* This work was originally published in the year 1768.
Flying in horizontal position, facing forward and down, he slowly descended to the tract of ground surrounding me. Landing upright upon his feet, he began to pace back and forth, and then seeing me he headed in my direction. I was in the spirit, and in this state was standing on a hill in the southern zone.
When he drew near, I spoke to him and asked, “What is happening? I heard the sound of your trumpet and saw you descending through the air.”
The angel answered, “I have been sent to call together people most renowned for their learning, most discerning in their brilliance, and foremost in their reputation for wisdom, who have come from the kingdoms of the Christian world and are living in this surrounding land. I have been sent to assemble them on this hill where you are standing, to express their honest opinions as to what they had thought, understood and perceived in the world regarding heavenly joy and eternal happiness.
[2] “The reason for my mission is that some newcomers from the world, admitted into our heavenly society in the east, have told us that not even one person in the whole Christian world knows what heavenly joy and eternal happiness are, thus what heaven is. My brothers and companions were very surprised at this, and they said to me, ‘Go down, call together and assemble the wisest in the world of spirits (the world into which all mortals are first gathered after they leave the natural world) in order that we may learn from the testimony of many whether it is true that Christians are in such darkness and unenlightened ignorance concerning the life to come.'”
He also added, “Wait here a little, and you will see companies of the wise streaming here. The Lord is going to prepare a hall of assembly for them.”
[3] I waited, and behold, after half an hour I saw two bands of people coming from the north, two from the west, and two from the south. As they arrived, they were led by the angel with the trumpet into the hall prepared for them, where they took places assigned to them according to the zones they came from.
They formed six groups or companies. A seventh came from the east, but it was not visible to the others owing to the light.
After they were assembled, the angel explained the reason they had been called together, and he asked the companies to present in turn their wisdom regarding heavenly joy and eternal happiness. Each company then gathered into a circle, its members facing each other, in order to recall the ideas they had acquired on the subject in the previous world, to consider them now, and after conferring to present their conclusion.
[2] Following that statement, the second company from the north presented in accordance with its wisdom this conjecture: “Heavenly joy and eternal happiness consist simply in delightful associations with angels and enjoyable conversations with them, which keep the countenance in continual expressions of gladness and the mouths of all in pleasant laughter as a result of charming and witty exchanges. What are heavenly joys but varying interchanges of this sort to eternity?”
[3] The third company, which was the first of the wise from the western zone, expressed in accordance with the thoughts of its members’ affections this opinion: “What else is heavenly joy and eternal happiness but dining with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,** at tables that will be set with rich delicacies and fine vintage wines, followed by exhibitions and dances by young men and women performed to the rhythms of stringed and wind instruments, and from time to time the sweet singing of songs? And finally in the evening there will be theatrical performances, and after that more dining. And so on every day to eternity.”
[4] After that pronouncement, the fourth company, the second from the western zone, reported its verdict, saying, “We have entertained many ideas with respect to heavenly joy and eternal happiness, but having considered various kinds of joy and compared them with each other, we have come to the conclusion that heavenly joys are like those of a paradise. What else is heaven but a paradise,*** stretching from east to west and from the south to the north, containing fruit trees and delightful flowers, and in their midst the magnificent tree of life, around which the blessed will sit, feeding on fruits of exquisite flavor**** and adorned with garlands of sweet-smelling flowers?
“We conclude, too, that owing to a climate of endless spring, these fruits and flowers are produced again and again daily, with unlimited variety; and that because of their continual production and growth, and at the same time the constantly springlike temperature, minds and hearts cannot help but breathe in and out new joys every day, being forever rejuvenated so as to return to the flower of their youth and through this to the pristine state into which Adam and his wife were created. Thus they are restored to the paradise of old, transferred from earth to heaven.”
[5] The fifth company, which was the first of the brilliant from the southern zone, declared the following: “Heavenly joys and eternal happiness are nothing else but positions of great power, possessions of great riches, and so superregal magnificence and superglorious splendor. We have discerned that the joys of heaven and the continual enjoyment of them (which is eternal happiness) consist in such things from observing people in the previous world who there possessed them. Furthermore, we know that the happy in heaven will reign with the Lord and will be kings and princes, because they are the sons of Him who is King of kings and Lord of lords.***** Also that they will sit upon thrones, and that the angels will minister to them.******
“As for the magnificence of heaven, we have discerned this from the account of the New Jerusalem, by which the glory of heaven is described, that it will have gates, each one of which will be one pearl, and streets of pure gold, and a wall founded upon precious stones.******* From this we conclude that everyone received into heaven has his own palace of gold, resplendent with precious things, and that the right of dominion will pass from one to another in turn. And because we know that joys are intrinsic to such things and happiness inherent in them, and that the promises of God are unbreakable, we have been unable to trace the origin of the most happy state of heavenly life from any other source.”
[6] After this, the sixth company, the second from the southern zone, raised its voice and said, “The joy of heaven and eternal happiness there consist solely in a continual glorifying of God, a religious celebration lasting to eternity, and blessed worship with singing and exultation, resulting in constant elevation of the heart to God, with full confidence in His acceptance of prayers and praises offered in gratitude for His Divine munificence in rendering the worshipers blessed.”
Some members of the company added that this celebration would be accompanied by magnificent lighting and sweet-smelling incense, with solemn processions led by a high priest carrying a great trumpet, followed by prelates and other clergy, great and small, and behind them men with palm branches and women with golden images in their hands.
* Cf. Matthew 22:1-14.
** Cf. Matthew 8:11.
*** Cf. Luke 23:43, 2 Corinthians 12:2-4.
**** Cf. Revelation 2:7.
***** See John 1:12, Romans 8:14,16,17, Galatians 4:4-7, 2 Timothy 2:12, 1 John 3:1,2, Revelation 1:6, 5:10, 17:14, 19:16, 20:4,6, 22:5.
****** See Matthew 19:28, Luke 22:29,30, Revelation 3:21; Hebrews 1:13,14.
******* Revelation 21:18-21.
[2] These angels now said to the angel with the trumpet, “As you know, everyone who has longed for heaven and has had some particular opinion about the joys there, after death is introduced into the joys of his imagination. Then when he has experienced what those joys are like and found that they reflect empty theories or his own irrational fantasies, he is afterwards taken out of them and instructed. This happens with most in the world of spirits who in their former life thought about heaven and came to some conclusion respecting joys there to the point of longing for them.”
Hearing this, the angel with the trumpet said to the six companies assembled from the wise of the Christian world, “Follow me and I will introduce you to your joys and so into heaven.”
In some of the rooms they were talking about things they had seen or heard in the public square and in the streets. In others they were saying various amiable things about the fair sex, interspersed with witty exchanges that kept increasing until the faces of all in the gathering expanded into merry laughter. In other rooms they were discussing news relating to the royal courts, their ministries, the political condition, and various matters emanating from the privy councils, with arguments and conjectures regarding the outcomes. In other rooms the subject was business. In others, scholarly matters. In others, concerns having to do with citizenship and moral living. In others, affairs having to do with the church and religious denominations. And so on.
It was granted me to look into the house, and I saw people running from room to room, looking for gatherings with their same affection and so in harmony with their joy. In the gatherings I also saw three kinds of people: some practically panting to speak, some anxious to ask questions, and some eager to listen.
[2] The house had four doors, one toward each of the four points of the compass, and I noticed that many were leaving their gatherings and hurrying to get out. Following several of these to the east door, I saw a number of them sitting beside it with downcast faces. I went over to them and asked why they were sitting there so sadly.
They answered, “The doors of this house are kept closed to anyone trying to leave. It is now the third day since we arrived, and having lived the life we longed for in socializing and conversation, we have grown tired of the constant talk, to the point that we can hardly bear to hear the murmur of sounds coming from it. So, out of weariness and boredom we made our way to this door and knocked. But we received the reply that the doors of this house are not opened for people wishing to leave, only for those wanting to enter. ‘Stay and enjoy the joys of heaven!’ we were told. From this response we concluded that we are to remain here to eternity. Our minds were filled with dejection at this, and now we are becoming oppressed at heart and taken with anxiety.”
[3] The angel then spoke to them and said, “This state is the state in which your joys die, joys you believed to be the only heavenly joys, when in fact they are merely subsidiary adjuncts to heavenly joys.”
So they asked the angel, “What, then, is heavenly joy?”
The angel answered, briefly, “It is the pleasure of doing something that is of use to oneself and to others, and the pleasure in being useful takes its essence from love and its expression from wisdom. The pleasure in being useful, springing from love through wisdom, is the life and soul of all heavenly joys.
[4] “Angels in heaven enjoy delightful associations which stimulate their minds, gladden their spirits, gratify their hearts, and recreate their bodies. But they enjoy these associations after they have performed useful services in their occupations and employments. The life and soul in all their delights and pleasures comes from the useful services they perform. If you take away that life or soul, however, the subsidiary joys gradually become no longer joys, but first matters of indifference, then stupid, and finally dreary and distressing.”
With these words the door was opened, and the people sitting there leapt up and fled away home, each one to his occupation and employment, and so they were revitalized.
And they asked, “Why so many tables?”
The angel answered that the first table was Abram’s, the second Isaac’s, the third Jacob’s, and the tables after these, in order, the tables of the twelve apostles. “And on the other side,” he said, “are again as many tables belonging to their wives. The first three are the tables of Sarah, Abram’s wife, of Rebekah, Isaac’s wife, and of Leah and Rachel, the wives of Jacob. The remaining twelve are the tables of the wives of the twelve apostles.”
[2] After some delay the tables all appeared filled with plates of food, with the spaces between them decorated with little pyramidal vessels containing condiments. Dinner guests were standing around the tables awaiting the appearance of the hosts of the tables. Following a short wait, the hosts appeared, entering in order of procession from Abram to the last of the apostles. And presently, going over to their tables, they each took a place on the couch at the head of the table. Then they said to the people standing about, “Recline here with us also.” And the men reclined with the patriarchs and the women with the patriarchs’ wives, and they ate and they drank in gladness and with veneration.
After the meal the patriarchs departed, and then the exhibitions began – the dances of young men and women, and afterwards shows.
When these came to an end, the guests were again invited to dine, but with the stipulation that those who on the first day ate with Abram, on the second would dine with Isaac, on the third with Jacob, on the fourth with Peter, on the fifth with James, on the sixth with John, on the seventh with Paul, and so on with the rest in order until the fifteenth day, whereupon they would change seats and begin the dinner parties again in the same sequence, and so on to eternity.
[3] At this point the angel called together the men of the company and said to them, “All these people that you saw at the tables had the same imaginary idea of the joys of heaven and consequent eternal happiness that you did. So in order that they may see the foolishness of their ideas and be weaned from them, dinner scenes like this have been instituted and have been permitted by the Lord. The leaders you saw at the heads of the tables were actors playing old men, most of them from a backward people, who let their beards grow and developed a haughtiness over the rest on account of their possessing a certain wealth. They have had induced in them the fantasy that they are those patriarchs.
“But follow me to the paths leading out of this arena.”
[4] So they followed, and they saw fifty people here and fifty there, people who had stuffed their bellies with food to the point of nausea, and who longed to return to the familiar settings of their homes, some to their professional duties, some to their businesses, and some to their employments. But the guards of the grove detained many of them and interrogated them about the days of their dining, as to whether they had eaten yet at the tables of Peter and Paul, telling them that if they were leaving before doing so, it would be to their disgrace, because it was impolite.
But most of them answered, “We have had enough of our joys. The food has become tasteless to us and our ability to taste has run dry. Our stomachs are sick of food. We cannot bear to taste it. Having dragged out several days and nights in this dissipation, we earnestly beg to be released.”
And being released, with panting breath and hurried step they fled away home.
[5] Afterwards the angel called the men of the company and on the way explained to them the following things about heaven:
“In heaven they have food and drink just as in the world, also dinner parties and festive meals. And in the homes of the leading citizens there they have tables set with rich, choice and exquisite foods, which enliven and refresh their spirits. They also have exhibitions and shows, and instrumental and vocal musical performances, all in the highest perfection. Such things, too, they regard as joys, but not as happiness. Happiness must be in the joys in order to come from the joys. Happiness in the joys causes the joys to be joys. It enriches them and sustains them so that they do not become common and loathsome. This happiness everyone has from being useful in his occupation.
[6] “Latent in the affection of every angel’s will is a certain inner tendency which draws the mind to accomplish something. By accomplishment the mind finds peace and satisfaction. This satisfaction and peace produce a state of mind receptive of a love of useful service from the Lord. From the reception of this love comes heavenly happiness, which is the life in the joys just referred to.
“Heavenly food in its essence is nothing else than love, wisdom and useful service combined, that is, useful service accomplished through wisdom out of love. Consequently in heaven everyone is given food for the body in accordance with the useful service he performs – magnificent food in the case of those engaged in outstanding service, modest food but of excellent flavor and taste in the case of those in an intermediate degree of useful service, and humble food in the case of those in humble service, while the lazy receive none.”
* Cf. Matthew 8:11.
The angel said to them, “Follow me and I will introduce you to your joys.” And he led them to a gallery constructed out of columns and pyramidal piers. In front of it was a humble palace, through which the entrance to the gallery opened. The angel led them through the palace, and behold, they saw people waiting, twenty here and twenty there. Then suddenly an actor appeared, playing the part of an angel, who said to them, “The way to heaven lies through this gallery. Wait here a little while and prepare yourselves, because the older ones among you are going to become kings and the younger princes.”
[2] At these words a throne appeared next to each column, with a silk robe upon the throne, and upon the robe a scepter and crown. And next to each pier appeared a chair of state raised three cubits**** from the ground, with a chain made of links of gold upon the chair and sashes of knighthood fastened at the ends with circlets of diamonds. Then the proclamation rang out, “Go now, dress yourselves, take your seats, and wait!”
And instantly the older ones ran to the thrones and the younger ones to the chairs of state, and they dressed themselves and took their seats.
But then a kind of mist appeared rising from below, which the people sitting upon the thrones and chairs of state breathed in, and because of it their faces began to swell and their chests to rise, and they became filled with confidence that they were now kings and princes. The mist was an aura of fantasy, with which they were infused.
And suddenly young men flew to their sides, as though from heaven, and they stood two behind each throne and one behind each chair of state, to serve in attendance on them. Then from time to time some herald would cry out, “You kings and princes, wait a little while longer. Your courts are now being prepared in heaven. Your courtiers will arrive presently with attendants to conduct you.”
They waited and waited, until their spirits were panting and they grew weary with longing.
[3] After three hours heaven opened above their heads and angels looked down, and taking pity on them the angels said, “Why are you sitting there so foolishly and behaving like play-actors? They are playing games with you and have turned you from men into idols, because you have instilled in your hearts that you will reign with Christ as kings and princes and that angels will then minister to you. Have you forgotten the Lord’s words, that in heaven whoever desires to be great becomes a servant?*****
“Learn therefore what is meant by kings and princes and by reigning with Christ. It means to be wise and perform useful services. For the kingdom of Christ, namely, heaven, is a kingdom of useful services. The reason is that the Lord loves all people and so wills good to all, and good means useful service. Now because the Lord performs good or useful services indirectly through angels, and in the world through people, therefore to those who faithfully perform useful services He gives a love of being useful and its reward. The reward is internal blessedness, and this blessedness is eternal happiness.
[4] “Positions of great power and possessions of great riches exist in heaven as well as on earth, for they have governments and forms of government in heaven and so also greater and lesser positions of power and rank. Moreover, people who are in the highest positions have palaces and courts which surpass in magnificence and splendor the palaces and courts of emperors and kings on earth. And because of the number of their courtiers, ministers and attendants and the magnificent vestments in which these are appareled, they are surrounded with honor and glory.
“Yet the people in the highest positions are chosen from those whose heart is in the public welfare, and only their bodily senses in the grandeur of magnificence for the sake of being obeyed. And because it contributes to the public welfare for everyone to be of some useful service in society, as in a common body, and because all useful service comes from the Lord and is rendered through angels and men as though from them, it is evident that this is what it is to reign with the Lord.”
When they heard these words from heaven, the people playing at being kings and princes descended from their thrones and chairs of state and threw away their scepters, crowns and robes. And the mist which contained the aura of fantasy receded from them, and a bright cloud enveloped them, which contained an aura of wisdom. So sanity returned to their minds.
* See Revelation 1:6, 5:10.
** 2 Timothy 2:12, Revelation 5:10, 20:4,6, 22:5.
*** See Hebrews 1:13,14.
**** About four and a half feet.
***** Matthew 20:26,27, 23:11, Mark 9:35, 10:43.
He said to them, “Follow me and I will introduce you to paradise, your heaven, so that you may start on the blessings of your eternal happiness.” And he led them through a high gateway constructed out of the interwoven branches and boughs of stately trees. Beyond the entrance he led them around through winding paths from place to place.
It was, in fact, an actual paradise at the first entrance to heaven, to which people are admitted who in the world had believed that the whole of heaven is a single paradise, because it is called Paradise,* and who had fixed in themselves the idea that after death they would find complete rest from their labors, rest that would consist solely in breathing in delightful essences, walking on rose petals, enjoying the delicate juices of grapes, and partaking of liquid refreshments at festive parties, a way of life they believed possible only in a heavenly paradise.
[2] Led by the angel they saw an immense number of people – of men, old and young, and boys, and also women and girls. Some of them were sitting by beds of roses, in groups of three and groups of ten, weaving garlands with which to adorn the heads of the older men, the arms of the youths, and – as though with sashes – the breasts of the boys. Other groups were picking fruits from the trees and carrying them in baskets to their companions. Others were pressing the juice from grapes, cherries and berries into cups and good-naturedly drinking. Others were breathing in and smelling the wafting aromas given off by the flowers, fruits and fragrant leaves. Others were singing sweet songs with which they delighted the ears of those present. Others were sitting at fountains and spraying the jets of water into various patterns. Others were walking, talking and exchanging pleasantries. Others were running, playing, and dancing, sometimes in sets, and sometimes in circles. Others were going into garden houses to lie down on the couches. And so on with other pleasures suitable to a paradise.
[3] After they had viewed these scenes, the angel led his companions along by-paths here and there, and finally to some people sitting in a beautiful rose garden surrounded by olive trees, orange trees, and citrons. Rocking back and forth, they sat with their cheeks in their hands, grieving and weeping. The companions of the angel spoke to them and said, “Why are you sitting here like this?”
And they replied, “It is now the seventh day since we came into this paradise. When we arrived it seemed as though our minds had been raised into heaven and admitted into the inmost blessings of its joys. But after three days these blessings began to grow dull and vanish in our minds, becoming no longer perceptible and so no longer blessings. And when our imagined joys thus died, we became afraid of losing all delight in our lives, and we started to doubt whether there is any eternal happiness.
“Moreover, we then wandered about through the paths and areas to look for the gate through which we entered. But we went around and around in circles. When we asked the people we met, some of them said the gate is never found, because this garden paradise is an immense maze, of the sort that if anyone tries to leave, he goes in deeper. ‘Consequently you have no choice but to remain here to eternity,’ we were told. ‘You are at the center of the paradise, where all its delights are at their focus.'”
And they said further to the companions of the angel, “We have been sitting here now for a day and a half. And because we have lost hope of finding the way out, we have set ourselves down by this rose garden, and we look about us at the abundance of olive trees, grapes, oranges, and citrons. But the more we look at them, the wearier our eyes grow of seeing them, our noses of smelling them, and our mouths of tasting them. This is the reason for the sorrow, grief and tears in which you see us.”
[4] On hearing this, the angel with the company said to them, “This maze or paradise actually is an entrance into heaven. I know the way out and will take you.”
At that, the people sitting there got up and embraced the angel, and went with him along with his company. And on the way the angel explained to them what heavenly joy and so eternal happiness are, saying that they are not the outward delights of a paradise unless they include at the same time the inward delights of a paradise.
“The outward delights of a paradise,” he said, “are only delights of the physical senses, while the inward delights of a paradise are delights of the affections of the soul. Unless the inward delights are in the outward, there is no heavenly life, because the soul is not in them, and every delight without its corresponding soul at once grows weak and dull, wearying the mind more than labor. Garden paradises exist everywhere in the heavens, and they are also sources of joy to the angels, but the joys are joys to the angels to the degree that a delight of the soul is in them.”
[5] When they heard this, they all asked, “What is a delight of the soul, and where does it come from?”
The angel answered, “Delight of the soul comes from love and wisdom from the Lord. And because love is creative of effects, and is effective through wisdom, therefore the abode of both love and wisdom is in the effect, and the effect is useful service. This delight flows from the Lord into the soul, and it descends through the higher and lower regions of the mind into all the senses of the body and fulfills itself in them. Joy becomes joy from this, and it becomes eternal from Him who is its eternal source.
“You have seen what paradise holds, but I assure you that there is not one thing there, not even a tiny leaf, that does not originate from a marriage of love and wisdom in useful service. Consequently if a person is in this marriage, he is in a heavenly paradise, thus in heaven.”
* Luke 23:43, 2 Corinthians 12:2-4.
To them the angel said, “Follow me and I will introduce you to your joy.” And he led them to a small city, in the middle of which was a temple, and all the houses were called sacred halls.
In that city they saw a flood of people from every corner of the surrounding land, and among them a number of priests. The priests met and greeted the people as they arrived and, taking them by the hand, led them to the doors of the temple and from there to some of the buildings around the temple. Then they introduced them into a never-ending worship of God, saying that this city was a forecourt to heaven, and that the temple of the city was an introduction to the magnificent and grand temple existing in heaven, where God is glorified by the angels with prayers and praises to eternity.
“The rules,” they said, “both here and there, are that people must first enter the temple and stay there three days and three nights. Then after that initiation they must go into the houses of the city (all of them sacred halls that we have sanctified), and passing from building to building, in communion with the congregations there they must pray, cry out, and deliver sermons.
“Above all,” they said, “be careful that you do not think to yourselves or say to your companions anything that is not reverent, pious and religious.”
[2] Afterwards the angel led his company into the temple. It was packed full of people, many of whom had been in high position in the world, and also many who had been of the common people. Moreover, guards had been stationed at the doors to prevent anyone from leaving before his three days were up.
Then the angel said, “Today is the second day since these people came in. Look at them and you will see their glorifying of God.”
So they looked, and they saw most of the people sleeping, and the ones who were awake kept yawning and yawning. Furthermore, because of the continual elevation of their thoughts to God without returning again back down into the body, some of them appeared to have faces separated from their bodies, for that is how they seemed to themselves, and so that is how they appeared to others as well. Some looked wild-eyed from constantly averting their gaze.
In short, they all looked oppressed at heart and weary in spirit with boredom, and turning away from the pulpit they began crying, “Our ears are growing numb! Put an end to your sermons! No one is listening to a word any more, and the very sound is becoming detestable.”
And then they got up and rushed en masse to the doors, broke them open, and pressing upon the guards drove them away.
[3] Seeing this, the priests followed them and attached themselves to their sides, preaching and teaching, praying, sighing, and saying, “Join in the religious celebration! Glorify God! Sanctify yourselves! In this forecourt of heaven we will prepare you for the eternal glorifying of God in the magnificent and grand temple which is in heaven, that you may enter the enjoyment of eternal happiness.”
But the people did not understand and scarcely even heard what the priests were saying, owing to their numbness from having their minds suspended for two days and from being withheld from their domestic and occupational concerns.
When they tried to pull away from the priests, however, the priests took hold of their arms and also their garments, urging them to the halls where the sermons were to be delivered. But in vain. And the people began crying out, “Leave us alone. Our bodies feel as though we are about to faint!”
[4] At these words, behold, four men appeared in bright white clothing and wearing miters. One of them had been an archbishop in the world, and the other three, bishops. Now they had become angels.
They called together the priests and addressing them said, “From heaven we have seen you with your flock and how you feed them. You feed them to insanity! You do not know what is meant by glorifying God. It means to bring forth the fruits of love, that is, to perform the work of one’s occupation faithfully, honestly, and diligently. For this is the effect of love of God and love of the neighbor, and it is what binds society together and makes its goodness. It is by this that God is glorified, and afterwards by worship at prescribed times. Have you not read these words of the Lord:
By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and become My disciples. (John 15:8)
[5] “You priests can go on glorifying in worship because it is your profession, and from it you have honor, glory and remuneration. But even you could not go on glorifying like that any more than they if honor, glory and remuneration did not come with your office.”
So saying, the bishops ordered the keepers of the doors to let everyone pass in and out. “For,” they said, “there is a host of people who have been unable to imagine any other heavenly joy than everlasting worship of God, because they have known nothing about the state of heaven.”
To them the angel said, “Wait here a while, and I will sound my trumpet, and some distinguished people will come to this hall who are renowned for their wisdom in spiritual matters connected with the church.”
Several hours later nine men appeared, each wreathed with laurel as a mark of his reputation. The angel led them into the hall of assembly, where all those previously called together were waiting.
Addressing the nine laureates in their presence, the angel said, “I know that in answer to your prayer in accordance with your belief, it was granted you to ascend into heaven, and that you have returned to this lower or subcelestial land with full knowledge regarding the state of heaven. Tell us, therefore, what heaven seemed like to you.”
[2] Then they replied in turn, and the first of them said, “From earliest childhood to the end of my life in the world my idea of heaven had been that it was a place of all blessings, felicities, delights, gratifications, and pleasures. And I thought that if I should be allowed in, I would be surrounded with an atmosphere of enjoyments of this sort and would drink them in with full breast, like a bridegroom when he celebrates his wedding and enters the marriage chamber with his bride.
“With this idea I ascended into heaven, and I passed the first sentries and also the second, but when I came to the third, the captain of the guard spoke to me and said, ‘Who are you, friend?’
“So I replied, ‘Is this heaven? I have longed and prayed for it and therefore I have come up here. Please let me in.’ And he let me in.
“And I saw angels in white garments. And surrounding me and looking me over, and they began to murmur, ‘Look, a new visitor not dressed in a garment of heaven.’
“Hearing this, I thought to myself, ‘It appears I am in a similar situation as the one who the Lord says went to a wedding without a wedding garment.’* So I said, ‘Give me such garments.’
“But they laughed. And then one of them came running from the court with the order, ‘Strip him naked, throw him out, and throw his clothes out after him.’** And so I was thrown out.”
[3] The second of the laureates in turn said, “I believed as he did, that if I should only be let into heaven (heaven being above my head), I would be surrounded with joys and breathe them in to eternity. I, too, got my wish. But when the angels saw me, they fled away, and they said to each other, ‘What monstrosity is this? How did this bird of the night get here?’
“And I actually felt a change in myself from being human, even though I was not changed. It was an effect I experienced from breathing in the heavenly atmosphere.
“But presently one of them came running from the court with an order for two servants to lead me away and take me back by the way I had ascended till I reached my home. And once I was home I appeared to myself and others as a human being.”
[4] The third laureate said, “I constantly thought of heaven in terms of a place and not in terms of love. Therefore when I arrived in this world, I longed for heaven with a great longing. And seeing others ascending, I followed them and was let in, though no more than a few paces.
“But when I went to enjoy myself in accordance with my idea of the joys and blessings there, the light of heaven (which was as white as snow and whose essence is said to be wisdom) caused a numbness to seize my mind and then darkness my eyes, and I began to lose my reason. And shortly the heat of heaven (which matched in intensity the brightness of its light and whose essence is said to be love) caused my heart to pound, and I was seized with anxiety, and being tormented by an inward pain, I threw myself flat on my back on the ground.
“Then as I lay there, an attendant came from the court with an order for them to carry me down slowly into my own light and heat, on reaching which, my spirit and my heart were restored to me.”
[5] The fourth laureate said that he, too, had thought of heaven in terms of a place and not in terms of love. “And as soon as I arrived in the spiritual world,” he said, “I asked the wise whether I might be allowed to ascend into heaven. They told me that everyone is allowed to, but people should beware of being cast down.
“I laughed at this and ascended, believing as others do that all in the entire world are capable of receiving the joys there in their fullness.
“But in fact, once I was in, I almost died, and from pain and then torment in head and body, I flung myself to the ground, and writhing like a snake held next to a fire, I wriggled along to a precipice and threw myself over the edge.
“Afterwards I was taken up by some bystanders below and carried to an inn, where I was restored to health.”
[6] The five remaining laureates also told surprising tales about their attempts to ascend into heaven. And they likened the changes they experienced in the state of their lives to the state of fish lifted out of the water into the air, and to the state of birds in outer space.
They said further that after those harsh experiences they no longer yearned for heaven, but only for a life shared in common with people like themselves, wherever they may be. Moreover, they know that in the world of spirits, “where we are now,” they said, all are first prepared, the good for heaven and the evil for hell, and that when they have been prepared, they see paths opened to them leading to societies of people like themselves, with whom they will remain to eternity; and that they then enter upon these paths with delight, because they lead in the direction of their love.
Hearing these accounts, the people who had been called together originally all confessed as well that the only idea they, too, had had of heaven was an idea of some place, where with open mouth they would drink their fill of the surrounding joys to eternity.
[7] Afterwards the angel with the trumpet said to them, “You see now that the joys of heaven and eternal happiness do not have to do with location, but with the state of a person’s life. The state of heavenly life comes from love and wisdom. And because useful service is the containing vessel of both love and wisdom, the state of heavenly life comes from a combination of these two in useful service.
“It is the same if we use the terms charity, faith, and good work, since charity is love, faith is truth that results in wisdom, and good work is useful service.
“Furthermore, in our spiritual world we have locations just as in the natural world. Otherwise we would not have dwellings and separate places to stay. Still a location there is not a place, but it is an appearance of place according to some state of love and wisdom or of charity and faith.
[8] “Everyone who becomes an angel carries his own heaven within him, because he carries the love that belongs to his heaven. For man from creation is a little effigy, image and replica of the larger heaven. The human form is nothing else. Therefore everyone comes into a society of heaven of which he is a form in individual effigy. Consequently when he comes into that society, he enters into a form corresponding to himself, thus passing as if out of himself into that larger self, and entering as if from that larger self into the same self within him, so that he draws its life as his own, and his own life as life belonging to it.
“Every society is like a whole unit, and the angels in it like similar parts out of which the whole is formed.
“From this it now follows that people who are caught up in evils and their resulting falsities have formed in themselves an effigy of hell, and this effigy suffers torment in heaven as a result of the activity flowing in and the violent action of opposite upon opposite. For hellish love is opposed to heavenly love, and consequently the delights of the two loves clash with each other like enemies and destroy each other when they meet.”
* Matthew 22:11,12.
** Cf. Matthew 22:13.
So the angel chose ten, and they followed him. And they ascended by a steep path to a certain hilltop, and from there to a mountaintop, on which those angels had their heaven, which before had appeared to them in the distance like an expanse in the clouds. The gates were also opened for them, and after they passed the third of these, the angel guide hurried to the prince of that society or heaven and reported their arrival.
And the prince replied, “Take some of my attendants and report to the visitors that I welcome their arrival, and bring them to my outer hall and assign each of them his apartment with his bedroom. Take some of my courtiers and servants, too, to wait on them and serve them at their bidding.”
And so it was done.
However, when the angel brought them to the outer hall, they asked whether they might go and see the prince, and the angel answered, “It is now morning and visits are not allowed before noon. Till then they are all engaged in their official duties and employments. But you are invited to the midday luncheon, and then you will sit down to dine with our prince. Meanwhile, I will take you into the palace, where you will see magnificent and splendid things.”
After this they were ushered into the palace and taken around from room to room, and they saw ornaments of indescribable beauty, with carvings beyond imitation decorating the ceilings. Positioned along the walls they saw tables of silver mixed with gold, and on them various utensils made of precious stones and of whole gems in heavenly forms. They also saw many other things which no eye on earth had ever seen, and consequently no one could ever have persuaded himself to believe that such things exist in heaven.
[2] As they stood in amazement at these magnificent sights, the angel said, “Do not marvel. The wonders you see were not made or crafted by the hand of any angel, but were fashioned by the Maker of the Universe and given as a gift to our prince. Therefore architectural art exists here in its quintessential form, and from it come all the rules of the same art in the world.”
The angel said further, “You may suppose that wonders like these enchant our eyes and captivate them to the point that we believe them to be the joys of our heaven. But since our hearts do not lie in them, they are only subsidiary adjuncts to the joys of our hearts. As a result, to the extent that we view them as subsidiary adjuncts, and as works of God, to that extent we view in them the Divine omnipotence and benevolence.”
So they went, and at the entrance he said, “Look, the most magnificent garden in this heavenly society!”
But they replied, “What do you mean? This is not a garden. We see only one tree, with what appear to be fruits of gold on its branches and at the top, and what seem to be leaves of silver, whose edges are adorned with emeralds. And under the tree we see children with their nursemaids.”
At this the angel said with inspired voice, “This tree is in the middle of the garden. We call it the tree of our heaven, and some call it the tree of life. But go, get closer, and your eyes will be opened and you will see the garden.”
So they did so. And their eyes were opened, and they saw trees loaded with flavorful fruits and covered with leafy vines, the tops of which swayed with their fruits towards the tree of life in the center.
[2] These trees had been planted in a continuous series which went out and around in perpetual circles or rings, in a seemingly endless spiral. It was a perfect spiral of trees, with one species following another in unbroken succession in the order of the excellence of their fruits. The beginning of the spiral started at a considerable distance from the tree in the middle, and the intervening space was lit up by a sparkling stream of light, which caused the trees in the spiral to shine with a successive and continued radiance from the first to the last of them.
The first trees were the most excellent of them all, abounding with rich fruits, and called trees of paradise, which the visitors had never seen because these trees do not and cannot exist in the lands of the natural world. After them came trees whose fruits are used in the production of oil. Next, trees whose fruits are used in making wine. Then trees marked by their fragrance. And finally timber trees whose wood is used in construction.
Here and there in this spiral or circular course of trees were places to sit, formed by the trained and interwoven branches of the trees behind them, and loaded and adorned with their fruits. This unending circle of trees had openings which led out into flower gardens, and from these to lawns, divided into areas and beds.
[3] Seeing all this, the companions of the angel exclaimed, “Look, a model of heaven! Wherever we turn the gaze of our eyes, some sight of a heavenly paradise comes flooding in that is beyond description!”
On hearing this the angel rejoiced and said, “All the gardens of our heaven are, in their origin, representative forms or images of heavenly blessings. And because your minds were elevated by the flowing in of these blessings, you cried out, ‘Look, a model of heaven!’ But people who do not receive that influx see these sights of paradise simply as woodsy scenes. Moreover, all people receive the influx who are motivated by a love of being useful. But people who are motivated by a love of glory, and this not for the sake of any useful purpose, do not receive it.”
Afterwards the angel explained to them and taught them what each thing in the garden represented and symbolized.
So they girded themselves and accompanied their angel, and they were led into a cloister, the enclosed courtyard of the palace, where they waited for the prince. And the angel introduced them there into gatherings that included dignitaries and officials who were also awaiting the prince.
Then behold, a short while later the doors were opened, and through one broader doorway on the west side they saw the prince entering in the line of a grand procession. Preceding him were the privy councillors. After these came the cabinet councillors, and behind them the principal officials of the court. In the middle of them was the prince, followed by courtiers of various distinction and finally attendants. All told, they numbered up to one hundred and twenty persons.
[2] Standing before the ten newcomers (who by their dress then looked like residents), the angel went with them to the prince and respectfully presented them. And the prince without pausing in the procession said to them, “Come take bread with me.”
So they followed into the dining hall, where they saw a table magnificently set. In the center of the table they saw a high pyramid of gold with a hundred saucers in three rows upon its tiers, containing cakes and wine jellies, along with other delicacies made from cake and wine. And up through the middle of the pyramid gushed what appeared to be a spurting fountain of nectarlike wine, whose stream sprayed out from the top of the pyramid and filled the goblets.
Around the sides of this high pyramid were various heavenly forms of gold, holding plates and dishes filled with all sorts of foods. The heavenly forms holding the plates and dishes were forms of art arising from wisdom, forms which in the world cannot be depicted in any field of art or described in words. The plates and dishes were made of silver, engraved all around their surface with forms like the forms on which they rested. The goblets were made of translucent gems.
That was how the table was set.
The privy councillors were dressed in almost the same manner, but without the emblem. Instead of the emblem they had carved sapphires hanging from the neck by a golden chain. The courtiers were in gowns of a light brown color, inwoven with flowers surrounding young eaglets. Their tunics underneath were of silk having an opalescent color. So, too, were their breeches and stockings.
That was what their dress was like.
So they reclined, and the courtiers previously sent by the prince to wait on them stood in attendance behind them.
Then the prince said to them, “Take a plate, each of you, from its serving ring and afterwards a saucer from the pyramid.”
So they did so, and behold, immediately new plates and saucers appeared, taking the place of the ones they removed. And their goblets were kept filled with wine by the fountain spurting from the great pyramid. So they ate and they drank.
[2] Halfway through the meal, the prince spoke to the ten guests and said, “I have heard that you were called together in the land which is below this heaven, to reveal your thoughts about the joys of heaven and so eternal happiness, and that you presented divergent views, each according to the delights of his physical senses.
“But what are delights of the physical senses apart from delights of the soul? It is the soul that makes them delightful.
“Delights of the soul in themselves are imperceptible states of bliss, but they become more and more perceptible as they descend into the thoughts of the mind and from these into the sensations of the body. In the thoughts of the mind they are perceived as states of happiness, in the sensations of the body as delights, and in the body itself as pleasures.
“Eternal happiness results from all these combined. But happiness resulting from the latter delights and pleasures alone is not eternal but temporary. It comes to an end and passes away, and sometimes turns into unhappiness.
“You have now seen that all your joys are also joys of heaven, joys more excellent than you ever could have imagined. But even so, they still do not affect our minds inwardly.
[3] “There are three things which flow as one from the Lord into our souls. These three things together, or this trinity, are love, wisdom, and usefulness. Love and wisdom, however, do not occur by themselves except in imagination, because by themselves they exist only in the affection and thought of the mind. In useful service, on the other hand, they exist in actuality, because they exist at the same time in the action and activity of the body. And where they exist actually, there they also remain.
“Now because love and wisdom exist and endure in useful service, it is useful service that affects us, and useful service is to carry out the duties of one’s occupation faithfully, honestly and diligently.
“The love of being useful, and its consequent application in useful service, keeps the mind from being dissipated and wandering, and from taking in all sorts of seductions which pour in alluringly through the senses from the body and from the world. As a result of these seductions, the truths of religion and the truths of morality are scattered with their goodness to the four winds. In contrast, application of the mind in useful service holds these truths and anchors them, and orders the mind into a form receptive of wisdom as a consequence of them. Moreover, the mind then thrusts aside the shams and pretenses of both falsities and illusions.
“But you will hear more about this from some of the wise of our society, whom I will send to you this afternoon.”
So saying, the prince arose, followed by his companions, and he bade them farewell, having told their angel guide to take them back to their apartments and to show them all the considerations of courtesy. He also told the angel to call urbane and affable men as well, to entertain them with conversation about the various joys of that society.
“Tell them, therefore, something about its joys,” he said, “the joys that affect the physical senses. Later some men of wisdom will come to explain some of the things that make those joys pleasing and delightful.”
Heeding the angel, the men summoned from the city told them the following:
(1) “We have days of celebration here, proclaimed by the prince, to relax people’s spirits from the fatigue that the drive to excel may have produced in some of them. These days are accompanied by instrumental and choral musical performances in the public squares, and by athletic and theatrical performances outside the city.
“Bandstands are erected in the public squares on such occasions, surrounded by latticework woven out of vines, with clusters of grapes hanging from them. The musicians sit inside in three tiers, with stringed and wind instruments, both high-voiced and low, shrill-voiced and mellow. On either side of them are singers, male and female, and they entertain the citizens with delightful exultation and singing, in concert and solo, varying the type of music periodically. On these days of celebration, such performances last from morning to noon, and after noon till evening.”
[2] (2) “In addition, every morning we hear the most charming singing of young women and girls coming from the houses around the public squares, filling the whole city with its sound. Each morning they express some particular affection of spiritual love in song, which is to say that they express it in sound by the variations or modulations of the singing voice, and the affection is perceived in the singing as though the singing were the affection itself. The sound infuses itself into the souls of its hearers and stirs them to a corresponding state. Such is the nature of heavenly song.
“The singers say that the sound of their singing seems to be inspired and to take life on its own from within, and by itself to rise delightfully in quality, according to the reception of it by its hearers.
“When the singing comes to an end, the windows are closed in the houses on the square and at the same time in the houses along the streets, and the doors are shut, too, and then the whole city falls silent. Not a sound is heard anywhere, nor is anyone seen wandering about. All are then ready to carry on the duties of their appointed tasks.”
[3] (3) “Around noon, however, the doors are opened, and here and there in the afternoon the windows, too, and boys and girls are seen playing games in the streets, under the supervision of their nursemaids and teachers sitting on the porches of the houses.”
[4] (4) “On the edges of the city, in its outskirts, various activities go on for boys and adolescent youths. There are running games, ball games, and games with rebounding balls, called rackets. Competitive exercises are held among the boys to show who is quicker and who is slower in speaking, acting and comprehending. And the quicker ones receive several laurel leaves as a prize. There are also many other activities which serve to encourage the latent abilities in boys.”
[5] (5) “Moreover, outside the city theatrical performances are put on by comic actors on stages, who portray the various honorable qualities and virtues of moral life, with dramatic actors among them also to provide points of comparison.”
At that, one of the ten visitors asked, “What do you mean, ‘to provide points of comparison’?”
And the men answered, “No virtue with its honorable and becoming qualities can be presented convincingly except through relative comparisons of those qualities, from the greatest of them to the least of them. The dramatic actors portray the least of those qualities even to the point that they become non-existent. But it has been prescribed by law that they may not exhibit anything of the opposite that is called dishonorable and unbecoming, except symbolically and, so to speak, from a distance.
“The reason it has been so prescribed by law is that no honorable or good quality of any virtue ever passes through diminishing stages to the point of becoming dishonorable and bad, but only to the point of becoming so very little that it dies, and when it dies, then the opposite begins. That is why heaven, where all things are honorable and good, has nothing in common with hell, where all things are dishonorable and bad.”
Listening to the discussion, the angel with the company said to the men, “At luncheon our prince talked to them about the abode of wisdom, saying that it lies in useful service. Speak to them, if you please, about this as well.”
So they said, “When human beings were first created, they were imbued with wisdom and a love of wisdom, not for their own sake, but for the sake of their having it to share with others. Therefore it was engraved on the wisdom of the wise that no one should be wise and live for himself alone, unless he was wise and lived at the same time for others. This was the origin of society, which otherwise would not exist. To live for others is to perform useful services. Useful services are the bonds of society, there being as many bonds as there are good and useful services, and useful services are unlimited in number.
“Useful services are spiritual when they have to do with love toward God and love for the neighbor. They are moral and civic services when they have to do with love for the society or civil state in which a person resides, and with love of the companions and fellow citizens with whom he is associated. Useful services are natural when they have to do with love of the world and its necessities. And they are corporeal when they have to do with the love of self-preservation for the sake of higher uses.
[2] “All these capacities for being useful are engraved on the human spirit, and they follow in sequence, one after another, and when they are combined, one exists within another.
“People who concern themselves with the first useful services, which are spiritual, also concern themselves with the ones that follow, and these people are wise. People who do not concern themselves with the first useful services, however, and yet concern themselves with the second kind and those that follow after, are not so wise, but only appear as if they were on account of their outward morality and civic-mindedness.
“People who are not concerned with the first and second types of useful service, but with the third and fourth kinds, are hardly wise at all, for they are followers of Satan, in that they love only the world, and themselves for worldly ends; while people who concern themselves only with useful services of the fourth kind are the least wise of all, being devils, because they live for themselves alone, and if they do anything for others, it is merely for the sake of themselves.
[3] “Furthermore, every love has its own delight, for love lives through delight, and the delight of the love of performing useful services is heavenly delight, which descends into the succeeding delights in turn and in the order of its descent ennobles them and makes them eternal.”
Afterwards the men recounted some of the heavenly delights resulting from the love of being useful, saying that there are millions of them and that people enter into those delights who enter into heaven. And speaking further about the love of being useful, they drew out the day with them with wise discussions until evening.
After this they were taken to one of the privy councillors and they dined with him. Then after dinner they came back, and taking their departure from each other, they separated, each to his own bedroom, where they slept till morning.
On waking in the morning, they then heard the singing of young women and girls coming from the houses around the public square, as previously described.** The affection expressed in the singing that morning was one of conjugial love. Being deeply affected and moved by the sweetness of it, they began to perceive a pleasant sense of bliss being implanted in their feelings of joy, which elevated those feelings and gave them a new quality.
When it was time, the angel said, “Get yourselves ready and put on the garments of heaven which our prince sent to you before.”
So they dressed, and suddenly their garments began to shine as if with a flaming light. And they asked the angel, “Why is this happening?”
The angel replied, “It is because you are going to a wedding. It happens with us that on such occasions our garments shine and they become wedding garments.”
* See above, no. 17:2.
[2] While they were looking at these things, suddenly a door opened from a room next to the bridal chamber, and they saw six young women coming out, and behind them the bridegroom and bride, holding each other by the hand and escorting each other to a seat of honor. The seat was placed facing the candelabrum, and they took their places on it, the bridegroom on the left side of the bride, and the bride on his right. And the six young women stood to the side of the seat, next to the bride.
The bridegroom was dressed in a glistening purple robe and a tunic of shining linen, with an ephod bearing a gold plaque studded around the edges with diamonds. Engraved on the plaque was a young eaglet, the wedding emblem of that society of heaven. And on his head the bridegroom wore a turban.
The bride, moreover, was dressed in a scarlet mantle, and under it an embroidered gown, extending from her neck to her feet, and about the waist she wore a golden cummerbund, and on her head a crown of gold studded with rubies.
[3] When they were thus seated together, the bridegroom turned to the bride and placed a gold ring on her finger, and taking out bracelets and a necklace of pearls, he fastened the bracelets on her wrists and the necklace around her neck. Then he said, “Accept these tokens.” And when she accepted them, he kissed her and said, “Now you are mine,” and he called her his wife.
This done, the guests cried out, “May there be a blessing!” They each called this out individually, and then all together. One sent by the prince in the prince’s stead also called out. And at that moment the room was filled with an aromatic smoke, which was the sign of a blessing from heaven.
Then servants in attendance took cakes from the two tables next to the candelabrum, and goblets, now filled with wine, from the tables in the four corners of the room, and they gave each guest a piece of cake and a goblet, and they ate and they drank.
Later the husband and his wife arose, followed to the doorway by the six young women carrying silver lamps, which were now lit. And the married couple entered the marriage chamber, and the door was closed.
So they came and spoke with them. And one of the wise among the men at the wedding said, “Do you understand the meanings of the things you have seen?”
They said, a little. And then they asked him why the bridegroom – now the husband – was dressed as he was.
The wise man replied that the bridegroom – now the husband – represented the Lord, and the bride – now the wife – represented the church, because weddings in heaven represent a marriage of the Lord with the church.
“That is why the groom had a turban on his head,” the wise man said, “and why he was dressed in a robe, tunic and ephod like Aaron. And that is why the bride – now the wife – wore a crown on her head and was dressed in a mantle like a queen. Tomorrow, however, they will be dressed differently, because this representation lasts only this one day.”
[2] Again the visitors asked, “If the groom represented the Lord and the bride the church, why did she sit on his right side?”
The wise man answered, “It is because a marriage of the Lord and the church is formed by two things, namely, love and wisdom, the Lord being the love and the church being the wisdom, and wisdom sits on the right hand of love. For a person of the church becomes wise as though on his own, and as he becomes wise, he receives love from the Lord. The right hand also symbolizes power, and love has power through wisdom.
“But as I said, after the wedding the representation changes, for then the husband represents wisdom and the wife represents love of that wisdom. This love, however, is not the first love referred to before, but a secondary love which the wife has from the Lord through the wisdom of her husband. The Lord’s love, which is the first love, is the love in the husband of becoming wise. Consequently, after the wedding the two together, the husband and his wife, represent the church.”
[3] The visitors further asked, “Why did you men not stand beside the bridegroom – now the husband – as the six bridesmaids stood beside the bride – now the wife?”
The wise man answered, “The reason is that on this day we are counted among the maidens, and the number six symbolizes all people and completeness.”
But they said, “What do you mean?”
He replied, “Maidens symbolize the church, and the church is made up of both sexes. Therefore we, too, are maidens in terms of the church. That this is so appears from these words in the book of Revelation:
These are the ones who were not defiled with women, for they are virgins and follow the Lamb wherever He goes. (Revelation 14:4)
“Moreover, because maidens symbolize the church, therefore the Lord likened the church to ten virgins invited to a wedding (Matthew 25:1ff.). And because the church is symbolized by Israel, Zion and Jerusalem, therefore the Word so often refers to the ‘virgin’ and ‘daughter’ of Israel, of Zion and of Jerusalem. The Lord also describes His marriage with the church by these words in the Psalms of David:
At your right hand, the queen in the fine gold of Ophir…, her clothing of inweavings of gold, she shall be brought to the King in garments of needlework, the virgins after her, her companions…, they shall come into the palace of the King. (Psalms 45:9-15)”
[4] Afterwards the visitors asked, “Is it not proper for a priest to be present and officiate in these ceremonies?”
The wise man answered, “It is proper on earth, but not in heaven because of the couple’s representing the Lord and the church. People on earth do not know this. But among us a priest still performs betrothals and hears, receives, confirms and consecrates the consent. The consent is the essential element in marriage, and the rest of the things that follow are its formalities.”
Seeing this, the angel guide followed them and asked them why they had turned away so suddenly without speaking to the visitors. They replied, “We could not go near.” And the angel said, “Why not?” And they answered, “We do not know, but we felt something that repelled us and drew us back. We hope they forgive us.”
So the angel returned to his companions and told them the young women’s response, and he added, “I divine that you do not have a chaste love for the opposite sex. In heaven we love young women for their beauty and elegance of manners, and we love them very much, but chastely.”
At this his companions laughed and said, “You divine correctly. Who can see such beauties near and not feel some desire?”
At dawn they heard a cry proclaiming, “Today is the Sabbath.” So they arose and asked the angel, “What does this mean?”
The angel replied that it was a call to worship of God, which recurs at prescribed times and is proclaimed by the priests. “The worship takes place in our temples,” he said, “and lasts about two hours. Come with me, therefore, if you like, and I will take you in.”
So they readied themselves, and accompanying the angel, they went in. And lo, the temple was huge, capable of holding about three thousand people. It was semicircular, with benches or pews arranged around in circular fashion following the contour of the temple, and the seats in back were higher than those in front. The pulpit was in front of the seats, placed a little way back from the center. There was a door behind the pulpit on the left.
The ten newcomers entered with their angel guide, and the angel gave them places to sit, saying to them, “Everyone who comes into the temple knows his own place. He knows this by instinct, nor can he sit anywhere else. If he sits elsewhere, he hears nothing and understands nothing, and he also disturbs the order of things; and when the order is disturbed, the priest is not inspired.”
He concluded the sermon with a reverent prayer and descended.
As the members of the congregation were leaving, the angel asked the priest to say a few words of farewell to his ten companions. So he came over to them, and they talked for half an hour. The priest spoke about the Divine Trinity, saying that it exists in Jesus Christ, in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, according to the statement of the apostle Paul.* Then he spoke of the union of charity and faith, though he said the union of charity and truth, because faith is truth.
* Colossians 2:9.
Then, when they were in their own clothing, they were filled with a desire to leave, and they left and descended, with the angel accompanying them till they reached the place of assembly. And there they gave thanks to the Lord, that He had deigned to bless them with knowledge and so with understanding regarding heavenly joys and eternal happiness.
Who in the Christian world would know anything about heaven and the joys and happiness there – knowledge of which is also knowledge of salvation – unless it pleased the Lord to open to someone the sight of his spirit and to show him and teach him?
Corroboration that things like these occur in the spiritual world appears plainly from the things seen and heard by the apostle John, as described in the book of Revelation. For example, he describes having seen the following:
The Son of Man in the midst of the seven lampstands.*
A tabernacle, temple, ark, and altar in heaven.**
A book sealed with seven seals. The book opened, and horses going out of it.***
Four living creatures around a throne.****
Twelve thousand taken from each tribe.*****
Locusts arising out of the abyss.******
A dragon and its fight with Michael.*******
A woman giving birth to a male child and fleeing into the wilderness because of the dragon.********
Two beasts, one rising up out of the sea, the other out of the earth.*********
A woman sitting on a scarlet beast.**********
The dragon cast into a lake of fire and brimstone.***********
A white horse, and a great supper.************
A new heaven and a new earth, and the holy Jerusalem coming down, described as to its gates, wall, and foundations.*************
Also a river of water of life, and trees of life yielding fruits every month.**************
Besides many other things, all of which were seen by John, and seen when he was in the spirit*************** in the spiritual world and in heaven. In addition, those things which were seen by the apostles after the Lord’s resurrection.**************** And which were later seen by Peter (Acts of the Apostles, chapter 11).***************** Also which were then seen and heard by Paul.******************
Moreover, there were the things seen by the prophets. For example, Ezekiel saw the following:
Four living creatures, which were cherubs. (Ezekiel 1 and 10)
A new temple and a new earth, and an angel measuring them. (Ezekiel 40-48)
Being carried off to Jerusalem, he saw the abominations there. (Ezekiel 8) And he was also carried off into Chaldea, to those in captivity. (Ezekiel 11)*******************
Something similar happened with Zechariah:
He saw a man riding among myrtle trees. (Zechariah 1:8ff.)
He saw four horns, and then a man with a measuring line in his hand. (Zechariah 1:18ff., 2:1ff.)
He saw a lampstand and two olive trees. (Zechariah 4:1ff.)
He saw a flying scroll, and an ephah. (Zechariah 5:1,6)
He saw four chariots coming from between two mountains, with horses. (Zechariah 6:1ff.)
Likewise with Daniel:
He saw four beasts come up from the sea. (Daniel 7:1ff.)
Also the combats of a ram and a goat. (Daniel 8:1ff.)
He saw the angel Gabriel, who spoke at length with him. (Daniel 9)********************
Moreover, Elisha’s young man saw fiery chariots and horses around Elisha, and he saw them when his eyes were opened.*********************
From these and many other passages in the Word, it is evident that the things which exist in the spiritual world have appeared to many, before and after the Lord’s Advent. Why should it be surprising for them to appear also now, when the Church is beginning and the New Jerusalem is coming down from the Lord out of heaven?
* Revelation 1:12,13.
** E.g., Revelation 6:9, 8:3, 9:13, 11:19, 14:17,18, 15:5,6,8.
*** Revelation 5:1, 6:1-8.
**** Revelation 4:6, et al.
***** Revelation 7:4-8.
****** Revelation 9:2,3.
******* Revelation 12:3,4,7.
******** Revelation 12:1-6.
********* Revelation 13:1ff.,11ff.
********** Revelation 17:3ff.
*********** Revelation 20:10.
************ Revelation 19:11,17,18.
************* Revelation 21:1,2,12-21.
************** Revelation 22:1,2.
*************** Revelation 1:10, 4:2, 17:3, 21:10.
**************** See Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, John 20, 21, Acts 1:4-11.
***************** Acts 10:9-16, 11:5-10.
****************** See Acts 9:1-19, 22:6-21, 26:12-18.
******************* Ezekiel 11:24.
******************** Daniel 9:20-27.
********************* 2 Kings 6:17.
People cannot accept as a matter of faith that marriages exist in heaven if they believe that a person is a soul or spirit after death, and hold to an idea of the soul or spirit as being like thin air or a puff of breath. Nor can they accept it if they believe that a person does not live again as a person until after the day of the Last Judgment.
In general, people cannot accept the existence of marriages in heaven if they know nothing about the spiritual world, the world in which angels and spirits live, consequently where the heavens and hells are. Moreover, because that world has till now remained unknown, and because it has not been known at all that the angels in heaven are people in perfect form, likewise that the spirits in hell are people in imperfect form, therefore nothing could be revealed respecting marriages in that world. Indeed, people would have said, “How can a soul be united with a soul, or a bit of breath with a bit of breath, as husbands and wives are united on earth?”
There would have been many other objections, too, which, the moment they were voiced, would have taken away and dispelled belief in the existence of marriages in the other world.
Now, however, many things have been revealed about that world, and what that world is like has been described. This I did in the book, Heaven and Hell, and also in The Apocalypse Revealed. Because of this, the existence of marriages there can be defended, even to the sight of reason, by the following arguments:
(1) A person lives as a person after death.
(2) A male is then still a male, and a female still a female.
(3) Everyone’s own love remains in him after death.
(4) Especially does a love for the opposite sex remain, and in the case of people coming into heaven, namely, people who become spiritual on earth, conjugial love.
(5) All of this has been fully attested by personal observation.
(6) Consequently, marriages exist in heaven.
(7) Spiritual marriage is meant by the Lord’s words, that after the resurrection they are not given in marriage.
Development of these arguments now follows, taking them one by one:
Moreover, in respect to the affections and thoughts of his mind a person is in the midst of angels and spirits and is so associated with them that he could not be severed from them without dying. It is still more remarkable that this, too, is not known, even though every person who has died from the beginning of creation, after death has gone and continues to go to his own, or, as the Word says, has been gathered and is gathered to his people.*
In addition, people also have a general perception (which is the same thing as saying an influx of heaven into the inner faculties of their minds), which causes them to perceive truths inwardly in themselves and, in a way, to see them, and especially this truth, that one lives as a person after death, happily if he has lived well, and unhappily if he has lived ill. For who does not have this thought when he elevates his mind a little from the body and from the thinking nearest his senses, as happens when he is inwardly in a state of Divine worship, or when he lies dying in his bed and is awaiting the end. Likewise when he is told about the deceased and their lot.
I have reported thousands of things about the dead, as for example, what the lot of certain people’s brothers, married partners, and friends was like. I have written as well about the lot of Englishmen, Dutchmen, Roman Catholics, Jews, and gentiles, and also about the lot of Luther, Calvin and Melanchthon. And I have never yet heard anyone say, “How can that be their lot when they have not yet risen from their graves, seeing that the Last Judgment has not yet taken place! Are they not in the meantime souls that are bits of breath, existing in some limbo or other?”
I have heard no one say anything like that yet. And from this I have been able to conclude that everyone has an inner perception that one lives as a person after death.
What man who has loved his married partner and his infants and children, does not say to himself when they are dying or dead, if he is in a state of thought raised above the sensory things of the body, that they are in the hand of God, and that following his own death he will see them again and join with them once more in a life of love and joy?
* See Genesis 25:8,17, 35:29, 49:29,33; Numbers 20:24,26, 27:13, 31:2; Deuteronomy 32:50; also Genesis 15:15; Judges 2:10; 2 Kings 22:20; 2 Chronicles 34:28; Acts 13:36.
If a person after death were such a bit of breath and thus a puff of wind, either he would then be flitting around the universe, or, according to the traditions of some, he would be kept in some sort of nether world, or as the church fathers call it, in limbo, until the Last Judgment.
Who using his reason cannot conclude accordingly that people who have lived from the beginning of creation – a period reckoned at six thousand years – would still be in the same state of suspense, and in a progressively more anxious state of suspense, since all waiting with desire produces anxious suspense and with the passage of time increases it. And would not one conclude accordingly that they either must still be flitting around the universe or are being kept shut up in limbo, and so are in extreme misery? This would include Adam and his wife, likewise Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and likewise all the rest from that time.
According to this line of thinking, nothing would be more lamentable than to be born a human being.
But the opposite has been provided by the Lord, who is Jehovah from eternity and the Creator of the universe. He has provided that the condition of a person who conjoins himself with Him by living according to His commandments be more blessed and happy after death than his condition before it in the world, and that it be more blessed and happy for the reason that the person is then spiritual, and a spiritual person feels and experiences spiritual delight, which is superior to natural delight, because it exceeds it a thousand times.
He is, in fact, not actually the same, because he is spiritual and therefore an interior man. But the difference is not apparent to him, because he cannot compare his present state with his earlier, natural state, having put off the natural state and being in a spiritual state.
I have quite often heard such persons say, therefore, that they are not aware of being anywhere else than in the previous world, with the sole difference that they no longer see people whom they left behind in that earlier world, while they do see those who had departed or passed on from that world.
Nevertheless, the reason they now see people who had passed on and not those whom they left behind is because they are not natural people but spiritual or essential people, and a spiritual or essential person sees another spiritual or essential person in the same way as a natural or material person sees another natural or material person.
Natural people and spiritual people do not see each other, however, on account of the difference between the essential and the material, which is like the difference between something prior and something subsequent. And because the prior is in itself purer, it cannot be seen by the subsequent, which, in itself, is cruder; nor can the subsequent, owing to its being cruder, be seen by the prior, which in itself is purer. Consequently, an angel cannot be seen by a person of this world, neither can a person of this world be seen by an angel.
A person after death is a spiritual or essential person because the spiritual or essential person lay hidden within the natural or material person. The latter served him as clothing, or like a shell to be put off, and when it is laid aside, the spiritual or essential person emerges, being thus purer, more interior and more perfect.
A spiritual person is still a complete person, even though not visible to a natural person, and this was clearly shown by the Lord’s appearances to the apostles after His resurrection, in that He appeared and then disappeared, and yet remained the same person He was whether He was seen or unseen. They also said that when they saw Him, their eyes were opened.*
* See Luke 24:31.
We say that masculinity cannot be converted into femininity, nor femininity into masculinity, and that after death a male is consequently still a male, and a female still a female. But because people do not know what masculinity consists in essentially, and what femininity consists in essentially, therefore we must say a few words about it here.
The difference essentially consists in this, that the inmost quality in masculinity is love, and its veil wisdom, or in other words, it is love veiled over with wisdom, while the inmost quality in femininity is that same wisdom, the wisdom of masculinity, and its veil the love resulting from it. This second love, however, is a feminine love, and it is given by the Lord to a wife through the wisdom of her husband, whereas that first love is a masculine love, which is a love of becoming wise, and it is given by the Lord to a husband according to his reception of wisdom. Consequently, the male is a form of the wisdom of love, and the female is a form of the love of that wisdom. Therefore from creation there was implanted in both male and female a love of uniting into one. But more on this subject will be said later.
Testimony that femininity is derived from masculinity, or that woman was taken out of man, appears from these verses in Genesis:
Jehovah God…took one of the ribs of the man, and closed up the flesh in its place. And the rib which He had taken from man He fashioned into a woman, and He brought her to the man. And the man said: “She is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. Therefore she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” (Genesis 2:21-23)
Elsewhere it will be said what a rib symbolizes, and what flesh symbolizes.*
* See no. 193.
Furthermore, because interior qualities form the exterior ones to their likeness, and the masculine form is a form of the intellect while the feminine form is a form of the love of the intellect, therefore the male has a different look, a different sound, and a different physique from the female. Namely, he has a tougher look, a rougher sound, and a stronger physique, and moreover his lower face is bearded. In general, he has a less beautiful form than the female. The two sexes also differ in behavior and manners. In short, nothing in the two sexes is the same, although there is nevertheless a capacity for conjunction in every detail.
Indeed, masculinity in the male is masculine in every part, even in the least part of his body, and also in every idea of his thought, and in every bit of his affection. So, too, with femininity in the female. And because one cannot as a consequence be converted into the other, it follows that after death a male is still male, and that a female is still female.
But even though love is so frequently mentioned, nevertheless scarcely anyone knows what love is. Whenever someone meditates on it, he cannot then form for himself any idea in his thought about it, thus he cannot bring it into the light of his understanding, because it is not a matter of light but of warmth. Therefore he says either that love is not anything, or that it is merely some stimulus flowing in through his vision, hearing and social interaction, which thus affects him. He does not know that love is his very life, not only the general life in his whole body and the general life in all his thoughts, but also the life in every single particle of them.
The wise person can perceive this from considering the following proposition: If you take away the impulse of love, can you form any thought? Or can you perform any action? In the measure that the affection belonging to love cools, is it not true that in the same measure thought, speech and action cool? And the warmer the affection grows, the warmer they grow?
Love, therefore, is the warmth in a person’s life or his vital heat. The warmth of the blood, and also its redness, have no other origin. The fire of the angelic sun, which is pure love, causes it.
From this it is evident that a person is what he loves, or rather, that he is the form of his love. But it should be known that it is the inner person – which is the same as his spirit that lives after death – that is the form of his love. Not so the outer person in the world, because the outer person has learned from early childhood to hide the desires of his love, indeed, to pretend and feign other desires than his true ones.
I have been granted to know from a good deal of experience that a person after death is not what he thinks but what his affection is and what he thinks from that, which is to say that he is what his love is and subsequently his intelligence. I have also been granted to know that after death a person puts away everything that is not in harmony with his love; indeed, that he progressively takes on the look, sound, speech, behavior and manners of his life’s love. It is for this reason that the whole of heaven has been set in order according to all the varieties in the affections connected with the love of good, and that the whole of hell has been arranged according to all the affections connected with the love of evil.
Now, because that capacity for conjunction was introduced from creation and is therefore permanently present in the two sexes, it follows that each yearns for and aspires to conjunction with the other.
Love regarded in itself is nothing but a desire for and consequent effort to conjunction, and conjugial love is a desire for and effort to conjunction into one. For the human male and the human female were so created that from being two they might become as though one person or one flesh.* And when they become one, then taken together they are man in his fullest sense.** But without that conjunction they are two, and each is like a person divided or half a person.
Now, because that innate capacity for conjunction lies inmostly within every single aspect of the male and in every single aspect of the female, and an ability and desire for conjunction into one is present in every part, it follows that a mutual and reciprocal love for the opposite sex remains in people after death.
* Genesis 2:24, Matthew 19:4-6, Mark 10:6-9.
** Cf. Genesis 1:27.
A natural person loves and wants only external conjunctions, with the physical pleasures arising from them, while a spiritual person loves and wants an internal conjunction, with the states of spiritual happiness resulting from it. The spiritual person also perceives that these states of happiness are possible with only one wife, with whom he can be continually joined more and more into one. And the more he is so joined with her, in the same degree he feels his states of happiness ascending and remaining constant to eternity. The natural person, on the other hand, does not think in this way.
That, now, is why we say that conjugial love remains after death in the case of people coming into heaven, who are those who become spiritual on earth.
But from early childhood people have acquired the belief from parents and teachers, and afterward from the learned and the clergy, that a person will not live as a person after death until after the day of the Last Judgment, which they have been waiting for, now, for six thousand years.
Because of this, and because many people have placed this question among matters to be accepted on faith and not with the understanding, it has become necessary that these same points be attested also by the affidavits of an eyewitness. Otherwise people who trust only in their senses will say, in accord with the faith instilled in them, “If people lived as people after death, I would see them and hear them. Besides, who has come down from heaven or ascended from hell and told us?”
It has not been possible, however, neither is it possible, for any angel of heaven to descend or any spirit of hell to ascend so as to speak with any person, except with those who have had the inner faculties of their mind, the faculties of their spirit, opened by the Lord. And this cannot take place fully except in the case of those who have been prepared by the Lord to receive such things as have to do with spiritual wisdom.
It has therefore pleased the Lord to do this with me, in order to keep the states of heaven and hell and the state of people’s life after death from remaining unknown, and from being laid to sleep in ignorance, and from being finally buried in denial.
But my personal observations and testimony regarding the points outlined above are too extensive to be presented here. I have presented them, however, in the book, Heaven and Hell, and then in Continuation Concerning the Spiritual World,* and later in The Apocalypse Revealed. Meanwhile, respecting marriages specifically, see what is presented here in the narrative accounts that come at the end of the sections or chapters of this book.
* = Continuation Concerning the Last Judgment and the Spiritual World.
Some of the Sadducees, who deny that there is a resurrection…, asked Jesus, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote…that if anyone’s brother dies, having a wife, and he dies without children, his brother should take his wife and raise up offspring for his brother…. There were seven brothers, (and one after another they took her as wife, but they died childless)…. Lastly…the woman died also. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife of them does she become…?”
But Jesus, answering, said to them, “The children of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who shall be held worthy to attain the second age, and the resurrection from the dead, shall neither marry nor be given in marriage; nor can they die any more, for they are like the angels, and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. Moreover, that the dead rise again, even Moses showed in reference to the bush, when he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ So, then, He is not God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him.” (Luke 20:27-38; cf. Matthew 22:23-32, Mark 12:18-27)
The Lord taught two things by these words. First, that a person rises again after death. And secondly, that people are not given in marriage in heaven.
He taught that a person rises again after death by saying that God is not God of the dead but of the living, and that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are still alive. So likewise in the parable about the rich man in hell and Lazarus in heaven (Luke 16:19-31).
[2] Secondly, He taught that people are not given in marriage in heaven by saying that those who are held worthy to attain the second age neither marry nor are given in marriage.
The only kind of marriage meant here is spiritual marriage, and this clearly appears from the words that immediately follow, that they cannot die any more because they are like the angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection.
By spiritual marriage, conjunction with the Lord is meant, and this is achieved on earth. And when it has been achieved on earth, it has also been achieved in heaven. Therefore in heaven the marriage does not take place again, nor are people given in marriage. This, too, is meant by the words, “The children of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are held worthy to attain the second age neither marry nor are given in marriage.”
Such persons are also called by the Lord, “children of the wedding”* (Matthew 9:15, Mark 2:19), and here, “angels,” “children of God,” and “children of the resurrection.”
[3] To marry means to be conjoined with the Lord, and to go to a wedding means to be received into heaven by the Lord. This appears from the following references:
The kingdom of heaven is like a man, a king, who arranged a wedding for his son, and sent out his servants (with invitations to a wedding). (Matthew 22:2,3, to verse 14)
The kingdom of heaven is like ten virgins, who…went out to meet the bridegroom (five of whom were prepared to go to the wedding). (Matthew 25:1ff.)
The Lord meant Himself in this passage, which is apparent from the thirteenth verse there, where it says,
Stay awake…, because you know not the day and the hour in which the Son of Man will come. (Matthew 25:13)
Also from the book of Revelation:
The time for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready…. Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb. (Revelation 19:7,9)
There is a spiritual meaning in each and every thing the Lord said, and this we fully showed in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture (published in Amsterdam in 1763).
* Actually, “children of the bridechamber.”
One morning I looked up into the sky, and I saw above me expanse upon expanse. And as I looked, the first or nearest expanse was opened, and shortly the second, which was above it, and finally the third, which was the highest of all. By the light coming from them I perceived that on the first expanse were angels of the first or lowest heaven, on the second expanse were angels of the second or middle heaven, and on the third expanse were angels of the third or highest heaven.
I wondered at first what was happening and why. But shortly I heard a voice from heaven like the sound of a trumpet, saying, “We have perceived, and now see, that you are meditating on conjugial love. Moreover, we know that so far no one on earth knows what true conjugial love is in its origin or in its essence, and yet it is important for them to know. Therefore it has pleased the Lord to open the heavens to you, that the inner faculties of your mind may receive an influx of illuminating light and thus perception.
“Among us in heaven, especially in the third heaven, our heavenly delights come principally from conjugial love. Consequently, by permission granted us, we will send a married couple down to you, in order that you may see.”
[2] And suddenly, then, a carriage appeared, coming down from the highest or third heaven, in which I saw a single angel. But as it drew near, I saw that it held two.
The carriage shone before my eyes in the distance like a diamond, and harnessed to it were young horses as white as snow. And the couple sitting in the carriage held in their hands a pair of turtledoves.
And the couple called out to me, “You want us to come closer. But beware, then, of the flashing light coming from our heaven, the heaven we descended from. It is a blazing light, and you must take care that it does not penetrate interiorly. By its influx, indeed, the higher ideas of your understanding are enlightened, ideas that, in themselves, are heavenly. But these same ideas are inexpressible in the world in which you live. Receive the things you are about to hear, therefore, in rational terms and so explain them to the understanding.”
I replied, “I will take care. Come closer.”
So they came, and behold, it was a husband and his wife. And they said, “We are married. We have lived a blessed life in heaven from the earliest time, which you call the golden age, remaining forever in the same flower of youth that you see us in today.”
[3] I looked at the two of them closely, because I perceived that they represented conjugial love in their life and in their adornment – in their life as shown in their faces, and in their adornment as shown in the garments they wore. For all angels are affections of love in human form. The essential, dominant affection shines out from their faces, and they are given clothing on the basis of their affection and in accordance with it. Consequently, in heaven they say that everyone is clothed in his own affection.
The husband appeared to be between adolescence and early manhood in age. From his eyes flashed a light sparkling with the wisdom of love. His face seemed to be inmostly radiant with this light, and because of the radiance from within, outwardly his skin virtually shone. As a result, his whole facial appearance was singularly one of dazzling good looks.
He was dressed in a full-length robe, and under the robe he wore a blue-colored garment, which was tied about the waist with a golden girdle bearing three precious stones, two of them sapphires, one on each side, and a garnet in the middle. His stockings were of shining linen, into which had been woven threads of silver; and his shoes were made entirely of silk.
This was the representational form that conjugial love took in the case of the husband.
[4] In the case of the wife, however, it took the following form. I saw her face, and did not see it. I saw it as the very essence of beauty, and did not see it because the beauty was beyond expression. For there was in her face the bright glow of a blazing light, like the light possessed by angels in the third heaven, and this light dimmed my vision, so that I was simply stupefied by it.
Noticing this, the wife spoke to me, saying, “What do you see?”
I answered, “I see only conjugial love and a picture of it. But I see and do not see.”
At this she turned at an angle away from her husband, and then I could look more intently. Her eyes flashed with the light of her heaven, which is blazing, as I said, and so takes its quality from the love of wisdom. For wives in the third heaven love their husbands on account of their husbands’ wisdom and in response to it, and the husbands love their wives on account of and in response to that love directed towards them, and so they are united.
The wife had her beauty as a result of this, such beauty that no artist could reproduce it or portray it in its true form, for a flashing of light like that is not possible in the painter’s colors, nor is such loveliness expressible in his art.
Her hair was attractively arranged in a style to match her beauty, with jewels in the form of flowers inserted into it. She had a necklace of garnets, from which hung a rosette of peridots. And she had bracelets of pearls. She was dressed in a scarlet gown, and under it a purple bodice fastened in front with rubies. But what surprised me, the colors kept changing depending on which way she was facing in relation to her husband, and their sparkle also kept changing accordingly, being now more, now less – more when they faced each other, and less when she faced away at an angle.
[5] When I had seen these things, they spoke with me again. And when the husband spoke, he spoke as though he spoke at the same time on behalf of his wife, and when the wife spoke, she spoke as though she spoke at the same time on behalf of her husband. For such was the union of their minds, from which comes their speech. It was then that I heard as well the way conjugial love sounds, how it was inwardly together with, and also the result of, the delights of a state of peace and innocence.
Finally they said, “They are calling us back. We have to go.”
They then appeared to be again riding in a carriage, as before, and they were borne off along a road stretching out between flower gardens, from whose beds rose olive trees and trees full of oranges. And as they drew near their heaven, young women came to meet them and welcome them and take them in.
Saying this, the angel sent the unrolled sheet of paper down, and one angelic spirit took it and placed it on a table in a particular room, which he immediately locked. And handing me the key he said, “Write.”
I once saw three spirits newly arrived from the world, who were wandering about, exploring and asking questions. They were in a state of astonishment that they were living as people just as before and that they were seeing the same things as before. For they knew they had departed from the former or natural world, and they had believed there that they would not live as people until after the day of the Last Judgment, when they would be clothed with the flesh and bones laid in their graves.
To remove all doubt that they were still truly people, therefore, they alternately inspected and touched themselves and others, and handled the things they found, and in a thousand ways kept convincing themselves that they were now people as they had been in the former world, except that they were seeing each other in a brighter light and the things they found in a greater splendor, thus seeing them more perfectly.
[2] Then by chance two angelic spirits met them and stopped them, saying, “Where are you from?”
And they answered, “We have departed from the world and are again living in a world, so we have traveled from one world to another. At this we are now marveling!”
Then the three newcomers began asking the two angelic spirits about heaven. And because two of the three newcomers were adolescents, and from their eyes darted what seemed to be a spark of lust for the opposite sex, the angelic spirits said, “You have, perhaps, seen some of the women.”
And they replied, “We have.”
So, because the newcomers had asked about heaven, the angelic spirits told them the following:
“In heaven all things are magnificent and splendid, and are such as eye has never seen. There are also young men and women there, young women of such beauty that they may be called the very pictures of beauty, and young men of such morality that they may be called the very pictures of morality. And the beauty of the young women and the morality of the young men correspond to each other, as reciprocal and mutually adaptable forms.”
The two newcomers then asked whether human forms in heaven are entirely similar to human forms in the natural world. And the angelic spirits answered that they are completely alike, with nothing taken from either man or woman.
“In a word,” the angelic spirits said, “a man is still a man, and a woman is still a woman, in all the perfection of the form in which they were created. Step aside, if you like, and investigate in your own case whether anything is missing to keep you from being the man you were before.”
[3] Again the newcomers said, “We heard in the world from which we departed that in heaven they are not given in marriage, because they are angels.* Is love between the sexes possible, then?”
The angelic spirits replied, “The love you mean between the sexes is not possible there, but an angelic love for the opposite sex is, which is chaste, free of any temptation arising from lust.”
To this the newcomers said, “If love for the opposite sex is without temptation, then what is love between the sexes?”
And when they began to think about that love, they groaned and said, “How dry the joy of heaven is! What young man can then wish for heaven? Is not a love like that sterile and devoid of life?”
To this the angelic spirits laughingly replied, “Angelic love for the opposite sex, or the kind of love that exists in heaven, is still full of the deepest delights. It is a most pleasant swelling of everything in the mind and consequently of everything in the breast, and within the breast it is as if the heart were sporting with the lungs. From this sport comes a breathing, tone and speech which cause the companionships between the sexes, or between young men and women, to be heavenly sweetness itself, which is at the same time pure.
[4] “All newcomers on ascending to heaven are examined in respect to what their chastity is like, for they are introduced into companionships with young women – the beauties of heaven – and these perceive what the newcomers are like in regard to their love for the opposite sex. They perceive it from their tone of voice, their speech, their facial expression, their eyes, their bearing, and the atmosphere emanating from them. If the love is unchaste, the young women then run away and report to their friends that they have seen satyrs or lechers. And what is more, the newcomers undergo a change, and to the eyes of the angels they appear hairy, with feet like those of calves or leopards. They are also soon cast down, to keep them from polluting the atmosphere there with their lust.”
Listening to this, the two newcomers again said, “Then there is no love between the sexes in heaven. What is chaste love between the sexes but love emptied of the essence of its life? Are the companionships of young men and women there not then dry joys? We are not made of stone and wood, but of living perceptions and affections!”
[5] When the two angelic spirits heard this, they indignantly retorted, “You do not know at all what a chaste love between the sexes is, because you are not yet chaste! That love is a true delight of the mind and so of the heart, and not at the same time of the flesh below the heart. Angelic chastity, which is found equally in both sexes, prevents that love from passing beyond the confines of the heart. But within those confines, and above them, the morality of the young man and the beauty of the young woman find delight in the delights of a chaste love for the opposite sex – delights which are deeper and richer for their pleasantness than can be described in words.
“But this is the love that angels have for the opposite sex, because they have only conjugial love, and conjugial love is not possible at the same time as an unchaste love for the opposite sex. Truly conjugial love is a chaste love, and has nothing in common with unchaste love. It is with one and only one of the opposite sex, with all others set aside, for it is a love of the spirit and consequently of the body, and not a love of the body and consequently of the spirit, that is, it is not a love that infests the spirit.”
[6] On hearing this, the two adolescent newcomers rejoiced and said, “Then there is still love between the sexes in heaven! What else is conjugial love?”
But to this the angelic spirits replied, “Think more deeply, weigh the matter, and you will see that the love you mean between the sexes is a love outside of marriage, and that conjugial love is altogether different, being as different from the love you mean as the wheat is from the chaff, or better, as different as human life is from animal life.
“If you were to ask women in heaven what love outside of marriage is, I assure you they would respond, ‘What is this? What are you saying? How can such a thing that so offends the ears come out of your mouth? How can a love not created in the first place be engendered in a person?’
“If you then asked them what truly conjugial love is, I know they would answer that it is not a love for the opposite sex, but love for one of the sex, which arises only when a young man sees a young woman provided by the Lord, and the young woman the young man, both feeling an inclination to marry kindled in their hearts, and perceiving, the young man that she is for him, and the young woman that he is for her. For love then presents itself to love and causes them to recognize each other, at once joining their souls, and afterwards their minds. From there it enters their hearts, and after the wedding goes on beyond. And so it becomes a full love, which daily grows into union, even to the point that they no longer are two, but virtually one person.
[7] “I know, too, that these same women would swear that they are not acquainted with any other love between the sexes. For they say, ‘How can there be love between the sexes unless it is so honest and reciprocal that it aspires to eternal union, which is that the two may be one flesh?'”
To this the angelic spirits added, “In heaven they do not know at all what licentiousness is, not even that it exists or is possible. The angels grow cold with their whole body at unchaste love or love outside of marriage, and on the other hand, they grow warm with their whole body as a result of chaste or conjugial love. In the case of men there, all their sinews sink at the sight of a licentious woman, and grow taut at the sight of their wife.”
[8] The three newcomers, hearing this, asked whether there is the same love-making between married partners in heaven as on earth.
The two angelic spirits answered that it is entirely the same. And because they perceived that the newcomers were wanting to know whether they had the same end delights in heaven, they also said that these are entirely the same, but much more blissful, since the perception and sensation of angels is much more exquisite than the perception and sensation of people.
“Moreover, what is the life accompanying that love,” the angelic spirits asked, “if it does not stem from an underlying condition of ability? If this ability fails, does that love not fail and cool? Is this power not a real measure, a real progression and real foundation of that love? Is it not its beginning, support and fulfillment?
“It is a universal law that the primary elements in a series exist, subsist and persist on the basis of the final elements. So also with that love. Consequently, without the end delights, there would not be any delights in conjugial love.”
[9] The newcomers then asked whether as a result of the end delights of that love, children are born in heaven. And if children were not born, of what use those delights were.
The angelic spirits replied that they do not have any natural offspring, but spiritual offspring.
“And what are spiritual offspring?” the newcomers asked.
The angelic spirits answered, “By the end delights the two partners become more united in a marriage of goodness and truth, and a marriage of goodness and truth is a marriage of love and wisdom, and love and wisdom are the offspring that are born of such a marriage. Because the husband in heaven is a form of wisdom, and his wife is a form of the love of it, and both moreover are spiritual, therefore no other than spiritual offspring can be conceived and begotten there.
“That is why, after experiencing these delights, angels do not become depressed as some do on earth, but joyful, and they have this characteristic as a result of a continual influx of fresh vigor to follow the first – fresh vigor that rejuvenates and at the same time enlightens them. For, all who come into heaven return into the springtime of their youth and into the powers of that age, and so they remain to eternity.”
[10] When the three newcomers heard this, they said, “Does it not say in the Word that there are no marriages in heaven, because they are angels?”**
To this the angelic spirits replied, “Look up into heaven, and you will receive an answer.”
They then asked why they should look up into heaven.
“Because,” the angelic spirits said, “we have all our interpretations of the Word from heaven. The Word is inwardly spiritual, and the angels, being spiritual, must explain its spiritual meaning.”
Then, after some time, heaven opened over their heads and they caught sight of two angels. And the two angels said, “There are marriages in heaven, as on earth, but only in the case of people there who already possess a marriage of goodness and truth. They are the only ones who become angels. Therefore spiritual marriages are meant in the Word, which are marriages of goodness and truth. These spiritual marriages take place on earth and not after death, thus not in heaven. So it is said of the five foolish virgins – even though they, too, were invited to the wedding – that they could not go in, because they did not have a marriage of goodness and truth, since they had no oil, but only lamps.***
“Goodness is meant by oil, and truth by lamps. And to be given in marriage is to enter into heaven where that marriage is.”
The three newcomers were glad to hear this explanation, and were filled with a longing for heaven and the hope of being married there. And they said, “We will strive for morality and a decent and proper life, that we may obtain the object of our prayers.”
* See Matthew 22:30, Mark 12:25, Luke 20:35,36.
** See Matthew 22:30, Mark 12:25, Luke 20:35,36.
*** See Matthew 25:1-12.
We have just shown in the preceding chapter that marriages exist in heaven. In this chapter we will now show whether or not a marriage covenant contracted in the world will continue and remain in force after death.
It is necessary that I make this known, because it is not a matter of judgment but of personal experience, and I have had this experience through association with angels and spirits. Nevertheless, I must make it known in such a way that reason may also assent.
Among the prayers and yearnings of married partners, moreover, is a wish to know the state of married partners after death. For men who have loved their wives wish to know – if their wives have died – whether it is well with them. So, too, wives who have loved their husbands. And they want to know whether they will meet again.
Many married couples also would like to know in advance whether partners separate after death or whether they stay together. Those who are discordant in spirit wish to know whether partners separate. And those who are concordant in spirit wish to know whether they stay together.
Because these are some of the things people would like answers to, they will be made known, and this will be done in the following order:
(1) In every person after death, love for the opposite sex continues to be what it was like inwardly, that is, what it was like in the person’s inner will and thought in the world.
(2) Likewise conjugial love.
(3) Most married couples meet after death, recognize each other, associate again, and live together for a time, which occurs in their first state, thus while they are still maintaining the outward aspects of their lives as they did in the world.
(4) Progressively, however, as married partners put off outward appearances and enter into their inward qualities, they gradually perceive what sort of love and mutual feeling they had had for each other, and consequently whether it is possible for them to live together or not.
(5) If it is possible for married partners to live together, they remain partners. But if it is not possible, they separate, the husband sometimes separating from the wife, the wife sometimes from the husband, and both of them sometimes from each other.
(6) A man is then given a suitable wife, and a woman, likewise, a suitable husband.
(7) Married couples enjoy the same intimate relations with each other as in the world, only more delightful and blessed, but without begetting children. Instead of or to take the place of begetting children, they experience a spiritual procreation, which is one of love and wisdom.
(8) This is what happens in the case of people who come into heaven. It is different, however, with those who go to hell.
Development of this outline now follows, elucidating and supporting the various statements:
As regards love for the opposite sex, this is universal in all people, for it is implanted from the moment of creation in a person’s very soul, from which comes the essential nature of the whole person, and it is implanted for the sake of propagating the human race. This love remains especially, because after death a man is still a man, and a woman is still a woman, and there is nothing in the soul, mind, or body which is not masculine in the male and feminine in the female; and the two sexes have been so created as to strive for conjunction, indeed, for conjunction in order that they may become one. This impulse is the love for the opposite sex which precedes conjugial love.
Now because an inclination to conjunction has been engraved on each and every element in the male and female, it follows that this inclination cannot be wiped out or die with the body.
Now because a person is what his love is, and love has its seat in his spirit, it follows that love for the opposite sex remains in a person after death and continues to be what it was like inwardly in him. So, for example, if that love inwardly had been conjugial or chaste, it continues to be conjugial and chaste after death. But if it had been inwardly licentious, it continues to be also like that after death.
It must be known, however, that love for the opposite sex is not the same in one person as in another. Its variations are limitless. But still, whatever it is like in each person’s spirit, so it also remains.
A love for the opposite sex is love for several of the opposite sex and experienced with several, whereas conjugial love is love solely for one of the opposite sex and experienced with one. Love for several and experienced with several is moreover a natural love, being shared in common with animals and birds, which are natural, while conjugial love is a spiritual love, being particular and peculiar to human beings, because human beings were created and are thus born to become spiritual. The more spiritual a person becomes, therefore, the more he divests himself of a love for the opposite sex and clothes himself in conjugial love.
It appears to begin with in marriage as though a love for the opposite sex were bound together with conjugial love. But as the marriage progresses, the two loves are separated, and then in the case of people who are spiritual, a love for the opposite sex is banished and conjugial love insinuated. In the case of those who are natural, however, the opposite occurs.
From what we have now said, it is apparent that a love for the opposite sex is impure and unchaste, because it is experienced with several and is in itself natural, being, in fact, animal, and that it is licentious, because it is promiscuous and not restricted. It is altogether different, on the other hand, with conjugial love.
In the following chapters it will be clearly seen that conjugial love is spiritual and peculiarly human.
47r. [repeated]* (3) Most married couples meet after death, recognize each other, associate, and live together for a time, which occurs in their first state, thus while they are still maintaining the outward aspects of their lives as they did in the world. There are two states that a person goes through after death, an external state and an internal state. A person comes first into the external state, and afterwards into the internal one. It is during the external state – if both partners have died – that they meet, recognize each other, and, if they lived together in the world, associate and live together for a time. And when they are in this state, one partner does not know the other’s feelings toward him, because these feelings keep themselves hidden inside.
Later, however, when they come into their internal state, the feelings manifest themselves. And if these feelings are concordant and congenial, the partners continue their married life. But if these feelings are discordant and uncongenial, they end it.
If a man has had several wives, he associates with them in turn, so long as he is in the external state. But when he comes into the internal state, and perceives what their feelings of love are like, he then either chooses one or leaves them all. For in the spiritual world, just as in the natural world, a Christian is never allowed to have several wives, because this attacks religion and profanes it.
A similar thing happens with a wife who has had several husbands, although wives in this case do not attach themselves to their husbands. They only present themselves, and the husbands attach the wives to them.
Let it be known that husbands rarely recognize their wives, but that wives readily recognize their husbands. The reason is that women have an interior perception of love, while men have only a more superficial perception.
48r. [repeated] (4) Progressively, however, as married partners put off outward appearances and enter into their inward qualities, they gradually perceive what sort of love and mutual feeling they had had for each other, and consequently whether it is possible for them to live together or not. There is no need to explain this further, since it follows as a conclusion from what was explained under the preceding heading. We will only clarify here how it is that a person puts off outward appearances and takes on inward qualities.
Everyone is first introduced after death into a world that is called the world of spirits, which is midway between heaven and hell; and there he is prepared, for heaven if he is good, and for hell if he is evil. [2] The purpose of the preparation in that world is to bring the inner reality and the outer appearance into harmony, so that the internal and external become one, instead of being at variance and divided in two. They are divided in two in the natural world, and only in the case of people who have an honest heart do they become one. (That they are divided in two is apparent from crafty and deceitful people, especially from hypocrites, flatterers, fakes and liars.)
In the spiritual world, however, one is not permitted to have a mind divided like that, but a person who had been evil inwardly must also be evil outwardly. So, too, with a good person, who must be good in both ways. [3] For every person after death becomes what he had been like inwardly, and not what he had been like outwardly.
To achieve this end, the person is then brought by turns into his external character and alternately into his internal one. And everybody is wise so long as he is in his external character; that is, he tries to appear wise – even one who is evil. But if he is evil, the same person is irrational in his internal character. By these alternations he can see his insanities and recover from them. However, if he had not come to his senses in the world, he cannot do so afterward, because he loves his insanities and wants to remain in them. Therefore he forces his external character into becoming similarly irrational as well. So his internal and external characters become one, and when this happens, he is ready for hell.
[4] It is quite different, on the other hand, if the person is good. Because he had looked to God and come to his senses in the world, in his internal character he was wiser than in his external life. In his external life he sometimes even acted irrationally owing to the enticements and vanities of the world. Therefore his external character is also reduced to harmony with his internal one, which, as we said, is wise. And when this happens, he is ready for heaven.
This makes clear how it is that the outward character is put off and the internal character taken on after death.
* Numbers 47 and 48 were used twice by Swedenborg
An external perception of love takes its cause and origin from such things as have to do with love of the world and love of one’s own person. Love of the world is concerned primarily with wealth and possessions, and love of one’s own person with positions of rank and honor. In addition to these, there are also various other attractions that entice into marriage, such as good looks and a pretended elegance of manners. Sometimes even a lack of chastity attracts.
Furthermore, marriages are also contracted in the area, city or town of one’s birth or residence, where the only choice possible is confined and limited to the households one knows, and there only with people of a station matching one’s own.
As a result, marriages entered into in the world are for the most part external marriages, and not at the same time internal, even though it is the internal union or union of souls that makes a real marriage. And that internal union is not discernible until a person has put off his external character and taken on his internal character, which happens after death.
That, now, is why separations then occur, followed by new unions formed with partners of a similar and compatible nature – unless unions like this were provided on earth, which happens in the case of people who from their youth had loved, desired and sought from the Lord a lawful and lovely partnership with one, and who spurn and reject roving lusts as an offense to the nostrils.
The reason these are the only married couples who can be accepted into heaven is that they are the only ones who can live together there, that is, who can be together in the same house and in the same bedroom and bed. For all those who are in heaven are associated according to the affinities and close similarities of their love, and their homes are determined accordingly. This is because there are no dimensional spaces in the spiritual world, but they have appearances of space, and these appearances are determined according to the states of their life, and their states of life are determined according to states of love.
Consequently, no one in the spiritual world can stay anywhere but in his own house, which is provided and appointed for him according to the nature of his love. If he stays anywhere else, his chest labors and he has difficulty breathing. By the same token, two people cannot live together in the same house unless they are likenesses of each other. And they cannot live together at all as married partners unless their feelings for each other are mutual. If these feelings of attraction are external and not at the same time internal, the very house or place separates them, repels them and drives them away.
So it is that, in the case of people who after preparation are introduced into heaven, marriage is provided with a partner whose soul inclines to union with the soul of the other, to the point that they do not wish to lead two lives but one. That is why, after separation, a man is given a suitable wife, and a woman, likewise, a suitable husband.
* Matthew 19:6, Mark 10:8.
After death, therefore, when a person becomes a spirit, the same mutual inclination continues, and this would not be possible without a continuation of the same relations. For people are people as they were before, and nothing is missing from the male, and nothing from the female. They are the same as they were before in form, likewise in their affections and thoughts.
What other conclusion follows from this, then, but that they have the same intimate relations? And because conjugial love is chaste, pure and sacred, that their intimate relations are also full and complete? (But for more on this subject, see the narrative account in no. 44.)
The reason these relations are then more delightful and blessed is that when a person becomes a spirit, this love then becomes more interior and pure and so more capable of being perceived, and every delight increases with a person’s perception of it, increasing even to the point that the blessedness of the love is noticed in its delight.
We say that these are born, because conjugial love perfects an angel, since it unites him with his partner so that he becomes more and more human. For, as we said above, married couples in heaven are not two but one angel. Therefore by the conjugial union they fulfill themselves in respect to their humanity, which is to want to be wise and to love what has to do with wisdom.
In contrast, however, those people who go to hell are all natural people, and merely natural marriages are not marriages, but pairings that result from unchaste lust. What these pairings are like will be told later, in the chapter on chastity and its absence,* and further in the chapters on licentious love.**
* See nos. 138ff.
** See nos. 423ff.
1. All those married partners who are merely natural, separate after death. The reason is that the love of being married is cold in them, and a love for committing adultery warm. Nevertheless, following that separation they still sometimes form associations with others as married partners, although after a short time they part from each other. Quite often this happens repeatedly, with one person after another. And finally the man is handed over to some licentious woman, and the woman to some adulterer, which takes place in a prison in hell (as described in The Apocalypse Revealed, no. 153, paragraph 10). There, promiscuous licentiousness is forbidden to both under pain of punishment.
[2] 2. When one partner is spiritual and the other natural, they, too, separate after death, and a suitable husband or wife is given to the spiritual partner, while the natural one is consigned to his or her like in places of lasciviousness.
[3] 3. Moreover, in the case of people who lived a celibate life in the world and completely turned their minds away from marriage, if they are spiritual, they remain celibate. But if they are natural, they become licentious.
It is different, however, if during their unmarried state they had wanted to marry, and still more if they had sought marriage without success. If these people are spiritual, they are provided blessed marriages, though not before they come into heaven.
[4] 4. In the case of people who in the world were shut away in convents and monasteries, both unmarried women and men, their cloistered life continues for some period of time after death. At the end of this time they are released and let go, and they gain the desired freedom they had prayed for, either to live married, if they wish, or not. If they wish to marry, they become married. If not, they are conveyed to other celibates at the side of heaven. Those who burned with forbidden lust, however, are cast down.
[5] 5. The reason celibates live at the side of heaven is because the atmosphere of permanent celibacy disturbs the atmosphere of conjugial love, which is the essential atmosphere of heaven. The atmosphere of conjugial love is the essential atmosphere of heaven because it descends from the heavenly marriage of the Lord and the church.
– – – – – – – – – – –
I once heard a very sweet melody coming from heaven. The singers there were wives, and also young women, who were singing a little song together. The sweetness of the singing sounded like the harmoniously flowing affection of some love. (Heavenly songs are nothing else but voiced affections, or affections expressed and varied in musical tones. For as thoughts are expressed in spoken words, so affections are expressed in the singing of songs. Angels perceive the subject of the affection from the balance and flow of the musical variations.)
I had many spirits around me at the time, and I heard from some of them that they were listening to this very sweet melody, and that it was the melody of a some lovely affection whose subject they did not know. Therefore they began to make various guesses, but without success. Some guessed that the singing expressed the affection of a bridegroom and bride when they become engaged. Some supposed that it expressed the affection of a bridegroom and bride when they celebrate their wedding. And some thought that it expressed the early love of a husband and wife.
[2] However, an angel from heaven then appeared in the midst of them, and he said that they were singing about a chaste love for the opposite sex.
But the spirits standing around asked what a chaste love for the opposite sex was.
So the angel said that it is the love of a man for a maiden or married woman beautiful in form and lovely in manners, which is free of any idea of lasciviousness, and vice versa [that is, the same sort of love of a woman for a single or married man].”
Having said that, the angel vanished.
The singing continued, and now that the spirits knew the subject of the affection that the singing expressed, they began to hear it with a great deal of variety, each in accordance with the state of his own love. Those who looked upon women chastely heard the singing as harmonious and sweet. Those, however, who looked upon women unchastely heard it as discordant and sorrowful. And those who looked upon women with repugnance heard it as harsh and grating.
[3] But then, suddenly, the plain on which they were standing was turned into a theater, and they heard a voice say, “Examine and discuss this love.”
Suddenly, too, spirits from various societies were present, and in the midst of them some angels in white. And the angels then addressed them saying, “We have inquired into all kinds of love in this spiritual world, not only the love of a man for a man, and of a woman for a woman, and the mutual love of a husband and wife, but also the love of a man for women, and the love of a woman for men. We have been allowed to pass through society after society as well, and to investigate, and we have not yet found the prevailing love for the opposite sex to be chaste, except in those who, because of their truly conjugial love, are in a constant state of sexual ability, and these are in the highest heavens.
“Moreover, we have also been granted to perceive an influx of this chaste love for the opposite sex into the affections of our hearts, and we felt it exceed every other love in its sweetness, except the love of two married partners whose hearts are one.
“But we pray you examine and discuss this love, because to you it is new and unknown. Also, because it is so exceedingly pleasant, in heaven we call it heavenly sweetness.”
[4] As they were therefore discussing it, the first to speak were spirits who could not think of chastity as applying to marriages, and they said, “When one sees a beautiful and lovely woman, maiden or married, is there anyone who can so chasten the ideas in his thought and so purify them from lust that he loves her beauty, yet without at all wishing to taste it if he could? Who can turn the instinctive lust that every man feels into chasteness like that, thus into something against his own nature, and still feel love? When love for the opposite sex enters from the eyes into the thoughts, can it stop at a woman’s face? Does it not instantly descend to her breast and beyond?
“The angels have spoken nonsense, saying that a chaste love like that exists and yet is the sweetest of all loves, and that it is only possible in husbands who are in a state of truly conjugial love and who consequently possess an extraordinary sexual ability with their wives. When these husbands see beautiful women, can they hold the ideas of their thought on high any more than others, and keep them suspended, so to speak, to prevent those ideas from descending and extending to that which prompts such a love?”
[5] After them, spirits spoke who were in both a state of coldness and a state of heat, in a state of coldness towards their wives and in a state of heat towards the opposite sex. And they said, “What is a chaste love for the opposite sex? Is it not a contradiction in terms when the word chastity is added to love and sex? What is left when a contradictory adjective is added but something robbed of its proper attribute, which is meaningless? How can a chaste love for the opposite sex be the sweetest of all loves when it is chastity that deprives it of its sweetness? You all know in what the sweetness of that love lies. Consequently, when the idea naturally accompanying this love is banished, where is the sweetness then, and what does it come from?”
Some others then interrupted and said, “We have been in the company of some very beautiful women, and we have not lusted. Therefore we know what a chaste love for the opposite sex is.”
But their companions, who knew their lascivious natures, replied, “You were then in a state of antipathy toward the opposite sex owing to impotence, and that is not a chaste love for the opposite sex but the final result of an unchaste love.”
[6] Having heard these things, the angels crossly asked the spirits who were standing to the right, towards the south, to speak, and these spirits said, “There is a love between men, also a love between women, and there is the love of a man for a woman and the love of a woman for a man. And these three pairs of loves are completely different from each other.
“Love between two men is like the love between one intellect and another, for men were created and so are born to become forms of understanding.
“Love between two women is like the love between one affection and another for the understanding of men, for women were created and are born to become forms of love for the understanding of men.
“These loves, namely, the love between two men and the love between two women, do not enter deeply into their hearts, but remain outside and only touch. Thus these loves do not unite the two of them interiorly.
“That is why two men together also spar with each other with endless arguments, like two athletes boxing, and two women sometimes as well, with endless insistence on their own wishes, like two marionettes battling with their fists.
[7] “On the other hand, the love between a man and a woman is a love between intellect and its affection, and this enters deeply and unites them. The union also is the love. But a union of the minds and not at the same time of the bodies, or an effort to a union of minds only, is a spiritual love and therefore a chaste love. This love is possible only in those who are in a state of truly conjugial love and who consequently possess an elevated sexuality, because men like this, out of chastity, do not permit themselves to feel an influx of love on account of the body of any other woman than their wife. And because they possess a highly elevated sexuality, they cannot help but love the opposite sex and at the same time turn their backs on anything unchaste.
“Thus they have a chaste love for the opposite sex, which regarded in itself is interior spiritual friendship. This friendship takes its sweetness from an elevated sexuality, but one that is chaste. These men have an elevated sexuality owing to their total renunciation of licentiousness. And it is chaste, because they are only in love with their wives.
“Now, then, because that love in them does not partake of the flesh but only of the spirit, it is chaste. And because the beauty of a woman, owing to the inherent attraction, enters at the same time into their mind, it is sweet.”
[8] On hearing this, many of those standing around put their hands to their ears, saying, “Your words hurt our ears! The things you have said are meaningless to us.”
These spirits were unchaste.
Then again, the singing was heard from heaven, and now sweeter than before. But to those unchaste spirits, it grated so discordantly that because of the harshness of the discord, they threw themselves out of the theater and ran away, the few spirits remaining being those who in their wisdom loved conjugial chastity.
One time, while speaking with angels in the spiritual world, I was filled with a pleasant wish to see the Temple of Wisdom, which I had seen once before.* So I asked the angels about the way to it.
They said, “Follow the light, and you will find it.”
And I said, “What do you mean, follow the light?”
They said, “Our light grows brighter the closer we get to that temple. Follow the light, therefore, in the direction it grows brighter. For our light emanates from the Lord as the sun of this world, and so, regarded in itself, that light is wisdom.”
In the company of two angels I then went in the direction that the light grew brighter, and I ascended by a steep path to the top of a certain hill which was in the southern zone, where I found a magnificent gate. When the guard saw the angels with me, he opened it, and behold, I saw an avenue of palm trees and laurels, which we followed. The avenue curved around and ended up at a garden, in the middle of which stood the Temple of Wisdom.
As I looked around in the garden, I saw some smaller buildings, replicas of the temple, with wise men in them. We went over to one of the buildings, and we spoke at the entrance with the receptionist there, telling him the reason for our coming and the way we had arrived. And the receptionist said, “Welcome! Come in, have a seat, and let us spend some time together in conversations of wisdom.”
[2] I saw inside that the building was divided into two sections, and yet the two were still one. It was divided into two sections by a transparent partition, but it looked like one room because of the partition’s transparency, which was like the transparency of the purest crystal. I asked why it was arranged like that.
The receptionist said, “I am not alone. My wife is with me, and though we are two, yet we are not two but one flesh.”
To which I replied, “I know you are wise, but what does a wise man or wisdom have to do with a woman?”
At this, with some feeling of annoyance, the receptionist’s expression changed, and he stretched out his hand, and suddenly, then, other wise men were present from the neighboring buildings. To them he said with amusement, “Our visitor here says he wants to know what a wise man or wisdom has to do with a woman!”
They all laughed at this and said, “What is a wise man or wisdom apart from a woman or apart from love? A wife is the love of a wise man’s wisdom.”
[3] But the receptionist said, “Let us join together now in some conversation of wisdom. Let the conversation be about causes, today the reason for the beauty in the female sex.”
So they then spoke in turn. And the first speaker gave this reason, that women were created by the Lord to be forms of affection for the wisdom in men, and affection for wisdom is beauty itself.
The second speaker gave this reason, that woman was created by the Lord through the wisdom in man, because she was created from man, and that she is therefore a form of wisdom inspired by the affection of love. And because the affection of love is life itself, a woman is a form of the life in wisdom, while the male is a form of wisdom, and the life in wisdom is beauty itself.
The third speaker presented this reason, that women have been given a perception of the delights in conjugial love. And because their whole body is an instrument of that perception, the abode where the delights of conjugial love dwell with their perception cannot help but be a form of beauty.
[4] The fourth speaker gave this reason, that the Lord took beauty and grace of life from man and transferred them into woman, and that is why a man not reunited with his beauty and grace in woman is stern, severe, dry and unattractive, and also not wise except for his own sake alone, in which case he is a dunce. On the other hand, when a man is united with his beauty and grace of life in a wife, he becomes agreeable, pleasant, full of life and lovable, and therefore wise.
The fifth speaker gave this reason, that women were created to be beauties, not for their own sake, but for the sake of men, so that men’s natural hardness might become softer, the natural solemnness of their dispositions more amiable, and the natural coldness of their hearts warmer. And this is what happens to them when they become one flesh with their wives.
[5] The sixth speaker offered this reason, that the universe created by the Lord is a most perfect work, but nothing is created in it more perfect than a woman attractive in appearance and becoming in behavior, in order that a man may thank the Lord for such a gift and repay it by receiving wisdom from Him.
After these and several other similar views were expressed, one of the wives appeared through the crystal-like partition, and she said to her husband, “Speak, if you wish.”
And when he spoke, the life in his wisdom from his wife was perceived in his speech, for her love was in the tone of his voice. Thus did experience bear witness to the truth expressed.
After this we looked at the Temple of Wisdom, and also at the things in the paradise surrounding it. And being filled with feelings of joy on account of them, we departed and went along the avenue to the gate, and so descended by the way we had come.
* See The Apocalypse Revealed, no. 875:4-8 (first published in Amsterdam, 1766).
Conjugial love is unlimited in its variety. It is not the same in one person as it is in another. It appears, indeed, as if it were the same in many cases, but that is how it appears to a judgment of the body, and a person scarcely sees the diversities in such things on the basis of a judgment like that, because it is dense and obtuse. By a judgment of the body we mean a judgment of the mind on the basis of its external senses.
People who see as a result of a judgment of the spirit, however, to them the differences appear, and they appear even more clearly to those who can raise the sight of this judgment still higher, by withdrawing this sight from the senses and elevating it into a higher light. These people are finally able to convince themselves with the understanding and thus see that conjugial love is not the same in one person as it is in another.
But even so, no one can see the endless varieties of this love in any light of the understanding, even if elevated, unless he first knows what that love is like in its true essence and perfect state, thus what it was like when, together with life, it was bestowed on mankind by God. Unless this state of it is known, which was most perfect, its diversities can by no means be discovered by any method of inquiry. For there is in that case no fixed point from which, as a point of origin, the diversities may be traced and to which, as a point of reference, they may be related so as to appear accurately and not deceptively.
For this reason, we proceed in this chapter to describe that love in its true essence. And since that love existed in its true essence when, together with life, it was infused into mankind by God, we proceed to describe it as it was in its original state. Moreover, because in that state conjugial love was truly conjugial, we title this chapter, “Truly Conjugial Love.”
Description of this love, however, will be developed according to the following outline:
(1) There is a truly conjugial love, which today is so rare that people do not know what it is like, and scarcely that it exists.
(2) This love originates from the marriage between good and truth.
(3) There is a correspondence between this love and the marriage of the Lord and the church.
(4) Regarded from its origin and correspondence, this love is celestial, spiritual, holy, pure and clean, more so than any other love which exists from the Lord in angels of heaven or people of the church.
(5) It is also the fundamental love of all celestial and spiritual loves, and consequently of natural loves.
(6) Moreover, into this love have been gathered all joys and all delights, from the first to the last of them.
(7) But no others come into this love and no others can be in it but those who go to the Lord and love the truths of the church and do the good things it teaches.
(8) This love was the greatest of loves among the ancients who lived in the golden, silver and copper ages, but after that it gradually disappeared.
Development of these points now follows.
Who does not then acknowledge and give assent to the following thoughts, that this love is the fundamental love of all loves? Moreover, that all joys and all delights have been gathered into it, from the first to the last of them?
But who does not also know that after this happy time, these glad feelings gradually wane and disappear, until at last they are hardly felt. If at that time one says to these same people the same thing as before, that this love is the fundamental love of all loves, and that all joys and delights have been gathered into it, they neither assent nor acknowledge this. Perhaps they will even say these are foolish notions, or that they are mysteries beyond comprehension.
It is clear from this that the early love in marriage emulates truly conjugial love and presents a kind of visible image of it. This is the case because a love for the opposite sex in general, which is unchaste, is then renounced, and in its place love for one of the sex sits implanted, which is a truly conjugial love and chaste. What man at that time does not look upon other women with a loveless nod, and on his one and only with a loving one?
People know that every person is merely physical at birth, and that from being physical he becomes more and more deeply natural, and thus rational, and finally spiritual. The reason for such a progressive development is that the physical element is the soil, so to speak, in which natural, rational and spiritual qualities are planted in turn. A person thus becomes more and more human.
[2] Almost the same sort of thing happens when one enters marriage. A person then becomes a more complete human being, because he is united with a partner with whom he may act as one person. In the first state, however, this is reflected in a kind of image, as mentioned before. In similar fashion he then starts from the physical element and progresses into the natural, only this time in respect to married life and so union into one.
People who in this state love the physical, natural aspects, and the rational aspects only on account of these, cannot be united with their partner as though into one, except in respect to these external aspects. When the external aspects then fade, the inward ones are invaded by coldness, which takes away the delights of this love, driving them first from the mind and so from the body, and afterwards from the body and so from the mind. And this finally reaches the point that nothing remains of their memory of the early state of their marriage, nor do they consequently retain any concept of it.
Now because this is what happens in the case of most people today, it is plain that people do not know what truly conjugial love is like, and scarcely that it exists.
It is different in the case of people who are spiritual. In their case, the first state of marriage is an introduction to continuing states of happiness, which advance as the spiritual rationality of the mind and consequently the natural sensuality of the body in one partner join and unite with these same qualities in the other. But people like this are rare.
* See nos. 234ff.
The reason everything in the universe has some relation to good and truth, with good being united with truth and vice versa, is that both emanate from the Lord, and they emanate from Him as a unity.
The two things that emanate from the Lord are love and wisdom, because these are what He is and so are what come from Him. And everything that has to do with love is called good, and everything that has to do with wisdom is called truth. Now because these two emanate from the Lord as the Creator, it follows that these two are present in the things He created.
This can be illustrated by the example of heat and light which emanate from the sun. Everything produced by the earth depends on these two, for things germinate according to their presence and according to their presence together. Natural warmth corresponds to spiritual warmth, which is love; and natural light corresponds to spiritual light, which is wisdom.
In order to show that conjugial love originates from the marriage between good and truth, it is useful that something be said about it in brief summary here.
We said just above that there is a union of good and truth in each and every created thing. And union does not come about without reciprocation, for union on one side and not on the other in return, of itself comes undone.
Now because there is a union of good and truth, and this a reciprocal one, it follows that there is a truth of good, or truth from good, and also a good of truth, or good from truth. In the next chapter we will show that the truth of good or truth from good exists in the male and is the essence of masculinity, and that the good of truth or good from truth exists in the female and is the essence of femininity. We will also show that there is a conjugial union between the two.
This much is mentioned here to give a preliminary idea of the concept.
In the Christian world, people know there is a correspondence between these two relationships, but they do not yet know the nature of it. Therefore this correspondence will be explained in a separate chapter as well, in the chapter after next.* It is mentioned here in order to show 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 the origin of conjugial love from the marriage between good and truth, referred to under the preceding heading, because the church in a person is a marriage of good and truth. For a marriage of good and truth is the same thing as a marriage of charity and faith, since good is a matter of charity and truth is a matter of faith. One cannot help but recognize that this marriage forms the church, because it is a universal truth, and every universal truth is acknowledged as soon as it is heard, which occurs as a result of the Lord’s influx and, at the same time, the affirmation of heaven.
Now, since the church is the Lord’s, being from the Lord, and since conjugial love corresponds to the marriage of the Lord and the church, it follows that this love comes from the Lord.
* See “The Marriage of the Lord and the Church and Correspondence to It,” nos. 116ff.
These two marriages, from which conjugial love descends as an offshoot, are the essence of holiness. Consequently, if conjugial love is received from its Author, who is the Lord, it is accompanied by holiness from Him, which continually purges and purifies the love. If, then, a person has a desire and striving for it in his will, that love daily becomes more clean and pure to eternity.
[2] Conjugial love is called celestial and spiritual because it exists among angels in heaven. It is celestial in the case of angels in the highest heaven, because these angels are called celestial. And it is spiritual in the case of angels below that heaven, because these angels are called spiritual. The angels are called by these names, because forms of love resulting in wisdom are celestial, while forms of wisdom resulting in love are spiritual. It is the same in their approach to marriage.
[3] Now, because conjugial love exists among angels in heaven, in both the higher and lower heavens, as we also showed in the earlier chapter on marriages in heaven,* it follows that this love is holy and pure.
As for the statement that regarded from its derivation, in its essence this love is holy and pure, more so than any other love in angels and men, this is because that love is, so to speak, the head of all the other loves. Something about its exalted character will now be said under the following heading.
* See nos. 27ff.
Truly conjugial love is nothing but a union of love and wisdom. Two married partners who have this love between them and in them at the same time are a reflection and image of it. In the heavens, too, where the looks of their faces are genuine representations of the affections of their love, they are all likenesses of it, for it is in them in general and in every part, as we showed previously.
Now because two partners are a form of this love in image and effigy, it follows that every other love that springs from the form this love takes is a reflection of it. Consequently, if conjugial love is celestial and spiritual, the loves springing from it are also celestial and spiritual.
Conjugial love, therefore, is like a parent, and the rest of the loves are like offspring. That is why the offspring born of the marriages of angels in heaven are spiritual offspring, which are procreations of love and wisdom, or of goodness and truth. (Regarding this procreation, see above, no. 51.)
It should properly be known that no good or truth exists which is not the attribute of some concrete thing in which it inheres as a quality in its subject. Abstract goods and truths have no real existence, because they are not grounded in anything, having no underlying foundation. Indeed, neither can they be seen as flitting about in the air. Consequently, as abstractions they are merely figments, which reason supposes it can think about abstractly, but which it really cannot except as attributes of concrete subjects. For every idea a person has, however extrapolated, is concrete, that is to say, it is attached to concrete things.
It should further be known that no concrete thing exists without having form. A thing unformed is not anything, because nothing can be predicated of it, and a subject without predicates is also the figment of a fanciful imagination.
I have added these philosophical considerations in order to be able to show in this way as well that two married partners who are in a state of truly conjugial love actually are forms of the marriage between goodness and truth, or between love and wisdom.
Natural loves are connected with loves of self and the world. Spiritual loves, on the other hand, are connected with love for the neighbor, and celestial loves are connected with love toward the Lord. And because loves have these connections, it is apparent what sequence they follow and in what order they are present in a person. When they are present in this order, then natural loves draw their life from spiritual loves, and spiritual loves from celestial ones, and all of them, in this order, from the Lord, from whom they come.
People know that delights rise and deepen in the degree that love rises and deepens, and also as incidental affections touch more closely the dominant love.
Now because conjugial love is the fundamental love of all good loves, and because, as we showed above, it is engraved on even the smallest aspects of a person, it follows that its delights surpass the delights of all other loves, and also that it gives delight to these other loves according as it is present and at the same time united with them. For it swells the inmost feelings of the mind and at the same time the inmost feelings of the body, as the pleasurable stream of its fountain flows through and opens them.
[2] All delights have been gathered into this love, from the first to the last of them, because of the excellence of the use it serves, surpassing that of all other loves. The use it serves is the propagation of the human race and so of the angelic heaven. And because this use or purpose was the ultimate goal in creation, it follows that all blessings, felicities, delights, gratifications and pleasures, which could ever have been conferred on mankind by the Lord the Creator, have been gathered into this, its accompanying love.
It is apparent from the delights of the five senses – sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch – that delights accompany the use they serve and are delightful to a person in accordance with the love he has for it. Each of these senses experiences delights, with variations, according to the particular uses these senses serve. Why not the sensation of conjugial love, whose use or purpose embraces those of all the other senses?
Regarding its inmost delights – which are delights of the soul, where the conjugial union between love and wisdom, or goodness and truth, first flows in from the Lord – angels have said these delights are imperceptible and therefore indescribable, because they are at the same time delights of peace and innocence. [2] But they said, too, that these same delights, in their descent, become more and more perceptible – as states of bliss in the higher regions of their mind, as states of happiness in the lower regions of their mind, and as consequent states of delight in their heart, at which point they spread from the heart into each and every part of the body, finally coming together in the last of these as the delight of delights.
In addition, angels have reported wonderful things about these delights, saying also in regard to the varieties of these delights in the souls of married partners and as they descend from their souls into their minds and from their minds into their hearts, that these varieties are infinite, and also eternal. They have said, too, that these delights rise and deepen according to the wisdom in the husbands, and this because angels live to eternity in the flower of their life, and nothing is more blessed to them than to grow ever more wise.
But more about these delights as reported from the testimony of angels may be found in the narrative accounts, especially in some of those which come at the end of some chapters later on.*
* See, for example, nos. 155[r], 183, 208, 293, 294.
It follows from this origin and this correspondence that truly conjugial love comes from the Lord and is found in people who go to Him directly, but this cannot be established fully without discussing these two secrets in some detail. This will be done in the chapters that come next after this one, one of which will be on the origin of conjugial love from the marriage of good and truth,* and the other on the marriage of the Lord and the church and correspondence to it.** In those chapters we shall also see that it follows from these considerations that the conjugial love in a person depends on the state of the church in him.
* See nos. 83ff.
** See nos. 116ff.
That is because people like this abstain from love affairs outside of marriage, which are liaisons with others than their rightful wife or husband, and they abstain from them as injuries to the soul and as cesspools of hell. And in the degree that a married person abstains from such liaisons, even as regards the lusts of his will and his consequent intentions, in the same degree conjugial love is purified in him and becomes progressively spiritual, first during his life on earth, and afterwards in heaven.
[2] No love can ever become pure in human beings, nor in angels. So neither can this love. But because the Lord primarily regards the intention that is in the will, therefore to the extent that a person has the intention and perseveres in it, to that extent he is introduced into the purity and holiness of this love, and gradually makes progress in it.
No others can be in a state of spiritual conjugial love but those who are in it from the Lord, because heaven is in that love. And the natural man – for whom conjugial love takes its pleasure solely from the flesh – cannot draw near to heaven, nor to any angel. Indeed, neither can he draw near to any person who possesses that love, for that love is the fundamental love of all celestial and spiritual loves (see above, nos. 65-67). [3] The fact of this was attested for me by an experience I had. I saw some evil spirits in the spiritual world who were being prepared for hell, going towards an angel who was enjoying the company of his wife. As they were approaching, while still at a distance, they began to act like frenzied madmen, and they sought caverns and pits as places of refuge and threw themselves into them.
(One may conclude from the incidents related in the Introduction, no. 10, that evil spirits like whatever is of the same character as their affection, however unclean it is, and that they dislike spirits of heaven, because heaven is pure, which they avoid as something alien to them.)
There are two things which form the church and so heaven in a person: truth of faith and goodness of life. Truth of faith brings the Lord’s presence, and goodness of life in accordance with truths of faith brings conjunction with Him and thus forms the church and heaven. Truth of faith brings presence because it has to do with light, that being what spiritual light is. Goodness of life brings conjunction because it has to do with warmth, that being what spiritual warmth is; for spiritual warmth is love, and goodness of life has to do with love. We also know that all light – even wintry light – brings presence, and that warmth united with light brings conjunction; for gardens and flower-beds become visible in every kind of light, but they do not produce flowers and fruit until warmth is combined with the light.
The evident conclusion from this is that people are blessed with truly conjugial love not if they only know the truths of the church, but if they know them and do the good things it teaches.
The last or iron age, however, which began at the time of those writers, can be deduced to some extent from the records of the lives of some of the kings, judges and wise men, who were called sages, in Greece and elsewhere. But as it is foretold in Daniel, that age would not hold together, as iron holds together by itself, but it would become like iron mixed with clay, which does not stick together (Daniel 2:43).
[2] Now because the ages that were named after gold, silver, and copper passed away before the dates of our written records, and because knowledge of their marriages cannot, therefore, be gained on earth, it pleased the Lord to show them to me by a spiritual way, by conducting me to the heavens where they have their dwellings, so that I might learn from them personally there what marriages had been like among them when they lived in their ages. For all people whatever, who, since creation, have departed out of the natural world, are now in the spiritual world, and in respect to their loves they are all the same as they were and so remain to eternity.
Since the things I learned are worth knowing and telling, and because they confirm the holiness of marriages, I would like to make them public as they were shown me in an awake state of the spirit and afterwards recalled to remembrance by an angel and so written down. Moreover, because they are from the spiritual world, like the rest of the narratives at the ends of the expositional chapters, I have chosen to divide them into six accounts, presented according to the progressions of the ages.
– – – – – – – – – – –
When I was once meditating on conjugial love, my mind was seized with a desire to know what that love was like among the people who lived in the golden age, and afterwards what it was like among those who lived in the following ages which are named after silver, copper, and iron. And because I knew that all those people who lived well in those ages are now in heaven, I prayed to the Lord to be allowed to speak with them and be instructed.
Then suddenly an angel stood beside me, and he said, “I have been sent by the Lord to be your guide and companion. First I will guide and accompany you to the people who lived in the first age or period, which is called golden.” He also added, “The way to them is difficult. It lies through a dark forest which no one can pass through without being given a guide by the Lord.”
[2] I was in the spirit, and so I readied myself for the journey, and we turned our faces to the east. And as we went I saw a mountain, whose height extended beyond the level of the clouds.
We crossed a great desert, and we came to a forest thick with trees of various kinds and dark on account of their density, as the angel had predicted. However, the forest was intersected by many narrow paths, but the angel said they were all winding ways leading astray, and that, unless a traveler’s eyes were opened by the Lord to see the olive trees covered with leafy vines and to make his way from olive tree to olive tree, he would wander off into infernal regions which surrounded the forest on each side. “This is what this forest is like,” the angel said, “in order to guard the approach, for none but the earliest people dwell on that mountain.”
[3] After we entered the forest, our eyes were opened, and here and there we saw olive trees entwined with vines, which had bunches of purplish-blue grapes hanging from them. Moreover, the olive trees were arranged in a continuous series of circles. Consequently we went around and around as each one came to view, until finally we saw a grove of tall cedars, with some eagles on their branches.
Seeing them the angel said, “We are now on the mountain, not far from its summit.”
We went on, and lo, beyond the grove, there was a circular field, where male and female lambs were grazing, which were forms representative of the state of innocence and peace of the people who dwelt on the mountain. We crossed this field, and suddenly tents appeared – tent after tent – reaching many thousands in number, in front and on each side, as far as the eye could see.
And the angel said, “We are now in an encampment. Behold the army of the Lord Jehovih! That is what they call themselves and their dwellings. When these most ancient people lived in the world, they dwelled in tents. Therefore they also live in tents now. But let us turn our way southward – where the wiser ones among them are – to find someone to talk with.”
[4] As we went, I saw in the distance three boys and three girls sitting at the entrance of one of the tents. But when we drew near, they looked like men and women of average height.
And the angel said, “All the inhabitants of this mountain appear at a distance like little children, because they are in a state of innocence, and early childhood is the way innocence appears.”
Seeing us, the men hurried over to us and said, “Where are you from, and how did you get here? Your faces are different from the faces of our mountain.”
But the angel answered and told them how we were able to pass through the forest and the reason for our coming.
Hearing this, one of the three men invited us into his tent and led us inside. The man was dressed in a blue-colored robe and a tunic of very white wool. And his wife was dressed in a purple dress, with a blouse underneath of embroidered fine linen. [5] Then because I had in my thought the desire to learn about the marriages of the most ancient peoples, I looked by turns at the husband and wife, and I observed a seeming unity of their souls in their faces.
So I said, “You two are one.”
The man replied, “We are. Her life is in me, and my life is in her. We have two bodies, but one soul. The union between us is like the union of the two tabernacles in the breast which are called the heart and the lungs. She is my heart and I am her lungs. But since when we say heart here we mean love, and when we say lungs we mean wisdom, therefore she is the love of my wisdom, and I am the wisdom of her love. Therefore her love outwardly clothes my wisdom, and my wisdom is inwardly within her love. Consequently, as you have said, the unity of our souls appears in our faces.”
[6] Then I asked, “If such is the union between you, are you able to look upon any other woman than your own?”
He replied, “I can, but because my wife is united to my soul, the two of us look together, and then not a trace of lust can enter. For when I look at other men’s wives, I look at them through the eyes of my wife, who is the only one I am in love with. And because she, as my wife, can perceive all my inclinations, she acts as an intermediary and directs my thoughts, taking away anything discordant and at the same time inspiring a coldness and horror towards anything unchaste. As a result it is impossible for us here to regard any of our companions’ wives with lust – as impossible as it would be to look at the light of our heaven from a state of infernal darkness. We have no mental concept among us, therefore, and not even any word in our speech for the temptations of libidinous love.” He could not say free love, because the chastity of their heaven resisted it.
My angel guide then said to me, “You hear, now, the speech of the angels of this heaven, that it is a speech of wisdom, because they speak in terms of causes.”
[7] After this I looked around, and seeing that their tent appeared covered with gold, I asked why this was.
The man replied that it was due to the flaming light, which glittered like gold. “It shines and strikes the curtains of our tent,” he said, “whenever we are engaged in conversation on the subject of conjugial love. For the heat from our sun, which in its essence is love, then bares itself and tints the light, which in its essence is wisdom. It tints it with its own color, which is golden. This occurs because conjugial love in its origin is the interplay of wisdom and love, for man was born to be a form of wisdom, and woman to be a form of love for the wisdom in a man. From this come the delights of that interplay in conjugial love, and therefore between us and our wives.
“We here have seen, for thousands of years, that those delights become more excellent and exalted in abundance, degree and strength, according to the worship of the Lord Jehovih among us. That heavenly union or that heavenly marriage which exists between love and wisdom infuses itself as a result of that worship.”
[8] When he said this, I saw a great light on a hill at the center amid the tents, and I asked where that light was coming from.
The man said, “It is coming from the sanctuary of our tabernacle of worship.”
I then inquired whether we might go there, and he said we could. So I went, and I saw a tabernacle which, outside and in, exactly fit the description of the tabernacle which was built for the children of Israel in the wilderness, whose form was shown to Moses on top of Mount Sinai (Exodus 25:40, 26:30). And I asked what there was inside the sanctuary that was giving off so much light.
He answered, “There is a tablet, which bears the inscription, ‘The Covenant Between Jehovah and Heaven.'” That was all he said.
[9] Then, because by that time we were getting ready to leave, I asked, “When you lived in the natural world, did any of you live with more than one wife?”
He replied that he did not know one person who did. “For we could not think of having more,” he said. “Those who had had such thoughts told us that their states of heavenly bliss instantly receded from the inmost depths of their souls to the outmost parts of their bodies, even into their fingernails, and along with them the virtues of manhood. When others perceived this, they were exiled from our lands.”
Having said this, the man hurried to his tent and returned with a pomegranate containing a number of seeds made of gold. He gave it to me and I took it away with me, as a memento to me that we had been with people who had lived in the golden age.
So then, after saying farewell, we departed and returned home.
The next day the same angel came to me and said, “Would you like me to take and accompany you to the peoples who lived in the silver age or period, so that we may hear from them about the marriages of their time?” He also said that these people, too, could not be approached except under the Lord’s guidance.
I was in the spirit as before, and I went with my guide. And we came first to a hill in the border region between the east and the south. Then, as we stood upon its slope, he showed me a far extended stretch of land, and we saw in the distance an elevation like that of a mountain. Between it and the hill on which we stood was a valley, and beyond that a level area, and after that a gently rising incline.
We descended from the hill to cross the valley, and here and there on each side we saw blocks of wood and stone carved into the shapes of people and various kinds of animals, birds and fish. So I asked the angel, “What are these? Are they idols?”
And he answered, “Not at all. They are figures representative of various moral virtues and spiritual truths. Among the peoples of this age there was a knowledge of correspondences. Since every person, animal, bird and fish corresponds to some quality, therefore each carving represents some aspect of a virtue or truth, and a group of them taken together represents the whole virtue or truth in a general, extended form. They are what in Egypt were called hieroglyphics.”
[2] We continued through the valley, and as we entered the level area, suddenly we saw horses and chariots – horses with variously decorated harnesses and halters, and chariots variously shaped, some carved out like eagles, some like whales, and some like stags with horns, or like unicorns. At the end we also saw some wagons, and stables around at the sides. But when we drew near, both the horses and the chariots disappeared, and instead of them we saw people in couples and pairs, walking, talking and reasoning together.
The angel then said to me, “The various horses, chariots and stables – as they seem at a distance – are appearances expressive of the rational intelligence of the people of this age. For by correspondence a horse symbolizes an understanding of truth; a chariot, its accompanying doctrine; and stables, sources of instruction. You know that in this world, all things take on appearances according to correspondences.”
[3] We went on by these things, however, and we ascended by a long incline, until at last we saw a city, which we entered. As we wandered through it, from the streets and public squares we observed its houses. They were all palaces, built out of marble. In front they had steps of alabaster, with columns of jasper on each side of the steps. We also saw temples made of precious stone the color of sapphire and lapis lazuli.
The angel said to me, “They have houses made of different kinds of stone because stones symbolize natural truths, and precious stones symbolize spiritual truths. The people who lived in the silver age all had their intelligence from spiritual truths and so from natural truths. Silver also has a similar symbolism.”
[4] As we surveyed the city, we saw married couples here and there in pairs; and since they were husbands and wives, we waited to see if we would be invited in somewhere. Even as we had this in mind, moreover, as we were passing by, two of them called us back into their house. So we went up the steps and went in. Then, speaking with them on my behalf, the angel explained the reason for our coming to that heaven, saying that we had come to be instructed concerning marriages among ancient peoples – “you here being some of them,” he said.
They then replied, “We come from peoples in Asia, and the focus of our age was the pursuit of truths, by which we acquired intelligence. This pursuit was the focus of our soul and mind. But the focus of our physical senses was on representations of truths in forms, and a study of correspondences combined the sensory interests of our bodies with the perceptions of our minds, gaining for us intelligence.”
[5] Hearing this, the angel asked them to tell us something about marriages among them.
So the husband said, “There is a correspondence between the spiritual marriage, which is a marriage of truth with good, and natural marriage, which is the marriage of a man with one wife. And because we have studied correspondences, we see that the church with its truths and goods can by no means exist except in people who live with one wife in a state of truly conjugial love. For a marriage of good and truth in a person is the church in him.
“Consequently, we who are here all say that a husband is a form of truth, and his wife a form of good, and that good cannot love any other truth than its own truth, nor can truth love any other good in return than its own good. If it were to love another, the inner marriage that forms the church would die, and the marriage would become merely external – the kind of marriage that idolatry corresponds to, not the church. Therefore we call marriage with one wife a sacred union, but if it were contracted with more than one among us, we would call it a sacrilege.”
[6] Saying this, he showed us into an anteroom outside the bedroom, which had a number of works of art on the walls and little images apparently cast out of silver. I then asked what they were.
They said, “They are pictures and forms representing the many qualities, attributes and delights which have to do with conjugial love. These ones here represent the unity of souls; these other ones, the conjunction of minds; the ones there, the harmony of hearts; those over there, the delights arising as a result.”
While we were looking, we saw on the wall a kind of rainbow, consisting of three colors, purple, blue, and bright white. And we saw how the purple color passed through the blue and tinted the white with a purplish blue hue, and that the latter color flowed back through the blue into the purple and raised it into a kind of flaming radiance.
[7] Then the husband said to me, “Do you understand it?”
And I said, “Instruct me.”
So he said, “The purple by its correspondence symbolizes the conjugial love of the wife; the bright white, the intelligence of the husband; the blue, the beginning of conjugial love in the husband’s perception from the wife; and the purplish blue, which tinted the white, conjugial love then in the husband. This latter color’s flowing back through the blue into the purple and raising it into a kind of flaming radiance symbolizes the conjugial love of the husband flowing back to the wife. Things like these are represented on these walls whenever we reflect on conjugial love, its mutual, progressive and simultaneous union, and then look closely at the rainbows exhibited there.”
At this I said, “Things like this today are more than mysteries, for they are of a representational type, representing the secrets of the conjugial love of one man with one wife.”
He replied, “So they are, but to us here they are not secrets, and therefore not mysteries.”
[8] When he said this, a chariot appeared in the distance drawn by white ponies, and seeing it, the angel said, “That chariot is a signal for us to depart.”
Then as we were going down the steps, our host gave us a cluster of white grapes with leaves from the vine still attached, and suddenly the leaves turned silver. And we took them away with us as a memento that we had spoken with people of the silver age.
The next day my angel guide and companion came again and said, “Prepare yourself, and let us go to the inhabitants of heaven in the west, who are some of the people who lived in the third period or copper age. The places where they live stretch from the south across the west towards the north, but not extending into the north.”
So, having prepared myself, I accompanied him, and entering their heaven from the south side, we found there a magnificent grove of palm trees and laurels. We passed through it, and then on its western border we saw giants twice the height of ordinary people.
They interrogated us. “Who let you in through the grove?”
The angel said, “The God of heaven.”
And they replied, “We are guards to the ancient western heaven. But go ahead and pass.”
[2] So we passed, and from a watch-tower we saw a mountain rising to the clouds, and between us in the tower and that mountain we saw villages after villages, with gardens, groves and fields in between. We then passed through the villages to the mountain and ascended. And lo, at its summit was not a peak but a plateau, and on it a city widely extended and spread out. All of its houses, moreover, were made out of wood from resinous trees, and their roofs out of wooden planks.
I asked, “Why are the houses here made of wood?”
The angel answered, “Because wood symbolizes natural goodness, and the people of the third age on the earth were in this state of goodness. And because copper also symbolizes natural goodness, therefore the age in which they lived was named after copper by people of earlier times.
“There are also sacred halls here, built out of boards of olive wood, and in the middle of them is a sanctuary, containing in an ark the Word given to the inhabitants of Asia before the Word which the Israelites had. Its narrative books are called the Wars of Jehovah, and the prophetical books, Oracles, both referred to by Moses (Numbers 21:14,15,27-30).
“In the kingdoms of Asia it has now been lost, and it is preserved only in Great Tartary.”
The angel then led me to one of the buildings, and looking in, we saw in the middle of it the sanctuary, all bathed in a brilliant white light. And the angel said: “The light comes from that ancient Asiatic Word, for all Divine truth shines with light in heaven.”
[3] As we were going out of the building, we heard it had been reported in the city that two strangers were about, and that they were to be investigated to find out where they came from and what their business was here. Moreover, an attendant came running from the court and ordered us to appear for a hearing.
When we were then asked where we came from and what our business was here, we replied, “We passed through a grove of palm trees and then through the abodes of giants, the ones who guard your heaven, and afterwards through a stretch of villages. You may conclude from this that we have come here, not of ourselves, but thanks to the God of heaven. As for our business, the reason for our coming, it is to be instructed regarding your marriages, to find out whether they are monogamous or perhaps polygamous.”
They replied, “What are polygamous marriages? Are they not forms of licentiousness?”
[4] Then the panel of magistrates there selected someone intelligent to instruct us in his own home about this matter. And when we arrived at his house, he called his wife to his side and said the following:
“The earliest or most ancient people were in a state of truly conjugial love, and they therefore experienced the strength and power of that love, more than any other peoples in the world. They are now in a most blissful state in their heaven, which is in the east. We have precepts from them regarding marriage which we have preserved among us. We are their descendants, and they have handed down rules of life to us, like fathers to sons, and the rules which have to do with marriage include this maxim:
Children, if you wish to love God and the neighbor, and if you wish to be wise and be happy to eternity, we advise you to live monogamously. If you depart from this precept, all heavenly love will escape you, and with it inward wisdom, and you will become outcasts.
“We have obeyed, like children, this precept of our fathers, and we have perceived the truth in it. The truth we perceived is that a person becomes heavenly and internal to the extent that he loves his married partner only, and that a person becomes natural and external to the extent that he does not love his married partner only. In the latter case, he loves no one but himself and the imaginations of his own mind, and he is foolish and stupid.
[5] “This is why all of us in our heaven are monogamous. And because we are, therefore all the boundaries of our heaven are guarded to keep out polygamists, adulterers and licentious people. If polygamists get in, they are cast out into the darkness of the north. If adulterers get in, they are cast out into the fires of the west. And if licentious people get in, they are cast out into the illusory lights of the south.”
Hearing this I asked what he meant by the darkness of the north, the fires of the west, and the illusory lights of the south.
He answered that the darkness of the north was dullness of mind and ignorance of truths; that the fires of the west were loves of evil; and that the illusory lights of the south were falsifications of truth. “These last,” he said, “are forms of spiritual licentiousness.”
[6] After this he said, “Follow me to our treasure house.”
So we followed, and he showed us some written documents of very ancient peoples, telling us that they wrote on wooden and stone tablets and afterwards on polished sheets of wood assembled into books, and that people of the second age wrote their records on parchments of animal skin. Then he brought out a parchment containing maxims of the earliest peoples transcribed from their stone tablets, including also the precept regarding marriage.
[7] When we had seen these records and others from very early antiquity, the angel said, “It is now time for us to go.”
Then our host went out into the garden and took some sprigs from a tree, and, tying them into a bundle, he presented them, saying, “These sprigs come from a tree native or peculiar to our heaven, whose sap has the fragrance of balsam.”
We took away this bundle of sprigs with us and descended by a way, over to the east, which was not guarded. And behold, the sprigs turned into shiny bronze and their very tips into gold, as a memento that we had been among a people of the third age, which is named after copper or bronze.
Two days later the angel spoke with me again, saying, “Let us complete the course of the ages. The last age remains, which is named after iron. The people of this age live in the north, on the western side, extending inward or in a latitudinal direction towards the interior. They all come from early inhabitants of Asia who had the Ancient Word and who worshiped according to it. Consequently they lived before the advent of our Lord into the world. This is apparent from the writings of ancient authors in which those times are given these names. The same ages are meant by the statue seen by Nebuchadnezzar, whose head was of gold, its breast and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, and its feet of iron and also clay (Daniel 2:32,33).”
[2] The angel told me this on the way, which was shortened and speeded along by the changes of state produced in our minds according to the character of the inhabitants through whom we passed. For intervals of space, and therefore distances, in the spiritual world are appearances in accordance with states of mind.
When we lifted our eyes, behold, we were in a forest consisting of beech trees, horse chestnuts and oaks. And when we looked around, we caught sight of bears there to the left and leopards to the right.
When I wondered at this, the angel said, “They are not really bears or leopards, but people who guard these inhabitants of the north. With their noses they sniff the atmospheres of life emanating from passers-by, and rush upon all who are spiritual, because the inhabitants are natural. People who only read the Word and take nothing of doctrine from it, at a distance look like bears. And people who confirm falsities from it look like leopards.”
But having seen us, they turned away and we passed on.
[3] After the forest we saw scrubland, and then grassy plains divided into fields and surrounded by boxwood. After this the ground sloped downward to a valley, in which there were cities, one after another. We passed by several of them and entered into one great one. Its streets were irregular. So, too, were its houses. These were built out of bricks, with timbers in between, and plastered.
In the squares we found chapels made of cut limestone, with the lower part of the buildings below ground level, and the upper part above. We went down three steps into one of these, and around on the walls we saw idols in various forms, and a lot of people on their knees worshiping them. In the middle of them was a choir, out of which the tutelary god of the city projected so that his head could be seen.
As we were leaving, the angel said to me that among the ancient peoples who lived in the silver age (spoken of above), these idols were images representative of spiritual truths and moral virtues. And that when a knowledge of correspondences faded from memory and became extinct, these images became first objects of worship and afterwards were adored as deities. This was the origin of idolatries.
[4] When we were outside the chapel, we observed the people and their dress. They had steel-like faces, gray-colored, and they were dressed like clowns, with skirts around their hips and thighs hanging down from a shirt tied at the chest. And on their heads they had the cocked hats of sailors.
“But enough of this,” the angel said. “We are here to be instructed about the marriages of the people of this age.”
So we entered into the house of an important person, who had on his head a turreted headdress. He received us kindly and said, “Come in, and let us have a conversation together.”
We went into the entrance hall and sat down there. Then I asked him about the marriages in this city and general area.
He said, “We do not live with one wife, but some people have two or three wives, and some more. That is because the variety, submissiveness, and honor entertain us, as though we were kings. These are the things we have from our wives when there is more than one. With only one wife we would not have the pleasure of variety but boredom resulting from sameness. We would not have the deference of submission but the irritation of equality. Nor would we have the bliss of ruling with its accompanying honor, but the annoyance of struggling for superiority.
“After all, what is a woman? Is she not born subject to a man’s will, and born to serve and not to rule? For this reason every man here in his own house is like a royal majesty. Because this is what we like, it is also the blessing of our life.”
[5] But I asked, “Where, then, is conjugial love, which forms two souls into one? And joins minds together and blesses a person? This love cannot be a divided love. If it is, it becomes a passion which evaporates and passes away.”
To this he replied, “I do not understand what you are saying. What else blesses a person but the rivalry of wives for the honor of being first with her husband?”
Saying this, the man went into his harem and opened its double doors. But a libidinous odor came out of it which stank like a cesspool. This was the result of polygamous love, which is matrimonial and at the same time licentious. I got up, therefore, and closed the doors.
[6] Afterwards I said, “How can you remain in this land, when none of you have truly conjugial love, and when you also worship idols?”
He replied, “With respect to marital love, we are so violently jealous of our wives that we do not allow anyone to enter our houses past the entrance halls. And where there is jealousy there is also love.
“As for the idols, we do not worship them, but we cannot think about the God of the universe except through images presented to our eyes. For we cannot raise our thoughts above the sense impressions of the body, nor can we raise our thoughts about God above the visible things we can see.”
Then again I asked, “Do your idols not have various forms? How can they present a vision of one God?”
To this he replied, “It is a mystery to us. Something having to do with the worship of God lies hidden in every form.”
So I said, “You are merely sensual, carnal people. You do not have any love for God, nor any love for a married partner that derives anything from spiritual love. And it is these loves that together shape a human being, and from being sensual make him heavenly.”
[7] When I said this, I saw through the doorway what seemed to be a flash of lightning. And I asked, “What is this?”
He said, “Lightning like this is a signal to us that the ancient one of the east is coming, who teaches us about God – that He is one, alone the Almighty, who is the First and the Last. He also warns us not to worship the idols, but only to look on them as images representing virtues that emanate from the one God, which together form a worship of Him. This ancient one is our angel, whom we respect and listen to. He comes to us and raises us up whenever we fall into a hazy worship of God owing to some delusion regarding the images.”
[8] Having heard this, we departed from the house and from the city, and on the way, from the things we had seen in heaven, we formed conclusions regarding the course and progress of conjugial love. With respect to its course, we observed that it had moved in a circle from the east to the south, from there to the west, and from there into the north. With respect to its progress, we saw that it had declined as it went – in other words, that it had been celestial in the east, spiritual in the south, natural in the west, and sensual in the north. We also noted as well that it had declined in the same measure that the love and worship of God declined.
Consequently we formed this conclusion, that conjugial love in the first age was like gold, in the second age like silver, in the third age like bronze, and in the fourth age like iron, and that at last it ceased to exist.
But afterwards my angel guide and companion said, “Nevertheless, I am sustained by the hope that the God of heaven, who is the Lord, will revive this love, because it is possible for it to be revived.”
The same angel as before, who had been my guide and companion to the ancient peoples who had lived in the four ages called golden, silver, copper and iron – the same angel appeared again and said to me, “You would like to see the age that followed those ancient ages, to find out what it was like, and what it is still like today. Follow me, then, and you will see. These are the people of whom Daniel prophesied when he said:
(A kingdom will arise after those other four, in which iron will be mixed with miry clay.) They will mingle together through the seed of man, but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay. (Daniel 2:41-43)”
The angel added, “The seed of man, through which iron will be mingled with clay, and yet without their adhering together – this seed means the truth of the Word falsified.”
[2] After these words I followed him, and on the way he told me this. “They live,” he said, “in the border region between the south and the west, but at a great distance beyond those who lived in the previous four ages, and also deeper down.”
So we continued through the south to a region bordering on the west, and we passed through a dreadful forest. For we found pools of water there from which crocodiles raised their heads, gaping at us with jaws open wide and showing their teeth. And between the pools we saw horrible dogs, some of them with three heads like Cerberus, some of them with two heads, all of them with hideous mouths and watching us with savage eyes as we passed by. Entering the western part of this area, we also saw dragons and leopards, like the ones described in the book of Revelation, chapters 12:3 and 13:2.
[3] Then the angel said to me, “All these wild beasts you have seen are not beasts but correspondent and thus representative forms of the lusts that motivate the inhabitants we are going to visit. Those hideous dogs represent the lusts themselves; the crocodiles, their deceits and deceptions; the dragons and leopards, their falsities and corrupt feelings towards things that have to do with worship.
“The inhabitants thus represented, however, do not live just the other side of the forest, but beyond a great desert that lies between, to keep them completely away and separate from the inhabitants of the preceding ages. Moreover, they are altogether alien – totally different from those other people. Indeed, they have heads above their breasts, breasts above their loins, and loins above their feet, like the earliest people. But there is not a bit of gold in their heads, or of silver in their breasts, or of bronze in their loins. In fact, there is not a bit of just plain iron in their feet. Instead, they have iron mixed with clay in their heads, both of these mixed with bronze in their breasts, both of these also mixed with silver in their loins, and these mixed with gold in their feet.
“By this inversion they have been transformed from human beings into caricatures of human beings, in which nothing inwardly holds together. For what had been uppermost has become lowermost, so that what was the head has become the heel, and vice versa. Viewed from heaven, they look to us like play-actors who turn their bodies upside down, support themselves on their elbows and thus move about. Or they look like animals that lie upside down on their backs, raise their feet in the air, and, digging their heads into the ground, from that position look up at the sky.”
[4] We passed through the forest and proceeded into the desert, which was no less horrible. It consisted of piles of rocks, with pits in between, out of which crept poisonous snakes and vipers and from which flew fiery serpents.
This whole desert kept sloping downward, and we descended by a long decline, until at last we came to a valley inhabited by the people of that region and age. We saw huts here and there, which finally appeared to come together and be joined into the form of a city.
We went into the city, and behold, the houses were constructed out of charred tree branches mortared together with clay. The roofs were made of black tiles. The streets were irregular, all narrow at first, but widening as they went, becoming finally quite broad and terminating in squares. Consequently there were as many squares as there were streets.
Darkness fell as we entered the city, because the sky was not visible. We looked up, therefore, and we were given light by which to see.
I then asked the people I encountered, “Can you see, since the sky does not appear above you?”
And they replied, “What sort of question is this? We see clearly. We walk in full light.”
Hearing this the angel said to me, “Darkness to them is light, and light to them is darkness, as it is for nocturnal birds. For they look downwards instead of upwards.”
[5] We went into some of the shacks here and there, and in each we saw a man with his woman. And we asked whether all of them here lived each in his own house with only one wife.
But they replied to this with a hiss, “What do you mean, with only one wife? Why not ask whether we live with only one harlot? What is a wife but a harlot?
“According to our laws we are not allowed to commit whoredom with more than just one woman, but still it is not dishonorable or shameful for us to do so with more than one, provided we do it away from the house. We boast about it with each other! In this way we enjoy license and its pleasure more than polygamists do.
“Why is having more than one wife denied to us, when it has been permitted in the past and is permitted today in the whole world around us? What is life with just one woman but captivity and imprisonment?
“But here we break open the bar of this prison and so rescue ourselves from slavery and set ourselves free. Who is angry with a prisoner if he liberates himself when he can?”
[6] To this we replied, “You speak, my friend, like one devoid of religion. What person endowed with any power of reason does not know that adulterous affairs are profane and hellish, and that marriages are sacred and heavenly? Are not adulterous relationships found among devils in hell, and marriages among angels in heaven? Have you not read the sixth commandment in the Decalogue? And in Paul, that adulterers can by no means come into heaven?*”
At this our host laughed heartily, and he looked on me as a simpleton – almost, even, as insane.
But at that very moment a messenger came running from the headman of the city and said, “Bring the two strangers to the city square, and if they will not come voluntarily, drag them there! We saw them under the dark cover of daylight. They have come here in secret. They are spies!”
The angel then said to me, “The reason we seemed to be under dark cover is that we were in the light of heaven, and the light of heaven to them is darkness, while the darkness of hell to them is light. This is because they regard nothing as sinful, not even adultery, and consequently they see falsity altogether as truth. Falsity shines with light in hell, in the eyes of satanic spirits, while truth darkens their eyes like the gloom of night.”
[7] Then we said to the messenger, “We will not be forced, still less dragged to the city square, but we will go with you voluntarily.”
So we went, and behold, we found a great crowd there. From it came some lawyers who whispered in our ear, “Take care that you do not say anything against religion, against our form of government, or contrary to good manners.”
But we kept answering, “We will only speak in favor of them and in accordance with them.”
Then we asked, “What is your religion in regard to marriage?”
At this the crowd began to murmur, and they said, “What concern do you have here with marriage? Marriages are marriages.”
So we asked a second time, “What is your religion in regard to licentious relationships?”
At this the crowd began to murmur again, saying, “What concern do you have here with licentious relationships? Illicit affairs are illicit affairs. He who is without guilt, let him throw the first stone.**”
So we asked a third time, “Does your religion teach regarding marriages that they are sacred and heavenly, and regarding adulterous affairs that they are profane and hellish?”
In response to this many in the crowd guffawed, mocked, and jeered, saying, “Ask our priests about matters of religion, not us. We accept without comment whatever they say, since nothing of religion falls within the ability of the understanding to judge. Have you not heard that the understanding is devoid of reason in the mysteries on which the whole of religion is based?
“Besides, what do our actions have to do with religion? Is it not the pious murmurings of the heart that makes souls blessed – murmurings about expiation, satisfaction and imputation – and not works?”
[8] But then some of the so-called wise men of the city came over and said, “Get away from here. The crowd is becoming inflamed. There will be a riot in a minute. Let us talk about this by ourselves. There is an alley behind the courthouse. Let us go back there. Come with us.”
So we followed. And then they asked us where we came from and what our business was there.
We said, “We have come to be instructed about marriage, to find out whether or not marriages among you are sacred unions as they were among the ancient peoples who lived in the golden, silver and copper ages.”
But they replied, “What do you mean, sacred unions? Are they not deeds of the flesh and the night?”
Then we began to answer, “Are they not also deeds of the spirit? And what the flesh does impelled by the spirit, is that not spiritual? Moreover, everything that the spirit does, it does from a marriage of goodness and truth. Is it not this spiritual marriage which enters into the natural marriage that exists between husband and wife?”
To this the so-called wise men replied, “You probe and refine the matter too much. You leap over rational considerations to spiritual ones. Who can begin there, then descend and thus form a judgment about anything?” To which they added sarcastically, “Perhaps you have the wings of an eagle and can soar to the uppermost regions of the sky and look down on such matters. But we cannot.”
[9] So we then asked them to tell us, from the height or region to which the ideas of their minds flew aloft, whether they knew or were able to know that such a thing exists as the conjugial love of one man with one wife, into which have been gathered all the blessings, felicities, delights, gratifications and pleasures of heaven. Moreover, that this love comes from the Lord according to people’s reception of goodness and truth from Him, thus according to the state of the church.
[10] Hearing this they turned away and said, “These men are crazy. They go into outer space with their rational faculties, form empty conjectures and shower us with nutty speculations.”
Afterwards they turned around to us and said, “We will give a straight answer to your airy conjectures and dreams.”
Then they said, “What does conjugial love have in common with religion and with being inspired by God?
“Does that love not exist in everyone according to the condition of his sexual powers? Is it not found among people who are outside the church as well as among people who are in the church? Among gentiles as well as among Christians? In fact, among impious people as well as among pious ones?
“Does the vigor of that love in everyone not come either from heredity, or from good health, or from temperance of life, or from the warmth of the climate? And can it not also be strengthened and stimulated by drugs?
“Is the same love not found in animals, especially in birds which mate in pairs? Is that love not a matter of the flesh? What does a matter of the flesh have to do with the spiritual state of the church?
“Does that love with a wife in its ultimate expression differ one bit from love with a harlot in its ultimate expression? Is the lust not the same, and the delight the same?
“It is harmful, therefore, to trace the origin of conjugial love from the sacred things of the church.”
[11] When we heard this we said to them, “You are reasoning from the heat of lasciviousness and not from conjugial love. You do not know at all what conjugial love is because among you that love is cold. We are convinced by what you have said that you come from the age that is named after and consists of iron and clay, which do not cohere, according to the prophecy in Daniel 2:43. For you make conjugial love and licentious love the same thing. Can these two cohere any more than iron and clay? People believe you are wise and call you wise, yet you are anything but wise!”
Inflamed with anger at these words, they began to cry out and call the crowd to throw us out. But then, by a power given us by the Lord, we stretched out our hands, and suddenly fiery serpents, vipers and poisonous snakes came from the desert, and dragons, too, and they invaded and filled the city, so that the inhabitants became frightened and fled away.
And the angel said to me, “New people keep coming from earth to this region every day, and the previous inhabitants are by turns removed and cast down into chasms in the west, which at a distance look like lakes of fire and brimstone. The people there are all adulterers, both spiritually and naturally.”
* See 1 Corinthians 6:9.
** Cf. John 8:7.
When the angel said this, I looked over at the western horizon, and behold, I saw what appeared to be lakes of fire and brimstone. So I asked the angel why the hells there had this appearance.
He replied, “They appear as lakes on account of the falsifications of truth there, because water spiritually interpreted is truth. What looks like fire appears around them and in them as a result of their love of evil; and what looks like brimstone, because of their love of falsity. These three appearances – lake, fire and brimstone – so appear because they correspond to the evil loves which motivate the people.
“The people there are all shut up in eternal workhouses, and they labor in exchange for food, clothing and a bed. And whenever they do evil, they are severely and miserably punished.”
[2] Again I asked the angel, “Why did you say that the people there are adulterers both spiritually and naturally? Why not say that they are evildoers and irreligious?”
“Because,” he replied, “all people who regard adulterous affairs as nothing, that is, who believe they are not sins and who commit them deliberately and so purposefully, at heart are evildoers and irreligious. For the human inclination towards marriage goes hand in hand with religion at every step. Every little step and every stride away from religion or towards religion is also a step or stride away from or towards the conjugial inclination that is peculiar and proper to a Christian person.”
At my asking what that conjugial inclination was, he said, “It is a wish to live with only one wife, and a Christian person has this wish to the extent that he has religion.”
[3] I afterwards grieved in spirit that marriage – which in ancient times was so sacred – had so wantonly been transformed into adulterous relationships.
And the angel said, “It is the same with religion today. For the Lord says that at the end of the age there will be the abomination of desolation foretold by Daniel,* and that ‘there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world’ (Matthew 24:15,21).
“The abomination of desolation symbolizes the falsification and loss of all truth. Tribulation symbolizes the state of the church infested by evils and falsities. And the end of the age, of which these things are said, symbolizes the final period or end of the church.
“The end has now come, because no truth remains that has not been falsified, and falsification of truth is spiritual licentiousness, which allies itself with natural licentiousness, because they go together.”
* See Daniel 9:27, 11:31, 12:11.
Then the angel said to me, “The glorification you hear is a glorification of the Lord on account of His Advent, and it is coming from angels of the eastern and western heavens.” (From the southern and northern heavens we heard only a polite murmur.)
Moreover, since he understood it all, the angel told me, first, that glorifications and celebrations of the Lord are taken from the Word, because then they come from the Lord, inasmuch as the Lord is the Word, in the sense that He is the essential Divine truth in the Word.
Then the angel said, “Specifically now, they are glorifying and celebrating the Lord with these words which were spoken by the prophet Daniel:
You saw iron mixed with miry clay; they will mingle together through the seed of man, but they will not cohere…. But (in those days) the God of heaven will make to rise a kingdom which for ages shall not perish…; it shall crush and consume all these kingdoms, while it shall stand for ages. (Daniel 2:43,44)”
[2] After this I heard what seemed to be the sound of singing, and deeper in the east I saw a burst of light more brilliant than the first. And I asked the angel what they were glorifying there.
The angel said that they were glorifying the Lord with these words in Daniel:
I was seeing in the visions of night, and behold, with the clouds of heaven, was One like the Son of man…. And to Him was given dominion…and a kingdom, and all peoples and nations…shall worship Him. His dominion is the dominion of an age, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom one which shall not perish. (Daniel 7:13,14)
In addition, the angel said, they are celebrating the Lord with these phrases taken from the book of Revelation:
To (Jesus Christ) be glory and might…. Behold, He is coming with clouds…. (He is) the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last…, who is, who was, and who is to come, the Almighty. I, John…heard…(this from the Son of Man from out of) the midst of the seven lampstands…. (Revelation 1:5-7; 22:13; 1:8-13; taken also from Matthew 24:30,31)
[3] I looked again into the eastern sky, and a light shone over to the right, whose glow extended into the southern hemisphere. Hearing as well a sweet sound, I asked the angel what aspect of the Lord they were glorifying there.
The angel said they were quoting these words in the book of Revelation:
I saw a new heaven and a new earth…. And I…saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride…for her husband…. And (an angel) talked with me and said, “Come, I will show you the bride, the Lamb’s wife.” And he carried me away in the spirit on to a great and high mountain, and showed me the…city, the holy Jerusalem…. (Revelation 21:1,2,9,10)
Also these words:
I, Jesus…am…the Bright and Morning Star. And the Spirit and the bride shall say, “Come!”…. (And He said,) “I also am coming quickly.” Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus! (Revelation 22:16,17,20)
[4] After these and other things, we heard a general glorification echoing across the sky from the east to the west and also from the south to the north, and I asked the angel, “What is happening now?”
He said they were quoting these verses from the Prophets:
Let all flesh know that I, Jehovah, am your Savior and your Redeemer…. (Isaiah 49:26)
Thus said Jehovah, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, Jehovah of Hosts: “I am the First and the Last, and beside Me there is no God.” (Isaiah 44:6)
It will be said in that day: “Behold, this is our God, whom we have waited for to free us. This is Jehovah, whom we have waited for.” (Isaiah 25:9)
The voice of one crying in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of Jehovah….” …Behold, the Lord Jehovih comes in strength…. He will feed His flock like a shepherd. (Isaiah 40:3,10,11)
Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given…, whose name shall be…Wonderful, Counselor, God, Hero, Father of Eternity, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)
Behold, the days will come…, and I will raise to David a righteous Branch, who shall reign, a King…. And this is His name…: JEHOVAH OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. (Jeremiah 23:5,6; 33:15,16)
Jehovah of Hosts is His name, and your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. He shall be called God of the whole earth. (Isaiah 54:5)
In that day…Jehovah shall become King over all the earth. In that day there will be one Jehovah and His name will be one. (Zechariah 14:8,9)
[5] When I heard these things and understood their meaning, as a result my heart leapt, and I went home filled with joy. And there, returning from the state of my spirit into a bodily state, I wrote down what I had seen and heard. To which I now add this, that following His Advent the Lord will revive conjugial love, such as it was among ancient peoples. For conjugial love comes only from the Lord, and it is found in people who are made spiritual by Him through His Word.
“Tell me in short, however, what these New Church doctrines are, and I will see whether they hang together or not.”
So I replied, “The doctrines of the church that is meant by the New Jerusalem are as follows:
“1. There is one God, in whom is the Divine Trinity, and that God is the Lord Jesus Christ.
“2. Saving faith is to believe in Him.
“3. Evils must be abstained from because they are of the devil and from the devil.
“4. Good deeds must be done because they are of God and from God.
“5. These good deeds must be done by a person as though he were doing them from himself, but he must believe that they are from the Lord in him and by means of him.”
[2] When he heard this, the man’s rage subsided for several minutes. But after some consideration, he again looked at me with a fierce expression, saying, “These five precepts – are they doctrines of the faith and charity of the New Church?”
And I answered, “Yes.”
Then he asked me gruffly, “How are you able to demonstrate the first one, that there is one God, in whom is the Divine Trinity, and that He is the Lord Jesus Christ?”
“I demonstrate it,” I said, “in this way. Is God not one and indivisible? Is there not a Trinity? If God is one and indivisible, is He not one person? If He is one person, is the Trinity not in that person?
“That He is the Lord Jesus Christ I demonstrate by the following points: Jesus Christ was conceived by God the Father (Luke 1:34,35), so that in regard to His soul He was God. And therefore, as He Himself says, the Father and He are one (John 10:30). He is in the Father and the Father in Him (John 14:10,11). He who sees Him 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 bosom of the Father (John 1:18). All things belonging to the Father are His (John 3:35, 16:15). He is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him (John 14:6), thus by Him, because the Father is in Him. And, according to Paul, all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily (Colossians 2:9). And furthermore, He has authority over all flesh (John 17:2), and He has all authority in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18).
“From all this it follows that He is God of heaven and earth.”
[3] The man then asked how I demonstrate the second precept, that saving faith is to believe in Him.
“I demonstrate it,” I said, “by these words of the Lord:
This is the will of the Father…, that everyone who…believes in (the Son) may have everlasting life. (John 6:39,40)
God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that everyone who believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:16,15)
He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; but he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. (John 3:36)”
[4] After that he said, “Demonstrate as well the third precept, and the ones that follow.”
Then I replied, “What need is there to establish that evils must be abstained from because they are of the devil and from the devil, that good deeds must be done because they are of God and from God, and that these good deeds must be done by a person as though he were doing them from himself, but that he must believe they are from the Lord in him and by means of him? The Holy Scripture from beginning to end attests throughout that these three precepts are true. What else does it teach in sum but to abstain from evils and do good deeds, and to believe in the Lord God?
“And besides, there is not any religion without these three precepts. Religion has to do with a way of life, does it not? And what is that life but to abstain from evils and do good deeds. How can a person do these things and believe in them unless he does so as though he were doing them from himself?
“If you dismiss these precepts from the church, therefore, you dismiss the Holy Scripture from the church, and you also dismiss religion. And if you dismiss these, the church is not a church.”
On hearing these things, the man withdrew and considered them. But still he went away in annoyance.
The origins of conjugial love are internal and external, there being many internal origins, likewise many external ones. The inmost or fundamental origin of them all, however, is one. This is the marriage between good and truth, as we will show in the following paragraphs.
No one has traced the origin of this love from this source before, because no one has seen that there is any union between good and truth. No one has seen it, moreover, because goodness is not visible to the sight of the understanding as truth is, and therefore knowledge of it has remained hidden and eluded investigation. Since goodness is consequently one of the unknowns in life, no one has been able to discern any marriage between it and truth.
Indeed, to the natural sight of reason, good appears so far removed from truth as to have no connection with it. The fact of this can be seen from people’s remarks whenever they mention goodness and truth. For instance, when they say, “This is good,” they have no thought of truth. And when they say, “This is true,” neither do they have any thought of good.
As a result, many people today believe that truth is something completely separate, likewise goodness. Many also believe as well that a person is intelligent and wise and thus truly human according to the truths that he thinks, speaks, writes, and believes, and not at the same time according to his goodness.
Nevertheless, we will now explain that good does not exist apart from truth, nor truth apart from good, consequently that there is an eternal marriage between them, and that this marriage is the origin of conjugial love. The explanation will be developed according to the following outline:
(1) Goodness and truth are universal in creation, and are therefore in all created things, but they are present in their created vessels according to each one’s form.
(2) Good does not exist by itself, nor truth by itself, but they are everywhere united.
(3) There is good’s truth and from this truth’s good, or truth resulting from good and good resulting from that truth, and implanted in these two from creation is an inclination to join together into one.
(4) In members of the animal kingdom, good’s truth or truth resulting from good is masculine, and truth’s consequent goodness or good resulting from that truth is feminine.
(5) From the marriage of good and truth flowing in from the Lord comes love for the opposite sex and also conjugial love.
(6) A love for the opposite sex is a love of the external or natural man, and is therefore common to every animal.
(7) But conjugial love is a love of the internal or spiritual man, and is therefore peculiar to mankind.
(8) Conjugial love in a person lies within love for the opposite sex, like a gem in its native rock.
(9) A love for the opposite sex in a person is not the origin of conjugial love, but it is its first stage, being thus like any external natural quality in which an internal spiritual one is implanted.
(10) When conjugial love has been implanted, love for the opposite sex turns around and becomes a chaste love for the opposite sex.
(11) Male and female were created to be the very image of the marriage between good and truth.
(12) They are an image of that marriage in their inmost qualities and thus in their subsequent ones as the inner faculties of their minds are opened.
Explanation of these statements now follows.
But this falls more clearly within the perception of the understanding and so into some mental concept if instead of good we say love, and if instead of truth we say wisdom. Let us say, therefore, that in the Lord God the Creator there is Divine love and Divine wisdom, and that these are the Lord, which is to say that He is love itself and wisdom itself. For these two are the same as good and truth. The reason is that good has to do with love and truth with wisdom, for love is composed of goodness and wisdom of truths.
Since the two sets of terms amount to the same thing, in what follows now we will sometimes use one, sometimes the other, and both sets of terms have the same meaning. We say this at the outset lest the understanding see a difference of meaning in the following pages where these terms are used.
Reason can also see that this is so from the order which each and every thing in the universe was created in, in which one thing exists for the sake of another, and in which one thing therefore depends on another, like the links in a chain. For all things exist for the sake of the human race, that from it may come the angelic heaven by which creation returns to the Creator, its source. From this comes the conjunction of the created universe with its Creator, and by that conjunction its everlasting preservation.
That is why we say that goodness and truth are universal in creation. The fact of this is evident to everyone who considers it reasonably. In every created thing he sees something that relates to good and something that relates to truth.
The fact that whatever flows into any vessel is received by it according to its form can be illustrated by various examples. It may be illustrated, for instance, by the flowing in of heat and light from the sun into species of plant life of every kind. Each one of these receives that influx according to its form. Thus every tree receives it according to its form, every bush according to its form, every plant and every kind of grass according to its form. That which flows in is the same in every case, but the way it is received causes each species to remain the species it was, because the reception is according to the form.
The same point may also be illustrated by the influx into animals of every kind, according to each one’s form.
Even an simple peasant can see that whatever flows in is received according to the form of the particular recipient if he reflects on various kinds of wind instruments – pipes, flutes, trumpets, horns, and pipe organs – and considers that from the same breath or influx of air they each make a sound according to their form.
Try saying just “good” without at the same time mentioning some particular or other with which it is associated, or define it abstractly, that is, without attaching any additional idea, and you will see that it has no reality, but that it has reality when something is added. If you focus the sight of reason on it, moreover, you will perceive that without any added qualification goodness has no assignable attribute and so no way of being compared, no capacity for being affected, and no character – in a word, no quality.
It is the same with truth if it is referred to without a subject. Educated reason can see that its subject has to do with good.
[2] Instances of goodness are beyond number, however, and each one rises to its highest point and descends to its lowest point as though along the degrees of a scale, changing its name, too, as it varies in its progression and quality. Because of this it is difficult for any but the wise to see the relationship of goodness and truth to things and their union in them. Nevertheless, it is evident from common sense that good does not exist apart from truth, nor truth apart from good, as soon as it is accepted that each and every thing in the universe relates to goodness and truth, as we showed under the previous heading (nos. 84, 85).
[3] That good does not exist by itself nor truth by itself may be illustrated and at the same time attested by various considerations. Take, for example, the following, that there is no essence without a form, and no form without an essence. Good is the essence or being, while truth is what gives form to the essence and expression to the being.
Again, in the human being we find will and intellect. Good has to do with the will, and truth with the intellect. The will does not accomplish anything by itself but through the intellect, nor does the intellect accomplish anything by itself but from the will.
Or again, in the human being there are two sources of physical life, the heart and the lungs. The heart is unable to produce any conscious or active life without the breathing of the lungs, nor are the lungs able to do so without the heart. The heart relates to good, and the breathing of the lungs to truth. There is also a correspondence between them.
[4] Something similar exists in each and every part of the mind and in each and every part of the body in the human being. We do not have the space, however, to present further confirmations here. See instead the same ideas more fully established in Angelic Wisdom Regarding Divine Providence, nos. 3-26, where these points are explained under the following series of headings:
(1) The universe, together with every created thing in it, comes from Divine love through Divine wisdom, or to say the same thing, from Divine good through Divine truth.
(2) Divine good and Divine truth emanate from the Lord as a unity.
(3) This unity exists in some sort of image in every created thing.
(4) Good is not good except to the extent that it is united with truth, and truth is not truth except to the extent that it is united with good.
(5) The Lord does not permit anything to be divided; a person must either be in a state of good and at the same time of truth, therefore, or he must be in a state of evil and at the same time of falsity.
Further discussions may be found as well.
This may be more clearly understood, however, if instead of good we say love, and instead of truth, wisdom (that they mean the same thing, see above, no. 84).
Wisdom cannot take form in a person except through a love of growing wise. If this love is removed, a person is completely incapable of becoming wise. Wisdom resulting from this love is what is meant by good’s truth or truth resulting from good.
On the other hand, when a person has acquired wisdom for himself as a result of that love, and he loves that wisdom in himself or himself on account of that wisdom, then he forms another love, which is a love of wisdom, and this is meant by truth’s good or good resulting from that truth.
[2] There are, in consequence, two loves in a man, one of which is the love of growing wise, which comes first, and the second of which is the love of wisdom, which comes afterwards.
But if this second love continues on in a man, it is an evil love, and is called conceit or love of his own intelligence. It will be established later that to keep this love from destroying man, it was provided from creation that this love be taken from him and transferred into woman, so that it might become conjugial love, which makes him whole again. (Something concerning these two loves and the transfer of the second love into woman may be seen above, nos. 32, 33, and in the Introduction, no. 20.)
If instead of love, therefore, we think good, and instead of wisdom, truth, then it follows from what we have now said that there is good’s truth or truth resulting from good, and truth’s consequent good or good resulting from that truth.
From this process of formation it can be seen that they have a mutual inclination to reunite themselves and to join together into one. But this happens only in the case of men who are in a state of genuine wisdom, and in women who are in a state of love for that wisdom in their husbands, thus who are in a state of truly conjugial love. As for the wisdom that a man needs to have and that a wife ought to love, however, this, too, will be discussed later.
[2] With respect to the disposition of the male, reason sees that it is a disposition to know, understand, and be wise – a disposition to know in childhood, a disposition to understand in adolescence and early youth, and a disposition to be wise from this time of his youth on into old age. From this it is evident that the male is by nature or temperament inclined to develop his understanding, consequently that he is born to become intellect-oriented. But because this cannot happen apart from love, therefore the Lord attaches love to him according to his reception, that is, according to the spirit in him that wills to become wise.
[3] With respect to his employment, reason sees that it has to do with things involving the intellect, or things in which the intellect predominates, most of which are occupational and are directed towards serving the public.
With respect to his behavior, reason sees that his customary habits all stem from a predominance of the intellect. Consequently, the actions of his life, meant by behavior, are directed by reason – or if they are not, he wants them to appear so. A masculine exercise of reason is also visible in his every virtue.
With respect to his physique, reason sees that it is different and totally distinct from the figure of the female – on which subject, something may also be seen above, no. 33.
In addition to these traits, there is the power of insemination which resides in the male. This has no other source than the intellect, for its source is truth there resulting from good. That the power of insemination comes from this source will be seen later.
With respect to the disposition of the female, it can be seen that it is a disposition to love knowledge, intelligence and wisdom – though not in herself but in a man – and for that reason to love a man. For a man is not lovable simply on account of his physique, the fact that he looks like a man, but on account of the gifts he has in him which make him human.
With respect to the employment of the female, it can be seen that it has to do with things that are works of the hands and are called sewing, needlework, and other names, which serve for decoration, for her personal adornment, and for enhancing her beauty. Also, that it has to do as well with various tasks called domestic, which complement the tasks of men (which, as we said, are called occupational). Women do these things out of an inclination towards marriage, in order to become wives and so one with their husbands.
With respect to the behavior and figure of the female, it is evident without explanation that the same thing is visible from these.
Such an atmosphere of a marriage of good and truth emanates from the Lord because it is at the same time an atmosphere of propagation, that is, of procreation and fructification. It is also the same thing as the Divine providence in the preservation of the universe by successive generations.
Now because that universal atmosphere, which is an atmosphere of a marriage of good and truth, flows into its vessels according to each one’s form (no. 86), it follows that the male sex receives it according to its form, thus in the intellect, because the male is an intellect-oriented form, and that the female sex receives it according to its form, thus in the will, because the female is a will-oriented form derived from the intellect-oriented form of the male. And because the same atmosphere is also an atmosphere of procreation, it follows that it is the origin of love between the sexes.
Now as a person advances from knowledge to intelligence, and from this to wisdom, his mind also changes its form accordingly, for it opens up more and more and becomes more closely connected with heaven and through heaven with the Lord. Consequently the person becomes a greater lover of truth and more devoted to goodness of life.
If a person stops, therefore, at the first stage in his progress towards wisdom, the form of his mind remains natural, and it receives the inflowing of the universal atmosphere – the atmosphere of the marriage between good and truth – in just the same way as it is received by the lower members of the animal kingdom called beasts and birds. And because these are merely natural, the person becomes like them, and consequently he feels a love for the opposite sex in the same way they do.
This is what we mean by the statement that a love for the opposite sex is a love of the external or natural man, and is therefore common to every animal.
It is because of this that conjugial love is peculiar to mankind. It may even be said to be native or indigenous to mankind, because mankind possesses a capacity for becoming wise, a capacity with which this love is united.
[2] We say that conjugial love begins through the agency of a love for the opposite sex because before a married partner is found, a person loves the opposite sex in general and regards it with loving eyes. In their company he also treats the opposite sex with courteous morality. For the adolescent is in a period of choosing, and at that time his external nature grows pleasantly warm from a deep-seated inclination to marriage with one, which lies hidden in the inner sanctum of his mind.
We also say that conjugial love begins through the agency of a love for the opposite sex for the further reason that decisions to marry are delayed for various reasons, even till half one’s youth is spent, and in the meantime the beginning of conjugial love is felt as lust, which in some cases goes off into love between the sexes in act. But still, in such people, it is not given free rein further than is healthy. This refers, however, to the male sex, because it suffers an enticement that actively arouses it. It does not refer to the female sex.
[3] It is apparent from this that a love for the opposite sex is not the origin of truly conjugial love, but that it is its first stage, being first in time, but not in end. For that which is first in end is what is first in the mind and its intention, this being the primary objective. But no one reaches this primary objective except gradually, through intermediate steps. These steps are not primary goals in themselves, but only means of advancement to that which is primary in them.
Testimony that love for the opposite sex still remains then and becomes chaste, and yet sweeter than before to people who are in a state of truly conjugial love – this may be seen from the description of it by people who are in the spiritual world, recorded in two accounts from that world in nos. 44 and 55.
We say that it imitates this model, because it is not identical to it but similar. For the good that attaches itself to the truth in a man comes directly from the Lord, whereas the wife’s good that attaches itself to the truth in a man comes from the Lord indirectly through the wife. Consequently there are two kinds of good, one internal, one external, which attach themselves to the truth in a husband and cause the husband to remain constant in an understanding of truth and so in a state of wisdom through the agency of truly conjugial love.
But more on this subject later.
A marriage of good and truth flows in from the Lord in a person in the same way. It flows into his soul directly, and continues from there into the subsequent faculties, and through these to the outmost constituents. And thus conjointly they bring about conjugial love.
It is apparent from a consideration of this influx that a married couple is an image of the marriage between good and truth in their inmost qualities and thus in their subsequent ones.
The wisdom which forms this image and receives this love is rational and at the same time moral wisdom. Rational wisdom views the truths and good virtues that inwardly appear in a person not as qualities belonging to him but as qualities flowing in from the Lord. And moral wisdom shuns evils and falsities as contagious diseases – especially lascivious ones which contaminate his conjugial love.
– – – – – – – – – – –
One morning before sunrise, I looked out towards the east in the spiritual world and I saw four horsemen seemingly flying out of a cloud that shone with the blaze of dawn. On the heads of the horsemen I saw curled helmets*, on their arms what appeared to be wings, and about their bodies light orange-colored tunics. Thus dressed, like racers they rose up on their horses and held the reins out over their manes, so that the horses went out at a gallop like wing-footed steeds.
I followed their course or flight with my eyes, with a mind to find out where they were going. Then suddenly three of the horsemen peeled off in three directions, to the south, the west, and the north, while the fourth pulled up after a short space and came to a halt in the east.
[2] Wondering at this, I looked up to heaven and asked where the horsemen were going. I received the reply, “To the wise in the kingdoms of Europe, people of polished reason and keen sight in analytical investigations who enjoyed a reputation for genius among their contemporaries. They are being summoned to come and solve the secret of the origin of conjugial love and its vigor or potency.”
Those speaking from heaven also said, “Keep looking, and in a little while you will see twenty-seven carriages, three with Spaniards in them, three with natives of France or Frenchmen, three with Italians, three with Germans, three with natives of the Netherlands or Dutchmen, three with Englishmen, three with Swedes, three with Danes, and three with Poles.”
Then, after two hours, their carriages appeared, drawn by ponies light bay in color with strikingly decorated harnesses. And traveling rapidly to an immense house visible in the border region between the east and the south, the riders all got out of their carriages around the house and boldly went in.
[3] Moreover I was then told, “Go on over and go in, too, and you will hear.”
I went and entered the house, and examining it inside, I saw that it was square, with sides facing towards the four points of the compass. Each of the sides had three high windows containing panes of crystal, whose frames were made of olive wood. From either side of the frames projected walls in the form of rooms, with vaulted ceilings and containing tables. These walls were made out of cedar, the ceilings out of fine sandarac wood**, and the floors out of boards of poplar. Against the east wall – where I did not see any windows – a table stood, overlaid with gold, on which had been placed a miter covered with precious stones. This would go as an award or prize to the one who found the secret of the riddle to be presently put before them.
[4] As I looked around at the rooms formed by the projecting walls, which were like compartments along the windows, I saw in each of them five men from the same European kingdom, who were ready and waiting for the topic on which they were to render judgment.
Instantly, then, an angel stood in the middle of the palace and said, “The subject on which you are to render judgment is the origin of conjugial love and its vigor or potency. Discuss it and come to a decision. Then when you have reached a decision, write your opinion on a piece of paper and put it into the silver urn that you see placed beside the gold table. Also, sign it with the initial letter of the kingdom you are from. For example, if you are natives of France or French, write F. If you are natives of the Netherlands or Dutch, write N. If you are Italian, write I. If you are English, write E. If you are Polish, write P. If you are German, write G. If you are Spanish, write Sp. If you are Danish, write D. And if you are Swedish, write Sw.”
With these words the angel departed, saying as he left, “I will return.”
The five fellow countrymen in each compartment along the windows then considered this instruction, analyzed the subject, and after coming to a decision to the best of their ability to judge, wrote it down on a piece of paper, signed it with the initial letter of their kingdom, and put it into the hollow silver container.
Three hours later, when they were all finished, the angel returned to draw the pieces of paper out of the urn one by one and read them in the presence of the whole gathering.
* Probably morions or comb morions.
** Literally, “thyine wood.” See Revelation 18:12, where it has been variously translated.
“We five fellow countrymen in our compartment have decided that the origin of conjugial love comes from the most ancient peoples in the golden age, and among them, from the creation of Adam and his wife. The origin of marriage comes from this source, and with marriage, the origin of conjugial love.
“As for the vigor or potency of conjugial love, we trace the origin of this from no other source than the climate or solar zone, and thus from the heat of the sun upon the land. We came to this consideration not as the result of empty figments of reason, but from the plain indications of experience. We came to it, for instance, from our knowledge of peoples below the equatorial line or circle, where the day’s heat blazes like fire, and from comparing peoples who live nearer that line and peoples who live further away from it. We also came to this consideration as well from seeing the cooperation of solar heat with the vital heat in animals of the earth and birds of the sky in springtime when they beget their young.
“Besides, what is conjugial love but heat, which, if strengthened by additional heat from the sun, becomes vigorous or potent.”
This statement was signed below with the letters, Sp., the initial letters of the kingdom the writers were from.
“We fellow countrymen in our group agreed that the origin of conjugial love is the same as the origin of marriage, which has been prescribed by law to restrain the inborn urges in people for adulterous relationships that destroy the soul, pollute the mind’s reason, corrupt morals, and waste the body with disease. For adulterous relationships are not human but beastlike, not rational but animal, and thus not at all Christian but barbarian. A condemnation of such things led to the origination of marriage, and at the same time of conjugial love.
“It is similar with the vigor or potency of this love. It depends on chastity, which means abstaining from promiscuous and licentious relationships. The reason is that in one who makes love to his partner only, the vigor and potency is preserved for just that one person, and is thus collected and concentrated, so to speak, and then it becomes like a fine quintessence from which the impurities have been removed, a quintessence that would otherwise be dissipated and discharged every which way.
“One among the five of us, who is a priest, added also the idea of predestination as a reason for this vigor or potency, saying, ‘Are marriages not predestined? And since these are predestined, so, too, are the offspring resulting from them and the varying abilities to beget them.’ The man insisted on this as a cause because he had sworn himself to it.”
This statement was signed below with the letter N.
On hearing it, someone said in a mocking tone, “Predestination! Oh, what a beautiful excuse for inability or impotence!”
“We fellow countrymen in our cubicle discussed causes of the origin of conjugial love, and we saw the leading one of these to be the same as the original cause for marriage, since before marriage conjugial love did not exist. It came about, then, because when anyone is dying for or desperately loves a young woman, he tries with his heart and soul to possess her as his most prized possession. And as soon as she pledges herself to him, he regards her as an owner regards his property. That this is the origin of conjugial love is plainly evident from everyone’s fury at rivals and jealousness against intruders.
“We considered afterwards the origin of the vigor or potency of that love, and the prevailing opinion of three against two was that vigor or potency with one’s partner comes from having some license in matters of sex. They said that they know from experience that the potency of promiscuous love is greater than the potency of conjugial love.”
This statement was signed below with the letter I.
When the others heard this, they cried from the tables, “Put that paper away and take another from the urn.”
“We fellow countrymen under our window have decided that the origin of conjugial love is the same as the origin of love for the opposite sex, because it results from it. The difference is only that a love for the opposite sex is unrestricted, uninhibited, liberated, indiscriminate and fickle, while conjugial love is restricted, directed, contained, sure and constant. Conjugial love has therefore been prescribed and established by the prudence of human wisdom, because otherwise there would be no empire, no kingdom, no commonwealth, indeed no society, but people would roam through the fields and forests in bands and troops with licentious and stolen women, and they would flee from place to place to escape bloody slaughter, rape and pillage, by which the whole human race would be wiped out of existence.
“That is our judgment regarding the origin of conjugial love.
“As for the vigor or potency of conjugial love, however, we trace the origin of this from physical health that lasts throughout life from birth to old age. For a person who remains uninjured and possessed of steady good health does not lack in vigor. His fibers, sinews, and muscles, including the suspensory muscles of the testes, do not grow sluggish, loose and flabby, but continue in the strength of their powers. See that you stay well.”
This statement was signed below with the letter E.
“We fellow countrymen at our table, with the rationality our minds possess, looked into the origin of conjugial love and the origin of its vigor or potency. And with well-considered reasonings we saw and confirmed that conjugial love takes its origin simply from the following circumstance: that owing to inflammations and thus stimulations concealed in the inmost recesses of his mind and body, after experiencing various lusts with his eyes, everybody at last turns and inclines his mind to one of the feminine sex, until he inwardly burns with passion for her. From that time on, his burning passion mounts from flame to flame till it becomes a blazing fire. In this state sexual lust is banished, and instead of lust comes conjugial love.
“In this blazing state of passion, a young man engaged to be married does not know but that the vigor or potency of this love will never cease, for he has not experienced and so does not know about the state in which the powers fail and in which love then grows cool after its delights are over.
“The origin of conjugial love, therefore, comes from that first state of passion before the wedding, and from this comes its vigor or potency. After the wedding, however, its fires change, sometimes lessening, sometimes increasing. But still its potency continues with steady change or with a steady lessening and increasing until old age, by the prudent exercise of self-control and by restraining the lusts that break out from the caverns of the mind before they have been cleansed of their filth. For lust exists before wisdom.
“That is our judgment regarding the origin and continuance of conjugial vigor or potency.”
This statement was signed below with the letter P.
“We fellow countrymen in our party looked around for the causes of the origin of conjugial love, and we agreed on two. One of these is the proper upbringing of children, and the other, the clear claim of heirs to their inheritances.
“We selected these two, because they are aimed and directed towards the same objective, this being the public good. This is achieved by these means, because children conceived and born of conjugial love become the proper and true offspring of both parents; and as objects of a parental love that is deepened by their being of legitimate descent, they are raised to become the heirs of all their parents’ possessions, both spiritual and natural. Reason sees that the public good is founded on a proper upbringing of children and on the clear claim of heirs to their inheritances.
“A love for the opposite sex is one thing, and conjugial love another. Conjugial love appears to be the same as a love for the opposite sex, but it is distinctly different. Nor is the one love on the same level as the other, but the one is within the other; and whatever is within is nobler than that which is without. Furthermore, we saw that conjugial love by creation is within and concealed in love for the opposite sex just like an almond inside its shell. Consequently, when conjugial love is broken out of its shell, which is love for the opposite sex, it shines before the angels like a gemstone of beryl or a star sapphire. Such is the case because conjugial love has engraved on it the salvation of the whole human race, which is what we mean by the public good.
“That is our judgment regarding the origin of this love.
“With respect to the origin of its vigor or potency, moreover, from considering its causes we have come to the conclusion that the origin is the removal or separation of conjugial love from a love for the opposite sex, which is accomplished by wisdom on the part of the man, and by love of the man’s wisdom on the part of the wife. For a love for the opposite sex is shared in common with animals, whereas conjugial love is peculiar to human beings. In the measure that conjugial love is removed and separated from a love for the opposite sex, therefore, in the same measure is a person a human being and not an animal; and a human being gets his vigor or potency from his love, as an animal does from its love.”
This statement was signed below with the letter G.
“We representatives in the room under the light from our window found our thoughts and our consequent judgments stimulated by reflecting on conjugial love. Who is not stimulated by this love? For when it fills the mind, it at the same time fills the whole body.
“We judge the origin of this love from its delights. Who knows or ever has known the path any love takes except from its delight and pleasure? The delights of conjugial love are felt in their origins as blessings, felicities, and states of happiness, in their derivative states as gratifications and pleasures, and in their final states as the most consummate of delights.
“Love for the opposite sex has its origin, therefore, when the inner faculties of the mind and thus the inner faculties of the body are opened to receive the inflowing of these delights; but the origin of conjugial love occurs at the time the states of engagement and betrothal begin and when through these states the first atmosphere of that love advances these delights into an real conception of them.
“With respect to the vigor or potency of conjugial love, this results from the capacity of this love and its flow to pass from the mind into the body. For the mind is in the body from the head whenever it feels and acts, especially when it is experiencing the delights of this love. We judge the degrees of its potency and the constancies of its successive expressions to be a consequence of this.
“Moreover, we also trace the vigor of its potency as coming from heredity. If it is superior in the father, it becomes also superior by transmission in the offspring. Reason agrees with experience that this superior ability is by transmission reproduced, inherited, and passed down.”
This statement was signed below with the letter F.
“We fellow countrymen in our meeting did not find the actual origin of conjugial love, because it lies inmostly hidden away in the sacred repositories of the mind. The most consummate wisdom cannot with any ray of understanding even touch that love in its origin. We formed a number of theories, but after vainly debating the finer points, we did not know whether we had come up with empty guesses or sound opinions. Anyone, therefore, who would ferret out the origin of conjugial love from the sacred repositories of the mind and bring it before his view, let him go to an oracle!
“As for us, we considered this love on a level below its origin, observing that it is spiritual in the mind and is like the wellspring of a pleasant stream there. From this point it flows down into the breast, where it becomes delightful and is called a love of the heart, which regarded in itself is full of friendship and full of confidence resulting from a total inclination to mutual companionship. Then, when it has passed down through the breast, it becomes a sexual love.
“When a young man in his thoughts reflects on these and similar considerations, which he does when he chooses one of the opposite sex for himself in preference to the rest, they kindle in his heart the fire of conjugial love. Since this fire is the first kindling of that love, it is its origin.
“As for the origin of its vigor or potency, we acknowledge no other source than the love itself, for love and ability are inseparable companions. But still they are such that sometimes the one leads and sometimes the other. When love leads and vigor or potency follows it, both are noble, because the potency is then the vigor of conjugial love. But if potency leads and love follows, then both are ignoble, because love is then love belonging to a carnal potency. We judge the quality of each, therefore, depending on the order in which love descends or ascends and thus proceeds from its origin to its goal.”
This statement was signed below with the letter D.
“We fellow countrymen in our committee applied our judgment to the two aspects of the subject proposed – to the origin of conjugial love, and to the origin of its vigor or potency.
“When we debated the finer points regarding the origin of conjugial love, in order to avoid obscurities in our arguments we drew distinctions between a spiritual, a natural, and a carnal love between the sexes. By a spiritual love between the sexes we mean truly conjugial love, because it is spiritual. By a natural love between the sexes we mean polygamous love, because it is natural. And by a merely carnal love between the sexes we mean licentious love, because it is merely carnal.
“When we looked with our powers of judgment into truly conjugial love, we saw clearly that this love is possible only between one male and one female, and that it is from creation heavenly, most interior, and the soul and parent of all good loves, having been inspired into the first parents and capable of being inspired into Christians. It is also so conjunctive that by it two minds can become one mind, and two persons like one person, which is what is meant by their becoming one flesh.
“That this love was inspired from creation is apparent from these words in the book of creation:
And a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. (Genesis 2:24)
“That it can be inspired into Christians is apparent from these verses:
(Jesus said,) “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh.” (Matthew 19:4-6)
“The subject is the origin of conjugial love.
“As for the origin of the vigor or potency of truly conjugial love, moreover, we theorize that it comes from a similarity and unanimity of minds. For when two minds are joined in marriage, their thoughts then spiritually kiss each other, and they inspire in the body their vigor or potency.”
This statement was signed below with the letters Sw.
All the tables then signaled with their hands permission for him to do so.
Then one of them entered and stood beside the table on which the miter had been placed. He said:
“You Christians trace the origin of conjugial love from the love itself. We Africans, on the other hand, trace it from the God of heaven and earth.
“Is conjugial love not a chaste, pure and holy love? Are the angels of heaven not in an enjoyment of it? The whole human race, and therefore the entire angelic heaven – are they not the offspring of this love? Could anything so wonderful spring from any other source than God Himself, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe?
“You Christians trace the origin of conjugial vigor or potency from various rational and natural causes. We Africans, however, trace it from a person’s state of conjunction with the God of the universe. (We call this state a state of religion, but you call it a state of the church.) We trace it from this origin, for when love comes from this source and is constant and lasting, it cannot help but maintain its vigor, a vigor that is like the love, thus also constant and lasting.
“Truly conjugial love is not known except to the few who are near to God. Neither, therefore, is the potency of this love known to others. Angels in heaven describe the potency accompanying this love as the delight of endless spring.”
The angel then gave the miter to him, handing it to him rather than placing it on his head. And the African went away home with it.
The inhabitants of the kingdoms of Europe also went out and got into their carriages, in which they returned to their companions.
Awakened from sleep in the middle of the night, I saw an angel at some height towards the east, holding in his right hand a piece of paper. It appeared in a shining brilliance owing to the light coming in from the sun. In the middle of the paper there was writing in gold letters, and I saw the phrase, “The marriage between good and truth.” From the writing sprang a radiance that turned into a large halo around the piece of paper. The halo or ring consequently had an appearance similar to the appearance of dawn in springtime.
After this I saw the angel descending with the paper in his hand. Moreover, as he descended, the paper appeared less and less bright, and the writing – which said, “The marriage between good and truth” – turned from the color of gold to silver, then to the color of copper, next to the color of iron, and lastly to the color of rusty iron and corroded copper. Finally I saw the angel enter a dark cloud and descend through the cloud to the ground. There the piece of paper disappeared, although the angel was still holding it in his hand. (This took place in the world of spirits, the world all people go to first after they die.)
[2] The angel then spoke to me, saying, “Ask the people who are coming this way whether they see me and whether they see anything in my hand.”
A host of people came – a crowd from the east, a crowd from the south, a crowd from the west, and a crowd from the north. Those coming from the east and south were people who in the world had devoted themselves to becoming learned, and I asked them whether they saw anyone with me there and whether they saw anything in his hand. They all said they saw nothing at all.
I then asked the people who came from the west and north. They were people who in the world had believed whatever the learned said. They said they did not see anything, either.
The last of these, however, were people who in the world had possessed a simple faith stemming from charity, or some truth resulting from goodness, and after the people before them went away, they said that they saw a man with a piece of paper – a man handsomely dressed, and a piece of paper with letters printed on it. Moreover, when they looked more closely, they said they could read the phrase, “The marriage between good and truth.” Then they spoke to the angel, asking him to tell them what it meant.
[3] The angel said that everything which exists in the whole of heaven and everything which exists in the whole world is nothing but a form of the marriage between good and truth, since each and every thing was created out of and into a marriage of good and truth – both everything that lives and breathes and also whatever does not live and breathe.
“There is nothing,” he said, “that was created solely into a form of truth, and nothing that was created solely into a form of good. Good alone or truth alone has no reality, but they take form and become real through a marriage of the two, the character of the resulting form being determined by the character of the marriage.
“Divine good and Divine truth in the Lord the Creator are good and truth in their very essence. The being of His essence is Divine good, and the expression of His essence is Divine truth. In Him, moreover, good and truth exist in their very union, for in Him they are infinitely united. Since these two are united in Him, the Creator, therefore they are also united in each and every thing created by Him. By this the Creator is also conjoined with all things created by Him in an eternal covenant like that of a marriage.”
[4] The angel said further that the Holy Scripture, which came directly from the Lord, is as a whole and in every part an expression of the marriage between good and truth. And because the church, which is formed through truth of doctrine, and religion, which is formed through goodness of life in accordance with truth of doctrine, are in the case of Christians based solely on the Holy Scripture, it can be seen that the church as a whole and in every part is an expression of the marriage between good and truth. (For an explanation of this, see The Apocalypse Revealed, nos. 373, 483.)
The same thing that the angel said above regarding the marriage of good and truth he also said of the marriage between charity and faith, since good has to do with charity and truth has to do with faith.
Some of the first people, who had not seen the angel or the writing, were still standing around, and on hearing these things they mumbled, “Yes, of course. We see that.”
But then the angel said to them, “Turn away from me a little and repeat what you said.”
So they turned away, and they said quite plainly, “No, it isn’t so.”
[5] Afterwards the angel spoke with some married couples about the marriage of good and truth, saying that if their minds were in a such a state of marriage, with the husband being a form of truth and the wife a form of the good of that truth, they would both experience the blissful delights of innocence and thus the happiness that angels of heaven enjoy.
“In such a state,” he said, “the husband’s power of insemination would continually be in the spring of youth, and he would therefore remain in the effort and power to transmit his truth, and the wife, out of love, would be in a continual state to receive it.
“The wisdom that men have from the Lord knows no greater delight than to transmit its truths. And the love of wisdom that wives have in heaven knows no greater pleasure than to receive them as though in a womb, and thus to conceive them, carry them, and give them birth.
“That is what spiritual procreations are like among angels of heaven. And if you would believe it, natural procreations come also from the same origin.”
After bidding all farewell, the angel rose from the earth, and passing through the cloud, ascended into heaven. Moreover, as he ascended, the piece of paper then began to shine as before, until the halo that had previously had the appearance of dawn suddenly descended and dispelled the cloud which had cast a shadow over the earth, and it became sunny.
This chapter also takes up the marriage of the Lord and the church and correspondence to it, because without a knowledge and understanding of the subject, scarcely anyone can see that conjugial love in its origin is sacred, spiritual and heavenly, and that it comes from the Lord. Some in the church indeed say that marriage has a relationship to the marriage of the Lord with the church, but they do not know what the nature of that relationship is.
In order to make this relationship perceptible to some sight of the understanding, therefore, we must discuss in detail that sacred marriage which exists with and in those people who form the Lord’s church. They, too, and not others, possess truly conjugial love.
To explain this secret, however, we must divide our treatment into sections under the following headings:
(1) In the Word, the Lord is called a Bridegroom and Husband, and the church a bride and wife; and the conjunction of the Lord with the church and the reciprocal conjunction of the church with the Lord is called a marriage.
(2) The Lord is also called Father, and the church, mother.
(3) The offspring from the Lord as Husband and Father and from the church as wife and mother are all spiritual offspring, and this is what is meant in the spiritual sense of the Word by sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, sons-in-law and daughters-in-law, and by other terms which have to do with descending generations.
(4) The spiritual offspring that are born from the marriage of the Lord with the church are truths, from which come understanding, perception and all thought; and also qualities of goodness, from which come love, charity and all affection.
(5) From the marriage of good and truth that emanates and flows in from the Lord, a person acquires truth, to which the Lord joins good, and in this way the church is formed in the person by the Lord.
(6) A husband does not represent the Lord and his wife the church, because both husbands and wives together form the church.
(7) Therefore neither in the marriages of angels in heaven nor in the marriages of people on earth does the husband correspond to the Lord and the wife to the church.
(8) Rather, the correspondence rests with conjugial love, insemination, procreation, love for little children, and other things of a similar sort that occur in marriage and result from it.
(9) The Word is the means of conjunction, because it is from the Lord and thus is the Lord.
(10) The church comes from the Lord and it exists in people who go to Him and live according to His commandments.
(11) Conjugial love depends on the state of the church in a person, because it depends on the state of his wisdom.
(12) So, then, because the church comes from the Lord, conjugial love comes from Him as well.
Now follows the development of these points.
He who has the bride is the Bridegroom; but the friend of the Bridegroom (is the one) who stands and hears Him, (who) rejoices greatly because of the Bridegroom’s voice. (John 3:29)
(John the Baptist said this in reference to the Lord.)
…Jesus said…, “…As long as the Bridegroom is with them, the wedding guests cannot fast…. The days will come when the Bridegroom will be taken away from them; …then they will fast.” (Matthew 9:15, Mark 2:19,20, Luke 5:34,35)
…I…saw the holy city, New Jerusalem…, prepared as a bride adorned for her Husband. (Revelation 21:2)
(That the Lord’s New Church is meant by the New Jerusalem, see The Apocalypse Revealed, nos. 880, 881.)
(An angel said to John,) “Come, and I will show you the bride, the Lamb’s wife.” (And he showed him) the city, the holy Jerusalem…. (Revelation 21:9,10)
(The time for) the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready…. Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb. (Revelation 19:7,9)
The bridegroom that the five ready virgins went out to meet, with whom they went in to the wedding (Matthew 25:1-10), means the Lord, as is plain from the thirteenth verse, where He says:
Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man will come. (Matthew 25:13)
Further references may be found in many passages in the Prophets as well.
…Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given…. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, God…, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)
You, Jehovah, are our Father; our Redeemer from of old is Your name. (Isaiah 63:16)
(Jesus said,) “He who sees Me sees (the Father) who sent Me.” (John 12:45)
“If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.” (John 14:7)
Philip said…, “…Show us the Father….” Jesus said to him, “…He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” (John 14:8,9)
(Jesus said,) “The Father and I are one.” (John 10:30)
“All things that the Father has are Mine.” (John 16:15, cf. 17:10)
“…the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.” (John 10:38, cf. 14:10,11,20)
(We showed in full in The Apocalypse Revealed that the Lord and His Father are one as the soul and body are one; that God the Father descended from heaven and assumed a human form in order to redeem and save mankind; and that His human form is what is called the Son who was sent into the world.)
(Jehovah said,) “Contend with your mother…; …she is not My wife, and I am not her Husband.” (Hosea 2:2)
“You are the daughter of your mother, who loathes her Husband….” (Ezekiel 16:45)
“Where is the certificate of your mother’s divorce, whom I have put away?” (Isaiah 50:1)
Your mother was like a vine…, planted by the waters, fruitful…. (Ezekiel 19:10)
“Mother” in the those places refers to the Jewish Church.
(Jesus, stretching out His hand toward His disciples, said,) “My mother and My brothers are they who hear the word of God and do it.” (Luke 8:21, cf. Matthew 12:48-50, Mark 3:33-35)
The church is meant by the Lord’s disciples.
By the cross of Jesus stood His mother…. (And) Jesus…seeing His mother and the disciple whom He loved standing by, (also) said to His mother, “Woman, behold your son!” And He said to the disciple, “Behold your mother!” (Therefore) from that hour the disciple took her into his own [home]. (John 19:25-27)
The meaning here is that the Lord did not acknowledge Mary but the church as His mother. That is why He calls her “woman” and names her the mother of the disciple. He named her the mother of this disciple, John, because John represented the church in respect to its good acts of charity. These good acts are the church in actual practice. Therefore it is said that the disciple took Mary into his own [home].
(We explained in The Apocalypse Revealed that Peter represented truth and faith, James charity, and John works of charity – see nos. 5, 6, 790, 798, 879 – and that the twelve disciples together represented the church in all its elements – see nos. 233, 790 [798?], 903, 915.)
It is because of this that sons and daughters in the Word in its spiritual sense mean truths and goods – sons meaning truths conceived in a person’s spiritual self and born in the natural self, and daughters meaning qualities of goodness similarly conceived and born. In the Word, therefore, people who have been regenerated by the Lord are called sons of God, sons of the kingdom, and ones born of Him; and the Lord called the disciples sons.
The male child whom the woman bore and who was caught up to God in the twelfth chapter of the book of Revelation (Revelation 12:5) has the same symbolism (see The Apocalypse Revealed, no. 543).
Since daughters symbolize a church’s qualities of goodness, therefore reference is so often made in the Word to the daughter of Zion, daughter of Jerusalem, daughter of Israel, and daughter of Judah. By daughter in these places is not meant an actual daughter, but an affection for good which is connected with the church (see The Apocalypse Revealed, no. 612).
The Lord also calls those people brothers and sisters who belong to His church (Matthew 12:49, 25:40, 28:10, Mark 3:35, Luke 8:21).
A person has understanding, perception and all thought as a result of truths, and love, charity and all affection as a result of qualities of goodness, because all the characteristics of a human being are connected with truth and good. The two elements in a person which make him what he is are will and understanding, and the will is a recipient vessel of good and the understanding a recipient vessel of truth. To show that love, charity and affection are attributes of the will and that perception and thought are attributes of the understanding does not require the light of demonstration, since light on the statement is provided by the understanding itself.
* See “The Origin of Conjugial Love from the Marriage between Good and Truth,” nos. 83ff.
This appearance has been granted to people by the Lord in order that they may be human beings and have the means of reciprocating necessary for conjunction.
In addition, man is born with a faculty for knowing, understanding and becoming wise, and this faculty receives truths, by which he gains knowledge, intelligence and wisdom. And since the female was created through the truth of the male and is formed into a love of it more and more after marriage, it follows that she also receives her husband’s truth into herself and joins it to her good.
A wife also does not reflect on the goodness in herself, but on her husband’s inclination toward her, which depends on the ascent of his understanding to wisdom. She influences him with the goodness that is in her from the Lord without the husband’s having any awareness of that influence.
From this the truth now appears, that a person acquires truth from the Lord, and that the Lord joins good to that truth according as the truth is put to use, thus as a person tries to think wisely and so live wisely.
In the case of married couples, the church is implanted first in the man, and through the man in his wife, because the man with his understanding acquires the truth that the church teaches, and the wife acquires it from the man. But if the reverse takes place, it is not according to order. Nevertheless, this sometimes happens, but only in the case of men who either are not lovers of wisdom and so are not part of the church, or who hang like slaves on the bidding of their wives.
For something more on this subject, see the introductory chapter, no. 21.
* Quoting Ephesians 5:23. Cf. 1 Corinthians 11:3.
Still, we should add that it seems as though truth is the primary thing in the church, because it is its first concern in time. It is because of this appearance that leaders of the church have given the palm to faith, which has to do with truth, over charity, which has to do with good. In similar fashion, the learned have given the palm to thought, which has to do with the intellect, over affection, which has to do with the will. As a result, what the good of charity is and what the affection of the will is lie buried in a mound of earth, so to speak, and some have also thrown dirt on them, as though on dead men, to keep them from rising again.
The good of charity is nevertheless the primary thing in the church, and this can be plainly seen by people who have not closed off the way from heaven into their understanding by arguments in support of faith as the only thing that makes the church, and in the support of thought as the only thing that makes the man.
Now because the good of charity is from the Lord, and the truth of faith exists in a person as though it originated with him, and because these two form the kind of conjunction of the Lord with people and of people with the Lord meant by the Lord’s saying that He should be in them and they in Him (John 15:4,5), it is apparent that this conjunction is the church.
But what correspondence is – that it is a correspondence of natural things with spiritual things – we have shown many times in The Apocalypse Revealed, and also in Arcana Coelestia (The Secrets of Heaven). We have shown it in particular as well in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture; and specifically in a narrative account on the subject later on.*
Until a concept of correspondence has been absorbed, for the understanding still in darkness concerning it we will offer only these few observations: that conjugial love corresponds to an affection for genuine truth and its chasteness, purity and holiness; that insemination corresponds to the power of truth; that procreation corresponds to the propagation of truth; and that love for little children corresponds to the protection of truth and good.
Now because truth in a person appears as if it were his, and good is joined to it by the Lord, it is evident that these correspondences are correspondences of the natural or outer self with the spiritual or inner self. But some light will be shed on these points in the narrative accounts that follow.
* See perhaps no. 183, or no. 532, or nos. 416-422. Cf. also nos. 76, 342.
It follows from this that the Word is a perfect marriage of good and truth. And because it is from the Lord, and because that which is from Him also is Him, it follows as a consequence that when a person reads the Word and draws truths from it, the Lord attaches good. For the person does not see the states of good affecting him, because he uses his intellect to read the Word, and the intellect takes in from the Word only what is proper to it, namely, truths.
The intellect does have a sense that the Lord joins good to these truths, from the delight that flows in when it is in a state of enlightenment, but this takes place inwardly only in the case of people who read the Word for the purpose of gaining wisdom, and those have this purpose who are trying to learn genuine truths from it and thereby form the church in themselves.
In contrast, people who read the Word only for the glory in being learned, and people who suppose that simply the reading or hearing of the Word inspires faith and leads to salvation – such people do not receive any good from the Lord. That is because the goal of the second sort of people is to save themselves by just the mere sayings in the Word, apart from the presence of any truth in them; and the goal of the first sort of people is to become renowned for their learning, a goal which does not have any spiritual good attached to it but only natural delight arising from the glory of the world.
Since the Word is the means of conjunction, it is therefore called a covenant – the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. A covenant symbolizes conjunction.
It exists in people who go to Him, because the Lord’s church in the Christian world is founded on the Word, and the Word is from Him and from Him in such a way that it is Him. The Word contains Divine truth united to Divine good, and this also is the Lord. This is precisely what is meant by the Word which was with God and which was God, from which men have life and light, and which became flesh (John 1:1-14).
Moreover, the church exists in people who go to the Lord for the further reason that it exists in those who believe in Him. And no one can believe that He is God the Savior and Redeemer, Jehovah who is Righteousness,* the door by which one must enter the sheepfold (that is to say, the church),** the way, the truth and the life, that no one comes to the Father except through Him,*** that the Father and He are one,**** besides many other things that the Lord Himself teaches – no one, I say, can believe these things unless he gets his belief from the Lord. No one can believe these things without going to the Lord, because He is God of heaven and earth, as He Himself also teaches.***** Who else should one go to? Who else can one go to?
The church exists in people who live according to the Lord’s commandments, because they alone have conjunction with Him. For the Lord says:
He who has My commandments and obeys them, it is he who loves Me….and I will love him….and (I will) make an abode with him. (But) he who does not love Me does not keep My (commandments)…. (John 14:21-24)
Love is what conjoins, and conjunction with the Lord is the church.
* See Jeremiah 23:5,6, 33:15,16, 1 Corinthians 1:30.
** John 10:1,7,9.
*** John 14:6.
**** John 10:30, 17:11,22, cf. 8:19, 12:45, 14:7-9.
***** Matthew 28:18.
People are capable of knowledge, intelligence and wisdom. Knowledge has to do with concepts, intelligence with reason, and wisdom with life.
Regarded in its fullness, wisdom has to do with concepts, reason and life at the same time. Concepts come first; reason is formed by means of them, and wisdom by both concepts and reason together – and this when a person lives reasonably or rationally according to truths formed as concepts.
Wisdom, therefore, has to do with both reason and life together. It is on the way to becoming wisdom when it is a matter of reason first and consequently of life; but it is wisdom when it has become a matter of life first and consequently of reason.
The most ancient people in this world did not acknowledge any other wisdom than wisdom of life. This was the wisdom of those who were formerly called sages. The ancients, however, who came after those most ancient people, recognized as wisdom a wisdom of reason, and they were called philosophers. But today, many even call knowledge wisdom, for the educated, the learned, and the merely knowledgeable are called wise. Thus has wisdom fallen from its peak to its valley.
[2] Nevertheless, something must also be said respecting what wisdom is in its rise, progress, and then full state.
Concerns that have to do with the church and are called spiritual have their seat in the inmost recesses in a person. Concerns that have to do with the civil state and are called political occupy a position below them. And concerns that have to do with knowledge, experience and skill and are called natural – these form their footstool.
Concerns that have to do with the church and are called spiritual have their seat in the inmost recesses in a person, because they are connected with heaven and through heaven with the Lord. For it is just these concerns that enter a person from the Lord through heaven.
Concerns that have to do with the civil state and are called political occupy a position below spiritual matters, because they are connected with the world, since they have to do with the world. For they are the statutes, laws and regulations by which men are bound, in order that they may be formed into a stable and united society and state.
Concerns that have to do with knowledge, experience and skill and are called natural – these form the footstool, because they are closely connected with the five senses of the body, and the senses are the lowest elements, on which rest, so to speak, the interior elements that have to do with the mind and the inmost elements that have to do with the soul.
[3] Now because concerns that have to do with the church and are called spiritual have their seat in the inmost regions, and whatever has its seat in the inmost regions forms the head, and because the concerns that follow next below them, which are called political, form the body, and the lowest concerns which are called natural form the feet, it follows that when these three come one after the other in their proper order, a person is a proper human being. For one level then flows down into the next, in a manner similar to the way activities of the head flow down into the body and through the body to the feet. So do spiritual concerns flow down into political concerns, and through political concerns into natural ones.
Furthermore, because spiritual concerns reside in the light of heaven, it is apparent that they illumine with their light the concerns that follow in order, and animate them with their warmth (which is love), and that when this happens, a person has wisdom.
[4] Since wisdom is, as we said above, a matter of life first and consequently of reason, the question arises, what wisdom of life is. In brief summary, it is this: to refrain from evils because they are harmful to the soul, harmful to the civil state, and harmful to the body, and to do good things because they are of benefit to the soul, to the civil state, and to the body.
This is the wisdom that is meant by the wisdom to which conjugial love attaches itself. For it attaches itself through wisdom’s shunning the evil of adultery as a pestilence injurious to the soul, to the civil state, and to the body. And because this wisdom springs from spiritual concerns which have to do with the church, it follows that conjugial love depends on the state of the church in a person, because it depends on the state of his wisdom. This also means, as we have frequently said before, that a person is in a state of truly conjugial love to the degree that he becomes spiritual. For a person becomes spiritual through the spiritual things of the church.
More on the wisdom to which conjugial love joins itself may be seen below in nos. 163, 164, and 165.
– – – – – – – – – – –
I was once speaking with two angels. One was from an eastern heaven, the other from a heaven in the south. When they perceived that I was pondering secrets of wisdom relating to conjugial love, they said, “Do you know about schools of wisdom in our world?”
I replied that I did not yet.
They said, “There are many.” And they described how people who love truths with a spiritual affection, or who love them because they are true and because wisdom is gained by means of them, at a specified signal come together to discuss and draw conclusions on matters requiring a deeper understanding.
Then they took me by the hand, saying, “Follow us and you will see and hear for yourself. The signal has been given for a meeting today.”
I was taken through a flat stretch of country to a hill, and behold, at the foot of the hill was an avenue of palm trees that extended all the way up to the top. We entered the avenue and ascended. At the top or apex of the hill we then saw a grove whose trees grew round about on a rise of ground and formed a kind of theater, with a level area in the middle covered with variously colored stones. Chairs had been placed around this space in the shape of a square, where the lovers of wisdom were already seated. Moreover, in the center of the theater stood a table, on which a piece of paper had been placed, sealed with a seal.
[2] The people sitting on the chairs invited us to seats that were still empty. But I replied, “I was brought here by the two angels to observe and listen, not to participate.”
The two angels then went to the table in the middle of the level area; and undoing the seal on the piece of paper, they stood before the people seated and read them the secrets of wisdom written on the paper, which the people were now to discuss and explain. (The topics had been written by angels of the third heaven and sent down to their place on the table.)
There were three secrets to be explained. First, what the image of God is and the likeness of God into which man was created. Secondly, why man does not come by birth into the knowledge necessary to any love, whereas both higher and lower animals and birds come by birth into the kinds of knowledge necessary to all their loves. Thirdly, what the tree of life symbolizes and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and what eating from them means.
Underneath, the added instruction had been written, “Combine the three explanations into a single statement and write it on a new piece of paper, then place it back on the table and we will look at it. If the statement seems balanced and accurate, each of you will be given an award for wisdom.”
After they read this, the two angels withdrew and were taken up into their respective heavens.
[3] Then the people sitting on the chairs began to discuss and explain the secrets of the questions put before them, speaking in turn, beginning with those who sat towards the north, then those towards the west, afterwards those towards the south, and finally those towards the east. They started by taking up the first topic for discussion, namely, what the image of God is and the likeness of God into which man was created. First of all, they had the following verses read aloud from the book of creation for everyone to hear:
…God said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness….” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him. (Genesis 1:26,27)
In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. (Genesis 5:1)
The people who were sitting towards the north spoke first, saying that the image of God and the likeness of God are two kinds of life breathed into man by God, these being the life of the will and the life of the understanding. For we read, they said, the following statement:
…Jehovah God…breathed into (Adam’s) nostrils the breath of lives; and man became a living creature. (Genesis 2:7)
“Into the nostrils,” they said, “means into a perception that a will of good and an understanding of truth were in him, and thus that he had ‘the breath of lives.’ And because life was breathed into him by God, the image and likeness of God symbolize integrity resulting from wisdom and love and from righteousness and judgment in him.”
Those who were sitting towards the west expressed agreement with this view, only adding that that state of integrity inspired by God into the first man is continually being breathed into every person after him, but that it exists in a person as though in a recipient vessel, and a person is therefore an image and likeness of God to the extent that he is such a recipient vessel.
[4] Next, the people third in order, who were those who were sitting towards the south, said, “The image of God and the likeness of God are two distinct things, but they were united in man at his creation. Moreover, from a kind of inner light we see that the image of God can be destroyed by a person, but not the likeness of God. This appears by inference from the suggestion that Adam retained the likeness of God after he had lost the image of God, for we read, after the curse, this statement:
‘Behold, the man is like one of us, knowing good and evil.’ (Genesis 3:22)
And later he is called a likeness of God, and not an image of God (Genesis 5:1).
“But let us leave it for our colleagues who are sitting towards the east and who are therefore in a higher light to say precisely what the image of God is, and what the likeness of God is.”
[5] So then, after waiting for silence, the people sitting towards the east rose from their chairs and looked up to the Lord. And when they had taken their seats again, they said that the image of God is the capacity to receive God, and because God is love itself and wisdom itself, the image of God in a person is the capacity to receive love and wisdom from God.
On the other hand, the likeness of God, they said, is the perfect semblance and complete appearance that love and wisdom are in a person, and this entirely as though they belonged to him. “For a person has no other sensation than that he feels love on his own and becomes wise on his own, or that he wills good and understands truth by himself, even though not the least bit of it originates from him but from God. God alone loves from within Himself and is wise from within Himself, because God alone is love itself and wisdom itself.
“Love and wisdom, or good and truth, seem to be in a person as though they belonged to him, because this semblance or appearance makes him a human being and causes him to be capable of being conjoined with God and so of living to eternity. It follows from this that a person is a human being as a result of his ability to will good and understand truth entirely as though on his own, and yet to know and believe that he does so from God. For God sets His image in a person to the extent that he knows and believes this. It would be different if he were to believe that he had that ability from himself and not from God.”
[6] As the speakers said this, a zeal came over them from their love of truth, prompting them to continue.
“How,” they went on, “can a person receive any measure of love and wisdom so as to be able to retain it and reproduce it, unless he feels it as belonging to him? And how can there be any conjunction with God by means of love and wisdom unless man has been given some way of reciprocating necessary for conjunction? For no conjunction is possible without reciprocation. The reciprocation required for conjunction is a person’s loving God and being wise in matters relating to God as though on his own, and yet believing that it is from God. Furthermore, unless a person has been conjoined to the eternal God, how is it possible for him to live to eternity? Consequently, how can a person be a human being without having that likeness of God in him?”
[7] On hearing this explanation, the rest all expressed their agreement, and they proposed that a conclusion be drawn on the basis of it, formulated in the following statement:
“Man is a vessel recipient of God,” they said, “and a vessel recipient of God is an image of God. Since God is love itself and wisdom itself, man is a vessel recipient of these. And as a recipient vessel, a person becomes an image of God to the extent that he receives.
“Moreover, man is a likeness of God because of his sensing in himself that the things he has from God are in him as though they belonged to him. But still, a person is an image of God as a result of that likeness only in the measure that he acknowledges that the love and wisdom or good and truth in him are not his and so do not originate from him, but are God’s alone and so originate from God.”
First they confirmed the truth of the proposed question by various considerations. With respect to man, for example, they observed that the human being does not come by birth into any knowledge, not even into knowledge relating to conjugial love.
They inquired as well and learned from investigators that an infant does not even possess the instinctive knowledge to be able to go to its mother’s breast, but it must be placed in contact with it by the mother or nurse. It only knows how to suckle, and it got this from a continual sucking in the womb. The infant afterwards also does not know how to walk, the investigators said, nor how to articulate sound to form a single human word. Indeed, it does not even know how to voice the affection of its love as animals do. Moreover, it does not know any source of food that is good for it, either, as all animals do, but clutches at whatever it comes upon, whether it is clean or unclean, and puts it into its mouth.
Without being taught, the investigators said, the human being does not even know enough to distinguish the opposite sex, and nothing at all about how to make love to one. Even young men and women do not know how to make love without learning about it from others, even if they have been educated in the various arts and sciences.
In a word, the human being is born flesh, like a worm, and remains flesh unless he learns to acquire knowledge, intelligence and wisdom from others.
[2] Next, with respect to animals, such as beasts of the earth, birds of the sky, creeping things, fish, and little creatures called insects, the people confirmed that both higher and lower animals come by birth into all the kinds of knowledge necessary to their life’s loves. They come, for example, into knowledge of all things having to do with their proper diet, with their place of habitation, with their mating and reproduction, and with the rearing of their young.
The people confirmed these observations with marvelous illustrations that they recalled to memory from things they had seen, heard or read about in the natural world (as they termed our world in which they had formerly lived), where animals are not representational but real.
After they had thus verified the truth of the proposed question, the people turned their attention to investigating and finding the ends and causes by which to explain and uncover the answer to this mystery. And they all said that this state of affairs must result from Divine wisdom, that a human being may be a human being, and an animal an animal; and that therefore man’s imperfection from birth becomes his perfection, while an animal’s perfection from birth is its imperfection.
They illustrated this by the following comparison. “When a person is first born,” they said, “he is like ground in which no seeds have been planted, but which is yet capable of accepting all kinds of seeds and germinating them and bringing them to fruit. An animal, on the other hand, is like ground already sown and filled with grasses and plants, which does not accept any other seeds than the ones it has. If others should be sown, it would suffocate them.
“That is why it takes a number of years for a human being to grow to maturity, years in which he can be like ground undergoing cultivation, and sprouting, so to speak, all kinds of grain, flowers and trees. An animal develops in only a few years, however, during which time it can be cultivated only into producing what it was born with.”
[2] The people on the west side spoke next, and they said that man is not born with knowledge, as animals are, but is born with a capacity and inclination – a capacity for learning and an inclination to love. Moreover, they said, he is born with a capacity not only for learning, but also for understanding and becoming wise. So, too, he is born with a most perfect inclination, not only to love things having to do with self and the world, but also things having to do with God and heaven.
Consequently, they said, a person by birth and heredity is an organism which lives only on the level of the external senses, and not at first on the level of any higher sense, in order that he may develop by stages into a human being, becoming first natural, then rational, and finally spiritual. This would not happen if he came by birth into various kinds of knowledge and loves as animals do. “For inborn patterns of knowledge and affection limit that progression,” they said, “whereas an inborn capacity and inclination do not. A person can therefore be perfected in knowledge, understanding and wisdom to eternity.”
[3] The people on the south side took up the discussion and added their voice, saying that it is impossible for a person to acquire any knowledge on his own, but he must get it from others, since no knowledge is inborn in him.
“Moreover, because he cannot acquire any knowledge on his own,” they said, “neither can he acquire any love, since there is no love where there is no knowledge. Knowledge and love are inseparable companions, and they cannot be divided any more than will and understanding or affection and thought – indeed, any more than essence and form. As a person acquires knowledge from others, therefore, so love attaches itself as its companion. The universal love that attaches itself is a love of learning, understanding, and becoming wise. Only man has this love and no animal, and it flows in from God.
[4] “We agree with our companions on the west that man does not come by birth into any love and so neither into any knowledge, but that he comes by birth solely into an inclination to love and so into a capacity for acquiring knowledge, not on his own but from others, or rather, through others. We say, through others, because they, too, did not acquire any knowledge on their own but from God.
“We agree also with our companions to the north that when a person is first born, he is like ground in which no seeds have been planted, but in which all kinds of seeds can be planted, both good and bad. To this we add that animals come by birth into natural loves and therefore into forms of knowledge corresponding to those loves, and yet they do not learn anything from their kinds of knowledge or develop thought, intelligence and wisdom on the basis of them. Instead they are carried along in them by their loves, almost like blind men being led through the streets by dogs. For in terms of their understanding, they are blind. Or better still, they are like sleepwalkers, who do what they do out of blind knowledge while the understanding sleeps.”
[5] Lastly the people on the east side spoke, saying, “We concur with what our brothers have said. A person of himself knows nothing but must learn from others and through others, in order that he may know and acknowledge that all his knowledge, understanding and wisdom are from God.
“Only in this way,” they said, “can a person be conceived, born and brought forth by the Lord so as to become an image and likeness of Him. For a person becomes an image of the Lord by his acknowledging and believing that he has acquired and continues to acquire every good of love and charity and every truth of wisdom and faith from the Lord, and not the least bit from himself. And he becomes a likeness of the Lord by his feeling these things in himself as though they originated with him. He has this feeling because he does not come by birth into various kinds of knowledge, but acquires them, and what he acquires appears to him as though it originated with him.
“A person is also given to feel this way by the Lord, in order that he may be a human being and not an animal, because his willing, thinking, loving, learning, understanding and becoming wise seemingly on his own is what leads him to acquire various kinds of knowledge, to develop them into intelligence, and by applying them turn them into wisdom. In this way the Lord joins the person to Himself, and the person joins himself to the Lord. This would not have been possible if the Lord had not provided that man be born in a state of total ignorance.”
[6] After these remarks, the people were all ready to reach a conclusion from the matters discussed, and they formed the following statement:
“Man does not come by birth into any knowledge,” they said, “in order that he may come into every kind of knowledge and so progress into a state of intelligence and through this into wisdom. So, too, he does not come by birth into any love, in order that by applying various kinds of knowledge with intelligence he may come into every kind of love, and through love for the neighbor come into love towards the Lord; and this to the end that he may be thus conjoined with the Lord and by that conjunction become human and live to eternity.”
The people on the east, then, replied, “We will speak. But because no one acquires anything from himself but from the Lord, we will speak from Him, though it will still seem to come from us as though it originated with us.”
Then they said, “A tree symbolizes a person; and its fruit, goodness of life. The tree of life therefore symbolizes a person living from God, or God living in the person. And because love and wisdom and charity and faith or good and truth constitute the life of God in a person, the tree of life symbolizes these qualities, from which a person has eternal life. The tree of life which people will be given to eat from, in the book of Revelation, has a similar symbolism (Revelation 2:7, 22:2,14).
[2] “The tree of the knowledge of good and evil symbolizes a person believing that he lives on his own and not from God, thus that the love and wisdom, charity and faith, or good and truth in the person are his and not God’s – believing this because he thinks and wills, and speaks and acts, in all likeness and appearance as if on his own. Because a person with this belief comes into the persuasion that God has introduced Himself or infused His Divinity into him, therefore the serpent said:
…God knows that in the day you eat (of the fruit of the tree) your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. (Genesis 3:5)
[3] “Eating from the two trees symbolizes acquisition and assimilation. Eating from the tree of life symbolizes acquisition of eternal life, and eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil symbolizes acquisition of damnation. Therefore Adam and his wife were both cursed along with the serpent. The serpent means the devil in respect to self-love and pride in its own intelligence. This love takes possession of the tree, and people who are caught up in pride as a result of that love are the trees it possesses.
“People fall into an enormous error, therefore, who believe that Adam was wise and did good from his own nature, and that this was his state of integrity, when Adam himself was cursed for precisely that belief. For this is what is symbolized by his eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That was why he then fell from his state of integrity, which he had had as a result of his believing that he was wise and did good from God and not from himself, for that is what is meant by his eating from the tree of life.
“The Lord alone, when He was in the world, was wise of Himself and did good of Himself, because the Divine itself was in Him and was His from birth. Consequently He also became Redeemer and Savior by His own power.”
[4] On the basis of these remarks and explanations, the people formed the following conclusion:
“The tree of life, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and eating from them,” they said, “symbolize that the source of life for man is to have God in him, and that he then gains heaven and eternal life. On the other hand, the source of death for man is the persuasion and belief that the source of life for man is not God but himself, on which account he gains hell and eternal death, which is damnation.”
“Man was created to receive love and wisdom from God, and yet to receive them to all appearances as though they originated from himself, in order that he might be capable of reception and conjunction. Man therefore does not come by birth into any love or into any knowledge, neither does he come into any power to love and become wise from himself. Consequently, if he attributes every good of love and every truth of wisdom to God, he becomes a man with life in him. But if he attributes them to himself, he becomes a man without life.”
The people then wrote this statement on a new piece of paper and placed it on the table. And behold, suddenly angels appeared in a bright white light and took the paper away into heaven.
After their statement had been read in heaven, the people sitting on the chairs heard voices from heaven saying, “Good, good, good.” And instantly they caught sight of an angel apparently flying from that direction, with a pair of wings about his feet and another pair about his temples, carrying their awards in his hand. The awards were robes, caps, and laurel wreaths.
The angel descended, and to the people who were sitting towards the north he gave opal-colored robes. To those sitting towards the west he gave scarlet-colored robes. To those sitting towards the south he gave caps, the borders of which were decorated with strips of gold and pearls, with elevations on the left side adorned with diamonds cut in the form of flowers. And to those sitting towards the east he gave laurel wreaths set with rubies and sapphires.
The people left the school of wisdom and headed home all decked out in these awards, but though they meant to show themselves off to their wives, their wives came to meet them also arrayed in beautiful gifts from heaven, which the men marveled at.
While I was once thinking about conjugial love, I suddenly caught sight of two naked little children in the distance, with baskets in their hands and turtledoves flying around them. Then, as they came closer, they looked like naked little children modestly decked out in garlands of flowers. Their heads were decorated with little chaplets of flowers, and their breasts were adorned with sash-like wreathes of blue-colored lilies and roses that hung diagonally from their shoulders to their hips. And round about the two of them appeared what looked like a shared chain of little leaves woven together and interspersed with olives.
When they drew nearer still, however, they did not appear as little children or naked, but as two adults in the bloom of their early youth, dressed in robes and tunics of shining silk, with beautiful-looking flowers woven into them. Moreover, when they stood next to me, a springlike warmth wafted down from heaven through them with a sweet-scented fragrance, like the fragrance of first growth in gardens and fields.
The two were a married couple from heaven, and they then spoke to me. And because I was still thinking about the things I had just seen, they asked, “What did you see?”
[2] So I told them how they had first appeared to me as naked little children, then as little children decked out in garlands, and finally as people more grown up, dressed in garments decorated with flowers. I also told them how an atmosphere of spring had then instantly wafted over me with its delights.
They laughed pleasantly at this and said that on the way they had not appeared to themselves as little children or naked or wearing garlands, but the whole time had looked the same as they did now. Their appearing as they had at a distance, they said, represented their conjugial love, its state of innocence being represented by their appearing as naked little children, its delights by the garlands, and these same delights now by the flowers woven into their robes and tunics.
“And,” they continued, “because you said that as we approached, a springlike warmth wafted over you with its pleasant aromas, like those from a garden, we will tell you why this was.
[3] “We have been married for centuries now,” they said, “and we have remained continually in this bloom of youth in which you see us.
“At first our state was similar to the initial state of a maiden and youth when they first come together in marriage. Moreover, we believed at the time that that state was the most blissful state we could experience in life. But we were told by others in our heaven, and we afterwards perceived for ourselves, that it was a state of heat not yet tempered with light. We found that it is gradually tempered as the husband is perfected in wisdom and as the wife grows to love that wisdom in her husband, which is achieved through and according to the useful services which each of them performs in society with the other’s help. We also found that new delights then follow as heat and light or wisdom and its accompanying love are tempered each with the other.
[4] “A seemingly springlike warmth wafted over you when we approached because in our heaven conjugial love and that warmth go hand in hand. For with us, warmth is love, and light with warmth joined to it is wisdom, and useful service is like an atmosphere which holds both in its embrace. What are heat and light without their containing medium? So likewise, what are love and wisdom without their expression in useful service? Without expression in useful service, there is no bond of marriage between the two, because the objective reality in which they exist is lacking.
“In heaven, one finds truly conjugial love wherever there is a springlike warmth. One finds truly conjugial love there because a springlike climate occurs only where warmth is joined to light in an even balance, or where there is as much warmth as there is light and vice versa. And we like to think that as warmth works its pleasure when accompanied by light and conversely light when accompanied by warmth, so love works its pleasure when accompanied by wisdom and conversely wisdom when accompanied by love.”
[5] With us in heaven, the man said further, the light is constant, and we never experience the dusk of evening, still less darkness, because our sun does not rise and set like your sun but stands continually midway between a point overhead and the horizon, or as you would say, at an elevation of 45 degrees.
“That is why,” he said, “the heat and light emanating from our sun result in perpetual spring, and this inspires a perpetual springlike state in those in whom love is united in even measure with wisdom.
“Through the eternal union of heat and light, moreover, our Lord inspires nothing that is not productive and useful. That, too, is why the sproutings of plants on your earth and the matings of your birds and animals take place in springtime. For the warmth of spring opens up their inner capabilities even to the inmost forces which are called their souls, stirring them, and imparting to them its own inclination to unite, and causing their reproductive instinct to come into its delight from a continual effort to produce fruits of use, which is the propagation of their kind.
[6] “In the case of human beings, however, there is a never-ending influx of springlike warmth from the Lord. Consequently they can experience the delights of marriage in any season, even in the middle of winter. For men were created to be receivers of light from the Lord, meaning the light of wisdom, and women were created to be receivers of warmth from the Lord, meaning the warmth of love for the wisdom in a man.
“That now is why as we approached a springlike warmth wafted over you with a sweet-scented fragrance, like the fragrance of first growth in gardens and fields.”
[7] Having said this, the man gave me his right hand and took me to houses where married couples lived in the same flower of youth in which they were. And he told me that the wives, who now looked like young girls, had once been wrinkled old ladies in the world, and that the husbands, who now looked like adolescent youths, had once been decrepit old men there. They have all been returned by the Lord to the bloom of this youthful age, he said, because they loved each other and out of religion abstained from adulterous affairs as enormous sins.
He added as well that only those people know the blissful delights of conjugial love who reject the horrible delights of adultery. And no one can reject these except one who is wise from the Lord, and no one is wise from the Lord unless he performs useful services from a love of doing them.
I also caught sight then of the implements in their houses. These were all in heavenly forms, and they shone of gold that was practically ablaze with intermingled rubies.
[We take up chastity and its absence here,] since I am still on the way to dealing with conjugial love in particular, and because conjugial love in particular can be known only indistinctly and thus dimly unless its opposite is also seen to some degree. Its opposite is unchasteness, and this is seen to some degree, or some shadow of it, when chastity is described along with its absence. For chastity is simply the removal of unchasteness from that which is chaste. Unchasteness, on the other hand, which is the complete opposite of chastity, is discussed in the second part of this work, where it will be described in its full scope and in its varieties under the title, PLEASURES OF INSANITY RELATING TO LICENTIOUS LOVE.
Meanwhile, what chastity is and its absence, and who they apply to, will be made clear according to the following outline:
(1) Chastity and a lack of chastity are terms that apply only to states of marriage and things that have to do with marriage.
(2) Chastity is ascribed only to monogamous marriages, or to marriages of one man with one wife.
(3) Only a Christian conjugial relationship is chaste.
(4) Truly conjugial love is the essence of chastity.
(5) All the delights of truly conjugial love, even the end delights, are chaste.
(6) Conjugial love is more and more purified and becomes chaste in people who become spiritual from the Lord.
(7) Chastity in marriage comes about through total renunciation of licentious relationships in accordance with religion.
(8) Chastity cannot be ascribed to little children or boys and girls, nor to adolescents of either sex before they feel a love for the opposite sex stirring in them.
(9) Chastity cannot be ascribed to people who are born eunuchs or who have been made eunuchs.
(10) Chastity cannot be ascribed to people who do not believe that adultery is an evil against religion, and still less to those who do not believe that adultery is harmful to society.
(11) Chastity cannot be ascribed to people who abstain from adulterous relationships only for various external reasons.
(12) Chastity cannot be ascribed to people who believe that marriages are unchaste.
(13) Chastity cannot be ascribed to people who have renounced marriage by a vow of perpetual celibacy, unless a love for the truly conjugial life is present and remains in them.
(14) The state of marriage is preferable to a state of celibacy.
Explanation of these statements now follows.
It is apparent from this that what we mean by chastity is the purity of conjugial love.
There is also conjugial love in which chastity is absent, which is nevertheless not unchaste – such as exists between partners who for various external reasons abstain from outward expressions of lasciviousness even to the point that they do not think about them. Nevertheless, if that love is not purified in their spirits, it is still not chaste. It has an outward form that is chaste, but its inward essence is not chaste.
The truth of this is quite evident from people who are unchaste. The unchasteness inherent in their minds is heard in the sound of their speech and in the appeal to libidinous thoughts in everything they say, even when chastely put. The sound of their speech comes from the affection of their will, and their speech comes from the thought of their intellect. It is a sign that the will with all its qualities and the understanding with all its qualities, in other words, the whole mind, and therefore all the elements of the body – from the inmost elements to the outmost – are overflowing with unchaste desires.
I have been told by angels that the unchasteness in most accomplished hypocrites is perceived on hearing them, however chastely they may speak, and is also felt from the atmosphere exuding from them. This, too, is a sign that unchasteness resides in the inmost elements of their minds and therefore in the inmost elements of their bodies, and that these things are covered over outwardly, like a nutshell painted with various kinds of colors.
That an aura of lasciviousness exudes from unchaste people is apparent from the statutes among the children of Israel declaring that each and every thing which people defiled by unclean things simply touched with their hands was rendered unclean.
One may conclude from this that it is the same with chaste people, namely, that each and every thing in them is chaste, from the inmost elements to the outmost. Also that the chastity of conjugial love is responsible for this.
That is why it is said in the world that to the clean all things are clean, and to the unclean all things are unclean.*
* From Titus 1:15.
This cannot happen in the case of polygamists, since they divide conjugial love, and when this love is a divided one it is not much different from promiscuous love, which in itself is a natural love. But on this subject, some important points will be seen in the chapter on polygamy.*
* See nos. 332ff.
It follows from this that a chaste conjugial relationship does not exist except in the Christian world, and if it does not exist, that still it is possible. By a Christian conjugial relationship we mean a marriage of one man with one wife. We will see in its own place* that this conjugial state can become implanted in Christians, and that it can be passed on hereditarily to offspring by parents who are in a state of truly conjugial love. We will see also that from it is born at the same time both a capacity and an inclination to become wise in things that have to do with the church and heaven.
If Christians marry more than one wife, they commit not only natural adultery but spiritual adultery as well, as we will show in the chapter on polygamy.**
* See nos. 202ff.
** See nos. 332ff.
1. Conjugial love is from the Lord, and it corresponds to the marriage of the Lord and the church.
2. It descends from the marriage between good and truth.
3. It is spiritual, as the church in a person is spiritual.
4. It is the fundamental love and the head of all celestial and spiritual loves.
5. It is truly the seedbed of the human race and consequently of the angelic heaven.
6. It exists, therefore, also among angels of heaven, and from it are born with them spiritual offspring, which are love and wisdom.
7. The use it serves is thus more excellent than the other uses in creation.
It follows from these considerations that, regarded from its origin and in its essence, truly conjugial love is pure and sacred – so pure and sacred that it may be called the essence of purity and sacredness, consequently of chastity. But still, it is not entirely pure in people, not even in angels, as may be seen in no. 146, which follows here under point (6) below.
I have indicated earlier how the delights of this love ascend and enter heaven, and on the way permeate the joys of heavenly loves experienced by angels of heaven. I have also recounted how these delights ally themselves with the delights of conjugial love in angels. Moreover, I have heard from angels that they perceive these delights to be heightened in them and to become fuller as they ascend from chaste married partners on earth. And in response to some bystanders, who were unchaste – in reply to their question whether they also experienced the end delights – the angels nodded and quietly said, “What else? Are they not delights of conjugial love in their fullest expression?”
(Regarding the source of the delights of this love and what they are like, see no. 69 above and what is said in the narrative accounts, especially in those that follow.)
1. The first love – meaning the love before the wedding and just after the wedding – draws some of its character from a love for the opposite sex, thus from a heat belonging to the body not yet tempered by a love of the spirit.
[2] 2. A person from being natural only gradually becomes spiritual. For a person becomes spiritual as his rationality – which stands in between heaven and the world – begins to draw its life or soul from what flows in from heaven. This occurs as he becomes affected by and is delighted with wisdom (the wisdom spoken of above in no. 130). To the degree that this happens, to the same degree his mind is raised into a higher atmosphere, which is the containing medium of heavenly light and heat, or, to say the same thing, of the wisdom and love which angels possess. For the light of heaven is united with wisdom, and the warmth of heaven with love. And as wisdom and its accompanying love increase in married partners, so conjugial love is purified in them. Because this occurs gradually, it follows that this love becomes more and more chaste.
This spiritual purification can be likened to the purification of natural spirits which chemists perform, whose processes are called clarification, distillation, rectification, cohabitation or redistillation, concentration, decantation, sublimation. And wisdom when purified may be likened to alcohol, which is a highly distilled spirit.
[3] 3. Spiritual wisdom in itself is such that it grows warmer and warmer with the love of becoming wise, and because of this, it increases to eternity. This takes place as it is perfected as though by processes of clarification, distillation, rectification, concentration, decantation, and sublimation – processes which are accomplished by purifications and separations of the intellect from the misconceptions of the senses, and of the will from the temptations of the body. Now, because of this, it is apparent that conjugial love, being the offspring of wisdom, likewise becomes gradually more and more pure, thus more and more chaste.
For testimony that the first state of love between married partners is a state of heat not yet tempered with light, but that it is gradually tempered as the husband is perfected in wisdom and as the wife grows to love that wisdom in her husband, see what was said in the narrative account in no. 137.
As seen above in no. 71, no love in people or angels is entirely pure, nor can it become so. But the Lord regards primarily the objective, purpose or intention of the will, and therefore to the extent that a person has the objective, purpose or intention and perseveres in them, to that extent he is introduced into purity and progressively draws nearer to it.
The fact that conjugial love is purified and refined according to one’s renunciation of licentious relationships – this everyone sees from common perception if he only hears it said, thus without prior arguments. But because all people do not have common perception, it is useful that it be clarified by arguments too.
The arguments are as follows: Conjugial love cools as soon as it becomes divided, and the growing coldness causes it to die, it being the heat of unchaste love that kills it. For two opposing feelings of warmth cannot exist together at the same time without the one casting out the other and depriving it of its vitality. When the warmth of conjugial love displaces and casts out the heat of licentious love, therefore, conjugial love begins to grow pleasantly warm and, from a sensation of its delights, to bud and blossom, like an orchard or rose garden in springtime. The difference is that an orchard or rose garden does so in response to the vernal warmth of light and heat from the sun of the natural world, while conjugial love does so in response to the vernal warmth of light and heat from the sun of the spiritual world.
But, on the other hand, if the person becomes spiritual, then he begins to know something about it, afterwards to perceive something of its character, and gradually to feel its pleasant, agreeable and delightful sensations. And according as this happens, so the aforementioned covering between the external and internal inclinations begins to grow thinner, then to melt, so to speak, and finally to dissolve and disappear. When this has come to pass, the external inclination to be married indeed remains, but it is continually chastened and cleansed of its impurities by the internal inclination, and this even until the external inclination becomes, as it were, the visible expression of the internal one – drawing its pleasure, and at the same time its life and the delights of its vitality, from the bliss that exists in the internal one.
That is what the renunciation of licentious relationships means, through which chastity in marriage comes about.
[2] One may believe that the external inclination to be married that is left after the internal inclination has separated itself from it, or it from itself, is no different from an external inclination that has not been separated. But I have heard from angels that the two are completely unlike each other. They have said, for example, that the external inclination resulting from the internal one – which they called the external of the internal – is free of all lasciviousness, because the internal inclination is incapable of lascivious pleasures but can feel delights only in a chaste manner, and it induces a similar character on its external expression, in which it experiences its delights.
The external inclination separated from the internal one is altogether different. The angels said this was lascivious in general and in every part.
An external inclination to be married resulting from an internal one – this they likened to choice fruit, whose pleasant flavor and fragrance 3permeate its skin and turn it into a form corresponding to them. They also likened it to a granary, whose store of grain is never diminished, but whatever is taken from it is constantly replaced again.
On the other hand, an external inclination separated from an internal one – this they likened to wheat in a winnow, saying that if it is thrown about, only chaff remains, which a breeze in the air scatters. This is what happens with conjugial love if the licentious element is not renounced.
As seen above in no. 130, conjugial love depends on the state of the church in a person. More on this subject may be seen in the exposition of point (11) which follows below.
Adolescents of both sexes are commonly called chaste before they feel a love for the opposite sex stirring in them, but this is owing to people’s ignorance of what chastity is.
The case with people who have been made eunuchs is almost the same, as with some who are born eunuchs; only that having become eunuchs, and being such, whether men or women, therefore they cannot help but regard conjugial love as a fantasy and its delights as fairy tales. If anything of the inclination remains in them, it becomes silent, which is neither chaste nor unchaste; and being neither, it is incapable of being classed in one category or the other.
* Cf. Matthew 19:12.
On the other hand, people who do not believe that adultery is harmful to society know even less than the first kind of people what chastity is or that it is possible. For they are purposeful adulterers. If they say that marriage is less unchaste than adultery, they say it with the lips but not with the heart, because marriages in their case are cold. And people who speak from this state of coldness about a state of chaste warmth cannot have any idea of the chaste warmth in conjugial love.
What these people are like, and the ideas of their thought, and therefore the interior ideas in their speech, will be seen in Part Two on the insanities of adulterers.
There are many reasons which cause a person to refrain from adulterous relationships physically, and also in spirit for the sake of the body. But still, a person who does not refrain from them physically as a result of the spirit is unchaste. For the Lord says:
(If anyone) looks at (another’s) woman so as to lust for her, (he) has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Matthew 5:28)
[2] We cannot list all the reasons for people’s abstaining from adulterous relationships only physically, since these reasons vary according to the states of their marriage and also according to the states of their body.
For example, there are some who abstain from adulterous relationships because they are afraid of the civil law and its penalties; because they are afraid of losing reputation and thus respect; because they are afraid of diseases resulting from such relationships; because they are afraid of being railed at by their wives at home and of having no peace in their lives on account of it; because they are afraid the husband or a relative will take revenge; or because they are afraid of being beaten by the servants.
There are also some who abstain because they are too poor, or too stingy, or because they are too feeble owing either to illness, or to their abusing themselves, or to age, or to impotence.
There are some among them as well who, because they cannot or dare not do it physically, also for that reason condemn adultery in spirit and so speak in a moral fashion against it and in favor of marriage. But if these people do not renounce adultery in spirit and of the spirit in accordance with religion, they are still adulterers, for even though they do not do it physically, still they commit it in spirit. And after death, when they become spirits, they therefore speak openly in favor of it.
It is apparent from this that even an irreligious person can abstain from adulterous relationships as harmful, but that only a Christian can abstain from them as sins.
This now establishes the truth of the argument, that chastity cannot be ascribed to people who abstain from adulterous relationships only for various external reasons.
Moreover, there is still an attraction to the opposite sex in them from creation and so from birth, and when this is restrained and suppressed, it inevitably happens that the attraction turns into a feeling of warmth and in some cases into a state of heat, which, rising from the body into the spirit, torments it and in some people corrupts it. It can happen as well that the spirit thus corrupted in turn corrupts matters of religion and casts them down from their proper internal abode, where they are held in reverence, to an external abode, where they become merely words and gestures.
Because of this, the Lord has therefore provided that celibacy of this kind occur only among people who have an external worship, which they are in because they do not go to the Lord or read the Word. In their case, eternal life is not put in peril by conditions of celibacy imposed along with a vow of chastity, as it would be in the case of people who have an internal worship.
In addition, many of these people do not enter that kind of life of their own free will, but some do so before they reach a state of freedom arising from reason, and some do so as a result of seductive influences from the world. [2] Among people who adopt that way of life in order to free their minds from the world so as to have time for Divine worship, only those are chaste in whom a love for the truly conjugial life either was present before the celibate state or came into being afterwards and then remained, because a love for the truly conjugial life is the love to which chastity applies.
For this reason, too, after death, all monastics are finally released from their vows and allowed to go free, in order that they may be led to choose either married or unmarried life according to the inner prayers and longings of their love. If they then choose to enter married life, those who have at the same time loved the spiritual things of worship are allowed to marry in heaven. But those who choose an unmarried life are sent to others like themselves, who live in the outskirts of heaven.
[3] With respect to women who devoted themselves to a life of piety, giving themselves up to Divine worship and thus withdrawing themselves from the illusions of the world and the lusts of the flesh, and who had therefore taken a vow of perpetual virginity, I have asked angels whether they are received into heaven, and whether they become first among the happy there, according to their belief. But the angels replied that they are indeed received, but when they feel the atmosphere of conjugial love there, they become unhappy and distressed. And then, the angels said, they leave or are sent away, some of them going on their own, some after asking permission, and some by being told to go. Moreover, when they are outside the heaven they had been in, a way opens before them leading to companions who had lived in a similar state of life in the world. And then they become no longer distressed but cheerful, and they rejoice with one another.
[2] On the other hand, if one takes the proposition that a state of celibacy is better than the state of marriage and turns it over to an inquisition to approve and confirm by arguments, then these arguments lead to the following conclusions: That marriage is not sacred, nor can any marriage be chaste. Indeed, that chastity in the female sex is possible only in the case of those who refrain from marrying and take a vow of perpetual virginity. And moreover, that people who take a vow of perpetual celibacy are the kind of people meant by “eunuchs who make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:12). Besides many other conclusions which, stemming from an untrue premise, are also untrue.
“Eunuchs who make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of God” mean spiritual eunuchs, and these are people who in their marriages abstain from the evils of licentious relationships. The statement plainly does not mean Italian castrati.**
* See “The Conjunction of Souls and Minds by Marriage,” nos. 156[r]ff.
** Male singers, especially in the 18th century, castrated before puberty to prevent the soprano or contralto voice range from changing.
151r. [repeated]* To this I will append two narrative accounts. This is the first:
As I was returning home from the school of wisdom spoken of above in no. 132, on the way I saw an angel dressed in blue.
He attached himself to my side and said, “I see that you have come from one of the schools of wisdom and that you were pleased by what you heard there. I perceive, too, that you are not fully in this world, because you are at the same time in the natural world. You are therefore also not acquainted with our Olympian gymnasia, where sages of old meet and learn from newcomers from your world what changes and progressions the state of wisdom has gone through and is presently undergoing. This being the case, if you wish, I will take you to a place where many of the sages of old live, together with their descendants or disciples.”
He then took me to a border region between the north and the east. And when from an elevation I looked out toward it, suddenly a city appeared, and on one side of it two hills, with the hill nearer the city being lower than the other.
And the angel said to me, “That city is called Athenaeum, the lower hill Parnassium, and the higher one Heliconeum. They are called by these names because in the city and around it live wise men of old from Greece, such as Pythagoras, Socrates, Aristippus, and Xenophon, along with their disciples and pupils.”
I then asked about Plato and Aristotle. The angel said that they and their followers lived in another region, because they taught matters of reason having to do with the intellect, while the ones here taught matters of morality having to do with life.
[2] The angel said that scholarly envoys are frequently sent out from the city of Athenaeum to educated Christians, to find out from them what people presently think about God, the creation of the universe, the immortality of the soul, the nature of man compared to the nature of animals, and other things which are matters of interior wisdom. And the angel said that today a herald had announced an assembly, a sign that the envoys had found newcomers from the earth from whom they had heard some interesting news.
We then saw many people coming out of the city and from the surrounding area, some wearing laurel wreaths on their heads, some holding palm branches in their hands, some with books under their arms, and some with pens under the hair of the left temple.
We slipped in among them and together ascended. And lo, on the hill there was an octagonal palace, which they called the Palladium, and we went in. And behold, we saw there eight hexagonal alcoves, each with a set of bookcases in it, and also a table, at which the people with the laurel wreaths sat. Moreover, in the Palladium itself we saw benches carved out of stone, on which the rest of the people took their seats. [3] And then a door opened on the left, through which two newcomers from earth were ushered in. And having first greeted them, one of those wearing the laurel wreaths asked: “What news do you have from earth?”
So the newcomers said, “The news is that some people resembling beasts, or beasts resembling people, have been found in a forest. From their facial and physical features, however, it has been reportedly learned that they were born human, and that they were lost or left in the forest when they were about two or three years old.
“According to the report,” the newcomers said, “they are unable to express any thought verbally, nor are they able to learn how to articulate sound into the form of any word. Nor did they know what food was suitable for them, as animals do, but they thrust into their mouth things they found in the forest, both things fit to be eaten and things unfit – to mention only some of many other similar discoveries. As a result of these findings, some of the learned among us have formed a number of conjectures, and others conclusions, about the nature of human beings compared to the nature of animals.”
[4] When they heard this, some of the sages of old inquired, “What conjectures and conclusions do they draw from these discoveries?”
The two newcomers then replied that there were a number of them, but that they could be reduced to the following:
1. By his own nature and also from birth, the human being is more stupid and thus worse off than any animal, and that is the way he turns out if he is not educated.
2. He can be educated because he learned how to make articulate sounds and thus to speak, and by that means began to express thoughts, and this gradually more and more, until he was able to formulate laws of society, though many of these laws are imprinted on animals from birth.
3. Animals have the same faculty of reason as human beings.
4. Therefore if animals could talk, they would reason on any subject as cleverly as human beings. It is an indication of their ability that they think in accordance with the same reason and prudence as human beings.
[5] 5. The intellect is no more than a modified form of light from the sun, aided by warmth, by means of the ether, so that it is only an activity of interior nature, and this activity can be raised to the point that it appears as wisdom.
6. It is therefore vain to believe that a person lives after death any more than an animal – unless perhaps, owing to an exhalation of the life of the body, he may possibly appear for several days after death as a vapor resembling a ghost, before it evaporates back into nature – in much the same way as a bush raised from the ashes appears in a likeness of its prior form.
7. Consequently, religion, which teaches life after death, is an invention to keep simple people in bondage from within by its laws, as they are kept in bondage from without by laws of the state.
To this the newcomers added, that that was merely how some clever people reasoned, but not the intelligent ones.
Their listeners then asked, “What is the reasoning of the intelligent ones?”
The newcomers answered that they had not heard, but it was what they supposed.
* Numbers 151-156 are used twice. To maintain the proper sequence they are all included after the first number 156. NewSearch98 thus treats them all as part of number 156. However, when referenced it should be to the specific number, such as CL 154r.
152r. [repeated]* On hearing these things, the people who were sitting at the tables all said, “Oh, what the times are like on earth now! Alas, what changes wisdom has undergone! Has wisdom become ingenious nonsense? The sun has set and now stands beneath the earth diametrically opposite its zenith!
“From the evidence of the people left and found in the forest, who cannot see that that is what a human being is like without education? Is he not as he is taught? Is he not born in a greater state of ignorance than animals? Does he not have to learn to walk and talk? If he did not learn to walk, would he stand erect upon his feet? And if he did not learn to talk, would he mutter anything he thought? Is everyone not as he is taught, irrational from being taught falsities, and wise from being taught truths? And one who is irrational from being taught falsities – is he not entirely caught up in the fantasy that he is wiser than one who is wise from being taught truths? Are there not fools and lunatics who are no more human than the people found in the forest? Are persons without memory not similar to them?
[2] “From these considerations and observations, we ourselves conclude that a person without education is not human, and not an animal either, but that he is a form of life which can receive into himself that which makes a person human. And thus we conclude that he is not born human, but becomes human; and that a person is born such a form of life in order that he may be an organism receptive of life from God, so that he may become a vessel into which God can introduce every kind of good and which by union with Himself He can bless to eternity.
“We perceive from what you have said that wisdom today has become so nonexistent or nonsensical that people know nothing at all about the nature of the life of human beings compared to the nature of the life of animals. That is why they also do not know the nature of man’s life after death. Nevertheless, those who could know it, but do not wish to know it and therefore deny it, as many of your Christians do – we can liken them to the people found in the forest. Not that they have become that stupid from a lack of education; but by relying on misconceptions of the senses, which are dark shadows of truths, they have made themselves that stupid.”
* Numbers 151-156 are used twice. To maintain the proper sequence they are all included after the first number 156. NewSearch98 thus treats them all as part of number 156. However, when referenced it should be to the specific number, such as CL 154r.
153r. [repeated]* At this point, however, someone in the middle of the Palladium stood up, holding a palm branch in his hand, and said, “Explain, please, this mystery, how a human being, created in the image of God, could be changed into the form of a devil. I know that angels of heaven are images of God and that angels of hell are images of the devil; and the two forms are opposite each other, angels of hell being forms of madness, angels of heaven forms of wisdom. Tell us, therefore, how a human being, created in the image of God, could pass from the light of day into such darkness of night that he could deny God and eternal life.”
[2] To this the masters replied in turn, first the Pythagoreans, then the Socratics, and afterwards the rest.
But there was among them a certain Platonist. He spoke last, and his opinion prevailed. He said that people of the Saturnian period or golden age knew and acknowledged that they were recipient forms of life from God, and wisdom was therefore engraved on their souls and hearts. And consequently, from the light of truth they saw truth, and through truths perceived good from the delight of a love for good.
“However,” he said, “in subsequent ages, the human race fell away from acknowledging that all truth of wisdom and consequent goodness of love in them continually flowed in from God; and as they fell away from this acknowledgment, they ceased to be dwelling places of God. Moreover, speech with God and association with angels also then ceased. For the orientation of the inner faculties of their minds, which had been directed upwards by God to God, became more and more bent in a slanting direction outward to the world, so that it was directed by God to God through the world; and finally it was turned upside down in the opposite direction, which is downwards to self. And because God cannot be regarded by a person who is inwardly upside down and thus turned away, people separated themselves from God and became forms of hell or the devil.
[3] “It follows from this that, in the first ages, people acknowledged with their heart and soul that all goodness of love and so truth of wisdom came to them from God, and also that these virtues were virtues of God in them, so that they themselves were merely recipients of life from God and for this reason were called images of God, sons of God, and born of God. But it follows then that, in succeeding ages, they no longer acknowledged this with their heart and soul, but did so owing to a certain conviction of belief, and then as a result of traditional faith, and finally with the lips alone. And to acknowledge something like this with the lips alone is not really acknowledging. Indeed, it is to deny at heart.
“Consequently it can be seen what wisdom is like today on earth among Christians – even though with their written revelation they could be inspired by God – when they do not know the difference between man and animal. And because of this, many of them believe that if a person lives after death, so will an animal. Or, because an animal does not live after death, so neither will a person. Has not our spiritual light, which enlightens the sight of the mind, become darkness in them? And their natural light, which enlightens only the sight of the body – has it not become their refulgence?”
* Numbers 151-156 are used twice. To maintain the proper sequence they are all included after the first number 156. NewSearch98 thus treats them all as part of number 156. However, when referenced it should be to the specific number, such as CL 154r.
154r. [repeated]* After this the people all turned to the two visitors and thanked them for their coming and for their account; and they begged them to report to their comrades what they had heard.
Then the visitors replied that they would convince their friends of this truth, that they are human to the extent that they attribute every good of charity and truth of faith to the Lord and not to themselves; and that in the same measure they become angels of heaven.
* Numbers 151-156 are used twice. To maintain the proper sequence they are all included after the first number 156. NewSearch98 thus treats them all as part of number 156. However, when referenced it should be to the specific number, such as CL 154r.
155r. [repeated]* The second account:
One morning I was awakened by the sound of very sweet singing from some height above me. And being therefore in the first moment of awakening, which is more internal, peaceful and gentle than any other moment of the day, I could be kept for a while in the spirit, as though outside the body, and could attend keenly to the affection which was being expressed in song. (A song in heaven is nothing but an affection of the mind which is expressed vocally as a melody, for it is the sound of one speaking without spoken words, coming from the same affection of love which gives life to speech.)
In that state I perceived that it was an affection having to do with the delights of conjugial love, which was turned into song by wives in heaven. I noticed that this was so from the sound of the singing, in which those delights were variously expressed in marvelous ways.
After this I arose and looked out into the spiritual world. And lo, in the east, beneath the sun there, I saw what seemed to be golden rain. It was morning mist, descending in such quantity that, struck by the rays of the sun, it presented to my eyes the appearance of golden rain. Being still more fully awakened on account of it, I went out in spirit, and then, meeting by chance an angel, I asked him whether he saw the golden rain coming down from the sun.
[2] Answering, he replied that he saw it whenever he was thinking about conjugial love and then turned his eyes in that direction.
He said further, “That rain falls upon a hall where there are three husbands with their wives, who live at the center of an eastern paradise. This kind of rain seems to be falling from the sun upon that hall, because abiding in those husbands and wives is wisdom concerning conjugial love and its delights – in the husbands, wisdom concerning conjugial love, and in the wives, wisdom concerning its delights.
“But since I perceive that you are thinking about the delights of conjugial love, I will take you to that hall and introduce you.”
So he led me through areas befitting a paradise to houses which were built with boards of olive wood, with two columns of cedar in front of the entrance; and having introduced me to the husbands, he asked that I be allowed, in their presence, to speak with their wives.
They then nodded and called their wives.
The wives looked searchingly into my eyes. So I asked, “What are you looking at?” They said, “We can see keenly what attraction you feel and therefore what affection you have, which is where your thought concerning love for the opposite sex comes from. And we see that although you are thinking about it intently, still you are thinking chastely.” They then said, “What do you want us to tell you about it?”
So I replied, “Please tell me something about the delights of conjugial love.”
And the husbands nodded, saying, “Reveal to them something about these delights, if you wish. Their ears are chaste.”
[3] So they asked, “Who told you that we were the ones to ask about the delights of that love? Why not our husbands?”
Then I replied, “This angel who is with me, he told me privately that wives are vessels receptive of and sensitive to those delights, because they are born forms of love, and all delights have to do with love.”
Smiling at this they answered, “Be discreet, and do not say such a thing unless it can be interpreted in more than one way, because it is a point of wisdom kept deeply hidden in the hearts of our sex, which is not revealed to any husband except to one who is in a state of truly conjugial love. There are many reasons for this, which we conceal within and keep to ourselves.”
At that the husbands then said, “Our wives know all the states of our mind, nor is anything hidden from them. They see, perceive and feel whatever comes from our will. And we in turn know nothing of this in our wives. Wives have this gift, because they have very tender loves and feelings of almost blazing zeal for the preservation of the friendship and trust in marriage and thus for the preservation of both partners’ happiness of life. This happiness they watch over for their husbands and themselves from a wisdom inherent in their love – wisdom which is so full of discretion that they will not and therefore cannot say that they are the lovers, but that they are the recipients of love.”
I then asked why wives will not and so cannot say this.
The wives replied that if the least suggestion of anything like this were to slip from their lips, their husbands would be invaded with coldness, which would separate them from their bed, bedroom, and sight.
“But this happens,” they said, “in the case of people who do not hold marriage sacred, and who therefore do not love their wives with a spiritual love. It is different with those who do. This love in their minds is spiritual, and in the body becomes natural as a result of that. We here in this hall experience the natural love as a result of a spiritual one, and consequently we confide to our husbands secrets about the delights we feel having to do with conjugial love.”
[4] At this point, I respectfully asked them to reveal something of these secrets to me as well. And immediately they looked toward the window to the south, where suddenly a white dove appeared. Its wings shone as though with silver, and its head was adorned with a crown seemingly of gold. It was standing on a branch, which had an olive growing out from it.
As they saw the dove engaged in an attempt to spread its wings, the wives said, “We will reveal something. When that dove appears, it is a sign to us that we may.”
They then said, “Every man has five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. But we have also a sixth sense, which is a sense of all the delights of conjugial love in our husbands. We have this sense in the palms of our hands, whenever we touch our husbands’ breasts, arms, hands or cheeks – especially their breasts – and also when we are touched by them. All the happy and pleasant states of the thoughts of their mind, and all the joys and delights of their heart, and the merry and cheerful feelings in their breast – these are then transmitted from them to us, taking form in us and becoming perceptible, discernible, and tangible. Moreover, we discern these things as keenly and as clearly as the ear discerns the melodies of songs, or as the tongue does the flavors of exquisite foods.
“In a word, the spiritual delights of our husbands take on a kind of natural embodiment in us. And for that reason, our husbands call us the sensory organs of chaste conjugial love and therefore of its delights. But this sense in our sex appears, continues, remains, and rises in the measure that our husbands love us for our wisdom and judgment, and in the measure that we love them in return for the same qualities in them. In heaven, this sense in our sex is called the interplay of wisdom with its love and of love with its wisdom.”
[5] I was stirred by this with a desire to ask more questions, such as about the variety of the delights.
Answering, they said, “The variety is endless. However, we do not wish to say any more, and therefore we cannot, because the dove outside our window, with the olive branch under its feet, has flown away.”
I then waited for its return, but in vain. Meanwhile, I asked the husbands, “Do you have a similar sense of conjugial love?”
And they replied, “We have one in general, but not in particular. We have a general sense of bliss, of delight, and of pleasant contentment, owing to the particular sensations of these in our wives. And this general sense, which we have from them, is like a peaceful serenity.”
At these words, suddenly through the window a swan appeared, standing on the branch of a fig tree; and spreading its wings, it flew off.
Seeing this, the husbands said, “That is a sign for us to be silent about conjugial love. Come back from time to time, and perhaps more will be disclosed.”
They then withdrew, and we departed.
* Numbers 151-156 are used twice. To maintain the proper sequence they are all included after the first number 156. NewSearch98 thus treats them all as part of number 156. However, when referenced it should be to the specific number, such as CL 154r.
156r. [repeated]* THE CONJUNCTION OF SOULS AND MINDS BY MARRIAGE
MEANT BY THE LORD’S SAYING THAT THEY ARE NO LONGER TWO BUT ONE FLESH
An inclination and also a capacity for conjunction as though into one was implanted in man and woman from creation, and man and woman still have this inclination and capacity in them. That this is so appears from the book of creation, and at the same time from what the Lord said. In the book of creation, which we call Genesis, we read:
Jehovah God fashioned the rib, which He had taken from the man, into a woman, and He brought her to the man. And the man said, “This one, this time, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman (‘ishshah), because she was taken from man (‘ish). For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and they shall be as one flesh.” (Genesis 2:22-24)
The Lord also said something similar in Matthew:
Have you not read that He who made them from the beginning…male and female…, said, “For this reason a man shall leave father and mother and cling to his wife, and the two shall be as one flesh”? Therefore they are no longer two, but one flesh. (Matthew 19:4-6)
[2] It is apparent from these verses that woman was created out of man, and that they each have both an inclination and a capacity for reuniting themselves into one. This means into one person, as is also apparent from the book of creation, where the two together are called “man.” For we read:
In the day that God created man…, He created them male and female…and called their name Man…. (Genesis 5:1,2)
We find the reading here, “He called their name Adam,” but “Adam” and “man” are the same word in the Hebrew. Moreover, both together are called “man” in Genesis 1:27 and 3:22-24. “One flesh” also means “one person,” as is apparent from passages in the Word where the term “all flesh” occurs, meaning “every person” (such as in Genesis 6:12,13,17,19;** Isaiah 40:5,6, 49:26, 66:16,23,24; Jeremiah 25:31, 32:27, 45:5; Ezekiel 20:48, 21:4,5; and elsewhere).
[3] But as for the meaning of the rib of the man which was fashioned into a woman, of the flesh which was closed up in its place, and consequently what is meant by “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,” also what is meant by the father and mother which a man is to leave when he marries, and by his clinging to his wife – this we showed in Arcana Coelestia (The Secrets of Heaven), where we explained the two books, Genesis and Exodus, in their spiritual sense. We established there that a rib does not mean a rib, nor flesh flesh, nor a bone bone, nor cling cling, but that they mean spiritual things, to which they correspond and which they therefore symbolize. They mean the spiritual things which mold one person out of two, and this is evident from the fact that it is conjugial love which joins them together, and this love is spiritual.
We have said several times above that a man’s love of wisdom is transferred into his wife, and this will be more fully established in the chapters that follow next. We cannot go off and thus digress now from the subject matter before us here, which is the conjunction of two married partners into one flesh by a union of their souls and minds. This union, however, will be made clear according to the following outline:
(1) Each sex has implanted in it from creation a capacity and inclination that gives them the ability and the will to be joined together as though into one.
(2) Conjugial love joins two souls and thus two minds into one.
(3) A wife’s will unites itself with her husband’s understanding, and the husband’s understanding in consequence unites itself with his wife’s will.
(4) A desire to unite her husband to her is constant and continual in a wife, but inconstant and intermittent in a husband.
(5) A wife inspires the union in her husband according to her love, and a husband receives it according to his wisdom.
(6) This union takes place gradually from the first days of marriage, and in people who are in a state of truly conjugial love, it becomes deeper and deeper to eternity.
(7) A wife’s union with her husband’s intellectual wisdom takes place inwardly, but with his moral wisdom outwardly.
(8) In order that this union may be achieved, a wife is given a perception of her husband’s affections, and also the highest prudence in knowing how to moderate them.
(9) Wives keep this perception in them hidden and conceal it from their husbands for reasons that are necessary in building conjugial love, friendship and trust, so that they may have bliss in living together and happiness of life.
(10) This perception is a wisdom that the wife has. A man is not capable of it, neither is a wife capable of her husband’s intellectual wisdom.
(11) A wife from her love continually thinks about her husband’s disposition towards her, with a view to joining him to her. This is not true of a husband.
(12) A wife joins herself to her husband by appeals to his will’s desires.
(13) A wife is joined to her husband by the atmosphere of her life emanating from her love.
(14) A wife is joined to her husband by her assimilation of the powers of his manhood, though this depends on the spiritual love they have for each other.
(15) A wife thus receives into herself an image of her husband, and from it perceives, sees and feels his affections.
(16) A husband has duties appropriate to him, and a wife duties appropriate to her, and a wife cannot enter into duties appropriate to her husband or a husband into duties appropriate to his wife and perform them properly.
(17) These duties also join the two into one, and at the same time make a single household, depending on the assistance they render each other.
(18) According as the aforementioned conjunctions are formed, married partners become more and more one person.
(19) Partners who are in a state of truly conjugial love feel themselves to be a united person and as though one flesh.
(20) Truly conjugial love regarded in itself is a union of souls, a conjunction of minds, an effort to conjunction in breasts, and a consequent effort to conjunction in body.
(21) The states produced by this love are innocence, peace, tranquillity, inmost friendship, complete trust, and a mutual desire in mind and heart to do the other every good; also, as a result of all these, bliss, felicity, delight, pleasure, and, owing to an eternal enjoyment of states like this, the happiness of heaven.
(22) These blessings are not at all possible except in a marriage of one man with one wife.
Explanation of these statements now follows.
* Numbers 151-156 are used twice. To maintain the proper sequence they are all included after the first number 156. NewSearch98 thus treats them all as part of number 156. However, when referenced it should be to the specific number, such as CL 154r.
** “All flesh” in Genesis 6:17,19 seems rather to refer to all animal life
It raises no objection to say that each sex has a capacity for conjunction with the other or that they can be united. Nor that they have an inclination to join themselves together. For personal observation and experience attests to both.
Things which are, from their origin, celestial, and things which are, from their origin, spiritual, do not exist in space, but are in appearances of space. This is also known in the world. That is why it is said that spiritual things cannot have dimension or location ascribed to them. Consequently, since the spaces are appearances, distances and nearnesses are appearances as well. Appearances of distance and nearness in the spiritual world depend on congruences, similarities, and affinities of love, as I have quite often pointed out and established in works I have written about that world.*
[2] We say this here in order to have it known that people’s souls and minds are not in space, as their bodies are, because, as we said above, their souls and minds are from their origin celestial and spiritual. And because they are not in space, they can be joined together as though into one, even though their bodies cannot be so joined at the same time.
This conjunction takes place especially between married partners who love each other deeply. But because woman comes from man, and this conjunction is a kind of reunion, reason can see that it is not an amalgamation into one but an adjunction, nearer and closer according to the love, and to the point of contact in those who are in a state of truly conjugial love. This adjunction may be called a spiritual dwelling together, which occurs in the case of married partners who love each other tenderly, however separated they may be in body. There are many evidences of experience, even in the natural world, which attest to this.
It is apparent from this that conjugial love joins two souls and minds into one.
* See, for example, Arcana Coelestia (The Secrets of Heaven) (1749-1756), Heaven and Hell (1758), Divine Love and Wisdom (1763), Divine Providence (1764), The Apocalypse Revealed (1766).
On the other hand, a husband does not have the same desire with respect to his wife, and that is because a man is not a form of love but only a form receptive of love. And a state of reception comes and goes, depending on other concerns which interrupt, depending on changing feelings of warmth or lack of warmth in the mind for various reasons, and depending on increases and decreases of the powers in the body. Because these things do not return in a constant fashion or at set times, it follows that a desire for this union is, in husbands, inconstant and intermittent.
We say that it is wives who inspire or insinuate the love in their husbands, because not a particle of conjugial love, not even of love for the opposite sex, is seated in men, but only in wives and women. The fact of this was vividly shown me in the spiritual world:
[2] A conversation on this very subject once occurred there, and some men, having been persuaded by their wives, kept insisting that they were the lovers, and not their wives, but that their wives were recipients of love from them.
In order to settle the dispute over this question, all women, including their wives, were removed from the men; and together with them the underlying atmosphere of love for the opposite sex was taken away. When this was taken away, the men came into a state altogether foreign to them and never before felt, at which they complained considerably.
Then, while they were in this state, some women were brought to them, and the wives were presented to their husbands; and the women and the wives spoke sweetly to them. But at their blandishments the men became cold, and turning away they said to each other, “What is this? What is a woman?” And when some of the women said that they were their wives, they replied, “What is a wife? We do not know you.”
However, when the wives began to grieve over this utterly cold indifference on the part of their husbands, and some of them to cry, an atmosphere of love for the feminine sex and of conjugial love (which to this point had been taken away from the men) was restored. And then at once the men returned to their former state – the ones who loved their marriages into their state, and the ones who loved the opposite sex in general into their state.
Thus the men were convinced that not a particle of conjugial love, not even of love for the opposite sex, resided in them, but only in wives and women. But still, after that, owing to their prudence, the wives induced the men to believe that the love resided in the men, and that some spark of it might possibly have passed from the men to themselves.
[3] I have presented this experience here in order that it may be known that wives are forms of love, and husbands its receivers. Husbands are receivers of it according to the wisdom in them, especially the wisdom which results from religion, which is that they are to love only their wives. And this is plain from considering that when they love only their wives, their love is concentrated, and being also ennobled, remains in its strength, endures and lasts; and that otherwise it would be like taking wheat from a granary and throwing it to the dogs, resulting in an insufficiency at home.
* See nos. 234ff.
Various terms are used to designate those elements which have to do with men’s intellectual wisdom. In general, they are called knowledge, intelligence and wisdom. In particular, however, they are rationality, judgment, genius, learning, sagacity. But because everyone has special kinds of knowledge peculiar to him in his occupation, these kinds of knowledge are therefore many and various. For there are special kinds of knowledge peculiar to clergymen, to civil officers, to their various officials, to judges, to physicians and pharmacists, to soldiers and sailors, to craftsmen and workmen, to farmers, and so on. To intellectual wisdom belong also all the fields of study to which adolescents are introduced in schools, and through which they are afterwards led into intelligence; and these studies are also called by various names, such as philosophy, physics, geometry, mechanics, chemistry, astronomy, law, political science, ethics, history, and many more, through which, as through gates, one enters into intellectual pursuits, from which comes intellectual wisdom.
Virtues which have to do with men’s moral wisdom likewise have various names, and they are called temperance, sobriety, integrity, kindliness, friendliness, modesty, honesty, helpfulness, courteousness; also diligence, industriousness, skillfulness, alacrity, generosity, liberality, magnanimity, energy, courage, prudence – not to mention many others. Spiritual virtues in men are love of religion, charity, truthfulness, faith, conscience, innocence, as well as many more.
These virtues, both moral and spiritual, can be attributed in general to a man’s love and zeal for religion, for the public good, for his country, for his fellow citizens, for his parents, for his wife, and for his children. In all of these justice and judgment prevail. Justice has to do with moral wisdom, and judgment has to do with intellectual wisdom.
On the other hand, a wife’s union with men’s moral wisdom exists outwardly, because the virtues of this wisdom are akin for the most part to similar virtues in women, and they spring from the husband’s intellectual will, with which the wife’s will unites and forms a marriage. And because a wife recognizes these virtues in her husband better than he recognizes them in himself, we say that a wife’s union with them exists outwardly.
Now, because these are among things kept secret by wives, it is not appropriate for me to reveal them in their particulars. It is, however, appropriate for wives themselves, and therefore I have included at the end of several chapters four narrative accounts in which wives themselves reveal them. Two of the accounts come from the three wives living in the hall on which I saw what seemed to be golden rain falling.* And the other two accounts come from seven wives sitting in a rose garden.** If these accounts are read, this secret will be seen revealed.
* See nos. 155[r] and 208.
** See nos. 293 and 294.
This makes plain the truth of the premise, that wives keep their perception in them hidden and conceal it from their husbands for reasons that are necessary.
* See nos. 234ff.
It is apparent from this that, because of the universal difference which exists between masculinity and femininity, a husband is not capable of his wife’s wisdom, nor is a wife capable of her husband’s wisdom. Women are not even capable of a man’s moral wisdom to the extent that it springs from his intellectual wisdom.
* No. 160.
** See nos. 293 and 294.
Everyone knows that a natural atmosphere continually emanates from the body, not only from human beings but also from animals – in fact, from trees, fruits, flowers, and also metals. So, too, in the spiritual world, except that the atmospheres emanating from things there are spiritual, and the atmospheres which emanate from spirits and angels are interiorly spiritual, because the affections of their love and their consequent perceptions and thoughts are interior. Every feeling of affinity or aversion has its origin from these atmospheres, and also all association or dissociation. Thus a person’s presence or absence depends in that world on these atmospheres. For similarity or harmony in character causes association and presence, while dissimilarity or disharmony causes dissociation and absence. Consequently, it is these atmospheres which cause distances in that world.
Some people also know what effect these spiritual atmospheres have in the natural world. The dispositions of married partners toward each other come from this very origin. Harmonious and concordant atmospheres unite them, and contrary and discordant ones drive them apart; for concordant atmospheres are delightful and pleasant, while discordant ones are undelightful and unpleasant.
[2] Angels have a clear perception of these atmospheres, and I have heard from them that every single element in a person, both inside and out, renews itself, which it does through processes of dissolution and restoration; and this is what produces the atmosphere which is continually given off. Moreover, the angels said, this atmosphere is concentrated about a person’s back and breast, but more lightly around the back, more densely around the breast, and the atmosphere which is about the breast combines itself with the breathing. That also is why two married partners who differ in their dispositions and are out of harmony in their affections, in bed lie turned away with their backs to each other, while conversely, two who are in harmony in their dispositions and affections lie turned toward each other.
[3] The angels said further that because atmospheres emanate from every part of a person and extend widely about him, these atmospheres not only join or drive apart two married partners outwardly, but also inwardly. And this, they said, is the reason for all the differences and diversities in conjugial love.
Lastly the angels said that the atmosphere of love emanating from a wife who is tenderly loved, in heaven is perceived as sweetly fragrant, considerably more delightful than the one which is perceived in the world by a newly married husband in the first days of marriage.
This makes plain the truth asserted, that a wife is joined to her husband by the atmosphere of her life emanating from her love.
They said further that this has been provided from creation, in order that a husband’s wisdom – which forms his soul – may be assimilated into his wife, and that in this way they may become, in the Lord’s words, one flesh. Also, that it has been provided as well to keep the male of the species from abandoning his wife for some imaginary reason after she has conceived.
However, the angels added that occurrences of the utilization and assimilation in wives of the life of their husbands are contingent on their conjugial love, because it is love, which is a spiritual union, which joins two people together. And that this, too, has been provided, for many reasons.
1. Woman was created out of man.
2. Consequently, she has an inclination to unite and, so to speak, reunite herself with a man.
3. On account of and for the sake of that union with her mate, a woman is born a form of love for a man, and she becomes more and more a form of love for him by marriage, because her love then continually devotes its thoughts to joining her husband to her.
4. She is joined to her particular partner by appeals to his life’s desires.
5. Married partners are joined together by the atmospheres surrounding them, which unite them overall and in every instance according to the nature of the conjugial love in the wives, and at the same time according to the nature of the wisdom receiving that love in the husbands.
6. Married partners are also joined together by assimilations of the husbands’ powers by the wives.
7. From this it is apparent that something of the husband is constantly being transfused into the wife and infused in her as though it were hers.
It follows from all this that an image of the husband is formed in the wife, and that because of this image a wife perceives, sees and feels in herself the things that are in her husband, and herself therefore as being in him. She perceives from their communication; she sees from looking at him; and she feels from touching him. She feels the reception of her love by her husband from the touch of her hands upon his cheeks, arms, hands and breast – something that was revealed to me by the three wives in the hall, and by seven wives in a rose garden, spoken of in the narrative accounts.*
* See nos. 155[r] and 208; 293 and 294.
[2] Many people believe that women can perform the duties of men if only they are introduced into them from early age in the way that boys are. However, women can be introduced into the exercise of these duties, but not into the judgment on which the proper performance of these duties inwardly depends. Therefore, those women who are introduced into the duties of men, in matters of judgment are bound to go to men for advice; and then, from the men’s recommendations, if they are their own mistresses, they choose what accords with their love.
[3] Some people also suppose that women can raise the sight of their understanding into the same realm of light that men can and see things on the same high level. They have been persuaded of this opinion by what some educated female poets have written. But when the works of these female poets were examined in their presence in the spiritual world, they were found to be works, not of judgment and wisdom, but of cleverness and a facility in the use of language. And works which result from these two gifts, because of the elegance and skill in the way the words are put together, appear as though they were lofty and intelligent – but only to people who take any kind of cleverness and call it wisdom.
[4] We also say that men cannot enter into duties appropriate to women and perform them properly, because they cannot enter into the affections of women, which are completely different from the affections of men. Since the affections and perceptions of the male sex, from creation and thus by nature, have been made so different, therefore the laws among the children of Israel also included the following decree:
A woman shall not have on the garment of a man, nor a man the garment of a woman, for it is an abomination…. (Deuteronomy 22:5)
The reason for this was that all in the spiritual world are clothed according to their affections, and the two affections – the affection of a woman and the affection of a man – cannot become one except between the two sexes, and never is this possible in one person.
But the primary duties which confederate, affiliate, and bring the souls and lives of two married partners together into one are those which involve their joint concern in bringing up children. In this concern a husband’s duties and a wife’s duties differ and at the same time are joined together. They differ, because the responsibility of suckling and bringing up little children of both sexes, and also of educating girls to the age when they are handed over to the custody of men and associate with them – this is a responsibility having to do with the distinctive duty of a wife. On the other hand, the responsibility of educating boys after early childhood to the time of adolescence, and after that until they become independent – this is a responsibility having to do with the distinctive duty of a husband. Nevertheless, these duties are joined together through the counsel, support, and many other kinds of assistance that the two partners give each other.
People know that these duties bind the hearts of two partners together into one – both those duties which are joined together and those which are different in nature, or those which are mutual duties and those which are distinctive ones – and that this is owing to the love called storge* (the natural affection of parents for their offspring). People also know that these duties, viewed in respect to their difference and conjunction, make a single household.
* From the Greek storg, pronounced stor’gee (like psyche), in use in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries to mean natural or instinctive affection, usually that of parents for their offspring, but no longer current.
I have listened to angels who have lived with their partners in heaven for centuries, and I have heard it attested by them that they feel themselves to be united in this way, a husband with his wife and a wife with her husband, and to be each in the other mutually and reciprocally, seemingly, even, in respect to the flesh, even if they are apart.
[2] The reason for this phenomenon, rarely experienced on earth, that the union of their souls and minds is felt in their flesh – the reason for it, the angels said, is that the soul not only forms the inmost elements in the head, but also the inmost elements in the body. The same is true of the mind, which is intermediate between the soul and the body. Although the mind appears to be in the head, it nevertheless is actually in the whole body as well. And that, the angels said, is why actions which the soul and mind intend, instantaneously spring forth from the body. It is also because of this, they said, that after the body is cast off in the previous world, people themselves are still whole and complete human beings. Now, because the soul and mind are closely connected to the flesh of the body, in order that they may act and produce their effects, it follows that a union of the soul and mind with one’s married partner is felt even in the body, as though they were one flesh.
At the time the angels said this, there were some spirits standing near, and I heard them comment that these were matters of angelic wisdom that were beyond them. But these spirits were intellectually natural, and not intellectually spiritual.
Consequently, when the souls and minds of married partners are united, and united by truly conjugial love, it follows that this lovely union flows into their breasts, and through these into their bodies, and causes an effort to conjunction. This is also all the more so, because conjugial love directs the effort to its ultimate expressions, in order to bring its blissful pleasures to fulfillment. And because the breast is at the midpoint, it is apparent why conjugial love has found the seat of its exquisite sensation there.
We list these states as innocence, peace, tranquillity, inmost friendship, complete trust, and a mutual desire of the mind and heart to do the other every good, since innocence and peace have to do with the soul, tranquillity has to do with the mind, inmost friendship has to do with the breast, complete trust has to do with the heart, and a mutual desire of the mind and heart to do the other every good has to do with the body as a result of these.
– – – – – – – – – – –
Several weeks later* I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Behold, another assembly is convening on Parnassium hill. Come, we will show you the way.”
I went, and as I drew near, I saw on the hill Heliconeum someone with a trumpet, with which he announced and proclaimed the assembly. I also saw people from the city Athenaeum and its bordering regions ascending as before, and in the midst of them three newcomers from the world. The three were Christians, one a priest, the second a politician, and the third a philosopher. On the way the people entertained them with various kinds of conversation, especially concerning the ancient wise men, whom they mentioned by name. The visitors asked whether they would see these wise men. The people said that they would, and that if they wished, they would meet them, since they are friendly and cordial.
The visitors asked about Demosthenes, Diogenes and Epicurus.
“Demosthenes is not here,” the people said, “but with Plato.** Diogenes stays with his disciples at the foot of the hill Heliconeum, because he regards worldly matters as of no importance and occupies his mind solely with heavenly ones. Epicurus lives at the border to the west, and he does not come in to join us either, because we draw a distinction between good affections and evil ones, saying that good affections accompany wisdom and that evil affections are opposed to wisdom.”
[2] When they had ascended the hill Parnassium, some of the keepers of the place brought crystal goblets containing water from a spring there; and they said, “The water comes from a spring which the people of old told stories about, saying that it was broken open by the hoof of the horse Pegasus and afterwards became sacred to the nine Muses.*** But by the winged horse Pegasus they meant an understanding of truth which leads to wisdom. By its hooves they meant empirical observations which lead to natural intelligence. And by the nine Muses they meant learning and knowledge of every kind. These stories today are called myths, but they were allegories which the earliest people used to express their ideas.”
“Do not be surprised,” the people accompanying the three visitors said to them. “The keepers have been told to speak as they did, to explain that what we mean by drinking water from the spring is to be taught about truths and through truths about goods, and thus to become wise.”
[3] After this they entered the Palladium, and with them went the three newcomers from the world, the priest, the politician, and the philosopher. Then the people with the laurel wreaths who sat at the tables**** asked, “What news do you have from earth?”
So the newcomers replied, “We have this news. There is someone who maintains that he speaks with angels, having had his sight opened into the spiritual world, as open as the sight he has into the natural world; and he reports from that world many novel ideas, which include, among other things, the following: A person lives, he says, as a person after death, the way he did before in the world. He sees, hears, and speaks as he did before in the world. He dresses and adorns himself as before in the world. He becomes hungry and thirsty, and eats and drinks, as before in the world. He experiences the delight of marriage as before in the world. He goes to sleep and wakes up as before in the world. The spiritual world has lands and lakes, mountains and hills, plains and valleys, springs and rivers, gardens and groves. One finds there palaces and houses, too, and cities and towns, just as in the natural world. They have written documents and books as well, and occupations and businesses, also precious stones, gold and silver. In a word, one finds in that world each and every thing that one finds on earth – things which are infinitely more perfect in heaven. The only difference is that everything in the spiritual world comes from a spiritual origin, and consequently is spiritual, because it originates from the sun there, which is pure love; while everything in the natural world comes from a natural origin, and consequently is natural and material, because it comes from the sun there, which is nothing but fire.
“This person reports, in short, that a person after death is perfectly human, indeed, more perfectly human than before in the world. For before in the world he was clothed in a material body, while here in this world he is clothed in a spiritual one.”
[4] When the newcomers had thus spoken, the ancient wise men asked what people on earth thought of these reports.
The three visitors said, “We know that they are true, because we are here and have seen and investigated them all. We will tell you, therefore, what people said and judged concerning them on earth.”
At that the priest then said, “When those who are members of our order first heard these reports, they called them hallucinations, then fabrications; later they said he saw ghosts; and finally they threw up their hands and said, believe if you will. We have always taught that a person will not be clothed in a body after death before the day of the Last Judgment.”
The ancient wise men then asked, “Are there not any intelligent ones among them who can show them and convince them of the truth that a person lives as a person after death?”
[5] The priest said that there were some who showed it to them, but without convincing them. “The ones who show it say that it is contrary to sound reason to believe that a person does not live as a person until the day of the Last Judgment and meanwhile is a soul without a body.
“What is a person’s soul, they ask, and where is it in the meantime? Is it an exhalation or a bit of wind flitting about in the air, or some entity hidden away at the center of the earth where its nether world is located? The souls of Adam and Eve, and of all the people after them, for six thousand years or sixty centuries now – are they still flitting about the universe or still being kept shut up in the bowels of the earth, waiting for the Last Judgment? What could be more distressing or more miserable than having to wait like that? May their fate not be likened to the fate of captives held chained and fettered in prison? If that is to be what a person’s fate is like after death, would it not be better to be born a donkey than a human being?
“Moreover, is it not contrary to reason to suppose that a soul can be clothed again with its body? Does the body not get eaten away by worms, mice and fish? And this new body – can it serve to cover a bony skeleton that has been charred by the sun or has fallen into dust? How can these decomposed and foul-smelling elements be gathered together and joined to souls?
“But when people hear arguments like these, they do not use reason to respond to them, but hold to their belief, saying, ‘We keep reason in obedience to faith.’ As for all people being gathered together from their graves on the day of the Last Judgment, this, they say, is a work of omnipotence. And when they use the terms omnipotence and faith, reason is banished; and I can tell you that sound reason is as nothing then, and to some of them, a kind of hallucination. Indeed, it is possible for them to say in reply to sound reason, ‘You are crazy.'”
[6] When the wise men of Greece heard this, they said, “Are logical inconsistencies like that not dispelled of themselves as mutually contradictory? And yet sound reason cannot dispel them in the world today. What can be more logically inconsistent than to believe what they say about the Last Judgment, that the universe will then come to an end and that at the same time the stars of heaven will fall down on to the earth, which is smaller than the stars; and that people’s bodies, being then either cadavers, or embalmed corpses other people may have eaten,***** or particles of dust, will come together with their souls?
“When we were in the world, we believed in the immortality of human souls on the basis of inductive arguments which reason supplied us, and we also determined places for the blessed, which we called the Elysian Fields. And we believed these souls to be human forms or likenesses, but ethereal since they were spiritual.”
[7] After they said this, they turned to the second visitor, who in the world had been a politician. He confessed that he had not believed in a life after death, and had thought concerning the new reports he began to hear about it that they were fictions and fabrications. “Thinking about it I said, how can souls be corporeal beings? Does not every remnant of a person lie dead in the grave? Is the eye not there? How can he see? Is the ear not there? How can he hear? Where does he get a mouth with which to speak? If anything of a person should live after death, would it be anything other than something ghostlike? How can a ghost eat and drink? And how can it experience the delight of marriage? Where does it get its clothing, housing, food, and so on? Besides, being airy apparitions, ghosts only appear as though they exist, and yet do not.
“These and others like them are the thoughts I had in the world concerning the life of people after death. But now that I have seen it all and touched it all with my hands, I have been convinced by my very senses that I am as much a person as I was in the world, so much so that I have no other awareness than that I am living as I did then, with the difference that I now reason more sensibly. I have sometimes been ashamed of the thoughts I had before.”
[8] The philosopher had a similar story to tell about himself, with the difference, however, that he had classed these new reports he heard regarding life after death with other opinions and conjectures he had gathered from ancient and modern sources.
The sages were dumbfounded at hearing this; and those who were of the Socratic school said they perceived from this news from earth that the inner faculties of human minds had become gradually closed, with faith in falsity now shining like truth in the world, and clever foolishness like wisdom. Since our times, they said, the light of wisdom has descended from the inner regions of the brain to the mouth beneath the nose, where it appears to view as a brilliance of the lips, and the speech of the mouth therefore as wisdom.
Listening to this, one of the novices there said, “Yes, and how stupid the minds of earth’s inhabitants are today! If only we had here the disciples of Heraclitus who weep over everything and the disciples of Democritus who laugh at everything. What great weeping and laughing we would hear then!”
At the conclusion of this assembly, they gave the three newcomers from earth emblems of their district, which were copper plaques on which some hieroglyphic symbols were engraved. With these the visitors then departed.
* I.e., several weeks after the occurrence related in nos. 151[r]-154[r].
** See no. 151[r]:1.
*** Cf., in Greek mythology, the spring Hippocrene on Mount Helicon, and perhaps also the spring Castalia on Mount Parnassus.
**** See no. 151[r]:2.
***** As late as the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the substances of embalmed corpses, particularly of Egyptian mummies, were used in the preparation of potions and powders prescribed and taken for a variety of supposed medicinal purposes. Cf. True Christian Religion no. 160:5; also nos. 693:6, 770.
A grove of palms and laurels appeared to me in the eastern zone, with the trees planted in rings in the form of spirals. Going over, I entered and walked along paths that curved around through several of the rings, and at the end of the paths I saw a garden, which formed the heart of the grove. Between the grove and the garden stood a small bridge, having a gate on the grove side and another gate on the garden side. I approached, and a keeper opened the gates. When I asked him what the name of the garden was, he said, “Adramandoni, which means the delight of conjugial love.”
I went in, and behold, I found olive trees, with vines running and hanging down from one tree to another, and with bushes in flower beneath the trees and between them. In the middle of the garden there was a grassy circle, on which husbands and wives and young men and women were sitting, paired off in couples; and at the center of the circle was an elevated piece of ground, where a little fountain of water spurted up into the air owing to the force of its stream.
When I moved closer to the circle, I saw two angels in purple and scarlet, who were speaking with the people sitting on the grass and talking about conjugial love, its origin and its delights. And because this love was the subject of their conversation, the people were listening with eager attention and full receptivity, producing in them a feeling of exaltation as though from the fire of love in the speech of the angels.
[2] I have condensed into summary form the following excerpts from their conversation:
The angels began by remarking how difficult it is to investigate and discern the origin of conjugial love, since it has a Divine origin in heaven; for the origin is Divine love, Divine wisdom, and Divine application to useful purpose. These three emanate as one from the Lord, and they flow as one from Him into people’s souls, and through their souls into their minds; and there they flow into the inner affections and thoughts, through these into desires nearer the body, and from these through the breast into the reproductive region. Here all the forces derived from the first origin exist concurrently, and together with successive elements, result in conjugial love.
After this the angels said, “Let the interchange in our discussion be by questions and answers, because although a perception of something does indeed flow in when gained solely from listening, still it does not remain unless the listener also thinks about it for himself and asks questions regarding it.”
[3] Then some of the married group said to the angels, “We have heard that conjugial love has a Divine origin in heaven, because it comes from an influx from the Lord into people’s souls; and that being from the Lord, its origin is love, wisdom, and application to useful purpose – these being the three essential attributes which together make up the one Divine essence. We have also heard that nothing but what is of the Divine essence can emanate from the Lord and flow into the inmost being of a person, which is called his soul; and that these three essential attributes of it are transformed into analogous and corresponding qualities as they descend into the body. So now, the first question we ask is what is meant by the third essential Divine emanation, which is called application to useful purpose.”
The angels replied that love and wisdom without application to useful purpose are only abstract and theoretical ideas, which, even after being entertained for a time in the mind, eventually pass away like the winds. “But love and wisdom are brought together in application to useful purpose,” they said, “and in this they become a single entity which is called actual. Love cannot rest unless it acts, for love is the active force in life; nor can wisdom exist and endure unless it does so from love and together with love whenever love acts, and to act is application to useful purpose. Therefore we define application to useful purpose as the doing of good from love through wisdom. Application to useful purpose is what good is.
[4] “Since these three elements – love, wisdom, and application to useful purpose – flow into people’s souls, we can see why it is said that all good is from God. For all action from love through wisdom is called good, and action includes also application to useful purpose.
“Love without wisdom – what is it but a kind of foolish infatuation? And love accompanied by wisdom, but without application to a useful end – what is it but an airy affectation of the mind? On the other hand, love and wisdom together with application to a useful end – these not only make a person what he is, but they also are the person. Indeed, what may perhaps surprise you, they produce the person. For a man’s seed contains his soul in perfect human form, clothed with substances from the finest elements of nature, out of which the body is formed in the womb of the mother. This useful end is the supreme and final end of Divine love acting through Divine wisdom.”
[5] Finally the angels said, “We reach the inevitable conclusion that all reproduction, all propagation, and all procreation stem in origin from an influx of love, wisdom, and application to useful purpose flowing in from the Lord – from a direct influx from the Lord into the souls of human beings, from an indirect influx into the souls of animals, and from a still more indirect influx into the inmost elements in plants. All these processes, moreover, take place in things that are last in order as a result of things that are first in order.
“Processes of reproduction, propagation and procreation are clearly continuations of creation; for creation can have no other source than Divine love acting through Divine wisdom in Divine application to useful purpose. Everything in the universe is therefore generated and formed as a result of useful purpose, in fulfillment of useful purpose, and to serve a useful purpose.”
[6] Afterwards the people sitting on the banks of grass asked the angels, “What is the source of the delights of conjugial love, delights which are beyond number and description?”
The angels replied that these delights arise from the useful applications of love and wisdom, and that this could be seen from considering that to the extent anyone loves to become wise for the sake of some genuinely useful purpose, to the same extent he is in the stream and vigor of conjugial love, and to the extent he is in this stream and vigor, to the same extent he enjoys their delights.
“Application to useful purpose produces this result,” they said, “because love [finds expression in useful purpose] through wisdom [and they] take delight in each other, and play with each other, so to speak, like little children. And as they mature, they congenially unite together, which is accomplished as though through stages of betrothal, wedding, marriage and the bearing of offspring, and this continually and with variety to eternity.
“These conjunctions between love and wisdom take place inwardly in application to useful purpose. In their beginnings, however, the delights are imperceptible, but they become more and more perceptible as they descend by degrees from their beginnings and enter the body. They enter by degrees from the soul into the interior regions of a person’s mind, and from there into its outer regions, and from there to within the breast, and from there into the reproductive region. [7] And though a person does not perceive anything of these conjugal and heavenly interplays in the soul, from the soul they insinuate themselves into the inner regions of the mind in the form of peace and innocence, and into the outer regions of the mind in the form of bliss, felicity and delight, while within the breast they appear in the form of the delights of inmost friendship, and in the reproductive region as the delight of delights owing to the continual influx all the way from the soul, bringing with it an actual sensation of conjugial love.
“Such conjugal interplays of love and wisdom in application to useful purpose in the soul become lasting as they proceed towards their place within the breast, and there within the breast they manifest themselves perceptibly in an infinite variety of delights. And because of the marvelous communication of the interior of the breast with the reproductive region, in that region the delights become the delights of conjugial love – delights which are heightened over all other delights that exist in heaven and in the world, because the use served by conjugial love is the most excellent use of all; for it results in the propagation of the human race, and from the human race comes the angelic heaven.”
[8] To this the angels added that people know nothing about the variety of the countless delights connected with truly conjugial love if they do not have from the Lord a love of growing wise for the sake of some useful purpose. “For,” they said, “people who do not love to become wise in accord with genuine truths, but prefer to be irrational in accord with falsities, and who through this irrationality of theirs are motivated by some love to serve evil purposes – in their case the way to the soul is closed. As a result the conjugal and heavenly interplays of love and wisdom in the soul become more and more cut off, and together with them, conjugial love with its flow, vigor, and delights.”
The people who were listening said in response that they perceived that conjugial love depends on a love from the Lord of growing wise for the sake of useful purposes. The angels replied that this was so. And then on the heads of some of the listeners appeared little wreaths of flowers.
So they asked, “Why is this?”
The angels said, “Because you understood more deeply.” And then the angels departed from the garden, with these people in the midst of them.
What is meant by states of life and their changes is well known to people who are educated and wise, but unknown to those who are uneducated and simple. Therefore we need to make some preliminary statement about the subject.
The state of a person’s life is its character. Further, because every person has in him two faculties which form his life, faculties which are called intellect and will, the state of a person’s life is its character in relation to his intellect and will. It is apparent from this that changes in one’s state of life mean changes in its character in respect to elements having to do with the intellect and elements having to do with the will.
In this chapter we undertake to show that every person is continually changing in these two respects, but with a difference in the kinds of changes before marriage and those after marriage. We will do this in the following order:
(1) From infancy to the end of life, and afterwards to eternity, a person’s state of life is continually changing.
(2) So, too, the internal form, which is the form of his spirit.
(3) These changes are of one kind in men and of another kind in women, since from creation men are forms of knowledge, intelligence and wisdom, and women forms of love for these things in men.
(4) In men the mind is elevated into a higher light, and in women the mind is elevated into a higher warmth; moreover, a woman feels the delights of her warmth in the light of a man.
(5) The states of life in men and women before marriage and their states of life after marriage are different.
(6) After marriage, the states of life in married partners change and progress according to the bonds formed between their minds by conjugial love.
(7) Marriage even induces different forms on the souls and minds of the partners.
(8) A woman is actually transformed into a man’s wife according to the description in the book of creation.
(9) This transformation is accomplished by the wife in secret ways, which is what is meant by woman’s having been created while the man slept.
(10) This transformation is accomplished by the wife by a union of her will with the inner will of her husband.
(11) This to the end that the will of the one and the will of the other may become one will, and the two partners thus one person.
(12) This transformation is accomplished by the wife by an adoption of her husband’s affections.
(13) This transformation is accomplished by the wife by her reception of the propagations of her husband’s soul with delight – a delight arising from her willing to be an embodiment of love for her husband’s wisdom.
(14) A maiden is thus transformed into a wife, and a youth into a husband.
(15) In a marriage of one man with one wife, in which there is a truly conjugial love between them, the wife becomes more and more a wife, and the husband more and more a husband.
(16) Their forms are also thus progressively perfected and ennobled from within.
(17) The offspring born of couples who are in a state of truly conjugial love derive from their parents a conjugial connection between good and truth, from which they have an inclination and faculty, if a son, to perceive matters having do to with wisdom, if a daughter, to love the things that wisdom teaches.
(18) This occurs because the soul of the offspring comes from its father, and its clothing from its mother.
Explanation of these statements now follows.
[2] Changes that take place in a person’s inner qualities are more perfectly continuous than those that take place in his outward ones. The reason is that a person’s inner qualities – by which we mean those that belong to his mind or spirit – are raised up on a higher level than the outward ones; and in things that are on a higher level, thousands of changes occur in the same moment that only one does in the outer elements. The changes that take place in the inner qualities are changes in the state of the will in respect to its affections, and changes in the state of the intellect in respect to its thoughts. Progressive changes in the state of these affections and thoughts are what are particularly meant under this heading.
[3] Changes in the state of these two life forces or faculties in a person are unceasing, continuing from infancy to the end of his life, and afterwards to eternity; and the reason is that there is no limit to knowledge, even less to intelligence, and still less to wisdom. For there is an infinity and eternity in the range of these, arising from the Infinite and Eternal who is their source. Hence the ancient philosophical tenet, that everything is capable of being divided to infinity; to which should be added that everything is similarly capable of being multiplied. The angels assert that they are perfected in wisdom by the Lord to eternity, which means also to infinity, since eternity is an infinity of time.
[2] We say that the state of life, and therefore the form in a person, is continually changing, because it is a truth – which the wise have taught and still teach – that no two things are ever the same or absolutely identical, still less a number of things. So, for example, no two human faces are ever identical, still less several of them. It is similar in the case of successive states, that no later state of life is ever the same as one gone by. It follows from this that there is a perpetual change in the state of life in a person, consequently also a perpetual change in his form, especially in the form of his inner qualities.
Since these observations, however, do not teach anything about marriage, but only prepare the way for concepts connected with it, and since they are no more than philosophical and intellectual analyses, which some people find difficult to grasp, having made these few comments we therefore pass on.
In both men and women, however, the outer form that has to do with the body is perfected according to the perfection of the inner form which has to do with the mind; for the mind acts upon the body, and not the reverse. This is the reason children in heaven grow up with a stature and comeliness in accordance with the growth of intelligence in them – differently from children on earth, because children on earth are clothed in a material body, as animals are.
Nevertheless, children in heaven and children on earth are alike in this, that in their development they are attracted at first to such things as appeal to their physical senses, then little by little to such things as affect their inner contemplative sense, and by degrees to such things as infuse their will with affection. Then, when they reach an age midway between immaturity and maturity, they develop an attraction towards marriage, which in a young woman is an attraction towards a young man, and in a young man, towards a young woman.
But because young women in heaven, just as on earth, from an innate discretion conceal their inclinations towards marriage, the young men there do not know otherwise than that they inspire feelings of love in the young women, and this also appears to them to be so because of their masculine urge. However, even this urge in them is caused by an influx of love emanating from the fair sex, an influx which we will take up expressly elsewhere.*
From this appears the truth of the argument: that changes of state are of one kind in men and of another kind in women, since from creation men are forms of knowledge, intelligence and wisdom, and women forms of love for these things in men.
* See no. 223. Cf. also no. 161.
[2] We call it an elevation into a higher light and warmth, because it is an elevation into the light and warmth in which angels of the higher heavens are. It is also an actual ascent, as though from a mist into open air, and from a lower region of the air into a higher one, and from this into the upper atmosphere. Therefore the elevation into a higher light in men is an elevation into higher intelligence and from this into wisdom, in which there is possible a still higher and higher ascent. And on the other hand, the elevation into a higher warmth in women is an elevation into a more and more chaste and pure conjugial love, and this continually towards the conjugial ideal which from creation is innate in their inmost beings.
[3] Regarded in themselves, these elevations are openings of the mind; for the human mind is divided into regions, as the world is in respect to its atmospheres (the lowest of which is the aqueous one, the next higher the aerial one, the next higher still the ethereal one, above which there is also a highest one). A person’s mind is elevated into similar regions as it is opened – as it is opened in men by wisdom, and in women by truly conjugial love.
This can be illustrated to some extent by the so-called interplays of warmth with light in plants. Apart from these forms there is only a simple conjunction of warmth and light, but in them there is an interplay, so to speak, between the two, because there they are in forms or recipient vessels. For they penetrate the plant forms through marvelous little winding ways, and in the inmost parts work to produce fruits of use, and they also give off their pleasant exhalations into the surrounding air, which they fill with fragrance.
Even more striking still is the delightful interplay of spiritual warmth with spiritual light in human forms, where the warmth is conjugial love and the light is wisdom.
Essentially, inclinations towards marriage prior to marriage are only something that can be imagined in the mind, which then become more and more something that can be felt in the body. On the other hand, the states these inclinations lead to after marriage are states of union and also of procreation. Clearly, these latter states differ from the former ones as realizations do from intentions.
It seems as though love ascends from the body into the soul, because as soon as the body lights on attractions, these enter through the doors of the eyes, so to speak, into the mind, thus through the entryway of the sight into the thoughts and there immediately into the love. But nevertheless, love descends from the mind and acts on the lower parts according to the way they are directed. A lascivious mind acts lasciviously, therefore, and a chaste mind chastely; and in the latter case the mind directs and governs the body, whereas in the preceding case it is directed and governed by the body.
For this reason, one cannot see the difference between what the forms of their minds are like before marriage and what they are like afterwards. Nevertheless, it is clearly apparent from souls and minds in the spiritual world that the forms of these after marriage are different from what they had been before; for people are then spirits and angels, who are nothing else than minds and souls in human form, divested of the integuments they had had, which were composed of elements found in waters and earths and of exhalations from these diffused in the air. When these coverings have been cast off, the forms of their minds, and what these forms had been like within their bodies, become visible; and it is clearly seen then that the forms in people who are married are different from the forms in people who are not.
In general, the faces of married partners possess an inner beauty, the husband receiving from his wife the lovely blush of her love, and the wife receiving from her husband the shining splendor of his wisdom. For a married couple there is united in respect to their souls; and one also sees in the two a full expression of what it is to be human. This is the case in heaven, because marriages do not exist elsewhere. Beneath heaven one finds instead only temporary alliances which are formed and broken.
She…is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘Ishshah (Woman) because she was taken from ‘Ish (Man). (Genesis 2:22-24)
In the Word, a rib from the breast symbolically means, in its spiritual sense, not a rib but natural truth. This is the symbolism of the ribs which the bear carried between its teeth in Daniel 7:5; for bears symbolize people who read the Word in its natural sense and see truths there without understanding. The breast of a man symbolizes that essential and distinctive quality which makes it different in character from the breast of a woman. This quality is wisdom, as may be seen above in no. 187; for truth supports wisdom, as a rib supports the breast. These distinctive qualities are symbolized, because the breast is where all the qualities of a person are, so to speak, at their center.
[2] It follows from this that woman was created from man by a transmission and replication of his distinctive wisdom, which is formed from natural truth, and that man’s love for this wisdom was transferred to woman so as to become conjugial love; moreover, that the purpose of this was to replace love of self in man with love for his wife, who, from a nature innate in her, cannot help but turn the love of self in man to his love for her. I have been told, too, that this comes about as a result of the wife’s love, without either the man or the wife being conscious of it. It is because of this that no one is ever able to love his partner with a truly conjugial love so long as he is possessed of a conceit in his own intelligence from a love of self.
[3] Once this secret of the creation of woman from man has been understood, it can be seen that in marriage a woman is similarly created or formed, so to speak, from her husband, and that this transformation is brought about by the wife – or rather, through the wife by the Lord, who infuses into women the inclination to achieve it. For a wife receives into her an image of her husband by assimilating his affections into her (see above, no. 173); by uniting the internal will of her husband with hers (concerning which below); and also by incorporating into her the propagations of his soul (of which also below).
It is apparent from this that a woman is transformed into a wife according to the description in the book of creation understood in respect to its inner meaning, and that she is transformed through the qualities she takes from her husband and his “breast” and implants in herself.
In order that this may come about as it should, therefore, it was enjoined on man that he leave father and mother and cling to his wife(Genesis 2:24, Matthew 19:4,5). [2] The father and mother a man is to leave mean, in a spiritual sense, the inherent nature of his will and the inherent nature of his intellect (the inherent nature of a person’s will being to love itself, and the inherent nature of a person’s intellect being to love its own wisdom). And to cling means to commit himself to love of his wife. These two inherent natures are evil and deadly to a man if they remain in him, but the love arising from the two is turned into conjugial love as a man clings to his wife, that is, as he acquires a love for her, as may be seen just above in no. 193, and elsewhere.
(It can be amply demonstrated from passages elsewhere in the Word that to be asleep symbolically means to be unaware or oblivious; that father and mother symbolically mean the two inherent natures of a person, one of the will and one of the intellect; and that to cling symbolically means to commit oneself to love for something. But it would be out of place to do it here.)
We say that it is a union with her husband’s inner will, because a man’s will has its seat in his intellect, and the intellectual quality of man is the inmost quality in woman, in accordance with observations we have made before, in no. 32 and several times since, regarding the formation of woman from man. Men also have an outward will, but this very frequently comes of pretense or concealment. A wife sees it, but she does not unite herself with it, except perhaps in a feigned or playful way.
It follows from this that anyone who joins the will of another person to himself, joins to himself the whole person. That is why it is instinctive in a wife’s love to unite her husband’s will to her own, for in this way the wife becomes one who belongs to her husband, and the husband one who belongs to his wife. Thus the two become one person.
In wives, conjugial delights take their rise from no other source than their willing to be united with their husbands, as good is united with truth in a marriage of these on the plane of the spirit. We separately showed in its own chapter that conjugial love descends from this marriage.* It can be seen in consequence, as though in a mirror, that a wife joins her husband to her as good joins truth to it; also that a husband joins himself to his wife in return according to his reception of her love in him, as truth joins itself to good in return, according to its reception of good in it. Thus it can be seen that a wife’s love takes form through the wisdom of her husband, as good takes form through truth; for truth is what gives form to good.
It is apparent from this as well, then, that conjugial delights in a wife come principally from her willing to be united with her husband, consequently from her willing to be an embodiment of love for her husband’s wisdom. For she then feels the delights of her warmth in the light of her husband, as explained under heading (4), nos. 188, 189.
* See “The Origin of Conjugial Love from the Marriage between Good and Truth,” nos. 83ff.
It is apparent from this that a maidenly state is transformed into a wifely one in women, and a youthful state into a husbandly one in men.
[2] I was convinced of the fact of this from the following experience in the spiritual world:
Some men said that the relationship a man has with a woman before marriage and the relationship he has with his wife after marriage are similar. When they heard this, their wives became very offended and said, “They are not at all alike! The difference is as the difference between fantasy and reality.”
To this the men retorted, “Are you not women as before?” To which their wives responded with rising voice, “We are not ‘women’ but wives! The love you feel is a fantasy love and not a real one; therefore you speak in fantasy terms.”
The men then said, “If you are not ‘women,’ still you are married women.” But they replied, “In the early days of marriage we were married women; now, however, we are wives.”
The fundamental reason for this is that in a marriage of truly conjugial love, each partner becomes more and more deeply human, for that love opens the deeper aspects of their minds, and as these are opened, a person becomes more and more human. To become more human is, on the part of a wife, to become more a wife; and on the part of a husband, to become 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; however, not so much the reverse. The reason, they said, is that a chaste wife rarely if ever fails to love her husband, but what fails is her being loved by her husband in return. They also said that this failure is attributable to a lack of elevation in his wisdom, which alone receives the love of a wife. (Respecting this wisdom, see nos. 130, 163-165.) But this they said in reference to marriages on earth.
We will see in the discussion that follows next that the ennobling of this form results in the birth of noble fruits – spiritual fruits in heaven, natural fruits on earth.
[2] Evidence that descendants are drawn by hereditary inclinations into affections, thoughts, ways of speaking, and modes of life similar to those of their parents – if they do not break themselves of those inclinations – is clearly apparent from the Jewish nation today and its close similarity to that nation’s ancestors in Egypt, in the desert, in the land of Canaan, and at the time of the Lord. It is apparent, moreover, not only from the close similarity in their minds, but also in their faces. Who does not recognize a Jew by his looks?
It is the same with other lines of descent. One may legitimately conclude from this that people are born with inclinations to similar things as their parents and that these inclinations are hereditary.
However, to keep actual thoughts and deeds from ensuing, it is Divinely provided that corrupt inclinations may be rectified, and that a capacity for this is also implanted. Resulting from this capacity are an ability and power in people to mend their habits, under the direction of parents and teachers, and afterwards by themselves when they come into their own right and judgment.
* See nos. 132ff (esp. 133-134), and nos. 151[r]ff.
Nevertheless, in some people the union is not closed up but remains partly open above, and in some cases all the way open. In either circumstance, this conjugial union is something from which offspring derive inclinations from their parents, a son in one way and a daughter in another. The conjugial union has this effect, because conjugial love is the fundamental love of all loves (as we showed above in no. 65).
It is clear from this that offspring who are born of a marriage in which this has been the case, from birth inherit a greater ability and readiness to join good to truth and truth to good, thus to become wise, than others. Consequently they also inherit a greater ability and readiness to absorb matters that have to do with the church and heaven. That conjugial love is tied together with these is something we have already demonstrated many times.
This makes plainly evident to the sight of reason the purpose for which the Lord the Creator has provided and continues to provide marriages of truly conjugial love.
* See no. 92.
** See no. 188.
The fact that the soul comes from the father and the clothing from the mother may be illustrated by analogous parallels in the vegetable kingdom. Here the earth or ground is the common mother. It admits seeds into it as though in a womb, and clothes them. Indeed, in a way it conceives, carries, gives birth to and rears the seedlings, as a mother does her offspring from a father.
– – – – – – – – – – –
Some time later* I looked in the direction of the city Athenaeum, which I said something about in an earlier account,** and I heard an unusual clamor. In the clamor I heard an element of laughter, in the laughter an element of displeasure, and in the displeasure an element of sorrow. However, the clamor was not therefore inharmonious, but harmonious, because the elements did not mix with each other, but one was contained within another. (In the spiritual world, one distinctly perceives the variety and combination of affections in a sound.)
From a distance I asked, “What is the matter?”
They then said, “A messenger came from the place where newcomers from the Christian world first appear, saying he had heard from three of them there that in the world they had come from, they had believed like everyone else that the blessed and happy after death would have complete rest from their labors, and that since positions of responsibility, occupations and employments are labors, they would have rest from these.
“An emissary of ours has now brought these three here, and they are standing at the gate and waiting. A commotion broke out because of this, and after deliberating, the people have decided not to bring them into the Palladium on Parnassium hill, as they have done with visitors before, but to bring them into the great hall there, to disclose the news they have from the Christian world. Several delegates have been sent to formally usher them in.”
[2] Since I was in the spirit – and since distances for spirits depend on the states of their affections, and I was then affected with a wish to see and hear these people – I found myself present there and saw them brought in and heard them speak.
The people in the hall who were older or wiser sat towards the sides, with the rest in the middle, and in front of them was a raised dais. In formal procession through the middle of the hall, some of the younger people conducted the three newcomers and the messenger to it. Then, after waiting for silence, one of the older ones there greeted them and asked, “What news do you have from earth?”
They said, “We have much that is new, but tell us, please, on what subject?”
So the older man replied, “What news do you have from earth regarding our world and heaven?”
They then answered, “When we first came into this world, we learned that here and in heaven there are positions of responsibility, ministries, occupations, business dealings, scholarly studies in every field of learning, and wonderful kinds of employment. Yet we had believed that upon our departure or passage from the natural world into this spiritual one, we would come into everlasting rest from our labors. What are occupations but labors?”
[3] To this the older man replied, “Did you think that eternal rest from labors meant eternal idleness, in which you would continually sit around or lie about, breathing in auras of delight with your breast and drinking in outpourings of joy with your mouth?”
Laughing gently at this, the three newcomers said that they had supposed something of the sort.
At that they then received this response: “What do joys and delights and thus happiness have in common with idleness? Idleness causes the mind to collapse rather than expand, or the person to become deader rather than more alive.
“Picture someone sitting around in a state of complete idleness, with hands hanging down, his eyes downcast or shut, and imagine that he is at the same time surrounded with an aura of rapture. Would drowsiness not seize both his head and his body, and the lively swelling of his face drop? With every fiber loosened, would he not finally begin to sway back and forth and eventually fall to the ground? What keeps the whole system of the body expanded and taut but an intentness of mind? And what produces an intentness of mind but responsibilities and employments, when these are undertaken with delight?
“So, then, I will tell you some news from heaven, that they have there positions of responsibility, ministries, higher and lower courts of law, and also trades and employments.”
[4] When the three newcomers heard that in heaven they have higher and lower courts of law, they began to say, “What is the purpose of these? Are not all in heaven inspired and led by God, and do they not all therefore know what is just and right? What need is there then for judges?”
But the older man replied, “In this world we are instructed and taught what is good and true, also what is just and right, the same as in the natural world. Moreover, we learn these things not directly from God but indirectly through others. Every angel, too, like every man, thinks truth and does good as though of himself, and this is not pure but mixed in character, depending on the angel’s state. In addition, among angels also, some are simple and some wise, and the wise have to make judgments when the simple ones among them, owing to their simpleness or ignorance, are uncertain about what is just or deviate from it.
“But,” he said to them, “since you are still newcomers in this world, follow me into our city, if you wish, and we will show you all.”
[5] So they left the hall, with some of the older people accompanying them as well. And they went first to a great library, which had been divided into a number of smaller collections according to subject fields.
The three newcomers were dumbfounded at seeing so many books, and they said, “You have books in this world too! Where do you get the parchment and paper? Where you get the pens and ink?”
The older men said in reply, “We perceive that you believed in the previous world that because this world is spiritual, it would be barren. Moreover, that you believed this because you harbored an idea of spiritual existence that was abstracted from a material one, and anything abstracted from material existence seemed to you to be nothing, consequently as something barren. Yet we have a full array of everything here. It is just that everything here is essential in nature rather than material, and material objects take their origin from essential ones. Those of us who live here are spiritual beings because we are essential beings rather than material ones. So it is that everything found in the material world exists here in its perfect form, even books and manuscripts, and many other things.”
When the three newcomers heard the term essential used, they thought it must be so, both because they saw the books that had been written, and because they had heard it said that material objects have their origin from essential forms.
To convince them further with respect to this, the men took the newcomers down to the quarters of copyists who were making copies of drafts written by some of the wise people of the city; and when the newcomers looked at the manuscripts, they marveled at how neat and polished they were.
[6] After this they escorted the newcomers to professional academies, gymnasia and colleges, also to places where their scholarly forums were held, some of which they called forums of the Daughters of Heliconeum, some forums of the Daughters of Parnassium, some forums of the Daughters of Athenaeum, and some forums of the Muses of the Spring.*** They said they gave them these names because daughters or maidens symbolize affections for various kinds of knowledge, and everyone’s intelligence depends on his affection for various kinds of knowledge. The forums so called were spiritual exercises and debates.
Next they took the newcomers around the city to its directors and managers and their officials, and these in turn introduced them to marvelous works, which their craftsmen create in a spiritual manner.
[7] After the newcomers had seen these things, the older man spoke with them again concerning eternal rest from labors, into which the blessed and happy come after death.
“Eternal rest does not mean idleness,” he said, “because idleness affects the mind and consequently the whole body with listlessness, lethargy, insensibility and slumber, and these are conditions of deadness, not life, much less the eternal life experienced by angels of heaven. Eternal rest, therefore, is rest that dispels these states and vitalizes a person, and this must be something which rouses the mind. Thus it is some pursuit or employment by which the mind is awakened, animated, and afforded delight, which in turn depends on some useful service for the sake of which, in which, and towards which it is working. So it is that the whole of heaven is viewed by the Lord as a world of useful service, and each angel is an angel according to the service he renders. The pleasure in being useful carries him along, like a boat in a favoring current, bringing him into a state of eternal peace and the rest that comes with peace. This is what is meant by eternal rest from labors.
“An angel’s vitality depends on an application of his mind to some pursuit for the sake of being useful, and confirmation of this is clearly seen from the fact that they each possess conjugial love with its vigor, potency and delights in the measure that they are engaged in a pursuit of genuine use.”
[8] When the three newcomers had been convinced that eternal rest does not mean idleness but the pleasure in some employment that is of use, some young women came with articles of needlework and sewing, works of their own hands, which they presented to them. Then, as these newly introduced spirits were departing, the young women sang a song whose angelic melody expressed an affection for employments of use and its accompanying satisfactions.
* I.e., some time after the occurrence related in no. 182.
** See no. 182; also nos. 151[r]-154[r].
*** In reference to these names, cf., in previous accounts of this city, the topographical features mentioned in nos. 151[r]:1, 182:1,2.
When I was once thinking about the secrets of conjugial love that wives hide and keep to themselves, I again saw the golden rain that I mentioned before;* and I remembered that it fell like mist upon a hall in the east, where three pictures of conjugial love lived, that is, three married couples who loved each other tenderly. On seeing it, I hastened in that direction, as though bidden by the sweetness of my reflection on that love; and as I approached, the rain turned from gold to purple, then scarlet, and when I was almost there, it became opalescent like dew.
I knocked and the door was opened. So I said to the attendant, “Convey to the husbands that one who was here before with an angel is present again, seeking permission to come in and speak with them.”
When the attendant returned, he indicated the husbands’ assent and I entered. The three husbands and their wives were together in a courtyard, and they returned my greeting warmly.
I then asked the wives whether the white dove had ever appeared at the window again. They said it had appeared that very day, and also had spread its wings. “We therefore anticipated your coming,” they said, “to entreat us to reveal one more secret of conjugial love.”
“But why do you say one,” I asked, “when I have come here to learn many more?”
[2] “They are secrets,” they replied, “and some of them so transcend the wisdom of you men that the comprehension of your intellect cannot grasp them. You men vaunt yourselves over us on account of your wisdom, but we do not vaunt ourselves over you on account of ours – even though our wisdom is superior to yours because it enters into your inclinations and affections and sees, perceives and feels them.
“You know nothing at all about the inclinations and affections of your love, and this despite the fact that it is because of them and in accordance with them that your intellect thinks, consequently that it is because of them and in accordance with them that you have your wisdom. Yet wives know these things in their husbands so well that they see them in their husbands’s faces and hear them in the intonations of the speech of their mouth – indeed so well that they feel them with the touch of their hands on their husbands’ breasts, arms and cheeks. But from a zealous love for your happiness and at the same time our own, we pretend as if we do not know these things, while at the same time moderating them so discreetly that whatever our husbands’ wish, pleasure or will, we accede to it by allowing and enduring it, and only redirecting it when possible, but never compelling.”
[3] “How is it that you have this wisdom?” I asked.
They replied, “It is implanted in us from creation and so from birth. Our husbands liken it to an instinct, but we say it comes of Divine providence, in order that men may be made happy through their wives. Our husbands have told us that it is the Lord’s will that the masculine sex act in freedom in accord with reason; and since a man’s freedom involves his inclinations and affections, therefore the Lord Himself moderates his freedom from within, and through his wife from without, and so forms the man and his wife together into an angel of heaven. Besides, if love is compelled, its fundamental nature changes and it becomes no longer the same love.
“But we will explain it more frankly. We are moved to this – that is, to a discreet moderation of the inclinations and affections of our husbands, so discreet that it seems to them that they act in freedom in accord with their own reason – because we feel delight from their love, and we love nothing more than for them to feel delight from our feelings of delight. But if these feelings become matters of indifference in them, they also begin to fade in us.”
[4] When they had said this, one of the wives went into her bedroom, and returning said, “My dove is still fluttering its wings – a sign that we may divulge more.”
So they said, “We have observed changes in the inclinations and affections of men in a variety of cases. For instance, husbands are cold to their wives whenever they entertain vain thoughts against the Lord and the church. They are cold whenever they pride themselves because of their own intelligence. They are cold whenever they look upon other women with lust. They are cold whenever they are admonished by their wives on the subject of love. We could mention a number of other instances as well, including the fact that the coldness they feel varies in each case. We notice this from the withdrawal of feeling from their eyes, ears and body when their senses meet ours.
“From these few illustrations you can see that we know better than men whether all is well with them or not. If they are cold to their wives, all is not well with them, but if they are warm to their wives it is. Wives are therefore continually turning over in their minds ways of inducing their men to be warm to them and not cold, and they do this with a keenness of perception incomprehensible to men.”
[5] As they said this, we heard what seemed to be the sound of a dove moaning; and at that point the wives said, “That is a signal to us that although we are eager to divulge still deeper secrets, we may not. Perhaps you will expose to men the secrets you have heard.”
“That is my intention,” I replied. “What harm will it do?”
After conferring with each other about this, the wives then said, “Disclose them if you wish. We are not unacquainted with the power of persuasion possessed by wives. Indeed, they will say to their husbands, ‘The man is fooling. They are fictions. He is trying to amuse with appearances and the usual nonsense typical of men. Do not believe him; believe us. We know that you are the lovers and we your humble servants.’
“So,” they said, “disclose them if you wish; but the husbands’ attention will not hang on your lips, but on the lips of their wives which they kiss.”
* See no. 155[r].
There are very many points in regard to marriage which, if presented in detail, would swell this book into an immense volume. For we could present a detailed treatment of various particulars relating to similarities and dissimilarities between partners; to the elevation of natural conjugial love into spiritual conjugial love, and the conjunction of the two; to the gradual growth of the one and the gradual decline of the other; to the varieties and diversities in each; to the intelligence in wives; to the universal conjugial atmosphere emanating from heaven, and the one opposite to it from hell; to the way these flow in and are received; and many other topics besides, which, if they were set out point by point, would expand this work into so large a tome it would weary the reader.
For this reason, and to avoid useless prolixities, we consolidate these items into this chapter on “Universal Matters Relating to Marriages.” As in previous chapters, however, we will divide them into discussions under their own headings, as follows:
(1) The special sense of conjugial love is the sense of touch.
(2) In the case of people who are in a state of truly conjugial love, their capacity for growing wise increases, but with those who are not in a state of conjugial love, it decreases.
(3) In the case of people who are in a state of truly conjugial love, their happiness in living together increases, but with those who are not in a state of conjugial love, it decreases.
(4) In the case of people who are in a state of truly conjugial love, their union of minds increases, and with it, their friendship, but with those who are not in a state of conjugial love, these both decrease.
(5) People who are in a state of truly conjugial love continually wish to be one person, but those who are not in a state of conjugial love want to be two separate individuals.
(6) People who are in a state of truly conjugial love look to eternity in their marriage, while the opposite is the case with those who are not in a state of conjugial love.
(7) Conjugial love has its seat in chaste wives, but still their love depends on their husbands.
(8) Wives love the bonds of marriage, provided that their husbands love them too.
(9) The intelligence of women is by nature modest, gracious, peaceable, compliant, soft and gentle, whereas the intelligence of men is by nature critical, rough, resistant, argumentative, and given to intemperance.
(10) Wives do not experience a state of arousal as their husbands do, but theirs is a state of readiness to receive.
(11) The sexual abundance men have is according to their love of propagating the truths of their wisdom and according to their love of performing useful services.
(12) Determinations to intercourse are at the good pleasure of the husband.
(13) There is a conjugial atmosphere which flows in from the Lord through heaven into each and every thing of the universe, extending even to its lowest forms.
(14) This atmosphere is received by the female sex and communicated through it to the male sex, and not the other way around.
(15) Where a truly conjugial love exists, this atmosphere is received by the wife, and by the husband solely through his wife.
(16) Where the love is not conjugial, this atmosphere is indeed received by the wife, but not by the husband through her.
(17) Truly conjugial love can be present in one of the partners and not at the same time in the other.
(18) Married partners bring with them [various similarities and]* various dissimilarities, both internal and external.
(19) Various similar qualities can be joined together, but not with dissimilar ones.
(20) For people who desire truly conjugial love, the Lord provides a similar partner, and if one is not found on earth, He provides one in heaven.
(21) To the degree that a person’s conjugial love wanes and is lost, his character approaches that of an animal.
Explanation of these statements now follows.
* See no. 227 below.
The love of joining oneself with one’s partner, arising from a love of uniting goodness and truth, also has the sense of touch, and that is because this sense is the common one of all the senses and so draws contributions from the rest. People know that this love brings all the aforementioned senses into confederation with it and appropriates their pleasures to itself.
The fact that the sense of touch is dedicated to conjugial love and is special to it is apparent from its every sport, and from the exaltation of its subtle sensations to the most highly exquisite. But to extend this discussion further is left to lovers.
It follows from this that people who are possessed of this love love nothing better than to become wise. For a person becomes wise as the inner perceptions of his mind are opened, because by their opening the thoughts of his understanding are raised into a higher light and the affections of his will into a higher warmth – the higher light being wisdom, and the higher warmth a love for wisdom. Spiritual delights joined to natural delights – as is the case in people in a state of truly conjugial love – bring about an amenability to and therefore a capacity for becoming wise.
Because of this, angels possess conjugial love in accordance with their wisdom, and increases in that love and its accompanying delights come about as a result of increases in their wisdom. Because of this, too, the spiritual offspring which are born of their marriages are, from the father, such things as have to with wisdom, and, from the mother, such things as have to do with love; and they love these offspring with a spiritual storge* (the natural affection of parents for their offspring). This latter love attaches itself to their conjugial love and continually elevates it, and at the same time unites the partners.
* From the Greek storg, pronounced stor’gee (like psyche), in use in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries to mean natural or instinctive affection, usually that of parents for their offspring, but no longer current.
Clear confirmation and proof that people like this are opposed to conjugial love appears in the spiritual world. There, at the first scent of conjugial love, they flee into caverns and shut the doors; and if these are opened, they go insane like madmen in the world.
You who are married men can confirm for yourselves that this is so from the first delights of marriage, which are then felt in their fullness; because at that time, of all the opposite sex, a husband loves his wife alone.
Everyone knows that the reverse is the case with those who do not possess any conjugial love.
Love prior to friendship is similar to love for any of the opposite sex, and after the wedding it gradually fades. But love combined with friendship continues on after the wedding and is also strengthened. It enters as well more deeply into the breast. Friendship introduces the love and causes it to be truly conjugial; and then the love in turn causes this, its friendship, to become also conjugial – a friendship which differs greatly from that of any other love, because it is a full one.
[3] People know that the opposite happens in the case of those who do not have conjugial love. In their case the first friendship that was inspired in them at the time of their betrothal and later during the first days after their wedding, more and more ebbs from the inner recesses of their minds and gradually subsides from there until it finally departs to the surface coverings of the skin. And in the case of those who contemplate separation, it entirely disappears. With those who do not contemplate separation, however, love remains in outward appearances, but inwardly it is cold.
That the opposite is the case with those who are not in a state of conjugial love, they themselves very well know. For they constantly think of themselves as two separate individuals, owing to a lack of union between their souls and minds, and they therefore do not see what is meant by the Lord’s words, that “they are no longer two but one flesh” (Matthew 19:6).
[2] What the state of married partners in heaven is like when thought of eternity leaves their minds and an idea of marriage as something temporary occurs instead, for me came to light from the following experience:
A married couple from heaven was once granted permission to be with me, and some clever-talking scoundrel then managed to take away their thought of eternity in regard to marriage. On being deprived of this thought they began to lament, saying that they could not go on living and that they felt a sense of distress as never before. When their fellow angels in heaven perceived this, the scoundrel was sent away and cast down. As soon as this happened, immediately their thought of eternity returned to them, and rejoicing with a heartfelt joy on account of it, they tenderly embraced each other.
[3] On another occasion I listened to two partners who one moment entertained a thought of eternity in respect to their marriage, and the next moment a thought of it as something temporary. The reason was that an internal dissimilarity existed between them. As long as they had the thought of eternity, they were happy together; but when they began to think of their marriage as something temporary, they said it was no longer a marriage – the wife declaring that she was no longer a wife but a mistress, and the husband that he was no longer a husband but a lecher. When their internal dissimilarity was revealed to them, therefore, the man left the woman and the woman left the man. Afterwards, however, because they each had an idea of eternity in respect to marriage, they were matched with partners of a character similar to their own.
[4] From these observations it can be clearly seen that partners who are in a state of truly conjugial love look to eternity, and that if this idea slips from the inmost recesses of their thought, they are estranged from each other in respect to conjugial love, however much they may not be estranged at the same time in respect to friendship. For friendship has its abode in outward ties, while conjugial love has its abode in inward ones.
It is the same in the case of marriages on earth. When married partners there love each other tenderly, they think of eternity in regard to the marriage covenant, and not at all of its being terminated by death. Or if they do think about this, they grieve, until strengthened again with hope by the thought of its continuing in the life to come.
216r. [repeated] (7) Conjugial love has its seat in chaste wives, but their love depends on their husbands. The reason is that wives are born forms of love, and it is therefore innate in them to wish to be one with their husbands. They also continue to feed their love with this thought of their will. Consequently to turn away from their effort to unite themselves with their husbands would be to turn away from their very natures.
It is different with husbands. Because they are not born forms of love, but are receivers of that love from their wives, therefore to the degree that they receive it, to that degree their wives enter into them with their love. But to the degree they do not receive it, their wives stand outside with their love and wait.
This is what happens, however, in the case of chaste wives. It is otherwise in the case of unchaste ones.
It follows from this that conjugial love has its seat in chaste wives, but that their love depends on their husbands.
With respect to the body, men are firm in skin and flesh, while women are soft. With respect to the face, men’s are harder, more defiant, rougher, darker in color, also whiskered, thus less beautiful, whereas women’s are softer, more compliant, gentler, lighter in color, and so pictures of beauty. With respect to tone of voice, men have a stern one, while women have a gentle one. With respect to their speech, men’s is given to intemperance and argumentativeness, while women’s is modest and peaceable. With respect to their bearing, men’s is bolder and more forceful, whereas women’s is meeker and more delicate. With respect to their behavior, men’s is more unruly, while women’s is more civilized.
[2] The nature of men and the nature of women are different even from the time they are born, and it became clearly apparent to me how much they differ from seeing boys and girls together in groups. Several times in a great city I looked through my window and saw gatherings of them on the street, where over twenty of them would congregate every day. There the boys would play together in accordance with the temperament inborn in them – raising a commotion, shouting, fighting, striking blows, throwing stones at each other. In contrast, the girls would sit peacefully at the doors of the houses, some playing with little children, some dressing dolls, some sewing on bits of linen, some giving each other kisses. And yet I was surprised to see that they regarded the boys the way they were with friendly eyes.
From this I could clearly see that a man is born a form of the intellect, and a woman a form of love. I could also see what the nature of the intellect is and what the nature of love is in their beginnings, and thus what a man’s intellect in its development would be like without conjunction with feminine love and eventually conjugial love.
In similar manner the ancients saw that a man’s power of insemination stems from a spiritual origin; and from many evidences of both reason and experience they concluded that it results from the truths of which the intellect consists. Moreover, they said that from the spiritual marriage that exists between goodness and truth, which flows into each and every thing in the universe, nothing else is received by members of the male sex but truth and what relates to truth; and that this, in its descent into the body, is formed into seed or sperm (which is why seeds, spiritually interpreted, mean truths).
[2] Regarding the process, they said that the male soul, being intellectual in nature, is therefore truth; for anything intellectual in nature is nothing else. Consequently as the soul descends, truth also descends. This is so, they said, because the soul is the inmost element in man and in every animal, and in its essence is spiritual; and from an inherent effort towards its propagation, in its descent it seeks and endeavors to reproduce itself. Then, when this happens, the whole soul forms itself and clothes itself and becomes seed or sperm. Moreover, this can take place thousands and thousands of times, they said, because the soul is a spiritual essence, which does not have dimension but repleteness, and from which there is no taking away a part, but instead a reproducing of the whole without any loss to it. As a result, the soul is as fully present in its tiniest vessels, which are the seeds or sperm, as it is in its largest one, which is the body.
[3] So then, since truth in the soul is the origin of the seed or sperm, it follows that the sexual abundance men have is according to their love of propagating the truths of their wisdom. It is also according to their love of performing useful services, because useful services are the good effects which truths produce. Some people know in the world as well that the diligent have an abundance, and not the lazy.
I once asked how something female can be generated from the soul of a man. The answer I received was that it originates from good in the intellect, because this in its essence is truth; for the intellect can think that something is good, thus thinking as true that this something is good. It is different with the will. This does not think about goodness and truth but loves them and does them. Therefore, in the Word, sons symbolize truths, and daughters, qualities of goodness (as may be seen above in no. 120); and when seed is mentioned in the Word, it symbolizes truth (as may be seen in The Apocalypse Revealed, no. 565).
For these reasons, determinations to intercourse must be left to the good pleasure of the husband. That is why wives, from the wisdom innate in them, never admonish their husbands in regard to these matters.
[2] There are several atmospheres which emanate from the Lord. For example, an atmosphere of conservation for conserving the created universe; an atmosphere of protection for protecting good and truth against evil and falsity; an atmosphere of reformation and regeneration; an atmosphere of innocence and peace; an atmosphere of mercy and grace; besides others. But the universal one of all is a conjugial atmosphere, because it is at the same time an atmosphere of propagation and is thus the supreme atmosphere in conserving the created universe by successive generations.
[3] This conjugial atmosphere fills the universe and pervades it from the firsts to the lasts of it. That this is so is apparent from observations made above,** where we showed that there are marriages in heaven, and most perfect marriages in the third or highest heaven; also, that besides being in human beings, this atmosphere exists in all members of the animal kingdom on earth, extending even to worms, and furthermore in all members of the vegetable kingdom, from olive trees and palms to the smallest grasses.
[4] This atmosphere is more universal than that of the heat and light which emanate from the sun of our world; and reason can be convinced of this from the fact that the conjugial atmosphere operates even when the sun’s warmth is absent, such as in winter, and when the sun’s light is absent, such as at night. Especially is this so in the case of human beings. It continues to operate because it originates from the sun of the angelic heaven, and that sun produces a constant balance of heat and light, that is, a constant union of good and truth. For heaven is in a state of perpetual spring. Variations in goodness and truth in heaven or in its warmth and light do not result from changes of the sun, as changes on earth do from variations in the heat and light coming from the sun there; but they occur as a result of the way recipient vessels receive them.
* I.e., “The Origin of Conjugial Love from the Marriage between Good and Truth,” nos. 83ff. See also no. 60.
** See, for example, the chapter, “Marriages in Heaven,” nos. 27ff, including no. 42; also nos. 92, 183, 204.
[2] The same point could be further confirmed from the marriage between good and truth, and, to the natural man, from the marriage between the heart and the lungs, because the heart corresponds to love and the lungs to the intellect. However, because most people are without knowledge of these, any confirmation on the basis of them would do more to obscure than enlighten.
The communication of this atmosphere from the female sex to the male sex is what causes the masculine mind to be set on fire even at just the thought of the opposite sex. It follows that it is also what causes the formation of the procreative powers in him and thus his state of arousal. For unless warmth is added to light on earth, nothing flourishes or is aroused to produce any fruit there.
It is the same with people who live together in a state of truly conjugial love. Moreover, because everyone has an atmosphere of life surrounding him, both man and woman, heavily around the breast and lightly around the back, it is apparent why husbands who really love their wives turn towards them and daily look upon them with kindly countenance, and conversely, why those who do not love their wives turn away from them and daily regard them with averted gaze.
A husband’s receiving the conjugial atmosphere solely through his wife is the mark by which truly conjugial love is recognized and differentiated from conjugial love that is illusory, feigned, or cold.
Now because this atmosphere is received directly by the female sex and indirectly by the male sex, and because it is received in accordance with particular forms, it follows that, although in its origin this atmosphere is holy, in its recipients it can be turned into an atmosphere that is not holy, even indeed into one that is opposite in character. The atmosphere opposite to it in such recipients is called wanton in the case of women and licentious in the case of men; and since men and women like that are in hell, that is the atmosphere that emanates from there. At the same time, that atmosphere also exhibits considerable diversity, and there are consequently many varieties of it. However, a man attracts and admits the type that accords with him and which is compatible with and matches the kind of person he is.
It can be seen in consequence that a man who does not love his wife receives this atmosphere from some other source than his wife. Still, it is possible for it to be inspired by the wife as well, but without his knowledge, and at times when he feels warmer towards her.
As a result, conjugial love may exist on the part of one and not on the part of the other. Because their minds are turned in opposite directions, they inwardly collide; and if this is not the case outwardly, still the one who is not in a state of conjugial love regards his companion by covenant as an insufferable old nuisance, and other like things.
Similarities and dissimilarities arise in general from people’s native inclinations, varied by their upbringing, associations, and acquired persuasions.
* See “Reasons in Marriage for Cold States, Separations and Divorces,” nos. 234ff.
No conjunction, however, can be achieved with dissimilar qualities, because they are incompatible.
The Lord’s Divine providence is most specific and most universal in connection with marriages and in its operation in marriages, because all delights of heaven flow from the delights of conjugial love, like sweet waters from a gushing spring. It is therefore provided that conjugial pairs be born, and they are raised and continually prepared for their marriages under the Lord’s guidance, neither the boy nor the girl being aware of it. Then, after a period of time, the girl – now a marriageable young woman – and the boy – now a young man ready to marry – meet somewhere, as though by fate, and notice each other. And they immediately recognize, as if by a kind of instinct, that they are a match, thinking to themselves as from a kind of inner dictate, the young man, ‘she is mine,’ and the young woman, ‘he is mine.’ Later, after this thought has for some time become settled in the minds of each, they deliberately talk about it together and pledge themselves to each other in marriage.
We say as though by fate, by instinct and as from a kind of dictate, when we mean by Divine providence, because when one is unaware that it is Divine providence, that is how it appears. For the Lord unveils their inner similarities so that they notice each other.
* See the narrative account in no. 316 below, which includes the same statement in almost the same words (316:3).
The reverse is the case if one is in a state of love contrary to conjugial love. For the more a person is in a state like that, the more natural in character he is; and a person who is merely natural is like an animal in his lusts, appetites and resulting delights, the only difference being that he still has the power to elevate his intellect into the light of wisdom and also the power to elevate his will into the warmth of heavenly love. No one loses these faculties. As a consequence, even though a merely natural person is like an animal in his lusts, appetites and resulting delights, still he lives after death, though in a state corresponding to the kind of life he led before.
It can be seen from this that to the degree a person’s conjugial love wanes, his character approaches that of an animal. This seems to be something that could be disputed, since it is possible for conjugial love to wane and be lost in people whose character is nevertheless still human. But we are referring to people in the grip of licentious love, who do not care about conjugial love therefore and for that reason experience its failure and loss.
– – – – – – – – – – –
I once heard some clamorings from below, which sounded as though they were gurgling up through water. I heard one clamor to the left crying, “Oh, how just!” Another to the right crying, “Oh, how learned!” And a third one behind me crying, “Oh, how wise!” Then, because it struck me to wonder whether there are any just, learned or wise people in hell, I began to feel a wish to see if people of this sort might be found there; and it was told me from heaven, “You will both see and hear.”
So I left home in the spirit, and I saw in the ground before me an opening. I went over to it and looked down, and behold, it had a stairway in it. I went down this stairway, and when I reached the bottom, I saw fields covered with bushes intermixed with thorns and nettles. When I asked whether I was in hell, the people said it was a lower earth just above hell.
I then proceeded in the direction of each of the clamors in turn. Going first to the place where they were crying, “Oh, how just!” I saw a gathering of people who in the world had been judges swayed by partiality and gifts. Going next to the place where they were crying, “Oh, how learned!” I saw a gathering of people who in the world had been reasoners. And going third to the place where they were crying, “Oh, how wise!” I saw a gathering of people who in the world had been confirmers.
[2] I turned back from these, however, to the first place, where the judges were who were swayed by partiality and gifts and who were proclaimed as just. There, over to one side, I saw a kind of amphitheater, built out of bricks and having a roof of black tiles; and I was told that they called it the Tribunal. It had three entrances opening into it on the north side, and three more on the west side, but none on the south or east sides – an indication that their judgments were not judgments having to do with justice but arbitrary rulings.
Inside I saw in the middle of the amphitheater a fireplace, into which the keepers of the hearth were throwing torches covered with sulfur and pitch. Shafts of light flickered out from these on to the plastered walls and formed silhouetted images of birds of the evening and night. At the same time, this fireplace, and the shafts of light flickering out into silhouettes of these images, were representations of their judgments, reflecting their ability to illumine the issues in any case with colored hues and to shape them as they pleased.
[3] After a half-hour had passed, I saw some older and younger men entering in gowns and robes; and laying aside their caps, they seated themselves at tables, ready to sit in judgment. I then heard and observed how skillfully and cleverly they avoided any appearance of favoritism, turning their judgments into semblances of justice, and this to the point that they themselves viewed injustice as nothing other than just, and justice, conversely, as unjust. Their persuasions in regard to these matters were apparent to the eye from their faces and discernible to the ear from their comments.
I was given at that point enlightenment from heaven, which enabled me to perceive in each case whether the rulings were in accordance with the law or not; and I saw to what lengths they went to camouflage injustice and give it the guise of justice, picking out from the laws some one that might support them and drawing the rest to their side through clever reasonings.
After rendering their judgments, the judges would have their verdicts conveyed out to their clients, friends and supporters; and to repay them for their favor, these would cry out for some distance along the road, “Oh, how just! Oh, how just!”
[4] I afterwards spoke with angels of heaven about these events and told them some of the things I had seen and heard. The angels said to me that judges like that appear to others as though endowed with an exceptional keenness of understanding, when in fact they do not have the least inkling of what is just and fair.
“If you take away their partiality for one side or the other,” they said, “they sit on their benches as mute as statues, saying only, I agree, I go along with this person or I go along with that person. That is because all their judgments are prejudgments, and their prejudgment pursues each case from beginning to end with a biased one-sidedness. Consequently they see only the side which involves a friend. Every point that is against him they move to the periphery; and if they take it up again, they entangle it in reasonings, as a spider does its prey in the threads of its web – and so destroy it.
“That is why, if they do not follow the web of some prejudgment of theirs, they do not have any inkling of the law. They have been examined to see whether they might have some inkling of it, and it was found that they did not. The inhabitants of your world will be surprised that such is the case, but tell them it is a truth investigated by angels of heaven.
“Since these judges lack any sight of justice,” they continued, “in heaven we view them as being not human but monsters, whose heads are shaped by elements of partisanship, their breasts by elements of injustice, and their feet by matters of confirmation – with only the soles of their feet being formed by matters of justice, which they step on and trample into the ground if these do not favor some friend of theirs.
“However, you will see for yourself how they look to us from heaven, for their end is near.”
[5] And lo, suddenly then the ground opened, so that tables after tables went tumbling down, and they and their whole amphitheater were swallowed up. And they were cast into caverns and made prisoners there.
Then the angels said to me, “Would you like to see them now?”
And behold, in respect to their faces they appeared as though made of burnished steel. In respect to their bodies from the neck to the loins they looked like figures carved out of stone, dressed in leopard skins. And in respect to their feet they looked like serpents. I also saw the lawbooks, which they had had lying on their tables, turned into playing cards. And now, instead of judging, they were given the task of processing pigments into cosmetics with which to paint the faces of harlots and so turn them into beauties.
[6] After seeing this, I was ready to go on to the other two gatherings, to the one where the people were merely reasoners, and to the other where they were merely confirmers. But at that point the angels said to me, “Rest a while. You will be given angels from the society just above those places to accompany you. Through them you will receive light from the Lord, and you will see some astonishing sights.”
Some time later, I again heard from the land below the same cries as before, “Oh, how learned!” and “Oh, how wise!” So I looked around to see what angels were then present, and lo, they were angels who lived in the heaven just above the people who were crying out, “Oh, how learned!” I therefore spoke to them about the clamor, and the angels said that the people acclaimed as learned there were the sort who only reason about whether a thing is so or not and rarely think that it is.
“Consequently they are like gusts of wind,” they said, “which blow and pass away, or like coverings of bark around trees which have no core, or like shells around almonds without a kernel, or like rinds around fruits without any flesh. For their minds lack any inner judgment and are connected only with their physical senses. If the senses themselves are inadequate to form a judgment, therefore, they can reach no conclusion. In a word, they are merely sense-oriented, and by us are called reasoners.
“We call them reasoners because they never reach any conclusion. Instead they take up whatever they hear and argue about whether it is so, constantly contradicting themselves. They like nothing more than to attack actual truths and thus tear them apart by turning them into matters of dispute. They are the sort of people who think they are more learned than all others in the world.”
[2] When I heard this, I asked the angels to take me down to them. So they took me to a cave which had steps leading down to a lower earth. We then descended and followed in the direction of the clamor, “Oh, how learned!” And suddenly we saw several hundred people standing in the same place, trampling the soil with their feet. Being astonished by this at first, I asked why they were standing together like that and stamping away at the soil. “At that rate they may use their feet to make a hole in the ground,” I said.
The angels chuckled at this and said, “They appear as standing there like that because on any subject they regard nothing as being so, but only consider whether it is and make it a matter of debate. So, since their thought goes no further, they appear only to tread and wear away the same patch of ground without making any progress.”
At that point I then went over to the gathering; and behold, they seemed to me to be people of not unhandsome appearance and dressed in elegant clothing. But the angels said, “That is how they seem in their own light; but if light from heaven flows in, their appearance changes, and also their clothing.” This, too, actually happened; and then they appeared with dark faces, clothed in black sacks. However, when the light from heaven was taken away, they looked as they had before.
Shortly afterwards I spoke with some of them and said, “I heard the clamor of the crowd around you, crying ‘Oh, how learned!’ Allow me to explore with you, therefore, some discussion on subjects which are matters of the highest learning.”
[3] To which they replied, “Name any subject you please and we will give you an answer.”
So I asked, “What must the nature of a person’s religion for him to be saved by it?”
In answer they said, “We need to divide this question into several parts, and we cannot give a reply before we come to a conclusion in regard to these. The first consideration must be whether there is anything to religion. Second, whether there is any salvation or not. Third, whether one religion is of any more avail than another. Fourth, whether there is a heaven and a hell. Fifth, whether there is any eternal life after death. And many other considerations besides.”
So I asked about the first, whether there is anything to religion. And they began to discuss it, advancing a number of arguments over whether there is any religion, and whether there is anything to what is called religion.
I then asked them to refer the question to the whole gathering, which they did. And the collective response was that the question as put required so much investigation that they could not resolve it by the end of the evening.
“Could you resolve it in a year?” I asked.
And one of them said it could not be resolved in a hundred years.
“But meanwhile,” I said, “you are without religion.”
To which he replied, “Do we not have to show first whether there is any religion, and whether there is anything to what is called religion? If there is, religion must exist for the wise as well. If not, it must exist only for the common people. We all know that religion is said to be a tie that binds, but the question is, for whom? If only for the common people, then in essence there is nothing in it. If for the wise as well, then there is something in it.”
[4] On hearing this I said to them, “You are not learned at all, because you can only speculate about whether a thing is so without settling it either way. Who can become learned without knowing anything for certain, and without making any progress towards it in the way that any person progresses, step by step, and so gradually into wisdom? Otherwise you do not lay so much as a fingernail on truths but remove them further and further out of sight.
“If you reason only about whether a thing is so, is that not like reasoning about the fit of a hat which is never tried on, or about the fit of a shoe which no one wears? What other consequence results but your not knowing whether anything is anything – including, indeed, whether there is any salvation, whether there is any eternal life after death, whether one religion is of any more avail than another, whether there is a heaven and a hell. You cannot have any thought about such things so long as you remain stuck at the first step and keep pounding away at the same piece of ground there without putting one foot in front of the other and moving forward.
“You had better take care that while your minds are standing outside the temple of judgment like that, they do not harden within and turn into pillars of salt, and you become the companions of Lot’s wife.”
[5] So saying I turned and went, and in anger they hurled stones after me. And at that point they appeared to me like figures carved out of stone, having nothing of human reason in them.
I then asked the angels about their fate; and the angels said, “Their fate is to be let down into an abyss, and there into a wilderness, where they are forced to carry packs. Moreover, because they are then unable to utter anything from their reason, they prattle and talk nonsense; and from a distance there they look like donkeys bearing burdens.”
After this, one of the angels said, “Follow me to the place where they are crying out, ‘Oh, how wise!'” And he added, “You will see human monstrosities. The faces and bodies you see will be like those of a human being, and yet they are not human.”
So I said, “Are they animals, then?”
The angel replied, “No, they are not animals, but animal-like. For they are people who cannot see at all whether truth is true or not, and yet whatever they wish they can make to be true. Among us, people like that are called confirmers.”
We then followed the clamor and came to the place. And lo, we found a group of men surrounded by a crowd of people, and in the crowd some people of noble lineage. The men were confirming whatever the latter said and agreeing with them with such manifest accord that when they heard it, they turned to each other and said, “Oh, how wise!”
[2] However, the angel said to me, “Let us not go over to them but instead call one of them out of the group.”
So we called one of them to us, and going aside with him, we talked about various matters. And he confirmed each point so thoroughly that they all appeared entirely as true.
We then asked him whether he could also confirm the converse of these. He said that he could, just as well as he did the previous ones. At which point he said openly and from the heart, “What is truth? Is there any truth in the nature of things other than what a person makes true? Say to me anything you please and I will make it to be true.”
So I said, “Make this true, that faith is everything in the church.” And he did so, so cleverly and skillfully that some learned bystanders looked on in admiration and applauded. I asked him next to make it true that charity is everything in the church, which he did, and afterwards that charity is nothing in the church. And he dressed up both propositions and arrayed them in such verisimilitudes that the bystanders looked at each other and said, “Isn’t he wise!”
But I said, “Do you not know that to live rightly is charity, and to believe rightly is faith? If anyone lives rightly, does he not also believe rightly? Thus showing that faith is connected with charity, and charity with faith? Do you not see that this is true?”
He replied, “I will make it true and then I will see.” And having done it he said, “Now I see.” But shortly he made the converse of it to be true, and then he said, “I see as well that this is true.”
We chuckled at this and said, “But are these not contradictory conclusions? How can you see two contrary conclusions as true?”
Nettled by our response, he replied, “You are wrong. Both conclusions are true, since truth is only what a person makes true.”
[3] Standing nearby was someone who in the world had been an ambassador of the highest rank. He marveled at this and said, “I recognize that something of this sort goes on in the world, but still you are insane. Make it to be true, if you can, that light is darkness, and darkness light.”
To which he replied, “I will do it easily. What are light and darkness but conditions of the eye? Does light not turn to darkness when the eye comes in out of bright sunshine? Or when it gazes intently at the sun? Who does not know that the state of the eye then changes and that light consequently appears as darkness? And conversely, that when the condition of the eye recovers, the darkness appears as light?
“Does an owl not see the darkness of night as the light of day, and the light of day as the darkness of night? Does it not see the sun itself as a dark and shadowy orb? If a person had eyes like an owl’s, what would he call light and what would he call darkness?
“What then is light but a condition of the eye? And if it is a condition of the eye, is not light darkness and darkness light? Consequently the one proposition is true and the other is true.”
[4] After that the ambassador asked him to make it to be true that a raven is white and not black.
To which he replied, “I will do this easily, too. Take a needle or razor,” he said, “and open up the feathers or quills of a raven. Are they not white inside? Then remove the feathers and quills and look at the raven’s skin. Is it not white? What is the blackness surrounding it but an opaqueness to light, which is hardly a basis on which to judge the raven’s color? If you do not know that blackness is only an absence of light, ask experts in the science of optics and they will tell you. Or grind a piece of black stone or black glass into a fine powder, and you will see that the powder is white.”
“But,” said the ambassador, “does a raven look black to the eye?”
“Perhaps,” replied this confirmer of ours, “but as a human being, are you willing to base what you think on an appearance? You may indeed speak in accordance with the appearance and say that a raven is black, but you cannot think it. As for example, you may speak in accordance with the appearance and say that the sun rises, travels and sets, but as a human being you cannot think it, because the sun stands still and it is the earth that moves. It is the same with the raven. An appearance is only an appearance. Say what you will, a raven is totally and utterly white. It even turns white when it grows old, as I have observed.”
[5] We then asked him to tell us honestly whether he was joking or whether he really believed that there is no truth but what a person makes true. And he answered, “I swear that I believe it.”
After that the ambassador asked him whether he could make it true that he was insane. To which he said, “I could, but I do not want to. Who is not insane?”
This total confirmer was afterwards sent to some angels for them to examine and determine what sort of person he was. And having examined him, they said he possessed not even a grain of understanding, because everything that exists above the level of reason in him was closed up, and only that which is below the level of reason was open.
“Above the level of reason,” they said, “is the light of heaven, and below the level of reason is the light of nature. And the light of nature is such that it can confirm whatever it pleases. However, if the light of heaven does not flow into the light of nature, a person does not see whether any truth is true, and so neither whether any falsity is false. An ability to see both what is true and what is false results from the presence of light from heaven in the light of nature, and the light of heaven comes from the God of heaven, who is the Lord.
“This total confirmer is therefore neither human nor animal, but animal-like.”
[6] I asked the angel with me about the fate of people like that and whether it was possible for them to be among the living, since a person has life from the light of heaven, and from it comes his intellect. And the angel said that when people of this sort are by themselves, they are incapable of thought and so have nothing to say, but stand as mute as machines, as though in a deep sleep; but as soon as something catches their ears, they awaken. He added also that people become like that who are inmostly evil. “The light of heaven cannot flow into them from above,” he said, “but only some spiritual element through the world, from which they have an ability to confirm.”
[7] After he said this, I heard the voice of one of the angels who had examined the man, calling to me and saying, “From what you have heard draw an overall conclusion.”
So I drew the following conclusion: An ability to confirm whatever one pleases is not the mark of an intelligent person; rather, the mark of an intelligent person is to be able to see that truth is true and falsity false, and to confirm that.
I afterwards looked over at the gathering where the confirmers stood and where the crowd surrounding them was beginning to cry out, “Oh, how wise!” And suddenly a dusky cloud enveloped them, with screech owls and bats flitting about in the cloud.
It was then explained to me, “The owls and bats flitting about in the dusky cloud are correspondent forms and thus manifestations of their thoughts. For in this world, confirmations of falsities to the point that they appear as truths are represented under the forms of birds of the night, whose eyes are lit up with an illusory light from within by which they see objects in darkness as though in light. This is the kind of illusory spiritual light had by those who confirm falsities to the point that they appear as truths, and who afterwards say and believe they are truths. They all possess a kind of after-sight and not any prior sight.”
In considering in this chapter reasons for cold states in marriage, we take up also at the same time grounds for separation and divorce. We do this because they are interconnected; for separations come about only as a result of cold states progressively developed after marriage, or as a result of factors discovered after marriage which in turn lead to coldness. Divorce, moreover, is impelled by acts of adultery, because these are completely opposed to marriage, and being opposed they induce coldness, if not in both partners, still in the one.
That is why we put reasons for cold states, separation and divorce together into the same chapter. The interconnection between the reasons, however, is more clearly perceived from seeing them in sequence. A sequential arrangement of them is as follows:
(1) People experience spiritual warmth and spiritual coldness; and spiritual warmth is love, while spiritual coldness is its absence and loss.
(2) Spiritual coldness in marriage is a disunion of souls and disjunction of minds, resulting in indifference, discord, contempt, loathing, and aversion, and leading finally in many cases to separation from the bed, bedroom and house.
(3) Reasons for cold states in their gradual progressions are many, some of them internal, some external, and some incidental.
(4) Internal reasons for cold states stem from religion.
(5) Of these reasons, the first is rejection of religion by both partners.
(6) A second is one partner’s having religion and not the other.
(7) A third is one partner’s having one religion and the other partner another.
(8) A fourth is ingrained falsity of religion.
(9) These are causes of an inward coldness, but in many cases not at the same time of an outward one.
(10) External reasons for coldness are also many; and of these, the first is a dissimilarity of dispositions and manners.
(11) A second is believing that conjugial love is no different from licentious love, only that the latter is forbidden by law, while the former is allowed.
(12) A third is competition between the partners for superiority.
(13) A fourth is an absence of focus on any pursuit or business, resulting in promiscuous lust.
(14) A fifth is inequality of station and condition in the partners’ outward circumstances.
(15) There are also several reasons for separation.
(16) Of these, the first is an impairment of the mind.
(17) A second is an impairment of the body.
(18) A third is impotence prior to marriage.
(19) Adultery is ground for divorce.
(20) Incidental reasons for coldness are also many; and of these, the first is ordinariness from being continually allowed.
(21) A second is the sense that living with one’s partner is compelled by covenant and law and not free.
(22) A third is declaration by the wife of her love and discourse by her about it.
(23) A fourth is the man’s thinking of his wife day and night that she wants to, and conversely the wife’s thinking of her husband that he does not want to.
(24) As coldness develops in the mind, so it also develops in the body; and in the measure that this coldness grows, the outward aspects of the body close up as well.
Explanation of these statements now follows.
This makes clear the origin of spiritual warmth and the fact that it is love.
[2] The origin of spiritual coldness, moreover, will also be briefly explained. It originates from the sun of the natural world and its heat and light.
The sun of the natural world was created so that its heat and light might receive into them spiritual heat and light and by means of its atmospheres convey them even to the lowest elements in the world. Their purpose was to produce the effects of those ends which, being the Lord’s, exist in the spiritual sun, and also to clothe spiritual things with coverings or materials adequate to bring about final ends in nature. This is what happens when spiritual heat is joined to and contained in natural heat.
The contrary happens, however, when natural heat is separated from spiritual heat, as is the case in people who love natural things and reject spiritual ones. In them spiritual warmth becomes coldness. These two kinds of heat, by creation in harmony, thus become opposed to each other, and the reason is that the master heat then becomes the servant heat, and the servant heat the master. So, to keep this from happening, spiritual heat withdraws, which by right of its origin is the master; and spiritual warmth in these recipient vessels then grows cold, because it becomes opposed.
It is apparent from this what spiritual coldness is – that it is the 3absence and loss of spiritual heat. (In what we have just said, by heat we mean love, because spiritual heat in animate recipients is felt as love.)
I have heard in the spiritual world that merely natural spirits experience an intense coldness whenever they attach themselves to the side of some angel who is feeling a state of love. Also that spirits in hell have the same experience whenever warmth from heaven flows in upon them – even though among themselves, when the warmth of heaven is shut off and withdrawn, they burn with great heat.
These states occur because coldness in marriage is seated more deeply in human minds than any other feelings of coldness. For the essence of the conjugial relationship is engraved on the soul, in order that one soul may be procreated from another and the father’s soul propagated into offspring. As a result, marital coldness starts there, and progressively descending into subsequent elements it infects these as well, and so turns the happy and delightful states of the earlier love into sad and unpleasant ones.
Consequently, to make it known that external factors are not reasons in themselves, but stem from others that are the reasons in themselves, which – as we said – lie in the inmost recesses of a person, we therefore first distinguish these reasons generally into internal and external ones, and then explore them individually.
The soul of offspring comes from the father – a fact that is recognized from their similarity in inclinations and affections, and also from the commonality of their facial features, persisting from the father even in a much later generation. Secondly, the procreative ability was implanted from creation in souls. And in addition, one finds an analogous parallel in members of the vegetable kingdom, in that reproduction of the seed itself, and thus of the whole plant, lies within the inmost workings of their germinations, whether it be a tree, bush or shrub.
[2] This reproductive or creative force in seeds in the vegetable kingdom, and in souls in the animal kingdom, originates from no other source than the conjugial atmosphere – the atmosphere of good and truth which continually emanates and flows in from the Lord, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe (concerning which above, nos. 222-225) – and from the effort of these two in it – good and truth – to join themselves into one. This conjugial effort inherent in souls is the motive force from which conjugial love springs in the first place.
The same marriage from which this universal atmosphere flows also forms the church in a person, as we have shown amply enough and more in the chapter on “The Marriage of the Lord and the Church”* and in a number of other places.**
It is fully and plainly apparent to the sight of reason from this that the origin of the church and the origin of conjugial love have the same seat in a person, and that they are locked in a continual embrace. For more on this subject, however, see no. 130 above, where we showed that conjugial love depends on the state of the church in a person, consequently that it stems from religion, because it is religion which forms that state.
[3] Besides, people were created to be able to become more and more interior beings, thus to be introduced or elevated nearer and nearer to a marriage of good and truth and so into truly conjugial love, to the point that they feel its state of bliss. The only means by which they can be introduced or elevated is religion, which is clearly apparent from what we have already said, that the origin of the church and the origin of conjugial love have the same seat in a person and are there locked in a continual embrace, so that they cannot help but be joined together.
* The original text reads “the marriage of good and truth,” as though in reference to the chapter, “The Origin of Conjugial Love from the Marriage between Good and Truth,” nos. 83ff; but comparison of the contents of the chapters indicates that this is probably a slip of the pen for “The Marriage of the Lord and the Church,” nos. 116ff. See especially no. 122 there.
** See for example nos. 62, 72, 76:5, 115:4.
Sufficiently corroborative evidence of this may be inferred from the general ignorance today regarding truly conjugial love. Who today knows that the origin of conjugial love in a person stems from religion? Who today is even willing to acknowledge it, and who today would not be surprised by it? But this circumstance is owing altogether to the fact that although religion exists, its truths do not; and what is religion without truths? (We showed in full in The Apocalypse Revealed that these truths are lacking. See also the narrative accounts there in no. 566.)
So, because truly conjugial love is the fundamental love of all spiritual loves (as we have shown previously),* it is apparent that people like this have an inward hatred for it, and that they have an inward or inherent love for its opposite, which is a love of adultery. Consequently they, more than others, may be expected to ridicule this truth, that everyone possesses conjugial love according to the state of the church in him. Indeed, they may guffaw perhaps at the mere mention of truly conjugial love. But let them laugh. Yet they must be pardoned, because it is as impossible for them to think of embraces in marriage as any different from embraces in licentious relationships, as it is for a camel to force its way through the eye of a needle.**
People who are of this character experience a greater coldness than others in respect to conjugial love. If they remain faithful to their married partners, they do so only for some of the external reasons recounted above in no. 153, which hold them and keep them from straying. In their case, the inner faculties, which are faculties of the soul and from that of the mind, are more and more closed up, and in the body obstructed; and then even love for the opposite sex becomes a matter of indifference, or it smolders with an insane lasciviousness in the interior recesses of the body and so in the bottommost elements of their thought.
People like this are also meant by the ones in the narrative account in no. 79. Let them read it if they like.
* See nos. 58, 65-67.
** Cf. Matthew 19:24, Mark 10:25, Luke 18:25.
This coldness is not dispelled except by that partner’s acceptance of religion in harmony with the religion of the other, if the other’s religion is true. Otherwise, in the partner who has no religion, coldness sets in, which descends from the soul into the body until it reaches the outer coverings of the skin. The result is that he finally cannot bear to look his partner directly in the face, or speak to her in such a manner as to breathe the same air, or address her in anything but a restrained tone of voice, or touch her with his hand, and scarcely even to feel her at his back. We refrain from mentioning in addition the insanities ensuing from that coldness which creep into the thoughts of people like this, insanities which they keep hidden.
This is the reason that marriages of this sort naturally disintegrate.
Besides, people know that an impious person has little regard for his married partner; and all who are without religion are impious.
(In a great city I once wandered the streets in order to find lodging, and I entered a house where partners of different religions were staying. I was unaware of it, but angels then spoke to me, saying, “We cannot remain with you in this house, because it has partners with discordant religions living in it.” This they perceived from the inward lack of union between their souls.)
* See, for example, nos. 21:2, 32, 33, 44:9, 61, 66, 75:5, 76:5, 88, 89, 90, 91, 100, 115:5, 122, 159, 193.
In people like this some conjugial love is possible; but it is not possible in people who have falsified genuine truths of the church in themselves. They are the cause of the prevailing ignorance concerning truly conjugial love or the skeptical doubt that it is possible. They are also the source of the insane belief residing in the minds of many that adulterous affairs are not evils against religion.
[2] Many circumstances occur which join minds together but do not at the same time join souls. Among the circumstances are some of those recounted above in no. 153. But still an inner coldness lies hidden within, and this coldness makes itself periodically noticed and felt. In such marriages, the partners depart from each other in their affections, and only draw together in their thoughts whenever these are manifested in their speech and behavior, in order to preserve an appearance of friendship and favor. In consequence they know nothing of the pleasantness and pleasure of truly conjugial love, and even less of its felicity and bliss. To them these are little more than fables.
People like this are among those who imagine the origins of conjugial love from the same causes as the nine companies of wise men assembled from the kingdoms of Europe, as reported in a narrative account earlier, nos. 103-114.
* See nos. 271ff.
It is owing to this that life is still procreated, but during its descent, until it becomes seed or sperm, the soul is enveloped by elements of a type that have to do with the father’s natural love. This is the source from which hereditary evil springs.
To this I will add a secret, which I have from heaven, that between two disunited souls, especially those of married partners, conjunction is accomplished in the area of some intermediary love. Otherwise conceptions would not occur among human beings.
(For more on the subject of coldness in marriage and where it has its seat – namely, in the highest region of the mind – see the concluding narrative account at the end of this chapter, no. 270.)
[2] In contrast, external similarities and dissimilarities are qualities not of souls but of dispositions. By dispositions we mean people’s outward affections and consequent inclinations which are implanted after birth chiefly through their upbringings, associations, and resulting habits. Indeed, people say, “I have a disposition to do this,” or “a disposition to do that,” and we comprehend by this an affection or inclination for it. Acquired persuasions respecting one kind of life or another usually shape these dispositions as well. They are what induce inclinations in some even to enter marriages with partners not their equals and also to refuse marriages with ones who are. Nevertheless, after the partners have lived together for a time, these marriages vary according to the similarities and dissimilarities which the partners have acquired both by heredity and their accompanying upbringing. Any dissimilarities then induce coldness.
[3] It is the same with dissimilarities in manners. As for example, in the marriage of an uncouth man or woman with one who is refined; of a cleanly man or woman with one who is slovenly; of a quarrelsome man or woman with one who is peaceable – in short, in the marriage of an unmannerly man or woman with one who is well-mannered.
Marriages exhibiting such dissimilarities are not unlike couplings of different animal species with each other – as, for example, of sheep and goats, deers and mules, chickens and geese, sparrows and more noble birds – indeed, of dogs and cats – which because of their dissimilarities do not naturally associate. In human beings, however, dissimilarities do not show in surface features but in habits of behavior. States of coldness therefore arise because of this.
It inevitably follows that between the man and “his woman,” contempt, loathing, and aversion break out because of this, and thus intense coldness. For nothing harbors a coldness to marriage within it more than licentious love. And because it also goes off into coldness, it may not unjustifiably be called the very essence of coldness in marriage.
So long as this struggle persists, the spirit of one partner imagines acts of violence against the other. If their minds were to be laid open in this state and made visible to spiritual sight, they would appear as though battling with daggers. They would also be seen to look upon each other with alternating feelings of hatred and favor – with feelings of hatred when caught up in the heat of combat, and with feelings of favor whenever they achieve hope of supremacy or are prompted by lust.
[2] Later, when one partner has gained victory over the other, although this conflict disappears from outward manifestations, it recedes into the inner recesses of the mind, where it remains in a concealed state of agitation. The result is coldness on the part of the one made subject or servant, and also on the part of the one who has become victor or master. Coldness develops on the part of the latter as well, because conjugial love no longer exists, and the absence or loss of this love is coldness (no. 235). Instead of conjugial love, the victor feels a warmth resulting from superiority; but this warmth is wholly incompatible with any conjugial warmth, however similar it may be outwardly when prompted by lust.
After the partners come to a tacit agreement between them, it appears as though conjugial love has turned into friendship. But the difference between conjugial friendship and a master-servant friendship in marriage is like the difference between light and dark, between a blazing fire and a cold phosphorescence – indeed, like the difference between a person fully fleshed and one consisting only of skin and bone.
By pursuit or business we mean any effort to be useful. When as a result a person is engaged in some pursuit or business or other useful activity, his mind is fenced around and circumscribed as though with a circle, within whose bounds it is progressively ordered into truly human form. Then, from this vantage point, as though looking out from its house, it sees various impure passions lurking outside, and from the sanity of its reason within, banishes them, thus banishing as well the wild insanities of licentious lust. Because of this, conjugial warmth lasts better and longer in such people than it does in others.
[2] The contrary happens in the case of people who surrender themselves to laziness and sloth. Their mind is not fenced around or set within bounds; a person like that consequently throws open the whole of it and lets in every sort of nonsense and foolishness which flows in from the world and the body and draws him into a love of them. It is apparent that conjugial love is also then cast out and banished. For laziness and sloth dull the mind and numb the body, and the whole person becomes unresponsive to any vitalizing love – especially conjugial love, from which, as from a fountain, spring active and energetic states of life.
In such people, however, the coldness they feel in marriage is different from the same coldness in others. It is indeed an absence and loss of conjugial love, but from a failure of ability.
* See “The Origin of Conjugial Love from the Marriage between Good and Truth,” nos. 83ff.
With respect to age, it requires no argument to show that age differences induce coldness in marriages, as in the marriage of a boy with an old woman, or of an adolescent girl with a decrepit old man.
With respect to position in society, it is also acknowledged without need for confirmation that class differences likewise induce coldness in marriages, as in the marriage of an upper-class man with a maidservant, or of a prominent lady with a manservant.
With respect to possessions of wealth, it is apparent that differences in these induce coldness as well – unless the partners are kept together by a similarity in dispositions and manners and by an adaptation of each to the inclinations and native desires of the other.
In any event, however, in none of these circumstances does meek submission in deference to the superior station or condition of the other serve to unite the partners, except in the manner of a servant with its master. Yet a union like that is a cold one; for the conjugial bond in such cases is not a matter of the spirit and heart, but only of the mouth and name, of which the inferior boasts and which causes the superior to blush with shame.
In contrast, in heaven one does not find a difference in partners’ ages, positions in society, or possessions of wealth. With respect to age, all there are in the flower of their youth, and they remain in it to eternity. With respect to position in society, all there regard others in accordance with the useful services they render, with the more eminent in position viewing those lower as comrades. Nor do they put status before the value of service, but the value of service before status. Besides, when girls there get married, they do not know from what family they have descended; for no one in heaven knows who his father was on earth, but the Lord is the father of all.
It is similar with respect to possessions of wealth. Riches there are their gifts for becoming wise. In accordance with these gifts they are given a sufficiency of wealth. (For the way marriages have their start in heaven, see no. 229 above.)
(Since reasons for separation coincide with grounds for taking a mistress, to which we devote a chapter in the second part of this work,* the reader is therefore referred to that section to see the grounds in their own sequential development.)
Legitimate reasons for separation are as follows:
* See “Taking a Mistress,” nos. 462ff.
Psychosis. Organic psychosis. Insanity. Actual idiocy or imbecility. Amnesia. Severe neurosis.
Extreme simplemindedness so as to lack any perception of goodness and truth. Utmost stubbornness in not complying with what is just and fair.
Taking the greatest pleasure in prattling and talking only about inconsequential and trivial matters.
Having an uncontrollable urge to divulge secrets of the home. Having an uncontrollable urge to argue; to strike blows; to take revenge; to act maliciously; to steal; to lie; to deceive; to blaspheme.
Neglect of the children. Intemperance. High living. Excessive extravagance. Drunkenness. Lack of cleanliness. Shamelessness. Resorting to sorceries and witchcraft. Impiety.
Many other disorders could be listed as well.
By legitimate reasons here we do not mean judicial ones, but ones legitimate to the other partner. Only rarely are separations from the house decreed by a judge.
Pathology tells us what these are. Being of many types and kinds, some, for example, are diseases by which the whole body is so thoroughly infected as to raise the possibility of death by contagion. Conditions of this sort include: Malignant and pestilential fevers. Leprosies. Venereal diseases. Gangrenous infections. Cancerous sores. And other comparable conditions.
Other afflictions are conditions by which the whole body becomes so thoroughly burdened as to make close companionship impossible, or which are accompanied by unhealthy exhalations and noxious vapors, either from the body’s surface or from its inner parts, particularly from the stomach and lungs.
Conditions involving the surface of the body include: Malignant lesions. Warts. Pustules. Scurvy-like discoloration and swelling of the skin. Virulent scabies. (Especially if the face is disfigured by these afflictions.)
[2] Exhalations emanating from the stomach: Offensive, foul-smelling, rank and crude eructations.
Emanating from the lungs: Foul and rancid expirations, issuing from tubercles, ulcerations and abscesses, or from the presence of corrupted blood or corrupted lymphatic fluid collected there.
In addition to these are also other conditions having various names. For example: Chronic faintness, marked by complete physical languor and loss of strength. Paralysis, which involves a loosening or slackening of the membranes and ligaments required for movement. Certain other chronic disorders arising from loss of flexibility or elasticity in the sinews, or from excessive thickness, viscosity or causticity of the body’s fluids. Epilepsy. Permanent disability due to strokes or apoplexies. Certain consumptive disorders which destroy the body. Intestinal obstruction and suffering (ileus). Chronic stomach disorder and diarrhea. Hernial protrusion. And other, comparable conditions.
These considerations come more clearly into the light of reason in the case of people who know something about heaven and hell. For they know that marriages have their origin in heaven and from heaven, whereas adulterous relationships have their origin in hell and from hell. Thus they know that the two cannot be combined, as heaven cannot be combined with hell; and that if they are combined in a person, immediately heaven withdraws and hell enters.
[2] It is on account of this, then, that adultery is ground for divorce. Therefore the Lord says:
…whoever divorces his wife, excepting for licentiousness, and marries another, commits adultery…. (Matthew 19:9)
He says a person commits adultery if he divorces and marries another “excepting for licentiousness,” because divorce for this latter reason involves a full and complete separation of minds, which is properly called divorce. But all other cases of divorce on their own particular grounds are properly separations, which we have already discussed just above. If after such separations a person takes another wife, he commits adultery. Not, however, after divorce.
The fact that ordinariness from being continually allowed may cause even sources of enjoyment to become matters of indifference and also then boredom – this is something that is apparent in the case of plays and shows, musical concerts, dances, banquets, and other like pleasures – pleasures which in themselves are treats, because they are recreational.
It is similar with the domestic relations and intimacies between married partners. Especially is it the case between partners who have not removed an unchaste love for the opposite sex from their love for each other, and when in the absence of ability they think nonsensically about its ordinariness from being continually allowed. It is evident in itself that for them this ordinariness is then reason for coldness. We call it an incidental reason, because it arises in addition to their intrinsic coldness as though it were the reason and lends support to it as an explanation. To turn aside coldness arising on this account as well, some wives are prompted by the prudence innate in them to make the allowable seem not allowable by various shows of resistance.
It is altogether different, however, in the case of people who judge chastely of their wives. So it is that among angels, ordinariness from being continually allowed is the very delight of their soul and the containing medium of their conjugial love. For they experience the delight of that love continually, and its ultimate delights according as their minds are ready, uninterrupted by cares, thus according to the prudent good pleasure of the husbands.
This heat is what creates the sense of compulsion, and the feeling increases in the measure that the other partner views the covenant by right of contract and the law by right of justice as bonds not to be violated. It is different if the bonds are broken on both sides.
[2] The contrary is the case with people who have renounced love outside of marriage and think of conjugial love as heavenly and as being heaven; and still more with those who perceive this to be so. In their case the covenant with its stipulations and the law with its requirements are engraved on their hearts, and these become continually more deeply engraved on them. To them the bond of conjugial love is not an obligation established because of the written covenant or by the enacted law, but the very love they feel has these two implanted in it from creation. The covenant and law inherent in the love is the reason for the covenant and law established in the world, not the reverse. Consequently everything connected with that love is felt as free. There is no sense of freedom that is not connected with love. I have heard moreover from angels that the sense of freedom in truly conjugial love is the freest of all, because that love is the greatest of loves.
* See nos. 155[r] and 208.
** See nos. 293 and 294.
We include these observations as well in order to make this work complete and not omit anything from our treatment of the delights of wisdom relating to conjugial love.
This being the case, it can be seen that when conjugial love exists in the mind, there is a reflection of it in the body. Also, that because love is a type of warmth, it descends from within and opens the outer parts of the body. Conversely, however, it can be seen that the absence of this love, which is coldness, descends from within and closes up the outer parts of the body.
This makes clearly apparent the reason ability lasts to eternity in the case of angels, and the reason for its failure in men in a state of coldness.
– – – – – – – – – – –
In the upper northern zone in the spiritual world, over to the east, there are places of instruction, some for boys, some for adolescents, some for men, and some also for older men. All who have died as little children and are being raised in heaven are sent to these places. So, too, are all those newly arrived from the world who wish to learn about heaven and hell.
This district is over to the east in order that they may all be instructed by means of influx from the Lord. For the Lord is the east, since He is there in the sun, which is pure love emanating from Him. The warmth from that sun consequently in its essence is love, and the light from it in its essence is wisdom. These two are infused by the Lord into the people there from that sun, and they are infused in accordance with their reception of them, which in turn depends on their love of becoming wise.
When their periods of instruction are over, those who have become intelligent are sent out from there and are called disciples of the Lord. They are sent first to the west, and if they do not remain there, to the south, and some through the south to the east. And so they are introduced into the societies where their dwellings are to be.
[2] Once, when I was thinking about heaven and hell, I began to wish to have a universal concept of the state of each, knowing that a person who is acquainted with the universals of a thing can afterwards comprehend the particulars, since the particulars are contained in the universals, like the parts in a whole.
With this wish I looked in the direction of that district in the northern zone over to the east, where the places of instruction were; and going there by a way then opened to me, I went into one of the colleges in which the students were young men. There I approached the senior teachers who were doing the instructing, and I asked them whether they knew any 3universal characteristics relating to heaven and hell. They replied that they knew a little something; “but,” they said, “if we look eastward to the Lord, we will be enlightened and then we will know.” They proceeded to do this, and then said:
“The universal characteristics of [both heaven and] hell are three, but the universal characteristics of hell are diametrically opposite to the universal characteristics of heaven. The universal characteristics of hell are the following three loves: a love of governing stemming from a love of self; a love of possessing the goods of others stemming from a love of the world; and licentious love.
“The universal characteristics of heaven opposite to these are the following three loves: a love of governing stemming from a love of being useful; a love of possessing the goods of the world stemming from a love of performing useful services by means of them; and truly conjugial love.”
Their having said this, after wishing them peace, I departed and returned home.
When I got home, I was told from heaven, “Examine these three universal characteristics, above and below, and afterwards we will see them on your hand.” They said, “on your hand,” because everything a person examines mentally appears to angels as though written on his hands.
When I considered the love of governing stemming from a love of self, I was given to see that this love was supremely hellish, and so is found among those who are in the deepest hell; and that the love of governing from a love of accomplishing useful ends was supremely heavenly, and so is found among those who are in the highest heaven.
[2] A love of governing from a love of self is supremely hellish because to govern from a love of self is to govern from self, and a person’s self from birth is the essence of evil, which is diametrically opposed to the Lord. The further people progress into this evil, therefore, the more they reject God and the sanctities of the church, worshiping themselves and nature. Let those who are caught up in this evil please examine it in themselves, and they will see.
This love is also such that the more it is given free rein (which it is as long as some obstacle does not stand in the way), the more it rushes from rung to rung until it reaches the highest it can; nor does it stop there, but if no higher level is possible, it grieves and laments. [3] In politicians this love mounts to the point that they wish to be kings and emperors, and if possible, to rule over all the world and be called kings of kings and emperors of emperors. The same love in clergymen, on the other hand, mounts to the point that they wish to be gods, and as far as possible, to rule over all of heaven and be called gods of gods. (It will be seen in what follows here that neither of these kinds of people acknowledge any god at heart.)
In contrast, however, people who wish to govern from a love of accomplishing useful ends – these do not wish to govern from self but from the Lord, since a love of useful ends comes from the Lord and is the Lord Himself [in them]. People like this look upon positions of authority only as means to performing useful services. They rank the useful services as far more important than the positions, whereas the first people described rank the positions as far more important than the useful services.
And suddenly then the earth to my left opened up, and I saw a devil ascending out of hell. He had on his head a square hat pulled down over his forehead to his eyes, a face full of pustules as though from a burning fever, savage eyes, and a chest swollen up into a drum. From his mouth he belched smoke like a furnace; his loins were completely on fire; instead of feet he had only bony ankles without any flesh; and from his body emanated a foul and unclean heat.
[2] On seeing him I was terrified, and I cried out to him, “Don’t come any closer! Just say where you have come from.”
So he replied, hoarsely, “I come from below, and I live there with two hundred others in a society which is the most preeminent society of all. We are all emperors of emperors, kings of kings, dukes of dukes, and princes of princes there. No one among us is merely an ordinary emperor, or an ordinary king, duke or prince. We sit there on our thrones of thrones, and send out decrees to all the world and beyond.”
I then said to him, “Do you not see that your delusion of preeminence has made you insane?”
But he replied, “How can you say that, seeing that we all appear to ourselves completely as I have described, and are acknowledged as such by our colleagues?”
Hearing this, I did not want to say, “You are insane,” again, because he really was insane as a result of his delusion.
It was then granted me to learn that when this devil lived in the world, he had been only the caretaker of someone else’s house, and that even then he had been so carried away in spirit that he looked down on all the rest of the human race in comparison with himself, indulging in the fantasy that he was worthier than any king, even worthier than any emperor. Because of this conceit, he had rejected God, regarding all the sanctities of the church as of no value to him but only something for the stupid masses.
[3] Finally I asked him, “The two hundred in your society – how long will you go on vaunting yourselves like that with each other?”
“To eternity,” he said. But he added, “Those of us who do injury to others for denying our preeminence, sink down. For we are allowed to vaunt ourselves to each other, but we may not inflict harm on anyone.”
I inquired further, “Do you know what the fate is for those who sink down?”
He said that they sink down into a certain prison, where they are called lower than the low or the very lowest and are made to labor.
I then said to that devil, “You had better take care, therefore, lest you too sink down.”
Seeing him, the first devil fell on his knees and worshiped him. When I asked him why he did that, he said, “Because he is God of heaven and earth and is almighty.”
So then I asked the second devil, “What do you say to that?”
He replied, “What can I say? I have all power over heaven and hell. The fate of every soul is in my hand.”
So I asked the same devil again, “How can he, who is emperor of emperors, submit himself in this way, and how can you accept his adoration?”
He answered, “He is still my servant. What is an emperor before God? I hold in my right hand the thunderbolt of excommunicating.”
[2] At that point I then said to him, “How can you be so insane? In the world you were only an ordinary member of a religious order; but because you labored under the delusion that you, too, had the keys and thus the power of binding and loosing,* you have incited your spirit to such a degree of madness that you now believe you are God Himself!”
Angered at this, he swore that he was God, and said that the Lord did not have any power in heaven – “because,” he said, “He transferred it all to us.** We have only to command, and heaven and hell reverently obey. If we send anyone to hell, the devils immediately accept him. The angels likewise accept anyone we send to heaven.”
I inquired further, “How many of you are there in your society?”
“Three hundred,” he said, “and we are all gods there, but I am god of gods.”
[3] After that the earth opened under the feet of the two devils, and they sank down into the depths to their hells. And I was granted to see that beneath their hells were workhouses, into which those would fall who inflict injuries on others. For everyone in hell is permitted to keep his delusion and even his exulting in it, but he may not do harm to anyone else. (People in hell are the way they are because every person is then in his spirit, and after the spirit is separated from the body, it comes into full freedom to behave in accordance with its affections and consequent thoughts.)
[4] It was granted me next to look into the hells of the two devils, and the hell where the emperors of emperors and kings of kings were was full of every sort of filth. They themselves looked like various species of wild animals with fiercely savage eyes. I likewise looked into the other hell, where the gods and the god of gods were, and in that I saw frightful birds of the night flitting about them – birds which are called ochim*** and iyyim.**** That is how the fantasies of their delusion appeared to me.
It was apparent from this experience what a politically oriented love of self is like, and what a church-oriented love of self is like. The first is such that its possessors want to be emperors, while the second is such that its possessors want to be gods. Moreover, this is what they wish to be and also aspire to be to the extent these loves are given free rein.
* Based on Matthew 16:13-19, Roman Catholics claim for the Pope the keys of heaven and the power of “binding and loosing,” giving him and his proper delegates (cf. Matthew 18:18) all authority over the church and even over heaven.
** Based, again, on Matthew 16:18,19; 18:18.
*** A Hebrew word (Oyi’), appearing only once in the Old Testament (Isaiah 13:21). It seems to refer to howling or screeching creatures, perhaps screech owls (cf. no. 233:7), but the actual identity is unknown. It may not be a precise term.
**** Another Hebrew word (Oyii), appearing only three times in the Old Testament (Isaiah 13:22, 34:14; Jeremiah 50:39). Again, the term seems to refer to howling or screeching creatures, perhaps bats (cf. no. 233:7), but the actual identity is unknown. It, too, may not be a precise term.
I was told that the two had been popes who had deposed emperors from power and had treated them with vituperation and abuse when these came supplicating them and venerating them at Rome. The basket in which I saw the snakes, and the donkey on fire with the serpents on each side, were representations of their love of governing from a love of self. However, that is not how they appear to others unless they view them from a distance.
Some members of a religious order were present, and I asked them whether the men were those same popes. They said they recognized them and knew that they were.
Going over to them, I welcomed them and respectfully asked, “Why are you here below?”
Answering they replied, “We have been sent here from heaven by the Lord’s command, to speak with you about the blessed lot of people who want to govern from a love of accomplishing useful ends. We are worshipers of the Lord. I am the prince of a society; this other is the high priest there.”
The prince then said that he was a servant of his society, because he served it by rendering useful services. And the other said he was an attendant of the church there, because to serve the people he attended to its sanctities for the service of their souls. [2] Moreover, they said they both experienced continual joys from an eternal happiness which they had in them from the Lord; and that everything in their society was splendid and magnificent – splendid on account of its gold and precious stones, and magnificent on account of its palaces and paradise-like parks.
“The reason for this,” they said, “is that our love of governing does not arise from a love of self, but from a love of accomplishing useful ends; and because a love of accomplishing useful ends comes from the Lord, therefore all good and useful things in heaven are splendid and radiant.
“In our society we are all possessed of this love, and therefore its atmosphere appears golden, from the light which it draws there from the blaze of the sun – for the blaze of the sun corresponds to that love.”
[3] When they said this, I saw as well a similar atmosphere appearing about them, and I sensed a fragrance emanating from it, which I also mentioned to them. And I asked them to add something further to what they had said about a love of being useful.
So they continued, saying, “The positions we hold are positions we admittedly sought, but for no other purpose than to be able to perform useful services more fully and to extend them more widely. We are also surrounded with honor, and we accept it, yet not for our own sake, but for the good of the society. For our comrades and friends among the common people there scarcely know otherwise than that the honors of our positions are lodged in us, and consequently that the services we render come from ourselves. We, however, feel differently. We feel that the honors of our positions are outside us, and are like garments with which we are clothed, while the services we render come from a love of them within us from the Lord. This love, moreover, gains its bliss from its communication through useful service with others. We know, too, from experience, that the more we perform useful services from a love of them, the more this love increases, and with it the wisdom on which the communication depends. But the more we keep these services to ourselves and do not communicate them, the more the bliss dies away; and when this happens, useful service becomes like food retained in the belly, which is not distributed so as to nourish the body and its parts, but remains undigested and so produces nausea.
“The whole of heaven, in short, is nothing but a world of useful service, from the firsts to the lasts of it. What is useful service but love of the neighbor in act? And what holds the heavens together except this love?”
[4] Having listened to this, I inquired, “How can anyone know whether he performs useful services from a love of self or whether he does so from a love of accomplishing useful ends? Everyone, be he good or evil, performs some useful services, and he is prompted to do them because of some love. Suppose that there were in the world a society composed only of devils, and another society composed only of angels. Moved by the fire of their love of self and the splendor of their own glory, the devils would perform, I think, as many useful services in their society as the angels would in theirs. Who can know, therefore, from what love and from what origin these services flow?”
[5] To this the two angels replied, “Devils perform useful services for the sake of themselves and their reputation, in order to be promoted to positions of honor or gain wealth. Angels, on the other hand, do not perform useful services on that account, but for the sake of the services, from a love of them. A person cannot distinguish the one and the other kinds of service, but the Lord sees the difference. Everyone who believes in the Lord and refrains from evils as sins performs useful services from the Lord. But everyone who does not believe in the Lord and does not refrain from evils as sins performs the services he does from himself and for the sake of himself.
“That is the difference between services performed by devils and services performed by angels.”
Having said this, the two angels departed. And watching from a distance, I saw them apparently carried off in a chariot of fire like Elijah and so taken up to their heaven.
Some period of time later I entered a wooded area, where I walked engaged in thought concerning people who are caught up in a craving to possess those things which have to do with the world, and who fantasize on that account that they do. And I saw, then, two angels at some distance from me, talking together and now and then looking over at me. Consequently I drew nearer; and as I approached, they spoke to me, saying:
“We perceive in ourselves that you are thinking about the same thing we are discussing, or that we are discussing the same thing you are thinking about, which comes from a reciprocal communication of our affections.”
I asked them, therefore, what they were discussing.
“Fantasy, lust, and intelligence,” they said, “and at the moment, people who find delight in picturing and imagining that they possess everything in the world.”
[2] At that I then asked them to express their thought with respect to the first three points – lust, fantasy and intelligence.
So, taking up the subject, they said that everyone is in a state of lust inwardly from birth, and in a state of intelligence outwardly from training; but that no one is in a state of intelligence inwardly, thus in spirit – still less in a state of wisdom – except from the Lord.
“For everyone,” they said, “is withheld from the lust of evil and kept in a state of intelligence according as he looks to the Lord and is at the same time conjoined with Him. Apart from this a person is nothing but lust. Yet he is still in a state of intelligence in outward aspects, or as regards the body, from training. For though a person craves honors and riches, or prominence and wealth, these two are not attained unless he appears to be moral and spiritual in character, thus intelligent and wise; and he learns to appear such from the time he is a little child. That is why, as soon as he comes into the company of others or into gatherings of them, he turns his spirit about, withdraws it from lust, and speaks and acts in accordance with the becoming and honorable virtues he has learned from early childhood and still retains in his physical memory – doing his utmost to take care that nothing emerges of the insanity of lust which grips his spirit.
[3] “Consequently everyone not inwardly led by the Lord is a faker, a phony and a hypocrite, and so is human in appearance but not in reality. Of such a person it may be said that his outer shell or body is wise, while his kernel or spirit is insane; or that his outward aspect is human and his inward one animal. People like that direct the back of their heads upward and the front downward, thus going about as though afflicted with heaviness, their heads hanging down and their faces turned to the ground. When they put off the body and become spirits, and are then set free, they become reflections of the insanities of their lust. For people who are caught up in love of self have a longing to rule over the universe, even to extend its limits in order to widen their dominion, never seeing an end; while people who are caught up in a love of the world have a longing to possess all its riches, and they grieve and are envious if any of its treasures are kept hidden from them in the possession of others.
“To keep people like this from becoming nothing but reflections of their lusts, therefore, and so no longer human, it is given them in the natural* world to think in accord with fear for the loss of their reputation, and so the loss of honor and gain, together with fear of the law and its penalties; and also to apply their minds to some pursuit or work, by which they are held in external concerns and thus in a state of intelligence, however irrational and insane they are inwardly.”
[4] Following this description I asked whether all people who are caught up in the lust are at the same time caught up in the fantasy of it.
They replied that those are caught up in the fantasy of their lust who think withdrawn into themselves and indulge their imagination excessively, talking to themselves; for they almost separate their spirit from its connection with the body, overwhelming their understanding with delusion and stupidly entertaining themselves with nonsense as though everything in the universe were theirs.
This madness is what a person comes into after death if he has withdrawn his spirit from the body and has been unwilling to relinquish the pleasure of his madness, thinking little from religion about evils and falsities, and least of all about unbridled love of self as being destructive of love toward the Lord, or about unbridled love of the world as being destructive of love for the neighbor.
* The original text reads, “in the spiritual world,” but preceding and subsequent statements in the discussion, and the general doctrine delivered elsewhere concerning the nature of the two worlds, suggest that it is probably a slip of the pen for “the natural world.” (The same statement is repeated in True Christian Religion, no. 662:3, without correction, but so are several other, more obvious errors, indicating that the latter was simply set in type again from the text here, without careful review.)
Their abodes lay beneath the ground under our feet, but above hell. Consequently we looked at each other and said, “Let’s go.” Seeing then an opening with a stairway in it, we descended by it; and we were told to approach them from the east, in order not to enter into the mist of their fantasy, which would cloud our understanding and with it our vision.
[2] Suddenly, then, we saw a house built of reeds, being thus full of cracks, standing in a cloud of mist, which continually poured out like smoke through the crevices in three of the walls. Going in, we saw a group of fifty people on one side and fifty on another, sitting on benches, with their backs to the east and south so that they faced toward the west and north. Each had a table in front of him, and on the table some bulging moneybags, surrounded by a quantity of gold coins.
We inquired, “Is that the wealth of all the inhabitants of the world?”
To which they replied, “Not of all the inhabitants of the world, but of all the inhabitants in our kingdom.”
Their speech had a hissing sound; and they themselves had what appeared to be roundish faces, which glistened like snail shells. The pupils of their eyes also seemed to glitter in fields of green, an effect arising from the light of their fantasy.
Standing now in the midst of them, we said, “You believe, then, that you possess all the wealth in your kingdom.”
“Yes,” they said, “we do.”
“Which of you does?” we asked then.
“Each of us,” they said.
So we asked, “How can each of you possess it when there are so many of you?”
They replied, “We each know that all that is his is mine, nor is anyone permitted to think, still less say, ‘What is mine is not yours.’ However, we may think and say, ‘What is yours is mine.'”
The coins on the tables looked as though they were made entirely of gold, even to us. But when we let in some light from the east, they turned out to be specks of gold which the people had magnified into coins by a united effort of their common fantasy. They said that everyone who entered had to bring with him some gold, which they would cut into bits, and the bits into specks; and by the combined force of their fantasy they would then enlarge these into grander-looking coins.
[3] At that we then said, “Were you not born human beings capable of reason? What is the reason for this delusionary foolishness of yours?”
“We know it is only imaginary nonsense,” they said, “but because it pleases the inner longings of our minds, we come in here and entertain ourselves with thinking as though everything were ours. We do not stay here, however, more than a few hours. After that we leave, and every time we do our minds recover their sanity. Nevertheless, from time to time our delusionary pleasure overcomes us, causing us periodically to return, and periodically to leave. Thus we are sometimes wise and sometimes mad.
“Besides, we know that a hard fate awaits those who craftily steal the property of others.”
“What fate is that?” we asked.
“They are swallowed up,” they said, “and thrust naked into some prison in hell, where they are made to toil for food and clothing, and afterwards for a few pennies. They accumulate these pennies and set their heart’s delight in them. But if they do any mischief to their companions, they have to give them part of their pennies as a fine.”
“But still,” the angels continued, “they long to go from their rational state into their irrational one, and they also let themselves go into it, as from a compelled and unpleasant condition into a free and pleasant one. Thus it is lust that pleasures them inwardly, and not intelligence.
[2] “Every human being is from creation a combination of three universal loves: love of the neighbor, which is also a love of performing useful services; love of the world, which is also a love of possessing riches; and love of self, which is also a love of exercising command over others.
“Love of the neighbor, or a love of performing useful services, is a love of the spirit. Love of the world, on the other hand, or a love of possessing riches, is a love of material things. And love of self, or a love of exercising command over others, is a love of one’s own person.
[3] “A person is a human being as long as love of the neighbor or a love of performing useful services forms the head, with love of the world forming the body, and love of self forming the feet. But if love of the world forms the head, a person is not a human being except in a kind of hunchbacked way. And when love of self forms the head, he is no longer a human being standing on his feet, but one standing on his hands with his head down and bottom up.
“When love of the neighbor forms the head, and the other two loves form respectively the body and feet, the person appears, when viewed from heaven, to have an angelic face, with a beautiful rainbow-like halo about his head. But if love of the world forms the head, he appears when viewed from heaven to have a pallid face, like that of a dead man, with a yellow circle about his head. And if love of self forms the head, he appears from heaven to have a dark face, with a white circle about his head.”
At that point I asked what the circles around the heads represented.
“They represent intelligence,” they replied. “A white circle around a head with a dark face represents that the person’s intelligence lies in his outward faculties or round about him, while insanity resides in his inward faculties or within him. Even a person like that is wise so long as he is in a state of the body, but when he is in a state of the spirit he is insane. No one is ever wise in spirit except from the Lord, which comes about when he is being born again or created anew by Him.”
[4] Following these words, the ground to my left opened, and through the opening I saw a devil rising, having a luminous white circle about his head. I asked him therefore, “Who are you?”
“I am Lucifer,” he answered, “son of the dawn. And because I made myself like the Most High, I was cast down.”*
In fact he was not really Lucifer, but he thought he was. So I asked him, “Seeing that you were cast down, how is it that are you able to rise again from hell?”
To which he replied, “In hell I am a devil, but here I am an angel of light. Do you not see the ring of light encircling my head? And if you wish, you will see, too, that with moral people I am more than moral; with rational people, more than rational; indeed, with spiritual people, more than spiritual. I can even preach, and moreover have preached.”
“What have you preached?” I asked.
“I have preached,” he said, “against swindlers, against adulterers, and against infernal loves of every kind. Indeed, at such times I have called myself – Lucifer – a devil, and have uttered falsehoods against myself as such; and for that I have been praised to the sky. That is why I have been called son of the dawn. Moreover – what has surprised me – whenever I was in the pulpit, I had no other thought than to speak uprightly and fittingly. However, I discovered in myself the reason, which is that I was caught up in external states, and these were then separate from my inward ones. Yet, having discovered this in myself, still I could not change, because my arrogance prevented me from having regard for God.”
[5] I then inquired, “How were you able to speak as you did, seeing that you are a swindler, adulterer, and devil yourself?”
He replied, “I am one sort of person when I am in external states or a state of the body, and another when I am in internal states or a state of the spirit. In a state of the body I am an angel, but in a state of the spirit a devil. For in a state of the body I am directed by my understanding, but in a state of the spirit by my will; and my understanding carries me upward, while my will carries me down. Furthermore, when I am directed by my understanding, a band of white encompasses my head; however, as soon as my understanding surrenders itself completely to my will and becomes its servant – which is our ultimate fate – then the band turns black and disappears. When that happens, we can no longer ascend into this light.”
The devil afterwards talked about his dual states, one external, one internal, and he spoke of them more rationally than anybody else has. But suddenly, when he noticed the angels with me, he became inflamed in face and voice and turned black, including even the band about his head; and he sank back down to hell through the opening through which he had risen.
There were some people standing by who witnessed these events, and they drew from them the following conclusion, that a person’s character is shaped by his will, and not by his intellect, since love easily carries away the understanding into seeing things its way and becoming its servant.
[6] I then asked the angels, “How is it possible for devils to have such rationality?”
And they said, “It comes from the glory of self-love; for love of self is wrapped in glory, and glory raises the understanding even into the light of heaven. Indeed, in every person the understanding is capable of being raised in accordance with his knowledge, in contrast to the will, which can be raised only by living in accordance with the truths of the church and of reason. That is why even atheists who from love of self are motivated by the glory of their reputation and by a resulting conceit in their own intelligence, may possess a higher degree of rationality than many others – but only when they are directed by the thought of their intellect, and not by the affection of their will. For the affection of the will governs a person’s inner self, while the thought of the intellect governs his outer one.”
One of the angels further explained why human beings are a combination of the three loves referred to previously, namely, a love of being useful, a love of the world, and a love of self. The reason, he said, is to enable a person to think in accord with God, yet do so as though on his own. The highest elements in a person are directed upwards to God, the intermediate elements outwards to the world, and the lowest ones downwards to self. And because these last elements are directed downwards, a person thinks as though on his own, when in fact he does so from God.
* See Isaiah 14:12-15. The reference is a metaphor for the king of Babylon (Isaiah 14:3,4), but based on an erroneous connection with Luke 10:18 (cf. also Revelation 9:1, 12:7-10), since the 3rd century it has been applied to Satan, a mythical rebel angel cast down from heaven. Modern interpreters generally understand the reference as an allusion to the planet Venus, translating it usually as “day star” or “morning star.”
Awakening one morning, I fell to thinking about some questions having to do with conjugial love, coming finally to this one:
In what region of the human mind is truly conjugial love seated, and in what region, therefore, coldness in marriage?
I knew that the human mind is divided into three regions, one above the other, and that natural love resides in the lowest region, spiritual love in the next higher one, and celestial love in the highest. I knew also that in each region there is a marriage of good and truth, and because good has to do with love, and truth with wisdom, that in each region there is a marriage of love and wisdom; moreover, that this marriage is the same as a marriage of the will and understanding, since the will is the recipient vessel of love, and the understanding the recipient vessel of wisdom.
[2] While I was deep in thought on this question, I suddenly saw two swans flying towards the north, and presently two birds of paradise flying towards the south, and then two turtledoves flying in the east. Following their flight with my eyes, I next saw the two swans veer their course from the north to the east, likewise the two birds of paradise from the south, until they met up with the pair of turtledoves in the east. Then together they flew towards a certain lofty palace there, rising in the midst of olive trees, palms and beeches. The palace had three rows of windows, one above another; and as I watched, I saw the birds fly into the palace – the swans through windows standing open in the lowest row, the birds of paradise through windows open in the middle row, and the turtledoves through windows open in the highest row.
[3] After I witnessed this event, an angel stood beside me and said, “Do you understand the things you have seen?”
“A little,” I replied.
“The palace,” said the angel, “represents the abodes of conjugial love as these exist in human minds. Its highest level – into which the turtledoves disappeared – represents the highest region of the mind, where conjugial love resides in the goodness of love together with its wisdom. The middle level – into which the birds of paradise disappeared – represents the intermediate region, where conjugial love resides in a love of truth together with its intelligence. And the lowest level – into which the swans disappeared – represents the lowest region of the mind, where conjugial love resides in a love of what is just and right together with its knowledge.
[4] “These degrees are also symbolized by the three pairs of birds – the two turtledoves symbolizing conjugial love in the highest region, the two birds of paradise conjugial love in the intermediate region, and the two swans conjugial love in the lowest region. The three kinds of trees surrounding the palace – the olive trees, palms and beeches – symbolize the same.
“In heaven we call the highest region of the mind celestial, the intermediate one spiritual, and the lowest one natural. And we conceive of them as being like apartments in a house, one above another, with steps going up from one to the next, like stairs. Moreover, on each level there are as it were two sets of rooms, one for love, one for wisdom, with a bedroom, so to speak, in front, where they come together in bed – love with its wisdom, or good with its truth, or to say the same thing, the will with its intellect. In such a palace, all the mysteries of conjugial love become visible as though in effigy.”
[5] Hearing this, being fired with a desire to see one, I asked whether a person might go in and look at the palace there, since it was a representational one.
The angel replied that only angels in the third heaven could, because for them every representation of love and wisdom becomes real.
“What I have related to you I have heard from them,” he said, “including as well the following, that truly conjugial love resides in the highest region, in the midst of mutual love in the chamber or apartment of the will, and at the same time in the midst of perceptions of wisdom in the chamber or apartment of the intellect; and these come together in bed in a bedroom that is located in front on the east side.”
“Why,” I asked, “are there two chambers?”
“Because,” he said, “a husband lives in the chamber of the intellect, and a wife lives in the chamber of the will.”
[6] At that I inquired, “If that is where conjugial love resides, where then does coldness in marriage reside?”
“It, too, resides in the highest region,” he replied, “but only in the chamber of the intellect, with the chamber of the will on that level being closed off. For as often as it pleases, the understanding with its truths can ascend by a spiral stairway to its chamber in the highest region; but if the will with the goodness of its love does not ascend at the same time to its companion chamber, the latter remains closed, and coldness develops in the other, which is the coldness one finds in marriage.
“As long as such coldness to one’s wife continues, the intellect looks down from the highest region to the lowest; and if fear does not hold it back, it also descends in order to warm itself there with an illicit fire.”
Having said this, the angel wished to tell me still more about conjugial love from the depictions of it in that palace; but he said, “Enough for now. First investigate whether these concepts are beyond people’s general comprehension. If they are, what is the use of saying more? On the other hand, if they are not, more will be disclosed another time.”*
* We find, however, no report of any further disclosures.
Now that we have considered reasons for cold states and separations, it follows in succession that we consider also reasons in marriage for apparent love, friendship and favor. For although states of coldness separate the minds of married partners in the world today, we know that they continue to live together and beget children. This would not be the case if there were not states of apparent love as well, which at times simulate or imitate the warmth of genuine love. We will see in the following discussions that these appearances are necessary and useful – that without them homes would not hold together, and so neither would organized societies.
In addition to this, some conscientious persons may labor under the idea that disagreements of minds and resulting internal estrangements between them and their partner are attributable to some fault in themselves, so that they are to blame, on which account they grieve in heart. But because internal differences are not in their hands to remedy, it is enough for them to assuage distresses arising from conscience by shows of apparent love and favor. Friendship may even return as a result, which carries within it conjugial love on the part of the one, if not on the part of the other.
However, because this subject includes a number of different points to be considered, we will divide our treatment into sections as before. Their headings are as follows:
(1) Nearly all people in the natural world can be associated together in respect to their outward affections, but not in respect to their inner ones if these differ and become apparent.
(2) In the spiritual world, all are associated together in accord with their inner affections, and not in accord with their outward affections unless these are in harmony with their inner ones.
(3) Marriages in the world are generally contracted on the basis of outward affections.
(4) If inward affections are not present to join the partners’ minds, however, the marriages come apart in the home.
(5) Nevertheless, marriages in the world are to continue to the end of one or the other’s life.
(6) In marriages in which inward affections do not join the partners, outward affections may exist which simulate inward ones and keep the two together.
(7) The result is apparent love, or apparent friendship and favor, between the partners.
(8) These appearances are simulations of conjugial love, which are commendable because they are useful and necessary.
(9) In a spiritual person joined to a natural one, these simulations of conjugial love are a matter of justice and judgment.
(10) In natural people, these simulations of conjugial love are a matter of prudence for various reasons.
(11) They are adopted as means of amendment and as means of accommodation.
(12) They are adopted to preserve order in the couple’s domestic affairs and to maintain their assistance to each other.
(13) They are adopted because of their shared involvement in the care of infants and concern for their children.
(14) They are adopted for the sake of peace in the home.
(15) They are adopted for the sake of their reputation outside the home.
(16) They are adopted for the sake of various benefits expected from the partner or from the partner’s relatives, and thus because of a fear of losing them.
(17) They are adopted in order to have one’s flaws excused, and thus to avoid disgrace.
(18) They are adopted as means of reconciliation.
(19) If favor does not cease on the wife’s part when ability ceases in the man, a friendship resembling a conjugial one may develop as they grow older.
(20) Various types of apparent love and friendship are possible between partners in cases where one has been subjugated and is thus subservient to the other.
(21) There are hellish marriages in the world in which the partners are inwardly bitter enemies and yet outwardly seem like the closest of friends.
Explanation of these statements now follows.
It would be different, however, if inward affections were like outward ones, visible in the expression of the face and gesture and audible in the sound of the speech, or if their delights were noticeable to the nose and smelled, as is the case in the spiritual world. If these affections were then dissimilar to the point of friction and conflict, they would separate their hearts from each other and part, removing themselves to a distance commensurate with their perception of antipathy.
It is apparent from this that nearly all people in the natural world can be associated together in respect to outward affections, but not in respect to their inner affections, if these differ and become apparent.
[2] Since angels and spirits have inner and outer affections just as people in the world do, and since their inner affections cannot be hidden there by outward ones, so that the inner affections show through and make themselves evident, therefore the two sets of affections in them are brought into likeness and correspondence; and after that their inner affections are reflected through their outer ones, being imaged in their faces, perceived in the sounds of their speech, and also visible in the gestures of their comportment. (Angels and spirits have inner and outer affections, too, because they have a mind and a body, and their affections and consequent thoughts are matters of the mind, while their sensations and consequent pleasures are matters of the body.)
[3] It frequently happens in the spiritual world that friends meet after death and remember their friendship in the previous world; and they then believe they will continue to share a life of friendship as before. But when their comradeship is perceived in heaven as being one based only on outward affections, a separation is effected in accordance with their inner affections. Then, from that place of meeting, some are sent away to the north, and some to the west, each of them being at some distance from the other, so that they never see each other again or recognize each other; for in the places where they stay, their faces change to become images of their inner affections.
It is apparent from this that in the spiritual world, all are associated together in accord with their inner affections, and not in accord with their outer affections, unless these are in harmony with their inner ones.
There are many outward affections which induce men into marrying. A primary affection in today’s world is enlargement of the family fortune by wealth, either to become rich or to have the means. Another is aspiration to positions of honor, either to be held in high regard, or to enjoy an increased state of prosperity.
Added to these are various enticements and lusts. These, too, do not allow opportunity for exploring congruences of inward affections.
From these few observations it is apparent that marriages in the world are generally contracted on the basis of outward affections.
We already established in the previous chapter that cold states arise for a variety of internal, external and incidental reasons – all of which draw their origins from a dissimilarity in inward inclinations.
This makes plain the truth, that unless outward affections have present in them inner affections that join the partners’ minds, marriages come apart in the home.
The Pharisees…came…, saying to (Jesus), “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason?”
Then when Jesus answered that it was not lawful to divorce a wife and marry another excepting for licentiousness, they replied that Moses had nevertheless commanded them to give her a certificate of divorce and put her away. And the disciples said,
“If such be the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” (Matthew 19:3-10)
[2] Since the marriage covenant is accordingly a covenant for life, it follows that appearances of love and friendship between married partners are necessary.
The principle that marriages once contracted are to continue on to the end of life in the world is based on Divine law, and being based on this, it is a matter also of rational law and therefore of civil law. It is based on the Divine law which says that it is not lawful to divorce a wife and marry another excepting on the grounds of licentiousness, as cited above. It is a matter of rational law, because rational law is founded on spiritual law, since the Divine law and rational law are the same. In the light of the one and the other together, or by considering the rational law in the light of the Divine law, it may appear to a great number of people what monstrous and destructive ruinations of society and dissolutions of marriages would result if divorcings of wives were at the good pleasure of husbands, prior to death. What monstrous and destructive ruinations of society would result may be seen in some measure in the narrative account in which the origin of conjugial love was discussed by the people gathered from the nine kingdoms, nos. 103-114, to which it is unnecessary to add further arguments.
However, these considerations do not prevent separations from being permitted for their own reasons, as discussed above in nos. 252-254, and also the taking of a mistress, which we consider in Part Two.*
* See “Taking a Mistress,” nos. 462ff.
Nevertheless, because both are accorded their seat in the mind, it may be believed that they are alike and congruent. Even if they are nevertheless not alike, still they can appear as though they were, although in some cases these appearances are adopted as expedients, and in some cases as gentle pretenses.
[2] As a result of the initial marriage covenant, there is a certain community of life implanted in married partners, which still remains rooted in them even if they differ in disposition and character. They share, for example, a community of possessions, and in many cases a community of duties in the services they perform and in meeting the various demands of the home, leading in turn to a community of thoughts and certain shared secrets. They also have a community of life from sharing a bed and in the love they have for their offspring. Added to these are a number of other bonds which, being graven on the marriage covenant, are therefore also graven on their minds.
These bonds give rise primarily to outward affections that resemble inward ones. Affections which only simulate inward ones, on the other hand, come partly from this origin and partly from another. However, these are each discussed in considerations that follow.
This is the way a spiritual person lives with a natural one, because a spiritual person behaves spiritually, even with one who is natural.
[2] On the other hand, no interior love is possible between natural partners, because they are both cold. If they experience feelings of warmth, it is owing to an unchaste love. Nevertheless, partners like this can still live together in the same house despite their being divided in spirit, and they can also feign seeming expressions of love and friendship in their relations with each other, no matter how mutually discordant their minds. In their case outward affections may be set on fire, so to speak, which are concerned for the most part with wealth and possessions or with honor and positions of rank; and because this fire induces a fear of losing such things, simulations of conjugial love are to them necessary, being adopted chiefly for the reasons cited under headings (15) to (17) below. They may also be adopted for the other reasons enumerated with these, in which case they may have something in common with the reasons of a spiritual person, mentioned in no. 280 above; but only if the prudence in the natural person includes a measure of intelligence.
* See no. 277.
[2] By contrast, in the case of partners neither of whom is spiritual but both natural, a similar effort may be made, but for other ends. If one or the other looks to amendment or accommodation, either his purpose is to coerce the other into conduct similar to his own and to subordinate the other to his wishes, or it is to gain certain services and turn them to his benefit and advantage. Or it may be for the sake of peace within the home, or for the sake of their reputation outside the home. Or it may be for the sake of various benefits hoped for from the partner or from the partner’s relatives. Or it may be for the sake of other ends. However, in some people these ends are owing to a prudence born of reason, in some to a native civility, in some to a fear of losing the pleasures of lusts customary in them from birth, and other causes, the effect of which is to make their affectations of favor and seeming expressions of conjugial love either more or less insincere.
There are also cases in which displays of favor and seeming expressions of conjugial love are adopted outside the home and none inside the home; but these are for the sake of their reputation, or if not for the sake of this, they are in the nature of a game.
This order, however, is not possible if husband and wife differ in spirit; for their offerings of mutual counsel and aid are drawn by these differences in divergent directions and become as divided as the partners are in spirit, on which account the form of a little society is rent asunder. To preserve order, therefore, and by this means to protect themselves and at the same time their household, or their household and at the same time themselves, so that they do not go to ruin and collapse in disaster, necessity requires that master and mistress agree and act in harmony. Even if they cannot do this owing to their difference of minds, still for all to be well it is both fitting and proper that they achieve it by a representative show of conjugial friendship. People know that agreements in household matters are thus patched together for reasons that are necessary and therefore useful.
Love in the mother and love in the father for their infants and children are allied, like the heart and the lungs in the breast. A love of them in the mother is like the heart there, and a love for them in the father is like the lungs there. We make this comparison because the heart corresponds to love, and the lungs to understanding; and love arising from the will is what a mother feels, and love arising from the understanding is what a father feels.
In the case of spiritual men a conjugial bond is formed by means of this love in accordance with justice and judgment: in accordance with justice, because the mother once carried them in her womb, in pain gave birth to them, and afterwards with unwearying care went on to nurse them, feed them, bathe them, clothe them and bring them up.
[2] Besides, peace and tranquillity soothe their minds and dispose them to receive favorably kindnesses offered by their wives, who spend every effort to dispel from their minds the clouds which they keenly observe in their husbands. And this also makes their wives’ presence agreeable.
It is apparent from this that a simulation and seeming display of truly conjugial love for the sake of peace and tranquillity at home is both necessary and useful.
To this we add the further note that simulations on the part of wives are not the same as simulations on the part of men. Even if they appear similar to them, they are expressions of real love, because women are born forms of love for the understanding of men. They accept their husbands’ displays of favor graciously, therefore, if not in words, still in heart.
Similar circumstances exist when a man marries a wife whose parents, relatives and friends are established in high positions, in profitable businesses or in commercial operations, who are able to exercise control over her more fortunate condition. It is common knowledge that simulations and seeming displays of conjugial love are adopted on these accounts as well.
In cases like this in which various benefits are expected, it is obvious that these semblances and simulations are adopted because of a fear of losing them.
It is apparent without need of further substantiation that to have flaws of this kind excused in order to avoid disgrace is reason for a person’s simulating love and friendship in his relations with his partner.
There are also reconciliations effected after periods of separation which are not so sporadic and transitory.
If therefore to avoid this the man quietly attributes the cause to himself, and the wife still perseveres in a chaste attitude of favor toward him, a new friendship may develop on that account, which, being between married partners, appears as something resembling conjugial love.
That a friendship resembling one of conjugial love is possible between older married partners is attested by experience, from their tranquil, secure, and amiable associations, interactions and relations with each other, full of mutual courtesy.
Such familiar contests at the present day spring from no other circumstance than people’s ignorance of true conjugial love and their lack of any perception or sensation of the blessings of that love. In the absence of an awareness and perception or sensation of these things, instead of true conjugial love comes a desire to possess which masquerades as that love. With genuine love removed, from this desire wells a striving for power, an endeavor which in some cases is a matter of delight arising from a love of ruling, which in some cases is a tactic instilled by shrewd women before the wedding, and which in some cases is provoked.
[2] When men have this as their endeavor and after a succession of struggles obtain the mastery, they then reduce their wives to the condition of being either a possession at their disposal, or toadies obedient to their will, or indentured servants, depending on the degree of their will to prevail and the capability they have inherent or latent in them. On the other hand, if wives have this as their endeavor and after a succession of struggles obtain the mastery, they then reduce their husbands to the condition of being either equal to them in privilege, or toadies obedient to their will, or indentured servants. However, in the case of wives, after they have obtained the scepter of command, their desire to possess that masquerades as conjugial love remains, being held in check by law and the fear of legitimate separation if they extend their power beyond just limits; and since it remains, they therefore lead a companionable life with their husbands.
[3] But what sort of love and friendship exists between a domineering wife and a subservient husband, or between a domineering husband and a subservient wife, cannot be described in a few words. Even if their different types were condensed into classes and these classes were listed, several pages would not suffice; for they vary in character and kind. They vary in character in the case of men according to the nature of their will to prevail; so likewise in the case of wives. And their diversities in men differ in kind from those which are identifiable with women. They differ in kind, because men of this sort feel no friendship of love other than a foolish one, whereas wives feel the friendship of an illusory love stemming from their desire to possess.
By what art wives acquire for themselves power over men shall now be told under the following heading.
According to the men, they unconsciously contracted a terrific fear of their wives. As a result they could not help but slavishly obey their wives’ wishes and do their bidding more submissively than the humblest of servants, so that they became practically spiritless weaklings. Moreover, they said, those who became such in relation to their wives included not only men without any standing or position, but also men in high standing and great position, even strong and distinguished leaders. They said, too, that after contracting this terror they could not work up any courage to speak with their wives in other than a friendly way, or to do for them anything but what met their fancy, even though they harbored a deadly hatred towards their wives in their hearts. And yet their wives continued to speak and behave with them in courteous fashion, they said, and to listen dutifully to some of their requests.
[2] Now because these men wondered themselves why there arose in them such animosity inwardly and such apparent amiability outwardly, they sought the reasons from women who knew the secret art that caused it; and from what those women told them, they said, they learned that women deeply conceal a knowledge within them by which they know how to skillfully tame men, if they wish, and make them subject to their command. They learned further that, on the part of ill-bred wives, this is accomplished by scoldings and periodic commendations; in some cases by continually hard and unpleasant looks, and in similar cases by other tactics. On the part of well-bred wives, however, it is accomplished by persistent and incessant pressings of requests, and by stubbornly resisting and opposing their husbands if they suffer hardships on their account, insisting on their right of equality by law and making themselves brazenly obstinate because of it. Even if they were to be expelled from the house, they say, they would return at will and continue to pursue the same demands. For they know that the nature of men makes it altogether impossible for them to withstand the persistent efforts of their wives, and that once men have yielded they then submit themselves to their wives’ wishes. At that point, said the men, once the wives have them under their control, they then show their husbands courteous and amiable treatment.
(The real reason wives are able to gain control by such guile is that a man acts in accord with his intellect and a woman in accord with her will; and the will can be stubborn, but not the intellect. I have been told that the worst of this lot are inwardly consumed with a desire to rule and can doggedly stick to their persistent endeavors even to the last breath of life.)
[3] I have also heard justifications from the aforementioned women in the spiritual world as to why they entered into the practice of this art. They said they would not have entered into it except that they foresaw the supreme contempt, future rejection and thus utter ruin that lay ahead for them if they were to be beaten down by their husbands. Thus, they said, out of necessity they had taken up these weapons of theirs. To this they added the following warning for men, to leave to their wives their rights, and when they experience periodic states of coldness, not to regard their wives as inferior and treat them worse than they would servants. They said as well that many of their sex are not prepared to practice this art owing to an innate timidity (though I put in, owing to an innate modesty.)
This now is sufficient to make known what we mean by hellish marriages in the world, in which the partners are inwardly bitter enemies and yet outwardly seem like the closest of friends.
– – – – – – – – – – –
I once looked out my window toward the east and saw seven women sitting next to a rose garden by a spring drinking water. I strained my eyes intently to see what they were doing, and the intensity of my gaze caught their attention. With a motion of the head one of them therefore invited me over. Accordingly I left the house and hurried in their direction. And when I arrived, I politely asked them where they were from.
They then said, “We are wives. We are talking here about the delights of conjugial love, and we have concluded from a good deal of evidence that these delights are also delights of wisdom.”
This response so delighted my heart that I seemed to be more interiorly in the spirit and to have on that account a more enlightened perception than ever before. So I said to them, “Permit me an opportunity to ask you some questions about those pleasant delights.” And they nodded their assent.
So I asked, “How do you wives know that the delights of conjugial love are at the same time delights of wisdom?”
[2] They then replied, “We know it from the correspondence that exists between wisdom in our husbands and the delights of conjugial love in us. For the delights of this love in us heighten or diminish and take on altogether different qualities according to the wisdom in our husbands.”
On hearing this I inquired further, saying, “I know you are aff