes from these, since it is their presence and the extent to which they are linked which controls germination. Natural heat corresponds to spiritual heat, which is love; natural light corresponds to spiritual light, which is wisdom.
I said just above [60] that the linking of good and truth is in every single created thing; and linking is impossible unless it is reciprocal, since a one-sided link not balanced by one on the other side falls apart of its own accord. Since then there is a linking between good and truth, and this is reciprocal, it follows that there is truth of good, that is, coming from good, and there is good of truth, that is, coming from truth. It will be seen in the next chapter that truth of good, that is, truth coming from good, is to be found in the male, and constitutes his masculinity; and good of truth, that is, coming from truth, is to be found in the woman, and constitutes her femininity. These two are linked in a marriage union. This is mentioned here to give some preliminary idea of the subject.
This means that husband and wife love each other, as the Lord loves the church and wants the church to love Him. It is well known in Christendom that there is a correspondence between these things, but so far no one knows what sort of correspondence it is. This will therefore be explained in another section following this devoted to this subject [64]. The correspondence is mentioned here so that it may be seen that conjugial love is celestial, spiritual and holy, because it corresponds to the celestial, spiritual and holy marriage of the Lord and the church. This correspondence also follows from conjugial love being the product of the marriage of good and truth, as stated in the previous section, because the marriage of good and truth is what makes the church with a person. For the marriage of good and truth is the same as the marriage of charity and faith, since good has to do with charity and truth with faith. It is impossible to fail to acknowledge the fact that this marriage is what makes the church, because it is a universal truth; and every universal truth is acknowledged as soon as it is heard. This is due to the Lord’s influence, and at the same time to the confirmation given by heaven. Now since the church, being from the Lord, is His, and since conjugial love corresponds to the marriage of the Lord and the church, it follows that this love comes from the Lord.
A little earlier a brief proof was offered that the nature of conjugial love having regard to its origin, the marriage of good and truth, is as stated; but then only a brief foretaste could be given. The same is true of the proposition that this love gets its nature from its correspondence with the marriage of the Lord and the church. These two marriages, from which conjugial love is derived as an offshoot, are the very height of holiness. If therefore this love is received from its Author, who is the Lord, holiness coming from Him accompanies it, constantly cleansing and purifying it. If a person then possesses in his will a desire and striving after it, this love becomes more clean and pure day by day for ever.
[2] Conjugial love is called celestial and spiritual, because it is possessed by the angels of the heavens. It is celestial among the angels of the highest heaven, because they are called celestial angels; and it is spiritual among the angels below that heaven, because they are called spiritual angels. These angels are so named, because the celestial ones are models of love and the wisdom that comes of it; the spiritual ones are models of wisdom and the love that comes of that. Their conjugial love is similar.
[3] Since conjugial love is present among the angels of both the higher and lower heavens, as was also shown in the earlier chapter on ‘Marriages in heaven’ [27-41], it is evident that it is holy and pure. The reason why it is, regarded in essence due to the sources from which it is derived, more holy and pure than any other love angels or human beings possess, is that it is, so to speak, the chief of the other loves. Some remarks about its leading position will be made in the next section.
The reason why conjugial love, regarded in its essence, is the foundation of all the loves of heaven and the church is that its source is the marriage of good and truth; and from this marriage arise all the loves which make heaven and the church present with a person. The good of this marriage makes love, and its truth makes wisdom. When love approaches wisdom or joins itself to it, it becomes real love; and when wisdom in turn approaches love and joins itself to it, it becomes real wisdom. Truly conjugial love is nothing else but the linking of love and wisdom.
A married couple between whom or in whom that love is together shared are models and a visible form of it. Indeed, all in the heavens, where faces are true images of the affections of one’s love, are likenesses of it; for it is in them both generally and in every part of them, as shown before. Now since a married couple are that love in model and form, it follows that every love which arises from the form of love itself is a copy of it. So if conjugial love is celestial and spiritual, so are the loves arising from it. Thus conjugial love is like a parent, and the other loves are like its children. This is how it is that the marriages of angels in the heavens lead to the birth of spiritual offspring, things to do with love and wisdom, or good and truth; on this see 51 above.
Whatever pleasures a person feels are the products of his love. By their means love shows itself, or rather, comes into existence and life. It is well known that pleasures become more intense as love does, and also the more closely the affections of the moment concern the dominant love. Now since conjugial love is the foundation of all good loves, and since it is imprinted on the smallest details of a person, as shown before, it follows that its pleasures exceed those of all other loves, and the degree to which it is present and joins itself with them makes those loves yield pleasure. For it enlarges the inmost levels of the mind and those of the body at the same time, as the delightful current of its stream flows through and opens them up.
[2] The reason why all pleasures, from first to last, are conferred on that love is that its purpose so far excels that of the others. Its purpose is the propagation of the human race, and so of the heaven of angels. Since this purpose was the ultimate aim of creation, it follows that every kind of blessedness, bliss, pleasure, charm and gratification that the Lord the Creator could ever confer on a person are concentrated on this love of his. It is obvious that pleasures result from purpose and affect a person in proportion to his love of the purpose, from considering the pleasures of the five senses, sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. Each of these has its own pleasures, which vary depending upon the specific purposes they serve. What then should the pleasure of conjugial love lack, the purpose of which is something which embraces all other purposes?
[2] But as they come down they become more and more easily perceived, in the upper levels of the mind as blessedness, in the lower levels as bliss, in the chest as the pleasant sensations these give, and spreading out from the chest into every part of the body, and finally uniting at the lowest level to produce the greatest of delights. The angels went on to relate wonderful things about these, saying too that the variations of these delights in the souls of married couples, and passing from there into their minds, and from there into their chests, are countless and also everlasting. They increase in degree depending on the wisdom the husband possesses. This is because the husbands live for ever in the flower of youth, and the angels find nothing more blessed than to keep on increasing in wisdom. Further descriptions of these delights, as related by angels, will be found in the account of experiences, especially those following at the end of a number of chapters.
The reason why only those who approach the Lord achieve this love is that monogamous marriages, between one man and one wife, correspond to the marriage of the Lord and the church, and such marriages arise from the marriage of good and truth spoken of above (60, 62). The consequence of this origin and this correspondence is that truly conjugial love is from the Lord and is given to those who approach Him directly. But this cannot be fully proved without a detailed discussion of these two mysteries. This will be given in the two following chapters, one of which will be about the origin of conjugial love from the marriage of good and truth, the other about the marriage of the Lord with the church and its correspondence. There too it will be seen that it follows as a consequence of these that a person’s conjugial love depends on the state of the church with him.
[2] No love among human beings, nor among angels, can become pure; so neither can this one. But since it is the intention of the will which is chiefly regarded by the Lord, in so far as one has this intention and keeps to it, so far is one set on the road to and so far does one advance towards its purity and holiness. None but those whom the Lord makes to be such can enjoy spiritual conjugial love, because it has heaven in it. A natural man, for whom that love draws its pleasure only from the flesh, cannot approach heaven or any angel, nor in fact any person who possesses that love, since this love is the foundation of all celestial and spiritual loves (see 65-67 above).
[3] I have had this proved to me by experience. I have seen genii* in the spiritual world, who were being prepared for hell, approach an angel who was taking his pleasure with his partner. While they were still at a distance, they became like furies, the more so the nearer they approached, and they looked for caves and ditches into which to throw themselves to take refuge. Wicked spirits love whatever matches their own affection, however unclean it is, and loathe the spirits of heaven for their purity, as being the reverse of themselves. This can be inferred from what I related in the Preliminaries (10).
* A name for the most wicked spirits; see 514 end.
72. Those who come into that love and can remain in it are those who love the truths the church teaches and do the good deeds it prescribes, because no others are accepted by the Lord. For they are linked with Him and can therefore be kept in that love by Him. There are two things which make the church and thus heaven with a man, the truth of faith and goodness of life. The truth of faith causes awareness of the Lord’s presence, and goodness of life in accordance with the truths of faith brings about linking with Him, the result making the church and heaven. The truth of faith causes awareness of the Lord’s presence, because it is a source of light; spiritual light is precisely this. Goodness of life brings about linking with Him because it is a source of heat; spiritual heat is precisely this, because it is love, and goodness of life is a matter of loving. It is well known that all light, even in winter, causes awareness of things as present, and heat combined with light makes a linking. For gardens and flower-beds can be seen in any light, but they only flower and bear fruit when heat accompanies the light. The conclusion from this is obvious: those who merely know the truths of the church are not endowed by the Lord with truly conjugial love, but only those who know the truths and perform the good deeds it prescribes.
Conjugial love among the most ancient people and the ancients who lived in those early ages which bear these names was the highest form of love. It is impossible to learn this from histories, because there are none of their writings preserved, and those which are preserved were written in later ages. Those writers gave these names and described the purity and rectitude of their lives, and how these progressively declined in a sequence like that from gold to iron. The last, the iron age, starting from the time of these writers, can to some extent be appreciated from the historical accounts of certain kings, judges and wise men, called sophi, in Greece and elsewhere. Daniel (2:43) contains a prediction that this age would lack the stability iron possesses, but would become like iron mixed with clay, which will not hold together.
[2] Since the ages named after gold, silver and copper were over by the time of these writers, so that it is impossible for any knowledge of their marriages to exist on earth, it has pleased the Lord to make these known to me in a spiritual way, by taking me to visit the heavens where they live, so that I could learn from their own lips what their marriages were like, when they lived during their own periods. For all who have since creation departed from the natural world are in the spiritual world; and they all keep their previous loves and will so remain for ever. Since these facts deserve to be known and reported, and they prove the holiness of marriages, I should like to publish them, as they were exhibited to my wakeful spirit, and later recalled to memory and written down with the help of an angel. As these are from the spiritual world, like the rest of the experiences at the end of chapters, I have decided to divide them into six accounts, to match the series of ages.
* * * * *
I was once meditating about conjugial love, when my mind was seized with a desire to know what this love had been like in the case of those who lived in the Golden Age, and also in the following ages, which were named after silver, copper and iron. Knowing that all who lived good lives in those ages are in the heavens, I prayed to the Lord to allow me to talk with them and be taught by them.
At once I found an angel beside me, who said: ‘I have been sent by the Lord to be your guide and companion. First I shall guide and accompany you to those who lived in the first era or age, known as golden. The route to them,’ he added, ‘is steep, leading through a dark forest, which no one can penetrate unless supplied with a guide by the Lord.’
[2] I was in the spirit, so I prepared myself for travelling, and we set our faces towards the east. As we went I saw a mountain, the top of which was higher than the level of the clouds. We crossed a great desert and reached a forest thickly filled with trees of various kinds, so dense they made it dark, as the angel had said beforehand. But the forest was cut by numerous narrow paths, and the angel told me that all of these were a maze to lead people astray, and unless the Lord opened his eyes to see the olive-trees wreathed in grape-vines, and so to follow the path from one olive to the next, a traveller would stray into Tartarus, which is the region surrounding this at the sides. The forest is like this to guard the approach. For none but the primeval people live on this mountain.
[3] After we entered the forest, our eyes were opened and we saw here and there olive-trees entwined with vines, from which hung bunches of dark blue grapes. The olives were arranged in continuous curves, so as we spied them we went round and round. At length we saw a group of tall cedars with some eagles on their branches. On seeing them the angel said; ‘Now we are on the mountain not far from the summit.’ So we went on and a little beyond the cedars came upon a circular plain, where lambs of both sexes were feeding. These were forms intended to picture the state of innocence and peace among the mountain-dwellers.
We went across this plain and saw tents upon tents to the number of many thousand extending as far as the eye could see before us and to the sides in all directions. ‘Now,’ said the angel, ‘we are in the camp where is the Army of the Lord Jehovih* – that is what they call themselves and where they live. These most ancient people lived, when they were in the world, in tents, so they continue to do so now. But let us turn aside to the south, where the wiser among them are, so that we can find someone to talk with.’
[4] As we went I saw at a distance three boys and three girls sitting at the door of a tent. But as we came closer, they turned out to be like men and women of middling height. ‘All the inhabitants of this mountain,’ said the angel, ‘look from a distance like children, because they are in a state of innocence, and childhood is how innocence appears.’
When these men saw us, they hurried up to us and said: ‘Where do you come from, and how have you come here? Your faces are not those of the people of our mountain.’
The angel replied telling them how we had been given permission to come through the forest, and why we had come. On hearing this one of the three men invited us in and took us into his tent. The man was dressed in a cloak of blue colour and a tunic of pure white wool. His wife was dressed in a purple robe with underneath it a blouse of fine embroidered linen.
[5] Since I was thinking that I wanted to know about marriage among the most ancient people, I looked in turn from husband to wife and back again, and observed that their faces showed how they were almost of one soul. So I said: ‘You two are one.’ The man replied: ‘We are one. Her life is in me and mine is in her, so we are two bodies, but one soul. The union between us is like that of the two cavities in the chest, called the heart and lungs. She is my heart and I am her lungs. But since by heart we understand here love and by lungs wisdom, she is the love of my wisdom, and I am the wisdom of her love. Her love therefore forms the outer covering of my wisdom and my wisdom is inwardly inside her love. As a result, as you said, the unity of our souls is to be seen in the look of our faces.
[6] Then I asked, ‘If your union is such, are you able to look at any woman other than your own?’ ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘I can, but because my wife is united with my soul, we two look together, and so not the slightest spark of lust can enter in. For when I look at other people’s wives, I see them through my wife, whom alone I love. Since she is capable of perceiving all my feelings, as an intermediary she directs my thoughts, taking away anything discordant, and at the same time striking into me a feeling of coldness and horror at anything unchaste. It is therefore as impossible for us here to look lustfully on any of our companions’ wives as it is to look upon the light of our heaven from the shades of Tartarus. So we do not either have any idea in our thinking, much less a word in our language, for the enticements of lustful love.’ He could not use the word fornication, because the chastity of their heaven prevented it. My angel guide said: ‘Now you can hear how the angels of this heaven speak, a language of wisdom, since it is derived from causes.’
[7] After this I looked around and saw that their tent was as if gilded. So I asked, ‘Why is this?’ He answered that it was ‘the result of the flaming light, which glitters like gold, flooding and striking the curtains of our tent, while we are talking about conjugial love. For then the heat of our sun, which in its essence is love, bares itself and tinges the light, which in its essence is wisdom, with its own, gold colour. This happens because conjugial love in origin is the play of wisdom and love. For man was born to be wisdom, woman to be the love of her man’s wisdom. This is the source of the delights of that play in conjugial love, and thus between ourselves and our wives. We have witnessed here over thousands of years how these delights are surpassing and excellent in quantity, degree and strength in proportion to our worship of the Lord Jehovih, who is the source from which that heavenly union, the heavenly marriage of love and wisdom, flows in.’
[8] After this speech I saw a great light above a hill in the middle of the tents. ‘What is that light coming from?’ I asked. ‘It is,’ he said, ‘from the sanctuary of our tent of worship.’ I asked if one might approach it. ‘Yes,’ he said. So I went near and saw a tent which both within and without exactly matched the description of the tabernacle constructed in the desert for the Children of Israel, the plan of which was shown to Moses on Mount Sinai (Exod. 25:40; 26:30). ‘What,’ I asked, ‘is there in the sanctuary to give so much light?’ ‘There is a tablet, ‘ he answered, ‘bearing the inscription “The Covenant between Jehovah** and the heavens.”‘ He said no more.
[9] As we were then preparing to leave, I asked: ‘Did any of you, when you were in the world, live with more than one wife?’ He answered that he knew of none. ‘For,’ he said, ‘we could not think of several. Those who had thought so told us that the heavenly blessedness of their souls at once fled from the inmost to the outermost parts of the body, even to the finger-nails, and at the same time also their virility departed. When this was noticed, they were thrown out of our country.’
After saying this, the man hastened back to his tent and came back with a pomegranate containing a mass of golden seeds. He presented it to me, and I brought it away as a token that we had visited those who lived in the golden age. Then after wishing each other peace, we departed and returned home.
* Jehovih for Jehovah occurs in a few places in the Word, e.g. Gen. 15:2; Isa. 65:13.
** In CORONIS 37, where this account is repeated, the form Jehovih appears here, and it is explained as their name for ‘Jehovah in His Humanity’.
The next day the same angel as on the previous day came to me and said: ‘Would you like me to take and accompany you to the people who lived in the era or age of silver, so that we can hear from them about marriage in their time?’ He said that these too were not to be approached except under the Lord’s guidance. I was in the spirit, as previously, and I went with my guide, first to a hill on the border between east and south. When we were on the slopes of that hill, he showed me a great expanse of territory. We saw far off a towering mountain, between which and the hill on which we stood there was a valley, and beyond it a plain with a slope rising gently from it.
We came down from the hill to cross the valley, and saw in places on either side pieces of wood and stone carved to resemble human beings and various animals, birds and fishes. ‘What are they?’ I asked the angel. ‘Are they not idols?’ ‘Far from it,’ he answered. ‘They are shapes designed to depict various moral virtues and spiritual truths. The peoples of that age knew about correspondences; and since every person, animal, bird and fish corresponds to some quality, each carving depicts some aspect of a virtue or truth, and a number of them taken together depict the whole virtue or truth in its general full form. These carvings are what in Egypt are called hieroglyphics.’
[2] We crossed the valley and on entering the plain saw horses and chariots. The horses had various kinds of metal disks on their harness and halters; the chariots were of different types, some carved to represent eagles, some whales, some stags with antlers, some unicorns. Also finally we saw some waggons with stables at either side of them. But when we came near the horses and chariots both disappeared, and we saw in their place people walking in twos, conversing and reasoning. The angel told me: ‘The kinds of horses, chariots and stables which can be seen at a distance are appearances of the rational intelligence of the people of that age. For a horse stands by correspondence for the understanding of truth, a chariot for its teaching, and stables for lessons. You know that in this world everything has an appearance in keeping with its correspondence.’
[3] Passing these by we climbed a long ascent and at length we saw the city, which we entered. As we walked through, we looked at their houses from the streets and squares. They were all palaces built of marble. In front they had steps of alabaster, and at the sides of the steps columns of jasper. We also saw temples of precious stones, sapphire and azure coloured. ‘Their houses,’ said the angel, ‘are built of stones, because stones stand for natural truths, precious stones for spiritual truths. All the people who lived in the silver age were made intelligent by spiritual truths, and thus by natural truths. The meaning of silver is similar.
[4] As we toured the city, we saw here and there people in pairs, and since they were husbands and wives, we waited to be invited in somewhere. While we had this in mind, as we went past we were called back by two people and invited to their home. We went up and inside it. The angel spoke with them for me, explaining the reasons for my visit to this heaven. ‘It is,’ he told them, ‘so that he can learn about marriage among the people of antiquity, of whom you here are representatives.’
‘We came,’ they replied, ‘from the peoples of Asia. Our age was devoted to the study of truths, the means by which we acquired intelligence – this was the kind of thing that appealed to our souls and minds. But the thing that appealed to our bodily senses was devising forms to represent truths. Our knowledge of correspondences made a link between our bodily sensations and the perceptions of our minds, so giving us intelligence.’
[5] After hearing this the angel begged them to tell us something about marriage among them. ‘There is,’ said the husband, ‘a correspondence between the spiritual marriage, that is, of truth with good, and the natural marriage, that is, of a man with one wife. Being students of correspondences, we saw that the church with its kinds of truth and good could not possibly exist except among those who live in truly conjugial love with one wife. For the marriage of good and truth makes the church in the individual. All of us, therefore, who are here now, assert that the husband is truth and the wife the truth’s own good. Good cannot love any truth but its own, nor can truth return that love to any but its own good. In other circumstances the inner marriage which makes the church would be lost, and the marriage would become merely outward; and it is not the church, but idolatry, to which this corresponds. We therefore call marriage with one wife a sacrament; but if it happened in our community with more than one, we should call that a sacrilege.’
[6] Following this speech we were taken into an ante-chamber, where there were many devices on the walls and small pictures which looked as if cast in silver. ‘What are these?’ I asked.
‘They are,’ they said, ‘ paintings and forms which depict for us many qualities, attributes and pleasures belonging to conjugial love. One group depicts the unity of souls, another the linking of minds, another the harmony of hearts, another the delights which arise from these.’
As we gazed, we saw a kind of rainbow on the wall composed of three colours, purple, blue and white. We noted how the purple colour passed through the blue and turned the white dark blue; and this colour then flowed back through the blue into the purple, enhancing it so as to resemble a flaming ray.
[7] ‘You understand that?’ the husband said to me. ‘Tell me,’ I replied. ‘The purple colour,’ he said, ‘because of its correspondence stands for the wife’s conjugial love; the white colour stands for the husband’s intelligence. The blue stands for the beginnings of conjugial love as perceived in the husband by the wife, and the dark blue, which tinged the white, stands for the conjugial love then present in the husband. This colour, flowing back through the blue into the purple and enhancing it so as to resemble a flaming ray, means the husband’s conjugial love flowing back to the wife. We see such things depicted on our walls, when we think about conjugial love, its natural, successive and simultaneous union, and fix our gaze upon the rainbows depicted there.’
To this I said, ‘These matters are more than mysterious to us today, since they are a way of picturing the secrets of the conjugial love of one man with one wife.’ ‘Yes, that is so,’ he replied, ‘but they are no secrets to us here, so not mysteries either.’
[8] When he had said this, a chariot was seen a long way off, pulled by white ponies. On seeing it the angel said, ‘That chariot is a sign for us to leave.’ Then when we came down the steps, our host gave us a bunch of white grapes with vine-leaves attached; these leaves suddenly turned silver. We took them away as a token of our conversation with the peoples of the silver age.
Next day my angel guide and companion came again, and said: ‘Get ready, so that we can visit the inhabitants of heaven in the west, who are some of the people who lived in the third or copper age. Their homes extend from the south through the west towards, but not into, the north.’
When I was ready, I accompanied him, and we entered their heaven on its southern side. There we found a magnificent wood composed of palms and laurels. We passed through this, and then exactly on the border of the west we saw some giants twice as tall as the average human. They asked us: ‘Who let you in through the wood?’ ‘The God of heaven,’ said the angel. ‘We,’ they answered, ‘are the guardians of the approach to the ancient western heaven; but you may go in.’
[2] We passed through and from a view-point we saw a mountain soaring to the clouds. Between the view-point where we were and the mountain we saw one village after another, with gardens, woodland and fields between them. After passing through the villages we reached the mountain and climbed it. Its summit turned out to be not a peak, but a plain, on which was a large and spacious city. All its houses were of the wood of resinous trees, and their roofs of planks.
‘Why, I asked, ‘are the houses here made of wood?’ ‘Because,’ the angel answered, ‘wood stands for natural good, which was the good of the people of the earth’s third age. Copper also stands for natural good, so the early people called this the copper age. There are also sacred buildings here made of olive-wood, and in their centre is a sanctuary containing in a chest the Word which was given to the inhabitants of Asia before the Israelite Word. Its historical books are called The Wars of Jehovah, its prophetic books The Utterances. Both of these are mentioned by Moses (Numb. 21:14, 15, 27-30). This Word is now lost in the kingdoms of Asia and is only preserved in Great Tartary’.*
Then the angel took me to one of the buildings, and we saw the sanctuary in the middle, all in the whitest light. ‘The light,’ said the angel, ‘comes from the ancient Asiatic Word; for all Divine truth shines in the heavens.’
[3] On leaving the building we heard that the presence of two strangers had been reported in the city, and they were to be questioned about their origin and what business they had there. An officer hurried up to us from the assembly and summoned us to court. Asked where we came from, and what our business was there, we replied, ‘We have passed through the palm-tree forest and also the homes of the giants, who are the guardians of your heaven, and after that the region of villages. You can tell from that that it is not we ourselves, but the God of heaven, who has brought us here. Our business here is to learn about your marriages, whether you are monogamous or polygamous.’ ‘What does polygamous mean? they answered. ‘Is it not the same as promiscuous?’
[4] Then this court of law delegated an intelligent man to take us home and teach us about this subject. When he reached home, he asked his wife to join him, and then spoke as follows. ‘The earliest or most ancient people, who enjoyed truly conjugial love, so that they excelled others in the strength and power of that love while in the world, and who now live in the most blessed condition in their own heaven in the east, handed on commandments about marriage for us to keep. We are their descendants, and like fathers to sons they gave us rules of life, amongst which are these about marriage. “Children, if you wish to love God and the neighbour and to be wise and happy for ever, we advise you to adopt a monogamous life. If you depart from this commandment, all heavenly love will desert you, and along with it inner wisdom, and you will be banished.” We have obeyed, as sons should, this commandment of our fathers, and we have seen how true it is. To the extent that anyone loves his wife alone, to that extent he becomes a heavenly and an inward person. To the extent that anyone does not love his wife alone, to that extent he becomes a natural and an outward person; and he loves only himself and the ideas he thinks up, becoming mentally unbalanced and foolish.
[5] ‘This is why we in this heaven are all monogamous, and being so, we keep all the borders of our heaven closed to polygamists, adulterers and fornicators. If polygamists break in, they are cast out into the darkness of the north; if adulterers, into the furnaces of the west; if fornicators, into the deceptive lights of the south.’
On hearing this I asked what he meant by the darkness of the north, the furnaces of the west and the deceptive lights of the south. He replied that the darkness of the north was darkness of mind and ignorance of truths; the furnaces of the west were loves for evil; and the deceptive lights of the south were falsifications of truth. These are types of spiritual fornication.
[6] After this he said, ‘Come with me to our treasure house.’ So we followed him, and he showed us the scriptures of the most ancient people; they were on boards of wood and stone, and later on books of smoothed tablets. The second age wrote its scriptures on skins; and he brought a skin on which the rules of the earliest people had been copied from stone tablets, and among them was that about marriage.
[7] When we had looked at these and other things remarkable for their extreme antiquity, the angel said, ‘It is now time for us to leave.’ Then our host went out into the garden and plucked a few twigs from a tree, which he tied into a bundle, and gave it to is with these words, ‘These are twigs from a tree native and restricted to our heaven; its sap smells sweetly of balsam.’ We brought this bundle with us as we came down by a path close to the east, where there were no guards. The twigs we saw turn to shining bronze, and their tips to gold; this was a sign that we had visited the people of the third age, which is called the copper or bronze age.
* Apparently Western China and Tibet.
Two days later the angel spoke to me again and said: ‘Let us complete the cycle of the ages. All we have left is the last age, which is called after iron. The people of this age live in the north, deep inside on the west side. All of these are from the early inhabitants of Asia who had the old Word, and their worship was based on this; that is to say, before the Lord’s coming into the world. This is clear from the writings of the ancients, in which this period is so named. The same periods are meant by the statue seen by Nebuchadnezzar, which had a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet of iron as well as clay (Dan. 2:32, 33).’
[2] The angel told me this on the journey, which was shortened and hurried on by changes produced in our mental state to match the characters of the peoples we passed through. For spaces and distances in the spiritual world are appearances dictated by mental states. When we lifted up our eyes, we found ourselves in a wood composed of beeches and two kinds of oak; and on looking around we saw bears to our left and leopards to our right. When I showed surprise at this, the angel said, ‘They are not bears or leopards, but people who act as guards for those who live in the north. They sniff out the spheres given off by the way passers-by live, and fly at all who are spiritual, because those who live here are natural. Those who only read the Word without drawing any teaching from it, look at a distance like bears, and those who confirm false ideas from the Word look like leopards.’ However on seeing us these creatures turned their backs and we passed through.
[3] After passing through the wood there were thickets, and then grassy plains, divided into plots with box-wood hedges. Then the ground sloped down into a valley, in which there was one city after another. We passed some by and went into a large one. Its streets were irregular, and so were its houses. The houses were built of bricks, with half-timbering and plastered walls. In the squares there were shrines built of ashlar limestone; they had an underground basement and a storey above. We went down into one of these by three steps, and saw the walls around us covered with idols of various shapes, and a crowd on their knees adoring them. In the centre was a choir, from which the head of the city’s tutelary deity stood out. As we went out, the angel told me that among the ancients who lived in the silver age, as mentioned above, there were images to represent spiritual truths and moral virtues. When the knowledge of correspondences was lost from memory and became extinct, these images first became objects of worship, and after were adored as divinities. This was the origin of idolatry.
[4] When we had left the shrine, we examined the people and their dress. Their complexion was greyish, like steel, and they were dressed like clowns, with tabs around their hips hanging from a tunic which tightly fitted the chest. On their heads they had sailors’ cocked hats. ‘That’s enough of this,’ said the angel. ‘Let us learn about marriage among the peoples of this age.’
We entered the house of one of the leading citizens, who wore a top hat on his head. He made us welcome and said, ‘Come in and let us have a chat.’ We went into the entrance-hall and sat down there. I asked him about marriage in this city and region. ‘We,’ he said, ‘do not live with one wife. Some have two or three, some more. This is because we take pleasure in variety, obedience and being treated with the respect due to royalty. When we have several wives, we get this from them. With only one we should not have the pleasure of variety, but be bored with sameness; we should not be flattered by their obedience, but annoyed by their equal status. Nor should we have the satisfaction of controlling them and so being respected, but we should be bothered with quarrels about who was superior. And what about the woman? Surely she is by birth subject to her husband’s will, intended to be a servant, not a ruler. Every husband here is treated in his house like a king. Since this is what we love, it is what makes our lives blessed.’
[5] ‘But,’ I asked, ‘where then is conjugial love, which makes one soul out of two, linking minds and making people blessed? This love is indivisible; divided it turns into an ardour which cools off and disappears.’ ‘I don’t understand what you mean,’ he replied to this. ‘What else makes a man blessed, if not the rivalry between wives to give the greatest respect to her husband?’ On saying this the man went into the women’s quarters and opened a double door. An odour of lewdness came out, stinking like filth; this was the result of polygamous love, which is marital and at the same time scortatory. So I got up and closed the doors.
[6] Then I said, ‘ How can you keep living on this land, lacking as you do any truly conjugial love and adoring idols?’ ‘As for marital love,’ he replied, ‘we are so jealous of our wives that we do not allow anyone to come further into our homes than the entrance-hall. Where there is jealousy, there is also love. As for the idols, we do not adore them; but we cannot think about the God of the universe except by having some object before our eyes. For we cannot lift our thoughts above the sense-impressions of the body, or in thinking about God rise above His visual aspect.’
Then I asked further: ‘Are your idols not of different forms? How can they suggest the vision of one God?’ ‘This,’ he replied, ‘is one of our mysteries; each form contains some aspect of the worship of God.’ ‘You,’ I said, ‘are entirely sunk in the bodily senses. You have no love of God, nor love for a wife with any spirituality in it. These loves together make a person what he is, and can turn him from a creature of the senses into a heavenly one.’
[7] When I said this, there was something like a flash of lightning seen through the doorway. ‘What is that?’ I asked. ‘Such a flash of lightning,’ he said, ‘is for us a sign announcing the arrival of the Ancient Man of the East, who teaches us about God, as being one, alone and omnipotent, who is the First and the Last. He also warns us not to worship idols, but only to look on them as images representing the powers which proceed from the one God; these taken together make up His worship. This ancient man is our angel, whom we revere and listen to. He comes to us and sets us straight, when we slip into a dim way of worshipping God by indulging in fancies about images.’
[8] When we had heard this speech, we left the house and the city, and as we journeyed we drew conclusions from what we had seen in the heavens about the ambit and development of conjugial love. Its ambit ran from the east to the south and from this to the west, and hence to the north. Its development was marked by a decrease as it moved around; in the east it was celestial, in the south spiritual, in the west natural, and in the north sensual. It also decreased in step with the love and worship of God. Our conclusion from this was that this love was in the first age like gold, in the second like silver, in the third like bronze, in the fourth like iron, and it finally ceased altogether. Then my angel guide and companion said: ‘Yet I am still full of hope that this love will be revived by the God of heaven, who is the Lord, since it is capable of being revived.’
The angel who had previously been my guide and companion on my visits to the people of antiquity, who had lived in the four ages, golden, silver, copper and iron, came to me again and said: ‘If you want to see what the age which followed those ancient ones was and still is like, follow me and you will see. These are the people of whom Daniel prophesied:
There shall arise after those four a kingdom in which iron will be mixed with common clay. They will mix together by the seed of man, but one will not stick together with another, even as iron will not mix with clay. Dan. 2:41-43.
‘The seed of man,’ he said, ‘by which iron will be mixed with clay, but without sticking together, means the truth of the Word falsified.’
[2] After this speech I followed him, and on the way he informed me: ‘They live on the border between the south and the west, but a long way behind those who lived in the four earlier ages, and also lower down.’ We travelled through the south until we came to the region bordering the west, and passed through a terrifying forest. For it had lakes in it, from which crocodiles raised their heads, gaping at us with their wide, toothy jaws. Among the lakes there were frightening hounds, some with three heads like Cerberus, some with two; all with horrid jaws, watching us pass with their savage eyes. On entering the western sector of this region we saw dragons and leopards, as described in Rev. 12:3, 13:2.
[3] ‘All these beasts,’ the angel told me, ‘which you have seen are not beasts at all, but correspondences and so forms which represent the lusts of the inhabitants we are to visit. The lusts themselves are represented by those horrid hounds, their tricks and cunning by the crocodiles, their falsities and erroneous attitude to religious matters by the dragons and leopards. But the inhabitants, of whom they are a picture, live not near the end of the forest, but across a great intervening desert, so that they can be kept apart and separated from the peoples of earlier ages. They are too of quite an alien and different nature from them. Admittedly they have their heads above their chests, their chests above their hips, their hips above their feet, like the primeval people. But their heads contain not a scrap of gold, their chests not a scrap of silver, and their hips not a scrap of bronze; nor indeed is there a scrap of unmixed iron in their feet. But their heads contain iron mixed with clay, their chests iron and clay mixed with bronze, their hips the same too mixed with silver, their feet these mixed with gold. This inversion has turned them from human beings into sculptures of human beings, lacking all internal cohesion. For what was highest has become lowest, the head has become the heel and vice versa. As we look from heaven they seem like clowns who stand upside down and walk on their hands; or like animals that lie flat on their backs, lifting their feet in the air, and burying their heads in the ground, to look up to the sky.
[4] Crossing the forest we entered the desert, which was no less frightening. It was composed of heaps of stones, with ditches between them, out of which crept poisonous snakes and vipers, and fiery serpents flew out. The whole of this desert kept sloping downwards, and we went down a long descent, finally reaching a valley inhabited by the peoples of that region and age.
Here and there we saw huts, which eventually seemed to come together and join up to form a town. We went into it and found the houses were built of tree-branches, charred and stuck together with mud; they were roofed with black slates. The streets were irregular, all of them narrow to begin with, but opening out as you went on, and widening out at the end to form squares. So there were as many squares as were streets.
On entering the town it grew dark, as the sky was not to be seen. So we looked up and light was granted us to see by. Then I asked any I met on the way, ‘Surely you can’t see, since the sky is not to be seen above you?’ ‘What sort of a question is that?’ they answered, ‘we can see clearly, we walk in broad daylight.’ On hearing this the angel told me: ‘Darkness is light to them, and light is darkness, just as it is for night birds. They look down and not up.’
[5] We went into some houses here and there, and saw in each a man with his woman. So we asked whether they all live in their own homes with only one wife. To this they replied with a whistle, ‘Why do you say with one wife? Why not with only one trollop? What is a wife but a trollop? Our laws do not allow us to fornicate with more than one woman; still there is nothing indecent or improper in doing it with more, so long as it is not at home. We boast about this among ourselves, thus taking more delight and pleasure in it than polygamous people. Why is it that we are not allowed to have several wives, when it used to be allowed, and is still today in all parts of the world around us? What is living with only one woman, but being shut up and imprisoned? But we are breaking down the bars of this prison, rescuing ourselves from slavery and setting ourselves free. No one can be cross with a prisoner who grabs his freedom when he can.’
[6] We replied to this: ‘Friend, you speak as if you had no knowledge of religion. Is there anyone with any rationality, who does not know that adultery is profane and hellish, and that marriage is holy and heavenly? Surely adultery is to be found among the devils in hell, and marriage among the angels in heaven? Haven’t you read the sixth commandment, or Paul’s statement that adulterers can by no means reach heaven? [1 Cor. 6:9]’
This amused our host so much he roared with laughter, looking on me as a simpleton and almost crazy. But then suddenly a messenger arrived from the chief man of the town, who said: ‘Bring the two newcomers to the court, and if they refuse, drag them there. We have seen them in the shades of light;* they have crept in secretly to spy on us.’
The angel said to me: ‘They saw us in shade, because the light of heaven we brought with us is shade to them; their light is in the shade of hell. This happens because they think nothing of sinning, not even of committing adultery, so that falsity to them looks exactly like truth. Falsity shines brightly before the satans in hell, and the truth darkens their eyes like the shades of night.’
[7] ‘We shall not,’ we told the messenger, ‘be forced, much less dragged, to court, but we shall go with you of our own free will.’ So we went and found there a large crowd. Some lawyers detached themselves from the crowd and whispered in our ears: ‘Take care not to say anything against religion, our kind of government and good behaviour.’ ‘No,’ we replied, ‘we shall not say anything against them, but speak in their favour and as they dictate.’
‘What,’ we asked, ‘is the rule of your religion about marriage?’ This produced a murmuring among the crowd, ‘What business of yours are marriages?’ they said, ‘marriages are marriages.’
We asked another question: ‘What is the rule of your religion about licentious conduct?’ Again there was a murmur from the crowd. ‘What business of yours is licentious conduct?’ they said. ‘Licentiousness is licentiousness. Let him who is without guilt throw the first stone.’
Our third question was: ‘Surely your religion teaches that marriages are holy and heavenly and that adulteries are profane and hellish?’ This made many in the crowd cackle, laughing and making fun of us. ‘Address,’ they said, ‘your questions on religion to our priests, not to us. We fully accept their pronouncements, because no religious matters fall within the scope of intellectual judgment. Surely you have been told that the intellect is deranged when it comes to mysteries, and these are what religion is all about. And what have actions to do with religion? Isn’t it heartfelt mumbling about expiation, satisfaction and imputation which make souls blessed, not deeds?’
[8] Then some men came up sent by the so-called wise men of the town, who said: ‘Leave here at once. The crowd is growing angry and there will soon be a riot. Let us have a talk about this subject by ourselves. Behind the courthouse there is a walk, where we can be private. Come with us.’
So we followed them, and then they asked us where we came from and what our business was there. ‘We came,’ we said, ‘to learn about marriage, whether like the ancient peoples of the golden, silver and copper ages you regarded marriages as sacraments or not.’ ‘Sacraments indeed!’ they answered, ‘Aren’t they the work of flesh and darkness?’ ‘Aren’t they too,’ we replied, ‘the work of the spirit? Isn’t what the flesh does under the direction of the spirit itself spiritual? Everything the spirit does is directed by the marriage of good and truth. So isn’t it this spiritual marriage which enters into the natural marriage, that between husband and wife?’
To this the so-called wise men replied: ‘You are being too sharp and lofty in your treatment of the subject. You are going beyond the realm of reason into the spiritual realm. How can anyone start there, and come down from there to make any judgment?’ They added with a mocking grin, ‘Perhaps you have eagle’s wings so that you can soar to the heights of heaven and spy such things out? We cannot.’
[9] Then we asked them to tell us, from their height, that is, the region where the volatile ideas of their minds flit about, whether they knew or could know of the existence of the conjugial love of one man with one wife, a love on which are conferred all the blessedness, bliss, pleasures, charms and gratifications of heaven; this love being given by the Lord in proportion to one’s ability to receive good and truth from Him, and so depending on the state of the church.
[10] On hearing this they turned away and said: ‘These men are crazy. They soar about the atmosphere with their judgments, and indulge in the folly of playing with toys.’ Then turning back to us, they said: ‘We will give you a straight answer to your vain and vacuous prognostications. What connexion is there between conjugial love and religion or Divine inspiration? Surely everyone has this love in proportion to his sexual potency? Don’t those outside the church feel it just as much as those inside? The heathen just as much as Christians? In fact, the irreligious as much as the religious? Doesn’t the strength of that love depend on heredity, state of health, self-discipline or climate? It can also be strengthened and aroused by drugs. Isn’t it shared with animals, especially with birds, which form loving pairs? Surely it is a fleshly love. What has the flesh to do with the spiritual state of the church? When it comes to the effects at the lowest level, there is surely not the slightest difference between a wife and a trollop. The lust is the same and the delight felt is the same. It is therefore disrespectful to derive the origin of conjugial love from the holy things of the church.’
[11] On hearing this we told them: ‘Your reasoning arises from the goadings of lewdness, not from conjugial love. You are totally ignorant of what conjugial love is, because for you it is cold. Your remarks have proved to us that you come from the age named after a mixture of iron and clay, which do not hold together, as prophesied by Daniel (2:43). You make conjugial love and scortatory love one and the same. Can these two hold together any more than iron and clay? You think you are wise and you have that reputation, yet you are in fact anything but wise.’
On hearing this they shouted out in fury and summoned the crowd to throw us out. Then by the power given us by the Lord we held out our hands, and at once fiery serpents, poisonous snakes and vipers, and also dragons, appeared from the desert, moving into and filling the town, so that the inhabitants were terrified and fled.
The angel said to me: ‘Newcomers from earth are daily arriving in this region, and the earlier inhabitants are from time to time banished and cast into quagmires in the west. These look from a distance like lakes of fire and brimstone. All the people there are both spiritually and naturally adulterers.’
* Not a mistake for ‘night’, as the next sentence shows.
After this had been said I looked towards the border of the west, and there I saw lakes of fire and brimstone. ‘Why,’ I asked the angel, ‘do the hells there appear in such a form?’
‘They look,’ he said, ‘like lakes because of the falsifications of truth, water being in the spiritual sense truth. The appearance of fire around and in them results from the love of evil, the appearance of brimstone from the love of falsity. These three, lake, fire and brimstone, are appearances corresponding to the wicked loves of those there. All of them are shut up for ever in labour-camps, where they work for food, clothing and bed. When they commit crimes, they suffer severe and grievous punishments.’
[2] I asked the angel another question. ‘Why did you say that the people there are spiritual and natural adulterers? Why not criminals and unbelievers?’ ‘Because,’ he replied, ‘all who think nothing of committing adultery, all, that is, who commit these acts in the firm belief that they are not sins and with deliberate purpose, are at heart criminals and unbelievers. For the principles of human marriage and religion go hand in hand; every pace and every step away from or towards religion is also a pace and a step away from or towards the principles of marriage, which is the special quality belonging to a Christian.’
When I asked, ‘What is this principle of marriage?’ he said, ‘A desire to live with a single wife, a desire a Christian has the more, the more religious he is.’
[3] After this I felt very sad in spirit that marriages, which had been most holy in ancient times, were so corrupted and changed into adulteries. ‘It is the same,’ said the angel, ‘with religion today. For the Lord says that at the ending of the age the abomination of desolation foretold by Daniel will take place; and there will be great affliction such as there has never been since the beginning of the world (Matt. 24:15, 21). The abomination of desolation means the falsification and removal of all truth; affliction means the state of the church when it is attacked by evils and falsities. The ending of the age, about which these things are said, means the final period or end of the church. The end is now, since there is no truth left which has not been falsified; and the falsification of truth is spiritual licentiousness, which goes so closely with natural licentiousness that they make one.’
Since the angel understood everything, he told me first that these glorifications and praises of the Lord were taken from the Word, because they then come from the Lord, who is the Word, that is, He is the Divine truth itself in it. ‘At this particular moment,’ he said, ‘they are glorifying and praising the Lord with the words spoken by the prophet Daniel:
You have seen iron mixed with common clay; they will mix by means of the seed of man, but will not hold together. But in those days the God of the heavens will cause a kingdom to arise, which will not perish for ever. It will crush and destroy all those kingdoms, but will stand itself for ever.’ Dan. 2:43, 44.
[2] After this I heard what sounded like singing, and yet further away to the east I saw a gleam of light more brilliant than before. I asked the angel what was the glorifying taking place there. He said it was with the words of Daniel:
I was watching in the visions of the night, and I saw as it were the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven. And to him were given dominion and the kingdom, and all peoples and nations will worship him. His dominion will be a dominion for ever, which will not pass away, and his kingdom one which will not perish. Dan. 7:13, 14.
Besides this they praise the Lord using these words from Revelation:
To Jesus Christ be glory and strength. Behold, he comes with clouds. He is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. I, John, heard this from the Son of Man from the midst of the seven lampstands. Rev. 1:5-13; 22:13, also Matt. 24:30, 31.
[3] I looked again to the east of heaven and the light was growing from the right; the brightness spread into the expanse of sky to the south, and I heard a sweet sound. I asked the angel, ‘What aspect of the Lord are they glorifying there?’ He said it was with these words from Revelation:
I saw a new heaven and a new earth; and I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared like a bride for her husband. And the angel spoke with me and said, Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb. And he carried me away in the spirit onto a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city of Jerusalem. Rev. 21:1, 2, 9, 10.
Also with these words:
I, Jesus, am the bright star of the morning; and the spirit and the bride will say, Come. And he said, I am coming soon. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. Rev. 22:16, 17, 20.
[4] After this and more, I heard a general glorifying from the east of heaven to the west, and also from the south to the north. I asked the angel what this was. He said it was these words from the Prophets:
Let all flesh know that I am Jehovah your Saviour and your Redeemer. Isa. 49:26.
Thus spoke Jehovah, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, Jehovah Zebaoth, I am the first and the last, and there is no God beside me. Isa. 44:6.
On that day it will be said, Behold, this is our God, whom we have waited for to free us. He is Jehovah, whom we have awaited. Isa. 25:9.
The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare the way for Jehovah. Behold, the Lord Jehovih comes in strength. He will feed his flock like a shepherd. Isa. 40:3, 5, 10, 11.
A child is born for us, a son is given to us, whose name is Wonderful, Counsellor, God, Hero, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Isa. 9:6.
Behold the days will come when I shall raise up for David a righteous shoot, who will reign as king. And this is his name, Jehovah our righteousness. Jer. 23:5, 6; 33:15, 16.
Jehovah Zebaoth is his name, and your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. He will be called the God of the whole earth. Isa. 54:5.
On that day Jehovah will become king over the whole earth; on that day Jehovah will be one, and his name one. Zech. 14:9.
When I heard and understood all this, my heart leaped for joy, and I went home rejoicing; and there I came back from the state of the spirit into that of the body, and in this I wrote down what I had seen and heard. To this I can now add the following. Since the Lord’s coming He is reviving conjugial love as it was among the ancient peoples, because that love comes only from the Lord, and is present with those who are under His guidance becoming spiritual by means of the Word.
‘The teachings, ‘ I replied, ‘of the church meant by the New Jerusalem are these:
(i) God is one, in whom is the Divine Trinity, and He is the Lord Jesus Christ.
(ii) Faith leading to salvation is believing in Him.
(iii) Evil actions are to be shunned, because they are the work of the devil and come from him.
(iv) Good actions are to be done, because they are the work of God and come from Him.
(v) A person must perform these actions as if they were his own, but he must believe that they come from the Lord present with him and acting through him.’
[2] On hearing this his fury departed for a few moments. But after pondering for a while, he glowered at me again and said: ‘Are these five commandments what the new church teaches about faith and charity?’ ‘Yes,’ I answered. Then he asked roughly, ‘How can you prove the first point, that God is one , in whom is the Divine Trinity, and He is the Lord Jesus Christ?’ ‘My proof,’ I said, ‘is this. Do you not agree that there is one, undivided God, and a Trinity? If there is one, undivided God, is He not one Person? If He is one Person, is there not a Trinity in that Person? He is the Lord Jesus Christ, as is clear from it being said that He was conceived of God the Father (Luke 1:34,35), and so in soul He was God. It follows from this, as He said, that He and the Father are one (John 10:30); He is in the Father, and the Father is in Him (John 14:10, 11); whoever sees and knows Him, sees and knows the Father (John 14:7, 9); no one sees and knows the Father but He who is in the Father’s bosom (John 1:18); all things of the Father’s are his (John 3:35; 16:15); He is the way, truth and life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him (John 14:6). That means from Him, because He is in Him. Also according to Paul:
All the fulness of the Godhead resides bodily in him. Col. 2:9.
Moreover, He has power over all flesh (John 17:2); and He has all power in heaven and on earth (Matt. 28:18). It follows from this that He is the God of heaven and earth.’
[3] Then he asked how I could prove the second point, that faith leading to salvation is believing in Him. ‘I prove this, ‘ I said, ‘ by the words of the Lord Himself:
This is the Father’s will, that everyone who believes in the Son should have everlasting life. John 6:40.
God so loved the word that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:15, 16.
He who believes in the Son has everlasting life.; but he who does not believe the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains upon him. John 3:36.
[4] Later he said, ‘Prove your third and following points.’ ‘What need is there,’ I answered, ‘to prove that evil actions are to be shunned because they are the work of the devil and come from him? Or that good actions are to be done, because they are the work of God and come from Him? Or that a person ought to do good actions as if they were his own, but to believe that they come from the Lord present with him and working through him? The whole of Holy Scripture from beginning to end is a confirmation of these points. Is there anything else in it, to put it briefly, than shunning evil and doing good actions, and believing in the Lord God? Moreover, there cannot be any religion without these three points. Surely religion is a matter of how one lives; and what is this but shunning evil and doing good actions? How can a person do these things and believe in the Lord God, except as from himself? If therefore you take these things away from the church, you deprive it of the Holy Scriptures and also of religion; and without these it is no longer a church.’
On hearing this the man went off to think about it; but he still departed in an angry mood.
THE DERIVATION OF CONJUGIAL LOVE FROM THE MARRIAGE OF GOOD AND TRUTH
There are both inward and outward sources of conjugial love; the inward ones are many, and so are the outward ones. But there is but one inmost or truly universal source, and this is the marriage of good and truth, as will be proved in the following pages. Up to now no one has traced the origin of this love to that source, because the existence of a union between good and truth has remained a secret. This is because good, unlike truth, cannot be seen by the light of the intellect, so that knowledge of it has been concealed and has escaped research. Since good therefore is an unknown entity, no one could guess that there was a marriage between it and truth.
In fact, on a natural, rational view good seems to be so far removed from truth as to have no connexion with it. This can easily be seen by considering the forms of language we use in speaking about them. When we say ‘This is good,’ we do not have any thought of truth; and when we say ‘This is true,’ we do not have any thought of good. Many people nowadays therefore believe that truth is something totally different from good, and likewise good from truth. Many too believe that if a human being is intelligent and wise, his humanity depends upon the truths he thinks, speaks, writes about and believes, without any reference to his goodness. I shall now explain how good cannot exist without truth, nor truth without good, and in consequence there is a permanent marriage between them, and it is this which is the source of conjugial love. This will be proved in the following series of propositions:
(i) Good and truth are universal principles of creation, and are thus in everything that has been created; but the form of each thing determines their presence in created objects.
(ii) There is no such thing as good in isolation or truth in isolation, but they are everywhere linked.
(iii) There is the truth of good, and from this the good of truth, that is to say, truth coming from good and good from that truth; both of them have a tendency implanted from creation to join themselves into one.
(iv) In the members of the animal kingdom the truth of good, that is, truth coming from good, is male; and from this the good of truth, that is, the good coming from that truth, is female.
(v) The influence of the marriage of good and truth coming from the Lord produces sexual love and also conjugial love.
(vi) Sexual love belongs to the outward or natural person, and consequently is shared by all animals.
(vii) Conjugial love belongs to the inward or spiritual person, and consequently is peculiar to human beings.
(viii) In a human being conjugial love is in sexual love, like a gem in its native rock.
(ix) Sexual love in a human being is not the source of conjugial love, but is its first phase, being as it were the natural exterior in which the spiritual interior is implanted.
(x) When conjugial love has been implanted, sexual love turns upside down and becomes chaste sexual love.
(xi) Male and female were created to be a true likeness of the marriage of good and truth.
(xii) They are this likeness at the inmost levels, and the likeness ascends from these to the following levels, as the interiors of the mind are opened up.
An explanation of these points now follows.
Good and truth are universal principles of creation because these two are present in the Lord God the Creator; in fact, they are God, for He is Divine good itself and Divine truth itself. But it falls more clearly into the grasp of the intellect, and so into the concepts of thought, if love is substituted for good and wisdom for truth. That is to say, in the Lord God the Creator there are Divine love and Divine wisdom, and these are God, that is, He is love itself and wisdom itself. For these two are the same as good and truth. This is because good has to do with love, and truth with wisdom, since love is composed of kinds of good, and wisdom of kinds of truth. As these two are one and the same, in the following pages now one and now the other will be named, but they are to be understood as having the same meaning. This preliminary caution is inserted here, to prevent the intellect thinking that different things are meant where they are mentioned in what follows.
It is as a result of this that good and truth are called universal principles of creation. Anyone who uses his reason to study this can see that it is plainly so; he can see in everything created what has reference to good and what has reference to truth.
There are various possible examples of how the form of an object determines how it receives influences; for instance, the way vegetation of all kinds receives heat and light radiated by the sun. Any plant receives radiation in the way its form prescribes; every tree in its own way, every shrub in its, every plant and grass in its. The radiation reaching them all is the same, but the way it is received, being dictated by the form, ensures that each species remains true to itself. The same idea can be exemplified by radiation reaching every animal in a way dependent on its form. Even a peasant can see that form determines the force acting on it, if he listens to the various musical instruments, pipes, flutes, trumpets, horns and organs, which all make sounds appropriate to their forms as a result of a similar input of breath or air.
Anyone wishing to gain from any phrase an idea of good is unable to find one except with some addition which presents and displays it. Without this good is a nameless entity. That which presents and displays it has reference to truth. If you say ‘good’ by itself, and not something or other connected with it, or if you define it in the abstract with no additional phrase attached, you will see that it is not anything, but it is when it has something added. If you can sharpen your powers of reasoning enough, you will grasp that good with no additional phrase cannot have anything predicated of it, and so cannot refer to anything, arouse any emotion, or represent any state; in short, it lacks any quality. It is the same with truth, if you hear the word used without anything connected with it. An acute reason can see that what is connected with it has reference to good.
[2] But since there are countless kinds of good, and each of them rises to its maximum and falls to its minimum as if on the rungs of a ladder; and since it changes its name as it advances or varies in quality, it is difficult for any but the wise to see what relation good and truth have to things or how they are combined in them. However, it is obvious from what is generally perceived that good cannot exist without truth, or truth without good, as soon as it is recognised that every detail of the universe has reference to good and truth, as was shown in the preceding sections (84, 85).
[3] Various things can be used to illustrate and prove that neither good nor truth can exist in isolation. For instance, essence cannot exist without form, nor form without essence; and good is the essence or being, and truth is that by means of which essence is formed and its being comes into existence. Again, man is endowed with will and intellect; good is a matter of will, truth of intellect, and the will cannot do anything except by means of the intellect, nor can the intellect by itself except as a result of the will. Again, there are two sources of life in man, the heart and the lungs. The heart cannot give rise to any sensation or movement we call life without respiration by the lungs, nor can the lungs without the heart. The heart has reference to good, the respiration of the lungs to truth; and this too is their correspondence.
[4] It is the same in every detail of the mind and in every detail of the human body. But I have not space here to adduce further proofs. All these points can be seen more fully proved in my THE WISDOM OF THE ANGELS ABOUT DIVINE PROVIDENCE (3-26), where they are set out in the following order:
(i) The universe with everything in it is the product of Divine love by means of Divine wisdom, or, what is the same, of Divine good by means of Divine truth.
(ii) Divine good and Divine truth proceed from the Lord as a single entity.
(iii) Some kind of likeness of this single entity is present in every created thing.
(iv) Good is not good except in so far as it is united with truth, and truth is not truth except in so far as it is united with good.
(v) The Lord does not allow any division, so that a person must either be in a state of good and at the same time truth, or he must be in a state of evil and at the same time falsity.
There is more there besides.
Some idea of the distinction between these two must be gained, because knowledge of the essential source of conjugial love depends upon it. For the truth of good, that is, truth from good, is, as will be shown in what follows [90, 91], male; and the good of truth, that is the good from that truth, is female. But the distinction can be better grasped, if love is substituted for good and wisdom for truth. These are one and the same (see 84 above). The only way wisdom can come into existence for a person is by means of the love of being wise. If this love is taken away, there is no way the person can be wise. It is wisdom arising from this love which is meant by the truth of good, or truth coming from good. But when a person has as a result of that love acquired wisdom, and loves wisdom in himself, that is, loves himself for his wisdom, then he forms a love, which is the love of wisdom and is meant by the good of truth, or good coming from that truth.
[2] A man therefore possesses two loves. One, which comes first, is the love of being wise, and the other, which comes later, is the love of wisdom. But if this second love remains with a man, it is a wicked love, called pride in or love of one’s own intelligence. It will be proved in the following pages that it has been provided from creation that, to prevent this love being his ruin, it was taken from the man and copied into the woman, so becoming conjugial love which makes him whole again. Some remarks about these two loves and the copying of the latter one into the woman may be seen in 32, 33 above, and in the Preliminaries, 20. If therefore we understand for love good and for wisdom truth, then it is proved by what has been said that there is truth of good, that is, truth coming from good, and from this the good of truth, that is good coming from that truth.
It was shown above (84-86) that there is a perpetual influence from the Lord, the Creator and Upholder of the universe, seeking to bring about a union of love and wisdom, or a marriage of good and truth, and that created beings receive it, each in accordance with its own form. However, these further points remain to be shown. The male receives from this marriage or union the truth of wisdom, and the more he receives this, the more is the good of love linked with it by the Lord. This is received in the intellect, and consequently the male is by birth destined to become intellectual. These points can be seen even by reason’s own light from various aspects of the male, in particular from his affection, interest, behaviour and form.
[2] They can be seen from the affection of the male being an affection for knowing, understanding and being wise. In childhood there is an affection for knowing, in adolescence and early adulthood an affection for understanding, and from this point to old age an affection for being wise. It is obvious from this that the nature or character of the male tends to the formation of the intellect, so that as a result he is by birth destined to become intellectual. But this cannot happen except as the result of love; so therefore the Lord gives this in addition in proportion to his reception, that is, his willingness to be wise.
[3] They can be seen from the interest of the male, which is directed towards intellectual matters, that is, those in which the intellect plays the leading role; most of these concern public matters and have in view services to the community. They can be seen from the behaviour of the male, which is totally dominated by the leading role of the intellect. As a result every act in his life, which is what is meant by behaviour, is rational; or, if not, he would like them to look rational. The rationality of the male is visible too in every one of his excellences. They may be seen from the form of the male, which is quite different and distinct from the female form; see also what was said above (33). An additonal point is the fact that the reproductive faculty belongs to the male. This is from no other source than the intellect, since it is produced by the truth in it coming from good. It will be seen in the following pages that this is the source of the reproductive faculty.*
* This is in agreement with the general belief of the 18th century, that reproduction was exclusively the prerogative of the male, the female contributing only the means of the development and birth of the foetus.
It has been shown above (84-87) that good and truth are universal principles of creation, and are thus present in all created things, in each case in a way depending on their form; and also that good and truth proceed from the Lord not as two, but as one. It follows from these premises that there is a universal sphere of marriage which proceeds from the Lord, pervading the universe from first to last, and so from angels right down to worms. The reason such a sphere of the marriage of good and truth proceeds from the Lord is that it is equally a sphere of propagation, that is, of reproduction and fruitfulness; and this is the same as the Divine providence which keeps the universe in being by a succession of generations.
Now since that universal sphere, marrying good and truth, influences things that receive it in accordance with their form (see 86), it follows that the male receives it in accordance with his own form, that is, in his intellect, since he is an intellectual form. The female too receives it in accordance with her own form, that is, in her will, since she is a form of will arising from her husband’s intellect. Since this same sphere is also a reproductive sphere, it follows that this is the source of sexual love.
Everyone is by birth immersed in bodily concerns, and becomes more and more inwardly natural. His love of intelligence makes him rational, and later, if he has a love of wisdom, he becomes spiritual. I shall discuss later on (130) what the wisdom is which makes a person spiritual. Now as a person progresses from knowledge to intelligence, and from this to wisdom, so too his mind undergoes a change of form, becoming more and more open and more closely linked with heaven, and through heaven with the Lord. This makes him more fond of truth and more keen to live a good life. So if he stops at the first threshold in his progress towards wisdom, his mind retains a natural form, and this receives the influence of the universal sphere, that of the marriage of good and truth, in exactly the same way as the lower members of the animal kingdom, what we call animals and birds. These are utterly natural, and so the person becomes like them, and shares with them the same sexual love. This is what is meant by saying that sexual love belongs to the outward or natural person and is consequently shared with all animals.
Conjugial love belongs to the inward or spiritual person, because the more intelligent and wise, the more inward and spiritual he becomes. The more perfect too the form of his mind becomes, and this is the form which receives conjugial love. For in this it perceives and feels spiritual pleasure, which is what makes one inwardly blessed, and is the source of natural pleasure, which derives its soul, life and essence from it.
Since this is merely a comparison, its explanation can be deferred to the next section. It will also illustrate the point that sexual love belongs to the outward or natural person, but conjugial love to the inward or spiritual person (as was proved just above in 95).
I am speaking here of truly conjugial love, not the common kind of love which is also called conjugial* love, and in some cases is nothing but a restricted sexual love. Truly conjugial love is only to be found among those who have a thirst for wisdom, and so advance further and further towards it. The Lord sees them beforehand and provides them with conjugial love. This love of theirs certainly begins with sexual love or rather begins by way of sexual love; but this is not its source. It grows as the person’s wisdom steps forward and comes to light; for wisdom and conjugial love are inseparable companions.
[2] The reason why conjugial love begins with sexual love is that, before a partner is found, there is a generalised love and aimiable disposition towards the other sex. Social custom also plays a part in it. For the young man is free to choose, and as a result of the innate inclination towards marriage with one woman, which lurks in the depths of his mind, his exterior is aroused to welcome warmth. A final resolution on marriage is put off for various reasons until he is well into adulthood, and meanwhile the beginning of this love resembles lust, which in some cases actually turns into sexual love; still in these cases restraint is not relaxed beyond the point up to which indulgence is conducive to health. These remarks apply to the male sex. since this is subject to an enticement which produces genuine passion; but they do not apply to the female sex.
These considerations make it plain that sexual love is not the source of truly conjugial love, but is its first stage in time, but not first as an objective. That which is the first objective comes first in the mind and intention, because it plays the leading role. But this first objective is approached by a succession of intermediate stages. These are not essentially first objectives, but merely means which promote the realisation of what is in itself the first objective.
* The word ‘also’ seems to prove that conjugalis is here a misprint for conjugialis, the form consistently employed by the author. If not, it might be here translated ‘married love.’
Sexual love is then said to turn upside down, because when conjugial love reaches its source, located in the inner levels of the mind, it sees sexual love not in front of but behind itself, or not above but below itself, and thus as something it left behind as it passed. This is like what happens when anyone has risen from one post to another until he reaches a position of the highest rank, and then looks back at the posts below him through which he has passed. Or when anyone has in mind a journey abroad to visit a king’s court, and after his arrival turns his gaze back to what he saw on the way. In these circumstances sexual love lasts, becoming chaste, yet sweeter than before to those who have truly conjugial love. This can be seen from the way it is described by people in the spiritual world in the two accounts of experiences there (44, 55).
This is because the male was created to be the understanding of truth, and so a model of truth; and woman was created to be the willing of good, and so a model of good. Each had implanted at the inmost level a tendency to become joined into one (see 88 above). So the two of them make up a single model, which imitates the model of the marriage of good and truth. The term ‘imitates’ is used because it is not the same, but resembles it. For the good which links itself with truth in the man comes directly from the Lord; but the wife’s good, which links itself with truth in the man, comes to him indirectly from the Lord by way of the wife. There are, therefore, two kinds of love, one inward, one outward, which link themselves with truth in the husband. These ensure that the husband remains constantly able to understand truth, and so by means of truly conjugial love to be wise. But this will be discussed further in the following pages.
Every person is composed of three elements arranged in order: soul, mind and body. The inmost is the soul, the middle the mind, the outermost the body. All influences coming from the Lord enter at the inmost level, the soul, and from there come down to the middle one, the mind, and through this reach the outermost one, the body. This is how the marriage of good and truth coming from the Lord influences a person. There is a direct influence on the soul, and this passes on to the following level, by way of which it reaches the outermost; and these working together make up conjugial love. It is plain from this concept of how influence is felt that a married couple is a model of this at the inmost level, and so also in the following ones.
The wisdom which forms this model and receives this love is rational, and at the same time moral, wisdom. Rational wisdom looks on the kinds of truth and good to be seen inwardly present in a person, not as its own, but as flowing in from the Lord. Moral wisdom shuns the evils and falsities which sully conjugial love, especially lewdness, as it would leprosy.
* * * * *
One morning before sunrise I looked towards the east in the spiritual world, and saw four horsemen as it were flying out of a cloud shining with the flaming light of dawn. On the horsemen’s heads were to be seen helmets with raised brims, on their arms what looked like wings, and about their bodies tunics of orange colour. Then, dressed as racers, they rose in their stirrups, stretching the reins above the manes of the horses, which galloped as if they had wings on their feet. I followed with my eyes their course, or rather flight, with the idea of discovering where they were going; and I saw three of the horsemen spread out towards three points of the compass, south, west and north, while the fourth after a short distance stopped in the east.
[2] Wondering at this I looked up to heaven and asked where the horsemen were going. I got this reply: ‘They are to be sent to the wise men in the various kingdoms of Europe, who in making judgments are skilled in reasoning and sharp-witted, and who have achieved distinction in their own countries for their intellectual abilities. They are summoned to come and resolve the problem of the source of conjugial love, and its strength or potency.’
I was told from heaven, ‘Wait a little and you will see twenty-seven chariots; three containing Spaniards, three Frenchmen, three Italians, three Germans, three Dutchmen, three Englishmen, three Swedes, three Danes and three Poles.’ Two hours later the chariots came into view pulled by dun-coloured ponies with elaborate harness. They sped towards a commodious building to be seen on the border between the east and the south. All the travellers in the chariots dismounted around this, and entered it in high spirits.
[3] Then I was told, ‘You too may go and enter, so that you can listen.’ So I went and passed inside. When I surveyed the interior of the building, I observed that it was square, each side looking out towards a compass-point. On each side there were three lofty windows filled with clear glass, the frames being of olive-wood. On either side of the window-frames there were projections from the walls forming as it were rooms with vaulted ceilings, and containing tables. The walls of these rooms were of cedar-wood, the ceilings of fine citron-wood, the floors of planks of poplar. On the east wall, where no windows were to be seen, was placed a table overlaid with gold, on which lay a headdress studded with precious stones, to be given as a reward or prize to the one who solved the problem that was to be set.
[4] As I let my gaze rove around the vaulted projections, which were like rooms next to the windows, I saw in each five men from each of the kingdoms of Europe, waiting ready to deal with the subject submitted to their judgment. Then all at once an angel took his place in the middle of the hall and said, ‘The subject for you to judge will be the source of conjugial love, and of its strength or potency. Discuss this and come to a conclusion, When you have decided on your opinion, write it on a piece of paper and put this in the silver urn which you see placed next to the golden table. Sign the paper with the initial letter of your kingdom, F for France, B for Holland, I for Italy, A for England, P for Poland, G for Germany, H for Spain, D for Denmark and S for Sweden.’* After saying this the angel left, promising to return.
Then the five representatives in each chamber by a window discussed this decree, investigated it, and reached a decision to the best of their powers of judgment. This they wrote on papers signed with the initial letter of their kingdom, and placed them in the silver container. After three hours the angel came back and, taking the papers in sequence from the urn, read them to the assembled company.
* These letters represent the initials of the Latin form of the name of the countries.
‘We, the five representatives in our chamber, have decided that conjugial love originated with the most ancient people of the golden age, and from the creation of Adam and his wife among them. This is the origin of marriage, and together with marriage of conjugial love. As regards the strength or potency of conjugial love, we see no other source for it than the climate or situation with reference to the sun, and as a result the heat experienced on earth. We have arrived at this opinion, not from any empty notions we have thought up, but from clear observations we have made; for instance, by studying the peoples living in the tropical zone, where the heat of the day is almost burning, and peoples living nearer to or further away from that zone. We also deduce this from the way the heat of the sun works together with vital heat in earth-bound animals and in the birds of the heavens, when they breed in springtime. Moreover, is conjugial love anything but heat, which with the additional help of the sun becomes strength or potency?’ This was signed H, the initial of the [Spanish] kingdom from which they came.
‘We, the representatives in our meeting, have agreed that the source of conjugial love is the same as that of marriage. This has been established by law in order to restrain human beings’ inbred lust for adultery, which destroys their souls, poisons their rational minds, debases their behaviour, and blights their bodies with sickness. For adultery is the conduct of wild beasts, not human beings, of brutes, not rational beings, and so of barbarians, not Christians. Marriage grew up because such conduct was dangerous, and conjugial love developed together with it.
‘It is much the same with the strength or potency of this love. This depends on chastity, which is abstaining from indiscriminate fornication. This is because the strength or potency in the case of a man who loves only his wife is restricted to one woman, and is therefore gathered together and, so to speak, concentrated. This ennobles it and makes it quintessential by removing the impurities, but it would otherwise be dispersed and scattered in all directions. One of us five who is a priest also brought in predestination as a cause of this strength or potency. “Are not marriages,” he said, “predestined? And if they are, so is the begetting of children and the means which effect this.” He insisted on this reason, because he had taken an oath on it.’ This paper was signed with the letter B [for Holland].
On hearing this someone said in a mocking tone ‘Predestination! That’s a pretty excuse for inability or impotence.’
‘We, the representatives in our cell, have debated the reasons for the development of conjugial love, and have observed that the leading one is its identity with the development of marriage, since this love had not before come into existence. It did so, because when someone is dying [of love],* that is, is desperately in love with a girl, he wants with all his heart and soul to possess her, as the most attractive of all properties. As soon as she pledges herself, he looks on her as one looks upon oneself. It is quite plain that this is the source of conjugial love from the frenzy each lover displays against his rivals, and his jealousy towards any who violate his love.
‘Afterwards we debated the source of the strength or potency of that love, and the verdict by a majority of three to two was that strength or potency with a wife was the result of some licence with the other sex. They said they knew from experience that the potency of sexual love was stronger than that of conjugial love.’ This paper was signed with the letter I.
On hearing this there was a cry from the tables, ‘Take this paper away, and draw another from the urn.’
* It has been suggested that perit ‘is dying’ is here a printer’s error for petit ‘is seeking’, but this is unnecessary.
‘We, the representatives under our window, have decided that conjugial love and sexual love share the same source, since conjugial love is the result of sexual love. The only difference is that sexual love is unrestricted, unbounded, free, promiscuous and inconstant; conjugial love is restricted, bounded, restrained, fixed and constant. This love has therefore been sanctioned and established by the prudence of human wisdom, because there would otherwise be no empires, kingdoms or republics, or even any communities at all. People would roam the countryside and forests in hordes with their trollops and women they had carried off, moving from one place to another to avoid bloody slaughter, rape and pillage, which would have wiped out the whole of the human race. This is our judgment about the source of conjugial love.
‘We trace the strength or potency of conjugial love to the continuous preservation of bodily health from birth to old age. For a person who is continually safe and sound, with established good health, suffers no lack of vigour. His fibres, sinews and muscles, including those which control the testicles, do not become dull, relaxed and flagging, but retain their full strength and ability. Adieu.’ This paper was signed with the latter A [for England].
‘We, the representatives at our table, have employed the rational faculty of our minds to look into the source of conjugial love and that of its strength or potency. Having taken an all-round look at the reasons, we have seen and proved that the only source is the fact that everyone as a result of the stimuli and their prodding which lie concealed in the depths of his mind and body finds his eyes leading him to varying lusts, but eventually he concentrates and shapes his mind towards one member of the female sex, until his passion for her grows hot. From this time on his heat develops a series of flames, until it becomes a fire. In that state sexual lust departs and the place of lust is taken by conjugial love. When the young bridegroom is hot with this fire, he is unaware that the strength or potency of that love will ever fade, since he lacks the experience which could teach him about the way its strength declines and love cools off after achieving its delights. The source of conjugial love therefore is from that first ardour which precedes marriage, and this is also the source of its strength or potency. But after the wedding there is a change in his potency, and it increases and decreases in turn. But it still lasts until old age, decreasing and increasing in a constant rhythm, because it is controlled by prudence and the lusts are checked which burst out of the as yet unpurified caverns of the mind. For lust is the forerunner of wisdom. This is our judgment about the source and persistence of marital strength or potency.’ This paper was signed with the letter P.
‘We, the representatives in our group, have looked around for causes which give rise to conjugial love and have agreed on two. One of these is the correct upbringing of children, the other is the clearly defined possession of inheritances. We have selected these two causes, because they aim at and have regard to a single target, the public good. This is achieved, because children conceived and born as the result of conjugial love are proper and true to their breeding; and a result of the enhanced parental love engendered by their legitimacy they are brought up to inherit all their parents’ possessions, spiritual as well as natural. Reason can see that the public good is founded on the correct upbringing of children and the clearly defined possession of inheritances.
‘There is sexual love and there is conjugial love. The second may look as if it were identical with the first, but it is quite clearly different. Nor is one alongside the other; one is inside the other, and what is inside excels in nobility what is outside. We have observed that conjugial love is from creation inside and hidden in sexual love, just like an almond in its shell. So when conjugial love is laid bare of its shell, sexual love, it shines in the sight of angels like such gems as beryl or moonstone. The reason for this is that conjugial love has been labelled the preservation of the whole human race, which is what we mean by the public good. This is our judgment about the source of this love.
‘However, after debating the causes of its strength or potency, we have come to the conclusion that this is due to the laying bare and separation of conjugial love from sexual love. This results from wisdom on the part of the husband, and the love of her husband’s wisdom on the part of the wife. For sexual love is shared with animals, but conjugial love is peculiar to human beings. So a man is a man and not an animal, to the extent that conjugial love is bared and separated from sexual love. It is his love which allows a person to acquire his strength or potency, and it is love which gives an animal its.’ This paper was signed with the letter G.
‘We, the representatives in the room under the light of our window, have been much cheered in thinking and passing our judgments by meditating on conjugial love. Surely everyone is cheered by it; for when we have that love in our minds, it pervades at the same time the whole of our bodies. Our judgment is that the source of this love is from its pleasures. Does anyone know or has anyone ever known a trace of any love except from the pleasure and gratification it gives? The pleasures of conjugial love are experienced in its beginnings as blessedness, bliss and happiness; and as it progresses as loveliness and gratifications, and at the lowest level as the supreme delight. So sexual love arises as the interior of the mind, and so the interior of the body, is opened up, as those pleasures flood in. But conjugial love then arose when the earliest sphere of that love conceptually advanced those pleasures by starting formal engagements.
‘As regards the strength or potency of that love, this is the product of that love’s ability to penetrate, carrying its influence from the mind into the body. For the mind, when feeling and acting, leaves the head for the body, and especially when experiencing the delights of that love. We judge that to be the source of the degrees of potency and the regularity of its alternations. In addition, we think the strength of potency depends on breeding. If that is exceptional in the father, it is equally so in the offspring who inherit it. Reason combined with experience demands that it is inheritance which produces, passes on and transmits such excellence.’ This paper was signed with the letter F.
‘We, the representatives in our meeting, have not discovered the ultimate source of conjugial love, because it lies too deeply hidden in the inmost recesses of the mind. Even the most masterly wisdom cannot cast a ray of light on that love at its source. We have made many conjectures, but having to no purpose debated its subtleties, we do not know whether our guesses are trifles or sound judgments. Anyone therefore wishing to extract the source of that love from the inmost recesses of the mind and present it to view is advised to resort to the Delphic oracle.
‘We have thought about that love below its source as being a spiritual movement in people’s minds, resembling there a spring of sweet water, from where it flows down into the breast, becoming there pleasant and being called bosom-love. This regarded in itself is full of friendship and full of trust, as a result of an unqualified mutual propensity. On passing through the breast it turns into fervent love. When a young man ponders such things in his thoughts, as he does when he chooses for himself one in particular of the opposite sex, the fire of conjugial love is lighted in his heart; and since this fire is the first sign of that love, it is its source.
‘We cannot make out any other source for its strength or potency than the love itself, since these are inseparable companions, but of such a nature that sometimes one takes precedence and sometimes the other. When love takes precedence, and its strength or potency follows, both are noble, because potency is then the strength of conjugial love. But if potency takes precedence and love follows, then both are ignoble, because love is then the result of carnal potency. We therefore judge the quality of either to be dependent upon the order in which loves comes down or goes up, thus advancing from its source to its goal.’ This paper was signed with the letter D.
‘We, the representatives in our committee, have submitted to our judgment the two subjects set before us, the source of conjugial love and the source of its strength or potency. When we engaged in subtle discussions about the source of conjugial love, to avoid obscurity in our reasoning we made a distinction between spiritual, natural and carnal sexual love. By spiritual sexual love we mean truly conjugial love, since this is spiritual. By natural sexual love we mean polygamous love, since this is natural. And by wholly carnal sexual love we mean scortatory love, since this is wholly carnal. When we applied our most penetrating judgment to conjugial love, we realised that this is only possible between one male and one female, and it is from creation heavenly and inmost, the soul and father of all good loves; it was breathed into our first forefathers, and can be breathed into Christians. Moreover, its uniting power is so great that it can make two minds into one, and two persons as it were one person; this is what is meant by their becoming one flesh. The Book of Creation shows plainly that this love was breathed in from creation:
And a man shall leave his father and mother, and cling to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. Gen. 2:24.
It is clear that this love can be breathed into Christians from the following passage:
Jesus said, Have you not read that the Maker from the beginning made them male and female? Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and the two of them shall become one flesh; so henceforth they are two, not one flesh. Matt. 19:4-6.
This is said of the source of conjugial love.
‘We suggest that the source of the strength or potency of truly conjugial love arises from similarity of minds and unanimity. For when two minds are joined in wedlock, these thoughts spiritually kiss each other, and there breathe into their bodies their strength or potency.’ This paper was signed with the letter S.
Then one of them came right in and stood by the table on which the headdress was placed. ‘You Christians,’ he said, ‘trace the source of conjugial love to the love itself; but we Africans trace it to the God of heaven and earth. Is not conjugial love a chaste, pure and holy love? Do not the angels in heaven possess it? Is not the whole human race, and so the whole heaven of angels, the seed of that love? Surely something of such surpassing excellence cannot come into being from any source other than God Himself, the Creator and Upholder of the universe. You Christians trace the strength or potency of marriage to various rational and natural causes; but we Africans trace it to the way human beings are linked with the God of the universe. We call this the state of religion, but you the state of the church. For when love comes from this source, and it is firm and perpetual, it cannot help making its strength which resembles it also firm and perpetual. Truly conjugial love is unknown except to those few who are close to God. So no more is the potency of that love known to others; but this potency together with that love is described by angels in the heavens as the delight of a perpetual springtime.’
In the middle of the night I was awakened from sleep and saw, fairly high up towards the east, an angel holding in his right hand a paper, which shone brilliantly in the light of the sun. There was something written at its centre in letters of gold. I could make out what was written as The Marriage of Good and Truth. The writing shone so brightly it spread in a circle far around. The circle or halo looked like the dawn when it appears in springtime.
Afterwards I saw the angel with the paper in his hand coming down. And as he came the paper shone less and less, and the writing on it, The Marriage of Good and Truth, changed from a golden to a silver colour, then to the colour of copper, and then to that of iron, finally to those of iron rust and verdigris. At the last stage the angel was seen entering a dark cloud, and passing through this to reach the ground. There the paper, although it was still held in the angel’s hand, was no longer visible. This took place in the world of spirits, where all people are first gathered after death.
[2] Then the angel addressed me and said, ‘Ask those who come here whether they can see me or anything in my hand.’ A large crowd came, one group from the east, another from the south, another from the west and another from the north. I asked those coming from the east and the south, who were those who in the world had devoted themselves to learning, whether they could see anyone present with me and anything in his hand. They all said that they could see nothing at all.
Then I asked those who had come from the west and north, who were those who in the world had believed what learned men told them. These said that neither could they see anything. However, the last of these, who in the world had had a simple faith based on charity, that is to say, who had some degree of truth coming from good, said, when the previous group had gone away, that they could see a man with a paper. The man was smartly dressed and the paper had writing on it. When they looked closer, they said they could read, The Marriage of Good and Truth; and they addressed the angel asking him to tell them what it meant.
[3] He said that everything throughout the whole of heaven and everything throughout the whole world is nothing but a marriage of good and truth, since every one of them, both those that live and breathe, as well as those that do not, have been created from the marriage of good and truth, and so as to make this marriage. ‘There is,’ he said, ‘nothing created to be truth alone, nor to be good alone; isolated good and isolated truth are nothing, but by that marriage they come into being and become such as is the marriage. In the Lord the Creator Divine good and Divine truth exist in their real substance; Divine good is the being of that substance, Divine truth is its coming-into-being. Its substance is also their actual union, for in Him they are infinitely one. Since the two are one in the Creator Himself, they are therefore one also in every single thing created by Him; and by this the Creator is linked in an everlasting covenant, like that of marriage, with all of His creations.’
[4] The angel went on to say that the Holy Scripture which came forth directly from the Lord is both in general and in detail a marriage of good and truth. Since the church, which is formed by the truth of its teaching, and religion, which is formed by goodness of life in accordance with the truth of teaching, are among Christians solely derived from Holy Scripture, it is evident that the church is in general and in detail a marriage of good and truth. (This may be seen in THE APOCALYPSE REVEALED 373, 483.) What has just been said about the marriage of good and truth applies in the same way to what can be said about the marriage of charity and faith, since good belongs to charity and truth to faith.
Some of the earlier groups who had not seen the angel and the writing were still standing close by, and on hearing this said in a low voice, ‘Yes, that is so; we understand.’ But then the angel said to them, ‘Turn a little away from me, and say the same.’ They turned away and said out loud, ‘No, that is not so.’
[5] After this the angel talked about the Marriage of Good and Truth among married couples. He said that if their minds were so married, the husband being truth and the wife the good of that truth, they would both enjoy the delights of blessed innocence, and so the happiness angels have in heaven. In this state the husband’s reproductive powers would be constantly as in the springtime of life, and so striving and succeeding in propagating his own truth; and his wife’s love would make her constantly receptive of his truth. ‘The wisdom the Lord gives to men finds no greater pleasure than in propagating its truths. And the love of wisdom that wives have in these circumstances finds nothing more welcome than to receive them, so to speak, in their womb, and so to conceive, carry and bring them to birth. This is what having spiritual children is like for the angels of heaven; and if you are prepared to believe it, this is the source from which natural children too come.’
The angel gave a greeting of peace and left the ground; and as he was carried through the cloud and rose into heaven, then the paper began to shine as before at each stage of the ascent. Then suddenly the circle of rays, which previously looked like the dawn, came down and scattered the cloud which had darkened the earth, and it became sunny.
THE MARRIAGE OF THE LORD AND THE CHURCH, AND ITS CORRESPONDENCE
The reason for including at this point a discussion of the marriage of the Lord and the church is that, without a knowledge and understanding of this, hardly anyone can know that conjugial love is in origin holy, spiritual and celestial, and that it comes from the Lord. There are of course those in the church who assert that marriages have some relationship with the Lord’s marriage with the church, but without knowing what is the nature of that relationship. In order, therefore, to cast some intellectual light on these matters, it is necessary to deal in detail with that holy marriage experienced by and in those who make up the Lord’s church. It is these and no others who have truly conjugial love. But in order to elucidate this secret, the discussion must be split into sections as follows.
(i) In the Word the Lord is called bridegroom and husband, and the church is called bride and wife. The linking of the Lord with the church, and the reciprocal linking of the church with the Lord, is called a marriage.
(ii) The Lord is also called father and the church mother.
(iii) The offspring of the Lord as father and of the church as wife and mother are all spiritual, and in the spiritual sense of the Word these are meant by sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, sons-in-law and daughters-in-law and other terms of relationship.
(iv) The spiritual offspring born of the Lord’s marriage with the church are truths, the source of understanding, perception and every thought, and good deeds, the source of love, charity and every affection.
(v) From the marriage of good and truth proceeding and flowing in from the Lord a person receives truth, to which the Lord links good. This is how the church with a person is formed by the Lord.
(vi) The husband does not represent the Lord and his wife the church, because they both together, husband and wife, make up the church.
(vii) Therefore there is no correspondence of the husband with the Lord and of the wife with the church in angelic marriages in the heavens or in those of human beings on earth.
(viii) There is, however, a correspondence with conjugial love, the planting of seed and reproduction, the love of children and similar matters which arise in and from marriages.
(ix) The Word is a means of linking because it is from the Lord and thus is the Lord.
(x) The church is from the Lord, and is present with those who approach Him and live in accordance with His commandments.
(xi) Conjugial love depends on the state of the church, because it depends on the state of wisdom a person possesses.
(xii) Since the church is from the Lord, so too is conjugial love from Him.
There now follows an explanation of these points.
It is evident from the following passages that in the Word the Lord is called bridegroom and husband, and the church bride and wife.
He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the bridegroom’s friend is he who stands and listens to him, and rejoices with joy at the bridegroom’s voice. John 3:29.
This was said about the Lord by John the Baptist.
Jesus said, So long as the bridegroom is with them, the children of the wedding cannot fast.* The days are coming when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast. Matt. 9:15; Mark 2:19, 20; Luke 5:34, 35.
I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. Rev. 21:2.
The New Jerusalem means the Lord’s new church (see THE APOCALYPSE REVEALED 880, 881).
The angel said to John, Come and I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb. And he showed him the holy city of Jerusalem. Rev. 21:9, 10.
The time of the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his wife has prepared herself. Blessed are those who are summoned to the wedding feast of the Lamb. Rev. 19:7, 9.
The bridegroom, who was met on the way by the five maidens who were ready, and with whom they went into the wedding (Matt. 25:1-10), means the Lord, as is plain from verse 13 where it is said:
Keep awake therefore, because you do not know the day or the hour at which the Son of Man is to come. [Matt. 25:13]
There are besides many passages in the Prophets.
* The Greek of Matthew says ‘cannot mourn’.
It is evident that the Lord is called father from these passages.
A child is born to us, a son is given to us, and his name will be called Wonderful, Counsellor, God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace. Isa. 9:6.
You, Jehovah, are our Father, your name is the Redeemer from of old. Isa. 63:16.
Jesus said, He who sees me sees the Father who sent me. John 12:45.
If you knew me, you knew also my father; and henceforth you have known and seen him. John 14:7.
Philip said, Show us the Father. Jesus said to him, He who has seen me has seen the Father; how then can you say, Show us the Father? John 14:8, 9.
Jesus said, the Father and I are one. John 10:30.
All that the Father has is mine. John 16:15; 17:10.
The Father is in me, and I am in the Father. John 10:38; 14:10, 11, 20.
It was fully shown in THE APOCALYPSE REVEALED that the Lord and His Father are one, just as soul and body are one; that God the Father came down from heaven and took upon Himself human form in order to redeem and save mankind, and His human form is what is called the Son who was sent into the world.
Jehovah said, Strive with your mother; she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. Hosea 2:2, 5.
You are your mother’s daughter, a mother who loathes her husband. Ezek. 16:45.
Where is the divorce document of your mother, whom you* have sent away? Isa. 50:1.
Your mother is like a vine planted close to water and fruitful. Ezek. 19:10.
These refer to the Jewish church.
Jesus stretching out his hand to the disciples said, My mother and my brothers are those who listen to God’s word and do it. Luke 8:21; Matt. 12:48, 49; Mark 3:33-35.
The Lord’s disciples mean the church.
His mother was standing by Jesus’ cross; and Jesus, seeing his mother and the disciple he loved standing by, says to his mother, Lady, here is your son; and he says to the disciple, Here is your mother. So from that hour the disciple took her as his own mother. John 19:25-27.
This passage means that the Lord did not recognise Mary as His mother, but the church; so He called her ‘Lady’ and the disciple’s mother. The reason why she was called the mother of this disciple, that is, of John, is that he represented the church as regards the good deeds of charity; these are the church in its real action. That too is the reason why he took her as his own mother. It can be seen in THE APOCALYPSE REVEALED (5, 6, 790, 798, 879) that Peter represented truth and faith, James charity and John the works of charity; and the twelve disciples together represented the church in all respects (233, 790, 903, 915).
* Elsewhere, as AC 5886:2, TCR 306, this verse is quoted as ‘whom I have sent away.’
There is no need to prove that no other offspring is born to the Lord by means of the church, because it is plain for reason to see without proof. For it is the Lord from whom all good and truth comes forth, and the church which receives them and puts them to use. All spiritual things in heaven and the church have reference to good and truth. Hence ‘sons and daughters’ in the spiritual sense of the Word mean kinds of truth and goodness; ‘sons’ mean truths conceived in the spiritual man and born in the natural man, ‘daughters’ likewise kinds of goodness. Those therefore who are regenerated by the Lord are called in the Word ‘sons of God,’ ‘sons of the kingdom,’ and ‘born of Him’; and the Lord called his disciples ‘sons’. The ‘male child’ which the woman gave birth to, and which was snatched up to God (Rev. 12:5) has the same meaning (see THE APOCALYPSE REVEALED 543). It is because ‘daughters’ mean the church’s good deeds that the Word so frequently speaks of ‘the daughter of Zion,’ ‘of Jerusalem’, ‘of Israel’ and ‘of Judah.’ These do not mean anyone’s daughter, but the affection for good which the church has (see THE APOCALYPSE REVEALED 612). The Lord also calls ‘brothers and sisters’ those who belong to His church (Matt. 12:49; 25:40; 28:10; Mark 3:35; Luke 8:21).
The reason why the spiritual offspring born of the Lord by means of the church are instances of truth and good is that the Lord is good itself and truth itself, and these are not two, but one, in Him. Also nothing can come forth from the Lord but what is in the Lord and is the Lord.
It was shown in the preceding chapter on the marriage of good and truth that this marriage comes forth from the Lord and influences human beings, being received in a way determined by the state of mind and way of life of those who belong to the church. The reason why truths are the means which allow a person to have understanding, perception and every thought, and good deeds are the means which allow a person to have love, charity and every affection, is that everything in a person relates to truth and good. Also, a person is composed of two faculties, the will and the intellect, the will being the means of receiving good, the intellect the means of receiving truth. Love, charity and affection belong to the will, and perception and thought belong to the intellect – a point which does not need to have light cast on it by being proved, because this statement is illustrated by the act of understanding.
The reason why a person receives truth from the good and truth which come forth as one from the Lord is that he receives it as of himself. For he thinks it as if of himself, and likewise employs it to speak. This happens because truth enjoys the light of the intellect and consequently a person sees it. Anything he sees in himself, that is, in his mind, cannot have its source known, for its influence is invisible, just as are the things which impinge on the eyesight, so that the impression is given that they are inside it. This appearance is God’s gift to a person, thus enabling him to be a human being and to be linked in return.
Another reason is that a person is by birth able to know, understand and be wise, and this ability receives the truths that give him knowledge, intelligence and wisdom. Since woman was created by means of man’s truth, and after marriage is more and more formed to love it, it follows that she too receives the husband’s truth in herself and joins it to her own good.
It is generally said in the church that as the Lord is the head of the church, so the husband is the head of the wife.* From this it would follow that the husband would represent the Lord and the wife the church. But the Lord is the head of the church, and human beings, male and female, are the church; and even more so in the case of husband and wife. In this case the church is first planted in the man and by means of the man in the wife, because the man receives its truth in his intellect, and the wife receives it from the man. But if it happens the other way round, this is not in good order. However, this does sometimes happen, but only in the case of men who are no lovers of wisdom, and so not part of the church either, or who in servile fashion hang upon their wives’ whims. On this subject generally see the remark in the Preliminaries (21).
* E.g. Eph. 5:23.
This follows from what has just been said. However, it needs to be added that truth appears to play the leading part in the church, because it comes first in time. It is this appearance which has made the leaders of the church give the prize to faith, which relates to truth, rather than to charity, which relates to good; and likewise scholars rate thought, a matter of the intellect, above affection, a matter of the will. For this reason the nature of the good of charity and the affection of the will are buried away as in a grave, and some people throw earth on them to prevent them rising again, as they do on the dead. Yet it is the good of charity which plays the leading part in the church, as can be seen with fully open eyes by those who have not shut off the route from heaven to their intellect by finding proofs that it is faith alone which makes the church, and it is thought alone which makes a person. In fact, the good of charity is from the Lord, and the truth of faith is for a person as if it were from him, and these two bring about the kind of linking of the Lord with a person, and of a person with the Lord, which is meant by the Lord’s saying that He is in them and they are in Him (John 15:4, 5). From this it is plain that this linking is the church.
These matters are too deep for the intellect to cast any light on them, unless there has first been some knowledge of correspondence. Until this has been revealed and lodged in the intellect, the effort to grasp what this paragraph says will be vain, however it is explained. How a correspondence exists between natural and spiritual things has been demonstrated at length in THE APOCALYPSE REVEALED and also in ARCANA CAELESTIA, and more particularly in THE TEACHING OF THE NEW JERUSALEM ABOUT THE HOLY SCRIPTURE. There will be given later a particular account of an experience on this subject [326]. Until some knowledge of this has been acquired, I can only make these few remarks, which will seem obscure to the intellect. Conjugial love corresponds to the affection for real truth, and its chastity, purity and holiness. The planting of seed corresponds to the power of truth; the procreation of children to the propagation of truth; the love of children to the guarding of truth and good. Since then truth in a person seems as if it were his own, and good is added to it by the Lord, it is plain that these correspondences are between the outward or natural man and the spiritual or inward man. But these matters will have further light shed on them in the account of experiences which follow.
The reason why the Word is a means of linking the Lord with a person and a person with the Lord is that it is in essence Divine truth combined with Divine good, and Divine good combined with Divine truth. Their union is in every single detail of the Word in its celestial and spiritual senses (see THE APOCALYPSE REVEALED 373, 483, 689, 881). From this it follows that the Word is a perfect marriage of good and truth. Since this is from the Lord, and what is from Him is the Lord, the consequence is that, when a person reads the Word and takes truths from it, the Lord gives him good in addition. For the person does not see the kinds of good which affect him, because he uses his intellect to read it, and the intellect can only gather from it its own kind of thing, namely, truths. The intellect can feel the addition of good by the Lord from the pleasure which floods in when it is being enlightened. But this only happens inwardly in the case of those who read the Word with the object of being wise; this is the object of those who want to learn more truths there and use these to form the church in themselves.
If some, however, read it only to be able to boast of their learning, and also if they hold the opinion that merely reading or hearing it injects faith and helps to salvation, these do not receive any good from the Lord, because their object is to achieve salvation simply from its words, which contain no part of truth. The other group’s object is to be renowned for learning, an object which has no link with any spiritual good, but only with the natural pleasure which comes from worldly fame. It is because the Word is a means of linking that it is called the Old and the New Covenant, and a covenant means a link.
No one nowadays denies that the church is the Lord’s, and being the Lord’s that it comes from Him. The reason the church exists with those who approach the Lord is that in the Christian world His church is based on the Word; and the Word is not only from the Lord, but is so in such a way that it is the Lord. In it Divine truth is combined with Divine good, and this too is the Lord. This is precisely what is meant by the Word being with God, and being God, the source of life and light to men, and becoming flesh (John 1:1-14). Furthermore its presence with those who approach the Lord is because it is present with those who believe in Him, believing that He is God the Saviour and Redeemer, Jehovah our righteousness, the gate by which the sheepfold, that is, the church, must be entered; that He is the way, truth and life; that no one comes to the Father except through Him; the Father and He are one; and many more things He teaches. No one, I repeat, can believe these things without approaching Him, since He is the God of heaven and earth, as He also teaches. Ought anyone else to be approached? and can anyone else be approached? His presence with those who live in accordance with His commandments is because linking is only possible with such people. For he says:
He who keeps my commandments and does them, he it is who loves me; and I will love him and make my dwelling with him. He, however, who does not love me does not keep my commandments. John 14:21-24.
Love is linking, and linking with the Lord makes the church.
I have said many times before, and shall say many times in future, that conjugial love depends upon the state of wisdom a person has. So at this point I shall give an illustration of what wisdom is, and how it makes one with the church.
Man possesses knowledge, intelligence and wisdom. Knowledge is a matter of knowing facts, intelligence of reasoning, and wisdom of how to live. Wisdom regarded in its fullness takes in knowing, reasoning and how to live. Knowing comes first, the reason is formed by this means, and wisdom is formed by them both, arising when people live according to reason as dictated by the truths which have been learned. Wisdom is therefore a matter both of reason and of living taken together; and it becomes wisdom when it is a matter of reason and so of how to live; but it is wisdom, when it has become a matter of how to live, and so of reason. The most ancient peoples of this world knew of no wisdom but that of how to live; and this was the wisdom of those they called ‘wise men’ (sophi ). But the ancients after this earliest period recognised the wisdom of reason as wisdom, and they were called ‘philosophers’ (philosophi*). Nowadays many people also call knowledge wisdom, for educated and learned men, even those who merely know a great deal, are called wise. So has wisdom declined from its heights to the trough.
[2] But some remarks must be added on what wisdom is like when it arises, and then when it reaches its full development. The matters to do with the church, what are called spiritual matters, occupy the inmost position in a person. Matters to do with the state, called civil matters, occupy a lower place; and those which are to do with knowledge, experience and skill, called natural matters, make up their footstool. The reason matters to do with the church, those called spiritual, occupy the inmost position in a person is that they establish a link with heaven, and through heaven with the Lord; nothing else comes into a person from the Lord by way of heaven. The reason why matters to do with the state, called civil matters, occupy a place below the spiritual ones is that they establish a link with the world, for they belong to the world. These are the statutes, laws and regulations which bind people together to form a fixed and stable society and state. The reason why matters to do with knowledge, experience and skill make up their footstool is that they are closely linked to the five bodily senses, and these are at the outermost position, on which the inner positions, those of the mind, and the inmost positions, those of the soul, rest.
[3] Now since the matters which fall in the realm of the church, spiritual matters as they are called, are lodged at the inmost position, and since what is lodged there makes up the head, and what comes beneath them, civil matters as they are called, make up the body, and what comes beneath them, natural matters as they are called, make up the feet, it is evident that when these three elements are arranged in the proper order, a person is in a state of perfection. For in these circumstances they exert similar influence. Just as what belongs to the head influences the body, and through the body the feet, so too spiritual matters influence civil ones, and, by way of these, natural ones. Now since spiritual matters are illuminated by heaven’s light, it is plain that they have light to illuminate the next steps in order, and give them life by their heat, which is love. When this happens, a person acquires wisdom.
[4] If, as said earlier, wisdom is to do with how to live and so with reason, it may be asked what is the wisdom of living. To sum it up briefly, it is shunning evils, because they damage the soul, the state and the body; and doing good because these actions benefit the soul, the state and the body. This is the kind of wisdom meant by that with which conjugial love forms a tie; for it does this by shunning the evil of adultery as a plague to the soul, the state and the body. Since that wisdom wells up from spiritual sources, which have to do with the church, it follows that conjugial love depends upon the state of the church in a person, which depends on the state of his wisdom. This too will make intelligible what has several times been said in earlier passages, that the more a person become spiritual, the more he has truly conjugial love. For it is the spirituality of the church which make a person spiritual. More about the wisdom to which conjugial love is joined may be seen below (163-165).
* Literally ‘lovers of wisdom’.
As this follows from what was said above, I refrain from giving further proofs. Moreover, all the angels of heaven bear witness to the fact that conjugial love comes from the Lord; and also that this love depends upon one’s state of wisdom, and this depends on the state of the church with one. This witness by the angels of heaven is plainly recorded in the accounts of experiences seen and heard in the spiritual world, to be found at the end of each chapter.
* * * * *
I once had a talk with two angels, one from the eastern and one from the southern heaven.
When they noticed that I was pondering the mysteries of wisdom on the subject of conjugial love, they said: ‘Don’t you know anything about the contests of wisdom in our world?’ ‘No, not yet,’ I replied.
‘There are many of them,’ they said, adding that those whose love of truth comes from a spiritual affection, that is to say, they love truths because they are true, and because they are the way to wisdom, meet when the signal is given, to discuss matters requiring profound understanding and to reach conclusions about them. Then they took me by the hand, saying: ‘Come with us and you will see and hear. The signal has been given for a meeting today.’
I was taken across a plain to a hill, and there at the foot of the hill was an avenue of palm-trees extending all the way to the top. We went in and climbed the hill. On the top or summit of the hill we saw a wood, the trees of which formed on a rise in the ground a kind of theatre. Inside this there was a flat space paved with pebbles of different colours, and around this were ranged seats in a square; these were occupied by the lovers of wisdom. In the middle of the theatre was a table, and a document secured with a seal lay on it.
[2] Those who were sitting on the seats invited us to occupy some which were still vacant. But I replied, ‘I have been brought here by two angels to see and listen, not to take part in the session.’
Then the two angels went up to the table in the middle of the arena and broke the seal on the document. They then read out to the meeting the mysteries of wisdom written in the document, which were to be discussed and expounded. It had been written by angels of the third heaven, and sent down to lie on the table. There were three questions: the first was, ‘What is the image of God and what is the likeness of God in which man was created?’ The second was, ‘Why is man born without knowledge of what he should love, yet animals and birds, the highest as well as the lowest, are born knowing all that their loves require?’ The third was, ‘What is the meaning of “the tree of life”, “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” and “eating of them?”
Underneath was written, ‘Link these three subjects into a single statement of opinion, and write it on a fresh sheet of paper; then place it on this table, and we shall look at it. If the opinion appears well-balanced and fair, each of you will be awarded a prize for wisdom. After reading this out the two angels went away, and rose up into their own heavens.
[3] Then those taking part in the session began to discuss and expound the questions set before them. They spoke in turn, beginning with those who sat on the north side, then those who sat on the west, then those on the south and finally those on the east. They took up the first subject for discussion: ‘What is the image of God, and the likeness of God, in which man was created?’ First of all the following passages were read aloud from the book of Genesis:
God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and God created man in His own image, to be an image of God He created him. Gen. 1:26, 27.
On the day when God created man, He made him to be a likeness of God. Gen. 5:1.
Those who sat on the north were the first to speak. They said that the image and the likeness of God are the two lives breathed into men by God, the life of the will and the life of the intellect. ‘For we read,’ they said,
‘Jehovah God breathed into Adam’s nostrils the breath of lives,* and man became a living soul. Gen. 2:7.
Into the nostrils means so as to perceive that the willing of good and the understanding of truth, and so the breath of lives, was in him. And since life was breathed into him by God, the image and the likeness of God mean his uprightness arising from wisdom and love, and from righteousness and the powers of judgment present in him.’
Those who sat on the west side supported this view, with, however, the addition that the state of uprightness breathed into Adam by God is constantly breathed into every person after Adam. But it is present in a person as if in a receiver; and to the extent that a person is a receiver, he is an image and likeness of God.
[4] Then the fourth group, who sat on the south side, said: ‘The image of God and the likeness of God are two separate things, but in man they are combined from his creation. Some kind of inward illumination shows us that the image of God can be destroyed by man, but not his likeness. This is visible as it were through a screen from the fact that Adam retained the likeness of God after he had lost His image. For we read, after he was cursed:
See, man is as one of us, knowing good and evil. Gen. 3:22.
Afterwards he is called a likeness, but not an image of God (Gen. 5:1). But we would leave it to our colleagues from the east, who therefore enjoy better illumination, to say what the image and the likeness of God properly are.’
[5] Then, when there was silence, those who sat on the east side rose from their seats and looked up to the Lord. Then they sat down again and said that an image of God was a means of receiving God, and since God is love itself and wisdom itself, the image of God is the means in a person of receiving love and wisdom from God. But the likeness of God was the perfect likeness and complete appearance of love and wisdom being present in a person and belonging to him. ‘For a person cannot help feeling that he loves and is wise of himself, that is, he wills good and understands truth of himself, when in fact it is not in the least from himself, but from God. It is only God who loves of Himself and is wise of Himself, because God is love itself and wisdom itself. The likeness or appearance that love and wisdom, or good and truth, are present in a person as if they belonged to him is what makes him human, and capable of being linked to God and so living for ever. The consequence of this is that a person’s humanity is the result of his ability to will good and understand truth exactly as if he did so of himself, while at the same time knowing and believing that he does so from God. For to the extent that he knows and believes this, God places His image in a person; it would be otherwise if he believed that it was of himself and not from God.’
[6] After saying this they were overcome by zeal because of their love for truth, and this led them to say: ‘How can a person receive any love and wisdom and keep it and reproduce it, unless he feels that it is his own? And how can he be linked by love and wisdom to God, unless he has given to him something by which to reciprocate the linking? No linking is possible unless it is reciprocal; and the reciprocal side of the link is the person’s loving God and being wise about things to do with God, as if of himself, yet believing that they come from God. Again, how can a person live for ever, unless he is linked to the everlasting God? So how can a person be human without having that likeness in him?’
[7] All applauded this speech and asked for a conclusion to be drawn from what had been said. The following statement was adopted: ‘Man is made to receive God, and the means of receiving Him is God’s image. Since God is love itself and wisdom itself, man can receive both of these; and the more it receives, the more that which receives God becomes an image of God. Man is a likeness of God by virtue of the fact that he feels in himself that what he receives from God is his, as if it belonged to him. But still that likeness makes him an image of God, in so far as he acknowledges that the love and wisdom, or good and truth, in him are not his, and do not come from him, but are present only in God and therefore come from Him.’
* The Latin follows the Hebrew in using the plural ‘lives’ here,
First they established the truth of the proposition by various observations. For instance, that man is born without any knowledge, not even that of conjugial love. They made enquiry and learned from researchers that a baby does not even know by instinct how to approach its mother’s breast, but has to be positioned by its mother or nurse; it only knows how to suck, and that is because it has learned this by continually sucking in its mother’s womb. Later on, it does not know how to walk; or how to adapt the sounds it makes to form a word of human speech, not even how to express its emotions by sounds as animals do. Moreover, it does not know what food is suitable for it, as all animals do, but grabs anything it finds, whether clean or dirty, and puts it in its mouth. The researchers reported that without instruction man does not know how to distinguish the sexes, and has no knowledge at all of how to make love. Not even young men and women know about this without being told by others, although they have been trained in various skills. In short, a man is by birth merely bodily, like a worm; and he remains bodily, unless he learns from others how to know, understand and be wise.
[2] Then they established that both the higher and lower animals, land animals, birds of the air, reptiles, fish and insects are born knowing all that their loves require for their lives; for instance, everything they need to know about feeding, about where to live, how to copulate and produce young, and how to bring up their young. They established these facts by remarkable observations which they recalled to mind from what they had seen, heard and read in the natural world – as they called our world where they had previously lived – where the animals which exist are not representative but real. When they had fully proved the truth of this proposition, they turned their minds to seeking and finding the purposes and reasons which would explain and elucidate this question. They all asserted that these facts must be the result of divine wisdom, to ensure that human beings were human and that animals were animals. Thus the imperfections with which a man is born would become his perfection, and the perfection with which an animal is born would become its imperfection.
[2] The westerners spoke next. They said that man has by birth, not knowledge like an animal, but ability and inclination, the ability to know and the inclination to love. He has by birth not only the ability to know, but also to understand and to be wise. Also he is born with the most perfect inclination to love, not only what is his own and worldly, but also what is God’s and heavenly. Consequently, a person is by inheritance from his parents an organ, which lives merely by its outward senses, and at first by no inward sense, in order that he may become successively first a natural, then a rational and finally a spiritual man. This could not happen, if he acquired all kinds of knowledge and love by birth, like an animal. For innate knowledge and affections restrict that advancement, but if ability and inclination are innate, they do not restrict it at all. A person therefore can go on becoming more perfect in knowledge, intelligence and wisdom for ever.
[3] The southerners followed on with their statement. ‘It is impossible,’ they said, ‘for anyone to acquire any knowledge from himself, but he must acquire it from others, since he has no innate knowledge. Being unable to acquire any knowledge from himself, neither can he acquire any love, since where knowledge is absent, so is love. Knowledge and love are inseparable companions, no more capable of being divided than will and intellect, or affection and thought, or even essence and form. Therefore as a person acquires knowledge from others, so does love attach itself to it as a companion. The universal love which attaches itself is the love of knowing, understanding and being wise. This is a love man does not share with any animal, and it flows in from God.
[4] ‘We agree with our colleagues from the west that man does not have by birth any love, and thus not any knowledge either; but he has by birth only an inclination to love, and thus an ability to receive knowledge, not from himself, but from others, that is, by way of others. We have to say “by way of others” because neither have they received any knowledge from themselves, but from God. We also agree with our colleagues on the north that man is, when first born, like soil in which no seeds have been planted, but in which fine as well as worthless seeds can be planted. We would add to this that animals have by birth natural loves, and thus the kinds of knowledge which correspond to these; but still their knowledge does not enable them to know, think, understand or be wise about anything, being merely guided by their loves through their knowledge, almost like blind people being guided through the streets by dogs, since they are intellectually blind. Or rather they are like sleep-walkers, who do what they do by blind knowledge, while the intellect is asleep.’
[5] The last to speak were the easterners, who said: ‘We accept the view expressed by our brothers, that man has no knowledge from himself, but from and through others, in order that he may recognise and acknowledge that God is the source of all he knows and understands and of all his wisdom. Also that there is no other way that a person could be conceived, born and created by the Lord, and become His image and likeness. For he becomes an image of the Lord by acknowledging and believing that he has received and continues to receive all the good of love and charity and all the truth of wisdom and faith from the Lord, and nothing at all from himself. He becomes a likeness of the Lord by feeling these things in himself as if they came from himself. This feeling is due not to being born with knowledge, but to acquiring knowledge, and when he acquires it, it seems to him as if it came from himself. The Lord also grants man this awareness to make him a man and not an animal, since by the fact of willing, thinking, loving, knowing, understanding and being wise as if from himself, he receives different kinds of knowledge, raises them so as to become intelligence, and by applying them to purposes so as to become wisdom. Thus the Lord links a person to Himself, and the person links himself to the Lord. None of these things could happen, if the Lord had not ensured that man was born in a state of complete ignorance.’
[6] After this statement there was a general wish for a conclusion to be drawn from the debate, and this resolution was adopted: ‘Man is born without any knowledge, in order to be able to acquire knowledge of all kinds, and to advance to intelligence and by this means to wisdom. He is born without any loves, in order to be able to acquire all kinds of love by the intelligent application of what he knows, and to acquire love to the Lord by love towards the neighbour, thus being linked with the Lord, by this becoming fully man and living for ever.’
‘Yes,’ they said, ‘we shall tell you this. But since man takes nothing from himself, but only from the Lord, our words will come from Him, but still from us as if they were our own.’ Then they said: ‘A tree stands for a person, and its fruit for the goodness of his life. So the tree of life means a person living from God, that is, God living in a person. Since love and wisdom, and charity and faith, or good and truth, make up God’s life in a person, these are meant by the tree of life, and this is the source of his everlasting life. The tree of life from which it was granted to eat (Rev. 2:7; 22:2, 14) has a similar meaning.
[2] ‘The tree of the knowledge of good and evil means a person believing that he owes his life to himself and not to God, and so the love and wisdom, charity and faith, that is, good and truth, a person has are his own and not God’s. This belief is because he thinks and wills, speaks and acts, in all likeness and to all appearance as if from himself. It is because a person is persuaded by this belief that God has put Himself in him, or poured His Divinity into him, that the serpent said:
God knows that on the day when you have eaten of the fruit of that tree, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Gen. 3:5.
[3] ‘Eating of those trees means receiving and making one’s own. Eating of the tree of life means receiving everlasting life, and eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil means receiving damnation. That too is why both of them, Adam and his wife, together with the serpent, were cursed. The serpent means the devil as regards self-love and pride in one’s own intelligence. This love is the owner of that tree, and people who are proud as the result of that love are those trees.
‘Those, therefore, who believe that Adam was wise and did good of himself, and that this was his pristine state, are making a gross error, since in fact Adam himself was cursed for this belief. For this is what eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil means. It was then that he fell from his pristine state, which he owed to believing that he was wise and did good from God, and not at all from himself; for this is what eating of the tree of life means. It was only the Lord who, while He was in the world, was wise from Himself and did good from Himself, because from birth Divinity itself was in Him and was His. So by His own power He became the Redeemer and Saviour.’
[4] From both these points they drew the conclusion that the tree of life, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and eating of them mean that life for a person is having God in him, and then he enjoys heaven and everlasting life; but it is death for a person to be persuaded and believe that life for a person is not God, but himself, and he then finds hell and everlasting death, in other words, damnation.
They wrote these words on a fresh sheet of paper and laid it on the table. Suddenly the angels appeared in a flash of light and carried the document off to heaven. When it had been read there, those sitting in the seats heard from there voices saying, ‘Well done, well done, well done.’ At once there appeared one as it were flying, with two wings at his feet and two at his temples. He carried in his hand as prizes gowns, hats and laurel-wreaths. He alighted and gave to those who sat on the north gowns of iridescent colour, to those on the west gowns of scarlet, to those on the south hats decorated at the rim with bands of gold and pearls and on the raised left side diamonds cut into the shape of flowers. To those on the east he gave laurel-wreaths decorated with rubies and sapphires. They all left the contest of wisdom decorated with these prizes, and when they were seen by their wives, they were surprised to see their wives come to meet them also decked out with ornaments they had been given from heaven.
While I was meditating about conjugial love, suddenly there appeared far off two naked children with baskets in their hands and turtle-doves flying around them. On a closer look they were more or less naked, but elegantly decked out with garlands. Small wreaths of flowers adorned their heads, and decorative bands of lilies and roses of blue colour hung obliquely across their chests from shoulders to hips; around the pair of them there was a kind of shared bond woven of small leaves interspersed with olives. But when they came closer, they no longer looked like children or naked, but like two people in the prime of life, dressed in gowns and tunics of shining silk with a pattern of the loveliest flowers you could see woven into it. When they stood beside me, a breath of spring-like warmth spread from heaven through them bringing a sweet fragrance, like that of fresh vegetation in gardens or fields. They were a married couple from heaven, who addressed me and asked, since my thoughts were on what I had just seen, what it was I had seen.
[2] I told them that they had at first looked to me like naked children, and then like children decked out in garlands, and then finally as taller and dressed in flowery clothes; and that then I felt a sudden breath of spring fill me with its delights. At this they gave a pleasant laugh, and said that while they were on their way they did not seem to themselves as children, or naked, or garlanded, but continually like they were then. Seen from a distance their conjugial love took on this appearance; its state of innocence was represented by the children being seen naked, and its delights by the garlands, as well as then by the flowers woven in their gowns and tunics. ‘Since you told us,’ they said, ‘that as we approached a breath of spring-like warmth spread over you with pleasant scents as from a garden, we shall explain why this was.’
[3] ‘We have now,’ they said, ‘been married for centuries, and have been constantly in the prime of life, as you see us now. Our first state was like that of a girl and a young man when they are just married; and we then thought that state to be the utmost blessedness of our lives. But we heard from others in our heaven, and later we felt for ourselves, that our first state was one of unmodified heat together with light; and this is by stages modified, as the husband acquires higher perfection in wisdom, and the wife loves it in her husband. This happens as the result of and in proportion to the services which each performs for the mutual help of their community; and then delights follow in succession as the heat and light, that is, wisdom and the love of it, are modified.
[4] ‘The reason why, as we approached, a breath of spring-like warmth spread over you is that in our heaven conjugial love and that heat act as one, for amongst us heat is love, and light with which heat is combined is wisdom; the use to which they are put is like the atmosphere, which holds both of these in its depths. What are heat and light without something to hold them? So what are love and wisdom without a purpose to serve? They lack a conjugial bond because there is nothing for them to work on. In heaven there is truly conjugial love to be found, wherever there is the heat of springtime; and its presence is due to the fact that springtime is only to be found where heat is evenly combined with light, that is to say, there is as much heat as there is light, and vice versa. It is our conjecture that just as heat takes its pleasure with light, and light in turn does with heat, so love takes its pleasure with wisdom, and wisdom in turn with love.’
[5] ‘We in heaven,’ the angel went on to say, ‘enjoy perpetual light, and there are never any shades of evening, much less darkness, because our sun does not set and rise like yours, but remains constantly fixed midway between the zenith and the horizon, what you would call at an elevation of forty-five degrees. This is why the heat and light radiated by our sun create a perpetual spring, and those whose love is evenly combined with wisdom enjoy a perpetual springtime. By the everlasting combination of heat and light our Lord seeks only to further services. This too is the cause of germination in your world and the mating of birds and animals every spring. For the warmth of spring opens up their inward parts right to the inmost, what is called their souls, and works on them, implanting its tendency towards marriage, and making their reproductive faculty achieve its delights by a constant effort to produce the fruits of their purpose, which is the continuation of their kind.
[6] ‘But human beings enjoy a perpetual inflow of spring-like warmth from the Lord. They can therefore at any season, even in midwinter, enjoy the delights of marriage. For men were created to receive light, that is, wisdom, from the Lord, women to receive heat, that is, the love of their husband’s wisdom, from the Lord. That then is why when we approached, you felt a breath of spring-like warmth spread a sweet fragrance over you, like that of fresh vegetation in gardens or fields.’
[7] After saying this the man gave me his right hand and took me to their homes, where there were married couples in the prime of life, as they were. He said that their wives, who now looked like young women, had been aged crones in the world, and the husbands, who now looked like young men, had been broken-down old men. They had all been brought back by the Lord to this flowering period, because they loved each other, and religion induced them to shun adultery as an extremely grave sin. He said that no one knows the blessed pleasures of conjugial love, unless he rejects the horrid pleasures of adultery; and no one can reject these, unless he has wisdom from the Lord, and no one has wisdom from the Lord, unless he performs services for the love of service.
I also saw the furniture of their homes, all in heavenly forms and shining with gold that seemed to be aflame with rubies interspersed.
CHASTITY AND UNCHASTITY
Since I am still at the outset of my discussion of the details of conjugial love, and this love can only indistinctly and thus dimly be recognised, unless its opposite, unchastity, is somehow made visible; and since this is somehow or dimly made visible, when chastity is described together with unchastity, seeing that chastity is merely the removal of what is unchaste from the chaste, [I shall here say something about chastity and unchastity].* The latter part of this book will deal with unchastity, which is the direct opposite of chastity; it will there be described fully and in all its varieties under the heading The gross pleasures of folly on the subject of scortatory love. The nature of chastity and unchastity and of the people who show them will be set forth in the following order.
(i) Chastity and unchastity are only attributed to marriages and matters relating to marriage.
(ii) Chastity is only attributed to monogamous marriages, that is, between one man and one wife.
(iii) Only Christian marriage can be chaste.
(iv) Truly conjugial love is the height of chastity.
(v) All the delights of truly conjugial love, even the lowest, are chaste.
(vi) In the case of those whom the Lord makes spiritual, conjugial love is more and more purified, and it becomes chaste.
(vii) The chastity of marriage comes about through the complete renunciation for religious reasons of promiscuous conduct.
(viii) Chastity cannot be attributed to small children, or to boys and girls, or to young men and women, before they feel sexual love in themselves.
(ix) Chastity cannot be attributed to those born eunuchs, or to those made eunuchs.
(x) Chastity cannot be attributed to those who do not believe acts of adultery to be religious evils, much less to those who do not believe acts of adultery to be damaging to society.
(xi) Chastity cannot be attributed to those who refrain from acts of adultery only for various outward reasons.
(xii) Chastity cannot be attributed to those who believe marriages to be unchaste.
(xiii) Chastity cannot be attributed to those who have renounced marriage by a vow of perpetual celibacy, unless there is and persists in them a love of a truly conjugial life.
(xiv) The married state is preferable to the celibate.
An explanation of these points now follows.
* The sentence as it stands is incomplete and needs to be finished in some such manner as that here proposed. It is also necessary to change non ‘not’ before ‘chastity’ to nam, here translated ‘seeing that’. See further 147.
This is because truly conjugial love is the height of chastity, as will appear below [143]; and the love opposed to it, which is called scortatory, is the height of unchastity. In so far therefore that it is purified of scortatory love, that love is chaste, for so far is its opposite, which destroys it, removed. From this it is plain that the purity of conjugial love is what is called chastity. Unchaste conjugial love can still exist without being real unchastity, as between a married couple who for various outward reasons so far refrain from expressing their wantonness as not even to think of it. Yet if that love is not purified in their spirits, it is still not chastity; it may have the form of chastity, but it lacks its essence.
I have heard from angels that unchastity can be detected in the most consummate hypocrites by listening to them, however chaste their conversation, and it can be felt from the sphere which emanates from them. This too is a sign that unchastity is resident in the inmost parts of their minds, and so in the inmost parts of their bodies, but this is covered over like a shell painted with pictures in various colours. The emanation of a sphere of lewdness from the unchaste is plain from the laws among the Children of Israel, that every single object merely touched by the hand of such people was unclean. From this example the conclusion can be drawn that the same applies to the chaste; that is to say, with them every single thing, from inmost to outermost, is chaste, and this is the result of the chastity of conjugial love. This is why there is a saying in the world that to the clean all things are clean, and to the unclean all things are unclean.
Chastity can only be attributed to them, because in their case conjugial love does not stay in the natural man, but enters into the spiritual man; and by stages it opens up the way to the spiritual marriage itself, between good and truth, which is its origin, and establishes a link with it. That love enters the more as wisdom increases, and this happens as the church is planted in a person by the Lord, as has been shown at length above. This cannot happen in the case of polygamists, since they divide conjugial love, and when divided it is not very different from sexual love, which is essentially natural. But some interesting details on this subject will be seen in the chapter on polygamy [332-342].
This is because truly conjugial love advances in step with the state of the church with a person, and because this comes from the Lord (as shown in the previous chapter, 130, 131 and elsewhere). It is also because the church is in its real truths in the Word, and the Lord is there present in them. It follows from these statements that chaste marriage is only possible in the Christian world, and even if it does not exist, it is still possible. Christian marriage means the marriage of one man with one wife. It will be seen in due course that this kind of marriage can be implanted in Christians, and be passed on to their children by inheritance from parents who enjoy truly conjugial love; and that there arises at the same time both the ability and the inclination to be wise about matters concerning the church and heaven. If Christians marry more than one wife, they commit not only natural, but also spiritual adultery, as will be shown in the chapter on polygamy.
The reasons for this are:
(a) It comes from the Lord and corresponds to the marriage of the Lord and the church.
(b) It comes down from the marriage of good and truth.
(c) It is spiritual, just as the church in a person is.
(d) It is the foundation love, and the chief of all celestial and spiritual loves.
(e) It is the proper seed-bed of the human race, and the source of the heavens of angels.
(f) It is therefore also found among the angels of heaven, and causes them to produce spiritual offspring, love and wisdom.
(g) Thus it has a higher purpose than all the other purposes of creation.
It follows from these statements that truly conjugial love is, by its origin and regarded in its essence, pure and holy; so much so, that it can be called the height of purity and holiness, and so of chastity. Yet in the case of human beings and of angels it is not absolutely pure, as will be shown in section (vi) just below (146).
This follows from the explanations given above, that truly conjugial love is the height of chastity, and delights constitute its life. The delights of that love rise up and enter heaven, passing on the way through the pleasures of the heavenly loves enjoyed by angels in heaven, and they combine with the delights of their conjugial love, as was related above. I have in addition heard from angels that they feel their delights uplifted and filled out, when they rise up from chaste married couples on earth. And for the sake of the by-standers, who were unchaste, they assented to the question whether this included the lowest delights, whispering, ‘Of course; are not these then at their fullest?’ On the source and nature of the delights of this love see above 69, and in the accounts of experiences, especially the next.
The reasons are: (a) First love, which means love before marriage and immediately after marriage, is somewhat affected by sexual love, that is, by the ardour which belongs to the body and has not been modified by spiritual love.
[2] (b) A person proceeds by stages from natural to spiritual. He becomes spiritual as his rational faculty, held midway between heaven and the world, begins to draw breath from heavenly influence, which happens as he is affected and pleased by wisdom (on this see 130 above). To the extent that this happens, his mind is lifted into a higher atmosphere which holds heavenly light and heat, or, what is the same, the wisdom and love enjoyed by the angels. For heavenly light acts as one with wisdom, heavenly heat with love. As the wisdom and the love of it increase in married couples, so their conjugial love is purified. Since this takes place by stages, it follows that this love becomes more and more chaste. This spiritual purification can be compared with the purification of natural spirits practised by chemists, what they call defecation, rectification, castigation, distillation, refining, decantation and sublimation. Purified wisdom can be compared with alcohol, which is the highest degree of rectified spirit.
[3] (c) Spiritual wisdom then has the essential quality of growing warmer the more wisdom is loved, so that it goes on increasing for ever. This happens by the processes of defecation, castigation, rectification, refining, decantation and sublimation; and these take place by means of the process of refining and distancing the intellect from the fallacies of the senses, and the will from the snares of the body. It is plain from this that likewise conjugial love, which is the child of wisdom, by stages becomes more and more pure and so chaste. The first state of love between a married couple is one of heat not yet moderated by light, but it is by stages moderated as the husband’s wisdom becomes more perfect, and his wife loves this in her husband; see the experience in 137.
The reason is that chastity is the removal of unchastity. It is a universal rule that so far as anyone removes evil, so far does good have a chance to replace it; and further, so far as evil is hated, so far is good loved, and vice versa. Consequently so far as promiscuity is banished, so far does the chastity of marriage come in. Anyone can see from what is generally felt, as soon as the statement is made and heard without waiting for proofs, that conjugial love is purified and corrected in so far as promiscuity is banished. But since what is generally felt is not felt by everyone, it is worth adducing proofs by way of illustration.
Conjugial love grows cold as soon as it is divided, and this chill is the death of it, for the warmth of an unchaste love quenches it. Two kinds of warmth of opposite types cannot exist together, without one banishing the other and depriving it of its power. So when the warmth of conjugial love removes and banishes the warmth of scortatory love, conjugial love begins to grow delightfully warm, and the feeling of delight makes it bud and flower, like an orchard or a rose-garden in springtime. This is the effect of the mixing in spring of heat and light from the sun of the natural world. But the other is the effect of the mixing in spring of heat and light from the sun of the spiritual world.
[2] It might be thought that the outer tendency remaining after the inner has separated itself from it, or separated it from itself, was much the same as the outer which has not been separated. But I have been told by angels that they are quite clearly different. They said that for instance the outer arising from the inner, what they called the external of the internal, was devoid of all wantonness, because the internal cannot engage in wanton play but only take chaste delight, and it imposes the same on its external, in which it feels its delights. It is quite different when the external is separated from the internal; this they said is wanton, both in general and in every part of it. They compared the outer tendency towards marriage arising from the inner to a splendid fruit, the pleasant taste and smell of which penetrate to the surface and give this a form answering to theirs.
[3] They also compared the outer conjugial principle arising from the inner to a granary, the grain in which never grows less, but what is taken out is constantly replaced. But they compared the outer separated from the inner with wheat on a winnowing-fan, of which, when it is spread around, only the chaff is left, and this is blown away by the wind. This is what happens to conjugial love, unless promiscuity is banished.
This is because chastity and unchastity can only be attributed to marriages and related matters (see 139 above). Those who know nothing of the tendency towards marriage cannot have chastity attributed to them, since it is as nothing to them; and it is impossible to have affection for nothing, or to think about it. But this nothingness is followed by the beginnings of an interest in marriage, an effect of sexual love. Young women and men are commonly called chaste before they feel any stirring of sexual love in themselves; but this is due to ignorance of what chastity is.
Those born eunuchs means in particular those who from birth lack the lowest level of love. Since then the first and intermediate stages are without a basis to rest on, they do not come into existence. If they do, these people are not interested in distinguishing between chastity and unchastity, both being to them matters of indifference. But there are many different kinds of people in this class. It is almost the same with those made eunuchs as with those born eunuchs. But since those who are made eunuchs are both men and women, they cannot help looking on conjugial love as a fantasy and its delights as a fairy-tale. If they have any such inclination, it becomes neuter,** being neither chaste nor unchaste. What is neuter has no name derived from one side or the other.
* The numbers 151-156 are used twice in the first edition; the sections following 156 are here numbered 151r-156r.
** Reading neutrum, a necessary correction for mutum ‘dumb’, as the next sentence shows.
The reason chastity cannot be attributed to these people is that they have no knowledge of chastity or even of its existence. For chastity is an attribute of marriage, as was shown in point (i). These people, who do not regard adultery as a religious evil, make marriages also unchaste, despite the fact that it is the religious scruples of the couples which makes them chaste. Since thus to these people nothing is chaste, it is useless to talk to them about chastity; they are confirmed adulterers.
Moreover, those who do not regard adultery as damaging to society are even less than the former group aware of chastity or even its existence; these are adulterers by design. If they say that marriages are less unchaste than acts of adultery, this is a verbal profession which does not come from the heart, since there is no warmth in their marriages. Those who base their remarks about chaste warmth on this chill can have no idea of the chaste warmth of conjugial love. It will be seen in the second part of the book, on the follies of adulterers, what such people are like, what concepts they think about, and so what their talk is like inwardly.
Many people think that refraining in body from acts of adultery is chastity, though it is not so unless one also refrains in spirit. It is a person’s spirit, here meaning his mind as regards affections and thoughts, which makes him chaste or unchaste, and it is this which determines how he behaves in body. For the body is exactly what the mind or spirit is. It follows from this that those who refrain from acts of adultery in body, but not in spirit, and those who refrain from them in spirit for bodily reasons, are neither of them chaste. There are many reasons which make a person refrain from them in body, and also in spirit for bodily reasons; but someone who fails to avoid them in body for spiritual reasons is still unchaste. For the Lord says:
If he has looked upon someone else’s wife so as to desire her, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Matt. 5:28.
[2] It is impossible to list all the reasons for refraining from acts of adultery merely in the body, because they differ depending on the state of a person’s marriage and his bodily condition. There are those who refrain for fear of the law of the land and its penalties; for fear of loss of reputation and thus of position; for fear of picking up diseases; for fear of quarrelling with one’s wife at home, and being unable to live in peace; for fear of a husband or relative seeking revenge; for fear of being beaten by servants. There are also those who refrain because of poverty, greed, or weakness arising from disease, self-abuse, age or impotence. Some among these, since they are unable or do not dare to commit adultery in body, therefore condemn such acts in spirit, so that they speak out against adultery as immoral and praise marriage. But if these do not disavow adultery in spirit, and their spirit is not motivated by religion, they are still adulterers who commit the act in spirit even if not in body. After death, therefore, when they become spirits, they speak openly in favour of adultery. From these considerations it is plain that even an irreligious person can shun acts of adultery as damaging, but no one but a Christian can shun them as sins, This is now enough to establish the truth of the proposition that chastity cannot be attributed to those who refrain from adultery only for various outward reasons.
Such people do not know what chastity is, or even that it exists, like those spoken of above in 152, and like those who equate chastity with celibacy, the subject to be dealt with next.
Chastity cannot be attributed to these because, following a vow of perpetual celibacy, conjugial love is cast away. Yet chastity can only be attributed to that love. It is also because creation and so birth introduces a sexual inclination, and when this is restrained and subdued, the inclination cannot but be transformed into warmth, in some cases into burning heat, which, rising from the body to the level of the spirit, attacks it and in some cases pollutes it. It can also happen that a spirit polluted in this way may pollute religious ideas, casting these down from the inner level, where they are in holiness, to the outer level, where they become matters of speech and behaviour. It has therefore been provided by the Lord that this kind of celibacy exists only among those who practise outward worship, which is what happens to those who do not approach the Lord or read the Word. With such people a promise of celibacy together with a vow of chastity does not endanger everlasting life, as it does with those who practise inward worship. It also happens that many people enter upon that state of life without free choice, some before they are old enough to enjoy freedom by the use of reason, some under the influence of worldly enticements.
[2] Of those who take up that state in order to distance their minds from the world, so as to be free to worship God, those alone are chaste who previously cherished a love for a truly conjugial life, or acquired it subsequently and retained it, because it is the love of such a life to which chastity can be attributed. For this reason too all monastics are after death released from their vows, and given freedom to choose a life in or out of marriage, as the inward vows and desires of their loves dictate. If they then choose married life, they are married in heaven, if they have also loved the spiritual side of worship. But those who choose unmarried life are sent to join their like who live on the fringes of heaven.
[3] I asked the angels whether nuns who have devoted themselves to religion, making themselves servants in the worship of God, and so withdrawing themselves from the deceits of the world and the lusts of the flesh, and for that reason taking a vow of perpetual virginity, are received into heaven and take a leading place among the blessed in accordance with their belief. The angels replied that they are certainly received, but when they feel the sphere of conjugial love in heaven, they become depressed and worried; then they leave and are allowed out, some of their own accord, some after asking permission, some being ordered to leave. Once outside that heaven the way is open for them to join their colleagues whose state in the world was similar. This makes them cheerful instead of worried, and they are happy with one another.
This is evident from what has already been said about marriage and celibacy. The reasons why the married state is preferable are: that the married state exists from creation; that its source is the marriage of good and truth; that it corresponds to the Lord’s marriage with the church; that the church and conjugial love are constant companions; that its purpose is higher than that of all else in creation, since it is the propagation in due order of the human race, and also of the heaven of angels, since this comes from the human race. A further consideration is that marriage is a person’s fulfilment, since it makes a person fully a person, as will be proved in the next chapter. All these reasons are lacking in the case of celibacy.
[2] If, however, we suppose that the celibate state is superior to the married state, and this supposition is subjected to enquiry to enable it to be affirmed and established by proofs, the consequences are as follows. Marriages are not holy and cannot be chaste; in fact chastity is impossible in the female sex, except for those who abstain from marriage and take a vow of perpetual virginity. Moreover, it is those who have taken a vow of perpetual celibacy who are meant by ‘eunuchs who make themselves eunuchs for the sake of God’s kingdom’ (Matt. 19:12). There are many other untrue consequences which follow from such an untrue supposition. ‘Eunuchs who make themselves eunuchs for the sake of God’s kingdom’ means spiritual eunuchs, those who in the married state refrain from the evils of promiscuity. It is evident that Italian castrati are not meant.
* * * * *
151bis* I shall add here two accounts of experiences, of which this is the first.
When I was going home from the contest of wisdom (described above in 132), I saw on the way an angel dressed in blue. He came and walked beside me, and said: ‘I see that you have come away from the contest of wisdom, and that you took great pleasure in what you heard there. But I perceive that you are not fully in this world, because you are at the same time in the natural world, so you do not know about our Olympic sports. At these the wise men of antiquity meet, and learn from newcomers from your world what changes of state and what vicissitudes wisdom has up to the present undergone and is still undergoing. If you like, I will take you to the place where many of the wise men of antiquity live together with their sons, that is, their disciples’.
So he took me to a place on the border between the north and the east, and when I had a view in that direction from a piece of high ground, I caught sight of a city with two hills at one side, the one nearer the city being the lower of the two. ‘This city,’ he told me, ‘is called Athenaeum, the lower hill is called Parnassium, the higher Heliconeum. They bear these names because in the city and its neighbourhood the wise men of ancient Greece live, men such as Pythagoras, Socrates, Aristippus and Xenophon,** with their disciples and recruits.’
I asked about Plato and Aristotle. He told me that they and their followers were in a different region, because they had taught about reasoning, purely intellectual matters, but the others about moral issues relevant to the conduct of life.
[2] He said that scholars from the city of Athenaeum were frequently sent on embassies to the educated Christians of the day, to report what they thought about God, the creation of the universe, the immortality of the soul, the condition of man as compared with that of animals, and other matters which belong to inner wisdom. He told me that the crier had announced a meeting for that day, a sign that their emissaries had met some newcomers from the earth and heard some interesting news.
We saw a lot of people coming out of the city and its neighbourhood, some of them with laurel-wreaths on the heads, some holding palm-fronds in their hands, some with books under their arms, and some with pens tucked under the hair of the left temple. We joined them and went up together, and found on the hill an octagonal palace, which they called the Palladium. When we went in, we found eight hexagonal recesses, in each of which there was a bookcase, as well as a table, at which those who wore laurels sat down. In the Palladium proper we saw seats carved out of stone, on which the remainder seated themselves.
[3] Then a door on the left was opened, and by it two newcomers from the earth were brought in. When they had been welcomed, one of those wearing laurels asked them, ‘What news is there from earth?’
‘The news,’ they said, ‘is that in forests men have been found resembling animals, or animals resembling men. It was recognised from their faces and bodies that they had been born men, but that at the age of two or three they had been lost or abandoned in the forests. It was said that these creatures could not voice any of their thoughts, nor learn how to make articulate sounds so as to utter words. Neither did they know what food was fit for them, as animals do, but they put in their mouths what grew in the forest whether clean or dirty, and much more of the same kind. From these facts some of our learned men made many guesses and some drew many deductions about the condition of men as compared with that of animals.’
[4] On hearing this some of the wise men of antiquity asked, ‘What were their guesses and deductions from these facts?’ The newcomers replied that there was a great deal, but it could be reduced to the following:
(a) Man by his nature and also from birth is more stupid and so more vile than any animal, and if not taught becomes like one.
(b) He can be taught because he has learnt to make articulate sounds, and so to talk; and by this means he has begun to express his thoughts; and by degrees he has done so more and more, until he could frame the laws of living together, many of which, however, have been imprinted on animals from birth.
(c) Animals equally with men are capable of reasoning.
(d) If therefore animals could talk, they would reason as cleverly on all subjects as men. A proof of this is that they think from reason and prudence just as much as men.
(e) The intellect is merely a modification of sunlight with the co-operation of heat by means of the ether, so that it is simply an activity of a more inward nature. This activity can be raised to such a height that it looks like wisdom.
(f) It is therefore useless to believe that man lives after death any more than an animal does, except that perhaps for a few days after death an exhalation of the life of the body may appear as a cloud in the form of a ghost, before being dispersed into nature. This is very much as when a twig picked out of the ashes of a fire may appear to retain the likeness of its shape.
(g) Consequently religion, which teaches that life continues after death, is an invention so that the simple may be kept inwardly obedient by its laws, just as they are kept outwardly obedient by the civil law.
They added that these were the reasonings of those who were only clever, not intelligent. ‘What do the intelligent think?’ they asked. The reply was that they had not heard, but they were of the opinion that they thought the same.
* The numbers 151-156 are used twice in the first edition; the sections following 156 are here numbered 151bis-156bis.
** Greek philosophers of the 6th, 5th and 4th centuries B.C.
152bis On hearing this all who were sitting at the tables said: ‘What times they live in on earth now! What sad changes has wisdom undergone! It seems to have been turned into foolish cleverness. The sun has set and is beneath the earth, diametrically opposite its noon position. How can anyone fail to know from the evidence of the people abandoned in the forests, that this is what man is like if he receives no instruction? Surely he is what he is taught to be. By birth he is more ignorant than animals. He must then learn to walk and to talk. If he did not learn to walk, would he stand upright on his feet? And if he did not learn to talk, would he be able to utter any of his thoughts? Surely everyone is what he is taught to be, crazy if taught falsities, wise if taught truths? And if he is crazy from being taught falsities, does he not imagine himself to be wiser than the man who is wise from being taught truths? Are there not foolish and deranged people who are no more human beings than those who were found in the forests? Are not those who have lost their memory like them?
[2] ‘From both these sets of facts we draw the conclusion that a man is not a man without instruction, and is not an animal either, but he is a form capable of receiving in himself what makes a man human, so that he is not born a man, but becomes one. Man has by birth a form such that he can be an instrument for the reception of life from God, with a view to being a subject into which God can put all good, and by union with Himself make blessed for ever. We perceive from what you say that wisdom at the present time is so far extinct or turned to foolishness, that there is total ignorance about the terms upon which human being live as compared with those on which animals live. As a result, they do not know either anything about how a person lives after death. But those who are able, but unwilling, to know about this, and so deny its reality, as many of you Christians do, can be likened to the people found in the forests. It is not that they have become so stupid through being deprived of instruction, but they have made themselves stupid by relying on the fallacies of the senses, which are the darkness that conceals truths.’
153bis But then someone standing in the middle of the Palladium and holding a palm-frond in his hand said: ‘Please unravel this mystery. How could a man having been created a form of God be changed into the form of a devil? I am well aware that the angels of heaven are forms of God, and the angels of hell are forms of the devil, and that these two are completely opposite forms, one of madness, the other of wisdom. Tell me, then, how could man created as a form of God pass from daylight into such a night as to be able to deny the existence of God and everlasting life?’
[2] The teachers replied one after the other, first the Pythagoreans, then the Socratics, and afterwards the rest. But among them there was a certain follower of Plato, who was the last to speak. His opinion, which was adopted, went like this. The people of the age of Saturn, the golden age, knew and acknowledged that they were forms for the reception of life from God, and consequently they had wisdom written on their souls and their hearts, so that they saw truth by the light of truth, and truths enabled them to perceive good by the pleasure of its love. ‘But,’ he said, ‘as in the following periods the human race retreated from the acknowledgment that all the truths of wisdom and thus all the good of love they had was continually flowing in from God, they ceased to be dwelling-places of God, and then too they stopped talking with God and mixing with angels. For the interiors of their minds were diverted from their previous direction, which was being raised upwards by God towards God, and they were turned further and further aside, outwards towards the world, and so directed by God to God by way of the world. Finally they were turned in the opposite direction, which is downwards towards oneself. Because a person who is inwardly turned upside down or away cannot look to God, people separated themselves from God and became forms of hell, and so of the devil.
[3] ‘It follows from this that in the earliest ages people acknowledged with heart and soul that all the good of love, and so all the truth of wisdom, came to them from God, and also that this good and truth were God’s in them, so that they were purely receivers of life from God; which is why they were called images of God, sons of God and born of God. But in the following ages people no longer acknowledged this with their heart and soul, but were influenced by some incorrect belief, later by historical faith and finally merely professing it with their lips. Acknowledging anything of this kind merely by professing it with the lips is not acknowledging it, but is in fact denying it at heart.
‘These facts enable us to see what wisdom is like on earth among present-day Christians. They can still be inspired by God as the result of a written revelation, while not being aware of the difference between man and an animal. Thus many people believe that if a man lives after death, so too must an animal; or because an animal does not live after death, neither can man. Surely our spiritual light, which enlightens our mental vision, is in their case turned to thick darkness; and their natural light, which only enlightens the bodily vision, has become dazzling light to them?’
154bis After this speech all turned to the two newcomers and thanked them for coming and bringing them their report; and they begged them to carry back to their brethren a report of what they had heard. The newcomers replied that they would strengthen their people in their belief in this truth, that in so far as they attribute all the good of charity and all the truth of faith to the Lord and not to themselves, so far are they human beings and so far do they become angels of heaven.
155bis The second experience.
One morning I was woken up by the sweetest singing, heard coming from some height above me. So in the earliest moments of waking, a period which is inward, peaceful and sweet compared with the rest of the day, I could for some while remain in the spirit as if outside the body, and give the most detailed attention to the affection expressed by the singing. Singing in heaven is simply a mental affection which is expressed through the mouth as a modulation of sound, since it is the sound, distinct from the speaker’s words, coming from the affection of his love which gives life to speech. In that state I perceived that it was the affection for the delights of conjugial love, which wives in heaven had made into a song. I could tell this was so by the sound of the singing, in which those varied delights were reproduced in wonderful ways.
After this I got up, and looked out into the spiritual world, and saw to the east what looked like golden rain below the sun there. It was morning dew falling so densely that it seemed to my view like golden rain as it caught the rays of the sun. This made me still more fully awake, so I went out in spirit and asked an angel whom I chanced to meet whether he had seen the golden rain falling from the sun.
[2] ‘Yes,’ he answered, ‘I see it every time I meditate about conjugial love,’ and then he turned his gaze in that direction. ‘That rain,’ he said, ‘falls on a hall where three husbands live with their wives in the middle of the eastern park. The reason such rain is seen falling* from the sun over that hall is that there wisdom about conjugial love and its delights abides with them, about conjugial love with the husbands and about its delights with their wives. But I perceive that you are meditating about the delights of conjugial love, so I will take you to that hall and introduce you.’
He took me through park-land to some houses built of olive wood with two cedar columns in front of the door. He introduced me to the husbands, and asked if I might talk with their wives in their presence.
They agreed and summoned them. The wives looked piercingly at my eyes, so I asked, ‘Why do you do that?’
‘We can,’ they said, ‘see exactly what is your inclination and so affection, and thus what you are thinking about sexual love. We see you are meditating deeply but chastely about it. What,’ they asked, ‘do you want us to tell you about it?’
‘Please be so good,’ I answered, ‘as to tell me something about the delights of conjugial love.’ Their husbands agreed and said, ‘Yes, you can reveal something about that if you like; they have chaste ears.’
[3] ‘Who was it,’ they asked, ‘told you to question us about the delights of that love? Why not our husbands?’ ‘This angel with me,’ I replied, ‘whispered in my ear that it is wives who receive and feel those delights, since they are born to be loves, and all delights belong to love.’
They replied to this with a smile, ‘Be careful, and don’t say anything like that, except with ambiguous meaning, because we women have wisdom deeply stored in our hearts, and we do not disclose it to any husband unless he enjoys truly conjugial love. There are many reasons for this, which we keep hidden away.’
‘Our wives,’ said the husbands, ‘know every state of our minds, and nothing escapes their notice. They see, perceive and feel anything that proceeds from our will, but we in turn perceive nothing in our wives. Wives have this privilege, because they are very tender loves and as it were burning with zeal to preserve friendship and trust in marriage, and thus a happy life for both. They take care to maintain this for their husbands and themselves due to the wisdom inherent in their love, which is so full of prudence that they are unwilling and thus unable to say they love, but only that they are loved.’
‘Why,’ I asked, ‘are they unwilling and thus unable?’ They replied that if the slightest hint of this escaped their lips, a chill would grip their husbands, and banish them from their bed, their bedroom and their sight. ‘But this,’ they said, ‘happens to those who do not regard marriage as holy, and therefore do not love their wives with spiritual love. It is different in the case of those who do; in their minds that love is spiritual and from this it becomes natural in the body. We in this hall enjoy natural love arising from spiritual, so we entrust our husbands with our secrets about the delights of conjugial love.’
[4] Then I pressed them strongly to reveal some of these secrets to me too. At once they started looking towards the window facing the south, where we saw a shining white dove, with its wings glistening as if of silver and its head decorated with a crest as if of gold, standing on a branch from which sprang an olive. When the dove tried to stretch its wings, the wives said, ‘We will reveal something; when that dove appears, it is a sign that we may.’
‘Every man,’ they said, ‘has five senses, sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. But we also have a sixth, which allows us to feel all the delights of our husband’s conjugial love. We have this feeling in the palms of our hands, when we touch our husbands’ chests, arms, hands or cheeks, but particularly their chests. We also feel it when they touch us. All the happiness and charm of the thoughts in their minds, and all the joys and pleasures in their consciousness, and the amusement and cheerfulness in their chests are passed from them to us and take a form, becoming perceptible, capable of being felt and touched. We can tell them apart as accurately and exactly as the ear can tell apart the notes of a song, or the tongue the tastes of delicacies. In short, our husbands’ spiritual pleasures put on a kind of natural embodiment in us. Our husbands therefore call us the sense organs of chaste conjugial love, and so of its delights. This sense our sex has comes into and remains in existence, continues and grows the more our husbands love us for wisdom and judgment, and we in turn love them for the same qualities in them. This sense our sex has is called in the heavens the sport of wisdom with its love and of love with its wisdom.’
[5] These remarks filled me with a longing to ask many more questions, for instance, about the various kinds of delights. ‘The variety is endless,’ they said, ‘but we do not wish to say more, and so we cannot, because the dove in our window has flown off with the olive branch in its claws.’ I waited for it to come back, but in vain. Meanwhile I asked the husbands, ‘Do you not have a similar sense of conjugial love?’ ‘We have,’ they replied, ‘a general sense, but not a particular one. We feel a general blessedness, pleasure and charm arising from the particular ones our wives feel. This general feeling we get from them is like the tranquillity of peace.’
When they had said this, we saw through the window a swan standing on the branch of a fig-tree; it unfolded its wings and flew away. On seeing this the husbands said, ‘This is our sign to keep quiet about conjugial love. Come back again from time to time, and perhaps more will be revealed.’ So they turned away, and we left.
* Reading cadens for cadentis.
156bis CHAPTER VIII
THE LINKING OF SOULS AND MINDS BY MARRIAGE, WHICH IS WHAT IS MEANT BY THE LORD’S WORDS: ‘THEY ARE NO LONGER TWO, BUT ONE FLESH’
It is evident from Genesis and also from the Lord’s words that from creation men and women are endowed with an inclination and also the ability to be linked as it were into one; and both of these are still present in men and women. We read in the Book of Creation called Genesis:
Jehovah God built the rib which he had taken from the man to make a woman, and brought her to the man. And the man said, As things are now this is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. Her name shall be Ishshah, because she was taken from Ish.* For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and cling to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. Gen. 2:22-24.
The Lord as reported by Matthew said much the same:
Have you not read that he who from the beginning made male and female said, For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and they shall become one flesh; therefore they are no longer two, but one flesh. Matt. 19:4, 5.
[2] It is plain from these words that woman was created out of man, and both of them have an inclination and ability to be reunited into one. This means into one human being, as is plain from Genesis, where each are together called man. For it says:
On the day when God created man, he created them male and female, and called their name man. Gen. 5:1, 2.
We read there: ‘He called their name Adam,’ but ‘Adam’ and ‘man’ are the same word in Hebrew. Moreover, each is also called man (Gen. 1:27; 3:22-24). ‘One flesh’ also means one human being, as is plain from passages in the Word where the expression ‘all flesh’ is used to mean every human being (e.g. Gen. 6:12, 13, 17, 19; Isa. 40:5, 6; 49:26; 66:16, 23, 24; Jer. 25:31; 32:27; 45:5; Ezek. 20:48; 21:4, 5; and elsewhere).
[3] However, I have shown in ARCANA CAELESTIA, which explains the spiritual sense of the two books of Genesis and Exodus, what is the meaning of ‘the man’s rib’ which was built to make a woman, of ‘the flesh’ which was closed up in its place, and so of ‘bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh’, of ‘father and mother’ whom a man is to leave on getting married, and of ‘clinging to his wife.’ It was proved there that ‘rib’ does not mean rib, ‘flesh’ does not mean flesh, ‘bone’ does not mean bone, and ‘cling’ does not mean cling; but the spiritual things are meant which correspond to them and are therefore expressed in this way. It is plain that they mean spiritual things which turn two people into a single person, from the fact that it is conjugial love which links them, and that is a spiritual love. I have said several times above that the man’s love of wisdom is copied into the wife; and a fuller proof of this will be given in the following chapters. I cannot at this point digress and depart from the subject here under discussion, which is the linking of a married couple to become one flesh by the union of their souls and minds. This union will be expounded in the following order:
(i) From creation each sex is endowed with the ability and inclination to be linked as it were into one.
(ii) Conjugial love links two souls and so two minds into one.
(iii) A wife’s will links itself to a man’s intellect, and so his intellect links itself to his wife’s will.
(iv) The inclination to be united with a man is constant and permanent in the case of a wife, but inconstant and fluctuating in the case of a man.
(v) The linking is inspired in a man by his wife in proportion to her love; and it is received by the man in proportion to his wisdom.
(vi) That linking takes place by stages from the first days of a marriage, and in the case of those who enjoy truly conjugial love it becomes deeper and deeper for ever.
(vii) The linking of a wife to her husband’s rational wisdom takes place from within, but to his moral wisdom from outside.
(viii) In order to effect that linking a wife is given the ability to perceive her husband’s affections and to guide them with extreme caution.
(ix) Wives hide this power of perceiving away in themselves, and conceal it from their husbands for very necessary reasons, so that conjugial love, friendship, trust and so the blessings of living together and a happy life may be firmly established.
(x) This power of perception is the wife’s wisdom; it cannot exist in a man, nor can the man’s rational wisdom exist in the wife.
(xi) A wife is constantly led by love to think about her husband’s inclination towards herself, with the intention of linking him to herself; but it is different for a man.
(xii) A wife links herself to her husband by paying attention to the desires of his will.
(xiii) A wife is linked to her husband by the sphere of life which issues from her love for him.
(xiv) A wife is linked to her husband by making her own the powers of his manliness; but this is dependent upon their spiritual love for each other.
(xv) The wife thus receives in herself an image of her husband, and consequently perceives, sees and feels his affections.
(xvi) A man has his own duties and a wife has hers; a wife cannot be involved in her husband’s duties, nor a man in his wife’s, and perform them properly.
(xvii) These duties also link the two into one as they help each other; and together they make a single household.
(xviii) As they are linked in the ways that have been stated couples become more and more one person.
(xix) Those who enjoy truly conjugial love feel themselves a united person and like one flesh.
(xx) Truly conjugial love regarded in essence is a union of souls, a linking of minds, and an effort to be linked in chest and so in body.
(xxi) The states of this love are innocence, peace, tranquillity, intimate friendship, full trust and a desire shared by the disposition and heart of each to do the other all the good they can. All these things give rise to blessedness, bliss, joy and pleasure, and by their everlasting enjoyment heavenly happiness.
(xxii) There is no way that these can exist except in the marriage of one man with one wife.
An explanation of these points now follows.
* Hebrew ‘ishshah ‘woman’, ‘ish ‘man’.
It was shown just above from Genesis that woman was taken out of man. From this it follows that both sexes have the ability and inclination to join themselves into one. For that which is taken out of anything takes with it and retains as a result of its individuality what it makes its own. Since this is of like nature, it longs to be reunited, and when reunited is in the other as if in itself, and conversely. There can be no doubt about the ability of one sex to be linked or be united to the other; nor about the inclination to be linked. Both of these facts are proved by what we can see with our own eyes.
Each person is composed of a soul, a mind and a body. The soul is the inmost part of him, the mind the intermediate, and the body the outermost. The soul, being the inmost part of a person, is in origin celestial; the mind, being the intermediate, is in origin spiritual; and the body, being the outermost, is in origin natural. Things which are in origin celestial or spiritual are not in real space, but apparent space. This is also well known in the world; which is why we say that neither extension nor location can be attributed to spiritual things. Since then space is only an appearance, remoteness and presence are also only apparent. Apparent remoteness and presence in the spiritual world depend upon the similarity, kinship and affinity of love, as I have frequently investigated and proved in my books about that world.
[2] This preamble is necessary to make it known that the souls and minds of people are not in space, like their bodies, because, as just stated, they are in origin celestial and spiritual. Since they are not in space, they can be linked as it were into one, although bodies cannot be so linked. This happens primarily between married couples who love each other intimately. But because woman came from man, and their linking is a kind of reunion, reason allows us to see that it is not a linking into one, but an attachment, which is nearer and closer in proportion to their love, and approaches contact in the case of those who enjoy truly conjugial love. This attachment can be called spiritual cohabitation, which is possible in the case of married couples who love each other tenderly, however far apart their bodies are. Experience in the natural world too offers plenty of evidence to prove this. So from this it is plain that conjugial love links two souls and minds into one.
The reason is that the male is destined by birth to become an intellect, the female to become a will which loves the male’s intellect. It follows from this that in marriage a wife’s will is linked with her husband’s intellect, and the husband’s intellect is reciprocally linked with his wife’s will. Anyone can see that the linking of intellect and will is the closest, and that it is so in order that one faculty can enter into the other and be delighted as the result of and in that linking.
The reason is the fact that love cannot help loving and uniting itself so as to be loved in return. This and nothing else is its essence and life. Women are by birth forms of love, and the men with whom they unite themselves to be loved in return are forms for reception. Moreover, love is continuously in action; it is like heat, flame and fire, which cease to exist if they are prevented from acting. That is why the wife’s inclination to unite a man to herself is constant and permanent. But a man does not have a similar inclination towards his wife, because a man is not a form of love, but is only a receiver of love. His receptivity comes and goes as worries interfere, as the mind wavers between warmth and chill for various reasons, and as bodily strength increases and decreases. Since these factors are not constant and do not recur in a regular pattern, it follows that the inclination towards this linking is inconstant and fluctuating in the case of men.
The fact that love and the linking it produces are inspired by the wife in her husband is a secret not revealed to men today; in fact without exception they deny it. The reason is that wives persuade people that men alone love and they themselves receive that love; in other words men are forms of love, women of obedience. They are heartily pleased when men believe this. There are many reasons for this persuasion, all of which have to do with the wives’ prudence and caution; something more will be said on this subject in the following pages, and in particular in the Chapter [XI] on the reasons for the coldness, separation and divorce of married couples. The reason why love is inspired or instilled into men by their wives is that men do not have a scrap of conjugial love, nor even of sexual love, but this is only to be found in wives and women. I received a vivid demonstration of this fact in the spiritual world.
[2] There was once a conversation there on this subject, and under the influence of their wives’ persuasion the men were insistent that it was they and not their wives who loved, and their wives received love from them. In order to settle this question, all the women, including the wives, were taken away from the men; and at the same time the very sphere of sexual love was also removed. With this gone the men came into an utterly strange state, which they had never before experienced; and they complained a great deal about it. While they were in that state the women were brought to them, and the wives joined their husbands. Both of these groups addressed their menfolk affectionately. But their endearments left them cold; they turned their backs and said to one another, ‘What’s all this? What are these women?’ When some of the women said that they were their wives, they replied ‘Wives indeed! We don’t know you.’ But when the wives began to feel hurt by their husbands’ chilling indifference, and some started to cry, the sphere of love of the female sex and of conjugial love, which had been taken away, was restored, and then the men at once returned to their former state. Those who loved marriage became as they had been before, those who were lovers of the female sex as they had been. In this way the men were convinced that nothing at all of conjugial love, and not even of sexual love, was lodged with them, but only with women and their wives. All the same, the wives were prudent enough to make their husbands believe that the love was lodged with the men, but that some spark of it could pass over from them to themselves.
[3] This experience is brought in here to make it known that wives are forms of love, men receivers of love. It is plain that men receive love in proportion to the wisdom they possess, and especially in so far as this is based on the religious belief that only one’s wife is to be loved, from the fact that, when love is directed solely to one’s wife, it is concentrated. Since it is also ennobled, it retains its strength, is established and endures. If this were not so, it would be as when wheat is taken from the barn and thrown to the dogs, causing a famine at home.
The first heat of marriage does not make a link, for it derives from sexual love, which is bodily and in that way affects the spirit. Whatever in the spirit is of bodily origin does not last long; but love which is of spiritual origin in the body does last. The love of the spirit, and love of spiritual origin in the body, is instilled into the souls and minds of married couples together with friendship and trust. When these two are combined with the first love of marriage, this becomes conjugial love, opening their hearts and breathing into them the sweetness of love; and it does so more and more deeply as friendship and trust attach themselves to the earliest love, and the love pervades them and they pervade the love.
Wisdom among men is twofold, rational and moral. Their rational wisdom is purely intellectual, their moral wisdom is both intellectual and a matter of how they live. This conclusion can be seen merely by looking at this proposition and studying it. But I shall list some particular examples, so as to make it known what is meant by men’s rational wisdom and their moral wisdom.
The subjects which belong to their rational wisdom are given different names. Their generic names are knowledge, intelligence and wisdom. The more specific terms are rationality, judgment, ingenuity, learning and sagacity. But there are sciences proper to each person’s occupation, so these are very numerous. There are sciences proper to the clergy, to magistrates and their various officers, to judges, to doctors and chemists, to soldiers and sailors, to craftsmen and labourers, to farmers and so on. Rational wisdom also includes all the sciences which young people learn at school, so as later to achieve intelligence. They have different names, such as philosophy, physics, geometry, mechanics, chemistry, astronomy, law, politics, ethics, history, and many more; these serve as gateways leading to rational ideas, from which rational wisdom is acquired.
The reason why a wife’s linking with men’s moral wisdom is from outside is that the virtues of that wisdom are for the most part akin to similar ones among women, and derive from the man’s intellectual will, with which the wife’s will unites and makes a marriage. Since the wife knows these virtues in her husband, even better than he does in himself, we say that the wife’s link with them is from outside.
The fact that wives know their husbands’ affections and prudently guide them is one of the secrets of conjugial love which wives keep hidden. They know them by three senses, sight, hearing and touch, and control them without their husbands having any idea of this. Now since this is one of wives’ secrets, it is not proper for me to give a circumstantial account of it; but since it is proper for wives to do so, I have appended four experiences at the end of chapters, in which these subjects are disclosed by the wives themselves. There are two from the three wives who live in the hall above which golden rain was seen falling [155bis, 208]; and two from the seven wives who were sitting in the rose-garden [293, 294]. If these are read, this secret will stand revealed.
The hiding and concealment of their perception of their husbands’ affections are described by the wives as necessary actions, because, if they were revealed, they would drive their husbands from their bed, bedroom and home. The reason is that most men suffer from a deep-seated coldness in marriage, for many reasons which will be revealed in the Chapter on the causes of coldness, separation and divorce between married couples [XI].
[2] If wives were to uncover their husbands’ affections and inclinations, this coldness would burst out of its hiding place and chill first the inner regions of the mind, then the chest, and so the lowest expressions of love, the reproductive organs. If they were chilled, conjugial love would be so far banished that there would be no hope left for friendship, trust and the blessings of living together and so leading a happy life. Yet this hope constantly encourages the wives. To disclose their knowledge of the affections and inclinations to love their husbands feel would mean declaring and making public their own love; and it is well known that the more wives open their mouths on that subject, the more the husbands grow cold and wish to be parted. These facts make plain the truth of the proposition, that the reason why wives keep their perceptions to themselves and conceal them from their husbands is that it is necessary.
This follows from the distinction between the male and the female. The male employs the intellect to perceive, the female love. Also the intellect perceives what lies above the bodily level and beyond the limits of the world, since rational and spiritual sight can penetrate thus far. But love does not penetrate beyond what it feels; when it goes beyond, it derives this ability from being linked with the man’s intellect, something which was established from creation. For the intellect works by light, love by heat, and what belongs to light is perceived, what belongs to heat is felt. It is plain from this that on account of the distinction between the male and the female the wife’s wisdom cannot exist in the man, nor the husband’s wisdom in the wife. Neither can a man’s moral wisdom exist in women, in so far as it derives from his rational wisdom.
These points are inseparable from the previous explanation that the inclination to unite herself with her husband is constant and permanent in the case of the wife, but inconstant and fluctuating in the case of the husband; see the discussion of this [160]. From this it follows that a wife is continuously thinking about her husband’s inclination towards herself, with the intention of linking him to herself. The wife’s thinking about her husband is interrupted by the domestic duties which fall to her, but still she keeps up the affection for his love; and this affection is not separate from their thoughts in the case of women, as it is with men. But I report this from hearsay; see the two accounts of experiences with the seven wives who were sitting in the rose-garden, which will follow some chapters later [293-4].
This is too well known to need any explanation.
From each individual there comes, or rather pours forth, a spiritual sphere due to the affections of his love; this surrounds him and enters into the natural sphere coming from the body, and they are linked together. It is commonly known in the world that there is a natural sphere continuously emanating from the body, not only from human beings, but also from animals, and indeed from trees, fruits, flowers, and also from metals. It is much the same in the spiritual world; but there the spheres which emanate from objects are spiritual. The spheres emanating from spirits and angels are more deeply spiritual, because they possess affections of love, and so inward perceptions and thoughts. This is the origin of every kind of sympathy or antipathy, and it is what links everything or holds it apart. Presence or absence in that world depends upon these spheres, for what is of the same nature and concordant causes presence and linking, but what is of different nature and discordant causes separation and absence. These spheres therefore are what create distance there.
Certain people are also aware of the effects produced by these spiritual spheres in the natural world. The mutual inclination of married couples towards each other are from no other origin. Spheres of unanimity and concord unite, those of opposition and discord separate; for concordant spheres are pleasant and welcome, opposing and discordant ones unpleasant and unwelcome.
[2] I have heard from angels, who are able to perceive the spheres clearly, that there is not a single internal or external part of a person which is not renewing itself. It does this by dissolving and being replaced, and this is the source of the sphere which continually pours forth. They said that this sphere is packed closely around the person to the back and to the front, thinly at the back, but densely at the front. The sphere coming from the chest is linked with respiration. That is why a married couple who differ in disposition and disagree in their affections lie in bed turned away from each other, back to back. Conversely, those who agree in disposition and affections turn towards each other.
[3] They also said that since the spheres come from every part of the person and extend to some distance around him, they not only link or separate the couple from without, but also from within. This, they said, is the origin of all the differences and varieties in conjugial love. They ended by saying that the sphere of love coming from a wife who is tenderly loved is perceived in heaven as a sweet fragrance, notably more pleasant than that perceived in the world by a newly wed bridegroom in the first days after his wedding. These facts make plain the truth of the assertion that a wife is linked to her husband by the sphere of life which comes from her love for him.
I have heard evidence of the truth of this directly from the lips of angels. They said that the reproductive force expended by husbands is in every way received by wives, and it reinforces their life; thus wives lead a life of increasing unanimity with their husbands, producing in effect a union of souls and a linking of minds. They gave as the reason for this the fact that the husband’s reproductive force contains his soul, and also his mind as regards the inner regions linked to the soul. This, they added, was provided from creation, so that the man’s wisdom, which makes his soul, should become the wife’s possession, thus making them, in the Lord’s words, one flesh. It was also provided to ensure that a male as the result of some fancy should not leave his wife after she has conceived. But they went on to say that wives grasp and take possession of their husbands’ life in proportion to their conjugial love, because it is love which, being a spiritual union, links them. They said there were a number of other reasons why this provision was made.
The reasons adduced above lead to the proof that wives receive into themselves what belongs to their husbands’ wisdom; that is, what is proper to their souls and minds, and thus they make themselves wives instead of virgins. The reasons required for this conclusion are as follows:
(a) Woman was created out of man.
(b) This engenders an inclination to unite herself and, as it were, to be reunited with her husband.
(c) As a result and to effect that union with her partner a woman is by birth the love of her husband; and she becomes more and more the love of him by marriage, because then love constantly concentrates its thoughts on linking her husband with herself.
(d) She is linked to her one and only man by the attention she pays to the desires of his life.
(e) The linking is achieved by means of the spheres enveloping them and uniting them, all over and in detail, depending on the quality of conjugial love the wives possess, and at the same time depending on the quality of the wisdom receiving that love among the husbands.
(f) Another linking is effected by means of the wives’ making their husbands’ strength their own.
(g) It is plain from these facts that something of the husband is constantly being copied into the wife, and it is imprinted on her as if it were hers.
From all these considerations it follows that an image of the husband is formed in the wife, which allows her to perceive, see and feel in herself what goes on in her husband, and thus, so the speak, to feel herself in him. The perception comes from communicating, the seeing from looking, and the feeling from touching. The wife feels her love being received by the husband by touching with her palms his cheeks, arms, hands and chest. This was disclosed to me by the three wives in the hall and the seven wives in the rose-garden, as described in the accounts of experiences [155bis, 208, 293, 294].
There is no need to list the duties proper to a husband and to a wife, in order to demonstrate their existence; there are many of them of different kinds. Anyone can grasp how to classify them into genera and species, if he merely gives his mind to thinking about them. The primary duties by which wives link themselves with their husbands are the bringing up of children of either sex, and of girls up to the age at which they are given in marriage.
[2] Many people believe that women can perform the duties of men, provided they are introduced to them at a sufficiently early age, just as boys are. But they can be taught to perform them, not to judge them; and it is on this that the inner correctness of their duties depends. As a result, women who have been introduced to men’s duties are obliged in matters of judgment to consult their menfolk, and then, if they are given freedom, they choose from the advice they receive what suits their love.
[3] Some are of the opinion that women can equally lift the gaze of their intellect into the sphere of light which men enjoy, so perceiving things equally deeply. This opinion has been supported by the writings of certain learned authoresses. But when these writings of theirs were investigated in their presence in the spiritual world, they turned out to be the products, not of judgment and wisdom, but of cleverness and facility. What results from the latter two qualities is made by the elegance and neatness of composition to seem sublime and learned; but only to those who call every display of cleverness wisdom.
[4] The reason why men cannot be involved either in the duties proper to women, and perform them correctly, is that they cannot assume women’s affections, which are quite distinct from those of men. It was because the affections and perceptions of the male sex were thus distinguished from creation, and so became their nature, that one of the statutes of the Children of Israel was:
A woman is not to wear man’s clothing, nor a man woman’s clothing; for this is an abomination. Deut. 22:5.
The reason is that in the spiritual world everyone is dressed according to his affections, and the two separate sets of affections of a woman and a man cannot be united except in the persons of two people; it can never happen in one person.
It is one of the things well known in the world that the husband’s duties are in some way linked to those of the wife, and the wife’s duties are associated with the husband’s, these links and associations being effected and determined by their mutual help. But the primary duty, which binds, associates and brings together into one the souls and lives of the married couple is seeing jointly to the bringing up of children. In dealing with this the duties of husband and wife are at once different but linked. They are different in that seeing to the feeding of babies and the bringing up of children of either sex, and teaching girls up to the age at which they are given in marriage and transferred to the company of husbands, is the proper duty of the wife. But seeing to the education of boys between infancy and adolescence, and beyond this until they become independent, is the proper duty of the husband.
These duties are linked by the advice, support and many other forms of help rendered by one to the other. It is well known that both these sets of duties, both those which are linked and those which are different, both those which are shared and those which are special, bind the dispositions of a couple into one, the result of the action of what is called parental love. It is also well known that these duties as regards their difference and their linking make a single household.
This is the same as the contents of point (vi), where it was explained that the linking takes place by stages, starting from the first days of the marriage, becoming in the case of those who enjoy truly conjugial love deeper and deeper for ever; see this discussion [162]. It is the increase in conjugial love which makes them into a single person. Since in the heavens this is the real love which comes from the celestial and spiritual life of the angels, a married couple are therefore called two, when the terms husband and wife are used, but one person when the term used is angels.
This proposition needs to be proved, not from the lips of any dweller on earth, but from those who dwell in heaven, because truly conjugial love does not exist among people on earth today. In addition, these are enveloped by a gross body, which blunts and absorbs the feeling that a married couple are one person and, so to speak, one flesh. Moreover, those in the world, who love their partners only outwardly and not inwardly, are unwilling to listen to this statement. Their thoughts on this subject are lewd, deriving from the flesh. But it is different for the angels in heaven, since they enjoy celestial and spiritual forms of conjugial love, and they are not enveloped in such a gross body as people on earth. I have heard evidence from those who have lived for ages with their partners in heaven, that they feel themselves thus united, the husband with his wife, the wife with her husband, and are each present in the other, as if they were in the other’s flesh, although they are separate persons.
[2] They reported as the reason for this phenomenon, so rare on earth, the fact that the uniting of their souls and minds is felt in their flesh, because the soul is not just the innermost part of the head, but of the whole body; and likewise the mind, which stands midway between the soul and the body. It seems as if the mind were in the head, but it is actually in the whole body. This, they said, is why the actions devised by the soul and mind proceed instantly from the body. It is also why the angels, after casting off their bodies in their former world, are complete persons. Now because the soul and mind are so closely attached to the flesh of the body as to be able to carry out and produce the effects they wish, it follows that the uniting of one’s soul and mind with one’s partner’s is felt also in the body, as if it were one flesh. When these statements were made by angels, I heard spirits standing by say that these are matters of transcendent angelic wisdom; but they were natural rational spirits, not spiritual rational ones.
The union of souls and the linking of minds were discussed before (see 158). The reason why the striving to be linked is felt in the chest is that this is the council chamber and, so to speak, the royal court, and the body is the town with all its people around it. The chest is the council chamber because all the influences exerted by the soul and mind on the body flow first into the chest. It is like a royal court, because it has control over every part of the body, being the seat of the heart and lungs; the heart exerts its control everywhere through the blood, the lungs everywhere through breathing. It is obvious that the body is like the town with all the people around it.
So when the souls and minds of a married couple are united, and it is truly conjugial love which unites them, it follows that this gratifying union first affects their chests, and through it their bodies, producing a striving to be linked. It does so the more, because conjugial love directs its effort to its lowest level, so as to achieve the fullness of its welcome pleasure. Since the chest stands at the junction of the ways, it is obvious why conjugial love has acquired there the location of its delicate feeling.
The reason why conjugial love enjoys and is the source of both these sets of states is that it is the product of the marriage of good and truth, a marriage that comes from the Lord. It is the nature of love to wish to communicate with the object of heartfelt love, in fact to give pleasure to the other and to seek one’s own pleasure from him. So even infinitely more does the Divine love in the Lord for man, whom He created to receive the love and wisdom which proceed from Him. Since He created man to receive, the male to receive wisdom, the female to receive the love of her husband’s wisdom, He therefore instilled into the innermost region of human beings conjugial love, as being the means of conferring all the blessedness, happiness, joy and pleasure which proceed solely from His Divine love by means of His Divine wisdom together with life, and enter into human beings. Consequently it affects those who enjoy truly conjugial love, because they are the only ones to receive this. Innocence, peace, tranquillity, intimate friendship, full trust and a desire shared by the disposition and heart to do to the other all the good they can are mentioned, because innocence and peace belong to the soul, tranquillity to the mind, intimate friendship to the chest, full trust to the heart, and the desire shared by the disposition and heart to do to the other all the good they can belongs to the body as the result of the others.
This conclusion follows from everything which has so far been said, and it is also the conclusion to be drawn from all that remains to be said. There is therefore no need for any special discussion to prove this.
* * * * *
Some weeks later* I heard a voice from heaven saying, ‘There is to be another meeting on Parnassium; come and we will show you the way.’
I went towards them, and on coming near I saw standing on Heliconeum a man with a trumpet, which he used to announce and summon a meeting. I also saw people from the city of Athenaeum and its neighbourhood going up as before, and among them three newcomers from the world. All three came from the Christians; one was a priest, one a politician, the third a philosopher. On the way they entertained the newcomers with talk on various subjects, especially about the wise men of antiquity, whom they mentioned by name. The newcomers asked whether they would see them. They were told that they would see them, and be able to greet them if they wished, as they were easy to approach.
They asked about Demosthenes, Diogenes and Epicurus.** ‘Demosthenes,’ they said, ‘is not here, but where Plato lives. Diogenes with his school lives under Heliconeum, because he regards worldly matters as of no consequence, and meditates only on heavenly matters. Epicurus lives on the western boundary, and does not visit us, because we make a distinction between good and evil affections; we assert that good affections go along with wisdom, and evil affections are opposed to wisdom.’
[2] When they had climbed the hill of Parnassium, some guards there brought water from the local spring in crystal goblets, saying, ‘This is water from the spring which ancient myths describe as having been struck open by the hoof of the horse called Pegasus, and later dedicated to the Nine Maidens.*** But by the winged horse Pegasus they meant the understanding of truth which leads to wisdom. Its hoofs meant the experiences which give rise to natural intelligence. The Nine Maidens meant knowledge and learning of every kind. These stories are nowadays called myths, but they were correspondences, a manner of expression used by the earliest peoples.’
‘Don’t be surprised,’ the three newcomers were told by their companions; ‘the guards are taught to explain this. By drinking water from the spring we too understand being taught about truths, and by means of truths about kinds of good, and so being wise.’
[3] After this they went into the Palladium, and the three newcomers from the world, the priest, the politician and the philosopher, went with them. Then those wearing laurels who were sitting at the tables asked, ‘What news from earth?’
‘This,’ they answered, ‘is the news. There is someone who claims to talk with angels and have his sight opened to see into the spiritual world, just as well as he does into the natural world. He reports news from there, among which are the following. A person, he says, lives on as a person after death, just as he had lived before in the world. He can see, hear and speak, as he did before in the world. He wears clothes and ornaments just as he did before in the world. He feels hunger and thirst, eats and drinks, just as he did before in the world. He enjoys the delights of marriage, just as he did before in the world. He goes to sleep and wakes up, just as he did before in the world. That world has lands and lakes, mountains and hills, plains and valleys, springs and rivers, parks and woodland. There are also palaces and houses there, towns and villages, as in the natural world. There is writing there and books, official positions and businesses, precious stones, gold and silver. In short every single thing on earth is to be found there, but in the heavens they are infinitely more perfect. The only difference is that everything in the spiritual world is of spiritual origin, and so is spiritual, because it originates from the sun there, which is undiluted love. Everything in the natural world is of natural origin, and so is natural and material, because it originates from the sun there, which is undiluted fire. In short, a person after death is a complete person, in fact, more complete than he was before in the world. For before in the world he had a body made of matter, but in the spiritual world he has a spiritual body.’
[4] After this speech the wise men of antiquity asked what was thought on earth about this. ‘We know,’ said the three, ‘that these reports are true, because we are here and have examined and investigated everything. So we shall say what statements and deductions have been made about those reports on earth.’
The priest was the first to speak. He said that the clergy on first hearing these things called them visions, then inventions, and then claimed that he was seeing ghosts. Finally they were perplexed and said, ‘Believe it if you like. We have up to now taught that a person will not have a body after death until the day of the Last Judgment.’ ‘Are there not any among them,’ they asked, ‘intelligent enough to be able to prove and convince them of the truth, that a person lives on as a person after death?’
[5] The priest said that there are some who offer proofs, but they do not carry conviction. ‘Those who offer proofs assert that it is contrary to sound reason to believe that a person does not go on living as a person, except on the day of the Last Judgment, being meanwhile a disembodied soul. “What,” they say, “is a soul, and where is it in the meanwhile? Surely not a breath or a puff of wind flitting about in the air, or something lodged in the centre of the earth, in what is called its Pu.**** Are the souls of Adam and Eve, and all their descendants, still flitting around in space six thousand years, that is, sixty centuries, later?***** Or are they shut up in the bowels of the earth awaiting the Last Judgment? Is there anything more distressing and pitiful than waiting like that? Surely their fate could be compared with that of prisoners in jails chained hand and foot. If that is the fate that awaits people after death, would it not be better to be born a donkey than a human being? “Surely it is unreasonable to believe that a soul can be clothed again in its body, when the body has been eaten by worms, rats or fish. Or that the new body will be wrapped around a bony skeleton, which has been scorched by the sun or reduced to dust. How could such stinking bits of corpses be gathered together and united with souls?”
‘But when they hear such arguments, they do not offer any reasonable answer, but cling to their faith and say, “We keep reason obedient to faith.” Their reply to the question about all being gathered from the grave on the day of the Last Judgment is: “This is the task of omnipotence, and when one starts talking about omnipotence and faith, reason flies out of the window. I can assure you that then sound reason is treated as nothing, and some regard it as a mirage.” They are actually able to tell sound reason it is crazy.’
[6] On hearing this the wise men of Greece said: ‘Surely these paradoxes collapse of their own accord as being self-contradictory. Yet in the world today even sound reason cannot refute them. Is there any more paradoxical belief than what is related about the Last Judgment: that then the universe will come to an end, the stars will fall from the sky onto the earth (which is smaller than the stars), and the bodies of human beings, which are corpses or mummies consumed by people****** or reduced to shreds, will be joined to their souls again? When we were in the world, we believed in the immortality of people’s souls because of the deductions which reason offered to us; and we found a place for the blessed souls, which we called the Elysian fields, believing them to be images or appearances of human beings, though delicate because they are spiritual.’
[7] After this speech they turned to the second newcomer, who in the world had been a politician. He admitted that he had not believed in life after death, and had thought the stories he had heard about it were imagination and fiction. ‘When I thought about it,’ he said, ‘I said: “How can souls be bodies? Surely everything a person has lies dead in the grave. Has anyone there an eye to see with? Has anyone there an ear to hear with? How can he have a mouth to speak with? If anything of a person lives on after death, could it be anything but a kind of ghost? How can a ghost eat or drink? How can it enjoy the delights of marriage? Where can it get clothes, houses, food and so on? Ghosts are airy images which appear to exist but don’t.” When I was in the world, my thoughts about people living after death were these and similar. But now that I have seen everything, and touched everything with my hands, I have been convinced by my very senses that I am a person just as I was in the world. So much so, that I am not aware of living any otherwise than I did before, apart from the fact that my reason is now much more sound. I have several times been ashamed of what I used to think.’
[8] The philosopher gave a similar account of himself, but with the difference that he had put down the news he heard about life after death to the opinions and theories which he had gathered from ancient and modern thinkers.
The wise men were astonished to hear this. Those who belonged to the school of Socrates said that this news from earth allowed them to perceive that the inner regions of men’s minds had been progressively closed off. In the world now belief in falsity shone like truth and silly cleverness like wisdom. The light of wisdom had since their time sunk from the interior of the brain to the mouth below the nose; there it looked to men’s eyes like a gleam on the lips, and the speech of the mouth sounded like wisdom.
On hearing this one of their recruits said, ‘How stupid are the minds of those who dwell on earth today! I wish we had here the disciples of Heraclitus and Democritus,******* who find everything a cause for laughter or for tears. We should hear a mighty roar of laughter and a lot of weeping.’
When the meeting was over, they gave the three newcomers from earth mementoes of their country, copper plates inscribed with some hieroglyphic characters. These they took away with them.
* This probably means following the experiences related in 132 and 155bis.
** Demosthenes was an Athenian orator and statesman of the 4th century B.C. There were several Greeks called Diogenes; the one meant is probably the founder of the Cynic sect in the 4th century B.C., who regarded worldly matters as unworthy of notice. Epicurus (4th-3rd century B.C.) sought to achieve happiness by discussion and reasoning.
*** Otherwise known as the Muses.
**** Literally, ‘in some Pu or where.’ Pu is the Greek word for ‘where’. See 29 above.
***** By Archbishop Ussher’s Biblical chronology.
****** Parts of mummies were sometimes used as medicine; see TCR 160:5.
******* Greek philosophers of the 5th century B.C. Heraclitus took a gloomy view of human affairs; Democritus found them ridiculous.
In the eastern quarter there appeared to me a wood of palm-trees and laurels arranged in spiralling curves. I approached and went in, walking though several curving paths, until at the end of the paths I saw a garden, which occupied the central position in the wood. There was a small bridge which divided off the garden, with a gate on the side of the wood and another on the garden side. When I approached, the gates were opened by the guard. I asked him what the garden was called. ‘Adramandoni’, he said, ‘which means the delights of conjugial love.’
I went in and saw olive-trees, with vines running between the trees and hanging down. Beneath and between the trees there were flowering shrubs. In the middle was a grassy circle, in which husbands and wives and young men and women were sitting in pairs. At the centre of the circle there was a rise in the ground with a fountain leaping into the air due to the force of the water. When I came close by, I saw two angels dressed in purple and red engaged in conversation with those who were sitting on the grass; they were talking about the source of conjugial love and its delights. Since this love was the subject, they were listened to eagerly and given full attention, and they were uplifted as if by the fire of love in what the angels said.
[2] What I gathered from their talk can be summarised as follows. They started by talking about the difficulty of the enquiry, saying how difficult it was to perceive the source of conjugial love, because it has a celestial Divine source; this is Divine love, Divine wisdom and Divine use, the three of which proceed as one from the Lord. They flow into men’s souls as one, and through their souls into their minds. There they enter into their inner affections and thoughts, passing through these into the desires closely connected with the body, and from these through the chest into the genital region. Here everything which derives from the prime source is present at once, and together with their successive stages brings about conjugial love.
After this the angels said, ‘Let us converse by question and answer, for if something is merely heard it may be perceived at the time, but the impression does not last, unless the hearer also thinks about it for himself and asks questions.’
[3] Then some from the assembly of couples said to the angels, ‘We have heard that the source of conjugial love is a celestial Divine one, because it results from the Lord’s influence on men’s souls. Being from the Lord it is love, wisdom and use, the three essentials which together make up the one Divine essence. Nothing can proceed from the Lord except what belongs to His Divine essence, nor can anything else flow into the inmost region of a person, what we call his soul. Those three are, as they descend into the body, turned into analogous and corresponding things. Our first question then is ‘What is meant by the third essential which proceeds from the Divine, what is called use?’
The angels replied that love and wisdom without use are merely abstract ways of thinking, which also after a brief stay in the mind, pass away like winds. ‘But,’ they said, ‘these two are gathered together in use, there becoming one, what is called reality. Love cannot rest except in action, for love is the very principle which gives activity to life. Nor can wisdom come into and remain in being, except as the result of love and by acting together with it. Action is use. So we arrive at the definition of use: doing good out of love through wisdom. Use is goodness itself.
[4] ‘Since the trio of love, wisdom and use flow into men’s souls, it can be established why it is said that all good is from God. For all that is done out of love through wisdom is good, and use is also something done. What is love without wisdom but folly? And what is love together with wisdom without use but a state of mind?* But love and wisdom together with use not only make a person, they are a person. In fact, surprising as you may find it, they cause human reproduction. For the man’s seed contains his soul in a complete human form, enveloped by the purest substances in nature, and from this the body develops in the mother’s womb. This is the highest and ultimate use served by Divine love through Divine wisdom.’
[5] ‘The conclusion to be drawn,’ the angels finally remarked, ‘is that all fruitfulness, all propagation and all reproduction come in origin from the love, wisdom and use flowing in from the Lord. It flows directly from the Lord into men’s souls, indirectly into the souls of animals, and even less directly into the inmost regions of plants. All these processes arise in the final region from the first. It is plain that fruitfulness, propagation and reproduction are the means of continuing creation; and the only possible source of creation is out of Divine love through Divine wisdom in Divine use. Everything therefore in the universe is procreated and formed out of use, in use and to serve a use.’
[6] Later those who were sitting on the grassy banks asked the angels, ‘Where do the delights of conjugial love, which are beyond counting and telling, come from?’
The angels replied that they come from the uses of love and wisdom. This could be seen from the fact that the more anyone loves to be wise for the sake of a proper use, so much the more does the drive and potency of his conjugial love increase. These two together are the measure of his delight. It is the result of use, because love by means of wisdom [brings about use, and then love and wisdom]** take pleasure in each other and as it were play like children; and as they grow up, they become linked in cheerfulness. This takes place as it were through engagements, weddings, marriages and having children; and this continues in different forms for ever. These are the relations between love and wisdom when they underlie the use made of them; but these delights are in their beginnings impossible to perceive, but become more and more perceptible, as they come down by stages and enter the body. The stages by which they enter are from the soul into the inner regions of a person’s mind, from there into the outer regions, from these into the cavity of the chest, and from there into the genital region.
[7] ‘These heavenly nuptial games in the soul pass quite unnoticed by the person, but from there they slip into the inner regions of the mind as a feeling of peace and innocence, and into the outer regions of the mind as a feeling of blessedness, cheerfulness and pleasure. In the chest cavity, however, they take on a feeling of the delights of intimate friendship, and in the genital region as the result of the influence constantly coming from the soul together with the real sense of conjugial love, the feeling of utmost delight. As these nuptial games of love and wisdom in use in the soul proceed towards the chest cavity, they last, and in that cavity they make themselves felt as a boundless variety of delights. On account of the remarkable connexion that exists between the chest cavity and the genital region, the delights of one become in the other the delights of conjugial love. These exceed all the delights known in heaven and in the world, because the use of conjugial love is the most exalted of all uses, being the procreation of the human race, and from that the heaven of angels.’
[8] The angels went on to say that those who do not love being wise for the sake of use coming from the Lord know nothing of the countless varieties of delights arising from truly conjugial love. ‘For,’ they said, ‘in the case of those who do not love being wise with real truths, but love to be crazed with falsities, a madness which leads them out of some love to perform evil uses, the route to the soul is blocked. Hence it is that the heavenly nuptial games of love and wisdom in the soul are more and more cut off and cease; and this produces the same results on conjugial love, its drive, potency and delights.’
On hearing this the audience declared that they perceived that conjugial love is in proportion to the love of being wise for the sake of uses coming from the Lord. The angels replied that it was so. Then some of them were seen to have garlands of flowers on their heads; when they asked why, the angels said, ‘Because their understanding of the subject is deeper.’ Then they left the garden with the angels in their midst.
* Reading status mentis for flatus mentis (A.W. Acton).
** The Latin text is here plainly defective, and some words seem to have fallen out. Those supplied are merely conjectural. The original Latin may have been quia amor per sapientiam [in usum venit, et tunc amor et sapientia] inter se delitiantur.
THE CHANGE OF STATE OF LIFE PRODUCED BY MARRIAGE IN MEN AND IN WOMEN
It is very well known to the learned and the wise what is meant by states of life and their changes, but since it is not known to the uneducated and uncomplicated, I must start by saying something on this subject. A person’s state of life means what kind of person he is. Since everyone has two faculties which make up his life, what are called the intellect and the will, a person’s state of life means what kind of person he is with regard to his intellect and his will. From this it is obvious that changes of state of life means changes in what kind of person he is with regard to what is to do with the intellect and what with the will. Everyone is continually changing in these two respects; but there is a difference in the variations he undergoes before and after marriage. It will be the aim of this chapter to prove this, in the following order.
(i) A person’s state of life undergoes continuous changes from infancy up to the end of his life, and thereafter for ever.
(ii) The same happens to the inner form, which is that of his spirit.
(iii) These changes are different in the case of men and of women, since men are from creation forms of knowledge, intelligence and wisdom, and women are forms of the love of these things in their menfolk.
(iv) Men can have their minds lifted into a higher degree of light, women into a higher degree of heat; a women feels the delights of her heat in her husband’s light.
(v) Both men and women have different states of life before and after marriage.
(vi) In the case of married couples their states of life change after marriage and develop as their minds become linked by conjugial love.
(vii) Marriage also produces different forms in the souls and minds of married couples.
(viii) A woman is really formed into a wife for her husband as described in Genesis.
(ix) This formation is effected by the wife in secret ways, and this is meant by woman being created while the man slept.
(x) This formation is effected by the wife linking her will with her husband’s inner will.
(xi) The purpose of this is to make the will of both into one, and so the two become a single person.
(xii) This formation is effected by the wife making her husband’s affections her own.
(xiii) This formation is effected by the wife receiving what is propagated by her husband’s soul, with a delight which arises from the fact that she wishes to be the love of her husband’s wisdom.
(xiv) In this way a young woman is formed into a wife, and a young man into a husband.
(xv) In the marriage of one man with one wife, between whom truly conjugial love exists, the wife becomes more and more a wife, the husband more and more a husband.
(xvi) Thus by stages their forms are from within made more perfect and noble.
(xvii) The children born of a couple who enjoy truly conjugial love inherit from their parents the principle of the marriage of good and truth, which gives them the inclination and ability to perceive what has to do with wisdom in the case of a son, and to love the teachings of wisdom in the case of a daughter.
(xviii) This happens because the child’s soul is from the father, and its clothing is from the mother.
An explanation of these points now follows.
The states of a person’s life are generally termed infancy, childhood, adolescence, maturity and old age. It is well known that every person, if he remains living in the world, passes by stages from one to the next, so from the first to the last. Passage from one age to the next is not noticeable, except by the passing of time; but it is plain to reason that development advances from moment to moment, so that it is a continuous process. What happens with a person is like what happens with a tree, which from the time the seed is planted in the ground grows and gets taller every minute, even in the shortest period of time. These momentary developments are also changes of state, for each adds something to the one before, which perfects its state.
[2] The changes taking place at a person’s inner levels are more perfectly continuous than those which take place at the outer levels. This is because his inner levels, I mean what belongs to his mind or spirit, are at a higher degree than the outer levels; and thousands of events take place at a higher degree in the same time as one event takes place at the outer levels. The changes taking place at the inner levels are changes of the state of the will, as regards affections, and of the intellect as regards thoughts. It is especially the progressive changes of state in affections and thoughts which are meant in this section.
[3] The changes of state undergone by a person’s two faculties or types of life are continuous from infancy to the end of his life, and afterwards for ever. This is because no limit exists to knowledge, much less to intelligence, still less to wisdom. Their infinite and eternal extension is due to the Infinite and Eternal, who is their source. This is the origin of the philosophical maxim of the old scholars, that everything can be infinitely divided; and we can add to this, that everything can likewise be infinitely multiplied. The angels assert that the Lord goes on perfecting them in wisdom for ever, which is the same as infinitely, since eternity is an infinity of time.
The reason why this is continuously undergoing changes in keeping with the changes in the state of a person’s life is that nothing exists unless it has a form, and it is its state that creates its form. It is therefore the same whether we say that the state of a person’s life changes or his form changes. All of a person’s affections and thoughts are in forms and thus come from forms, since forms are their realisations; if affections and thoughts could exist without being realised, they might even exist in skulls devoid of brains. This would be much the same as seeing without an eye, or hearing without an ear, or tasting without a tongue; these organs are the means by which these senses are realised and these are their forms, as is well known.
[2] The reason why states of life are continually changing, as is the form they take in a person, is that it is a truth taught in the past and up to the present by wise men, that it is impossible for two things, much less more than two, to be absolutely identical. Thus for instance no two persons-much less more than two-have the same face. The same is true in successive series; no state of life is exactly the same as that which preceded it. From this the conclusion follows that a person’s state of life is perpetually changing, and so as a result is his form, especially that of his inner regions. However, since these matters do not teach us anything about marriage, but only prepare the way for knowledge of the subject, and because they are merely philosophical investigations based on the intellect and some people may find them difficult to grasp, I shall pass on after these few remarks.
It was explained above (90) that men were created as forms of the intellect, women as forms of the love of their menfolk’s intellect. It follows that the changes of state, which take place successively in both men and women from childhood up to maturity, are designed to complete the form of the intellect in men and of the will in women. That is why it is said that the changes in men are different from those in women. But in both cases the outer form, that of the body, is completed in keeping with the inner form, that of the mind. For the mind acts upon the body, and not the reverse. This is the reason why children in heaven grow up to become people of the stature and looks which are in keeping with the development of their intelligence. This is different from the case of children on earth, because they, like animals, are enveloped in a material body. They do, however, agree in growing first of all in inclination towards the objects which gratify their bodily senses, and then gradually towards those which affect their inner thought-processes; and by stages towards things that fill their will with affection. At the point where one’s age is on the turn from immaturity to maturity, the inclination towards marriage comes in too. This is a young woman’s inclination towards a young man, and a young man’s towards a young woman.
Since young women in the heavens, just as much as on earth, have the inborn prudence to conceal their inclinations towards marriage, the young men there too do not realise that it is not they who inspire young women with love, an appearance favoured by the masculine drive. But this they get from the influence of love coming from the fair sex, a subject which will be specifically treated elsewhere [223]. These considerations will establish the truth of the assertion that the changes of state are different in the case of men and of women, since men were created forms of knowledge, intelligence and wisdom, and women forms of the love of these qualities in men.
The light into which men are lifted means intelligence and wisdom, because spiritual light radiated from the sun of the spiritual world (this sun being in essence love) acts equally or as one with intelligence and wisdom. The heat into which women are lifted means conjugial love, because spiritual heat radiated from the sun of the spiritual world is in essence love; and in women it becomes specialised into the love which links itself with intelligence and wisdom in men, what taken all together is called conjugial love.
[2] We speak of being lifted into a higher light and heat, because it is being lifted into the light and heat enjoyed by the angels of the higher heavens. There is also a real lifting, as from a cloud into clear air, and from the lower level of this to a higher one, and from this into the ether. So the lifting into a higher light in the case of men is lifting into higher intelligence, and from this into wisdom. Lifting into wisdom can proceed higher and higher. But in the case of women, lifting into a higher heat is into more chaste and pure conjugial love, and a constant striving towards marriage, something hidden in their inmost regions from creation.
[3] This process of lifting regarded in itself is an opening up of the mind. The human mind is divided into separate levels, as the world is into atmospheric levels; the lowest of these is that of water, the next higher that of air, higher still that of the ether, and there is a highest level above this. As a person’s mind is opened up, it is lifted to similar levels, by wisdom in the case of men, by truly conjugial love in the case of women.
This can up to a point be illustrated from the play, as it is called, of heat with light in vegetation. Outwardly it is merely a simple combination of heat and light; but inwardly it is like them playing with each other, because heat and light are there in forms capable of receiving them; for heat and light pass through astonishingly circuitous paths, and in the inmost regions yearn to produce benefits; they also spread their charms widely into the air, which is filled with fragrance. There is an even more delightful play of spiritual heat with spiritual light in human forms; here the heat is conjugial love and the light is wisdom.
Before marriage both sexes have two different states, one before there is any inclination towards marriage, and another after there is one. The changes of these two states, and the consequent forming of minds, follow one after the other, as these states continually develop. But there is no time to describe these changes here, since they are varied and differ from one individual to another.
The actual inclinations towards marriage are, before marriage, only ideas in the mind, but they become more and more perceptible as feelings in the body. But after marriage the state of these inclinations tends towards linking and also reproduction. It is obvious that these are as different from the earlier states as results are from intentions.
The reason why the successive changes of state undergone by both partners after marriage depends on whether their conjugial love links or separates their minds, is that conjugial love is not only varying but different in different couples. It varies in the case of those who love each other inwardly, since in their case it ceases from time to time, though inwardly it constantly retains its warmth. But this love is different in the case of couples who love each other only outwardly, for in their case there are different reasons, the alternation of chill and warmth, for it ceasing from time to time.
[2] The principle behind these differences is that in the one case the body plays the leading part, and its heat spreads around forcing the lower regions of the mind to share it. But in the case of those who love each other inwardly, the mind plays the leading part, and carries the body along to share it. It looks as if love rises from the body to the soul, because the body, as soon as it is ensnared, penetrates into the mind through the eyes, as if through a door; and thus into the thoughts through the faculty of sight, as if through a forecourt, and so immediately into love. But in fact love comes down from the mind and acts upon the lower regions so as to reflect their disposition. A lewd mind therefore acts lewdly, a chaste mind chastely; this imposes its will on the body, but the lewd mind has the body impose its will on it.
In the natural world it is not possible to observe that marriage imposes different forms on souls and minds, because there souls and minds are enveloped in a material body, and the mind rarely shows through this. Moreover, people of today are better than the ancients at learning from childhood up how to assume facial expressions which deeply conceal the affections of the mind. This is the reason why it is impossible to recognise the difference between the form people’s minds have before and after marriage.
However, in the spiritual world it is plain to see by looking at them that the forms of souls and minds are different after marriage from what they were before it. For then people are spirits and angels, who are nothing but minds and souls in human form, stripped of their covering, which had been composed of aqueous and terrestrial elements and their exhalations scattered around in the air. When these have been discarded, the forms of minds, as they had existed within their bodies, become visible; and it is clear that there is a difference between those who are living in a marriage and those who are not. Generally speaking married couples have an inner beauty of face, since the husband gets from his wife the charming blush of her love, and the wife gets from her husband the bright gleam of his wisdom, since there the two partners are united in soul. Moreover, each appears to be fully human. This happens in heaven, because nowhere else are there true marriages; under heaven there are only pairings which are made and unmade.
In this book it is said that woman was created from man’s rib, and that the man said when she was brought to him, ‘She is bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh; and she shall be called Ishshah, because she was taken from Ish (man)’ Gen. 2:22-24. In the spiritual sense of the Word the rib of the chest means nothing but natural truth. This is the meaning of the ribs which a bear had in its teeth (Dan. 7:5), for bears mean those who read the Word in its natural sense and see the truths in it without understanding them. A man’s chest, by which* it is distinguished from a woman’s chest, means the essential and the self. This is his wisdom (see 187 above), for truth supports wisdom, just as a rib supports the chest. They have these meanings because the chest is the part in which a person’s whole being is centred.
[2] These facts establish that woman was created out of man by copying his own wisdom, that is, out of natural truth; and that the love of this is transferred from the man to the woman, so as to become conjugial love. This happens to prevent the man being filled with self-love, but rather with the love of his wife. Her innate character cannot fail to convert the self-love a man feels into a love for her. I have been told that this results from the wife’s love without either the man or his wife being aware of it. That is why truly conjugial love can never be found in anyone who is moved by self-love to feel pride in his own intelligence.
[3] Once this mystery of woman being created from man is understood, it can be seen that a woman is likewise, as it were, created or formed from the man in marriage; this is brought about by the wife, or rather by the Lord through the wife, since it is the Lord who imparts to women the inclination to act thus. For a wife takes upon herself an image of the man by making his affections her own (see 183 above), and by linking the man’s inner will with hers, on which see below. It also happens by her taking to herself what is propagated by his soul; on which also see below. These remarks make it plain that a woman, according to the description in Genesis understood inwardly, is formed into a wife by what she takes from her husband and from his chest, and copies into herself.
* Reading quo for quod.
We read in Genesis that Jehovah God made a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, so that he went to sleep, and He then took one of his ribs and built it into a woman (Gen. 2:21, 22). The man’s sleep and going to sleep mean his total ignorance of his wife being formed and, as it were, created out of him. This is plain from what was demonstrated in the last chapter, as well as from the natural prudence and carefulness which prevents wives revealing anything about their love, or how they take over the affections of their husbands’ life, and copy their wisdom into themselves. It is clear from what was explained above (166-168 ff.) that this is done by the wife while her husband is unaware of it and, so to speak, asleep, that is, in secret ways. In that passage it was also made clear that women have the prudence to act like this instilled in them from creation, and so from their birth, for the very necessary reasons that this establishes conjugial love, friendship and trust, so that they can enjoy living together and have a happy life. To ensure that this duly takes place, the man is instructed to leave his father and mother and cling to his wife (Gen. 2:24; Matt. 19:4, 5).
[2] In the spiritual sense the father and mother whom the man is to leave mean selfishness in the will and in the intellect. Selfishness in a person’s will is self-love, and selfishness in his intellect is loving his own wisdom. Clinging means devoting oneself to one’s wife’s love. These two forms of selfishness are fatal evils to the man, if they endure with him. The love of these two evils is changed into conjugial love to the extent that a man clings to his wife, that is, to the extent that he receives her love. On both these points see just above (193 and elsewhere). This is not the place for it, but it can be adequately confirmed from other passages in the Word, that sleeping means being unaware and uncaring, father and mother mean a person’s two forms of selfishness, one in the will and the other in the intellect, and clinging means devoting oneself to someone’s love.
A man has rational and moral wisdom, and a wife links herself with what belongs to his moral wisdom (see 163-165 above). What belongs to rational wisdom makes up the man’s intellect, what belongs to moral wisdom his will. It is with what makes up the man’s will that a wife links herself. It is the same whether we speak of the wife linking herself or linking her will to her husband’s will, because a wife is by birth a creature of the will, and so it is her will which directs her to do what she does. We speak of linking with the husband’s inner will, because a man’s will is located in his intellect, and the inmost level in a woman is the intellectual part of the man, as stated in the discussion of how woman was formed from man (see 32 above, and many later passages). Men also have an outer will, but this is more often affected by pretence and dissimulation. A wife can observe this will, but does not form a link with it, unless she pretends to do so, or for fun.
Anyone who links another’s will to himself also links his intellect to himself. For the intellect regarded in itself is merely the servant and lackey of the will. This fact is obvious from the affection of love being able to control the thinking of the intellect as it likes. Every affection of love is specific to the will, for what a person loves he also wills. It follows from this that anyone who links a person’s will to himself also links his whole personality. That is why it is innate in a wife’s love to unite her husband’s will to her own, since by this she becomes her husband’s, and her husband becomes hers; thus they are together one person.
This statement makes one with the two preceding statements, because affections belong to the will. For affections, being simply derivatives of love, form the will, and make it up and compose it. In the case of men affections are located in the intellect, but in the case of women in the will.
This statement fits the explanation given above (172, 173), so need not be further discussed. The delights of marriage experienced by wives have no other source than their wish to be one with their husbands, just as good is one with truth in the spiritual marriage. It was proved in detail that conjugial love comes down from that marriage in the chapter devoted to that subject [V].
From this it can be seen as in a model that a wife links her husband to herself, just as good does to truth; and that a man reciprocally links himself to his wife, in proportion to his receiving her love into himself, just as truth reciprocally links itself to good in proportion to its receiving good into itself. Thus the wife’s love forms itself by means of the husband’s wisdom, just as good forms itself by means of truth; for truth is the form of good. It is also plain from this that the delights of marriage experienced by the wife are chiefly due to her wishing to be one with her husband, and consequently to be the love of her husband’s wisdom. For she then feels the delights of her own heat in her husband’s light, as was explained in proposition (iv) above (188).
This consequence flows from what was said in the earlier parts of this chapter, and in the preceding chapter on married couples being linked so as to be one flesh. A young woman becomes or is made a wife, because a wife possesses elements taken from her husband and so additional, which she did not have before as an unmarried young woman. A young man becomes or is made a husband, because a husband possesses elements taken from his wife, which increase his ability to receive love and wisdom; these he did not have as a young man. These effects take place in the case of those who enjoy truly conjugial love. These, as may be seen in the last chapter (178), are among those who feel themselves a united person, and, as it were, one flesh. It is obvious from this that the character of a young woman is changed into a wifely one in the case of women, and the youthful character into a marital one in the case of men.
[2] The following experience in the spiritual world proved the truth of this to me. Certain men claimed that being linked with a woman before marriage was just like being linked with a wife after marriage. On hearing this the wives were extremely angry and said, ‘In fact it is nothing like it; they are as different as what is imaginary and what is real.’ The men replied to this, ‘Are you not women as you were before?’ To that the wives replied in a louder voice, ‘We are not women, we are wives. You are experiencing imaginary, not real, love, and this is empty talk of yours.’ Then the men said, ‘If you are not women, at least you are females.’ ‘At the beginning of our marriages,’ they replied, ‘we were females, but now we are wives.’
Truly conjugial love links two people more and more into a single person; see above (178, 179). A wife becomes a wife by being linked with her husband and in proportion to this, likewise a husband with his wife; and truly conjugial love lasts for ever. It follows from these two facts that a wife becomes more and more a wife, and a husband more and more a husband. The real reason is that in a marriage of truly conjugial love each partner becomes a more and more inward person, for that love opens up the inner regions of their minds, and, as this happens, each becomes more and more a person. In the case of a wife becoming more a person means more a wife, and in the case of a husband more a husband.
I have heard from angels that a wife becomes more and more a wife as her husband becomes more and more a husband, but the reverse does not hold. This is because rarely, if ever, does a chaste wife fail to love her husband, but the husband may fail to love her in return. This is due to the lack of any raising of his wisdom, which is the only way he can receive his wife’s love (on this wisdom see 130, 163-165). But these remarks were made about marriages on earth.
The most perfect and noblest human form is when two forms are made by marriage into one, so when the flesh of two becomes one, as they were created to be. The man’s mind is then lifted into a higher light, and the wife’s mind into a higher heat; and then they germinate, flower and bear fruit, like trees in spring (see 188, 189 above). It will now be seen in the next section that the ennobling of this form leads to the birth of noble fruit, spiritual in the heavens, natural on earth.
Children get from their parents inclinations towards whatever their parents’ love and life suggested, as is very well known from history in general and from one’s experiences in particular. However, I have been convinced by wise men in the spiritual world, as mentioned in two of the experiences related above,* that children do not get or inherit the actual affections of their parents, so as to live like them, but only the inclination towards that way of life and the ability to follow it.
[2] Their inborn inclinations bring their descendants to share similar affections, thoughts, speech and lives with their parents, if they are not checked. This is obvious from the Jewish race, which is today like its forefathers when they were in Egypt, in the wilderness, in the land of Canaan, and in the time of our Lord. They resemble them not only in mind, but even in face; anyone can recognise a Jew at first sight. It is the same with other offspring; and this leads unmistakably to the conclusion that people are born with inclinations to the same kind of things as their parents. It is, however, of Divine providence that the actual thoughts and deeds do not follow automatically, so that wrong inclinations can be corrected. The ability to achieve this is also implanted, which allows behaviour to be improved by parents and masters, and later on by the persons themselves, when they are able to act by their own judgment.
* Perhaps 152bis, 182.
No wise man can doubt that the soul is from the father. This is also plain to see from the characters, as well as the faces, which are marks of character, of descendants proceeding in a direct line from the head of each family. For the father is repeated as it were in a copy, if not in his sons, at least in his grandsons and great-grandsons. This happens because the soul constitutes the inmost part of a person, and although this may be covered up in the immediate offspring, it still comes to light and is revealed in later progeny.
The fact that the soul is from the father and it is clothed by the mother can be illustrated by analogous facts in the vegetable kingdom. Here the earth or soil is the mother all share, which as it were receives seeds in itself as if in a womb and clothes them; in fact, so to speak, it conceives, carries, gives birth to and brings them up, just as a mother does the father’s offspring.
* * * * *
Some while later I looked towards the city of Athenaeum which I mentioned in a preceding account [151bis]. I heard an unusual shouting coming from it. There was a certain amount of laughter in the shouting, and a certain amount of indignation in the laughter, and a certain amount of sadness in the indignation. Yet this shouting was not for this reason discordant; it was harmonious, because one element was not alongside the other, but one was inside the other. In the spiritual world one can distinguish in sounds the mixture of differing affections.
I asked from a distance, ‘What is happening?’ ‘A messenger,’ they said, ‘has come from the place where newcomers from the Christian parts of the world first appear, to say that he had heard from three people there, that in the world they had come from they shared the belief of other people, that the blessed and happy would after death have total rest from their labours. Since administrative duties, official positions and work are labours, they believed they would have rest from them. The three have now been brought by our emissary, and are standing waiting in front of the gate. So a shout has gone up, and they have deliberated and decided that they should not be brought into the Palladium on Parnassium, as in the previous case, but into the large auditorium, so that they can reveal their news from Christendom. Some people have been despatched to introduce them in due form.’
[2] I was in the spirit, and distances for spirits depend upon the states of their affections. So then having a desire to see and hear them, so I found myself in their presence, watching them being brought in and hearing what they had to say.
The older and wiser people were seated at the sides of the auditorium, and the rest in the middle. There was a raised platform in front of them, and to this the three newcomers, together with the messenger, were conducted by younger men in a solemn procession through the middle of the auditorium. When silence had been obtained, they were greeted by one of the elders present and asked: ‘What is the news from earth?’ ‘There is a lot of news,’ they said, ‘please tell us on what subject.’
‘What is the news from earth,’ replied the elder, ‘about our world and about heaven?’ They replied that when recently they had arrived in the spiritual world, they had heard that there and in heaven there are administrative duties, ministries, public offices, businesses, studies in all the sciences and wonderful handicrafts. ‘Yet we had believed that after our migration or transfer from the natural world to the spiritual one, we would come into everlasting rest from labours, and what were duties but labours?’
[3] To this the elder said: ‘Did you understand everlasting rest from labours to mean everlasting idleness, in which you would continually sit or lie, plying your hearts with delights and filling your mouth with joys?’ The three newcomers smiled gently at this, and said they had supposed something of the sort.
‘What have joys,’ they were asked in reply, ‘and delights and the happiness they give got in common with idleness? The result of idleness is that the mind collapses instead of expanding, or one becomes as dead instead of more alive. Imagine someone sitting completely idle, with his hands folded, his eyes cast down or withdrawn, and imagine him at the same time being surrounded with an aura of cheerfulness; would not his head and body be gripped by lassitude, the lively expression of his face would collapse, and eventually his every fibre would become so relaxed that he would sway to and fro until he fell to the ground? What is it that keeps the whole system of the body stretched and under tension but the stretching of the mind? And what is it that stretches the mind but administrative duties and tasks, so long as they are enjoyable? So I will tell you some news from heaven: there are there administrative duties, ministries, higher and lower law-courts, as well as crafts and work.’
[4] When the three newcomers heard that there were in heaven higher and lower law-courts, they said, ‘Why is that? Are not all in heaven inspired and led by God, so that they know what is just and right? What need then is there of judges?’
‘In this world,’ replied the elder, ‘we are taught and learn what is good and true, and what is just and fair, in the same way as in the natural world. We do not learn these things directly from God, but indirectly through others. Every angel, just like every man, thinks what is true and does what is good as if of himself, and this, depending upon the angel’s state, is not pure truth and good, but mixed. Among angels too there are simple and wise people, and it will be for the wise to judge, when the simple as the result of their simplicity or ignorance are in doubt about what is just or depart from it. But if you, who have not yet been long in this world, would be good enough to accompany me to our city, we shall show you everything.’
[5] So they left the auditorium, and some of the elders went with them. They came first to a large library, which was divided into smaller collections of books by subjects. The three newcomers were astonished to see so many books, and said, ‘Are there books in this world too? Where do they get parchment and paper, pens and ink?’
‘We perceive,’ said the elders, ‘that you believed in the previous world that this world is empty, because it is spiritual. The reason for this belief of yours is that you entertained the idea that the spiritual is abstract; and that what is abstract is nothing and so as if empty. Yet here everything is in its fullness. Everything here is substantial, not material; material things owe their origin to what is substantial. We who are present here are spiritual people, because we are substantial, not material. That is why everything that is in the natural world exists here in its perfection; and so are our books and writing, and much more.’
When the three newcomers heard the term substantial mentioned, they thought this must be so, both because they saw there were books written and because they had heard it said that matter originated from substances. To give them further proof of this, they were taken to the houses of scribes, who were making copies of books written by the city’s wise men. They looked at the writing and were surprised how neat and elegant it was.
[6] After this they were taken to research institutions, high schools and colleges, and to the places where their literary contests took place. Some of these were called contests of the Maidens of Helicon, some those of the Maidens of Parnassus, some those of the Maidens of Athenaeum, and some those of the Maidens of the Spring-waters. They said that they were so named because maidens stand for the affections for branches of knowledge, and everyone’s intelligence depends upon his affection for knowledge. The contests so called were spiritual exercises and gymnastics. Later, they were taken around the city to visit controllers, administrators and their officials, and these showed them the remarkable work performed by craftsmen in a spiritual manner.
[7] When they had seen this, the elder talked with them again about the everlasting rest from labours the blessed and happy obtain after death. ‘Everlasting rest,’ he said, ‘is not idleness, since that reduces the mind and so the whole body to a state of feebleness, torpidity, stupor and somnolence. These are not life, but death, much less the everlasting life of the angels in heaven. So everlasting rest is a rest that banishes all those ills and makes people alive. This can only be something that uplifts the mind. So it is some interest or task which excites, enlivens and delights the mind. This depends upon the purpose for which, in which and towards which it aims. This is why the whole of heaven is seen by the Lord as one unbroken service, and it is his service that makes every angel an angel. The pleasure of service carries him along, as a favourable current does a ship, and confers upon him everlasting peace and the rest peace gives. This is what is meant by everlasting rest from labours. The extent to which an angel is alive depends upon his mental commitment arising from service. This is perfectly clear from the fact that the depth of conjugial love anyone enjoys, together with manliness, potency and the delights that accompany it, depend upon his commitment to true service.’
[8] When it had been proved to the three newcomers that everlasting rest is not idleness, but the pleasure of some work that is of service, some young women came with embroidery and sewing, their own handiwork, and presented these to them. Then, as the new spirits took their departure, the young women sang a song expressing in an angelic melody their affection for useful work and its attendant pleasures.
While I was meditating about the secrets of conjugial love which wives keep treasured up, I saw again the golden rain mentioned before. I remembered that it had been falling on a court in the east, where there lived three conjugial loves, that is, three couples who loved each other dearly. On seeing this I hastened to the spot, as if invited by the sweetness of meditating on that love. As I approached, the rain turned from golden to purple, and then to scarlet, and, when I was close, to an opal colour like dew. I knocked and the door was opened. ‘Take a message,’ I said to the attendant, ‘to the husbands, and tell them their previous visitor who came with an angel is here again, and asks to be allowed to come in and talk with them.’
The attendant came back and reported that the husbands had agreed, so I went in. The three husbands with their wives were together in an open courtyard, and they returned my greeting in friendly fashion. I asked the wives whether the white dove had appeared since in the window. They said it had done so that day, and it had spread its wings. ‘From that,’ they said, ‘we guessed you were coming and would request us to reveal one more of the secrets of conjugial love.’ ‘Why do you say one,’ I asked, ‘when I have come here to learn many?’
[2] ‘They are secrets,’ they replied, ‘and some of them so far surpass your wisdom that the power of understanding in your thought-processes is unable to grasp them. You brag to us about your wisdom, but we do not brag to you about ours, although it far exceeds yours, penetrating into your inclinations and affections, so that it can see, perceive and feel them. You know absolutely nothing about the inclinations and affections of your love, although it is these that are the source of and determine what your intellect thinks. So they determine whether and in what way you are wise. Yet wives know these so well in their husbands, that they can see them on their faces, and hear them in the tone of voice they use in speaking; in fact, they even feel them by touching their chests, arms and cheeks. But the zeal of our love for your happiness, and also for our own, makes us pretend we are not aware of them; and we still control them with such prudence that we allow and suffer whatever our husbands wish, decide and will, only modifying this as far as possible, but never forcing them.’
[3] ‘Where,’ I asked, ‘do you get this wisdom?’ ‘It is innate, they answered, ‘from creation and so we have it from birth. Our husbands compare it to an instinct, but we say it is by Divine providence, so that men are made happy by means of their wives. We have been told by our husbands that the Lord wishes a male to act in freedom in accordance with reason, and his freedom, as regards his inclinations and affections, is therefore controlled by the Lord Himself inwardly, but outwardly by means of his wife. This is how He forms a man and his wife into an angel of heaven. Moreover, love changes its essence and it is no longer that love, if it is forced. But we will put this more openly: we are so far influenced towards this, that is, to control with prudence our husbands’ inclinations and affections, that they seem to themselves to be acting in freedom in accordance with their own reason. This is because we take delight in their love, and love nothing more than giving them delight from our delights. If they find these feeble, they become dull for us too.’
[4] After this one of the wives went into her bedroom, and when she came back said, ‘My dove is still beating its wings; this is a sign that we may reveal more.’ ‘We have observed,’ they said, ‘various changes in inclinations and affections on the part of men. For instance, husbands feel cool towards their wives, when they have wild ideas against the Lord and the church. They do so too, when they take pride in their own intelligence; or when they look lustfully on other people’s wives; and on many other occasions. There are differences in the coolness they feel. We notice this by the way, in the presence of our senses, sensation is withdrawn from their eyes, ears and body. These few remarks will enable you to see that we are more aware than men whether it is well or ill with them. If they are cool towards their wives, it is ill, but well, if they feel warmly towards their wives. Wives therefore are continually thinking up ways of making men feel warmly rather than coolly towards them, and they plan this with an awareness men find impenetrable.’
[5] When this was said, there was a sound like a dove moaning. Then the wives said, ‘This is a sign to us that although we are eager to disclose deeper secrets, we must not. It may be that you are revealing to men what you have been told.’ ‘Yes,’ I replied; ‘that is my intention. How can it hurt?’ The wives had a private discussion about this, and then said, ‘Reveal it, if you like. It does not escape us what power wives have to persuade; for they will tell their husbands, “Don’t take that man seriously; these are fictions, jokes based on appearances, and the usual sort of nonsense men talk. Don’t believe it; believe us. We know that you are forms of love and we are forms of obedience.” So reveal this if you like, yet husbands will still not hang on your lips, but on those of the wives whom they kiss.’
GENERALITIES ON THE SUBJECT OF MARRIAGE
If I were to record in detail all the many facts about marriage, this small work would grow into a large volume. For instance, I could talk about likeness and unlikeness in married partners; the way natural conjugial love is raised to become spiritual conjugial love, and how they are linked; how one declines as the other increases; the various types of both these forms of love, and how they differ; the intelligence of wives; the general sphere of marriage which radiates from heaven, and the opposing sphere from hell; how they exert their influence and are received; and many other subjects, which, if expounded in detail, would make this work into such a vast volume it would weary the reader. For this reason, and to avoid useless prolixity, I shall abbreviate these subjects into a chapter of generalities on the subject of marriage. These, as in previous chapters, will be divided into a series of propositions, as follows.
(i) The sense which properly belongs to conjugial love is that of touch.
(ii) In the case of those who enjoy truly conjugial love the ability to be wise increases, but in the case of those who do not, it decreases.
(iii) In the case of those who enjoy truly conjugial love the joy of living together increases, but in the case of those who do not, it decreases.
(iv) In the case of those who enjoy truly conjugial love the linking of minds increases, and so does friendship along with it, but in the case of those who do not, both of these decrease.
(v) Those who enjoy truly conjugial love continually want to be a single person, but those who do not, want to be two people.
(vi) Those who enjoy truly conjugial love have eternity in view in their marriage; but the reverse is true of those who do not.
(vii) Conjugial love is lodged with chaste wives, but their love still depends upon their husbands.
(viii) *Wives love the bonds of marriage provided their husbands do.
(ix) The intelligence of women is in essence modest, refined, peaceful, yielding, gentle and tender; but that of men is in essence serious, harsh, hard, spirited and disposed to licence.
(x) Wives do not share the arousal which men feel, but they have a state of readiness to receive.
(xi) Men’s potency is proportional to their love of propagating the truths of their wisdom, and to their love of performing services.
(xii) Decisions [about making love]** must be left for the husband to make as he pleases.
(xiii) There is a sphere of marriage which flows from the Lord through heaven into every detail of the universe, down to the most trivial.
(xiv) This sphere is received by the female sex, and by them it is transferred to the male sex; but the reverse of this is not the case.
(xv) Where truly conjugial love exists, this sphere is received by the wife and is only received by the husband through the wife.
(xvi) Where conjugial love does not exist, this sphere is certainly received by the wife, but not by the husband through her.
(xvii) Truly conjugial love can exist with one of a married couple and not at the same time with the other.
(xviii) There are a number of [likenesses and]*** unlikenesses, both inward and outward, to be found among married couples.
(xix) A number of likenesses can be linked, but not with unlikenesses.
(xx) The Lord provides a likeness for those who desire truly conjugial love, and if this is impossible on earth, He provides for it in the heavens.
(xxi) In so far as a person suffers failure or loss of conjugial love, he approximates to the nature of an animal.
Now follows the explanation of these propositions.
* The items numbered (viii) and (ix) are reversed in the original, but presented in this order below, 217, 218.
** These words are not in the original, but the content of 221 shows that this is what is meant.
*** These words are restored from 227.
Each love has its own special sense. The love of seeing resulting from the love of understanding has the sense of sight; its charms are examples of symmetry and beauty. The love of hearing resulting from the love of listening and obeying has the sense of hearing; its charms are harmonies. The love of knowing what pervades the ambient air resulting from the love of perceiving has the sense of smell; its charms are fragrances. The love of feeding oneself resulting from the love of absorbing good and truth has the sense of taste; its pleasures are fine foods. The love of recognising objects arising from the love of awareness of one’s surroundings and of self-preservation has the sense of touch; and its charms are being aroused.
The love of linking oneself with a partner arising from the love of uniting good and truth has touch as its special sense, because this is shared by all the other senses and so derives from them their particular roles. It is well known that this love takes all the senses mentioned before into partnership, and makes their charms its own. The sense of touch is specifically assigned to conjugial love and is proper to it, as is evident from all the play it inspires and from the way its subtleties are raised to the most exquisite pitch. I leave it to lovers to pursue this line of thought further.
The reason why in the case of those who enjoy truly conjugial love the ability to be wise increases, is that married couples get this love from wisdom and in proportion to it. This was fully shown by argument in the preceding chapters. It is also because the sense of touch belongs particularly to this love in partnership with all the other senses, and is full of delights. Consequently it opens up the inner levels of the mind as it opens up the inner levels of the senses, and together with them all the organs of the body. It follows from this that those who enjoy this love have nothing they prefer to being wise. For a person is wise to the extent that the inner levels of his mind are opened up. This opening raises the thoughts of the intellect into a higher degree of light, and the affections of the will into a higher degree of heat; and the higher degree of light is wisdom, that of heat is the love of wisdom. Those who enjoy truly conjugial love have spiritual delights combined with natural ones; and it is these which make being wise loveable and so give them the ability to be wise.
This is how it is that angels possess conjugial love in proportion to their wisdom, and that love and its delights increase in keeping with the increase in their wisdom. The spiritual offspring born of their marriages are the products of the father’s wisdom and the mother’s love; they love their offspring with spiritual parental love. This love is added to their conjugial love and continually raises it and links the parents together.
The reason why the joy of living together increases in the case of those who enjoy truly conjugial love is that they love each other with every sense. The wife sees nothing she loves more than her husband, and the husband nothing more than his wife. Nor, in fact, do they hear, smell or touch anything they love more. This is why they have such joy in sharing together their home, their bedroom and their bed. You husbands can confirm the truth of this from the delights experienced in the first days of marriage; the delights are then at their fullest, because then none of the whole female sex but the wife is loved. It is well known that the reverse happens in the case of those who have no conjugial love.
The linking of minds in the case of those who enjoy truly conjugial love increases, as was proved in the chapter dealing with the linking of souls and minds by marriage, as meant by the Lord’s words ‘they shall be no longer two, but one flesh’ (see 156bis-181).
[2] The reason why that linking increases as friendship links itself to love is that friendship is, so to speak, the face of that love, and also like its clothing. For it not only attaches itself to love like clothing, but is also linked to it like a face. The love which precedes friendship resembles sexual love, which once it has achieved its object fades away; but love linked to friendship lasts after it has achieved its object and is strengthened by its success. It also penetrates deeper into the chest; friendship opens the way for it and makes it truly conjugial. Then that love makes this friendship too truly conjugial. This kind of friendship is very different from the friendship based on any other love, for here it is at its fullest.
[3] As is well known, the opposite happens in the case of those who have no conjugial love. In their case the early friendship which springs up at the time of an engagement and then in the first days of marriage, recedes further and further from the inner regions of the mind, and by stages reaches the point where it retires to the outer layers of the skin. In the case of those who have separation in mind, it departs altogether; but in the case of those who do not, love lingers at the outer level, though the inner levels are cold.
Conjugial love is in essence nothing but two people wishing to be one, that is, wishing their two lives to be one. That wish is the permanent effort of that love, from which all its results follow. Effort is the essence of movement, and a wish is a lively effort on a person’s part; this has been established by the investigations of philosophers and is obvious to those who study the matter with discernment. Hence it follows that those who enjoy truly conjugial love are continually making this effort, that is, wishing to be a single person. Those who do not enjoy truly conjugial love know full well themselves that the reverse is true of them. The disunion of their souls and minds makes them continually think of themselves as two. That too is why they do not understand the meaning of the Lord’s words, that they are no longer two, but one flesh (Matt. 19:6).
The reason why those who enjoy truly conjugial love have eternity in view is that eternity is contained within this love. This is because this love increases for ever in the case of the wife, and wisdom increases for ever in the case of the husband; and as these increase and develop, the couple plunges deeper and deeper into the blessings of heaven, which lie hidden in their wisdom and also the love for it. So if the notion of eternity were torn away, or by any accident slipped from their minds, it would be as if they were cast down from heaven.
[2] The following experience made it perfectly clear to me what happens to couples in heaven, if the notion of eternity is lost from their minds, and its place is taken by the notion of impermanence.
A married couple were once given permission to visit me from heaven. Then a joker by his cunning arguments took away from them the notion of eternity in marriage. Without it they began to grumble, saying that they could not go on living and were suffering such vexation as never before. When their fellow angels in heaven noticed this, they chased the joker away and cast him down. The moment this was done, their notion of eternity was restored, which filled them with heartfelt gladness, and they embraced each other most lovingly.
[3] As well as this, I heard of a married couple who thought of their marriage at one time as eternal, and at another as temporary. This was because they were inwardly quite unlike. When they thought of it as eternal, they were very happy with each other. But when they thought of it as temporary, they said, ‘This is no longer a marriage,’ and the wife said, ‘I’m no longer a wife, but a concubine,’ and the man ‘I’m no longer a husband, but an adulterer.’ So when their inward unlikeness was revealed, the man left the woman and she left him. But later on, since each thought of marriage as eternal, they were given companions of similar character.
[4] These experiences allow us to see clearly that those who enjoy truly conjugial love have eternity in view; and if this notion slips out of their inmost levels of thought, they suffer disunion in their conjugial love, however much they retain their friendship. For this is lodged in the outer levels, but love in the inner ones. It is much the same with marriages on earth. When couples there love each other dearly, they think of their partnership as eternal, and pay no attention to its being ended by death. But if they do think of this, it upsets them; though they are revived by hope, when they think of it continuing after death.
216bis* (vii) Conjugial love is lodged with chaste wives, but their love still depends upon their husbands.
The reason is that wives are by birth forms of love, so that it is innate in them to wish to be one with their husbands, and by keeping this thought in their will they constantly nurture their love. So abandoning the effort to unite themselves with their husbands would be abandoning their own nature. But it is different with husbands; since they are not by birth forms of love, but designed to receive that love from their wives, the more readily they receive it, the more readily do their wives come in with their love. But if they fail to receive it, their wives equally stay outside with their love and wait. This happens in the case of chaste wives, but it is different with the unchaste. These considerations will establish that conjugial love is lodged with wives, but their love depends upon their husbands.
* This number appears twice in the original.
This follows from what was said in the last paragraph. Moreover, wives have an innate desire to be and to be called wives. They regard this title as prestigious and honourable, so that they love the bonds of marriage. Since chaste wives want to be wives not merely in name, but in fact, something which is the result of an ever closer tie with their husbands, they love the bonds of marriage as a means of strengthening this compact; and this they do the more, the more their husbands love them in return, or, what is much the same, the more the men love those bonds.
It is plainly to be seen that women have the traits here ascribed to them, and men those ascribed here to them, from a consideration of each sex as regards their bodies, faces, voices, speech, gestures and behaviour. The body shows that men have hard skin and flesh, but women soft. The face of men is harder, more determined, rougher, deeper coloured, even bearded, and so less beautiful; women’s faces are softer, more yielding, more tender and whiter, so these are its beauties. Men have voices that are deep, women light. Men’s speech is fond of licence and spirited, women’s modest and peaceful. Men’s gestures are bolder and stronger, women’s weaker and feebler. Men’s behaviour is less restrained, women’s more elegant.
[2] I was able clearly to see the innate difference of character between men and women by observing how boys and girls behaved when they got together, a sight I have several times seen from a window in a large city overlooking a street, where twenty or more children gathered every day. The boys, in keeping with their innate character, played together making a noise, shouting, fighting, beating and throwing stones at one another. But the girls sat quietly by the doors of their houses, some playing with babies, some dressing up dolls, some embroidering on small pieces of linen, some kissing one another. I was surprised to see that the girls still looked favourably on the boys, for all their behaviour. This experience allowed me to see plainly that a man is by birth an intellect, a woman a love, and what kind of intellect and what kind of love they are in their beginnings. So I could see what a man’s intellect would be like, if it developed without being linked with feminine love, and later with conjugial love.
It is obvious that the emission of semen and so arousal is the function of men, but women do not have the one, and therefore not the other. I can only report from hearsay that women have a state of being ready to receive, which leads to conception. What this state of women’s is, however, I am not allowed to describe; and also it is known only to them. Whether their love, when they are in this state, is pleasurable or not (as some of them claim), has not been disclosed by them. The only matter which is popularly known is that it is not permissible for a husband to tell his wife that he is able, but does not wish it, for this does significant damage to the state of receiving, which is made ready in proportion to the husband’s state of potency.
This fact is one of the secrets which were known to the ancients, but have now been lost. The ancients knew that every single thing which takes place in the body has a spiritual source. Actions, for instance, arise from the will, which is in essence spiritual; speech arises from thought, which is also spiritual; natural sight arises from spiritual sight, which is understanding. Natural hearing arises from spiritual hearing, which is the application of the intellect and at the same time the adjustment of the will; and natural smelling from spiritual smelling, which is perception; and so forth. The ancients saw that the male production of semen was from a spiritual source, and they concluded from many proofs afforded by both reason and experience that its source was the truths of which the intellect is composed. They also said that what males received from the spiritual marriage, that between good and truth, which influences every detail of the universe, is nothing but truth and what refers to truth; and this as it progresses into the body is formed into semen. This is why seed understood spiritually means truth.
[2] As regards its formation, they said that the male soul is truth because it is intellectual; for what is intellectual is nothing else, so when the soul comes down, so does truth. This takes place by the soul, which is the inmost part of a person and of every living thing and is in its essence spiritual, having an inborn striving to propagate itself, so as it comes down the soul follows and wishes to recreate itself. When this happens, a whole soul forms and clothes itself, becoming a sperm. This can happen thousands and thousands of times, because the soul is a spiritual substance, having no extension, but fullness. No part is taken away from it, but the whole is reproduced without loss. This is why it is fully present in the tiniest receptacles, the sperm, just as it is in its major receptacle, the body.
[3] Since then the truth of the soul is the source of the seed, it follows that men’s potency depends upon their love of propagating the truths of their wisdom. It is also dependent upon their love of performing services; and this is because services are examples of goodness, which truths bring forth. Even in the world some people are aware that potency is found with the active, and not the idle. I asked how the female is propagated from a male soul. The reply I received was that this is from intellectual good, because this is in its essence truth. For the intellect is able to think that something is good, and so that it is true that it is good. It is different for the will, which does not think about good and truth, but loves and does them. Therefore sons in the Word mean truths, and daughters instances of goodness (see 120 above); and seed in the Word means truth (see THE APOCALYPSE REVEALED 565).
This is because men have the potency described above, and this varies depending on the state of their minds as well as that of their bodies. For the intellect is not constant in its thoughts, as the will is constant in its affections. The intellect is carried along, now up, now down, now in a calm and clear state, now in a turbulent and dim one, now directed to welcome thoughts, now to unwelcome ones. Since, when the mind is acting, it is also present in the body, it follows that the body undergoes similar states. This is why a husband at one time recedes from conjugial love, at another approaches close to it, so that in one state his potency is taken away, and in the other it is restored. These are the reasons why decisions must be left to the husband’s pleasure; and this is why wives are guided by their innate wisdom never to give any instructions on such matters.
* These words are not in the original, but the content of 221 shows that this is what is meant.
It was shown above in the chapter devoted to the subject [V] that love and wisdom, or what is the same thing, good and truth, proceed from the Lord. These two proceed from the Lord continually wedded together, because they are the Lord and He is the source of all things. What proceeds from the Lord fills the universe; for without this nothing that has come into existence could continue to exist.
[2] There are a number of spheres proceeding from Him; for instance, the sphere which keeps the created universe in being, the sphere which protects good and truth against evil and falsity, the sphere which reforms and regenerates mankind, the sphere of innocence and peace, the sphere of mercy and grace, and many more. But the one which is universally present in all is the conjugial sphere, because this is also the reproductive sphere, and so it is the one which ranks above all others as keeping the created universe in being by a succession of generations.
[3] This conjugial sphere fills the universe, pervading it from first to last, as is plain from what was shown before: that there are marriages in the heavens, and the most perfect ones in the third or highest heaven; and apart from existing among human beings, this sphere is present in all the members of the animal kingdom on earth, down to worms. It is moreover present in all the members of the vegetable kingdom, from olive and palm trees down to small grasses.
[4] This sphere is more universal than the sphere of heat and light which is radiated from the sun of our world, as can be proved to reason by the fact that it also works in the absence of its heat, as in winter, and in the absence of its light, as at night, especially among human beings. The reason it so works is that it is from the sun of the heaven of angels, so that it has a constant balance of heat and light, that is, a constant linking of good and truth; for it is springtime all the time in heaven. The variations in good and truth, that is, in its heat and light, are not due to variation in that sun, as are the variations on earth resulting from the differing amounts of heat and light received from the sun there; but these variations are due to the objects affected by it.
My experiences have allowed me to see evidence that there is no conjugial love present in the male sex, but it is only in the female sex, being transferred from this to the male (see 161 above). Reason can add a further proof: the male form is an intellectual one, woman is a voluntary form. An intellectual form cannot be warmed by conjugial heat by itself, but only from the linking heat of someone who has it implanted from creation. Consequently it cannot receive that love, except through having attached to it the voluntary form of a woman; this is also the form of love.
[2] The same point can be further proved by the marriage of good and truth; and in the natural man by the marriage of the heart and the lungs, since the heart corresponds to love and the lungs to understanding. But since most people lack any knowledge of these things, to use them as a proof would shed more obscurity than illumination. It is also due to the transfer of this sphere from the female to the male sex that the mind is fired by merely thinking about that sex. It follows that this too is the source of reproductive formation, and so arousal. For on earth, unless heat is added to light, nothing flourishes or is aroused to bear fruit.
The fact that in the case of those who enjoy truly conjugial love this sphere is received by the husband solely through his wife is today a secret; yet it is not really a secret, because a husband when he gets engaged and is first married can be aware of it. Is he not then affected by any conjugial influence coming from his fiancee or bride, but not if it comes from any other of the female sex?
It is much the same with those who live together in truly conjugial love. Since everyone, man and woman alike, is enveloped in a sphere of life, densely in front and thinly at the back, it is plain why husbands who are deeply in love with their wives turn towards them and during the day smile kindly on them. Conversely those who do not love their wives turn away from them, and during the day withdraw their gaze when they see them. The way the conjugial sphere is received by the husband solely through his wife allows truly conjugial love to be recognised and distinguished from spurious, false or cold conjugial love.
This conjugial sphere which affects the universe is of Divine origin; as it develops among angels it is celestial and spiritual, among human beings natural, among animals and birds animal, among insects bodily, among plants lifeless. Moreover, it is varied in each creature it affects, depending on their forms.
Now since this sphere is directly received by the female sex and indirectly by the male sex, being received in accordance with their forms, it follows that this sphere, although holy in origin, can be turned into an unholy one when it is received by creatures, in fact, it can even be transformed into its opposite. Its opposite is called meretricious in the case of women of this type and scortatory in the case of men of this type; and since both of these groups are in hell, that is the source of that sphere. But this too exhibits great variety, and so it is of many kinds. A man attracts and drags with him the kind which matches him, is in keeping with his character and corresponds. These facts allow it to be established that a man who does not love his wife receives this sphere from some source other than his wife. Still it may happen that it is also breathed into him by his wife without his being aware of it, even to the point of making him warm.
One person can swear from the bottom of his heart to keep his marriage chaste, while the other does not know what chastity means. One can love what is to do with the church, while the other loves only worldly things. One can have his or her mind in heaven, while the other has his or hers in hell. So one can enjoy conjugial love, but not the other. Their minds, facing as they do in opposite directions, are inwardly in conflict; and if this does not show outwardly, still the one who lacks conjugial love looks upon his partner in the marriage contract as a tiresome old woman, and so forth.
It is well known that married couples exhibit points of likeness and unlikeness, which are visible if they are outward, but not if inward, except to the couple themselves after living together for some time; and others may pick up clues. But it is a waste of time to list either kind to enable them to be recognised, because a list and description of the varieties could fill many pages. It is possible to some extent to deduce and reach conclusions about likeness by studying the unlikenesses, which cause conjugial love to cool off, the subject of the next chapter. Likeness and unlikeness generally speaking arise from the variation induced on innate inclinations by upbringing, company and the adoption of false beliefs.
The varieties of likeness are very many, and they may be more or less remote. Yet even those which are remote can in time be linked together by various things; chiefly by adapting to the other’s desires, by sharing duties, by courtesy, by avoiding unchaste acts, by shared love of babies and taking care of children. Most important is conformity in religious matters, for these bring about the inward linking of even remote likenesses, while the other things only effect an outward linking. But in the case of unlikenesses, no linking is possible since they are hostile.
This is because all marriages based upon truly conjugial love are provided by the Lord. It was shown above (130, 131) that they are from Him. I have been told by angels how this happens in the heavens.
The Lord’s Divine providence, they said, is at its most detailed and its most universal on the subject of and in marriages, because all the pleasures of heaven pour forth from the pleasures of conjugial love, like sweet waters from a spring. Provision is therefore made for couples to be born who are well matched in marriage for each other. Under the Lord’s continual guidance they are brought up with a view to their marriage, though neither the boy nor the girl is aware of this. When in due course the young woman, as she is then, is of an age to be married, and the young man, as he is then, is ready for marriage, they meet somewhere as if by fate and see each other. Then by some instinct they at once recognise that they are well matched, and they think to themselves, as if by some inward prompting, the young man ‘She is the one for me,’ and the young woman, ‘He is the one for me.’ After allowing this to sink into their minds for a while, they resolve to speak to each other, and they become engaged. We say as if by fate, by instinct and by prompting, but we mean by Divine providence, because when it is not known, it looks like this. For the Lord opens up their inward likeness, so that they see each other.
This is because a person is spiritual to the extent that he enjoys conjugial love, and he is a human being to the extent that he is spiritual. For a person is by birth intended for life after death, and he achieves this by having a spiritual soul in him, and he can be raised to this life by the capability of his intellect. If his will is also then raised together with the intellect by the capability given to it, after death he enjoys the life of heaven. The reverse happens if his love is the opposite of conjugial love. For he is natural to the extent that his love is the opposite, and a purely natural person resembles an animal in desires, appetites and the pleasures they give.
The only difference is that he has the capability of raising his intellect into the light of wisdom, and also the capability of raising his will into the heat of heavenly love. No one is ever deprived of these possibilities. As a result a purely natural person, although resembling an animal in his desires, appetites and the pleasures they give, still lives on after death, but in a state corresponding to the life he previously led. These considerations can establish that a person approximates to the nature of an animal in proportion to the failure* of his conjugial love. This may seem to be contradicted by the fact that the failure and loss of conjugial love can occur in the case of people who remain human beings. But what is meant is those who are led by scortatory love to disparage conjugial love, and so suffer its failure and loss.
* The original has dejectum ‘casting down’, but it is clear that defectum was intended, as in the heading to this section.
* * * * *
I once heard some shouting, which welled up from the lower regions as if through water. One shout on the left was ‘How just!’; another on the right ‘How learned!’; and a third behind me ‘How wise!’ This made me wonder whether even in hell there were just, learned and wise people; and I had a strong desire to see whether there were such people there. A voice from heaven told me: ‘You will see and hear.’
Then I left home in the spirit and saw in front of me an opening in the ground; on approaching and looking into it I saw steps, so I went down. When I reached the lower level, I saw plains overgrown with bushes mixed with thorns and nettles. I asked whether this was hell. ‘It is the lower earth,’ they said, ‘just above hell.’ Then I went towards each of the shouts in turn, first to that of ‘How just!’ There I saw a gathering of those who in the world had been judges influenced by partiality and bribery. Then I went towards the second shout ‘How learned!’ and saw a gathering of those who in the world had been fond of logic; and then to the third shout ‘How wise!’ and saw a gathering of those who in the world had been keen to prove everything.
[2] But I left the others and went back to the first group, the judges influenced by partiality and bribery, those who were being hailed as just. On one side I saw a sort of amphitheatre built of bricks and roofed with black tiles; I was told it was their court-house. It had three entrances on the north side, and three on the west, but none on the south or east sides; this was an indication that their judgments were not equitable, but arbitrary. In the middle of the amphitheatre was to be seen a hearth, on which stokers threw torches dipped in sulphur and full of pitch. Their light projected onto the plastered walls produced pictures of birds of the evening and night. But the hearth and the flickering light projected from it to form these pictures were representations of their judgments, indicating their ability to depict the truth of any question in false colours and make it look favourable to the side they preferred.
[3] Half an hour later I saw some old and young men in robes and gowns filing in; they took off their hats and sat down on chairs at the tables to hold a session. As I listened I realised with what skill and ingenuity they leaned towards the side they favoured, and twisted their judgments to make them appear equitable. Indeed they went so far that they themselves could see injustice as just and justice instead as unjust. It could be seen from their faces and heard in the sound of their voices that they had such delusions. Then I was granted enlightenment from heaven, so that I was able to grasp whether each point was valid or not. I then saw how zealously they wrapped up injustice and gave it the appearance of justice, selecting from the laws the one which suited their case, and using clever arguments to set the rest aside. When judgment had been passed, their sentences were relayed to their clients, friends and supporters outside, and they, to repay the favour shown them, went off far down the street crying ‘How just, how just!’
[4] After this I talked about these judges to some angels from heaven, and told them some of what I had seen and heard. The angels said that such judges appear to others to be endowed with the sharpest powers of understanding, when in fact they are unable to see a grain of justice and equity. ‘If you take away their partiality,’ they said, ‘they sit in court as dumb as statues, and only say, “I agree, I concur with the judgment of so-and-so or so-and-so.” The reason is that all their judgments are based on prejudice, and prejudice treats the case from beginning to end with partiality. Consequently they can see no other side than their friend’s; if anything comes to oppose it, they set it aside. If they do take the opposing point up again, they entangle it in arguments, like a spider’s web wrapped around its prey, and swallow it. So it is that they cannot see any point as valid, unless it fits into the web of their prejudice. They were tested to see whether they could, and were found to be unable. The inhabitants of your world will be astonished that this is so, but you can tell them that this is a true statement which has been checked by angels from heaven. Since these judges cannot see any justice, we in heaven do not regard them as human beings, but as monstrous effigies of people, their heads made of partiality, their chest of injustice, their hands and feet of proofs and the soles of their feet of justice, so that, if this does not support their friend’s case, they can tread it underfoot and trample on it. What they are really like to us from heaven you are going to see, since their end is at hand.’
[5] Then suddenly the earth split open, tables fell one on another, and the people together with the whole amphitheatre were swallowed up and thrown into prison in caves. Then I was asked whether I wanted to see them there. They appeared to have faces of polished steel, their bodies from neck to loins like carvings of stone dressed in leopard skins, and feet like snakes. I saw that the law books, which they had placed on the tables, had turned into playing cards; and now instead of delivering judgments the task assigned to them was to make vermilion into rouge, to daub on the faces of prostitutes and make them look like beauties.
[6] After seeing this I wanted to visit the other two groups, the one which consisted of people fond of nothing but logic, and the other of those who wanted to prove everything. ‘Wait a bit,’ I was told, ‘and you will be given an escort of angels from the community closest above them. By their help enlightenment will come to you from the Lord, and you will see astonishing sights.’
Some time later I heard again from the lower earth the same cries as before ‘How learned, how wise!’ On looking around to see what angels were there, I found myself in the presence of angels from the heaven exactly above the people who were shouting ‘How learned!’
When I talked to them about their shout, they said that these were learned people who only argue about whether a thing exists or not, and rarely reach the thought that it is so. ‘They are therefore like winds which blow and pass on, or like bark around trees that have no heart-wood, or like almond shells with no kernel, or like the peel around fruits with no flesh inside. For their minds are devoid of inward judgment, and merely coupled to the bodily senses. So if the senses themselves are unable to judge, they can reach no conclusions. In short, they are creatures of their senses, and we call them logic-mongers. We call them this because they never reach any conclusions, but they pick up anything they hear and argue whether it exists, continually speaking for and against. They like nothing better than attacking truths and by subjecting them to argument tearing them in pieces. These are the people who consider themselves learned beyond anyone in the world.’
[2] On hearing this I begged the angels to take me down to visit them. So they took me down to a hollow, from which steps led down to the lower earth. We went down and followed the sound of shouting ‘How learned!’ There we found some hundreds of people standing in one place stamping on the ground. I was surprised at this and asked ‘Why are they standing like that stamping on the ground? They might,’ I added, ‘make a hole in the ground with their feet like that.’
The angels smiled at this and said, ‘They seem to stand in one place because they never think about anything being so, but only whether it exists, and this they argue about. When thought makes no further progress, they seem merely to trample and wear out one clod of earth without advancing.’
But then I approached the gathering and saw people with not unpleasing faces and well dressed. ‘They look like this,’ said the angels, ‘in their own light, but if light is shed from heaven, there is a change in their faces and clothes.’ This happened, and their faces turned swarthy and they seemed to be wearing black sackcloth. But when this light was shut off, they returned to their previous appearance.
A little later I spoke with some of the people in the meeting and said, ‘I have heard the crowd around you crying out “How learned!” So I should like, if I may, to enter into conversation with you about matters of the most profound learning.’ ‘Say anything you like,’ they replied, ‘and we will satisfy you.’
[3] ‘What sort of religion,’ I asked, ‘will effect people’s salvation?’ ‘We shall split up this question,’ they said, ‘into several, and we cannot give a reply until we have settled these. The order of discussion will be: 1) whether religion is of any importance; 2) whether or not there is such a thing as salvation; 3) whether one religion is more efficacious than another; 4) whether heaven and hell exist; 5) whether there is everlasting life after death; and many more questions.’
So I asked about the first question, whether religion is of any importance; and they started discussing with many arguments whether there is such a thing as religion and whether it is of any importance. So I asked them to refer it to the meeting, which they did. The agreed reply was that this proposition required so much investigation that it would not be finished before evening. ‘Could you,’ I asked, ‘finish it within a year?’ One of them said it could not be finished in a hundred years. ‘So,’ I said, ‘ in the meantime you have no religion.’
‘Wouldn’t you like us,’ he replied, ‘to prove first whether religion exists, and whether what is so called is of any importance? If it exists, it will be for the wise too; if it does not, it will be only for the common people. It is well known that religion is called a bond; but the question may be asked, “For whom?” If it is only for the common people, it is not really of any importance; but if it is for the wise too, then it is.’
[4] On hearing this I told them, ‘You are anything but learned, since you can think of nothing but whether it exists and argue for and against this. Can anyone be learned, unless he knows something for certain, and advances to that conclusion, just as a person advances step by step, and in due course achieves wisdom? Otherwise you do not so much as touch truths with your finger-tips, but drive them further and further from your sight. Therefore reasoning only whether it exists is like arguing about a hat without ever wearing it, or about a shoe without putting it on. What can come of this, except ignorance whether anything exists, and so whether salvation exists, or everlasting life after death, whether one religion is better than another, or whether heaven and hell exist? You cannot have any thoughts on these subjects, so long as you are bogged down at the first step and pound the sand there, unable to put one foot in front of the other and make progress. Take care that, while your minds stand in the open outside the court, they do not inwardly grow ossified and turn into pillars of salt, making you friends of Lot’s wife.’
[5] With these words I left them, and they were so incensed they threw stones after me. Then they looked to me like stone carvings, totally devoid of human reason. I asked the angels what was their fate. They said that their fate is to be plunged into the depths, and there they find a desert, where they are forced to carry loads. Since they can then make no reasonable utterance, they chatter and make idle remarks. Seen from a distance there they look like donkeys carrying loads.
After this one of the angels said, ‘Come with me to the place where they are shouting “How wise!” You will see monstrous people there, with the faces and bodies of human beings, though they are not human beings.’
‘Are they animals then?,’ I asked. ‘No,’ he replied, ‘they are not animals but bestial people. They are those who are utterly unable to see whether truth is truth or not, although they can make anything they wish appear to be true. We call such people proof-mongers.’
We followed the noise of shouting and reached its source. There we found a group of men surrounded by a crowd. There were in the crowd some men of noble lineage, who, on hearing that they proved everything they said, and so obviously agreed in supporting one another, turned around and said ‘How wise!’
[2] But the angel said to me, ‘Let us not approach them, but let us call out one from the group.’ We did so, and took him aside; we discussed a variety of subjects, and he proved each point so that it seemed exactly as if it were true. So we asked him if he could also prove the opposite. He replied he could do so just as well as the earlier points. Then speaking openly and from the heart he said, ‘What is truth? Can there be any truth in the whole of nature other than what someone makes true? Say anything you please, and I will make it true.’
‘Then,’ I said, ‘ make the following proposition true: faith is all the church needs.’ He did so, with such cleverness and skill that the learned men who were present clapped to express their admiration. Next I asked him to establish the truth of the proposition that charity is all the church needs; and this too he did. Then I asked him about the proposition that charity is no use to the church; and he so dressed up either proposition and adorned them with such plausible arguments that the bystanders looked at one another and said, ‘Isn’t he wise?’
‘Don’t you know,’ I said, ‘that living a good life is charity, and having a correct belief is faith? Does not the person who lives a good life also have a correct belief? And consequently faith is a part of charity, and charity a part of faith? Can’t you see that this is true?’
‘I shall establish the truth of it,’ he said, ‘and then I shall see.’ He did so, and then remarked, ‘Now I see.’ But a moment later he established the truth of the opposite, and then he said, ‘I see that this too is true.’ We smiled at this and said, ‘Are they not opposites? How can you see two opposite propositions both as true?’ He was indignant at this and answered, ‘You are wrong. Both propositions are true, because there is no truth other than what someone establishes as true.’
[3] A man was standing nearby who in the world had been an ambassador of the highest rank. He was astonished at this and said, ‘I admit that something like this goes on in the world, but still you are crazy. Establish, if you can, the truth of the proposition that light is darkness and darkness is light.’
‘Nothing easier,’ he replied. ‘What are light and darkness but conditions of the eye? Is not light changed into shadow, when the eye comes in from sunlight, and also when one stares fixedly at the sun? Everyone knows that then the condition of the eye changes, and light then seems like shadow; and in the opposite case when the eye returns to its normal condition, the shadow seems like light. Does not the owl see the darkness of the night like broad day, and daylight like the darkness of the night? And then it actually sees the sun itself as a dark and dim ball. If a person had the eyes of an owl, which would he call light and which darkness? So what is light but a condition of the eye? And if so, is not light darkness, and darkness light? So just as one proposition is true, so also is the other.’
[4] After this the ambassador asked the proof-monger to establish the truth of the proposition that a raven is white and not black. ‘Another easy task,’ he replied. ‘Take,’ he said, ‘a needle or a razor and open up the feathers and plumage of a raven; are they not white inside? Or take away the feathers and the plumage and look at the bare skin of the raven, is it not white? What is the blackness that surrounds it but a shadow, which must not be used to judge the raven’s colour? Consult the experts on optics, and they will tell you that blackness is merely shadow; or grind a black stone or a piece of black glass into fine powder, and you will see that the powder is white.’
‘But when you look at it,’ said the ambassador, ‘surely the raven appears black?’ The proof-monger replied, ‘As a human being are you willing to allow appearances to determine your thinking about anything? Of course you can speak from appearance of the raven as black, but you cannot really think so. For instance, you can speak from appearance of the sun rising, advancing and setting; but as a human being you cannot really think it does, because the sun remains unmoving, and it is the earth which moves. It is the same with the raven; appearances are only appearances. Say whatever you like, the raven is utterly and completely white. It also turns white when it grows old, a fact I have observed.’
[5] Then we asked him to speak from the heart and say whether he was joking, or whether he really believed that there was no truth but what someone established as true. He replied, ‘I swear I do so believe.’ Then the ambassador asked whether he could establish the truth of the proposition that he himself was insane. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I can, but I don’t want to. Everyone is insane.’
Afterwards this universal proof-monger was sent to some angels to have his nature examined. After doing this they said that he did not possess a grain of understanding. ‘The reason is,’ they said, ‘that in his case everything above the rational level is shut off, and only what is below this level is open. Heavenly light is above the rational level, and natural light is below it, and it is natural light which enables a person to prove whatever he likes. But if there is no spiritual light flowing into natural light, a person cannot see whether some truth is true, and consequently not whether a falsehood is false either. The ability to see either comes from the presence of heavenly light in the natural light, and heavenly light comes from the God of heaven, who is the Lord. Therefore the universal proof-monger is neither a man nor an animal, but a beast-man.’
[6] I asked the angel about the fate of such people; and whether they could be in the company of the living, since heavenly light is the source of people’s life; and this is the source of their understanding. He said that as long as such people are alone, they cannot think or talk about anything, but they stand dumb as machines and as if fast asleep. But they wake up as soon as their ears catch any sound. They added that it is those who are inmostly wicked who become like that. Heavenly light from above cannot flow into them, but only some spirituality through the world; this is what gives them the ability to make up proofs.
[7] When they had said this, I heard one of the angels who had examined him say, ‘Make a general conclusion out of what you have heard.’ My conclusion was this: it is not the mark of an intelligent person to be able to prove anything he likes; but to be able to see that truth is true and falsehood is false, and to prove that is the mark of an intelligent person.
After this I looked towards the gathering where the proof-mongers stood with the crowd around them shouting ‘How wise!’; and suddenly a dark cloud overshadowed them, with owls and bats flying about in it. I was told: ‘The owls and bats flying about in that cloud are correspondences, so as to display their thoughts. The proving of falsities, so that they seem like truths, is represented in the spiritual world in the form of birds of nocturnal habit, whose eyes are inwardly enlightened by a false light; this enables them to see objects in darkness as if in daylight. Those who prove false propositions until they seem true and are afterwards believed to be and are called true, have a similar, false, spiritual light. They are all able to see behind them, but nothing at all before them.’
THE REASONS FOR COLDNESS, SEPARATION AND DIVORCE IN MARRIAGE
In discussing here the reasons for coldness in marriage, I shall also deal with the reasons for separation and also for divorce. This is because these all hang together. For there is no reason for separation other than the various forms of coldness which develop by stages after marriage, or reasons discovered after marriage, which also result in coldness. Divorce, however, is the result of adultery, because this is the exact opposite of marriage, and what is opposite creates coldness, if not for both, at least for one partner. This is why the reasons for coldness, separation and divorce are brought together in a single chapter. But it will be seen more clearly how these hang together, if set out in order, as follows:
(i) There is spiritual heat and spiritual coldness; spiritual heat is love, and spiritual coldness is being deprived of love.
(ii) Spiritual coldness in marriage is disunion of souls and a parting of minds leading to indifference, discord, contempt, hatred and turning away. In many cases these lead eventually to separation from bed, bedroom and home.
(iii) There are many reasons for the successive stages of coldness, some inward, some outward and some accidental.
(iv) The inward reasons for coldness are religious ones.
(v) The first of these reasons is the rejection of religion by both parties.
(vi) The second is the acceptance of religion by one and not the other.
(vii) The third is each party having a different religious belief.
(viii) The fourth is adherence to false religious beliefs.
(ix) These are in many cases the reasons for inward coldness, but not accompanied by outward coldness.
(x) There are also many outward reasons for coldness, the first being unlikeness in character and behaviour.
(xi) The second is the belief that conjugial love is no different from scortatory love, except that one is legally permitted and the other is illicit.
(xii) The third is competition between the couple who is to be dominant.
(xiii) The fourth is the lack of interest in any study or business, which results in wandering desire.
(xiv) The fifth is inequality of outward rank and condition.
(xv) There are also several reasons for separation.
(xvi) The first of them is mental deficiency.
(xvii) The second is physical deficiency.
(xviii) The third is impotence before marriage.
(xix) Adultery is the reason for divorce.
(xx) There are also many accidental reasons, the first of which is familiarity due to continual permission.
(xxi) The second is if living with one’s partner seems forced by compact and law, and not free.
(xxii) The third is the wife’s giving notice of her love and talking about it.
(xxiii) The fourth is when the husband thinks day and night about his wife being willing, and conversely when the wife thinks about her husband being unwilling.
(xxiv) As there is coldness in the mind, so there is also in the body; and as that coldness increases, the outward parts of the body too are shut down.
There now follows an explanation of these points.
Spiritual heat comes from no other source than the sun of the spiritual world. For there is a sun there which comes forth from the Lord, who is in the midst of it. Since it is from the Lord, that sun in essence* is undiluted love. This sun looks to the angels like a fire, exactly as the sun of our world does to us. This fiery appearance is because love is spiritual fire. This sun radiates heat and light, but since this sun is undiluted love, the heat it produces is in essence love, and the light it produces is in essence wisdom. This makes it plain what the source of spiritual heat is, and that this is love.
[2] However, a few remarks must be made about the source of spiritual coldness. This comes from the sun of the natural world, and from its heat and light. The sun of the natural world was created so that its heat and light could receive into themselves spiritual heat and light, and convey these through the atmospheres to the final level on earth. This was so that they could carry out the Lord’s purposes which He intends in His own sun, and also could cover spiritual things with suitable clothing, that is, materials, in order to execute His ultimate purposes in nature. These results take place when spiritual heat is combined with natural heat. But the result is the reverse, when natural heat is separated from spiritual heat, which is the case with those who love natural things and reject spiritual ones. In their case spiritual heat turns into spiritual coldness. The reason why those two kinds of heat,** created to be in harmony, become so opposed is that then the master heat becomes the servant heat, and vice versa. To prevent this happening, spiritual heat, which is by its lineage the master, withdraws; and then in these cases spiritual heat grows cold, because it becomes its opposite. These considerations make plain the nature of spiritual coldness, as being deprived of spiritual heat.
[3] In what has just been said heat is understood to mean love, because that heat is felt by living*** things that it affects as love. I have been told in the spiritual world that purely natural spirits feel an intense cold, when they come alongside an angel who is in a state of love. Likewise the spirits of hell, when heat from heaven reaches them; yet among themselves, when the heat of heaven is shut off from them, they broil with great heat.
* The original says ‘in its coming to be’, but this appears to be a mistake for ‘in essence.’ Cf. 380:11, TCR 33.
** Reading calores ‘heats’ for amores ‘loves’.
*** Reading in subjectis viventibus for in subjectis vivens.
It is too well known to need discussing that these things befall married couples, when their first flush of love departs and turns to coldness. The reason is that coldness in marriage occupies a higher place in the human mind than any other kind of coldness; for the principle of marriage is imprinted on the soul, in order that one soul may be propagated from another, and the father’s may be continued in his children. That is why this coldness begins there and by stages spreads downwards to the following levels, where it poisons them, so turning the happiness and pleasure of the first flush of love into sadness and unpleasantness.
It is known in the world that there are many reasons for coldness in marriage, and that these are due to many outward causes. But it is not generally known that the sources of these lie hidden at the inmost level, and spread to the following levels, until they become apparent outwardly. To ensure therefore that it is known that the outward causes are not in themselves the basic reasons, but are derived from these, which, as I said, are at the inmost levels, I begin by classifying the causes generally as inward and outward, and then proceed to their detailed investigation.
The true source of conjugial love is lodged at a person’s inmost level, that is, in his soul. Anyone can be convinced of this simply from the fact that the child’s soul comes from the father, and this fact can be known from the likeness of their inclinations and affections, and also from the shared facial characteristics which continue from the father down to his remote posterity. It may also be seen from the capability of reproduction implanted in souls from creation; and, moreover, by analogy with the members of the vegetable kingdom. The inmost levels of seedlings conceal the reproduction of the seed itself, and so of the whole plant, whether it be tree, bush or shrub.
[2] The reproductive or formative force present in seeds in this kingdom, and in souls in the other one, is from no other source than the sphere of the marriage of good and truth, which is perpetually radiated and poured in from the Lord, the Creator and Preserver of the universe (on which see above 222-225). It is also from the striving of these two principles, good and truth, to combine into one. It is this striving towards marriage implanted in souls which is the originating cause of conjugial love. It is this same marriage, the source of this universal sphere, which makes the church in a person; this was proved adequately, and more than adequately, in the chapter on the Marriage of Good and Truth [V*], and in many other passages. From this it will be plain and fully evident to reason that the origin of the church and that of conjugial love occupy the same seat, and are continuously embracing; on this see the fuller account above (130), where it was shown that conjugial love depends upon the state of the church with a person. It therefore depends upon religion, since this is what brings about that state.
[3] Man was also designed by creation to have the capability of becoming more and more inward, and so being brought into or raised nearer and nearer to that marriage, thus to truly conjugial love, until he is able to perceive its state of blessedness. The sole means by which he can be brought into or raised to this is religion, as is plainly to be seen from what was said before, that the origin of the church and of conjugial love occupy the same seat, there embrace each other, and so cannot fail to be combined there.
* B. Rogers suggests that Chapter VI and in particular 122 is meant here.
In the case of those who throw the holy things of the church behind them, from the face to the back of the head, or from the chest to the back, no good love can exist. Though there may look from the body’s point of view to be some, still in spirit there is none. In such cases instances of good are placed on the outside of evils, and conceal them as a robe glittering with gold does a rotten body.
The evils which are lodged within and concealed are hatreds in general, and the internal conflicts directed against everything spiritual. For all the matters relating to the church, which they reject, are essentially spiritual. Since, as was shown above [65], truly conjugial love is the foundation of all spiritual loves, it is plain that the hatred felt deep within is directed against it, and the deeply felt or peculiar love these people feel is in favour of its opposite, adultery. These people therefore will, more than others, make fun of this truth, that each has conjugial love in accordance with the state of the church with him. In fact, they may perhaps roar with laughter at the very mention of truly conjugial love. Never mind if this happens. Yet they are to be forgiven, because they find it as impossible to think of embraces in marriage as any different from those in wantonness, as it is to push a camel through the eye of a sewing needle. Those who are like this feel coldness in conjugial love more acutely than others. If they stay with their partners, they do so merely for some of the outward reasons listed above (153), which hold them together and make a bond. In their case the inner levels of the soul, and so of the mind, are more and more shut off and dammed in the body; then even sexual love is cheapened or leads to mad wantonness in the inner levels of the body, from where it spreads to the lowest levels of thought. For these are the people meant in the experience related in 79, which they should please read.
The reason is that their souls cannot fail to be out of harmony. For the soul of the one is open to receive conjugial love, while that of the other is shut for this purpose. It is shut in the case of the one who lacks religion, open for the one who has some religion. So at this level living together is quite impossible; and when conjugial love is banished thence, coldness arises, but this is in the case of the one who has no religion. There is no way this coldness can be dispelled, except by accepting a form of religion which matches the other’s, if it is a true one. Otherwise the one without religion suffers a coldness which comes down from the soul into the body, even as far as the surface of the skin. This eventually makes him unable to look his partner in the eye, or to converse so that their breaths mix, and only in a voice which sounds remote; or to touch each other with the hand, and only with difficulty with the back. Not to mention the follies which this coldness allows to creep into the thoughts, which they do not reveal. This is why such marriages break up of their own accord. Moreover, it is well known that impious people have no respect for their partner; and all without religion are impious.
The reason is that in their case good cannot be linked to its corresponding truth; for the wife is the good of her husband’s truth, and he is the truth of his wife’s good, as was shown above. As a result it is impossible for their two souls to become one. This shuts off the source from which that love flows; and when this happens, they are reduced to the state of marriage below this. This is between good and a truth other than its own, or between truth and a form of good other than its own, so that no harmonious love can exist between them. As a result coldness begins to affect the partner whose religious belief is false, and this becomes more intense as the breach with the other develops.
I was once wandering through the streets of a large city to look for somewhere to live, and I went into a house, where there lived a couple who were of different religions. Then, though I knew nothing of this, angels spoke to me and said, ‘We cannot stay with you in that house, because the couple there are not in agreement on religion.’ They could tell this from the lack of inward unity between their souls.
The reason is that false belief in spiritual matters either banishes religion or befouls it. It is banished in the case of those whose genuine truths have been falsified; it is befouled in the case of those who possess falsities, but no genuine truths, so that they could not have been falsified. In these cases kinds of good can exist with which those falsities can be linked by the Lord making them conformable. For these falsities are like discords of various notes, which by cleverly bringing them together and inserting notes can be resolved into harmony, so that it can even be made to sound pleasant. In these cases some sort of conjugial love can exist, but not in the case of those who have turned the genuine truths of the church they have into falsities. This is the cause of the current ignorance about truly conjugial love or the doubt which questions whether it can exist. It is also the cause of the crazy belief so many people have fixed in their minds, that adultery is not a matter of religious evil.
If the reasons so far defined and proved, which cause coldness at inner levels, brought about a similar coldness at the outer levels, then separation would be as common as inner coldness. There are as many cases of inner coldness as there are of marriages between couples accepting false religious beliefs, of different religions, or none, subjects already discussed. Yet it is well known that many couples live together like models of love and mutual friendship; the reasons for this in cases of inward coldness will be given in the next chapter, which is on the reasons for the appearance of love, friendship and good will between married couples.
[2] There are many reasons which link characters, but still not souls, including some of those listed above (183). But there is still coldness lurking within, which allows it in many cases to be noticed and felt. In these cases the affections of each partner diverge from those of the other, but their thoughts, as expressed in speech and behaviour, converge to give the appearance of friendship and good will. As a result they know nothing of the charms and pleasure, much less the happiness and blessings, of truly conjugial love. Such things they regard as hardly more than mythical. These belong to the party who pretend that the origins of conjugial love have the same causes as the nine groups of wise men assembled from different kingdoms, as described above in the account of experiences (103-114).
To this I shall add a secret I have been told from heaven, that between the unlinked souls of the two, especially if they are married, a linking takes place in the middle of making love; and but for this the conception of human beings could not occur. See in addition what is said about coldness in marriage, and its location in the highest region of the mind, in the last account of experiences in this chapter (270).
There are inward and outward likenesses and unlikenesses. The inward ones are due solely to religion, for it is this which is implanted in souls, and by means of souls is transmitted by parents to children, as the highest kind of inclination. For the soul of each individual draws life from the marriage of good and truth, and this is the source of the church. Since this is different and varied in different parts of the world, the souls of all human beings are also different and varied. Inward likenesses and unlikenesses are therefore from this source, and the linking of married couples depends upon these, as has been said.
[2] Outward likenesses and unlikenesses are not of souls, but of characters. I mean by characters affections and the outward inclinations arising from them; these are principally introduced after birth by upbringing, the company kept, and the habits these lead to. For we say, ‘I have a mind to do this or that,’ which implies an affection or inclination towards it. False ideas adopted about one or another life-style can also often form characters; this is the reason for inclinations towards marriage with ill-matched partners, and for rejecting marriage with well-matched partners. But still these marriages, when the couple has been living together for some time, undergo changes depending on the likenesses and unlikenesses resulting from heredity and at the same time from upbringing; and unlikenesses cause coldness.
[3] It is the same with unlikeness in behaviour, as, for instance, a coarse man or woman with an refined woman or man, a cleanly man or woman with a dirty one, a quarrelsome one with a peaceable one, in short, an inconsiderate one with a considerate one. Marriages between such unlike persons are not unlike the pairings of animals of different species, such as sheep and goats, deer and mules, hens and geese, sparrows and noble birds, even indeed between dogs and cats, which are too unlike to pair. But in the human race the face does not indicate unlikeness, but habits; these therefore lead to coldness.
It is plainly to be seen by reason that this is a cause of coldness, if it is considered that scortatory love is the diametrical opposite of conjugial love. When therefore it is believed that conjugial love is the same as scortatory love, both of them become notionally alike. Then a wife is looked upon as a whore and marriage as uncleanness. The man himself is also an adulterer, if not physically, at least in spirit. The inevitable consequence is a flood of contempt, loathing and aversion, and so intense coldness, between the man and his woman. Nothing contains in itself more coldness in marriage than scortatory love; and since it actually turns into that coldness, it can justifiably be called the height of coldness in marriage.
The reason is that conjugial love places the highest value on a union of wills, and so freedom of choice. These two aims are banished from a marriage by competing for ascendancy or the dominant position. This competition divides or splits their wills into separate parts, and changes freedom of choice into slavery. So long as it lasts, the spirit of one plots violence against the other. If their minds were then opened up and inspected by spiritual sight, it would look as if they were fighting with daggers, and regarding each other alternately with hatred and with good will; with hatred when they are intensely competing, with good will when they hope to win and when under the influence of lust.
[2] Once one has gained the victory over the other, this hostility withdraws from the outward to the inner regions of the mind, and remains there uneasily. This results in coldness for the man who is subdued or enslaved, and also for the woman who wins or becomes dominant. She too feels coldness, because there is no longer any conjugial love, and its absence is coldness (see 235). The place of conjugial love is taken for her by the warmth derived from ascendancy, but this is utterly at variance with the warmth of marriage, though it may show outward signs of agreement through the workings of lust. When the couple have come to a tacit understanding, it looks as if conjugial love has turned into friendship. But the difference between conjugial friendship and servile friendship in marriage is like that between light and shade, between a real fire and illusory light, in fact, between a fully fleshed person and one composed of nothing but skin and bone.
Man was created to perform services, because these hold good and truth; and their marriage is the source of creation, and also of conjugial love, as was demonstrated in the chapter on this subject [V]. By any study or business we mean any way in which these can be applied to be service. So when a person devotes himself to any study or business, when, that is, he is performing a service, his mind is bounded and, as it were, has a circle drawn around it, within which it is by stages arranged to become a truly human form. From this, as from its home, it can see various desires outside itself, and is brought by soundness of reason to banish them, and as a result also the wild follies of scortatory lust. That is why in such people the warmth of marriage lasts better and longer than in others.
[2] The result for those who abandon themselves to sloth and idleness is the reverse. In their case the mind is unbounded and uncircumscribed, and so a person allows into it all the empty and absurd ideas emanating from the world and the body, and causes it to love them. It is obvious that then conjugial love too is sent into exile. For the result of sloth and idleness is a mental stupor and a bodily numbness, the whole personality becoming incapable of feeling any vital love, and above all, conjugial love. For this is the source from which industry and keenness in life pour forth. But coldness in marriage in their case is different from that in other cases; it is certainly being deprived of conjugial love, but as the result of their failure.
There are many inequalities of rank and condition, which, when the couple live together, tear apart the conjugial love they entered upon before their wedding. But the inequalities may be in respect of age, rank or wealth. It does not need to be proved that inequality of age can cause coldness in marriage, as between a boy and an old woman, or between a teenage girl and a broken down old man. Nor is any proof needed to show that inequality of rank can do the same, as in marriages between a prince and a serving girl or a matron of noble family and a manservant. It is obvious the same is true of differences in wealth, unless the couple are brought together by likeness of character and behaviour, and the attention one pays to the other’s inclinations and inborn desires. But in both these cases the deference due to the other’s superior rank and condition prevents any link but a servile one. But this is a cold kind of linking. For in these cases there is no true principle of marriage of spirit and heart, but only of the lips and name, so that the inferior boasts of it and the superior blushes for shame.
In the heavens there can be no inequality in age, rank or wealth. As for age, all there are in the flower of youth, and remain in it for ever. As for rank, everyone there looks upon others from the point of view of the services they perform; the more distinguished look on those of lower rank as brothers, and do not treat rank as more important than service, but service as more important than rank. Moreover, when young women are married, they do not know from what family they came. For no one in heaven knows who was his father on earth, but the Lord is the Father of all. Much the same is true of wealth, which in heaven means a talent for wisdom. They are given resources enough to match their talents. On how marriages are arranged, see 229 above.
Separation may be from bed or from home. There are many reasons for separation from bed, and as many for separation from home. Here we deal only with legitimate separations. Since the reasons for separation are the same as those for having a concubine, the reader is referred to the relevant chapter [XX] in the second part of this work, to see them set out in order. The reasons for legitimate separation are as follows.
This is because conjugial love is the linking of minds; if therefore the mind of one goes in the opposite direction to that of the other, their link is dissolved and together with it their love fades. The faults which cause separation can be seen from this list. In the majority of cases these are madness, inflammation of the brain, unsoundness of mind, real stupidity and silliness, loss of memory, serious hysterical disease; such extreme simplicity that good and truth cannot be perceived; excessive stubbornness in failing to respect justice and equity; excessive pleasure in chattering and talking about nothing but insignificant and trivial subjects; an unrestrained desire to publish domestic secrets, or for litigation, beating, punishing, committing crimes, stealing, lying, deceiving, swearing; failure to take care of children, intemperance, extravagance, excessive prodigality, drunkenness, uncleanliness, immodesty, an interest in magic and sorcery, impiety, and many more. By legitimate reasons we do not mean legally accepted ones, but ones which offer the other partner a satisfactory reason. Separation from home too is rarely decreed by a judge.
Physical faults do not mean the accidental diseases which may befall one partner or the other during a marriage, and pass over; it is chronic diseases which do not pass over which are meant. Their listing is due to the pathologists. They are of many kinds, such as those which infect the whole body so severely that fatal results may follow from contagion. Of this sort are malignant and plague-type fevers, leprosy, venereal infection, gangrene, cancer and others of the same kind. Then there are diseases which make the body so repulsive that it is impossible for others to live with them, ones which emit harmful discharges and noxious gases, either from the surface of the body or from inside, especially from the stomach and lungs. Diseases of the surface are malignant pox, warts, pustules, consumption due to scurvy, acute scabies, especially if the face is made ugly by them.
[2] Among emissions from the stomach are foul, evil-smelling and rank belches due to indigestion; from the lungs, foul and rotten breath due to pockets of pus, ulcers, abscesses or corruption of the blood or lymph in these. In addition there are other diseases of various types, such as fits of unconsciousness, causing total feebleness of the body and loss of strength; paralysis, a slackening and relaxation of the membranes and ligatures which control movement; certain chronic diseases arising from the loss of the ability of the sinews to contract and stretch, or from excessive viscosity, tenacity or acidity of humours; epilepsy; permanent disability due to strokes; certain types of consumption, leading to wasting of the body; colic, coeliac disease, hernia and other similar diseases.
This is a reason for separation, because the purpose of marriage is the procreation of offspring, and this is impossible in these cases; and knowing this, they deliberately deprive their wives of the hope of children, although it is this hope which nourishes and strengthens their conjugial love.
There are many reasons for this, which can be seen by the light of reason, but still at the present time hidden. It can be seen by the light of reason that marriages are holy, and acts of adultery are a profanation, so that marriage and adultery are diametrically opposite. When one thing acts upon its opposite, one destroys the other until the last glimmer of life in it is extinguished. This is what happens to conjugial love, when a married man of set purpose, that is, deliberately, commits adultery. For those who have some knowledge about heaven and hell, these facts come even more into the clear light of reason. For they know that marriages are in heaven and from heaven, acts of adultery in hell and from hell, and the two cannot be linked together, as heaven cannot be with hell. If in the case of a person they are linked, heaven at once departs and hell comes in.
[2] This then is why adultery is a reason for divorce. The Lord therefore says that anyone who sends his wife away, except for licentious behaviour, and marries another woman commits adultery (Matt. 19:9). He says that if he sends her away, except for licentious behaviour, and marries again, he commits adultery, because sending her away for this reason is a complete separation of minds, which is called divorce. But other cases of sending her away, for the special reasons which have just been listed, are separations. If another wife is married after these, adultery is committed, but not following a divorce.
Familiarity due to continual indulgence is an accidental reason for coldness, because it is what happens to those whose thoughts about marriage and their wives are lascivious, but not to those who have a holy respect for marriage and confidence in their wives. Familiarity due to continual indulgence also causes joys to become matters of indifference and even boring, as is obvious from games and shows, musical concerts, dances, feasts and such like; these are essentially sweet, because they enliven our lives. It is much the same with married couples living and sleeping together, especially in the case of those who have failed to banish unchaste sexual love from their love for each other, and when they think about the familiarity due to continual indulgence, but to no purpose in the absence of opportunity. It is self-evident that these people find that familiarity is a reason for coldness.
This is called accidental, because it is an additional cause for inherent coldness, and supports it as providing a motive. In order to get rid of the coldness this causes, wives have the innate prudence to prevent excessive indulgence by various expressions of repugnance. But it is utterly different in the case of those whose judgment of their wives is chaste. Among the angels therefore familiarity from continual indulgence is the height of the soul’s delight, serving as a vehicle for their conjugial love. For they enjoy the pleasure of that love continually, and the extreme pleasures in so far as their minds are not distracted from attention by worries, and so as their husband’s judgment dictates.
This is a reason which only applies to those whose conjugial love at the inmost level is cold; and since it comes on top of inward coldness, it is an additional or accidental reason. In these cases love outside marriage is inwardly on heat because it is approved and favoured. For coldness in one party is heat in the other, and this even if not felt is still present, even in the midst of coldness. If it were not still present even then, it could never be revived. It is this heat which causes compulsion, and this increases to the extent that one party regards the compact agreed on and the law fairly applied as bonds which cannot be broken. But it is different if these are broken by both parties.
[2] The case is quite different for those who have forsworn love outside marriage, and whose thinking about conjugial love is heavenly and is heaven, and even more so if they experience this. For them the compact with its agreements and the law with its prescriptions are imprinted on their hearts, and are ever being more deeply imprinted. In their case the bond of this love is not tied by entering on a compact or by passing a law, but both of these are from creation implanted in the love itself which they enjoy. The worldly consequences result from them, not the other way around. This is why everything relating to that love is felt as freedom; and there can be no freedom which does not come from love. I have been told by angels that the freedom of truly conjugial love is the greatest, because it is the highest of loves.
Among the angels in heaven there is no refusal or repugnance on the part of wives, as there is in some cases on earth. Among the angels in heaven wives are willing to talk about love, and do not keep the same silence as some wives on earth. But I am unable, since it would not be proper for me, to disclose the reasons for these differences. Still reference may be made to the statements by the wives of angels, freely uttered in front of their husbands, which are recorded in the four accounts of experiences at the ends of chapters: the three wives in the court over which the golden rain was seen [155bis, 208], and the seven who were sitting in the rose-garden [293-4]. These accounts are given so that everything may be revealed about conjugial love, the subject of this work both in general and in particular.
The second is a reason for the cessation of love among wives, and the first is a reason for coldness among men; these statements require no comment. A man who, on seeing his wife by day or lying by her side at night, thinks of her as desiring or being willing, experiences extreme coldness; and on the other hand a wife, who thinks of her husband as being able but unwilling, loses her love. These facts are well known to husbands who take an interest in the secrets of conjugial love. These facts are also reported so as to make this work complete, and to make a full list of the delights of wisdom concerning conjugial love.
People today believe that a person’s mind is in his head, and not at all in his body. Yet the truth is that both soul and mind are as much in the body as in the head. For a person is his soul and mind, since they both make up the spirit which lives on after death. I have shown at length in my works that the spirit has a complete human form. This is why, the moment a person thinks anything, he can at once express it with his lips and at the same time make the appropriate gesture. Likewise the moment he wishes anything, he can at once do it and use the parts of his body for the purpose. This could not happen, if the soul and mind were not together present in the body, and if they did not compose his spiritual man. In these circumstances it can be seen that when conjugial love is present in the mind, a similar emotion is present in the body; and since love is heat, it opens up the path from the inner to the outer levels of the body. On the other hand, anything that takes that love away, that is, any coldness, closes off the path from the inner to the outer levels of the body. These facts make perfectly plain the reason for the angels having a potency that lasts for ever, and for men failing through coldness.
* * * * *
In the higher northern region of the spiritual world near to the east there are places of instruction for boys. (There are also places for youths, men and old men.) All who died in childhood are sent to these places and brought up in heaven. Likewise all who are recent arrivals from the world, and want to know about heaven and hell, are sent there. The area is close to the east, so that all may be taught by the inflow from the Lord. For the Lord is the east, being in the sun there, which is undiluted love coming from Him. Hence the heat from that sun is in essence love, and the light from it is in essence wisdom. Those are breathed into them by the Lord from that sun; the degree to which this happens is dependent upon their ability to receive it, and this is dependent on their love for being wise. After periods of instruction those who have become intelligent are discharged from there, and those are called the Lord’s disciples. On being discharged they go first to the west, and those who do not remain there proceed to the south, some passing through the south to the east. They are admitted to communities where they will be given a home.
[2] Once when I was reflecting about heaven and hell, I began to wish I had a general knowledge of the state of each. I knew that anyone with a general knowledge can afterwards grasp the particulars, since these are contained in the general view, like parts in the whole. So under the influence of that desire I looked towards that region in the north bordering on the east, where the places of instruction were, and went there by a road which was opened up for me. I went into one college where there were young men, approaching the senior teachers who were instructing them, I asked whether they knew any general facts about heaven and hell.
[3] They replied that they knew only a little, ‘but,’ they said, ‘if we look eastwards towards the Lord, we shall be enlightened and then we shall know.’ They did so, and said, ‘There are three general facts about hell, but those about hell are diametrically opposed to those about heaven. The general facts about hell are the three loves: the love of controlling as the result of self-love, the love of possessing other people’s goods as the result of love of the world, and scortatory love. The general facts about heaven are the opposite three loves: the love of controlling as the result of a love of being of service, the love of possessing worldly goods as the result of the love of being of service by their means, and truly conjugial love.’
After this conversation I wished them peace, and leaving them went back home. When I was at home, I was told from heaven, ‘Examine those three general facts above and below, and then we shall see them on your hand.’ They said ‘on your hand’ because everything a person examines with his intellect appears to the angels as if written on his hands.
[2] The reason why the love of controlling others as the result of self-love is hellish above all others is that controlling as the result of self-love comes from the self, and a person’s self is from birth sheer evil, and sheer evil is diametrically opposed to the Lord. The more, therefore, those people advance into that evil, the more they deny God and the holy things of the church, worshipping themselves and Nature. I beg those who are possessed by that evil to seek it out in themselves, and then they will see it.
This love is also such that in so far as checks are relaxed, something that happens provided there is no insuperable obstacle, it rushes from one stage to the next until it reaches its acme. Nor does it even stop there, but grieves and groans, if there is no further stage for it to reach.
[3] In the case of politicians this love climbs so high that they want to be kings and emperors, and control, if possible, everything in the world, earning the title of king of kings and emperor of emperors. In the case of the clergy the same love rises to the point that they want to be gods and, so far as possible, to control everything in heaven, acquiring the title god of gods. It will be seen in what follows that both these groups of people do not at heart acknowledge any God. On the other hand, those who want to exercise control from a love of being of service do not want to exercise control from themselves, wanting it to be from the Lord, since the love of being of service is from the Lord, and is the Lord Himself. These people look upon high offices as nothing but means to be of service. They regard such services as far superior to high office; but the others regard high office as far superior to services.
[2] I was terrified by this apparition and called out, ‘Don’t come closer. Tell me where you are from.’ ‘I am from the underworld,’ he replied in a hoarse voice, ‘and I belong with two hundred others to a community which is the most exalted of all. All of us there are emperors of emperors, kings of kings, dukes of dukes, princes of princes. There is no one there who is merely an emperor, king, duke or prince. There we sit on thrones of thrones, from where we despatch our commands through all the world, and beyond.’ ‘Don’t you see,’ I said to him, ‘that your imagined pre-eminence has driven you mad?’ ‘How can you say such a thing,’ he replied, ‘when this is exactly what we seem to ourselves to be, and we are acknowledged by our companions as such?’
On hearing this I was unwilling to go on telling him he was mad, because his madness was the result of his delusion. I was allowed to know that when that devil lived in the world he had been nothing but the steward of a household. He had been so haughty in spirit that he despised the whole human race compared with himself and indulged in the fancy that he was of higher rank than the king or even the emperor. This pride made him deny the existence of God and treat all holy things of the church as of no value to him, but merely something for the unintelligent populace.
[3] At length I asked him, ‘How long are the two hundred of you there going to go on boasting to one another?’ ‘For ever,’ he said. ‘But those of us who torture others for denying our pre-eminence sink down below. For we are allowed to boast, but not to harm anyone.’ ‘Do you know,’ I went on to ask, ‘what awaits those who sink down below?’ He said that they sink into a sort of prison, where they are called lower than the low, the lowliest of all, and there they work. Then I told the devil to take care, that he too did not sink down.
[2] Then I said to him, ‘How can you be so crazy? In the world you were only an ordinary clergyman; and because you laboured under the delusion that you had the keys, and so the power to bind and release, you let your spirit be so far carried away, that you have now reached such a pitch of madness as to make you believe that you are God Himself.’
He was annoyed at this and swore that he was, and that the Lord had no power in heaven, ‘because,’ he said, ‘He has transferred it all to us. We need only issue orders, and heaven and hell respectfully obey us. If we send anyone to hell, the devils immediately accept him; and so do the angels when we send anyone to heaven.’ ‘How many,’ I went on to ask, ‘are there of you in your community?’ ‘Three hundred,’ he said, ‘and all of us are gods; but I am the god of gods.’
[3] After this the ground opened beneath the feet of both, and they sank deep down to their own hells. I was allowed to see that under their hells were prison workshops, for those who harm others to fall into. For everyone in hell is allowed to keep his delusion and to boast about it, but not to do anyone else harm. The reason why people there are like this is that a person is then in his spirit, and the spirit, when it has been separated from the body, enjoys complete freedom to act in accordance with its affections and the thoughts they give rise to.
[4] Later I was allowed to look into their hells. The hell, where emperors of emperors and kings of kings were, was full of all kinds of filth. They themselves looked like various wild beasts with glowering eyes. It was much the same in the other hell, where the gods and god of gods were. In that hell were to be seen the ill-omened night birds called ochim and iyim* flying around them. Their delusions produced images like this to my sight. These experiences made it plain what the self-love of politicians and ecclesiastics is like. The latter want to be gods, the former emperors. In so far as the restraints placed on those loves are relaxed, they want this and strive to achieve this.
* Hebrew words apparently meaning ‘howling creatures’.
‘We have travelled down here from heaven,’ they replied, ‘in response to the Lord’s instruction that we were to talk to you about the blessed state of those who want to control others because they love performing services. We are worshippers of the Lord; I am the prince of our community, and the other is the chief priest in it.’
[2] The prince said that he was the servant of his community, since he served it by performing services. The other one said that he was the minister of the church there, since his service to them was the administration of holy rites for the service of their souls. They both enjoyed perpetual joys arising from the everlasting happiness the Lord bestows on them. They said that everything in their community was splendid and magnificent, splendid with gold and precious stones, and magnificent in its palaces and parks. ‘The reason,’ he said, ‘is that our love of controlling others does not arise from self-love, but from the love of performing services. Since this love comes from the Lord, all good services in heaven sparkle and gleam. And since all in our community share this love, the atmosphere there appears golden as the result of the light it receives from the sun’s flame. It is this flame-coloured sunlight which corresponds to that love.’
[3] When they said this, an atmosphere of this kind became visible to me around them; and I smelt an aroma from it, as I also told them. I begged them to add a little more to what they had said about the love of performing services. So they went on to say, ‘The ranks we enjoy are something we sought, but for no other purpose than to perform services more fully and to spread them over a wider range. We also have honours heaped on us, and we accept them, not for ourselves, but for the good of our community. Our brethren and colleagues who belong to the common people there are hardly aware that the honours of our rank are not in us or that the services we perform do not come from us. But we can tell the difference; we feel that the honours of rank lie outside us, being like clothes in which we dress. But the services we perform come from the love of performing them, which is within us coming from the Lord, and this love derives its blessedness by being shared with others by means of the services performed. We know by experience that in so far as we perform services as a result of our love for them, so far does that love increase, and wisdom increases with it, as a result of which it is shared. But to the extent that we keep these services to ourselves and do not share them, to that extent our blessedness departs. Then the performing of services becomes like food stored in the stomach instead of being carried around to nourish the body and its parts; but if it remains undigested it causes nausea. In short, the whole of heaven is nothing but a container of services, from first to last. What is a service, but the realisation in action of love for the neighbour? And what holds the heavens together but this love?’
[4] On hearing this I asked, ‘How can anyone tell whether he is performing services out of self-love or out of a love of service? Everyone, good as well as wicked, performs services and does so at the bidding of some love. Suppose that in the world there were a community composed of none but devils, and another composed of none but angels. It is my opinion that the devils in their community, fired by self-love and resplendent in their self-importance, would perform just as many services as the angels in their community. Who then can tell what is the love and the origin from which these services come?’
[5] The two angels replied to this speech thus: ‘Devils perform services for their own sakes and to get a reputation, so as to be promoted to honours, or to make a profit. But angels do not perform services for these reasons, but for the sake of the services and their love of being of service. No person can distinguish between those services, but the Lord can. Everyone who believes in the Lord and shuns evils as sins, performs services at the Lord’s bidding. But anyone who does not believe in the Lord, and does not shun evils as sins, performs services for himself and his own sake. This is the difference between services performed by devils and those performed by angels.’
After saying this the two angels went away; and from a distance they appeared to be travelling in a chariot of fire like Elijah, until they were taken up into their own heaven.
Some time later I went into a park and walked there reflecting on those who have a longing to possess worldly goods and so imagine that they do. Then I saw at some distance from me two angels in conversation, who from time to time looked towards me. So I went nearer, and as I approached they addressed me and said, ‘We have an inward perception that you are you are reflecting on what we are talking about, or that we are talking about what you are reflecting on, which is the result of the reciprocal communication of affections.’
[2] So I asked what they were talking about. ‘About imagination,’ they said, ‘longing and intelligence; and just now about those who delight in day-dreaming and imagining they possess everything in the world.’ So I asked them to reveal their thoughts on these topics, longing, imagination and intelligence. They began their reply by saying that everyone inwardly by birth has longing, but outwardly acquires intelligence by education. No one has intelligence, much less wisdom, inwardly, that is, in respect of his spirit, except from the Lord. ‘For everyone,’ they said, ‘is restrained from longing for evil, and is kept in intelligence in proportion to the extent that he looks to the Lord and at the same time is linked with Him. Failing this, a person is nothing but longing; yet in externals, that is, as regards the body, he has intelligence as the result of education. A person longs for honours and riches, or to be eminent and wealthy; and these two goals cannot be attained unless he appears to be principled and spiritual, and so intelligent and wise. So from childhood he learns to appear thus. This is why, as soon as he mixes with people or attends a meeting, he reverses his spirit, switching it away from longing, and speaking and acting in accordance with the principles of decency and honour which he learned from childhood and retains in his bodily memory. He also takes the greatest care to see that nothing of the mad longing of his spirit slips out.
[3] ‘Thus everyone, who is not inwardly guided by the Lord, is a pretender, a sycophant and hypocrite, appearing to be a human being without being one. Of him it can be said that his shell or body is wise, his kernel or spirit is mad; that his external is human, his internal that of a wild beast. Such people go about with the back of their heads pointing upwards, and the front downwards, so that they walk about as if weighed down by their burden, with their heads hanging down, their gaze fastened on the ground. When they put off their bodies, becoming spirits and being set free, they turn into what their own mad longings are. For those who are ruled by self-love long to be masters of the universe, or even to extend its limits so as to have wider sway, for they can see no end to it. Those ruled by love of the world long to possess everything in it, and are grieved and envious if anyone has any treasures stored away in secret. So to prevent such people turning into sheer longings and losing their humanity, they are allowed in the spiritual world to have their thoughts influenced by fear of losing their reputation, and so their honours and profit, as well as by fear of the law and its penalties. They are also allowed to concentrate their mind on some study or task, so that they are kept in externals and so in a state of intelligence, however much inwardly they rave and behave like madmen.’
[4] After this I asked whether all who have this longing to possess worldly goods also suffer from the delusion that they do so. They replied that the people who suffer from this delusion are those who think inwardly about it and over-indulge their imagination, talking to themselves about it. These people come close to separating their spirit from its link with the body; they swamp the understanding by day-dreaming, and indulge in the empty pleasure of imagining they possess everything. A person is after death the victim of this madness, if he has withdrawn his spirit from the body, and has not been willing to retreat from the delight his madness gives. He thinks little from a religious point of view about evils and falsities, and hardly anything about unrestrained love as being destructive of love to the Lord, and unrestrained love of the world as being destructive of love towards the neighbour.
[2] Suddenly we caught sight of a building made of reeds, and therefore full of chinks, standing in the cloud, which continually seeped out like smoke from the chinks in three of the walls. We went in and saw fifty people on one side and fifty on the other, sitting on benches. They had their backs to the east and south and faced the west and north. Each had a table in front of him with bulging money-bags on it, and around the bags piles of gold coins.
‘Are those,’ we asked each, ‘the wealth of all in the world?’ ‘Not all in the world,’ they said, ‘but all in the kingdom.’ Their speech sounded like a whistle, and they themselves had round faces which had a ruddy look like the shell of a snail. The pupils of their eyes seemed to sparkle against a green background; this was caused by the light of their delusion.
We took up a position among them and said, ‘Do you believe that you possess all the wealth of the kingdom?’ ‘Yes,’ they replied. Then we asked, ‘Which one of you possesses this?’ ‘Each of us,’ they said. ‘How can you each possess this?’ we asked. ‘There are many of you.’ ‘We each of us,’ they said, ‘know that everything that belongs to another is ours. We are not allowed to think, much less say, “What is mine is not yours,” but we are allowed to think and say, “What is yours is mine.”‘
Even to our eyes the coins on the tables looked as if made of pure gold. But when we let in light from the east, they turned out to be small particles of gold which they had magnified to such an extent by means of shared joint delusion. They said that anyone who comes in has to bring with him some gold, which they cut up into pieces, and these into small particles, and these they then magnify by concentrating their delusive powers with one intention, to make them look like coins of the larger sort.
[3] Then we said, ‘Were you not born rational human beings? Where have you acquired that foolish fancy?’ ‘We know,’ they said, ‘that our vanity is fanciful, but because it pleases the interiors of our minds, we come in here and are delighted by seeming to possess everyone’s wealth. But we do not stay here for more than a few hours, and having spent this time here we go out, and each time sanity returns to our minds. But still the attraction of our day-dreams from time to time comes upon us, and makes us alternate between coming in and going out, so that by turns we are wise and crazy. We know too that a harsh fate awaits those who cunningly filch other people’s property.’ ‘What fate is that?’ we asked. ‘They are swallowed up,’ they said, ‘and thrown naked into some prison in hell, where they are obliged to work for clothing and for food, and then for a few pennies which they hoard and make their hearts’ desire. But if they do harm to their companions, they have to give up some of their pennies as a fine.’
[2] ‘There are,’ they said, ‘ three universal loves of which every person is from creation compounded: the love of the neighbour, which is also the love of performing services, and this is a spiritual love; the love of the world, which is also the love of possessing wealth, and this is a material love; and self-love, which is the love of ruling over others, and this is a bodily love.
[3] A person is truly human when the love of the neighbour, or the love of performing services, makes up the head, and the love of the world makes up the body, and self-love makes up the feet. But if the love of the world makes up the head, a person is only human in the way a hunchback is. And if self-love makes up the head, he is not like a person standing on his feet, but like one standing on the palms of his hands with his head down and his haunches in the air.
When the love of the neighbour makes up the head, and the other two loves duly make up the body and feet, the person as seen from heaven appears to have the face of an angel with a lovely rainbow around his head. But if the love of the world makes up the head, seen from heaven he seems to have a pale face like a corpse with a yellow ring around his head. And if self-love makes up the head, seen from heaven he seems to have a swarthy face with a white ring around his head.’
This led me to ask, ‘What do the rings around the head represent?’ ‘Intelligence,’ they replied, ‘the white ring around the head of a person with a swarthy face represents his intelligence being limited to externals or around him, and his craziness being in his internals or inside him. Also a person of this sort is wise when in the body, but crazy when in the spirit. No one is wise in the spirit except by the Lord’s doing; this happens when he is born again and created anew by the Lord.’
[4] When this was said, the ground opened up on the left, and through the opening I saw a devil rising with a shining white halo round his head. ‘Who are you?’ I asked. ‘I am Lucifer,’ he said, ‘the son of the dawn. I was cast down for regarding myself as like the Most High.’ He was not really Lucifer, but he thought he was.
‘Since you have been cast down,’ I said, ‘how can you rise again from hell?’ ‘There,’ he said, ‘I am a devil, but here I am an angel of light. Don’t you see I have a sphere of light round my head? And you will see, if you wish, that among moral people I am more than moral, among rational people more than rational, among spiritual people even more than spiritual. I can also preach, and have done so.’
‘What did you preach about?’ I asked. ‘I preached against cheats, against adulterers, and all the loves of hell. In fact it was then I called myself the devil Lucifer and invoked curses on myself as such, so that I was praised to the skies. That was how I got the name of the son of the dawn. To my own surprise when I was in the pulpit I could think of nothing but speaking correctly and properly. But I discovered the reason, that I was in my outward state, and this was separate from my inward one. Yet although I had discovered this, I still could not change myself, because my pride prevented me from looking to God.’
[5] ‘How then,’ I asked next, ‘could you speak like that, when you are yourself a deceiver, an adulterer and a devil?’ ‘I am different,’ he replied, ‘when I am in my outward or bodily state from what I am in my inward or spiritual state. In the body, I am an angel, but in the spirit I am a devil. For in the body I am under the control of the intellect, but in the spirit under that of the will. The intellect carries me aloft, but the will drags me down. When under the control of the intellect, I have a white halo round my head; but when my intellect makes itself subservient to the will and becomes its creature, as ultimately happens to us, then the halo turns black and disappears. Once this has happened, we can no longer come up here into the light.
Later he talked more rationally than anyone else about his double state, inward and outward. But suddenly on seeing I had angels with me, his face and voice caught fire, and he became black, even the halo about his head doing the same; and he fell back into hell through the same opening he had come up by. On seeing this the bystanders arrived at this conclusion, that it is a person’s love which determines what he is like, not his intellect, since love easily carries the intellect away to support it and makes it subservient.
[6] Then I asked the angels, ‘Where do devils get such powers of reasoning?’ ‘It comes,’ they said, ‘from the radiance of self-love, for this is enveloped in radiance, which can even raise the intellect into the light of heaven. For everyone’s intellect can be raised, depending on what he knows; but his will cannot be raised except by living in accordance with the truths taught by the church and by reason. This is why even atheists, who have a radiant reputation as the result of self-love, and are therefore proud of their own intelligence, enjoy higher powers of reasoning than many other people. But this happens when they are engaged in intellectual thinking, not when their will is engaged in affection. The will’s affection controls a person’s interior, but the intellect’s thinking controls his exterior.’
The angel went on to explain the reason why a person is a mixture of the three loves mentioned above: the love of service, the love of the world and self-love. This is to enable him to think from God, although as if from himself. He said that the highest level in a person is turned up towards God, the middle level outward towards the world, and the lowest level downwards towards oneself. Since this level is turned downwards, he thinks as if his thoughts came from himself, yet in fact they come from God.
One morning after I had slept, my thoughts plunged deep into some of the secrets of conjugial love, ending up with this: In what region of the human mind does truly conjugial love reside, and hence where does conjugial coldness reside? I knew that the human mind has three regions, one above the other; in the lowest region natural love dwells, in the higher one spiritual love, and in the highest celestial love. In each region there is a marriage of good and truth; and since good relates to love and truth to wisdom, there is a marriage of love and wisdom. This marriage is the same as that between the will and the intellect, because the will is designed to receive love, the intellect wisdom.
[2] While I was deep in these thoughts, I caught sight of two swans flying towards the north, and then two birds of paradise flying towards the south, and also two doves flying in the east. As I followed their flight with my eyes, I noticed the two swans altering their course from north to east, and the birds of paradise did the same from the south, and they went to join the doves in the east. They flew together to a lofty palace there, which was surrounded by olive, palm and beech trees. The palace had three rows of windows, one above the other; and as I watched I saw the swans fly into the palace through the open windows of the bottom row, the birds of paradise through those of the middle row, and the doves through those of the top row.
[3] When I had seen this, an angel stood beside me and said, ‘Do you understand what you have seen?’ ‘A little,’ I answered. He told me that the palace represented the dwellings of conjugial love, as they exist in people’s minds. The top floor, to which the doves took themselves, represented the highest region of the mind, where conjugial love dwells in the love for good together with its own wisdom. The middle floor, to which the birds of paradise took themselves, represented the middle region, where conjugial love dwells in the love for truth together with its own intelligence. The lowest floor, to which the swans took themselves, represented the lowest region, where conjugial love dwells in the love for justice and equity with its own knowledge.
[4] ‘The three pairs of birds,’ he said, ‘also have the same meaning: the pair of doves mean conjugial love of the highest region, the pair of birds of paradise conjugial love of the middle region, the pair of swans conjugial love of the lowest region. The three kinds of trees surrounding the palace, olive, palm and beech, have the same meaning. We in heaven call the highest region of the mind celestial, the middle spiritual, the lowest natural. We see these like apartments in a house one above the other, with a staircase leading up from one to the next. On each floor there are two rooms, one for love, the other for wisdom, and in front of them a kind of bedroom, where love associates in bed with its own kind of wisdom, or good with its own truth, or, what is the same thing, the will with its own intellect. This palace contains pictorial representations of all the secrets of conjugial love.’
[5] On hearing this I was fired with longing to see it, and I asked whether anyone was allowed to go inside and view it, seeing that it is a representational palace. The reply was that only those who are in the third heaven are allowed to do so, because for them every representation of love and wisdom is realised. ‘What I have told you,’ he said, ‘I have heard from them. I was also told that truly conjugial love dwells in the highest region, in the midst of mutual love in the chamber or room of the will, in the midst of perceptions of wisdom in the chamber or room of the intellect; and they associate in bed in the bedroom at the front, that is, in the east.’ ‘Why are there two chambers?’ I asked. He said it was because the husband is in the chamber of the intellect, and the wife is in the chamber of the will.
[6] ‘Since conjugial love dwells there,’ I asked, ‘ where does conjugial coldness dwell?’ He replied that it too was in the highest region, but only in the chamber of the intellect, and the chamber of the will there was closed. ‘For the intellect accompanied by its truths,’ he said, ‘can go up as often as it wishes by the spiral staircase to its chamber in the highest region; but if the will accompanied by the good of its love does not at the same time go up to the matching chamber, this is shut off, causing coldness in the other one. This is conjugial coldness. When such coldness is felt towards a wife, the intellect looks down from the highest region to the lowest, and also, if not held back by fear, goes down there and warms itself with illicit fire there.’
After saying this he wanted to relate more about conjugial love based on the representations of it to be found in that palace; but he said, ‘This is enough for now. Ask first whether these facts are beyond the grasp of the average intellect. If they are, what is the point of saying more? But if not, more will be revealed.’
THE REASONS WHY AN APPEARANCE OF LOVE, FRIENDSHIP AND GOOD WILL ARE TO BE SEEN IN MARRIAGES
After dealing with the reasons for coldness and separation, the next subject in due order must be the reasons why an appearance of love, friendship and good will is to be seen in marriages. For it is well known that, although coldness divides the minds of married couples today, they still live together and have children. This would not happen, if the appearance of love were not possible, and love that by turns imitates or rivals the warmth of genuine love. It will be seen in what follows that these appearances are necessary and useful; without them households could not hold together, and so neither could communities.
In addition to these considerations some people who possess a conscience may be bothered by thinking that the mental discord between their partner and themselves, which leads to inward estrangement, is their fault and is reckoned against them, something that makes them grieve at heart. But since inward discord is something it is not in their power to help, it is enough for them to allay the distress which their conscience evokes by an appearance of love and good will. This may even lead to a return of friendship, in which conjugial love lies hidden on the part of one partner, even though not on that of the other. But the numerous varieties of this subject demand that it be discussed under a series of headings, as before. These are as follows:
(i) In the natural world almost all people can be linked in their outward affections, but not in their inward affections, if these disagree and are seen to disagree.
(ii) In the spiritual world all are linked as their inward, but not outward, affections dictate, unless these act in unison with the inward ones.
(iii) It is outward affections which generally influence people in the world to get married.
(iv) But in the absence of inward affections to link a couple’s minds, such marriages fall apart at home.
(v) The married state, however, in the world is intended to last until the end of each partner’s life.
(vi) Marriages which lack the linking of inward affections may have outward ones, which resemble inward ones and lead to association.
(vii) This is the source of an appearance of love, of friendship and of good will between married couples.
(viii) These appearances are the pretences appropriate to marriage, which are praiseworthy as being useful and necessary.
(ix) In the case of a spiritual person linked to a natural one these pretences of couples have a touch of justice and judgment.
(x) In the case of natural people these pretences have a touch of prudence, for various reasons.
(xi) They are intended to improve people and make them accommodating.
(xii) They are intended to keep proper order in household affairs and to provide mutual help.
(xiii) They are intended to ensure concord in the care of babies and looking after children.
(xiv) They are intended to promote peace in the home.
(xv) They are intended to protect reputations outside the home.
(xvi) They are intended to ensure the various marks of good will looked for by the partner, or his or her relatives, and also to allay fears of losing these.
(xvii) They are intended to excuse faults and so to avoid ill-repute.
(xviii) They are intended to bring about reconciliation.
(xix) If a wife does not cease to show good will, so long as her husband remains capable, there may be friendship which resembles that of marriage and which lasts until they grow old.
(xx) Various kinds of apparent love and friendship are possible between couples, one of whom is dominated and thus subject to the other.
(xxi) Hellish marriages are possible in the world between couples who are inwardly out-and-out enemies, but outwardly the best of friends.
An explanation of these propositions now follows.
The reason is that in the world a person has a material body, and this is stuffed full of desires; these behave there like the dregs which collect at the bottom when new wine is clarified. The materials from which human bodies are composed in the world are of such a kind. So it is that inward affections, those of the mind, are not seen; in many cases hardly as much as a grain of them shows through. For the body either absorbs them and envelops them in its dregs, or hides them deep to prevent others seeing them, as the result of being taught from childhood to pretend. This allows one partner to adopt the state of any affection perceived in the other, and to lure the other’s affection to himself, so that they become linked. The reason for this linking is that every affection has its own pleasure, and pleasures bind minds together.
However, it would be different if inward affections were as visible as outward ones, on people’s faces, in their gestures, and to be heard in the tone of their voices, or if the pleasures they give were perceived by the nose or smelled, as happens in the spiritual world. Then if their disagreement reached the point of discord, their minds would be parted from each other, and they would take themselves off to a distance, depending on the perception of antipathy. These considerations will make it obvious that in the natural world almost all can be linked in outward affections, but not in inward ones, and if these disagree and are seen to disagree.
The reason is that then the material body, which had been able to receive and exhibit the forms of every affection, as said just before, is cast off. Once a person is stripped of that body, he is subject to his inward affections, which were previously hidden by the body. This is why there similarity or dissimilarity of nature, or sympathy and antipathy, are not only felt, but also revealed in faces, utterances and gestures. Likenesses therefore are linked together, unlikenesses parted. This is the reason why the whole of heaven is arranged by the Lord according to all the differences of affections of the love for good and truth; hell on the other hand is arranged according to all the differences of the affections for evil and falsity.
[2] Since angels and spirits have inward and outward affections, just as people do in the world, inward affections, being there incapable of being masked by outward ones, show through and become plain; each kind is therefore in these cases brought to resemble and match the other. After this their inward affections are portrayed by outward ones in their faces, perceived in their tone of voice, and made visible in their behaviour. Angels and spirits have inward and outward affections because they have a mind and a body; affections and the thoughts they evoke belong to the mind, sensations and the pleasures they give belong to the body.
[3] It often happens that after death friends meet in the spiritual world, and remembering their friendships in the former world think that they will then resume the friendly relations they had before. But when their association, which is merely based on outward affections, is noticed in heaven, they are parted in keeping with their inward affections. Then some are sent away from that meeting to the north, some to the west; and each is removed some distance from his friend, so that they do not ever see or recognise each other again. For their faces are changed in the places where they live, so as to become a picture of their inward affections. This makes it plain that in the spiritual world it is inward affections which link people together, not outward ones, unless these are in unison with the inward ones.
274. (iii) It is outward affections which generally influence people in the world to get married.
This is because inward affections are rarely taken into account, and if they are, the similarity on the woman’s side is still not seen, since her native talents lead her to keep these deeply hidden in the recesses of the mind. There are numerous outward affections which induce men to get married. The leading one in this period is the desire to increase one’s patrimony by extra wealth, either to become rich or to ensure plenty. Another is the ambition to gain honours, either to achieve a high reputation or to live at a more exalted level. Apart from these there are various things which attract and inspire lust; these do not even allow any opportunity for finding out if there is a match between inward affections. These few remarks will make it plain that it is generally outward affections which influence people in the world to get married.
275. (iv) But in the absence of inward affections to link a couple’s minds, such marriages fall apart at home.
We say at home, because this takes place between the couple in private. This happens when the early warmth created at the time of an engagement, which bursts into flame at the time of the wedding, afterwards by stages loses its zest on account of their ill-matched inward affections, so that finally it is replaced with coldness. It is well known that the outward affections which induced and enticed them to get married disappear, so that they no longer link them. I proved in the last chapter that coldness arises for various reasons, inward, outward and accidental, all of them derived from unlikeness in inward inclinations. This makes plain the truth of the proposition, that in the absence of inward affections to link a couple’s minds, such marriages fall apart at home.
276. (v) The married state, however, in the world is intended to last until the end of each partner’s life.
This point is made so that the reason may grasp the necessity, usefulness and truth of the proposition that conjugial love, where it is not genuine, should still be professed and made to look as if it were. It would be different if marriages entered into were not a promise lasting until the end of one’s life, but something which could be ended at will. This was the situation of the Israelite people, who claimed for themselves the freedom to divorce wives for any reason whatsoever. This is plain from this passage in Matthew:
Some Pharisees came and said to Jesus, Is it permissible for a person to divorce his wife for any reason? And when Jesus replied that it was not permissible to divorce one’s wife and marry another, except for unchaste conduct, they retorted that Moses had commanded them to give notice of repudiation and to divorce. And the disciples said, If this is a person’s situation in respect of his wife, it is preferable not to marry. Matt. 19:3-10.
[2] Since therefore the marriage contract is for life, it follows that couples are bound to keep up the appearance of love and friendship. The need for marriages entered into to be maintained until the end of life in the world arises from God’s law, and this being so, it is prescribed by the law of reason too, and so is a matter of civil law. It is God’s law that it is not permissible to divorce a wife and marry another, except for unchaste conduct, as was shown just above. It is the law of reason, because this is founded upon the spiritual law, since God’s law is one with the law of reason. These two together, or rather the law of reason inspired by God’s law, [give rise to the civil law. Today]* numerous examples are to be seen of aberrations, the destruction of communities, and the dissolution of marriage before death or the divorce of wives at the husband’s whim. These aberrations and the destruction of communities can be seen discussed at some length in the account of the debate on the origin of conjugial love by the representatives of the nine kingdoms (103-115). There is thus no need to give additional reasons. These reasons, however, do not prevent separation being permissible for special causes (on these see 252-254 above); and also having a concubine (which is discussed in Part Two [Chapter XX]).
* The sentence appears to be incomplete in the original.
Inward affections mean the mutual inclinations coming from heaven which each party has in his or her mind; outward affections are the inclinations coming from the world which each party has in his or her mind. Outward affections or inclinations are indeed equally in the mind, but they occupy its lower level, while the inward affections occupy the upper level. It might be thought that, since they both have their seat in the mind, they are alike and agree. But even though they are unlike, they can still look as if alike; in some cases they come into being as if by agreement, in others by polite pretence.
[2] From the beginning of the marriage compact there is a sharing implanted in both partners, which remains rooted in them, however much their minds disagree. For instance, the sharing of possessions, in many cases the sharing of services undertaken and the various needs of the household; this leads to the sharing of thoughts and of some secrets. There is also the sharing of a bed, and a shared love of children; not to mention many more things which are present in their minds, because they are involved in the marriage compact. These are the chief source of outward affections resembling inward ones. Outward affections, however, which are merely pretended, are partly from the same source, but partly from another; both of these will be discussed further in what follows.
278. (vii) This is the source of an appearance of love, of friendship and of good will between married couples.
The appearance of love, friendship and good will between married couples is the result of entering into a marriage bond for life, and of the principle of sharing imprinted on those thus linked in marriage, which gives rise to outward affections resembling inward ones, as pointed out just above. There are, moreover, reasons of usefulness and need. From these there arise in part outward affections which link people together or which pretend to do so, thus making outward love look like inward love, and outward friendship like inward friendship.
279. (viii) These appearances are the pretences appropriate to marriage, which are praiseworthy as being useful and necessary.
We speak of pretence because this is possible between those who disagree in mind, and as the result of these disagreements are inwardly in a cold state. When they still in outward behaviour, as is right and fitting, live a sociable life, then their joint actions in living together can be called pretences, but ones appropriate to marriage. Since these are particularly praiseworthy as being intended to serve a purpose, they are to be completely distinguished from hypocritical pretences. For they have in view all the good results enumerated below in points xi to xx. They can be called praiseworthy on account of need, because otherwise those good results would be thrown away. Yet living together is prescribed by the marriage compact and the law, and so this is incumbent on each party as a duty.
280. (ix) In the case of a spiritual person linked to a natural one these pretences of couples have a touch of justice and judgment.
The reason is that it is justice and judgment which lead the spiritual man to do what he does. Therefore he does not see these pretences as estranged from his inward affections, but coupled to them. For he acts seriously, looking to improvement as his aim, and if he does not achieve this, he aims at an arrangement, so as to keep order in his household, to provide mutual help, to look after his children, and to enjoy peace and tranquillity. Justice impels him to have these intentions and judgment to put them into practice. The reason why a spiritual person can live thus with a natural person is that a spiritual person behaves spiritually, even with a natural person.
281. (x) In the case of natural people these pretences have a touch of prudence, for various reasons.
In the case of a married couple, one may be spiritual and the other natural; we mean by spiritual one who loves spiritual things and thus has wisdom from the Lord, by natural one who loves only natural things and thus has wisdom from himself. When two such people are joined in marriage, the spiritual one feels conjugial love as heat, the natural one as coldness. Obviously heat and coldness cannot exist together, and heat cannot fire a person in a state of coldness, unless this is first dispelled; nor can coldness invade one in a state of heat, unless this is first removed. So it is that intimate love is impossible between partners, one of whom is spiritual, the other not. But there can exist a love rivalling intimate love on the part of the spiritual one, as was said in the previous section.
[2] However, intimate love cannot exist between a couple both of whom are natural, since they are both cold. Any heat they have comes from unchastity. Yet these can still live together in one household, while keeping their minds apart; they can also keep up an appearance of love and mutual friendship on their faces, however much their minds disagree. In these cases outward affections, for the most part for wealth and possessions, or for honours and high rank, can become as it were ardent. Since this ardour produces the fear of their loss, pretence between couples becomes essential for them; the main ones are those listed in sections xv-xvii below. The remaining reasons listed with them may have something in common with the reasons affecting a spiritual person mentioned above (280), but only if the natural person’s prudence has a touch of intelligence.
282. (xi) They are intended to improve people and make them accommodating.
The pretences practised by married couples, allowing those who disagree in character to appear loving and friendly, are intended to lead to improvement, because a spiritual person bound in matrimony with a natural one has no other aim than improving the way they live. He does this by talking about wisdom and refinement, and by acts of good will which appeal to the other’s character. But if these fall on deaf ears or make no impression on his behaviour, he aims at arrangements which will keep order in household affairs, provide mutual help, take care of babies and children, and so forth. For what a spiritual persons says and does has a touch of justice and judgment, as shown above (280).
[2] In the case, however, of a married couple, neither of whom are spiritual, but both natural, something similar may occur, but for other purposes. If they aim at improvement and an arrangement, the intention is either to bring the other one to behave in a similar fashion to oneself or to make him or her subservient to one’s own desires; or to ensure the performance of duties which serve one’s own, either for the sake of peace at home or good repute outside it, or for the sake of favours hoped for from one’s partner, or from his relatives, not to mention other aims. But these in some cases arise from their rational prudence, in some cases from their native politeness, in some cases from the pleasures of desires which have become familiar from birth, so that their loss is feared. There are also many more purposes, which cause the good will assumed to be the product of conjugial love to become more or less pretended. There are also acts of good will looking as if from conjugial love to be seen outside the home, but not inside it; but these have in view the preservation of each party’s reputation, or if not, they are merely a game.
283. (xii) They are intended to keep proper order in household affairs and to provide mutual help.
Each household which also contains children, their teachers and other domestics is a community modelled on the large one. This comes into being by their combination, like any whole out of its parts. Moreover, just as the healthy condition of a major community depends upon its order, so does that of this minor one. As therefore it is the business of magistrates to examine and provide that order exists and is preserved in the people who compose the community, so it is that of the married couple in their own household. But this order is impossible, if husband and wife disagree in character, since this results in their advice and help given to each other pulling in opposite directions, and being divided like their characters; thus the form of the minor community is torn apart. In order, therefore, to keep order, and by this means to provide for oneself together with the household, or for the household together with oneself, so that they are not destroyed and rush headlong into ruin, it is essential for the master and mistress to agree and act as one. If the difference between their minds prevents this from happening, still to keep good order it is necessary and proper for the couple to display a picture of friendship. It is well known that concord is patched up* in households for the sake of needs and the uses they serve.
* Reading consarciantur for confarciantur ‘is crammed together’.
284. (xiii) They are intended to ensure concord in the care of babies and looking after children.
It is very well known that pretence by married couples producing an appearance of love and friendship, an image of truly conjugial feelings, is for the sake of babies and children. The couple’s shared love for their children causes each partner to look kindly and favourably on the other. A mother’s love for her babies and children and a father’s love for them are linked, as the heart and the lungs are linked in the chest. The mother’s love for them is like the heart, and the father’s love towards them is like the lungs in the body. The reason why they can be compared is that the heart corresponds to love and the lungs to intellect; and love in the case of the mother comes from the will, in the case of the father from the intellect. In the case of spiritual people this love leads to linking in marriage as the result of justice and judgment. We say, as the result of justice, because it is the mother who carried them in the womb, bore them in pain, and then with untiring care suckles them, feeds them, washes and clothes them, and brings them up.
285. (xiv) They are intended to promote peace in the home.
It is principally men who practise pretence in marriage or outward friendship in order to have peace at home; this is because they have the natural characteristic of doing what they do at the bidding of the intellect. The intellect, being the seat of thought, considers various matters which make the mind restless, distracting and troubling it. If therefore there were no quiet at home, it might happen that their vital spirits would flag and their inner life would, so to speak, die off, thus destroying their mental and bodily health. The fear of these and many other dangers would beset men’s minds, if they did not have a refuge with their wives at home to calm the disturbance of their intellect.
[2] Besides peace and calm soothe the mind and make it ready to accept gratefully the favours bestowed by wives, who devote all their efforts to dispelling the clouds which they are quick to notice besetting their husbands’ minds. These things also lend charm to their presence. This makes it plain that the pretence of love, as if it were truly conjugial, is needed and useful to promote peace and calm in the home. Another point is that wives do not practise pretence as much as men do. But if something like it shows, it is a pretence of real love, because women are by birth intended to love their husbands’ intellects. So they are pleased at heart to receive their husbands’ favours, even if they do not say so.
286. (xv) They are intended to protect reputations outside the home.
Men’s good fortune is mostly dependent upon their reputation for being fair, honest and upright. This reputation in turn depends on the wife, who is aware of his private life. So if their mental disagreement were to break out into open enmity, quarrels and threats of hatred, and if these were divulged by the wife and her friends, or by servants, this might easily lead to criticism, which would be a scandal and an affront to his name.
There is no other remedy to avoid such a result than for the husband to pretend to favour his wife, or for them to set up separate homes.
287. (xvi) They are intended to ensure the various marks of good will looked for by the partner, or his or her relatives, and also to allay fears of losing these.
This happens especially in the case of marriages between couples who are of different rank and condition (on which see 250 above). For instance, when a man marries a wealthy wife, and she hoards her cash in purses or her treasures in safe deposits; even more so, if she boldly insists that it is her husband’s duty to maintain the household out of his own resources and income. It is common knowledge that this results in a forced pretence of a kind of conjugial love. The results are similar when he marries a wife, whose parents, relatives and friends hold high office, have profitable trading interests or are engaged in commerce, so that they can arrange for her to be better off. It is generally known that this situation too leads to the pretence of a kind of conjugial love. It is obvious that both of these cases are due to the fear of losing these advantages.
288. (xvii) They are intended to excuse faults and so to avoid ill-repute.
The faults which make couples fear ill-repute are many, some serious, and some not. There are the faults of mind and body less serious than those listed in the last chapter (252, 253) as reasons for separation. So here we mean the faults which the other partner keeps quiet about for fear of ill-repute. As well as these there is also in some cases the possibility of charges which, if made public, would incur legal penalties. Not to mention the failure of virility, which men are so prone to boast about. It is obvious without further proof that excusing such faults to avoid ill-repute is a reason for pretending love and friendship with one’s partner.
289. (xviii) They are intended to bring about reconciliation.
It is well known in the world that married couples who disagree in mind for various reasons alternate between disagreement and trust, between estrangement and closeness, even between quarrelling and making up or reconciliation. The appearance of friendship is also known to bring about reconciliation. There are also cases where after a parting reconciliation follows, when it is not a passing phase like this.
290. (xix) If a wife does not cease to show good will, so long as her husband remains capable, there may be friendship which resembles that of marriage and which lasts until they grow old.
The leading reason for the separation of a couple’s minds is the loss of good will, and so love, on the wife’s part, when the man suffers from a loss of capability. For just as heat in both partners is mutually shared, so is coldness. Reason and experience both establish that the loss of love on the part of either partner puts an end to friendship, and so long as there is no fear that family property at home will suffer, good will too may be lost. If therefore the man thinks to himself that he is to blame, and the wife still continues to show chaste good will towards him, this may lead to a friendship which, being between married partners, looks like a love imitating conjugial love. Experience shows that a friendship like that of this love may exist between elderly couples, as a result of their living and working together, and enjoying each other’s company in a calm, confident, loving and fully civilised way.
291. (xx) Various kinds of apparent love and friendship are possible between couples, one of whom is dominated and thus subject to the other.
It is one of the known facts of life in the world today that after the first days of a marriage are over, rivalry over rights and power begins to affect the couple. They speak of rights, asserting that equality is laid down by the terms of the compact entered into, and each has his proper place in performing the duties of his station; of power, asserting that men insistently claim the superiority in all matters at home, because they are men, and they assign inferiority to women, because they are women. Such rivalry in households today are due to nothing but the lack of any consciousness of truly conjugial love and the lack of any feeling of how blessed that love is. Their absence substitutes for that love a desire which counterfeits that love. This desire, in the absence of the genuine love, makes people ambitious for power. Some people get this ambition from the pleasure of a love of mastery, some have it implanted by crafty women before the wedding, and some are unaware of it.
[2] Men with that ambition, who after the ups and downs of rivalry establish control, reduce their wives either to accepting their rights or deferring to their decisions, or to servitude; in each case the result depends on how strong that ambition is and what kind of underlying state they have buried in their personality. However, if wives have that ambition, and after the ups and downs of rivalry gain control, they reduce their husbands either to equality of rights with themselves, or to deference to their decisions, or to servitude. But once wives have wrested control from their husbands, they live a companionable life with them since they retain a desire which counterfeits conjugial love and is restrained by the law and the fear of a legal separation, if they stretch their powers beyond what is permissible and go too far.
[3] It is impossible to give a brief description of the nature of love and friendship between a dominant wife and a subservient husband, as well as between a dominant husband and a subservient wife. In fact, pages would not be enough to classify all their differences into species and to list them, so varied and diverse are they. There are differences which depend on the nature of men’s ambitions, and likewise on women’s ambitions. Those of men differ from those of women. For such men can only experience a foolish kind of friendship based on love, and such women only a friendship based on a spurious kind of love arising from desire. The skills which enable wives to gain power over their husbands will be discussed in the next section.
292. (xxi) Hellish marriages are possible in the world between couples who are inwardly out-and-out enemies, but outwardly the best of friends.
Wives of this description in the spiritual world have forbidden me to speak openly about these marriages. For they are afraid of the skills which enable them to gain power over their husbands being revealed at the same time, when they want nothing more than to keep them concealed. But since I am encouraged by men in that world to disclose the reasons for their peculiar hatred, I might almost say the rage introduced into their hearts against their wives as the result of their secret skills, I should like simply to present the following remarks.
The men said that without being aware of it they had acquired a terrifying fear of their wives. This made them unable to do anything but submissively obey their orders, deferring to their whims more humbly than the meanest servants, so that they became as it were nobodies. They said that it was not only those who hold no important position who took this attitude to their wives, but also men of high rank, even powerful and distinguished leaders. After being reduced to such terror, they dare not talk with their wives in any but friendly fashion, or do anything which did not please them, despite the intense hatred they felt for them in their hearts. They added that their wives still talked and behaved politely to them, and meekly gave in to some of their requests.
[2] Now since the men themselves were very puzzled about the source of such a strong antipathy on the part of the women* at the inner levels, while they showed almost sympathy at the outer levels, they went to women expert in that secret skill to investigate it. They told me that they had it from the women’s own lips, that females keep very deeply hidden the skill that enables them to subject men, if they wish, to the yoke of their control. Uneducated wives do this by alternately scolding and being nice. In other cases they do it by keeping constantly a stern and severe expression on their faces, in other similar cases by other means. Wives of the educated classes do it by keeping up obstinate demands without a break, and by stubborn resistance to their husbands, if they treat them badly, insisting on the equal rights conferred by law, to which they cling determinedly. In fact, they claim that even if they are thrown out of their homes, they will come back as soon as they please and continue to make similar demands. For they know that men’s nature does not allow them to resist their wives’ obstinacy, and that once they have given in they submit to their control. Then the wives when in control put on a show of politeness and flattery to their husbands.
The real reason for wives establishing their control by this trickery is that a man’s actions are directed by his intellect, a woman’s by her will. The will can be obstinate, but not the intellect. I was told that the worst women of this sort, who are totally hooked on the pursuit of domination, can keep up their obstinacy to the point of risking their lives.
[3] I have also heard the defence women put up, to explain why they resorted to using this skill. They claimed that they would never have started, had they not foreseen that if they became subject to their husbands, they would have been utterly despised, rejected and ruined. It was therefore necessity which made them take up arms. They added this warning to men, to leave wives their rights, and when at intervals they are cold to them, not to consider them as more worthless than servant-girls. They also said that many of their sex are by nature too timid to pursue such a course; but I interjected that they were by nature too modest.
These experiences have now made me aware what sort of marriages are meant by hellish marriages in the world, between couples who are inwardly out-and-out enemies and outwardly the best of friends.
* Reading illarum for illorum.
* * * * *
I once looked out of a window towards the east, and saw seven women sitting in a rose-garden by a spring, drinking its water. I gazed very hard to see what they were doing, and the intensity of my gaze made itself felt by them. So one of them nodded to me as an invitation. I left home and hurried to join them, and on my arrival politely asked them where they came from.
‘We are wives,’ they said, ‘engaged in a conversation about the delights of conjugial love. Many proofs have led us to conclude that these delights are those of wisdom.’ This reply so pleased my mind that I seemed to myself to be in the spirit, and capable of more inward and clearer perception than ever before. So I said to them, ‘Will you allow me to ask you some questions about these pleasures?’ They agreed to this, so I asked, ‘How do you wives know that the delights of conjugial love are the same as those of wisdom?’
[2] ‘We know this,’ they answered, ‘from the way our husbands’ wisdom matches the delights we feel in conjugial love. For we feel the delights of this love enhanced or diminished, taking on the nature which matches the wisdom our husbands have.’ On hearing this I asked, ‘I know that flattery on the part of husbands and their cheerfulness of mind affect you, so that you feel delight with all your hearts in them. But I am surprised you say that this is the result of their wisdom. Tell me what wisdom this is, and of what sort.’
[3] The wives were indignant at this. ‘Do you think,’ they replied, ‘we do not know what wisdom this is and of what sort, when we constantly reflect on our husbands’ wisdom, and hear about it daily from their lips? We wives think about our husbands’ condition from morning to evening; there is hardly a minute’s respite during the day, in which the concentration of our thoughts really leaves them or is absent. On the other hand, our husbands spend very little time during the day thinking about our condition. This is how we know what wisdom of theirs takes delight in us. Our husbands call this spiritual rational wisdom and spiritual moral wisdom. Spiritual rational wisdom according to what they say belongs to the intellect and knowledge; spiritual moral wisdom to the will and the way we live. But they combine both of these into one, and hold that the pleasures of this wisdom are copied from their minds into the delights felt in our hearts, and then from our hearts into theirs, so that they return to the wisdom that was their source.’
[4] Then I asked whether they knew anything more about the way their husbands’ wisdom took delight in them. ‘Yes,’ they said. ‘There is spiritual wisdom, and rational and moral wisdom from this. Spiritual wisdom is to acknowledge the Lord the Saviour as the God of heaven and earth, and from Him to gather for oneself the truths of the church, which is done through the Word and preaching based on it. This leads to spiritual rationality. It is also to be led by the Lord to live in accordance with those truths; this leads to spiritual morality. Our husbands call these two the wisdom which in general brings about truly conjugial love.
‘We have also heard from them the reason for this: that this wisdom opens up the inner levels of their minds, and so of their bodies, thus creating a free passage for the current of love from its first beginnings to its last realisations. It is on the quantity, adequacy and strength of this current that conjugial love depends and lives. The spiritual rational and moral wisdom of our husbands has as its particular purpose and aim in marriage the love of one wife alone, setting aside all lust after others. To the extent that this is achieved, that love is enhanced in degree and perfected in nature; and we also feel more clearly and exquisitely in ourselves the delights which match the joys of our husbands’ affections and the pleasures of their thoughts.’
[5] Later I asked whether they knew how these were shared. ‘Every act of linking by means of love’ they said, ‘involves acting, receiving and reacting. The delightful state of our love is the acting or that which acts. The state of our husbands’ wisdom is the receiving or what receives, and this too is the reacting or that which reacts in proportion to what is felt. This reaction is felt by us with delights in our heart in keeping with the state constantly deployed and made ready to receive the influences, which in some way hang together with and proceed from the strength in our husbands and also with the ultimate state of love. Take care,’ they went on to say, ‘you do not understand the delights we have spoken of to mean the lowest delights of that love. We never say anything on that subject, but we do speak of the delights of our hearts, which perpetually match the state of our husbands’ wisdom.’
[6] After this what looked like a dove was seen in the distance, flying with a tree-leaf in its mouth. But as it approached, instead of a dove, it looked like a small boy with a document in his hand. He came up to us and held it out to me, saying, ‘Read this in the presence of the spring-maidens.’ What I read was this: ‘Tell the inhabitants of earth among whom you are that there is truly conjugial love, and it has tens of thousands of delights, though the world is so far only aware of a few. But it will get to know them, when the church betroths itself to the Lord and marries Him.’ Then I asked, ‘Why did that boy call you spring-maidens?’ ‘We are called maidens,’ they replied, ‘when we sit by this spring, since we are affections for the truths of our husbands’ wisdom; and an affection for truth is called a maiden. The spring too stands for the truth of wisdom, and the rose-garden in which we sit stands for its delights.’
[7] Then one of the seven wove a garland of roses, sprinkled it with spring water, and placed it on the boy’s hat around the crown, saying, ‘Receive the delights of intelligence. You should know that a hat stands for intelligence, and a garland from this garden for its delights.’ The boy went off with this adornment, and was seen again at a distance looking like a dove in flight, but this time with a crest on his head.
Some days later I again saw the seven wives in a rose-garden, but not the same one as before. It was a magnificent rose-garden, the like of which I had never seen before. It was circular, and the roses were arranged to make a kind of rainbow. The outermost ring was made of roses with purple flowers, the next inner ring of flowers of a golden yellow, the one within this of blue, the inmost of light or shining green. Inside this rainbow of roses was a small pool of limpid water. The seven wives, who had earlier been called the spring-maidens, were sitting there when they spied me at the window, and called me to visit them again. When I arrived they said, ‘Have you ever seen anything more beautiful on earth?’ ‘Never,’ I said. ‘Such things,’ they told me, ‘are created by the Lord in a moment, and they represent something new on earth, since everything created by the Lord represents something. But see if you can guess what this represents. Our guess is that it is the delights of conjugial love.’
[2] On hearing this I said, ‘Do you mean the delights of conjugial love about which you had so much to say before, with such wisdom and also eloquence? After I left you, I reported what you had said to some wives who live in our district. ‘Now I have been taught,’ I told them, ‘I know that you have delights in your hearts arising from your conjugial love, and you are able to share these with your husbands in proportion to their wisdom. Consequently you gaze at your husbands continually from morning to evening with the eyes of your spirits, trying to deflect and guide their minds towards being wise, so that you can snap up these delights. I also related what you mean by wisdom, spiritual rational and spiritual moral wisdom. I said your view of marriage was that it was restricted to loving one’s wife only and putting away all lust after other women. But the wives of our district responded to this by laughing. “What is this you say?” they said, “this is all nonsense. We do not know what conjugial love is. Even if our husbands have some, we certainly don’t have any. So how could we enjoy its delights? In fact, we sometimes violently refuse what you call the ultimate delights, for we find them displeasing, hardly different from suffering rape. In fact, if you look closely, you will not see any sign of such a love in our faces. So you must be talking nonsense or joking, if you told those seven wives that we think about our husbands from morning to evening, continually paying attention to their whims and pleasures, in order to gain such delights from them.” I remember this from what they said, so that I could report it to you, seeing that they find repugnant and in fact totally contradict what you told me by the spring, which I so eagerly drank it in and believed it.’
[3] The wives sitting in the rose-garden replied to this, ‘Friend, you are unaware of the wisdom and prudence wives possess, because they keep it completely hidden from men; and they do so for no other purpose but to be loved. For each man, who is not spiritually but only naturally rational and moral, is cold to his wife, a feeling hidden at his innermost level. A wise and prudent wife has a keen and exact perception of this, and so to this extent she conceals and retracts into her heart her conjugial love, keeping it so deeply hidden as not to show the slightest trace of it in her face, her tone of voice or her gestures. The reason is that the more she shows this, the more her husband’s coldness to marriage floods out from where it is lodged in the inmost levels of his mind into the outermost levels, inducing a total chill in the body, and so an impulse to seek a separate bed and bedroom.’
[4] Then I asked, ‘Where does the coldness that you call coldness to marriage come from?’ ‘It comes,’ they replied, ‘from their folly about spiritual matters. Everyone who is foolish about spiritual matters feels at the inmost level coldness towards his wife, and warmth towards prostitutes. Since conjugial love and scortatory love are opposites, it follows that, when scortatory love is hot, conjugial love is cold. When a man has coldness dominant in him, he cannot put up with any feeling of love, not even a breath of it, coming from his wife. So his wife wisely and prudently conceals it, and to the extent that she conceals it by her denials and refusals, to that extent her husband is warmed and restored by the sphere of prostitution influencing him. That is why the wife of such a man has no delights in his heart, as we have, but only pleasures. These are called the pleasures of folly as applied to the man, since they are the pleasures of scortatory love.
[5] ‘Every chaste wife loves her husband, even if he is unchaste. But since wisdom is the only means by which her love can be received, she devotes all her energies to turning his folly into wisdom, that is, preventing him lusting after other women. She has a thousand ways of doing this, but she takes the greatest care to see that none of them are tracked down by her husband. For she is well aware that love can never be forced, but slips in where there is freedom. Women therefore have been given the ability to recognise by sight, hearing and touch any state of mind their husbands have. Men, on the other hand, are not given the ability to recognise any state of mind their wives have.
[6] ‘A chaste wife can look sternly at her husband, speak harshly to him, get angry and quarrel with him, while still in her heart she cherishes a mild and tender love for him. These fits of anger and pretence are aimed at making the husband wise and receptive of her love, as is obvious from the fact that they can be instantly reconciled. Moreover, wives have these methods of concealing their love implanted in their heart and marrow, in order to prevent an explosion of coldness to marriage in the husband. It is also to prevent this coldness quenching the fire of his scortatory warmth, thus turning him from green wood into a dry stick.’
[7] After this and many similar lectures from the seven wives, their husbands came with bunches of grapes in their hands, some of which had a delightful taste, but others a sharp one. ‘Why,’ said the wives, ‘have you brought us nasty or uncultivated grapes?’ ‘Because,’ the husbands replied, ‘we could tell in our souls, which are united with yours, that you have been talking to that man about truly conjugial love, saying its delights are those of wisdom, and about scortatory love, saying its delights are the pleasures of folly. These last are the grapes with the nasty taste, the former ones are the ones that taste delightful.’
They confirmed what their wives had said, adding that the pleasures of folly look on the outside like the delights of wisdom, but not on the inside. ‘They are,’ they said, ‘just like the good and the nasty grapes we brought. Both the chaste and the unchaste have outwardly the same kind of wisdom, but inwardly it is quite different.’
[8] After this the little boy came back again with a parchment in his hand; he held it out to me and said, ‘Read it.’ This is what I read: ‘You must know that the delights of conjugial love rise to the highest heaven, being joined on the way and there by the delights of all the heavenly loves. So they enter upon their happiness which lasts for ever. This is because the delights of that love are the delights of wisdom. You must also know that the pleasures of scortatory love sink down to the lowest hell, being joined on the way and there by the pleasures of all hellish loves, and thus they enter upon unhappiness, which consists in distress affecting all the heart’s joys. This is because the pleasures of that love are also the pleasures of folly.’
After this the husbands went away with their wives, escorting the little boy until his path took him up to heaven. They were able to recognise the community which had sent him as being one of the new heaven, with which the new church on earth will be linked.
ENGAGEMENTS AND WEDDINGS
This chapter deals with engagements and weddings, and the rituals they entail, particularly from the intellectual standpoint. For the purpose the contents of this book are intended to serve is to enable the reader to see true facts by the light of his own reason, and so agree to them, since this is how his spirit is convinced. Facts on which the spirit is convinced are allocated a higher position than those which are taken on trust, as coming from authority but without the reason being consulted. For these do not penetrate further into the head than the memory; and there they become mixed up with fallacious and false statements, so that they occupy a position lower than the matters of reason which belong to the intellect. Every individual can use them to speak as if rationally, but this is the wrong way round. For then his thinking is like a crab walking, looking towards its tail. But it would be different if he thought from the intellect; when he does this the sight of his reason selects suitable items from his memory to enable him to prove the truth he has seen in himself.
[2] This is the reason why many details are quoted in this chapter, which are the accepted practice; for instance, that it is for men to make a choice; parents must be consulted; pledges are to be given; a marriage compact must be made before the wedding; this is to be consecrated by a priest; and a wedding is to be celebrated. There are many more things which are brought forward to enable a person to see by his rational faculty, that such things are imprinted on conjugial love as being needed to promote and complete it.
[3] The propositions into which this study is divided follow in this order:
(i) It is for the man, not the woman, to choose.
(ii) The man should court and propose marriage to the woman, and not the reverse.
(iii) A woman ought to consult her parents or anyone who takes their place, and then take time for private deliberation before agreeing.
(iv) After the announcement of consent pledges are to be given.
(v) Their agreement is to be confirmed and established by a formal engagement.
(vi) Engagement is a means by which either party is prepared for conjugial love.
(vii) Engagement links the mind of one to that of the other, so as to bring about the marriage of the spirit before that of the body.
(viii) This is what happens to those who have chaste thoughts about marriage, not to those who have unchaste thoughts.
(ix) During the period of an engagement it is not allowable to become linked physically.
(x) When the period of the engagement is over, the wedding should take place.
(xi) Before the celebration of a wedding a marriage compact should be concluded in the presence of witnesses.
(xii) The marriage should be consecrated by a priest.
(xiii) The celebration of the wedding should be accompanied by festivities.
(xiv) After the wedding the marriage of the spirit becomes a marriage of the body, and is thus complete.
(xv) Such is the proper order and procedures of conjugial love, from its first heat to its first fire.
(xvi) If conjugial love is hurried on without this proper order and its procedures, it burns out the marrow and is consumed.
(xvii) The mental states of each partner as they advance in successive order influence the state of the marriage; but this is different in the case of spiritual and of natural people.
(xviii) This is because there are successive as well as simultaneous arrangements, and the latter are from the former and determined by them.
There now follows an explanation of these points.
This is because a man is by birth intended to be an intellect, a woman a love. It is also because men generally have a love of the other sex, but women a love for one of the other sex; and it is not unfitting for men to speak of their love, but it is for women. However, women still have the right to choose one of their suitors.
As regards the first reason, that men have the choice because they are by birth designed to be an intellect, this is because the intellect can see clearly the points of agreement and disagreement, and tell them apart, so that it can judiciously choose what is suitable. But it is different for women, since being by birth destined for love, they do not have the clarity of sight in that light, so that they can only make up their minds to marry as the result of the inclinations of their love. Even if they know how to tell men apart, still their love is moved by appearances.
[2] As regards the second reason why it is for men and not women to choose, that men generally have a love of the other sex, but women a love of one of the other sex, those who have a love of the other sex are free to look around and make up their minds. It is not the same for women, whose innate love is for one of the other sex. You can prove this, if you like, by asking any men you come across about monogamous and polygamous marriage; you will rarely find anyone who is not in favour of polygamy, and this too is the result of their love for the other sex. But if you ask women the same question, almost all, with the exception of prostitutes, will be against polygamy. Hence we say that women have a love for one of the other sex, so they have conjugial love.
[3] As regards the third reason, that it is not unfitting for men to speak of their love and to make it public, whereas this is unfitting for a woman, this is self-evident. Hence it follows that is for men to declare their love, and if they do so, they are choosing. It is well known that women have the right to choose from their suitors; but this kind of choice is restricted and limited, while that of men is wide and unlimited.
This follows after the choice is made; moreover, it is honourable and proper for men to court and propose to women, and the reverse is not. If women were to court and propose, they would not only be exposed to slander, but after proposing they would be regarded as cheapened, or after marriage as lustful, women there was no living with except in coldness and loathing. This therefore turns marriages into tragic spectacles. Wives even make a virtue of, as it were, surrendering overcome by the pressure of men’s demands. Can anyone fail to foresee that, if women courted men, they would rarely be accepted, being either angrily rebuffed or seduced to wantonness, and they would also prostitute their modesty? Moreover, men have no inborn sexual love, as was convincingly proved above; and without that love, there is no inner pleasantness in life. In order, therefore, to raise the level of their life by that love, it is the duty of men to flatter women, politely, assiduously and humbly approaching them and begging them to add the sweetness they can bring to their suitors’ lives. The loveliness of face, figure and behaviour that sex possesses as compared with men comes as an additional bonus.
Parents must be consulted, because they can employ judgment, knowledge and love in discussion and in giving advice. Judgment, because of their age, for judgment comes with age, so that points of agreement and disagreement can be clearly seen. Knowledge, about both the suitor and their daughter; they will seek information about the suitor, about their daughter they know, so that they can form a joint view and judge them both together. Love, because seeking what is best for their daughter, and seeing that she will have a home, is looking after their own household and themselves.
[2] A daughter, however, ought to think hard about the match before she agrees to it, to ensure that she is not unwillingly driven into a marriage with a man she does not love. For in this case there is a lack of consent on her part, and consent is what makes a marriage, and gives her spirit the first taste of that love. Consent unwillingly given or forced does not give the spirit a taste, though it may do so to the body; and this turns the chastity present in the spirit into lust, which damages conjugial love in the warmth of its first flowering.
By pledges are meant gifts, which serve to confirm and bear witness to the engagement, and which are the first marks of good will and happiness. These gifts are confirmations because they are tokens of consent. That is why, when two people agree on something, we say, ‘Give me a token.’ Similarly we say of a couple, who have engaged to get married and given presents to confirm the promise, that they are pledged, and so confirmed in the engagement.
[2] These gifts bear witness, because the pledges are as it were permanent visible evidence of mutual love, and so also serve to call this to mind, especially if they are rings, pomanders and sashes which are worn so as to be seen. They form a kind of pictorial image of the intentions of the engaged couple. The pledges are the first marks of good will, because conjugial love promises itself everlasting good will, and these gifts are its first fruits. They are marks of the happiness of love, as is well known; for on seeing them the mind is cheered, and since there is love in them, these marks of good will are more dear and more precious than any other gifts whatsoever. It is as if their hearts were in them.
[3] Since these pledges serve to establish conjugial love, the giving of presents after giving consent was an accepted practice among the people of antiquity, and when they had been accepted, the couple were pronounced engaged. It should, however, be known that it is a matter of choice whether the presents are given before or after the ceremony of engagement. If given before, they confirm and bear witness to the agreement to become engaged; if afterwards, they confirm and bear witness to the agreement to marry.
The reasons for an engagement are these:
1. So that subsequently the souls of the couple may incline towards each other.
2. So that the sexual love all feel may be restricted to one person of the other sex.
3. So that each may get to know the other’s inner affections, and by making them conformable link them in the inward cheerfulness of love.
4. So that the spirit of each may enter upon marriage, and become ever more closely associated.
5. So that conjugial love may thus advance duly from its first warmth to the wedding flame.
6. Consequently, so that conjugial love may develop and grow in the proper sequence from its origin.
The state of being engaged can be likened to the state of spring before the summer begins, and the inner pleasantness of that state to the flowering of trees before they form fruit. Since the first and subsequent stages of conjugial love develop in sequence because of their influence on the realisation of love, which begins with the wedding, there are also engagements in the heavens.
It has been established by the points made in the preceding section that engagement serves to prepare the mind or spirit of one for union with the mind or spirit of the other, or what is the same thing, the union of the love of one with that of the other. In addition to these a further point must be borne in mind. The rule is imprinted on truly conjugial love that it spreads both up and down. It climbs from its first warmth progressively upward towards their souls, striving to link them there, and it does so by opening up their minds ever more inwardly. There is no love which works harder at opening up the mind or which is stronger or more powerful in opening up the inner regions of the mind than conjugial love; for the soul of each has this intention. But at the very same moment that this love climbs towards their souls, it also comes down towards the body, and clothes itself with the body.
[2] It needs to be known that the quality of conjugial love as it comes down is determined by the height to which it climbs. If it reaches the heights it comes down as chaste, but if it does not, it comes down as unchaste. The reason is that the lower levels of the mind are unchaste, the higher levels chaste. For the lower levels of the mind are attached to the body, but the higher levels keep separate; but more on this subject may be seen below (305). These few remarks will establish that an engagement serves to prepare the mind of each partner for conjugial love, although this happens in different ways, depending on their affections.
Since this is the consequence of what has just been said (301, 302), it may be passed over without adding further rational proofs.
In the case of the chaste, those who take a religious view of marriage, the marriage of the spirit comes first, and that of the body follows. These are the people in whose case love climbs towards the soul, and comes down from that height (see 302). The souls of these people cut themselves off from unrestricted sexual love, and commit themselves to one person, regarding everlasting and eternal union with him or her, and its ever increasing blessings, as means to kindle the hope which constantly refreshes their minds.
[2] But the case of the unchaste is quite different. These are those whose view of marriage or the sanctity of marriage is not based on religion. They have a marriage of the body, but not of the spirit. If there is any appearance of a marriage of the spirit during the period of an engagement, still even if it climbs up by the lifting of their thoughts about it, it still falls back into longings in the will arising from the flesh; and so from the unchastity there rushes headlong into the body, befouling it at the lowest level with the alluring passion of love. Then just as quickly as it blazed up at first, it burns out and is succeeded by the coldness of midwinter; and so its failure is hastened. The period of engagement hardly does anything to help these people, other than to fill their longings with wantonness, which pollutes their principle of conjugial love.
If this happens, it destroys the order imprinted on conjugial love. For the human mind contains three regions, the highest of which is called celestial, the middle one spiritual, and the lowest natural. A person is by birth in the lowest region, but climbs to the higher one called spiritual by living in accordance with the truths of religion, and to the highest by the marriage of love and wisdom. The lowest region, called the natural one, is where all the longings for evil and wantonness dwell. But the higher region, called spiritual, contains no longings for evil or wantonness; it is into this that the person is guided by the Lord when he is reborn. In the highest region, called the celestial, is the dwelling of conjugial chastity in its love. A person is lifted into this by the love of performing services, and since the most outstanding services are those arising from marriage, by truly conjugial love.
[2] This can offer a brief summary of how conjugial love from the earliest phase of its warmth must be lifted up from the lowest into a higher region, so as to become chaste. Then from chastity it can come down through the middle and lowest regions into the body. When this happens the lowest region is cleansed of its unchastity by the chaste love coming down. As a result the lowest level of this love becomes chaste. Now if the successive stages of this love are hurried on by premature physical union, the consequence is that the person acts from the lowest region, which is by birth unchaste. It is well known that this is the beginning and source of coldness towards marriage and neglect accompanied by distaste for a partner. Still there may be widely differing results from premature unions, as well as from too protracted engagements and too hasty ones. But they are so numerous and varied that it would be difficult to list them.
Some rituals are mere formalities, but there are others which are at the same time essential; weddings belong to the latter class. The following reasons will confirm that they are of the essential type, to be made public by ritual and formally celebrated.
1. A wedding puts an end to the earlier state which began with the engagement; this was primarily a state of the spirit, and the beginning of the subsequent state to be introduced by the marriage, which is a state at once of spirit and of body. For the spirit then enters into the body and acts at that level. Accordingly on that day the bridegroom and bride abandon their engaged state and name, and assume the state and name of husband and wife and become bedfellows.
2. A wedding is the introduction and entry into a new state, which is to make a young woman a wife and the young man a husband, so that the two of them become one flesh. This happens when love unites them at the lowest level. I showed in earlier chapters that marriage really changes a young woman into a wife and a young man into a husband; and also that marriage unites two people into one human form, so that they are no longer two, but one flesh.
3. A wedding is the starting point which leads to the complete separation of sexual love from conjugial love. This happens when through the opportunity for full union the love of one partner becomes restricted and devoted to the love of the other.
4.* It looks as if a wedding is merely the gap between these two states, so that it is a mere formality which can be omitted. But a wedding contains this essential element, that the new state just described is then to be entered upon by a compact, and the parties must declare their consent in the presence of witnesses, and it must be consecrated by a priest, as well as the other means which firmly establish it. Since weddings contain this essential element, and since only after this is a marriage lawful, weddings are therefore also celebrated in the heavens (see 21 and then 27-41 above).
* This section is numbered 5 in the original.
The marriage compact needs to be concluded before the wedding is held, so that the statutes and laws of truly conjugial love may be made known, and remembered after the wedding. It is also intended as a bond compelling the mind to a proper marriage. For after some of the initial stages of a marriage, the state preceding the engagement at times recurs; this causes the memory of the marriage to be lost and the compact concluded to be forgotten. In fact, it may be totally wiped out by the enticements of unchaste people to unchaste behaviour; and if it is then recalled to memory, it is scorned. But to avoid these transgressions society has taken on itself the duty of protecting that compact, laying down penalties for those who break it. In short, the prenuptial compact makes clear the precepts of truly conjugial love, establishes them, and constrains libertines to obey them. In addition this compact makes lawful the right to procreate children, and the right of children to inherit their parents’ property.
The reason is that marriage regarded in itself is spiritual and therefore holy. For it comes down from the heavenly marriage of good and truth, and the details of marriage correspond to the Divine marriage of the Lord and the church. Consequently marriages come from the Lord Himself and depend on the state of the church with the contracting parties. Now since on earth the ordained ministry performs the functions of the Lord’s priesthood, that is, those things which relate to His love, and also everything to do with blessing, marriages ought to be consecrated by His ministers. Since they are the leading witnesses, the consent to the compact ought to be heard, accepted, confirmed and so established by them.
The reasons are that then the prenuptial love which the engaged couple had comes down into their hearts, and by being spread around in all directions into the body, leads to a feeling of the delights of marriage. This puts the idea of a festive occasion into their minds, and so far as is permissible and proper, their minds yield to festivities. To encourage this it is important that the festivities of their minds are shared, and so they themselves are introduced to the joys of conjugial love.
All the events which take place in a person’s body are influenced by his spirit. For it is well known that the mouth does not speak by itself, but it expresses what the mind thinks; again the hands do not act or the feet walk by themselves, but it is the mind’s will which acts through them. Thus it follows that the mind speaks through the appropriate organ, and the mind acts through the appropriate parts of the body. It is plain from this that the nature of what the mouth speaks and the body does is determined by the nature of the mind. The conclusion to be drawn from this is that by its constant influence the mind instructs the body simultaneously to match its activities. So human bodies viewed inwardly are nothing but mental forms outwardly organised so as to carry out the soul’s decisions. This preface is needed to show why it is that minds or spirits must first be united as it were in marriage, before the union extends to the bodily level; that is to say, so that when bodies marry, spirits do too, and consequently so that the couple both love each other in spirit, and thus in body.
[2] Let us now consider marriage from this point of view. When conjugial love links the minds of two people and shapes them for marriage, it also links and shapes their bodies for the same purpose. For, as I have said, the form of the mind is also inwardly the form of the body, with the one difference that the form of the body is outwardly organised so as to produce the result to which the inner form of the body is directed by the mind. The mind, however, which is formed by conjugial love, is not only inwardly spread around all parts throughout the body, but is as well inwardly in the reproductive organs, which occupy their particular region below the other bodily organs. In them the forms of the mind reach their final stage in the case of those united by conjugial love. Consequently the affections and thoughts of their minds are directed to that region. The activity of minds influenced by other loves is different, in that it does not penetrate to this region.
The conclusion can be drawn from this that conjugial love has inwardly the same nature in the appropriate organs as it has in the couple’s minds or spirits. It is self-evident that after the wedding the marriage of the spirit becomes a marriage of the body and is thus complete. Consequently, if the marriage is chaste in spirit and is inspired by its holiness, it is similar when fully realised in the body; and the reverse occurs, if the marriage is unchaste in spirit.
We say, from its first warmth to its first fire, because vital heat is love, and conjugial heat or love grows progressively until it, so to speak, bursts forth into flame or fire. We say, to its first fire, because we mean the first state after the wedding, when that love burns. What happens to it after this first fire, when the marriage continues, has been described in the preceding chapters. In this part of the study its sequence from the starting block to this first goal has been explained.
[2] Every sequence advances from the first state to the last, and the last becomes the first stage of a following sequence; and everything in an intermediate sequence is the last stage of an earlier and the first stage of a later sequence. Thus by causes ends advance continually towards effects. All this can be well enough proved and illustrated to the reason from what is known and can be seen in the world. But since the only subject under discussion here is the sequence in which love advances from its first stage to its goal, the general discussion can be omitted and here we shall only say that whatever was the nature of the sequence followed by this love from its first warmth to its first fire, such also is usually its nature inherent in its subsequent development. For in this it develops, as its first warmth was. If this was chaste, its chastity is strengthened as it advances; but if unchaste, its unchastity increases as it advances, until it is stripped of all the chastity it had outwardly, but not inwardly, from the time of the engagement.
This is what some in heaven say; they mean by marrow the inner regions of the mind and body. These are burnt up, that is, destroyed if conjugial love is hurried on, because this love then begins with a flame, which eats up and ruins the shrine in which conjugial love should dwell in its beginning and from which it should develop. This is what happens, if a man and a woman hasten into marriage without following the proper sequence, not looking to the Lord, not consulting reason, rejecting an engagement, and merely giving in to the demands of the flesh. If that love begins with the burning heat of the flesh, it becomes outward and not inward and so not conjugial. This love may be called a shell of love with no kernel, or fleshy, lean and dry, since it is emptied of its real essence. (See further on this subject 305 above.)
There is a rule, which ought to be recognised in the educated world because it is true, that the final state is such as the stages which form and bring it about. For this reveals what influence is and what its effects are. Influence means everything which precedes and makes up what follows, and through successive stages the last stage. For instance, in the case of a human being all that precedes and makes up his wisdom; or in the case of a politician, all that precedes and makes up his prudence; in the case of a theologian, all the precedes and makes up his learning. Likewise all that precedes from childhood and makes up a man, as well as what proceeds in due order from a seed and a sapling and makes up a tree; and later what proceeds from the flower and makes up its fruit. It is exactly the same with what precedes and proceeds in the case of an engaged couple, and which makes up their marriage. This is what the term influence is used to mean.
[2] All the preceding stages form series in the mind, and the series are tied together, one alongside another, or one after another, so that taken together they make up the last stage. This is up to now unknown in the world, but since it is a true fact revealed from heaven, I bring it in here. For by this means is disclosed what are the effects of influence, and what is the nature of the last stage, in which the series of stages just mentioned are formed and come to exist together. These considerations allow it to be seen that the states of mind in each party, as they develop in succession, influence the state of the marriage. But the couple are after their marriage in complete ignorance of the successive stages introduced into their characters by the preceding ones and present in them. Yet it is these which give a form to conjugial love and cause the mental state which determines their behaviour to each other.
[3] The reason why the states and the order in which they are formed are different in the case of spiritual and natural people is that the spiritual advance in the proper order, and the natural do not. For the spiritual look to the Lord, and the Lord provides and guides the order. But the natural look to themselves, so that they advance in the opposite order. The state of their marriage is therefore inwardly full of unchastity; and each act of unchastity brings on coldness, and each coldness is an obstacle to inmost life, so that its flow is stopped and the spring runs dry.
This is introduced as a reason which serves to confirm the previous propositions. It is well known that arrangements can be successive or simultaneous, but not that a simultaneous arrangement is derived from and depends upon a successive one. The process by which successive stages collapse into simultaneous ones, and the kind of arrangement they then adopt, is very difficult to present in a way that can be perceived, because learned men have so far no notion which might serve to elucidate it. Since the basic notion of this secret cannot be imparted in a few words, and a long treatment would divert people’s minds from a more open view of conjugial love, it may be enough for an illustration, if I quote briefly from what was said on the subject of the two arrangements, successive and simultaneous, and the influence of the former on the latter, in my TEACHING OF THE NEW JERUSALEM ABOUT THE SACRED SCRIPTURE:
[2] “In heaven and in the world arrangements may be successive or simultaneous. In a successive arrangement one stage follows another from highest to lowest; but in a simultaneous arrangement one is alongside another from inmost to outermost. A successive arrangement is like a column with steps from top to bottom, but a simultaneous arrangement is like a structure extending from the centre to the outside. At the last stage a successive arrangement becomes a simultaneous one in this way: the highest stages of a successive arrangement become the innermost of a simultaneous arrangement; and the lowest stages of a successive arrangement become the outermost of a simultaneous arrangement. This may be compared with a stepped column subsiding to become a coherent body on one level. This is how a simultaneous arrangement is formed from a successive one; and this applies to every single detail of the spiritual world, and every single detail of the natural world.”
See 38 and 65 in that book, and the lengthy treatment of the subject in THE WISDOM OF THE ANGELS ABOUT THE DIVINE LOVE AND WISDOM, 205-229.
[3] It is much the same with the successive arrangement leading to marriage, and the simultaneous arrangement in marriage; the latter arises from and depends upon the former. Anyone who knows how the successive arrangement influences the simultaneous can understand why it is that angels can see on a person’s hand all he thinks and intends in his mind; and also that wives feel their husbands’ affections by placing their hands on their husbands’ chests, a fact several times mentioned in the accounts of experiences. The reason is that the hands are the final level of a person, and what he debates and concludes in his mind reaches its last stage in his hands, and there they make a simultaneous arrangement. That is why in the Word the expression ‘written on the hands’ occurs.*
* Isa. 49:16.
* * * * *
I once saw not far from me an atmospheric phenomenon. I saw a cloud divided into smaller clouds, some of which were blue and others dark; and I saw these as it were colliding with one another. They were striped with glittering rays which crossed them; sometimes the stripes had sharp tips like sword-points, at other times they appeared square-ended like broken off swords. Sometimes the stripes ran out so as to meet, at other times they withdrew into themselves, rather like boxers. So it looked as if these little clouds of varied colours were fighting one another, but they were playing. Since this atmospheric display took place not far from me, I lifted up my eyes and looking hard I saw boys, young men and old men entering a building constructed of marble, with also porphyry in its foundations. The phenomenon was over this building. Then I asked one of those who were going in what was happening there. ‘It is a high- school,’ he replied, ‘where young men are given an introduction to various matters in the field of wisdom.’
[2] On hearing this I went in with them. I was in the spirit, that is, in much the same state as people in the spiritual world, those who are called spirits and angels. Inside the school there was in front a chair, in the middle were benches, around the sides seats, and a gallery over the entrance. The chair was for the young men who were taking turns to reply to the questions set. The benches were for the audience, the seats at the side for those who had previously given wise answers. The gallery was for the elders who were to be judges and umpires. In the middle of the gallery there was a platform, where a wise man whom they called the headmaster, was seated. He put the questions, and the young men answered these from the chair.
When all were assembled, the man on the platform got up and said, ‘Please now reply to this question and answer it if you can: what is the soul and what is its nature?’
[3] On hearing this all were astonished and began to murmur; and some of the crowd on the benches cried out, ‘What man is there from the age of Saturn* down to our times who has been able by any effort of rational thought to see and grasp what the soul is, much less what its nature is? Surely this is beyond the capacity of anyone’s intellect.’
But people in the gallery replied to this, ‘This is not beyond the intellect, but within its capacity and purview. Just give a reply.’
So the young men got up who had been chosen to mount the chair that day and reply to the questions. There were five of them, who had been examined by the elders and found to be outstandingly clever. They were then sitting on padded seats at the sides of the chair. They then took it in turn, according to the order in which they sat, to climb up to the chair. As each went up, he put on a tunic of opalescent silk and over it a gown of soft wool with flowers woven in it, and a hat on his head with a chaplet of roses surrounded by small sapphires on the crown.
[4] Then I saw the first man so clothed go up and say, ‘What the soul is and what its nature is has not been revealed to anyone since the first day of creation. It is a secret which God alone keeps in his treasure-houses. But it has been discovered that the soul dwells in man like a queen. However the location of its court has been the subject of conjecture among learned experts. Some have placed it in the small tubercle between the cerebrum and the cerebellum known as the pineal gland. They have conjectured that this was the seat of the soul because the whole person is controlled from those two brains, and that tubercle regulates them. So what governs the two brains at its whim, must also govern the whole person from head to heel. This view,’ he said, ‘has been regarded by many in the world as true or very probable, but a later age has rejected it as a mere invention.’
[5] On finishing this speech he took off the gown, tunic and hat, and the second of those chosen put them on and so took the chair. His pronouncement about the soul was that in the whole of heaven and in the whole of the world there is no one who knows what the soul is and what its nature is. ‘This much,’ he said, ‘we know, that the soul exists and is in man; but where it is, is a matter of guesswork. This is certain, that it is in the head, since that is where the intellect thinks and the will forms its resolutions; and it is on the face at the front of the head that man’s five sense organs are to be found. What gives all of these life is the soul which resides inside the head; but I would not dare to express an opinion on where its control-chamber is. I have agreed with those who have assigned to it a lodging in the three ventricles of the brain; at other times with those who placed it in the corpora striata there, at other times with those who placed it in the medullary substance of either brain, at other times with those who placed it in the cortical substance, at others with those who placed it in the dura mater. For there was no lack of points to be made in favour of each one of those seats.
[6] ‘The point in favour of the three ventricles of the brain was that they are the receptacles of the animal spirits and all the brain’s lymphs. The points in favour of the corpora striata were that these compose the marrow through which the nerves emerge, and by means of which either part of the brain has continuous extensions to the spine; and from one or other of these the fibres emerge which compose the whole structure of the body. The points in favour of the medullary substance of either brain were that it is a gathering and massing together of all the fibres which form the starting-point for the development of the whole person. The point in favour of the cortical substance was that here are the first and last ends, and so the beginnings of all the fibres, and so of sensation and movement. The point in favour of the dura mater was that it is the shared covering of either brain, from where it stretches in a kind of continuity over the heart and the viscera of the body. For my part, I do not rate one of these theories as superior to another. Will you please decide and choose which is the best theory?’
[7] After saying this he came down from the chair and passed on the tunic, gown and hat to the third, who went up to the chair and spoke as follows. ‘How can I at my age deal with such a lofty subject? I appeal to the learned people seated at the sides here, I appeal to you wise people in the gallery, in fact, I appeal to the angels in the highest heaven: can anyone by the light of his reason form for himself any idea of the soul? As regards its seat in man, I can offer as good a guess an anyone else. My guess is that it is in the heart, and consequently in the blood. My reason for this is that the heart by means of the blood from it controls both the body and the head. There is a large blood-vessel called the aorta emerging from it and reaching the whole of the body; and there are blood-vessels called the carotid arteries emerging from it and reaching the whole of the head. As a result it is universally agreed that the soul by means of blood from the heart sustains, nourishes and gives life to the whole organic system of both the body and the head.
An additional reason for believing this assertion is the fact that Holy Scripture says so many times ‘soul and heart.’ For instance, you are to love God ‘with all your soul and with all your heart’; and God creates in man ‘a new soul and a new heart’ (Deut. 6:5; 10:12; 11:13; 26:16; Jer. 32:41; Matt. 22:37; Mark 12:30, 33; Luke 10:27, and elsewhere). It also says explicitly that the blood is the soul of the flesh (Lev. 17:11, 14).’ On hearing this some people raised their voices to cry ‘Very learned!’ They were members of the clergy.
[8] After this the fourth put on the garments worn by the previous speaker, and on taking the chair he said, ‘I too suspect that there is no one of such a sharp and subtle mind as to be able to discern what the soul is and what its nature is. I think therefore that anyone who wishes to scrutinise it has his subtlety exhausted by useless exertions. But from childhood up I have persisted in believing the opinion of the ancients, that man’s soul is in the whole of him and in every part of him, and so is as much in his head and each of its parts as in the body and each of its parts. It is a useless invention of modern scholars to locate its seat in some part rather than everywhere. Also the soul is a spiritual substance, to which neither extension nor position can be attributed, but only residing and filling. Again, is there anyone who does not understand life when he mentions the soul, and is not life in the whole and any part you like to name?’ There were many in the audience who supported this statement.
[9] He was followed by the fifth, who wearing the same emblems made this pronouncement from the chair. ‘I don’t much care to say where the soul is, whether it is in some part or in the whole person. But I will draw on my own resources and disclose my opinion on this question, what the soul is and what its nature is. No one thinks of the soul as anything but something pure, which can be likened to the ether or air or wind, the vital principle in which derives from the faculty of reason, something in which man excels animals. I have based this opinion on the fact that, when a person expires, he is said to breathe out or give up his soul or spirit. As a result too, a soul which goes on living after death is believed to be a breath of this kind, containing the consciousness which we call the soul. What else could the soul be? But because I have heard people from the gallery asserting that the question, what the soul is and what its nature is, is not beyond the grasp of the intellect, but within its scope and purview, I beg and beseech you yourselves to disclose this everlasting secret.’
[10] The elders in the gallery here looked at the headmaster, who had set the question. He understood from their nods that they wanted him to go down and tell them the answer. So he at once got down from the platform, and passing through the auditorium took the chair, and holding up his hand said, ‘Please listen to me. Is there anyone who does not believe the soul to be the most intimate and subtle essence of a person? But what is essence without form but a figment of the imagination? The soul then is a form, but what sort of form, I will tell you. It is the form of all the parts of love and all the parts of wisdom. All the parts of love are called affections, and all the parts of wisdom are called perceptions. The perceptions as a result of and so together with the affections make up a single form containing countless parts, but arranged in such order and so coherent that they can be called a unity; and they can be called a unity, because nothing can be taken away from it or be added to it, if it is to remain a unity. What is the human soul but such a form? All the parts of love and all the parts of wisdom are the essentials of such a form, and in the case of a person these essentials are in his soul, and from his soul in his head and body.
[11] ‘You are called spirits and angels; and you believed in the world that spirits and angels were like puffs of wind or particles of ether, and so were minds and characters. Now you see clearly that you are truly, really and actually people, who in the world lived and thought in a material body; and you knew that it is not the material body that lives and thinks, but the spiritual substance in that body. This you called the soul, whose form you did not know; yet now you have seen it and go on seeing it. You are all souls, about whose immortality you have heard, thought, talked and written so much; and since you are forms of love and wisdom coming from God, you cannot ever die. The soul then is a human form, from which nothing can be taken away, and to which nothing can be added, and it is the inmost of all the forms throughout the body. Since the forms which are outside receive from the inmost both essence and form, you are therefore souls, just as you appear to be to your sight and to ours. In short, the soul is the real person because it is the inmost person; its form therefore is the human form in full perfection. But it is not life, but it is the nearest receiver of life from God, and so God’s dwelling.’
[12] This speech was greeted by many with applause, but there were some who said, ‘We must think about this.’ I went home, and suddenly there appeared above that high-school, in place of the previous atmospheric display, a shining cloud without any stripes or rays fighting one another. This cloud penetrated the roof and coming inside lit up the walls. I was told that they saw things written on them, among which was this:
Jehovah God breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.** Gen. 2:7.
* The ‘golden age’ of antiquity.
** The same word, anima, in Latin means both ‘breath’ and ‘soul.’
Once when I was walking with my feelings at rest and my mind pleasantly at peace, I saw in the distance a park, in the middle of which was an avenue leading to a small palace. I saw young women and men, and husbands and wives, going in. I went there in spirit and asked a doorkeeper who was standing at the entrance whether I might go in too. He looked at me, so I said, ‘Why are you looking at me?’
He replied, ‘I am looking at you to see whether the peaceful pleasure to be seen in your face has anything of the pleasure of conjugial love about it. Behind this avenue there is a small garden with a house in it, where there is a newly-married couple, and their friends of both sexes are coming to them today to congratulate them. I do not know the people I admit, but I have been told that I could recognise them by their faces. If I see there the pleasure of conjugial love, I am to admit them, but no others.’ All angels can see from other people’s faces the pleasures of their hearts, and the pleasure of the love, which he saw on my face, was from my meditation on conjugial love. This shone out of my eyes and so pervaded the inner levels of my face. So he told me I might go in.
[2] The avenue by which I went in was made of fruit-trees with their branches interlacing, so as to make a continuous wall of trees on either side. Coming through the avenue I entered a small garden, fragrant with shrubs and flowers. The shrubs and flowers were arranged in pairs, and I was told that such gardens are to be seen around houses where weddings are or have been taking place, so they are called wedding gardens.
Later I went into the house and saw the couple holding hands and conversing under the effects of truly conjugial love. I was then able to see from their faces a picture of conjugial love and learn of its living force from their conversation. After expressing my good wishes along with many more visitors and congratulating them, I went out into the wedding garden. I saw on the right a group of young men, which all who left the house hurried to join. The reason for this was that they were talking there about conjugial love, and this talk had some hidden power to attract the minds of them all. Then I listened to a wise man speaking on this subject, and the gist of what I heard is as follows.
[3] ‘The Lord’s Divine providence’, he said, ‘is at its most detailed and its most universal on the subject of and in marriages in the heavens, because all the pleasures of heaven pour forth from the pleasures of conjugial love, like sweet waters from a sweet spring. Provision is therefore made for couples to be born who are well matched in marriage for each other. Under the Lord’s continual guidance they are brought up with a view to their marriage, though neither the boy nor the girl is aware of this. When in due course the young woman, as she is then, is of an age to be married, and the young man, as he is then, is ready for marriage, they meet somewhere as if by fate and see each other. Then by some instinct they at once recognise that they are well matched, and they think to themselves, as if by some inward prompting, the young man ‘She is the one for me,’ and the young woman, ‘He is the one for me.’ After allowing this to sink into their minds for a while, they resolve to speak to each other, and they become engaged. We say as if by fate and by instinct, but we mean by Divine providence, because when it is not known, it looks like this.’
He proved that couples were born to be married and are brought up for marriage, although neither was aware of this, by demonstrating that the face of each showed plainly how alike with a view to marriage they were, and by the inmost and everlasting union of their characters and minds, something that could not exist, as they do in heaven, without the Lord’s foresight and providence.
[4] When the wise man made this speech, the group applauded. He went on to say that the conjugial principle is present in the tiniest details of each human being, both male and female, but still it is different in the male and in the female. The male’s conjugial principle is designed to be linked with the female’s and vice versa, even in the tiniest details. He proved this by the marriage of the will and the intellect in each individual, the two of which act together on the smallest details of both mind and body. This enables it to be seen that every substance, even the smallest, contains this conjugial principle, as is evident from compound substances made out of simple ones; or from the fact that we have two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, two cheeks, two lips, two arms and hands, two hips, two feet; and inside the body two hemispheres in the brain, two ventricles in the heart, two lobes in the lungs, two kidneys, two testicles; and where there are not two, the organ is none the less divided into two parts. The reason for this duality is that one belongs to the will, and the other to the intellect, and they work together so wonderfully that they act as one. So the two eyes produce single vision, the two ears single hearing, the two nostrils one sense of smell, the two lips one speech, the two hands one piece of work, the two feet one step, the two hemispheres of the brain one seat of the mind; the two chambers of the heart one life-giving action to the body by means of the blood; the two lobes of the lungs one act of breathing, and so on. But the male and the female, when united by truly conjugial love, make one fully human life.
[5] While he was saying this, a flash of lightning was seen to the right, which was reddish, and another to the left which was white. Both were gentle, and penetrated the eyes to reach our minds and also enlighten them. These were followed by a clap of thunder, which came as a gentle murmur flowing down from the heaven of the angels and growing in volume. On hearing and seeing this the wise man said, ‘These are a sign and a warning to me, to add another detail to what I have said. The right one of these pairs stands for their good, the left one their truth. This is due to the marriage of good and truth, which a person has imprinted on him both in general and in every detail. Good relates to the will, truth to the intellect, and both together relate to one. This is why in heaven the right eye is the good of sight, and the left eye its truth; the right ear is the good of hearing, and the left one its truth; the right hand is the good of a person’s power, the left one its truth; and likewise in the rest of the pairs. It was because right and left have these meanings that the Lord said:
If your right eye gives you offence, pull it out; and if your right hand gives you offence, cut it off. [Matt. 5:29, 30]
He meant by this, that if good becomes evil, it is to be thrown out. He also told the disciples to cast the net on the right side of the boat, and when they did so, they caught a huge quantity of fish [John 21:6, 7]. He meant by this that they were to teach the good of charity, and they would thus gather people.’
[6] After this was said, the two flashes of lightning came again, but milder than before. It looked then as if the whiteness of the left-hand flash was tinged with the ruddy fire of the right-hand one. On seeing this he said, ‘This is a sign from heaven to confirm what I have said, because anything fiery in heaven is good, and anything white is truth. The appearance of the left-hand flash having its whiteness tinged with the ruddy fire of the right-hand one is a sign to prove that the whiteness of light, or light in general, is the same as the radiance of fire.’ On hearing this all went away fired with the good and truth of happiness by the flashes of lightning and what was said about them.
SECOND MARRIAGES
The question may be debated whether conjugial love, that of one man with one wife, can after the death of a partner be divided, or copied or overlaid; as well as whether second marriages have anything in common with polygamy and so might be called polygamous by succession. Not to mention many other points which those who rely on reason may pile up like scruples added to scruples. To shed some light therefore for experts in investigation, who reason about these marriages in darkness, I decided it would be worth while presenting them with the following propositions to judge:
(i) Contracting a second marriage after the death of a partner depends upon the previous conjugial love.
(ii) It also depends upon the state of the marriage in which they had lived.
(iii) Those who had lacked truly conjugial love encounter no obstacle or hindrance to contracting another marriage.
(iv) Those who had lived mutually in truly conjugial love do not wish to marry again, except for reasons which have nothing to do with conjugial love.
(v) The state of a marriage between a young man and a young woman is different from that between a young man and a widow.
(vi) The state of a marriage between a widower and a young woman is different from that between a widower and a widow.
(vii) The variations and diversities of these marriages as regards love and its attributes are beyond all counting.
(viii) The state of a widow is more distressing than that of a widower.
There now follows an explanation of these points.
Truly conjugial love is like a balance, enabling the inclination towards a second marriage to be weighed. The closer the previous conjugial love approaches to that love, the further the inclination to a second marriage recedes. But the further the previous love departs from that love, the more the inclination towards a second marriage grows. The reason is obvious, since conjugial love is to the same extent a linking of minds, which outlasts the death of one partner, so long as the other lives in the body; and this linking tips the inclination of the scale in the balance, adding weight in proportion to the extent that true love is made one’s own. But since it is rare nowadays for more then a few steps to be taken towards this love, the scale which receives the additional weight of inclination usually rises to a level point, and from there wavers and tips in the other direction, that is, towards marriage.
[2] It is quite the reverse in the case of those whose previous love in their former marriage departed from truly conjugial love. This is because a departure from this is to the same extent a parting of minds. This too outlasts the death of one partner, so long as the other lives in the body, and entering the will, which is parted from the other’s, causes an inclination towards a new link. Thinking about this, provoked by the inclination of the will, brings hope of living together in a closer and more pleasant union.
[3] It is well known, and can be seen by reason, that inclinations towards second marriages arise from the previous state of love. For truly conjugial love contains a fear of loss, with pain following on the loss, and this pain and this fear are in the innermost regions of the mind. Hence it is that the more of that love is present, the more the soul inclines in will and thought, that is, in intention, towards being in the person with and in whom it was. It follows from this that how far the mind is kept tipping towards another marriage depends upon the degree of love previously experienced. This is what makes the same partners reunited after death, and likewise makes them love each other in the world. But, as I said before, this love is nowadays rare, and there are few who come within touching distance of it. Those who do not reach it, and even more those who fall far short of it, long to be linked after death with another woman or man, just as in the life they spent together before death, a cold one, they longed to be separated. Both these groups will be further discussed in the following pages.
By the state of the marriage we do not here mean the state of love, which was dealt with in the last section, because this causes an inward inclination towards or away from marriage, but the state of the marriage which causes an outward inclination towards or away from it. This state together with its inclinations is manifold. For instance: 1. If the home contains young children, for whom a new mother must be sought. 2. If more children are desired. 3. If the household is wealthy and provided with servants of both sexes. 4. If unremitting business away from home distracts the mind from matters at home, and so without a new mistress there is a risk of trouble and accident. 5. If mutual help and duties demand it, as happens in some businesses and trades. 6. Moreover, it depends on the character of the surviving partner whether or not after the first marriage he or she can live alone without a partner. 7. Also the previous marriage either makes them afraid of married life or makes them keen on it. 8. I have been told that some people’s dispositions have been influenced towards second marriages by polygamous love, sexual love, and the lust for deflowering virgins and for variety. Similarly some have been influenced by fear of legal proceedings or ill-repute, if they commit adultery. There are also many other reasons which produce outward inclinations to get married.
Those who lacked conjugial love have no spiritual or inward bond, but only a natural or outward one. Without an inward bond to keep it in order and functioning, an outward bond is no more permanent than a sash without a fastening, which falls apart as it is tossed about or blown by the wind. The reason is that the natural is derived from the spiritual, and as it comes into being is nothing but a heap of spiritual things gathered together. If therefore the natural is separated from the corresponding spiritual, which produced and so to speak generated it, it no longer has any inward bonding, but only the outward bonding given by the spiritual. This surrounds and ties it generally, but it is neither tied down nor kept tied in detail. That is why the natural separated from the spiritual in the case of a married couple does not bring about any linking of minds, and so not of wills either, but only a linking of some outward affections, which are attached to the bodily senses.
[2] Such people encounter no obstacle or hindrance to contracting second marriages, because they lacked the essential element of marriage, and so cannot have any in them after the separation brought about by death. They are therefore at full liberty to engage the affections which come from the senses, a widower with any woman he wishes and may, a widow with any man she wishes and may. Nor do they themselves think about marriage except in a natural way, and as may be expedient for various needs and outward conveniences, which can after a partner’s death again be restored by another person taking the place of the former one. If these inner thoughts were inspected, as they are in the spiritual world, it would be found that they made no distinction between married intercourse and extramarital fornication.
[3] The reason why these people can get married again and again has already been stated: merely natural links are dissolved and fall apart of their own accord after death. For outward affections accompany the body when it dies and are buried with it; only those which are attached to inward ones remain. But it ought to be known that on earth it is very difficult to contract a marriage which forms an inward link, because it is impossible for the choice of inward likenesses to be provided for by the Lord as it is in the heavens, because choice is restricted in many ways; for instance, to those of similar rank and condition, to those living in the same district, city or village. In these circumstances it is mostly outward bonds which bring them together, and so not inward ones. These only come to light after the marriage has lasted some time, and are only recognised when they obtrude on outward ones.
The reasons why those who had lived in truly conjugial love do not wish to remarry after the death of their partner are as follows:
1. Because they are united in their souls, and thus in their minds. This union, being spiritual, is the real attachment of the soul and mind of one to that of the other, and this cannot be undone. I have showed in many passages above that this is the nature of spiritual linking.
2. They are also physically united by the wife receiving the reproductive element of the husband’s soul, and so by having his life introduced into her own, so that she turns from maiden into wife; and in the other case by the husband receiving the wife’s conjugial love. This adjusts the inner regions of the mind, and at the same time the inner and outer parts of his body, to become capable of receiving love and perceiving wisdom, a state which turns him from a young man into a husband. (On these changes see 198 above.)
3. The sphere of love emanating from the wife, and the sphere of intellect emanating from the husband are constantly flowing, so making their linking more perfect, and it surrounds them with its pleasant aura and unites them (see also 223 above).
4. A married couple who are thus united have their thoughts and aspirations fixed on eternity; and this idea is the foundation of their everlasting happiness (see 216).
5. These two factors are responsible for them being no longer two, but one person, that is, one flesh.
6. Such a one cannot be broken up by the death of the other, as is perfectly plain to the sight of the spirit.
7. To this I will add a new point. The two are still not parted by the death of one, since the spirit of the dead man or woman constantly lives with the spirit of the one who is not yet dead. This continues up to the death of the other, when they meet again and are re-united, loving each other more tenderly than before, because they are then in the spiritual world.
The incontrovertible consequence of these facts is that those who had lived in truly conjugial love do not wish to re-marry. If, however, they subsequently contract something like a marriage, this is for reasons which have nothing to do with conjugial love. All such reasons are outward ones; as for instance, if the household contains young children, and provision must be made for their care; if the household is wealthy and well provided with servants of either sex; if business abroad distracts the mind from family affairs at home; if there is need of mutual help and services, and other similar things.
By the state of a marriage is meant the manner in which husband and wife each live after their wedding, that is, when they are married; whether their living together then is an inward linking of souls and minds, which is the model way of living together, or only an outward one of dispositions, senses and bodies. The state of a young man’s marriage with a maiden is the very beginning of a true marriage; for between them conjugial love can develop in its due sequence from the first warmth to the first fire; and then from the first seed with a young husband and from the flower of the wife’s maidenhood, thus germinating, growing and bearing fruit, and introducing each other to these events. If this does not happen, the young man was not young, nor the maiden a maiden, except in outward form.
However, between a young man and a widow there is no similar initiation leading from the first stage to marriage, and no similar development in a marriage, since the widow is much more able to choose and be her own mistress than a maiden. A young man therefore takes a different view of endearing himself, if he marries a widow, from what he does if his wife is a maiden. But in these matters there is great variety and diversity, so here it is merely mentioned.
A widower has long since passed the initial stage of married life, and a maiden is still to be introduced to it. Yet conjugial love perceives and feels its pleasure and joy in introducing each to the other. The young husband, and the maiden wife, keep perceiving and feeling something new in what happens to them, so that they are in a continual state of discovery and so of welcome development. If a widower marries a maiden, their married state is different; the maiden wife feels an inward inclination, but for the man this is past. But in these matters there is great variety and diversity. Likewise, if a widower marries a widow. Apart from this general idea therefore I am not free to add specific details.
All things display infinite variety and also infinite diversity. By variety we mean differences between the members of a single genus or a single species, as well as between different genera and species. By diversity we mean here differences between opposites. The following example will illustrate our concept of the distinction between variety and diversity.
The heaven of angels, which holds together as a unit, displays infinite variety. There is not a single angel there who is entirely like another, not in soul and mind, nor in affections, perceptions and the thoughts they induce, nor in inclinations and the intentions they produce, nor in tone of voice, face, body, gestures, manner of walking and many other things. Yet, although there are hundreds of millions of them, they have been and are being arranged by the Lord so as to make a single form, displaying total unanimity and concord. This would be impossible, were not all the angels with all their variety guided universally and individually by the One. This is what we mean by variety.
[2] By diversity, however, we mean the opposites of these varieties, which exist in hell. For there all without exception are diametrically opposed to the inhabitants of heaven; and hell composed of them is held together as a unit by varieties which are relatively the utter contraries of the varieties in heaven, that is, by perpetual diversity. These remarks will establish what is to be perceived by the words ‘infinite variety’ and ‘infinite diversity.’
It is much the same with marriages: those who enjoy conjugial love display infinite variety, and so do those who display scortatory love. Consequently there is infinite diversity between these two groups. From this the conclusion follows, that the variety and diversity in marriages of every genus and species, whether of a young man with a young woman, a young man with a widow, a widower with a maiden, or a widower with a widow, exceed all counting. Can anyone reduce infinity to numbers?
There are outward and inward reasons for this. The outward ones anyone may see.
1. A widow cannot provide herself and her household with the necessities of life, nor can she distribute what she has acquired as her husband could, and as she could previously by means of and together with her husband.
2. Neither can she properly protect herself and her household; for her husband, while she was a wife, was her protector and, so to speak, her right arm. And even when she was her own protector, she still relied upon her husband.
3. Of herself she lacks the power of decision in matters which demand inner wisdom and so prudence.
4. A widow is unable to receive the love which she has as a woman, so that she is in a state removed from her native one and that brought on by marriage.
[2] These outward or natural reasons are derived from inward or spiritual ones, as is everything else in the world and in the body (on this see 220 above).
These outward, natural reasons can be grasped from the inward, spiritual reasons, which arise from the marriage of good and truth, and principally from the following. Good cannot provide for or arrange anything except by means of truth. Neither can good protect itself except by means of truth, so that truth is the protector and, as it were, the right arm of good. Good without truth lacks the ability to decide, because it acquires this ability, wisdom and prudence by means of truth.
[3] Now since a man is by creation truth, and a wife is from creation its good – or to put it differently, since a man is by creation an intellect and wife is from creation the love of it – it is obvious that the outward or natural reasons which make a widow’s state distressing derive from inward or spiritual reasons. It is these spiritual reasons which, combined with natural ones, are meant in the Word by what is said in many passages about widows; on these see THE APOCALYPSE REVEALED (764).
* * * * *
When the problem about the soul had been debated in the high-school and solved, I saw them leaving in due order. The headmaster came first, after him the elders with in their midst the five juniors who had given answers, and then the rest. When they had emerged, they began to go apart to the sides around the building, where there were walks surrounded by shrubs. When gathered there they split up into small groups, each being a party of juniors talking about matters to do with wisdom, and in each group there was one wise man who had been in the gallery.
When I saw all this from my inn, I passed into the spirit, and in that I went out to meet them, approaching the headmaster who just before had set the problem about the soul. On seeing me he said, ‘Who are you? I was surprised when I watched you on your way here and saw you at one time becoming visible to me, at another dropping out of sight; now I saw you, now you suddenly vanished. You must surely not be in the same state of life as the people in our country.’
I replied to this with a smile, ‘I am no actor, or Vertumnus,* but I am by turns sometimes in light and sometimes in shade to your eyes. So here I am both a stranger and a native.’
[2] At this the headmaster looked at me and said, ‘What you say is unusual and strange. Tell me who you are.’ ‘I am,’ I said, ‘in the world in which you once were and which you have left, what is called the natural world. I am also in the world to which you have come and where you now are, what is called the spiritual world. Consequently I am in the natural state and at the same time in the spiritual state; in the natural state when with people on earth, in the spiritual state when with you. When I am in the natural state, I am invisible to you, but when in the spiritual state visible. I have been granted by the Lord the ability to be like this. You as an enlightened man are well aware that a person who belongs to the natural world cannot see one who belongs to the spiritual world, and vice versa. Therefore when I plunge my spirit into the body, you do not see me, but when I release it from the body, you do. You also taught in the school that you are all souls, and souls can see souls, because they are human forms. You know that you could not see yourselves, that is, your souls, when they were in your bodies in the natural world. But this happens because of the difference between the spiritual and the natural.’
[3] When he heard me mention the difference between the spiritual and the natural, he said, ‘What difference is that? Is it not like that between what is purer and what is less pure? So what is the spiritual but a purer kind of natural?’
‘It is not that sort of distinction,’ I replied, ‘but rather the sort of distinction there is between what is prior and what is posterior, which can have no finite relationship. For the prior is in the posterior, as the cause is in its effect; and the posterior derives from the prior, as the effect derives from its cause. That is why one is not visible to the other.’
[4] To this the headmaster said, ‘I have pondered this distinction and chewed it over, but up to now in vain. I only wish I could grasp it.’ ‘You will,’ I said, ‘not only grasp the distinction between the spiritual and the natural, but actually see it.’ Then I went on, ‘You are in the spiritual state when you are with your people, but in the natural state with me. For you talk with your people in the spiritual language, which is shared by every spirit and angel, but you talk with me in my native language. For every spirit or angel who talks with a man speaks his own language, French with a Frenchman, English with an Englishman, Greek with a Greek, Arabic with an Arab, and so on. So in order to be aware of the distinction between the spiritual and the natural as it applies to languages, do this: go inside to your people, say something there, and memorise the words. Then come back keeping them in mind, and pronounce them in my presence.’
He did so, and came back to me with those words on his tongue, and uttered them, and did not understand any.** They were completely strange and foreign words, not to be found in any language of the natural world. Repeating the experiment several times showed clearly that all in the spiritual world have a spiritual language, which has nothing in common with any language of the natural world. Everyone automatically comes into possession of that language after his death. At the same time he discovered that the actual sound of the spiritual language is so different from that of natural language, that even a loud spiritual sound is inaudible to a natural person, and so is a natural sound to a spiritual person.
[5] Later I asked the headmaster and the bystanders to go inside to their own people, and write a sentence on a piece of paper, and then to bring the paper out and read it to me. They did so, and came back with the paper in their hands, but when they went to read it, they could not understand it at all, since the script was merely composed of a few letters of the alphabet with curly lines over them, and every single letter stood for some particular meaning. Since each letter of the alphabet there conveys a meaning, it is obvious why the Lord is called ‘alpha and omega.’ When they went in again and again, wrote and came back, they discovered that the script entailed and comprehended countless things, which no natural script can ever express. They were told that this was because the thoughts of the spiritual man were incomprehensible and inexpressible to the natural man, and they cannot be transferred or copied into another script or another language.
[6] Then, since the bystanders were unwilling to grasp that spiritual thought is so far beyond natural thought that it is relatively inexpressible, I said to them, ‘Carry out an experiment. Go inside to your spiritual community, think of an idea, keep it in mind, and come back and expound it in my presence.’
They went inside and thought, and, keeping the thought in mind, came out; but when they went to expound what they had thought, they were unable to do so. For they could not find any idea of natural thought capable of matching an idea of spiritual thought; neither could they find any words to express those ideas, for what is an idea in thought becomes words in speech.
[7] Thereupon they went back inside, came back and convinced themselves that spiritual ideas were far above natural ones, inexpressible, unutterable and incomprehensible to the natural man. Because spiritual ideas so far excelled natural ones, they said that spiritual ideas or thoughts, as compared to natural ones, were ideas of ideas and thoughts of thoughts, and could therefore express qualities of qualities and affections of affections. It followed that spiritual thoughts were the beginnings and origins of natural thoughts. They also showed that spiritual wisdom is the wisdom of wisdom, and so incapable of being perceived by any wise men in the natural world. Then they were told from the third heaven that there is a still more inward or higher wisdom, called celestial, which stands in the same relationship to spiritual wisdom as this does to natural wisdom. These forms of wisdom flow in, one after the other, depending upon which heaven is concerned, from the Lord’s Divine wisdom, which is infinite.
* A Roman god, believed constantly to change shape.
** Perhaps a misprint for ‘and I did not understand any.’ The phrase is missing from the repetition of this account in TCR 280.
After this a voice was heard from the higher heaven saying to the headmaster, ‘Come up here.’ He went up, and on his return he said that angels, like himself, had not previously known the difference between the spiritual and the natural, because they had never been given the opportunity of making the comparison with a person who was simultaneously in both worlds; and these differences can only become known by making such a comparison.
[2] ‘A further point is that thinking spiritually means thinking without using time and space; thinking naturally involves time and space. For every idea of natural thought has something of time and space clinging to it, but no spiritual idea has this. This is because the spiritual world is not in space and time, as the natural world is, though it has the appearance of both of them. Thoughts and perceptions there also differ in this respect. You are therefore able to think about God’s essence and omnipresence from eternity, that is, about God before the creation of the world, because you think about God’s essence from eternity with no idea of time, and about His omnipresence with no idea of space. Thus you can grasp ideas which are far beyond the ideas of the natural man.’
[3] I went on to relate how I had once thought about God’s essence and omnipresence from eternity, that is, about God before the creation of the world, and because I could not yet banish time and space from the ideas I thought about, I became worried, since the idea of nature came up in place of God. But I was told, ‘Banish the ideas of space and time, and you will see.’ Then I was granted the power to banish them, and I did see. From that time on I have been able to think about God from eternity without any notion of nature from eternity, because God is non-temporally in all time and non-spatially in all space. Nature with its time and space must inevitably have a beginning and origin, but not so God, who is not in time and space. Nature therefore is from God, not from eternity, but exists in time, that is, together with its properties of time and space taken together.
* i.e. composed of substance, believed to underlie all forms of matter.
[2] They then said that this tiny creature still looked to them like a simple substance. ‘Yet,’ I said, ‘it contains countless parts. I tell you this so that you can know that it is the same with every object which looks to you like a unity, simple and reduced to its smallest components, and with your actions as much as your affections and thoughts. I can assure you that every single spark of thought, and every single drop of affection is capable of infinite subdivision; and the more your ideas are divided, the wiser you are. You must grasp that everything which is divided becomes more and more complex, not more and more simple, because by being more and more divided it approaches closer to the infinite, in which all things are infinitely. I can report this to you as a new and hitherto unheard-of fact.’
[3] When I said this, the boys left me and returning to the headmaster asked him to set some time as a problem in the school a new and unheard-of subject. ‘What one?’ he said. ‘Everything,’ they said, ‘by being more and more divided becomes more and more complex, and not more and more simple, because it approaches closer to the infinite in which all things are infinitely.’
He promised he would set this problem, saying, ‘I can see this, because I have grasped that one natural idea contains countless spiritual ideas; indeed, one spiritual idea contains countless celestial ideas. This is the difference between the celestial wisdom of the angels of the third heaven, and the spiritual wisdom of the angels of the second heaven; as it is between this and the natural wisdom of the angels of the lowest heaven, and also of human beings.’
I once heard some men having a charming debate about the female sex, whether any woman who constantly loves her own beauty, that is, who loves herself for her looks, can love her husband. They began by agreeing that women have two kinds of beauty, one natural, that of the face and body, and the other spiritual, that of love and behaviour. They also agreed that these two kinds of beauty are very often separate in the natural world, but they are always combined in the spiritual world; for in that world beauty is the form taken by love and behaviour. After death therefore it very often happens that ugly women become models of beauty, and beautiful women models of ugliness.
[2] While the men were discussing this, some wives came along who said, ‘Allow us to take part in your debate, because you are discussing what your knowledge tells you, but we what our experience tells us. Moreover, you know so little about wives’ love it is scarcely anything. Don’t you know it is the prudence of wives’ wisdom that makes them hide away in the depth of their chests or in the centre of their hearts the love they have for their husbands?’
The debate began, and the men’s first conclusion was that every woman wants to be seen as beautiful in face and in behaviour, because she is by birth an affection for love, and the form of this affection is beauty. A woman therefore who does not want to be beautiful is one who does not want to love and be loved, so she is no true woman.
The wives’ comment on this was, ‘A woman’s beauty resides in her gentle tenderness, and so in her exquisite powers of feeling. This is the source of a woman’s love for a man, and a man’s love for a woman. Perhaps you do not understand this.’
[3] The men’s second conclusion was that before she is married a woman wants to be beautiful for men, but after marriage, provided she is chaste, for her husband alone, and not for men generally.
The wives’ comment was, ‘After a husband has tasted his wife’s natural beauty, he no longer sees her, but rather her spiritual beauty, and this makes him love her in return; so he recalls her natural beauty, but in a different guise.’
[4] The third conclusion from their debate was that if a woman after marriage wants to be seen to be beautiful, just as she was before, she loves men and not a husband, ‘because a woman who loves herself for her beauty continually wants her beauty to be tasted; and since, as you have said, this is no longer obvious to her husband, she wants it to be tasted by the men whose eyes fall on her. Obviously she has a love of the other sex, not one of the other sex.’
This silenced the wives, but they went on murmuring, ‘Is there any woman so devoid of vanity as not to want to be seen as beautiful to men too, as well as being so to her one and only husband?’
This was heard by some wives from heaven, who were beautiful because they were heavenly affections; and they confirmed the men’s conclusions, but added, ‘Let them just love their beauty and the way they adorn it for their husbands’ sake and from their point of view.’
The first conclusion they reached was, ‘Every wife loves her husband not for his face but for his intelligence shown in his duties and behaviour. You may be sure therefore that a wife unites herself with her husband’s intelligence, and so with him. If therefore a man loves himself for his intelligence, he withdraws this from his wife into himself, which causes division, not union. Moreover, to love one’s own intelligence is to be wise of oneself, and this is to be crazy; so it is loving ones own folly.’
To this the men said, ‘Perhaps a wife unites herself with her husband’s virility?’ The wives laughed at this and said, ‘There is no lack of virility when a husband loves his wife from his intelligence, but there is when he does from his folly. Intelligence is loving none but one’s wife, a love not lacking in virility. But folly is loving not one’s wife, but the whole sex, and this love does lack virility. Do you grasp this?’
[2] Their second conclusion was, ‘We women are designed by birth to be the love of our husbands’ intelligence. If therefore men love their own intelligence, this cannot be united with its true love, which resides with the wife. And if the husband’s intelligence is not united with its true love residing with the wife, pride turns intelligence into folly, and conjugial love becomes coldness. Can any woman unite her love with coldness? And can any man unite the folly of his pride with the love of intelligence?’
‘But,’ said the men, ‘how is a man to be respected by his wife, if he does not exaggerate his intelligence?’ ‘By love,’ replied the wives, ‘because love respects. Respect cannot be separated from love, but love can be from respect.’
[3] Finally they reached this third conclusion. ‘It seems as if you love your wives, and you do not see that you are loved by them and so you love them in return, and your intelligence is a receiver. So if you love the intelligence in yourselves, it becomes a receiver for your own love, and self-love, not tolerating any equal, can never become conjugial, but so long as it lasts, it remains scortatory.’
This silenced the men, yet they went on murmuring, ‘What is conjugial love?’ Some husbands in heaven heard this, and they confirmed from there the three conclusions reached by the wives.
POLYGAMY
An investigation of the reason why polygamous marriages are utterly condemned and banished from the Christian world cannot be undertaken by anyone, no matter how talented in the acute perception of such matters, unless he has first been taught the following propositions. There is truly conjugial love. This is impossible except between two married partners. Even between two this can only be granted by the Lord. This love has imprinted on it heaven with all its happiness.
Without these facts being previously known and serving as it were as the first stone of the structure, the mind seeks in vain to summon up from the intellect any reasons which will satisfy it, and on which it can rest like a house on its stone base or foundation, to explain the banishment of polygamy from the Christian world. It is well known that monogamous marriage is established on the basis of the Lord’s saying:
Whoever divorces his wife, except for unchaste conduct, and marries another, commits adultery. This was the rule from the beginning, from the institution of marriage, so that the two could become one flesh. Man is not to set apart what God has joined (Matt. 19:3-11).
[2] But although the Lord laid down this rule based on the Divine law imprinted on marriage, even if the intellect cannot find anything in its powers of reasoning to support it, it is still able to employ its usual tricks and misinterpretations to distort that law, reducing it to unclear ambiguity and eventually to an affirmative-negative; to an affirmative, because it is also prescribed by civil law, to a negative because it does not result from their rational view. Over this the human mind will stumble, if not previously taught about the facts mentioned above, which are to serve to introduce the intellect into its own lines of argument. These are: the existence of conjugial love; its impossibility except between two married partners, nor even then unless it comes from the Lord alone; and the imprinting on this love of heaven together with all its happiness. But these matters and more about the banishment of polygamy from the Christian world must be proved in due order in the following propositions. These are:
(i) It is only with one wife that truly conjugial love can exist, and consequently the same is true of truly conjugial friendship, trust, potency and the linking of minds that makes the two one flesh.
(ii) It is only with one wife that the celestial blessings, spiritual bliss and natural pleasures can exist, which have been provided from the beginning for those who enjoy truly conjugial love.
(iii) It is the Lord alone who can grant all these, and they are not granted except to those who approach Him only, and at the same time live in accordance with His commandments.
(iv) Consequently truly conjugial love with all its happiness cannot be granted except to those who belong to the Christian church.
(v) This is the reason why a Christian is not allowed to marry more than one wife.
(vi) A Christian who marries more than one wife commits not only natural, but also spiritual adultery.
(vii) The Israelite nation was permitted to marry more than one wife, because there was no Christian church with them, and so they could not be granted truly conjugial love.
(viii) The Mohammedans of today are permitted to marry more than one wife, because they do not acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ as one with Jehovah the Father, and so as God of heaven and earth. They are therefore unable to receive truly conjugial love.
(ix) The Mohammedan heaven lies outside the Christian heaven, and is divided into a higher and a lower heaven. None are raised to their higher heaven except those who forswear mistresses, and live with one wife, and acknowledge our Lord as the equal of God the Father, to whom dominion over heaven and earth is given.
(x) Polygamy is wantonness.
(xi) Chastity, purity and holiness in marriage are impossible for polygamists.
(xii) Polygamists cannot become spiritual, so long as they remain polygamists.
(xiii) Polygamy is not a sin for those whose religion allows it.
(xiv) Polygamy is not a sin for those who have no knowledge of the Lord.
(xv) Of these those are saved who, despite being polygamists, acknowledge God, and live for religious reasons in accordance with the civil laws of justice.
(xvi) But no one from either of these groups can associate with angels in the Christian heavens.
There now follows an explanation of these propositions.
I have pointed out several times before that truly conjugial love is so rare today that it is not generally known to exist. However, I have given a proof that it really does exist in the chapter on this subject [IV], and from time to time in the following ones. In any case, is there anyone who does not know that such a love exists, so far overtopping all other loves in excellence and pleasantness that these are comparatively trivial?
Experience shows that it is greater than self-love, the love of the world, even the love of one’s own life. Have there not been, and are there not still, men who for a woman they long for and ask to be their bride go down on their knees, venerate her as a goddess and submit to her decisions like the humblest of servants? This shows that this love is greater than self-love. Have there not been, and are there not still, men who for a woman they long for and ask to be their bride despise wealth, even whole treasuries if they possess them, and spend it prodigally? This shows that this love is greater than the love of the world. Have there not been, and are there not still, men who for a woman they long for and ask to be their bride count their lives cheap and yearn for death, if she will not promise to fulfil their desire? Witness to this is the fact that many rivals have fought duels to the death. This shows that this love is greater than the love of one’s own life. Have there not been, and are there not still, men who for a woman they long for and ask to be their bride have gone mad at being refused?
[2] From the way this love begins in many cases anyone can rationally conclude that this love by its essence reigns supreme over every other love, and that a person’s soul is in it, promising itself everlasting blessings with the woman it longs for and seeks. Can anyone see, in whatever direction he goes to look, any other reason, but that he has pledged his soul and heart to one woman? For if a man in love, while in that state, were given the chance of choosing out of the whole female sex the noblest, richest and most beautiful woman, would he not spurn the chance and cling to the one he had chosen? For his heart is set on her alone.
These remarks have been made so that you may acknowledge that conjugial love of such surpassing quality exists, and it does so when one woman alone is loved out of the whole sex. Can any intellect, sufficiently trained to see the connexions between matters, fail to deduce from this that a lover, if he is constant in soul and at the inmost level in loving her, would achieve the everlasting blessings which he promised himself before he gave his agreement and promises himself when he does so? It was shown above that he actually does achieve them, if he approaches the Lord. and under His guidance lives a truly religious life. Can anyone else come into a person’s life from on high, and confer inward heavenly joys on it, and pass them on to the following stages -the more so, when He also at the same time confers constant virility? The deduction that such a love does not and cannot exist, because one lacks it oneself, and so do a few others, is unsound.
We speak of celestial blessings, spiritual bliss and natural pleasures, because the human mind is divided into three regions, the highest being called celestial, the second spiritual, and the third natural. In the case of those who enjoy truly conjugial love these three regions stand wide open, and one influences the next depending on how far they are opened. Since the charms of that love are at their most excellent in the highest region, they are perceived as blessings; and being less excellent in the second region, they are there perceived as bliss, and finally in the lowest region as pleasures. It is established by the accounts of experiences, where they are described, that these exist and are perceived and felt.
[2] The reason why all these kinds of happiness have been provided from the beginning for those who enjoy truly conjugial love, is that there is in the Lord an infinity of all blessings. He also is Divine love, and it is the essence of love to want to share everything good it has with the other who is loved. The Lord therefore created that love together with mankind, and imprinted on it the ability to receive and perceive those good things. Is there anyone so dense or mad as to be unable to see that there is some love on which the Lord has conferred all the blessings, bliss and pleasures which can ever be conferred?
This has been proved before in many places. We need to add that all those blessings, bliss and pleasures can only be granted by the Lord, and therefore no other is to be approached. How could there be any other, when ‘through Him were made all things that were made’ (John 1:3); when ‘He is the God of heaven and earth’ (Matt. 28:18); when ‘never has any appearance of God the Father been seen, nor has His voice been heard, except through Him’ (John 1:18; 5:37; 14:6-11)? These and very many other passages in the Word establish that the marriage of love and wisdom, or of good and truth, the sole origin of marriages, comes from the Lord alone. From this it follows that this love together with its kinds of happiness is not granted to any except those who approach Him. It is granted to those who live in accordance with His commandments, because He is linked to them by love (John 14:21-24).
The reason why conjugial love, as it is described in the Chapter devoted to it ([IV] 57-73) and the following ones, which describe it in its essence, is only possible for those who belong to the Christian church, is that the Lord is the only source of that love, and the Lord is not so known elsewhere that He can be approached as God. It is also because that love depends upon the state of the church with the individual (130), and the proper state of the church can only come from the Lord, so that it is not found except with those who receive it from Him. These two things are the ones which first begin, introduce and establish this love, as has already been proved by such a quantity of evident and compelling reasons that it is quite superfluous to add anything more. The reason, however, why truly conjugial love is rare in the Christian world (58, 59) is that few people there approach the Lord; and these include some who while believing in the church do not live in accordance with its teaching. There are other matters too which have been disclosed in THE APOCALYPSE REVEALED, which contains a full description of the present state of the Christian church. But it remains none the less true that truly conjugial love is only possible for those who belong to the Christian church. For this reason too polygamy has been utterly banished from it. This also is of the Lord’s Divine providence, as is quite obvious to those who have a proper way of thinking about providence.
This follows as confirmed by the proving of the preceding propositions, but a further point must be added. The true conjugial principle is more deeply imprinted on the minds of Christians than on those of the heathen who have embraced polygamy. As a result, the minds of Christians are more susceptible than those of polygamists to that love. For Christians have that conjugial principle imprinted on the interior of their minds, because they acknowledge the Lord and His Divinity, and on the exterior of their minds by the civil code of law.
It is in accordance with the Lord’s words that a Christian who marries more than one wife commits natural adultery. He laid down that it is not allowable to divorce a wife, because they have from the beginning been created so as to be one flesh; if anyone divorces his wife without just cause and marries another, he commits adultery (Matt. 19:3-11). Thus he does so even more, if he does not divorce his wife, but keeps her and brings another one home as well. This law on marriage laid down by the Lord has an inward reason derived from the spiritual marriage; for whatever the Lord said is in itself spiritual. This is the meaning of these words:
The words I speak to you are spirit and life (John 6:63).
The spiritual meaning of this statement is that a polygamous marriage in the Christian world profanes the marriage of the Lord and the church, and likewise that of good and truth, as well as the Word, and the church together with the Word. To profane these is to commit spiritual adultery. It can be seen proved in THE APOCALYPSE REVEALED (134) that the profanation of the church’s good and truth from the Word corresponds to adultery, hence it is spiritual adultery. The same is true of the falsification of good and truth, but this is less serious.
[2] The reason why polygamous marriages among Christians profane the marriage of the Lord and the church is that there exists a correspondence between that Divine marriage and marriages among Christians (on which see 83-102 above). This correspondence is utterly destroyed, if one wife is added to another; and when it is destroyed, the married person is no longer a Christian. The reason why polygamous marriages among Christians profane the marriage of good and truth is that marriages on earth are derived from this spiritual marriage. Marriage among Christians differs from that of other nations in that, just as good loves truth and truth loves good and they become one, so do a wife and a husband. If therefore a Christian were to add one wife to another, that spiritual marriage would split apart; thus he would profane the source of his marriage, so as to commit spiritual adultery. On marriages on earth being derived from the marriage of good and truth see 116-131 above. The reason why by a polygamous marriage a Christian would profane the Word and the church is that the Word regarded in itself is a marriage of good and truth, and so likewise is the church, in so far as it is based on the Word (see 128-131 above).
[3] Now since a Christian, because he knows the Lord, has the Word, and since the Lord places the church in him through its means, it is obvious that he is more able than the non-Christian to be reborn, so becoming spiritual, and to achieve truly conjugial love, since these go together. Since those among the Christians who marry more than one wife commit not only natural adultery, but at the same time also spiritual adultery, it follows that polygamous Christians are after death more grievously damned than those who commit only natural adultery. When I asked about their condition after death, I received the reply that heaven is completely shut to them; and they are to be seen in hell as if lying in warm water in a bath-tub. They look like this seen from a distance, even though they are standing on their feet and walking about. This is the result of their intrinsic madness. A few of them have been cast into the quagmires which are at the worlds’ ends.
There are some people today who take an ambiguous view of the institution of monogamous marriage, that is, between one man and one wife; and they argue among themselves holding the opinion that, because the Israelite people and their kings, including David and Solomon, were openly allowed to have polygamous marriages, these would be essentially permissible for Christians too. But these people have no knowledge of the difference between the Israelite and the Christian peoples, nor between the outward and inward aspects of the church, nor how the Lord changes the church from outward into inward. Consequently they have no knowledge about marriage that is based on inner judgment. It should be accepted as a general principle that man is born natural so that he may become spiritual; so long as he remains natural, he can no more see what is spiritual than he can see at night or while he is asleep. Then he cannot know what is the difference between an outward natural person and an inward spiritual one.
[2] It is well known from the Word that there was no Christian church among the Israelites. For they waited for the Messiah, as they still do, to raise them above all the nations and peoples in the world. If therefore they had been told, or if they are told today, that the Messiah reigns over the heavens, and so over all nations, they would have set this down as nonsense. That is why, when Christ, that is, the Messiah, our Lord came into the world, they not only failed to acknowledge Him, but also brutally made away with Him from the world. These facts establish that this people had no Christian church among them, just as they have none today. Those who have no Christian church are outwardly and inwardly natural; they are not harmed by polygamy, for it is imprinted on the natural man. In marriage he cannot perceive anything of love except what comes from lust. This is the meaning of the Lord’s saying that, because of the hardness of their hearts Moses permitted them to divorce their wives, but it was not so from the beginning (Matt. 19:8). He says that Moses permitted it, so that it should be known it was not the Lord.
[3] It is well known from the Lord’s commandments that he taught the inner spiritual man, and from the cancellation of the rituals which were only intended for the use of the natural man. His commandments about washing show that this was a purification of the inner man (Matt. 15:1, 17-20; 23:25, 26; Mark 7:14-23); about adultery, as being a desire of the will (Matt. 5:28); about divorce, as being impermissible, and about polygamy, as being inconsistent with the law of God (Matt. 19:3-9).
These and many more teachings relating to the inward and spiritual man the Lord gave, because He alone opens the interiors of human minds, makes them spiritual, and so applies them to the natural regions that they too acquire a spiritual essence. This also happens if He is approached and life is lived in accordance with His commandments. These are briefly, to believe in Him, and to shun evils because they are of the devil and from the devil, but to do good deeds, because they are of the Lord and from the Lord, doing both of these things as if of oneself, but at the same time believing that it is the Lord who does them through oneself.
[4] The real reason why it is only the Lord who opens the inner spiritual man and applies this to the outer natural man is that everyone thinks and acts naturally, so that he could not perceive anything spiritual and receive that in his natural, if God had not taken on Himself a human natural, and made this too Divine. These considerations will establish the truth of the proposition that the Israelites were allowed to marry more than one wife, because the Christian church did not exist among them.
The Mohammedans in accordance with the religion handed down from Mohammed acknowledge Jesus Christ as the Son of God and a very great prophet. They accept that He was sent into the world by God the Father to teach mankind, but not that God the Father and He are one, and His Divinity and humanity are one person, united like soul and body, as all Christians believe on the authority of the Athanasian Creed. Mohammed’s followers therefore have been unable to acknowledge our Lord as God from eternity, but only as a perfect natural man. Since this was the opinion of Mohammed, and consequently of the disciples who followed him, knowing that God is one and it is He who created the universe, they could not fail to overlook the Lord in their worship; the more so, because they also proclaim Mohammed as a very great prophet. They are also ignorant of the Lord’s teachings. This is the reason why the inner regions of their minds, which are essentially spiritual, could not be opened. It is the Lord alone who opens them (see 340 just above).
[2] Their being opened by the Lord, when He is acknowledged and approached as the God of heaven and earth, and among those who live in accordance with His commandments, is the real reason, because otherwise there is no linking, and in the absence of linking no receiving. In the case of a human being, he may have the Lord present and he may be linked with the Lord; approaching Him causes Him to be present, and living in accordance with His commandments makes a link with Him. Only having Him present does not allow Him to be received, but if He is both present and at the same time linked, He is received.
[3] I shall report something new on this subject from the spiritual world. Anyone there can be made present by thinking about him; but no one is linked to another, except by an affection of love, and this is introduced by doing what he says and what he decides. This common fact about the spiritual world has its source in the Lord, being thus present and thus linked. These remarks have been made to make it known why Mohammedans were permitted to marry more than one wife; this was because truly conjugial love, which only exists between one man and one wife, was impossible for them, because their religion did not allow them to acknowledge the Lord as the equal of God the Father, and so as the God of heaven and earth. Conjugial love in each individual depends upon the state of the church with him (see 130 above and frequently in earlier sections).
Before dealing with any of these topics separately, it is important by way of preface to say something about the Lord’s Divine providence as concerns the rise of the Mohammedan religion. The fact that the kingdoms accepting this religion outnumber those accepting the Christian may seem scandalous to those who think about Divine providence, and at the same time believe that no one who was not born a Christian can be saved. But the Mohammedan religion is no scandal to those who believe that everything is subject to Divine providence. These people look to see in what respect this is so, and they find the answer. It is that the Mohammedan religion acknowledges our Lord as the Son of God, the wisest of men, and as a very great prophet, who came into the world to teach mankind. But since they have made the Koran their bible, and so Mohammed its author has become the object of their thoughts, so that they devote some worship to him, they pay little heed to our Lord. To make it fully known that this religion has been developed of the Lord’s Divine providence in order to suppress idolatry among a number of nations, I must take the points in order; so first, on the origin of idolatrous practices.
[2] Before the Mohammedan religion existed, the worship of idols was widespread throughout the world. The reason was that all the churches which existed before the Lord’s coming were representative ones. This is what the Israelite church was: its tabernacle, Aaron’s vestments, the sacrifices, every detail of the Temple in Jerusalem, as well as its laws, were representative. Ancient peoples too possessed a knowledge of correspondences, which is also that of representations. This was to them the highest form of knowledge, and it was particularly developed by the Egyptians, and formed the basis of their hieroglyphs. It was this knowledge which enabled them to know the meaning of every kind of animal, every kind of tree, the meaning of mountains, hills, rivers and springs, of the sun, the moon and the stars. This knowledge was the means by which they knew about spiritual matters. For the things they represented, which are the kind of things that make up the spiritual wisdom possessed by angels in heaven, were the origins of these objects.
[3] Now since all their worship was representative, being composed of nothing but correspondences, they practised their worship on mountains and hills, as well as in parks and gardens. For this reason too they regarded springs as sacred, and in praying turned their faces towards the rising sun. Moreover, they made carved images of horses, cattle, calves, lambs, even birds, fishes and snakes. They placed these in their homes and elsewhere, arranged in sequence to match the spiritual ideas of the church to which they corresponded, that is, what they represented. They placed similar things also in their temples to recall to memory the holy ideas of worship for which they stood. In later times, when the knowledge of correspondences had been wiped out, their descendants began to worship the actual carvings as being themselves holy, being unaware that their ancestors had seen no holiness in them, merely regarding them as representing and meaning holy ideas in accordance with their correspondences. This was the origin of the idolatrous practices which filled the whole world, Asia and its surrounding islands, as well as Africa and Europe.
[4] In order to root out these idolatrous practices, the Lord’s Divine providence saw to it that a new religion should be founded which suited the character of oriental peoples. In it there should be something from both Testaments of the Word, and it should teach that the Lord came into the world, and that He was a very great prophet, the wisest of all, and the Son of God. This was accomplished through Mohammed, who gave the religion his name. This makes it plain that this religion developed of the Lord’s Divine providence, and, as I said, it was designed to suit the character of oriental peoples, with the object of wiping out the idolatrous practices of so many nations, and of conveying to them some knowledge about the Lord before they arrived in the spiritual world, as happens to everyone after death. It could not have been accepted by so many kingdoms and have rooted out their idolatry, if it had not been in keeping with the ideas they had; and in particular, unless polygamy had been permitted, because without that permission oriental peoples would, more than Europeans, have been fired with lust for foul adulteries, and would have perished.
This is because the love of it is divided among a number; it is sexual love, the love of the outward or natural man, so it is not conjugial love, which is the only chaste kind of love there is. It is well known that polygamous love is a love divided among a number; and a divided love is not conjugial love, for this is a love inseparable from one of the other sex. So the other kind of love is wanton, and polygamy is wantonness.
Polygamous love is sexual love, because it differs from sexual love only in being limited to the number of women a polygamist can take on. He is also bound by certain laws enacted for the public good, and he is allowed to have mistresses in addition to wives. So being sexual love, this is a love of wantonness.
[2] The reason why polygamous love is that of the outward or natural man is that this is imprinted on that man. Whatever the natural man does of himself is evil, and he can only be guided out of this by being raised to the inward, spiritual man, something only the Lord can do. The evil which concerns sex inherent in the natural man is fornication. But because this is destructive of society, a replica has been substituted for it, and this is called polygamy. Every evil a person inherits from his parents by birth is planted in his natural man; but none of this affects the spiritual man, because he acquires this by being born from the Lord. The reasons cited here and many others make it plain to see that polygamy is wantonness.
This follows from the proof given just above, and plainly from those contained in the chapter on chastity and unchastity [VII], especially the following points made there. Chastity, purity and holiness can only be attributed to monogamous marriages, that is, of one man with one wife (141). Truly conjugial love is the height of chastity, and as a result all the delights of that love, down to the lowest level, are chaste (143, 144). There are further points in the chapter on truly conjugial love [IV], such as the following. Truly conjugial love, that of one man with one wife, is by its source and its correspondence more celestial, spiritual, holy and pure than any other love (64ff.). Since chastity, purity and holiness only exist in truly conjugial love, it follows that these are not present or possible in polygamous love.
Becoming spiritual is being raised from being natural, that is, from the light and heat of the world into the light and heat of heaven. No one who has not been so raised knows about this process. Yet the natural man who has not been raised still has no perception but that he has been raised. The reason is that he can, equally with the spiritual man, raise his intellect into the light of heaven, thinking and speaking in a spiritual fashion, as if he were spiritual.* But if at the same time his will does not reach the same height, he is still not raised; for he cannot stop at that height, but after a brief time comes back down to his will, and there takes up a firm stance. When I say will, I mean at the same time love, because the will is the receiver of love; for what a person loves, he wills. These few remarks will establish that so long as a polygamist remains a polygamist, or what is the same thing, so long as a natural man remains natural, he cannot become spiritual.
* The original has ‘as if he were natural’, which makes no sense.
Every act which is against religious belief is regarded as a sin, because it is against God. On the other hand, every act which agrees with religious belief is not regarded as a sin, because it has God’s approval. Since polygamy was part of the religious belief of the Children of Israel, and the same is true of the Mohammedans today. it could not, nor can it now, be counted against them as a sin. Moreover, it is to prevent it being a sin for them that they remain natural people, and they do not become spiritual.
The natural man is unable to see that there is anything sinful in matters which have the approval of the accepted religion; only a spiritual man can see this. It is for this reason that, although the Koran tells them to acknowledge our Lord as the Son of God, they still do not approach Him, but rather Mohammed. This too is why they remain natural so long, and so do not know that polygamy contains any evil, not even any wantonness. The Lord also says:
If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say that you see, so your sin remains (John 9:41).
Since polygamy cannot be held to convict them of sinning, they have their own heavens after death (342), and there they experience such joys as their manner of life allows.
The reason is that the Lord is the only source of truly conjugial love, and this cannot be given by the Lord except to those who know Him, acknowledge Him, believe in Him, and live as He tells us. Those who are incapable of being given that love are unaware that sexual and conjugial love are not the same, and so too polygamy. In addition, polygamists, knowing nothing of the Lord, remain natural; for it is only the Lord who makes people spiritual, and it is not counted a sin for the natural man to do what the laws of his religion and community permit. He acts as his reason dictates, and the natural man’s reason is in deep darkness where conjugial love is concerned, this being above all a spiritual love. Still their reason is taught by experience that it is in the interests of public and private peace for promiscuous lust to be generally restrained, and left for each to practise within his own household. Hence polygamy.
[2] It follows from this that a person who has not learned from others that the Lord came into the world, and is God, but has merely absorbed some knowledge of the religion and the laws of his own country, is not to blame if he thinks of conjugial love as no more than sexual love, and believes polygamous love to be the only conjugial love there is. The Lord guides them in their ignorance, and His Divine authority and providence keep from having guilt reckoned against them those whose religion makes them shun evils as sins, so that they may be saved. For every person is destined by birth for heaven, no one for hell. Everyone who comes into heaven is brought there by the Lord, everyone who comes into hell is brought there by himself.
All throughout the world are saved, who acknowledge God and live from a religious motive in accordance with the civil law-code. By civil law-code we mean the kind of precepts contained in the Ten Commandments, prohibitions of murder, adultery, theft and false witness. These precepts are incorporated into the civil law-code in all the kingdoms of the earth, because without them no kingdom could hold together.
[2] But some people live by these precepts out of fear of legal penalties, some out of obedience to civil power, some also for religious reasons. It is those who do this for religious reasons who are saved. The reason is that God is in them, and a person who has God in him is saved. Can anyone fail to see that the Children of Israel on their departure from Egypt had among their laws the prohibitions of murder, adultery, theft and false witness, since their community or society would not have been able to hold together without them? Yet those same laws were proclaimed by Jehovah God on Mount Sinai amid an astonishing miracle. But the reason they were proclaimed was so that these same laws should become also laws of religion. They were thus to observe them not merely for the good of the community, but also for God’s sake; and when they did so for religious reasons, for God’s sake, they were saved.
[3] From this it can be established that the heathen who acknowledge God and live in accordance with a civil law-code are saved. For they cannot be blamed for knowing nothing of the Lord, and consequently nothing of the chastity of marriage with one wife. For it is contrary to Divine justice that those should be condemned, who acknowledge God and live for religious reasons in accordance with the laws of justice, which prescribe the shunning of evils, because they are offences against God, and doing good deeds, because they are pleasing to God.
The reason is that in the Christian heavens there is heavenly light, which is Divine truth, and heavenly heat, which is Divine love. These two disclose the nature of truths and kinds of good, and the nature of evils and falsities. This is why all communication between the Christian and Mohammedan heavens has been closed off. It is the same with the heavens of the heathen. If there were any communication, only those could be saved who enjoy heavenly light combined with heavenly heat coming from the Lord. Indeed, neither could they be saved, if their heavens were linked together. For this would so undermine the foundations of all the heavens, that the angels could not go on living there. For unchastity and wantonness from the Mohammedans would exert an influence on the Christian heaven which would be intolerable, and chastity and purity from the Christians would exert an influence on the Mohammedan heaven, which would be no more tolerable there. By being in communication and therefore linked Christian angels would become natural and thus adulterers; or, if they remained spiritual, they would continually feel the wantonness around them, which would cut off all the blessedness of their life. A parallel event would occur in the Mohammedan heaven, for the spiritual ideas of the Christian heaven would continually surround and torture them, taking away all their pleasure in life, and in addition instilling the idea that polygamy was a sin, so that they would be constantly criticised.
This is the reason why all the heavens are completely isolated, so that there is no link possible between them, except through the light and heat flowing into them from the Lord, out of the sun in whose midst He is. This radiation enlightens and gives life to each individual in proportion to his ability to receive it; and this depends on his religion. This kind of communication is possible, but not between one heaven and another.
* * * * *
I was once in the company of angels, listening to their conversation. The subjects they were talking about were intelligence and wisdom. They said that a person cannot but perceive both of these as present in himself, so that anything he thinks with his intellect or intends with his will comes from himself. Yet not a scrap of this is from the person himself, apart from the ability to receive from God intellectual and voluntary matters. Since everyone is by birth inclined to love himself, it has been provided ever since creation, to prevent him perishing from self-love and from pride in his own intelligence, that the man’s love should be copied into his wife. She by birth has it implanted in her to love her husband’s intelligence and wisdom, and so to love him. A wife therefore continually draws her husband’s pride in his own intelligence to herself, and douses it in him, bringing it to life in herself and so turning it into conjugial love, and filling it brim-full with delights. This has been provided by the Lord, to prevent pride in his own intelligence making him so foolish that he believes his intelligence and wisdom come from himself, and not from the Lord, so that he wants to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and so believe himself like God, and even to be God; as the serpent, which was the love of one’s own intelligence, persuasively said. Man was therefore after eating of it cast out of the garden, and a cherub was set to guard the way to the tree of life. The garden is spiritually intelligence; eating of the tree of life is spiritually to have intelligence and wisdom from the Lord; and eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is spiritually to have intelligence and wisdom from oneself.
But since in heaven it was perceived that the three of them shared a similar belief, the king’s ambassador was told, ‘Put on a priest’s clothes and convince yourself you are a priest, and then speak.’ He did so, and he believed. Then he spoke out loud, saying that no intelligence or wisdom, and so no prudence, could be granted except by God, and he employed his usual eloquence to prove it fully by rational arguments. It is a special feature of the spiritual world that a spirit thinks himself to be what the clothes he wears indicate. The reason is that it is the intellect which clothes each person there.
[2] Then the two priests were told from heaven, ‘Take off your clothes, and put on those of ministers of state, and convince yourselves that is what you are.’ They did so, and at once they thought from their inward nature and used the arguments they inwardly approved in speaking in favour of their own intelligence. At that instant a tree was seen near the path. They were told, ‘It is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; take care not to eat from it.’ But still the three, made foolish by their own intelligence, were fired with the desire to eat from it, so they said to each other, ‘Why shouldn’t we? It’s good fruit. isn’t it?’ So they went up to it and ate. Then immediately the three became bosom friends, because they shared a similar belief; and they started out together on the path of one’s own intelligence, which leads to hell. However, I saw them brought back from there, because they were not yet prepared.
Once on looking out into the world of spirits I saw in a meadow some men dressed in clothing like that worn by people in the world. This told me that they were newly arrived from the world. I approached them and stood beside them, so that I could listen to their conversation.
They were talking about heaven, and one among them, who knew something about heaven, said that it contains wonderful sights, which no one could believe in without seeing them. He said that there are gardens like paradise, magnificent palaces constructed with superb architecture, because they are triumphs of that art, gleaming as if with gold, and fronted by columns of silver decorated with heavenly designs in precious stones. Moreover, there are houses of jasper and sapphire, with imposing porticoes in front by which the angels go in. Inside the houses there are decorations which neither art nor words can describe.
[2] ‘As for the angels themselves,’ he said, ‘they are of both sexes, young men and husbands, young women and wives. The young women are so beautiful there is no match for such beauty in the world. But the wives are even more beautiful, looking like real models of heavenly love. Their husbands look like models of heavenly wisdom, and all of them are young men in the prime of life. What is more, no one is aware of the existence of any kind of sexual love other than conjugial love. Something that will surprise you is that the husbands have a perpetual ability to experience its delights.’
When the newly arrived spirits heard that there was no other kind of sexual love than conjugial love, and that they had a perpetual ability to experience its delights, they laughed among themselves and said, ‘What you say is incredible. Such ability is impossible, so perhaps you are telling tall stories.’
[3] But at this moment an angel from heaven suddenly appeared standing among them ‘Listen to me, please,’ he said. ‘I am an angel in heaven, and I have now been living with my wife for a thousand years, and all that time I have been in the prime of life, just as you see me now. This is the result of the conjugial love I share with my wife. I can assure you that I have had, and still have, perpetual ability. Since I perceive that you believe this to be impossible, I will speak on this subject rationally, so as to suit the illumination of your intellect. You are totally ignorant of the primeval state of human beings, what you call a state of integrity. People in that state had all the inner regions of their minds open directly to the Lord, and so these were in the marriage of love and wisdom, or of good and truth. Since the good of love and the truth of wisdom are perpetually loving each other, they perpetually want to be united. When the inner regions of the mind are open, this spiritual conjugial love has a perpetual impulse to flow freely down and produce that ability.
[4] ‘A person’s soul, being in the marriage of good and truth, is not only subject to a perpetual impulse towards this union, but also towards bearing fruit and reproducing its likeness. And when a person’s inner regions are held open by that marriage right to the soul, and these continually have in view as their aim the realisation of their effects at the lowest level, as a result the perpetual impulse towards bearing fruit and reproducing its kind, that is, the soul, becomes bodily. Since the lowest level at which the soul operates on the body in the case of a married couple is upon the lowest expression of love there, and since this depends on the state of the soul, it is obvious from what source they have this perpetually.
[5] ‘The reason the fruitfulness is perpetual is that there radiates from the Lord a universal sphere producing and propagating the celestial effects of love, and the spiritual effects of wisdom, and so the natural procreation of children, and filling the whole of heaven and the whole of the world. This celestial sphere fills the souls of all human beings, and comes down through their minds into their bodies, down to the lowest level, and confers reproductive power. But this is only possible for those who have open the passage from the soul through the higher and lower regions of the mind to the lowest levels of the body; this happens in the case of those who allow themselves to be brought back by the Lord into the primeval state of creation. I can declare that for a thousand years now I have never lacked ability or strength or virility. I have never been aware of any diminution of my powers, since they are continually renewed by the constant influence of the universal sphere just mentioned, and they also then make the disposition cheerful, without the sadness felt by those who suffer the loss of those powers.
[6] ‘Moreover, truly conjugial love is exactly like the warmth of springtime, under the influence of which everything strives for germination and fruiting. That is the only warmth in our heaven. So married couples there have spring perpetually striving to break out, and it is this which is the source of their virility. But we in the heaven have different kinds of fruitfulness from that of people on earth. Ours is the production of spiritual fruit, those of love and wisdom, or good and truth. A wife receives into herself the love for her husband coming from his wisdom, and a husband receives into himself wisdom coming from his wife’s love for him. In fact a wife is actually shaped to become the love of her husband’s wisdom, something that happens by receiving the propagations of his soul with the delight which arises from wanting to be the love of her husband’s wisdom. So she changes from a young woman into a wife and a likeness. As a result love together with intimate friendship perpetually increases in the wife, and wisdom together with its happiness increases in the husband; and this continues for ever. This is the state of the angels in heaven.’
[7] After saying this the angel looked towards those who had lately come from the world. ‘You know,’ he told them, ‘that when you were in the potency of love you loved your wives, and after its delight you turned away from them. But you do not know that it is not that potency which makes us in heaven love our wives, but it is love that gives us that potency; and since we perpetually love our wives, that too is perpetual for us. So you can grasp this, if you reverse the terms. Surely someone who loves his wife perpetually, loves her with the whole of his mind and the whole of his body. For love turns the whole of the mind and the whole of the body in the direction of what he loves; and since this happens reciprocally, it links them so that they become as one.’
[8] ‘I shall not talk to you,’ he went on, ‘about conjugial love being innate from creation in male and female, and their inclination towards being lawfully joined; nor about the male’s capacity for procreating offspring, which makes one with the capacity for multiplying wisdom as the result of a love of truth; nor the fact that the more a person loves wisdom as the result of a love for it, that is, truth as the result of good, the more he has truly conjugial love, and the potency which accompanies it.’
‘We shall shun them as you say,’ they said, ‘and we shall approach the Lord.’ But the angel answered, ‘You cannot shun acts of adultery as hellish evils, unless you likewise shun all other evils, since adultery gathers them all into one. And unless you shun them, you cannot approach the Lord. The Lord does not accept such people.’ After this the angel left, and the new spirits went away dejected.
JEALOUSY
This chapter deals with jealousy, since this too relates to conjugial love. But there is justified and unjustified jealousy, justified with couples who love each other. These have a justified and prudent zeal to guard against any violation of their conjugial love, and they feel justified grief if it is violated. But unjustified jealousy is found among those who are naturally suspicious, and are sick in mind as the result of viscous and bilious blood. Besides, some people class any jealousy as a fault. These are primarily fornicators, who hurl abuse even at justified jealousy. The name jealousy is derived from zeal,* and there exists a model or image of justified and unjustified zeal. But these distinctions will be revealed in the following pages, in this order:
(i) Zeal regarded in itself is like the fire of love when it blazes up.
(ii) The blaze or flame of that love, which is zeal, is a spiritual blaze or flame, which arises when love is attacked and assaulted.
(iii) A person’s zeal depends upon the nature of his love, so it is different if his love is good or if it is evil.
(iv) The zeal of a good love and that of an evil love are outwardly similar, but utterly different inwardly.
(v) The zeal of a good love conceals within it love and friendship, but the zeal of an evil love conceals within it hatred and revenge.
(vi) The zeal of conjugial love is called jealousy.
(vii) Jealousy is like a blazing fire against those who attack love for a married partner, and it is like a dreadful fear of the loss of that love.
(viii) The monogamous have spiritual jealousy, the polygamous natural jealousy.
(ix) Jealousy in the case of married couples who love each other dearly is a justified grief arising from a proper reason, a fear that their conjugial love may be split and thus destroyed.
(x) Jealousy in the case of married couples who do not love each other is due to a number of reasons; in some cases it may be due to various kinds of mental illness.
(xi) In some cases there may be no jealousy at all, again for a number of reasons.
(xii) There is also jealousy inspired by mistresses, but this is different in nature from that inspired by wives.
(xiii) There is even jealousy among animals and among birds.
(xiv) The jealousy felt by men and husbands is different from that felt by women and wives.
An explanation of these points now follows.
* Latin zelotypia ‘jealousy’ is a Greek loan-word, a compound of zelus ‘zeal’ and typus ‘model, type’.
It is impossible to recognise what jealousy is without a knowledge of what zeal is, for jealousy is the zeal of conjugial love. The reason why zeal is like a blazing fire of love is that zeal belongs to love, and love is spiritual heat, and thus in origin is like fire. As regards the first point, it is well known that zeal belongs to love; being zealous and acting with zeal means the same as by the power of love. But since on coming into being it does not look like love, but like a personal or public enemy, who attacks and fights against anyone harming that love, it can also be called a defender and preserver of love. For it is the nature of every love to burst out into indignation and annoyance, if not fury, when deprived of its pleasures. If therefore a love, especially the dominant one, is touched, a mental disturbance is felt; and if the touch does harm, it becomes exasperation. These facts allow it to be seen that zeal is not the highest degree of love, but love ablaze.
The love of one partner and the answering love of the other are like two allies. But when the love of one rises up against the love of the other, they become like enemies. The reason is that love is the being of a person’s life, so that anyone attacking his love attacks his very life. There is then exasperation against the attacker, such as is the state of anyone if another makes an attempt on his life. Every love, even an utterly peaceful one, is capable of such exasperation, as may be plainly seen from hens, geese and birds of every kind. They fearlessly rise up against and fly at those who harm their young or steal their food. It is well known that certain animals show anger, and wild beasts show fury, if their whelps are attacked or their prey is stolen.
The reason why love is described as blazing like a fire is that love is nothing but spiritual heat, which arises from the fire of the angelic sun, which is undiluted love. Love is heat like that from a fire, as is plain from the heat of living bodies, which comes from no other source than their love; also from the fact that people get warm and fired in proportion to the depth of their love. These remarks make it obvious that zeal is like a blazing fire of love.
It is obvious from what was said above that zeal is a spiritual blaze or flame. Since love in the spiritual world is heat arising from the sun there, love too looks there from a distance like a flame; and so does celestial love among the angels of heaven. So too does hellish love among the spirits of hell. But it should be known that this flame does not burn like a flame in the natural world.
[2] The reason why zeal arises from love being attacked is that love is the vital heat of every individual. When therefore his vital love is attacked, his vital heat catches fire and opposes it, and bursts out against the attacker. It behaves like an enemy employing his force and power, which is like a flame bursting out of a fire against anyone who stirs it up. Its resemblance to fire is clear from the eyes flashing, the face turning red, and from the tone of voice and from the gestures. Love, being vital heat, does this to prevent being extinguished, together with all the keenness, liveliness and the ability to feel pleasure which come from its love.
[2] This then is the reason why, in order to oppose attacks, love hardens the substances which compose its form and as it were raises them to form so many crests or spikes; that is, it bristles. That is the nature of the outburst of love we call zeal. So if there is no opportunity for love to resist, anxiety and pain are felt, because it foresees the extinction of its inner life, together with its pleasures. But if, on the other hand, love is well treated and soothed, the form relaxes, softens and spreads out, and the substances composing its form become smooth, agreeable, mild and attractive.
Since zeal is a product of love, it follows that its nature is the same as that of love. There are in general two kinds of love, the love of good and so of truth, and the love of evil and so of falsity. So there are in general two kinds of zeal, that for good and so for truth, and that for evil and so for falsity. However, it should be known that either love exhibits infinite variety. This is plain to see from the angels of heaven and the spirits of hell. In the spiritual world both of these are forms of their own love; yet there does not exist a single angel in heaven identical with another, in face, speech, walk, gestures and behaviour; nor is there any such spirit in hell. In fact, such an identity cannot ever come into being, however much tens of thousands are multiplied together. It is obvious from this that there are infinite varieties of love, because their forms are so too. The same is true of zeal, since this is a product of love; namely, it is impossible for one person’s zeal to be absolutely similar or identical with another’s. In general, there is the zeal of a good love, and the zeal of an evil love.
In each case zeal looks outwardly like anger and exasperation, as it is love fired and inflamed to protect itself against and get rid of anyone who violates it. The reason why the zeal of a good love and that of an evil love look outwardly alike is that, when love is zealous, in either case it blazes; but in the case of a good person this only happens outwardly, but in the case of a wicked person both outwardly and inwardly. So when the inward level is unseen, both kinds of zeal look outwardly alike. It will be seen in the next section that they are inwardly totally different. Zeal looking outwardly like anger and exasperation can be seen and heard by considering all who speak and act from zeal. For instance, when a priest preaches with zeal, his tone of voice is deep, strong, sharp and rough, his face grows warm and perspires, he becomes carried away, bangs on the pulpit and threatens evil-doers with fire from hell. Similar behaviour is to be seen in many other cases.
I said that zeal outwardly looks like anger and exasperation, both with those whose love is good and those whose love is evil. But since the inner levels are different, there are two kinds of anger and exasperation. These are as follows:
1. The zeal of a good love is like a heavenly flame, which never lashes out against another, but only defends itself. Its defence against a wicked person is as if he rushes into the fire and gets burnt up. But the zeal of an evil love is like a hellish flame, which lashes out from itself and rushes at another, wishing to burn him up.
2. The zeal of a good love at once burns down and weakens, when the other leaves off attacking; but the zeal of an evil love lasts and is not quenched.
3. The reason is that the inner region of one who loves good is in itself mild, gentle, friendly and benevolent. So when the outer region to defend itself becomes rough, bristles, is aroused and acts severely, it is still tempered by the good experienced by the inner region. It is different with the wicked; their inner region is unfriendly, violent and harsh, breathing hatred and revenge, feeding on the pleasures they give. Even if they become reconciled, these emotions are still lurking, like fire in wooden logs under the ashes. Though these fires may not break out in the world, they do so after death.
The zeal which defends truly conjugial love is the highest form of zeal, because that is the highest form of love, and the pleasures it is anxious to protect are the highest forms of pleasure. For, as was shown above [64], that love is the chief of all loves. The reason is that this love makes a wife a form of love and a husband a form of wisdom; and these two forms united into one cannot produce anything which is not touched by wisdom and at the same time by love. Since the zeal of conjugial love is the highest form of zeal, it acquires a new name and is called jealousy, as being a model of zeal.*
* Latin zelotypia ‘jealousy’ is a Greek loan-word, a compound of zelus ‘zeal’ and typus ‘model, type’.
This section deals with the jealousy of those whose love for their partner is spiritual, the next with the jealousy of those whose love is natural, and then with the jealousy of those who enjoy truly conjugial love. In the case of those whose love is spiritual, jealousy is varied because of the variation in their love; for love, whether spiritual or natural, cannot ever be exactly the same in two people, much less in more than two.
[2] The reason why spiritual jealousy, that is, among spiritual people, is like a fire blazing out against whose who attack their love for their partner is that the beginning of their love lies in the inner regions of them both; and their love progresses from its beginning through what is derived from that right to its final stage. It is by this and at the same time by the first stage that the intermediate ones, those that belong to the mind and body, are held together in a loving embrace. Since these people are spiritual, they look towards union as their aim in marriage, and the spiritual repose it gives and its delights. Since they have then banished disunity from their dispositions, their jealousy is like a fire stirred up and shooting out at its attackers.
[3] The reason why it is also like a dreadful fear is that their spiritual love aims at making them one. If therefore an accident happens, or an appearance of separation should come about, they experience fear, as if dreading the pulling apart of two parts which are joined. I was given this description of jealousy from heaven by those who enjoy spiritual conjugial love. For there is natural conjugial love, spiritual conjugial love and celestial conjugial love. The natural and celestial forms of love and the jealousy that accompanies them will be the subject of the following two sections.
The reason why spiritual jealousy exists among monogamous people is that they are the only ones capable of receiving spiritual conjugial love, as was fully shown above. We say it exists, but this must be understood as meaning that it is capable of existing in these cases. It has also been proved above that it exists only in a very few cases in the Christian world, where marriages are monogamous, but it is still possible. Conjugial love among the polygamous is natural, as may be seen in the chapter on polygamy (345, 347). The same is true then of their jealousy, since this is in keeping with their love.
[2] The nature of jealousy among the polygamous has been revealed by the eye-witness accounts that some writers have given about it among eastern peoples. They state that wives and mistresses are shut up like prisoners in work-shops, and are kept and prevented from having any communication with men. No man is allowed to enter the harem or quarters where women are confined, unless accompanied by a eunuch. The women are carefully watched in case any of them turns a wanton eye or glance on a passer-by; if such behaviour is noticed, the woman is punished with a beating. And if she behaves wantonly with any man who has tricked his way into the forecourt, or outside it, the penalty is death.
The fire of jealousy among the natural monogamists is, however, different. Their love is not aroused so much against women as against violators. They are the object of anger, the women the object of coldness. It is different with polygamists, whose fire of jealousy also blazes with the stimulus of revenge. This too is one of the reasons why after death most of the mistresses and wives of polygamists are set free, and sent to unguarded women’s quarters to engage in the various handicrafts proper to women.
Every love contains fear and grief: fear of it being destroyed, and grief if it is. Likewise conjugial love, but its fear and grief are called zeal and jealousy. The reason why, in the case of couples who dearly love each other that zeal is justified and has sound reason behind it, is that it is at the same time fear of the loss of everlasting happiness, not only one’s own, but one’s partner’s too, and because it is a defence against adultery.
As regards the first point, that it is a justified fear of losing one’s own and one’s partner’s everlasting happiness, this is the consequence of everything which has so far been reported about truly conjugial love, and of the fact that this love is the source of the blessedness of their souls, the cheerfulness of their minds, the delights of their hearts and the pleasure of their bodies. Since these remain with them for ever, it is a fear for the everlasting happiness of them both. It is obvious that this zeal is a justified defence against adultery. As a result it is like a fire blazing out against any infringement, and protecting itself against it. It is evident that one who dearly loves his wife is also jealous, but with justification and reasonably if this accords with the man’s wisdom.
[2] They said that the reason why a man’s zeal resides in his intellect is that conjugial love protects itself by means of the intellect, as good does by means of truth. In the same way a wife protects what she shares with her husband by means of him. Thus it is that zeal is within men, and by their means and for their sake in women. When I asked in what part of the men’s mind it resided, they replied that it was in their soul, because it is also a defence against adultery, and this is what principally destroys conjugial love. They added that a man’s intellect becomes hardened when in danger of violation, and comes to resemble a horn with which to strike the adulterer.
The chief reason why married couples who do not love each other are still jealous are respect for power, fear of having one’s own or one’s wife’s name slandered, and apprehension of a domestic catastrophe. It is well known that men respect power, that is, they want to be thought important as the result of receiving respect. For so long as they have this respect, they are mentally exalted and hold their heads high among men and women. This respect also involves a reputation for bravery; which is why it is to be found more among army officers than others.
The fear of having one’s own or one’s wife’s name slandered is linked to the previous reason. Moreover, living with a prostitute or turning one’s house into a brothel is a disgrace. The reason why some people are jealous out of apprehension of domestic catastrophe is that the husband is so much despised, and mutual help and duties come unravelled. But this jealousy in some cases declines with time and becomes nothing; and in some cases it turns into a mere pretence of love.
There are a lot of mental defects which cause that illness, but the chief part is played by imaginary suspicion, which, if long nurtured, brings the mind into communities of similar spirits, from where it is difficult to extract it. This imaginary suspicion also strengthens itself in the body, causing the serum and hence the blood to become viscous, sticky, thick, slow-moving and acid. A loss of strength also increases it, for this prevents the mind rising above the suspicions it harbours. For the presence of strength exalts the mind, its absence depresses it. This makes the mind sink, collapse and become weak; and it then plunges more and more into that imaginary suspicion, until it becomes demented. The result of this is to take pleasure in quarrelling and unrestrained vilification.
[2] As regards the first reason, the fact that their thoughts about the spiritual side of the church are held captive and strangled, its effects can be deduced from the demonstrations given above, that everyone’s conjugial love depends on the state of the church with him, and since the church is from the Lord, that love comes only from the Lord (130, 131). So when in place of the Lord, human beings either living or dead are approached and invoked, it follows that there is no state of the church with which conjugial love can act in unison. Even less so, when their minds are driven to that kind of worship by threatening them with dire imprisonment. The result of this is that their thoughts together with what they say are held captive and strangled; and if this happens, they are subject to the influence of attacks on the church or delusions about it. This can only lead to a wave of heat for whores and frost for a wife. It is the combination of both these effects in one person that produces such an irrepressible outburst of jealousy.
[3] As regards the second reason, the deep-seated desire for vengeance, this completely stops the inflow of conjugial love, absorbs and swallows it, and turns its heavenly pleasure into the hellish one of vengeance. The nearest target for this is against a wife. It also appears as if a malign atmosphere, impregnated with the poisonous effluvia of the surrounding district, is a subsidiary reason.
There are many reasons for an absence of jealousy or for it ceasing to exist. In particular jealousy is unknown to those who rate conjugial love no higher than scortatory love, and at the same time have no pride, reckoning their reputation as worthless. These are not very different from pimps with wives. Jealousy is also absent in the case of those who have rejected it out of a conviction that it damages the disposition, and it is useless to keep a wife under control, and if she is kept under control, this encourages her; so that it is preferable to keep one’s eyes shut, and not even to peep through the key-hole in a door, in case visual proof is disclosed.
Some people have rejected jealousy because of the stigma its name carries, thinking that a man who is a man should fear nothing. Some have been driven to reject it, for fear of ruining their households, or of incurring abuse outside the house, if the wife is convicted of the lust of which she is guilty. Moreover, jealousy is reduced to zero in the case of those who allow their wives licence because of loss of potency, or for the sake of having children so as to leave heirs, in some cases also for profit, and so on. There are also scortatory marriages, in which the couple mutually agree to allow the other to indulge in making love, while they still put a civil face on their conduct when they meet.
Jealousy of wives wells up from the inmost levels of the personality, but jealousy of mistresses only from the outward levels, so this is different in character. The reason jealousy of wives wells up from the inmost levels us that this is where conjugial love dwells. This is because a marriage, by reason of its being firmly established by a compact to last for ever, and also of the equal rights which one has over the other, unites their souls and forms a higher bond between their minds. Once this bond and union have been established, they remain indissoluble, however warm or cold the love between them becomes.
[2] This is why an invitation to make love coming from the wife would totally freeze the husband from inmost to outermost. But such an invitation from a mistress to a lover would not do so. Jealousy regarding a wife is accompanied by seeking for good repute so as to be respected; and this accompaniment of jealousy is lacking where a mistress is concerned. But both of these types of jealousy are varied, depending on where the love coming from a wife or from a mistress is received, and also upon the state of the man’s judgment who receives it.
It is well known that wild animals, such as lions, tigers, bears and many more display jealousy when they have young. So also do bulls, even if they have no calves; and to a very high degree so do cocks, which fight rivals for their hens even to the death. The reason cocks show such jealousy is that they are boastful lovers, and boasting about that kind of love tolerates no equal; it is evident that as boastful lovers they outdo every kind and species of bird from their movements, nods, strutting, and the noise they make. It was proved above that the way men, whether lovers or not, boast of their position induces, increases and exacerbates jealousy.
But these distinctions cannot be clearly made, since jealousy is different in the case of married couples who love each other spiritually and with those who love only naturally; different in the case of those whose dispositions differ and with those who have subjected their partner to the yoke of obedience. The jealousy of men is, regarded in itself, different from that of women. Men’s jealousy has its origins in the intellect, women’s in the will attached to the husband’s intellect. Men’s jealousy therefore is like a flash of exasperation and anger; that of women is like a fire, restrained by varying fears, by varying views taken of the husband, by varying relations to their own love, and varying prudence which prevents them through jealousy from revealing that love to their husband. These distinctions exist because wives are loves and men are receivers of love. It is injurious for wives to waste their love on husbands, but not so much for those who receive love to waste it on wives.
[2] It is different in the case of spiritual people. In their case the husband’s jealousy is passed to the wife, just as her love is passed to the husband. It therefore looks as if it is similarly on either side designed to confront one who violates it. But a wife’s jealousy is breathed into her husband to resist the efforts of a whore to violate it; this jealousy is like a pain which brings tears to the eyes and stings the conscience.
* * * * *
Once I was amazed at the huge number of people who regard nature as the source of creation, and therefore of everything beneath or above the sun. When they see anything, they say, and they give it heartfelt acknowledgment, ‘Surely this is due to nature.’ And when they are asked why, they say this is due to nature rather than to God, although they still sometimes follow the usual view that God created nature, so they could just as well say that what they see is due to God rather than to nature; they reply, muttering almost inaudibly to themselves, ‘What is God but nature?’ This false belief that nature created the universe, a piece of madness they take for wisdom, makes them so puffed up that they look on all who acknowledge that God created the universe as ants, creeping along the ground, treading a worn path; and some as butterflies flying around in the air. They call their dogmas dreams, because they see things the others cannot, and they say, ‘Who has ever seen God? We can all see nature.’
[2] While I was wondering at the immense number of such people, an angel came and stood beside me, saying, ‘What are you thinking about?’ I replied, ‘How many people there are who believe that nature is the creator of the universe.’ ‘The whole of hell,’ the angel told me, ‘is composed of such people; there they are called satans and devils. Those who have formed a firm belief in nature and consequently denied the existence of God are satans; those who have spent their lives in crimes and thus banished from their hearts any acknowledgment of God are devils. But I will take you to the high-schools in the south-western quarter where such people who are not yet in hell live.’
So he took me by the hand and guided me. I saw some cottages containing high-schools, and one building in their midst which seemed to be their headquarters. It was built of pitch-black stones coated with glassy plates giving the appearance of glittering gold and silver, rather like those called mica.* Here and there were interspersed shells with a similar shine.
[3] We went up to this building and knocked. Someone quickly opened the door and made us welcome. He hurried to a table and brought us four books, saying, ‘These books contain the wisdom which the majority of kingdoms approve today. This book contains the wisdom favoured by many in France, this by many in Germany, this by some in Holland, and this by some in Britain.’ He went on, ‘If you would like to watch, I will make these four books shine before your eyes.’ Then he poured forth the glory of his own reputation and enveloped the books in it, so that at once they shone as it were with light. But this light immediately vanished from our sight. We then asked, ‘What are you writing now?’ He replied that at the moment he was bringing out of his stores and displaying the very kernel of wisdom. This could be summarised as: (i) Whether nature is due to life, or life to nature; (ii) Whether a centre is due to an expanse, or an expanse to a centre; (iii) About the centre and expanse of nature and life.
[4] So saying he sat down again at the table, while we strolled around his spacious school. He had a candle on the table because there was no daylight from the sun, but only moonlight as at night. What surprised me was that the candle seemed to roam about and cast its light; but because the wick was not trimmed, it gave little light. While he was writing, we saw images of various shapes flying up from the table onto the walls. In that night-time moonlight they looked like beautiful birds from India. But as soon as we opened the door, in the sunlight of daytime they looked like nocturnal birds with net-like wings. They were apparent truths turned into falsities by adducing proofs which he had ingeniously linked into coherent series.
[5] After seeing this we approached the table and asked him what he was now writing. ‘My first proposition.’ he said, ‘Whether nature is due to life or life to nature’. He remarked that on this point he could confirm either proposition and make it appear true. But because of some lurking fear, which was not explicit, he dared only prove that nature is due to life, that is to say, comes from life, and not the reverse, that life is due to, that is, comes from nature.
We asked politely what was the lurking fear he could not make explicit. He replied that it was the fear of being called by the clergy a nature-worshipper and so an atheist, and by laymen a person of unsound mind, because both parties are either believers from blind faith or people who see that a thing is so by studying supporting arguments.
[6] Then our zealous indignation for the truth got the better of us and we addressed him thus, ‘My friend, you are quite wrong. Your wisdom which is no more than an ingenuity of style has led you astray, and your desire for reputation has induced you to prove what you do not believe. Do you not know that the human mind is capable of being raised above the objects of the senses, that is to say, the thoughts engendered by the bodily senses; and when it is so raised it can see the products of life at a higher level and the products of nature below? What is life but love and wisdom? and what is nature but a receiver of love and wisdom, a means of bringing about their effects and purposes? Can these be one, except as principal and instrumental? Light surely cannot be one with the eye, nor sound with the ear. What is the cause of these senses if not life, and what is the cause of their shapes if not nature? What is the human body but an organ for receiving life? Are not all its parts organically constructed to produce the effects willed by love and thought of by the intellect? Surely the body’s organs spring from nature, but love and thought spring from life? Are these not quite distinct from each other? Raise the view of your mind a little higher and you will see that emotion and thought are due to life; that emotion is due to love and thought to wisdom, and both of them are due to life, for, as has been said above, love and wisdom constitute life. If you raise your intellectual faculty a little higher still, you will see that love and wisdom could not exist unless somewhere they had a source, and this source is [Love itself and]** Wisdom itself, therefore Life itself. These are God, who is the source of nature.’
[7] Afterwards we talked with him about his second proposition, whether the centre is due to the expanse, or the expanse to the centre. We asked his reason for discussing this subject. He replied that it was in order to enable him to reach a conclusion about the centre and expanse of nature and life, which one was the source of the other. When we asked his opinion, he made the same reply as before, that he could prove either proposition, but for fear of losing his reputation he proved that the expanse was due to, that is to say, was from the centre. ‘All the same,’ he said, ‘I know something existed before there was a sun, and this was distributed throughout the expanse, and this of itself reduced itself to order, so creating centres.’
[8] The zeal of our indignation made us address him again, saying, ‘Friend, you are mad.’ On hearing this he drew his chair back from the table, and looked fearfully at us, but then listened with a smile on his face. ‘What could be more crazy,’ we went on, ‘than to say the centre is due to the expanse? We take your centre to mean the sun, and your expanse to be the universe; so you hold the universe came into existence without the sun, do you? Surely the sun produces nature and all its properties, which are solely dependent on the heat and light radiated by the sun and propagated through atmospheres? Where could these have been before there was a sun? We will explain their origin later on in the discussion. Are not the atmospheres and everything on earth like surfaces, the centre of which is the sun? What would become of them all without the sun? Could they last a single instant? And what of them all before there was a sun? Could they have continued in existence? Is not continuing in existence perpetually coming into existence? Since then everything in nature depends upon the sun to continue in existence, it follows it must do so to have come into existence. Everyone can see this and acknowledge it from personal experience.
[9] ‘Does not what is logically later remain in, as it came into, existence from what is logically earlier? If the surface were earlier and the centre later, would not the existence of what is earlier depend upon what is later? Yet this is contrary to the laws of order. How can the later produce the earlier, or the exterior produce the interior, or the grosser the purer? So how could the surfaces which make up the expanse produce the centres? Anyone can see that this is contrary to the laws of nature.
‘We have drawn these proofs from rational analysis to show that the expanse is produced by the centre, and not the reverse; although everyone who thinks correctly can see this for himself without these proofs. You said that the expanse of its own accord came together to produce a centre. Did this happen by chance, that everything fell into such a wonderful and amazing arrangement, so that one thing should be on account of the next, and every single thing on account of human beings and their everlasting life? Can nature inspired by some love and working through some wisdom provide such effects, and can it turn human beings into angels, and make a heaven of angels? Make this supposition and think, and your notion of nature coming into existence from nature will collapse.’
[10] After this we asked him what he had thought and still did about his third proposition, about the centre and the expanse of nature and life. Did he believe that the centre and expanse of nature were the same as the centre and expanse of life?
He said that here he hesitated. He had previously believed that the inward activity of nature was life, and that love and wisdom, which are the essential components of human life, came from this source. It is produced by the heat and light coming from the fire of the sun and transmitted through atmospheres. But now as the result of what he had heard about people living after death he was in doubt, a doubt which alternately lifted up and depressed his mind. When it was lifted up, he acknowledged a centre which had previously been quite unknown to him; when it was depressed he saw a centre which he thought to be the only one. Life was from the centre previously unknown to him, and nature from the centre he thought to be the only one, each centre being surrounded by an expanse.
[11] We said we approved of that, so long as he was willing to view the centre and the expanse of nature from the centre and the expanse of life, and not the reverse. We taught him that above the heaven of the angels there is a sun which is undiluted love; it appears fiery like the sun in the world, and the heat radiating from it is the source of will and love among angels and human beings, and the light radiating from it produces their intellect and wisdom. The products of life are called spiritual, and those of the sun of the world are containers of life, and are called natural. The expanse coming from the centre of life is called the spiritual world, which is maintained in existence by its own sun, and the expanse of nature is called the natural world, which is maintained in existence by its own sun. Now because space and time cannot be attributed to love and wisdom, but their place is taken by states, the expanse surrounding the sun of the heaven of angels is not a spatial extent, though it is in the extent of the natural sun, and is present with living subjects there depending on their ability to receive them, and this is determined by their forms.
[12] But he then asked, ‘What is the source of the fire in the sun of the world, the natural sun?’ We replied that it was from the sun of the heaven of angels, which is not fire, but the Divine love most nearly radiating from God, who is love itself. Since he found this surprising, we gave this explanation. ‘Love in its essence is spiritual fire; that is why fire in the spiritual sense of the Word stands for love. That is why priests in church pray that heavenly fire, meaning love, may fill their hearts. The fire on the altar and the fire of the lampstand in the Tabernacle of the Israelites was nothing but a representation of Divine love. The heat of the blood, or the vital heat of human beings, and of animals in general, comes from no other source than the love which makes up their life. That is why people are fired, becoming warm and bursting into flame, when their love is raised to zeal, or is aroused to anger and exasperation. Therefore the fact that spiritual heat, being love, produces natural heat in human beings to such an extent as to fire and inflame their faces and limbs, can serve as a proof that the fire of the natural sun arose from no other source than the fire of the spiritual sun, which is Divine love.
[13] ‘Now because the expanse arises from the centre, and not the reverse, as we said before, and the centre of life, which is the sun of the heaven of angels, is the Divine love most nearly radiating from God, who is in the midst of that sun; and because that sun brought into being the sun of the natural world, and from it the expanse which is called the natural world, it is obvious that the universe was created by the one God.’
After this we went away, and he accompanied us out of the courtyard of his high-school, speaking with us about heaven and hell, and about Divine guidance, showing new powers of sagacity.
* Literally ‘Mary’s ice’, cf. German Marienglas.
** These words are not in the original, but were added when this passage was reprinted in TCR 35.
I once looked around into the spiritual world, and saw at a distance a palace surrounded, one might almost say besieged, by a crowd; and I saw many people hurrying towards it. Being surprised at this, I quickly left home and asked one of those hurrying what was going on there.
He replied that three newcomers from the world had been taken up into heaven and seen magnificent sights there, including maidens and wives of amazing beauty; and now that they had been sent down from that heaven, they had gone into the palace, and were reporting what they had seen. In particular they said that the beauties there were such as they had never set eyes on, nor could they see them, except when enlightened by the light of heavenly aura. They said that they themselves had been in the world orators from the kingdom of France. They had made eloquence their business, and were now overcome by a desire to make a speech about the source of beauty. When this became known in the neighbourhood, a large number of people had gathered to listen.
On hearing this I too made haste and entered the palace. I saw the three men standing in the middle, wearing robes of sapphire colour with gold thread interwoven, which made them glitter like gold as they turned. They stood behind a platform, ready to speak. Then someone got up on a step behind the platform to make a speech about the source of the beauty of the female sex. What he said was this.
‘I have had visual proof of the truth of this in heaven. I have there seen young women and wives, and observed their beauty, noticing that it was different in young women and in wives. In young women I saw only its sparkle, but in wives its splendour. The difference was like the bright sparkle of a diamond compared with the fiery flush of a ruby.
‘Beauty is nothing but a delight to the eye; and where does this delight come from, but the play of love and wisdom? This play gives the sight a reddish colour, and this flashes from eye to eye and creates beauty. What is it that makes a face beautiful, if not its blush and its whiteness, and the charming way these combine? Surely its blush comes from love and its whiteness from wisdom. For love is red with its own fire, and wisdom is white with its own light. I have seen both of these plainly shown in the faces of a married couple in heaven, the blush of whiteness in the wife and the whiteness of blushing in the husband. I noticed that it was looking at each other which gave their faces such splendour.’
When the third speaker said this the gathering applauded, crying, ‘This is the winner.’ Suddenly a flame-like light, which is the light of conjugial love, filled the house with its splendour, and at the same time filled their hearts with pleasant feelings.
THE LINK BETWEEN CONJUGIAL LOVE AND THE LOVE OF CHILDREN
There are indications which show that conjugial love and the love of children, what is called parental love, are linked. There are also indications which might lead people to believe that they are not linked. For the love of children exists in the case of married couples who have heartfelt love for each other, and also in the case of couples who at heart disagree; and also in the case of separated couples, and sometimes it is deeper and stronger in this case than the previous one. However, the source from which the love of children flows can prove that this is perpetually linked with conjugial love. Despite all the variation among those receiving them, these two loves remain indissolubly linked, exactly like the first aim in the final aim, which is the effect.
The first aim of conjugial love is the procreation of offspring; and the final aim, the effect, is the offspring procreated. The first aim extends into the effect, and resides in it as its nucleus, never leaving it. This can be seen by a rational inspection of the way aims and causes advance in due order to produce their effects. But since very many people are only able to reason beginning with effects, from which they proceed to some consequences, instead of starting with causes and proceeding by analysis to effects, and so on, the light shed by reason must inevitably turn into a dark cloud. As a result appearances and fallacies give rise to deviations from truths. To show that conjugial love and the love of children are inwardly linked, despite their outward dissociation, the proof will be given in the following order.
(i) There are two universal spheres proceeding from the Lord designed to keep the universe in the condition in which it was created. One of these is the reproductive sphere, the other the sphere of the protection of what is procreated.
(ii) These two universal spheres make one with the sphere of conjugial love and that of the love of children.
(iii) These two spheres influence as a whole and in detail everything in heaven and in the world, from first to last.
(iv) The sphere of the love of children is one which protects and supports those who are unable to protect and support themselves.
(v) This sphere affects the wicked as well as the good, making every individual disposed to love, protect and support his own offspring as the result of his particular love.
(vi) This sphere chiefly affects the female sex, that is, mothers, but is passed on by them to the male sex, that is, to fathers.
(vii) This sphere is also one of innocence and peace coming from the Lord.
(viii) The sphere of innocence influences and affects children and through them their parents.
(ix) It also influences the souls of the parents, and links itself with the same sphere in children. It is above all by touch that it is instilled.
(x) The more innocence in children withdraws, the more affection and linking decline; and this continues gradually until it results in separation.
(xi) The state of innocence and peace felt by parents towards their children can be rationalised as the fact that by themselves they have no knowledge or ability, but they get these from others, chiefly their father and mother. This state too gradually declines, as they acquire knowledge and ability of their own, and not from their parents.
(xii) This sphere advances in due order from its aim through its causes to its effects, and produces cycles of activity; by this means creation is maintained in the state foreseen and provided.
(xiii) The love of children comes down, not up.
(xiv) The state of love in wives is different before they conceive from what it is afterwards up to the time of birth.
(xv) There are spiritual reasons, and hence natural ones, for the linking of the parents’ conjugial love with their love of children.
(xvi) The love of small and older children is different in the case of spiritual married couples and natural ones.
(xvii) In the case of the spiritual that love comes from within or from what is prior, but in the case of the natural from without or what is posterior.
(xviii) This is the reason for the existence of that love in the case of married couples who love each other, and also in the case of those who do not do so at all.
(xix) The love of children survives after death, especially with women.
(xx) Children are brought up by them under the Lord’s guidance, and they grow in stature and intelligence as in the world.
(xxi) It is provided there by the Lord that their innocence of childhood turns into the innocence of wisdom, so that children become angels.
There now follows an explanation of these points.
The divinity proceeding from the Lord is called a sphere, because it comes out of Him, surrounds Him and fills both the spiritual and natural worlds, working out the effect of the aims which the Lord predestined in the act of creation, and subsequently provides. Every emanation from an object, surrounding and hemming it in, is named a sphere; as for instance the sphere of light and heat coming from the sun and surrounding it, the sphere of life coming from a person and surrounding him, the sphere of fragrance coming from a shrub and surrounding it, the sphere of attraction coming from a magnet and surrounding it, and so on.
[2] But the universal spheres referred to here come from the Lord and surround Him. They emanate from the sun of the spiritual world, in the midst of which He is. The sphere of heat and light, or what is the same, the sphere of love and wisdom, emanates from the Lord by means of that sun to bring about His aims, which are His purposes. But the sphere is given various names depending on the purposes it serves. The Divine sphere which has as its aim the conservation of the universe in the state in which it was created through a succession of generations is called the reproductive sphere. The Divine sphere which has as its aim the conservation of the generations in their beginnings, and subsequently in their developments, is called the sphere of the protection of what is procreated. Apart from these two, there are many other Divine spheres, which are given separate names depending on their purpose (see 222 above), The realisation of these purposes by means of these spheres is Divine providence.
It is obvious that the sphere of conjugial love makes one with the reproductive sphere. For reproduction is the end in view, and conjugial love is the intermediate cause by means of which it is realised; and end and cause act together in realising their effects and in these, because they are one and the same. It is also obvious that the sphere of the love of children makes one with the sphere of the protection of what is procreated, because it is an end which proceeds from the previous end, procreation; and the love of children is its intermediate cause by means of which it operates. Ends advance in a series one after another; and as they advance the last end becomes the first, and so on up to the final stage, in which they stop or cease to exist. (More on this subject will be found in the explanation of point xii [400]).
We say as a whole and in detail, because when we speak of a whole we mean together with it the details of which it is composed. For it comes into existence and is composed from the details, and so it is these which give it its name, just as what is shared is named by its parts. So if you take away the details, the whole is just an empty name, resembling a surface with nothing within it. Thus to attribute to God universal rule, while removing the details, is a useless expression, and like assigning emptiness to him. The comparison with the universal kingship of earthly kings does not hold. That is why we now say that these two spheres exert their influence as a whole and in detail.
[2] It is obvious that the sphere of the love of children behaves in the same way from the existence of that love in heaven, where there are children from earth. Also from its existence among human beings in the world, among animals and birds, snakes and insects. There are even analogous facts in the vegetable and mineral kingdoms. In the vegetable kingdom seeds are protected by shells as if in wrappings, and in addition they are contained in a fruit as in a house, and nourished with sap as if with milk. There is something similar in ores, as is clear from matrices and lodes in which precious stones and noble metals are stored and kept safe.
We said above (386) that the working out of the Lord’s purposes by means of spheres emanating from Him are Divine providence. So this too is meant by the sphere which protects and supports those who are unable to protect and support themselves. For it was established from creation that what is created is to be preserved, kept safe, protected and supported; otherwise the universe would collapse in ruins. But because this cannot be directly accomplished by the Lord in the case of living creatures, who are left with the power of choice, it is done indirectly by the love of it implanted in fathers, mothers and nurses. They are unaware that their love is a love in them coming from the Lord, because they do not feel the Lord’s influence, much less His omnipresence.
Can anyone fail to see that this is not the work of nature, but of Divine providence working in and through nature; and such a universal influence could not exist, if it did not come from God through some spiritual sun, located in the centre of the universe, the working of which, being apart from space and time, is immediate and present everywhere from first to last?
[2] We shall describe in what follows, however, how that Divine working, which is the Lord’s Divine providence, is received by living creatures. The fact that mothers and fathers protect and support children, because they are unable to protect and support themselves, is not the reason for that love, but is a rational reason which that love makes impinge upon the intellect. For if this were the only reason, with no love inspired into him and inspiring him, or with no law or penalty to compel him, a person would no more look after his children than a statue would.
Experience proves that the love of children or parental affection exists as much among the wicked as among the good, and equally among animals, both tame and fierce. In fact it is sometimes stronger and more ardent among wicked people, just as among fierce animals. The reason is that every love which emanates from the Lord and influences what it reaches is there turned into the chief love of its life. For every living creature feels nothing but that it loves of itself, since the influence is imperceptible. When it is really loving itself, it makes the love of children its own, for it, so to speak, sees itself in them and them in itself, and sees itself united with them.
[2] That is why that love is more violent in the case of fierce animals, as among lions and lionesses, bears, leopards and wolves of both sexes, and likewise other animals, than among horses, deer, goats and sheep. The reason is that the fierce animals are dominant over the tame ones, so their self-love is predominant, and this love makes them love themselves in their offspring. So, as I said, the love which flows in turns into what is their own. It is of the Lord’s Divine providence that this inflowing love is so turned into what is their own, and is thus the motive which causes wicked parents to protect and support their offspring. If it were not for this, there would be only a few survivors from the human race, and none at all from the fierce animals, which are none the less of some use. These facts make it plain that everyone is disposed to love, protect and support his offspring as the result of his particular love.
This follows as coming from the same source as previously mentioned [223]; the sphere of conjugial love is received by women, and transferred by them into men, because women are destined by birth to be loves of men’s intellects, and the intellect is a receiver. It is much the same with the love of children, because it is in origin from conjugial love. It is well known that mothers have the tenderest love for children, fathers not so tender a love. It is clear that the love of children is imprinted on conjugial love, to which women are destined by birth, from the fact that girls show a kindly and sociable affection for small children, and for dolls which they carry around, clothe, kiss and hug to their bosoms. Boys do not show this affection.
[2] It might seem as if mothers get their love of children from nurturing them with their blood in the womb, so that they make their mother’s life their own and are sympathetically united. But in fact this is not the source of that love, since if without the mother’s knowledge another baby were, after it is born, to be substituted for her real child, it would be just as tenderly loved as if it were her own. Moreover, children are sometimes loved more by their nurses than by their mothers. It follows from these observations that this love can come from no other source than the conjugial love implanted in every woman; and the love of conceiving is associated with it, its pleasure preparing a wife to receive it. This is the first stage of this love, and after childbirth it is fully transferred with its pleasure to the child.
Innocence and peace are the two most intimate features of heaven. They are so called because they emanate directly from the Lord; for He is innocence itself and peace itself. It is because of innocence the Lord is called the Lamb, and He says of peace:
Peace I leave to you, my peace I give to you. John 14:27.
The same is meant by the peace they were to give as a greeting to a town or a house on entering it; and if it was worthy, peace would come upon it, but if not, their peace would return to them (Matt. 10:11-15). This too is why the Lord is called ‘the Prince of Peace’ (Is. 9:6, 7).
A further reason why innocence and peace are the most intimate features of heaven is that innocence is the being of every good thing, and peace is the blessedness of every pleasure which belongs to good. (See my book HEAVEN AND HELL, on the state of innocence of the angels in heaven, 276-283; and on the state of peace in heaven, 284-290.)
It is well known that children are examples of innocence, but not that their innocence flows into them from the Lord. It comes from Him because He is innocence itself, as was stated just above. Nor can anything flow from it, because it cannot exist except from its beginning, which is the thing itself. However, it needs to be said briefly what is the nature of the innocence of childhood, which affects parents. This shines out from their faces, from some of their gestures, from the first words they utter, and this affects the parents. They possess innocence because their thinking does not come from within, since they do not yet know what good and evil are, or truth and falsity, as a means to guide their thinking. So they do not have any prudence derived from the self, nor any intention as the result of deliberate choice, so they cannot have evil as an aim. They have no self acquired from self-love and love of the world. They attribute nothing to themselves; everything they receive they ascribe to their parents. They are content with the tiny presents they are given. They have no worries about food and clothing, or about the future. They do not look to the world or want a lot from it. They love their parents, their nurses, their child companions, with whom they engage in innocent play. They allow themselves to be guided, they listen and obey. Such is the innocence of childhood, which is the cause of the kind of love called parental affection.
The Lord’s innocence flows into the angels of the third heaven, where all enjoy the innocence of wisdom, and it passes through the lower heavens, but only through the innocence of angels there, and so directly and indirectly into children. Children are hardly different from carved forms, but for their ability to receive life from the Lord through the heavens. But if the parents too were not to receive that influence in their souls and in the inmost parts of their minds, the innocence of children would be unable to affect them. There must be something matching and similar in kind in the other for communication to be established, and to permit reception, affection and so linking. Without this it would be like a delicate seed falling on a rock, or like a lamb thrown to a wolf. That then is why the innocence flowing into the souls of parents makes a link with the innocence of children.
[2] Experience can show that this link is established among parents with the help of the bodily senses, but above all through touch. For instance, the sense of sight is intimately charmed by watching children, that of hearing by their talk, that of smell by smelling them. The fact that the chief mode of communication and linking is by touch is evident from the pleasantness of carrying them in one’s arms, of hugging and kissing them, especially by their mothers, for they take delight in having their mouths and faces pressed on their laps and at the same time by touching them there with their hands. Generally speaking, they enjoy having them suck their breasts and take milk, and touching their bare bodies, and they never tire of taking them on their knees to wrap them up and to clean them.
[3] It was shown in several places above that love and its delights are imparted between married couples by the sense of touch. This too serves to impart mental states, because the hands are the last part of a person, and his first is at the same time present in his last. By this means all the parts of the body and all the parts of the mind, which lie between, are held together in an indissoluble bond. This is why Jesus touched children (Matt. 19:13, 15; Mark 10:13, 16), and He healed the sick by touching them; and those who touched Him were cured. This too is why today the ordination of priests is by the laying on of hands. These facts make it plain that the innocence of parents and that of children meet in touching, especially by the hands, and so they become linked as if by kisses.
It is well known that the love of children or parental affection diminishes in proportion to the diminution of the innocence from them; and this proceeds to the point of children leaving home in the case of human beings, and in the case of animals and birds, to the point of being driven from their presence and forgetting that they are their offspring. This as a confirmed piece of evidence can serve to establish that innocence flowing in on both sides produces the love known as parental affection.
It was shown above in the section on this subject (391) that the sphere of the love of children is one of protecting and supporting those who are unable to protect and support themselves. It was also pointed out there that this is only a person’s rationalisation of the cause, not the real cause of the love they have. The real cause, which is the source of that love, is the innocence which comes from the Lord; this flows in without the person’s knowledge and brings about the rationalisation of the cause. As therefore the first cause departs from that love, so at the same time does this second cause. Or to put it another way, as the sharing of innocence departs, so it is accompanied by the reason which persuades. But this only happens with human beings, so that they can do what they do freely and in accordance with reason, and consequently obey the rational and also the moral law which prescribes the support of grown up offspring as may be necessary and useful. Animals, being devoid of reason, do not have this second cause; they have only the former cause, which is for them an instinct.
Every operation in the universe progresses from its aim through its cause to its effect. These three are essentially indivisible, although it may seem possible to have a concept of them divided. Yet in this the aim is nothing without a view of the effect aimed at, nor are either of these anything unless there is a cause to support, look ahead to and form a link between them.
[2] Every person has a progress of this kind imprinted on him both in general and in every detail; this is exactly like will, intellect and action. In this case every aim is a matter of willing, every cause is a matter of understanding, and every effect is a matter of acting. Likewise every aim is a matter of love, every efficient cause a matter of wisdom, and every effect resulting from it is a matter of purpose. The reason is that the will is a receiver of love, the intellect of wisdom, and action of purpose. So since a person’s operations in general and in detail progress from the will through the intellect into action, so too do they progress from love through wisdom to purpose. Wisdom however here means everything relating to judgment and thought. It is obvious that all three make one in the effect. They also make one notionally before the effect is realised, as can be grasped from the fact that nothing but the resolution intervenes. For in the mind the aim starts from the will, and produces a cause in the intellect, and sets an intention before itself; and an intention is like an act before it is realised. That is why a wise man, and also the Lord, treats an intention as an act.
[3] Can any rational being fail to see, or acknowledge on hearing, that those three come from some prime cause, and that this cause is that love, wisdom and purpose continually emanate from the Lord, the Creator and Preserver of the universe, and that these three do so as one? Tell me, if you can, where else would they come from?
[2] It is well known that such stages have their periods, leading to the preservation of creation in the condition foreseen and provided. The stages of the love of children, however, from its greatest to its least and so its ending, and so to the end at which it stops and ceases to exist, run backwards, since they depend on the diminution of innocence in the object, and also on account of the stages.
This means, as is well known, that it comes down from generation to generation, from sons and daughters to grandchildren, and does not go up from them to the fathers and mothers of families. The reason it increases as it comes down is the love of being fruitful or being of service, and as regards the human race, the love of multiplying it. But the only source of this is from the Lord; in multiplying the human race He aims at the preservation of creation, and as its ultimate aim the heaven of angels, which is solely from the human race. Since the heaven of angels is the aim of all aims and so the love of all loves in the Lord, human souls have implanted in them not only the love of procreating, but also of loving what is successively procreated. This too is why this love is restricted to human beings and is not found in the case of any animal or bird. The reason why this love increases as it comes down is also due to a person’s pride in his rank, which likewise grows as his rank becomes higher. It will be seen in a following section (xvi) that the love of rank and pride receives in itself the love of children which flows in from the Lord and makes it as if it were his own.
This point is brought in to make it known that the love of procreating, and hence the subsequent love of what is procreated, is innate in women’s conjugial love. These two loves in their* case are divided, when the purpose, the love of procreating, begins to develop. There is plenty of evidence that then parental affection is transferred from the wife to the husband, and also that then the love of procreating, which, as already said, in the case of a woman makes one with her conjugial love, is not similar.
* The original has ‘her’.
The spiritual reasons are so that the human race may be multiplied, and from this the heaven of angels may be enlarged. Thus people may be born who will become angels, serving the Lord by being useful in heaven, and by their association with people also on earth. Every person has angels given by the Lord to associate with him, and they are so closely linked that if they were taken away the person would instantly die.
The natural reasons why these two loves are linked are so that people may be born who will perform services in human communities, and so that people may be incorporated into communities as members. These are the natural and spiritual reasons for the love of children and for conjugial love, as married couples themselves think and sometimes admit, when they say that they have enriched heaven with as many angels as they have descendants, and that they have adorned their communities with as many servants as they have children.
In the case of spiritual married couples the love of children looks much the same as it does in the case of natural couples; but it is more inward and thus more tender, because this love arises from innocence, and from its being more nearly received and so more obviously perceived in themselves, for spiritual people are spiritual to the extent that they are guided by innocence. However, after fathers and mothers have tasted the sweetness of innocence in their children, they love them in quite a different way from natural fathers and mothers. Spiritual parents love their children for their spiritual intelligence and their moral way of life, in other words from their fear of God and piety realised in deeds and life, together with their affection and devotion to purposes of use to the community, that is, their virtues and good behaviour. It is the love of these qualities which chiefly makes them care for and supply necessities. If therefore they do not see these qualities in them, they set their minds against them and only do what they feel obliged to do for them.
[2] In the case of natural fathers and mothers, the love of children is admittedly also derived from innocence, but when it is received by them it becomes wrapped around their own particular love, so that both of these factors make them love children, kissing and embracing them, carrying them and hugging them to their breasts and make a quite excessive fuss of them. They look upon them as a single heart and a single soul with theirs. Then later, as they advance from childhood to adolescence and beyond, when innocence no longer plays any part, their love for them comes not from any fear of God and religious feeling expressed in their way of life, nor from any rational or moral intelligence in them; and they pay little or hardly any attention to their inward affections, and so to their virtues and good behaviour, but only to the outward features which they find attractive. It is to these their love is attached, fixed and clings. This makes them also close their eyes to their faults, making excuses for these and favouring them. The reason is that in their case the love of their offspring is also a love of themselves; and this clings to the outside of the person loved and does not enter into him, just as neither does it into himself.
Natural fathers, however, as soon as they realise that they are alive after dying and call to mind their children who died before them, also presenting themselves in accordance with their wishes, immediately become attached to them and cling as close as a bundle of fasces.* Then the father continually takes delight in looking at his children and talking with them. If the father is told that some of his children are satans and have done harm to good people, they none the less keep them in the company around them, or in the crowd before them. If he actually sees them inflicting harm and doing evil, he pays no attention to that, nor does he remove any from his company. To prevent therefore this injurious group lasting, they have to be banished together to hell; there the father is imprisoned before his children are; these are taken apart and each is assigned the place for which his life fits him.
* The bundle of rods with an axe carried by the attendants of Roman magistrates.
Thinking and coming to a conclusion from what is interior and prior is to do so from aims and causes leading to effects; but thinking and coming to a conclusion from what is exterior or posterior is to do so from effects leading to causes and aims. This is to proceed in the wrong direction, the other to do so in the right direction. For thinking and coming to a conclusion from aims and causes is to do so from the consideration of kinds of good and truth in the upper region of the mind, leading to effects in the lower region. Human rationality itself is from creation like this. But thinking and coming to a conclusion from effects is to guess causes and aims from the lower region of the mind, where bodily sense impressions with their appearances and fallacies are rife. This is essentially no different from confirming what is false and is longed for; and on seeing these confirmed believing that they are the truths of wisdom and the goodness of the love of this. It is much the same with the love of babies and children in the case of the spiritual and the natural. The spiritual love them from what is prior, that is, in the right order; but the natural love them from what is posterior, so in the wrong order. These considerations have been adduced merely to prove the previous point.
This means as much among the natural as among the spiritual. But they possess conjugial love, while the others do not, except for an appearance and pretence of it. The reason why the love of children and conjugial love act as one is that conjugial love is implanted in every woman from creation, and together with it the love of procreating, which is concentrated on and imparted to the offspring procreated. This is transferred from women to men, as was said above [393]. That is why it is that in homes where there is no conjugial love between husband and wife it may still exist with the wife, so that by its means some outward linking with the husband is possible. It is for the same reason that even prostitutes love their children. For what is implanted in souls from creation and has the propagation of the race as its aim is incapable of being wiped out or eradicated.
As soon as small children are revived, which happens immediately after death, they are taken up into heaven and handed over to angels of the female sex, who in their bodily lives in the world had loved children and at the same time feared God. Since their maternal tenderness had made them love all small children, they accept them as their own, and the children there, as if by instinct, love them as if they were their mothers. They have as many children as their spiritual parental love makes them want.
The heaven where the children are is to be seen ahead in the region of the forehead, on the line or radius by which the angels look directly towards the Lord. Their heaven is placed there, because all small children are brought up under the Lord’s direct guidance. They also have an influence coming from the heaven of innocence, which is the third heaven. After spending their earliest period there, they are transferred to another heaven to be taught.
This is how small children are brought up in heaven. They learn to talk from the angel who brings them up. At first their speech is only a sound expressing affection, yet containing some precursor of thought which allows the human element in the sound to be distinguished from that of an animal. By degrees this speech becomes more distinct, as ideas arising from affection enter into thought. All of their affections, which also increase, proceed from innocence.
The first kind of things to be introduced are what they can see with their eyes and find delightful. Since these are from a spiritual source, these are subject at the same time to influences coming from heaven, and these open the inner levels of their minds. Afterwards, as the children are perfected in intelligence, they grow in stature, and look in this respect too more like adults. The reason is that intelligence and wisdom are the real spiritual nourishment, so that the things which feed their minds also feed their bodies.
But children in heaven do not grow up beyond coming of age; they stop at that stage and stay in it for ever. When they reach that stage they are given in marriage; this is arranged for them by the Lord, and celebrated in the heaven where the young man is. He shortly follows his wife to her heaven, or to her house, if they are in the same community. To convince me that children increase in stature and grow up as their intelligence increases, I was allowed to talk to some while they were children, and then again when they had grown up. In appearance they were like young adults, of the same stature as young adults in the world.
On one occasion they pictured the Lord rising from the tomb, and at the same time uniting His humanity with His divinity. First they presented the idea of a tomb, but without any idea of the Lord; it was so remote that it could hardly be grasped that it was the Lord, except from a distance. This was because the idea of a tomb has some connotation of a funeral, which they thus removed. Afterwards they carefully allowed into the tomb some kind of atmosphere which looked like a fine vapour. By this they indicated, again at a decent distance, spiritual life in baptism. Later I saw pictured by them the Lord’s descent to the captives, and His ascent with them into heaven. A childish detail was that they let down very soft and thin threads, which were almost invisible, to lift up the Lord as He rose, always taking holy care that nothing in the picture should touch on anything that was not heavenly.
There are also other representations by means of which children are brought at the same time to know about truth and to feel affection for good, as it were by games which appeal to children’s minds. Children are guided by the Lord towards these and similar things by means of the innocence which passes through the third heaven. Spiritual ideas are thus introduced into their affections and the tender thoughts that come from them, so that the children do not know that they are not doing such things themselves, and thinking of them of their own accord. This is how their intellect develops.
Many people may be of the opinion that children remain children and become angels immediately after death. But it is intelligence and wisdom that make an angel; so long as children do not possess these, they are certainly among angels, but are not angels themselves. They become angels only when they have become intelligent and wise. Children are thus led from the innocence of childhood to that of wisdom, that is, from outward to inward innocence. This innocence is the aim of all their teaching and development. So when they reach the innocence of wisdom, they have the innocence of childhood attached to them,* which in the meanwhile had served them as a basis.
I saw the nature of the innocence of childhood pictured by a piece of wood virtually devoid of life, which comes to life as they absorb knowledge of truths and affections for good. Afterwards the nature of the innocence of wisdom was pictured by a live, naked child. The angels of the third heaven, who have from the Lord a higher degree of innocence than others, appear to eyes of spirits below the heavens like naked children, and because they excel others in wisdom, they are also alive. The reason is that innocence corresponds to childhood and also to nakedness. That is why it is said of Adam and his wife that, when they were in a state of innocence, they were naked and were not ashamed. But after losing their state of innocence, they were ashamed of their nakedness and hid themselves (Gen. 2:25; 3:7, 10, 11). In short, the wiser angels are, the more innocent they are. The nature of the innocence of wisdom can to some extent be seen from the innocence of childhood, as described above (395), provided for parents we substitute the Lord as Father, by whom they are guided and to whom they ascribe everything they have.
* Possibly illi ‘to it’ should be read for illis ‘to them’; but cf. HH 341:2.
Allow the children to come to me, do not prevent them; for of such is the kingdom of the heavens. Truly I tell you, anyone who does not accept the kingdom of the heavens as a child will not enter into it. Mark 10:14, 15; Luke 18:16, 17.
Children here and in other places in the Word means those who are in a state of innocence. The reason why good is good in so far as it contains innocence is that all good is from the Lord, and innocence is being guided by the Lord.
* * * * *
One morning on waking from sleep, I was meditating in the light of a fine dawn before being fully awake, when I saw through the window what looked like a flash of lightning, and soon afterwards heard what sounded like a peal of thunder. I wondered where it had come from, and heard these words from heaven: ‘There are some near you who are engaged in a furious dispute about God and nature. The flash of light like lightning and the roaring in the air like thunder are correspondences, which present the appearance of a battle and a clash of arguments, with one side speaking in favour of God, the other of nature.’
This spiritual battle had started like this. There were some satans in hell who said to one another, ‘If only we were allowed to talk to angels in heaven, we should prove to them fully and completely that what they call God, the source of everything, is nature, and God is nor more than an expression, unless we mean by it nature.’ Since those satans deeply and whole-heartedly believed that, and were so keen to talk with the angels in heaven, they were permitted to climb out of the mud and darkness of hell, and talk with two angels who came down from heaven. They met in the world of spirits which lies midway between heaven and hell.
[2] The satans on seeing the angels rushed up to them, and shouted in a furious tone, ‘Are you the angels from heaven with whom we can meet to debate God and nature? You call yourselves wise because you acknowledge God, but oh how simple you are! Who has ever seen God? Who understands what God is? Who can comprehend that God rules, and can control the universe and all its parts? Does anyone but the common people and the crowd acknowledge what they cannot see and understand? What is more obvious than that nature is the all in all? What else has the eye seen but nature? What else has the ear heard? What else has the nose smelt? What else has the tongue tasted? What else has anyone felt by the touch of his hand or body? Are not our bodily senses our only factual witnesses? It is on their evidence that anyone can swear that a thing is so. Are not your heads in nature? What do the thoughts in our heads come from but from that influence? Take away nature and you cannot think at all.’ Much more was said of the same sort.
[3] On hearing this the angels replied, ‘You talk like that because you are wholly under the influence of the senses. All in the hells have their mental ideas so sunk in the bodily senses that they cannot lift their minds above that level. So we forgive you. A life of evil leading to a belief in falsity has so shut off the inner levels of your minds that it is impossible for them to be lifted above the sensual level, except in a state where you are distant from the evils of your lives and your false beliefs. For a satan can understand truth just as well as an angel when he hears it, but he does not retain it, because evil obliterates truth and substitutes falsity. But we observe that you are now in that distanced state, so that you can understand the truth we are telling you. So pay attention to what we are about to say.
‘You lived,’ they said, ‘in the natural world and there you died, and you are now in the spiritual world. Did you know anything before about life after death? Surely you denied its existence and put yourselves on a level with animals. Did you know anything before about heaven and hell, or about light and heat in this world? Or the fact that you are no longer within nature, but above it? For this world and everything in it are spiritual, and the spiritual is so far above the natural that nature cannot exert the slightest influence on this world. But you, because you believed that nature was a god or a goddess, still believe that the light and heat of this world are identical with the light and heat of the natural world. They are not in the slightest, for natural light is here darkness, and natural heat here is cold. Did you know anything about the sun of this world, the source of our light and heat? Did you know that this sun is undiluted love and the sun of the natural world is undiluted fire? That the sun of the world, being undiluted fire, is the source from which nature came into and continues in being? So nature, which you make into a god or a goddess, is completely lifeless.
[4] ‘You can, if given protection, come up with us into heaven; and we can, if given protection, go down with you into hell. In heaven you will see magnificent and splendid sights, in hell foul and filthy ones. The reason for the difference is that in heaven all worship God, in the hells all worship nature. Those magnificent and splendid sights in the heavens are the correspondences of the affections for good and truth; but the foul and filthy sights in hell are the correspondences of the desires for evil and falsity. From both these facts you can now form a conclusion whether God or nature is the all in all.’
To this the satans replied, ‘In our present state we can draw the conclusion from what we have heard that God is the all in all. But when the delight of evil takes hold of our minds, then we can see nothing but nature.’
[5] The two angels and the two satans were standing on the right not far from me, so I could see and hear them. Around them I suddenly saw many spirits who had been distinguished for their learning in the natural world. I was surprised to see these learned men standing at one moment next to the angels, at another next to the satans, and applauding the party they stood next to. I was told that their changes of position were changes in their mental states, as they favoured one side or the other, for they behave like weathercocks. ‘And we will tell you a secret,’ they said. ‘We looked down to earth to see those distinguished scholars who had used their own judgment to think about God and nature, and we found six hundred out of a thousand on the side of nature, and the rest on the side of God. But we found them to be on the side of God, not because of any understanding, but because, relying on having been told that nature comes from God, they had often said so. Keeping on saying a thing from memory or recall, while not at the same time prompted by thought and intelligence, produces an appearance of belief.’
[6] After this the satans were given protection and went up with the two angels into heaven, and saw magnificent and splendid sights. On being enlightened by the light of heaven they there acknowledged that there is a God, and that nature was created to minister to life, which is in God and comes from Him; and that nature is in itself lifeless, and so does nothing of itself, but is acted upon by life. When they had seen these sights and experienced these perceptions, they went down; and as they came down, their love of evil returned and shut off their intellect above, opening it underneath. Then there appeared above what looked like a covering flashing with hellish fire. The moment their feet touched the earth, the ground yawned beneath them, and they sank back down to their own kind.
‘Those who believe that God’s workings are to be seen in the details of nature can find very many facts about nature to convince themselves that they are of Divine origin, as many, or rather more than those who convince themselves that their origin is nature. For those who convince themselves of Divine origin pay attention to the remarkable facts to be observed in the production of both vegetable and animal species. In the production of vegetables, a seed cast into the ground produces a root, the root produces a stalk, and in due sequence leaf-buds, leaves, flowers, fruits and so on until finally new seeds. It is exactly as if the seed knew the order in which these succeed and develop, so as to renew itself. Can any rational person believe that the sun, which is undiluted fire, can know this? Or that it can transmit such effects through its heat and light, or could achieve such wonderful forms in them, and plan their purpose? Anyone with his rational faculty raised cannot help, on seeing and reflecting on these facts, thinking that they arise from Him whose wisdom is infinite, that is, from God. Those who acknowledge the existence of the Divine also see this and think like this. But those who do not, do not see this or think like this, because they do not want to do so. Thus they depress their rational faculty to the level of the senses; and this makes them gather all their ideas from the dim light provided by the bodily senses, and makes them strengthen their belief in their fallacies, saying, “Surely you can see that the sun produces these results by its heat and light. What is something you cannot see? Surely it is nothing.”
[2] Those who convince themselves of the Divine origin pay attention to the remarkable facts to be observed in the reproduction of animals. Here for instance I may mention only what happens in eggs. The chick is concealed in the egg in its seed or rudiment together with everything it needs up to the time of hatching. It also has what it needs after hatching, until it becomes a bird or flying creature resembling its progenitor. If anyone pays attention to its formation, he can hardly help, if he thinks deeply, coming into a state of amazement. For instance, the smallest creatures as the largest, even those that are invisible as well as those that are visible, insects, that is, as well as birds or large animals have sense organs for sight, [hearing],** smell, taste and touch, as well as organs of motion, muscles to enable them to fly or walk, and viscera surrounding heart and lungs, controlled by a brain. It is well known that even lowly insects enjoy such organs, as has been shown by descriptions of their anatomy, especially those published by Swammerdam*** in his nature books.
[3] Those who ascribe everything to nature can indeed observe such facts, but they think of them merely as facts and say that nature produces them. They say this because they have set their minds against thinking about the Divine; and those who do this, on seeing the wonders of nature, cannot think rationally, much less spiritually, about them. Their thinking is based on sense-impressions and material ideas, so that they think from nature within nature, and not above that level; as do those who are in hell. Their only difference from animals is their rationality; that is to say, they can understand and think differently if they wish.
[4] Those who have set their minds against thinking about the Divine, and thus become subservient to their senses, never stop, when they see the wonders of nature, to consider that the sight of the eye is so coarse that it sees a number of tiny insects as one dark mass. Yet each one of them is provided with organs to enable it to feel and to move, and is therefore equipped with fibres and vessels, small hearts, lung-tubes, viscera and brains; and that these are constructed of the purest substances in nature, and that these constructions correspond to some sort of life by which the smallest parts of them are individually impelled. Since the sight of the eye is so coarse as to see a number of such objects, together with the countless parts in each, as a small dark mass, and yet those who rely on the senses base their thought and judgment on this, it is obvious how undiscriminating their minds are, and so how unilluminated they are in spiritual matters.
* The following passage down to 422 is repeated with some changes from DLW 351-357.
** This word is omitted in the original, but is clearly needed here.
*** The writings of the Dutch naturalist J. Swammerdam were published by H. Boerhaave in 1737-38 under the title Biblia Naturae or Nature Books.
Everyone who is willing to think about the way the Divine influence passes through the spiritual world into the natural one can see this in those facts. He can even, if he is willing, say in his heart, “Such knowledge cannot reach them from the sun by the radiation of its light. For the sun, from which nature arises and draws its essence, is undiluted fire, so that the rays of its light are totally devoid of life.” Thus they reach the conclusion that such things are the result of Divine wisdom influencing the lowest forms of nature.
Can anyone whose reason is not impaired fail to see that such things among bees cannot come from the natural world? What has the sun, the origin of nature, in common with a government parallel to and virtually that of heaven? These and similar arguments drawn from the lower animals can lead one who admits and worships nature to convince himself in favour of nature, and one who admits and worships God to convince himself in favour of the Divine. For a spiritual person sees spiritual effects in these, and a natural person natural effects, each according to what he is. For my part, such arguments were evidence of the influence of the spiritual on the natural, or of the spiritual world on the natural world, that is, produced by the Lord’s Divine wisdom.
Consider too whether you can think analytically about any form of government, or any civil law, or any moral virtue, or any spiritual truth, without the Divine influencing you from His wisdom by means of the spiritual world. I can answer for myself that I have not been and am not able to do so. For I have noted my perception and feeling of this influence for the last twenty-five years continually, so I make this statement from personal experience.
* Literally, ‘in some Pu or where.’ Pu is the Greek word for ‘where’. See 29 above.
Chapter XVIII
THE OPPOSITION BETWEEN SCORTATORY AND CONJUGIAL LOVE
At the outset we must first disclose what is meant in this chapter by scortatory love. It does not mean the love of fornication before marriage or following the death of a partner. Nor does it include having a concubine, if this is something entered into for good, real and legitimate reasons. Nor does it mean the less serious kinds of adultery or even the serious kinds provided a person comes to his senses again; for the more serious kinds change so as not to become opposed to conjugial love, and the less serious are not so opposed. How this is will be seen in the following sections, where each kind is discussed.
By scortatory love as the opposite of conjugial love is meant here the love of adultery, of such a kind that it is not counted as a sin, or as an evil or disgraceful act against reason, but as something allowable with the approval of reason. This scortatory love not only makes conjugial love the same as itself, but also ruins and destroys it so that it turns at last into nausea.
[2] The subject of this chapter is the opposition between this love and conjugial love; and that no other is meant will become clear from the following discussion of fornication, having a concubine and the various kinds of adultery. But in order to display this opposition to the sight of reason, they will be set forth in the following order.
(i) It is impossible to know the nature of scortatory love without knowing the nature of conjugial love.
(ii) Scortatory love is the opposite of conjugial love.
(iii) Scortatory love is the opposite of conjugial love, just as the natural man regarded in himself is the opposite of the spiritual man.
(iv) Scortatory love is the opposite of conjugial love, just as the pairing of evil and falsity is the opposite of the marriage of good and truth.
(v) Hence scortatory love is the opposite of conjugial love, just as hell is the opposite of heaven.
(vi) The uncleanness of hell is due to scortatory love, and the cleanliness of heaven is due to conjugial love.
(vii) Likewise there is uncleanness in the church, and cleanliness there.
(viii) Scortatory love makes a person less and less human and virile, and conjugial love makes him more and more human and virile.
(ix) There is a sphere of scortatory love and one of conjugial love.
(x) The sphere of scortatory love comes up from hell, and the sphere of conjugial love comes down from heaven.
(xi) These two spheres come up against each other in either world, but do not join.
(xii) There is an equilibrium between these two spheres, and a person is kept in this.
(xiii) A person can turn towards whichever he pleases, but in so far as he turns towards one, so far does he turn away from the other.
(xiv) Either sphere brings joys with it.
(xv) The joys of scortatory love begin from the flesh, and remain fleshly even in the spirit; but the joys of conjugial love begin in the spirit, and remain spiritual even in the flesh.
(xvi) The joys of scortatory love are the pleasures of folly, but the joys of conjugial love are the delights of wisdom
The explanation of these propositions now follows.
Scortatory love means the love of adultery which destroys conjugial love (as stated in 423 above). There is no need to prove that the nature of scortatory love cannot be known without knowing the nature of conjugial love; it need only be illustrated by comparisons. For instance, can anyone know what evil and falsity are, unless he knows what good and truth are? Can anyone know what unchastity, dishonesty, impropriety and unloveliness are, unless he knows what chastity, honesty, propriety and loveliness are? Can anyone discern follies, unless he is wise or knows what wisdom is? Again, can anyone properly perceive inharmonious squeaks, unless he has been taught and has studied what harmonies are? Likewise, can anyone perceive the nature of adultery, unless he has perceived that of marriage? And can anyone submit to his judgment the filth of the pleasures of scortatory love, unless he has first submitted to his judgment the cleanliness of conjugial love? Since I have now finished describing the delights of wisdom concerning conjugial love, I can use the understanding acquired from this to describe the pleasures concerning scortatory love.
425. (ii) Scortatory love is the opposite of conjugial love.
There cannot exist anything in the universe which does not have its opposite. Opposites are not differentiated as relative, but as contrary. Relative differences are between the greatest and least of the same thing, but contraries are direct opposites. Contraries have relative differences between them, just as their opposites have. So their relationships themselves too are opposite.
It is obvious that every single thing has its opposite, from a consideration of light, heat, times and seasons, affections, perceptions, sensations and many more things. The opposite of light is darkness, of heat cold; the opposites in times and seasons are day and night, summer and winter. The opposites in affection are joy and grief, gladness and sadness. The opposites in perceptions are good and evil, truths and falsities. The opposites in sensations are pleasure and distress.
All the evidence from these comparisons allows the conclusion that conjugial love too has its opposite, and anyone can, if he wishes, see that all the dictates of sound reason assert that this is adultery. Tell me, if you can, what other opposite it has. Moreover since this is plainly to be seen by the light of sound reason, it has been established by the laws of what is called civil justice that marriage is to be encouraged and adultery discouraged.
[2] To make it even plainer that these are opposites, I may report something I have many times witnessed in the spiritual world. Those who in the natural world have been confirmed adulterers, on perceiving the sphere of conjugial love coming down from heaven, immediately either run away and hide in caverns or, if they hold out against it, become furiously angry and rage like furies. The reason this happens is that all the pleasant and unpleasant effects of affections are perceived there, sometimes as clearly as a smell is perceived by the nose, for there is no material body to absorb such things.
[3] However, the reason for the opposition of scortatory and conjugial love being unknown to many in the natural world is the pleasures of the flesh, which appear to imitate the pleasures of conjugial love at the outermost level, so that those who merely feel pleasure know nothing of this opposition. I could hazard the opinion that, if you asserted that everything has its opposite, and that therefore conjugial love must have its opposite, adulterers would reply that there is no opposite to this love, since there is no way scortatory love can be distinguished from it.
It is also obvious from this that anyone ignorant of the nature of conjugial love is also ignorant of the nature of scortatory love. Moreover, it is not possible to know the nature of conjugial love from a consideration of scortatory love, but it is possible to know scortatory love from a consideration of conjugial love. No one knows good from a consideration of evil, but evil from a consideration of good. For evil is in thick darkness, but good in light.
426. (iii) Scortatory love is the opposite of conjugial love, just as the natural man regarded in himself is the opposite of the spiritual man.
It is well known in the church that the natural man and the spiritual man are opposites, so that one does not want what the other does, but in fact they fight each other. But since this has not yet been made clear, I must discuss what is the distinction between the natural and the spiritual man, and what arouses the natural man against the spiritual. It is the natural man which each individual puts on when he grows up; this is effected by the acquisition of various types of knowledge, and by the development of reason in the intellect. But it is the spiritual man which he puts on by the love of performing services, a love also called charity. A person is therefore spiritual to the extent that he has this love; and to the extent that he does not have it, he is natural, however brilliant a mind and however wise a judgment he has.
This man, whom we call natural, when separated from the spiritual, lets himself go and exerts himself to indulge his lusts, however much he lifts himself into the light of reason. This becomes obvious merely by considering how devoid of charity his character is; and anyone devoid of this wallows in all the lewdnesses of scortatory love. So when he is told that this lustful love is the opposite of chaste conjugial love, and he is begged to consult the feeble light of his own reason, he does not do so except in conjunction with the pleasure of evil implanted in the natural man from birth. This leads him to conclude that his reason cannot see any objection to the sweet enticements of the bodily senses. Once he has convinced himself of this, his reason is incapable of appreciating all the delightful qualities which are the attributes of conjugial love. Rather, as I said above, he fights against them and wins, and like a conqueror follows up his slaughter by destroying the camp conjugial love has in him, lock, stock and barrel. It is his scortatory love that makes the natural man act in this way. This statement is made to ensure knowledge of the origin of the opposition between those two loves. For, as has been proved by much written above, conjugial love regarded in itself is a spiritual love, and scortatory love regarded in itself is a natural love.
427. (iv) Scortatory love is the opposite of conjugial love, just as the pairing of evil and falsity is the opposite of the marriage of good and truth.
It was shown above in the chapter on this subject ([V] 83-102) that the source of conjugial love is the marriage of good and truth. It follows from this that the source of scortatory love is the pairing of evil and falsity. Hence they are opposites, just as evil is the opposite of good, and the falsity of evil is the opposite of the truth of good. Each love has its own pleasures which are likewise opposites; for a love is nothing without its pleasures. It is not at all apparent that these are so opposed. This is because the pleasure of the love of evil counterfeits at the outward level the pleasure of the love of good. But inwardly the pleasure of the love of evil is composed of nothing but lusts after evil. Evil itself is the mass or heap of these rolled into a ball. But the pleasure of the love of good is composed of countless affections for good, and good itself is like a bundle of these united into a single entity. This bundle and that heap are not felt by human beings except as a single pleasure, and since the pleasure of evil outwardly counterfeits that of good, as already said, so too does the pleasure of adultery counterfeit that of marriage. But after death when everyone sets aside his outward character and his inward character is laid bare, then it is plainly to be felt that the evil of adultery is a heap of lusts after evil, and the good of marriage is a bundle of affections for good, so that they are the direct opposite of each other.
All in hell are subject to the pairing of evil and falsity, and all in heaven are subject to the marriage of good and truth; and since the pairing of evil and falsity is also adultery (as shown just above in 427, 428), it is also hell. Hence it is that all there are subject to the lust, wantonness and indecency of scortatory love; and they run from and shudder at the chastity and decency of conjugial love (see 425 above). These facts allow it to be seen that these two loves, scortatory and conjugial, are opposites, just as hell is the opposite of heaven and heaven of hell.
The whole of hell is awash with filth, and the source of all of it is indecent and obscene scortatory love; its pleasures are turned into such filth. Who could believe that every pleasure of love is made visible in the spiritual world in various sights, made perceptible in various smells, and clearly to be viewed in the form of various animals and birds? The kinds of thing which portray the wantonness of scortatory love in hell are dung and mud; the smells which make them perceptible there are stenches and foulness; and the forms of animals and birds which make them clear to view are pigs, snakes, and the birds called ochim and tziim.*
On the other hand the chaste pleasures of conjugial love are portrayed in heaven by gardens and flowery meadows; the smells which make them perceptible are the aroma of fruits and the fragrance of flowers; and the forms of animals which make them clear to view are lambs, kids, doves and birds of paradise. The reason why the pleasure of loves are turned into these and similar forms is that all the things that come into existence in the spiritual world are correspondences. The inward levels of the minds of the people there are turned into these forms as they pass through and become outward, so as to be grasped by the senses. But it should be known that there are countless varieties of uncleanness, into which the wantonness of fornication is turned as it passes into corresponding forms. These varieties are classified into genera and species, which will be seen in the following sections, where adultery and its degrees are discussed. But such uncleanness does not emerge from the pleasures of the love of those who have come to their senses, because they have been washed clean of them in the world.
* Birds mentioned in the Old Testament, e.g. Isa. 13:21; Jer. 50:39, Ps. 74:14; see TCR 45:2.
The reason is that the church is the Lord’s kingdom on earth, corresponding to His kingdom in the heavens, and the Lord also links them together to make one. He divides those who are there, as He divides heaven and hell, and He does so according to their loves. Those who are given to the improper and obscene pleasures of scortatory love attract to themselves similar people from hell; but those who are given to the proper and chaste pleasures of conjugial love are associated by the Lord with similar angels from heaven. These angels of theirs, when they [are present] with a person [and]* stand beside deliberate and confirmed adulterers, notice the foul smells (mentioned in 430 above) and withdraw a little.
On account of the correspondence of filthy loves with dung and mud, the Children of Israel were commanded to carry with them a trowel to cover up their excrement, so that Jehovah God walking in the midst of the camp should not see the nakedness of the thing, and turn back (Deut. 23:13, 14). This command was given because the camp of the Children of Israel represented the church, and the filth corresponded to the lewdness of fornication. ‘Jehovah God walking in the midst of their camp’ meant His presence there together with angels. They were to cover it because all the places in hell where groups of such people live are covered over and shut off. That too is why it say ‘so that He should not see the nakedness of the thing.’ I have been allowed to see that all parts of hell are shut off; moreover, when they were opened to allow the entry of a new demon, such a stench was given off that it turned my stomach. The extraordinary thing is that these smells are as pleasant to them as dung is to pigs. From this it is obvious how we must understand the statement that uncleanness in the church comes from scortatory love and cleanliness there from conjugial love.
* There appears to be a defect in the text here. The translation represents the reading: [adsunt et] adstant.
Conjugial love can make a person, as was demonstrated and proved by every detail brought to light for the reason to see in the first part of this book, on conjugial love and the delights of its wisdom. For instance: (a) a person who has truly conjugial love becomes more and more spiritual; and the more spiritual anyone is, the more human he is. (b) He becomes more and more wise; and the wiser anyone is, the more human he is. (c) He has the inner levels of his mind more and more opened, until he sees the Lord or acknowledges Him intuitively; and the more anyone has that vision or that acknowledgment, the more human he is. (d) He becomes more and more moral and a good citizen, because his spiritual soul is in his morality and civic consciousness, and the more anyone is morally a good citizen, the more human he is. (e) After death he also becomes an angel of heaven, and an angel is in essence and in shape a human being, and true humanity shines out from his face, and from his speech and behaviour. These facts establish that conjugial love makes a person more and more human.
[2] The opposite is the case with adulterers; this follows inevitably from the opposition between adultery and marriage, the subject already discussed and still being discussed in this chapter. For instance: (a) adulterers are not spiritual, but in the highest degree natural. A natural person, separated from the spiritual one, is only human as regards his intellect, but not as regards his will. He plunges this into the body and the lusts of the flesh, and at such times even the intellect accompanies the will. He is then no more than half human, as his intellectual powers of reason, if elevated, will enable him to see for himself. (b) Adulterers are not wise, except in what they say and in their gestures when in the company of people of high rank, distinguished learning and good morals. Left to themselves they are mad, treating Divine matters and the holy things of the church as of no importance, and defiling their ideals of life with immodest and unchaste behaviour, as will be proved in the chapter on adultery [XXI]. Anyone can see that people who put on such a show are human only in outward form, and not in their inward form. (c) Adulterers progressively become less and less human, as the witness of my own eyes has proved most clearly to me, having seen them in hell. There they are demons, and when seen in the light of heaven, their faces are like boils, their bodies hunchbacked, their conversation coarse, and their gestures theatrical.
[3] But it should be known that this description is of those who commit adultery of set purpose, not those who do so without forethought. For there are four types of adulterer, as will be seen in the chapter on adultery and its degrees. Deliberate adulterers are those who do so at the pleasure of the will. Confirmed adulterers are those who do so through a wrong intellectual belief. Adulterers on purpose are those who do so by being entrapped by the senses. Adulterers with no purpose are those who have not the ability or freedom to consult their intellect. It is the first two types of adulterers who become less and less human; the second two types become human, as they renounce their errors and then behave wisely.
It was shown above (222-225, 386-397) what is meant by the spheres of many kinds, and how those of love and wisdom emanate from the Lord, and passing through the heavens of angels come down into the world and reach the lowest levels in it. It was also shown above (425) that there is nothing in the universe, which does not have its opposite. It follows from this that the existence of a sphere of conjugial love implies the existence of an opposing sphere, what is called that of scortatory love. For these spheres are opposed, just as the love of adultery is opposed to the love of marriage. This opposition was discussed in the earlier sections of this chapter.
It was shown in the passages just cited (434) that the sphere of conjugial love comes down from heaven. The sphere of scortatory love, however, comes up from hell, because this is the source of that love (429). That sphere rises from the uncleanness there, into which the pleasures of the adulterers of either sex there are turned (on these see 430, 431 above).
Either world means the spiritual and natural worlds. In the spiritual world these spheres meet in the world of spirits, because this is midway between heaven and hell. But in the natural world they meet at the level of a person’s reason, since this too is midway between heaven and hell. For the marriage of good and truth exerts an influence on it from above, and the marriage of evil and falsity does the same from below. This influence comes through the world, the other through heaven, so that the human faculty of reason can turn in either direction and receive the influence. If it turns towards good, it receives the influence from above, which makes it more and more attuned to the reception of heaven. But if it turns towards evil, it receives the influence from below, which makes it more and more attuned to the reception of hell.
[2] The two spheres cannot join because they are opposites, and one opposite can only act on another as an enemy, one of whom blazing with murderous hatred furiously attacks the other, though the other feels no hatred, but is only zealous to protect himself. These facts make it plain that these two spheres merely meet, but without joining. The intervening gap they leave is on one side from evil, which is not that of falsity and from falsity which is not that of evil, and on the other side from good which is not that of truth and from truth which is not that of good. These pairs can come into contact, but cannot join.
The equilibrium between them is a spiritual one, since it is between good and evil. This equilibrium is the source of a person’s free will. In and through this equilibrium a person thinks and wills, so that he speaks and acts as if of himself. His rational faculty is free to decide and choose whether he wants to receive good or to receive evil. This means whether he wants rationally in freedom to dispose himself favourably to conjugial love or to scortatory love. In this case he turns the back of his head and his body to the Lord; in the other he turns his forehead and chest to the Lord. If he turns to the Lord, his reason and freedom are guided by Him; but if he turns his back on the Lord, his reason and freedom are guided by hell.
Man is so created as to perform his actions in freedom according to reason, and entirely as if of himself. Without these two conditions he would not be a human being, but an animal. For he would not receive any influence coming to himself from heaven, and be able to make it his very own, so that no trace of everlasting life could be imprinted on him. For this must be imprinted on him for him to be saved.* Since there is no freedom on one side unless a like degree exists on the other, just as no weighing is possible unless the scales can be held in equilibrium on either side, so [a person cannot be free to approach rationally to good]** unless he is also free to approach rationally to evil, thus to turn from right to left or from left to right, and likewise to the sphere of hell, that of adultery, as to the sphere of heaven, that of marriage.
* The original has ut sit suus ‘for him to be his own.’ But suus may be a misprint for salus and it is therefore translated ‘for him to be saved.’ Cf. HH 594.
** It would seem that some words have fallen out at this point. The version given follows the restoration suggested by B. Rogers, which must be close to what was intended.
That is to say, the sphere of scortatory love which comes up from hell and the sphere of conjugial love which comes down from heaven each cause the person who receives them to feel joys. The reason is that the lowest level, where the pleasures of either love come to an end, and where they are completed and fulfilled, presenting them to the organs of sense, is the same. This is why scortatory and conjugial embraces seem alike in their outermost results, though they are entirely different inwardly. There is thence a difference at the outermost, but this cannot be judged by any feeling of distinction. For only those who enjoy truly conjugial love can tell differences from distinctions at the outermost level. For evil is recognised from a knowledge of good, not good from a knowledge of evil, just as neither can a pleasant smell be detected by a nose which has a foul smell in it. I have heard from angels that they can tell one who is wanton at the outermost level from one who is not, just as one can tell apart a fire of burning dung or horn by its disagreeable smell from one of burning incense or cinnamon wood by its sweet smell. This, they said, is the result of distinguishing inward pleasures which enter into and excite outward pleasures.
The reason why the joys of scortatory love start from the flesh is that the stimulation of the flesh is their beginning. The reason why they infect the spirit, and are fleshly even in the spirit, is that it is not the flesh, but the spirit which feels what happens in the flesh. It is much the same with this feeling as with the other senses; for instance, it is not the eye, but the spirit, which sees and distinguishes differences in the objects before it; and it is not the ear, but the spirit, which hears and distinguishes the sequences of harmonies in singing and the matches in the articulate sounds of speech. How the spirit feels everything depends upon how far it is raised. A spirit which is not raised above the level of the bodily senses but is enmeshed in them, is unable to feel pleasures other than those which come in from the flesh and from the world through the bodily senses; it seizes on these and is delighted by them, and it makes them its own.
[2] Now since the beginnings of scortatory love are the stimuli and itching of the flesh, it is plain that these become in the spirit filthy enticements, which excite and inflame lust as they rise up and sink down, so acting on each other. In general, the lusts of the flesh regarded in themselves are nothing but lusts for evil and falsity all rolled into one. Hence there has arisen the truth known in the church, that the flesh lusts against the spirit,* that is, against the spiritual man. It therefore follows that the pleasures of the flesh in respect of the pleasures of scortatory love are nothing but the bubbling up of lusts, which in the spirit become fountains of immodesty.
* Gal. 5:17.
The joys of scortatory love are the pleasures of folly, because it is only natural people who enjoy that love, and the natural man is foolish in spiritual matters, opposing them and therefore embracing only natural, sensual and bodily joys. We speak of natural, sensual and bodily joys, because the natural divides into three degrees. Those who are natural in the highest degree take a rational view of their follies, but are still carried away by their pleasures, like boats by the current of a river. Those who are natural in a lower degree see and judge only by the bodily senses, and dismiss rational arguments against appearances and fallacies, rejecting them as having no weight. Those who are natural in the lowest degree are those who, being devoid of judgment, are carried away by the enticing heats of their bodies. This last group are called the bodily natural, the second group the sensual natural, and the first group simply the natural. The scortatory love of these peoples, its follies and its pleasures, are distinguished by similar degrees.
* * * * *
After completing my reflections on conjugial love and beginning to think about scortatory love, two angels suddenly came to me and said, ‘We perceived and understood your previous reflections, but the things you are now thinking about pass us by, and we do not perceive them. Abandon them, because they are of no value.’
‘The love which is the subject of my present reflection,’ I replied, ‘is not nothing, since it certainly exists.’
‘How,’ they said, ‘can any love exist which is not from creation? Surely conjugial love is from creation, and this is a love between two people who are able to become one. How can there be a love which divides and separates people? Can any young man love a girl unless she loves him in return? Does not the love of the one know and recognise that of the other, and so when these loves meet they join of their own accord? Can anyone love something which is not love? Is not conjugial love the only one which is mutual and reciprocal? If it is not reciprocated, does it not rebound and become nothing?’
[2] On hearing this I asked the two angels what community of heaven they came from. ‘We are,’ they said, ‘from the heaven of innocence. We came as children into this heavenly world and were brought up under the Lord’s guidance. When I grew up and my wife, who is with me here, became old enough to get married, we were engaged and betrothed, and joined for the first time** in marriage. Since we know of no other love than the true love of marriage, conjugial love, when the ideas you thought about came across to us about a different kind of love, the exact opposite of ours, we could understand nothing. So we have come down to ask why you are reflecting on things we cannot perceive. Tell us then how a love can exist which is not only not from creation, but is opposed to creation. We regard what is opposed to creation as subjects of no validity.’
[3] When he said this, I was heartily glad to talk with angels so innocent that they were totally ignorant of sexual impropriety. So I opened my mouth to tell them. ‘Are you not aware,’ I said, ‘that good and evil exist, and good is from creation, but evil is not? Yet evil regarded in essence is not nothing, even though it is nothing from the point of view of good. Good exists from creation, and it varies in degree from the highest to the lowest. When its lowest degree reaches zero, evil arises on the other side. So there is no relationship or progress of good to evil, but it relates and progresses to what is more or less good. Evil relates and progresses to what is more or is less evil, because these are opposites in every single detail. Since evil and good are opposites, there must be a mean point distinguished by equilibrium, where evil acts against good; but because it is not stronger, it cannot advance beyond making the effort.
‘Everyone is brought up in this state of equilibrium; and since this is between good and evil, or what is the same thing, between heaven and hell, it is a spiritual equilibrium, and this confers freedom on those who enjoy it. As the result of this equilibrium the Lord draws all to Himself; and if a person freely follows Him, He leads him out of evil into good, and so to heaven. It is much the same with love, especially conjugial love and scortatory love. The latter is an evil, the former a good. Everyone who hears the Lord’s voice and freely follows is brought by the Lord into conjugial love and into all its joys and happiness. But someone who does not hear and follow brings himself into scortatory love and first into its joys, and then into its unpleasantnesses, and finally into unhappiness.’
[4] When I said this, the two angels asked, ‘How could evil come into being, when nothing but good had come into being from creation? For anything to come into being it must have a source; good could not be the source of evil, because evil is a negation of good, since it takes away and destroys good. Still, because evil exists and is felt, it is not nothing, but it is something. Tell us then from what source this comes from nothing into being something.’
I replied to them, ‘This secret cannot be revealed without knowing that none is good save God alone, and that there is nothing good that is inherently good unless it comes from God. Anyone therefore who looks to the Lord and wants to be guided by Him is in a state of good. But anyone who turns away from God and wants to be guided by himself is not in a state of good; for the good he does is done either for his own sake or for worldly reasons, so that it is either intended to acquire merit, or pretended, or hypocritical. This makes it plain that man himself is the source of evil, not because man had that fate assigned to him from creation, but because he assigned it to himself by turning away from God. That source of evil was not in Adam and his wife; but when the serpent said:
On the day when you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will be like God. Gen. 3:5.
and then they turned away from God, and turned towards themselves as if they were gods, they produced the source of evil in themselves. “Eating of that tree” means believing that one knows good and evil and is wise of oneself, and not from God.’
[5] But then the two angels asked, ‘How could man turn away from God and towards himself, when it is still true that man can will nothing, think nothing and so do nothing except from God? Why did God allow this?’
‘Man was created,’ I replied, ‘so that everything he wills, thinks and does appears to be inside him and so to come from him. Without this appearance he would not be a man, for he could not receive, retain or make as it were his own any trace of good and truth, or of love and wisdom. It follows from this that unless this were exactly the appearance, man could not be linked with God, and so he could not have everlasting life. However, if this appearance induces him to believe that he himself, and not the Lord, is the source of what he wills, thinks and does, however much it looks as if he were the source, he turns good in himself into evil and so produces a source of evil in himself. This was Adam’s sin.
[6] ‘But I can cast a little more light on this subject. The Lord looks on every person in the forehead, and His gaze passes through to the back of the head. Behind the forehead is the cerebrum, and beneath the rear of the head is the cerebellum. This is devoted to love and the various kinds of good it produces; the cerebrum is devoted to wisdom and the truths which compose it. Anyone therefore who looks face first towards the Lord receives wisdom from Him, and by this means he receives love. But anyone who turns his back and looks away from the Lord receives love but not wisdom, and love without wisdom is the love that comes from man and not from the Lord. Since this love links itself with false beliefs, it does not acknowledge God, but puts itself in God’s place, finding silent confirmation of this through the ability to understand and to be wise with which he is endowed from creation, as if it came from himself. This love is therefore the source of evil. I can give you a visual demonstration that this is so, by calling here a wicked spirit who has turned away from God; I shall speak to his back, that is, to the back of his head, and you will see that what he is told turns into its opposite.’
[7] So I called such a spirit, and when he came, spoke to him from behind. ‘Do you know,’ I said, anything about hell, damnation and the torments of hell?’ At once he turned towards me, and I asked him, ‘What did you hear me say?’
‘This,’ he answered, ‘is what I heard: “Do you know anything about heaven, salvation and the happiness of heaven?”‘ Then when he was asked this question behind his back, he said that what he heard was the first question.
Afterwards the following question was put from behind his back. ‘Are you not aware that those in hell are made mad by false ideas?’ When I asked him what he had heard, he said, ‘Are you not aware that those in heaven are made wise by truths?’ When this question was repeated to him behind his back, he said that what he heard was, ‘Are you not aware that those in hell are made mad by false ideas?’ and so on. These facts made it obvious that when a mind turns away from the Lord, it turns towards itself and so perceives the reverse of everything. This is the reason why, as you know, in the spiritual world no one is allowed to stand behind another’s back and talk to him. For by doing so love is breathed into him, and because it is pleasant the intelligence approves and obeys it. But since it comes from man and not from God, it is a love of evil or of falsity.
[8] ‘I shall in addition report to you another similar experience. I have on a number of occasions heard kinds of good and truth fall from heaven into hell, and as they fell they progressively changed to their opposites; good became evil and truth falsity. This is due to the same cause, the fact that all in hell turn away from the Lord.’
On hearing this the two angels thanked me and said, ‘As you are now thinking and writing about a love which is the opposite of our conjugial love, we shall depart. Anything opposed to that love depresses our minds.’
When they said, ‘Peace be with you,’ I begged them not to tell their brothers and sisters in heaven anything about this love, since it would damage their innocence.
I can place it on record as a fact that those who die as children grow up in heaven. When they reach the stature of young men of eighteen years, and girls of fifteen, they stop at that point, and the Lord then provides marriages for them. These, both before and after marriage, are quite unaware what sexual impropriety is or that it can exist.
* This number was used twice in the original, here and at the beginning of the next chapter.
** Literally ‘with the first omens.’ The phrase may be taken from Vergil (Aeneid 1.345).
444bis XIX
FORNICATION
Fornication means the sexual pleasure of a young man with a woman of loose morals before marriage. Sexual pleasure, however, with a woman who is not of loose morals, that is, with a girl or another man’s wife is not fornication, but is debauchery in the case of a girl, or adultery in the case of another’s wife. There is no rational means of seeing how these two differ from fornication without observing the degrees and diverse forms of sexual love, how it is chaste in one direction and unchaste in the other, and distinguishing either side into genera and species to keep them apart. Without this a person could not form a notion of the difference between more and less chaste, and more or less unchaste. Without these distinctions the total relationship is lost, and together with it the ability to decide clearly on matters of judgment. Indeed the intellect is so overshadowed as to be unable to distinguish fornication from adultery, much less the milder types of fornication from the more serious types, and likewise with adultery. The result is a mixing of evils and the combination of different evils to make a single broth, and the combination of different kinds of good to make a single pastry. In order then to make known the distinctions by which sexual love on the one hand verges and progresses towards scortatory love, the direct opposite of conjugial love, it is convenient to begin with a discussion of its beginning, fornication.
This will be done in the following order.
(i) Fornication is a product of sexual love.
(ii) Sexual love starts when a youth begins to use his own intellect to think and act, and his speaking voice begins to show male characteristics.
(iii) Fornication belongs to the natural man.
(iv) Fornication is a lust, but not a lust for adultery.
(v) In certain cases sexual love cannot without damage be completely prevented from being expressed in fornication.
(vi) Consequently in large cities brothels are tolerated.
(vii) The lust for fornicating is not serious, so far as it has conjugial love in view and prefers this.
(viii) The lust for fornicating is serious, so far as it has adultery in view.
(ix) The lust for fornicating becomes more serious, in so far as it tends towards a desire for variety or for deflowering virgins.
(x) The sphere of the lust for fornicating is, at its first stage, midway between the sphere of scortatory love and that of conjugial love, and it creates an equilibrium.
(xi) Care must be taken to prevent conjugial love being destroyed by uncontrolled and immoderate indulgence in fornication,
(xii) Seeing that the principle of marriage of one husband and one wife is the jewel of human life and a treasure-house of Christian religion.
(xiii) This principle of marriage can be preserved in the case of those who for various reasons are unable as yet to enter upon marriage, and by reason of incontinence cannot restrain their lusts, provided a roving sexual love is restricted to a single mistress.
(xiv) Having a mistress is preferable to roving lust, so long as it does not involve several mistresses, or a girl or a virgin, or a married woman; and provided it is kept separate from conjugial love.
The discussion of these points now follows.
We say that fornication is a product of sexual love because it is not sexual love, but arises from it. Sexual love is like a spring from which both conjugial love and scortatory love can be drawn; and they can be drawn by fornication, or without it. For everyone has sexual love in him, and it either emerges or it does not. If it emerges before marriage in relations with a woman of loose morals, it is called fornication; but if it does not emerge until he has a wife, it is called marriage. If it occurs with another woman after marriage, it is called adultery. Therefore, as stated, sexual love is like a spring from which a rivulet of chaste as well as unchaste love can flow. But it will be revealed in the following pages how much caution and how much prudence is needed for chaste love to develop through fornication, and how much imprudence for unchaste or scortatory love to develop through it. Can anyone draw this conclusion, that a person who has fornicated cannot be more chaste when he is married?
This point is made in order to make it known that the stage at which sexual love and thus fornication start is when the intellect begins to become rational of itself, to investigate, that is, and seek out what things are beneficial and useful. The basis for this is then provided by the memory of the teachings of parents and instructors. At that time the mind undergoes a change. Previously thinking had been restricted to matters committed to memory, mulling them over and obeying them. Afterwards thinking is controlled by reasoning about these matters; and then, under the guidance of love, the matters retained in the memory are re-arranged, and he begins to live his own life in accordance with their new order. By stages his thought becomes more and more controlled by his own reason, and he is free to exercise his will.
It is well known that sexual love follows the emergence of a person’s own intellect, and develops in keeping with its vigour. This is an indication that this love increases as the intellect develops and decreases as it declines. By increasing we mean acquiring wisdom, by declining lapsing into folly. It is wisdom to restrain sexual love, folly to give it wide scope. If it leads to fornication, which is the start of its activity, it needs to be controlled by the principles of decency and morality which have been implanted in the memory and so the reason, and must later be implanted in the reason and so in the memory. The reason why when a person’s intellect begins to develop, the voice begins to become a man’s is that the intellect thinks and expresses its thoughts in speech. This is an indication that it is the intellect which makes a man, and also his masculinity. As a result, he becomes an adult and also a male, as his intellect is raised (see above 433, 434).
This is the same as with sexual love; if it becomes active before marriage, it is called fornication. Everyone is by birth bodily, and becomes sensual and then natural; then by stages he becomes rational and, so long as he does not stop at this point, spiritual. The reason for such a development is to form levels to support the higher stages, like foundations for a palace. The lowest level which supports the superstructure can be compared with the ground, in which, when it has been prepared, fine seeds are planted.
[2] As regards sexual love in particular, it too is at first bodily, for its starts from the flesh. It then becomes sensual, for the five senses are delighted by sharing in it. Later it becomes natural and similar to the form it takes in animals, which is a roving sexual love. But since man is by birth destined to become spiritual, this love becomes rational-natural and from this spiritual, and finally spiritual-natural. Then once the love has become spiritual it influences and acts on rational love, and through this on sensual love, and through this finally on this love in the body and the flesh. Since the flesh is its lowest level, it acts upon it spiritually, and at the same time rationally and sensually. When a person is thinking about it, it influences and acts on him successively; but at the lowest level, its effects are all felt at once.
[3] Fornication belongs to the natural man, because it is the immediate development from natural sexual love. It may be a rational natural love, but not a spiritual one, because sexual love cannot become spiritual until it becomes conjugial. Sexual love changes from natural to spiritual when a person abandons roving lust and commits himself to one partner, with whose soul he unites his own.
The reasons why fornication is lust are: (a) it arises from the natural man, and everything which arises from that is desire and lust. For the natural man is nothing but a container and home for desires and lusts, since all kinds of guilt inherited from parents live there. (b) A fornicator casts a roving and promiscuous eye on the other sex, not yet limiting himself to one of that sex. So long as he is in that state, lust drives him to do what he does. But when he looks to only one woman, and loves to join his life with hers, desire turns into a chaste affection and lust into a civilised love.
[2] It is quite different with the lustful and obscene love of adultery, which was shown in the last chapter on the opposition of scortatory and conjugial love to be opposed to conjugial love and to destroy it. If therefore a deliberate and confirmed adulterer for various reasons enters a marriage bed, the reverse happens; the natural with its wantonness and obscenity lies hidden within, and an appearance of spirituality covers it up outwardly. These considerations will enable the reason to see that the lust for restricted fornication is, as compared with the lust for adultery, like the first warmth as compared with midwinter cold in arctic regions.
It is useless to list the damage that can be caused and effected by too strict a repression of sexual love in the case of those who are troubled with a superabundance of sexual drive. In their case this may be the cause of certain bodily ailments and mental problems, not to speak of the unrecognised evils which may not even be named. It is quite different in the case of those whose sexual love is so weak that they can resist the strains of its lust; and equally so with those who are free while still youthful to enter into legitimate cohabitation without the waste of worldly wealth, so at the first outset. Since this is what happens in heaven when children have reached marriageable age, no one there knows what fornication is. But things are different on earth, where marriages cannot take place except once the period of youth is over, as often happens in kingdoms where there is a long period of obligatory duties, and the means of keeping a house and family have to be earned; only then is it possible to court a worthy bride.
This point is made to confirm what was said in the last section. It is well known that brothels are tolerated by kings, magistrates, and so by judges, inquisitors and people generally in London, Amsterdam, Paris, Vienna, Venice, Naples and also Rome, and in many other places too. Some of the reasons for this are those listed above.
There are degrees which distinguish the qualities of evil, just as there are for the qualities of good. Any evil therefore may be more or less serious, just as any good may be better and richer. It is the same with fornication, which, being a lust and belonging to the natural man who is not yet purified, is an evil. But since everyone can be purified, the nearer he approaches to being purified, the less serious that evil becomes, for to that extent it is wiped away; the same happens the closer fornication approaches to conjugial love, which is a state where sexual love has been made pure. It will be seen in the next section that the evil of fornication is the more serious, the closer it approaches to the love of adultery.
[2] The reason why fornication is the less serious the more it has conjugial love in view is that the person then looks from the unchaste state in which he is towards a chaste state; and the more he prefers this, the more he is as regards his intellect in that state; and if he not only prefers it but yearns for it, the more he is as regards his will in that state, thus as regards his inner man. If he then persists in fornication, it is because he needs to do so, for reasons of which he is well aware.
[3] There are two reasons which ensure that fornication is not serious in the case of those who prefer and yearn for the married state. The first is that married life is their plan, intention and aim. The second is that they are separating the evil in themselves from the good. As regards the first, that married life is their plan, intention or aim, this is because a person’s nature is dependent upon the nature of his plan, intention or aim. This is the nature he displays to the Lord and to angels, in fact he is so regarded also by wise people in the world. For intention is the soul of all actions, and determines blame or excuse in the world, and after death what is imputed to a person.
[4] As regards the second reason, that those who prefer conjugial love to the lust of fornication separate evil from good, and so unchastity from chastity, [this is because they keep these two apart in perception and intention]*; and those who keep these two apart in perception and intention are also separated and purified from that lust, before achieving a good and chaste state, when they enter the married state. It will be seen in the next section that this does not happen to those who in fornicating have adultery in view.
* There appears to be an omission in the original here.
All who lust for fornication have adultery in view, if they do not believe adultery to be a sin and take the same view of marriage as of adultery, with the sole difference that one is lawful and the other unlawful. These people also make one evil out of them all, mixing them together, like dirt with palatable food on one plate or like rubbish mixed with wine in one cup, and so eat and drink. They behave in the same fashion with sexual love, fornication, having a mistress, the milder, serious and very serious kinds of adultery, even with debauchery and deflowering. In addition, they not only mix all these sins together, but they confuse them with marriage, desecrating this with similar ideas. But those who do not distinguish even marriage from those sins are, after roving contacts with the other sex, the prey of coldness, dislike and nausea, at first felt for the wife, then for their other women and finally for the whole female sex. It is self-evident that in their case there is no plan, intention or aim at good or chaste behaviour to excuse them; nor is there any separation of evil from good, or unchastity from chastity, to make them pure, as in the case of those who from their fornication look towards conjugial love, preferring this (as described in the previous section, 452).
I can report a new fact from heaven as a confirmation of this. I have met many people who lived in the world outwardly like others, wearing fine clothes, dining sumptuously, making profits from business like others, going to the theatre, making rather indecent jokes about sex, and much else of the same sort; yet the angels blamed some of them for sinning and others they did not, calling one group innocent, the other guilty. When they were asked why this was when both groups had behaved alike, they answered that they view everyone from the point of view of their plan, intention and aim, making this the means of discriminating. So they excused or condemned those whom their aim excused or condemned, since all in heaven have good as their aim, and all in hell have evil as theirs. It is precisely this which is meant by the Lord’s words:
Do not judge so as not to be condemned. Matt. 7:1.
The reason is that these two are additional aggravations of adultery. For there are mild, serious and very serious kinds of adultery, each of which carries weight depending on the extent to which it opposes and so destroys conjugial love. It will be seen in the following chapters on these subjects that the desire for variety and for deflowering virgins, if reinforced by actual experiences, lay waste conjugial love and drown it as if in the depths of the sea.
The two spheres, of scortatory and conjugial love, were described in the last chapter. It was shown there that the sphere of scortatory love comes up from hell, and the sphere of conjugial love comes down from heaven (435). Those two spheres meet in both worlds, but do not join (436). The two spheres are in equilibrium, and a person is kept in this (437). A person can turn to which sphere he pleases, but in turning towards one he turns away from the other (438). For what is meant by spheres see 435 and the passages quoted there.
[2] The sphere of the lust for fornicating is midway between those two spheres and produces an equilibrium, because anyone in that position can turn towards the sphere of conjugial love, that is, towards that love, and he can turn towards the sphere of the love of adultery, that is, towards that love. If he chooses conjugial love, he turns towards heaven, if the love of adultery, towards hell. Which way he takes is a matter of choice, pleasure and will for a person; and this is in order to give him freedom to act according to reason, and not by instinct. This means so that he can be human and make the influence he feels his own, and not a animal which makes no part of it its own. We say the lust for fornicating as it is at the outset, because it is then in the midway state. Is there anyone who does not know that whatever a person does at the outset is the result of desire, as it comes from the natural man? Or that desire is not reckoned a sin, when he becomes spiritual instead of natural? It is much the same with the lust for fornicating, when a person’s love becomes conjugial.
By uncontrolled and immoderate indulgence in fornication which is destructive of conjugial love is meant fornication which not only saps the strength, but also does away with all the richness of conjugial love. For unrestrained indulgence in them causes not only weakness and poverty, but also uncleanness and impropriety. These prevent conjugial love being perceived and felt in all its cleanness and chastity, and so in all its sweetness and delightful flowering. Not to mention the damage to body and mind, or the impermissible enticements which not only rob conjugial love of its blessed joys, but even do away with it, turning it to coldness and thus to distaste. Such instances of fornication are orgies, which transform the games of marriage into scenes from tragedy. For uncontrolled and immoderate fornication is like a fire, which starting from the lowest level burns up the body, roasts its fibres, corrupts the blood and infects the rational faculty of the mind. It bursts forth like a fire in the basement which destroys the whole house. It is up to parents to see that this does not happen, because an adolescent boy smitten by lust is not yet rational enough to impose restraint on himself.
These two points have been proved as general principles and in detail in the whole of the first part on conjugial love and the delights of its wisdom. It is the jewel of human life, because a person’s life is such as is the conjugial love he has, for this makes up the inmost level of his life. This is the life of wisdom living together with its love, or of love living together with its wisdom, so that it is the life of the delights of both. In short, it is that love which makes a person a living soul; and hence the principle of one man marrying one wife is called the jewel of human life.
[2] This is proved by the following points which were made above. With one wife truly conjugial friendship, trust and potency is possible, because it is a union of minds (333, 334). It is the place and origin of the celestial blessedness, the spiritual happiness and so the natural pleasures which have been provided from the beginning for those who enjoy truly conjugial love (335). It is the foundation of all celestial, spiritual and so natural loves, and on it are conferred all joys and delights from first to last (65-69). As regards its source, it is the sport of wisdom and love, as was fully proved in the Delights of Wisdom concerning Conjugial Love, which is the title of the first part of this book.
* A necessary correction for 58, 59 in the original.
Reason can see and experience teaches that unrestrained and uncontrolled lust cannot be checked by the sexually incontinent. To check, therefore, the lack of control and restraint among those who suffer from excessive sexual heat, and for many reasons are unable to hurry into or advance the date of their marriage, in order to introduce some control and restraint there seems to be no other relief and refuge but to take a mistress (what in French is called une maitresse).*
It is well known that in some kingdoms there are ordinances preventing many men from getting married before their youth is over, because they have first to perform a tour of duty and to acquire the resources needed to support a household and a family, so that only then can they court a suitable wife. Yet at an earlier age the effervescence of virility in search of a wife can in few cases be kept shut off and in reserve. It is best if it can be reserved, but if this is impossible on account of the unchecked strength of lust, a temporary half-way stage may be sought, which can prevent the destruction of conjugial love. The reasons which favour the taking of a mistress are:
(a) It checks and limits uncontrolled promiscuity, leading to a more restricted condition, more akin to life in marriage.
[2] (b) The ardour of lust which to begin with is excessively heated and as it were burning hot is allayed and moderated, so that the wantonness of sexual desire, a foul thing, is tempered by something analogous to marriage.
[3] (c) By its means strength is not dissipated and weakness induced, as happens as the result of roving and unlimited indulgence.
[4] (d) By its means bodily infection and mental disease are avoided.
[5] (e) Likewise it is a preventative of adultery, that is, illicit relations with wives, and debauchery or violation of virgins, not to mention criminal acts not to be named. For a boy, until he is grown up, has no idea that adultery and debauchery are any different from fornication, but regards one as on a par with the other. Nor does he know how by his reason he can resist the blandishments of some women, who have become dedicated practitioners of prostitution. But he is able by taking a mistress, a more orderly and healthy type of fornication, to learn and see the difference.
[6] (f) Having a mistress also blocks the way to four kinds of lust, which are in the highest degree destructive of conjugial love. These are the lusts for deflowering, for variety, for rape and for the seduction of the innocent; these will be discussed later. These remarks, however, are not directed towards those who are able to repress the drive of lust, nor to those who can enter upon marriage as soon as they grow up, and so offer and present to their wives the first-fruits of their virility.
* Since the Latin word pellex can have other meanings, the French equivalent is given in the original to make it clear what is meant here.
It was pointed out just above at what time and in which cases having a mistress is preferable to a roving lust.
(a) Only one mistress is to be taken, because there is something polygamous about having several, and this brings a person into a purely natural state and plunges him so deeply in the sensual state that he cannot be raised up to the spiritual state, which is necessary for conjugial love (see 338, 339).
[2] (b) A girl or a virgin is not to be taken as a mistress, because in the case of women conjugial love makes one with their virginity. This then is the source of the chastity, purity and holiness of that love. For a woman therefore to offer and promise her virginity to a man is to give a pledge that she will love him for ever. Consequently no girl can reasonably consent to surrendering her virginity except in return for the promise of a marriage compact. It is also the crown of her honour; so to snatch it from her without a marriage compact and then to throw her off is to turn a girl, who could become a bride and a chaste wife, into a prostitute, or to cheat some man, either of which are heinous crimes. Therefore a man who takes a girl as a mistress can certainly live with her and so introduce her to a loving friendship, but only so long as it is his constant intention that, provided she does not become promiscuous, she should be or become his wife.
[3] (c) It is obvious that a married woman is not to be taken as a mistress, because this is adultery.
[4] (d) The reason why the love of having a mistress must be kept separate from conjugial love is that these are two distinct loves which should therefore not be mixed up. For the love of having a mistress is an unchaste, natural and outward love, and the love for marriage is chaste, spiritual and inward. Love for a mistress keeps the couple’s souls apart and links them only at the sensual level of the body; but the love for marriage unites their souls, and as a result the sensual level of the body, until they become as it were one in place of two, that is, one flesh.
[5] (e) The love of having a mistress merely enters the intellect and what depends on it; but the love of marriage also enters the will and what depends on that, so every detail of the person. If therefore love of having a mistress becomes love for marriage, the man cannot rightfully depart from it without violating the marital union. If he does and marries another woman, the break destroys conjugial love. It should be known that the love of having a mistress is kept separate from conjugial love by not promising marriage to a mistress or leading her to have any hope of marriage. It is, however, preferable for the torch of sexual love to be first lit with a wife.
* * * * *
I once talked with a newly arrived spirit, who while in the world had spent much time thinking about heaven and hell. (By newly arrived spirits are meant people who have recently died, who are called spirits because they are then spiritual people.) As soon as he entered the spiritual world, he began in the same way to think about heaven and hell; and he felt happy when he thought about heaven, and sad when he thought about hell. On realising that he was in the spiritual world, he immediately asked where heaven and hell were, and what each of them were, and what they were like.
‘Heaven,’ they replied, ‘is now above your head, and hell is beneath your feet, for you are now in the world of spirits, which is midway between heaven and hell. But we cannot describe in a few words what heaven is and what it is like, nor what hell is and what it is like.’
Then, being intensely eager to know, he fell on his knees and prayed earnestly to God for instruction. An angel appeared at once on his right, who made him get up and said, ‘You have begged to be instructed about heaven and hell. Ask and learn what pleasure is, and you will know.’ And with these words the angel disappeared.
[2] Then the new spirit said to himself, ‘What is the meaning of this “Ask and learn what pleasure is, and you will know what heaven and hell are and what they are like” ?’ So he left the place where he was and wandered about, addressing those he met and saying ‘Please be so good as to tell me what pleasure is.’ ‘What sort of a question is this?’ said some. ‘Everyone knows what pleasure is. Isn’t it joy and happiness? Pleasure then is pleasure, and one pleasure is like another; we don’t know how they can be distinguished.’
Others said that pleasure is mental amusement. ‘When the mind is amused, the face is cheerful, speech is full of jokes, gestures are light-hearted, and the whole person is pleased.’ But some said, ‘Pleasure is simply feasting and eating delicacies, drinking and getting drunk on fine wine, and then chatting about various subjects, especially the sports of Venus and Cupid.’
[3] On hearing this the new spirit was cross and said to himself, ‘These are the replies of peasants, not educated people. These pleasures are neither heaven nor hell. I wish I could meet some wise men.’ So he left these people and started asking, ‘Where are the wise?’
Then he was seen by an angelic spirit who said, ‘I perceive that you are fired with the longing to know what is the universal characteristic of heaven, and of hell. This is pleasure, so I will take you to a hill, where every day there is an assembly of those who seek out effects, of those who enquire into causes, and of those who examine ends. There are three groups. Those who seek out effects are called scientific spirits, or Sciences personified. Those who enquire into causes are called intelligent spirits, or Intelligences personified. Those who examine ends are called wise spirits, or wisdoms personified. Directly above them in heaven are the angels who see causes from the point of view of ends, and effects from the point of view of causes; these angels are the source of enlightenment for these three groups.’
[4] Then he took the new spirit by the hand and brought him onto a hill, where those who examine ends and are called Wisdoms were meeting. ‘Forgive me,’ he said to them, ‘for coming up here to meet you. The reason is that from the time I was a boy I have been thinking about heaven and hell. I have recently arrived in this world, and some of the people I met told me that here heaven is overhead and hell is underfoot; but they did not tell me what each were or what they were like. So thinking constantly about them made me worried, and I prayed to God. Then an angel approached me and said, “Ask and learn what pleasure is, and you will know.” I have been asking, but so far to no purpose. So please, if you would be so kind, teach me what pleasure is.’
[5] ‘Pleasure,’ replied the Wisdoms, ‘is the whole of life for all in heaven, and the whole of life for all in hell. Those who are in heaven experience the pleasure of good and truth, those in hell the pleasure of evil and falsity. For all pleasure has to do with love, and love is the very being of a person’s life. So just as a person’s humanity depends upon the nature of his love, so it does on the nature of his pleasure. The activity of the love creates the feeling of pleasure. In heaven its activity is accompanied by wisdom, in hell by folly. But each activity induces pleasure in the subjects it operates on. The heavens and the hells experience opposite pleasures, because they have opposite loves; the heavens experience the love for good and thus the pleasure of doing good, the hells the love for evil and thus the pleasure of doing harm. If therefore you know what pleasure is, you will know what heaven and hell are and what they are like. But ask and learn further about pleasure from those who enquire into causes and are called Intelligences. They are on the right as you leave here.’
[6] So he went away, approached the next group and explained why he had come, asking them to instruct him about pleasure. They were delighted to be asked and said, ‘It is true that, if anyone knows about pleasure, he knows what heaven and hell are and what they are like. The will, which is what make a person human, does not move an inch, except as the result of pleasure. For the will regarded in itself is nothing but the appetition and result of some love, and so of some pleasure. There is something pleasing, agreeable and wanted which inspires the act of willing; and because it is the will that makes the understanding think, not the slightest thinking is possible without pleasure flowing in from the will. The reason for this is that the Lord by the radiation from Himself activates everything in the soul and mind of angels, spirits and men. This activity takes place through the influence of love and wisdom, and this inflow is the actual activity which is the source of all pleasure. This in its originating phase is called blessedness, bliss and happiness, and in its derived phase pleasure, loveliness and delight, to use a universal term, good. But the spirits of hell turn everything they have upside down, so changing good into evil and truth into falsity, though the pleasure remains constant. For without constant pleasure they would have no will, no feeling, and so no life. From this it is plain what the pleasure of hell is, what it is like and what it comes from; and likewise the pleasure of heaven.’
[7] Having heard this he was taken to the third group who were those who seek out effects and are called Sciences. These said, ‘Go down to the lower earth, and go up to the upper earth; on the latter you will perceive and feel the pleasures of the angels of heaven, and on the former those of the spirits of hell.’
But then suddenly some way off the ground gaped open and three devils came up through the opening; they had a fiery appearance, resulting from the pleasure of their love. The angels who were accompanying the new spirit realised that the three devils had been deliberately brought up from hell and called out to them, ‘Don’t come any closer, but from where you are tell us something about your pleasures.’
‘You may know,’ they replied, ‘that everyone, whether good or bad, experiences his own pleasure, the good man the pleasure of his own good, the bad the pleasure of his own evil.’
‘What,’ they were asked, ‘is your pleasure?’ They said that it was the pleasure of being promiscuous, stealing, cheating and swearing. They were asked again, ‘What are those pleasures like?’ They said that other people felt them as the rank smell of dung, and the stench of corpses, and the rottenness of pools of urine. ‘Do you find those things pleasant?’ they were asked. ‘Extremely so,’ they replied. ‘Then,’ they were told, ‘you are like unclean animals that live in such conditions.’ ‘If we are, we are,’ they replied; ‘but these are the kind of things which delight our nostrils.’
[8] ‘What more can you tell us?’ they were asked. They said that everyone is allowed to experience his own pleasure, even the filthiest, as others call it, so long as he does not annoy good spirits and angels. ‘But because our pleasure will not let us stop annoying them, we have been thrown into labour-camps, where we are harshly treated. It is the prevention and withdrawal of our pleasures which are called the torments of hell; there is too a kind of inward pain.’
‘Why did you annoy good people?’ they were asked. They said they could not help themselves. There is a kind of frenzy, which takes hold of them, when they see an angel and feel the Divine sphere surrounding him. ‘Then you are really like wild beasts,’ they were told.
A little later, when they saw the new spirit in the company of angels, a frenzy came over the devils, which seemed like the fire of hatred. So to prevent them doing any harm, they were hurled back into hell. After this there appeared the angels who see causes from the point of view of ends and effects from the point of view of causes; these occupy the heaven above those three groups. They were seen surrounded by a brilliant light, which rolled down in spiralling curves; it brought with it a garland of flowers and placed it on the new spirit’s head. Then came a voice saying to him, ‘This laurel-wreath is given to you because from the time you were a boy you thought about heaven and hell.’
CONCUBINES
The last chapter on fornication also referred to keeping a mistress, meaning the association of a bachelor with a woman. By having a concubine we mean a similar association by a married man with another woman. Failure to make distinctions leads people to use these two words indiscriminately, as if they meant and signified the same thing. But these two types are different; the term ‘mistress’ suits the first, the mistress being a loose woman, and the term ‘concubine’ suits the second, because a concubine is a bedfellow. So we can keep these apart by distinguishing having a mistress as a pre-nuptial agreement with a woman, and having a concubine as a post-nuptial one.
[2] Orderly arrangement makes us discuss here having a concubine, for it reveals the nature of marriage on the one hand, and the nature of adultery on the other. Marriage and adultery are opposites, as was first shown in the chapter [XVIII] on their opposition. But the extent and nature of their opposition can only be grasped from the intermediate states between them, one of which is having a concubine. But there are two ways of doing this, which must first be distinguished, so this chapter, like the previous ones, will be divided into its appropriate sections, as follows.
(i) There are two ways of having a concubine, which are inherently very different, one in association with a wife, the other without such an association.
(ii) Having a concubine in association with a wife is totally unlawful for Christians, and detestable.
(iii) It is polygamy, a practice condemned and to be banished from the Christian world.
(iv) It is a form of promiscuity which destroys the principle of marriage, the treasure of Christian life.
(v) Having a concubine without association with a wife is not unlawful, when it is for lawful, just and truly weighty reasons.
(vi) The lawful reasons for having a concubine of this kind are those which are lawful grounds for divorce, when the wife is none the less kept at home.
(vii) The just reasons for having a concubine of this kind are those which are just grounds for not sleeping together.
(viii) The weighty reasons for having a concubine of this kind are genuine and not genuine.
(ix) The truly weighty reasons are those which arise from justice.
(x) The weighty reasons which are not genuine are those which are unjust, although they appear to be just.
(xi) Those who for lawful, just and genuinely weighty reasons have a concubine of this kind can also have conjugial love.
(xii) So long as a man has a concubine of this kind, sexual relations with his wife are unlawful.
An explanation of these points now follows.
There are two ways of having a concubine which are very different; one is to have a woman to share one’s bed with one’s wife, and to live at the same time both with her and with the wife. The other is, after a lawful and just separation from a wife, to take another woman to share one’s bed.
[2] Those who have a refined and accurate perception of the matter can see that these two ways of having a concubine are as remote from each other as dirty linen is from clean laundry; but those whose perception is muddled and indistinct cannot see this. Those who have conjugial love can see this, those who have a love for adultery cannot. For the latter all that derives from sexual love is dark as night, for the former it is in broad daylight. All the same the adulterous can see what is derived and how to distinguish this, admittedly not in themselves of their own accord, but when they are told by others. Both adulterers and chaste married people are similarly able to raise their intellects; but an adulterer, after learning from others how to make these distinctions, goes on to wipe them from his memory, when he plunges his intellect into his filthy pleasuring. For chastity and unchastity, soundness of mind and folly, cannot exist together, but they can be distinguished by the intellect when it is kept apart.
[3] I once asked some in the spiritual world who had not reckoned adultery to be a sin whether they knew of a single difference between fornication, having a mistress, the two types of concubine, and the various degrees of adultery. They said that one was like another. I asked whether this applied to marriage too. They looked around to see if any clergymen were present, and when they found there were none, said that marriage was in essence similar. It was different with those who had in their thinking reckoned adultery to be a sin. These said that they had seen differences in the inward ideas at the level of perception, but had not so far taken the trouble to distinguish them and tell them apart. I can declare that the angels of heaven perceive even the slightest difference in these. In order therefore to make it plain that there are two mutually opposite ways of having a concubine, one which destroys conjugial love and another which does not, I shall first describe the harmful type and then the harmless one.
It is unlawful, because it is contrary to the marriage compact, and detestable because it is contrary to religion. Anything contrary to both of these is contrary to the Lord. So as soon as anyone without a genuinely weighty reason takes a concubine in addition to a wife, he finds heaven shut and the angels strike him off the roll of Christians. From then on he rejects everything to do with the church and religion, and no longer lifts his gaze above nature, but turns towards it as a power which approves his lust, and thereafter his spirit is animated* by its influence. The reason for this apostasy will be revealed later. The man himself does not see how detestable this is, because when heaven is closed to him spiritual folly takes over. But a chaste wife perceives it, because she is conjugial love, and this love is nauseous to it. Many wives therefore refuse afterwards to have sexual relations with their husbands, as if it would pollute their chastity by being infected with the lust which clings to the husband from his contact with prostitutes.
* Reading animatur for animat.
Having a concubine at the same time as or in association with a wife is polygamy, even if not recognised as such, because it has not been laid down and so named by any law. Anyone, even if not perspicacious, can see this. For the woman is like a wife used for enjoyment and a partner in the marriage bed. It was proved in the chapter on polygamy [XV] that this was condemned and to be banished from the Christian world, especially where it was shown that a Christian is not allowed to marry more than one wife (338); and that a Christian who marries several commits not only natural, but also spiritual adultery (339). This was allowable for the Israelite people, because the Christian church did not yet exist. (340). It is obvious from these considerations that having a concubine in addition to a wife and sharing a bed with either is foul polygamy.
It is a form of promiscuity more opposed to conjugial love than the general type called simple adultery. It entails the loss of all ability and inclination for life in marriage, something Christians have from birth. These points can be proved by weighty arguments appealing to the reason of a wise person. As regards the first point, that having a concubine at the same time as or in association with a wife is a form of promiscuity more opposed to conjugial love than the general promiscuity called simple adultery, this can be seen from the following considerations. General promiscuity or simple adultery does not contain any love analogous to conjugial love, for it is merely a urge of the flesh, which immediately cools off, and sometimes leaves not so much as a trace of love for the woman, once it is over. Consequently this burst of wantonness does only a little damage to conjugial love, if it is not the result of deliberate or confirmed intention, and if the adulterer comes to his senses again.
The case of polygamous promiscuity is quite different. This contains a love analogous to conjugial love, for after bursting out it does not cool off, being dissipated and withering away to nothing like the first type, but it remains, renewing and establishing itself, making corresponding inroads on love for the wife and substituting coldness towards her instead. For he then looks on the woman who shares his bed as loveable, as the result of the freedom of will which allows him, if he will, to draw back, something implanted in the natural man; and because this is agreeable, it tends to support that love. Moreover with a concubine he is more closely attached to allurements than with a wife. On the other hand he looks on his wife as unlovable owing to the duty to live with her imposed by his compact for life, which then seems to him the more forced as compared with the freedom he has with the other woman. It is clear that his love for his wife cools off proportionately and she becomes despised, as his love for the other woman warms up and she is held dear.
[2] As regards the second point, that having a concubine at the same time as or in association with a wife causes a man to lose all ability and inclination for a life in marriage, something Christians have by birth, this can be seen from the following considerations. To the extent that love for a wife is transferred into love for a concubine, to that extent his love for his wife is eroded, emptied out and exhausted, as shown just above. This takes place by the shutting off of the inner levels of his natural mind, and the opening up of its lower levels. This can be established from the location of the inclination among Christians to love one of the other sex being at the inmost level; and the fact that this location can be blocked off, but not rooted out. The inclination to love one of the other sex, and also the ability to receive that love being implanted in Christians from birth, is due to that love which comes only from the Lord becoming a matter of religion; and in the Christian world the Lord’s divinity is acknowledged and worshipped, and religion comes from His Word. That is why it is inherent, and why it is transplanted from one generation into the next.
We said that this Christian principle of marriage is destroyed by polygamous promiscuity; but this must be understood as meaning that in the case of a polygamous Christian it is shut off and intercepted. But it remains capable of being revived in his descendants, just as happens with the re-appearance of the likeness of a grandfather or great-grandfather in a grandson or great-grandson. That is why that principle of marriage is called the treasure of Christian life, and just above the jewel of human life and a treasure-house of Christian religion (457, 458).
[3] The destruction of the principle of marriage as the result of polygamous fornication in the case of a polygamous Christian who indulges in it is plainly to be seen from the fact that he cannot love his concubine and his wife equally, as a Mohammedan can. But the more he loves or has warm feelings for his concubine, the less he loves his wife or feels coldly towards her. An even more detestable result is that he is the more prone to acknowledge at heart the Lord as only a natural man and as Mary’s son, and not at the same time as the Son of God, and to treat religion as worthless. Yet it must be well understood that this is what happens to those who take a concubine in addition to a wife, and have sexual relations with both of them. It does not apply to those who are separated for lawful, just and weighty reasons, and cut themselves off from sexual relations with their wives, but take another woman to enjoy in her place. This will be the subject of the next section.
What is meant by lawful, just and truly weighty reasons will be stated in due course. We preface this with a mere mention of the reasons, in order to distinguish this way of having a concubine, now to be discussed, from the previous way.
Divorce means the abolition of the marriage compact leading to full separation, and followed by the freedom to marry another wife. The sole reason for this total separation or divorce is promiscuity as laid down by the Lord (Matt. 19:9). Included under the same heading are cases of obvious obscenity which ruin modesty and fill the house with criminal pandering, making it uncomfortable to live in; this gives rise to the shamelessness of a prostitute, the result of a totally dissolute mind. To this may be added malicious desertion involving promiscuity, which causes a wife to become promiscuous and so to be rejected (Matt. 5:32). These three reasons, being lawful grounds for divorce, the first and third before a judge and the second in the husband’s own judgment, are lawful reasons for taking a concubine, but only when the wife is kept on at home. Promiscuity is the sole reason for divorce, because it is the diametrical opposite of the life of conjugial love, being so pernicious as to murder it (see 255 above).
There are both lawful reasons and just reasons for separation. Lawful reasons are those arising from judicial edicts, just ones those so judged by the husband alone. The lawful and just reasons for separation from bed and from home have been briefly listed above (252, 253). Among these physical defects are diseases which infect the whole body so severely that fatal results may follow from the contagion. Of this sort are malignant and plague-type fevers, leprosy, venereal infection, cancer. Then there are diseases which make the body so repulsive that it is impossible for others to live with them, ones which emit harmful discharges and noxious gases, either from the surface of the body or from inside it, especially from the stomach and lungs. Diseases of the surface are malignant pox, warts, pustules, consumption due to scurvy, acute scabies, especially if the face is disfigured by them. Among emissions from the stomach are constantly foul, evil-smelling and rank belches; from the lungs foul and rotten breath due to pockets of pus, ulcers, abscesses or corruption of the blood or lymph. In addition there are other diseases of various types, such as fits of unconsciousness, causing total feebleness of the body and loss of strength; paralysis, a slackening and relaxation of the membranes and ligaments which control movement; epilepsy; permanent disability due to strokes; certain chronic diseases; colic, hernia and other diseases known to pathology.
Mental defects which are just grounds for separation from bed and home are, for instance, madness, inflammation of the brain, unsoundness of mind, real idiocy and silliness, loss of memory and such like. Reason does not require a judge to pronounce these just grounds for taking a concubine, since they are just grounds for a separation.
Besides those which are just grounds for taking a concubine, because they are just grounds for a separation, there are also weighty reasons depending on the husband’s judgment and sense of justice; so these too must be mentioned. But since the judgments of justice can be perverted, these reasons are to be distinguished into genuine weighty reasons and ones which are not genuine, which will be described separately.
In order to recognise these, it is enough to list some which are genuinely weighty reasons. For instance, lack of parental love leading to the rejection of children, insobriety, drunkenness, uncleanliness, immodesty, a readiness to betray household secrets, to engage in law-suits, to assault people, to exact vengeance, to do wrong, to steal and to deceive; inward unlikeness leading to antipathy; forwardness in demanding conjugal rights, which make the husband as cold as stone; interest in magic and sorcery; a strongly irreligious attitude and such like.
These can be recognised from the list of genuinely weighty reasons given above, but they may seem to be just, though they are not, unless they are duly investigated. For instance, the claim for a period of abstinence needed after childbirth, wives’ passing ailments, wastage of reproductive powers, whether due to these or not, the polygamy allowed to the Israelites, and other such reasons which are without merit from the point of view of justice. These reasons are invented by husbands after they have become frigid, when unchaste lusts have robbed them of conjugial love and infatuated them with the notion that it is similar to scortatory love. These men on taking a concubine make false and deceptive reasons of this sort into true and genuine ones to avoid ill-repute; they mostly spread around lying rumours about their wives, and good will makes their friends among their fellow-citizens accept these as true and embroider them.
We say that they can at the same time have conjugial love, meaning that they can keep this love hidden in themselves. For this love is not lost to the person who has it, but it lies dormant. The following are the reasons why conjugial love is preserved in the case of those who prefer marriage to having a concubine, and only take one for the reasons given above. This behaviour is not repugnant to conjugial love; such a person is not cut off from this love, since it is merely covered up, and this covering is taken away after their death.
(a) This way of having a concubine is not repugnant to conjugial love, as follows from the demonstration above that having a concubine in this way is not unlawful, when there are lawful, just and genuinely weighty reasons for it (467-473).
[2] (b) This way of having a concubine does not involve being cut off from conjugial love, for under the intervention, persuasion and pressure of lawful or just or genuinely weighty reasons, conjugial love associated with marriage is not cut off but temporarily interrupted. A love which is interrupted and not cut off still persists in the person concerned. This is much the same as when a person who enjoys his work is distracted from it by parties, theatre-going or travel; he still does not lose his love for his work. Or in the case of someone with a liking for fine vintages who, when he drinks ordinary wine, does not lose his taste for fine wine.
[3] (c) This way of having a concubine involves merely a covering up of conjugial love, because the love of having a concubine is natural, and the love of marriage is spiritual; and natural love covers up spiritual love, when this is blocked. The lover is unaware of this, because spiritual love by itself is not felt, but only through natural love. It is perceived as a pleasure containing blessedness from heaven; but natural love by itself is perceived only as a pleasure.
[4] (d) This covering is taken away after death, because then a person passes from natural to spiritual, enjoying a substantial body instead of a material one; and this allows him to feel natural pleasure coming from spiritual pleasure to the highest degree. I have learned that this is so from conversations with certain people in the spiritual world, including kings there who had concubines in the natural world for genuinely weighty reasons.
The reason is that conjugial love, which is in itself spiritual, chaste, pure and holy, then becomes natural, being so polluted and enfeebled that it dies off. In order to preserve this love it is important that for genuinely weighty reasons (see 473-3) only one concubine is taken, and not two at once.
* * * * *
I heard a spirit, newly arrived from the world while still young, boasting of his affairs and fishing for compliments on being more of a man than others. He went so far as to include among his insolent boasts the following: ‘Is there anything more depressing than keeping one’s love imprisoned, and living by oneself with one woman? Is there anything more pleasant than letting one’s love go free? Surely everyone gets tired of one woman, and is reinvigorated by several? Is there anything sweeter than sexual freedom, a variety of partners, the deflowering of virgins, the cheating of husbands and hypocrisy about promiscuity? Do not the prizes of cunning, deception and theft give the most intimate mental delight?’
[2] On hearing this the bystanders began to tell him, ‘Don’t speak like that. You don’t know where you are and with whom. You have only recently arrived here. Beneath your feet is hell, above your head is heaven. You are now in the world midway between these two, what is called the world of spirits. All who depart from the world come and are assembled here, to be tested for their natures and prepared for hell, if wicked, for heaven, if good. You may perhaps still retain what you heard from priests in the world, that promiscuous men and women are cast down into hell, and chaste married people are taken up to heaven.’
The newcomer laughed at this and said, ‘What are heaven and hell? Isn’t heaven where one is free, and isn’t being free being allowed to have as many lovers as one wants? Isn’t hell where one is a slave, and isn’t being a slave being obliged to stick to one woman?’
[3] But an angel who was looking down from heaven heard this, and put a stop to the conversation, to prevent him going on to make profane remarks about marriage. ‘Come up here,’ he told him, ‘and I will give you a practical demonstration of what heaven and hell are, and what sort of hell awaits those who are confirmed in their practice of promiscuity.’ And he showed him the way to go up.
When he reached heaven, he was first taken to a paradise of a garden, full of fruit-trees and flowers, the beauty, pleasantness and fragrance of which made one think how delightful it was to be alive. When he saw these sights he was greatly surprised; but he was then using his outward sight, such as he had had in the world, when he saw similar sights. In this condition he was rational. But when he used his inward sight, in which promiscuity played the leading role and dominated every moment of his thinking, he was not rational. His outward sight was therefore shut off and his inward sight opened up. When this happened, he said, ‘What is this I see now? Straw and dry wood? And what do I perceive now? A nasty smell? Where has that paradise gone?’
‘It is close by and present,’ said the angel, ‘but invisible to your inward sight, which is promiscuous, since this turns what is heavenly into what is hellish, and can see only the opposites. Everyone has an inward and an outward mind, and so inward and outward sight. In the case of the wicked the inward mind is foolish and the outward mind is wise, but in the case of the good the inward mind is wise and this makes the outward mind wise too. In the spiritual world the way a person sees things depends upon how his mind is.’
[4] After this the angel used the power he had been given to shut off the spirit’s inward sight and open his outward sight. He then led him through doorways towards the centre of their dwellings, and he saw magnificent palaces built of alabaster, marble and precious stones; and nearby a colonnade with columns around it encrusted and surrounded with an astounding display of badges and decorations. On seeing these he was amazed and said, ‘What is this I see? It is the very height of magnificence and an example of architecture at its best.’ But the angel shut off his outward sight again, and opened his inward sight, which being full of foul promiscuity was wicked. When this happened, he cried, ‘What is this I see now? Where am I? Where have the palaces and magnificent sights gone? All I see are piles of stones, rubble and rocky caves.’
[5] A little later he was returned to his outward sight and taken into one of the palaces. There he saw the way the doors, windows, walls and ceilings were decorated, and above all the decorations of the furniture, on and around which were heavenly shapes made of gold and precious stones; there are no words to describe them, nor any art which can depict them, since they are beyond expression and beyond the ideas art can convey. On seeing these he cried out again, ‘These are really magnificent sights, such as the eye has never before seen.’ But then his inward sight was opened, and the outward one shut off as before, and when asked what he then saw, he replied, ‘Nothing but walls, some made of reeds, some of straw and some of faggots.’
[6] But he was brought back again to his outward mental state, and some girls were brought to him, who were models of beauty, because they pictured heavenly affections. They spoke to him in the sweet tones of their affections. Then what he saw and heard made his face change, and of his own accord he returned to his inward state, which was promiscuous. Since this cannot abide any hint of heavenly love, and on the other hand neither can heavenly love abide that, they lost sight of each other, the girls vanishing from the man’s view and the man from the girls’.
[7] After this the angel taught him what was the cause of the changes in how he saw things. ‘I perceive,’ he said, ‘that in the world from which you come you were two-faced, one person inwardly, another outwardly. Outwardly you were a civil, moral and rational person, but none of these inwardly, because you were promiscuous and an adulterer. Such people, when allowed to come up into heaven and kept there in their outward state, can see the heavenly sights there. But when their inward state is opened up, hellish sights take the place of heavenly ones.
[8] ‘But you should know that each individual has his outward levels shut off one after the other, and his inward levels opened, so that he is prepared either for heaven or for hell. Since the evil of promiscuity pollutes the inward levels of the mind more than any other, your mind cannot help gravitating towards the foulness of your love, and this is to be found in the hells, where there are caverns stinking of dung. Can anyone fail to know by the light of reason that unchastity and wantonness are in the spiritual world impure and unclean, so that there is nothing which befouls and pollutes a person more, bringing a hellish condition upon him? Take care then not to go on boasting about your affairs as showing yourself to be more of a man than others. I can foretell that you are going to be so weak that you will hardly know where your masculinity is. That is the fate that awaits those who boast of their promiscuous virility.’
After hearing this the young man came down and returned to the world of spirits, and rejoined his previous companions, speaking modestly and chastely with them, but not for long.
ADULTERY, ITS TYPES AND DEGREES
No one who judges adultery only by outward appearances can know that it contains any evil, since it is outwardly similar to marriage. Such outward judges say to themselves, if inner levels are mentioned and they are told that outer levels acquire their good or bad character from inner ones, ‘What are inner levels? Can anyone see them? Surely this is climbing above the sphere of anyone’s intelligence?’
They are like those who welcome every pretence of goodness as genuine, intentional goodness, or estimate a person’s wisdom by the elegance of his speech. Or those who judge a person by his fine clothes and riding in a magnificent carriage, not by his inward disposition, which is to be judged by his affection for good. Equally it is like judging the fruit of a tree and any dainty by simply looking at it and touching it, instead of by its good taste and by knowing about it. This is what everyone does, if he is unwilling to perceive anything about a person’s inner levels. This is the source of the widespread foolishness today, when many people see no evil in acts of adultery, and in fact put marriage and adultery together in the same room, that is, make them completely alike; and yet they do so only on account of their apparent similarity at the outward level.
[2] The following experience provides a convincing proof that this is so. The angels once called together some hundreds of spirits from the European world, who were particularly distinguished for their intelligence, learning and wisdom. They were questioned about the difference between marriage and adultery, and asked to consult their faculties of intellectual reason. After thinking about it, all except ten replied that it is only the civil law which makes a distinction for the sake of some advantage, which can admittedly [not]* be known, but can still be applied by means of civil prudence. Then they were asked whether they saw any good in marriage and any evil in adultery; they replied that there was no good or evil apprehensible by reason. When asked if there was any sin, they said, ‘What does it consist in? Isn’t the deed alike in each case?’ The angels were astonished at these answers and cried out, ‘Oh how great and how deep is the insensitivity of this age!’ On hearing this the hundreds of wise men turned round and said to one another amid guffaws, ‘Is this insensitivity? Can there be any wisdom which will prove that loving another man’s wife deserves as a punishment everlasting damnation?’
[3] It was proved in the first chapter of this part of the book, on the opposition between scortatory and conjugial love, that adultery is a spiritual evil, and consequently a moral and civil evil, being diametrically opposed to the wisdom of reason, and that the love of adultery comes from hell and returns there, and the love of marriage comes from heaven and returns there. But since all evils, like all forms of good, have extension both in width and in height, being distinguished into types by width, and into degrees by height, therefore the kinds of adultery must be kept apart as regards either dimension. So they will first be distinguished into their types and then into their degrees in the following sequence.
(i) There are three types of adultery, simple, double and triple.
(ii) Simple adultery is that committed by a bachelor with another man’s wife, or by an unmarried woman with another woman’s husband.
(iii) Double adultery is between a husband and another man’s wife, or the converse of this.
(iv) Triple adultery is with blood-relations.
(v) There are four degrees of adultery, and these determine what they are called, how culpable they are, and how far they are imputed after death.
(vi) Adultery in the first degree is due to ignorance, when it is committed by those who are not old enough or are unable to consult their intellect, so as to refrain from it.
(vii) Adultery committed by these people is a mild offence.
(viii) Adultery in the second degree is due to lust, when it is committed by those who can certainly consult their intellect, but are unable to do so at the time for circumstantial reasons.
(ix) Adultery by these persons is imputed, depending on whether their intellect afterwards approves or disapproves.
(x) Adultery in the third degree is adultery approved by reason, when committed by those who convince themselves intellectually that it is not a sinful evil.
(xi) Adultery by these persons is a serious offence, and it is imputed depending upon how far they are convinced of this.
(xii) Adultery in the fourth degree is adultery approved by the will, when committed by those who regard it as allowable and accepted, not deserving any consultation of the intellect on the subject.
(xiii) Adultery committed by these persons is an offence of the most serious kind, being imputed to them as intentional evil, and weighing on them as guilt.
(xiv) Adultery in the third and fourth degrees is a sinful evil, depending on the extent and manner in which the intellect and will are engaged in it, whether it is actually committed or not.
(xv) Adultery committed by deliberate intent of the will with the approval of the intellect makes people natural, sensual and bodily.
(xvi) This goes so far as to make them finally abandon anything to do with the church and religion.
(xvii) However, they are still endowed with human rationality, like other people.
(xviii) But they use that rationality so long as they remain in their outward levels, but they misuse it when in their inward levels.
An explanation of these points now follows.
* It is hard to make sense of this sentence, unless we assume that a negative was omitted here.
The Creator of the universe divided the whole creation into genera, and each genus into species, and each species into varieties, and these again similarly, and so on. His aim was to bring into existence an image of the infinite in the perpetual variation of characters. So the Creator of the universe divided up kinds of good and their truths, and likewise evils and their falsities, after these had arisen. All things without exception in the spiritual world were divided by the Creator into genera, species and varieties, and all things good and true were assigned to heaven, and all things evil and false to hell, one set being arranged as diametrically opposite to the other; these facts can be established from what was revealed in the work on HEAVEN AND HELL, published in London in 1758. So too in the natural world He divided and divides the forms of good and truth and evil and falsity that people have, and so people themselves; this can be known from their fate after death, heaven for the good, hell for the wicked. Now since all things to do with good, and all to do with evil, are divided into genera, species and so on, therefore marriages are so divided, and so likewise are its opposites, the kinds of adultery.
Adultery here and in the following pages means the promiscuity which is the opposite of marriage. It is the opposite because it violates the compact for life entered into by a married couple, tears their love apart, pollutes it and blocks the union begun at the time of their engagement and confirmed at the beginning of their marriage.* For the conjugial love of a man with one wife after their agreement and compact unites their souls. Adultery does not dissolve this union, since it is indissoluble, but blocks it; as happens when someone stops up a spring and prevents a stream from flowing from it, filling a reservoir with smelly dregs. Likewise adultery smears over and covers up the conjugial love which arises from the union of souls; and when it is smeared over, the love of adultery rises up from below, and as it grows it become a fleshly love, which attacks conjugial love and destroys it. This is the source of the opposition between adultery and marriage.
* This assumes that the text here needs to be corrected to read unionem…initiatam, ac…firmatam.
There were some spirits who attacked me with especial cunning as the result of their habits while living in the body. They did this by means of a very gentle influence, a kind of undulation, which is the mark of upright spirits. But I could tell that they were full of tricks and such like designed to trap and deceive me. At length I spoke with one of them who, when he lived in the world, had been, as I was told, general of an army.* Since I perceived that there was wantonness in the ideas he was thinking about, I spoke with him in a spiritual idiom with representations, which fully expressed my meaning and much more in an instant. He said that in his bodily life in the former world he had thought nothing of committing adultery.
I was allowed to tell him that adultery is a grave crime, even though it may seem to people of his sort that it is nothing of the kind and in fact allowable, as the result of the pleasure they sought from it and the false belief this induces. I said that this could also be known from the fact that marriages are the seed-bed of the human race, and consequently of the heavenly kingdom, and they are therefore not to be violated, but regarded as sacred; as also from the fact that he ought to be aware, being in the spiritual world and in a condition to perceive it, that conjugial loves comes down from the Lord through heaven, and this love is the source, or so to speak parent, of the mutual love which is the foundation of heaven. And again from the fact that as soon as adulterers come close to heavenly communities they notice that they have a bad smell and consequently throw themselves from there towards hell. At the very least he could be aware that violating marriages is contrary to Divine laws, the civil law of all kingdoms, as well as the true light of reason, and so contrary to international usage, since it is contrary to the order ordained by God and men; and much more besides.
[2] He replied that he had not given such considerations any thought in his earlier life, so he wanted to reason whether this was true. But he was told that truth does not admit of reasoning, since this favours the pleasures of the flesh against those of the spirit, and he did not know what those were like. He ought first to think about what he had been told, since this was true. Or he could apply the principle, well known in the world, that no one ought to do to another what he did not want another to do to him. So if someone had led astray like this his own wife, whom he had loved (as happens at the beginning of every marriage), then when he was furiously angry about it, would he not, speaking in that condition, himself have detested acts of adultery? And then, being an intelligent man, would he not more than others have convinced himself of this, even to the point of condemning such acts to hell? And since he was a general and associated with forthright men in the army, would he not, to avoid the shame of it, have either killed the adulterer or banished the promiscuous woman from his house?
* The remainder of this section is copied with slight changes from HEAVEN AND HELL 385. The original note of this experience in SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES 4405 identifies the general as Price Eugene (of Savoy, 1663-1736).
This is called double adultery, because it is committed by both parties, each of whom violates the marriage compact. It is therefore twice as serious as the previous type. We said above (480) that the conjugial love of one man with one wife after their engagement and marriage compact unites their souls, and this union is the very love itself in its origin; and that this is blocked and stopped up by adultery, like water bubbling up and forming a stream from a spring. The couple’s souls are united, when sexual love is restricted to one person of the opposite sex, as happens when a girl has pledged herself wholly to a young man, and in return he has pledged himself wholly to the girl. This is obvious from the fact that their lives are united, and in consequence so are their souls, because these are the first beginnings of life. The union of souls is impossible except in monogamous marriages, that is, between one man and one woman; it is impossible in polygamous marriages, that is, between one man and several women, because in this case love is divided, and in the other case united.
The reason why conjugial love in this its highest location is spiritual, holy and pure is that the soul of every human being is in origin heavenly. It there receives direct influence from the Lord, for it receives from Him the marriage of love and wisdom, that is, of good and truth, and it is this which makes him human, and distinguishes him from animals.
[2] From this union of souls, conjugial love, which is there in its spiritual holiness and purity, flows down into the life of the whole body, and fills it with blessed joys, so long as the path of its outflow remains open, as happens with those whom the Lord makes spiritual. Nothing else so blocks and stops up this location, or spring and outflow, of conjugial love as adultery, as is clear from the Lord’s words, when He said that only on account of adultery was it allowed to divorce a wife and marry another (Matt. 19:4-9); and also from the statement in this passage that anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery (verse 9). So when that pure and holy spring is stopped up, it is, as said before, encumbered with foulness, like a gem surrounded with dung or a loaf with vomit; such foulness is totally opposed to the purity and holiness of that spring, that is, conjugial love. This opposition produces coldness in marriage, and proportionate to this is the wanton pleasuring of scortatory love, which destroys itself of its own accord. This is a sinful evil, because what is holy is covered over, and its outflow into the body is obstructed, and what is profane takes its place and the outflow of this into the body is opened up. As a result the person becomes hellish instead of heavenly.
I heard there that some married men have a lust for promiscuity with inexperienced women or virgins, some for experienced women or whores; some for married women or wives; some for such women of noble families, and some for women of the lower classes. I have been convinced in that world of the truth of this by numerous examples from various kingdoms .
When I thought about the variety of such lusts, I asked whether there were men who seek all their pleasure with other men’s wives and none with unmarried women. So to prove to me that there were, a number were brought to me from a certain kingdom, who were compelled to speak as their lustful nature dictated. These said that their sole pleasure and joy had been, and still was, to misbehave with other men’s wives. They said that they picked out the beautiful ones for themselves, and hired them for as high a fee as their wealth allowed. For the most part they agreed the fee with the women alone.
I asked why they did not hire unmarried women. They said that this was too common for them, being inherently worthless and devoid of any pleasure. I asked again whether these wives afterwards went back to their husbands and lived with them. They replied that they either did not, or did so coldly, since they had become promiscuous.
[2] I then asked them very seriously whether they had ever considered, or were now considering, that this was double adultery, since they did it while themselves married; and that such adultery robbed a person of all spiritual good. This caused many of those present to laugh, and they said, ‘What is spiritual good?’
But I insisted and said, ‘What is more detestable than to mix one’s own soul in a wife with her husband’s soul? Don’t you know that a man’s soul is in his semen?’ At this they turned away and murmured, ‘What harm does it do there?’ At last I said, ‘Although you are not afraid of God’s laws, are you not afraid of the civil law?’ ‘No,’ they answered, ‘only of some of the clergy, but we keep this from them; and if we cannot, we keep on good terms with them.’ Afterwards I saw them divided into groups, some of which were thrown into hell.
This is called triple adultery because it is three times more serious than the two previous cases. Which are the blood-relations or ‘remainders of the flesh’* who are not to be approached may be seen listed in Lev. 18:6-17. The reasons why adultery of this type is three times more serious than the two discussed above are both inward and outward. The inward reasons are the result of their correspondence with the violation of the spiritual marriage, which is between the Lord and the church, and so between good and truth. The outward reasons are to prevent a person becoming an animal. But there is no space here to go further with the revelation of these reasons.
* A literal translation of the Hebrew phrase often rendered ‘next-of-kin.’
These degrees are not types, but apply to each type, making them more or less evil or good. In this case they determine whether adultery of each type is to be regarded as milder or more serious by reason of circumstances and contingent events. It is well known that circumstances and contingent events cause differences in every case.
However, these are regarded in one way by a person acting by the feeble light of his reason, in another by a judge following the law, and in another by the Lord judging the state of a person’s mind. This is why we speak of what they are called, how culpable they are and how far they are imputed after death. For what they are called depends upon a person acting by the feeble light of his reason; culpability is determined by a judge following the law; and imputation is by the Lord judging the state of a person’s mind. It can be seen without explanation that these three cases are very different. For a person acting on his rational conviction may, depending on circumstances and contingent events, acquit someone, whom a judge sitting in court may not acquit by law. The judge too may acquit someone who is damned after death. The reason is that a judge makes his decision in accordance with the facts, but after death everyone is judged in accordance with the intention formed in the will and thus in the intellect, and the extent to which the will and thus the intellect endorses them. Neither of these can be seen by the judge. But still either judgment is just, one on the basis of the good of the civil community, the other on the basis of the good of the heavenly community.
All evils and therefore acts of adultery regarded in themselves are acts of the inner and outer man together. The inner man forms the intentions, the outer man puts them into practice. The nature of his acts regarded in themselves therefore depends upon the nature of the inner man in planning what the outer man does. But since the inner man and his intention cannot be seen by a person, each must be judged in court by what he says and does in accordance with the prescribed law and its prohibitions. The judge should also have regard to the inner meaning of the law.
Some examples may illustrate this. If, for instance, adultery is committed by an adolescent boy who does not yet know that adultery is a worse evil than fornication. If it is committed by a person who is extremely simple, or someone deprived of keen judgment by disease; or, as sometimes happens, by someone who has periods of madness, in which he is in the condition of the really delirious. Or again if it takes place when he is of unsound mind due to drunkenness, and so on. It is clear that then the inner man or mind is only present in the outer man in an irrational state. Acts of this kind by these people are called adultery by a rational person, but with regard to such circumstances. Yet the same man as judge holds their perpetrator culpable and punishes him according to the law. But whether after death these acts are imputed depends on the presence, nature and capability of the intellect in their will.
This is clear without further proof from what was said above (486). For it is well known that the nature of every deed, and in general of everything, depends upon the circumstances, which may mitigate or aggravate it. But adultery of this type is a mild offence in the first periods after its commission; and it remains mild in so far as the person concerned abstains from it in the course of his or her life thereafter, because it is an evil against God, or an evil against one’s neighbour, or an evil against the good of the state, and for all these reasons because it is an evil contrary to reason. On the other hand however, such adultery is counted as serious, if its perpetrators do not abstain for one of the reasons listed. This is in accordance with Divine law (Ezek. 18:21, 22, 24 and elsewhere). A person, however, is not in a position to excuse or condemn such acts, or to qualify and judge them as mild or serious because of the circumstances, since they are not visible to him, nor in fact are they within his competence to judge. It must therefore be understood that they are so reckoned and imputed after death.
There are two elements which are in conflict in a person who is becoming spiritual instead of natural; these are generally called the spirit and the flesh. Since the love of marriage belongs to the spirit and the love of adultery to the flesh, they are in conflict. If the love of marriage wins, it tames and subdues the love of adultery by moving it away. But if it happens that the lust of the flesh is aroused beyond the level at which it can be controlled by the spirit guided by reason, it follows that the condition is turned upside down, and the tide of lust swamps the spirit with its lures, so that it is no longer subject to its own reason, and thus in control of itself. This is what is meant by adultery in the second degree. Such acts are committed by those who are certainly able to consult their intellect, but are unable to do so at those moment due to contingent events.
[2] Examples will illustrate this. For instance, if a promiscuous wife captivates a man’s mind by her wiles, enticing him into her bedroom, and arousing him to the point where he becomes incapable of judgment, and the more so, if she then threatens to expose him, if he will not. Equally if a promiscuous wife is skilled in witchcraft, or inflames a man with drugs to such a point that the drive of the flesh deprives the intellect of the freedom to act with reason. Likewise if a man leads on with sweet blandishments another’s wife, until her will is so inflamed as to be no longer controllable; and other similar events. These and the like contingent events reduce the gravity of adultery and allow a milder view of the opprobrium incurred by the man or woman seduced; this reason supports and approves. The imputation of adultery in this degree will be discussed next.
The more the intellect approves of evils, the more a person takes them to himself and makes them his own. Approval is consent, and consent induces the mind to love them. It is much the same with adultery, if to begin with committed without the consent of the intellect, and approved [afterwards]. The reverse happens, if afterwards they are not approved. The reason is that evils or acts of adultery committed while the intellect is blinded are due to bodily desire, being much like the instincts which animals have. In the case of human beings the intellect is admittedly present while the acts are being committed, but its powers are dormant or dead, not active or alive. It is the automatic consequence of this that such deeds are not imputed, except so far as they are subsequently approved or not. We mean by imputation here incurring blame and so judgment after death, and this depends on the state of a person’s spirit. We do not mean being blamed by a person before a judge; this is not dependent on the state of his spirit, but on the deeds of the body. If this difference did not exist, those who are acquitted in the world would be acquitted after death, and those who are damned then would be condemned here. So they would not have any hope of being saved.
Everyone knows of the existence of the will and the intellect. For in speaking he says ‘I want this’ and ‘I understand this.’ Yet he fails to keep them apart and treats them as identical. The reason is that he only reflects on what is to do with thought coming from the intellect, not on what is to do with love coming from the will, since this is not visible in such bright light as the other. Yet someone who fails to distinguish between will and intellect is unable to distinguish evil from good, so that he cannot know anything about the blame incurred by sin. But is there anyone who does not know that good and truth are two different things, just as love and wisdom are? Can anyone fail to conclude by the light of his reason that a person has two faculties, which separately receive and latch on to these, one being the will, the other the intellect? Because what the will receives and reproduces we call good, and what the intellect receives we call truth. For what the will loves and does is called good, and what the intellect perceives and thinks is called truth.
[2] In the first part of this book we spoke about the marriage of good and truth, and also had much to say about the will and the intellect and the various attributes and qualities of each. (It is my belief that these can be perceived even by those who have no distinct notion of the intellect and the will, for human reason is such as to be able to understand truths by their own light, even if it had not previously distinguished them.) I shall therefore make some remarks to render clearer the distinction between the will and the intellect, with the intention of making known first the nature of acts of adultery by the reason or the intellect, and then by the will.
[3] The following points may serve to make these known. (a) The will alone does nothing of its own accord, but everything it does is done by means of the intellect. (b) Again, the intellect alone does nothing of its own accord, but everything it does is done at the instigation of the will. (c) The will influences the intellect, but the intellect does not influence the will; but the intellect lays down what is good and what is evil, and advises the will to choose from these two and to do what it pleases. (d) Following this they become linked in two ways. In one the will acts from within and the intellect from without; in the other the intellect acts from within and the will from without. This is what makes the difference between adultery of the reason, the subject of this section, and adultery of the will, which will be treated next. They need to be kept apart, because one is more serious than the other. For adultery of the reason is less serious than that of the will. This is because in adultery of the reason the intellect acts from within and the will from without; but in adultery of the will the will acts from within and the intellect from without. The will is the real person, and the intellect is made a person by the will; and that which acts from within has power over that which acts from without.
It is the intellect alone which is convinced, and on being convinced it enlists the will and ranges it around itself, so bending it to obedience. Being convinced is the result of reasonings, which the mind seeks either from its upper or its lower region. If they come from the upper region, which is in touch with heaven, it approves marriage and condemns adultery; if from the lower region, which is in touch with the world, it approves adultery and treats marriage as worthless.
Everyone is just as able to be convinced of evil as of good, and likewise of falsity as easily as of truth. Being convinced of evil is perceived as more delightful than being convinced of good, and being convinced of falsity seems clearer than of truth. The reason is that to be convinced of evil and falsity one’s reasonings are taken from pleasures, joys, appearances and fallacies of the bodily senses. But to be convinced of good and truth, one’s reasons are taken from the region above bodily sense-impressions. Now since it is equally possible to be convinced of evils and falsities as it is of forms of good and truth, and since the intellect which is convinced draws the will to take its side, and the will together with the intellect forms the mind, it follows that the form of the human mind depends upon its convictions. If these favour marriage, it is turned towards heaven, but if they favour adultery, towards hell. It is the nature of the form of a person’s mind which determines the nature of his spirit, and so the nature of the person. These considerations now establish that acts of adultery in this degree are imputed after death in proportion to their convictions.
Adultery of this type is distinguished from the previous types by its sources. The source of adultery of this type is the corrupt will people have by birth, that is, by hereditary evil. Once a person reaches the point of making his own judgments, he blindly obeys his will, making no judgment whether his acts are evil or not. It is therefore said that he does not consider them worth taking into consideration by the intellect. The source of adultery of the type called adultery of the reason is a perversion of the intellect; this is committed by those who are convinced that such acts are not sinful evils. In this case the intellect plays the leading part, but in the other it is the will which does this.
The difference between these two is not apparent to a person in the natural world, but is obvious to angels in the spiritual world. There all are generally speaking distinguished according to the evils which well up from their source in the will or the intellect, and are accepted and made one’s own. In hell too this is the principle of separation; here those whose wickedness comes from the intellect live further forward and are called satans. But those whose wickedness comes from the will live further back and are called devils. This universal distinction explains why the Word speaks of Satan and the devil.
In the case of the wicked, and also the adulterers, called satans the intellect plays the leading part; but in the case of those called devils, it is the will which does this. However, it is impossible to explain the distinctions so as to make them visible to the intellect, unless the distinctions of the will and the intellect have first been grasped; and also unless a description has been given of how the mind is formed by the will by means of the intellect, and how it is formed by the intellect by means of the will. A knowledge of these subjects will cast light enough to allow the reason to see the distinctions mentioned above; but this would need a whole book.
These are the most serious type and more so than the previous types, because the will plays the leading part, but in the previous ones the intellect does this; and a person’s life is in essence that of his will and only in form that of his intellect. The reason is that the will acts as one with love, and love is the essence of a person’s life, and this takes on a form in the intellect by means of such things as agree with it. The intellect therefore regarded in itself is nothing but a form of the will. Since love has to do with the will and wisdom with the intellect, wisdom is therefore nothing but a form of love; and likewise truth is nothing but a form of good.
That which proceeds from the very essence of a person’s life, that is to say, from his will or his love, in called in principle his aim. But that which proceeds from the form of his life, that is to say, from his intellect and his thinking, is called his intention. Guilt is in principle attributable to the will; hence we say that each person is by heredity guilty of evil, but the person is responsible for his own evil. This is why acts of adultery of this type, in the fourth degree, are imputed as deliberately intended evils, and they remain lodged in a person in the form of guilt.
Adultery in the third degree, committed by the reason or intellect, and adultery in the fourth degree, committed by the will, are serious offences and consequently sinful evils, depending on the nature of the intellect or will in them; this can be seen from the discussion of them above (490-493). The reason is that it is the will and the intellect that make a person human. For these two are not merely the source from which everything that happens in the mind arises, but also everything that happens in the body. Everyone knows that the body does not act of itself, but the will acts by means of the body. The mouth does not speak of itself, but thought speaks by means of the mouth. If therefore the will were taken away, action would instantly stop, and if thought were taken away, the mouth would instantly stop speaking. This makes it quite obvious that the seriousness of acts of adultery which take place depends upon the extent and nature of the involvement of the intellect and will in them. It is clear from the Lord’s words that they are equally serious, even if not actually committed:
It was said by the men of old, you are not to commit adultery. But I tell you, if anyone looks upon another man’s wife so as to desire her, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Matt. 5:27, 28.
To commit it in his heart means in his will.
[2] There are many reasons why an adulterer does not actually commit adultery although he does so in his will and intellect. For there are some who refrain from actually committing adultery for fear of the civil law and its penalties; for fear of losing reputation and so honours; for fear of contracting disease thereby; for fear of quarrelling with the wife at home and so having an unquiet life; for fear of vengeance being exacted by a husband or relative, and also for fear of being beaten by servants; by reason of poverty or of greed; by reason of weakness resulting from disease, self-abuse, age or impotence so as to cause embarrassment. If anyone refrains from actually committing adultery for these or like reasons, while approving it in his will and intellect, he is still an adulterer. For he none the less believes that such acts are not sins, and he treats them in his spirit as not unlawful in God’s sight. He thus commits them in spirit, although not in the body for the world to see. After death therefore, on becoming a spirit, he speaks openly in favour of them.
A person is human and differs from an animal in that his mind is divided into three regions, the same number of divisions as there are heavens. He can be raised from the lowest to a higher region, and also from this into the highest, thus becoming an angel of one of the heavens, and also of the third heaven. For this purpose he has been given the ability to raise his intellect even to this level. But if the love of his will is not raised at the same time, he does not become spiritual, but remains natural. All the same he retains the ability to raise his intellect. The reason for this is so that he can be reformed; for reformation takes place by means of the intellect, and through getting to know* good and truth and as a result gaining the power to see rationally. If he rationally sees this knowledge, and lives as it prescribes, then the love of his will is raised at the same time, and to that degree his humanity is perfected and he becomes more and more human.
[2] The case is different, if he does not live in accordance with his knowledge of good and truth. Then the love of his will remains natural, and his intellect from time to time becomes spiritual. For it soars at times like an eagle, and spies out what there is below that answers to its love; and on seeing this it flies down and joins itself with it. If therefore the lusts of the flesh answer to its love, it plunges down from on high, and by joining with them takes its delight in the pleasures they afford; and then it soars aloft again, seeking the reputation of being thought wise, and so alternately soars and falls, as was said.
[3] Adulterers in the third and fourth degree, those who have become adulterers by a deliberate act of will and by conviction of the intellect, are plainly natural, and progressively become sensual and bodily; this is because they have plunged the love of their will, and then together with it their intellect, in the filth of scortatory love, taking as much pleasure in it as unclean birds and animals do in stinking dung-heaps as if delicacies and tid-bits. For the noxious gases rising from their flesh fill the seat of the mind with their grossness, causing the will to feel nothing as more elegant and desirable. These are the people who after death become bodily spirits, the source from which well up the impurities of hell and the church (as mentioned above in 430, 431).
* Reading cognitiones, as later in this section, for cogitationes.
Deliberate and confirmed adulterers abandon everything to do with the church and religion because the love of marriage and the love of adultery are opposites (425), and the love of marriage acts as one with the church and religion (130 and throughout Part I). Hence the love of adultery, being its opposite, acts as one with what is against the church.
The reason why these adulterers abandon everything to do with the church and its religion is that the love of marriage and the love of adultery are opposites, in the same way that the marriage of good and truth is the opposite of the pairing of evil and falsity (427, 428); and the marriage of good and truth is the church, and the pairing of evil and falsity is the anti-church.
The reason why these adulterers abandon everything to do with the church and religion is that the love of marriage and the love of adultery are opposites, as heaven is the opposite of hell (429), and in heaven there is love for everything to do with the church, but in hell there is hatred against everything to do with the church.
[2] Another reason why such acts of adultery cause everything to do with the church and religion to be abandoned is that their pleasures start from the flesh, and are fleshly even in spirit (440, 441); and the flesh is against the spirit, that is, against the spirituality of the church. This too is why the pleasures of scortatory love are called the pleasures of folly.
If you want proofs, be so good as to approach those whom you know to be adulterers of this kind, and ask them in private what they think about God, the church and everlasting life, and you will have your proofs. The real reason is that, just as conjugial love opens the inner levels of the mind, and raises it above the sensory level of the body so as to experience the light and heat of heaven, so in reverse the love of adultery shuts off the inner levels of the mind and thrusts it down as regards the will into the body , until it wallows in all the lusts of its flesh. The deeper it is thrust down, the more is detracted from it and the more it is distanced from heaven.
A natural, sensual and bodily person is just as rational intellectually as a spiritual one; this was proved to me by the satans and devils who were permitted to come up from hell and converse with angelic spirits in the world of spirits, as described in many places in the accounts of experiences. But since the love of the will is what makes a person, and this attracts the intellect to agree with it, such people are only rational when in a state distant from the love of the will. When they come back to this love again, their folly is worse than that of wild beasts.
However, a person who lacked the ability to lift his intellect above the level of the love of the will, would not be a person, but an animal, since this is an ability no animal enjoys. He could not therefore make any choice, and do what is good by choice, so that he could not be reformed, led towards heaven and live for ever. It is as a result of this that deliberate and confirmed adulterers, despite being purely natural, sensual and bodily, are still like others endowed with the power of understanding or rationality. But when they are in the grip of the lust of adultery, and this directs their thinking and speaking, they do not enjoy that rationality. The reason is that then the flesh acts upon the spirit, and not the spirit on the flesh. It should, however, be known that these people eventually after death become foolish, not that they are deprived of the ability to be wise, but they do not want to be wise since wisdom is displeasing to them.
When they speak in public or in gatherings they use their outer levels, but their inner levels when at home or in talking to one another. You can, if you like, make an experiment. Take such a person, as for instance one of the order called Jesuits, and make him speak in a meeting or preach in church about God, the holy things of the church, and heaven and hell; you will hear him excel anyone else in his rational zeal. He may even reduce you to groans and tears on the subject of salvation. But take him into your home, praise him above other orders, call him the father of wisdom and make him your friend, until he opens his heart to you; then you will hear what his views are on God, the holy things of the church and heaven and hell. He will admit that these are fantasies and deceptions, invented to enslave souls, so that they can catch and shackle both great and small, rich and poor, and keep them under the yoke of their control. Let this suffice as an illustration of what is meant by saying that natural men, even down to bodily ones, possess the same human rationality as others, but they can only use it while at the outer level, but misuse it at their inner level. The consequence of this is that no one is to be judged by the wisdom that comes from his mouth, but by this together with the wisdom that is shown in his life.
* * * * *
I once heard a great hullabaloo in the world of spirits. There were some thousands gathered together shouting ‘Punish them, punish them!’ I went close and asked, ‘What is going on here?’ One who was standing apart from the huge crowd told me that they were furiously angry with three priests, who were going about everywhere preaching against adulterers, saying that adulterers did not acknowledge God, that heaven was closed to them and hell open; and that in hell they are filthy devils, because seen from a distance there they look like pigs wallowing in dung, and the angels of heaven loathe them.
‘Where,’ I asked, ‘are these priests, and why is there all this shouting about it?’ He replied that the three priests were in the middle of the crowd, protected by attendants. The crowd was composed of people who believe adultery not to be a sin, and say that adulterers acknowledge God just as do those who keep to their wives. They are all from the Christian world. They were visited by angels to see how many there were who believed adultery to be a sin, and out of a thousand they found less than a hundred.
[2] The remaining nine hundred, he told me, expressed the following views on adultery. ‘Anyone knows that the pleasure of adultery is far superior to that of marriage. Adulterers are perpetually on heat and so more alert and busy, and lead a more active life than those who live with only one woman. On the other hand, love with a wife grows cool, sometimes to such an extent that eventually hardly a word of conversation* or [an hour] in her company has any life in it. It is different with prostitutes; the deadening of life with a wife, due to a failure of potency, is revived and quickened by affairs. Is not something that revives and quickens more valuable than something that deadens? What is marriage but a lawful affair? Can anyone tell the difference? Surely love cannot be compelled – yet a man is compelled to love his wife by a marriage compact and the law. Love with a wife is surely sexual love, something so universal that it is shared by birds and animals. What is conjugial love but sexual love? And sexual love is unrestricted with every woman. The reason there are civil laws against adultery is that the legislators believed that this is in the public interest; yet the legislators and the judges themselves sometimes behave immorally, and say to one another, ‘Let him who is without sin throw the first stone.’ Only simple and pious people believe adultery to be a sin; intelligent people do not, for they, like us, use the poor light of nature to examine this subject.
[3] ‘Does not adultery lead to the birth of children, just as marriage does? Are not illegitimate children as handy and as capable of performing duties and services as legitimate ones? Moreover this provides families, where otherwise there would be barrenness; is this not an advantage rather than a loss? What harm does it do a wife to have a number of rivals? And how does it harm a husband? The view that it is a disgrace to the husband is a frivolous one based on imagination. The reason why adultery is contrary to the laws and statutes of the church is that it gives the clergy power. But what have theology and spirituality to do with purely bodily and fleshly delights? Are there not priests and monks who behave like this? Surely they are not thereby prevented from acknowledging and worshipping God? So why are these three preaching that adulterers do not acknowledge God? We will not put up with such blasphemy. So let them be tried and punished.’
[4] After this I saw them summon judges, whom they requested to sentence them. But the judges said, ‘This is no part of our duties, for it concerns the acknowledgment of God and sinning, and thus salvation and damnation. Judgment on these matters comes from heaven; but we will give you advice on how you can know whether these three priests were telling the truth. There are three places which we judges know, where such matters are especially put to the test and revealed. One is where everyone finds a road open to heaven; but when they reach heaven they can perceive for themselves what they are like as regards the acknowledgment of God. The second place is where they find another road open to heaven, but no one can take that road unless he has heaven within him. The third place is where there is a road to hell, and those who love what is hellish take that road of their own accord, because they find it pleasant. We judges send all who demand a judgment from us about heaven and hell to those places.’
[5] On hearing this the gathering declared, ‘Let us go to those places.’ When they went to the first, where all find a road open to heaven, it suddenly became pitch dark; so some of them lit torches and led the way with them. The judges accompanying them said, ‘This happens to all who approach the first place, and as they come near their torches burn less brightly, and when they reach it the torches are put out by the light flowing in from heaven. This is a sign that they have arrived. It is because heaven is at first shut to them, and then later it is opened.’
So they reached this point, and when their torches had gone out of their own accord, they saw a slanting road leading up to heaven. Those who were furiously angry with the priests took this road. Those who were deliberate adulterers led the way, and they were followed by the confirmed adulterers. As they went up the first group shouted, ‘Follow us!’ and those behind them shouted ‘Hurry up!’ and urged them on.
[6] After a short while, when they were all inside the heavenly community, a gap appeared between them and the angels; and the light of heaven flowing from above the gap into their eyes opened up the inner levels of their minds, thus making them express what they thought inwardly. Then they were questioned by the angels whether they acknowledged the existence of God.
The first group, the adulterers by a deliberate act of the will, replied, ‘What is God?,’ and looking at one another they said, ‘Which of you has seen Him?’ The second group, the adulterers confirmed as such by the intellect, said, ‘Is not everything a proof of nature? What stands above nature but the sun?’ Then the angels said to them, ‘Begone from us. Now you can perceive that you have no acknowledgment of God. When you go down the inner levels of your minds will be closed, and the outer ones opened; and then you will be able to speak contrary to your inner thoughts and say that God exists. Believe us, as soon as a person becomes an adulterer in fact, heaven is closed to him; and when it is closed, there is no acknowledgment of God. We can tell you the reason: adultery is the source of all the uncleanness of hell, and in heaven this stinks like the foul mud of the streets.’
On hearing this they turned about and came down by three ways. When they were down below, the first and second groups held a discussion and said, ‘The priests won there. But we know that we can talk about God just as well as they can; and when we say that He exists, are we not acknowledging Him? The inner and outer levels of the mind the angels kept talking about are a fiction. But let us go off to the second place the judges pointed out, where there is a road open to heaven for those who have heaven within them, and so for those who are to come into heaven.’
[7] As they approached a voice came out from that heaven, ‘Shut the gates! There are adulterers at hand.’ The gates were suddenly shut, and guards with sticks in their hands drove them away. But they released from custody the three priests who had been jostled, and brought them into heaven. The moment the gate was opened to admit the priests, the joy of marriage blasted the rebels, and this, being chaste and pure, almost choked them.
So fearing they would faint through choking they made haste to the third place, from which the judges said the road led to hell. From there emanated the joy of adultery, and this so enlivened the deliberate and confirmed adulterers that they almost danced all the way down, and there they wallowed in filth like pigs.
* It seems likely that some words have fallen out in the original at this point. The exact sense may be rather different.
THE LUST FOR DEFLOWERING VIRGINS
The lusts discussed in the next four chapters are not merely adulterous lusts, but more serious than these, since they do not arise except as the result of adultery; for they are seized on by those who have become tired of adultery. For instance, the lust for deflowering virgins, the first subject, something which cannot previously arise in any case. Equally the following subjects: the lust for variety, the lust for rape and the lust for seducing the innocent. These are called lusts, because they are made one’s own in proportion to their scale and nature.
As regards the lust for deflowering in particular, this will be set forth in the following sequence, to provide an evident proof that it is a crime.
(i) The state of a virgin or untouched woman before marriage and after marriage.
(ii) Virginity is the crown of chastity and a pledge of conjugial love.
(iii) Deflowering with no intent to marry is a piratical crime.
(iv) The fate after death of those who have convinced themselves that the lust for deflowering is not a sinful evil is dire.
There now follows an explanation of these points.
What the state of a virgin is before she has been taught the facts about getting married was made plain to me by wives in the spiritual world, who had departed from the natural world as children and been brought up in heaven. They said that on reaching marriageable condition they began through watching married couples to love married life, but only in order to be called wives, to keep company in friendship and trust with one man, and also to be free of obedience at home and have control of their own lives. They said it was only the blessedness of friendship and mutual trust with a male consort that made them think about marriage, and there was not the slightest hint of the delight of any passion.
[2] The virgin state changed after being married to a new one, about which they had previously known nothing. This state, they said, was one in which everything to do with bodily life from first to last had extended so as to receive their husband’s gifts and to unite them to their own life, thus becoming his love and a wife. This state began from the moment of being deflowered, and after this the passion of love blazed up directed towards their husband alone. This extension made them experience heavenly delights. Since the wife had been brought into this state by her husband, and since he is its source and it is thus his in her, it was obvious that she could love no one but him.
[3] These statements made it clear what is the state of virgins in heaven before and after marriage. It is not difficult to see that on earth the state of virgins and wives on first being married is similar. How can any virgin know that new state until she experiences it? Ask and you will be told. There is a difference in the case of those who before marriage have been taught how to lure men by enticing them.
Virginity is called the crown of chastity, because it crowns the chastity of marriage, and it is also a sign of chastity. A bride therefore at her wedding wears a crown on her head. It is also a sign of the holiness of marriage. For after parting with the flower of virginity the bride gives and hands herself over completely to the bridegroom, who then becomes her husband; and the husband in turn does the same to his bride, who then becomes his wife.
Virginity is also called the pledge of conjugial love, because it is a pledge of their compact, a promise that love will unite them to be one person, or one flesh. Even men before their wedding regard the virginity of their bride as the crown of her chastity and as a pledge of conjugial love. They look upon it as the great treat, from which their delight in this love will begin and last. These and previous statements establish that, after her girdle is undone and her virginity taken, a virgin becomes a wife; and if not a wife, she becomes promiscuous. For the new state into which she is then brought is the state of love for her husband; and if it is not for her husband, it is a state of lust.
Some adulterers have a longing for deflowering virgins, and hence also girls of the age of innocence. They may be enticed into this either by being persuaded by a procuress, or by having presents given to them by men, or by promises of marriage. After deflowering them, these men abandon them and go looking for girls, one after the other. Moreover, they are not satisfied with what is past, but by what is always new; and this lust grows until it becomes the chief of their fleshly pleasures. They add to this the crime of luring by various tricks virgins, who are about to be married or have just been married, to offer them the first-fruits of marriage, a filthy befouling of marriage. I have even been told that, when the sexual drive has gone and their potency has failed, they boast about the number of virginities they have taken, like Jason boasting of so many golden fleeces.
[2] This crime, which is corruption, being started in the vigour of youth and then established by boasting about it, remains rooted in them, so that it lasts after death. The nature of this crime is evident from what was said above, that virginity is the crown of chastity, the pledge of future conjugial love, and that the virgin who surrenders this to a man surrenders her soul and life to him. The friendship and mutual trust of married couples is also based on this. Also, a woman who loses her virginity to such a man, once this doorway to conjugial love is forced open, loses her modesty and becomes promiscuous, for which the despoiler is also to blame.
[3] If the despoilers themselves, after achieving these acts of wantonness and profanations of chastity, turn their attention to marriage, they have nothing else in mind but the virginity of the woman who is to be their wife. Once they have taken it, they loathe the marriage bed and nuptial chamber, in fact they loathe the whole female sex apart from young girls. Since such men violate marriage and look down on the female sex, being thus spiritual robbers, it is obvious that they are pursued by Divine nemesis.
Their fate is that, after spending an initial period in the world of spirits, a time of modesty and morality, since they are in the company of angelic spirits, they are later brought from their outward into their inward state, and so into the desires which ensnared them in the world, in this case their particular desires, so that the degree in which they were is made clear; if it is a lesser degree, so that after being brought into that state, they may be released from it and be ashamed of themselves.
[2] But those who were possessed by this wicked lust, to such an extent that they felt its delight as the supreme pleasure, and boasted about these thefts as if they were the spoils of victory – these do not allow themselves to be withdrawn. They are therefore left free to choose, and then at once they wander about asking for brothels; and when these are pointed out to them they go into them. These brothels are at the edges of hell. But when they find there only prostitutes, they leave and ask where the virgins are. Then they are taken to whores who by imagination can equip themselves with surpassing beauty and the flower of girlish grace, and boast of their virginity; these excite their ardour in the same way as in the world. They therefore come to terms with them, and when they are about to achieve what they had agreed, the imaginary appearance sent from heaven is taken away, and these virgins are then to be seen in all their ugliness, monstrous and swarthy; but these men are obliged to cling to them for a while. These whores are called sirens.
[3] But if such conjuring tricks do not succeed in making them withdraw from this mad lust, they are cast down into a hell which is on the borders of the south and the west, below the hell of the more artful prostitutes. There they join their companions. I was allowed to see them in that hell, and I was told that there are many there of noble and of rather wealthy families. But because of the nature they had in the world, they lose all memory of their birth and rank derived from wealth, and are induced to believe that they were lowly servants so as not to deserve any honour.
[4] Among themselves they may look like human beings, but to others who are allowed to see into their hell like monkeys, with a scowling instead of a smiling face, and a horrid look instead of a jesting one. They walk with their loins contracted, so that their backs are bent and the upper part of their body leans forward, as if they were on the point of falling over; and they smell bad. They loathe the other sex, and turn away from any of them they see, since they have no desire. This is what they look like close to, but at a distance like lap-dogs or pet puppies. Also there is a sound reminiscent of barking to be heard in their tone of voice.
THE LUST FOR VARIETY
The lust for variety which is discussed here does not mean a lust for fornication, to which a chapter has already been devoted. Although this is usually promiscuous and roving, it still does not impart a lust for variety, except when it becomes excessive and the fornicator counts how many women he has had, and his desire makes him boast of it. It is this notion which is the starting-point of this lust. But what it is like as it develops cannot be clearly seen unless set forth in some order, as follows.
(i) The lust for variety means an utterly dissolute lust for immoral behaviour.
(ii) This lust is at once love and loathing for the other sex.
(iii) This lust utterly annihilates a person’s conjugial love.
(iv) The fate of these people after death is pitiful, since they lack the inmost level of life.
There now follows an explanation of these points.
This lust creeps into those who in adolescence have slackened the reins of modesty, and have had no lack of prostitutes, especially if they have not been without the wealth needed to meet the expense. They implant and root this lust in themselves by disorderly and unrestrained immorality, having no shame in thinking about making love to the female sex, and by convincing themselves that adultery is not an evil and certainly not a sin. As they go on this lust grows in them, until they desire every woman in the world, wanting hordes of them and a new one every day.
Since this lust springs out of the ordinary sexual love everyone has implanted in him, and to the greatest extent from the love of one of the other sex, which is conjugial love, and launches itself into the outer regions of the heart as the delight of love, which is separate but yet derived from them, it is therefore so deeply rooted in the skin, that after their powers have faded, it remains in the sense of touch. These people think nothing of committing adultery. So they think of the whole female sex as they would of a common whore, of marriage as the regular frequenting of prostitutes, so mixing up shamelessness with modesty that the confusion drives them mad. These considerations make it obvious what the lust for variety means here, an utterly dissolute lust for immoral behaviour.
They have a love for the other sex because this is the source of variety, and they have a loathing for the other sex because they cast them off once they have made love to them and transfer their lust to other women. This obscene lust blazes up for a new woman, but once it has blazed it becomes cool towards her; and coldness is loathing. We can illustrate how this lust is at once love and loathing for the other sex. Put on the left a group of women whom they have made love to, and on the right a group whom they have not; would they not look on the latter with love, the other with loathing? Yet either group is part of the female sex.
This is because that love is utterly opposed to conjugial love, so opposed that it not only tears it apart, but, so to speak, grinds it up to dust and so annihilates it. For conjugial love is directed towards one of the other sex, but this lust does not dally with one, but after an hour or a day is as much prey to coldness as it was previously to heat for her. Since coldness is loathing, it is piled up by living together and being forced to stay together, until it becomes nauseous; and thus conjugial love is so used up that not a shred of it remains. These considerations enable us to see that this lust is fatal to conjugial love; and since conjugial love makes up the inmost level of a person’s life, it is fatal to that kind of life. As the result of successive interruptions and obstructions of the inner levels of the mind, it ends up by becoming confined to the skin, so that it is nothing but a snare. However the ability to understand, rationality, still remains.
The excellence of each person’s life depends upon his conjugial love, for his life is linked with his wife’s life and by being linked is raised to a higher level. But since in the case of these people there is not the slightest remnant of conjugial love, so that there is nothing either from the inmost level of life, their fate after death is pitiful. After spending a period in their outer levels, which allows them to talk rationally and act politely, they are brought into their inner levels, and at that time into the same kind of lust and the same degree of its pleasures that they experienced* in the world. In fact each person is after death brought into the same state of life as he had made his own, for the purpose of withdrawing him from it. No one can be withdrawn from his evil, unless he has first been brought into it. Otherwise the evil would bury itself and pollute the inner levels of the mind, and spread like a plague until it broke down the barriers and destroyed the outer or bodily levels. For this purpose the houses of ill fame on the edges of hell are opened for them; there they find whores with whom they are given the chance of indulging their varying lusts. But this permission is for one woman a day, and it is forbidden under threat of punishment to enjoy more than one on the same day.
[2] Afterwards, when they have been tested and their lust has been found to be so ingrained that they cannot be withdrawn from it, they are taken to a place directly above the hell assigned to them. There they seem to themselves to faint, but to others to fall flat on their backs; and in fact the ground opens up beneath their backs and they are swallowed up, slipping into a hell containing people like them. So they are gathered to their own.
I was allowed to see them there and also to talk with them. To themselves they look like human beings, a privilege allowed to prevent them terrifying their companions. But a little way off they look to have white faces, as if composed of nothing but skin. This is because they have no spiritual life in them, something everyone has in proportion to the marriage principle implanted in him.
[3] Their speech is dry, parched and depressing. When hungry they moan, and their moans make a peculiar humming noise. They are dressed in rags with breeches pulled up above the belly to around the chest, because they have no loins, but their ankles start from the lower part of their belly. This is because people’s loins correspond to conjugial love, something they do not have. They said that as a result of impotence they loathe the other sex. But they can still reason among themselves on different subjects, as if they were rational; but being creatures of skin they reason from the fallacies of the senses. This hell is in the western quarter verging on the north. These spirits seen from a distance no longer look like men, nor like monsters, but like jellies. But it should be known that the ones who become like this are those who became so thoroughly immersed in that lust that they tore apart and annihilated the human principle of marriage in themselves.
* Reading in quo fuerunt for in quo ejus fuerunt. The word ejus seems to have been repeated in error from the preceding clause.
THE LUST FOR RAPE
The lust for rape does not mean the lust for deflowering virgins. That lust is the rape of virginities, but not of virgins, so long as it takes place with their consent. The lust for rape meant here recoils from consent and is exacerbated by its absence. It is an ardent desire to rape women of any sort who are utterly unwilling and reject their advances, whether they are virgins, widows or wives. These men are like brigands or pirates who take delight in their seizures and plunder, but not in what is given them or is fairly acquired. They are like criminals who are agog for what is unlawful and forbidden, and spurn what is lawful and permitted.
These rapists completely turn their backs on consent and are fired by resistance. If they do not observe any inward resistance, the ardour of their lust is at once quenched, like a fire dowsed with water. It is well known that wives do not of their own accord submit to their husbands’ wishes as regards the outermost expressions of love, and their prudence makes them offer resistance, as if to rape, to take away from their husbands the coldness which arises from constant permission and also from having wanton thoughts about these matters. Although resistance of this kind inflames their husbands, it is not the reason, but only the beginning of their lust. The reason is that, once conjugial love and also scortatory love have faded as the result of being exercised, to be revived they need to be inflamed by complete resistance.
The lust so begun goes on to grow, and as it grows, it despises and breaks through all the restrictions on sexual love, so banishing itself, and from a wanton bodily and fleshly love it becomes one of cartilage and bone, and then as the result of the regions near the bone which have acute sensitivity, it becomes acute. However, this lust is still rare, because it is only possible with those who have entered upon marriage and then so much indulged in affairs, that these have become unattractive. In addition to the natural reason for this lust, there also exists a spiritual reason, about which something will be said in what follows.
[2] After a number of such bawdy contests they are taken out and transferred to a cavern, where they are set to some task. But because of their foul smell, the result of having dispelled the marriage principle which is the jewel of human life, they are banished to the borders of the western region. There seen at a distance they look emaciated, as if made of bones covered only with skin, and from far off like panthers. When I was allowed to see them rather closer, I was surprised to find some of them holding books in their hands and reading. I was told that this was because in the world they had had plenty to say about the spiritual things of the church; yet they had befouled them by their acts of adultery, which they took to the extremes mentioned, and the correspondence of this lust was with the violation of the spiritual marriage. But it should be known that those who have this lust are few and far between. Certain it is that women repeatedly resist, because it is unbecoming for them to prostitute their love, and their resistance gives them strength. But still this is not due to a lust for being raped.
THE LUST FOR SEDUCING THE INNOCENT
The lust for seducing the innocent is not the same as that for deflowering or for rape, but is a separate and peculiar lust on its own. It is especially to be found among the deceitful. The women whom these regard as innocent are those who look upon the evil of promiscuity as a major sin, so that they are devoted to chastity and at the same time to religion. It is these they lust for. In kingdoms of the Catholic faith there are convents of nuns; and since they believe these to excel all others in piety and innocence, they look upon them as choice delicacies for their lust. In order to seduce women of either of these types they first, being deceitful, think up tricks, and when they have made these a part of their characters, they can put them into effect without being held back by shame, as if they were natural.
The tricks are principally the pretence of innocence, love, chastity and religious feeling. They use these and other devices to gain admittance to intimate friendship with these women, and so to their love; and by various means of persuasion and insinuation they turn this from spiritual into natural love, and later by excitement on the level of the body into carnal love. Thus they can possess them at will; once they have achieved this, they are heartily pleased and scorn those they have violated.
[2] Afterwards they are taken to women of genuine innocence. When they try to deceive them in the same way, the women are given the power to punish them severely. For they induce in their hands and feet, and also in their necks, a numbing heaviness, which ends by making them feel as if they are fainting. After experiencing this they tear themselves away from them. After this they find a way open which takes them to a group of promiscuous women, who have learned cunningly to counterfeit innocence. These women first of all make fun of them, and finally after various promises allow themselves to be raped.
[3] After a number of such scenes the third stage takes over, that of judgment. Then they are found guilty and sink down, being gathered to those like them in a hell in the northern quarter; there they look from a distance like weasels. But if they had been deeply attached to deceit, they are carried down from this to the hell of the deceitful, which is in the western quarter, deep down at the back. Seen from a distance in this they look like snakes of different kinds, the most deceitful like vipers. But when I was allowed to look into their hell, they seemed to me a sickly yellow with a chalk-white face. Being nothing but desires they do not like talking, and if they do they only mutter and make various murmuring noises, which no one but the companions beside them can understand. But soon, as they sit or stand, they make themselves hard to see, flitting around their cave like ghosts. For at this time they are fantasising, and this gives them the appearance of flying. After their flight they settle again; and then, a strange thing, they do not recognise one another. This is because they are deceitful, and deceit does not believe another, but withdraws itself. When any feeling of conjugial love strikes them, they take refuge in underground rooms and hide away. For they are without any sexual love and are totally impotent. They are called hellish genii.
THE CORRESPONDENCE OF IMMORAL BEHAVIOUR WITH THE VIOLATION OF THE SPIRITUAL MARRIAGE
I would have inserted here some preliminary remarks on the nature of correspondence, but this subject does not belong in this work. A brief summary of its nature may be seen above (76, 342), and a full account in The Apocalypse Revealed from beginning to end, showing how it exists between the natural and spiritual senses of the Word. It was proved in The Teaching of the New Jerusalem concerning Holy Scripture that the Word contains a natural and a spiritual sense with a correspondence between them (in particular 5-26 of that book).
* Or ‘whoredom.’
* * * * *
On my eyes being opened I saw a dark forest and a crowd of satyrs in it. They had hairy chests, and some had feet like calves’, some like panthers’ and some like wolves’, with the claws of wild animals taking the place of toes on the foot. They were running to and fro like wild animals shouting ‘Where are the women?’ Then there were seen the whores who were waiting for them; they too had monstrous forms of various types. The satyrs ran up and took hold of them, pulling them down into a cave deep underground in the middle of the forest. Above ground around the cave lay coiled a great snake, breathing poison into the cave. On the branches of the trees above the snake ill-omened night birds croaked and hooted. However, the satyrs and the whores did not see these sights, since they were correspondences of their own wantonness, and thus the appearances which are usual when viewed from a distance.
[2] Afterwards they left the cave and went into a low hut, which was a brothel. Then when they were apart from the whores, they started talking, and I listened. For speech in the spiritual world can be heard at a distance, just as if one were present, since the extension of space is there only an appearance. They were talking about marriage, nature and religion.
Those whose feet looked like those of calves talked about marriage. ‘What is marriage,’ they said, ‘but permitted adultery? Is there anything sweeter than promiscuity concealed by hypocrisy and cheating on husbands?’ The rest of them roared with laughter at this and applauded by clapping.
The satyrs whose feet looked like those of panthers talked about nature. ‘What else is there,’ they said, ‘but nature? Is there any difference between a human being and an animal, except that a human being has articulate speech and an animal only makes noises? Is it not a fact that both have life as a result of heat and understanding as a result of light through the workings of nature?’ This was received by the rest with a shout of ‘Judiciously put!’
Those whose feet looked like those of wolves talked about religion. ‘What is God or the Divine,’ they said, ‘but the working of the inmost level of nature? What is religion but a fiction designed to ensnare the common people and hold them tightly?’ To this there were cries from the rest of ‘Hear, hear!’
[3] A few moments later they burst out, and as they rushed forth they saw me a long way off watching them intently. This made them angry and they ran out of the forest and hurried up to me with threatening looks. ‘What are you doing,’ they said, ‘standing here and listening to what we are whispering?’ ‘Why shouldn’t I?’ I answered. ‘Is there anything to stop me hearing what you said?’ Then I repeated what I had heard them say. This calmed their minds, since they were anxious that these things should not be made public. Then they began to speak moderately and to act decently; I knew from this that they were not from the common people but the upper classes. Then I told them that I had seen them in the forest looking like satyrs, twenty of them as calf-satyrs, six as panther-satyrs, and four as wolf-satyrs. There were thirty of them in all.
[4] This surprised them, because when there they saw themselves only as human beings, just as they saw themselves then in my presence. I informed them that these appearances at a distance were due to promiscuous lust, and this satyr-like form was a representation not of a person, but of dissolute adultery. I gave as a reason the fact that each evil desire presents its likeness in some shape or other, which they could not see themselves, but which could be seen by those standing at a distance. ‘To make you believe this,’ I said, ‘send some of your number out into the forest, while you stay here and watch.’ They did so, and sent two of them; and when they were near the brothel hut they saw that they looked exactly like satyrs. When they came back, they greeted them as satyrs, and said ‘What a joke!’
While they were laughing I made various jokes with them, telling them I had also seen some adulterers as pigs. Then I recalled the story of Ulysses and Circe*, how she sprinkled noxious drugs on Ulysses’ companions and servants, touched them with a magic wand and turned them into pigs. Perhaps this means into adulterers, because she could not by any means turn anyone into a pig. When they roared with laughter at this and similar tales, I asked whether they knew from which kingdoms in the world they had come. They gave various answers, naming Italy, Poland, Germany, Britain and Sweden. I asked if they had seen anyone among them from Holland. They said no to this.
[5] Then I switched our talk to serious subjects and asked whether they had ever reflected that adultery was a sin. ‘What is a sin?’ they replied. ‘We don’t know what it means.’ I asked whether they ever remembered that adultery is against the sixth** of the Ten Commandments. ‘What are the Ten Commandments?’ they replied. ‘Isn’t this in the Catechism? What have grown men like us to do with that childish little book?’ I asked if they had ever any thoughts about hell. ‘Has anyone,’ they replied, ‘come up from there to tell us?’ I asked whether while they were in the world they had ever thought about life after death. ‘Much the same,’ they said, ‘as in the case of animals; or sometimes like ghosts, which, if such emanations from corpses exist, fade away.’ I went on to ask whether they had not heard something on both these subjects from priests. They replied that they had only listened to the sound of their voices and not to what they were saying; ‘and what,’ they said, ‘is that?’
[6] I was astonished at these replies, and said to them, ‘Turn your faces and gaze towards the middle of the forest, where the cave is in which you were.’ They did so, and saw the great snake coiled around it, breathing poison into it, and the ill-omened birds in the branches overhead. ‘What do you see?’ I asked. But they were too frightened to answer. ‘You saw that horrible sight, didn’t you?’ I said. ‘You should know that this is a representation of adultery engaged in its lustful crime.’
Suddenly an angel stood by us. He was a priest, and he opened up the hell in the western quarter, where such people are finally assembled. ‘Look there,’ he said, and they saw a lake as if of fire. They recognised there some of their friends in the world, who were inviting them to join them. When they had heard and seen these things, they turned away and hurried from my sight, leaving the forest behind. But I was able to observe their course, and they only pretended to go away, but crept back through by-ways into the forest.
* The original has ‘Medea’, obviously a slip. The reference is to the tenth book of Homer’s Odyssey.
** This is the numbering in some catechisms of the prohibition of adultery.
Then I heard a voice from heaven: ‘Go into your room, shut the door, and concentrate on the work you have started on the Book of Revelation. You are to bring this to completion within two years.’*
* The Apocalypse Revealed was published in April 1766, two years before this book.
ON THE IMPUTATION OF BOTH CONJUGIAL AND SCORTATORY LOVE
The Lord says ‘Judge not, for fear you are condemned’ (Matt. 7:1). This cannot possibly mean a judgment about anyone’s moral or civil life in the world, but a judgment about his spiritual and celestial life. Anyone can see that, if it were forbidden to make judgments about the moral life of those who live with us in the world, society would collapse. How could we have a society without public judgments, or if everyone did not make his own judgment of others? But judgments about the nature of the inner mind or soul, and so the spiritual state, and thus their fate after death, are not permitted, since these are known only to the Lord. Nor does the Lord reveal these to anyone except after his death, so that everyone may be free to act as he does, and thus be the source and seat of good or evil, so making his own life for himself for ever.
The inner levels of the mind, which are hidden in the world, are revealed after death. This is because this is important and suitable to the communities into which the person then comes, for all there are spiritual. These words of the Lord make it plain that they are then revealed:
There is nothing concealed which shall not be revealed, or hidden which shall not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in darkness shall be heard in light; and what you whispered in inner rooms shall be proclaimed on the rooftops. Luke 12:2, 3.
It is allowable to make general judgments like this: if you are inwardly what you seem to be outwardly, you will be saved, or damned. But not particular judgments like this: this is what you are like inwardly, therefore you will be saved, or damned. The imputation which is the subject of this chapter is a judgment of a person’s spiritual life or the inner life of his soul. Is there anyone who knows if a person is at heart promiscuous or is at heart a husband or wife? Yet it is the thought in a person’s heart, the intentions of his will, which judge him. But these subjects will be disclosed in the following order:
(i) Everyone has imputed to him after death the evil in which he is, and likewise the good.
(ii) It is impossible for one person’s good to be copied into another.
(iii) If imputation is taken to mean such a copying, it is a fatuous expression.
(iv) The evil imputed to everyone depends upon the nature of his will and on the nature of his intellect; and likewise the good.
(v) Thus everyone’s scortatory love is imputed to him.
(vi) Likewise his conjugial love.
An explanation of these points now follows.
To make this more plain it needs to be divided up, as follows.
(a) Everyone has a life of his own. (b) Everyone has his own life awaiting him after death. (c) Then a wicked person has the evil of his life imputed, and a good person the good of his.
The first point, that everyone has a life of his own and different from any other’s, is a well known fact. For there is perpetual variation and the same never repeats; this is what gives a person his individuality. This is clearly visible from people’s faces; there is never a face absolutely identical with another, nor can there ever be. The reason is that there are never two characters alike, and the character determines the face; for the face is, as the saying goes, the stamp of character, and the character owes its origin and form to the way people live.
[2] If a person did not have a life of his own, just as he has a character and a face of his own, he would not have a life after death distinct from any other’s. In fact, heaven would not exist either, since it is composed of perpetual differences. The form of heaven is solely due to the variations in souls and minds so ordered as to make one; and they make one by virtue of the One, whose life is in each and every person there, as the soul is in a person. If this were not so, heaven would fall apart because its form was undone. The One who is the source of life for each and every person, and who holds the form together, is the Lord.
Generally speaking every form is composed of different parts, and its nature is dictated by the harmonious co-ordination of its parts and their combination into a unit. Such is the human form, and thus it is that a person is composed of so many members, viscera and organs, without being aware of anything in him or done by him except as a unit.
[3] The second point, that everyone has his own life awaiting him after death, is a fact well known in the church from the Word, including these passages:
The Son of Man is to come and he will then reward everyone in accordance with his deeds. (Matt. 16:27).
I saw the books opened, and all were judged in accordance with their works (Rev. 21:12, 13).
On the day of judgment God will reward everyone in accordance with his works. (Rom. 2:6; 2 Cor. 5:10).
The works in accordance with which each is to be rewarded are his life, because it is his life which produces them and they are in keeping with it. Since I have been allowed for many years to enjoy the company of angels and to talk with new arrivals from the world, I can vouch for the fact that each person is there tested to see what sort of life he led in the world, and that the life he adopted in the world awaits him to eternity. I have talked with people who lived centuries ago and whose life was known to me from histories, and I recognised that their life was similar to the descriptions I had read. I have been told by angels that a person’s life after death is immutable, because it has been organised in accordance with his love and thus with his works. If any change were made, this would upset the organisation, something that can never happen. Also, a change in the organisation is only possible in the material body, and it cannot be effected in the spiritual body after the rejection of the previous one.
[4] The third point is that a wicked person then has the evil of his life imputed to him, and a good person the good of his. The imputation of evil does not mean a process of accusation, arraignment, conviction and judgment as in the world, but it is the result of the evil itself. For wicked people in their own freedom separate themselves from the good, because they cannot be together. The pleasures of a love of evil turn away from the pleasures of a love of good; and everyone has pleasures emanating from him, like smells from every plant on earth. They are not absorbed and masked by a material body as before, but they diffuse freely from their loves into the spiritual aura. And because evil is there perceived as if by its smell, it is this which accuses, arraigns, convicts and judges, not before any judge, but before anyone who is in a state of good. This is what is meant by imputation. Moreover, the wicked man chooses companions with whom he can live and enjoy his pleasure; and since he turns his back on the pleasures of good, he takes himself off of his own accord to his kind in hell.
[5] The imputation of good takes place in much the same way. This happens to those who in the world have acknowledged that all the good in them is from the Lord, and none of it from themselves. After being prepared these are admitted to the inner pleasures of good, and then a way to heaven is opened for them, leading to a community with pleasures of the same kind. The Lord brings this about.
This too can be clearly seen from the following list of points. (a) Every person is born in a state of evil. (b) He is brought into a state of good through being regenerated by the Lord. (c) This takes place through living in accordance with His commandments. (d) Therefore good, being so implanted, cannot be copied.
First, it is well known in the church that every person is born in a state of evil. This evil is said to be inherited from Adam, but it actually comes from the parents. Each person derives from them his disposition, which is his inclination. This is supported by reason and by experience. For likeness to parents is clearly to be seen as regards face, character and behaviour in their children, their immediate descendants, as well as in their more remote descendants through their children. Many are able by this means to recognise families and to form judgments about their characters. It is therefore the evils acquired by the parents themselves and so passed on to their offspring which are the evils with which people are born. The belief that Adam’s guilt is imprinted on the whole human race is due to the fact that few people reflect on any evil they have and so come to know it. They therefore hold the opinion that it is so deeply hidden as to be invisible except in the sight of God.
[2] Secondly, a person is brought into a state of good by being regenerated by the Lord. The fact of regeneration and that without it a person cannot enter heaven is plainly stated by the Lord’s words in John 3:3, 5. Regeneration is being purified from evils and so having one’s life renewed; this cannot be unknown in the Christian world, for reason too can see this when it acknowledges that everyone is born in a state of evil, and evil cannot be washed or wiped away like dirt by means of soap and water, but by means of coming to one’s senses.
[3] Thirdly, a person is brought into a state of good by the Lord through living in accordance with His commandments. There are five commandments necessary for regeneration (see 82 above), including the following. Evils are to be shunned, because they are the devil’s and come from him; and good deeds are to be done because they are God’s and come from Him; the Lord is to be approached praying that He may cause them to do these things. Let everyone examine himself and consider whether a person has any other source of good; and without good he cannot be saved.
[4] Fourthly, good, being thus implanted, cannot be copied. Copying means the transference of one person’s good to another. The consequence of what has been said above is that through regeneration a person is made completely new as regards his spirit, and this takes place through living in accordance with the Lord’s commandments. No one can fail to see that this renewal can only happen from time to time, very much as a tree by stages takes root from a seed, growing up and being made complete. Those with a different idea of regeneration are utterly ignorant of the human condition, and of evil and good as being total opposites, so that good can only be implanted to the extent that evil is removed. Nor are they aware that so long as anyone is in a state of evil, he loathes good which is essentially good. If therefore one person’s good were to be transferred into someone in a state of evil, it would be like throwing a lamb to a wolf, or like a pearl tied on a pig’s snout. This makes it plain that copying is impossible.
It was proved above (524) that after death everyone has imputed to him the evil he has, and likewise the good he has. This establishes the meaning of imputation. But if imputation is taken to mean the copying of good into someone in a state of evil, it is a fatuous expression, because it is an impossibility, as was proved above (525). In the world it is possible for merits to be copied, that is, for children to receive benefits for their parents’ sake or for the friends of a client to have a favour done to them. But the good of merit cannot be imprinted on their souls, but only attached as an outward adjunct. Nothing of the kind is possible with regard to a person’s spiritual life, which, as was shown above, needs to be implanted. If it is not implanted through living in accordance with the Lord’s commandments listed above, a person remains in the state of evil which he has by birth. Until this implanting takes place, no good can touch him; and if it does, it is at once rejected and bounces back like a rubber ball falling on a rock, or it is swallowed up like a diamond thrown into a marsh.
An unreformed person is in spirit like a panther or an owl, and can be likened to a bramble or a nettle. But a regenerated person is like a sheep or a dove, and can be likened to an olive-tree or a vine. Be so good, I beg you, as to think how can a panther-person be turned into a sheep-person, or an owl into a dove, or a bramble into an olive-tree, or a nettle into a vine, by any process of imputation, if by that we mean copying. Surely for such a change to happen the fierceness of the panther and the owl, or the harmfulness of the bramble and the nettle, must first be taken away, so that what is truly human and harmless can be implanted? The Lord also teaches how this can happen in John 15:1-7.
It is well known that there are two factors which make a person’s life, the will and the intellect, that all his actions are the result of his will and his intellect, and that without their agency a person could neither act nor speak except mechanically. From this is it plain that a person’s nature is determined by the nature of his will and his intellect; the essential nature of his actions is determined by the affection of the will which gives rise to them; the nature of a person’s conversation is determined by the intellectual thinking that gives rise to it. It is therefore possible for a number of people to act and talk alike, and yet in fact they act and talk differently, in one case due to wrong willing and thinking, in another due to right willing and right thinking.
[2] These facts establish what is meant by the actions or deeds according to which each individual will be judged, namely, the will and the intellect, and in consequence evil deeds mean the deeds of a wicked will, whatever they look like outwardly. Also good deeds means the deeds of a good will, even though outwardly they look like the deeds of a wicked person. Everything done by a person’s inner will is done of set purpose, since the will sets before itself as an aim what in intends to do. Everything done by the intellect is done by assent, since the intellect assents to it. These facts can establish that everyone has evil or good imputed to him according to the nature of his will shown in his actions and the nature of his intellect with regard to them.
[3] I can support this statement by the following. In the spiritual world I have met many people whose life in the natural world was no different from others’; they wore fine clothes, dined elegantly, engaged in business deals like other people to make profits, went to the theatre, joked about love affairs as if lusting for them, and did other things of the same sort. Yet the angels held some of them guilty of sinful evils, and to others they did not impute these actions as evils, declaring one group innocent, and the other guilty. When they were asked why, when both groups had done much the same, they replied that what they looked for in all cases was the aim, intention or end in view, and they distinguished cases on this basis, so that those who were excused or condemned by their end in view, they themselves excused or condemned, since all in heaven have good as their end in view, all in hell evil.
Everyone knows that, if a man is an adulterer, he is not therefore a murderer, thief or false witness, nor does he want to be. But anyone who is of set purpose and by assent an adulterer treats as of no consequence every religious scruple, and so equally murder, theft and bearing false witness; and he does not refrain from these actions because they are sins, but because he is afraid of the law and of losing his reputation. Adulterers of set purpose and by assent pay no heed to the injunctions of the church and religion; see above 490-493, and in the two accounts of experiences, 500, 521, 522. It is much the same, if anyone of set purpose or by assent acts contrary to any other Commandment; he acts contrary to all the rest, because he does not consider any of them to be a sin.
This, it may be seen, means not in accordance with the deeds visible outwardly to the sight of human beings, nor even to the sight of a judge, but as they are to be seen inwardly in the sight of the Lord, and by His doing in the sight of the angels; which is in accordance with the nature of a person’s will and intellect shown in them. In the world there are various circumstances which mitigate and excuse crimes, as well as those which aggravate and censure them. Still imputation after death is not determined by the outward circumstances of the deed, but by the inner circumstances of the mind; and these are considered in accordance with the state of the church in each person. For example, if a person is irreligious in will and intellect, one lacking any fear of God, love for the neighbour or thus any respect for any holiness in the church, he is after death held guilty of all the crimes he committed in the body, and his good deeds are not remembered. This is because his heart, the source from which they gushed forth, was turned away from heaven and turned towards hell; everyone’s deeds come forth from the place where his heart dwells.
[2] To make this intelligible I shall report a secret. Heaven is divided into countless communities, and so by contraries is hell; and each person’s mind actually lives in a community determined by his will and thus his intellect, and shares the intentions and thoughts of those in it. If his mind is in some community in heaven, then his intentions and thoughts are like those of its members; and if it is in some community of hell, like those of its members. But so long as a person lives in the world, he moves from one community to another, as the affections of his will and so the thoughts of his mind change. But after death his movements are grouped together and this grouping indicates the place for him, in hell if he is wicked, in heaven if good.
[3] Now since all in hell have a will to evil, all there are regarded from that point of view. Imputation after death therefore depends upon the nature of each person’s will and intellect. The case is similar with immoral behaviour, whether fornication, taking a mistress or a concubine or committing adultery, since these acts are imputed to each depending not on what was actually done, but on the state of mind while doing them. For deeds follow the body to the grave, but the mind rises again.
There are marriages which seem to lack conjugial love, though it is present, and there are marriages which seem to have conjugial love, though it is absent. There are many reasons for this in either case, and these can to some extent be recognised by the discussion of truly conjugial love (57-73), the reasons for coldness and separation (234-260), and the reasons for an appearance of love and friendship in marriages (271-292). But outward appearance allows no conclusion to be drawn about imputation. The only conclusive fact is the marriage principle lodged in a person’s will and preserved whatever the state of his marriage. This marriage principle is like a balance on which that love is weighed. For the principle of the marriage of one man with one wife is the jewel of human life and the repository of Christian religion (as shown above in 457, 458).
This being so, this love may exist with one partner, but not at the same time with the other. It may lurk too deeply hidden for the person himself to be at all aware of it; and it may also become imprinted as life proceeds. The reason is that this love follows hard on the heels of religion; and religion, being the marriage of the Lord and the church, is the starting point at which this love is injected. Conjugial love is therefore imputed to each person after death in keeping with his spiritual rational life. Anyone who has this love imputed to him has a marriage provided for him in heaven, whatever marriage he may have had in the world. The upshot of this is that no conclusion must be drawn about anyone having conjugial love or not, either from the way his marriage looks or from any immoral behaviour he appears to exhibit. Therefore
Do not judge for fear of being condemned. (Matt. 7:1.)
* * * * *
I was once carried up in my spirit to the heaven of angels, and to one community there. Then some of their wise men came to me asking, ‘What is the news from earth?’ I told them that the news was that the Lord has revealed secrets far surpassing in excellence any so far revealed since the church began. ‘What are they?’ they asked.
I said that these were: (a) In every detail the Word contains a spiritual sense corresponding to the natural sense, and by means of that sense the Word forms a link between people in the church and the Lord. It also creates an association with angels, and the holiness of the Word resides in that sense.
[2] (b) The correspondences of which the spiritual sense is composed have been disclosed. ‘Did not the inhabitants of the earth,’ asked the angels, ‘previously know about correspondences?’ I told them that they knew nothing about them at all, since they had been lost to sight for thousands of years, in fact, since the time of Job. The people of that and earlier ages regarded a knowledge of correspondences as the supreme science, and it was the source of their wisdom, because it was knowledge of spiritual matters to do with heaven and so with the church. But because the science turned into an idolatrous one, it was by the Lord’s Divine providence so thoroughly wiped out and lost that no one could see any trace of it. Now, however, it has been disclosed by the Lord, so that people belonging to the church may be linked with Him and associated with angels. Both of these take place by means of the Word, every detail of which is a correspondence.
The angels were extremely happy that it had pleased the Lord to reveal this great secret which has lain so deeply hidden for thousands of years. They said that the reason it was done was in order that the Christian church, which is based upon the Word, and is now at its end, should be revived and draw breath from the Lord through heaven. They enquired whether by this science it had been disclosed what was the meaning of baptism and the Holy Supper, which up to now have been the subject of so many speculations. I replied that it had.
[3] (c) I went on to say that at the present time the Lord had made a revelation about life after death. ‘Why about life after death?’ said the angels. ‘Surely everyone knows that a person lives on after death?’
‘They do and they do not,’ I replied. ‘They say that what lives on is not the person, but his soul, and this lives as a spirit. Their notion of a spirit is that it is like the wind or the ether; and they say that the person will only live after Judgment Day. At that time their bodily remains which they left in the world, however eaten away by worms, rats or fish, will be gathered together again and reconstructed to form a body; and this is how people will be brought to life again.’
‘What an idea!’ said the angels. ‘Everyone knows that a person goes on living as a person after death with the single difference that he lives as a spiritual person, and a spiritual person can see another spiritual person, just as a material person can see a material person. They are unaware that there is any difference, except that they are in a more perfect state.’
[4] (d) The angels asked, ‘What do they know of our world and about heaven and hell?’ I replied that they knew nothing, but that at the present time the Lord had disclosed what that world where angels and spirits live is like, and so what heaven and hell are like. It has also been revealed that angels and spirits are linked with human beings, and many other surprising facts. The angels were glad that the Lord had been pleased to disclose such matters, so that mankind should no longer be driven by ignorance to doubt its own immortality.
[5] (e) I went on to speak of another matter revealed by the Lord at the present time. ‘Your world has a different sun from ours. The sun of your world is undiluted love, the sun of our world is undiluted fire. Consequently all the radiation from your sun, being undiluted love, has something of life in it; all the radiation from ours, being undiluted fire, has no life in it. This is the origin of the distinction between spiritual and natural, a distinction hitherto unknown, which has also been disclosed. From these facts it has become known what is the source of the light which enlightens the human intellect with wisdom, and what is the source of the heat which fires the human will with love.
[6] (f) ‘In addition it has been disclosed that there are three degrees of life, and that there are consequently three heavens, and a person’s mind is divided into those three degrees, so that as a result a person corresponds to the three heavens.’ ‘Did they not know this before?’ said the angels. I replied that they knew about the degrees between greater and less, but nothing about degrees between prior and posterior.
[7] (g) The angels asked whether there had been more revelations than these. I said there had. These were about the Last Judgment, and the Lord as being the God of heaven and earth; that God is one both in person and in essence, and in Him is the Divine Trinity, and He is the Lord. Other revelations were about the new church to be established by the Lord and the teaching of that church; about the holiness of Sacred Scripture (the Book of Revelation too had been revealed, and not a single verse in it could have been revealed except by the Lord); moreover, about the inhabitants of the planets and the other worlds in the universe. Furthermore many wonders and accounts of experiences had been reported from the spiritual world, by means of which a great deal of wisdom from heaven had been disclosed.
This surprised the angels, and they begged the Lord to allow them to look down into the world. On doing so, they saw nothing but darkness there. Then they were told to write those secrets on a piece of paper, and if the paper were then sent down to earth, they would witness a portent. So they did so, and we saw the paper on which the secrets were written sent down from heaven. As it travelled, while it was still in the spiritual world, it shone like a star. But when it fell into the natural world, its light disappeared, growing dimmer as it fell. When it was sent by the angels to the gatherings where there were learned and educated members of the clergy and laity, there was heard a murmur from many of them, in which we could distinguish these remarks: ‘What is this? Is it anything important? What difference does it make whether we know those things or not? Surely they are mere fabrications of the brain.’ Then it looked as if some people were picking up the paper, folding and rolling it up and twisting it between their fingers so as to blot out the writing. It looked as if some were tearing it up and as if some wanted to trample it underfoot. But they were prevented by the Lord from committing that crime, and the angels were ordered to withdraw it and keep it safe. Because then angels were saddened and thought to themselves, ‘How much longer?’ they were told:
Until a time and times and half a time. Rev. 12:14.
I replied that people are unaware of this, because they have not approached the Lord and lived in accordance with His commandments, shunning evils as sins and doing good deeds. Truly conjugial love together with its delights comes solely from the Lord, and is granted to those who live in accordance with His commandments. So it is granted to those who are to be received into the Lord’s new church meant by ‘the New Jerusalem’ in the Book of Revelation. To this I added that I was doubtful whether people in the world today are willing to believe that this love is in essence a spiritual love, and is thus derived from religion, because of the notion they have of it as being merely bodily.
Then they said to me, ‘Write on this subject, and continue the revelation, and afterwards the book written on the subject will be sent down from heaven, and we shall see whether its contents are received; and at the same time, whether they are willing to acknowledge that people possess this love in accordance with their religion, so that it is spiritual with the spiritual, natural with the natural, and simply fleshly with adulterers.’
I asked again, ‘What miracles am I to perform?’ Then a shout went up, ‘Do ones like Moses did in Egypt.’ ‘Perhaps,’ I replied, ‘you might harden your hearts at them, like Pharaoh and the Egyptians.’ They replied that they would not. But I said again, ‘Promise me that you will not dance around the golden calf and worship it like the descendants of Jacob, as they did within the space of a month after seeing the whole of Mount Sinai ablaze, and hearing Jehovah Himself speaking out of the fire; that is to say, after the greatest of miracles. (The golden calf in the spiritual sense is the pleasures of the flesh.) A reply came from below, ‘We shall not be like the descendants of Jacob.’
But then I heard this message given to them from heaven. ‘If you do not believe Moses and the Prophets, that is, the Word of the Lord, you will no more be made to believe by miracles than were Jacob’s sons in the desert. Nor will you believe any more than those did who saw with their own eyes the miracles performed by the Lord Himself, when He was in the world.’
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